Mighty and Dreadful 

By Athene 
athene1121@hotmail.com 


Distribution: Gossamer; all others please ask
Rating: R for Violence, Language
Category: X-File RA
Keywords: MSR, X, A, MT, ST  
Spoilers: Season 7; postep Theef, En Ami
Summary: Fox Mulder: special agent, crack profiler, grown 
man, mature adult. Pissed boyfriend. He wanted to crawl into 
a hole and die. 
Disclaimer: All characters property of 1013 and Chris Carter
Author's Notes: see end of story




Death be not proud, though some have called thee 
Mighty and dreadfull, for thou art not soe, 

- John Donne





Mighty and Dreadful (1/3
by Athene



J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building
Monday, March 6, 2000 
8:15 AM

Tall, dark-haired and tanned, Fox Mulder was the image of a 
suave federal agent. When one observed him closely, however, 
eccentricities riddled his outward appearance. His glossy, 
dark chestnut hair was just a shade too long over his ears. 
His elegant charcoal Caraceni suit was impeccable in its 
fit, yet with it he wore a riotous maroon silk tie spattered 
with blue and yellow geometric designs.  His wire-framed 
glasses should have made him look bookish, but they only 
succeeded in drawing attention to his sleepy green eyes and 
his long eyelashes.

Standing in the elevator, he was focused on a sheaf of 
papers that he'd been handed as he walked through the 
bullpen. Skinner had sent along a final police report on the 
death of Donnie Pfaster, including the IA report on Scully's 
firearm adjudication. The phone was ringing when he got off 
the elevator, and Mulder moved surprisingly quickly down the 
deserted hallway to the office.  Maneuvering the lock with 
practiced rapidity, he lunged toward his desk, grabbing the 
handset, shifting his briefcase and overcoat to his left 
hand.

"Mulder," he said, trying not to sound out of breath. He 
repositioned his glasses. A puzzled expression swept across 
his face as he spoke, but his voice remained impassive. "I 
haven't done any consulting for NCAVC in several years; 
VICAP was barely off the ground when I left. Are you sure I 
can make a significant contribution?"

A long pause. "Jeez. You've tied him to eighteen?"

"All right. I have a meeting this morning; I can come in 
around 1:00 this afternoon." He put his coat and briefcase 
down on the desk top, and slumped into his chair. "Whose 
office?"

"Okay, Greenbaugh, I'll be there at 1:00." He hung up the 
phone, still somewhat confused. He was soon distracted by 
his phone messages, however, and the morning sped by. Scully 
was out for the day, testifying in court, and he didn't 
expect to see her back in the office until tomorrow at the 
earliest. He made a quick run to the cafeteria on his way to 
the parking garage, and was on the road toward Quantico by 
noon.




Child Abduction Serial Murder Investigative Resources Center
National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime
FBI Academy, Quantico, VA
Monday, March 6, 2000
12:55 PM

The NCAVC had been established to take over VICAP, the 
Behavioral Analysis Unit, and the CASMIRC task forces in the 
late 1990s. The old Behavior Analysis Unit was housed for 
years in a sub basement of the FBI training academy, and the 
offices still exuded isolation and separation. Mulder walked 
briskly toward the office of Supervisory Special Agent Roger 
Greenbaugh; as the atmosphere of the dingy basement swept 
over him, he felt a twinge of discomfort.  He was once again 
a young profiler, straight out of Oxford and the Academy. He 
could smell the fast food and the sweaty bodies. He could 
see the agents in the bullpen hunched over crime scene 
photos that could sear a person's soul. New cases were never 
good down here. New cases meant more children were dead, and 
more might die if the profiler couldn't pull a rose out of 
his ass.

"Agent Mulder," he heard his name, and he turned to see a 
short, stocky man in his early sixties, white-haired and 
fleshy-jowled, in shirt sleeves and a dull blue tie. 

"SSA Greenbaugh?"

"Roger."

The older man extended his hand, and Mulder clasped it 
firmly, noting the dry, warm flesh and the strong grip.

"Glad you could make it over today, Agent Mulder. We 
have a doozy of a case in front of us. To be honest, CASMIRC 
has had it for a year and a half, and no one seems to be 
able to make progress on a more specific profile. Since this 
creep is still actively killing, someone suggested you might 
take a crack at it, see if your skills at profiling might 
move things forward."

Mulder stopped walking, and sighed. He put his hands in his 
pants pockets, a childhood habit for which his mother had 
often berated him. "It's just Mulder. You are aware, Roger, 
that I'm not routinely profiling right now? I actually have 
a few X-Files in various states of research over at the 
Hoover. I really don't think I can give your case the 
attention it deserves. I'm at a loss why I was contacted, or 
why AD Skinner even signed off on this consult." He noticed 
that his voice was becoming strained. Patterson was long-
gone from these shadowy offices, but his influence on 
Mulder's subconscious was profound. He cleared his throat 
and tried to clear his mind.

Greenbaugh stopped and turned to face Mulder, his face set. 
"I know you've got other things on your plate, and I know 
you left BAU years ago because of a colleague. That jackass 
Patterson never did me any favors. I'd like to think I'm a 
better person, and a better supervisor. I don't like playing 
dirty to get your help on this, but I wanted to talk to you 
before I filled you in on the victimology." He stuffed his 
beefy hands into his own pants pockets, and smiled ruefully. 
"We really are at a standstill. This perp is killing little 
girls, and he's escalating. We've got 18 confirmed victims, 
and several probables awaiting forensic examination. Two 
girls are missing, girls who might be victims. I'd like to 
try and get them home alive."

In spite of his experience with human monsters, Mulder felt 
his gut clench. "Little girls." He swallowed hard. 
"Escalating how?" He knew he was going to regret asking.

"Come have a seat, and I'll fill you in." 

Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly. 

And Mulder walked knowingly into Hell.




"The first confirmed murder took place in December of 1997, 
and we've got evidence that at least eighteen girls have 
been kidnapped and killed, sites ranging from Arizona 
through the Mississippi Valley, and up into the Northeast. 
The MO has been pretty generic, and we're not finding a lot 
of forensic data at the scene. We know he's killing 
somewhere else, and staging the body at a cemetery. We think 
he's picking the cemeteries because they're not active 
burial sites. Most of the bodies were out in the elements 
for a few days before they were found. It's made collecting 
any evidence very difficult."

Mulder felt the old weight of responsibility reassert 
itself. He despised getting into the mind of a monster. 
"There's no perpetrator sexual assault." He waited for the 
answer he knew was coming. He continued to sift through the 
pictures of various crime scenes and various victims, lovely 
little girls, sunny smiles, bright eyes, and no life left 
ahead of them.

"No, although a couple of the kids had signs of some ongoing 
abuse. We've turned over what evidence we had about that to 
Child Protective Services. In all likelihood, we're coming 
across sexual assault by a male member of the family, and 
not any action on the part of the perpetrator." Greenbaugh 
shook his head in disbelief. "Imagine how those poor mothers 
feel, first losing a child to a murderer, and then 
discovering that a trusted member of the family was messing 
with the kid. Even home's not safe anymore."

Mulder sat still in his chair, his brain churning. He paged 
through the incident reports and police findings. Greenbaugh 
sat back and kept his mouth shut as Mulder then began 
sifting through the photographs, stopping here and there to 
examine a scene detail, then shuffling the reports and the 
pictures together and going through them all over again.

And then he slipped down the rabbit hole.

"He's big, he's older, he's organized, and he's smart. High 
school diploma, almost certainly had college classes. Might 
even have a degree." Mulder spoke, but his eyes were vacant. 
Greenbaugh slowly sat down in his chair, intrigued, as he 
listened to the younger man. The older agent recognized his 
expression for what it was. Carefully, he pulled a digital 
voice recorder out of the top drawer of his desk and 
switched it on. 

"He tried to join the military when he was younger, but 
didn't pass the screening, raised a red flag somewhere. He 
wanted the cachet, but he didn't want to be commanded. Never 
married, no children. Parents are probably dead, probably 
natural causes. No siblings living, if he ever had them to 
begin with. 

"If he had any friends, they were casual. He didn't play 
well with others, kept to himself. He made the triad. 
Started fires, wet the bed, killed the neighborhood 
pets...Maybe the sibling. Why the sibling?" His voice was 
hoarse. "He's determined; he kept the compulsion at bay for 
a long time. Fought it off. What set him off? Was it a 
memory, a vision, a psychotic break?"

There was a pause. Greenbaugh watched Mulder as if he were a 
coiled snake. 

"He stages the bodies with their faces covered, bodies 
unmarked, clean clothes, positioned like they're asleep. He 
strangles them. Bruises and scratches are either a result of 
early, possibly pre-mortem, predation or victim resistance 
during abduction. He's moving from town to town, sticking to 
the smaller ones. Three of his victims were cops' kids."

Greenbaugh nodded his head, but he didn't think Agent Mulder 
saw anything right now. "We aren't getting any notes, 
Mulder; no emails, no other clues, no fingerprints. He's not 
a secretor, so we won't be able to nail him that way. We 
don't know how he's picking his targets, but he isn't 
snatching them out in public."

"He's lurking behind the jungle gym in the back yard," 
Mulder said. His eyes were open, but he wasn't blinking. 
"The babysitter's taking a nap. Do it now. She's on the 
phone, she won't see.' Mom, it's real hot. Can I get an Icee 
down the street at the 7-Eleven?' He waits by the swing set 
at the playground on the weekend. He must tail them until he 
sees them at a deserted site. They're too surprised to 
struggle.

"Take them out fast. No marks." The expression on Mulder's 
face became ferocious. "Gotta keep 'em quiet," he snarled. 
"No mistakes; she wouldn't like that."

Greenbaugh stood up, seriously disturbed, and edged toward 
the door, eyes wary. "We got a bit of flesh under the 
fingernail of the most recent victim, and we're trying DNA 
amplification to generate PCR from the sample. It was 
pretty degraded after exposure to the elements."

"Military DNA registries might have recorded his sequences 
when he enlisted. A PCR result could be compared with those 
samples if his DNA is still on file." As Mulder said this, 
Greenbaugh pulled out a small spiral notepad, and began 
scribbling notes.

Mulder's cell phone rang at that moment, and both men 
jumped, startled. The phone continued to ring, but the 
younger man made no move to pick up the call. 

"Are you gonna answer that, son?"

Mulder blinked, and fished the phone from his jacket pocket, 
giving Greenbaugh an apologetic glance. The younger man 
completed a sudden shift from the bizarre to the mundane. It 
made his skin crawl.

"Mulder. Hey, Scully, how's your day?" His voice was light, 
easy, confident. 

"Yeah, me too. I'm out on an interview right now, but I can 
be back at the office by 5:00. How about we meet there, you 
tell me about your day, and I can show you a couple cases 
I'm thinking about tackling?"

He smiled involuntarily as the person on the other end of 
the phone made a comment, and hung up without fanfare. 
"Sorry. My partner. I'm not going to be able to stay too 
much longer. Have you got a copy of the file, crime scene 
pictures, and the profiles that have already been developed? 
I can take a look at it tonight when I get home."

"Sure thing, Mulder." Greenbaugh studied Mulder with 
curiosity. "Listen, I know you're working on other projects, 
but it means a lot to me that you're checking to see if 
there's something we've overlooked. The grandfather of the 
latest victim was at the Academy with me in 1970."

Within half an hour, Mulder was back on the road, a 
depressingly overstuffed file folder bearing witness to a 
living monster stalking young girls, and next-to-no 
recollection of his contribution to the slowly-growing 
profile of the killer.



Flagstaff Arizona
September 3, 1974

Marcus Lang ducked behind the window sill of the tree house 
in the yard next door, breathing hard, fresh tears on his 
face, fearing that he'd moved too slowly once again. Down 
below, just yards away, he could hear his sister's whiny 
voice, penetrating for such a small girl, taunting him at 
the same time as she threatened him. She was 6, five whole 
years younger than he was, and at least 50 pounds lighter.

But she had a mean streak. She had a mean streak that she 
hid like a treasure under those big green eyes and that 
shiny gold hair. Tracy Lang looked like an angel, but she 
had to have been spawned in Hell.

She was the daughter of Marcus' father and his stepmother, 
and she had their parents wrapped around her skinny little 
fingers. She knew just what to say, she knew just when to 
shut up. And she had a knack for setting Mark up as the 
whipping boy for each new mischief she concocted. She hated 
him passionately, and hid it with the aplomb of an Oscar-
winning actress.  He lived in fear of her, of her wrath, but 
he also feared the mocking and derision he'd get if anyone 
found out he was being terrorized by a first-grader missing 
her two front teeth.

Tracy didn't like competition for attention, and she 
bitterly resented Marcus' existence and his place as the son 
of the house. Marcus was the one who broke the lamp with the 
ball, although he'd been trying to wrest it from her 
relentless grip. He'd cautioned her about what a ball could 
do if it bounced through the house, that it would certainly 
break more than just Mom's rules.

He was the one who'd been running behind Rudy when the 
energetic, loving retriever ran into the street and had been 
hit by Mr. Wheeler's station wagon. But he'd just freed Rudy 
from the noose Tracy had tied, and they were both fleeing 
her wrath.

He was the one who'd been caught "playing" with matches 
after Kathy Simon's house burned down. Kathy had the 
neighborhood's most complete collection of Barbie fashion 
dolls, and Tracy was always jealous, although she was 
careful who saw her longing glances. But he'd been 
confiscating and destroying Tracy's stash of matches for 
months; evidently, he hadn't found them all. Tracy loved 
fire, and inanimate objects were not the only things she 
burned.

She rid the neighborhood families of their pets. No one 
found the carcasses ? she burned them ? because she felt 
they were demanding and got attention she could not get.  

He'd tried telling on her, of course, with predictable 
results. The first time, he'd been beaten to within an inch 
of his life with a belt. The second time, he'd been put on 
bread-and-water rations and informed that 'strike three' was 
a teenage boot camp for violent boys. Neither of his parents 
could see the core of evil in their beautiful daughter, and 
they could not understand why Mark would be so vengeful 
against her. Just as they could not see the innocence to 
which he was clinging. 

After Kathy Simon's funeral, he'd been beaten again. Tracy 
had stood, encircled in her mother's thin arms, both of them 
watching as Dad's belt had arced up and down, up and down, 
cutting into his legs and back. They just stared as he cried 
out in pain at each blow, a high-pitched girly scream he 
couldn't control. Neither one of his parents saw the gleam 
in her eyes as she saw the blood running down his arms and 
chest.

He knew it was only a matter of time before she came for him 
as well. He could see it in her eyes. So, when she caught 
him that afternoon, a demonic light in her much-too-old 
eyes, he knew to expect the worst. 

And when Marcus Lang finally reached his limit, finally 
fought back, he snapped Tracy's neck like a dried twig on 
the forest floor.



Dad had a chipper-shredder behind the barn; it was a simple 
matter to run his sister through the teeth of the chipper, 
although he'd had to send her through in small batches. He 
followed up with the balance of the mesquite and fallen 
branches he'd cleared from the yard the day before. Her pyre 
was a glorious rising column of red flame and gray smoke. 
Tracy would have been proud, he thought, and laughed to 
himself. The thin check on his sanity was greatly strained. 
He washed everything down with a good strong blast of the 
pressure washer, and no one was the wiser.

He wasn't sorry she was dead. Of course, they searched for 
her for days. He didn't need to be a gifted actor; he was 
terrified of being accused of her murder, and it was easy to 
channel that fear into anguish at her loss. He couldn't 
believe he'd gotten away with it. 

Then, for years, he believed he actually had gotten away 
with it. Until she started coming to visit him at night.





Dana Scully's Apartment
Georgetown, Washington DC
Tuesday, March 7, 2000
11:39 PM

Mulder sighed and slipped the folder and its disturbing 
contents back into his briefcase. He typed a few more 
sentences in his email to Greenbaugh, sent it on its way, 
and shut the laptop down. Scully had disappeared about an 
hour earlier to take a hot bath, and he'd heard her moving 
around in her room for a few minutes before she went to bed. 
She'd been exhausted after the back to back trips out west, 
what with the murder case featuring the hanta virus and a 
television crew, and then the Lone Gunmen's recent, deadly 
techno-financial debacle. In spite of the time that had 
passed since her cancer scare, the gunshot wound, and Donnie 
Pfaster, he still felt as if she were fragile; not in terms 
of her professional ability, but in her ability to bounce 
back from repetitive stress.

Through some unspoken censorship based on his understanding 
of her heart, he'd avoided saying anything to her about his 
consultation with the agents at NCAVC. Knowing Scully, she'd 
protest his involvement based on the fact that his sister's 
apparent death, not to mention his mother's, was still too 
recent in his mind for him to be dealing with missing and 
murdered little girls. And she was probably right. 

