Title: "Wrapping Up Wolf Lake"
Author: Angela W.
Category: MSR/Crossover
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Mulder and Scully, now married, investigate
some weird happenings in a small town in the Pacific
Northwest at the request of Seattle Police Lieutenant
John Kanin. This is a crossover with a short-lived
television show called "Wolf Lake", which was created
by a couple of former XF writers. The show got
cancelled kind of abruptly, with all the major
plotlines still unresolved, so I decided to give it
some closure.
Timeline/Spoilers: This is part of my "married"
series, which diverged from the real XF universe about
midway through season seven; assume everything up
through "Closure" has happened, but that Mulder was
never abducted and that the consumation of the MSR and
birth of their child were different than the events
depicted in "all things", "Existance", etc. In my
series, this comes after "Christmas Surprise". For
"Wolf Lake", I'd put this immediately after the third
episode. There are references to the XF eps "Our Town"
and "Amor Fati".
Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me. The
ones from "The X-Files" belong to Chris Carter and
1013 Productions. The ones from "Wolf Lake" belong to
Alex Gansa and Rick Kellard. Just in case anybody is
interested, the character of John Kanin was portrayed
by Lou Diamond Philips.
Feedback: If it's nice or contains *constructive*
criticism, feedback is valued. I'd especially like to
hear from anyone else who was actually watching "Wolf
Lake".
Notes: Many thanks to Andrea for beta-reading this for
me!
Archive: Feel free to archive anywhere.


 Special Agent Fox Mulder was in the process of
filling out the paperwork for an arrest he'd just
made. As the head of the FBI's task force on serial
killers, he'd been called in to help with the hunt for
a killer in the Seattle area. 
 
There hadn't been much doubt of *who* the killer was:
after finding  Betty, Louis and Miranda Reynolds - a
middle-aged couple and their adolescent daughter -
slaughtered in their home, the obvious suspect had
been Ronald Mikulski, Betty's 23-year-old son from a
previous marriage. The young man had a history of
anti-social behavior that had erupted in violence more
than once before. The challenge had been in finding
him before he killed again.
 
Due to a combination of Mulder's accurate profiling of
Ronald and informed guesses as to the kind of place he
might choose to hide in; a lot of pavement-pounding by
the Seattle police officers and Special Agents Charles
Guilbeau and Andrew Chan; and just a bit of good luck,
the suspect had been found without any further loss of
life. Now he was being  held in a maximum security
cell and Mulder, as the officer who'd actually made
the arrest, was up to his well-toned ass in paperwork.

"Agent Mulder?"

Mulder looked up to see a police officer a few years
his junior standing on the other side of his desk. The
most intriguing thing about the man was the difficulty
he presented in being neatly categorized as fitting
into any particular ethnic group. He might have been
Hispanic or American Indian or Asian American or some
combination of all three, probably also with some
Anglo mixed in. About the only thing Mulder could have
said with a fair amount of certainty was that the man
didn't have any African ancestry, but even that was by
no means a sure bet.

"Yes?" Mulder replied.

"I'm Lieutenant John Kanin; I've been on leave from
the department for the past few weeks."

"Do you have some history with Mikulski? Were you the
arresting officer for one of his priors?"

"No, I don't know anything about this case. I wanted
to consult with you on a completely different matter,"
Kanin replied. "You're  Special Agent *Fox* Mulder,
right? The one who's head of the X-Files division at
the bureau?"

Mulder couldn't help the involuntary speeding up of
his pulse at the word "X-Files". While he knew the
work he did now was important - he'd probably saved a
dozen or more lives by catching Mikulski as quickly as
he had - given his choice, Mulder would  have been
back on the X-Files. . .with Scully at his side, of
course.

 All Mulder said, however, was, "Well, I *was* senior
agent in that division; but it's been deactivated and
now I run the serial killers task force."

"You have a partner, an Agent Dana Scully. Is he one
of the gentleman over there?"

Mulder chuckled and shook his head. Since 'Dana' was a
gender-neutral name, it wasn't the first time someone
had assumed his partner was a man. "Agent Scully is a
woman; and, no, she's not here with me on this case."

"After you're finished here, there's something I'd
like to talk to you about. From what I've read of your
work, it fits the classic definition of an X-File."

"I told you, that division has been deactivated,"
Mulder replied reluctantly.

"I know," Kanin said quietly. "But you didn't tell me
you aren't interested in what I have to say. Let me
know when you're done. I'll buy you a beer."

Mulder nodded.

***

 A couple of hours later, when Chan and Guilbeau had
gone back to the hotel to get some sleep in
preparation for an early morning flight back to the
East Coast, Mulder met Kanin at a local tavern. The
whole place practically screamed "cop  hangout", so
both men felt right at home.

"What did you want to consult with me about?" Mulder
asked. 

"A missing person's case in which I have a very
personal interest," Kanin replied.

"A family member?"

"I wanted her to be. She is - or was, I'm not sure
which tense is correct - my fiancee. The name I knew
her by was Ruby Wilder, but apparently her actual name
was Ruby Cates."

"When did she disappear? And how long had you known
her before that time?"

"She disappeared about four months ago. We'd known
each other for about eight months prior to that point.
We first met right around this time last year," Kanin
answered.

"Do you think it's possible she was abducted by
aliens?" Mulder inquired.

"I don't think aliens are involved," Kanin replied
with a sigh, "but, at this point, I'm not willing to
rule anything out. Actually, compared to what I'm
beginning to suspect, alien abduction  would probably
strike most people as a saner suggestion."

"What is it you suspect?"

