Title - Compass
Author - Nascent
E-Mail address - nascen...@flashmail.com
Category - XAR
Spoilers - One Son
Summary - How S&M got their groove back. Post
2F/1S.

---------------------------------------------------

I GET BY WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY
FRIENDS:

Thanks to Flywoman, my first beta ever and the editor
of this piece, for putting up with me the past few years.
She makes a great virtual roommate.

Best wishes too to my second beta ever, whose help I
missed here, but she's chasing dreams on another coast
and I hope all's going well.

Thanks also to the Box, for teaching me a lot.

OBLIGATORY CHEESY DISCLAIMER:

Gillian sings better than I do, so bear with me here:

We love you Chri-i-is,
(Mostly we do-o)
If you don't su-ue us,
Then we'll be true.
We make no mo-o-ney like
You do!
Moose 'n' Squirrel be-long to you.

BETTER LIVING THROUGH HTML:

An easier-to-read version of this story can be found at
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Atlantis/6277/

CONTEXT:

This story was begun after Two Fathers/One Son,
which is when it's set, and the characters are crafted
based on that circumstance.

prologue

---------------------------------------------------

New York City

11:44 p.m.

Feb. 12, 1999

During the day, Wall Street and an endless stampede of
heels on pavement marked the passing of time with a
military cadence, but at night the city teemed with
nascent dreams, ethereal and tragic. There weren't
enough stars visible between the tall silhouettes of the
skyscrapers-nor even (it often seemed) enough stars at
all-for eight million wishes. Maybe it was this primal
competition for resources that drove the neighbors to
throw garbage at the old lady's cats, or the husbands to
learn disgust for their wives and seek out prostituted
embraces, or the prostitutes to yell at their children for
waking them just after they found sleep at dawn.

After sunset, the parks grew heavy with heroin and
homelessness. Bare bulbs in dingy apartments flickered
into the wee hours of the morning as their owners
wavered on the cusp of decision, choosing between yet
another endless day at a pointless job and the bottle of
pills which promised everlasting sleep. Dealers in guns
and drugs who would never see the vaster sums of
daylit money made by their superiors played out their
Napoleonic fantasies in the alleys, believing they could
conquer the world if the neighborhoods were all the
world they knew.

The girl walking alone was a pretty girl in the
hard-earned manner of girls who are used to being
looked at. She was one of those girls with whom it's
hard to tell whether they're looked at because they're
pretty or they're pretty because they're so certain
everyone is looking at them, but her pixie cheeks and
wavy blonde locks were pixy and wavy because she
was an actress, and people really did look at her.

She had lived all her life in this two-faced world,
carrying an illegal handgun in her purse, and she'd
always believed it entitled her to walk home alone when
the show had ended. But tonight someone was
following her.

She'd had this eerie feeling before and run, heart in her
throat, home to her mother only to find no one behind
her, but years of adrenaline crying wolf had cured her
of the fear, and now when she felt it she chalked it up
to the usual sensation of being watched. It was almost
always some man mentally undressing her, and that
was harmless. You got used to that.

But not this time, and the death last night had
sharpened her instinct for suspicion. He turned when
she turned, stopped when she stopped. When she
glanced behind her, he'd be standing at a barred
window, looking inside as if something behind the bars
interested him, but at the next block she'd glance again
and he'd still be there. Following.

He wasn't trying hard to fade into the background
either. A tall sheik in this freezing urban oasis, he wore
an ordinary black coat but capped it with a white
dishtowel turban which covered his forehead and hung
below his shoulders. He was close enough, at times,
for her to make out his dark mustache, much like (she
thought) Saddam's.

Having only dim memories of a time when Russia was
the Enemy, she had an instinctive aversion to Arabs,
though in true nineties fashion she would have denied it
if ever accused. She associated them with crimes
executed by grim determination and personal causes
higher than money, and on some subconscious level
she suspected that if he wanted something from her it
would be non-negotiable.

Not like a mugger.

She had slipped her hand into her purse some time ago,
tried to stay in the streetlights, and made certain every
block's sidewalk hosted a few people before she
walked on it. But in the end, none of that mattered.

He was getting closer; she could hear his footsteps.
She looked around; the only people were two men half
a block away, and a dark alley beckoned behind her.
Cars still rushed by, but they enclosed oblivious
passengers in their own worlds, separate from her
growing crisis.

She panicked, stepping into the street to wave at a
passing cab, but before she could call out, a hand
gripped her arm and she tried to scream but couldn't.
Tried to retrieve her gun, but all those years it had been
only a deadweight; she was too terrified to draw it. A
fraction of a second later it was too late anyway; the
muzzle of another gun was crammed up against her
ribs.

"Don't scream," he said, his accent thick and his voice
low. She could barely smell him, sweaty and thick,
above the strong scent of her own fear.

With a rough hand he guided her back into the alley and
she gasped as he pressed her against the frozen wall.

"Where is it?" he demanded, pushing the gun so deep
against her stomach she felt the blood vessels bursting,
bruising.

She began to cry.

He shook her; her head wobbled. "Stop that. Where is
it?"

But she had gone limp-he had to hold her up. "I killed
her," the girl sobbed. "I killed her."

"What did you do?" he urged, but she was sobbing
loudly now, and the lights above them flickered on. He
heard footsteps on the street. The girl let out a wail,
and, disgusted, her assailant let her fall. She sagged
against the wall, sinking to the ground.

Mohammed Al-Qud left her with long, determined
strides, vanishing back into the dark city, his threat as
unrealized as its dreams.

---------------------------------------------------

End 1/12 
1. All the World

---------------------------------------------------

Thursday

7:51 p.m.

Feb. 18, 1999

New Victoria Theatre

Manhattan

This was pure punishment. Fuck that rat bastard
McKinley and fuck Chief Gregory too, since he was
probably just pissed that Donnovan had won at poker
three or four times too often. This kid was a walking
stiff, might as well wear a toetag alive and save the
morgue the trouble.

That or he was gunning for the asylum. He had to be
Giuliani's nephew, or fucking Giuliani's nephew, to
have even made it through the police academy, much
less made detective. His smile was lifted from a Disney
dwarf, he thought Ghostbusters was a documentary,
and he was probably queer to boot. He didn't need a
partner-he needed a shrink.

Donnovan hadn't missed the irony of his predicament.
McKinley reported him for a hot temper then left the
precinct to avoid the flames, duck and cover. It was
smart; Donnovan was angry. So the chief had given
him the new boy, the nutcase, the one most likely to
push him over the edge so they'd have an excuse to
take away his badge.

He knew this song and dance. He'd heard it, seen it,
happen before, though he'd thought with his solvency
record it could never happen to him. Just went to show
you that it was never about taking down the bad guy; it
was about kissing the right ass. His only satisfaction
was the certainty that Carmichael, the idiot, would
follow in his footsteps soon enough, marched right out
of his good old NYPD blues. This was how it worked:
put the angry guy with someone irritating and insane,
dismiss him, then put the insane guy with a sane guy
who'll tell the truth and bam-two bad apples gone from
the barrel.

Well, they wouldn't get him. He was smarter than that.
The kid would be the first to go and there wouldn't be a
second.

"I hope they find the theatre okay." Speak of the devil.
Carmichael was back from the john, his linebacker
figure looking misplaced in the black suit and crooked
tie. Donnovan straightened his own tie, then shoved his
hands back in his pockets.

"If they can't find the theatre, I'd have to seriously
question their ability as detectives," he replied.

The lobby crowd was thinning; there was less
browsing and more well-dressed yuppies making
bee-lines for their seats, wearing fresh tracks in the
thinning amber carpet. The two officers stood between
a pair of pillars to the left of the doors, almost behind
the stairs.

Carmichael had sent the tickets to the fibbies' hotel but
whether they'd checked in yet was anyone's guess.
Maybe they weren't coming.

The thought actually disappointed Donnovan. He'd had
this all worked out. Carmichael had set it up so
beautifully-finding the ridiculous 'case' and then
calling in the big guns, so now Donnovan'd have an
irritated Washington to back him up when he
oh-so-regretfully filed his report on the young
detective's mental fitness. If they didn't come it'd just
be the kid's word against his, and after McKinley
everyone was biased against him.

Bastards.

He studied every couple that walked through the door,
trying to peg his quarry. He was assuming, of course,
that "Dana" was a woman, but he supposed she could
be a man. Maybe he'd missed them, they'd missed
him?

He snorted. How could anyone worth their salt miss
Carmichael, with his eager, dumb puppy face on the
bulldog body? Anyone with half a brain who was
looking to meet a stranger would see those hopeful
eyes. He might as well be holding up an airport limo
sign.

"Excuse me," a woman's voice said, and he turned to
see this a redhead with baby blue eyes talking, of
course, straight to Carmichael. "I'm Dana Scully. You
wouldn't happen to be the men I'm looking for?"

To Donnovan's deep satisfaction, Carmichael blushed
right to the stubby little roots of his blond crewcut as he
stopped himself from saying the obvious: _I sure hope
so_. Donnovan thought it too, of course, but he didn't
say a word.

He'd never thought real FBI agents looked like
_that_-she could've actually given that chick on
_Millennium_ a run for her money and here he'd
thought that was fiction. The top half of her dress, all
black, could've been painted on, and her heels
would've looked great with a catsuit. The black leather
purse was just large enough to conceal a gun, and she
had that smart-girl poker face to boot, the one that
promised her cards were better than yours, even if you
had a fucking flush. She'd extended her hand to
Carmichael but he was still trying to close his mouth so
Donnovan stepped in to shake it.

"Agent Scully," he said. "Thanks for coming. I'm
Mike Donnovan and this is Jerry Carmichael."

Her grip was both firm and light at once, like suede
gloves or Chinese vases. He felt sorry when she
released his hand and went back for Carmichael's,
which seemed to remember its function now.

"My partner's just checking our coats," she said. "Does
the manager know we're here?"

"No," Carmichael said immediately, always eager to
please. "We didn't tell him anything."

"We have spoken with him," Donnovan added. "He
may have seen us and we not seen him."

She nodded and her lips thinned. At that moment a man
who could've stepped off the cover of GQ swept up
behind her. Donnovan wondered if photo portfolios
were some new requirement for FBI applicants these
days.

Donnovan knew he was fucking her the moment he
stepped up. It was something in the way she didn't
flinch or turn around, made no eye contact with him at
all. Something in the way he didn't step around her,
instead reaching his hand around her body without
brushing her side. Then there was the unmistakable
alpha male challenge in his handshake grip.

As Mulder and Carmichael exchanged introductions,
Donnovan decided he didn't trust either of them.
Fucking your partner was beyond unprofessional-he'd
seen what happened to cops who did that. This wasn't
a Mom 'n' Pop grocery store-this was crime. Sex
compromised too many decisions, made it hard for the
couple to argue the evidence, made them too quick to
defend each other. Bring the bedroom to work and
Grandma didn't get her social security check, Johnny
wound up a crackhead and Mary Ann got stabbed and
raped in a dark alley.

No Mary Ann here, though, so no need to think too
hard about that.

Now Carmichael was blabbering about the "murder" as
both the agents listened, stone-faced. They were really
good at that part of being FBI at least, since the
inevitable impulse to laugh in the kid's face would've
overwhelmed even Jesus Christ.

Donnovan cast a meaningful glance at his watch. "It's
about to start," he said, which finally shut the kid up.
As they turned toward the door, he didn't miss the look
Scully shot Mulder, one eyebrow arched practically to
her hairline.

Like he'd said, unprofessional. But it was comforting
to get confirmation of Carmichael's insanity from the
people he wanted as corroborators.

The balcony was already full and their seats were in the
center, for which Carmichael awkwardly apologized.
Mulder went in first without a thought to the usual
seat-the-strangers-shuffle, climbing over knees and feet
and laps like a stork. Scully, who could hardly follow
suit in dress and heels, minced her way after him and
Donnovan watched as the men in the row stood up but
not back, so her ass brushed against their thighs. The
women only pursed their lips and turned their knees to
one side.

Donnovan gestured for Carmichael to go next, since he
wasn't feeling talkative and besides, best to maximize
contact between the kid and the agents. Carmichael
blushed like a teenage girl, but moved into the row of
seats. Donnovan followed.

The whispers of the audience floated to the domed
ceiling and bounced off the filigreed walls, then were
lost in the muffling red curtains. Behind them a
woman's voice rose to a murmur: "-have no idea.
Artsy, I think."

"Interpretive," corrected her companion.

Out of the corner of his eye, Donnovan saw Mulder
point at the elegant but clearly glass candelabra above
their heads. Both Scully and Carmichael looked up, but
he couldn't hear what they were saying.

Donnovan sighed and, looking for something to do,
opened his program. It contained a three-paragraph
biography of Shakespeare and a two-page "Note" from
the director. The cast was listed at the seam; he noticed
that Shawna McCartney's name was still there. Most of
the other pages contained several advertisements for
triple X theatres relocated from Times Square since
Disney came to town. A short blurb on the back cover
told the history of the theatre, which used to show
organ-accompanied silent films back in the thirties.

Donnovan was not impressed.

The lights flashed and dimmed, thankfully causing the
audience's tittering chatter to subside. But as soon as
the room was dark a burst of static worse than a test of
the emergency broadcast system whined through the
theatre. Several people near them shrieked, and
Donnovan clapped his hands over his ears.

The feedback persisted for at least a full minute, until
Donnovan thought his Dr. Scholl's would probably
have toenail scars. At last it stopped, as suddenly as it
began. A Casey Casum radio voice announced: "We
apologize for the technical difficulties-we have things
under control now. Please note the addendum to your
program, which says that the role of Olivia will be
played tonight by Rose Arlington."

The curtains rose.

Donnovan wasn't an artsy fartsy sensitive guy. He
didn't like theatre to begin with and hadn't been in
years. But as soon as it started, he knew this was
worse than anything he'd ever seen and exactly as bad
as he'd imagined.

Disco music loud enough to cause physical pain blared
into the auditorium as the lights came up on the bare
stage. Square tiles on the stage floor started flashing
pink, green, blue, gold, on and off like neon
easter-colored drums. A disco ball began to twirl,
casting bright sparks and seventies flashbacks onto the
foreheads of the audience. Donovan clenched his fists
around the program to keep himself from doing
anything else with them.

From stage left, four men entered, wearing pansy
sequined bell-bottoms and accompanied by two
'musicians' playing air guitars.

"If music be the food of love, play on," one screamed,
in a fair imitation of Metallica.

"Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting

The appetite may sicken, and so die."

It picked up a little when the shipwrecked chick walked
out onto the stage completely, totally nude. She rubbed
her hands over belly and breasts to give a whole new
meaning to the line: "And what should I do in Illyria?",
and although Donnovan wasn't a Shakespeare fan he
sort of liked the idea of the old man rolling in his grave.

But in the second act, the other show started.

The Pepsi can Olivia had been drinking from,
abandoned on the stage's single prop (a chair),
suddenly began rising into the air.

A unanimous gasp arose from the audience while
Donnovan snorted. The women behind them began to
whisper.

"Completely fake," one said. "You can see the strings."

"Here, let me see the binoculars."

Donnovan frowned, leaning forward. He couldn't see
anything suspending the can, and its motion was fairly
smooth-better than a puppet's-but it was still pretty
fucking pedestrian. The actors stumbled over a few
lines, but tried to continue as if nothing was happening.

The can dropped to the stage floor with a clatter. The
actors hesitated for a beat, then continued with their
lines. Donnovan glanced down the row at his
companions: Carmichael flashed him an excited grin,
but Scully was still staring straight ahead with the same
bored, G-woman expression. He couldn't see her
partner.

It happened twice more: once Sebastian's skirt began to
raise, making the audience whistle and yell. The third
time, a book flew into the air and careened into the ass
of the most corpulent actor, which drew laughter from
the crowd and even worse performances from the
actors. Donnovan rolled his eyes.

Halfway through the last act, though, the lights
flickered and went out, shrouding the room in total
darkness. A second later, a woman screamed-long,
and horrifyingly shrill.

Donnovan felt like he was in a bad haunted house run
by oversized boy scouts. He didn't even bother trying
to see, though all around him, people were shuffling,
moving as low moans issued from the speakers. Some
of the audience screamed in genuine fear, but others
were making catcalls. They made him a hell of a lot
more nervous than the scream ever could have.

A hand on his leg, feet tripping over his. He heard the
agents as they passed.

"Did you hear where it came from?" said Scully.

"Orchestra," Mulder answered. "Left side."

"Me too," he heard her say, but her voice was already
dwindling in the crowd; they'd already passed. What
the fuck were they doing?

The lights came back on with a loud _boom_ and the
ghostly moans stopped. Donnovan looked around.
Carmichael was standing beside him, mouth open, not
sure what to do. The aisle was full of people looking
just as bewildered, and he glimpsed Mulder's face near
the door. He saw the G-man reach behind him, realized
he was putting away a gun.

Shit, they were fucking each other _and_
trigger-happy. What kind of idiots would draw guns in
a crowded, nervous theater like this? He was siezed
with the sudden urge to wring that G-man's scrawny
little neck, teach him a few lessons about police work
in the real world, but he made himself take a deep
breath and keep still. This would all be over soon
enough.

The actors still stood on stage, looking a little nervous
themselves. But they tried to continue as if nothing had
happened, and soon Sebastian and Viola, brother and
sister, were reunited with a deep kiss and lots of
groping. The audience clapped; the play was over.
Thank God.

Carmichael leaned closer than Donnovan would have
liked to whisper, "Where'd they go?"

Donnovan glanced behind him toward the door-the
fibbies were gone. Maybe back to Washington. "Let's
find out," he said with deliberate calm.

---------------------------------------------------

10:58 p.m.

"I assure you, Mr. Mulder-our theatre is the real thing.
We don't need to stoop to parlor tricks for attention."
The little round man with the silky, booming voice
tugged at the hem of his coat, which didn't quite fit. He
looked like the type of man who would be comfortable
only in a red tuxedo, gesturing grandly at the trapeze
artists from beneath a 400 watt spotlight.

Mulder rubbed his eyes with weary fingers, stepped
forward to dodge two stagehands carrying a large crate
between the curtains. "Look, Mr. Strafer-"

"Stray-pher," the tiny man corrected.

"-Straaaay-phur," Mulder drawled, though he couldn't
hear the difference. "We're here to investigate the death
of Shawna McCartney, not the presence or absence of
parlor tricks."

Scully would be so proud.

On cue, his partner's voice called back to them from
onstage. "There's a block of dry ice here next to some
industrial ethanol."

Mr. Strafer's painted-on smile didn't twitch, and his
eyes never left Mulder's. "A standard stage prop for
fog," he supplied.

"It's connected to a drainage pipe that runs to the left
side of the auditorium, painted bronze to look like part
of the trim, and there's a fan behind it," Scully
continued. "This is how the chills are probably
produced."

There it was, the expected voice-that patented
'once-again-my-time-has-been-wasted' voice. It was
almost as bad as Strafer's infallible grin.

"Sometimes the air conditioning breaks down," the
little man said, and winked. Mulder hoped the coot
wasn't coming on to him.

"It's winter," Mulder replied. "But Mr. Strafer, I'd
really just like to talk to you about the death that
happened here four days ago."

"Yes, of course. Tragic. Shawna was like a daughter to
me."

"I'm surprised the theatre's still open," Mulder
remarked.

"The flying Pepsi can was attached to a network of
wires," Scully's voice informed them, and Mulder took
a step further into the wings, away from her bored
voice.

"Well, yes," Strafer said. "The show must go on."

"And business is booming," Mulder observed.

"I hope you're not implying what I think you're
implying," Strafer said, without breaking his smile's
stride. "But of course you are, and that's your job, so I
forgive you. Still, Shawna had no enemies, Mr.
Mulder, and no one could have been on the catwalk
without half-a-dozen people seeing them."

"A falling chandelier seems like a-"

He was interrupted by the approach of two
trenchcoat-clad men entering from backstage. "Oh
good," said the older of the two. "You've met Mr.
Strafer."

Strafer turned to them and extended a hand. "Yes," he
said. "Officers-let's see....Cartman and...?"

Neither shook his hand. "Carmichael and Donnovan,"
replied Carmichael, the younger man. "We called the
FBI in."

"So Mr. Mulder informed me," Strafer said.

Scully's dry voice cut through their conversation again,
now from above. "The wires go up to the catwalk,
where they're attached to a block on a frictionless air
track that runs the length of the stage."

Donnovan looked up, his half-bald pate gleaming with
beads of sweat in the hot stage lights. "I'll go help
Agent Scully," he announced, and walked onto the
stage. Mulder just betted he would, imagining the man
drooling under the catwalk as he stared up her skirt.
_Oh, Agent Scully, be careful! I'll stand here in case
you fall. _He shook his head to clear the image.

"Mr. Strafer was just telling me his theatre doesn't do
parlor tricks," he said to Carmichael.

"Indeed we don't," Strafer replied. "Parlor tricks are
much cheaper."

"But the establishment does have a long history of
strange occurrences," Carmichael said quickly. "As I
told you."

"Yes," Strafer said. "A long history. There've been
over thirty sightings of Mrs. Arlington's ghost by more
than a dozen people in the last twenty years."

"And do _you_ think the ghost killed Shawna
McCartney, Mr. Straaaay-pher?" Mulder asked.

Strafer tugged at his sleeve again. "Well, that's not my
place to speculate, Mr. Mulder. But the chain on that
chandelier should not have broken."

A chilly unseen hand brushed Mulder's arm and he
jumped. Scully moved around his elbow, her bored
expression not even affording amusement at his
reaction, though Strafer's smile had widened.

"The 'ghost' tricks are a hoax," she said. Without
waiting for a response, she walked on to the backstage
door and exited, probably assuming Mulder would
follow. End of investigation.

"If it was a ghost," Carmichael said, and it looked like
he was thinking hard, "wouldn't Shawna McCartney
have to have done something to make her angry?"

Before Mulder could evaluate the assumptions behind
that question, another stagehand pushed past, jostling
him into the pulley system.

"Well, there's certainly been speculation," Strafer said.
"Of course. But no one knows of anything in Mrs.
Arlington's or Shawna's past that could suggest such a
thing. Still-ghosts have a sense of humor."

"Sure," Mulder muttered. "And apparently they share it
with Bob Saget. What did _Twelfth Night _have a
chandelier for anyway?"

Strafer shrugged. "Why does it have a naked woman?
Art is art, Mr. Mulder. There doesn't have to be a
reason."

"Especially when it sells tickets."

"Shakespeare himself used base, apparently useless
devices to appeal to the masses," Strafer said. "His
actors urinated on stage, for example. I think taking art
out of the museums and bringing it to the appreciation
of the public should be applauded."

"I don't know that it's the same thing-is Jerry Springer
art?" Carmichael asked, drawing himself up with a
precision that, combined with his peachfuzz hair,
seemed a military contradiction to his absurd questions.
Mulder had the feeling the kid's brain-to-mouth filter
had been disabled.

"Certainly," Strafer answered. "Though not _our_ art.
I like to think that-"

"Hate to interrupt," Mulder said, "but if we could get
back to the case....Mr. Strafer, if you could just
describe to me what you saw the night Shawna died-"

"Oh, I wasn't there," he said, shrugging.

"Hey!" Detective Donnovan's voice called from beyond
the curtains. "There's some dry ice here."

Mulder gritted his teeth. "Perhaps you could direct me
to someone who _was_ here."

"No one saw anything," Carmichael said. "I told you
that. We've interviewed everyone here, Agent Mulder.
We called you in because I was told you have expertise
in this sort of thing. I guess I was hoping you could
suggest something a little more...non-routine."

Okay, that was it. "Sorry, I was planning to hold off
on the séance til midnight," he snapped.

Carmichael shrugged. "That's not what I meant, of
course, but-"

Donnovan, approaching from the stage, cut him off.
"Look, Agent Mulder, there're clearly better things that
all of us could be doing. We're sorry to have wasted
your time."

"You can't arrest a ghost, after all," Strafer pointed out.

"Thank you, Mr. Strafer," Mulder said. "I don't think
we need anything else from you now. I'd appreciate it
if you could give us a moment."

"Sure," Strafer replied, and turned to waddle across the
stage. As he left, Mulder thought he heard the man
muttering about the NEA budget.

"I think we're gonna rule McCartney's death an
accident," Donnovan said. He pulled out a sheet of
paper. "800 real murders a year in this city and we've
given this shit more than the time it deserves. Like I
said, I'm sorry the kid called you. If you could just fill
out this report, our chief will be satisfied."

"I guess I have to apologize too," Carmichael said, but
his lowered eyes made Mulder think he didn't mean it.
"It's not that I thought it was a ghost-it's just I
assumed you'd have some experience in getting to the
bottom of hoaxes like this."

Mulder opened his mouth, automatic sarcasm boiling
up from his gut, but at that moment Scully walked in
from the side door, a single sheet of paper in her hand.
In the face of her expressionless stare, Mulder decided
to bail out with what dignity he had left.

"I'm on my way, Scully. The detectives were just
apologizing for wasting our time."

"We're not leaving yet, Mulder," she said flatly,
holding out the paper, which he now saw was a UPS
receipt. "Looks like your ghost signed a COD the
morning of McCartney's death."

And Mulder remembered that he loved this woman.

2. A Glass Menagerie

---------------------------------------------------

11:36 p.m.

"I'm impressed, Ms. Arlington," Mulder said, leaning
one hip against the dressing room table. It seemed to
Scully that he was talking too loudly, but then her head
felt like a creampuff about to explode, despite the
antihistamines, and a pin dropping might've popped it.
"Not many people can claim to work for their
grandmother's ghost."

The young blonde's lip quivered, and she changed the
clasped hands in her lap from right over left to left over
right. "That's not funny," she said.

Scully agreed, and shot her partner a look to make sure
he knew it, but he was deliberately not looking at her.
The balding detective seemed not to notice-he was
looking over the rows of costumes with the bored
expression of an accountant at a football game. His far
greener partner, who obviously had yet to perfect the
role of indifferent cop, leaned up against the doorjamb,
looking uncomfortable.

"What can you tell us about your grandmother, Ms.
Arlington?" Scully asked, stepping in front of the
young woman.

Rose Arlington shrugged, she bit her rosy lip. "I don't
know what you want to know. I don't know. She
was-I didn't even know her."

"Yet you ended up working at the theatre named for
her."

"She was a Broadway actress. Look, just because
someone signed for a package with her name doesn't
mean I know anything about it. I don't."

Mulder pushed off the counter and moved to hover just
behind Scully, his presence crackling like an electric
field at her back. She felt a sudden urge to get out of
range. "Do you believe in her ghost?" Mulder asked.

"No!" Rose said, as if Mulder must be stupid. "No,
that's full of shit. It's all fake, it's just a show."

"Like the chandelier that killed Shawna?"

"That was an accident. Just an accident. She was one
of my best friends...."

Scully stepped away from her partner, moving to lean
her hips against the dressing table, which was
decorated with small glass figurines-unicorns,
ballerinas, fairies-icons of an age this girl passed a
decade ago.

The girl sniffled and dabbed at one eye with the back of
her hand. "You people have no respect," she said, her
voice dripping with bitterness. "She's dead, and
you-you _trivialize_ that with your ghost stories,
questions...I mean, we're grieving here and you're
trying to make us responsible."

Wondering exactly what it would take to make her hate
this case even more, Scully produced a handkerchief
from her pocket and held it out to the girl, who batted it
away with one girlish hand.

"You were Shawna's understudy," Mulder said.
"You're doing a good job of taking her place in your
time of mourning."

As Rose's jaw dropped, Scully's head snapped around
to her partner, eyes widening with reproof. In her
peripheral vision, she saw Carmichael surge forward.
"Agent Mulder-" he began, but Mulder interrupted.

"I'm sorry," Mulder said, in a velvet-covered voice
Scully knew well. "I'm not implying anything, Ms.
Arlington. I'm just trying to get the facts straight. I
understand that 'the show must go on.'"

Scully heard the internal quotation marks and her brow
furrowed. She knew Mulder's bloodhoundish instinct
was better than a lie detector, but his sense of smell had
failed him before, and this bordered on the offensive.

"What were you doing when the chandelier fell?"
Mulder continued.

Rose's face was swimming with innocent confusion
and anger. "I was backstage, talking to one of the prop
guys. You can ask him."

The way Mulder bit his lower lip told Scully that
wasn't the answer he'd wanted, and the fact that he
was surprised irritated her. She'd thought there might
be a case, but even if it was an X-File, he hadn't been
sure of that when he announced they were coming up
here. He was avoiding the real issues-the events that
had earned them the return of their blood-soaked
office-and she didn't know how to bring him back on
track.

"Where were you talking to him?" Mulder continued,
stubborn as ever.

"In the wings," Rose answered. "We heard the crash,
and we went running to the stage, but it was already
too late."

Scully studied the array on the dressing table, idly
picked up a small, palm-sized figurine between a
dragon and a flamingo-a squat, black lump of stone
which reminded her of primitive fertility sculptures.
Catching this out of the corner of her eye, Rose jerked
and turned to Scully.

"I was just admiring your collection," Scully said
smoothly, replacing the figure as she tried to soothe the
agitation Mulder produced. She was used to that.

But Mulder wasn't in a cooperative mood. "What's the
prop boy's name?"

"Greg," the girl said, spitting the name out with almost
adolescent defiance. "Greg Millhouse."

"We talked to him," interjected Donnovan, who hadn't
appeared to be listening. "We have his statement."

Mulder didn't acknowledge the detective. "Was
Shawna a good actress?" he asked.

At that, Rose began to cry harder, and Scully had had
enough.

"We're sorry to have bothered you, Ms. Arlington,"
she said, cutting this short and daring him to contradict
her. "We just wanted to know about the UPS receipt.
The stage manager said no package had been checked
in, and mentioned that only you had the name
'Arlington.' If you think of anything else, please call
us."

Scully extended a card to the girl and glanced back at
her partner, expecting anger or at least shame, but his
lips were pursed in thought.

"C'mon," Donnovan said in his gravelly voice,
walking toward the door. Scully wasn't sure who he
was talking to, but Carmichael followed like an
obedient puppy and she made sure Mulder preceded
her, closing the door on their way out. As soon as the
latch clicked, Scully heard a quiet, keening sob begin
like a siren behind them. She winced.

"Again," Donnovan said, looking directly at Mulder.
"I'm sorry to have wasted your time."

"On the contrary," Mulder answered. "I'm sure there's
a case here. We'll meet you at the precinct office in the
morning."

Scully winced again.

"Surely you don't think she"--Donnovan gestured at
the door-"is responsible. I mean, she couldn't have."

Mulder proffered only an enigmatic shrug. "We can
handle it ourselves if you like," he said.

"No, no," Carmichael said quickly. "We'll help in any
way we can."

Donnovan gave a short bark of mirthless laughter.

End 2/12 
3. Galactic Coordinates

---------------------------------------------------

11:59 p.m.

He'd wanted her to wear the black dress, so he'd asked
her to wear the yellow one, and of course it worked.
Tendrils of hair framed her face like wisteria vines, a
deliberately disheveled look that he rarely saw her
cultivate. Maybe he should take her to plays more
often. But good ones.

A light dusting of snow speckled the shoulders of
Scully's trenchcoat, a warning of the frost beneath that
seeming warmth. She was irritated, if not angry; of that
much he was sure. He was perversely grateful for that
certainty, since he was wavering more than she realized
on the nature of this case.

The policemen were gone, and for at least that he was
glad, though an offer of a ride might've been nice. He
saw another cab approaching and raised his arm again
but, like the last two, this one streaked on past. He
looked back at Scully where she stood stiffly on the
curb. She was on the verge of telling him what an idiot
he was.

True to form, she heaved a frustrated sigh as the third
cab turned the corner at the end of the block and said,
"It's not an X-File, Mulder."

For a silent second, he debated between sincerity and
flippancy, and decided the latter was the better option if
he didn't want to be sleeping alone that night. If he
gave her an inch of doubt, she'd take a mile. "Funny,
Scully. You used to say, 'there's no such thing as the
supernatural, Mulder,' but now it's: 'it's not an
X-File.' How far we've come."

She rolled her eyes and it was his turn to sigh,
resigning himself to a cold night alone in a large bed;
there hadn't been a winning bet in that pool.

"A melodramatic ghost under the influence of Andrew
Lloyd Weber, Mulder?" she said. "A jealous
understudy? A falsely haunted theatre? If this is a case,
I should be buying you Scooby snacks."

He was trying to craft a comeback, but the approach of
another cab saved him from having to remember the
name of the ugly red-headed girl. He waved and the
slush-encrusted car pulled over with a screeching of
brakes. Mulder opened the back door and held out an
arm, inviting her in.

"There's more to it than what's on the surface, Scully,"
he said as she hopped over the curb slush to join him.
Was it Veronica? He tried not to react as she skirted the
rear of the car to enter from the other side, climbed in
himself. Virginia. No-Velma. Damn, too late.

"Grand Central Hyatt," Mulder told the driver, and they
pulled into traffic with a lurch.

"That may be, but it still has nothing to do with us,"
she said, buckling her seatbelt.

"Rose Arlington is hiding something," he said, giving
up all attempts at placating her. He was _almost_
certain he was right, anyway. "I just want to know
what. Why are you so upset about that?"

