Title: Porphyria's Lover (1/2)
 Author: Brighid
 Spoilers: Teensy references to "Irresistible" and "Elegy"
Rating: P3-13 for a few bad words and disturbing imagery.
 Category: XA
 Keywords: Mulder/Scully friendship
 Summary: A murder investigation haunts Scully's dreams.
 Archive: Sure, but keep my name & let me know.
Constructive feedback greatly appreciated. Please. Please. Please.

Disclaimer: All things X-files belong to Chris Carter, 1013, and Fox. This
is not for profit, but for love.

Author's Note: About a week ago, Pyrephox issued a triple challenge. This
story meets two of those challenges, though perhaps not exactly as was
intended. It has the haunting element, and it is fic derived from lit -
though not in the same style as songfic. I hope this satisfies the craving,
nevertheless. It was an experience to write. Almost like a possession,
really. This could be in the same universe as "Those Who Favour Fire".


Porphyria's Lover, Part 1 of 2.

What hits me first is the smell, which surprises me. The body is at best 72
hours old, and both the weather and the apartment are cold. Some
deterioration is to be expected, but not the full-blown stench that assaults
us the minute we walk through the door. I gag a little at it, and Mulder
slaps a hand over his nose and staggers back into the hall. He isn't sick,
but it is close. He comes back a moment later, whey-faced but resolute,
pressing a handkerchief against his nose.

The victim is in her early 20's, a college student in a small sufficiency
suite. Like the other four before her, she is wearing a pretty green dress
and sitting neatly on her battered couch, looking like a discarded doll.
Her face, even now, is beautiful: finely drawn with a tip-tilt nose and a
cupid's bow mouth and all the little details that make a man look twice,
maybe three times. The only thing that mars her is the ugly bruising around
her throat, the markings of her death. Like the other four before her, she
has been strangled with a braid of her own fair hair, now arranged prettily
over her shoulder.

This is the first victim I have seen on site. We just pulled the case
recently, as it had only crossed state lines into Virginia with the last
victim. I autopsied that one 10 days ago. Cause of death was strangulation,
her trachea crushed by a twist of her own hair. Her name was Rachel Sommers.
She had been 21, a Fine Art major and a hospital volunteer. She read romance
novels and wrote soft porn for Internet sites. She had a collection of
stuffed animals spread all over the daybed in the corner of her suite.

I snap on a pair of latex gloves, and begin to go over the area immediately
around the body of victim number 5, Marilyn Coote. There is dark hair on the
mottled brown sofa, and a number of other fibers, but nothing concrete -
college students usually have second-hand furniture, full of such incidental
bits of history. It is more likely that evidence will turn up on the body
itself, and so I turn my attention there as the other officers mill about
the small apartment, searching for anything that will point us in the
direction of the killer. I ignore the noise in the outer hall, trusting the
uniforms to deflect curious neighbours and voracious reporters, as we pry
our own way into Marilyn's secrets.

"Scully, come here!" Mulder's voice rises above the general din, pulling me
away from my minute observation of the victim's nails - surprisingly neat
and clean. It appears as if the killer has scraped them, just as he had with
the other victims. Our man is thorough, meticulously so. It is frustrating
to say the least. I bag her hands, small and white and pathetic as dead
birds, for further examination, and head towards the small bathroom Mulder
has disappeared into.

"What have you found?" I watch him pace the narrow room, from toilet to
shower and back again. The abstract restlessness that always seizes him
during a profile is beginning to coil up in him, eat at him. I wait, and
look over the room instead. Someone has attempted to make it pretty, for all
that it is the size of a closet, resolutely ragging the walls in ocean
shades and then stenciling starfish and seahorses around the top. Stained
vinyl flooring is hidden beneath a series of blue and green mats, and there
are postcards from seaside resorts in those cheap clip frames you can get at
grocery stores these days. It seems almost obscenely bright and cheerful
when one considers the dead girl sitting in the living room, equally obscene
in her green silk dress.