Kanin was quiet for a long moment, then shook his
head. "No; if I can convince you to look into this, I
don't want you to go into the investigation tainted by
my suspicions. I'll tell you what I *know*."

"So, I'm taking it you have a lead of sorts?"

"Yes. For the first couple of months, I couldn't find
a single clue. It was not only as if she'd vanished
off the face of the earth, but as if she'd never
walked it in the first place. I'd always been kind of
vaguely aware that Ruby didn't talk much about her
past. She'd told me her mother was dead and that her
father had remarried and that she didn't get along
with his new wife. I'd let it go at that. My own
parents are dead and I don't have any siblings, so I
figured Ruby and I would build our own family with
minimal reliance on our histories. But even with all
the resources of a big city police department at my
disposal, I couldn't find any record of a Ruby Wilder
with the birthdate she'd given me. So I put up flyers,
designed a website. . .everything I could think of to
try to find her."

"And you finally got a lead?" Mulder asked.

"A few weeks ago," Kanin confirmed. "A man called - he
didn't leave his name and when I ran a trace the call
turned out to originate from a pay phone at a truck
stop - and said he'd picked up a hitchhiker who looked
like Ruby right around the time she vanished from my
life. He said he'd dropped her off at a place called
Wolf Lake. I've spent the last couple of weeks there.
It turns out that's where she's from and I'm convinced
the clues to what's happened to her can be found
there."

"What is it you want me to do, Kanin?"

"I want you to come with me to Wolf Lake, Agent
Mulder. All I'm asking is that you spend, say, 72
hours investigating this case. At the end of that
time, if we haven't found Ruby, I'll tell you my
suspicions and you can tell me if you think I should
continue an investigation along those lines or whether
I should check into the nearest mental hospital."

Mulder was quiet for a long moment. Technically
speaking, running off to investigate a missing persons
case - even at the request of a local law enforcement
officer -  was far from his proscribed duties as a
profiler and head of a task force dedicated to
pursuing serial killers. But it wouldn't be the first
time he'd strayed from his assigned duties and getting
his butt chewed out by his superiors didn't worry him
much. As a matter of actual fact, his record had been
so stellar lately that a little side trip would
probably merit no more than a bit of eye rolling from
Skinner.

 Professionally, there was no problem. But he'd been
looking forward to getting home to his beautiful wife
and beloved toddler daughter no later than tomorrow
evening. Melissa was at such a delightful stage,
learning a new word or skill almost daily, that he
hated to be away from her even a few days longer than
he absolutely had to. And Scully. . .well, he'd
*always* hated to be separated from Scully. Shit,
wasn't it supposed to only be women who suffered from
these sort of conflicted emotions when it came to
choosing between challenging work assignments and
extra time at home?

 Still, the chance to investigate an X-File - an
actual, honest-to-God X-File -  again, was simply too
tempting to resist. He rationalized it by telling
himself that when he'd left for the Pacific Northwest,
both he and Scully had assumed it would take him at
least a week to find the killer. The fact that he'd
accomplished that task within a couple of days meant
that he had, in effect, another three days to work
before he was gone any  longer than she'd expected him
to be away in the first place.

 "You've got your  72 hours," Mulder finally said.
"I'll leave for Wolf Lake with you first thing
tomorrow morning. 
However, I'll be on a flight back to the East Coast
three days later - no exceptions."

"Fair enough," Kanin replied. "I'll meet you at your
hotel at 6 a.m.; that way, we can beat the traffic, be
out there by the time the businesses are starting to
open up for the day."

"See you then," Mulder agreed.

***

 By late afternoon of  the following day,  Mulder was
beginning to share Kanin's suspicions that something
extremely weird was going on in Wolf Lake. The local
sheriff wasn't just uncooperative with representatives
of the Seattle police force and the FBI, he was
downright hostile. The whole town seemed to be hiding
something. Strangely enough, despite his own interest
in aliens, Mulder didn't think what was going on was
unearthly in a literal sense, though it quite well
might be in a figurative one.
 
"We found this locket in the woods," Mulder was
telling the sheriff. "It's identical to one Kanin says
Ruby always wore. There's some sort of residue on it,
looks like blood, but I don't know if it's animal or
human. Could you get someone to analyze it for us?"

"We don't have anyone qualifed to do that sort of
work," the sheriff replied.

"Actually, if you have microscope and laboratory I can
use, I'm fully qualified to do the analysis myself," a
cool voice said from just behind Mulder's shoulder.

"Scully?!" Mulder said, turning with amazement and
delight to see his wife standing beside him. "What are
you doing here?"

Rather than answering Mulder directly, Scully turned
to John Kanin. "Lieutenant Kanin? I'm Special Agent
Dana Scully, Mulder's" she paused for the briefest of
moments, then said, "partner."

Kanin immediately put out a hand and said, "Pleased to
meet you, Agent Scully. I was hoping you'd be able to
join us on this investigation. I've read a lot about
the kind of work you and Agent Mulder do and we
definintely need someone who can provide us with an
objective, scientific viewpoint."

"We still don't have a laboratory that's able to
provide you with what you need," Sheriff Donner
muttered.

"Any sort of laboratory would do," Scully replied.
"Even the facilities of a high school science
classroom should be sufficient."

"Come on then, let's head out to the high school,"
Kanin replied.

From the way Scully's blue eyes were snapping fire,
Mulder had the feeling he was in trouble. He even, now
that he took a moment to consider things, had a pretty
good idea why.

