Title: Poison
Author: Ophelia
E-Mail: OpheliaMac@aol.com
Rating: R
Categories: X, R, A
Spoilers: Young at Heart, Ghost in the Machine
Keywords: Pre-XF, Mulder/other romance, Rape 
Summary: Working one of his first cases with the Behavioral Science Unit, Mulder 
profiles an enigmatic woman who seems to be poisoning all her relatives.  He 
risks his job and his relationship to discover the truth.

******************************************************
Yet Another Disclaimer:
I own nothing, I take credit for nothing, I know nothing, I smell . . . popcorn.  
Hey, gimme!  I am merely a small, wood-boring mite in the great forest of X-
Filedom, which was created by Chris Carter and is owned/operated by the Fox 
Network.  The rape scene in this story *is* central to the plot, is not overly 
graphic, does not take place between same-sex characters, and is criminal rather 
than erotic.  (Some of you are disappointed--you sick puppies, you!  : )  No, 
there is no romance/sex/UST between Mulder and the female serial killer.  That 
said, here goes.
******************************************************


"When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you."
               --Nietzsche

Milan, Michigan
13 October, 1989

     Fox Mulder got to spend his twenty-eighth birthday in a cinderblock room in 
the Milan Federal Prison.  Characteristically, he was thrilled.  He didn't show 
it, however, as he settled himself at the interrogation room's single metal 
table.  He shuffled his notes around in a way that he hoped looked professional 
and refused to glance over at the one-way, shatterproof mirror on the right hand 
wall.  
     His supervisor, ASAC Reggie Purdue of the Behavioral Science Unit, was 
behind the mirror, watching.  Two days ago, when 70-year-old Elizabeth Stanley 
turned up dead, Purdue had slapped Mulder on the back and said, "This one's 
yours, kid.  People are saying you're our serial killer guy, now."  That had 
made Mulder smile.  "The Serial Killer Guy" was hardly an ideal nickname, but it 
beat the hell out of Spooky, which is what they'd called him at the F.B.I. 
Academy.  
     Just then a hulking blond cop named Officer Moffat pushed through the 
interrogation room's door.  He held a small Styrofoam cup in one hand.  "Here ya 
go, no cream, no sugar, just like you asked.  Careful, though, it's hot."  He 
set the cup precariously close to Mulder's notes.  The black fluid inside was 
steaming and had a sick, oily sheen across the surface.  Mulder thought, "Mmm, 
scary squad room coffee, probably left to congeal since midnight," but lifted it 
to take a sip anyway.  It was nice of Moffat to go and fetch for him, especially 
since a lot of cops got a little territorial when the Feds got involved in their 
work.  
     "Thanks," he said, and gave Moffat a smile.
     The big cop leaned one hand against the table and said, "So, we got a lady 
serial killer now.  I'll be damned."  Moffat shook his head.  "I guess 
everything's gotta to be equal opportunity these days."  
     Mulder widened his smile but didn't let it go to his eyes.  Frankly, he 
wished Moffat would let him be alone.  It wasn't that interviewing a teenage 
punk of a crack dealer like Charles Sands was going to be that hard, it was just 
that he would rather have had a few minutes to collect his thoughts and focus 
himself.  He needed to ask the right questions.  There weren't going to be many 
other opportunities to interview people who knew the Bureau's suspect, Heather 
Rielly.  Most of the people who'd been close to her were dead.  
     "Ah, well, what can you do?" Moffat said with a wry grin.  "You can't live 
with 'em, you can't live without 'em."  
     "You mean women, or serial killers?" Mulder asked, taking another sip of 
his coffee.  Yes, he thought, this coffee was truly painful.  He made a mental 
note to grab some antacids before getting on the plane back to Virginia.  
     Moffat laughed, somewhat awkwardly.  "All right, you've got me there," he 
admitted, slapping himself on the back of his neck.  The laughter echoed 
strangely in the tiny, cinderblock room.  Soon Moffat fell silent.
     Mulder's girlfriend, Special Agent Hollisue Fenwick, would have prodded him 
to put Moffat at ease.  Newly out of the Academy herself, Holli's goal was to 
get assigned as a hostage negotiator with the Critical Incident Response Group.  
There were many people who wondered what a party-going, never-met-a-stranger-in-
her-life girl like Hollisue saw in Spooky Mulder.
     Mulder decided that he might as well make a stab at small talk with Moffat, 
if only in the interest of Bureau/police relations.  "What a way to go, eh?" he 
said, shuffling papers again.  "Rat poison in the tomato juice.  Not a nice 
thing to do to your grandmother."
     "No, oh God, no.  Takes a really sick mind," Moffat agreed.  After another 
moment of uncomfortable silence, he cleared his throat and asked, "So, tell me, 
what's this Rielly lady like?  Why is she killing off all her relatives?"
     Mulder turned his notes toward Moffat.  "Well, even she might not be able 
to tell you that.  She does seem to kill in cycles, though.  In the past, the 
trigger seems to have been her pregnancy.  The first four victims died when she 
was pregnant with her daughter, the next four died when she was pregnant with 
her son, and then this last one, two days ago.  All nine died by poisoning."
     "You think she's knocked up again?" Moffat asked.
     "Maybe.  Or there's some other stressor in her life that set her off.  
There seem to be plenty of contenders.  She's a relapsed drug addict, under 
investigation for credit card fraud.  It seems she was getting cash advances 
under false names to pay for her habit.  We think that she spent a lot of this 
past year in Detroit, probably drifting between the shelters and the crack 
houses.  Then earlier this week she turned up at her grandmother's house in 
Virginia, where the kids had been living.  A neighbor found the grandmother's 
body on the living room floor.  There was no sign of Rielly or her children."
     "You don't think she's gonna kill her own kids, do you?" Moffat asked, 
looking horrified.  
     "Just about all her other relatives are dead," Mulder said.  "They're the 
only ones left.  You have to admit, it doesn't look good."
     "God damn," said Moffat.
     Just then, a couple of guards stepped into view through the door's 
reinforced glass window.  Between them walked Charles Sands, a handsome black 
18-year-old who'd been sent up for possession of enough drugs to put him away 
permanently.  Much as he approved of the idea behind President Reagan's "War on 
Drugs," Mulder couldn't help but think that it was a waste to shut people away 
for life when they were barely old enough to vote.  He supposed Purdue would 
call him na<ve.  
     Mulder stood and shook Moffat's hand, smiling with genuine warmth this 
time.  Talking to the big cop had helped focus him, after all.  Holli was right, 
he really was going to have to get some people skills, he thought.  "Thanks 
again for the coffee," he said.  Moffat looked surprised and pleased.  He left 
as the guards and Sands entered.  Since Sands was not a violent offender, he had 
his hands cuffed in front of him rather than behind.  Mulder motioned for the 
guards to uncuff him.  "We'll be right outside, sir," one guard said, and they 
left.  
     Once the boy's hands were free Mulder held his own hand out in greeting.  
"Fox Mulder, Federal Bureau of Investigation," he said.  He was getting to the 
point where he could say that without feeling like an impostor.  
     Sands looked at Mulder's extended hand and then at his face, as if unable 
to decide what to do with this goofy Fed.  Finally, Sands grasped Mulder's hand 
in both of his own and shook hard.  "Charles Sands, Federal Department of 
Corrections," he said.  "You can call me Doc."
     "Because you're the doctor," Mulder said.
     "That's right," said Doc, seeming pleased that Mulder understood.  "People 
call me up, I fix 'em up right."  It wasn't much of a mental leap, but Mulder 
hoped that Purdue might be at least a little impressed.  "Stop thinking about 
it," he told himself.  "Pretend nobody's there." 
     Doc pulled up the room's other chair and kicked back in it.  Mulder sat 
down again and scooted his own chair in close to the table.  "Doc, I was 
wondering if you could tell me anything about this woman," he asked.  He pulled 
a photograph out of his briefcase, which sat open on the floor.  He pushed it 
across the table at him.  It was a photo of Heather Rielly, about a year old, 
the most recent anyone could find.  She was a petite woman, too thin, too sharp-
featured, to be pretty.  Unruly blond hair stood out in a cloud around her head 
and shoulders.  She was wearing an ugly brown dress that was too big for her, 
and which practically screamed "homeless shelter."  She would have looked like 
just another street wacko, except for her eyes, which were gray, haunted, and 
sane.  Inasmuch as anyone who offed their own grandmother can be sane, Mulder 
mentally amended.
     Doc's reaction to the photo was interesting.  He shifted in his chair, ran 
his tongue over his lower lip, as if nervous.  "Yeah," he said, pulling the 
photo closer with one finger.  "That's Ma."  Once he'd identified the woman, Doc 
flipped the photo over.  He pushed it back at Mulder with its face down against 
the table.  
     "Are you sure?" Mulder asked.  "You didn't look at it very closely."
     "Sure I'm sure.  Everybody knows Ma," Doc said.
     Mulder flipped the photo over again, interested in what Doc would do.  The 
boy looked down and away from it.  "Her legal name is Heather Ann Rielly," 
Mulder said.  "You ever heard her call herself that?"
     "No," Doc said.  "We mostly didn't use real names around the house."
     "The crack house you ran with your brother?" Mulder asked.
     "No, the goddamn White House," Doc said.  He was clearly agitated.  He was 
bouncing his leg up and down, and he still wouldn't look at the photo.  Mulder 
flipped it face down again.  Some of the tension in Doc's shoulders seemed to 
lessen, just perceptibly.  
     "Did she ever threaten you?  Did she ever scare anybody at the house?" 
Mulder asked.  That was code for, "Why are you afraid of her?" which would have 
certainly made Doc shut him out completely.  
     "No," Doc said.  "Ma was great.  She cleaned stuff, she cooked for us.  
That's why we called her Ma.  She just wanted her little fix, you know?  For a 
long time her money held out, and after it was gone we kind of advanced her, 
Chili and me.  She was good to us."
     "They're saying that she killed most of her family," Mulder said.  "She's 
disappeared with her two kids.  There's a pretty big manhunt out for her right 
now.  If you're really grateful to Ma, if you want to help her out, you can try 
to think of anywhere she might have gone.  Running like that just makes her look 
guilty.  If she comes in quietly, tells us her side of it, it'll spare her a lot 
of grief.  Maybe save her life.  I may as well tell you that the kids are 
considered kidnapping victims and the cops assume their lives are in danger.  
One of the Bureau's supervisors can send a critical incident team after her, 
which means snipers, helicopters, the works."
     Doc stared at his lap.  His knee was still bouncing furiously.  "I dunno, 
man.  I dunno where she went," he said, then lifted wide, dark eyes to meet 
Mulder's.  Mulder felt a twinge of compassion for this kid when he saw how young 
he was, and how scared.  "She's, uh, drivin' a brown car," Doc said, speaking 
almost unintelligibly low.  His gaze had dropped to his hands, which were 
fidgeting on the table.  "The kids are in back.  They're ok . . . she's, uh, 
drivin' someplace where there's leaves still on the trees.  South, I guess."
     "Can you tell me about that, Doc?" Mulder asked gently.  "Can you tell me 
how you know?"
     Doc averted his face violently.  One of his hands smacked the table top a 
few times.  "I dream about her, ok?  I just . . . I have these dreams," he said.
     Mulder nodded.  "Thanks, Doc.  You've helped out a lot," he said.  He 
decided that he might as well end the interview.  He'd gotten better information 
than he'd expected, and the kid seemed to be getting upset.  When he stood up 
the guards peered in the window and opened the door.  
     "Yeah, whatever . . ." Doc said, as the guards came to shackle him again.  
At the last moment, he bolted toward Mulder.  Both guards whipped their guns out 
and pointed them straight at Doc's back.
     "Don't move!" one of them shouted.
     Mulder held his hands up, and so did Doc.  There was a tense moment as the 
Federal Agent and the young drug dealer looked at one another.  There was 
something else Doc wanted to say, and Mulder hoped that the guards wouldn't 
charge in and prevent him.  "She's . . . she's gonna have a baby," Doc said.  
That was not what Mulder had expected him to say, but given Rielly's history, it 
wasn't surprising.  
     "How soon?" was all he asked.
     "Kinda soon, . . . like, two, three months?"  Doc said.  "She don't want 
it," he added.  The guards cuffed him and hustled him out.  

