ISOMETRY By syntax6 Two fifty-six a.m. Saturday night -- well, Sunday morning, really -- found Dana Scully shifting in the passenger seat of the Taurus to try to keep her rear end from going numb. Somehow, errant sunflower seed shells had lodged in her underwear, and with Mulder sitting next to her, there was no discreet way to remedy the problem. She kept one eye on the dilapidated warehouse down the street from them and one eye on the luminous green numbers that told her when she could swallow her next pill. She had little hope of being discreet with that, either. "Scully," Mulder said as he flicked another shell at the already- brimming cup holder, "do you remember that time at Heuvelmans Lake?" "I remember. I remember the time *in* Heuvelmans Lake." Mulder chuckled. "We got dunked good, didn't we? I can still remember the look on the Sheriff's face when --" Scully leaned hear head back against the seat and let herself drift to the sound of his voice. A few months ago, she would have worried that Mulder's sudden mention meant another trip to Georgia in a vain hope of sighting Big Blue, but not anymore. "Remember when" was Mulder's new favorite game. He played it in the office and sometimes on the phone at night, but he always saved the really good rounds for evenings like this, when they sat hidden in dark alleys. An ad for Barnum and Bailey's on the radio: "Hey, Scully. Remember when that guy came out of the ground at the circus freak funeral?" A spider tiptoed across the windshield: "Scully, do you remember those bugs in the National Forest?" And then, with a sly, sideways glance: "And the cockroaches in Massachusetts. You remember them, don't you, Scully? The ones I investigated with, uh, Dr. Berenbaum? I told you not to come up there but you did anyway." Yes, she would tell him, yes. I remember. The purpose of these jaunts down memory lane eluded her. He kept them light and expansive, as if they were around a campfire telling adventure tales. There was no push to make her shove back, no argument to crackle the air. He wasn't out to make her believe in monsters, aliens or things that went bump in the night. Maybe, she fancied, this was how he kept his memory so fit, with regular exercise. Except he had never done this before. Maybe it was a test to ensure that the cancer had not yet addled her brains. If so, she gave him points for subtlety. Sudden pain crystallized behind her eyelids, shards that made her white-knuckle the armrest with one hand as she groped in her jacket pocket with the other. Her shaking fingers found it -- relief in the form of a smooth plastic bottle. She popped the lid still deep in the pocket, but Mulder heard the rattle. "Okay?" he asked. "Yeah, fine." She didn't risk moving her eyes to look at him. Slow exhales and the nausea would fade. Mulder set her water bottle in her hand as she withdrew the pills from her jacket. "Thanks," she managed, and then swallowed three in a row. "Better?" he asked immediately. As if the pills just magically exploded into her bloodstream. "Better, yeah." She backed it up with a direct look. He blinked first, settling back into his seat. "It's after three. I don't think this guy's going to show." "What a surprise. Anonymous tips are usually so reliable." It came out sharper than she intended, fuelled by the lightning hot pain in her head. She forced herself to relax her clenched jaw. "Let's give it another fifteen minutes." She felt more than saw his nod. A second later, the seed crunching renewed. She rested her head against the windowpane, which was cold from the night air and fogged from all of Mulder's remembering. With one finger, she traced a line through the condensation until it amassed into a single tear that trickled down into the door. "Jeez, what a mess," she heard him mutter. The air stirred as he brushed off his coat. "Scully, you remember when I tried to change the toner cartridge in our copier myself? Last time I mess with one of those fuckers." "No," she murmured, only half-listening. "C'mon, you must remember. It was right after you came. I got ink all over myself and the copier and you helped me clean it up. You said I reminded you of those old kid's jokes -- what's black and white and red all over." "The toner was red?" "No, my face was." But the levity was gone from his tone; he sounded impatient, almost angry. "C'mon, you really don't remember?" "Mulder, I told you I don't remember." She sat up. "Pardon me if I don't recollect every mess you've made over the years." He persisted. "It was raining that day, I think. The ink was going to run if I got wet." "If you say so." The pounding in her head had not receded. She massaged her temples with one hand. "I was wearing that red tie with the yellow circles --" Jesus, enough already. "Mulder!" He stopped. "I believe it happened, okay? You don't have to give me a full report. I believe you." "But you should remember, Scully. You were the only one there." She drew a sharp breath, like a pinch in her lungs. So that was it. All his aimless recollections weren't so haphazard after all, she realized with abrupt illumination. They were stories just the two of them shared, each to bear witness for the other. If an FBI agent sticks his finger in unknown goo and his partner isn't there to see it... She sighed. "I'm sorry," she said, laying hand on the rough warmth of his wool coat. "I'm sure it was very...dramatic." "S'okay." He shrugged. "It was stupid. Probably better that you don't remember." "I remember you covered head to toe in bile. Does that count?" He scrunched his face as if smelling the incident all over again. "I wish neither one of us had to remember that," he said, and she smiled. She gave his arm a squeeze before pulling her hand away. "It's three-fifteen," she said. "Yeah. There was nothing in the warehouse anyway. If the Crawfords were ever working an operation out of here, they've been long gone." Don't say it, she willed him silently. Please, please don't say it. "Sorry, Scully." Her shoulder slumped a bit, heavy under his words. She wished backward to a time when he never dared say them out loud. "It's not the first time we've chased a dead lead," she answered. He started the car. "We still have that sighting in Oklahoma the boys told us about. That could be something." Could be. Except it never was. Mulder drove them back through the empty streets, and she watched as the roar of the defroster stole their breath from the windows. ~*~*~*~*~*~ One of the most bizarre side effects of her cancer was that it had turned Monday into her favorite day of the week. Fridays were now treatment days, at least twice a month, but weekends gave her time to regroup. Monday seemed happy to see her, too, all crisp, cold air and bright sunshine. Scully commemorated the occasion with a stop at the bakery on her way in to work. For herself she ordered coffee and a raspberry croissant, and as an afterthought she picked up a lopsided blueberry muffin for Mulder. With the paper cup of coffee burning in her hand, she made her way down the basement stairs. The office door was open and she could hear Mulder inside talking to someone. Someone live, she realized. Not the phone. Outside of Skinner and the janitorial staff, they didn't get many visitors. The X-Files didn't exactly make it onto the Bureau tour route. Scully slowed her steps in the hall to see if she could identify the foreign voice, but she couldn't place it. It was a female, well spoken with a hint of a Southern accent. Scully caught something about the Yeti; Mulder laughed. "Hello," Scully said as she entered. The woman was sitting in the chair by Mulder's desk. Two coffee cups sat between them, and Scully could make out the remnants of what seemed to be powdered donuts. Mulder still had a white smudge on the corner of his mouth. "Hey," he greeted her, swinging his feet down from the desk. "Miranda Westfall, this is my partner, Dana Scully. Scully, meet Miranda Westfall. She's a professor at Johns Hopkins." The only Miranda that Scully knew was the one in the police warning, so that was the association she made. "Hello," she repeated. Professor Westfall stood up, revealing her full height. She nearly equaled Mulder. In her black turtleneck, boots and long, denim skirt she was a commanding figure. Scully adjusted her cup and bag so she could shake hands. In moving closer, she noticed that Westfall, despite her darker coloring, seemed to wear the exact same shade of lipstick she did. Not a wise choice. "Agent Scully," Professor Westfall said warmly. "Of course. It's nice to meet you." Her familiarity suggested to Scully that she ought to recognize the woman, or at least place her name. Maybe I am losing it, she thought. "Westfall...you say you're a professor?" "I say it as often as I can," she answered with a smile. "I'm still trying to convince myself." Scully recalled those days well, when she'd looked in the mirror and tried to match the phrase "FBI agent" with the woman who still looked sixteen years old. "New job?" she asked as she pulled over a third chair. "Just started last year. You know how it can take forever to get that PhD." "Indeed," said Scully, though she'd gotten hers in just three. "Professor Westfall teaches a class on Science, Myth and Mysticism," Mulder said. That explains the Yeti, Scully thought. Aloud she said, "And which one did you get your PhD in?" Professor Westfall laughed. "My PhD is actually in the philosophy of science. But I was a chemistry major as an undergrad." Mulder shot Scully a gleeful look -- bet wrong, didn't you? She ignored him. "What brings you here to the FBI?" she asked. "Shameful pandering." Scully lowered her coffee cup and raised her eyebrows. "There's still donuts here if you want one," Mulder said. He'd managed to wipe off his face. "Thanks, I'm fine." "I figured a food bribe would help," Professor Westfall said. "And that's why I drove down here instead of calling again. I was hoping that I could get one or both of you to come talk to my class. Your work is exactly the kind of thing we're discussing, and it would be great for them to see how we're still grappling with the tension between science and the unexplained." "You're familiar with the X-Files then," Scully said. "Somewhat. I read my 'Post' thoroughly. The two of you show up on the back pages quite often. And then there's the Internet." Scully winced. "Of course." "I wish I could tell you there's a big honorarium in it for you, but the best I can offer is a dinner in a nice restaurant. It wouldn't have to be a formal, prepared lecture, though. I just thought the students would enjoy hearing about your work." Scully tried to imagine how she would have reacted to her and Mulder as an undergraduate. Scoffing disbelief probably didn't begin to cover it. But then, as an undergraduate there was no way she would have been caught dead enrolled in a class entitled "Science, Myth and Mysticism." Too bad, she thought. Would have been the most useful thing I could have taken. Mulder cleared his throat and leaned forward across the desk. "I was just explaining to Professor Westfall that we can't take the time right now." "Why not?" This was her job, was it not, to take the other side? Mulder looked confused. "Scully, the work...we have that lead..." His voice softened. "We have to follow through. We can't afford to take time away." Oh, he almost had her. That he truly believed the next tip, the next whisper on the phone, the next man in the shadows would answer all the secrets and somehow make her well again always melted her resolve. The strength of Mulder's beliefs was a force to be reckoned with indeed. "It's one afternoon." She looked at Professor Westfall. "Right?" "Right. Preferably Friday the 26th, but I'm flexible." Perfect, thought Scully. "I have an appointment then," she said. "But Mulder, you should go." "No." He gave a vehement shake of his head and folded his arms across his chest. "You're much better at this sort of thing anyway." She glanced at Professor Westfall. "He's really the one you want." "We can postpone," the woman said. "Perhaps another Friday..." Scully shook her head. "No, really. It's fine." "I don't want to go without you," Mulder protested. Scully regarded him. And that's the problem, she thought with a pang. You just might have to. "Go," she said. "Tell them about the man-eating Flukeworm." Mulder hesitated a minute, then smiled. "That is always a crowd pleaser." "It's settled then," Professor Westfall said with a pleased smile. "The class starts at two-thirty and runs until five-after-five, but you don't have to talk the full time if you don't want." "We have enough material to last through a dozen lectures," Mulder said, clearly warming to the idea. "Hey, Scully, you remember that time we got caught in a frog rainstorm?" "Toads," she corrected, but Mulder wasn't listening. He'd turned his body towards Professor Westfall. "It was the most amazing thing. One minute, it's just rain, and the next minute these animals are pelting us from the sky." "Really! I can't wait to hear all about it, but I'm afraid I've got to run if I'm going to make my lecture for today. I still haven't prepared the overheads." She stood and gathered her coat. "Thanks so much for doing this. I'm sure you'll be a big hit with the students." "Let me walk you out," Mulder said, coming from around his desk. "You can give me directions on how to find you." "Would you? I got lost twice on my way down here." "Back in a sec, Scully." She raised her hand to show she had heard. Professor Westfall gave her a backwards glance on the way out. "Nice meeting you, Agent Scully. I do hope you'll come talk to the class some other time." "I'll think about it, thanks." As they left, Scully could hear Mulder continuing the toad story. She finished her coffee, but her croissant sat untouched in the bag. Swivelling her chair around, she studied the office filled with wild pictures and incredible souvenirs from cases past. Mulder would give a good talk. In the corner sat the copier. "I was wearing the red tie with yellow circles..." Yes. Mulder brushing more ink onto himself even as he tried to wipe it off. Her laughing. It was the first time she'd seen him without his shirt off. Of course. "Yes," she told the empty room. "I remember." CHAPTER 2 Only when he sat still long enough to hear the thoughts in his head did Mulder acknowledge the irony of his situation. Here was his main skill, his gift of intuition, honed through years of practice to a laser-sharp power of observation, and now Scully had rendered him blind. He had become a kind of Mr. Magoo, bumbling around with his too-loud narrative and his too-bright enthusiasm. Why, no, he hadn't seen the pill bottle come out three times in one day! Half-finished lunch? Missed that, too. Head down, distracted by papers, talking to the ceiling as she dabbed at her nose, he'd mastered the art of looking the other way. Except like now, when he had no other place to look. Their flight from New York was half-empty, and he'd already memorized the blue and gold diamond pattern on the seat in front of him. Scully had the window but she wasn't using it. She'd been asleep before they were airborne and hadn't so much as twitched since then. As often as he'd teased her about her ability to sleep anywhere, it wasn't like her to conk out so dramatically at four on a Thursday afternoon. The sun streaming in caught the edge of her red-gold lashes. He walked his fingers across the empty seat between them until he met her limp hand. Gently, he brushed the papery skin that covered her fine bones. She curled her fingers around him like an infant would but did not stir. He let her hold him until the plane began its descent. "Hey," he said, tapping the center of her palm. "Scully, we're here." She sat up with a jerk, pulling her hand away. "Hmmm?" "Home sweet home." She blinked. "I always forget how short this flight is," she said as she checked her watch. "It helps when you're unconscious." "Beats reading the in-flight magazine," she countered, not taking the bait. He pulled a magazine out and waved it in her direction. "Hey, there's some quality merchandise in here. I purchased an electric toothbrush and a knife that can cut through diamonds." She didn't give him even a token smile, instead fussing with lap belt. He did an excellent job of not noticing when she cinched it a notch tighter. "It's a good thing that the storm held off," she said a minute later. "Now you won't miss your lecture tomorrow." "And you won't miss your, um, appointment." He tested the waters using their agreed-upon oblique language. He had no idea what sort of poking or prodding she endured at the hospital, and Scully seemed to prefer it that way. "I could have easily rescheduled," was all she said. End of discussion. A part of him unclenched in relief; what she didn't tell him, he didn't have to know. The plane touched down and they did the commuter shuffle down the ramp with the rest of the weary travelers. Mulder wondered how it was that the fast food kiosks and concession stands always seemed more welcoming in National Airport. That's when you know you've done too much traveling, he thought grimly. Joe's Hot Dogs starts to look like home. "Hey, Scully, you want to grab something to eat?" She did a double take at the hot dog stand. "Now?" "No, on the way home. We could get a pizza or something." "A pizza." The frowny lines appeared between her eyebrows, and he regretted his offer. "No, Mulder, I don't think so. I have a lot of work to do tonight." He rubbed his eyes with a tired hand. "Fine, then I'll just drop you off." "I'll take a cab." "Scully -- " "It's out of your way." "I don't mind." "I do." She grabbed her bag from the luggage carousel. Hers always seemed to come off the plane first. He watched her maneuver it with ease, lifting it high and down in one smooth motion. "Good luck with your lecture," she said. "I'll see you on Monday." His battered bag clunked down onto the carousel, and a crush of people surround him to meet the latest batch. By the time he'd retrieved his luggage, Scully had disappeared into the crowd. Mulder ducked his head. "Yeah," he said. "See you." ~*~*~*~*~*~ Somewhere along the line, his door had developed a haunted house creak. It shuddered as he yanked his key free, then yielded with a groan, leaving him staring down the dark maw of his apartment. He kicked his bag with enough force to nudge it over the threshold and flung his keys in the direction of the coffee table. They missed. Flicking the nearest light switch, he ambled over to the fish tank, still in his overcoat. "Hey guys," he said as he tapped the glass. "Everyone still alive in there?" They swished to and fro, mouths moving in silent clamor as they raced each other to the bubbling top. "I solved the case," he told them while he sprinkled in some food. Maude paused to give him the fish-eye but Harold kept right on chowing. Mulder replaced the lid and shrugged off his coat. No sooner had he tossed it aside when his phone rang, forcing him to pick the coat up again to dig the phone from his pocket. The glowing numbers were not Scully's. "Hello?" "Hello, is this Agent Mulder? It's Miranda Westfall calling." The lecture. Right. "Professor, hi," he said, sinking down onto the couch. His bones gave a creak that would match his door. "What can I do for you?" "I didn't catch you at a bad time, did I?" A bad time, Mulder thought. That was one way to describe his life these days. "No, it's fine. I just got in." "Oh! I tried you at the office and they said you were out in the field. I don't mean to trouble you --" "It's no trouble." "--but I just wanted to see if you were still able to lecture tomorrow." "Of course." He forced some animation into his voice. "I'm looking forward to it." "So are we. I mentioned the possibility of the man-eating flukeworm, and the students were all very excited." Mulder allowed himself a small smile. "That's because they didn't have to roll around in the sewer with it." "You're kidding." "I wish. Listen, I'm glad they're excited. I'll be sure to start with that, then." "Terrific." She paused, and her voice took on a hint of teasing. "So you're back from another case. Should I be looking for you and Agent Scully in the Post tomorrow?" "No, you can skip the fine print this time. We were in New York working a series of murders in a Hasidic Jewish community. Somehow I don't think that's likely to make the news on Capitol Hill." "Ouch. Sounds like a hard case." Was it? Not by X-Files standards, it hadn't been, but that didn't explain the strange ache that plagued him still. He and Scully escaped unscathed this time. So why did he feel as though someone had wrung out his insides like a sponge? "Revenge murder with a twist," he said eventually. "The twist being that the original murder victim was the one exacting the revenge." Professor Westfall didn't even blink. "Ghost?" "Golem." "Oh, I've read about that," she said, "and not just in the Jewish texts. There's a long tradition in many religions of those kinds of myths, where someone is brought back out of love only to have things go terribly wrong. Today these stories survive as bad TV movies and Stephen King novels, but they're still with us." Mulder actually pulled his phone from his ear to stare at it for a second. "So you believe in this sort of thing." "Well, it does sound incredible, and I've always taken these tales as more metaphor than fact. But I suppose it makes sense in a way," she mused. "If you posit the existence of a soul -- a spirit without form -- then the opposite should exist as well." "Not everyone posits the same way you do." She laughed. "I learned that a long time ago, Agent Mulder. Someone keyed the words 'hippie freak' into my car a couple of months ago. The campus police investigated the students, but frankly I suspect it was a member of the faculty." "Really?" "Let's face it, no one in the eighteen to twenty-two age bracket uses the word 'hippie.'" Mulder grinned. "Point taken." "And I was hired into a tenure track position against a few strenuous objections from people outside the department. But I'm hoping my large enrollment and positive evaluations will vindicate me in the end." "So I'm a ratings stunt, that's what you're saying?" "Let's just say that tomorrow I expect unusually high attendance for a Friday afternoon class." "Uh huh. It all becomes clear." "No, really," she protested through more laughter, "it's not hard to get them in the seats. This material has the same resonance for them as it would for anyone. Take your golem, for example. Who hasn't wished they could bring back a lost loved one just through sheer force of will? Anyone who has mourned a grandparent, a friend or even a pet can identify with that." "Yes." He sat up and let his eyes wander around his shadowed apartment. "You sound like you speak from experience." "Of course," she answered softly. "Even hippie freaks are human, you know. You're telling me you don't know the feeling?" Like a genie, her words conjured it up again -- a slithery smoke that started in the pit of his stomach. The constriction of terror as it squeezed him from the inside out. Every night the same fevered dream and the chant that never left his mind -- bring her back bring her back -- anything, I'll do anything. No more teasing. No more taunts. *I will not do anything wrong ever again* written to fill 1000 pages. Star light, star bright. I wish I may, I wish I might. "Uh, of course," he said, groping for words like a man in quicksand. "I know. Except...except in my case it didn't work." Until it did, the hiss continued. About twenty years later. "No," he muttered. "Excuse me?" "Nothing," he said. "Nothing." He stood up and walked around his coffee table. "I'm sorry, I should go." "Of course. Tomorrow, then." "Tomorrow." He clicked off the phone and tossed it onto the couch, continuing his aimless pacing. It wasn't the same at all, he reasoned. Not at all. Anythinganythingatall. Middle of the night promises made on tear- stained sheets. Begging, bargaining, shouting into the wind. Star light, star bright. -- is anybody listening? Three months later, there she was again. Taped up and reassembled. Rough around the edges but just about the same, right? Close enough for sure. Be careful what you wish for. ~*~*~*~*~ Scully sat up in her hospital bed, concentrating on smoothing out all the wrinkles from the blanket around her. It was softer than the ones she was used to from her visits over the years, made especially for patients whose skin might be worn thin from toxic drugs or dried out from radiation. She had studied all the treatments from the instant she'd been diagnosed, but no printed words could capture the reality of being cooked from the inside out. No one had mentioned the fact that your body could become so conditioned to the dizziness and nausea that it started sending them along earlier, just at the sight of the pale blue hallways or the wispy feel of the cotton gown against your skin. "Knock-knock," a woman called on the other side of the door. Scully drew her knees up to her chest, undoing all her hard work eliminating the wrinkles. "Come in." Her oncologist, Vanessa Alton, entered the room carrying a clipboard in her hand. She was a willowy woman, with quick, dark eyes and high cheekbones that suggested her Masai ancestry. Scully knew from overheard talk in the waiting room that some people did not like Dr. Alton's bedside manner. "She's a little...fierce for me," one woman had confided when Scully mentioned Alton was her oncologist. "It's almost like she's going to war." Exactly, Scully had thought. And in a war, she wanted Dr. Vanessa Alton on her side. "Good afternoon," Dr. Alton said as she dragged a stool over to the bed. "How are you doing today?" "Okay." Dr. Alton scanned the information that the nurse had jotted down earlier. "Blood pressure is good. Any nosebleeds this week?" "No." "Great." Dr. Alton looked up. "How about at work? How are you holding up there?" Scully felt herself flush as she remembered her hasty retreat from the airport last night. She'd poured herself into a cab and managed to give her address before passing out again. The poor driver had had to shake her awake at her apartment stoop. "I'm all right." When Dr. Alton looked skeptical, Scully straightened herself and tried to sound more convincing. "Really. It's going okay. I'm just a little tired." Dr. Alton glanced at her records again. "You've lost another three pounds," she said, not unkindly. "No wonder you're tired." Just the thought of food made Scully's stomach pitch and roll. "I eat." "You need to eat more. Is it the nausea that's a problem?" "Not...not usually." How to explain the extreme exhaustion she faced every night? It took every ounce of energy she had to complete a day at work, and heading into the kitchen to slice and dice when she got home was just more than she could handle. Dr. Alton was still watching her, apparently waiting for elaboration. "I eat," Scully repeated. "I'm not just not very hungry these days." "Understandable. But it's important to keep your strength up. Try eating smaller portions more often, okay? Set an alarm to remind you if you need. And here's another tip: share meals with others when you can." She smiled. "We tend to eat more when we have company." Scully dropped her gaze. "Okay, thanks." "Now about the pain meds. Janet wrote here that you need a refill already? Maybe we should try something else if these aren't getting it done for you." "They're fine." "Dana." Dr. Alton touched her arm. Scully looked up reluctantly. Stronger meds meant stronger side effects. How long before she had to quit working? How long until they just switched to morphine and let her die? "You can lie to yourself if you want," Dr. Alton said. "But if you lie to me I can't help you." Scully hesitated. She hugged her knees. "Okay," she said. "What else have you got?" ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ All the murmuring ceased as Mulder entered the classroom in front of Miranda Westfall. He halted under the power of sixty pairs of curious eyes and leaned backwards to whisper, "These are college kids? They look like they should be home watching 'Sesame Street.'" She patted him on the shoulder. "I know. It's terrible. What's worse is that they look younger every year. Here, let me set those up for you." She took his slides from him and went to the projector booth at the back of the small auditorium. "Class, this is Agent Fox Mulder from the X-Files division of the FBI." Mulder raised his hand in acknowledgment. He backed up until he felt the lectern hit him from behind. The class snickered. "Hey, everyone. It's, uh, nice to be here. Been a long time since I was in a college class." "Do you have to go to a special college to be in the FBI?" one girl called out. "No, you can go to college anywhere. The FBI academy will train you once you graduate." "Does the FBI really investigate ghosts?" another girl asked. The skinny boy sitting next to her gave her a swift elbow. "Not ghosts, *aliens*." Mulder shifted his weight from one foot to the other, hands in his pockets. "Well, actually, we do a little bit of everything. The X-Files unit was created to investigate cases in which traditional techniques have failed to provide any answers." "Like ghosts," the girl said with satisfaction. "Exactly." At that point, Professor Westfall got the projector working and a faint picture of the giant fluke worm appeared on the screen behind him. "Instead of me telling you what we do," Mulder said, "why don't I show you?" The lights dimmed. "This is a photo taken about three years ago. Initially it wasn't an X-File at all. We were responding to reports of a creature, perhaps an alligator, that was attacking sewer workers in New Jersey. As you can see, what we found was anything but an alligator." He looked out at a sea of scrunched faces staring at the screen. Some of them had tilted their heads to the side. "Bites on the victims revealed marks consistent with a fluke worm -- only much, much larger." "But it's got human eyes," said one student. "It had a lot of human characteristics," Mulder agreed. "We hypothesized it might be some kind of hybrid." A hand shot up from the front row. Mulder squinted around the projector light and saw a petite girl with her black hair cut short in a perfect straight line. She regarded him from behind large owlish glasses. "Did you do genetic typing?" she asked. "Uh, no. We didn't get a chance. It was being transported for further testing when it...escaped." There was a collective gasp from the class, but the girl in the front row was unfazed. "If you didn't do any genetic testing, then you can't say for sure it was a hybrid." Mulder dropped his chin to concede her point. "No, we can't say that for sure. Our best guess is that the mutant was a result of the Chernobyl disaster since the incident reports suggest its origins were in the Russian sea." "But radiation shouldn't cause DNA from one creature to combine with another," the girl said. "It simply mutates the DNA within a single specimen." "Gina," someone from the back groaned. "Give it a rest, already." "I don't mind," said Mulder. "We don't have that much experience with the levels of radiation seen in the Chernobyl accident, so we don't really know the extent of the damage that can occur. And wouldn't you allow it's possible, given how genetically similar all carbon-based organisms are, that DNA mutation within one creature could cause it to resemble something else entirely? Something genetically related?" Gina frowned. "I suppose it's possible." Mulder nodded with satisfaction and hit the button for the next slide. "Now this one..." "But a man and a flukeworm aren't that genetically related." "Gina!" the class yelled. "Maybe you should save more questions on this subject for after Agent Mulder has finished," Professor Westfall said. Gina folded her arms over her chest and said nothing. Mulder turned back to the screen, hiding a smile. "This slide here is from a hotel room where the occupant mysteriously vanished. All we found was the ash-like print you see there on the floor." "Spontaneous human combustion!" one of the boys said. "Cool!" "Well, sort of, yes," Mulder said, turning back to the class. "What we found was..." He stopped when he saw Gina's hand in the air. "Yes, Gina?" "There doesn't seem to be anything there but a large dark stain. It could be ash from anything, or even ink. Did you analyze a sample for human remains?" "As a matter of fact, we did. We analyzed several samples and all were consistent with the residue of burned human flesh." "I don't suppose you had them tested for accelerant, too?" "I suppose we did. None found." "Was the victim an alcoholic? With a high enough blood alcohol content, perhaps --" "Gina!" Everyone around her hollered in unison. Mulder just laughed. "No, she's right," he told the class, feeling lighter than he had in months. "It's important to ask questions. Let me see how many of them I can answer, okay?" ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Scully paused for breath before putting on her sweater. The treatment was over, but the agony was just beginning. Her skin felt like a blanket of lead weighing her down. Dr. Alton entered. "Hey, you made it through another round. Good for you." "When do we see if it's working?" Scully sat gingerly on the edge of the bed. "We'll do another scan next month to assess any progress. Right now it's still too soon to tell." She gave Scully a concerned frown. "You look awfully pale, Dana. How are you getting home?" Taxi, Scully thought. It was probably already waiting outside. "Uh, my mom is meeting me downstairs." "You want me to get her? Have her help you out?" Dr. Alton was already turning to leave. "No! No, I'm fine. I'll just meet her in the lobby." "Okay, then. Call me if you have questions. Otherwise, I'll see you in two weeks." Scully nodded, forcing herself to pay attention to the other woman's words. They seemed slowed down in her head, like playing a record at half speed. She bid goodbye to Dr. Alton and was relieved when the elevator was blessedly empty and silent. She leaned against the cool wood paneling and waited for the ding to signal her to move again. Outside, it was drizzling, but her taxi sat idling with its heater running. She climbed inside and gave her address. The leathery smell of the interior made her stomach clench, and for a few minutes she had to concentrate on not being sick. At last the feeling subsided. Closing her eyes, she rested, listening to the cars swoosh past on the wet street. ~*~*~*~*~*~ "Fantastic!" Professor Westfall was beaming at him, and Mulder found himself grinning back. It wasn't often someone looked at him with such naked appreciation. "It went okay?" he asked her as the students filed out around them. "It went great." She grabbed his hands and squeezed. "Thank you so much for doing this. I really enjoyed it, and I know the students did, too." "It was fun." The word tasted strange on his tongue, like an under- ripe berry. "Sorry about the rough time Gina gave you. I should have Mentioned that she's a live wire." Mulder glanced over at the small body loading giant textbooks into her backpack. She paused to push her glasses up on her nose. He caught her eyes and smiled. "It's okay," he said, turning back to Professor Westfall. "I like her." "I do, too. She keeps me honest. Listen, I have a couple of quick things to do around here and then I owe you a dinner. You want dress-up Italian or slightly grungy pub?" "Grunge sounds great." "My kind of man. C'mon, I'll show you around the department." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Scully let herself into her apartment and shrugged off her coat. When it slid from the hook and crumpled to the floor, she gave it a long, baleful glance but decided to leave it there. The energy required to bend down and pick it up might be all she had left in her. She used it to walk to the bedroom, where the shades were still drawn from the night before. Or was it the night before that? She took off her shoes and climbed under the covers. The room spun around for several nauseating seconds. She kept her head still as she reached for the phone. "Hi, Mom," she said, a minute later. "Yes, I'm home. It went fine. Yes. Yes. I'll eat in a bit, okay? Yes, Mulder picked me up. Everything is fine." Her mother chattered on until it made Scully's teeth hurt just to listen. "Mom, I've got to go. I'll call you tomorrow, okay?" She clicked off the phone and curled up with it under her chin. Her bedside clock read quarter to six. She forced her eyes to stay open despite the fact that her hands twitched from fatigue. Mulder would be calling soon to make sure everything was all right. Every Friday he called after her treatment. Must be awake for that. He would call and she would say she was fine, just like always. CHAPTER THREE "This is the place," Miranda said, and pulled him into a narrow brick entryway. She paused to shake cold rain from their shared umbrella. The damp air had revived the scent of her shampoo, breathing spring into their cramped quarters even as fat winter drops fell from the ends of their coats. Her arm slid across his middle when she reached for the door handle. "Always sticks in the rain," she said, giving the heavy wooden door a hard yank. "Here." Mulder looped his arm over her head and grabbed the frozen handle. One sharp tug sent the door flying open and Miranda stumbling back against him. He jumped but she flashed him a smile. "Thanks." Inside, she unwound her scarf as he took in the atmosphere. Black and white pictures of Baltimore from the sixties decorated on the walls, camouflaging paint that had yellowed with smoke and age. A lone ceiling fan stirred air that smelled of old wood, stale heat and wet woolen clothes. Mulderšs feet crunched a few scattered peanut shells as he moved to check out the items on a nearby shelf. Bowling trophy, 1983. A windup monkey with a bass drum, and a beer stein that could have easily held twenty-two pints. He smiled and tapped the monkey's drum. "Hey, Doll. I've missed your face around here. How you been?" Mulder turned at the voice and found Miranda leaning across the bar to squeeze the man behind it. The low-hanging lights caught his bald head in full shine. "Good, Win," Miranda replied. "I've been good. Insanely busy but good. Listen, I want you to meet someone." She stretched a hand back, and Mulder ambled over to her. "Win, this is Fox Mulder from the FBI. Agent Mulder, may I present Win Flynn, owner and proprietor of Carly's Pub." Flynn folded his beefy arms across his chest and cocked his head at Mulder. "Fox," he said. "You don't say." "You're right, I don't say," Mulder agreed pointedly. "I'm Mulder." Flynn grinned. "I hear you. Winston's no prize either. Call me Win." "Not Carly?" Mulder asked, and Flynn roared. "Carly's my daughter. Her mother used to give me hell for naming a pub after a six-year-old, let me tell you. But she ain't six anymore. My baby got married last year and moved to Buffalo, so now I've got to make do with the likes of this one." He nodded at Miranda. "My apartment is three blocks from here," she explained to Mulder. "Win, we're going to take the booth in the corner, okay?" "It's all yours, Doll." "He seems nice," Mulder said as they walked towards the back. "Yeah, I stop in whenever I need a lecture about how I should get out more or how I'm not eating right. The fact that Win's dispensing this advice over a plate stacked with onion rings doesn't seem to lessen the passion of his message." She stopped at the booth and eyed him. "You're not one of those guys who needs to sit facing the TV, are you?" Mulder looked up to see that ESPN was muted above them. "My season doesn't start for another few months," he said as he slid across the scarred wooden bench. "Ah, a baseball fan. The Orioles look like they might actually do something this year." A waitress dropped off their beer and Mulder sipped his Black and Tan. "No, it'll be the Yankees all the way." Miranda leaned over the table at him. "The Yankees! Didn't you say you grew up in Boston? Pinstripes are persona non grata there." Mulder shrugged and smiled. "I enjoy living dangerously." "You know, I sensed that about you," she said, giving him an appraising look. "Yeah?" He straightened in his seat. Women usually sensed he was crazy, not dangerous. "Yeah," she said, pretending to think. "You mentioned something about you wrestling around in a sewer with a giant fluke worm? That's either dangerous or stupid, and my mother always said to be charitable, so..." He tossed a peanut shell at her. "How's that for dangerous?" She ducked. "For a man with a gun, you sure have crappy aim." She flicked a shell from the table, catching him square on the chin. "Returned fire," he said as he picked up a handful of peanuts. "Now I'm authorized to kill." She laughed and tried to fend off the rapid succession of shells he pelted in her direction, her long legs knocking against his under the table. He tried to pin her in one place with his knees, but she squirmed free. "Okay, okay!" she cried at last. "Truce." "There is no truce in the FBI. This would be the part where I break out the handcuffs." She arched an eyebrow at him. "That might not be so bad." "What?" Mulder halted his fiddling with the shells and pulled his hands into his lap. Sex, his mind supplied, complete with helpful images. SEX. It had been so long for him that sex seemed like one of those impossible theories he and Scully always argued about. "I, uh...um." "Oh, jeez." She shook her head and gave him a rueful smile. "I didn't mean...sometimes I just say the first thing that pops into my head. Gets me in trouble all the time. I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything by it." "Right." Mulder gave a short nod to indicate he had known it all along. His mind didn't give up hope so easily, however, and kept circulating distant memories of skin on skin. "For all I know, you've got a girlfriend at home with a ring on her finger." Mulder traced the lip of his beer glass. "Uh, no." "No ring?" "No girlfriend." Just the words were enough to evaporate the porn show running in his head, as though his neurons realized it was a hopeless cause. "Huh." She sipped her beer. "I could have sworn you were taken. I'm pretty good at guessing these things, you know." She held the glass to her chin and studied him through narrowed eyes. "What about Agent Scully?" "She's not..." He coughed. "She's not seeing anyone either." Scully has sex with men from bars, his brain started up again. You're the only loser in this equation. You stay home and jerk off while she goes out in her fuck-me shoes and drinks tequila shooters until her eyes go wild and his hands move up the inside of her thigh and she likes it and then he -- Mulder squeezed his eyes shut. He knew no details, of course, but creativity filled in plenty. "I just thought," Miranda said with a shrug, "the way you answered David in class today..." "What?" "David. When he asked you about Agent Scully in the photo? He asked if he joined the FBI could he work with her and you said--" "'No, this one's mine.'" "Exactly." "A joke," he said, because that's what it was. Scully had made herself quite clear on that matter: I'll fuck a paranoid psychotic murderer before you, Mulder. "Okay," Miranda said. She looked uncomfortable. "I didn't mean to pry." The waitress came with their burgers, breaking the tension, and Mulder busied himself with his beer and sodden cocktail napkin. "We're just partners," he said when the woman had gone. Miranda smiled. "Good ones, it seems from your work. I'm sorry she couldn't have come with you today." Mulder hit the ketchup bottle a little too hard. "Shit!" he said as red sauce splattered everywhere. "It's okay, take my napkin." "I have to make a phone call," he said, sliding out of the booth. "I'll be right back." People had been crowding in during his drink with Miranda, and he had to thread his way through the noise, smoke and bodies to find a quieter spot near the restrooms. ~*~*~*~*~ The phone pulled her from sleep like a rope hoisting a grand piano, each ring dragging her closer to consciousness. With her eyes still closed, she felt around under the covers for the receiver. Joint pain had set in, making her feel rusted and creaky. She clicked "on" just as her machine picked up, and she used the message time to swallow the cotton from her mouth. "Hello?" she said after the beep. "Scully? It's me. I hope I didn't wake you." She curled into the pillow at the sound of his voice. "What time is it?" "It's almost eight. I'm sorry I didn't call earlier. How are you doing?" She made a small humming noise and considered. Dense, as though she would sink to the bottom; her head was heavy but her limbs were weak. There were pinwheels of light spinning behind her eyes. She shivered under her blanket. "I'm all right." "Do you need anything?" Each week she measured the cost of saying yes, the price of needing him. If it was just one night, she might be able to take it back on Monday. She could put on her pressed suit and serious expression and ignore him when he looked at her with eyes that had seen her retching over the toilet bowl. Maybe if it were just one night she could still say, "I'm fine" and make him believe it. Tears pricked her eyes. "It's still raining," she said when the wind swept gusts of water against her windows. Just this once, she would say yes. She wouldn't even have to get out of bed to let him in; she could just say, "Mulder, come over," and he would be there to untangle the hair from her eyes and fetch the heavy quilt from the closet. She would still hurt. She would still be dying. But at least she wouldn't be alone. "It's pouring here, too," he told her. "If it keeps up like this, the drive back could be interesting." "Drive?" Drive back from where? Had she been speaking aloud and not realized it? "I'm still in Baltimore." "Oh." She blinked in the darkness, remembering. "Your lecture. How did it go?" "It was great," he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. "I wish you could have been there. There was this one girl in the class named Gina who could have been your understudy. I think you would have liked her." "Mmmm." She was drifting, half-listening, waiting for her cue when he asked if she wanted him to come over. "I'm glad it went well." "Excuse me," Mulder muttered, and she heard a man's voice in the background. There was music, too. "Mulder, where are you?" "Carly's Pub. It's this little hole in the wall outside the city, but the beer is pretty good. Miranda bought me dinner after class." His tone was upbeat, happy. Scully pushed herself up on the pillows and tried to focus. "So you're still with her then." "Yeah, but I can duck out if you need something." "No," she said, her voice sounding far away to her own ears. "You should enjoy your dinner. You earned it, after all." "'Kay." He acquiesced without their usual argument. "You should eat something, too." Scully swallowed hard to control the flash of nausea. "I...I will." "Good." He hung on the line, maybe searching for concrete advice he could give. Mulder liked