Mulder stops at last. "She's got birth control in the medicine cabinet," he
said. "Condoms -- ribbed for her pleasure, I might add -- and a diaphragm
with a tube of spermicidal lubricant. No pictures of a boyfriend out in the
open, but instead, shoved into a drawer in the bedroom."

I nod. "Consistent with the others - the killer chooses a victim in a
relationship with someone. Since there is no evidence of a break in, or
violent struggle, we can assume the victims knew their killer. Maybe they
were all cheating." I push a little further into the bathroom. "We knew this
before, Mulder."

He runs a gloved finger over the sink, full mouth twisted slightly in
concentration. "We assumed this before, Scully." he corrects me. "I'm
wondering now if the pictures tucked away mean that the killer is tidying up
after, hiding evidence of the competition. All the victims are idealized, if
you see what I mean? Bodies left clean and beautiful and surprisingly
undefiled. No sign of sexual penetration before or after death, or even
masturbation by the killer after the fact. Minimal violence. House left
cleaner probably than it was to begin with. Victims are laid out becomingly,
but modestly. As if he's somehow - somehow-" Mulder drifts off at that,
getting lost in the mazes of his own thinking, making quicksilver
connections that will, hopefully, lead us to the killer before he strikes
again. If he keeps to his pattern, we have another couple of weeks, but
sometimes timelines are accelerated.

"I'm going to leave with the coroner's truck and do the exam, Mulder. I'll
meet you back at the office when I'm done, okay?" He nods vaguely, already
miles away with me all but forgotten. It is hardly anything new. I always
fade into the background when his obsessive intellect takes over. I am
almost used to it by now.

Almost.

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

Mulder is still at it when I return from the autopsy. Files are spread
across the office from all five cases, and the walls are full of scene
shots, victim photos and evidence photos. He is slumped in his chair, eyes
half-lidded and his gaze turned inward as he chews a pencil into slivers. I
wait a moment, then toss the autopsy file down in front of him.

"Same as all the others?" he asks, already knowing the answer.

"Pretty much. The advanced decomposition is a bit odd, though. I think it
might have something to do with the heat in the apartment. It must have been
shut down well after the murder took place, unlike the other times.  The
killer must have hung around for a few hours at least. Maybe overnight.
Otherwise, same cause of death, same method. Same clean up on the
body --nothing under the nails, in the mouth or on the skin. There's no
evidence of any damage besides the marking on the neck." I sigh and sink
into my chair; my back and shoulders are sore from the hours spent
dissecting the most intimate details of Marilyn Coote's final hours. "She'd
had pizza about four or five hours earlier. That was the most interesting
detail there was."

A flash of distaste passes across Mulder's features. "Suddenly, I wish I'd
ordered Chinese."

I glance around the room, looking over Mulder's own private gallery of
horrors. "How are you doing?"

He doesn't answer right away, but instead gets up and moves. That is how he
processes, as if his brain works only when his body is in motion. It would
explain much of the driven quality, the restlessness that makes other people
so edgy. There is no stillness in the man at all.

At last, he comes to rest beside me. "It's coming. I suspect I'll have the
profile done by morning. I can feel him, in there." He taps his left temple
with the mangled pencil, and smiles darkly. "I'd like him out as soon as
possible." There are shadows in his eyes, not overwhelming yet, but looming
closer with each passing moment.

I cannot stop the wrenching yawn that escapes me, and for a moment the
shadows retreat. "Go home, Scully. Get a good night's sleep. One of us
should. I promise not to call you tonight." He lays a hand on my shoulder,
gives a gentle squeeze that says more than words ever can. I pat his hand
and rise from my chair, unlocking my purse from the cabinet where I keep it.

I pause only for a moment in the doorway. I want to wish him a good night,
and perhaps even safe passage, but he is already moving inward, diving into
the darkness where I cannot follow. The shadows lengthen, and I admit that I
hurry away before they can touch me.

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

I like my apartment; it is not so much a reflection of me, as a projection
of who I would like to be. It is clean, and organized, and stylish, and
above all, peaceful. It soothes me, a place of safe harbour from the storms
that have rocked my life so much these last few years. It is home.

