Title: Manitou                               
Author: Dryad 
Rating: X, R/NC17, MSR, mild UST, Angst-O-Rama 
Spoilers: itsy witsy bitsy ones for 'Arcadia', 'Redux II'                                      
Season: FTF to 'Je Souhaite'
Length: Novella                    
Archive: Gossamer - no, all others - yes.  A note where would be nice. 
Summary: Mulder and Scully frolic with a serial murderer
Note: Violence graphically depicted.  NoRoMo's read 1-10(R).  Shippers and
Smutsters read all or just 11+(R/NC17).  References and further commentary
are at the end of part 13.  Reading the other stories in this series is
recommended, although not necessary.
                                             
Feedback: Be brutal.  You know you want to.       

The Song Cycle:                                                  
The Gift - available now                          
Halcyon Dreaming - available now                       
The Fight - available now                                        
One Ordinary Day - available now                            
Manitou - available now                                


"For the children who will lead the future,       
this is a prayer:                                 

stop, stop making the murder of soul
(soul)                                                 

DJ Krush/Murder of Soul/Krush                     

                    
December                                          
Lincoln, Vermont                                            
early afternoon                                             


     Mulder crouched next to the body, wondered if Jennifer Dubois had
been capable of understanding what was happening to her when her face and
scalp had been flayed off.  Her eyes were blue or hazel, maybe gray.  It
was hard to tell with the white film covering them.  The cavity which had
once housed her intestines and internal organs was shockingly bright,
redder than red, redder than cranberry and carmine and scarlet, all words
too poor to describe the color corroding the snow around and beneath her.
Waxy pearls of yellow fat were visible along the cut flaps of skin.  The
salmon pink stain in the snow was beautiful in its own strange way, like
Copper Canyon at sunset.  What made it even more disturbing was the fact
that he found beauty in it at all.
     Finding beauty in death of this nature...sometimes he thought he was
sicker than those who committed these crimes.  Yet he reminded himself that
the best way of finding a killer was to become one in all but deed. 
Nonetheless, danger lay there as well, his own demons clamoring to be set
free inside his skull.
     "Pardon me, are you Agent Mulder?"
     He frowned and stood, still looking at the body.  Although the crime
scene photographer had already taken pictures from every conceivable angle,
it was always possible that they'd missed something important.  After all,
northern Vermont was part of the boonies.  Northern Vermont was also damn
cold, the dead leaves on the beeches rattling like fingerbones in the
frequent gusts of wind.  He was grateful that the only things he could
smell were pine and the oncoming storm.  
     "Agent Mulder?"                                        
     He turned, stepped over a line of day-glo orange evidence markers,
luminous in the wan light, painfully brilliant against the trampled snow. 
They were the wrong tone, not harmonizing with the salmon pink.  The man
speaking was well bundled up in a black State Police jacket, tan trousers,
gloves, Sorels, and the ubiquitous flat brimmed hat.
     The man held out one hand. "Sheriff Whitlow. I'm glad you're here. I
would've met you at the office, but my son's just gone into surgery."
     "Nothing serious, I hope," Mulder said, shaking the other man's hand. 
God, he hated the banalities, especially when there were more important
things to consider.
     "Appendectomy," Whitlow nodded once and flipped a hand towards the
body. "Have any ideas?"
     Mulder glanced back, shrugged.  "It wasn't quick.  She was alive
throughout most of it,"  Had her vocal cords broken under the strain of her
screaming?  Had she felt the cold, or had she been too terrified to notice? 
Had she prayed to God to save her?  Had she asked for her mother?  Had she
been able to focus on anything else save her impending death? Had her
killer warmed his hands over her entrails during the long black night?  Had
he been splashed when her bowels voided?
     Whitlow swallowed hard. "D'you think the cold helped any?"
     "I don't know.  It's certainly possible."         
     "Actually, it's quite doubtful," Scully said, approaching Mulder,
breath steaming in the air. "The cold, combined with blood loss would have
numbed her considerably.  But the initial adrenaline rush and shivering
would have made the pain much, much worse.  Hopefully she bled quickly
enough to lose consciousness."
     "Christ," Whitlow shook his head in disbelief. "Whoever's doing this
has got to be insane."
     Mulder shared a look with Scully.  It was the same in every small
town in every rural state.  He had to admit to himself that despite all
he'd seen, occasionally he was of the same opinion - it just didn't seem
real, that people could this to one another, not outside of a war.  
     Whitlow must have been thinking the same thing, for he said,  "I got
drafted the day I turned eighteen.  Did my tour in Viet-nam, saw things,"
he trailed off, came back to the moment with haunted blue eyes. "Saw
things.  Never thought I'd see the like in my home town."
     "The trick is lock it up in some small corner of your mind," Mulder
said gently. Scully's bright gaze swept his face, but he kept his attention
focused on the sheriff. "Throw away the key."
     "Is that what you do?" Whitlow countered.
     Smart man.  Mulder didn't answer.  
     "What do you know about Dubois?" Scully asked, writing in her field
notebook.
     "Well," Whitlow motioned them back to let the troopers wrap Dubois in
plastic.  "She was twenty-nine, shared a house with Elaine Weschler and
April Mahoney.  Moved here after dropping out of Hampshire College when she
was twenty-three.  Made a living making and selling 'authentic' Indian art
at various fairs both in and out of state. She's also got a stall down in
Roanoke's, in the Baker Building.  Mother deceased, father unknown, no
siblings."
     "We'll want to talk to Weschler and Mahoney as soon as possible,"
Scully said.
     Mulder watched the troopers struggle with the frozen body, let Scully
do all the talking.  There was no elegance in death.  Dubois had been
brought into the woods, tortured, killed, sprawled over a log face up,
limbs akimbo, both sets of intestines spread like butterfly wings on either
side of her.  Spleen, lungs, kidneys and liver missing.  No attempt made to
conceal her.  Birds and small animals had nibbled on her exposed skin.  The
troopers had to break off the intestines to fit her in the bag.  And yet,
for all that, the killer had taken his time, drawing the maximum amount of
terror out of her.  Scully's shocked tone broke into his thoughts.    
     "When was Mahoney killed?" She asked.
     Whitlow was glancing back and forth between the two of them in wary
surprise. "Couple of weeks ago.  I thought that's what you two were coming
up here for when we got word of Dubois."
     "How was Mahoney killed?" Mulder interjected, feeling that odd
excitement in his backbrain.  He ignored it, experience having taught him
it was already working overtime.  They were connected - he didn't know how,
or why, but they were connected.  They had to be.  Vermont didn't see a
hell of a lot of murders.
     "Drowned," Whitlow said, following the other men back to the
snowmobiles, snow softly crunching beneath his boots. "Fell through the ice
in the Pond River shallows, apparently."
     Mulder cast a quick look Scully's way - she'd caught it as well,
although her face gave nothing away to those who didn't know her.  "In
December?"
     Having reached the trail, Whitlow busied himself by climbing onto his
snowmobile, turning over the motor while  the body was loaded onto the sled
of the snowmobile behind. "I'll let our coroner know where to find you as
soon as she gets back in town."
     "Sheriff Whitlow - "
     "Agent Scully, I've got to get back to my boy.  He wanted me to be
there when he woke up. Now, if you'll excuse me - " Whitlow gunned the
engine and took off, guided his Yamaha through the trees in a circle,
around the sled and back onto the trail.
     "What was that all about?" Scully asked, rubbing her gloved hands
together.
     Mulder sniffed, the mucus membranes in his nose drying instantly in
the frigid air. "Got me.  But whatever it is, something is definitely
rotten in the state of Denmark."
     "Agents?" one of the men called. "We're all ready to take you back
now."                    


Manitou, by Dryad
2/13, disclaimer in part one (R)                  

"It's just another day - There's murder in the air     
It drags me when I walk -  I smell it everywhere 
It's just another day -  Where people cling to light 
To drive away the fear - That comes with every night"
 
Oingo Boingo/Just Another Day/Dead Man's Party    


     Although it was only three forty-five in the afternoon by Mulder's
watch, dusk had already fallen and was rapidly approaching full night. 
Darkness combined with the pines shadowing the trail forced the
snowmobile's headlights on.  The forest was peaceful and very quiet beyond
the headlights and the noise of the engines, mute witness to the horror of
Jennifer Dubois' death.  Funny, how the woods still had the power to make
the hair on the back of his neck stand up.  He felt like the trees were
watching, holding back judgement to see if justice would be done.  Old
trees.  Old spirits.  Doing his best to huddle behind the driver, the wind
bringing tears to his eyes, he made a silent vow to do his best.  
     When they arrived back at the clearing by the side of the road,
Sheriff Whitlow's truck was long gone.  Mulder got off the Ski-Doo, cold
and stiff, knee joints aching.  He stomped blood back into his feet as he
made his way to his rental car. God only knew how long it would take for
the heater to get going, he just hoped it was sooner rather than later. 
Scully slid into the passenger seat after spending a few minutes with the
troopers.
     Mulder shifted into first and rolled onto the road. "How was your
flight?" 
     "Rocky.  I don't even want to tell you how hairy landing at
Burlington Airport was," she shuddered delicately.  "Wish I'd been able to
come up with you."
     "Me too," Mulder answered, glancing at the dash to see if the heater
really was going at full blast, or if it was merely some kind of Yankee
joke played on flatlanders. "Where's your bag?"
     "The deputy I got a ride in with said he'd drop it off at our hotel."
     "Bed and breakfast if you please, Scully."
     "Are you serious?  Could there actually be some perks in this
godforsaken state?"
     Mulder half-smiled. "Come on, Vermont's not that bad."
     "Mulder," Scully stared at him indignantly. "The last time we were
here you got radiation poisoning."
     "Could've been worse. No, seriously," he said at her astonished bark
of laughter. "Vermont isn't exactly high on the violent crime list.  Some
years they don't have any murders at all."
     "That means nothing."
     "It does when there are two murders only a few weeks apart in the
same small town.  Not including Ted Bundy, Vermont's only had one known
serial killer, Gary Schaefer, in the early 80's.  And Audrey Hilley worked
in Brattleboro for a few months after poisoning various members of her
family in Texas.  Be glad we're not in Maine."
     "Good point. Never go to the state where Stephen King lives," Scully
said, lost in thought. "What are we doing here, anyway?  This case isn't
exactly an X-File."
     "It's busy work," Mulder said.  He released a deep breath. "To be
honest, Scully, I'm happy enough to have your plain, ordinary, garden
variety murderer for a change."
     She looked at him, said, "Because of Iris Johanssen?"
     He shrugged. 
     "The woman was a liar and a cheat, Mulder, a fraud.  God only knows
how she found out about your sister.  She traded on your hope and gave you
nothing by pain and disappointment in return."
     He smiled bitterly, opened his mouth to speak.
     "No, Mulder," She held up one hand. "She's not worth thinking about
any longer."
     "But," his smile faded. "what if - ?"
     "No, no 'but's and no 'what if's.  She lied."
     Scully was, of course, right.  It didn't make him feel any better.
     Houses began appearing by the road twenty miles from where the body
had been found, warm light spilling out of uncurtained windows, glimpses of
families within, barns looming in the background.  Lincoln itself was a
blink-and-you-miss-it kind of town, the road turning into Main Street as it
passed between the houses and shops on either side, then back into a rural
highway past the grade school.  The usual accoutrements were there, though
- a small laundromat, a café, bookstore, bank, general store, combo gas
station, garage and volunteer firehouse.  The post office, historical
society, and state police offices were housed in the same brick building,
an old church. 
     "Here we are," Mulder parked in the Lincoln Inn's wide driveway, set
the parking brake on the gentle incline - just in case. "I took the liberty
of picking your room for you."
     Scully gave him a Look before getting out of the car and pounding up
the wooden steps of the wraparound porch.  Mulder quickly followed, opened
the front door and guided her into the foyer with a touch on the small of
her back.  Neither of them hung their coats up. 
     The inside of the house was typically New England, complete with
white walls and the slightest draft coming in through the windowsills. 
Plain yet homey.  Oriental carpets that looked like the real thing were on
the floor, Turkish or maybe Egyptian, threadbare where people walked most
frequently.  Simple watercolors and charcoal sketches adorned the walls,
and overloaded bookcases littered the public rooms.  The furniture was
well-used and unfussy.  Chintz had been banished.  The scent of woodsmoke
and pine and cooked onions permeated the air.
     "Scully, I hate to break it to you, but I took the room with the
private tv."
     "Mulder, you know I could care less."             
      He'd chosen the room facing the street for himself, giving Scully
the corner room at the back of the house, which overlooked fields and
distant mountains.  The room suited her, the poster bed with its quiet
floral bedspread, dark, heavy dresser and matching vanity.  Reserved. 
Feminine without being pushy.  Neat and clean.  Oh, and the mattress was
feather soft.  
     Scully sat on the bed and bounced, then headed for one of the
windows.  After a quick peek out, she turned to him, eyes bright, a little
moue of pleasure on her lips. "This is almost worth forgiving years of
fleabag motels."
     "We aim to please, and just wait to you see the bathroom," he said. 
He led her back down the hallway, stepped aside.  It was, he didn't doubt,
her dream bathroom.  An extra-long, white enameled, clawfoot tub lay along
the wall, a handheld chrome shower unit hooked over one end.  It looked big
enough to accompany him.  A multiplicity of soaps were in baskets around
the room, and dried bunches of sweet-smelling eucalyptus hung on the walls. 
A floor to ceiling cubby was stuffed with fluffy violet towels.  The toilet
and sink were plain white porcelain, nothing fancy.  In a major departure
from the rest of the house, the room had been painted brick red, which
rather than having the effect of heaviness, made it cozy, the kind of place
that begged one to have a long soak at least once a week.  
     "Mulder, we're never leaving."          
     "I'm certainly glad to hear you like it.  You must be Agent Scully,"
the owner of the voice leaned into the room.
     "Scully, this is Mae Lincoln.  She owns the Inn." 
     Lincoln was a petite black woman in her 50's, slender in faded jeans
and wool sweater with navy Scandinavian designs, silver feather earrings
dangling from her lobes, tight salt and pepper curls barely skimming her
scalp.  She wore red slipper socks on her feet.  "As I was telling Agent
Mulder earlier, you two are my only guests at the moment, so you've got the
run of the place.  Feel free to get anything from the kitchen that you
want, I'm sure your hours are going to be very erratic.  My room's the last
on the left if you need anything."
     "Thank you," Scully said.
     "Mrs. Lincoln also runs the historical society," Mulder added.
     "Mae, please," She said, nodding. "I'm the person to ask if you want
the in-depth story of Lincoln.  It's far more interesting than you think."
     "Do you have any thoughts about the murders?" asked Scully.
     "A few.  Would you like some tea or coffee? I've got water on the
boil as we speak," Mae said, heading downstairs. 
     "Tea would be lovely," said Scully.
     "They've come as a great shock.  Things like that just don't happen
here.  Oh, of course we get hunting accidents and cars sliding on ice, and
last year Jason Lancaster got run over by his own snowmobile," Mae shook
her head. "Both April and Jen were liked, April in particular.  Hometown
girl, y'know.  Terrible what happened to her family."
     Mulder brought up the rear.  He and Scully had developed a wonderful
rhythm in the first few months of their partnership, one that had carried
on over the years.  They'd scope the crime scene, Mulder seeing what he
could see while Scully quizzed the officer in charge about the crime itself
and the players involved, if known.  He'd have a think, then they'd switch,
and she'd investigate the scene and the body if it remained in place, while
he picked the officer's brain.  It worked to their advantage more often
than not.  He hadn't ever worked with anyone else so well, regardless of
gender.  They  reversed the process during formal interviews.
     Mae led them into the kitchen, which was lined with  battered
industrial sized stainless steel stove, refrigerator and freezer.  It was a
cold room made warmer with the judicious use of color, apricot walls and
cinnamon trim.  A scarred wooden table big enough to seat ten people was in
the middle of the room, and  there was a cushioned seat beneath the bay
window.
     "Take a seat," Mae said, pulling three mugs from one of the azure
cupboards.
     Scully pulled one end of the bench out from the table and sat down.
"You mentioned something about her family?"
     Mulder wandered over to the window.  It hadn't started snowing yet,
but the whistle of the wind was clearly audible through the panes.  As was
the breeze coming from the sill.  He moved and sat next to Scully.
     "Oh yeah, happened ten years ago.  If April hadn't been staying over
at Nicole Dulac's she'd've died with her parents and little brother," The
kettle shrilled and she moved it to another burner, turned off the stove.
"I've got herbal, black tea, and instant decaf.  I would've made a fresh
pot, but I figured you'd be tired and want your sleep later on."
     "Coffee for me, please," Mulder said.  Scully seemed none too
pleased, but she'd get over it.  She always did.
     "Agent Scully?"
     "Herbal."
     Mae filled a cobalt blue porcelain teapot with leaves from a jar, 
then spooned two heaps of instant coffee into one of the mugs.  She topped
both teapot and mug with water, stirred, brought them to the table. "It was
Christmastime, to make things even worse.  They ultimately decided that it
was an electrical fault from one of the candles in the window. They found
John in the hallway with Joe, he must have been carrying the boy when he
was overcome by the smoke.  Poor Faith never even made it out of bed."
     "Are there any other family members living in the area?" Mulder
asked.  He took a sip of coffee - it was instant all right.
     "No," Mae stirred the pot again, fragrant mint-scented steam rising
from the spout.  She placed a bamboo strainer over a mug, poured one for
Scully, then herself. "They were the last.  It's a pity."
     Scully added a spoonful of dark honey to her mug. "What about
yourself, have you lived here long?"    
     "Oh, I grew up in Lincoln.  When I was little I thought the town was
named after me, much to the delight of my classmates.  My teacher, Mrs.
Kaspar, told me the town originally had an indian name, but upon his death
was renamed after President Lincoln.  We were a stop on the Underground
Railroad, y'know."
     "Of course," Mulder said. "You're only a few miles from the border."
     Mae nodded. "Which also explains the prevalence of French names."
     Scully took over. "Does Lincoln get a lot of crime?"
     "Not really.  I mean, there's the occasional burglary, but that's
almost always restricted to the summer homes and ski lodges.  Sometimes
campers unintentionally set forest fires, but the volunteers get those
under control pretty quickly.  A few years ago there was a spate of
underwear being stolen off of laundry lines and from Sud's and Bud's,
that's the bar-laundromat downtown.  Actually, apart from the Mahoney's, we
haven't had a serious incident in years."
     "What about strangers?"
     Mae squinched her face in thought. "Depends on the season.  We get
history buffs following the Railroad into Canada, tourists taking the
indirect route from Quebec City and Montreal to Boston and New York, or
vice versa. Skiers, hikers, cyclists.  The usual assortment.  It's enough
to keep me in business, but not what I'd call tremendous.  Two b and b's
would be one too many."
     Mulder took another sip of the awful coffee while Mae and Scully
chatted.  Two murders in a town where not much happened.  A woman drowns in
the frozen shallows of a river in the middle of December.  Another woman
scalped, skinned alive, and disemboweled in the middle of the woods, far
enough away from town so that no one hears her screams, yet close enough to
a trail to be found by a couple of snowmobilers.   He asked, "Was April the
type of person to commit suicide?"
     "I wouldn't have thought so, but you never can tell with that sort of
thing.  She always struck me as the type of person who planned on going far
in life," Mae inspected her tea, picked out a long leaf and rolled it
between her fingers.  "Jenny I didn't care for.  Her or that Elaine.  I'm
sure she was a perfectly nice girl, but there was something about her that
didn't sit right with me," Mae rose to answer the phone as it rang in the
hallway.
     "Our very own font of information.  Must be our lucky day," Scully
murmured.
     "Got that right, Scully."
     Mae returned a moment later. "That was the Sheriff.  He'd like the
two of you to go to the office. He sounded like he was in a hurry."
     Fortune bless, now he wouldn't have to finish that terrible coffee.



