Anamorphosis 12/28
by eponine119
eponine119@att.net

-12-

	She followed as Will led the way to the labs.  She wondered what she
would be working on.  More with hybrids and cloning?  She hoped not. 
The experimentation had grown too much for her to bear, before.  She
wondered if they had to do with her amnesia.
	He opened  the door to a sterile white lab marked BioHazard Level 5. 
He walked to a scientific freezer and withdrew a tube half filled with
frozen black liquid.  It began to thaw instantly and when he set it on
the table, it oozed toward her almost curiously.
	She took a step away, alarmed by the strange substance, looking around
wildly for a blue hazard protection suit.  There were none.
	"You're immune," Will took her notepad to tell her and she shivered,
wondering how she had become so.  "Like Krycek," he elaborated.
	She looked at him, not certain what he was talking about.  "WHERE IS
KRYCEK?" she asked.  She liked Krycek. He had a nice mouth.  She hoped
she would get to see him.
	He shook his head, looking at her for a second.  She wondered what he
was thinking.  Sometimes she wished that she could hear; then people
might tell her things, things they were hesitant to write down.  After a
moment, he walked away, leaving her alone in he lab with the black oil.
She looked at it, hoping this wasn't going to turn out like the cloning
and hybridization experiments had.
	
	Mulder had a recent photo of Scully in his hand.  And he walked,
knocking on the doors in her neighborhood.  He heard more than one
peephole slide shut and footsteps recede from the door without its
opening.  He must have looked like a madman, but he was determined.  He
was going to find her.  And if he had to be mad to do that, he didn't
honestly care.
	Out came his FBI badge, even though this wasn't official business and
he was on suspension.  She couldn't be gone again, she couldn't just
disappear in the night.  Not like this. He would not let this happen.
	"Have you seen this woman?"
	Invariably, the answer was no.
	It was cold and a freezing rain was beginning to fall, lightly, like
icy needles penetrating his skin.  What if she was out in this, alone
and frightened and unable to care for herself?
	"Have you seen her?"
	"No."
	She was gone.  He slumped onto a wet bus stop bench, thrusting his head
into his hands. His hair, damp from the rain, was crisp in the freezing
temperature.  His eyes burned, but he didn't feel the cold blowing
through his clothes.  This chill came from inside.
	Aliens hadn't even crossed his mind, or government conspiracies.  All
he could hear were her broken sobs in the night as he held her.  She'd
said she was okay and he'd wanted to believe her and now he knew he'd
damaged her in some new and terrible way.
	This was his fault.
	She was running from him now.
	A jogger in triple layer Goretex sped by, her red ponytail swinging
with every step.  His head shot up even though he knew it wasn't her.
	"Have you seen her?"  He offered the photo like a very old man.
	"Yeah," said the runner.  Mulder just stared at her.  Unable to
believe.  Not knowing what to do next.  The woman continued, "This
morning."
	"Where?" he demanded.  She took a step back and returned the photo. 
"Did she look all right?"
	"Fine," said the runner.  "Didn't look mad, either.  You have a fight?"
	He did not answer.	
	"I think she got  on a bus."  The woman shrugged.  "Hope you find her,"
she offered, and jogged away.
	So she was probably okay.  At least sort of okay.  If she was able to
take care of herself.  But on a bus, she could have gone anywhere.  Damn
it!  And he didn't know what was in her mind, or where to begin to look.
	He didn't know which was worse - believing DK or Starbuck were out
there, alone, or believing that she, Scully, hated him.

	The black oil was fascinating, but yielded few answers.  It seemed to
be plain old diesel fuel, yet was sentient and alien.  It had no
inherent radioactivity, yet left isotopes on everything it touched.
	Really weird, she thought, alone in the lab.  She looked around,
feeling the loneliness all around her.  A glance at the clock told her
night had fallen.  She wasn't tired - she felt like she'd been asleep
for four years - but the memories were beginning to come.  She couldn't
block them, couldn't make them leave her alone.
	She went to Will's and the memories followed her.   He wasn't there. 
She made dinner, but he never showed up to eat it.  She knew he could be
anywhere and she ate it herself.  Alone.
	She sat there for a long time in the TV-less room, trying to recover
her distant past and forget the portions she remembered.  Nothing.  She
could have been in a coma for four years for all she knew, except her
body was strong.  She'd had some awareness, but now she couldn't
remember.
	Finally she gave up and let the memories come to her.  She closed her
eyes and she was back there.  Memories were like that for her - almost
more real than real life.  The few memories she had.  So many of them
were terrible.  She wondered, sometimes, what would happen if she had a
full set, thirty years or more of such strong memories.  And if they had
sound.  Like an outdated computer, would her brain overload and shut
down under their weight?
	Maybe that was why she couldn't remember.
	But she remembered that day.  The last day.
	The last day she remembered before arriving at Will's that morning,
she'd been in the lab, working on procedures.  She was trying to find a
way to make the harvesting easier, to create more hybrids from fewer
materials, or none at all.
	She was troubled over what she was doing to these women and she hated
herself for it.  They were experimenting on live women.  In so many
terrible ways, they were doing to them the same thing that crazed man in
her apartment had done to her.  They were stealing these women's lives
and medically raping them.  She was taking part in that.  She was
hurting them the way she had been hurt.
	A woman went into arrest, the monitor flashing until it caught her
attention.  Diana went to her, but it was too late.  The woman had begun
to hemorrhage and as Diana watched, horrified, her life just slipped
away.
	Diana hadn't cried.  She had walked into the hallway, but there was no
one about.  She looked at the telephone, but it would not do her any
good.  So she sat there, with the dead woman, thinking about what she
had done.
	That was when she realized she was not serving the good of mankind. 
They were not using noble methods.  They were inflicting pain and
suffering.  Will assured her these women would not remember what they
had gone through, but Diana knew they would on some level, or else the
amnesia they would suffer to cover the time they were missing would
drive them slowly mad.
	As it was driving her slowly mad.
	The scalpel had been wonderfully silent as it slipped through the thin
skin on her wrists.  It hadn't hurt.  She had not watched her blood drip
vividly on the white tile floor for very long before everything went
dark and she fell into the void.
	She shook her head in Will's apartment, clearing the memories away.  It
didn't matter where the time had gone.  She'd wanted to die in that
moment but she wasn't dead now.  She had the feeling she'd been
subjected to an experiment after her attempt and that had produced her
amnesia.  That the same thing that she had done to those women had, in
some terrible irony, been in turn performed on her.  She was back now. 
And while she was curious as to why she'd been with Mulder, it didn't
matter to her.
	The research did matter, which was why she headed back to the lab at
midnight.  It was the only thing she knew and she felt less alone when
she was working. It took her mind off things.  So far as she knew,
testing the black oil was not hurting it or anyone else.  That was the
sort of work she was striving for.

	Mulder lay awake in her bed in her apartment.  It was all so quiet, so
foreign.  It didn't even smell the same as his apartment.  It was so
wrong.
	Mrs. O. should be screaming at her husband in the apartment next door. 
The streetlight should be blazing through his living room window and
casting a glare on the TV. 
	He should be doing something to find Scully.
	But he could only lie there and wait for her to find her own way back
to him. And hope against hope that she was safe.

	The door to the lab opened abruptly.  Diana looked up, instantly aware
of the draft, uncertain of how many hours she had been working.  The man
inserting himself into her workspace had interrupted what might have
passed as a trance, a period of intense concentration. Now she was
realizing her feet hurt and her lips were dry.
	She watched him as he moved, not knowing she was there.  Lean and
graceful limbs, moving in conjunction as easily as a cat's.  His fingers
stroked down one panel of a glass cabinet with a mixture of curiosity
and awe.
	Even though she remained completely still, something changed and he
sensed her.  Not her specifically, but a person, a danger to him.  He
turned, ready to defend his life.
	He jumped when he saw her.  She smiled, happy to see him.
	He stared at her like she was a ghost, his eyes roving wildly and
rapidly over her face.  She nodded toward him.
	His mouth was moving.  Quickly.  She did not know how to lip-read and
she watched him, completely blank, feeling a strange queasiness in her
stomach at his anger and at not understanding.  She frowned and waited.
Didn't he remember she couldn't hear him?  She just shook her head,
vigorously, then reached for the notepad.
	When he saw her hand move for the paper, his eyes changed.  She saw
surprise there, as though he was seeing someone he had long believed
dead.  He said her name in sign language, frowning, his eyes searching
hers, as though it was a test, as though he could not believe it.
	She wondered why he was so incredulous.
	His hand came up to touch her, to confirm that she was real.
	She grabbed that hand, feeling torn open inside.  Her eyes met his and
he tried to pull away, but her grasp on the latex remained firm.  "WHAT
HAPPENED?" she wrote quickly, holding it in front of his eyes,
impossible to deny.  She hurt for him.  Hurt that she hadn't been there
for him.
	His eyes turned away.  He didn't want to answer.  She pulled on the
prosthetic, insistent, getting his attention.  "Long story," he signed
to her.  Krycek knew American Sign Language.  He had begun to patiently
teach her, before.  Before, how much she hated that word, that thought. 
The notion of the time lost.
	She waited.
	"In Russia. Stupid people," he signed quickly, irritatedly, as though
it didn't matter any more, like it hadn't happened to him, like it
wasn't a part of his body they were talking about.  It was awkward for
him, signing with one hand and it distracted her often, looking at the
hand and arm that hung dead from his shoulder.  She was only missing her
past; she was better off without it.  She couldn't imagine what it would
feel like to be dissected alive.
	"WHEN?"
	"Two years."
	A long time.  She nodded.  He'd adjusted.  It was an impossibly long
amount of time.  There was an angry light in his eyes that never really
faded.  A product of history, another reason she knew she didn't need
her own past.  "I'm sorry," she signed passionately, putting her entire
body into it.  His expression didn't change and she could feel the
tension radiating from him.  She moved, relaxing one knee so she could
lean in closer to him.
	She saw his little sigh at her nearness.  She could feel the change in
his body.  He'd missed her.  But he was not giving in to his feelings. 
"We have to go," he signed urgently.
	"Why?"
	"Danger."
	She didn't have the capability to say what she wanted to with her
hands, not in sign language or gesturing or her odd combination of the
two.  It made her feel like a child with no language to try to
communicate that way.  "DANGER FROM WHAT?" she scribbled.  "JUST WORKING
IN THE LAB."
	"Like before?"  God, not that word again, she thought at his signs. 
Her brain had to race to translate.  She felt out of practice, not only
in her mind but in her hands.  With his good hand, he grabbed her arm to
force her from the building.  
	Self-defense training kicked in automatically and she shoved him away,
stopping short of knocking him to the floor.  "No!" she signed
emphatically, shaking her head.  Very rarely did she wish that she could
scream, or yell or shout. This time she wished she could.  
	His grin was ironic and playful.  "You used to like that," he
suggested, his hands then moving to touch her hand.  Something happened
in her stomach.  She had loved his touch.  Before.  When he used to mold
her fingers, teaching her with infinite patience. Krycek could speak and
he could hear, so she didn't know why or where he had learned to sign.
Maybe he wasn't as proficient as he seemed to be, to her inexperienced
eyes.  She thought there had been someone in his life, someone he had
cared about.  She suspected that was why he displayed some softer
feelings toward her.  Because she reminded him of the person he had
cared about before.
	She shook her head, even though she could feel the blood rushing low in
her body.  On some level, she had had feelings for this man.  "Where?" 
It wasn't a real sign.  A jerk of her thumb and a shrug.  A question.
	He didn't acknowledge her and they walked out of the lab, down the
twisting white corridors, pausing to pass through frequent security
checkpoints.  At one of them she twisted, spelling Will's name and
beginning to write on her notepad, an explanation to him for her
disappearance.  Will pretended not to care, but he would worry...
	Krycek yelled at her.  She could feel his breath hot on her face.  She
frowned at him and he softened his expression, wrestling the notepad
from her hand.  He wrote in bold, economical strokes.  "Will is _not_
your friend.  He's responsible for everything that happened to you."
	She shook her head.  She didn't believe that.
	He spoke to her again.
	Her frown deepened and she shook her head angrily, grabbing back the
paper.  "I CANT HEAR YOU!!!!!!! STOP TALKING TO ME!!!!!!  WHY ARE YOU
DOING THAT????"
	His eyes flicked over to a security guard who wasn't paying attention
to them.  He made the sign for outside.
	She followed him to a big, black Volvo.  She couldn't help her grin,
catching his eyes and raising her eyebrows.  This was his?
	He rolled his eyes, getting in and unlocking her door for her.  She
looked at him. He'd shelled out his own money for a top of the line car
with heavy duty bulletproofing.  He'd been fearless when she knew him. 
Things did change.
	"WHATS GOING ON?" she wrote, and passed the paper over to him.	
	"I know who you are."
	She looked at him like he was stupid.  Of course he knew who she was.
	"I know who you usually are," he wrote and then sighed.  She was
watching him closely, absorbing every letter as he crafted it.  She
frowned, urging him not to hesitate, to write more.  Finally, he did. 
"Your name isn't Diana.  You, right now, are only a small part of
someone else.  A full, warm and rich part of her, but a part nonetheless
that has no reason to see the light of day.  You run away when she's
been badly hurt."	
	She sucked in a breath. It was absolutely unbelievable, but the pain
and panic in her gut suggested it was true.  
	"And she can hear," Alex added.
	The final blow.  How was that possible?  How could she hear when she
was someone else?  Her ears didn't work!  Was he stupid?
	Then why did she think she knew he was telling the truth?  Why did she
feel like she'd heard his voice?  Heard other voices?  Why did she think
sometimes that she heard voices in her dreams?  In her mind?
	"HURT BY WHO?" she asked.  "WILL?"  She couldn't believe that. 
	"He used you."  Alex's tone was hard.
	"Why?"  She didn't need to grab back the pencil, using her hands and
her face to express her meaning.
	His hand touched the side of her face, his fingers snaking into her
hair and catching hold, digging in like ht was attempting to claw
through to her skull.  It hurt but she endured it.  Liked it.  His eyes
burned.  "You're brilliant. He wanted to harness what's inside here." 
He had to hold the paper up in front of her eyes because she couldn't
move her head when he touched her that way.  His fingers clenched and
she let out the tiniest gasp.   Instantly his grip slackened and trailed
away.
	He took a deep breath and looked out through the window.  She was
shaking her head.  Finally he noticed.
	"He wanted you to die," Alex told her, writing the words.  They were so
ugly. So horrible.  Such things shouldn't be expressed on paper.  They
shouldn't exist at all, she thought.  "Duane Barry was supposed to
murder you, not rape you."
	She nodded, biting her lip. She'd wished at the time that he had killed
her, but he hadn't been able to.  The pain was still vivid in her mind,
every moment of his attack wretchedly clear.
	"But you didn't die, you changed. Into someone he could use.  For a
while." Alex looked at her seriously.  "They did to you what they did to
the others."  She nodded, not entirely surprised and uncertain of how to
feel about this confirmation.  "Then they poisoned you.  You were
supposed to die."
	She was only shaking her head.  She couldn't believe it. 
	"Mulder saved you," he wrote.
	"Mulder?" she spelled with her fingers.
	Gently he picked up her hand from where it was lying in her lap and
brought it up in front of her eyes.  She hadn't seen the ring before. 
	She jerked her hand away, staring at it like it was a foreign thing. 
It was a wedding ring.  He wanted her to believe it bound her to Mulder,
a man she did not know.  This was too much. She shook her head, so hard
it hurt her neck.  She wasn't going to cry.  She looked at him, wanting
help, wanting this to stop.  She looked at him, wondering where he fit
into this.
	He wrote the words slowly.  With shame creeping up into his eyes.  "I
helped them to hurt you.  I was part of that."
	She only stared at him.  Sad.  Not wanting to believe it.
	He nodded again.  " In your real life -"
	She grabbed the paper away before he could finish writing about her
"real" life.  Wasn't this her real life?  Wasn't she alive now?  The
past was not real to her.  She tossed the paper away and reached for the
pen to throw it away too.
	He started the car.  Determined.  She was going back.  She reached for
the door handle, to jump out, but there wasn't one.
	She only stared at him.
	He touched her hand.  He was taking her to Mulder.  A man she did not
know.  Whose bed she had been in, in a time she could not remember.	
	_He_ should protect her.  
	He picked up the paper and used the pen he had kept possession of. 
"You belong with him," Alex said.  "He would never hurt you."
	"YOU'D NEVER HURT ME."  She was crying now, damn it, and she didn't
ever cry.  How could he give her to a man she didn't know?  She wanted
to stay with him.  The man she did know.
	"There's so much you don't know."  The soft whisper of a touch against
her skin and then he pulled away.  Putting on his armor.  Preparing to
leave her behind.  Driving her back to Mulder.	
	He couldn't talk to her as he drove, with one hand on the steering
wheel and the other, horrible limb tucked against his thigh.  When the
arrived in front of the brick building, she wouldn't look at him and he
finally he stopped looking at her, got out of the car, and opened the
door for her.  "I'm sorry," he signed, crouching in front of her.  If
she didn't get out of the car, none of it would be real.  She recognized
the building.  He was taking her back to Mulder.  Dumping her like used
goods no one wanted any more.
	She frowned, stomped her feet, and tried to plant herself. Grabbing
onto the car door.
	He looked at her, waiting.  She felt like a child throwing a tantrum. 
For the same reasons children threw tantrums.	
	"Don't make me."  The words were signaled with force.  She meant them. 
She saw in his eyes how he felt about her, he couldn't shove her into
another man's arms, another man she didn't know or even like...
	He shook his head again and she went with him into the building.
	They went into the building, walked into the apartment where she'd
awakened the day before from her four year sleep.  She didn't ask why or
how Krycek had the key.  He had lots of keys.  They were silent as they
strode through the dark apartment.  She didn't have her paper.
	He turned on the light in the bedroom. Mulder, asleep in his clothes as
though he'd fallen, unconscious, onto the bed, didn't react.  "You'd
better get up, Mulder," Krycek ordered.
	Mulder's eyes shot open and he jumped up, his hand reaching for his
gun.  He saw Krycek first.  "What are you -"  he fell into silence when
he saw her.  When he spoke again, his voice had changed. "Where did you
find her?"
	She wished they wouldn't talk because she didn't know what they were
saying.
	"I don't know what you did to her, but you'd better take damn good care
of her in the future,"  Krycek threatened.  He didn't have his gun like
Mulder did.  He didn't need one to make his threat real.
	"Mulder, what's going on?"  Scully asked, and jumped at the sound of
her own voice.  She felt as though she were waking from sleep, but her
eyes were already open and she was standing up and Mulder had his gun
out.  Terror started coursing through her again. She was wearing
Mulder's jacket. Time had passed without her.
	"It's okay," Mulder said, odd when he was holding his gun on an
assassin.
	"I meant what I said," Krycek said.  Why did he look at her like that? 
Like he _knew_ her?  Goosebumps rose as he turned his back on Mulder's
gun and walked out of her apartment.
	"Mulder, what just happened?" she asked, sliding into the desk chair as
her knees buckled.
	"What do you remember?" he asked.
	"Making love with you."
	"Nothing between that and now?" he demanded.
	She shook her head, feeling fearful.  She hated to cry.  "Did I
get...taken...again? Is that where the time went?  Is that why Krycek
was here?"
	"I don't think so," he answered.  "You know you've had some problems."
	She nodded.
	"And you know why."
	"I'm remembering things I'd tried to put away, and while I'm
remembering those things, I'm forgetting other things."  Her voice
sounded so weak.  She wondered if a person could shake apart from fear. 
She felt as though pieces of herself were going to drop away onto the
floor.  Everything sounded too loud, like her ears had just popped.  She
put her arms around herself to stop that, to hold herself together.
"Where have I been, Mulder?"
	"I don't know." His voice was rough.  He was scared, too.  She saw now
the signs of worry on his face.  The lines, the stubble, the circles
like bruises under his eyes.
	"Krycek found me," she reasoned out.  "He brought me back. He's not
bad, Mulder."  Why was she so cold?
	He nodded.  He knew.
	"Why did Bill come here and say you'd brainwashed me?" she asked, her
voice thin.  Fighting tears.  She didn't want to feel this way, but it
was night and it was dark and she was so tired and scared and she knew
she had to feel it before it would go away.  She didn't know where the
time had gone.  She didn't want to lose anything else.  Mulder was
safe.  He'd tried to keep her safe.  Even after all the times she hadn't
believed him, fought with him over faith versus truth, he believed her. 
"Why did he lie?  He knows what he did."
	"What did he do?" Mulder asked, knowing this was what she needed.  She
hadn't transformed or reverted.  Scully was facing it.
	"Don't make me say it," she whispered. Mulder looked at her.  Almost
imperceptibly moved his hand on the bed.  An invitation.  She ran to his
side and he put his arm around her.  Waiting for her answer.  She had to
say something.  "He hurt me."
	"How?"
	"He made me feel small and scared and worthless."
	"Do you feel that way now?"  He was being so careful.  But she wasn't
fragile.  She had never been.  She was getting stronger.
	"Sometimes," she admitted.  "And I don't want to feel that way, but I
don't want to disappear either.  I like who I am, I like being me."
	"Good," he said. Such a weak word.  So useless.
	"What do I do now?" she asked him.
	"I don't know," he replied honestly.
	"Does Skinner know I was missing?"
	He shook his head.  "I didn't tell him."
	"Am I going to be able to go back to work?" she asked.
	"How do you feel?"	
	"I feel fine. But I felt good before..."  she trailed off.  Before. 
Before she'd started deconstructing.  Before the time dissolved.  How
could she live like this? Never knowing when or where she would just
disappear.  How many days had she lost this time?  How many more?  Not
having the answers made it hard for her to breathe.  When was this going
to end?
	"Why did you cry?" he asked in a soft voice.  She realized when she saw
his hand move that he was afraid to touch her.
	She shook her head, sealing her lips.  "I think that's something you
shouldn't have to hear."
	He nodded, but she knew he didn't understand.
	"Mulder," she said.  "It's not something anyone needs to hear.  I don't
want to pull you down into the details."
	"What if I want the details?" he asked, his voice breaking in the
middle.  Caring.
	"You don't," she told him. She was keeping her mind closed to the
memories as she spoke to him.  They were too strong.  Even that scared
her, as she wondered if holding them separate would make her go away
instead of making the pain go away.
	"What if I need them?" he asked quietly, caressing her with his eyes.
	"No one needs that," she whispered, wiping her eyes on the back of her
hand.  "No one."  She indulged in a sniffle and pushed her hair back. 
"What time is it?"  She turned her head and saw the clock.  It was
almost five a.m.  "Oh god," she laughed, "And I'm so tired."
	"Come to bed."
	"I'll feel worse if I sleep."  She stood.  "You sleep. I can take
myself to Dr. Callaway's."
	"You don't have to," he said and then after a second added, "Unless you
want to."
	"No," she said, finally.  She would need the support.