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *       *

     Reggie drove them back to the airport while Mulder drummed his fingers on 
his briefcase, thinking.  He had the case on his lap like a table, and he'd laid 
the photo of Heather Rielly on top of it.  He stared at the picture, not looking 
for anything in particular, just trying to connect somehow with this woman.  Who 
was she?  What did she want?  What was she likely to do next?
     "All right, Mulder, time's up.  Enough brooding.  Tell me, what do you 
think?" Purdue asked.  The ASAC was a fiftyish black man with a mustache and 
wire-rimmed glasses.  He had a reputation for keeping his agents on a pretty 
short tether, but most of them liked him, all the same.
     Mulder glanced over at him.  He hadn't spoken to Purdue since they'd left 
the prison, over thirty minutes ago.  It occurred to him that this was probably 
weird.  He could just hear Holli saying, "Purdue's the boss.  Act normal around 
him."
     "Well, Doc's afraid of Rielly," Mulder said.  "And he's afraid for her.  
It's occurred to me that the baby she's carrying might be his.  That may be 
pushing it, though.  He's been in, what, five or six months?  Heather would have 
had to have gotten pregnant just before they got him."
     "She's 'Heather' to you now?" Purdue asked, smiling over at Mulder.
     Mulder shrugged, feeling a little embarrassed.  "I'm trying to see her as 
she sees herself, to get inside her head," he explained.
     "Sure you are," Purdue said.  "I don't mean to pick on you.  Go with 
whatever works."
     Encouraged, Mulder continued.  "It makes sense to me that she'd head south.  
A lot of homeless people migrate with the cold weather.  There's an old Grateful 
Dead song about it: 'Goin' where the climate suits my clothes,'" he quoted.  
      "'Don't wanna be treated this-a-way,'" Purdue sang back.  "That song's not 
that old, Mulder," he said.
     "Sorry," Mulder said, "I didn't mean to imply that you were old.  Ah, hell.  
Holli calls this my talent for Winning Friends and Influencing People."
     "Forget about it Mulder, I am old.  Go on about Rielly," Purdue said.
     "Well, I was thinking," Mulder said, "the only other time I've heard of a 
woman who used poison in multiple murders was a case involving a nurse in a rest 
home.  She thought of herself as 'treating' or 'medicating' the victims, putting 
them out of their misery.  If something similar were motivating Rielly, it would 
help explain her caretaking behavior toward Doc and the others in the crack 
house."
     "Not bad," Purdue said, "but Rielly's relatives were healthy people.  How 
was she putting them out of their misery?"
     "She wasn't.  I don't think it was them she was trying to take care of.  I 
think for her it's about disinfection, removing some kind of contaminant from 
the world.  When you've got somebody that targets a specific group instead of a 
'type,' it's usually a person on a mission.  That's the difference between Jack 
the Ripper, who went after 'fallen' women, and your average serial rapist, who 
might prefer blondes or women with straight hair.  Rielly may see herself as 
some kind of Joan of Arc or Florence Nightingale.  Whatever she's trying to 
cleanse the world from, it's got something to do with pregnancy.  Since her 
first two victims were her mom and her sister, I'll guess that the problem is 
related to womanhood or female sexuality.  There may be sexual abuse or rape in 
her background.  I can't quite see all the connections yet, but I feel close.  
One way or another, I'll figure 
     "That's the way to think about it," Purdue said.  "You've got good 
instincts, Mulder.  That article of yours, On Cults and Serial Killers, turned a 
lot of heads.  You need a little more confidence, knock off a few of the rough 
edges, and you're there."
     Mulder nodded somberly.  He knew that Purdue's comment about confidence was 
a reference to Mulder's first case, the apprehension of John Earvin Barnett, a 
murderer and bank robber. Mulder's hesitation to shoot Barnett had gotten a 
hostage and a Federal Agent killed.  "Reggie, it wasn't a lack of confidence 
that made me screw up with Barnett.  At the time I figured I was doing what they 
taught us in the Academy," he said.  Agents were not supposed to fire at a 
suspect if there was any chance of hitting a hostage.
     "Yeah, well, you found out that the world isn't the Academy," Purdue 
answered.  "It happened, it's over, you learned something.  Forgive yourself, 
but don't forget it."
     "I couldn't if I tried," Mulder said quietly.
     "You need to learn to trust yourself, Mulder.  If something in you says 
that you've got to take that shot, then take it.  Not that I'm telling you to be 
some kind of maverick freak, shooting from the hip all the time," Purdue said.
     "Are you telling me to use the Force?" Mulder asked, smiling at him a 
little.
     "Mulder, you are the most snot-nosed little hotshot Quantico ever sent me," 
Purdue said, but he sounded more amused than angry.  He hadn't liked Mulder much 
at first, and the Barnett situation hadn't pleased him at all.  But Mulder had 
found himself warming to the older agent, appreciating his practical advice and 
his quick, if sometimes tart, wit.  Eventually Purdue had begun treating him in 
a friendly manner as well, either because he had gotten used to Mulder or 
because Mulder's obvious admiration for him had softened him up.  Either way, 
Purdue's friendship was something Mulder valued.  He considered this new case 
more than a way to amend a rather bad start.  Purdue was testing him, and he 
didn't want to let him down.
     "They really talked you up at the Academy," Purdue said.  "They said you 
were supposed to be the new Sherlock Holmes or something.  I figured they were 
all just losing their minds."  Mulder had to laugh a little.  "But I can tell 
you're smart," Purdue continued.  "And everybody knows that you think you're 
smart.  You've just got to apply that smartness to the real world.  This Rielly 
case is your first big chance to prove yourself.  Happy birthday, kid," he said.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *      *     

     Mulder slept a little on the plane.  He dreamed of Heather Rielly, a shabby 
figure in a brown dress, shambling ahead of him up the filthy streets of 
Detroit.  He called out for her to stop, chased and caught up with her.  He 
grabbed her bony shoulder and turned her around.  She looked up at him without 
fear or surprise, only that eerie, haunted look in her eyes.  She spoke, and her 
voice was rough, as though she were a longtime smoker.
     "Stay away from me," she said.  "I'm poison."

