~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~ LAWS OF MOTION ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Chapter Three: Love Bites As a child, Scully had always loved Halloween. For one delicious night, kids took charge of the neighborhood, running pell-mell through the streets with no adults around to shoo them back inside. You could put on a mask and be anyone you wanted to be. Back then, Scully had used the costumes to try on some of her siblings' traits; she could be bold like Melissa, tough like Bill, or feisty like Charlie. Only in the morning did she have to turn into dutiful Dana again, and even then there was a pile of colorful candy to ease the transition. As an adult, Scully always made sure to leave the light on and have a bowl of treats waiting by the door, just in case some miniature gremlins came calling. The first few years she had lived in her apartment building, she did get a number of teeny princesses, ghosts with misshapen eyeholes and growling Ninja Turtles begging for candy. But since then, real demons had made a habit of visiting her home, and parents were reluctant to send their kids down the hall to visit the crazy lady who always had crime scene tape decorating her front door. So Scully sat by herself with the candy bowl in her lap on Halloween night. She had just reached the projectile vomiting scene in the "Exorcist" when her doorbell rang. Surprised, she wiped the Snickers crumbs from her hands and went to answer it. Mulder stood -- rather, lounged -- on the other side, wearing a long black cape and fake vampire teeth, which he chattered at her. "I vant to bite your neck," he said, and God help her, her neck actually quivered. She touched it and tried to hide her smile. "Aren't you a little bit old to be trick-or-treating, Mulder?" "I came to pick you up," he said. "Get your coat." "Excuse me, but where am I going?" "Halloween mischief, Scully. Madness, mayhem -- you know the drill. Come on, hurry or we might miss him." "Him?" she echoed even as she grabbed a light jacket. "Mulder, please tell me we're not going to spend the night in a pumpkin patch waiting for the Great Pumpkin to make an appearance." "Better." He pulled something out of his pocket. "Here, you'll need these." Scully accepted the present before she knew what it was. "Ears?" she asked as she inspected his offering, a pair of black satin ears sewn to a headband. "Mulder, you shouldn't have." "You have to wear a costume to get in," Mulder said as he held open the front door of the building for her. Scully stuck the ears in her pocket but followed him to the car anyway. He drove them back to towards the city, "Monster Mash" blaring from the radio as Scully watched the streets for Halloween revelers. While they idled at a red light, a glowing white skeleton passed by the car, turning briefly human under Mulder's headlights before melding into the eerie night once more. Mulder stopped the car outside a tall brick apartment building. The main door stood propped open by a large pumpkin, and a group of teenagers had draped themselves across the front steps. Loud music played inside one of the apartments; Scully did not recognize the artist, but the bass line was strong enough to vibrate the sidewalk under her feet. Mulder taped his head as they approached the building. "You need the ears, Scully." "Why? They're not wearing any costumes." Scully eyed the group of teens. The only possible concession she could see to the holiday was a green neon necklace that one boy wore like a crown. The boy looked them up and down and took a drag of his cigarette. "You here to see Leroy?" he asked, and Mulder nodded. The kid indicated the stairs with a jerk of his head. "Top floor, but there's a wait." "Ears," Mulder said again, leaning down into her personal space as they mounted the steps. "All right, already." Scully put the ears on, and Mulder grinned. "They're crooked." Scully moved to correct the angle, but Mulder caught her hand and stopped her. "I like them like that," he said. Scully trudged up the narrow, worn steps until she reached the top floor. A line of people crowded the hallway; old and young, all dressed in elaborate costume, they chatted and dodged hyperactive children running wind sprints down the corridor. Scully even spotted a Dalmatian wearing a clown's hat and ruffled collar. The air was a thick perfume of latex, face paint, and hairspray. "Mulder," Scully said in a low voice. "What on earth is going on here?" "Everyone is here to see Leroy. He only does this kind of open house on Halloween night." "And who, pray tell, is Leroy?" "Hey, look, Scully -- Elvis!" "Mulder. Who is Leroy?" "He's a kind of fortune teller," Mulder replied, not really paying attention to her. The Dalmatian wandered over to lick his shoes, and Mulder