She sighed. "I'm not 'upset;' I just don't get it," she
answered, and her voice lowered. "We should at least
be looking for Fowley. For Spender, Sr."

Ah. So they were back to that. Again.

Mulder turned toward the window. He thought for a
second that they were driving through a blizzard instead
of a light snow, and even when he realized the cab was
simply going fast, the illusion persisted. If he squinted,
he could imagine the snowflakes were stars they were
passing by at speeds far faster than light.

"They're the ones who actually know what the
consortium was planning," she continued. "We've just
gotten the X-Files back, Mulder, and we're closer than
ever to...to _everything_. Why do you want to waste
our time on cases like this?"

"Oh, did you figure out the galactic coordinates of the
mothership?" he asked, loud enough so that the driver
pretended not to hear. Anything to escape her burning
gaze.

It worked-she turned away with a frustrated sigh to
watch the falling snow. He wondered if she was seeing
the blizzard he had, or if the physicist in her factored in
the speed of the car without even thinking.

4. Mechanics vs Method

---------------------------------------------------

Friday

9:02 a.m.

New York City Ninth Precinct

Scully leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes,
listening to the hissing of the coffee machine beside
her. If she focused on that, and on the warm,
styrofoam cup in her hand, she could keep the rattling
and ringing and shouting and fluorescent lights at bay.
Otherwise, these intrusions battered against her temples
like a wolf who wanted in, and she feared her
throbbing head was made of straw today.

She was coming down with something, she was sure
of it. Well, she _had_ wondered what it would take to
make this case worse. She sniffled and took a long sip
of the coffee, which was predictably terrible, but at
least it was warm. It made her shiver as it slid down
her throat.

She knew she'd been too hard on Mulder last night, but
she had trouble making herself regret it, perhaps
because he'd slammed the ball mercilessly back into her
own court. Par for the course, these days.

If he'd at least taken _this _seriously, it would have
been something. But instead of surfing the net or
ravaging Newsbank for articles on the history of
haunted theatres or falling chandeliers, he had collapsed
on the bed and clicked on the television. Instead of
trying to seduce her with elaborately woven theories
whose threads she could unravel with delight, instead
of tossing words between them like a complex game of
cat's cradle, he'd only said "good night" and gone to
his room. He left the door between them open though,
as if to invite her to comment on his unusual
inefficiency. He should know by now-Scully never
failed to rise to a challenge, and his cracks in the taxi
had _To Be Continued_ written all over them.

"That's it, Mulder?" she'd said, standing in his
doorway as blue light flickered over his naked chest
and sweatpant-wrapped legs. "No history, no calling in
favors, no litany of psychokinesis cases? Just 'it's an
X-File, so let's solve it?'"

"You know the script as well as I do, by now," he'd
answered, shrugging without looking away from the
television. "I figured we could just skip ahead. But if
you'd like to go through the motions, I'm happy to
oblige. Here...Scully! There are about two dozen
documented cases of poltergeist murder in the X-Files.
Common details include long-term hauntings, the
presence of young girls, chill winds, falling-"

"Mulder."

He quirked the corner of his mouth at her, at last
meeting her eye. "I believe your line is, 'Mulder,
you're being ridiculous. Ghosts are merely the
psychosomatic projection of human fears and hopes
onto the backdrop of-of'...dammit, help me here,
Scully."

She wasn't amused. "Why are we here, Mulder?"

He sat up slowly, hit the 'mute' button on the remote.
"This is an X-File, Scully," he said, enunciating each
word carefully. "It's what we do."

"I haven't seen any evidence that it's an X-File."

"Then maybe you need to be asking why _you're_
here." The terrain of his voice was even, allowing no
hints of the minefield she sensed beneath its surface.

"What are we going to do? Arrest a ghost for infringing
on Andrew Lloyd Weber's copyright?"

"Hey, you found the packing slip. I thought you were
interested."

She waved one hand dismissively. "Doesn't make it an
X-File. I think it was an accident, though it's equally
possible that it was homicide, but that's a matter for
local authorities."

"They called us."

"Because they're trying to pass the buck. They should
have called a forensic team to look into how the cable
holding the chandelier was severed. They'll follow up
on this if we make them."

Mulder tucked his hands behind his head and leaned
back against the headboard. "Since when did you
develop this disinterest in homicide?"

"You know that's not what I mean. We could spend all
our lives solving homicides and never make a dent. But
we have a job to do, and since when did you develop
this disinterest in X-Files?"

His dark gaze was uninterpretable. "Trust my instincts,
Scully."

"Like you trust mine?" she snapped, and instantly
regretted it. Trust was too much a third rail to touch
now. Before he could respond, she held up a hand,
lowered her voice. "I'm concerned," she said,
choosing her words carefully, "that you're hiding
behind a facade. That the events of several weeks ago,
which you've been less than willing to discuss...that
maybe we need to discuss them."

"I thought we did."

She dropped her gaze, rubbed her temples with two
weary fingers. "We haven't discussed anything," she
said. "I told you Spender was dead and that Diana
wasn't among the bodies at the airbase. And you said,
'oh' and looked guilt-stricken and said you didn't want
to talk about it and then we went to bed."

He sighed, and in the sigh she heard the genuine pain
that confirmed her suspicions even as he denied it.
"There's nothing to talk about that we haven't, Scully.
I don't know what you want-to go chasing after
Spender's killer or Krycek or _Diana_"-he pronounced
the name carefully, expecting a reaction so she gave
him none-"or what, but there's nothing we can do right
now except lie low. We just got the X-Files back."

"That's the whole truth?"

His gaze hardened. "Have I ever told you anything
but?"

"Yes." She folded her arms, daring him to contradict
her.

But he only collapsed back onto the pillows and turned
up the television volume. "Come to bed or go to bed,
Scully," he said, as if he didn't care which she chose.

She'd taken that to mean he wasn't in the mood to
fight, and to be honest, neither was she, so she backed
down. She could wait.

"Good night, Mulder," she'd said, and closed the door.

Now, standing in the bustling police station, Scully
wondered if she should've joined him. In the year since
they'd first kissed, she'd found that though sex never
healed the wounds they exchanged, it had occasionally
served to assure one another that the injuries were only
superficial; beneath them no tendons or ligaments had
been severed. But last night she hadn't felt like joining
him-hadn't felt like it in a long time, in fact-and it
worried her. Maybe connections were fraying.
Mulder's misplaced alliances and apathy over their
latest brush with 'the truth' had shaken a faith she'd
wanted to believe unshakeable. Had Mulder himself
done what the most powerful men on earth could not?

With another sip of burnt coffee, she cursed herself for
her melodramatic mood. There were so much more
important things to worry about.

Too bad her partner didn't seem to think so. Hiding
behind a weak X-File in New York City was his idea
of getting away from it all, whether he admitted it or
not. It was a bizarre choice of escapes, but she
understood it, to an extent. In a place this big, you
could see everyone but no one could see you. Mulder
had been seen a lot, lately.

Fine. If this was where he needed to be, this was
where they'd be. If it wasn't a case, she'd do her best
to prove it, and if it was, then she'd do her best to
solve it. She felt like she'd been sitting in the cockpit
for awhile now, trying to guide them back on course,
and that was all right, but perhaps her lack of success
so far was due to her own stubborn refusal to start
from where they were.

"...Scully? Agent Scully?"

Her eyes blinked open at the sound of her name, called
by an unfamiliar voice from across the room. Mike
Donnovan, a well-built victim of early male-pattern
baldness, was approaching from a long hallway. He
reminded her, a little, of Skinner, but with a larger
paunch and beadier, less sincere eyes.

She nodded, acknowledging him. "Good morning,
Detective Donnovan."

He stopped in front of her, slid his hands into his
pockets. "Hey. You were a little zoned out there.
Tired?"

"No, I'm fine," she answered.

"Is Agent Mulder here? I'd like to brief you on the case
and then let you take off with Carmichael-we're
carrying half a dozen cases right now and this isn't the
top of the list."

"We wouldn't want to take any more of your time than
necessary," Scully said. "Agent Mulder will be here in
a moment."

"Great." Donnovan glanced down at her cup.
"Anything I can get for you-donuts, bagels, office
supplies? I see you've found the coffee. Sorry about
that."

"It's not bad," she lied. "And I don't need anything,
thanks."

Over Donnovan's shoulder, a leather-and-lace-wearing
woman started shrieking, "Don't you tell me I don't
understand the justice system, asshole-I fucked that
guy right over there and I fucked your fucking chief as
well! Don't think they weren't paying, neither. Don't
you fucking tell me I can't call Ronnie-get yer filthy
hands offa me!"

It took three officers to pull her out of the chair. An
unending stream of profanities flowed from her mouth
as they dragged her roughly down another hallway.

Donnovan turned back to Scully with an apologetic
smirk.

The screaming was still echoing in her head like a
jackhammer; she gripped her cup more tightly. "This
place always this busy at nine in the morning?"

"You should see it at night," he replied, and she
thought she detected a hint of condescension. She was
beginning to get the sense that he was one of those
cops who saw himself as the front-line soldier in the
trenches, while she was merely the cavalry-accustomed
to all the glory but none of the pain.

He had no idea.

"So you really do deal with 'paranormal' cases?" he
was asking her, adopting the universal
hands-in-pockets posture of small talk, which made her
head hurt worse. "I didn't think anyone actually _did_
that. You don't...well, you don't _believe_ it, do
you?"

"I'm a scientist and a medical doctor," she answered,
curling her toes against the urge to sniffle.

He raised his eyebrows in a mockery of amazement.
"_And_ an FBI Agent? Agent Scully, I _am_
impressed. But when you say paranormal...you don't
really mean that, right?"

Where the hell was Mulder?

"I've seen a lot of things that current science can't
explain," Scully told him. "But 'paranormal' is just
another word for 'non-reproducible.' Sometimes by
studying empirical commonalties in the evidence we
can still draw predictive conclusions where no textbook
method or model previously existed."

"But you don't believe it," Donnovan stated.

Six years ago she would have empathized, but now his
dismissal irked her. "Just because we can't understand
the mechanism doesn't mean we can't find a method to
the madness," she replied.

A rustle of paper and cloth behind her preceded
Mulder's voice. "Wait! Say that again, Scully, I want
to get it on tape."

Scully sighed.

"Agent Mulder." Donnovan extended his hand as her
partner approached.

Mulder handed a brown paper bag to Scully and shook
the detective's hand. "Good morning." He saw
Donnovan eyeing the bag and added, "Breakfast. I ate
on the way in."

Scully opened the bag, pulled out the a toasted
cinnamon-raisin bagel slathered in cream cheese, and
she was almost embarrassed by how quickly her
irritation vanished. If there was one thing Mulder had
perfected over the years it was the art of the peace
offering.

"Let's go down to my cube and I'll fill you in,"
Donnovan said, gesturing for the agents to follow as he
headed down the hallway.

5. Studio X

---------------------------------------------------

"We interviewed all the prop and lighting people,"
Donnovan explained as the GQ-man flipped through
the manila folder. "I shouldn't say 'we'-it was mostly
my partner. This is really his case, you know.
Anyway, as he told you, none of them saw anything
unusual. Shawna McCartney had no enemies that
anyone knew of, and no one stood to gain. There's no
motive, no MO....we wouldn't normally follow this
up."

"I understand," Mulder said, glancing sidelong at his
partner, who didn't move. "We don't want to bother
you any more than necessary."

She'd said the same thing. He hoped that meant they'd
play ball. "After last night I'm pretty sure there's
nothing there," Donnovan said carefully. "I hadn't had
a chance to see it, you understand. I probably shouldn't
have let Carmichael get so far unsupervised."

"We'd like to dig a little further," the agent answered.
Donnovan shifted in his seat. Not the answer he'd been
looking for.

"If you don't mind me asking," Donnovan said,
leaning on one elbow, "why do _you_ think it was
murder?"

Mulder gave a mysterious half-smile. "Because
accidents don't usually have such a flair for the
dramatic?"

"We maintain an extensive database of such cases,"
Agent Scully added quickly. "Even if it doesn't turn out
to be provable homicide, we may learn something
about similar claims, past or future."

Mulder flashed a significant but uninterpretable look at
his partner. Donnovan sighed. Bedroom in the
workplace, again.

"That why you wanted to see a show?" Donnovan
asked. "I was a little surprised, but I'm kind of glad I
got the chance. Now I know my opinions on the artistic
merit of Shakespeare in the nude are justified."

Mulder snorted. "Wouldn't bring the wife and kids,
huh?" he remarked, gesturing at the photo of Jamie and
Michelle on Donnovan's desk. It was an older one,
from when Jamie actually let him take her picture,
when she didn't worry so much over whether she was
wearing enough make-up. He almost started to smile,
but then realized the GQ-man was probably playing
him.

"Do you have a file on the history of the New Victoria
Theatre?" Scully asked. "Is this the first death that's
occurred there?"

"Yep," Donnovan answered, "but we don't have a
file-just some notes that Carmichael made. He's a
little...eager beaver...if you know what I mean. Good
kid, but sometimes"-Donnovan's hand whooshed over
his head.

Scully frowned, and that certainly wasn't the response
he was looking for. "Could I see the notes, please?"
she asked.

While he looked for them, she turned to Mulder.
"Anything good?"

"No one saw anything, heard anything, or knew of any
reason for the chandelier to fall," he said, turning the
pages. "It was only two years old, and there'd been no
recent maintenance. Only one guy actually believed it
was the ghost of Victoria Arlington"-Mulder turned to
Donnovan-"I'm assuming he's the one who got you
interested? Benjamin Brown?"

"Yeah," Donnovan answered, pulling the file Scully
had asked for and handing it to her. "Brown. He's an
old guy, maybe seventy, and he ain't running on a full
tank. He thinks he saw a ghost-like apparition hovering
near the chandelier before the play started that night.
Claims he's seen Victoria Arlington's ghost four
times."

"I think I saw him," Scully remarked. "Long grey hair,
age spots?" Donnovan nodded and she continued. "He
was taking down the fan in front of the dry ice."

"There you go," said Donnovan, triumphant. "He was
making it up. Or else he's nuts."

There was a light tap on the cubicle wall, and
Carmichael entered. "Hey," the young man said,
looking even more bright-eyed and bushy-tailed than
usual, if that were possible.

"Where you been?" Donnovan asked, letting a hint of
annoyance creep into his voice.

"Getting _this_," Carmichael replied, holding up a
photocopied sheet of paper. Mulder reached out to take
it.

"The UPS record," he told them all. "The package to
Victoria Arlington was sent from Greenwich Village."

"We have an address?" Scully asked.

Mulder flashed her an inside-joke grin. "Right
here--Studio X."

"I was thinking we could go over there as soon as you
were ready," Carmichael said, beaming with pride that
the agents seemed interested.

Donnovan clasped his hands and smiled. With the kid
out of his hair, maybe he could actually get something
done on the Murdoch case.

But much to his disappointment, Scully had other
ideas. "I think we can handle it," she said. "What we
could really use is a ten-year background check on
Studio X and anyone closely associated with it."

"And on Rose Arlington," added Mulder.

Donnovan tried to hide his disappointment, but of
course, he should've known this was how Fibbies
would handle things. Give the locals the scut work.
They'd probably never dirtied those dainty fingers with
a single background check in all their lives.

The kid only looked a little crestfallen and didn't argue.
Too bad-if he ever came across a _real_ case he'd
never get the collar giving up that easily. "Oh, right,"
he said. "Yeah. Okay." He turned to the two agents.
"Just give us a call if you need anything."

Scully rose, shrugging into her coat as she did. "We
will," she answered. From her tone of voice, or rather
from her lack of one, Donnovan decided he'd be
surprised if he saw them again. Which, frankly, was
fine with him, as long as they filed a report.

---------------------------------------------------

9:46 a.m.

"You get the feeling that Carmichael and Donnovan
have a difference of opinion about the case?" Scully
asked as they walked down the steps. She shivered at
the bitter wind, drawing her coat more closely around
her.

He smirked. "You ought to empathize with that."

"I may disagree with you, but I wouldn't go
complaining about you to strangers."

Mulder supposed he found that cheering. They turned
left, heading by unspoken agreement for the warmer
subway entrance. It was too cold to stand waiting for a
cab.

"Still think it's an X-File, Mulder?" she asked, and he
had to lean down to hear her over the voices and traffic.

"Still think it's an accident?" he countered.

"I don't know," Scully answered. "But even if it's not,
I'm not sure the evidence exists for conviction. Unless
you want to arrest a ghost for mail fraud."

"Or poor taste in theatre?"

"Sounds to me like the ghost wasn't enjoying the show
much."

"I was referring to its having turned to Andrew Lloyd
Weber for inspiration."

"I already made that joke, Mulder."

"Flattery, Scully. Sincerest form."

He could tell from the slope of her shoulders that she
was unamused. Mulder gave up, stuffing his hands
into his pockets.

She had made it abundantly clear that she thought he
had dragged her here to waste their time, that she
thought his commitment was wavering. _His_
commitment. What sadly twisted irony. She, who'd
always applied the brakes in this operation, was now
complaining that they weren't going fast enough.

It was true; he didn't know exactly what they were
looking for here, but when did he ever? And she sure
as hell wasn't making any suggestions.

For a second he recalled a day over a year ago, after the
cancer renewed her lease on life and before Emily's
death cancelled the mortgage. Their love was wizened
even then, but their lovemaking fresh-faced, still new
and delicious and achingly romantic. He remembered a
sunny, snowy afternoon in some Midwestern town,
when the blizzard had taken out the power lines and
there was nothing they could do for a day. They'd
spent hours getting naked at a leisurely pace and then
made frantic love; finally the clocks had come back on
and they zippered into suits to return to the field, but
every glance the rest of that day had been loaded with
more than the case. She hadn't complained about
"commitment" then.

He had difficulty identifying that Scully with the
straight-edged one beside him now. Easy to imagine
her naked-whether because of their intimacy or her
doctorhood, she'd never had any of the hang-ups about
nudity he associated with every other woman he'd
known-but so hard to imagine her soft. Not soft like a
woman "should" be; Scully was always harder than
diamonds, he knew that, but soft-without cares, if only
for a moment. That, he couldn't imagine. She
undertook even sex these days with the same
determination and sense of purpose she exhibited in
solving a case.

And he was so tired.

They reached the curb and Scully glanced right and left,
stepped forward and slipped on a patch of ice. Mulder
caught her before she fell, an arm around her waist,
and as they moved forward, his hand stayed against her
back of its own volition. She didn't pull away.

"Studio X," she repeated, glancing at the address in her
hand. "I'm not sure I want to know...."

They descended into the subway station, followed ten
seconds later by a tall Arab man.

End 3/12 
6. Toilet Training

---------------------------------------------------

Studio X

Greenwich Village

10:24 a.m.

They were looking for 122P-32. Scully insisted she understood
the address, but it nonetheless required tours on four floors of
three buildings for the pair to find it. After Mulder knocked three
times, his fist escalating in fervor with each pounding while
Scully's lips grew tighter with skeptical boredom, the door
swung open with fast and hard.

"What the _fuck_ do you want," snarled the man who stood
behind it. It was not a question.

He had the bearing of a man raised by wolves-unshaven, smelly,
sporting a mop of unkempt hair and wearing only a pair of
grungy boxer shorts that left little to the imagination. He didn't
even flinch when Scully, in all her perfectly-trimmed glory,
stepped in front of Mulder.

"Dana Scully, FBI," she said, in a voice grating like metal on
glass. "This is my partner. We'd like to ask you a few
questions."

"Yeah, and I'm the fuckin' tooth fairy," snapped the man. "I told
you people to leave me the fuck alone."

He slammed the door.

Scully exchanged a look of disbelief with Mulder, and he stepped
back as she pounded on the door again, content to watch this test
of wills. She'd kill him if she knew it, but he loved to watch her
take a man down.

Her dignity only let her knock once, but her knuckles bore
enough authority that, after a moment's hesitation, the door
swung open again, though only a crack.

She shoved her open badge into the gap. "What part of 'FBI' did
you not understand? You can answer our questions or we can get
a warrant. Sir."

He opened the door, and, with a grin and an unfriendly wink,
Mulder flashed his badge as well.

"Who called you?" asked the jungle man, still gruff.

"May we come in?" Scully asked. "Or do we put a show on for
the neighbors?"

The man narrowed his eyes and stepped back with a mocking
bow, motioning them into the 'studio.'

It became immediately obvious that the place doubled as an
artist's studio and a studio apartment, but seemed to Mulder more
a warehouse than either. He strode across the room with
rehearsed nonchalance to disguise his disgust, listening to
Scully's questions behind him.

"I need your name, sir," she was saying.

"What, you don't know it?"

"Should I?"

"You tell me."

"Your _name_." Without looking, he could see her dangerous
expression.

His sulky sigh. "Dennis Cleaver."

"Like Beaver and June?" Mulder asked. He could almost see
Scully scribbling the word down, disengaging eye contact as if
the man were no more than an irritating insect.

"Oh, that's very funny. I've never heard that one before."

The room's only furniture was a king-sized mattress in the corner
piled high with blankets and cushions. Metalworking
equipment-an arc-welder, a metal saw, a bender-was scattered
around the filthy, tiled floor next to two potter's wheels, a
paint-spattered table, sawhorses, and other equipment he
couldn't identify. Sculptures without form or function, mostly
tangled, mottled arcs, were scattered about the floor. Some was
done in mosaic with pastel bathroom tiles.

"Mr. Cleaver, are you the owner of 'Studio X?'" She managed to
make the word sound ugly in an innocent way that defied
accusation.

"You see anybody else here? I thought feds at least checked the
phonebook before pushing random people around."

One entire wall was lined with toilets-modern, chain-pulled, and
modified chamber pots. Some were shaped like twisted,
disproportionate animals, others seemed grotesquely pregnant.
One caught Mulder's eye as he passed: it was shaped like the
front end of an alligator with space for the user to sit between its
jaws.

"Exc_use_ me," Cleaver snarled, seeing Mulder examining the
piece. " I thought you didn't have a warrant."

Mulder turned toward him. "Kinda puts a whole new spin on the
alligators in New York sewers," he quipped. "Do you have any
chairs around here?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," Cleaver replied, with mock dismay. "Where are
my manners? Please-" He gestured to a ring of four ordinary
porcelain toilets in the center of the room.

Scully folded her arms over her chest, unamused. "Mr. Cleaver,
a package was sent from this address to Victoria Arlington of the
New Victoria Theatre."

For half a second, and much to Mulder's satisfaction, he looked
taken aback, but recovered quickly. "Is that a question?"

Scully only regarded him somberly.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Cleaver said, and
Mulder knew he was lying. He wondered if she saw it, couldn't
tell from her face.

"Interesting subject matter here, Mr. Cleaver," he said, kicking a
scrap of metal with his toe. It skittered across the floor. "Your
work?"

"Yes, my work," Cleaver snapped.

"What is it? Besides the toilets, I mean."

"It's called art. Not that I'd expect you to know the meaning of
the word," the man snarled.

Mulder slid his hands into his pockets, rocked back on his heels.
"Well, I see the influence of de Koonig in the bronze
work-manipulation of the viewer's perception of mass and
gravity. But the bathroom tiles over porcelain is pretty original."

He glanced at Scully and the corner of her mouth twitched in
amusement. Emboldened, he continued. "This one, for
instance." He gestured at a ten-foot-high arc of mottled bronze in
the shape of a "c" rotated sixty degrees. "It suggests a large,
heavy shape, but lightens the form by its own incompleteness.
That gracefulness is offset by the rough texture, though-can I
ask why you chose that?"

"It's shit," Cleaver answered, scratching his chest.

"An artist is always his own harshest-" Mulder began, but
Cleaver cut him off with a sneer.

"No, really-it's a piece of shit. Can you tell which end is
which?" He strode across the room to the sculpture in question,
ran one hand over it lovingly. "The world is obsessed with its
lack of shit; we all try so hard to cover it up and pretend it
doesn't exist and doesn't happen but it's fucking everywhere,
_everywhere_. Your pseudointellectual, overeducated,
head-up-your ass analysis is _full_ of shit, just a bunch of words
strung together to make ordinary people think they can't
understand art, when it's right there in front of them and it's
exactly what everyone understands-shit. You can't just talk
about sculpture, it's like...like-"

"Dancing about architecture?" suggested Scully, a sharp edge to
her voice.

"Yeah!" Cleaver spun back to her, newly inspired. "Yeah,
exactly."

"Well, Mr. Cleaver, there are some things worth talking about,
and one of them is this package, which-"

"Shit," Cleaver repeated, cutting her off as he picked up a smaller
version of the sculpture from a nearby table. "Americans are
more full of shit than anyone, which is maybe why they go to
such lengths to hide it. Here"-he handed the sculpture to
Mulder-"now can you tell which end is which?"

Mulder held the sculpture, which looked like it could have
walked off a South Park Christmas special, between two fingers,
looked side-to-side for a place to put it down. He'd lost control
of the situation, he knew, and he was unsure how to get it back.

"That's the real thing, you know," Cleaver murmured, his mouth
cracking into a grin.

Mulder dropped it as if he'd been burned; it clattered on the floor.
Cleaver cackled like a parrot.

"Mr. Cleaver," Scully snapped, in her most authoritative voice.

"Sorry," he gasped, through the laughter. "I'm really not a
morning person."

"Did you or did you not send a package to the New Victoria
Theatre?" Mulder asked.

"Not."

"You're lying. We have the records."

"Then why'd you ask?"

"Mr. Cleaver," Scully warned. "We can get a warrant."

"Do you know Victoria Arlington?" Mulder asked.

Cleaver laughed even harder. "The _ghost_?"

"You know about that?" Scully said.

"Who doesn't? It was in all the fucking papers. Back page, but
that's the only page I read."

Mulder took a step closer to his partner, away from Cleaver. "Do
you know Rose Arlington?"

"Never heard of her."

"What did you mean before at the door, when you said we'd
bothered you enough? Who's been bothering you and why?"

"I thought you were private investigators."

"Private investigators lose their licenses for impersonating FBI
agents," Scully pointed out.

Cleaver sneered at her. "You think that stops them?"

"Why did you think we were investigators?" Mulder asked.

"Look, it's my fucking ex-wife-she's sent people snooping
around. Thinks I owe her money or something. I have no idea
what _you're_ talking about"

"Or something?" Mulder echoed.

"None of your goddamn business, unless you wanna arrest me."

Mulder was considering the proposition, but Scully broke in.
"Do you have any employees?"

"What does this look like, a fucking factory?"

"Answer the question," Mulder ordered.

"No, I don't have employees."

"Agents? Apprentices?"

"No," Cleaver said, but he said it with less certainty.

"Lying to the FBI is a federal offense, Mr. Cleaver," Mulder
warned. "You could be facing charges of obstruction of justice in
addition to conspiracy to homicide."

"Homicide? Homicide!" he cried, still sounding like a parrot. "I
don't know what the fuck you're talking about."

"You have an apprentice," Mulder prodded. A risky guess but it
paid off.

"Look, I had an apprentice, but he quit last week. What the hell
are you getting at?"

"What was his name?" Scully's voice was harsh.

Cleaver hesitated a moment. "Mark. Mark Volstok. He's a
student at the university. Now if you think I got anything to do
with that chick dying at some alley theatre, you're fucking nuts."

Scully caught Mulder's eye-she wanted to leave. He gave a tiny
nod, produced a card from his coat and set it on a nearby potter's
wheel. "You think of anything else, you call us," he said. "This
conversation isn't over."

Scully was already halfway across the room, opening the door.

"Shithead," they heard him mutter as Mulder followed her out.

Scully waited until they were in the stairwell before she spoke.
"Well, Mulder," she said. "I've had some unpleasant interviews
but that one topped the scale. Or _a_ scale, anyway."

"He knows more than he's saying," Mulder replied. "And I think
we should get Carmichael to look into this ex-wife."

"I agree with you there," Scully said. "What was with your
sculpture lecture, though? For a minute there I thought you were
looking for new bathroom furniture."

"For you, actually. The alligator would go well with your clawed
tub."

Scully rolled her eyes.

---------------------------------------------------

New York University

2:34 p.m.

Mulder tried in vain to relax into the dormitory lounge chair,
which would have been called "sturdy" if one was in a good
mood. He wasn't.

Through the open doorway he could see Scully coming back.
Her lint-free, wrinkle-free navy suit seemed incongruent with the
trashy dormitory hallway, giving her the illusion of greater height
than she had; an adult in a kindergarten classroom.

She entered the lounge and stopped before him, hands on her
hips. "We've been waiting for two hours, Mulder. Is there a
better way to waste our time?"

He knew better than to fight her. "I'm taking suggestions," he
said, leaning back and closing his eyes.

"Why do you think Mark Volstok will know anything? He quit
before the package would have even been sent. And why are you
so sure the package is important?"

"Last question: because people don't lie to the FBI over
unimportant things. First question: I don't, but it's the only lead
we've got."

A teenager entered the lounge, then stopped short as he saw the
two agents, turned around and walked out again.

Scully snorted. "That's the fifth or sixth time. They won't meet
my eyes in the hallway."

"Well, you're making _me_ nervous and I'm used to you,"
Mulder told her. "Stop pacing and sit down. I can see Volstok's
room from here. I'll see him if he comes back."

"I don't know, Mulder," she said. "This is more tenuous than
usual."

"Are you saying you want to throw in the towel?" he asked,
because he knew when he put it like that she could never say
'no.'

And she didn't. She only sighed and sank down beside him. A
second after sitting, she surged back up with a grimace of
disgust, dusting off her ass with one hand. "Dammit," she
muttered. "I sat on a Cheetoh."

Her phone rang and she wrestled it out of her coat. Mulder
leaned his head back, listened to the one-sided conversation.

"Scully....You did? Just a second, let me get a pen." She
gestured at Mulder, who sat up and fished around inside his coat
for a moment, then handed her a pen and one of his business
cards. Had Carmichael found something?

"Yeah," she said. "Go ahead."

She scribbled down ten digits. "Thanks. I owe you one."

"He get something?" Mulder asked, trying not to let her use of
the singular pronoun jar him.

"Yeah," she answered, handing him the number. "Byers thinks
he's found Diana Fowley."

Mulder blinked. "What?" He looked at the number--Virginia area
code.

"They're still looking for the smoking man," she continued. "But
they think that's her home number, though it's unlisted and
registered to another name."

"You asked them to do this?" It made him uncomfortable-his
friends going behind his back. He knew Scully was jealous,
though she'd never admit it. The last thing he needed was the
boys feeding into that. She didn't understand about Diana, none
of them did.

"I asked them to look for the people who escaped the..."

"Barbecue?" he suggested. "Why didn't you tell me?"

She blinked at him and her face went blank, the Scully equivalent
of anger. "It had to be done," she said, and she was, of course,
right.

"Diana would have called," he said. "She will call, eventually.
Confronting her won't get us anything, and may jeopardize her
position."

Scully didn't react. She didn't move.

"Scully, it's not-"

Her phone rang again, cutting him off.

"Scully....Oh. Thanks, we appreciate that."

Mulder didn't need to look at the number again-it was already
burned into his memory. He handed the card back to Scully and
she tucked it into her coat.

"Really? I'm not sure.....Yes, we already talked to him. Listen,
is there anything in there about an ex-wife?...Well, how about
employees?...Do you see the name 'Volstok' anywhere?...No.
Okay. How about connections to the theatre?...Maybe you
should try Newsbank instead of the NCIC....Right. We'll check
back later."

She hung up, turned to Mulder. "Dennis Cleaver, divorced five
years ago. Nothing about Volstok or any other employees, no
criminal record, no connections to the theatre."

"Scully-"

"I won't call her, Mulder," she said, tucking her phone away.
"At least not without telling you. But I think you should."

He sighed, got to his feet and planted hands on hips, stared
down at the crumb-encrusted carpet.

Scully craned his neck to watch another passing student. "Hey,"
she said, rising. "That kid just went into his room."

He followed her gaze, then strode out into the hallway without
looking to see if she followed, but as he knocked on the door she
appeared by his side.

The door opened a second later, and a stout boy of nineteen or
twenty with the acne of a sixteen-year-old blinked in surprise.

"Uh," he said. "Yeah?"

Mulder took a deep breath to clear his head and expression. "I'm
Special Agent Fox Mulder and this is my partner Dana Scully,
with the FBI. Are you Mark Volstok?"

"Uh...no, I'm his roommate. Mark's not here. Is this about
Tabby?"

Scully's brow furrowed. "Who?"

"Uh...Tabby?" the kid repeated, as if they should know.
"Mark's girlfriend."

"What about her?" Scully asked.

He scratched the back of his neck, lowering his eyes. "She's
dead-passed away, I mean. Mark's not here-he went home for
awhile."

"When did she die?" Mulder asked, lowering his voice as a
student rubbernecked in passing.

"Last week," the kid answered. "Everybody's talking about it."

"She was a student here?" Scully asked.

"She didn't go here-she went to CUNY, but it happened at an
off-campus party, so the administration's all, like-but why did
you wanna talk to Mark if it wasn't about that?"

Mulder ignored the question. "Do you have Mark's home
number?"

"Sure, but he just lives uptown."