"You lead the way to the high school," Mulder told
Kanin. "Scully and I will follow you." He opened the
door of the car he'd rented in Seattle and held it for
Scully, then went around and climbed into the driver's
seat. Mulder kept  Kanin's motorcycle in sight, but
directed the focus of his attention toward a
conversation with his wife.

"Uh, Scully, am I off base in assuming you're mad at
me?"

"No, Mulder. You're right on target."

"Why?"

Scully gave a huge sigh. "Mulder, somehow I think I've
mentioned this before; several times, as a matter of
fact. However, since it's apparently slipped your
allegedly genius-level of mind, I'll remind you: I
don't like being ditched."

"Scully, I didn't ditch you! We're not even working in
the same division any more!"

"That's right, Mulder. You work on the serial killers
task force now, don't you? Except this case isn't
about a serial killer, is it? It's about a woman who
disappeared under mysterious circumstances. It's about
a town that seems to be hiding a dark secret. In other
words, Mulder, It. Is. an. X-File. And the X-Files are
supposed to be something we do together or not at all!
Isn't that what we agreed on shortly after we got
married? Or was that pretty speech of yours -
Remember, the one that went something along the lines
of "I don't want to do the X-Files without you,
Scully. I don't even think I *could* do it without
you." just telling me what you thought I wanted to
hear? All shadow but no substance?"

 Shit! Scully sounded like she was on the verge of
tears now. Angry Scully, Mulder could deal with. But a
hurt Scully? One who felt - albeit not completely
without reason, as Mulder reluctantly admitted to
himself - that her husband and betrayed a promise he'd
made to her? Mulder couldn't handle that.

"Okay, Scully. You're right. You're completely,
absolutely, 100 percent right. This is an X-File and I
shouldn't have gone chasing off to investigate it
without consulting you first. You've got a right to be
royally pissed off at me. I apologize. But can we save
the recriminations for later? We're almost to the high
school and I want to see what we can find out from the
locket."

"Certainly, Mulder. I'm sure Lieutenant Kanin doesn't
want to watch us bicker with each other."

"Who's going to bicker? Basically, you're going to
chew my ass out and I'm going to grovel for
forgiveness. But can I ask one totally unrelated
question before we team up with Kanin again?"

"I guess so."

"Where's Melissa?'

"She's with my mother, of course. I asked Mom if she
could handle watching her overnight for a couple of
days, and she didn't seem to think it would be a
problem. Tara also said she'd take her for a few hours
if Mom needed a bit of a break."

Mulder nodded and they pulled into the high school
parking lot.

***

Once Scully had completed her analysis, she told Kanin
and Mulder, "The residue on that pendant is a mixture
of both human and animal blood. The human blood is
female; I can't give you much more information than
that without a sophisticated DNA workup."

"What about the other blood? Can you tell what kind of
animal it came from?" Kanin inquired.

"It's canine," Scully said slowly. "Could be wolf,
dog, coyote. . .again, without access to a
fully-equipped crime lab, I can't give you a
definitive analysis."

"Are you thinking Ruby might have been attacked by
wolves?" Mulder asked Kanin. "I'm assuming, given the
name of the town, that they have them in these parts."

"My thoughts are running somewhere in that vicinity,"
Kanin agreed. "Come on, I'll take the two of you to
dinner and fill you both in on what I've found so
far."

***

As the three law enforcement officials settled down at
a table in a corner of the local diner, Kanin smiled
at the teenage waitress. "Hello, Sophia. These are
Agents Mulder and Scully, with the FBI."

Sophia was quiet for a moment, then she nodded. "I
know. My father told me you'd called in the feds."

"Her father?" Scully inquired as soon as Sophia had
handed them their menus and murmured that she'd be
back in a moment.

"The sheriff," Kanin answered. "This is a small town
and you'll find that everybody knows everybody else;
in fact, in most cases they're related to each other
in some fashion."

 As Mulder and Scully ate, Kanin filled them in on
what he knew. That the woman he'd known as Ruby Wilder
was really Ruby Cates and she'd grown up in Wolf Lake.
At first, the townspeople had been reluctant to admit
any knowledge of her, but he'd eventually pieced it
together. He'd even spoken with Ruby's father,
stepmother and half-brother, who formed one of the
wealthiest and most powerful families in town. He'd
also discovered that Ruby had had a twin sister, who'd
died when they were both seventeen.

"Does this jibe with what she'd told you before?"
Mulder asked.

"It does and it doesn't," Kanin admitted. "I can see
that, other than giving me a false last name, Ruby was
pretty careful never to actually lie to me. She just
sort of said things in a way to leave them open to
misinterpretation. For instance, take the bit about
her mother's death and her father's remarriage. The
way she talked about it, she made it sound as if she
was grown - or nearly so - when her stepmother entered
her life. But Ruby is only 28 and her half-brother is
already old enough to drive. That means she couldn't
have been more than 12 when he was born, so not more
than 10 or 11 when her father and stepmother married."

"She never mentioned having a brother?" Scully
inquired.

Kanin shook her head. "Neither him nor her deceased
twin sister. Again, she didn't actually ever *lie*
about it; she just never mentioned siblings, so I
assumed she didn't have any."

"This reminds me of a case Scully and I investigated
several years ago, down in Arkansas," Mulder said. "A
small town where they don't like outsiders. It turned
out the townspeople were involved in a sort of. .
.cult, I'd guess you'd call it. One where the
punishment for sin was, quite literally, death. Are
you thinking along similar lines? That Ruby was being
punished for leaving the clan, getting romantically
involved with an outsider? That maybe she wasn't just
hiking in the woods and ran into a pack of hungry
wolves, but more like she might have been deliberately
sacrificed to them in some sort of cultic ritual?"