scratched the dog's ears with delight. "What kind of fortune teller?" "Um, the feathered kind?" Mulder stood up again. "Let's hope I didn't guess wrong with the cat ears. I don't think he's sensitive to that sort of thing, but you never can tell with a parrot." "He's a parrot?" "A psychic parrot. He made headlines a few years ago when he helped find a missing neighbor boy. You didn't hear about the case?" "Case? Was this reported in the real news, Mulder, or just something you picked up in line at the supermarket?" "You think all these people would be here if it wasn't true?" Scully stared at him, trying to discern whether this was some big Halloween prank. Mulder looked serious enough, but the twinkle in his eye suggested he was just waiting to spring the "gotcha" on her. She leaned against the wall with her arms folded. "Enlighten me," she said. Mulder put one arm over her head and leaned too. "I believe it was about four years ago now. Tommy Alderson, a boy in the building, disappeared from his apartment one summer afternoon and his mother was frantic with worry. Everyone went out searching for Tommy, but no luck. No one had seen the kid." "Except the parrot," Scully commented dryly. "Well, that was the funny part. Leroy's owner, Penny Brown, said the bird was the one who alerted her to Tommy's whereabouts. She had paused in her searching to get some water, and Leroy came up to her and said, 'Tommy's on the roof.'" "That's quite a mouthful for a small bird." "Okay, maybe he said, 'Tommy, roof.' But he said it over and over, quite insistently, Penny told reporters." "I think I saw this on an episode of 'Lassie' once." "At Leroy's insistence, Penny went up to the roof to search for Tommy. His family had checked before and found nothing, but Penny gave it one last try, and sure enough -- Tommy had crawled into one of those large pipes and gotten stuck. Penny believes Leroy had a vision of the boy trapped in the pipe, and that's how he knew to alert her." The motley crew shuffled forward, so Scully shoved herself away from the wall to keep pace. Mulder's fingers skimmed her spine. "So let me get this straight," she said. "Leroy the parrot had a psychic vision a few years ago, and now he reads fortunes on Halloween." "He can't read, Scully," Mulder said with mock disdain. "He's a bird." Scully rolled her eyes. "I don't need a bird to see my future, Mulder. I'm going home. I'm taking a bath. Tomorrow I will drop off my dry cleaning and have lunch with my mother." "No, that's what you were supposed to be doing," Mulder said as they shuffled forward again. "Instead you're here with me." He gave her the look that made her belly quiver. "Are you suggesting the parrot could have foreseen you strong-arming me into this little escapade?" Mulder squawked and flapped his arms. "Tall dark handsome vampire will bring you cheap thrills," he said. They had reached the door to the apartment at long last. Scully balked but Mulder nudged her over the threshold. Blackout shades hung over the windows, and colored scarves were draped over the lampshades. A woman appeared from behind a beaded curtain. She wore a purple scarf on her head, a flowing skirt down to her knees, and a green parrot on her shoulder. "Welcome, welcome," she said. "I'm Madam Penny. I take it you all are here to see Leroy?" "Is this-is this him?" Mulder stuck out a finger and the bird snapped at it. "Oooh, watch yourself, honey. No, this isn't Leroy. This is Josie. Leroy's an African Gray, and Josie here is a Cherry Head Conure." "Hence the red head," Mulder explained to Scully, as if he had known this all his life. "You look like you know a thing about red heads," Penny said to her. "You and Josie would get along real well, I expect. She doesn't cotton to males so much." Josie lifted a wing and rooted around under it with her beak. "Does Josie see into the future too?" Scully inquired dubiously. "Oh, heavens, no." Penny smiled. "But if you put on disco music, she'll dance for you. This is Leroy's night, though, and I expect he's the one you're wanting to see. Come back this way." They followed her through the beaded curtain into another room, this one also with a black-out curtain. Several empty bird cages sat against one wall, and in the far corner, a parrot paused from his grooming routine to give them a once-over. "Leroy," Penny said brightly, "You have more visitors. This is..." "Fox Mulder," Mulder told the bird. He elbowed Scully. "Dana Scully," she muttered. Leroy fixed his gaze on the ceiling and cooed. "Come on, Leroy," Penny coaxed. "Do your thing." "How many words does he know?" Mulder asked. "Oh, I've never done an exact count," Penny replied. "Somewhere around five hundred. Come on, Leroy. These nice people came just to see you. Don't you have anything to say to them?" "Boo," said