specific tasks. But all he said was, "Okay, then. Call me if you need anything." She was already forming her battle plan for the rest of the evening -- fetch quilt, swallow pills, crawl back into bed. She would have two more days to patch herself up before she had to see him again. "I'll call," she said, pretending as though she meant it. He pretended to believe, too. They hung up without saying goodbye. ~*~*~*~*~*~ Outside Carly's the rain had stopped, leaving black shiny streets and heavy frosty air. The cold didn't touch Mulder; his blood hummed warm from alcohol and laughter. She was teasing him again, bumping shoulders as they walked down the street. "Zombies?" "Yep," he answered. "Sea monsters?" "Naturally." "Big foot, of course." "Of course." "ESP? Astral projection? Reincarnation?" She walked backwards in front of him, her hands deep in her pockets. He felt charged, crackling, like an electron about to be pulled into her orbit. "Yes, yes and yes," he told her. She stopped, forcing him to halt as well. "Agent Mulder, is there anything you won't believe?" He made a show of considering. "Maybe not. Maybe I am the gold standard of belief." "In chemistry we would call you absolute zero." "I've been called worse." She laughed, and the sound of it echoed down the quiet street. "Tell me about another one of your cases," she said as they resumed walking. "Well, not too long ago we investigated several deaths in the San Joaquin Valley that were linked to El Chupacabras." "You're kidding me! I did a paper on El Chupacabras in college. That myth has such a fascinating history and persists with amazing strength in some communities today." Mulder gave her a sideways glance. "I know," he said, and she blushed. "Sorry, bad habit. I tend to slip into lecture mode at the drop of a hat." He smiled. "I bet you got an 'A' on the paper, though." "I still have some of the books I used," she admitted. "There is one I found in a dusty used bookstore that's quite old. It shows some of the earliest known sketches of El Chupacabras." "Really? I'd like to see it some time." "How about now?" she countered, stopping again. "My apartment is just up there and around the corner. I could make coffee, too, if you like." Mulder's mouth went dry. Out in the open air, he could manage the dizzy buzz in his head and the loose heat of his bones. "I understand if you have to get going," she said when he hesitated. A graceful out, he thought, but his feet remained stuck to the pavement. Maybe it was the way her gloved hand grazed his jacket. Maybe it was the three beers he'd consumed with dinner. Maybe it was just his insatiable curiosity, but he wanted to see what would happen next. A dare to himself: how far could he go without tumbling down? "Uh, sure. For a minute," he said finally. Her apartment turned out to be one half of an old, Victorian-style home. She led him into a living room equipped with crown moldings, large front windows and a high ceiling. The hardwood floor creaked under their feet. "Please excuse the mess," she said, switching on a floor lamp. Buttery light shone over the cherry coffee table, a burgundy high-backed chair, and gray stuffed sofa. Papers littered the table, and he saw a teacup hiding under one printed sheet. There was a chenille throw draped on the couch, but it seemed to have been appropriated by a fuzzy white cat. "That's Arabella," Miranda said when she saw him looking. "She's quite friendly." Mulder tested that hypothesis by sticking his fingers under the creature's soft chin. Arabella stuck out her neck and leaned obligingly into his hand. He smiled as she started to purr. Miranda took off her coat and threw it over the back of a chair. "Can I get you anything? Coffee? Tea?" "I'm fine," Mulder answered. "Let me see if I can find that book." She walked across the room to the large bookcases that lined the far wall. Mulder ambled over as well. "I don't see it here," she said after a moment. "Let me check the bedroom. I'll be right back." While she was gone, Mulder scanned the titles on her shelves. She seemed to be a classic mystery buff; he noted many tales of little old English ladies solving murders on the sly. Incan history. Ghost stories. Medieval myths. He leaned down to see the lower shelves. *When a Loved One Has Cancer* *How to Fight Cancer and Win* *The Breast Cancer Survival Guide* Unable to resist, he pulled out the first one. His heart pounded in his ears as he flipped it open to the middle. The faint scent of dust assaulted his nose. "Sometimes chemotherapy and radiation can result in irritating rashes on sensitive skin," he read. The one sentence was enough to make his stomach clench. Rashes? Did Scully get them? What other stuff was going on that he didn't know about? Suddenly, he felt a bit like a voyeur. He palmed the one book and bent over to see the others. "I found it," Miranda called as she re-entered the room. Mulder startled. "Hi. I was just...uh, I was looking at your books." She dropped her gaze to the one he held in his hand. "It's okay," she said, but he scrambled to put it back. When he stood up again, Miranda was at his side. "I just saw you had a lot of books on cancer." He stumbled around, feeling enormously awkward. "My mother had it. She died two years ago." "God." Now he felt awful for trespassing. "I'm sorry." "Me too," she said, hugging herself. "I miss her every day, but by the end she was so sick that it was almost a relief when she died. I know that's a terrible thing to say." Of course it wasn't, but Mulder felt a flash of anger anyway. He couldn't imagine ever being grateful that Scully was dead. "It's understandable," he said aloud, even though he didn't understand, not really. Miranda gave him a wistful smile. "Arabella was her cat, you know. Having her here helps me remember." She hesitated a moment, then laid a hand on his arms. "I'm sorry if you know someone..." "A friend," he interjected quickly. Scully was such a private person, and she guarded her illness so closely. He wouldn't open her up to pity when she wasn't around to counter it. "I'm sorry," Miranda said. "She's going to be okay," he said. "I know she will." Miranda rubbed his arm. "Of course." They stood like that another moment, the warmth of her touch seeping through his coat and down into his skin. He could feel the burn from each of her fingers. Slowly, she slid her hand down until she met his. He let her clasp his fingers, and that smallest caress set his skin vibrating. He heard her shallow breathing. "Fox," she murmured, "I want you to know..." "I should go." He broke their contact and took a step toward the door. "But you haven't even looked at the El Chupacabras book." She scooped it up from where she had set it on an end table. "It's okay," he said, still moving in the direction of the exit. "Maybe another time." She followed him with the book in hand. "Here," she said, "why don't you take it with you? That way we can be sure there will be another time." He stopped with his hand on the doorknob. "I don't know..." She slipped the book into arms. "Take it." "I can't let you do this." "Too late," she whispered, and kissed his cheek. "You already have." CHAPTER FOUR Chin in one hand, pen in the other, Mulder heaved his best put- upon sigh as he documented the paranormal in triplicate. Scully's briefcase and overcoat lay on the table at the other end of the office, but Scully herself was nowhere to be seen. It wouldn't be fair, he reasoned, to fill out all the paperwork himself. She probably had her own slant on things, and he didn't want to deprive her of the opportunity to make her views known. He drummed his pen on the desk and glanced idly around the room. The book Miranda had lent him sat where he had left it when he arrived that morning, leaning against his basketball on the shelf. He rolled his chair over and picked up the book. The worn binding sloughed against his palm as he traced the faded El Chupacabras image on the front. Flipping the cover open, he found Miranda's name in delicate script on the inside. He smiled and swivelled in his chair, propping his feet on the desk as he began thumbing through the musty pages. In the middle, there were photographs of a wall of red rock that had a fierce fanged creature etched into it. The phone rang, and Mulder groped for it with one hand, not taking his eyes from the book. "Hello?" "Hello, may I speak with Dana Scully please?" Mulder put his feet down and paid attention. "She's not here at the moment. May I take a message?" "That would be great. This is Barbara from the Georgetown Hospital, and we need to talk to Ms. Scully about scheduling an appointment as soon as possible." "Uh, sure. Is everything okay?" "Just have her give us a call sometime today, all right?" "All right, I'll tell her." Mulder hung up the phone and put the book aside. Of course her doctor couldn't give him any specific information, but lately his lack of real knowledge about her illness and its treatment had been needling him. He'd made a few awkward passes at asking Scully, but she always clipped him off before the full sentence was out of his mouth. "I'm fine, Mulder." Which they both knew was an utter lie. Penny Northern and a dozen women like her could have testified to that fact, had they not been dead and gone of the precise disease now eating away at his partner. But Scully knew these terrible truths as well as he did, and he didn't see what good it would do to rub her nose in it. Still, for all the conspiracies, cover-ups and dirty deals he'd seen over the years, he'd never before encountered this particular kind of quiet frustration. No cloak and dagger informant was going to slip a note under his door: "Want to know the truth about your partner's health? Meet me in the garage in half an hour." "Hey," said the object of his thoughts as she breezed through the door carrying a stack of folders. Her smart purple suit snapped with her quick steps, and her hair had not one strand out of place. It seemed impossible that he was taking messages for her from a cancer ward. "Hi," he said, straightening himself up. "I missed you this morning." "I've been at the lab. Did you need me for something?" "No, but your doctor's office just called." He skimmed his fingers along the edge of his desk, avoiding her eyes. "They want you to call them back ASAP to schedule an appointment." He risked a glance at her to see if she might want to elaborate, but her face gave nothing away. "Okay, thanks. I'll call them." She dug out her cell phone and turned her back, but she didn't leave the room. Mulder bit his lip and tried not to breathe. "Hello, this is Dana Scully. I got the message that you called? Yes. Okay. Did she say how low?" Mulder's ears practically went out on stems as he devoured each bit of cryptic information. Low could not be good, whatever it was. "All right, yes. I can come in at five. Would that be okay?" Mulder's eyes flew to the clock on the wall. Five was over four hours away. Something was low, damn it, and low enough to warrant a call. Four hours seemed a long time to wait. Scully hung up the phone and put it back in her pocket. "What are you reading?" she asked, lifting her chin in the direction of Miranda's book. She took a step closer and frowned. "Mulder, not that Mexican goat sucker thing again." "No," he said, slipping the book into a drawer. "It's nothing. What, uh, what did the doctor say? Is everything all right?" "Fine." But he waited her out this time, refusing to break her gaze. She sighed. "The labs came back from my blood tests on Friday and my white cell count is a little low. They just want to repeat the test, that's all. It's nothing." Her echo of his dismissive words effectively shut that topic in a drawer, too. He ducked his head. "Okay. Then I guess I'll go grab a quick sandwich up the street. We've got to have these triplicates filled out by tonight." "Can I join you?" He halted in putting on his coat. "For lunch?" "Yes." She lifted her eyebrows. "If that's okay." "Of course it's okay. I'll even buy." She eyed him as she reached for her things. "Maybe we should run some lab tests on you," she said. He held the door and she walked out under his arm, missing his smile. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~ The weekend rain had pushed out the cold and washed in a temporary air of spring. Both Mulder and Scully left their coats unbuttoned, flapping like great black capes behind them as they walked. In the early days of their partnership, it had seemed to Mulder that either she was scrambling along just behind him or he was forced to slow his lope so she could keep pace. He couldn't recall making a conscious decision to alter his gait permanently, and Scully had not grown longer legs, but somehow they now matched. The cadence of her heels had become part of his internal rhythm, like a heartbeat, constant and strong. Suits jammed the sandwich shop, as though the recess bell had rung on Capitol Hill. Mulder stood in line while Scully stalked a table. After twenty minutes, they had a two-person place by the window and thick turkey sandwiches with golden chips. Mulder waited a moment so he could start with Scully, but she had lifted the top slice of bread from her sandwich and was busy realigning all the ingredients inside so they were even across the bottom slice. "Didn't your mother ever tell you not to play with your food?" he asked, amused. "It tastes better this way." Satisfied, she reassembled her sandwich and took a bite. "Yeah?" He knew he sounded inordinately pleased. With a mental note, he filed "Turkey Sandwich" under "Foods Scully Will Still Eat." As if reading his mind, she glanced at his plate. "Can I have your pickle?" He grinned. "Scully, you can always, always have my pickle." She hid a smile as she plucked it off his plate. "You know, my father used to tell this story about a magic pickle he saw in Puerto Rico once." "It danced, it sang, it pulled a rabbit from a hat?" "Not quite." She paused to lick her fingers. "It brought good luck. The story was that this farmer was struggling to hang on to his land after a couple of years of drought sent him into debt. His latest round of crops was doing well, but he needed a chunk of money to hold him over until the big, end-of-the-summer harvest. Then in the middle of July, the nearest town decided to hold a country fair, complete with a contest for the best produce." "I can see where this is going from a mile away." "Ah-ha," she said, tilting her head at him. "I bet you can't." He made a sweeping motion between them. "Pray continue, then." "The farmer got word of this contest and went out to his fields to select the best quality vegetables to enter in the contest. There were round, red tomatoes and zucchini as long as your arm, but he knew that neighboring farmers had these kinds of vegetables as well." "But not the pickle," Mulder interjected. "No, not the pickle. Out in the farthest field he found the perfect cucumber. It wasn't the longest or the fattest, but it had a pleasing shape and a lovely green color." "Scully, say 'pleasing shape' again." She ignored him. "So the farmer picked the cucumber and took it to the fair. He was so certain it would win that he didn't bring any other vegetables to enter in the contest. Unfortunately for him, the prize money went to a giant eggplant." "Huh," Mulder said, setting down his sandwich. An unexpected twist. "That doesn't sound so lucky to me." "It wasn't," she agreed. "Dejected, the man collected his cucumber and returned to the farm. The story says that on the way home, his tears fell on the cucumber and that's when it took on its luck, but my father was skeptical about that part. In any case, the next day, the man pickled his beloved cucumber and then took it to town to sell at the local grocery. The grocer immediately fell in love with the lone fat pickle in the jar, and he paid top dollar for it, more than the farmer would have received at the fair. The grocer put the giant pickle on display in his window and said he would sell it to the highest bidder. The funny thing, though, was that people started coming by just to see the pickle. His business boomed, and the pickle became the talk of the town." "That's still not magic, though," Mulder argued. "I'm not finished. The man who owned the grocery was blessed with a lovely wife, but they had been unable to have children. One night he took the pickle home to show his visiting mother-in-law, and he brought it in his bedroom that night for safekeeping. The very next month he found out his wife was pregnant." "And it was the pickle that did it," Mulder said, deadpan. "In a manner of speaking, at least that's what the grocer thought. Anyway, he took the pickle back to the store but vowed not to sell it. He told everyone of its powers and people from all over the country started coming by to rub the pickle jar and make a wish. Dad said he talked to a couple of people who swore the pickle made their dreams come true. And that," she said as she picked up his pickle and bit off the end of it, "is the story of the lucky pickle." "Lucky pickle," he said, shaking his head. "I can't believe those words came out of your mouth." But he knew he sounded completely charmed. "I didn't say I believed the story." "Of course not." He looked down at her plate. "And I'm still not eating those things." She shrugged. "More for me." All you want, he thought as he watched her polish off half of the sandwich. In the hum and hustle of the small shop, they could have been any two government flunkies dawdling to avoid going back to their desks, and Mulder searched his brain for a light topic, anything to keep the illusion going. "Tell me more about your lecture," she said before he could think of something to say. "Did you make true believers out of them all?" He smiled and leaned over the tiny table towards her. "You were right about the fluke worm story, Scully. It was a big hit. Eugene Tooms made a pretty big impression, too. The kids got a good laugh out of me and a naked guy under and escalator." "Then you didn't make them believers," she said. "No?" "If they believed these things were real, Mulder, they wouldn't be laughing. They'd be terrified." Mulder thought of the disappeared young woman with the quick smile and easy trust who had walked into his office four years ago, and wondered if maybe Scully believed more than she claimed she did. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Well, here's a kind of laugh," he tried again. "I think Professor Westfall was flirting with me after the lecture." Scully didn't laugh. She paused with her sandwich partway to her mouth. "You *think* she was flirting?" "Okay, I'm pretty sure." He fiddled with his straw wrapper, gauging her reaction in quick glances. Why he felt the need to confess this little detail of his Friday, he did not know. Maybe this was how their relationship worked, where they each served volleys across the net hoping to discombobulate the other. Scully returned his shot. "And what did you do?" she asked. "Uh." Frantic fiddling. He hadn't really expected her to press onward with the conversation. "I guess I let her do it." Scully snorted. "You make it sound like she mauled you in a dark alley, Mulder." "It wasn't like that." "What was it like?" Her gaze nailed his, and he realized he'd been pinned. "It was, um, it was...weird." "It can't have been too weird if you stuck around for more." If there was a correct reply, it failed Mulder. "Forget I mentioned it," he said. "It doesn't matter anyway." Scully's brows knit in a frown. "So you're not going to see her again?" "Am I going to...no, I'm not going to see her again. I can mail the book back to her." "What book?" Understanding dawned on her face. "Ah, the Mexican goatsucker. She's into that, is she?" "Define 'into,'" Mulder replied with a slight leer, butScully was not dissuaded. She leaned across the table. "You should see her again." Okay, he could play at this game. "Why?" "Why?" "Yes, give me one good reason." Scully drew back. "You -- you like her." He shrugged. "I like a lot of people." "Fine, whatever," she said, setting aside her napkin. "Do what you want. I won't play defense attorney in the case of 'Mulder versus A Real Life.'" Irritation flashed through him, hot and quick. "Real life is the best reason to say no. You may have noticed we don't exactly work a standard nine-to-five job." "And Lord knows everything is about the work." She stood to leave and he grabbed her wrist. "Scully, especially now." "Don't you dare make this about me." "But you know. You know better than anyone the consequences of being associated with me." She went perfectly still in his grasp and bowed her head. "I always knew you thought it," she whispered, not looking at him. "I never believed you'd say it out loud." "Scully..." She yanked herself free and swept up her coat in one single, efficient motion. He watched through the cold glass as she disappeared into the crowd. Alone he sat, his knees bumping the table, with her unfinished sandwich. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ "What about sex?" "Excuse me?" Dr. Alton paused from taking Scully's blood pressure. "Sex. I can still have it, can't I?" Scully knew her tone bordered on defiant, but she was still simmering from her lunchtime conversation with Mulder. "As much as you want," Dr. Alton said, but Scully derived no satisfaction from the answer. The sad truth was that she didn't want, not really. It took every ounce of energy she had just to brush her teeth in the evenings. Radiation and chemotherapy seemed to have withered every sexual impulse she had. "You have someone particular in mind?" Dr. Alton asked with a smile. "No," Scully sighed, some of her anger seeping out. "I just want to know the possibility is there." Because it had occurred to her as she had stewed about Mulder that the possibility could disappear any day, that she could die without ever having been touched that way again. And yet there was Mulder, throwing away such a chance while laying the blame at her feet. "God damn him," she muttered. "Ah ha," Dr. Alton said. "So there is a specific him." She released the cuff and Scully wiggled her hand as circulation returned. "Trust me, there isn't. Mulder and I just had an argument today." "About sex?" "In a roundabout way, I guess. There's this...woman." "Oh," Dr. Alton said knowingly. "It's not like that. He's refusing to go out with her." Dr. Alton shone a light in Scully's right eye. "And you think he should." "She's pretty and she seems nice." "Maybe you should go out with her." Scully pulled away. "If she had the right chromosome combination, I would. But Mulder is just determined to end up alone." "Oh," Dr. Alton said again, this time more gently. She wrote down the results of the exam on Scully's chart, then set the pen aside and squeezed Scully's hand. "He's not alone," she said. "And maybe that's what he's trying to tell you." ~*~*~*~*~**~*~*~* Scully drove home in the dark and dragged herself up the stairs into her apartment building. Exhaustion layered every portion of her being, from the physical to the emotional. She looked forward to opening a can of soup and collapsing on the sofa. Smothering a yawn, she trudged the last few steps and turned the corner into her hallway. She halted with a blink. Sitting in front of her door was a large jar containing one single fat pickle. CHAPTER FIVE The two phones in his house rang slightly out of register with one another, like calling birds, despite the fact that they were attached to the same line. Mulder grabbed the closest one and shut them both up. "Hello?" "Hello, Fox?" It was Scully and yet it wasn't. His brain took a moment to resolve the confusion, and when he figured it out, his tone shifted to cautious. "Hello, Mrs. Scully. How are you?" "I'm all right, thank you. How are you?" "Fine," he said, taking a page from the Scully handbook. He lowered himself into his desk chair and rocked backwards. If there was something wrong, he was going to make her be the one to say it. "I hope I'm not interrupting you. I'm calling because it's Dana's birthday in a couple of weeks and the family is having a kind of surprise party. Her brothers are flying in and my sister is coming down from New York." "Surprise party," Mulder repeated, wondering about the wisdom of this boondoggle. Scully kept an itemized, daily "To Do" list in her appointment book; she did not seem to enjoy surprises. "That's, um, that's great." "I just thought with everything that's been going on..." "She'll love it." "We hope you can come, of course. It will be the afternoon of the twenty-second rather than Monday the twenty-third. Maybe you could help get her out of the house so we could set up?" Mulder tried to remember the last time he had attended a birthday party. College, he supposed, when they all piled into the pub and drank themselves silly to celebrate. But the thought of Scully surrounded by streamers and balloons made him smile. "I'll do whatever you need," he said. "Great." He heard a rustling of paper on the other end and imagined the older Scully kept a rather neat list herself. "The main reason I'm calling -- this is a little strange for me to say -- is I've realized I don't know who Dana's friends are these days. She never mentions anyone, and I thought maybe you would know." Mulder's smile faded. Once there had been friends. At the beginning, her stakeout chatter had been peppered with names -- people with ordinary names to match their ordinary lives -- and he'd just tuned her out until she'd started talking about work again, about what was important. This is serious business Scully, keep up, keep up. If we run fast enough we might just figure out what we're chasing. She'd shed people as she shed pounds, becoming lighter, leaner, unencumbered bone and gristle. He took a deep breath. "She never mentions anyone to me either." "Oh," she said, a small sound, heartbreaking in its wistfulness. "I see. It will just be family then, and you." "And me," he agreed. He would go and smile and stand in for all the people lost along the way. He would try to be enough. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Mulder left the heater off in his car and the night chill seeped in through the vents; his white knuckles gripped the wheel with purpose. Invigorated, reckless, he pointed the car toward the highway and did not stop to think about the consequences. By damn, if she had been following his lead all these years then the least he could do was show her a different path. Don't make this about me, she had said, but he didn't know how to measure otherwise. She was the metric of his life. He found Miranda's apartment with no trouble, and the dash clock winked out at ten thirty-three as he cut the engine. Grabbing her book, he got out and jogged across the deserted street. The chain-link gate squeaked as he pushed it open. He walked up the steps and rang the bell for the first floor, then hung back, his breath puffing in the damp cold air. A moment later, he heard footsteps and the white curtain on the door pulled aside. Miranda peered out at him from behind squarish glasses. He gave her a feeble wave. "Agent Mulder?" She opened the door and he saw she was dressed in her pajamas. Flannel checked pants stuck out beneath her robe. "Hi. Sorry about the hour." "That's okay," she said, but still sounded a bit confused. "Would you like to come in?" "NO!" He back-pedaled. "No, thanks. I know it's late. I wanted to return this and ... and to see you." "You did." She accepted the book and leaned against the doorframe, her arms folded across her chest. "Yes. I wanted to know if you might like to have dinner some time. Uh, with me." She raised her eyebrows. "Why?" "Why?" He shoved his hands in his pockets, shifting from one foot to the other. "The other night...I thought you might want to." "And you made it pretty clear you didn't." "Um." This was supposed to have been much easier. "I'm sorry. Maybe I should just go." "No, wait." She leaned forward and placed a hand on his arm. "I didn't mean to give you a hard time. It's just when you left like that the other night, I didn't really expect to see you again, and now here you are out of nowhere." She slid her hand down his coat until she grasped his hand; hers was soft and warm. "I just want to understand." She took a step closer to him, her bare feet on the cold wooden boards of the porch. Not everyone disappeared when he told. Scully had stayed on his bed that first night and listened to the whole story without judgment. When he had knocked on her door the next morning, he'd expected no answer, but there she'd been, still believing in him. If they really believed, Scully had told him today, they'd be terrified. He swallowed with difficulty. "I don't do this very often," he said to Miranda. She squeezed his hand and smiled. "Well, I didn't think it was an act. And hey, we're just talking about dinner, right?" "Right." He tried to imagine it, he and she dressed up in a nice restaurant and surrounded by clinking wine glasses and scraping forks, tried to make it real in his head. But the image kept zooming in and out, blurring, and making him dizzy. "When?" Miranda asked. "Uh..." He hadn't gotten that far in his plans. "How's Thursday? I'm going to be in DC that afternoon doing some research." "Thursday. Thursday's good." If real life had people like Miranda in it, maybe it was worth a try. She would be his secret partner as he went deep undercover as an ordinary citizen. "Seven-thirty?" she said, when he didn't elaborate. "Great. I'll, uh, I'll probably still be at the office." "I know where that is." She teased him gently. "Just keep going down the stairs until you can't go down any further." "That's me. The FBI's most unwanted." "Now that," she said, leaning in to kiss his cheek, "is certainly not true. Good night, Agent Mulder." "Good night." The warmth vanished with her, replaced by a slicing wind. Mulder touched the spot on his cheek where Miranda's lips had been. He stood tingling on the porch for a moment before returning to his car. Like any good field agent, he dug out his cell phone to report his findings. Scully awoke to a ringing phone and a couch imprint on her face. She rubbed her cheek with one hand, reaching around the huge pickle jar with the other to retrieve her phone from the coffee table. "Hello?" "It's me, Scully." "Mulder?" She sat up, blinking sleepily as she tried to read the clock across the room. "What time is it?" "Quarter to eleven. Oh, shit, were you asleep? I'm sorry." "No, no. It's okay. I wasn't in bed." "I wanted to find out how the test went," he said. "At the doctor's." "I'll know the results tomorrow, but everything seems okay." She ran her fingers over the smooth cool glass jar in front of her. The giant pickle bobbed inside. "I found your rather strange offering when I got home." "It's a big one, isn't it?" She could hear the smile in his voice. "Maybe it's even lucky. You should hang on to it for a while to make sure. Don't eat it." "No," she said, smiling too, "I won't eat it." "You were right about today, Scully. I can't blame anyone else for my choices." "No, I shouldn't have pushed you." "No, you were right." Her heart stopped. "I was?" "I think maybe I get too focused on what I can't have. I keep chasing the impossible and inventing stories for myself about why my life has to be the way it is. I don't know. Maybe it does have to be this way, but I thought after what you said I would at least check out the theory." "I'm not sure I'm following you, Mulder." He was quiet for a moment. "Maybe you're following me too much." "What?" "I took your advice, Scully. I'm in Baltimore at Miranda's. Well, outside Miranda's. We're going to have dinner on Thursday." "My advice." Scully closed her eyes and leaned her head back against her sofa. "Yes." When she didn't say anything further, Mulder spoke up again. "I should let you get some sleep. I just wanted you to know I heard what you were saying today. G'night." "Night." She lay back down on the couch, her eyes even with the pickle. It blocked out everything else in her view. I took your advice, he'd said, as though they were playing some grownup version of Simon Says. In the space of a few hours, he had transformed her from the martyr in his life to host of The Mulder Dating Game. She eyed the pickle with disgust. "Lucky, my ass." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Thursday morning, Scully had a homicide and a cup of coffee for breakfast. The homicide -- a high-ranking General shot to death in his limo by a man who wasn't there -- was certainly more interesting than a bagel, but not as filling. She tamped down her stomach's small pathetic grumbles and soon it fell silent altogether. By noon she was blinking away spots from her eyes, but she attributed the fuzziness to Mulder's crazy theory about Teager hiding himself by slipping into holes in his victims' visual fields. "Mulder, there are no such holes," she told him in the car, once they had served their warrant. "I've done the tricks, Scully. In science class in the third Grade. You hold a piece of paper out with a cross on one side and a circle on the other. Look straight ahead and move the paper back and forth and the cross will disappear and reappear as it goes in and out of the blind spot." "Not if you have both eyes open," she argued. "It's true that each eye has a blind spot from where the ocular nerve enters the brain, but the other eye compensates for that small hole. Besides, we're talking about a section of the visual field that is maybe a couple square centimeters; there's no way you could miss a grown man." "But haven't you told me--" The phone rang and cut him off. "Mulder," he said. Scully watched his face for hints about the caller. "Yes. Yes, sir. We'll be there." "What's going on?" she asked when he had hung up. "Teager just showed up at the Vietnam Memorial and then disappeared again. Skinner wants us to meet him there. There's a rededication of the wall scheduled for tonight, and Skinner's worried some of the officials be targets." "From a dead man." "Who is apparently not so dead." The ache behind Scully's eyes intensified. Four years ago there had been only two categories of people in her life, the dead and the living. Then Mulder had come along with a whole new filing system. "Not so dead," she said, trying out the label. "But apparently also invisible." He shook his head. "I still think it's a trick. Didn't you tell me that the eyes are really a tiny part of vision? That we really see with our brains?" "The signals coming in through the eyes are very rough, yes. The brain has to refine and classify them before we can recognize even simple lines." "Exactly." Mulder slapped the steering wheel for emphasis. "So the brain could perhaps be fooled into 'deciding' something isn't there when it really is." Scully turned her head as if to look out the window, using the time to slip two pills into her mouth. She swallowed them dry. "Admit it, Scully -- we only see what we want to see." ~*~*~*~*~* It turned out, as usual, that Mulder was at least partially right; Teager wasn't dead. Except then he was, and now she had blood on her clothes and bags under her eyes. "You want to drive?" Mulder said, jangling the keys at her. She managed a shake of her head. He slid behind the wheel, and she slipped into her seat beside him, fumbling with the seatbelt buckle twice before finding the catch. The roar of the engine seemed overloud, the sound leaping up from beneath her to drown out her pounding heart. She gritted her teeth and willed herself not to be sick. "Fuck," he said a moment later. She pried her eyes open enough to look at him. His gaze was on the dash. "It's almost eight. I was supposed to meet Miranda at seven-thirty." "So call her." "I don't know her number." In the dark, Scully felt perversely satisfied. "She'll understand." "Yeah, I'm sure people stand her up because of invisible assassins all the time." "Well, she'll have to get used to it." She could feel Mulder's eyes on her, but she refused to answer his look. Back at the Hoover building, she lagged behind as they walked through the lobby. Her feet felt weighted down even as her head felt curiously light. Mulder stopped short when they rounded the potted plants, and it took her a moment to figure out why. Miranda sat on one of the long benches. "After hours," she said as she stood with a smile, "apparently they don't like civilians wandering the building around unsupervised. I figured I could wait here." Scully caught Mulder's rueful look. "Sorry about that," he said. "We got hung up on a case." Miranda glanced at the bloodied edge of Scully's suit jacket. "It would seem so. Everything okay?" "Fine," Scully answered. The ground rolled beneath her feet and she swallowed hard. "I'll just be downstairs." "Yeah, come on downstairs for a minute," Mulder said to Miranda. "I'm really sorry about this." The bright fluorescent lights of the elevator shone like lasers to Scully, and she kept her eyes focused downward. She could see Miranda reflected in the metal panels, reaching for Mulder's shoulder. "You have a leaf," Miranda said, and Scully dropped her gaze even more. The room went black. Scully sucked in her breath and grabbed for the railing. "You okay?" she heard Mulder ask. "Yeah." She blinked and her vision returned, but her heart rate had doubled. She retained her death grip on the rail. "Sure?" Mulder pressed. "Mulder, I'm fine." It came out more harshly than she'd intended, but she just wanted the questions to stop. She needed every precious bit of concentration to go to the office, fetch her things, and go home. The soft ding of the elevator signaled their floor and Scully walked out first. Sit down for a few minutes, she coached herself. Catch your breath and everything will be fine. "I understand if you want to postpone dinner," Miranda was saying as they entered the office. Please, Scully thought, go. She sat in her chair. "Uh..." Mulder hedged. He sat, too, and rubbed his eyes with one hand. "I have reservations at La Scala." "Fancy," Miranda observed. There was a pause. "Maybe a bit much for tonight?" "Well, then how do you feel about cheese steaks?" "Love 'em." Mulder shuffled some paper around and stood. "Then I know just the place. Scully?" "Hmm?" Scully grabbed the nearest folder and opened it. The words blurred on the page, but she made a good show of reading. "You want to come get a cheese steak? My treat." "No, thanks," she answered, not sparing him a glance. Taxi, she thought. There's no way I can drive home. "'Kay. I'll see you tomorrow then." "Nice to see you again, Agent Scully," Miranda said. Scully nodded in her direction. "Bye." They left and Scully breathed in the quiet. The journey back to Georgetown seemed as impossible as a trip to the moon, so she broke it down into small mental steps. Phone. Taxi. Soon she could climb inside and close her eyes. When she opened them again, she would be home. ~*~*~*~*~*~ Instead of linen tablecloths and crystal, they had particleboard and red plastic cups, but the steak was tender and the cheese was hot. "These are great," Miranda said, taking a healthy bite of hers. "Best in the city," Mulder agreed. He could feel some of the evening's stress evaporating from his body. "Just try not to notice the grease." Miranda smiled. "I'm glad you were still willing to have dinner with me. You look like you've been through the wringer. Wrestling in the sewers again?" "No, we were involved in that trouble at the Vietnam Memorial today." She shook her head, confused. "What trouble? I've been cooped up in the library all day." "An ex-POW tried to assassinate one of the generals at the rededication ceremony." "My God," Miranda breathed. "What happened?" "We stopped him." He didn't detail how, or mention the two successful murders they'd had earlier in the day. But Miranda didn't seem fazed. She leaned forward, her eyes alight. "So what was the X-File?" Mulder shifted backwards on the bench, uncomfortable. It was one thing to recount old glories over a couple of beers, quite another to titillate while three men lay freshly dead. "I really can't get into it," he said. "Oh. That's okay." He tried changing tacks. "How did your research go?" "Great," she said, brightening again. "After your mention of El Chupacabras the other night, I got to thinking it would be interesting to do a lecture on Hispanic myths, perhaps near the end of the semester. Maybe you could come back for that one." "Could be." He swirled the ice around in his glass. "Hey, have you ever heard of a lucky pickle in Puerto Rico?" "You've got to be kidding me. A lucky pickle?" "Sure." He told her the story, and she laughed when he finished. "That is some tale. I bet you anything that a clever pickle vendor invented it to boost sales." He smiled. "So you'll believe in goatsuckers but not magic vegetables." "Pickle power?" She was teasing him again, the way Scully used to do. His toes curled with happiness. "Just how is that supposed to work? Is it like a genie in the lamp, where you rub the jar and the pickle makes your wish come true?" "Maybe it's like the Pope," he said, catching on, "where you request an audience with the pickle." Miranda laughed. "I think you can go to hell for that analogy." "Nah." Mulder paused for effect. "I'm sure his Eminence and the pickle play for the same team." "You're positively awful!" Miranda tossed her napkin at him just as his cell phone rang. The hilarity ceased. "More work?" she asked. "Shouldn't be." He dug out the phone but didn't recognize the number glowing on his small screen. "Hello?" "Fox Mulder?" "Yes, this is Fox Mulder." "This Gabrielle Lucas from the Georgetown Medical Center. I'm calling because you are listed on Dana Scully's emergency contact card." Mulder stood up so quickly that he knocked the table, causing the cups to jump. "What happened? Where is she?" "Ms. Scully was admitted to our emergency room a short while ago. You might want to come down here at your earliest convenience." "What's wrong? What happened? Is she okay?" Mulder struggled to yank his coat free from where it had caught between the seat and the back of the bench. "Fox?" Miranda gave him a worried look. "All I can tell you is that we're treating her now. I promise we'll give you all the details when you get here, sir." "I'm coming. Tell her I'm coming." He snapped off the phone and freed his coat. "Scully's in the hospital," he said, already on the move towards the door. "I've got to go." "Wait! I'll drive you." "No, no," he muttered, fumbling for his keys. "It's fine." Miranda caught up with him on the sidewalk and snatched the keys from his hand. "You're not going to do her any good if you wrap yourself around a tree." "Okay, whatever. Let's just go!" ~*~*~*~*~*~ Scully had vague recollections of being loaded onto a stretcher and wheeled into the hospital. She was reasonably sure she'd answered some questions about her name and the year, but she couldn't remember where they told her she was. Still the hospital, she observed, noting the striped curtain and the IV in her arm. Dr. Alton poked her head around the curtain and ended the mystery. "Hi," she said. "I was just leaving when I got word they'd brought you in. Seems you gave some poor taxi driver quite a scare." "He brought me here?" Dr. Alton entered the makeshift room and picked up Scully's chart. "You took a pretty hard snooze in the back of his cab. How are you feeling now?" "Fuzzy." Scully tried to sit up, but Dr. Alton gently pushed her back down. "None of that." "What happened to me?" "I'm not sure," Dr. Alton said, scanning her records. "But I can guess. How much have you eaten today?" Scully thought back through a day that felt more like a year. "Coffee," she said. "Animal crackers. Some of a ham sandwich." "Mmm-hmm. How much of a ham sandwich?" "I'm really not sure." "Well, I am. It wasn't enough. I know you want to keep this job, Dana, but you're going to have to take better care of yourself." "I work these kinds of days all the time. It's never been a problem." "You've lost eighteen pounds," Dr. Alton said more gently. "Your body doesn't have the kind of reserves it did before. You need more rest and regular meals." "I need to go home," Scully said. "Not until Dr. Canera releases you. I think your Mom is on her way." Scully closed her eyes. "Great." "Hey, if it were up to me, I'd keep you until after your treatment tomorrow." "Mmm." Scully was trying to make her sluggish brain come up with a good story to tell her mother. Dr. Alton sighed and squeezed her hand. "Feel better, Dana. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Mulder crashed through the emergency room doors with Miranda on his heels. "Dana Scully," he said to the receptionist. "They told me she was brought here." "One minute, sir." "Fox!" He turned at the sound of Mrs. Scully's voice. "I just got here," she said. Her cheeks were pink from the cold. "What's going on? How's Dana?" "I don't know." "Mrs. Scully?" "Oh, thank God," Mrs. Scully said, her hand to her heart. "Dr. Alton." The name was familiar to Mulder, but he had never met the woman. He searched her face for any clues about how bad the situation was. Dr. Alton greeted Scully's mom with a calm smile. "Dana is okay," she said. "She's all right." Mrs. Scully covered half her face with one hand. "Really? She's okay?" "She just overdid it a little." Dr. Alton gave Mulder an appraising look. "You must be Agent Mulder." "Yeah." Invited to join the inner circle, he took a step forward. "What happened to Scully?" "My guess is that she let her blood sugar get too low, but you'll have to talk to Dr. Canera about that. He's her treating physician in the ER." "Can I see her?" Mrs. Scully asked. "I'm sure you can." She hesitated. "Let me ask you something," she said to Mrs. Scully. "How is Dana doing after the treatments on Fridays? I get the feeling she might be downplaying her fatigue a little." Mrs. Scully wrapped her arms around her waist. "I wouldn't know," she said stiffly. "He's the one who picks her up on Fridays." The hairs on Mulder's neck stood up. "No, I don't. She said you stay with her." "Oh, God," her mother said, turning away. "So let me get this straight," Dr. Alton said. "What I'm hearing is that *no one* is picking her up from treatments?" "I just don't know what to do," her mother said. "I just don't know what to do anymore." "We'll figure it out," Dr. Alton assured her. "Right now why don't you go and see Dana? And go easy on her. She's had a rough day." Her mother pursed her lips. "I need a glass of water. I need to to sit down for a minute." "Okay, let me help you." Dr. Alton's voice was soothing. Mulder drifted away from them, back into the emergency room. "Dana Scully?" he asked a passing nurse, and she gestured to a curtain near the back. All the beeping and the voices faded away as he approached the tiny area. He drew back the curtain. "Scully?" "Mulder." She was as thin and pale as the sheet. Blood stained the collar of her suit, remnants of an unchecked nosebleed. "Scully," he repeated, and tears filled her eyes. He stepped forward and took her small, cold hand. His throat ached. "Scully, what are you doing?" She squeezed. "The best I can." CHAPTER SIX Miranda was easy to spot in the waiting room. Long legs crossed and a dog-eared copy of "People" in her lap, she was the only one not keeled over in either pain or anxiety. He took a deep breath and dragged himself over to where she sat. "Hi," she said when she saw him. "Hi," he said as he plopped down next to her. "I'm sorry to take so long." "Don't be silly. I've been perfectly fine here. How is Scully doing?" "She's okay." He plucked at the large button on his overcoat. Indoors nearly two hours now, he still hadn't gotten around to taking it off. "She's sleeping. They're going to keep her overnight." "What happened?" Mulder leaned forward, his face in his hands. This was always the question, the one for which he'd follow a million miles of yellow brick road to find a wizard with the answer. Surely somewhere there was the original sin, the person with the first blood on his hands, someone to explain why his life just kept unraveling as he stood by with the strands choking everyone around him. "Scully's sick," he said. "Cancer." "Oh, how awful." She touched his shoulder. "I'm so sorry." "Yeah." He rubbed his face a couple of times and sat back in his seat. "Awful doesn't even scratch the surface." "No, it doesn't." Miranda paused. "I never would have guessed she was sick." Mulder puffed out a short breath. "Believe me, she wants it that way." "She must be a person of great fortitude to keep working as she has. I admire her strength." "It's complicated." Miranda laced her fingers with his and rose from her chair. "Why don't we go down to the cafeteria and get a sandwich. You can explain it to me." He shook his head, remaining seated. "It's late. I should take you home." "You're not driving anywhere. C'mon, let's eat something." She tugged until he stood up, and his stomach picked that moment to rumble into action again. Adrenaline had vaporized the three bites of cheese steak he'd had earlier. "I guess a sandwich would be okay." Downstairs they purchased pre-wrapped plates and cans of soda. The lack of windows made it hard to discern how late it was; young people in scrubs and wrinkled loved ones waiting out the night sat scattered about the pale yellow room. Mulder followed Miranda to a narrow booth and slid in across from her. Miranda glanced at him as she removed the plastic covering from her plate. "When my mom was sick, everyone walked on egg shells around me, figuring that I didn't want to talk about it. But really, they were the ones who didn't want to talk. 