Corpse copyright livengoo@tiac.net Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, Walter Skinner and the X-Files property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen Productions, and Fox. Remember it now, kids, because I tend to forget to include this little paragraph on every post. Emma Courtland, her town and everyone in it belong to me. Some of this other stuff belongs to some other people, and you get to play guess the source. Disclaimers to be posted at the end. This critter should probably rate NC-17 for profanity and violence, so go away if you don't like that stuff. Corpse was midwived by the estimable Rodent, Amperage and by Sean Smith. Thanks also to MoBecker and Windsinger for look-overs and suggestions. Corpse Goo __________________________________________________ I'm putting tinfoil up on the windows, Lying down in the dark to dream. I don't want to see their faces, I don't want to hear them scream. Splendid isolation, I don't need no one. Splendid isolation. Warren Zevon - Splendid Isolation/Transverse City I didn't know what to do when I found the body. I mean, whenever I'd seen horror films I'd thrown popcorn and thought, "Jesus, don't just stand there! Look around, call the cops!" I thought I'd stay cool and know what to do. I was wrong. Really, I just stood there and all I could do was try not to pee myself or vomit. I did call the cops. My little phone felt strange when I unfolded it, and I couldn't remember why I dialed emergency. I had to tell them I was at the old Crossfield farm because they couldn't trace my cellphone. Then I just sat there and waited to see what the body would do. It sprawled there and didn't move. At first I didn't even realize it had been a young man, it was a thing unto itself now. Oh, it was complete, nothing cut off, it's just that I couldn't stand to think that this still object ever walked or laughed or flirted or anything. Anything. And I was sitting there, watching it, when the cops and the paramedics put gentle hands on my arms and pulled me away. I suppose the cops asked me questions, which I must have answered. And the cop who smelled like cigarettes and had coffee stains on his shirt spoke to me in soft, raspy tones that matched the red/blue/red lights on the cars when he took me home, where I took the pills they'd given me, and I lay there staring at my ceiling until I wasn't anymore. And I tumbled into long, hard, dry-mouthed dreams that spun around me until morning's sun blazed hot and sticky into my face. I got up then. I must have taken a shower because my hair was wet and dripped on my blouse when I went to put on my makeup. I had to go through three different pairs of hose before I could get one on without holing it. My hands felt like they belonged to someone else. The drive to the office I can't even remember. I walked in feeling my feet snag in that carpet law offices use to drown all the sound and made my way to my office. My little, little box of an associate's office where the walls were taller than they were wide and the air was . . . I found my hands clenched around my coffee mug. Hard. I don't remember how, but I spent the morning reviewing a lease . . .a lease. And I do remember walking the land, just like they taught me, looking for something wrong. And finding . . . him. Him. Not it. My eyes stung. And at lunch I couldn't eat. I went to get my clients and stood there with Beth Coughlin and her husband, George, while she identified her cousin. I wish I couldn't remember that. George took Beth away after that. He asked if I wanted to go but, well, I'd found Tommy. Families are for the living, but who's left for the dead? I never could let go. It was why I avoided criminal law, or torts. I'd hoped . . .I don't know. That I'd never have to lose anyone. That everything I dealt with would last forever. And now Tommy was alone with the police, except for me. They weren't even locals, not people who knew him. There was this woman, a doctor. She was beautiful but she seemed cold to me, so controlled. She had this man with her. As beautiful as her. It almost made me laugh when I realized I almost expected someone that handsome to be dumb. I must have really needed to laugh. I wish I had. I didn't catch their names. They said they were with the FBI. And she was going to do an autopsy. And I couldn't leave Tommy alone with strangers. I didn't want to be there, but I couldn't leave him alone while she took the last little bits of mystery he had left. All the other mysteries belonged to his killer. Stolen mysteries. She pulled the sheet back and turned on her tape machine. She asked if I wanted to go. I couldn't leave. I stood against the cold wall and I trembled and I watched. She stripped him of everything. The man stood against the other wall. I could see his eyes glitter a little in that harsh, unnatural light. Tommy had not died well. He looked okay at first, but her voice tolled his pain. His fingers were burned, and he'd been probed and explored in ways that must have brought him terror and pain before they brought him death. And every detail she found, if I understood them at all, was . . . He must have been so scared. The room was growing dark around me. The smells . . . The man, her companion, walked over and took my arm. "I'll be back, Scully. I think Ms. Courtland needs some air." Our heels clicked on the marble floors as we found our way down to the old-fashioned cafeteria. He bought the coffee. He said he kept the receipts and let the taxpayer foot the bill for keeping him up late. I grabbed my favorite table, the quiet one by the fern, and watched him put together two cups, slip past the crowd of pudgy, ordinary men and women seeking desserts, and negotiate the clerk at the cash register. Did the FBI choose them for those surreal looks these days? Beauty that stunned us mere mortals into cooperation? I could feel the smile take over my face to answer his. "You played basketball, didn't you?" "All tall people get that." His manner was breezy, light. It seemed too calm. "I think we need to wear buttons that tell our basketball status. 'Played, didn't play, was forward.'" "No. No, I . . . actually, I was thinking you looked like you wanted to pass the coffee to someone, or were looking for guards to block you." Graceless answers. I really had thought that, but it sounded contrived. He let it pass. "I'm curious. You're related to. . . Mr. Dalbert?" I shook my head. "No. I'm not. I never even knew him. I mean, he's, . . ." my voice caught. "I mean, he was only seventeen." I don't know if he even heard me. All of a sudden my throat felt tight and my nose was stuffed and running. I knew my eyes were red and puffy. The sob when I breathed in got away from me. I wanted to hide from him and everyone else. He watched the other people there, I think, and gave me time. When I'd calmed enough to blow my nose he looked back at me, wearing an understanding expression that said he knew, he'd seen this, been this road. I tried to imagine the training films they used to teach guys like him to look that way. I sucked in my breath, held it. Let it out. "Look, let me start over here. I never got your name and somebody must have told you my name, but let's do it right." Stuck out my hand and saw his just swallow it up. His palm was smooth, but I could feel muscle, strength, in the dry grip. "Fox Mulder. Special Agent Fox Mulder." His rueful smile acknowledged all the comments I might make. I doubted I could invent any new ones. "Emma Courtland." Spot him points, grin . . . "My parents named me after Mrs. Peel. I think they wanted a spy, not a lawyer." "Could have been worse, they could have named you Natasha." "Or Boris." God, they'd lock me up if I started laughing. I knew trial practice classes would come in handy, they gave me the lawyer-face I used on him. "Business lunch, Ms. Courtland. If I'm going to write off a fortune in bad coffee I need to ask some questions. Are you up to it now?" I nodded and breathed, counted to ten. He let me have the space. "Okay, you were going to tell me about Tommy Dalbert and why you waited. How long have you known him?" "I . . .I never knew him. Oh, I met him once. His cousin, Bethie Coughlin, is my client. I was doing this closing for her. On the Crossfield Farm." "And you just dropped by and found Tommy?" "Not quite. They taught us to, well . . . taught us to always 'walk the land'" biblical-proclamation voice, and I got that smile again. "You know, make sure there're no Indian graveyards or . . .or midnight dumpers." That term had always made me laugh before. "Well, you know what I found." "Mhm. You reported it. The cops said you stayed with the body." ". . . yes." "And you stayed today. Nobody goes to a matinee autopsy, Ms. Courtland." His voice was still soft, still seemed gentle, but he didn't seem relaxed or calm anymore. "Do you want to tell me why you stayed for the autopsy of someone you never knew?" "He was all alone. I . . . he belonged to Bethie, to his family, when he was alive. But he's dead. And I found him, and who else does he have? You never knew him, he's just a corpse to you! Somebody's leavings." I wanted to hit him with the words, wipe the sympathy and veiled suspicions off his pretty face. Let him know his looks and his manners and his nice, practiced style wouldn't buy him whatever he wanted. But he didn't flinch for me, he started smiling again. I nearly threw my coffee in his face. I let him have the rest of it. "I didn't know Tommy before, but I knew his cousin. I grew up in this town. This place is mine, these people are mine. You just catch your monster and get out, you don't belong here. You don't have anyone here. You're just a stranger." His eyes flickered. He wasn't smiling anymore. That touched him. I don't know why. He tapped the paper sides of his cup for a minute, watching me, then nodded carefully and sighed. "You're right, Ms. Courtland. I don't have anybody here. And I didn't know Tommy, but I may know how to catch the people who killed him." He glanced at the clock on the wall above the buffet. "I think we should get back to Scully. She may have something." When he left the room ahead of me his step didn't spring, and he wasn't looking for the other team's guards anymore. My stomach ached from anger, but dread knotted it further as he opened the door to the morgue. The smells of formaldehyde and death and Vicks rolled out, almost visible. He braced himself. I could tell by the way his shoulders rose and fell. Somehow, it was a comfort to know that even perfect people couldn't face this easily. The fluorescents beat down more steadily here. Overhead light like that made everything seem oddly exposed and darkened at the same time. Colors were washed out and Scully looked almost as pale as Tommy. Tommy. From the back of my nose to my knees I felt my guts clench and fought back the nausea. She had him . . . opened. His skull and chest spoke obscenely of their contents. She looked up at us, letting her eyes graze me before stopping with her partner. "Mulder, I think you need to take a look at this." She sounded clinical, cold. Her voice could have been one more tool to be used. He stepped over, slowly. I don't think he wanted to know the secrets Tommy held. His face had a dark expression that really shouldn't belong to a man like him. The high-school hero I'd goaded was gone. I'd never seen anyone like the man in his place. God, I was watching them, trying not to think about what she was saying, what I was seeing. "Here, look at the mucous membranes . . ." she was showing Agent Mulder Tommy's nose, his throat. She lead him through a category of harm to every orifice, any sensitive point, hands, feet, belly, sex. She was watching Mulder, glancing between the body and him as though waiting for something she didn't want to hear. He paced slowly around Tommy, leaning close but touching nothing. His face was blank, all his attention going inch by inch over Tommy's skin, and below. I pressed back against the wall by the door. I felt, strangely, like a voyeur, not to Tommy's pitiful exposure but to the two of them. She was standing back now, watching him. There was something intensely . . . personal about them. Almost sensual. I shivered at the thought. He straightened finally, turned to her. He seemed unconsciously attentive, she stepped in close, looking up and shaping her words, too low for me to hear, for him alone. I couldn't bear to stay there and I wrenched myself out that door and fled to the protection of sun and life and street. _____________________ They came together to find me. I had been sent home early. I think they were all afraid that death might rub off. I retreated to my garden where I pulled weeds until I could no longer see them. I had set a thawed dinner and a glass of wine when my doorbell rang. They stood there. She gleamed red-gold in the light by my door. His black coat and dark hair ate the light. I tried to keep them at bay on my porch, but they intrigued me. I gave way and let them in, let their frightening questions and alien ways widen the crack that Tommy Dalbert had put in my life. Scully and Mulder sat in my living room, making the familiar strange and lonely. Their suits and manners were little different from mine, but whatever drove them had no place in my world. The questions began and suddenly Dr. Scully gave way, no longer in charge. Agent Mulder's cognac voice lead the way. They pulled my life apart, there in my little house. Dissected the hours of my days and the paths taken and left. I'd known this would happen in time, I thought I was prepared. But when you lay your life out to strangers, sleek and foreign, you dread the self you see through their eyes. I hated them. I wanted what they had. They began as I knew they would. Simple traceries of my paths and how they intersected with Tommy's and Bethie's. I answered readily enough, they were hunting my enemy, too, after all. The questions were ones I would have asked myself. The familiar regained its shape in those moments, his voice and hers could almost have belonged in my world. I could see, for the first time, tiny flaws, wrinkled suits, the faint stain of coffee on his tie, the tiny scuff on her shoe. I nearly smiled, lulled by the little commonalities that gave them weight and dulled their sheen. I had their measure now, set up the walls I would need to defend myself against what they took. I thought I knew what they were, when he twisted in my grasp and I saw her track the change, as though she'd been waiting for it. "Ms. Courtland, have there been any unusual occurrences? Sounds or lights that seem out of place?" His voice was too calm again. Too intent. Her eyes held an odd look, patience, fear, things I wasn't prepared to see there. What was he asking? Why had she known and not wanted it? Why did I know he already knew every answer I could give. The ivory light that spilled from my lamps seemed suddenly pale, insignificant in the Indian summer night. His eyes seemed light, but their centers were as dark as the night outside my windows. Her red hair no longer reflected light, but drank it in. I was alone in my light, it could no longer touch them. There could never be enough light to drive back the darkness these two brought. "Lights." It took a moment to remember which lights he had asked about. "Yes, we do have lights here. They come when they will. Some years are better than others." He nodded. Agent Scully leaned forward in her seat, drawing my eyes. "Have you ever seen the lights yourself?" Ah. There. The ragged hem of it. Her voice was so cool and level, where his held barely leashed need. I smiled into hers eyes, savoring that first piece to their puzzle. "I've seen them. I first saw them years ago, when I was a girl. But . . . lights didn't kill Tommy Dalbert. And whatever did has done it before." I was feeling my way in their darkness now. Learning the edges of this second piece. An amused glance shared between them, I was watching whole conversations. "This is routine, Ms. Courtland. We're just trying to establish conditions so we'll be able to see any aberrations." His voice again, returning my volley. What was it about him? The all-American male, so why were his eyes so dark, so lost? No matter how much I told him, how clear it became, I thought it could never be bright enough to make him feel happy, safe. They were building the walls, now. What would entice them to trade? "You already know about the lights." Never ask a question you can't already answer. "You could tell me just how often, when and where they've been." Calm certainty I hadn't felt before came to me as I watched them not react. "And lights never did what happened to Tommy Dalbert." Watch him now, watch his eyes narrow just that much. What's hiding behind that face? His move. His trade. "Alright. Yes. This has happened before." "Mulder!" Sharp reproof. And it was there again, a conversation in a word. But the names, like pretentious British TV. Walls again? Against whom? Protecting what? A world of response in a glance, a silent, momentary battle and truce. The light-dark eyes came back to me. "This has happened before." "Not here." "Not here. Other towns that saw lights." Don't smile. You haven't won. There's more. What will he give, what can you trade? Attack. "It's going to happen again. There's more. If Tommy was all you'd be gone by now, wouldn't you Agent Mulder?" He was leaning in towards me now, elbows on knees, one thumb idly tracing the lifeline across his palm as he planned what to do. She settled into her chair, watching me, wary but waiting. He'd followed her lead with the dead. She'd follow his with me. He looked up, hiding behind his smile, and prepared to redirect. "You should have been a prosecutor. Ever think about joining the FBI?" His hands were still now. "Look, with an investigation like this we cannot give out information. It's more than just FBI policy. If we give out what we know, the bad guys know how to jump, know where the holes are in the net. I don't doubt you want to help, but we can't tell you. All we want is to find the killer, we're on your side." He was offering me the sensible, hard, reliable ground of procedure. And I wasn't going to walk there anymore. "You don't know this place. You know what he's done before." I found her now, on my flank. "Nothing you found surprised you. I was watching. I know." Hold my breath. Look for my cliff. "You're still here, even though you know what you'll learn. So you know he'll do it again." Find the edge, feeling it in the dark, under watchful eyes. "I want him, too . . ." What could I say? I didn't know, couldn't think, how to ask? "Let me help." I was breathing so fast in the panic of that need. What would I do? Tunnel vision found them, darkness crowded every edge and they were alone in its heart. Slow, slow, shake of the heads, hers copper bright, his dark and calm. "I'm sorry, no. We can't." More hollow offers of safety, procedure. FBI rules and professional prerogative. They were showing me safe, hard ground again but I had already stepped off the cliff. I showed them to the door, then sat in my empty house, sipping my wine and listening to the wind whistle past the edge. _____________________ The sun was hard this morning, etching vacuum-sharp edges wherever I looked. The golds and wines of autumn softened nothing, and my blood felt too thin for the chill. Coffee's heat barely warmed my throat and was lost in the chill in my belly. I called the office and told them I was sick, that I wanted my personal time. Two weeks to myself. Two weeks to hunt. The melancholy smell of leaves and autumn wind caught me where I sat on my porch, feeling the sun and considering my moves. I didn't need to solve a murder. It wasn't a killer I'd hunt. So I wouldn't solve a murder, I'd solve an investigation. The house across the street was empty. It was for sale, the sign swinging in the wind. He'd kill again. He'd killed before. I didn't know when or where, but they did. How would I find who had come, who didn't belong? How would *I* have found him? The smile that crept across my lips might have reached my eyes, but I didn't feel it there at all. The inside of my car was warm and smelled of old papers and stale croissants. The drive to the courthouse, lined with maples and old, fine homes, was lovely in that hard, crystalline light. I found a place and listened to the staccato clatter of money as I fed the meter. Up steps of nineteenth century marble, to doors of ornamental bronze where the sun threw my shadow in sharp-edged relief and I hesitated a moment, maybe two, then pushed through the doors into the dim light of incandescent bulbs swinging too far away. Up a flight of stairs worn gently smooth and concave by a hundred years of passing feet. Down a hall where the doors were stained antique dark, to the Registry of Deeds. A smile of triumph drew up my face when I saw him there, tall and slouched in his chair, glasses on top of his head and fingertips trying to wipe the ache of too many hours of fine print from his eyes. I stepped up behind him, silent on rubber-soled shoes, to lean past his shoulder and read what he'd found. His startled flinch made me oddly glad. "Let me buy the coffee today, Agent Mulder, and I just may be able to help." The look on his face hung somewhere between wary and amused, but he let me lure him from his work. "You need to find a house that's leased or sold within a certain time?" He nodded, but I already knew the answer to that. _____________________ The stained glass skylight shone red and gold and blue with the midday sun, although the colors had all diffused into a soft, pale white light by the time they reached us. It was still sufficient to keep the fluorescent glare at bay. Agent Mulder looked tired, and grateful for even bitter, municipal coffee. He sat with his elbows on the Formica table, eyes shut, letting the caffeine work hot and sharp through his system. When he finally looked up and smiled, the professional armor plate was back in place. "I have to admit, I'm a bit startled to see you, Ms. Courtland. I thought Wednesdays were golf and meeting day for lawyers." "I was always better at tennis." Coy suited him better than me, but I had taken my lessons, too. His eyes were tracking behind me, now. I wasn't surprised to hear high heels on marble, and Agent Scully's voice greeting him. She turned to me, plainly trying to puzzle out why I was sitting there with her partner. I think the smile he gave her then was the first wholly honest and genuine expression I'd seen on his face. He pulled a seat over for her, and asked if she cared to try our brand of paint thinner. She was more offended for me and the honor of our coffee than I could ever have been over a statement so true. I had to explain that we figured they just used the bug-tar from summer to make it. Minor pleasantries between strangers must be an acquired skill. Observations on weather and architecture standing for questions not so easily asked. I left the first offer to them, and they did not disappoint. "I think Ms. Courtland was about to tell me about the lights." his voice was breezy, pleasant, but her look - exasperation and . . . fear? - gave it the lie. Offer. Partial acceptance, counter-offer. "Yes. I was only eight or so, but I remember watching them for what seemed like hours. You're looking for recent arrivals?" One of those conversations I wanted so much to hear, but could only watch. Her hair caught the gold gleams that made it this far down. He was pale and out of place in the light of day. "I think I've about found what I needed." For a man who hid so much he was an awful liar. "Were the lights just blurs, or could you make them out?" "You've seen pictures." No doubt whatsoever. "It depends. Sometimes they were blurs. They'd loop the loop, dive. Other times, you think you can almost make them out. I've seen them twice." My cup was almost empty. "When we saw them first, men came to our house and told us not to ever say. They don't come so often now, but every spring and fall people stand on the hills outside of town with these signs that say "I believe" and "Take Me With You." Scully smiled, but she held her cup too tight. Mulder's lips curved but a smile should reach your eyes. I had as much as I thought I could get right then. I left, and climbed to the mezzanine. I watched her argue with him, out loud now, though still out of my hearing. They stopped, and I left, but I don't think either one of them won. _____________________ Claude and Tammy were happy to see me, as always. They gave me cookies and tea, the way they had before I ever left for law school. When I came back they gave me clients from their real estate agency, too. But they hadn't given Scully or Mulder much at all. "Those two? Batch of strangers, trying to stir up trouble. No one here'd do such a thing. They should be looking for drifters and perverts, not picking on honest people." I knew this one. To Claude, all evil came from the cities. To Tammy, cities were just people who should buy a home here, preferably from her. An odd twinge of sympathy for the two agents ran through my satisfaction with what I could do that they couldn't. "Tammy honey, look, I want to know who they're going to try to talk to and what they're looking for, think you could work that up for me?" She smiled all over her face, and winked. "Don't know what you want with that and I don't want to know. You just don't tell them where you got it, okay?" She got my nod, good as an oath on my blood with these two. I walked out of there half an hour later with a copy of Tammy's lead files and notes, houses shown houses sold, families, pets, preferences, what kind of car they drove, what food they liked to eat. Everything a persistent, curious, and easily underestimated real-estate agent could collect. I doubted the FBI had files as complete. _____________________ My next stop was home. I pulled up under a maple, shut the engine off and listened to hot metal tick. Home. My half of the little brick duplex sat there, stolid, clean. The white wood porch looked just slightly seedy. It needed paint. I could remember planting the brown, and burgundy, and white chrysanthemums myself. And I'd still almost driven past it. A chill put gooseflesh up my arms. That house was so warm and cozy and normal. How could it be home? And for all that, my key still fit in the lock. The mail still had my name on it, and my perfume still hung in the air. The hot spill of afternoon sunlight threw my shadow, short and small, across the threshold. It was refreshing to step into the cool house beyond it. A cup of tea and a sandwich, and my computer. I reached over, adding a few more crumbs to those lodged in the keyboard, and turned it on. Dial Lexis, bill to my name. Martial my details, choose all newspapers for the last two years, put in my search and sit back to see what I'll find. The cursor blinked to me. The screen was an unreal blue, drowning the indirect light the reflected from the floor in the front of the room. I came up with over four hundred articles. Okay, start narrowing. I tried "UFO," and "Mulder," "FBI," and "unexplained phenomenon." I wound up with seventeen results, seventeen murders. Wait, closer examination made it thirty-one murders. Eliminate the anomalies. Eliminate copycats. And I had twenty-eight deaths, fourteen towns, most of them before Mulder started investigating. He'd connected the few killings he'd seen with the earlier ones, and come up with twenty-eight. I ran my hands up my arms to chase the chills away. Twenty-eight murders. Just in the big city papers alone. My throat ached when I swallowed. Fourteen pairs of murders. Brutal, long, hard deaths, always a young man followed by one about fifteen to twenty years older. All unsolved. I needed more information. Download and sign off and call my personal source and old college friend, Gerald Riggins. "Jerry Rigg, the classmate voted most likely to fix a jury." "Who the hell . . .wait a minute . . .Emma-girl? That you, Mrs. Peel?" His deep voice kindled with welcome. "It's me, you old liar! You working for the Inquirer yet?" "Nah, they still haven't caught on. I'm higher than ever in the respectable press. Subvert 'em from the inside." A foolish grin took me by surprise. I'd have married him if he'd wanted me. "Jerry, I know you. You still got your weirdo file?" "My freak file is my largest file! It's where I get my best information. What do you need, two headed Elvis? Newt's tete a tete with space aliens?" "Murder, Jerry. I need bloody murder." He was quiet as I told him what I had. I could feel his tension as I heard the papers rattle under his hands. His breathing was loud when he pinned the phone between shoulder and ear. "Ugly stuff, Emma. What do you want this for? I thought you were a proper exploiter of the masses, a capitalist-queen?" "Yeah, but this bastard hit close to home. What have you got?" "Close to . . .? Oh jeez. Oh god." His voice was a hoarse whisper. "I'm sorry Emma, did you know the . . .was it a close friend?" "It's a little hard to explain. Friend of a friend. But the FBI's here . . ." "FBI?" The laughter was back. "You got a tall, thin, cover-boy cop there?" He smacked his lips. Jerry was light in his loafers and his tassel-oxfords had been out of the closet since freshman year. He'd majored in journalism but minored in disconcerting professors. I always loved his society-column style descriptions of political figures and wished I could subscribe to his paper in this little town. "He's here, him and this FBI cop-doctor. You know what they're looking for, Jerry?" A chuckle. "Give me your e-mail and let me ask some questions. My tea was cold, but my house felt like home again. The warm touch of my past clung to me as I put my things away, grabbed Tammy's list, and headed back out to see if I could outflank them. _____________________ The sky was light but the ground swam in blue gray shadow when I pulled in down the street from William Lawrence's ranch house. I could smell the sweet, mildly illegal smoke as someone burned their leaves. Crickets still rattled in the trees and grass, and the roofs of two storey homes caught a golden tip of sunlight. The one storey houses had slipped too low for the light and were sunk in shadow. Williams wasn't home. The car was gone, the blinds were drawn, everyone gone and no lights on. I grinned and tapped my wheel to the rhythm of my rhyme. After I had eliminated families and single women from my list, I was left with single men. Lawrence was the earliest arrival on my list, and I wanted to get a look at him. I had John Hiatt on my radio, and my eyes on Lawrence's house when a plastic crinkle and a dry voice brought me upright, heart in my throat. "Seeds?" Focus on a bag of sunflower seeds two inches from my nose, then up to Agent Mulder, leaning against my car trying to look annoyed and not getting much past amused. "What are you doing here?" If I hadn't been stunned by adrenaline I'm sure I would have done better than that. He took mercy and answered the question. "I followed you." He cracked a seed and tossed the shell. "If we keep meeting like this people will talk." Another shell. I decided sitting in the car felt a little too much like being in a penalty box, and got out to lounge along with him. "I'm willing to believe in coincidence once, Ms. Courtland, but you're starting to stretch credibility a little." He had that smug look guys get when they think they're miles ahead of you. I reached over and took a seed. "You might as well call me Emma. You're right, coincidence doesn't exactly explain what I'm doing here." He crunched another seed and raised an expectant eyebrow. "Can I call you Fox?" "No." "Agent Mulder, . . ." "You can call me Mulder." The amused tolerance in his voice announced his certainty that he had the upper hand in whatever was going on here. "Last names again. Did you go to school in England or something?" "Yes, and 'or something'." I sighed. "Mulder then. I told you before, this is my place. I feel like somebody broke into my home, took something from me." I could hear a tone in my voice I'd never really heard before, almost pleading, but not. "You aren't getting rid of me. No matter what you do, I will be there when you take this man down." The annoyance had finally beaten out amusement, but he changed gears on me. "What makes you think it's a man?" "Hey, I read Silence of the Lambs. I read cases in school. You're looking for a serial killer and they usually kill people who resemble them. It had to be somebody strong enough to sling Tommy around. It took a while to do what he did to Tommy, so he had to have privacy. Besides, serial killers are almost always men." "The ones we catch, at least." he looked like he had a headache. "As far as it goes, that's not bad reasoning Ms. Courtland. But I do have the psych degree, and doing the profiles and catching the bad guys is what I get a paycheck and a good health plan for. You, on the other hand, get paid to conduct land transactions and fight zoning battles. No criminal law enforcement duties there unless we catch our killer dumping hazardous waste." He let his mouth twist into a small grin. He was on a roll and I let him finish. "So please go back home, go back to your life, and let me hunt nightmares." I could feel my scowl. He was trying to stare me down and I wasn't about to let him do it. I shook my head, very slowly, keeping my eyes fixed on his, and held out my list. "No. No. This is still my place. My people. We can use your help, but we don't need you coming in to wave a wand because we can't think our way through our problems. don't carry a gun, and I won't be arresting this psycho, but you couldn't get this list. You don't know these people. Our cops have enough to do and, and . . ." and I found Tommy. Tommy haunted my dreams now, he was mine now. I had found Tommy and I owed him this. Owed myself this. I was a lawyer, I upheld the law. That had to mean something. I wouldn't let a charming, arrogant mind-cop flaunt that obligation any more than I could let a monster do so. Mulder was reading my list, and looked up to hand it back to me. Somehow, I didn't think that meant I had won. "Ms. Courtland. I appreciate how you feel. I really do. But this work is psychologically and physically dangerous. Scully and I both have scars to prove that. Even if Bureau policy didn't completely prohibit the kind of involvement you are asking for, I would stop you." He was watching me now, without any of the defensive humor I was used to seeing. I could just make out his expression through the gloom, lit faintly by house lights across the street. His eyes were wide and dark again, and he looked at home in the night. I bit my lower lip and tried to think how to explain it to him. How to make him understand. "Mulder," I could hear the hesitant note as I tried to feel my way through my own jumbled thoughts and words. "I know crime happens. I know people die. I wanted to work with things that never die, that will be there when I'm not, that outlast us and mean more than we do. But, when I found Tommy, . . ." I was so frustrated, where were the words for this? I looked up, expecting a quizzical stare and found a calm, knowing sadness instead. How could he know how this felt? I grabbed the things I felt and just let the words shape themselves, right or wrong. "I found Tommy and nothing safe is left. I'm all he has now, no one else will see him safe, he'll only be a victim to everyone else. I need to find the reason, I need to give back what I can . . .I look at my house and my life and all of a sudden nothing stays in place. Human isn't human anymore. Somebody did this *thing* to that young man. They turned a young man into a , a. . . " I could feel the stammers, and tears of anger and pain and fear prickled in my head and made my nose run. "I *need* to help you catch this bastard. I *need* to know that I'm not just sitting there, waiting for the monsters to harvest me. I need to fight back. Don't make me a victim, Mulder. Let me fight back. I'll just go around you if you don't." His arms were wrapped around him now, too tight to be called crossed, as though he were cold. His hands were pale where they wadded handfuls of long, black coat. He wasn't looking at me, was watching the early stars with a blank, distant expression on his face that was as lonely as I'd felt sitting with Tommy. I stepped closer and put a hand on his shoulder, was startled by how tense he felt under my hand. I hadn't touched him since I'd shaken his hand when I met him. Somehow, it was jarring to be able to touch him, to realize that he was human, flesh and blood, not really that different from me. I left my hand on his shoulder, and now I felt him draw a long, shaky breath. He looked back at me, pale, less clear now in full dark. He stepped back out from under my hand. "Let me talk to Scully." His voice was soft, too soft to really hear nuances. "And you don't need to watch Williams. He was working in Russia when the last three murders took place." The smile was back in his voice, his armor falling into place as he turned and walked to the rental car I had never noticed following me. I could hear his footsteps crunch in dry grass, see the swing of black coat in the sharp, nighttime air. He'd shut off his dome light, so he stayed in shadows as he got in the car and drove away. I stood there a long time before I turned around and got in my car and left. _____________________ Thai carry-out and e-mail when I got home. I felt exhausted and fragile after talking with Mulder, but Jerry Rigg had left two messages on my phone telling me to check my e-mail. The urgency in his voice was enough to have me sitting now, bathed in blue light brighter than the single lamp I'd switched on when I came in. FROM: IN%"JERRY_RIGG@TATTLER.TRIB" TO: IN%"DIRTLWR@TIAC.COM" SUBJ: Hope you pick this up tonight, babe. I'm worried and I'll call in if I don't get mail by tomorrow bright in the A.M. I called some nameless sources. Erase this the minute you finish with it. I've already shredded every hard copy I have of this info, and wiped the relevant disc. I suggest you do the same. Fox Mulder. I can't decide if this guy has worms in his head, or is on to something so big the rest of us are afraid to get near it, or both. He's been FBI for several years. PhD psych from Oxford, profiles serial killers and hunts unexplained phenoms, aka UFOs. Real weird. I'd have laughed except that when you look there's this trail of bodies where he's been, assuming any body is left. A lot of folks disappeared after Mulder had been anywhere near them. A lot of dead and gone. BE CAREFUL. I don't think he knows how dangerous he is to people and you owe me a batch of Christmas cards and $20 from that poker game in 1987. His partner looks more straight arrow. Pathologist, good marks, everybody likes her and thinks she's blown her career following Mulder. I guess they call him Spooky Mulder around the FedBu. Spooky's sis disappeared when he was a kid. It's in the papers from his hometown. My folks say it's common knowledge he looks for little green men when people disappear. You guys get some unexplained shit out your way, I bet he's been hound-dogging you for that stuff. Get this, some of my sources think he's right. Yeah. And these are not rubber-room types. Some of the suits think he's right. Be careful. Your killer, whatever or whoever, has been around for about eighteen or twenty years. Hard to tell, we know some early murders but can't exactly pinpoint the first. Copycats and the fact that No. 1 is likely to be just one murder instead of two. Nobody connected them until about six years ago. Spooky took on the x-files at FBI with all these open dead-files about five years ago. Three years ago he started trying to hack through this one. He's done one profile, and the cops think it's top notch. Real seance-creepy material. Spooky posits obsession stemming from unknown causes, re-enacted every year. Sounds good, my sources say he's still trying to find little green men and can't decide if it's people or not. Apparently the profile assumes human agency and was designed to make the cops happy with him. Real button-pushing bastard. Don't let him pull your strings, Emma. Your killer always follows a pattern. He kills one young guy. Drilled teeth, burns, object rape, bruises, indications of torture over about a week. Then a guy about fifteen or twenty years older, mid-thirties to fifty. That one's really bad. He takes about ten days from what my people said. xx. Sorry , my hands are shaking. I threw up when I saw the autopsy report. All kinds of assault and torture. Vivisection. Like the young one but a whole lot worse. Then he burns his house and vanishes. And two more guys die in some other town. Very little info, seems quiet, ordinary looking, white guy. The descriptions change a little, but this Average White Male shows up in town, buys a house, travels on business so he's away a lot. One day a kid disappears, then a man. No connection except how they die. House burns and Spooky shows up. That's really all we know right now. This guy isn't little and he isn't green, but he likes UFO towns. Leave these guys alone Em. Don't get near them. The killer and Spooky both. Please. Call me. Erase this. I've given you the least I thought you could work with. It is not safe to know too much about these people, Emma. Don't ask for more. Just keep away from them. Jerry I sat and looked at my screen for a long time, rereading what Jerry had written. Then I erased it, threw away my dinner, and took a shower. I wanted to take my brain out and scrub it. I'd read enough, and seen enough, to be able to picture what he was talking about a lot more clearly than I liked. And it was still too late. I'd already stepped off the cliff. I sent mail to Jerry and sat there in my robe, with one light on in my room and thought about Mulder. Thought about how his shoulder had felt under my hand. He was warm, and handsome, and funny, and scared me half to death. How somebody perfect, and confident, and sharp could have as much hurt as I thought I'd seen tonight was . . . terrifying. It meant nobody was immune. Nobody was safe. Ever. And all that had happened to me was that I'd had to wake up to that fact. So he and Scully had scars. I had a bad, bad feeling I was going to learn how that felt, if I hadn't picked up my first scar already. It was a long time until dawn. _______________ My eyes felt grainy and the mirror had shown them red and puffy. I was starting to miss my office, to feel cut off from the stream of my days. Another sharp, bright day plucked my nerves when I left the house. Traffic still cluttered the road, slowing me. I pulled into the parking lot of the hotel later than I had planned, and half-ran to the hotel coffee shop. It was a relief to see them there. I wanted to face them both before they could gather their reasons to keep me out. I could see Mulder wince from across the room. Agent Scully was saying something to him that gave him a look I remembered from my days on the Socratic hot seat in law school. If I had any doubts as to what she was saying, the grim look she turned on me would have eliminated them. "Ms. Courtland. I was afraid we might see you this morning." Her voice was polite and distant. He was avoiding both of us, looking out the window. I could sympathize but I wasn't letting my one ally off the hook. I slid into the booth next to him, feeling the vinyl seat, chill through the legs of my jeans. Mulder pointedly kept looking out the window, leaving me on my own with his partner. "Good morning Dr. Scully." Smile brightly, go on the attack. I handed her my list. "I hope you'll find this useful." She glanced at Mulder and back to me, pulling out an identical list. "I believe we have a copy of that already." Mulder was still trying to stay out of it. It was my turn to glare at him, and I wondered how he'd done that. I looked back at her, she was the one I had to convince now and she was not offering the openings Mulder had left. "Dr. Scully, I assume Agent Mulder mentioned encountering me last night?" The sour look on her face left no doubt as to that. "I can only tell you what I told him. I'm involved in this. I have been since I found that body. I'll try on my own if you won't let me help." She was wearing the same expression my mom had used when I wanted to get my ears pierced in grade school. This could have gone better. "Please listen to me, Ms. Courtland. We can't let you work with us. Mulder should have told you." He winced at another pointed glare. "Our work is specialized, it can be dangerous. FBI policy . . ." She could see me tune that out, I was sure. She sighed. Ms. Courtland, law enforcement groupies have tried to ride along before and we cannot allow that." I could feel the sullen, mulish expression settle on my face. "I'd rather help you. You are the specialists. But I will pursue this." I wanted to draw Mulder in, but he was totally unresponsive, looking out the window, avoiding us both. Scully was probably as irked at him as I was. She glared at him again, and there was a soft thump that might have been a kick, that ended in another wince. "Please don't push this, Ms. Courtland. If you continue you will be interfering with our investigation." I glared back. "False arrest. Abuse of process. Private citizens do have rights, Dr. Scully." "And I'm not interfering with your rights. I'm trying to keep you safe, and out of the way of an investigation." "I'm not doing this for fun, Agent Scully. This isn't entertaining for me, this is terrifying. But it's worse to do nothing. Worse to sit and wait. You're not my shepherd. Don't make me sit and wait for slaughter." She smiled and went for the feint. "Ms. Courtland, we're not endangering you. Just the reverse. This person has given no indication of striking at women. If you do not involve yourself in seeking him you should be safe." There. "If he were the only one. If no one else ever hit, or harmed, or killed. But what about the others, Agent Scully?" Lean in, she'd gone still. I was on to something, but I had no idea what. "You hunt them, Scully. He's not the only one, you know he's not. You're a hunter. You don't have to sit in your house, alone, in the dark, waiting to hear them outside the door." God, her eyes were gray. Pinpoint pupils and solid gray, flushed spots marked her cheekbones against a pale face. I sat back, took a deep breath, and tried to let my focus expand. Mulder was watching us both, Scully with concern, me with veiled hostility and respect. I knew I was threatening her somehow, but for the life of me I didn't know how. "Scully," I worked a coaxing tone into my voice. "I'm not a groupie. I'm an officer of the court. So it's land law, so what. I have to uphold the law. We're alike that way." She drew a breath that was shakier than I think she wanted me to see. "This man broke the law and it touched my life. He murdered Tommy. It could easily have been me." What was this? She was reacting too hard. "Emma, I don't . . .," Mulder's voice was taut, I could feel him ready to stop me. I leaned back in to lock eyes with Scully before he could cut me off. "Do you *know* how it feels, Agent Scully? To know all of a sudden that you're only alive by a fluke? This guy kills men. Plenty of others don't. You're just leaving us here to wait for the wolves and then you'll come save the rest of us once a few of us are gone." Mulder was trying to stop me now, hand on my arm, but the world was me and her and no one else right now. Whatever I'd hit, she seemed stunned. "So you're a hunter and he's a hunter and you're both fighting over us sheep, Agent?" She flinched. "No" Her voice was harsh. "He's a parasite. He feeds off you and I hunt him." Her words were low and vile, cutting under the breakfast clatter and spoiling the good smells of food, the innocence of Formica and white china. "So he's a parasite. I don't have to sit and wait for your cure. I'm not helpless. You take that away from me and you're just staking me out for him." I was playing instinct, and it was scary. She looked like she wanted to slap me. I couldn't decide whether to keep pushing her or not, I was far past the point where I knew what answers I might get or whether they would help me. Push too hard and they'd both push back. "Scully, Agent Scully, I'm not the enemy here. I won't get in your way. As soon as I do, I'll quit. Let me help. Don't make me sit and wait for somebody else to save me." I'd hit her again, I hadn't meant to this time. She was playing with her cup, putting way too much sugar in her coffee, trying not to look at either me or Mulder. He finally caught her eyes, but the only silent words this time were of worry and guilt. She straightened, and looked back to me. "You are a good lawyer, Ms. Courtland." Biting now, acid. "Listening to you, I could almost believe you were the victim here. You should take a show like that on the road, they'd love you in Congress." Now I'd done it. "I've dealt with these monsters. I've met them first hand. Baby-sitting a body doesn't come close. Find a shrink and get on with your life." She cut me then, turned to sip her coffee and glare at her partner. I swallowed. I'd almost had her, she already had me. They had me. I sat up, reached out, touched her. Her glare was incandescent, and not enough. "You're half right, Agent Scully. Baby-sitting Tommy doesn't come close. But Tommy's not what took away everything safe. He's not the reason I figured out how dangerous it can be." She opened her mouth and I rolled right over her. "Even his killer didn't take away warm and safe and familiar. You did. Tommy's killer is just one man, there's only so much he can do." Her coffee sat ignored in the saucer while she watched me. The waitress who'd been watching us saw that we weren't done yet, and kept away. "Tommy's dead. That's sad and lonely and painful, but not strange. It happens. But you . . . you two mean something. You mean Tommy's killer isn't alone, there are more. Lots more. You mean we need protection. You mean there are things we don't know how to see, secrets we never knew were kept. And you help keep them." I felt Mulder shift, saw Scully's eyes narrow again, but not from anger this time. "If it weren't for you, I could have moved on. Some bad dreams and bad days, and then this would fade and I'd know there weren't any more of them. Reality would have a crack or two, but the pieces would all be there. But you've hunted before. You've met them before. You. . .you mean we aren't safe. I'm not like you. But I'm not like me anymore, either. Were you always like this? You can't have been." She was still again. "I wasn't. I. . .I remember before." She sighed. "You need to go back, Emma. You still have a different place to go." "I can't." She looked at me, heard it in my voice. "I can't. Like I told him," nod at Mulder, "I can follow you or go on my own, but I can't go back. There just aren't any safe walls anymore." She was leaning in to try one last time, when Mulder put his hand on her arm. The look she gave him wasn't a glare. I wasn't sure what it was, a mix of worry and irritation and curiosity, something loaded with shared history. "Scully, would you be able to leave it?" He leaned close to her, I could barely hear them. "You remember, how it feels when it stops being safe, when there's no place left." And then there was nothing left to hear, but entirely too much being said. I looked away and swallowed a wash of loneliness. When I glanced back she was still looking in his eyes, but was beginning to nod. She looked back at me, searching for something. She slowly nodded again. I could see it in her eyes, the knowledge that no walls could hide you. Jerry's words had held none of the things in her eyes, but he would have recognized them. And he would have told me to run. "I don't like it, Ms. Courtland. I don't like risking your life. You are not trained for this. This is not part of your brief." I smiled. I could feel her finally wavering. "I won't take risks, Doctor. I KNOW what this man can do. I saw it. Please let me help you. I *need* to help. If I can't, I mean, if I just sit here he wins. Do you understand?" She didn't say anything but I could see it. Someone had taken something from her, too. She knew. She looked back at Mulder, who gave her a quizzical smile. I could read the exasperation there. She finally grinned at him. "I guess I deserve that. The two of you ganging up on me. It better not happen again." I smiled, then wondered why. I had just talked myself through a door I never should have opened. I ordered coffee and toast, finishing breakfast with them in a noisy silence, and wished I knew why. _____________________ They came to Tommy's funeral with me. It was expected. I'm sure they also hoped to see a face none of the rest of us knew. No such luck, whoever had murdered Tommy had no interest in the poor thing he'd left behind. Cookies and tea at the Dalbert home left me with crumbs on my skirt and a painful tightness in my chest. I'd never really known Tommy alive, only dead. His cousin had identified him because his own parents traveled for work. He'd been alone so often. He was alone now. I sat on their gold velvet couch, listening to their stories and learning things I'd hoped never to know. Mulder and Scully wandered, talking with other guests. Their fine, dark clothes weren't so out of place for once. Everyone was dressed in their finest to pay their respects. By the time we left it was early afternoon. Scully was "Scully" or "Dana" to me now, I supposed I was on probationary status, provisionally accepted after the morning's fight. I still felt wrung out, and she seemed dulled, less bright. It was almost a relief when we left, to see dark clouds on the horizon, even though the sun still shone gold across the trees and lawns around us. Mulder held the door for Scully, and took the driver's seat. I drove behind them to their hotel, quietly following them up the outside stairs that lead to their rooms. Mulder had papers spread on every surface his room could offer, and we had to clear spots to sit. It was no more than three. He glanced at his notes then up at the two of us. A smile to Scully, "Okay, Emma. We have your real estate list. We know who moved here in the last year, know the families, couples, women. We're waiting on the Bureau to provide information they may have on file for any of the single men. Now what would you do?" What was this, a pop quiz? Scully was watching me with a smothered smile. "Umm, I'd go to the newspapers, and maybe the DMV if I could, get anything with photos so I could check the locals against any past description that might be available." Mulder smiled and nodded. "I'm on that already. Anything else?" Scully saved me this time. "Hardware stores. He's using accelerants to trap the house to burn. He doesn't buy them all at once, but we can get regular purchasers for kerosene and paraffin. And flour." "Flour?" I looked back and forth. Mulder grinned. "Yeah, you put the sack above ground. Flour burns, but what you really want is to get the flour to drop and suspend in the air, like dust. It's explosive that way. That's how they leveled Richmond before Sherman could take it. And no one asks questions, they just assume you like bread, or make your own Play Doh, or whatever." I'd never heard of anything like that. I must have looked bemused, because Scully almost giggled, then informed me that Mulder knew more trivia than anyone she knew. "You think that's trivial, the biggest car on the back of the ten dollar bill is a 1932 Huppmobile." He was grinning, showing off. He'd grabbed a folder and flipped through it, now he dropped several torn-out Yellow Pages on me, and a list on Scully. "I think you two get to let your fingers do the walking." "And you will be . . .?" Scully looked up from her list, her voice quizzical. "Doing what I said, checking photos." He grabbed his keys, and she frowned. "You are taking me?" "One of us should work with Emma, and it would be better to get the calls done. Besides, I'd rather it not look like we're ganging up on them." "Mulder, I don't like you running off on your own . . ." her voice had a dangerous undertone. This was clearly a long-running argument between them. "Don't worry mom, it's daylight. I'll call between every house and let you know where I'm going, and I'll stay out on the steps. I only want to meet them. I'm certain all of them already know we're here." He looked to me for confirmation, and I nodded. "I want to level the playing field. At worst, our killer may just jump early, and we'll be right behind him." Scully looked skeptical, but let him go. I picked up my sheaf of phone book pages and she and I started hitting the phones. _____________________ We'd been on the phones for two hours and the phone buttons felt like sandpaper under my fingers.. The sun glowed close to the horizon outside, and thunderheads gathered dramatically overhead in contrast. Another cinematically appealing weather pattern. I could hear the first peals of thunder that warned it would be a climactically exciting night. I sat back from my phone, stretching my arms out, then overhead and cracking my knuckles. Mulder's notes cluttered the table, the bed, most flat surfaces, in stacks that Scully warned me not to touch. She said he had his own "piling system" and would be lost if we "organized" his notes. I wandered into the bathroom, rubbing an ear sore from the phone receiver. My face in the mirror was still formal in my funeral make-up. My dress felt sticky in the growing humidity and I'd long since abandoned my heels and hose. The bathroom tiles were cold and pebbly under my bare feet as I put the toilet seat down. I finished and washed my hands and face, wondering if Fox Mulder and Dana Scully only had two rooms for show. A quick glance around answered that question in the negative. His razor was left out on the sink. The first time a woman borrowed a man's razor for her legs, he learned not to be so trusting. I hadn't really thought they were sleeping together, but that razor made it certain. I grinned at my own reflection, and at my idle curiosity. Mulder had called in three times already. One man had been home, two not, and he'd had a nice discussion of late cabbages. Scully had him on the speaker phone now and was enjoying his drawn-out description of the gardener while she updated her notes on hardware purchases. I padded over to my yellow pages and my notes, eavesdropping shamelessly. "Okay, Scully, I'm going to do one more house, mm, the Selman house, and call it a night . . ." his voice trailed off. "Scully, there's a blue truck behind me. It's too dark to get details, but he's been back there about eight minutes." His voice sounded alert, but not overly worried. I saw Scully's knuckles whiten a little, however. "And you didn't think I'd be interested by that, Mulder?" She kept a bantering tone in her voice. "It could just be going the same direction. I just thought I should mention it." His voice was starting to fuzz with static. He must be reaching the edge of his cellular tower range, going into a dead zone. "It's a blue pick up, paint seems a bit dull, it may be oxidized. I can't get make or model from here, and it doesn't have a front plate so I don't have a license number. I'm going to speed up, see what he does." There were a couple minutes of increasing static, then his voice came back. "He's kept pace. Wait a minute. He's overtaking." It had been hard to make the last comments out. As we waited, static obliterated the connection and the phone went dead. The pencil Scully held snapped in her hand. ___________________________ Scully stared at the phone for a few moments, then turned a hard, controlled look on me. "I need your car, Emma." Her hand was out. "I'll take you. I know where he had to be when the call dropped out." I was balanced on one high heel, pulling the other on to a bare foot, then reaching for my coat and purse. Scully already had hers and an umbrella. She didn't bother to argue. The rain broke before we were halfway there, thick, gray ropes of rain gleaming on my windshield and trailing into windows, open an inch so they wouldn't fog up. I drove much too fast for the weather, and even so it took hellishly long to reach where he had to have been. I'd lost enough phone calls to know where the dead zone began. I pulled over and fished my big umbrella and a flashlight out of the back. I had spare sneakers in my trunk, thank god, and stood in the rain changing my shoes. Scully was already out, visible only as a smudge of light in the rain. She hadn't said a word on the way out, but it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out. I took the other side, looking for tire marks or broken glass in the narrow beam of my light. If the night had been clear I'd have looked from my car, but in this rain we'd never have seen a thing. You know, you think of rain falling in sheets, or in buckets, but it doesn't. It falls in shards that catch the light at the corner of your eye and tease you with images that might be there. I fought my way through rank grass on the roadside, afraid to walk closer to traffic but needing to see that edge he might have gone over. I found glass in little, glittering piles here and there, but no car. I looked up at a faint shout once, to see that Scully had found a car. I scrambled across the slick, wet ribbon of highway to her side. She was pale in the flashlights, her hair plastered to her face in spite of her umbrella. Her light picked out blue paint, broken windows, but on a car long lost to weeds and sprouting baby trees. She'd seen the paint and somehow hoped, and was standing there when I reached her. I've never seen such a lost, empty look. I touched her shoulder, I didn't know what I expected. Maybe a sob? She straightened up, and held herself tight and determined, and sent me back to my search. More glass. No cars on my side of the road, but every drunk's skid marks sent me questing in hope of finding something, or maybe fear of finding the wrong thing. Tall grass sliced my legs, and dirt gritted between my toes. My nice, black dress was pasted to my legs, and rode up in soggy bunches from my walking. I gave up trying to pull it down, except when it threatened to creep too high. It just wasn't the most important thing in my mind. I kept seeing Tommy in my mind's eye. I kept seeing what Jerry wrote. I couldn't picture Mulder that way, couldn't see him like that. I was so scared that I might have to learn. And Scully . . . whatever I'd hit that morning, I could see it in her eyes tonight. At some point someone must have stopped by Scully to ask what we were doing, because a man was wandering back, rechecking ground, when I looked up towards her after a while. In general, though, the few cars out in this blew past, eager to get home. Their wet roar and the hiss of their tires on pavement ran raw on my nerves. I tried to phone for a cop. I'd forgotten, of course. I couldn't phone out. My phone didn't work here. I was cold, and when lights caught me and slowed I turned, hoping for a cop at long last. I started towards it, squinting in the headlights, half deaf in the rain, when his voice stopped me cold. I had to be sure. My heart was hammering, I was so scared my ears were wrong. I ran a few steps, slid on gravel, walked close enough to see. He was in front of his car now, backlit by headlights and calling to me. "Emma! Emma, where's Scully?" He was walking towards me. I could barely hear him in the din of rain on trees, and thunder, and couldn't see his face against the lights, but I had no doubt now and turned to scream for Scully. She must have seen him. Thank god there were no cars then, because she didn't look left and she didn't look right, and she nearly knocked him off his feet. She'd dropped her light and umbrella, and I thought she might have been hammering on his chest. I couldn't hear her words, but the tone made me feel like a voyeur. I turned and trudged back to my car, where I sat trying to work my soaked dress around and waiting for the heater to warm me up. Scully finally broke away from Mulder, her fingertips and his broke contact last, and she turned towards me, running to my car. He stood, silhouetted in the headlights and rain. She leaned into the passenger side, pulling the door just wide enough for her head and shoulders. Her hair was plastered to her face, but her cheeks glowed with her relief. I let my eyes slide away, embarrassed by her intensity. She smiled and reached for her purse - I could see Mulder off getting her flashlight and umbrella now - and explained she'd ride back with him. "Scully," I caught her eyes now. "I'm glad. I mean . . ." "I understand," she grinned with everything from her shoulders to the crown of her head. "Thanks Emma. . . .I guess we'll see you in the morning." She didn't slam the door. I waited for them to leave before I finally pulled away. _____________________ I felt tired and hollow when I let myself into my house. My own sense of relief had left me exhausted, and my empty house felt too big for me. My computer had answered my phone several times. I had the standard complement of phone calls from rabid telemarketers, a couple calls from concerned colleagues, and seventeen e-mail messages from Jerry Rigg. The first fifteen were variations on a theme of "call me, write me." The sixteenth was different. FROM: IN%"JERRY_RIGG@TATTLER.TRIB" TO: IN%"DIRTLWR@TIAC.COM" SUBJ: Unmentionables Emma. You aren't home and nobody who should have seen you has, so I must assume you're up on top of that shelf your mother and I warned you to stay out of, sticking beans up your nose. When everything goes black, remember - I warned you. For god's sake Emma, call me if you think you are in danger, or even just need to talk. I can help you. I already know you're in over your head. *DON'T* make the mistake of trying to do everything alone. You have friends. Your two new "friends": you better know that HE has been in therapy several times. He freaked on this serial killer-hunt somewhere in Oklahoma, started identifying with the killer, predicting what the bastard would do before he did it. This guy can't be stable, Emma. Keep an eye on him. His partner was stable, at least until recently. I ran down news reports that she'd been kidnaped and threatened by another serial k. (What is it with these two and cereal, Emma? - don't they know about toast and coffee? JR :)) I wouldn't be stable after that. Would you? I got some weird, weird rumors about this guy you think you want to find. (why can't you settle down with a nice perio-orthodontist like the rest of the lawyers?). There's nothing official, but he may know about your friends. Mulder is kind of well-known on the UFO circuit. I got some freaky flyers from a guy who says he's heard of him. Apparently the same flyers got stuck under FBI's windshield wipers last year in Gnaw Bone, Indiana, where your boy killed his most recent pair. Nobody outside the usual suspects got killed there, but I really, really don't like you getting yourself in the middle of this. I mean this Emma. I'm worried. I want you to check in with me every day or so. And give me your cell-phone and an emergency contact if I can't find you. Remember to eat this e-mail message when you are done reading it. Jerry Rigg I sat there looking at my blue screen, then scrambled to hit the delete button. I wanted to be ill all over again. What had I said to her? What had I said. _____________________ I slid into the booth next to Scully and prayed for coffee. The gods must have heard me because the waitress sidled up and planted a cup in front of me. Mulder looked tired, and I was certain I looked the same way. I had not repeated my sleepless night, but I certainly had slept restlessly, dreaming things I preferred not to recall. We placed orders for breakfast, toast, eggs, waffles, fruit, yogurt, all distributed variously. No one ordered cereal, for which I was thankful. Then I pinned Mulder down - being perfectly placed across from him to give him my best "we're-in-discovery-and-you are-under-oath" stare. "So where were you? Why were we out searching the roadside? Scully and I were in calling range for quite a while. Couldn't you call?" He paused with a forkful of high-risk food halfway off the plate heavy, white. "Actually, no. By the time I found a phone you weren't in range anymore." Scully sat back next to me, pale against the pearlescent, red vinyl. She was pulling a piece of toast into little bits. I could tell she'd heard his story before and was trying to decide whether to let him off the hook. He was looking guilty as hell. I felt like I had the first time I found evidence of a leaky roof in a landlord-tenant case, that quick rush of the hunt. "Mulder, it must have taken us thirty or forty minutes to get to where you dropped out. What happened? What was with that truck? Obviously you didn't get driven off the road. Why didn't you turn around and call?" I think he decided his breakfast was going to be a dead loss. He sat back and let his fork drop, giving me an exasperated look and then focusing out the window on the hard, flat day that had followed last night's storm. Pale sun reflected off puddles and put patterns of light and shadow on his face. "After I lost the signal, the truck pulled up right behind me. I . . .I was feeling a little nervous about it." That particular admission made my hair stand on end. Jerry had said something about second guessing killers . . . "So I kept the phone up like I was still talking to you and he pulled on around and passed. Probably just my well-known paranoia acting up, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. It was too dark to get a good look at him, and the plates were muddy. All I really could see was that a lot of the thing had been repainted in what looked like house paint. NOT a high-gloss enamel job." He sat back to let the waitress maneuver plates in front of us before he continued. "So I kept on to Selman's, who wasn't home. His neighbors must have been out at the same barn-raising, or whatever you people do for fun out here. I kept going until I found a gas station and started calling the hotel and your phones, but you were out of cellular phone range by then." Scully chipped in. "Half true, at the least. There was this stack of pink notes at the hotel that took up a couple of those little pigeon holes they use." She eyed me sideways, and I could see her fighting not to grin. "So why didn't you turn around, drive back into range, and call?" I wasn't quite ready to let it drop. He had the good grace to look embarrassed. "Well, Scully knows I tend to get a little. . . paranoid about some of these cases. I figured she'd know I was just being. . . spooky," he grinned at her. "And she'd expect to hear from me when I got back in range. It really didn't occur to me until I got to Selman's that you might have thought I was in trouble." He was shoving his breakfast around the plate, a few more bites, and he sat back and left the rest of it. The clatter of forks on plates and other peoples' conversations filled the space for a few moments. The shiny walls and tables, and the bright lights in there made the storm and dark and fear recede a little more. I nibbled down the last of my toast, and sat back from a nearly empty plate. Mulder's was still mostly full, and cold. Scully had done far more damage to a far healthier breakfast. She must have been used to these scenes with him, because she had already recovered from the scare, something I had not quite managed despite having far less at stake. Now she smiled at me past her coffee cup. "So, do we forgive him for getting us out on that highway like a couple fools looking for a lost contact lens?" "I don't know. Is he buying lunch?" She was looking cheerful, far better rested than either of us. I felt uncomfortable meeting her eyes for a moment. Jerry's comments, my own, ran back through my mind. She grinned at me, though, and looked over at her partner. "That's a good idea. Mulder, you buy lunch and we let this one slip." "That's extortion." "Yeah, but we're the X-Files. We don't do simple blackmail cases, so you're SOL." "My pick?" The crafty look in his eyes was all the warning the two of us needed. "Hell, no," Scully and I chimed together. All of a sudden I didn't feel nearly as bad as I had the night before. _____________________ I never thought about what FBI work entailed. For example, I never thought about sitting in a library, hour after hour, rolling microfilm until Dramamine wore off and food sounded like an insult. I hope I never think of it again. Because that was how I spent my morning, while Scully and Mulder drove out to hardware store after hardware store, interviewing owners who thought anyone had bought unusual quantities of kerosene, paraffin. Anything that would burn. My black slacks had dust streaks from the little boxes the rolls came in, and I was starting to grit my teeth at the squeak and whine of the take up reels. Slow or fast, the nasty things had some obnoxious sound to make. The windows in here were high and small and fly-specked. Our library was old, and this backwater of miserable research was in the most decrepit back corner they could banish it to. A row of plastic chairs that prevented comfortable posture accompanied a row of machines. Machines? Wrong term. I couldn't repeat the polite term in public. The slanted screen assured that the whole field would never be in focus, and watching the film roll, steadily, from right to left had me sort of curling over sideways in my chair in unconscious reaction. I was so, so thankful that legal research used books or computers for the most part. This stuff could inspire a change of career in and of itself. Three hours of rolling through page after page left me with a meager stack of xerox copies of grainy photos, a splitting headache, and a real case of motion sickness. No wonder Mulder had looked so relieved when I'd agreed to take library duty. He probably would have paid to get out of this. Scully had just smiled and told me she wasn't letting him off the leash again. I think we could have reformed the criminal justice system if we'd just put reading microfilm in as a mode of punishment. We'd never need the death penalty. Fear of microfilm would put prison guards galore out of work. They rescued me from my dungeon for lunch, since Scully needed my expert assistance to choose where Mulder should drop some cash. I worked my headache out by selecting a little bistro I went to for birthdays and when I wanted to impress a client. He quailed when he saw the charming architecture and pretty lace curtains, but we held him to it. Mulder took a seat where he could see both windows and doors. I hadn't quite realized it until I saw him tracking people who walked past. Then I wondered just what he was looking for. Scully settled in happily, reached out to play with the fresh daisies on the table for a moment. I got the sense that she didn't eat in nice places as often as she would have liked. Ice in our glasses sparkled in the pale sunlight that lit the lace and set the checked table cloth glowing. It felt decadent to sit in a restaurant that used chairs instead of booths. Mulder tipped back onto two legs briefly, but stopped when I heard Scully kick him. The look he gave her could have been copied from my eight year old nephew. I saw a waitress eye us carefully, and wondered at it a moment before I understood. She had to be seeing familiar Emma Courtland in unfamiliar slacks and shirt, with. . .them. I looked back at Scully, at Mulder, tried hard to see them the way I had that first day at the morgue. And Scully refused to look like anyone but the woman I'd seen last night, soaked with rain and flushed with relief. Fox Mulder would not become anyone but the man with notes all over his room, who innocently left his razor on the counter. And my skin ran with chills as I wondered suddenly if the stranger the waitress saw was not them, after all. I buried my face in my burgundy leather menu. The sound of Scully's menu closing and hitting the tablecloth brought my eyes back up. The red-and-white check cloth reflected a warm glow onto her face as she grinned at Mulder in some kind of game. He sat back, menu closed, and rattled off a series of items, ticking off fingers as she nodded. "For a man who never eats in places with metal forks and spoons you're remarkably good at guessing my orders." She was smiling with everything but her mouth. "I've seen the pages you marked in your cookbooks." He'd unfolded his white linen napkin and held it up. "Think they ran out of the good paper napkins? Oh, and I'm still running better than eighty percent right on Restaurant Jeopardy." "You cheat. I should handicap you for that memory of yours." I paused, looking between them, baffled. "So, I can see there are points, how are you scoring this?" Scully grinned, with her whole face this time and spun her glass to hear the ice tick and clatter. "We go to a new restaurant and Mulder tries to see how close he can come to my order. One point each for appetizers and desserts, two for entrees. I have to put down my menu so he knows I won't just pick new items to fool him." "You don't guess on him?" He pretended to ignore us. "No point." She knew better. "He orders whatever he doesn't recognize. Of course, in good places that could be almost everything on the menu." He rolled his eyes and looked pointedly at the Matisse reproductions on the walls. "But he barely looked at the menu, do you order the same thing every time?" I looked between them again. Mulder was suddenly alert, but Scully didn't seem to notice. "He's got a photographic memory, it only takes. . . " She trailed off as he dropped his head into his hand and I swivelled oh. . .so . . .slowly back to him. "Mulder? A photographic memory?" Could we call that witness again, your honor? I was suddenly remembering my real estate list, and itching to see if I'd been tricked. No, I knew I'd been tricked. I was itching to see him squirm for it. The waitress gave him a short reprieve. He looked up to dazzle her with a smile, ordering for himself and Scully. She lingered rather noticeably over Mulder, and his order, turning to me when I started tapping my nails on my menu. I ordered my meal based on price. His credit card was going to be hurting something fierce. When she whisked off with our orders, I leaned close over the table. "Photographic memory. Let me see if I get this right. I wanted to know how you got my list. The list you just glanced at and gave back to me? The one I got from friends of mine. You copied it? From memory?" He fidgeted with his silverware and glared at Scully. Then he nodded, rather sheepishly, and sighed. "You showed it to me. I had it memorized then. And you were going to use it for leverage. You're here now. If you were going to be here it would have to be on something more than leverage." He met my eyes. I nodded slowly. "All right. I'll give you that one. Pull that kind of trick on me again and I will find a way to even the score, I don't care how long it takes." I took a deep breath and got my temper back under control. When I looked back up it was to find him watching me and nodding, smiling faintly. "I believe you, Emma. Fair enough. I won't pull that kind of trick again." I wanted to stay mad with him. He was giving me a look I recognized as the one he used to bamboozle Scully. Unfortunately, it worked. I shook my head and gave him my best exasperated look. "God, I'm glad she's your partner." Scully sounded like she was choking. I let her get herself back under control. "I'd have strangled you with one of your own tacky ties." The arrival of French onion soup and bread relieved him of any need to respond. I don't think I've ever seen anyone so happy to see food. I glanced up from my melted cheese and savory soup to skewer him again. "You're off the hook for now. But puppy-dog looks won't always get you out of trouble." He grinned at me and Scully, with a look that as good as announced puppy dog looks had done it so far. Mulder's leg had to be black and blue, because Scully had kicked him every time he'd brought the case up during lunch. She'd announced plainly enough that she wanted at least one meal with no murders, tortures, or any other perversions mentioned. So I talked law instead. And what law! The case every first year law student learns, Regina v. Ojibway, that established that ponies are small birds for hunting purposes nearly undid Mulder. He choked so hard on a crouton we thought we'd have to do the Heimlich maneuver. The look on his face set Scully off, and her story about an accidental appendectomy performed when a resident slipped had me doubting the value of the Hippocratic oath. Mulder shared a risque story of sexual misadventures at Oxford, when he and an unnamed lover had tried to get closer to nature, but kept rolling down hills before they could manage to get engaged. They wound up frustrated, bruised, and discovered by a grade school walking club. Not his most gallant hour. White china plates with what was left of rich food had been removed, and we were settled in over coffee before Scully would allow murders to enter the conversation. I brought out my few pictures, but none of them seemed familiar to either Mulder or Scully. Their hardware store search had revealed that more than one felt a customer had bought large quantities of materials, but had not kept records and could not describe the men in question. I could see the frustration in the faces of the two FBI agents. To get close and be stalled like that. . . I thought about it again. "Mulder, you said this man follows UFO sites?" "Yes. . ." he seemed guarded suddenly, as if something about that topic made him uncomfortable. I remembered his questions about UFOs, decided there was a lot more here to learn. "Aren't there groups for that kind of thing?" Let's drop some names. "Something like MUFON or something?" The change was so subtle that if I wasn't used to watching people for such things I'd never have seen him tense up. "Can't you trace him through a membership in it?" He relaxed again. Scully was watching us carefully, too. "Tried that. To start with MUFON's pretty informal, and they don't like to distribute names too much. I did get names finally, but I think our man operates under new names in every town, and I don't think he's under his own name in MUFON either. I think he's using a post office box, too. I tried cross-referencing off it, but if you plan ahead it's pretty easy to make sure no one ever has your name or address. You just have to pay attention to how your name gets into the system, then make sure not to let it." He sounded calm and definite now. I'd like to have known how many times he'd made sure his own name didn't get into various systems. I'd also like to have known how much research he'd done on these killings with MUFON. I took a breath and decided that making a fool of myself wasn't the worst thing I could do, so I might as well risk it. "Mulder, do you think something other than a person is doing these murders?" Scully, next to me, froze with her coffee cup halfway to her lips. She finished her motion, but I'd seen the hesitation and the unreadable look she gave both of us. Mulder looked at me, then out the window. "When I first picked the file up I. . . had questions about that." He ran his hand through his hair, hiding his face for a moment, then dropped his chin in his hand so I couldn't read his mouth when he answered. His eyes were veiled. "I had some reason to think there might be. . . other influences involved." "Other influences? For god's sake, you're saying something other than a human might be committing murders! These people weren't killed by wild animals." I could feel myself digging nails into the table cloth. The fabric bunched under my fingers and my glass shook in front of me. "Mulder, if I hadn't seen lights that aren't planes myself, I'd be calling the men in white for you. As it is . . . isn't human atrocity enough for you? Do you need to find enemies that make even less sense than that?" He sighed and looked back out the window, squinting as the light brightened for a moment. "I'd like to think we're own worst enemies. Better yet, our only enemies. We're bad enough. But I've seen enough to convince me that we've got more problems than our own stupidity." He looked very lonely suddenly. The restaurant's little, human sounds were loud right then. I felt Scully more than saw her, as she leaned in closer, where she'd catch his eye. He looked back and smiled at her. I let them have the moment, but I couldn't let them have much longer. I kept my voice calm and neutral now, I didn't intend an attack. He clearly had reasons to think what he did, and I'd seen lights most people didn't think existed. "These murders, Mulder, do you think there's anything but humans in these murders?" He looked back now, risked looking directly into my eyes. "I don't know. There are all the trappings, all the hints and clues, but just not - quite - right. It doesn't *feel* right." He sounded so frustrated. "If I really thought these were abductees. . . that would be horrible enough. But this feels like something else. I'm not even sure why. . ." he was playing with an unused butter knife, running his thumb along the edge. He'd cut himself if he kept that up. "Why would somebody want to make it look like aliens had done these killings? Who'd believe that?" "That's what we have to find out." Scully's voice was low, steady. I had the feeling she'd thrashed this out with him herself many a time. "This man keeps a pattern, he's consistent, he's probably acting out some fantasy over and over. His fantasy just happens to be aliens." Low and steady, but with a tension of its own. Something about this bothered her, too. Jerry was going to be asking for overtime from me. "Maybe." Mulder was watching people walk by again, as if he expected to see something. "I wonder if he had a brother or sister. I wonder if his father hit them, too, that time they went to Roswell." He seemed distracted, unaware. Scully froze, watching him. He rubbed his eyes and looked back, caught her look. "What?" "Mulder, you think they went to Roswell? And his father. . .?" "What?" He seemed confused. Looked like he was playing his memory back, looked puzzled. "Ah, I don't know. I just . . .look." He sat up, nervous. "It stands to reason. Our killer has a fixation on alien visitation and Roswell is the holy grail." "But a brother? Or a sister? Why do you think. . ." I saw Scully half reach for me. Mulder was ignoring me, rubbing his forehead like he had a headache. His eyes looked like he was having trouble focusing. "Excuse me." He got up a little too fast, headed back for the men's room. I looked at Scully. She seemed as pale as he had been. "What was all that about?" "I'm not sure, but I'll tell you this. When we catch our killer, I'd put money on it that he had a brother or sister and his dad hit him. And all the rest." She was writing down what Mulder had said. "I don't like it, I don't understand it, Mulder doesn't understand it, but when he does that he's right." She looked up at me, a nervous, warning look. She'd wanted me to stop before, she was telling me not to pick it up again. "He gets to the point where he can think like them. He's followed this guy for years. Been everyplace he thought this man had been. I guess. . . I guess he just gets to this point where he thinks like them." "Spooky." "Don't let him hear you say that." _________________________ A long, boring afternoon at the police station managed to bury the eeriness of lunch in a mountain of paper and procedure. The fax machine sent a steady stream of absolutely useless negative information. Purple-blue fluorescent lights strobed just beyond the range of visibility, leaving my eyes tired and fuzzy. Scully had handed me a stack of FBI paperwork, asking me to cross reference names. She and Mulder both said this had already been done. And all three of us were doing it over again anyway, in spite of his complaints that local police did their jobs very well and he saw no reason to reinvent the wheel. Scully just grabbed his shoulder, pushed him into a chair, and told him that maybe the wheel was missing some spokes. She took the car keys away from him and dumped a stack of folders in front of him. He and I shared a commiserating look, and started cross-referencing names while she went back over fifteen years of autopsy reports. The afternoon wore on in a boredom-doped haze of bad, instant coffee, papercuts, fax-machine buzz and busy, talking, cursing, laughing cops. Fluorescents and the banging and smell of an old heating system that had been on summer sabbatical, smells of old sweat, gun-oil, vomit and bad coffee. Stale donuts on a paper plate on the desk were serving as a paperweight for the cop whose chair I'd snagged. I poked one with a pen. I think you could have used it for a hockey puck. Mulder, across the room, had draped his jacket over the chair and was in shirt-sleeves, with his tie loosened. The red silk with little yellow UFOs made a splash of color that caught my eye every time I glanced around that dreary office with its dirty, industrial putty walls and linoleum floors. The windows struggled to deliver enough sunlight through dusty venetian blinds, but were losing the war. Safety posters on the walls were the only concession to decoration in here. No wonder they all wanted to be out on beat. I didn't want to be there, either. The only one who seemed at ease was Scully. I supposed that long hours in morgues must have left her immune to lousy working conditions. Around five, when the shift change was beginning and Mulder looked on the edge of going comatose from boredom, I wandered over to lean over his shoulder. "I think there'll be a treat tonight." I grinned at him. This close, I could smell a faint hint of after shave and see the stubble on his jaw. He looked tired, and ready to get out of there. The look he gave me was somewhere between hopeful and suspicious. I smiled at him. "Good weather conditions, Mulder. I'm going to pack a picnic dinner. I hope you two have warm clothes because we're going