"How did she die?" Scully asked.

"Oh, man, it really musta sucked," the boy answered, leaning in
like he was sharing a secret. "She drank a whole bottle of
Draino."

Mulder's stomach leapt, and he locked Scully's eyes with his,
saw her make the same connection. "The disinfectant?" he asked.

"Yeah," the student said. "The stuff they clean toilets with."

7. Standard Operating Procedure

---------------------------------------------------

Uptown

3:21 p.m.

A resident was entering just as they arrived at the apartment
building, and Scully caught the door before it shut, turned to
look for Mulder. He was standing still on the third step,
frowning.

"Come on, Mulder," she said.

He turned and jogged up the last few steps to follow her in, but
the frown hadn't disappeared. She went to the elevator and
pushed the button but he remained by the door, looking through
the glass. She returned to his side, followed his gaze.

"What?"

He bit his lip in thought as an Arab man wearing sunglasses and
a long white turban walked past the building, then turned back to
her. "Nothing," he said, shaking his head.

The elevator dinged, and they moved together toward the open
door. "You think we were followed?" she asked.

His lack of an answer as he pushed a button was answer enough.

The elevator doors closed and Scully considered. He was rarely
wrong about that kind of thing but a tail couldn't possibly be
related to this investigation, could it?

"Maybe we should check it out," she said. "Maybe C.G.B.'s put
a tail on us."

He pretended not to notice the barb in her jibe. "Scully, I'm so
proud. You're catching my paranoia."

"It's a different strain, Mulder. In my paranoia, everyone's out to
get something they want. In yours, everyone's out to get you.
There's a big difference."

"Are you suggesting everyone wants me, Scully?"

"No one says we both have to be right," she replied. "Why do
you think someone would be following us?"

But he only smirked at her. "He probably just thinks you're hot."

She gave an exasperated sigh. She didn't like how he did that,
how he led her into something only to tease her if she took it
seriously and to act offended if she didn't. Sarcasm was standard
operating procedure between them, but lately the smooth coat of
finish she wore had thinned, and even her own comments, or the
necessity of making them, seemed to be rubbing it off.

She started to open her mouth, trying to plan some diplomatic
speech that said they should talk without it sounding too girlish,
but the elevator doors opened and he walked out ahead of her,
was down the hall before she could speak. With another sigh,
she followed.

He stopped before Apt. 34E and waited for her to catch up, then
knocked on the door.

A few seconds passed, and then they heard the unmistakable
patter of a child's feet running inside the apartment. The door
swung open a minute later to reveal the owner of the feet-a small
girl of eight or nine years, who, in overalls and dark braids,
resembled a misplaced farmgirl.

"Hi," Scully said, automatically adopting the voice of her
beloved fourth grade teacher without realizing it. "My name is
Dana-I'm an FBI agent, and this is my partner. Is your mom or
dad home?"

"Um," the little girl replied, her flustered brows drawing
together. "They can't come to the door right now. They're in the
shower."

Scully tried not to smile, glanced back at Mulder, whose eyes
twinkled. "Well," he said to the girl. "We actually want to talk to
Mark. Is he here?"

The girl swiveled her head around, yelled: "Mark!" When there
was no answer, she turned back to the agents, and held up one
finger. "Just a minute."

She disappeared down a nearby hallway, and Scully caught the
door with her toe before it shut, took a step into the living room.
It was a decent apartment, but looked too nice for a home with
children-all the furniture was white and not a thing seemed out of
place. Each wall featured a billboard-sized framed print-one a
Picasso, one a Mondrian, and one she didn't recognize. Sterile,
empty vases graced the glass end tables.

She felt Mulder move away from her, and she turned to find him
studying the foyer wall beside the door. A single family portrait
hung there-a few years old judging by the child's
babyface-mother, father, sister, Mark. The dark-haired boy
seemed an awkward fourteen or fifteen; he looked uncomfortable
in the sweater-vest and tie.

"Uh, hi," said a male voice, behind her. She turned to see the
present-day incarnation of this child and realized immediately that
he was no longer a child.

Lanky, sporting shoulder-length, uneven dark hair which framed
an angel's face, he regarded them with soulful eyes that belonged
in a Calvin Klein ad. His sister stood a few paces behind him,
eyes wide and uncertain.

"Hi," Scully said. "I'm Dana Scully and this is my partner, Fox
Mulder. We're with the FBI."

Mulder produced a badge from his coat, tossed it to the kid, who
caught it without flinching, glanced down at it, unimpressed.
"We were wondering if you could help us out with some
questions."

"Is this about Tabby?" he asked, and his voice broke on the last
syllable in an endearing reminder that, child or not, he was only a
boy after all.

Mulder stepped past Scully to retrieve his badge. "What
happened to Tabby, Mark?" he asked.

"Did they-did you find something out?"

Scully opened her mouth, intending to stop his rising hopes on
the upswing, but Mulder spoke first. "Can we sit down?"

"Oh," Mark replied, as if he should have thought of it. "Sure. Go
away, Lizzie." He gestured them into the living room and the
girl, with an exaggerated sigh, flounced off down the hallway.

Scully moved to the flawlessly firm couch and settled into it
cautiously, as if it were glass. Mark had no such concern; he
flopped down on the opposite end with abandon. With his usual
lack of respect for established order, Mulder dragged one of the
padded chairs across the room to sit opposite Mark.

"Mark, we're not here specifically about Tabitha," Scully began.

"-but if you could tell us what happened, it would be helpful,"
Mulder finished, not looking at her.

Mark shrugged, looked down at his knees. "There's not much to
tell, I guess. We were at a party and I was in the other room but
then Guy-this friend of mine-came running up and he was like,
'Something's wrong with Tabby.' So I followed him back into
the bedroom and there were all these people around and she
was...she was on the floor, grabbing her stomach."

He paused, turned to stare out the white-curtained window at the
building across the street, then continued in the same monotone
voice.

"I wanted to call the ambulance, but we had some illegal stuff
there and the guy who owned the place was like, 'No way, man,
she's just hung over.' But she wouldn't quit throwing up and
then there was blood and her eyes...."

He trailed off, fiercely blinking back tears.

Scully's brow furrowed in sympathy. "It's okay, Mark," she
said. "You don't have to explain that." Her eyes shifted to
Mulder's, and he nodded faintly without looking back.

Mark threw her a grateful glance, then dropped his gaze again
and continued. "Finally, we called the ambulance but most
everyone left, 'cause they were afraid they'd get arrested. But
she died in the hospital that night. That's pretty much it."

"We're sorry for your loss," Mulder murmured, leaning his
elbows on his knees. "I know how difficult it is to lose someone
you care about."

Mark only bit his lower lip, wouldn't meet the older man's gaze.
Scully wondered at her partner's gentleness and hoped it wasn't
feigned. She knew his aptitude for sizing up people in just a few
sentences-to her best estimation, he'd decided Mark's grief was
more genuine than that of Rose Arlington. But what did he hope
to gain here?

"Why do you think she drank the Draino?" Mulder asked.

Mark only shook his head, squeezing his eyes against the tears.

"What about your friends?" Mulder continued. "The people who
stayed at the party. What happened to them?"

The boy snorted; his shoulders jerked. "They got arrested. They
had some, um, some coke and shit. I don't know. I haven't
talked to them."

"Had you been using the drugs?"

"Yeah, I'd had a little," he admitted, then glanced to the other in
nervous confusion. "But I told the police that."

"The police didn't call us, Mark," Scully told him. "We came
here after talking to Dennis Cleaver."

"Dennis?" Mark repeated, his eyes widening.

"You've been doing apprentice work with him, haven't you?"
Scully continued.

The corners of Mark's mouth twitched. "My dad hates it," he
said, his watery voice colored with grim satisfaction.

"Do you?" Mulder asked.

Mark's head jerked up. "No! I wouldn't do it unless I liked it."

"So you really like his work," Scully said.

"Dennis has vision a lot of people don't appreciate, but it's just
as valid as anyone's, probably more so."

"Why do you say that?" Mulder asked.

"It's like, he doesn't have to pretend the world's not, like,
beautiful. I mean, he can deal with shit just like it is."

Well, Scully mused, that was one way to put it.

"So you admire him," prompted Mulder.

Mark nodded. "Dennis gets it. He knows how to get around the
pretty bullshit like art dealers and professors and, like, get to the
marrow. What are you talking to him for?"

Mulder folded his hands, evaded the question. "If you respect
him so much, may I ask why you quit?"

A look of shock crossed Mark's face. "Quit? He told you I-I
quit?"

"You didn't?" Scully asked.

"I-no. At least, I didn't think so. He was the first person I called
when Tabby died. He said I should take some time off. He
offered to let me stay with him, but my _dad_ wouldn't go for
that. He said he'd stop paying for college if I went. But...he told
you I quit?"

"Maybe he didn't want us to bother you," Scully suggested.

Mark shifted in his seat. "Is Dennis in some kind of trouble or
something?"

"No," she answered quickly. "Not as far as we know."

"Mark," Mulder said, leaning in again. "A box was sent from
Dennis' studio to the New Victoria Theatre. We need to know
what was in it and who sent it."

The boy shrugged. "I don't know anything about that."

Scully resisted the urge to sigh.

"Have you heard about the theatre in the news lately?" Mulder
asked.

Mark looked down again. "I don't really watch the news,
especially now." He paused, then: "Why? What about it?"

"It's something we're investigating," Mulder answered. "There's
not much more I can say for sure right now. Listen, Mark, I
wonder if I could ask you a few more questions about Tabby. I
know it's hard to talk about."

Mark shook his head. "No, go ahead," he said, staring at his
knees. The cloud of depression rematerialized like a sudden fog.

"Had she been depressed before that night? Had you had a fight
or might she have had a fight with someone else?"

The boy didn't answer right away, his lanky hair curtaining his
face. When he spoke, his voice was thick with unshed tears. "I
don't know," he breathed. "I've asked myself a thousand times if
she could've...I mean, if she could've _meant_ to do it. I didn't
think so...I thought she was happy-we were talking about
moving in together...."

The last word was cut off by a sob and his shoulders hitched.
Scully automatically pulled her handkerchief from her coat, a
relic from her days of bloody noses, and pushed it across his
knees. He clutched at it like a drowning man might grip a life
preserver, but instead of using it, he only twisted it in his hands,
biting his lip. Scully put one hand on his shoulder and his breath
hitched. He fell against her.

Small kindnesses make grieving people cry harder; she'd been on
both sides of that equation. She did the only thing she could do,
under the circumstances-she slid one arm around him and let this
stranger soak her shoulder with silent tears.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he mumbled, and she wasn't
sure whether he was talking to her or his dead girlfriend, but,
after a moment of bewildered indecision, murmured, "It's okay,
Mark. Shhhh. It's okay."

She cast Mulder a glance and he pursed his lips, looking back at
her with an intimate mercury gaze, simultaneously encouraging
and apologetic. For a moment she could almost forget...

That's when they heard the key in the lock of the door. Mark was
oblivious; he continued to sob, but Mulder moved quickly into
the foyer as Mr. Volstok arrived home. Scully heard the strange
man's panicked questions, Mulder's quiet tones of assurance, as
he guided them down the hallway. She continued to stroke the
young man's shoulders and hair, and the next time she looked
up, she saw the child who had answered the door standing silent
in the foyer, tears streaming down her cheeks.

The tearstains on her coat were laced with responsibility, as if it
weren't heavy enough with that phone number in the pocket.

---------------------------------------------------

Mulder turned to her as soon as the elevator door closed. "You
okay?" he asked.

She shrugged, resisted the urge to wipe at her nose.

"I didn't expect that," he confessed, and it sounded like an
apology. "Turns out the mother died a couple of years ago. I get
the feeling Mark didn't take it too well, not that you can ever take
something like that well, but his relationship with his father
deteriorated at that point."

"So-what? You think he saw something motherly in me?" The
idea made her uncomfortable.

"I think he saw something safe in you, Scully," Mulder
answered. "He needed someone to cry to, and I don't think it
could be his father."

_

Safe_, she repeated to herself. _Safe_. Such a funny-sounding
word, if you thought about it too hard. She tilted her head back,
watching the red numbers blinking above the door. "What'd his
father say?"

"Lots of things," Mulder answered. "Primarily that he's the one
who's been sending private investigators after Cleaver, though
his son doesn't know that."

Scully blinked in surprise. "What for?"

The elevator door opened and the agents walked out, side by
side. Mulder leaned down to continue in a low voice as they
passed a couple in the lobby.

"The dad's an art dealer, Scully. You know, the pretentious kind
his son detests. He suspects Cleaver of involvement in a ring of
art thieves who've been stealing from Village galleries and selling
the goods in California. He had collected some decent evidence,
but I think the real reason he started the investigation was to get
Cleaver away from his son. His son, who has no respect for
him."

"Father jealous of the father figure?"

"More than that," Mulder answered grimly. "It seems he thinks
Cleaver's interested in more than his son's budding artistic
abilities."

"Meaning what?" Scully asked, impatient with his game of tag.
They exited the building and she stopped him on the steps with a
hand on his arm.

"Meaning he thinks Cleaver is...attracted...to Mark, though he
used a different word. Thinks our excrement-obsessed,
foul-mouthed friend is 'corrupting' more than his son's artistic
taste."

Scully raised an eyebrow, considering. "Well, he might have
questionable motivations for making such an assumption."

"Might," Mulder acknowledged.

"But you don't think so," she concluded. "And you're thinking
this has something to do with Tabitha's death."

He flashed a satisfied grin. "Think about it, Scully. We have two
deaths so far-an actress killed by a falling chandelier dropped by
the 'ghost' of her understudy's grandmother. And we have a
man obsessed with excrement who may be infatuated with his
apprentice, whose girlfriend conveniently died when she drank
toilet bowl cleaner. They're connected by a cardboard box. You
do the math."

"So--what?" she asked. "You think Cleaver somehow killed
Tabitha? And McCartney?"

Mulder stuffed his hands in his pockets, frowned up at the small
patch of grey sky overhead. "I don't know," he admitted. "But I
want to put the pressure on Cleaver. He didn't tell us about
Tabitha, but he knew about it, which suggests he's got more to
say. I think he may talk, if given the opportunity, and we've got
enough for a search warrant just based on the art thefts."

Scully cringed. "Great. More toilets."

"Actually, I was thinking I could take care of that. You could go
down to the morgue and go over the files on Tabitha, fill in the
details there. I want to know just how accidental you think that
could've been. Will you do that for me?"

She frowned. "No," she said. "But I'll do it."

The corner of his lip twitched in a smile. "Fair enough," he said,
and turned to continue down the steps.

Scully followed, taking two strides for each of his, as usual.

End 4/12 
8. Brutality

---------------------------------------------------

Studio X

9:27 p.m.

Donnovan lost his virginity before his brother Charles did, much
to the elder boy's shame. It had happened with a sweet
Manhattan Catholic girl named Penny when he was fifteen, and
he'd never forget the feeling of pride he had when
nineteen-year-old Charles pumped him for all the gritty details.
Charlie was a man-he was going to Viet Nam in two weeks-and
Donnovan had never been better than Charlie at anything.

She'd been eighteen, and far more experienced than he, and at
the time he didn't understand why she'd chosen him when she
already had Rick Shaddock, the biggest man on campus. What's
more, she had been, in his opinion, the prettiest girl in school,
the one his friends thought about when they masturbated. And
yet _he_ had been her choice, a fifteen-year-old whose only
romantic experience had been rejection by the girl in homeroom
when he, red-faced and with a numb mouth, brought her a
flower. It had taken twelve years and a daughter of his own to
understand that Penny'd picked him precisely because he had no
chance with anyone else. Because she'd wanted to be in control,
for once.

She was. She'd tell him when and where they could meet, and
when they did, where to touch her. He'd lost himself once,
before he'd ever even gotten her clothes off, jiggling her breast
and humping her leg like a dog, and she'd stopped him with a
severe look that withered his erection in seconds. But despite his
pubescent fuck-ups, she'd let him screw her, in the end, and
even today he thought she'd liked it.

When Rick Shaddock came to the apartment, drunk and carrying
an 8 mm Smith and Wesson, Donnovan realized he'd made a
mistake. While his mother wrung her hands and cried for help,
and Donnovan tried not to pee his pants, Charlie acted with the
grim determination of a soldier. He'd tried to talk Rick down,
and when Rick advanced on the cowering boy, Charlie jumped
him.

No one was more surprised than Rick when he looked into the
dead eyes of the almost-soldier, at the blood he'd made leak out
of the boy's body onto the terrazzo floor, at the woman who
tackled him seconds later, screaming obscenities. Donnovan's
legs could no longer support him, and when the police took Rick
away, they had to take Donnovan to the hospital, even when the
boy insisted that it was _Charlie_ who needed a doctor.

Penny had dropped out of school, and Donnovan had forever
forsworn cowardice of all kinds. So he wasn't impressed at all
with the pansy G-man who chased ghosts and aliens, fucked his
partner, called himself an FBI agent and could still look himself
in the mirror.

He'd done his research today, learned what Carmichael, the
bastard idiot, hadn't been telling him. The kid had said they were
experts in paranormal claims, and let Donnovan assume that
meant they were experts in debunking them. But a call to the FBI
had gotten him an answering machine-not even a secretary!-at
the "X-Files" division. The good old Freedom of Information
Act worked in his favor for once, and he was able to have a few
reports faxed to him on the X-Files' investigation of other
ghosts.

Well, 'ghosts' seemed to be a fairly loose term. Astral projection,
zombies, demon possession and alien abduction all seemed to fit
the bill. And they weren't being debunked-if the ghost did it, the
case was called "solved."

Donnovan was an idiot. He should've known the FBI was
efficient with its resources. Let's see. We've got a nutcase, and
we've got all kinds of nutcases claiming their house is haunted.
We can make those people think the FBI actually cares, is
actually doing something, by sending them the first nutcase.
Solvency rate and response rate goes up, and the nutcase is
tucked in the basement.

A brilliant strategy, really. He'd considered dropping this Walter
Skinner guy an email to commend him.

The chick was a front, obviously the go-between for the sane
local authorities to their insane constituency. He'd read her
reports, which usually ended with something like: "I've listed the
facts, but can draw no conclusion," which in government-speak
meant nothing but to Smalltown, U.S.A., probably carried a lot
of weight. But he knew better, knew that when she rattled off
that bullshit about method versus mechanism she really meant
she had no fucking clue.

She seemed far more sensible, until you considered that she was
here at all, much less letting this guy fuck her. Her expression
was perpetually blank, as if she didn't have time for the likes of
_you_; he hadn't seen her smile once and he'd certainly tried to
be friendly. Someone so Donna-Karan-seamless had no right to
such contempt; he doubted she'd ever even had to fire her
weapon; she knew nothing of life on the front lines, where a
crook with a bigger gun than you could sue you if you shot him.

She wasn't here now-it was just him and Carmichael and Mulder
along with a P.I. and a couple guys from the Greenwich
precinct, whose problem this dead girl really was anyway.
Couldn't hurt his P.R. to bust an art thief, though.

Mulder, the pansy, was sitting down in the corner with Cleaver,
talking to the faggot with the earnest sensitivity of a TV shrink or
preacher. Donnovan wanted to go back over there, but one of the
Greenwich men had grabbed him to check through all the toilet
tanks for contraband. He knew a diversion when he saw one;
they were trying to keep him away from the perp. They had the
faggot on at least three counts of possession already, not to
mention possible possession of child pornography, if those boys
turned out to be as young as they looked. Fuck the larceny.

They'd ended up having to pick the lock when Cleaver didn't
hear (or pretended not to hear) the Greenwich guy knock. They
came through the door in a well-rehearsed flank, weapons
drawn, but their quarry wasn't hiding. He was standing not ten
feet away wielding a propane gun whose flames reflected off his
welding mask. He looked up when they entered, but didn't turn
the gun off.

Mulder flipped out his badge; the Greenwich man snapped open
the warrant. Donnovan would've shot the bastard if he'd
hesitated one more second in dropping his propane gun, but he
didn't, and he took off the mask when told to.

"You fucking prick," Cleaver said, narrowing his eyes in
Mulder's direction. "Fucking asshole."

They'd fanned out around the room, overturning boxes and
sculptures, rummaging through the rare cabinent or shelf. The
bags of coke were no surprise, but the heroin stash was an
unexpected bonus. Only when they found the pictures, though,
black and white photos of young men stroking impossibly huge
dicks, did Donnovan decide it was time to ask the bastard some
questions of his own.

Cleaver was still standing in the middle of the room like they told
him to-the P.I. was chatting up one of the Greenwich detectives
with his art thief evidence. Mulder was standing in a corner,
looking thoughtful.

Donnovan crumpled a photo in his fist and waved it under
Cleaver's hairy nose. "You take these pictures, faggot?" he
demanded.

Cleaver narrowed his eyes. "Of course not. I'm a sculptor, not a
photographer."

"Oh, so you prefer the hands-on experience? Is that why you
killed Tabitha Merck?"

"_What?_" Cleaver roared. He knocked Donnovan's hand away,
looked wildly around for Mulder, who was standing off to the
side, arms folded.

"Where the fuck did you get that? I didn't kill that girl, I never
killed anyone! You fucking bastards-" He flung out one hand,
knocking the bronze he'd been working with onto the floor by
Donnovan's foot. "You fucking-"

Donnovan shoved him, hard, and he fell backward onto the
floor. "Watch your mouth, faggot," he snarled. "This how you
talk to your 'ladies?'" He waved the photo around in the air.
"Maybe we can get you for corruption of a minor too."

Cleaver leapt to his feet but Mulder was already there, restraining
his arms. "Don't touch me!" Cleaver cried, struggling.
"Brutality, this is fucking-"

"Brutality?" Donnovan sneered, leaning in close enough to smell
the other man's stinking breath. "You have no idea."

"Donnovan-" Mulder began, a warning in his voice, but then a
hand was on his arm, jerking him back.

He whirled-it was Carmichael, the little cocksucker. "Leave him
alone," the kid said, but he sounded like the whiny playground
girl trying to stand up to the bully. "Come on, you can't call
him-"

"What? Faggot? He _is_ a faggot, aren't you? Fucking faggot.
Child molester."

"Donnovan-"

Mulder was pulling Cleaver, who was still yelling, away, but
Carmichael wouldn't shut up. "We have to arrest him. We have
to read him his rights."

Donnovan issued a bitter bark of laughter. "Don't tell me how to
do my job, kid." He lowered his voice, leaning toward the kid.
"You think he's gonna 'fess up because we ask him nicely, 'Did
you kill that pretty little girl?' Huh?"

He spun around, headed back for the retreating Mulder and his
captive. The other men were headed toward him now as well.

"Get the fuck out of my house!" Cleaver was yelling. "I have
lawyers! I have rights!"

"Fucking pansies who like little boys don't get rights!"
Donnovan roared, circling around in front of him. "Did you like
it when she spit up blood? Did you think about her fucking that
nubile young b-"

Mulder was yelling something, but Donnovan didn't hear
because Cleaver just then twisted free of the agent's grasp and
lunged at Donnovan, knocking him to the floor. They rolled over
together and Donnovan managed a good knee in the gut before
the others hauled them apart.

Carmichael had a hold of him, he realized. He was breathing
hard; his cheek ached-bastard had cut him one. "Fuck," he
muttered, shrugging off the younger man's grip.

Cleaver was still shouting, but Mulder had him handcuffed now
and was Mirandizing him in a clipped, angry voice. Still, the
agent was looking at Donnovan.

---------------------------------------------------

11:47 p.m.

It was with reluctance that Mulder accepted Donnovan's offer of
a ride back to the hotel. He'd weighed his options carefully, and
in the end decided that offending local talent and standing out in
the cold waiting for a cab or a mugger was worse than fifteen
minutes in the car with the man. Scully would be proud of his
pragmatism.

She'd be even prouder of the way he was holding his tongue
now, but it was less out of any appreciation for diplomacy and
more just to get through this as soon as possible. The cop's
violent outburst and the unprofessional way he egged Cleaver on
was nothing short of frightening. The man had calmed
considerably now, was nearly amiable. Mulder had little faith in
anyone with mood swings like this and the more time he spent
with the man the less he wanted to.

"...nothing you can do with assholes like that. I see 'em all the
time. Just as bad as murderers, in my book, though I can't see
how he coulda killed that girl-but if you aren't with me you're
against me, know what I'm sayin'? Shithead fags like that, who
contribute _nothing_ to society, who live off my money and then
bitch and whine about how unappreciative _I _am of their
'art'-nothing pisses me off more. Except when they turn out to
be child molesters too."

"We don't know that," Mulder reminded him. "All we've got
him for is drugs." He'd spent the rest of the search calming
Cleaver down and convincing him that he wasn't being charged
with murder (yet) and that he couldn't claim police brutality if
he'd lunged at the guy, which he was sure Donnovan knew well.

With a worse enemy than Mulder close at hand, Cleaver had
gotten almost friendly by the end, and Mulder was increasingly
convinced that the man was no killer, that he wore most of his
attitude on his sleeve to show the world he didn't care that it
didn't care about him.

"Drugs," Donnovan snorted. "Everybody's got drugs. He'll just
get community service if that's all we get him for. But any man
with that kind of porn collection-"

"There were no obvious underagers."

"What? You siding with this guy?"

Mulder chose his words carefully. "I'm just cautious about
making judgements based on personal prejudice. It lacks
professionalism.

Donnovan shot Mulder a look of disgust, as if he'd expected
nothing better. "Oh, yeah, G-man, you're the one to talk about
professionalism."

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, come on." The man leered at Mulder. "I bet she's good in
bed. Is that why she chases ghosts with you?"

Mulder nearly punched him; clenched his fingers on the inside of
his coat pocket. "I don't like what you're implying," he growled.
"If you're referring to Agent Scully, she is my partner and my
friend and we are _not_ involved."

"Look, I'm sorry," Donnovan said, flexing his fingers on the
steering wheel. "I'm sorry. I was out of line there. All I'm
saying is that I'd like to hear you take that attitude after you've
had a gun barrel shoved at your throat and had to think about
whether you'd get sued out of house and home if you defended
yourself. You got no idea what it really takes out there, what
these people are like. And to deal with a green partner at the same
time."

"Stop the car."

"What?" The detective even had the nerve to act surprised.

"I'll get a cab," Mulder said. "Stop the car."

They pulled up at a stoplight and, to his surprise, Donnovan only
ran a tired hand over his face. "Look, I'm sorry," he said.
"About the Fibbie comments and about your partner and about
Cleaver. It's been a long day. I didn't mean anything. Just-just
let me take you back to the hotel and let's forget about it, okay?"

Mulder didn't respond, staring grimly at his darkened reflection
in the window. He wasn't sure whether he believed the detective
or not.

The made the rest of the journey in silence, and agreed to meet
the next morning at the precinct. He sagged against the wall in
the elevator, feeling drained and strangely lonesome. He was
tired of criminals, of murder, of local cops and angry men.
Maybe Scully was right, maybe there were bigger, better things
they should be doing.

When he walked into his hotel room, his eyes were drawn
immediately to the note on the bed. He picked it up, scanned the
spare strokes of his partner's pen.

"Heroin and alcohol confirmed. I have a cold-went to bed. See
you in the morning."

Unsigned-not that that was unusual, but as he glanced at the
closed door connecting their rooms he wondered why he'd
thought he'd been lying to Donnovan.

He had a sudden, almost unbearable urge to see her, to tell her
they were working between an asshole and an idiot, to hear her
chuckle in agreement or lecture him on better decorum-he didn't
care which. The memory of a thousand other such experiences
was as reassuring as the solvable (if regrettable) homicide puzzle
laid out before him.

He wanted to kiss her. To bridge with lips against skin the
distance he vaguely recognized he'd created, and to do so
without costly words. Words were so much more difficult.

He realized his hand was on the knob, turning. But before it
could open, his better judgment wrested control of his errant
fingers. To rebuild trust required more delicacy than a few
suspect kisses. She wanted words and she deserved them, he
supposed.

He just didn't know yet what to say.

9. Switching Sides

---------------------------------------------------

Saturday

9:02 a.m.

New York City Ninth Precinct

If possible, the precinct office was even noisier on a Saturday
morning than a Friday one, and Scully's congested head was
throbbing. She leaned back against the wall beside the coffee
machine, took another sip of the vile, watery brew from the
styrofoam cup in her hand.

She'd heard him come in the night before. Heard his tentative
fingers at the doorknob and almost heard his thoughts as he
debated whether to enter. She hadn't been sure whether she
wanted him to or not. After hours of imprinting police
photographs of a pretty too-thin too-young girl lying on the
ground in a pool of her own vomit and blood, after tracing the
purplish tracks on the dead girl's forearms, it would have been
nice to sleep with something solid at her back.

Sometimes she regretted ever having kissed him, having led them
down this path. It was supposed to be her responsibility, her
role, to keep the keel even. How ironic that her desire, not his
erratic emotions, had tipped the boat.

Not that she didn't enjoy the sex. Not that she didn't-she closed
her eyes.

But it took something, changed something, worked some
mysterious and misbegotten alchemy. It amplified everything,
stripped it all more naked than she wanted. They'd had tender
sex, comforting sex, playful sex, erotic sex, bitter sex, angry
sex-she figured she knew the whole repertoire by now.

And she was so tired.

The worst time had been after she'd lost Gibson. They'd both
been a little drunk but even at his age it hadn't stopped him from
pounding into her like a semiautomatic weapon, raw and
rippingly powerful. She'd egged him on ("Harder. What's
wrong--you think you can hurt me?....You can't hurt me.") and
he'd buried his teeth in her shoulder and it _had _hurt, it still
hurt, a tingling, ghostly pain, a badly-healed scar. When he was
done she'd expired with a sigh, as if he had pierced something
more vital than her womb, and he rolled away with disgust at one
or both of them. In the morning he was gone.

But other times his kisses had been achingly tender, his thrusts
inside her nothing short of religion. She feared that the difference
was ceasing to matter. If only he could look at her once, just
_once_, and see more than a reflection of himself....

She was veering into dangerous territory: Letting It Affect the
Work. That territory had always been there even before the sex;
the sex was just a new remix on an old song and dance, yet
somehow it seemed wiser to be wary now. After Diana.

She'd give him a few days, no more. A chance to explain-she
could give him that and the benefit of the doubt too. But after that
she'd call herself.

"Agent Scully?"

She opened her eyes to see Detective Carmichael looming before
her. At least, he had the size to loom, but she had the disarming
impression that he was in actuality pining. She restrained the
urge to blow her nose, feeling as though it might shatter the
imposing image she saw reflected in his naïve eyes.

"Good morning, Detective."

"Agent Scully, I don't know what Agent Mulder might have told
you about last night, but I just wanted to let you know I _am_
taking this case very seriously, as I do all cases."

Scully blinked. Mulder had told her that things had gotten out of
hand on the way to the police station, but not that he'd doubted
Carmichael's commitment. Had he left something out?

"Agent Mulder is a professional," Scully replied carefully. "He's
concerned with the facts of the case, just as you are, not with
gossip."

Well, an occasional white lie never hurt anyone. When it came to
Mulder, God would understand.

Carmichael didn't seem to know what to say. "Okay. I just-I
didn't mean to imply anything."

"Of course not," Scully replied, but Carmichael wasn't finished.

"This is my case, you see," he said. "I pulled it out of the pile
and all. And I appreciate your help, especially since our caseload
is pretty high right now. I just don't want you to think I can't
handle it."

Oh, so that's what this was about. The usual territoriality.
Unfortunately, 'the usual' made her more nervous than it used
to-the scars from Peyton Ridder's bullet were still shiny and new
on her abdomen, and sometimes it hurt to bend down. Or make
love.

"I don't doubt that you can handle it, Detective," she replied,
resorting to her rehearsed soundbite. "We're here to provide a
different kind of expertise, not to steal the glory. Our success is
in helping you find yours."

He looked relieved for a second, but then a dark shadow crossed
his pale face. "Of course," he added, "I don't want you to think
I'm only concerned about the credit. I really do want to solve-"

Mulder strode up at that moment and Scully shot him a silent
look of thanks as he handed her a paper bag, extracted the bagel.

"Morning, Carmichael," he said. "How you feeling?"

"I'm fine," the younger man replied stiffly.

"Good. Then lets get down to business. We're going to need to
talk to Rose Arlington again."

Scully saw Carmichael sigh and had to hide a smile; despite her
platitudes there was no question who was in charge here.

Mulder started walking in the direction of Donnovan's cube and
Scully moved beside him, Carmichael following behind.

"I was thinking we could talk to Cleaver some more," he said
hopefully. "Maybe get out of him what was in that box."

"You won't get that," Mulder answered without turning around.
"He's scared of something, and he's dug himself too deep a
trench by pretending he doesn't know about it. He knows we've
got him on possession-he's not going to come clean any time
soon."

"Well, I'm not sure there's a rush-"

Mulder stopped three steps away from Donnovan's office, turned
around to face the younger man. "Not sure there's a rush?" he
echoed. "If there was a simple connection between McCartney
and Cleaver, we would already have it. If it's more complex or,
worse, there's no connection at all, then there's going to be
another death."

Carmichael bit his lip in bewilderment; Scully frowned.
"Mulder?"