Leroy, and walked to the end of his perch. "So when Tommy Alderson disappeared," Mulder said, "what if he had been somewhere that Leroy didn't have a word for?" "I shudder to think what would've happened then," Penny answered, her eyes wide. "But Leroy knows the roof. Don't you, boy? We go up there sometimes if the weather is nice. He just loves it." "Roof, roof," Leroy agreed. Scully wandered over to look inside the bird cages. Penny kept her birds well stocked in toys. They had bells, mirrors, chew rings and colored balls. Scully guessed the curtain hid a large window that allowed them to look out over the city. Not a bad life, she supposed, but still rather limiting if you were used to soaring above the trees. Her gaze went to the vent above the cages. She squinted at what looked like feathers trapped at the edge. "Mulder," she said, but he wasn't listening. Leroy had decided to speak. "Vid-e-oh," he said, leaning way down to look Mulder in the eye. "What?" Mulder asked, puzzled. Scully joined him. "Sounds like he's heard about your famous collection," she said, trying to keep a straight face. "Vid-e-oh!" Leroy said again, flapping his wings for emphasis. Mulder and Scully took a step back. "Gracious," said Penny. "He does like to watch his nature videos. Maybe he's just confused." "I'd say he's pretty accurate," Scully said, and Mulder gave her a dirty look. "Let's see what he's got for you," he answered, thrusting her in front of the bird again. Scully's shoulders came up around her ears as she stood there, frozen under the weight of Leroy's beady stare. He fixed her with his black eyes but remained silent. "Leroy, honey, don't you have anything you want to say to Ms. Scully?" Penny asked, but the parrot did not reply. She gave Scully a helpless look. "Sometimes he gets like this. I don't now why. Maybe he's just feeling a little shy." "Really, it's okay," Scully told her. The phone rang in the other room, and Leroy's feathers rose. "Phone's ringing! Phone's ringing!" He mimicked the trill almost perfectly. "Excuse me one moment, please," Penny said. "Hello, who's calling please?" Leroy said, prancing from one end of the perch to the other. Scully folded her arms and looked at Mulder. "I can't believe you think this animal has a window to the future," she said as Leroy transitioned into his telephone ring again. "Scully," Leroy sang at her, and Mulder and Scully both looked over at him. "Scul-ly." "I think he likes you," Mulder teased. "Maybe that's why he won't talk." "Scully," Leroy squawked again, and leaned down from his perch towards her. Scully took a step forward. Leroy stretched his short little bird neck out as far as it would go, until he was nearly beak-to-nose with her. "Kiss," he said. Scully blinked. Mulder clapped his hands with delight. "He really, really likes you," he said to Scully as he put an arm around her shoulders. "Go ahead, Scully. Lay one on him." "Kiss," Leroy repeated, very seriously, and then withdrew to resume tending to his feathers. Penny returned, excusing herself again and apologizing once more for Leroy's reticence. Scully could have sworn the damn bird waved at her as Penny led them to the door. "Happy Halloween," she said. "Next!" "Tell me that wasn't fun," said Mulder as they worked their way back through the crowd. "It was interesting," she allowed, and came to a stop at the stairs. She tilted her head at him and smiled. "But I don't think for a second that bird is psychic, Mulder." Mulder smiled too. "You're saying there's no kiss in your future?" Scully crooked her finger and started up the stairs instead of down. "I'll explain on the roof." Outside, the mild night air smelled of trees and warm wind. Scully clawed her hair from her eyes as Mulder followed her across the rooftop. The far edge of the building held a group of snoozing pigeons. "Look out for your shoes there, Scully," Mulder said, pointing. "I see evidence that Leroy was here." "Exactly my point," Scully replied, leading him to the large aluminum pipe. It was covered with a mesh barrier to prevent any small birds from climbing inside. "Feel that," Scully said as she grabbed Mulder's hand and held it in front of the pipe's opening. "Air," Mulder replied. "So what?" Scully plucked a stray feather from the mesh. "Look familiar to you?" "It's a gray feather. Maybe the pigeons hang out over here to keep warm." "Or maybe Leroy's found his own way to the roof." Scully took out her keychain flashlight and inspected the inside of the pipe. Sure enough, there was evidence that a bird had spent some time there. "I noticed the air vent was loose in his room, and it had a feather stuck to it. A feather very similar in shape and color to this one, I might add. I think Leroy's been making secret trips to the roof using the ventilation