to see if there's a light-show tonight." His pupils dilated. I could hear his breathing catch, and I grinned, patted him on the shoulder, and wandered off to pack up my papers and go home. Looked back to see him watching me. "See you two tonight at 7:00?" "We wouldn't miss it for the world." ________________________ I specifically avoided my office when I got home. If my computer had taken messages, collected e-mail, or been engaged in illicit relations with my fax machine, I did not want to know about it. I'd answer all those matters later. For now, I had a rare date with my kitchen and I was going to enjoy it. Bags of groceries yielded stuffed grape leaves, chicken, hummus, fruit, Pimm's liqueur and an assortment of all my other favorite goodies. I grinned at the memory of the happy expression on the face of my favorite Lebanese grocer as I dropped loads-o-bucks on his counter. He'd been asking me about my dates for ages, and clearly interpreted my largesse to indicate a new romance. I let him savor the illusion. The quick trip by the standard American market provided more traditional foods, in case the FBI only hired people with bland taste in foods in order to avoid potential middle-eastern terrorists. I started the chicken baking, and cut fruit and cucumbers to make a white Pimm's cup that an English friend and introduced me to. I fussed and sipped at it until I got that perfect blend of liquor and seltzer and fruit that made such a crisp, tasty drink. If Mulder had spent all that time in England he might like this in particular. Vegetables for dipping, pita, shawarma, my favorite picnic foods. I had to pull a chair over to my cabinets and stand there fishing around until I could excavate my picnic basket, and then I had to wash the dust off it, but it was really in pretty good shape. Plates, cups, napkins, oil cloth to sit on, blanket, every other thing I could think of that would fit. Oh yes, a candle. Somewhere in the middle of dicing fruit I started snickering over the idea of all this time and effort spent for a picnic dinner to watch UFOs with two (not one, two!) FBI agents. God, my standards for a date had dropped. The last time I'd done this much had been for a hot weekend with a moot court partner. I doubted very much that dinner with Mulder and Scully would offer the same satisfactions, and started giggling all over again at the notion. If I'd had a roommate they would have thought I'd finally cracked. Helluvan endorsement for the single life style. Between cooking and my little levity breaks I was barely done in time. I knotted my sweater around my neck and grabbed a couple extras in case Nancy Drew and the Federal Hardy boy hadn't packed any, and dashed out with my picnic basket in my arms. Mulder had the trunk open for me, and was watching with both trepidation and anticipation as I slung my big basket in. He looked. . .hot. Blue jeans and a plain henley sweater. When you work around balding, pudgy, infinitely ordinary guys every day you forget that there are people who don't look that way and who are bigger than your TV screen. Somehow he looked more real now, without the armor of that FBI suit to hide behind. Scully, in the front passenger seat, was equally comfortable. I think she'd caught the look I'd given her partner, because the look she gave me was an interesting mix of warning, amusement and exasperation. She shook her head just slightly at me, as he was getting in and getting his seatbelt back on. I hadn't made a pass, I probably wouldn't, but I knew when territorial boundaries were being laid out for me. I grinned back and decided to let her know I wasn't that stupid. "Gee, I didn't know you guys were allowed to own clothes that weren't suits. Don't they confiscate your wardrobes when they hire you?" Scully grinned and Mulder snorted. "They give us this dress code, we have to wear clothes our uncle would approve of on the job, but they give us this little allowance on evenings and weekends so the casual wear industry can't claim restraint of trade and interference." "So you do go on civilian standing sometimes?" "Oh absolutely. We just have to be careful to not let enemies of our country catch us out of mufti, so they can't blackmail us with evidence of being off-duty." Scully smiled, enjoying his gift for spinning conspiracy theories. I hadn't really heard him in full flight, but I imagined based on what I was hearing that he could give Oliver Stone a run for his money. I leaned forward over the back of the seat to give directions. It took a little while, but it was a lovely evening for a drive, clear and cool, and the sky had the delicate blue-to-indigo that fall skies got in that pause between weather and seasons. The hillside that was the local bughunt favorite was already crowded and a buzz of conversation floated in the crisp evening air, while we searched around for the perfect picnic spot. We got one comfortably far from the hippies downslope so that Mulder and Scully could pretend they were just smoking tobacco in good conscience. The trees behind us cut off the last of the sun, and a crescent moon hung pale and translucent in the coming night sky. Planets winked, it was still just barely too light for stars. The oil cloth and blankets kept us cozy from the chilly, wet ground. I poured Pimm's and passed cups around as faint strains of slightly out-of-tune guitar floated down from someone singing something about "pulling down data on the xerox line" to the tune of some old folk song. Mulder's eyes sparkled as he tasted his drink, and he toasted us happily. I was serving out dinner while he told us an outrageous story about getting trashed during a punting race or something on the Thames. If half of what he was saying was true it was a miracle he hadn't drowned, or been arrested for balancing on bridge railings, blindfolded by cucumber slices over his eyes while his friends bet on whether he could make it from one side of the bridge to the other. "So, was all this in your background check for the FBI?" My voice was probably not as dry as I would have thought. "Of course. They said the incident proved I wasn't as accident prone as my records hinted. If I'd been as bad as all that I'd never have lived past Oxford." Scully buried her nose in her drink to cover a snicker. I was sure she had a few adventures of her own. I'd ante up first. "I don't know, that's not so bad. I had one that's never going to get in any records, but my parents have never forgiven me. This one time," I looked to fix my audience in place. "We were going to go on a trip, right? So I loved root beer and, like any four year old, was sure that they didn't have it where we were going. I snuck out that night and put sodas in all our luggage to make sure we'd have enough. Well, it was my first ever plane ride, down to Florida? You know those unpressurized cargo holds?" They both winced, they could see this one coming. "The things froze on the way up. Froze and cracked. Bad enough. But the explosive decompression on the way down . . .BLOOEY! Root beer, glass bottles, blecch, all over EVERYTHING all of us owned. And coming back we found out that those water-bug roach buggy things do exactly the same thing in luggage! Those bugs freeze and blow up. They'd swarmed for the sugar from the root beer that we couldn't get out of the luggage, and it was disgusting! Bleccchhh! My parents can still get me to do almost anything with the guilt trip off that one." Scully was curled over on her side by now, hiccuping as she giggled, coming up to sip her Pimm's every so often. Either she didn't get a good laugh often enough, or else that drink was hitting her pretty hard. Mulder gave her a big, indulgent grin and patted her on the head. He looked up to me and smiled evilly. "According to her Mom, Scully did some goodies, too, as a kid." Scully tried to pull herself up and lunge at him, but he fended her off when she tried to cover his mouth. "Seems she was really popular at ballroom dancing lessons as a kid." He had hold of her wrists to keep her away from his face. She wrestled him back over onto his back, squealing with outrage. "She told *you* about that? I can't believe it!" "It was Melissa. . ." He was laughing too hard to defend himself but he kept trying to tell the story. Scully finally told it to me, in self defense, according to her. "Mom made me take ballroom dancing when I was little, with the nuns. She said it would be fun for me and teach me a good skill. So she sent me off in that stupid little dress I had to wear. . ." "With puffy sleeves and crinolines. . ." Mulder's voice was choked with laughter as he had to get that in. "God, she must have shown you the picture." Scully had him down flat and kept an elbow in his chest. "And all of it was polyester and staticky as hell. And I was dancing with Brian Leary, and we were trying to redefine arms-length. . ." she let Mulder roll onto his side laughing as she pantomimed dancing with her arms stretched all the way out. "And all of a sudden I feel this thing on my leg! I knew it wasn't Brian's hand, but I couldn't reach down to get it and it kept sliding down and down and down until it was on my patent leather shoes. We both looked down, and one of Melissa's frilly, nylon briefs had gotten stuck to my petticoats in the dryer and the static had worn off and it was s-s-sitting on my s-s-shoe." She had tears on her face and could barely get her breath. Mulder was sobbing he was laughing so hard. I was sure he'd turn blue in a minute if he couldn't breathe, but I was almost as bad. "And I kicked it off, and Sister Mary Elizabeth . . . oh god, Sister Mary Eliz-z-zabeth picked it up and dangled it there and asked who it belonged to. . . and that little shit Brian. . . he said it was - said it was mine, and he didn't know how I'd got it off to begin with because he sure hadn't helped. . ." She caved at that point, whuffling helplessly into the blanket. I just flopped on my back and kicked my heels and sipped my drink and laughed at the idea of the FBI in giggle fits and nylon briefs. It took a little while to calm down and get dinner back together, we were lucky we hadn't rolled right through the shawarma. We were mainly quiet by now, but the occasional chuckle made the evening feel warmer than it was. We passed around the food and wondered where Hotpants Leary might be now. Somewhere on my third glass, and the fourth or fifth for each of them, with dinner done and dessert a promise for when we felt ready, we saw the first of them. Mulder, of course, saw them first. His gasp of delight caught our attention. He was kneeling up, eyes fixed above the treeline, watching intently. A low moan of welcome rolled from several other of the watchers who now crowded this hillside. The saucer-freaks started to wave the signs they'd brought that asked the visitors to take them along. A couple people screeched with fake dread, but most of us were quiet, waiting. The lights came over us low and fast, and then broke into incredible spirals that nothing built on earth could ever do. Mulder's eyes gleamed in the light of them. Scully watched with no expression, eyes flickering from the lights to his face and back. The things spun in intricate patterns, whirling around each other in some kind of dance. There was no sound now, we waited in silence, barely breathing as they captivated us. The things rolled at the top of a climb and dropped in this heartbreaking dive, throwing themselves out of it as they seemed ready to run right through us. Mulder moaned. Gasps and cries rippled from others out there that night. It went on and on. No one could even think to try to film it. The old-timers who'd seen it before knew it would just fog the film anyway. The only bit of this wonder you could take was behind your eyes. It was enough. The lights just spun and whirled and danced. I knew where myths of fairies and fey came from in those moments. These things were a dream of flight. My heart broke when they spilled away at last, leaving us in the dark, warm and small and earthbound. Scully gasped as she drew in a breath. Mulder made a sound that could have been a sob. In the dark it was hard to tell. We sat silent or close to it, everyone out there did. None of us could move. It was a long time before the cold made us stir. I drew a breath that felt like the first one in my life. I could hear people at other blankets, other places on the hills. There were a few flashlights, but not many. Most of us didn't want to break the dark. I felt my companions there, Scully sitting still, Mulder kneeling and letting his hands trail up and down his arms as if he were cold. I could hear the slow, quiet sound of the fabric against his palms. Someone, somewhere, began to sing. Nobody took it up, thank god, but it broke us loose from the mood. I shifted, got my tail off the cold spot where I'd been sitting. Mulder slowly rolled up on to his feet and brushed himself off. "Excuse me a minute." He wandered off up the hill, not so very far, until he was in the trees. We could hear a couple other men up there. They seemed to have an instinct for where they should go out here. Scully, next to me, drew audible breath and touched my shoulder. "You grew up knowing about those?" "Yeah. I've seem 'em before. But nothing like this, Scully. This was. . ." I didn't have words. I spent my life having words, and now I didn't have words. "It's okay." She seemed to understand. "It was. . . maybe that's how Mulder feels all time. He believed in these things before." "Maybe that's how he feels." She sounded guarded, sad. "Maybe." We were silent after that a while. I finally shook myself loose, and started to pick up my plates and silver. The warmth of the evening still surged in me and I smiled in the dark. Scully heard, and began feeling around the blanket and handing things to me. I don't know how long it was, but Scully and I heard Mulder come back after a while. His steps were clumsy in the dark. He settled on the blanket and just rested a moment. I heard a rustle and thought Scully put her hand on his arm. The cool wind finally drove us up, us and everyone else there. It whistled and winter's promise was on its edge. I gathered the blanket and oilcloth, holding them out to Mulder. He completely ignored them, the lazy baggage. Scully finally grabbed them and we headed back to where we'd left the car without a word. It wasn't until we opened the trunk that we found enough light to see each other. No one had the heart to turn on a flashlight. But when I lifted the trunk I suddenly regretted that, and could see the same thought on Scully's face. Mulder was pale in the sudden shock of light. His eyes were open wide and dark, like they'd been at lunch. People brushed past us, not looking at us. But he studied them, too closely. Too long. He glanced at me, turned to her. "He's here. He asked if I ever saw my sister. He said I needed to keep looking for Sam." His voice was too flat and soft to read. Mulder closed the trunk then. Scully grabbed his arm, gently pried the keys out of his hand. "Let me drive." He didn't let go of them, not all the way. "I'm fine." Her eyes gleamed in the reflected headlights from other cars. "Come on. Let me. Just . . . just let me." His lips tightened, but he let go. They walked together to the passenger side. The dome light was off just like before and I couldn't see his face. I heard Scully's low voice, Mulder's, and I leaned against the trunk, suddenly weak with nightmares I'd forgotten for just that long. _____________________ We were quiet on the ride home, but not with the peace or joy of the evening, with the lost silence of night. I stifled my questions as long as I could, but finally leaned forward over the back seat to stare at Mulder. He still looked pale and grim in the passing ripples of cold visibility as we passed under streetlights . Scully had that worried look on her face in the greenish lights of the dashboard. Mulder had turned to watch the houses in the dark around us, arms crossed and fingers digging into his biceps. For a long, long time he watched the passing lights, and we sat in a tense silence. He finally looked at us, really saw us at last. "This one's going to be different. It's going to be worse." I'd thought his voice was flat before. He sounded worn out, exhausted. "He told you that?" Scully's voice was low and worried. The dash lights lit her jaw, brake lights ahead put a red flare across her eyes. "Mulder, what did he say? What makes you think it's him?" "Who else would have said anything to me up there? And who here would know about Sam?" I think they were questions. His voice didn't have enough tone to really tell. "He said I needed to keep looking for Sam. He said that and walked off. No, I know this one's going to be different. He wants it to be different, because of us." "How." I didn't even make it a question. I leaned on the back of his seat, where he couldn't hide from me, and asked him again. "How? And if he talked to you, why the hell did you let him get away?" Mulder didn't even really look at me. He half turned his face, like he was going to face me then looked back out the window beside him. "I was standing at the top of the hill, and he just walked up to me. I knew it was him." "How?" Not really expecting an answer I'd believe. Or maybe not wanting one. That half-turn of the head again, and his eyes gleamed dully. "Because he knew who I was. He stood just out of reach. He was whispering. He sounded . . . like he'd been waiting for me. No. I'm sure he was waiting. Nobody else would walk up to me like that. He just told me to keep looking for Sam. Not to waste my chance. And then he walked away. I couldn't see him. He was gone before I could move." No real pauses in his words, they just rushed out of him, urgent and nervous now. I gritted my teeth and wanted to slap him. My fingers dug into his shoulder until I could feel his collarbone shift. "You let him go. You let him go and he's gonna kill somebody, and you let him go." I could hear the low, angry whine of my voice like it was somebody else's. Scully glared at me in the mirror and yanked the car over to the side. She wrenched open the door in the back, grabbed my wrist and yanked it off his shoulder. She hauled me out of there, a thumb against my wrist that hurt like hell when I tried to twist away. "Emma, so help me god, if you ever talk like that to him again I'll wring your neck." Her voice was as low and angry as mine, and she had me shoved against the cold side of the car. I could feel the blood buzzing in my ears, see the lights that flashed from passing traffic like I was a million miles away and watching someone else. "He let the bastard go." I could hear the other door open behind me. And close fast as if he'd thought better of his first urge. "He didn't. He couldn't stop him. Emma, think." Her voice tried to cut through my rage. I knew she wanted to leave me there, but couldn't. "You know how dark it was, you couldn't see me four feet away. Mulder couldn't see him and who the hell knows what he might have been carrying. He knew who it was, Emma. He knew it was the killer when he walked up. How scared would you be? Or how stupid? Could you have grabbed that man?" "Hell if I know. What I do know is your partner just let him walk away. Your partner's supposed to be the big, bad FBI agent. What's it stand for, Scully? Federal Bureau of Incontinence?" I could feel the words bitten off in my mouth, and bitter as bile. Scully slapped me before I ever saw it coming. I stared at the roof of the car, where my head wound up looking, touching my lips and tasting blood. I looked back to see Scully shaking her hand with pain, and watching me with wary, narrowed eyes. I took a deep breath of cold night air, and weighed what I'd just said and why. And felt the truth that maybe I deserved that hit. Breathe the night in again and count to ten. Scully started before I could say a word. "Nice work, counselor. Do your homework and know all the answers before you ask the questions? Well, Emma, maybe you'd better do a little more homework. Your job might be nine to five but Mulder's is a hell of a lot more than that. So you know his sister's name? Did you find out that Sam was abducted when Mulder was twelve. She's never been found. Perps like this aren't banker's hours jobs, Emma. If he'd had a chance of a bust and making it stick he'd have been on it. No matter what. It's a game to you, Emma. But it's personal to him." Her voice was controlled again, sad and deep-down angry with me. I let my anger roll away, and thought about how that must have felt. "It wasn't this guy." "What? Sam? No." She was looking out at the street now, and past the trunk of the car and the traffic, like looking at me was more than she should have to do. "I know about Sam. Some of it at least." I paused a moment and thought about it. "Does he know for sure it was the killer? Not just somebody pulling his strings?" Scully looked back to me now, recognizing my effort, maybe not so ready to toss me out of this if I could bend this much, this soon. I hoped so. "Leaving aside why anyone else would want to pull his strings, I believe him. If he says it was the killer, I believe him." She gave her bruised hand another squeeze, then grabbed my arm and shoved me back towards the car. Her hand on my arm gripped hard enough to leave bruises, angry. Mulder sat in his seat with his head back, eyes shut like the light hurt. Scully looked at me in the rear view mirror. "Put ice on that lip when you get home. Sorry if you have a bruise." She looked neutral at that, not sorry at all. But maybe not going to carry it any further tonight, either. I took a couple breaths, and turned. "Mulder, I owe you an apology. You were rattled. You had a right to be. I couldn't have done any better, nobody could. I'm sorry I ragged your ass. I just got. . . .angry. You were so close. But he had to have known that when he walked up to you. He had to have known how to walk away. He might have killed you if he hadn't." That recognition finally hit home before I even knew I knew it. New to me, but I could see it in Scully's eyes and the set of her jaw before I even said it. The ice pack wouldn't be any colder than the chills along my spine. The seat under me felt colder than it should have. The heat was on, but it didn't reach me. Mulder looked around at me then, looked at us both. His face was expressionless, but not his eyes. "No. You were right. I could have stopped this right here. He's going to kill somebody tonight, and I don't know who. But I know he isn't finished yet. He isn't ready to leave." His voice was flat, lost. He wasn't nervous about this, he didn't sound like there was enough hope to leave room for nervous. We sat there in the dark silence of the car, hearing each other breathe. Scully stopped too fast at lights, took off too quickly. Mulder was contained in a shell of crossed arms and distraction. I was sorry my sweater was in the trunk. It felt like I'd brought the chill of the ground with me. When Scully pulled up in front of my house, the tires abraded against the curb. She waited only for me to get my things, then squealed off away from the curb. She hadn't even let me reach my porch. I let myself in as fast as I could. The light in my kitchen then felt cold, and small, and weak. .___________________ FROM: IN%"DRTLWR@TIAC.COM" TO: IN%"JERRY_RIGG@TATTLER.TRIB" Jerry, I owe and I'm going to owe you bigger. Yeah, you're right. I've been hanging around with the Feds. And I need to know more. No protection any more Jerry. Mulder says the killer talked to him. And he froze. Then he freaked. You hinted at some bad shit, hinted at therapy and him haring out. You've gotta tell me now. How often? When? He's talking about the killer changing his patterns, talking about knowing what this guy will do. It's spooky shit, Jerry. If this guy's crazy how's he still out here with a badge? If he's not, is he right? I don't know where to start. I need to know. When has he done this before? Where? Is he right when he tells us what will happen? I stepped on some toes tonight, Jerry. Pissed them off. I need to know what I'm looking for. I need to know what sets this man off. What did he do that's so bad? Emma _____________________ Dana Scully was major, all-time-high-scoring hacked off with me. The third time she hung up on me I was pretty sure of it. When I called Mulder and he only got as far as "Hi, Emma. What . . ." and it disconnected I was certain. So, well, I did the logical thing. I went to bed in the middle of the day with a sick headache and slept. And dreamed. And woke up screaming, with vague memories of my friends and neighbors on Scully's autopsy table, just like poor Tommy. And blood on my hands. I lay in bed, panting, letting my heart calm and listening to the wind howl past my windows. The late afternoon sky was full of scudding. grey clouds, the light left no shadows and offered no warmth. I forced myself out of bed and broke my fast with ibuprofen and coffee. I ran through my messages, answered the easy ones. I deleted all Jerry's day-old pleas to go back to work and writing leases. I didn't have any big answers yet. Stood looking at my machine, and finally reached out to skim the dust off the screen. I. . . well, I wound up dusting the whole table. I ran and got a rag, and started on everything. Everything. I dusted tables and knick-knacks and chairs and floors and found myself at midnight, sobbing, cleaning the top of my refrigerator. I didn't know why, either why I was sobbing or why I was cleaning up there. I knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, I had never cleaned there before. My laundry was done and neatly put away, my house cleaner than it had been since I moved in. It felt like a stranger's place. I'd aired it out, and it didn't even smell like me anymore. It was cold, with the open windows, and I could hear trees scratching against the back porch it was so still. My throat and eyes hurt from . . . everything. My nose was still stuffed and I snuffled into a wad of soaked tissues. My chest hurt from what may have been hours of sobs. I curled back up in my bed, quilt balled up around me, and all my upstairs lights on. I must have drifted off. My clothes felt stale and grubby and my hair was stiff and rumpled when I opened my eyes again. It was that early, difficult time of morning when I would suddenly flash into the feverish stage that retrieved me from the deep, still cold of night's sleep. My clock said a little after four. I got up, stiff and achy, and wandered down the hall to my bathroom. My skin felt touchy, sensitive, as though I could feel things before I touched them. I ran water so hot the mirror steamed before I could even undress, and stepped under the jets. I stayed there, washing my body clean of my sleep, as I could not wash my mind. It felt chill in the house when I stepped out to wrap myself in a towel. I padded back to my room to pull on my robe. I could hear my pulse in my ears. A car several streets away pulled away from a stop too fast. The neighbors' cats were fighting. The noises of my world washed through me, as though my body could barely slow the waves of sound passing through the air. Far, far away sirens rang through the night. I lay back in bed and collected myself. Sleep was slow, and I felt it coming this time, courted its gentle approach. When the phone rang my heart exploded and I nearly screamed from the shock. The phone felt hard, almost painful in my hand. "Who? . . ." "Emma?" It was Scully, distracted, distant. She sounded tired. I was frustrated and angry, hearing her voice, but curiosity drove and forced my response. "What do you need, Scully?" My voice was. . .soft. I didn't know how I sounded. I heard her sigh. "Emma, I need a hand. I. . . look, this is hard to explain, can we come over?" I could almost hear her choke on her pride, and swallow her anger. "All right." What was I doing? She'd hit me. Of course, I might have deserved it. Pride tasted lousy going down. At least we had that in common. Curiosity sweetened it a lot. I got up and pulled out fresh clothes, blue jeans and a flannel shirt. My hair was scrambled from damp and the short sleep. I pushed it back with water. Then I went downstairs to wait. The sky showed a faint grey out my window when my doorbell rang. Both of them were standing there, Scully looking tired and worried, Mulder just looking. . .I don't know. Almost too tired to stand? I felt fresh and rested next to them. I stepped back to let them in. The yellow light on my porch caught their hair and eyes as they came in, slid off the dark of their coats, like it had that first night. Tonight, though, they lacked the gleam they'd held that night they came to question me. I lead them to my kitchen, and turned to start coffee and tea. It gave them a moment to gather themselves. I looked out the window over my sink, draining the tea bag from my own cup. In the window I could see ghost-reflections of them trying to decide what to do, where to sit. When I finally turned back with the first, harsh cup of coffee Fox Mulder was leaning back in a chair, his eyes closed, a look of patient annoyance on his face. Scully took the cup. She had that controlled look that spoke of more worry than she wanted to show. She hesitated, looking around as though she were considering a plan, then simply walked into my living room. He opened his eyes and watched her go, let his mouth curve into a sardonic grin. "You'd better go talk to her. She wants to talk to you about me without having me eavesdropping on you." I couldn't read all the currents loaded into that comment. I nodded and took him at his word. Scully was sipping the coffee and glancing around at my furniture as though she had not seen it before. The worried look wasn't hidden anymore, and it warred with annoyance on her face. She looked up to stare at me from hollow, shadowed eyes, trying to hold me and drive home what she wanted. "They found another one." Her voice was clinical. I shuddered, and suddenly wished there were more lights in here. "Mulder said he'd kill last night. Was this the older man? The one you were waiting for?" She looked away, rubbed her eyes and drew the heel of her hand down her face. It couldn't wipe away the exhaustion I saw there. "It was. . . it was a child. A little girl, about eight." She swallowed. "The police aren't sure it's our killer yet. Mulder's sure." She looked at me then, gave me that long, challenging look, loaded with all the anger she'd carried last night, and more. Maybe anger that had nothing to do with me anymore. "He killed her because she was like Samantha. Killed her to get to Mulder." "He knew there'd be a murder." I felt my knees go to cold jelly. My stomach was an icy knot. I looked up at her from where I'd dropped to my couch. "How can he be sure, Scully? There are copycats. There are murders that just happen. He's wrong. Isn't he?" My voice didn't hold the hope my words wanted. Her laugh was that only in name. It was a bitter, sharp sound. "Mulder can smell these things. No. It's not a coincidence He's sure of this one. He saw the little girl and she looked like Sam. I've seen Sam's pictures. She really, really looked a lot like her." Her eyes looked at the faintly growing light out the window, but they weren't seeing what was there. "I . . ." How much did I want to give up? I was past the point of bargaining now. I had to build alliances instead of deals. "I understand there was some indication before that this man might be aware of your partner. Something about flyers, maybe it was just a prank." She was staring at me now. She didn't look happy, but she sighed and nodded. "He doesn't think it was a prank. Neither do I. If you knew where to find those flyers, you'd know where to find a lot of other information." She was fidgeting with the empty cup now. She looked back up to me. "Mulder was right, he did this one because we're here." "What do you want, Agent Scully. What do you want here?" She didn't answer right away. When she finally spoke, I wasn't sure she was answering me. She ran her hand along my mantle piece, speaking in absent tones. "I told you this wasn't just a paycheck. It's personal. Mulder joined the FBI to look for his sister, for answers." She turned around and stared at me. "I need to go back and autopsy that child. And I won't let him go there. It's bad enough to just deal with this kind of case. The serial killers. . . he's so good at catching them. He learns to think like them. That hurts, knowing them so well. And this one . . ." I nodded at that. Her words had put a chill up my spine. I remembered him sitting there in the car, like he was trying to draw away from himself. "This case is bad enough. I know him. He won't let this go. It's personal." She looked at her hands. I could imagine it, the crowd of police and reporters and gawkers, and Mulder in the middle of it seeing his sister in a dead child, and sure he was the reason she was dead. There was a queasy feeling in my throat when I swallowed. No wonder she hadn't wanted to talk in front of him. No wonder she felt mad. "I know it's silly. But . . . he's my partner. I want him someplace normal today." Her smile was very small and very ironic. "As normal as possible. I guess you're the closest I've got to normal right now. About right for me and Mulder. I don't want to leave him alone, Emma. Can I leave him here with you?" I nodded. I didn't want my voice to show everything I was thinking. "But you have to promise me, Emma." She stepped up close. I flinched at a memory of a blow. "You promise me here and now, and you keep that promise. No interrogations. No games. You don't pull anything like that show you put on the other night. I'd rather have him at the autopsy than that. If you can't keep your damn mouth shut, we'll drink our coffee and leave." She was searching my face, her jaw tight with worry and fear and anger. After what she'd said. . . . . . my imagination painted what it might have been like to spend the day with him. She was making no threats. She didn't need to. I took a long, deep breath. "All right. I promise. I mean, I swear on a stack of whatever books you want. I'll lay off. Club Med rules. He can sit here and listen to my CDS and play DOOM on my computer, I won't say a word. I swear." I looked into her eyes. I meant it. I didn't really want him to teach me how a man who killed children to scare the cops thought. I had my own nightmares now, I didn't need his, too. Whatever kept him from dealing with his job, it was his to know. Scully stared back into my eyes, judging not just whether I meant to do this, but whether she thought I could. I could see the doubts in her eyes. She looked more drawn now than when they'd come in. A sound from my kitchen broke the stare, stopped anything else she might have said to me. I followed her back in, poured out the cold tea I hadn't sipped and washed my cup. Mulder was sitting at the table, drinking coffee I hadn't poured for him and flipping through my Victoria's Secret catalogue. Scully smiled at him ruefully. I finished and settled across from him. "I've finished that one, Mulder. You want it?" He smiled at both of us, calm and wary. "That's okay. Scully gives me hers when she's done. I read somewhere they've got twice as many men on their mailing list as women." I snorted. "I know men buy more clothes there than women. All those dinky things?" I dropped it, not really wanting to mention I was on their mailing list for buying flannel nightgowns. Scully had poured, and shot-gunned, a second cup of coffee. Now she leaned against my glossy, white door jamb and pushed her hair back from her face. "Mulder, I have to go. They're waiting for me by now." He looked up at her, dropped the catalogue. "This is stupid, Scully. I ought to be there. Or out at the site. I really don't need this." He tapped nervously on the maple of the table top. "There's no reason for you to be there. You can read the same thing in the autopsy results. And you took most of the files you need with you yesterday." She shook her head, looked at me like she profoundly wished I'd go water my cacti or something. Forget that, this was my house and I wanted to know what was going on. "Mulder, the press is going to be all over down there. And . . . you already know what she looks like. You probably know almost everything I'm going to find. Let yourself off the hook, just this once." She watched him swallow, I could see her trying to tell him whole silent conversations that would go right past me. He wasn't listening this morning, but he didn't argue with her, either. She put her cup down and walked out to the car. I could see her through the glass in the front door, lit by pale, pre-dawn light. She had the trunk open and was hauling out a huge, battered briefcase. It looked like mine. I grinned at the common tools of law enforcement. Behind me, I heard Mulder pouring the dregs of the coffee into his cup. I went to help Scully with the case. She dropped it in my living room and turned to me, hands on her hips. "Okay, he's got the police files on Dalbert, a lot of DMV files, all kinds of stuff." She pulled a flip phone out of the case and held it where I could see it. "The first speed dial number is mine. If anything happens, I mean anything, I want to hear from you." She was looking at me with that worried expression again. This close I could see the smudges under her eyes, how bloodshot they were, a tiny crease between her eyebrows from frowning. "He's going to bitch and moan about babysitting, Emma. I don't care. This is a tough case and even the Book would consider that contact the other night to be a threat." The capital-letter Book had to be some point of contention between them, to judge from her tone. "Under those conditions it's advised not to stay alone." "Got it, Scully." She sighed and put the phone down. "Look, my name is Dana. Mulder calls me Scully, but that's Mulder." "You people *are* strange. I'm sorry, but I think of you as Scully. I mean, that's how I met you. Agent Scully. Not Agent Dana. And I already call him Mulder. Unless it really gets on your nerves, I'd just as soon stick with the simple method." "I don't care." Right. Sure. But it didn't seem to be worth it to her, either. "What can I expect? You aren't dropping him off here just so he can nap." "No, I'm not. He'll likely jog. You don't need to call unless he's gone over an hour or so." She smiled faintly at that. "Mainly, I expect he'll work. Try to avoid the press, umm, call if you start getting crank calls or anything. Emma, he's really. . . " She started over. "I didn't bring him by because he needs anyone hovering over him. He just doesn't need to be in on that autopsy and he doesn't need to be sitting by himself in a hotel thinking about it. Or wandering off trying to find this guy on his own." That last had an aggravated tone that told me he'd done just exactly that in the past. I had to grin. Scully finally relaxed a little, nodded and got her coat. She walked back to my kitchen. I couldn't hear them clearly, but she seemed relieved when she left. _____________________ Mulder had come back from his run, showered, shaved and loaded my multi-CD player up to maximum capacity, on repeat. Now he was stretched out in blue jeans and a sweater, making my couch look short. John Hiatt was blaring from under the headphones, and files of traffic incidents were cradled against his bent legs. All very nice and domestic. I considered taking a picture to send to Jerry and some girlfriends, just to make them drool from envy. I could watch him easily enough from where I was squirreled away behind my computer. I'd just logged on and was bringing my e-mail up. Okay, directory gave me a batch of mail, ah, there! FROM: IN%"JERRY_RIGG@TATTLER.TRIB" TO: IN%"DRTLWR@TIAC.COM" SUBJ: Thank god thank god thank god. So they dumped you. Thank god you pissed them off. Your guardian angel must be on overtime, can I borrow it when you don't need it? Please, please, please do the smart thing and stay out of their way now that they don't love you anymore. Don't try to get into this one, this is one club you don't need to belong to. On your questions: has Fox Mulder flaked out before? Oooooh yes. It's not "has," it's "how bad." I glanced up to look at him, tucked up against one arm of the couch. The sun from my window shone through yellow and red creeper leaves and put a glow on his hair, leaving his face in soft shadows. He looked like he was drifting off over reports of fender benders and missing headlights. He didn't look like he had snakes in his head. I went back to Jerry. Has he been in therapy? I think the shrinks at FBI choose their furniture with him in mind, if half of what my friend there says is true. She's a receptionist, says she went on a date with him. He's cute and he pays for dinner, but he's gone by morning and doesn't call back. But she got a look at his files. This is top secret confidential girl! She gets fired if it gets out, she was just curious, and when I called . . . There have been two biggies. Oklahoma. That was before he teamed up with Dr. Scully. He ., xj, sorry, christ. They had this kid killer. Bad one. Liked to eviscerate kids and I won't tell you what he did after that. And old Spooky goes in there and starts telling them what he'll do before he does it. Starts jumping two moves ahead. And catches the killer who can't be caught. This guy I know, friend of a lover, was there (YOU know everyone in the country is no more than seven degrees separated, well they're only two or three for journalists!) So this guy was there and talked to me cause Hal told him I was good people. Seems Spooky wrote the profile nobody could write. Knew stuff nobody could know. And he finished it and curled up in the bathroom and blanked out until they tried to get him out. They tried to sedate him and it took four cops holding him down to do it. 24 hour guard and all that, they'd let him come up every few hours, ask him where their killer was - and he'd TELL them. He KNEW. Not where he was, but where he'd be. And they'd drug him down again until they needed to ask him some more questions. Madman as oracle. I felt my skin go chilled. Goosebumps were running up and down my arms. I could hear Sentimental Hygiene on the stereo. Mulder was flipping through his files, though his eyes didn't look like he was really seeing them. He never looked up at me. Spooky went back to the District of Corruption and just disappeared for a while after that. Maybe on rest leave, it's vacation time in his files. I don't think anybody wanted to touch the guy who'd just nailed the Oklahoma Baby Butcher. Not too long after that he took over the X-Files and starts solving closed out and abandoned cases. Solves stuff nobody could figure out. There's not a lot on this, nobody gave me anything straight on it. I know he cracked a lot of disappearance cases, and multiple murders, but nobody told me anything I could believe. They all talked like it was some kind of joke from the Twilight Zone, but those cases still got solved. There's some strange, strange stuff on disappearance cases. Missing bodies and kids who disappear and show up catatonic and crap like that. But he still came up with answers and I guess they worked because those kids got found. Next hard stuff I could get was his partner disappeared. I told you Spooky nearly shot some guy, and they still don't know if he killed the bastard who took his partner. That's just considered closed. They just don't know. And she showed up at a hospital a couple months later and now everything's hunky dory if you listen to the party line. Then there's Louisiana. Get this, Spooky goes in and uses this little kid psychic to try and catch another kid-killer. Sick bastards. And then the cops use the kids, too? And Spooky freaked again. It took, like, six cops to hold him down. They pumped him full of enough joy-juice to sedate East St. Louis. Voluntary commitment to a country club nut-house in Virginia. And he does it again. Knows just where and when the killer's going to be, and cuts and runs for his home town in Massachusetts. Mulder was looking up now, staring out the front window. The sun behind him picked a glow from his sweater. It must have felt warm across his shoulders. Zevon was singing over Neil Young's driving bass lines, the sound was tinny from where I sat. NOBODY knows what tipped him off. The guy was under, like, house arrest in this place, no phone calls, he just knows and then he cuts and heads for Chilmark. His partner was still on stake-out in Texas where they figured the killer was headed. She got them to call in the cops in Massachusetts. When they got there Spooky was just a ball of duct tape and these bastards were ready to off this kid. Twelve of them, playing satanist. I guess they were planning to murder the kid and Spooky both, knew he'd be coming just like he knew they'd be there. Don't ask me, Emma. It's all in the trial record, just like that. You'd think they were all crazy, except they were all right, too. I guess he's like those witches with water dousing rods. He just finds these sickos, he's got this sixth sense for them, he really does. How long can you tap into that kind of shit before it gets you? I feel sorry for the guy, but I'm glad you're out of there. Just stay clear, the shit's going to hit the fan. I looked back up. Mulder was asleep, head tipped back against the couch. I didn't realize I was chewing on my lower lip until the little sharp spot where I'd chipped a tooth playing pool caught and stung on my lip. I debated turning off the stereo, and finally decided to leave him plugged in. He seemed quiet enough, although he kept murmuring something about Sam under his breath. The files were about to tumble to the floor when I rescued them and put them on the table, finally deciding I should get something for both of us to eat. Yesterday's dinner had been ibuprofen and Mulder had probably not eaten much more than stale police station donuts if Scully's mood had been anything to judge by. He was inaudible from the kitchen and it was easy to ignore him and get the left-over chicken sliced for chicken, tomato and cheese melts. I settled down with a cup of herb tea, relaxing in the bright autumn sun that lit the room. It made a glowing mist of the steam from the cup. I watched the curls of it a moment, thinking, then opened one of Mulder's folders, trying to figure what he was looking for. No wonder he was asleep. He could have slept eight hours every night for a week and still gone to sleep reading this stuff, stacks of reports of fender benders and minor accidents. There was a list on the inside front, in his handwriting, noting that the victims in previous cases had several times been abducted from their cars. If I deciphered his note correctly, the killer had run them off the road. They'd found Tommy's old, second-hand Dodge in a ditch, so that trick was still working for the bastard. No wonder Scully had been nervous that night the truck was following Mulder. All the other papers in the folder were police reports of minor fender benders and tickets for violations like broken headlights. It was a wonder I wasn't mistaking half the cars on the road at night for motorcycles, considering how many of the things only had one headlight working. God, how did he expect to make anything of this? That folder must have been a half inch thick or more, and each one was some dinky violation some cop had used to get his ticket quota. Oh yeah, eidetic memory. Poor guy, imagine being stuck with a permanent memory of every busted headlight in some hick county. He'd probably be spouting license plate numbers on his death bed. That made me think about the other things he probably had tucked into corners of that photographic memory, and a chill ran up and down my spine in spite of the warmth of the room. I walked back out to check on him. He was still sleeping but he didn't look so peaceful anymore, which might have been due to the Pogues playing background music to his dreams. I shut the CD player off and carefully removed the headphones from his head. My computer was still on and I settled down to re-read Jerry's letter. I had just about decided to actually print this one before deleting it, since I didn't think I could remember it all, when I revised my opinion about whether Mulder had snakes in his head. I nearly knocked my keyboard off my lap when he came upright like the zombie from a fifties horror flick and screamed. This wasn't any tidy, little, you-startled-me shriek either. This was a full-fledged, soul-in-hell scream. I fell back on some of humanity's oldest instincts and froze in place, hoping whatever predator must be overhead would pass me by. Fox Mulder was curled tight over on my couch, and the sunlight didn't look warm and cozy anymore. His face was white as a sheet and he had his arms wrapped tight around his ribs, panting for air like he'd just run a marathon. I was only starting to think my heart might still be beating when he bolted off my couch and threw himself out of the living room. I heard the front door slam open, and stop on the chain lock, and then his steps running back down the hall. His breathing was still so panicky I could hear it, although at first I'd mistaken it for my own. I curled forward over my keyboard, with my forehead against the cool surface of the desk, when I heard the bathroom door slam and heard the water running. I think I heard him throwing up everything he'd eaten since his tenth birthday, but it was hard to tell over the thunder of my own pulse in my ears. I slowly, slowly walked out to the front door. My feet still felt far away from the effects of all that adrenaline. The water was running full blast back there, and I could see how the chain had dug into the solid oak of my door. He must have been too panicky to even think about how to take the chain off. God, what had he dreamed about? I shut the door carefully, needing the solid, sturdy feel of the wood for a moment, gathered myself and walked back down the hall to my downstairs bathroom. It sounded like the sink and the shower were both on. He wasn't heaving anymore if I heard right. I knocked on the door and called his name, but only got a soft sound that might have been a sob or might have been a curse. When I tried the door it was locked. I knocked again, and that was when I heard the mirror go. Not "go" as in he slammed the cabinet and the little mirror on the side cracked, but "go" as in he must have punched out the big, big heavy, glass slab on the wall. Shattering and clattering and crash go. My heart went right back up to my brain and slammed the thoughts out of my head and I found myself pounding on that damn, locked door and screaming for him. "Mulder, Mulder! God dammit, Mulder! Open this fucking door right now! Listen to me, you open this door!" Oh god, oh god, oh god, I ran for the phone in the kitchen and grabbed the handset and scrabbled at the buttons but I couldn't recall the number she gave me and I could still hear all that glass in there, oh god. I raced back and tried the knob again and I don't know why I was surprised when it was still locked. Oh god, where was that fucking flip phone she'd shown me? I skidded down the hall and grabbed the door jamb and slung myself around the corner and into the room. The briefcase, where was that briefcase she put it by the table but where was it now? Right *now*? I fucking could not find it where was it oh GOD! I ran back to the bathroom door, panting with panic and I couldn't hear him maybe there was something but I couldn't be sure. I pounded my hands on the door so hard it hurt, and screamed at him again. "Mulder! God damn it you OPEN THIS DOOR RIGHT NOW! I'm calling the fucking cops I'm calling 911 I'm calling the firemen if you don't open the door NOW!" Oh lord, I ran back to the kitchen and grabbed my phone, but I knew 911. I'd get pizza faster than I'd get them. And he was in there with all that glass. Who needed razor blades when you had glass. God, I needed Scully. One more pass through the living room and I was never loaning my guardian angel to Jerry because there it was, back by the side of the couch, and I just grabbed that briefcase and dumped it and scattered files and papers and pens and everything else until I got that fucking phone and slammed my thumb over that quick dial and rocked on my knees and prayed until I heard her voice. "Scully here." "Oh god, Scully, oh god, he's locked in there and there's all that glass and he won't open the door and how do I get him out of there?" "What? Wait, Emma, where . . . ?" "Scully, he's locked in my downstairs bathroom and I can't hear him anymore but he broke the mirror and it's all that glass and big and I'm scared and I can't get him to open the door and it's locked and. . ." and she cut me off. I sat there sobbing and rocking and all I could see was that stupid scene from "Ordinary People" when that kid cut his wrists and blood on the ceiling. Oh god. I wanted to throw up. I dropped the phone sometime, and scrambled for the front door and tore off that chain lock so Scully could get in, and went back to the locked bathroom door and leaned my head against it and listened, just listened, to faint thumps and noises I couldn't understand. Sometimes I'dhit the door a little and beg him to open it, but mostly just stood there. And hands on my shoulders pulled me away, and Scully stepped past me and leaned up to the door and started talking to him in this tight, nervous voice that tried to be calm, but I was too scared to see and I went out to my porch and sat on the steps and hid my face in my hands and waited. Waited forever. And then I could hear his voice. It was muffled and choked, but I could hear it. And she was talking to him and he was answering. And some forever after that the sound of that fucking door lock clicked so loud I could have heard it across the street, and I felt something big, and scary and lonesome unwind in my gut and let go. This long, shuddering breath left me leaning against the porch rail, with my ears ringing from relief, and I could hear him talking to her, and his voice sounded half choked but I could hear him. She wasn't calling 911 or trying to get an ambulance out here, she wasn't screaming for me to get in there and help her with him. She was talking with him. And then she came out and settled down next to me for a moment, sitting on her haunches like she was only resting and was going to get back up soon. "Emma? Emma, you okay?" I nodded, but the nod really felt silly, and my mouth was pulled tight across my face, and I could feel this lump in my throat that hurt. And my face screwed itself up into a ball even though I didn't want it to and this sound broke out of me and I couldn't stop it, I was so scared. Scully got an arm around me tight and kind of pulled me up to my feet. She was asking me something about antihistamines or motion sick pills. I told her something, but wasn't really thinking about it. She tugged me along with her, back into the house, and into the kitchen where Mulder was sitting, very pale and still, with my kitchen towels wrapped around his hands, and them resting on ice in a bowl. I could still see the tear stains on his face, and I knew how he felt. I avoided looking at his hands, which were staining my towels a vivid red. It was splattered halfway up his arms, but nowhere near enough red to be anything like his wrists cut. I swallowed and looked away. I could hear Scully looking through my bathroom cabinets, the sound of glass crunching under her shoes. Mulder sighed and focused on me with a slightly rueful smile. "Sorry for the mess. I'll take care of the bill, of course." His voice sounded hoarse. Scully breezed past me, her brusque air totally at odds with the two of us. She put two pills down in front of him. They looked like the Dramamine I'd bought when I'd been marooned at the library the other day. Her high heels clicked on the tile floor, and her hospital-green scrubs clashed badly with the blue-and-gold decor of my kitchen. The combination must have struck Mulder at the same time it struck me. We both watched her, rather quizzically, as she found my bottle of scotch and poured one scotch, and another glass of water. Water to him, scotch to me, and she settled down in a chair. "Nice fashion statement, Scully." I was sure he'd managed better lines in the past, but it was a good try. He was giving his water and pills a distinctly disapproving look. He finally pushed the pills away. "I don't need those." "Humor me. Take them anyway. So, do you two want to tell me what happened?" We looked at each other. *I* didn't know what to tell her, and I could tell that if he knew what to tell her he didn't have any pressing desire to do so. Scully looked back and forth between us, irritated. "So, you were reviewing files and decided to wreck Emma's bathroom for fun? And you," I wasn't getting off easily. "You just happened to notice? No warning, nothing unusual this morning?" She shook her head, snapping her hair back and forth, and pushed herself back onto her feet. "I'm going to go get those files. You two can coordinate your stories, but I expect some answers." She sounded like my pediatrician ordering me to lay off the chocolates. We watched until she was around the corner and then looked back at each other. "So, what are you going to tell her?" He sounded genuinely curious. I could see him regaining color and focus just sitting there. Whatever had happened, he was getting himself back under control faster than a paid witness after a fit in court. "You had a nightmare, and you flipped. You were talking about Sam." I suppose my voice might have sounded a little accusing. He was pulling at the dishtowel on one hand, checking his hand and pointedly avoiding meeting my eyes. He scowled at the cuts across his knuckles and sighed. "My health plan is going to cancel me." He looked back up at me. "I suppose damage control is out of the question?" My eyebrows definitely climbed. Damage control? He wanted me to play spin doctor? "Mulder, you'd need Johnny Cochran and the Dream Team for that and I don't think they'll consider moonlighting for you." He finally managed a full grin. "I don't know, maybe she mishandled the evidence?" His eyes flicked to the door automatically. I suddenly realized I wasn't hearing files getting shuffled. I wasn't hearing anything. She should have been done by now, I'd only dumped. . . but the brief case wasn't the only thing in there. Mulder was watching me like he expected me to keel over in a moment. I gulped. "Look, I'll split their fees with you. Tell you what, you and I put on a coordinated front for Marcia Clark." I nodded towards the door where Scully'd gone. His eyes flicked there again, and narrowed. "I know I didn't trash your stereo. I didn't touch anything in there." He was unwrapping the other hand, flexing it, but not looking at it. He was too busy watching me. "Um, well, I was doing a little research." "You want to tell me about it? You have something that would help, Emma?" His voice had that tone he'd used when he thought I was holding out, I could almost see him running through possibilities. I didn't get a chance to help my case because I suddenly heard those heels behind me. "Mulder, I think you'd like to see this." The shoes walked away again. I hadn't heard such disapproving high heel taps since I'd put a snake in Martin Hesletine's lunch box. Mulder was looking curious and totally in focus now, and I was wishing I'd cooperated when I'd had the chance. I followed him into the living room, where I was sadly unsurprised to see Scully bent over my computer desk. Mulder joined her, and I hovered in the doorway with my arms crossed and remembered being five and out of line. I could see the what little color he had slowly drain from his face as he scrolled down the lines. Scully was watching me and him about equally. It must have been easier to keep that same expressionless look on her face than to shift back and forth between what I suspected were her feelings. Mulder finally finished, and stood there, carefully tapping a finger tip on my desk and no doubt leaving bloody fingerprints. I now knew how OJ felt about that glove. I'd never liked football, but I knew a good tip when I heard it so I went on the offense. "Good, now maybe we can get some secrets out in the open and get on with things." Scully looked at bit startled. Mulder looked like he was taking notes to catch me with later. "So I know you," I pointed at him, "have nightmares. Real humdinger nightmares. And you hallucinate serial killer vibes." He looked distinctly sour. "And you know I have a friend who knows how to ask good questions in good places." Mulder reached over and hit the Print key, and I heard that familiar buzzing of my printer. Scully was re-reading the mail and had a tight, unhappy look on her face. "Remind me to talk to you about your taste in women some time." Her voice was entirely too neutral. She glanced back up to me, clearly trying to decide how far she wanted to kick my ass. Mulder forestalled that when he pulled the chair out and sat down, moving the keyboard to where he wanted it. Scully put a hand on his shoulder, and looked about as baffled as I felt until he started typing. I couldn't help myself, I drifted over to them, and all of a sudden understood the startled look on her face. All of a sudden, the deep pile of the oriental rug on the floor felt miles away and I grabbed onto the back of his chair. You couldn't have got me away from there with wild horses. _____________________ MAIL> reply TO: IN%"JERRY_RIGG@TATTLER.TRIB" FROM: IN%"DRTLWR@TIAC.COM" SUBJ: nice to meet you. Hello, Mr. Rigg. I believe you have the advantage of me. You seem to know a great deal about me, but I haven't had the pleasure. I'm sure I'll get to know a great deal more about you in the near future. I understand you're a good friend of Emma Courtland's. I'm glad to hear it. I do think you should take a little more care before distributing confidential information over unsecured lines, I'm surprised someone such as yourself would make that kind of mistake. Perhaps next time you feel like sharing information you'd like to send it to ghost_wrtr@lepvx5.FBI.gov. I always say, if it's worth having, it's worth sharing. ^z He sat back and waited. Scully had hold of his shoulder, leaning down near him. "Mulder, are you out of your mind?" Her voice was almost frantic, a hiss. "You don't know who this is, what are you doing?" "Playing hide and seek." MAIL> TO: IN%"DRTLWR@TIAC.COM" FROM: IN%"JERRY_RIGG@TATTLER.TRIB" SUBJ: Spooky feeling. . . .Did somebody just walk over my grave? Spooky, that you? ^z Scully drew her breath through her teeth. I knew how she felt. The room was still sunny and bright and all my stuff was where I liked it, and I could barely see it. The whole world was that nice, color monitor of mine, and the white words and flashing cursor. We both jumped when the machine beeped. MAIL> reply TO: IN%"JERRY_RIGG@TATTLER.TRIB" FROM: IN%"DRTLWR@TIAC.COM" SUBJ: In the ectoplasm. Nice return code you have there. How do you like working for Hiram Wilson and Meg Loftus? Interesting conversation you've been having with Emma. You should be careful who you listen to. Things are not always what they seem. Trust no one. I'll look forward to meeting you in person. ^z Scully was shaking her head. "I don't think this is a good idea, Mulder. You don't know this man, I don't like this at all." "Relax, Scully. He already knows who we are, and Emma was going to tell him all about us anyway. Weren't you, Emma?" I definitely felt small. MAIL> TO: IN%"DRTLWR@TIAC.COM" FROM: IN%"JERRY_RIGG@TATTLER.TRIB" SUBJ: I'm sure you will. Hiram and Meg are cool, although they are real fashion victims. Speaking of which, someone should speak to you about your ties. I could do wonderful things for you. Obviously if you're on Emma's account something's gone wrong. Up front, Spooky, is Emma okay? She's a good friend. I would be very unhappy if something happened to her because she was associating with the wrong kind of people. ^z God, I felt strange, watching this happen. Poor Jerry, he must have thought I was dead. Mulder was setting up his reply. His fingers left little bloody spots on the keys, I was probably going to buy a new keyboard after this. MAIL> reply TO: IN%"JERRY_RIGG@TATTLER.TRIB" FROM: IN%"DRTLWR@TIAC.COM" SUBJ: Relax, she's fine. If she dies right now it'll be from mortification. If she'd needed to know any of this we would have told her. I'd like to discuss your professional ethics with you. And your source. ^z MAIL> TO: IN%"DRTLWR@TIAC.COM" FROM: IN%"JERRY_RIGG@TATTLER.TRIB" SUBJ: Ever hear of the 5th Amendment, Spooky? Or the 1st? Hands off my source and my friend. FBI has kept you under wraps so far. Let's keep it that way, shall we? ^z I could hear Scully's teeth grit next to me. Right then, I didn't blame her much. Mulder had paused, fingers hovering above the keys while he considered that last. I couldn't read anything from the little I could see of his face, but I knew Scully, beside me was not happy. MAIL> TO: IN%"JERRY_RIGG@TATTLER.TRIB" FROM: IN%"DRTLWR@TIAC.COM" SUBJ: I'm not sure I want to dignify that with an answer. Threats? In poor taste, wouldn't you agree? I'm sure you already know that Emma's hard to discourage. I'm not sure why you think we could succeed where your horror stories have failed. She is persistent. I will suggest that your records are inaccurate and that it might not be good to have them in your possession. We are not the only people involved in this debate. You may want to drop your current line of inquiry. In future a little discretion might go a long way to help your professional advancement. I'm sure, from what you've written, that you can appreciate that advice. ^z He sat back then. I was pretty sure he wasn't expecting any response to that last. After several minutes I had to agree. He carefully logged out, shut down and turned the thing off. I was leaning over the back of his chair, just trying to imagine what Jerry was thinking. And then I took a good look at Mulder, who was sitting there looking smug and pleased with himself while he bled on my keyboard and I really wanted to strangle him. "Mulder!" I reached and grabbed his right wrist and he looked up at me, startled. "What the hell is the idea of threatening my friends? You're pissed off, you can take it up with me, but . . ." I broke off when Scully leaned in and grabbed his other wrist and locked eyes with me. "Can you two take this up in a little bit? We've got some more immediate concerns and questions." He must have felt like he was under arrest with the two of us hauling his ass out of that chair. I bit my tongue and decided to hold my questions just a little, since I didn't think they were going anywhere and I had plenty to ask. Mulder was still pale, despite the gleam in his eyes from playing games with Jerry's head, and his blood was running down his wrist now, and felt nasty and hot and sticky under my hand. I think I may have been relieved when Scully guided us back into the kitchen. Scully ran the water and shoved the hand she had under the tap. Mulder hissed when the water hit the cuts. I let go and trusted he'd get the idea. I got the feeling he'd been through this kind of thing before. "Another afternoon in the emergency room?" He sounded resigned. "Not unless you want to go through the cordon of television cameras around it." Scully was making sure his hands were very clean. I backed up, swallowing hard and trying to ignore the feeling of my fingers, and headed towards the bathroom. How I could have forgotten was beyond me, but I'd managed to do just that. The sight of all that glass scattered over my counter, my floor, piled in a silver-and-white-and-red jagged glitter in the sink made my stomach flip-flop. I was about to race for the stairs when Scully called me back. "Emma." They were at the table and she was ruining a couple more of my dishtowels. "I've got a case in the front seat. Could you get it? It's full of medical supplies." She glanced up at me. Mulder was sitting there with that look of practiced trepidation that announced in banner-size type that he'd rather be anywhere, even Milwaukee, than sitting at my kitchen table right then. Scully tossed me her keys and went back to doing whatever was making him miserable. I didn't want to look closely enough to figure it out. My front door was still ajar, and I hopped down the stairs, with all sorts of unsavory questions buzzing in my head All of which I planned to ask before I let either one of the crypto-cops out of my house. I had just unlocked the front door and picked up this kit that was the size of my huge brief case when the implications of the thing hit me. I mean, this was no little kit like mine, about the size of a laptop. This thing weighed about twenty pounds and was in this big case. They could have marketed it as hospital-in-a-box, complete with everything but the nurse and accountants . So, did she carry this thing all the time? Was this a regular part of her luggage? I can't say I was looking forward to walking back into my kitchen, and Mulder looked like he shared my views on the matter. Scully was doing those doctor things that happen to you whenever you hurt yourself and they want to make sure you know about it. He was sitting there, wincing as she poked at a few cuts that must have been particularly nasty. I can't say for sure because I kept my eyes carefully focused on the top of Mulder's head, where I didn't really have to see the damage. Watching an autopsy had been bad enough. Seeing a live person, a person I knew, with cuts and blood and all. . . There was a sour taste in my mouth when I swallowed. Scully gave a satisfied look to the doctor-in-a-drum thing I put down on the table. "Good, can you help here, Emma?" "Help?" My voice might not have squeaked, but I doubted it. "Look, Scully, can't you just slap a few butterflies on and call it quits? It's really not that bad . . ." Mulder was trying to pull back from her, and she wasn't letting him. "Besides, you're a pathologist, you don't have anything for this, we can go to the emergency room when things calm down if it's really necessary . . . " He was most definitely getting that slightly frantic note I recognized as someone who did not want to get stitches. "No we can't. The rumors are already fast and furious. If you show up like this the press will go into a feeding frenzy. Don't be such a baby. You only need stitches in a couple of them. Maybe if you thought about these things you wouldn't hit mirrors." Her bedside manner would have told me she was a pathologist if I hadn't already known it. "Emma," she glanced up. "I haven't done this for a long time. Most of my patients just need a running stitch but this has to be done right. Mulder twisted his hands. "I've seen you work, Scully. I really don't think this is a good idea." "I did this stuff when I was a resident." She looked exasperated. "It's just going to take a little longer, Mulder. Emma, I'll need you to hold his wrist still so I can get this right. Just let me get some. . . ," she trailed off as she turned to her toy kit, rummaging and coming up with a syringe and a bottle.. Mulder may have cringed. I know I did. Scully had pulled out this funny headband with a magnifying glass on it. She pulled her hair back and put it on and suddenly I couldn't read her face anymore. She was that alien, goggle-eyed medical face that looks at whatever has gone wrong, turning back to him with that syringe and a probe and forceps. She'd already turned on every light in the room, and the sun and lights made it formidably bright. Mulder looked accusingly at her. "I think you enjoy this. You don't get to do this for any of your other patients. This is kind of a treat, isn't it." He looked at me. "None of her other patients ever gets any better, so I'm how she keeps her hand in." Right on cue she nailed him with the syringe and I saw what she meant. He tried to jump like a scalded cat, and would have knocked the needle loose if she hadn't been holding his arm tight. One in each finger, and more around each cut. My stomach flopped every time she put the needle in, and I began to wonder how he could have enough space on his hands to take that many injections. And he jumped at every single one. I groaned, but I leaned in to pin the his wrists so she could do her evil doctor thing. He was pale and sweating, shivering, when she was done with the injections. I thought he was going to pass out right there, and she hadn't even begun to sew up the cuts yet. Hell, I thought I was going to pass out right there. "Okay, Mulder, that's xylocaine. Your hands should start feeling numb any moment now." She was carefully injecting the slashes on his other hand. She seemed relieved to be able to simply do her job. Given the look on his face, it was probably a luxury to not have to fight him over holding still. He certainly looked like he really wanted to shove his hands in his pockets and keep them there. I tried very hard to avoid looking at my hands or his. It felt awfully hot in there. "Scully, is xylocaine a regular part of your luggage? I mean, is this kit your version of a briefcase?" My voice sounded funny in my ears. I concentrated and waited for her answer. She'd pulled that visor down, but I could see her smile pull her face into deceptively cute lines. "Actually, I was lucky. When you called I thought I might need some of this. The ambulance crew that brought the body in was still there and let me borrow theirs." She pulled out little silver things, held them up to show him."These are forceps, I'll use them to hold the cuts closed while I sew. It's going to take time, Mulder. I need a lot of really small stitches to keep you from having scars." Now she had something that looked like scissors, except it had a thin needle and a long, long thread on the end of it. I felt this ringing start in my ears. I hadn't thought Mulder could get any paler, but he was. His wrist felt clammy and cool under my hand, and I could feel his breathing fast and shaky through the shoulder that pressed against my belly. I'd have stepped back a little, but that would take my weight off his wrist and I could feel that he was going to jump when she started. I was right. He jumped. His hands might feel numb - might. I could recall xylocaine and fillings, and those buggers still hurt enough to have me arched off the chair and digging little finger holes in the dentist's upholstery. He always claimed I had to be imagining it. Mulder may or may not have been imagining how his hands felt, but to judge from the tension in his arm I would bet he didn't like this any more than I liked the dentist. "All right, Mulder." Scully's voice sounded soft and slightly distracted, all her attention on what her hands were doing. "We're going to be at this a while. Do you want to tell me why you hit Emma's mirror?" "No, I really don't." His voice sounded somewhat strained. Scully glanced up at him, then rather ostentatiously pulled the stitch through with that horrible scissor-thingy. Mulder hissed and went translucent. I shut my eyes. His wrist jumped under my hand and I could actually hear him swallow, and I recalled seeing Alien all of a sudden. After that first gross-out chest-burster scene I had closed my eyes so I couldn't see another gross scene. I spent the rest of the film huddled against my date with my eyes squeezed tight. Scariest movie I've ever heard in my life. This not only had surround-sound, I could smell blood and antiseptic and feel the pulse racing under his chilly skin. My stomach flopped and my ears rang and I decided that it might be worse with my eyes closed than open. So I opened them. I must have had them closed forever. It felt that way, so why did Scully only have two more stitches in? Oh god, I wished I hadn't looked. Mulder was leaning into my hip, not looking at all healthy. He was watching her work on his hands as though he were trying to pretend they belonged to someone else. Scully was humming opera arias or something. She pulled another stitch and wiped his hand with a wet swab. Little forcep-things gleamed silver and liquid-red under my kitchen lights. "I'd love to let you off the hook, Mulder, but I really don't have that luxury. Anything that shook you up that much, I need to know. You know it, too. If it were me, you'd need to know and you'd be right." His voice was strangled. "You never told me when I asked." She glanced up, then back down to his hands. "That's not true. And that's not the case here. You may have put something together, seen something in the files and it clicked. Now, do you want to tell me about that dream?" I could see her shoulders hunched tight over his hand while she concentrated on her work. They'd ache when she was done. "Trust me. It won't help. I don't want to talk about it." His voice sounded thready, and sweat was beading on his forehead. She paused and looked up at him. "Are you all right? Do you feel this, or do you want more xylocaine?" All right? Obviously doctors defined 'all right' differently from the rest of us. "It's okay, Scully. I can feel it some, but I don't like my hands numb. I'd rather feel it." His words came in little, controlled bursts, with swallows in between. He was a lousy liar. "Mulder, there are autonomic nervous responses to pain. . . " She sounded worried. He shook his head. She went back to her work, and asked about his dream again, and he refused again. "Okay, so Mulder doesn't want to tell me what happened." How could she do that? Just talk while she was doing that to him? "Emma, what happened?" I swallowed and tried to think up a good lie, but my stomach was taking all my attention. "Er, he had a dream." "You were working at the computer?" "Y-yes." "You don't have to tell her this." Mulder's voice sounded like I felt, and didn't make it through the ringing in my ears by much. I was feeling very hot, and the room had contracted to a bright tunnel of visibility surrounded by gray-purple fuzz. Scully was pinching together a long gash by his thumb with another little silver forceps thing. Stitches showed stark black where she had already finished sewing some of the slices in his hand. "And he had a nightmare?" Her voice was steady and gentle and she worked steadily, pulling another stitch to close the gash I could not look away from any more. "Uh huh. And he sat up and screamed. I think I dropped my keyboard." Was my voice always that squeaky? Mulder was squeezing his eyes shut every time he blinked, like he was trying to clear them. Sometimes he glanced at me, like he wished I'd sink through the floor, or spontaneously combust, anything to stop me from talking. "And then what?" Such a nice, coaxing tone. "He tried to open the door and he locked himself in the bathroom and I think he . . . " Oh god. I could remember those noises through the door, and right then I just didn't need that. I sagged against his side and tried to ignore my twitching stomach. Things were feeling really hazy, and my head felt light and sick. "Look Mulder," Lord, I was whining. "You know she'll hurry up if we tell her. Spill." I think he swallowed convulsively again, it sounded like that. His wrist felt colder than ever. Oh god, and Scully still had another hand to stitch. "Mulder, she's going to get it out of us, she's got a whole 'nother hand on us." I think I was begging. This was pitiful. I couldn't let this medical terrorism go on much longer. I caved. "Scully, he was dreaming about Sam and then he dropped off and then he screamed and that's all I know." "Mm hmm." Another stitch. How long did xylocaine last? They had to keep giving me shots during my fillings. Had his worn off? Maybe he'd answer if it did. I could see the sweat on his forehead now, beaded against gray-pale skin. His eyes looked glassy as hell and were fixed on what she was doing. She drew another stitch through and asked him again. I hadn't known medical schools offered classes on interrogating people. She dropped her swab on the pile she was collecting, with a move she must have intended both of us to follow. I could see she was being gentle, but she was taking entirely too long in doing this, as far as I was concerned. Moooore stitches. Another swab. If he'd ever been through this before how on earth could he have hit that fucking mirror, knowing that this would happen? Simple. When he hit it he didn't know. We were both watching the blood rolling down onto my dish towel and I could feel the sweat rolling off my face. The room was wavering and my stomach was rolling. "Mulder, please just tell her what she wants to know. . . " I could hear the pleading note in my voice and I just didn't care. Maybe it got through, or maybe he was as hazy as he was looking and just didn't have it in him to stonewall anymore. "I saw Sam, Scully. I saw him kill Sam." His wrist tensed against my hand again, and I leaned in. Just as well, my weight wasn't so steady on my feet alone anymore. "Go on." Her voice was still calm and distracted, as though she weren't paying attention to anything but what her hands were doing. "And what did you see in the mirror?" "I saw me, except her blood . . . " he trailed. He was looking at his hands but I don't think it was his blood he was seeing on them. His wrist was completely tensed under my hand now. Scully glanced up at him and hesitated. I could see her decide to continue. "Was it your face in the mirror?" "No. Yes. Not at first, but then. . . " He sounded a long way away. I still heard ringing in my ears, but didn't feel like closing my eyes anymore. No wonder he'd flaked out. "I was looking in the mirror and I saw a face and then I saw my face and her blood was on my hands, and she was. . . was. . . ," he choked off. If I hadn't had his wrists pinned I think he would have tried to put his face in his hands. Scully gently finished the first hand, taking knot, on knot, on knot in the end of the line. She silently put butterfly bandages on the other cuts, and stroked the back of his hand. He wasn't watching her anymore. "Mulder, did you see his face?" She sounded, I don't know, half-lost. Like asking him was betraying him. He swallowed, glassy eyed and weaving as she took his left hand and swabbed it clean. "I can't remember. I know I saw my face. I don't want to remember." His voice sounded insubstantial, hollow. He weaved again and I think his eyes may have rolled back a moment as his weight slid against me. I almost let him slide from the chair before I could catch him. He was heavier than I'd thought he could possibly be, slumped against me so I had to lean into him with all my weight to keep him there, until I could get him centered and leaning back in the chair. I curled over his head then, holding his hand still and hoping I wouldn't pass out myself. I had an arm wrapped around his shoulders, holding his shoulders and head back against my body. His hair felt soft under my hand. Scully paused to look at the two of us, and pulled a small vial out of her kit. I almost went when I saw the blood she'd left on it, but finally took it. She told me to sniff it. I'd always thought smelling salts were something made up to fill a spot in bad novels, but that little vial of ammonia salts snapped my attention back to the present very unpleasantly. I almost used them on Mulder, but Scully waved me off. "Let him stay out. This isn't going to get any more pleasant." "Sure you don't need to pump him for anything else?" The acid at the back of my throat couldn't have been any more sour than my voice. When she glanced up at me I could have sworn her expression was apologetic. "I'm sorry I had to put you through that. I didn't want to put either of you through this." The look she gave Mulder was terribly sad. "Dreams are . . . well. They're answers to questions we don't know how to ask. Or that's what he calls them. I had to know what he dreamed, and he wouldn't want to tell me. If you hadn't been here, I think he'd have tried to convince me it never happened." She turned back to his hand, as though it were a relief to have a simple, straightforward task. "I really do need your help, could you just hold him, so his hands stay still? And. . . and so he knows someone's there?" She said that last so softly. I turned my face away and pulled his weight against me. He was just stirring again when her voice gave me the all-clear. I turned back to watch her clean up the mess of swabs on my table and wipe the. . . the blood away. I'd never really been bothered by blood. Needles and cuts, yes, but not blood. All of a sudden I didn't think I could ever see blood again without the queasy, choked feeling I had now. Scully seemed relieved to be done. She checked Mulder's pulse and eyes with a look that was gentle, concerned and. . . slightly guilty? She turned the same guilty look on me. I guess maybe the third degree over stitches wasn't considered a legitimate and ethically above-board technique. I know it would have been grounds for an appeal in any court of law. "I don't know, Scully. I think you were born in the wrong century. You would have been a hit in Queen Elizabeth's Star Chamber." From the way she flinched she must have known torture was permitted in the Star Chamber. I felt like a heel. "Look, I'm sorry. My temper's just a little short. Can I get you a cup of tea? Both of you? Mulder looks like he's waking back up." He wasn't boneless anymore. I could let go of him, and he just weaved a little instead of going over. She looked grateful. "Thanks, I'll take one. And do you have a blanket? He'll be pretty chilled after that." I set the water on and went upstairs to get her one. When I caught my reflection in the mirror, I looked like a ghost. My face was pale and my eyes were huge, slate-blue holes against whites that had a little less color than my skin. My hair had never looked so dark. I pulled my sweater closer around me and went carefully back downstairs. _____________________ Fox Mulder's eyes were open, but not really focused yet. I let Scully wrap the blanket around him, and turned to brewing tea. When I set the mugs in front of them, and settled down in my seat, he looked a little clearer, a little more connected. Scully was fishing in my centerpiece, and I wondered if the stress had been more than I suspected, until she smiled triumphantly and pulled two pills out of it. "The Dramamine." She looked up at him and displayed them like prizes in a treasure hunt. "I knew you'd duck your medication." He smiled rather thinly, and sipped his tea. I mulled whether I could bring myself to start on him after that stunt Scully pulled, but I needed to know. "Mulder, look, what was that you pulled with my computer?" He looked completely confused. Clearly his gears had slipped a little on that one. Scully looked tempted to shut me down. "You have nothing to talk about, Dr. Scully. I doubt the medical ethics board put their stamp of approval on what you just did." Back to him. "You were sending threats to Jerry." He still looked baffled. "Threats? I didn't threaten him." His hazel eyes looked very ,very dark against skin that was much paler than usual. "What was all that about his career and advancement and all?" "That?" He actually sounded startled. "I wasn't threatening him. I was trying to warn him." Scully leaned in then, tried to catch my eye. "I think you can wait for this, Emma. Give him a little." "Scully, he sent stuff that looked like threats to Jerry and you let him. Now he says it's a warning. Jerry's a friend of mine. If I got him in trouble, I damn well want to know about it, and I don't think it can wait. There are other people in the world, and they have lives, too." Mulder sighed. "I don't think he's in danger, but he should be more careful. E-mail is not secure, and he was throwing information to you he shouldn't have." He looked very unhappy, Scully looked like I was something she'd clean out of the bottom of the birdcage. "I don't want to get into the details right now. I'll need to talk with him, though, need to find out what he thinks he'll do with that information." He looked at me like he was judging me, and I didn't have any idea what he was seeing. He sighed again. "There are people who I. . . have no real connection with, but who take an. . .interest in what I do. They might cause him, and you, a problem. It's important to know and to be discreet." He smiled and clearly gave it two beats. "Trust no one." I had no idea why that was funny, but Scully had cracked a grin that defused the anger I'd felt coming off her the last few minutes. "But I don't think you should have anything more to do with this case." It came from so far out of left field I didn't even know it was there until it hit me. Then I gaped at him, looking back and forth between him and Scully like they had just told me I was going to be audited. Mulder was watching the table top, arms crossed, blanket still wrapped around his shoulders. Scully was nodding slow, thoughtful agreement. I was wondering how the hell they could set me up like they had that morning, put me through that nasty scene Scully pulled, and then dump me. "Look, I don't know what makes you think I'm just here for babysitting and to get my house trashed." Mulder glared at me a moment. "But we've been through this already. I'm along for the whole show. I won't freak out on you, and I've already been a help to you. That's got to count for something." I was exasperated with them and I knew they could hear it. "Think about it, Emma." Scully sounded more sympathetic than I'd have expected. "It's not that you haven't helped or won't help. It's too dangerous. Mulder's right. There are other groups involved. We don't work in a vacuum. Even if you'd just been willing to go along blind you might have come under scrutiny, but with what you went and learned any further contact with us might be dangerous to you." "And you think I'll just sit back now and let go? You think I *could* just sit back now?" "I'm sorry, it's just too dangerous. It was bad enough before, this is just too dangerous. For your sake and your friend's, we can't let you get any further involved." Mulder had pushed himself on to his feet, not looking quite steady but looking very