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *       *

     Back at the Behavioral Science Unit headquarters, Mulder headed for his 
office.  It was early in the afternoon, and he figured he could get a few more 
useful hours out of the day.  When he turned the corner in his floor's hallway 
he noticed that someone had stuck a piece of paper on his door.  This was rarely 
a good sign.
     Drawing closer, he could see that it was a photocopied picture of E.T. with 
a telephone receiver drawn in his hand.  The caption read, "E.T. phone F.B.I."
     Mulder pulled the paper off and crumpled it up.  "Very funny, Jerry," he 
muttered.  On the whole, he liked his partner, Jerry Lamada, but the guy did 
have a ruthless competitive streak.  He had acted happy for Mulder when he'd 
heard that Mulder had been taken off their regular assignment for a while to 
work on the Rielly case, and to some extent Jerry probably was.  But Mulder 
could tell that it bothered him, too.  The two men often stuck up strange signs 
or played minor practical jokes on one another, but when Jerry got upset, his 
jokes could turn rather mean-spirited.  The stupid thing was, Mulder really did 
feel a little guilty for Jerry's feeling left out.
     Calling himself an over-sensitive idiot, he pushed the door open and turned 
to pitch the paper wad toward the wastebasket.  Then he discovered Hollisue 
sitting on his desk.  Completely nude.  The paper didn't even make it close to 
the trash.  Holli had a small red gift bow stuck to the side of her head, almost 
like a flower in her shoulder-length, straight blond hair.  She was eating his 
sunflower seeds, but he hardly cared.  
     Mulder closed the door and leaned against it.  "Wow," was all he could say.
     "Happy birthday, baby," she drawled, in the husky, Georgia-peach voice that 
always made him nuts.  She unfolded herself languidly and stood.  She was 5' 
10"-plus on bare feet, and Mulder's own height when she wore heels.  She padded 
over and kissed him softly on the lips.  Then she turned to sweep the sunflower 
seed shells off his desk.  Unlike himself, she'd made a neat pile of them on one 
corner, so they were easily cleaned up.
     "Wow," Mulder said again, visually drinking her in.  "Nothing looks great 
on you, Holli, you should wear it more often," he said.
     "Think they'd amend the Bureau dress code for me?" she asked, as she turned 
to sprinkle the shells in the trash.  He contemplated the angle her ribcage made 
over her gently curving hips.  "I would," he said.  Then he remembered his 
partner.  "Uh, what about Jerry?" he asked.
     "At the State Attorney General's office, begging for a go-ahead on a 
wiretap for your bus-bombing guy.  Won't be back all afternoon," Holli said.
     "No chaperone, then?  Oh my, what will people say, Miss Hollisue?" he 
asked, giving her his best impression of her own Southern accent.  As he walked 
toward her, his smile was half-playful, half wicked.
     "Baby, if I cared what people said about me, I'd still be in Georgia, with 
a high-school education and a truckload of kids.  Thank God, I went wrong 
somewhere.  By the way, I cleared off your desk," she pointed out, smiling 
suggestively.  "I just kept all the heaps together, so you shouldn't lose 
anything.  They're over there, by the wall."
     He looked at her, than looked at the desk.  He picked up a stack of files 
and set it back on a corner.  "What are you doing?" she asked, then her blue 
eyes widened in horror.  "You're not actually going to work, are you?"
     "Nah," he said, as he hit the "Do Not Disturb" button on his phone.  He 
gave her an evil grin and said, "I'd just rather use Jerry's desk."

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *       *

     Later that night, Mulder sat in a chair at home, thinking, while Holli's 
dog Boing did his best to eat his notes off is lap.  "Three words, Boing," 
Mulder said, shaking a 3 x 5 card at him.  "Death by papercuts."
     Boing just sat there with his head cocked to one side and his tongue 
hanging out.  He looked idiotically happy just to have someone to drool at.  
Boing was a German Shepherd who'd flunked out of police dog school.  The cop 
who'd given him to Holli had said, "It's like he has the dog version of 
Attention Deficit Disorder.  He can't sit still for three seconds to listen to 
you."  Mulder agreed that Boing would have made the worst attack dog in the 
history of the world.  For one thing, he loved strangers.  He even loved the 
mailman.  The first time he'd seen Mulder he'd acted as if he was his long-lost 
buddy, left for dead in the streets of Paris forty years before.  Boing had 
acted like that every subsequent time Mulder walked in the door, too.
     The dog made a second rush at him, planting his paws on Mulder's knees and 
giving him a good slurp on the face.  "Cut it out, Boing!" Mulder said, trying 
to dodge away from him.  "Aargh, Jesus, he just licked my teeth.  Now I've 
probably got the Andromeda strain or something."
     Holli sauntered into the living room, holding a glass of white wine in her 
hand.  "Are you abusing our baby, Spook?" she asked.  
     Mulder looked at the glass and then at Holli's face.  Her drinking was one 
of the things that made him worry about her.  Holli had often cheerfully 
admitted that her father was an unrepentant lush.  Sometimes she'd casually 
mention that she and her underage siblings used to end up driving Dad home from 
the bar, after he was too drunk to drive.  A lot of the stories she'd told him 
about her childhood made Mulder want to dig his fingers into the armrests of his 
chair, feeling desperate to strangle her relatives.  For that matter, Mulder 
didn't like how much his own dad drank since his parents' divorce.  Holli always 
reminded him of that when he tried to discuss her drinking with her.  She'd just 
breezily give him a psychoanalysis of himself and say that the problem was his, 
not hers.
     Tonight, Mulder kept his mouth shut about it.  The day had been too nice to 
spoil.  "Boing is not my baby," was all he said.
     "Is too," she protested.  "See how much he loves you?"  Boing was trying to 
gnaw off Mulder's hand and climb into his lap at the same time.
     "Boing would've loved Hitler," Mulder pointed out.
     "Well, why not?  Hitler loved dogs, you know," she said, taking another sip 
of her wine.
     "So you have something in common with the greatest maniac of the twentieth 
century.  How sexy."  Mulder shooed Boing away and pulled Holli onto his lap 
instead.  She curled against him like a cat, draping one arm around his 
shoulders.  He could smell the sweet wine scent on her breath.  He rested his 
cheek against the cool smoothness of her hair.  Boing tried gnawing on one of 
Mulder's toes.  A moment of domestic bliss.  Sort of.
     There were times when it terrified Mulder to think that he was living with 
a woman who owned a salad shooter and who actually used the temperature control 
dial on the washing machine.  There were times when it terrified him to think 
that he was living with a woman, period.  His own life had been short on 
domestic bliss.  He found himself mistrusting his luck, thinking that this 
wasn't the sort of thing that happened to him.  Something was bound to go wrong.  
"Shut up, Mulder," he thought.  "Just shut up and enjoy it.  This is more than 
some people ever get."
     After a few minutes he leaned back to look at her.  She was a very pretty 
girl, and he'd always found something child-sweet about her Alice-in-Wonderland 
hair.  He brushed it lightly with his fingertips now.  He couldn't help 
thinking, "What is she doing with a freak like me?"
     "What you thinking about, Spook?" Holli asked.
     "You," he said.
     "Well, that's a safe answer," she said, but she sounded pleased.  "What 
about me?"
     "I don't know . . . you perplex me," he said.
     "I perplex you?  How romantic," she said, arching an eyebrow at him.
     "No, it's a good thing, or at least in your case it is," he said.  She 
seemed to be waiting for further explanation, so he went on.  "Women in general, 
they're just . . . kind of fascinating.  I mean, I know most of the 
psychological differences between the sexes are pretty minor when you look at 
them statistically, but there's just enough difference there to be . . . 
perplexing.  In a good way," he added.  "I've been thinking about that a lot 
since Purdue handed me the Heather Rielly case.  It's got a very different feel 
to it than the others I've worked on.  You don't get all that many women 
suspects coming through Violent Crimes."
     "How is it different?" Holli asked.
     "Well, the classic serial killing is a stranger crime.  The murderer picks 
victims that conform to a type, people who represent something.  They're more 
symbols to him than human beings.  Killing a family member ought to be the 
antithesis of a serial murder.  This case is also missing the exhibitionism, the 
gore, that I'm used to.  Once a killer's up to nine victims, he tends to get 
elaborate about his kills.  It becomes performance art, a way of sending a 
message to the cops or the press.  Not with Rielly.  It's all internal, whatever 
it is she's acting out, which is probably why she's been so hard to catch.  
Well, that, and she's been very careful, too.  The evidence against her has 
never been more than circumstantial.  We couldn't get a murder conviction today, 
even after nine years of digging.  I think that's why Purdue called me in on 
this one.  He's hoping I can pull some
     "You serial killer stud, you," Holli said.
     On impulse, Mulder reached into his briefcase on the floor and pulled out 
Rielly's photo.  To his annoyance, he discovered it was wet with dog slobber.  
He wiped the picture off on the plaid flannel button-down he was wearing before 
handing it to Holli.  "Here, this is her," he said.  "Tell me what you see."  He 
knew that Holli was no slouch at profiling work herself.
     She took it between two fingers and looked intently at it.  "She's been 
beaten up," she said.
     "You see bruises?" he asked.  He hadn't seen any.  The brown dress covered 
all but Rielly's face and hands, and those looked undamaged.  
     "No, she just has that look, that beaten-up look.  My mom's sisters all 
have it, some of my cousins, too."  She took another sip of her wine while 
Mulder lightly caressed her back with his thumb.  After a moment, Holli 
continued, "Women who've been kicked around have a hunkered-down, shriveled up 
look to them.  They stand like that -- all stiff with their arms and hands held 
in."  She handed the photo back.  "Maybe her family deserved to be offed."
     "If she hated her grandmother so much, why did she give her custody of her 
kids?" Mulder asked.
     "I dunno," Holli said.  "I just told you what I saw."  She shrugged.  He 
saw her looking oddly at the photo in his hand.  Suddenly, she reached out and 
took it, then tucked it in his shirt pocket, back facing out.
     "Everybody seems to have that reaction," he said.
     She stood up and took his hand, pulling him to his feet.  "Come on, let's 
go upstairs," she said.
     He gave her his wide-eyed, Boy Scout look.  "Serial killers turn you on, 
too?" he asked.  She didn't look turned on.  She looked uneasy, as if she wanted 
an excuse to think about something else.  "Ok, Holli," he said, bending down to 
scoop up his notes so Boing wouldn't eat them.  "Just think about this for me, 
ok?  Why would a woman who killed nine of her relatives carry to term a fetus 
she didn't want?  Abortion's legal and everything.  It's weird."
     "Some of the biggest Right-to-Life fanatics are also NRA and death penalty 
fanatics," Holli pointed out with a shrug.
     "Yeah . . . it's not quite the same as poisoning your grandmother, though," 
he said.  He stashed his notes and shut and latched his briefcase.  "I give up 
for tonight.  Maybe I'll have a brilliant realization in my sleep."