"Think about it, Scully," he said, his eyes on her as if they were
alone. In her peripheral vision she saw Donnovan move out of
his cube, listening. "There're basically two possibilities here.
One: someone who mailed that package wanted two people dead
for a personal reason. Six degrees of separation, two reasonably
public institutions-i.e. Studio X and the New Victoria-if the
background checks didn't turn up connections they're not
obvious. So, two: it's not personal, and the specific individual
involved matters less. In that case the victims shared a
commonality, not a connection, and in that case we're dealing
with a serial killer."

"You forgot the third possibility, Mulder," Scully answered,
folding her arms under her breasts.

He tilted his head, inviting her to continue.

"Three: it's a coincidence. There's no evidence of homicide in
either death."

"But there's motive."

"There's always motive."

Donnovan cleared his throat and both agents looked at him. "I
have to agree with Agent Scully," he said. "You helped us get a
drug collar and that's great, but I think we're stretching
plausibility, and we have more important work to do. I'm gonna
backfile the case and I'd appreciate your reports."

Mulder opened his mouth to protest and Scully started to shush
him in anticipation of the need for diplomacy, but Carmichael
surprised them all by speaking first.

"Mike," he said, looking straight at Donnovan, "I don't want to
close this file. I opened it, and I don't want it closed until I'm
satisfied." He dropped his eyes to their shoes.

"I'm the senior officer," Donnovan answered in an even tone.
"It's closed."

"Detective," Scully said, interjecting before Mulder could speak,
"once you've called us in we have our own file open, and we'll
decide when to close it."

Mulder flashed her a look of gratitude. "If you could"-he began,
but Carmichael interrupted.

"I filed a transfer request, Mike," he said, still staring at the
floor. "I filed for a new partner. And I put in a report on your
behavior last night."

Scully held her breath; she could almost smell the sudden rush of
testosterone, partly from Mulder's fists clenching in anticipation
and partly from the way Donnovan's chest grew, his face
reddened, his fingers dug into the top wall of the cubicle. The
strangers walking by seemed to notice nothing.

But there was no outburst. "Fine," Donnovan said, in a tone too
quiet for Scully's comfort. "That's just fine."

"The paperwork won't go through until tomorrow," Carmichael
continued, still unable to meet anyone's eyes. "And the chief'll
probably want to talk to us both. So I wasn't going to tell
you...."

"Consider it effective immediately," Donnovan answered. He
reached behind him and into his desk, retrieved a manila folder
and held it out to Carmichael.

"Here's your case," he said. "Your only case."

Just before Carmichael's fingers connected with the file,
Donnovan let go, turned and stalked away. The folder and its
contents dropped onto Scully's shoes, scattered.

End 5/12 
10. The Peeping Tom

---------------------------------------------------

11:18 a.m.

New Victoria Theatre

Scully and Carmichael sat in the back of the empty auditorium,
waiting for the actors' break. Onstage, pretty little Rose
Arlington was perched on the denim-clad lap of a muscle man,
reading from a script held in one hand. Every few seconds the
director stopped her, changed something, made her start again.
From where they sat, they could only hear the rise and fall of
voices rather than the words themselves.

They'd taken the subway over, and it was hard to talk in a
crowd, but now the excuse was gone, the silence awkward.
Carmichael had meekly accepted Mulder's request that they talk
to Arlington again, said nothing while Scully told him she
thought it would go better without him there, and asked no
questions when, after a brief disagreement, Mulder agreed to
work on a profile, which he did "much better alone," meaning
Carmichael should go with Scully. Now he wouldn't meet her
eyes.

"Requesting a transfer is perfectly within your rights," Scully
said, because she felt the need to say something.

He nodded, still staring forward.

"And it sounds like your action was justified," she added.

Still nothing. Fine. Silence was okay with her. She checked her
watch, wondering how long before the break.

Two or three minutes passed. "It's just"-Carmichael started, then
stopped.

"What?" she prompted.

His mouth twisted; he considered. After another pause, he said,
"It's just I don't know how we ended up assigned together
anyway. Our personalities weren't even close to compatible."

"Sometimes that makes for a good team," Scully answered,
trying not to let her voice go wistful.

"Not here," the younger man answered. "They knew he was
violent and bigoted, they knew he broke the rules. I checked-his
last partner filed a long complaint against him."

Great, Scully thought. "When was that?"

"Just before we were assigned together. That guy requested a
transfer too. I mean, they like to put new guys like me with the
old guys, but he obviously wasn't interested in teaching or
anything."

Scully considered. It was very possible the higher-ups had paired
them so they'd exhaust each other. "Maybe he was the only man
available," she suggested.

"Maybe," Carmichael said glumly.

"We'll do fine without him," she said, though she doubted this
thing would be ended so easily.

Carmichael smoothed his palms over his thighs, a nervous
gesture that made him seem adolescent. She wondered for a
second how old he was.

"You don't even think it's murder, though." It was less an
accusation than an admission of self-doubt.

"I think two people are dead and there are unanswered
questions," Scully replied, playing diplomat again. "And I'm not
always right."

"I'm not sure either," he continued, as if he hadn't heard. "I
wanted this to be something, you know? I wanted it to turn out to
be the thing everyone else had missed."

"A ghost?"

Carmichael shrugged. "That's a little much, I guess. No one
would believe that."

"But you want to," she said, wishing Mulder was there to
appreciate the inside joke.

He shrugged again. "I dunno."

Which was as close to an affirmation as Scully had ever heard.
She wondered if this was how Mulder would've turned out if he
was a little slower. Something to remember next time she wished
he was.

"So your partner can really write a profile with what we have so
far?" he asked. "I'd like to learn how to do that."

"He's not profiling a possible killer. Yet. He's profiling the
victims, figuring out what they share in common so he can try to
predict where to look for others."

"Oh. Well, I'd like to learn that too. But with eight million
people, I don't see how we could ever find out who's next."

"It may not be who's next," Scully replied. Onstage, the actors
were standing now, and the director was talking to Rose. "Could
be who was last, which narrows the pool considerably."

"Oh," Carmichael said. "Oh. I hadn't thought of that. There
could already be other victims. I guess I-"

Scully stood and started edging her way down the aisle as the
actors began to disperse. Carmichael stopped talking and
followed her.

"Ms. Arlington," Scully called, and the young woman turned,
squinted into the darkened audience. Other actors, who'd been
heading offstage, looked as well.

Careful not to hurry, Scully strode down to the front, saw the
flash of recognition wipe across the actress' face.

"Oh. It's you," she said. "I was just going for my smoke break."

"We'll join you," Scully answered.

---------------------------------------------------

"I don't know why you want to talk to me," Rose said, exhaling
a cloud of smoke. "I mean, just because I'm the granddaughter
of the ghost doesn't mean I signed your dumb package."

Scully shifted as discretely as possible from one foot to the other,
her toes cold in alley slush. "Who should we be talking to?" she
asked.

"Nobody, I guess." Scully noticed that the tip of her cigarette
was trembling, wondered if it was the chill air or nerves. "It was
an accident."

"Do you know anything about Studio X?"

Rose considered, then shrugged, shook her head. "I don't get it.
What's that-a porn theatre?"

"It's an art studio," Carmichael supplied helpfully, and Scully
restrained a sigh, willing him to keep quiet.

"How about Dennis Cleaver?" she asked.

"Doesn't ring any bells."

"Mark Volstok?" asked Carmichael, missing the glare Scully
flashed him.

"Nope. Hey, where's the FBI guy, anyway? I was hoping to see
him again."

"He's handling another aspect of the case," Scully said,
frowning. Hadn't Mulder bullied her last time. "But you can tell
us anything you wanted to tell him."

"Nah, I just thought he was cute."

Scully gave a disdainful snort; Carmichael worried at his lower
lip.

Trying to steer the interrogation back to where she wanted it,
Scully said, "You don't seem quite as upset as you did."

"People die, life goes on."

"The theatre's been doing well since Shawna died," Scully
remarked.

"Then maybe you should be talking to Mr. Strafer, since he gets
the money."

"What do you think of Mr. Strafer?"

"I think he's full of shit."

"So you're not really into this whole ghost thing."

"I'm not really into this whole 'interpretive' theatre thing. But I'll
get out of this shithole soon enough."

"Going to Hollywood?" Carmichael asked.

She pursed her pretty red lips around her cigarette, inhaled in his
direction. "Yeah, buddy," she said. "Sure."

"If you're not telling us something you can be prosecuted for
obstructing a federal investigation," Scully said, trying to wrest
back control.

"Yeah, well. Listen, break's about over. It's been nice seeing
you again and all, but I gotta go."

She turned away and Scully, not knowing what else to ask,
sighed.

"Next time," Rose called back over her shoulder as the backstage
door started to close, "bring the cute one, okay?"

Carmichael blushed and Scully spun on one heel to head back out
onto the street. She hated this case.

She didn't see the figure standing above them on the fire exit,
didn't see the lithe legs swing back over the windowsill and into
the theatre.

11. The True Meaning of Chemistry

---------------------------------------------------

7:04 p.m.

Florentino's Restaurant

"The only thing they share is the strange appropriateness of their
deaths," Mulder was saying. "I was only able to get through the
last couple weeks of morgue reports, but I didn't find anything.
The problem is they don't write enough down in there."

"What do you mean?" she asked, twirling her spaghetti around
her fork. The garlic was the only thing she could taste, despite
taking three times the recommended dosage of antihistamines.

"I need backgrounds, vignettes," he continued. "I can make
some guesses but I'd actually have to know what was going on
in the person's life before they died."

"Well, I apologize on the behalf of pathologists everywhere for
our lack of completeness," Scully said. "But honestly, that can't
be the only thing. Two young women, close in age,
attractive-aren't these commonalties?"

"Sure, but not the right kind."

"What does that mean?"

Mulder took a bite of garlic bread. "I don't know," he said
around the mouthful.

Scully sighed. "You know, when I was taking organic chemistry
I had this friend who never got it. I tried to--"

"Boyfriend?"

She blinked. "Yeah, actually. How'd you guess?"

He shrugged.

"But see, that's what I'm talking about," she continued. "I could
always look at the two molecules they'd give us and tell you
exactly what the result-or results-was going to be when you
mixed them. He'd say, 'Couldn't it be this? Or this?' and every
time his answer would be perfectly plausible but just...wrong."

"So you're saying it was instinct."

"That's part of it. But there were rules, Mulder-there're always
rules. Maybe electrostatic repulsion was going to send one
compound onto the other side or the stereochemistry would
stabilize toward the better hydrogen bonding. For me, I didn't
have to think about the rules in any conscious way. I just...held
them in my head like the molecule does, and I'd see where it had
to go. I tried to explain, but there were just so many factors at
work that he didn't want to learn them. He could have, though."

"He broke up with you, didn't he?" Mulder said. "You
intimidated him."

"Hmph," Scully said, meaning yes. "The point is, Mulder, that
I'm willing to learn, if you'll explain it."

He looked up at her, his eyes shifting from green to grey in the
restaurant's half-light. "I appreciate that. But I can't really tell
you the rules as to why the fact that they were two young women
is just coincidence but the Draino and the falling chandelier are
big flashing red lights. I don't even know what the factors are.
And I'm not going to learn about electrostatic repulsion and
stereochemistry either."

She ignored the joke, ran one frustrated finger along the length of
her wine glass stem. "But if you want to justify this-or
anything-to other people..."

He smiled at her, that warm and winning smile that had more
than once got him into her bed. "That's what I've got you for."

Wonderful. Scully the sidekick rides again. But at the same time
she was ashamed by the way a part of her melted at the
admission, by the way a little bubble of pride rose from gut to
head over the fact that she'd kept this case for him against her
own better judgement. Some days she wished she could just be
her own person instead of making him the whole one.

"I take it the interrogations didn't go so well," he said.

Her brows drew together, uncertain whether she should resent
the implication that he could've done better, especially when it
was probably true. "We talked to everyone we could find there,"
she said. "Rose Arlington was less than cooperative, and
everyone else just towed the party line. Nobody saw anything
unusual the night of the death, and no one knew anything about
the package."

"Did Carmichael complain about not getting his own ghostbuster
ray gun?"

"He was okay."

---------------------------------------------------

New Victoria Theatre

"I didn't tell them anything!" Rose insisted, backing into the
corner of the dimly lit dressing room, hands groping wildly
behind her for a weapon or a chance to fall.

"I'll cut your toes off," the figure hissed. "I'll saw off your
nipples and pluck every fingernail. Then maybe I'll kill you,
maybe, when you beg me to."

Rose made a tiny sound but, wisely, did not scream. Her back
bumped against the costume rack; it teetered but did not fall.

"Not a word, Rose. Not a word."

"I swear, I didn't!" The girls eyes were wide with fear. "Please,
please, leave me alone. I didn't want anyone to die, it's not my
fault...."

"Whose fault is it, then, Rose? Just remember that next time you
decide to talk to the police-whose fault is it?"

---------------------------------------------------

Florentino's Restaurant

Mulder was studying her face with greater intensity than usual,
and it made her self-conscious about chewing the pasta. When he
didn't stop, she put down her fork and met his gaze.

"What?"

"I was just thinking," he answered.

She raised her eyebrows and ducked her chin, indicating he
should go on. He glanced down at the table, scratched idly at the
tablecloth with one fingernail. "I was just trying to remember you
before I knew you."

Well. That had been unexpected. "That eidetic memory of yours
is more talented than I thought."

"No, I don't mean before we met; I mean before I got to know
you. By the time I did, you'd already changed so much...."

She felt confused, shaken by the non sequitur, or maybe it was
the cold medicine. "I was inexperienced, Mulder. I was
twenty-nine."

He chuckled to himself as if that was hard to believe, and to her
surprise she found herself smiling with him-it was hard for her
to believe as well. She thought of the photo her mother kept by
the door, the one from her Quantico graduation. She hardly
recognized herself in it-the soft cheeks, the earnest smile, the
hair that never obeyed orders. She had tried, many times, to
recapture the ideological filters through which she'd viewed the
world then, if only for a few moments, tried to restore the true
blue color of legitimacy to the letters FBI, but she could never
quite do it.

She wondered how Mulder remembered her, if he saw the soft
cheeks or just the ideology; he didn't have photos. At least, she
didn't think he did.

"You were inexperienced, yes, but you radiated confidence," he
told her, and she blushed at the rare compliment.

"Well, confidence may be misguided." She took a sip of her
wine. "What brought this up?" When he didn't answer, still
studying the tablecloth, she held a finger across the table, raised
it to draw his gaze up to her eyes. "Mulder?"

He shrugged. "I'm trying to put my finger on why Carmichael
makes me nervous."

Oh. Scully tried not to let her expression change. "Because he's
inexperienced?"

"Yeah."

"And I never made you nervous?"

"Never," he said, and she snorted.

"No, really," he insisted. "I always knew exactly where you
stood."

Scully shifted in her seat. It made her uncomfortable, this sudden
and rare praise. Was it some new brand of olive branch?

He touched the back of her hand with one finger, drew a line
from her wrist to third knuckle. "I mean, you didn't know me at
all, but trusted me enough to drop all your clothes on our first
night together, and yet didn't trust the U.S. Air Force when they
told you I was crazy and was getting what I deserved."

Oh, of course, she should have known. Mulder's criteria for
high achievement all came down to just how strongly you
believed in him.

She slipped her hand out of his and his disappointed eyes found
hers, blinked once, twice.

She tried to steer them back to the case. "Surely you're not
worried about Carmichael not trusting you. That should hardly
matter."

"No, of course not," he said, recovering fast. "I think he's
too...he wants things to be too clean. That's _his_ brand of
inexperience. He wants tidiness, completeness, compactness.
He's willing to turn to the paranormal because it linearizes his
vision of the narrative, not because he really believes it's
possible."

Scully considered that. She'd always thought Mulder
characterized her rationality as an obsessive need for order. It
was almost as if he'd admitted her position wasn't as easy as he
always pretended.

"Carmichael cornered me this morning to make sure we knew he
needed the credit for this collar," she said, carefully avoiding the
subtextual trap she felt he'd laid. "And he hoped you hadn't
given me a bad impression of him. That was before the scene
with Donnovan."

"Can't say I was sorry about that. Donnovan, I mean. That
wasn't going to work anyway. But Carmichael--he just very
badly wants everything to go well. No fussiness, and everyone
getting what they deserve."

"And this bothers you because you think he's naïve?"

"I _know_ he's naïve, Scully. There're lots of kinds of naïve."

"Sure there are. There's the kind that makes one only climb
career ladders and the kind that destroys one when they realize
they can't save the world. You seem to think that Carmichael
falls into the latter category, but I don't see why that's
necessarily dangerous to us. Just because you-why are you
looking at me like that?"

His eyes had widened-he looked as if he'd just seen Arlington's
ghost. He leaned forward, extending a hand, and though her
instinctive reaction was to pull away as a sense of dejá vú
overcame her, she let him brush his thumb under her nose.

He pulled back, showing her the glistening red smear outlining
the whorls of his thumbprint.

With frozen fingers she drew her napkin to her nose, wiping it
delicately, then stared at the blood that came away. Met his eyes.
"I'll be right back," she said, daring him to challenge her.

She made it through the bathroom door before she stumbled, and
there she fell against the sink. The blood was flowing more
freely now, and she grabbed a handful of brown paper towels to
dam the flood she'd confused with congestion.

This was not happening. This could not be happening. The
chip-one hand darted to the back of her neck, massaging the
familiar scar. She could feel its edges like foreign veins not far
beneath her skin; it was still there. Then how-?

Unless it had never worked at all. Remission was just that:
remission. Not a cure, not the end. But, a small voice in her cried
out, there wasn't supposed to _be_ an end.

A toilet flushed, and Scully straightened her shoulders and turned
toward the wall, trying to appear as if she was only blowing her
nose. Behind her, a she heard heels on the tile as the stranger
crossed to stand beside her, and then the sink began to run.

Feeling awkward, Scully turned toward the woman, who was
perhaps twenty years her senior. The woman flashed a
sympathetic smile. "It's going around," she said, and it took
Scully a second to realize she meant the flu.

"Yeah," Scully agreed, wiping her face and crinkling the towels
to hide the blood. Her voice sounded nasal to her own ears.
"Yeah, it is." What goes around comes around.

The woman dried her hands and left; Scully sagged again against
the countertop. She withdrew a fresh paper towel from the
dispenser and pressed it to her face, tipping her head back. It
would stop in a minute or two, she knew it would.

The door opened a crack and she jumped again, but it was only
Mulder. He came in without invitation, and his fingers flexed
once, twice, itching to help somehow, to do something.

Feeling like the widow who must think first of her children,
Scully drew her shoulders straight, pulled the paper away. Only
a little blood stained the napkin, and she discarded it with
nonchalance.

"It's just the flu, Mulder," she told him. "Irritation of the nasal
passages combined with dry winter weather sometimes causes
nosebleeds."

He didn't look convinced, so she tried to smile for him, stepping
forward to clasp a hand over his arm. "I'd've noticed something
before now otherwise," she assured him, so convincing she
could almost believe herself. "I know what to look for."

He draped his other arm across her shoulder, heavy and warm,
leaned down to look into her eyes. "I don't want you to lie," he
said, like a stubborn child.

She couldn't keep her eyes steady; she felt like he was looking at
her through the lens of a microscope, and so she did the only
other thing she knew he'd accept-she stepped forward and
leaned against his chest. His arms bracketed her with automated
ease, and she turned her cheek to his breast. "I know," she
whispered, continuing her superficial assurance, but his
answering embrace _was_ comforting and she hoped he couldn't
feel the way her heart was still pounding.

She slid one palm beneath his jacket, rubbing slowly against his
spine, trying to ignore the way her head had begun to throb
again. It meant nothing. It was just the flu.

"It's just the flu," she said aloud.

He didn't say anything for a long moment, then seemed to decide
to believe her, or at least to recognize how much she needed to be
believed. "We'll get you some medicine."

"Yeah," she agreed.

"You still haven't responded to my original point," he said, his
voice muffled by her hair as he changed the subject like she
wanted him to. "How do you explain the eerie appropriateness of
the deaths?"

"You'd find 'appropriateness' in anything," she answered. "If
Shawna McCartney had been shot, you'd have called that
appropriate like John Wilkes Booth. If Tabitha had died of food
poisoning in the school cafeteria, you'd have noted that she'd
died of gastrointestinal distress, which you'd then relate to
toilets."

"Oooh, careful, Scully, you're turning me on," he murmured,
rubbing her shoulderblade.

"And anyway," she continued, "two is easy. You'll have to
show me three, at least."

Mulder didn't answer, but she felt him turn his cheek into her
hair, felt him sag against her. She closed her eyes, concentrating
on the warm, familiar scent of his chest, on his heartbeat. "Don't
be afraid," she whispered, not sure if he could hear her. "Don't."

12. The Third

---------------------------------------------------

12:04 a.m.

Grand Central Hyatt

It took a long time to find sleep that night and she'd been
successful for barely an hour when his voice woke her with a
single word.

"Three."

"What?" she murmured, drowsy. She opened her eyes to find
her partner's face separated by mere inches of darkness from her
own. She blinked, irritated.

"Three," he repeated, seating himself on the bed. The mattress
bucked and her temporal sinuses gave a cry of protest.

"Make sense," she ordered.

"I've been listening to a police scanner," he said. "I think we've
got the third death you asked for. I called Carmichael-he's
meeting me there." He paused, then added, "I know you're not
feeling well--you don't have to go."

"No, I'll go," she said, raising up on her elbows. "Why do you
think this is three?"

He cast her a grim smile through the darkness and shrugged.
"Death's flair for the dramatic? You'll see what I mean."

Scully felt a groan building inside her belly.

---------------------------------------------------

1:02 a.m.

Leaning toward her so the cabdriver couldn't hear, Mulder
whispered, "This'll be a first for us, Scully. It's not just a dead
guy; it's a famous dead guy."

"Who?" she murmured.

"Andy Rice."

Her eyebrows lifted with surprise. "That guy who writes the
trashy modern Goth novels?"

"Hey, they're not trashy," he said, leaning back away from her
now that the word 'dead' was no longer involved.

"Mulder, please tell me you don't read that crap. Millennia-old
warriors from another dimension disguised as body piercers who
roam modern America in a sexually charged and often
sadomasochistic quest for their ancestral roots? Carrying
crossbows?"

"You sure seem to know a lot about it, Scully."

"I get the basic premise. They've sold well enough."

"Well, if it's any comfort, I didn't read them," he said. "I just
bought the books-on-tape because I liked the reader."

Scully opened her mouth to respond, but the cab was slowing
down and they saw the herd of police cars at the same instant.

Carmichael met them as they stepped out of the cab, his spiky
blond hair sleep-matted into tufts and valleys. He guided them
through a crowd of twentysomethings in their leather, vinyl and
velvet, and they ducked under the yellow tape.

Scully frowned up at the buttressed stones. "A church?" she
asked.

"Used to be," Carmichael answered. "It's been converted to a
Goth dance club."

Scully slid her eyes to Mulder's, her cheeks flashing red and blue
in the police car lights. "What's the deal, Mulder? Death by
divine wrath lightning?"

"Good thing life insurance covers acts of God," he answered.

Carmichael looked uncomfortable. "I've already been in," he
said, seeming not to know what else he should say. "It's pretty
bad."

"Well," Scully said, "let's check it out." She started up the steps,
her badge held in front of her like a ward to all policemen.

Inside, the former narthex sparkled with the dim glitter of
overhead spotlights. The floor was littered with crushed
cigarettes and empty plastic cups. There were hallways to either
side, but the police traffic seemed to be concentrated on the door
in front of them, which led to the dance floor, the ex-sanctuary.
The trio moved inside.

The intention behind the room lighting seemed to be to
exaggerate the shadows more than to showcase the room. It
made the vaulted ceiling loom and sway, as if threatening to close
in on them. Powerful flashes of the crime photographer's camera
illuminated three-story walls with stained-glass parables that
made Mulder uneasy-(flash) Adam and Eve, (flash) Mary and
Joseph, (flash) Herod and Christ.

They moved out from under the balcony, which supported a
black iron catwalk that circled the room. Below the catwalk stood
a fence of wrought-iron spears that reminded Mulder of British
cathedral yards. Presumably drinkers lurked behind that fence to
watch the dancers.

In place of the altar, a black slab of granite graced the front of the
sanctuary, carved in what Mulder immediately identified as a
second-rate imitation of Rodin's Gates of Hell. The policemen
were standing in front of this, taking notes or talking softly.
Above them, utterly still, a tall cage big enough for two people
hung from a long, thick chain. The cage's door, cheaper than it
looked, hung open and limp from a single hinge.

A detective met Mulder's eye as he approached, and Mulder
nodded, flashed his badge again. Two policemen parted and he
saw the body.

Andy Rice was lying on his back, eyes wide open to the ceiling,
his neck and spine twisted in opposite directions. He had a
young, attractive face even though death had frozen it into a
painful grimace. He was naked but for a pair of exceptionally
tight leather pants laced up his hips. The tip of an iron spear from
the fence around the room protruded from his groin.

Mulder bit back the bile rising in his throat, looked up. Clearly,
Rice had fallen from the cage onto the fence, part of which had
collapsed with his weight. A few other spears, pieces of the
fence, littered the ground, soaking in pools of blood.

The spear had ripped laterally through his body as he landed,
raking a tear through his lower belly as if he'd been clawed by a
dragon. Blood-soaked intestine bulged through the opening, and
the fetid stench of excrement was terrible.

Impaled, like a character from one of his own gory novels.
Except that in the novels the dying man's entrails would have
been neater, and he would have had some gasping last dialogue,
wouldn't have smelled like shit and blood.

Mulder thought of all the people who would hear about this on
the evening news, for whom 'dead' and 'killed' would just be
words. People complained about desensitization, about too much
violence disguised as news, but the truth was that the news was
sanitized in comparison to the reality. So few Americans ever
even saw the dead, and the select few who did, like Mulder
himself, saw dead people all the time. Either condition was
unnatural, unprecedented in human history. If they knew....

He heard Carmichael vomiting somewhere behind him and hoped
he could keep his own meal down for dignity's sake. He closed
his eyes and picked Scully's voice out of the quiet conversation
around him. He listened as the detective said told her that Rice's
girlfriend, who regularly danced in the cage for the club insisted
she'd locked the cage door. Only Rice had fallen.

"Was anyone else hurt?" he heard his partner ask.

"Yes," the man told her. "Three people were taken to the hospital
and four others had superficial injuries. Are you from the M.E.'s
office?"

Mulder didn't hear her answer. He turned slowly, studying up at
the ceiling. Its vaults were obscured by darkness, but he could
see that the only access to the cage was via the catwalk.

Flash. Caiaphas and Judas. Mulder felt ill. The deaths were
timely.

"Timely," he breathed to himself, tasting the word. "Timely."

It was a better word than 'appropriate.' There was more to work
with, there was direction. These deaths were funny to
someone...ironic, and therefore appropriate, but half of comedy
was timing.

So why now? What had occurred to provoke this, and was it
something that happened in the life of the victim or the killer?

That question assumed the killer was a living entity, though, and
they'd come here seeking a ghost. Mulder didn't believe it was a
ghost. The signature, the_ flavor_, was consistent with other
ghost X-Files, but the details were all wrong. Ghost cases
always took place in the same (haunted) spot. Their victims
always made the same fatal mistake. Here, there was too much
motion and not enough repetition.

So. Victim or killer.

And Scully's cancer was back.

"Timely," he repeated, forcing his thoughts back to the case.

He moved slowly out of the sanctuary and back into the narthex,
turned right. At the end of the short hallway was a small chapel,
now a barroom. The bar was a triangular structure in the center
of the floor, and the bartender was still there, wiping the counter
as if the murder hadn't even happened.

He looked up as Mulder entered. "They about finished in there?"

Mulder didn't answer. "Can I get some water?" he asked. The
man poured him a glass, slammed it on the table as if it were a
beer.

Mulder stared at the surface. The angles of light gave it its own
geometry-hard stained glass patterns of blue and white and the
pale imitation wood of the bartop. Rice was a famous man.
Could the killer have a fixation on him? On his work? Or was the
victim choice random?

How could it be random when it was so appropriate?

Timely. He had to know what Rice had been doing.

"You gonna drink that?" the bartender asked. "I wanna wash the
glass."

Mulder lifted the glass, took a swallow. It tasted faintly metallic,
and he tried not to think about blood-either the
pooled-on-tiled-floor or dripping-on-creamy-skin varieties. He
set the water back down, thanked the bartender, and turned back
toward the narthex, where a few cops were milling around.

Scully met him there, her eyes telegraphing concern. She moved
close enough so only he could hear her, touched his wrist lightly.
"You okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, fine."

She drew back, assured. "It was an accident, Mulder," she said.
"That or the girlfriend did it. Her sister took her home, but the
detective plans to question her."

He shook his head slowly.

"There's no way anyone could have gotten inside that cage,
pushed Rice out, and gotten away without anyone seeing."

Mulder rubbed his fingers over the beginnings of bristle on his
chin. "Could it have been something done beforehand?" he
asked. "Before Rice got in the cage?"

"Like what, a drug? A hypnotic suggestion?"

"We've seen things like that before," he reminded her.

The right corner of her mouth pinched. "How many Robert
Modells can there be, Mulder?"

Mulder winced at the memory of a gun barrel between them, not
once, but twice.

Scully seemed to remember that, too. "I'll go to the morgue," she
said after a pause. "Talk the M.E. into doing a neural workup. At
this hour, they'll hardly be thrilled, but..."

Mulder nodded. "I want to check out Rice's place before the cops
turn it upside down. Where's Carmichael?"

"I told him to go home. He doesn't need to be here."

Mulder smirked. "Especially if I'm wrong, huh?"

She shrugged, looked askance, which meant she hadn't wanted
him to see that motive. "That's not what I said to him," she said.

"I know," he answered, squeezing her arm. "I'll see you back at
the hotel."

She nodded and disappeared back into the sanctuary. Mulder
looked after her for a moment, relieved that no matter what burrs
lay under their collective skin, when push came to shove, there
was no question where she stood.

He walked back out the door, into the flashing lights. An
ambulance had arrived to take away the body-earlier ambulances
had already taken away the living. The media had arrived like
some kind of cavalry parody, laying siege to the church with
bright lights and cameras and journalists in too-neat suits.

Mulder scanned the faces of the crowd, which was louder now
than before-they seemed to think this was simply a new kind of
party. Policemen stood around the tape, so stern they might have
been auditioning for the London royal guard.

As he descended the steps, the crowd's murmur grew louder and
the journalists shouted out garbled questions-apparently he
looked official enough that they expected an announcement. Then
Mulder caught a flash of white out of the corner of one eye.

He turned to see a man ducking under the tape at the edge of the
building, near the bushes that lined the club's walls. He had
already cried out to warn the nearest cop when the man's identity
registered with his brain.

It was the Arab man he'd seen yesterday. Turban and all.

The trespasser heard his shout and went back the way he'd
come-as soon as he was under the tape again, the cop had lost
interest. But Mulder ran.

He elbowed his way through the people without hearing their
catcalls. He shoved two young men violently out of his way and
at last broke free of the mass, only to see his target dash around
the corner one block away.

He took off after him, drawing his weapon as he ran.

Mulder was fast, but so was the Arab, and he'd had a head start.
Mulder's feet pounded on the pavement and his muscles
protested, but he could still see the man, a block ahead of him.
He started to cross the street, and two cars swerved to miss him,
honking madly. He heard the crunch of metal on metal and
glanced back, but it was only a fender bender-he kept running.

He'd closed the distance between them by half-a-block; there was
no way the man could get away. "Stop!" Mulder yelled. "FBI!"

The man didn't respond. Mulder considered firing his weapon,
but there was no way he could be sure of a clear shot-it was too
dark and there were still people around.

The man rounded a corner and a second later Mulder spun to
follow-and his heel slipped against the ice. He fell to the ground
with a loud _whump!_, yelped with pain as his tailbone slammed
into the concrete.

He got to his feet again as fast as he could, but he could no
longer see the man. He jogged forward a few steps, but he was
limping now, and every step sent searing pain through his spine
in spikes. Winded, he bent over, breathing hard, then looked
from side to side.

A bum regarded him from a nearby doorway.

"Did you see...that man?" Mulder asked through heaving
breaths.

The homeless man's head lolled to one side and he favored
Mulder with a toothless grin. "Mebbe," he rasped. "What's it
worth?"

"What'd he look like?" Mulder snapped.

The man looked uncertain, then his eyes lit up. "Brown hair," he
announced, and Mulder, disgusted, turned to walk away.

"No!" the man cried after him. "Black. Black hair. It was dark,
man! C'mon, man, it was fuckin' dark!"

Mulder replaced his gun, rubbing his lower back ruefully. He felt
like he'd been rear-ended by a semi. His prey had escaped.

He held out his arm to hail a cab, and with a long-suffering sigh
raised his eyes to the sky, hoping without knowing it for at least
one cheering star. But the clouds hung too heavy-he couldn't see
anything except the malevolent shadows of buildings.

                          *

After the agent's cab sped away, Mohammed Al-Qud crept down
from the fire escape over the portico.

"Hey," called the drunk, a few doors away. "Where the fuck's
your camel?"