Manitou, by Dryad
3/13 disclaimer in part one (R)

"Down in the park
where the chant is
'Death, death, death'
Until the sun cries morning
Down in the park
with friends of mine"

Gary Numan/Down in the Park/Replicas


     The walk to the Lincoln State Police office was quick.  Main Street
was eerily deserted, considering it had only just gone five.  The lights
were on, but was anybody home?
     The front section of the church had been reserved for the post office
and historical society, occupying either side of the huge foyer, while the
State Police had the remainder in the back.  Even so, it wasn't big.
     Consisting of one room, the office looked like every other federal
office Mulder had ever been in, except it didn't have a rat's maze of
movable cubicles.  WANTED and MISSING posters were tacked on the walls,
along with a host of federal regulations and worker's comp fact sheets,
plus way too many McGruff the Crime Dog posters.  Take a Bite Out of Crime. 
Apart from the white walls, the room was all brown.  Carpet, metal desks,
telephones, in baskets.  Mulder felt like he was on the inside of a baked
bean.  
     One of the deputies, the ignominiously named Burt Lancaster, a short
balding man with horn-rimmed glasses, led them to the back of the office. 
Mulder would not have believed anyone who told him about Whitlow's personal
office.  It had been constructed out of filing cabinets.  Three walls of
filing cabinets, the building forming the fourth wall.  
     Whitlow didn't look up from the file he was reading as they were led
in. "Take a seat."
     Mulder assumed a sloppier pose than usual, knees wide apart, slouched
down in the chair.  Whitlow's eyes flickered ever so slightly.  Point made,
Mulder sat up and crossed his legs.  "How's your son?"
     "He'll be fine," Whitlow cleared his throat and closed the file. "I'd
like to apologize for my manner earlier today -"
     Mulder shook his head.  "You can't help but worry about your
children.  There's nothing to apologize for," Out of the corner of his eye
he saw Scully glance at her hands. 
     "I have to say that I wasn't expecting anyone from the FBI, not
anymore."
     "How do you mean?" Scully asked.                  
     "I requested help three weeks ago when we found April.  Now I'm not a
medical examiner -"
     "No, he leaves that up to me. I'm Oona MacArthur, your local coroner
and medical examiner," A tall woman with cropped white hair, dressed in
jeans and a fuzzy brown cowl neck sweater, smelling of smoke and rose
attar, stepped around Mulder's chair. She stuck her hand out. "Oh, don't
get up."
     Mulder stood anyway, introduced himself and Scully.  He was
pleasantly surprised at being able to look her directly in the eye.  Tall,
indeed, and quite attractive.  She wore tiny  circled five point silver
stars in her ears, and a silver moonstone ring.
     MacArthur shook Scully's hand, then leaned against the nearest filing
cabinet, folding her arms. "Go on, Nathaniel, don't let me stop you."
     Whitlow continued on as if she hadn't interrupted. "There's something
funny about April's death - "
     "That's an understatement," MacArthur muttered.
     "She was found face down in the shallows by Pond River bridge.  I
think she was supposed to look like a suicide, but if it was, well, pigs
can fly."
     "How so?" Mulder asked in tandem with Scully.  
     "She hadn't broken through the ice," Whitlow said bluntly. "Not
completely.  Rob MacArthur found her lying face down in the fishing hole
he'd cut only a couple of days before.  It hadn't snowed that week, but it
was cold enough for her to have frozen into it."
     Scully frowned and looked at the coroner. "Did she drown?"
     "She certainly did.  And she did inhale Pond River water. But, I
didn't find any of the cuts or abrasions you'd expect when someone falls
down an embankment.  She was wearing mittens, and there wasn't a mark on
them.  There was no evidence of sexual assault, either."
     "I'd like to take a look at her body," Scully said.
     MacArthur glanced guiltily at the Sheriff, shrugged apologetically.
"She was cremated."
     Mulder sighed.  
     "You also have to understand that the bridge is only what, four or
five feet above the river, which is also at its shallowest until the next
bend," said Whitlow, leaning back in his chair.  He shook his head.  "If
she didn't slip and fall, she would've had to have climbed over the railing
or the snowbank to get to the ice.  And to what purpose?  We didn't find
any fishing equipement.  It doesn't make any damned sense."
     "I couldn't rule out a suicide," MacArthur explained further. "But I
sure as hell didn't like putting it on the death certificate."
     "I'd like to take a look out there if possible," Mulder said. 
Another outdoor location. "Is the bridge close to a house?"
     MacArthur pushed off the filing cabinet and stepped closer to
Whitlow.  She frowned. "Indian Farm's my brother's place.  He and April
didn't get along."
     Why did people always point in the direction they least wanted others
to look? Scully glanced at him - divide and conquer. "What about Jenny
Dubois?"
     "One thing's for sure, she didn't drown," Whitlow paused, then said,
"Her organs...her face...do you think it's some kind of Hannibal Lector
thing?"
     Mulder twitched one shoulder. "I don't know.  We certainly can't rule
out cannibalism, although I would have expected the thigh, calf, or breasts
to be taken as well.  Ed Gein skinned his victims because he wanted to be a
woman, and making a woman-suit was the next best thing.  Nevertheless, he
wasn't a cannibal.  Jeffrey Dahmer ate selected parts of his victims as a
way of possessing their essential nature.  I don't get the same feeling
with our killer.  Maybe he likes the taste.  Human is supposed to be quite
similar to pork in flavor."
     "Jesus," MacArthur grimaced and shuddered.
     "What about their roommate," Scully asked, reading from her field
notes. "Elaine Weschler?"                    
     "Elaine works at Mysterious Ways, Jonas Putnam's bookstore.  She's
completely bewildered by these events, can't understand why anyone would
want to kill either one of them.  She did call us when Jenny didn't come
home last night, but Jenny'd never told her what trails she was going on. 
Elaine thinks she remembers seeing her head towards Meadow Road, but can't
be positive."
     "Y'know, South Trail's a hell of a long way from Meadow Road,"
MacArthur mused.  "It's got to be, what, eighteen, twenty miles away? 
Depending, of course, how close to town she was when she started out.  And
she would have had to ski it back, assuming South Trail was her destination
in the first place.  Assuming she even started from Meadow Road.  Jesus. 
Maybe someone gave her a ride?"                        
     Whitlow shook his head. "Nah, she was an excellent skier, was the
alternate for the US cross-country team at the Junior Olympics when she was
eighteen."
     "So where are her skis?" Mulder asked. "Are we overlooking the
obvious, here?"
     Scully put her foot in. "There weren't any ski tracks around the
body." 
     She had a knack of making statements like that sound less like the
accusations they were.  Mulder wished she would share the secret with him.
     "And don't even think my troopers would be so stupid as to mess up a
crime scene," Whitlow growled.  "We're not hicks, y'know."
     "So if she didn't ski to the trail, how did she get there?" Mulder
shifted in his seat, ignoring Whitlow's comment. "Did she ski along the
road, then take the snowmobile trail into the forest?  And if so, could not
her killer have done the same?"
     "It's possible, and as likely as any other explanation at this
stage," Whitlow said, rubbing his face with one hand. "Chances are, we find
the ski's, we find the killer."
     Silence reigned for few moments.
     MacArthur suddenly brightened. "Agent Scully, Nathaniel tells me
you're a forensic pathologist.  Would you care to assist me in the
examination of the body?"
     "I'd be happy to, Mrs MacArthur."
     "Oh, please, it's just Oona.  No one's called me Mrs. since I got rid
of the ball and chain," MacArthur rolled her eyes and headed for the gap in
the filing cabinets, Scully in tow. "It's so nice to see more women in our
profession - "
     "Oona's going to pluck your partner's brains dry," Whitlow grinned
sourly and stood up. "Come on, I'll take you to the bridge."
                    
     Ten minutes out of town they turned onto Indian Farm road, the dirty
snow clear sign of its unpaved status.  Beyond the high-beams, apart from a
few clumps of trees, fields appeared to lay on either side of the road. 
How had April Mahoney gotten out here?
     "You were recommended."                           
     Mulder looked at the Sheriff. "Excuse me?" 
     Whitlow's lips tightened. "A couple of days after we found April, I
got an anonymous call.  A man instructed me to ask specifically for you. 
April's death was so strange..." he shrugged one shoulder, shook his head.
"Figured it couldn't hurt to have the resources of the FBI at hand."
     Interesting.  So far there hadn't been anything to suggest there was
anything remotely X-ish about the case.  The only other thing he could
think of was that someone wanted them out of Washington.  Still seemed like
a pretty far stretch.  Maybe there was something odd here after all?
     After turning onto the left of another fork in the road, they arrived
at the bridge, the yellow BRIDGES FREEZE BEFORE ROAD and white LEGAL LIMIT
4 TONS signs juddering in the gusts of wind.  Whitlow didn't bother pulling
the truck over to the side of the road.  There wasn't much point, for with
the snowbanks as high as they were another car couldn't pass anyway. 
Whitlow grabbed two heavy-duty flashlights out of the trunk and pointed
Mulder to the right hand side of the bridge. "We found her on this side,
about two yards over."
     Mulder wished to God he'd followed Scully's example and worn mukluks
or Sorels instead of steel toed work boots. '"Your feet are going to freeze
in those shitkickers"' she'd said.  And she was right, along with the rest
of him they were freezing. The faster he did this the sooner he could get
back in the truck. 
     The plows had pushed the snow over the bank and into the river, an
ultimately useless attempt to avoid mud season and potholes.  He hesitantly
stepped on the flattened top of the snowbank, waited to see if the crust
was solid enough to support his weight.  It was, so he went forward with
more confidence, playing the flashlight over the eroded concrete
foundations and bastions of the bridge.  The ice covered river wasn't far
down and looked very shallow, unless the rocks poking up here and there
were far larger underneath the water than they looked.  Downstream, the
river narrowed and bent sharply to the left before being cut out of sight
by the bank.
     She stood at the edge - here.  And if the snow had been soft enough -
?  The edge crumbling away beneath her feet? No trees or tall weeds,
nothing to grab onto.  It had been icy, she'd slipped, maybe hit her head? 
But she'd be on her back, no? On the ice, the river having frozen over?  So
how did she end up face down in a fishing hole?    How had her face broken
the thin skin of ice covering the water?  MacArthur had said Mahoney hadn't
had any of the expected cuts and scrapes...why not?  Because the ice had
already been broken.  Because she was meeting someone who was fishing, or
who had already decided to kill her?  Or she had done it herself? Laying
down and deliberately inhaling water so cold it would have made her choke
and cough and sputter, her skin burning from the frigid liquid?
     "You almost done, Agent Mulder?" 
     Why had she been here?  Who would she have met?  Why here? He turned
off the flashlight, let his eyes adjust as much as possible.  Ah.  Off in
the distance, the porch light of a house.  Yeah, he was done. 
     "...ing my goddamned balls off..." 
     Whitlow muttered under breath as Mulder climbed back into the truck. 
"Is that MacArthur's house?"
     "Ayuh.  Indian Farm," he glared at Mulder. "I s'pose you want to go
over and talk to John right now, hunh?"
     Mulder shook his head, said, mildly, "It can wait until tomorrow."
     The ride back was very quiet, Whitlow radiating anxiety tinged anger. 
Mulder didn't mind.
     Whitlow pulled up in front of three storey white house with a wrap
around porch.  A posted and lit wooden sign staked in the front yard read
The Deacon Proctor Funeral Home.  It waved in the constant breeze. Whitlow
nodded. "Just press the bell.  Oona's got it rigged so it rings in the
basement, too."
     At Mulder's inquisitive look, he added, "We're just a small town,
Agent Mulder.  We don't have a hospital, we don't have a high school, hell,
we don't even have 911.  We make do with what we've got."
     Suitably told off, Mulder got out of the truck, watched it pull away. 
Whitlow was a good man, if moody and a little defensive.  Anyway, it was
too chilly out to stand here and ponder what it was like to live in a small
town in a small state.  Besides, he already knew, he'd grown up in a tiny
town on a tiny island.
     A light flicked on in the hallway as soon as he rang the doorbell,
Oona MacArthur appearing a few moments later.
     "Agent Mulder, come in, come in.  Dana said you'd show up sooner
rather than later."
     He followed her to the back and down the stairs, wondered what on
earth possessed people to provide such a service.  Oh, it was necessary, he
well knew.  Human beings needed their rituals, created them wherever they
went, from Fiji to the Arctic circle.  Half the time he didn't know how
Scully was able to do what she did, what had drawn her to forensics in the
first place.  He'd have to ask her someday.
     The basement was plain, with a sloping concrete floor which had a
drain in the middle.  Lining the walls were a sink, two autopsy tables, a
cabinet of instruments, a large refrigerator and six body bays.  Mulder had
to admit he was impressed.  Lincoln may not have had 911, but it certainly
knew how to treat a dead body.
     Scully looked up from Dubois' body. "Mulder, there's nothing here to
indicate that she died in any other manner than what we saw at the crime
scene."
     Mulder didn't really want to get any closer.  Just because he'd seen
plenty of bodies didn't mean he had gotten used to it.  The odor of
formaldehyde, disinfectant, and the underlying sickly sweet smell of decay
was overpowering.  Thank god it was winter, he hated having to deal with
dripping, gassy corpses.  No matter what Scully said, Vicks Vap-O-Rub under
the nose simply didn't cut the mustard.  And god forbid you should inhale
through your mouth, that was even worse.
     "Mulder, are you listening to me?"
     "Horrific, Scully, that's what you said."
     "Actually, that was me," Oona said.  She shook her head, staring at
Dubois. "I can't believe someone did this to her.  And Elaine, do you think
she's in any danger?"
     It was a good question, but one he had already dismissed. "No.  Both
Jenny and April were out on their own, in or around wooded or relatively
unpopulated areas where no one could hear them scream."
     Oona's expression changed to one of extreme distaste. "That's quite
enough, Agent Mulder.  I don't really want to hear any more of your
theories.  It's bad enough seeing what that monster did to her.  Dana, if
you're done, I'll go ahead and put her away."
     Scully nodded and started stripping off her gloves. "I'm all
finished."
     Mulder headed towards the sink and Scully.  He moved as close as
possible, lowered his head and spoke quietly. "You didn't find anything at
all out of the ordinary?"
     She glanced over her shoulder at Oona, spoke in the same soft tone.
"Nothing.  You wanted a plain and simple murder, well, you've certainly
found one.  She was tied up, but not unconscious, not for a long time. 
Tortured and mutilated," She shook her head, gazed earnestly into his eyes.
"Mulder, whoever did this enjoys watching people suffer to a degree that I
haven't encountered before, and with this level of degradation..."
     "I know," he said, nodding. "There's no way this man hasn't killed
before, and every reason to believe he'll do it again.  He's gone so far
this time, I hate to imagine what he'll do next."
     "But you will."
     Her trust in his willingness to almost become a killer was touching. 
Her faith that he would return from that desolate place marvelous.  He felt
touched by the hand of God whenever she said such things. "I will."

     
Manitou, by Dryad                            
4/13 disclaimer in part one (R)

"Certain things - I love                                    
spend my time 
I guess I'll have to unhook those thoughts"

Throwing Muses/Hook in Her Head/The Real Ramona
     
     
     On Oona's advice, Mulder and Scully left her to do the cleanup while
they caught a bite to eat at the café.  
     '"It's not gourmet, just plain food for plain people,"' she'd said,
turning on the hose to wash down the table.
     The Chat 'N' Chew was the kind of place where everyone would have
turned and stared had it been busy.  As it was, there was only one other
diner, an older man sitting at the counter. Wood was the predominant theme:
creaky uneven wood floor, wooden tables of varying sizes, wooden chairs
which didn't match, rough wooden frames for the black and white photographs
of Ella and Duke and the Count on the walls.  Billie Holiday wailed away
from hidden  speakers.
     "Have a seat wherever you like," the waitress said, pinning up a neon
pink sign on the cork notice board.
     Mulder stopped. "Mephiskapheles?"
     She grinned. "Great name, eh?  They're headlining with The
Skatellites at the Burlington Ska Festival on New Year's.  Gonna be a great
show."
     Ah, youth.  At least he knew what the hell ska was.  Mulder chose a
two seater table near one of the two windows.  
     "I think I'd kill for a bowl of chicken noodle soup," Scully said,
hanging her coat over the back of her chair.  She rubbed her arms,
shivering.
     "We've got Shaker Turkey Noodle," the waitress said brightly. She put
menu's before them, filled their glasses with water.
     Scully nodded. "I'll take a bowl of that, please."
     Mulder quickly perused the menu. "Nothing for me, thank you."
     "Would you like coffee or tea?"
     "Do you have any hot chocolate?" Mulder asked, ignoring Scully's
raised brows. "And tea for her."
     "Sure.  Be back in a jiffy."
     He studiously looked anywhere but his partner's face.  Thankfully,
she didn't take the opportunity to make a smart remark.  There was nothing
wrong with a grown man wanting a little comfort food.  
     "So, hot chocolate?" she asked, idly playing with a packet of sugar.
     "Yup," he said.
     The waitress returned with their drinks.  Mulder eyed his cup, then
looked up at the waitress, who was sharing a moment of feminine conspiracy
with Scully.  Always made him nervous when women did that.  
     The waitress glanced at him and said, "You looked like a man in need
of mini-marshmallows."
     He watched her walk away, and when he looked back at Scully, her face
was tight with suppressed mirth.  "I'm glad you're amused."
     She stopped, then, regarded him with eyes of infinitely gentle
wisdom. "Oh, Mulder."
     He wished he could figure out what he did to make her look at him
like that.  He didn't see it all that often, and he liked the way it
changed her bearing.  Which always brought him back to wondering how far
would she have gone, had she not been attached to him, to the X-Files. 
Married, no doubt, with living children.  No scars, mental or physical. 
Her sister would still be breathing.  Of course he'd probably be dead by
now, but that wasn't necessarily a drawback.  
     Right.  
     He said, "Did I ever tell you the chicken story?"
     She looked doubtful. "Is this something I want to hear while I'm
eating?"
     Mulder blinked. This from the woman who got meal ideas from cadavers?
"Sure you do.  Check this out - "
     With opportune timing, her soup arrived, along with copious bags of
oyster crackers, bread and butter.   Scully eyed him, pushed the basket of
rolls his way.  He dutifully picked at one.  Why they bothered with this
sham was beyond him.  He'd pretend to eat on the first day, she'd pretend
to assume he was eating on the days thereafter, for as long as the case
took to solve.  Once the case was over he chowed down like the starved man
that he was, and she didn't comment on it.  She never failed him in their
little on-the-road rituals.                  
     "So these cops are patrolling a well-known lover's lane, playing
catch-me-if-you-can with the local teens, when they interrupt a couple
parked in the yellow zone.  They give the couple the low-down, but the guy
tells them to check out the car down the road.  He says they were going to
park there - "
     "Safety in numbers," Scully mumbled, crumbling another bag of
crackers over her bowl. 
     Mulder nodded. "Yeah, really.  Anyway, the guy says he was going to
park with the other car, but when they peered in, the other guy was in the
backseat screwing a chicken."
     Scully gawped, spoon halfway to her mouth. "He was what?"
     "So the cops go check it out, and sure enough, he's doing the
horizontal mambo with a feathered friend.  What's more, he's videotaping
the whole thing."
     "Oh - my - god."
     Mulder nodded again gleefully. "I know, can you believe it?"
     "But, Mulder - how - why - ?"                
     "I've seen the tape, Scully, and all I can say is that there are some
things Man Was Not Meant To Know.  And yes," he added, because everyone
wanted information on one particular point. "He was a fully formed and
functional adult male in that regard."
     She looked down at her half-empty bowl with an expression of amused
disgust. "I'm never going to eat chicken again."
     "Then my work here is done," he solemnly intoned.
     Scully snorted and finished her soup, ordered hot Indian Pudding for
dessert, from which Mulder snuck a couple of spoonfuls. 
     They returned to the Lincoln Inn and turned in for the night, each
going to their separate rooms to start their field reports.  Mulder turned
the tv on, let it drone away quietly in the background while he fluffed the
pillows and put them against the headboard of his bed.  He undressed,
slipped into sweats.  Thank god he'd thought of bringing them along, it was
too chilly to sleep only in boxers even though the radiator was hot to the
touch.  After flipping channels for awhile, he decided that YO!MTV RAPS was
perhaps the lesser of evils.  But not by much.  He fondly remembered the
days when rapping was something you did with your knuckles against a door. 
When he was all settled and comfy, he uncapped his pen, opened his field
journal and began to write:


"Good fences make good neighbors"
That's how Robert Frost's Mending Wall ends. 
It begins: "Something there is that does not 
love a wall"   

Fences and boundaries, whether mental or
physical, are of no importance to the killer. 
He feels no constraints.  He is not sloppy,
nor does he care if his victims are discovered.
Location is unimportant? Confident in his 
skills as a predator.  An  older man, not 
comfortable with his place in the world.  Or 
rather, he is comfortable, but wants recognition 
of...something.  A bright man, yet a failure 
in life.  Low education.  Envious.  Enraged.  
Self-important. Victims of little consideration.  
A loner.  No relationships.  Parents  deceased? 
Organs as trophies?  Cannibal?

     Mulder chewed on the end of the pen for a moment, watched a scantily
clad woman gyrate against a gold-toothed rapper, eyes heavy with fake lust.


Hates women.  Sexual organs untouched.  Hates
men too? No mutilation beyond removal 
of the face and scalp.  The human body as 
trash. Freedom in the woods.  Local, knows 
the trails.  Survivalist?  How does he find his 
victims?  Who does he think he is?