end of 12/28

Anamorphosis 13/28
by eponine119
eponine119@att.net

-13-

	"I feel like I'm getting better," she told the doctor later that
morning.  "Because I've remembered myself and dealt with it.  Or thought
I had, until...what exactly happened to me?"
	"You had a dissociative fugue," Dr. Callaway said, as though it was
perfectly normal and happened every day.
	"Someone else came out."  Again.  She was so frustrated.  She just
wanted to  be better.
	The other woman nodded.  "I suspect this may be what happened during
what you call 'your abduction' as well.  Often this sort of thing
happens to normal people who feel for some reason that they need to
escape."
	"But I didn't feel that way," she murmured, struggling to understand.
	The doctor waited, as though challenging her: maybe you did need to
escape.  Scully didn't say anything, feeling manipulated.  "You
mentioned that you have remembered things."
	"It's embarrassing to talk about," Scully demurred.
	"I'm not going to judge you.  What happened to you was not your fault,"
Dr. Callaway said.  "But it may help you to talk about it."
	Scully thought for a moment.  Then she began, "I remembered..."  Her
heart was racing because the memory was vivid, maybe because it had been
locked inside for so long it had not had the opportunity to wear away
with time.  In the basement. Again.  With him.  Mommy was with Missy. 
She didn't know where.  She just knew no one would help her.  She also
knew he'd kill her if she made a noise.  Like he said he'd kill the
bunny.
	She was wearing her day of the week underpants.  But it was Sunday and
she was wearing Thursday.  She hadn't thought anyone would see.  He'd
hurt her more if she made any noise.  More if she cried.
	But she didn't want to cry.  What he was doing down there with his
finger felt good. It also felt dirty and squirmy and sick.  And hurt.  A
lot.  But good.  Like riding the merry go round at the fair.  Funny and
warm.  Even though she was scared and it was wrong and shouldn't be.
	Scully choked, forcing herself back to the present. Leather chair. Her
feet were on the floor.  Torn panties were not around her ankles.  Dr.
Callaway's office.  "I couldn't have," she said, horrified at herself
and what she'd just confessed.  "I couldn't have wanted him to do
that."  She felt sick.  She could taste the acid from her stomach
burning up in the back of her throat.
	Dr. Callaway patted her hand and it only made her feel sicker.  "You
didn't.  You weren't enjoying his abuse.  Your body reacted in a normal
way to stimulation.  Even little girls..."
	"I know," she said through the tears that always damnably seemed to
come.
	Dr. Callaway waited patiently for her to stop crying.  They were mild
tears and stopped relatively quickly, to  Scully's relief.  "Have you
ever had a normal sexual experience?" she asked.
	"If I hadn't burst into tears with my husband..."  It felt so weird to
refer to him as her husband.
	"That happens to people who've gone through what you went through."
	She nodded.  She knew.  She wasn't sure it made her feel better.
	"Do you please yourself?"
	Scully looked at her in horror, feeling her face flushing.
	"You feel guilt about doing so," Dr. Callaway said.
	Scully looked down.  She could feel her gold cross weighing heavily
against her skin. Burning her.
	"Why do you feel guilty?"
	She shrugged, but silence awaited her, pressing for an answer.  "It
should be with a man," she said.
	"Even married women -" the doctor began gently.
	"I know."
	"You're uncomfortable."
	Extremely,  Scully thought.  She nodded and raised her eyes.  "If it
will help me," she conceded.
	But the doctor backed off.  "Think about it on your own," she
suggested.
	"I don't think that's why I ran away," she said.  "Before, he came to
my apartment.  With my mother.  My mother brought him to my house to say
she believed him and not me."
	"How did that make you feel?"
	"Scared."
	"Why scared?"
	"No one will believe me.  They all think I'm crazy.  That I made this
up, that I made this happen.  Why would I lie?"  Her eyes were wet
again.  "Why doesn't she believe me?"
	"How does that make you feel?"
	"Mad.  Angry.  But I can't be."
	"Why not?"
	"There's no proof," Scully said.  "I wouldn't believe it myself."
	"Isn't the way you feel proof?  Aren't your memories proof?" the doctor
asked.
	She shrugged.  She couldn't put her hands on a memory.  And she'd
always required tangible proof in the past.
	"What you feel is valid.  What happened to you is real.  You need to
cope with that," Dr. Callaway said.  "I think that's enough for now."
	She opened her mouth to protest, but she knew the doctor was right. It
couldn't all happen in one day.  She had a lot to think about as she got
up and walked out of the office.  Mulder jumped up, happy to see her
when she opened the door.  The man was as good as a puppy when it came
to unconditional love.  She pulled his arms around her and squeezed him
tight, safe and warm for all of a second before she broke away.
	"I hate crying," she said, slipping out of his arms again.
	"It's okay to cry when you're injured," he told her. "Good session?"
	"Things to think about," she said, staring out the car window and not
seeing the scenery as he drove back to her apartment.
	She couldn't be angry with her mom for not believing something she
wanted to not have to believe herself.  But her mother had always,
always been there for her - or had she?  Why hadn't she noticed this was
happening during her childhood?  Where had she been then?
	Scully was terrified that her mother had known she was being abused and
had looked the other way.  And now she was lying just like Bill.  She
didn't want to believe it.
	Everyone lied to her.
	She drew in a sigh and thought about the doctor's other advice.  About
touching herself.  Did she have issues there, too?  She didn't know what
normal was - was she normal?  She didn't do it very often.  She didn't
use a vibrator or anything.  She used her fingers and they always felt
dirty afterward.  And she was always guilty after.  It was for release,
nothing more.  Fast and only when she needed it.
	"Can we stop for a second?" she asked, suddenly panicky, feeling
trapped in the car with her thoughts.  Her bad thoughts.  Mulder looked
a bit worried but pulled into a gas station as she'd requested.
	She jumped out of the car a second before it came to a complete stop. 
She sucked in as much freezing air as she could, but it wasn't enough as
her feelings overwhelmed her and she was desperately sick into a nearby
trash can.  She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to keep her stomach down.
	A hand lay against her back.
	She flinched away. "Don't," she said, even though she knew it was
Mulder.  She hated the look she saw on his face when she turned around,
hurt but trying to understand.
	This could not be allowed to become an excuse for her to hurt the
people she loved.  The people who loved her.  Even if the things they
did made her uncomfortable. "I'll get used to it," she told him.  She'd
been fine with his touching her before.
	He nodded.
	"Temporary sensitivity," she said.
	He nodded.
	She nodded.  Who was she trying to convince, anyway?  She needed
something to get the taste out of her mouth.  She couldn't get the scent
of vomit out of her nose, but she could get the bile off her tongue.
	She'd fully intended to buy a Snapple or diet soda, but she walked
directly to the counter.  The clerk had been watching them through the
window, wondering about the crazy people.  She was crazy now, wasn't
she, she thought.  "Morley Lights. Hard pack," she mumbled, letting her
hair fall across her face as she searched through her bag for money.
	"Matches?" the clerk inquired.
	She shook her head and scooped her choice from the counter.  The box
felt odd in her hand, covered in its crinkly plastic wrapping.  Mulder
was waiting for her in the car.  Alarm lit his eyes when he saw the box
in her hand.  "DK?" he asked.
	She shook her head.  DK was the smoker, though.  She placed the box
between her palms.
	"Scully."
	"Uh-huh."
	"Don't smoke those in here," he requested.
	"I wasn't going to."  It was about control.  How long could she hold
the box without opening it.  How long could she wait after she opened it
before pulling one out.
	They tasted worse than puke.
	She had to prove she was strong.  She had to prove it to herself.
	"Was it DK...in Comity?" Mulder asked delicately, as though he worried
the question would upset her.
	She almost laughed.  She hadn't thought of that case in ages.  Why
would he think of it now? she wondered.
	"I could smell them. In your hair," he answered the question without
her speaking it.
	Of course.  The cigarettes.
	"DK is who I was when I was thirteen or fourteen.  She's not a
different person.  She is me, in high school. When I felt hurt and
lost."
	"I felt the same way," he offered.  They'd reached her apartment and
got out of the car.  She thought of Mulder as a boy.  In high school,
such a short time after his sister's disappearance, an event that had
shattered his entire life.  An event he had only recently begun to heal
from.
	Maybe it takes twenty years, she thought, or thirty, or thirty five. 
Maybe it takes a lifetime.
	They sat down in her living room on opposite sides of the couch. 
"Would you -" she began.  He looked at her curiously and she had to
stop.  How could she ever ask him such a terrible thing?  But she wanted
to know.
	"How was it between you and Samantha?" she asked.
	He picked up on her meaning immediately.  "Are you asking what it is to
be normal or are you asking if I abused her?"  His eyes were demanding.
	She didn't know.
	"I was four when she was born. I loved her.  Like she was a puppy. 
Like she was mine.  I was in awe of her existence.  We all were.  She
was all the things in the rhyme - sugar and spice.  A spoiled little
princess, but wonderfully kind.  I resented her for being their favorite
but I knew why.  Everything fell apart without her.  Like she was the
glue."  Mulder fell into silence, thinking.
	Who had been the glue in her family?  No one.  all of them together.  
Or did they never know because the glue had never been gone?  Just dried
and disjoined, like pages out of an old paperback.  Missy to the
northwest, Bill to the navy, her to the FBI, Charlie always separated.
	"What do you want to do?" he asked her. "I get so bored not working."
	She nodded. It was a compulsion they shared.  If they could lose
themselves into work, they wouldn't have to consider the rest.
	"I want to see my brother," she said.
	"Scully."  His tone was halting.  Wanting to tell her no, but with no
idea how to say so.
	"I want you to meet Charlie," she said, smiling.  Mulder was silent.
Once again, she'd surprised him.  A good surprise, she hoped.  Mulder
got up from the couch.  Willing to make a start.  Suddenly fear flooded
her stomach.  "Uh, Mulder?"  He turned and looked at her.  What if he
didn't understand?  What if he didn't want to go? 
"Charlie's...special."
	Mulder nodded.
	Scully only gaped at him.  
	His gaze was clear.  "You mentioned, before, about being put away like
Charlie. I assumed there was something different about him..."  He
waited, leaving the door open for her to explain.
	"Mom had him when I was thirteen.  She was over thirty five," she said.
Mulder waited.  "He's got Down's syndrome.  His mental capacity will
never be greater than that of a very small child."
	"I'm sorry," Mulder offered, reaching for her hand.  She let him take
it.  It felt good.  Acceptance.