Tonight I eat Lean Cuisine, too tired to actually take the time and effort
to prepare anything. I eat it in front of the television, careful not to
spill anything on the white couch, and allow myself a small glass of wine
from the bottle my cousin sent me for my birthday. There isn't really much
on, just some crime drama that desperately needs to make use of a police
consultant, and a one of those Harlequin romance movies. I choose the
romance, but turn it off before it is even half over. If I am going to be
mindless, I might as well do it in the bathtub, with the rest of my glass of
wine and some Mozart for company.

I use the vanilla bubble bath, light a few candles, and set the c.d. player
for random. The water slides like velvet over my skin, and I feel the
tensions of the day start to slip away. I let myself forget everything else,
just existing in the moment, with the smell of vanilla and the taste of red
wine and the sound of Mozart's symphony number 41 in C the only realities.
It is a little foolish, perhaps, but I allow myself to drift and doze in the
warm cocoon of music, water and wine. It feels good, and feeling good of
late has been a scarce commodity.

I gradually become aware of darkness, and an echoing silence. The candles
have all guttered, and the music has stopped. I think that I must have
fallen asleep, and that it has grown late. With a mild curse I struggle to
sit upright, but find myself unable to move, and it is then that I begin to
feel afraid. My skin ripples with gooseflesh, and I hear it, a hushed sound
a little to my left.

I twist my head a little, as much as I am able, and I find her sitting
there, as though I had never cut her open and weighed her heart and lungs,
or uncoiled the length of her gut to figure out the last hours of her life.
She is silent and pale, and unspeakably lovely in the green silk dress she
was found in. Her mouth moves, as if she is trying to speak, but no sound
comes past the cupid's bow lips. She grows frantic, hazel eyes large and
bulging in her face as her long, blonde braid wraps viciously about her
throat. She struggles against it, but at last grows still, falling forward,
over the edge of the tub and on top of me, then finally through me-

I shudder awake, to candlelight and Piano Concerto Number 21. The water has
cooled unpleasantly and the residue of the bubbles feels harsh and gritty on
my skin. A dream, then. I grab the showerhead and rinse off as I drain the
tub, then towel away the excess water and slip into the warm nightgown
waiting for me on the towel rack. I use a snuffer to put out the candles,
and head into the bedroom in search of dreamless sleep.

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

It is raining, an autumn storm ruffling the placid lake. I move quickly,
cursing the heavy skirts that would drag me down, and make my way to the
cottage on the far side. The house behind me is ablaze with lights, and even
now I hear the sound of music as it bleeds out into the night air. The
distant cottage is only a dull glow, but the light there is warm and
beckoning, and I yearn for it with an intensity that would leave me
breathless if the rising wind had not already done so.

It takes forever, and I feel phantom pursuers dogging me at every step. Yet
the guilt that follows me cannot compare to what waits for me, for the love
that I know lies within the small cabin on the other side of the lake. It
is, I know, destiny, and how can destiny be a sin, when God Himself has
ordained it?

At last I am there, and I slip inside the waiting warmth with an audible
sigh of relief. I let my cloak side from my shoulders and tear the hat from
my head. My hair tumbles wet and heavy down my back, but I do not care for
that, do not care that I am wind-tossed and a little wild with the rough
magic of a tempest night. He is there, waiting for me, sitting on the settee
and completely silent in the flickering firelight.

I sit down beside him and like the brazen that I have become I pull him into
my arms and mouth soft loving words against his temple, his cheek, his jaw,
his mouth. I feel the reserve go out of him, feel him yield to my touch and
return my fevered embraces. I tell him I missed him, tell him I want him,
tell him if I could have chosen I would have chosen him, tell him that I am
his and he is mine.