He switched off the lone table lamp still burning in the 
living room, and made his way cautiously through the kitchen 
into the hallway outside the bedroom.  He pulled his t-shirt 
off over his head as he walked, and toed off his shoes just 
before he cautiously pushed her bedroom door open. He 
quickly stripped off his jeans and socks, lifted the 
comforter and slid into bed. 

He wiggled closer to the center, and she moved back 
instinctively, nestling in the curve of his body, and 
putting one small, warm hand on his without ever really 
waking up. He breathed slowly and silently, enjoying the 
serenity of the moment. Her chest rose and fell, and within 
its reassuring rhythm, he smelled her shampoo and the dryer 
sheets she used. With a brush of his fingertips, he caressed 
the satin of her gown, her cheek, and the delicate bones of 
her 
hand. 

"Mmmm...Mulder?"

"Yeah?"

"It's cold."

"Here, scoot back a little." He wrapped his arms tightly 
around her, and she sighed in satisfaction. Her deep 
breathing lulled him, and he drifted into sleep. 




He woke around 5, and slipped quietly out of bed, dressing 
himself as silently as possible. He grabbed his briefcase 
and a banana from a bowl on the kitchen table and let 
himself out of her apartment, heading for his. A shower and 
a run before work sounded perfect. 

Four hours later, he was filling in the last few blanks on a 
302 before getting Skinner to sign off on the travel 
request. Someone was terrorizing a prominent physician in 
the Bay area, and the case sounded like a genuine X-File. 
Scully had run back to her apartment to put a few items in 
an overnight bag, and there was a flight leaving National in 
a little over two hours.  

"Crap!" he slammed a hand down hard on his desk, and the 
pencil holder rattled in sympathy with the furniture. He'd 
neglected to get back in touch with SSA Greenbaugh so far 
that morning; he put down his pen in irritation, and 
marshaled his thoughts quickly before he picked up the 
phone.

When he got off the phone with Quantico, he wanted to 
throw up. A nineteenth body had been found overnight.  He 
hadn't had the time to give an in-depth analysis to CASMIRC 
about their unknown serial killer, and he didn't think he'd 
have much chance to do so without bringing Scully in on the 
whole mess. And he didn't want to do that. They'd have to 
work with his off-the-cuff impressions, and wait for a 
formal write-up. Maybe when they got back from San 
Francisco. SSA Greenbaugh had seemed grateful for the 
general insight Mulder had to offer, and he had assured the 
older man that more detailed analysis was forthcoming. 

"It's frustrating to move so slowly in this case," 
Greenbaugh had said. "On the other hand, we don't want to 
grab the wrong guy and alert the real killer that we're 
closing in. It's been a real challenge to muzzle the press 
on this one."

"Give me three or four days," Mulder begged, feeling again 
the terrible burden of holding the lives of children in his 
hand.

"Take the time and do it right, and don't burn yourself 
out," Greenbaugh advised. "We can only do what we can do. 
Don't overload yourself now, or you may be too tired when it 
gets hairy. On a more positive note, we're going to be able 
to use that flesh sample to run PCR tests; we'll look for 
any sort of genetic clue to the sort of person we're after. 
All we need now is a break in the profile." 



UCSF Medical Center
San Francisco, CA
Friday, March 10, 2000 
10:25 AM


Mulder watched Scully walk calmly away from Orel Peattie's 
ICU bed. "You do keep me guessing," he said, mostly to 
himself. He took long strides to catch up to her. "Scully, 
it's late morning, and our flight to DC isn't until 
lunchtime tomorrow."

"Mulder," she said as she pressed the down arrow on the 
elevator call button, "what might you be suggesting?" From 
her tone, he could tell she was feeling playful.

"Well," he began, "it's been a while since I've been in the 
Golden Gate City, but even I know about Fisherman's Wharf. 
Early supper at Alioto's?"

"Mulder, if you feed me a balanced meal and keep me warm, 
I'm up for anything." 

"Scully, I'm pretty sure that's the perfect answer. Did you 
bring something besides work clothes? We could go dancing." 
He knew he had her complete attention when he saw her stop 
short.

A surprised smile slowly grew on her face. "I'd love to 
dance with you. I bet your mom made sure you learned to 
dance really well." She looked down, wistful, at her rumpled 
ivory suit. "There's no doubt that black travels better than 
other colors. You might be able to wear Armani to work, and 
then to a night on the town, Mulder, but I can't. What I'd 
choose to wear when I dance with you for the first time 
wouldn't be packed in a carry-on."

She turned around to face the doors of the elevator, but he 
heard her voice soften. "And shopping would be a terrible 
waste of time better spent with you." She looked back at 
him. "How about you tone down the ritzy plans and take me 
someplace where I can wear a pair of jeans?"

"I like it when you're wearing your jeans. A woman after my 
own heart."

Her lashes dipped to her cheeks, and her voice got even 
softer. "I already have your heart." 

He beamed at her, pleased. "There is always room service, 
and dancing to the cable music channel in your hotel room," 
he hinted. I'm absolutely certain you've got the raw 
material you'd need for that venue."

"Down, Mulder. Not the hotel; not while we're still on the 
Bureau's dime."

"Damn, Scully," he whispered into her ear as the doors 
closed, "it would have been a real treat. The Bureau has no 
idea how your ass looks in a pair 
of blue jeans."

"And it never will, Mulder." She said it with a straight 
face. She kept looking ahead, but he felt her hand searching 
for his, and grabbed it. 

She leaned back a little, and he kissed the back of her 
neck. "Lap dance, then?"

"Incorrigible."

She laughed quietly, and squeezed his hand again. Mulder 
could feel the stress of the last few days, the concern for 
Dr. Wieder, his worry about Scully's eyesight, the curious 
case of Orel Peattie, all slip from him as he contemplated 
the evening ahead. Any concerns about cases awaiting his 
attention in DC were shelved for the moment. He felt like a 
king, a returning hero, the football star, the man of the 
hour. He nuzzled her neck once more, and then it was time to 
let her go and follow her sedately out to the rental car.





December 25, 1997
3:44 AM

Marcus Lang was a deep sleeper, and it had caused him 
interminable problems in the past. Sleeping past his alarm 
clock was no way to impress an employer with one's 
reliability, and his job history was as checkered as his 
credit rating. He'd keep each one a short time before he 
lost his temper and had an argument with the boss. He never 
got along well with his coworkers; they found him 
exasperating and fussy. Indefinably strange.

Inappropriately fixated on perfection. 

He finally found the solution in his own lawn-and-garden 
maintenance company. He was his own boss, he set his own 
hours, he answered to no one but the customer, and he could 
be outside in the fresh air and smelling the green growing 
things around him.

He still lived in the house he'd grown up in; now, though, 
with his parents dead, he'd moved into their room at the 
back of the house. He was surprised to find himself awake at 
that hour of the morning. A natural afternoon-evening soul, 
he'd been up until nearly 1:00 catching up on his invoices. 
He lay in his bed, not moving at all, waiting to see if he 
would drift back off easily, or whether he needed another 
shot of the Scotch he'd bought two days ago.

His attention was caught, however, by a glowing light that 
came from the hallway. He sat halfway up in bed, propped on 
his elbow, and peered out the door.

The light was coming from under the door to Tracy's room. 
That room had been shut off since she disappeared; his 
mother never allowed anyone in, and he certainly never had 
any desire to do so. That room gave him the creeps.

It was strange how courage that a person built up over a 
lifetime would desert him when the most childish fears 
reemerged. He did not want to see what was causing light to 
shine inside Tracy's room. He knew he would not sleep until 
he'd checked the room out, and he knew that no one else 
would do the checking for him. Such was his isolated life.

He found himself standing in the hall, against his will. He 
reached one trembling arm out, preparing to grasp the 
handle, but the door swung inward on its own. The light 
shining in the room was the orange-red of a furnace, though 
there was no heat. 

And Tracy stood in the center of the flame, smiling at him, 
her remaining teeth bared, eyes glowing.

"I'm not going to forget, Markie. I'm not going to forgive 
you. You robbed me of my life, you robbed Mom and Dad of my 
life. And now some little girl is gonna pay for what you 
did! It's you...or her!"

He closed his eyes, frantically praying that he was just 
having a bad dream.

When he opened his eyes, Dee Dee Hopper's neck was clenched 
firmly in his hands, tongue swollen, capillaries burst in 
the whites of her eyes, sightless eyes that stared past him. 
He was not home in bed. He was in Sulphur, Louisiana, and it 
was Christmas Day, 1997. And eight year old Dee Dee Hopper 
had just become the first sacrifice in the pacification of 
the late Tracy Lang.






The Radisson Hotel Fisherman's Wharf
San Francisco, CA
Early morning, Saturday, March 11, 2000

Scully woke suddenly in the dead of the night, that deep 
feeling of fullness and a rising catch in her throat that 
signaled imminent vomiting. She scooted to the edge of the 
unfamiliar bed in a flash, tangling her feet in the sheets 
and slowing herself down. She loosened them impatiently, 
leaping to her feet, and dashed for the bathroom door. She 
tripped over a discarded shoe and bumped against the 
bathroom door, palmed the light switch with her hand and 
flung herself down on the tile just in time.

With a violent wave, she vomited. She breathed in 
convulsively, wondering if that was to be the end of it, but 
the overproduction of saliva in her mouth ended the 
speculation. She heaved again and again, her stomach muscles 
aching and her throat burning, and felt the wretched 
childish tears of discomfort and self-pity start. Her head 
was pounding from the force of throwing up, and she felt hot 
and cold at the same time.

In between bouts of vomiting, she wondered how much more 
could possibly be left in her stomach. The last couple of 
heaves had the unpleasant taste of bile, and she knew the 
forceful vomiting was spewing duodenal contents as well. 
Thoroughly disgusted, she spat out saliva, and grabbed some 
toilet paper to wipe off her face.

Finally, it appeared that the worst was over. She leaned 
shakily against the cold porcelain of the bathtub. 
Perversely, she noted the well-scrubbed toilet bowl and the 
spotless floor, congratulating Mulder for finding a clean 
and well-maintained hotel at a price that actually fit into 
their per diem.

She grabbed the edge of the sink and pushed herself up to 
her knees on the floor, holding on to the side of the tub 
for added leverage and to steady herself. Her knees felt 
wobbly, and the room spun as she stood, so she stayed, bent 
over the sink, until her head cleared.

She glanced up at the mirror, and was shocked at her 
appearance. Pale, blotchy face, big watery blue eyes, 
flushed cheeks. She placed her hand on her forehead, but she 
couldn't feel any unusual warmth. She was a little sweaty; 
that prolonged bout of vomiting had been hard work.

Her mouth tasted sour. Scully gargled several times to rid 
herself of the unpleasant after-effects. Was it something 
she'd eaten? She'd had the cioppino; Mulder had eaten the 
Dungeness crab, along with a green salad smothered in bleu 
cheese dressing, three tall glasses of iced tea, and a piece 
of key lime pie. Evidently, he was all right. She cleaned 
her teeth, careful to keep the brush far forward on her 
tongue to avoid setting off her gag reflex. She rinsed, 
patted her face dry, kicked the dirty towels into a corner 
of the bathroom, and made her way slowly back to bed. 

She crawled under the covers, suddenly chilly, and wrapped a 
blanket tightly around her shoulders. She lay her head down 
on the pillow, closed her eyes, and tried to get back to 
sleep. It was already after 2 in the morning, and Mulder had 
indicated that he'd like to try and get to the airport early 
and see about switching their flight to an earlier one. 
Something about a consultation he'd finished for an agent at 
Quantico.

At 3:00, she declared defeat and reached for her laptop. She 
was preparing to log on to the FBI remote site when she felt 
the nausea begin again. With a sense of dread, she jumped up 
and half-ran into the 
bathroom.



A loud pounding on the door woke her from a fitful sleep, 
sitting upright next to the toilet, a blanket wrapped around 
her and a cup of water by her hand.

"Scully?  Scully, answer me! Wake up, we've got reservations 
on a 9:30 flight, and we need to leave in the next half hour 
if we even hope to get to the airport on time.  Scully?"

She sighed and stood again, making her shaky way out into 
the room and over to the door. She slid the chain off the 
lock, turned the bolt, and opened the door. Mulder stood 
there, eyes clear, hair neatly combed, suit impeccably neat. 
His hand was raised to knock again at the door, and its 
sudden opening startled him.

"Hey, Scully, get a mo-" He stared at her, and his voice 
dwindled away. There was a moment of silence, his mouth 
opened, and she felt her gorge rising again.

She turned and bolted, dropping the sheet, and once again 
slid to her knees in front of the commode as the vomiting 
began. She could hear his heavy footsteps crossing the 
floor, and she spared a moment of embarrassment to be seen 
so disheveled and unkempt, but the ache in her belly, the 
bad taste in her mouth, and the feeling of childish 
vulnerability took her mind off him and placed it back on 
her plight.

"Jeez, Scully, was it something I said?" he asked 
flippantly, but his cool fingers were gentle on her face as 
he coaxed her hair behind her ears and tenderly held her 
shoulders as she threw up. It must have been a minute or 
more before the heaving ceased, and she sat back on her 
heels, utterly worn out, and feeling very sorry for herself.

"Scully, you're awfully hot. What's wrong?" He was obviously 
concerned as he handed her a washcloth dampened in cool 
water so she could wipe her mouth.

Oh, Mulderrr," she moaned, "I have no idea. It could be food 
poisoning, it could be a virus.  God, Mulder, I don't want 
you to catch anything."

"Could it still be something you ate if you have a fever?" 
he asked doubtfully, helping her back up to her feet and 
smoothing down her pajama top. She swayed on her feet, pale, 
rumpled and sleepy.

She groaned in misery, and let him half-lead her to her bed, 
whereupon he tucked her in and patted her head awkwardly. 
"I'm calling Skinner; you're in no shape to make a cross-
country flight."

All she could do was grunt. The thought of Skinner being 
privy to her intestinal rebellion didn't even faze her. She 
closed her eyes, and wiggled farther under the covers. There 
was a chill in the room.

Mulder was on hold, awaiting a transfer from the switchboard 
to Skinner's home phone. "Good morning, Sir, it's Mulder." 
He tossed his suit coat on the other bed, and loosened his 
tie while he spoke.

"Yes, sir, last night..."

"Originally, we planned on flying home today... "

"No, sir, I understand, but Agent Scully's in no shape to 
fly..."

"No, sir, her eyesight is no longer impaired. The blindness 
was temporary; she..."

She could hear his frustration mounting as he fielded the 
rapid-fire questioning at which Skinner excelled. There was 
a longer wait, and then he began speaking again; now, 
however, he was also pacing.

"She's been throwing up all night, and she's got the 
chills." He said it baldly, his temper obviously on edge.

There was another, longer pause.

"If she's no better mid-morning, I'm taking her to a 
doctor."

"Yes, sir, Roger Greenbaugh and I have a conference call 
arranged for the supper hour."

"Thanks, Sir; I'll call you this evening and let you know 
what's going on."

There was a long silence in the room after he thumbed the 
phone off, and she pried her eyelids open with some effort 
to find him regarding her with concerned affection.

"Go back to sleep, Scully. I'll take care of the airline and 
get some tea or some soup in here..." He began to roll up 
the sleeves of his beautifully-pressed dress shirt.

"Mulder, let me up," she said sharply, and sat up in a 
panic, scrambling to throw off the bedclothes. Her feet were 
tangled tightly within the blanket, and she kicked 
ineffectually, unable to get free. Resigned to the 
inevitable, she vomited once more, this time all over 
her pajamas, her pillow, the sheets, and the spread. 

Scully groaned, feeling mortified.

"Oh, Scully, it's okay. Hang on a sec." He left her side and 
quickly produced clean towels and a wet washcloth from the 
bathroom. He wiped her face and hands, mopped up the worst 
of the mess on her clothes, wrapped her cozily, and gathered 
her up in his arms. Carefully, he carried her into the 
bathroom, putting her down on her feet in front of the sink. 
"Give me that shirt," he commanded, and efficiently helped 
her unbutton and pull it off, face impassive. He took a 
spare blanket off a shelf in the closet, and wrapped her in 
it like a mummy. "Rinse."

She rinsed and spat, and he picked her up again, moving 
though the untidy room toward the door. He went out the 
door. He fumbled for a minute as he carried her, then 
managed to slide the key card into his door slot. He carried 
her into his room, dimly lit and smelling much fresher than 
her own. He laid her gently down on the bed, and arranged 
the covers around her. He disappeared into the bathroom, 
returning with several towels, a damp washcloth, and a 
little cup, filled with water. "Lie here," he told her, 
voice low and rough. She settled down into the bed, the 
disturbed air redolent with his familiar scent. 