determined. The sun had shifted to the front of the house and the kitchen was shady, lit only by the fluorescents that made his eyes look shadowed, exhausted. He must have been at least as tired as he looked, but his expression was set in stone. Scully had withdrawn from all of it and was packing up her medical kit. Mulder forestalled me by walking back into the living room, picking up the files and papers that Scully had left when she saw my e-mail. I could feel this ill, angry tension in my stomach, fury at them, frustration. I reached over and grabbed Scully's wrist. "So that's it? You call me and ask me to babysit and then apologize and I send the bill for my mirror?" "That's right, Emma. That's it exactly." She twisted her wrist free, but carefully, gently. "Like hell! Like hell, Scully! I'm not here to pick up the pieces, I . . . I . . ." I was sputtering. It wasn't right and it wasn't fair, and I didn't have a leg to stand on. They'd only ever let me in because I had guilted and pushed. If they thought they had a reason they could push me right back out. "Scully, listen, you're right, I'm sorry, you don't have to take me along. And it may be dangerous, but I already know enough to get me in trouble but I don't know enough to keep me out of it. Jerry's a friend, I mean. . . I might be able to help with. . . with the press and all." I swallowed and fished in my head for something more solid than that That was so thin it was anorexic. Scully knew it, too. I could hear Mulder dragging that huge briefcase after him as she smiled consolingly at me. I was totally at sea now, I'd played my best cards just to get this far, and after all that had happened today I just wasn't ready, couldn't think. I didn't have anything left in reserve. "You've come up with better in the past, Emma. I am sorry we dragged you into all this, sorry about this morning." She put a hand on my shoulder and I just felt sick and furious and used. "You did me a favor today, you have no idea how big a favor. I know it doesn't seem that way right now, but we're doing you a favor." She turned back to her kit, securing the last few tools and closing it. Mulder was leaning in the hallway, looking tired and ready to go. Scully pocketed the two Dramamine she'd found, glanced at me almost apologetically. She batted Mulder's hand off the briefcase, growling something about him undoing her hard work, and picked it up as well. He nodded and got the door for her. I followed, watched from my front door as they got into their plain blue car, her behind the wheel, and left. They didn't even look back at me, the bastards. I stepped back and slammed the front door so hard I could hear the living room windows rattle in their casements. _____________________ I stalked back into my kitchen, stared around, grabbed their mugs and slammed them, too. Right through the bathroom door, into the shower, where I could get good follow-through on it. They made a nice shatter against the tiles of my ruined bathroom. I wanted to throw them at Mulder and Scully. I grabbed my jacket and keys and deserted my damn, ruined, bloody house for my car. Hours and hours, revving it up and tearing down every road I was sure the cops never scanned. I veered all over those roads, scared I-don't-know-how-many safe drivers, and ran my gas tank out to fumes. I must have taken years off the life-span of my transmission. I could hear the gears grind as I slammed them through speed shifts and passed on solid lines on curves. It took an effort, but I was polite to the attendant at the gas station. I bought a six-pack to make up for any little nastiness that slipped past me. And since I had them, well. . . when I finally pulled back up in front of my house I had four empties and an empty, lonely feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was so dark out. I hadn't turned on my porch light and the street lights were in front of other peoples' houses, and that seemed right somehow. I tucked my bag of empties under my elbow, my last two cans dangling from my left hand. It took me forever to find the lock. I was having trouble keeping my balance in the dark, and started giggling when I missed the lock the sixth time. I hadn't realized how much stress I'd been under. . . I mean, well. . . maybe I was feeling a little woozy. When I got the key in the lock and turned and pushed through I almost lost my balance. I stumbled up against the wall on the right, and sagged to the floor, giggling and sobbing and trying to catch my breath. The cans went rolling across the floor and rattling into the next room. It was so dark. Only the faintest hint of light worked its way into my hall, and it was a long time before I realized that I was seeing. . . feet. Right in front of me. The hand that grabbed the front of my sweater felt huge, the knuckles hard against my breastbone. One finger, rough, touched my lips, freezing the scream on them, and a soft, hoarse whisper rasped my ears. "Quiet, quiet little lawyer. No one would hear you, but me, and I'm sensitive." The finger left my lips and traced my cheek, into my hair, back down my throat, along the collar of my shirt. I felt sick horror trill along the insides of my thighs and into my belly. I couldn't think, I wanted to kick him, scream, thrash, and I hung there in terror, trying hard just to breathe. "Huh, whuh . . ." Oh god, I couldn't even ask what he wanted. The sobs welled up in my throat. I wanted to puke I was so terrified, I wanted to wet myself. Another sob choked me as his hand closed over my breast, tracing my shirt, my sweater. I felt his skin against mine, rough fingers on my chest, as he shoved a piece of paper under my bra and patted my breast again. "It's all right, sweetheart. You just tell Agent Mulder he can find me, or I'll find him. Tell him I'm looking forward to . . . meeting him." His breath was hot in my ear, and his voice was the call of every nightmare I'd ever known. When he released me and stepped back, I sagged to the floor. Shame washed me as my bladder finally let loose, and I huddled, wet and sobbing, on my floor. The sound of footsteps on broken glass was in my kitchen, then the door opened and closed. I didn't know anything for a long time then. I came to myself huddled naked in my shower upstairs, in water so hot it scorched my skin. Sobs still wracked my chest, and I must have sobbed a long time from the aching pain in my ribs and throat. When I knew I was hearing myself I sobbed harder, but made no sound. My throat was raw and shot pain through my head. When I finally slapped the water off and crawled out, I found my clothes in a reeking heap on the floor. I could not recall having left them there, or climbing the stairs, or how every light in the house came to be on. My back was against the wall when I edged past those clothes. The smell of them made my guts twitch, the smell of my urine, and I was sure I could smell him on them. I turned and fled to my bedroom, gagging and tearing open my drawers, yanking them free to spill clothes all over the floor. I fell down trying to put on my jeans, the rug was rough on my butt. I hadn't stopped to pull on undies, but I knew if I tried to get out of my jeans and do it right I'd fall apart, apart, never be able to do what I needed to do. I pulled them on so hard it hurt and buttoned my fly and snatched up a shirt and pulled it over my head. I had to try again and again to get it right, my hand kept getting trapped in the collar. I couldn't breathe, panic choked the air in my chest, sobs threatened again and I choked and crawled to the phone, curled by the bed and tried to call the only people who might understand and could. . .not. . . remember their hotel. I could see it but not its name. When the operator asked if I wanted 911 I hung up. I half-crawled, half-ran back to the bathroom and used the toilet brush to turn through my clothes until I found the note. My skin crawled as I reached for it, I almost started sobbing again. Finally, I tore off toilet paper and picked up the note with the tissue wrapped around it. A little triumph. I drew a shaky breath and held the damn thing tight. A little, little triumph. I carried that note as though it was radioactive, down the stairs, picked up my purse, my keys. The front door open, closed, down the steps to the sidewalk and into the car. I jumped when the engine started. I don't know how I got to their hotel without hitting anyone, but my car was still complete when I pulled in by their rooms. Up the stairs, dragging myself along that iron railing, down the balcony to Mulder's room and pounding on the door and pounding and pounding and where was he? I was sobbing and throwing myself against his door when the door next to his opened. Scully stepped out, puzzled, watched me a moment. "Emma?" Her voice was soft, somewhere between worried and aggravated. How could I be thinking about . . . the sobs choked me again. My arms hurt from pounding on his door. "Mulder . . . answer. Where are you? Scully?" I looked up at her as I slid down the door, too exhausted and scared and ill to stand any more. Scully's arms were strong around my shoulders as she pulled me back to my feet, down to her room, in where it was bright and safe. She pushed me back on the bed and settled my shoulders against her pillows. "Scully, I have to tell Mulder . . ." "Emma, Emma, calm down." Scully was sitting next to me, holding my shoulders as I kept trying to sit up. I'd didn't think she'd even been able to hear me, my throat was so raw. Oh, I didn't want to start crying again. I sucked in shaky, hard breaths and held still, made myself hold still, while she watched me, taking in the wild hair, the loose shirt. My face must have been puffy and dreadful. I was starting to get control, more because I was too exhausted to panic any further than anything else. "Scully. . ." She leaned close. I don't think she could hear me any other way. I could smell her shampoo, so clean, so different from his sharp sweat. "I have to talk to Mulder, Scully. He told me I have to tell Mulder." "Who, Emma? Tell me, you can tell me." "Where's Mulder?" She sighed. "I gave him something to help him sleep. It's going to take an awful lot to wake him up. You can tell me, it's all right, you can tell me whatever you could tell him." I could hear my own breath, harsh, panting, as I struggled up and grabbed my purse and dumped it out. She must have thought I was mad, I was shaking and pointing at that note, among all the things I'd spilled from my bag. Scully reached over with a pencil and drew it towards her with the eraser, worked it open and read it, her eyes growing wide and worried. "Where did you get this Emma? What happened? What happened to you?" Her voice told me she already knew what had happened to me, she had no doubt, but needed me to tell her anyway. She sat on the foot of the bed and leaned close to hear my hoarse whisper. "Scully, he was in my h-h-h-house when I got home. He t-touched me, here. . . " I stroked my hand up my chest, to my throat, let it rest there where I could feel my own warm pulse racing. "H-he told me I had to tell Mulder, had to give him that." I pointed at the paper she held. Had to say . . ." The words were lodged in my head, but didn't want to be said. "Had to say, he was looking forward to m-meeting him, that Mulder needed to find him or he'd find Mulder." I finally gasped my words out and stopped, biting my lip until it hurt, arms wrapped around my ribs. Scully stared at the paper, looked at me. She finally swallowed and got up. She fished in her luggage until she found rubber gloves and a baggie, walked back over pulling the gloves on. I watched her fold the message up and put it away. She put it to one side, fished some more, found a bottle and came back with it and a glass of water. "Here, these are the same pills I gave Mulder, they won't hurt you." I looked up at her, my hands clenched together between my thighs. I tried to unclench them, tried to reach. Scully finally helped me, helped me get my trembling hand to my lips with the pills, helped hold the glass still. They stung going down, pills and cold on my throat. I finally nodded. She brought a washcloth to wipe my face, and helped me under the covers of her bed. "You'll stay here tonight. I'll call the police, you just go to sleep. I'll be here, you won't be alone." She pulled the covers up to my chin. "Emma, I need to go check on Mulder, I need to go make sure he's okay. I'll come back in just a minute, I won't leave you, I'll come back." Her voice was soothing, I nodded and curled my knees up to my chest, lay still while she made a phone call, another. I felt waves of dark wash through me, she was going out. I fought my eyes, pulling them back open until she finally walked back in, locked her doors and came back to the bed. She sat and stroked my hair, telling me she was there, and I let go and slipped under at last. _____________________ I woke up late, to a pounding headache, sore throat, and a deathly awful taste in my mouth. I lay there a while, confused and wondering where I was and who I'd partied with and hoping I'd remembered a condom. Then I saw a woman's suit hanging in the suit bag on the door and I remembered that a condom wouldn't have helped me. I sat up with what would have been a shriek if my throat hadn't been sandpapered by my sobs the night before. I was still in my clothes, and the reflection I saw in the mirror across the room was wild-eyed, hair every which way. The jeans were chafing without underwear, as I was uncomfortably aware when I crawled out of bed and staggered to the bathroom. I nearly tripped over a blanket, strewn over the chair where I suppose Scully had spent the night. I rinsed my face and wet my hair back. I could see scratches on my face and neck. They looked like they were from a fingernail brush. I shuddered at the faint memories of trying to get clean, of scouring and brushing, of soiled clothes and fleeing my own house. My eyes were desperate and puffy when I looked again, and I saw things no scrubbing would ever erase. I heard a noise in the room and nearly jumped out of my skin until I realized it had to be Scully. I dragged myself out there, and shivered at the surge of warm relief I felt on seeing her, even though I knew what I would see. She looked tired, though not nearly as bad as I knew I looked. From the way she worked her shoulders her neck was stiff, and the jeans and FBI Academy sweatshirt she wore really wrecked her cool, together Secret Agent image. I smiled. It felt like my face would crack, but I had to smile at the idea of Scully in those sixties suits and stuff from the reruns of the old TV shows. She finished working her neck and looked at me, eyebrows up, clearly wondering how I was doing. "Morning, Scully. Thanks for looking after me last night." My voice was. . . sad. Really, really sad. Absolutely shot. She could only hear me because there weren't any other noises in the room, I'm sure. I could see her suppressing a slight smile, and I knew the feeling. Noisy, yammering Emma with that little mouse voice? The last time I'd had laryngitis my friends had told me the only thing worse than me with my voice was me without my voice. Truly pitiful. "I just rousted Mulder out. I expect room service will be up with coffee and breakfast by the time he's ready and over here. I didn't think either of you would feel much like sitting in the coffee shop." "Thanks." God, if this kept up I'd just write out flash cards to use instead of making people read my lips. "I hate to make you talk with your voice like that, but I want you to tell me and Mulder, both, exactly what happened last night." God, she had to remind me. I felt the anxiety and fear twist me up again. I was across the room so fast, and grabbing her arm. "Scully," all my breath behind that hiss that was the loudest I could manage. "Don't make me go home, don't leave me alone, please please. . ." She was patting my hand, trying to break in. She finally just talked over me. Not hard to do just then. "Emma, no one's going to leave you alone. You're scared. Just calm down We'll talk about what happened, figure it out." The knock at the door stopped her. My heart was in my throat, but she answered bravely, let in the tray of coffee, donuts, fruit, and tipped the harmless waiter. She was right about the timing. We'd just poured our coffee when Mulder knocked and let himself in. He looked a little better rested, a lot less pale, but preoccupied as hell. The look he gave me was worried, but he was polite enough - or hungry enough - to let us get our food and to grab a couple donuts and some coffee before he tried asking questions. He took a big bite of powdered sugar donut, licked off all the powdered sugar except a spot at the corner of his mouth, and started. I knew it was coming. I gulped my bite, chased it with hot coffee to distract myself, and waited for him to walk me back through hell. "I'm sorry I wasn't awake for you last night, Emma. I hear you had a bad time of it." I nodded, appreciating what he was up to with his innocuous little comments. His voice was gentle and calm. He was watching to gauge my mood. "Scully said you were terrified when you showed up last night. She told me what you told her, but I think we both need to hear it again. Can you tell us what happened?" I took a breath that rattled in my chest, it went so deep. I knew what they wanted from me, and wanted to get it over with. "Where do you want me to start?" He started a little at the hissing whisper that was left of my voice. A faint, slightly guilty look to Scully. Did that man feel guilty over everything in the world? "You left yesterday, and I was kind of mad. I went driving, couple hours maybe. I drank some beers. It was late, full dark, when I got home. I didn't leave the porch light on, and you know there aren't any street lights close." They nodded. They were both leaning in close, to save me raising my voice as much as possible. "I went in, and shut the door. Maybe I was a little drunk. I was sitting on the hall floor, and he was waiting for me." Mulder twitched. Scully sat back with a look on her face that was way too controlled. I suddenly remembered what Jerry had said about her being abducted, looked to her and saw sympathy and carefully hidden fear. "He. . . pulled me onto my feet. He was fondling me, pushing against me. I was so scared." I didn't look at Mulder. I didn't want to think about the things I'd said to him. "He shoved a note in my bra, and told me I had to tell you." Okay, think hard, they'd want the exact words. Scully had poured a glass of water and handed it to me. I gulped gratefully, closed my eyes a moment, saw him, a darker shadow against shadows, heard him. "He told me . . . told me that Mulder could find him, or he'd find Mulder. He called you 'Agent Mulder.' He had this low, horrible whisper of a voice, not like a real voice at all. He said he was looking forward to meeting you. He said I had to tell you that and then he dropped me." I sniffled. My nose was all stuffed with snot and my eyes were watering. Mulder put a box of tissues on my lap, and I wiped my eyes and blew my nose. "I was so scared." My voice broke. You could barely hear it, but it broke. "I was so scared. He let go and I just curled up." I felt like I was confessing, like now I'd started I wanted it all out, all out of me, no matter how ashamed or stupid I felt. "I wet myself I was so scared. I heard him go out the back and I ran upstairs and I had to get clean, had to clean him off me." Scully leaned in, put a hand on my knee. Mulder was watching me with concerned eyes. "Emma, did he hurt you, touch you besides what you said?" "You mean was I raped? No." I whipped my head back and forth. "He didn't hurt me. I was just so scared, and I picked that note up with the toilet paper, and I came here, and you were asleep, and Scully . . ." I was starting to choke up again. I didn't want to and I was doing it anyway. Mulder scooted his chair in closer. Scully put an arm around my shoulder. "It's all right, Emma. It's okay to be scared. You were very brave, you did just right." His voice was so sure, so soothing. Scully was holding my shoulders tight, letting me know I was not alone, I was safe. "I feel so stupid. He didn't even hit me and I'm so scared . . ." "No, no, you have every right to be scared." I looked up at him. He meant it. "You were very brave. We're both glad you weren't hurt." He looked over my head at Scully, a worried, sad, relieved look. I sniffled disgustingly, a nasty, wet sniffle, and forced a smile. "You can't get rid of me now. I'm too scared not to tag along. If I have to see this guy again, I want it to be with you two in front of me." I could hear Scully snort. Mulder gave me a grin, a little admiration maybe in there with the humor. Scully let go and settled back into her chair. This time Mulder got me the water. "Really, you can't ditch me. Don't leave me alone. I mean it. I'm afraid he'll come back." "That's not his pattern, Emma. You know that." "Yeah, well, little girls aren't his pattern either. Look, I've got a guest room and a fold-out couch. Please, please, I wasn't in the way before, I won't be in the way now, but I'm scared. If you aren't there, what if he comes back? He isn't playing by the rules. He's not. You know he's not. I don't want to die like that." "We could get you a police guard. Step up patrols. You can stay with family." Scully didn't sound convinced by her own suggestions. I suppose the look I gave her could be described as withering. "Yeah, and temporary restraining orders keep guys from blowing away their girlfriends. Look, you two know I'm right. This isn't some stunt, please." I didn't try to hide that little pleading note. They were talking in looks again, but I could read this one loud and clear. When Scully finally nodded, and Mulder's face relaxed from its guarded look, I knew I'd have guests that night. And I let out the long, shaky breath I hadn't known I'd been holding. _____________________ Mulder and Scully checked out before 11:00, saving us taxpayers the cost of another day's hotel bill. And then we went to spend the day with the cops. I don't know how many times I told my little story. By the time I was done my voice was gone, I was writing my answers on a legal pad, and it all felt like it had happened to someone else. The next time someone tries to lecture me about desensitization I'm going to listen more closely. My federal house guests had disappeared into the bowels of the police station when the locals started repeating the same questions they had already covered ad nauseum. I didn't mind - much. I understood that they had other stuff to do besides hold my hand at the cop shop, although I was awfully, awfully glad to see them when I was finally cut loose at about two in the afternoon. They were in a little office the cops had cleared for them, reviewing the autopsy reports on Sally McCormick and Tommy Dalbert and a batch of people who I'd never have had the chance to meet. Scully handed me a cup of coffee when I had slung myself into one of those cheap wood-and-vinyl, twenty-year-old chairs you only find in places like that. The coffee was horrible and I drank every drop so it couldn't spill on anything it would eat a hole through. She'd turned back to Mulder and the two of them were conferring, head to head, over some kind of lighted table. When I drifted over I saw rows of fingerprints and smudges, and frustrated looks on their faces. "Which are which? You two don't look happy." They must have made out the hiss of that question. Mulder tapped the top row of smudges, face drawn up into a disappointed frown. "These are the best we could get from your note." He pointed at a line of smudges with only a fraction of whorl clear. "There weren't any clear prints on the back door he broke in through. Nothing anywhere else - I'm afraid your house is going to be a real mess." He looked apologetic. "We couldn't get anything at all from the body." A look of real pain flickered over his features. "And all this is the most solid stuff on any of these cases we've seen so far." He was running his hand back through his hair. With a nervous gesture like that, I could see why he kept it short enough not to ruffle easily. Scully was looking over notes in a hand I recognized from the notes that had been piled up in his room. A piece of paper was carefully weighted on the table above his notes. It looked like a copy of an old newspaper. Standing next to Scully, I could see a clipped column, part of a masthead, Vin- something. It was a picture of a pretty young girl, a story about a missing child. I swallowed. The paper was from a copier, not yellowed, but I didn't really need to see the name of the girl to know how old that article must be. And scrawled across it, cheap pen and writing so messy it must have been with the person's - man's - wrong hand: "I understand." I put my coffee cup down with a trembling hand and stepped back. Mulder's back was still turned, to look at the fingerprints that couldn't help him, and I was somehow glad that he couldn't see that note for at least those few minutes. Scully looked over her shoulder at me, curious then understanding. When she looked back to the notes all I could do was wonder how anyone could do this job, hunt people who did this kind of thing. I had to force myself to step back up and read over her shoulder. Longhand outline of a man's life, his mind, what he wanted in nightmare details and clinically cool language. I skimmed bits of what Fox Mulder had written. The killer was certainly in at least his mid-thirties judging from the earliest crimes, probably forty to late-forties. Physically, strongly built, at least six feet tall - the height was a detail marked in over the line and I knew it was my description that gave that. Caucasian. Had been abused, had had at least one sibling, probably a brother, sibling(s) probably dead (How could he know? Somehow I didn't question it.) Almost certainly lived with his father and was abused by him, judging from the victims. May have killed his siblings, very likely killed his father. Then Mulder started embroidering. Father probably fixated on UFOs. Son certainly fixated on UFOs, choosing his hunting grounds from UFO hot spots. Mulder suggested that earliest killings may have been in Roswell and of an atypical pattern, therefore unidentified as part of this man's string of victims. The killer was highly intelligent, but unlikely to be credentialed. His pattern of kills made it unlikely he had stayed in one place several years as required for college or a professional position. He chose his victims based on physical similarity to his father, and to either himself or his brother. He may have stalked them, though the police had no record of stalking reports from the victims. Lack was possibly the killer's care, possibly societal expectations, since Mulder felt strongly that the killer chose his targets carefully. Killer was obsessed but capable of deviating from his pattern. I already knew the stuff about how he changed his name, burned his houses, moved on, always moved on. Then Scully hit the next page of notes. Mulder's handwriting was a little messier, this was a rougher draft. The killer was recreating alien abductions. Some of his. . . torture. . .was well known from popular books. A lot of it was highly detailed and not well known at all, requiring deep familiarity with abductions and current theories. Innovative, although relatively crude (relative to what?) methods used to simulate the damage done to abductees. I could hear Scully swallow as she read this. An attached forensic report detailed a lot of it, detailed how various pathologists, including Scully, thought the . . . simulations had been done. I felt my stomach turn as he discussed Dremel tools, sanders, micro-drills, tools for carving stone, generating electrical currents, heat. I blinked my eyes into focus and kept reading, feeling ill. Reasons. Mulder had started loosely, with what seemed obvious to him. The killer was killing those responsible for his abuse, his pain. What had Mulder been thinking when he wrote this stuff? The pen point had dug into the page, tearing through the paper in some places. Lines were scratched out with big, messy stokes that bled ink. I could imagine his hands, black with the smeared ink after writing this stuff. The killer, beaten by his father, and Mulder speculated the father had killed the sibling, probably by accident. This was underlined, and margin notes highlighted it as an emotional crisis point. From the obvious he'd gone to the murky. The alien abduction stigmata was how Mulder referred to it. A long paragraph on demonic possession theories on the top of the next page made no sense until I saw the line below it. The reported number of possessions was almost identical to the number of alien abduction cases reported, with similar patterns of abuse occurring. I felt the sweat on my palms, glanced up to see Mulder standing at the table now, sorting through files of their "possibles." The abuse inflicted by this killer was brutal. Flayed sections of flesh, chemical burns, heat burns, worse. All designed to mimic alien abduction cases and excruciatingly painful to a live person. Mulder was theorizing the abuse was somehow structured as part of an elaborate delusion, with the killer either imagining himself alien, or acting on behalf of the "delusional (?)" aliens. And a note at the bottom, referring to another file. I leaned over and found the file he had cited, found a crumpled flyer for some convention on UFOs, articles listed, one by M.F. Luder highlighted. I hated the New York Times acrostic, but even I could figure that one out. A second note was paper-clipped to it. Messy, scrawled handwriting, like the writing on the article about Samantha Mulder. "Why did you stop looking? She's still out there." The page was torn and wrinkled, and I knew it had been balled up. Another old, dated, page of notes caught my eye in the file. Sun flooded through the venetian blinds behind me, heating the room, warming my back almost uncomfortably, but chills ran up my spine when I saw that note, from nine months ago. Mulder had been doodling little space ships across a sheet of paper. I recognized his tight pen lines on the page, and then three towns written down, fast and messy, as though he'd written them without looking at them, reading something else. We were at the top of the list. I looked up to meet his eyes, watching me. "You knew." I barely made a sound. If he hadn't been watching me he'd never have noticed it. But he nodded at me. "I wasn't sure. I didn't *know*. But . . . I was pretty sure. And there was no way to warn anyone." I stared at him. Surely he could have told someone. But what could he have said? Be careful, I'm sure a UFO serial killer will drop by in the next year? He was right. There was no way to warn us, only be ready to try to pick up the pieces. Scully had glanced at us, but was chewing on a pen, reading the notes they had from traffic reports. There were a lot fewer of them, and Mulder's notes were all over them, but still entirely too many. He sagged into the chair across the table from her and ran his fingers back through his hair again until the bangs stood up. His garish gray and red and orange tie stood out in the drab room. The files spread in front of him had notes on them. He slowly separated out about a dozen files and tossed them carelessly into the middle of the table. Scully looked up at them, at him. He was looking at the nine he had left. He'd dismissed the dozen on the table. She paged through them, looking up at him quizzically from time to time, obviously wondering why he had discarded them. He'd laid his nine out in three rows of three, totally oblivious to the looks Scully was giving him. Slow, drifting motion of his hands over the files. There were pictures on some, and police artist sketches on others. Fox Mulder stood there, tugging on his lower lip and staring at each of them. Every so often he'd reach out, page through some notes. And he pulled one out and tossed it with the dozen on the table. Pulled another. Scully must have had enough because she cleared her throat, and he looked up with startled, hazel eyes to find her staring at him. "I know you're eliminating files, Mulder. Do you want to share why?" The smile she gave him took the sting out of words, and he grinned back. "Intuition? I called the 1-900-psychic hotline?" He looked down and pulled another, handing it to her. She paged through it, confused. "I don't understand, Mulder. He's been in the right places, has the right experience to be able to do this, the right build, even the car with the crumpled fender." "Which he crumpled on the corner of the house, I know. But the house has a chunk out of the woodwork, and he. . . I don't know, Scully. No, I do know. I'm looking for this. . . matrix of things. It's hard to explain." "So try. We're not stupid. She may know how you work, but I don't and if you can catch this bastard I have a right to know how." I leaned over to look at the six files he had left in front of him. "You pulled a bunch of them, why?" He might have gotten offended if I hadn't sounded so pitiful, hissing my questions, but he took mercy on me. "He's choosing his victims, so he comes in contact with people in the town where he takes them. Now, he might be driving in from another town, like a salesman with a regular territory." He tapped a file. "Or he might be in town and have a lot of contact in or out of work. But he comes in contact often enough to look them over and get to know them. These people are not randomly chosen and if he's sitting outside their houses, watching them, then it's because that's just what they expect him to do." He started fanning files out. "Telephone lineman, furnace repair, gas meter checker, carpet cleaning service, yard maintenance landscaper. All mobile, all with access, and all of them have visited the Dalbert home within the last year. And every former victim who kept records had some claim that any of these might have filled. Although most of them didn't keep any real records at all, or they were missed on the initial search." He sighed and tried to run his hands through his hair again, winced at the pain in them. He finally crossed his arms in a nervous, edgy motion. "It could be any of these six, but. . . " He carefully moved three of them to his top row, and stood staring at them, tapping each one in turn like he was running through checklists in his mind. "You know, I feel like something is tickling in my head." He was smiling, but it was not a pleasant expression, almost a grimace. "We've seen something in one of these reports. . . " He picked up a stack of paperwork that looked like a Congressional health plan proposal from its size. Dropped it with a loud thud. "Hell, let's get out of here." I could see the frustration in the way he grabbed his jacket, shoved the notes in his briefcase, which Scully grabbed before he could get it with those cut up hands of his. I took it from her, since my throat might be bad but my arms worked just fine. Scully packed her own notes neatly, lining the edges up in her satchel and putting her pen in the little loop that the manufacturers put in for the few people who were that tidy. Mulder was quiet, sullen in his irritation with himself when we left. Scully let them know we were on the way out, and I was about as noisy as anyone with full-blown laryngitis. Scully had looked down my throat and pronounced I'd be fine in a day or two, but that I'd really strained my vocal cords the night before. They followed me home, and I was careful not to lose them at any corner and to keep my passenger door locked. I didn't seriously believe anyone, any particular one, would approach me today. I just didn't want to take a chance. And I knew damn well that after the message I'd delivered Scully had no intention of letting her partner go anywhere but the men's room on his own. _____________________ Fall breeze blew chill through the inch gap I left in my window, and the wheels slipped on gold and brown leaves when I turned around corners. It was late enough to have that gold glow in the air, and softening shadows at ground level. Only the roof of my house was lit in direct sun when I pulled up, far enough ahead so there was room for the bureau car behind me. I helped Scully get their bags and Mulder stood by, looking like he felt useless. We got Scully's stuff upstairs, where she started to put it away in neat stacks in the drawers and in the closet, as I'd seen at the hotel. I'd just tossed Mulder's cases into the living room by the fold-out couch, where he said they'd be fine. I'd overlooked the downstairs bathroom, but now I had my broom out. He joined me, looking sheepish at the sheer scale of the mess he'd left behind. It was impressive. His broom and my whisk broom gathering jagged crumbs of glass was most of the noise for a few minutes. He was carefully picking up the big chunks when I glanced at him. The bruises, stitches and bandages made me wince with sympathy. He moved his fingers carefully enough that I knew his hands really hurt him. "Careful, Scully'll chew us both out if you slice a finger off." My voice reminded me of the sound the glass made under my broom. He grinned. "Mulder, do you do this a lot? Not trash houses I mean, get hurt?" He looked up at me, hand poised over a big piece lodged behind the toilet tank. "The truth? Lately quite a bit, not mirrors, but I get a little . . . damaged. It's funny because I made it through most of the eighties in Violent Crimes and only got really hurt twice, and one of those was getting caught at the bottom of an FBI/NSA rugby scrum." "So what happened?" "I took over the X-Files. I suspect Mr. Riggins told you about them." His look was a little sour. I also didn't miss that he'd found out exactly who Jerry was at some point in the last day or so. "Weird shit?" "Exactly." His grin was back now. "The weirdest. The serial killers who nobody can figure, the aliens and werewolves and all the rest." He waved his fingers like a storyteller spooking five year olds, his hazel eyes sparkling, and I almost cracked up right there. I probably would have really enjoyed all this , if the faint warning voice in the back of my head wasn't telling me that he'd actually found enough shit to register on the weird shit meter. And he was here because now we were on that meter. "You're going to catch this guy, aren't you Mulder?" "I'm going to do my best, Emma. I'll do my best." And we went back to sweeping up the glass. We were about done when I heard the throat clear behind me. I must have been a little more nervous than I'd thought. I flipped my dust pan and broom across the room. Mulder grinned, picked it up and handed it back to me. "After UFOs, serial killers and the Bar exam you let Scully scare you?" I looked at her over my shoulder. She was giving a curdled look to her partner. "It took me long enough to put those stitches in. Nice, neat, tidy stitches that won't leave ugly scars. If you pull them loose I am not going to be happy with you." "You need to start doing embroidery, you'd be faster." "You're courting death, Mulder." She leaned in past me and flipped on the sink, hand under the spout and *wham*. Sploosh! She was up against superior force and, unfortunately, I was in the middle. When he turned the shower massage on her she squeaked and ducked. "C'mon Emma." Her smile was struggling to get past the disapproving frown. "As long as you're putting up with us, the least I can do is help with dinner. And I'd like to take another look at that throat of yours." She grabbed a towel off the rack and tossed it to me, and we left him to finish up. I must say, dinner a la FBI was a marvelous thing. Scully and I rooted through my cookbooks and put together a menu we liked. Then we dug through my phone books until we were satisfied and handed a list and a phone number to Fox Mulder, who then proceeded to blow through four times their per diem on our order. No fuss, no muss, no pots, no pans. Craig Claiborne, eat your heart out, and dinner will be here in less than an hour. Since Mulder'd done his good deeds for the day, he got to crash in the living room and laugh himself silly in front of "Unsolved Mysteries." Scully and I whiled away the time, cleaning fingerprint powder off a lot of my kitchen. The stuff was insidious, like black corn starch. We got the easy stuff, but the rest would wait for a rainy day when I wanted to waste time toothbrushing it out of the grout. Not to mention the black smudges lurking all over my hall and living room, everywhere they hoped - wrongly - that the killer might have left a print. Blecch. Housework. Another charge to chalk up to his evil slate. And it was unusually boring, since I still couldn't hold up my end of a conversation. I'd be back in full hue and cry in a day or two, but was still sounding thin that night. Dinner was. . . . oooh, murg saag and raita and jasmine rice, carry-out Indian! We sat on the living room floor - somehow, the kitchen table didn't appeal for dinner - and stuffed ourselves. I guess they had an agreement about shop talk over dinner, because there wasn't any. Just poppadoms, tea, then those Indian desserts so sweet they'd blow cavities in stone. Scully'd pulled "The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming," from my collection of fashionably little-known videos and Alan Arkin filled any thin spots in the conversation. The movie ended and the files came out, but with nowhere near the intensity of the daytime. More idle speculation on how this guy made his money, how he paid for his house, than anything else. It was all nice and safe and distant from violence but still close enough to work so they felt like they were earning their pay. I tried to pay attention, but discussions of who received insurance checks and how you faked an identity bored me more than the 1995 Tax Code. About eleven I wished them goodnight and dragged my sorry self upstairs, where I crawled into my favorite flannel nightgown and tried to sleep with the lights off. I finally had to turn them back on. I kept feeling hands on me, thinking I smelled him. When I finally fell asleep, I don't recall dreams but I doubt it was peaceful. I woke up with my heart pounding, hands sweating, wondering what I'd heard that awakened me. I finally identified pacing from downstairs, a steady, even, practiced pacing. I wasn't the only one with trouble sleeping tonight. Then a counterpoint, a soft shuffle of feet past my door and down the stairs. Hell, if everyone else was up, I might as well be up too. So what if it was three in the morning. I almost barreled down the stairs when I heard soft, just-short-of-whisper voices downstairs, and all my small child instincts kicked into play. Curiosity is a dreadful thing. It will put a person in really silly situations, like me. I huddled up three steps down from the top, in the dark and the top of the stairwell, faintly striped by the light flooding through the bannisters from downstairs. I could see Mulder's legs as he turned through the far reach of each pacing cycle, could hear both of them, her softer than him. And I listened. " . . .didn't mean to wake you." "I know, don't worry about it. I never sleep well unless I have my own pillow." Scully's voice had that comfortable intimacy, like sleepovers and calls to your family. "Is Emma still asleep? Bad enough to drag her into all this. . ." A soft laugh. "She practically forced her way into this at gunpoint. She was sound asleep when I went by. I think I could hear little snores." "From experience, don't tell her she snores." "It's different from a woman than a man. I guess she must have been worn out. She's not used to this stuff." "Just a nice, innocent lawyer?" I'd figure out a way to get him for the ironic inflection on that. Scully smothered a laugh. "I wouldn't say that. Emma's 'just a lawyer' the same way Richard Nixon was 'just a lawyer." I think 'act of god' or 'natural disaster' is closer to the mark." Now his voice smiled. "Not like you and me, huh? Upstanding servants of law and order and we do crises every day, two before breakfast." "At least. But we do them better on a full night's sleep." "I got some sleep." It sounded like a stock line. Almost on the level of "hi, howya doing?" Scully clearly thought the same thing. "You got some sleep. What, two hours? Maybe? I've still got the sedatives from. . ." He cut her off. "NO. No. Sorry, Scully, but I'd rather have the nightmares. Besides, our friend broke in here last night, I'd rather not be out and drugged down here." Oh god, the skin crawled up my sides and between my legs, I hadn't thought. . . "You don't really think he'll come back here?" Thank you, Scully, thank you for asking. "Maybe not, but I'm still not taking sedatives." And thank YOU, Mulder. I'd rather have a light sleeper downstairs with that kind of idea buzzing in my head. I swallowed and breathed deeply, trying to slow my heart down again. He'd stopped pacing, I could hear paper shuffling. "Why don't you go back to sleep, Scully. You could use a good night yourself, after the last few days." "I'm not the one pacing." "No, you're not." The smile had left his voice. "You've got the McCormick autopsy." It wasn't a question. There was a long pause. Her voice was too careful to be neutral when she spoke again. "She's not as bad as the others. Messy, but faster. I can tell you what I found, you really don't need. . ." "I need to see it. And she was faster because she wasn't personal." His voice wasn't angry, more resigned than anything else. I heard a zipper I suppose was on her satchel, more paper. It took what felt like a long while, listening to them while my bare ankles chilled and I wrapped my flannel and robe tight around me. Then his voice came back, and put chills up my spine to match my ankles. "Strangulation." A long sigh. "Repeated. She was probably unconscious during most of it. He didn't take as long because she didn't mean anything to him, but I imagine he was there the other night, watching us find her. Makes it pretty certain he had a brother instead of a sister. Likely mom was dead or left. Single father. I doubt there were any women close to that household, or he'd be angry at them, too." I could hear a pen scritching in the quiet of the house, before Scully spoke again. "Mulder, I think you're right about this, but. . . I mean, do you think it was like you and. . ." It was quiet for a long time, longer than it had been before. When he finally spoke again I had to strain to hear him. "Like Sam? No. No, I think his father killed his brother. He might have done it himself, but I just think. . . I think his father did it." There was a rustle of fabric, different from the paper. "Be careful, Mulder. He's not like you. Don't let him get into your head." She sounded worried, very worried. "I know that. Besides, my job is to get into his head, not the other way around." The smile was back in his voice, but it didn't sound so easy now. They were quiet again, reading from the sound of papers. Every so often one would ask for some memo or other. Scully finally broke the silence. "With what came back from the state police and the Bureau, and with Emma's description of height, we're down to six of the original twenty-three. The six probables, and the three you picked." "Not good enough. He's still going to commit the one he's here for. And he may do more. I know he's one of those three. . . We have to stop him here, Scully." "You think something's going to change?" "It already has. He's deviated for sport. He's playing a game now, not just doing his ritual. He'll play against us, or the local cops, anyone. And he'll pick up the pace because he thinks he can get away with it. Unless he gets set in a pattern, or makes a mistake, he'll be right." Mulder's voice was clinical, detached. Not like the day in the restaurant, predicting the brother, but chilling all the same. "If we miss him here, they'll never catch him. He's been at it too long to make a mistake. We need to catch him while he still has a pattern to follow, or no one will be able to predict him." "What are you thinking? Stake out your three?" "He's too careful. Smart. He stalks his two main targets somehow, chooses them to fit his ritual. And he's planned all of it, the blood you found on the bodies was smeared, not wicked away. No fibres. Plastic wrap for them and dump them anywhere. It's killing them that's the important thing to him, how he kills them. He's acting out some fantasy with the main ones, and he's religiously exact in how he kills them. He varies but. . . the main elements are all there. God, I can feel him in my head. I know *what* he's doing, just not exactly how he selects them." "Our victims had so little in common. Some of them shopped in the same grocery store, but no real common patterns between them that the cops found." "You mean besides things like they all had air conditioning or heating, but some lived in houses and some in apartments?" Mulder sounded exasperated. "Yeah, and two legs and two eyes. . . " Scully's black amusement seemed to break that mood. When he spoke again he sounded absorbed in the problem, tangled in this puzzle. "None of our three stand out. Nothing specific, not UFOs or professions or anything besides mobile professions and bad luck. No one in all the towns or states of our murders, but one of them had to be. One of them is faking a background, so well we can't tell the real one from the fakes. So we have to distrust them all. No real common ties between the victims. I've been looking at traffic reports to find damaged vehicles around the right time for Tommy, and comparing them to damage from. . . .last year. It's such a long shot, trying to find that one truck. Everybody out here has a truck." "What makes you think it's a truck? Why do you. . . " Her voice trailed off. No sound of papers or pens. I was almost ready to dash for my room when she started again, sounding odd. "Why didn't you turn around that night? Just drive back into range and call?" A deep breath. "I. . . I froze. Like I did in the woods. I would have driven off the road if I hadn't been even more scared of that. He didn't overtake when I dropped out of range. He stayed on my tail. I remember those damn high beams in my mirror." He sounded far away, distracted. I could picture his eyes, wide and dark. "He tailed me damn near to Selman's. He finally pulled past when we caught up with a state trooper." "Why didn't you tell me?" The frustration with the worry sounded practiced. He'd done this to her before. "What? Tell you that I didn't call because I had a hunch? The heebie jeebies? I was spooked?" Frustration with something I couldn't quite read. Just as practiced. Another pause. "Yes, call me because you were spooked. You usually have your reasons. Haven't I listened to them before?" She sounded angry and worried. "Scully, I felt like he. . . was just waiting. And after the notes this time and last time, he's getting closer to me while I get closer to him. He's trying to get on the same wavelength with me, I can almost feel him doing it." She was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke next her voice was flat. "You think you know which one of them it is, don't you." It wasn't a question. "I don't have any hard evidence." "That's never stopped you before. Which one?' Damn it, all I could hear was paper moving. Why didn't one of them just say his fucking name? "Did you ever get a clear look at the truck? Or at him?" She sounded distracted, like she was reading while she asked. "No, not really. It was too dark. I only noticed the funny paint because of odd reflections when he passed. And. . . well, I was trying to figure out what scared me about him." "Even if it was just a hunch. . . Mulder, I've backed enough of your hunches in the past. Tell me about it next time, okay? Questions are one thing, but don't keep me in the dark." It sounded like a long-running point with them. It also ended their talk. When I heard Scully walk out to the kitchen for water I finally crept back to my room and slept, but not very well at all. ____________________ I was up early. It was more comfortable to get up than to lie there, imagining stealthy footsteps in my house. As it turned out, not all the stealthy footfalls has been imaginary. Mulder had been up before me, and long enough to have run, showered, shaved and dressed. He was sitting at my table, writing notes, looking clean and innocent in his shirtsleeves. Suit jacket and tie hung over the chair that nobody but my mother ever sat in. "Wow, how long have the "After Dark" people been making matching clothing?" I fingered the heavy silk of the tie. "It's a Lissajou tie, right?" Nice, charcoal grey silk, with loud, neon patterns. I hadn't known Mulder could copy Scully's Look. I guess he saved it for special occasions. I left him in peace while I made something a lot better than the instant coffee he was drinking. I'm pretty sure he forgave my fashion critique when I put a mug of Guatemalan coffee in front of him. I know he forgave me when I started breakfast and the aroma of cinnamon and French toast filled the house. When he walked over to pour another cup of coffee his smile was wide and genuine. "That smells great. I didn't know you could cook." "Why? Just because almost everything you've eaten in my company was cooked by someone else?" "Mm hmm. That and the fact that your refrigerator isn't much better than mine." I snorted. "I know how to change the oil in my car, too. That doesn't mean I ever do it." "Point taken." He leaned in to inhale French toast scent. "I haven't had French toast in years. The frozen stuff just isn't the same." "You mom used to make it for you?" The flicker of pain was off his face almost before I saw it. "Sometimes. Mainly for my sister." "Sam?" The look he gave me warned me to let it drop. It was probably just as well that movement from upstairs distracted us both. I flipped the toast and Mulder poured another cup of coffee, dumping sweetener and cream into this one. He must have practiced a lot, because when Scully finally showed up and gulped down half of it, she pronounced it perfect. The toast got similar approval ratings. There weren't any leftovers. The two of them were just topping off their caffeine levels when a cellular phone started chirping from the empty chair. Mulder fished it out of his jacket pocket and opened it up. "Mulder." Whoever it was, Mulder suddenly sat up like he was at attention. "Uh huh. Yes sir." He put his hand over the mouthpiece and mouthed a name at Scully. She nodded, also sitting straight, as though the caller could see her. I leaned over and asked her if it was the son of J. Edgar Hoover. The look she gave me clearly regretted that I had my voice back, but she was too busy trying to puzzle out the conversation from just Mulder's half to put any serious *zing* on it. He was frowning and drumming his pen on the table. "Yes sir, I have received one possible threat. . . .No, the person who found the first victim was used as a courier. He made no contact with me." Scully's eyes went wide and she winced. He made some kind of shushing motion at her. I guess she knew what it meant. "I'm sorry the local authorities interpreted it that way, sir," he went on after a moment. "No, sir. I. . .yes, I did suspect the second victim would be atypical. . . .Yes, I mentioned that. . . . They offered. I don't think it's a good idea. . . . Because I think he'll leave, and I think we need to get him here. He's deviating from his pattern, this may be our best opportunity. . . .I understand, no I won't take risks." Scully rolled her eyes. Mulder made a sour face at her. "Yes, she's right here . . ." He offered the phone to her. She looked at it like it was a scorpion, but she took it. "Yes sir? . . .Yes sir, he has. . . . Yes sir, I have. . . . No, we. . . we're staying with Ms. Courtland." Scully winced and held the phone away from her ear for a moment. "Because we had reason to believe some contact might be made again, sir, and that our presence would not prevent that but could help the situation." Mulder was half-cracking up. Scully was giving him the evil eye. "Yes sir, she's been very cooperative, sir. Very cool under pressure." I took a little bow. Scully looked like she'd enjoy driving her fork through my heart. "No sir, she refuses protective custody and will not leave the area." I'd have mouthed 'Damn straight' back to her, but Mulder shook his head at me. "No sir, at this point I have to concur with Agent Mulder's assessment of the situation, sir. . . .Yes, I'm aware of protocol in threatening situations, but no direct threats have been issued," she had her eyes screwed shut and her fingers crossed, "and I believe Agent Mulder has correctly surmised that he will become less predictable after this. We may never be able to catch him if we don't catch him here. . . .Under advisement, sir. . . .Yes sir. I will sir, thank you." She disconnected with a huge sigh of relief. "Mulder, if you ever set me up like that again, I will make a special point of getting even, for the next year. And you know I can." "I'm sorry, I couldn't let him put a guard on me. I have been careful and I will be careful. Our man will take off if he does that." "You don't know that. And Skinner didn't promise no guard, he only promised to 'take it under advisement.' You really need a guard, you know, and what was that about not being contacted?" "Scully, listen to me. Trust me. I KNOW. He will cut and run. You said you would back my hunches, I've never been as sure of anything." I'd been listening in wide-eyed amazement to this tissue of half-truths and wild speculations and just couldn't keep my peace any more. "You mean, like you were about that truck?" I bit my tongue the minute it was out of my mouth. Bit it so hard I tasted blood. But once a smart-ass, always a smart-ass, and it was too late to pull the words back. The two of them swivelled to glare at me. "Snooping again, Emma?" Scully's voice was low and dangerous. "We may need to put a bell on you." I decided it was time to clear the table _____________________________ By the time I'd finished Scully had headed upstairs to finish getting ready and Mulder was in the living room, busy on her laptop. I drifted in behind him, testing the waters to see whether I could expect to be snubbed all day, since I didn't think they could just dump me now. Mulder looked up from whatever he was up to, and gave me a somewhat sour grin and turned the computer so I could see it. "Here, you'll just hover over my shoulder until you see it anyway." Registration numbers? And descriptions . . . blue trucks. Thirty blue trucks. And six of them belonged to people on their list. I glanced up at him. "Mm hmm. We're going to drive around and look." "Easy as that?" "Maybe, maybe not. Even if we find it, what can we do about it? Following me and making me nervous isn't illegal. There's no blue paint on Dalbert's car, no real way to tie it to the crime. On the other hand, then we might be able to find a spot for a stake out. Right now I recall that country as too open. Any car parked out there would stick out. . ." "Like a whore in church." I sighed. "Well, if you can find a good spot, and you already think you know the most likely ones. . . That's something, isn't it?" "Sure, if we find the truck. If I were him, I'd have it in a garage, just to confuse things, if it's even registered. He takes a risk of getting pulled over if it's not, but we've all talked our way out of tickets. It might be worth the risk. There's some other stuff I want to check out, too." My doorbell rang before I could ask him what ever happened to law abiding citizens. I found a cheerful, stocky cop on my porch, grinning like a fool. "Ms. Courtland? Nice to meet you. . . I'm Wallace Posner. Chief asked me to drop by and stay with you folks today." I could hear Mulder walk up behind me. For that matter, I could almost feel him, kind of like a charge of static electricity. His voice was low and entirely too polite to be pleasant when he asked Officer Posner why he was here and why he thought we wanted him to ride along today. I could hear Scully rattle down the stairs, see Posner's eyes track her. "Well, Chief Watson told me he talked with a Mr. Skinner at FBI, and they didn't want to send along a fibbie, pardon, but that the Chief thought it would be better if somebody stayed with you today. Just show the local face, know what I mean? Can I come in?" I probably would have invited him in, if Mulder hadn't hung right over my shoulder like that. Scully wasn't right behind me or anything, but I knew she was close by and definitely paying attention. I was thankful when I heard Mulder start, and heard her cut him off, since I had visions of eternally pissed off cops and traffic tickets until the day I died. "Thank you, Officer Posner. That's very helpful." Her voice was so chirpy she could have been related to Jiminy Cricket. She'd stepped up next to me, and I backed into Mulder, forcing him away from the door so he couldn't fume in this poor kid's face. Personally, I had no objection to having a practical and risk-averse local boy riding along with us. About then I realized my mistake. "Ms. Courtland was recently threatened, and we were very concerned about leaving her. With you here I'm certain everything will go smoothly." That duplicitous, sneaky, crafty two-bit con-artist had hold of the schlep's arm and was leading him into my house. Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of Mulder's grin, as he reached for his coat. It was a fait accompli almost before I knew it had happened, Posner parked in my living room with a cup of the leftover coffee in hand, Mulder and Scully in coats and dashing for the door, wishing me well like parents leaving the kid at daycare. I confess to visions of stealing their car keys, and clapping them in leg-irons as I watched them drive off. I turned back to my living room, and Officer Posner, who was sipping coffee and watching Bryant Gumbel pretend to be something other than a sportscaster. He turned a huge and revoltingly wholesome smile on me, patted his sidearm and informed me that I was safe as houses. I forebore telling him that this house had not proved particularly safe. Posner hypnotized himself with daytime TV while I cleaned up the rest of the remains of breakfast. When I walked back in he was goggle eyed in front of Sally Jesse. I have no idea what topic she was covering. Everyone in front of the audience looked like people I would normally avoid. I skirted the set and unplugged my keyboard, lifting it carefully so I would not have to touch the stained keys. He must have noticed me finally. "Whew, what happened to that? Looks like you spilled ketchup all over it." I snorted. "Agent Mulder. He bled all over it." Officer Posner was still goggling when I carried it out. Half a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and I had it pretty clean, although some of the keys stuck. I called the mail order shop and ordered a nifty new board with all sorts of goodies, but this one would do until it arrived. We'd moved on to Susan Powter when I carried my cleaner keyboard back and plugged it in. Officer Posner assured me I wouldn't bother him as I keyed in my password, and started reading my e-mail. He was absolutely impervious to any notion that the problem might run the other way, and with the way I felt I was afraid that if I started on him I might wind up arrested for assaulting a police officer. Besides, it was federal agents I wanted to assault. The local traffic dogs would just be convenient targets. Not worth it. Lots and lots of e-mail from the office. Where did I put some file or other? When would I come back and do the legal scut work? The paralegals were getting tired of doing the nasty stuff that usually got delegated to associates, and my particular friend over at the Registry of Deeds missed my bright company at lunch. I'd almost forgotten about my job in the last few days, as I gobbled vacation days and hung out with the fashionable crowd of killers and feds. I wondered if there were jobs for dirt lawyers in D.C. Jerry had written, of course. The first five messages were too irate to be particularly coherent. By the sixth message he was starting to get concerned again. From the headnotes the ninth had come in while I was . . . chatting with the killer. Yesterday's messages all had to be deleted, there were so many and they all said the same thing, begging me to write or call. I glanced at the phone machine, suddenly aware I hadn't checked my calls in days. Ooops. The thing was blinking faster than it's little mechanism was built for. I winced and read Jerry's most recent message. FROM: IN%"JERRY_RIGG@TATTLER.TRIB" TO: IN%"DIRTLWR@TIAC.COM" SUBJ: Emma. I know you're there. I called the cops and they said that you and your new friends were all still alive. They also said that you had been "contacted" by the killer. Write me. I've left notes for the Feds too. I'm not mad about F.M., he sent mail, he explained, just write me. NOW. Give me an exclusive and I'll definitely forgive you. Even if you already sold out to the locals, write me. I'm worried. I told you those two would get you into trouble. Write me, Emma. Now. Jerry. So I wrote. I spent a couple hours explaining what had happened and soothing Jerry's ruffled feathers. I moved from e-mail to the phone upstairs when I decided that it was too distracting to try to explain all this with Geraldo discussing hairpieces for genitals in the background. I left Posner to the merkins and retreated. No clicks or static on my line, and if I remembered my Miami Vice that meant I wasn't being bugged. So I told Jerry about Mulder's hunches, and Scully's stitches, and the blood on the keyboard and how it felt to have a killer breathe in your ear and fondle you. And I cried again, but softly. The wracking sobs never took me this time. And Jerry wasn't mad, didn't yell. He told me what he thought. Told me about Dana Scully's being kidnaped, and what happened. Told me about what his friend at the FBI had told him, about Mulder's home, his parents, his sister. Told me why Fox Mulder felt like he could predict a man had been beaten as a child, lost a sibling, gone over the edge. And this time I cried for Mulder and Scully instead of for myself. And I told Jerry what I'd thought when I first met them, and what I thought last night, and this morning, and now. We talked until I didn't have anything left I could put into words. When I finally hung up from my call with Jerry, the late-afternoon sun was full and golden through the windows, but the house was chill with the autumn cool. It would be cold tonight. It took an effort, but the little details of real life didn't go away because more interesting things were happening, so I called the furnace and air-conditioner place and asked for someone to come out and turn my furnace on. I might know how to do all kinds of things, but my dad had taught me early that plumbers and furnace men deserve to put their kids through college, too, and that the first time the toilet overflows or the furnace blows you stop squawking about their kids' tuition. Having had my furnace blow out on a cold winter night, and my plumbing do terrible things on a hot summer day, I took his words of wisdom to heart. The guy who answered the phone sounded frazzled, like half the town had called after the weather report promised sub-zero temperature tonight. What excuse did they have for calling late? They hadn't played courier for a killer. Lazy swine. So my furnace man would be out late, but he'd be there. I went down to find Posner watching Power Rangers. I missed Mulder and Scully, at least they played DOOM, or did stuff. I hid in the kitchen, making a lasagna florentine to keep from having to talk to Posner and thought about what I had learned, and hedged all of it off in my mind so I wouldn't, for god's sake, say anything tonight about what I'd learned. Somewhere about six, as Posner switched to Star Trek and I got the garlic bread ready to go in the oven, the furnace man showed up. Posner came to the door and checked his ID. Then I showed him the basement door and started my salad. Not more than ten minutes later my wayward house guests finally returned, saving me from the dreadful spectre of dinner with Posner. "Hello!" I suppose I sounded inordinately happy to see them. They certainly didn't seem to expect a warm greeting. "I'm glad you're back. I've got dinner started. Why don't you get cleaned up?" They looked at each other like they expected booby traps in the bathrooms, but Mulder headed for the downstairs room, while Scully drifted out to the kitchen to wash her hands in the sink. "Smells good, Emma. We could have ordered out again. You didn't have to cook." She watched me tuck the garlic bread in the oven. "It's no problem. Officer Posner was busy watching TV, and I had nothing to do, so I made dinner." I smiled brightly at her, with every guilt-inducing twitch I'd ever learned from watching younger cousins. With a name like Scully, and the crucifix she wore, I figured I had a good chance of inducing guilt on the level requiring confession to resolve. Scully licked her lips, peeked around the hall just long enough to gauge Posner's entertainment tastes, and came back trying not to giggle. Mulder walked in, shaking his head. "You'd think everyone had seen 'The Trouble with Tribbles.' I only wish I could forget the dialogue, so how does he sit there laughing like it's the first time he's ever seen it?" "I don't know, Mulder. Must be an X-File." Scully had taken over slicing tomatoes for the salad and missed the look he gave her for that. Posner finally finished watching re-runs for the first time, and walked out to join us. I was thrilled at the chance to share his scintillating company with them. I was having so much fun watching them try to be polite to him, that I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard footsteps on the basement stairs. I'd forgotten about the furnace man. Scully and Mulder didn't look much more calm when the door opened and he asked for a glass of water. I turned to get it for him, and when I turned back Scully and Mulder were watching him like hawks, while Posner rattled on, and he was watching them right back. He saluted with the glass. "Heard about you two, here to catch that poor boy's killer." His voice was deep, strong. It cut through Posner's chatter like a knife, and Mulder went very still. A shiver ran down my back. Scully was staring at the man, and didn't untense when he finally turned and walked back downstairs. Posner, of course, missed all of it. Scully turned back to Mulder, met his eyes. Something went back and forth between them, a lot of somethings. I didn't get a chance to decipher it, however, as a phone at Posner's belt chirped. We all reached for our cell phones before we realized it was his and not ours'. He flipped his phone open, started to greet whoever called, but cut off short. We watched his eyes get wide and round, watched his mouth shape an "O", and a look of pride lodge on his blobby features. When he disconnected he smiled triumphantly. "I got to go, folks. I don't think you'll be needing me no more. Sarge says we just arrested the killer!" He spun on his heel, marched into the hall, grabbed his hat and jacket and we heard the door shut. Scully stared at Mulder. He stared back, then slowly shook his head. The chills ran up and down my spine, watching them. I could hear movement from the basement and my stomach twisted. Steps mounted the stairs. The two of them turned to watch the door, Scully dropping back to the left, out of line with Mulder. The door opened and he was standing there, three steps down, tool box in hand. "I heard they got the killer. Could hear that young guy all the way through the floor. I guess the big hunt's off." He set his big, steel tool box on the floor and stepped up the last riser into the kitchen, stood there with his greasy hands, and watched us with open curiosity on his face. Or rather, he watched them. He'd just glanced past me on the way to Scully. I could see him measure her against his own six foot frame. I'd have guessed him at thirty pounds heavier than Mulder, and strong. Strong enough to lift one-thirty-five or one-forty off the floor. Chills ran up and down the soft skin of my arms. He finished judging Scully, and didn't dismiss her when he looked over at me. My heart stopped, and it took me a moment to realize he was asking to wash his hands at the sink. I stepped out of the way, quickly. I couldn't look away from him, but I heard the FBI agents shift, instinctively keeping a clear line of fire. The kitchen had never felt small before, but when I backed up against the table and couldn't get out without crossing Mulder's line to my left, I could almost feel the heat coming off the other bodies in that room. He turned from the sink, took in where we stood without surprise. His eyes settled on Mulder now, and he stepped towards him fast and held out his right hand. I saw Scully's hand twitch towards her gun before she realized what was happening. Mulder should have won an Oscar. He reached out and shook hands without missing a beat. "It's so good to meet you at last. You'll probably be in town a couple more days, what with questioning the killer and all. I'll make a special point of looking for you." A shit-eating grin, and tendons stood out on the bastard's wrist. That handshake had to hurt like hell. It would have hurt even under the best of circumstances. With the stitches along the back of Mulder's hand, and the cuts, I didn't want to think about how it felt. The big bastard let go and looked at his hand in unconvincing surprise, I could see red stains from where I stood, and he looked back at Mulder and smiled apologetically. "Sorry, didn't realize you had a hurt paw." Mulder's jaw was tight with clenched teeth, but he smiled back. "Quite all right. I should watch out for traps more carefully." He was edging back away from this man, small steps like he was trying to stop himself from doing it and couldn't. He looked thinner than ever, next to the bulky build of the man who'd just wrung his hand. I could see stains on the bandages, feel Scully tense and angry next to me. The bastard's smile was wider than ever as he let Mulder retreat those few steps. "Maybe you'll drop by and visit, keep a newcomer company. I mean, now that the killer's caught and you'll have spare time." Friendly, neighborly tones, but not so different from the voice I could remember whispering from the dark. He smiled around at us all again, dropped a written receipt, scooped up his tool chest. "I know everyone'll feel so much safer. Good to meet you two." He gave a cocky little salute and was gone, footsteps sounding loud in my hall, and the door opening, closing, firm and steady. Mulder was down the hall an instant later, while Scully dialed on her phone. I stood at the end of the hall, vibrating with feelings I didn't even know how to name, watching Mulder look out my front windows, note a truck pulling off. Behind me I could hear Scully introducing herself as me, thanking the person on the other end, wanting to talk to the supervisor of whoever had done the work on her furnace. I watched Fox Mulder stare out those windows while she talked. Watched him swallow convulsively a couple of times, both hands clenched on my white gauze curtains. He left smudges of red on the fabric. Scully's voice behind us was complimenting the supervisor on having such helpful, friendly employees. I felt a hysterical laugh lodge in my throat at her words. I don't think Mulder even registered what she was saying, his eyes were wide and dark, watching a road where that panel truck had long since ceased to be visible. A pen scritched behind me. Mulder finally turned away from the window. He stared at me a moment, as though he were trying to remember who I was, then brushed past me to grab his brief case from the floor by the couch. He yanked files out, spilling them every-which-way, and shuffling about ten of them to one side. He was using his left now. He must have finally realized how his right hurt. It was curled tight up against his ribs, leaving little stains on his shirt. It didn't take much to see which files he wanted when he tried to grab them one-handed. I reached past and took them from him, meeting his eyes and nodding. We went back to the kitchen together, and he flipped on the all the lights at every switch we walked past. The cold light of the ceiling fixture flooded the kitchen, hard and blue-white. Scully disconnected from her call, looking tired and excited and jumpy all at once. She moved to his right side, pulling his hand so she could see it, while I spread the folders over the table. "Bastard. Mulder, why the hell did you let him shake your hand?" She looked back at me, back in my role of gofer. "Emma, up in my room there's a little carry-on. It's full of medical supplies. I stocked up before I returned the ambulance crew's kit." She gave Mulder an exasperated look. "Just as well." I must have been getting used to all the blood and mess. I barely noticed the sweet smell of it this time, or the way Mulder hissed and flinched as she peroxided and bandaged and fussed. He wouldn't let her take the time to do more, pulling his hand away finally and turning to the table where their files were spread out. He knew exactly what he was looking for, and pulled aside receipts from each file. Scully moved over next to him, looking at the papers he spread out with his left hand. I looked over her shoulder, at a series of receipts for repairs on heating and air conditioning units, boilers, fans. Sometimes a name would show up, but most of them were in different names. There weren't very many. Mulder was cursing people for not keeping records. Scully was tracing letter loops with a fingertip. "Look at this, Mulder. The writing changes some, but the spikes are all the same. I'm not a hand-writing expert, but they look similar." She glanced up at him. He was nodding, eyes traveling over them so fast I don't think he even really saw them. He probably didn't need to see them, with his memory. "You got a name?" "Peter Kane. The supervisor said he took over the call for another man who had to leave early." "Kane. We've got him on the short list. Damn it. Did he say when he'd be leaving work?" "Not for a couple hours. They're busy tonight." Scully was intent on the files, puzzling this out on her own. Even I knew that handshake game had been more than an old jock's testosterone games. Scully might have questioned him before, but she clearly agreed with him on Kane now. "Let's get out there, then! You guys can arrest him . . . " I must have startled them. They both looked around like they'd forgotten I was there. They looked like they wished they'd been right, too. "Arrest him for what, Emma? Shaking Mulder's hand? Fixing your furnace? You need a warrant to search a house, or cause, and they think they've arrested the killer." Scully's voice was tight with frustration and anger. She looked back at her partner. "You shouldn't have let him touch you. You can't let him play those games with you." Mulder actually smiled. "Watch it, Scully. Before long you'll be reading his aura. Does this mean you don't think the locals beat us to the punch?" She hesitated. "I want to see the man they arrested. I'm not convinced they're totally wrong. There have been copycats before. But do I think they have our killer? No." "Fine. One of us needs to see their scape goat anyway. You head down there and I'll go watch for Kane." "No!" Scully and I were back in chorus. We glanced at each other, started to talk over each other, and I let her have the lead. "I'll go see their perp, but I don't want you sitting out there alone. I don't want you anywhere alone with Kane free. You come with me." Mulder was shaking his head at her, a dead stubborn look on his face. How could she be thinking of leaving anyone alone tonight? I stepped up right behind them. "I am not sitting alone in this house, either! What if he comes back? Hell if I'm sitting here on my own. Bad enough you ditched me with the village idiot. I am not sitting here waiting to see if he shows up or you do!" Scully was frowning but Mulder grinned at me. "There you go, Scully. Emma and I take . . ." he glanced at the receipt, "Cecil Heating and Air, and you take small-town Blue." I could see her opinion of that, but I'd learned my lesson that morning. I whipped past her and was in my coat, waiting by the door, less than a minute later. "C'mon, Mulder. We don't want to miss him. We don't know how many calls he has tonight." Who said you can't pull the same trick twice? Mulder grabbed a file and he and I were out that door before Scully could come up with something good enough to stop us. He wasn't delighted to have me tag along, but I think she'd have handcuffed him before she let him out the door alone ________________ We took my car. I got to navigate, and we wound up in front of Cecil Heat, watching, as night really took hold. The front seat was lit, faintly violet, by a streetlight above us. Mulder flipped through his file, saw what he wanted, and looked carefully over the parked cars in the lot. A moment later he was out of the car. I followed him, scurrying to keep up as he paced along behind the cars, checking plates. It took a while. Mulder kept glancing around, making certain no one but me was behind him. The sound of dry leaves skittering in the wind made both of use jump, and I longed to be in some house, in front of one of the cozy fires I could smell. He finally came to the dark brown Dodge he must have wanted, noted the location and plates. A quick circuit to look in the windows, but I don't think he really expected to find anything. As he turned around, he looked past the office building and cursed. There was another exit, and from where we had to park to watch our exit we couldn't see it or the Dodge. "What are you thinking, Mulder?" I was stomping my feet, hands shoved in pockets and shoulders hunched, but a sharp breeze chilled me through the coat. I looked back, realized we couldn't see the back exit, and that there was nowhere that would let us see the car and both exits. "You're not thinking of sitting out here by this car? That's crazy! Kane might just drive home in his truck if he sees us there. I've seen these things parked overnight sometimes. Or he might just shoot us. And what would you do about him anyway, since you can't arrest him?" "Don't be melodramatic, Emma. You watch too much TV." But he sounded distracted, and at least part of my argument probably made sense to him. He turned an unpleasantly speculative look on me, glanced back at that gate. I could read that particular look, it wouldn't take Scully to figure it out. "No way in hell, G-man! I'm not gonna sit over there and wait for some whacko who likes to murder people and knows what I look like. You already know where he lives, what do we need to sit here for?" "Scully'll call if there's been a missing person report filed. If he doesn't have the next one yet, I want to get ahead of him. I don't want to risk losing some poor bastard unlucky enough to remind Kane of his dad." There was a sad, bitter tone to that. "C'mon, Mulder. They have . . . " I wanted to remind him missing persons had to be gone twenty-four hours, even out here in the sticks, when his phone started buzzing. I was really beginning to hate hearing those things. He flipped it open, listened. I knew from the look on his face it was Scully. A very few questions and he disconnected, shaking his head. "Scully's seen their scape-goat. She says he should go down on charges for porn through the mail, but she doubts he even kills roaches in the kitchen." "Mulder, how did they catch this guy? Why? What makes them think this is him?" The look he gave me was bleak. "How do you think. Our friend, Kane, set him up. Picked a soothing target, and put one of his tarps in the guy's trash." He'd finally gained some common sense, because he was headed back to my car. "Is that why they think they have the killer?" I ran along, staying on my toes and hoping I didn't hit a pothole and twist an ankle. I desperately wanted to be someplace light, and warm, and full of sane people who never killed anyone or tried to play games with madmen. "Mm hmm." Mulder unlocked my car door. I slung myself in and leaned over to unlock the driver's side before he was all the way around the car. He got in and pulled a map out of that damn file of his. "So where'd they find this tarp? It couldn't be in his car or his house, since they didn't have a warrant by the sound of it. And how'd they know what it was?" "They found it crammed under a lot of trash bags, conveniently bloody and incriminating." His voice had a bitter edge to it, and the muscles along his jaw were tight as he studied the map, turning it so the compass rose pointed the way we were headed, instead of leaving it with north pointing up. She also says we're too late to keep him from taking anyone. . . ." If he'd sounded bitter before, his tone was acid now. "They won't take the report for another twelve hours, but Estelle Carson is in there in hysterics because her husband, Frank, never came home from his night job." He reached out and gave the ignition key a savage twist. "Scully will meet us there. We're going to take Kane up on his invitation." "What?! WHAT? Are you out of your mind?" "No. We're just out of time. Frank Carson didn't call in after the middle of his shift, guarding Handlon Industrial. Kane's had him at least fifteen hours. He worked some of that, but if we want to get Carson out alive we have to go now. And the minute Carson's dead we lose Kane." Mulder had his arm over the back of the seat and was backing. He whipped us through a reverse three point turn and gunned the engine. "You know the area, navigate." He tossed the map over to my lap and told me what to look for. I don't think he really needed me navigating, he just wanted to shut me up. When I looked at him, I could see the muscles of his jaw shadowed by the dashboard lights. There weren't many people out, and he put his foot to the floor. Streetlights strobed past us, until we reached the sparser sections of town. I kept my quiet until about then - keeping my peace would have been a lie. My guts hurt and the skin of my thighs and arms prickled at the thought of what Mulder suggested. Suggested? No, what the damned FBI idiot planned. I'd never held a gun in my life, but I suddenly craved one. I kept imagining Fox Mulder, walking into Kane's house, and sitting in the car waiting. I couldn't have left him. I knew if he walked in there, that's what I'd do. Sit and wait. Until Scully or Kane came for me, whichever was first. Fear finally did what common sense couldn't. "Mulder," I kept my voice low, trying not to make him any angrier. "Mulder, isn't there back-up or something you can call for? FBI SWAT teams or something?" He sounded surprisingly calm, given the way I could see tendons stand out on his hands and down his neck. "There would be if everyone wasn't sure they'd just arrested their killer. But I'm Spooky Mulder, and every FBI agent out here already thinks I see monsters under my bed. They won't send SWAT teams for my hallucinations, and we don't have time to convince them." I wanted a gun. I wanted Jerry. Maybe the fabulous Jerry Rigg could have figured out a way to convince the local boys in blue that they had a fake, convince them we needed them, but I couldn't. I swallowed on a sick feeling, and grabbed the edge of my seat and let Mulder and his hunches drive me where we had to go. The traffic had been thin coming out of town. By the time we got out into the countryside we could see only one set of lights, and I prayed that they belonged to Scully. Mulder was driving too fast, but well, as we swung around the bends and punched through the pockets of fog that hung over streams. My head ached with the certainty that this couldn't be real, that this man would keep driving forever, and I'd ride next to him. I looked at his face, lit from below. Long nose, strong jawline, clenched and angry now. I couldn't see the color of his eyes, they looked wide and dark, watching the road. The houses were spread out here in the countryside, simple boxes on concrete foundations, one or two stories. Little, plain things stranded in the middle of open, featureless fields. Front door, back door, basement door and shed. No place to hide, nowhere to run that can't be seen a mile at least. I felt trapped in the open out here. When he braked suddenly I gasped and braced myself. My seatbelt snapped hard across my chest, crushing my breasts for a moment before the belt slacked and he pulled into a driveway. Wheels ground on the gravel of the drive, and the clatter of gravel stunned my ears for a moment as Mulder pulled in next to the aluminum basement door of a dark house and shut off the engine and lights. The silence and chill of night gradually claimed us as we sat there. Slowly, I started to see again, was able to see him in the faint, grey that can't be called light. He was watching the house down the road, perhaps a couple hundred yards away. I could see his hands on the wheel, and the way his shoulders hunched forward told me his hands were probably locked around the wheel. His breathing sounded shallow and fast, soft panting breaths, not like he'd run but like his pulse was pounding and his lungs were screaming but he didn't want anyone to know. My own breathing was an unsteady thing, fast, gasped past teeth I clenched to keep from chattering with my nerves. He'd twisted in his seat, facing back the way we'd come, and was watching the road. The lights we'd seen earlier had turned off some ways back and we were alone out here. I could see far across the corn stubble fields out here, see to scattered lights of other, thinly dispersed ranch houses. See all the way to the dark patches that were all that was left of the woods that once covered this area. The wind sent leaves skittering past us, scratching loud across the hood. I could hear the