'How's it going, dear? Good, good.' The doctors gave her six months to live, and I still had to present a happy face to the outside world." Mulder bit into his club sandwich and chewed without tasting. His pulse still beat high and rapid in his throat. "I stopped at the drug store one night on my way home from the hospital," Miranda continued. "The clerk said, 'Have a nice day!' and I went outside and sobbed in my car for half an hour." "Scully is...Scully's going to be okay." "Oh," she said, startled. "Of course she is." She reached over and squeezed his arm. "I didn't mean...I'm sorry. All I was trying to say is that I know how hard it can be to get through a day when you're falling apart inside." Yes, he thought, feeling himself crumble a bit more. He put down his sandwich. "You want my pickle?" he asked. "No, thanks." "Scully usually eats my pickle." Miranda smiled. "You've known her a long time, haven't you?" "Four years. I didn't want a partner but they gave me one anyway. God, she was green. She stepped into my office with this serious little face and acted like she knew everything." "I'm sure you disabused her of that notion," Miranda said. "Actually, I'm not sure I ever did. You know Gina from your class? Well, that was Scully. That *is* Scully. She's got an argument for everything." "It takes two to argue," Miranda said mildly, and Mulder smiled. "True. We eye each other over the pile of evidence and see who can come up with a theory first. Every big word I use, Scully digs up one larger." "Sounds like the makings of a perfect partnership." Mulder shook his head, bemused, and popped open his can of soda. "You've been great tonight, with everything that's happened. Thanks. I owe you one." "I was happy to help. And the only thing you owe me is dinner." Mulder nodded as he took another bite of his sandwich. "I'll have to get back to you on when." "No hurry." She rested her chin on her hand, studying him intently. Mulder brushed crumbs off his shirt. "What?" he asked around a mouthful of food. "I'm just trying to figure out if I should be offended or flattered." "Um...I'm not following you." She sighed and straightened herself in the booth. "You lied to me when you said you weren't attached. Clearly, you are. Very much so." Mulder swallowed the lump of bread in his throat. "I didn't lie." "I think I'll go with 'flattered,'" she said to herself. "It's better for the ego." "Miranda, I'm not seeing anyone." "Scully." "We're friends. Partners." "On the outside, maybe." She reached across the table and brushed her fingers over his heart. "But not in here." He squeezed his eyes shut. "That doesn't change anything. It doesn't count." "Fox," she said, and when he opened his eyes she was looking at him with a sad smile. "You beautiful, stupid man. That's where it counts most of all." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Scully had to blink several times to be sure she had opened her eyes because the room was as black as the inside of her head. Her limbs felt heavy under the sheet, her tongue swollen in her dry mouth. She shifted as she tried to get her bearings. "Dana?" Her mom's soft voice floated across the darkness. A second later, a tiny light switched on. Scully turned her head and squinted at her mother. "Mom? You're still here?" "Of course I'm here. How are you feeling? Would you like some water?" "Yes, please." She struggled to sit up as her mother poured some water into a pink plastic cup. It felt smooth and cool in her hand, and she was reminded of Koolaid on hot summer days. "What time is it?" "It's after one." Her mother wiped the tray where condensation had accumulated around the pitcher. "You should go home and get some rest. I'll be fine." Her mother stiffened, then completed her task with one precise swipe. "You are not fine. You are running yourself into the ground, and I just don't understand it." "Today was a mistake I won't make again." "Do you listen to your doctor, Dana? Because I just had a very illuminating conversation with her tonight. You have to slow down. You have to take care of yourself." "I am taking care of myself!" There certainly wasn't anyone else cleaning the toilet after she was sick or juggling all of her medication bottles. Mulder, her mother, everyone wanted an up-close look at her illness, but they didn't seem to realize what she was sparing them. "I am handling this the best way possible, Mom. You have to trust me on this." "Trust you? How am I supposed to do that when I get a call saying my daughter in the ER because she passed out in the back of a cab?" Scully closed her eyes and sank into the pillow. "You don't understand." "I do understand," her mother said fiercely. Scully felt the bed sag, and her mother grabbed her hand. "I know exactly what it feels like to lose a daughter. You're not the only one who's terrified here. But pretending you're not sick is not going to make everything magically better, Dana. It only makes things worse." Scully opened her eyes again to find a lock of hair had fallen into her face; her mother brushed it away. "I'm not pretending I'm not sick," she said. "But I won't pretend to be dead either." "Oh, Dana. No one is asking you to. But all this running you do, all this stress. And for what? Just to put yourself in the hospital? This is time you should be concentrating on spending with your family. You should be doing things you love." *I am.* The guilty words popped into Scully's head unbidden, and she immediately dropped her gaze. Her actions spoke louder, she supposed: I have my priorities, mother. You're just not one of them. Her mother squeezed her hands again. "I used to rub your back when you weren't feeling well, remember? And make the special soup? I should be taking care of you now. Instead I hardly see you." Scully blinked back exhausted tears. "Mom, I'm not trying to hurt you. I promise you that. I just don't know why you would even want to be here during the treatments when there is nothing you can do. I'll be sick whether there is anyone around to see it or not. It doesn't matter." It was her mother's turn to look away. "It matters to me." ~*~*~*~*~*~ The following Friday morning he made his opening gambit. "Scully, they're showing 'The African Queen' at GW this Sunday afternoon. What do you say we check it out?" Across the room, Scully took off her glasses and wrinkled her nose at him. "A movie? No, I don't think so." She returned her attention to her laptop. "I have to take advantage of the weekends I don't have radiation treatment, and I have a ton of work to catch up on this week." "But it's a classic! Bogey and Hepburn! Leeches! C'mon, Scully, I know you love leeches." She smiled faintly but did not look up. "Another time, Mulder. Why don't you see if Miranda will go with you?" Because I'm not supposed to get Miranda out of the house for a surprise party, he thought. No doubt *she* would cooperate and just go to the damn movie. He tossed a pencil at the ceiling in frustration. It bounced back and hit him in the eye. "Dammit," he muttered, clutching his injury. "Hmm?" Scully still wasn't looking at him. "Scully..." Just tell her, part of his brain said. She'd want to know anyway. Mrs. Scully would have your jewels on a platter if you ruined the surprise, the other half warned. "Mulder, what have you done?" Scully got up from her table. "It's fine," he said as he rubbed his eye. He blinked a few times to fix the blurriness and all was well again, but Scully was already standing over him. "What happened?" she asked, leaning down. He used his two good eyes to check out the shadowy hollow between her breasts. "Nothing," he said. At that moment, another pencil let loose from the ceiling and landed in her hair. "Mulder." "Oops?" She removed the pencil and sighed. "Serves you right, then," she said as she tossed the offending object back on his desk. She then glanced up at the collection that still stuck to his ceiling. "You better take those down before you go blind." "It's art, Scully. I'm saying something about the limits of mankind to achieve his dreams." Scully folded her arms and sent him a look of equal affection and exasperation. "No, you're saying something about man's attention span when it comes to filing expense reports." "But in an artistic way." She rolled her eyes and started to walk back to her desk. "Scully, wait! I, uh, I need your help with something." At her instant look of concern, he felt a little guilty. "What is it? Is it your eye?" "No, uh...it's...it's my bathroom!" She arched an eyebrow at him and he scrambled for an explanation. "I'm...I'm painting it this weekend, and you've got good, steady hands. What do you say? Help me out for a couple of hours?" The little lines appeared between her eyebrows. "You want me to help you paint your bathroom." He nodded vigorously. "I helped you move your furniture that one time." Her shoulders rose and fell with her sigh. "Fine. Saturday morning okay?" "Sunday afternoon." She narrowed her eyes. "I thought you wanted to see 'The African Queen' on Sunday." "I'll catch a Saturday show." He didn't offer anything further, so after another minute of staring at him curiously, Scully shook her head. "Sunday it is." He told her one o'clock, and at the stroke of one, Scully knocked on his door. Scully seemed to have beaten the laws of physics at their own game; no matter what the hour of day or traffic patterns, she always arrived precisely when she said she would, as if the time-space continuum parted for her like the Red Sea. He opened the door and had to adjust his gaze downward to meet her eyes. Without her heels, Scully reduced to one size smaller, like one of those Russian dolls that fit inside themselves. She wore a faded gray FBI sweatshirt and a girly, time machine ponytail that catapulted him back to their early days when Scully had waged daily war with her hair. "I'm having a crisis," he said by way of greeting. "Should I go with 'Ocean Breeze' or 'Misty Forest'?" Scully hooked her jacket next to his and joined him by the paint cans. "You bought both of them?" "Yep." Mulder put his hands on his hips. "What do you think, Scully? What would Martha do?" "Martha would use one of her millions and hire someone else to do it." "Yes, but--" He held up the cans. "Blue? Or green? Leafy? Or breezy? And why does the interior decorating community think that I'm so hot to pee outdoors?" Scully dropped her chin to hide a smile. "Use the blue," she said. "You haven't had much luck in the forest." "Ah, true. It's important to cultivate good bathroom karma." He set the green paint back on the coffee table, and she followed him to the bathroom. "I cleared out all my junk earlier so it should be all set to go. You can get first dibs on the brushes." She perused the assortment he had lying on the counter next to the sink. "Just bought one of each, did you?" "It took me long enough to find the damn paint aisle in the first place. I was not about to go back any time soon." "We should take the shower curtain down first," she said, moving to stand on the edge of his tub. She disappeared behind the blue- striped plastic until all he could see was her sneakers peeking out below. "Mulder!" He turned at the sound of her laughter bouncing off his porcelain. "What?" She held a rubber alien bath toy above the curtain rod. "What on earth is this?" "That's Frohike being a smart-ass. Or so he thinks. I got even by calling the thing Melvin." "I don't even want to think about the significance of you bathing with a toy named after Frohike, Mulder." Huh. He hadn't thought about it that way. She had a point. "I'll move it to the bedroom," he called, and Scully dissolved into fresh echoing giggles. "Much better." She freed the curtain from the last of the hooks and held it out to him. "Get rid of this and hand me the tape and the one-and-a-half inch brush. I'll start over here." He did as she requested and then popped the lid on "Ocean Breeze." Scully straddled his tub to tape up the molding. He hoped she worked fast because they were due back at her house at four. "How do you do that?" he asked her after a solid hour's worth of painting. His strokes left sliding blobs that careened over the tape border and plopped onto the floor. Scully's tape was nearly clean. "Do what?" "My hands have so much breeze on them they might blow away." He held up his palms to prove it. "You don't have a drop on you." She shrugged. "Learn to remove the malleus and the incus without disturbing the stapes, and you could paint a straight line, too." "I think I'll leave my incus where it is, thanks. How are you doing for paint? You need some more?" "No, I've got plen--" She broke off in mid-sentence for a wet, choking cough. Mulder looked over and saw his newly-painted wall splattered with blood. "Shit, Scully!" He leapt over the paint cans, skidding on the sheet they used as a drop cloth. "I'm okay." She tipped her head back and pinched her nose. A trickle of blood ran down neck. Mulder batted the toilet paper roll until it unraveled a long trail of tissue. "Here," he said as he handed it to her. Scully coughed again. "Your wall..." "Can wait. Let me get you down from there." He wrapped his arms around her and lifted her to the ground. "Here, sit." Scully sat on the lid of the toilet and he crouched next to her with more tissue in hand. "I'm fine," she said, still staunching the flow. "It will stop in a minute." He squeezed her knee and said nothing. Surrounded by pale blue, he saw only the deep red of her blood. A lock of hair had pulled free from her ponytail and wisped against her cheek. It seemed pale and faded next to the life force leaking out of her. "Stop looking at me like that." She straightened and wiped the last of the blood from under her nose. "I'm fine." Wordlessly, he stepped aside and let her go to the mirror. "Oh, my God," she breathed. Flecks of blood dotted her chin and the front of her sweater. "Scully..." She turned on the water faucet with a sharp twist, drowning him out. "Do you have an old rag? I should be able to get most of it off the wall with just cold water." "Maybe you should sit down for a minute. Take it easy." "How about in here?" She opened his small linen cabinet, but he pulled the door from her grasp. "I'll get the wall. You sit down." "It's fine, Mulder." "I'll fix it." "No!" The cabinet door took the skin from his fingers as she slammed it shut. "You can't fucking fix it!" She left the bathroom with small, angry steps, and he stood there with toilet paper still in his hand. It stuck to his palm as he tried to shake it away. He heard her in the kitchen banging some more doors. Cautiously, he padded down the hall. "Scully?" "These will have to do," she said, brushing past him with a roll of paper towels. He traipsed after her into the bathroom and watched her wet the towels and climb back onto the ledges of the tub. She attacked the bloodstains with vicious swipes. He could see her knuckles turning white from across the room. Leaning against the doorframe, he said nothing while she exhausted herself. The fight left her all at once, her shoulders wilting, and the hair falling back into her eyes. "We'll have to paint over it," she said, her gaze fixed on his grout. He walked over to her, saw her fingertips peeping out from the edge of her sweatshirt. They were cold and wet when tickled them with his own. "It's okay." "I'm sorry." He took her hand and pulled her back down. "Me, too." She leaned into him, sniffling against his tee-shirt. His thumb found the soft hairs at the back of her neck, and he kept a slow rhythm until she shuddered in his arms. "Better?" He felt the heat from he cheek as she nodded. "I'm all right." He kissed her head and she pulled away. He squinted. "I think I got paint in your hair." "We're even then. I got blood on your shirt." He looked down, and sure enough, there was a small smatter of red on the edge of his shirt. "True partners," he remarked, and she smiled. "I'll make you a deal. You finish that strip right there, and I'll take care of the tub. I've got the bigger brush anyway." "Men and size," she muttered, but she was still smiling. Mulder took his brush and covered the faint spots with a few easy strokes. Gone but not forgotten. He knew he could bring home a little Luminol from the lab, a little UV lighting, and the marks would still be there -- evidence that this day had existed. CHAPTER SEVEN The doorway to Mulder's bathroom turned out to be the perfect size for one Mulder and one Scully, provided the Mulder kept his arm stretched over her head like a chin-up bar. He smelled of paint and of warm, sweaty male. "I think breezy was the way to go," he said as they surveyed their handiwork. "It looks good." "It does seem brighter in here." He bopped her gently on the head with his elbow. "Thanks for your help." "You're welcome." She smiled, surprised to find she meant it. When she'd awoken tired and achy that morning, she had considered canceling on his little home improvement project, but now that it was done, she relished the feeling of satisfaction. Often at the end of her days with Mulder, she had more questions than she had answers, nothing tangible to show for their work. It was nice to see something through to the end, even if it was only a tiny blue bathroom. "So now we have two options," he said. "We can stand here and get high on the fumes, or we can go grab some pizza at the Taverna." She looked up at him. "Mulder, the Taverna is all the way over near my place." "But they have the best pizza." He lowered his arm, squeezing them tighter together in the doorway. "And we can pick up a copy of 'The African Queen' and watch while we eat. What do you say?" Her stomach grumbled. "I'll take that as a yes," he said, grinning. "Yeah, okay. Let me wash the worst of the paint from my hands and we can go." "Oh." He sounded suddenly pained, and she turned to look at him. "What?" "Um...nothing." He scratched the back of his head and gave her the once-over. "I could loan you a shirt or a sweater or something. If you want." She looked down at the blood splattered across her sweatshirt. "I've worn worse. I'll just change when we get to my place." "Yeah, about that..." She raised questioning eyes to his in the bathroom mirror as she scrubbed her hands with practiced, efficient motions. He opened his mouth and then shut it again, as if changing tactics. "We're stopping for the pizza first, remember?" She frowned and used his hand towel. "We won't be there long. I'll just keep my coat on." "Okay." Mulder gave a frustrated sigh, and her irritation level rose a notch. Here was a man who skulked in empty graves, playing Pick Up Stix with the long white bones, and now he was squirming over a few spots of blood? "It'll be fine," she said, giving him a pointed look. He shrugged. "I just want it on the record that I tried." It must be the fumes, she thought, shaking her head as she trailed after him into the living room. They collected their coats and agreed to take separate cars to the pizza parlor. "Sausage, pepperoni and onions," he said in the elevator. "No pepperoni. And I want a vegetable." "Olives--" "Are not a vegetable." "And I am not eating a pizza with leaves and stems on it." The elevator dinged and she fished her keys from her pocket. "Peppers," she said, "and I'll get a side salad." "Deal." But she knew he would make sure to beat her to the restaurant, just in case. Back at her apartment the hallway was Sunday quiet, with long purple shadows from the setting sun. Someone had pulled Mulder's string, though, and he kept up a steady stream of chatter behind her. "No, listen, Scully, I was reading last week, and I think you'll find this very interesting: given that the cells in our bodies are charged, it's possible that the naturally-occurring electromagnetic fields could be harnessed as a form of mind- control." Scully let his words rumble around inside her without assigning them any meaning. She caught her breath, closed her eyes, capturing the coldness of the key against her fingers, the spicy pizza air, and the unseen solid Mulder at her back. She'd learned to hoard time in smooth-stone moments, slipped deep in her pocket. Mulder fell silent at the scrape of her key in the lock, just in time for a thump inside her apartment and the escape of a distinctive child-like giggle. Scully drew back and blinked at her door. "Did you hear that?" "Um, what?" She turned to look at him and he looked at the ceiling. "Oh, God. Tell me you didn't." "It wasn't me!" "Oh, no." She fisted her keys and raised one arm in despair. "I'm not going in there." He crowded closer, bumping her with the box. "You have to. The pizza's getting cold." "We can eat it here in the hallway." "Scully." She opened her eyes and favored him with a baleful look. "Open the door." She drew a long, put-upon breath, and reinserted her key. Wincing in anticipation, she pushed open the door. "Surprise!" Scully stood with her shoulders drawn up around her ears, as if someone had doused her with a bucket of ice water. Someone snapped a flash photo in her face. Bill once told her that her pictures made her look like a robot imitating a human, only Bill had used the word "mandroid." "Happy birthday, honey," said her mother. Mulder gave Scully a not-so-subtle shove into the apartment, and she pasted on her best mandroid smile. There was a "Happy Birthday" banner stretched across the wall over her windows, and she just knew someone had stood on her antique chair to put it there. Relatives she had not seen in years peeped out among bunches of helium balloons. Aunt Ruth gave her the same exaggerated finger wave she'd had since Scully was three. "Dear heavens," her mother said, reaching for her. "Is that paint in your hair?" Scully ducked from her touch. "Yes." "I had to get her out of the house somehow," Mulder explained. He was still holding the pizza box. "Well, come on in here and join the party. Allison and Mark have come all the way from Nebraska! Isn't that wonderful?" Scully had vague memories of her cousin Allison showing her and Melissa how to French braid their hair one summer that their parents had rented a cottage together for a week. She'd sent a card -- and candlesticks? -- to Allison and Mark for their wedding years ago. "Yes, wonderful," she said aloud, trying to smile at her cousin. Allison nodded back. "Dana!" Scully turned towards the voice and found herself crushed in a huge hug. "Charlie," she said, letting him rock her nearly off her feet. She curled her fingers into his scratchy wool sweater and smiled against his shoulder. "How are you?" he asked into her ear. "Good," she said, pulling away. He tugged her ponytail and smiled. "Thirty-three, huh? I can't believe it. I remember when you used to pin me to the ground and make off with my water gun. I walked around with knee-shaped bruises on my ribs the whole summer I was six years old." "I could still take you." Charlie's smile dimmed a little but he nodded. "Sure, sure you could." Everyone had been watching them, so when they fell silent, the tension expanded to include the whole room. Her mother flitted in and started to remove Scully's coat. "Stay a while," she said. It came out too stiffly to be teasing. Scully shrugged out of her jacket, and her mother's eyes grew round. "Dana..." The blood. Of course. Scully turned away from the faintly horrified looks of her relatives. "It's fine," she said. "I'll just go change." She shot Mulder a look as she left. He'd plastered himself nearly to the wall, still wearing his coat and clutching the pizza. He looked so uncomfortable that she couldn't be too upset at him for his role in the afternoon's shenanigans; no doubt her mother had twisted his arm, too. She did, however, take a certain delight in leaving him to his wide-eyed terror as she disappeared into the bedroom. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~ "You must be Mulder. I'm Charlie, Dana's brother." Charlie extended his hand, and Mulder set down the pizza so he could reciprocate. He saw pieces of his Scully in so many faces around him -- a chin here, an earlobe there. Here was her brother with the same piercing, pale eyes. Mulder thought this must be how archeologists felt on a dig, reconstructing a civilization through dusty bits of the past. "The one in Atlanta," Mulder said as he shook Charlie's hand. "She's mentioned you." Charlie gave him a quick smile. "All of it lies." He held on to Mulder's hand when Mulder would have pulled it away. "She's mentioned you, too." Mulder's smile was rueful. "All of it true, I'm sure." He hoped Scully wasn't too truthful, though; Scully might be confident of her ability to take down her tall, broad-shouldered sibling, but Mulder didn't relish the opportunity himself. An older woman with wire-rimmed glasses and a neat perm stepped forward. "So you're one of Dana's work colleagues?" "Yes, Ma'am. My name is Fox Mulder." The woman pursed her lips. "I'm still not clear how she went through medical school and ended up working for the FBI." From the way the rest of the Scully family looked around at the walls, it was obvious no one else was clear either. Charlie scratched behind his ear. "Something about aliens, right?" "Charlie!" Mrs. Scully's voice cut in from all the way across the room. "What?" He turned back to Mulder. "Stands to reason they're out there, right? We can't be the only ones in the whole damn universe. I think it's just as well that the government is keeping a lookout." Mulder wrinkled his brow, trying to figure out whether the man was joking. He could never tell with Scully, either. Charlie walked over to the buffet table set up in front of Scully's bookcase. "You want a beer?" he asked. "Uh, sure." Mulder took off his coat and went to join him. Charlie handed him a bottle of Sam Adams. "Tell me the truth," he said, "what did you think of 'Independence Day'?" ~*~*~*~*~ Scully returned in slacks and a lavender sweater, but there was nothing she could do about the paint in her hair. Her mother squeezed her around the shoulders when she reentered the living room. "There you are! Sit down and eat something. Tara and I were cooking all day." "Tara's here?" With Tara came Bill. "Yes, she's in the kitchen. Bill was supposed to come but work kept him in California at the last minute. He sends his love." "So Tara came *alone*? To see me?" "Of course she did. Everyone wanted to see you." Her mother smiled and fussed with Scully's hair. Scully ducked her again. "Mom, I've spoken to Tara maybe four times in my life." "All the more reason you should visit with her now. She studied biology in college, you know. I'd bet you have lots in common." As if on cue, Tara emerged from Scully's kitchen carrying a tray of tiny pastries. "Dana, hi. Happy birthday." "Thanks." Scully searched for something more to say. "Thanks, uh, for coming. Everything looks great." Tara's smile broadened. "These are wild mushroom and goat cheese. Try one." Scully accepted a miniature turnover, and it flaked apart deliciously in her mouth. "Mmm, these are marvelous." "Thanks. It's my mom's recipe. Oh, before I forget -- Bill wanted me to say how sorry he was that he couldn't make it. He said he'll give you a call today or tomorrow." "Mom mentioned. How is he doing these days?" "He's good. He's taken up golf, if you can believe it. I tell you, the Navy boys have nothing on the kind of language you hear out on the putting green. It's supposed to relax him, but now every spare minute he's trying to get a ball into a cup in our dining room." "Bill never does anything halfway." "Funny." Tara popped a pastry into her mouth. "He says the same thing about you." Scully lowered her gaze. "I guess there are worse things he could say." "Well, look at you, still working full time. I think in your position I'd quit my job and travel around the world. Have some fun." "Fun?" Scully echoed. Tara turned a deep pink. "But that would be silly for you, right? You get to travel all the time for your job! Don't mind my rambling. I should, um, check the oven. Happy birthday again." Scully let Tara flee to the safety of the kitchen, then turned around to study her room full of relatives and sagging streamers. She sighed so deeply it stirred her hair. Happy, she thought. Right. ~*~*~ Mulder took up his usual spot as a fringe-dweller, watching from the edge of the crowd as Scully opened her presents on the couch. A pair of little girls who had been mainlining sugar all afternoon bounced on either side of her; it was a good thing Scully had strong sea legs. "Perfume," she said as she lifted a small vial from a silver box. She uncapped and sniffed obligingly. "Thank you." Mulder folded his arms and leaned against the wall. Scully, he knew, had stopped wearing perfume since she'd been sick. Whether it was the smell or the feel that bothered her, he did not know, but he had noticed that she smelled only of mild soap these days. Scully pulled a large, brightly wrapped package on to her lap. "That one is from me," her mother said. "Rip it! Rip it!" hollered the little urchin at Scully's left. Scully smiled and tore the paper off in one long rip. The box inside held white pajamas and a white terry cloth robe. "Thank you," Scully said, holding them up so everyone could admire. Mulder sipped his beer and watched her add to the pile: two winter sweaters, chocolate, fuzzy slippers and patterned scarves. Three of them. And two hats, as well. As she displayed the last one for the group, Scully met Mulder's gaze at the back of the room. She gave him just the slightest quirk of one eyebrow, and he had to look away so as not to laugh. Clearly, her family had all been expecting her to be bald. Mulder sobered as he mentally evaluated her loot. Every last one of the gifts could be used immediately; she'd received no summer clothes, no magazine subscriptions, no nonperishable food items -- nothing to suggest she might be around past spring. He wondered if she'd noticed. "Mine's last," Charlie said, handing her a package that looked like a wrapped pineapple. Close, Mulder amended as Scully withdrew what appeared to be a small, petrified porcupine. "Thanks," she said, turning the prickly fruit over in her hand. "What is it?" "It's a horned melon," Charlie explained as he pushed forward through the group. "You'll be getting about a dozen more in the mail soon." Scully frowned at the fruit. "At least it won't get lonely." "It's the Fruit of the Month! You get a different one each month for a whole year." "A whole year." Her eyes filled with tears, and that's when Mulder knew she'd noticed. He blinked back his own. Scully stood up and cupped Charlie's face in her hands. "Thank you," she said, kissing him on the cheek. "I love it." He smiled and shrugged off her affection. "I know you like to eat healthy." The excitement had passed, so the adults drifted away from their cluster like dazed sheep, with the hyper children nipping at their heels. Mulder did his best to stay out of the way. Mrs. Scully cornered him by the armoire. "Fox, would you clear off the buffet table? We're going to bring out the cake." Mulder would do pretty much anything for cake, so he began gathering up empty plates and bowls. When he had amassed a stack of dishes more precarious than the tower of Babel, he staggered towards the kitchen. Tara rescued him at the threshold. "Thank you," she said. "Now we just need Dana." Mulder craned his neck around. Sure enough, his partner seemed to have disappeared. "I'll find her." He did a slow circle around the room and didn't find her lurking in any corner, so he ambled down the hall to her shadowed bedroom. "Scully?" He found her discarded sweatshirt on the bed and ran his fingers over the soft, worn cotton. The sight of the dried blood filled him with sudden dread, and he went to the bathroom door. "Scully?" he said, tapping gently. No answer. "Scully, are you in there?" "I'm fine, Mulder." He bit his lip, his face still millimeters from the door. "You're sure?" The doorknob turned and the door creaked open just a bit. He took this as a sign and pushed it in, peeking around the edge. Scully was leaning against the rim of her tub. "Everything okay?" he asked. She nodded. "You can come in." He closed the door behind him and joined her at the bathtub. "I would have thought you'd had enough hanging out in the bathroom today, Scully." "Maybe I'm becoming an addict." He leaned in so his shoulder pressed against hers. "There's cake outside. You're missing your own party." She snorted. "This isn't a party, Mulder. This is a wake." "Scully..." "Tara's even wearing black!" He paused. "I hear it's very slimming." "Mul-der." She rested her forehead on his upper arm. "I can only imagine what my mother told these people to get them to come here today. I haven't talked to some of them in five or ten years. They don't know me. They're just here because it might be their last chance, like I'm some sort of K-Mart blue light special. Limited time only!" He cupped the base of her neck. "Ah, the evils of bargain basement love." She gave a watery laugh against his sleeve. "This whole thing is so mawkish, Mulder." "Yeah, but they mean well. And there's cake." She pulled away and made a face at him. "I guess we know why you came." "Guilty." She sighed, and he tugged her hand. "C'mon. It's not so bad, is it?" "This is so not how I wanted to celebrate my birthday, Mulder." "How did you want to celebrate?" She traced the square edge of a bathroom tile with her toe. "I don't know. Pizza and 'The African Queen' sounded pretty nice." His cell phone rang. "Well, we know it's not you," he said as he dug it out from his pants. "Hello?" "Fox, hi. It's Miranda." "Oh, hi, Miranda." Scully stood up from the tub. "I hope I haven't caught you at a bad time." "No, it's fine. What's up?" Scully moved to leave, but he grabbed her hand. "Just a second," he mouthed. She pulled free. "I wanted to see if you were interested in that dinner. I have something I'd like to give you." The words barely registered as Scully shut the door behind her with a soft click. "Uh, sure...dinner, you said?" Miranda's laugh crackled over the phone wires. "Are you down in the sewer again? You sound all hollow and distracted." "I'm, uh, in the bathroom. Long story." "I don't even want to know. When is good for you?" "Um, Wednesday, maybe? I can drive up." "Perfect." They arranged a meeting and he ended the call. Mulder followed the loud laughter to the living room, but Scully had already blown out her candles, a smoke halo around her head. Her mother handed around perfect squares of chocolate on the good china. Forks clattered. People chatted. Scully took three bites and put hers aside. No one asked her if she'd made a wish. CHAPTER EIGHT Whatever her thirty-third year had in store for her, it didn't seem to include a pizza. Mulder had tried; she gave him that. "Scully," he'd said as they had gathered their coats to go home. "Let's go to Bernie's and grab that pizza. What do you say?" She said yes because no would have put her alone in her apartment, ticking off the seconds on what was liable to be her last birthday ever. Bernie's was just loud enough to drown out the thoughts in her head. Their order placed, they played chicken over a plate of tortilla chips. Mulder crunched a half dozen in quick succession and then waited her out, his gaze flicking from her face to the nachos. But she was saving room for the pizza. "Happy birthday to you..." Somewhere in the back of her mind, it registered that someone else in the room shared her birthday, but she paid the waiters no mind until they stopped at her elbow with a sparkling snowball. Mulder's grin nearly split his face in two. "I didn't know it was your birthday, Scully." Oh, a cheeky lad, he was. She figured he'd assumed her birthday was the day before. It's not like he'd made any effort in the past. "Mulder, you've never remembered my birthday in the four years that I've known you." "That's the way I like to celebrate it is every four years. It's like dog years that way." "Dog years. Thank you." She smiled even though she was the dog in that scenario. Eyeing the pink marshmallow confection, she wondered what Emily Post would say on the delicate etiquette of vending machine cakes. Did she really have to eat it? "I got you a little something." "Oh, you've got to be kidding me." He wiggled the straw between his teeth and handed her a small wrapped -- wrapped! -- present, which she accepted with some trepidation. She wasn't sure which would be worse, a silly trinket or an expensive bauble. For a one-time purchase, a person could go all-out. "Apollo 11," she said as she looped her finger through the key chain. Mulder grinned and bobbed his head, obviously pleased. She forced a smile. "I'm touched." "Read the back." She read the commemoration of the 1969 mission but still didn't get glimmer of understanding. I was born in sixty-four, she thought. Not sixty-nine. Mulder ducked his head. "It's, uh..." But then a woman showed up with the news that one hundred and thirty-four people were dead, perhaps including sweet loser Max Fennig. So again there was no pizza. That night, they squeezed themselves into the NSTB briefing room to hear the tape played, and four dozen men and women falling silent to listen to the pilot's anguish. Scully leaned against the wall mostly out of sight and thought of one hundred and thirty-four gravestones all in row. Died February 23, the day she was born. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Twenty-four hours later she was back at Bernie's again, this time with a witness in custody and a drunken lab tech slurring birthday greetings at her. "I'm with someone," she told Pendrell when he grabbed her arm and offered to buy her a drink. Pendrell looked over at the tall man in army fatigues sitting at her table, and his face melted from apprehension to relief. She wondered who had been expecting to see. "Let me buy him a drink, too," Pendrell said. Scully frowned. The last thing she wanted was Pendrell stumbling around attracting more attention. "No, it's okay," she said, even as someone bumped her from behind. Some guy on the television sunk an impressive basket and the crowd erupted in fireworks display of waving arms. Scully threaded her way back to Sergeant Frisch and cast a glance around the room. The rodeo-like atmosphere wasn't as welcome when she had to watch every merry patron with a suspicious eye. A familiar face near the door drew her up short. Lanky, with an angular face and comical moustache, he jerked his gaze away. Something about the way he was standing... "Get down!" she hollered, just as the first shot exploded. But for Pendrell the warning came too late. A hapless hero, he lurched into the path of the bullet before it could reach its intended target. Scully felt herself ripped open as well, torn between tending to the fallen agent and chasing the escaping assassin. She tried a mix of both, succeeding at neither, until at last dropping to her knees beside Pendrell. "We still haven't celebrated my birthday, Pendrell. I'm not gonna let you off the hook like this." Pendrell wheezed and blood bubbled from his chest. A moment later, the EMTs took him away. Scully felt a tickle under her nose, and when she wiped her nose with her hand, it came away wet and warm. She dug out a wad of tissues. As the ambulance lights disappeared from outside, she and Pendrell became blood brothers by proxy, the reds seeping towards each other on the thin cotton. When Skinner arrived, she had precious few answers to give him. He, in turn, had a web to weave about a cover-up poised to land both Frisch and Mulder in military jail. Scully glanced to where Frisch waited with a group of DC officers. "This man has damaging evidence about the cause of that plane crash, and his life is in danger. The military is responsible for downing that plane." "They are admitting as much," Skinner said tersely. "But Frisch's story is not the one they're telling." "What is their story?" Skinner ignored her. He grabbed her wrist and drew up her arm so the bloodied tissue was between them. His eyes accused her of a different kind of cover-up. "I'm not going to put another agent's life in jeopardy just to keep her in the field." "I'm fine." "I suggest you make sure of that when you go to the hospital with Agent Pendrell." ~*~*~*~*~*~ She passed muster with both the ER staff and Dr. Alton, who frowned at the blood flecked over Scully's shirt. "It's not mine," Scully told her, lifting her chin in defiance. "I'm not sure that's better," Dr. Alton said. She gave Scully a concerned look and then looked at the ER's records. "What happened?" "There was a...a shooting tonight. An agent was hurt. He wasn't even on duty at the time." "I'm sorry." Dr. Alton set the paperwork aside and met Scully's gaze directly. "I hope he'll be okay." Scully looked away. "He died in the ambulance on the way here. The bullet pierced his lung." "I'm so sorry." She squeezed Scully's hand. "You must have been standing pretty close," she observed as she touched the dried blood on Scully's sleeve. "Are you sure you're okay?" "I treated him. Tried to stop the bleeding." Dr. Alton's tone was sympathetic. "I'm sure you did everything you could, and I'm glad that you're okay." Scully nodded again, barely listening. She'd been thinking in the car on the way over how strange it was to walk around dragging a death sentence behind her like a ball and chain, how she bizarre it was that she'd adjusted to its weight. But Pendrell had risen that morning none the wiser. Birthday girl, he'd called her. She was beginning to feel like a macabre bookend, surrounded by so much death. "Can I go now?" she asked Dr. Alton. "I don't see why not. Take it easy tonight, will you? Get some rest?" "Sure." Breezy lies came easier these days. Dr. Alton signed her release papers and Scully collected her coat. She walked out of the chaotic ER and into the relative quiet of the waiting room. Skinner stood up at the sight of her. "Everything okay?" he asked. "Fine." She gave him a curious look. "I didn't know you were out here." He shifted uncomfortably and glanced around the room. "Sit down, Scully. I want to talk to you." "Sir, if Mulder has in fact been arrested..." "There is nothing we can do until morning. I already checked. Repeatedly. Just..." He waved his hand at the chairs. "Sit for a minute, okay?" Scully followed him to a quiet corner and sat stiffly on the very edge of her chair. She put her hands into her pockets as Skinner lowered himself into the seat next to her. "What is it?" she asked. Skinner took a deep breath. "I'm asking you to be honest with me. Mulder won't. He'd swear the moon was made of green cheese if he thought that's what you wanted." In her pocket, Scully felt the cold, hard metal of the Apollo 11 key chain. Moon, she thought, darkly amused. She clenched it tight. "Are you suggesting we've been lying to you about something, Sir?" "Not lying." He chanced a look at her. She met it head-on. "I know you want to keep working, Agent Scully, and I want to support you in that decision. But in order to do that, I have to be sure that your illness is not jeopardizing your safety or the safety of the agents around you." Scully went rigid. "If this is about tonight, about Pendrell..." "It isn't. At least not directly. There is no way you could have prevented what happened tonight. I know that." "Then I don't understand the problem." "The problem is--" He broke off and tried again. "A few months ago, you said you were strong enough to keep your job, and I didn't question that. Here we are weeks later, and I don't know a damn thing more about how you're doing. You say you're well enough to keep working. Okay. But what about next week? What about next month?" Scully felt herself flush under his censure. The medallion grew slippery in her palm. "I am doing my job just as I always have. If you have specific doubts, I wish you would share them. Otherwise, you'll just have to trust me." She paused. "That's all I ever asked of Mulder." Skinner bit back a curse. "I don't want to take your job from you. I just don't want to see you get hurt." The day's emotions came welling up, and Scully swallowed them back down. "You can't stop it," she said hoarsely, and Skinner turned his head. She slipped one hand out of her pocket and reached across to take his hand. In her other pocket, the key chain gave her something tangible to push against. "We're all at risk," she told Skinner. "Every minute of every day. I'm no different." Skinner opened his mouth and shut it again, but he didn't pull away. "My father used to say that a big part of life was just showing up," Scully continued, "and that's what I intend to do for as long as I can. It's all any of us can do, is show up and hold