He brushed hair from her sweaty forehead, and put the 
washcloth on her head. The shock of the cool cloth made her 
shiver again, but when he started to remove the rag, she 
protested.

"As long as it's not making you more uncomfortable," he 
said.

He remained sitting by her side, gently stroking her 
forehead, and her eyes eventually closed, falling into much-
needed sleep.



When she awoke, the late-morning sun was knifing through the 
closed curtains, and the room was empty. She looked around 
her, feeling as weak as a kitten. Her tongue felt thick and 
filmy, and her lips were chapped. The glass of water on the 
bedside table was joined by a small bottle of Tylenol and a 
digital thermometer. There was a little metal pail sitting 
on the floor by the bed, painted a jaunty red with white 
daisies. He'd even stacked a pile of fluffy, clean towels 
alongside the pail.

She took an experimental sip of the water, and had to smile 
in spite of herself. Mulder's attempts to cater to her needs 
were both practical and touching. She lay back again, eyes 
closed, momentarily comfortable.

Within about 10 minutes, she felt the twisting, rolling 
motion in her stomach again, but she found it hard to move 
her shaky legs off the bed, much less to stand up. She 
grabbed at the pail in desperation, and the vomiting began 
again, as violently as it had overnight. She was 
peripherally aware that Mulder was back and was heading her 
way. She hiccupped and spit again, then reached, her hands 
trembling, for a washcloth to wipe her face and hands. He 
took the pail from her, set it on the floor, and produced a 
plastic bag with the Wal-Mart logo on it.

"All right, Scully. I have a clean nightgown for you, and a 
pair of slippers. Let's get you dressed, and then we're 
going to the hospital." He regarded her sternly, prepared 
for a fight, and raised his brows in surprise when she 
cooperated. He had the gown over her head and the slippers 
on her feet in a flash; the simple cotton gown was pale 
yellow, and there was a robe to go over it. The terrycloth 
slippers had little yellow rosebuds on their tops, and she 
crinkled her feet in amusement.

"I'm dressed like my Great Aunt Olive, Mulder."

He didn't answer right away, buttoning the little pearl 
fasteners on the bodice of the robe. "The slippers reminded 
me of that weekend we spent in my apartment after Mom died." 
He ran one finger lightly down the line of buttons. "You 
told me that yellow roses were your favorite."  He said this 
softly, but he didn't look up at her face. 

"You scattered rose petals all over my pillow." She 
whispered this, and watched his beautiful eyes swing up to 
meet hers.

"And you made love to me until my teeth rattled."  He kissed 
her on the tip of her nose.

When she didn't respond, he continued. "Scully, my goal is 
to keep you warm and covered until we get you feeling 
better. If my clothing choices happen to hide your not-
inconsiderable physical charms from plain view, I can only 
congratulate myself on killing two birds with one stone." He 
winked at her, and she couldn't help a weak little laugh.

Mulder carried her out to the rental car, tucking her 
tenderly into the not-so-roomy back seat. The ride to the 
hospital was miserable. 





UCSF Urgent Care 
San Francisco, California
Saturday, March 11, 2000
11:05 AM

She had to use the little pail twice more, and both of them 
were relieved to see the Urgent Care entrance. They hoped 
that by avoiding the trauma bay they could speed up Scully's 
evaluation, and Mulder was grateful to find only three other 
patients waiting in the small walk-in clinic next to the 
hospital. They were asked to sit and wait, but after another 
bout of Scully's wrenching vomiting, they were moved to an 
exam room in the back. 

She lay on the gurney, shivering in spite of the blankets 
around her. Mulder watched her unsuccessfully try to get 
comfortable, and finally lifted her up and onto his lap. He 
sat back in the straight-backed chair, with her curled up 
into a ball on his lap, tucking her hot, dry face into his 
neck, and supporting her shaking legs.

When the door finally opened to admit the doctor, she was 
dozing. The man entered, his lanky frame, freckled face and 
fading red hair reminiscent of Howdy-Doody. 

"Rob Menzies. Don't try to get up." He consulted his 
clipboard. "Are you Mr. Scully?"

"My name's Mulder." Mulder answered, his voice cracking 
slightly. "I'm listed as her next-of-kin."

"Tell me a little more about what's happened over the last 
12 hours," the doctor prompted, snagging a small metal stool 
with his ankle, and folding his tall form around it with 
curious grace.

The doctor was silent as Mulder spoke, his eyes darting back 
and forth from Mulder to his sleeping patient. When he 
finished, Mulder sat back a little, sighing, and raised 
questioning eyes to the physician. "She's obviously not 
well-enough to fly, and even though she's the doctor, she 
clearly needs help caring for herself right now. Is this a 
routine illness thing, or is something unusual going on? The 
fact that she even let me carry her in here has me 
concerned..."

"Well, Mr. Mulder, it might take some time for me to 
determine what's going on. She's young, relatively healthy, 
reasonably fit. No history of other ill-" He paused, his 
attention on a short sentence on her history, and glanced up 
at Mulder. "Nasopharyngeal cancer. It's been in remission 
for three years?" 

Mulder nodded, and the doctor continued, eyebrows on the 
rise. "She went through IVF treatment. Is she still taking 
hormone shots? Could she be pregnant?"

Mulder paled, his face blank. "That was over a year ago," he 
said in a very quiet voice. "She decided it was time to stop 
trying." He glanced up at the doctor, troubled, and then 
fixed his gaze on her peaceful face. 

Menzies continued, looking at her admission questionnaire. 
"If you two are sexually active, it's still an issue. Temp's 
102.2; that's a little high for an adult with a minor 
infection. Can you tell me anything else? Where've you been 
eating?"

With the initial medical interrogation over, Doctor Menzies 
asked Mulder to place Scully back on the gurney. As he did 
so, she stirred, disoriented. "Mulder? Mulder, where are 
we?"

"UCSF Urgent Care, Scully," he reminded her. "This is Doctor 
Menzies."

The ER doctor listened carefully to Scully's lungs and 
heart, looked in her eyes, ears, nose, and throat, and then 
had her lie down with her knees slightly bent. He listed 
intently to her abdomen; when he lightly pressed on her 
belly, he elicited a moan of protest from her.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Scully. Is the tenderness widespread or 
restricted to one site? Can you point to it with a finger or 
cover it with your hand? Is it worse or better than it was 
two hours ago? Last night?"

She gestured to her lower belly, slipping her hand slightly 
to the right of center. Menzies pressed down deeply into 
Scully's belly, near her right hip bone, and released the 
pressure quickly. Scully hissed in pain, but remained still. 
The doctor nodded once to himself and straightened. 

"Still have your appendix, Dr. Scully?"

"Yes," she groaned, "I was starting to wonder about that."

"It's certainly possible. If it is appendicitis, you're 
presenting atypically. I'm going to draw some blood for 
labs, and send you for a quick CT scan. It's not going to be 
a fun hour ahead of you. On the other hand, if you've got an 
acute appendix, I can at least offer you definitive 
treatment." He patted her on the shoulder and left the room. 
Mulder followed him out, closing the door carefully.

"Do you have a cell number down on the chart in case we need 
to reach you?"

"Sure, but I'm not going to be leaving her alone." Mulder 
fished out one of his business cards, and Menzies clipped it 
to the front of the chart, glancing at it briefly. 

"So, what brings DC-based Feds out here?"

"We're finishing up a case involving what might be loosely 
called 'domestic terrorism.'"

Menzies grunted. "Dr. Scully presents a muddied clinical 
picture; it really doesn't look like a classic appendicitis. 
Where did you say you had dinner last night?"

"Alioto's."

"Ah. I've been there. Food's divine, health department 
inspections have been impeccable. Still, it just takes one 
idiot who doesn't wash his hands after he takes a dump..."

Mulder winced. Menzies gave him a firm pat on the shoulder 
and wandered away, calling back that he'd return in a few 
minutes with more information.

Mulder re-entered the room, tiptoeing. Scully heard him 
anyway. "Mulder?"

His eyes pleaded with hers for understanding. "Menzies just 
wanted some contact information for me; cell number, hotel 
number, the usual." 

"I don't want to be here, Mulder. I want to be home.  Not on 
this godforsaken pseudo-upholstered slab-of-metal gurney, 
not in this damn city, not in that damned hotel, not in the 
damn sardine section of some interminable hell-bound 
airline. Home, in my own bed. Or yours." She folded her arms 
and frowned, an expression so childlike and pitiful that he 
had trouble hiding his amusement.