He pulls back a little, and his dark eyes are fathomless with some manic
joy. I tumble headlong into his gaze, my breath short and sharp beneath the
stays and corsets that keep me upright. His voice is soft, tremulous as he
asks me if I speak truly, if I would choose him, if I am truly his? I fall
upon his breast and weep that I am his, that there is nothing else at all
for me, that neither marriage nor storms nor the threat of damnation could
keep me from him.

He sighs softly, and a soft word slips past his lips. "Mine." Just that, and
the feel of his fingers twining through the damp weight of my hair. I do not
even notice as he coils it, only begin to understand his intent as he wraps
the first loop around my throat. I begin to struggle then; to try and pull
back as he winds it tighter and tighter and my breath grows shorter and
shorter. He is so much bigger, and he holds me down, and my body thrashes
and the air burns in my lungs but cannot pass the constriction at my throat
and I flail and cry but there is no air to carry the sound and it hurts and
the darkness is red like blood and he whispers "mine" and it hurts and the
darkness is red like blood-

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

I awaken in the darkness, my breathing harsh in my own ears, gasping for
breath that will not come. I feel my hands upon my throat, clawing at a
strangling that is only in my mind, in my dreams. I reach for the phone,
dialing in blind panic with his number the only clear thought in my mind.

"Mulder." His warm voice is abstracted, but achingly familiar in the middle
of this nightmare.

I gasp harshly, still half-choked, almost unable to get the words past the
bruised feeling in my trachea.

"Scully?" his tone is sharpened with concern, demanding an explanation that
I cannot give. "Scully! What the hell is happening?"

I gag, and then the words come, but it is more like vomiting than speaking.
They hurt coming up, and I do not even begin to comprehend what is spilling
out. "In one long string-I wound three times her little throat around and
strangled her- no pain feltshei'msureshe-felt no pain-."  The words stop,
but my gut still heaves and I barely make it to the bathroom before oriental
pepper steak and red wine leave me with a force that sets me shaking. From
the bedroom I can hear Mulder's voice, tinny and distorted, screaming for me
to speak to him, to get back to the phone, but my legs cannot move, I can't
even crawl, so I just lie on the floor and try to remember how to breathe.

****************************************************************************
*********'

I feel a warm cloth stroke across my lips, and gentle hands patting my body
through the heavy cotton of my nightgown, as if searching for something. I
open my eyes blearily, see Mulder crouching over me.

He helps me sit up, hands me a cloth so I can dab at the bitter smelling
stains fouling the front of my nightgown, and just watches me with careful
eyes. At last, as if somehow sure that I am going to be alright, he sighs
and allows his gaze to drop then rise again to meet mine with a rueful
gleam.

"So, was that the ultimate payback for all my 3 a.m. phone calls? 'Cause I
gotta tell you, Scully, you scared the piss right out of me." Despite the
humour, his voice is more than a little shaky.

I start to speak, my hand moving reflexively up to my throat as it catches
on the soreness there. I can feel no actual swelling, so the discomfort is
most probably psychosomatic, a lingering reminder of the nightmare. I
swallow hard and try again. "I'm sorry, Mulder. I had this really awful
nightmare, like a cross between a period romance novel and this damn case- I
guess I must still have been in the middle of it when I called you. This is
perhaps the single most embarrassing moment of my life." I smile a little,
but it is weak and surprisingly close to weeping.

Mulder shrugs a little, repositions himself so that his back is against the
bathroom cabinet and his long legs are sprawled out on the tiled floor. He
should look awkward, but he seems utterly at ease, like a cat that can
sprawl anywhere like he owns it. "Could've been worse. You could've been
naked." A mock leer lights his features. "Mind you, I wouldn't have
considered that worse for me. Scully, do you remember what you said to me?"
The switch from gentle lechery to laser-beam focus is disconcerting.

I shake my head. "Not really, no. It just sort of surged out. Must have been
pretty senseless." I stir uneasily on the floor, wishing I had the energy to
go and get to get changed or at least just throw on my robe. Instead, I just
sit there and shiver as the pre-dawn light filters through the distorted
bathroom windows.