corn stubble whistle, hear the squeak of the realtor's sign in front of the house where we sat, and waited. The rustle of Mulder's long, black coat was shattering when he whirled back the other way, scanning the road both ways, looking for any glimmer of light. I could feel the scream building behind my teeth, and finally vented it, but in no more than a whisper. "What are you waiting for? What do you think is going to happen?" His voice was only a little louder than my hiss, distant and thin. "Scully should be here soon. She said she'd meet us here. She'll park back and across the road." Back to scan the other way, and I could feel the tension he kept out of his voice, like a static charge building in the car. "But what will you do, then?" He finally turned, as though he could see me as anything but motion and blur in the dark. "Then?" He finally had an expression in his voice, something other than tension. If I had to name it I'd call it an edgy smile. "Then you hear a scream and Scully and I break in with cause. I thought that was obvious." "You thought perjury was obvious? I mean, at the trial that's what it'll be!" My hiss was the real thing now, not a choked scream but a deep, furious gasp at his temerity. "Look, I'm not going to argue with you, Emma. Just sit in the car if you want, but it's going to get . . . " He broke off, turning to find the lights that belonged to the drone of an engine over the fields. He sat there, stroking one hand along the stitches on the other, watching. Then he pulled this gun out of a holster under his arm, and it looked like a cannon in his hand. I could smell the oil on it, and hated the faint gleam of light off its metal. He checked it carefully, working little parts that did god-knows-what. I'd never even touched a gun, and I had no idea what he did with this one, but he was careful, utterly focused on what he did for the few moments it took. His life must have depended on this ritual in the past, from the way he set to it now. Finally he slipped his finger through the trigger guard and held it. I could hear his hiss, very different from mine. His hands had been so stiff and sore that helping me clean the day before had been hard for him, and now . . . The grip he needed to hold that weapon must have split open the cuts across his knuckles. I could see dark against the pale of his hands and flinched. He used his left to pull the gun away from his right hand, then slipped it back into the holster without a word. The lights on the road were close, almost here. I could feel how intent he was on it, as focused as he had been on his gun the moment before. He twisted tighter, and reached slowly for my shoulder, watching. The engine shifted down and the lights swung towards us. "Shit!" All that tension unwound in one instant, as he yanked me flat across the transmission and dropped on top of me. Sudden fear crushed the air out of me, then I sobbed for a breath. The lights flared through the car for a moment, and I heard the grinding sound of the car pulling into the house Mulder had been watching. He sprawled on top of me, listening. I could feel his hand snake between us, reaching for his pistol, hear his gasp as the stitches caught on cloth and pulled. And then we were still, holding our breath, waiting as a car door opened, closed. Feet crunched on gravel, briefly walking toward us and then stopping as another car door opened, a pause, shut. Mulder's chest was moving against my back and shoulders as he breathed in silent little pants and we could both hear clearly. The steps walked away then, and gravel changed to the heel taps of concrete as he reached his walk. Up steps, a screen door that creaked as it opened, the faint jingle of keys. Mulder shifted carefully, lifted just a little. I stayed where I was, but I suppose he was watching that house again, watching the man who let himself in and shut the door again. He must have turned on indoor lights, Mulder's face was faintly lit, not bright enough for a porch light but enough to see the haggard look of him. "Shit shit shit . . . " Soft, toneless refrain as he slapped his open hand on the curve of the wheel. I sat and looked back down the road, but there was no flicker of light in sight. Mulder was silent now, watching that house, his hands working back and forth up his legs like he was trying to wipe sweat off them. A few moments where nothing happened, and I started to breathe smoothly again. Scully would get here, they would run in and do the hero thing and the bad guy would give up or get shot and that would be that. Then a translucent basement window lit up and I heard Mulder swallow. No sound came out of the house down the road, but a minute later Mulder cursed and opened his door, softly, as soundlessly as possible. I lunged and grabbed the sleeve of his coat. "Mulder, what the hell are you doing?" So low. When would I ever speak in normal tones again? "Listen, you stay out here, Emma. When Scully comes tell her I went in ahead and to call back up . . . " he bit his lip. "If she goes in, Emma, stay with her, watch her back. She may need someone to just watch." God damn it! She'd left me to babysit this madman, and he was out of his mind again! "Mulder, you aren't thinking of going in there?" He was trying to twist his arm free and I was digging my nails in and hanging on with every pound on my frame. If I'd known where he kept his cuffs I'd have played like Jamie Lee Curtis and cuffed him to the wheel of the car. "Emma, let go. He's in there with Carson . . . Emma, I can't let him do this. He's going to torture Carson." His voice had a desperate urgency that still didn't make me want to let him go. "Scully will be here in just a minute, you were gonna wait for her, she's gonna kill us . . ." I could hear a faint whine of hysteria creep into my voice. He was getting loose. "Mulder, don't do this . . . " He yanked his arm free and stepped back. "Tell Scully, I'll be ahead of her in there. I'll be careful." My reply hit empty air as he turned and ran, low and silent, for the house. Not that what I'd said was very persuasive. I watched him go and balled my fists and pounded my legs until it hurt. Then I pulled the door shut as quietly as he'd opened it, tugging so it would latch, and locked all the doors. I saw Mulder go up the front stairs, work at the door a minute, two. God, please let the bastard have a deadbolt. I crossed my fingers and prayed. And the son of bitch didn't bolt his door when he went in and Mulder had it open and had slipped inside. Fuck, fuck, fuck! It was cold out there. I wrapped my arms around my chest and let my teeth chatter at last. And waited to see who would come first, Mulder, or Kane, or Scully. And waited. God, how long had he been in there? I saw a flicker of shadow across the upstairs blinds once, twice, then no more. I caught myself holding my breath a couple times, knew that my hands hurt from the way I'd clenched my nails into my palms, but I couldn't time anything by that. Damn him, damn him, damn him. I looked around for Scully, but I didn't see anything and I couldn't stand to look away from that house more than a few moments. Every time I did, the hair rose on my neck and I could sense Kane creeping out the backdoor and around to the car. I spun back to the house, staring around, looking for Kane. I almost hoped to see him there, at least then I'd KNOW where he was. Nothing was moving but leaves, nothing had changed. No Kane. No Mulder. Just me. I sucked in a long, shaky breath that sent a dizzy wave of oxygen to my head and let out the stale air I'd held in my lungs too long. Spun around again to check all the locks, yes, they were all down. Spin back to look out the front window, leaning forward to be sure no one could hide behind the post of the window. Oh lord, it was cold. My hands were painful with it, fingers chilled so I could feel them through the fabric of my slacks, but I was afraid to put them in my pockets, afraid I wouldn't be able to pull them back out fast enough if I needed them. My breaths came in sharp little bursts, but I could not slow them. My blood pounded in my ears and I could feel the blood, as hot in my face as my feet and hands were cold. The windows had clouded with my breaths and I leaned forward to wipe the glass with my sleeve. Wiped fast, all across the window, praying no one had crept up while the windows were fogged. Leaves rattled across the hood, and I hunched forward over the dash and watched the house, eyes flicking from upstairs to basement windows, ears straining for a shot or a scream. A little sound registered for long moments before I understood it was my own voice, whimpering and cursing, wishing. I looked at the ignition, drew a deep lungful of relieved air and bounced the keys in the ignition with relief. I almost scooted over and fled, chewed my lip as I considered it. I could run, I could get the cops. . . and I just knew if I did, he'd need me and I'd be too late. And he'd die, and maybe Scully and maybe Frank Carson and I'd. . . I'd live with them in my dreams every night of my life. I looked back at that damn house, and wondered how it could look so normal and safe and sane. Unclenched my hands again when my nails hurt me . . . again. I almost unlocked the doors and walked up there. Not knowing was almost worse than doing that. Then I remembered Kane's voice, rasping in the dark in my ear, Kane's hand on my breast. I scrubbed my hands across my front to obliterate the sensation, and stared at the windows again, until they were burned on my eyes and the after-image of them shone in the blackness of my skull in the brief instants when I dared to shut my lids. I could feel my eyes sandpapered by the cold air, my teeth cold as I drew air across them, my ears aching with strain. And the rap on my window shattered all the quiet and I screamed, spun, hit my head on the roof of the car as I unwound in terror. ________________ Scully leaned in close, knuckle against the window she'd just rapped. I could see her searching the car behind me, glancing into the backseat to be thorough. Her face drew in with a worried frown, and she rapped again. My hand shook so badly I could barely pull the lock up, but I finally did and she wrenched the door open, put her hand on my shoulder. It was the hand she'd knocked with, her gun was in her other hand, held at her side and pointed to the ground. "Emma? What are you doing? Where's Mulder?" Her eyes flickered at the lit house even as she asked. The realtors sign creaked and slammed in the wind, and we both jumped. I winced at the sob I heard when I drew in my own breath, embarrassed. When I spoke my voice was strained and high. "He's in there, Scully. Kane came back and . . ." She raised her hand, cut me off, crouched to look into my eyes on a level and I scooted back from what I saw in her eyes. "You let him walk in there?" Her voice was so quiet, I felt it more than I heard it, like broken glass on my bones. "How long has he been in there, Emma?" I swallowed, and knew I was cringing. She must have seen that I didn't know, had no idea how long Mulder'd been in there. Scully looked away. Her knuckles stood out where she gripped the car door. Her lips were thin with anger, and she stepped back to shut the door. I lunged to block it, caught it against a hand so cold that I didn't feel my fingers move. I slid out of the car and grabbed her arm as she was turning towards the house, stopped her. Her hair swung as she turned to glare at me, dark against the pale oval of her face. Her mouth was a narrow, furious line and I could feel the tension in her muscles. "Wait. Wait! Mulder said you'd be coming, and that I should stay with you." Scully gave me a withering look and yanked her arm free. "Stay in the car, Emma. You know how to do that and you won't get under foot." She was skirting the front of the car, staying in the shadows between the houses. Her black coat and red hair registered as motion rather than a person, a flicker of movement. I caught up and ghosted at her elbow, staying on my toes to keep from making noise. Scully pulled back against Kane's house in the deep shadows under the windows. She turned a glare on me, and cursed so softly I could barely hear it. "Go back to the car. I need to know what's at my back in there. I'd rather have empty air than you." She scrabbled in a pocket and pulled out her little phone. "Here, if you really want to help, call and talk the police into getting out here." She shoved it into my hand and I stood there, holding the phone so tight the bones in my hands hurt. Scully crept up the stairs Mulder had used, and gently turned the handle, stepped through into the house that had already swallowed her partner, keeping company with a killer. I felt the breath freeze in my throat. The phone was what finally broke me free of my paralysis, and the sure knowledge that I couldn't just flee. I retreated to my safe haven, crouching down by my car, where the wind cut cold at my ankles. My fingers fumbled at the buttons, wooden and painful. I called 911 and begged, just begged, for help. "Ma'am? Ma'am, calm down, tell me what's wrong . . ." She sounded so official, just like on TV, just like when I'd found Tommy and all this had started. I suddenly saw his face lying cold and still, and sobbed. "I'm so scared, help, please . . . " She was still trying to calm me down, and my face was wet in that cold, bleak wind. I thought I could hear voices from Kane's house, hear screams, although I knew it was just the wind. "My friends are in there and he's going to kill them and I can't help them . . ." and every word was true. "Ma'am, tell me where you are . . . " On and on. I told her near as I could figure it. I'd held the map, but Mulder was the one who'd gotten us out here. Damn him, why hadn't he waited? And then I did hear a scream, I spun, crouched, and fell onto my knees and the gravel bit into my knees. The voice was male, shrill with pain, like nothing I'd ever heard or ever could forget. My eyes felt so wide they hurt, and the voice on the phone was frantically telling me to talk to it, but I couldn't, couldn't, could only hear that voice. And then a sharp cracking sound, nothing like what I'd heard on TV or in the movies. I dropped the phone and was halfway to the door before I knew I wasn't hearing the tinny voices any more. The stairs felt too hard under my feet, too solid to be real, like they were made out of something that never should have belonged on Earth. Scully'd left the door ajar behind her and it slammed against the wall as I barreled through it, too scared to just walk. Fear drove me into the hall, where I stood panting and trembling, staring around to find what they'd already found. Empty rooms, cheap furniture and drapes all drawn. It only took a moment to understand no one was up here, and then look beyond it, searching for a door or stairs, for a voice or . . . .any sign of them. I could taste something stale, and sour on the desperate breaths that shot oxygen too fast so that I could see spots from the corners of my eyes. I stepped further in, lurching against one wall to keep my balance, startle-staring around me. I smelled solvents, and rubber, flour and urine around me. Ammonia-reek under pine, and a faint, sweet hint of burned flesh. I gagged and staggered to the end of the hall, shying from the dark of a closet door, the unknown space past the arch of the dining room, to the end of the hall, kitchen one way, basement stairs sinking into the space beneath the house, but no sign of anyone live to be seen. Voices floated up the stairs, voices I knew . . . "Back away from them, back away now!" Mulder, but too tense, strained instead of confident. And another of those horrible, sobbing screams, but lower than what I'd heard outside, and Scully's voice too low for me to make out the words. "You won't shoot me, Fox." Kane's voice, calm and low. My hands shook on the banister at the top of the stairs. And a sudden scuffle, and another shot. I could see the light swinging crazily down there, hear Scully scream for Mulder . . . How I made it down without tripping is a mystery to me. The light was a sickening thing, swinging too fast to really find the shadows or what had cast them with any certainty. I picked Scully out of the chaos of shapes, crouched over someone wrapped in her coat. Snapshot knowledge of things appeared in the light to be swallowed by shadows as the bulb swung away. A curling iron stained with red-brown that was not rust, a belt sander with fresh paper, a metal chair crusted with waste. Other things, things that crop up in nightmares then submerge again into thankful bliss, objects never designed to cause pain, but twisted from the uses for which they were meant. My guts twisted at the sights, and the smells . . . burned flesh, rotten skin, and a chemical reek of acids and things forgotten since high school. Solvents, things that burned and hurt to the touch, and Dana Scully holding a man, whose bare legs were streaked with blood and waste below the shield of her coat. She looked up and saw me, and her eyes were flat with horror and need. I saw all that, but I barely recalled it until later, much of it only in my dreams. No, what I saw was a vicious tongue of flame that lanced past Fox Mulder to lick the the side of the man Scully held, graze against her hand, then flicker back and away. I couldn't recognize Carson through the pain and horror on his face, and I'd known him only slightly at best, but I flinched for him. Scully had yanked her hand back, then put her arm back around him and was drawing him towards the stairs where I stood. Mulder stood half turned towards Kane, trying to keep her in sight, but if he turned away from Kane the flame licked out first towards him, then past him and at her. Carson screamed again as it licked his ankle even while I was watching. Mulder stepped in towards Kane, then back as it turned to him, separated him, drove him towards a door. Kane, laughing, holding an old-fashioned gasoline torch, glass bottle and nozzle. His thinning, gray hair was wet with sweat from its heat. Mulder had a bead on him, but was not shooting. Kane must have squeezed the trigger of the thing, because a twenty foot flare lashed out towards the younger man, who threw himself away from it, and away from us. He fetched up against the wall next to a door, huddled away from the flames. I don't know if he made any sound, my heart was so loud. . . I took the last few steps and moved to flank Carson, desperately trying to lift Carson and urge him up those steps. Flame, a thin, long needle of it, struck the wooden steps in front of me and flashed down and towards me, across my coat and I was part of it and I screamed and threw myself down, rolling, rolling begging it to go out. . . Rolled against the table where I knocked things off. A sheaf of reeking sandpaper fell across me, stained and covered with nameless lumps. A delicate little power drill came loose from its holder to bounce off my shoulder, and other objects struck and rolled away. I sprawled there, breathing in the terrified relief of not burning. Kane had backed around now, keeping a position where he could keep the two federal agents separated from each other, keep me now separated from Scully and Carson, too. He was laughing. "You should have come to visit earlier, Agent Mulder! I haven't had such fun in years. That day you dropped by, you should have come back to visit. . . .We have a matter of a broken obligation to discuss." He sent another arc of flame towards Mulder, who spun away from it and through the door, into the darkness of the room beyond. Scully had made it up another step, but Carson was so slow and I could hear him gasping with the pain of his effort. Kane turned back to them, and I screamed an instant before Scully as I saw the flame lick across her arm, bare beneath the thin blouse. Her scream pulled Mulder back out of the darkness and safety of that back room, brought him shouting into the door. "Back off! Put it down now!" The flame was flaring across Scully's sleeve. Oh god, I drove myself back onto my feet and lunged up the three stairs to wrap myself around her, smothering her shrieks, and the smell of burnt skin and silk in the wool of my coat. Mulder's voice was urgent and frightened behind us and I could feel Kane at my back. God, why didn't Mulder just shoot the lunatic? Sometimes you get what you wish for. I heard a flat *crack* and then flame lanced past me to set a trail across the stairs in front of us, and too much happened at once . . . The first thing I knew was a wave of scent of gasoline, and two screams from behind me. I released Scully, who was sobbing, but upright and aware, and we looked behind us into the inferno. Mulder had shot, and Kane had tried to flame him, sent fire in a thin trail across the room. When he was hit he must have thrashed. He'd thrown the bottle . . . A huge, spreading pool of fire seethed in the middle of the room. Fox Mulder was huddled up in the door, watching the flames with visible terror. Even in those instants I could see him backing away from it. He finally stopped, just in sight, where he could see us and Kane. He kept Kane covered from the far side of the narrow and vanishing channel to safety. And I could see Kane standing against one wall, clutching his arm and watching us with a hatred that matched the heat around us. Then he smiled at us. Scully, next to me, almost lunged back down there but Carson cried out and grabbed her, drawing sounds of pain from them both. He was trapped. He'd never get out without both of us. I was too busy to look at her face, as I wrapped my arm around his other side and tried to drag him out with me, but I knew the pain that had to be there. The sound of fire chased us up those stairs, fire not yet out of control but seeking its freedom. Scully went through the hall door first, turned to grab Carson and pull him through, with me pushing and lifting the man. The sweat on my hands made them slippery, but strength born of terror lifted him into the hall, slammed the door on Kane and his fire. Slammed it on Mulder. We dragged Frank Carson down that cool, normal lie of a hall and out into the shocking dark cold of night. Away, we had to get him away from this house. There was no sound yet, no smoke, but that would come. We pulled that poor man across the yard, where the gravel and brittle, winter grass dug into his bare feet, tormented injuries I didn't know of and feared to learn. Down by the road where we finally let him spill to the ground. He curled around himself in pain, but Scully wasn't looking at him now. She was scrambling back to her feet. I reached to grab her again. She was shivering in her thin clothes, one arm burned and bleeding. I could see the slick wet of the blistered flesh in the faint light that escaped from Kane's house, but she was ignoring it and reaching to her waist for her gun. "Scully. Scully! Wait!" She turned a stare of shock, and fear, and fury on me. I don't know if she even recognized me, she may have only known someone had grabbed her. "You can't go in there." "Mulder's still in there, Emma, let go of me *Now*." She recognized me, all right. I think she wanted to shoot me. But I shook my head. Her eyes kept flickering towards that house, trying to track what was happening. She wrenched her arm, trying to pull away, and I grabbed her harder and pulled. I was taller and heavier and she was trembling with shock. I pulled her down next to Carson. She'd have to hit me to make me let go, and she'd listen to me first. "No. Look at this man. He's hurt. You're the doctor, he needs you. And you're hurt yourself. How much can you do in there?" Oh god, common sense except where was I leading us with this? "My partner's in there. I am not leaving him. Get your fucking hand off of me. Now." She bit the words off between chattering teeth. I couldn't push her much further, but I couldn't let her go there. She wouldn't be able to do it. She'd die in there, both of them would. I could feel my own terror sobbing in my throat and my adrenaline sang in my ears. I hadn't even known Tommy Dalbert, but he'd brought me here. Frank Carson, I'd only met . . . but I knew Mulder now, I knew Scully. Oh god, I couldn't leave them and run. And I couldn't let her walk, hurt, into the fire after him. My stomach wrenched but I pulled her down hard. She couldn't leave me with Carson, and I couldn't leave her and Mulder to the flames. And that left only one answer. Oh god, I looked back at the house and pulled my feet under me, standing. "You're the doctor. Stay here." I saw her hand lift like she wanted to hit me with her gun, but I was already on my feet and she must have seen more determination on my face than I could imagine being there. A faint wail of sirens far away was beginning to hum in our ears. "Scully, you have to stay here. This guy needs you. I'll get him. If you go now, I don't think either one of you will get out of there." They were contagious. I was out of my mind. I was going to get killed. And I was going to walk into that house. I looked back at her to be sure I was right, to be sure that she couldn't survive this. She was halfway on her knees, eyes standing stark in a face that had to be more than pale, and even in the faint light I could see her shaking. Her blouse hung from one shoulder, burns were dark red up her arm and shoulder, streaking around her back and across her chest. I pulled off my coat and wrapped it around her shoulders. She was watching the house, angry and desperate. The sirens were closer, but not nearly close enough. I could see her weighing my words, weighing what she thought was in there. And understanding that, in this condition, she very likely would not be fast enough, strong enough. One arm? Shock? She'd kill them both if she walked in there, and thank god she understood it and accepted it fast, because if I'd had to argue I couldn't have kept the strength to help them. She looked up at me finally. "He's pyrophobic, Emma. Scared of fire. Get him out of there." I nodded, and she turned to the job she'd sworn an oath to do, treating the tortured man, and I turned to Kane's house and ran, too frightened to waste any more time. To this day, I can't remember going up across that lawn or up those stairs. One minute I was listening to Scully tell me her partner might be even more afraid of that house and the fire than I was, and the next my right hand was shaking so hard I had to brace it with my left to get hold of the latch on Kane's front door. The door swung open to a stinging, thin smoke that hurt my nose and eyes, and I sank my nose in my sleeve and threw myself past the threshold, taking each step on the promise that one more and I could turn around and get back out of there, run to safety, away from Kane, and fire, and things that I didn't want to remember falling on me. And away from Fox Mulder, alone with all of it. And I'd take another step. Through the haze of smoke upstairs I could still see the rooms I'd seen before, see the furniture that belonged to some family in a catalogue. The first time I'd stepped past these rooms I'd seen the furniture and smelled chemicals and not understood why. No bottles up here, nothing that wouldn't belong in any sitcom. Now I knew the smells were from the bottles in Kane's basement. I could hear the popping roar, still faint and small below me. No glassy explosions yet, but that was only a matter of time. Oh god, the door was hot at the top of the stairs. I pulled it open before I could let myself understand why, and heat rolled over me, lifting my hair and baking the sweat off my face. I wanted to turn tail and run, oh god, and I stepped down into that heat instead. The only thing I could hear was the fire, although I could still see. The bulb still lit the basement, no longer swinging, but the fire sent wild shadows spinning in its place. Halfway down and I could look out into the room I'd seen before, see it empty of life and transformed into hell. Fire was flickering out on the concrete floor where it had consumed the gasoline, but was climbing the wooden partition I'd seen Mulder vanish through. And it was crawling along the wall towards a workbench crowded with bottles and equipment. I stared in horror, saw a few labels, Hydrochlo - something. Some -sulfate. Other names I vaguely knew from chemistry in school, things that burned even without fire. I dashed for the floor, feet rattling on the stairs. The door on the other side of the room was still free of fire. Kane must have gone through it. I followed, not wanting to see how things that burned without fire would burn with it. The room on the other side felt cool after the pressure of heat behind me, and it was dark. Lit by the fire behind me and stray light from the bulb back there, nothing else. Somewhere down here was a door like the one on the house next door, no doubt about that. Kane was homicidal, not suicidal. He had a back way out of this hell-hole, or he'd have been right behind us on the stairs. No, the door was down here somewhere, and somewhere down here was Fox Mulder. I just had to find both of them and get him through that door, without finding Kane, and we'd be gone. Unfortunately, if Kane had gone through this door he was between me and Mulder. I gulped and stepped away from the door that silhouetted me against flame. The snapping roar of the flames was getting louder, and drowned out anything I might have heard. I reached, but couldn't feel a wall or anything but air around me. I prayed Kane kept his basement as empty as his upstairs. Step forward, slowly, step again. My foot hit something hard and I fell across it with a clatter of metal I was sure could be heard even over the fire. The lawn mower under me hurt, sharp edges and shapes that dug into my hands and knees as I scrambled back to my feet, skittered to my side, and finally fell against a wall. I froze there, staring into the dark with fire-aching eyes that felt wide enough to fall out of my head. Sharp popping explosions told me the fire had reached the chemical bottles, sometimes louder ones screamed and boomed, and the wall behind me shook in time. I crept sideways, away from the flame, oh god . . . please let me find the next door. The faint light of the fire in the next room intensified, and a black rectangle to my left swallowed it. I lunged through that door and threw myself to the floor, listening for the chuckle or whatever other sound Kane might make, listening for fast panting or voices, hearing nothing. And then a sharp clatter from the dark, not in this room, muffled as though by a door. The chuckle I'd dreaded, but too far away to be for me. Muffled, like the clatter. I was through a door and knew where a wall was now. I felt my way around it. Bare partition, splinters in my fingers from the 2x4's that held the thing, then cold, cinderblock wall under my fingers. I briefly heard Mulder's voice, but couldn't read anything from the brief snatch of it. Cold block under my hand, and I tripped over cylinders, paint cans. Back up, off my bruised knees, onto my feet. And forward in the dark, hearing bits of sound too short to be words. My hand hit the low barrier of a door jamb, a shuttered door, cooler even than the surrounding brick. Sob in my breath, I'd found the basement door. I'd found the escape. I almost wrenched it open when I heard the voices, and knew I was still hearing the fire. The moment I opened this door the fire would draw towards me and it. I could get out, but Mulder would burn alive down here. I let my hand trace the frame, cool and sweet, and found the lock. I flipped it off and moved on past it. Cool block again, and the smoke in my throat was acrid, tainted with the sting of chemicals now. My eyes stung, wide and blind and painful. The blocks cornered into another wall of particle board and 2x4s, more splintering and hot wood. Was it cyanide this stuff would let off when it burned? Formaldehyde? Something toxic, something deadly. Lots of deadly things down here. And another door so I could move on, looking for the deadliest of them. Trail my fingers along the panel of the door, feel the grain of wood. In the dark, my fingertips were so sensitive, the wood felt like ridges. I reached for the door knob, paused with a certain fear I'd feel a sticky film but finally touching only metal. It took a moment, a shaky breath and a cough in that close, burning air. Then twist and push before I could lose my nerve. _____________________ And there was light here. Horrible, flickering, stained light that showed me Kane's broad back, one sleeve stained so dark it looked black in this light. Beyond him, Fox Mulder was lit by a wall of flame that had replaced the partition here. Overhead fire licked past the door frame, crawled obscenely along the ceiling over Mulder's head, corroded the wooden wall and door behind him. I could feel the flaming cinders dropping on my skin, smell the burning hair as they struck me, and the two men facing each other. I froze in the doorway, chills riding my spine against the terrible, blast-furnace air of this room, and longed to turn and run through the door I'd found and left. I looked past Kane, for Mulder. If I hadn't seen him I probably couldn't have stopped myself from turning tail. My fingers and nails hurt where I clutched the door, gouged little flecks of soft wood out of it. I couldn't see Mulder fully for Kane's bulk, blocking him, scuttling with light, jerky moves side to side. He was pinned back in the corner between partition and cinder block wall, but he kept trying to slide past the heavier man and was driven back by a vicious length of knife that flashed as Kane lunged at him. The black of his coat swallowed the light, but the sweat on his face shone, eyes wide and frightened and flickering between the fire and Kane, who was talking. "It's all right, Fox. I understand. It's hard to do what they tell you to do, hard to remember what they tell you. I understand. You don't have to try to forget anymore." Kane's voice was somewhere between pleading and furious. "We don't have to do this, Kane. We can still walk out of here." Mulder's voice shook, but I was surprised he could even speak. "We can walk out of here, Peter. We still have time to get out of here . . ." They shifted, and I could see Mulder wasn't holding his gun anymore. He had his right hand clutched close to his chest, the left out and guarding it. "I'll walk out of here, Fox. You'll stay. You forgot. You'll have to stay. Don't you feel it, the fire's here for you. Feel it reaching for you?" He feinted, pushing Mulder back again, towards the corner. "I have to find my brother, my father. They told me to take them, just like they told you . . . " Kane's voice was angry now, vehement. "You did what you were told once . . . you tried to find your sister. You found one of the Bad Ones. You shouldn't have stopped. You shouldn't have betrayed them." I must have moved. Mulder's eyes suddenly shifted to me, just for an instant, but Kane lunged and a bright flash of metal sent Mulder in a desperate, instinctive lunge sideways, trying to dodge the knife and the hungry flames behind him at the same time. The sound he made wasn't a scream. It was worse. Kane's knife flashed again, caging him back towards what had been a wall and was now a tangle of flame and light and blackened boards. "Peter I'll help you find your brother, help you find your father. I didn't betray anyone, let me out of here NOW! I'll help, I can help, I can find them for you . . ." the hysterical edge on his voice carried past the fire, instinctively made my guts twist up even harder. Mulder kept trying to move away from the twisting fire, kept moving up into range of that knife and only backing away when Kane slashed at him, forcing him back, and his voice never stopped, getting thinner and more frantic the further back Kane forced him. He backed from between Kane and the fire's heat, to fetch up against the block wall, trapped on the far side of the room. I could see the sweat, a gleam that couldn't last long enough to bead, on a pale, soot-smudged face. His throat convulsed as he swallowed. I could see him trying to get words back out. He was pulled down in a half-crouch that kept dropping him where I couldn't see, and then Kane would move and another thin splatter would flick off the point of a knife that wasn't shiny and bright anymore, and my heart was choking me and my guts were pretzeled where I stood, praying Fox could pull it together and get to my side of the room, get out of here. I could hear him still trying to talk his way out, but his words weren't making sense anymore and his voice was spiraling into panic, and Kane just kept edging him back, forcing him into that corner and keeping him there, like Kane didn't even see the fire, didn't care that the ceiling was burning, that the wall was just coals and licking, dancing flames, and the heat . . . Kane was circling back again, edging Mulder back towards the inferno. His broad back kept blocking the FBI agent from sight, and I could barely hear him past the roaring howl of the fire. My lips cracked in the heat, and I could see spots of cinder-burn on Kane's shirt, on his tanned neck and in his thinning hair. Mulder's coat and hair must have similar burns. He was edging back, away from the older, heavier man, his eyes, flickering over Kane's face and past, trying to find a way out, but I don't know if he was really even seeing us anymore. I stepped closer, heard Kane's voice, harsh with smoke and anger. "Your sister disappeared. You said they took her. Liar! You did what they told you, but then you lied. They told you, too . . . what did they tell you! Damn you. You remember. They'll take us all if we stop. You stopped looking for her!" Oh god, he kept forcing Mulder back towards that wall, the one crawling with living fire. Whatever he'd said, Mulder was focused on him again, eyes panicky-wide in a pale, sweat-slick face. "You have to stop lying. You have to look for her." "I am still looking, they did take her, I remember them taking her . . ." His voice was shaking, thin and sharp. "Your father took you to see them, Kane. Remember, your father took you to see them. Let me out, I'll help you, we'll find them, I'll help, I'll keep looking, I'm not lying, he won't hit you anymore, please, please, we have to get OUT OF HERE! We have to . . ." he broke off when flame dripped from the ceiling, cringed towards Kane, then twisted as the big knife slashed towards him. Dark drops splattered the floor under them, hissing in the cinders and spots of flame, staining the painted concrete floor. "Please, Kane, please, he won't hit you any more, won't hit you or your brother, please, we have to get out of here!" I don't think he knew what he was saying any more. His words were a fast, hard string of whatever he thought might get him out of there and Kane just didn't care. "He did not! They told me what to do!" I could hear Kane's shriek. Whatever Mulder was trying to do, he was making Kane worse, the big man was forcing him back along the wall. Mulder kept trying to slide away, but the fire blocked one path, and I could see his eyes tracking back to it, caught between it and the man screaming at him. "Just like they told you with your sister. What'd you do, Fox? drop her body off a pier? Dump it in a road-bed? What did they tell you to do with her? How did you find out what she was? Why did you stop looking?" Angry, howled questions, punctuated with the flash of the knife. "Feel the heat in here, Fox? Know what it'll do to you? Do they tell you like they tell me? It's going to peel your lying skin off your bones and boil the lying blood in your veins . . . " Another slash, trying to drive Mulder sideways towards the fire. He didn't move this time, just pulled into himself against the cinder wall and took the slash, cringing down away from the wild flames. Blood flicked across the wall as Kane swept the knife in a carry-through. Mulder's face was pale and sweat-drenched, and smudges of red blood, black soot, stood out as dark as his eyes. He was pulled in tight, watching Kane by an act of will, keeping his eyes off the fire over his head, the wall of fire to his right. His voice was a sharp, desperate wail. "I'll tell you, I'll tell you what they told me, we have to get out of here Kane, we have to get out of here NOW!" Mulder tried to lunge around him again and Kane sliced across his arm, a flash of white shirt through the coat, and Mulder fell back against the wall, arms wrapped over his ribs, eyes flickering between the ceiling and Kane. "Let me out of here, Kane, I'll tell you what they told me, they told me what they wanted . . ." Babbled words, words that enraged Kane. Oh god, he was going to kill him . . . Break my eyes away from them, pray that looking away won't change anything, look around again but this fucking room was empty, empty. I could hear the terrified voice trying to convince Kane to let him out, get out of here. Step back but I couldn't see in the dark, couldn't see anything but the faint tracing of red light and heat on the ceiling, wait . . . wait. I turned and raced back to the door I'd found, and the paint cans I'd fallen over were there. Grab two by their wire handles, a couple heavy pounds of sloshing metal, and I could hear another scream behind me, hear Kane screaming at Mulder. "Liar! Liar! They told me. They want me to find them for them. They told me how to find them! You'll burn for your lies. They want you to burn!" Whatever Mulder was trying to do, he'd pushed Kane into a howling rage and the fire was growing and the air was burning my lungs. Smoke and heat and the sounds were all fire and anger. The door was a brilliant rectangle of light when I turned. A few racing steps and I could see them again. See Fox Mulder, half crouched down by the wall, gathering himself, watching the fire, not Kane. The lunatic was screaming at him, telling him how the fire would feel on his skin, in his hair, what it would do to him. I could see the coughs that wracked Mulder, feel them shaking my chest as the smoke thickened in here, but Kane seemed impervious to it, and that knife was a narrow wedge of flame in his hand, drawing blood in its wake. "You'll die, and your sister will die, and all the others will still be out there . . ." Kane never finished it. I couldn't see Mulder well behind his bulk, but there was a sudden shift of black coat, flurry of motion, and Kane staggered back, the other man wrapped around his arm and tight against his chest. For a moment I thought it might work, backed towards the door, hoping-praying-wishing for Mulder to break loose on this side of Kane and run. Then the heavier man got his left hand wrapped around the collar of Mulder's black trench coat and I screamed. Kane yanked Mulder off him, spun him towards that sheet of roaring heat, twisting light and pain that they'd been dancing around. I could feel the heat with them as Kane shoved Mulder back, knife forgotten in his other hand. And I couldn't stand and watch him burn, couldn't let the madman do this . . . I stepped into the swing and let that paint can carry like a baseball bat to slam across Kane's shoulders. The killer howled and dropped Mulder, spun on me as I let the momentum of the can pull me back and away from him. I expected to die then, with his knife in my ribs, screamed at the narrow agony of a slash that opened the thin skin over my ribs. A red haze that had nothing to do with blood or cuts or anything but terror and this bastard scaring me and hurting me and forcing me to be in this fucking basement because of his fucking, twisted mind and the bastard cut me! The bastard, the bastard! I swung that can with all the force of my spin and slammed him with it. Fuck the knife. I was gonna beat him to death with it. The thing caught him full across the chest, where he'd left himself open to slash at me again, sent him staggering. I followed my can around and hit him again. The wire of the handle burned across my palms. I could feel the welts rise and some useless little voice in my head reminded me that metal conducts heat . . . The air burned in my throat. Heat and smoke and fumes etched their way down my throat. And Kane had staggered back and the bastard tripped over Mulder, falling towards the burning wall. And flaming boards were tumbling down across the whole end of the room. The partition was crumbling, spilling live fire across Kane's legs. Kane shrieked, flailed for anything to pull himself free, caught one of Mulder's ankles and pulled. Mulder was screaming at him, kicking at him, totally panicked. I had him under the arms then, trying to drag him back, but Kane wasn't letting go and he was thrashing and hard to hold and Kane was dragging Mulder towards him with adrenaline strength. I could feel that pull almost yanking Fox out of my hands, and the smooth concrete gave no purchase. Mulder lashed out at Kane, pulling loose from my grip. Kane's pants legs were burning, and he was screaming in pain but his face wore a look of clenched determination, and the bastard was dragging himself out of the fire. He had hold of Mulder's coat and was pulling himself out hand over hand. I thought they were both screaming, but couldn't hear anything but fire and my own gasping breaths now. The smell of burned hair and wool overwhelmed the chemical stink of the smoke, and I was breathing in little shrieks of terror, seeing flames take on Mulder's coat as cinders dripped from above us. I felt burns speckling my back with agony, eating through my shirt in blistering coins of flame, and I was screaming, trying to lock my arms around a thrashing, panic-stricken man and drag him away. Kane's weight was too much for me to pull. He had hold of Mulder's lapels and wasn't letting go, no matter that Fox was clawing at his eyes, his throat. A tremendous, crashing explosion sounded in the next room, and I saw huge, flaming beams crashing to the floor when I looked up. Mulder curled himself into a screaming ball in my arms, and Kane reached beyond him to seize my shoulder, face reddened and wet, blistered where sparks had struck him, his face and touch freezing my blood even as waves of heat carried the smoke up away and singed the eyebrows off my face. Kane's frantic pull yanked me down, across Mulder. And I must have been dying, senseless in the last instants. I thought I felt a sudden wave of cool air flash past me. It drew the flames over me, over us, and the world exploded into light and heat and agony and air was a memory. Fire was all. Fire and a dark well that reached to seize me as the fire wrapped it's arms around me and drew me close. _____________________ The fire had faded to darkness, peaceful at first. I lay motionless, knowing my room would be still and quiet in the middle of the night. Draw a breath and the world exploded into choking agony. Coughing that sent sight blasting into my head in a swirling horror. My eyes were open now, the chaos around me slamming my brain through sheer, obliterating agony, a sight of flames and sparks far away from me, a shapeless mass hanging over me, holding my head, and the pain crashed over me and swirled me back down to darkness. ____________________ The world came back slowly, in increments of perception. A faint knowledge of light first, only enough that I knew I was in darkness, because I knew now what light was again. Next was fear. I could feel things waiting to come back to me, things I did not want to know. Pain was hovering somewhere not so far off, and the memory of flame and terror hung at a distance. I knew they were there, but they were not real to me yet. My name was real, but not my body. Sound dopplered, louder and softer, a faint susurrus mostly. It gradually resolved itself into voices. Strangers sometimes, my mom, Jerry? I thought so. Sleep claimed me again. Life came back faster the next time, the sound of a door opening, and the voices made sense now. " . . . ow she'll be delighted to see you. They cut the morphine and she should wake up soon." Mom. I smiled with the warm, safe feeling that Mom could always give me when I felt awful. "I'm looking forward to it. She owes me an exclusive." Laughing voice I knew best lately from the phone. What was Jerry doing here? I pulled my gummy eyes open, feeling the graininess at the corners. I tried to bring my arm up to wipe at them, and a fuzzy, dull blanket of pain smothered me, graying the edges of the world, freezing my hand and dragging an animal whimper out of my chest. Tight, scraping pain under my sternum, and I ruthlessly quashed the urge to cough, certain that I wouldn't want to know how it felt. They must have heard me. My mother's face swam into view, and Jerry's behind her. Soft hands stroked my hair and my face. Voices told me to lie still. I could feel tears trace me face at the pain in my chest, and the pain that flayed the skin of my back. Mom's tears finally forced some self-control on me, as causing her pain had always done. I found a smile somewhere, became aware that it moved a mask on my face. The air was cool and strangely odorless. I breathed carefully, finally whispered my first questions. I had to ask twice before they could hear me past the mask. "You're in the burn unit, darling. You're going to be fine, but you're going to be sick for a while first." Tell me about it. A sudden memory of why I was going to be sick . . . "What happened to Mulder?" I didn't think I made any sound, but they knew what I had asked. They exchanged a rueful glance. "The man you were with?" My mom the rocket scientist. "He's down the hall . . ." I didn't like the way she trailed off, looked back at Jerry. Fortunately Jer had never felt as over-protective. "They got both of them out, Emma. Kane's in the secure ward, being treated for burns. Mulder's down the way, same deal as you with the heat damage, but not so many burns. He makes up for it in knife wounds." Jerry winced. Kane was still alive? My guts twisted, but he was locked up. We were safe. "How bad?" "What, you looking to pick him up, Mrs. Peel?" He was going to regret that. Revenge is a dish best eaten cold. I must have looked sour, because Jerry shook his head, glanced at my mom's back. "I met your friend, Dana. Very impressive lady." My friend? No ironic tone, I wondered what had changed from Scully being willing to gut me like a catfish for letting her partner get into trouble. I wondered, but only distantly. I closed my eyes, and enjoyed the way the faint, fuzzy warmth of drugs blunted the raw-meat-feeling of my back and chest. Somewhere far away, I heard Jerry tell my mom to go get some sleep, that we were all tired. Then the blanket wasn't grey anymore and the calm peace of sleep swallowed me again. ___________ Lying there in black peace with a full tummy from bad hospital food. They'd shooed my visitors out at 8:00 and moved my bed so I could watch TV. Turned it off after Picket Fences. They had stopped my big painkillers on the misapprehension that second degree burns didn't hurt enough to merit morphine, and I was stuck with Tylenol 3. Hell, I'd use that stuff for cramps. I'd tried to go down and visit Mulder or Scully, but the nurses had shooed me back in bed, arguing that they'd let me sit up and let Jerry stay late tomorrow if cooperated tonight and got some sleep. I'd slept most of the afternoon and really didn't think I needed that much more sleep, but the ward bosses had no real sympathy for my need for gossip and put me under house arrest in my room. Health facists. I'd have to wait for Jerry to get here tomorrow. He'd been going to fill me in today, after he sent my mom off, but I went to sleep on him. Why did they only give you drugs when you wanted to stay awake, then stop them when you were bored and wanted to sleep? Maybe they weren't totally off base after all, because I must have slid off into sleep eventually. ________________ I was crouched there and the ceiling was falling on me and I was burning burning burning and I just couldn't feel it yet but it was coming coming coming . . . . I couldn't run. I couldn't move. I had to stay there until I could reach Fox Mulder, who I could see in the middle of the flames, screaming, and Peter Kane was holding him there. Dana Scully was at my shoulder, shouting at me to move, to get him, and I screamed at her that I couldn't, that I couldn't move and I couldn't reach him, and my scream woke me into cool and dark and pain that didn't hurt nearly bad enough to be me burning in hell. Lay there in the dark and hurt. I didn't know you could hurt that much. I didn't hurt quite enough to be in hell, but it was really, really close. I wanted to sleep so much. Wanted the dark again. And I couldn't I closed my eyes and all I saw was fire. Fire and blood. Not hell. But close. I wondered if Fox Mulder was alone in not-hell too. I hoped he hadn't found his way all the way to the real thing. ____________ I hadn't hoped to sleep again, but I must have because I woke up the next morning bright and early, to cereal and juice and other stuff that was hard to recognize as food in any conventional sense. My peaceful mood lasted until I recalled my nightmares, and maybe nightmares that weren't just mine. All of a sudden, I really wasn't very hungry. They let me sit up, like they'd promised, and got rid of the stupid oxygen mask, and that miserable IV that's the de rigeur hospital look. My back pulled and hurt a lot, but I could tell it wasn't cracked or bleeding or anything, and so I didn't panic. I just whined for more Tylenol, and they gave me some, but not nearly as much as I wanted. I knew dentists had a high suicide rate from guilt over inducing pain, and I was hoping these nurses could catch a bad case of it. The nurses wouldn't tell me anything about how Mulder was. They just told me he and Scully were both fine and I should think about getting better and getting out of their hair before I got so bored I trumped up a malpractice suit. They might even have been joking, but they certainly were not telling the truth. I'd have gone down there except, well, I was kind of dreading what I might learn. But sooner or later I had to run out of distractions. When the Animaniacs, and The Tick, and even Beakman, were finally over, and I was stuck with celebrity bowling, I got up and pulled on the little robe my mom had brought for me, peeked around the door, and sauntered casually down the hall. Out for a stroll in the fashionable part of town, and I just happened to be dropping by Fox Mulder's door, and - look at this - it was open! Mulder had somehow gotten them to move his bed around to where he could watch the door. I could tell because that power strip where everything gets plugged in was looking very lost without its hospital bed, over on the wall that would have offered some privacy. I guess seeing who came through the door mattered more to him than privacy. He'd certainly come awake fast enough when I showed up, but his eyes looked awfully glassy even so. I padded across the bland, linoleum floor, rested my hands on the chrome guards on the side of his bed. He was watching me over the upper edge of a mask that was a twin to the one I'd been able to ditch that morning. The mask's attendant machine was blinking and chuffing away. Another big machine with a weird object on a pipe was also next to his bed. I was profoundly relieved that whatever it was, I hadn't needed one. Clearly I'd gotten out with less damage than he had. I leaned against the guard rail and crossed my arms on it, smiling at him. "What, no greeting smile, Mulder? After all we've been through?" What was this? He was still watching me like I was, well, like I might as well be Kane. When I'd leaned in he'd flinched and drawn back just a little. I looked around, and grabbed the chair by his bed, thinking that sitting down might make him relax a little. I could see bandages along his arms, and some more stitches to add to his collection. About the only thing that really looked better was his left hand, out of bandages. His right was bandaged more than ever, and I remembered him protecting it in the fight. Kane must have done that somehow, before I found them. God, he must heal beautifully or he'd have looked like a patchwork quilt. "C'mon, Mulder, I came down to visit and all I get is the silent treatment? You owe me better than that." At least he'd finally relaxed back against his pillows. He was pale as hell, and they had a couple IVs jacked into his arm. He can't have had burns like mine on his back, or he'd have been lying on his stomach like they'd had me. After a moment he reached up and pulled down the mask, wheezing just a little, licked his lips and gave it a try. "Hi." Awfully thin little voice, there. "Hi? Is that the best you can do?" I studied him, took in the ragged hair where cinders had wrecked his cut, the flat expression, and what I figured was a heavily sedated look in the eyes. His hands had trembled as he pulled down the mask, and were shaking still. Not like nerves or cold, more like you get when you work out too long and your muscles start jumping and won't stop. Spasms. I scooted my chair a little closer and leaned up against the side of the bed again. And he focused in on every * single * little * move. God, he'd been spooky before but he was outright creepy now. That look and the way he had to work for his air was giving me the shivers. "Look Mulder, I. . ." What did I think I was going to say to him? He wasn't doing witty banter this morning. Clear my throat and stall, and try to ignore the flinch at every sudden move or sound. Ignore the way he'd look around like he was checking the room, then snap his eyes back to me to make sure I hadn't moved on him. I kept my voice low when I finally figured out what to say. "I woke up yesterday. They told me I got out lucky. I just kind of wanted to check on you. I had some nightmares last night you know. I figured I wasn't the only one." A little frown pulled between his eyes. Effortful concentration. "I remember." "I bet. If I had 'em bad then yours must be duesies." "Duesies?" Not particularly curious, not really like Mulder at all, more like he was picking up on the last word I'd said. "Yeah, real screaming meemies. And if you wanted to, you know, talk about it or anything. . ." Still nothing. I swallowed and wondered just how much crap they'd pumped into him. I hoped it was a hell of a lot to be doing this to him. "Duesies. I always wondered where that came from. . ." His voice was paper-dry and whispery and it just faded in and out. At least it was a try. I patted his hand, felt the muscles flicker under the skin, tried to recall when I had asked the same question. "Uhhh, my dad told me it came from Duesenbergs, those old roadsters?" Finally a real reaction, finally. Mulder nodded when I mentioned Duesenbergs. "My dad told me about Duesenbergs. He said they were really fine . . . we made a model of one once . . . ." he pushed the words out between breaths, finally let his eyes drift shut. A hint of a sound at the door startled him half-upright and wide-eyed again, gasping for air. The look of intense relief on his face told me before I looked around that it was Scully, standing in the door and watching us with a worried, unhappy look. The moment he'd seen her, Mulder had settled back and let himself relax. I think he slid into sleep almost instantly. Scully walked with an old woman's aching exhaustion this morning, cup of stale coffee held tight in her right hand. Her left was stiff with bandages stained with the stuff they smeared on burns. I was sure I'd be smelling that gel in my dreams for the rest of my life. She'd stopped by Mulder's bed, set her coffee down. Reached up to put the mask back over his face and brush the hair off his forehead. She checked his pulse with that instinctive wrist-grab doctors use when they say hello, talking in this low, calm voice the whole time, telling him he was safe, everything was fine, he should just sleep. . . over and over. When she looked up, she met my quizzical stare with a tired look that was beginning to seem awfully familiar. Just how often did she spend sick-watches over this guy that that should be such an accustomed expression? "Emma. You should be down in your room, shouldn't you? And you definitely shouldn't have helped him take the mask off." She sounded too tired to be very angry with me, more frustrated and worried than anything else. "Morning to you too, Scully. And I didn't help. He did it all on his own." She didn't really seem surprised at that. They both looked so tired, I felt almost guilty for having slept most of the night with these two around. "I wanted to see how Mulder was, and how you are." I stood up and leaned over from the opposite side of his bed to see the grease slick on her coffee. He must have been asleep for real already, because he didn't twitch when I got close this time. "Looks like great coffee, Scully." I reached over and took the cup out of her hand. It was only lukewarm. She didn't try to stop me, just shook her head like she was trying to wake up. "Sorry I snapped at you, Emma. He's lousy at hospitals. It's hard to get him to leave the mask on and take his meds." She sighed. "I was going to drop in on you later." She kept her voice soft, and a hand on his wrist. "I'd have been by earlier, but it's been busy." "So I see. I mean, if you can't even get off the floor for something better than this," holding up that revolting cup. "I tell you what. Let me sneak off the floor and I'll see if they have a real coffee place in the lobby." She gave me the first real smile I'd seen on her face in a long, long time. "You do that, and I'll write you a recommendation letter for whatever job you try to get next." I grinned and headed out of there. One or two visits to clients and friends in this hospital had taught me the ropes, so I rifled through the things my mom had brought me the day before, found my purse and bribed a candy striper to bring a big, big cup of Starbucks' best from the lobby. God, I love the power of money. That cup of coffee might have been gold for the look Scully gave me when I handed it to her. She settled back in the uncomfortable chair they put in hospital rooms to encourage visitors to go somewhere else, and quietly drew down a pretty fair draft of it. I took the other chair, watching him sleep and wondering what the hell was wrong with him. I mean, of course he was scared of fire. I could certainly relate to that. But this was pretty extreme, jumping at every noise and fazed out of his head. Scully finally sighed with the relief of a huge dose of hot caffeine and leaned forward to settle her elbows on her knees. She glanced over at me. "I don't think I got the chance to thank you . . ." "What, the coffee? Don't sweat it . . ." She shook her head. "No. Thank you for going back in there." She hesitated, "I think I can guess a lot of it, but tell me what happened, Emma." What happened? God, I had been carefully not thinking about what had happened. She saw the shiver run up and down my frame. "I understand, believe me. It's scary to try to remember things like that. But the case isn't over 'til the trial. I want to know what happened to you and Mulder, and you're going to have to tell the D.A." She gave her partner another worried glance, and I knew I wasn't the only one who the D.A. wanted to question. She hid her concern behind another sip of coffee, then looked back at me. I took a deep, deep breath and tried to organize what I'd been carefully ignoring since I woke up the day before. One last try to get out of this. . . "Are you sure we should be talking about this in here? I mean, if he's reacting like this. . . " She actually thought about for that a moment. "I'm pretty sure he's sound asleep. Keep your voice down, but I do need to know this." She left unsaid what I was sure of by now, that she wouldn't leave the room for more than a few minutes at a time if anyone gave her the choice. The D.A. was probably what hauled her out earlier, to judge from the tone of her voice when she mentioned him. Time to pony up. I told her about going in upstairs, about going through the basement door. I suppose I was trying to delay talking about the basement as long as possible, no matter that I couldn't avoid it. "The rescue crew said it was lucky you forgot to close the door again, that it probably saved your lives when the smoke escaped to the upper floors." Her voice, still low and calm, bracing me for what I had to tell next. "I went downstairs, Scully, and the fire was starting to really catch in that one room. It hadn't spread much, but he had all those chemicals down there." She nodded. "He used them to cause some of the 'alien experimentation' damage. Lots of acids and bases, nasty stuff." "Yeah, whatever." I really hadn't wanted to know WHY he had those things. "So, you remember there were two doors? I couldn't go through the one Mulder used because of the fire, so I went the other way." She knew I was stalling, I could see it on her face. "And I ran around the other way, through a couple dark rooms. I finally found Mulder and Kane, and they were fighting, and Kane kept him cornered. I don't really understand what Mulder was trying to do. He kept talking about Kane's dad and his brother, and about getting hit, but he just made Kane angry." I shuddered. I didn't think Scully needed a blow by blow of what Kane did with that knife. I certainly didn't want to go through it, even verbally. Let her ask Mulder when he was feeling less out of it. "And Kane was raving at him and kept trying to back him into the fire." I shivered again. "So I went and got a paint can and hit Kane with it a couple times, and he cut me." I swallowed. I didn't want to remember this part. I didn't care if I'd been brave or heroic if or it would sound good, I didn't want to remember it and I didn't want to talk about it. "And Kane tripped and the wall fell on him. He . . . grabbed Mulder, and then he grabbed me, and everything was really bad, Scully. I can't really recall a lot. I was just scared and Mulder was scared. I don't know if he even knew what was happening anymore. And then it all fell in on us and I remember cool air and then fire. . . " I was shaking now, sweat rolling down my sides, and everything around me felt far away and wavery, like a heat mirage. Oh god, my head was dizzy and I tasted bile and, and. . . I reached Mulder's bathroom in time, just barely, and heaved my hospital breakfast and flushed and heaved again, and I was kneeling there, sobbing and retching my empty guts out, and Scully's hands were holding my sore shoulders, and a wet cloth was against my face, and I could still see that fire and Kane's eyes gleaming insane and hateful in the baking light that was killing us. Other voices registered finally, a voice I knew in with all the strangers. "Jesus, Emma." Jerry, and hands on my arms, bigger than Scully's. He pulled me onto my feet, shooed away the nurses who were trying to scoot me back to my room, and got me over to the chair I'd left a moment before. Scully brought a cup of cool water, then went back to Mulder, who was awake and wrapped up in his sheets, as far back against the headboard as he could possibly get. I could hear him breathing from where I sat. I'm sure Jerry was having a field day with all this drama, but I was sitting there curled up and sick and shaking from things I would as soon never be able to remember. For now, though, he looked wonderfully sympathetic and familiar, and I put my face into his shoulder and soaked his nice, Italian suit with tears and snot and any other icky stuff crying your heart out causes. Jerry just stroked my hair and shushed me, holding me lightly enough that it didn't really hurt. "Hey, Mrs. Peel. I didn't expect to find you breaking up down with the FBI." Soft voice, next to my ear. Jerry had one of his showy, linen handkerchiefs out and was wiping my face. It was obviously never intended to be functional, because it was stiff with starch. I took it out of his hands and wiped my face and blew my nose, looking up to find him avidly scanning Mulder and Scully, clearly taking mental notes. I looked over to find Scully watching him with the same hostility she'd shown when she spoke of the D.A., and vaguely recalled that Jerry had met her the day before. Unusual reaction, normally the Rigg treatment had them creaming their jeans and quivering through the knees. I swallowed and started paying more attention. It would be a real shame to miss this because I was busy wrecking Jer's suit. Jerry was giving Scully his best, absolute shiniest, win-them-over smile, and apologizing for just busting in like that. His white, capped teeth just glowed against his olive complexion and black hair. The spiffy suit and hand-painted tie really made me feel drab in my hospital gown. " . . . but the nurses said Emma had come down here, and when I heard someone being sick and all, I thought I might be able to help." "Thank you, Mr. Riggins, but this is a hospital. There are plenty of staff who can help." Her voice had an icy edge that said the press was not welcome here, no matter how helpful. "But you might want to take Emma back to her room. I'm sure she needs the rest." Or Scully wanted the rest from us. I could see her point. The minute things had gotten complicated her partner had sat up and was wearing a USDA-prime version of the expression he'd greeted me with, blank and terribly, terribly watchful. He'd get dizzy if his eyes kept tracking that fast. Scully was visibly tensing up, and I could feel Jerry starting to get his hackles up, the ones that happened when he thought someone was hiding something. And my head was starting to hurt. I really wanted all that tension between these two to go away, and everything to go normal again. "Scully." Okay, everyone looking at me now, fine, I always did like being the center of attention, and it got Scully and Jerry to stop trying to kill each other with looks. I knew Jerry. He wouldn't leave so long as he thought something was happening, and I just couldn't cope with him and Scully thrashing this out. I'd rather play lightning rod. "I'm sorry about getting sick like that. I got kind of upset." Let it work, please. "Understatement of the decade." Jerry's breath stirred the hair by my ear, his eyes fixed on the feds and recording every detail. Knowing J. Rigg, he was probably only just keeping himself from drooling with curiosity. No way would I get him out right then, no matter how badly I wanted to leave. Nosy bastard. I wanted to tell him his socks were mismatched, just to throw him off stride. I got a shaky breath into me, and tried again. Maybe if I told her the rest it would calm everyone down and we could get past the present hostilities. "I wanted to ask about, well. . . Kane kept threatening Mulder down there." I thought I'd had their attention before. Jerry was coiled next to me, and Mulder had fixed on me the instant I mentioned Kane's name. Scully had drawn a fast breath, and had turned to step closer, when Mulder grabbed her wrist. Oh, I definitely had their attention. "I mean, Mulder was talking about Roswell and Kane's dad and brother. I understand all that. But Kane wasn't talking about that very much. I could see that it made him angry, but he kept screaming this stuff about Mulder and aliens taking them, and looking for the real people and fake people." Mulder had a grip on Scully's wrist so tight I could see his knuckles go white, see her wince. At least he was tracking. He must be feeling a little bit better. Maybe the drugs were wearing off. "And Kane kept asking Mulder how he'd killed his sister and why he wasn't looking for her anymore and. . ." I trailed off. Scully was shaking her head at me, mouthing something but not making any sound. And Mulder. . . I'd thought the man was pale before. I was wrong. It was so quiet in there, you could hear his breath hiss out past his teeth, hear it rattle as he tried to draw it back in. "What did he say?" Mulder's voice was so low it would have been hard to hear if there'd been any other real sound in the room. He choked words out past his own coughs. "What the hell did he say!" The words barely made it, slurred and strangled by drugs and coughs and then he wasn't talking any more at all, just wrapped around his own ribs, trying to breathe. Whatever the machines were they were going off in high, shrill whines. Scully had spun towards him. Jerry was tensed like a hunting dog. I could hear Mulder fighting to pull in the breath, hear Scully cursing as she tried to get that thing on the hose with one hand. I wanted to run for a nurse, get out of there, help her somehow, and was frozen where I sat. "You're still sick and you don't know what you said." Jerry's urgent whisper rode over any protests I might make. "Stay here. I'll find out how he is. I know you're worried about him . . ." He left me there, and was across the room and next to Scully. I could see more than I really wanted from right where I was, but Jerry wanted to soak up every fucking detail. Mulder was gasping and fighting for air, mask pulled away like it was choking him. What sounded like words were forced out on panicky breaths as he twisted and tried to breathe. Scully had the long, stick thing on the end of the tube and was ordering him to hold still, take the thing, breathe whatever it was, but he wasn't listening and he was thrashing around now. I could feel my lungs ache with sympathy. He had Scully's wrist and she couldn't get that thing near him, and he could barely breathe at all now, but the little air he had carried fast, desperate words that made no sense. Scully didn't have a hand free, between her hurt arm and her partner. Jerry leaned past her and slapped the call button for the nurse, but I could hear them running in the hall before then. Monitors made this noise that put chills up my spine, counterpoint to Mulder gasping for air he couldn't get, fighting for words he didn't have breath to speak. The words were becoming gasps, just fighting for air, arched back against his pillows. Scully looked up for the nurses, tried to get that pipe thing near him again, but his hands were locked around hers in breathless panic and I could see the veins in his neck, see him fighting and losing. . . They must have been able to hear Mulder halfway down the hall before the hysterical gasps ever started. Monitors and bits of words and that awful sound of trying to breathe air that never got to your lungs. . . I felt ill again, and I was so glad when some big nurse finally pulled Jerry away, and helped me out with him, and we lost sight of Mulder and Scully behind nurses and everybody else who answered that kind of call. I wasn't staying to take a head count. Mulder's choking followed us down the hall, and I hated myself for having seen him like that, having done that to him. Jerry dived for his briefcase the minute we stepped into my room, scribbling notes on a pad of paper. I went to the bathroom and tried to rinse the sick taste out of my mouth, but it just stayed and stayed and no amount of water or toothpaste seemed to make any difference. ___________________ I'd brushed my teeth until my gums were bleeding when Jerry finally came and tried to pull me out of there. I rinsed my mouth and face again, and let him tug me back over to my bed, let him push me back. "I'd forgotten just how much I hate you sometimes, Jerry." My voice sounded hollow in my own ears. I looked up to find him watching me with what was probably real, warm concern in his eyes, sipping what smelled like mocha espresso from an insulated cup. I swallowed hard, and wondered what it took to make him stop looking perfect. The stains on his suit and the sleazy thing he'd just done certainly weren't enough. He sighed and put his coffee down, came over to sit next to me and try to wrap an arm around me. I shook him off. "Careful, you're going to wrinkle your suit." "Somebody has to help dry-cleaners send their kids to college . . ." "Very funny. Almost as funny as that stunt you just pulled. What did you think you were doing in there? Couldn't you leave him alone? At least until he wasn't drugged out of his mind, or in shock or whatever the hell that just was?" "Emma, at the risk of making you feel worse, I'm not the one who just pushed Spooky's buttons." "Don't call him that." I couldn't hear his gasping and sobbing anymore, but I hadn't heard the door slam either. They must have drugged the living shit out of him. We'd have heard it if it was any worse than that. At least now he'd sleep for a while. God, I hoped he'd feel better when he woke up. I'd felt bad enough letting him and Scully walk into that house. I didn't need to feel guilty over this kind of shit. Jerry took a deep breath, held it for a moment, let it out and went to get his coffee. I couldn't read his face, but I'd seen him pull this kind of thing for years, stalling while he wrote his next bit of script. "Emma, I want you to listen to me very carefully here, and I don't want you to interrupt me. You can talk all you want when I'm done. You want to ream my ass, you can do it then, but I need to explain some things to you. Now, if you cannot do that, I'll leave and come back later. Can you shut up and listen to me?" He watched me closely, not judging, letting me come to my own decision. I finally nodded. "Okay. First, my job is to find out the truth behind situations, decide how to phrase it for the best interests of 1) the public," he held up a finger, "and, 2) the subject. I do not aim to gouge some poor bastard, but I need to know what is happening. That doesn't mean I'm going to write a piece tomorrow, telling the world how Fox Mulder fell apart all over the place, although I wouldn't put that past some of my colleagues. Believe it or not, what I know of the guy makes me think I'd rather have him in the FBI, trying to keep 'em honest. If he has problems, though, I want to know about them. It does matter, Emma. It really, really does. If this is like Oklahoma or Louisiana, it's going to affect the case against Kane and may come up in evidence hearings. That's only the tip of the iceberg." He sipped his coffee again. "If he's really gone over the edge, then somebody needs to know that, too. Mulder has. . . repercussions in places you didn't need to know about. I didn't know about them until you put me on his trail. But you'd better believe that someone like me better be keeping an eye on him, and for more than his fashion crimes." He was fishing for a laugh, trying to crack whatever look he thought he saw in my eyes. And I just kept hearing Mulder falling apart, hearing Scully trying to calm him down, get help, and hearing myself asking those damn questions Kane had used to shove him into a corner in a burning house. Jerry was talking again. "Emma, I'm not going to write about this." He leaned forward and put a hand on my foot, trying to reach me. "I'm not a monster. I'm not going to strip this man in public." I bit my tongue. Jerry had stripped people before, starting with their wardrobes and ending with their peccadillos in office. But. . . I'd known him to let people off the hook, too, if he thought they weren't going to be able to DO anything anymore, if he thought they were harmless, or useful. Over the years he'd helped destroy a couple of political candidates, but he'd also shielded his share of people whose worst crime was to be human and fallible. So did he see my feds as useful and worthy? Or as a weak spot to be exploited? "I like the guy, Emma." Jerry's voice was soft, now. Earnest. I'd known him for years, seen him fake emotions all over the place, but somehow I believed him right then. "I haven't met him before, only read about him, but he's done some amazing things. If he's made the enemies I think he's made, then he'll need all the friends he can get, and I don't want to see him trashed." I couldn't let him go on. "If you like him, Jerry, then why did you stand there and watch him go to pieces? We did not need to see that. We could have just left . . ." Why had I let him keep me there? God, I hadn't. Not really, I'd wanted to know. I'd not understood and I still didn't. I'd tried to smooth things over and find something out and I couldn't blame Jerry for all that. It just was not his fault. It was mine. God. I swallowed and looked away from him. My eyes hurt, and I could feel the cough in my chest and the pain in my scorched throat. The coughs pulled me up double, and Jerry was suddenly sitting next to me, arm tight around me, until the I could finally stop coughing and gasp in enough air to unwind from my curl. "God, Emma. Here." He must have been worried, he gave me the rest of his coffee. That's like asking a junior partner to give volunteer time. I finally gave him a tentative smile. Jerry had been helping me all along. He'd done far too much for me to really think he might not care about more than the story. He settled back, watching me closely. I sipped his coffee, running back through what had happened and finally recognizing that I'd just have to watch Jerry, make sure he stayed on a leash. Jerry was just not reliable on his own when something interesting was happening. He was watching me still, worried. I smiled at him, finished the cup. "Okay Jerry. All right. Tell me what happened. I know you have it all down. You probably don't even need your notes. So you tell me." "I'll make a deal, Emma. I know you didn't tell Scully everything. I don't think you had time." He glanced at the door and had the good grace to look regretful. "I'll tell you what I know. You tell me what happened to you. And," he smiled, "once we have it on paper we'll see if Scully forgives you if we give her the whole mess." I looked up at him, startled. "You can't really have thought I missed that. Come on, how stupid do you think I am? You are not the soul of subtlety, Emma. And there very well may be something in there that helps." His voice had fallen at that last, quiet. And he might be right, I hoped so. He sat back, gathered himself a moment, then started. "The house was trapped. It was rigged to burn, slow and steady, and leave nothing behind. If it burned too fast it would fall in on itself and snuff the flames, so the stuff up stairs was slow and hot, like thermite. Only in the basement would there be flashburning, and that not enough to burn itself out. When you went back in, it had just taken hold for real. The air that moved up the stairs carried smoke and fumes, and let the fire race for the ceiling and start to make the partitions burn. " "Scully said you went back in, and it took about ten more minutes for the rescue crews to get there. Sound carries a long way out there, over flat land at night. Frank Carson was . . . bad. Bleeding and in shock. You don't want to know what Kane did to him." Jerry swallowed, looking a little green, and I was more than willing to believe him. "When the rescue crew broke in, they found you in the back of the basement. The partitions of the rooms were crumbling in the front two rooms. The fire had begun in the upper floors and the crews didn't really think they'd find you alive down there. You were unconscious, Kane was awake but suffering third degree burns on his legs." "They didn't know what to make of Fox Mulder when they brought him out. The way he was curled up, they were busy looking for stab wounds or injuries, and he had enough blood on him for that. They found lots of slashes, a few burns, but nothing that explained total withdrawal to them." Jerry had gotten up and was pacing. "I looked back at the other two times when you called me, and this sounded like the same thing. He goes totally non-responsive, just curls up and goes away, all the lights on and he's on sabbatical in the twilight zone. And he was like that until they tried to get his clothes off to check for injuries, when he totally freaked, just like the other times. Total screaming, irrational panic. By the time they'd listen to Scully, believe she wasn't too far in shock herself to function, he was already gone and they had six guys trying to hold him down. They sedated the living shit out of him and got him in here." Jerry was looking out the window, collecting himself again. Even Jerry rattled for some things. "They thought about putting him up in the psych ward, but the respiratory damage from the fire was priority. I talked to the ward nurses. They tried to keep Scully in her room and quiet." He smiled. "Hospitals have this thing about patients staying where they're put. But she's been in his room unless somebody dragged her out by main force, like the D.A. this morning. Which, I would guess, is how you got past her." "Good guess." I'd been holding my breath, listening to Jerry, and had never heard steps or anything else and Scully's voice nearly put me through the ceiling. She was standing in the doorway, arms crossed, and didn't look happy with either one of us. "I take it Agent Mulder's sedated?" Jerry's voice was soft and neutral, not appeasing, but definitely trying not to offend any further. He didn't succeed. "Yes, he's sedated. Quite thoroughly. And shot full of steroids for that asthma attack, which would probably not have happened if you two hadn't decided to play games." Her voice gritted with her anger. "Emma, I do appreciate you going in to help him, but if you come down there again I will personally put you in traction. And Mr. Riggins can have the room next door. The two of you damn near fucking killed him in there. He's already on the Alupenth for it, and they're watching for permanent damage. Neurological damage, Emma, and permanent respiratory damage. And you fucking tip him into a damned asthma attack . . ." She took a deep, long breath, like you take when you're counting to ten and trying to keep from blowing up. I couldn't blame her. I'd come to the same conclusion myself. Maybe I looked as bad as I felt, because she finally shook her head, and let go of that anger when she breathed out. "Emma, you could have done permanent damage in there. Mulder was in that smoke a lot longer than you, and if he stays calm he'll probably be all right. But with that kind of asthma attack, all bets are off. You may have really just fucked him over once and for all." She looked away from me. Her jaw was working and she looked ill. "Scully, I am sorry. I didn't realize what would happen . . ." She looked back at me, letting the anger fade to worry and exhaustion. I guess she forgave me after a fashion. She settled in my guest chair, rubbing her face with her good hand like she was trying to wash away the exhaustion. When she looked up again, her eyes were focused and she had herself under tight control. I knew it was tight because she actually sounded pleasant when she spoke to Jerry again, although her knuckles were pale where her hand gripped the arm of the chair. "Mr. Riggins, I think you have enough pain and suffering to make a good story, and I'm sure Emma will talk with you later. Why don't you go eat some hospital food." "I didn't know you hated me *that* much. But I'm a friend of Emma's. I think I'll wait right here as long as she doesn't mind." I thought for a second she was going to help his dentist make some quick money, but she got herself under control and looked over at me. "All right. You are going to need to talk to the D.A. And I want you to talk to me, now. I need to know everything that went on in that basement." She glared past me at Jerry in a final attempt to get him to leave. I wasn't about to get caught in the middle, so I went to get a glass of water from the bathroom, feeling my skin creep like I was dodging a bullet. When I had my glass and had settled on my bed, both of them seemed willing to settle in opposite corners of the room, although Scully still shot toxic glares, which Jerry let bounce off his teflon. Just as well, I couldn't see being able to really budge either one of them. "What did Kane say, Emma?" Scully sat back, letting her head fall back against the wall behind the chair, but I could see the gleam of her eyes beneath her lashes. I took a deep breath and started, letting the scene play in my mind again, trying to stay calm and far away from it as though it were a movie. "They were yelling at each other before I ever got there, Scully. I have no idea what Kane was saying then, it wasn't really all that clear. Mulder, well, when I got there he didn't have his gun, and his hand was hurt. Again. And Kane was between him and the door. Whatever they'd been talking about, whatever had happened, Mulder was already starting to panic I think. Kane had him back in that corner, and he couldn't get out past the fire. He tried to talk with him at first, tried to talk him into leaving the house before it was too late. But he kept repeating himself, and when Kane started telling him he'd burn, he really started to, well, kind of fall apart. Kane told him he'd burn for what he'd done. "Kane . . .This is hard, Scully. He didn't make a lot of sense to me, and I was so scared." I took a couple hard breaths, pulled my robe tight around me. Scully was leaning forward in her chair, elbow grounded on her knee and hand, thumb under her chin. Her hurt arm was held tight to her side, where the bandages wouldn't bind. It probably hurt her burned shoulder to move that much, but she had other things on her mind now. "Kane talked about his sister. He accused Mulder of having murdered her and dumping her body in the bay, or hiding it somewhere, except he kept saying she wasn't Mulder's sister, too. He talked about her and about his own father and brother and everyone like they weren't who they were, like they weren't even human. He kept saying they were bad ones, and not real, and that he had to find the real ones and so did Mulder. But that Mulder had stopped looking." I got up and got another glass of water out of the bathroom, relieved to be able to step away from her. I was trying to remember words and nothing else, and trying to make sense of words that only a madman could understand. When I settled back on my bed she hadn't moved. "Scully, he kept saying that Mulder had lied about Samantha being kidnaped. It sounded like he was saying Fox had been kidnaped by someone who told him what to do but that he forgot, or lied, or wouldn't do it. I