Al-Qud ignored him, retracing his steps with the quick, silent
pace of a hunter.

End 6/12 
13. Patterns Repeat

---------------------------------------------------

Sunday

11:34 a.m.

Grand Central Hyatt

Scully woke to the sound of rustling paper and the bright
yellow light that flooded the room told her instantly that
she'd overslept. She blinked as Mulder's silhouette hovered
over her, and she'd already started to mumble something
intended to be half-apology for not waking,
half-chastisement that he hadn't woken her. But he
interrupted.

"I turned off your alarm," he said, holding out a bagel for
her as he set a cup of coffee on the nightstand. "I got in
about 5 but you were asleep, didn't want to wake you."

"Oh," she said, relaxing as she took the warm bagel. "I only
got in at 4."

"Feel any better?" he asked, pressing his palm against her
forehead. She tried not to admit to herself how deliciously
cool it felt.

"Not really," she admitted, and tried, but failed, to suppress
a sniffle. He handed her a kleenex and she thanked him,
blew her nose.

"Breakfast in bed?" she said, eyeing the bagel as if it might
sprout wings and make her chase it all the way to the police
station.

Mulder shrugged. "It's Sunday. You want the paper too?"

She took a bite of the bagel, rolled the warm, thick dough
around in her mouth. "Do you come with a leash and
collar?"

He eased himself gingerly down to sit on the bed beside her.
"Well, I have to say I wouldn't have guessed you'd be into
that, Scully, but if you want to try it, I'm-"

She cut him off before he could finish. "Why are you
wincing like that?"

He grimaced. "Fell on my ass last night. I think I may have
broken my tailbone."

She sat up and tucked her hair behind her ears, putting her
bagel on the nightstand. "Let me see."

He didn't want to, knowing she'd only poke and prod and
make it hurt more, but she looked determined so he leaned
forward, elbows on knees, opting for passive resistance.
She had to tug his sweats down herself, and they wouldn't
go very far.

He heard her indrawn breath when she saw the bruise. He'd
seen it himself in the mirror last night, and it did look about
as bad as it felt. It was an angry shade of purple, already
turned to yellow at the edges, descending well below the line
of his pants. She pressed two fingers gently just above the
crack of his ass, and he hissed with pain, but she only slid
her fingers down, pushing harder.

He jerked away, pulling up his pants. "That hurts."

"Sorry," she said. "I don't think it's broken. But I'd have to
see an X-ray to be sure."

"If it is?"

"If it is there's nothing you can do anyway. Can't put it in a
cast. It just has to heal naturally. I could get you a big
inflatable donut to sit on, though."

"Great," Mulder muttered. "That'll compliment my
aluminum foil suit perfectly."

Scully gave a wan smile. "You know what they say, " she
said. "Accessorize." She retrieved her bagel and took
another bite. "I have some ibuprofen that'll help. How did it
happen?"

He turned sideways on her bed, facing her. "I was chasing
the proof that this is an X-File."

Scully raised an eyebrow. "And it knocked you on your
ass?"

"No, I slipped and fell on my ass. 'It' is that Arab guy who
was following us yesterday. He was there last night, trying
to sneak into the church."

Scully frowned. "So you chased him?"

"So he ran. And I chased him. Lost him, though, after I fell.
But why would he be there if it weren't related to the case?"

"He could be just following _us_, Mulder."

Mulder didn't have a good reply for that.

Scully took a sip of coffee. "I did the autopsy last
night-preliminary results suggest that Calvin Tern was
heavily doped up on cocaine and alcohol, maybe more, but
we'll have to wait till the tox screens come back this evening
to be certain. Brain histology should be back tomorrow. For
what it's worth, he died when his neck broke, not from the
hemorrhaging."

Mulder shuddered at the memory of the gash ripped through
his body. "I don't know how you do it."

"It's just torn tissue, Mulder. No different from plumbing or
cloth or steel."

He looked down. "I don't think I can separate the person
from the body."

"I didn't say I was separating the person from the body,"
she answered. "If I did, I couldn't do this job. I'm
separating _myself_ from the body. It's exactly what you do
with intact victims." She took another sip of coffee, added:
"Usually."

He snorted.

"Anyway," Scully continued around a mouthful of bagel. "I
talked to his roommate, who came to identify the body. He
was sure Rice had no connection to the other two victims. It
looks, again, like a macabre accident."

"'Macabre' is the key word. And you forget"-Mulder tapped
her thigh significantly-"it's not the victims with the
connections in the other two cases."

"It's not the live ones either," Scully pointed out. "What'd
you find at Rice's home?"

"Ah," Mulder said, raising one triumphant finger. He stood
up, and her curious eyes followed him as he went back into
his own room, only to return a minute later with a two-inch
stack of white paper and a file folder. He dropped both on
her lap and sat down beside her again.

She opened the folder with slow suspicion, as if expecting
slinky worms to leap out at her. "I hope this isn't illegal
evidence."

"We'll xerox it on the federal budget. Do the NYPD a
favor."

Scully flipped through the first few pages. He knew what
she was seeing: photocopied letters, both typed and written
by hand. Emails. A few loose photos.

"Who's this guy?" Scully pointed at a picture of a younger
Rice standing next to a red-bearded man who was giving
him bunny ears.

"Same guy who's writing all those letters is my guess,
though the picture's not labeled."

"A fan?"

"Sort of. Read that one." He pointed at a printed email
message behind the photo.

She read aloud, her voice halting and teacherly. "Dear Andy.
. Ignoring me will not make me go away,
you...cocksucking"-Mulder smirked-"...bastard. I see now
the error of my ways. Because I trusted you and you
betrayed me, I have never been able to trust again. I should
have known you would sell out to the first suit who walked
your way and that you would steal all the glory, just like you
used to. I used to let you because you were my friend, but I
see now I was wrong. Write to me. All I want is to hear you
say it. Gatwick."

"They're all from this same guy, Jim Gatwick, dating back
over the last ten years" Mulder told her. "Well, at least until
you get to the lawsuit."

Scully's eyes darted to his, then back to the folder. She
turned several more pages and stopped at a watermarked
ivory page with letterhead from a New York law firm.
"Plagiarism?"

"Jim Gatwick claims Rice's novels are his idea, developed
back when they were in college together."

Scully kept turning the pages. "Was the suit settled?"

"Yep. Gatwick had no proof except for a few Dungeons and
Dragons storylines he'd written, not dated. Rice won, and
his sales skyrocketed."

"When was this?"

"Three years ago."

"And out of all the things in Rice's multimillion dollar home
to find, you picked this as the evidence to link it to our
case." Scully closed the folder. "While it's interesting, sort
of like reading the tabloid headlines at the grocery store is
interesting, I'd hardly call it a lead."

"Think about it, Scully," he insisted, tapping the folder with
one finger. "What we have here isn't a chain, but three
_pairs_ of connected individuals, people who don't
necessarily benefit from the deaths of their pair-partners, but
who have strong, perhaps incompletely conscious reasons
for wanting them dead. Rose Arlington's double
fakeout-tears for me and obstinance to you-casts suspicion
on her, and that makes sense, because she wants to be the
prima donna. Dennis Cleaver was infatuated with his
apprentice, and with the kid's girlfriend out of the way he
might have a slim chance. Gatwick and Rice fit the pattern
perfectly. That's what you want, right? Patterns?"

"There're probably hundreds, if not tens of thousands, of
people who hate Rice," Scully argued.

"But this is the only one Rice kept a drawer for, Scully.
Why would he do that? Attachment to his old friend? Or
genuine fear that Gatwick might act on his anger?"

"Regardless, there's nothing connecting Gatwick, who we
know nothing about, to Cleaver or Arlington."

"Well," Mulder confessed, scratching the back of his head.
"There is the fact that Gatwick got a package from Victoria
Arlington on Friday morning."

"Mulder!"

He grinned, but she wasn't smiling. "I had the boys run
through several thousand tracking numbers last night. They
called me this morning."

Scully heaved an exasperated sigh that ended in a cough;
Mulder reached instinctively to clasp her shoulder, pursing
his lips with concern.

"I see," she said, sitting up straighter so he withdrew his
hand. "So we're going to see Jay Gatwick."

"That's what I was thinking, yes," Mulder answered, trying
to affect an expression of proper penitence.

"Okay," she sighed, yielding. "Give me a few minutes to get
dressed."

He frowned. "Scully, maybe you should stay-"

"I'm fine, Mulder," she assured him, and he nodded with
reluctance. He stood up, wincing as his bruised ass
protested, and she added, "There's ibuprofen in the front
pocket of my garment bag."

"That's okay," he answered. "I'll be all right."

She pushed back the sheets and slid small feet onto the
floor, all in slow motion. He pretended to look elsewhere
while she made her way into the bathroom, and only after
she closed the door did he notice the bloodstain, about the
size of a quarter, on her pillow.

It called to him, a point source, a beacon, a tear in the fabric
of the universe, or, anyway, his universe. Rust-colored and
irregular, it tunneled his vision into a memory train of
history's guilt.

Jay Gatwick and the tiny pleasure of his surprise revelation
were forgotten as he traced its edges with one trembling
fingernail. In the bathroom, the shower started.

He wasn't even sure how the cell phone wound up in his
hand, but he dialed from memory (did Scully still have the
number?) and she picked up on the second ring. "It's me,"
he said.

"Fox!" she cried, and her voice, saying his name, still made
his thighs go to butter for a second. "I wasn't expecting
you."

He didn't believe her, and the blood, the blood of Scully,
was still staring at him. "I want a meeting with him," Mulder
said, keeping his voice even.

There was a pause. "He's very busy," Diana said at last, her
voice now monotone and businesslike. "What is it about?"

"He's reneged on a promise," Mulder answered.

"He's a man of his word," Diana objected, and he had to
shut his eyes against the many layers of betrayal in that
single sentence, knowing the largest betrayal of all might be
his own. To someone. No matter what he did, there was
always someone.

"Just get me the meeting," he said, and hung up.

14. Desdemona's Last Yelp

---------------------------------------------------

12:42 p.m.

East Side

"Oh," Gatwick said when he opened the door. His hair had
grown since the photo was taken-it was shoulder-length and
stringy but still red. The beard was gone. "It's you."

Scully put away her badge. "You were expecting us?" she
asked.

"Come in," he said, morose and slow.

"We came here to talk to you about Andy Rice," Mulder
began as they made their way into the tiny apartment. Scully
tried not to wrinkle her nose at the man's housekeeping-if it
could be called that. She was used to unkempt spaces-hell,
she'd slept at Mulder's-but at least he wasn't dirty.

Chinese takeout was growing mold on the cardtable near the
door. Dark stains of unfathomable age made the carpet stiff.
Worst of all, a kamikaze hairball launched itself at her as
soon as she stepped into the living room.

The shi-tzu leapt at her ankles, oblivious to their disparity in
size. It yipped and clawed at her trouser leg, topknot
bouncing.

"Down, Desdemona!" Gatwick ordered, but the dog ignored
him. Scully tried to kick at it without kicking too hard, and
then Mulder tried, but only when Gatwick scooped the
offending animal up did it quiet.

"Desdemona," Mulder repeated, as Scully dusted white and
black hairs from her pants. "Isn't that the name of a
character in Andy Rice's novels?"

Gatwick's face fell and he sank back onto the wicker couch
crammed opposite the television set. Desdemona glared at
them from behind his arms, her beady eyes still fixed on
Scully's ankle.

"I didn't mean for it to happen," Gatwick said. "I didn't
want him to die. You should know that. He was my friend."

Scully straightened. "So you know what happened to Rice?"
she asked.

Gatwick nodded. "It was in the paper. On the news.
Everywhere. He's dead."

Scully found his short, clipped sentences irritating. Mulder
had been right, again. "Were you there?" she asked.

"No."

"But you 'didn't mean to kill him.'"

"I didn't mean for it to happen," Gatwick corrected her. "I
didn't kill him. At least, not really. But that's why you
came. Isn't it?"

Mulder looked for a place to sit down, but Gatwick had the
only seat in the small room so he settled for folding his
arms. "Why don't you tell us what happened," he
suggested. "From the beginning."

"The beginning?" Gatwick echoed. "Where is the beginning
when we only know, when we stand at, the end?"

He dropped his lips into the dog's hair, turned his cheek
against the animal's head and spoke without looking at
them. "The beginning was when everything was right. I was
meant to be the writer, not Andy, we knew that. Understood
that. He was going to be an engineer. Can you believe that?
An engineer. How did you find me?"

Scully started to tell him not to worry about that, but he
continued before she could. "Not that it matters. I'm just
curious, you see. I want to know. How people know
things. How people see things. That's all."

"We're aware that you filed a lawsuit against Andy Rice,"
Scully said. "But he was still your friend?"

"Friend. Not the way you mean, I guess. You mean
someone who you do things with. Someone you talk to. I
don't have friends like that. I have spiritual friends."

"What do you mean by that?" Scully asked.

"Connections. Spiritual connections to people. That's all the
friend I need."

"Are you a writer, Mr. Gatwick?" Mulder asked.

"I don't understand. Why it matters, that is. Are you going
to arrest me?"

Scully shifted from one foot to the other; Desdemona
whimpered. "Why should we arrest you, Mr. Gatwick?"

"I guess you can't," he said glumly. "Because I didn't do it.
You're here, though, so you must know."

"We do," Mulder said, his voice gentle and coaxing. "We
know. We need to hear it in your words, though."

Scully swallowed, trying to keep her face impassive at his
bluff.

"She'll kill me if I tell you."

Did he mean the ghost? Scully glanced at Mulder, saw a
flicker of indecision pass over his face, then, "No she
won't. We'll protect you."

Gatwick snorted faintly. "You can't protect me from her,"
he said. But he sighed, lowered the dog into his lap. "I got
the package last Friday. I opened it. I wished for justice to
be done. And this is justice, I guess."

Scully's eyes widened as understanding dawned. Wishes.
People were making wishes. And Mulder thought-

"But you didn't wish him dead."

"Of course not. He was my friend."

Mulder considered for a moment. "What makes you think
your wish killed him?"

"What else? What else could've done that? He died a Gothic
death. Fate alone isn't that ironic. And I'd wished just the
day before."

"His death was _timely_," Mulder said, imbuing the words
with a hidden significance Scully could sense but couldn't
understand. It frustrated her.

"Not like that," corrected Gatwick. "He wasn't ready to die.
He hadn't finished the story. Desdemona never learned that
she herself was the source of all power."

The non-fictional Desdemona yipped.

"You mean that was the end of the novels," Scully said,
arms crossed on her chest.

Gatwick shrugged. "How do I know?" he said. "They
weren't my novels."

His eyes swam and he heaved another sigh.

"Mr. Gatwick," Mulder said, dropping into a crouch in front
of the man. "We need to know what was in the package."

Gatwick's head jerked up. "You don't know that?"

"We haven't seen it," Mulder replied. "We need you to
describe it for us."

Scully shifted her weight again, made uncomfortable by
how easily and convincingly he misled. She looked around
for something to fix her eyes on but the walls were bare and
she finally settled on the window. In the next building, a fat
older woman was ironing by her own window, smoking a
cigarette.

"Black stone," Gatwick said. "About this big." His hands
cupped an imaginary softball.

"What was it shaped like?" Mulder pressed.

"Amorphous. Without shape."

"How did you make the wish?"

"I picked it up and thought the words. Like I was supposed
to. I didn't really believe it would work, you see. I was
desperate."

"Where is it now?" Scully asked before Mulder could,
turning her eyes back on Gatwick.

Gatwick stroked Desdemona's topknot back so her eyes
protruded from her hair. The dog sneezed. "I sent it on," he
said. "I'm sorry. I would've kept it longer, but I didn't like
it staring at me."

"Sent it on where?"

Gatwick pointed to something behind Scully. She turned,
scanned the low table at her hip. Scribbled on the back of a
phone bill was a name and address, which she picked up.

"Mr. Gatwick," Mulder said, watching her turn the paper in
her fingers. "We'd like to talk to you some more, but we
should try to catch the package. Based on what you've told
us we can't arrest you, but if you're concerned for your
safety we can take you down to the precinct."

Gatwick seemed entranced by the back of his dog's head.
He said nothing.

Scully considered the name in her hand-Josh
Hammarskjold. The address was 123rd street, uptown; she
guessed they could be there in thirty minutes. If they could
intercept the package-

"Okay," Gatwick said. As he rose, so did Mulder. "Just let
me go to the bathroom first."

Mulder nodded and Gatwick started down the hall, still
carrying his dog. Just before he entered the bathroom, he
turned back to them and said, "You should know she'd find
me anyway. And it would be a terrible death. But I'm ready.
I want you to know that."

"We won't let her get to you," Mulder assured him, and
Gatwick smiled.

"That's kind of you to say."

After he had gone and the bathroom door had closed,
Mulder shot a conspiratorial glance at Scully. "We've got
it," he whispered, triumphant.

"Wishes, Mulder?" she said. "The misbegotten wish? It's a
fairy tale! They're looking for what they want to believe to
be there, and you are too. It's just coincidence, not-"

A horrible gagging noise, coming from the bathroom,
interrupted her. The agents glanced at each other, then back
at the room, and after a moment's hesitation sprinted down
the short hall. The noise was getting louder-gurgling and
sputtering-and now the dog was barking too. Scully tried
the door, but it was locked. "Mr. Gatwick!" she called, just
as Mulder kicked the door in.

Gatwick lay on the floor in a pool of blood, his eyes bulging
and his mouth working. Bubbly blood gushed from a wide
gash in his throat. Desdemona, her long fur now soaked
with blood, was yipping madly, jumping around her
master's head.

Scully dropped to the ground and her hands went to the
wound as arterial blood spattered her clothes. She heard
Mulder's voice as from a distance: "What do you mean
'Please hold!?' This is 9-1-1!"

The dog growled and lunged at her hands; she knocked it
away and tried to hold the edges of the gash together, as
Gatwick's wide eyes stared into hers. She looked around for
the source of the injury, found the old-fashioned razor in the
man's own hand.

His spine arched; he kicked. Mulder dropped to the ground
to hold his legs as she held his throat, and a mangled,
bubbly scream echoed off the bathroom walls. He fell back
flat against the floor and Scully could feel the slick geysers
of blood slowing, losing force.

She knew he was as good as dead.

---------------------------------------------------

4:23 p.m.

Mercy Hospital

The queasiness didn't start until after she'd finished with the
police, and was waiting for Mulder to come back with fresh
clothes. She hadn't lied, not exactly, though she hadn't
given them every detail of Mulder's interrogation, which
contributed to the nausea. Only after the questions, when
she no longer had to play cool and confident, did she really
begin to consider what had happened.

Had Mulder driven him to it?

And why hadn't she stopped him?

The blood had come off in under thirty minutes and the
surgical scrubs she wore were spotless, but Scully felt dirty.
She imagined the fine hairs on her arm caked with blood.
Head dropped in hands glued to elbows on knees in the
crowded hospital waiting room, and she couldn't think
clearly.

She needed to think. She needed quiet. Her head hurt and
she thought she might throw up. She considered seeking out
a church, but no, she had to wait for Mulder.

How must he be feeling? She had to think of that. She
would have to put everything else aside, to be the strong
one, the cushion between him and his inevitable guilt. And
the worst part was that they would probably never know
whether the guilt was justified.

He came after what seemed like forever, announcing his
presence with a hand on her shoulder. She twisted to look
back at him, into his serious grey-green eyes, scanning for
some clue as to what she should say.

"How you doing?" His voice was quiet, gentle.

She gave her head a slight shake, feeling still damp tendrils
of hair lick her cheeks. "How are _you_?"

He blinked. "I'm fine. I brought your navy suit."

He held his own duffel bag out to her and she took it. They
stood silent for an awkward moment, while Scully tried to
decide what to say.

He acted first, reaching out to press his palm to her
forehead. "You feel warm."

She caught his hand in her own, drew it down between
them. "I'll be okay."

"Then let's hurry," he said. "Maybe we can still get to
Hammarskjold before the box does. We know what we're
looking for now. Did you call Carmichael?"

Scully released his hand, caught offguard by his burst of
efficiency. "No-"

"Good. We'll move faster alone, and I don't want to have to
explain all this and go through defending it." He glanced
right and then left. "Is there a place where you can change?"

"Yes, of course, but I..."

"What?"

"Well, don't you think we should discuss how to proceed?"

"What do you mean?" He seemed genuinely confused.

Scully shifted the duffel bag from one hand to the other,
suddenly feeling very short in these scrubs and borrowed
shoes. Could he really not have realized?

"Gatwick, Mulder," she said. "Gatwick killed himself
because he thought someone else was going to kill him. For
talking to us."

"Yes, that's why we need to find whoever he was afraid
of."

Scully fixed his eyes with her own, choosing her next
words carefully and trying to temper them with gentleness.
"Mulder, we pressured him into talking to us. By lying to
him."

His eyes widened. "Oh. Oh, Scully. You think I-God." He
rubbed his eyes with one hand, admitted, "That hadn't
occurred to me."

Now she wondered if she should have said anything at all.
"Mulder, no, I don't think...it's just...just that we need to
be careful...and we really need to talk. About everything."
Her voice trailed off as he dropped his hand, looked up at
her with lost uncertainty behind his eyes.

"Tonight," he promised. "I'm-well, I have to think."

There was nothing she could say that wouldn't be a lie or
make things worse, so Scully stepped back, changed her
grip on the duffel bag.

"I'll change," she said. "You're right-we should hurry."

End 7/12 
15. Negativity

---------------------------------------------------

6:14 p.m.

Hammarsjkold residence

No one was home, and Scully only looked the other way
and bit the inside of her cheek when Mulder picked the lock
anyway. Funny how breaking one rule made breaking more
a near necessity.

She nearly tripped over the box as soon as she stepped
inside, bent down to retrieve it. Plain cardboard, not much
larger than a shoebox, padded inside with bubble wrap. It
was empty, of course, and there was no return address.

Mulder held the piece of paper they'd gotten from Gatwick
next to Hammarskjold's address-the handwriting matched
exactly.

"That's it," he said, and she nodded, putting it aside.

The apartment was small and in decent if not respectable
order. It was clear from the proprietarily even distribution of
man-things that Hammarskjold lived alone.

While Mulder studied the picture frames on the desk in the
living room, Scully moved into the bedroom. Four yellow
walls and a double mattress on the floor were the room's
only real features; clothes were spilling out of suitcases and
cardboard boxes against the walls. It looked as if
Hammarskjold had just moved in, but only in the bedroom.

She wasn't sure what she should be looking for. Gatwick's
description hadn't been very descriptive. The magic lamps
and wishing stones of fairy tales she'd always pictured as
far more ornate than a black rock.

It was ridiculous, of course. Naturally, Rice's death would
suggest to Gatwick that his wish had been granted, but he'd
prepared himself for that chain of causal reasoning. If Rice
had lived and Gatwick slipped on the stairs the next day,
breaking his arm, he'd assume that that, instead of Rice's
death, was "justice." If Arlington had wished to be the star
of the show (as Scully was sure Mulder imagined), then of
course she saw her fulfilled wish in McCartney's death. But
if the show had been recast, or even if the audience gave her
a standing ovation some night, she'd still believe.

Her father's voice boomed inside her head: _If wishes were
horses then beggars would ride_. Hundreds of unusual
deaths occurred every day, but because there was no
wishing stone, no one chalked them up to anything but
chance.

There might even be some element of self-fulfilling
prophecy in the stone, but that was no more powerful than
the morning's horoscope, which, come to think of it, wasn't
that different a phenomenon.

Scully rubbed at her swollen nose with her handkerchief,
took a deep breath against the throbbing pain of the incessant
headache.

Mechanism. There had to be a mechanism. How was the
box being sent, how were the recipients connected, where
did the list come from? Answer these questions, stop its
transfer and get the hell out of here before anything and
anyone else got damaged. And somehow get her partner
back in the process.

Scully sighed. She could hear him rummaging around in the
small kitchen, which was really only a part of the living
room. _Search_, she told herself. _Even if you don't know
what you're looking for_.

The door on the other side of the bedroom looked like an
ordinary closet, but when she pushed it open she had to bite
back a gasp.

"Mulder!"

He came fast, crossed the room in a few long strides.
Looked in over her shoulder.

It was a darkroom, crammed with plastic tubs, strung with
clotheslines and stinking of chemistry. It reminded her of
another New York darkroom she'd visited only a few
months earlier. The scar in her abdomen ached and she felt,
for the second time today, like she might throw up.

He seemed to sense her thoughts, as one hand came to rest
firmly against the exit wound on her back. She was
grateful-the real sensation obliterated the imaginary ghost
pain-but she stepped forward and away from him after only
a moment's contact. Fear was a silly reaction.

"Photographer," she said. "Strange, since he doesn't have
many photos in his apartment."

"There were some of a little boy," Mulder said, stepping in
after her. He peered at a row of 5 by 7 photos hanging from
one of the clotheslines. "But I'd guess he's amateur."

Scully leaned over his arm to see what he was looking at. A
row of black-and-whites, all of different, random people,
hung limp and curled like a kindergarten class' watercolors.
The camera angles were furtive, unexpected, off-kilt and
sometimes the focus was blurred. Here was an old Indian
woman in a sari under a black umbrella, tilted about thirty
degrees with respect to the photo's edges. Here was a young
man with a mohawk and leather jacket, his torso
disproportionately large as if the camera had been angled up
at him.

Mulder moved on, rummaging through stacks of other
photos, while Scully went to the back of the room, where
several roles of film hung from the line like flytape,
dummy-weighted by their plastic cartridges at the bottom.
As soon as she looked at the first roll she knew this was
what they were looking for.

"The stone," she said, and Mulder hurried to her side. They
took down two rolls and spread the out on the light box.

The negatives were almost identical, though each was from a
slightly different angle. All in all, they probably made up all
360 degrees--enough photos, Scully thought, for a computer
animator to render its shape.

Which was mostly nondescript, like lumpy, unmolded clay.

"I don't think that's it," Mulder was saying, frowning.
"Gatwick said it was a black stone. It's black in the
negative, so it must be white."

Scully leaned closer. "Hmm. Film can be overexposed by
high amounts of radiation, creating a negative image of a
negative. Sometimes you'll see photographs of a black sun,
or bands in a protein gel radiograph, which _is_ a negative,
that appear white."

"Radiation?" His voice picked up like an excited puppy.

"Don't read too much into that, Mulder, I"-she paused,
drew her brows together in thought and picked up the
magnifying glass next to the light box. She unclipped a role
of negatives and bent over the image. "Mulder, I think I've
seen this thing before."

His brows drew together and he leaned over to look. It was
a close-up view of the object, stationed quite obviously on
the man's desk.

He stood up with a jerk. "That was on Rose's dresser. With
her other figurines."

"That's right," Scully said. "I remember it. It was next to a
ballerina."

"Scully, you _touched _it."

"What?"

"You touched it, remember? You picked it up. She glared at
you."

"Oh, that's right," she said, cursing his near-photographic
memory. "But you don't think"-she saw that he did indeed.
"Mulder."

"What were you thinking, Scully? What were you thinking
when you picked it up?"

"This is ridiculous, Mulder."

He seized her shoulders with both hands, enunciating each
word slowly. "What were you thinking?"

She gave what she hoped seemed an exasperated sigh, but
he was making her uncomfortable and she wanted to blame
her churning stomach on the stench of developer. "I don't
know. How am I supposed to remember that?"

"I was talking," he reminded her. "Donnovan was walking
around by the costumes and Carmichael was by the door."

Scully thought. "I remember that. Rose was crying. I was
just trying to break the rhythm."

"So was it something about the girl? Did you wish she'd
stop crying?"

"Maybe. I don't remember."

"Or did you wish something about me? You were angry at
me, weren't you?"

"Well...yes, in a way. But-"

"More than you were worried about the girl? What was
foremost in your mind?"

She shrugged off his grip, frustrated. "I don't know,
Mulder."

"Were you wishing I'd stop asking questions like that? Were
you wishing you hadn't come?"

"No!" she snapped, finally too frustrated, too irritated, too
sick, for this game. "I was wishing we weren't there,
Mulder. I was wishing there was some way I could get you
back on track, get your sense of direction back. Okay?"

He dropped his hands to his sides. "You seem to remember
pretty clearly."

"Maybe I do. Look, Mulder, this has nothing to do with
anything, because this is just a rock. Superstition."

"The cancer, Scully," he said. "The cancer."

"It's not cancer, it's a cold, dammit!"

As soon as she'd denied it like that, she knew she'd never
be able to convince him. He looked at her sadly.

"What better way to get me back on track, Scully?"

Her phone rang; they both jumped. She fumbled to pull it
out of her coat, took a deep calming breath before
answering. "Scully."

"Agent Scully, it's Ken Carmichael. I was just...you know,
checking in. Wondering what happened last night."

"A lot of things," Scully answered, grateful for the renewed
demands of professionalism. "We'll tell you all about it.
Listen, in the meantime, can you pull up any info on a guy
named Joshua Hammarskjold? Even just occupation--"

"Hammarskjold? The guy who's holding his kid hostage
downtown?"

"What?" At her explosive tone, Mulder seized her wrist,
bending down to listen in.

"Not the same guy?"

"What guy?"

"This taxi driver named Josh Hammarskjold kidnapped his
kid a few hours ago and is in a hostage situation at FAO
Schwartz. Some of our guys are there. But you must not
mean-"

Mulder angled the phone closer to his mouth. "No, wait. It
could be him. Tall blonde guy?"

"I think so...."

"Meet us there, Carmichael." He pressed Scully's thumb
down over the disconnect button.

The two agents stared at each other for a moment-Scully's
eyes wide and Mulder's narrow.

"It's not cancer," Scully said again.

Mulder was silent for a long moment, considering. At last he
dipped his chin and said, "We have to go."

Scully nodded her relief.

16. Cry of the Loon

---------------------------------------------------

8:22 p.m.

FAO Schwartz

The famous toy store was crowded with flimsy yellow tape
and policemen standing in slush like some grotesque parody
of Christmastime shoppers. Armed with badges, Mulder and
Scully ducked underneath and headed for the lobby doors,
where a few sharp words and their ineffable air of
confidence got them inside.

The men in charge stood just behind the Lego sculpture of
the Statue of Liberty and in front of the halogen-lit,
touch-activated piano octave built into the floor. A tight knot
of officers and detectives were huddled around a small
television set, watching, Mulder presumed, a surveillance
camera. Eerie quiet pervaded the enormous room.

Carmichael burst through the doors before they could reach
the policemen, announcing their presence with a too-loud
"Agents!"

Everyone turned to look at them.

"Who are you?" growled a bulky, slate-haired
African-American man in an equally slate trenchcoat.

"Agents Mulder and Scully, FBI," Mulder answered.
"We're here with Carmichael."

The man frowned. "I'm Sam Gregory, the chief in this
precinct. I'm in charge until the SWAT team arrives, and the
last thing we need is extra bodies. Carmichael, why are you
here?"

"Well, Agent Mulder said-"

"We were just at Hammarskjold's apartment," Mulder
interrupted smoothly, "led there by a related investigation."

"Oh, so ghosts are responsible for this, too?" a familiar
voice called out.

"Donnovan," Gregory snapped, "I told you to keep quiet if
you wanted to come. You're walking on thin ice."

Reaffirmed in his dislike of the officer, Mulder tossed a
friendly nod at Donnovan, who was standing on the
periphery of the group, glaring with clenched fists.

"You seen a hostage situation before?" Gregory asked.

"Several," Scully answered, before Mulder could speak.

"You know to keep out of the way, then," the man replied.
"We may have questions for you in a minute." He turned
back to the monitor.

Carmichael hurried up to the agents. "What's going on?" he
whispered. "I don't understand."

"We'll explain in a minute," Mulder assured him, starting
toward the monitor. Scully followed.

Scully had to stand in front of him and crane her neck
between two other men's shoulders to see, but Mulder had
an almost unobstructed view. On the tiny greyscale screen, a
tall dark-haired man had his gun-toting arm around a
sobbing boy who looked nine or ten, restraining him.
Behind the pair were rows of teletubbies.

Carmichael, who was as tall as Mulder, leaned too close for
Mulder's comfort. "I thought you said blonde!" he hissed.

Mulder gave an irritated shrug, leaning away. "With a name
like Hammarskjold, he _should've_ been blonde."

"Is this live or tape?" he heard Scully ask.

"Live," answered the officer beside her. "We had 'em run
out a wire-the security office is too far away from the
scene."

"So it may not be the same guy at all," Carmichael was
saying.

"Oh, it's him," Mulder said. "Divorce. He wanted his kid
back, didn't he? And something went wrong."

The man who'd been talking to Scully turned to him. "That
would probably be his dead ex-wife," he supplied.

"What do you mean?" Scully asked.

"He shot his wife around noon. Maybe didn't mean to, we
can't tell yet. We think he freaked, grabbed the kid and ran,
but the kid was upset so...."

"So bring him to the toy store," Scully finished. "Why'd he
end up pulling the gun here?"

"Another shopper saw the blood on his shirt and the crying
kid, told a security guard. When the rent-a-cop confronted
him, he panicked and whipped out the gun. We've got two
men on him now."