"Scully, you're sick, you're tired, your language has taken 
an intellectual nosedive, and you're as crabby and prickly 
as I've ever seen you. Let us take care of you, and then 
we'll get back to DC." He dropped a quick kiss on her 
forehead. She grunted in acknowledgment, but her hand crept 
into his, and she laid her head on his shoulder while they 
waited.

~~~

Part 2 of 3



UCSF Urgent Care 
San Francisco, California
Saturday, March 11, 2000
12:15 PM

"Dr. Scully?" She opened her eyes to see Dr Menzies standing 
in front of her, the ever-present clipboard in his left 
hand, and a puzzled expression on his face.

"Dr. Menzies?" She blinked a few times, and struggled to a 
more upright position on the poorly-upholstered gurney.

"Your white count's up over 15,000 with a shift to the left. 
No asthma, no inhalers, no steroid use?" She shook her head. 
"You've definitely got an infection, but the CT showed a 
perfectly normal appendix. No intestinal blockage, no free 
air, no obvious fluid pockets, no perfs. The wall of the 
intestine seems somewhat swollen, though. I sent an emesis 
sample down to the lab to see if we have a Health Department 
issue with that restaurant. Urine looked clear to me, but 
we'll send some cultures. And a chest x-ray. 

"You're moderately dehydrated; fatigue, muscle aches and 
headaches are manifestations of your fluid deficit. 
Considering how volatile your stomach's been, I think IV 
fluids stand a better chance of making you feel better 
faster. Where's Mr. Mulder?"

"He stepped out for a minute."

"Once we've got the cultures, I'm going to admit you and get 
some antibiotics and fluids started."

"Admit me? Oh, please, Dr. Menzies, don't you think that's a 
little premature?"

"Nope." He stared back at her. She glared at him in return, 
but he remained impassive.

She gave a little sigh, and leaned back once again. "I'm not 
short of breath. I've not had any burning or itching when I 
urinate. I've been eating, drinking, and exercising just as 
I normally do."

"Up until last night," Menzies pointed out.

Scully frowned.

"You seriously believe you'll be fine when you develop 
multi-organ failure secondary to septic shock at 35,000 feet 
on a trans-continental flight equipped with un-pressurized 
oxygen, aspirin, 18 inch wide seats, three flight attendants 
and a package of peanuts?"

Mulder walked in on the tail end of the interchange, and he 
quickly spoke up. "That's quite a scenario, Doc. Scully, I 
just got off the phone with Skinner, and he's cleared you 
for three days for treatment and recuperation, subject to 
review when we get more information."

"Mr. Mulder." Dr. Menzies nodded to him, and made a tactical 
exit. 

Scully turned her icy blue eyes on him. "That scenario's 
impossible. So's that man. Thanks for the help, Mulder."

"I only want what's best for you. I really don't care about 
myself." His voice was level, earnest, and she felt her 
stubborn heart melt. "You do know that, don't you? Even when 
you're pissed at me?"

"I know, Mulder." She threw him an apologetic glance.   

"I'll wait here until they have you settled in a room, and 
then go pack you a bag. I imagine you want your laptop and 
your briefcase?"

"Mulder, if I were strong enough, I'd kill you for bringing 
me here. You know that, right?"

"Yeah, Scully, I know." He leaned over and ruffled her hair. 
"I'll take a rain check."



Room M-435
UCSF Medical Center
San Francisco, CA
Monday, March 13, 2000
2:40 PM

Scully was still asleep when Dr. Menzies walked through the 
door. Mulder glanced up from his laptop, typing quickly as 
he referred to a sheaf of untidy papers, covered with cross-
outs and illegible script. Mulder stood as the taller man 
came in, closing the lid of the computer sharply, and 
tossing his jacket over a pile of photographs on the window 
sill.

"Here all weekend, doc?"

"Well, Agent Mulder, we haven't been able to persuade the 
human body to fail only during normal working hours."

Mulder gave him a dutiful smile, and the doctor grew more 
serious. "Working?"

"Consulting. The hospital has Wi-Fi, so I took the 
opportunity."

"Anything exciting?"
 
"Well, Doc, that's not the word I'd use. Gut-wrenching. 
Sickening. Heartbreaking. Those'd be more accurate terms." 
He couldn't help the bitter tone to his voice.

Dr. Menzies recoiled from the emotional tone in the agent's 
voice like a cat stepping in a puddle of water. "Ah. 
Uh...Has Dr. Masters been by yet today?"

"She was here earlier, just after 8. Came in with Dr. 
Wieder."

"Ah, the Bay Area Doctor of the Year. You move in exalted 
circles, Mr. Mulder."

"Right. She said there were 5 other cases of severe food 
poisoning from people who ate clam chowder at Sam's Grill 
last Thursday night."

"Yeah, the owner is livid. He's demanding his workers submit 
to Health Department screening procedures before returning 
to work. The source is almost certainly substandard 
shellfish. This bug was a bit of a surprise to us because 
Vibrio vulnificus is usually a Gulf phenomenon.  Chowder's 
milk-based, so it's never heated enough to kill bacteria 
like Vibrio. We're lucky no one died. In hindsight, her 
symptoms were classic: chills, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, 
shock, abdominal pain and severe fatigue. She'd have been 
much more ill had she delayed care a few more hours."

"I'll need you to repeat that to her, once she's awake."

"I'm awake now." Both men turned to look at her. She blinked 
her blue eyes, enormous in her pale face, and grinned. "I 
feel so much better; I'll admit you did the right thing, 
Mulder."

"Me, too?" Menzies asked, a cheeky grin on his face.

"You, too. Dr. Masters wrote for oral Levaquin; I'm getting 
discharged this afternoon and we fly home tonight."

"Coach class sucks," Menzies commiserated.

"I forgot to tell you, Scully. Skinner sprang for that 
upgrade, due to your 'delicate physical condition.' We're 
flying in first. It's the red eye, though."

"Courtesy of the American taxpayer, no doubt," Menzies 
noted. He winked at her, and a few moments later, he was 
gone. 

Mulder busied himself helping Scully pack up her things. He 
returned from the tiny bathroom with her toothbrush, and saw 
her carefully tucking the rosebud slippers into her bag. He 
gestured toward the shoes, "Did I do a good job?"

"More than you know, Mulder," she whispered. She patted the 
mattress next to where she was sitting to indicate he should 
come closer. 

"You're not contagious, right?"

"Mulder, you sure know how to kill a moment. Get over here."






New Garden Friends Cemetery
Chester County, Pennsylvania
Tuesday, March 14, 2000
5:30 AM

The little girl, Fiona Halloway, was tiny, delicately boned, 
pale, almost white-blond hair, blue eyes like the angel his 
sister never had been. In death her face was serene. He had 
already washed her and combed her messy hair. He wiped the 
dried soil and tears from her eyes, and closed them gently 
over now-bloodied capillaries. She was wearing a pretty 
white antique night gown, and he had a light pink crocheted 
afghan in which he had wrapped her. There was a filmy linen 
handkerchief carefully knotted so that her eyes and face 
were covered. 

She was the most like, and the least like, Tracy.

"She would never have been as loved as I was. Never will be 
as mourned as I should have been." Tracy's voice was harsh 
and accusing.

Marcus was unspeakably frightened of Tracy now; he peed 
himself when she spoke. Miserable, humiliated, he kept 
walking, and the initial warm wetness on his legs cooled 
rapidly in the early spring cold. "You've persecuted me for 
years, Tracy," he wailed, almost crying. He kept walking, 
though, his limp little burden bobbing on his shoulder with 
every step across the uneven ground in the misty pre-dawn.

Chester County was beautiful countryside in southeastern 
Pennsylvania, and it was filled with old farmhouses, rutted, 
rolling dirt roads, acres and acres of crops, tiny villages 
that were older than the United States itself, thousands of 
Amish farmers, and dozens of old, meticulously kept Quaker 
cemeteries. The Quaker meeting house sat beside a large 
burial ground. The oldest section, the area he had selected, 
was hidden from casual view over a small rise and a clump of 
birch trees. A suitable resting place for little Fiona. 

He laid the girl's body gently on the grass next to the tiny 
graves of adults and children who'd died two hundred years 
or more ago. He carefully smoothed the skirt of the 
nightgown, tucked the afghan in once more, and repositioned 
the handkerchief to completely cover the eyes.

He was sorry she was dead. "I thought you'd be grateful for 
my help," he said softly. "You were just scared. But I 
helped you anyway, even though you were mad at me. They 
won't hurt you any more. She won't hurt you anymore."

"Who'd want to be beholden to an idiot like you?"

"I'm already in Hell, Tracy. Why can't you leave me in 
peace?"

"Peace, Markie? There is no peace in Hell. Not for evil 
little boys who kill innocent little girls. But, never 
fear." She laughed with irony. "I'm almost through with 
you."

"The cops are gonna find me, Tracy. I know it."

"The idiots in this county? You're even more dumb than they 
are. By the time they figure out how to start their car, 
you'll be gone. And rinsing those bodies off is keeping them 
from getting any information on you at all. Stick with me, I 
know which towns to avoid. And remember, Markie: let them 
catch you and I'll finish you myself. You're gonna pay for 
all the things I never got. You took it all away from me. So 
I'm going to take it all away from you."

"I never tried to take it away, Tracy. Honest." 

"You were never normal, Markie. You never understood how 
other people felt. You could never connect with other 
people."

"I tried, Tracy. I tried so hard," he cried, his voice 
cracking. "I've been trying to understand all my life. I 
tried, I tried..." His words were almost a whisper. He 
maneuvered clumsily to his feet, leaving his dead little 
burden alone on the cold ground of the deserted cemetery. He 
began to run, heading back toward the battered old Town and 
Country, running fast as though the hounds of Hell were 
nipping at his feet. 

Only one hound mattered, though. And when he flung himself 
into the front seat of the rental van, she was already 
there, waiting for him. He moaned in despair as she began 
shrieking at him again. Clumsily, he started the engine, and 
his tears obscured his vision all the way back to the motel.


New Garden Friends Cemetery
Chester County, Pennsylvania
Tuesday, March 14, 2000
5:35 AM

Jonas Chantry bent over slowly and painfully, and tugged the 
burlap cover over the piled-up dirt. The body of a long-time 
member of their slowly-aging church was being committed to 
the earth this morning, and it was his job to prepare the 
nearly-frozen burial ground. The sack would keep the soil 
from clumping until it was time to shovel it back in. 

Chantry was tall and ascetic in his appearance. His faded 
shirt and trousers hung loosely on his frame. His knuckles 
were gnarly and his fingernails were torn, but he had a 
kindly light in his eye and an infectious smile. 

He began to gather his shovel and pick, preparing to carry 
everything back to the shed. No call to allow the burial 
ground to appear slovenly. He stopped in his tasks when he 
heard a car engine. New Garden Friends was far enough away 
from any main roads that the only visitors likely at this 
hour were police officers, vandals, or restless teenagers. 

Chantry had not attained the advanced age of 91 without 
developing a wily street sense, and he smelled trouble. He 
moved swiftly to the trees which encircled the land owned by 
the Meeting, and stared hard at the place where the car was 
idling. He could hear the sobs of the big man as he ran 
breathlessly from the cemetery to the car. 

Such hurry meant something was not right. Jonas Chantry 
squared his shoulders and began to hike up the hill. When he 
reached the crest of the hill, he was able to look down into 
the hollow where the oldest graves were located. In the 
clear air of the early morning, he saw the white-pink glow 
of a small object that did not belong with those graves. He 
approached slowly, and sank to his knees in horror when he 
saw the body of Fiona Halloway.

He might be an old man, but he knew better than to touch 
anything. He took out a scrap of paper and a nub of a 
pencil, and made a few quick notes. The van and its color, 
the state that issued the license plate, the park sticker in 
the windshield, and a cursory description of the big man who 
ran from the cemetery. 

In addition to being precise and detail-oriented, Jonas 
Chantry was a man prepared to take on the twenty-first 
century. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed 911.



Apartment of Dana Scully
Georgetown, Washington, DC 
Tuesday, March 14, 2000
6:15 AM

She swatted at the alarm clock with her left hand, face 
still buried in the warm, pale blue sanctuary of her 
favorite pillow. The annoying buzz stopped immediately, and 
she relaxed back into a doze, refusing to open her eyes.

"I'm going now, Scully," Mulder said softly from the 
doorway. At this, she grudgingly rolled over and swept hair 
out of her eyes, blinking in the dim light.

"Mulder?" Her thin white face took on an unhappy cast. 
"Already? "

"I have to hold down a job to keep you in yellow rose 
petals." He smiled gently at her. "Listen, I have to be at 
Quantico in about an hour, and I'll probably be there most 
of the day."

"What's this case you're consulting on? When you haven't 
been assiduously seducing me, you've had your nose in your 
laptop. It's not for those goons who worked with Patterson, 
is it?"

"No, not Patterson," he hedged, careful to keep his voice 
noncommittal. "Just kidnapping, missing persons, the usual. 
I'm profiling, but I don't anticipate any field work on this 
one. I promise to eat breakfast and lunch, save you half of 
any chocolate I might encounter, and to bring home that 
mango chicken salad you've been craving." He paused, trying 
to find a way to distract her. "Unless you want chowder?"

He had to duck to avoid the pillow she swung at his head. As 
he regarded her, a smile on his face, he noticed that she 
was looking  little short of breath. Too much exertion too 
soon. He looked 
concerned. "Are you sure you don't want me to call your mom, 
Dana?"

"Damnit, Mulder, don't 'Dana' me. I thought we'd already had 
this conversation." She lifted her chin, unconsciously 
bracing herself. "She's got problems dealing with us being 
together, so she's got problems with me. I don't need any 
help from her while we're at odds over how I live my life."

"Your recuperation doesn't need to be so hard, Scully. You 
know she'd help you in an instant. There's no reason why I 
can't make myself scarce for a few days, let her come over 
and do what she does best. You just got discharged from the 
hospital, and you're still too weak to do all the normal 
things for yourself."

"No, Mulder, and I mean it." She tilted her head sideways 
to look at him, and her voice was wistful. "I wish you 
didn't have to go to work; I want you to stay home and wear 
those glasses. And nothing else."

He smirked at her, and she glared back at him, about as 
intimidating as a kitten.  She was very, very cranky. He 
fought hard but ultimately failed to hide his laughter.

Scully's sense of humor reappeared half-heartedly, like 
spent champagne bubbles. She bit her lip to keep her smile 
at bay, and continued. "And I don't want you to move out, 
even for a few days."

"Okay, Scully." He paused. "But you aren't well enough to be 
alone, and I have to get to work. You know that means the 
second string, right?"

"Oh, no, you don't, Mulder. Don't you dare call that 
little weasel and his crackpot friends over here to take 
care of me while I'm defenseless in bed."

"Well, Defenseless-In-Bed," Mulder said, splendidly 
nonchalant, "I have a solution for that." He handed her the 
thin black pancake holster in which her weapon was stored. 
"Use it on Frohike if he comes too close."

This time, she had to laugh. He gave her a lingering kiss, 
and she was alone for the first time since she'd fallen ill.



CASMIRC Task Force Conference Room
NCAVC
Quantico, Virginia
Tuesday, March 14, 2000
10:00 AM

Mulder disliked being the center of attention among a large 
group of people. There was not enough time, however, to do 
anything else. There had been too many delays in this grisly 
case.

With a nod of his head, Greenbaugh gestured to Mulder, who 
took his place in front of the small podium in the bullpen. 
The rustling sounds that accompany a crowd settling in for a 
lecture died down quickly, and the room became quiet.

It'd been a while since his presence as a speaker had 
garnered this much respect. Mulder was fleetingly sorry he 
couldn't relish the moment. "Good morning. Fox Mulder. A 
profile is only good when it leads us to the perpetrator. 
Good profilers need good information. Progress in this case 
has been hampered by a dearth of physical evidence, and the 
fact that the subject's behavior has deviated from norms 
delineated by Douglas and Ressler in the 1970s.

"Good information is what I hope to be able to bring to you. 
It's my hope that by evaluating the evidence at-hand with 
fresh eyes, we can tweak the profile. 

"Let's get started. Each of you has a folder with a newly-
collated list of the names and data of the known victims of 
the UNSUB. Each of you has, in addition, the separate files 
of two victims." 

Mulder's voice was calm and confident, his manner assured. 
The room might be filled with a dozen current behavioral
analysts, but he clearly held their attention. His suit coat 
was draped over the chair next to him, shirt sleeves were 
carelessly rolled up, and his glasses were slipping down 
toward the end of his nose; his eyes however were keen. He 
took a cautious sip of coffee and made a face. 

"Your assignment for the next 8 hours is to go over the 
crime scene photos, blotter data, radio transcripts, 911 
calls, evidence collection, coroner's report or autopsy 
data, extant medical analysis, and statements of the 
relatives and the people who found the bodies. Then, trade 
folders with another team so we have dual-coverage on each 
case. Send your observations via email no later than 6:00 
tonight to SSA Greenbaugh and myself, and by midnight I 
should be able to meet with the team leaders and prepare an 
updated profile. We'll disseminate this information via 
email before start-of-business tomorrow, to you and also 
each state's criminal investigations unit. This is an 
ambitious schedule, but we have a chance to break new ground 
on a case that's grown cold in the last 18 months." 

His voice took on a harsh note, and several of the agents 
present looked up from their notes, sensing a mood change. 
"You should also be aware that a twentieth body, that of a 
five year old girl named Fiona Halloway, was found in a 
Quaker cemetery outside West Chester, Pennsylvania 4 hours 
ago. She was reported missing Friday afternoon when she 
didn't arrive home from the bus stop. Her grandfather is the 
retired police chief of that Borough. She fits the MO and 
the signature, so he's definitely still active, still out 
there, still very dangerous. And close by. 

"However, there is a key difference: we now have an 
eyewitness, and I cannot stress enough how pivotal this 
information may be to breaking this case. I will present 
information to you as soon as I've had the chance to review 
the statement of the witness, and we can work the details 
into an action plan for the next couple of days.
 
"I don't need to remind you that his eighth victim, Stacey 
Vorsach, was the daughter of a police officer in Columbus, 
Ohio. So was his fourth victim, Olivia Langford, Salina, 
Kansas; and his fourteenth, Karen Lucas, Roanoke, Virginia. 
This guy seems to have an idea who's on the task force. If 
any of you have children, or if you're in contact with law 
enforcement officials in the next few days, please be alert 
to this pattern and take all necessary precautions."

"Agent Mulder?" A middle-aged female agent with blonde hair 
rebelling from a formerly-neat bun had her hand raised.

"Yes, Agent...?"

"Patricia Stewart. Agent Mulder, don't you think we should 
be arranging for exhumation and re-examination of the bodies 
of those victims we've already sampled and identified, to 
see if anything was missed? Every body probably had a 
different coroner or ME working on it. An FBI pathologist 
might provide some insight, if not consistency." 

Mulder reflected that Scully would have been extremely 
valuable in the event they had the time to re-examine the 
bodies already located. His heart gave a little leap every 
time something reminded him of her. 

Oh, he had it bad. 

He cleared his throat and refocused. "We will eventually 
need to bring in forensic pathology. It's premature to 
discuss that until we've completed this review of the case. 
It does, however, bring up another point. You will note that 
several of the victims were residents of states which do not 
employ a licensed physician as county or regional coroner or 
medical examiner. 

"Our perpetrator is using these circumstances to help 
camouflage his activities. Inexperienced investigators, 
those who are not accustomed to violent crime, may have 
inadvertently missed or misinterpreted what evidence 
remained after each homicide. When and if we determine that 
exhuming bodies is necessary, I will approach the chief of 
forensics at Quantico for recommendations. Are there any 
other questions?

"If there are none, please get started. Contact SSA 
Greenbaugh with any other questions or concerns, and if you 
find useful information, don't wait until this evening's 
meeting to let me know. Thanks for your attention."

Mulder tossed the pen he'd been holding onto the conference 
table, turned and walked briskly out of the bullpen, 
followed by Greenbaugh. The group of 10 men and women were 
left to stare at one another, bemused at the whirlwind that 
was Spooky Mulder.

Mulder sat in his temporary office, and contemplated his 
team of profilers and Violent Crimes agents. Greenbaugh was 
a veteran agent, had worked his way up from white collar 
crimes to VCS and later, just missing Patterson's reign of 
terror, had assumed a leadership role with CASMIRC. He was a 
decent man, married for 45 years, grandfatherly, thorough 
and seemingly incorruptible. 

Daniel Oliver was a young Wunderkind plucked by FBI 
recruiters from the bosom of Washburn University in Topeka. 
He'd not been with the FBI for long, but his insight into 
the minds of killers was profound. He certainly didn't look 
the part of a profiler. He was a good-looking man, tall, 
thin, with big blue eyes, blond hair, and broad shoulders. 
He had a boyish grin that made him a favorite with his co-
workers, and a startlingly optimistic outlook on life. And 
an eerily prescient grasp of deviant human behavior. 

Patty Stewart had been a late hire for the FBI, in 
comparison to the others on the primary team. She'd been a 
widow who had gone back to college for a degree in criminal 
justice when she was 32. She had two teenaged boys and a 
little girl, and she seemed to spend a fair amount of her 
off hours working with them, doing homework, helping them 
with music lessons or other extracurricular activities, and 
doing her best to be the sort of single mom whose kids were 
given every advantage she could get for them.

It'd been a long time since he'd taken on the role of task 
force leader. He'd been so far impressed with Oliver and 
Stewart, although the two agents themselves did not seem to 
get along. Individual strengths, of course. Abrasive and 
uneasy together, their individual insight made them valuable 
members of the team. He hoped that ongoing exposure to each 