Mulder's gaze moves inward again, but he has not withdrawn from me, not
completely. "Not senseless, no." With careful precision he repeats the words
to me, only half-remembered from the dim hysteria of my nightmare. I shudder
with recognition, and my empty stomach rolls over inside of me. "Do you know
what those words are from?" he asks quietly, his recitation trailing off.

I know my face is bone-white, and my pulse is so heavy in my ears that my
head starts to swim. "No, no, not really. They sound like poetry, but not
one I'm familiar with-" my voice wanders off weakly, and I bend my forehead
to my knees in an attempt to stave off the returning queasiness.

His voice is distant, lost in a general hum that disconnects me from the
rest of reality. "It is from a poem by Robert Browning. Porphyria's Lover.
It's about a woman who runs from her husband to her lover, who then murders
her in their moment of perfect love by strangling her with her own hair."

I make a strangled noise, feel the nausea rise up again like a wave. Mulder
is instantly beside me, pulling me up and holding me over the sink as I
vomit helplessly over and over again. It feels as if my body is wringing
itself inside out in an attempt to cleanse itself, in an attempt to erase
the soul-sickness brought on by the dream.

Eventually it is just dry heaves, not even saliva enough to spit. I am aware
of Mulder rubbing my back and stomach, his big hands surprising gentle as he
tries to soothe my rebellious gut. When I am too weak even to heave, he
rinses out my mouth as best he can with no co-operation from me, then wipes
my face down. I feel him hesitate, then pull the nightgown up and over my
head. He props me between the counter and his hip as he swipes my body down
with a warm cloth, trying to remove the stench of cold sweat and terror.

I feel him carry me into the bedroom, wrestle me into a nightgown he finds
after searching my dresser. I want to speak, I want to thank him, I want to
weep, but they are all too much effort. I let him cover me with the
comforter, and press a kiss against my forehead as he settles in beside me
to watch over me as I sleep.

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

I awake only a couple of hours later; it is still early, and Mulder is still
awake beside me, his heavy-lidded eyes half-shut over the deep thoughts of
his watching. I smile weakly at him, and think I should be ashamed at my
weakness, but all I can feel is relief that he is there. A small smile
curves his lips as if he can read my thoughts.

"I still respect you." His voice is soft and morning raspy, and his insight
is just a little too intimate for 6:40 a.m. in my bed. I struggle up, body
still limp from the terrors of the night.

"To hell with respect, give me coffee." I wince; this time the pain in my
throat is a slow burn from my illness, not the lingering ghost of a
nightmare. But it works; Mulder laughs and releases me from the gentle
scrutiny of his gaze. He swings himself over the edge of the bed, and heads
towards the kitchen.

By the time I am done my shower, the coffee is made and there is toast on
the table. He hands me a glass of milk, and dares me to argue with a lift of
his eyebrow. I think of all the times I have nursed him through illness and
injury, and understand that this is payback as well as love. I sip it
slowly, and nibble toast as well, letting it fill the emptiness that the
night before has hollowed into me.

He doesn't speak, just drinks his coffee and frets a piece of toast to
crumbs while reading the morning paper. It is surprisingly sensitive of him.
It makes me nervous.

Sure enough, as I move across the kitchen to pour myself a cup of coffee I
hear him set the paper aside, and feel the weight of his eyes between my
shoulders. I sigh into the fragrant steam from my mug, and wait for him to
speak.

"Tell me about your dream, Scully. I think - I think it just might help our
case." His voice is mild, already prepared for the protest he knows is
coming. I don't disappoint him; at least, I don't disillusion him.

"They were just dreams, Mulder," I sigh, then wince at the plural that slips
past unguarded. He makes a soft grunt, and I know he has noted my lapse, but
he lets it pass. "It's a nasty case, and I've been tired, and I probably did
catch the damned poem somewhere and made the connection subconsciously. End
of story." I turn back to him, to the hazel-green gaze that makes me feel
more naked now than when he was washing away the fear and sweat and vomit
from last night.

"Humour me," he says at last, slowly popping a tattered piece of cold toast
into his mouth. "And tell me about all of them. Please."