"That's one possibility I've considered, yes," Kanin
replied.

Scully had been quiet during this discussion, but now
she said, "Kanin, I don't mean to be rude, but if
Mulder and I are going to look at this objectively, I
need to ask you some rather personal questions."

"Ask away."

"You said Ruby was your fiancee. Was that an official
relationship? Had you bought a ring and set a date?
Made any kind of annoucement?"

"No," Kanin answered. "We'd been dating for about
eight months and living together for nearly half that
time, but I'd only asked her to marry me a few hours
before she was abducted."

"Abducted?" Scully asked, one eyebrown slightly
arched.

Kanin shrugged. "I don't believe she left Seattle
voluntarily. I'd prefer to believe she's been
kidnapped rather than killed."

"Had the two of you had any kind of argument in the
days or hours before she left?" 

"Of course not!" Kanin replied. "I'd just asked her to
marry me and she'd just accepted. We were deliriously
happy!"

"Do you think it's possible she might have phoned
someone here in Wolf Lake - her father or a friend -
and told them about the engagement?" Mulder asked.
"That she was abducted because she'd gone beyond
merely leaving town, but was actually planning a
permanent relationship with an outsider?"

"That's what I'm thinking, yes." Kanin said.

When Kanin went to the front counter to pay the bill,
Scully said in a low voice, "Mulder, I think we have
to be willing to consider some alternative scenarios,
rather than just accept everything Kanin says at face
value."

"What do you mean?" Mulder asked.

"Well, we've only got his word for it that Ruby was
excited about the idea of marrying him. Maybe the
truth was something quite different. Maybe Ruby wanted
to break up with him, but he was being difficult about
it. He could be right that the people here in Wolf
Lake are keeping their knowledge of her whereabouts a
secret from him, but maybe, from their viewpoint,
they're protecting her."

"Protecting her from what, Scully?"

"From him. Come on, Mulder, we've both been around
long enough to know that not everybody with a badge is
a card-carrying good guy. Maybe Kanin became obsessed
and enraged at her refusal to marry him and began
stalking her. Running back home - to a town where her
father is a wealthy, respected man - might have been
the only way she could feel safe from a man who, as
he's said himself, has all the resources of a big-city
police department to aid him in his search for her."

"That still doesn't explain why she lied to him about
her background in the first place," Mulder pointed
out.

Scully shrugged. "Maybe she was unhappy here but, once
she became involved with Kanin, felt like she'd jumped
out of the frying pan and into the fire."

"It's an idea," Mulder admitted. "The two of us can
pay a private visit to Sheriff Donner, without Kanin
tagging along, first thing in the morning."

Kanin returned and the three of them walked the few
short blocks to the hotel - the only one in town -
where they were all staying.

***

 As they entered their room, Mulder said, "You're
sharing with me? You've been so angry that I wasn't
sure whether or not I'd merit sleeping in the same bed
with you."

Scully huffed. "We're married, Mulder. Getting a
separate room would have been immature and
melodramatic. But don't even *think* you're going to
get lucky tonight, because you're not. We'll be
sleeping together only in the literal sense of the
words."

"Scully, I got lucky nearly nine years ago, when you
first walked into my life," Mulder said in a soft,
serious tone. "Everything since that point has just
been icing on the cake."

***

 A few minutes later, as they lay beside each other in
bed, Mulder said, "Scully? You know what I said
earlier, about being lucky just to have you in my
life?"

"Yeah?"

"If you're not too tired, I want to. . .expand on that
theme a little bit."

"Okay," she said, but with a marked lack of enthusiasm
in her voice.

"Do you remember,  a couple of years ago - about six
months before we got married - how I ended up in a
mental hospital, suffering from severe headaches and
auditory hallucinations?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Do you remember I told you, afterwards, how I'd had
some sort of. . .vision. . .of another life, where I
chose a different path?"

"Yeah."

"I don't know whether that was just a dream, or
whether it was a drug-induced hallucination or whether
it was some sort of hypnotic state induced by Spender
Senior or what. How it came to be in my head isn't
really the point. The point is, in the vision, I had
everything I thought I'd ever wanted: Samantha was
back, Deep Throat was alive, I had a wife and kids and
professional acclaim. . .all the ingredients for a
happy life. There was only one catch: to have
everything I *wanted* I had to give up the one thing I
*needed*; I didn't have you, Scully. And that's why I
turned away from the possibility of living that life.
Because I knew that, no matter how much I had by
objective standards, if I didn't have you in my life,
it would be empty and lonely and totally devoid of
meaning or true happiness."

"Well, I'm glad you feel that way, Mulder. But,
really, I'd hope you would. For God's sake, I'm your
wife and the mother of your child!"

Mulder smiled softly into the darkness.

"But you weren't, Scully. Not then. I agree, choosing
the life we have *now* over the possibility of any
other kind of life is an absolute no-brainer. However,
that wasn't the choice I was being offered; at least,
I didn't think it was. This was when you were deeply
into your 'rebuffing Mulder at every turn' phase. Not
long after I'd asked you to marry me and had you turn
it into a joke, told you I loved you and heard you
reply 'Oh, brother!'. I'd pretty much accepted the
idea that you weren't going to acquiesce to my
attempts to turn our relationship from a  friendship
into a romance. And, even though it wasn't everything
I would have liked from you, if it was all I could
have. . .I realized it would suffice. That I might
always feel a bit of aching hunger if you were never
anything more than my friend, but that I could
survive. And, without you in my life at all, I would
have died. It's that simple."