What's the trigger?
What's the payoff?                 
Why now?                                     
Why?


     There was a knock at the door.  He checked his watch - eleven-thirty.
     "Come in," he called.  As expected, Scully entered his room.  She too
was dressed in sweats.
     "Couldn't sleep," she said, sliding next to him, but under the
covers. "I figured you'd still be up."
     "Mm.  Want the remote?"
     "God, yes.  Can't stand this crap."
     Mulder reread what he had written, closed the notebook and put it on
the sidetable.  He had the basics of the killer down, but was missing some
of the fundamentals.  People who could do such things...and why were there
so many of them, why now?  A person who could do this didn't arrive fully
formed overnight, no, it took years of development.  "Let's get a list of
all missing persons for the last ten years in the morning."
     Scully glanced at him. "You think he's been practicing?"
     He smiled grimly. "You're getting better at profiling with each and
every case, Scully. VCS and the ISU won't need me at all."
     "Yeah, right," she smirked and shook her head, frowned as she flipped
through the same channels he had. "Why's everything in french?"
     "Canadian cable.  Hey, hockey!"
     "Isn't there anything better on?" she asked with the tone of the
long-suffering.  
     "Speaking personally, as an American and a sports fan, that's heresy,
Scully."
     "Mm."
     "There are various made-for-tv movies, Jerry Springer, cartoons, and
CBC news.  And it's all in french."
     Scully sighed. "Hockey it is."
     
     

     
Manitou, by Dryad                                      
5/13 disclaimer in part one (R)    
     
"It is in the heart itself                                  
lies live, and deceit
How can I speak thereof
wisely, with gentleness?"                              

Hedningarna/Vargtimmen/Tra
(trans.)


     Mulder awoke to the smell of bacon.  Rubbing sticky eyes, he sat up,
checking to see if Scully had spent the night.  Of course she hadn't.  But
she'd tucked him under the covers and turned off the lights. 
     Fifteen minutes later he was downstairs, nibbling on a piece of bacon
and gulping down hot black coffee while Scully put her coat and gloves on. 
Mae seemed put out that he didn't want a bigger breakfast. 
     The roads were slick from freezing rain, and Mulder drove slowly and
carefully to Indian Farm.  It wasn't a big place, consisting of a two
storey white house, decrepit red barn, two silo's leaning against one
another at crazy angles.  A few Holsteins wandered in a paddock.  Shaggy
cattle of a kind Mulder had never seen before stood in the field across
from the house, chewing hay and looking mournful. 
     The front door opened as they got out of the car, and a dark haired
man around thirty years old called, "You the FBI?"
     Mulder flashed his creds. "I'm Special Agent Mulder, this is Special
Agent Scully.  May we come in?"
     "My father's out in the north field, got a fence to fix."
     Scully said, "And you are..."
     "Rob MacArthur." 
     Once inside the house, four huge dogs milled around their legs, tails
wagging, barking happily and looking for pats.
     "Luna, Cosmo, get down!" MacArthur shouted, hauling an English setter
and a golden Lab off of Mulder. "Sorry 'bout that.  Babur!  Damnit, Molly,
go lie down!"
     He led the two of them into the living room, which was crammed with
furniture, one couch of which the dogs apparently claimed as their own,
judging by the amount of hair on the blankets.  Everything from tv to books
to half-completed jigsaw puzzle, looked well used.  Not poor, necessarily,
so much as evidence of that infamous Yankee thriftiness.  The room smelled
of dog and pipe tobacco and woodsmoke.
     In the far corner a woman dressed in black sat at a round table
playing Solitaire.  She didn't look up as they entered. "Hey Rob, maybe we
should call the police?  He's been gone since last night, and he always
calls if he's going to be kept up..."
     MacArthur motioned towards her. "This my wife, Perouze.  Agent
Scully, Agent Mulder.  FBI."
     Like Scully, Mrs. MacArthur was a truly beautiful woman, the kind of
beauty that only made itself known to the person who could see beyond the
mundane.  Her features were classically Caucasoid, with startling sea-green
eyes, wavy hair the color of molasses, honeyed skin, hooked nose.  Her
accent placed her somewhere around the Mid-East.  Enough of the niceties,
however. Mulder said, "We'd like to talk to you about April Mahoney."
     MacArthur shot his wife a hard look. "What about her - she's dead."
     Mrs. MacArthur pursed her shapely lips.  She stood. "Agent Scully,
you look cold.  I'll make you some tea."
     Scully glanced at Mulder as she followed the other woman out of the
room. "'Perouze', that's a pretty name - "
     MacArthur scowled and threw himself onto a pea green armchair. He
gazed out the window, chewing on a dirt-ingrained fingernail. "She was just
a local.  Knew her all my life.  Finding her like that..." He turned
towards Mulder. "Her hair was picked up by the wind, looked like it was
alive.  She weren't, though.  Never seen a dead person before." 
     "Why was she out there?"
     He removed his finger long enough to lick his lips. "Dunno."
     Mulder didn't say the obvious.  No woman in their right mind, without
a car, would hike six miles to the middle of nowhere just to drown herself. 
At night.  Especially when there were much more convenient methods right at
home.  "How did you meet your wife?"
     MacArthur startled at the non sequitur. "Perouze?  I was stationed in
the Med, met her on leave in Istanbul.  She's Armenian.  Couple of years
later we met again at UVM, hooked up, got married."
     "Children?"                             
     "Nope."
     Mulder just looked at the man.  Dressed in a grubby white turtleneck
with a red flannel overshirt, olive corduroys, and thick wool socks, he was
the epitome of the smalltime working farmer.  Unhappiness came off of him
in waves.  "What do you think happened to her?"
     "Dunno."                                               
     One of the dogs, the giant German Shephard, wandered over and sat
down, looked at Mulder with big 'I'll be your bestest friend forever and
ever if you just pet me' brown eyes.  Defeated, he scratched the dog behind
the ears. "What kind of cattle are those in the field in front?"
     A frown, then. "Highland.  Used to be strictly dairy, but the price
of milk dropped too much.  We switched a few years ago.  Good market for
organic beef these days."
     Thankfully Scully chose to reappear, Mrs. MacArthur one step behind,
saving him from having to learn more about modern farming techniques. 
She'd probably found out more information than he had, anyway.  
     "Rob, when's Steve going to be back?" Mrs. MacArthur asked, hands on
hips.
     "Hell if I know," MacArthur shot out of the chair, face set.  He
gestured angrily at Mulder. "If you're done, I got work to do."
     Once outside, making their way slowly to the car, Mulder asked, "So,
what did she have to say?"
     "She knows, Mulder.
     "That he was having an affair?"
     Scully cast him a sidelong smile. "You're getting better with each
and every case.  Pretty soon you won't need me at all.
     He threw his head back and faked silent laughter.                     
     "Apparently he swore he broke it off with April months ago, but his
wife remains doubtful."
     Mulder took the keys out of his pocket, unlocked the door. "Maybe he
did - "
     " - and of course it's an extremely unfortunate occurrence that she
died only a mile and a half from his front door."
     "It is plausible, Scully."                        
     She put her seat belt on, pausing long enough to glare at him. "Don't
give me any of that 'plausible' crap, Mulder."
     He grinned. It really was an overused word.  Despite attempts to ban
it from their collective vocabulary, and unlike April Mahoney, it kept
resurrecting itself. "He's not our killer, Scully.  The only thing Rob
MacArther's guilty of is poor judgement."
     Scully nodded. "She is beautiful, isn't she."
     Trust Scully to notice.  It was at times like these that he was
grateful he had a female partner.  A male agent would probably have
commented on her bed warming ability, rather than the stupidity of her
husband.  He liked sex just as much as the next man, but he didn't see the
world through hormone glazed eyes.  Well, not usually, anyway.  
     The car slid a little at the bottom of the driveway.  He slipped into
four-wheel drive, made a mental note to thank Avis for providing a Subaru
when they returned to Burlington.  Miserable weather to be driving around
in.  Maybe he'd take a long hot bath later on, if there was time.
     "Mulder?"
     Blue lights flashed ahead.  Mulder stopped, rolled down the window. 
The wind may not have been blowing, but the rain and damp sent the chill
straight to his bones.
     Deputy Lancaster walked up, water dripping off the brim of his hat.
"We've got another one over by the pond.  Follow me."
     It was too damn soon.  Mulder revised his timetable.  Mahoney,
drowned.  Dubois, disemboweled.  There had to be others, maybe in the next
county?  No.
     Although Lancaster had chains on his tires, he drove slowly enough
for Mulder to follow without fear of going off the road.  They turned onto
Pond River road soon after crossing the bridge.  Odd, he didn't recall
seeing a road when out here with Whitlow.  Hmm, he'd probably been
distracted.  Or maybe it was deliberate on Whitlow's part?  Nah, that was
being too paranoid, even for him.  
     They arrived at the scene forty-five minutes later.  The victim's
car, a tan Subaru hatchback spotted with rust, was parked by a large and
curiously flat field, which must have been said Pond the river and road
were named after.  A copse of paper birches lined the pond on the far side. 
A lime green piece of plastic sat on the hood of the car.  The snow was
getting increasingly sticky underfoot, for which Mulder was grateful. 
Whitlow and some troopers were huddled around something on the ground
behind the Subaru.
     Whitlow glanced over his shoulder as Mulder and Scully approached.
"It's a bad one, another local, Sarah Chapman.  Teacher at the school. 
Looks like she pulled over to clear the ice off her windshield when she was
attacked.  Deputy Goddard found her on routine patrol."
     Like Jenny Dubois, she was lying on her back, staring up at the sky,
head nothing but white bone and tiny strips of red meat covered with a
glistening layer of ice.  She wore jeans and a navy jacket patched on the
shoulder with silver duct tape, the roll of a thick black sweater visible
above the jacket's collar. Her clothes were frosted with ice and blood. A
cherry stain surrounded her, draining towards the pond.  Mulder tilted his
head to one side - there was - she didn't look right. "Scully?"
     She had crouched down and was looking at the body intently. "All of
the long bones in her legs are broken - femurs, tibiae, fibulae - I'm
guessing both humeri and ulnae - her arms - are, too.  That requires a
tremendous amount of force, Mulder."
     One of the troopers stumbled away and dry heaved into the snow.
     "So she was run over?" another one, a blonde woman, said.
     Scully regarded the woman steadily. "No."
     "Sweet Jesus," Whitlow muttered.  He rubbed his mouth as if he tasted
something bitter.
     Scully stood up. "Were there any tracks?"                   
     "Not that we can tell," said the blonde, motioning towards the pond.
"Unfortunately the overnight rain's obliterated just about all the evidence
besides the body."
     "Sheriff Whitlow," Mulder said. "I'd like a list of all missing
persons in the area."
     "And I'd like to assist in the autopsy," Scully chimed in.
     Whitlow nodded. "Oona's on her way.  Unfortunately I can't
accommodate you, Agent Mulder."
     "Excuse me?"
     "We don't have any missing persons, haven't had any since we found
Jenny."
     "What about MacArthur?" Mulder asked, wishing he'd asked back at
Indian farm.
     Whitlow looked at him blankly. "Which one?"
     "Stephen," Scully said. "Mrs. MacArthur says he never returned last
night from his concert in Waterloo."
     "Aw hell," Whitlow said, stepping towards his truck. "I'd better go
over there and talk to them."
     "Scully, I'm going to head back to the office, talk to Elaine
Weschler.  Do you want the car?"
     She shook her head. "I'll catch a ride."
     

Manitou, by Dryad                                      
6/13 disclaimer in part one (R)

"Once I lived on lakes,
once I looked beautiful
when I was a swan"

Carl Orff/Olim Lacus Colueram/Carmina Burana
(trans.)


     Mulder cleared the desk Whitlow had temporarily given him, put all
the papers on the desk opposite.  Some bright spark had gotten copies of
the women's drivers licenses and blown up the pictures.  He was struck by
the similarities between the three, and wondered how none of the deputies
had picked up on it before.  To put it more plainly, they were ugly.  Oh,
not in a 'needs plastic surgery right away' sense, just extraordinarily
plain, and not in a good way, either.  Eyes were set too narrow, noses too
sharp, teeth too small or too horsey, stained and crooked, hair limp and
straggled.  From there they were completely different.  Dubois was forty
pounds overweight, Chapman positively anorexic, while Mahoney rolled in at
precisely the insurance table level for her age. Their ages spanned across
twelve years.  None were married or in a relationship as far as Whitlow
knew.  Mahoney was local, Dubois and Chapman both out-of-staters.  No
children, no pets.  All had lived in Lincoln for at least five years.
     He leaned back in his chair, staring at the pictures he'd taped to
the wall.  They had known their killer, he'd put money on it.  Oona hadn't
found any evidence that Mahoney had struggled against her killer, not that
they would ever know now that she was nothing but grit and ash.  Dubois
hadn't put up a struggle, and he'd bet Chapman had been surprised.  She
probably hadn't even known what hit her.
     So what did their killer see in them?  Or had it merely been
opportunity? How did he know them?  By sight?  Did he work in the area,
doing something...mail delivery?  Garbage pickup?  No, both of those would
be too close to real jobs, requiring self-motivation and discipline, the
subjection of the self to outside authority.
     "Agent Mulder?"  The dispatcher peered at him from the front desk.
"Agent Scully's on line four."
     Mulder picked up the phone, pressed the requisite button. "What've
you got?"
     "She was beaten almost to death, Mulder, but was ultimately
strangled.  She has bruises on her throat, but the roll of the sweater's
preventing us from getting any indication of what was used, although we're
sure it wasn't a ligature. Besides her hyoid bone, there are three
fractures in the skull, multiple fractures in the arms and legs, and get
this, five of her vertebrae were shattered. Even her pelvic girdle has
cracks in it.  We've found boot marks on her stomach, but I don't think we
can get a clean print from her, there's too much damage.  He must have
jumped up and down on her. No organs were removed, probably because they'd
already burst. Rather than her face and scalp being cleanly cut off as they
were with Jenny Dubois, here the edges are ragged, as if he were in a great
hurry."
     "Or enraged," Mulder added.  God, this was all going to hell in a
handbasket far more quickly than he had anticipated. "Time of death?"
     "Hard to tell with this weather, but I think last night sometime. 
What do you think he's going to do next?"
     Mulder shook his head in frustration. "Kill again.  I think he's
moved into the spree stage, Scully.  We've got to find Stephen MacArthur as
soon as possible.  I'm going to talk to Elaine Weschler.  Were can I find
you?"
     "I'll be here.  We've got a little more work to do."

     Mysterious Ways focussed on the metaphysical, slanted heavily towards
christian mysticism and thought, although both Marianne Williamson and
Deepak Chopra had a lot of face-outs on the shelves.  One entire stack was
dedicated to A Course In Miracles.  He approached the brunette unboxing
books by the register. "Excuse me, I'm looking for Elaine Weschler?"
     "That would be me," she said, pale blue eyes nearly colorless against
the dark circles underneath her lower lids.  Grief had etched heavy lines
across her face.  "You the FBI?"
     News did travel fast in small towns.  "Special Agent Fox Mulder.  I'd
like to ask you a few questions."
     She shrugged, pulled out a couple of books out of the box, turning
them his way, no doubt trying to make a sale while they spoke.  H.R.F.
Keating -  Bad Detective and Inspector Ghote Trusts The Heart.  
     "I told the police everything I know."
     "Were either Jenny or April dating anyone?"
     "No.  No way, I would've known about it."
     "Why do you think April went to Indian Farm?"
     Weschler broke down the box and put it behind the counter before
answering. "Maybe she went for a walk, I don't know."
     "Was she a nice person?"                               
     "She was beautiful," Weschler murmured, gazing at the counter with a
hint of a smile before looking up at him with narrowed eyes and tight lips.
"We weren't lovers y'know, just friends.  Just friends."
     Another instance of people waving a red flag where they didn't want
everyone to look.
     "Elaine, I don't pay you to stand there and gossip!"
     "He's from the FBI, Onatah," Weschler explained.
     The tiny Native American woman raked Mulder up and down with furious
eyes. "I don't care if he's from Vatican City, you can talk to him on your
own time."
     Mulder figured he wasn't going to get anything out of Weschler that
he didn't already know, so he headed towards the Deacon Proctor.
     He made good time to the funeral home, due to the sidewalks having
been sanded.  The freezing rain had stopped, and the sun was making an
appearance, a brief one by the looks of the clouds coming in from the
northwest.  Given good lighting, Lincoln was quite pretty.  Apart from the
spree killer in its midst, of course.
     Oona was having a smoke on the porch, dressed in scrubs and a white
wool cardigan, arms wrapped tightly around herself.  She gave him a funny
look as he came up the steps. "I don't know how you do it."
     "Hunt killers?"
     She nodded, exhaled, stared out over the snow-covered lawn. "Dana
tells me you were brilliant when you were in the ISU.  I imagine such work
takes its toll."
     He twitched one shoulder, watched her blow smoke rings. 
     "I couldn't handle living people.  Tried to become a medical doctor,
but couldn't take the pain in their eyes. You only see the aftermath of
violence when you work with the dead, not its presence," she paused, took
another puff of her cigarette.  "Y'know, I pray for them.  I pray for their
families to understand that their loved ones are no longer in pain, that
they're in the comforting embrace of the universe, that they've moved on to
another plane of existence," she cocked her head to one side, eyed him
sidelong. "I'm not a christian."
     "I know," he said with a nod. "The pentagram earrings gave it away."
     She reached up and touched one of the studs in her ear. "Not many
people notice."
     They watched in relaxed silence as the sunlight began to disappear,
the clouds rolling in and turning the day darkly bright.  A red Toyota
drove by, crows cawed, a gray squirrel scampered along the driveway,
stopping briefly to stare at them before moving on.  
     He said, softly, "I feel...as if...part of my soul has been stained
by what I do."
     She answered just as quietly. "In order to hunt evil, you have to
understand it, acknowledge its existence within yourself."
     Mulder let her words roll through him like a balm.  It didn't feel
odd to have this conversation with a stranger rather than Scully.  Evil was
something they rarely discussed, mostly because he felt uncomfortable with
the answers her faith provided, although he knew she questioned those
answers from time to time.
     "You won't be seduced by the dark side, Agent Mulder," Oona said with
a quiet smile, brown eyes twinkling. "You know it too well to be fooled by
it."
     Scully opened the front door before he had a chance to answer. 
     "I was wondering where you'd gotten to. Oona, I finished everything
up downstairs," she folded her arms and shivered. "How long have you two
been out here, it's freezing!"
     In all honesty Mulder hadn't even noticed. "I spoke to Elaine
Weschler.  She didn't have much to say, but I got the distinct impression
that she and Jenny Dubois were more than good friends."
     "Really?" Oona stubbed out her cigarette in the sand filled coffee
can duly provided for the purpose. "Certainly does explain a lot.  Oh, I
think I hear the phone.  'Scuse me - "
     "And she knew about April Mahoney and Rob MacArthur."
     "So now what?"
     "See what Whitlow's come up with about Stephen MacArthur," Mulder let
out a long breath. "He's here, Scully, right under our noses, and I can't
see the forest for the trees."
     She said nothing, but gently touched his arm, the merest pressure of
her fingertips through coat, pullover, Henley, and tee enough to ground his
fear and frustration.  Until she had come into his life, he hadn't realized
that he had needed a lightning rod all along.  Brilliance didn't count for
much if you weren't sane enough to do something with it.
     Oona returned, closing and locking the front door.  Her face was
filled with relief when she turned around. "They've got Stephen.  He's at
Nathaniel's office.  I'll drive."
     Minutes later Oona threw her arms around a thin and bedraggled man in
his late twenties who was sitting in a chair, wrapped in a silver space
blanket.  He was pale skinned and dark haired, with white blotches of
frostnip on his nose and fingers.  "Nana, I'm all right.  Just need some
food, something hot to drink."
     Mulder contemplated the man while Scully took over from the deputy
examining MacArthur.  He wasn't ugly. "What happened?"
     MacArthur shivered, lost in memory. "I was on my way back from
Waterloo - I'd gone to see Excelerated Decrepitude at The Nightingale -
when it started sleeting.  I've only got all-season radials on the car, so
I stopped to put the chains on.  The next thing I know, I'm being dragged
through the woods," he stopped, took a swig of tea from the mug he was
handed.
     "Did you see his face?" Whitlow demanded.
     "Where'd you pull over?" Mulder asked at the same time.
     "No.  It was too dark to see his face. I don't know where the hell I
parked," MacArthur swallowed, shook his head. "Christ, I didn't leave
Waterloo until what, one or two in the morning? I could barely see the
road, never mind which stretch of it I parked on." 
     He took another sip of tea, frowned. "Anyway, my hands weren't tied,
so I tried to reach out and grab something to hit him with.  That's when I
realized that we were in the woods - my hands kept hitting tree trunks.  We
must have been on a ski trail.  He had to have been on ski's, cause we were
going too slow for snowmobiles.  The trail was too narrow.  And it was real
quiet."
     Come on, man.  Mulder felt impatience creep up to soaring levels.  He
tried not to fidget.
     "I finally got hold of a loose branch, hit him across the legs,"
MacArthur's voice cracked.  He sniffled, took a deep breath and continued.
"He fell and I hit him across the head a couple of times, then jumped into
the woods.  I ran.  I didn't know where the hell I was going.  I just ran."
     "How did you find your way to the road?" asked Oona.
     "Luck, nana.  I spent most of the night trying to get to a high spot,
so I could look for lights."
     "Oh, Stevie," She slipped one arm around his shoulders and held him
tight.
     "I saw lights flashing off a couple of trees and ran that way.  Ran,
huh, stumbled, more like.  Finally found the road, picked a direction and
started walking until Suzie Dulac picked me up on her mail run," his voice
broke as he buried his head in his hands.    
     "He needs to go to a hospital as soon as possible," Scully said to
the nearest deputy. 
     Mulder stepped away from Oona and her weeping nephew, motioned Scully
and Whitlow over. "He's a lucky man."
     "He has a remarkable memory," Scully said to Whitlow.  
     "Steve's a lawyer, just passed the Vermont Bar after working in
Boston for a few years," Whitlow replied, looking back at MacArthur. 
     "Who knows the forest well enough to drag somebody away without fear
of discovery?" Mulder asked, listening intently to what Whitlow as well as
his backbrain were telling him.
     Whitlow shrugged. "Depends on what you mean by 'well enough'.  We're
country folk, we're all familiar with the local trails winter and summer."
     "All right," Mulder closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his
nose. "Here's who we're looking for: a white male, aged forty to fifty-
five.  A loner, dull and unfashionable in appearance.  He's had jobs of
little value all his life, and may go through long periods of unemployment. 
He's smart, but it's more a matter of animal cunning than superb
intelligence.  He has little or no family and lives by himself.  He may or
may not have a vehicle, but if he does it'll be an older model.  He's very
familiar with the area, most likely grew up here, and knew the victims well
enough to approach them without them being nervous.  He won't have a
firearm, but consider him extremely dangerous.  And he'll have a large
build, muscular without being fat."
     "What about Jocelyn?" The dispatcher called.  She waited for Oona and
Stephen to pass her before approaching Mulder. "He lives out by South
Trail."
     "Come on Peggy, he wouldn't hurt a fly," Whitlow dismissed the idea
with a wave of his hand, then turned to Mulder with an air of apology.
"Jocelyn Kaspar's one of the local's.  He does odd jobs here and there,
keeps to himself, mostly."
     Peggy shook her head in disagreement, unnaturally black hair brushing
her shoulders. "I've never liked him.  He's creepy.  And he smells funny."
     Mulder nodded to himself. "Troublemaker?"
     "Not lately."
     "How soon can we talk to him?"
     Whitlow said, "It'll have to be tomorrow morning.  The snowmobiles
are still being serviced."
     "I want to leave as early as possible."      
     "Alright, we'll meet here at four in the a-m.  But Agent Mulder, I
don't see how Jocelyn's got anything to do with this."
     