I know that look, that tone, and so I return to my chair and don't even
bother to try and argue it any further. "Fine. But you know my opinion on
all this. Don't expect it to change." I begin to recount the evening before,
beginning with the dream in the tub, and moving to the nightmare strangling.
I am relieved when my stomach stays steady under the weight of milk and
toast, and even manage a shaky laugh as I finish my narrative. "So you see,
Mulder, it's just the stress of the case, nothing more, okay?"

He makes a surprisingly non-committal noise, and swallows the last of his
coffee. "I've got a spare suit in my car."  A tired grin creases his face.
"The wisdom of experience, I guess," he says, laughing at all the times he
has worked the night through and worn the same clothes for over 48 hours.
"I'm going to go grab them, then shower if you don't mind? Then I want to go
and re-check both crime scenes for something."

He gets up, and I watch him with a growing confusion. "I thought you were
going to submit the profile today?"  It is a question, but is sounds
curiously like a plea.

He pauses, and his glance is disconcertingly opaque. "I think there are a
few more things I want to consider before I do that," he replies cautiously.
"I'll be back."

I sit in the kitchen and sip the hot coffee, wishing it could warm the ice
inside of me.

End Part One.

Go to Part Two. = )

Porphyria's Lover, Part 2 of 2.

We return first to Marilyn's apartment. It is still small and painfully
cheerful. The memory of her body on the couch, small and perfectly arranged
hits me like a physical blow. I feel it juxtapose with the memory of my
dreams, and shudder involuntarily as the images click. Mulder pauses
briefly, flicks me with his gaze, but says nothing. Instead, he moves over
to the cinderblocks and boards that hold a motley collection of textbooks
and mystery novels, surprisingly large for the small scale of the room.  He
lets a gloved finger dance lightly over the spines, searching for something
with a focus that I both admire and loathe.

At last I cross the room, and stand beside him. "What are we looking for?"

He glances up at me, and his gaze focuses on me for an instant, softens with
an unexpected sympathy. "I'll let you know when I find it," he says wryly,
returning to his attention to the books. A moment later he gives a soft
"a-ha" and pulls a text from the shelf. It is a large grey book with a
craggy tower on the cover. I read the name over his shoulder.

"The Norton Anthology of English Literature?"

He nods, thumbs through to the table of contents, and then grunts softly as
he finds what he is looking for. His fingers, surprisingly nimble despite
the latex and the onionskin paper of the heavy book, page through until they
reach their destination. The page is bent at the corner, the lines of the
chosen poem highlighted like so many other student texts. But the words are
horrifying, a measured narrative to my nightmares. I feel nausea clench
faintly at my insides, and a wave of dizziness, and a slow slide into
darkness.

****************************************************************************
********
This time, I am merely an observer to the action, not a participant. I watch
as she slips in beside him on the settee, soothes him with kisses and soft
words. Her face shifts and flows, the features melting between the images of
the victims that I have seen. First one girl, then the other, and then
finally mine as he pulls her close and wraps her hair about her throat. I
feel the others close about me, Their presence more real than the scene
playing out before us. We watch as he kills us each in turn, our body at
first flailing, clawing frantically for room to breathe, then stilling
slowly under the relentless tenderness of his love. We watch even as he
composes our body with loving precision, combs through our hair with gentle
awe, and pulls us into the circle of his arms. We watch as he holds us and
we are helpless to speak, to cry out, for he has robbed the breath from our
bodies-

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

For the second time in less than 24 hours I come around, gasping for air and
clutching my throat. Mulder is on me, holding me;  I kick and claw my way
away from him, from the gentleness of his embrace, from the soft words of
comfort he's crooning. The panic is a beast inside me, clawing for air, for
room to breathe even as I sob and hiccough and surrender the last fragments
of the - I hesitate, and call it dream, for vision would give it too much
power.