other might blunt the impact of their incompatibility.

The office was quieting down now, the agents drifting out, 
in small groups or alone, to get a hot meal or a quick 
sandwich in the galley or a quick trip to the Officer's 
Club. Mulder stood, grabbed his suit coat, and headed out 
toward the landscaped front lawn, where he'd seen a few 
benches and shady seating areas. A little fresh air might 
blow away some of the horror and some of the cobwebs. 

He was surprised to find Agent Oliver seated on a small 
stadium blanket, brightly decorated with the animated 
Ichabod of Washburn University. Oliver spotted him, and 
waved him over, a cheerful grin on his face. He made a few 
indistinct comments to whomever was speaking with him on his 
cell phone, disconnected, tossed the phone onto the blanket, 
and jumped to his feet.

"Oliver, you look entirely too well-rested and happy. What's 
on your agenda tonight?" he asked as he saw the younger 
agent packing up his notes and briefcase.

"Date with Celia. My wife." Oliver grinned engagingly at 
Mulder. "We're headed to a little B and B outside of 
Wilmington. The Red Rose. Time for a leisurely dinner before 
I have to get back here tonight."

Mulder's interest perked, as he remembered his partner's 
expressed preference for B and B getaways. "Nice rooms?" 

"No idea. Seafood buffet is indescribable. All-you-can-eat; 
and they aren't kidding. The shrimp is already peeled, and 
the lobster is already shelled."

"How's the food?" Mulder asked, remembering Scully's last 
encounter with fresh seafood. 

"Never had a problem."

"Oysters?" Mulder's smile was feral.

"I never need them, Agent Mulder. I take it you have?" 
Oliver tried very hard to keep a straight face, but he 
failed, his skin tone and his honest blue eyes telling on 
him.

"Get out of here, you young asshole, before I shoot you 
myself."

Scully. He missed her. He watched Oliver head down the path 
toward the bullpen, and a little twinge of envy came over 
him. So young, so brash, but even he had relationships 
outside of work. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket 
and stared at it, sorely tempted, but thought better of it. 
The murder victims deserved more attention from him this 
evening.






CASMIRC Task Force Conference Room
NCAVC
Quantico, Virginia
Tuesday, March 14, 2000
3:45 PM

The coffee was bitter, and had an unpleasant toasty flavor. 
He downed it anyway, because it was an efficient delivery 
system for the caffeine fueling his body. The profile he'd 
developed the week before was barely adequate, saved from 
utter uselessness by the bits of information he'd been able 
to contribute while Scully was in the hospital in 
California. 

With the advent of new information, gained just 11 hours 
earlier from a cemetery caretaker, he knew they'd made a 
break in the case.  Acting on information the old man had 
given them, they'd been able to identify the make and model 
of the car, and come up with a list of 5 area rental 
agencies that had issued such a model Chester County law 
enforcement agencies were canvassing the area as best they 
could in search of the vehicle.  As the killer was evidently 
unaware that he'd been seen, the task force hoped that they 
could use the element of surprise to capture him with little 
or no difficulty. 

Word of a possible match had also come from the US Army's 
eastern DNA repository. A record was being hand carried from 
DC, complete with enlistment jacket and photo; it contained 
the records of a man who might be the individual whose skin 
was found under the fingernails of a recent victim. 
Greenbaugh was confident that a match, if it existed, would 
be confirmed within the next 36 hours.

"Roger, this group is doing great analysis already. If 
everything runs close to schedule, we can send out a general 
bulletin to all state criminal investigation teams with some 
good information," said Patty Stewart.

"Wording a BOLO is gonna be a little dicey, if our 
assumptions about the perp's behavior are accurate," 
Greenbaugh commented, taking a long sip of his now-cooling 
coffee.

"What do you mean?" asked the agent seated next to Dan 
Oliver.

"It's gonna piss everyone off," Oliver agreed, nodding his 
head knowingly.

When the agents nearby still looked confused, Greenbaugh 
relented. "How do you tell a group of donut-dunking cops 
from Bucksnort, Tennessee that the serial killer picked 
their town because they were dumb?"

"Or the coroner's a quack?" called out another agent.

"I see some real potential here, though," added Oliver. "As 
a unit, we can recommend officers for admission to the 
National Police Academy based on one criterion: their 
employment in jurisdictions where the killer didn't strike." 

Greenbaugh was the only one who chuckled. Mulder closed his 
eyes and waited, resigned, for the explosion he knew was 
coming. Greenbaugh stood to pour himself a fresh cup of 
coffee, and Stewart sat up straight. 

"I know," Oliver continued. "How about 'All Inexperienced 
and Sloppy City and County Law Enforcement Officials: BOLO 
For a Serial Murderer Who Is Exponentially Smarter Than You 
Are. If you see him before he sees you, don't touch anything 
and contact the FBI.'"

Greenbaugh swallowed his sip of coffee with a great deal of 
effort and began to laugh, while Mulder just shook his head. 
The other agents at the table either looked confused or 
insulted by the levity.

"Don't you gentlemen think we should maintain a more 
decorous atmosphere?" asked Agent Stewart.

Oliver coughed, and stood up. "I'm calling Celia to cancel," 
he said briefly. 

Stewart frowned, and Mulder noted that it had taken less 
time than was typical for the first major intra-team 
blowout.

"Hell, no," drawled Greenbaugh. "CASMIRC is a pressure-
cooker. No other way to stay sane."

Stewart's expression froze, although the color in her cheeks 
was high. "That's it. I need to get some sleep." She stood 
and gathered her papers. "I'll get this email sent from my 
desktop and see everyone bright and early." 

She left the room quietly, and one of the other agents 
snickered and made a rude comment about her sense of humor. 
"Hey," Mulder said sharply, "cut it out."

The agent raised his eyebrows, and stared back at him. "Why? 
She's a bitch."

"No way to treat a team member; we should have behaved 
better," Mulder said. He stood gracefully and followed the 
woman out of the room.

"We're all well-adjusted psychology types. We all deal 
differently with stress and pain," Greenbaugh reminded the 
others, irritated with himself. He watched Mulder walk down 
to the woman's office. 

"I let the joking get out of hand. Everyone's behavioral 
standards are going to be different. If we can't tolerate 
these differences, it tears the team apart. She spoke her 
mind politely, and handled herself with dignity. And that's 
how I ? how all of us are going to treat everyone on this 
task force. Capisce?"

He left the table as abruptly as Mulder, and the agents in 
the room stared at each other uncomfortably for a moment or 
two before conversations began again.






CASMIRC Task Force Conference Room
NCAVC
Quantico, Virginia
Tuesday, March 14, 2000
8:50 PM

Mulder turned sharply into the small corner office in which 
he'd set up shop. He punched the keyboard and accessed his 
network account. Pulling up his email, he settled into his 
chair and began to go through his messages, one by one. Lone 
Gunmen, the IA folks, Accounting sent three separate 
emails...

Anonymous. 

His interest piqued, he noted the date and time sent, but he 
found the header led him to a blind re-emailer used by 
DARPA. DARPA? What did that have to do with some sick little 
boy in Goochland? He shook his head, printed the message, 
deleted it from his computer, and finished reading the rest 
of his email. When he was finally done, he pulled out his 
cell phone, and turned it back on. Speed-dialing, he waited 
impatiently for Scully to pick up.

"Scully," came her calm, mellow voice.

"Hey, Scully," he breathed, rubbing his neck with his free 
hand. "How's it going?"

"I'm feeling a little more energetic, but I'm glad I stayed 
home today. The Gunmen finally went home after lunch, and I 
took a nice nap."

"And?" he asked, teasingly.

"And they were on their best behavior, Mulder. Did you know 
that Byers' grandmother had a secret chicken soup recipe 
that she passed down? He brought over a big pot of soup to 
heat up, and it was just perfect."

"Hmmm. Scully, I don't suppose you'd ever want seafood 
again?"

"It was a fluke, Mulder, but I'm going to pick my venue a 
little more carefully next time.  Sam's Grill was probably 
not the best place for chowder. Why do you ask?"

"One of the agents up here, Dan Oliver -"

"Oh, yeah, I've met him before. He was a few classes ahead 
of me at the academy, and he was already working BAU."

"He told me about a little B and B outside of Wilmington 
with a terrific seafood buffet. I thought maybe it would be 
a good option for a weekend getaway when you're back on your 
feet."

"The Red Rose?"

"You heard of it? What's it like?"

"Small. Old. Romantic. I grew up in the area; it's not too 
far from Annapolis. I remember my mom talking about staying 
there once after Dad got back from Viet Nam. She got 
pregnant with Charlie on ..." Her voice drifted off as she 
realized what she was saying.

He hurried to fill the conversational gap. So much for the 
Red Rose. "So. Any Grade B Sci-Fi movie marathons on, 
Scully? 'Plan Nine?' 'Crush, Kill, Destroy?' 'Forbidden 
Planet?'"

"Mulder, American television is a wasteland."

"How about reading a good book instead?" He smiled as he 
pictured her lying on her sofa, beating the remote into its 
component parts with a steely gleam in her eyes.

"Well, I have 'Moby Dick' practically memorized, I have the 
March/April edition of Forensic Law. Mr. Malone, my next-
door neighbor, brought me a care basket. Slim Jims, a carton 
of Blast-o-Butter popcorn, a six-pack of Blue Moon beer, the 
two newest 'Executioner' thrillers, and a paperback novel 
called 'Love's Emerald Ecstasy.'"

Mulder let out a snort, and she broke up, laughing herself. 

"Getting any ideas from that 'Ecstasy' book, Scully?" he 
asked in a gravelly voice, still laughing.

"Not the sort of ideas I welcome when you're 90 minutes 
away." She sobered. "How's the meeting, Mulder?"

"Long."

"And?"

"And what, Scully?" He was aiming for innocence, but even he 
thought he sounded deceptive.

"All right, Mulder, I've been supportive and tactful long 
enough. You've been dabbling in something since we left for 
San Francisco last week. What the hell are you doing at 
Quantico, and why the hell are you hiding it from me?" He 
heard the all-business tones of Captain Scully's daughter, 
and the hair on the back of his neck bristled. 

His mouth opened, and his mind went blank. She ran right 
over him with her response. "You are working with 
Patterson's goons!" she accused. "Why aren't you talking to 
me?"

"Scully," he began, but his throat was too dry. He took a 
sip of his coffee, and cleared his throat.

"Yes?"

"I haven't - Oh, hell, Scully, it's little girls. Twenty of 
them. CASMIRC called me with Skinner's blessing. I'm 
attached part-time to NCAVC."

There was a shocked silence at the other end. "Damn. Oh, 
Mulder. I'm sorry." She closed her eyes and grimaced. "Can I 
do anything to help? Do you need a forensic specialist, 
Mulder?"

"Shit, Scully, I knew this was gonna happen. I don't want 
you involved."

"This isn't about me, or Emily, or whatever you perceive to 
be my weaknesses or my struggles. This is about all those 
little girls, all those families. You need forensics."

"Scully, you know me. You know I trust you to watch my back. 
You are the best partner I could ever have. It's not about 
protecting you."

"What is it about, then?" she shot back, harshly.

"When I do this, when I profile, I need a safe place. 
Somewhere I can go to be out of the mind of the monster." He 
was practically pleading now, whispering so quietly she had 
trouble hearing him. "I need you. You're my safe place."

"Mulder, I can do my job and still support you. That's what 
partners do. Let me help."

He was silent a little longer. "There's been a huge case 
review happening all day today, and I'd get in late if I 
drove back to DC tonight. I think I'm just gonna bunk down 
here. I should be back in the office by seven tomorrow 
morning. I'll call you; if you're feeling up to it, we can 
have breakfast together. And if the supervisory agent deems 
a consult necessary, we'll 
discuss how you can contribute, okay?"

"I feel managed, Agent Mulder," she warned him.

"I would never presume to manage you, Agent Scully."






Newlin's Grist Mill Park
Chester County, Pennsylvania
Wednesday, March 15, 2000
4:33 AM

Natalie Ware was cold, and her feet were bare. Mommy said 
not to go out barefoot, and she'd tried to tell him 
that. When she realized the big man wasn't listening to her, 
she started to cry. That's when her mother woke up and 
started searching the RV and the camp clearing. Natalie 
could hear her mommy calling for her, and she wanted to 
answer, but the big man put his hand hard over her mouth. 
His hand smelled like the fish they had for supper, and she 
gagged, struggling to take a deep breath. 

The man held her tightly, cowering behind the trees in the 
thicket just south of the RV park. She could hear very 
little else but the sobbing calls of her mother and the 
answering cries of her baby brother. 

When his hand loosened for a moment, she cried, "Mister, 
mister, please, when can I go back to Mommy?  I'm really 
tired, and my feet are cold."

"Well, Tracy, what do you want me to do? I can't send her 
back; she's seen me."

There was a pause, and Natalie tried again. "Mister, I won't 
tell. I saw a kitty cat outside the camper, but she ran away 
from me. Please?" His hand clamped back down on her 
face.

With a growl, he turned and began to run away from the camp 
ground, down a steep little overgrown path, down to the 
bottom of the rise, where a car was parked. Natalie was 
getting dizzy, and it was getting harder and harder to 
breathe. Her heart was thumping fast, like it did when 
Scottie chased her after she sprayed him with the garden 
hose. Even though the dawn was starting to lighten the sky, 
it got darker and darker for her, and then she knew no more.

"Damn, Tracy, I'm gonna get caught. Why do we have to keep 
doing this? Why can't you just leave me alone? I just want 
to go home and live my life."

Tracy did not answer him, and he made his way south and west 
along Route 1, back to the abandoned motel on the outskirts 
of Chadd's Ford.






X-Files Office
J Edgar Hoover FBI Building
Washington, DC
Wednesday, March 15, 2000
8:45 AM

Scully glanced at her watch as she dressed, and finally 
admitted defeat. She grabbed her phone and dialed the 
office.

"Mulder."

"Mulder, it's me."

"Scully, where are you? I'm meeting you at George's in 15 
minutes."

"I'm sorry, Mulder, I underestimated how much energy it was 
going to take to get dressed. I'm going to be late. Can I 
just come by the office to get you when I'm ready?"

"Did I tell you that if we have breakfast at your place, 
clothing is optional? You could save up your energy for-"

"Mulder! Not on the Bureau's dime. Or the Bureau's phone."

"Are you sure you're up for this, Scully?" He sounded 
worried. "We can cancel."

"I'll be there within the hour. Wait for me?"





Apartment of Dana Scully
Georgetown, Washington, DC 
9:01 AM Wednesday, March 15, 2000

Scully glanced at her watch on the way out the door, and 
almost tripped over the newspaper lying across her 
threshold. "Why did I get the morning edition of the 
'Goochland Guardian'?" She rolled the paper back up, shoved 
it under her arm, locked her door and headed out to meet 
Mulder.






X-Files Office
J Edgar Hoover FBI Building
Washington, DC
Wednesday, March 15, 2000
9:55 AM

Mulder was once again sprawled in his office chair, feet on 
the desk, contemplating a piece of paper. He looked up with 
a smile as she walked into the office. She had a pretty 
flush on her cheeks, probably more from exertion than any 
lingering illness. Fact was, she looked stunning. "Good 
morning. Here's a story to warm the cockles of your heart, 
Scully. An 11-year-old boy, diagnosed with lymphatic cancer, 
cured with a miracle."

"Jason McPeck, Goochland, Virginia."

Mulder was nonplussed. "Ah." He put the paper down on his 
desk, dropped his feet to the floor, and sat up straight, 
facing her.

"Yeah. His parents refused treatment on religious grounds. 
His faith forbids medical aid and so Jason's cure was 
delivered by angels." When Mulder nodded, she continued. 
"Well, spontaneous remission, Mulder, isn't completely 
unheard of. So-called miracle recoveries attributable to no 
clear cause or reason."

"It's not the miracle I'm suspicious of. It's the 
messenger." He handed her the email from the night before. 
"That came as an anonymous e-mail to me from the Defense 
Advanced Research Projects Agency."

"DARPA."

"Someone at DARPA. How'd you hear about it?"

Scully cleared her throat and handed Mulder the newspaper. 

"You subscribe to the 'Goochland Guardian?'"

"No."

He eyed her carefully. "So this just appeared miraculously 
on your doorstep this morning?"

"As far as I can tell, I was the only one to whom it was 
delivered."

He blinked once, and let out the breath he'd been holding. 
"Someone wants us on this case."

"It's not a case, Mulder."

"Not yet. Listen, Scully, we'll have to take a rain check on 
breakfast; Greenbaugh called, and I've got to drive over to 
Quantico. If you're up for it, you see what else you can 
find out about that boy." 

He was filled with an exuberance she'd not seen in a long 
time, a mood she'd missed terribly. She didn't have the 
heart to remind him of her state of health. Or her ravenous 
appetite. She smiled reassuringly.

Mulder rose and headed out the door. Every fiber in his body 
reminded him that he was approaching forty. He was expending 
energy he no longer had; he'd been awake, more or less, for 
48 hours, and functioning on nothing but adrenaline. He 
turned back with a smile, intent on appearing perfectly 
normal. "I've just got to know whether it was Roma Downey or 
Della Reese."





Apartment of Dana Scully
Georgetown, Washington, DC
Wednesday, March 15, 2000
5:45 PM

Scully looked nervously at Spender, her heart beating fast 
in her chest. She was walking toward the front door, 
carrying her suitcase, when the phone began to ring. It had 
to be Mulder, trying to contact her. She stared at the 
handset. The urge to pick it up and tell him what was going 
on was almost overwhelming, but she resisted. 

He would know that she'd tricked him with the ruse about the 
family emergency. He would hear the deceit in her voice if 
she spoke to him on the phone, and he would be on her like a 
bulldog worrying a bone. No, she could not risk speaking to 
him right now. 

Her heart ached for him, for his current assignment, for the 
pain and stress she knew he was feeling. But if this were 
true, if there was any chance here to end pain and 
suffering for millions of people, she could not in good 
conscience let that chance slip by. He would forgive her; he 
would understand, and he would rejoice with her when so many 
horrible diseases were eradicated. 

She turned away from the old man and repositioned the tiny 
microphone in her bra. If she could pull this off, no one 
would fault her for leaving town under mysterious 
circumstances. Not even Mulder. She walked out of the 
apartment. 

She didn't look back.





Hegal Place
Alexandria, Virginia
Wednesday, March 15, 2000
6:50 PM

Mulder stormed into his apartment after he left Scully's 
landlord, throwing his keys onto the table in a rage. The 
keychain slid across the length of the table and fell off 
the other side into a trash can. "Goddamned fucking keys!" 

How could she have gone off with that...that monster? She 
was supposed to be telling him what she'd discovered about 
the boy from Goochland. The truth about what she'd found. 
And why she found it necessary to lie to Skinner - and 
himself - in Skinner's office. She knew he was hoping she'd 
help him decompress after a bleak day spent among the ragged 
corpses of 20 little girls. She had promised to be there for 
him when she asked him to tell her about the case. 

Mulder was now certain she had been in her apartment when 
he'd phoned. Could it really have been Spender with her? Was 
she drugged? Was he manipulating her chip? What nefarious 
plot was the old man hatching, and why did he go to such 
great pains to make it appear as though Scully had left 
willingly? Mulder stared at the answering machine on his 
desk as though it would stand up and start talking on its 
own. Decision made, he picked up the phone and dialed the 
number for Maggie Scully.

"Hello?"

"Mrs. Scully? It's Fox Mulder."

He could hear the chill in her voice. "How can I help you, 
Fox?"

"Mrs. Scully, Dana left a message on my machine saying she 
was called away to a family emergency. I was just calling to 
see if there was anything I could do to help you. Or 
Scully."

"Maybe that was the only way she could think of to get away 
from you." She said it baldly, rudely, and the words hung 
there in the air like the aftermath of a slap to the face.

His tone was dead, devastated. "Mrs. Scully, if she wants me 
gone from her life, all she has to do is tell me to go."

There was a pause, and when Maggie Scully spoke again, the 
ice was gone from her tone, and there was a tremble in her 
voice. "I don't know of any emergency, Fox. Doesn't she 
answer her cell phone?"

"It's shut off. There's no emergency?"

"None that I know of. Oh my God, Fox, where is she? Have you 
two been on some sort of case? I thought you were living-"

There was a strained silence on the phone. "Did you have an 
argument with her?"

"No. She just....I don't think she would have gone away on 
her own initiative without letting me know where or why. 
Someone or something is forcing her hand. But I'll find 
her."

"I know you'll do everything you can, Fox. If I hear from 
her, I'll call you. Do you think she's been... taken again?"

"Mrs. Scully, we don't know anything right now. Try and stay 
calm. I'll make a few more calls, and I promise I will let 
you know what's happening. I'm going to find her. It's 
probably just a misunderstanding."






Office of AD Walter Skinner 
J Edgar Hoover FBI Building
Washington, DC
7:15 PM Wednesday, March 15, 2000

Mulder burst into Skinner's office, and found him on the 
phone. 

"I'll expect your call. Thanks." Skinner hung up, and 
reported tersely, "She requisitioned a fleet sedan. I don't 
know why, and there have been no fuel charges. 

"Her mother doesn't know anything about a family emergency."

"Look, I know you're worried about the company that she's in 
but from what you've told me it's not like she's sneaking 
out. The truth is, she's gone to a lot of trouble to allay 
your fears."

"I know she can take care of herself. It's just not like her 
to lie to me."

The phone on Skinner's desk rang, and they both stared at 
it. "That's my private line." The older man answered it. 
"Skinner."

There was a pause. "Agent Scully, where are you?"

At this, Mulder reached out his hand for the phone, his face 
alight with relief.

Skinner half-turned his body away from Mulder. "No, it's all 
right. It's just we've been worried about you." 

Mulder let his arm fall, disbelief on his face.

"Well, he's standing right here. Why don't you do that 
yourself?"

Mulder reached out again, eager to talk to her. Before he 
could grab the phone, Skinner hung up. 

"She says she's fine." He watched Mulder, curious, intrigued 
in spite of himself.

Mulder shook his head like a bull shaking off flies. He knew 
their code. "She's in trouble."