guess, maybe, maybe he was saying that aliens took Mulder. Because he said it was the same ones who took Kane, himself, and it didn't sound like he was talking about people. It sounds pretty crazy, I know . . ." Hell, I'd seen what I was sure were aliens and Kane's words sounded crazy to me. I looked up at Scully, expecting total skepticism. But she was watching me, working through it, and shook her head very slowly. "No, I mean, it sounds strange. But it makes a kind of sense. What else did he say?" Her voice had a hoarse, painful note to it, like her throat had gone tight on her. She had wrapped her good arm over her belly now, hand gripping the cloth of her shirt, and was watching me with a fixed, intent look. The hand of her burned arm was balled into a tiny, strained fist. I think her hands had been shaking before. Jerry rustled behind me, but she didn't have any attention to spare for him now. She watched me and waited. "I don't know what else to tell you, Scully. Kane kept telling him he'd murdered his sister, but he'd killed the wrong one. And Mulder was trying to tell him . . . I don't know, that he'd help him find his father and brother, that was at first. Then it was like he couldn't even think beyond where he was and what Kane was saying. When Kane started screaming that Mulder'd murdered Samantha. . . " I was sure Scully flinched. Her face had gone pale, and she'd shut her eyes. I thought the lashes looked darker, like they were wet. "Kane was screaming that Mulder was lying, that he'd killed Samantha, and that he'd betrayed whoever 'they' were, and that he'd burn for it. And Mulder really fell apart then. I mean, Kane had him back in the corner, and it was burning and the ceiling was on fire, and it was coming back towards them and Kane kept driving Mulder into the fire. Every time he tried to get past him out of that corner, Kane'd slash at him and cut him, and force him back further. And Mulder just came apart at the seams. He started screaming back at Kane, begging to get out of there, but neither of them were making any sense by then. And the whole wall was burning. That corner was full of fire, and Mulder couldn't get out of it." Scully had dropped her head, let her hair hide her face, body curled around some nameless feeling. I don't think she was crying, but she didn't want us to see her face. Jerry held very, very still. I think he was finally feeling ill. I had thought I was going to fall apart again, but I just felt numb and exhausted now. "The fire finally started to drop from the ceiling, Scully. And Kane was screaming that Mulder was a liar, and I don't really recall what Mulder was saying, only that he was screaming back and it didn't make a lot of sense. He just, I don't know, rushed Kane. I don't think he got stabbed. I think he took Kane a little by surprise. But the bastard got hold of him and tried to shove him into the fire, where it was really bad, and, well . . ." Oh god. Take big, deep breaths, get a sip of your water. "And I really didn't think about it then. I just ran and got a can from the room behind me, a paint can. It was heavy and I remember how it sloshed." I sniffled. "Isn't that stupid? I remember how it sloshed, and the wire was hurting my hand, but I swung it and hit Kane with it a couple of times, and he dropped Fox, and that's when he cut me." I let my hand trace the bandages over the gash across my ribs. He'd cut against the ribs. The knife had bounced. I remembered feeling it bounce. Knew if he'd cut with the ribs, likely he would have sliced open my lung. "And I was so mad. He'd cut me and I was so furious to even be there, that he'd done all this . . . I hit him again, and he fell over Mulder, and the wall fell on him, on his legs, and he was burning. I could smell him burning. It was with all the smoke and the other smells." I swallowed, my voice choked in my throat, trying to get it under control before I gagged. Jerry had moved up and was touching my shoulder again, my friend, Jerry, not the reporter Jerry. At least, I wanted to think so. Scully was still bent over her arms, hair around her face, rocking just the slightest little bit. I'd seen what her partner meant to her, how hard it was to let anyone else go after him, even when she knew she couldn't do the job. This had to be torture, wondering what she could have done that I didn't. I finally got my stomach to settle, got the memory to go back to the place in my brain where the nightmares live. Let my voice go flat and just read out the facts of the rest of it. "Kane had got hold of Mulder's ankle and he tried to pull himself out of the fire. Mulder was kicking him and he was using Fox's leg like a rope, hand over hand, until he could grab the lapels of Fox's coat. I had grabbed Fox and was trying to pull him away, but with Kane hanging on to his legs he was too heavy and I couldn't. Kane pulled himself out by grabbing Mulder, and then me. He nearly pulled Mulder back into the fire right then, but Fox finally just curled up into a ball. That's when Kane really got hold of me, and then there was cool air, and then the fire fell in on us. It all went black then. I don't remember what happened after that." I stopped, just stopped. What else could I say? Jerry had told me what we were like when they carried us out, but I didn't remember it. I glanced back at him now. His face was pale and greenish under his olive color, and his eyes looked bright. I wanted to ask him if he understood now, or wanted to hit him because he hadn't understood before. He looked away, and I heard Scully get up out of the chair. "Thank you, Emma. You've told me what I needed to know. I . . . I'll come by later and tell you how he's doing." Her voice was tight and flat, and I think she needed to keep it that way. If she was anything like me, she wanted to burst into tears and cry herself out. That's how I sounded when I couldn't let myself go. I moved from under Jerry's hand, caught her at the door. "Scully, I'm really, really sorry. I wouldn't have hurt him. I wish I'd known. I didn't know." Her eyes looked too bright, and her pale face made the circles stand out. Even her lips were pale, now. "I know. I just, I think you should stay away until he's feeling better. I'll tell you how he's doing." She tightened her mouth, got a harder hold of herself. "You're going to have to talk to the D.A. It may help to write all this down." Another sharp, painful glare at Jerry. "And the press have been trying to get up here for interviews, for ratings, before the story gets *old*." You could hear the venom in it. "The hospital won't let them near here, for insurance or security or whatever other reasons they might have. If they did *I'd* call and get guards to keep off them ward. None of us needs those vultures now. You maybe should know about them. If you get coffee downstairs they'll probably try to mob you." She didn't even need to glare at Jerry. That was about as subtle as the Nagasaki bomb. I let her leave and settled on my bed, and felt sick. Jerry stood at the window. For once he didn't take any notes. _________________ I wasn't sure which was worse, my nightmares or my conscience. When I was asleep Peter Kane came to me with fire in his hands, but when I was awake Mulder's words, and Jerry's, got me with their own special pain. Curiosity and shame in equal measures made my skin crawl. I couldn't stop asking questions in my head and I detested each and every one of them. Had Mulder killed his sister? Jerry said they'd never found a trace of her. She'd vanished into thin air. Could a twelve year old boy murder an eight year old, hide her body, come back and lapse into catatonia with never a sign of what had happened? After Scully left, Jerry had stayed a long, long time. He'd made me go over it again and again and again, but never took a note. Never loaded a tape. It was like when the cops made me go over Kane's attack on me, but it still hurt even hours later. Just not as bad, not as terrible. Something I could tell without puking, without rocking. And finally I asked him more about Mulder, asked for some of what he knew. He was keeping secrets, he always had. But he told me about Sam, and the way she'd disappeared. The police never found her. They'd pursued every suspect they could, including the one closest to hand, but his feet had been clean, no prints around his house, no construction nearby, no marks on the packed sand or witnesses or anything that could have pointed to the boy. Jerry didn't think he'd ever realized. By the time Fox was up and functioning the police had decided he could not have done it unless he'd planned it long in advance, and no one thought twelve year old Fox Mulder capable of cold-blooded, premeditated murder. No one but Kane. Jerry said Mulder didn't know what had happened to his sister, that he'd remembered her abduction only under hypnotic regression therapy. No one had ever been abducted by the lights outside our town, and all our missing time was pretty well accounted for by Jim Beam or Jose Cuervo, so I found it all hard to swallow. Jerry finally just fell back on Mulder's own investigations, on the strange things he'd run across and his contention that no other explanation fit the facts. I could tell Jerry was willing to give Mulder the benefit of the doubt on this one. The first time Jer had seen our lights he'd been visiting us and had driven out and there they'd been. I gathered he'd spent the night in his car, too stunned to drive back, and I saw the same kind of amazed acceptance now, while he talked about the X-Files. Whatever he'd learned, it was enough to convince him that Mulder wasn't crazy, no matter what else he was. At least, I hoped he wasn't crazy. Jerry had finally left, and I'd eaten my dinner and watched shows I couldn't remember. I fell asleep at lights out, but didn't stay that way. The flames were waiting for me in the night, and Kane's voice hissing poison, and Scully running into the fire after her partner. And I was trying to stop it all. When I saw the two of them go up in flames I woke, sweating and shaking. So, so quiet. The sound of water dripping from the tap echoed but it didn't touch the memory of flames. It took a long, long time to go back to sleep. _______________________ They kept me busy the next day. The head of psychiatry dropped by after breakfast. He'd already been to see the feds and was touching all the bases. I was surprised that such a busy doctor would come to see me, until it occurred to me that in a place that could only charitably be called a city, this was the most exciting thing in ages. This even beat interviews with trailer trash after Buck's Trailer Heaven got hit by a tornado. It was really refreshingly pleasant to talk with him. He didn't go asking if I was trying to 'resolve frustrated maternal urges,' aroused by Fox Mulder or Dana Scully or any other stupid Cosmo pop psych. After having my mom calling every day and dropping by and using her women's mags masters in psych this guy was a relief. We talked about what had happened, about Kane breaking into my house, and what I thought of Scully, of Mulder. And we talked about the fire. He told me I had done the right things, done the very best I could. He said he couldn't have done so well, was really amazed by what I'd done. We'd be talking again, at least that's what he said. I was glad I'd spoken with him, because I really needed every bit of peace of mind I could get when the federal prosecutor came to interview me, and had the FBI local office person, whatever they call him, along. I got dressed, thankful Mom had brought me clothes, because these people made me feel very nervous. We spent hours going over the same stuff, over and over. Thank god I'd done this with Jerry and Scully the day before. Not that these people were ever mean or hostile or rude. They were just clinical and they asked for details I hadn't realized I'd seen. I'd never been on the other side of this table. Even though I had a good idea what to expect, it was exhausting and stressful. By the time they cut me loose I just went back to my room and crashed. Slept clear to dinner. After the last couple days that was just as well. My back itched and stung and hurt, but it was healing cleanly. The doctors were pleased. They said I'd have only a few faint scars, and that I was truly lucky. And after dinner Scully came down and visited. "Hi, I heard you got grilled today." "Yeah, I hope Jerry didn't come by and play pit bull of the public good while I wasn't here to muzzle him." Scully stared at me, then laughed. It started as a little whicker that whistled in her nose, but rapidly grew into wracking hilarity that actually had me worried for her. I ran and got my old standby, the water glass, and wondered if I needed a nurse, but it sounded like just a really deep, relieved, belly laugh. She finally slowed down and took the water, wiping tears off her face and panting for air. "Oh god, oh Emma. Thanks, but I can deal with Jerry. It's you with your big mouth that's the problem." She snurfled and gulped her water down, and looked up at me. I could see my expression almost set her off again, but she got hold of it this time. "I'm sorry Emma, but it's true. You have this gift for saying exactly the wrong thing. Jerry knows what he's doing, and I can see it coming, but you . . . You mean well and you're smart enough, and you get started and all of a sudden, !BOOM!, you drop this bomb that I couldn't see coming and all hell breaks loose." She leaned over and grabbed a tissue from the box by my bed, blew her nose. "Ahhh, I don't know quite, er . . ." I did know. I wanted to yell at her or go cry or whatever, but she wasn't done yet. "Listen Emma, you really have a gift. Not just the other day . . .you were tired and just put your foot in your mouth, that you were horrified. But do you remember at the breakfast table, and the computer and, well, just about once a day minimum. You drop a buzz bomb. I bet it's great in discovery hearings. If that instinct for hot spots is always in gear you must really be hell on wheels at finding things your opponent wants to hide, but Mulder and I aren't used to that. He'd probably make you an X-File. Paranormal ability to totally say whatever will under somebody's skin." She finished the water, and grinned at me to take the sting out of it. I didn't see quite so much hilarity in it, but she might have had a point. "Thank you, Agent Scully. So nice to know you trust me to put my foot in my mouth." "I'm sorry Emma. It's just when you said that about Jerry, and he's not a risk. I don't like having him around. I'd be lying if I said I did. But he comes with you, and you've helped out so much, and, well, Mulder likes you. Hell, I like you, but I'm afraid to let you in a room with him right now. Between his asthma and your mouth, I'd have to write a list of forbidden topics, and somehow I'm sure you could find a new one." Okay, I was a big girl. So Scully was going to sit there and insult me. Lawyers are used to that sort of thing. "How is Mulder? I heard him last night again." She sobered fast, but she didn't have that terrible, locked up tension about her anymore and that was good. Maybe if it did her that much good, I could afford to take a few nasty shots. "Well, he's back out of the sedatives again. And the asthma's responding well. He's just really, really tired." She gave me a suspicious look, "and I don't want this direct on the pipeline to Rigg and whatever rag he's going to string this debacle to." I could have tried to defend Jerry's honor, she might, might, have believed me, but I didn't necessarily have a lot more faith in it than she did. I settled for the girl scout's oath and a promise on my passing bar exam. "I was really worried, Scully. I *am* really worried. The fire was so awful, and yesterday . . ." Scully must have seen I meant it. She sighed and nodded. "Yeah, it's pretty scary. We've been through some really bad stuff together," a jaundiced eye, "which I'm certain you know a little about. But he's tough. He gets over these things." I hesitated, then plunged in. "Jerry told me about Louisiana and Oklahoma you know." A nod. "Were they this bad?" "Worse in a lot of ways. Don't worry Emma. He'll be fine. I may even let you go visit without gagging you in a day or two." She grinned at me, handed back my glass and got up to go. "Scully." She paused at the door. "Thanks. I mean, for coming down tonight, and, well . . ." She nodded to me. "Good night, Emma." _____________________ Special Agent Fox Mulder might have distracted me from one night's sleep, but I was a little too busy to pay attention that night. I'd been feeling lousy all day, but that seemed natural after nearly being murdered by a deranged killer. The nurses took my usual whining with good humor, and brought me chocolate pudding instead of the dreaded pineapple upside down mystery stuff they were serving that night. I was scheduled to be released in the morning, and they were feeling pretty benevolent. I sat back and tried to enjoy my last evening inside, bathed in the faintly violet light of the fluorescents over my bed. I knew they used fluorescents because they were cheap, but it was beginning to seem that they were just intended to put the sick, dead and healthy on an equal footing, since everyone looked ghastly under them. Tomorrow I'd be going back to sunlight, and table lamps, and normal life that didn't have FBI agents or killers or bodies strewn around. Back to home, and work, and leases for strip malls. The idea of returning to normality should have thrilled me, but instead I felt abandoned, and ill. Abandoned I don't know about, but somewhere in the middle of the night I awoke, curled around coughs that rattled my lungs in my chest, and a fever that had soaked the rough, hospital sheets under my cheek. Chills shook me, even with blankets pulled up around my shoulders, and the burns on my back pulsed in time to the pain in my head. If Mulder was hacking down the hall, it was just one more misery to add to the catalogue. I didn't want to move, moving would let colder air under my blankets, so I just lay there and wished I was unconscious. I guess a nurse heard me coughing, because after forever the lights went on and someone was reaching over my back to feel my forehead. And all kinds of hell broke loose after that, from my point of view. Her feet took off and then someone was rolling me onto my back. Needle sticks in my arms, swabs down my throat, and I was listening to my teacher asking what I did on my summer vacation. Okay, teach, listen to this . . . People were talking over my head, and it clashed oddly with my teacher's voice, but I couldn't see my teacher there. And suddenly my teacher was gone, but Kane was there and I started screaming at them to take him away, but my voice was hoarse again because I'd been crying, and I started to cough and my lungs had burned up and it was so hot, so hot. I kicked off the covers before they could start to burn and begged them to find Mulder or Scully before the building burned, and was Frank Carson still down there? And did they get Tommy Dalbert out? I was afraid Tommy was dead, and sometimes I knew he was dead, and sometimes somebody else was dead. When daylight came it hurt my eyes, and I had made them close the curtains. They'd given me something that made the coughs calmer, made me sleepy, like Mulder. I giggled and sweated and they gave me things with names I couldn't pronounce. They kept talking to me, tried to tell me about staf-il-o-kokkus o-ree-us or something or other, and make me take the drugs they had. I took the pills and they gave me the shots, but I had to explain I'd been to law school, not medical school, and I couldn't remember about staff-cocked-up oreos or whatever. And then they let me sleep for a while. Sometimes Jerry was there, and once Mom was there. And then Scully was there, and I think Mulder was with her. He sounded sleepy and tired, but he was using whole sentences so he must have been better. I kept trying to tell him how sorry I was and how bad I felt, but I really wanted to tell him this was all his fault, and I certainly hoped he felt guilty about me being sick. And maybe I did tell him and maybe I didn't, but he didn't talk to me after that. I shouldn't have said those things, because Kane did talk to me, and if Mulder wasn't talking to me anymore Kane wouldn't have a reason not to kill me. I told Scully that but she said I shouldn't worry, that I was safe and needed to get well. And she and Jerry were talking now, so I guess Jerry had flirted his way out of trouble again, but he was asking her about the staff-cocked-up stuff and I wanted to follow it, but couldn't. It must have made good copy, because he listened without interrupting. And I tried to tell them about things, about how my house wasn't mine anymore. The strangers didn't listen, but Jerry did. I didn't tell Mom. She'd never understand. But when Scully was there once I told her . . . It was her fault, after all, hers and Mulder's. I told them about the night they'd come to my house, and how it wasn't mine after that. I wanted to know what she'd done with it, but she said she didn't know. And Mulder came back, and I asked him, but he didn't know. And sometimes I slept and sometimes I didn't, and sometimes I knew that not everything I'd seen was real, though I couldn't have told you which was which. Pneumonia. Two days later, and I was puking and shitting like mad from whatever deeply nasty antibiotic they were mainlining into me. It took that long for me to be able to follow what the doctors said past the pain in my head, and my lungs, and my back. They talked about resistant bacteria and stuff like Legionnaire's disease. Something about muppets and Jim Henson, but I was so tired, I didn't want to keep track of it. It all sounded like an X-File to me, and I wanted to go ask Mulder if the government was experimenting on us, or aliens had invented this stuff. Scully dropped by that afternoon, and this time I knew it really was her. She said we'd invented this one ourselves, and aliens had nothing to do with it. I wasn't really comforted by that thought, though I was happier when she said her partner was feeling better, and had asked about me. She didn't tell me anything else though, and she still looked tired. _________________ The sun glowed in the little hairs on Jerry's arms, and struck rusty red highlights off his hair, where he sat on the window ledge. His head was bent, fingers flipping through the mail he'd brought, sorting my letters from his. "Sorry about this, Emma. They got all mixed up in my briefcase." "It's not a problem, Jerry. Did Ed McMahon write me yet?" He looked up and smiled, although I doubted he could really see me. My half of the room was in soft violet shadows despite reflections from the blinding light that spilled over him. "You sound a lot better today." He hopped down, leather soles squeaking on linoleum. When he stepped out of the light he paused, blinked, probably couldn't see anything but spots. I grinned, though I knew he couldn't see it. "You're such a liar, Riggins. I still sound like a frog." Mail, days and days worth. Jerry went back to his perch in the sun, reading his own mail, cheerfully explaining how he'd wrecked my reputation. "You know your neighbor is really curious." "Yeah?" "She wondered what you were possibly doing with two good looking men hanging around." I could hear the vain grin in his voice. "And why you didn't introduce her to Agent Mulder or to me. She did thank you for letting her meet some nice firemen, however." "Whuh?" I looked up at him, totally baffled. I had to squint to see him. "Yeah, when your smoke alarm went off. Seems you tried to destroy a loaf of garlic bread while you and the fibbies went off on hair-raising adventures. I bet James Bond never left the oven on when he went off to save England." "Oh god, that's right." I recalled putting the bread in the oven, years and years, eons ago. Just before Kane walked out of my basement. "No, he just ordered carry-out." Christ, I nearly jumped out of my skin, and I don't think Jerry was much better. We both nearly dislocated our necks, snapping around to look at the door, where Fox Mulder was checking both ways just before he stepped in and found the chair hardest to see from the hall. "You order in pizza. It's got enough preservatives to keep it edible while you're out of town, but it's low maintenance." I swallowed. It was about the most I could manage. He fidgeted until he found a passable position in the chair, then studied both of us back. "Where's your keeper, Spooky? I thought Scully or one of the nurses was with you all the time." From the tone of Jerry's voice, I got the feeling he'd tried to get in to see Mulder in the last few days, and hadn't been well received. However that might have been, Mulder gave him this kind of sardonic grin. "I jumped the fence. They're going to want me to spend twenty minutes puffing their peace pipe, and eat enough pills to choke Timothy Leary. I figured this would be the last place they'd look for me." "You may be right." Jerry had come back into the shade, and was watching him very, very closely. Mulder leaned back and crossed his arms, looking more at ease than anyone I'd ever seen in a hospital who wasn't a doctor. Jerry finally grinned, and turned to fish in his briefcase. "After I met your partner, I picked up a couple things for the two of you. Ah, yes." He came up with two wrapped packages, took them over to my other visitor. Mulder looked like he was trying to decide between curiosity and trepidation, but he took them. Hefted the thicker one and looked at Jerry. "_The Hot Zone_. It seemed appropriate for Dr. Scully." Mulder snorted and started shredding the wrapping off his thin, flat box. Came up with a conspicuously tasteful tie, and what looked like a monograph on buying neckwear. For a moment I thought he'd gone into another asthma attack, but finally decided he was laughing more than he was choking. "I'm not sure which of these Scully will thank you for more. I know she wants to get a collar and a bell for Emma." I pulled myself up against my pillows, and wished my hair was clean. Jerry settled cross legged on the foot of my bed, while Mulder stretched his legs out and looked expectantly up at us. "Go on, you're trying to decide how to ask questions without having me go break your mirror, aren't you?" "You have a sick sense of humor. That was not funny at all. You nearly scared me shitless." Mulder just grinned at me, manic as hell. I figured being out from under direct supervision after all those days probably felt like a jail break to him. He had to work to catch his breath every time he started laughing, and his color was way too pale, but his eyes were clear and it was good to see him with some kind of expression on his face again. "Are you sure you're okay? I mean, you looked pretty bad last time the two of us saw you . . ." Jerry was leaning forward, and he wore that concerned expression I knew he'd practiced in the mirror for years until he got it just, exactly, precisely right. From the look on his face, Mulder wasn't any more convinced by it than I was. "I'd hate for you to have trouble. I can help you get back to your room." "That's all right, Mr. Riggins. . . " "Jerry." "Mister Riggins. When I want to go back I'll go back. For now I'll just stay, unless you have some objection?" He looked at both of us. My main objection was that I was pretty sure Scully would murder me when she finally found him, but I had a feeling that would not persuade him. Jerry, of course, was delighted to have such a scrumptious opportunity. "So, um. . . " God, talking to him was going to be like walking in a mine field. "You heard I burned a loaf of bread?" Brilliant, Emma. Mine field? Well, maybe I could bore him back down to his own room. I really had no desire to have Fox Mulder go out of his head in my room, and stop breathing or whatever it was he'd done. I caught myself watching his hands for those tremors he'd had when I'd visited him. No sign of them, but now that I was really looking at him his eyes were a little too bright, and he still had trouble getting air. I could hear him faintly, just a little gasp every so often. It made my pulse lurch each time I heard it. "So, what's this peace pipe thing?" I congratulated myself on finding a safe topic that wasn't on the level of children's television. Mulder pulled a face that would have been at home on a kid. "Alupenth. They get me in there and make me suck Alupenth down for twenty minutes, and then sit there watching me and waiting for me to get high as a kite. What do they have you on, Emma?" He levered himself back onto his feet to grab my charts, glanced through them like someone entirely too familiar with hospitals for his own good. Jerry watched him fascinated. I think he was waiting for him to start raving. "They're not giving you any of the good stuff," Mulder wheezed. He flipped the chart shut with a annoyed-sounding clatter and dropped it in the little basket on the foot of my bed. A quick scan out the door to make sure the nurses weren't on his trail yet, then he settled back into his chair. "They had me on something called Theophalin until yesterday." "Yeah? Why not now?" Jerry's intrigued question cut me off. Comparing meds might have been Mulder's notion of small talk, but I hadn't been in a hospital since I was eight. The names of drugs and numbers and all were making me really glad I'd gone to law school instead, and I wished the two of them would shut up about this stuff. "Tachycardia. They keep dropping stuff into you hoping it'll help, until they poison you and then they start eliminating crap one med at a time." "Look, Mulder. These doctors go to medical school and everything. I'm sure they know more than we do about all this." Jerry and Mulder both looked at me like I'd just said Santa Clause existed. "I'm sorry, but I don't want to hear about what you think of your medicine, or my medicine. I just want to get well and get out of here." He nodded at that. I could see he was bored, and hated being stuck in County General. "Yeah, I tried to check out this morning, but Scully threatened me. They want me in here a few more days." I groaned in sympathy. "Me too. They keep telling me 'you really scared us dear, nasty pneumonia, dear, can't let you go home just yet.'" I sighed. With my gummy chest I couldn't even do the annoying-nurse voices right. But Mulder was grinning, while Jer watched us like we'd *both* gone round the bend. "Yeah, and then they come in for that five a.m. blood work, 'just sting a minute, dear.' Sting, my ass, they had to dig around to get the vein, and telling me it's just like a mosquito bite." He was displaying an arm full of bandages. He pointed out a patch of skin with a really ugly bruise, shaking his head in disgust. I showed him my war wounds, and we compared vicious nurse stories. He claimed they threatened to sit on him to get him to keep wearing that mask, and take stuff that made the room spin on him. I told him all about my staff-cocked-up and he laughed and wheezed and choked until Jerry started looking alarmed again. Finally he settled back in the chair, and just looked wiped out. "Yeah. If I never see another hospital it won't be too soon." His eyes were drifting shut, but he fought himself back awake. Glared at us for no real reason I could make out and tossed me one of the land mines I'd been dancing around. "You two have some kind of notes on what happened with Kane. I know you do. Don't try to lie about it." Jerry's 'who, me?' expression was as believable as a campaign speech, and I must have just looked horrified because that's certainly how I felt. The blood was chilling in my veins as I imagined him going into respiratory arrest *right here* and Scully's face. "C'mon, Emma. I'm bored! They won't let me off the floor for anything but a few tests. No one will tell me anything. Scully won't let me get near my notes, and I hate daytime TV. They don't even have ESPN in this dump. I'm going to be humming the Barney song if I don't get something to work with, soon." He sounded personally offended. "I'd go down and talk to Kane, but the ward bosses stopped me before I got to the elevator and threatened to sedate me. Let me have your notes, c'mon." He shifted focus to Jerry. "I bet what you've got is pretty good. I've read some of your columns." Jerry looked nervous. I don't think the idea of Mulder knowing much about him appealed to him. "All I want is a copy of your notes, Riggins." He smiled widely. "And I protect my sources." "I don't know about that, Agent Mulder. I mean, you are under doctor's orders, and, um . . ." God, he even had Jerry off balance, now. I hadn't thought anyone could do that. Mulder was leaning forward, elbows on knees, trying not to wheeze at all and watching Jerry the way a mongoose watches a cobra. I got to play Rikki Tikki Tavi, and would have been much happier right then without either pest in my room. "You think I'm going to flake if I read your notes, Rigg? Give me more credit. You aren't THAT good a writer." "Ah, your partner . . ." "Already thinks you're scum, so you don't have a lot to lose. Not to mention I have no intention of sharing this with her at this point." Jerry fidgeted. "I just can't do that, Mr. Mulder." Mister? God, Jerry must be flustered if he had to play title games to get any advantage. "Agent or Doctor. PhD, Oxford, as I'm sure you know. I'm not going to do anything awful with those notes, Rigg. I just want to look over the closest thing they'll let me have to this guy's testimony. Look, I'll even say 'please.' They need to know how he's wired to put together their best case, but no one will let me near the guy or anything from interviews with him. Please, Rigg?" He wasn't begging, but he certainly was being more polite about asking than I was used to in my brief acquaintance with him. And a nurse must have heard him. Because suddenly a shadow darkened my door, and the biggest floor nurse was standing there, his arms crossed, glaring at all of us. "Do you come peacefully, Agent Mulder, or do we have to send in the SWAT team?" He had the thick neck and shoulders I usually associated with high school steroid use. He definitely looked like Fox Mulder wouldn't be any kind of challenge. He got a scowl back from his victim. "Agent Mulder, you really don't want me calling in Dr. Scully, do you?" Fox sighed, held his wrists out with exaggerated resignation. "Cuff me now, Tony. I'll come peacefully," he wheezed. Tony smiled and helped him out of the chair, escorting him out. "Whew. I felt the wind from that bullet." Jerry sounded relieved. _________________ It took a while, but the bullet hit later that afternoon. After Jerry left I watched the news, and saw bad pictures of myself from my yearbook, and not-so-bad pictures of the fibbies from some press conference. Even after almost a week, we were much, much more interesting to the viewing public than the drunk driver who had plowed into a convenience store. I drifted off during the sports report. It wasn't a peaceful sleep. I kept dreaming that I was in my room, feverish and too weak to move, while Jerry was trying to interview Fox Mulder, who was going into full respiratory arrest. Jerry kept telling him to just catch his breath before he tried to answer the question. And then Scully was there, snarling at me and asking me what the hell I thought I'd been doing to let Mulder sit there and talk with me and Jerry. It sounded funny, because she kept talking about me in the third person. When a male voice started telling her to keep her voice down, however, a sense of real alarm finished off that particular dream. I might have tried to fake my way through, but she caught me with my eyes open when she stormed in. Tony was more than a foot taller, miles wider, and way outclassed as he followed in her wake. "Courtland, I thought you were going to stay out of our hair." Scully was fuming. I took one look and decided she was too angry to really think it through, and too tired to be patient. "Scully," I winced at the whine in my own voice, "I didn't do it. We tried to get him to go home. He wouldn't! He said he was bored. I wasn't encouraging him." To practice law, you have to pass this exam of ethics. The first thing you learn to take this test, is that any time you find another lawyer doing something unethical your highest and best action is to rat on him. I fully intended to apply the same lesson to Fox Mulder. "You could have called Tony. He skipped all his afternoon medications and god knows what Rigg gave him." "Nothing. He didn't give him anything, no notes, no information. Scully, he was asking and we didn't tell him anything." I was starting to wheeze a little myself, answering her. Special Agent Dana Scully, with her lips in a pale line of anger and her free hand on her hip made the most intimidating judges I'd ever met look like amateurs. "Theoretically he's supposed to be resting. Instead he's in here playing supercop. What do they call that, Emma? Aiding and abetting?" The only way it could have been worse is if she'd been wearing a suit. I supposed the arm let her get away with jeans and a flannel shirt for interviews with the D.A. and whoever. "I didn't want to hide him!" Tony stepped forward, tried to get her out. She just gave him a patented "doctor glare" and he quailed. "You see Tony, here? I have to be away again, tomorrow." Lord, I was right. She was spending nights here to make sure he behaved. If he was that bad how the hell did she expect ME to deal with him? "If Mulder comes back down and tries to hide tomorrow, you tell Tony." Tony swallowed and met my eyes. The crossfire I could foresee between Scully and Mulder had me sweating, too. She glared at both of us. I think my wheezes finally got through to her, because she visibly got herself under control. I felt some sympathy for both her and Mulder. I wouldn't have wanted to ride herd on him. Little wonder she was so frayed she was acting like this. "When do they let you go home, Emma?" "They aren't saying." I had a feeling I sounded a bit like her partner. "They say they're worried about the pneumonia coming back." A long, long sigh. Scully's thoughts were easy to read right then. Mulder was bored, and Mulder hated hospitals. "He'll be back tomorrow, Scully. You know he will. He's not going to stay down there and watch Geraldo in peace." "I know. I do know." She grinned ruefully. "I hate this. The unwritten job description. All right, Emma. It's not a shooting offense, but when he shows up, please, promise me, you won't give him anything about the case, or tell him what you told me. Tell him about your leases, or about shopping centers or something." "Right." I grinned finally. "He gets chapter and verse on easements and future interests. And you don't murder me because he thinks this is a fox hole?" "Deal." She shook her head, smiled, left me and Tony there, counting our blessings. _____________________ "Go away, Mulder." "Scully got to you. I knew this would happen." "You're paranoid." "I'm bored." "You're supposed to be in your room, taking whatever vile chemical they want you to ingest." I got the feeling none of this was having much effect. I was suffering the severe temptation to get myself off the hook by calling Tony and just having Mulder forcibly returned to his room and his peace pipe, or whatever other things they felt like treating him with. "Scully put you up to this." He was sprawled in my chair again, wearing a robe that hid the bandages on his arms. He looked revoltingly good for a man in the hospital with near-terminal smoke inhalation. Actually, he just looked revoltingly good. I still sounded hoarse and phlegmy. His raspy tenor was back to its normal state. I felt grubby. He looked like a model for a hospital ad. I wanted to strangle him. Where was Jerry when I really needed him? "Didn't we go through all this, yesterday, Mulder? I'm not supposed to tell you anything you want to hear, and you're supposed to go away and quit getting me into trouble." I pulled my sheets up under my chin and wondered why the circles under his eyes weren't darker. I was still up half the night coughing and I knew he was worse. It wasn't fair. "Look, why do you want to know what Kane said? He's in custody. They have evidence of at least two murders and one attempted murder on him. Scully's doing the mop-up work. All you really have to do is get well and go home." He sighed. "Attempted murder of a federal agent would be a nice charge to hit him with. And easy to prove, with both of us testifying. Besides the fact that his attorney is going to try the insanity defense for the serial killings, but it probably won't work with the evidence we have on him." He licked his lips, grimaced. "The insanity defense? That old trick? Like Rocket J. Squirrel says, that never works." "This time it might. Usually, when your defendant says he didn't kill humans, he dissected alien fakes while trying to find the real humans, because a different species told him to do just that, the judge figures he's not the model of mental acuity. But when he tried to kill me, I don't think it was inside the structure of his delusion." "I don't know, Mulder. All that about you killing your sister and being a liar sounded pretty del. . . lusion. . . " I felt the words kind of go limp and drop on the floor between us as I realized what I was telling him. He had this tight, painful look around the eyes, and I could see the muscles in his jaw jump. He was breathing just a little fast, and might have been having a little trouble, but he didn't look ready to curl up and die or anything. I gulped and hoped I hadn't just blown it. "Okay, Emma. That's a start. Now what do you remember beyond that? Wasn't he screaming about his father? And his brother?" Fox's face was pale. I wondered how much of this he really remembered and how much he was faking. "Mulder, I really don't think you want to hear all this. And I don't think Scully wants. . ." "You don't think Scully wants you telling me." He leaned forward in the chair, watching me. I kind of squirmed and wished Tony would come get him. I'd meant to call Tony the minute Mulder had slunk in, but somehow I just couldn't turn him over to the authorities. "No. I don't. You've got enough on your plate. If Kane thinks you betrayed the little green men, that's his problem. You really don't need to get back into his head now that . . ." Mulder was breathing in those nasty little pants I'd started to recognize as a smoke victim who's upset. He might be trying to fake calm, but he looked like he was getting wound up again. I tried to play back what I'd just said to him, but I really hadn't been paying attention. I'd been watching the hall and hoping for rescue. He was bad enough at the best of times, but with my own medication making me woozy, he was really dangerous. His eyes were dilated, and I could see him trying to slow his breathing down, take deeper breaths. "I don't think this is a good idea, Mulder. I think you need to go back to your room." I reached over to slap the call button and send him on home, but he grabbed my wrist before I could hit it. The bandages on his hand felt rough, and I could see stitches running under them. "Is that where Kane cut you?" Oh god, kick my tonsils with the foot that was already down there. I looked up at him, hoping he wouldn't be as pale as I expected. He was paler, and his hand tightened almost convulsively on mine. I could see just a little spot of red on the bandage, and guessed he'd just pulled a stitch. "Emma," he had to pause, catch a breath, "tell me. Or let me read the notes, but I need to know what he said. . ." He didn't seem to notice the hand. A warm, dripping feeling rolled over my fingers and I really didn't want to look. I really wanted to call Tony, but Mulder wasn't letting go of my hand. "Please, Mulder. Let it drop. Why do you think you need to know?" His eyes were wide, and dark. This close, I could see a ring of brown shot with green around the big, black pupils. Could see the faint marks of the little burns healing on his face and neck, smell the scent of him, and of whatever they were dosing him with. "Why aren't you telling me? What do you think will happen?" "Why do you want to know?" "I. . . .I need to know WHY he killed them." "Because he's crazy. Because his dad beat him and he killed his little brother and his dad and he's . . ." Oh god, that really did it. Mulder let go of my wrist when he had to brace himself against my bed. His hand was all red now, and left these smudges on my sheets. I slammed my hand over my call button as I heard him start gasping for air, and felt my own panic making it hard to breathe, too. Oh Jesus, I wanted Jerry and Scully and Mom and it was taking forever and where was Tony? Mulder was braced and he reached over and grabbed my shoulder, pulled me closer so I could hear him. "He said he killed his brother? *pant* He said that? Just like he said I killed Sam?" Where the hell was this coming from? What was he asking me? I nodded, fast and out of breath, and he shut his eyes, and then a nurse was there. She wrapped an arm around him, trying to hold him up. I think his knees were going out from under him. I was trying to sob air in, and I could see he was even worse than me. She was yelling for Tony, and then he was there, and the two of them got Mulder out between them, and hauled him back down the hall. I could hear his gasps from all the way down the hall. I could hear things happening, hear the chuffing wheeze of that machine, and someone was yelling for some kind of medicine with a name I couldn't remember hearing before. Someone was standing by my bed, too, with this inhaler thing. Puffs and puffs of nasty tasting medicine. Gradually I realized I was breathing again, air was there again. And I listened to the commotion down the hall, and a couple of the other patients cursing Agent Mulder for the fuss, and I just wanted to cry. When Jerry finally showed up I told him it was too late to help me. He looked at the bloody smudges on my bed. I was going to have smudges of Fox Mulder's blood all over my life by the time this was over. And it was never coming out. Jerry held me tight and let me cry and cry. He tried to tell me this would all be over soon, and I could go back to my life. I knew better. My old life was still waiting for me, I knew that. But I couldn't ever go back to it. It wouldn't fit me any more, like a nice suit from college, I'd outgrown it. It was nice, and safe, and known. And I could never go back to it again. _________________________ Scully was hacked. I could see it. I thought I'd seen her mad before, but now she was past screaming or cursing or ordering. I don't think she was even mad at me, it was this huge, formless, rage at everything that kept this case from going smoothly, everything that kept her partner from resting, from getting better. In this case, she finally vented it at the D.A. "If that idiot had listened to me. If that dickless wonder had just paid attention, had gotten off his fucking pedestal and come down here. If his ego weren't the biggest thing about him. . ." And she was only just warming up. I knew she was down here, pacing and ranting in this low growl, because Mulder was out cold from the medication and they wanted him to sleep. She needed an audience, so Jerry and I were elected. I suppose it was another sign of her worry and rage that she'd barely even insulted Jer this evening. She was saving her fury for the officials who insisted she go to their offices every day to help them with their case. They'd dragged Mulder back to his room and done a batch of noisy stuff that had involved nurses and doctors rushing around. No doubt Mulder got pin-cushioned some more. I was a little too busy sucking down medications myself to pay close attention. Someone must have paged Scully, because her voice was ringing in the hall less than half an hour after everything went to hell. And sometime a couple of hours after that she'd shown up in my room. She had smudges of Mulder-blood on her, too. On her arm and her face. She'd washed off what she could in my bathroom and come back in to drop, limply, in my chair. The sun had set and her hair looked dull in the fluorescents. The tired, worried lines under her eyes and at the corners of her mouth were back, a lot darker than they'd been the day before. "I thought we had it worked out, Emma. I thought you understood that he needs to be a lot stronger before he hears all this." Her voice was quiet, too disheartened to be loud or angry. "Scully, I told him to go away. I really tried to get rid of him. The pills make me so sleepy, and he was asking questions. I slipped. I told him things I didn't want to, and then he grabbed me, and wouldn't let go. He wouldn't let me call for help. . ." She studied me, took in the smudges on my sheets, and on my shoulder, where he'd grabbed me. I hadn't even noticed that one until Jerry saw it and thought he'd hurt me. Hard to convince him that most of the blood splattered on my life was Fox Mulder's. Scully must finally have decided that I was outclassed by Mulder. She still had all that anger, all that worry. She'd finally had to direct it somewhere, and had raged at the fools who couldn't do their own work, or leave their offices. Who had kept her from being here to deal with it when her partner decided he needed to know exactly the things that couldn't help but scare him the most. So now she was pacing, and raging. Jerry had taken a corner in the shadows, where she might forget about him. I wasn't so lucky, and I just watched her, and tried to think of how to ask the things I needed to know. When she finally wound down into an exhausted spate of obscene references to the DA and the field officer and their parentage and proclivities I gave her a minute more. She settled into her chair and asked me to tell her again, and I did. She was working through his thought processes. I could see her trying to follow whatever trail Mulder was on, trying to understand what he needed to know so badly. "Scully, what's he after?" She looked up at me. I think she was half-startled to remember that I could ask questions as well as answer them by now. "I think he was trying to get the details of what Kane was saying about his brother, and about Sam. He said he needed to understand why Kane killed them." I gulped. The look in her eyes gave me chills. "Why does he need that so badly, he'd even try to go down and see Kane?" The startled expression on her face told me no one had mentioned Mulder's aborted attempt to get to the elevators yesterday. Maybe they thought he was just trying to piss them off. "He tried to get down to the secure wards? He told you that?" "Yes. He said he wanted to go see Kane, and no one would let him near the elevators." She nodded at that, putting another piece together, and finally sighed. "I think he's trying to get back into Kane's head." "Yeah, well, I DID work that much out." I got a glare for that, and probably deserved it. "Scully, why does he need to do that? It's not like you still need to play those games to take him to trial." She shook her head and looked away. Jerry was so still, and she was so tired. It's the only way I could understand what she told me next. "I think he needs to understand why Kane is the way he is, so Mulder can understand why he's not the way Kane is." And she took herself, and her faraway sad eyes, and went off to sit, and no doubt watch her partner sleep the sleep of the damned. _____________________ Most of the hall got a full night's sleep for a change. They must have drugged the living shit out of Mulder to keep him unconscious all night. When I woke at two-thirty, sweating and shaking and looking for the flames I knew were around my bed, it was quiet. Still. No coughs, no voices, nothing but my own panicky breathing in my ears. Somehow, knowing why it was so quiet, I would have preferred the noise. __________________ The morning was sunny, my hair was clean, and I was wearing bright, clean, cheery rose-colored scrubs. I'd gotten them from Dr. Lindsey in exchange for advice about tax breaks on her house. New dressings, lungs sounding much better, I almost felt human! So I got my wallet and decided on a field trip to the lobby for _real_ coffee, instead of the swill that came with breakfast. I checked to see if the fibbies wanted any, since Mulder couldn't leave the floor and Scully was usually busy. The floor nurse said she'd already left for her daily ordeal downtown, and his door was closed. I hoped that he had finally slipped into a natural sleep and left him undisturbed. The elevator down wasn't too crowded, so we all had plenty of room to watch the floor display and pretend we couldn't see each other. The lobby was mildly busy. These weren't really visiting hours, but well-dressed people with business here kept it from feeling empty. Lots of expensive shoes clicked or squeaked on polished marble down here. Coffee and croissants instead of oatmeal, the buzz of conversation instead of monitor beeps. . . yeah. It was nice to get off the eighth floor. I bought my cup of cappuccino and settled down by some ferns to watch people wearing suits instead of little gowns. People who moved comfortably, and who didn't have bandages. Especially guys. My, it was nice to see guys in the clothes I was comfortable with from my own profession. Two stubby little men with briefcases got onto the elevator. A slightly beefy, but still-attractive forty-something waited for a bouquet at a stall. Some guy left the stairwell and walked over to the coffee booth. Tall, thin, no rings. And familiar. . . . I sat forward and licked milk foam and cinnamon off my lip, trying to decide who he reminded me of. And nearly dropped half a cup of cappuccino in my lap when Fox Mulder turned away with his cup and headed back into the depths of the hospital. I'd only caught his profile, but no way would I mistake that face. He hadn't seen me at all, hidden in the middle of the bustle. What the hell was he up to? He wasn't even supposed to be off the floor at all! I wanted to ignore him, let Scully and Tony and the cops track him down, but my curiosity was itching at me. Maybe my guilt itched a little, too. I watched him vanish down the hall and tried to pretend I wasn't dying to know what he was up to. Then I dumped my cup and took off after him. Back here, away from the showy stuff, the lights were that nasty purple-fluorescent and the floors were plain linoleum tile. There were black skid marks on all the walls at about hip height, where gurney bumpers had struck. Fox was up ahead of me, practicing a technique I was quite familiar with. Pretend you belong and no one will challenge you. The drawback is you can't look around a lot, because then you're acting differently. He never had a hope of spotting me so long as he looked convincing. One stop to talk to a guard, and he changed direction. We were moving through wings of the hospital and I had no sense of direction left. We kept taking these turns that doubled back as they moved into buildings constructed at different periods. But I didn't need to find my way, all I needed to do was follow Mulder, and that was easy enough. Where most of the guys looked like they spent too much time sitting in front of computers, Mulder was very recognizable, as much from the rear as he had been in profile. There was a sign posted on the wall up ahead, and he paused at it, then turned down a hall. I followed, hanging back a little in case he'd slowed up for some reason. Secure Ward. That's what the sign said. The words were jogging a memory, a sense of vague alarm. Secure Ward. And Mulder. And. . . oh shit. I must have been stupefied by the morning drugs, Secure Ward and Mulder and Kane. Oh shit oh shit oh shit. I didn't hang back now, I hauled it down that hall. And got lost. Ward, I thought. One little line of rooms like the burn ward. Not this big suite of stuff. I ducked into a room where this man was sitting, in leg chains, and cuffs, and a little paper sheet. He stared at me, and tried to cover up, asking if I was the doctor. Whatever he had, it left a nasty rash, but I got out before I could worry more about it. Down the hall and turn a corner, and there were rooms, and the guys in the beds - and they were all guys in here - had restraints on them. All of them. Not bad, just a leg chain or something, but enough to make me really nervous. And the staff were looking at me funny, and guards kept trying to crane and see a badge on my chest that wasn't there. A big, big guy wearing a badge and a gun finally pulled me over, and asked what I was doing there. He sounded like he thought I was reporter or something. "Listen, I'm looking for a friend of mine. He's not supposed to be down here, but he's. . . " I sort of stopped as I looked in his face and realized just how stupid this was sounding. "Officer, I'm sorry for how this sounds. I know it sounds idiotic." God, I wanted to just shout at him and ask him where Mulder was, tell him to call Scully, whatever. "Look, please, did an Agent Fox Mulder just come in here and ask for Peter Kane?" Suspicious look. Now I knew what they meant when they said "beetle-browed." He reached for my arm. "Wait, wait." I didn't back away, I didn't want to alarm this guy. "Please, just call up to the eighth floor, ask for any nurse at all. Tony's up there, Carol, Pamela or Rhoda, any of them." "And ask what?" I gritted my teeth. "Ask them if Fox Mulder is there. He's an FBI agent. Please, he's a patient here, please. Just call." He looked at me. I swallowed, ready to launch into my best begging behavior, and finally he came to some kind of decision. "Why am I asking about the Fox Mulder character?" He was reaching for a phone, thank god. "Because Kane tried to kill him, and he's not supposed to come in contact with him." The cop looked up at me. Patterson, that was what his badge said. "Is this Mulder a threat to Kane?" He really looked concerned now. Visions of news crews and lawsuits must have danced in his head. "No, but if Mulder talks to him Kane may be a threat to Mulder. Will you just call, please? Tell them I'm down here. They need to call Scully. . . " I was getting past what he could manage, and I could see he still had a hard time believing anything I was telling him. I caught myself listening hard for wheezes and gasps around me, and getting jumpy when I didn't hear anything. The phone must have been ringing, he was tapping his finger at five second intervals. *tap*tap*tap*tap* "Hello, this is Officer Gene Patterson, down in Secure. We have a young woman down here who's insisting I call up to you guys. . . No, I didn't get her name, sorry. . . should I call psych?. . . she's asking about an Agent Mulder. . . yes, I'll hold." The look he gave me said he'd like to read me my rights. I only just kept myself from pacing. He straightened. Somebody must have come back on the phone. Suddenly, he was frowning, covered the speaker and looked up to me. "What's your name?" I reached over and grabbed the phone. "Hello, this is Emma. . . " "Emma, this is Tony. Mulder's not in his room. Where are you and is he with you?" Tony sounded like there'd be hell to pay, but I knew I wouldn't be paying it. "No! NO! NO! Tony, I saw him come down here and followed him. . . Look, can I tell you later? Tell this guy to help me find him and come down for him and call Scully 'cause I think he's gonna get really, really upset and yesterday will just be a practice run if he's in talking to Kane!" How Tony followed any of it, I don't know, but he must have. "On my way. Put Patterson back on." Patterson nodded twice, hung up. "Come with me." All business now, and telling another cop to send a "Tony Alvarini" back when he showed. Down more halls, ugly, plain halls with no pictures and old paint. My palms were sweating. These were smaller rooms, not the rows that had been in the other hall. No TV, why was I seeing that? Where was Mulder? There was a lump in my throat, and I was working to not think of what Scully was going to say. Patterson barreled down a hall to the left, stopping at a door. Like the rest of the doors here, it was bolted. I could hear a voice from the other side, one I'd been hearing whispering from the dark corners for days. The guard at the end of the hall looked up from a weight-lifting magazine, watching us quizzically. "What's the problem, sir? Agent Mulder hasn't called. They been quiet. . . " He sounded worried. Patterson glanced at him, sorting through keys by feel. "Not your problem, Ted. They got a problem they want the fibbie out to see." I almost wanted to laugh. I guess Patterson couldn't think of a way to explain what was happening fast enough. I knew how it felt. He was fumbling with his key ring, and I wanted to snatch it from him and start trying keys. I stood there, shifting from foot to foot, and feeling that cold, leaden sense of helpless anxiety. Tony wasn't here yet. God, what was going on? Patterson finally sorted out the key he wanted, opened the door. I wanted to race right in, but the dolt just stood there, blocking my view, keeping me back. I couldn't see Mulder, but I could sure as hell hear him. Low, choking voice, asking questions too softly to make out. The sound of convulsive pulls for a breath, between questions or statements that sounded horribly calm and level. And Kane's light, relaxed, almost sleepy replies. I shoved at Patterson's back and he finally stepped to one side, hand carefully settled on his sidearm. Kane was flat on his back, legs bandaged and immobile. An IV drip on the far side of his bed ran into his arm. Mulder was sitting in the single visitor's chair, pulled up on the far side, close to the side of Kane's bed. His face was terribly pale. He never even glanced at us. I'm not sure he knew we were there. All his concentration was on the man in the bed. "You know, they told me about you." Kane's tone was light, bantering. I figured there was morphine in the drip, and he wasn't feeling much pain. The head of the bed was elevated, and he watched the agent almost as intently as Fox was watching him. "And when I got into the UFO groups, well. You got a real underground following there. Not so many people, not many at all, but the ones who do know about you know a lot." Kane smiled at him. Patterson, next to me, watched, baffled. He was looking for mayhem, and didn't realize that was just what he was seeing. "So you learned about me through MUFON." For some reason that made Fox relax. I wouldn't have felt so good at the idea of this circle of strangers knowing that much about me. "And NICAP. But I really didn't need them all that much. I knew there were others like me, and I'd seen you on TV before. I knew you'd come after me eventually. You'd have to." "Other people came after you." "But they weren't hunters, not like you and me. They think everyone's real." Kane's voice was so comfortable, calm. The cop next to me was relaxing, even as my stomach was twisting itself into tighter and tighter knots. I wanted to tell him to do something, stop this, but the words snarled in my throat and I knew Patterson wouldn't understand what I was seeing. Mulder had stared at Kane long and hard, but I didn't begin to hope he'd finally leave, and I was right. "I'm not like you. I don't hunt people for sport. I only hunt the hunters." Too calm, too controlled. I could see his shoulders trembling with the effort it took not to try to seize a breath, the effort of holding his voice that steady. Kane's face showed sudden anger, fear. "You don't hunt anymore. You lied to them. You stopped hunting the one person you have a duty to hunt." "Samantha." Not a question. A shared truth. "I've never stopped looking." "You've stopped hunting. They told you what to do, and we'll all pay because of you." "We?" "You think I'm the only one, little brother? You think you and I are all alone? You don't hide your lies that easy, Fox." Kane was leaning up on his elbows now, fixed on Mulder's face, eyes intent. "You can try to lie, and you'll get away with it for a while, but they know you're there. We know about you. You hunted twice, little Fox. But you keep stopping. You betray them, they going to put you back in the fire, forge you all over from scratch." Kane smiled at him. Mulder's throat worked convulsively. "When did you know your father wasn't real?" When? What about how? "I knew when they told me, just like you knew last year that your sister wasn't real. See, you can kill the bad ones. Why you fighting it? Why do that to yourself, Fox?" Kane's soft, coaxing voice, laughing and coaxing. "But when?" Kane looked at him fixedly. He finally sighed. "I knew after we went to Roswell, and they talked to me but not to daddy. And not to Jay." "You killed your little brother." "No, Fox. I killed the bad one. I been trying to find my little brother, trying to find Jay. Like you need to do for your Samantha. You killed her bad one when you were little, too." He leaned forward, confiding. "Kids can tell these things, Fox. The kids know. You and I knew. I still know. Did you forget, Fox? Or are you just a liar and a traitor? You let me help you remember, Fox, I'll help you." A flicker of movement drew my eyes to Mulder's hands. He was reflexively clutching at the sheets on the edge where they dropped to the side of the bed. Clutch and release, and I knew there'd be red staining those bandages again in a moment. I wanted Patterson to just stomp over and grab him, pull him out to wait for Tony. The big oaf was relaxed next to me, giving me these condescending looks that good as said out loud I'd overreacted. God, he was blind. And I was mute. I didn't have the words to make him understand what was happening here. Maybe it was my face at last, maybe he'd just had enough, but Patterson finally started to do his job again. "Agent Mulder?" His voice was oddly quiet. Mulder finally looked up from Kane. "I think you'd better come on out of here, sir." Small town respect for the feds, even when the feds were half out of their minds. Damn it, Patterson, just haul him out of here! Mulder's eyes were flat, his pupils looked much larger than they should. I could see a muscle jumping along his jaw, could see his throat work as he swallowed, trying to get a clear, deep breath, and just getting this whistling little gasp instead. But he held very, very still, and refocused on Kane. "They contacted you when you were, what? Five?" I could barely hear Mulder. He'd leaned in so Kane could hear him, and the murderer watched him with steady eyes. Kane nodded. "Something like that. When did they contact you?" There were steps behind me. Tony crowded me in the door. "Agent Mulder, Mr. Mulder," he sounded out of breath. He had a small kit in his hands, and a guard who must have led him back here. "Mr. Mulder, I think you need to leave now." Tony stepped past me, towards the foot of the bed. Mulder ignored him. Kane glared at him. "Give me your hand, Fox." Kane's voice was a whipcrack in that quiet room, freezing us all. And Mulder, the damn fool, held his hand out and let Kane grab his wrist. I could see Kane's tendons, the muscles, see Mulder flinch at the contact. Kane pulled his wrist, pulled Mulder up onto his feet, braced against the side rail and leaning in. And focused the whole time, hypnotic. Mulder just let him pull, went with it as Kane shifted his grip. Two hands twisting Fox's one, pulling it up under Kane's jaw. "Right there, little brother. They put them right there." Kane pulled again, brought Mulder's fingertips along the bridge of his nose. "And here." Tony was staring, fascinated. I don't know whether he was afraid to break it up, or too enthralled to move. Patterson's gun had been out from the instant Kane had got hold of the federal agent, but pointed at the floor. I could feel the cold wall at my back, light switch digging into my shoulder blade. And could feel Kane's fingers on my skin again, see the tight grip he had on Mulder's hand, the smudges on Kane's fingers, his face, like the smudges on my own sheets. And Kane suddenly let go of Mulder's hand. Flashing movement and his fingers were on Fox's throat, digging under his chin, holding tight. The other hand was wrapped around the back of Fox's neck, holding him still. I could see Mulder trying to break away from it, see bloody hands trying to pry Kane's off of him, then dropping away. Kane had him totally locked in place, hand tight under his jaw, around his throat. No sound, not even gasps for air, nothing. Kane was digging under Mulder's jaw, looking for something, and Patterson was moving, reaching. Tony had locked his hand around Kane's, trying to get him to let go, but the banded muscles ridged in the man's arms. "Let go of me, Patterson. Let go nurse-boy. I break his neck if you don't let go. Little brother be fine. . . if you let go." That low, growling voice of nightmares, voice of killers. Through the ringing of fear in my ears I could hear Patterson yelling at Kane to let go. Mulder's eyes were shut. He wasn't fighting, and I don't know if he was even standing on his own. He sure as hell wasn't breathing. Patterson and Tony together got Kane's hands off him, and Tony yanked him out of range. Mulder had gone totally boneless and Tony had him on the floor a moment later, had his kit out. I could barely see his back by the foot of the bed, couldn't see Mulder at all, couldn't move. Patterson was immobilizing Kane, yelling at him, had restraints ready and was strapping the bastard down. Kane was just laughing, head arched back. He craned past Patterson, fixed on me. "Lawyer-girl! Lawyer Emma. You tell little brother there, him and me are gonna talk again. You tell him he wants to check his X-rays real close. We got people in common, him and me." He was laughing up at Patterson, now. "Tell him, Emma. Tell him to remember what we talked about! And we'll have a good, long talk next time. No visitors allowed!" Doctors were pushing in. The guard must have called them. The guy who'd brought Tony was in the hall. The room was too small for all the people. Somebody was shooting something into Kane's IV, trying to talk past his loud, shrill laughter. A doctor was on the floor next to Tony, and now I could finally hear Mulder trying to breathe, hear him flailing I think. The doctor was saying something about tubes, about ICU, yelling for some drug. I heard him say something to Tony about paralysis, god, and the room felt so far away. The sounds were hollow, ringing. Then somebody was pulling me into the hall, pushing my head between my knees and stroking my hair. There was a lot of noise, a gurney going by, feet. Kane's door slammed behind me, and locked. It was finally quiet. Only the hall guard stood there, shaken and pale, and a nurse I'd never seen. She helped me to my feet, gave me a cup of water. Sally. That was what her name tag said. Sally tried to talk to me, but I kept calling her Scully by accident, kept apologizing, and she finally helped me back up to eight, and my own room, and they gave me something that made me very, very sleepy, and everyone went away. _______________ The setting sun blared into my face, hurting my dry, grainy eyes. I blinked and swallowed, and a figure blocked the light. Sudden flashing memory of Peter Kane's broad body and balding head, his eyes, sent me scrambling backwards. I heard sounds I'd only ever heard from an animal hit by a car, and was ashamed to know they came from my own throat. Then Scully's voice, soft and weary, spoke from that blaze. "Emma." She'd stopped short of the bed, letting me know I was safe, that no one would touch me. "Emma. It's me." She ran her hands over her face, through her hair. "I've been waiting for you to wake up." "Yeah, you've been out for hours, all afternoon." Jerry's worried, alive voice was jarring after Scully's leaden tones. The mattress moved as he sat on the foot of my bed. I startled around, had to see his face, had to know it was him. He put a hand on my ankle, trying to calm me. I stared between the two, but gradually came back under control. And then I remembered why Scully was there, and I didn't feel scared. I felt sick. She saw the look on my face. She had to have. Jerry went and got a pitcher of water for me, and Scully gave me the glass I always needed for these little scenes. Then she pulled the chair over, where I wouldn't be dazzled by light when talking with her. "Emma, I would give anything to never have to ask you these questions ever again. I feel like every time I walk out of here, something is waiting to happen." She sounded so tired. She didn't have the energy to spare to fuss at Jerry. I was afraid to ask after Mulder, the look on Scully's face told me enough to make me not want to know more. "So. I got a call that Mulder was in with Kane. And then I got a call that he was in the ICU. What happened, Emma? What happened this time? And how did it happen?" She was settled in, exhausted, slumped back in her chair. "From the start?" "From the start, Emma." "Didn't Tony tell you? Or Patterson?" Why wasn't Jerry jumping in to help? Hadn't he already been to talk to all these people? Surely he hadn't spent the whole afternoon up here, waiting for me to wake up. "I talked to them, Emma. They told disjointed stories. Neither of them knew enough to understand what was happening, and it made no sense to them." Scully shook her head. Jerry finally spoke. "I spoke to them, Em. Tony thought Kane was homicidal, and Mulder was, I don't know. He thought Mulder was under too much medication, or still had problems from the smoke, didn't know what he was doing. Patterson just assumed everyone was out of their minds, including you. Scully and I couldn't get any real information worth knowing out of them." Scully and him? Scully and Jerry Rigg, working the territory together? Oh god, it must be bad if these two were working together. Sip of water, stall. Take a deep breath and start at the beginning. "I went down to get coffee." And tell them about the morning, about sitting and watching people. Seeing a man walk out of the stairwell, his back to me, and then about recognizing Mulder. Scully leaned forward then. I could see her choking her on own anger, wondering how the hell her partner even got off this floor to start with, and figuring it out. Knowing Mulder even the little bit I did, I strongly suspected he was inventive enough to manage a lot more than sneaking past busy nurses who assumed getting well and following orders were everyone's first priority. "I followed Mulder. I thought about calling up to here, but I'd have lost him. And then we were in the Secure Ward, but he was way ahead of me. I. . . I'd waited to make sure he wouldn't see me. And I couldn't, could NOT, convince the guard at the front that I had a good reason to be there. I kept asking about Mulder, but they wouldn't tell me. I finally got them to call up to here, but I don't know how long it took to get Patterson to do that. He thought I was crazy." I sighed. Patterson had probably thought I was a law enforcement groupie or something. Likes a man in a uniform. Right. "But he listened to Tony. He got off the phone with Tony and took me to Kane's room." I knew I'd been stalling. I really hadn't wanted to get this far. Remembering this made my guts hurt. I had been so sure we were all safe from Kane, at least. That the bastard was under lock and key, in a jar where he belonged. "And Mulder was talking with him, asking him about when he realized his brother and dad were 'bad ones.' About when the aliens first told Kane to kill them. Kane said he was a little kid, that they'd talked to him at Roswell. He said he'd killed his brother, Scully. It wasn't his dad who killed him. I think that scared Mulder a lot. He was trying to look like he wasn't upset or anything, but you could see him having trouble, Scully. Or I could. And that asshole, Patterson, just stood there like nothing was going on!" I heard the anger flare in my voice. It startled me. "And we just stood there, while Kane asked Mulder when the aliens started talking to him. We just let Kane ask him about Sam. He wanted to know when Mulder killed Sam the first time. Patterson must have thought Mulder would blow him off. He was saying Mulder had killed Sam a year or so ago, for the second time. It didn't make any sense." Didn't make sense to me, but it looked like it made sense to her. I was feeling cold chills up my arms, and ice-water knots in my belly, watching her take it all in like it made perfect, damning sense. "He said 'we', Scully. He said there were more like him." Jerry gulped. I could hear him. It was dark out, now. A helicopter, a long way away, might have been a star moving against the direction of the rest. "He said Mulder had betrayed them, and they'd all have to pay, that Mulder had betrayed them and they knew where he was. He couldn't lie and hide forever. Or that he had forgotten. He talked about MUFON and NICAP, Scully." I could feel it all unraveling. It made no sense, I was lost in what Kane had said and there wasn't anything in it, how could this raving help at all? But Scully and Jerry both looked at me like it made sense to them, and that scared me even worse. "He said they'd all suffer because Mulder had betrayed. . . whoever the hell Kane thinks is telling him what to do. Aliens, or god, or whoever. And he said they'd burn Mulder for it, like he was something they made. Forged. Scully, it didn't make any sense." Chills. She was watching me. "It. . . it didn't make any sense. . . did it? Scully?" No comfort in those eyes. No guarantee that insanity was all there was, or that it ended with Kane. All I could do was go on. "And then Mulder let Kane grab him. Kane got his hand, made him feel here. . . " I traced under my jaw. "And here." The bridge of my nose. Scully looked like she expected it, and had hoped like hell not to hear that. Jerry just hung on my words. "Tony got there about then. He just watched, too. God, none of us could move. I'm so sorry, Scully. I knew better. Even if Tony and that idiot couldn't figure it out, I knew Mulder shouldn't be there." My eyes hurt, but she needed information, not histrionics. I choked a second, poured more water. A couple deep breaths and I was ready to go on. "I really am not sure where everyone was standing when Kane grabbed Mulder by the throat. He'd been calling him little brother, or little Fox. Been telling him he would. . . help him." My voice choked to a whisper, I could see the look in Mulder's eyes again. Flat and scary, taking it all in. "Tony and Patterson tried to pull him off. He said he'd break Mulder's neck. I. . . he might have been choking him, Scully. But Kane was feeling up under his jaw, like he'd made Mulder check on him. And Fox. . . just kind of blacked out, couldn't breathe. He was trying to breathe. . ." Lick my lips, watch Scully's pale, scared face. Feeling Jerry next to me, warm and still. "Kane was laughing. He told me. . . told me to tell Mulder he'd talk with him again. He said, 'Tell little brother we'll talk again, no visitors.' And that Mulder needed to check his x-rays. It didn't make any sense." Please tell me it didn't make any sense, Scully. Please don't just sit there listening to me. Please tell me this was as crazy as I thought. She was shaking her head, but more with resigned bitterness, not with the denials I needed to hear from her. And Jerry just patting my hand. . . didn't any of them understand that Kane was crazy? That if Kane wasn't crazy. . . even if he was crazy. . . Oh god, let there not be more like Kane. I KNEW Mulder. I didn't believe he'd killed his sister. I didn't. I knew Scully didn't believe that, or that she knew something that made that part okay. But she wasn't saying there weren't any more of them. And my face felt hot, but I was so cold. So afraid. And just outside my window, the cold, bluish light didn't matter any more, and it was dark. "I don't really recall what the doctor said, Scully. Can I go see Mulder? I want. . . " She looked up at me, now. But not with that protective look that I'd gotten to know. Not like she was about to jump down my throat and tell me she'd gag me if I talked to him. More like she didn't want to have to say anything. I huddled up under my covers. "He's in intensive care, Emma. You can't go in the ICU unless you're next of kin." Her voice was gentle, and that scared me, too. "What. . . is he going to be all right?" "I need to go see him, again. I needed to talk to you. Emma. . . our boss may be coming out. He's going to call tomorrow at the least. I think he's going to want to talk to you. He's a bit. . . gruff. But he's a good guy. You stay calm. You tell him what he asks. Don't worry about anything, okay?" I nodded. "And you'll come back up and tell me how Mulder is?" "I'll tell you. I'll. . . I'll see you later, Emma." Tired and lost, faraway voice. She must have gotten lighter bandages, I hadn't noticed, but she was rubbing the hurt arm like it itched, and she could move it a little. I needed to see that, needed to see that one of them was getting better. She looked smaller than she really was as she walked out of my room. Jerry watched her go. Met my eyes when I looked around for him. "She was worried about you." "She's worried about Mulder." "No, she's terrified for Mulder. She was worried about you." He took over the chair she'd left. He was wearing the suit he'd had on the first day after the fire. The cleaners must have gotten my tear stains out. I hadn't really thought about how long he'd stayed, so far from his home, but he was starting to wear the same outfits twice, nearly a cardinal sin for Jerry. "Did you really work together today?" "Yeah. Yes, we did. Witnesses. . .the longer you wait the less they're worth. She needed her information fast, before they could edit it. So I helped her. She has guts. They had Mulder up and were working on him, and she was interviewing that idiot down in Secure to find out what had happened. You. . .you really helped a lot, tonight. You were so clear, and you realized a lot more than Patterson or Tony of what was going on." He poured me another glass. I scuffed my feet under the sheets, trying to warm them up. "How is Mulder? She wouldn't say." Jerry looked up at me. He even looked tired. "He's in the ICU, like she said. He went into a full status asthma attack. They. . .you really don't want to know all this. . . " He saw that wasn't true. "They had to give him something that paralyzed him, Emma. And they intubated him. More drugs, the full nine yards. If he's lucky, he won't wake up while they've got him down there." Jerry sighed. "What the hell could he want to find out so badly that he'd do that?" I looked at him, and thought about everything I knew about Mulder. Everything I'd seen him do. "You can't figure it out, Jerry? He was asking Kane why Kane's the way he is. I figure Mulder's asking himself why he isn't the way Kane is, and he can't come up with an answer. What would you do?" And Jerry couldn't answer that. I don't know how long we sat there, staring at each other, trying not to think about the monsters that didn't need to hide in the dark. It was a long time. Finally Jerry snapped loose. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Peel." A little, rueful smile. Faint ghost of a Jerry Rigg smile. "You have an early day tomorrow. You've got to talk with the feds, big feds. Promise you'll kiss and tell?" I smiled back, but I'd never heard Jerry have to force his humor before. It would have been better if he hadn't tried at all. And then they were gone, and I was alone. I left the lights on, and it was quiet that night, and even so it didn't help a great deal. _____________________ I wanted to see Fox, or Scully, or Jerry. A friend. Instead, I got to see the cops. I spent the first half of the morning explaining what happened to the DA and the federal prosecutor. Over and over and over. Kane's behavior was going to be used by the defense to substantiate claims of insanity. (They didn't need to sell it to me. I was convinced. Of course, I was half convinced Mulder was insane, too.) The crime boys hoped that something I had seen would refute defense claims, support the prosecution's assertion that Kane knew that what he was doing was wrong, and was manipulating everyone in the system. They'd finally come to us. The DA was particularly unctuous, making sure I knew how he'd gone out of his way to accommodate us. I wished he had lowered himself a day earlier, and come to Scully instead of demanding that she go to him. Sitting in a little conference room at the end of the hall, surrounded by x-ray tables and ledges with cups of stale coffee, I looked at this narrow-shouldered, pigeon hipped man, with his hair combed over his bald spot, and detested him. He was grilling me in a Joe Friday-voice, throwing off the mannerisms of a "tough guy," and on the attack with me. I knew he had to prepare, had to know the other side's arguments to combat them, but he went too far. When he asked if Mulder could be seen as goading Kane, manipulating Kane into the attack, I felt my ears ringing. I reached for my pen too fast, to sketch the room, and, well, accidentally knocked over a truly vile cup of cold, greasy, sweet coffee all over him. The poor man had to race off to get his suit to the cleaner's before the stain set, and I got to go talk to the police instead. They were trying to investigate this as an assault. Kane's lawyer was trying to find a way to use Mulder's visiting Kane as harassing behavior, precipitating an attack of irrationality. The federales and the DA were both rabid to get details on Kane, and were sure that he had had assistance moving state to state. When I talked about Kane's comments on "others" they practically drooled. Criminal prosecutors represented the state, not me, and they grilled me like I was the killer here. I left chilled, and wishing I could see Scully and Mulder. She was in the ICU, sitting with him, last I heard. The pshrinks got me next, debriefing me after the "good guys" got done shaking me down. The head of the department took the trouble to talk with me. Of course, only half the time was spent for me. I think he was planning ahead for dealing with a high profile case or two. He was taking notes on sheets that he hadn't written Courtland on. There are advantages to being able to read upside down. I got back to my room to find a cold, congealed hospital lunch, and a stack of phone messages that could give War and Peace a run for word count. Eight from Mom. That was one pile. She was worried but that was standard operating procedure for Mom. I gave her a quick call to forestall further interference and went back to my messages. Ooooh! Fifteen from various news shows and magazines. And one from Jerry offering to be my negotiator and telling me to have nothing to do with "the sluts" at Hard Copy. He finished by telling me he would make a relief run this evening with some "real food! Glazed haaaam, chocolate covered raaaaisins. . . " I could just picture Jerry doing Ren Hoeck and making Margaret Shin, at the desk, take it down letter for letter. Three from the office, wondering what I had gotten myself and them into. They'd sent a floral arrangement, too. They claimed they were getting lots of calls from people who wanted me for criminal defense work. That was good for a couple minutes of levity. With all the messages, it was no wonder Margaret had glared when I got off the elevator. Ahhh, crank calls. Guys asking me to "light their fire." Good fodder for trashball. Footsteps and I missed a toss. Dana Scully picked up the little, pink piece of paper and dunked it for me. "Thanks. Wanna help me get rid of my phone trash?" She tried to smile hello. She looked. . . even her red hair looked drab and limp. None of her gleam or the polish I'd seen when I met her was on her today. The dressings on her arm were lighter, but her arm wasn't what was hurting her. She settled on the foot of my bed and took a few messages, but barely glanced at them. I wasn't about to pressure her today. She'd tell me what I wanted to know when she knew the words she wanted to use. I trashed a few more messages and left her alone, staring at a message she wasn't really seeing. Her movement caught the corner of my eye, and I looked around to see her rubbing the bridge of her nose. Another message from my mom, into the trash. "Scully. . . " "Hm?" "I know your mom called, Margaret told me." Actually, Margaret had lamented that my mom didn't show the restraint of Mrs. Scully and only call once a day. "But Mulder's mom and dad haven't visited, or even called." I hadn't been really watching her, trying to give her space to simply deal with everything that had happened. When I heard her breath catch I snapped around, startled. Tears were rolling down her face, just tears. Whatever I'd said, I'd done it again. I scrambled up and shut the door, then came back and settled next to her, put my hand on her shoulder, but mainly just let her cry. A sob, deep and painful, shook her. I wondered how long it had been since she'd cried, since she'd been able to do anything for herself, deal with anything but anger. Her shoulders shook with holding it back, controlling it, but all that worry and fear and pain was crashing through her, and she didn't have a hope. She didn't turn to me or anything. She didn't want comfort. She wanted all this not to be happening. I knew what she meant. Somehow, I'd always expected she knew how to cope with all this, that he was the crazy one and she could put all the pieces back together. It took a long time for Scully to crush all that back inside, and her face was red and puffy with the effort. She finally drew a couple deep breaths and let me get a glass of water for her. When she looked at me, she must have seen. . . I don't know. . . that something felt broken. She shook her head. "I'm sorry. You didn't ask me to soak your messages." A shaky grin. I took a deep breath, too, and tried to deal with the idea that even the people who were supposed to take care of all the problems might not be able to make things go away. I knew it. I had used that knowledge against her before, but somewhere during the night, when I knew Kane was in the basement and that he wasn't alone, I'd realized, deep down, that I wanted these people to be able to make it all go away, make it all better. Wanted her to tell me it wasn't that bad and I was just scared of the dark. ________________ I looked down at the last few messages in my hand, fished out one with a familiar name. W. Skinner. I tried to recall who my clients were - back so long ago, when I did law instead of whatever I did now - or who wanted to put me on TV or. . . It was such a familiar name. Where had I heard it? Scully had wiped her face, blown her nose, and was looking for something to do. If she was like me, she wanted something that she could do to be useful again, in control again. I looked up and grinned. "Ever see a name you know you know, but you can't recall where you know if from?" She nodded, and I handed over the note. And watched her suddenly sit up at attention, even just reading it. And knew where I'd heard that name before. "Oh god, spawn of J. Edgar?" She shot me a dirty look, but grinned and reached for my phone. Her voice was very steady when she told whoever answered that she was with me, and that we'd wait. Scully sat even a little straighter then, and I was sure that her boss was on the phone. It wasn't hard to figure out this particular conversation from my side. "Good afternoon, sir.. . . .No, no real change from this morning. He's still under sedation. . . I'm here with Emma Courtland. She got your message. . . If you feel it's best. The local office has been helpful, but they may be out of their depth. . . No sir. . . Thank you sir. I'll let you know." All very civil, very steady. She handed the phone over to me, suddenly, and crossed her fingers. I couldn't be sure, but she may have been saying a prayer under her breath. "Hello?" I knew I sounded more tentative than I wanted. "Ms. Courtland." It was NOT a question. "I'm Assistant Director Skinner. Thank you for calling back." I caught myself sitting at attention, just like Scully, and saw the amused commiseration in her eyes. This guy's tone alone put you at attention. I almost expected him to tell me to be "at ease." "Uh, what can I do for you, sir?" There was a sound that might have been a sigh. "I understand you have been assisting Agents Scully and Mulder in an. . . unofficial capacity." I nodded, then wanted to kick myself. He went on without much of a pause. "I know you must have had to explain what has happened to a lot of people already, Ms. Courtland, but I'd like to hear it myself." I knew it. I just knew it. And he was right. I could recite this whole nightmare start to finish now, without breaking down, without hesitation. I'd told it so many times that now this part of my life really belonged to everyone but me. I wasn't sure whether to thank them for that, or be enraged at him and all the others for stealing a piece of me, no matter how horrific. I recited my last week again, smoothly and without a break. I told him about Tommy's corpse, about the picnic, about Kane talking to Mulder. Told him about Scully calling, and what I knew about the little girl who had been killed. I told him Mulder had a stress reaction at my house. (True. I didn't have to tell him why.) I told him about Kane at my house that night, and it could have happened to somebody in a movie for what I felt about it right then. "Then the agents stayed at your house? I believe I spoke with them that morning." From the reserved tone, he was fitting in all the information that Mulder had somehow avoided mentioning that morning. Like the direct threat that night Kane had approached him. "Sir, do you usually call after your agents yourself that way?" Curiosity was thick in my voice. He waited a moment before answering that. I got the feeling he wasn't used to answering back. When he finally spoke again, his voice was colored with faint, dry humor. "Not usually, Ms. Courtland. Generally the local Agent-in-Charge can manage whatever comes up. But agents Scully and Mulder are. . . high maintenance and very high maintenance, respectively." I could almost feel a grin on his face, and found my own in response. Scully looked really, really confused. I felt a bit better about what I would reveal when I went on. I felt safe leaving Wallace Posner out of my story, but I told him about Kane in my basement. Told him about Kane. . . cornering us all in the kitchen, and what he said, and what we thought he meant. And about Mulder suspecting Kane. No, sure of Kane, before he ever showed up. He asked me about that, asked me about watching Mulder sort through the files and. . . tell us he was sure, but he couldn't prove it. Skinner asked, but he didn't seem surprised and he didn't sound like he doubted a word. I swallowed sudden nerves at that. Spooky Mulder, wasn't that what Jerry had said? Spooky's boss clearly knew the name, and why he had it. I explained to Skinner about how we'd looked for Kane's car. Scully was mouthing something, and making little handcuff signs around her wrists, and I suddenly remembered the man who'd been arrested then. How had that one slipped by me? I told Skinner about him, too. And how Scully had gone off to interview him. The calm voice on the other end of the line sometimes prompted me a little, but mainly he let me tell all of it in my own way, at my own pace. And I told him how Fox had decided we really needed to get to Kane's, how he was so certain that Kane would kill Carson once the police were distracted. I was shivering, although I thought I couldn't feel that cold fear anymore. Skinner made little sounds that he was still listening. He seemed unsurprised at the idea of Mulder choosing to go after Kane without backup present. When I told him about Fox letting himself into the house, even before Scully got there, he just sighed. And he seemed equally unsurprised that Scully had done about the same thing. I had to take a long breath then. Scully knew my routine pretty well by now and had my water ready for me. I mouthed a thank you, and she nodded and patted my arm, below the bandages on my shoulders. Skinner gave me the time to collect myself. He seemed to know I needed a moment and then would go on. I told him about what I saw down in Kane's basement. Carson and Scully and Mulder, and the sandpaper and. . . I felt nauseous and had to stop a moment. Skinner told me to just tell what had happened. I told him about the torch Kane had, about him laughing. About how Mulder had been caught behind the fire, but had made sure Scully and Carson and I got out. Even Scully looked startled when I told him about it. I don't know if she had really seen the way he'd covered us, and gotten us out. Or maybe she'd been too worried, too scared for him, too hurt. I told Skinner how Mulder had shot Kane, and the gasoline had flared down there, and we'd lost him then when we had to run. I. . . didn't tell him about talking to Scully outside. I did, however, say I'd gone back in. I think he wanted to ask about why I had done that, not Scully, but he let me go on. And I told him about the dark, and the rooms, and the fire. There were tears on my face, now, but I couldn't feel sobs or fear, and my voice kept on whispering the details and the things Kane had said, and what had happened. And Skinner let me tell him in my way and my time. I told him I woke up in the hospital. He waited while I sat there for a time, thinking. My words were slow and careful when I told him about how his agent didn't remember what Kane had said to him, and that he needed to know it for some reason. Skinner didn't question that, or seem surprised. I told him about talking with Mulder, about how what he learned. . . hurt him, but he needed to know. Scully's mouth was tight, listening to me and how I described it. Not angry, nervous. Wary. And her fingers were unconsciously crossed. The hard part was coming. I told him how I had felt better and my pneumonia was responding, even though I was sure my pneumonia was not why he had called me. And about sitting in the lobby drinking coffee. He let me stall. And when I ran out of harmless things to say, I told him how Mulder had showed up, and about following him. And how Fox had bluffed his way into the Secure Ward, and just exactly what I thought of Patterson. And calling for Tony. He was waiting for me to get to why he'd called, but he let me do it in my own time. He had to. My voice still trembled when I described Kane, lying in that bed. He'd looked harmless then, but hadn't sounded harmless. I told Skinner about how Fox seemed hypnotized, about how we all were frozen, hypnotized, as Kane lead us into his twisted little world full of people hunting for things. And about Kane grabbing Mulder's hand and forcing the agent to feel for something under Kane's jaw, along the bridge of his nose. How Mulder had gone so pale, how his eyes were so flat, and how he hadn't been really breathing even then. I wanted to stop. I wanted to pretend that was all, and the scary things were all inside Kane's wretched head. But I told him how Kane had grabbed Mulder by the throat, threatened to break his neck. Scully was biting down on her lip, hard. When I'd talked to her the first time, I'd still been half-stunned. It sounded even worse now. It felt even worse. I told every word I could remember, watched the color drain from Scully's face as I told about Kane digging under Mulder's jaw, his warning about the x-rays, his promise to talk with "little brother" again. Skinner was so silent on the other end he might have been holding his breath. I told him how Tony and Patterson had finally pulled Kane's hands off Fox's throat, and how Fox wasn't breathing anymore. And the doctor, but then I had to stop. I didn't really know any more. And we sat there, me trembling, him taking it all in, until Skinner thanked me, and told me he was glad I'd been there to help. And he asked me to hand the phone back to Scully. I did, and went and threw up the cold, hospital lunch I'd eaten. I heaved and heaved, until finally Scully had hung up, and just stood next to me, with her hand on my ribs, letting me know someone was there. When I dropped back on the tiles, exhausted, she got a washcloth and helped clean up my chin. Finally she kneeled in front of me. "Emma, I got permission for you to come down and visit Mulder." Her voice was soft. She waited until I looked at her. "You don't have to, maybe you shouldn't, but I got permission." "You never told me why his mom and dad aren't here." She swallowed. "He. . . they don't talk. His dad's dead. His mom. . . they don't talk much. She wouldn't be able to leave Massachusetts. I'm listed as his next-of-kin. Please don't ask any more about it, Emma. It's personal." She offered me a hand up, and helped me out of the bathroom. I caught my breath out there, sitting in my own visitor's chair. The room felt cold. Clouds were scudding by outside, and I'd been living in here forever. I was never going to get out of here. If I tried, something would happen. I could just feel it all waiting to happen. "I want to go up with you, Scully. I need to see he's. . . " "He's not all right, Emma. He's in intensive care and they have tubes down his throat, and everywhere else you can put a tube, and a heparin lock in his wrist. He isn't awake, and he isn't pretty." Her voice was quiet, the words brutal. She'd seen him like this before. You could see that in her eyes, and see that it never got easy. That it only got harder, the more familiar the sight became. I swallowed. "Thank you. I mean, for warning me. I still need to see him." I didn't say I needed to see his chest move up and down before I could believe he was still breathing. I needed some sight of him, no matter how ugly, to replace the sight of him with Kane's hand around his throat. So we took the elevator down to three, to the ICU. They knew Scully, and they let us go in. All the rooms here had glass walls. You didn't worry about privacy when you were in a place like this. They had to be able to watch you, and every function, every sight they could monitor was shown on some kind of screen somewhere behind a desk full of people who didn't do crosswords, or read novels, while they were here. It was so quiet. The machines made most of the sounds. The people here weren't talking a lot, not laughing or complaining to the staff. Mulder was in one of these glass booths, down at one end. I had to look to find him for a moment. When I did find him, I felt my throat work convulsively from sympathy. He had this. . . tube, it looked huge, running down his throat. He was out, really out, and I was glad for that. His hands hung, totally relaxed, from heavy velcro straps around his wrists. The IV ran into a little valve in his wrist, and his eyes were sunken, shut, not even flickering with dreams. Scully said they'd had to paralyze him with some kind of drug, and were keeping him sedated so he wouldn't wake up and realize. My stomach twitched at the thought of waking up, alone and totally unable to move, with that thing down my throat. She must have seen me go white, because Scully grabbed a chair, and got me into it with my head down between my knees. I sat there until the room wasn't spinning, and until I could stop cursing Kane in my soft, hard, scared voice. She let me come up, stepped over to his side and took the hand that didn't have a valve in the wrist. He didn't move, of course. She said he'd know she was there, but I prayed he wasn't even that aware, not in the shape he was in. I was only supposed to be there about five minutes. I don't know why. It wasn't like we were tiring him out, but those were the rules. The nurses didn't come after us, however, and it was obvious they were used to Scully being down here. She'd probably been here most of the time since yesterday morning, when they had to have brought him up here. I sat in my chair and didn't make a sound. I didn't want to be present even that much, but I didn't want to leave either one of them alone. God, I hoped he didn't know anything right then. If he knew she was there, he'd know something was horribly wrong. A nurse finally did come in to turf me out. Her voice was soft, and she was really nice about it. Scully looked up at her, called her over before she could leave. Linda, that was what the tag on her pocket said. Scully was talking to her, not bothering to keep me from hearing. "Look, I wanted to warn you about something. He's got a high drug tolerance and you cannot, must not, let him come out of it at all while he's paralyzed. . . " Linda smiled reassuringly. "It's okay. We're really good about when they come out of it. I know it's frightening for them but. . . " Scully cut her off. "No, you don't understand. If he comes up at all, he's going to be in the psych ward. He had a childhood incident involving temporary paralysis. If he isn't totally under, if he remembers this at all, we'll have real, long-term trouble. Please, I'm a doctor, too. Trust me on this." Scully was watching her intently, making sure Linda didn't mistake this for simple worry. I gulped, feeling my own guts twist up even more, and looked back at him. Bad enough on it's own, what the hell had happened to him as a child? Hadn't he ever been safe? It was a long, long ride back up to the wonderfully noisy good cheer of the burn ward. Jerry was finally there, with food worth eating. I tried, but I really didn't feel like eating any more. He looked at me, at the dinner I'd barely touched. I could see he desperately wanted to ask, but he saw the look on my face and left it alone. We sat and watched TV that I didn't really notice until it was time for Jerry to go, and then I lay there in the dark, looking at the ceiling, too scared to let the dark come any further than my eyelids. I must have fallen asleep sometime that night, because I woke up to light the next morning, but I'm eternally thankful that if I dreamed at all, I have never been able to remember it. ____________________ When I paid for the coffee I couldn't help glancing around to be sure some disaster wasn't sneaking up on me. Bright sun gleamed on the marble floors. Well-dressed people scurried around. Two people, one well dressed, one scruffy and carrying a lot of fancy recording equipment, were intercepted at the door. The guard politely sent them back to the pack of vans and cars I could see outside. All of those had TV or radio station labels, and I had a feeling I knew who they wanted to see. Two cups of coffee warmed my hands, and a sweet young thing pushed three for me. I smiled at him, glad my hair was clean, burns mostly healed and scrubs looking good. It felt strange to flirt, and know that this guy probably had no worse skeletons in his closet than a few old dirty magazines. He smiled back, and looked wistful when I got off at the ICU. It was quiet up there this morning. I didn't see any nurses I knew, but there was that kind of intense busyness that made me glad to duck through Fox's door and know I wasn't going to be under foot. Scully looked up at me, and smiled as the scent of truly decent coffee wafted in. I handed her the cup, and leaned in next to his bed, studying him. The tube was out, thank god, but he was pale and hollow-cheeked under a transparent mask like the one he'd had downstairs. CPAP. Oh god, I buried my nose in my cup to avoid having to think about the fact that I knew the name of one of these machines. I'd have been much happier never having seen one. Scully had been reading out loud to him when I'd walked in, and she put down the book - the spine read The Quark and the Jaguar - and leaned against the other side of his bed, holding his hand, careful not to dislodge this little lighted thingy that was stuck on one finger. The hand on my side was still strapped to the bed, probably to keep him from messing with the IV that ran to a little, plastic valve in his wrist. I could see a couple fresh bandages on that wrist. The cuts and slashes on his hands were healing well, so I figured it had to be from the valve things - heparin locks was what Scully had called them - that had been put in before and taken back out. I sighed and brushed the hair off his face, ignoring the look Scully shot me. "Poor guy. Does he get pin-cushioned like this often?" I kept my voice soft. It seemed wrong to use a normal tone in here. Scully answered in a similarly low voice. "More often than either of us would like. Thank god it's not usually this bad." She fingered a little gold cross around her neck. "He wake up yet?" Now that I looked at him, I could see someone had shaved him, and washed his hair. I could smell soap and clean skin under the reek of drugs and antiseptics that seemed endemic to hospitals. I scratched at a healing itch on my shoulder. "Sort of." Scully was running her hand up and down the back of his, tracing the bones that ran so close to the skin now. Days in the hospital, and the strain of everything had melted what little spare weight he'd had. He didn't look starved yet, but I'd bet I could count his ribs from across the room. The bruises Kane had left were dark smudges under his jaw, on his throat. Scully finally shook off whatever thoughts she was lost in, and smiled across at me. "He kind of came half up a couple times since last night, when they took the et tube out." ET? She was smiling at the term, for some reason. "I don't think he knew very much, but I guess he recognized my voice. I think he slept better after he heard me. He'll still be dopey from the Versed for a while longer, but he knows we're here." She was still stroking his hand. He shifted, kind of restless, and murmured something I couldn't make out. Scully reached up and stroked his hair. Her eyes flickered in my direction when she did, and I had to grin at the possessiveness of the gesture. I doubt she knew what it looked like. I wandered around to see the book she'd been reading, and to sip my coffee. I didn't stay long. This time a nurse did chase me out, although Linda might have let me stay if she'd been there. I went back up to eight and spent a remarkably unpleasant afternoon getting my healing burns looked after, my lungs checked out, my oil checked, and spark plugs replaced from the feel of it. Jerry was in my room with a book of half-finished crossword puzzles when I got back. "What's the word from the front, Mr. Rigg?" "Hmph. What's a six-letter word for 'irrational pursuit of a goal'?" "Mulder." "I don't think it goes with five down. Maybe 'obsess'. Yeah. These things are too easy these days." He looked up from under coal-glossy bangs, and I really resented his taste in intimate partners. He read the thought on my face, grinned and ran the tip of his tongue over his lips. "You'll just have to settle for dinner without dessert, my dear." Pointed to a Japanese take-out bag that smelled exquisitely of teriyaki. I impugned the good character of his parents and flipped him the bird. _______________________ Another morning, another coffee run. Three cups today, since I figured Linda might be on and bribes never hurt anyone. The older woman who caught the buttons for me today was very sweet, but lacked the charms of my previous day's helper. I sighed and thought evil thoughts about Jerry, who had left wicked little footprints on my dreamscape. Third floor was fairly relaxed, for them. Linda was leaving Mulder's room. She had a basin and cloth in her hands, and smelled faintly of soap. "Morning, Linda." I handed over my present and enjoyed her huge smile of thanks. "Emma, isn't it?" Her lilting, English accent gave me the flash of insecurity I think most Americans have around Brits. We're sure our voices sound nasal and hick after theirs. "They had a dreadful picture of you on the telly last night, but I could still see the resemblance." "Great. Now I'll have all these crime groupies asking for my autograph." I grinned at her. She was already smiling, had been since she walked out, and she dropped off her basin. I sipped at my coffee and tilted my head towards Mulder's room, up the hall. "Scully in there? And how's Mulder." "Doing much better. He's actually talked to us a bit today." "Really? Oh my god!" I could feel an idiot smile of relief and joy on my face. "Was Scully there?" "You ARE joking, aren't you? She's always there. Dr. Hungerford tried to show her who was boss and order her out, and he lost." Something in Linda's smile made me sure Hungerford's humbling was a long-awaited event, and likely to go into permanent folklore. "I think she'd have used martial arts on him if he'd pushed it past the point where she flashed her badge." "She must be so relieved. God, she's got to be exhausted." She nodded, wrote her name on her coffee cup (I'd seen enough coffee thieves there to know why) and picked up a tray of medications. "Maybe now she'll go get some sleep. Thanks for the coffee, Emma. Why don't you go visit them? Give Scully a breather." "You said she hasn't had a break?" "Not since she napped in the break room, yesterday. We tried to get her to go home, but she's hunkered down for the long run. I think she's afraid I'll take advantage of him." Linda's grin was huge, eyes sparkling. I snorted. "C'mon, the guy looks like death warmed over right now." "Oh, you get used to it. You learn to see what they really look like, even with being in rocky shape. It helps to remember what you're helping them move back towards." She was checking stuff hung off her belt, and pulling together charts and information on other patients. I shook my head as she bustled off, and slouched down to Mulder's. Scully was draped in his visitor's chair, falling asleep and snapping upright as her head lolled. She gave this blissful smile as she smelled the coffee, and took the cup I offered with obvious relief. "Thanks. If I had to drink another cup of ICU coffee I thought they'd have to treat for ulcers." Her eyes were shadowed, tired, but her pale face was calmer. She didn't have the taut look of anxiety I'd gotten accustomed to, and she no longer flinched whenever a monitor made a sound. A little more sleep and a little less worry and she'd have that polished, FBI gleam back on her. I nodded, leaned against the foot of Mulder's bed and was happy to see his eyes open, though not particularly focused. Christ, even in this shape he looked better than some of the dates I'd woken up to in college. I shook my head and sincerely resented that anyone could look so good that they were still attractive after all the crap that Mulder and Scully had been through. Where did I go for a transplant of that? "I saw Linda when I came in. . . " Scully grinned. I swear, the expression just curled itself all the way around her face and up into her eyes, wit h a wicked look I didn't know she had in her. "Yeah, well, Mulder's a favorite of the nursing staff." Such a mild comment, but the wicked glint was still there. I looked back at him, took in the clean, wet hair, newly-shaved jaw, and the few damp spots on his sheets and started to laugh. I tried to stifle it. It was whickering out my nose and I had to put my coffee down to keep from spilling it. Scully just held his hand and sipped her coffee, smiling at some memory that shook her with little giggles every so often. Fox was watching her with a placid lack of comprehension that was probably a mercy at that point. I finally got myself back under control, wiped the tears out of my eyes. I couldn't remember laughing as much as I had with them. Oh course, the price for that laughter was pretty steep. I sighed. Scully was still smiling, but softly now. Holding Fox's hand and talking to him, soft comments. Telling him who I was, and that he had a visitor. He tracked over to me, and kind of smiled a little. I'm not sure he really knew who I was, probably just reacting to Scully, but it was still nice to see. Smiled back at him. "How long do they figure he'll be up here?" He was already drifting off to sleep. "Until his lungs clear up.. They'll have him up here until the x-rays look good. That shouldn't be long, he heals fast." I shuddered at the thought of how anyone would learn that. "Scully, you figure he'll still be out a while?" She nodded. "Why don't you go grab some sleep. I mean, you can use my room. . . " I knew damn well she wouldn't leave the hospital, but maybe she'd crash if she could stay in the building. She was shaking her head. "No. I don't want him to be alone. I don't want him to be with strangers when he wakes up." I grinned at that. "Simple enough. *Prang* you get your wish. Go nap. Just tell Linda I'll sit with him." Scully shot me her patented Scully look. "Trust me, Scully. The nurses are around. He smiled at me, you saw. He knows who I am, and you really need the rest. Besides, look at him," I could guess what she was thinking. "Even if I put my foot all the way down my throat and tap danced he's going to be too out of it to realize." Scully looked halfway between another giggle fit and embarrassment. I smirked past my coffee cup, knowing I'd caught her on that one. She still looked doubtful, however. I didn't want to think about how many hours she'd sat at his bedside, if half of the injuries she'd implied had happened. If I hadn't seen him face down fire for her, known he cared just as much, I'd have been taking notes to set him straight. "Scully, I followed him into a burning house. I followed him into Kane's room. I helped you put stitches in his hands and let you two get blood all over my stuff. I can hold his hand. I can talk to him. He's not scared of me. I know you don't really trust me. Hell, you two don't trust anyone much. But trust me this far. He knows me enough to know I won't hurt him, and he'll need you more when he's really awake." Soft, reasonable voice. The voice I pulled out when my clients were selling their dead parents' homes, the one I reached for out of that spot where I really felt it when other people hurt. The spot I'd always tried to stay far away from, and that Scully and Mulder kept pushing me back into. Linda was watching us, had probably caught part of it. The other staff were leaving us to her. She stepped in, Scully looked over at her. "Look, Dr. Scully, there's the break room. You can sleep down there, it's just down the hall." I saw the flicker of relief in Scully's eyes. "And I'll bend the rules, and let the ambulance chaser sit with him." Linda grinned at me. "Cute. Thanks very much, but I chase hearses and pounce on new inheritors." Scully snorted. I could see that if she'd had anything left she'd have argued more. All the caffeine in the world couldn't keep you running past a certain point, and she must have passed that point ages ago. She let Linda pull her out and park her down the hall, in what was probably a comforting and familiar surrounding for her. Then I leaned over the side of the bed, held Fox Mulder's hand, and told him about leases and equity and the Rule Against Perpetuities. I figured he'd get better just to keep me from poisoning his subconscious at that rate. If I tried really hard, I could see the guy who'd told me about being blindfolded with cucumbers, and who wrestled with Scully. Finally I just sighed, and told him back his own stories and hoped I'd see that person again. ___________________ We let Scully sleep. Once she went out she just slept and slept. Linda kept everyone out of the break room, and checked on me occasionally. One of the other nurses was really sweet and brought me a cup of their coffee when my caffo-globin levels started to drop. I sipped it and instantly suffered a bad flashback to law school cafeteria study groups, and cramming for Evidence and studying intentional torts. Fox mostly just lay there. Sometimes he'd open his eyes, kind of frown at me. If I hadn't known Scully was so damn exhausted I'd have gotten her for him. As it was, I just chattered to him myself. He was so thin, so fragile. It was awful to see how easily someone you knew could just become. . . God. All of a sudden I was thinking of Tommy Dalbert, and I had to wrap my hand around Fox's wrist and reassure myself that I could still feel a pulse, that he'd be all right, become a real person again instead of a patient. Bad, bad case of the shakes. And I didn't even want to think about the fact that knowing these two had turned me into that kind of object once, too. Scully finally showed about two thirty in the afternoon. I figured she'd slept five hours before anxiety, or whatever, woke her back up. His eyes were open, and he'd been sort of listening to me. I knew he was a little more there, since he'd said "Hi, Emma," when he roused this latest time. The minute Scully showed up though, it was like the rest of us just didn't exist any more. He smiled, actually really smiled at her, and I could see him squeeze her hand when she took his. "We've got to stop meeting like this. . ." His voice was so thin. "Too late. People already talk. Mostly Skinner and our insurance adjusters." He closed his eyes and tried to laugh, coughed a little. Opened them again fast, as though to assure himself she wouldn't disappear. She just kept hold of his hand, and he slipped back off, quiet and happy. The short walk down to the elevator was awfully lonely today. Up to the eighth floor to sit alone in my room and wonder if I'd ever have anyone who meant that much to me. ________________________ Jerry was holding up a burgundy suit and a pair of matching pumps. The embroidered Chaucer vest under the jacket went nicely with the silk blouse, but it really wasn't his color and I told him so. "You mean I can't borrow it? And I was hoping to be the next J. Edgar Hoover" "You are one sick puppy, Rigg." I was sorting through the make-up in the brown paper bag he'd dropped on my bed. "Yeah, but I'm the sick puppy giving you a ride home today. I hear you're out by eleven, and leave the towels and glasses if you please." He had also brought pantyhose and a carry-on bag for me to pack my stuff. I smiled and shook my head. "Just like the Holiday Inn." "Ummh hmm, except the Holiday Inn doesn't have a slavering horde of my carrion-eating brethren howling at the door." I looked up at him. "That's right, Mrs. Peel. They're waiting for you, among others, and you're going to need an escort." "Ah, so that's why you're wearing camera colors. I thought that was a little subdued for you." Jerry made a face. "Look, any chance you can get me up to talk with your friends before we leave?" He sounded wistful, looking around my room and doubtless thinking of all the interview opportunities lost with my discharge. "Not. A. Hope. And I'm appalled you would even ask." He gave me a shark grin. "You can't fault me for asking." "No, just for expecting me to say yes." ___________________ I'd signed lots of forms, and was sure I'd need treatment for sticker shock. They really wanted to kick me loose and get me out of their hospital right away, but they did agree to let me go visit before I left, since I had special dispensation to be up on the ICU. So I stranded Jerry in the lobby - to his tremendous disgust - and took two cups of coffee with me to the third floor, for old times' sake. Linda wasn't up there today, but the cup didn't languish at the desk. Scully was there, small surprise. She had her hand halfway to the cup as I walked through the door, kind of a Pavlovian response to seeing me these days. She hesitated, taking in the suit, then finished the grab for the gold. "Congratulations. You must be glad to be going home." She seemed. . . odd. A little distant. I figured it for the suit, since she was wearing sweats and looked pretty ratty with her hair pulled in a pony tail and no make-up on. The circles under her eyes and the hollows under her cheeks looked like she was trying to earn a bed here again, the hard way. "Yeah, I ditched Jerry at the front lobby. They wanted to park me in a wheelchair and get rid of me, but I insisted on coming up to visit." Mulder's eyes were open today, and he actually looked awake. He eyed Scully's coffee and gave a forlorn little sigh. "Any chance I can have some of that?" I was startled to hear him at all, and the wispy little shred of a voice didn't help. Scully eyed him over the edge of the cup. "Not a hope. Even if you were supposed to be doing caffeine I wouldn't give up a drop of this stuff." He managed a thin imitation of a patented Mulder grin. "I guess I know whose time of the month it is." She snorted and guzzled her coffee with sadistically dramatic pleasure. "I can see you'll be back to your normal self in no time." Mulder looked back at me, smirked, but he was starting to look tired again already. "I. . . I wanted to drop in before I left. I'll visit tomorrow, if that's all right?" I looked at Scully, getting the warden's permission. I was. . .relieved? When she nodded. I don't know, it just didn't feel right to simply walk out and leave them and that's that. I couldn't walk away from them - from everything - just like that. _________________________ The air was crisp and sweet, and the bare branches of the trees stood harsh against the blue sky. Unfortunately, I got very little opportunity to enjoy it. A nurse wheeled me out, for fear I'd slip in my heels and sue the hospital. Jerry flanked me, for which I was profoundly grateful when I saw a solid wall of reporters, cameras, microphones and paraphernalia gather and charge. He got in and fended them off. I've never seen anyone deliver "No Comment!" with such conviction, style and verve. Shouted questions about "Agent Mulder," "Agent Scully," "The UFO Killer," and "Louisiana," made me truly delighted he was there. I scrambled into his ostentatious Beamer and we got out of there. Of course, I couldn't be that lucky. They were already staked out at my place. My neighbor, Karen, was flirting with a tall, well-built camera man and shot me a resentful look when he hustled over to jostle with his colleagues and get a shot of my lovely face. Jerry and I threw ourselves into the safety of the front hall, got our backs to the door, and collapsed into hysterical giggles. "Oh god, you didn't warn me. . . " "I did! Don't you ever watch the news?" "They never do this on McNeil-Lehrer." "Snob. Did you see your neighbor?" His eyes were dark and sparkling, thrilled at turning the tables. I was wheezing and coughing a little, but not badly. A toot on the inhaler my doctors had sent along and I was breathing freely and giggling like a maniac. Slid down the door to sit on the tiles of the hall, my legs out in front of me and the toes of my pumps pointing to the ceiling. The early afternoon sun warmed the hall, and picked out the little traces of black powder on the walls, and the bigger smudges of rusty brown on the door jambs and front curtains. My giggles tapered off. Jerry's face went quiet, concerned, as he watched me. I don't know where it came from, but hurt and loneliness under my breastbone suddenly rocked me with a little sob, that became a big one as I sat there. No tears. No more sobs, really, either. Just that quiet, lost feeling as I stared around my front hall and realized I'd always know those stains were there. Always. Jer pulled me onto my feet, and I followed him docilely enough into the living room. My computer and my phone machine were undergoing the China Syndrome from message overload. I settled on the couch, kicked off my heels, and watched them blink as I heard my friend pull together a cup of tea for me in the kitchen. The faint, faint odor of burned garlic bread still hung in the air, but mainly I smelled a stale odor of no-one-home closed up house. The cup felt hot and solid between my hands. Jerry started sorting through my phone messages, writing down the personal ones and erasing the PR flacks and media hounds. I watched him for a long time before I realized I was straining my ears, trying to hear footsteps where there weren't any. I must have made some sound. Jerry turned, and watched me go to the CD player, load Robbie Robertson and Richard Thompson and set the tracks and play American Roulette and How Will I Ever Be Simple Again over and over. I don't know what he thought. He watched me, then turned and finished clearing my messages. He must have turned the ringer off. The phone was silent. I settled behind my computer and ran through the email. Message on message on message. Most of them useless. One though. . . a forwarded message, for ghost_wrtr. How Fox's friends had found me I wasn't sure. I didn't want to ask. I opened his mail - he'd read mine, after all. It was just a get-well message from "the Gunmen," and a note that snooping on other people's email was nasty and if I wasn't Mulder I should be ashamed. And a post-script that if I was Mulder I should probably be ashamed too, but for entirely different reasons. I printed it out and put it in my purse for him. The messages back to friends went fast. Jerry had brought in our bags and was sitting on the couch, waiting. "Are you ready to talk about it, Emma?" "I thought you had your exclusive already." He nodded. "Fair shot. But yes, I do have my exclusive. Want to tell me why you're so depressed to be home?" I glared at him. Sanctimonious little. . . "I'm not depressed. I'm. . . it's stress. PMS." He snorted. "Like hell." He held out his hands, shaping the size of a thought. The late sun had left these rooms behind, and he looked somber and strange in the dark suit. "Emma, we race home through the mingled hordes and you grin like a maniac, smile for the cameras, yell 'no comment' like a politician. But you step through your door and you're lost." His voice was gentle, familiar. "You've been listening for people, or drowning out silence. Your song titles are. . . " He glanced at the CD player. "Talk to me, Emma." "I. . . I don't know, Jerry." I looked around, turned my machine off. I went to the wall, and looked for the light switch. Turned it on. The reporters were still out there, but not so many. I wasn't who they really wanted, and I wasn't commenting. I heard him sigh behind me. "It's okay. Why don't you go to bed, Emma? I'll stay in the guest room, unless you don't want me here tonight." I almost told him he couldn't have the guest room, it was Scully's, when I realized it wasn't. I looked back at him, bit my lip, nodded. Not very long after a quiet evening, I went upstairs and crawled into bed and tried without luck to find my own shape in the mattress where it used to be. ____________________ It wasn't so hard to get out in the morning. Jerry still ran interference, but he didn't have to work at it today as much. No one at all pestered us when I ran into the office. Everyone smiled at me. I waved and smiled back, but the rhythms of the small talk jarred today. Tommy's face was still with me. He'd never walk in here, never try to buy a house, or start a business, or divorce a wife. The tall, out of shape men here could have been Frank Carson. None of them could be Fox Mulder. None of the women gleamed, bright and sharp and glossy. The carpet seemed less rich, and the thin spots on fabric of chairs stood out. There were fingerprints on the light switches. I checked in with Human Resources, gathered a handful of files for homework and fled. We stopped at the very best bakery in town, where I bought coffee and napoleons for Jerry, and more coffee and rich croissants and Danish in a bag. On the trip up to the hospital we listened to the news announcer tell us Peter Kane would undergo psychiatric evaluation at the order of the court, hearing to be held in nine days. Jerry met my eyes, but we didn't waste words. Jerry stayed outside, chatting with a friend. It was cooler and he kept his hands in his pockets, I saw as I went through the automatic doors. I came back through the lobby from the strange perspective of heels, a suit, not the scrubs and ID bracelet that had camouflaged me so I belonged here. Up to three, and down the hall. And a twist of panic as I looked through the window and saw a stranger. It only took a minute to figure out, and one of the nurses recognized me and told me where to go. I was lucky. They'd never have told me at the front desk. Back to the elevator and up to six, down a hall marked Pulmonary and Respiratory. I thought I'd need to wheedle a nurse, but when I saw a door with a dark-suited man seated by it I played a hunch. He wasn't much taller than I was, but he was burly as hell and I stopped when he told me to. "Could I see some ID, ma'am?" I'd become a "ma'am" to store clerks years before, and it broke my heart then. From this guy it sounded like a formal title. I tucked the paper bag between my teeth and fished my wallet out of my purse. I was just handing across my driver's license when the suit's eyes went past me and a pleasant smile actually made him look human. "Emma, sometime that trick is going to stop getting you on my good side." From Scully's voice though, today wasn't that day. I grinned at her past the bag and retrieved my license. She scooped the cups out of my hands, letting me grab my bag, and lead me past the bruiser and through the door, where she stopped so fast I almost ran into her. Over her shoulder I could see a familiar, suited figure sitting next to Mulder, holding a cheesy flower arrangement with a Hallowe'en theme of ghosts. Mulder looked tired, but was in the middle of answering a question. I watched, fascinated, as Scully's shoulders visibly tightened. I was surprised she didn't squash those cups and send coffee flying everywhere. As it was, she slammed her heels into the floor with the force of her stride. "Mr. Waverly. I believe I spoke with you yesterday." Ooooh. If I were Waverly I'd watch it, and hope my cleaner knew a lot about coffee stains. Mulder was watching Scully with a look I could only identify as weary exasperation. I grabbed wall and leaned back to watch, planning to stay out of this particular crossfire. "I do recall our discussion, Agent Scully. As I told you yesterday, however, the hearing is approaching and we need to be prepared." Mulder was off the mask, and looking much more alert than he had yesterday, but that was really damning with faint praise. Right now he was pushing himself upright. I could see the muscles in his forearms kind of quiver with the effort, and the strain around his mouth and eyes. "Scully, he needs to get the background on. . . " "Mulder. I have known you for more than two years. In that time, the one thing I have learned is not to take your medical judgment of your condition under any circumstances." My. I wouldn't have tried to argue with her, but I could see him collecting his points. Waverly looked relieved to be off the hook, and put his flowers down and picked his tape recorder up. "I think I've tired Agent Mulder enough for today. I'll pick this up tomorrow. . . ?" He directed the question straight to Mulder, who was nodding even as Scully was shaking her head. Waverly made strategic retreat, and I could read his lips as he went past me. He was up there with Newt on his opinion of strong women. The things I saw him mouth about Scully put a sour taste in my mouth and made me wish it had been Waverly's suit I'd besmirched that time, instead of the D.A.'s. Croissants wouldn't do much damage, and would be a waste of good pastry. Scully shot leftover temper off in a glare at me, but I wasn't making a move to draw her anger. Not a word, not a syllable. I knew only one word that might defuse the tensions in that room, and I used it. "Croissant?" Scully stared at the open bag. Fox's face absolutely lit up in this blissful smile, as he shoved a can of something that looked like Slim-Fast (tm) to the side of his tray. I grinned back, and felt safe getting in arm's reach with my peace offering. Scully finally realized she still held my cup of coffee hostage, and relaxed into a faint, tired smile, trading me the cup for a chocolate croissant. "Emma, you just moved up on my list of favorite people." Mulder had fished out a cheese Danish and was slowly nibbling his way through it like he wanted to make it last. I could see jello and protein drinks on his tray. "You're not supposed to be eating that." Yep. I'd just walked through the door and already broken a rule. Scully's tone was relatively mild however, and I had a feeling she wasn't going to demolish me for this one. "You eat this crap and tell me you wouldn't kill for a Danish. They outlaw this," he tapped the can, "in landfills because the stuff has a half-life over a million years. Toxic waste, and they want to shovel it down me to get rid of it." "Mulder, you know perfectly well. . . " "That I'm going to have another Danish." I pretended to be too busy with my coffee to fend him off, and I don't think she had the heart to stop him. He sounded a little wired. The sugar was probably kicking his system into overdrive. I made polite noises and saved Fox from further temptation by giving the rest of them to the suit at the door (kind of like meat to guard dogs) and came back to settle on the visitor couch, a vinyl crime against comfort and aesthetics, but convenient. Scully was looking protective, and I was just as glad I hadn't intended to stay long. I did want to see them however. I hadn't realized how much until I'd felt that lurch in my gut when I saw the empty room downstairs. "You're looking much better." Thin, but his hair was shiny in the sunlight through the window, and his color looked better now that fluorescents weren't the only light. Scully, sitting on the foot of his bed, didn't look too much better by now, which said a lot about the shape both of them were in. Mulder licked Danish crumbs off his lips and nodded. "Yeah, they let me up here last night. It's nice to be up where you can hear something other than machines." Another tiny bite of Danish. I could see him flagging. His eyes were definitely bigger than his stomach. By now that might almost be literally true. Scully was watching him with that look medical types give you when you eat bacon, or ice cream, or a steak. The one that says they won't be to blame when you have to pay for the damage, but they sure wish you'd stop. To her relief, he had to abandon his Danish halfway through, dropping it with a regretful look and slumping back in the pillows. "You are going to regret that Danish. You've been warned." She pulled her legs up tailor fashion and sipped her coffee, eyeing him. Probably looking for immediate Danish fall out. "What? They're going to revoke my rights? Not let me dangle today?" I snorted coffee through my nose and doubled over coughing. Mulder grinned at the effect, and I could see Scully biting the side of her mouth to keep from laughing. "You have a revolting sense of humor, Fox Mulder. Emma, are you going to choke to death, or are you going to quit spraying coffee on the floor?" I got some control, and wiped my nose and mouth, trying to force a glare through my snickers. "They make me sit here, swinging my legs, before they let me try to stand." He was probably trying to atone for nearly killing me with my own coffee. Scully watched him relax back, too tired to even really grin, and sort of drop off to sleep. She sighed and shook her head. The sunlight picked shadows under her eyes as she got up and came over, dropping on the couch next to me. "He really does look a lot better. I mean, yesterday he was. . . " I kept my voice very low, letting him sleep. "Yeah, but he needs so much more rest." I heard outright worry. I'd have thought she'd relax, what with him off the ICU, but I could see the tension still in her. "It's going to be awful when they discharge him." I snapped around, kind of startled. "Discharge? But. . . I mean. . .He can't even finish two Danish." "Tell that to the medical evaluation committees." Bitter little snort. "The two-Danish test does not appear on the checklist they use when they review their insureds." "Oh lord, Scully. And you're back out at that hotel?" She nodded. "Are you two going then? Back to D.C., I mean. . . " I was amazed at how my stomach dropped at those words. She sighed and looked frustrated. "No. I wish I could go back, both of us. But we have to stay until at least the hearing." "Nine days now?" She nodded. "And they really want to get to Mulder, get their experts all lined up. So much of his work he keeps in his head, damn it. And he doesn't help." "I saw. He really wants Kane." Her face pinched, a sudden twitch of fear shooting through the worry. I swallowed and thought about what I knew of them. "Nightmares." Her flinch confirmed it. I just sighed. "So when is he out of here?" "Three days. Maybe two. Depends on how fast he gains strength, not that he'll be very strong when they do cut him loose." She drained her cup. "Scully. . . " Oh, I wanted to walk carefully on this one. I knew I wanted to help, but I wasn't comfortable with my own reasons. She wouldn't feel any too sanguine about it either, I suspected. "Scully, you're out at that hotel. I know it's mobbed by reporters. How are you going to be able to manage things out there?" I glanced at her, and away. She understood that, knew perfectly well that her partner would not be able to manage alone right away. She didn't need me stomping that point home. "I. . . I guess Robertson," she nodded towards the door, "will help." She didn't sound any too happy with it. I hesitated. "Um, you know, I have an idea." I was rubbing my finger up and down the bridge of my nose, nervous. She gave me a look that was just about what I'd expected. I could see her bracing for an Emma special. "You know, it worked out pretty well to have you guys at my place that night, and, well. . . " I didn't dare look at her. Dead silence for a moment. "Go on." Too soft to read any emotions. "Ah, well, I'm still on leave, and I'm going to need to heal myself and I'll be home, and maybe you two could stay at my place. . . ?" Finally looked over at her, and was almost startled to see a calm, thoughtful expression on her face. "That would be a serious imposition. . ." Please, c'mon Scully. I didn't want to be alone in that house. I didn't want to be alone with all this. "Let me think about it, Emma." She smiled. "It's a kind offer. It may even be a good one. Let me think about it." It was as good as I was going to get. I stayed a few more minutes, then Scully saw me out. I got the warm-and-fuzzies when she told Robertson I was on her approved visitor list for Fox. He smiled and thanked me for the pastries. Another mouth to bribe. Then I went home, and read files from work until my eyes glazed and spent the rest of the day trying to figure out what to do. There really wasn't anything. I finally just cruised the net, looking for any sign of anything. . . odd. Looking for the mark of Kane. _______________________ God, did I feel sorry for Dana Scully. I'd turned on the nightly news and there she was, mobbed. Every time she tried to get the key into her car lock, a flash went off and blinded her. It very neatly gave the cameras a chance to get more footage. Jerry, next to me, sighed and munched popcorn. "Vultures. If they were smart, they'd use a more subtle technique." I snorted. "Oh, yeah. Right. Like wait until she's sick, or half asleep and then question her?" Jerry grinned. "You have to admit, the story I got out of that was very, very good. And he really did come across as the knight in shining armor." He was right. I did have to admit just that. Jer had brought a copy of his story, filed days before, when I was way, way too busy to worry about small things like world peace and journalistic integrity. He'd managed to get in all the titillating, thrill-packed, danger-ridden impressions and leave out feeling ill and scared and tired, and crazy. Fox Mulder had looked sane and noble and brave in print. Good looking photo, lousy tie and all. And the thing was loaded with quotes of yours truly. I sounded bright, and brave, and lovely. Scully was absolutely saintly in print. I'd had to read it with the inhaler loaded, I'd been laughing so hard. "True, Jer. You made the Fox sound down-right sane. Good work, and if I was sure you'd burned your notes I'd be a hell of a lot happier." "Since when do you protect the Feds from the guardians of the public's Right to Know? They want to know what brand of condoms he likes and her favorite positions, that's my job. . . " "Jerry, you may be a dear friend," I leaned over and grabbed a handful of his popcorn, "but you have a filthy mind, and the morals of a stoat." "What's a stoat, and will it give an interview?" He grinned, then scowled at the set. Threw popcorn that bounced off and fell on top of the pile on the floor. "I hate that asshole. Homophobic little twerp, and he likes to screw the make-up girls. He's got a fake vasectomy scar so they won't make him wear a rubber." I stared from Jerry to the unctuous, too smooth reporter. "Jerry, you're making that up. . . that's too horrible! I mean, pregnancy and. . . " He nodded. "Oh yeah. Several pregnancies, and they never think it's him. He used a razor, two little cuts and some salt and instant vasectomy. Bastard. He's caused at least one suicide. And he keeps trying to bust my balls cause I like direct current instead of alternating." He wasn't playing with the popcorn now. He'd put down the bowl and was glaring at the reporter on the set. "Now there's a story I'd like to write. And I wouldn't do the whitewash I did on your Feds." What could I say to that? I finally reached over and just pulled Jerry against me, across my lap. He started to tense, but relaxed when he realized I wasn't making a pass at him. Let himself just lean against me. "Jerry, I take back what I said about your morals. For now, at least." It was a relief when the news was finally over, and Jerry didn't see anyone else he knew, and could tell me about, on the set. _______________________ I was back up at the hospital. I had legitimate reasons to be there, too. They checked my shoulders, scolded me for the few scratch marks, and cheerfully informed me I was very lucky. I informed them I felt I could have been a fair bit luckier. I wadded my prescriptions up in my purse, then headed up for the seventh floor to pester Fox Mulder and Dana Scully some more. What else did I have to do for the day? Go make certain all the clauses and conditions were right in a hundred page long shopping center lease? Root canals have the same charm. They were letting Fox dangle. Two nurses flanked him, to Scully's immense amusement, and watched his reactions as he swung his legs off the edge of the bed and tried to convince them he was fine. They finally did let him try to stand and walk across the room. Robertson, outside, had his back turned but the amused smirk on his face told me that this was a routine now. I studied Mulder's legs and decided that he probably had to go through this at least once a shift. Scully had her arms crossed and was visibly chewing the insides of her cheeks as he flushed bright red and tired to make the walk to the couch look effortless. For his sake, I was glad he had a bathrobe. Scully met my eyes and had to absolutely screw her face up to keep the laughter in. Her partner was sprawled on the couch, glaring at her, and Robertson was making little choking sounds as he watched my face out of the corner of his eye. I just leaned in the door while the nurses crooned encouraging things and hovered. I could see Mulder was used to this routine, and it had probably gotten old sometime during the Reagan Administration. "So when's she going to take you away from all this, Agent Mulder?" He favored me with a really toxic look for that one. I nearly had to go for my inhaler. I was quashing laughs so hard I was about to start coughing. Scully couldn't hold it any longer. One nurse was nice enough to look slightly apologetic and pretend to be professionally distant. The other was just grinning out right. She shook her head and made him head back to bed. "Really, Agent Mulder. We don't do this just to harass you. If we did, we'd hide the bathrobe." I'd thought he was red before. . . "I will be so glad when they let me out of here, and I can get back to the normal sadists and psychopaths." He was trying to fend off another can of high-protein drink. "Can't I have a filet instead? That's high protein. . . " "Why you're not dead of a heart attack I don't understand." Scully was helping the nurse plant the can back in front of him. "We'll miss you, Agent Mulder." The nice one was fluffing his pillows. I swear, Robertson was going to strangle on his tongue from holding that laugh. I leaned down and asked what he was doing there, low enough to be out of earshot. "Besides sitting ringside on the comedy hour?" I nodded. "Theoretically, I'm protecting Agent Mulder from reporters and alleged psychopaths inspired by Mr. Kane. I kicked a Lois and Clark team off yesterday. Mainly, I was told that he might recover faster, and be more mobile than expected." Robertson nodded back towards the room, where Mulder was loudly complaining that he no intention of talking with Dr. Fitzgibbon, who I remembered as the Grand High Pshrink. It looked like nice-nurse was going for the sponge bath kit, and Mulder switched aim to let her know he could and would manage a shower. That was when Scully walked out and shut the door behind her, leaning against the wall and letting all the giggles she'd been holding loose. Robertson finally joined her. "Is he always this much fun in the hospital?" Robertson probably would have done this one for free, from the look on his face. Scully sniffled and got herself under control. "They usually figure out which nurses can deal with him, and put them on a special team. Once they figure that out, he loses every time." "So, when does he get out? And how are you going to deal with the reporters. . . ?" I saw her stiffen, and figured that for a sore spot. "Well, our medical review people are still holding to tomorrow. Especially since he's able to walk across the room. He'll be picking up really fast after this." Robertson nodded. "He tried to go for a walk this morning, before you got here. Said he wanted to go up and down the hall." Scully stared at him. Robertson pulled an apologetic grin. "The guy who handles night shift mentioned it in passing. Said he had to keep a hand on the wall to stay upright, but was pretty determined. We called the nurses down on him." "Sounds like Mulder." Her voice was resigned. "He'll be trying to go running within a week. Not succeeding, but trying. And he's going to want to talk with that damned prosecutor, Waverly." "Is that so bad? I mean. . . if Waverly doesn't stay too long?" I didn't like the man, but if Mulder was picking up that fast. . . Scully shook her head. "He's pushing too fast. He's not as strong as he wants to be, or thinks. And Waverly stirring up all that doesn't really help at all." Robertson nodded. "Yeah, Douglas said something about dreams." Scully shivered. I didn't like to think about it, and the hall was not the right place, no matter that everyone there was too busy to snoop. I had a feeling it was no secret here, either, if Mulder was having nightmares. Which jarred a memory, and I pulled the email out of my bag and handed it to Scully. She rolled her eyes at the heading and folded it. "So, they figured out where we're staying." I raised an eyebrow. "I mean, were staying. . . " She seemed to think it back over very fast. "Emma, you've probably got enough reporters around but. . ." "Offer's still open, Scully. And I meant it. You're welcome to stay at my place. I won't even charge you for the cable." She looked. . . relieved. "Thanks. If it's really no trouble. . . " God, did I have to twist her arm behind her back? Self-effacing worked better for Mulder than her anyway. "Scully, quit being ridiculous. I offered. I meant it. I'd rather have the company right now." The look she shot me was careful and appraising, but she nodded. "Okay. I'll let you know when I get the specific discharge time on him." I smiled, waved good-bye to Robertson, and left to get my place ready and let Jerry know he'd have to make other arrangements. Somehow, I suspected he'd be delighted. _____________________ Since I'd had my number changed and unlisted, my phone had barely rung. So I nearly jumped out of my skin when it blared away on the table next to me. I dropped the sheet I'd been putting on the sofa bed and grabbed the receiver, wondering what Scully or Jerry or my mom needed. "Hel-lo." "Ms. Courtland? This is Walter Skinner. We spoke before." I dropped the phone. I could hear his concerned voice as I picked it back up. "Are you all right, Ms. Courtland, Ms. Courtland. . . !" "Uh, yeah. Sorry. You just startled me. This is an unlisted number. . ." He didn't dignify that with a response. "I understand you're extending your hospitality again." ". . . Yeees. It seemed like a good idea. . . " What was he getting at? Was this considered a gift and against the rules? "I take it Scully's been talking to you." "Actually, Seth Robertson mentioned it." Seth? "Is there a problem?" "Not at all." His tone changed, he must have just realized what this had sounded like. "Not at all, Ms. Courtland. I actually wanted to thank you. Don't hesitate to use the per diem to cover food and expenses for Agents Scully and Mulder. Let them know there will be no problem signing off on the expense reports. Primarily, I wanted to verify that you would be able to. . . manage any eventualities." "You mean like the reporters?" I suddenly found myself grinning. His voice was so reserved, I'd missed it at first. "Is this part of the high-maintenance stuff?" I actually caught a chuckle that time. I wondered what he looked like. "Yes. If you need Robertson, he's on call. He knows I'm giving you his number. Do you have a pen and paper?" I took down the suit's number, wondering at just when I ought to call him. "Ms. Courtland. . . " I noticed the shift of tone this time, suddenly serious. "Is there something else?" "Yes. Robertson's main role had been to make sure Agent Mulder didn't. . . overextend himself. But if you do have trouble with him or with the press, or any other situation arises, I want to be certain you will not hesitate to call him for help, or me if it comes to that in this matter." Hints. God, I hated hint games. This was like interpreting State Department comments. "Sir, exactly what are you. . . " Kane's competency hearing was in eight days. Kane. . . "Mr. Skinner, do you think Kane might have meant it when he said there were others like him? What are you getting at?" He paused, not quite sighed. When he spoke again I'd have labeled the tone chagrined. "I don't expect there to be a problem, I honestly believe that man to be delusional. But if anyone on Earth attracted a copy-cat serial killer under these circumstances, it would be Agent Mulder. I very much doubt you'll have trouble, but I'd rather you have the phone numbers and were alert. Frankly, I think the one I need to warn you about is Mulder himself." "Yeah, Scully's covered that pretty well. I guess he's not a good patient." My knees had gone to jelly for a moment, but at least my voice was still steady. Skinner's amused grunt did more to reassure me than anything I could have heard right then. "That's the understatement of the decade, Ms. Courtland. You will call if a problem arises?" I promised, and hung up, wondering just what Mulder and Scully did for the FBI that merited this kind of personalized treatment. That question nagged gently while I finished getting the guest room and living room ready, and hovered while I went grocery shopping. Snarling at a couple reporters who followed me through the store distracted me for a bit - I really enjoyed watching their cam-man slip on a squashed cherry tomato - but I came back to that after I got my supplies put away at home. I'd pumped Scully and Jerry enough to know that Skinner was an Assistant Director. Not a position that would normally call some small-town lawyer to make sure the sheets were fresh and the food would be decent. So I spent the afternoon cruising, checking into all kinds of weird net addresses and trying to track down information on Uncle Sam's oddest niece and nephew. I didn't get a lot. I got more rude email than I got hard information, but what I did get. . . What I did get kept me from being able to concentrate on my leases, and I spent my evening writing down odd hints of information and rumor and trying to find patterns that could make any sense at all. _______________ County General admitted defeat in the matter of F. Mulder, Ph.D.. I learned that when Scully called to let me know they'd be there that afternoon. She didn't sound happy about it. "I thought they were going to hold him another day?" "He's being. . . he's threatening to check himself out against medical advice and just take a cab out. I think the jello and protein drinks pushed him over edge." "Yeah?" I figured differently. "What's the night nurse look like? The one who rides herd during the late shift?" She paused for a long moment, then snickered. "I think you're right. I hadn't' thought about Nurse-zilla, but I think you're right." God, I hoped I never reached the point where I had pet names for hospital staff. "I'll look for you this afternoon. And I suggest you bring Robertson with you. I'll have cookies ready." "Thanks." ________________ As it was, I was really glad to have called Jerry, too. It took me, Jerry, and Seth to get Scully and Mulder in past that pack of shouted questions and flashing lights and cameras. How they knew and got here ahead of my guests was anyone's guess, but they did it. I locked the door and drew the drapes, turning on the lights. If I really had trouble, I'd call Karen, next door, and the two of us would complain that the jackals were disturbing the peace. Poor Mulder got through the door, pale as a ghost, and crashed on the couch. He didn't even twitch when Scully pulled his shoes off and threw a quilt over him. I figured he'd be out for hours. She had what looked like a whole airline bag full of meds for him, and she dropped that next to the luggage Seth had smuggled in past the hordes. Even Jerry seemed a bit rattled by them. The four of us settled in the kitchen, with all the nice little hospitable items like tea and coffee and cookies my mom had taught me about. I didn't do it often but, like I'd told Fox a lifetime ago, that didn't mean I didn't know how. ____________________ No one wanted to go out, and I didn't want to cook, so we grabbed Mulder's FBI Visa and ran up the tab. General Tso's chicken, Kung Pao Chicken, more of the Chinese food that's bad for you and a bit of the Chinese food that's good for you. By the time it came we were starving. Scully pulled out a can of that horrible high protein stuff, and put a bowl of egg-drop soup on a plate then went to wake Mulder up. His face still had pillow marks when we joined him. It seemed like a better choice than trying to get him out to the table and back. A peek out the front drapes showed several die-hard types looking for a sneak attack photo op, so I left the drapes drawn when I turned the lights on. Mulder had propped himself in the corner of the couch and was poking at the soup as though it might be a foreign substance. Scully was cross-legged on the floor, sorting through bottles and boxes and inhalers and stuff and amassing this really impressive pile of pills for him to take. Seth had his jacket and holster off - I shuddered when I showed him where to hang them on the hall tree - and was showing off a really remarkable chopstick technique to Jerry, who had never mastered the art. Mulder had the remote, and I wasn't going to pick on him and show him I could take it away. He flipped through channels, looking for local news stations. Scully didn't look happy, but he settled back to watch the latest on Peter Kane and stayed very calm through the whole thing. That might have been the Atarax. They'd had me on it for my burns for a little while and it had really hazed me out. You could have amended the Constitution to make purple dinosaurs king of America, and I would have told you that was nice while I was on it. Kane was. . . Well, he looked presentable and reasonable and court TV had gotten his good side. I hadn't thought such a thing existed, but if I hadn't known better, I'd have thought him a nice man from what I saw. Scully stiffened and looked up when she heard me gasp, so she saw the whole thing. Her partner just studied the screen. I wasn't paying enough attention to say what Seth or Jerry might have thought. They went on to a report of a fight in a school, and I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. Mulder put the remote down and carefully nibbled all the pieces of meat out of his dinner. "That was interesting." His voice was soft, calm. "What?" Scully started piling pills in front of him. He gave them a nasty look. "Kane. Not sedated, from the looks of him. Focused, clear, and letting his lawyer do the talking." "And that tells you something?" Seth looked back at him, expectant. "Not really. Not yet. It's just. . . " He took another spoonful of soup, swallowed. "If he were upset or rattled I'd be very confident about bringing any case we chose against him. If he's calm it won't be so easy." Scully looked at the screen, seeing something it wasn't showing any more. As soon as I could I put in a tape, and made sure the remote was in my hands. _________________ Mulder really wanted to go downtown with Scully to talk with the prosecutor. It didn't do him any good. She could out-stubborn him hands down. She actually managed a skirt and a light blouse today, although the shoulder still itched too much for the jacket. It gave a definite psychological advantage, as was obvious over breakfast. Mulder had gone for coffee and she'd stopped him. "No stimulants." "Coffee. Scully, coffee is not going to ruin me." "After a week in the hospital I'm willing to bet you won't go into caffeine withdrawal." He had been up a while, and was dressed in jeans and an oxford shirt. "Yeah, but it will keep me awake while Waverly asks dumb questions." He yawned. The look Scully gave him made plain that that had not been high on her list of concerns. I'd taken the better part of valor and kept out of it. She shook her head and started to write, calling me over. "Emma, you will be here all day?" It was only a question in the technical sense. I nodded. "Here's the list of what," she shot an aggravated look at Mulder, which he pointedly ignored, "he needs to take and when and with what." God, it was running into three pages from the looks of it. I gulped and nodded. I didn't ask why she didn't just leave it with him, with his memory. The look on his face was enough to convince me that his memory probably wasn't what she was concerned about. She sat back, satisfied with her pages of instructions and schedules. "Real 'tab A in slot B' stuff?" She grinned. "Hopefully." Fox watched her and tried not to yawn. _____________________ She snuck out after he fell asleep in front of the set. I heard the baying of the hounds, but Seth was out there by then, and kept them back. I found a comfy spot in the sun and settled down to read a murder mystery, snickering at the wimpy villain, while Mulder slept and muttered and tossed on the couch. If he had nightmares this time, they weren't enough to wake him, thank god. _____________________ He woke up when Jerry showed at ten-thirty, which was just as well because I needed to shovel about a pound of pills and liquids down him. Jer stared at the collection I trucked into the living room, and almost snickered at the look Mulder gave me and the goodies I'd brought for him. "You know, if you were my five year old niece I'd have brought puppets to distract you during this." "Shut up, Rigg." I seconded Mulder's opinion on that with a nasty glare. Jerry grinned and did a perfectly wonderful Newt Gingrich imitation that almost had Mulder inhaling medication that was meant to be swallowed. We got the inhaler done during a Bob Dole, with a cameo of Janet Reno and William Sessions. I almost expected the issue of National Enquirer with Newt's Space Alien Summit meeting as a capper, but even Jerry draws the line somewhere. A strong soul would have quailed at the prospect of keeping Fox Mulder occupied all afternoon. A soul like myself would probably have run screaming. Fortunately, it wasn't an issue. "I do *not* want to go to the hospital." "To begin with, you have no idea how petulant that sounds. Secondly, what you want is not going to matter in this case. You and I both have appointments, and even if I cared whether you want to go I wouldn't let you squirm out of it while I have to go." He weighed it, and tried to compromise. "I'll go to the respiratory therapist." "Yes. You will. And I'll get my back checked. And then you have an appointment with Fitzgibbon." He glared at me. Jerry was peeking out the front curtains, judging how well Seth was doing in intimidating his colleagues. I was holding Fox's coat, ignoring the glare and tapping my foot. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way, Mulder. Do you cooperate or do I get Jerry to help?" Jerry leered over his shoulder, and Mulder promptly got into his coat. "Okay, Emma. Seth's got us some space." He and Jerry had had a ball, coordinating our escape from the local news services and almost synchronizing watches. If I'd been a local reporter I'd have given up as soon as I realized who I was up against. Jerry got the door and Mulder and I broke for the car. Seth slung himself behind the wheel and Jer took the passenger seat. They'd gotten a little footage, but nothing much and no comments, and Jerry and Seth were positively giggling. Mulder leaned forward, staring at Seth. "Skinner put a giggling Marine on guard duty?" The words came out wrapped around little pants as Mulder tried to catch his breath. I was still feeling a little, smoky ache in my own lungs, and could only imagine how he felt, but some things just outweigh physical discomfort, and giggling marines clearly made that list. "Agent Mulder, I haven't been involved in a three ring circus like this since. . . god. I can't remember an assignment this funny. They'll be buying my beer for years on this one." Mulder sat back, eyes directed at the roof in silent prayer to god, or aliens, or whoever to take him now. Jerry was scribbling notes and smirking to himself, and I would bet on a sidebar article on all this. County General was smart enough to have an extra guard out, and we had no trouble getting to our appointments. More accurately, Mulder had no trouble getting to his appointments. I can't say I enjoyed having my burns looked at, they itched and I ached, and wanted to scratch at them. Dr. Ackerman was very happy with my lungs, and didn't renew my prescription for antibiotics. I parked myself outside Fitzgibbon's office and waited. It didn't take long. Mulder's carefully neutral expression, and Fitzgibbon's frustrated one weren't any surprise. The fibbie held his cool surface until we got into the hall, then he leaned back against the wall and just wilted. "Hey, c'mon." He opened his eyes and looked at me. He was standing as though the weight of his coat was almost too much for him. I scooped an arm through his and pulled him along. His feet dragged, but not from reluctance anymore. "I hate shrinks." "You are a shrink." "That's different." He leaned against the back wall of the elevator, ignoring everything, and had to push himself off the wall to stand back up straight. I didn't try to talk with him. It was clear that he was concentrating on where we were heading, and not really up to sparkling repartee. Jer and Seth, in the lobby, were a welcome sight. My place was even more so, and I woke Mulder up from his fifteen minute nap to get him through the door and back on the couch. By that time I almost think he was regretting having checked himself out early. We got his coat off him, but then he just went out like a light in a corner of the couch, curled up under the quilt, and looking impossibly small for someone of his height. Hot tea - with caffeine - for Jerry and Seth, and I was ready to retreat. This was a lot of excitement after my enforced rest, and I was just as glad my guests could take care of themselves for a while. I grabbed my files and headed for my room, while Jer and Seth played chess in the kitchen and waited for Scully. There had been fewer reporters out front when we got back, and there was some real hope that they might have finally found another disaster to haunt. Seth, of course, would be with us as long as Mulder was likely to cause even more trouble than the press. And I found myself reading these paragraphs over, and over, and over. Another strip mall. Rent requirements. Mortgage arrangements. Obligations and funding and. . . and what was the point? Another big discount store, so what. More interchangeable restaurants to buy ersatz antiques. I threw the files at the wall and buried my head under my pillow and pounded my hands and feet into the mattress until I was out of breath and feeling really stupid. Then lay on my back, studying the reflections and shadows on my ceiling. I dragged myself downstairs when I knew I had to go dose that poor bastard with more pills and drugs. He looked completely harmless, sprawled out now with the quilt half tangled around his shoulders. I had to remind myself the man owned a gun, knew how to use it, could not be what he looked. I could faintly hear Seth telling war stories, but it was quiet in here. I shook Fox's shoulder, pulled my hand back when he startled awake, pulling his knees and arms up defensively until he realized where he was. "Hey." I kept my voice quiet. "Hey, it's all right. Wake up." His eyes still looked a little glassy, but he pulled himself up and relaxed, rubbing the sleep from his face. "Is Scully back yet?" He ran his fingers back through his hair. Pulled upright into the corner of the couch as I settled on the other end and got the flight bag full of meds in my lap. "No, I bet they're really scrambling to get together everything for the hearing." He gave me a distinctly jaundiced look as I started sorting through the bottles in that kit of his, checking against the list I'd been left. "I can do that myself. I don't have to check a list." "I don't doubt it. I also don't doubt you'd cheat." He grinned at that. I kept digging in the bag, even though I was sure I had what I wanted, so I wouldn't have to look at him for a moment. "Mulder, why are you doing this?" I felt him go very still next to me. "Doing what?" He didn't insult me by deflecting it out of hand. I looked up at him now. The light was soft in here at this time of afternoon, almost evening. "Why do you take such risks, take such weird cases? I read about some of your cases. You could. . . I don't know. But why do you do this?" His lips had parted just a little, a word half caught there, but finally quirked in a small smile. "Why do you need to know?" My spine straightened, and I could feel my chin come up before I knew I was doing it. "I don't *need* to know, Mulder. I want to know." "When you're willing to tell me why you need to know, maybe I'll be willing to tell you why I need to do this." I felt my lips tighten, watched him turn, almost relieved, to the stack of pills and medicine. If I'd done nothing else, at least I'd found a way to get him to take the crap he was supposed to swallow. _________________ "They didn't get your best side, Mulder." Scully wasn't all that happy about the evening news but was making the best of it. The footage of us, scurrying to the car, had Jerry doubled up on the floor. He was making us tape it for Seth. Mulder smiled. "That's okay, Scully. I save my best side for you." "That's not your side, Mulder. That's your back." Even in the light from the set, I could see him blush. Jerry's teeth shone in a broad smile. Scully snorted. Not their most inspired, but not bad for people as tired as they were. Scully had finally shown up about six-thirty, with carry-out lasagna, and some pasta for Mulder. I was willing to bet he'd be binge eating as soon as he was up to it, after the miserably bland and limited diet he was suffering through now. She hadn't let him have any of the red wine either, though she'd had to weather some really well-delivered beseeching looks in the process. They clearly had this routine down to an art, and I wondered if he ever got to turn the tables on her. Somehow, I figured her for sensible enough that he wouldn't get the same satisfaction out of it. Jerry had earned his dinner, too. Not only had he helped that afternoon, he managed to pull his weight with at least one good argument on covert activities and cover-ups by US and foreign governments. When they moved on to the OJ trial I knew he had a winner. "He's innocent. He was framed." "Riggins, I can not believe you are backing that idiotic theory!" Mulder's eyes were wide and his voice practically cracked with indignation. "Besides the fact that there's absolutely nothing to be gained by framing a so-so actor and a retired football player, they've got so damn much evidence, both real and circumstantial. . ." "They're using him to destroy the image of the successful African-American. *All* that 'evidence' is either circumstantial or could be faked. He's too smart. . . " Scully was staring as Mulder went on the counter-attack. I could see Jerry's eyes sparkling and had to bite the insides of my cheeks. It went on and on until Jer gave up the ghost and started to giggle. "I cannot believe it. . . I can't. Spooky Mulder arguing the government's case!" Jerry was snickering into his wine. Mulder leaned back and smiled. "Yeah, well. You have to know how to pick and choose your conspiracies." Scully rolled her eyes. "Although the women in yours do wear shorter skirts. . . Shame it's wasted on you. Hard to pant over Alan Dershowitz." Jerry gagged and let it drop. __________________ "Two-hundred and thirty-seven dollars?" My voice must have shrilled up at least an octave. "And forty-eight cents," supplied Stu, adding the final bottle to the pile of little amber and white bottles, and inhalers and creams and all-around stuff. My hand trembled as I gave him Mulder's card. No wonder they'd given Mulder all those free samples at the hospital, he'd have dropped from sticker shock if they'd charged him at the hospital pharmacy. "Seen you on the news. That's the only reason I'm letting you sign off. Is that little partner of his still downtown every day?" "Stu, I don't feel like discussing this with you, and you will give me those carbons. . ." I reached over and snatched them before he could tuck them under the counter. Fox Mulder did NOT need to see a six o'clock report on what he was taking and how much it cost. The regret on Stu's face made me glad for my paranoia. "And you are doubtless violating some oath of confidentiality or other if you tell the vultures about this stuff." I glared and shoveled all those bottles and boxes into my carryall. God knows my own five prescriptions and eighty plus dollar bill was bad enough. Lord, those fucking burns itched. The wind caught me as I stepped out, whipping rain across to soak the hems of my jeans. My hair dripped water down my back, to soak my bandages. If there was justice in the world, Kane's burns were driving him crazier than he already was. I'd gotten up early to wind shrieking through the bare branches, freezing rain rattling on my windows and the television on in the living room. None of it was any surprise. The rain had awakened me, and I'd heard the TV running all night long. The channel had changed at least four times. There's a big difference between C-SPAN and The Comedy Channel and the Swedish beach volleyball teams on whatever channel he found at four a.m. At least he was asleep when I finally got downstairs. Scully had made coffee and was reviewing her notes. "Morning, Emma." I yawned. Not my favorite time of day. "What's on the agenda for today?" I was letting her set the schedules. I simply couldn't keep track of all Mulder's meds and appointments and my own. "Mmm. Seth takes Mulder to the therapist today. Eleven o'clock appointment. And can I ask you to get these filled?" She looked up and tapped a short story's worth of prescriptions. Which was how I'd managed to get light duty, buying his pills and my own, while Seth made sure Fox got to all the doctors on time for his poking and prodding and nagging. I'd left after them, letting the house get quiet before I made lunch. Jerry was off doing something related to making money and filing stories, and I was alone for the first time in. . . I gave up trying to figure it out. Every time I thought I knew, different classifications of alone cropped up. The last time I'd known for sure I was alone, had been just before Sally McCormick was murdered and dumped. When I stepped out the door the clean, cool touch of wet air washed me and my car was less refuge than trap. A couple skids on wet leaves left me less well-disposed towards the outdoors. I dropped off the lease I had -finally - succeeded in reviewing. Seth's car was there, so they must be back. The jackals were lounging outside their vans. Must have gotten back pretty recently then. Seth let me in too fast, as though he'd been watching for me. I almost asked what was wrong when I heard Waverly's voice. "What is this shit?" Looking through the living room arch I could see him, waving a sheaf of papers, face flushed. His gaze was leveled across the room, and I knew I'd find Mulder on his feet when I stepped in. His arms were crossed and he was pale, but looked very calm. Waverly turned, mouth tightened as he stared at me. "Ms. Courtland. I believe I've already spoken to you. I understand your house is small, but if you could give us some privacy?" Mulder was watching him, jaw tight, and I could see the way his fingers dug in above his elbows. I shook my head. "No. No, this is not privileged, not under an attorney/client situation. I don't think I want to leave." I caught a flicker of relief on Mulder's face. He leaned back heavily against the bookcase, letting it take most of his weight. Waverly's mouth pursed. His glare lingered with me, then snapped back to the fed. "I thought we understood our objectives in this." "*We* understand our objectives just fine. They're just not the same objectives." Mulder's voice was steady, but it had to have cost him. "We talked about this! I've seen your profiles. You wanted this man to go to trial. What the fuck are you telling me now?" Waverly was stalking across the room, stopping just in arm's reach of Mulder. I'd been that close to Waverly, in my interviews. At that range, you could smell his breath. "I know what I wrote. I know every damned word. I can recite them verbatim." Fox straightened, away from the bookcase but fenced. "And every one of those words was written at a distance. Every last word is speculation." "I. Don't. Care. This psycho murdered. . . " Waverly stopped, breathing hard and trembling. Whipped his arm back and threw the profile into Mulder's chest. It fluttered to the floor as Waverly spun and marched back across the room, heels slamming crescents into my oriental rug. Mulder sagged back against the bookcase again, eyes shut, opened them as Waverly spun on him again. "You're letting this murderer walk away from his fucking crime, Agent Mulder. You're helping him walk away. God damn it. If you stand behind this he'll never see trial." "He's not sane." Mulder sighed. "He's delusional as hell and needs to be studied, needs to be treated. He does not belong in a prison population." "Damn you. I knew you'd try to play with this fucker. This is a multiple murderer, not another one to support your fucking obsessions. . . I should have known you'd live right up to your rep and go fucking crazy on me. Spooky-fucking-Mulder." I couldn't even see the hazel in Mulder's eyes anymore. All black. "You could put the icepick between this bastard's eyes, but you have to play games, change your tune at the last minute. You're so damn crazy you can't even remember half of what he said to you. . . " Waverly was back in his face, watching his eyes narrow, his cheekbones go tight. "That's what they say in D.C. isn't it. . . " Damndamndamn. This was too much. Mulder had braced his hands on a lower shelf and his breaths were too even and deep. It took work to breathe that way. It was visible on his pale face, visible in the taut bones and tendons that distorted the dark lines of healing stitches on his hands. His shoulders were set, almost drawn forward and Waverly was flushed and right on top of him. I went for the phone in the kitchen. Seth was in the hall, and caught my arm, glancing back towards the living room. "How long was he here, Seth?" Kept my voice low, I didn't need to make Waverly any angrier. "He was here when we got back. Since about one-thirty." God, and it was four now? Two and a half hours of this with a man who should barely have been out of the hospital? I hit the buttons on my phone so hard it hurt. "Scully here." Neutral enough that I knew she wasn't having fun, either. "Scully, did you know Waverly would be coming by?" I could almost hear her straighten up from whatever slump I figured she'd been in. Her voice had the force of it behind it. "You wouldn't be calling if everything was going well. What's going on?" Concern, and barely held anger. "He's been here more than two and half hours, from what Seth says. He's in there now trying to ream a new asshole for Mulder." What?!" "You heard me. Mulder's not agreeing with him, and Waverly's getting nasty about it." "Shit. Get into the middle of it, Emma. I'll leave now." She sounded angry, not scared. I grinned and relaxed. "Got it." Hung up. Not scared. So asthma attacks and all that weren't really likely now, just one tired, upset man who Scully didn't want either tired or upset. Fine, that I could manage. Waverly was facing me when I came around the corner of the hall. He glared at me, but I wasn't the one he wanted to hit. Not yet, at least. Fox had moved into a chair, and Waverly was using the height difference to his advantage. God, Mulder had to be exhausted if he'd give up that kind of tactic to that nasty pimple of a man. Seth hovered in the hall, and I copied Waverly's physical style and hurt my rug on the way over. Put a politely impolite hand on his arm. "Mr. Waverly, I think I'd like you to leave now." Lord, the man must never floss from the way his breath smelled. His cheeks shook with what he wanted to say, and little veins were florid on his skin. The flare of his nostrils was not a pleasant sight. "I've interviewed you already, you two-bit little land shark. Go cobble together a deal for a convenience store, I have a crime to prosecute. If this shrink wasn't having a long range brain-fuck with a maniac, we'd be able to nail the bastard good." "I'm telling you, he's delusional. Even if you got to trial, they'd appeal any conviction. He thinks. . ." Mulder's voice was thin, the rasp in it more hoarse than husky now. Waverly yanked his arm out of my hand, braced himself over the back of Fox's chair. "I don't care what he thinks. He murdered more than a dozen people. He can walk away from those, but he KNEW killing you was wrong. We can lock him up for life if you quit playing with yourself." My teeth gritted as he yanked the chair around, rocking Fox back to look up at him. "You idiot." Low, hostile voice. Anger pulled right out of his guts. "He thinks I was abducted by aliens and told to murder my sister. He's out of his mind." "From what I hear, they don't know that you didn't murder your sister, Spooky." Oh god, Mulder's face went *white.