	"He's been here his whole life?" Mulder asked as they sat in the car,
waiting before they went into the nursing home.
	She shook her head.  "Since Mom and Daddy moved to Virginia.  I guess
he was five."  And now he was twenty.  It was easy to forget the passage
of time in someone who in many ways remained ageless.
	"How did he feel?" Mulder asked.
	"He was sad," she recalled.  "He wouldn't talk.  Sometimes he had
tantrums."  They sat a moment longer.  Mulder was waiting for her to be
ready to go in.  "I wonder what it feels like," she admitted.   "Being
here, isolated.  No one visits as much as they should."
	"But you love him."
	"He's family."  She nodded, and pushed on the door handle.
	The home resembled a home for the aged in some ways: comfortable
furnishings and colors designed to soothe, activity rooms and nurses. 
But there was a vitality. It wasn't a scary or horrible place.  The
Scullys had chosen well.
	"Hey Charlie."  Scully waited at the doorway to his room for him to
come to her.  He looked like any boy in khakis and a flannel shirt until
he raised his head.  His hair was an orangey red and he bore the
telltale features.
	"Dana!"  Charlie's eyes brightened.  He ran to her and clung in an
everlasting hug.  She patted his shoulder, smiling.  Hugging felt good. 
Unconditional love felt good.
	She noticed Charlie sneaking looks at Mulder.  He was shy to the
extreme.  "Charlie, this is my husband. His name is Mulder."
	"Mulder?"  Charlie threw his head back and laughed.
	Mulder looked embarrassed, but he grinned painfully.  "Fox."
	"In socks," Charlie said, dropping to the floor to examine Mulder's
ankles.  Mulder stood still.  
	"I'm sorry," Scully said, trying to distract her brother. "Charlie - I
don't know why - Charlie -"
	"Seuss," Mulder explained.  At her blank look, he said, "Fox in Socks,
Dr. Seuss.  The great philosopher of our time."
	She looked at him doubtfully.
	"You'll see," he said.  After Charlie had satisfied his curiosity over
Fox's socks, the three of them sat down together to explore the
adventures of the mischievous Sam I Am and the Cat in the Hat, who came
back several times that afternoon.
	"At least it wasn't Babe the pig," Scully commented as they walked out
that night.  She had no right to complain, as light with laughter as she
had become. But leaving always made her feel sad, since she never knew
when she would make it back for another visit.  "I wonder how much he
understands," she said, knowing her brother's intelligence was about the
level of a three year old child.
	"He's amazing," Mulder said quite honestly as they joined in the rainy
rush hour.
	"Mom was thirty five when she had him," Scully said after a little
while.  She herself was thirty five.  The age her mother had been when
she'd had three mostly grown children.  "If I could have kids, they
probably wouldn't be normal," she said. Not considering normal as good
or bad, but as a scientifically determined range.
	"Testing," said Mulder.
	She nodded, wishing she could think about something else.
	"If you were carrying a genetically damaged child, would you abort it?"
Mulder asked her.
	As much as she craved a baby in her womb and in her arms and at her
breast, she had to answer, "Yes."  It saddened her incredibly.  "What
kind of life could I make for a special child?" she asked him.
	He didn't say anything.
	"Would you?" she asked, wondering if it was an absurd question.  Did
men think about babies at all the same way that women did?
	"It's possible high or genius level intelligence is a birth defect the
same as retardation is," Mulder said.
	He wouldn't, she interpreted.
	Someday he would leave her for a young, beautiful woman who would bear
him children.  And she was scared.
	They ate a quiet dinner together in her kitchen, spaghetti and bottled
sauce, cooked by  Mulder.  Scully was exhausted and prepared for bed
after eating.
	"Do you want me to leave?" Mulder asked her.
	She shook her head.
	"What do you want me to do?" he asked.
	She shrugged.
	"What do you want to do?" she asked him.
	He didn't say anything.  So much for communication.  She slipped into
bed and found she wanted him there with her.  But he'd gone back to his
apartment.  She mourned that, and couldn't sleep for a long time,
certain she would lose him.

	She knew she was dreaming but she couldn't make herself wake up, which
only added to the terror of the nightmare. What, is it real?  What if
she wasn't going to wake up?
	She was looking for her doll.  She didn't like dolls much but Ahab
brung her this one from Russia.  It was missing.  She wanted it.
	Bill said he threw it in the basement.  Bill was mean to her.  She
didn't know why.  She wished he'd stop being so mean.  She was in
kindergarten so she got to stay at home in the morning with Mommy.  This
was after school, though.  She already knew her letters so that part was
kind of boring, but she liked playing with the other kids.
	It was dark in the basement and she didn't like the dark.  She wasn't
scared, just didn't like it.  But she wanted her doll back.  It was
magic.  Ahab told her not to believe in magic, but she knew it was true.
	The light came on.  "Bill, where's my doll?"
	He picked her up and set her on the work table.  "Bill?"  She didn't
like it when they treated her like a baby.
	"Shut up," he said.  Why was he mad?  But he was mad so she was quiet,
trying to sit still and looking around for her doll.  It was on one of
the shelves.  Staring at her with eyes that looked weird.  Magic.
	She could almost reach.
	He reached under her dress, warning her with his angry eyes.  "Bill?"
she said as he pulled down her underwear and he raised a hand and pushed
it over her face, holding her down against the rough surface of the
table.  
	She squealed and kicked him and he punched her in the face.  Hard. 
Tears filled up her eyes but she wasn't gonna cry.  She didn't move. 
She saw people get punched on TV sometimes.  It hurt.  She didn't know
why he punched her.
	Her feet dangled and she looked down.  They seemed so far from the
floor.  She wasn't sure she could get down because she was just little.
	Her tongue found blood on her lip.  "Ow, Bill."
	"You want your stupid doll?"  He grabbed the heavy wooden figure and it
sort of slipped out of his hand and it hit her.
	It hurt too much to cry.
	Blood poured from her lip. It got on her tongue and went down her
throat.  Her lip felt ripped.  She felt sick.  She saw her tooth that
had been a little wiggly on the floor.  Her head hurt.
	He'd stepped back to keep her blood off him.  She put her hand up and
blood went on her fingers.  Why wasn't he helping her?
	Why couldn't she wake up?  She had bad nightmares before, but she
always woke up before it hurt.
	"MOM!"  Bill yelled, backing away as she slid down from the table,
winding up on the floor.  "Dana hurt herself!"
	Mom came when Bill yelled but not when she yelled.  She didn't realize
she hadn't yelled.  "I think she ran into the table down here."
	Stupid bad magic doll.  She left it there.  Mommy yelled at her for
climbing on the table and Mommy made her get needles in her mouth from a
doctor to make the bleeding stop.  But it was Bill who was mean because
the magic doll made him lie.

end of 13/28

Anamorphosis 14/28
by eponine119
eponine119@att.net

-14-

	Her lips felt swollen when she woke up. Nightmare.  But she knew she'd
had stitches and she remembered the doll.  She'd always thought she hit
the table, though.  Memory, she thought, rolling over in the bed.
	She had to still be dreaming because Bill was sitting in her bedroom
chair.  She scrambled up in the bed.  "What the hell are you doing
here?" she demanded.
	"Mom wanted me to speak to you."
	"You broke into my house!" she cried.
	"Dana, it's ten a.m.  I knocked. I was worried," he said calmly. 
Rationally.
	"I can take care of myself."  The gun was on her nightstand.  By the
clock that read 10:15.  He was lucky she hadn't shot him.
	Part of her wanted to.  It would be so easy to pick the weapon up and
claim he'd surprised her.  But that wasn't what her service weapon was
for.  It would be wrong.  As wrong as what he'd done to her.
	"Dana," he said, taking a step closer.
	"Don't take another step," she ordered.
	"You're completely irrational," he said in that jovial good guy way he
had. "I have never done anything to you."
	"That's not how I remember it," she said, fighting the urge to finger
the invisible scar on her lip.  She remembered the stitches.  She knew
it had happened.
	"Can't you see these memories are not memories?  You've been
brainwashed. By him.  Because he knows what he's done to you. He is the
only one you shouldn't trust, Dana."
	She could feel the walls breaking down inside.  She didn't want to cry
but she couldn't fight or scream either.  Only she could help herself
this time.  Scully didn't know how to cope with this.  Her body shook
with the effort of trying to retain control.
	"You hurt me, Bill, and I don't want to see you right now."
	"We have to talk about this," he urged, moving closer.  He sat down on
the edge of the bed.  Scully, who didn't know what she was supposed to
do and only saw her childhood abuser coming closer.  She blacked out.
	But Starbuck smiled at her brother.  "It's okay, Bill," she said.
	He looked surprised.
	"You want to play?" she asked brightly, putting her thumb in her mouth.
	Bill backed away, horrified at her.  What did she do? she thought,
watching him.  He just turned and walked away, leaving her alone.  She'd
never been home by herself.  But if she pretended Mommy was upstairs
where she couldn't see her, it would be okay.
	She slid out of bed.  The weird house again. She couldn't make the TV
turn on.  It didn't have a big turny knob like the TV at home did.  The
phone started to ring.  She wasn't allowed to answer the phone by
herself.  When it kept ringing, and when Mommy didn't answer it, she
remembered that Mommy wasn't there and she was by herself.
	Maybe when Ahab went away this time, Mommy went too.  Maybe that was
why Bill was scared.  She was scared too.  She felt little and helpless
and most of all lonely.  She was hungry too.
	So she sat there and waited for someone to come. Mommy always told her
if she got lost, to stay where she was and not move till Mommy found
her. 
	Mommy was taking a long time.

	When the pounding on the door started, she raised her head and looked
at it.  Very slowly she began to scoot away from it.  She wasn't allowed
to open the door for anyone, ever.  And this person was angry, she could
tell by the way they were pounding on the door.  It made her scared.
	"Yeah, all right already,"  DK called, getting up, but the door was
swinging open. Mulder stood there.
	"Why didn't you open the door?" he demanded.
	"Obviously, you have the key," she said.  His shoulders slumped as he
recognized her.  DK.  Fine, she thought, walking into the kitchen.  She
was starving and didn't really care that nobody liked her.
	"What brings you out?" Mulder asked, taking off his coat and tossing it
on the couch.
	"You," she snapped, pouring nonfat milk [ick] over the Special K
[double ick] she'd found in the cabinet.  Taking a bite, she wished she
could pour about a pound of sugar on the cereal.  She winced but kept
eating.
	"Who was here before?"
	He never wanted to talk about her, she thought.  Always that boring,
straightlaced Scully.  "Starbuck," she said.  "When you knocked, she was
scared he'd come back, so I came out."	
	"Scared who'd come back?"  Mulder frowned.  He frowned all the time, DK
thought.
	"Oh, Bill was here," DK felt the tears burn in her eyes.  She didn't
want them.
	"He was?" Mulder cried angrily.
	"Who was what?" Dana asked, calmly wiping tears away.
	Mulder just stared at her.  She stared back. Neither of them knew what
the question was. "Scully?" he asked.
	She nodded mildly, wondering if she'd ever get used to him calling her
by her last name.  It was so much nicer to be called by her actual
name.  But he only did that during times of crisis, like when he held
her in Donnie Pfaster's house.   "What're you doing here?" she asked.
	"It's Christmas," he said.  He looked older.  And tired.
	"It is?  Happy Christmas."  She didn't see a tree.  He sighed heavily.
It made her sad, but Mulder was so often depressed.  She understood that
because she'd struggled with dark thoughts after her abduction. But she
had to stay positive.  If she let the darkness take her...
	"Mulder, what happened?" Scully asked, he only shook his head like he'd
been defeated.  There was a blank space in her memory.
	"Damn it," she whispered to herself, realizing it had happened again. 
Mulder raised his head to look at her. Recognizing her.  Not realizing
it hadn't been her.  "I can't do this," she said.  "I thought I was
better!"  The coffee cup she'd brought down from the cabinet in the
kitchen rattled in her hand so she decided against caffeine.  Mr. Coffee
was unplugged anyway.  And why the hell was it Mr. Coffee, anyway?  Why
not Ms. Coffee?
	"You've been flipping channels since I got here," Mulder said dryly.
	"When was that?"
	"Fifteen, twenty minutes."
	"I feel like they're taking memories away from me," she confided.  "I
had a bad dream and something happened and now I don't remember any of
it.  Including the dream.  Just that it was bad."
	"She said someone had been here," Mulder passed along.
	"Bill?" Scully asked.
	"Why would you guess that?"  Mulder questioned, searching her eyes.
	"He was in the dream.  I think.  God, I hate not knowing."  She turned
and saw the clock on the microwave.  "It's so late."  The morning was
practically gone.
	"Merry Christmas, Scully," Mulder told her.
	She tensed.  "It's Christmas?"  she cried, astounded at having lost
track completely of what day it was.
	"Yeah."
	"I only have a week," she lamented.  They were due back to work the day
after New Year's.  How could the days have slipped by so quickly? 
They'd been married an entire week.  Seven days.  A lifetime slipping
through her fingers like grains of sand.  She didn't feel married.  She
didn't feel crazy.  She didn't feel anything.
	"Are you going back to work?" he asked her.
	"I want to," she replied.  "Do you want me to?"
	"I don't think you'd pass a psych screening in a hundred years," he
replied honestly after just a second's hesitation.
	"Would you?"  She was serious.
	He laughed. It wasn't a happy sound.  Like rust on a gate.  Like he'd
rather be crying, but it hurt too much.
	"Who's going to test me?" she asked, but already felt defeated.  "You
don't want me back."
	"Not if you're going to flip out on me when I need you," he said almost
inaudibly.  Like he knew he shouldn't say it, so tried to say it like a
joke, but it didn't sound that way at all.
	He didn't trust her any more.
	She didn't trust herself.
	She'd thought she was strong enough.  But this was the first time in
her life she had no idea what to do.
	"Maybe you should go," she said.  Without trust between them, what was
there?  She'd never been what he wanted and now maybe she never could
be.  All she wanted was to feel better and she didn't know how to do
that.
	"Are you punishing me for being honest?" he looked like a green-eyed,
suspicious little boy.
	"No," she said softly.  "I don't know what to do with you here."
	"What would you do without me here?" he asked.
	"I don't know."
	"Let's do that together," he suggested, settling comfortably into the
couch.  He let her ease into him until they were lying together.  She
pulled his arm cross her stomach.
	"Do you want to remember?" he asked finally.
	"I feel like there was nothing good in my childhood.  Every incident
now seems tied to the abuse. It permeates everything...and yet no one
ever noticed," she told him.  "I want to remember the good parts.  I
want to be able to move on."
	"I think remembering brings them on," he said of her other selves. 
"Like you said, they steal your memories."
	She nodded, concentrating on his breath against her skin.  The heat of
his body.  The texture of his jeans through her thin pajamas.
	"We should make new memories," he said.
	"What do normal people do at Christmas?" she asked.  Last year she'd
tried to do normal, to see her family and she'd discovered a dead child
that belonged to her.  That was as normal as it got for her.  And for
him.
	"Go to the movies," he said sarcastically.
	"We could do that."  She strained to be agreeable, but she knew that
wasn't what he wanted, either.
	"We could go to my mother's and you could experience my hell for a
while," he said.  She shifted to look at his face, sensing that was what
he really wanted to do.
	"Should I pack?" she asked.
	He gave her a long, measuring look before he agreed.  "Don't bring the
cigarettes," he said as an afterthought.  "She can't stand smoke."  He
flashed her a grin like it was a joke.
	As she tossed jeans and a sweater into an overnight bag, she thought of
Mulder.  He'd taken ketamine and shocks to try to remember fragments of
his lost past.  Did he still harbor that much desperation inside him?
Would she come to understand such extreme behavior?  Accept them?  Try
them herself?
	"Would you still do anything to remember?" she asked in the car as he
drove.
	He shook his head.  "There are so many versions of that night in my
head... I know that I will never know the truth."
	"What about her?" she asked.  He was tense at the wheel, but she had to
know.
	"I guess it's the same," he said.  "In a world where cloning is
commonplace, how do you really ever know?"
	"Does it matter?" she asked.
	He shook his head.  "But sometimes I want to talk to that girl I grew
up with.  To ask her if she ever played Stratego again."
	"Did you?"
	"Constantly."  The look on his face betrayed the figurative nature of
his statement.  They had been playing a game of strategy for the past
six years.  One that was  unwinnable.
	"What's next?" she asked.  The alien war, the oil, the planned
invasion...it was all so very far away at that moment.
	"Mom," he said.  "Mom's next."
	Scully tried not to let that intimidate her.