The officer turned back to the screen and the tense masculine
murmurs continued. A cell phone rang; the smiling clock
tower clanged and started to play tinkling music.

"Could somebody shut that thing off?" the chief yelled, and
in moments the music wound down, moaning like each of
the seven layers of hell before it finally stopped.

"He's a taxi driver," Mulder said quietly.

"What?" Scully craned her neck around to look up at him.

"A taxi driver," Mulder repeated. "But he wants to be a
photographer. I think those photos we saw must've been
taken from the cab."

"Pictures of people on the street?"

"Of New Yorkers," Mulder said. "It's not a bad idea. That's
why the angles are so funny. He doesn't want people to
know he's taking them. He may not even lift the camera to
his eye."

"A photographer," Scully repeated, and he saw her eyes
unfocus as understanding dawned. "That's the
commonality."

"Yes," he said, staring into her blue eyes. "Exactly."

Carmichael's round face darted into the periphery of their
gaze. "Exactly what?"

Scully looked at him. "Artists," she said.

"Bad ones," Mulder added.

"Aspiring ones," Scully corrected.

Mulder turned to Carmichael before the younger man could
open his mouth. "Where in New York do _aspiring_ artists
get together?" he asked. "Is there a newspaper? An internet
service? A bulletin board in some basement?"

"I don't know, I'm sure there're lots of places, but I still
don't see-"

Mulder stopped listening, pushing forward through the
small crowd. "I want to talk to him," he said to whoever
was listening.

He felt Scully's hand on his arm and remembered that very
morning, which he'd been trying hard not to think about,
remembered that she didn't trust him to do this, and all the
men were looking at him; Gregory was opening his mouth
to speak, but then a walkie talkie crackled to life and a voice
said, "SWAT team's here."

"Get out of the way," the chief ordered, and Scully tugged
him back. The doors opened and the SWAT team poured in,
hauling their equipment with them.

Mulder shrugged off Scully's grip. Her eyes were
simultaneously anxious and steely, if that were possible.

"Scully, I know what I'm doing," he hissed, angry at the
way she made him feel childish. "I know what we need to
ask him."

"Mulder, what we need to ask him doesn't matter now," she
answered, her voice maddeningly calm. "The boy-"

He blinked. "You think I don't know that? Jesus, Scully."
But there was uncomfortable truth in what she said. He
hadn't been thinking about how to get the kid released, only
about the information he needed. He assumed he'd be able
to handle the former in the process, but that would have to
be played by ear-

Her face had gone as blank as if it had been cast in bronze, a
sure sign that he was either hurting or angering her. Or both.
Well, tit for tat.

Christ, what a terrible aphorism.

"It doesn't matter what either of us thinks," she said at last.
"The SWAT team's here--they're not going to let you near
him."

He knew she was right, of course. And here was
Carmichael again, bobbing around somewhere near
Mulder's shoulder.

"Will someone please tell me what's going on?" he asked.

It took some time to bring the young man up to speed,
which at least served the purpose of refocusing Mulder's
frustration. Carmichael had questions at every turn, and his
eyes got increasingly wider as they explained the events of
the past eighteen hours. He seemed dubious about the
wishing stone, but was satisfied by Scully's predictable
horoscope analogy, and by her assertion that even though
the thing had no supernatural power, it clearly wreaked
havoc quite well using only human psychology.

Carmichael said he still didn't understand why Gatwick
killed himself, damping Mulder's anger considerably with
renewed fear of guilt. With a faithfulness that made him
want to either weep or hit someone, Scully answered that
Gatwick had been threatened by someone unknown, and
that he had seemed genuinely broken by Rice's death.

"Maybe he had something to hide," Carmichael suggested,
eager.

Scully shrugged. "Maybe."

She hated to lie, Mulder knew that. He berated himself for
his earlier irritation-this was all his fault and he didn't
deserve that loyalty, but damn, he hated it when she played
martyr like this, and still, she might be dying (because of
him) so why hadn't Diana called back?

This time he'd kill that black-lunged son of a bitch.
Spender'd been the lucky one.

He heard a whirring noise above him, looked up to see a
battery-operated biplane flying in a circle on a string. In a
second orbit above it hummed a black helicopter.

Then there was shouting and the urgent, heavy clomping of
boots on the tiled floor. The SWAT team had done its job.

                        *

Donnovan ran after the uniformed men, and no one stopped
him. He wanted to see, _had_ to see this man, to put a face
to this evil.

He thought of his own daughter at that age, with her long
gymnastic limbs and skinned knees, her cherub's cheeks,
and the way his heart had nearly burst with love whenever
he came home to find her at the kitchen table, doing her
spelling homework in that big, loopy handwriting.

He wanted to see the bastard who could kill his child's
mother and then hold that child at gunpoint. He wanted to
spit in the monster's face.

Donnovan knew as soon as he came close that he wouldn't
get the chance, though. The SWAT team leader was
standing between the beanie babies and the teletubbies,
banging her fist repeatedly against the shelf as a string of
curses poured out. Donnovan stepped up behind her,
between two other team members, and his vision went red
with rage.

The boy lay still, his soft cheeks spattered with blood. It
was difficult to tell where the bullet had hit, but it must've
been in the torso, given the amount of blood there. The
boy's fingers were still flexing, though he was clearly
unconscious.

Two EMTs scurried above him, tying and oxygenating and
levering a gurney into position. When one of them stepped
aside Donnovan saw a plain, roundish black rock near the
kid's hand. It didn't look like a toy. He wondered what it
was.

No one hovered over the man, probably because the top half
of his head was missing. Not that anyone was telling
Donnovan anything, but he didn't need to be told: the
motherfucker had shot the boy and then ate his own gun.

The EMTs were loading the kid onto the stretcher, so he
must be still alive, but his chances didn't look good.
Donnovan knew that for a kid, a shot to the abdomen was
almost always fatal. Those little organs were just so damn
close together.

They carried him away through a uniformed crowd that
parted like the Red Sea. Cops moved in then, taking pictures
and notes and asking questions. No one told him to do
anything.

Bastards. This was what twenty years of loyalty bought
you-the chance to stand on the sidelines. Gregory had
warned him that after Carmichael's report he could be
headed for traffic duty, or at least suspension, but until the
case was reviewed, this on-the-scene non-action was the
compromise.

Well, it wasn't like he hadn't done this before. He could
make himself useful. Show the chief he was valuable and
humble to boot.

He picked up an evidence bag and a pair of latex from the
box someone had brought, waited until the cameras had
done their thing and then bent down to retrieve the stone
near his feet, which he assumed had rolled from the kid's
hand.

His fingers were almost on it when he heard a
shout-"Donnovan, stop!"

He looked up-it was that Fibbie nutcase, Mulder. As if he
had any authority here. Donnovan kept reaching for the
stone. Right behind him was that dumbass Carmichael, the
fucker who was going to cost him his job, he wished that
son of a bitch would-

He picked up the stone and dropped it into the bag.

                        *

Mulder leapt over a puddle of blood and jerked the evidence
bag out of Donnovan's grasp. "I told you to stop!" he cried.

Donnovan tried to grab the bag back, Mulder's grip was too
strong and the two men pulled it back and forth between
them like two children fighting over a toy. "What were you
thinking?" Mulder demanded. "What were you thinking?"

"What the fuck are you talking about, you loon? What do-"

Strong hands separated them and Mulder was left holding
the bag, while two policemen held his arms. Donnovan
began sputtering curses.

"Goddammit!" Gregory roared. "Donnovan, I told you to sit
quiet! You think we don't got enough trouble here?" He
strode past the beanie babies, his wrath now turned on
Mulder.

"And what the goddamn hell do you think you're doing?
Gimme that." He snatched the bag away, ignoring Mulder's
yelp of protest.

"Listen," Mulder said, trying to remake himself into
something presentable. "Listen. It's okay. Let go of me. I
can explain."

"You better," the chief said, but he nodded at the officers to
release him.

Mulder dropped his freed arms to his sides. "Sir," he said,
"what's in that bag is what brought us here. It's killed five
people now, maybe more. You mustn't let anyone touch it."

The big man frowned. "Donnovan touched it," he said. "I
don't see anything happening to him."

"That's not how it works," Mulder said. "It's a"-his eyes
darted around the onlookers' faces, found Scully's, which
were wide with warning. "Maybe I'd better explain this to
you in private," he suggested.

"I think that's a good idea, Agent," answered Gregory. "In
fact, I think you _and_ Carmichael may have a lot of
explaining to do. But right now we have more important
things to take care of. Don't go anywhere. You neither,
Donnovan."

The man turned around, bag in hand, and crossed the
bloody aisle again to return to the men he'd been talking to
before. Donnovan threw him an enraged glare, muttered
something obscene, and then (thankfully) stalked away.

Scully appeared at his side, her eyes cool and unjudging.
"What are you going to tell him?" she asked.

Mulder ran one tired hand through his hair. "The truth," he
said. "But not now. This could take hours-we'll talk to him
tomorrow."

Scully blinked slowly, a sure sign of disagreement. "What
do you want to do now instead?" she asked.

"Here's what I think happened," he told her, as the
ever-present Carmichael stepped up behind her to listen.
"Hammarskjold's wish was that his family would be
together again. Or something like that. Maybe he even
waited to make the wish until he got to his ex-wife's house,
did it standing outside the door, holding his breath. Then he
went in, but his proposition didn't go over so well with
her."

"Why'd he have a gun with him?" Carmichael asked.

"It was obviously an all-or-nothing proposition. He was
desperate."

"And he shot her," Scully finished.

"Right. But he hadn't completely meant to. And he didn't
know what to do. He probably tried to make it look like a
burglary or something, but the kid was crying and he was
clumsy, and he brought the kid here. Woman reports him,
security guard confronts him, and he knows he'll be found
out about his ex-wife's murder, so out comes the gun and
now everything is _really_ out of control. SWAT team
shows up and starts to negotiate with him, but the kid had
the stone in the end, and I bet if we rewind that tape we'll
see him give it to the kid, tell the kid to make a wish."

"The leader did say she didn't know why he fired," Scully
admitted.

"Right," Mulder answered. "The stone made him fire.
Maybe he thought he saw a gun, or someone stepping
around a corner, and his finger slipped. Whatever. But it
was because the kid just wished this whole thing would
end."

Carmichael gasped, at last realizing the extent of Mulder's
theory.

"You're doing it too," Scully told her partner. "You're
filling in the story because you assume there has to be one.
It could've been exactly like you said even if the stone was
just an ordinary rock."

He ignored her-there was no point in arguing this now.
"What I think we need to do," he continued, "is get back to
Hammarskjold's place and figure out where he was
supposed to send it next, before the police get in there and
overturn everything."

"But we've got the stone!" Scully objected. "Why
continue?"

"We have to get to the root of this. We have to figure out
how it works."

Carmichael looked at him like he was crazy, but Scully only
sighed. "That's not a good enough reason to piss off the
chief, Mulder. Not at this point."

"Scully-"

But she held up one hand. "Listen," she said firmly. "I'll go
back to Hammarskjold's and check it out while you stay
here. Gregory wants to talk to you, not me. You get
Carmichael out of hot water and explain the facts to him. If
you want to keep your credibility I suggest you keep your
speculation to yourself."

Mulder didn't like this plan, but to say so would be to admit
he wasn't sure she could find what he wanted her to at
Hammarskjold's. And besides, she was right-if they wanted
to keep this case they'd have to placate the authorities.

"Fine," he answered. "Fine. I'll see you back at the hotel."

She nodded. "And we'll talk there," she said, her voice
layered with many meanings.

That's right. He'd almost forgotten that. He felt a sudden
wave of nostalgia for background checks and fertilizer
reports.

End 8/12 
17. Old Acquaintance, Not Forgot

---------------------------------------------------

11:59 p.m.

Grand Central Hyatt

Mulder knocked on Scully's door first, but she must not
have come back yet. His meeting with the chief had not gone
well; in fact, the word 'crackpot' had been used more than
once, but apparently Carmichael was sufficiently
dispensable that they hadn't closed the precinct's end of the
case.

He unlocked his own room and stepped inside, shrugging
off his coat. The lights were off, but his eyes adjusted
quickly, and that's when he saw the figure in his bed. His
tired heart relaxed. She was sick; he kept forgetting she was
sick, mostly because she wouldn't let him remember.

Forget the talking. He'd just curl up behind her and tell her
he was sorry and they'd finish this thing up as fast as
possible and get back to Washington. Start again. And she
could see her doctor.

She was right-they could be done here. The stone was in
custody, would soon be locked into an evidence vault, and
no one would ever believe him anyway. If Donnovan got off
some wish, well, fine, that would be resolved in a day or
two and there was nothing they could do to stop it anyway.
Of course, if it worked through latex, then it would probably
work through the plastic bag as well.

Don't think about that now.

He unbuckled his shoulder holster, laid it quietly on the
dresser. If only there were a wish that would reliably
destroy the stone without some unforeseen consequence. If
you simply wished it to be demolished, you or someone you
loved would probably end up demolished with it. Or maybe
it would end up on the business end of a falling anvil,
shattered into pieces that performed the bidding of whoever
touched them.

Mulder stepped out of his pants and tugged his undershirt
off over his head. He'd think about it in the morning. Scully
hadn't come to him like this in a long time and he wanted
nothing more now than to sleep beside her.

_It's not the cancer,_ she had said, and he didn't believe she
even believed herself.

She stirred as he approached, started to sit up. She wasn't
Scully.

"Fox?" Diana asked, her voice blurred by sleep.

Mulder leapt backwards. "Diana! What are you doing here?"

She pulled her knees up under her, reached out to turn on
the bedside lamp. Her hair, charmingly mussed by the
pillow, glistened in the pale yellow light. "I'm sorry I
borrowed your bed. I thought you'd be back sooner, and the
days have been long lately."

"How did you find me?" He felt strangely naked, though he
was wearing boxers and she'd seen him naked anyway more
than once. He knew he should maybe get his gun, but with
her sitting there like that, childlike the way she used to, the
weapon seemed ridiculous.

"Triangulated your cell phone call," she answered, in sharp
contradiction to the youthful image. "You haven't filed your
travel records with the FBI yet. Shame on you."

"That's Scully's department," he said automatically.

"Yes, I figured," Diana answered. "I remember your
paperwork habits. Where is she?"

"She'll be back any minute," he said, and Diana smiled.

"Don't worry, Fox. I'm not going to embarrass you in front
of her."

"That's not what I..." he began, but let the words trail off,
because it was.

"Sit down," she suggested. "You look like a scared rabbit."

He moved his clothes and sat in the chair across from the
bed. "I don't appreciate you letting yourself in, Diana."

Her reply was quick. "You mean like you do?"

Mulder decided to ignore that. "What do you want?" he
asked.

"I want to help you," she said, her face hardened into
serious earnestness. "Why do you want to meet with him?
What can I do?"

"I want to talk to him," Mulder said, finality in his voice.

"You don't trust me," Diana surmised.

"I don't trust him."

"But me?"

He dropped his head into his hands. "I don't know," he
admitted.

A long silence followed. Outside, a siren began to wail and
two cars honked. Mulder studied the face of his ex-partner,
ex-lover, ex-everything, and saw there lines he didn't
remember from before.

Diana crawled to the end of the bed and slid her legs off the
edge, so that their feet were separated by mere inches.
"Fox," she said, leaning forward. "I can understand why
you wouldn't. But you know me, Fox. You know I
wouldn't sell out the work."

"What about humanity?"

"Of course not. I'm trying to save humanity. I'm trying to
do that the only way I know how, the only way that has a
snowflake's chance in hell of working."

"By working for them."

"They're trying too," Diana insisted.

Mulder raised his face to hers, the charred scent of burnt
bodies on a bridge, in a hangar, strong in his memory. The
recurring nightmare he had, in which Scully was among
them. "What happened that night?" he asked, his voice
barely a whisper.

She knew what he was talking about. "It was a trap. They
died."

"Not you."

"No, not me, or my employer. We arrived too late, thanks,
inadvertently, to you. And Scully."

Mulder bit his lip. He wasn't sure it was a responsibility he
wanted to accept. "Where have you been?" he asked.
"Where are you now?"

"Trying to put Humpty together again," she said. "I'll be
back at the Bureau soon, don't worry."

He wasn't sure if he'd been worried or not. There were so
many conflicting emotions: the memory of her soft hands on
his thighs, of the admiration in her dark eyes when he'd
caught the bad guy. And now, this hardness.... "Have you
ever killed anyone, Diana? Do you know how that feels?"

Her lips thinned and he guessed she did, yes.

"I know you're angry," she said, her rich alto voice
soothing, assuring, familiar. "I know you feel like I left
you, betrayed you. I wish it weren't true, Fox, but it is.
Sometimes we have to betray what we love for the greater
good. Please understand that."

Mulder settled back into his chair, hands resting limp on its
arms. He didn't want to think about this. "I want a meeting
with him," he repeated.

"If you're thinking of joining us, that can be arranged, but
we need to know-"

"No! I mean, no. I told you: he lied to me."

"About what?" Her voice, ever patient, ever insistent, he
wanted to believe it. He wanted to believe it could be so easy
to act with impunity.

If he told her about Scully's bleeding, she might be able to
help, or at least she might be convinced to arrange the
meeting. But as long as he kept them guessing, they could
never weigh whether they were too busy or not, and the
only man he knew for sure could act was CGB.

"I can't explain, Diana."

On the last word in his sentence, there came a knock at the
connecting room door. Scully. Should he tell Diana to hide?
No, that was ridiculous, and would only make things
worse.

He stood up as she knocked again, warning Diana with his
eyes. Scully opened the door before he could.

"Hey, Scully," he said. "Look who's here."

She'd already seen the other woman, and her posture went
straighter, though she still looked small without her shoes.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded.

"I called her, Scully," Mulder said, before Diana could
answer. "I didn't expect her to come."

"I'll always come when you call, Fox," Diana said,
standing. She held out a hand toward Scully, who didn't
return the gesture but turned back to Mulder.

"You called her," she repeated, and he heard the unspoken
'without telling me.'

He tried to telegraph his excuse, but she was already talking
to Diana again. "What happened that night?"

"As I was just telling your partner," Diana answered,
dropping her hand, "it turned out to be a trap. The others
were killed."

"And we're supposed to believe you weren't leading us
straight into it."

"You can believe what you like, Agent Scully."

"I believe what I see," Scully snapped. "And I see you still
standing here, despite those other deaths."

Mulder decided this needed to stop. "This isn't the time," he
interjected, stepping between the two women. "Diana, if you
can't answer my question, we don't have time for anything
else right now."

Diana looked from one agent to the other, then nodded. "I
see."

Mulder didn't like the sound of that, but at least she was
leaving. She shrugged into her coat and started for the door.
"You have my number," she said, hand on the knob.

"And you have mine," Mulder replied.

She left without saying good-bye and Scully rounded on
him.

"What the hell was that about?" she asked, folding her arms.

"I called her this morning," he told her. Had it really only
been this morning? "After I saw the blood on your pillow."

One hand flew to her face, to her nose. "Blood?" Her
fingers slid up to her temples. "I had a bloody nose last
night. But it's not the cancer, Mulder, it's not. Just this
cold--"

"You don't know that," he insisted.

"I don't not know it. And I have a check-up next week. But
that still doesn't excuse not telling me."

"I didn't ask her to come," Mulder said, stepping closer to
her. Her eyes dropped to his boxers.

"Scully!" he protested, though she hadn't spoken. "I
answered the door like this. I thought it was you."

No. No, don't lie, even if it was easier. "No, wait, I'm
sorry, Scully, that wasn't how it happened. I don't know
why I said that. I came in and she was asleep in the bed. The
lights were off and I thought it was you."

She folded her arms across her chest, and thankfully moved
on. "Mulder, I came in here to tell you what I found tonight.
First, you were right, the next victim's name was at
Hammarskjold's apartment. On his answering machine, in
fact. I have a copy of the tape, which contains a name and
address followed by a threat to make Hammarskjold eat his
own penis if he doesn't comply within two days or if he tells
anyone. It sounds like a woman's voice."

Mulder grimaced. "Another New York address, though," he
said.

"Yeah. We can ask that woman how her name made the list.
Tomorrow. The second thing is that the Hammarskjold boy
died in the hospital about an hour ago."

"Their family's together," Mulder breathed, and realized
from her expression that he must not have sounded
sufficiently upset about that, which irritated him.

"Third," she continued before he could speak, "since the
answering machine was easy, I decided to use the extra time
going back over Gatwick's situation. The police that went
through the apartment found this." She unfolded a note from
her pocket and handed it to Mulder.

He glanced at the photocopy. "This is a suicide note!"

"Yeah," she said. "So your conscience is clear."

He thought she sounded almost disappointed, but he _was_
relieved.

"It doesn't change the fact that it could've happened,
though," she pointed out. "I'm worried about you, Mulder.
I don't know what to think."

"Well, maybe if you'd stop questioning my motives...." He
trailed off, not sure what the second part of that clause
should be.

"Questioning your motives is part of my job," she said
flatly.

"Look, Scully, I was right about this being an X-File, while
you thought I was just screwing off. I was right about the
connections you called just coincidence. I'm solving a case
here. That's part of my job."

"Are you saying you'd rather have a partner who praises
everything you do so the world can knock you down when
you hand in your report?" Scully demanded. "That can be
arranged. I'm sure Diana could help you out there."

So this was talking. They'd never tried it before. He didn't
think he liked it much. "That's not what I mean," he said.

Scully heaved an exasperated sigh. "Mulder, why call her?"

"To arrange a meeting with the smoking man," he answered,
trying to gentle his face into persuasiveness. "If it's cancer,
the chip's not working."

"Is that why you didn't tell me? So you could strike a deal
with them and alleviate the guilt when you finally sign up for
Diana's team?"

"God damn it, Scully, that's not how it is and you know it.
I'm not 'switching teams.' If you could just see past this
petty jealousy, you'd understand that maybe there aren't any
teams, that Diana Fowley wants the same thing we do."

It was the first time he'd said the word _jealousy_ out loud,
the first time he'd crossed the line of her professional
dignity. Her hands dropped to her hips and she swung away
from him with a loud sigh.

"This is not some petty catfight over who gets to sleep with
you. How can you suggest that?"

Mulder closed his eyes.

Scully kept talking, her voice lower now. "Mulder, you
asked me if you were supposed to make a choice between
her and me and I didn't have the guts to say yes, but I have
the guts now. Here: you have to make a choice."

"Scully, I'm not even-"

"No, Mulder. Listen. Diana Fowley will compromise
anything and I will compromise _nothing_. Do you
understand that? Are you going to play the men in power
like she has, ends justify the means? Are you going to kill a
thousand men for the sake of a hundred thousand? Or
worse, run for the next spaceship that promises salvation
while the rest of the world dies?"

She let that sink in a moment, then stepped close to him,
clasped his upper arm. "Or are you going to be able to end
this life knowing you always did the right thing?"

He swallowed, feeling the iron heat of her hand around his
arm, the memory of her hot breath on his chin. "Scully," he
pleaded, "it's not just me. If I can protect the people...the
people I love..."

"I don't want that, Mulder," Scully breathed. "I don't want
my life at the expense of your soul."

He didn't know what to say; he was afraid he might cry.

She took a step toward him, dropping her arms, and they
were mere inches apart. "I don't think you're sleeping with
her, Mulder. I only wish it were as simple as jealousy."

"I didn't mean..." he began, but his voice trailed off,
because the truth was he did.

"I'm not sure where you're going anymore," she continued,
and as she spoke she leaned her head forward until her
forehead bumped his chest. Her hair felt like heaven against
his naked skin-painful and sweet. "But I feel like you're
running the wrong races too fast, just so you don't have to
stop and think about which one is right."

"I don't know," he said, squeezing his eyes shut. He'd said
that to Diana, too.

They stood still and silent for a moment, regretting and
justifying. At last, Scully pressed her lips against his
breastbone, not kissing, just touching. She pulled back after
barely more than a second, and in the lines of her face he
saw years of hurt and loyalty before she turned away and
headed sadly for her room.

At the door she stopped, turned back. "Don't lie to me," she
said, one hand on the doorframe.

"I won't," he promised, trying to keep his voice steady. At
least they could agree on that--with certainty.

---------------------------------------------------

18. Simplicity

---------------------------------------------------

Monday

March 9

9:45 a.m.

New York City Ninth Precinct

"Hey guys!"

Carmichael met the agents almost at the door, waving a
sheaf of papers around as if he'd discovered five more
commandments.

"I've got something," he said, holding out the papers. When
Mulder didn't move, Scully took them.

"The answering machine tape Agent Scully brought back,"
Carmichael continued. "Turns out there was a similar
message found on a machine in a jumper's house about six
months ago. Wasn't much investigation, since the guy did
himself in, and they couldn't find any connections to drugs
or politics."

"Was he an artist?" Mulder asked.

"Nope. Daytrader. Which, I know, sounds obvious, but still
there's the tape. And besides, the last guy was a taxi driver,
right?"

"I heard the boy died," said Mulder. Scully pressed her lips
into a thin line and Carmichael's face fell.

"Yeah. Yeah, he did."

"You ever seen a dead kid, Carmichael?"

Carmichael's brow furrowed. "With all due respect, Agent
Mulder, I don't see how-"

Scully cut them off. "This _is_ the same kind of message
Hammarskjold got," she said, her eyes fastened on the page
in her hand. "Same woman, too?"

"Yes," Carmichael answered, glad to get back to his
discovery. "At first estimate, anyway. I mean, I just
listened, didn't do anything technical."

"Same castration threat, though slightly different wording,"
Scully continued. "Okay. Whoever's running this has
obviously been in business for awhile."

"And may be able to make another stone," Mulder pointed
out.

"But we've got a name and address in that message,"
Carmichael said. "We can follow the trail."

"While pursuing the current one," Mulder added. "We need
to find out if the daytrader had any artistic hobbies. We need
to know what he was reading or if he had online aliases.
How are these people getting on the list and who's keeping
it?"

"Going through advertisements in publications is going to be
a lot of work, even if it's just art ones," Carmichael said,
starting to sound disappointed.

"Work we won't have to do if someone will tell us how they
got involved," Scully said.

"Okay," Carmichael said, brightening again. "Why don't I
do the woman from Hammarskjold's machine and you two
take the-"

"The address from Hammarskjold's machine is a prostitute
social services center," Mulder interjected. "You'll make
them nervous."

"I'll do that," Scully said, a look of mild irritation crossing
her face.

Carmichael's instinct for psychology, still in its formative
phases, finally kicked in. "Hey, did something happen? You
two seem-"

"I'll take the guy from the daytrader's message," Mulder
interrupted. "Carmichael, you can come with me or stay here
and do the background checks on these people."

"I'll come," the younger man said.

"Any chance we could get another officer to do the
background work?" Mulder prodded. "It's important."

Carmichael, who would've made a bad poker player, clearly
felt like asking 'then why don't you do it?', but settled
instead for an awkward laugh. "Not unless you know how
to clone me. No one thinks this is important enough
to--Hey, what'd I say?"

---------------------------------------------------

11:33 a.m.

Scully had spent her life disliking easy things, although she
maintained a deep appreciation for simple ones. Fools and
cowards could have the easy; the real challenge and rewards
lay in refining the complex into the simple.

Take circuitry, for example. Synapses. Faith. All simple,
but never easy. All interwoven in the complexity of
consciousness.

Mulder was far from easy, but she'd never met a simpler
man. Or so she'd believed until lately. The realization he
must've missed in adolescence, that the good guys don't
always win, blurred his edges in her vision. She couldn't
tell why: it seemed in some ways that his one-track mind had
gotten splintered and in others that the sight of the finish line
just made him bitchy.

He still respected, loved Diana. She couldn't pinpoint when
she'd realized that, last night. She couldn't decide how to
feel about it-on the one hand she understood the conflict and
respected his loyalty; on the other, well...she could keep
after the goal even if he was sleeping with someone else, but
if he started going after it _her_ way, she'd just have to do
the right thing on her own. No matter how much it hurt,
because lives and both their histories were at stake.

She emerged from the subway into the frosty air, scanned
the corner for the address printed on the card in her coat.
There it was: _Another Way_. She frowned at the trite
name.

Inside was a small lobby that resembled a doctor's waiting
room. The secretary, decked out in centermeter-thick
make-up and bleached hair, was its sole occupant. She gave
Scully's suit and trenchcoat an appraising glance and
squared her shoulders, apparently accustomed to dealing
with cops. "Can I help you?" she asked, her voice chilly.

Scully drew out her badge. "I need to talk to Marina Harris."

"She doesn't come in until past noon," the woman said.
"May I ask what this is in regard to?"

"I can't discuss that," Scully answered. "I'll wait."

The secretary motioned her toward a worn armchair, into
which Scully gratefully sank. She looked around for a
magazine, but the only reading material in the small waiting
room was a pamphlet on STDs and several job circulars.

The chair was so comfortable, the room so quiet, and her
sinuses so hard, that Scully dozed off. She had just found a
place warm enough and dark enough to stay forever when a
hand on her shoulder jerked her awake with a start.

She found herself looking into the earnest face of a
middle-aged black woman with bronzed lips and braids that
fell past her shoulders.

"I'm Marina," the face said. "The secretary told me you
wanted to talk to me."

Scully blinked and straightened her shoulders, trying to
recover her professional dignity by degrees. "Yes. I'm
sorry-I must've fallen asleep. It's been a long week."

"I can see that. Come on back to my office."

                        *

"It's my own enterprise," Marina was explaining. "Well, we
get some money from the city and a grant from the feds, but
mostly it's legwork. No pun intended." She flashed a smile
good enough for a Got Milk? print ad.

It was a spartan and windowless office, decorated mainly
with informative posters and pamphlets like a doctor's exam
room. In keeping with that theme, a jar of condoms was
perched prominently on the corner of Marina's desk.

"So you've been doing this awhile."

"Almost ever since I left the business myself," she replied.
"We've broadened a lot; we're getting into lobbying and
political education campaigns these days, doing a little
cooperative work with the John school-"

"The 'John school?'"

"Like traffic school, but for Johns. City just started it. We
send girls to tell them what they're really thinking when
some guy says 'Blow me, baby.' It's a good thing for
everybody."

"I didn't know they did that."

"You'd be surprised, honey. Now, what did you come here
to ask? I'm assuming this is about one of our girls."

"No," Scully replied. "Actually, it's about you. A man who
died yesterday in a hostage sitution had instructions on his
answering machine to deliver a package to you."

Marina froze, the friendliness draining away. "Oh, my
God."

"I don't mean to alarm you," Scully said quickly. "That is, I
don't think there's reason to be worried."

"Who was he?"

"Ms. Harris, the ninth precinct called us to help with a case
that never quite looked like a case. After some investigation
we've been able to determine that what's causing problems
is a probable case of mail fraud. You were listed on that
answering machine because you were due to next receive the
package, the object of the mail fraud."

Marina gave a small shrug, still not understanding. "What's
in the package?"

Scully shifted in her chair. "A putative 'wishing stone,'" she
said. "Something that allows you to make a wish."

Marina sat up straighter, her hand rising unconcsciously
toward her mouth. "Oh. Oh my God."

"You know what I'm talking about, Ms. Harris?"

"Yes. Yes, I think I do."

"The stone is in custody-it was recovered yesterday. You
don't have to worry. But I need to know how you got on
that list."

"I-a friend of mine did it. For me. It was a birthday
present--she believes in that kind of thing."

"But you don't."

"Of course not," Marina answered, then, more hesitantly, "I
mean, should I? Why is the FBI interested? How did the
guy die?"

"I can't discuss the details of the case," Scully answered.
"But it would be very helpful if we knew how your friend
found out about this."

"I think it was some internet thing," Marina answered.
"She's into that. But I'm not really sure."

"Could I contact her?"

Marina suddenly became very interested in her computer
keyboard. "Maybe I could ask for you."

Scully sighed. "Ms. Harris, we have no interest in anything
but the case at hand. And we're federal agents, not police, if
you get my meaning. I'd prefer to talk to her myself."

Marina nibbled at her lower lip. "Tell you what," she said
after a pause. "I'll call her and ask if it's okay to give you
her name. I'm pretty sure it will be."

"That's fine," Scully answered. "Can you call her now?"

                        *

Shelley agreed and the FBI agent left Marina with her card
and instructions to call if any boxes showed up or anyone
contacted her. Marina wasn't nervous, not really. She'd
dealt with much worse.

But if there was a chance...

She logged onto the internet, ran a search on the New York
Times site for "hostage" and "stone." She knew as soon as
the headline appeared that this must be what she was looking
for.

The article was short, but it had made the front page: _Taxi
driver kills wife, son._ She scanned it quickly, but there
was no mention of any stone. However, the last sentence
caught her eye: "'We're not sure what could provoke a man
to do this,' said Det. Donnovan. 'But we have some leads.'"

Marina slipped out her address book and flipped through it,
then dialed a number.

Moments later, a male voice answered: "This is Donnovan."

"It's Marina Harris, Mike. You remember me?"

"Marina? Sure. How could I forget? How are you?"

He'd let her go ten years ago, wrote up the John instead,
even before that was policy. Invited her and her daughter to
Thanksgiving dinner that year. He'd gotten her the contacts
at the John school.