~~~


Part 3 of 3




CASMIRC Task Force Conference Room
NCAVC
Quantico, Virginia
Friday, March 17, 2000
5:05 AM

Mulder leaned farther back in the creaky chair, 
paradoxically one of the most comfortable chairs he'd ever 
been in. It was getting very late - or very early - and he, 
Dan Oliver, and Greenbaugh had been rehashing the details of 
the crime scenes for better than 2 hours without a break. He 
felt the jackhammer impact of a dozen cups of black coffee 
on his heartbeat, and his stomach was burning with the acid 
of fear and helplessness. He poured himself yet another cup, 
hoping that the scalding liquid would jolt his attention 
back to the case, and out of his terror at Scully's 
disappearance. 

So far, there was no sign of her. She hadn't turned on her 
cell phone, she hadn't called on a land line or used a 
credit card. No ransom notes had been delivered, as far as 
he knew, and even the Gunmen had lost her trail. An analysis 
of her email at home had revealed some disturbing deleted 
messages, but Langley had soon determined that the headers 
had been spoofed. He could almost believe that Spender 
wanted him to know the emails were faked.

If she were already dead, he thought he would feel it. He 
both hoped and dreaded that he would sense the absence of 
the center of his world. This preoccupation was impeding his 
ability to sleep or eat an adequate meal. His jaws ached 
from clenching in response to his worry. He felt as if he would 
betray her by carrying on as usual, so he denied himself food and 
sleep. 

He was not looking forward to the nightmares he would have 
once his body turned on him and he actually did fall asleep. He 
was so tired, so frightened, so angry at her, so distressed at the 
plight of those little girls whose bodies were littered in 
so many cemeteries across the country. She had taken herself 
out of his sphere of influence, emasculated him in terms of 
his ability to watch her back, and he was helpless. He had to let her 
handle Spender her own way, God help her, and he had to 
focus on getting the killer identified and incarcerated. 
With  superb strength of will, he once again tried to force 
those thoughts away, and give his attention back to the 
discussion. Not only did this attempt fail miserably, but he 
felt the desolation of his mood overtake him, and he drifted 
away...


He was dreaming, and he saw the killer. The man was huge, 
bulky. He was crying, wrapping his arms around himself like 
a child, sobbing, comforting himself when no one else would. 
He cried with the helpless desolation of a child, and the 
deep, vibrating sound of a grown man. The killer rocked back 
and forth on his knees, a limp little pile of rags at his 
feet. 

"Tracy, leave me alone! How much is enough? I just want to 
go home..." 

The wails died away, and Mulder shook himself awake, 
startled, to find himself still in the conference room. 
Oliver and Greenbaugh stared at him, expectant; he fumbled 
for something to say,  and ruthlessly shoved thoughts of 
Scully onto the backburner of his psyche. 

He began to speak, found his voice too hoarse, coughed and 
took a sip of now-tepid coffee. He began again. "He's 
completely defeated in terms of his self-esteem. What sort 
of little girl is he selecting? The victims were different 
ages, different heights, different hair and skin tones. It's 
not about sex or power. He's atoning for something."  

"He's nearby," Oliver noted, and Greenbaugh nodded to him 
approvingly. Oliver was showing some real promise in his 
ability to facilitate discussion that sent Mulder off into 
another dreamy analysis of the killer. 

"He's guilty. He did something, and he's feeling the need to 
atone. There has to be a correlation between his childhood 
and his crimes. He covers the face, dresses the corpse, 
wraps the body warmly. He's not punishing the little girls, 
he thinks he's saving them. From what? He's obviously 
conflicted, perhaps not doing this solely of his own will. 
He's trying to appease someone. Who is it?"

Greenbaugh pulled out his recorder again, and Oliver 
continued to take notes. Mulder kept talking, musing as he 
considered all the aspects of the case. 

"What does he gain when he kills? What keeps him killing? 
What sort of home life do those victims have in common?"

"They all have siblings." Greenbaugh commented.

"As a matter of fact, they all have younger siblings." 
Oliver had an inkling where this was headed.

"He thinks the girls are unappreciated. The focused 
attention their parents gave them is gone." Mulder sat up 
straight at his desk, shaking the fatigue off like 
raindrops. "He believes the parents don't deserve them, and 
neither do the siblings." He felt the beginnings of a 
breakthrough. 

"Always having to give way to the needs of the baby in the 
family," Oliver was nodding his head now, a gleam in his 
eye. "He was expected to baby-sit her, responsible for her, 
no real power to discipline but expected to take care of 
issues in a mature fashion."

"He had to care for her even if he had something he'd rather 
do, other plans. Maybe a date?" Mulder's comments hung in 
the air for a moment. Oliver was still taking notes, and 
Greenbaugh was grinning like a fiend.

"She made him look bad, and his parents punished him." He 
remembered his after-school chore of looking after Samantha, 
making sure she did her homework, made her hang up her 
clothes, cooked and fed her dinner. Most of the time, his 
dad was in New York and his mother was sleeping off one of 
her migraines. "His pent-up resentment must go off the 
charts.

He saw again the pitiful hug the man gave himself for 
comfort, his gut-wrenching wails. "The parents discipline 
the victim, and he misinterprets it as rejection." Mulder 
took a deep breath and opened his eyes. "He wants to rescue 
those kids from what he feels is mistreatment, and someone 
or some thing is driving him to take little girls. 
Repeatedly."

"So our very intelligent killer can't differentiate 
discipline from rejection, misreads it as anger or 
hostility, and takes it literally? What is he, autistic?" 
Greenbaugh asked, rhetorically.

Oliver spoke up. "I have a brother who has Asberger's; he's 
a high-functioning autistic. He was working far above grade-
level in public school, but he had a completely undeveloped 
understanding of sarcasm. He took everything literally, 
didn't comprehend other people's emotional overtones. Made 
him the locus of a lot of cruel treatment. He couldn't keep 
a job more than a few weeks before he opened his mouth and 
pissed off the boss. No tact. My parents finally gave up and 
helped him set up work where his compulsive behavior and 
isolation benefited him. He's a computer repair tech now. 
Happy as a clam at high tide."

Mulder stared off at the wall, his face thoughtful. "That 
could explain a lot. I still haven't figured out why he 
kills the misunderstood older kid and not the baby. It 
doesn't fit with the idea that he himself was misunderstood. 
Unless he's being manipulated."

"Manipulated?" asked Oliver.

"He's hearing voices," Mulder said flatly, staring at the 
wall opposite, eyes unfocused. Tracy? Who was Tracy?

"Jeez. Schizophrenia and autism?" Greenbaugh exclaimed.

"It might go a long way towards explaining things," Mulder 
mused. "There's something more at work here than typical 
psychotic or psychopathic homicide, and the internal data 
aren't consistent with a simple explanation. If we want to 
consider the most plausible explanation, he's killing the 
older sibling to rescue her from what he himself went 
through. The voices he's hearing are leading him to kids 
like himself, accentuating his guilt, forcing him to punish 
the child in order to punish himself for his crimes."

"Wait a minute," Greenbaugh interjected. "I'm lost."

"Mulder's saying that there are two motivators; the perp is 
killing to rescue the victim from a lifetime of bad 
treatment, and some voice he hears is directing him to 
punish those kids for what he did while he was a child." 
Oliver sat back in his chair, concentration on his face.

"So he killed a sibling?"

"Probably," Mulder agreed.  So, that was 'Tracy.'  "Can we 
get missing persons reports from solved and unsolved cases 
involving murdered girls who had older siblings. Cross 
reference them with the military records?"

"We need to pass this on."

Greenbaugh nodded, and picked up the telephone. "Patty, get 
the team together and have them in the bullpen in one hour. 
We have something."





Brandywine Motel
Highway 1
Chadd's Ford, PA
7:15 AM Friday, March 17, 2000

Marcus Lang eased the beat-up van around the pock-marked 
dirt road that had once been a paved lot for motel guests. 
He grabbed the coffee, the little cellophane-wrapped 
powdered-sugar doughnuts, and the morning paper. He elbowed 
in the door, kicked it shut behind him, and sat down heavily 
in the chair by the bed. The television had long since been 
stolen, and the mattress and bedding were soggy, but the 
roof was leak-free and the drafts were tolerable. He blew 
cautiously on his coffee as he raised it to his lips, 
smoothing the paper out on the table.

There would surely be an article or two on his endeavors so 
far. He scanned the front page, and finally found what he 
was seeking on the bottom left hand side of the page.

"FBI Profilers Join Serial Manhunt"

He began to read, a small smile on his face. Very quickly, 
the smile faded, and he spilled the coffee as he slammed the 
styrofoam cup down and pulled the paper toward him with both 
hands. 

They were in pursuit of him, and they'd narrowed the search 
to southeastern Pennsylvania because they'd found little 
Fiona's body much too soon. Some old fart had found her. And 
who was this Mulder fellow, the one talking about the other 
girls he'd liberated? An FBI profiling hotshot?

He jumped to his feet, knocking the cup of coffee completely 
off the table, in his hurry to grab his belongings and get 
out of the motel. They wouldn't be too far behind him if the 
old man had seen his car...






Somewhere in upstate New York
Friday, March 17, 2000
7:33 AM

Scully flattened herself as much as she could along the ribs 
of the metal outboard she was maneuvering along the quiet 
water channels of the Calico Cove Inlet. She stared down at 
a murky little pool of brackish water; her feet were already 
soaked, and the air was unpleasantly brisk. She 
tried to stop shivering, but she was unable to shake off the 
cold shock of being so close to a deadly bullet. She had no 
idea who was shooting at her, but she had no doubt that both 
she and Cobra had been targeted. Her heart sinking, she 
realized that Spender had not only been capable of 
misleading her on this apparent wild-goose chase, but that 
he could have been plotting her assassination. No one knew 
where she was, no one knew whom she was with, and Mulder 
might never know what had happened. The import of her 
actions, and their potential impact on the lives of her 
mother, her brothers, her co-workers, her lover - 

She could see the tall, wiry form of Spender as he stood on 
the dock ahead of her, peering anxiously into the boat. She 
brought the little craft in at an angle, expertly broaching 
the dock and looping the line around the mooring post. 
Spender watched her with what she now realized was an 
expression of false concern. She stood up, balancing in the 
wake of her rapid approach, hopped onto the dock, and headed 
directly for him, her anger burning hotter than it had in 
years.






CASMIRC 
Friday, March 17, 2000
3:30 PM

Patty Stewart poked her head in the door. "Hey, agents, we 
have a positive ID on the man in the van. Name is Marcus 
Lang. He's a forty-something loner; no kids, no wife, no 
girlfriend. Self-employed. Lost a sister when he was eleven, 
no one was ever arrested.  He didn't make it through basic 
training for the Army; apparently he wasn't much of a team 
player."

After a moment of pure shock, Oliver let out a whooping 
sound of victory, and Mulder felt his heartbeat speed up. 
The logistics about how the manhunt and capture should play 
out displayed themselves, crystal clear in his mind. 
"Oliver, take Stewart and Reese and get up to West Chester 
ASAP. I want a face-to-face with the caretaker. Get a recent 
photo and have him ID the suspect. Also, run the description 
of the suspect and see if anyone in the area has seen him. 
You may even want to start canvassing local camping spots, 
parks, small motels or RV centers; he'll need isolation for 
his work. Greenbaugh, we're gonna need to access the 
National Database; have someone find out whatever they can 
on this guy. You know the drill." Greenbaugh seemed content 
to let Mulder drive the arrangements and meekly set about 
his own tasks. 

Fox Mulder sat back down as the mood of the bullpen 
lightened. Tired agents began moving more swiftly, phones 
were beginning to ring, and he felt the "buzz" of a team 
finally gaining ground on a killer. He sat still, waiting 
for the euphoria he knew he should feel for the imminent 
solution of the case. But he was deeply concerned about 
Scully, and he found himself struggling to keep up his 
concentration for and commitment to the resolution of the 
case.

"Agent Mulder?" It was Greenbaugh. "We've had another little 
girl reported missing early this morning near West Chester, 
Pennsylvania. There was a delay in the word being passed to 
the federal level, but we have a name and a rough time. He 
can't have strayed too far from the geographical region 
we've already narrowed. Oliver, Stewart and Reese are 
already on their way. I'm leaving in half an hour. Call me 
when you get to a stopping point, and we'll make 
arrangements to have you choppered up." Greenbaugh hurried 
off and Mulder heard his footfall soften and disappear 
altogether.

Greenbaugh's news chilled his blood and quenched his 
elation. It was the ringing of his cell phone, however, that 
jerked him back into the present.

"Mulder."

"Mulder, it's me."

He felt another cold rush of shock wash over him, and for a 
moment he thought he would burst into tears of abject 
relief. Close on the heels of the relief, however, came 
anger at her for the ditch she'd orchestrated, the worry 
she'd inflicted, the delays his reaction to her 
disappearance had caused to the case in Penn-

Damn. That was completely unfair.

"Mulder?" Her voice was sounding somewhat unsure.  Good.

"Decided to come back from your impromptu road trip, Agent 
Scully?" Even he was disgusted with himself, baiting her. 
His disillusionment and his fear warred with each other. His 
anger with her was an honest feeling, however, and he 
refused to contradict himself just to salvage her feelings.

"Mulder. I need to show you...I need to see you. Skinner 
said you left the office and he didn't expect you back 
today." She seemed to gain confidence as she spoke, her 
words coming clearer and more rapidly, her excitement 
apparent.

"I'm at Quantico, Scully, and I'm busy catching a serial 
killer. I'll call you when I get back into town." He 
disconnected, turned off the phone, and waited for the sense 
of righteous justification he wanted for giving her the same 
treatment she gave him. It never came. 

Fox Mulder: special agent, crack profiler, grown man, mature 
adult. Pissed boyfriend. 

He wanted to crawl into a hole and die.






Bullpen
Friday, March 17, 2000
3:45 PM

He was not expecting anything when he answered the phone in 
his temporary office. "Mulder."

"It's Skinner."

"Sir, I sent an email to your of-"

"Mulder, are you actively pursuing this suspect in the 
serial case? By that I mean are you in a car headed to 
Chester County?"