	"Fox?"  She came out of the house, drying her hands on a dish towel,
surprised.  Scully hung back as son embraced mother.  She'd seen those
two have differences, but never once had Mulder forgotten his love for
his mom.
	She wanted to be a mother forty years in the future and have raised a
son as terrific and loving as Mulder.
	"Mom, you remember Scully," Mulder said, turning to include her. Mrs.
Mulder's sharp blue eyes found her. Scully couldn't read the other
woman's expression.  "My wife."  Mulder's words fell like bullets into
the silence.
	His mother was surprised and Scully watched her struggle not to show
it.
	She's disappointed, Scully thought.
	Then Mrs. Mulder closed the space between them and shook her hand
warmly.  "Do you have a first name?" she asked.
	She nodded, but didn't want to add to her own confusion.  "Call me
Scully, though," she suggested, finding it incredibly odd.  Asking her
mother in law to call her by her maiden last name.  That her mother in
law didn't know her name, though they had met before, although not under
the best of circumstances.
	"Do you like oatmeal cookies?" Mrs. Mulder asked.
	Scully could feel Mulder's eyes on her.  He was wondering if cookies
could turn her into a child.  She didn't want that to ever be a question
in his mind.  She was under control.  She could do this.  She could
accept an offer made by a woman almost as ill at ease as she felt.  "I
love them," she smiled warmly.
	"Chocolate chip for you, too, Fox," his mother added and they went into
the house together.
	"She knew we were coming," Scully whispered to him, taking his hand
behind his mother's back.  There was so much comfort and reassurance in
his hand.
	"Are you saying there's something spooky here to investigate?" he
smirked.  She hedged and he grinned. "I called her."
	She squeezed his hand and they reached the kitchen at the back of the
house.  It was warm and smelled of vanilla, a scent she remembered from
the winter days of her own childhood.  They had had happy Christmases
when she was young, hadn't they?  "Oatmeal was my daughter's favorite,"
Mrs. Mulder said, catching Scully shoving an entire cookie into her
mouth.  It had looked smaller on the plate.  She started to wonder if
she was bringing up memories the other woman wanted to forget.  She
didn't know what to say.  But she noticed that Mrs. Mulder didn't use
Samantha's name, the way Mulder didn't.  As though it hurt too much.
	Mrs. Mulder had never struck her as the cookie baking type, so when she
swept a telltale blue Pillsbury wrapper out of the way and smoothly into
the trash bin, Scully caught Mulder's eye and they both laughed.
	"How did this come about?" his mother asked, pinning Mulder down with
those blue eyes.
	"I love her, Mom," Mulder said.  It made warmth spread through Scully's
chest.  Love.
	Mrs. Mulder nodded as though she'd known that already.  "And she loves
you."
	Scully nodded, and didn't miss the I-told-you-so look mother gave her
son.  Scully wondered what that was about - had they discussed her at
one point?  What had they said?  She didn't speak to her mother about
Mulder.
	"I'm sorry we didn't let you know before," Scully said.
	"Fox knows I don't travel since my stroke.  And you're here now."
	"I'm surprised it doesn't bother you," Mulder stated hesitantly. 
Scully could see him cower slightly, as though afraid he was going to
start and argument.
	"I don't let things bother me any more," she replied.  "The past is
very long gone and not worth talking about. I know this now."  His
mother contemplated a perfectly round cookie.  "I hope some day you'll
learn the same thing."
	"Maybe I have," Scully heard Mulder breathe.
	"Did you have a honeymoon?" his mother asked.
	Scully looked away.  They'd only shared one night together.   How could
it be so few?  She was guilty.  Ashamed.
	"We will," he swore.  "Any suggestions?"
	"Your father and I went to Montreal," she said.  "The two of you should
go somewhere tropical."
	"Tropical," Scully repeated.  She'd never been the beachgoing type,
even as a child growing up in San Diego.  She burned too easily, even
though she enjoyed the feeling of the sun against her skin.
	"The Bermuda Triangle," Mulder said.
	"Easter Island," Scully counted.
	He nodded like she was on to something.  "Or maybe somewhere normal,"
he volunteered.
	"Ah, love," his mother said, sending all three of them into chuckles. 
"Have you seen the photos?"  she asked Scully.
	So much for forgetting the past,  she thought.  But Scully followed her
in silence to the stairwell wall, decorated with photographs.  Mrs.
Mulder began to identify the people in the captured moments, but Scully
barely listened to the narrative, seeking out pictures of Mulder.  There
weren't many from his adolescence.  After Sam.  He stood with an awkward
grin and a basketball trophy in one.  The other appeared to be his
graduation.
	So much about him she didn't know.  She knew his life of the past six
years and his family history intimately. In between...did she really
know him at all, this man she had married?
	She missed her mother with a physical ache.  She didn't want to have to
cut the ties between them. But she didn't know how she would handle the
fact that her mother did not believe her.
	She wasn't going to think about that.
	Mulder ambled out of the kitchen finally to join them.  "Look how
gorgeous you were," Scully said, clasping his hand as she indicated the
basketball picture.
	He shook his head.
	"I bet all the girls loved you," Scully said to him and he shook his
head more.  "I would have."
	"I was shy," he informed her brusquely.  "You'd have scared the hell
out of me, honestly."
	She wanted to tell him she wasn't always like D.K, who she knew he had
met.  But she knew he wouldn't believe her.  By her senior year, she'd
been more like herself.  She'd finished her acting out phase.  Back
then, senior year, she'd been more free than she felt now, but
essentially the same person.
	His hand crept up on her back, between her shoulder blades.  Incredibly
light, more a presence than a touch.  "Do you want to head home?" he
whispered softly into her ear.
	She hesitated.
	"Stay," Mrs. Mulder encouraged, but her tone seemed sharp somehow. 
Scully glanced at her, knowing that was how she was going to become. 
Sharp, even when she didn't mean it.
	"I am tired," Scully admitted, not feeling up to a long ride back in
the car.  She wasn't certain Mulder was up to driving back.
	"You could sleep in the car," he said as she'd known he would.
	"You're tired."  She could see it in his eyes.  She didn't want to say
that she wanted to stay.  There was something wrong, to Mulder's eyes,
in wanting to stay in this Connecticut home, wanting to be near his
family, who he'd fought so hard to walk away from.
	"The guest room is set up," Mrs. Mulder told them and Scully looked at
her with sudden insight.  It was made up not because she'd known they
were coming, but in case Samantha found her way home.  It made Scully
feel sad.
	"Thank you,"  Scully said graciously.  Was it uncomfortable for her,
letting someone stay in her daughter's room?  Just in case, hope against
hope...?  Mrs. Mulder closed the door behind them, leaving Mulder and
Scully alone in the bare room.  The sheets were cold and smooth like
glass.
	Mulder was oddly staring.  "Scully -"
	Was he too scared to sleep in the same room with her?  Too scared of
what she might do?  "I think it's too cold to lie in this bed alone,"
said Scully who was never coy.
	He got in next to her.  She'd brought a nightgown so her undressing for
him would not be an issue between them.  It had been more than a handful
of years since she'd put any effort at all into seducing someone.
	All it took was kissing, to her delight.  Mulder really liked kissing. 
The thought made her stomach flipflop. It was a good thing, since she
felt she'd been severely deprived of kissing him up to that point.
	She didn't dream that night.  She wasn't sure she even slept.  Lying
under Mulder's arm in the body-warmed bed, she could see the stars in
the crystal, smog free sky.  The shade on the window was up.
	Stars.
	It made her implant itch.  The back of her neck.  Burning with
stimulation just under the skin.
	If they could receive information through the chip, couldn't they send
it too?  Couldn't they make her feel this way? Believe anything they
wanted her to believe?
	They knew more about her than she did.
	The itching became almost unbearable.  She closed her eyes but couldn't
sleep.  It stung and she concentrated on blocking out the sensation
before she tore the alien object from her flesh with her own
fingernails.
	She slid out of the bed as soon as the sun rose.  The itching feeling
was subsiding as the rays of light grew stronger, leaving the darkness
and the stars behind, but she still felt tortured, haunted, by it.
	Mrs. Mulder was in the kitchen, even though it was early.  She smiled
mildly at Scully and poured her a cup of coffee.  "I used eggnog for
cream," she said.
	"Good thinking."  Warmth flooded through her insides.  "Thank you for
your hospitality.  I realize this is sudden."
	"I meant what I said.  Any woman who can make my son live in the here
and now rather than the past..."  She sounded almost bitter.  "It's
harder at the holidays."
	Her mouth was dry and she wasn't sure if she should say anything
because the loss of Emily was so different from the loss of Samantha,
but she thought this woman might understand as no one else could.  "I
lost a daughter last year," she confided softly.  "At Christmas. I'd
only just found her."
	"We lost Sam at Thanksgiving.  So many years ago."
	Scully nodded, not certain the other woman had really heard her.  It
hurt but this time it was a good hurt.  Until Mulder got up, rumpled and
in love with her. It was all over his face and she blushed at the sight
of him.
	"We're going now, Mom," he said.
	"Don't be strange," she said, then stopped, momentarily confused. 
"Strangers."  She forced the words out.
	Mulder paused, struck by the urge to care for his mother.  Then he
nodded and they went out to the car.  "I'm glad this went well."
	Scully nodded, wondering if she should mention the restless feelings
she was having.  Then he turned on the car and the radio came up.
	"...Hundreds of sightings of an unidentified flying object over the
nation's capital last night, much too late for Santa Claus..."
	Mulder's hand moved to change the station.  She put her hand on his
wrist, harder than she'd intended.  She met his eyes with all
seriousness and fear.  "It's starting again."
	He paled and changed the radio station. Celine Dion's nasal heart would
go on. Scully changed the station, not wanting to think about the chills
in her body.  Despite the radio, it was a quiet drive home.	

end of 14/28

Anamorphosis 15/28
by eponine119
eponine119@att.net

-15-

	There was a note taped to her door when they walked into her apartment
building.  Scully pulled it off to read it, handing her keys to Mulder
so he could open the door.  She hesitated a moment before splitting the
tape and unfolding the sheet of paper. 
	"Dana, please don't do this to the family.  We love you."  It was
signed by her mother and Bill.  Her mother had written it.
	She balled it up violently in her hand.  Mulder gave her a mild curious
look but didn't ask.  He nodded at the answering machine's flashing red
light.  Scully walked over to the phone and dialed her mother's house
without listening to the messages.
	"Hi, Mom."
	"Where are you?" Maggie demanded.
	"Home."
	"Where were you?"
	Scully was stubbornly silent.  If she told her mother that they had
gone to visit Mrs. Mulder on the holiday, it would hurt her terribly. 
Scully didn't want it to be this way in her family.  Her family had
always seemed so nice and normal, and safe.  This hurt.  "I'm sorry,"
she said.
	"Your brother is leaving for California in two hours.  He has to get on
a ship to go to the Middle East as soon as he arrives.  He came here to
face this, Dana, and so should you.  Please come here and make your
peace with him."  Her mother was straining to remain patient, but her
voice was filled with tension and anger.
	"I can't."  She was scared again, feeling the acid pour into her
stomach as she tangled her fingers into the loops of the phone cord, as
though they would hold her where she stood.
	"Dana, please."
	"I'll think about it.  Bye, Mom."  She put the phone down and met
Mulder's eyes, taking a deep breath.  "Bill's leaving."
	Mulder was cool.  "How do you feel about that?"
	"Mom wants me to make peace."
	"What are you going to do?"
	"I should do as she says."
	"You don't have to," Mulder reminded her.
	"I  know."  She looked down.  The floor needed to be swept.  She was
wearing jeans and a sweater.  She didn't know why it was important. 
"I'll be back in an hour or two."  She picked up the car keys and took a
step forward, and then rocked back on her foor.  Hesitating.
	"Want me to go with you?" Mulder offered.
	Mulder had punched Bill.
	"I'll be okay."  She slipped through the door, feeling insubstantial,
driving quickly to her mother's house.  She hadn't been behind the wheel
since all this began.  It felt strange, but the act of driving made her
feel more powerful.
	When she faced them in her mother's living room where she had often
sought solace, she felt weak.  She was a soldier for justice and the
truth, but it was different with her family.  They didn't see her as
strong, and she knew they never would.  To them she would always be a
little girl.  Hurt, stubborn, unwilling to cooperate.  "You're here,"
her mother said without a trace of triumph.
	Scully nodded.
	"We were just about to leave."
	"Actually, Ma, we should go," Bill said, switching his suitcase to his
left hand and edging toward the door.  Scully was very aware that he
hadn't looked at her since she'd walked in the door.  He looked
thinner.  But maybe he'd been thinner at Thanksgiving and she hadn't
noticed.
	"Dana, don't you have something to say to your brother?" Mrs. Scully
prompted, effectively making her feel six years old.
	"Like?" she asked without a pause, wondering just what she had walked
in to.
	"No, Mom, it's okay.  She doesn't have to apologize.  She's sick; she
can't help it," Bill said.
	Fury flooded her.  She was so angry.  She blocked his exit with her
body, ready to take him on.  This time she knew she would win.  "I think
it's you who's sick, Bill.  It's you who should apologize to me."  His
name in her mouth made her want to vomit.  She was trembling with rage.
	He just looked at her like she was a pathetic, attention hungry little
girl.
	"You raped me," she said in a low, animal tone.
	"You have no evidence," Bill informed her.  Taunting her.
	"Dana, stop this," her mother pleaded.  Crying.  Couldn't she see?
	They didn't believe her.  What evidence did she have to show them? 
What tangible, physical evidence did she have that they could hold in
their hands and know that this had happened to her?  The sort of
evidence she used to demand from Mulder on a regular basis.  The sort of
evidence she was now learning to live without.
	She knew. That was her evidence.
	It was going to have to be enough.  She stepped aside, pushing out of
the house, striding briskly back to her car, not certain she would ever
see or speak to either of them again.
	"I missed Christmas with my family to be here for you, Dana," Bill
called after her in his oh-so-weary tone.
	Your choice, she thought and burst into tears as soon as she slammed
the car door.  She knew she couldn't drive until she stopped crying and
she couldn't make the tears stop.  The sound of her little gasps
sickened her.
	A tap at her window made her jump and she looked up to see a patrolman
standing in the street next to her car.  She cranked down the window and
he asked kindly, "Everything all right, ma'am?"
	She nodded, unable to find her voice.
	"Well, you take care then," he said and walked away, looking back at
her over his shoulder twice.  She took a deep breath and turned the key,
starting the car to return to Mulder. It might take years for her family
to heal, but Mulder was always there for her.
	She would have to take comfort in that.