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *       *

     Late in the night, he dreamed.  The dream was of being lost as a child, in 
the dark by a busy roadway that he didn't recognize.  He sensed the smaller 
dimensions of his body, how the world loomed, how he'd be unable to fight his 
way out of a bad situation.  He stood at about the height he had as a twelve-
year-old.
     He moaned softly in his sleep and stirred.  He'd been twelve when his 
sister was abducted, and he didn't want another dream about that.  It was only 
when he realized that his dream self was carrying a set of car keys that it 
occurred to him he was seeing though someone else's eyes.  Twelve-year-olds did 
not drive.  The key ring had a pink rabbit's foot on it.  A woman, then, a small 
woman, he thought.  He let the dream take him where it would.  Behind him on the 
freeway's shoulder sat a battered old white Dodge, its hazards flashing.  To his 
right lay a ditch full of frozen mud and dead cattails, then a wire fence and 
woods.  Ahead was a sign on an overpass that read: Exit: Highway 81, 3/4 Mile.  
He trudged toward it.  The thin wind was cruelly cold.  He tugged at the lapels 
of the black coat he wore more snugly over his chest.  It felt bizarre to have 
breasts.  Small, but defi
     He felt the woman's fear, as well as her desire to get someplace.  Work, he 
thought.  So it must be very early on a winter morning.  A blue Chevy pulled 
over onto the shoulder.  A guy got out, maybe 5' 10", stocky, nondescript face, 
thirtyish.  Fox Mulder would have been glad to have a ride in such a situation, 
but then, he could have taken this guy out if he'd had to.  His dream self 
seemed very small and vulnerable.  Torn between fear and a desire for rescue, 
the woman decided to trust and hurried toward the man.  
     When she got close, the man pulled a gun on her.
     Confusion, then -- being carried, pushed, dragged through the frozen swamp 
and into the trees.  Tears, begging to be set free.  Getting slammed, hard, 
across the face with the butt of the gun.  Flashes of light at the edges of his 
vision and explosive pain.  The sudden desire to be sick.  He got hit again, 
kicked backward, and then the man was on him.
     Musty smelling clothes -- smell of cold dirt, being rolled on his belly.  
Stripped.  "Ok, this can stop now," he thought, "Dream, I've seen enough," but 
the scene went on relentlessly, like the ghostly image of an old murder that was 
fated to replay itself on every anniversary.
     The man forced penetration.  Mulder heard a woman screaming, then the man 
slammed a hand over his dream self's mouth and the sound stopped.  He had never 
felt such agony, such terror and shame in his life.  
     He got to watch until the little woman was left curled naked in the snow, 
sobbing in a pool of her own blood.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *       *

     He sat up, shaking, heart hammering with a primal terror.  His whole body 
was soaked with sweat, he could feel its dampness on the sheets around him.
     "Spook?" he heard Holli say.  She stirred and looked up at him, her fair 
hair angel-white in the moonlight.  He tried to tell her that it was just 
another nightmare, but couldn't.  He realized he was weeping.
     "Jesus, Spook, what did you do to yourself?" Holli asked, and snapped on 
the bedside light.  There was blood on his hands.  It was all around him on the 
bed.  That had been the dampness, not sweat.  It had gotten splattered on the 
wall, as if someone had taken a horrendous beating that had broken veins.  
Someone had, he thought, it just hadn't been him.
     Holli was the critical incident expert first -- or else the alcoholic's 
daughter -- and got him into the bathroom to examine him for injuries.  There 
weren't any.  When he splashed water on the blood it washed clean away.  It made 
a hell of a mess, though, he had it all over him.  
     Boing crouched in the corner of the doorway and growled.  Mulder looked at 
him in amazement.  It was the first hostile response he'd ever seen that dog 
make.  He realized that Boing, who would have loved Hitler, who even loved the 
mailman, was suddenly afraid of him.  He looked at Holli and saw that she was 
scared, too.  She brushed tears from her eyes with the tips of her long fingers.  
Mulder put his arms around her and hugged her tight.  He wanted to tell her that 
it was all right, but it clearly wasn't.  They comforted one another as well as 
they could.  "Well, let's just stand here and have a good snivel, then," Mulder 
thought.  "It'll end my birthday right.  A fitting way to start the countdown to 
thirty."
     Once he was able to talk to her, he said, "Holli, you were right.  Heather 
did get kicked around.  She got worse than that, too.  She got raped."

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *       *

     The next morning he was sitting in the waiting room of Dr. Heintz Werber's 
office, fidgeting and flipping through old copies of Field and Stream.  For some 
reason, that was the only magazine that the good doctor seemed to possess, 
besides Highlights.  He tried two or three different chairs, but the magazines 
seemed just as stupid in all of them.
     At last the waiting room door opened and Werber ushered out an impeccably 
coifed woman with tight-pressed lips.  Mulder pegged her as an angry divorc,e, 
probably wanting to serve her ex's balls to him on a platter.  Mulder knew 
enough about the etiquette of therapists' waiting rooms to avoid her gaze.
     As the woman left Mulder stood up and shook Werber's hand.  Werber was not 
nearly as German as his name suggested.  He looked like the kind of east-coast 
English professor who would smoke a joint or two with his students.  He had a 
well-trimmed beard, wore a corduroy jacket with leather patches on the elbows, 
and creased jeans.  He was the psychologist who'd conducted Mulder's original 
regression hypnosis sessions four months ago, when he was searching for answers 
about the abduction of his sister.  
     "Thanks for being willing to see me on such short notice," Mulder said. 
He'd called the Bureau office and told them he'd be in late.  He'd left his suit 
jacket and tie in the car.  He needed to be relaxed in order to do this.
     "Well, I had a cancellation this morning, so it was no problem.  Listen, 
Mulder," One of the things Mulder liked about Werber was his willingness to call 
him just plain Mulder.  Not Fox, not Mr. Mulder, or any number of other things 
that made him wince.  "The message you left with my answering service was pretty 
. . . peculiar.  I understand you want to undergo regression hypnosis again, to 
recover someone else's repressed memories?"  Werber's bright blue eyes looked at 
him intently, his expression somewhere between curiosity and concern.
     "Yes.  Well, no . . . not exactly.  Listen, could we talk about this 
inside?" he asked.
     Once he was settled in Werber's office and the door was closed, he 
explained about the dream and the hunt for Heather Rielly.  Werber sat to 
Mulder's right and slightly behind him, just out of his field of vision.  He 
knew that some people would have found that disturbing, but Mulder felt that it 
helped free his mind from distractions.  On the table in front of him was one of 
Werber's odd little trip toys -- a Plexiglas rectangle filled with two fluids 
that didn't mix, one clear and one blue.  A small motor in the base rocked it 
back and forth, creating wavelike patterns.
     "I'm not really interested in recovering Heather's memories as much as I am 
in discovering where she is now, what she's doing.  I seem to have . . . this 
connection with her, and I want to use it to find her.  Maybe I can help her 
before some cop puts a bullet in her," he said.
     "You're worried about her," Werber said.  "Are you beginning to think that 
she's not guilty of these murders?"  His tone had a soothing, blank quality, 
which did not provoke emotion, but permitted it.
     "I don't know . . . I'm getting the feeling that I'm missing something.  
Something about this case just doesn't feel right.  But in a way, it doesn't 
matter if she's guilty or not.  I've been given the chance to do something 
besides just chasing my tail, following leads that go nowhere, like people have 
been doing for the last nine years.  I don't want to waste it," Mulder said.
     "It doesn't bother you having an alleged multiple murderer in your head?" 
Werber asked, still in that colorless voice.
     "Not at all.  No, that's not true, it bothered me a lot early this morning.  
That was . . . pretty unpleasant," Mulder said.  "But it doesn't bother me 
nearly as much as you'd think.  This is what law enforcement has wanted ever 
since murder was invented -- an opportunity to study a killer's mind from the 
inside.  It's kind of exhilarating, really."
     "What is this doing to your own personal demons?" Werber asked.
     "I dunno . . . I haven't been paying too much attention to them," Mulder 
was silent a moment, gazing at the little captive waves in the plastic box.  "I 
think they kind of like the company," he said at last.
     Dr. Werber began the hypnosis, then, telling Mulder to count backward from 
100.  Mulder did so, holding the creased photograph of Heather Rielly in his 
lap, to focus him.  The hypnotic state felt almost like sleep, almost like the 
hazy memories of infancy.  When Mulder was through counting the only sounds in 
the room were his breathing and the soft drone of the trip toy's motor.  
     "Are you feeling it?  The connection you talked about?" Werber asked.
     Mulder stared fixedly at the photo until its images made no sense -- it was 
merely a pattern of color and shape.  It seemed as if he was staring through it.  
"Yeah," he said quietly.  "I think . . . I think she's driving."
     "Where?"
     "Nowhere.  Just around and around . . . must be down south.  There's 
Spanish moss on the trees . . . all the cars have Florida license plates," 
Mulder said.
     "Where are the children?" Werber asked.
     "In the back seat, sleeping.  There's fast food wrappers all around them.  
She doesn't know what to do about them . . . she's afraid.  I hear sirens -- I 
pull the wheel to the right," Mulder hadn't noticed that he'd changed from the 
third person to the first.  "The car jerks and the kids start to cry.  I yell at 
them, 'Get down!  Get down!'  We can't let the cops take us.  Then, too many 
more would die.  When the sirens rush past I see it's just a fire engine.  
     "I need this to stop, I need to end it, now.  But I'm too much of a coward 
. . . I don't want to die.  I don't want . . . to kill my babies.  It's not 
their fault what they are.  They're crying, they're scared . . . Sarah's 
beginning to understand what's going on but I don't think Mikey does, not yet.  
This third one inside me, it's not its fault either, but I can't bring another 
one of us into the world.  We all need to die, we need to wipe this off the face 
of the earth . . . but oh, God, I don't want to . . ."
     "Heather," Werber said, "Heather, where are you?"
     "Stay out of my head," Heather replied.  "You don't want to find me.  I'm 
poison.  Stay back . . ."
     "I want to help you.  I want to help your children, but I need to know 
where you are," Werber continued, his voice a gentle monotone.
     "There's no help for me.  I'm in Hell, if you want to know where I'm at.  
But you don't have to come, too.  Stay back . . ."
     "Heather, I'd like you to remain where you are.  There's a person, a man 
called Agent Mulder, who I think can help you," Werber said.
     "Get out of my head!  All of you, get out of my head!"
     The hypnotic trance broke so violently it was as if Mulder's body had been 
plunged into ice water.  He was sitting in the chair, back rigid, hands gripping 
the armrests.  Sweat prickled beneath his collar.  "Oh, my God," he said softly.
     "Take a few deep breaths.  Reorient yourself," Werber said.  Mulder did so.
     He bent forward then, resting his elbows on his knees and pressing his 
hands to his face.  "Jesus," he said.  His whole body was shaking.  For a few 
moments, he fought back sobs.
     "Tell me what you're experiencing now," Werber said.
     "She's . . . she's in so much pain, it just kind of rips through you," 
Mulder said.  "Christ, she hates herself.  She's no sociopath.  She feels 
incredibly guilty for the deaths of those people.  But you know, I don't think 
she did it.  Not on purpose."  Suddenly he realized how Heather Rielly's 
relatives must've died.  "Oh, Jesus," he said again.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *      *