on tight." Skinner didn't say anything. He turned to look at her again, and she did her best to smile. He twisted their hands so his enfolded hers. He held on tight. ~*~*~*~*~* Sometimes, Mulder mused as he stood with Scully in Max's trailer, it wasn't such a bad thing to be unwanted. The army had let him loose from jail, and the aliens had tossed him back with the rest of the passengers. Scully moved to leave and he followed her. "It's still early," she said as they walked across the damp night earth. "And I'm going to be gone half of tomorrow. We could probably finish up the reports tonight if you want. Maybe we could finally get that pizza." He stopped. "There's no hurry. If we can't finish tomorrow we can do it on Monday." "Why wait? The NSTB will want to see our findings as soon as possible." "I'll make sure it gets done tomorrow." "Mulder." She tilted her head at him, teasing. "Normally you're quite willing to spend the evening at the office with greasy takeout. You have a hot date or something?" When he didn't answer, her smile faded. "Oh." "It's not really a date-date," he explained as they began walking again. "I owe her dinner from the last time..." "When I rudely interrupted with my little emergency. I remember." "Scully..." "It's fine, Mulder." "I would cancel except I already had to bail on her last night. She probably hates me as it is." "No," Scully sighed. "I'm sure she doesn't hate you. You're right. There's no reason why we shouldn't be able to finish the reports tomorrow morning. Go and have fun." Only the way Scully said it, it sounded vaguely threatening. "Uh, not too much fun," he replied. "It's just dinner." "Right. You mentioned." "We'll probably just grab a burger or something." "Mulder! You don't need to give me an itinerary. I don't care." Liar, he thought. Maybe she was irritated about changing plans midstream. Even when she didn't write it down, Scully always had her schedule detailed in her head. "We can get a pizza this weekend if you want." Scully halted in her tracks. "Mulder, listen to me very carefully. I do not care about the pizza, okay?" "Okay." But as walked to the car, he made a note to have one delivered to her. She needed to know he was paying attention. ~*~*~*~*~*~ "Hey," Miranda greeted him when she opened her door. "You look like you've been through the wringer." "It's been a long week," he agreed. "I'm sorry I couldn't make it the other night. I was in military jail." "Yeah, that's what all the guys say." Miranda grinned and gave him a quick hug. "You're all right now, I hope?" "There's no jail strong enough to hold me." She laughed as she pulled away. "Let me grab my things and we can go. How does cheap Mexican sound?" "Perfect. I'm starving." "Bread and water diet not enough for you?" she called over her shoulder. He patted his stomach. "I had Scully bake me a cake with a file in it." "How is Scully?" she asked as she reappeared on the porch. Mulder sobered. "She's doing all right, I think. She's back at work. It was her birthday this week." "How nice! I hope you got her something good." He thought of Scully's face as she talked about the key chain and smiled. "I think I did okay." Miranda directed him to another hole in the wall, this one called Tiajuana Tacqueria. "The décor is horrendous," Miranda whispered as they entered, "but the tortillas about melt in your mouth. I would do unspeakable things to the chef to get his mole sauce recipe." The woman who took their order was as round as she was high. Mulder order the enchilada special and proceeded to do some serious damage on the chips. "Is that the hat dance song I hear playing?" he asked, looking around the orange room. Miranda tried to keep a straight face. "Three guesses where it's coming from." Mulder's gaze settled on a plastic potted cactus holding a guitar. "Don't even tell me." "I told you the décor was awful." "This salsa is worth it, though," he said as he shoveled the chunky sauce onto a chip. "Good choice." He glanced at her. "I'm kind of surprised you agreed to go out with me again." "You're good company," she said. "And I have something I want to give you. Consider it a belated Valentine's gift." "Uh..." Mulder squirmed in the booth. Valentine's had come and gone without registering in his brain at all. Miranda dug out a wrapped package from her large shoulder bag and set it in front of him. "You really shouldn't have," he said. She rested her chin on one hand, not looking the least bit uncomfortable. "Open it." He ripped off the blue swirled paper and lifted the lid on the box. Under the tissue paper, he found a small stack of books. The top one read: "When Someone You Love Has Cancer." "These are yours," he said, lifting them out. She nodded. "I don't need them anymore, and I figured you could use them about now." For the first time, she frowned a little. "I don't know the specifics of her illness, so I just included all the ones I had. I hope that's okay." "Sure, sure. Thank you." He flipped open the top book to its table of contents. Recipes, alternative medicines, meditation... the chapter called "Lovemaking" made him draw in a sharp breath. "I...I can't accept this." "Too late." Miranda sipped her beer straight from the bottle. "I don't accept returns." He put down the books and shook his head. "You don't understand. Scully and me...we're not like this. There's no way for me to do these things." Miranda smiled. "Ah, but that's the easy part. You just do them." CHAPTER NINE Whoever wrote that romantic song about Boston in the springtime had obviously forgotten the March wind-chill factor of thirty-two degrees. As they walked across the MIT campus, Scully hunched her shoulders to make herself a smaller target for the slicing wind and then let Mulder's breadth block the worst of the gusts. "My father wanted me to study here," Mulder said. "He was class of fifty-five." "Really? You've never mentioned it." "Yeah, he was an engineer math geek. We argued for six months before he finally let me go overseas." "What was wrong with MIT?" "It was here." She smiled. "I see. So the attraction of Oxford was..." "It was far, far away." "You know, it's funny that you considered MIT because I considered it as well." Considered was probably too mild a word, she corrected to herself. She'd practically memorized the brochure. Strong stone buildings nestled near the river, where sailboats tilted in the wind. Powerhouse physics classes. Teachers who hailed from all over the world. Plus, there was the opportunity to study in Boston, with its huge per capita college rating. So many schools in such a small space -- it was like Mecca for a hungry brain, and she had wanted to come worship. Mulder nudged her with his elbow. "So what happened?" "No money," she said. "Dad was determined to put us all through school, but a Navy Captain's salary only stretches so far." "We could have been here together," Mulder said as they reached their car. "Passed each other in the halls and never even have known it." She had a flash of them rising at the same time from separate library carrels, their eyes meeting and -- "I would have kept right on walking," she agreed. "Unless you crashed right into me. I took six classes my freshman year and barely had a thought that wasn't expressed as an equation." He glanced at her before starting the car. "Wouldn't have mattered. We were going to meet anyway." She met his gaze. "So certain you always are, Agent Mulder. If you had gone to MIT instead of Oxford, you might not have ended up working for the FBI. And I might have decided to remain a doctor." "Nah." He touched the back of her hand with one gloved finger. "You said it yourself, Scully, in your thesis -- each universe can only have one possible outcome." She smiled and shook her head. "I had no idea you had such a high regard for my senior thesis, Mulder. Certainly not to the point where you could quote chapter and verse." "It's like a mini Scully time travel machine. I get a peek at what you were like in your younger years." He shot her another look. "Besides, it's fun to watch you think." "It is?" "Sure." He returned his eyes to the road. "Smart is sexy, Scully. You said that, too." She felt herself pinken under her winter coat, prickling and tingling in the dark. "I know what I said." If it were anyone else, she'd think he'd meant it as a pass. She had sometimes wondered, during occasional bouts of strange fantasy, how such a moment could ever occur; she and Mulder exchanged barbed theories and cold pizza slices, not fresh flowers and lingering glances. Four years in, if Mulder did attempt a pass, she would probably fumble it. Mulder and Scully -- ruled incomplete. He had Miranda now anyway, she told herself as she turned to look out the night skyline. And you wouldn't want to trade. She might get romance, but it comes in such a small package. Miranda had to make do with a rare, hurried lunch or an interrupted dinner. Scully had four years and counting. If Mulder were a wishbone, she'd definitely snapped the bigger half. "This isn't the way back to the hotel," she commented, shifting to look at him. "Nope. I have something to show you in the city first." "In Boston? Mulder, it's late. Aren't you tired?" "It's not that late, and we can grab something to eat on the way back. Trust me, you'll like this. It's not that far; just up the river." Scully looked out her window again at the Charles, the river that had shimmered blue in her old brochure. Now it was a black ribbon that glowed with yellow city lights, as if someone had split the sky and the stars had tumbled into the water. The road curved with it, hugging the shoreline, and Scully could feel her body adjust with each bend. She'd always liked rivers, liked living near them. Rivers had a destination and purpose: if you followed one, you could always find the sea. Mulder stopped just before the river did and turned into the parking structure for a large brick building equipped with an odd white spire. "We're here." "The Museum of Science?" Scully said as she checked out the signs. "I used to come here a lot as a kid but haven't been inside in years. They're probably only open for another hour or so. Come on." He grabbed her hand and tugged her, as always, into the unknown. Inside the museum, they examined the technology behind the blue screen. Mulder gave the weather report for three giggling children. He paid the miniature Tyrannosaurus Rex to hear it roar, and they both climbed inside the space capsule. Scully had a chance to make waves with the giant simulator; Mulder pretended to surf next to the glass. On the third floor, they circled a giant Rube Goldberg device that stretched near to the ceiling. Plaques on the wall explained about momentum and the transfer of energy. "I bet you could detail the physics behind every bit of this," Mulder said as they watched a ball roll from track to track. "Perhaps," she said. She selected her own ball. "But that would take some of the fun out of it." They stood shoulder-to-shoulder, heads back, and watched her ball ride the elevator up to the top of the wire track. It crashed through the tiny doors and whizzed around the curves. "You have to admit it would be tempting to go backwards," he said. "If we could." "Back in time? I suppose the idea is fascinating in the abstract." Her ball came rattling down the last track, and he hit the button to set it in motion again. "You certainly thought so at twenty- three." She tilted her head to look up at him. "Mulder, young adults are hardly known for possessing the wisdom of the ages and I was no different. I thought a lot of things at twenty-three. Not all of them proved to be prudent choices." "Oh, really?" He was grinning at her now. "Name one." She considered. "Leg warmers. And that's all I'm saying outside the presence of my attorney." They wandered out into the hall again, passing the three-stories high T-Rex with its bulging eyes. Mulder stopped just in front of the giant teeth. "But see that's the beauty of it, Scully. With time travel you could go back and undo any mistakes. Think of how many tragedies we could have averted with the benefit of hindsight -- the Hindenberg never would have taken off, Hitler never would have come to power, and JFK might still be alive today." She turned to face him. "Of course I can see the benefits. Do you think there aren't choices I would undo if I could? But choices matter *because* they are unidirectional, because we can't see beyond them to every possible outcome or erase them after the fact. If every life decision had a reset button it wouldn't really matter which direction we took. Life would devolve into an endless, pointless loop." "You're assuming that people faced with the fact that their actions could be reversed would choose inaction. Instead it might be freeing, knowing any wrong choice could be eliminated." "So could any correct choice. All decisions would be rendered meaningless. Mulder..." She waited until he looked at her. "It's physics 101: time is precious because it runs out." He gave her an awkward smile and looked at the floor. "I was always the one who didn't want the party to end. The last one out the door." She ran her hand down his arm in affection. "Speaking of, I think it's almost closing time." "Not yet. There's one more room." "Mulder..." "Come on, I saved the best for last." So as usual, when everyone else was walking one way, Mulder and Scully were walking the other. He led her through orange doors into a large dark room. At the center were twin beige towers that resembled silos with enormous globes stuck on top. Between the towers sat a large iron cage. Ah, it's a Vandegraff generator, she thought. "They make lightning in here," Mulder said. "The cage gets zapped with a person inside. Very cool, let me tell you. If you sit close enough, you can feel your hair stand on end. It's too bad we missed the last show." She followed him down a short flight of stairs to the main room, using the tiny floor lights to guide her way. Mulder slipped on ahead like an eager boy. By the time she cleared the lightning machine, he'd disappeared. "Mulder?" "Back here!" His voice floated across the huge room, and she traced the sound to an alcove in the corner. Mulder rubbed his hands together. "This is the best part, Scully." Wary, she eyed the floor-to-ceiling white panels covering the far wall. "What is this?" "Stand over there, pressed against those panels." She stood *near* the panels. "Now what?" "Wait." He hit a button on the opposite wall, and a green countdown began. Dashing across, he pressed himself next to her. The clock hit "zero" and a brief flash illuminated the tiny room. "Now step away!" Scully backed up and saw that the panels had captured her and Mulder's silhouettes. She gave a slow smile. "That's pretty funny." "Freezing shadows!" Mulder moved to hit the button. "Try it again." This time she put her arms over her head, and Mulder jumped up just as the clock hit zero. Their shadows appeared to be engaged in some bizarre exercise regime. The third try found Mulder walking like an Egyptian and Scully attempting the frozen jump. Her timing was off and the panel caught her in the crouch phase. Mulder snickered. "I didn't think it was possible for you to get any shorter." The panel caught her response, mid-shove, and Mulder looked like a whooping crane in flight. By the end of their game, she felt light as a shadow herself, breathless and floating. "One last try," Mulder said, hitting the reset button. They flattened themselves against the panels and stretched their arms out as far as they could reach. "Cool," Mulder pronounced a moment later as they studied their silhouettes. Their shadowed fingertips nearly touched. Mulder retrieved his coat from the floor. "We should get going before they lock us in here." "Yeah." He left the alcove but Scully stayed to watch their images fade from the screen. No, she wouldn't want to bend time like a twist-tie. But just to stop it, freeze it for a single moment, that might be okay. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~ One might say they entered the Caribbean restaurant with winter-kissed cheeks, if winter kissed like Great Aunt Edna, pinching and squeezing until you were thoroughly red. The fierce heater over the door stirred Scully's hair, and Mulder watched in silent amusement as the strands danced over her head. "Two, please," he said when asked, and a dark-haired hostess showed them to a table against the wall. "Martin your server will be right with you." Mulder inhaled the sweet, spicy scent permeating the small room. "Smell those fried plantains. We've got to get a plate of those." "Eat all you want," Scully replied, studying her menu. "I'm not that hungry." Mulder looked up. "You've got to eat something." "I will eat something. Maybe a salad." Her tone warned him not to press the issue. At that moment, a lithe man arrived at their table wearing a white apron at his waist, which he accentuated with a quick snap of his hips. His smile showed even white teeth against warm, caramel skin. "I am Martin and it will be my greatest pleasure to serve you this evening. Is this your first time dining with us?" Mulder noted he seemed mainly interested in Scully's answer. Scully noticed too, and obliged him. "Yes," she said. "We're from out of town." "Fallen from heaven, yes?" He winked at her, and Scully slipped a little lower in her chair. But Mulder caught a hint of a smile. Martin reached across the table for the frosted glass jar. "Allow me to light your candle." "Thanks," Mulder said pointedly. "I think we need another minute before ordering." "Trouble deciding?" Martin moved to stand behind Scully, leaning over her shoulder to read her menu. "I can recommend some excellent specialties." Scully turned her face toward Martin's. "I was looking at the salads." "Oh, no! Salads you can get anywhere. For here you must try the blackened catfish. Francois makes it so it sings in your mouth." "If I had a singing catfish, I'd take it to the circus, not deep fry it in a restaurant," Mulder said. "It sounds wonderful," Scully said to Martin. "I'll take that." "Magnificent!" Martin took her menu. "And you, sir? Did you still require more time?" "No, bring me the singing catfish, too." Apparently it wasn't so magnificent when he ordered it, because Martin simply took his menu and disappeared into the kitchen. Mulder watched him go, and when he returned his eyes to the table, Scully was fiddling the vase of tiny daisies and smiling. "Don't tell me you find that act charming." "What? He's harmless enough." "What happened to 'I'll just have a salad'?" "I decided to have the catfish instead." She folded her hands on the table. "I thought you wanted me to eat." "I do." "Then what's the problem?" "The problem is--" He sat up in his chair and leaned across the table. "The problem is: what kind of guy gives the hard sell like that? 'Let me light your candle!' What if we were married?" "We're not." "I know we're not. But *he* doesn't know that!" Scully's mouth twitched with a smile. "Oh, Mulder, I just don't think we give off that kind of vibe." Mulder sat back, speechless. He'd been vibrating like a God-damned tuning fork for two years. But if she hadn't felt even a slight hum... "I guess you're right." He sighed. So much for perfect pitch. XxXxX That night he was brushing his teeth when there was a knock on his hotel room door. With the handle still sticking out of his mouth, he went to see who it was. Scully stood on the other side in her new fluffy white robe. Her hair was damp and she wore her glasses. "Channel thirty-three," she said. "'African Queen' is on AMC in five minutes." He widened the door to let her inside. Scully, as always, went to the left side of the bed. As he watched her curl against the headboard and stick her feet under the covers, Mulder wondered how two people who had never slept together could still have a definitive half of the bed. "I'll be right there," he said around his toothbrush. Scully had already turned on the TV by the time he rejoined her, so he stretched out on the bed and turned out the light. "They don't make them like this anymore," Scully observed, settling in. "Yet another argument in favor of time travel." She smiled to show she'd heard but didn't reply. Before long, Charlie Allnut and Rose Sayer had set off to test their mettle against the river and each other. "So, Scully, scientifically speaking, do you think it's true that opposites attract?" She rolled to face him. "Nature is filled with examples. Magnets, ions, anything with a charge will automatically repel similar charges and attract the opposite. But I don't believe you can make the same argument for love." "No?" She shook her head. "I think we're looking for our isomer, not our opposite." "I think I ordered that once in sushi joint." She kneed him from under the blankets. "An isomer is made up of the same elements but arranged in a different combination, kind of like a mirror image." She twisted to indicate the TV. "Look at the characters here: they're not that different from each other. Both are strong-willed, smart, and sharp-tongued. They have the same fundamental sense of right and wrong; it's just expressed a little differently." "Interesting theory, Dr. Scully. Maybe you should get your own radio call-in show for the lovelorn." "Shut up, Mulder." They lapsed into silence again as the movie continued. For Scully, however, there was to be no love among the leeches. He looked over and found her fast asleep. "Scully," he said softly, reaching out to touch her hand. She didn't stir. He braced himself on one elbow and watched the slow, even rise and fall of her chest. Time went forward, and so would he. If this was all he got, he would make it be enough. As Bogey and Hepburn went in for their first kiss, he reached to removed Scully's glasses so she could sleep in peace. Blue light flickered across her face. He could see himself reflected in her lenses. CHAPTER TEN Friday evening found him wandering the apartment, crackling with so much static energy it was a miracle he didn't stick to the walls. He kicked the basketball across the floor, and it bounced off the shelves that housed the fish tank. "Sorry about that," he told the fish as they jumped. They answered with swishing tails, moving to hide behind the Aquaman bubbler. He heaved a sigh and plopped onto the couch. "My life can't be this lame. Even the fish have better things to do." At that moment, the phone rang. He was tempted to let the machine pick it up -- what if it was another offer for cheese steaks and video games? -- but decided to answer. He had to eat anyway, and lord knew the wizened orange and curdled milk in the fridge weren't going to satisfy. "Yeah," he said into the phone. "This is Fox Mulder." "Fox, hi. It's Miranda." He sat forward at the warm tone of her voice. "Uh, hi...Miranda." "I didn't catch you at a bad time, did I? I hadn't heard from you in a while and wanted to know how things are going. I'm in town, believe it or not. The library just kicked me out for the night. Apparently, one is supposed to have better things to do with one's time on a Friday night than sit in the stacks." "Not me." He looked around the dusty apartment as if checking for hidden cameras. Was this the way they ran these conversations now? Jump right in with a librarian line? "So," she said, "how are you?" "I'm good, good." He paused. "You?" "Teaching is running me ragged, but I'm okay. Listen, if you're not busy, you want to get together for a quick drink?" He scratched his head, trying to figure out what he'd done to deserve such personal attention. "How much would this cost me?" Miranda sounded both puzzled and amused. "It can be my treat." Well, it wasn't like he wanted to sit around all night painting his toenails, and Scully had sure blown him off but good. How much could it hurt to go out with Miranda and see what happened? "You know a place called 'Black Tulip'?" he asked. "Never heard of it." "It's not far from here. From my place, I mean. I can give you easy directions, and we could meet -- say in an hour?" "That's sounds fine." He hung up the phone and tapped on the cold glass of the fish tank. "Ha ha, you suckers! I'm going out after all." An investigation of his wardrobe revealed an impressive lack of color, so he made the most of monochrome and opted for a gray T- shirt and jeans. After a quick shower, he slipped them on and patted his face. Better shave. Who knew what the night might hold? When he had finished, he rooted around in the medicine cabinet and unearthed a bottle of aftershave that probably came of age during the Reagan administration. He uncapped it and took a cautious sniff. The scent of fermented cloves assaulted his nose, and he quickly screwed the lid back into place. Au naturel, he decided, checking the mirror one last time. After all, he was one damn fine looking man. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ He waited on the plush red carpet, idly running his hand down the smooth mahogany wall, until someone tugged on his sleeve. "Hey, there," said the same voice from the phone. He turned and managed to hold back his instinctive wolf whistle. Agent Fox Mulder might have an ancient apartment and losers for friends, but he must have been doing something right to merit phone calls from a woman like this. Her dark eyes crinkled with her smile, and her hair smelled like summer rain. When she gave him a brief hug, her breasts brushed his arm. "Hi," he said, but it came out in two syllables. Miranda didn't seem to notice because she was too busy examining the décor. It wasn't the usual bar scene, he acknowledged. He'd selected it for its cozy, half-moon booths and live torch- song music. "This is an interesting choice for a drink," Miranda commented as she handed her coat to be checked. "You don't like it?" "It's fine. I'm just surprised you picked it, that's all." "What kind of place were you expecting?" She smiled, teasing. "Someplace with more lighting." Eddie felt his hopes fall to his shoes again. So Mulder wasn't nailing this one, either. Miranda met his eyes and Eddie favored her with his best shy smile: chin down, head slightly to the side. It must have worked because she smiled again and grabbed his hand. "I think I see a free table," she said, and led the way. Things were looking up. He slid around the booth to sit right next to her, and if this move was odd, she didn't seem to notice. She ordered red wine and he opted for beer. "So," he said as he gathered a fistful of pretzels, "You said the teaching has been hard lately?" She groaned and leaned her head on the table. "The server that holds that holds the class notes keeps crashing, so the students are beating down my door about our midterm. My overhead projector is broken, so I have to lug one back and forth across campus three times a week. And Jason Randall -- Fox, I may have to kill him. You have any good suggestions on how to get away with murder?" Eddie considered the question. Well, covering up a death, sure. But murder was never his bag. "What did this punk do?" "He's driving me crazy. You're lucky he didn't come for your lecture. That's part of his problem, actually; he's on academic probation and in danger of flunking, so two months into the course, he's *finally* bothering to show up for the class. But instead of paying attention, he's reading the paper. Not doing the crossword subtly on his desk. No. He's got both arms out, the paper high in the air." She demonstrated for him. "What nerve," said Eddie, leaning closer to her. "What did you do to the kid?" She sighed. "I tried ignoring him, since it was clear he wanted attention. But it was distracting to me and the rest of the class. Finally I asked him to leave, saying that my lecture must be disrupting his reading time. The little bleep lowered his paper and said that no, I wasn't a problem." "He didn't!" "He did! And then he went right back to reading. So I walked up, took the paper, folded it in half and told him he'd misunderstood. It was either the paper or the class. He could either stop reading or leave the room." She smiled. "He stopped reading." "Go, girl!" Eddie held up his hand for a high-five, which Miranda returned. He held on when she would have pulled away and swept his thumb over her knuckles. "I bet you're a great teacher." She gave him a curious look and tugged her hand free. "On some days, maybe. This just hasn't been my week." He propped his chin on his hand. "Did you always want to teach?" "Actually, no." She sipped her wine. "When I was little, I wanted to be a deep sea diver like Jacques Cousteau. Too many hours of my youth spent reading National Geographic, I guess. I was fascinated by all the life going on under the water where we can't see it." "Fish are great, aren't they? I have some." "Really! I love fish." Her eyes lit up. "What kind are they?" He wrinkled his brow, trying to remember. "A blue one and a yellow one." She shook her head. "Hopeless. Just hopeless. Well, perhaps I can meet them someday and we can figure it out then." Sensing his opening, Eddie slid an inch closer. He ran his finger down her thigh. "I can show you now, if you like." Miranda squirmed under his touch. "Fox..." "Yes?" "I thought we agreed we weren't going to do this." Eddie had made no such agreement, so he continued tracing a figure-eight pattern on her knee. Hell, she hadn't hauled off and slapped him, so there was still a chance. "Maybe we should reconsider. Wouldn't want to make any hasty decisions before exploring--" His hand crept higher. "All our options." Her lips parted and she still hadn't pulled away. "I don't understand," she said. "What about Scully?" "Hmmm?" He was focused on her thick, dark lashes. "Your partner?" The edge in her voice jolted him and he paused to reconsider his afternoon interactions with Agent Scully. Polite distance. Pure professionalism. She'd barely glanced at him when she'd dashed off to spend a rapturous evening with her monograph. Definitely no action going on there. "Scully and I aren't involved." "That's not the point." This time, she did pull away. Eddie hung his head and sighed. "I really think you've got the wrong idea," he said. "I don't think Scully even *likes* me." "No, apparently you have the wrong idea. You already admitted you have feelings for her, and instead of dealing with that, you're sitting here trying to feel me up. I don't know what you're even thinking! Did you really expect me to be your plaything while you sit around and make up your mind about Scully? God." She set her napkin on the table and then dug around for her wallet. "This was a mistake. Maybe my mistake, thinking this was a manageable situation." "Miranda, wait." "I don't think so. Goodnight, Fox." She slipped a twenty under the edge of her half-finished wine. "Enjoy your drink." She left without another word, and Eddie leaned back in the booth. So that was the missing piece of the puzzle: Mulder was pining for his partner, who didn't appear to be aware of the situation. Yet another hen the fox had failed to nab. Well, he could fix that. Eddie downed the foamy dregs of his beer and licked his lips. The hunt was on. XxXxX She wasn't supposed to mix alcohol with her medications. But from the way Mulder sat perched on the very periphery of her sofa, she guessed that the slenderest rejection might send him scurrying away, and she was too curious about his sudden appearance to let him escape that easily. So she poured. "We never really talk much, do we?" She handed him a glass. "You mean like, really talk? No, no we don't, Mulder." "Well, what's stopping us?" He gave her a winsome smile, which she returned with faint puzzlement. As he reached for the glass, she tried to get a look at the lump on his head; perhaps his encounter with van Blundht had addled him more deeply than he'd admitted. "I don't know. There's always a case to discuss." "There's no case now." "Well, there's van Blundht," she said. "He's still on the loose." Mulder shifted uncomfortably. "Forget about him for now. He's hardly worth wasting Friday night and a bottle of wine on, is he?" Scully gave a short nod of assent. "I guess not." She took a careful sip of her wine. Either her months of prohibition had rendered her a cheap date, or Mulder had picked out a good bottle. Her taste buds leapt and danced. She allowed herself a larger draught, letting the warm, tart flavor fill her whole mouth before swallowing. "So then," she said, "what did you want to talk about?" He shrugged. "I dunno. Anything. I was looking around our office this afternoon, and let's face it -- we've done some pretty weird shit over the years. Me, I'm obviously in it for the aliens, but--" Scully choked on her wine, and Mulder's look flashed to concern. "You all right?" "Fine, fine." She cleared her throat. "You were saying?" "I guess I'm just curious about where your wall is." "My wall?" "Yeah. I've got all these pictures and photos. Bigfoot sightings. Flying saucers. A newspaper article about some guy who eats livers for a living. You've just got a table with some books on it." Scully frowned. "And you're just now noticing this." He shrugged again. "Well, yeah. I just got to wondering: what's in it for you? We've been together a lot of years, and I don't know that I've ever asked." "And so that's why you came over at--" she checked "nine-thirty on a Friday night? To ask." He nodded and gave her that goofy smile again. She shook her head. "Okay..." She took a deep breath and settled back on the couch cushions, tucking her stockinged feet beneath her. He was still looking at her, and she felt herself grow warm under his gaze. Or maybe it was the wine. But she was quite sure she'd never previously experienced such a prolonged, intense bout of interest from him. "I'm...I'm not sure what to say. Obviously, I think the work we do is important and I find it personally challenging." "Personally challenging," Mulder repeated as he mimicked her pose on the couch. "Mmm-hmm." He seemed to be waiting for her to elaborate. She straightened up and tried again. "Medical school was rewarding enough, but I wanted to keep pushing my limits. The X- Files have given me a unique way to apply and extend my scientific training while still preserving the aspect of public service." "Service," he said, nodding. "Right." She sighed and picked up her wine glass from the coffee table. "Okay, Mulder, the thing of it is...I grew up following a proscribed path and never much deviating from the choices others made for me. I went to school, made good grades, and knew one day I would be a doctor. Everyone knew it. By the time I was twelve, the whole family spoke as if it were a signed and sealed decision. And I, I just put one foot in front of the other and never questioned it." "Until later." "Right. For once, I started looking at where my path was heading and asking myself if it was what I truly wanted. I realized I wanted just *one* thing in my life to be unexpected. I chose the FBI, and my family was, to say the least, shocked. But more than that, I surprised myself. Then the X-Files came along, and I took the assignment thinking it would be a temporary laugh, good for a few party stories and nothing more. Instead I found the chance to work in realms of science I never dreamed possible. I surprise myself everyday, sometimes every minute, with the things I learn and the choices I make." "So that's why you've stayed," he said. "The surprise." "Yes, in a way." She hesitated. "I like that every day is a mystery. I like who I am when I'm working on the X-Files. I like...who I am when I'm with you." She covered her confession quickly by taking a long swallow of wine. When he didn't say anything in response, she dared to peek at him over the rim of her glass. He smiled. "To mystery," he said, holding out his goblet. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~ He kicked the door of his boiler room prison and hollered as best he could for help, but the Mulder who was more than skin deep had worn his vocal chords down to a thread. "Help!" He croaked. "Anyone!" Large, wet circles had seeped into his shirt from his efforts; the cramped room, with its stifling temperature and recirculated air, had squeezed out every drop of moisture he had. His swollen throat ached for relief, but there was no way he was going to drink the crappy orange soda Eddie had so thoughtfully provided. With his luck, it was probably drugged. "Dammit!" He kicked the door three times in quick succession. "Hey, in there!" An older man with drooping cheeks and gold- rimmed glasses appeared in the door's tiny window. "What are you doing?" I'm FBI!" he told the man. "I've been locked in. Can you help me?" "Sure, sure." Mulder heard the jangling of keys on the other side. "Damn if I haven't seen near everything now. What the hell were you doin' down here in the first place?" He opened the door, and Mulder walked out into the larger, cooler space. "Thank you," he said again. The man stared at him, blinking in a quick, owlish fashion. "There's a water fountain 'round the corner there. You look like you could use it." Mulder took him up on the offer and drank for at least one straight minute. The janitor watched with naked appreciation. "How long you been down here, anyway?" Mulder wiped his mouth with his sleeve, noting the time on his watch as he did so. "About seven hours. Listen, there is a man running around here who looks exactly like me. Have you seen him?" "Naw, but I just came on shift about a half hour ago. Is he the fella that locked you up?" "He's the one." The little fucker had taken his cell phone, too. Mulder fought the urge to kick something again. "And now I've got to figure out where he went." The man stroked his chin in contemplation. "Well, if he's a criminal, you ought to consider his M.O. -- that's his modus operandi -- because that always seems to work on my programs. They get the guy every time." Mulder raked his hand through his hair, generating a zillion dark spikes on top of his head. He started down the corridor with the janitor trailing after him. "Yeah, well this guy makes himself look like women's husbands and knocks them up. I'm not married." The janitor was nonplussed. "Well, how 'bout a girlfriend?" "Nope." Mulder didn't slow down. "No women in your life at all?" The man sounded sad for him. "Listen, you have a phone around here someplace? I really need to call --" *no women at all?* Mulder stopped dead in his tracks. "Scully!" ~*~*~*~*~*~ Scully's bones were warm and loose, filled with wine, firelight and Mulder's teasing conversation. She sank deeper into the cushions and swirled the burgundy liquid in her glass. "I can't believe I'm telling you this." "I can't believe you haven't told me before." You never asked, she thought, but said nothing. The roaring fire made his eyes seem dark and bottomless. "I'm seeing a whole new side of you, Mulder." "Is that a good thing?" Surely for one evening she could believe this was her life. She could allow herself to notice the way the couch seemed curved to fit his body and the walls came alive to the sound of his voice. "I like it." "Do you ever wish things were different?" "What do you mean?" "The person you wanted to be when you grew up, when you were in high school -- how far off did you end up?" "Career-wise? Miles off target." "Not just that." Mulder moved a little closer to her on the couch. "Do you ever wish you could go back and do it all again?" She thought she'd answered this one with their time-travel discussion, so her brow crinkled in confusion. "Do you?" He set aside his wine glass and started crawling over the couch towards her. Scully almost asked him what the hell he was doing, but something inside her silenced the question. She froze. Mulder kept coming closer, and she could feel her ears grow warm. He wasn't, was he? He was. Oh, God. He angled his head so that their mouths were even with one another. His breath tickled her face with the sweet smell of wine. Scully dug her fingers into the cushions, poised for flight. Do I want this? Do I? Do I? The question pounded with her heartbeat. Slowly, Mulder closed the distance between their lips; she could almost taste him. Decide! Decide! Yes or no. Now or never. Her heart stopped inside her chest. Just then the front door crashed open, and the Mulder population in her living room doubled. The second Mulder staggered into the room, clearly out of breath. Scully gasped and leapt from the couch. The last time her life had contained two simultaneous Mulders, she'd ended up rearranging a coffee table with her face. "What...?" The Mulder on the couch sighed, and before her eyes, he melted into Eddie van Bludht. Scully glared at him in horror, but he merely shrugged. "Scully, are you okay?" Mulder touched her arm. "What the hell is going on here?" "He jumped me at the hospital and locked me in the boiler room." Outside, a distant siren was closing in on her neighborhood. "That will be the boys in blue," Mulder told Eddie. "They'll escort you to your new accommodations." Scully covered her face with her hands. "Mulder, I...I can't believe this. You've been in the boiler room since *this afternoon*?" "Sad to say. You're sure you're all right?" She put her hands down. "Yes, I'm all right." Embarrassed. Angry. The things she had told him, the way he had looked at her, all time he'd been playing her for a fool. She felt her face flush hot again, this time not from pleasure. Mulder was still regarding her intently, and she turned away. God, what he had seen. What he must think. Her humiliation was now complete. The uniformed cops appeared in her doorway. "This the boy?" one of them asked, nodding at Eddie. Mulder said that it was. Scully swallowed hard. "I'll just..." She smoothed her pants with her hands, still not meeting Mulder's gaze. "I'm going to just be in the other room. You can show yourself out." "Scully, wait." She did not turn around. It was stupid, she knew, but everything had happened so fast, and she felt like the whole evening was still written across her face. The wine. Her silly stories. His tentative approach for the kiss. And, God, most of all, she didn't want him to see her answer: yes. Mulder yanked Eddie from Scully's couch and handed him over to the uniformed cop. "Get him out of here." Eddie went willingly enough, but he turned to give Mulder a pitying look. "Being you isn't as much fun as I'd thought it would be. What a waste! Two beautiful women and you can't make anything happen with either one." Disgusted, Mulder waved for the cops to take Eddie away. He cast a look at the direction Scully had gone, wondering again if she were all right. He had a flash of Eddie leaning over her, practically on top of her, and he clenched his fists. Then a sudden thought occurred to him. "Hey," he said, jogging for the door. "Hey, wait!" The cops with Eddie stopped down the hall. Mulder walked towards them. "What did you mean 'two beautiful women'?" Eddie blinked, the picture of innocence. "Scully and Miranda. They'd both go for it, you know, if you--" "Shut up. What did you do to Miranda? "Nothing." Mulder shoved himself between the cops and Eddie. "Tell me!" "Nothing! She shot you down. Are you happy now?" "Fuck," said Mulder, twisting away. He walked back down the hall towards Scully's apartment. "Scully? Scully!" She poked her head around the corner. "What is it?" "It sounds like he got to Miranda, too." "Oh, God. Not...you don't think he..." "I hope not. Sounds like no, but I should go make sure she's all right. This is not a conversation I want to have over the phone." She hugged herself. "No, of course not." "You're sure you're okay?" "Mulder, just go, all right? He fleeced me like he got everyone else, but there's no permanent damage done." Except, Mulder thought as he left, maybe to my heart. ~*~*~*~*~*~ He rang the bell a half dozen times before Miranda appeared in the doorway, squinting at him under the porch light. She yawned and frowned. "What are you doing here?" she asked through the screen door. "I need to talk to you." Miranda made no move to let him inside. "It's late. Besides, I think we've said enough for one night." "That's why I need to talk to you. The man you saw earlier wasn't me." She put her hand on the door as if to close it. "No, wait. It really wasn't me. It was someone pretending to be me. If you let me in, I can explain." Miranda rubbed her eyes. "Fox, I don't have the stamina for this kind of nonsense right now. Go home, okay?" "Please," he said, reaching for the door, "just hear me out." "Fine," she sighed. "You have five minutes." The screen door banged behind him as he entered, but Miranda blocked him from going farther into the hall. "We can talk here." They stood near the clanking radiator as Mulder gave her a fast five minutes on the life and times of Eddie van Blundht, Jr. "We think it's abnormal musculature that allows him to pull this off," he finished. Miranda blew out a long breath. "That's quite a fish story you have there, Agent Mulder. But I guess it would explain why you were...not quite yourself." "You can ask Scully if you don't believe me. We arrested him at her place tonight." "Oh!" Miranda startled. "Oh, dear. Is she okay? I think that might have been my fault that he went over there. I'm the one who mentioned her name." "She's fine. It's okay." He cleared his throat. "Out of curiosity, though, what, uh...what did you say to him?" "Nothing much. He was putting the moves on me, and I reminded him that his -- I mean your -- attention ought to be directed elsewhere. God, I feel terrible about that now." "You couldn't have known." He bit his lip. "But that's it? There's nothing else?" Miranda thought a second, then shook her head. "Nothing else of note. Why?" Mulder picked at the chipping paint on the wall. "Well, um, whatever you said, it seems to have worked. She let him in, and when I found them, they seemed like they were getting ready to...you know." "Oh, my god." She squeezed his arm. "How awful. Come on in for a minute, and I'll make us some tea." He followed her inside, where Arabella was waiting to rub against their legs. Mulder sat on the sofa while Miranda went for the tea, and Arabella used the opportunity to wage war on his shoelaces. "Hey, now," he said, scooping her up. "None of that." She paced back and forth across his lap, purring. "You see?" Miranda said as she entered with a tray. "You shouldn't underestimate your charms." Mulder scratched the cat under her soft white chin, and she greedily extended her neck. "I hate to break this to you," he said to Miranda, "but I think your cat is just easy." "I'm afraid you might be right." Miranda handed him a cup and then curled up on the opposite end of the couch. "I was thinking about your problem in the kitchen, and I think that, if you look at it right, this might be the best thing that could have happened." "Um, how?" "Now you know how she feels. She thought she was with you, right?" "Except it wasn't me. Scully would never let me..." He broke off and shook his head. "Have you ever asked?" "Ask?" Miranda rolled her eyes with disdain that would have made Scully proud. "I get it now. All this time, I've been thinking you're afraid of her saying no. You're afraid she might say yes." "What? That's not true. I never even get as far as yes in my head. How could I be afraid of it?" "It is true. I can see you quivering from here. Admit it." Mulder rubbed the cat as he considered the question. "Okay, what if I say that I find both possibilities equally terrifying?" Miranda laughed and shook her head. "No such thing. You want my advice? Think hard on both situations, live with them in your head. You spend the rest of your life as her just her friend. Is it enough? Or, you try for more. Believe me, one of the two will seem less awful." "I don't know." "I do. You'll figure it out." She reached over and plopped the cat into her own lap. "And when you figure out which one it is, don't come here. Go talk to Scully." ~*~*~*~*~*~ One reason Scully liked Dr. Alton was that she always let Scully put her clothes back on before delivering the bad news. "So," she said, as she pulled up the rolling chair to sit next to Scully. "Here's the latest from your recent battery of tests." Scully busied herself refastening the buttons on her cuffs. "It's not good, is it?" "It's not great, no. We have not seen the tumor decrease in size as we'd hoped. If anything, it's slightly larger. We can try another round of radiation, but at this point, I don't think it would do much good." Scully nodded. In the silence that followed, she could hear Dr. Alton's watch ticking. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "So what do we do now? Is there something else we can try?" "There are few possibilities, most of them experimental chemotherapies. You would likely have to check into the hospital for a few days so that you could be closely monitored. Also, since this is not my area of expertise, I would no longer be coordinating your care. I would keep in contact with your doctor, of course, and you could talk to me at any time, but Jacob Arden would be the man treating you." "Okay." Scully was surprised by the sudden crush of abandonment that fell over her. Her throat clogged with tears. "Do I...I just call him and set up an appointment?" Dr. Alton rolled her chair a bit closer and rubbed her hand down Scully's back. "I'll let him know you're interested, and I'll give you his number. I'm sure he'll want to set up a visit as soon as possible." "All right." She drew a shuddering breath. "You said you can give me his number? Do we do that now?" "Yep." Dr. Alton produced a card with Arden's office number printed on it. "You'll have several options, and I would advise you to take a day or two to think about them before you decide which one you prefer. Talk to me, if you like. Talk to your family." "Yes, I will." She stood to leave, careful to give her shaky legs a chance to adjust to her weight before moving forward. "Thank you." "You're welcome. And I mean it about calling. Anytime." She smiled and Scully tried to smile back. Dr. Alton squeezed her arm with strong fingers. "No one's giving up, Dana. Don't you be the first." Scully's feet navigated the steps to her apartment without the aid of her brain. She felt fuzzy, disconnected, and more than a little lost. In her pocket was a card that represented possibly her last hope. She hadn't expected to exhaust her other options quite so rapidly. As she turned the corner, she saw Mulder sitting in front of her door, his long legs folded like a lawn chair. He rose when he saw her. "Hey, Scully." "Mulder, what are you doing here?" "I have something I want to talk to you about." Scully fingered the sharp edge of the card inside her pocket. "Okay, come inside. There's something I need to talk to you about, too." Inside, she took off her coat while Mulder ambled around her living room still wearing his leather jacket. He appeared quite taken with her ceiling tiles. "Is something the matter?" she asked. He jumped. "Matter? No." But he did not sit down. Scully watched him fidget for another moment before walking around to the sofa. When she sat, so did he. "So," she said, "what is it?" His leather creaked as he shifted. "I was thinking about that key chain again today, you know, about how walking on the moon must have seemed just totally impossible right up until the moment it actually happened. I mean, have you ever looked at how far away that thing is? It wasn't so long ago that we all still thought it was made of cheese, and no one would ever think you could go walk around on a huge block of cheese." Scully stared at him. "Mulder, have you been drinking?" He straightened. "No. I'm talking about making the impossible possible." Scully rubbed her face with both hands, shaking her head. "Mulder, I don't think I have the strength to have analyze the philosophy of the moon landing with you right now." "But I'm not talking about analyzing. I'm talking about making things happen." Her head hurt. She wanted her bed. "Okay, it happened already. It happened almost thirty years ago. Can we just let it go?" "But Scully--" "It's been a long day, Mulder. At any other time, I would love to sit here and talk green cheese and space exploration with you, but I've just come from the doctor's and-- He leaned towards her, still trying to interrupt. "Scully--" "No, Mulder, just this once, I need you to stop talking and listen for a second, because whatever this thing is with the moon, it can wait--" "I love you." That shut her up. She blinked. "What?" "I, um, love you." Pink tinged his cheeks and his leg started to bounce. "Uh-huh. So then what was that about the moon and the cheese and- -" "I don't know." She ducked her head, smiling. "Okay." "Okay?" "Yeah." She snuck a sideways glance at him. "I love you, too." There was a moment of total, terrible silence. He laughed, a sound filled with joy and relief, and she found herself joining in, shaking with pent-up emotion. He grabbed her arm and tugged her hard against him, and she closed her eyes to take in his scent. "Houston," he said to the top of her head, "we have lift-off." CHAPTER ELEVEN She awoke in inkblot darkness, feeling dark and splotchy and out of sorts. As sleep dissolved into her shadowed living room, she felt still wrapped in the hazy memory of Mulder's voice and the steady beat of his heart under her ear. Except in reality, the only thing under her ear was a firm couch cushion. She snuggled down under the afghan and let her lids droop again so she could roll around in the dream some more. His arm wrapped around her, his fingers playing at her hip. The feel of his breath at her hairline. I love you, dream Mulder said again. Her eyes snapped open, catapulting her back into reality. Not a dream. Mulder had come over and said those things, and she had said things back and now the things were said, no going back. Then she appeared to have passed out from exhaustion because she was rather fuzzy on what had occurred after that. "Oh, God." She rubbed her eyes and twisted herself into the cushions. Well done, she congratulated herself silently. Narcoleptic attacks are always so attractive. Her fingers knotted in the fringe of her blanket as her stomach started an anxious twitch. Mulder had rocked the boat, all right, and now she was feeling a little seasick. Her life these days had such a precarious balance that she wondered how wise it was to try to squeeze a virile six-foot tall man into it. Into herself. Her face flushed hot and she burrowed further into the couch. They could have sex now, she realized. It might even be expected. The thought made her feel breathless, itchy and invaded all at once. She squeezed her knees together. Her skin remembered his touch from earlier in the evening, and she felt his fingerprints come alive again on her body, phantom tingles that singed her very edges. But if practice made perfect, then she was in trouble because even her vibrator had a layer of dust on it. Her last awkward attempt at mating had produced only an industrial-sized hangover and a frightening trip to the furnace. She'd initiated that little disaster with the first kiss, had pushed him onto the couch and tried to fuck the angry voices out of her head. How ironic, then, that Ed had been attempting the very same exorcism but with more ferocious intent. How lucky for her that his dick hadn't cooperated. Scully rolled over on her back and sighed. Maybe she was getting ahead of herself, anyway. The evidence certainly suggested she was. Mulder had made his big declaration and then...what? Swept her up in a passionate kiss? Tossed her down on the cushions and started ripping off her clothes? No, he'd wrapped her in a warm hug and kissed the top of her head. Like always. Then he'd left. Like always. Oh. Oh, no. Excitement turned to dread, and she curled into a ball again, feeling her heart rate triple under the force of her embarrassment. She'd misunderstood his intentions. He loved her as a friend, as a partner. Maybe it was even pity that had forced the words from him. He'd said his piece, covered her with a blanket and left without so much as a note. She reached one hand out to the coffee table to be sure and managed to knock the TV remote to the floor in the process. There was no note. "Stupid," she muttered to herself, determined not to cry. She pushed aside the blanket and swung her feet onto the floor. The action sent her remote skittering away, and she swallowed a curse as she turned on a light. Squinting in the sudden brightness, she bent and stretched out her arm towards the remote. The remote turned out not to work her TV but instead controlled the stereo, and it had a yellow sticky note stuck to it: PLAY ME. Scully sat back on the couch and aimed the remote at her shelf unit. She clicked. The CD whirred. Frankie's smooth voice saturated her living room. "Fly me to the moon...and let me play among the stars." Scully's breath escaped on a short, watery laugh. She hugged her knees to her chest and let the music wash over her. She hadn't been wrong. There was no doubt: Mulder had come a-courting. ~*~*~*~*~*~ No one could argue that they weren't two very serious people. She was worth her weight in medical textbooks, and his neurons crackled so fast it was a wonder his skull didn't emit a permanent hum. They wore dark suits and expressions to match. They wielded flashlights like light sabers and illuminated corners of the world no one had even known about before they showed up. Clearly, these were not people about to star in a production of Two FBI Agents in Love. So even though he did and she did too no one would have guessed anything had changed. She called the CDC about a fax they had sent her and did not make even the faintest googly eye across the room as she did so. He answered some email, but he did not send her any love notes. Neither of them dotted their "I"s with miniature hearts, and there was no slow dance in the middle of the office. But at lunchtime they did go out to the Mall where they sat on a bench in the spring sunshine. When an errant cherry blossom blew into her hair, he pulled the cluster of petals free but did not toss them aside. He set the flower on his knee as they continued talking about whether it would be possible to break down the human body into atoms for space travel and then reassemble it again on the other side with similar components. "It would still be you," Mulder argued, "if it was the same blueprint." "Your grandfather had an axe," Scully answered. "Your father replaced the handle, then you replaced the blade. Is it still your grandfather's axe?" They continued on like that for quite some time because this was the way they loved each other, with arguments. But for dessert Mulder rattled a bag of M&Ms. He poured a rainbow of chocolate in his palm, which he extended to her as if feeding a timid bird. She picked out the yellows one-by-one and popped them in her mouth, surprised each time at their sweetness. ~*~*~*~*~*~ Romance, it seemed, was good for her beauty rest. Mulder glided the car to a stop outside her apartment and cut the engine, but Scully didn't stir. The lamplight cast tiny eyelash shadows on her cheeks in a world gone black and white. He considered rousing her with a kiss but decided the first time she should be conscious for the event. The leather seats creaked as he reached across to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. "Scully." "Mmm?" She shifted but did not open her eyes. He stroked her pale cheek with the back of his fingers. "Hey. We're here." Her lashes fluttered, shadow dancing, and she sat up. He slid his hand around to the fine hairs at the back of her neck, massaging with his thumb. She yawned and leaned into his touch. "Sorry," she said. "Long day." She stretched forward to gather her things from the floor and he slid his hand down her spine. "Scully..." "Yeah?" She turned her head, and the lock of hair fell onto her cheek again. He smiled fondly, sweeping his hand over her back. "Last night," he began, and felt her stiffen under his touch. "You said you had something to tell me." She straightened, hauling her briefcase into her lap, and he withdrew his hand from behind her. She looked out the window towards her front door. "Yeah," she said. "My doctor thinks I should try a new course of treatment. It would require a longer hospital stay, probably several days, so I thought I should let you know. I won't be able to work, so..." He flinched as though she'd slapped him. "You think that's all I care about?" "I didn't say that." "You implied it." She bowed her head. "I didn't mean to. I just...I won't be there and I want you to be prepared." His anger melted, clogging in his throat. "Oh, Scully." He reached across the gearshift again and tugged her towards him, wrapping her in an awkward but fierce hug. The briefcase slipped to the floor, and she shuddered in his arms. "It's okay," he murmured. "We'll figure it out." Her fingers curled into his shirt and she sniffed against his neck. "It's only for a few days." He stroked her warm head. "When do you have to go?" "I have tests on Friday. I'll know more then. Probably next week some time." "'Okay." He mapped the slope and curve of her with his hands, feeling the cadence of her breath slow as the tension drained away. "Scully, did I ever tell you about the cave I found when I was a kid?" "I don't think so." She found his ribs through the thin cotton of his shirt and began an idle exploration that threatened to derail his story. "Yeah. Um, I found the entrance when I was crawling around in the grass one day. You could only see it down on your belly because of the rocky overhang. I got a flashlight and wriggled my way inside. Damn near ripped my T-shirt in half." "Your mother must have been pleased." "I didn't tell her. I didn't tell anyone. I started skipping school to do more exploring in the place. I was convinced I was going to find ancient cave drawings. Or, you know, Batman." He felt her smile. "And did you?" "No. I found a lot of moss and some fish with no eyes. Then I flunked my Earth Sciences exam and my parents discovered what I'd been doing with my time. I tried arguing that I was conducting actual *research*, but that didn't go over too well. My ass was grounded for a month and they walled off the entrance to my cave." "Mulder." She pulled back a few inches and met his gaze. "Is there a point to this little tale?" He smiled. "Uh, to keep you here in the car with me?" "I see." Her hand slipped into his. "In that case, it seems to be working." The teasing of her thumb across his knuckles made his breath go ragged. "Too bad..." He licked his lips. "Too bad that's the end of the story, then." "Mmm-hmm. Too bad." Sweat broke out on the back of his neck. Scully had a deep, breathy half-whisper that stirred him even when she was talking about kinase-kinase interactions and Brownian motion. To hear her murmur "bad" in the confines of a darkened car -- well, his brain translated "naughty" and redirected his blood flow to a southerly direction. He bent his head so their foreheads nearly touched and reached for her other hand. Her fingers curled around his. "You've heard all my other stories by now." "Probably so. I should just get going." "Yeah." But instead she squirmed and he lurched and they both stopped breathing as their lips touched for the first time. Her hands gripped his in the dark warmth of her lap. He extended one finger and traced inside of her thigh through her wool pants, making her shiver. She pulled back, shifting for purchase on the slippery seat, and he steadied her with a hand on her ribcage. "Scully..." "Shh..." She palmed his cheek, her thumb grazing his lower lashes as her fingers sank into his hair. The prick of her nails on his scalp made him dizzy, and her lips swallowed his moan. His fingers splayed out against her ribs to catch the rise and fall of her as they kissed, felt her straining to meet him. Her mouth parted with a small stifled pleasure noise that caused his ears to burn. His first taste of her was slow and shallow, teasing, and she answered by pressing closer, drawing him deeper inside. Steam rose on the windows as the pressure grew in his veins. The heavy sound of their intermingled breathing spurred his pounding heart. He caressed the bend of her waist, then higher, sliding up, up, past the tiny bumps of buttons to her breast. Her nipple hardened with one gentle swipe. Scully gasped and jerked backwards. He opened his eyes at the loss of her heat and touch. "Scully?" The taste of her lingered on his lips, and he licked it away. "I need to go." She fumbled for her briefcase. "It's late." "Scully, wait a second." He rubbed her arm in what he hoped was a reassuring manner, but she was already turning to leave. "I'll see you tomorrow, Mulder." She opened the door and let in the cold night air, shocking his still-heated skin. "Scully, I'm sorry..." That stopped her. She bent her head for a moment, then twisted around to look at him. "No, I am," she said softly, her eyes large and dark. She stretched back and kissed his cheek. "I'll see you tomorrow." The jolt of the slamming door punctuated her exit, and Mulder sat deflated in his seat. Four years did not seem like an unreasonable amount of time to try for second base, but perhaps Scully marked her sexual scorecard differently. Or maybe chemotherapy made her too sensitive for his groping. He scratched the back of his head and took a deep breath. There had been nothing in the cancer book about this part. As his internal engine quieted down, he started the one in the car, resigned to heading home alone. It wasn't until he reached the bridge that a thought occurred to him: Scully had said she was starting a new kind of treatment. His stomach clenched. This meant the first round of treatment had failed. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Scully curled under the thin hospital blankets and tried to snooze in the gray afternoon light. An arduous day of testing left her poked, prodded and feeling naked as a peeled grape. She wasn't so much tired as she was completely stripped of her usual psychic armor. Somewhere in the building, people wearing her usual garb of white coats and safety glasses were measuring her samples, studying her scans and generally detailing the breakdown of her body. All she could do was wait for her sentence to be handed down. A knock at the door made her sit up. "Come in," she said, wiggling back against the pillows. Mulder poked his head and bad tie around the door. "Hey," he said. "They said you might be napping." "I'm awake," she said, and he entered, shutting the door behind him. He bypassed the ugly plastic chair and sat on the bed near her hip. His gaze raked over her thin scrubs and the various Band-Aids she sported on her arms. "Hi," he said again. "How are you doing?" Her lower lip threatened to quiver, so she bit it. "It's been a long day." "Yeah?" His voice was soft and his hands were warm on hers. "Lots of tests, huh?" She scooted closer to him. "When I was little, my dad used to take us down to the beach at low tide and let us play in the tide pools. My brothers and I took great pleasure in poking the sea anemones with a stick until they contracted into tiny balls." She gave him a baleful look. "I have a new sympathy for those poor little anemones." Mulder made a low sound in his throat and enfolded her in his arms. "I'm sorry, Scully," he said, kissing the top of her head. She followed through on her sea creature analogy by huddling down into a ball and holding on tight. Mulder, with his broad shoulders and rumbly chest, made a perfect rock. She closed her eyes and let him sway her gently from side to side. His hand swept the length of her spine in long strokes, molding her back into herself again. "How was work?" she asked the knot of his tie. "I had ass duty today. Eight hours behind a desk." "Trade you," she said, and he squeezed her even closer. "What can I do?" "You're doing it." Attached to Mulder, she didn't feel quite so small and defenseless. "I have at least another hour before they give me the results and let me out of here." "You should rest," he said, smoothing her hair. "Lie down and try to get some sleep." She yawned and rubbed her cheek against the fuzz of his cotton shirt, tightening her arms around him so he couldn't leave. "No, this is fine." He drew the covers up to her shoulders, and for the first time all day she was warm. The stark room faded away as she let herself drift to sound of the glubs and growls inside Mulder. When she opened her eyes again, they had changed positions. Mulder had shifted onto the bed completely so his back was supported. Gone were his sport coat, his tie and his shoes. And apparently, she had managed to wriggle her way into his lap. He felt her tense and rubbed his chin on the top of her head. "Good sleep?" "I did it again, didn't I?" She tried to extricate herself, but he held her fast. "Mulder..." "What?" "The doctor should be in at any moment." "Tall man with a striped tie and a bad comb-over? He was already here." "Oh, God." She buried her face in Mulder's neck; he chuckled. "He said sleep was good for you and promised to be back in an hour. That's --" He craned his neck around to the bedside table. "--about thirty minutes from now." "Still," she said, "I should move." Mulder's voice teased her ear as his arms tightened around her. "I'd like to see you try." She was glad he couldn't see her smile. "I'll do more than try." She wiggled a bit, elbowing him in the process. "You're going to be thanking your lucky stars you're already in the hospital." "Ooo, hurt me." His knee came up, throwing her off balance. She grabbed his forearm and tried to kick her way free, but the blankets impeded her progress. "Mulder!" He managed to pin both of her arms with one of his, and his legs trapped hers easily. "Give up?" he asked, his voice low and breathless. "Never." She squirmed some more and tried a few additional, ineffective kicks. At last, she sagged, panting. "All right, all right. You win." Mulder laughed and relaxed his grip, and she chose that moment to lunge free. "Hey!" He snapped her back with ease, and this time she didn't struggle. She laid her head on his shoulder and wrapped arms around him. "I'm glad you're here." She kissed the underside of his chin. "I'm glad you let me be here." She rested for another moment, listening to his heart slow. Then she stretched, catlike, and the shift slid her deeper into his lap. She froze. "Mulder?" "Ignore that." His erection pressed firmly against her bottom, with only his pants and her thin hospital scrubs between them. Her mouth went dry and her fingers clenched the blanket. "Ignore it?" she whispered, not looking at him. "I have been." He pressed his face into her neck. "It's okay, Scully." "It's not." She swallowed with difficulty. His arms snaked out to encircle her again. "Tell me," he said simply. She looked at the ceiling, as if the magic words would suddenly appear there. "Mulder, about...that." "Yes?" He gave her an encouraging nuzzle, and unshed tears burned the back of her throat. Dammit. She rubbed her eyes. "I just don't know if I can." She had done a little reading on the subject, tackling her sex life like it was just another science project. All the books said the same thing, that sex was just fine as long as she was feeling well enough, but there were numerous cautions about possible pitfalls. Lubrication, for one. How the hell was she supposed to have that conversation with Mulder? "I've stopped menstruating, Mulder, probably due to weight loss, and so my hormones are all out of whack. Make sure to bring a tube of K-Y with that bottle of wine!" Then there was the matter of joint pain, which she often suffered at night. And the three layers of clothes she wore to bed these days to keep her from having chills. Attractive, no? "I'll just cut a hole in these here sweatpants, Mulder, and you can stick it right in." Scully wiped away a hot, trickling tear with the back of her hand, and Mulder hugged her from behind. "Don't cry," he murmured, rocking her. "Not over this." She nodded. "I want to do it. I do. I just don't know if everything works right anymore. I don't want..." "What?" He brushed the hair back from her face. "I don't want to disappoint you." She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing out the embarrassing words. "Scully," he said, making her name sound like an endearment. His cheek scraped against hers. "You think you have the market cornered on that little anxiety? I haven't been laid since the Bush administration." A painful laugh escaped her. "No, seriously. I may need a road map." She ducked her head and covered his hand with one of her own. "I guess that explains why you can work up such an impressive level of excitement in a hospital room." His fingers stroked her belly through her scrubs. "It's not the room that excites me." He kissed her shoulder above the edge of her top. "Mulder..." "Mmmm?" She felt the tip of his tongue at her collarbone, and heat flooded her face. "What are you doing?" "Practicing." He breathed the word over her skin, and she shivered. "We're in a hospital." "So you mentioned." "With an unlocked door." "Exciting, isn't it?" He slipped one hand under her top, his fingers grazing the edge of her ribcage. The slow strokes set her blood to humming. Her breaths came shallow and light, caught between fear and arousal. No risk of disappointment, she thought as the weight of desire started pulling her under. Just a little touching. Skin starved, her hands flexed with the need to feel him. She ran her palms up his forearms, thrilling at the tickle of his springy hairs. A tiny adjustment put her back in full contact with his erection, and he nipped the shell of her ear. Pure insanity, she thought, eyeing the door. But her body was cooperating. It seemed recognize the urgency of the situation and surged into overdrive. Her blood buzzed in her ears; her lips felt swollen even though they had yet to kiss. Hot, restless, she twisted in his embrace, leaning forward so he could find her breasts with both hands. "Ah," he sighed, pleased with his discovery. She gritted her teeth to keep from crying out. "Mulder," she sounded desperate to her own ears. "We need to...we should stop." "Not yet." His voice was tight. "You like that?" She sucked in a sharp breath as he rolled each nipple between his fingers. Full arousal -- her first in months -- returned like an avalanche, nearly making her keen aloud. She pulled free and turned in his arms so they were face to face. His wild, bright eyes held traces of laughter. "I'll take that as a ye--" She shut him up with her mouth, pushing him back against the pillows and the headboard. No tentative hello this time -- she took him hot and deep, and he answered with a smothered groan that vibrated against her lips. His hands closed over her back, roaming under her top again as if he were a blind man mapping the Venus de Milo. Her nipples swelled to greet his greedy fingers. "MulderMulderMulder." She tried to keep his head still for kissing, sliding in for his rough tongue. Her knees grew shaky so she lowered herself again into his lap, finding the perfect angle on her first try. Their mouths met and receded, allowing her brief, needy gasps as she pressed even closer. The combination of his zipper and his cock between her legs was almost enough. His hips answered her rocking with quick, erratic thrusts. "Here, here," he muttered, yanking at her loose cotton pants. "No, no." Even though it's just what she needed. She set the edge of her teeth to his neck, tasting the salt of him, and raised and inch so he could put his hands between her thighs. He cupped her through the thin cotton, hard fingers not enough, and she whined in frustration. "No?" He panted, hot breath stirring her hair. She rubbed herself on his hand. "Please. Oh." Dizzily, she realized someone might come and see her grinding herself this way, but it wasn't enough to stop the madness. Her body was on fire with pleasure instead of pain. "Like this," he said, urging her forward. She leaned down and put her face next to his, and he worked one hand down the front of her pants. Her thighs trembled. She buried her face in his neck, tensing as he sought out the pulse between her legs. He slipped two fingers inside her underwear, and she twitched at the jolt of sensation. "Okay?" he breathed. She could feel the tension in his arms. "Yeah." Not as wet as she might have been, but enough not to hurt. She thought she could feel every ridge of his fingertips. Her thighs tightened around his hand, asking for more. He started a tentative rhythm that made her squeeze her eyes at the pure joy. "Like this?" he whispered, a naughty intern feeling her up under her scrubs. "Mmm-hmm." She moved with him as he increased the pressure and the speed. Hurry, hurry, her inner voice chanted. Almost there. She clutched him. "Don't stop." He murmured words of praise, used his free hand to caress the back of her thigh. "Look," he said, urging her away from his chest. "Look and see." She looked down through the curtain of her hair and saw his tan arm disappear into the waistband of her pants. She saw the bulge of his hand, saw the cotton move as he worked her. Laying her forehead on his chest, she dug her fingers into his shirt. "Mul- der," she managed as waves began. She jerked and pressed his fingers deep inside. He peppered her shoulder with hot kisses. "Oh my God." She collapsed full weight on him, letting the room spin as he stroked her gently through the aftershocks. After a minute, she raised herself up enough to look at him. "I can't believe that just happened." He regarded her through heavy-lidded eyes. "It's the scrubs," he said. "I can't resist." "Mulder." She chuckled and shook her head. "Wow." "Mmm-hmm." His look of naked affection made her blush, and she curled against him, warm and sweaty and sated. "Oh!" The heat of his erection poked at her belly. "Mulder, what about you?" "Unless you want to show your physician how FBI pathologists *really * play doctor, I think I'm going to have to wait." "I'm sorry," she said, full of sympathy. "I'm not. I'm just going to have to lie very still for a minute and think of Skinner." She stifled a giggle against his shoulder and relaxed. Her fingers played through the damp silk of his hair. "He's not naked is he?" "God, no!" He paused. "He's wearing Capri pants." "Mulder!" "And a golf hat." She considered. "How about tap shoes?" "Keep talking. I think it's working." "A feather boa. Oh, and knee socks..." CHAPTER TWELVE On Monday, Scully met with her medical triumvirate while he tested his word power with a year-old copy of "Reader's Digest." "I can come in with you," he had said, but she had declined his offer. "It's easier for me if you wait here." "Easier?" She'd rubbed her eyes, which he knew was because she'd slept poorly the night before due to wracking joint pain. The reason he'd known this was because he had been in the bed next to her. Surely that detail should have granted him entrée into the inner sanctum. "Mulder," she had said, "if you're there, then I have to listen for both of us. This way I have a chance to process what they say before I talk to you. Okay?" So she'd gone down the hall alone and he'd stayed in the nappy gray chair and thumbed ragged magazines. "Reader's Digest" wanted to know if he could define "prevaricate." Sure, he could do that. Prevaricate (pre-var'-i-cate) v. from the Latin, meaning to fuck with the truth. 1. to take what one's doctor said and smooth out any unpleasantries so that one's partner never knew what the hell was going on; 2. to "process" every feeling one had into two words 3. to sneak out of bed in the middle of the night to pop pain pills like hard candy. Scully reappeared the waiting room with her usual faint frown and dark suit. She could have been dressed for her own funeral. "Well?" he asked, correcting his slouch. "I'm fine," she said. "Let's go." Mulder tossed aside his magazine and followed her out the door. Prevaricate, he thought. To lie. That afternoon it was his turn to leave her out of the loop. He answered his phone to discover Skinner on the other end. "Agent Mulder, I'd like to see you in my office." "Right away, Sir." Scully cocked a curious eyebrow. "Something wrong?" "Don't know." He grabbed his suit jacket. "Just me on the chopping block this time. I'll be back." Skinner's office somehow remained shadowed even on bright sunny days, despite his large windows. It smelled of leather, stale cigarettes and rug cleaner. Mulder noted the ashtray was empty. "You wanted to see me?" "Sit down," Skinner said, even though he himself was still standing. Mulder sat. "What's this about?" Skinner removed his glasses, peered through the lenses, and began wiping them a handkerchief. "I've been getting some reports. Agent Rialla tells me Agent Scully had some problems during the Henderson case last week." "A nosebleed," Mulder answered. "It stopped." Skinner fixed him with a long look and then put his glasses back on. "Rialla said Scully was dizzy, had to leave the interrogation." "It was someone else's turn to take a stab at Henderson anyway." "She's sick," Skinner said succinctly. "And getting sicker." When Mulder didn't reply, Skinner came around the desk. "Isn't she?" Here was where Mulder realized the true beauty of Scully's plan: what he didn't know, he couldn't tell. "She says her latest tests came back clean." "That's not what I asked." Mulder scratched the back of his head. "What was the question again?" Skinner's jaw tightened. "You want her to collapse in the field? You want her to feel faint at the wrong time and accidentally shoot someone? This isn't nursery school, Agent Mulder. One misstep could cost Scully her life. Or yours." Mulder sat forward, his face in his hands. If he wanted to get even for her evasions, this was the chance. One word to Skinner and he could pull her plug. She would be safe in bed, where, let's face it, she probably belonged. He tried to imagine the look on her face when she realized he'd given up on her. His anger slackened. "You should be talking to her about this," he said quietly. "I'm talking to you." He sat up and met Skinner's eyes. "Well, I don't know what you want me to say. She's sick, yes, but so far her work hasn't suffered. She says she wants to be here, and I don't think it's our place to question that." "I'm responsible for the both you. It damn well is my place." Mulder stood. "Well then, Sir, I suggest it's also your place to tell her." He went back to the basement and Scully looked up from her laptop when he entered the room. "So? What did Skinner want?" With one look at her, he realized she knew. The tense hunch of her shoulders, the anxious set of her mouth and the defiance in her eyes; she was just waiting for him to say the words. They jammed in his throat. "Nothing, it's fine." He tapped his fingers lightly on the desk at his hip. "He, uh, he just wanted to ask a couple of follow-up questions about the Henderson case." "Okay." She went back to her typing and he settled uneasily in his chair. Sometimes a little prevarication was the only choice one had. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~ He stopped the car in front of her apartment building and shut off the engine with a decisive twist. Scully gave him a sideways glance. "You're staying a while, I take it?" "Dinner," he said, reaching for her hand. He brushed her fingers with his thumbs. "Mulder, I don't think--" "I'll cook." He gave her a hand a quick squeeze and then reached across her lap to open her door. "You can cook?" she asked when he drew back so their noses were inches apart. He smiled. "It depends on how you define 'cook.'' She huffed a laugh and he nuzzled her cheek. Her fingers curled around the back of his neck, and they stayed like that for a moment, their faces pressed together. At last she yawned, turning away, and he released her. Scully's apartment had a quiet and calm aura that suited her, as if it, too, were comfortable spending a lot of time alone. He felt soothed inside its walls because at Scully's, everything had a place, so for the duration of his visits he must belong as well. She took his coat with exaggerated formality, as if he were a first date. Which, when he stopped to consider it, he supposed he was, horny hospital madness notwithstanding. Scully seemed be caught between the same sense of awkwardness and familiarity, because she was standing on the opposite side of the room from him and not meeting his eyes. "Would you like something to drink?" she asked. "No, thanks. Just let me at the stove and I'll show you my kitchen kung fu." Scully looked pained. "I can make something, really..." "Scully." He crossed and put one arm around her, jostling her playfully. "You have pasta? I can boil water. It's no big deal." Her thin shoulders heaved with her sigh. "Okay. There should be pasta in the pantry, and canned tomatoes on the lowest shelf. I have lettuce and--" She broke off with another yawn. He hugged her into his side. "I'll find it. You go lie down a few minutes, okay? I'll come get you when it's ready." "No, I should help." He began propelling her towards the bedroom. "I insist. Too many cooks, yadda, yadda, yadda. I'll yell if I need help; otherwise don't come out unless you hear the smoke detector." "Mulder!" She halted and turned to face him. "Kidding." He grinned and kissed her forehead. "You rest." He returned to the kitchen and hung his jacket and tie over the back of one chair. When that didn't cool him down enough, he stripped to his T-shirt. "Like a sauna, and I haven't even turned on a burner yet," he muttered, sticking his neck around the corner to peer at the thermostat. It read seventy-eight degrees. "Jesus." He tugged the hem of his T-shit free and contemplated taking it off, too. The Naked Chef, he thought. I could get my own cable access show. Deciding it was probably better to have some barrier between his skin and the hot oils, he returned to the kitchen. He started poking around for the necessary pots and pans. Whistling, he located fresh basil and garlic, the tomatoes and a bottle of olive oil. He debated using the food processor to puree the tomatoes, but didn't want to wake Scully. Instead, he mashed them around the frying pan with a fork, managing to decorate his T-shirt in the process. "Just as well I took off the good one," he said as he mopped up his mess. He fared little better with the garlic; the skins stuck to his moist fingers, and he sliced his left thumb trying to dice the cloves. "I knew there was a reason I usually eat directly out of boxes." After half an hour or so, he managed to concoct a passable sauce, and the water was just starting to boil. He wiped his hands on a dishtowel and went in search of Scully. Feeling his way across the unfamiliar terrain of her bedroom, he stopped when his knees bumped the bed. Scully didn't budge. In the diffuse streetlight coming through the curtains, he could make out her slight frame under the loose covers. He lifted them and crawled up until he was stretched out beside her. Smiling in the dark, he stroked her hair. "Scully..." "Mmmm?" She shifted and curled towards him. He let his hand roam from the top of her head, down the warm curve of her neck to the slope of her shoulder. She drew her knees up and murmured something he couldn't understand. Her breathing was still even and deep. "Scully," he tried again. He shifted so he wrapped around her like a question mark, his lips near her ear. "It's time for dinner." Her hand snuck up between them to rest on the center of his chest. "M'kay." He continued to draw idle patterns on the smooth plane of her back. They spent so much of their time pushing against one another that a few extra minutes of pliant, sleepy Scully was indeed an unexpected treasure. She stretched without moving much, just tensing and relaxing against him. "You smell like garlic," she said, reaching around him to rake her nails slowly down his back. His eyes slid closed in pleasure. "You will too after dinner. There are three cloves in the sauce." "Good thing we're friends, then." "Good thing." She tilted her chin up enough so their lips met, just a gentle press, and he felt her sharp intake of breath tickle his skin as they kissed. He made a wordless sound of affection, which she answered with a small sigh as her mouth opened under his. She tasted like warm mint, her agile, pointed tongue teasing him with dainty brushes. He rolled her a little closer, parting his legs so she could slip a knee between them. Under the covers, his hand fell to her waist. She went rigid for a flash of a second as his hand delved under her sweatshirt, but he reassured her with lips and tongue that he was happy with the feel of her. Skinny, yes, his brain had registered that the first time, but he didn't let himself dwell. Not when he had large expanses of soft skin and fine, strong bones to explore. He let the pads of his fingers trail across her ribs. She arched into him, her belly brushing his belt buckle. Her leg rubbed between his. "Agent Mulder," she said, pulling away, her breathing ragged and her tone suggestive. She wriggled again. "Is that a magic pickle in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" He grinned and squeezed her hard, infusing her with some of the joy he felt. "I don't know. Why don't you rub it and make a wish?" She laughed through her nose, shaking in his embrace, but then she did as he suggested, her mouth planting tiny kisses up his throat while her hand slid lower under the covers. She raised his T-shirt, and his belly gave an involuntary twitch at the sweep of her fingers over his naked skin. "Scully," he murmured into her ear. "You don't have to." "I know." She worked his belt buckle one-handed. It flapped open and she made quick work of the zipper after that. Her small, warm hand slipped inside, causing him to suck in his breath in one single whoosh. She kissed his shoulder. "Feels pretty lucky to me." His eyes screwed shut, his mouth dry, he lay completely still under her tender ministrations. "You have no idea," he told her hoarsely. Her nimble fingers found the slit in his boxers and soon she was stroking him with no barrier between them. The only sound in the room was the slight rustle of his clothes as she touched him and his own desperate panting. She pushed closer, her thigh rubbing on his leg like an eager cat, and her hand changed angle enough for her to find his head with her thumb. He jerked. "Scully!" "Too much?" She stopped moving but her hand still pressed against him. He turned his face so he could kiss her hair. "God." He felt her smile into his shoulder. Minx. "Scully, the thing is...it's a little too lucky. Like, zillion-dollar jackpot lucky after you've been living on food stamps for four years. And, you know, if you want to get lucky, too..." He trailed off, realizing he might have been assuming too much. Shifting, he met her eyes as best he could in the dim light. "Um, did you want to get lucky, too?" She leaned in and found the pulse in his neck with her tongue. "God yes," she breathed. His ears tingled. His dick jumped in her hand. "Okay then." He nudged her free of his pants so he could roll her under him. Her legs parted and he settled between them as his mouth found hers again. She wove her hands through his hair, turning his face one way then the other, kissing madly while her hips began a smooth bump and grind. He managed to wedge one arm under her shirt -- and bra? who wears a bra to bed, Scully? -- and tweaked her left nipple. It hardened instantly in his fingers and all of a sudden he was frantic to get his mouth on her. He yanked his mouth from hers with a gasp, fumbling with shaking fingers at the hem of her sweatshirt. With her cooperation, he raised it until it bunched at her chin, and he lowered his mouth to her breastbone as he reached under her for the clasp of her bra. Scully arched her back to help. At last he freed the catch and the cups loosened. He brushed them aside, fondling her curves as he did so. His nose found the powdery softness between her breasts, and he darted his tongue out for a taste. She whimpered and ran restless hands over his shoulders, fingers bunching his shirt until it rose partway up his back. He kissed each breast as he would her lips, with hot open- mouthed kisses and gentle flicks of his tongue. Scully played with his ears and thrust her hips against his lower body, seeking purchase where there was none. Their twists caused his loosened pants to slip lower on his hips, the fabric catching in uncomfortable ways, so he let go of her long enough to shake off his slacks. Scully hid her snicker with one hand as he flailed about under the covers. "Think that's funny, do you?" He hooked his thumbs under the elastic of her sweatpants and tugged. Her gasp of surprise made him grin, and he had her naked to the waist before she had time to object. She shivered. "Cold?" he asked, leaning over her. His movements had let in quite a draft. "It's not bad." "Bet I can fix it." He settled between her legs again, his arms on either side of her. She hugged him and tucked her nose into the curve of his shoulder. "Much better." She squeezed him with her knees and his hips gave a reflexive thrust. He reached down to stroke her warm flank as they exchanged a few more lazy kisses. Scully set a rhythm with her hips that matched his slow caress. He pressed into her gently at first, gaining speed and pressure as their kisses grew deeper. At last he broke free and laid his forehead on hers. Eyes closed, he could smell the heat and sweat of her skin. "Scully, do we need anything?" She shook her head no. Her hands slid down either side of his rib cage to the edge of his boxers. She yanked and he wriggled and soon the boxers joined his pants in a wad at the foot of the bed. His cock sprung free in the humid air between them, reaching towards her soft belly to rub wetly over her smooth skin. He kissed her brow, her nose her chin. "You feel so good." Her hands ran down his back and tickled the sensitive skin at the back of his thighs. "You too." She parted her legs a big wider so he could find his place between them. When he reached down to help himself along, he found her swollen but dry as a desert. She hissed and flinched at his touch. "Scully?" "Sorry." Her thighs closed over him, trying to force