XXX

	She went to therapy on the morning after the New Year, knowing she had
to be in a meeting with Skinner in less than an hour.  Mulder had
already gone to the office, ready to make an early start on his first
day back.
	"I feel like he doesn't want me back," she confided to the doctor,
sitting back in the now-familiar chair.  They had made some progress in
the days since her family had gone home, but most days she felt like she
was climbing a mountain and sliding back every night, never getting any
closer to the top.  "He's scared they're going to come back."  They, her
other selves.  She'd managed to hold them at bay since Christmas.  Her
one and only triumph.
	"They could," Dr. Callaway suggested gently.
	Scully shook her head, stubborn.  She could control them.  She hadn't
had an incident in a week.  She wasn't going to let them come back.  She
couldn't.  She had to work.  She had to be strong and put all of this
madness behind her.
	"You need to accept that some things are simply beyond your control,"
the doctor told her.
	"No!" barked Scully, angry.  "Things are not out of my control.  I was
helpless and vulnerable then, when this happened to me, but  I was a
child.  I am not a victim now.  I have control over my life and what
happens in it."
	"That's a very empowered point of view," Dr. Callaway nodded.  "But
perhaps if we can just coax them out...here...where it's safe, we can
work to integrate them..."
	Scully shook her head.  She wasn't letting them out for a second.  She
wasn't going to lose control or another minute of her life.  She'd
already lost enough.
	"You need to deal with this.  And the abuse."
	"I have," she said softly.  She'd gone over the incidents in her
conscious memory.  She understood that she hadn't caused what had
happened, that there was nothing she could have done.  So many things
she had learned to accept in her life, and this was another.  "I don't
want to talk about it any more."  She just wanted to get past it.
	"Denial will not help you."
	"There is a difference between denial and wanting to move on, isn't
there?" Scully asked.  The other woman didn't answer.  "I believe these
aspects came out to deal with the returning memories of the abuse, not
the abuse itself.  So now that I have remembered  -"  She didn't need
them any more. she didn't want them any more.
	"What about when you are reminded?  What happens when a new memory
surfaces?" the doctor prodded.
	"I have to go to work," Scully said, shaking her head, her eyes on the
clock.  She got up from the chair and walked out of the doctor's
office.  Damn doctor, Scully thought as she hurried to the car.  She
doesn't understand anything.
	She was shaking, but she drove to work.
	
	Mulder saw the tension on Scully's face when she walked in for their
meeting with Skinner.  The lines around her mouth were deep and she was
drawing shallow, angry breaths because her chest was tight.  He wished
he could put his hands on her shoulders and tell her to relax.  Instead,
he looked at Skinner.  Their boss didn't seem to notice anything wrong
with Scully.
	"Nice holiday?" Skinner asked pleasantly.
	Neither of them answered.  It had largely been hell.  Mulder had to
speak up if they were to keep her affliction a secret, as was Scully's
wish.  "Fine," he said.
	"Good.  You're going to North Dakota,"  Skinner said, handing them a
pair of plane tickets for a noon flight accompanied by a thick case
file.
	"It'll be a nice honeymoon," Mulder quipped, feeling anything but
jovial.  He hadn't expected it all to start up again so soon.
	"Congratulations again, agents," Skinner said as he dismissed them from
his office.
	"I'm fine," Scully said to Mulder in a tight tone the instant they
walked out into the hallway, cutting him off before he had a chance to
say anything, to ask about her session or her feelings.  Mulder paused
for a moment.  This confirmed his feeling that she was anything *but*
fine.
	"What happened?" he asked her, caressing her face with his eyes,
wishing he could follow with his touch.
	"Nothing." Even giving him a neutral face, she couldn't mask the anger
that burned in her eyes.  "I'll be fine on the assignment.  Don't
worry."
	"I don't give a fuck about the assignment," he told her and instantly
realized he'd been too loud.  He could feel the looks he received from
the other agents milling in the hallway.  Typical Spooky Mulder
behavior, though, he thought.  "I care about _you_."  He dropped his
voice to a whisper, leaning closer to her so she could hear him.  One
hand on her arm brought her to face him.  "What about your sessions? 
How will you handle this while on the road?"
	"I'm not going any more," she told him, addressing his tie.
	"Why not?"  His tone demanded the answer that he knew she did not want
to give.
	"Not helping," she replied vaguely.  They'd reached the parking
garage.  He didn't want to leave her, but they'd come in separate cars. 
He opened his mouth to ask her more questions, but she staved them off. 
"I can get through this, Mulder," she said and managed to sound almost
convincing.  Then she turned and walked away, to her car.
	His tough Scully was back.  More insular than ever, not letting him
close.  He didn't know how to help her and he hated the feeling of utter
uselessness.  He didn't follow her to her apartment where his belongings
were beginning to accumulate, but returned to his own.
	It smelled musty from abandonment.  Like his apartment missed him. 
Mulder went about, slamming things into his overnight bag, trying to
breathe through his frustration.  He took his things to her apartment
like an unwelcome lover. He wanted to make himself permanent so she
couldn't push him away.
	He hadn't realized it would be such a strain on them going back to
work.  It probably would have been difficult even without her illness.
	He felt like he was blaming her again and he knew that was
inappropriate.  It made him feel dirty.
	He was scared for her sake that she didn't want to go to the doctor any
more.  He wanted to believe she knew what was best for herself, but it
was hard.  He pulled the strap of his carryon over his shoulder, knowing
he would have to help her through this.  Hold her up when she wouldn't
admit she was about to fall.
	He also knew he was on dangerous ground because she did not want to be
helped.

	The flight was turbulent.  Scully almost missed it and Mulder stood at
the gate, refusing to board without her, his mind unfurling all sorts of
terrible situations, each more dire than the one before.  His heart
turned over when he saw her walking toward him, determined.
	"Sorry.  I, uh, hit all the reds," she explained as she hurried past
him without stopping, striding up the ramp.  He followed and the
attendant closed the door behind them.
	The flight was less than full and Scully left the middle seat in their
row open between them, laying her coat across it.  Mulder looked at the
coat on the narrow chair.  She had done it before, on countless other
flights through the years.  But it didn't feel right now.  "Why did you
do that?" he demanded.
	"Because I thought elbow room might be nice," she retorted in the same
tone he'd used.
	"How much elbow room do you need, Scully?" he demanded, and they both
knew they weren't talking about the plane any more.
	"You're the one with the sharp bony elbows," she accused.  "How many
times do  I have to show up before you stop wondering if I'm lost?"
	It was two points for her - she'd caught him. He couldn't help worrying
about her and he didn't know how to tell her so without infuriating
her.  She was already angry.  He just cared about her.  He didn't
understand why that made her angry.
	"I am in control," she told him firmly.  The plane dropped as it
punctured a bubble of air and she grabbed at the armrests.  He wished
she were grabbing at him.  He tried not to let it bother him and opened
the paper he'd purchased, flipping through to the real estate section.
	"Where do you want to live?" he asked her.
	She was silent and he lowered the paper to look at her. "What's wrong
with where we live now?"
	"It's not home to me," he answered.
	"It is to me."
	Impasse.  "I want to make a fresh start," he told her. When she didn't
say anything,  Mulder continued.  "I want us to come together as two
people and join to become more than that.  To be stronger together than
we are apart."
	"You want to give birth to a house."  Her voice was flat.
	He shook his head.  Wasn't she listening?  He loved her.  Was that
automatically terrible because she had been molested as a child?  She
accused him of not trusting her, but she didn't trust him either.
	"In a relationship, both parties' wishes are important," he said.
	"Why do you talk as though I don't know anything about life or love?"
she demanded, eyes flashing.  "I can handle this. I don't need your
advice."
	"Sounds like you don't need my love, either," he snapped and looked out
the window, into a thunderstorm.  Its fury was beautiful.  He clenched
his teeth as he heard her begin to cry softly.  That was the only thing
that had noticeably changed - now Scully cried.  Often, and usually for
no reason.  He knew it was stress and she could not help it.  Yesterday
she'd cried over a magazine article.
	He looked at her.  She thought this was another thing she had to make
up for.  He shouldn't have said what he'd said.  He yearned to hold her
but knew she would find it condescending even if it was because he hated
to see her cry.  She was so beautiful and so strong.
	"Don't withdraw your love because you're angry," she sniffled.
	"I'm only angry because you push me away."  He softened his attitude. 
"I know this is excruciatingly painful for you -"
	She closed back up.  "I'm fine," she said.  When he was a boy, he'd
poked at pillbugs with a stick to watch their immediate protective
response.  Scully's was equally as automatic.  If he touched her, she
was turn to stone in his arms to prove she was strong enough to survive
this.
	He flipped open the file Skinner had given them. "Oh goody," he
cracked, "Poltergeist."
	She didn't even say, "They're here."

	It was really, really cold in North Dakota.  So often they forgot that
winter in DC was tempered compared to the rest of the country.  The car
rental agent assigned them a battered Ford with a cracked window. 
Scully could not contain the chattering of her teeth.
	"It'll warm up in a second," Mulder said to her, hoping.  But the air
from the vents did not warm at all during their hour long drive to the
Tintner residence.
	"Are poltergeists really covered under FBI jurisdiction?" Scully
asked.  Mulder looked over at her.  Her lips looked blue.  He could
barely feel his fingers and he'd been asking himself the same question. 
How did they get some of these cases?  Who in their right mind
associated the FBI with ghosts and weird things?  Maybe it was local law
enforcement.  She flipped through the folder and found the referral. 
Befuddled cops.  She sighed.  As usual.
	The Tintners were startled to find the FBI at their door so it was good
that she had looked.  She made the introductions, holding her badge up
by her face for comparison as Mr. Tintner stared at her. "It's
dinnertime," he said.
	"We were referred by Sheriff Hern regarding the recent violence in your
home," Scully stated.
	"But it's dinner time," the man repeated, although he let them into the
house. As they walked through the worn living room to the dining room,
the overhead light flickered.
	Scully's eyes locked with those of a pale young girl seated at the
table.  The mother at the head of the table, began to duck, cowering
away from whatever she thought the lights precipitated, but the lights
returned to normal.
	When she glanced at Mulder, his eyes were shining. He really loved this
stuff.  Scully wasn't quite as impressed. "Does that happen often?" she
asked.
	"Oh goodness yes," replied Mrs. Tintner in a nervous voice, her fingers
creeping up along her throat.  Scully watched the girl, who was very
still, her eyes large.
	"Have you looked into the house's history?" Mulder asked.  Scully
rolled her eyes at him. He couldn't possibly believe this was a
_ghost_.  The family looked at him blankly as though 'research' was not
a word they knew.
	"Have you checked the connections to the lamps?" Scully asked and got
the same blank look. "How old are you?" she asked the daughter more
gently.  The file had said her name was Veronica.
	"Eleven," she replied in a soft voice.
	Scully nodded.  "When did all this begin?"
	"Last year. When we moved here."
	Scully could feel all eyes on her.  "Has the disturbance ever harmed
anyone?"
	Veronica's eyes darted away and Scully leaned back, away from her
slightly.  "It throws things," Mrs. Tintner answered Scully's question. 
"But it's only hit Wayne."  She nodded to her husband, who was holding
back his hair to display a fresh wound to Mulder, who nodded
appreciatively.
	"Does the ghost have a name?" Scully asked.  Three heads shook no. 
"How do you know it is a ghost?" she asked.
	"What else could it be?" demanded Mr. Tintner.  Scully looked
noncommittal and backed off.
	"Maybe we should go," Mulder said quickly. "Come back in the morning." 
His arm went out, his hand seeking Scully's back.  But he stopped
himself before he touched her.  It reminded her that Mulder was always
aware now.  She walked with him through the door.
	"What was that?" he asked her out in the freezing car.
	She fastened her seatbelt and tried to think warm thoughts.  "What?"
she asked.
	"It's not a ghost?" he reminded her.
	"I saw no evidence -"
	" - the lights? -" he suggested.
	" - and besides, poltergeist activity rarely has to do with disembodied
spirits," she explained.  "More often, it is a disturbance of energy
associated with the budding sexuality of adolescents."
	He mouthed the words "budding sexuality" in an amused way, sending her
anger soaring even though he was secretly impressed by her knowledge. 
She felt he was mocking her.
	"Or their need for attention," she finished, looking at him.  He'd
stopped the car.
	"Motel," he said.
	"I noticed," she replied, waiting.
	He hesitated a moment longer before he sighed and asked, "How many
rooms?"
	She could only stare at him.
	He sighed again and got out.  She could feel the spots of high color
burn her cheeks as she watched him walk to the motel office.  They were
married, she thought, shocked, why would he ask her that?
	He doesn't want you, the voice in her head was quick to tell her.  You
disgust him.
	She knew the voice was right.
	When he returned, she fully expected him to hand her a key.  But he put
the car in gear and pulled around to the back of the motel and got out
of the car.
	Weird, she thought, picking up her bag to follow him. Never had they
stayed in the same room while on a case.  Is this how it's going to be?
she asked herself. Would their marriage take place in dozens of uniform
motel rooms across the country for the next twenty years, until it was
time for Mulder to retire?
	"Weird," Mulder said, sitting self consciously on the queen sized bed
in the center of the room.
	"I was thinking the same thing," she confided, striving for normal 
behavior.  Should she sit down?  If she did, would it be an invitation? 
Shouldn't they discuss the case?  She sat down carefully, on the edge of
the bed, half expecting him to grab her.
	"Dinner?" he suggested.
	She shook her head - not hungry - but then looked at him.  Was he
saying he wanted dinner?
	Oh god, was she going to have to spend 24 hours a day with him?  It
shouldn't have been such a horrifying prospect.  But she'd grown used to
all the time she spent alone.
	He turned on the TV, flipping past laugh tracks until he found the soft
tones of a documentary narrator.  He pulled off his dress shirt and his
shoes and stretched out on the bed in his T shirt and socks.
	She looked at the screen.  Young girls in Africa being sold as goods. 
The hard knot of her stomach turned to queasiness.
	"Mulder," she said and he turned his head, but his eyes remained on the
television.  He was watching the show.  She couldn't ask him to turn it
off.  "Shouldn't we discuss the case?"
	"You don't think there is one," he said with a shrug.
	Was that hurt or anger in his tone?  She didn't know, couldn't decide. 
And she didn't know what to say because he was right.  "It's a bullshit
assignment and you know it," she said.
	"So?" he asked mildly, his eyes meeting hers.
	Words failed her for a second. "So?"  That was all he had to say? 
"It's a waste of our time."
	"Maybe Skinner wanted us to ease back into things," Mulder suggested.
	"Why?" she demanded.
	"Why not?  We've been on leave. If we can figure out how the kid's
doing it, it's an easy solve."
	He didn't think it was ghosts either.  "It's a waste of our time when
we could be working on -"
	"You sound like me," he said, tilting his head and studying her.
	"I do?"  That had to be a first.
	He nodded.  "When I'm hiding from something in my work and it isn't
consuming me like I want it to.  Don't lose yourself in the work,
Scully."
	"I'm not!" her anger spoke the opposite of her words.  He was right and
she knew it.  But there was no harm in escaping back into her career. 
What she did was worthwhile and important.
	"I've felt the pain, Scully," he said in a velvety voice. "I know. But
you have to face it or it will never go away."
	"You don't know," she snapped.  She thought his sad look was pity. 
"You don't know anything!"  The rage was building and it felt good to
feel something.  "No one's ever locked you in the dark or poked you with
things to taken away your will and your dignity and your power over your
body!"
	"No," he said slowly and calmly.  "But I've had pieces of my life
stolen. I've lost my hope and my will to survive.  When they took Sam,
when they took you, my world did shatter and to see this, now...I was
angry and hurt for a long time before, but I -"
	He was being too reasonable, too rational. She didn't want to listen to
it. "You don't understand," she cried, jumping up from the bed.
	"Tell me," he pleaded.  "Then tell me, make me understand."
	Words were too weak.  She didn't want him to know.  If he knew how
scared...how little control over herself she felt she had...how madness
seemed to threaten and she felt a gash had been torn through her heart,
he would walk out that door and never come back.
	He had left her before.
	She could not lose him when he was the only thing in her life.  But she
knew it was inevitable he would see the ugliness in her soul. Better if
she pushed him away first.
	When did she start to care what he thought?
	She was going to scream or cry or both.
	"Scully."  His voice saying her name pulled her out of it.  She looked
at him.  "Sit down."
	She wanted to, but couldn't. She felt her knees shake with the
indecision and hoped he couldn't see that.  When she didn't move, he
went to her.
	She steeled herself for his touch.  She wasn't going to like it. She
jumped but his fingers sent warmth through her, pooling in her melting
stomach.
	She was so weak.
	He was going to see her for what she really was - weak and filthy.
	She wanted him to put his arms around her and suck the pain out through
her flesh, make her forget that way.
	She'd wanted it when she was younger.  She'd enjoyed it. She'd asked
for it.
	What would he say about that?
	She would gouge out her eyes if she thought she could reach the voices
in her head through the holes they left.  Her body ached.  His fingers
were trailing down her arm from her throat where they'd begun and he was
absorbed in her.  She could feel his heat and his need for her.  She
could feel his concentration.	
	"Don't," she said to see if he would listen.
	His fingers fell away from her skin.
	Power.
	She could hear him breathing. If she told him to start again, would he?
	What is this, you bitch, a twisted game of red light green light? 
Mother may I?
	She hated herself.
	Tease.  Bitch. Slut.  Whore.
	She was worthless.  She didn't deserve him.  She'd never keep him.
	You could touch him, you know.
	Shut up, all of you!  Scully thought angrily.  She couldn't stand this
any more.
	"Hey."  She looked at him when she heard his voice.  His eyes touched
hers.  "You spaced out again.  What's going on in there?"
	A war.
	"Just tired," she mumbled.
	He nodded, still watching her carefully.  "We need to be up bright and
early," he said. "Poltergeists like the morning."	
	She couldn't tell if he was joking or not. He moved away from her,
returning to the bed.  "Take a bath and relax," he told her.
	She was going to have to take her clothes off.  Would every action
inspire this insane fear in her heart?  She didn't want a bath but he
would notice if she went to sleep in her suit.  He would ask.  Be
strong, she told herself.  She managed to pick up her bag and take it
into the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind her.
	Mulder wouldn't look at her when she came out.  He was watching a new
documentary - this one about baseball - and she lay down on the bed next
to him gingerly.
	It shouldn't be this way.
	Indulge him.  The voices hadn't gone.  Even if you don't want to,
indulge him.  She couldn't ask him if he was disappointed because he
wanted sex.
	It was a husband's right. If you don't give it to him, he'll take it.
Maybe not today, but someday.  When he's tired of waiting for you.
	She knew that voice was lying.  Mulder wouldn't do that.  He would just
go elsewhere.  Someone pretty without problems. He hadn't waited for her
all this time.  There had been others.
	It was so stupid to be scared when she loved him so much and he knew he
wouldn't hurt her.
	She moved closer to him but he didn't seem to notice.
	She wanted a cigarette.   The box was in her bag.  A test of how strong
she was.  She wasn't going to change.  She was going to remain calm and
in control.
	Even though things were just as screwed up then. She wanted to cry but
knew she'd spent too much time on tears already so she held them inside,
trying to sleep.
	Some time much later, she woke.  The lights and the TV were still on,
but Mulder was asleep.  She couldn't believe he slept with the lights
on.  She closed her eyes but it annoyed her now that she knew it was
on.  Would he noticed if she slipped out to turn it off?
	Maybe if she went quickly.  The carpet was cold on her bare feet as she
shut off the TV and flicked the lightswitch. Mulder made a noise in the
darkness.  A decidedly male noise, back in his throat, a struggle not to
awaken.
	It was so dark.  There were no streetlights to waft in gently through
the picture window.  Just a complete absence of light.
	How many horrors had waited for her in the darkness?
	Get over it, she told herself firmly, returning to the bed.  When she
closed her eyes, she was able to drift off again.