"Listen, I saw you in the paper today, and I was just
wondering-terrorism's the kind of thing they call the FBI in
on, isn't it?"

"Well, yeah, sometimes. Wasn't that something? Guy shot
his own son. What's wrong, Marina?"

"That wouldn't have nothing to do with the FBI lady who
came by this morning asking me about some stone, would
it?"

"Oh, shit, Marina, how'd you get mixed up in _that_?"

"A friend was gonna buy me a chance at it. I thought it was
dumb, but the FBI woman was talking like maybe it did
something. The stone, I mean." Marina picked up a pen,
began toying with it to give her anxious fingers something to
do.

"They're full of crap. Crackpots. Not playing with a full
deck."

"Can you tell me the story?"

There was a sigh on his end of the line. "I'm in a lot of
trouble, Marina. I'm suspended. Why do you want to know
about that?"

Marina dropped the pen. "Suspended? What happened?"

Another sigh. "I don't want to talk about it. Serious, why do
you want to know?"

"Well, I'm on this list, Mike. She wouldn't tell me anything.
I'm kinda scared."

"Dammit. Those Fibbies never think about what they're
doing to people. Well, I suppose I can't get in anymore
trouble than I already am. Personally, I think it's all
bullshit."

He started to explain.

---------------------------------------------------

1:18 p.m.

New York City P.S. 116

_

Marina Harris

Josh Hammarskjold

Jim Gatwick

Dennis Cleaver

Rose Arlington

_

Mulder stared at the names he'd written on his tablet,
pretending to take notes as Carmichael solicited the life story
of their second interviewee of the day.

Five people. With two kinds of connections: the vertical
ones from one person to the next and the lateral one, their
connection to some common source. But the five had
nothing in common, not even, Scully said and he'd found
today, art.

Shit. The names were in reverse alphabetical order. That had
to mean something. Why hadn't he noticed that before?

He tapped his pen on the tablet. The dead man Carmichael
pulled up had the surname "Wang," and the name on his
answering machine was "Huey," who remembered that
she'd been told to pass the stone along to "Wright," so
scratch that theory. At least during that time period.

More organization? More customers? What had changed?

"Of course, my wife didn't believe me," Wright was saying.
"I hardly know if I believe it myself. I mean, it was a car
accident, you know? That happens all the time. And I'd
known they had the life insurance policy. So we got the
money, but my wife still left me."

Mulder gave an understanding nod, returned his gaze to the
names on his paper. He drew a line from each to a single
question mark, drew a circle around it.

"So then you were instructed to pass the stone to the next
person, right?"

The man, a high school English teacher, shrugged and
seemed to develop a sudden fascination with the the
blackboard notes on _The Crucible,_ left over from his last
class.

"You were threatened, weren't you?" Carmichael
sympathized.

Mulder had hoped the coldness of this trail would
compensate for its temperature by wearing away at the fear
engendered by threats of dismemberment, and it had, to an
extent, but not enough that they'd say how they got on the
list, or whether they even knew who the woman calling
them was. Still, they'd managed to get Wright's name out of
the last woman, Huey. Which was something.

He wondered if Scully was faring any better. Their last
exchange had been a terse recitation of the information
they'd each gathered, just before she went off to meet this
friend of Marina Harris. He'd've thought she'd be done by
now, but-

His cell phone trilled; he groped for it.

"Mulder," he answered, standing up and pacing away from
the interview, where Carmichael was unsuccessfully trying
to ferret out more details.

"It's me," she said, and of course it was. As always, her
timing was impeccable.

"What do you got?"

"She doesn't remember exactly where, but it was an ad in a
SoHo paper. She remembered what it looked like. I have a
sketch."

"Great. What's the M.O.?"

"Call and leave a message. You get a call back telling you
where to leave the cash-and it has to be cash-two hundred
dollars. If you're gullible enough to get that far, presumably
you get put on the list. This woman was doing it as a present
for Harris, so she probably hasn't gotten threatened. That
only seems to start after you get the stone."

"Weird present," Mulder remarked.

"Yeah, well, it's a weird friendship. The woman's a call girl
who doesn't want to be reformed, but knew Harris way
back when. I caught up with her at home. Three kids,
Mulder." Her voice softened a little on the last words.

"Hmm," he said. "Well, this isn't going anywhere here. I
think it's clear, what we have to do."

"I'll meet you back at the station."

He disconnected just before she did, turned back to the other
two men and interrupted Carmichael in the middle of another
question. "Mr. Wright, we're sorry for inconveniencing
you. I'm afraid we're going to have to cut this short."

End 9/12 
19. Allow Four to Six Weeks

---------------------------------------------------

8:12 p.m.

NYPD Ninth Precinct

Carmichael tapped his fingers on the conference table,
making the coffee in the three cups tremble. Mulder paced
back and forth in front of the one-way glass. Scully just sat.

Since Carmichael had no office and they weren't in the
chief's good favors, they'd appropriated an interrogation
room as their base of operations. They'd briefly debated
using Donnovan's empty desk, but unanimously agreed it
was a bad idea. Lying between two of the cups was a
clipped-out advertisement, one inch square. It had been easy
to find-so easy, in fact, that Mulder had cursed himself
aloud for not checking all the NYC papers sooner. It was
still running in the paper in question.

In the ad was a picture of a genie pouring out of a magic
lamp. "One Wish, Guaranteed" was printed above the genie,
and there was a phone number below. The number, they'd
learned, belonged to a Sprint PCS cellular customer with the
dubious name of 'Sarah Snoopy.' Naturally, there was no
Sarah Snoopy in New York, New Jersey or Connecticutt.

"A genie," Scully had said, her voice dry with skepticism.
"In a rock."

"Maybe this is where the original myth arose," Mulder
argued. "She's just using the familiar image to advertise, but
the basis for the myth lies in this stone we're chasing."

"Which has somehow migrated to New York City after
thousands of years."

"Who said there's just been one?"

They had a list of eight customers now, and probably could
have gotten more if they worked on it. Carmichael wanted
more.

"But that last woman you talked to," he'd said to Scully.
"She wasn't an artist. And the men we saw today...."

"Commonalities are just clues," Scully said, more patient
than Mulder today. He'd stopped answering Carmichael's
questions. "They aren't rules. And she may have changed
papers to get a different advertising base."

"I guess I was always taught that-"

"That's for serial killers," Mulder said before he could
finish. "Which I doubt you'll see much of during your
career."

Now they were waiting in a silence broken only by the
sound of Carmichael's accelerated tapping and Mulder's
still-langourous pacing.

"Shouldn't we have more men?" Carmichael ventured to
ask. Mulder stopped pacing.

"Or women, of course," Carmichael added, glancing at
Scully. "I mean, isn't this dangerous?"

"Do you think the chief would give us more?" Scully asked.

"I don't think he'd like this."

"That," Mulder said, "is why we're not asking him."

"Maybe we could call your friend, Mulder," Scully said,
trying to remind him whom he should be angry with. "If
she's still in the area."

Mulder didn't answer, but he did slide into a chair across
from his partner, glaring. Scully took out her handkerchief
and blew her nose noisily, didn't admit to herself how
satisfied she was when his glare melted into guilt.

Silence again, but for the ticking of the clock on the wall.

A phone rang, and they all jumped, all automatically groping
for cell phones. It turned out to be Scully's, though, and the
two men relaxed again.

"Scully," she said into the mouthpiece. "No, this isn't
Domino's Pizza." She disconnected and put her phone away
again.

"Two hundred dollars," Carmichael said into the renewed
quiet. "Who'd be dumb enough?"

"Or desperate enough," Scully pointed out. "The people
we've been talking to haven't been the most stable."

"It's not as if she's getting a lot of customers, either,"
Mulder pointed out. "There's a lot of alphabetical space
between the last names."

"But we don't know the turnaround time of a single list,"
Scully said. "She's gone through this one in a couple
weeks. And as you yourself pointed out, the alphabetical
system is new, which implies she probably has a larger list."

A phone rang again, and this time it was Mulder's. He
answered with a simple "Hello?" then nodded and moved
the phone back from his ear, clicking on the volume button.
Scully leaned across the table to hear.

"So you want a chance to command the genie of Agadez?" a
woman's voice asked. It was the same voice as the one on
the tapes, but kinder and enticing. She spoke in the same
faux gypsy accent that Scully associated with people like the
Stupendous Yappi.

"How do I know it will work?" Mulder asked.

"Guaranteed or your money back."

"Why do you even need money?" Mulder prodded. "If it
really works, why don't you wish for some?"

"Everyone only gets one wish, friend. I've had mine." The
voice was honey, hypnotic. Had this been the voice the
others heard?

"Who are you?"

"Call me Scheherezade. I am your friend. Your ticket to a
better tomorrow."

"And I can wish for anything?" Mulder asked, imitating
boyish wonder. "Anything at all?"

Scully rolled her eyes.

"Anything you desire," intoned 'Scheherezade.' "Anything
at all. Just touch the lamp."

"Where can I find you?"

"Ah, but you can't find me," she replied, a lilting laughter in
her voice. "The genie will find you. And I'll see that it does,
as soon as your account is...well, _paid in full._"

"How much?" Carmichael leaned in closer, his eyes wide.

"Two hundred dollars."

"Two hundred dollars!" Mulder echoed in mock surprise.

"With one wish, you can certainly earn that back,"
Scheherezade replied. "It's not much, considering. And of
course, there's the money-back guarantee."

"Two hundred dollars," he repeated, as if considering. "All
right, fine. Two hundred. How does this work, anyway?"

"Not all things in life must have a mechanism," the woman
said with a grin. To Scully, her voice sounded reedier,
seedier now, but maybe it was just the distance between her
and the phone. "Do you believe or don't you?"

"I want to believe," Mulder replied, and Scully rolled her
eyes again.

"Then here's what you must do. Put the two hundred dollars
and the address you want the lamp to come to in an envelope
and wrap the envelope in a plastic grocery bag. Take it to the
United Nations. Go to the Peace sculpture."

"You mean the gun twisted back on itself?"

"Exactly. At the base of the gun's back end you'll find a
loose flagstone. Lever it up and leave the envelope there, in
the bag. Make sure no one sees you."

"Leave the money? No way," Mulder said. "That's crazy.
How do I know you just won't take it and run?"

"If you are not interested," Scheherazade said, "then we will
forget this conversation ever happened. Goodbye."

"No, wait!" Mulder cried, as Carmichael clenched his
fingers on the table. "Listen, it's okay. Okay. I'll do it.
Just-just as long as you promise."

"You have my word," she said, and Scully thought there
must be a soundtrack to this voice, that that statement
deserved some kind of oohing monks or something.

"I'll do it tonight," Mulder said. "How long will it take?"

"Four to six weeks!" Scherazade promised cheerfully.

"That long? What if I need it really, really badly?"

"I'm sorry," she said. "The genie is busy. And so am I.
Goodbye and good luck."

There was a click on the other end of the line, leaving
Mulder giving his phone an incredulous stare. "I don't
fucking believe this," he said.

Scully blew her nose in agreement.

---------------------------------------------------

United Nations

10:13 p.m.

The plaza was deserted except for a few homeless bums and
the rare suit-clad diplomat walking to his car. The sky was
clouded again, trapping in the city lights, which twinkled
alongside the reflection of the giant Coca Cola sign in the
East River. A few snowflakes were falling, but the traffic
sped by without noticing, hundreds or thousands of people
each ensconced in their own private universes of steel and
vinyl.

At Mulder's gesture, the three of them stepped into the bank
doorway across the street, crowded together in the cold.

"I'm gonna walk straight up," Mulder said, speaking in a
near-whisper though there was no one to hear them. "Slip
the package under the stone. Carmichael-"

"I want to carry the envelope," Carmichael said.

"Have you ever been part of a sting operation?" Mulder
asked.

"Well, no, but-"

"You're not carrying the envelope. Any awkwardness, any
slip, and you'll give us away. She's sure to be watching."

"There aren't enough of us for a sting anyway," Carmichael
said sulkily.

"You're going to go up the left side of the plaza," Mulder
told him. "Keep your eye on me but don't make it look
obvious."

"It's my case, and I think I should carry the envelope,"
Carmichael said, and then looked surprised at his own
boldness.

"Carmichael-"

"Mulder," Scully said, her voice sharp. "Can I talk to you a
minute?"

Great. Great. They were almost there and she wanted to
fight. Mulder looked at his watch.

But Carmichael, seemingly confident in Scully's potential
for defending him, was already stepping out of the
doorway. "I need to visit the ATM anyway," he said, and
Mulder rolled his eyes.

When the younger man had gone, Scully crossed her arms
and looked up at him. "Let him carry the envelope, Mulder,"
she said. "You're being ridiculous. He's right-a sting this
small is dangerous and it's safer if we're watching him
anyway."

"I'm sick of that guy, Scully," he answered. "He's like that
little puppy dog in the Warner Brothers cartoon, following
me around, yipping at my heels...I just think it'll be better if
he's out of the way. Likely enough he won't even be able to
find the loose stone, and'll look around like a dumbass for
awhile, then come back over here and wait for us to tell him
what to do next."

"You're angry at _me_, remember? Not him. Don't take it
out on him."

"I'm not angry at you, Scully, I'm just..." He trailed off,
exasperated. "I'm just tired."

"We're all tired," she replied.

"We don't have time for this," he said. "We have to move.
She's waiting, I'm sure of it. Maybe she's already seen us.
Look-you know how to do this. Take the right and you go
first; I'll send him after and come up behind. Okay?"

Scully sighed, studied the determination in his eyes. "Fine,"
she said. "Fine."

Mulder watched her cross the street, then rubbed his
temples, clenching the envelope like a talisman. He was
right about this. He had to be.

Here came Carmichael, with that dejected puppy look that
seemed so inappropriate on such a large man. He must've
seen Scully leave. So many obstacles.

"Take the left," Mulder said shortly, and with a childish
sigh, the young officer did.

Mulder counted to sixty before he approached the
crosswalk, and had to wait another two minutes for the light
to change. At last, he crossed.

He could see Scully far off to his right, checking her watch
in front of the UN building, as if she were waiting for
someone inside. In her trenchcoat and heels she pulled off
the diplomat look effectively enough to keep the beggars
away.

Carmichael was lumbering along about fifty yards to his left,
tan coat clutched around him like a flasher. Mulder could
barely see the man in the receding plaza lamps.

Mulder focused on his goal: the brightly lit, seven-foot tall
statue of a gun with a knot tied in the barrel, like some sort
of cartoon prop. It was really a very stupid place for a
dropoff, since one of the loitering bums would undoubtedly
notice, but she'd presumably used it before. She must be
watching closely, to be the first to retreive it.

She was either very smart or very stupid-he couldn't tell
from the gypsy routine.

He was closer now, and the statue lighting obscured his
vision of the darker periphery. He could no longer make out
Carmichael's figure, though he was pretty sure that shadow
off to his right was Scully's.

He remembered the last time he'd come here, two years ago,
before Marita disappeared. Before he found her again,
locked in a DOD vault with heroin eyes.

He wondered if she had survived. Did Diana know her? Did
Diana know what they'd done to her? Had she helped?

And what had Marita done?

Here he was, standing in front of the gun. The realization hit
him a fraction of a second too late.

He was standing on concrete.

That's when Mulder heard the most inhuman scream he'd
ever heard issued from a human mouth.

20. Donnovan's Wish

---------------------------------------------------

Mulder ran. Disproving the myth of the uncaring New
Yorker, others ran too.

It had come from Carmichael's direction.

Wait! It could be a trap. Something to distract him from
Scully-where was Scully?

He stopped and turned, saw her small figure racing toward
him as if in Nikes instead of heels, her coat flapping behind
her like a superhero's cape. She was safe.

He ran again.

A young couple was standing over Carmichael, who was
moaning in pain. "Help him!" Mulder roared, and the man
looked at him like he was crazy.

"He might have AIDS," he said, and Mulder didn't even
take the time to throw him a disgusted glare. He dropped to
his hands and knees beside the officer.

Carmichael's torso was drenched with blood, too dark and
thick to see the injuries. His forehead was coated with red,
as if someone had tried to scalp him, and the blood was
dripping into the orbits of his tightly closed eyes. He kept
banging his right hand into the ground; Mulder caught it,
trying to calm him, and that's when he saw the man's index
finger-his trigger finger-was gone, scissored off below the
second knuckle.

He felt sick.

Here was Scully, beside him now, saying things like,
"Breathe, Jerry. It's going to be all right. You're going to be
all right, the ambulance is on its way," and her doctor hands
were moving through the blood. He hadn't even
remembered the man's first name.

Mulder had the sense to help her, using his coat to wipe the
stains away. "What happened?" he kept saying, over and
over, but Carmichael only answered him with moans. A
crowd was gathering now.

Scully lifted his head to tuck her own coat underneath it, and
that's how she found the envelope. Wrapped in a plastic
grocery bag.

She handed it to Mulder and went back to her patient; he
fairly ripped it open.

_

You think I don't read the papers?_ it said. _I know you
have the lamp. You seem to know its power. Don't think I
can't do this to you and your lovely partner too. Except I'll
take all of her fingers.

_

Mulder couldn't breathe. There were too many people,
crowding him, and how had he gotten this so _wrong?

_

He stood up-and found him face to face with the Arab man.

"You," he hissed.

"You have the stone," the man said. His accent was thick,
but understandable. Mulder imagined he could smell him; he
smelled of sulfur and blood. He started to reach for his gun.

"I thought it was a lamp," Mulder growled, not even aware
that the crowd was quieting to listen.

"I need it. Can you take me to it?" He spoke calmly, as if
Mulder were not an FBI agent, as if he were not pulling a
gun.

"Wars have been fought for that stone. Many men have
died."

Mulder drew his gun, pointed it at the man. The crowd
screamed, and started to scatter.

"I see," said the Arab man, and then he was running too,
and Mulder couldn't fire, of course he couldn't fire. There
were too many people.

---------------------------------------------------

Mercy Hospital

11:49 p.m.

Scully rode in the ambulance and he had to ride in the squad
car, so he didn't get a good look at her drenched in someone
else's blood for the second time on this case.

While she was in the doctors' showers, the police chief
arrived to rip him a new one and all Mulder could say was,
yes, sir, I'm sorry, no, it wasn't SOP, of course you can
contact my supervisor.

Skinner was going to love this.

Then came Carmichael's wife, and Mulder hadn't even
known he was married--that's how bad it was. She cried
and shrieked obscenities at him and even tried to punch him.
He let her. She didn't know how to make a fist.

Only when she announced that she was Giuliani's niece and
she'd have him fired did he suggest, quietly, that she go talk
to the doctors.

"She incised a cross on his torso," Scully told him when she
returned in scrubs-again. "It runs from one nipple to the
other, and is bisected by a line straight down his middle. His
right index finger was removed with what looks like a pair
of bush shears. They think the scalp injury is close enough
to the hairline that the scar won't be too obvious."

"It was a joke," Mulder told her, his voice dull like plaster.
"The twisted gun. The trigger finger. Maybe even United
Nations."

"Oh. His gun's missing too."

Mulder sighed, leaned his head against the waiting room
wall. "What's happening to me, Scully?" he whispered.

"It's not just you," she breathed. "We can't go on like this."

"No," he agreed. "No."

"Are you Agent Mulder?" a new voice bellowed. They both
turned to see a large grey-haired approaching, his cheeks
burning with rage. "I'm Jerry's father."

Scully began to speak, but Mulder turned and walked away.

21. Turnaround

---------------------------------------------------

Grand Central Hyatt

Tuesday

1:11 a.m.

Scully finished getting ready for bed and took two more
antihistamines, the drowsy kind. Every muscle ached and
her nerves felt stretched and stringy, but Mulder had said
nothing all the way back to the hotel, and now it was time to
look after him. She opened the door between their rooms
with a stomach-tightening mixture of concern and
reluctance.

Her partner was still dressed, though he'd removed shoes
and jacket. All the lights were off and he stood by the
narrow window, silhouetted against the curtains.

He must have heard her approach, but he didn't move until
she touched him, hand to elbow. "Mulder?"

He said nothing, continued staring out the window, up at the
tiny patch of grey sky, the only patch visible.

"What are you looking at?" she asked him, leaning into him
to try to follow his line of sight.

"The sky," he answered, his voice dull and tired.

She looked too. "I think I see a star," she said helpfully.

"Probably just a satellite," he said.

She slid her arm around his waist, but still he didn't move.
She thought about telling him he couldn't have known, that
it wasn't his fault, that there was nothing he could have done
anyway and she was glad it hadn't been him. But these
things were not the point, and would not change the conflict
or its outcome.

Instead, she ran her fingers over his back, from shoulder to
hip and side to side, like a mother with a sick child. He
dropped his head when she touched his neck, tipping his
chin against her temple, and she turned her face toward his
throat. He smelled like sweat and blood and breath. She
wanted to heal him, to reclaim him with tender kisses or let
him reclaim himself with violent ones, but he didn't move,
didn't invite.

"What are you doing?" he whispered, his breath harsh.

She leaned back; her hand stopped moving. What was she
supposed to say? "I'm trying to be a friend," she whispered
at last.

His eyes closed and he gritted his teeth as if in pain. A long
moment of stillness passed.

"Go to bed, Scully," he told her, and so she let her arm fall,
walked away from him, because there was nothing else she
could do. His room felt colder now, colder than her own.
She left the door between them open, but only a crack.

Hours or minutes later, she hovered on the border between
sleeping and waking, rich and hot and decadent. She could
hear the midnight sounds of a swamp in her head, some
strange childhood memory she couldn't place, and she
imagined that she couldn't quite see between the dense
creepers that brushed against her skin, leaving behind trails
of welcome fire.

She woke by degrees and it felt like surfacing, like paddling
upward in the Caribbean sea, eyes open, blowing bubbles
and everywhere supported, pressed in on, by warm water.
She broke the membrane of the water and here was her hotel
room, of course, except she wasn't dreaming.

Mulder had somehow got her panties off without waking her
and was licking the alphabet between her legs. Even if she'd
wanted to stop him, her treacherous body wouldn't have let
her, it felt that good. He pushed so hard she imagined he
must want to crawl up inside her and be born again.

Her hips jerked and thrust as his fingers memorized her
inner thighs, then tripped over her belly up under her
nightshirt to cup her breasts.

He lifted himself up, trailing kisses over her sweat-slicked
skin, and they both gasped as he entered her. She arched her
neck and he kissed that too, digging his fingers into her ass
to push himself further inside.

                        *

End 10/12 
 *

4:29 a.m.

He felt her move, her back to his chest. He rubbed her belly
softly.

She seemed to already know he was awake. Her words
were barely a breath. "I love you, Mulder."

He rocketed up on the bed like a cannonball. "You're not
leaving, are you?"

She looked up at him, startled, blinking. "No. Why would
you think that?"

"Oh," Mulder sighed, falling back into the pillows with a
soft _thud_. "Well, you never...." His voice trailed off and
he waved his hand vaguely in the air.

"I'm sorry," she said. "It's just not-"

"No, no, it's okay," he assured her. "I mean, you don't
have to apologize. I, um, I love you, too."

She rolled over and draped an arm across his chest. He
tugged the covers up over them both.

"I just needed you to know that," she said. "Because I know
I do criticize."

"I need you to criticize," he said. "Even when it's
frustrating..." His voice trailed off, lost in the dark hotel
room.

"But I meant what I said the other night," she continued.
"This doesn't make it all better."

"I know," he breathed. He imagined Carmichael now,
imagined the steady beeping of the man's heart monitor, and
closed his eyes. He couldn't think about that, couldn't do
that. Scully was the only thing.

There was another long silence and just when he thought she
was asleep, she spoke again. "A genie, Mulder? Really?"

He chuckled softly. "Yeah."

She tapped her fingers on his chest in thought, and he could
imagine her chewing her lower lip. "Mulder," she said after
a pause, "if you could have anything you wished for, what
would it be?"

A long silence followed.

"Six years, Scully," he answered, his voice rasping more
than he wanted it to. "Surely you know the answer to that."

"No," she replied. "No, I don't. Is it your sister? Salvation
for all of humanity? A second chance at childhood? I don't
know at all, Mulder."

"Well, when you put it like that, I'm not sure I know either,
but I think you hit all the major points on the checklist."

"You're nearly forty years old," she told him.

He grimaced at the reminder, imagining the office festooned
with black balloons. "You're not gonna throw one of those
gaudy over-the-hill parties for me, are you?"

She ignored him. "-and you're searching only for the
answers to the past. Don't you ever wonder about the
present? Or the future? About the things you'll regret in ten,
twenty years?"

"Well, lessee," he said, holding up a hand low enough for
her to see. He ticked off one finger. "Phoebe. Definite bad
move there. Missing out on over four years of potential sex
with you-that's high on the list-"

"Stop it, Mulder."

"I don't know what you want me to say. What would _you_
wish for?"

She sighed, and the pause that followed was so long he
began to think she wasn't going to answer, but she did. "I
would wish....I'd wish that there'd no longer be a need for
my job."

She was the most beautiful woman he'd ever known, and
not for the first time he wondered at the fact that he could
dislike her so much in one moment and worship her the
next, but never stop loving her. "That's a good wish," he
told her, so soft she leaned forward to hear him. "An
unselfish wish."

"But it _is_ selfish," she argued. "Maybe if I didn't know
that this had to be done, that cases like this had to be solved,
I could be happy with...getting out of the damn car."

He frowned as the meaning of her words sank in, soaked in
the memory of a quiet conversation in the Nevada desert.
"Then that's not what you want?"

"Not in this world, Mulder. At least, I want it, sometimes,
but it could never make me happy, not knowing what I
know."

Mulder picked at the fuzzy hotel blanket covering them both.
"What would make you happy, Scully?"

"I don't know," she admitted. She looked away from him
again, folded her hands in her lap. "But I do believe that we
make our own happiness. I'm not _un_happy, now. The
sky may be falling, as you've always said, but it's always
been on the verge of falling, throughout time, whether at the
hands of evil men or aliens or the aliens among us who hate
our neighbors and murder our children. But good people
will always rise to or above the world created for them, as
you have, Mulder. As I have. We're trying to hold the sky
up, we're doing what we can."

She paused to cough.

"So I'm not unhappy. I can't say I'm happy either.
Believing that the truth will save us all _is_ naïve, Mulder,
just like Fowley says, but it's beautiful. It's hopeful. Beauty
and hope make me happy when reality fails to deliver."

"Sometimes," he whispered, "I feel lost. I don't know
where the goal is."

"The goal doesn't change position," she answered. "You
just need a better compass."

He closed his arm around her shoulders and turned his face
to breathe in her hair. Prayed to her God that she wasn't
dying.

22. Evolution

---------------------------------------------------

8:04 a.m.

Scully heard a sound, and instinct began to guide her to
consciousness, but slowly. As she stirred she felt the weight
of Mulder's head on her breast, the warm wetness where he
had drooled on her half-buttoned pajamas. She blinked,
frowning.

What had she heard?

Wrapped in a half-asleep drowsiness with which she was
familiar, Mulder turned, dragging his cheek along the silk of
her pajamas and nuzzling her breast with his lips. Her hand
floated up to his hair of its own accord, stilling him.

Faint, far away, the sound of her cell phone. She blinked to
clear the sleep from her eyes, looked to the window. The
sun hadn't risen yet-who could be calling?

"Wrong number," Mulder murmured, his raw voice muffled
by her body, but she gently pushed him aside, rolling away
from his grasp and sitting up. With a groan of resignation,
he reached for the head of the bed to bury his face in a new
pillow, and she stumbled across the room, toward the
sound.

The phone rang twice more before she found it, lying under
her coat on the chair where she'd left it the night before. She
snapped it open and mustered the most official voice she
could manage.

"This is Agent Scully," she said, making it a growl just in
case Mulder was right.

"This is Judy Wentworth, with the NYPD," the caller said.
"Where's Agent Mulder? He's not answering his phone."

Scully sighed. "He's a heavy sleeper," she said. At least it
wasn't a lie. But it irritated her that everyone seemed to
assume Mulder was in charge. "What's up?"

"Oh. For a moment I thought it might have been him."

"What might have?"

"The stone's missing, Agent. Chief asked me to call you."

"It's _missing_?" Scully repeated. Behind her, Mulder sat
up in bed.

"That's what I said. It was taken sometime last night from
the basement."

Scully ran a hand through her tangled hair. "Don't you have
guards? Surveillance cameras?"

"There are people here all night," Wentworth replied, her
voice severe. "This _is_ the NYPD. No one saw anything.
Camera caught the back of a head, but not much else."

"Prints?" Scully said. "Broken locks? Anything?"

"Looks like whoever it was had a key. No prints."

Mulder was already out of bed. "It has to be her," he
muttered. "She got it back."

"We'll be right there," Scully told the officer.

---------------------------------------------------

9:13 a.m.

New York City Ninth Precinct

"Can you enhance it any more?" Scully asked. She, Mulder
and Gregory stood in a tight cluster behind the young man
operating the video equipment.

"Look, we've never even had to use this," the technician
said, tired of her directions.

"Who has keys to the evidence room?" Mulder was asking
Gregory. The older man was calmer this morning,
particularly in the face of his department's failure to keep the
stone.

"All the detectives," Gregory answered.

"_All _of them?"

"We've never had to worry about this before," the chief
answered. "Evidence never stays here very long. As soon as
charges are pressed it goes downtown."

"There," Scully said, pointing at the blurry, too-dark image
on the screen. "No, go back a few frames. Now zoom
in...there." She leaned in closer to the screen.

"Have you questioned everyone who was here last night?"
Mulder pressed.

"I asked them, if that's what you mean. No one saw
anything."

"We can interrogate them if it puts you in an uncomfortable
position," Mulder offered.

"One of my men has been mutilated and is in the hospital,
Agent," Gregory reminded him. "He may not have been one
of our best, but he's still a cop, and you better believe no
one here would act in any way to help this monster."

He gestured at the screen.

"I don't think this is the monster," Scully said, her nose
nearly touching the screen.

Both men spoke at once. "What?"

"I think that's Marina Harris," said Scully. She stood back,
inviting them to look.

"It's not this Scherezade woman?" Gregory asked.

"Are you sure?" Mulder asked her.

She shrugged. "As sure as I can be."

"Then let's find her," said Mulder.

"Who's Marina Harris?" Gregory asked.

"Scheherazade's next customer," answered Scully.

Gregory sighed, hands on hips. "Well," he said. "I still
think you're crazy, Agent Mulder, but it looks like there're a
lot of people crazy the same way."

"The stone doesn't have to have power for the prophesy of
the wish to be just as self-fulfilling," Scully said, her
protective instincts prickling her into increasingly complex
sentences.

"I guess not," Gregory said. "I guess not."

---------------------------------------------------

11:13 a.m.

No one was home at Marina's and her agency reported that
she had called in sick that day. Now they sat side by side on
the subway again, heading back to the precinct, without
leads, without clues.

"She did it," Scully said. "She took the stone."

"Lamp," Mulder corrected gloomily.

"Whatever."

Scully blew her nose again and tried to edge out the
pounding pressure in her head with the most comforting
images she could summon. The girlhood room she'd shared
with Missy. Mom's chicken macaroni. Saltines and 7-Up.

Now, aside from the full-blown flu and the nosebleeds
(she'd had another, though very small, this morning, which
she managed to hide from her partner), she had to deal with
the finger-shaped bruises on her hips, the soreness between
her legs. How long had it been anyway?

She would hope he'd get sick now too, but of course she'd
have to take care of him, so scratch that wish.

Wishes. Forget selflessness-if she could just have the
luxury of self-pity she'd be content.

The thought almost made her chuckle.

"What are you smiling about?" Mulder asked.

She ignored the question, sobering fast. "When this is over
with, I have some ideas about tracking the evolutionary
spread of the quote-unquote alien genetic material in
humans. I've been doing some reading on lateral gene
transfer that might show it to be a relatively recent
phenomenon, maybe even something propagated by the
consortium."

Mulder leaned his head back against the plexiglass of the
subway window, reflecting that Diana already knew the
answer. "We have cases too," he said.

Scully frowned. "Of course. We can do both, Mulder."

"Yes," he agreed. His stomach was churning with anxiety.
He couldn't stop remembering Carmichael's bloody hand,
pounding itself into the ground like a hammer.

Had Scherezade made the stone? Could she make another
and wishthem both dead?

Mulder wished for the first time in his life that he didn't
believe. It would be easier to move through the world
then-not simpler, but at least easier.

But no, it hadn't been easier. He'd tried not believing and it
took away his context, the order of his universe and his
place in it. The dead became random and frightfully
inconsequential, and his footsteps ceased to make a sound.
Diana would have understood that, why he couldn't move
anymore.

He wondered how Scully did it, whether her God was
enough. She terrified him sometimes with her lack of
needfulness, with the way she wasn't afraid to be wrong.
All the other women he'd ever been with had been afraid of
him; Scully was dangerous precisely because she wasn't.

And yet-he remembered the only time she'd let him tie her
up. She was most vanilla woman he'd ever had, all soft
sighs and sharp breaths, so it took him months to get up the
courage to ask her, but she had made him untie her after
only a few minutes, clearly distressed. He felt miserable,
and she tried to console him with gentle kisses and a
determined seduction, but he couldn't help but think she was
doing it less out of honesty and more to save their
partnership.