* Not pale, white. Two seconds later Waverly was reeling back and blood was pouring out of his nose, while Mulder was out of the chair and after him. I could see Seth charging across the room, hear my own hoarse, angry shriek as I got in between the two of them. Waverly's bloody fist was drawn back and I think he'd have tried to throw the punch right over my head if Seth hadn't wrapped his arms around him and pulled him back. Mulder plowed right into me, going too fast and too tired not to, and we both went right over the coffee table as Seth pulled Waverly out of the way. "Fuck!" Mulder slammed his fists down into the floor, as I heard Seth rudely eject the prosecutor and slam the door after him. "Stop that. You'll pop a stitch and bleed on my rug." I had to work to keep my voice level. God, I wanted to go. . . what I wanted to do to Waverly was strictly illegal in every jurisdiction I could think of. Fox had spun to slam a fist into the back of the couch, and I needed to hit something almost as badly. Crap, more smudgy little blood smears. I grabbed his wrist and yanked it back. "Mulder. Mulder!" He was breathing way too fast, and was way too pale, when he came around to stare back into my eyes, angry, but under control again. I relaxed, let go of him. Seth was standing over us, looking at Fox Mulder draped half across my coffee table, and me scrunched down between table and couch. "Better get up, Emma, or Scully's going to think you're trying to make her partner." Seth reached for him, getting a grip on his arms and pulling him upright, then offering a hand to me. I let him pull me onto my feet. "Agent Mulder, I must tell you, I have seldom seen anyone make such a good connection with local authorities. Nice right hook." Mulder shook his hand out like it stung, but a rueful grin was slowly creeping across his face. "Well, they do try to teach shrinks to communicate effectively." He wasn't breathing so fast, though he was still too pale. A key in the lock announced Scully very clearly. She might have been hurrying, but she came to an abrupt stop, taking in the overturned table, chair out of place, and me and Seth and her partner explaining professional discourse. "Do you want to communicate with me, Mulder?" Her strained monotone told me it was time to go putter somewhere. "And why don't you stay, Emma. I'm sure Seth can make tea or whatever excuse you were about to find." Oooh, well. So much for that. "At least this time we won't need xylocaine." I sighed. ____________________________ Scully sat back with a very unhappy look on her face. Mulder had the seat by the wall, so he could lean back. He looked like that was most of what was keeping him upright at the moment. "So Waverly's got a bloody nose, and you won't sign off on the psychiatric evaluation on Kane?" "I can't sign off on that, Scully." He pulled his eyes open and straightened up in the chair. "That report is designed to get him to trial, nothing more." He gave up on the wall and propped his chin on his hand. "At first, at the hospital. . ." Scully stared hard at me. Mulder just left his eyes closed and waited. "You said you figured killing you was outside his delusion, that he knew what he was doing then." Faint smile. "Yeah. I remember. Like I told Waverly, I know what I said." He poked his fork at the rice on his plate. Scully had finished her pad Thai, but I still had half mine on my plate. The rain still drummed the house. "But. . .?" I doubt she really needed to ask, but he smiled at the set up. "But. . . all that was before I talked with him." I think he was too tired to even react to the memory. "The way he was building me into the whole delusion, justifying my presence in his scheme. He'd probably tell you trying to kill me was self-defense." "But the way he was trying to strangle you. . ." Mulder looked over at me. "He wasn't. He didn't try to strangle me, Emma." He swallowed. "He was looking for scars, or anything unusual." I resisted the urge to point out that everything about Mulder was unusual but I couldn't let the rest of that go so easily. "I always figured if somebody had their hands around your throat and you weren't breathing it was because they were strangling you. Then there was that little bit about breaking your neck." He leaned back and looked at the ceiling with the universal plea for strength. "The fact is that he didn't break my neck, when he could have. And I stopped breathing because of smoke damage, not Kane. No. He was looking for scars like the ones he has under his jaw and along the sinus cavity. He probably has implants elsewhere, too." He frowned at that. My priorities might have been getting strangled, but his seemed to those scars. "Mulder. . . " Scully leaned in, put a hand on his arm. "Mulder, you're not thinking this man is an abductee? Please. Go look at your own notes. . . He's built it all into his psychosis." They stared at each other a long moment, and he licked his lips. "Scully. . . the scars are there. If we x-ray him, I think I know what we'll see." She looked. . . nervous. Not lost, but not comfortable with all this. I frowned and thought about things I'd avoided considering for days. "Mulder, is that why he said you needed to check your x-rays over closely, too? Because the scars are some kind of mark?" Somehow, I wasn't surprised when I heard a fork clatter. I winced, eyes all screwed up, and thought I felt the delicate touch of my heel down the back of my throat. Scully was going to kill me. I looked up very, very slowly. Yep. Scully was going to murder me. Her eyes were stone-gray and the muscles around her mouth were pulled tight. I let my eyes track sideways, not wanting to really move my head, hoping they might not notice me if I could sit still enough. Abandon hope. . . His hand was still frozen above his plate, fork on the table where it had bounced. He wasn't any paler. He'd have passed out if he'd gotten any paler. But the muscles along his jaw were jumping and his eyes were dilated. The motion was slow and controlled when he leaned in to catch my eyes. "Emma, would you like to repeat that?" "No. She wouldn't." Scully had that protective, doctor-ordering-patient look on her face. She was putting in a real effort at staring him down, but he wasn't letting her have this one. He looked back to me. "Tell me what you're talking about, Emma." "Ahh, well. . . maybe we should wait for. . . " "Emma. What happened? When? All of it." Scully pulled her arms in tight, crossed under her breasts, fixed her eyes on the table. Mulder had shoved the plate away and had his forearms braced on the table, sitting forward and waiting. I bit my lip and shook my head. "I don't think it's a good idea. . . " He stared at me, back to Scully, got up and I heard steps almost dragging into the living room. "Damn it, Emma. One of these days I'm sewing your mouth shut." Scully was up and after him, leaving me to wince at the idea and wonder if it would be safer to let her do that while they were here. I cleared the table, vaguely aware of Mulder's voice in the living room. When I finished I followed Scully, hoping the situation might have improved somehow. Mulder had my phone in his lap and was listening, ignoring Scully's glare. "That's right, the notes you collected. . . I'm sure. . . I know better than that. You've got notes of it, no question. You wouldn't be where you are if you didn't. . . I don't care. She's not talking and I don't trust witness reports that far in the past, anyway. I want to see the notes." Not hard to guess who he was talking to. I wondered how he'd react if I grabbed the extension and told Jerry not to bring them. None of the scenarios I envisioned made me very happy. Mulder sighed. "That's the soonest you'll bring them? All right. . . I said all right!" Snap in the voice. He glared up at Scully. Hung up the phone. She kept her voice very calm. "I don't think it's a good idea right now, and I do think it's wasted effort. Kane's delusional. No matter what he said. . ." "Kane is delusional. No question. But that doesn't necessarily mean that's all he is." Scully's eyes narrowed. "You are not up to this. You're pushing too fast. I know you're bored and tired of this, but pushing is not going to make your body heal any faster." She kept those measured tones, persuasive and soothing. "And sitting here is not going to answer my questions. Tell me what I want to know. It's no worse than sitting here wondering. . ." "Wondering what? If a delusional madman might be telling the truth? Mulder, he's insane. He's not an abductee. He knows you. He's hitting your buttons." Frustration roughened her voice now. "He's fixated. Don't let him get that kind of hold on you. You were just telling Waverly the man's insane. Listen to yourself for once. You don't need to scare yourself with bedtime stories of Kane's ravings. There are enough real things to scare anyone." He'd let her go on, but was slowly shaking his head, keeping his eyes fixed on her the whole time. "Scully, we've seen this once before." His voice was a whisper. "We've seen this kind of madman before. Don't make me push you on this. We need x-rays on him, close ones, and I need to know what he said." "What do you remember?" I knew I shouldn't get into this, and Scully's look definitely agreed with that judgment, but Mulder was obviously working it in his mind. "Kane's got a ridge of scar under his jaw. Another one just perceptible along the bridge of his nose. He has a scar behind his ear I've seen in other abductees." "And after that?" He swallowed. "I. . . I remember him holding me immobile." He'd let his voice go flat, cold and clinical. "He was probing under my jaw, clearly looking for similar scars. He needs to confirm signs of abduction in me to support his delusion. But his delusional status does not change the existence of evidence of interference with Kane himself." Pretty little speech. If I couldn't see his muscle trembling with exhaustion - at least with exhaustion - from across the room, it would have been a great deal more impressive. I could see the muscles flex in his wrists as he held himself upright in the wooden chair. Scully was on her feet. "Look, at this point I don't care. We can take this up tomorrow. Right now you're clearly exhausted and need sleep." She reached down to unfold the couch. "Scully, I want to hear what Emma has to say." Quiet, stubborn tones. She walked over to him, took his wrist and checked his pulse, more likely from habit, and to establish that she was the doctor, than anything else. He didn't fight her on it, but didn't get up and go where she wanted, either. Looked back over at me. "Go on." God, I hated getting into the crossfire between these two. Scully's mouth was pursed. "Mulder. . . " I gave up. "He called you little brother." He nodded. Trick memory. "And after you'd gone into that asthma attack, well. . . he said you needed to check your own x-rays pretty carefully. That you and he had people in common." I blurted the last of it, let it sit there in the air. He watched me and nodded a slow acknowledgment of it. "See Mulder. Just ravings. Probably it's going to give you a whole new set of nightmares, but it's just ravings." She walked into the kitchen, probably pulling together all his prescriptions and getting water the way she had the night before. Mulder looked after her with a distant, sad look in his eyes. "Yeah." I could barely hear him. "Raving. Just like Duane Barry." I watched him and wondered. _________________________ I woke up soaked in sweat, with my sheets pulled loose and wrapped around my shoulders and neck. My own little scream jarred me awake, where I lay and tried to judge if I'd awakened Scully or Mulder. No sound from upstairs. I panted and tried to slow my own pulse. No real sound at all, but just past the edge of my hearing I was aware of that whine you feel more than hear, and I knew the TV was on. Mulder had been asleep when I came upstairs, and the TV had been off. . . I glanced at my clock. The TV had been off four hours before, when I'd gone to bed at eleven-thirty. My bare feet didn't make any sound on the stairs and I was slow and silent walking across the hall. Bluish light flickered over the couch, the walls. I leaned into the room, looking down at Fox. The faint gleam of eyes under lashes, then he spun, startled, onto his back. I jumped, smiled ruefully at the sight of him on his back, arms defensively braced in front of him. He let his eyes fall shut and puffed out a breath of relief. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." I kept my voice soft. "Then don't sneak up on me." He relaxed, half smiled, watched me settle on the arm of the couch. "Nightmares?" I nodded. "I keep dreaming of Kane, of the fire. Or of him. . . in the hospital." Mulder sighed, sort of pulled himself up into a corner and pushed the sleeves of his sweatshirt up his arms. "We did have reasons to want to keep you out of it." "Yes. I understand that. I'm not going to sue." He smiled at my tone. "But. . . do you have nightmares every night?" He pulled the blanket up around him and thought. "I have. . . bad dreams. A lot. But I've had them most of my life. It will take time, but yours will fade." He was watching me now, in the inconstant light. "Were the dreams part of why you started doing this? Hunting people like Kane?" I saw him pause, lips parted as though he was holding back a thought. Saw his chest move in a sigh I couldn't hear. "No. I had to know what happened to my sister. When I started. . .I couldn't remember. Now I remember, but I still don't know." I could feel a puzzled frown on my forehead. Pulled my knees up into a tuck. "Why tell me now when you wouldn't before?" "Maybe right now, I think you've paid enough to deserve to know." "Why is Scully doing this?" He smiled again. "You'll have to ask her that. If I'm knew, I wouldn't say, but I'm never totally sure I understand. Not really." I sat with that for a moment. "Maybe she's not totally sure." "Maybe. I tend to think Scully knows the bounds in her life better than almost anyone I've ever met. Even now, she's so sure of so much. . . " Wistful, trailing off. I thought about watching her when she wasn't sure he would live, or be all right. Times when I thought she prayed for the bounds to be as elastic as possible, offer chances no sane person could expect. "You'll find the boundaries will firm back up again, Emma. You need to go back to your work, your life." He was staring at me. I shivered, and wondered if I'd said anything. "I don't think so, Mulder. I don't think so at all." His eyes were pensive. When had I stepped off the sidewalk? Where had the streetlights stopped? Back before Kane. . . not with Tommy, but. . . "Mulder, it's not evil that breaks the boundaries. I can accept the presence of evil and my world would still have its walls." I got up and stuck my hands in the pockets of my robe. "I got lost when you. . .when you started asking me where the boundaries lay, and I started trying to answer. That's the first time I'd ever asked, and now I find I don't know the answer." I felt my lips purse, saw the lonely, self-recrimination on his face. And I couldn't offer a word of comfort, because there was none to be had. I could only have offered comfort if he had not been responsible for the walls falling down, he and Scully. And it just wasn't true. They'd asked the questions and I'd followed them down that path. I'd been lost since the quiet, cold night when whatever had snared them both so long ago had followed them into my home. It had come to stay. _____________________________ Radio voices rousted me out of sleep with the trained reflexes of years. I lay on my belly, idly scratching at the center of my back through a thick wad of bandage and trying to recall what I was supposed to do this morning. Oh, yeah. Bandages. I got to go to this hospital with Mulder this morning, lucky me. I pulled out a comfortable two piece, more from habit than because I needed to. So many of my clothes were suits and dresses, it was strange to have been in blue jeans for extended periods. Alien. The dress at least had the superficial aspects of my normal life. I snorted, recalling a late night talk in front of shifting lights. Surfaces. Normal surfaces. My normal surface and every other part of me needed coffee, and I could smell it from downstairs. Back down, and into the kitchen where Mulder had managed to cadge a cup. Scully was toasting bread, and Mulder already had cinnamon toast. The soft, gray light caught her hair and made it stand warm and brilliant against the clouds out the window. "Lucky you. Does this mean you're going to do the dishes?" He grinned and Scully let me have the next pieces of toast, though the look that went with them was not too happy. I'd done it again, and she was keeping score. Mulder had the paper spread open by his plate, and toast crumbs on his chin. Scully leaned past him and snagged the sports before he could stop her. He coughed on a couple crumbs and gulped coffee to clear his throat. "Hey, I was going to read that next! Here, I'll trade you the funnies." As he pulled them loose I grabbed them and went to ground with my toast and coffee, looking for Dogbert's latest words of wisdom. Scully's cheeks dimpled with a smothered grin, and Mulder fumed his way through the rest of the editorials, then had to wait for me to finish and trade before he could get her piece from her. "I thought you hated football." "I do. But college basketball is starting soon and I like college b-ball." She rattled the section tauntingly. He was saved when the phone rang. I heard the paper whip out from under my plate as I reached up and grabbed the receiver. Turned to see him negotiate the trade with his partner and wrinkled my nose in disgust. "Hello?" "Hello. Is this Emma Courtland?" "Yes." I recognized the formal voice of a brother before the bar. Sat down expecting a few questions about the work I'd dropped off the day before. Mulder was happily hunched over the football score box, while Scully was ensconced behind the funnies, maneuvering one hand up with coffee and chuckling softly at whatever she found. "I hope I didn't call too early. I'm Howard Jeffries, Peter Kane's attorney. I understand Doctor Mulder is staying there. May I speak with him?" I felt the blood drain from my lips. I don't know about the rest of my face, but it definitely drained from my lips. "Doctor. . . " Scully looked up. "Mulder?" Two pairs of eyes, one gray, one hazel, were watching now. "Yes. The FBI agent? The psychologist?" His acid tones shrieked high hourly billing rates. Probably court-appointed, and not happy about it. I handed the phone over. "He wants you. It's Kane's lawyer." Scully caught my eyes, all annoyance over last night forgotten. I'd have tried to tell her if I'd known anything. As it was, all I could do was shrug, while both of us listened to Mulder's side of the conversation. "Yes. . . He does? Did he say why?. . . No, I can imagine. . . No. I want it videotaped, not monitored. That's right. . . Yes, I'll have others with me. . . I'll have to ask, but if she agrees. . .All right. . . No. No. . . I don't care. They'll be there." A rather dry smile. "Thank you, Mr. Jeffries. I can appreciate that." Mulder hung up and puffed a breath of air out pursed lips, reaching for his coffee cup. "Well? What was all that?" "We'll have to get our medical appointments done on time. Peter Kane wants to talk with me." ___________________________ It felt good to have most of the bandages off, but the relief was tempered with nerves about getting done. I'd never thought I'd actually want to stay in a doctor's office. I got out before Mulder. It took more time to remove stitches, and he had a lot of them to remove. The scars on his arms and hands would heal cleanly and be invisible by the end of six months. He was very, very lucky. The respiratory therapist was also amazed at his recovery time from what Scully said, but was browbeating him about too little rest. I could imagine what Scully would say to Waverly next time she saw him. Kane had wanted me to be there, so I drove. I wasn't sure why I agreed to go. No. I was sure. But I wasn't comfortable with my own reasons. It was a long, quiet drive. Mulder, in the back, sprawled across the seat and drowsed, rubbing idly at the sore, itchy spots on his hands where the stitches had come out. Scully tuned in a classical station and hummed arias, watching the flat, open farmland roll past. The sky was gray and promised more rain, and possibly sleet, but the roads were clear and fast and felt good under the wheels. I shifted into fifth and just drove, trying not to think. _____________________ The walls were new and sharp-edged, and razor wire shone like winter light tangled in ice. Guard towers of clear, thick stuff overlooked us as we confirmed our appointment at the gate and drove through, parking in a small and isolated visitor's lot. Scully and I instinctively flanked Mulder, pacing steadily across the flat, open lots to the front door and not looking around. We knew we were watched. We didn't need to look. Mulder shivered, arms crossed, standing in the vestibule while they checked us again. His coat had been destroyed in the fire, and he hadn't replaced it yet. Scully and I pulled our collars up against the bite of the wind at our backs. When we stepped inside where the heat worked well, it was welcome and close. Scully turned in her weapon. Mulder's had gone the way of most of the stuff in Kane's house, a misshapen lump of scorched plastic and melted steel, to be found when the fire finally died away. I'd seen him cursing over his expense reports the day before and had wondered how many guns the man lost. I'd never been out here at the new jail. It was. . .impressive. Security was tight and we were checked at every set of doors we encountered. I got so used to seeing guard uniforms that when a man in a suit stepped up to us, he looked very strange for a moment. "Hello. Thank your for coming. Sorry to put you to the trouble." The handshakes were pressed on us and over in instants, the formalities uttered with smooth speed. Jeffries brushed his hand over a receding hairline and across the back where he'd let it grow longer - to compensate? - then adjusted his bow tie. He gestured Mulder into an interview room, and left Scully and me to follow on our own initiative. His glasses reflected the strip lights in the ceiling as he looked up, trying to meet Mulder's eyes. "My client will be here shortly. I just wanted to review the conditions. . . " "I remember the conditions you stated very clearly. We talk until Kane or I decide to end it. Videotape. No outside monitors. The guard stays at that window," he pointed, "to be sure we don't encounter difficulties. We both remain seated, no contact, no passed objects. Dr. Scully and Ms. Courtland remain seated against that wall." He swept a hand behind him. "And I am free to enter whatever we discuss into evidence at the competency hearing. That is specifically at Kane's insistence." Jeffries wiped sweat off his upper lip. "Yes. Those were my client's instructions, however. . . " "However, you are not comfortable with those conditions, because you do not control the information." Mulder smiled a smile with no softness or pleasantry, stepped just a little closer so Jeffries was forced to look up to read his eyes. "You could not arrange this meeting if your client were not absolutely clear on what he wants, aware and able to make a reasoned decision. The conditions he set are very straightforward. I don't believe you were part of the arrangement. Doubtless you'll get a copy. Direct release to video." Jeffries mouth tightened, but he pulled himself around and left, lower back rigid. He was going to have back trouble if he kept clenching his buttocks like that. Mulder smiled to see him go, and slid into the plastic chair with easy grace, leaning back and waiting for the door on the other side of the room to open. A flashing red light caught the corner of my eye as I sat down in the injection-molded seat. The video camera was on. Sounds at the door on the opposite side of the room. Mulder leaned forward, elbows braced on the plain, metal table, hands steepled, waiting. Scully, next to me, took an audible breath and worked her shoulders. The door opened inward. Kane was in a wheelchair, a guard behind him to push it. He wasn't cuffed. I suppose the infirmary staff felt the burns and bandages were restrictive enough. I studied his knees, his hands, anything but his face, until Mulder stood up and drew my eyes. I felt Scully tense, next to me. "Kane." Now I looked. Kane wore a wide, welcoming smile as the guard pushed him up to the table, opposite Mulder. "Little brother." He looked over at us, kept the warm smile, below crinkled, laughing eyes. I shuddered. "Lawyer Emma. Good to see you again. And Dr. Scully." He nodded a pleasant greeting. Scully swallowed and I saw her eyes narrow before I looked back to Kane. In the mirrored wall behind him I could see Mulder's face, calm and neutral. "You asked to see me." Kane nodded. "That's right. You and I still have matters to discuss." Mulder leaned back in his chair. Kane sat very still, giving no sign of whether his legs pained him. "And what do you want to discuss, Kane?" Kane laughed. Put his head back and laughed. I jumped at the sound. "You're very funny, little Fox. How's your neck feeling? Still got that cough?" Mulder didn't shift in his seat. "My cough's fine, thank you. Are they treating you well here?" "Oh yes. They send in doctors to change the bandages." He gestured towards his legs. "And doctors to talk with me, but they don't really understand." "Understand. . . about what you have to do?" Kane's grin grew wider. "You understand more than you want to, don't you Fox? Go on boy, ask me what you wanted to ask me." "Roswell. What did you see at Roswell?" Kane seemed to swell, held the breath and blew it out, long and slow. "You know what we saw. The lights, flat and glowing. They moved like the lights lawyer-Emma took you to see, only they were bigger." He gestured back at me, then held his hands up. Mulder stayed very still, leaning back, head tilted to watch the man. "And that night, when we stayed at the campgrounds, they talked to me. They told me what they wanted me to do, but I was scared. I couldn't move." Kane leaned forward. "You know how that feels, don't you little Fox?" His eyes were flat. Mulder held so still, so very still. "And I told my daddy and he whupped the hell out of me. You know, you learn to hold real still and take it like a man, or they hit you harder." Kane smiled at Mulder. "Did he hit Jay, too?" "My baby brother? Not a lot. Some, enough to keep him in line. But he said I was the other man in the family and needed to be tough. You know what that's like, don't you Fox?" I could hear Scully swallow, next to me. "Did you hit Jay, Peter?" Mulder's voice was soft and calm. Cognac again, dark and smooth, and the bite would hit only after you'd taken it in. Kane's face pulled into a wide, wide smile. "You bet I hit Jay, little brother. I kept him in line. But only with my open hand." He held his palm up, let it drop. "Only that, until the day they told me otherwise." "When was that?" Mulder shifted now, leaning forward, chin resting on his thumbs as he linked his fingers. Focused. "I was fourteen when they started talking to me, fifteen when they took me away." Kane settled back now. He hadn't bothered to look at me or Scully, only Mulder. He was beaming at the fed. "You know, I envy you. Real pretty place where you grew up." In the mirror I could see Mulder's eyes flicker, narrow for an instant, before his face went neutral again. "It sure was pretty that summer." "Your father was military?" Scully shifted next to me. I think she straightened. I felt the edge of the chair, rough and hard, digging into my fingers and let go, put my hands in my lap. "Air force. Career military. Not like your father." "And they contacted you when you were fifteen?" Kane snorted. "Little Fox, that's when they took me and put their mark on me, made me one of theirs. How old were you when they took you?" Mulder ignored that. "Tell me about when they took you." He was still sitting, elbows on table, chin on his folded hands, poised. "You already know what that's like, even if you forgot. You've talked to enough of the others. They know you, they told you what it was like. Hell, she ought to know what it's like. . ." A gesture at Scully. Mulder glanced back past his shoulder, met her eyes an instant. Turned back to Kane as Scully crossed her ankles with a slow, deliberate movement, and carefully settled back in her uncomfortable chair. "That's when they showed me what I'd have to do to find out which ones were real. Remember what it's like, little brother?" "And when did they tell you to find out about your father?" "And Jay? The year after the Vineyard. I found out about Jay that year, but my daddy. . . " Kane slumped back in the chair, and his face twisted for the first time. "I knew Jay was gone long since. That wasn't my little brother. But my daddy. . . I ran away and tried to hide. The army wasn't taking a kid like me. . . I worked. But they wouldn't let me hide. They kept talking to me. They could always find me." He looked up. "When they're ready, they'll find you." It was so quiet. Then he sighed. "And they told me. And finally I went on home and knew that wasn't my daddy. Couldn't hide from it any more. So I did what I had to do. And that's when I started looking for my daddy and Jay. The real ones, the ones that weren't in my house any more." Mulder finally shifted again, tried to find a comfortable way to sit in that chair. My ass was numb, but I didn't want to shift and risk making a sound. "So you've been looking ever since?" "Course. I figure one of the others took my daddy and brother away, so I have to look for them there. Find the fakes, make sure of them. One day I'll find the real ones. I know you want to lock me up. You scared of me, little Fox, but I'll find them one day. And you have to look for your Samantha again, need to find her." "Was it the grays that talked to you?" Kane leaned way, way in, hands spread on the table, leaning towards Mulder, who didn't move. Scully tensed and leaned forward, feet firmly on the ground now. I didn't know I'd moved, too, until the edge of the seat was digging into my thighs from the way I'd braced my weight. "Talked to you, didn't they little brother? Did you check your x-rays like I told the lawyer-girl to tell you? Do you understand, now?" And Mulder smiled. "I understand, Kane. I understand." "Good, little brother. Good. You'll figure it out. You just keep thinking about what I told you." He looked straight into Mulder's eyes. "And I forgive you for what you're gonna tell that judge. The others may not, but I do. I'll see you again. See you at the hearing, and I'll see you again, little Fox." He snapped two polite bows to me and to Scully, and rolled back from the table. "You keep looking, little brother. Keep looking, or they'll come back for you." And he was gone. _______________ Mulder held the video tape and paced steadily, long strides, out of the jail. The wind caught his suit jacket when we stepped out the door, but he didn't seem to notice now. His eyes were dull brown, and his forehead furrowed with whatever had his concentration. I saw Scully watching him, trying not to get caught at it, as the three of us crossed that flat, empty yard again. I unlocked my door, popped the other locks. That was when I heard him breathe that sigh of relief, and looked back to see him brace himself against the roof of the car. He leaned against the car, pulled up the latch but had to brace again to pull it open. He didn't so much sit as just let his knees fold and drop him into the back seat. I hesitated, then shut the door for him and met Scully's eyes over the roof of the car. By the time I had my seatbelt on, Mulder had wedged himself into the corner of the seat, with his legs sprawled out across it. His hands were just lying in his lap, palms up, fingers curled as though it would take too much strength to straighten them. Scully turned to look after him while I pulled out through the gates and headed for home. I could make out what she asked him. The doctor litany of how do you feel, does anything hurt, the motion in the rear view mirror as her hand went to his forehead. His answers, though, were so soft, almost too faint to catch. Not whispers. A whisper took control. His voice was just too faded to hear. Scully did what she could, then turned to stare out her window, and I let her be until we reached home. Cars. Seth's car, Jerry's. Two new reporters. I was guessing they'd heard something. Scully looked out at them and cursed. I wandered over while she and Seth spoke for a moment. The man and woman, nicely made up and watching my car like hungry animals, kept trying to see past me, past Jerry. He'd worked it out right away and was playing guard and blocking the opposition. I'd have laughed if I wasn't trembling and sick inside. The two hounds wanted to talk to me, tried to get past me and I dropped the name "Kane," immediately riveting them. They already knew Scully would just give them the FBI line. Finally I glanced back, saw Fox climb out. To my eyes he looked too stiffly held, tightly braced, but the man next to me commented on how good he looked, and how quickly he'd gotten back on his feet. I was pretty sure his camera-man's footage would convey exactly that message. So long as they didn't actually talk to the man, we could leave them with absolutely nothing useful. Bright Emma bullshit smile and tell him all about Agent Mulder cleaning my fridge out and how much money this saved the taxpayer and a batch of other stuff far too boring to be of any use but just personal enough to tantalize. And the minute the three of them were in the house, Jer and I broke off and went for cover. "Oh god, Emma. You should really go into politics. You have the gift!" "I don't know, Rigg. Your timing was great." "That wasn't timing. Seth and I have been waiting. Someone told my esteemed colleagues you three had headed out to the prison, and they sent a few to sit in ambush. We just figured this was more fun than local elections." "You are so charming, Jerry." "Thank you. Did I just earn my ticket to dinner?" "Of course. And to whatever crumbs the feds decide to toss your way." "I love to cheat." _______________ "Mulder, either tell me what you're thinking, or go get some sleep." "Hmh?" He looked up at Scully, eyes dark in a wan face. He'd been writing dates, names, events on a page in front of him. There was a fading, red mark on his temple where the heel of his hand had been all that held his head up. She sighed and briefly worked her lower lip. "You're about ready to keel over, Mulder. Either tell me what you're trying to figure out, or go lie down." "I'm fine, I'm just. . . " He looked back down at what he'd written. "'Fine' doesn't pass out in the back of the car. Of course, 'fine' usually doesn't try to play head games with maniacs, either. What were you playing at?" "His dad. . . if he was fifteen, his dad took them to the Vineyard in 1967 or 1968. . . " "Simple math, Mulder. Even a psychologist can work that one out. That's if his dad really took him to the Vineyard and he wasn't just yanking your chain." "Mulder shook his head, sharp, angry movement. I checked the pasta on the stove, standing to the side so I could still watch them. "You don't get it, Scully. I think I remember him. I think I remember a man and. . . " He was staring into space, blank eyes looking into the past. "Dad met a man at the ferry. There was a teenager, and a younger boy. Just a little older than I was. . . and they held so still when their father yelled at them." He swallowed nervously. "My shoulder hurt, and I didn't get near them after that. . . I wasn't supposed to play with them or talk with them. Dad was so angry. . ." He shook himself loose of whatever memory made his hands clench in the tablecloth, let go very deliberately and spread his hands out on the cloth in front of him. I checked the pasta before he could look up and catch my eyes. Scully let go of her elbows, uncrossed her arms and carefully reached over to pull the page in front of her. "So the dates, and names. . . " "Yeah. Trying to match names of visitors with things like papers, or television, that made me remember the date." I heard his head drop back against the wall behind him, a faint thump. His breaths were slow and irregular, like he was too tired to draw in air until he had to. I drained the pasta, and the billow of steam fogged the reflection in the window over the sink. "But we don't have a name on him. . . the fingerprint check came up with nothing but the aliases at the previous murders. Different each place." Her voice was soft, and I think she was telling him something other than the words. "I know. The only name we can be pretty sure of is Jay. But if I could remember. . . " "Mulder, you won't lose any of it if you wait until tomorrow." The goat cheese and herbs was smooth in the pasta, and the tomatoes and cucumbers were bright. Normal, healthy smells without the tang of metal. I kept turning the pasta salad long past when it needed more mixing. I finally heard his chair scrape back and the creak of the table's legs as weight braced on it. A faint, quick sound of cloth from past the doorway on the left wall of the kitchen, where I could see the warm light from the living room shining faintly through the dining room, into the hall. Another chair moved back. Scully stepped next to me, and filled a water glass. When I looked up again a tall silhouette, with one hand on the wall had turned the corner into the light. Next to me, Scully got pills out of their bubble packs, tearing them open with her nails instead of trying to push the pills through the foil. Her hair hid her face, and her hands jerked and tore at the packaging. "I guess it's dinner in front of the TV again, huh?" "Yeah." She flipped her hair back from her pale face, and scooped up the pills and the glass. "Maybe we'll even watch a lousy horror film, huh Emma?" She met my eyes. "Horror films seem about right, tonight." ___________ ". . . despite what is clearly close cooperation between federal authorities and local private citizens, no comment has been forthcoming. . . " The smarmy tones of an ambitious local anchor washed through the room. "Yeah, and he's been wondering how close the connections with the private citizens are." Jerry's snicker was a singularly unappetizing sound at that moment. Mulder and Scully pointedly ignored him. "Don't those idiots have better things to do than to ask me questions they know I won't answer, or can't answer?" Mulder's head was tipped back on the couch, and his eyes were a gleam under his lashes as he watched the news. "Nope. They ask and then it looks like a cover-up when you can't answer." Scully grinned to hear him admit it. Fox looked too close to sleep to bother. Jerry decided to coach him. "All right, Mulder. Next time that one asks you anything you ask how many virgin births his girlfriends have had." "What do you mean?" I think Scully was doing the talking for both of them. At least Fox opened his eyes and picked at a couple more bites of dinner. "Virgin births, Agent Scully. Impossible pregnancies." "Jerry says he has fake vasectomy scars." I didn't feel like watching Jer trying to spar with them tonight. Mulder stopped, looked up at me. Scully's eyes narrowed. "What?" I explained. The two feds looked at each other, then Mulder grinned. "Give me your phone, Scully." She did, clearly puzzled. There was a short and very nondescript conversation, and Mulder repeated the newsman's name twice, then spelled it. Disconnected and handed the phone back, meeting her quizzical stare. "Remember Rick Wetzelman?" "Rick. . . wasn't he involved in that case where dead bodies were getting refunds from the. . .Oh Mulder! You didn't. . . " But her face lit up, meeting his smile. "I did." Jerry's face screwed up as he held onto his laughter, and I leaned in next to him. "Jer? You know what that's about?" He nodded. "Yeah. Yeah. Your feds just called the IRS. Laughing boy's going to have a little visit. . ." I sat back and entertained a brief, warm glow. "Good work, Mulder. The ungodly have been smitten!" ___________________ Scully sat at the table, staring at Mulder's notes again. Her partner was out like he'd been anesthetized, not even snoring he was so far under. I had to look twice to be sure he was even breathing, then I piled another blanket on top of him. "Thanks, Emma." She must have seen me go by with the blanket. "Yeah, well. . . it gets chilly at night." Jerry was long gone, and we were little louder than whispers. "Scully." I waited until she looked up. "I was really scared today. I knew he couldn't get us, and I was scared anyway." I couldn't read her eyes. "How do you sleep after that?" "Sometimes you don't." She nibbled at her lip, turned the sheet of paper one way and another. "Sometimes you just accept that you can't change it and you move on." "Will he have nightmares tonight?" "Maybe. He's tired and he's got a lot of junk in his system. You afraid he'll wake you up?" "Not really. I wanted to know. . . " She was a lot harder to ask these things than he was. With him I felt like I had a right to know. With her I felt like I was intruding. "Never mind." Curiosity flickering just behind the still look on her face. "What did you want to know, Emma?" I pulled a deep breath. "Did you move after you started doing this work?" Why did I ask that? I flushed. "Move? No. . . I almost moved once. Something had happened. . ." She shivered. "But I refused to let that. . . undo what I'd made." "How did you wind up doing this?" "Curious tonight." She folded the page. "You thinking of applying to the Bureau after all? Most of it's not like what we do." She grinned. "If it was, no one would ever work for them." Sip of tea and I looked around my tidy, ordinary kitchen. "I just. . . I didn't want to clean off the fingerprints and. . . and all. The house feels more like me now with those things on it. Without them, nothing in my life has followed me to where I am now." My face pulled in. I felt it, knew I hadn't said what I wanted but I didn't know how to say it either. Scully looked down at her hands. "You said something like that, when you were ill." She looked up. "Emma, you reach a point where. . . where you have to decide if you need to stay with the safe and the known, or you need to know the truth. Then all you can do is use everything you've been to look." "I don't belong here, anymore." I heard the small thread of my own voice. "I. . . I hit a point where I felt. . . adrift. At first it felt like I was less than I'd been, like all I'd learned to do wasn't enough and wasn't valid, and I was angry and frightened about it." She looked at me. "It felt like I couldn't trust what I'd learned to be. I finally understood that I wasn't less than I'd been, I was a lot more because I could ask and learn and grow. It's just I'd never seen before how far I could grow. The perspective was scary." She shrugged. "It still is. It's not comfortable. It's not easy. But it's honest. Pulling back would be a lie now." I stared at her and nodded. _________________________________ I didn't know where I was at first and my pulse was loud in my ears. Before I opened my eyes I thought it might be the hospital. I wasn't sure the scream hadn't been my own either, but another scream, sharp and loud and not my own snapped me into focus. The feet that raced past my door were no surprise now, and I grabbed my robe and followed Scully down the stairs, thankful for the runner that kept our feet from slipping. The living room was dark, no flicker of television light or glow of lamp to show us what we needed to see, and dawn was a long way away. No light, just quick, panicky breathing that we could hear but not track. I felt Scully ahead of me, a shadow in darkness. Reached around her to flip on the lights, flood the room with the ivory of lamplight and felt my pupils close with painful speed. Another shriek shivered through the room. We didn't see him at first, just heard him. Scully stepped into the room, scanning, and found her partner huddled in the corner, behind the largest of my chairs, behind the potted palm. I followed her, but she put a hand out to stop me, keep me back, when his eyes focused somewhere between him and us and his face twisted. "I won't do it again. . . I didn't know. . ." Low and thin and young and scared. "Mulder. . . " Scully was crouched down now, about eight feet from him. She scooted forward and he scrabbled back into a corner that had no room left, trying to pull in smaller than he possibly could. "I won't talk to them again. . .I didn't mean to. . . " His voice was louder now, spiraling in panic. Scully stayed where she was. "It's okay, it's me. . . " "Sam. . . please dad, I didn't know. I didn't know. . . " He had his hands crossed in front of his chest, fists balled, like the kids you see in the family court who are so scared. The kids with the black eyes, and broken bones. "Mulder, it's Scully. It's Scully. No one's going to hurt you. You're safe. You're safe. . . " Crooned, over and over, trying to cut through the panic. He was quieting quickly now that the lights were on, but his eyes were still tracking things that weren't in the room. "The grays. . . they came back, dad. I tried to tell you. . .but I couldn't remember. I didn't know. . ." "I know. I know. You're safe. . . " I caught my breath and twisted away from them, hearing it still back there, him trying to convince a man she'd said was dead. After what he'd said earlier, I didn't need to guess at who he had spoken with. I didn't want to guess at what his father had done. I went through my medicine cabinets until I found the standby, Dramamine. Unless sedatives were part of Scully's luggage she'd need something to make him sleepy. Felt my mouth purse on a bitter taste that it should be so useful. Then to the kitchen and his meds, looking for the ones they'd said would make him sleepy. I'd let her decide which she'd rather use. I really didn't want to walk back into my living room. I could still hear them, and I knew he was still seeing things no one should have to see, but I might be able to help. "Scully. . . " She glanced back at my soft voice. "Can you use the Atarax, or Dramamine or anything. . . ?" "Not yet, but have them ready." She didn't need to say thanks. I could see it. Mulder had relaxed enough to drop from the crouch and pull his knees up, rocking softly back and forth. He still pulled back when she tried to move towards him. All we could do was wait. . . and listen. "I tried to stop them. . . I couldn't move, dad. . . couldn't move. Don't hit me. . . I couldn't. . . " He pulled in and the sob shook him, caught in his throat again as he stopped. "Please. . . I won't talk to Jay again. . . I didn't mean to. . . but he saw them too. Saw them a long time ago." Fox buried his head against his knees, pulling into a tight ball of misery. Scully finally moved forward, still on her knees, glanced back and mouthed "pills" silently. When I came back I had a selection and a glass of water. I was careful to kneel down next to her in case he looked up. I didn't. . . I didn't think an adult should be standing over him if he looked up. Scully took what she wanted and turned back to him. "Mulder, I have pills. I want you to take these. . . they'll help." He pulled in tighter, and shook his head just a little. "No, I have to go look. I can't sleep. . . " "These will help. . . " "I don't want them. Please, I don't want them. Sam. . . I don't want them." I could see her swallow, see how pale she was. But his voice sounded a little clearer, more tired than frantic now. "Mulder, it's Scully. These won't hurt you. . . " "Scully. . . not Sam. . . " He was slowly uncurling. Wiped his face with a hand that shook and trembled. "Scully. . . I didn't mean to talk with Jay. . . I didn't know I wasn't supposed to talk with Jay. . . And I had to go to the doctor's and wear the sling. . . " He kept fading out, but even I could hear him coming back to himself. The past was falling into place again, and he knew who she was. She touched him very carefully, pulled one hand loose. He let her, but didn't take the pills she put in his palm. "Please, Mulder. . ." "Scully. . . " His face twisted into a sad, lost smile that was one step short of tears. "I kept seeing my dad, but he had Kane's face." He sniffed, rubbed a sleeve over his face. He wasn't really seeing me. His eyes never traveled beyond her. "I had to wear the sling for weeks, and my shoulder hurt so much. And Jay died the year after that. . . " He let his head fall back, heavy against the wall, fist closed tight around the pills she wanted him to take. "His brother killed him the year after that. His brother told me about the grays, said they talked to him. I didn't know what he meant, and I asked my dad. . . I didn't know until Sam. . . " He bit down on his lip until I was sure it would bleed, may have choked down another sob. His eyes were black in the white of his face when he looked at her again. "Dennis. His brother, Dennis, said he'd talked to the grays. I didn't know what he meant until they came to take Sam." He tried to drop the pills, but her hand was around his and she made him keep hold of them. "You need to rest. . . they won't hurt you. I won't let anyone hurt you. . . " He really focused on her now, finally. "Don't drug me, please don't drug me. . . It was so hard to think through the fog. Don't you do that to me, too. . . " "Mulder. . . " "Please Scully." He smiled at her, fragile and thin. She shut her eyes, held her breath, then nodded. "All right. All right, but if you wake up again. . . " She helped him up to his feet then settled down in the chair he'd hidden behind, snuggled into the softness of it, watching him. He hesitated, then curled up in the sofa bed, with blankets all wrapped and tangled around him. Reached for the remote and turned on the TV with the sound off. I didn't know if I'd sleep again, but I left them. I glanced at him on my way out. His eyes looked shut, but I think I saw a gleam through the lashes. I flipped off the lights and went to bed. ______________________ There was a pounding at the front door, repeated and loud. I dragged myself out of bed, groaning. Dawn was gray outside. When I stepped out of my room, belting my robe, Scully's door had opened and she was peering out, puzzled. She followed me down the stairs. I peeked through the curtains on the door and saw Douglas knocking on my door but looking back over his shoulder. Still graveyard shift, but there was some kind of fuss down the street. Behind me I heard an explosive curse, Scully swearing, and I suddenly knew why we had a fuss down the street. The chain rattled as I released that lock, then the deadbolt and the latch and pulled in that door. . . "Douglas! What's going on down. . . " not that I really needed to ask at all. "Keep the door open. I'll be right back." And he was off and barreling down the street. Bright lights flared down there, mounted above cameras. Scully was next to me, pulling her coat on over her robe and slipping shoes onto her feet. "Is he always like this?" "Unfortunately." She sounded utterly resigned. I could see Fox with a hand shielding his eyes, just before Douglas started pulling the vultures away from him. Gently but firmly, as they say. Scully was loping down the sidewalk, and I could hear the protests from where I stood, as reporters shrieked about the public's right to know anything and everything they could get Mulder to tell them. Karen, next door, stepped onto her porch, and faces were peeking out doors all up and down the street. I sighed, and went to get tea ready. It was too early in the day to watch the carnage that Scully would probably leave. I had water boiling and cups set out by the time I heard voices, and the door shutting and being bolted again. "What the hell did you think you were doing? If you wanted to go running I could have taken you to a track. . . " Douglas's voice, deep and annoyed. "You must really love hospital food. Haven't you figured out about relapses yet?" Scully. Their voices tangled and ran together as they developed their themes. I saw their reflections in the window as I looked up from the cups. They showed clearly against the shadows before dawn that shrouded my little back yard and privacy fence. I frowned, remembering chains on the front door, seeing a six foot fence in my back yard. Fox was pointedly ignoring them as he pulled out a chair and dropped himself into it. He didn't look up when I put his cup in front of him but I could see his jaw working. Douglas took his cup and a handful of the cookies I'd pulled out. "Thanks. I'm gonna go run off our friends." I smiled and locked the door after him. I was glad he had been there, but he didn't have Seth's brains. I wondered if Seth would have been expecting Mulder to go over the back fence, as Douglas clearly had not. Scully was still fuming over his even going running at all. She hadn't moved on to how he'd gotten out yet. "What did you think you were doing? I finally go to bed and you pull this! You're barely out of the hospital. The press completely aside, it's cold and you're straining your respiratory system exactly when you should be resting. You are going to. . . " "Scully." Quiet. Just enough to make her pause. "I can't just sit still." She took a deep breath. I recognized the look on her face and wondered if she was counting to ten, or needed to go higher to cope with Mulder. She finally puffed the breath out. "All right. Tell me about it." He looked up at her. "About what? I like to run. I've been going up the wall, so I went running. I dropped back to a walk as soon as I got tired." The frustrated look on her face declared that, first, she didn't believe that he'd taken it easy one bit and, two, that he knew that wasn't what she'd asked. "Dennis. Tell me about talking to Jay and Dennis." And he froze. Stared into his cup. Slowly, carefully let his eyes shut and I could see him run his tongue over his teeth beneath his lips. He brought the cup up to his lips, shivering slightly, and took a sip. "Well? Dennis. That's Kane's first name, right? What did you talk about?" The soft tone tried to take the edge off the words, but he slammed the cup down, and tea slopped onto the table. "Yes. Kane's name is Dennis. I don't remember what we talked about and I'm going to take a shower." The glare he gave her absolutely dared her to say anything. "And no. I do not want to talk about it. There is nothing to talk about." She watched him stalk out, listened to him thrash through his luggage, listened until the water started to run. "Bullshit, Mulder. Bullshit." Her long, slow sigh should have released something, some stress, but her eyes were still worried. I turned back and felt her step up, put the cup on the counter, glance out the window and stop. I'd wondered how long it would take her. "God. Damn. It. Damn him." Soft, breathed curses. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her fists ball up. I could feel the frustration in her. "So what, Scully? You already know he takes risks." She shouldn't have been surprised. Maybe she wasn't. "What do you think you can do about it? Hobble him?" I looked back at her, expecting to see her face flushed and ready to flay me alive. And stared into a face somewhere between totally lost and wanting to laugh. Her eyes tracked past me, acknowledged what I'd already seen. "He went over the fence." "I don't see how else he could have slipped out." "And he was too tired to come back in over the fence." "So he let Douglas take the heat." I nodded. Watched her rub her eyes, shake her head. "How did he live this long, Scully? With habits like this he should be dead." She shuddered, then gave a small, thin laugh. "He nearly has been, Emma. This is nothing. And I don't know if I can chew him out for the fence, too. After everything else the fence is just too. . . too. . . " Her face was just stunned, flabbergasted. I finally had to grin back at her. "He probably wouldn't have pushed it too hard, Scully. Attitude like his, if he's going to get killed he'll do it in a much showier fashion than that." The snort didn't escalate to giggles, but her shoulders weren't so dreadfully tense when she walked out, either. __________________ Mulder was on my computer. I hadn't checked my email in days, and he hadn't either. "Do your friends always hack into other peoples' email accounts?" Messages for him were scattered all through my mail. "Not always, just if they think there's a conspiracy." "Or anything racy." Scully was scanning over his shoulder, shaking her head at the messages from the Lone Gunmen. I'd gotten a crash course in conspiracy theory listening to Mulder read his mail out loud. They'd been busy speculating as to why they hadn't heard from him, and when he'd logged on from the machine he was sharing with Scully he found that there was a lot of mail sitting in my account. My current favorite was the speculation that he and Scully had been sold into white slavery and were working for an information haven with outlaw attitudes. Once he'd cleaned his stuff out of my account he went looking for real information, information on Peter Kane, nee Dennis somebody-or-other, brother to Jay. He was searching for records of military personnel, single men with two sons. "You're looking at Air Force? Why not Army or Navy too?" I hung over his shoulder. "Or maybe even Marines." "Nah, Marines only fight aliens in the movies. He said his dad was Air Force, and they're the most likely for the involvement I expect to find. I'll go to the others if it doesn't pan out." "What do you expect to find?" I got a patented blank look for that, that told me there were still limits to what information I could expect to get on this case. "Well, last night you remembered that this guy's name was Dennis. . . are you sure you don't remember his dad?" Mulder leaned back in the chair and blew a tired breath that fluffed his bangs. Scully had looked up from where she was sitting on the couch writing, watching us carefully. He looked away from both of us, distracted, reached up to work his right shoulder absentmindedly and shook his head. "No. No, I don't recall. . . " That eidetic memory had to be good for something other than copying my real estate lists. "What about the date, or any details? Did the kids have souvenir shirts? Did they have a car on the ferry? Maybe you'd recall the license plates?" He looked up at me, a slow, deliberate glare. "I don't remember. Stop asking." I opened my mouth, almost asked about what he DID remember, but Scully saved me from myself. "What about local newspapers, or the records from ferry ticket sales? Would there by a way to get any of that? With the weather and days in service, we probably could narrow things down a lot." When I looked at her over my shoulder, she was eyeing me, letting him haze out staring at the screen. If I interpreted the silent communication correctly, she was telling me to back off and shut up. It was the first time I'd had to do that eyeball conversation stuff with her, but I felt pretty secure in my interpretation. He was drumming at the edge of the keyboard, working the idea over. "That would help. Yes, I can see that. Okay, so let me get on the line to the libraries up in Massachusetts. . . " "No need for that!" I grinned, and made a peace offering. Leaned over his shoulder to get access to the catalogue of the local library. "God, look at this." Scully came over to see, while he cleaned his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "What on earth. . . ? What's all this stuff on Kennedy and Cape Cod and Massachusetts doing in a Mid-Western library?" "That's Mad Maude's Kennedy Collection." I grinned. "Maude developed a crush on JFK in 1957. She was sure he was THE man for her and just didn't know it. She subscribed to every magazine, newspaper, newsletter, novel or whatever that might mention him and cross-referenced it all. When he was assassinated, she kept collecting as a shrine to him." "So she's got, what? All the local papers from the Cape and the Vineyard, from 1957 through. . . ?" "Through her death in 1986. She was loyal to his family and figured they needed her protection and support." "Sounds like she'd have fit right in with the Gunmen." Scully grinned at Mulder. "She and Frohike would have made music together." He shuddered at the thought. "So she bequeathed it all. . . ?" He looked at me, still fidgeting with his glasses. "To her second love, the public library; the whole collection, and it's huge. Catalogued and ready for the public to share Maude's passion." Mulder grinned. "God, I love obsessions." Scully smiled. "News to me." ____________________ They were surprised I didn't go with them. After all, I'd tagged along for doctor visits, police station procedures, daytrips to killers and all kinds of other fun activities. I begged off on the grounds that I remembered the library much better than I wanted, and was rewarded with a look of trepidation on Mulder's face. Perhaps he had just realized that he was letting himself in for a marathon session on the microfilm readers. I wanted to avoid those satanic machines, it was true. But I had other things to accomplish. I ran up to my office, almost abandoned on a Saturday midday, and ran through my benefits information. Kind of a skimpy package, they wanted you to stay for a long time, but I made sure I knew what I could get. Then I went to Tammy and Claude. "You want us to assess your house? But why? It's only likely to raise your taxes, sweetcheeks. . ." I braced for the fireworks. "Well, I was sort of thinking of selling it. . . " The looks were puzzled, but hopeful. "You thinking of trading up. . . ?" Confused by the lack of gossip on my love life - maybe the only area of my life that lacked gossip right then. "Noooo. . . " How to explain? I really had no clear idea myself of what I planned for my future, but I did know it didn't include a fixed address. It wasn't something I thought Claude or Tammy could understand, and I didn't want to expose my raw fears for my future in this office of stolid, Ethan Allan American furniture, wall-to-wall carpet and overly-clean brass lamps. Tammy took a cookie from the omnipresent plate, and nibbled it in nervous little bites. "Well, you have such a nice house dear. . . and you don't have a family or anything. Do you?" Shake of the head. Hell, over the last couple weeks I couldn't recall having had time for a quickie. I had to grin. If I'd tried to get Mulder in bed, I'd have bet on Scully tying knots in my ovaries, just before she demolished him. And Jerry was *not* an option. No, I wasn't expecting any little guests. "It's just. . . I always wanted to travel. I. . . " The look they gave me clearly announced that home equity loans, not sale, were how one dealt with wanderlust. And if they could have understood it would have been wrong to rip away the solid veneer and leave them where I had been left, looking at a corpse and wondering what relation it had to the life I thought I'd led. In the end they agreed to assess the property and to handle the sale if I decided to go ahead. They were sure I was crazy by the time I finished, but the I left the rest of their world still safe and sane. It was the right thing to do. _________________ Seth Robertson was tucked in his car, cold and bored, when I got home. I invited him in and told him about our adventure that morning. "Yeah, Douggie said Spooky had managed to bitch it up in classic style. I figure we'll see Scully in her bathrobe on the weekend news." He raised his cup in a salute. "Nah, she had her coat on over it. That would be boring. They'll go for him ducking comments and then scream about the crypto-fascists keeping him from making a statement about that poor innocent, Peter Kane." He snorted tea and had to wipe his face, waggled a finger at me. "Reading alt.conspiracy is bad for you, Emma. It'll rot that keen legal mind." "It's Lone Gunmen email and my keen legal mind was long since dulled by dirt." We were sitting in the seat of the bay window, where we could keep an eye out for Mulder and Scully. It was a pleasant way to spend a couple hours, listening to Seth. He told some marvelous stories, including a few in strictest confidence about the fibbies' boss, Skinner. He'd been in Vietnam with Skinner, and remembered Stoneface Skinner as the guy who had gotten shitfaced on homemade hooch brewed from raisins, then had somehow managed to take the body off their C.O.'s jeep and reversed it so it looked like the car was driving backwards. He could barely finish the story for the memory of the officer's face. The notion of the guy who could strike terror into Mulder and Scully pulling practical jokes, well. . . The baying of the newshounds broke up our coffee-klatch and sent Seth barreling out the front door to escort two tired Special Agents into the house. Mulder immediately sagged onto the couch where he let his head fall back and ran a hand over his vaguely green face. "God, I'm almost ready to take that dramamine." He finally opened his eyes and looked at Scully, who was trying to work the knots out of her shoulders and neck by contorting. I closed the curtains when I noticed a flash of light from the cameras outside. "Scully, can you handle calling Hanscom? I don't think I can stand up." "If you hadn't tried to push it and go running this morning, you wouldn't feel nearly so bad. I bet the microfilm wouldn't even have bothered you." She had that note of perfect virtue that makes the rest of us want to go forth and sin. Dana Scully, Our Lady of Medical Rectitude. The look on Mulder's face said he shared my opinion but felt too tired to bother verbalizing it. He slowly, painfully, started to lever himself off the couch, taking advantage of every opportunity to look utterly pitiful about it. She frowned at him and relented. "All right. All right, I'll call. There's probably no one available but let's see." Out came the cell phone. She did get someone, to the surprise of both of them, identified herself and rattled off a badge number with as many digits as the national debt. Mulder had folded himself into a corner of the couch and was flipping through a bundle of copies. I felt sympathetic distress at the idea of how many microfilm rolls he would have to have read to get those. I untucked myself from my spot in the window seat and headed to the kitchen to start water boiling. Dump out some cookies and dried fruit and I could pretend to be a decent hostess! Microwave some apple cider, toss in cinnamon sticks and be back in the living room in time to listen to Scully as she asked after single, divorced or separated men with two sons, Dennis and Jay. She repeated something about Monday, probably when she could first reasonably expect anyone to look for the information, thanked the person and hung up. Mulder had pushed his glasses up on his forehead so he could pinch the bridge of his nose. His face was still pale, and he kept curling to one side in a motion I remembered well from my time in front of the infernal device. Scully had gone on to call someone else, and was requesting some kind of research. She looked happy to see the plate of snacks and goodies. He just shut his eyes and ignored them. She reached for an oreo and glanced up at me, to track past me and frown. I turned and saw lights flashing and flaring against the curtains. I opened the door, to stare at a the noisy, bright-flashing huddle of all those reporters gathered down on my sidewalk. Seth was bouncing on his toes, standing on the porch and staring. "What's going on?" "You've got a caller." And the rich-coated mob, ringed by their scuzzy, equipment-distorted sound and cameramen, suddenly broke back and framed a tall man, hair combed neatly and pasted in place with gel. Waverly. The federal prosecutor, holding forth. I didn't hear the man, but I knew an official-style and self-aggrandizing sound-bite when I saw one. He fixed on me, and waded to my door, with the lights and attention and shouted questions following, sharp in the cold, fall afternoon. Scully, who had come up behind me, hissed and reached for the door. She wasn't fast enough. By the time I'd stepped out of the way Waverly was up and had a hand out holding the door open. "Agent Scully, this is related to the case. And I fully anticipate that this visit will be more pleasant for all concerned." All delivered under cover of an oily, politically polished smile. Scully's mouth was a narrow, white line, but she backed off. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mulder crane his head back, and shut his eyes in pained recognition. Fox was just pulling himself upright when Waverly draped his jacket over the back of the Morris chair across from him and settled down in it. Mulder was still a little lower, sunk in the deep couch, chin on hand and head tilted back to look down his long nose just slightly. Seth had stepped in to the hall behind us to keep a discreet eye on things. "You're looking better, Agent Mulder." Waverly held out his hand in the obligatory handshake. Mulder eyed it, and I could imagine him rerunning some of the hands he'd shaken to his regret. "What can I do for you, Mr. Waverly?" It sounded far too formal to be friendly, and Mulder kept his chin propped on the hand he would have used to shake with the prosecutor and opened his eyes wide. "Agent Mulder, I hear you had a visit with the defendant." He was showing capped teeth in an even row, leaning forward with an earnest interest on his face. "I'm glad you took the opportunity to reevaluate your opinion. Maybe we can get somewhere on this case, now that you've had a chance to talk with the man under calmer circumstances. I know you're still on the mend, but when could I look to pick up the revised profile?" Fox stared at him a moment, then heaved a sigh and leaned back a little. "I'm standing by my previous evaluation." Waverly frowned. "I'm afraid we may not be seeing eye to eye here, Agent Mulder. Other experts have seen this man and their evaluations report a lucid, clear-thinking person who was quite aware of his actions. He knew he was killing these people. It's not like he thought they weren't living individuals or whatever most serial killers seem to say, not like they were objects." "Nooo, he does know they were individuals. He recognizes they were alive. But he does not recognize them as humans. Peter Kane will tell you that he killed artificial creatures created by aliens to infiltrate us. He is unable to perceive that his actions are wrong. Within his frame of reference he is behaving in a sensible and positive fashion. My interview with him adds nothing new to the psychological profile I had filed with you." The prosecutor licked his lips and nursed a strained smile. His face was gradually starting to darken, but his voice still sounded calm. "Agent Mulder, that is the most ridiculous story I've ever heard. While I will believe that Kane has no sense of good fiction, I do not buy your contention that he does not know right from wrong. My experts. . . " "Your experts have not been tracking this man, did not have to play hide-and-seek hunting him and never got close to catching him." Fox's eyes were no longer anywhere near sleepy, although he looked paler than ever and he hadn't changed position once. Scully had drifted up behind Waverly and was watching her partner. Mulder went on in a voice that was far too level and neutral. "You can hire any experts you like, play my-expert-witness-can-beat-up-yours, and it will not change the fact that Kane is not capable of understanding why what he did is wrong. He believes he will suffer punishment if he does not do this, and he believes his victims are not human." "I was hoping you would have reconsidered that opinion." Waverly pulled his briefcase onto his lap, popped the catches and pulled out a sheaf of papers. Mulder reached out rather reluctantly to take them, glanced through them. "I would really like to be able to add your opinion to my brief, Agent Mulder. Your evaluations were instrumental to catching this man." Mulder snorted. I was tempted to point out that evaluations hadn't pulled a file out of a pile and said "this one did it," and that it hadn't been any of Waverly's other experts who had known that the cops arrested the wrong man, and who had gone to the house of the right man. I bit my tongue and watched Mulder look up from the reports and toss them back, tacitly dismissing them. "Very nice assessments of clarity and test results. And Kane will agree with you that it's wrong to kill people. I'm quite sure of that. That's not the problem. He doesn't believe that the people that he killed ARE people. None of your experts asked him who he'd killed, but you had better believe his lawyer will ask him that. The guy's obnoxious but I don't think he's incompetent." "Agent Mulder, I came here anticipating. . . " Waverly stood up, not really hovering, but standing close enough to force Mulder to look up at him. "I was hoping you were merely confused by your medication when I saw you before. After all, that trip to the ICU must have been quite traumatic. You did radically change your opinion." Mulder visibly gritted his teeth, narrowed his eyes. "I changed my opinion because I gained more data, and theories and diagnoses are fact-dependent, not the other way around." "Are you so sure, Agent Mulder?" A rather pitying, unpleasant tone now. "Are you sure you're not fudging the facts so they fit a hypothesis that has nothing to do with Peter Kane, or this case, or these murders?" Scully's breath hissed, and even I knew what Waverly was implying. Mulder rolled onto his feet, glaring down at the oily creature. "Pretending this man is sane so you can look like you're tough on crime is not going to make him sane, and I will not be a hostile witness for the defense if you pursue this. You can lay your political foundations on some other case." His voice wasn't neutral any longer, and the rasp in it was abrasive. Standing, Waverly had to look up to meet his eyes, although not so far as Kane's lawyer, whats-his-face, had needed to do. It was a neat trick to stop bullies, and I really envied Mulder that height. Unfortunately, it didn't look like it worked on Waverly. "I had hoped that I could reason with you, Mulder. I anticipated. . . " "I don't really care what you anticipated, Mr. Waverly. I have interviewed this man and I stand by my evaluation." He turned to walk away and Waverly grabbed his shoulder, spinning him back. Normally it would probably have just brought Mulder back around, but now it dropped him back into the couch without warning. Seth was past me and around the coffee table, his hand on Waverly's arm before Mulder had pulled himself back up to glare down at the man. "Get whatever hack you want to hire to play dueling shrinks, Waverly. My evaluation stands as it is. Kane is not sane and even if you win it'll go down on appeal." His voice was rough and angry, and his eyes burned in a pale face. Scully had stepped up to block any possible contact between them, obviously remembering the outcome of their last discussion. "Don't worry, Dr. Scully. Obviously Agent Mulder's been taking too many drugs to be rational and his evaluation is useless to us." He was trying to shake Seth off his arm, sneering at Mulder over Scully's head. "You idiot." Mulder's voice was low and grating. He leaned forward, one hand on the arm of the couch to brace himself. "Just because you want a case to make you look good for the cameras when you try to run for office, that doesn't make Peter Kane sane. . . " Waverly spun back to him. "Oh, and your head games and obsession with little girls doesn't have anything to do with it?" Mulder's eyes narrowed, but he either had too much self-control or too little energy to take that one up. "You're betting by the time it goes up on appeal you'll have your votes, or that it won't get the same attention. Old news and the voters don't care. Variation on a theme, huh Waverly? Tough on crime?" "Tougher than you, shrink. Go home to DC and run tests on yourself. Everyone knows the screwed up ones become shrinks so they won't have to split the fees. . . " Ugly, arrogant sneer. "Stop right there." Scully's voice was tight and hard. "Back off or you're out of here. Sir." She beckoned Seth to back her up. Mulder snorted and let his mouth twist into a sour grin. "Watch it, Waverly. She'll shoot you if you don't pay attention." Waverly's face was livid. He sneered at Seth. "Oh yeah, have your FBI thug toss me out in front of the cameras. Assault and on record. And all because your profiler is too busy dancing with a psycho to do his job and put a killer away. They call it law enforcement, Agent Mulder, not psychology enforcement." "And the law says if the defendant is unable to differentiate right from wrong or take assistance or counsel, we cannot try him." Mulder's hands were tight fists, the tendons ridging the insides of his wrists. Scully glanced back at him, and stayed where she was between them. "Ever hear of the spirit of the law, Agent Mulder? I don't think you care about any of it. You're having too much fun playing. I heard how you and Kane compared childhood notes. What happened? Was he one of your childhood playmates? Playing doctor with you and your little sister?" I figured Waverly for the type to pick at scabs until they bled. He was way past drawing blood tonight. Mulder half stepped towards him, but Scully blocked him. "I'll try to say this slowly, and in simple words Mr. Waverly. Peter Kane is not sane. He is going to tell the judge that he killed those people because the aliens told him it was the right thing to do. And he believes that. And the judge is going to have him committed. Nothing you say, no amount of insulting me, or wanting to look good for the cameras, is going to make that man sane. Whether I want to study his case is not relevant, but whether you want to give me a hard time may well be relevant to what I say to anyone, including Mr. Riggins, about the way this case has been handled." "Sure. Spooky Mulder goes to the press. Again. You can't threaten me with the press. You'll be out of the FBI so damned fast you won't know which way to spin. And threatening me with the faggot. . . " All right! Enough. "Mr. Waverly, that's enough. You have insulted my guests and my friends. I'd like you to leave." Scully might have a duty to help this idiot, Mulder might, but I didn't. Not so long as I had done my duty when called. What he'd just said, in front of witnesses, was an unambiguous insult that was unacceptable in current politics in a way that none of the other garbage he'd spewed could be. I squeezed in front of him, and wrinkled my nose at bad breath and Certs breathed in my face. "And I'm sure your gay and lesbian potential constituencies would very much appreciate knowing how you speak of them." Ewww, spit on my face when he spluttered at that. Mulder was glaring at me, too. I was sure he'd rather fight his own fights but this was ridiculous, letting this foul man browbeat him because he was supposed to work with the authorities. I could foresee another punch getting thrown if it kept up too long, and Waverly would be looking for it this time. "I have friends in the Capital, Agent Mulder. You're career's in the can. . . " Mulder actually laughed, behind me. I was holding my breath to avoid breathing Waverly-fumes and Seth was shoving Waverly's coat into his hands, one paw firmly planted to guide the man to the door. He was politely and firmly escorted out, placed on my porch in view of the gossip-mongers and the door shut behind him. I felt Mulder drop into the couch when the floor jarred for a second. Headed to the bathroom and scrubbed my face, soaking my hair, and just as glad there was no mirror so I couldn't see the look on my face. By the time I felt clean and walked back in, Scully was pacing, trying to stay calm. It looked like Seth had stayed on the porch to keep an eye on things. Mulder was just draped in a corner of the couch, and his Adam's apple stood out in his throat, he'd let his head fall so far back. "God, I wasn't sure whether I wanted to hit him or toss on him." "You should have thrown up. It would have been the perfect accessory for him." It would probably take Scully a while to burn off that level of temper. "Mulder, from the bottom of my heart and on behalf of my oriental rug, thank you for not tossing on Waverly. And I hope you don't mind, but I think dinner will be catch as catch can." ___________________ Scully and I were picking our way through a dinner of cheap Chinese. I hadn't had the energy to get creative with their credit cards and blow their per diem on anything better. Jerry was still off in Chicago wining and dining his poor, neglected lover. The nightly news was regaling us with pictures of Mulder in running shorts and an FBI Academy sweatshirt. He might be too thin, but with the ten pounds a camera put on him and the flush from a morning run he looked like newscaster heaven. I could just see a new archive section on him - Mulder formal/news release and Mulder informal/news release. Scully in her pillow-hair and coat, bathrobe barely showing, definitely didn't have the same telegenic quality. Both of them delivered "No Comment" with great style however, and Douglas looked perfectly cast as the thug. It was a real shame Mulder missed it. Scully had barely gotten the usual half-pound of medicine he was supposed to inhale or ingest into him before he'd sort of keeled over and dropped off of Planet Reality. He'd been breathing in the deep, even rhythm of sleep before I'd finished phoning in our dinner order, and we hadn't had the heart to wake him. For that matter, I'm not sure we could have wakened him by that time. He never twitched when Scully pulled his legs up onto the couch and took his shoes off. I didn't think you could get that far under without anesthesia. So we sat on the floor, Fox poured onto the couch behind us. Chopsticks and the news, and videos and a peaceful, calm night. I kept looking over my shoulder, feeling jumpy, waiting for the chainsaw massacre crew or somebody to break in, but it never happened. The worst thing that happened was when Waverly was featured, explaining to the jackals outside my door that the federal agents were, thankfully, on the mend. And that he was certain Agent Mulder's input would be invaluable when he regained his health. Scully's chopstick left a disgusting smear of moo goo gai pan on the screen. Ten at night, and no screams or bombs, not even on television. Scully had opted for Bringing up Baby so big cats were the worst we faced. I glanced over my shoulder at Mulder. He had rolled onto his stomach, face half-buried in a pillow and hair going every which way. Scully was up, and unfolding the quilt. "Should we wake him up, unfold the couch and get him out of his clothes?" I almost leered, but resisted. Scully ruthlessly squashed a grin, though the dimples of it got away from her. "Let him sleep. It won't be the first time, and he's more comfortable sleeping on a couch anyway." I killed the set with the remote, but Scully reached over and snared it from me. Turned the set back on. "I thought you were ready to go to bed?" "I am. I just think he'll probably sleep better if we leave it on." "He must have some amazing electric bills." "You have no idea." __________________________ Early to bed. . . and I was up and making coffee at an hour that I usually regarded as the sole property of critters that liked to eat bugs and worms. Scully wasn't long after me. I could have guessed she was an early riser, conspicuously virtuous types usually were. Fox hadn't been on the couch, and Douglas had been nowhere to be seen when I got up. Scully and I had an ear cocked to catch the indications that the press were restless as we pulled together breakfast. She'd been in my house long enough that she didn't have to look to find things anymore. The warm smell of toast mingled with coffee, and I wiped down the smooth, matte counters, looked out the window and was just in time to catch sight of Mulder coming over the back fence fast enough that I'd bet he had gotten assistance going over that six feet of wood. When Douglas heaved himself over the wall there wasn't any doubt. "Hey Scully, the little lost sheep just got back." She looked out and snorted, poured two more cups of coffee. The ringing phone kept me from enjoying their entrance. "Hello?" On a Sunday morning, my bet was on mom or Jerry. "Ms. Courtland." No, no. Not mom and definitely not Jerry. "Agent Mulder's phone is out of service. Agent Scully is not answering hers. If they're there, would you mind putting them on?" Well, Mulder's phone went the way of his gun. Scully's? I looked over at Scully, who had the door open and was giving Douglas the evil eye. "It's for you." The puzzled look on her face dissolved to instant attention. I really loved this, I'd never seen anyone with Walter Skinner's ability to inspire long-range trepidation. Mulder was looking up from his coffee and had certainly figured out who was calling. "Yes sir. Thank you sir. . . He did?. . . No sir." She looked very relieved to hand it to Mulder. "You work on the weekends?" He winced and pulled the phone away. Put it carefully back to his ear. "He called that late?. . . No sir. I did not break Mr. Waverly's nose. . . I did do that. . . He disputes my evaluation, sir. . . Yes. The one I faxed." I had plenty of time to get breakfast together and on the table. Skinner kept him on quite a while. The sun was starting to show clear and hard through the back windows, lighting the gold and blue tiles when Mulder finally hung up the phone and rubbed his ear. His coffee was long-since cold. Scully smiled as he set a fresh cup down, grabbed a pieced of toast and a grilled tomato. "So you're supposed to be more pleasant to Waverly, discreet with the press, and follow doctor's orders?" "Thank god the hearing's tomorrow. I can do without another lecture from Skinner." "And what are you going to do to deserve another lecture from Skinner?" Mulder just smiled. _____________________ We found out soon enough. Fox's hair was still wet from his shower when he phoned the prison. "I know it's Sunday. You still have full staff, and the hearing is tomorrow. . . Two?. . . Good. Thank you." The cheerful smile on his face made me nervous. I put down the sponge I'd been cleaning the table with, and shot him a quizzical look. The kitchen glowed with reflected light, and it struck green highlights in his eyes, reddish ones in his hair. "C'mon, Mulder. Don't give me that innocent look. I know better." The smile went roguish. "How do you feel about an afternoon at the county jail?" "Oh shit, oh shit! You didn't?" "You don't have to come. . . " as if I could stand to wait in my house