end of 15/28 comments to: eponine119@att.net

Anamorphosis 16/28
by eponine119
eponine119@att.net

-16-

	The phone was ringing.  It jolted her out of a nightmare which she
forgot, thankfully, when she grabbed it.  "Yeah," she was breathless
from being startled.
	"Wake up call for room 131.  It is now 7 am.  Have a pleasant day."
	She rolled her eyes and let the phone slide back into its cradle,
looking at Mulder.  The phone right next to his head hadn't roused him. 
Rough night for him, she thought, stroking his hair.  He was a sound
sleeper.  She wasn't afraid of him.  He was her darling.  She smiled as
she played with his hair, waiting for him to wake up.  She was afraid of
things more dark and vague that lived within herself.
	She whispered his name, nudging his hip with her knee.
	He was aroused and the bottom dropped out of her stomach for no good
reason.  Healthy males got aroused several times a night.  So did
women.  So did she.  It happened.
	Of course, that was when he opened his eyes, confused at first to be
looking into her eyes.  She saw the embarrassment taint his gaze at
being observed.  He shifted his legs away from hers.  "I'm sorry," he
said, sliding away.
	"Mulder," she said.
	His face was bright red now and she was certain hers was too.  Normal
people would have laughed over this.  Under other circumstances, they
would have ignored it - as they had always managed to ignore all but the
barest physical attraction between them.
	"I'll take care of it," he said gruffly and went into the bathroom. The
water in the shower began to flow.
	Go in there, the voice in her head ordered, but she didn't move.  She
could feel her blood rushing downward, gathering with every hard beat of
her heart.  Closing her eyes only made the image of him in her mind more
vivid.
	Go in there.
	She would die of embarrassment if he walked in on her touching herself.
	He shouldn't have to, she thought, getting up and moving toward the
bathroom, her mind fixed on the picture of him in her mind, stroking his
penis with his hand, his eyes closed and brows drawn together.
	The water stopped and she jumped back.  A few moments later, he
emerged, toweling his damp hair.  "Cold water.  Felt good," he told her
with a lopsided grin.
	She wanted him to advance upon her.  For intimacy, for closeness, to
extinguish the heat in her body that she detested.
	Instead, they returned to the Tintner's.

	Mulder was amazed by Scully.  She was always cool and calm and
collected.  He'd marveled at it before.  She always knew what she
wanted.  Even when what she didn't want, was him.  It made him upset,
scared even, but he had to understand.
	It was such a small price to pay for having her back with him. He'd
been so afraid she would fall to pieces and never come back.
	He knew she thought the case was silly and maybe it was, but it was the
same old routine.  He wasn't sure he believed in any of it himself, but
he was happy to be with her.
	Even if he had to take cold showers every morning for the rest of his
life, he wouldn't care. He'd join the Polar Bear Club. He loved her.
	"What're you grinning about?" Scully demanded and he instantly pulled
his lips back in line.
	"Nothing.  How much I love you," he replied, switching off the car's
engine since they'd reached the "haunted" house.  Her eyes narrowed and
went dull.  Annoyed.
	He annoyed her.
	She got out of the car and he followed, stumbling over a pile up of
snow.  She didn't notice and he hurried after her feeling big and clumsy
and like loving her was a weird thing, something he shouldn't do because
she didn't want him to.
	Mrs.  Tintner seemed more nervous than the previous night, letting them
inside after three "Oh goodness!" -es.  She was blond and her thin body
seemed ill-designed to handle the freezing temperatures.
	"Is your daughter here?" Mulder asked her, glancing around, hoping he
would not become the unsuspecting victim of a suddenly animated
anything.
	"She's at school," the woman replied and looked slightly relieved.
	"Things don't happen when she's not here."  It wasn't a question
because Mulder already knew the answer.
	"Only when Veronica and Wayne are here together," she admitted.
	Mulder glanced at Scully, who returned the look.  Thinking the same
thing.  It excited him to be on the same wavelength with her - sent his
heart into a rapid patter of beats.  Testosterone meets young estrogen
in this house, he thought.  A hormone cocktail.  He was thinking
psychokinesis.  If only they could prove it...
	"We'd like to set up cameras.  Catch the action as it happens," Mulder
said energetically.
	"Cameras?"  Mrs. Tintner had fixated on the idea, staring at him with
wide, owlish eyes.
	"The cameras will help us determine if your daughter has rigged
things," Scully said.
	"Oh no, there's no way she could," Mrs. Tintner cried.
	"Likewise, if it's a ghost, we'd love to get it on film," Mulder
replied, full of energy. He didn't wait for her to agree, just said,
"I'll go and get them," and headed back for the car.  
	He heard Mrs. Tintner begin to tell Scully her story as he closed the
door behind him. "It started last fall in the basement..."
	The wind had begun to blow and Mulder discovered he'd left his gloves
someplace.  As usual.  Very quickly his fingers turned from bitingly
cold to numb and he dropped the keys as he reached the trunk of the
car.  He fumbled for them in the show and finally pulled the small
equipment case from the trunk.
	He bounced to attempt to be warm while he waited to be let back into
the house. He hadn't realized he'd locked the door behind him. It was
cold and his good mood was quickly disintegrating.  Why would anyone
live in such a place?  What the hell was taking so long for her to
answer the door?
	Mrs. Tintner was pale and shaking when he opened the door, backing away
without a word.  Mulder's eyes fastened on Scully instantly.  She was
dwarfed by the huge green leather chair she sat in, holding her head in
her hands.  "What happened?" Mulder demanded with a wild glance at Mrs.
Tintner, barreling for Scully's side.
	"I'm all right," she murmured, although her shoulders were heaving.
	"I think the ghost did something to her," Mrs. Tintner said, her voice
shrill with fear.
	Scully shook her head, pressing her forehead before straightening her
spine.  She looked drained.  "I'm okay," she whispered, but the edges of
her lips were white with strain.
	"I'll just set up the cameras," Mulder said, having trouble taking his
eyes off his wife.  "Where does most of the activity occur?"
	"Like I was telling her, it started in the basement.  Wayne had some
ice skates fly at his face.  Cut his hand real bad fending them off. 
Since then, though, it's mostly been in the kitchen."  
	Mulder nodded, opening the bag. It was mostly used cameras and
listening devices, too out of date to serve the white collar and
organized crime guys anymore.  They'd be no match for a kid, though.  He
started to find places for them around the kitchen to cover the entire
room.
	"Sometimes he gets scratches, too," Mrs. Tintner confided softly. 
"They just appear without his noticing.  Sometimes bruises."
	Mulder looked to Scully, but she was staring.  "Will it be all right if
we drop by later - after dinner - to speak with Wayne and Veronica?"
	The woman shrugged. "I guess. Wayne's not happy, but what else can we
do?  We couldn't go on like that."
	"Your husband didn't want you to contact the police?" Scully asked.
	"No.  Thought I was silly.  I said what, did he like to get hurt?" 
Mrs. Tintner elaborated.  "Eight o'clock will be fine."
	Mulder was finished, so he picked up the equipment bag and looked at
Scully.  Her coat was buttoned and her gloves were on.  She wanted out
of there.  "What did the ghost do to you?" Mulder asked once they got
outside.
	Scully shook her head, suddenly interested in something on the ground. 
"Nothing," she told him.
	He didn't believe her and didn't know how to say so.  "When you're
ready to tell me, I'm here to listen," he suggested and bore the full
force of her angry look.  She slammed the car door and he wondered what
he'd said that was so wrong this time.
	"Where are we going?" she asked, breaking the silence on their drive.
	"Town library and historical society is on Adams Road," Mulder said,
making a right turn.  "If there is a ghost -"
	"There isn't," Scully replied as though she'd never seen a ghost
before.
	"There might be information at the library," Mulder continued.  She
gave him a sour look as though he was ignoring her.  He stopped in front
of a small brick building that looked like a former schoolhouse.  The
only other car parked was a homely station wagon.
	It belonged to the beak-nosed Walter Crowell, curator and librarian. 
"It's not haunted," he said as stubbornly certain as Scully, crossing
his arms and standing back to appraise them.
	"So you've heard about the house," Mulder said, leaning against the
desk.
	"Not the house, just the goings-on," Crowell told him. "It's a tract
home, built less than 5 years ago.  Nothing wrong with one house that's
not wrong with all of them.  City people bring their evil with them.
Even out here."
	Scully looked like she agreed.   They were going to have to talk about
what she wasn't telling him, he thought.  "What about the land?" he
asked.
	"You want me to tell you it's some ancient sacred land or burial ground
like in that movie," Crowell said dismissively.  It wouldn't have
bothered Mulder so much if he hadn't felt like Scully was sneering at
him too.
	"Warm welcome," Mulder remarked as they returned, unwelcome, to the
car.  Scully graciously didn't say a word.  Sometimes he was glad she
didn't say, "I told you so."
	He pulled into the parking lot of a diner that looked straight out of a
movie, complete with red booths and chrome.  His stomach growled as he
smelled the meat.  The sizzle of frying grease was like homecoming to
him.  Scully didn't look happy.  They both usually ate healthy, but he
figured they could both use some warm comfort food in such a cold
climate.
	Maybe he should have asked what she wanted, he realized later.  He
ordered a bacon burger, cheese fries and a vanilla shake.  Freezing your
ass off burned a lot of calories.
	Scully shook her head when the waitress looked at her.
	"Eat something," Mulder prompted.
	Her look was dark but she requested,  "Hot cocoa.  Please."
	The waitress sauntered away.
	"What's going on?" Mulder asked her, laying his hands on the table. 
"What happened in the house while I was outside?  Talk to me."  He felt
so helpless when she closed up this way.
	She shook her head.
	"Please tell me," he pleaded, wishing she would just take his hand.
	The waitress slid their drinks in front of them. Scully sipped the
cocoa, avoiding the creamy melting whipped cream that sat on top.
	"Scully," Mulder said.
	"I remembered something," she said as though it was unimportant.  As he
waited to hear what it was, it became clear she had no intention of
telling him.  She pushed the cup away and gazed out the window into the
barren winter.  He could see her slipping back into her own world.
	Was that where healing would take place? he wondered.  Or did he need
to pull her back?  The waitress delivered his meal, but worry over his
partner made the much-coveted food taste like sawdust.  It was hot and
impossibly dry on his tongue.
	"Talk to me."
	She shook her head sadly.  "You don't want to know."
	"I do." He caught her eyes for a second.
	"You don't," she repeated.  He decided to let her know best for a
little while and kept eating, allowing her silence.  She slipped out and
returned a few minutes later, the clinical washroom soap smell clinging
to her.
	"Don't let this eat you inside," he cautioned her.
	"I won't," she answered.  He just watched her.  Holding everything so
deep inside even she couldn't reach it.  He worried she wasn't going to
make it.
	They headed back to the motel to take care of administrative crap,
since they weren't returning to the Tintners' until eight.  Mulder
booted up Scully's laptop to contact Skinner and she lay down on the
bed.  First she put her arms over her eyes to block out the light, but
then she clasped them across her abdomen.
	He couldn't help thinking it was unconsciously protective.  Like men
who used their knotted hands as a fig leaf when their photos were being
taken.
	She got up twice to use the bathroom and wash her hands thoroughly. 
The third time, he asked, "Are you okay?"
	She stopped in her tracks and looked at him. "Of course," she said,
reversing her direction and shaking some change from her handbag.  "I'm
hungry," she said before she slipped out of the small room.
	He was worried.  He tapped out a message apprising Skinner of their
lack of progress, guessing they would need one more day. Apparently no
more pressing matters had come up.
	How would Scully handle something more pressing?  Was it this case, or
would any case set her on the edge?  Or was it him?
	She smelled like chocolate when she walked in, even though the Twix in
her hand was sealed.  If he kissed her, would she taste of candy on the
sly?
	Was it too much for him to hope for that this was all just PMS? he
wondered.  He'd rarely known Scully to be so intensely moody.  But she
was under a lot of pressure.
	The Twix disappeared in thirty seconds flat and she looked like she
wanted more.  "Come here," he invited, setting aside the computer.  She
realized he'd been watching when she looked at him and wiped the corners
of her mouth.  She sat down next to him on the bed.
	He felt like a teenager, seeing how far he would get. His hand rested
on her shoulder and crept up the side of her face.  Her jaw felt fragile
in his hand.  "Can I  kiss you?" he breathed, close to her lips.
	Her sigh and her mouth opening was his answer.  She did taste
deliciously of candy, he found, exploring. Sweet.  Her hair was soft
against his fingers and she seemed to like it when he pulled on it
gently.
	He could lose himself in her.
	Her skin was cold underneath her shirt and he could her nipples already
tight.  Her breath caught with a reedy sound as he worked to make them
warm.
	They lay down together and he kissed her again.  She unbuttoned her
shirt and trousers as he did the same.  An invitation.  Her skin was
impossibly smooth as he ran his worshipful hands down the length of her
torso.  He was ready, deepening their kiss as he prepare to enter her.
	A quickie.  He was more excited than he'd realized and came quickly,
before he could give a thought to pacing or her pleasure.  She didn't
come at all.  Not even close.
	He sighed.
	She rolled on her side, turning her back to him.
	Back means trust, he thought, then cursed his head for being full of
pop psychology crap. Had he just forced her?
	She'd kissed him.  She would have said no.  Wouldn't she?
	Feeling like a heel, he said her name.  He was scared to put his arms
around her.  She wasn't crying.  "Scully, talk to me."
	"It's okay," she mumbled.  He sat up and leaned over her, looking into
her eyes.  "It's okay," she said again, more strongly.  Like she meant
it.
	He put his hand between her thighs.
	"Don't," she said.  Saying no.
	"I want to," he said, but didn't move his fingers.
	"I don't," she waited for him to take his hand away and he did.  She
lay there looking up at his face.
	"I didn't hurt you?" he asked.
	"No."
	"I didn't...make you?"  His words were ginger.  Fearful.
	"No," she said again.
	"Can we talk about what you're feeling?" he asked.
	"I didn't want to come," she said frankly and jumped up from the bed,
going into the bathroom to wash herself.
	Wash him away.
	He felt terrible and he wasn't sure it was all his fault.
	Come on, Mulder, of course it was your fault.  He picked up the
computer and felt callous.  What was he supposed to do?  He looked up as
she emerged from the bathroom. She pushed her hair out of her face with
wet fingers.  "I'm going to take a nap," she told him, climbing again
onto the bed.
	Was he supposed to move?  Was it a warning to leave her alone?  He
didn't know what do to.  He wanted to help her but everything he did
seemed to be wrong.  Finally he closed the laptop and settled into the
chair, letting her sleep.