Manitou, by Dryad
7/13 disclaimer in part one   (R)

"I should not sing at all, 
feeling so low with thoughts so bleak.
Mournful of heart is this bird, and                         
barren its tongue.

The frozen marsh will thaw in time,                    
the frosty ground will melt and swell, 
the very seashore may crumble                          
but this sorrow will not go away -
here the chill yet lingers"

Varttina/Mieleni Alenevi/Vihma                         
(trans.)


     Scully was hungry, so Mulder accompanied her to the Chat 'N' Chew,
drank coffee and stole fries from her plate, hoping all the while that
their killer didn't already have his next victim.  What the hell were they
going to do until the morning?
     "Mulder, what the hell are we going to do until tomorrow morning?"
     "You just read my mind."
     She sighed, pushed her plate over so he could eat the remaining
fries. "Do you think it's Kaspar?"
     Nodding, he licked salt from his fingertips. "Positive.  Did you see
the look on Peggy's face when she was talking about him?"
     "Yeah.  I wonder why Whitlow doesn't think of him as a suspect?"
     "It's a funny thing, Scully, how many distrust their own gut
instincts when it comes to other people.  The mask of civilized behavior
takes control, and we choose to stand when we should be running, saying yes
when we should be saying no, staying on the sidewalk when we should be
crossing the street. Can you imagine what would happen if we all behaved on
intuition?"
     "The end of the world as we know it?  That 'mask of behavior', as you
call it, is necessary if we're going to continue on as a species."
     "Is it?" Mulder took a sip of blessedly fresh coffee. "Says who?"
     "Says me," she replied. "There would be no one to catch these people
if it weren't for civilized behavior.  No one would care save for the
families that were impacted.  I'm sorry, Mulder, but on this you're wrong."
     "I don't think so.  How many times have living victims told us that
they knew better, that there was something strange about their polite
neighbor or that real quiet kid down the street, the one who seemed to lose
an awful lot of pets?," He raised a hand as the waiter walked by. "Check,
please."
     Scully shook her head. "But instinct, intuition, neither are
infallible.  And what about people with severe psychoses?  Would you expect
them to be able to judge others accordingly?  How could they use their
intuition when their brains are telling them something completely
different?"
     "Didn't I just say that?"
     "No, you were talking about the average person.  You have to
recognize that someone who might be hearing voices in their head or whose
brain isn't producing sufficient quantities, or too many quantities, of
certain chemicals, is not going to react the same way as someone in
complete control of their faculties."
     "True enough."
     "Without civilization, which, I might add, also produced people like
us, we'd have no way of protecting either them or ourselves, nor of meting
out justice if we haven't foreseen what they're capable of doing."
     "The point, Scully, is that I could have saved a life by mentioning my
profile earlier."
     She stared at him in disbelief. "Mulder - what are you talking about?
We only got here yesterday."
     Mulder lowered his voice as other diners looked their way.  "Chapman
was killed because MacArthur got away.  Look at the damage he did to her. 
How much more angry do you think he's going to get? He's not going to wait
any longer than absolutely necessary to kill again."
     "You're not a soothsayer, you can't predict the future -"
     His lips quirked slightly. "Can't I?  Isn't that what I'm doing here? 
Trying to predict the future?"
     "No. *We* are here to solve this case and prevent more lives from
being lost," she leaned towards him. "You're not him, Mulder, nor are you
responsible for his behavior."
     The waiter returned and Mulder paid, feeling guilty for taking his
own fear out upon his partner.  The truth was that he was terrified that
any mistake he made would endanger the lives of others.  It had happened
before.  Loathe as he was to admit it, sometimes he needed the reassurance
that it wasn't all his fault.  Thus was the burden of protecting the
innocent, the fear of losing his sanity, somewhat eased.
     Scully talked him into walking around town, which took all of thirty
minutes, although he did buy a pair of Sorels at Delmar's, the general
store.  He convinced her that the rest of their evening could be better
spent writing up reports, so they returned to the Inn.
     Mulder had just closed the foyer door when a deep voice boomed out,
     "You must be Mulder and Scully.  I'm Ken Crandall, out of the
Burlington Regional Office."
     From the timbre of his voice Mulder expected to see a black man, but
when he turned he was surprised to see Scully shaking hands with a jeans
and sweater clad blue-eyed, blond behemoth.  He had a tan, spoke with a
strong Californian accent, and had to be at least 6'4", with a physique
that would make Skinner look puny by comparison.  How All American.  Had
Barbie booked a room, too?  Mulder gave himself a mental shake.  The guy
hadn't done anything but say 'hello' and already he was irritated.  It had
nothing to do with the way he was looking at Scully.  Nothing at all. "And
you're here to...?"
     "ASAC O'Connell wanted to make sure this case was wrapped up nice and
quick and clean."
     "I don't quite understand what you're doing here, Agent Crandall,"
Scully said. "Agent Mulder and myself have the situation under control."
     "Ours is not to wonder why," Crandall gave her a lazy, confident
smile, shrugged. "Maybe O'Connell doesn't want his rep sullied. I was told
to come and help apprehend this animal, so, here I am.  What can you tell
me about our UNSUB?"
     Mulder mentally sighed. "Nothing in great detail.  He's white, forty
to fifty-five, with great physical strength.  He's local to the area."
     "Well hell, Mulder, that describes half the damned state!" Crandall
spoke with jovial irritation.  Keeping his eyes on Mulder, he bent down
towards Scully and stage-whispered, "'Spooky' my ass.  Anyone could have
come up with that profile.  Is that the best he can do?"
     "It's not done yet," Mulder answered mildly.  It had been a long time
since he'd had to defend his abilities, and it was almost amusing having to
do it again.  Of course Crandall was as transparent as glass.  Mulder
highly doubted anyone had sent Crandall, more like the agent had
'suggested' he come over and keep an eye on ol' Spooky.  Ridiculous.
     "What kind of physical evidence have you found from our killer,
Dana?"    
     "Very little thus far, and Agent Scully will do," she said, pushing
past Crandall to go upstairs. "Excuse me."
     Brows raised, Crandall licked his lips as he watched her leave.
"She's a mighty fine morsel."
     Silence seemed Mulder's best option.
     Crandall nudged Mulder with his elbow. "You got dibs?"
     For a moment Mulder was rendered speechless.  He was, in fact,
extraordinarily offended.  It was bad enough in Washington as it was, he
didn't want to deal with this kind of gossip in the field as well.  A kick
to the balls and a knee in the face seemed a bit excessive.  Sarcasm would
just fly over his valley-boy head.  Playing it straight might confuse the
hell out of him. "Why don't you ask her?"
     Caught out, Crandall blinked stupidly at Mulder before going into a
good-ol' frat boy routine that probably fooled a hell of a lot of people. 
He clapped a blunt-fingered hand on Mulder's shoulder and chuckled. "Are
you kidding me?  Thanks, but I value my life.  They don't call her the Ice
Queen for nothing, y'know," 
     And then, as if to assuage his faux pas, "But hey, I hear she's a
shit hot investigator."
     "She is," Mulder said, moving out from underneath Crandall's grasp.
"If you'll excuse me, I have to complete my profile."
     The other agent nodded amiably. "Sure, sure.  I'll go talk to the
local law, see if I can get this moving any faster."
     And the Bureau's rep takes a nose dive with yet another police
department.  Mulder didn't bother to watch Crandall leave.  He went
upstairs to his room, collected pen and journal, knocked softly on Scully's
door. "It's me."
     She opened it, looked down the hallway. "Is he gone?"
     "Yeah," he said, entering her room. "Whitlow's going to flip."
     "Is it just me or is Crandall a complete ass?" She sat down at the
vanity and powered up her laptop.  
     Mulder made himself comfy on her bed. "It's not you.  Where do they
get these people?  And why do they insist on sending them out of their
natural habitat?"
     She twisted around in her chair to look at him, murmured, "He's
certainly gotten under your skin."
     "Destined to go far, then," he grumbled.  He shoved the pillows
behind his back and listened to her type, looked out the window.
     Five in the afternoon and it was almost pitch black outside. 
Washington didn't have the New England quality of light, which his father
had loved.  In winter the sun rose at a certain angle and painted
everything with an odd mix of warm and cold, bright and dark.  Leafless
trees were a forcible record of the season, skeletal limbs stark reminder
of the dying of the world.  The dying of the light.  Fimbulvetr.  Yet pines
and fir grew prolifically, red barberries standing out against the
bloodrust leaves of the barberry bush, cheerful crimson hollies from
evergreen needles, yellow and orange bittersweet clinging wherever it could
get a root-hold.  Signs of life amidst death.  He felt like Persephone in
the Underworld, sucking a single pomegranate seed.  Yes, his father had
loved the light.
     Mulder sighed and drew a few doodles in the margins of the journal. 
Pentagrams, crosshatched boxes, a game of tic-tac-toe.  A sketch of
Scully's face in profile.  God, he could be the king of procrastination
sometimes.  He took a deep breath and cleared his mind, began to write:

#                                    #
I'm in the forest.  It's where I live.
I am Alpha. I am Omega.                                     
I am God.                                    
#                                    #               

     
He wants recognition that he is God.
He takes life because that is what 
God does.  April Mahoney was his practice 
run, his practice run, his - his


     His what?  Mulder shifted, crossed his ankles the other way around. 
Did Scully always tap her toe when she typed? Oh, the alliteration.  She
sells seashells by the sea shore.  How much wood could a woodchuck chuck -


His practice run outside the forest.
Visible as God.  Invisible as Man. 
Immortal.  God can take anyone at 
any time.  God is beholden to no one.

Jenny Dubois had stolen into the realm
of God with neither his notice nor                          
permission.  Restitution - sacrifice -
had to be made for her error.           

Stephen MacArthur erred by running
away from God.

Sarah Chapman was put on earth for the
use of God, an apology from Fate for
Stephen MacArthur.
                    

     The question kept returning: why didn't he flay all their faces off? 
What was the rush?
     "Mulder, are you coming?" Scully was standing by the open door.
     "Hm?"  
     "You didn't hear a thing I just said, did you?"
     "Sorry, Scully."
     "Mae made dinner.  Pot roast."
     Mulder glanced at his watch - three hours had passed.  He shook his
head. "No, not hungry."
     He continued to doodle once she had closed the door.  Did all serial
killers think of themselves as gods?  Maybe that was the wrong question,
after all, who wouldn't feel like a god in the same situation?  Perhaps the
godhood came in choosing to use that power for good or ill.  Yet, he
couldn't honestly remember ever feeling that way during the times he'd been
in the same position.  Maybe his morals constrained him. 
     Or did it come down to wanting the power in the first place?  What
kind of person did you have to be to desire the power of death over life? 
Some would argue that trauma doctors and firefighters and cops all wanted
to be nothing more than little gods, but surely they only used their skills
for good, apart from a few bad apples?
     No, serial killers lacked something fundamental, something
unidentifiable.  Sure, the research came up with the usual pointers:
parental alcoholism, physical and mental abuse with resultant bedwetting,
animal abuse, pyromania.  But millions of people experienced the same
things, yet grew up to be stable and functioning members of society.  So
what made these murderers different?  The brain injury theory had yet to
pan out, although there was factual evidence that certain types of brain
damage could radically alter personality.  Again, though, thousands of
people had had head injuries, and they weren't serial killers.  In all the
time he'd worked in the ISU and beyond, he still hadn't figured it out,
what turned these people into monsters.  He also wasn't the first to crack
under the strain of dealing with violent death and mayhem.
     Mulder jumped when the door swung open and banged against the wall.  
     Scully stalked to the bed. "Would you come downstairs, please?"
     Oo, she was in a fearsome temper.  He recognized the signs, having
been on the receiving end more than once.
     "He's back, and he's having dinner with us."
     "Crandall, I take it?"                                 
     "Dinner with us," she repeated, stabbing a finger at him. "You, me,
and Mae."
     "Scully, you'll be fine without me."
     "I'll kill him."
     "You won't.  You're the very model of restraint."
     She merely looked at him, not even bothering to raise an eyebrow.
     Mulder nodded once. "I'll get my shoes on."
     

Manitou, by Dryad
8/13 disclaimer in part one (R)

"Don't y'weep, pretty baby                             
     (don't y'weep, pretty baby)
she's long gone with the red shoes on
goin' to need another lovin' baby

go to sleep little baby
     (go to sleep little baby)                    
you and me and the devil makes three                   
don't need no other lovin' baby"                  

O Brother, Where Art Thou?/Didn't Leave Nobody But The Baby
(soundtrack) 


     Downstairs, both of them slowed in mutual curiosity as they heard
Crandall's voice.    Silverware rattled in the background.       
     "Spooky and the Ice Queen, that's what they're called in the Bureau."
     "That's not a very nice thing to say, Mr. Crandall.  Especially to
complete strangers? I'm sure the FBI frowns on gossip."
     "Well, unless you're planning on calling and telling Louis Freeh
personally, who's to know?"
     Mulder glanced at Scully.  She was furious.  Ice Queen indeed.  Her
acceptance of his beliefs had made his moniker unimportant, except in the
way that it affected her.  He didn't know how she felt about her own
nickname, however.  Crandall wasn't going to last long if he continued to
behave in such an unprofessional manner.
     "That's not the point, Mr. Crandall."
     "Listen, I'm not the one who came up with their names.  Besides, they
may be unorthodox, but they've got a good reputation."
     Well, wasn't that nice to know?  Mulder put a hand on Scully's back
and they moved forward into the kitchen.
     Setting unmatching Fiestaware plates on the table, Mae cast a
welcoming but irritated look at Mulder.  She glowered at the back of
Crandall's head when he turned around. 
     Crandall was giving Scully the hairy eyeball.  Jerk.
     "Agent Scully, would you like glass of wine?" Mae asked.
     "Oh, please."
     "Agent Mulder?"
     "I'm fine," he answered, brow wrinkling as he caught Scully's shift
from annoyance to amusement.  "What?"
     "You're stealing my lines."
     "Am not,"  All he had to do was distract Scully enough, keep her
eyebrows off 'kill' and Crandall would most likely escape unscathed,
providing he kept his trap shut.  
     A wry twist to his lips, Crandall said, "I hear Diana Fowley was
quite an agent.  You worked with her for a couple of years, didn't you?"
     But no, the man was just going to keep jumping into it with both
feet.  "Yes, I did."
     "Didn't she and Spender take over Spooky Central for awhile?"
     Mulder could feel Scully bristling beside him, even though she didn't
actually move.
     "And quite the looker, eh?"
     What fresh hell was this?  What on earth was he supposed to say? 
Diana was still a sore spot between him and Scully.  He didn't know how she
felt about it - oh, that was such a lie - he knew, it was simply easier not
to think about the damage he'd done.  Ironic, that he who often chose to
wallow in painful memory shirked it in this instance.
     "Agent Fowley assisted Agent Mulder, as did Agent Spender," Scully
stared at Crandall.
     "Enough shop talk.  These are boiled new potatoes, green beans, and
sweet potatoes," Mae pointed to each covered dish as she spoke. "Bread and
gravy are coming up, and here's the roast.  Help yourselves."
     Mulder speared a couple of slices of pot roast and a few green beans
before passing the dishes on to Scully.  He wasn't hungry at all, but there
was no way he was leaving her or Mae here with that idiot.  Not that Scully
needed his protection. Far from it, he was there to hold her back from
pulling her weapon on the man.  Although the temptation to join her was
rapidly increasing with every other sentence he spoke.  
     "So," Crandall said. "Are you married, Agent Scully?"
     She choked on her wine, shot Mulder screaming eyes as she recovered.
     "Agent Mulder, did I ever finish telling you about the history of
Lincoln?" Mae desperately began.
     Bless the woman.  Lincoln's font of information.  "You mentioned
something about the Underground Railroad, but I'd rather you told me about
Jocelyn Kaspar, if you know anything about him."
     "Good lord, he's a character.  Why - ? No," she held up one hand.
"You probably can't tell me anything.  Unless, of course, you think I ought
to know."
     Mulder glanced at Scully, made sure she wasn't about to throw her
dinner at Crandall. "Go on."
     "Well," Mae spooned mashed sweet potato onto her plate. "His mother
used to be one of the teachers at the school, y'remember, she's the one who
told me how Lincoln was named?"
     He nodded, admired the succulence of the roast and wished he could
fully enjoy it.
     "Delphine, that was her name.  She and her husband, Thierry, came
down from Quebec City in the 40's.  They had a homestead, oh, somewhere
around where South Trail is, now," she paused in reflection, smiled.
"Delphine was pretty, so glamorous and foreign compared to the other women
in the village at that time.  She had hair the color of corn silk and a
figure to make Mae West jealous.  And with that french accent, well, men
couldn't keep themselves away from her.  She didn't keep her job at the
school very long, and then she couldn't find work anywhere else."
     "Small towns can be bad for that," Mulder murmured.  He knew, he had
experienced it himself after Samantha's disappearance.  Already too smart
and too good at sports for his own sake, kids pretended to be his friend
only to play cruel and humiliating jokes on him, taking joy from his
distress.  He had been so lonely then, desperate for any contact besides
his grieving, bickering parents.
     "Now Thierry was known to be a drinker, and rumors abounded that he
regularly beat Delphine, too, although I never saw any evidence of that
myself."
     "Actually, you probably did," Crandall said. He looked extremely
uncomfortable and wouldn't meet anyone's eyes. "You just didn't recognize
it for what it was."
     Ah.  Hindsight could be a terrible thing to bear.  Good to know that
there was something to Crandall besides poor judgement.  Funny, too, as
most people who had been abused were usually extremely good at reading
other people.  He'd bet Crandall used his build and looks to bamboozle
others as a means of protection, forgetting how important it was to be able
to tell when one was going overboard.  Didn't make him any less of an
asshole, though.
     "Anyway," Mae continued after chewing and swallowing a bite of beef.
"Pretty soon Delphine was drinking too.  Jocelyn was born in, oh, '54, '55? 
I saw him when he was just a little baby.  She'd come into Delmar's right
after he was born.  So adorable."
     Mulder cast a quick look at Scully.  Wistfulness suffused her gaze.
     Mae took a deep breath. "We didn't see him again until he was five or
six.  He had a habit of starting fires in the hay barns.  Well, I shouldn't
really say that, he was never caught in the act.  But, he was always the
one to raise the alarm, which seemed awfully convenient to me.  Whenever
Thierry caught him in town he'd give him a belting, right there on Main
Street.  My daddy went sugaring with Thierry a few times, said the whole
family was meaner than an angry bear and far more dangerous."
     She paused for a sip of wine and forkful of green beans. "I grew up,
went to Mt. Holyoke on a scholarship, came back and went to work at the old
sawmill on Meadow Road.  It was strictly secretarial then, unlike today.  I
envy you young women."
     Scully smiled. "There's good money in being an administrative
assistant these days."
     "Administrative assistant...the mill was where I met my husband,
Elliot.  He'd come up from Smuggler's Notch to - " Mae shook her head. 
"Oh, you don't want to hear about him.  He was a good man, though.  Anyhoo,
to make a long story a little shorter, we moved down to Craftsbury, then
Queechee, then back to Lincoln.  While we were away I kept in touch with
Libby MacArthur, she gave me all the dirt in town.  Apparently a distant
cousin of hers, Daisy Taylor, disappeared one night.  Now you have to
understand that she was...of loose morals, as we called it back then, so
besides her immediate family, no one was too bothered.  When Elliot and I
moved back about a month later, they still hadn't found her, but Delphine
kept coming in to town ranting and raving that Thierry had killed her, and
that Jocelyn had helped bury the body."
     "What did the police do?" asked Scully.
     "Nothing.  Everybody in town just assumed she was drunk and telling
stories.  It wasn't until she starting saying that Jocelyn had raped her
that an investigation began."
     "Jesus," Crandall muttered, staring at Mae.
     "You'd be surprised by how often that kind of abuse happens in
criminal families," Mulder said.
     Crandall looked disgusted. "Really?"
     Mulder nodded, mauled his food around some more to make it look as if
he'd actually eaten.
     "Good lord," Mae shook her head, ate more sweet potato. "The police
found no proof.  Jocelyn, of course, denied everything, and Thierry mocked
Delphine in front of the police as well as anyone else who came within
hearing distance.  God only knows what happened in that house.  Two months
later Delphine stumbled into town in the middle of winter, stinking of
moonshine, saying she'd been forced to kill Thierry in self defense.  It
got chalked up to being talk, because they didn't find his body.  We all
figured he'd gotten lost and someone would find him after the spring thaw. 
Presuming he wasn't eaten by animals.  But we never did."
     "Delphine eventually let the Sisters of Benevolent Mercy over in
North Attlee take Jocelyn in, although I'm sure she didn't take much
convincing. She died later that spring when the Kaspar place went up in
smoke. I was so busy with my own children that I didn't really pay
attention to rumor until Jocelyn came back to town when he turned eighteen. 
People said he'd set the fire, drinking gin and dancing around the house in
the moonlight.  Of course that's nonsense, but they'll still tell you the
same thing today."
     "Do you think he did it?" asked Mulder idly.
     She shrugged. "Anything's possible.  I've always liked Jocelyn,
myself.  You'd never think it to look at him, but he's a bright man.  Never
went beyond eighth grade, never done anything but odd jobs around town,
still lives somewhere out by his parent's place.  Suzie Dulac told me she
brings him into Waterloo sometimes to pick up packages, so he must have
friends somewhere."
     