     Back at Quantico, Mulder had Purdue pulled out of a meeting.  He could see 
several other agents in the room, glaring at him through the doorway.  Once in 
the hall, Purdue fixed him with a warning look.  "So what's this about, Mulder?" 
he asked.
     Mulder thought, "I should probably go out and have my ass fitted for a 
sling, just in case I'm wrong."  To Purdue, he said, "I don't think we're going 
to be able to bring Rielly up on murder charges, after all.  I think her 
relatives' deaths really were suicides."
     Purdue blinked at him in surprise.  "On what do you base that conclusion?" 
he asked.  He did not sound pleased.
     "I stand by a lot of what I said earlier, about her pregnancy triggering 
feelings of contamination.  Where I was wrong was in saying that she was out to 
exterminate this contamination in others.  Actually, they pick these feelings up 
from her, accidentally, like people getting cellular phone transmissions over 
their radios." Mulder said.
     Purdue looked utterly bewildered.  "What are you getting at, Mulder?" he 
asked.
     "One of the things that confused me about this case was the order and 
choice of the victims.  She started with her mother.  Why?  There's no 
indication that they had a bad relationship.  They weren't arguing.  The reason 
is that the mother/child bond is the strongest most people will ever experience.  
When something broke down in Heather's mind, whatever it is that keeps thoughts 
and feelings private, it was her mother that was affected first.  She killed 
herself because of Heather's despair over being raped, probably in about in 
1979, before the birth of her daughter.  Heather's mom may have even thought she 
was Heather while she was putting poison in her own tea," Mulder said.
     "Are you out of your mind?" Purdue asked.  "Mulder, have you been taking 
drugs?"
     "No, I haven't been taking drugs.  You know me, Reggie, I would never be as 
irresponsible as that.  I don't pull crap out of thin air, either.  Just do me a 
favor and hear me out," Mulder said.
     Purdue just looked at him a moment, and then said,"I'm listening." 
     "I think we could be dealing with a virus.  A sexually transmitted disease 
that Heather picked up from the rapist.  That would explain why she never 
manifested these symptoms before the first death in 1980 and why her kids seem 
unaffected by this . . . telepathic depression.  The virus would likely be 
passed from mother to child at birth.  Like herpes, this disease goes dormant 
for periods of time.  It only gets activated during the terms of Heather's 
pregnancies, which could be a response to psychological stress, or some 
physical, hormonal change, or both." Mulder said.
     "If that's true, then why aren't half the sexually active people on earth 
killing off all their relatives?" Purdue asked.
     "Because it doesn't necessarily have to kill people.  Heather's case is 
unusual in that she got the disease through a traumatic experience.  If she'd 
gotten it from her husband, she might have projected positive emotions onto 
others, or else the symptoms might never have emerged at all.  The virus may 
actually be fairly common.  There are plenty of people who psychically know when 
a relative or a spouse is responding to extreme stress: wives who knew when 
their husbands were killed in war, children who knew when their elderly mothers 
had a stroke.  It could simply be the activation of viral symptoms caused by the 
transfer of bodily fluids." Mulder said.
     "Well," Purdue said, "I guess I did ask for different."
     "Think about it, Reggie.  The evidence against her is purely 
circumstantial, and there are a number of things about Rielly that don't fit the 
standard profile of a serial killer.  For one thing, there's been no escalation 
of violence over a period of nine years.  She has no proven history of violent 
behavior.  Almost nobody goes straight from being an unremarkable citizen to 
being a multiple murderer.  And finally, the deaths seem so senseless.  Heather 
had nothing to gain from these people dying.  That's not the MO of your typical 
homeless crackhead.  An addict will kill on impulse, usually to get money to 
feed their habit," Mulder said.
     "So you think we should scrap the whole case?  Drop the charges and let her 
go?" Purdue asked.
     "Absolutely not.  Just because she didn't kill those people doesn't mean 
that she's not dangerous.  She's planning a murder/suicide for her and the kids.  
She thinks they're all evil because of this . . . psychic illness they have.  
She's trying to wipe out the contagion, to save others' lives by taking her own.  
I was right about the Joan of Arc, martyr thing," Mulder said.
     Purdue shook his head and said, "I take back what I said about you lacking 
confidence, Mulder.  I'm not sure I would have the balls to stand in front of my 
superior and say what you just did."
     "I wouldn't have said it if I didn't think it was true," Mulder said 
quietly.  He held Purdue's gaze without wavering, but he thought, "Where's the 
Alaska field office again?  He's probably going to transfer me to Anchorage and 
make me investigate violations of the Automobile Information Disclosure Act."
     "All right, ok," Purdue said at last.  "What are your recommendations?"
     Mulder hadn't realized that he'd been holding his breath.  He hoped Purdue 
hadn't noticed it, either.  "First of all, check with the DMV to see if there's 
a brown, American-made, mid 70's model car registered to any of Heather's 
relatives."
     Purdue shook his head.  "We tried that, acting on the tip from Sands.  
There was nothing reported stolen or missing within two counties of where Rielly 
was last seen."
     "What about her dead relatives?  Anything registered to them?  What about 
her husband?" Mulder asked.
     "He hasn't been doing a lot of driving over the last six years," Purdue 
pointed out.
     "If he'd died intestate, who his car would have gone to?  If Heather was 
newly widowed and completely strung out, she wouldn't have bothered to change 
the name on the title," Mulder said.  "I'll bet you anything that if you ask 
Elizabeth Stanley's neighbors, they'll tell you that Heather stored a brown, 
mid-70's model car in her grandmother's garage."
     Purdue nodded, an expression of realization breaking over his face.  "And 
no one would have reported it missing," he said.
     "Check with the Florida Highway Patrol to see if they've pulled over a 
woman driving a car with Virginia plates and seriously expired tags," Mulder 
said.
     "All right," Purdue said, "Anything else?"
     "Yeah.  Tell the Critical Incident Response Team to be extremely careful in 
any physical encounter with Rielly.  We're probably dealing with a blood-borne 
pathogen.  And put the Centers for Disease Control on alert in Atlanta.  They're 
going to want a real good look at Heather Rielly and her kids," Mulder said.
     Purdue was quiet for a distressingly long time.  "I hear spring is nice in 
Alaska," Mulder thought.
     "You call the DMV and the Centers for Disease Control.  I'll put CIRT on 
standby.  They'll be ready to go on your word," Purdue said.
     "Yes, sir," Mulder said.  Then he added, "Thank you, sir."
     "Don't thank me, Mulder," Purdue said.  "Just be right about this.  That'll 
be thanks enough."