end of 16/28 

Anamorphosis 17/28
by eponine119
eponine119@att.net

-17-

	She was already feeling nervous on the way to the Tintners' home about
eight o'clock that evening.  Her stomach was jumpy, but mostly she was
on edge.  She felt like something bad was about to happen.  She couldn't
say why or what was bad, it was just a feeling of something bad.
	She felt like the bad thing had already happened. Not just in the half
remembered pieces of her childhood that continued to haunt her, but that
afternoon in the motel room.  Between her and her husband.  She was
ashamed of the way she'd behaved.  He was her husband.  She loved him.  
Why was there nothing that she did that could make him know that?  She
glanced over at Mulder.  He'd been introverted since she got up from her
attempt at sleep.  She'd been terrible to him when he'd only been trying
to help.  He'd only been acting like he loved her.
	It was all so difficult.   She wanted to apologize, but how was she
supposed to do that?  What were the words?  She continued to look at
him, and she could feel him blaming himself.  He always did, but this
time it was not his fault.  It was her fault.  It was no one's fault. 
It was her fault for letting her damaged life affect her.
	She wished she could just get over the whole damn thing.
	She would just have to try harder.

	"What can we do for you?" asked Wayne Tintner when they reached his
home.  He wasn't pleased to see them at his door and he kept them
standing on the step, outside in the cold, windy night.  She wondered at
the negative attitude present in his tone and his eyes and his posture. 
It was he who was the target of the mysterious attacks.  She thought he
would be the happy one if they could stop a crazy poltergeist from
trying to kill him.
	"We have some questions for your daughter," Scully said.
	"She doesn't have to answer to the police when she hasn't done
anything," Tintner told her.  Angrily.
	"We're just trying to get to the bottom of this, sir," she stated. 
Backing off and being polite to try to maintain the situation.  She
wanted to know  why Mulder was being so silent.  Why wasn't he backing
her up?  She wanted to look at him, but she couldn't take her eyes off
Mr. Tintner, she couldn't lose her staring-down advantage in that way. 
They didn't teach that in the FBI academy - she'd had to learn it on her
own. In the field.  It wasn't even something  Mulder had to do.  But she
did, because she was small and a woman and hard for men to take
seriously.  Tintner was big and ruddy faced like the men in her family.
	"We haven't done anything," he snarled so fiercely she took a surprised
step back.  He moved to one side and returned, his face red with barely
controlled anger as he began to hurl their camera equipment at them. 
"The federal government has no right to put cameras in my home!"  He'd
disassembled their work and kept it there by the door.  Waiting for them
to show up. Waiting to toss it back at them.
	"You're the target of these attacks," Scully continued, feeling rage
boil up inside her, much more than was called for.  The degree of her
fury startled her.  She wanted to hurt him.  She wanted to *hurt*
*him.*  Badly.  Her calm began to shatter.  "Why is that?  Does your
daughter hate you so much?"
	"She's done nothing!" he screamed, his face a deeper shade of red,
betraying the truth of his words.
	"Scully -" Mulder's tone was warning, but she ignored him, standing her
ground.  She had to do this.
	"What did you do to her?  Did you touch her?  Did you hurt her?" 
Scully asked, wanting the man to react. Mulder grabbed her as Mr.
Tintner lunged for her.  She didn't struggle, just gave Mulder a hard
push and he let her go.  Shaking it off, she walked back to the car and
got in without looking back.  She was breathing hard from the
confrontation, her blood rushing.  She wasn't sure if it was anger or
fear.  She should feel fear, she knew.  It was odd that she didn't.  She
felt excited.  Anger wasn't supposed to be exciting.  The thrill she got
from telling him off wasn't supposed to be so exciting.
	"What the hell were you doing?" Mulder yelled at her when he got into
the car.  He hadn't bothered to pick up the equipment that lay strewn
across the snowy lawn.  He'd just followed her.
	She didn't say anything.  Sense was returning and waves of anger
receded, leaving her head throbbing.  She made herself sick.  Mr.
Tintner made her sick.  She knew what was going on in that house.  And
because she'd become angry, they wouldn't have any proof.  She hadn't
been able to do anything about it.
	"Don't ever do that again!" Mulder shouted at her. "Don't ever - what
were you thinking!"  His anger pissed her off.  Who was he to tell her
what to do?  Her irrationality returned.  Scully never acted like this. 
He glared at her as she pulled away from the curb.  There wasn't any
traffic on the narrow street and her foot lay heavy on the gas.
	"Just because it happened to you doesn't mean it happened to everyone! 
You have no proof, no evidence!  What is going on in your head?  You
know better than this.  You never just believe things!"  Mulder
continued to yell at her.
	She didn't say anything.  Just pressed her lips together, ignoring him
as best she could, and sped on through a stop sign without slowing. 
There was no car for miles, why would she bother to stop?  The air was
clear and she could see.  She didn't care.
	"Stop the car," Mulder ordered.  She didn't.    She didn't care.  She
was driving this car, not him.  She was in charge.  "STOP!"  She'd never
heard him sound like that.  So loud and so forceful and so...scared? 
She braked hard, giving him what he wanted, and he jolted forward in his
seat.  It didn't make her feel satisfied.  She didn't know what she was
supposed to feel, or do.  She was just trying to feel better.  This
didn't seem to be the way.  He untangled his locked seatbelt and jumped
out of the car.
	Leaving her.
	She deserved it.
	Why did she feel so pleased?  Was that what she wanted?  For him to
leave her?  Save himself from being dragged down by her crazy behavior? 
What was she going to with him?  What was she going to do without him?
	But he was at the driver's door a moment later, his face drawn in
anger.  The angry face through dark clouded glass...she sprang back,
seeing Duane Barry for a second.  When he opened the door, she slipped
past him, running fast with light feet, thinking only of Duane  Barry
and knowing that he was going to hurt her in unspeakable ways.  They
were not going to take her again.  Mulder bellowed her name and she
didn't stop.  She heard his feet slap against the pavement behind her
and as she turned her head to look back, her feet skidded on a patch of
black ice.
	She went down on her face and it knocked the wind out of her.  Falling
was so sudden.  She could feel him standing over her, menacing in the
darkness.  She couldn't lift her head.  Too afraid.
	Afraid of Mulder?  She knew it didn't make sense. Mulder would
never...could never...
	None of it made sense.
	"Scully -"  he said gently.  He reached for her hand and she jerked to
her senses, leaping to her feet.  "Don't do this."  His eyes were wild,
begging, and he addressed her like she was a wild bird that might fly
away at any second, with no warning.
	"Stop yelling at me!" The tears burned her cold skin as they fell.  The
fight went out of her.  She hated crying.   She hated feeling so
humiliated and dirty.  She hated the look in his eyes most of all.  He
didn't know what she was going to do.  She was unpredictable and crazy.
How could he trust her when she was acting like this?
	She wanted him to trust her.
	"Come on," he said, reaching for her.  She sidestepped his arm and
returned to the car, docilely sliding into the passenger seat.  She was
going to behave.  She looked out the window, away from Mulder, as he
moved the driver's seat back and sighed.  She couldn't face him.
	"Scully," he said heavily.  "I'm sorry I yelled at you.  I was scared.
I still am."
	The words weren't easy for him.  She knew this.  She didn't say
anything.  She couldn't.  There was no way to apologize.
	"You're being self destructive."  He was trying so hard to be patient. 
Too hard.
	"There's no need to address me like a child," she snapped.  "I'll do
better.  I'll keep control better.  It won't happen again."  Why did she
feel like she was begging now?  Begging for forgiveness.  She shouldn't
be doing any of this.  If only she could feel like herself again...
	"Why did you run?"
	She was determined to be honest.  Her only chance was if she could make
him understand the turmoil within her.  "I saw you in the window and I
thought..."  She had to stop.  Swallow back the pain.  She had to tell
DK and the others to stay away from her, if they could even hear her, if
they would even pay any attention.  "I thought you were him."
	"Bill?" Mulder asked, not understanding.
	She choked.  She couldn't say the name.  She shook her head. God, she
didn't want to think about this any more.  Duane Barry. Was what he had
done to her worse than Bill?  Bill had betrayed her trust, but Barry had
stolen a part of her life.  Months she would never remember, months she
could have better spent with someone else. With Mulder.  He'd robbed her
of time and security and her future.  She did not want to talk about it.
	"Someone else?"
	Was this charades?  She nodded, praying he would leave it there. She
didn't want to talk about it.
	"God, Scully, how many people have hurt you?"  He wasn't asking her. 
He was marveling.  She was a marvel.  Twice appeared in the X Files.  It
embarrassed her.  She sniffled pathetically and he started the car. 
Finally.
	The tension was unbearable.  She didn't want to cry. She'd promised
herself that she wouldn't cry ever again.  She would be in control and
things would start to get better.  She would start to be herself again
and then she would feel like herself again.  But Mulder was mad at her. 
She was mad at herself.  He was right, she was acting crazy.  Believing
in things without any proof or evidence.  She never would have done this
before.  She never would have guessed things would end up like this,
either.
	There wasn't any proof of what had happened to her, except what she
felt and what she remembered.  In fact, there were adamant denials.  Her
eyes sneaked over to Mulder.  Since there was no proof, did he believe
her?
	She wanted him to believe her.  No, she needed him to believe her.  But
without proof, why should he? She shouldn't believe it herself.  There
were no answers, and she thought maybe that was what would drive her mad
in the end.  The need to know and the impossibility of knowing for
certain.
	The drive was long enough to freeze her muscles around the way she'd
twisted her knee when she'd fallen on the ice.  She could feel Mulder's
eyes heavy on the limp she couldn't help when they reached the motel. 
She clenched her teeth against the pain.  Her knee was definitely
twisted.  Maybe torn.  She couldn't deal with this right now, except
unfortunately she couldn't stop her life and wait until she was ready. 
The others could, but she refused to let them take the time and pain
away from her.  They weren't going to come back.  Ever.  She would not
let them.
	Mulder dialed Skinner and she glanced in the mirror.  She looked like
one of the Furies, with too-bright eyes, abrasions on her face and
hands, and bruises on her arms from being grabbed.
	She remembered suddenly all the bruises she'd never been able to
explain while she was growing up.  Were they proof?  Or was she just a
fragile-skinned person, clumsy as she'd thought at the time, as everyone
had said about her?
	"Yeah, we had some problems," Mulder admitted to their boss over the
phone.  Scully could hear Skinner yelling at him from across the room. 
"Apparently local law thought -"  Cut off again.  More shouting.  This
was her fault.  She was very cold and very small.  She'd always been
afraid when her dad yelled, and Skinner should be yelling at her, not at
Mulder.  Mulder was protecting her again.  She shouldn't need
protecting.
	Oh, she was very low.  She should stand up for herself.  Face Skinner.
Admit to what she'd said and done and suspected.
	"Intuition," Mulder was saying to Skinner.  "A woman knows -"
	Such a lame excuse.  He knew it.  But it was all she had.  He stopped.
	"Scully isn't feeling very well." He glanced at her.  Skinner wanted to
talk to her, but Mulder didn't want her to talk to  Skinner.  That was
okay. She didn't want to talk to him.  She couldn't tell him anything
except her dirty little secrets.
	The pain in her knee was making her sick.  She focused on it, feeling
the throb in the joint, somehow churning her stomach.  There was only
Midol in her bag and she didn't think it would have any effect on a
twisted knee, but she took it anyway, covering her eyes with her hands
to try to ward the tears off.  She wasn't going to cry again, because if
she let herself begin, she was not going to be able to stop.