She'd done the same thing last night, and he'd resisted at
first but in the end he'd wanted it too badly to resist. Still,
maybe he didn't always want to be saved, consoled, maybe
he shouldn't be. Did she ever think of that?

They left the subway and started up the street toward the
station. They were almost at the foot of the steps when
Mulder heard a familiar voice cry both their names.

They turned to see Donnovan hurrying toward them, his
bald head covered with a red knit cap. His trenchcoat had
been abandoned for a blue ski jacket and jeans.

Donnovan stopped a few feet away, stuffed his hands in his
pockets. "Listen," he said. "I don't think I can face them in
there. I've worked here twenty years, you know?"

Mulder nodded, though he didn't really know.

"I"-the man swallowed-"I read about Carmichael in the
paper. God. God, I never would have thought..." He wiped
one hand across the back of his eyes.

"He's going to live," Scully told him, her voice stiff and
formal.

"But it's my fault, don't you see?" Donnovan said. "You
were right, Mulder. You were right and I didn't believe."

"You touched the stone," Mulder breathed.

"It's worse," Donnovan said, stepping closer to the agents.
"Marina Harris. I've known her for a long time. She came
over yesterday afternoon and I told her everything. It's only
this morning that I realized my precinct keys were gone."

"Oh, God," Scully said, and Mulder thought it was just a
reaction to Donnovan's confession, but her hand flew to
cover her nose and mouth and with a wide-eyed parting look
at Mulder she hurried up the stairs into the building.

Donnovan started after her, but Mulder siezed his arm.

"Is she-" Donnovan started.

"She's all right," Mulder cut him off. The lie left behind a
sour taste in his mouth. "Marina Harris took your keys."

"Yes. I'm sorry. I didn't know. I didn't believe but she
must have. And this morning when my daughter found the
paper and showed me the article about Carmichael-you
know what she said?"

Mulder shook his head, releasing the other man's arm.

"She said, 'Isn't this the guy you used to make fun of?'"
Donnovan 's shoulders slumped, and he pulled an envelope
from his pocket. "That's my letter of resignation, Agent
Mulder. I'd appreciate it if you'd take it inside for me. It
explains everything."

Mulder nodded slowly, taking the envelope.

Donnovan took a step backward. "I have to go now," he
said. "Tell Carmichael I'm sorry."

"Donnovan-" Mulder began, trying to formulate a response.

The other man held up his hand. "Don't sweat it, G-man.
Just get this bitch."

Mulder tucked the envelope in his coat and started after
Scully. That hadn't been nearly as much fun as he would've
thought two days ago.

---------------------------------------------------

9:02 p.m.

Ten hours had gotten them nowhere. Mulder had spent most
of the time poring over past newspapers looking for clues as
to Scherezade's location in the genie ads. There were few
ads and no clues. It had been a small business, obviously.

Scully had found out that Marina had family in the area-a
mother, an uncle, a brother and a daughter. The former three
had no idea that Marina was even missing, and the last no
longer lived at the address listed in the phone book.

They stayed close to the station; since Gregory was now
convinced of the stone's troublemaking power if nothing
else, he'd issued APBs on both Marina and her daughter.
There were several false alarms as police called in, sure
they'd caught one or the other or both, but every time they
were wrong.

Other police were dispatched to question those who'd
witnessed the attack on Carmichael the previous night, but
no one had actually seen anything until he was already on
the ground. A few remembered the Arab man and Mulder's
confrontation with him, but no one had seen where he went.

The Arab. That's who Mulder wanted now. The man was
obviously after the stone, and seemed to know its power.
Perhaps he could explain where it had come from.

But it's easy to disappear in a city of eight million people.

Mulder had dug up a Columbia professor with an expertise
in ancient sculpture who thought the genie idea was
ridiculous but wanted to see "the piece" anyway. That was
the closest he'd gotten to being productive all day long.

Scully'd fallen asleep with her head on a pile of background
checks from all the victims. She hadn't woke when he
moved her to the leather couch in the chief's office, at
Gregory's own invitation, and had been sleeping for almost
two hours.

Now that they were on the same side and sharing blame, the
chief proved much easier to work with. Judy Wentworth,
the officer who'd called them that morning, was now
running database searches for him and the secretaries even
brought him coffee.

But he was still getting nowhere and his injured ass hurt
from all the sitting.

So he was surprised when Judy Wentworth came into the
interrogation room he'd appropriated and said, "There's
someone here to see you."

He frowned. "Who is it?"

"Fox, it's me," a voice behind Wentworth said. Mulder
stood up.

Diana stepped inside, closing the door behind her. She
looked as well-pressed as always.

"How'd you find me here? I haven't made a cell phone call
in awhile."

"You sent a few emails," Diana replied. "From an IP in this
building."

"Gee, you should really put your talents to use for the FBI,"
Mulder quipped. "I bet they'd love to hire you."

She smiled thinly. "I know you don't trust me," she said.
"But I was on my way back south and thought I'd see if you
still wanted that meeting." She frowned, suddenly noticing
the intercom on the interrogation room wall. "That's not on,
is it?"

He shook his head. "Actually, I don't want the meeting
anymore," he said. "I don't think your smoking friend can
help me."

"You'd be surprised," she answered. "He can do lots of
things."

"I'm sure he can," Mulder answered. "I'd love to hear about
it. But right now, I've got at least six dead bodies hanging
over my head and I'm not in the mood."

"We can help with that, too," Diana said, seeming not to
notice that she'd switched pronouns. "You can keep the
X-Files, Fox. But there are a lot of other opportunities now,
with so many gone."

"You need to work on your sales pitch," Mulder told her,
settling back into his chair. "Are you trying to offer me a
deal?"

"I've been authorized to bargain," she replied, seating
herself across from him, her hands folded in front of her on
the faux wood.

Mulder's eyes wandered to the list of names in front of him.

"We both want the same thing," Diana said, her voice barely
a whisper.

"I'm listening," he breathed.

"You can have the X-Files," she said. "And all the answers
you want. You can be a part of saving the future."

Mulder rolled his eyes. "I've heard this before," he said.

"And," Diana continued, lifint one finger, "no more bridges
in Pennsylvania. We can cure her cancer, Mulder. We can
make the chip safe. If you both want it, we can even give
you one of her children."

Mulder's knuckles whitened on the table.

"I know how much she means to you, Fox," Diana said
softly, her voice smaller now. "I guess I always thought we
might...but if she's what you want then she's welcome
too."

"Do you have any idea what you're saying?" Mulder bit each
word off, as if every one was painful.

"I understand how you feel," she said, reaching across the
table to smooth her fingers over his. "Believe me, I do. I felt
the same way. But sometimes sacrifices have to be made. If
I must bear the angry judgment of history so that there can
be a history at all, then that's a burden I'm willing to take
on. Someone has to."

Mulder shook his head, slowly. He wanted to believe her.
He wanted not to.

"If only," he whispered, squeezing her hand until he thought
her bones might crack. "If only it were that simple."

Diana simply watched him, her eyes clouded with
sympathy.

He released her hand by degrees, pushed back his chair.

"I think you should leave now," he said.

She was already standing up, pushing the chair back in, an
expression of profound disappointment on her face.

His voice stopped her at the door. "You do it your way," he
said. "And I'll do it mine. And let's hope they don't meet
each other."

"Let's hope," she echoed.

"Oh, and Diana?" he added, as she turned away again. She
stopped, looked back.

He leveled at her his most serious stare. "Don't read my
email," he said, and this time she left.

---------------------------------------------------

9:59 p.m.

For the second time that day, a ringing phone woke Scully
up. She thought for a confused second that she was in her
bedroom when she was sixteen, that the noise was Melissa's
alarm, and the space around her even felt that way, as if the
window was on her left and Missy on her right and the
dresser in between.

But when she opened her eyes she didn't even recognize her
surroundings and it took her several seconds to remember
that she had last been in the police station. Presumably,
judging from the American and New York flags in this
office, she still was. She couldn't remember how she got
here.

She groped through her rumpled coat until she found her
phone, pushed her hair out of her face to answer. "Scully,"
she said.

A moment later she was rushing down the stairs. She
recognized where she was when she hit the floor, and turned
right for the interrogation room where she'd last seen
Mulder.

He was there, sitting at the table with his head in hands,
tired and haggard. "What's wrong?" she asked, stopping
breathless in the doorway.

He looked up at her with a sigh. "Nothing," he replied. "I'm
fine. Have a good nap?"

"Mulder, Marina Harris just called me. She told me to meet
her alone."

He leapt to his feet.

23. The Chase

---------------------------------------------------

10:31 p.m.

Keeley Pub

"Thank you," Harris whispered, as Scully slid onto the stool
beside her at the far end of the bar. Behind them, four loud
men cheered or groaned as one of them downed two pool
balls.

Scully studied the other woman's face. Even in the dim
light, she could see the red eyes, and the nearly-fresh tear
tracks.

"Why did you do it?" Scully asked.

"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I didn't think it would be like
this, I thought I could fool it."

"Fool the stone."

"Yes." A tear rolled down one cheek. Scully started to reach
for her handkerchief, but remembered just in time that it was
stained with dried blood and offered the woman a bar napkin
instead.

Marina only clutched it in her fist. "Mike told me about your
case. He didn't believe, but if there was a chance, just a
_chance_...."

"What did you wish for?" Scully asked.

"I was so careful," Marina said. "I didn't even say her
name. Didn't involve her at all. I figured even if it turned, it
would only affect him or me, not her. Not Jackie. I just
wished he would die." The last word ended in a strangled
sob.

The bartender, who had been standing close waiting for
Scully to order, moved wisely away.

"Who? Who, Marina?"

"Ronald Valentine," Marina choked out, her words icy with
hate. "Not his real name, of course. Her pimp."

"Your daughter's a prostitute," Scully said, understanding at
last.

"I just wanted her to be free," Marina whispered, at last
wiping at her eyes.

"And what happened?" Scully prodded.

"Oh, he's dead all right. He's dead and so's she. I think
they killed each other. Blood"-she waved her hand
around-"everywhere."

Scully closed her eyes. "Oh, God," she breathed. And then
the questions started flying through her mind.

"Marina, we've had an APB out on your daughter all day.
How did you find out?"

"I went to his house," she whispered. "I found them there. I
haven't called the police. I don't know what to do. She's
dead. My baby girl...."

Scully put a hand on her arm. "We have to tell the police,
Marina. You know that."

"I'm telling you now, aren't I?" Marina said, through a bitter
sob.

"You mean you're turning yourself in?" Scully prodded.

"I...I don't know. I don't know."

"If you leave here," Scully said carefully, "I'll have to say
that you escaped. Then you won't be just missing-you'll be
a fugitive."

She watched understanding dawn in the other woman's
eyes, saw it coalesce and harden. "What do you recommend
I do?"

"Turning yourself in will demonstrate remorse," Scully said.
"You shouldn't have to serve more than six months. If you
leave, you will need to leave the state, without returning
home or attending your daughter's funeral. They'll look for
you there."

Marina bent her head down until her forehead touched the
bartop, her braids spilling over her shoulders and onto the
cherry wood.

"Marina," Scully said, leaning in close to the other woman,
"While you decide, I need to know what you did with the
stone."

She lifted her head. "I threw it in a dumpster a block away
from the police station," she said. "After I made the wish. I
thought I wouldn't need it."

"Can you tell me exactly where?" Scully urged.

                        *

Three seats down the bar, Mulder sipped a glass of water
and watched his partner's face go from stern to concerned to
determined. He couldn't hear anything they said over Billy
Idol's voice, but watching her he got the jist of it.

Marina Harris had thought she could fool the stone.

Scully was taking notes now-he hoped she was getting
directions to the stone, which had probably suffered the
usual fate of evidence: a trashcan or a river. He hoped it was
the former.

Now Harris was getting up, and Scully was clasping her
shoulder. He heard his partner's voice:
"...thanks...stay...drink..."

And then Harris turned, her face still wet with tears, and
strode right past him. He almost grabbed her arm, but
Scully's eyes locked with his and she gave a shake of her
head.

After Harris had left, he moved to her vacated seat. "We're
letting her go?" he asked.

"Her daughter's dead, Mulder," Scully answered. "She's
going to go make a phone call to report that, and then she's
going to decide whether to visit the police station."

Mulder nodded, understanding. He knew better than anyone
that Scully was not the walking rulebook others assumed her
to be.

"Stone's in a dumpster," Scully continued, holding up the
piece of paper, on which she'd drawn a crude map. "All this
time it was only a block away."

"Ready to do some dumpster diving?" Mulder asked, rising
again.

                        *

They'd only gotten a block toward the subway when he
realized they were being followed. The figure, in bulky coat
and hood, stepped out of an alleyway only ten steps after
they'd passed, and in his peripheral vision Mulder could see
him matching pace with the agents. He wasn't about to
chase the man again.

"Our Arab friend's back," he said to the night, without
looking at Scully.

She kept her eyes forward. "What do you want to do?"

"I'm going to stop at that ATM," Mulder said, nodding at a
teller half a block away, on the outside of a parking garage.
"You go on around the corner. If he follows you, we'll have
him scissored, and if he stops, you can come through that
garage and get behind him."

"Got it," she answered.

"He's wearing a bulky grey coat," Mulder continued. "He's
a little taller than me. Didn't see much more."

He saw her drop her eyes to the ground for a less obvious
peripheral glance. And then they reached the ATM. He
stopped, started unbuttoning his coat as if to take out his
wallet.

"I'll see you back at the precinct," he said, loud enough for
the Arab to hear. She nodded and went on around the
corner.

Out of the edge of his eye, he saw the Arab hesitate,
faltering. He finished with his coat and reached for his back
pocket, not far from his gun.

The stranger moved on past him, then disappeared after
Scully, around the corner.

Mulder ran. He rounded the corner just in time to see Scully
whirl and whip out her weapon, aiming it directly at the
grey-coated man. He heard someone scream, heard her yell:
"FBI!"

And then the Arab was running straight for him. He drew
his own gun, and got great satisfaction out of the widening
of the stranger's eyes as he pulled to a stop.

"You, sir," Mulder said, grabbing the man's arms as he
reached in his pocket for handcuffs, "are a real pain in the
ass."

"You do not understand!" the man cried. "I am helping
you!"

"Helping us how?" Scully demanded, approaching in front
of the man. Across the street, a small knot of onlookers was
already pointing and traffic slowed as drivers rubbernecked.
Mulder dragged the man into the garage, Scully following.

"Who are you?" she asked. "What do you know about this
case?"

"Please," the man said, trying to pull out of Mulder's grasp.
Mulder yanked harder, fastened the other cuff. "Please. I
swear to you, I am trying to help."

"Your name," Mulder growled.

"Al-Qud," the man said. "Mohammed Al-Qud. I have come
to destroy the stone you are seeking."

"How?" Mulder demanded, moving around in front of him
now.

"There is no time. You must take me to the stone."

Scully still had her gun out-she used her other hand to push
a lock of hair out of her face. "Withholding information
from us is a federal crime," she warned. "Sir."

Al-Qud blinked at her and his mustache twitched. "You do
not know what you are dealing with. I have been seeking
that stone for years. It has caused wars, famines, thousands
of deaths."

"Right," Scully said. "And now it's aiming for the home
shopping market."

"This is why I did not approach you," Al-Qud said.

"No, you just thought you'd skulk around after us," Mulder
snapped. "Mr. Al-Qud, we know about the stone's power.
If you know how to destroy it, we need to know that."

"You have lost it again, haven't you?"

"Who have you been talking to?" Scully demanded, and
Mulder touched her arm.

"Forget it," he said. "She's looking too-we're short on
time. We'll bring him with us."

Scully's eyebrows lifted, but, seeing the determination in
her partner's eyes, she gave a short nod. They started out of
the garage.

End 11/12 
At the curb, across from the diminshed but persistent
bystanders, Scully caught the first approaching cab, and
Mulder shepherded their captive inside with a warning
grunt. Obedient, Al-Qud kept his handcuffs hidden.

Scully slid into the car, sandwiching Al-Qud between them.
"Ninth Precinct," Mulder said. "Uptown."

"What's your interest in the stone?" Scully asked, not caring
that the driver could hear.

"I am responsible for it," the man answered evenly.

"You made it?" Mulder asked.

"No-of course not. It is over one thousand years old."

Scully saw the driver's eyes flicker up to the rearview
mirror. They were dark, hidden in a hooded sweatshirt.

"So you're it's keeper," Mulder continued.

"It is a word."

Scully had the sudden, eerie sensation that someone was
watching her. She shivered.

"Where did it come from?" Mulder pressed.

"I have been following it for years," Al-Qud said. "The
husband of the woman you are looking for, the one who
calls herself Scheherezade, brought it from Kuwait. I
learned his name from the man who gave it to him, trying to
rid his family of its curse. Please, Agent Mulder. You must
understand that I am on your side. Please release me."

Scully looked at the driver, but he was keeping his face
trained straight ahead as they breezed through a traffic light.
Well, he was a New York taxi driver. He probably heard
more ridiculous things all the time.

"Not until you tell me how to destroy it," Mulder said. "Is it
a wish?"

"Not a wish. A command."

Mulder lowered his voice. "Mr. Al-Qud, if you don't
volunteer this information in the next three minutes, I'm
going to make a phone call to the INS."

Scully frowned.

"You cannot perform the ritual," Al-Qud whispered, as if
aware now of the driver. "Only one who has studied for
many years can shatter the stone."

"Shatter?" Mulder repeated. "We don't want to shatter-"

Scully rolled her eyes. "Can't we just pick it up with gloves
or something?"

Al-Qud turned his severe, dark gaze on her. "This is not like
your science, Agent Scully. Ah, I see surprise in your eyes.
But I can perform research too. I know all about you, Dana
Scully. The power of the stone is beyond your appreciation
or comprehension."

"Try me," Scully growled.

"It acts upon intent and faith," Al-Qud said. "Do you think
that the dust on your hands would prevent its action? The
dead cells on the surface of your skin? Then why do you
think latex would protect you?"

"That's ridiculous," she said. "If it works through anything,
then why not air? There's air between me and the stone right
now."

Al-Qud snorted with disdain. "As I said, you do not have
the capacity to understand. There is no mechanism here."

"There's _always_ a mechanism," Scully insisted. "Always.
Even if it's just psychology."

"I pity you," Al-Qud replied.

"Scheherezade's husband," Mulder interrupted, his voice
low and angry. "What happened to him?"

"He died," Al-Qud answered. "Two years ago, when he
tried to cheat a crime syndicate he ran a mail order insurance
policy 'scam' for. And this, you see, is why I bear particular
responsibility. Six months ago I came to Lucy Grundwick,
the woman who calls herself Scheherezade, in search of the
stone and when I told her why I wanted it, told her of its
power, she came to believe she had inadvertantly killed her
own husband."

"So she decided to use its power to make a quick dollar?"

"I do not know why she does what she does," Al-Qud
replied. "Is this not _your_ job, Agent Mulder?"

"Why didn't you tell us, if you knew her name?" Scully
demanded. But the car was slowing, and behind the man's
head she recognized the front steps of the precinct.

Mulder reached back for his wallet, pulled out a crumpled
ten dollar bill and dropped it on the front seat. He tugged on
Al-Qud's arm, pulling him out of the car, while Scully
exited on the other side.

The taxi pulled away as she stepped up onto the curb.

"Answer her question," Mulder ordered, guiding the man
south down the dark street, away from the bright lights of
the police station.

"I thought you were arresting me," Al-Qud said.

"We're going after the stone," Mulder replied. "Answer her
question."

Scully kept pace on the other side of them as Al-Qud talked.
"My interest is in the stone," he said. "Not Lucy
Grundwick. And the two have not been united in six
months. She knows better."

"Knows better why? What would happen?"

"I would destroy it," Al-Qud answered simply.

Scully barely heard. Feeling invisible eyes on her spine
again like ghostly fingers, she looked backward, but there
was no one except an older policeman walking up the
precinct stairs. The taxi, at the end of the street, turned the
corner.

She realized Mulder had asked her something just as he
realized she hadn't heard.

"Scully, where are we going?" he asked again.

"Oh," she said. "Next block. First alley on this side of the
street."

"What do you need to destroy the stone?" Mulder was
asking. Things were moving far too slowly. Something
wasn't right.

Scully shook her head to clear it, to dismiss the anxiety.

"Nothing," Al-Qud said. "I need only my mind and mouth."

They reached the curb on a green light, passed a lurching old
man in the crosswalk. His arm brushed against Scully's and
she jumped, pulling away.

Mulder hurried them past the first blackened building and
into the alley. Scully took mincing steps over the slushy
puddles, no longer walking so close to Al-Qud now that the
need to hide his handcuffs was gone.

Just behind the dimly glistening ladder that led up to the fire
escape stood two hulking dumpsters. The trio stopped in
front of them, Al-Qud in the middle. Mulder's and Scully's
eyes met and there was a significant pause.

"Maybe we should get help," she said.

"They're not going to let us turn it over to him," Mulder
answered, jerking his thumb at Al-Qud.

Scully rolled her eyes and sighed. "Oh, all right," she said.
"Give me a boost."

Mulder grinned at her and started toward her but Al-Qud
stopped him.

"Wait," he said. "Let me go. She must not touch it. Only I
can touch the stone without adverse consequence."

"She's already touched it," Mulder said. "Only one wish,
right?"

His eyes went wide as his head swivelled toward Scully.
"You_ touched_ it? What happened?"

"Absolutely nothing," Scully said, daring Mulder with her
eyes to challenge her. He only stared back.

"Nothing _never_ happens," Al-Qud said, his tone dark.
Scully shook her head at Mulder. They were not going to
uncuff the men and let him climb around in the dumpster.
There were far too many potential weapons. He nodded,
understanding.

"If you two are satisfied," she said, "then give me a boost."

Mulder made his hands into a cradle at the level of her knee.
She stepped up, grasping the cold, slimy side of the
dumpster with a grimace, and thrust upward. Her congested
head screamed in protest.

She felt Mulder's hand on her thigh as he pushed her over,
and so much for her last suit-between the blood and grime,
she'd ruined a whole wardrobe on this trip.

There. Focus on that. Not the jeweler's hammer tapping on
her orbital sinus. Not the blood on her pillow.

The dumpster smelled like a freshly opened intestine, like
old oil, like Mulder's refrigerator. Whatever was under her
knees shifted whenever she did, but fortunately most of the
mess was in black garbage bags. She grabbed the one in
front of her and hauled it over the side.

She felt Mulder's hands take it away and grabbed another
one, tossing that over too.

"Mulder, you owe me a really good birthday present after all
this," she called over the edge, lifting an extraordinarily
heavy bag over the side.

"Just promise me you'll take a bath before the party." She
could hear the grimace in his voice.

After all the large bags were cleared, she was standing
nearly on the floor of the dumpster, wobbling on the
slippery edge of a flattened cardboard box coated with
something she'd rather not see. She dropped into a crouch,
felt around in the darkness, gritting her teeth as her hand
colllided with a half-rotted head of lettuce.

"I'll unlock you," she heard Mulder telling Al-Qud.

"You realize of course that I could betray you," Al-Qud
pointed out. "Once I have the stone in my hands I could
wish you dead."

"But you won't," Mulder said, an undercurrent of warning
in his voice.

This was ridiculous. She should have insisted on getting
help from the precinct. She should have-

Her hand closed over something smooth and round.

"Got it!" she cried, standing up again and holding the black
stone in the air. It was heavier, colder than she expected.

Mulder's head appeared over the metal edge of the
dumpster. "Drop it on the ground," he said, and she did.
She reached her hands up to his shoulders and he hooked
his hands under her arms, pulling her out. Over the dark line
of his trenchcoat, she could just see the Arab man bending to
pick up the stone.

That's when the gunshot came. Just before Mulder dropped
her, she saw Al-Qud's head explode as his body fell to the
ground.

24. The Wishing Stone

---------------------------------------------------

Scully drew her gun, her heart pounding, and scrambled for
the opposite corner of the dumpster, where the garbage was
piled high enough for her to see. Mulder was out there
alone.

She heard his voice, sharp and surprised. "Don't move."

He must have gotten his gun. Good. She grabbed the edge
of the dumpster and pulled herself up.

"Get away from the stone," said a voice, a wavering voice,
an angry voice, a woman's voice.

Flashback to pull-ups in girls' gym. Scully yanked herself
up, over the edge, and there was Scheherezade, at least so
she presumed, in hooded sweatshirt and jeans-God, it was
the taxi driver! She could see nothing of the woman's face.

"Scully get down!" Mulder cried and in that second a shot
exploded, clanged against the lid of the dumpster, behind
her head. Scully dropped.

"Move away," the woman said again.

They only had to hold her for a moment-surely someone
had heard the shots. But-

She heard footsteps. Grundwick was coming closer.

"I'll shoot you first," Mulder said, his voice grim.

"I'll fire inside the dumpster," Grundwick said. "I can make
the shot off the lid. You wanna risk the ricochet?"

Pressed against the smelly metal, Scully could almost hear
Mulder's brain evaluating. Could she make the shot? If he
let her grab the stone could he get her before she got away?
Or should he fire now for the sure thing?

"Okay," she heard him say. "Okay, I'm stepping away."

Scully toed off her shoes, lowering them one at a time to the
bottom of the dumpster. Began to slide along the dumpster
wall, gun in hand. She could hear Grundwick's footsteps,
coming closer.

"How very sad," the approaching voice was saying. "You
lose either way. Because you see, I have yet to make my
wish."

"But Al-Qud said-" Mulder started.

If she could just get over the top fast enough. One shot was
all she needed.

Grundwick laughed, an unpleasant sound. "Al-Qud's a fool.
I've never touched that thing-I found it in my husband's
closet after Al-Qud told me what it was."

The footsteps stopped and Scully grabbed the top of the
dumpster and pulled with all her might. She vaulted herself
upward just in time to see Mulder dive for the stone,
covering it with his body as Grundwick bent over to touch
it, and that's when she fired.

Grundwick screamed in pain, falling back onto the pavement
beside Al-Qud's bloody body. Scully fell, her balance lost,
rolling off the dumpster onto the ground at Mulder's feet.
She grunted, and then Mulder's hands were on her, helping
her to sit.

"Are you okay?" he asked, and she nodded. They both
looked across at Grundwick, who was clutching the wound
on her thigh and writhing in pain.

Sirens started to wail and they heard shouts at the end of the
alley. Scully couldn't look-her gaze was fixed on her
partner's hand, which held the stone. "Mulder-" she began.

He clasped her shoulder. "It's okay," he said.

25. Denoument

---------------------------------------------------

Wednesday

12:53 a.m.

Grand Central Hyatt

They'd signed the case back over to the police, who would
prosecute Grundwick for the homicide of Mohammed
Al-Qud. Scully prayed that the woman just pled guilty; she
dreaded the return trip to New York to testify in the trial.

"We could find all the clients," Mulder had said. "Document
them and-"

"Let's leave that to Carmichael," Scully replied, her voice
firm. "We have better things to do." After a brief hesitation,
he nodded.

Carmichael's condition had been upgraded to stable, and
they were going to visit him before leaving the next
morning. It was Mulder's suggestion.

But here, surrounded by the molten silk of perfumed
bathwater, on the edge of sleep, the dumpster and in fact the
entire case seemed as distant as grey hair, or another Ross
Perot bid for the presidency. She sighed, rubbing one
smooth leg against the other, frowning as she found a patch
on her inner calf that her razor'd missed.

Mulder's contact, the Columbia professor, had arrived at the
police station only minutes after they had, eager to see the
stone. He'd stormed out five minutes later, irritated at his
wasted time.

"It's not even Arab," he'd told them. "Pre-Columbian style,
but I don't even think it's that. It's the kind of thing some
kid sells you when you get off the cruise ship in Cancun."

Mulder hadn't even looked disappointed, hadn't even tried
to argue, and for that Scully was thankful. She didn't think
she could handle his morosity tonight.

Time had made the water tepid, and much as she wanted to
stay, it was time to move this party to the bed. For sleep,
blessed sleep. She'd taken more drugs, and the drowsiness
induced unexpected pleasure she might not have otherwise
felt at the prospect of cool sheets, even if they weren't her
own.

She rose out of the tub an inch at a time, relishing the
meandering paths bubbles traced as they slid down her
heat-reddened skin. Rubbed herself dry and slipped into her
flannel pajamas.

He was waiting for her, as she'd expected he might be-a
lonely figure bisecting the bed, naked from the waist up. He
was reading a paperback she didn't recognize, but as she
opened the door, he put it aside, sat up against the
headboard.

Scully crossed the room to him, followed by the gurgling of
the draining tub. He watched her with neither fear nor
expectation, knowing she'd make him leave if she wanted
to. She wasn't sure if she wanted to or not.

"Got a phone call from Skinner," he told her as she switched
off the light. "He's got a case for us in California."

She slid onto the bed and he opened one arm-after only a
moment's hesitation she accepted the invitation, curling up
beside him, cheek to his chest. She was sick, and she was
tired, and this was how it was supposed to work.

"It's kind of a strange deal," he continued, his voice
thrumming against her ear. "Not our usual thing."

"The line between 'strange' and 'usual' must not be very
straight for you," she said.

"I'm not very good at straight lines," he replied, and she
smiled against his skin, tightened her hand around his waist.
He hissed in pain and she remembered his tailbone.

"Sorry," she whispered, pulling her hand back around to his
belly.

His fingers smoothed her hair back from her face. "S'okay."

"Strange how?" she asked at last.

"We have to pretend to be married."

"Oh, God," she groaned.

He snorted, kept stroking her hair. "Well, there's another
option. I did get an email from this British guy, also in
California, something about vampires and a Hellmouth."

Scully wrinkled her nose. "Vampires? Let's do the married
one."

"But a _Hellmouth_, Scully. This could be the next big
thing."

"Let's do the married one," she repeated firmly.

He chuckled. "I knew I could get you to say that."

She decided there was no good answer to that. Minutes
passed in dark silence, and his hand slid down to her
shoulder, then skimmed along her side to her hip.

Scully winced as she felt his touch, and he withdrew
immediately, loosening his hold on her. She felt a strange
mixture of relief and regret.

"Come on, Mulder," she said, trying to lighten the mood. "I
know you must've been thinking something when you
picked up the stone. At least tell me so I'll know what I
should be looking out for."

She felt him smile. "Does that mean you believe?" he teased.

"No," she answered firmly, but she let her thumb caress his
belly, teasing. "Honestly, what did you wish? Yesterday
you were saying it had to be destroyed, today no one could
touch it, and now you're not worried about it at all."

"It's just a rock, Scully," he chided her, imitating her
dismissive tones perfectly.

"Mulder," she growled, thumping his stomach with a loose
fist.

"Really. You heard The Professor. Fake pre-Columbian
sculpture."

Now she pulled away from him, sitting up to look him in the
eye. "You're kidding," she said. "You listen to that man
after just five minutes after not listening to me for days?"

He flashed her a too-confident smile, reached out to touch
her knee. "I did make a wish," he admitted quietly.

Something in his voice made her relax, turn her head to hear
more.

"I didn't have much time to think," he went on. "I'd
considered that eventuality before, but I couldn't think of
anything that couldn't be misinterpreted. When it came
down to it, I had to act too fast, and there was only one
thing I could think."

"What's that?" she asked.

"I was thinking, 'I really hope Scully's right.'"

She bit her lower lip, surprised at how touched she was.

"Is that a good wish?" he asked her, and he seemed to really
want to know.

"Yeah," she breathed. "Yeah, Mulder, that's a good wish."

His mouth turned up in a devilish grin. "Does that mean
you'll kiss me now?"

"I'm sick, Mulder," she reminded him. But she let him draw
her back beside him anyway.

"You do realize," she said, "this may mean I'm right about
everything."

"I doubt it," Mulder replied, reaching across her to flip off
the light. "But I could live with that if I had to."

---------------------------------------------------

epilogue

---------------------------------------------------

During the day, Wall Street and an endless stampede of
heels on pavement marked the passing of time with a
military cadence, but at night the city teemed with nascent
dreams, ethereal and tragic. There weren't enough stars
visible between the tall silhouettes of the skyscrapers-nor
even (it often seemed) enough stars at all-for eight million
wishes. But only some people use stars to wish upon;
others, wiser, use stars to navigate by. In this capacity,
resources can be shared.

After sunset, the snow started to fall, tickling the cheeks of
the children still awake, ice-skating in the park under the
watchful eyes of proud parents. The symphony stirred,
strings thrumming the resonate frequency of this city and of
the many cities that came before, a harmonized counterpart
to the cacophony of humanity. Women yelled at their
husbands, their partners, over undone dishes or undiscarded
trash in a satisfying domestic parody of tragedy, drama
distilled.

Men and women who loved each other despite (and in part
because of) disillusion and hardship moved through and
inside of one another under the cloak of darkness. Their
communion offered an impermanent respite for the weary
who carried unrealized dreams upon their backs-a transient
peace, but peace nonetheless.

---------------------------------------------------

notes

---------------------------------------------------

No offense is intended to...well...anybody.

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Atlantis/6277/

Started: 03/04/99

Finished: 12/04/99

End 12/12