system. He didn't envision Tommy Alderson in the pipe. The poor kid was probably blocking Leroy's view when he got up here." Mulder took the feather from her and ran it over his fingertip. "That still makes him a pretty clever bird." "Clever, yes. Supernatural, no." To make it up to him, she wore the cat ears all the way home. Mulder walked her up to her door but stopped short of coming inside. He gave her the feather back, after first tickling her cheek with it. "A souvenir," he said, "of Halloween." Scully stroked the satiny gray fronds. "Happy Halloween, Mulder," she said. Mulder leaned down, the look of mischief in his eyes. "You know, Scully," he said, his voice low and dangerous, "there might just be a kiss in your future tonight afterall." Her heart leapt to her throat and she tried not to wheeze. He wouldn't, she thought, but on Halloween night nothing was for sure. Devils danced and goblins howled, and tricks could become treats in the blink of an eye. "Close your eyes," he murmured. Scully did, her pulse hammering as her lips parted. She felt a little dizzy, as if she were swaying on her feet. Mulder's hand touched her, his fingers teasing her palm, and Scully ceased to breathe at all. He slipped her something and closed her fingers over it. "Happy Halloween, Scully," he whispered, and pulled away. Scully opened her eyes to see him disappearing around the corner. In her hand was a single chocolate kiss. ~*~*~*~ November dawned cool and gray, thin clouds streaking pale across the bleak sky. By the time Scully reached the prison, fat drops of rain had started falling on her windshield, creating miniature paw prints of water across the smooth glass. She had no umbrella with her, so she held the bag of sandwiches over her head as she hurried to the front door. After the guards ensured she had not brought Ethan a tuna salad with a file in it, she was allowed inside to see him. "Are you a sight for sore eyes," he said as he scraped the chair across the floor. "I brought lunch," she told him. Ethan looked at the bag she had set out and smiled faintly. "The food here isn't as bad as I thought it would be," he said. "I just haven't been very hungry." "You need to eat," Scully said, not unkindly. She sat down across from him. Ethan shook his head as if bemused. "I've covered plenty of corruption stories over the years. I've done death penalty cases where the guy gets off twenty years later because it turned out the DNA didn't match. No one knows better than me that Uncle Sam doesn't always get his man." Scully reached over and took his hand. Ethan turned haunted eyes to hers. "I just never thought it could happen this fast." "What does your lawyer say?" "That's why I called you." Ethan sat forward, intent again. "He's so focused on finding holes in the prosecution's case, on picking apart their evidence that it's me." "Ethan, that's his job." "But he's not looking for the killer, D. I'm in here, but someone-someone out there *killed* Melinda, and that guy is walking around free. He could do it to someone else. You have to help me find out who did it. The cops sure as hell aren't doing anything." "I don't know what more I can do. I don't have access to any of the evidence." "You can go to my apartment," Ethan said quickly. "Maybe you can find something the police missed." Scully knew very well that the cops would have taken pretty much every usable piece of evidence with them. She hesitated, biting her lip as she tried to think of the most delicate way to phrase her question. "Ethan," she said at last, "stabbing is generally a very personal crime. Whoever did this likely knew Melinda well enough to have built up this kind of rage against her. You were her friend. You must have some idea of who could have done this?" "It's all I think about." His nose was running and he sniffed hard before wiping it on his sleeve. "Who could have done this to her? I keep thinking and thinking, forcing myself to go over every little detail of our conversations for any sign that this was coming. But you knew Melinda. Everyone really liked her. I can't think of anyone who would want to call her an ugly name, let alone do something like this to her." "Melinda dated a lot. Maybe there was someone she'd rejected recently?" Ethan smiled sadly. "Only me. I begged her not to go to Seattle, but her mind was made up." He sighed. "There was no one special in her life. She hadn't been out in a while. We'd been so caught up in the Ryerson story; neither of us had much time for a social life the past few months." "Okay, then," Scully said on a long breath. "I'll go look at your apartment, but I can't promise to find anything." "Thank you. It would mean a lot to me." Just then, he reminded her of the old Ethan, the man who always spoke with such earnest conviction