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *       *

     When Mulder opened the door to his office he discovered that his desk had 
been wrapped with "Crime Scene" tape.  Jerry turned from his own desk and 
grinned at him mischievously.  He frequently referred to Mulder's desk by such 
terms as "Mount Messmore" or "the Great White Heap."  Jerry was a guy about 
Mulder's own height, but a little stockier, with a rounded face and blond hair.  
He'd been out of the Academy for a couple of years, and at times he tried to 
big-brother Mulder.  That meant torment as well as advice.
     "Hey, you wrapped up the wrong desk," was all Mulder said.  He tugged off 
the tape and scrunched it into a wad, then stuck it in the trash.
      "That's it?" Jerry said, sounding disappointed.  "I put all that effort 
into taping up your desk, and that's the best you can do?"
     "Sorry.  I'll write you an IOU for a clever one-liner.  I've had a lousy 
morning," Mulder said.
     "Yeah, it's after eleven.  I was wondering where you were at.  What 
happened, car wouldn't start?" Jerry asked.
     "Actually, I was temporarily possessed by the mind of a distraught 
fugitive.  I've got to call the Department of Motor Vehicles and the Centers for 
Disease Control about it," Mulder said.  He sat down at his desk and picked up 
the phone.  Sometimes, it was easier to confuse people than to explain.
     When he set the receiver down again Jerry was looking at him as if he 
didn't know whether to laugh or to call an ambulance.  "You're shitting me," he 
said.  "This is to get me back for taping up your desk, right?  You want me to 
go around the Bureau telling people that my partner's discovered sexually 
transmitted telepathy so they'll think I'm going nuts.  That's pretty good--you 
had me going for a minute," Jerry started to chuckle, but his expression turned 
worried when he saw the look on Mulder's face.  "Aw, man, you're not serious," 
he said.
     "I just called up Atlanta, Jerry.  You think I'd do that for a practical 
joke?" Mulder asked.
     "I figured you just called Time or something," Jerry said.
     "You can trace the call if you want," Mulder said.  
     "Look, Mulder, are you ok?  I know Purdue's putting a lot of pressure on 
you to work miracles for him, and if you and Holli are having problems, too--"
     "Who told you that?" Mulder said, cutting him off.
     Jerry looked a little sheepish.  "She stopped by earlier.  She asked me to 
give you this," he said.  He opened the pen drawer of his desk and pulled out a 
torn swatch of legal paper, folded in half. 
     Mulder accepted it. On the paper, in Holli's neat, black handwriting, were 
the words, "Spook, we need to talk.  --Holli."  Mulder folded the paper and 
tucked it in his shirt pocket.  "You read it?" he asked.
     "I didn't need to.  She looked pretty upset, like she'd been crying," Jerry 
said.  "I was going to give it to you, I was just waiting for a good time."
     Mulder looked away from him, thinking that in this case, "a good time" 
meant whenever Jerry felt that releasing the information would give him a 
psychological advantage.  He would have just told Lamada to go to hell, if the 
guy weren't looking at him with such obvious remorse and concern.  
     "You're pissed, aren't you," Jerry said.
     "It's the one-up, one-down stuff, Jerry.  It wears me out," Mulder said.
     "Look, man, I'm sorry.  I didn't know it was going to affect you like this.  
When Purdue finds out, I'll help cover for you.  Hell, maybe I'll just tell him 
that I made that call to the CDC, as a prank," Jerry said.
     "Purdue does know," Mulder said.
     Jerry just stared at him.  "He knows you're blaming the deaths of nine 
people on sexually transmitted telepathy?  He didn't shoot you on the spot?"
     Mulder shook his head.  "Pulled him out of a meeting and everything."  He 
knew he shouldn't have said that right after chiding Jerry about playing power 
games, but it felt really good.
     "Jesus, Mulder, have you got mental powers too, or are you just sleeping 
with the guy?" Jerry asked.
     "Talk about your sexually transmitted telepathy," Mulder said.  "No, I had 
good reasons for coming up with the theory that I did, and Purdue let me go with 
it.  I really don't get any special treatment around here, Jerry."
     "Oh really, Not-Special-Just-Different-Agent Mulder?" Jerry asked.
     Mulder smiled at the unique nickname.  Sometimes Jerry called him "Special 
Ed Mulder," too.  From him, those were displays of affection.  Mulder found he 
was forgiving Jerry in spite of himself.  
     Just then, his phone rang.  It was the DMV.  They had a license number for 
a '76 Chevy registered to Daniel Rielly.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *       *

     A little less than six hours later, Mulder was sitting on the hood of an 
unmarked police car near the F.B.I.'s makeshift command center.  The "command 
center" was actually an RV parked at a disused drive-in theater about a mile 
from the Sarasota Palms Motel, where Rielly had been spotted by a desk clerk.  
The Florida jungle had obligingly overgrown the site enough to make it hard to 
see from the highway.  Not exactly James Bond, maybe, but cheap and convenient, 
which made both the Feds and the taxpayers happy.
     Holli and Purdue stood over by the RV, talking to some Florida State 
Troopers and the Special Agent in Charge of the Jacksonville office.  It was 
unlikely that they'd need all of these people, but half the art of working with 
other law enforcement agencies was avoiding stepping on people's toes.  This was 
the Floridians' home turf, and they wanted to know what was going on.  
     Holli was effortlessly lovely in her pink tank top and jeans.  As Mulder 
watched, she explained the key points of their strategy to the Jacksonville SAC.  
She'd been terribly quiet the whole ride down.  He'd waited for her at the 
airport, thinking, "She's mad at me," and preparing a properly contrite apology.  
It was only when she'd arrived and avoided his eyes, then seemed alarmed when he 
spoke to her, that he realized, "She's scared of me."  Somehow, that was 
infinitely worse.
     Mulder jammed his hands into the pockets of his khaki pants.  He was in his 
own version of undercover dressed-down, which included scuffed loafers and a 
faded black three-button shirt.  Holli had often teased him about being a 
"recovering preppie."  He couldn't deny that not so long ago, he'd been a 
serious, hardworking Oxford undergrad, who'd seemed destined to fit in well with 
the sons and daughters of the academic upper crust.  It was only when someone 
drew him out and got him talking that he revealed his fascination with bizarre 
violent crime, pulp science fiction and Japanese animated porn.  He'd never 
really been an "A-list" kind of guy, socially.
     To his surprise, both Holli and Purdue had insisted on his taking the 
primary negotiator's spot when dealing with Rielly.  Mulder had pointed out that 
crisis intervention was Holli's specialty, but she'd reminded him that he was 
the only investigator who'd ever been able to connect with Heather.  
"Assignments are just like basketball," she'd said, "You need to know when to 
shoot and when to pass."  Mulder hadn't missed the look of respect and re-
evaluation Purdue had given her.  In putting the needs of the situation before 
her own career goals, she'd almost certainly scored more Brownie points than if 
she'd taken the primary negotiator's position herself.  Holli had agreed to be 
Mulder's backup, and he was glad that at least there would be someone out there 
with him who could tell him what he was supposed to be doing.
     "Mulder!" Purdue called out.  "We need to talk to you for a minute."  
Mulder headed over to the RV and was introduced to the tactical team, which 
included some Florida Troopers and two F.B.I. sharpshooters.  The snipers would 
be stationed in concealed positions, ready to shoot Rielly if she threatened the 
lives of the kids or of law enforcement.  
     "Any recommendations for us?" asked one of the snipers, a Special Agent 
Stockton.
     "Yeah,"  Mulder said.  "First of all, Rielly may be armed.  She's feeling 
desperate, and it wouldn't have been hard for her to pick up a gun around one of 
the Detroit crack houses.  Second, she's very self-destructive.  She may try to 
provoke you and stage a 'suicide-by-cop.'  Finally, her blood may be infected 
with a deadly virus.  The CDC guys are here, but obviously they'd prefer not to 
have to clean up a biohazard.  Use force with extreme caution."
     "Well, this sounds like fun," grumbled one of the State Troopers.
     "Hey, you want fun?  Be a rent-a-cop at Disneyworld," snapped the 
Jacksonville SAC.
     Since they seemed done with him, Mulder left the group, not wanting to 
watch the ugly side of Bureau/police politics.  Compared to some guys, he 
thought, he did have people skills.  Hollisue caught up with him and tugged at 
his sleeve.  "Can I borrow you for a second?" she asked.
     "Yeah, sure," he said, and followed her to the edge of the drive-in's sandy 
parking lot.
     When she stopped she turned to him and asked, "Do you believe in demonic 
possession, Spook?"
     That wasn't what he'd expected her to say, but he took it in stride.  Even 
though twenty-eight years was a relatively brief span of experience, Mulder had 
been forced to develop a high tolerance for weirdness.  "I'm willing to believe 
it's possible," he said.
     "Well, my mama believes in it," Holli said.  "She had me exorcised when I 
was fifteen."
     Mulder mentally repeated to himself a mantra that had become familiar to 
him over the past several months: "I will not hunt down and kill Holli's 
relatives.  I will not hunt down and kill Holli's relatives . . ."
     "She caught me messing around with a boy from school.  It was nothing even 
very dirty, just kind of necking on the couch," Holli continued.  "But to her it 
was the end of the goddamn world.  She went off at me about how folks were gonna 
say I wasn't a virgin and how I'd probably end up as a prostitute and 
worshipping the devil, the whole standard load.  It struck me as pretty funny, 
this woman with six kids going on about the evils of sex.  So I told her that it 
didn't matter to me if I was a virgin or not.  Half the girls in my school were 
sleeping around.  I told her I thought her church was stupid, too.  Well, 
actually, I said that Pastor Morris had his head shoved so far up his ass he was 
looking out from behind his own teeth.  She didn't take that too well," Holli 
said.
     "I can see how she wouldn't," Mulder said.
"So you see," Holli said, "I had to be possessed by an incubus demon.  No 
daughter of hers would ever talk like that," Holli said.
     "Of course not," Mulder said.  "Maybe," he thought, "I will hunt down and 
kill Holli's relatives.  Maybe Heather Rielly can give me helpful pointers . . 
."
     "Anyway," Holli continued, "she called up the pastor and arranged for there 
to be a laying-on of hands at church that Sunday.  Everybody was singing and 
crying and carrying on.  The only things missing were a big top and Elvis.  I 
gave 'em what they wanted to hear, though, the whole 'Heal me, Jesus,' routine, 
'cause they pretty much scared the hell out of me."  The sardonic edge to her 
voice gave way to a quiet sadness as she said, "I still dream about it, 
sometimes."
     "I'll bet," Mulder said.  He reached up to brush her hair back with his 
fingertips.  It hurt him to hear about all the things that she'd had to go 
through as a kid.  He was frustrated by the desire to make it all better for 
her, and knowledge that he couldn't.
     "Anyway, that's the problem with people who believe in things," Holli said, 
lowering her gaze to the sandy ground.  "Their faith can kind of . . . take them 
over."  She was silent a moment, seeming to be searching for the right words.
     "Here's where the other shoe drops," Mulder thought.
     "I love you for your belief in things, Spook.  I respect you for it.  But 
sometimes . . . I feel like in over my head, you know?"
     "You think I'm possessed," Mulder said.
     "Well, you did just start the day naked, screaming and covered in blood.  A 
great way to come into the world, but a lousy way to wake up in the morning," 
Holli said.
     "Holli, I'm sorry," he said.  "I can't explain what happened, I don't 
really understand it myself.  All I can say is I never meant to hurt or frighten 
you."
     "I know, baby, but it's not just that," Holli said.  "You're so intense, 
all fire and ice, everything's a passion or an obsession with you.  And that can 
be great -- you're brilliant at your work.  You're really kinda sexy when you 
get all worked up over something."
     Mulder glanced up to meet her eyes.  Her expression was both tender and 
sad.  "It's just that you wear me down," she said.  "I don't have titanium guts 
like you do."
     "I don't have titanium guts," Mulder said.
     "Look, I'm not saying I want to put you down, Spook.  I was just thinking 
that maybe we could cool it off for a while, give me time to reorient myself," 
she said.
     "Sure, Holli," he told her,  "You do what you need to do."  Mulder felt 
he'd been mostly successful at keeping the tremor out of his voice when he said 
that.
     Purdue's voice broke in.  "We've got Rielly spotted five miles south on 
Highway 41.  You guys get in your positions."
     "Right there, sir!" Holli called out.  When she looked up at Mulder she was 
a little misty-eyed.  She gave him a quick hug.  He trailed after her as she 
headed for the car.
     "You knew this was coming," he told himself.  "She doesn't need a bull-in-
a-china-shop guy like you making a mess of her life."  He had to admit, though, 
that her timing could have been better.  "Don't you even think about feeling 
sorry for yourself right now," he scolded himself.  "You've got to go calm down 
a suicidal maniac in five minutes.  Yee-ha.  Join the F.B.I.  Travel to exotic 
grubby motels, get dumped by beautiful women, be possessed by telepathic people, 
and have them shoot at you.  Maybe I want to investigate violations of the Auto 
Information Disclosure Act after all."