Mulder holds back, recognizing stark terror when he sees it. He lets me find
my breath again, lets me find my way again. "Still just a nightmare,
Scully?" he asks at last, and I think, for a moment, that I just might hate
him, that his idea of love is just as deadly as the monster in my dreams.
Then I feel a slow shudder wrack me, and the horror of tears I cannot stop.

"What the hell else could it be, Mulder?" I ask brokenly, knowing that my
eyes will be red and my nose will run. There isn't a redhead alive who can
cry prettily.

He stands us wordlessly, paces for a minute before answering. "There have
been cases where a natural sympathy allows the dead an- avenue, a channel-so
to speak," he says at last. "You yourself have experienced it-" he
hesitates, as if on the edge of a precipice, and I recognize both the
reference and his hesitation. The face in the mirror, the blood, the lies I
told him rather than admit my own vulnerability - these things are still
between us, but time has helped to heal some wounds, and I let it go. He
takes my silence for what it is, and continues. "Also, you've been where
they are, when Pfaster-" he hesitates again, and I hold up my hand to
indicate I understand.

"So you think I'm a sympathetic bystander they can give their story to?" I
ask at last, finally able to breathe steadily. Mulder nods, a little wary of
my almost calm acceptance of his theory. I shrug. "I don't know what to
think, Mulder." I am too tired to be anything but honest. "Give me 24 hours
and a good night's sleep, and I'll have worked up a healthy case of denial.
Right now?" I shrug again. "I'm just waiting for you to tell me our next
move."

He moves toward me, slowly, like a stranger approaching a potentially
hostile dog. When I don't back away, he takes my hand and helps me to me
feet. "We check out Rachel Sommers' apartment, where we will find another
copy of Norton's, or something very like it. We look for prints, to see if
our killer touched the books and maybe left a little something behind after
all. Then we get the victims' class schedules and syllabi. We find any
classes that cover Browning, and get the class lists. And we dig."  He
hesitates, keeps my hand in his. "Now that the message is through, the
visions-."  I wince at the word, but he doesn't retract it. "The visions
just might let you be."

I hope that he is right, but I can't entirely believe him. The ice is still
inside me, and I can still feel Them about me, like a dream that will not
fade.

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

Once Mulder begins, the connections fall into place with surprising
rapidity. All the victims had taken courses that included Browning in some
way or another: three at college, one in an adult extension class, and one
poor girl in a literary discussion group. As this pattern emerges, another
also appears: a dark man who sits in or audits the course, quiet and gentle,
and who strikes up an acquaintance with the victim. While we do manage to
lift matching prints off the covers from both Marilyn and Rachel's books,
there are no matching prints on record. Nevertheless, I know with a
gut-wrenching certainty that they belong to the dark man of our
investigation, to the man in my dreams. In my mind, they have merged into
one.

Our time begins to grow short, as days pass and the countdown to the next
victim begins. Mulder's profile is accepted, and since it postulates the
killer will stay in Virginia, we confine our search to the state. It is like
looking for the damned needle, endless hours of combing campuses and course
lists, staking out classes and discussion groups in an attempt to find our
suspect, to match the composite to a quiet face in a sea of students.

All the while, I feel Them with me. The horror of the dreams recedes a bit.
They don't even come every night, but the dreams are there,  just as They
are always there. I am haunted, but not truly afraid. Instead, a slow anger
infuses me, makes me as driven as Mulder has ever been. I eat little, sleep
less, and remember the bite of long hair pressed against my throat.

There are two days left when we find him, sitting on a bench outside a
Victorian poetry class, talking to a pretty girl with silver-gilt hair in
two braids as thick as my wrists. I lurch to a halt, paw frantically at
Mulder's arm, make him see without pointing. I feel Them gather in close
about me, like a breath held, and for a moment we simply hang, suspended in
time.

His gaze turns, sweeps the corridor randomly, and falls upon me. Eyes so
dark that I could fall into them widen in surprise and then terror as they
focus on me, only to slide over my shoulder and land upon something a little
over and above me. I wonder what he sees to make his mouth work slowly, the
blood drain from his face. I think I can smell the terror, the absolute
piss-yourself horror that I woke to that first night. I watch as he bends
over, and is ill on the shining floor.