"No, sir, I'm at Quantico -"

"Mulder, get your sorry ass back to DC immediately. Agent 
Scully has some information and a data disc that she insists 
you are going to want to see. If this is what she was 
risking her life for, if she got it from Spender, you owe 
her that much. Greenbaugh and Oliver can take the serial 
case from here."

"Sir, I-"

"Not another word, Agent Mulder.  Get back here now. She's 
meeting you at your apartment." The phone disconnected, and 
he was left completely stunned.






Hegal Place
Friday, March 17, 2000
5:15 PM

Mulder turned the key in his lock, opened the door, and 
stepped inside. His eyes scanned the room for evidence that 
anyone was there. Seeing none, he sighed in relief and threw 
his leather jacket on the nearest chair. He walked into the 
kitchen, and poured himself a glass of water. He had just 
lifted it to his lips when she spoke.

"Mulder?"

It was a whisper; the water glass slipped from his suddenly 
nerveless hand, and shattered on his kitchen floor. He 
turned, and his eyes drank her in. As much as he'd longed to 
see her alive and well just once more time, he felt like he 
was seeing a stranger. Mulder made a deliberate choice to 
step away from his anger. Now was not the time to enact 
relationship cliffhangers. He opened his arms as he walked 
toward her, and it was then that he saw the Gunmen standing 
behind her. 

She wasn't alone. 

His hackles rose again. He stopped, his arms dropped to his 
side. "Hello, boys. What brings you here?" He bent over to 
pick up the shards of shattered glass, buying time to regain 
his composure.

She was staring at him from behind shadowed eyes, stark and 
vivid on her pale skin. So, she'd felt it necessary to have 
others present when she saw him again? He felt irrationally 
justified in keeping his emotional distance. It took a great 
deal of control to stay put in the middle of the kitchen; he 
ached for her.  

Her voice was pitched for his ears only. "Mulder, please 
listen to me." 

His face was impassive, his voice equally quiet. "Scully, I 
shouldn't be here. I need to be in Pennsylvania. Let's do 
what you need me to do with the Gunmen, and then I have to 
get out of here. I can't afford to lose any more time. 
Another girl was kidnapped, and the task force has a real 
chance to save her if we move soon."

He watched her stiffen at his deliberate emotional distance. 
She straightened her shoulders, turned to her right, and led 
the way into his main living room. Frohike and Byers began 
unpacking their laptops and a few strange-looking, obviously 
homemade, pieces of electrical equipment. Langley stretched 
out his hand, and Scully reached into her bag and pulled out 
a miniature CD. She moved over to his sofa and the boys sat 
down and started tapping away at their keyboards.


Mulder kept his distance, standing at the edge of the room, 
aloof. He stared over at the Gunmen, his arms resting on the 
door jamb; his knuckles were white. He was aware that Scully 
was making the effort to meet his eyes, and he took sadistic 
pleasure in avoiding hers in return. She tried and failed 
several times to make eye contact before she gave up. 

"This disk is blank." 

Scully jumped to her feet, disbelief in her voice. "No, 
that's not possible. It can't be. He gave me that disk 
himself." Her voice died away, and she looked at him, 
appalled.

Mulder finally allowed their eyes to meet. Even in this 
tense situation, even furious with her, he admired her 
unwavering gaze, meeting his head-on, in spite of her 
embarrassment. He was only peripherally aware that the 
gunmen were packed up and moving past him very quickly, 
headed for the door. "Thanks, boys," he drawled, finally 
moving from the doorway, locking the front door behind them, 
and bolting it. He turned back to regard Scully once more, 
this time in privacy.

"Mulder, I-" Her throat had a catch in it; she cleared it 
and continued. "I know you were worried. I believed I was 
doing the right thing, I thought it would be worth it for 
the data I would bring back-" She swallowed. 

"I thought you were dead, Scully. When I heard who you were 
with, when we found out about Cobra, I-"

"You knew about Cobra?"

"Someone planted purportedly-erased messages on your 
desktop, supposedly detailing your arrangements to meet and 
share information. The Gunmen found the files. We wanted to 
warn you, but we didn't know if your calls to Skinner were 
monitored. And you wouldn't talk to me."

"He was standing with me the entire time; there really 
wasn't anything I could say. There's one more thing, Mulder. 
I need you to come with me. I found an office."

Coldly, he rebuffed her. "Scully, it's gonna have to wait. I 
wasn't kidding about the time crunch. I have to get back to 
Quantico. There's a task force helicopter leaving for West 
Chester at 6 tomorrow morning, and I need to be on it; I've 
sent agents up there to corner this guy, and I'm not going 
to risk them while I sit around down here."

"Just give me 30 minutes, Mulder. I risked my life. I 
risked my life with you to get this information, and if 
I've been misled or tricked, I want you to understand what I 
was trying to achieve." She watched him anxiously, her 
beautiful blue eyes unwavering in the face of her 
conviction.

"I don't think I'm ever going to understand why you risked 
your life. I was sure you were going to be killed, Scully. 
And you lied to me."

"Was what I did any different than the times you lied to me 
and took off on your own?" She was defensive now, standing 
up and facing off with him in the heat of her disappointment 
and embarrassment.

"Yeah, Scully, it was. You lied to me repeatedly, you made 
no effort to leave me a message or talk to me, you left no 
word about your mission or your whereabouts, you went off 
with hi -" He realized the tone and volume of his voice had 
reached 

All right, Scully, half an hour." His face softened as he 
saw her eyes close in relief. "Scully? I don't need proof of 
your commitment to me or the X-Files. That's something I 
will always believe." 

They headed toward the parking lot behind his apartment 
building, side by side, but studiously avoiding each other's 
touch. Enough of the crap, he decided. He put his arm around 
her waist as they walked to her car, resting his hand in the 
familiar curve above her ass. And as they walked, she leaned 
into him, and the world began to right itself.





An Empty Office Complex
Washington, DC
Friday, March 17, 2000
8:45 PM

Scully stood still in the deserted hallway, her shoulders 
set. Mulder watched her carefully for a moment, and then 
walked over to her side, leaning close. He pitched his voice 
low, and the puffs of air on her earlobe and the hairs at 
her temple made her shiver. "This was the perfectly executed 
con, Scully. The only thing I can't figure out is why you're 
still alive." There was the merest hint in his voice of the 
fear he'd felt while she was with Spender. 

"Mulder, I looked into his eyes. I swear what he told me was 
true." 

"He did it all for himself, to get the science on that disk. 
His sincerity was a mask, Scully. The man's motives never 
changed."

"You think he used me to save himself-- at the expense of 
the human race?" 

"No, he knows what that science is worth, how powerful it 
is, its potential, how irresistible it would be for you. 
He'd let nothing stand in his way."

"You're right... but for a moment, I saw something else in 
him. A longing for something more than power. Maybe for 
something he could never have."

She sighed deeply, and turned toward the staircase behind 
them. She looked very much alone. He stood at her side, his 
hand resting lightly on her back; their steps, so mismatched 
in height and stride, were in perfect rhythm. 

"Come home with me, Mulder," she whispered. "Please." 

"I can't. I have to get up to Pennsylvania." 

She looked unsure about what to say, and he wondered what it 
was that he wanted from her. An apology for being a 
distraction? Ridiculous, passive-aggressive crap, and he 
wasn't going to bring that into their relationship dynamic. 
She'd made a rational choice to forge ahead in the name of 
science. That had always been her job. He wouldn't want it 
to be any other way. Why, then, did he feel like she'd let 
him down, and that he'd let her down in return?

She was trying to dry her eyes without him seeing, he 
realized. He stopped and turned to her, hands gentle and 
familiar on her shoulders. "Scully, I never question your 
science. And the times you've had a strong hunch or feeling 
about something, you've turned out to be correct. I'm not 
going to start second-guessing you now. I owe you the same 
respect you've shown me for years. 

"It's just that I need to get back to Quantico, Scully. You 
don't need to justify your choices to me. I trust you. I was 
just so scared." His voice was quiet, tender. He drew her 
closer to him. Her face was instantly unreadable, and her 
nod of acceptance was choppy. 

That told him what he needed to do, and the last of his 
reserve faded away. "A few hours tonight won't make a big 
difference, I suppose." He said this, hoping she would not 
challenge him. He let her hear a smile in his voice, stroked 
her lower back with a soothing hand. "My place is closer."

He saw her blank expression melt away, and he sought her 
right hand. They began to walk toward the car. "Although I 
really want to have a look at that Emerald Ecstasy novel. 
Maybe we should go to your place instead?"




Apartment #42
Hegal Place
Alexandria, VA
6:18 AM Saturday, March 18, 2000

He couldn't have been gone long, for the tangled sheets and 
the deformed pillow were still warm and steeped in their 
mingled scent. She stretched sore muscles and wiped the blur 
of sleep from her eyes. She bolted out of bed and was in 
Mulder's shower within seconds. She was not sitting around 
in DC while he and his task force risked their lives on a 
manhunt in Pennsylvania. 




Brandywine Motel
Highway 1
Chadd's Ford, PA
9:13 AM Saturday, March 18, 2000

Because he did his job and stopped at the third address on 
his list, Agent Daniel Oliver lost his life. 

There it was, sitting in a dilapidated shed behind the 
abandoned motel. A rental car issued to one Marcus Lang was 
parked underneath the sagging metal siding that comprised 
the roof of the garage. The block was cool, and the keys 
were lying in the seat, in plain sight. Oliver looked around 
himself nervously; the utter isolation of the motel and the 
noiseless hovering trees, bare of leaves and wildlife, were 
menacing and oppressive.

He pulled his cell phone out, again, and stared at its 
readout, hoping again that something had changed and that he 
now had a signal with which to call his location and 
information in to Greenbaugh. So, when the twig snapped 
under the feet of Marcus Lang, Agent Oliver was fatally 
distracted.

Lang was livid at the intrusion, roaring with outrage. Tracy 
was screaming obscenities into his ear, and the agent was 
fighting him with every hand-to-hand trick he could muster.

It wasn't going to do any good; Lang had no interest in 
prolonging the encounter. He merely wanted to send a message 
to the cops who were hunting him. This way, his message 
would be sure to be understood.



Spread-eagled on the icy ground, Oliver's pale face was 
almost invisible. He had been stripped bare, and the bruises 
and scratches of his struggles with Lang stood out starkly 
in contrast. Lang was pleased that the man had finally 
stopped screaming. He finished the last letter of the last 
word in his missive. He carefully sheathed the blade of the 
X-acto knife and put it in his pocket. He stood, wiped the 
snow and ice from his ski pants, shot the man in the chest, 
and started walking back toward the motel, not looking back. 
When he'd packed up his things, he loaded them in the rental 
car, calmly set the bedding ablaze, pulled out of the hotel 
lot, and drove up the road toward West Chester. The 
batteries in the smoke detectors were long since drained, 
and the shabby inn was silently engulfed in fire within 
minutes.

An hour later, members of the CASMIRC task force found 
Oliver's body where the anonymous tipster had told them it 
would be. The strobes from the ambulance, the police cars, 
the fire engines, and the tow trucks flashed eerie blues and 
reds across the naked agent. His service weapon was missing. 
And carefully carved in his pearly gray skin was a letter 
from Marcus Lang to his pursuer.


Tracy won't let me stop. I have his gun. I've been in Hell 
for years. With her. Don't come looking for us. This little 
one will only suffer more if you don't back off. It depends 
on you, Mulder.

ML 





Longwood Gardens
New Garden, PA
4:30 PM Saturday, March 18, 2000

It was only when he heard her low, silky alto in 
conversation with Roger Greenbaugh that he realized she was 
there in the room with him. He turned sharply, surprise on 
his face, and his companion stopped talking, seeing his 
distraction.

He was at her side in two long steps, abandoning Agent 
Stewart without another thought. He grabbed her by the 
elbow, and led her to a quiet corner of the room. "You 
shouldn't have come," he hissed, staring into her defiant 
eyes.

"Mulder, I think I can help you ?"

"Scully, he murdered Agent Oliver." He kept his voice low, 
but he was plainly agonizing over the loss of his protege. 

She stared back into his face, her expression appalled, and 
it was then she saw the sharp edge of guilt and grief on the 
blurry fatigue of his face. "Oh. I had no idea. Mulder, I'm 
so sorry."

"I have to keep my focus, Scully, and it's getting harder 
and harder. Do you know that the Philadelphia paper has been 
writing articles about the killer and the unsuccessful 
attempts to capture him? They called the Hoover and got 
redirected to Kersh's office. His assistant gave out my name 
and Agent Greenbaugh's name, in addition to Oliver's. The 
paper referenced me by name yesterday. We've taken Celia 
Oliver into protective custody, along with her two children. 
Greenbaugh's been turfed with the backup teams; Scully, he 
left a note for me on Oliver's body."

"Saying what?"

"Cryptic shit, but essentially that this next kill is in my 
honor."

"Lieutenant Rice told me you'd gotten a name?" 

"Marcus Lang," he whispered.

"You'll stop him, Mulder. You'll keep any other girls from 
being murdered, and you'll earn justice for all those other 
girls."

"A whole hell of a lot of good that's going to do Natalie 
Ware and her mom."

"What do we know about his immediate whereabouts, Mulder? 
Let's keep the focus on his capture. "

"We know he's holed up somewhere in the surrounding 50 miles 
or so. He needs isolation for his rituals."

"And ?"

"We know he's been near the Brandywine, and inside an 
historic park that lies nearby. He has the park sticker 
attached to his sun visor; our eyewitness identified it in 
an interview late last night.  We called the park custodian. 
No one is renting the main log cabin on the site of the 
Newlin Grist Mill; the cabin is undergoing repair work on 
the roof.  No one's been seen there all afternoon, but it's 
just about the only lead we have right now. Three other 
teams are canvassing other known camping sites in the area, 
but we've got a pretty strong suspicion that he's gonna run 
to ground at this one. "

There was a burst of commotion at the door, and Craig Tyson 
stuck his head around the corner of the jamb, face flushed 
with excitement. "Mulder! Lang's van just went through the 
park entrance. The ranger called us right away. He's headed 
toward the primitive side of the compound, and we're 
mustering the TAC team. If you want on board for the raid, 
you'll need to hurry!"






Newlin Grist Mill Log Cabin
Glen Mills, Pennsylvania
Sunday, March 19, 2000
6:45 PM

With determined precision, the quietly horrified task force 
team had tracked Marcus Lang, and his tiny captive to a 
deserted log cabin in a sparsely-traversed wilderness 
section in the Grist Mill Park. He was almost certainly 
aware that they were closing in on him, but it was the hope 
of Lieutenant Rice and the Tactics team that he was not 
expecting them at dusk. The idea of using the dim light to 
aid in their camouflage was simple, but effective.

The entire tactical team, including Scully and Mulder, had 
donned the traditional garb of black clothing, ball caps and 
jackets. Each pair of agents was directed to a spot in a 
corner of the wooded area surrounding the log cabin, about 
100 yards distant. They, along with the actual assault team, 
were issued semi-automatic rifles and Lash II headsets for 
two-way communication. 

The tactical team was very, very good. Mulder was hard 
pressed to find any evidence that twelve officers, bristling 
with weapons and body armor, were now strategically 
stationed at points of egress around the cabin.

"He's got to come out," Mulder was talking to himself as 
much as to Scully. "He won't want to see the girl's face 
once he kills her. He can't handle it."

"What's Rice doing with that grenade launcher?"

"Lang has Oliver's gun," Mulder reminded her, his voice 
tight. "Until we get a look inside with the infrared ball, 
we don't want to move. We can stun him with the flash-
bangs," he nodded his head toward Rice. "If we send the ball 
in on its heels, we can get a good look while he's 
incapacitated. Move in as soon as we can ID him and where 
he's put the Ware girl. And if she's still alive."

"I don't like the feel of this, Mulder," she shivered, and 
watched the cabin in the distance, her expression clouded. 
"How can we be sure he's not on to us?"

"We'll know in a minute. It looks like they're making their 
move."

Scully watched the Tac leader count down with his hand from 
five to one, and closed her eyes for the disorienting light 
and sound she knew was forthcoming.

Two flash-bangs were tossed at the cabin from its periphery. 
One landed on the front porch, but the other sailed through 
the window, shattering the glass, and exploding in a burst 
of light and a loud crack, substantial enough to make the 
ground shake under her feet.

Almost immediately, another team member lobbed the Eye Ball 
in the same window as the flash-bang. With its low-light and 
infrared viewing abilities, the Tac Leader could see and 
hear in a 360 degree circle around the Ball's landing site.

There was a shout from inside the cabin. The sound of more 
glass shattering was followed by the radio transmission from 
Tac Leader.