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *       *

     Mulder and Holli sat in their car at the Sarasota Palms, trying to look 
like lost tourists.  The snipers had vanished into the surrounding scrub with 
frightening swiftness.
     They didn't have long to wait.  A brown '76 Chevy jounced into the parking 
lot and pulled into a space.  "We see her," Mulder said.  He and Holli were both 
wearing wires, so Purdue could hear them back at the command center.  "I'm going 
to try to catch up with her before she gets to the room and has a chance to 
barricade herself in.  Agent Fenwick's staying in the car for now."  Holli 
nodded to him as he got out.
     He strolled across the parking lot toward Rielly, trying to appear relaxed 
and non-threatening.  Rielly was not wearing the hideous brown dress she'd worn 
in the photo.  She had on a knee-length yellow one with short sleeves instead, 
which somehow managed to look just as unfashionable.  The round belly of a 
third-trimester pregnancy looked painfully large on her small, skinny body.  The 
kids got out of the back.  They were little and fair-haired, like their mother.  
They seemed very tired.  The girl, about eight years old, dangled a McDonald's 
soda cup from one hand as she straggled after her mother.  Rielly waited for 
them before ascending the motel's rusty outside staircase.
     "Ms. Rielly?" Mulder called out.
     She lifted her gaze to look at him as if the effort were almost too much.  
Then she seemed to recognize him, and she froze.  "It's you," she said softly.
     "Yeah," he agreed, "it's me."
     "I told you not to follow me," she said.  Her hand dropped into the bag she 
wore slung over her shoulder.  She pulled out a gun.
     "Whoa, excitement already," Mulder thought, and slowly raised his hands.
     He heard Holli shouting, "Put the gun down and back away!"
     Heather kept the gun pointed at Mulder.  It looked to him like a 9 
millimeter weapon, capable of blowing a quite respectable sized hole through a 
man.
     "They will shoot you," Mulder warned Rielly.  "In addition to Agent 
Fenwick, there are two F.B.I. sharpshooters stationed in sniper positions.  
Their orders are to respond with deadly force if they consider you a threat to 
my life or to the children's."
     Heather's gray eyes scanned the scraggly woods behind the parking lot and 
the few buildings on either side of the motel.  She repositioned her fingers on 
the gun's grip, but didn't fire it.  The kids huddled together on the stairs, 
whimpering.  Mulder noticed that Heather seemed uncertain as to where to point 
the gun.  She changed her aim from his head to his chest and back.  "She's never 
shot anyone before," he thought.  He knew personally how difficult it was to 
pull the trigger that first time.
     All things being equal, he suspected that she'd be more likely to provoke 
Holli or the snipers into killing her than to shoot someone else.  He took a 
cautious step toward her, and she backed away.
     "Heather, you're sick," he told her.  "You're carrying a virus.  There are 
drugs that can treat you--"
     "You don't know what you're talking about," she said.  Her voice was rough 
and deep, strange coming from so small a body.  He imagined it was from the 
years of smoking crack, trying to lull the telepathy to sleep.  "You don't know 
what it's like to be me," she said.
     "Yes, I do," Mulder told her, and took another step forward, keeping his 
hands in the air.
     Holli was shouting at him, presumably telling him not to be a goddamned, 
stupid martyr.  He knew that he ought to be backing away from Heather, drawing 
her out into the open so that the snipers could get a clear shot.  Backing her 
toward the motel wall was moving her into a more protected position, which was 
the point.  
     "This doesn't have to happen," he told her.  "This . . . condition you 
have, it wasn't your fault how you got it.  It's not the kids' fault,"
     Heather's mist-gray eyes locked on his, and he started getting that spooky 
feeling again, eating at the edges of his concentration.  Images came unbidden 
to his mind, of the broken down Dodge, the filthy crack houses in Detroit, the 
acquaintance she'd lain with in a strung-out stupor which had caused the 
unwanted infant in her belly.  He pushed them away.  He needed to find a middle 
distance from Heather, connected, but not actually in her head.  
     "Mommy," one of the kids whimpered.  Mulder glanced at them.  They both 
looked white-faced and ill.  As he watched, the McDonald's cup dropped from the 
girl's fingers and bounced down the steps.  The boy was curled against his 
sister, limp, perhaps unconscious.
     "What did you give them?" Mulder demanded.
     "Nothing," Rielly said, looking scared for the first time.  She took 
another step back and nearly stumbled, regained her balance.  "They'll sleep .  
There'll be no pain . . ."
     "Heather, we don't have time for this," Mulder said.  "They have to get to 
a hospital.  I want you to put the gun down on the ground right now."
     He'd backed her up nearly to the motel wall now.  He heard someone 
shouting, "Would you tell that idiot to get out of the way?"  Cars were pulling 
up in the parking lot behind him, presumably State Troopers.
     Mulder did not get out of the way.  Instead he tried to get close enough to 
Rielly to do a forcible disarm.  He kept his hands close in toward his body to 
keep her from gauging how far he could reach.
     Heather seemed to realize what he was up to.  She glanced left and right, 
looking for an escape route.  "Stall, calm her down," Mulder thought.
     "It's going to be ok, Heather," he told her.  "We're going to get you help.  
You don't have to live like this."  He had her cornered between the wall and the 
stairs.  There was a wild, frightened expression on her face.  Something clicked 
in Mulder's mind, like a filter snapping over a camera lens.  Suddenly, 
Heather's perceptions were superimposed on his own.  He saw himself, towering 
over her and terrifyingly close.  A confused whirlwind of memory and emotion 
seemed to sweep around his brain.  Funerals, grieving, over and over, being 
unable to stop the deaths from happening.  Taking drugs to kill the telepathic 
effect, if only for a little while.  All the time knowing that she was the cause 
of death after death.  Mulder realized that for her, it wasn't a question of 
wanting to be treated to prevent future suicides.  Heather Rielly believed that 
she ought to die for the deaths
     "It's not your fault," Mulder said again softly.
     "Why should I believe that?" Rielly asked.  "You never believed it when 
they said it to you."  Startled, Mulder realized she must be talking about the 
abduction of his sister.  He'd spent most of his life trying to atone for not 
having been able to protect her.
     "This isn't about me," he said, but of course, it was.  His personal 
crusade to one day rescue Samantha was what kept him relentlessly searching for 
truths others didn't want him to find.  That obsessiveness had more than once 
messed up his personal life, put his job on the line . . . of course Rielly 
would see all of that.  She was in his head as much as he was in hers.
     "Do you need to pay for it with your life, too?" Heather asked, giving him 
a sardonic half-smile.  "We can arrange that."  The gun's muzzle was pointed 
squarely at his chest, less than eight feet away.
     Mulder looked at the gun in her hands, then up at her eyes.  He saw deadly 
determination there, and a question.  She'd meant what she'd asked.  Did he feel 
a need to pay for Samantha's abduction with his life?  He remembered Holli 
shouting at him not to be a stupid martyr.  There were people who would consider 
what he was doing right now to be suicidal behavior.  
     It occurred to him that if he died here, Purdue would probably make the 
call to his mother personally: "Mrs. Mulder," he'd say, "I'm sorry to have to 
inform you . . ."
     "I don't need to die," Mulder said at last, allowing the blown-leaf images 
in his mind to settle.  "And neither do you."  He took two steps toward her and 
saw her whole body tense.  She raised the gun muzzle and slowly turned it toward 
her own face.
     Mulder moved fast.  He took a running step straight at her and dropped his 
left hand low across his body, intending to sweep it up and under Rielly's 
hands, knocking the gun upward and away from them both.  
     Rielly was faster.  "Heather, don't!" he heard himself shout.  She closed 
her eyes and pulled the trigger.
     Mulder reached her a split second later, unable to stop his momentum.  The 
body's knees were already buckling, its face slack and deathly white.  He 
knocked it aside and crossed his forearms over his face, partly to protect his 
eyes from virus-contaminated blood, partly because he didn't want to see.
     He dropped to one knee beside the kids.  Mercifully, they both seemed 
unconscious.  He pressed two fingers against their throats, looking for a pulse.  
It was slow, especially in the boy, but there.  "Get the paramedics in here!" he 
shouted.
     He backed away so that the EMTs and the disease control guys could do their 
work.  He discovered that he was half-sick with reaction, so he sought out a 
nice wall to lean against.
     A man, Mulder vaguely recognized him as the motel manager, came up next to 
him, shouting.  "What the hell are you people doing out here?!  I heard a 
gunshot!"
     Mulder gave him what he was pretty sure approximated the "thousand yard 
stare" guys got in Vietnam.  "They're removing a potentially lethal biohazard," 
he said.  "Which you're standing in."  The manager gasped and looked down at his 
feet, which were indeed in a small pool of Heather's blood.
     "The CDC might want your shoes," Mulder told him.  It occurred to him that 
the times he most effectively frightened people into shutting up, it was by 
telling them the honest-to-God truth.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *       *