For a long time, there was only silence from the other
side of the bed. Finally, Scully said, "You don't
fight fair, Mulder."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I was royally pissed off at you and you even
agreed I had every right to be. But then you go and
say something so breathtakingly sweet that I can't
stay mad."

"You're not mad at me any more?"

Sliding over to her husband's side of the bed, Scully
kissed him gently on the mouth. Then she pillowed her
head on his chest and whispered. "No. But I *am*
tired. It's well after midnight by East Coast time.
Good night, Fox."

"Good night, Dana. I love you."

"I love you, too."

***

The next morning, Mulder awoke just a dawn was
beginning turn the eastern sky from black to pink.
After a quick trip to the bathroom, he yanked on
sweatpants and put on his running shoes. He turned to
the bed and noted with amusement that Scully had
rolled over into the space that was still warm from
his body heat.

Leaning down to brush his wife's soft cheek with a
kiss, he murmured, "Hey, gorgeous, I'm going out for a
run. Want to join me?"

Scully smiled into Mulder's eyes. During the first
year of their marriage they'd often run together, but
she'd given up such vigorous exercise early in her
pregnancy. Mulder ran almost daily and she realized
he'd have to scale back his pace quite a bit for her
to keep up with him. Still, she recognized the
invitation for the peace offering it was and nodded.
"Sure. Just let me go brush my teeth."

 Mulder and Scully took in a good bit of Wolf Lake
while they jogged through the town. When Mulder could
tell his wife was beginning to get winded, he
gradually slowed to a walk and headed back toward the
motel.

 "After we shower, we can go by the sheriff's office,
talk to Donner privately. Then we're supposed to meet
Kanin for breakfast," Mulder said. He pulled his
sweaty t-shirt over his head and added, "You can have
the first shower."

"We could share," Scully pointed out, as she stood in
the bathroom door. 

"That depends."

"Depends on what?"

"On whether or not you're still tired," he said with a
smile.

She flashed him a grin and jerked her head toward the
shower stall. "Get over here, Mulder."

Mulder grinned back and quickly finished undressing,
then followed his wife into the shower. Scully was
already standing under the spray and he stepped in
behind her, soaping up his big hands and running them
down her back and bottom. Then he let his hands stray
around front, sliding them up to cup her breasts while
he pulled her back tightly against his chest.

"Mmm! That feels so good," Scully murmured. She
wiggled her bottom against him a bit, feeling the
length and rigidity of his cock as she did so.

Mulder leaned over her shoulder and caught her mouth
in a slow, deep kiss.

"Pretty nice piece of ass," he whispered in her ear
when they finally came up for breath.

"You talking about a baseball bat, Mulder?'

"That's not a baseball bat, I'm just happy to see
you."

She laughed and kissed him again, then asked "How did
you want to. . .?"

"Can you bend over, grab onto the soap dish for
support and brace your other hand against the tile
over the faucets?"

"Mmmhmm," Scully murmured as she complied with his
request; then "Aaah!" as he entered her.

 Mulder kept up a slow, steady pace and Scully found
that the tactile sensations of the warm water
caressing her from the front, while her husband
caressed her from behind, lead to a build-up of
enormous pleasure that soon exploded between her legs.
As soon as she'd stop quivering, Mulder gave a few
more vigorous thrusts and came with a whisper of her
name.


"Wrapping Up Wolf Lake", Part 2
Disclaimed, summarized, etc. in part 1


 Mulder held the door open for Scully, then escorted
her into the sheriff's office with a gentle touch on
the small of her back. 

"You two again?" Donner asked. "Where's the third
musketeer?"

"We're meeting him for breakfast in a few minutes,"
Scully replied. "We wanted to ask you a few questions
without Kanin present."

"Go ahead," Donner muttered unenthusiastically.

"What you have to understand, Sheriff Donner, is that
Kanin has a personal stake in this case, but we don't.
To us, it's just another missing persons case, similar
in many ways to dozens we've investigated in the past.
What I'm wondering is if maybe you're deliberately
hiding your knowledge of Ruby's whereabouts from Kanin
because she's *asked* you not to tell him where she
is," Scully said.

"Ruby's an adult," Mulder pointed out, "and Kanin's
not even related to her. If you know where she is and
could let us speak with her, ascertain that she's not
being held against her will or anything of that
nature, then - from our point of view - the case would
be closed. As a missing person, she'd be found. If she
chooses not to speak with Kanin or let him know where
she is, that's a personal problem between the two of
them; it's not a crime."

 Donner was quiet for a long moment. Twice he seemed
about to speak and then reconsidered. He was obviously
engaged in a furious mental debate. Finally, he said,
"Well, we are thinking along somewhat similar lines,
agents. By Kanin's own admission, Ruby never told him
her real last name or much about her past. What that
says to me is that she wanted the option to walk out
of the relationship whenever she felt like it, without
leaving him any way to contact her; and I'd assume she
had her reasons for doing that. However, to the best
of my knowledge, she hasn't returned to Wolf Lake. I
can tell you honestly that I haven't seen her in over
a year, and this is a pretty small town; if she was
back, I think I would have seen her. Now, it's true
that I haven't cooperated with Kanin as much as I
could have but, as you say, he has a personal interest
in this case. If he wants to find Ruby and she doesn't
want him finding her, I'd be inclined to help her
rather than him.  She's got the right to leave her
boyfriend if she wants to. As you said, that's a
personal problem between the two of them, not a
crime."

"If she left voluntarily," Mulder replied, as he and
Scully turned and walked out.

***

 Later that day, Mulder, Scully and Kanin took a turn
through the local cemetery. "I thought this was
interesting,"
Kanin said, "look how many girls have died in their
teens. Ruby's sister is among them."