Manitou, by Dryad             
9/13 disclaimer in part one (R)
                              
"Deep in the bosom of the gentle night
Is when I search for the light                         
Pick up my pen and start to write                      
I struggle, I fight dark forces in the clear moonlight
Without fear                                           

Insomnia - I can't get no sleep                        

I used to worry                                   
Thought I was going mad in a hurry                     
Getting stressed, making excess mess in darkness
No electricity, something's all over me, 
greasy insomnia please release me                      

And let me dream of making mad love to my girl on the heath
Tearing off tights with my teeth
But there's no release, no peace
I toss and turn without cease
Like a curse, open my eyes and rise like yeast
At least a couple of weeks since I last slept, 
kept taking sleepers                         

But now I keep myself pepped

Deeper still, that night
I write by candlelight, I find insight
Fundamental movement, hm, so when it's black
This insomniac, take an original tack                       
Keep the beast in my nature                  
Under ceaseless attack                                 
I gets no sleep

I can't get no sleep
I need to sleep, I can't get no sleep"

Faithless/Insomnia/Reverence


Of murder, Richard Ramirez once said:
"The power is indescribable...out 
there, you can feel the draining 
of their energy, the total ecstasy.
Get your mind into it. Savor it."

How best to savor the taking of a
life than to do it over and over again?
Memory becomes stale over time without
repeated doses of blood, terror, and 
agony.

Why feel remorse for killing?  Do drug
addicts feel sorry for the needle or the
pipe? Their ugliness only adds to the
experience.  For are they not unhappy             
in their existence, those poor, less
than perfect beings?  

Is not God merciful?                    



     Mulder rolled his head from side to side, trying to loosen the
tension in his shoulders.  He checked his watch - midnight.  Hours to go
yet and he was too jittery to sleep.  He'd had three cups of coffee after
dinner, chatting with Mae and learning more about Lincoln.  She was in the
process of self-publishing a short history for the Lincoln Preservation
Society.  Besides being a stop of the Underground Railroad - both of her
great grandparents had been runaway slaves - Lincoln had been a small
logging and mill town until the Indian River had been dammed.  Before that
it had been a trading camp for the five tribes of the Iroquois
Confederation and then another for the English and French settlers as the
Natives were decimated by war, alcohol, and disease.  Ethan Allen himself
had recruited 10 men for the battle of Fort Ticonderoga, and two had died
during the Battle of Quebec.  And another squad of boys and men joined the
Union army during the Civil War.  All that history and now Lincoln was just
a sleepy little town near the US-Canadian border.
     Yet perhaps that went a long way to figuring out Kaspar.  Both town
and man were isolated, away from what the majority of people would call 'a
life'. However Mae and Whitlow and everyone else he and Scully had met,
even the waitress as the Chat 'N' Chew, seemed happy enough.  Maybe that
was all that mattered.  And it was easy to see how a person could retain a
shell of normality while living a life of horror.  Small towns were the
kind of places where everyone knew one another's business, and so never
bothered to inquire more deeply into the true nature of each other's lives. 
Good fences make good neighbors.
     Stretching out on the bed, Mulder stared at the ceiling, made a half-
hearted attempt to create hand shadow-puppets before resting his hands on
his chest and stomach.  It was all about the nature of evil.  How did you
recognize the evil in your midst?  What's more, what did you do once you
knew it?  Did you carry on as before, or try to call attention to it, make
it move on?  Such silly questions, ultimately.  History had proven that the
majority of people chose to be sheep, going nervously to the slaughter,
waiting for someone to speak up and save them.  The shepherds had
proclaimed their intentions and no one had done a damned thing until it was
far too late.  Any high school student could name them: Hitler, Pol Pot,
Mao, Stalin.  But what about more recent events?  People had ignored
Milosevic and Ceaucescou, Hussein and Pinochet, Amin and Duvalier, trying
to keep themselves safe from the knowledge that in other circumstances it
could be them living lives of quiet desperation.  Okay, maybe not Amin and
Duvalier, but it had still taken a damned long time for people to prod
themselves to a moral awakening.  And that list didn't even include the
multitudes of mass murderers who dealt their trade of death through
doomsday cults.
     The banality of evil.  Another seemingly trite phrase that was
nothing more than the truth about a baffling part of human nature.  Kaspar
was a living example of it, one of many.  He said hello and goodbye and
probably pulled his forelock when the occasion demanded it.  He also killed
and mutilated without hesitation, murdered people he'd doubtlessly known
for a good few years.  A child who'd never had the chance to grow up in a
normal environment, or what had passed for 'normal enough' in those days.
     In Mulder's limited experience, children were chaotic little
creatures with no innate sense of right or wrong.  Given a rotten home
life, was it any wonder that so many people had difficulty steering their
way through life?  But that didn't explain the majority, who lived to tell
the tale yet made the decision not to inflict the same upon their
offspring.  Hell, he was living proof of that, or he would be when he
eventually got around to having children.
     And of course it didn't explain why so few women became serial
killers.  Maybe they only brought the proverbial guns out when they were
threatened in some way?  Different strategies between predator and
nurturer, hunter and gatherer?  Aileen Wuornos aside, he couldn't think of
another woman who had repeatedly killed for everything but economic gain.
     Mulder flipped over onto his stomach, shoving his journal to one
side.  He propped his chin on his folded hands and closed his eyes again. 
It was a mystery.  If Kaspar had been female, he and Scully wouldn't even
be here.  Nope, it would be Whitlow and maybe an agent from the Burlington
office, looking at a case of 'accidental' poisoning or shooting.  
     Women, Mulder felt, were far meaner, far colder, than men.  They had
an inborn ruthlessness that he found shocking.  Even Scully had her
moments.  Men, by contrast, were obsessive.  Men were the temperamental
creatures, full of passion and heartbreak, ruled by their hormones.  God
knew his own passions had ruled his head for long enough, at least until
Scully had joined the X-Files.  Hot hearts versus cold.          
     Did she think evil had touched her life?  Or was it merely
coincidence and the actions of men who pursued different goals?  Would he
ever have the balls to ask her face to face?
     '"God only knows what happened in that house"' Mae had said.  Without
the modern social services, hell, even with the CPS and SS, if was often
impossible to separate fact from fiction.  But, he supposed, better to have
both to investigate than neither.  Which still didn't answer his questions.
     Esoteric ideas of philosophy aside, what was Kaspar's passion?  What
drove him to do the things he did?  Why had it taken so long for things to
come to the boil?  Was there no pattern of violence against townsfolk
throughout the years after the death of his mother and the disappearance
and presumed death of his father?  Kaspar's rage obviously hadn't been
spent in his youth...maybe he was just a slow learner.  No, Mae had called
him bright.  He should have asked her why she liked Kaspar, what she saw in
him that made him seem harmless when others, notably people under forty
years old, found him creepy.  Then again, maybe seeing only the good in
people was part and parcel of running a B 'n' B.  Maybe Kaspar'd gone too
long without long term human contact.  Odd jobs around town weren't the
same thing as having lunch with your best friend, or dinner with your wife. 
Ha, he was hardly one to talk.
     Mulder sighed heavily, checked the time again.  Ye gods, but it was
going to be a long night.



Manitou, by Dryad
10/13 disclaimer in part one (R)

"The night is still,
but the sinner is awake
and the hour of the wolf is here"

Hedningarna/Vargtimmen/Tra                        
(trans.)