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

I think the most appalling part of it all is that he truly thinks he loves
them. He doesn't deny it, doesn't try to run. He just sits there in the
stench of his own vomit, weeping and muttering phrases and talking about how
they love him, how he has saved them. I go through the motions of arrest and
booking, submit evidence and make statements, and try not to look in his
eyes. That way, madness lies.

Mulder is careful to stay within sight of me, refusing to allow procedure or
necessity to separate us. He never says anything overt, never alludes to the
nightmares or the past, just stands as anchor in a time where I might easily
drift loose.

When it is over, he shepherds me to his car, bypassing mine. I begin to
protest, but he squelches it with a glance. I have to laugh at that, because
I know he learned that look from me. I slide into the passenger seat, and
for the first time in almost two weeks feel something inside me loosen and
uncoil. I take a deep breath, and feel it work past the knot in my throat,
burn through my lungs. I begin to gasp, and once again I am surprised by
weeping. Mulder doesn't touch me, remembering my reaction in the apartment,
but his very presence is an embrace, a comfort. He sits in perfect silence,
and as my sobs shudder to a halt, he wordlessly gives me a handful of
crumpled fast food napkins that have been crammed under his seat.

When I do nothing, he sighs and holds them against my streaming nose.
"Blow," he says patiently. At that, I begin to laugh, and take the napkins
to clear my nose and eyes.

After a moment, aching from tears and laughter, I lean back into the seat
and close my eyes. He starts the car, and silence returns.

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

I shower for an hour that night, Mulder in my kitchen making tea and waiting
for me to emerge. He will not leave, and I don't want to ask him to. They
are gone, I no longer feel the weight of Them, and I am chilled by the
emptiness They leave behind. Not even water, hot enough to scald, can warm
me up again.

I emerge at last, swathed in my white robe, my hair slick and dark from the
shower, and join Mulder on the couch. He has stripped off his shoes and
socks, lost his suit jacket and tie somewhere between the kitchen and the
living room. He hands me a mug of tea, far too white and sweet and exactly
what I need. We sit side by side, without touch or words, and it the easiest
we have been with each other since the earliest days. I fall asleep to the
sound of his steady, even breaths, and I do not dream at all. He is there
when I wake up in the morning.

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

The end.

For those who care, the poem:

Porphyria's Lover

The rain set early in tonight,
The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
and did its worst to vex the lake:
I listened with heart fit to break.
When glided in Porphyria; straight
She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate
Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;
Which done, she rose, and from her form
Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,
And laid her soiled gloves by, untied
Her hat and let the damp hair fall,
And, last, she sat down by my side
And called me. When no voice replied,
She put my arm about her waist,
And made her smooth white shoulder bare,
And all her yellow hair displaced,
And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,
And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair,
Murmuring how she loved me-she
Too weak, for all her heart's endeavor,
To set its struggling passion free
From pride, and vainer ties dissever,
And give herself to me forever.
But passion sometimes would prevail,
Nor could tonight's gay feast restrain
A sudden thought of one so pale
For love of her, and all in vain:
So, she was come through wind and rain.
Be sure I looked up at her eyes
Happy and proud; at last I knew
Porphyria worshiped me: surprise
Made my heart swell, and still it grew
While I debated what to do.
That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
Perfectly pure and good: I found
A thing to do, and all her hair
In one long yellow string I wound
Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
I am quite sure she felt no pain.
As a shut bud that holds a bee,
I warily oped her lids: again
Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.
And I untightened next the tress
About her neck; her cheek once more
Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:
I propped her head up as before
Only, this time my shoulder bore
Her head, which droops upon it still:
The smiling rosy little head,
So glad it has its utmost will,
That all it scorned at once is fled,
And I, its love, am gained instead!
Porphyria's love: she guessed not how
Her darling one wish would be heard.
And thus we sit together now,
And all night long we have not stirred,
And yet God has not said a word!
-Robert Browning (1812-1889)