"The teenage years are notoriously high-risk," Scully
pointed out. "Kids overdose on drugs, die in car
crashes due to a lack of driving experience or commit
suicide because a romance fizzled. Still, I have to
admit, this seems like an unusually high number of
teen deaths for a town this small."

"Not only that, but the vast majority of the deaths
are female," Mulder said. "It's actually boys who are
slightly more likely to die in their teens due to
accidents or drug overdoses, but only a handful of
males buried here died as teens."

"Also, look how far back the pattern of teen deaths
go," Kanin added. "All the way to the last decade of 
the 1800s.Although people generally died earlier a
hundred years ago than they do now, that usually meant
either succumbing to a childhood disease prior to
adolescence or dying of something like a heart attack
or pneumonia in what we would now consider to be early
middle age. Don't tell me that back in the early
1900s, these teenagers were dying in car wrecks or
overdosing on heroin!"

"So you're thinking something along  the lines of
virgin sacrifices to wolf gods, I'm taking it?" Mulder
inquired.

"Did you get any kind of official explanation from
Sheriff Donner as to the high number of Wolf Lake
girls
who died in their teens?" Scully asked.

"From Donner, no," Kanin replied. "There's an old guy
named Sherman Blackstone, though. Teaches at the high
school and seems to consider himself kind of the local
historian. He claims it's due to inbreeding; that the
town is so isolated that people tend to marry their
cousins and stuff like that, leading to an increase in
hereditary diseases."

"That's possible," Scully agreed. "Cystic fibrosis,
for example, is an inherited disease that's more
common in females than males; most people who are born
with it usually die in their teens or early 20s."

"Yeah, but if these girls died of  CF or something
similar, why not just come out and *say* that?" Mulder
inquired.

"I want you two to come out to the lake with me
tonight," Kanin said. "I think the clue to what's
going on in this town will be found there."

***

 Before heading out to the lake, Mulder, Scully and
Kanin met at the diner. Sophia was once again
their waitress. Sherman Blackstone also dropped by and
Kanin introduced them. 

"Fox, eh?" Blackstone inquired on being introduced to
Mulder. "Generally speaking, a fox doesn't fare well
when it goes up against wolves. The intelligent fox
will make a strategic retreat out of wolf territory."
With that cryptic remark he left there table.

Mulder sighed and shook his head. "Why is it that
every time we meet one of these mystical, Native
American types they feel absolutely compelled to
comment on my given name?"

Just as they were finishing their dinner, a band began
to play in the adjoining bar. Mulder also noticed
a certain muddled feeling, as if he'd drunk a bit too
much - which was impossible, since he'd had only a
single beer with his meal. 

"Dance with me, Scully," he said, standing up and
extending his hand.

Scully was mildly surprised. She enjoyed dancing with
her husband, but it wasn't the sort of thing they 
normally did in the middle of a case. But the music
was beguiling and she had an odd feeling that
something
was subtly out of kilter. She stood up and moved into
his arms.

 After paying the tab, Kanin took his beer and moved
into the bar area. He was surprised at the grace with 
which the partners danced with each other. Both agents
wore wedding rings and it occurred to him, for the
first time, that perhaps they were married. Had he not
been so obsessed with his personal quest, he might
have
noticed the clues earlier. That slight hesitation when
Scully had introduced herself, for example. As if she
had been deciding whether to introduce herself as
partner or wife? And the way they touched - it had
neither the impersonality of business colleagues nor
the slightly guilty passion of two people involved in
an illicit affair - it was more in the nature of two
people who touched each other frequently and felt they
had every right to do so.

 When the song ended, Mulder backed Scully up until
she was leaning against the wall in a dark corner of
the bar. He kissed her then, slowly but thoroughly.
When they came up for air he nibbled lightly on her
ear and whispered, "Let's go back to our hotel room."

"Mulder," Scully murmured, "we're supposed to go out
to the lake with Kanin."

"We can go to the lake later," he replied. "Don't you
want to make love with me?"

Of course she did, Scully thought woozily. Mulder was
resting his weight against her now and the fact that
they had all these damned layers of clothes between
their bodies was really beginning to irritate her.
Still, she struggled to clear her head. "Mulder, are
we drunk?"

"I don't think so, Scully," he replied. "All I had was
one beer and you just had a soft drink. Besides, are
you implying that I'd have to be drunk to want to make
love to my beautiful wife?"

"No," Scully replied, the sound breaking off into a
soft moan as Mulder traced his tongue along her neck.
She was still hazily aware that she and Mulder were
losing focus of their investigation, but she just
couldn't think coherently any more. Not with her
husband's big hands roaming over her body and the
evidence of his arousal pressing rock hard against her
belly. 

***

 The next thing Scully knew, she and Mulder were in
bed together, naked, and he was inside her . She
blinked her eyes to try to clear her head. She had no
memory of reaching the hotel room or taking off their
clothes but, obviously, they had done so. He was on
top of her and was driving deep with each thrust. He
wasn't usually quite this. . .forceful. . .but it
didn't hurt. Felt good, actually. She opened her mouth
to tell him so but, instead, let out an animalistic
howl of satisfaction. Mulder smiled at her and she
drew her fingernails down his back as she felt herself
tense up. She didn't often climax while in the
missionary position, but this time she did, just as
he spurted within her.

When Scully woke up again, Mulder was rolling her onto
her stomach and trying to push her knees up under
her. Wants to enter me from behind, she thought
hazily, lifting herself up onto her elbows and knees
to comply.