     Whitlow was on the phone when they entered his 'office'. His eyes
flicked towards them and away. "Colette, ma petite, I don't have the time -
"
     Mulder stuck his hands in his pockets, rolled a loose coin between
his fingers.  Four in the morning and the world was dead save this last
outpost, this one building holding on to the warmth and the light.  He'd
spent the majority of the night on Venus and Mars, in the company of
Northwest Smith, C.L. Moore's enigmatic hero.  Mae had been blessed with
fine taste when it came to Golden Age science fiction, the small bookcase
in his room stuffed with Brackett, Van Vogt, Piper, Cordwainer Smith.  He'd
particularly enjoyed rereading Smith's 'Alpha Ralpha Boulevard' and 'Golden
the Ship Was - Oh! Oh! Oh!'.
     "I know it hurts, Ethan.  Try to get back to sleep and it'll all be
better when you wake up.  Let me talk to mommy, ok?  Colette?  Listen, I
don't know when I'll be back - "
     Stifling a yawn - why did he always tire at the precise moment he had
to do something important - Mulder stepped over to Scully and studied the
topographical map taped to the backs of one wall of cabinets.  Red x-marks-
the-spot crosses showed where Chapman, Mahoney, and Dubois had been found. 
There was no pattern.  The killer - Kaspar, he knew it was Kaspar - didn't
care if the bodies were found or not.  Who cared what happened to the used
needle or crack pipe?  Yet Mulder couldn't leave it up to carelessness,
either.  Kaspar didn't care if they were found - but he arranged them for
maximum impact just in case.  No doubt he, like most serial killers, felt
even more powerful, knowing he was going to shock and horrify beyond the
victim.
     Whitlow cleared his throat and joined them at the map, circled an x
in the south. "The old Kaspar place is a couple of miles from South Trail,
and about ten miles from East-West Road as the crow flies.  There used to
be a road to their farm, shouldn't be too difficult to find now that all
the undergrowth is covered.  Okay, everybody ready?"
     They arrived at South Trail almost two hours later.  Somebody had
forgotten to load the snowmobiles on Whitlow's truck the day before, and
then they had to check to see if the tanks were full and so on.  Whitlow
was still embarrassed and trying not to show it.  Crandall kept cracking
asinine comments until Scully had had a quiet word, spoken too softly for
Mulder to hear.  Whatever she said, it worked, because he shut up
immediately thereafter.
     Eager as he was to get to Kaspar, Mulder didn't relish the thought of
trying to find the old road and the burned out shell of a farmhouse on a
bitterly cold winter morning.  Nerves and the beyond crappy cup of coffee
he'd gotten at the office got the better of him and he spent a brief minute
behind a tree, fingers and other parts numbed in seconds.  As he zipped up,
Crandall hurried over.
     Crandall said, "Wind's picked up.  Must be an Alberta Clipper coming
in.  Hope we're not out here too long - "
     Mulder nodded and walked away, leaving Crandall to his business.  For
the umpteenth time he wondered why female officers and agents never seemed
to be perturbed enough to have to duck behind a bush during stakeouts and
the like.  Maybe they all went before they left the building.
     The moon was full and riding midway between frozen earth and pinprick
stars.  It was so bright he and Scully almost didn't need to use their
flashlights to spot Whitlow and Crandall as they unloaded the snowmobiles. 
The forest was beautiful, a secret sanctuary from the daytime hustle and
bustle of humanity.  He turned off the flashlight and a millisecond later
Scully turned hers off as well.  He looked down at her to remark upon the
serendipity of their actions, only to see her gazing up at him, smiling and
making a promise with her eyes he didn't dare decipher until later.  Their
private moment of shared blissful serenity shattered as a snowmobile roared
to life.  With mutual, unspoken consent, Scully headed towards Whitlow
while he took the seat behind Crandall.
     The world beyond the headlights was filled with black tree trunks,
moonshadow blue snow, the brilliant coal red square of a brake light.  The
snow was icy and hard, glittering as the white lights struck it.  The ride
was uncomfortable, the Ski-Doo careening from side to side from the lack of 
good grip on the sugar snow of the track.  Worst of all, the wind crept in
through his clothes, fingering his collar and slipping icy fingers down the
back of his neck.  At least the helmet kept his ears and head warm.
     Time passed in a blur of man-made thunder and exhaust, the 'road'
little more than a meandering trail once wide enough for a single car, now
overgrown with saplings and brush.  Crandall swerved often, but even so,
whip thin branches occasionally lashed Mulder's legs and slapped his
helmet.  Learning to drive a snowmobile was the latest item to go on his
personal list of things to accomplish Real Soon Now.  He wondered if
Crandall could really see anything or if he was simply following Whitlow's
taillight, the arboreal abuse Mulder received an unlooked for benefit.
      Still, it was eerie, especially now, with the woods vigilant,
waiting to see if he was going to mete out justice as he had promised.  He
felt, oddly enough, both welcomed and opposed.  Welcome so long as
punishment was given, yet pray not overstay that welcome.
'"Anthropomorphizing again, Mulder?"' Scully teased in his head.  Yeah,
well.
     Crandall drew even with Whitlow, slowed, stopped.  The deep silence
was shocking when Mulder removed his helmet.  They were in a small
clearing, an equally small, one storey building before them and to the
right.  A secondary, scaled down roof was raised over the primary.  Plastic
sheeting puffed and crackled in the gaps between the rooves.  The snow was
lumpy in front of the house.  If the road continued on through the now
widely spaced trees, he couldn't tell.
     "We must have passed the farm, this here's the sugarhouse," Whitlow
said, putting his helmet on the seat of his snowmobile.
     "Sugarhouse?" Crandall asked.
     "It's how they used to make maple syrup," Mulder answered, playing
his flashlight over the lumps.  Most of them were too small to be bodies,
and one was definitely a car.  Rusty metal traps, hoes, rakes, and a shovel
hung on nails on the outer wall of the house. 
     "Actually, it's still how they make it," Whitlow said. "It's just
more sanitized, no more sap buckets hanging from nails in the tree.  Now
you've got tap lines left up all year round.  Did y'know that forty gallons
of sap boils down to one gallon of syrup?"
     "Gah," Crandall shook his head. "to think I'm eating tree blood."
     Weapon drawn, Mulder carefully followed Scully to the front door,
said softly, "Pretty gnarly, dude."
     Scully flashed him an amused look, raised her free hand to knock.
     The whipcrack of a gunshot broke the stillness, echoing away into the
distance as Mulder spun and crouched.  
     Whitlow was staring at Crandall, who was lying flat on the ground,
gun pointed at the sky. "False alarm! He slipped!"
     Heart racing, Mulder exhaled and stood up.  The damned fool hadn't
had his safety on - if he'd been facing any of them - christ, he could
killed someone! 
     "Sorry, sorry," Crandall called, sitting up and cautiously getting to
his feet. He grimaced and gingerly felt the back of his head, looked at his
fingers. "I'm all right, I'll be alright.  Let's get on with this."
     Scully turned around and knocked. "Federal Agent! Hello? Mr. Kaspar? 
I'm Special Agent Dana Scully - could I speak with you?"
     There was no answer.                         
     "I doubt he's here," Whitlow called, chipping hard snow off the car-
lump with the butt of his flashlight. "He would've heard us coming from
miles away, even with this wind.  I told you he likes to keep to himself."
     And if he wasn't aware of them before, he sure as hell was now. 
Mulder moved to the right while Scully took the left, then pounded on the
door. "Mr. Kaspar?"
     After a moment Scully raised an eyebrow, crouched and tried the old
fashioned iron latch. The door swung open, bounced against something behind
it.
     Mulder gave the single room a quick once over with the flashlight,
then motioned Scully inside.  She moved in with him one step behind, facing
the door all the while.  Keeping an eye out for any surprises, Mulder shone
the light behind the door - there was nothing there but two 100 lbs bags of
flour.
     "Nobody home," Scully said, holstering her gun.   
     Whitlow poked his head in and said, "Agent Crandall's feeling a
little woozy.  I'll keep an eye on him while you two have a gander in
here."
     Mulder nodded.  From the inside the double roof abruptly made sense. 
If you were boiling away lots of liquid, what better way to let all the
steam escape than to raise the roof and open up vents that could double as
windows?  Plastic was certainly cheaper than glass, although it wouldn't
let in as much light during the day.  The building had been insulated,
however, pink fiberglass looking like bagged cotton candy behind even more
plastic sheeting that had been stapled to the walls.  It was noticeably
warmer once the door was closed.
     "God, this place is filthy," Scully murmured, surveying the room.
     The house - shack - whatever - was crammed but smelled of nothing in
particular except woodsmoke.  Furniture consisted of an iron frame double
bed covered with a number of motheaten and stained wool blankets, a crudely
made chair and a rough table constructed out of two-by-fours.  A black pot
bellied parlor stove was in the corner next to the table, the fiberglass
insulation protected by two-by-four makeshift walls.  Three Coleman
kerosene lanterns hung from the ceiling and a box of candles on the table
provided evidence of lighting.  The stove was warm, the iron frying pan on
top of it filled with grease just going opaque.
   "Look at this, Mulder," Scully stood on the other side of the stove.
"He's got everything you need for the non-refrigerated life."
     Sure enough, the shelves held cans of Spam, corned beef hash,
Campbell's soups, 5 O'Clock Coffee, Carnation Condensed milk, molasses, a
gallon can of maple syrup, Crisco, a small jar of salt.  Kaspar had also
bought multiples of sardines and tuna, creamed corn, tomatoes, green 99c
stickers still on the plastic wrapping.  On a raised pallet close to the
door were a 100 lbs bag of salt, another of rolled oats and a 50 lbs bag of
kindey beans.
     What Mulder found most surprising were the books.  They were stacked
everywhere, on the table, the floor, the shelves.  He moved closer to check
the authors and got an even greater shock.  Kaspar had gone far with his
eighth grade education - Heidegger, Proust, DesCartes, Plato, Socrates,
even Aquinas, all of them in their original languages.  Surely Kaspar
didn't speak more than English? No, he was bright, not a genius.  As if to
balance the great thinkers, the opposite end of the spectrum was also well
represented - underneath the table were stacks of 60's and 70's Playboys
and an 80's Hustler.  Scully hadn't commented on that particular find. 
Maybe she hadn't noticed?  Yeah...riiight.
     Elsewhere, clothing hung from nails and hooks on the walls away from
the stove.  A green tin of something called Bag Balm and a turquoise can of
Drum tobacco were on the shelf above the bed, plus rolling papers, more
matches, and several black and white Composition notebooks.  Mulder pulled
one down at random and flipped it open.  The chicken scrawl was tiny and
illegible.   
     Scully came up and looked over his arm. "Anything interesting?"
     "Hell if I know, can't read a damn thing," Mulder answered.  He
picked another notebook, tossed it onto the bed after a cursory glance.
"He's probably giving Ted Kaczynski a run for his money."
     "So now what?  Do we stake the place out?"
     Mulder shook his head in frustration. "Yes, no, I don't know.  I
don't want to give him any more time, but if we stay here he'll just pick
us off one by one."
     She nodded. "Okay.  I'll have Whitlow put out an APB, plus a PSA on
the radio and posters around town," she paused, regarded him with
understanding, or maybe it was pity. "It's the best we can do for the
moment, Mulder."
     "Let's hope the best we can do doesn't get another person killed," he
said morosely.
     Her head snapped towards the door.  She threw up one hand to silence
him.
     "What?" 
     "Did you hear something?"
     Mulder listened for a couple of heartbeats, frowned.
     Switching off her flashlight, she walked softly to the door and put
her ear up to it, then opened it a crack.  After a moment she removed her
jacket to prevent unnecessary noise, drew her gun and thumbed off the
safety.  
     He did the same, followed her outside. Dawn had broken and spears of
sunlight penetrated the forest, little fingers of god touching the snow. 
Crandall and Whitlow were nowhere in sight.  Stepping away from Scully, he
signed towards the snowmobiles in two directions.  
     She bobbed her head and broke to the left.        
     Eyes wide, he went right, scanning the trees while trying to avoid
the bigger snowy lumps at the same time.  He skirted between the car and
the house, noted the fresh yellow stains in the snow.  Christ, had Kaspar
been there all along, biding his time while they were dithering about how
maple syrup was made?  He circled wide to make sure there wasn't anyone
behind the house, then headed for the snowmobiles. 
     The trees made him nervous.  Kaspar could be lurking behind any of
them, watching their every move.  Couldn't be helped.  He took another step
into a sunny spot, silently cursed as his foot broke through the hard top
crust of snow, scaring the crap out of him.  Luckily, it wasn't too deep
and he didn't fall.  
     Mulder drew even with the snowmobiles, saw Crandall and Whitlow lying
on the ground, a pool of blood staining the snow beneath them.  He motioned
to Scully, senses heightened as she scooted to where the men lay. 
     She bent down and felt their necks, nodded.       
     Still alive, then.  He opened his mouth to speak and heard the faint
crunch of brittle snow to his left.  He glanced towards Scully - 
     Go, she mouthed, holstering her gun.              
     Trying to run on the hard, slick crust of snow while at the same time
looking and listening for Kaspar was difficult at best, especially when he
was breaking through with every other step.  Mulder found the spot where
Kaspar had broken through and stopped, surveying the woods.  Miraculously,
the wind died down.
     God, he hadn't thought it possible for him to forget what really cold
weather was like, yet somehow, back in the supposed real world, he had. 
And now here he was, trying to stifle the coughs threatening to rip his
lungs apart.  Oh yeah, bitter cold dry air meets warm, wet lung - what a
winning combination!
     There was sudden moment to his left, a single branch waving in the
non-existent breeze.  Mulder pointed his gun and cautiously arced around
the tree.  Nothing.  Nothing apart from the strong stench of urine and wet
bark.  What the hell was Kaspar doing, marking his territory?
     "Damnit," he whispered.  He made another circuit of the area, looking
for further signs of...pee.  Christ, he could scarcely feel his fingers,
he'd be lucky if he could pull the trigger.  Kaspar could keep him running
in circles all day, bringing him further into the woods until he dropped
from exhaustion. 
     Mulder cursed under his breath again, then searched for a good ten
minutes until he found the wet tree once more.  From there it only took a
moment to find his own trail, and then he was on his way.  Unfortunately he
came to the spot where he hadn't broken the crust, losing his direction. 
He was getting frantic when the preliminary cough of an engine failing to
catch caught his attention.  Staggering and slipping, he raced towards the
sound, falling hard on one knee and ripping both jeans and longjohns.
     The side of the sugarhouse was visible through the trees when he
heard Scully yell,
     "Federal Agent! I'm armed!"                  
     Clearing the last tree before the house, he saw Scully make a flying
tackle towards the back of the snowmobile that Kaspar was driving away.  A
body was slung over the backseat, it looked like Whitlow, although he
couldn't be sure.  The snowmobile was picking up speed, but Scully hung on,
one arm around Kaspar's neck, trying to pull him off.  Instead, she forced
Kaspar to turn the vehicle in Mulder's direction.
     Kaspar gunned the engine, reached up and tore her arm away.  She fell
off with a piercing cry, the body on the back tumbling on top of her.
     Mulder launched himself towards the moving snowmobile, grabbing hold
of Kaspar's jacket, his waist.  The engine was horribly loud, and he was
terrified of the rear treads running over his legs.  He hooked one leg over
the backseat, using Kaspar for leverage.  The man looked down and snarled,
cuffed him hard on the side of his head, making his ears ring.  He refused
to let go, even though he was hanging on only by the skin of his teeth.
     Kaspar swerved to the right and Mulder lost his grip on the jacket. 
Back muscles protested as he twisted, momentum flinging his right arm out
into the air.  He managed to regain a handhold on the seat, only to feel an
incredible burn along his left side.  With a knee on the tail-end of the
running board, he hitched himself off the snowcrust, trying to pull Kaspar
off at the same time.  
     Kaspar wasn't having any of it, though.  Mulder clung to him as he
whipped the snowmobile from side to side.  When he abruptly glanced down
and grinned - oral hygiene obviously not high on his priorities - Mulder
had an awful foreboding of what was coming.  He looked straight ahead and
immediately let go of Kaspar, kicking away from the Yamaha.  Energy and
mass kept him going forward, however, the friction of skin and cloth
against the icy sugar snow not enough to keep him from hitting the tree,
spinning him around to face the opposite direction on the other side of the
tree.     
     Pain flared from hip to bottom rib and he wept from the shock of it
as the forest returned to silence.  When he could get his muddled  thoughts
together, he slowly rolled onto his hands and knees, pressed a hand to his
left side.  He was going to have one hell of a bruise, if not internal
injuries.  His skin was raw where his sweater and shirt had been pulled out
of his pants, and it felt like a cheese grater had been run across his
side, but at least there didn't seem to be any fractured ribs.  Using the
tree to lean on, he got to his feet and followed the broken snow and torn
bits of clothing back to Scully. 
     As he neared the remaining snowmobile, he called out, strangling his
cry into the loudest of whispers.  "Scully!"  Where the hell was she?   
     "Mulder!" Scully called from door of the sugarhouse. "Are you okay?"
     Mulder grimaced and nodded, limped over to where she stood. "You?"
     She stepped back to let him in. "Wrenched my shoulder when I pulled
Crandall back here, did it again when I grabbed for Whitlow after Kaspar
pushed me off the Yamaha.  Where is he, anyway?"
     No room on the bed, not with Whitlow and Crandall taking up all the
room.  Whitlow's head was wrapped in bloodstained cloth.  He shook his
head, perched on the edge of the table instead. "I don't know, I couldn't
track right after he ditched me."
     "God, let me take a look at you...what the hell happened out there?"
     Mulder raised what remained of his shirt and sweater, hissed as
Scully gently probed his side.  "Let's just say that being dragged in real
life is not as easy as the movies make it look," he said, noting how
stiffly she moved as she took one of Kaspar's shirts from the wall.  He
took it from her after she gasped, folded it and held it against his side.
"How are they?"
     Scully turned her whole body to look at the two men on the bed. "They
need hospital treatment.  Whitlow...isn't looking good.  He's got a
concussion at best, and I suspect a fractured skull. Crandall's got a
goose-egg on the back of his head, although I don't know if that's from his
fall or from Kaspar."
     He may not have liked the man, but he didn't wish him severe injury,
either.  Not from a suspect, at least.  "How long until the cavalry
arrive?"
     Scully sighed and carefully sat down in the single chair. "Kaspar
took all the radio equipement and the keys to the other snowmobile, so
we're stuck here for the moment.  I put a couple of logs in the stove,
hopefully it'll get warmer fairly soon.  I've already tried my phone but
we're out of range."
     Wonderful. "Let's make ourselves at home then, shall we?"
     "Oh, by all means, Mulder.  Knock yourself out."       
     As it turned out, they didn't wait for more than half the day before
the noise of multiple snowmobile engines permeated the woods.  Three hours
after that they were in Waterloo's tiny hospital, where Crandall was
diagnosed with a cracked skull, a simple fracture which required no further
attention.  Whitlow, on the other hand, was immediately flown to the
neurology unit at Fletcher Allen in Burlington.  Mulder spent the next two
days under observation - he wasn't up to facing the Wrath of Scully by
trying for an early release.  Indeed, in all honesty, the prospect of
internal bleeding or peritonitis from unknown internal injuries didn't
particularly appeal.  His blood-tinged urine and the ache in his back was
bad enough, indication of the bruising his left kidney had taken when he'd
hit the tree.  And anyway, he needed the sleep.
     He bullied Scully into letting him drive after he was released. 
Normally he would have been happy enough to let her drive back to Lincoln
and then on to Burlington, but although she made a gallant try, she
couldn't hide her winces and audible whimpers.  He sympathized.  Wrenched
muscles were never nice, and back muscles were the worst, as the pain
effected everything you took for granted, like turning your head and
sleeping.  "I don't suppose you left our things back at the Inn?"
     She didn't look at him as she replied. "Nope."
     Trust Scully to try and make things easier on him when he could have
handled it himself.  At least the journey back to Lincoln was pleasant. 
Crandall's Alberta Clipper had given hell on its way to the Atlantic,
leaving clear blue skies and bright sunshine behind along with two feet of
fresh powder on the ground. 
     Oona MacArthur slopped coffee all over the table when she spied them
walking through the front door of the church. "Agent Mulder, how are you
feeling?"
     "Much better, thank you," he replied.             
     "Is there any word on Sheriff Whitlow?" asked Scully.
     Mopping up the spilled coffee with a couple of napkins, Oona shook
her head. "He's in a coma.  As to whether he'll survive..."
     Mulder certainly hoped he would, declined her offer at her enquiring
lift of the coffee pot.  
     "Wise man," she said.  
     "What about Kaspar?"
     "Haven't found him yet, although we've got a massive manhunt out for
him.  He might be an oldtimer, but we've got modern technology on our side. 
Unfortunately all this new snow is making things both simpler and more
difficult.  He'll be easier to track, but harder to get to," Oona added
creamer to her cup, stirred.  "What I don't understand is how he got
around.  I mean, he doesn't have a car or a snowmobile, and although the
assumption's that he's been using Jenny's ski's for the past few days..."
     "Would people have given him a lift if they saw him walking down the
road?" 
     "Sure."
     "Then maybe Chapman picked him up - "
     "But there's no evidence of that, Mulder," interrupted Scully. "In
fact there was no physical evidence that another person had been at any of
the crime scenes, the bootprints on Chapman excepted.  You both know how
much that verges on the impossible."
     "Well, those women certainly didn't kill themselves, Scully," Mulder
said, ignoring her unusually weak mini-glare.  It was excusable, she wasn't
her normal self.
     "Why do you think he murdered them?" Oona asked.  She blew on her
cup, tested the temperature with a tiny sip.
     "As for what triggered him, who knows?  Maybe he got up on the wrong
side of the bed."
     "Oh, I did tell you about the root cellar, right?" she asked,
glancing from Mulder to Scully. "Ah, I didn't.  They found it early this
morning when they were dismantling his house.  A trapdoor underneath the
table which they probably never would have noticed if his stack of porn
hadn't fallen over."
     Ah, there was Scully's self-satisfied little smirk.  He knew she had
seen them, but he'd figured she wasn't going to comment.  
     "What they found..." Oona wrinkled her nose in disgust. "The faces. 
The organs, stuffed and hanging from the joists like sausages."
     There was a special horror in cannibalism which wasn't merely from
the desecration of the dead.  Of course it was different if there was a
cultural precedent, or if it was a matter of survival.  The hunting and
harvesting of humans for no other reason than lunch was one of only a few
taboos that modern people didn't break.  It was a line Mulder was glad the
overwhelming majority chose not to cross.
     He wondered, though, what would happen should enough people do it
once...?  Would the effect be the same one as the Hundredth Monkey, learned
cannibalism cascading from person to person, culture to culture, country to
country?  He shivered at the thought.  But it also begged the further
question - when had their ancestors stopped eating one another in the first
place, what was once common and practically ordinary?  Forensic
anthropology suggested ritualistic cannibalism, but he wasn't so sure it
was...what if those rituals had just been the end play of a very very long
game?  In that light, couldn't Kaspar and others like Jeffrey Dahmer be the
last gasps in a long chain of people throughout history?  Only time would
tell, and Mulder suspected that Homo Sapiens Sapiens, being the product of
millions of years of evolution and a few thousand years of civilization
would never get the taste, so to speak, out of its collective mouth. 
Scully had been right after all, humanity did need its civilized mask of
behavior.
     "Oona, we've got to go," Scully said, checking her watch. "But if
you're ever in Washington, give us a call.  We'll take you to lunch."
     Mulder looked at Scully in surprise.  He couldn't recall her ever
having extended an invitation to someone they'd met on a case.  He shook
hands with Oona as well, only to be caught off guard when she suddenly
leaned forward.  Her warm breath tickled his ear as she spoke.
     "Blessed be, Agent Mulder.  Peace be upon you."
     He thanked her and headed out the door.  Getting into the car, he
noticed the he ghost of a smile haunting Scully's lips. "What?"
     "She likes you, Mulder."
     He stared at her. "Who - Oona?"
     She gave him the 'no duh' Look.  "Um, yeah."
     "'Like' like me, or just like me?"                          
     "The former."                      
     Pondering this new information for a brief moment, he turned the key
in the ignition. "Jealous?"
     "Oh, please."                                
     Mulder smiled and put the car in reverse.              
     "Y'know, the only thing about this town I'm going to miss is that
bathtub," she muttered.

     
'"The Trego's, we realized that Watkins had been attacked by what the
Algonquin call a manitou, an evil spirit capable of changing a man into a
beast. To be attacked by a manitou causes the victim to become one...a
manitou overtakes a man by night, not by full moon.  But when its blood
lust builds to an uncontrollable level, the man changes to a sickening
creature.  It kills, releasing savage energy...The cycle begins anew the
next day.  This continues until death."'
     Ish, "Shapes" 1X18






Manitou, by Dryad
11/13 disclaimer in part one (R)

"I'm talking loud and clear saying just what I feel         
lying in the grass with the sun on our backs      
it doesn't really matter what we do or what we say
with every little movement, we give ourselves away

Opposite and opposite decisions are reversed
facing one another with words that couldn't hurt
with every little move you're getting closer to me
talking loud and clear saying just what you feel today"

OMD/Talking Loud and Clear/Best of OMD                           
(Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark)                         