him out. He held her still with the weight of his body. "It's all right," he said against her fragrant neck. She turned her head away, tense and resistant. He stroked her side and kissed her shoulder. "It's okay." This, he had read about in the books. His fierce desire abated a bit as he soothed her, her distress taking a bit of the wind from his sails. He kissed her warmly and gently, over and over, until she relaxed again and started to kiss him back. "I'm sorry," she whispered in the dark, but he shushed her with his fingers. He pressed his lips to the hollow of her throat, where he could hear her heart beating so fast there was no space between the thumps. Tension coiled in her muscles as he went lower, finding her breastbone, her navel, the soft hair at the juncture of her thighs. His head dipped beneath the blankets. "Mulder..." She reached for him, clawing ineffectively at his shoulders. He kept her open to him with a hand on each of her knees. "Mulder, please. You don't--" She stopped talking at the first touch of his tongue. He couldn't believe the fire of her on his lips, burning with each supple stroke. Her fingers twisted in his hair. He took his time learning each fold and valley, loving her again and again until her heels dug into the mattress and she was gasping above him like a fish out of water. His face flamed from the cramped space; lack of oxygen made him dizzy. But he was harder than he could ever remember being, aching at the thought that he was making love to her. That she needed for him for this. That she trusted him enough to let him do it. True completion. When he came up for air, Scully was quivering beneath him, her eyes dark and liquid. He kissed her parted lips and she wrapped her legs around him. Without breaking their kiss, he reached down and placed the head of his penis where he needed it to be. Scully arched to meet him and he slipped inside. Tears pricked his eyes and he broke off to nuzzle her ear. "Hi," he whispered. "Hi." She hugged him tight with all four limbs as they rubbed noses and shared a smile. He braced himself on his forearms and held as still as he could, trying to ignore her clenching and releasing as she adjusted to his presence inside her body. His stomach tightened; his breathing grew erratic. He felt the tendons in his neck stretch at the effort it took to keep control. Scully shifted a bit underneath him, her eyelids fluttering closed. Just as he was about to ask if it was okay to move, she stiffened and gasped, her hands clamping at his waist. Her mouth went slack and her hips gave a sharp jerk forward. He felt her rippling around him. "Oh," he breathed, amazed it could happen like this. She moaned a little and he started a gentle rocking motion. When she shuddered and hid her face in his shoulder, he bent to kiss her head. "Okay?" "Yes." She hugged him again and he picked up the pace, increasing the sweet friction until even his teeth vibrated with the need for release. Scully stroked his sleek back and murmured words of encouragement near his ear. He hoped she could hear the love in his groan. Shaking, he gave three more quick thrusts and collapsed on top of her, spent. She kissed his temple and squeezed him close. When he'd recovered enough energy, he rolled to the side and took her warm little body with him. Gooseflesh covered her back, so he tugged down her sweatshirt and pulled up the covers. She rested her head on his shoulder. "So," he said, still a little winded. "Did you get your wish?" Scully snorted and rubbed her cheek against him. "I'd say that's a bona fide magic pickle you've got there." "Yes, I have to agree he's feeling luckier than he has in a long time." He would never get enough of her laughter in the dark. She poked her fingers into spaces in his ribs, tickling. "I'm just sorry I won't have the energy to do this more often." "When you're better," he replied. "We can do it all the time then." "Mulder." "Seriously. Night and day...we can quit our jobs..." "We have to have some time to eat." "Shit!" He sat up. "Dinner!" Scully rolled around convulsed with laughter as he ran bare- assed out of the room. The sauce was fortunately just fine, though the water had boiled away. He put one a fresh pot while Scully dressed the salad. They dimmed the lights and ate at her wooden table with a makeshift centerpiece next to them: his giant pickle with a single fat candle glowing atop the jar. XxXxXxX Weeks passed, and Mulder often felt like he was living some nightmarish version of a beer commercial: some days were definitely better than others. Scully was the one curled up and shivering in the hospital bed, but he had never felt smaller in his life. He tried to imagine how chemicals that made her so sick could possibly be helping. The horrid part was, he seemed to be no more of an aide. "Mulder, don't," she'd groaned when he sat on the bed with her. "I don't want it to move." So he'd sat in the chair, dragging it across the room so he could hold her hand. She'd pulled away. He'd brought a boom box and some her favorite CDs, but she didn't want to listen to them. "I don't want to bring music I love into this room." He'd urged her to drink some water, but she'd just thrown it back up again. He'd tried just talking to her about nothing important, but she'd reacted with winces and groans, as if his words physically pained her. He'd shut up. When at last she'd fallen into a fitful sleep, he'd escaped to the cafeteria to mainline some coffee. Her pale face, with its dark rings and chapped lips, haunted his brain. He felt restless, caged, his legs burning with the need to run anywhere at all. He had read the goddamn books, all right, with their just-so advice. The truth was there wasn't a damn thing he could do for her when it really counted; his job was to sit death watch. The graveyard shift, endless night hours that magnified her pain and his fear, leaving him weak and trembling at the dawn. He ran the stairs back up to her room, taking a deep breath before returning to the gray light and fetid smell. Scully turned her head as he entered. Her hair was matted to her skull, and her dull eyes were only half-open. She seemed dismayed to see him. "Hi," he said, approaching her with caution. She sighed and drew up the sheets. "Mulder, go home. Go to work. Go anywhere. There is no sense in both of us being stuck here." His heart picked up, tempted. Reason intervened. "I...I can't." "Please. I just need peace right now and you're..." "What?" "Agitated." "I sat in that chair for three hours and didn't move a muscle." Her eyes closed and she curled into her pillow. "I can feel you thinking." God, he prayed that wasn't true. "I don't want to leave you alone." "My mother will be here in half an hour. Please, just go and do something else." She paused. "I'll be here when you get back." He swallowed hard. "Okay, Scully, if that's what you really want." She didn't answer, but he thought maybe she was asleep again. He left without saying good-bye. XxXxXxX They waited until the worst of her nausea had passed, she gave them some credit for that. They were kind people, these men and women who were crusading for her life. Dr. Alton and Dr. Arden came in together and asked if maybe she wanted her mother present, or perhaps Mulder. She told them no. Her mother would just cry and Mulder -- Well, she wasn't sure what Mulder would do. Her stomach turned over just imaging the terrible possibilities. "We have your latest test results," Dr. Alton said. Scully had grown up enjoying tests. They were always a chance for her to distinguish herself, to show just how much she knew, how accurately she could shoot, how strong she was. She had never failed a single one. "I'm so sorry to have to say this, Dana." Dr. Alton's brown eyes welled with sympathy. "Your cancer has metastasized." XxXxXxX So he'd gone to work and found he'd apparently already been at work because somehow, someone named Fox Mulder was out investigating his cases while he sat in Scully's hospital room. Anger crackled inside him like kindling all day as he tracked his imposter, and when he learned the man's identity, years' worth of fury went up in flames. He was going to straight to the Crystal City to demand answers from the wizard himself. Skinner didn't seem surprised to see him. Considering he'd broken in and was holding a gun at his boss's head, he'd expected a bit more in the way of fireworks. Instead, Skinner just seemed worn to his bones. Answers, dammit. He wanted some. You couldn't tickle cancer with a gun barrel. You couldn't shake the doctors' teeth loose and make them tell you what you wanted to hear. Ah, but this, this cold steel in his hot hand; he'd found someone he could make accountable, and he aimed right between the eyes. "You've been working with the Smoking Man all along. You knew when my father got killed and you knew when they took Scully!" "He set me up!" Skinner snarled back. Mulder shook his head. He'd seen the evidence this time, knew *he* was the one who had been set up. There was nothing Skinner could say to convince him otherwise. "I advised you against a certain course of action some time ago," Skinner said evenly. "Concerning Agent Scully. I didn't follow my own advice." Mulder's gun wavered along with his resolve. They said nicotine could age a man, and now he understood why. He felt a flash of guilty relief that someone had made the deal; suppose the cigarette-smoking bastard really did have the power to pull cancer out like weeds? So he took a few puffs himself, just in case. He helped Skinner cover up the cover-up. He lied and signed his name to it, putting his own X on the deal to sell his soul. Maybe the Smoker told the truth; maybe it was all a lie. Either way, Mulder was going to hell. CHAPTER THIRTEEN Hospital air had a thick, dense quality and a peeling, crusty scent that drove her, for the first time in her adult life, to sneak out after dark in her pajamas. She slipped out a side door into an enclosed courtyard that shielded her escape with shadow pockets and drooping, leafy branches. Scully knew she couldn't go far, not in her bathrobe, and not with the plastic hospital ID bracelet looped around her arm like a prison shackle. But she needed the brisk, sharp spring night, with its wet leaf and new earth smell. Behind a brambly rose bush, she found a cold stone bench and sat down. She fished two items of contraband from the fuzzy pockets of her robe: a lighter and one cigarette, borrowed from a young man with no hair in the room down the hall from her. The tip flared to life, and she sat back to smoke under the bone-colored moon. She took quick, snappy puffs, the way she had years ago when she was afraid of being caught. She'd known smoking was bad even then, but it had hardly mattered to a fourteen year-old who was going to live forever. Dr. Alton was going to drop by in the morning to discuss her "options." She had a few last straws to grasp at, if she was willing to sign up for clinical trials, but even the best of them promised no more than a short extension of her life. "You need to think about how you want to spend the rest of your life," Dr. Alton had said gently. "You need to think about what's important to you." So that was what Scully was doing at eleven pm in the dark, damp courtyard: thinking. Lost in thought, she didn't hear Mulder's approach until he came thrashing around the rose bush. She jerked in surprise. "What the hell are you doing?" he demanded, grabbing the arm that held her cigarette. She twisted but he held fast. "Hello to you, too." "I've been looking all over for you." "Well, you found me." She gave a few more fruitless tugs in his tight grasp. "I didn't think you were coming back tonight." Those words seemed to do the trick, because he abruptly dropped her arm. "I got tangled up in something with Skinner. It took longer than I thought." She eyed him as he sank down onto the opposite side of the bench. "What happened? Is everything okay?" He gave soundless snort. "Yeah. Just peachy." "Mulder..." "Did you get the results of the tests back yet?" "Uh...yes." She took another long drag on the cigarette and turned her head to blow out the smoke. "And?" She turned back to give him a thin smile. "Just peachy." As always, her heart broadcast the lie to the rest of her body with a racing pulse. She would tell him. She would. Just not tonight. "So this little habit," he said, jerking a nod at her cigarette. "Is it new?" "More like really old." He shook his head as if bemused and took a deep breath, leaning forward on his knees. "Tales of a misspent youth, I take it. I suppose we can all use a little rebellion from time to time." He held out one hand for the cigarette and she passed it to him without a word. The tip glowed as he sucked in a deep drag. "You're no amateur yourself," she observed when he handed it back. His short laugh had no humor in it. "I've had more practice than I'd like to admit." She drew up one leg and rested her arm on her knee. The smoke wafted between them. "So what are we rebelling against this evening, Agent Mulder?" He considered her question. "Door number three. When it's not the goat and it's not the prize, but you're stuck with it anyway." She raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?" "Forget it." He took the cigarette from her again, their fingers brushing in the exchange. "Skinner sends his love," he said after another puff. She laughed. "He said that?" "Not in so many words." "I didn't think so." He turned his head to look at her. "But he does, you know." "Does what?" "Love you." She drew her other knee up to ward off the chill. "No, he doesn't." Dread lodged in her chest. Let it not be true. She had already amassed a long list of disappointed people; the weight of one more was more than she could stand. "It's true," Mulder said. "I don't think I knew it before tonight, but he does." "Did he say something to you?" When Mulder didn't immediately reply, she sat up straighter and leaned across to him. "Mulder, did you say something to him?" Mulder bowed his head. "No, nothing like that." "Then I don't understand." She watched as he crushed out the cigarette butt on the ground. "Door number three," he said. "Skinner wasn't afraid to walk through it." He stood up and brushed his rear with his hands. "Come on, it's cold out here." She let him help her to her feet. "I'm not following you, Mulder. What are you talking about? What's behind door number three?" "Maybe nothing." He squeezed her hand. "Maybe everything." He wedged himself partway into the narrow hospital bed with her to watch David Letterman's monologue, but she fell asleep against his shoulder before the first commercial. He pulled the blankets up around her and rested his cheek on her warm, soft hair. Muting the TV, he closed his eyes and listened to the faint sound of her breathing. The click of the door opening made him blink, and he turned his head to see the intruder. "Hi." Dr. Alton tiptoed into the room with a large brown envelope. Shadows from the TV flickered across her face. "I'm sorry to disturb you, but I wanted to leave this for Dana." "It's okay." Scully stirred and he pressed a kiss to her temple without even thinking. She sighed and relaxed again. Dr. Alton smiled as she set down the envelope. "You agree with her, you know." Mulder smiled and shook his head. "Oh, if you only knew how little that were true." "It is true. She's cut back on her pain medication by one- third this month and she's even gained a few pounds. You're good for her." Mulder's breath caught in his chest. "Does this mean she's getting better?" "Oh." Dr. Alton frowned, then seemed to will a sad smile. "I...no, not exactly. It means she's feeling a little better, though, and that's so important." "I see." Still, he nurtured a secret rush: the test results must have been encouraging if Scully were feeling so much better. Maybe she hadn't mentioned it because she didn't want to give him too much hope too soon. He encircled her more closely under the covers. "I'll be back tomorrow morning," Dr. Alton said. "We can talk more then, if you like." "Thanks," Mulder replied. "Good night." She closed the door behind her, and Mulder felt around for the TV remote. He upped the volume a bit on the TV, where the audience was laughing at Dave's riff on the NY hotdog. For the first time in months, Mulder chuckled along. ~*~*~*~*~*~ Some lies came more easily than others. As Mulder slumped in his omni-present plastic chair, Scully rolled over on her side to face him. "I'm hungry," she said. He brightened like a bulb and set aside the sheaves of paper. "Yeah?" He placed a hand on his tummy as if thoughtful. "I could go for something, too. Want me to hit the cafeteria?" Scully shook her head. "Bagels from Vinny's. Coffee, too." "Across town? I guess I can go." He checked his watch. Scully knew without looking it was a quarter 'til Doomesday. "Cranberry, right?" he asked as he stood, and Scully nodded. "Cream cheese too?" "Lots," she said, because she knew it would make him smile. "'kay. I'll be back in an hour." "I'll be here." Which is how Scully came to be in the room and Mulder came to be out of it when Dr. Alton showed up fifteen minutes later. "Good morning," she said as she took Mulder's seat and scooted it even closer to the bed. Scully propped herself up against the pillows and smoothed out all the wrinkles from the sheet. "How are you feeling this morning?" "Okay. Less tired." "Good." Dr. Alton did a quick check of the tiny room, which must have been for pure show. "Is Mulder around now?" "He went to pick up some food." "Downstairs? Then we can wait." "No, from across town." At Dr. Alton's look, Scully raised her chin. "I wanted bagels." Dr. Alton sighed. "Dana, you can't keep sending him out of the room forever, you know. Mulder, your family -- they deserve to know what's going on with you. They care about you and they want to help." Scully looked her straight in the eyes. "How?" "How?" "How can they help? Three different teams of doctors haven't been able to do anything. All Mulder and my family have the power to do is worry, and I don't see why I should prolong that worry by forcing the issue right now. I feel fine." "And I'm glad for that." Dr. Alton leaned closer. "I hope more than anything that you continue to feel fine for a long time to come. But I am your doctor, and I have to look at your test results and advise you based on what they say. I have to advise what I think is best." "I appreciate that." Scully looked down, picked at the hem of the sheet, and tried to keep her voice from shaking. "But I am the one living this, and I have to live it as I think is best." Dr. Alton dropped her chin in acknowledgement, if not agreement. "Understood. But at least take my advice under consideration. I've been doing this for fifteen years, and I've seen people choose to go it alone and others who *had* to go it alone. Let me tell you right now that road is much, much harder." Scully tried to muster a smile. "I can yell if I need help." Dr. Alton captured her hand for a hard squeeze. "Yell soon, okay? While you still have some voice left." XxXxXxX The problem was that each day it became harder to say the words. She had knotted such a twisted thicket of half-truths and semi-honest evasions that she could barely see Mulder on the other side of the bramble. Her body aided her deception by making such great short-term improvement once treatments were suspended that she hardly felt sick any more. A little tired, perhaps, and she had passing headaches that vanished with her extra-strength painkillers. "I'm all right," she told Mulder when he asked. His belief bolstered her own; maybe together they could make it so. Then Miranda showed up and started chopping through the branches. "Hi," she said, bringing cheer into their office on an otherwise gray Thursday afternoon. Scully looked up from her computer and took off her glasses. It was only when she took a good long look at healthy women that she realized how different she must appear. Miranda's cheeks glowed pink from the outside wind. Her long purple skirt hugged her curved hips and fell with a dramatic sweep down her long legs as she settled into an empty wooden chair. "Hi," Scully answered, pulling at the tail of her own suit jacket, which hung more loosely than it ought. "Mulder just took a bunch of files to Accounting." Miranda waved off the excuse. "No rush. I have all afternoon. God, this is great office. I love the photos." She twisted in her chair to get a better view of Mulder's memorabilia. "They're...quite something." Scully glanced at the clock. Where the heck was Mulder, anyway? "How's your class going?" she asked Miranda. Miranda turned her attention back to Scully. "Oh, great! We're going African tribal myths this week." She leaned back in her chair and seemed to quiet a bit. "How are you doing?" Scully flushed. Just the question made her feel somehow less than whole. "I'm fine." "Yeah," Miranda said softly, almost to herself. She looked down at her hands and back up again. "Fox tells me you've stopped treatment." Scully felt her spine go rigid. Miranda's tone was gentle, without accusation, but it lacked Mulder's definite zeal on the topic. He thought Scully was getting better, but somehow Miranda knew the truth of the situation. *I know you're lying to him.* Miranda had the grace not to say it out loud, but the implication was clear. Scully's heart rate doubled and she gripped the edge of the desk. If Miranda knew, there was nothing to stop her from telling Mulder. "I haven't stopped treatments entirely," she said carefully. "I'm weighing several courses of action right now." "I hope something works out for you. I watched my mother go through it a few years ago, and I wouldn't wish that struggle on anyone." Miranda leaned forward, radiating sympathy, which only made it worse. Scully's stomach roiled, and a cold sweat broke out on the back of her neck. The air had no air in it. With a jerk, she got up from the desk. "Please excuse me." She bumped into Mulder on the way out. "Hey," he said, greeting Miranda over Scully's head. "You made it." "Traffic isn't bad at this time." Scully tried to push around Mulder and out the door, but he stopped her with a hand on her arm. "We're going down the street for lunch," he said. "You should join us." "No, thanks." She could hardly hear him over the rush of blood in her ears. Maybe it was better to take the coward's way out: let Miranda spell it out for him what it really meant when a terminally ill patient stopped treatment. "You two go and catch up." She swallowed the lump at the back of her throat. "I have things I need to finish around here. Besides, I have a sandwich." "You sure?" Scully didn't meet his eyes. "I'm sure." She escaped to the bathroom before he could say anything further, where she splashed her face with cold water and tried to calm her racing pulse. Slow, deep breaths eased her nausea. With trembling fingers, she dried her cheeks and smoothed her hair. She went back to the office to await Mulder's return. An hour passed before she heard his footsteps in the hall; Miranda didn't seem to be with him. Scully steeled herself for a confrontation, but Mulder was whistling when he came through the door. "You missed some great Chinese food," he said. "I snagged you a fortune cookie." Still tense, Scully tracked his movement around the room. "And how is Miranda?" He tossed the cookie her way, and Scully caught it. "She's good," Mulder replied. "She had to run to the library, but she said to tell you good-bye." Scully flinched. "Good-bye," she repeated. "That's nice." She tore the cellophane wrapper from around the cookie, focusing her attention on it rather than Mulder. "Did she say anything else?" "She talked mostly about class stuff," Mulder said, removing his suit coat and plopping into his chair. "Why? Were you two talking about something in particular before?" Scully opened her fortune: SOMETIMES SILENCE IS THE BEST ANSWER. "Scully?" Mulder prompted from across the room. She looked up. "Nothing," she said. "Never mind." XxXxXxX He showed up at her door with bagels and coffee before she was finished dressing. "Wear something that goes with bowling shoes," Mulder told her as he sipped from his paper cup. She stuck her head out from her bedroom, clad in black pants and a short gray silk sweater. "We're going bowling?" "Angie's Midnight Bowl." "It's seven am, Mulder. Not midnight." "Well, we're not going for the pins." She slipped on the matching suit jacket and raised a questioning brow. "A woman was found murdered near the alley last night. Throat cut." Scully disappeared into the bathroom. "And our interest in the case is?" she called back. Mulder wandered around her living room. "I got a call this morning asking us to look into it." "From the police?" "From Angie. He owns the bowling alley." Scully's blow dryer roared to life, and Mulder sat on the edge of her sofa, still taking gingerly sips of his hot coffee. The book she'd been reading sat facedown on the cushions, so he slipped her bookmark in and set it on the coffee table. Further away on the table was a pamphlet with a heading in gray script at the top. Mulder tilted his head to read upside down: "ROSEWOOD CENTER." "Why does the owner of the bowling alley want us to investigate this case?" Scully came around the corner, causing him to jump back a bit. She took one look at him and removed the papers from view. "I think it would sound better coming from him." "Fine. Let's go." He stood and handed her the other coffee cup from the table. "What's the Rosewood Center? Another treatment facility?" "Something like that, yes." She waited for him to leave and locked her door behind them. "So when was the body found?" ~*~*~*~*~*~ Scully learned long ago not to turn her back on Mulder's hunches, no matter how ridiculous they seemed, so she followed him to the psychiatric clinic from which the mysterious caller had phoned about the murder. Mulder fingered an autistic man named Harold Spuller as their best lead, and she had to agree, but for different reasons. "He's been diagnosed as having severe ego-dystonia, which would explain the switching of the victims' rings," she said as they pored over Harold's records. "So why all of a sudden?" Mulder asked. "You mean why did he snap? I think his earlier outburst when you talked to him showed he has a frustrated impulse towards violence when placed in challenging situations." "But that outburst didn't come until I asked if he had seen a ghost." Scully repressed a sigh and took out Spuller's most recent file. "Harold Spuller is at this facility voluntarily, which means he can come and go as he pleases. To kill those women. To hold down a job. Or both." As she leaned down, she felt a tickle in her nose, and a few drops of blood fell onto the white page before her. "Oh, Scully." Mulder sounded concerned and dismayed. "It's okay." She pushed back her chair. "You sure?" "I'm fine. I just need a washroom." She entered the large, empty room and headed for the sink, where she wet a paper towel to remove the worst of the blood. At least she'd managed to miss her clothes this time. She dabbed at her nose and looked up to check her progress in the mirror. On the glass, in dripping red letters, it said: SHE IS ME. Scully gasped and pulled back. Around the corner near the stalls, she heard a faint moan. Her mouth dropped open in horror. Pulled as if by wire, she walked around to see what was on the other side of the wall. A young woman. Transparent and bloody. Her throat was slit. Oh my God. "Scully?" Mulder banged on the door, startling her. "Are you in there?" He pushed inside, and when she glanced back to the stalls the woman was gone. Mulder's face was grim. "They found another victim. College student with her throat cut, just about half a block from here." Some part of her knew before they even arrived at the scene, but the rest had to see with her own eyes. There she lay, the woman from the washroom, her eyes blank and her throat slit. Scully looked away. She is me. ~*~*~*~*~ As luck would have it, Mulder solved the riddle with a heart attack instead of a murder. Angie Pintero turned up dead of heart disease and apparently Harold Spuller had seen it happen before it occurred. Mulder hit on the answer at the hospital as the doctors verified Pintero's probable cause of death for him. Natural causes with a supernatural aura, Mulder thought as he headed back towards the lobby. A rack of pamphlets caught his eye on the way out. The gray script writing atop one read "Rosewood Center," and he paused to pull it out. He scanned the picture of the brick building and tree-lined property. One handed, he flipped the slim pages open and read the heading inside. "Providing Quality Hospice Care for Sixty Years." Mulder's breath stopped. He shook his head. Crumpling the booklet in his hand, he shoved it into the nearest trashcan and strode out of the building. He gave her another opening at her apartment, trying the ultra- casual approach this time. "I need your medical expertise," he began. Then, "Oh, I almost forgot. What did your doctor say?" Scully looked at him for a moment. "I'm fine," she said, closing her front door behind him. "What do you need?" At point blank she wouldn't lie, he figured. Scully was a horrible liar. Relief trickled through him as he sat on her couch to flesh out his theory: Harold Spuller must be dying. "He saw Angie Pintero's disembodied soul right before or right at the moment of Angie's death from congestive heart failure." Scully seemed intrigued. "How do you know?" "Because I was standing right there when he saw it." "But you didn't see it yourself." He shook his head, waiting for her stream of arguments about how such visions were impossible. "Why?" she asked instead. He sat forward, enthused. "Because I don't have that facility." He explained how Harold's autism may have given him a psychic connection to the murdered women, whom he knew from the bowling alley. Even this link didn't seem to faze Scully. "He was not the only one to have visions of the victims." "No, but he had something else in common with them. They were all dying. One of emphysema, one of cancer and now Angie Pintero of heart failure." "Harold Spuller is dying too?" "That's what I need your medical opinion on." He stood so they could get going. At last, Scully seemed ready to put up her usual fight. "Well, what if he's not?" "I'd be very surprised. What is a death omen if not a vision of our own mortality? And who among us would most likely be able to see the dead?" XxX In the end, Scully didn't need to offer her expertise because a layperson could have pronounced Spuller dead. Lung failure, but the proximal cause could have been accidental. Scully seized on this as evidence that Mulder's theory was wrong. "Harold Spuller wasn't dying, Mulder. He was killed as a result of what that woman took away from him when she withheld his medication." Mulder held her eyes with a challenging black gaze. "Is that your medical opinion?" He was determined that she sign her own death warrant. Fine. She drew a shuddering breath. "I saw something, Mulder. The fourth victim, in the bathroom, before you came to tell me." He seemed less surprised than she'd expected. More angry. "Why didn't you tell me?" "Because I didn't want to believe it. I don't want to believe it." "Why can't you be honest with me?" She was angry now, too. "Is that what you want me to say? That you're right? That I believe it even if I don't? Is that what you want? "Is that what you think I want to hear?" She drew back. "No." "You can believe what you want to believe, Scully, but you can't hide the truth from me. If you do, then you're working against me. And yourself." He paused, the fight going out of him all at once. When he spoke again, his tone was softer. "I know what you're afraid of. I'm afraid of the same thing." Scully's chin trembled. "The doctor said I was fine." "I hope that's the truth." She fled then. "I'm going home." She swept past him, and he made no effort to follow her. Shaking with anger and hurt, she walked across the dark parking lot to her car. Apparently, she'd underestimated the strength of his belief this time. Her car, steeped in shadows, seemed hollow and lonely. Ambulance sirens echoed around her as they roared out to fetch some other hapless victim. How many more times would she be able to walk out of the hospital under her own power? "I've seen people choose to go it alone," Dr. Alton had said. "Let me tell you right now that road is much, much harder." Hot tears welled in Scully's eyes and her lashes blinked to set them free. She gripped the steering wheel to control her trembling. To tell Mulder everything was to admit defeat, to go home and die. How could she tell him she was giving up? Something moved in her rearview mirror. Harold Spuller sat in her back seat, faint and glowing. Scully gasped and turned around. He was gone. XxXxX Scully felt ghostlike herself as she climbed the dark steps to her apartment: transparent, disconnected and empty. Half-gone and fading fast. She slipped the key in the lock and pushed her door open, dropping her things right in the entryway. The lights came on with a flick of her hand over the switch. Scully jumped. Mulder sat in her armchair, posed like the great statue of Lincoln, and he held equally as still. "Mulder, you scared me." He said nothing. "What are you doing here?" she asked, taking a few steps closer to him. He cocked his head slightly to the side and looked almost through her. "You're not getting better, are you." Her shoulders drooped. "No," she whispered. He gave a short nod as if he'd thought as much. "No more treatments?" "There are a few clinical trials I might be able to enroll in." She came around the couch. "Dr. Alton is looking into the matter for me." "I see." "Mulder, what on earth happened to you?" For the first time, she noticed the blood-soaked towel wrapped around his hand. He held it up to inspect it. "I am going to need a new windshield." "Oh, Mulder." She crouched by the chair and took his injured hand in hers. Up close, she could see there was glass caught on his wool coat. She peeled back the towel and winced at the bloody cuts across his knuckles. "Come into the bathroom and I'll see what I can do." They stood close together at her sink as she rinsed him clean. "I've been wrong sometimes," he said above her head. "With my theories." Scully froze in mid-wash. "Yeah?" She forced a melancholy smile. "Name one time." The sound of the running water filled the long stretch before his answer. "I can't remember right now," he admitted. Scully patted him dry with a clean towel. "But I'll make a list and get back to you." "You do that." She avoided his eyes as she cleaned his cuts and got out the bandages. "This wasn't very bright of you, Mulder. You could have been much more seriously hurt." "Yeah." He paused. "I thought it would make me feel better." "Did it?" she asked lightly. "No." He flexed his fingers under her handiwork. "See, there? That was one place where I was really wrong." "Well, I hope you've learned your lesson." At long last, she met his gaze and her heart stopped at the anguish she read in his eyes. "Scully." She could see him swallow hard. "I hope you know I don't want to be right about this." "I know." He enfolded her against him, her cheek brushing the warm fuzz of his white shirt. She closed her eyes at the feel of his arms around her -- warm, solid and alive. CHAPTER FOURTEEN For the rest of the world, the days were getting longer, coming alive again under the lingering sunshine. Blossoms fell away to reveal thick green leaves, and the harsh winds slowed to a gentle breeze. Summer was stealing over the city. But Scully kept her focus on the twelve-hour clock rather than the yearly calendar, managing her life in ever-shrinking increments. Tomorrow she couldn't predict; she renewed her confidence hour by hour. She played Mulder's memory game in her head and marveled at how much life she had fit into just thirty-three years. She grabbed more where she could, inking moments with indelible marker so she would never forget: her living room at sunset, turned pink and shadowed; cinnamon tea with her mother served on Grandmother Scully's delicate china; Mulder talking to himself in the shower, his deep voice rumbling off the porcelain tiles. She still hadn't told him about the metastasis. At work, she had begun tacking bits of mementos to his bulletin board, scraps of old cases and communications she'd amassed and somehow never quite managed to throw out over the years. A picture of yellowish gunk on the ground next to a car tire. There was a finger in the shot, in the goo, and she knew it had to be his finger because the person wasn't wearing any gloves and she was always yelling at him for stunts like that. Their first national headline together: FBI INVESTIGATES DEATHS AT ICY CAPE. A button he'd lost during his struggle with the beast woman that she had offered to sew on but never had. She had told her mother two days ago after dinner, reciting her terminal diagnosis like it was just another medical finding while her mother's eyes welled with tears. "I feel okay for now," she had tried to reassure, but her mother was already in mourning, ready to go to church and pray for her soul. She'd sent Scully home with chicken soup and an electric blanket, as though Scully were dying of the common cold. Scully had eaten the soup but used Mulder for warmth instead. Sometimes she suspected he already knew. He still talked about their future with dogged determination: "There's a MUFON conference here this fall, Scully. We should definitely check it out." As she slowed down, grew quieter, he leapt forward, making more noise than ever. Their caseload doubled. He talked non-stop. When they walked, he practically ran on ahead, as if to pull her along by sheer enthusiasm alone. As he careened from one case to another at breakneck speed, she barely had breath to argue science with him. It was the Mulder equivalent of sticking his fingers in his ears and singing "la la la." So she waited for some silence, for a break where she could slip in the awful words. She ignored the niggling voice that told her she was a coward. Afraid he wouldn't stop moving when she needed him. Afraid he would. She rolled over under the blankets, snuggling into his pillows and listening to him clatter around in her kitchen. He had the radio on to oldies songs and was half-singing along in an off-key echo that made her smile. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the sounds of her life. "Scully!" he called a minute later. "Breakfast." The scent of pancakes drifted into the bedroom, and Scully waited for her stomach to pass judgment. It gave a feeble growl and she decided eating might be worth a try. Wrapping a terry-cloth robe around herself, she padded barefoot towards the kitchen. She stopped in the doorway and covered her smile with one hand. Mulder wore her flowered apron over his boxers, and was wrangling misshapen pancakes from the griddle as he swayed his hips to the beat. "Baby, baby...where did our love go?" "Good morning," she offered, and he stopped singing to grin at her. "Hey, Scully. Everything's ready." He set the plate of pancakes on the table with a flourish, still moving to the music. "I see that. Nice outfit." "Come on," he said, dancing around her and extending his hand. "We're grooving in here." "Mulder, no," she said, but she was smiling. "Scully, yes." He joined the song again, louder this time, and grabbed her hand. "I've got this yearning, burning, yearnin', feeling inside me..." "You're insane." "...oh, deep inside me, and it hurts so bad..." She allowed him to twirl her around slowly. He shimmied his hips. "You came into my heart...so tenderly..." She laughed as they spread apart and came back together again. "Crazy," she pronounced again, but he kept singing. "Baby, baby, where did our love go? Oh, don't you want me? Don't you want me no more? Baby, baby, baby, please don't leave me..." Scully stopped dancing. Oblivious, Mulder circled around her, still crooning. "...Oh, please don't leave me. All by myself." She pulled away and backed up. "Scully?" "I...I need my slippers," she said. "I'll be right back." "'Kay." He swayed back in the direction of the table, humming. "Oh, please don't leave me..." She left before he could see her tears. ~*~*~*~*~*~ Friday morning Mulder was extra twitchy. He was in and out of his chair, up and down, back and forth around the office, faxing, filing and making phone calls that he did not seem to want to share with her. Scully just sat in the eye of the storm and tried not to get blown away. By the afternoon, she was exhausted from watching him and so she left a little early. He'd muttered a good-bye from his place over the printer, his tie loose and his hair on-end from too many passes with his fingers. Scully left with heavy footsteps, just knowing he would call eventually with some hot case in Timbuktu. She made up her mind not to get dragged along this time. Forty- eight hours of rest. That's all she wanted. On Monday they could chase their tails again. He rang almost as soon as she got home. Scully collapsed on the couch with her phone, her arm draped over her eyes as she tried to concentrate on the conversation. "Hey, Scully, I've got something I need to check out right away." "Mulder, I can't." "Can't what?" "Can't go with you on whatever case you've drummed up for us. We've been working for twelve straight days and I need a break." "That's why I was calling. Take your break, Scully. Get some rest. I'll talk to you when I get back." Scully sat up as she realized he'd never intended to invite her along. "Back from where? Mulder, you can't go off on a case by yourself. It's not safe." "It's not a case." He paused. "It's more of a personal discovery mission. Just something I have to do for myself. I promise I'll tell you everything when I get back." She should have fought harder for details, she realized later. Should have realized something was wrong. But she was so tired. So worn down. All she needed was two days of quiet to get her energy back. The problem was she'd forgotten how much trouble Mulder could get into in two days. ~*~*~*~*~*~ "Mulder, where are you?" she asked when he finally called at five in the morning on Sunday. "I think I'm in a motel in Providence. I don't remember." The words sent prickles of fear climbing up her spine. "What are you doing there?" "I don't remember how I got here. There's...there's blood all over me." Scully was already kicking her way free of the covers. "Are you hurt, Mulder?" The silence on the other end drew out for an eternity. "I don't think so," he said at last. "I don't think it's my blood." ~*~*~*~ Scully let the curtain fall shut again as Mulder roared away in their car. Sheer adrenaline kept her upright at this point; she hadn't slept in two days, since Mulder's first call from the motel room. Not your problem, Mulder had said, but every one of his actions pleaded for help. Increasingly erratic, possibly dangerous, he'd now rushed out the back door and left her stranded at his mother's house. Teena Mulder emerged from the back room looking pale and shaken. "Is he gone?" she asked in a hushed voice. Scully's answer was grim. "Yes, and we need to find him before he hurts himself or someone else." "He was acting like a madman. The things he said." Mrs. Mulder shivered, but Scully felt no sympathy. All Scully knew of this frail woman was that she had not loved Mulder well enough. Whatever other sins the woman might have committed surely paled in comparison. "Did he say where he was going?" Mrs. Mulder shook her head. "No, he just ran out of here like he was on fire. He was bleeding, though. Here." She touched her fingers to her scalp. "Just what sort of treatment did he undergo?" "Dr. Goldstein," Scully murmured, her heart racing. She looked Mulder's mother squarely in the eyes. "I need to borrow your car." Scully's random thought as she drove up to the old abandoned Mulder family summer home was how odd it was that so many of the houses stood empty after all these years, as though they, too, lived trapped with Mulder in 1973. But now it was Mulder's memories that held him prisoner, and it was up to her to get him out before the truth he sought took him to the grave. Her instructions to the men waiting outside were short and sweet: If Mulder should try to flee, do not shoot. She opened the door and called his name in the darkness. "Leave me alone, Scully." Never, she thought, and took several more steps into the house. The sight of him kneeling with his gun at his throat took her breath away. "It's all falling into place," he murmured, his eyes closed. The gun barrel grazed his jaw. Scully swallowed and held out her hands to him. "Mulder, put down the gun." "No, don't try to stop me." "Please, Mulder." He whirled and pointed it at her. "Get away!" Scully froze. She licked her lips, considered the irony of shooting a dead woman. "You going to shoot me, Mulder? Is that how much this means to you?" He nodded and her blood ran cold. "Mulder, listen to me. You've been given a powerful hallucinogen. You don't know that these memories are yours. You've got to trust me." The gun barrel wavered. "Shut up!" "Put down the gun," she repeated. "Let it go." Mulder's arm shook, and for a flash Scully thought he might shoot. At the last second, he turned again and fired five rapid shots into the wall. Scully's heart jumped with each explosion and the shock to her ears set them buzzing. Mulder collapsed in on himself like a house of cards. As the noise echoing in her head dimmed, she could hear Mulder sobbing. She crossed to him and knelt down by his side, laying her cheek against his back. "It never stops," he said, cringing under her touch. "It just never stops." She held him. "I know." Later, slumped over Mulder's hospital bed, Scully didn't wake until Skinner touched her shoulder. She jerked and blinked rapidly, trying to get her bearings. "Sir?" she said as she stretched. Her voice was scratchy from too little sleep. "What are you doing here?" He frowned. "I could say the same thing to you," he whispered. "You should be in bed." "I'm fine," she said as she stood. Skinner glanced at Mulder. "How is he doing?" "Better." She rubbed her tired eyes. "Tests suggest there has been no serious cerebral damage, but we'll know more in a few days." The set of Skinner's jaw did not relax. "I heard he took a shot at you." "You heard wrong. He never fired at me." The steel returned to her backbone. "I'm not sure that's going to matter. From what I understand, Agent Mulder knowingly submitted himself for this..." Skinner's mouth twisted around the word. "Treatment. He took a potentially lethal drug and allowed a man to drill holes in his head. These actions suggest someone who is dangerously close to the edge." "Sir, at the time, Agent Mulder didn't know about the side effects of the drug, and--" "And you," Skinner said. "Instead of hauling his ass to the nearest hospital like you should have, you played chauffer to his reckless behavior. Dangerous and stupid. I expect better from the both of you." Her chin