He slid in easily - the part of her mind that was
still capable of semi-coherent thought assumed it must
be because she was still wet from their previous
encounter - and reached around to fondle her breasts
for a few minutes. Then he slid his hands back down to
her hips and held her steady while he pumped in and
out.

Just as he was nearing his climax he slid one hand to
the front of her thighs and spread them slightly, then

tweaked the bundle of nerves just above where they
were joined. Once again Scully heard herself emit a
sound more like a howl than her usual soft moan and
bucked up against him, hearing an answering howl
in her ear as he joined her.

The night passed in a kaliedoscope of vivid dreams and
sexual frenzy, it being difficult to tell which 
experiences were real and which were hallucinatory.
Finally, around noon, Mulder woke up with a clear
but throbbing head. It was like the hangover from
hell.

He glanced at the shaft of bright sunshine streaming
in through the gap in the curtains, then at Scully
beside him in bed. There were sticky spots on the
sheets and -holy shit, was that blood?

"Scully, wake up," he said, shaking her shoulder.

"No more, Mulder," she murmured. "I'm starting to get
sore."

"Scully, what the hell happened last night?"

Scully blinked and sat up in bed, pushing the tousled
hair out of her eyes with one hand. She looked at the
stricken face of her husband. "I think we must have
been drugged. Probably so we wouldn't make it out to
the lake."

Mulder dismissed the lake with a wave of his hand.
"Yeah, we were probably drugged, but that's not what I
mean. What did I. . .do to you?" He was beginning to
feel like he might be sick, and he didn't think it was
entirely the result of whatever drug he'd ingested. He
was wondering if he'd forced himself on his wife in a
way that she found unacceptable and which had drawn
blood as a consequence. Early in their marriage, he'd
once suggested experimenting with anal sex and she'd
vigorously opposed the idea; since it hadn't really
been that big a deal with him - and as it had been
about the only form of sex play she'd refused to try -
he'd never brought it up again. But he had a hazy
memory of pushing her onto her elbows and knees the
previous night.

"We made love, Mulder. A lot. Or maybe only a couple
of times and the other times were dreams; I'm not
sure," she replied. 

"Scully, there's blood on the sheets! Did I. . .hurt
you?"

A memory flashed through Scully's mind and she shook
her head. "I don't think that's my blood, Mulder, I
think it's yours. Turn around for a minute and let me
look at your back."

Mulder complied and heard Scully draw in a sharp
breath. "What, sweetheart?" he asked.

"I really did a number on your back, Fox. Clawed it up
pretty bad. I'm sorry."

Mulder turned to face he and shook his head with a
smile. "It's okay, Dana. I don't even remember and it
doesn't hurt. But you said you were sore?"

"Just a tiny bit," she said with a smile and a shrug
of her shoulders. "Let's go take a warm bath. It will
ease the kinks in my muscles and I can wash the
scratches on your back."

"Good idea," Mulder said, "then we need to find
Kanin."

***

They found Kanin about an hour later, sitting on a
bench in the small town's only park. "Were you guys
drugged, too?" he asked.

"Seems likely," Mulder responded. "Do you know what it
was?"

"Probably peyote," Kanin said. "They hit me with it
once before. You'd think I would have learned."

"Peyote laced with viagra," Mulder muttered.

"That could have just been hallucinations. Along with
the psychedelic frogs and flying furniture, I had some
very vivid fantasies of Ruby, but I'm pretty sure
that's all they were; there's certainly no physical
evidence that she was actually in my room last night.
In any case, you two are married, right?"

"Yes, Lieutenant Kanin," Scully said softly. "I wasn't
sure if you were aware of  that."

Kanin shrugged. "You act married."

"So what's our next step?" Scully asked, trying to
turn the conversation away from the personal
relationship she shared  with her partner.

"Well, I suggest we avoid the diner and lay low for
the rest of the day," Kanin answered. "We need to get
some food in our stomachs, but let's stick to
mass-produced, pre-packaged stuff from the grocery
store. Then we'd better get out to the lake early -
before they expect  us to - in order to avoid another
trap."

"Fine," Mulder agreed. "But tonight's your last
chance. The original agreement I made with you remains
in force. I told you I'd give you three days and this
is the third one. First thing tomorrow morning, Scully
and I are on a plane headed east. Back to our
daughter, our home and our normal lives."

"Listen, I'm going to go ahead and tell you what it is
I suspect, crazy though it may seen," Kanin said.

"Virgins sacrificed to appease wolf gods wasn't crazy
enough?" Scully inquired sceptically.

"I don't think Ruby was sacrificed to the wolves. I
think she was turned into a wolf."

"The ability to take the form of an animal - to become
a shapeshifter- is central to many Native American
beliefs," Mulder pointed out.

"But Mulder, with the exception of Sherman Blackstone,
the people in this town aren't Native Americans,"
Scully replied.

"Jesus was a Jew," Mulder answered with a shrug, "but
most of His current followers aren't Semetic. Maybe
this isolated town was a rare instance of the Native
American culture triumphing over that of the European
settlers who came later."

Scully sighed and rolled her eyes. Kanin was relieved
to note, however, that neither of  the agents
suggested
he check himself into the nearest mental hospital for
observation.

***

Hours later, just as the sun began to set, the trio of
law enforcement officers hunkered down beside a
boulder
in a forest glade near the edge of the lake.

"You sure you don't want anything to drink?" Mulder
asked his wife as he sipped at the canned iced
tea he'd brought with him.

"I'm sure, Mulder," she replied with a sigh. "No
matter how big a believer in equal rights I am, that
doesn't change the fact that peeing in the woods is
damned sight more complicated for me than it is for
you or Kanin."