     Rain pounded against the windshield, the wipers barely able to keep
the glass clear enough for Mulder to see the road.  The bright afternoon
light of northern Vermont had degraded into the dull, rainswept evening of
the mid-Atlantic seaboard.  Crimson taillights led the way home.  He yawned
and glanced over at Scully.  She'd taken painkillers on the way to Lincoln
and at the airport, and was now slumped against the passenger door, fast
asleep. 
     Arriving at the turnoff which would bring them to her apartment, he
drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and made a snap decision.  If he
was lucky she wouldn't hurt him too much for his assumption.
     She woke at his light touch on her shoulder, didn't say a word about
being in the parking lot of his apartment building instead of her own. 
Once inside she headed directly for the bathroom.  Mulder dropped their
bags on the floor and took off his coat, hung it up on the red nine ball of
the coatrack.  Food, that was what they both needed.
     He was too hungry to wait for take out, so he popped a container of
frozen chicken noodle soup in the microwave, ate a couple of slices of
toast to stave off his complaining stomach.  When Scully didn't reappear by
the time it was ready, he poured himself a mug of soup, grabbed a spoon and
headed into the living room.  He really hoped she wasn't taking a bath, he
had the feeling she wouldn't come out until she looked like a prune, and he
wanted a shower before he went to bed.  To couch.  Halfway through dinner,
fishing for the remaining noodle that simply refused to stay on the damned
spoon, he heard the bathroom door open, then Scully rustling around the
bedroom.  She came out a few minutes later, hair damp, dressed in plum
colored satin pj's.  He said, "There's soup if you're hungry."
     "God, yes, I'm starved."                          
     Mulder laced his fingers together around the mug, let its warmth soak
into his bones.  Funny, he felt colder here than he had in Vermont.
     "Did you make this?" she enquired, dropping down slowly next to him,
her own mug of soup in hand.
     "Does that surprise you so much?"
     "No."
     He raised an eyebrow.
     She had the grace to look a bit embarassed. "Well, what do you
expect?  Everytime I come over here we end up having pizza or chinese."
     "Before Samantha left, I loved to cook with my mother.  I even know
how to make Kugel.  Of course this isn't real Jewish chicken soup, but what
the hell, I like noodles."
     "And here's me beginning to think your cooking skills were poor
enough to burn water."
     "My momma din't raise no foo'," he said, complete with sneer and
snaking head.  And then, at her wide-eyed gaze, "If you're going to keep up
with slang, Scully, you have to watch late night Jerry Springer."
     "Mulder, you're really beginning to scare me now."
     "Shut up and eat your soup, woman," he growled affectionately,
getting up.  Time for a quick shower, then he was going to pass out on the
couch.  Two days in the hospital in a semi-private room with a man who had
brought new meaning to the phrase 'coughing your lungs out' had afforded
him little rest.  The numerous tests at all hours hadn't helped much
either.
     Mulder showered, used Scully's damp towel because he kept forgetting
to add another one to the rack.  He didn't know which was sillier, that he
had thought of it in the first place despite the fact that she had never
bathed here before, or his sniffing the towel before he used it.  
     "I got it bad, and that ain't good," he softly sang, scrutinizing his
eyes in the semi-clear mirror.  A sad song, but that was alright, it was
only the title that mattered.  And even then it was off - he had it bad,
but it was good.  Of course he'd had it bad for years, but some lines
weren't meant to be crossed once, never mind twice, or so he kept telling
himself.  His inner critic correctly diagnosed the problem - he was a
chickenshit - while heart and soul clung to hope like a drowning man to a
life preserver.  Forget being rational and actually bringing the subject up
in conversation, oh no, the fear of rejection and consequential abandonment
was far too frightening to contemplate.  Hell, he didn't even like thinking
of it now.  So he avoided the issue entirely, and they went their merry way
as if nothing at all had happened between them in the past year. 
     Disgusted with himself, he roughly toweled as much water out of his
hair as he could, then reached for the clean pair of boxers...which he'd
left on the bed.  He eyed his trousers, decided to risk seeing if Scully
was in bed yet instead.  Opening the door a crack, he peeked out, spied her
form under the covers, facing towards the living room.   Was she asleep? 
Well...it wasn't like she hadn't seen him naked before...nonetheless, he
wrapped the towel around his waist, scooted out to snag his boxers and draw
them on, his actions silhouetted on the far wall by the bathroom light,
steam curling around his body with a phantom's caress.
     The living room and kitchen were dark, and although he knew she had
cleaned and locked everything up, making his apartment safe, he went
through the motions anyway.  He glanced from couch to bedroom.  The covers
on the empty half of the bed had been flung back in open invitation.  If he
were smart he'd take the couch...but the bed looked far more comfy,
especially with his own personal red-headed water bottle hotting up the
sheets.  His back and side would appreciate it too.  Yeah, that was it, it
would be better for his injuries.
     Choice made, he turned off the bathroom light and lay down on the
bed.  It took a few minutes to find a postiion which didn't hurt.  He ended
up on his right side, the wrong side, back to back with Scully instead of
spooning as he was wont to do.  He sighed and snuggled beneath the
blankets.
     Mulder sits at a desk in a white field.  The desk is that of a
child's from the turn of the century, wooden, slanted, initials carving
themselves into the top.  Evergreens wave in the distance, and he feels a
stiff breeze against his face, ruffling his hair.  The sky is flatly
overcast, pale metallic winter gray.  He feels like he should be cold, but
he isn't, due maybe to the fact that he wears his favorite suit and his
black wool coat.  There's a scalpel in his hand, which strikes him funny,
so he laughs, because the tools of his trade are razor sharp words under
the guidance of his equally honed wit.  Mere tools are blunt by comparison.
     He sets the scalpel to the parchment on the desk.  He presses down,
draws a thin line, the paper, no, the vellum - parchment colored vellum -
bleeds magenta ink.  The vellum dimples here and there, the ink creeps
around to form a face.  Four lines and two dots for eyes, a T for brows and
nose, three lines for a full, pouty mouth.  He leans back in the chair,
watches a fine paint brush sketch his mother's place in Greenwich in
indigo, his father's in West Tisbury, the old house in Chilmark with the
white Hydrangea's in the front.  And, strangely, Bill Scully's former abode
in San Diego.  
     Peaks and valleys appear as the face pushes up the vellum and becomes
three dimensional.  Panic engulfs Mulder as it opens its mouth in a wide,
silent scream.  It floats towards him, equally threatens and accuses him of
not doing enough, of not saving - who is he supposed to save?  And from
what?  Every muscle in his body tenses, trembles with the urge to flee,
even though the face is gone. 
     Now he runs through syrup, sugar on the snow hardens and locks his
feet his ankles his knees in place, heart near to bursting as it pounds. 
Sweat rolls off his forehead as he looks over his shoulder.  The figure he
runs from is Inuit, Eskimo of old, the face invisible in the darkness of
its fur rimmed hood.  It is neither man nor woman.  It walks towards him
endlessly, booted legs disappearing half-way down the calf.  It is not
walking on the snow but above. 
     The figure frightens him immensely, omniscient and omnipotent,
menacing with unknown intent.  Tears slip down his cheeks as he struggles
to remember the magic words which will release him from this prison.
     Mulder woke with a gasp.  He stared at the ceiling wide-eyed, blood
thudding in his ears.  Jesus, he hadn't had that dream in years, not since
the early days of working on the X-Files.  They had been most frequent when
he'd worked in the ISU and VCS, gradually dying away after he'd left.  But
to dream of the Inuit now was extraordinary.  The unknown no longer
startled him as it once had, becoming, in fact, more ordinary with each
passing day.  This wasn't to say that it no longer excited him or made the
cases any less interesting, only that time and experience had tempered his
enthusiasm.  Scully's goddamned rationalism and science had infiltrated
after all despite his determination for the opposite to occur.
     The truth was that the Inuit was but one in a host of repetitive
dreams.  It wasn't the worst, although it was one of the most frightening,
for reasons he still didn't understand.  The only parts which varied were
the buildings drawn on the vellum.  The other dreams were more graphic,
filled with gore and smoke and an overwhelming feeling of helplessness.
Physician, heal thyself, he mused.  Patient dreams of unidentifiable mythic
figure, symbolic both of the unknown and apprehension of it.  As for its
genderless state, well, danger lurked in all shapes and sizes.  
     Scully entered, bearing two cups. "Morning."
     "Coffee," he murmured, pushing himself into a sitting position
against the headboard. "Scully, you're a goddess."
     "And you've only just reached this conclusion after how many years of
working together?"  She tucked one leg underneath her as she sat. "How're
you feeling?"
     "I've survived worse," he said.  Ah, caffeine, lifeblood of the
modern working man and woman.  He stretched and wondered just how domestic
Scully was feeling.  Unless his judgement was way off, she was in a fairly
good mood in spite of the pain she was obviously suffering from.  The
coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave man but one. "I'm ravenous."
     If he hadn't been gazing hopefully at her, visions of hot buttered
toast running through his mind, he might have missed her lips moving and
chalked what she said up to his imagination.
     She beheld the contents of her cup with a Mona Lisa smile and said
very softly, "You could always eat me."
     Mulder blinked.  
     '"You could always eat me"'.  Like it was something he heard from her
every other day.  The phone rang in the other room, and neither of them
moved.  Machine could get it.                               
     "Agent Mulder, uh, this is Bill Scully, I was wondering if you'd - "
     Scully flew off the bed faster than Superman.  Jaw slack with
astonishment that turned into a yawn, he stretched and shifted to ease the
soreness in his back.  He couldn't believe she'd actually said that. 
Scully always made and responded to innuendo with sarcasm so sharp it could
make stone bleed, but she never made outright suggestions concerning
herself.  Especially not to him, not anymore.  
     He took another sip, then got up and used the toilet, washed his
face.  She was back on the bed when he returned, drinking her coffee as if
she hadn't said anything out of the ordinary.
     "That was Bill," She unnecessarily explained. "He says 'hello'."
     "Your brother has my home number?"  He felt a
bit...nervous...happy...nervously happy...at the prospect. 
     "Mm."                              
     Well, well, well.  Mulder hoped his delight didn't show.  Bill Scully
had his home phone number.  It was incredible, this  recognition and so
public announcement of his standing in her life. He wished he had someone
he could tell, someone who would understand the significance of Scully's
actions.  Of course, the only person he could talk to was her. "So what are
you saying here, Scully?  You moving in?"
     "Only if you get rid of that coatrack,"  She looked askance at him
briefly before studying everything in the room besides himself.       
     Women just didn't like the thing for reasons he couldn't fathom.
     Then, with an eye-roll and a slightly raised brow, "Mulder, I'm
joking."
     That's what he got for letting his fantasies run away with his common
sense.
     "This place is way too small for the both of us."
     "Scully, I haven't had enough coffee to keep up with this
conversation," he said.  Max Pfennig had pegged it right when he'd called
her enigmatic.  Just when Mulder was sure their...relationship, for lack of
a better word, wasn't progressing at its usual snail's pace, she threw the
proverbial spanner in the works.  Jesus.
     "I'd better get ready," she said. "Are you staying home today?" 
     "Mm," No, he wouldn't let her get away so easily.  He grabbed her
free hand, held it loosely in his own. "I would, y'know."
     She didn't say anything, but her eyes, her eyes darkened almost
imperceptibly.  The corner of her mouth curled up every so slightly, and he
released her.  Non-verbal communication, they had it in spades. "How is he,
anyway?"
     Her lips quirked, then. "He's fine.  He wants to me to go camping
this weekend, if I'm free."
     "In December?"
     "Yep.  My father used to take the boys up to this winter camp in
Virginia, going fishing, hiking, doing man things."
     "No room for the girls, hunh," he muttered, feeling obscurely envious
for her.  And for himself.
     She flashed him an understanding smile. "It was a different time."
     "Well, it'll be good for you to get away for awhile," Mulder slid to
the edge of the bed and carefully got to his feet.  What on earth had
possessed him to sleep on his back?  He knew better, for godsakes.  He
headed towards the living room so she could dress in private.
     "You'd better not ditch me - "                    
     Her voice continued for a moment longer after he closed the door.  He
suspected the words she used might just have included 'ass' and 'hole'. 
Anyway, time to hunt something down for breakfast.  
     By the time she emerged from the bedroom he was at his desk,
laboriously typing his field notes into the pc.  He stopped to eat a slice
of toast, watched as she got ready for work.  She was dressed impeccably in
the navy trouser suit which he'd never let her know he adored.  "Hey
Scully?"
     "Yeah?" she answered absentmindedly. 
     "How do you run in those shoes?"
     She looked down and then up at him like he was out of his mind.
"What?"
     "Heels.  You never have any problems running in heels."
     "Well, first of all, these are pumps," she said, drawing one trouser
leg up and turning her pretty foot to one side.  She wore black suede two
inch lace-ups which must have cost a mint. "And second, natural born
talent," she gathered purse and laptop, stepped towards the door, stepped
back again. "Why?"
     Mulder shrugged.  "It's been bugging me for years, and everytime I
remembered to ask you weren't around.  Didn't seem worth waking you up at
two in the morning for."
     "Got that right," she muttered. "You don't mind if I leave my bag
here?"
     "Course not," he was about to offer her the use of his car, but then
thought better of it.  She read his mind yet again, though, and said,
     "I've already called a taxi.  See you later."               
     He took a break in the middle of the afternoon, made yet more soup
even though he really wanted a burger and fries.  He was hungry, but more
solid food didn't seem like an especially wise idea.  Thankfully Scully
called and saved him from the tedium of filling out the expense report.
     "Mulder, it's me."
     He leaned back in his chair, regretted it immediately as his bruised
kidney took offense.
     "Mulder?"
     "Yeah, I'm here."
     "Word just came down from Vermont - they got Kaspar."
     "Where did they catch him?"
     "You won't believe this, but Mae Lincoln brought him in."
     "Is she alright?"                            
     "She's fine.  Apparently he turned up on her back porch, hungry and
tired."
     "So much for the mountain man surviving on his own."
     "Two skeletons were found inside the car outside of the sugarhouse. 
One's been identified as Guillaume LaGrange, a forty-five year old father
of eight who disappeared in '92 on his way home from a conference in
Nashua, New Hampshire.  The other was Leland Smith, an eighteen year-old
college student hiking the Appalachian Trail, also lost in '92."
     "One might say he was a little off the beaten path, eh?"
     "You're losing your touch, Mulder.  Marks on the bone would seem to
indicate tool marks, although it's difficult to be absolutely positive at
this stage."
     "Bambi's revenge?" he quipped.
     Scully ignored him.  "The really good news is that Sheriff Whitlow's
come out of the coma.  So far it doesn't look as if he's going to have any
permanent damage, but only time will tell."
     Mulder fiddled with a pen. "What about Crandall?"      
     "He's alive,"                                     
     He grinned. "Unfortunately?"
     She snorted. "I'm going straight home, Mulder, so I'll come by
tomorrow to pick up my stuff, okay?"
     "No problem.  I'll bring it in - "           
     "No, you won't.  I don't want you straining your torso any more than
you absolutely have to, so that means no heavy lifting."
     "Scully, when was the last time I ever disobeyed doctor's orders? 
No, wait, don't answer that."
     "Does this mean you're going to listen to me for once?"
     Mulder sighed. "Yes.  Don't let it get to your head." 



Manitou, by Dryad
12/13 disclaimer in part one (R)
     
"Don't say you want me
don't say you need me                        
Don't say you love me
it's understood

Don't say you're happy                            
out there without me
I know you can't be
'cause it's no good"                                        

Depeche Mode/It's No Good/House Collection (comp)
(Paul Oakenfold Rare Mix)
                         

     Mulder reluctantly got out of his car, hoped Scully wouldn't comment
on his foolishness.  He'd figured painkillers would get him through the
day, but he'd been oh-so-wrong.  What was even worse was the fact that he'd
had to resort to Scullyism's - "I'm fine," he'd said on numerous occasions
throughout the day, not that she believed him.  She'd just pursed her lips
and gave him sharp glances everytime he winced, smugly ignored the way he
had to lean on his desk to get up by the afternoon.  God, she certainly
knew how to make her point.  And if she offered to get him anything else
that required lifting or stretching he was going to have to take revenge in
one way or another as soon as he could think of something.
     "Come on, slowpoke, I haven't got all night," she said, breezing past
him insouciantly.
     He followed, watched the delicate sway of her hips as she walked up
the front steps of his apartment building.   She was wearing his second
favorite skirt suit, the one that fell below the knee and had a long slit
which exposed the back of her leg with each stride.  Best of all, it was
that peculiar shade of gray, he didn't know its name, but it was a cross
between storm and lead.  Whatever the color, it turned her hair into gold-
streaked flame, her skin alabaster, her eyes, well, as cliché as it was, a
man could easily drown.
     Scully turned and looked at him, brows drawn down quizzically.
"What?"
     Breaking out his keys, he said, "Nothing."        
     While she got her bag he changed into jeans and a white pullover,
contemplated taking another painkiller.  Lord, he wasn't going to do
anything tonight except make himself comfortable on the couch, maybe catch
up on all those back issues of UFO UK and Abductee International.  Both
hands on his lower back, he headed out of his bedroom.
     "You are taking tomorrow off, right?" she said, eyeing him with a
frown.
     "Uh hunh.  I've learned my lesson."
     "As well you should."
     He trailed her to the door as she slowed and put her bag down.   She
looked up at him shyly beneath lowered lashes, which always made his breath
catch in his throat.  Damn, how did she do that?  And why did she look so
serious? "Something else I can do for you, Scully?"
     "Yeah..."                                              
     She put one hand on his chest, leaned forward and kissed him chastely
on the lips.  Mulder stared at the top of her bent head.  She stood in
front of him, refusing to meet his eyes, leaving him in ignorance as to the
cause of this sudden shift.  Did she think he was unwilling to explore the
unknown?  He wanted to touch those bee-stung lips again, but there was a
question to be answered, first. "Why?  Why now?  Why after six months?"
     Scully contemplated his shirt, looked down at her clasped hands. "I
was exploring my options."
     Bitterness and bad memories flew out of his mouth. "Oh yeah?  What's
his name?"
     She said, very softly, "Anonymous."
     Mulder rubbed his face with both hands.  Could he fuck this up
anymore, whatever 'this' was?  He wanted to apologize, he wanted her to
forget what he had just said, he wanted her to understand he wasn't angry
with her, although he was, if he was brutally honest with himself.  He
wanted her to lay it on the line.  "What the hell does that mean?"
     "I...needed to..." she shrugged helplessly, finally looking at him.
"I don't know what I needed.  To regroup, I guess.  I don't - "
     "Scully, you're not making any sense," he interrupted, silently
berating himself for his assumptions.  Fool, he raged, breaking away to
pace in front of his computer.  He felt sick.  There had been no guarantee
that what had happened one weekend in June would ever happen again.  He had
fallen into the same old man-trap as always.  But he wasn't the boy he used
to be, nor was she the kind of woman to toy with a man for the sake of her
own amusement.  Get this thing over with, man, ponder it all later.  "What
are you trying to tell me?"
     "I wanted to see," she slowly began. "If I could still work with you
without being distracted."
     Mulder put his hands on his hips in the tremendous effort to hold
himself back from slamming his fist against the wall.  Son of a *bitch*.
"You don't give me any credit for self-restraint, do you?"
     "Damnit, Mulder, this isn't about you!" she cried, stalking over to
stand in front of him. "God knows we probably have more self-restraint than
any other two people on the face of the goddamned planet, but that's not
what I'm talking about here!"
     "What, then?" he rasped back, stepping closer to tower above her.
"Just tell me, one way or the other, Scully, what you want.  Do you even
know?"
     "As a matter of fact, I do," she snapped. "I always have, but until a
few moments before a bee stung me on the back of the neck in that outer
hallway I wasn't sure what you wanted!"
     Jesus H. Christ.  On a gods-be-damned Pogo stick.
     "Mulder," Eyes bright, Scully swallowed and grasped his hand, stroked
the knuckles lightly with her thumb. "I knew you cared about me, loved me. 
You've saved my life...you're the most compassionate man I know.  Loyal to
a fault, honest beyond reproach.  I trust you as I trust no one else.  Yet
for all that, until that moment you never gave me a sign that we could have
something beyond the merely physical, beyond work.  And now, this year -
shit.  I'm not saying this right, this isn't coming out right," She covered
her eyes with her free hand and shook her head. "I can't find the words - "
     He'd been too subtle.  Once upon a time, he had put his heart out on
a silver platter, never seeing the skewer or the spit he was subsequently
roasted on.  Lesson learned, the next time he'd been more careful, and not
shown how much he'd been smitten, yet had still failed to keep himself
intact.  He'd been lucky, though, in that he'd been taken at face value. 
He'd thought he'd learned control by the time Scully arrived in his life. 
She'd snuck in somehow, crept into the cracks and crevices which age and
stress had put in the walls around his heart, and had held him together
when everyone else had left and forgotten his very existence.  He'd
responded by showing her his intentions in all but the most obvious of
ways.  
     Fool, fool, thrice again a fool.  Pulling her into his embrace, he
pressed his lips to her hair, inhaling the faded odor of her conditioner
before resting his chin on top of her head. "We're a pair, aren't we?"
     Scully put her arms around his waist and carefully hugged him back. 
He was happy to stand with her, body to body, holding on tight to this
promise of companionship if nothing else.  Anger at his own stupidity
gradually drained away to be replaced with fear-spiked contentment.  He
rubbed her back slowly, listened to her croon with pleasure as he worked
her sore muscles.  Eventually he became aware that she was kissing his
chest and the base of his neck.  He reciprocated with little brushes of his
lips on her hairline, forehead, cheekbones, until their mouths met in the
middle.
     After awhile he straightened, a little lightheaded and in no small
amount of pain.  He made a face and pulled away a bit, regarded her
steadily. "I, um, don't think I can do this right now."
     If anything, she looked relieved. "Me neither.  Although you've
worked wonders, my neck and back are still killing me.  And I should go,
I've got things to do."
     As always.  He smiled, she smiled, and everything was all right with
the world once more.  Maybe it was a fragile peace, but he was convinced
their relationship was such that it would only be made the stronger for it. 
She was the only person he knew with whom he could both fight and cry with,
yet still love and be loved.  The only one who knew him well enough to hurt
him more than anyone else in the entire world.
     One corner of her mouth curled up slyly. "Before I leave, I have a
proposal for you, should you choose to accept it."
     "Ah, I know this one!  I accept, I accept."
     "Without even knowing what it is?"  Her eyebrows were raised, but she
looked delighted.
     "You know me, I can charge right in without thought for the
specifics."
     "Mm."                                             
     "And...?" Hands still on her hips, he shook her a little bit. 
     "We wait until we're feeling better."
     He blinked.  Didn't sound impossible to him.
     She laid a finger against his mouth. "But you can't touch yourself
until then."
     "Jesus, Scully," Could he actually last that long considering the
night's events? "And yourself?"
     She was innocence personified. "Same deal."
     He eyed her suspiciously. "You seem thrilled at the prospect."
     She gave him a smug little smile. "It'll be easier for me.  Different
plumbing."
     And very nice plumbing it was, too.  Releasing his grasp on her, he
once more walked over and opened the door, stepped back. "Then I guess it's
good night."
     Saying nothing, she picked up her bag and headed to the elevator,
waggling the fingers of one hand as the doors closed.  
     He sighed, sternly told his body to improve as rapidly as possible.
                                        
     


Manitou, by Dryad                                 
13/13 disclaimer in part one (NC17)                              

"There are so many tomorrows
that I'm never sure 
until, my love,
You're mine    
          once more"                                        