     Two weeks later, Mulder sat in Waltzing Matilda's, a sports bar on the 
perpetual verge of bankruptcy, not far from the F.B.I.' Quantico offices.  
Matilda's wasn't a bad place, it was just mediocre, and it somehow completely 
failed to appeal to any particular crowd. This was just fine with Mulder.  The 
bar was always sparsely populated, and just the right number of people knew him 
there.
     The TV bolted up near the ceiling was currently showing a German golf 
tournament.  The sound was turned off, which Mulder thought was just as well.  
He was sitting at a high table in back, staring at a mostly-untouched beer and 
plate of cheese fries.  He rolled the beer bottle between his hands.  It had 
been sitting there long enough to get tepid.  "At least I don't show any signs 
of starting to drink myself to death," he thought.  Then it occurred to him that 
maybe a decent tortured soul ought to be able to drink himself to death, and 
maybe he was a failure at that, too.
     Peggy the waitress meandered her way over to his corner, tucking a wet rag 
in the corner of her apron.  She was a thirtyish, pear-shaped woman with a 
wrist-thick brown braid most of the way down her back.  "You look really 
miserable," she said.
     "Well, you know, I leave the house just once without makeup and this is 
what happens," Mulder answered.
     Peggy pulled up a chair.  She pushed the cheese fries toward him with one 
finger.  "There's starving people in China," she said.
     "There's sober people in Iran," he answered, and lifted the beer bottle to 
toast her.  He took a sip and set it down again.  He sighed.  "Well, the good 
news is that they did blood work and a spinal tap on me, and I am free of 
telepathy-inducing viruses." he told her.
     "A spinal tap is the good news?" she asked.
     "You're right . . . my life really does suck, doesn't it?" he said 
dejectedly.
     "It doesn't completely suck.  You rescued those little kids," she said.
     "Yeah . . . they're in a children's home in Georgia being aggressively 
treated with antivirals.  The baby Rielly was carrying's still alive, too, if 
you can believe that.  Underweight, addicted to crack, but alive.  They named 
her Jane in the hospital." He sighed.  "I sure hope I did those kids a favor by 
saving their lives."
     "Of course you did," Peggy said.  She patted him on the shoulder and helped 
herself to one of his congealed cheese fries.  "You're our hometown hero."
     "I don't feel like one," he told her.
     "Still having problems with your lady?" she asked.
     "Yeah . . . she says she wants time to reorient herself.  To reality, I 
guess, meaning those parts of her life that I'm not in," he said.
     "One day you'll find a girl who appreciates you," Peggy said.
     "Holli appreciates me, I just drive her insane," Mulder said.  "I guess in 
a way I'm glad she told me, rather than trying to hide it and then quietly 
hating me for messing up her life."  He prodded the cheese fries listlessly for 
a moment.  "Peggy, have you ever had the feeling that you're . . . you're 
poison?  That it's nothing you do, it's just standing there, being you, that 
makes people unhappy?"
     "I used to," she said.
     "What did you do about it?" he asked.  
     "Found Jesus.  Found a good man and a steady waitressing job," she said.
     Mulder nodded somberly, but said, "I don't think that would work for me."  
He closed his eyes and leaned his chin in his hand.  Evenings were the worst 
times, next to nights.  Those were bad, too.  As strange as it had felt to be 
living with someone, he found the adjustment to living alone was harder.  He 
watched a lot of lousy TV.  He hung out in places like Waltzing Matilda's to 
delay going home.  His dreams were still ruthless.  There were times when he'd 
thought about picking up a girl, just to have someone to sleep with, but his 
nightmares weren't something he wanted to inflict on a stranger.  
Images of Rielly were all through them, her broken down Dodge, her face as it 
looked in life and then what was left of it after she'd shot herself.  Purdue 
had told him not to waste time on what he called "woulda, coulda, shouldas."  
The ASAC had commended him for his work, and that had meant a lot.  Mulder had a 
great deal of respect for Purdue.  But the self-blame was still there, rational 
or not.  It occurred to him that he had more in common with Rielly, distraught 
little crackhead that she was, than he'd thought.  In a twisted way, he missed 
her, too.
     "Hey, come on now, none of that.  Big boys don't cry," Peggy said gently.  
He opened his eyes and touched them with his thumb and forefinger in what he 
hoped was a subtle fashion.  
     "Why don't you go home?" she said.  "Take a hot bath, watch . . . that 
devil movie you like so much."
     "It's not a devil movie.  It's Blade Runner, and I don't think it would 
cheer me up at all," he said.
     "Well, what have you got that would cheer you up?" she asked.
     He mentally reviewed the titles in his video library: A Clockwork Orange, 
1984, Twilight Zone reruns . . . "I guess there's always pornographic anim,," he 
said.
     "As a very wise man once said, 'Whatever gets you through the night,'" 
Peggy told him.  "You want your cheese fries warmed up before you go?"
     "No," he said.  "You can't reheat cheese fries.  Like the zombies in 
Reanimator, no matter how good they were in life, once revived they become the 
embodiment of hideous evil."
     She looked at him blankly.  "Sort of a joke," he explained.
     "Sort of," she said.
     "Something to add to my 'To do' list tomorrow," he thought.  "'Get social 
skills.'"
     Peggy bundled him up with maternal officiousness and shooed him out the 
door.  He trudged back to his new apartment, turning up his collar against the 
cold.  A misting rain was falling, which made haloes around the street lights.  
He thought it was strange how sadness could sometimes make people notice 
everyday things, and realize that they were beautiful.
     Heather Rielly hadn't found the world beautiful enough to stay.  Maybe she 
had been less optimistic than himself, he thought, or else less selfish.  He 
supposed the point was academic, now.  It reminded him of one of his favorite 
quotes from Blade Runner: "All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in 
rain."  But then, all of Reilly's moments wouldn't be lost.  He carried some of 
them around in his own head.  He also carried some of Samantha's, and of 
Holli's.  That was the strange thing about connections, he thought.  They could 
cause so much pain, but without them, life wasn't worth living.  Though he had 
to wipe his eyes several times on the walk home, he was able to take a certain 
comfort in his memories.  After all, a haunted man is never alone.