"He's coming out with the girl."

The door opened, and the scene outside became utterly still. 
Marcus Lang was a towering monster of a man, dressed in a 
pair of faded denim jeans, a battered pair of hiking boots, 
a t-shirt and a ratty plaid long-sleeved shirt. He was 
carrying the limp form of a child in his arms. The child's 
reddish blond hair swung freely over his left arm. He stood, 
motionless on the porch, breathing heavily. 

Instantly there were fifteen rifles locked on the man. He 
surveyed the crowd of people in front of him, and time 
seemed to slow.

"Mulder?" he roared, and Scully closed her eyes in 
resignation. "Tracy wants to talk to you. Come out, or I'll 
do her right here. I'll have time before they take me out."

There was a flurry of movement beside her, and Mulder was 
walking toward the clearing a moment later. His hands were 
raised, although his sidearm was still in place.

Scully realized that he'd never be able to draw down on Lang 
before the man shot either the girl or Mulder himself. She 
could hear Mulder talking in a low voice to the man as he 
walked farther into the clearing, but the words themselves 
were indistinct.

A small phalanx of back up TAC officers formed a semi-circle 
a discreet distance behind Mulder. They were prepared to 
fire if there were any indication of an attack on Lang's 
part.

Lang's voice got louder. "Stop right there, you pig. You 
want me real bad, don't you? And you want this piece of shit 
back, too, don't you?" He shook the limp bundle in his arms, 
and even from her vantage point, Scully could see the little 
girl moving her arms and legs. At least right now, she was 
alive.

"You're either going to jail or you're going to die tonight, 
Marcus," Mulder said calmly, confidently, as he faced off 
against the man. "You can't silence your guilt by killing 
another little girl."

"I'm Tracy, you jackass, not Marcus. And I'm only goin' if 
you go with me," Lang shouted. Then, from out of nowhere, 
his right hand came out from under the blanket covering the 
girl, and it held a sawed-off shot gun. There was a scramble 
behind Mulder, but he was given no time to speak or to take 
cover.

The gun exploded in a burst of sound, and Lang flung the 
girl down, dropped her like a soiled rag, and took off 
running around the edge of the porch. A shot rang out from 
the side of the house, and the man fell.

"I winged him. He's alive!" the SWAT officer shouted over 
the TAC band.


Mulder went down hard, his knees buckling instantly, the 
force of the impact sending his body sliding back a few 
inches along the dirt and snow and ice that lay mingled on 
the trampled ground.

Scully's eyes were riveted on him, and she was up and 
running before coherent thought made its way to her brain. 
She gave no thought to the danger inherent in the confusion 
that followed the shoot out. She carved out a trail between 
the black-garbed officers, ignoring their calls to 

getdowngetdowngetdown


"God damn, Mulder, please be smart and be wearing your vest. 
Please be smart, please oh please oh please?"

She skidded to a halt and fell to her knees. His eyes were 
closed, and he was motionless. In the full force of her 
panic, she tore his black shirt down the middle, looking for 
the entry wound, and sighed in relief when she saw his 
Kevlar vest, puckered neatly in the center of its blast 
plate, doing its job, and saving his life. She broke out 
into a relieved grin, and looked up at his face, but he was 
still. 

And he wasn't breathing.

No, this is impossible, there was only one shot?She reached 
out and felt for a pulse. Then felt again. 

Nothing.

"Oh, God." She froze for a moment in disbelief; Mulder was 
no young boy on a softball field. He was a healthy middle-
aged male. "Get the paramedics over here STAT with that 
defibrillator!" she shouted at the team members behind her. 

Scully reared up on her knees and tore the Velcro straps off 
the vest, baring his chest. She felt again for a pulse, 
still could not locate it. Her throat tightened in panic, 
but she ruthlessly suppressed the tears. 

She leaned over his immobile face, glowing beautifully in 
the partial moonlight, serenely at rest. She pushed his 
forehead back, pushed his chin up, bent over, and delivered 
one rescue breath, then another. With another pulse check 
unsuccessful, Scully started CPR. By this time the 
paramedics had arrived, and were hooking their defibrillator 
up.

"Okay, Doc," one of the paramedics said calmly, "stop CPR. 
We need to analyze this rhythm."

The glowing green line looked like an uneven set of stairs.

"V-Fib. Charging to 100 joules." The squeal of the 
defibrillator was loud and became shrill, and the second 
paramedic put his arm in front of her and pushed her 
forcibly backward.

"Everybody clear," he called to his colleague, and almost 
immediately she saw his back arch when the electrical jolt 
was delivered.

She held her breath. 

Still the wobbly signature of the lethal rhythm. Scully 
began CPR again, and the paramedics swarmed around her, 
providing oxygen, breathing for him, starting an IV, 
recharging the defibrillator.

"Stop CPR and stand clear. Charging to 150." The little 
machine squealed again, and Mulder's back arched once more.

"That was fast. Unbelievable," the first paramedic 
whispered. In the silence that followed, she heard the 
bleeping sound of a monitor, slow and strong. 

The human body, while extraordinary in its design and 
function, needs time to recover from a systemic shock. The 
paramedics were matter-of-fact about placing an oral airway 
and assisting Mulder's breathing until his own respiratory 
system resumed. In just a few minutes, his chest was once 
again rising and falling on its own.





CVCC Waiting Room
Hahnemann University Hospital
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Sunday, March 19, 2000
11:46 PM

"Thanks, Dr. Bower," Scully replied, and shook his hand. As 
the cardiologist walked away, she turned to regard her boss 
and Lieutenant Rice. "They're keeping him in the CVCCU 
overnight as a precaution, but they're not expecting any 
complications at all."

"I still don't understand what happened," Skinner commented.

"It's almost unbelievable," Scully said. "You've heard 
stories of young athletes who were hit in the chest, either 
by another player, or a ball, a bat - some form of blunt 
trauma?"

"They die almost immediately," Skinner said, nodding his 
head.

"Two causes have been implicated: undetected cardiac 
abnormalities, or cardiac concussion."

"Mulder's records would have mentioned any abnormalities, 
considering the number of times he's been hospitalized. What 
is a cardiac contusion?"

"Not cardiac contusion; that would imply actual muscle 
damage. Cardiac concussion. Commotio cordis. The theory is 
that even a light blow in the right location on the chest at 
the right time can make the heart stop. The mechanical force 
inward on the chest stimulates an electrolyte channel that's 
sensitive to pressure. If this happens at a vulnerable point 
in the cardiac cycle, the normal rhythm degrades instantly 
into a lethal rhythm called ventricular fibrillation. It's 
typically not survivable unless there's an AED or a 
defibrillator close by."

"I thought it only happened to teenaged athletes," LT Rice 
commented. "I coach Little League, and I know we've been 
told to be aware of AED locations during games. Sometimes 
there's even an ambulance crew parked on the sideline."

"Most of the time, those kids would have had an underlying 
cardiac abnormality. This situation is different. It's based 
solely on impact at the worst possible point in the cardiac 
cycle. Mulder was very, very lucky that there was an 
ambulance crew there."

"And you. You were right by his side, Scully. I watched you 
do CPR," Rice pointed out.

"I didn't get a rhythm back. CPR doesn't always do what it's 
supposed to do. It just kept him going until he was 
defibrillated. That's what saved him. He got lucky."

The three of them spoke for a few more minutes, until 
visiting hours officially began. Skinner headed downstairs 
to pediatrics to see Natalie Ware and her mother. Rice went 
out to his car, headed for bed.

Scully walked slowly to the big double doors that led to the 
CVCCU. She buzzed for admission, and walked down the short 
hallway to the curved desk of the nurses' station. "Can 
Agent Mulder have a visitor?" she asked the woman at the 
desk.

"Let me just check with Liz, his nurse."

A minute or so later, an older woman with short graying hair 
and a freckled nose came around the corner. "Are you Dana?" 
she asked with a smile on her face.

"Yes. How is he?"

"He's anxious to see you; he's been asking about you since 
he got here. We may have to ask you to leave if there's an 
emergency, but since he's doing so well, as long as you keep 
out of the way and don't agitate him, it's not a problem for 
me."

"Thanks so much," Scully said, and meant it. Getting a free 
pass from the nursing staff was not her usual experience, 
and she found herself appreciating the looser regulations.

Mulder was sitting up in bed when she came into his cubicle. 
He had a shapeless gray gown on, drooping sleeves held 
together with snaps. There was a tray of liquids on the 
little bed table in front of him, and he was sipping apple 
juice from a straw and eating yellow Jell-O. He was wired to 
the cardiac monitor. The TV was tuned to a local station, 
and he muted the sound from his bed rail when he saw her 
walk in.

"Scully." He swallowed, and his voice was hoarse. He reached 
out a hand for hers. "Have I ever told you how thankful I am 
that you're my partner?"

"I always like to hear it, Mulder." She came over to his 
bedside, pushed the tray out of the way, and sat down on the 
side of the bed, all the while holding tightly to his hand. 
"God, I was so scared, I was sure I was going to lose you 
again. How do you feel?"

"Well, my chest feels like someone drove an eighteen-wheeler 
over it, but from what the nurses are saying, I should have 
died out there. The doctor said my heart stopped?"

She gripped his hand tightly and raised it to her lips. 
"Mulder, you had a lot of things going your way tonight. You 
were several yards from the porch, you remembered to wear 
your vest, the scene was safe enough that the paramedics 
could get to you right away? Consider your survival a team 
effort."

"How's the child?" His eyes caressed her, his arms too weak 
from the medication, his energy level depleted from physical 
stress, dehydration, malnutrition and a lack of sleep.

"She's in shock, but aside from some bruising, she's not 
physically injured. He'd been feeding her, bathing her, 
dressing her in clean clothes." Scully wiggled a little on 
the mattress, trying to find a comfortable position.

"Was she able to talk about anything he did while they were 
in the cabin?"

"No one felt that tonight was the right time for a debrief. 
She's with her mom downstairs. However, she did say that he 
was talking to someone named Tracy, and it seemed like he 
was mad at whoever he thought it was. He kept telling her to 
go away, but she never saw anybody in the cabin other than 
Lang."

"Tracy was his sister. She disappeared abruptly one fall 
when Lang was around 11 years old. No sign of her ever 
turned up. Intentional or not, my guess is he killed her and 
hid her body, destroyed the evidence somehow. I think the 
auditory hallucinations are a manifestation of his guilt. 
She was around 6 when she disappeared; neighbors recalled 
her as being a hellion with a mean streak. Apparently, she 
was daddy's favorite, and took a lot of pleasure in making 
Lang's life difficult. They said she was pretty rough on the 
neighborhood pets. I bet he hated her?"

"I talked with Celia Oliver early this afternoon on the 
phone, before the raid," he told her after several silent 
minutes spent contemplating her serene profile. "She gave 
every impression of being calm and at peace."

"Good actress," Scully pronounced, her stare fierce. 

Mulder was obviously confused. "What do you mean, Scully?"

"If I lost you, it would be like losing my rudder. I might 
be able to maintain course for a few seconds, but I'd crash 
and burn pretty fast." She met his eyes, her color a little 
high, but her gaze steady. Her voice was rough with 
suppressed emotion. "I hope to God that I never, ever, have 
to feel what Celia Oliver is feeling right now." Her eyes 
grew dark and moist; she knew tears would fall if she 
blinked right then, so she ruthlessly suppressed the urge.

He regarded her gravely, disturbed by her confession. He 
shook his head slowly. "Our jobs aren't safe jobs, Scully. 
I've pissed a lot of powerful people off over the last 12 
years. You're a target simply by associating with me. 
Someday, one of us will die, probably in the line of duty." 
He wrapped the fingers of one hand around hers and squeezed 
as he spoke.

She persisted, anxious for him to understand her heart. 
"When I die, Mulder, I want to die in your arms. Not alone 
in bed, not on a stakeout, not in a hospital, and not with 
anyone else." 

Their eyes met in wordless accord, for a split-second 
eternity. Stunned, Mulder finally found his voice. "And I 
want to live my life with you, Scully. I think I always 
expected that we'd be together for the rest of our lives."

She wrapped her other hand around the one already cradling 
his, and leaned closer. "It's really very obvious, isn't it, 
Mulder? And it's a simpler decision than I expected it to 
be. I can't believe I made such a production out of it." Her 
words were causing the flyaway tendrils of his hair to fluff 
as she spoke, leaning even closer. Her lips were barely 
touching his as she whispered, "I think I'm finally ready. 
What about you, Mulder??"

He tugged at her with unexpected strength, and her impact 
with his sore and bruised chest caused him to grunt in 
surprised pain. He brushed the bangs from her beautiful sea-
blue eyes. His smile broadened, his eyes alight with 
tenderness. "Yes." He ran his finger down her nose. "Yes, 
Scully. I've been ready. I was beginning to think you'd 
never ask." He winked at her, and the flirtatious gleam in 
his eye made her smile. "Your mother is gonna be so 
relieved!"

"God, so am I," she groaned. "So am I." She snuggled close 
to him for a few moments, then sat halfway up as something 
occurred to her. "What do you mean, you thought I'd never 
ask?"




CHILD SERIAL KILLER CAPTURED ALIVE IN CHESTER COUNTY
by Christy Warren

AP WIRE: Marcus Lang was captured by police officers at 
Newlin Grist Mill Park, acting on a tip given to them by an 
FBI profiler working the case with a team of consultants led 
by Supervisory Special Agent Roger Greenbaugh.  Greenbaugh 
gave the following statement at a press conference the 
morning after Lang's arrest:

"No one wants to think like these people; no one wants to 
have the type of worldview they possess, a worldview in 
which children, innocent men and women, and defenseless 
animals are equal fodder for their amusement. Be aware that 
there are a group of men and women who have dedicated their 
lives and careers to trapping and incarcerating these 
violent humans, in the hope that you can live life free from 
the fear on which these monsters thrive."

Greenbaugh was joined in the manhunt by agents of the FBI 
working with CASMIRC in Quantico; among them were Special 
Agents Daniel Oliver (pictured),shot and killed by the 
suspect during the manhunt, and Special Agent Fox Mulder (no 
photo available), shot and wounded during the capture of 
Marcus Lang.

Lang has been remanded to the maximum security holding area 
at the State Correctional Institute in Graterford, 
Pennsylvania. Legal counsel has been appointed, and pretrial 
negotiations are already beginning with a trial date set for 
early November.






LANG FOUND DEAD IN CELL
by Trey Varnum

AP WIRE: Convicted serial killer Marcus Lang was found dead 
this morning on death row at the Graterford State 
Correctional Institute, in a corner of the cell to which 
he'd been assigned. Lang, 44, was tried and convicted last 
winter for the murders of 3 young children in Pennsylvania; 
Lang actually confessed to 22 murders in seven states; 
Arizona and Louisiana have been in the process of preparing 
extradition requests to charge Lang for 5 other murders. 
Lang also confessed to the murder of his younger sister, 
Tracy, in 1974, and the murder of FBI agent Daniel Oliver. 
Lang would have been only the fourth person executed by the 
State of Pennsylvania since its reinstatement of capital 
punishment in 1977; he was one of 217 men and 5 women 
currently on death row. The SCI warden, Jack Luger, declined 
to discuss the specific details of Lang's death and the 
discovery of his body. No information regarding possible 
inmate retaliation plots were forthcoming. 

The State of Pennsylvania has announced its plans to conduct 
an autopsy, to be supervised by the FBI pathologist whose 
later work on his murder case resulted in compelling 
forensic evidence tying him to 15 of the crime scenes. Lang 
has no surviving family, and had requested that his remains 
be given for scientific study to the Medical School 
affiliated with Johns Hopkins University.




Author's Notes:

Grateful thanks go to Lisa and Jessica for thoughtful and 
valuable beta.  

WebMD, the FBI web page, and Google Earth were all consulted 
during the writing of this little story.  If I moved 
Longwood Gardens, West Chester, and New Garden around a 
little, I hope any locals will forgive me.

And, Vickie Moseley, Mulder's trial-by-fire at the end was 
just for you! Many thanks for your encouragement and advice. 
See how I managed to shoehorn a profiler fic, Scully 
sickness, angst, Mulder torture, gunshots, hospital stays, 
and no loss-of-limb to our favorite male agent into one 
fanfic?  

This fic was in part a response to the 2007 IWTBXF Halloween 
Challenge

1. An old movie or appearance by a character in an old movie 
(Plan Nine) 
2. A trick (the Scully ditch) 
3. A treat (Scully in blue jeans. Does the MT for Vickie 
Moseley count?)  
4. Something that goes bump in the night (Scully's late 
night trips to the porcelain god) 
5. A girly scream (poor Markie gets whipped)