The Orb/Once More/Cydonia
          
     
     Mulder kicked the door closed, dropped his bag on the floor, hung up
his coat.  His back ached.  Two field cases in two weeks and his brain felt
like mush.  His body wasn't too happy, either.  At least his pee wasn't
bloody any more.  Yeah, he was healing nicely, although his hip was still
bruised.  In his bedroom he changed into jeans and a sweatshirt.  The couch
was calling his name more loudly than the kitchen, and he laid down with a
sigh, leaving the lights off.  A moment later the phone rang.  
     "Go away," he moaned as the machine did its thing.
     "Mulder, it's - "
     He lunged up and grabbed the handset. "I'm here.  Where are you?"
     "Home.  I missed getting on your flight by a measly ten minutes."
     "More's the pity."                                
     "Tell me about it," she said, grunting a little. "I was in the
middle, and you know how much I hate being in the middle."
     He smiled, put his feet up on the coffee table and leaned back
against the couchback.  It had to be window or aisle with her, although she
always switched with him if he didn't get the aisle and she did. 
     "What's worse, I'm surrounded by the freshmen girls from hell.  I'm
not kidding, Mulder.  Four hours debating the merits of N'Sync versus the
Backstreet Boys and whether or not burritos are better than tacos.  If
they're supposed to be our future, I say we let the aliens take over."
     He laughed out loud. "You mean you weren't the same your first year
in college?"
     Dead silence. "I'm going to forget you ever asked me that."
     Oo, dangerous waters. 
     "I'm sure you had your moments as well," she grumbled. 
     "I never," he said, grinning.  He heard rustling in the background.
"What are you doing?"
     "I just went shopping."
     Hm, take advantage of the open door and risk her hanging up on him? 
Nah, he liked hearing her voice.
     "I needed something fresh to eat, y'know?  Damn, my ice cream's
starting to melt."
     "Well, I s'pose I'll let you get cracking.  See you on Monday,
Scully."
     "'Kay."                                 
     He hung up.  Food was a good idea.  A brief scavenge in the kitchen
provided an apple, sliced and smeared with the last of the crunchy peanut
butter, and a mint Snapple iced tea.  It was enough to hold him while he
did the laundry and ran a few errands.  In the basement he loaded up the
machine, then ran out to do a drop off and pick up at the dry cleaners,
read the July/August double issue of UFO UK while his clothes dried. 
Another fifteen minutes for folding, and he was done. 
     Back upstairs, he heard the faint strains of Zero 7 coming through
his door, which he'd locked.  And his gun was in the living room.  He put
the basket and SwiffyKleen bag on the floor, cautiously stood out of the
line of fire as he gently turned the brass knob.  No one sprang out at him. 
Quietly moving inside, he closed the door and practically jumped out of his
skin when a familiar face appeared.  
     Scully wiped her hands on a dishcloth, viewed him with amused
concern. "You okay, Mulder?"
     He nodded sharply, fearing his voice would crack if he tried to
speak, not that she was fooled, judging by the set of her eyebrows.
     "I used my key."
     No shit.  Mulder retrieved his laundry and deposited it in the
bedroom, Scully a few steps behind.  She watched him hang the bag in the
closet, shove underwear and socks willy nilly into the bureau.
     "I'm sorry if I scared you," she said softly.
     "What are you doing here, Scully?" he asked, unable to meet her eyes. 
She was giving him that look, he just knew it, and he couldn't handle it.
"I thought you were fixing yourself dinner."
     "I didn't feel like eating alone."
     He stopped, shirt unfolding itself in his hands.  What the hell was
happening inside her pretty little head?  It wasn't like her to simply show
up at his apartment and let herself in, not when he wasn't away.  She
smiled at him guilelessly and left the room.  Hell if he was ever going to
figure her out.  When he was finished with the laundry, he changed into
plaid drawstring sleeping pants and a ratty UNLV tee.  In the living room
he flopped on the couch and closed his eyes.  Zero 7 ended, but he didn't
feel like getting up and putting in another cd.
     The clicking of Scully's heels came closer, stopped. "You want the tv
on?"
     "Yeah, thanks."                                   
     "How about some dinner?"
     He cracked open one eyelid. "Are you feeling alright?"
     "Yes or no?" she asked, turning the sound low.
     He hesitated.  It hadn't been his imagination, she had been unusually
solicitous ever since her arrival in San Francisco.  Because of Detective
Quinnan?  Nah, they'd gotten along fabulously, once Quinnan had gotten over
her reticence.  Toby, nice name for a woman.  Besides, Quinnan hadn't even
hit on him.
     "Earth to Mulder."                                     
     "What are you making?"                       
     "Lasagne, salad."
     "Sounds yummy," he said.  Not that it mattered, whatever she made was
bound to be good, although it felt decidedly odd, her cooking for him - for
them - in his apartment.  Things had changed between them after
their...conversation.  She'd gone on her camping trip with Bill, although
he wasn't sure she'd enjoyed it.  The friends Bill had brought along, Giles
Darling and Rob Petrie - Rob Petrie! - sounded like complete jerks. 
Apparently she'd had to kick a little ass at the general store, arresting
two dumb cracks who didn't have a synapse to rub between them, given that
they'd tried to rob the place with a novelty lighter and a bottle of RC
Cola.  Shit, he'd have loved to seen their faces when they'd been busted. 
Scully with a gun was frighteningly intense, very erotic.  He'd certainly
entertained the fantasy before, completely at her will.  No whips or chains
or anything like that, just Scully in her black trouser suit and him in a
pair of handcuffs.  Oh yeah.  
     Well hello there, he wasn't as tired as he'd thought.  The only
lights in the room came from the tv and the fish tank.  Half the excitement
was in the risk, hoping she'd notice the battle of the bulge, so to speak. 
He opened one eye, glanced down - his pants tented a little more. 
Resisting the urge to give himself a firm couple of strokes - he'd
promised, after all - he turned his mind to other things.  Like Scully in
that blue and white outfit she'd worn in June.  Scully sleeping in his bed
in plum pj's.  Scully naked, period.
     Mulder sighed in frustration.  Something other than her...Toby
Quinnan.  Although he hadn't told her, he'd written a strong commendation
to her superiors, and suggested they point her towards the agency should
she ever appear to waver over her choice of career.  So like Scully, if ten
years older.  On the outside they were completely different.  Dark versus
light, the strength of an amazon versus the fragility of porcelain, yet
both were tougher than nails outside and in, forthright, outspoken,
fiercely intelligent, stunningly unaware of their own beauty. 
     He dozed fitfully, catching an occasional burst of noise from the
commercials they swore the volume wasn't turned up on, the fainter sounds
of cursing and clink of dishes from the kitchen.  Every now and then he
roused, surprised it wasn't his imagination.  He unashamedly basked in
contentment, ignoring any anxious thoughts.  Yeah, his apartment had been
trashed, and those bastards Krycek and Cancerman had both made themselves
more than comfortable on the occasion, but he'd somehow managed to retain
his sense of home-equals-safety.  He refused to allow their intrusions to
destroy his security...although they had done their best.
     Air wafted across Mulder's face, once, twice, then the couch gave way
at his side as Scully sat down.  He kept his eyes closed, happy to be in
her presence.  She shifted again, maybe looking down at him.  He'd done the
same plenty of times.  In the car, when she fell asleep in the passenger
seat, on planes, over morning coffee in the office.  Nonetheless, he was
shocked by the featherlight brush of lips on his cheek.  Maybe she'd do it
again if he feigned inattention.  Another kiss, this one further along,
closer to his left ear.  He must have given some indication that he was
awake, for he felt a finger on his mouth.
     "Shh."                                                 
     He gasped.  Still leaning over him, she suckled on his earlobe ever
so briefly.  Desire, which had fled in the midst of his dozing, returned
with a vengeance.  He had the feeling that she didn't want his
interference, though.  Well, whatever floated her boat, as long as she
didn't stop.
     Scully peppered his face with little kisses, trailed her tongue down
his neck.  She uncrossed his arms, whispered, "Put your hands behind your
back.  And keep your eyes closed."
     Wondering what she was up to, he quickly complied.  Maybe she shared
his handcuff fantasy?  Of course if she had it was probably for completely
different reasons.  Laughter bubbled up in him at the thought, only to be
chased away at the sensation of heat and moisture on his chest.  He
squirmed, arched when she grazed her teeth on his nipple through his tee. 
First the one, then the other, until the pleasure verged on pain.
     She pulled his shirt up, caressed him from armpit to waist a few
times until he'd gotten control - ha - over his breathing.  Of course he
lost it again when she stroked the length of him, nails teasing through the
flannel.  Once she had him wriggling and practically begging for more, she
loosed the drawstring and took him in her warm hands.  Eyes closed, he
reminded himself, hastily squinching them shut after the initial surprise
of her mouth enveloping him in one smooth swoop.  He couldn't keep his
hands away from her after that.  
     Strands of silk slipped between his fingers as he ran one hand
through her hair.  She wasn't familiar yet with all of his likes and
dislikes, but her guesses were damn fine.  Even the occasional scrape of
her teeth was exciting, proof of where she was and god, what she was doing. 
Plenty of women had told him how much they hated the sudden thrust into
their mouths, the clamp of hands in their hair, so he bit his lower lip and
somehow managed to keep from grabbing her head and forcing it down.
     Oh, she knew what she was doing...the advantage of being a doctor? 
Or merely being a woman?  And whatever the hell was she doing with her
tongue, it was certainly working!  Moist heat swallowed him whole and
pulled further contemplation right out of his skull.  His balls tightened,
waves of pleasure swamping his gut while his legs trembled.  One of her
hands joined the action with her mouth until she was working him like a
Tootsie Pop.  How many licks would it take - not very damn many.  He lost
all control and bucked up, crying out her name.  She let him calm down
before drawing his pants up and his shirt down, making him flinch when she
patted his belly.
     There was no way Mulder could let her go without showing
his...appreciation wasn't the right word.  Gratitude?  He couldn't think of
one that didn't include a sense of obligation, which was far from how he
felt.  And undying respect didn't really cut it either.  'Dear Scully, you
know how much I respect you for that blowjob, right?'  God.  He caught her
arm and pulled her down to face level, kissed her deeply, tasting his own
salty bitterness on her tongue.  
     Scully understood, acknowledgement of the unspeakable present in her
gaze.  She smiled, pleased at having pleased him. "Why don't you get some
sleep until dinner's ready."
     Dinner, shminner.  "You could lie down with me instead," he
suggested.
     "No," she said, getting to her feet. "I've still got a salad to
make."
     Oh, there was no arguing with her when it came to food.  Besides, it
would give him time to think, ponder his plan of action. 'Plan of Action',
christ, what was he, fifteen?  He'd like to meet the man who could get
Scully to do anything she didn't want to do.  On second thought, he
wouldn't, because then she wouldn't be the person he thought he knew.  What
would he be like, that man, that stranger?  He'd hate to see her obedient. 
     Mulder sighed, flicked through the sports channels.  Juventus versus
Manchester United.  Celtics versus Lakers.  Curling.  Curling?  Olympic
preview show.  Summer X-Games highlights - how appropriate.  He winced all
throughout the Thrills 'n' Spills segment, Scully wincing too after
bringing out two plates loaded with food and a glass of wine for herself.
     After watching yet another kid literally kiss the ground after
landing badly on the Vert Bike segment, she grabbed the remote and muttered
under her breath until she found Comedy Central.  They practically laughed
themselves sick through Spaced and The League of Gentlemen and Whose Line
Is It Anyway?, British comedy apparently appealing to both of them.  Odd,
how he knew both so much and so little about her.  He wondered if she felt
the same about him. 
     "Hey!" She abruptly leapt to her feet.
     "Jesus, Scully, where's the fire?"
     She stared down at him in wide-eyed innocence.  Yeah, pure as the
driven gravel.
     "I forgot the ice cream."
     Okay, he could see her point.  Still, though, no reason to give a guy
a heart attack.  He followed her into the kitchen and spooned himself an
extra huge helping of New York Super Fudge Chunk, followed her back into
the living room.  Sighing from the chocolate overload of the first
spoonful, he said, "Scully, you *are* a goddess."
     She smirked.
     An hour later she was fast asleep, head pillowed on the armrest. 
Mulder quietly gathered their empty dishes and took them into the kitchen,
rinsed them off.  Washing could wait for the morning.  He turned the tv
off, debated whether or not he should wake her or cover her with the
blanket.  She might want to go home.  Crouching down, he laid a hand on her
shoulder. "Scully, hey."
     "Mph, g'way," she mumbled, pulling a pillow over her head.
     He grinned and tucked her in, turned off the light.  He snagged a
clean tee, contemplated an old pair of boxers before grabbing them too and
going into the bathroom to perform his nightly ablutions.  He left the
shirt and boxers on the edge of the tub, in case she wanted to change.  She
probably wouldn't have minded if he'd gone searching for pj's in her
emergency bag, but he didn't want to invade her privacy.  Lord, he was
tired.  
     He struggled out of sleep as the mattress dipped. "Scully?"
     "You should have woken me," she murmured, snuggling up to his side.
     "Um, you were pretty out of it."
     "Mm."
     Mulder lay still, felt her muscles relax, her breathing slow.  He
didn't think she even realized she'd thrown her arm across his chest. 
Unfortunately, lying on his back still wasn't all that comfortable a
position.  Moving slowly, he turned to face her, stopping when she
tightened her grip and tucked her head under his chin.  Lovely.  
     Apart from Scully, he hadn't cuddled with a woman in a long time. 
The night with Diana didn't count.  He considered it part of the madness of
those few days.  Enjoyable, in a stress relieving kind of way, but
ultimately forgettable, nothing more than a one night stand with a woman he
used to know.
     Diana Fowley.  What had happened to her?  Where had her idealism
gone?  Had it ever really been there?  Had she lied to him from the very
beginning?  No, he couldn't believe that, she had been a believer.  
     Hadn't she?  
     And what the hell had he been thinking?  No, that wasn't fair either. 
Finally being able to unobtrusively search for Samantha while legitimately
exploring the realm of the paranormal had been a heady experience. 
Combined with his fevered desire to forget everything he'd gone through
when working with the ISU, was it any wonder he'd lost his bearings?  It
was a miracle he'd been able to dress himself, never mind worrying about
his partner's honesty.
     Indeed, he'd accepted her at face value, that's how far gone he'd
been.  How innocent, how naive.  Boogeymen hadn't yet been discovered as
real.  Monsters had been no more than tales told to frighten misbehaving
children.  And, truth be told, he'd taken what Diana offered without a
second thought.  A beautiful, intelligent woman, who'd looked at him as if
were a whole person.  Curious.  A believer.
     Was that the reason why he'd been so devastated when she'd left? 
She'd left the X-Files, but she'd left him as well.  He'd hidden his hurt
by doing what had always worked previously - he'd buried himself in the
work, his work.  She had believed in him...right?  Would he have noticed if
she hadn't? Would it have even mattered, ultimately, so long as she came to
his bed warm and willing? 
     He sighed and restlessly moved his legs.  What an ass he'd been.  The
Great Profiler, the wunderkind who could figure out everyone elses motives
except his own.  He had been obsessed with his work...hadn't he?  Or had he
simply ignored the fact that she needed love and attention, too?  He hated
to think he could have been so callous of another person's feelings, and he
hoped he hadn't treated Scully in the same manner.  But she'd stuck with
him for seven years, and Diana was gone, so he must have changed...right? 
Time to let it go?
     "Mul'r - "
     "Hm?"  He was pretty sure Scully was dreaming.  She didn't say
anything further, rolled over out of his reach.  Here he was, mulling over
Diana when Scully was lying next to him.  Yeah, time to let it go.  Sleep,
fool, sleep.
     Mulder gradually became aware of several things: he was half-erect,
he was spooning Scully, and she was awake, rocking her hips in a barely
perceptible motion.   The delicate scent of her arousal reached his
hindbrain, which promptly kicked his autonomic nervous system into high
gear.  He opened his mouth to say something witty, came out with, "What
time is it?"
     She went perfectly still, and in a very quiet voice, said, "A little
after four."
     He frantically searched his memory, which in this instance was fuzzy
at best.  "I don't recall you being naked, earlier?"
     "I got hot," she whispered.
     Apparently.  He slipped his arm around her waist, let his fingers
drift over the sweet soft swell of her belly, barren cradle that it was. 
Up to her ripe breasts, nipples already taut with anticipation.  He rolled
one between his fingers, heard her quick inhalation.  Nuzzling the back of
her neck, he blew her hair away to expose exquisitely sensitive skin.  He
plundered the area with his tongue, despoiled its paleness with his teeth. 
He was careful not to bruise, she wouldn't want to be marked any place
which could be seen in public.  Sometimes he wished he could hang a big
sign around her neck - 'PROPERTY OF FOX MULDER'.  
     Oh yeah, that would go over well.  
     She'd once accused him of being territorial, and it was true.  He was
only human, after all.  Little nips on her ear made her squirm and shiver
and turn her head to kiss him.
     Her oversensitized nipple softened a bit, and he left it alone, hand
creeping down to the vee between her thighs.  Gentle caresses through damp
curls, nothing more, until she moved flat on her back with a sighed moan. 
She lifted a knee to manouver better, wound one hand around his neck and
pulled him down for a deep kiss.
     He loved the way she said his name.  It was a plea, a warning, and a
benediction all rolled into one mellifluous sound.  Finally he dipped one
finger into the dense pool of liquid, swirled more moisture through the hot
folds of flesh.  If only a light were on, so he could see her face clearly. 
Her sighs and exhalations told him what she liked, her hungry kisses proof
of her need for this, for him.
     Dexterity was an issue, for he simply wasn't used to using his left
hand for intimacies of this nature, and she was very antsy.  She kept
reaching down yet pulled back repeatedly at the last instant.  The one
finger thing was good, but it was making his wrist ache.  He made a loose
fist and lightly dragged his knuckles up and down.  The effect was
instantaneous.
     Scully grabbed his upper arm and froze. "Mulder - jesus - "
     Ah.  He went geometric, teased her with triangles, trapezoids,
squares and pentagons.  High-pitched whimpers dripped like honey from her
lips.  He ran his fingers over the cowl of her most tender spot every time
she attempted to kiss him, happily watched her arch away from the pleasure. 
The flush on her chest began to rise as he increased the pace of his
circling, felt her arm grow slick with perspiration against his chest.  She
soundlessly jerked against his hand, then gasped his name once more.
     When the storm had passed, she gazed at him with a shy little smile.
     "You liked that, hunh," he teased, cupping his palm over her sex.
     "Maybe," she said, reaching for his hip.  She tugged until he lay
between her thighs, brought her knees up to her chest.  
     Who was he to argue? Back bedamned, he entered her twice at the same
time, mouth to mouth, part A in slot B.  She was heaven, slick, hot,
clamping down on him with each thrust.  The fact that he could make her
moan amazed him anew.  Although this was not the best position for her,
June being an extraordinary exception, she'd assured him that it did feel
good, that she liked having his weight upon her, that if he ever hurt her
she'd let him know.
     "Move, Mulder, move," she demanded, gripping his lower back tightly.
     Oh, his intentions were good, but she kept urging him on with her
voice and her mouth, licking and biting wherever she could reach, from the
inside of his wrist to his chest, stopping only when he was slamming into
her so hard he thought the bed might break.
     He came with a hoarse cry, almost ill from the sheer pleasure of his
release.  He collapsed on top of her, desperate for air while she licked
his neck.  Finally he managed to move to over, curled up on his side and
watched her watch him, inhaled the musk of sweat and semen.
     Tracing his lips with her fingers, Scully softly said, "Diana loved
you."
     Mulder sighed, rolled onto his back.  "You've been reading my mind
again, Scully."
     She was silent, but her hand moved on to stroke his cheek.
     "I...used her.  I wish I could say I didn't know it at the time, but
I..." He trailed off and sighed again. "I hate to think I knew better and
did it anyway."
     She shrugged. "Without her, we wouldn't be here now.  And somehow,
Mulder, I can't believe that you didn't return her affection in one way or
another.  Perhaps not in the manner she wanted, but I don't doubt you
cared."
     If she believed, maybe he could too.  She turned her back to him, and
a moment later he curled around her, held her tight.  "Scully...never
think..."
     "I know," she murmured, bringing his hand up to kiss his palm. "Me
too."
     Mulder sent a silent prayer to the universe for this greatest of
blessings, the woman in his arms who soothed his very soul.  Oona's face
flashed through his mind, and he made another prayer, for the woman who had
comforted him with her body and was now, hopefully, comforted herself.  
          


Author's Notes: Whew, this was a long one!  I hadn't known Diana was going
to show up, but I guess she was on Mulder's mind, Scully's too.  Go figure,
eh?  In my world Mulder isn't color blind, otherwise Scully's hair wouldn't
be so darned purty.  Lincoln, Waterloo, and North Attlee are the products
of my imagination.  For the purposes of storytelling, I've ignored the high
probability of Vermont having a Mobile Crime Lab.
                                                  
I highly recommend John Douglas and Robert Ressler's books on violent
crime.  Their books are informative, interesting, and very disturbing. Read
at your own risk. I could not have written 'Manitou' without the aid of
Douglas' 'The Anatomy of Motive'.  Everyone should read Gavin De Becker's
book.

2/13                                              
Radiation poisoning - from 'Lightning', a story I wrote 6 years ago in a
previous incarnation (DeviXF).  Archived at EMXC.  Plotting is a good
thing.

3/13                                              
The Skatellites and Mephiskapheles are ska bands from Massachusetts.  The
real Chat 'N' Chew is a diner around Ludlow, Vermont, while the Sud's 'N'
Bud's bar-laundromat is, I believe, in Bellows Falls. Vermont did not get
911 until 1999.

4/13                                                        
Chicken story - p. 46, The Anatomy of Motive. Douglas, John and Mark
Olshaker, Simon and Schuster, 1999.   UVM - University of Vermont.

6/13
'Accelerated Decrepitude' is, of course, the disease JS has in 'Blade
Runner'.

7/13
Intuition and Victimology - The Gift of Fear. De Becker, Gavin

9/13
Ramirez quote - p. 169, The Last Victim. Moss, Jason and Jeffrey Kottler,
Warner, 1999

10/13 (!)
Dream Inuit borrowed from the movie 'Nomads' 

11/13
Black lace-ups like the goo-eaten ones Scully shows Mulder in 'Colony' 2X16

12/13
'Abductee' magazine is the product of another author, whose name and story
I completely forget - if you know who you are, tell me so I can give you
the credit.  I came up with the International version.

13/13                                             
UNLV - University of Las Vegas