and dream up the hissing whispers that would drop from Kane's lips. "Didn't you get your questions answered well enough last time?" "Last time what?" Scully's hair glowed, lit from below. Her eyes were clear and calm again. "Last time he talked to Kane. He's got another interview set up." She might have regained her gloss, but the last two weeks were still with her. The look she gave her partner was bleak. "The Truth is out there, Scully." He grinned at her. "*You* are out there, Mulder." ___________________________ The drive felt different today, long and lonely. My sunglasses felt icy on my nose, and steamed with my breath until they warmed up. I could hear paper flipping behind me. I didn't think Mulder really needed to look, but it gave him something to do. Scully, next to me, tried to read one of his files, but she must have read the same page a dozen times before she turned it. Even the tiny bit of gold and red that had brightened the ground on our last trip was gone. The fields were a dusty blond, and the trees stood in smoky contrast under a hard light that hollowed the sky and cut the edges of everything in sight. The heat vents blew warm air across our feet, scented with woodsmoke from fireplaces. Mulder leaned forward on the back of Scully's seat and reviewed what they knew about Kane. It seemed thin and unsatisfying, a name, the outline of a family. A day on the Vineyard. As he summarized the information, folded it into his profile, I could hear the smoky tone of his voice deepen, hunger-driven. It had seemed like so much information until he laid it out for her. But would there ever be enough information to satisfy him? To answer all those questions? We weren't welcomed so cordially today. All the same precautions, Scully's gun, anything that might be dangerous, checked at the entrance. We were led to the same room, and seated in the same places, and we waited. Kane smiled when he was wheeled in. I don't know what I had expected. He had not had time to heal, to change. "Little Fox. Back so soon? You'll be going back to D.C. soon." Mulder smiled into his face, settled more comfortably in his chair. "I thought we should talk again before your hearing." Kane grunted deep in his chest. "My lawyer told me about your evaluation." A frown lodged on his forehead. "He's all excited, about to wet his pants because you said I was crazy and didn't know what I'd done." A tilt of the head. In the mirrored wall I could see the calm, reassuring look on Fox's face. "I said you were unable to perceive what you had done as wrong." "It wasn't wrong. You done as much yourself, little brother." "Then you wanted to stand trial?" I'd heard that tone of voice when I was in the pshrink's office. Mulder had it so smooth and natural seeming. . . "Didn't say that. I don't figure those sheep have any idea what's in the middle of their flock. No point talking to people who don't even know we've got a problem. I got no problem with what you wrote. I figure you have to write that. They won't believe the truth." His face twisted in pain, but he lifted himself in his chair and leaned forward, braced on the table, to stare into Mulder's eyes. I think Scully stopped breathing a moment. She tensed and I saw her brace her hands on her thighs so she could move fast. "You have to give them time, Dennis. You didn't believe when they first came to you. It took years before you believed." Kane's face went utterly frozen for an instant, then broke in a slow, wide smile. "You and Jay got along real well. You were only a year younger than him." "Too bad there was no one your age there. You must have been bored." "I was used to daddy talking to people, little brother. It wasn't all that long. Then he was gonna take us to the beach." Mulder nodded. "You'd probably get a bad sunburn, it was so bright. . ." "Nah. We already had a good tan. Summertime up there? We got out a lot." Kane's smile was creepier than ever, and he was still leaning in, a dreamy look in his eyes. He licked his lips. "Why don't you just ask what you want to know, little brother? Your dad and mine talked for about twenty minutes, not long. They didn't meet often. Your daddy was angry whenever he had to talk to my old man. We always got paddled afterwards, cause daddy'd be so angry we'd set him off on any little thing." "Tough on you, huh Dennis?" "No tougher than on you, little Fox." Scully was holding her breath. I looked at my hands and found my sunglasses between my fingers. I'd been opening and closing the earpieces over and over. "Ever overhear your dad talking?" "Very good, Fox. Ask for what you want. I'll tell you. I'll help you." Kane was smiling again. "I never knew quite what your daddy did. Thought he bought stuff at first, cause he always talked about merchandise, but he acted like the spooks who'd show up at the base." Mulder didn't shift, but he'd let one arm drape behind the chair, and that fist curled up, then released slowly and deliberately. He brought the arm around to rest his chin on his hand. "Did they ever talk about purity control?" His voice was so soft I barely heard it. Scully stiffened, glanced at the red recording light on the video camera and back to her partner. "Course, little Fox. That's when they started to talk to me. But that was a long time before your daddy, back around Roswell." Scully was on the front edge of her seat now, balanced forward. The light from the ceiling was beginning to make my eyes ache. "Was that what you went to the Vineyard to discuss?" He hadn't moved, not a twitch. For Mulder, he was almost too still. And a long, low smile. "You should remember. You're the one broke it up." Mulder just let his head tip to one side, question implicit in the motion. "You don't remember? I'm surprised. Jay had a new toy, one of those frisbee flying saucer things. . ." He smiled into Mulder's eyes. "He threw it and you missed, and ran for it. Bowled right into the middle of those two. Daddy really walloped Jay for it. I still remember how you screamed when your daddy hauled you out of there, little kid like you. . ." Kane shook his head, clucked his tongue, but his eyes never left Mulder's face. In the mirror, I thought I saw his face go pale, but he never moved a muscle. "And your dad took you back to Hanscom." His voice was quiet. "Oh yeah. I was real mad at you, cause we didn't get to go to the beach. I was glad your daddy pulled your arm out like that. Dislocated, I bet. Really hurt." Soft, sympathetic tone. My stomach had pulled into knots, and I didn't know how Scully could stay still. Fox leaned back in his chair, let his hands fall into his lap, where Kane couldn't see. The fists were so tight his knuckles were pale and the tendons ridged under all the healing scars. "That was the year before you killed your brother and ran away." Kane nodded. "Right, little Fox. And three years before I started to look for my daddy. The year I came back and took care of that fake bastard was the same year you took care of your Samantha. Remember it? It was four years after I told you about the grays. Did you ever ask him about that. . . ?" I couldn't see anything, but Kane must have, a flicker of the eyes or a change in breathing, something. "Oh, you did. And I bet you regretted that. . . but it wasn't the first time, was it. And neither was that shoulder. . ." Kane's hand gestured, crossed some invisible line in the middle of the table, and Scully half rose, dropped back as the big man let his hand fall back to the table. "It's never the first time, is it little Fox?" Mild, blue eyes and a gentle voice. "And there's never a last, even when they die. Do you still dream about how it felt, Fox? About the way your daddy'd hit you and you'd just hold real still and pray for him to stop?" ". . . The grays. When did you really see them, not just hear them?" No life left in that voice. I could barely hear it. "Year I killed Jay. The year I was fourteen, and I killed that thing that looked like Jay, and hid the body. Daddy didn't figure it for me. I hid the body real good. But you know about doing that, don't you?" "And your father. . . " "You'll never find that one, little brother. I burned him, like they told me. Burned him to dust, out there in the desert." "They told you to do that?" "Like I said. And I'd had enough of the needles, and enough of being hurt. Didn't want to go with daddy's friends no more. Least the grays only hurt me the once. Didn't hurt when they talked to me. Only hurt that once, when I was fourteen. Hurt a lot. . . do you remember?" "No." Mulder's voice snapped a little. Kane smiled at him. "It's okay, little brother. Just trying to help. You check your x-rays like I told you?" "How often did they talk to you after you killed. . . " "Daddy? They talk to me whenever I get to a new town. I go looking for them. They know me, like they know you." "You said your father's friends took you and ran tests. . . " "Yeah. They did. Your daddy knew about that part." I could see Mulder's head tilt back, jaw up and tight. "You don't remember that, little Fox? My daddy told me you were just like me. . . " Mulder leaned forward again. "Dennis. If your father was really part of what you say, he'd never have told anyone, not you, not anyone, something like that." Kane smiled at him. "Not if he knew, little Fox. You're right. My daddy liked his scotch, Fox. Liked it a lot. And he was piss-him-self drunk the night he told me that. I figured it for liquor-stupid talk. But you know, it made sense. Lots of sense. And when your Samantha vanished. . . well. You didn't really remember the way your daddy pulled you, not last time. I can see that. And it took a lot of time before I knew I remembered everything about the needles, about daddy's friends. About your daddy. You can pretend as long as you like Fox. Sure as I know my daddy hit me, I know your daddy hit you. I saw him pull your arm out that day. Remember. . . ?" The voice brought the dark, no matter how bright the lights were shining. I wrapped my arms around me and felt my sunglasses crush in my hand. I couldn't see Scully. My vision was a tight little tunnel, with only Mulder and Kane. "But you don't start looking for Samantha again little Fox. . . You took care of that one, and maybe some others, but if you don't keep looking and take care of the false ones, and you'll wish your daddy was hitting you again. They'll hurt you so bad that arm of yours will look like a love tap. ______________________ Mulder ignored us, long strides eating the ground out to the car. His hand was clenched around the tape he'd ripped out of the video camera. We hadn't left until he was certain no other recording device had been running, and that he had the only tape. The warden was informed in cold, formal tones, that all communications in that interview had been private and were not to be discussed with Mr. Waverly or any other party. They were glad to see the last of us. He waited until we were in the car, and out the gate. Then the sound of plastic breaking sent my heart jumping into my throat. In the rear-view mirror his face was pulled tight across the cheekbones, pale and taut. And his hands pulled dark tape in great lengths. Pulled and ripped and tore at it. Scully kept her eyes to the front. She hadn't spoken once. Just let him shred that tape. _____________________ Fox Mulder didn't slam the door. He closed it with an exaggerated care that put a chill up my spine. Then he walked away from the car, Seth's borrowed coat swinging too large, and heavy from his shoulders. The gray wool shone in hard, icy winter sun that cut the outlines of everything on which it shone. The shadow he cast was black and sharp. The vultures had, of course, perked up and gotten their cameras and mikes ready the instant we came into sight, but, thank god, Seth was fielding them for us. I was barely out of my side, wondering if I wanted to get the shreds of videotape out of my car, when Mulder spun and waited, arms folded, eyes cold and harder than a glare would have been. Scully locked her side and closed it. The hard, bright light pushed her eyes into a squint as she considered her partner, sighed and rounded the car to walk up with me. Standing next to him, I could see the tight lines of the muscles in his face, the white tension along his jaw and cheekbones. Scully's face was frozen calm, pale and too smooth, but when she pushed past me into the house her arm felt rigid with what she was holding back. Mulder stepped in, keeping the same perfect, controlled pacing to the way he moved. The coat came off, and was hung with a deliberate neatness that he had not shown in the entire time I had known him. Scully's went on the coat rack in a quick, harsh motion. The light shining through the front windows lit the warm, pale wood of my floor and glowed in the colors of my oriental, but could not break the frost those two left in their wake. I headed for my standby position in the kitchen, but the flat, hard look Scully wore blocked that. She tilted her head towards the stairs and I found myself remembering that I had to clean the upstairs toilet. Or maybe change my sheets. I kept my steps light on the stair runner, and went. She followed and glared up to be sure I went to my room. I went. I closed the door. Then I counted to thirty and opened it up again. Acoustics are amazing things. It was soft, but at about the right height (three feet or so off the floor) I could just hear them. Scully's voice had that reasonable-adult tone I had always hated in school counselors. "Mulder, do you want to tell me what that was all about?" Dana Scully must have come from a family of saints because she wasn't waiting to check the stairs again. In my family, snooping was a highly developed art. In this case it put me at the top of the stairs just in time to catch his reply. "'That' was nothing, Scully." Right. And Congress is going to balance the budget and ride in Hyundais. "You don't usually shred video tapes over nothing." The dead silence that greeted that remark said more than enough. I could just picture her frustrated sigh. "It's just the two of us down here, Mulder. It's me, Scully. What happened back there?" "Nothing you need to be worried about." I could hear the couch creak a little, hear papers rustling far too loudly, with that kind of snap I'd used myself to stop conversations dead in their tracks. It didn't faze Scully. "Mulder, you need to talk about this. Kane said your father hurt you, and you had a nightmare the other night. . . It's pretty obvious that it was a lot more than nothing. And you asked him about Purity Control. . . ?" "I do not need to talk about anything. And I do not want to talk about this." Each word was bitten off, crisply defined as though he'd sliced the sounds. "We need to check local school records. I'm betting the military records have been erased, and most of the school records too, but there may be something that was overlooked. Class pictures or vaccination records. They would have been handwritten then. Or typed." "Just because you try to ignore something it doesn't go away. It's me, Scully? Don't you trust me with this?" I could hear their past loaded onto that statement. Hear trust shared, and other trusts broken. The cool, white bars of the banister sliced my view down there into ribbons and the voices echoed softly under the ceiling. ". . . This isn't about trust. This is something I do not want to discuss." I wouldn't have the guts to push something against that tone of voice. His statement hung there for a moment. She must have debated what she was going to say next. "This is about your father battering you." Her tone was totally neutral, stating a fact without judgment. "And it's about Kane knowing about it. You need to. . . " "I don't *need* to do anything, Scully." I heard the papers slap down, probably onto the table in front of him. Heard him shift back to his feet, and heard pacing start. "Don't-ask-again." "I'm not going to let this drop." Her voice was soft and neutral, not confronting him, in spite of her words. "You dreamed about this the other night, Mulder. You were screaming. You said your father dislocated y. . ." "I. . .Don't. . .Want. . .to. . . talk about this. Not with the Bureau shrinks. Not with you. Not with anyone. Kane knows. Fine. Drop it, Scully." "No, it's not fine. He knows and he used that against you today. I know you won't let what he told you drop. You're going to look for who his father was, and you're going to be dealing with him again. You need to talk about this and I'd rather have you talk to me, now." "I'd rather not." His tone was low, but the growl in it carried it to me clearly. "Let this drop." "No. I'm not the one who hurt you, and I'm not going to hurt you, but Kane can. Your father did. Let me help. . . " "You're not helping, Scully. I don't remember most of it and I don't want to. Leave it alone." I could hear a thick note in his voice, a strain, almost a desperate note. I felt my eyes prickle for him. "I can't leave it alone. I can't afford that. You can't either." "Let me deal with this." He wasn't fighting anymore, just a hollow request I don't think he expected to work. "Mulder, I know this hurts. I left things unsettled with my own father, and it was nothing compared to what you and your father had between you. Please talk to me." "No." The word hung in the air for several seconds. Lonely word. "Mulder, Kane knows about what your father did. He knows how to get to you. That scares me. It doesn't matter if he goes into a hospital and they lock him down forever. I'm still scared because what he knows he can tell someone else. You can't leave him with that over you. I'm scared for you." "No one's going to believe him. They don't believe me." "You know better than that. The people who will believe him are exactly why I'm so scared. Don't give them this." "I. . . " I held my breath, sat very still. My lungs ached before I heard his voice again. "I don't remember it very well, Scully. I don't." Too soft to catch a tone, I barely caught the words. "You have to tell someone, Mulder. You can't leave him that big a hold on you. Particularly not one he knows about." I could hear the long, hard sigh that greeted that, hear him give up. "We were playing, Scully. It was like Kane said. And Dad just got angry and. . . " I heard the shaky breath he took, the choked note in his voice when he started again. "He just grabbed me by the arm and pulled too hard. My arm. . . went out of the socket." "Mulder. He pulled it out of the socket." Her low, careful voice told me she wasn't surprised. My sight of the bright, sunny wood in my hall, and the soft colors of the print on the wall was blurry and my eyes hurt. There was a little pain at the back of my throat when he went on. "No. . . it wasn't like that. He didn't know how hard he was pulling. He didn't mean to hurt me." His voice had the ashy, dull sound of someone who's told himself a lie too many time, and knows it, but won't abandon what he wants to be true. Scully was still for a long time. "You were a little kid, seven or eight. He. . ." Her voice had gotten tight, and she stopped. When she started again she sounded calm and controlled again. "But you remember Kane and his brother?" I think he must have nodded. "Kane remembered the adults talking. Do you?" Her voice was softer at that last. "Not. . . not really. I didn't want to get too close to them. Dad had. . . had told me to just sit still. Jay had a frisbee." I heard a laugh that didn't have any humor in it. "We started just tossing it straight up and catching it. They weren't that common then. . . " "And he was angry. . ." "They were arguing. Dennis had been talking to the two of us and. . . they'd both yelled at us to sit still. I don't think they liked us playing together. Neither one of them. Dennis was talking about the grays. . . " Even at the top of the stairs, I could hear her pull in a breath. His hollow, quiet voice kept on, as though he were letting the words shape themselves rather than shaping them to his memory. "Dad was just pulling me along, and I asked about what Dennis had said." "The grays?" "Yeah. That's when he pulled me around. My arm went funny, and it hurt." His voice had a thin, young quality, but there was nothing innocent about it. "Dennis was looking back at us, but Jay was trying to keep up with his dad. Dennis waved to me. I don't remember screaming. It was sunny, and the seats in the car burned, but my arm hurt too much to move out of the sun." I heard another of those tight, choked breaths. It was quiet for a long while. His voice was his own again. "I remember wearing that sling for weeks. It was hot. I missed all the good sports that summer." Kind of a sniff. I wasn't sure which one of them I was hearing. I pulled my own legs up and crept back to my room, and wished I could forget what I'd heard, and forget that such things happened. _____________________ The knocking on the front door drew me back out of my room and down the stairs. Scully beat me to the door, checking out the gauzy curtain and heaving an exasperated sigh. I wasn't too surprised when she opened the door for Jerry, who held out a bag of sunflower seeds and a bottle of wine. "Good evening. I took the liberty of. . . " "No interviews, Rigg." She stood back far enough to let him in. Behind him I could see the glare that cameras used to freeze their victims on the spot long enough for the reporter to trap them. The vans parked along the street were earning me hate mail from my neighbors, and from the number of them today I knew I'd get a bumper crop in the next couple days. "No interviews." He snapped a salute off to her. "Actually, I figured if you and Agent Mulder were going to be busy preparing for trial, that Emma would be bored." Scully's expression said she believed in that and the Easter Bunny. As it turned out, though, he told the truth. "C'mon, Emma. Let's go make dinner. You don't need your carry-out bill plastered in the morning paper." I glared at him, then recalled grabbing the carbon for Mulder's meds. "They didn't" "They did. Under the little headline, "Gourmet Dining at Taxpayer Expense." I gather the columnist thinks Kane was framed, though I have no idea why." He flipped on the hall lights as he finished hanging up his coat. "Do you people like sitting here in the dark? We can just close the curtains if you're doing this to fool the television drones." God, what was he wired on? >From the hall I could see Scully at the end of the couch, hair shining red-gold under the light on the end table. Mulder was barricaded behind files and papers at the other end of the couch, looking at a file with much too much concentration. From what I'd seen he'd seen every file he had at least three times, and probably had them all memorized. Maybe studying them now kept him from having to talk to anyone. I was happy enough to follow Jerry into the kitchen, where he put on the overhead light, the light over the sink, the light over the stove, and anything else he could turn on. "What are you doing?" "Turning on lights." "Why? I mean, the stove light?" The white wood under my shoulder still had a few gray smudges. I rubbed at one and it smeared greasily under my fingertip and stuck to my skin. "My dear, it is so bleak in here tonight that I'd put garlic up over the windows if I thought it would keep these monsters away." He was pulling Ragu out of the cabinet, and spaghetti. I took them away from him and got the good stuff, Paul Newman's, out. Just because I was willing to eat the cheap stuff didn't mean I'd feed it to anyone else. "Is that why you're practically whistling show tunes?" "Don't be offensive. I'd only whistle show tunes if I were dressed as Judy Garland and I look lousy in ruby slippers." I looked at him, leaning over to fish through my fridge for stuff to toss in the spaghetti. Six-hundred dollar suit that he bought for fifty somewhere and used when he didn't want to wrinkle his good stuff. Accessories. Hair. Capped teeth. Doing a Judy Garland impression? Oh. My. God. "You don't." He stood up and kicked the fridge shut, juggling an armload of veggies. "Only at Hallowe'en. You wouldn't believe what it took to find those shoes in my size." I bit down on both sides of my cheeks. "That's too cliche, Jerry. I don't believe you." "Would you believe I do a great Diane Sawyer?" Flipped imaginary hair back. "Maybe. It would work better if I hadn't seen you flirt with everyone of both genders." "Protective cover. Good practice." "Tease. It gets you interviews. You like the attention." "That too." The polished teeth just shone in all the lights he'd turned on. He was standing at arm's length, dropping sauce in the pot and ducking splatters. I started to slice up stuff and dump it in past him. "So why the ice works out in the living room? Last I saw those two they were siccing the IRS on jerks, and in a really good mood. I sighed. "We had another interview with his royal high prosecutor. You would have been useful, to keep him in line." "Okay. That explains part of it. I'll buy that Waverly could really antagonize them. But why are they in there staking territory on the couch?" "What do you mean?" He was watching me more closely than I liked. "I come in. Most of the lights are off. Joe Cool FBI Agent is curled into a corner of the couch, behind the Wall of Paper. Red is at the opposite end, just close enough to push personal space, and they can watch each other without ever meeting eyes." I paid close attention to the mushrooms I was slicing. "Emma, this is the type of thing they showed us videotapes of when was I learning to do interviews. It's a newscaster Kodak-moment. You go push it and everything goes up in Kodacolor?" "He did another interview with Kane." "And you weren't gonna tell me?" He leaned in to look up into my eyes, almost in the middle of the mushrooms I was slicing. "Emma, that's cruel!" "No interviews. . . " I had to stop and glare at him, since I couldn't slice stuff with him hanging between my face and the knife. "So am I interviewing you? No recorder, no notes, this is deep background. What happened?" "Jerry. . . " He pulled off his jacket and came back to lean on the counter, arms crossed over suspenders that coordinated with his tie. I blinked. "You had a breakfast date, didn't you?" "Don't try to misdirect me. You read about smoke and mirrors. Practicing it is entirely different. What did Kane talk about?" "Umm. About being a kid, visiting Roswell. He said the aliens had talked to him since he was a little kid. And that they told him to kill his brother. . . " "Tell me one I don't already know, Emma. So he confirmed what Mulder surmised?" "Oh yes." "And. . . ?" I stood there with my mouth open, trying to edit and figure out what I could say. Footsteps saved me. Scully. She fished the bag-o-pills off the refrigerator and grabbed a glass of water. She hesitated with the glass and bag in hand, looked at the two of us. I found myself carefully slicing veggies again. Green peppers. Scully put the glass of water back down with a solid click. "Emma. Look at me." Oh boy. I looked up kind of slowly, to find her waiting. She just stared at me for several seconds. Behind me I heard Jerry go stir the sauce on the stove, curse as it splattered him. Scully finally heaved a sigh. "And was it comfortable at the top of the stairs?" I winced and she nodded. Crossed her arms and looked past me. "And what do you know, Rigg?" I turned, saw Jerry stiffen a little. He put a lid on the pot and turned down the heat, then walked over to stand beside me. "I know a lot of things Emma never told me, Agent Scully. Shall I start with the worst, so we clear the air? I know your partner was probably a battered child. Hospital records show a number of visits." Still protecting his sources, even when he knew he was caught. "I know a fair amount about what you've been through. I know both of you investigate conspiracies, anomalous cases that can't be pigeonholed anywhere else. . ." He went through a catalogue, watching her nod and tally what he knew and what source that information must have had. Somewhere in the middle of it, I saw motion in the shadows of the hall. Mulder stepped forward to stand in the doorway, waiting. Letting Jerry continue to scroll through what he knew. Jer must have seen him too, but didn't look in any way that told Scully. He just kept on. Fox's eyes narrowed as he listened, and I saw his jaw clench as Jerry continued. I found I'd turned to stare at him as he told Scully about interviewing guards at an Air Force base, and the confused man they'd escorted out of the base. Saw Scully go pale as he spoke of some kind of DNA. He started to stumble over some of it. I was trying to breathe evenly, feeling my chest go tight and my face flush. "Jerry?" He ground to a halt. "Jerry, you didn't learn all this after I called you. You didn't just start this research. . ." He was looking at his manicure. Shook his head slowly from side to side. "No. I didn't." "Do you want to tell us when you did start this research?" Mulder's soft voice made Scully jump. Jerry looked up. ". . . Do you remember when the first reports came out about government sanctioned radiation experiments? And about the Tuskegee experiments and all. . . " Mulder had pulled out a chair and sat in it backwards, arms braced on the back. Scully pulled herself up to sit on my kitchen counter, looking calm but very pale. Jerry took a breath. "I ran across experimentation with a prisoner. . . a John Barnett." Mulder flinched. Jerry nodded. "Yeah. I learned about that. And about Reggie Pardue. I'm sorry. From what I learned, he was a good man." He walked back to fidget with the sauce pan a moment, then came back. They waited, Scully swinging her heels just a little. "I started doing routine follow up on the guy who arrested him, and who he'd hunted. And the more I followed up, Mulder, the less routine you became. I've spent more than a year and a half researching you two. And when Emma called me. . . " He looked back and forth between them. "Coincidence makes life interesting." "Coincidence?" Mulder stared at him, at me. "What? What?! Mulder. . . " I stared back at him. "Look, I didn't know. I mean, Tommy Dalbert. I didn't set that up." Jerry grinned. "It really was coincidence. Do you two honestly think Emma could ever strike me as the perfect conspirator?" I wasn't sure I wanted his help. But Scully looked at him, thought that through. Mulder started to smile, just a little. "I suppose there are more discreet people. . . " I wrinkled my nose at her. Jer pulled up and turned back to the stove. "We'll have dinner in about half an hour, if Emma finishes cutting those peppers. Now, are we going to beat around the bush or are you two going to tell me what I'll eventually get out of Emma anyway." He kept his back turned to let them decide that one, trusting that I wasn't as good at reading the signals. "Let me point out that if you tell me, you can do damage control. If Emma tells me who knows what I'll get." The two of them stared at him. I'm not sure what they made of it, but that comment certainly stopped any more silent conversations. ____________________ Dinner was so-so. Just as well, no one was really paying much attention to it. Two hours of coaxing, careful interrogation had at least part of what had happened out in the open. It was apparent that whatever Jerry thought he would do with the information he had on Mulder and Scully, he had no intention of publishing stories about them at any time in the near future. Surprises kept coming out of the woodwork, too. Jerry took in the simple comment that Mulder's father had spoken with Kane's, and leaned back in his chair. "I wonder if they were at all involved with retrieval operations." Mulder was reaching for a slice of bread across the table, and I swear he didn't hesitate or jump, but it felt like an electric charge came off him. "Retrieval operations?" "Hmm. Yes. Like that craft that went down in Wisconsin. I think you may have been there?" Jerry looked at him. Mulder looked back quite calmly. "I'm sure I'd remember." Scully was busy rolling spaghetti on her fork. Jerry just smiled. I poured myself more wine and wished I understood all the currents under this surface. "I'm sure too." He looked directly at Fox. "Kane knew about the retrievals, didn't he." Not a question. Not at all. Scully took a sip of her wine, looked up at him past the edge of her glass, with the light catching the rim. "And what IS your interest in all this, Mr. Riggins?" "You mean besides simple curiosity?" Shiny smile again. "Yes." He looked at her, the smile fading off his face, and down to his plate. His eyes flickered, but not like he was actually seeing anything in the room. A small frown was between his eyebrows when he looked back up. "Self-defense." Soft, deliberate tone. Both feds watched him with a flat expression that told him to go on. He thought a long time, worrying at his lower lip. "You know how Reagan squashed information on HIV?" He looked back and forth. Mulder nodded. Scully sat back with a look that told him AIDS was NOT a government plot. His easy smile was back, but it didn't reach his eyes. "The government defunded research, defunds programs that could slow its spread even now. I don't for a second think humans are clever enough to have invented the damn thing, but we were clever enough to use it to kill some of us that others didn't like." His voice was bitter, words clipped. "Reagan wanted HIV to spread and kill 'the faggots.'" Jerry let his face twist a moment. "In your case, the government controls the problem as well as the information. I just. . . I want someone the government doesn't own, can't control as easily, destroy as easily, to know about this stuff." He sucked in his breath, looked at the ceiling, let his eyes drop and smiled. "Besides, I'm a curious bastard." Wiped his mouth and took a long, long drink of his wine before he looked back up at them. "And I think Kane's going to attract attention from some very unusual people, for the same reasons he's rattling you tonight." That in a whisper that cut through the warmth and safety of a well-lit kitchen and the warm smells of spaghetti. The candle in the center of the table flickered. "And you think you know who?" Fox put his elbows on the table, folded his fingers under his chin. Jerry stared at the light as it flickered again. "You do, too. You probably even have names for them." He looked up at Fox, glanced to Scully. "And you know they're killers." I stared at the candle, flickering and felt the chill creeping up my spine. Then I felt the chill around my bare feet and I frowned. Looked up. "Do you feel that?" The three of them stared at me. My chair scraped loud when I pushed it back and stood for a moment, finally fell back on an old trick and licked my finger. Scully looked like I was crazy. Mulder was starting to look alarmed. Jerry just looked curious. One side of my finger felt cold, the side towards the basement door. I opened the door, and the light was harsh down there when I flicked the switch. Mulder was suddenly next to me. "Hold it. Let me go down there." Jerry was getting up, but Scully was right behind Mulder. Jerry and I stood up there and waited, holding our breaths. It wasn't long. Scully came to the foot of the stairs. "You'll need to replace a window in your basement door." "Anything else?" Broken window. I felt the tension uncoil, but not out of Jerry. "Yes. I think you should get new locks. And an alarm." I swallowed. ________________________ I watched the streetlights make patterns on my ceiling and waited for glass, or scuffles, or screams. I figured it was very likely I'd hear one of them before the night was out. I'd tried to sleep. I really had. But then a tree would creak, or a car would backfire, or a fool with a camera would trip and I'd be sitting up listening to the triphammer in my chest and feeling the sweat down my sides go clammy and cold. I heard a low moan and a mutter. Not a happy moan, or a sexy one. A long, dreaming, haunted-house-don't-look-behind-you moan in a female voice. Tonight, even Scully was having trouble sleeping. I was just happy to know she was there at all, and that her insomniac partner was downstairs. They hadn't quite fought again tonight, but it had been close. Jerry had left not long after they'd finished duct taping a piece of cardboard over my window. I had to admit. I was glad to see him go myself, but apparently I'd been tarred with the same brush. I could understand that Scully was pretty unhappy about him and his little revelations. I'd wanted to strangle him, or ask him to reimburse me on an hourly rate for doing research for him, whichever would wind up hurting more. Jer, good old Jer, had kept me in the dark and let me blunder around and damn near get killed while he sat back and thanked the brazen Saint of Reporters for dropping his chosen prey right into his hands. While I would hesitate to state under oath that I would not have done the same things over again, it just rankled that he had gotten all the goodies and I had gotten my doors dinged. Scully, however, regarded me as a co-conspirator. I had no idea what Mulder thought of everything. When Scully suggested a hotel, he simply told her he was too tired to want to fuck with all that and that he didn't plan to go anywhere tonight. A good look at all his files, spread across the couch, and she abandoned any effort to move. Or maybe she just didn't want to have to corner him twice in one day. I figured it for the latter, since she also didn't push him when he refused to take any of the medications that made him at all sleepy. God. I had never realized my mattress was so lumpy or the street lights so bright. A grindy-groaning noise made my stomach go cold, until I recognized it as the downstairs toilet. I scratched at a spot in the middle of my back, and a muscle twinged in my shoulder. The other side and my back ached a little. Three-seventeen. I turned the clock so the light was against the wall, and not keeping me awake with its bright, blinking second display. My feet were cold. When I sat up my back ached from trying to find a comfortable position that didn't exist. My slippers felt old, all the plush inside matted down and smooth. My robe was warm, at least. The lights in the living room were still on, and it was easy to find my way downstairs. Paper wasn't rustling, but the bed wasn't folded out, either. I ghosted back to the kitchen and started water boiling. When I reached up on tippy toes to get down my tea bags, and a hand reached past me and easily pulled them off the top shelf I almost shrieked. My throat still had that tight, ill feeling when I turned around to find Mulder standing there, catnip tea in one hand, lug wrench in the other. "Jesus, you nearly scared the shit out of me, Mulder." He grinned. "Then we're even. Why are you sneaking around at three-thirty in the morning?" "I'm not sneaking, I live here." "I call tip-toeing sneaking. You should be upstairs with visions of shopping malls dancing in your head." "Right," I snorted. "I'm up for the same reason I figure you're up. I couldn't sleep. Nice accessory by the way, but couldn't you get it color coordinated?" He hefted the lug wrench. "I thought if your visitors decided to drop by I'd rather have something at hand. Scully's got her gun upstairs." "That's right. . . I forgot about that. How much do those things cost, anyway?" "Lots. I've got the dead, burned remains so they know I didn't just misplace it and try to get another." "Do you do that often?" "Not really, but it's hard to convince accounting of that. When they let me have the wreckage back I'll use it for a paperweight." "Did anyone ever tell you you're pretty morbid?" "All the time." He watched me pour water over my tea bag, standing there leaning against the counter, idly swinging his toy. The gray sweats made him look especially pale in the overhead light. "So. You didn't say why you couldn't sleep. . . " It sounded friendly enough. I sighed. "Nerves. I'm nervous about going to that hearing tomorrow. Today. I mean. . . we've seen Kane twice and it doesn't make sense to be nervous, but the truth is that hearing decides whether all this is over and I'm nervous." "Nervous because it might not be over, or nervous because it might?" I hadn't really considered that his voice could sound that smooth, that soft. "Umm. I. . . I'll have to answer 'yes' to that last question, counselor." He grinned more widely. "I understand. This really shook you up, changed things for you. It's nerve-wracking both to have it linger on, and to have it over and have to face the aftermath." I thought about that. Sipped my tea. Finally nodded. "Yeah. I. . . I'm selling my house." I wasn't sure why I'd blurted it out. Fox just kept leaning against the counter, wrench leaning against the cabinets now, and watched me. "I don't know what I'm going to do, but I can't go back to work. I went there the other day, and I just can't go back." I looked down into my cup, feeling my eyes prickle, and my nose ached a little. I rubbed at it. "Sounds pretty stupid." "Not really. I think I understand. Something big happens to you, something that turns your world upside down, and if you go back and pretend it never happened, that's a lie. You can't return and tell the truth. So you move ahead and just hope you can figure out where you're going to need to go." He stopped. Stared into thin air for a moment, finally shook his head a little and got down a cup for himself. "Jeez, I'm sorry." I reached for the tea but he smiled and waved me off, made his own cup. "I have my own place, and I get by just fine, Emma. Even I can make a cup of tea." I blushed. He dunked his tea bag, considered the color of it. "I won't ask what you're going to do after you sell your house. If you knew, I think you'd tell me." I thought about that, nodded. "I know I'm going to travel. I was going to talk to Jerry about all this, but I don't think so now." Fox looked up at me, startled. "I think you should." I snorted. "After the way he used me? I mean, I think you'd at least be pissed about him doing all that, spying like that. . . " "Why? He didn't do anything I wouldn't have expected from him. I actually feel better now that he's not pretending he came up with all that information in two weeks of digging around." He sipped his tea. I stared. "But he used me. . . and the situation. . . aren't you mad?" He paused and thought about that. Settled back and really considered it. Finally looked back at me. "He handed us most of his cards last night, right out in the open. We probably know more about him than he could possibly learn about us. And, in his own way, he's doing about the same thing I'm doing. I don't trust him. . . " Fox smiled. "But I wouldn't say I'm angry either. At some level, people have to use each other. They have no choice. He didn't play fair with you, true. But for myself? I've been much worse used in the past. And I don't strictly disagree with his reasons." I was mulling that over when he went on. "You'll have to decide how much he used you, and how much you used him, Emma. But think carefully before you decide that *you* absolutely cannot trust him." I stood and worried my lip, watched him yawn. "Are you going to get any sleep tonight, Mulder?" "Why do you want to know, Courtland?" I grinned. "So I can blab to Scully and get back on her good side?" He shook his head, put on an expression of exaggerated martyrdom. "Really, you have to be dead on your feet. And you've got that hearing tomorrow. . . " The twitch was just barely perceptible. He tried to cover it by fussing with his tea in the approved, tea-drinker's manner. "I'll be fine. I'm used to this kind of thing." "What? You always do competency hearings for maniacs on zero sleep and running on fumes?" "I do meetings with Skinner that way. I don't see that this is all that much different." I suddenly had a lot of sympathy for his boss. "Do you ever stop being a smartass, Mulder?" "Do all lawyers sound alike, Courtland?" "On a certain level, yes. We're trained to do that." He rolled his eyes. "You think it was reporters who broke in downstairs?" I wasn't really sure I wanted him to answer that, and from the look on his face I think he shared the sentiment. "It might have been. It's possible." "But you don't think so." He shook his head. "You think you know who it was?" He thought about that. Kind of pinched his lower lip with this nervous little gesture. "I think I might know who it could have been." "Oh, can we equivocate any more?" He smiled at me. "Don't worry. Once we're gone and the hearing's done, you shouldn't hear from them again. And if it's not them, you don't have anything to worry about." "And you don't think you'll be sleeping tonight." "I don't think you want to ask me any more, Emma. And I know I don't want to tell you any more. Bedtime stories from me won't make you rest any easier." I snickered. "That's what Jerry said about you, too." The blush on his face sent me to bed feeling wickedly cheerful. I'm not sure whether I was surprised to find that when my alarm clock did go off it actually woke me from a sound sleep. ______________________ No one felt like eating breakfast. I wasn't all that surprised. I know coffee was the limit of what I wanted to deal with, although I did choke down toast. Scully sipped her own coffee carefully, to avoid spilling any on her sharp, autumn-russet suit and cream silk blouse. Mulder looked very good in a charcoal-gray suit that probably cost more than he should spend. Unfortunately, he didn't spill any coffee on the M.C. Escher-ish tie that marred his white linen shirt-front. At least the pattern all blurred together from a distance. We were all sitting there, avoiding chit-chat, for a ridiculously long stretch of time. The court wouldn't convene for at least an hour, and all the paperwork, affidavits, statements and goodies we needed to submit had been filed days before. At one time filing all that would have been a major adventure, but now it barely made a blip on my excitement meter. I think Mulder and Scully had done theirs in their sleep. Mine had been a bare-bones recitation of what had happened in the basement. Thankfully, no one had asked my why we were there to begin with. If Kane didn't go to trial, it was doubtful anyone ever would. Scully's statement had probably been even shorter than mine. Mulder's was something else altogether. I knew he'd worked on it in the hospital. He must have written in his head, because when he sat down to enter it in his computer, it spilled out and word-check and grammar check were the limit of his revisions. Maybe twenty-five pages, one draft, print and submit. I suspected he'd used it to keep himself busy on a couple of sleepless nights when the volleyball teams paled, and the horror movies were all repeats of repeats. Waverly had finally given up on getting him to modify it much. Nothing Fox had learned in his interviews with Kane left him at all inclined to change the opinion he'd formed after the. . . incident in the hospital. So we sat and waited. No medical appointments until after the hearing. All arrangements for return to D.C. on hold, pending the determination of this hearing. Our entire world held its breath to see if Kane's Howard Jeffries, or the United State's Frederick Waverly was more persuasive. Each would present all they could before Judge Wilson Millone, and then we would learn if Peter Kane, born Dennis, family name unknown, was sane in the eyes of the law. ______________________ I had a seat in a comfortable chair in the unused jury box. A lot of the courtrooms here had the old seats, like pews, and they made you pray to have proceedings done just as fervently as real pews had made me pray to have church done. Fortunately, the informal atmosphere of a competency hearing allowed some leeway for corporeal matters, and the white courtroom with pretty gold relief on the plaster, pale blue carpet, and comfortable chairs was a real luxury, as courtrooms go. The gray, cloudy day, that left the windows pearl-colored, cast no shadows. The light from overhead held that soft, cold blue cast I now associated with morgues and hospitals. No deep shadows, but no glow of a highlight either. Directly in front of us was the ornamental barrier, carved and painted, with little touches of gilding. Mulder leaned forward in his seat, forearms resting on top of the rail and watched the two lawyers and their second stringers prepare their files and notes. On his other side, Scully sat back, elbow on chair arm and chin in hand, to watch him and them equally. Her hair was a soft, even roan against the white and blue tones of this room. Jeffries' hair was combed over the top of his head and pasted in place. I could see the clumping of gel. It took a bit of an effort not to wrinkle my nose. Waverly's hair rippled like greasy, black lasagna on his head. Both of them had expensive suits, with dandruff on the shoulders. I rather wished Jerry was there to comment on them, but he was interviewing people outside and writing his story so he could file it as soon as he had the outcome. The loudest sounds were the thump of the door opening and closing as a few men and one woman, in suits, straggled in to take seats scattered throughout the room. A noise at the door to our left drew Mulder's eyes first, in a startled glance, and Scully and I followed his gaze to see a federal marshal step in and hold the door open. Peter Kane walked, slowly and painfully, into the courtroom. His hands were shackled to his waist, but his legs were free, if stiff with bandages. The marshal followed him, escorting him to a seat next to Jeffries. The two exchanged a few words, and Kane turned and smiled directly into Mulder's eyes, nodded briefly to me and Scully, then took a seat. I was breathing fast, and a vicious twinge of relief and pleasure shivered up and down my spine at the evident slowness and pain he showed talking his seat. Mulder sat back, considering him and the room with a casual scan, but the muscles flickered along his jaw and the tendons were tight along the back of his hand. I couldn't see Scully's face since he'd sat back, but her ankles pulled back from their comfortable stretch, to cross in that self-conscious way Emily Post thought was lady-like and that I used when I couldn't figure out what else to do with myself. Sometimes she'd recross them the other way, scuffing the edge of an expensive pump on the blue rug. The pen in her hand made idle doodles with chemical names on them across the top of the pad of paper on her lap. The hiss of Jeffries advising his client, and the authoritative thump of Waverly straightening his files sometimes interrupted the buzz of the lights over head, and the faint pumping sound of the air system. Kane's suit had an understated pin stripe to it. Jeffries must have gotten the suit for him to wear. His own clothes would have been destroyed. Or maybe he already had his clothes stored elsewhere, waiting for him to finish and move on. The skin on his balding head was smooth, with only a few pink spots of scar. The wide bulk of his shoulders made the fabric pull just a little as he leaned forward to knit his fingers together on the table in front of him, the chains forcing him to keep his elbows bent close. He glanced at us again, and smiled politely. The marshal stayed close behind him, at a comfortable rest but with his eyes unfocused in front of him. A door behind and to our left creaked as it opened. This bailiff spoke the ancient formula clearly. . . "All rise." A tall, tired-looking man with graying hair walked in, the long, black robe swinging as his steps carried him up a step and into his seat, above us and looking down upon us all. "Judge Millone sitting in court this fourth day of November. . . " I tuned the rest of it out, sitting after the judge had sat, when the bailiff instructed us. Even Kane had struggled onto his feet and sat back down with a calm, reserved expression on his face. As it happened I spent a lot of the next hour tuned out. It was a lot more interesting when Barbara Streisand and Richard Dreyfuss were trading barbs and thumping on glasses. Howard Jeffries made an efficient and well-organized presentation of the evidence supporting the contention that Peter Kane, name of birth unknown, was not mentally competent to stand trial. The psychiatrists and psychologists he called quoted results of tests and observations that I could not remember within moments of having heard them. I had a pad of paper and tried to take notes, but kept hazing out and snapping to only to find a scrawl with a spot where ink had soaked in from my pen tip. The judge let us know he was familiar with this kind of hearing, and had made a it point to educate himself on the case at hand, so very little of the pshrink-speak was summarized for those of us who had not done our homework. Waverly's cross-examination did little to liven it. On cross, he'd get up to question each doctor in turn, inquiring after length of time in practice, similar cases seen, the applicability of tests. I was beginning to appreciate all over again why I didn't mind reading leases so much. The whole, drawn-out, formalistic attack by innuendo and caging a person into admissions had been a lot of what I'd always hated in trial practice class. Perry Mason would never have made it here. Jeffries had left Mulder for last. He questioned him on his opinion, on the evaluation he filed, just like previous doctors. I could see Waverly getting his shoulders bunched and scribbling notes back and forth with his legal assistant. I'd seen enough of Waverly to have a pretty good idea of what tack he was going to take with Mulder. I figured we were about to be treated to the prosecution trying to make this particular witness out to be totally incompetent due to medication and involvement. I just cringed when Jeffries sat down and turned Mulder over to Waverly. Waverly ran through Mulder's credentials again, and they did sound impressive. The bachelor's and doctoral degrees in psychology from Oxford had a nice ring to them. "But you never actually practiced, as a licensed psychologist?" "No." Fox must have had enough court appearances to know that expanding on an answer would not be permitted. "Your evaluation states that Mr. Kane is delusional. That not only was he incapable of perceiving the heinous quality of his acts at the time he committed them, he is still unable to perceive that, and unable to comprehend the advice of his attorney and the nature of a trial?" Mulder glanced at Kane, who was smiling at him. Looked back at Waverly. "That is correct, Mr. Waverly. In my professional opinion Mr. Kane was not able to understand that he killed human beings, and is not able to understand any trial for those acts. I very much doubt that Mr. Kane regards you as human." Well, Kane wasn't alone there. "Yet in a previous evaluation you clearly stated that Mr. Kane could and should stand trial. That although he did not understand the nature of the acts for which he was being sought by the FBI, he did understand the nature of actions taken against you and your partner." All right, Waverly couldn't openly say Kane had tried to kill Mulder. That would have been struck as not at issue. He was pussy-footing around it. Mulder hesitated. His answer was very carefully worded. "It is true that I offered a preliminary evaluation, before interviewing Mr. Kane, that suggested he could stand trial." "You changed your evaluation after an interview in the hospital?" "Yes." "Would you mind, for the record, stating what medications you were taking at the time of that interview?" "Objection!" Good for Jeffries! He wanted that question struck as irrelevant. I wanted to cheer. Waverly was trying to slant things so it seemed that all Mulder's evaluations had been made in a doped haze. I felt like growling when the judge let it stand. Fortunately, Mulder could figure his way around that one. "During the first of three interviews where I formed my evaluation of Mr. Kane I was being treated for smoke inhalation damage and burns." He sat back and listed the meds and their dosages, doubtless reeled out of the magic memory, but he'd made his point. Two more interviews, not under those drugs, had supported his opinion. Waverly's face showed no reaction, but he was straightening his tie a bit more often than he had before, like it was too tight around his neck. "Then the evaluation you ostensibly used to locate Mr. Kane is invalid? Because that evaluation contradicts the one you wrote in the hospital, after nearly being killed by the defendant." "Objection. Inflammatory and irrelevant." God. Millone let this one stand, too. I felt like a fan at a basketball game where the refs let all the home team fouls go and only nailed our side. Mulder picked his way through that mine field, trying to reconcile the two evaluations. "Many, even most, of the observations related to Mr. Kane's overall behavior patterns were made with considerable study, and I will stand behind them. My assessment of how he was operating on a broad scale did help us locate him. However my initial evaluation of his psychological status was necessarily speculative. Until I spoke with Mr. Kane in person, I was unable to form anything more than a speculative evaluation. I conducted three different interviews with the man, and those interviews support the opinions put forward in the evaluation I filed with this court. I do not consider Mr. Kane fit to stand trial." Neatly done, all interknit like that. Waverly would have had a hard time pulling apart and stopping the things he didn't want to hear. He must have decided Mulder was not going to be as easy to attack as he'd hoped, because he let Fox step down after that. Mulder managed to keep that frozen composure on his face all the way back to his seat. He must have had a phenomenally high tolerance level for bullshit and abuse if he managed to get this far without a word. I did see him take Scully's pad and note a few choice words about Waverly's ancestry and habits that put a grin back on her face. Kane had sat back and calmly observed, nodding at some of Mulder's comments, quiet and nerve-wrackingly well behaved. This wasn't the OJ trial, not a long, drawn-out media circus, in spite of the local notoriety. Judge Millone wanted to make a decision, and Jeffries played his trump card. He called Kane to the stand. Small steps, restricted by bandages and pain. The judge gave him the option to remain in his seat but Kane said he'd always wanted to take the oath, on the stand, and tell the truth for all to hear. Mulder's arm was brushing mine, and I felt the muscles under the cloth go rigid as Kane spoke the words of the oath, right hand raised as far as he could manage. I could hear the fibbie swallow, but I wasn't watching him. "Mr. Kane, would you give us your full name and age?" "I was born Dennis Tolleson, but in this place, and for the last year I have gone by Peter Kane, with a 'K'. I am forty years old. I'll go by Kane today and here, if you don't mind." He smiled at Fox Mulder. Jeffries stared at his client. "Mr. Kane, are you aware of the charges pending against you?" "Oh yes. I'm quite aware. I'm charged with several murders and. . . " he gestured towards us, "with trying to murder Dr. Mulder, over there." He'd chosen to underscore Mulder's credentials. I remembered him talking in that last interview, telling Mulder he knew whyhe was trying to have him found insane. And Kane was calling Mulder "Doctor." "And what do you understand that to mean?" Waverly looked like he might ask for a clarification, but Kane beat him to it. "I understand that to mean I killed people, and that I wanted to kill Dr. Mulder." I licked my lips. The judge was watching Kane closely. Kane was watching us. "Mr. Kane, I want you to look around the courtroom. Do you see people?" Kane turned slowly to face his lawyer and smiled at him. "Do I see people? I see. . ." He scanned carefully. "I see him. I see little Fox. I know he's people." Kane leaned forward and looked into Jeffries' eyes. "Now, you might be people. You might not. I'd have to find out, wouldn't I?" Jeffries took a breath I could see all the way from back where I sat. "And why do you believe Agent Mulder to be a person?" "Because I knew his daddy. I know they touched him, and they only take people. The rest of you, you might be people, you might not. That's our job to find out." "You. . . need to find out if all of us are people?" Kane smiled at him. "No, Mr. Jeffries. I got a very few people I need to learn about. Just like little brother over there only needs to find out about his sister. But you got someone out there for you, too. Don't you worry none. Someone's out there to make sure for you, too." Jeffries stepped back, away from his client, glanced at the judge who was watching and making notes. Next to me, Mulder watched him with rapt attention. I don't think he'd even blinked for quite a long while. "And how do you find that out?" "There's things to look for. Things about the teeth, and the skin, and the organs. You have to. . . experiment. You know, each one is different. You start with the simple procedures. You drill a man's teeth. You take a patch of skin and. . . " Jeffries held up his hand, going a bit pale. "Please Mr. Kane. I think we are all reasonably acquainted with the methods." Kane smiled at him. "Then you had best find a way to tell your own hunter, Mr. Jeffries, or he'll have to help you learn." Jeffries looked up at the judge, but the man was still making notes. Fox had his hands on his knees in what would have been a relaxed posture if I hadn't seen the tendons standing along the backs of his hands. Scully's pen was not moving on the pad on her lap. Waverly was making fast notes and watching Kane skeptically. Jeffries glanced at Waverly, and back to Kane. Seemed to come to a decision. "Mr. Kane, did you try to kill Agent Mulder?" Kane didn't need to think about that one. Mulder had sat back in his chair, as though he was relaxed, but he didn't move at all. None of the little twitches or rustles a person normally makes. Kane's voice was clear and definite. "Little brother? I didn't want to kill the little Fox. They'll hurt us all if one of us doesn't do as he must, doesn't search and hunt, but I don't want to kill little brother." He sighed, looked tired. "I tried to hurt him bad, in the fire. Maybe burn the fear out of him so he knows, so he'll hunt again. He's lying if he doesn't hunt." Fox sat perfectly still but that close, I could see the way muscles twitched up the side of his neck and his jaw. I half expected the air to hum with his tension. "You got to stop lying, little brother. Your daddy raised you better than that. He tried to keep you from the fire, tried to forge you strong so they wouldn't need to call you back." Kane was braced against the front rail of his box, now. He didn't seem to feel any pain any more, just stared past his lawyer's pale face to us. To Mulder. Even Waverly wasn't fidgeting or writing, was just watching now. "Your daddy hit you, sure, but he never hurt you as bad as they can. Do you remember? I do. Remember how your teeth felt in your head as you saw the smoke and felt the heat in your jaw? The burning light in your eyes, or the way their hands felt on your skin? How the cold metal hurt when it cut into you, but it never stopped and you never died even though you wanted to?" Fox curled his fist and let his chin rest on it. He looked calm and relaxed, but I could see how dark his eyes were, and hear a faint sound every so often like he'd let his teeth grind. I couldn't see Scully, sitting on his other side, but her hand was locked around her pen and she hadn't written anything for a long time. I could see how pale her hands were, how the left pressed down on the paper so hard the fingertips were white under the nails. "They hide the metal, little Fox. They put it different places to see how fast we learn, keep us from figuring it out. They don't even need that for you or me. Our daddies saw to that. It's easier, but they don't need it. You check those x-rays yet? No reason to make it easy, and you got to stay free until you hunt again, little brother, or they'll hurt you so bad you'll beg for the fire." Kane's sad, warning voice rippled past us all. Even the judge stared from Kane to Mulder and back. "Shut up." It was a whisper. Fox's lips didn't really move. I think I felt the words rather than heard them. Kane smiled sad and fond at him. "You scared to hear this, aren't you, little brother? I would be, too. But your daddy made a bargain sure as mine did. I still need to find my daddy. Your daddy's bargain cost you your sister , and you need to find her. Like I need to find Jay and my old man. There's lots of us been taken and lots of us who hunt. You stop, little brother, and you bring them down on all our heads. We can't let you stop hunting, little Fox. We can't afford that." Kane was on his feet, as though his legs weren't burned and bound. Mulder drew a deep breath, and maybe he hadn't been breathing these last few moments, but he was staring at Kane, watching him. Not hatred or fear, or curiosity either, but something else with a little of those all mixed in. Something that held need and old, old pain. Kane turned his head and looked up at the judge, who pulled back and stared down into his eyes. The bailiff was moving to get close, as though Kane could do anything with the chains on his wrists and his legs all wrecked. "Your honor. I have work I need to do. I know little brother over there tells you I am not sane, and my lawyer tells you I can't stand trial, but I have work that needs to be done. I think you're human." Kane smiled at him. "I got good instincts for these things. If I need to answer questions for that one over there," he pointed at Waverly, "I will. I'll be glad to tell him all about what his hunter'll do to him and he'd better run now, while he can. If my own little weasel wants to ask any more questions, he can. But I'm asking you now, to understand and let me go to trial. If I can get a jury of twelve people I know they'll hear sense. So long as the Bad Ones don't get in I'll be fine." He might have been trying to soothe a child from his tone. Mulder hadn't moved next to me. Waverly was staring in sullen amazement and Jeffries just sat and shook, not even trying to get control of his client. The judge looked back at Kane. "That's all very well, Mr. Kane. Now, this is a court of law, and we are in a hearing." His voice, at least was mild and calm. "I'll have to ask you to follow the rules while you are here, and to only answer questions when they are put to you. I understand that this is all quite new to you. . . " Droning on now, trying to reestablish some kind of rationality, some normality in his court. I knew how he felt. Kane watched him and seemed amused. When Judge Millone turned to Waverly he simply declined, saying he had no questions. I heard Mulder snort next to me, saw his eyes narrow in sudden anger. Kane looked back at us. "Remember what I told you, little brother." And Judge Millone adjourned for three hours. ________________________ We had until two, so we didn't torture ourselves with what passed for food in the courthouse. Jerry fell into step as we walked out the door. "So, what's the verdict?" "You know perfectly well we're just adjourned. No decision yet." The words came out with a harsh note I hadn't quite intended. Jerry glanced at me. He slowed down a little letting Mulder and Scully walk on ahead. We watched them for a moment. I'd expected Fox to be rattled. That tight, calm facade he'd kept, sitting back in his chair the whole time, had no doubt looked good, but I'd felt how unnatural it was the few times I'd brushed against his arm. The muscles under his jacket had been locked, the chin that he'd rested on his hand had looked clenched the whole time. I wasn't surprised that Mulder was wrung out. What surprised me was the pale, nervous look on Scully's face. She'd held herself almost as tense as he had, and I was baffled as to what she was fighting to control. Jerry didn't seem to know either, but I figured the feds really needed the space. We let them get about fifteen feet ahead of us. If he hadn't been so much taller their heads would have been together, but both looked too tense to be mistaken for lovers on a walk. As they walked, she gradually did more and more talking, as though he was dragging the words out of her. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jerry squint in the thin sunlight. His black hair and olive skin looked washed out and winter pale. He tried to catch my eyes and I looked away from him, surprised at the anger and tension that still coiled in my shoulders. He hunched tighter, away from the wind. "Emma, I know I haven't said much to you about this. This whole thing has to have been very, very hard for you. . . " "You might say that, Jerry. It still is hard." He reached over to put a hand on my shoulder, but I pulled away. The tentative look on his face didn't make me contrite today, the way it might have most of the time. "It will be over soon, Emma. No matter what. . . " I heard the anxious sound in his voice, and was glad to upset him even while I wasn't feeling quite right about it. "Fuck it, Jerry. Just get away from me." I glared at him, ignored the pale, tight look that was suddenly on his face, ignored Mulder's nagging voice in the back of my head, telling me that I should think carefully before I burned this bridge. "Emma!" Jerry grabbed me suddenly. Grabbed both my arms and held me still. "Damn it, this is because of what I told you last night, isn't it?" "You little fuck! You think you can just tell me you've been using me since I dropped in your lap like the best thing since a good screw and you think I'm not gonna be upset? You think I'm just gonna make up and play nice?!" God, my nose was all snotty and I couldn't breathe, and I could feel how red and ugly my face was, and feel the tears rolling down my cheeks and hurting in the cold wind. I think Mulder and Scully were staring. It looked like he'd put a hand out to hold her back, but they were blurred in my vision a second later. Jerry was still holding me, and his hands almost bruised my arms. He suddenly pulled me in tight, wrapped me and held me, even though I was trying to shove him off. "Let go of me you bastard." "Emma." He was holding me almost tight enough to hurt. "Emma. You may not want to believe it, but I told the truth last night. You'd never be my first choice for conspirator. You're too damn honest." His voice was soft in my ear. "Emma, listen to me. Please listen to me." He let me back a little way, though he was still holding me, hands wrapped around my upper arms. "I was so scared when I found out you were in the middle of all this. I'd barely thought of you in months, hardly talked to you, but you were one of the ones I thought was safe." I stared at him, sniffling. Glanced sideways to see that Fox and Dana had found a window to shop at. Looked back at Jerry and ignored all the other people out here. They didn't count. They were strangers. "Emma, I've lost a lot of friends. Too many. I don't care if they died because they had AIDS, or they were driving drunk, or whatever. It doesn't matter. But I've lost a lot. And I always kind of assumed you were safe. You'd stay safe." He let go of me, let his hands fall to his sides. "You were the one I kind of kept in reserve, knowing I'd always have one friend out there, because good old Emma didn't break any of the rules, and so she'd always be safe. And I really wanted to keep you that way. Some of what I know kills people, Emma. What I've been learning. . . There are people who've died because they knew things, Emma." He looked over at the feds himself. "People like Mulder, or like Scully?" He smiled, but it was a pretty pale smile. "I don't know many people who you could say are like either of them, but kind of that idea. Yeah. I know. . . knew a couple people who kind of got mugged to death, or drove too fast on the wrong roads, or whatever excuse you want to find, because they knew the kind of stuff Scully or Mulder know. And. . . I really didn't want you to become one of those people." He looked at me, and his face had that kind of tight look I felt on my own features. "And you're bound and determined to stick your neck in this noose, no matter what I do. Aren't you?" I bit my lip and thought about it. Thought about it very carefully. And finally nodded my head. "Yes Jerry. Yes I am." He looked like something was broken, way deep inside, but he nodded. When we both turned at started walking again, the feds did too. This time it was them giving us the room. I was relieved it was still a couple blocks away. When they reached the restaurant I had in mind, I caught up to them. Fox was just shaking his head, telling her no to something, when I tapped their shoulders and pointed out the little Afghani place I'd decided would be diverting for lunch. Jerry was picking up the tab today, letting the taxpayer off the hook, since he'd just conducted what he could excuse as an interview with me. Lots of food with paprika and other wonderful things gave us an excuse not to talk about the hearing for at least an hour. I could see that both Scully and Mulder really just wanted the whole thing to be over, wanted it done with. Whatever they'd been talking about, it was clear that Peter Kane brought up bad memories for both of them. Jerry showed more tact than I would have expected, and let them off the hook. Instead, were treated to recycled stories of P.J. O'Rourke managing foreign cultures by insulting the French and committing other atrocities. Reporters do have the best gossip. A couple good rumors about the foibles and peccadilloes of Washington insiders had both our guests in a much better mood, while the food left a warm glow in our bellies. We sat back finally with coffee and desserts so dense they could earn a new place on the periodic table of elements, each in his or her own world. I'd willingly have put hard money that though we were lost in our separate worlds, the general content was very similar. Scully broke the silence. "Mulder says you plan to sell your house, Emma." I felt Jerry's startled eyes on me as I nodded. "Yeah. I look around and it just reminds me of how different I am." "Are you sure you want to do that? It's a big step. . . " There was a worried frown between her eyes, a hesitant note in her voice. Mulder was holding the tiny coffee cup used to drink the thick sludge that passed for coffee here, turning the cup around and around in his hand. I didn't want to look at Jerry's face. "Um. It's kind of hard to explain, but I think I'm going to change a lot of things in my life. I. . . well, I'm going to quit my job, too." "You're not planning to join the FBI?" The smile was slow, but real, and the laugh in her voice washed out a lot of the tension. Mulder grinned at her as if there were a private joke or two behind that idea. "Don't worry, Scully. I don't think Legal has any openings now. And I know Securities Fraud doesn't." "No. You don't need to worry about me dropping by and opening my mouth." I grinned back. "I think I just want to travel for a while. Try my hand at writing something that doesn't involve allotted parking spaces and maintenance contracts." I settled back, and saw Jerry from the corner of my eye. He was eyeing me now, but speculatively. Thoughtfully. "You'll have to let us know when you have your first book tour." Mulder had gotten the check, but Jerry snagged it out of his hands and tucked his card in the folder. "Why? So you two can attend?" "Either that or go out of the country." ___________________ The walk back was quiet, but hardly peaceful. It was cold enough now that most people scurried to get indoors, their coats flapping wildly around their bodies as the wind tried to spin them about. Jerry was hunched inside his wool coat, but Chicago winters had inured him to a lot of this. I wasn't so blase about the weather, a sentiment I suspected I shared with Mulder and Scully. We had half an hour until the hearing reconvened, and we were in no hurry to get there. Even in the tame, restrained settings of the courthouse, Kane corroded the edges of reality. I found myself looking at the men and women who scurried past me and wondering if any of them were hunters, or hunted. I tried hard not to look at my companions at all. The wind chilled my legs as it blew around my ankles and whipped under my coat. The courthouse felt over-heated and smelled of dust and clashing aftershaves. Passing women frequently trailed a heavy aura of perfume, and the clatter of high heels and dress shoes on marble echoed in the rotunda as we waited for the guards to run our briefcases through the x-ray machine, and to check Scully's license and ID before they would let us pass. The elevator to our floor was crowded, and we had to work and hold the door open for all four of us to get out of the car. Jerry grinned and waved us in, choosing to stay outside again rather than sit through the procedures. Kane was already in his seat, waiting, when we returned to our spots. The marshal who stood behind his chair looked bored, but efficient. Jeffries was over leaning against Waverly's table, chatting amiably enough with the prosecutor. Every so often he would shoot nervous glances back at his client, who took those in with the same calm, smug smile he'd worn for most of the hearing. He turned that look on us as we settled into our seats. "You sounded real good up there, little Fox. Real convincing." Mulder didn't even hesitate, just smoothly took his seat and glanced up at Kane. The Marshall looked uncertain as to whether he should advise his prisoner to shut up or not. "Thank you Dennis. You sounded quite convincing as well." The agent's civil reply seemed to reassure the marshal and he relaxed again, just watching his charge. "You will remember what I been telling you, won't you little brother?" Kane tilted his head back, and a look that might have been concern was on his face. "I'll remember about the x-rays, Dennis." "And about the others. You keep trying to hide, you are not going to leave them much choice." Mulder watched him consideringly. "I'm sure you'll keep reminding me, Dennis. Maybe one day we can discuss why there are Bad Ones.' Kane's face pulled into a slow, wide smile below cold blue eyes. "That's right, isn't it. You'll come visit me when I'm inside, see if you can learn to find us before we * find * you." Those last words each accented with a tap of the finger on the arm of his chair. "Except, we already found you, little brother. We're already watching you." The marshal's eyes were worried again, back and forth between Mulder and Kane. "And I found you, Dennis. You just jumped the gun on me." Now Mulder was smiling back at him, trading professional courtesies. "I knew you'd get around to it, little brother. Might as well cut the wait. And I wanted to see you again." Whatever Mulder was going to say was lost as the bailiff stepped into the room, calling us to rise. The formalities were quick and rapidly dispensed with as Millone took his seat and looked around at us. He straightened the notes in front of him and looked down at both members of counsel, assuring himself that they had no further questions. Both stated they were finished, although Waverly still wore a somewhat sullen expression. Whatever had transpired at lunch for him had not been as pleasant as our own lunch had been. "In cases such as these, it can be difficult to differentiate between an individual who believes that the appearance of insanity will insulate him from the full judgment of the law, and one who is genuinely unable to avail himself of the protections and rights afforded him under the law. In such cases I have presumed in favor of an individual's competence, rather than otherwise." He scanned all of us, and let his stare fall on Kane last of all. "There are cases however, rare though they be, where it becomes apparent that, despite intelligence, wit, and some modicum of understanding, the person in question has so divergent a view of reality that our legal system will not be able to adequately seek justice in the matter at hand." Not difficult as legal-speak went, just wordy. Kane was too looped to trust his lawyer, therefore could not get adequate representation of counsel. "In such cases we take the merciful option and remand that individual to the care of the state, to be held and treated until such time as the individual may, if ever, avail himself of his legal right to trial." Mulder fidgeted and eyed the judge. I could almost hear his voice speculating that judge-speak was an X-File. In law school I had amused myself during the long, dark hours of studying corporate structure by inventing speeches that judges would use in bed with their wives. "A time inevitably comes when man must submit to the judgment of the senses and devote his full attention to whether the learned hand must attend to the . . . ," and her reply. "Shut up and put up." I wondered if they had support groups for judges' wives. "In the matter of Peter Kane, a.k.a. Dennis Tolleson, we find the defendant unable to seek effective assistance of counsel, unable to adequately comprehend legal proceedings related to him, and therefore we remand him into the care of Ashcroft State Hospital for thirty days, open to review, pending procedures for civil commitment." The gavel's loud crack was a satisfying note to end Millone's discourse. The marshal helped his charge rise, then stepped back and followed him, directing him out the door to the right of the witness box. As Kane's broad back left my sight, I found I was shaking, hands trembling almost. Scully had stood up and was using the railing to brace her hands and stretch, letting her head fall back to work out the tension from her neck, her shoulders. The smile on her face was wide and crinkled her eyes. When I turned to look at Mulder, however, he was still staring at the spot where Kane had been sitting, a puzzled frown on his face. His fingers tapped his knee, once, twice, then froze in mid-air. His eyes flickered back and forth, as though he were reading something. "Excuse me." The words were too distracted to sound rude, and he took my shoulders and moved me out of the way, walking to the exit so briskly that he almost ran. He was out the door an instant later, leaving me staring open mouthed. Then Scully pushed past me, concern and surprise on her face, heading for the same door at a quick trot. I was through the door after her, before it had swung all the way shut, cursing myself for being so dumb at the same time as I scanned the hall for where her partner had to have gone. The elevator was still coming down from the upper floors but the stairwell door was slowly swinging shut. We scrambled down the stairs, me following just behind her, and I was never so grateful for liking low heels before in my life. Below us we could just hear footfalls, heavy and spaced like he was taking the stairs two or three at a time, almost jumping down the flights. Four floors down, racing, and my heart was pounding and I was breathing hard with a chest that ached deep down and a cough that kept shaking my lungs. We barreled out the door that was still swinging shut, to see him racing across the parking garage, clean, dark gray in a dirty gray world of strobing, cheap fluorescents and ugly, pale concrete. In the center, engine running, sat a van with no markings. The back door was open and Peter Kane smiled out at us, past the man in coveralls who sat next to him, glaring at us, and a man in a dark jacket on his other side. The man in coveralls yanked the door shut and I heard the engine rev. Fox almost threw himself, slamming against the closed door, twisting at the handle and running to keep pace as the van started away from him. "Mulder!" Scully's scream echoed off the concrete, sharp and high. I was pelting along after her, fearing the van would back up over him, but it swerved, fishtailed just a little. Not much, but enough to throw a running man off balance. He tumbled onto the hood of a parked car, dropped to the ground, breathing in deep, noisy, open-mouthed gasps that sounded like they came from the bottom of his lungs, and breaking off as coughs rattled through him. He wasn't paying much attention to them, however. His entire focus was on the van as it pulled out of sight around the turn, wheels squealing. He reached for his phone before he realized he no longer had one - it had gone the way of his gun. Cursed and coughed and let his head drop onto his knees with frustration. Scully was next to him now, kneeling, panting. I stopped where I was, perhaps twenty feet back, braced my hands on my knees and let the coughs wrack me and shake me until they could calm just a little, until I could breathe just enough. Fox had his arms around his ribs, and the coughs still clenched him, but they didn't put the bitter look on his face. It was long minutes before his coughing slowed a little, and he was pale as he sat back against the grill of the car behind him. His voice was hoarse and rough. "He was too calm." Scully nodded at the words, paying more attention to pulse and to his tone than to what he said. "He was too calm, Scully." He put his palms flat and tried to shove himself onto his feet. I put a hand under his arm, and so did she, but he shook us off. Unfolded himself up from the floor, but still wrapped just a little over his ribs. He shot another poisonous glare up the empty ramp that had carried the van. We flanked him and let him set the pace. He and I both punctuated our steps with coughs, mine in staccato little bursts and his coming more often, and deeper. I could hear him trying to stop them, hold them in. He lead us back through a door other than the one we'd come through. Walls with no ornament, and the faint smell of sweat and urine. It reminded me of the barren walls of the secure ward. As it turned out, there was a reason for that. We turned a corner to find a barred door, ajar now. The marshal lay sprawled out on the floor. He was breathing, but unconscious. Mulder found the broken shaft of a small dart, with a sharp, vicious point and an empty barrel. He met Scully's eyes. "He's lucky he's not dead." He handed the thing to his partner, who looked at it with distaste. "You're thinking emmeyebee?" He nodded. Coughed again, spat. "But why?" But she didn't sound like she was really asking a question. More like it was a formal rite she had to observe. Mulder looked at the guard. Back to her. And just shook his head. I pulled out my phone and called 911. ____________________ Two days later they were gone. I dropped them at the airport with their bags and briefcases, and a new coat to keep Mulder warm instead of the one he'd borrowed from Seth. It was strange when they got out of the car. Scully, next to me, turned and half reached for a hug like I'd have given to a friend, then stopped and changed the motion to one of those handshakes you give with both hands. The kind that are almost a hug for a hand. Her rueful grin made me laugh and I pulled her into the hug anyway. "Don't be silly, Scully. I brought you enough coffee and Danish to qualify for the kind of hug you'd give a sorority sister." I could feel her laugh at that before I let her go. Mulder had already scooted out of the backseat, and I popped the trunk and got out to join him."I'm not a sorority sister." He grinned down at me. "No, and you'd look pretty silly in the little skirt and pom poms they made me wear for hazing." He blushed, but the grin was wider than ever and his eyes were bright, brown shot with green. He managed the suitcases without any trouble that I could see, and I was relieved. Scully had stepped up to the curb and was getting their stuff tagged for luggage check so they wouldn't have to wait in line. I looked back up to Fox, and pulled out a bag of seeds. "Here ya go. Just to annoy Scully on the ride back." "She's used to them by now. You'll be all right?" The flicker of concern darkened his smile. "Yeah. I've already got some interest for the house. I think I'll get a good price." "Smoke and mirrors, Emma. Will *you* be all right?" I smiled, slow and peaceful. "Yes, Mulder. Jerry called, and he's going to sort of mentor me in all this. I'll be traveling with a modem and a car phone, so I won't be out of touch. And you gave me your email, too." He rolled his eyes. "Mulder. . . Last chance, what did really happen to Kane?" He just smiled. "Deny everything, Emma. If you ever learn, you tell me." I snorted. Looked over at Scully, waiting with their boarding passes. "You'd better be going. You'll miss your flight." He hesitated a moment, hand half out like he was thinking of shaking my hand. I wasn't Kane or Waverly, and I didn't intend to say good-bye like Kane or Waverly. I caught his hand and pulled him into a hug, like I had with Scully. He even kind of hugged me back, like a guy who's embarrassed to be caught hugging his sister in public. "Take care, Emma. And look out for the things that hide in the light as well as the dark." "You too, Mulder. You too." ____________________ FROM: drtlwyr@tiac.com TO: ghost_wrtr@lepvx5.FBI.gov SUBJ: Mark of Kane Hey! You guys said you'd be at my first book signing (or out of the country!). Well, it's time to ante up. Meet me at Moonstone Books in DC on the 18th and I'll autograph your copies. It's been ages and I want to see you! Jer says 'Hi.' (Actually, he said I should kiss Mulder for him, and say hi to Scully). You've seen the galleys and you know no one will spot you from them, so it's safe for you to come out to play. Ain't fiction great? And I have some stuff I need to show you. I'm sure you've seen more persuasive material, but I've been collecting information that might pertain to our mutual friend and his friends, and I have copies for you. I'd feel much, much more comfortable if I knew this stuff was in your hands. Just so you'll know, Jerry's been making friends too. Interesting world out there, beyond the sidewalks. So let's get together and pretend you need to question me, and we'll run up your credit card at the Red Sea or the Iron Gate Inn. See you on the 18th. Emma End