lifted. "Yes, sir." If he wanted to lay the blame on her, that was fine. Skinner sighed and looked over at Mulder again. "The answers he was looking for," he said, "did he find them?" Scully's gaze slid to the floor. "I don't think so." "A goddamn suicide mission," Skinner muttered. He turned back to Scully. "Just because I understand the desperation doesn't mean I have to sanction it. The truth is that neither one of you should be out in the field right now. I am not going to let this go on until I get a call from the morgue asking me to come down and identify one or the both of you. I won't allow it." "Sir, if you'll just let me ex--" "You're going to get to explain it all to the review board. In the meantime, I don't want to see either of you near the Hoover building." Scully bit her lip. Mulder had been running their caseload on fast-forward lately, aiming a last Hail Mary pass at the truth as the seconds ticked out on the clock. He would not be thrilled to find she'd let them get benched. "I really don't think that's necessary," she said. "We'll slow down." Skinner fixed her with a hard look. "I think it's long past necessary. I know what's going on. I've been reading your reports and watching the receipts pile up; you've been through eight states in the last two weeks. You get sicker and he self-destructs. If you two can't break that cycle then I'm damn sure going to break it for you." Scully shook her head. "No, it's not like that." "Listen." Skinner's dark whisper was urgent now. "I understand your anger. I share it. But I am not going to let him compound this tragedy. Not on my watch." She glared at him. "No, you'll just tie our hands and walk away." Skinner went rigid, his eyes narrowing. She could feel the controlled fight emanating from him, but she held his gaze without flinching. "It's because I can't walk away," he said at last, "that I am standing here now. But you still can." She gave a sarcastic chuff and turned away. "Right." "The FBI doesn't have your answers. Don't you see that by now?" "And who does?" she demanded, whirling to face him again. "Tell me, and I'll go get them. I'll go right now." He bowed his head, and her mouth turned down bitterly. "That's what I thought." Skinner was quiet for a long time. "All I know," he said finally, looking at Mulder in the hospital bed, "is this is not the way." XxXxXxX They arrived back in DC just in time for the intense late- afternoon sun. It blazed through Mulder's windows and turned the room yellow. Mulder squinted as residual pain lanced through his skull. Scully jiggled the key out of the lock as he went to wrestle with the blinds. "I'll get those," she called over her shoulder. "You sit down." "I've got it." He set his bag down and started for the windows. "Sit," she said, brushing him aside. He plopped onto the couch and rubbed his head. The room darkened as Scully blocked the sun. When he opened his eyes he found her looking at him, her brow furrowed with concern. "Does it hurt?" she asked. "I've got more Tylenol." "No, it's fine." But she was already heading for her bag. He sighed, irritated. "Scully, leave it. I don't need any Tylenol." She halted for a second and then changed course. "Okay, then I'll just go make some tea." The temperature in the room was about three billion degrees from the hot sun that had been pounding in all afternoon; the last thing Mulder wanted was tea. He'd nearly put a bullet in her brain, and she wanted to serve him tea. He felt his inner temperature rise. "I don't want tea," he hollered in the direction of the kitchen. His only answer was the sound of running water and the cupboard door closing. He pushed himself off the couch and walked to the kitchen. Scully already had two mugs with teabags sitting on the counter. "I don't want tea," he repeated. "Fine." She removed the bag and set his cup aside. "I saw some orange juice in the fridge--" "Scully, stop it." He grabbed her as she moved towards the refrigerator. "Just stop it." She looked up at him but managed not to meet his eyes. "What?" "This fussing. I'm fine. I don't need it and I don't want it." "Mulder, you aren't fine," she said, pulling away. "You've collapsed four times in the last five days, and you were just released from the hospital this morning. You need rest; you need to take the pills they gave you. Let me help--" He twitched and snapped. "I could have killed you!" That got her to close her mouth. "I had my gun pointed right at you, Scully, with my finger on the trigger. I could have dropped you in a heartbeat." "No, you couldn't have," she said with quiet certainty. Her blue eyes were so calm. How could she be so calm? She hadn't heard the noise in his head. He had been set to shoot her; he still wasn't sure why he hadn't. Gratitude and fear had been warring inside him all day. "I was going to kill you," he said slowly, emphasizing each word. "You could have been dead, Scully. Doesn't that bother you?" She moved past him to grab her mug and bring it closer to the stove. "I'm not afraid of you, Mulder. Nothing you can say is going to change that. I knew you weren't going to shoot me." "You weren't scared?" God, he'd been terrified even then. She looked over at him. "I was afraid for you, yes. You had been very seriously injured." "Fuck that," he said, closing in on her again, backing her into the wall. "I was hopped up on drugs and bleeding inside my skull. You didn't know what I was capable of." "I knew you wouldn't hurt me." "You knew nothing," he said, his voice shaking. "Just once I'd like to hear you admit that." Anger flashed across her features at last. "Admit that I was afraid? Why is that so important to you?" "I was psychotic and dangerous and could have killed you, and you're here with tea and sympathy like nothing ever happened. Maybe you can't admit it. Maybe you don't want to believe that some seriously bad shit was going down and there wasn't a damn thing that Dana Scully could do to control it." She tried to leave but he blocked her. "Mulder, stop it." "Nothing!" he practically roared. "Nothing you could do! You could be dead and you act like that doesn't matter at all." She looked at the floor. "Of course it matters." "And you aren't scared? You aren't angry?" "You seem to be angry enough for both of us," she said, attempting to push free again. "I think I should go." "Fine," he said, releasing her abruptly. "Go." He turned his back on her, but he could still feel her presence in the room. "I don't know what you want me to say," she said after a long minute. He faced her again. "Anything," he whispered, his throat aching. "Say anything." She held herself stiffly. "I just don't see the point. It's over, and no amount of words will change that." She swallowed visibly. "And they can't change the future, either." She left and Mulder slammed the cabinet door shut, a bang that shook the whole room. He wasn't about to let her disappear without a little noise. CHAPTER FIFTEEN Scully did have to wonder how it was that a dark basement office with pictures of aliens on the walls was one of the few remaining things in her life that made sense to her, how her own face came to blend with the freakish landscape of mutated frogs, spectral photographs and triangle hats. But after four years with Mulder, her barometer of "normal" now spun crazily, like a compass on a magnet, and she felt a sense of peace in her shadowed corner of the office that her cozy couch at home could not give. So she kept working, promising herself just one more day, until the next day arrived and she made her vow all over again. Mulder buzzed around her, up and down from his chair, taking phone calls and pencil potshots at the ceiling in equal measure. She waited for him to tell her what was going on, but instead he made an abrupt exit shortly before noon. "I've got to go see someone for a little bit," he announced, grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair. Her eyebrows lifted in silent question. Please don't let this be like the trip to Providence, she thought. She did not have the strength left to save him from himself another time. Mulder must have sensed her worry because he stopped to give her a crooked smile. "It's okay, Scully. I'm just headed to American University. I'll be back in a couple hours." "Again? That's the second time you've been over there this week. Are you in some sort of part-time degree program now, Mulder?" "Just boning up on my geology," he called over his shoulder as he left. "See you later." Scully shook her head and returned to the article she was reading. Mulder hadn't been gone ten minutes when there was a soft rap on the door. "Hello?" a woman's voice called. "Yes?" Scully stood up from her chair as Miranda Westfall peered around the doorframe. "Oh, hello," she said when she saw Scully. "I wasn't sure anyone was down here." "No, I'm here," Scully said. Not gone yet, she added mentally. "If you're looking for Mulder, though, you just missed him." "I did?" Miranda's dark brows knit together. "We were supposed to have lunch today." She checked her watch. "It is Tuesday, isn't it?" "All day." Scully walked around to the front of her table. "Could he have gotten the time wrong?" "No, I'm pretty sure that we agreed on noon. I guess he must have forgotten." Scully dropped her chin in a small nod. "That happens sometimes," she said with the world-weary tone of an old general breaking in the new recruits. She did not add, *better get used to it.* "He's been on the phone most of the morning, and I guess there was something he needed to follow up on that just couldn't wait." "Well, phooey on him," Miranda said, her Southern accent creeping in just a tad more than usual. She shrugged and then flashed Scully a smile. "It will have to be just us girls then, won't it?" Scully stiffened. "Excuse me?" "For lunch," Miranda said. "It can be my treat." Scully's mouth opened as she struggled to come up with some words. Food and forced company were the last things she wanted. "I...that's really nice of you, but I have so much work here, and--" "You've got to eat, right?" Miranda jerked her head at the door. "Come on. We'll go someplace close by and you'll be back in no time." "No, really, I couldn't." "Just for a little while? It's beautiful outside." Miranda looked around at the dreary basement in silent, judgmental contrast. "You should get out and enjoy it while you can." Scully sucked in a sharp breath that Miranda must have heard because her face instantly melted to apology. "Oh my god, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that the way it sounded. It's just such a gorgeous spring day outside and we don't get too many of those before the summer heat sets in, and you know, I hate to eat alone so I just thought..." She trailed off. "Now I'm babbling." She gave Scully an embarrassed smile. "This floor doesn't open up and swallow people, does it? Because now would be a good time for such a mechanism to appear." Scully took a deep breath and returned the smile. "It's okay. Really." She looked at the gray light streaming in through the clouded basement windows. "You're right. It is a lovely day outside." "So you'll come?" Scully hesitated. You owe me, Mulder, she thought. "Yes, I'll come." They walked to the same sandwich shop where she had first relayed the story of the Magic Pickle. Miranda bought them both chicken salad clubs, which came on plates stacked high with chips and colored toothpicks peeking out at the top. As she watched the other woman open wide to take the first bite, Scully knew she would be doing well to finish half the food in front of her. Gamely, she took up half a sandwich. "So how is the teaching going?" she asked. Miranda, her mouth full, rolled her eyes. "It's exhausting right now," she said when she had swallowed. "Finals are coming up so I'm swamped with students in my office every minute that I'm there." "It sounds like a lot of work," Scully agreed. "It is. But I love it. I was one of those geeks who always loved school. Each year, I had my pencils all sharpened and my outfit picked out two weeks before the first day rolled around. I thought if I could find a way to stay in school forever, I could be truly happy." She smiled. "So that's what I did." Scully lowered her sandwich from her mouth in a gesture of some surprise. "I was the same way," she said. "I couldn't wait to get back." After a long summer of chasing after her brothers, always begging to be included and enduring constant reminders that she just wasn't quite up to their snuff, she relished the chance to dive back into the schoolbooks. So much to know, so little time. And there was the added bonus that no one -- not her schoolmates, not her siblings -- was able to master the information quite as well as she did. She tried to adjust her image of pretty, slightly flaky Miranda into someone more like herself. Miranda caught her squinting. "What? Do I have something in my teeth?" she asked, eyes wide. Scully smiled and shook her head. "No, I was just thinking." Miranda plucked the pickle off her plate and extended it to Scully. "Mulder said you're a fan. I certainly won't eat it." "Thanks, but I have all I can handle right here. I'll be talking half with me as it is." "Yeah." Miranda grew less animated. "How are you feeling?" The knot in Scully's stomach tightened again. No one seemed to understand her reluctance to answer that question. For months now she had suffered nearly every physical invasion known to man as the doctors tried to treat her illness. They stripped her for weighing, for inspection. They poked her and prodded her at will. Injected her with strange dyes. Scanned her with noisy machines. And just as her medical warriors attacked from without, the cancer ate away at her from within. Her body was caught in a tug of war, but her feelings were still her own. Untouched and private. As kind as Miranda seemed, she was still just an acquaintance. Mulder's friend, if Scully were to classify her at all. She looked across at Miranda, assessing her anew. Being Mulder's friend over the long haul would take some work, and she wasn't sure what to think of this new, untested prototype. Scully cleared her throat and took a sip of water. "I'm managing all right, thanks." Her biggest worry these days was Mulder, for he was an independent variable she couldn't cram into the equation. Sometimes, she thought it was silly to be so concerned; the man had managed thirty years on his own without her help. Surely he would carry on just as well if she were not around. But then he would do something astoundingly foolish, like drilling holes in his head, and she would have nightmares of Mulder self-destructing at her grave. Or perhaps he would just disappear into the haze like a balloon that lost its tether. A colorful little dot that became smaller and smaller until no one saw it or remembered it anymore. She wasn't going to round up reserves and make them swear to take care of him. Selfishly, perhaps even foolishly, she hoarded that job for herself. No one nearby seemed able to do it half as well. Miranda lacked depth. Skinner had too many pots to stir already; would he really be able to jump in every time Mulder's fervor threatened to boil? And deep down, she had to think -- as long as she was necessary, she had to remain here to follow through. "I hope you don't think I'm overstepping," Miranda began, and Scully froze. Just those few words already crossed her comfort line. "Fox mentioned you were still looking at treatment options." Looking for treatment options was more like it. Dr. Alton's resources seemed pretty much exhausted. Scully said nothing. "Anyway, I have a name for you, if you're interested. Ron Zuckerman. He works over at Trinity Hospital. My mom talked to him a couple of years ago, and he had some useful things to say." Scully tried to recall if Miranda had said whether her mother had survived or not. "What kind of treatment does he offer?" "He does clinical trials with new cancer drugs, so there's no kind of guarantee. I'm not sure if he specializes in just breast cancer or not, but I'm sure he could put you in contact with someone else over there if need be." "You say his name is Zuckerman?" Miranda nodded, and Scully sighed. "Okay, thanks. I'll ask my doctors about it." One more box to check off, she thought. One more door to close. XxXxXxX Her lights were on so Mulder let himself inside her apartment. Some classical piece was playing on the stereo in the living room, but there was no sign of Scully. "Scully?" he called as he stripped off his suit coat and tossed it on her couch. "You here?" No answer. Mulder tugged at his tie and walked toward the kitchen. A pink mug sat by the sink, along with a small plate bearing toast crumbs. Mulder rinsed them both and put them in the dishwasher, and then opened the refrigerator door. He selected the nearest juice container and drained it straight from the waxy cardboard lips. Tossing the empty box in the garbage, he wandered back towards the bedroom. "Scully?" The covers were pulled down and rumpled, but Scully wasn't in the room. He checked and found the bathroom door closed. No noise came from within. Knocking gently, he called her name a third time. "Scully? It's me." When again he received no reply, he frowned and rapped on the door a bit louder. "Scully, are you all right? Answer me." He tried the handle and it turned, so he pushed into the room. "Scully?" She lay naked and still in the tub, unmoving. Her lips were blue. "Jesus," he muttered, crossing to her. "Scully?" He plunged his hands into the tepid water to grab her skinny arms. "Scully!" Her eyes opened at his touch, her lips parting on a gasp as she blinked at him with confusion. "Mulder?" His heart sunk to his shoes and his arms went weak with relief. "You're okay," he told her happily, rubbing his hands from her shoulders to her elbows. "I must have fallen asleep." As if for emphasis, she yawned. Her teeth chattered as her jaws came back together. "What are you doing here?" "Getting you out," he said, helping her to sit up. "This water is freezing. She stood, still in the tub, and allowed him to wrap her in an enormous blue towel. He seemed large and clumsy as he dried her small form, but Scully didn't mind. She stood still as he patted and rubbed, then tucked the ends of the towel around her. He kissed her forehead and she leaned into him. "You all right?" he asked, sweeping his hand down her back. She nodded. "Just really tired." "Then let's find the bed." He lifted her free and clear of the tub, but did not set her down on the cold tile floor. She wiggled as he marched toward the bedroom. "Mulder, I can walk." "Yeah, but see we're here already. Argument avoided." He lowered her carefully down onto the bed and she turned to burrow into the covers. "Pajamas?" he asked, looking around the room for them. She shook her head against the pillow. "Not tonight." She looked up at him with sleepy eyes. "You ditched me again today." He felt a twinge of guilt at leaving her out of the loop, but he didn't want to say anything out loud until he was sure. "Yeah, I'll explain about that soon. It's kind of complicated to get into right now." Scully's eyes drifted shut and she made a small humming noise as she curled deeper under the covers. A jolt of affection gripped him so strongly he felt his heart squeeze. He tucked the comforter up around her shoulders and then reached to turn off the light. Stripping down to his boxers and T-shirt, he climbed in next to her. She inched closer to him, and he turned on his side so they face one another in the cave of covers. His hand grazed her bare knee where it stuck out from the hem of the towel. "Are you warm enough?" he whispered. Lying like this, with so little between them, it was hard to deny how thin she'd become. He stroked her soft, damp skin. "Mm-hmm." Her eyes opened again. "You stood up Miranda today, too." He winced. "Shit. Totally slipped my mind." "So I gathered. I had lunch with her instead." "You did?" He squeezed her knee. "Thanks, Scully. You saved my ass." "Again," she added sleepily. "Again," he agreed, his voice still tender. "Actually it turned out to be a useful meal," she said. "She gave me the name of a doctor doing some clinical trials at Trinity Hospital, and I made some calls this afternoon. He might be able to work me into a study he's doing now." "Scully, that's great." He reached up and stroked her cheek with his thumb. "Really great." "It's a long shot," she murmured, her eyes sliding closed again. "But it's a shot." "It sure is." Such a thin thread of hope she was offering, almost invisible, but he had always been good at seeing things that weren't there. He grabbed that golden line with both hands and reeled her in, tucking her into his arms and holding her close. She nuzzled his breastbone and slipped an arm around his ribs. In answer, he rested his chin atop her curling hair, which was scented and still wet from her bath. Her breathing evened into deep sleep but Mulder remained awake for a long time, wired and reeling. First proof of his life's work, tantalizing close after so many years. Now a possible cure for Scully's illness. He hardly could contain both ideas in his brain at one time. It seemed impossible. Amazing. Wondrous. He knew he should be waiting for the other shoe to drop; it always did. But in the quiet night with Scully wrapped around him, Mulder let himself believe. XxXxX "I'm so glad you could come tonight, honey." Scully paused from slicing carrots for the salad and smiled at her mother. "I am, too. It will be nice to see Bill again." "Oh, and he's so looking forward to seeing you. He said so when I talked to him last week. He's got some exciting news to share." Scully looked up again. "What?" "It's best for Bill to say." But her mother was glowing. Scully wondered if her brother could have been transferred again, somewhere closer to home. The thought made her twitch. Bill was fine in small doses once a year; it would quite another thing to have him in the same city, breathing disapproval down her neck at every turn. "Is he moving here?" she asked. Her mother just continued her secret smile. "He'll be here soon enough. I'm sure he'll tell you then." Scully slid the carrots from the cutting board and into the salad bowl in a rain of orange confetti. "I...I have some news, too," she said, not meeting her mother's eyes. "Oh?" "I've enrolled in a clinical study at Trinity Hospital. A man named Zuckerman has a program underway to evaluate a potential new treatment. The drug has had some success in shrinking tumors in animal studies, and they're just now starting the testing in humans." Her mother wiped her hands on a dishtowel and walked over to Scully. "Just now testing in humans? Is that safe, Dana?" "They think it should be reasonably safe. There will be side effects of course, but I've already been through that so I don't see how this would be any different." Her mother frowned. "I don't know, sweetie. It sounds awfully risky." Scully sighed and looked directly at her mother. "Mom," she said softly, "risky is all I have. Dr. Alton has nothing else to offer me. It's this or nothing." Mrs. Scully's mouth tightened as her eyes grew wet. "Don't say that." "But it's the truth." She reached out and took her mother's hands. "At least this way, there's still a chance. Right?" Her mother didn't answer, so Scully squeezed her hands. "Right?" "Right." Her mother pulled her hands free and wrapped her arms around Scully. "You're in my prayers," she said into her hair as she rocked her back and forth. "Every night." "I know." Scully returned the hug, breathing in the familiar rose and aloe scent of her mother's skin. Her mother sniffed and drew back. "When do you start the new treatment?" "I'm supposed to check into the hospital on Thursday morning." Mrs. Scully forced a smile. "I'll be there." The doorbell rang then, breaking the moment, and Scully patted her mother's arm. "I'll get it." Six doorbells and half an hour later, Bill arrived in full dress uniform. He grinned at her and Scully was surprised to feel her heart swell at the sight of him. It really had been a long time. "Look at you my big brother," she said as they hugged. He nearly lifted her off her feet. "Did you get my birthday card?" he asked. She smacked him playfully on the chest. "I did. Thanks for remembering this year." "Once a decade," he teased. The door opened again and they both turned to see her mother admit Father McCue. He was dressed in his full uniform, too. Bill sobered and looked down at her. "How are you feeling?" he asked. "I'm fine," Scully said, ducking the question. "Let's get some dinner, okay?" Bill followed her to the table and took the seat next to her. "Mom wasn't sure you'd be able to make it tonight," he said. "She told me you're still working pretty hard." His tone was a strange kind of steely concern. "I'm working the same as usual," Scully answered. "Dana, I really think--" Bill didn't get to finish his thought because Father McCue took the seat on the other side of Scully. "Dana," he said warmly, "it's so good to see you." Scully favored him with a tight smile. "And you, Father. I hope you've been well." "I have been, thank you." Her mother reappeared then, with the roast in hand. Everyone at the table praised its look and savory smell, but Mrs. Scully brushed off their comments. "Before we begin," she said, "I believe there is something Bill wanted to share with us." Bill's news, Scully remembered. She sneaked a sideways look at her brother and saw he was flushed with pride. In a flash, she guessed the news. Bill rose with his glass in hand. "I'd better get it out before Mom beats me to it," he said with a chuckle. "Tara and I are expecting a baby in December. A boy." Loud congratulations echoed through the room as everyone got up to hug Bill. Her mother was practically bouncing with joy. Scully's feelings were more muted, confusing. Bill and Tara had wanted this for a long time, and she was happy for them. But a strange ache gripped her stomach. She managed a wide smile as she hugged her brother again. "That's wonderful news," she told him. "Please tell Tara how happy I am for you." He squeezed her hard. "You'll have to come out and visit. See the baby." The ache rose to her throat. "I'd like that." When the phone rang for her after dinner she knew immediately who it was. The frown lines on Bill's forehead said he knew, too. She took the receiver from him. "Hello?" "Hey, Scully, it's me. Sorry to interrupt your dinner." "No. Is something the matter?" "I need your help with something. A guy named Arlinsky from the Smithsonian has contacted me about something he found on a mountain in Canada." "What?" "I don't want to get into it over the phone. I need you to come down to the Smithsonian and meet me." Bill frowned and walked off. Scully sighed. "I'm on my way." Arlinsky turned out to be a man with quite a story. He showed them slides of what appeared to be a frozen alien corpse buried long ago in the side of a Canadian mountain. "I know what your first thought was," he said. "But the St. Golias range? That's a long way to go for a hoax." "If you're going to go, why not go all the way?" Mulder asked. "I thought that myself," Arlinsky admitted. "But the ice core samples can't be faked. "You have the ice core samples here?" Scully asked. He rose and went to the freezer. "One taken from each side of the body with seven layers of sediment intact. It is my sincere belief that what we have here is the complete corpus of an extraterrestrial alien entity." XxX Scully took the winding marble steps at such a clip that Mulder had to hurry to keep pace with her. "You think it's foolish?" he asked. "I have no opinion actually." "You have no opinion?" "This is your Holy Grail, Mulder, not mine." She stopped suddenly and turned around. Foolish seemed too mild a word. Arlinsky, by Mulder's own admission, had been involved in one alien hoax already. "What's that supposed to mean?" "It just means that proving to the world the existence of alien life is not my last dying wish." "How about Santa Claus or the Easter bunny? This is not some selfish pet project of mine, Scully. I'm as skeptical of that man as you are. But proof? Definitive proof of sentient beings sharing time and existence with us? There is no greater revelation imaginable. No greater scientific discovery." "You already believe, Mulder. What would proof change for you?" "If someone could prove the existence of God would that change you?" "Only if it had been disproven." He fixed her with a hard stare. "Then you accept that the belief in God could be a lie?" "I don't think about it actually, and I don't think it can be proven." "But if it could be proven, wouldn't that be knowledge worth seeking? Or is it easier going on believing in the lie?" Scully hesitated, and then allowed herself to admit the hard truth at the crux of their argument. "I can't go with you, Mulder." It wasn't even the treatment schedule that was the real problem, though that certainly entered into it. She was tired. Mulder's answers weren't going to help her and she didn't have energy to spare for more searching. With each passing day she grew more certain that the X-Files were not going to contain her salvation. She stayed on the staircase and listened to the sound of his retreating footsteps echo off the marble. Mulder had his truths, and she had hers; they just couldn't look for them in the same place anymore. CHAPTER SIXTEEN Her cell phone rang as she was driving to work, and she oulled it out with one hand. Mulder, she figured, calling to leave her some final marching orders before he left for the mountains. She envisioned him as the proud fisherman, holding the rubbery gray body up by its feet for photos, finally able to let go of all the stories about the one that got away. "Hello?" she said as she glided the car to a halt at a stoplight. "Dana, hi. It's Mom." Scully leaned her head against the seat and closed her eyes. She had forgotten to call and apologize to her mother for leaving the dinner party early. After her meeting with Mulder and Arlinsky, she'd returned home and slept like the dead. "Hi, Mom. Sorry I didn't call you back last night." "It's okay. I assumed your meeting ran late. Is everything okay now?" Scully knew better than to relay details of Mulder's latest alien emergency. "Yes, everything is fine." "Good. I was calling about Friday. Is Fox taking the day off from work, or do you need me to come and pick you up? I'm happy to do it." Mulder had not asked about the treatment and she had not volunteered any information. If she asked him to stay, he might resent her for it later. Her heart squeezed. If she'd asked him to stay, he might have refused. The alien versus partner coin toss was not one she was sure she would win. A car honked behind her. Scully moved forward through the intersection as her mother's worried voice carried through the line. "Dana? Are you there?" "No, I'm here. Uh, yeah. If you could pick me up on Friday that would be great. I have to be there by nine." "Mulder has to work, then?" Better to bite the bullet now than have her mother wondering all day tomorrow when Mulder might show up. "He's out of town, Mom. He'll be back Saturday or Sunday." "Oh." Her mother could infuse years of disapproval into one small syllable. "It's not like that," Scully said. "He doesn't know. I didn't even tell him I was going to be in the hospital again." "For heaven's sake, why not?" She thought of Mulder's face when he'd seen the pictures of the alien body. Scully, he'd said, this could mean everything. "He'll be back in three days," she told her mother. "Three days hardly matter, and I can talk with him then. I'll see you Friday morning, okay?" Already she was late to meet Dr. Vitaglianoe at the American University Paleoclimatology Lab. If Mulder had indeed won the alien jackpot, it would be up to her to punch his ticket and verify his prize. XxXxX Mulder hadn't called. She wasn't sure if that was because he was still on a mountain somewhere, away from the nearest cell tower, or if it was because the body was a fake and he was off nursing his latest disappointment. When she did see him again, she was prepared to offer an apology. Hoax or no, his instincts were right again: whatever secrets were up in that mountain grave, someone was ready to steal and possibly kill to protect them. But he hadn't called and she wasn't on the mountain. So she started her search back in the stairway where she was attacked. The lab boys collected a metric ton of fingerprints and soon she had name to go with the weasel face she saw when she closed her eyes. Michael Kritchgau, government employee, Pentagon research division. Hardly even a surprise, she thought. They'd been knocking her down the stairs for years, one way or another. This was just the first time she had a chance to hold someone accountable. "Thanks," she told the lab tech who gave her the information. Scully drove to the Pentagon. And waited. XxXxX Kritchgau showed his face near the end of the day, looking like any other government schmoe on his way home from work. Scully wondered if he'd been brazen or stupid to leave his fingerprints behind. Either way, he was about to receive his reckoning. Kritchgau walked towards the parking garage, and Scully started her engine to follow him inside. The roar of her speeding car made Kritchgau stop and turn around. Scully did not slow down. He wobbled left and right, trying to decide on a move, but she had him cornered against the wall. Her tires screeched as she halted inches from the man's knees. He took the opportunity to run. "Federal Agent!" she hollered, freeing her gun. Kritchgau did not stop. Weapon drawn, she tracked his footsteps through the echoing concrete room until she heard an engine turn over. A squeal bounced off the walls as Kritchgau pulled out of his space and made his escape. Not this time, you don't, Scully thought, running for the stairs. Her heart was pounding and she felt light-headed, but the energy charging through her crackled down to her fingertips. She beat Kritchgau to the exit and ran out to block his path. He stopped. "Get out of the car!" He didn't move. "Now!" Hands in the air, he kicked the door open and exited the vehicle. "Please don't shoot," he said. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I had no choice." Scully bent him over the hood with a hard shove. "You're under arrest for theft and assault." "If you arrest me, they'll kill me," he said as she frisked him. Still breathing hard, Scully pulled away. "I don't know what you're talking about." "The same people who are trying to kill you," he explained. "The people who gave you your cancer." XxXxX It felt a little bit like a betrayal, letting some stranger do the autopsy, but he didn't want to bring Scully in until he was absolutely sure. As the exam went on, it grew harder not to pick up the phone and share his excitement. The body passed test after test: foreign tissue type, pulmonary and cardio systems intact but clearly not human. The Holy Grail, as Scully had called it. He could not wait to show her. Just when he thought he had to tell, his phone rang. "Mulder," he said. "Mulder, it's me." He grinned at the sound of her voice. "Scully, you're not going to believe this. It's the most amazing thing I've ever seen, and you know me -- that's saying a lot." "Where are you?" "I'm back in DC. Our trip was successful, Scully." He could not hide his glee. "I don't want to say too much over the phone, but I think you should come down here and see for yourself. It's the genuine article this time." She didn't answer right away. "Mulder, I need to see you." "You will, you will!" He broke in before she could say more. "I've got Arlinsky here with me and the body; Scully, the body is incredible. I can't say enough." "No, Mulder. I need you to come here." His euphoria evaporated. "Are you okay? Are you in the hospital? What's going on?" "Nothing like that. I'm fine. I have a man here who has story that I think you need to hear." Mulder looked over at the body on the autopsy bay. "Can it wait?" "I don't think it can." "Okay, then." He sighed. "I'm on my way." XxXxX When he opened the door to his apartment, the first thing he noticed was the welt on her cheek. "What happened?" he asked, crossing quickly to her. "Scully, are you all right?" He touched her face with gentle fingers but she pulled away. "I'm fine, Mulder. It's nothing." "It doesn't look like nothing to me. Who did this to you?" Her eyes slid to the third person in the room, and for the first time Mulder took note of the man sitting in his armchair. "It doesn't matter now how it happened," Scully said, touching Mulder's arm. "What matters is what this man has to say." "And who is this man?" Mulder asked, his eyes meeting the stranger's from across the room. "His name is Michael Kritchgau, and I think you need to hear what he's told me." Mulder didn't move, holding Kritchgau's stare. Scully squeezed his arm. "Sit down," she said. "And listen." Mulder walked over to his couch and took a seat. "Okay, I'm listening," he said somewhat belligerently. Kritchgau leaned forward in his chair. "The lie that you believe, that they have cleverly led you to believe, Agent Mulder, is that there is intelligent life other than our own and we've had contact with these life forms." "So you're saying this is all a hoax." "Which you have been used to perpetuate." Mulder's tone was flat, disbelieving. He'd heard this all before. "You come by this knowledge how?" "Working for the DOD. Watching a military industrial complex that operated unbridled and unchecked through the Cold War, create a diversion of attention from itself and its continued misdeeds by confabulating enough believable evidence to convince passionate adepts like yourself that it really could be true." "And just by chance you run into Agent Scully?" Kritchgau's lips thinned and he gave a miniscule shake of his head. "That's just like you, Agent Mulder. Suspicious of everything but what you should be." "Why come to me now? Why not four years ago?" "I have a son who is very sick. He served in the Gulf War." When Mulder did not say anything, Kritchgau took a deep breath before continuing. "The lies are so deep that the only way to cover them is to create something more incredible. They invented you. The regression hypnosis, the story of your sister's abduction, the lies they fed your father. You wanted to believe, and who could have blamed you?" Mulder nearly snorted aloud. He wasn't so naīve as to think he was really that important. Besides, he now had solid proof of the very lies this man was selling. "The body that was found?" he asked him. "Meticulously constructed out of biomaterials through the hybridization of differentiated cells -- what are called chimeras -- frozen into place over the course of a year using sediment and materials that will bear out its age." More lies. He glanced at Scully, but her gaze was focused on the floor. "They would have known that body would have been carbon dated, that it would have been proved a fake." "The body will never be tested, Agent Mulder. You were only meant to see it, to make you believe the lie. So that you might finally commit and go public the information." Mulder looked over at Scully. For this, she had pulled him away from the body? After four years together, he found it hard to believe she would switch allegiances so quickly. "This is man is a liar." "You can see for yourself, Agent Mulder. The body is already long gone." Mulder got up from the couch and grabbed his coat. He left Scully without another word. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Scully dragged herself home after midnight. She had three shots of whiskey in her and not much else, but it was enough to stop her hands from trembling and to burn away the ache her in her chest. In the morning she would enter the hospital for a treatment that was more likely to kill her than to save her, and a few hours ago she had laid her death squarely on Mulder's sagging shoulders. She no more thought he was responsible for her illness than she thought he could hold back the tide; she thought him guilty of the same sin he accused her of committing so often: willful ignorance. If she could just make him see how far they would go to keep him a believer, she had a chance to free him from the lies once and for all. But anger had twisted her tongue. With a weary sigh, Scully closed her door. She couldn't remember her exact words, but she was pretty sure they had translated to "I'm dying and it's your fault, Mulder." She wasn't sure how one even began to take such a thing back. She checked her machine to see if he'd called: no messages. Shedding her jacket, she walked through her dark apartment to her bedroom. She'd gotten her shirt halfway off when he spoke. "Keep going, FBI woman." Scully jumped and turned. She could make out his silhouette in the shadows. "Mulder? What are you doing sitting in my bedroom in the dark?" "It's too crowded in my apartment. I couldn't sleep." "I'm not kidding, Mulder." "Neither am I. There's a dead guy on my floor and it's only a matter of time before he starts to stink the place up." Her whiskey-induced fog disappeared in an instant. "What are you talking about?" He closed her blinds and turned on a light. "Apparently someone thinks my life is interesting enough to put on videotape. My apartment had been under electronic surveillance for at least two months." He pulled out a badge. "Courtesy of the US Government." Scully looked at the badge and saw a man who could have been Kritchgau's cousin -- same receding hairline, same dour expression. The name read Scott Ostelhoff. "This is the dead man in your apartment? How did he die, Mulder?" "Gunshot wound to the face." Even the words made her blink. "Ostelhoff worked for the military," Mulder continued. "Are you beginning to get the picture? Do you see what's happening here?" "That the hoax is connected to the military just like Kritchgau said it was." "The hoax, your cancer, everything." Mulder's voice rose. "And it just doesn't lead back to the military, it leads right back to the FBI." Even when he showed her the evidence, it was hard to believe. The man spying on Mulder's apartment made regular calls to the Bureau's PBX number. "Mulder, these men," she said, putting the phone records aside on her kitchen table. "You give them your faith. "You give them your faith and trust them with your life." He knelt beside her. "There are those who can be trusted. What I need to know is who among them is not. I will not allow this treason to prosper. Not if they have done this to you." "Mulder, you can't go to the Bureau with this." "No, but as they have lied to us, we can lie to them. A lie to find the truth." Her breath caught. "What are you proposing?" "This," he said as he scooped up Ostelhoff's ID from the table, "is our ticket inside. I take it to the Pentagon and do some looking around. I just might be able to figure out who the man inside the FBI is." "Mulder, as soon as they realize he's dead, his ID will be deactivated. You'd be arrested on the spot." "That's where you come in," he said, his expression growing more guarded. "No one will know that he's dead." She frowned. "How?" "Because they'll think that it's me. Ostelhoff and I have a similar build, and he's now missing his face." "Oh, Mulder." Already she was shaking her head. He put his hand on her knee. "Just hear me out. When they find the body in my apartment, they'll believe it's me, that I committed suicide. Almost certainly they will ask you to make the identification. This will buy us at least a day to gather evidence." "And when they find out I lied? We'll both be jailed for obstruction and maybe more." "By then it may not matter. If we can prove there is a mole inside the FBI, we may finally be able to bring these men down. Obstruction of justice charges will be the least of their problems. This is our chance, Scully, our chance to get some answers." His thumb swept the inside of her knee. "And maybe some justice along with them. What do you say?" One last case together, she thought. One last blind stab at the truth. She could deny him nothing. "Okay," she said, nodding. "I'll do it." "Okay," he agreed softly. They regarded each other in the dim light. His fingers continued a slow caress of her knee. "I was thinking of when we first met," he said at last. "Do you remember?" "Of course. You practically peed a circle around the basement marking your territory." "Well, if I was peeing, you were jumping through hoops to show off what you knew." She arched an eyebrow at him. "And just who was holding those hoops, Mulder?" He grinned and shook his head. "Okay, okay. I may have been a little reluctant to take on a new partner. But I came around eventually." "Eventually," she agreed. "After you stopped laughing at me." "Scully, you laughed at me way more than I ever laughed at you." She smiled a little. "I had a crush on you back then, you know. But you were oblivious." "Oh, you did not." She laughed and touched his hair. "See? Oblivious." He took her hand from his head and kissed the center of her palm before closing her fingers over it. "You're sure you want to go through with this, Scully? Say the word and we'll call it off." She squared her shoulders. "No, I want to do this. Someone has to make them pay, Mulder." "Yeah." He reached for her and she shifted willingly, closing her arms around him and burying her nose in the warm cotton of his T-shirt. His large hand stroked the back of her head. She sighed and kissed the hollow of his throat. "Agent Scully." His voice rumbled low and deep through his chest. "Have you been drinking?" She pulled back to look him in the eye. "Yes." His hand came up to cup the side of her face and she covered it with one of her own. The pain in her chest swelled again. "Mulder, about tonight..." "Shhh," he said, leaning in so they touched foreheads. "Forget about it." "I can't," she answered thickly. Hot tears clung to her lashes. "I'm so sorry." "Shhh," he repeated. "It's all right." He kissed her to stop her desperate choking sounds. She squeezed her eyes shut and the tears ran down between them, welding their cheeks with salt water. He gripped her closer and she opened her mouth under his. She tasted her tears, her own sorrow magnified in his groan, and she wanted to crawl inside him. "Please," she whispered, yearning with a need she couldn't name. The refrigerator kicked in with a grinding hum. She kissed his eyebrows, his jaw, his mouth. His hands skimmed her injured ribs, and she quivered in his arms. Hollowed from the inside out, she begged a dead man to bring her back to life. "Please," she said, a hot rush against his salty skin. "Mulder." "Scully." He rose from his crouch, taking her with him, and her arms slipped to his waist. With greedy fingers, she found the taut skin of his stomach. She worked quick magic with his zipper and soon his jeans gaped open at the front. He brushed her arms several times, kissed her fevered brow. "You're hurt," he murmured. "No...no." She pressed her lips to the prickly underside of his jaw. His whole body strained toward her, caught in a war between giving in and backing