Kanin chuckled softly at that.

The evening wore on, dusk slowly giving way to
complete night. A full moon lent brightness to the
scene, however. Scully fell asleep, her head pillowed
on her husband's thighs as he sat cross-legged on the
ground.

After a long time, the voices of teenagers could be
heard coming up the trail. They gathered in a circle
around one particular girl. Kanin started when he
realized it was Sophia. If they tried to hurt her, he
and the agents would have to intervene, even if it
meant giving up on his chances of finding Ruby.

 Mulder gently stroked  Scully's cheek to waken her
and gestured for her to watch the scene unfolding in
front of them. The three officials kept their eyes
trained on Sophia as the others gathered around her.
They didn't seem to be hurting her. They chanted or
sang something in unison in an unfamiliar language.
Then a boy Kanin realized was Ruby's half-brother,
Lance, handed Sophia a cup. Sophia brought it to her
lips, hesitated, seemed about on the verge
of pouring its contents out - then chugged it down.

 At that moment, the moon came out from behind the
clouds and a shaft of its light settled directly on
Sophia. And she began to. . .transform. Mulder, Scully
and Kanin watched in wonder as she slowly turned from
a girl into a wolf. The other teens shifted their own
shapes as well. The large gray wolf who had been Lance
sniffed the air for a moment and lifted his head to
howl. Then he led the entire pack toward the trees
which hid the intruders from their view.

"They know we're here," Mulder said quietly. "They've
caught our scent."

"We can't outrun then," Kanin said.

"We've got our guns," Scully pointed out. "Let's hope
they retain enough language skills and logic, even as 
wolves, to realize that we will shoot to kill and
leave us alone."

"We can't kill and entire pack of wolves with three
handguns," Mulder said.

"Yeah, but we can kill several of them," Scully
replied. "Hopefully they care enough about each other
not to risk it."

"Lance, Sophia, the rest of you," Kanin yelled out.
"Stop. Go away. We're armed and we will shoot to
kill."

Just as the wolves lowered into a pouncing position
and Mulder and Scully aimed their guns at the eyes
they
could see glowing in the darkness, a large white wolf
bounded in between the humans and  the wolves. She
backed up toward Kanin, growling low in her throat at
the other wolves.

"Ruby?" Kanin asked, burying his free hand in the
soft, thick fur on her back.

There was a moment of absolute stillness and absolute
quiet. Then the other wolves, led by Lance, turned and
ran off in the other direction, toward the shore of
the lake. And the wolf beside Kanin reversed the
transformation they had seen a few minutes earlier,
becoming the girl Mulder and Scully had - up 'til now
-seen only in
photographs.

"Ruby!" Kanin whispered. "It *is* you!"

"Yes, John. It's me. Now you know what I could never
tell you before. I'm a shapeshifter."

"You could have told me, Ruby."

Ruby gave a small smile. "Judging by the relatively
calm way you're taking this, I guess I underestimated
you."

Kanin shrugged. "I've been in Wolf Lake a few weeks
now. Maybe if you'd told me back when we were in 
Seattle I wouldn't have believed it."

Mulder and Scully looked at each other. This
conversation was one that really should take place in
private.

"Well, it looks like your missing person case is
solved," Mulder said.

"Thank you for your help, agents," Kanin replied. "But
I think I can handle it from here on out. The 
fox - and his mate - can go back to their own lair."

Mulder stifled a groan at yet another play on his
name. Looking at Ruby, he said, "I've got one question
before we go. Why have so many girls - including your
sister - died in their teens here?"

Ruby sighed and her eyes filled up with tears. "The
transformation process is. . .more difficult for women
than it is for men. Nobody knows why. Over the years,
a number of girls have died during their first
attempt. My sister was among them. There have been a
few, rare occasions when boys died, but it's far more
common among girls."

"If girls know they run an increased risk of dying
during the process, why do they do it at all?" Scully
asked. "From what I just witnessed, the shape shifting
doesn't seem to be involuntary. It's not like getting
a period or growing breasts. Why not just abstain?"

Ruby gave a bittersweet laugh. "In the rest of
America, teens know they can die from drinking or
driving or having unprotected sex. . .but they
sometimes do it any way, don't they? Teens in Wolf
Lake become shape shifters for the same reasons other
teens become sexually active at an early age or
experiment with drugs; a combination of
peer pressure and the inability of teens to believe in
their own mortality."

Mulder and Scully nodded, then entwined their fingers
and made their way back to their parked vehicle.

***

The next morning, in two adjoining seats on an nearly
empty jet headed east, Mulder and Scully began a
familiar argument.

"Scully, how can you possibly say those people weren't
shapeshifters! We saw them change from humans
to wolves with our own eyes!"

"Mulder, we were drugged! Who knows how long that
peyote stayed in our system! If you're going to
believe
that we really saw people transform into wolves, you
might as well believe that we had Elvis outside our
hotel room window, serenading us with "Love Me
Tender"!"

"You mean he wasn't?" Mulder countered. 

 Scully sighed and shook her head, but then relented
with a smile. "Look, Mulder, we learned a long time
ago that the two of us can see the same thing and draw
different conclusions from it. Let's just leave it at
that, shall we? I'm anxious to get home and see
Melissa again, get back to our normal lives."

"Sounds good to me," Mulder agreed. "Besides," he
added with a wicked grin, leaning close to whisper in
his wife's ear, "the scratches on my back are almost
healed up. I think I've regained my stamina enough for
a rematch."


Author's e-mail addy: tapw63@hotmail.com