that she believed everything he ever said. The first time she had taken off her clothes in front of him, he had smiled and said, "You're perfect." Since that night, she'd been too fat and too thin at varying times, the worst of it in the last year as cancer stole the flesh from her bones. But for one night she had been perfect; the look of raw anticipation on his face when he'd said it was something she had never forgotten. Ethan opened his sandwich so Scully did the same with hers, the paper crackling loudly in their confined space. "You never told me," Ethan said as he wolfed his down, "how is Mulder?" "He's fine." Scully licked a stray bit of tuna salad from her thumb. "I'm glad. You know, I look back on you and me, and some of the things I said there at the end weren't really fair. It helps to know he's stuck around." "Stuck around?" Ethan shrugged. "It can be so hard to change the picture in your head. I thought we were getting married. Then all of a sudden, we weren't. It didn't really seem real. Or even possible. For a long time, I kept thinking maybe you would come back. I kept thinking there would be a happy ending, you know? But it helps, knowing you got one." He smiled a little. "God knows someone should." "I don't know what you're talking about," Scully said as she set down her sandwich. "You and Mulder. I'm saying I'm happy for you. At least this way I know I made the right decision not to fight harder back then." "Fight? Fight Mulder? For me?" Scully knew she was sounding vaguely like the parrot from the evening before, but what Ethan said made no sense. "I think you have the wrong idea," she told him. "Mulder and I are partners. Nothing more." Ethan furrowed his brow at her. "He answered the phone at your house--" "So?" He shook his head as if to clear it. "Mulder was crazy in love with you. You're telling me you two never got together?" Scully opened her mouth but no sound came out. "Oh, don't pretend you didn't know." "There's nothing to know," Scully stammered. "I can't imagine where you got this idea, but Mulder and I are friends and colleagues." "You're telling me he never made a move in all these years? Never once?" "Not once." "And here I always thought Mulder had the most guts of any guy I'd ever met. Take it from me -- that man had it bad." He leaned back in his chair. "I guess maybe he couldn't change the picture in his head, either." "Mulder's not in love with me," Scully insisted. Ethan shrugged again. "Well, he was. I'm sure of that much." Later, she staggered out into the drizzle and slammed her car door shut against the wind. Her hair stuck to her face and her stomach had twisted up tighter than a wet towel. She was not sure which was more disquieting: that Mulder might have been in love with her, or that maybe he no longer was. ~*~*~*~ Mulder was pretty sure his couch had an ass magnet embedded deep inside the cushions; its force was strong, able to keep his rear-end lodged firmly in its grasp through six episodes of "The Twilight Zone" and one atrocious rerun of "WKRP in Cincinnati." When the phone rang, he didn't even get up. He nudged the receiver down the coffee table with his foot until he could reach it without moving. "Help, I'm being held hostage by my furniture," he said by way of greeting. "Mulder? It's me." "Scully, what do you think is the Guinness World Record for most consecutive hours of TV viewing?" "Making your mark in history, are you?" He could hear the sound of traffic in the background. "You're out and about, I take it. How was lunch with Mom?" "I didn't make it. That's part of why I'm calling. Do you think you can meet me at Ethan's apartment, say in about half an hour?" Mulder sat up. "Sure, what's up?" "He wants us to take a look at the scene and see if the police might have missed something." "My favorite hobby," Mulder replied. "I'll see you there." They hung up without saying good-bye, as usual, and as Mulder slipped on his shoes he considered how many times other people had tried to make him say good-bye to Scully. Ethan, when she'd gone missing. Her sister, when they had disconnected her life support. Skinner, this last time in the ICU. But Mulder never said it and Scully was still here. They had a system that worked. Rain slashed his windshield as he drove across town to Ethan's address. Scully's car sat parked out front with Scully in it. He could see her watching him in the side mirror as he parked behind her. Mulder got out, tossed his keys and caught them one handed as he walked over to Scully's window. She rolled it down. "Thanks for coming," she said. "Are we breaking and entering?" he asked. She waggled a set of keys at him. "I got a copy from his attorney," she said as she opened the door. "Ethan feels that no one is bothering to look for the real killer in the case, so