away. She tugged at the loose waist of his jeans. "Scully, wait." She didn't need the orgasm, wasn't chasing pleasure. She wanted to feel him under her hands and between her legs, hard and hot and everywhere at once. Anything to stem her hemorrhaging despair. She shoved his jeans down and reached inside his boxers. Heavy and full, he sprang into her hand. His sucked in his breath as one long hiss. She stood on tiptoe and sealed his mouth again, her busy hand trapped between them. He steadied her with strong arms and calmed her with slow kisses. Her pulse grew less erratic. His fingers slipped under her shirt and splayed across her back. Pulling his mouth from hers, he kissed her once just in front of her ear and set her on her feet again. She leaned into his broad chest and closed her eyes, snuggling despite the odd angle. He made low noises against he top of her head as his hands worked at her belt. A moment later, her slacks slid down to her ankles. They caught at her boots, but she shook them free one leg at a time. Mulder's lips trailed down the side of her throat. "Sit here," he breathed, coaxing her onto the table. The cold wood on her bare legs made her shiver. Mulder stepped forward and the rough denim scraped against her knees. Somehow it was more erotic with her half-naked while he remained nearly dressed. A first flash of real sexual need radiated through her. They kissed with less urgency until she was sighing into his mouth. He stroked the delicate skin on the insides of her thighs and they parted without her even ordering it. "So pretty," he whispered to her. She answered with a sad smile she knew he couldn't see in the dark. He crouched down again and Scully tensed. His hot breath sent tingled skittering across her skin as he kissed first her right knee and then her left. "Mulder, please." She wanted more than his mouth on her. But Mulder didn't have oral sex in mind. Instead, he simply drew off her boots one at a time. Scully bit her lip at the tender gesture and touched her fingers to his soft, springy hair. He stood up and pressed his lips to hers. "There," he said. "Much better." She answered with her tongue and he wrapped one arm around her hips again, scooting her closer to the edge of the table. His penis brushed her thigh. She rocked against him, trying to remove her underwear with one hand as she used the other to hold him in place for their kiss. He stilled her efforts and drew long fingers over the top her thigh to find the damp cotton in between. Tugging it aside, he shifted his hips so the broad head of his penis could push inside. Scully helped him find the right angle and they both sighed. She held completely still as he pushed forward in steady increments, until she could feel his full length pulsing inside her. Her heels locked behind his knees. He dropped his forehead to meet hers, and her hands gripped his strong biceps. Slowly, he began to rock his hips. The friction bordered on uncomfortable at first, but his fingers found her nipples through her shirt and the added stimulation ratcheted up her arousal. She kissed the side of his neck as her arms stole around his back. Their sounds of pleasure bounced off the hard kitchen surfaces, creating an echoing soundtrack of heavy breathing and needy gasps. He fucked her in quick strokes that left her leg muscles aching as she tried to open ever wider. She squeezed him as close as she could, her cheek pressed to his breastbone. His fingers joined his cock between her legs, and Scully's breathing turned to a Lamaze sort of panting, high and fast. Above her head, she could hear Mulder struggling through gritted teeth. "Oh," she said, her eyes sliding closed. Her legs trembled around him. She hadn't wanted it, but orgasm was coming anyway. She nipped his T-shirt between her teeth and gripped his back. Ironically, it was the soft kiss he placed on the top of her head that sent her careening over the edge, his T-shirt slipping free as she sobbed into his chest. He slowed a moment, rubbing her gently all over and murmuring words that her brain didn't understand but her heart did. When she relaxed and hugged him again, he quickened the pace and soon she was the one murmuring encouragement as he shook himself to pieces in her arms. They slumped against one another, all tangled limbs and harsh breathing in the dark kitchen. When her abused leg muscles started to twitch he backed away. She made a wordless sound of protest, which he quelled with a lingering kiss to her temple. She grabbed hold of his shoulders and hid her face in the sweaty curve of his neck. He rocked her awkwardly. "I have to go," he said, his voice low and gruff near her ear. She nodded but did not release him. "Scully..." "Okay." She let go and drew back, wiping her eyes with both hands. "Okay?" He rubbed her upper arms. "Yes." In a few short hours, she would have to identify his body. He refastened his pants with quick, efficient motions and then scooped to retrieve her slacks from the floor. He draped them across her lap. She felt the weight of the moment stretch and bend inside her fuzzy head as they put each other to rights again, these strange courtship rituals between the man who was dead and the woman who was nearly so. "I'll call you when I can," he said. "Be careful," she urged. Her voice came out gravelly, battered and crushed from all the other words she was holding back. He grabbed Ostelhoff's ID from the table with one hand and squeezed Scully's hand with the other. "See you on the other side," he said. And then was gone. XxXxX Her phone rang at five-thirty, shattering her sleep. She groped for the receiver, and it fell from the base into her hand. "Hello?" "Agent Scully." A man's tight voice rasped in her ear. "This is Sergeant Billings of the Alexandria Police Department. I'm sorry to bother you at this hour." Scully sat up, instantly awake. This was it. "Yes, sir. What can I do for you?" "Early this morning I received a call from Hegel Place. A woman reported hearing a gunshot on the fourth floor. Your partner Agent Mulder lives on the fourth floor, is that correct?" Scully closed her eyes. "Was anybody hurt?" "Yes." Silence stretched through the line; he seemed to have no more words. "Sergeant Billings, was Mulder hurt?" "We think so, Ma'am. Christ. A man is dead in Agent Mulder's apartment. Apparent self-inflicted shotgun wound. I'm sorry for this, Agent Scully, but we need you to come to Mulder's apartment as soon as you can. We need someone who can...someone to make the identification." The knot in Scully's stomach swelled. Even though she knew it wasn't true, it felt real. "I'll be there right away." XxX Like moving through her nightmares, she thought. Perception slowed, rolling in waves like a stormy sea. She noted the musty smell of the hallway, crowded with cops and curious onlookers. The bright morning light warmed his yellowed walls. Faces of men with no sleep tracked her every movement as she told herself, just keep moving forward. No one said anything to her. They parted like the Red sea to reveal the body covered in a white sheet. Someone pulled back the makeshift shroud. Scully nodded. That's him. She turned to leave before she threw up all over Mulder's floor. On the way out, she met Skinner, who seemed strangely unmoved by the news of Mulder's demise. Almost like he knew what was really going on. Scully ducked his questions and hurried to the elevator. Work fast, Mulder, she thought. Resurrection day is coming sooner than you think. ~*~*~*~*~*~ As often as they'd mocked him, the FBI executives could never seem to stay away when Agent Mulder was involved. Lurid curiosity always got the best of them. Scully looked around at the faces of the joint panel. At least two-dozen men and women had crammed into the small conference room to hear her detail the downfall of Agent Fox Mulder. Vultures come to pick apart the remains of his good name. A lump rose in her throat and she swallowed to force it back down. They believed she mourned his death, when really she ached for his life, the way he had so assiduously honored the truth while everyone around him fed him lies. Her head buzzed and her heart beat double time. She gripped her hands together in her lap to keep them from shaking. With effort, she forced out the awful words: "Agent Mulder died late last night from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head." Skinner arrived seconds too late, missing her performance. He stood in the doorway with folders she could only guess contained the proof of her lie. Blevins forced her focus back to the meeting. "Agent Scully, these accusations that you've made, that you've been given a disease -- they are very serious charges." "Yes, Sir, but I have proof." Against the men behind this. Of the lies that I believed." Her legs felt weak, but she stood up anyway, her voice rising. She pulled out the blots that showed the foreign virus matched the one in her bloodstream. "What I have here is proof undeniable that the men who gave me this disease were also behind the hoax. A plot designed to lead to Agent Mulder's demise, and my own, planned and executed by someone in this room. What I have here..." A wave of dizziness washed over her, and she braced herself on the table in a struggle to continue. "What I have here is scientific evidence." Fat drops of blood fell from her nose and onto the blots. She swayed on her feet. As blackness closed in, she felt Skinner's hand on her back. "You," she whispered as she sagged. "Someone get a doctor." CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Mulder broke approximately thirty-two traffic laws in his race to get to Trinity Hospital. Abandoning the car with its left front wheel on the curb, he ran through the emergency room doors, his heart at his throat. He tried the first official-looking person he saw. "Excuse me, I'm looking for a woman..." She gave him a blank stare and moved on, so Mulder rounded the corner to the main desk. "Excuse me, I'm looking for a Dana Scully..." The woman behind the desk did not put down her phone. Mulder raised his voice. "Is there an admitting nurse here?" People turned to stare, but nobody answered him. "Look, can somebody help me here?" At last, a young doctor approached him. "You're going to have to calm down." "I will calm down when someone gives me a reason to calm down! I'm looking for a patient who was admitted to the ER." "Dana Scully. I heard you the first time." "Where is she?" Mulder did not lower his voice. "I have her in the ICU." "Where is that?" "Look, you're going to have to tell me who you are..." Mulder brushed him aside, intent on finding the ICU on his own. Just then, Skinner rounded the corner with four other government suits trailing being him. "Agent Mulder." Mulder did not slow down. Skinner called after him angrily, "Where are you going?" "ICU." "You're moving pretty good for a dead man," Skinner said as he fell into step beside him. Mulder pushed through the doors to the ICU. "I'm only half dead." He wove past gurneys and nurses to find Scully lying unmoving in a hospital bed, tubes protruding from her mouth. The light and the distance rendered her skin almost transparent, and sight of her next to the large machines took his breath away. His steps slowed; he bent over double. He flexed his fingers, a sense memory of her in his arms the night before, and searched himself to find what he had missed: how could she have been this sick, and he hadn't even known? Skinner came to stand next to him; Mulder couldn't take his eyes from Scully. "What happened to her?" he asked the other man. "She went into hypovolemic shock," Skinner said. "She's lost a lot of blood." Blood could be replaced, Mulder thought immediately. Maybe that was the reason for all the tubes. "Due to what?" he asked Skinner. Skinner said nothing. Mulder turned to him at last. "Due to what?" he practically shouted. "She's dying." Mulder froze, blinked. It was the first time anyone had ever said the words to him. Skinner's expression softened, and he tugged Mulder's arm. "Let's go." Desolation welling inside him, Mulder shook him off. "Let go of me." "There's nothing you can do!" Skinner grabbed him fully and Mulder struggled, shoving back. "Get the hell off me!" "Don't do this," Skinner barked. "Don't make me put you under arrest!" Mulder relented, relaxing. Jail didn't scare him; being locked away from Scully did. Reluctantly he dragged himself towards the door under Skinner's watchful gaze. He kept his own gaze on Scully, hoping for some small sign of life from her. His scattered mind raced through the past hours to try to pull out their last conversation -- his last words to her, had they been enough? Did she know he would be here? The words rang back at him all at once. His stomach dropped like a stone and he halted just inches from the ICU doors, his eyes squeezed shut. "See you on the other side," he'd said. "Keep moving," Skinner said roughly, and shoved him through the doors. In the dark car, Mulder sat in the passenger seat, his wet eyes trained out at the passing night scenery. Skinner drove in silence. "How did you find out?" Mulder asked the window. Skinner did not need any clarification. "I didn't find out," he said after a long pause. "I knew the minute the cops told me it was self-inflicted." Mulder shifted so he could see Skinner's shadowed face. Skinner glanced over to meet his eyes. "I knew you wouldn't do that to her." Scully heard murmuring around her but she couldn't see who was talking. Dimly, she realized her eyes were closed but she wasn't sure she had the strength to open them. She mustered her concentration and was pleased to feel her eyelids flutter. Light assaulted her, and she blinked. Her mother's face came into view. "Dana," she breathed. Warm fingers stroked Scully's cheek. "Hi. How are you feeling?" "Not much of anything," Scully whispered, although her head felt like lead. She moved it fractionally to look around. "Hospital?" "Trinity," her mother answered, still keeping her voice soft. "You were brought here after you collapsed at work." The evidence, Scully remembered, every muscle in her body seizing. She struggled to sit up. "I have to get back..." "Hush, now." Her mother gently helped her to lie back down; Scully's world spun in dizzy circles. "You need to stay here for a while. You lost a lot of blood." Tears pricked Scully's eyes. "No, you don't understand..." "I do." Her mother cupped her cheek. "I do understand, and I'm so sorry I was short with you yesterday. I didn't know." "Know?" Scully saw her mother's was holding back tears as well. "About Mulder. Oh, sweetheart, I'm so sorry." Scully started to tremble; her chin quivered. "What about Mulder?" Again, she tried to sit up. "Is he okay? What happened?" Her mother blocked her again. "Dana, Dana, you can't do this. You have to lie down." "What happened to Mulder, Mom?" Desperation added to her weakness. She grabbed her mother's arms. "Tell me. Please." Her mother's lips thinned as she worked to hold back the emotion. Scully's heart monitor beeped overtime, and an alarmed nurse appeared in the doorway. "What's going on here?" she asked. Mrs. Scully brushed her daughter's hair away from her face. "Let's talk about this later, okay? You need to rest. Everything will be fine." She pushed Scully back into the pillows, and Scully had no strength to resist. She sank down. The nurse watched them both carefully for a moment and then walked away. "Mom." Scully raised her eyes to her mother's. "Please." Her mother hesitated, her hands reaching out to stroke Scully's hair again. "He died, sweetheart. Last night. I heard about it on the news and tried to reach you but you weren't answering your phone. I'm so, so sorry." Relief washed through Scully's veins like a drug. The news. Of course. She searched around until she found her mother's free hand and squeezed. "It's okay, Mom." Tear-tracks streaked down her mother's pale face, and she sniffed to hold back more. "I'm sorry," she said again. "No," Scully whispered. She could lie to the joint panel but not to her mother. "It's okay. Mulder's all right." "Oh, Dana..." "He is." She patted her mother's hand as her eyes closed. "You'll see." ~*~*~*~*~ Mulder left the Hoover building and went immediately back to the hospital. Six hours with no new information left him breathless and wobbly. So intent he was on his ultimate goal of ICU that he didn't notice the people he was brushing past until one gasped his name. "Fox!" Mulder stopped and turned and saw Mrs. Scully staring at him with a mixture of wonder and horror. "Hi Mrs. Scully," he said, walking over to her. "How is she doing?" Mrs. Scully pulled back her arm, nearly recoiling, and she searched his face with wide eyes. "You're alive," she said. "Dana was right." Mulder allowed himself a weak smile. "She usually is." "Thank God." Mrs. Scully seemed to thaw a little, almost slumping. "When I heard the news..." She shook her head and put her hand to her chest. "Thank God it wasn't true." "How is Dana doing?" he asked softly, and Mrs. Scully became a bit more animated. "They're going move her out of the ICU. If she's strong enough, Dr. Zuckerman is going to begin treatment this afternoon." "That's great news." He glanced down the hall. "Can I go see her?" "I'm sure she would like that." Mulder grinned when he saw her. Machines still flanked her bed, but the worst of the tubes had vanished and her eyes were open. He waved through the window but Scully did not return his smile. Her frown increased the dark circles ringing her eyes. "Mulder, what are you doing here?" she asked as he entered the room. "I heard that you were being moved out of the ICU, that you were feeling better." "But someone is going to see you here." He sat down on the edge of her bed and took her hand. "It's okay." Leaning down, he placed a kiss on her paper-fine cheek. "I'm officially among the undead." Worry lines remained etched across her face. "What happened?" "I did not come here to talk about that," he told her gently. He rubbed his thumb across the back of her cool hand, but Scully would not be soothed. "Mulder don't try and protect me. I need to know." "There's not much to talk about anyway. I'm going to testify to everything I know in front of the FBI assembly -- the conspiracy, what I believe is its purpose." "Did you find out who in the FBI is involved?" Mulder hesitated a beat. "No. But that doesn't matter now." "Yes, it does." He smiled at her again. "Hey, Scully, how 'bout those Yankees, huh?" "Mulder, Skinner has evidence against you. He knows that you killed that man in your apartment." "Yeah, but Skinner's been withholding it." She gave him a reproachful look. "Mulder, Skinner's dirty. He is not your friend. I'm almost positive he's the man inside on all this. He will use it to ruin you." "No, not Skinner." She blinked hard, clearly frustrated, and he touched her temple with gentle fingers. "If I don't testify, they will start to bury the truth." "Well, then you have to lay it on me. You have to tell them I'm the one who killed that man in your apartment." Her slender shoulder already carried too much; he would not compromise her further. "I can't...I can't do that." "Yes, you can." As washed out and fragile as she appeared, the usual steely Scully strength carried through in her voice. She squeezed his hand. "Mulder, if I can save you, let me. Let me at least give some meaning to what's happened to me." Before he could answer, her mother appeared at the door with a man Mulder could only guess was brother Bill. Mrs. Scully had acquired a full shopping bag, and she smiled at him. "Hi, Fox." "Hi, Mrs. Scully." Her eyes slid to where his hand was joined with her daughter's. "I hope we're not interrupting." "No." He squeezed. "I was just on my way out." He pressed a good-bye kiss to Scully's fingers and got up from the bed. On his way out, he introduced himself to Bill. Familiar blue eyes assessed him with a cool gaze as they shook hands. "I know something of what Dana's been through with you," Bill told him. Mulder nodded. "So let's leave the work away from here, okay? Let her die with dignity." Speechless, Mulder watched Bill join Scully and their mother inside the hospital room. Scully took Bill's hand and smiled up at him, clearly unaware that he had just written her off for good. Mulder turned away. If you love someone, set them free, the teaching went. But Mulder didn't understand that kind of love. Love meant you went down fighting, clawing and squawking and hanging on just as tight as you could. Mulder's love made noise. Drew blood. Dared anything or anyone to get in its path. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~ When the Smoker showed up at Trinity hospital, Mulder didn't even bat an eyelash in surprise. He'd been out to destroy them for so long that of course he could scent their desperation on the wind. Besides, a corpse, some top-secret surveillance and an FBI assembly scheduled to behead Mulder's career, this was the Smoker's kind of party. "Please tell me you're here with severe chest pains." The Smoker answered with a thin smile. "You should be glad why I'm here, to pay you some respect." Rage flashed though Mulder, hot and quick. "Go to hell." "For your cleverness," the other man continued as if he hadn't spoken, "for what you've managed to do for Scully." Mulder eyed him. "What are you talking about?" "For breaching the security at the Department of Defense. Finding the cure for her disease." "What I found was useless." "On the contrary, it's essential for her survival. If you like, we might step outside so I can explain myself?" If this animal gave her that disease, then he could damn well take it away, Mulder thought. It was enough. He followed the Smoking Man outside. They walked away from the building, toward a small cluster of trees, and the Smoker paused to light up. A stiff breeze blew the smoke directly into Mulder's face. "I'm surprised at you," the Smoker said after a puff. "After all these years, after what you've seen, that you would be so easily convinced that none of it is true." Mulder shoved his hands into his coat pockets, turned his face away. "I don't know what you're talking about." The Smoker glanced at him and smiled that strange smile. "We can play it that way for now, if you like." "I'm not here to play anything, you sonofabitch," Mulder informed him coldly. "You did this to Scully, and right now I don't even care *why* you did it. I just need to know if it can be undone. Anything else you have to say to me is inconsequential." "Okay." He took another long drag. "But ask yourself this, Agent Mulder: why would anyone go through such an elaborate hoax to convince you of extraterrestrial life? You were the original true believer." Mulder shot him a disgusted look. "You're not going to try to tell me that body was real." "I'm telling you it wasn't for you." "Who then?" The Smoker puffed in silence. "You have the key to Scully's illness already in your hands. The water wasn't in the vial because it was special, it was there for protection." He paused. "Of a chip." "What kind of chip?" "Check the vial again, Agent Mulder. You'll find it." He dropped his cigarette to the ground. "And when you do, we'll talk again." She dreamed in color these days, vivid stories painted in brilliant blues, rolling greens and rich, harvest reds. Mulder popped up often, with his hair askew and his eyes winking brightly at her. Gone were the nights where she had to chase him, panting and yelling his name as he rounded a corner and vanished from sight. Now she just had to think of him and he appeared. They talked dream nonsense together, like two friends who had known each other always. He showed her how to fold tiny paper cranes. Scully rubbed her eyes as she surfaced from sleep into her hospital room. The peaceful dream melted away and the dull, heavy drugged feeling returned. When she moved, her limbs flopped like beached fish. "How are you doing?" her mother asked. Bill turned from his post by the window. Scully made an effort to smile at them both. "I'm hanging in there." Her mother reached for her hand, and Scully gave it willingly. "Thank you for bringing my things." Scully's Spartan room now contained her glasses, her fuzzy robe, a few family pictures, and Mulder's giant pickle. "I was happy to do it." Bill walked over to the ledge where the pickle sat. "I'm not sure I even want to ask about this," he said, rotating the jar with his fingers. The pickle bobbed inside. Scully turned on her side so she could get a better view, smiling into her pillow. "It's a long story." "You know what this reminds me of?" Bill asked as he studied it. "That story Dad used to tell about the pickle in Puerto Rico. You remember that story?" "I remember." Bill shook his head and smiled. "Dad sure could shovel the BS when he wanted to, that's for sure." Just then there was a quick knock at the door and Mulder entered. "Hey," he said, only to her. She smiled back. "Hey." "Is it okay if I come in? There's something I need to talk to you about." Bill opened his mouth to speak, but Scully beat him to it. "Of course it's okay." She scooted over on the bed to make room for Mulder. "What's going on?" "Why don't we give you some privacy?" her mother said as she rose from her chair. "Bill can buy me a cup of coffee." They left and Mulder joined Scully on her bed, taking his place at her hip. He smiled at her but it didn't quite reach his eyes. Worry fluttered in her stomach. "What is it?" she asked him. "Did something happen?" "I found this." He extracted a small silver vial from the pocket of his coat. For a moment, he just stared at it in the palm of his hand. "Mulder?" "It's a microchip." A microchip? He'd been out of her sight for three hours. Where the hell had he turned up a microchip? "Where did you find it?" "Inside the Pentagon the other day. I didn't realize it what it was until just a few hours ago. The guys worked it over with their toys, and it appears similar to the one you removed from your neck last year. I found it deep inside the DOD storage facility." He paused. "In a box with your name on it." A chill passed through her like a ghost. "And you think this means what?" "I don't know what it means. They had millions of boxes stored down there, including one for Kritchgau's son. He seemed to think the contents of the box might be able to cure his son of whatever illness he contracted during the Gulf War." Blood rushed to her face, making her face flush and her ears roar. "And you think that the chip in this vial might be able to cure me." He met her eyes without hesitating. "I think it's worth a shot. We know you didn't start to get sick until you removed the implant; maybe that removal is what triggered your cancer." Medically, it made no sense. What Mulder proposed was akin to a witch doctor treatment for the twenty-first century: put this under your skin and don't ask too many questions. But it stood to reason that if man had engineered her disease, then man could manufacture the cure as well. She plucked the slim vial from Mulder's palm. "I don't know," she whispered, glancing at him. "You believed Kritchgau before," Mulder answered. "I think you should believe him now." Scully held the vial up for inspection. One side makes you grow taller, she thought, the other side makes you grow smaller. She decided to try to pass through the looking glass. "I don't trust Kritchgau," she said. "I never did." Mulder's face fell. She reached for his hand, enclosing the vial between their palms. "But I trust you." CHAPTER NINETEEN Mulder's back ached from the hard plastic chair, but he couldn't summon the energy to move. When his phone rang, he groped for it with one hand. "One sorry son of a bitch speaking. " "How's our patient?" The Smoker's voice slithered over the line. Mulder rubbed his tired eyes. "You did find the chip, didn't you Agent Mulder?" "Yes." "I can imagine there must have been a question as to its medical value." "There still is." Mulder heard the intake of a puff on the other end. "And so I have yet to earn your trust... in spite of my gesture." "You could say that, yeah." "Well, I have something else to offer you. I've arranged a meeting I think you'll want to attend, Mr. Mulder." Mulder sat back. "You thought wrong. Until I see some proof that Scully's getting better, I don't have anything more to say to you." "I wouldn't be so hasty. We both know that Agent Scully's well- being is not the only thing on your wish list." "And what are you, my fairy Godmother?" Another pause as the man took a drag. "Not your mother, no. I'm just one man who is in a position to know some things, Agent Mulder, things that I think you might also want to know. Surely you must have given my earlier question some consideration." "All the consideration it deserves." The Smoker named an address outside of the city. "Meet me there in two hours. I promise it will be worth your while. After that, if you still don't wish to speak to me, I'll let the matter drop." "Somehow I doubt that." "Two hours, Agent Mulder. I can't keep her out much longer than that." And the line went dead. Mulder didn't order anything in the diner because his stomach was locked tight as a drum. Any food would have been summarily tossed back up again. He fidgeted to work off nervous energy and wondered for the millionth time in ten minutes why he had left the hospital on the Smoking Man's say-so. Because he said "her," the little voice in his head reminded. She was going to be here. A car drove up and the glare of headlights filled the diner. Mulder blocked his eyes and squinted at the human shapes inside the vehicle, trying to make an identification. The Smoker killed the lights and Mulder saw there was a grown woman sitting in the car. "You know him or something?" a curious waitress asked. Mulder's heart froze. "I think that's my sister." He did his best not to pounce. She already seemed the frightened rabbit, hunched on her stool with her eyes darting around the room. A thousand questions tangled with his tongue. "You don't remember anything about that night?" he asked as gently as he could. "I remember...you." He smiled, encouraging. His pulse danced a techno beat and made him light-headed. "I remember something...men and...and then nothing." "I can help you." He leaned forward. "You were abducted, Samantha. I can help you remember." She shook her head slowly, as if in pain. "I don't want to, Fox. I don't." Mulder drew back. "Then why come here at all?" Her lower lip quivered; her hands bunched in her lap. "My father told me that he'd found you, you wanted to see me very badly, that you'd been looking for me for a long time. Is that true?" Tears welled in Mulder's eyes. It was the deepest truth. He nodded at her. "I'm so sorry, Fox. And I wish that I'd known how to find you." "Samantha, I want you to listen to me. What you've been told by that man out there might not be true." "Why do you say that?" She looked as though he'd wounded her. "Because he's known where to find me for a very long time." She shook her head. "No, I don't believe you. Why wouldn't he tell me?" "I don't know, but I believe he's kept things from you." He inched forward again, trying to block out the man smoking outside in the car. "I want you to come with me to see Mom." Her features twisted. "Mom's alive?" "Yes, and I know she would very much like to see you." "I can't." Pain lanced through Mulder's chest. "Why not?" "It's too much. I didn't want to come here at all, Fox. I was afraid to see you. I have another life now, I have children of my own." She rose to leave and Mulder couldn't stop himself; he grabbed her arm. "No, please, don't go." "I can't stay here right now," she said, sobbing. "All right, just tell me how I can find you. Please." She tried to pull free. "I need some time." "Just ... just tell me where to find you." His fingers bit into her arm. "Please don't, Fox! Let me go. I promise you that I'll think about it." Somehow, he managed to relax his grip and Samantha ran. The doorbell tinkled as she fled outside to the car. Mulder rose in a stupor to watch the Smoker touch her face. Twenty-three years of searching. It never occurred to him that she might not want to be found. The headlights flared again, blinding him, but this time Mulder stood at the window took the pain. When his vision cleared at last, she was gone. ~*~*~*~*~*~ When the Smoker demanded another meeting, Mulder did not hesitate. "What do you want from me?" he asked as they walked along the crowded street. The Smoker looked offended. "Want from you?" "You give me these things, the only things I ever wanted, and I can't think of any reason for you to do so." "It's true that no act is completely selfless. I come not to ask but to offer. To offer the truth you've so desperately sought." "I know the truth." "Do you?" Mulder put his ace on the table. "I spoke with one of your men." The Smoker nodded, unsurprised. "This man you spoke to, Michael Kritchgau, he has deceived you with beautiful lies. He's told you that everything you believed about extraterrestrial life is untrue. I'm offering you a chance to know the truth." "In exchange for what?" "Quit the FBI. Come work for me." Mulder snorted. "No deal." "After all I've given you?" "What, what have you given me? A claim of a cure for Scully's cancer, but is she cured? You show me my sister and then take her right back." "I intend to keep my promises, but I need something from you." "You murdered my father! You killed Scully's sister. If Scully dies, I will kill you. I don't care whose father you are." The Smoker flicked his ash into the wind. "Well, you're certainly capable, so I've been told. I understand you have a hearing tomorrow where you'll have to testify to those murderous impulses of yours." "Fuck this," Mulder muttered under his breath. He started to walk away. "When you reconsider, the offer still stands!" Mulder halted. Turned around. "You say the alien hoax wasn't for me," he said, walking back. "Who was it for?" "Why, for her of course. Can't you have guessed that?" "For who, Scully? She never saw the body." "She wasn't supposed to. She was only to talk to Kritchgau." "He said you didn't want her to live long enough to examine the body, that you timed the hoax with her cancer." "On the contrary, Agent Mulder, we needed her very much alive. How else was she to testify to the illegitimacy of your work? At last Dana Scully was going to do the job for which we first positioned her: shutting down the X-Files permanently. In fact we had to move up the project because her health was failing so rapidly." "You bastard." Mulder lunged at him, but the Smoker sidestepped him. Mulder stumbled, panting, and caught himself against a tree. "So you see Kritchgau was in on it all along. You see he can't be trusted." Mulder turned and glared at him. "And you can." "I can make you assurances that he cannot. That no one can." Mulder looked away, but the Smoker continued. "Your safety. Your sister's." He paused. "Agent Scully's. Think on it for a while, and I'm sure you'll see the many benefits of my offer." He crushed out the cigarette with a twist of his heel, blowing one last plume of smoke in Mulder's direction. "I can't wait to welcome you to the family." ~*~*~*~*~*~ His apartment was a crime scene, and Bill had Scully's place. Mulder drove around in the dark for an hour before pointing his car north on 95. He stopped on her quiet street and cut the engine. The gate squeaked as it always did, and he trudged up the stairs, not at all sure what he would say when she opened the door. He rang the bell. The light came on and he could see her silhouette through the lace curtain hanging on the window of the front door. She paused halfway down the hall to wrap her robe about her, and a moment later the door opened with a whoosh. "Oh, my God," Miranda said. "I'm sorry it's so late." "Fox. Jesus." She held the screen door open with her palm. "Come in, come in. I can't believe it. I heard on the news..." He stepped into the narrow hall. "Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated." "I see that." She scrutinized his face. "Are you all right?" He wasn't sure he could even process the question. "I'm sorry to bother you at this hour. I wasn't sure where else to go." "It's fine," she said, slipping an arm around him. He gripped her to his side in an iron vise hug. Gingerly, she hugged him back. "It's okay. Come inside to the living room and I'll make us some tea." Arabella recognized him and wove in between his legs, purring. Mulder collapsed into the deep sofa cushions and covered his face with his hands. He remained like that while Miranda went to the kitchen to make the tea. She returned with steaming mugs that gave off a faint hint of orange and jasmine. "Here you are." The porcelain burned against his palm. She took the other end of the couch and curled her long legs under her. "Tell me what happened," she said. He looked over at her. "We would need much more than tea for that." "I've got stronger stuff." He shook his head. "This is fine." When he didn't say anything further, she tried again. "How is Scully doing? I had lunch with her the other day." "She's in the hospital. Very sick." He took a large sip and let the hot liquid singe his insides. "There's not much more anyone can do." She laid a hand on his shoulder. "I'm so sorry." "Yeah." Arabella jumped into his lap and began kneading him with tiny kitty feet. He stroked her silken fur. On the coffee table in front of him lay a half-dozen books on mysticism in Thailand. He nodded at them. "What if it's all a lie?" Miranda paused in mid-sip. "If what's a lie?" "All of it. Ghouls and goblins. ESP and Bigfoot tromping around in the woods. Aliens." He hesitated. "God." Miranda blew out a long breath and shifted in her seat. "I don't know. I mean, who's in a position to say it's a lie? Who has that kind of all-encompassing knowledge? But even if it were all lies, I'm not sure it would change much about the way I live my life." She smiled. "Might have to get a new job, though. Why?" "Just wondering." "Crisis of faith?" Arabella extended her neck so he could scratch beneath it. "Something like that. I'm thinking of making some changes." "Ah." She nodded. "Change can be good if it's for the right reasons." Annoyance kindled in him. "How do you know what my reasons are?" "I don't. Why don't you tell me?" He sighed and dropped his hands away from the cat. "I could but then I'd have to kill you." "That's not funny." "I know." He sent her a hard look. "I'm not laughing." She studied him from behind her mug. "I'm sorry you've had such a hard time," she said quietly. "I wish I could do something to help." "Well, you can't." "I'm beginning to see that." He ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. He hadn't come there to make her angry. "I just..." He leaned down and picked up one of the books. Arabella scampered away. "The stories in this book...and this book..." He tossed them into her lap. "And this one. All of them. No hard evidence of anything in any of them, and yet we continue to believe. Why is that?" Miranda was quiet for a long moment. "I can only give you my perspective. I don't for a second believe that everything written in these texts is the gospel truth, but I do believe they get at a real *kind* of truth. Those things you named, aliens and souls and God, I believe they are real. They are the truth." "But how do you be sure?" She bent her head. "It's like the conversation between the evolutionary biologist and the creationist. The evolutionary biologist looks at all the wonders of nature, the marvelous intricacies of life, and says, 'I don't see how anyone could look at this and not believe in evolution.' The creationist looks at the same magnificent world and says, 'I don't see how anyone could look at this and not believe in God.'" She shrugged. "We've learned so much. I just think that, looking at all we've learned, there has to be so much more out there to know." He leaned back and stared at the ceiling. "And if you're wrong? If we're all victims of our own imagination?" "I don't think you can ever be a victim of imagination." She paused. "You're afraid of looking foolish." "I'm afraid it's been a waste of time. That the sum purpose of my life has been to advance a lie at great personal cost to the people around me." "Like Scully." "Exactly like Scully." Miranda picked the books off her lap and stacked them on the floor next to her. The empty mug she set atop them. "Scully doesn't believe in these things, does she?" she asked at last. "The UFOs and mystical encounters, strange little men who steal children in the night?" Mulder rolled his head around to look at her. "Scully remains highly skeptical." "I gathered. But she does the work with you anyway. Why?" Mulder sat up. Blinked. "I don't know." "I think when you find that answer," Miranda replied. "Then you'll know what you should do." ~*~*~*~*~*~ All eyes rested on Mulder as he prepared to hand them the rope for his hanging. Chief Blevins fixed him with a stern look. "Agent Mulder, Agent Scully lied straight face to this panel about your death." "She lied because I asked her to. Because I had evidence of a conspiracy." Blevins frowned. "We've already heard testimony to these allegations, Agent Mulder. Now. Did you shoot the man found dead in your apartment?" "I will answer, Sir, as soon as--" Another senior agent stepped in. "Did you shoot Scoot Ostelhoff?" "I will answer that question, Sir. I will answer that question after I name the man who is responsible for Agent Scully. A man I want prosecuted for his crimes! A man who is sitting in this very room! "Agent Mulder, Chief Blevins asked you a question and you WILL answer." "I can't do that, Sir. I can't do that because Chief Blevins is the man I'm about to name." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~ In the war between elation and exhaustion, fatigue was gaining ground. Scully's lids slipped shut every few seconds, and then she would remember and jerk awake again. Her mother reached out and rubbed her back. "Get some sleep," she whispered. "I promise we'll wake you when he gets here." "Mmmm...no. I'm fine." Her mother gave her an indulgent smile. "Okay, dear." Satisfied, Scully closed her eyes again. She imagined Mulder's face when she told him the news only four hours old: The tumor was gone. She practiced saying it silently, over and over, each time letting herself believe a little bit more that it was true. Her mother touched her again, this time tracing wisps of her hair with loving fingers, and Scully swatted the offending hand away. "M'fine." "I see that." At the deep voice, she forced her eyelids apart. Mulder's face blurred and then came into focus. She gave him a slow, wide smile. "Hi." He sat on the bed with her and swiped one last bit of hair away from her face. "Hi. Your mom said I should wake you. How are you doing?" Still sleepy, she yawned and curled into his touch. "I'm good. I'm well." His voice floated over her, soft and tender. "I'm glad." "No, I'm really well." She looked right at him. His hand stilled in her hair. Reaching for it, she brought it down and kissed his knuckles. "I'm better, Mulder. The tumor is gone. There is no trace of the cancer in my bloodstream." She felt the tension in his arm. His mouth fell open but no sound came out. Giddy, she rolled around still clutching his hand. "It's true!" "Scully, that's wonderful. My God." He leaned down and crushed her in an awkward hug. She wrapped all four limbs around him, and he laughed into her neck, his voice muffled. She squeezed him tighter to transfer her delight. He stroked her side through her thin gown, rocking her gently on the bed. "Scully." The one word vibrated through her, and tears clouded her eyes. Sniffling, she burrowed even closer to him, running her hands over his shoulders and through his fine hair. "I love you," she whispered, her other, not-so-secret joy. He nipped her neck. "Back at you." He pulled back a bit and rested on his elbows, looking down at her. She smiled her best crinkly smile and played with his tie. "And the hearing?" she asked, sobering just a bit. He traced the shell of her ear with an idle finger. "It's over. Blevins is the mole." "You're kidding me." "I wish I was. He saved the Bureau the embarrassment of a trial, though -- committed suicide this afternoon." She shook her head. "Mulder, what about you?" "No charges. With Blevins's guilt on record, Ostelhoff's death classifies as self-defense." She relaxed again. "So we're home free." "We sure are." He kissed her nose and then, more lingeringly, her mouth. She sighed and positioned him a bit better as a blanket. He laid his head on her chest and she trailed her fingers over his scalp. He felt more worn-out than she did. "So what made it go away?" he asked, his breath tickling her skin. She continued her massage. "No one knows. Dr. Zuckerman actually used the word miracle." He turned his head so he could look her in the eyes. "What do you think did it?" She considered. "Faith." "In God?" "In God, in justice." She touched his cheek. "In you." He ducked his head and nuzzled her collarbone. "Don't forget yourself." "Yes, me too." She hugged him again and he relaxed into her with a sigh. For long moments they lay together in silence, breathing in sync. "Of course," he said without moving, "I think we both know the real culprit." "We do?" "Uh-huh." He raised his head and she followed his gaze to the ledge across the room. From its jar by the window, the giant pickle looked back at them. "Mulder, you're nuts." "Hey, it's your story." EPILOGUE "You made it!" Miranda walked across the noisy lecture hall and welcomed Mulder in the room. He grinned. "I wouldn't miss this for the world. The new recruits look like a good bunch." She made a crazy face. "Class size almost doubled this year, can you believe it?" Tugging his sleeve, she teased, "It's not too late to sign up to lecture you know. You were a big hit last year." "Nah." He tugged on his tie. "I don't think I can bring the same kind of enthusiasm to the subject these days. Besides, today's subject isn't my area of expertise." "Come sit with me down front," she said. "I saved you the best seat." Mulder sat in the fold-up chair and rested his arm on the battered desk. Shifting to get comfortable, he prepared to enjoy the hour. The clock slipped past three, and the class quieted as Scully approached the lectern. Mulder's heart danced with a mix of pride and mischief. He'd double-dog dared her to do this, and from the tiny frown on her face he knew he would pay for it later. "Good afternoon," she said. "My name is Dana Scully and I'm a forensic pathologist with the Federal Bureau of Investigation." Her voice echoed strong and clear, and her deep purple suit clung to every re-emerging curve. If he hadn't known better, Mulder never would have guessed she'd been sick. A smile playing across his features, he sat back to listen. Scully clicked on the slide projector. "I'm here today to talk to you about unexplained medical phenomena..." The End Special disclaimer: some dialogue in the later chapters was lifted directly from the episodes Gesthemane, Redux and Redux II. No infringement is intended.