he asked us to check out the scene just in case there's something left to find." Mulder followed her out of the rain and into Ethan's high- end apartment building. In the elevator, she stood hunched in one corner but kept sneaking looks at him. "What?" he asked, looking down at his front to see if he had food stuck on his shirt. "Nothing." Mulder watched the glowing numbers count upwards, but he could feel her eyes on him again. When the doors opened, he escaped into the hall where he could breathe and started searching for Ethan's front door. "This is it," he said when he had found the unit. Scully fit the key in the lock. Mulder knew the minute she cracked the door that their efforts would likely prove fruitless. The strong scent of lemon cleanser hit them in the face as they stepped into the apartment. "Crime scene clean up beat us here," Scully said. "Can't have blood and guts stinking up the place for the neighbors." Mulder flicked on a nearby light. "Looks like a rug is gone," Scully observed. "This must have been where they found her." "You say the cops came in and found him standing over the body?" "Pretty much, yeah. Someone in the building called in a disturbance." Mulder turned to look at her. "Did they ever find out who?" "I don't know. Ethan never said." "Huh," Mulder said. "What?" "It's just, when we saw the body, she'd been dead for a long time." "Kwan estimated time of death between midnight and three a.m.," Scully replied. "So then what was the disturbance at six in the morning?" "Good question." Mulder resumed poking around. Ethan had floor-to-ceiling bookcases that were jammed full. A large black and white print of bamboo trees hung over a black leather sofa. Mulder knelt down to examine the hardwood floor, but saw no trace of blood. Up close, he could smell the bleach used to erase the crime. "It just doesn't make any sense," he called out to Scully. Her voice echoed from the back. "What doesn't?" "The way this whole thing went down. We agree that stabbing is a personal crime, suggesting Melinda was a very specific victim, but she wasn't usually in this apartment. How did the killer know she would be here that night? And then, the weapon was a knife from the kitchen. So the killer was improvising. You've got two lines of evidence that don't match - either he knew she'd be here somehow and was waiting, or he came here for another reason and ended up killing her when he didn't expect to." Mulder went down the hall to find Scully in Ethan's office. "The cops cleaned everything out," she said to him. "All his notes, his computer." "I can see why they like him for it," Mulder replied. "He's the only answer that fits the evidence. He knew Melinda was here, and he likely hadn't planned on killing her." "He didn't do it, Mulder." Scully opened his top desk drawer. "I didn't say he did. I just said I can understand why they believe he's guilty." Mulder picked up some sort of journalism award while Scully continued to search the desk. The award looked like a giant prism, and it had an impressive lack of dust. Either Ethan was a neat freak or he had a housekeeper. "It's kind of weird," Scully remarked as she flipped through a notebook, "seeing his things again. This desk was in my apartment for a while." "Yeah?" "I used to hate that thing," she said with a smile. Mulder held up the award. "This?" "I'd come around the corner in the morning, and it would shoot the sun like a laser right in my eyes." She stopped suddenly, her smile fading. "What is it?" "Oh, nothing." She pulled something from the desk drawer. "Just an old picture." Mulder came around to see. It was Scully five years ago, with her hair long and Ethan wrapped around her. They looked happy and in love. "It was a million years ago," Scully murmured. She tried to set the photo aside, but Mulder picked it up again. "Do you have your answer yet?" he asked her. "About what went wrong?" When he turned, Scully was looking at him again. "I don't know," she replied. "Maybe." Her shoulders rose and fell with her sigh. "Or maybe no one ever really knows, even when there's no government conspiracy or missing time or overt drama. After all, we understand less about love and attraction than practically any other human behavior. If love's beginning remains a mystery, then perhaps its end always will as well." She seemed to be waiting for him to say something. Mulder cleared his throat and put the picture down. When he peeked at it, young Scully was still looking up at him, the way the other Scully in front of him had never looked: as if she existed only for him. Sometimes, he thought, love was more painful when there was no end. "Let's check out the kitchen," he said, and left her standing there in a room full of ghosts. ~*~*~*~*~*~ End chapter three. Continued in chapter four.