	Mulder was drained after his conversation with Skinner.  It was so much
work to be honest but not tell his boss too much.  There was no reason
for Skinner to know about Scully.  She didn't want him to know.  He
stopped and looked at her wife and sighed.  He and Skinner had managed
to agree that the case here was ultimately unimportant.  There was a
difficulty with the child murder matter and Skinner wanted them back on
an early flight.  He wouldn't elaborate, and that told Mulder it was
bad.
	Scully was sitting up in the chair when he turned toward her.  Her head
was propped up on her hands, eyes closed.  He could hear her soft, even
breathing.  She must have been completely exhausted because she'd fallen
asleep in the chair.
	Mulder had slept sitting up in more than one chair in his life and he
remembered the poor rest and sore neck he'd woken with in the morning. 
He couldn't let her wake up sore and cranky.  He nudged her and she
mumbled but didn't open her eyes.  After a second, deciding whether he
should touch her while she was sleeping, knowing she was sensitive to
being touched right now, Mulder made a decision and pulled her up onto
her feet. It was only a few steps across the room and he lay her on the
bed.
	She yelped, eyes still closed, and his heart clenched.  He'd done
something wrong. He shouldn't have touched her. Not breathing, he
watched.  Her frown eased as she shifted her legs. He remembered her
limp and the way she'd fallen and decided that he hadn't hurt her.  He
turned off the light and lay down next to her, marveling at what a day
it had been.
	Things with Scully never got boring.
	He hoped, however, that they would get easier.  Her running away from
him had been heartbreaking and terrifying. He didn't want that to ever
happen again.  He turned to lie on his side, facing her in the bed.  Her
body was heavy and limp.  She was completely out.  He watched her and
worried about the meeting with Skinner.  He didn't think he'd slept at
all until she woke him several hours later.
	Hard fists beat at his chest, rousing him.  His eyes opened and he was
disoriented for a moment.  Then he saw he'd sought Scully's body in his
sleep, tangled his legs with hers, pulled her close.  Still asleep,
she'd taken offense.  She struggled against him, to push him away, as
her eyes darted in dreams.  Her chest rose and fell impossibly fast,
laboring.
	He moved away from her quickly, but it didn't do any good.  She began
to scream - animal cries of pain that eviscerated him.  He froze,
feeling his heart stop.  He didn't know what to do.  He just knew he had
to help her.  He said her name but she was too deeply asleep to hear
him. Not able to bear the sound any longer, he put his hand over her
mouth.
	Her eyes opened and after a start, her body went completely limp.  "You
were screaming," he said.  He was drenched in cold sweat, he realized,
removing his hand.  She'd scared him.  Scared them both.
	"Maybe I needed to scream."  Her voice was weak.  She didn't remember
the dream exactly,  but remembered the terror she had felt.  She could
feel the dream - memory? - in her body.  Mulder stared at her, with her
skin so pale.  "Excuse me," she said calmly, rolling out of bed.  He saw
her knees wobble before deciding to hold her weight.  He heard her
violently wretching a moment later when she reached the bathroom.
Whatever she'd been remembering, or dreaming, that made her scream with
such terror, made her sick.  All because he'd touched her?  Was this his
fault?  He leaned against the wall, feeling responsible.  He wasn't
doing anything right.  His instincts were terrible.
	How the hell was he supposed to know what to do?
	"He used to put his hand over my mouth so I wouldn't make any noise. 
Because he hurt me," she said, trying to explain when she returned. 
Mulder looked at her but she wouldn't meet his eyes.  She didn't say
anything more, putting her teeth into her lip. Stopping her words.  He
didn't think he'd ever seen her do that before.
	Mulder nodded.  Trying to understand. It was the most communication
they'd had all day, which didn't say much.  God, it had been a terrible
day.  He wanted to sleep.  He wanted to know she was all right and
safe.  His body felt so cold.  Did she get this cold?
	"So if you could not -" she trailed off, seeing him nod, knowing he
understood.  Not to put his hand over her mouth again.  Even if she was
screaming.  She sighed, not wanting to say anything more than 
"Nightmares."
	He didn't have any words.  Words couldn't make this better.  He wished
he could heal her, but he couldn't.  He didn't know at that moment if
anything could.  The green glow of the clock indicated it was four am. 
"Our flight's at six," he said, looking at her.  After a second, he
headed for a hot shower.  She looked like she could use one too, but he
didn't know how to suggest she join him.  He wanted to know her body was
warm.  He wanted to make her soul warm with his love, but he didn't know
how to do that.
	"I'm going to be fired," she said when he emerged from the bathroom. 
She was fully dressed in a charcoal suit with her packed bag sitting at
her feet.
	He toweled off and began to dress, not knowing what to say to her. 
"You might need more time."  He knew that she wasn't going to lose her
job - she might need a longer leave of absence, to be easier on herself
- but she wasn't going to be fired.  She did a good job of covering, so
good that even he probably would not have known what she was going
through if he wasn't so closely involved with her.  She held things
inside and he wanted her to share them with him.
	"I can't believe this," she said.
	"There is something going with that family on that local law didn't
want to deal with, that's why they gave the case to us.  But it's not an
FBI matter," he stated.  "I think Skinner knows you don't act without a
reason."
	"I never knew you could be so diplomatic."  She choked out a laugh. 
Trying to defend her crazy behavior.  She wanted to scream it at him:
I'm crazy, Mulder, can't you see it?  But she couldn't say it because
she was ashamed.
	"I'm trying," he told her.  He had no choice but to be diplomatic and
strong like her and keep them going even when it seemed like they were
going to fall.  Wanting to be close to her, he picked up her hand and
caressed the skin on her finger around the gold wedding band. It felt
especially soft and smooth.  She shivered.
	"I'm a pain in the ass," she said quietly, looking away from him. 
Pulling away,  not wanting to deal with him or the facts of his love and
their marriage.  "I'll understand...this isn't what you signed on for."
	When he realized she was telling him to leave her, it shocked him and
wounded him.   He heard the words and didn't want to believe them.  Why
would she do this?  "I love you, Scully," was all he had to say to that,
bewildered.  He had never thought he would have to be the strong one,
and now he was learning that it was hard.  How had she borne his burdens
for so long?  
	"Nights are hardest," she said, neatly avoiding the subject as she made
a final sweep of the motel room, not turning up any forgotten
belongings.
	He had to agree, but he wished she'd said she loved him.  Maybe she
couldn't do that right now, but that didn't make it hurt any less.  He
could only hold onto the hope that if they made it through the days all
right, things would become more normal and the nights would stop being
so hard.

	Skinner was very, very grim when they met with him late that afternoon,
still grimy and exhausted from their travels.  The plane had been
delayed and got in late so they met with Skinner straight from the
airport, still lugging their gear.
	"What the hell happened out there?" Skinner demanded the instant they
walked into his office, even before the door was closed.  Mulder pushed
it shut and Skinner continued.  "Wayne Tintner says he's going to sue
for invasion of privacy and slander."
	Neither of them said a word.
	"Well?"
	Scully knew she had to take responsibility.  She was letting her
personal situation cloud her judgment and there was absolutely no excuse
for that.  "I said some things I shouldn't have, sir," she admitted.
	"Such as?"
	"I suggested these phantom attacks were directed at him because he had
been abusing his daughter."
	Skinner sucked in his breath sharply.  "I assume there was some sort of
evidence to support your allegation?" he asked.  Scully was a fine
agent; he didn't think she would be as careless as Tintner had described
her.
	"It was intuition," Mulder answered for her.  He was amazed, watching
her.  His old rational Scully had returned.  His heart surged with pride
and excitement; for the first time in a long time, he felt good.
	"And as such, I shouldn't have said anything," she continued.  Hating
herself and the ground she stood on and the way everything she touched
seemed to crumble into dust.   As strong as her belief was, as certain
as she was that she was correct, that was not what they had been sent to
investigate.  She'd blown their chances of investigating the poltergeist
hoax whether she was right or not.
	Skinner nodded.  She could feel his dark brown eyes studying her as he
decided to accept her statement.  He knew she was right.  "We're having
problems with the Wilder prosecution.  Problems that involve both of you
and question your conduct on this matter."  Skinner said. "A lot of
issues have been raised."
	Scully couldn't find her voice to ask for an elaboration.  She wasn't
certain she wanted to know what kind of issues.
	"The OPC wishes to sit in on your depositions, which have been
scheduled to begin tomorrow," Skinner continued. The older man removed
his glasses and looked at his agents point-blank.  Scully focused on the
red marks on either side of his nose from his glasses.  "Is there
anything you'd like to tell me?"  The question wasn't asked by their
boss, Skinner, but by Skinner who was concerned for them personally and
professionally.  Did everyone wear so many guises? Scully thought
suddenly.  Maybe it wasn't only her.
	After a long pause, Mulder said seriously, "I have no doubt that the
OPC will find our conduct appropriate."
	"I sure as hell hope so," Skinner said, his words a dire warning. He
put his glasses back on and shuffled some papers on his desk, dismissing
them.
	Scully was perfectly calm as they walked out of the building, until
they reached the basement parking level where their car waited for
them.  Then everything seemed to change and she clutched at Mulder's
arm.  "He knows, Mulder," she said.  
	He looked at her and found her eyes cold and hollow.  "You don't -" he
began.
	"He knows," she said again, removing her hand. Mulder could feel her
withdrawing from him and knew he hadn't responded properly.  Sometimes
he wished she would give him a clue. "That's what the problem is.  My
career is over." She sounded convinced.
	"You haven't done anything wrong," he told her.  He wished he could say
he'd seen weaker agents overcome more, but he had vowed never to lie to
her. They both knew this was a battle, and war was never easy.  He
wanted to tell her that her career was not as important as her health,
but he thought she would think he was making light of the situation.
	He got in on the driver's side to steer them to her apartment.  Her
message light was blinking when they walked in, but she ignored it,
wandering from room to room as though looking for something she had
lost.
	Her soul, was his chilling thought as he dialed his home number and
keyed in the digits to retrieve his messages, all the while looked at
the red light blinking on her answering machine. It was mesmerizing.
	"Mulder. Got a lead on a place for you guys.  Brief us." Frohike's was
the only waiting message.  He dialed the number, wondering what Scully
was doing.
	"Frohike," the phone was answered cheerfully.
	"I can't believe you answered the phone like that," Mulder said.  Maybe
the world was ending, if the even Gunmen weren't paranoid any more.
	"We finally convinced Langly that Caller ID is not the spawn of Big
Brother era telecommunications monopoly," Frohike replied cheerfully. 
He enjoyed his conspiracies, and Mulder suspected he enjoyed springing
them upon him.  "Knew it was you.  How's Scully?"
	"She's fine."  His friends hadn't even seemed this concerned about her
cancer.  By marrying him, she had become one of the inner circle.  He
was happy to think that they had finally accepted her.  It surprised him
that she had become his measure of how important people were to him -
and his wanting them to like Scully told him how much he valued the
Gunmen in his life.
	"Good.  We got a line on the perfect house for you two.  It doesn't hit
the ads till tomorrow, so if you go tonight, you can steal it."
	"I don't know..." Mulder hedged.  With the noose of the OPC over them,
they had more pressing concerns than their living arrangements.
	"Let me give you the address," Frohike insisted and Mulder waited
patiently as his friend recited it for him. "Are you going to go?"
	"I don't know," Mulder said honestly.  "I need to talk to Scully."
	"How are things between you?" Frohike asked, turning serious.
	"I don't know," Mulder answered.  He wished he did.
	"Marriage is hard," his friend confided.  Before Mulder could ask him
what he knew about that, a dial tone sounded in his ear.  
	Mulder replaced the phone, wondering why Frohike had ended the
conversation so abruptly, staring again at the red light on the
answering machine.  He sighed and stood.  "Scully."  He walked through
the apartment, looking for her.
	He found her in the bathroom, dewy eyed, with a bottle of pills in her
hand.  "Scully?" he asked, frowning as he walked closer.
	"I was thinking of sleeping," she said and set the bottle down. 
Sleeping pills.  "I'm so scared." With the simple statement, she put
herself into his arms, pressing her face against his chest.
	"Scully -"  She didn't feel strong now.  She felt soft, so easily
injured or punctured or broken. Her hair smelled sweet when he inhaled
and he felt its scent travel through his body.
	"Dana," she whispered a correction and it made his heart glow.  He
called her Dana in the past when he wanted to reach past her
professionalism to her emotions.  She'd never asked him to call her by
her first name before.
	"Dana," he confirmed and the name felt odd in his mouth.  "The boys
have lead on a house they swear we'll love.  Do you want to go and look
at it?"
	She nodded, slipping from his embrace.  How could she look so
vulnerable and radiant at the same time? he wondered.  Love, he decided,
it must be love.  He held her coat for her as she slipped it on and they
headed out to the car.
	Dana's eyes were watchful on the darkness and the trees and the night. 
She was afraid of what they might be hiding.  Fear pervaded through her
and she hated it.  Always cowering, even away from love.  Had Mulder
really loved her all this time and she had never noticed?  What had she
been paying attention to, then, if not to him?
	She had to be very good to him, she reasoned, for fear of losing him.
	But fear of loving him and fear of losing him were both so big and
scary. She had to watch, to make sure to please him.  She wanted to be
happy.  Dana often did what other people wanted so they would be happy.
It was a drive that had begun in her childhood.  If she could just be
perfect, people might like her.  And not hurt her.
	Mulder almost missed the turnoff.  The house was old and stood beyond
some tall trees that separated it from a nearby subdivision.  "Isolated,
but close to town," Mulder remarked.
	"In ten years this will all be built up," Scully said with sharp
practicality.
	Dana watched to see how he would react.
	Mulder grinned.  "We'll have to buy the land too," he said as though it
was already decided.  The house was charming - small enough for two
people but with airy, clean lines that hinted it would suit children and
a dog.
	Inside, its combination of country charm and modernity continued.  It
was like nothing Mulder had ever seen before.  He could picture her
furniture here.  He could picture his furniture as well.  When he closed
his eyes, he could see it all laid out as though he was already there. 
Her couch against the wall with his typewriter poster over it. His
bookcase next to her entertainment armoire.  One of the three bedrooms
could become a den with his couch in it.
	"I love it," he stated, feeling full of contentment.
	She was nodding.
	"Say you want to buy it." He hoped that she would.
	"It's perfect," Scully conceded and began to smile.  She reached for
his hand and squeezed it as they looked out the window at the hill and
the trees and their bureau car parked in the driveway.
	They were home.

end 17a.

Anamorphosis 17b/28
by eponine119
eponine119@att.net

-17B-

	"We'll have to call..." Mulder began, reaching for his cell phone as
they stepped out onto the back porch together.  He trailed off when he
saw the playhouse in the yard and looked at Scully, worried about her
reaction.  Honestly, he expected her to burst into tears since they were
planning their life together and her view of that life did not include
children.
	She dropped his hand and started for the tiny house.  He followed,
afraid her determined look was not her own.  It had only been a short
time since she declared the others wouldn't be back, no matter how much
he wanted to believe they were gone.  "Scully?"
	"Dana."  Her grin was happy in the dark playhouse and her body against
his invited more than an embrace.
	"What're we doing in here?" he asked.
	"Make love to me," she requested with all the spunk of a romance novel
heroine.
	"Here?" he cried.  "There could be spiders or -"
	She kissed him hard to silence him.  "Now," she whispered, pressing her
hand against him.  He was ready.  She tipped her head and looked at him,
her hair swinging from where she'd tucked it behind her ear.  So
beautiful. She pulled open her coat and nudged his head to her breast.
	He thought she murmured, "I will have your children," as she was
consumed by their passion and it stilled him.
	She continued their leisurely kissing and toyed with his hair as he
moved away from her, taking his hands away, but her words weighed
heavily on his mind as he led her from the playhouse, back to the car. 
"Did you say you can have children?" he asked, worried.  If she wasn't
Scully...if she'd gone delusional...again...
	"My ovaries weren't removed," she told him once they were in the car. 
Her pitch and modulation assured him that she was Scully.  Flushed and
disheveled from making out, but Scully.  "A woman is born with millions
of ova because so many are defective.  Reproduction has never been a
science of exaction.  The statistics go as high as 70% of pregnancies
spontaneously ending before they're ever realized."
	Numbed by her recitation of fact, he wondered what her point was. 
"Scully?" he asked, as he often did when she was losing him to
minutiae.  "What are you trying to say?"
	"I don't think all my chances are gone," she stated.
	He'd never realized his partner was an optimist.
	"I didn't experience any of the symptoms woman experience when they
lose their ovaries. My doctor never noticed anything wrong with me. I
bleed, Mulder." Her tone was too high. Too desperate.  "Maybe the ova
that are left are immature or damaged beyond viability, but I know my
body, Mulder, and I know you have only the word of men who worked on the
project.   Men we can not trust."
	"I know how seductive the need to believe is -" he began.
	She just shook her head, closing up and crossing her arms low over her
belly. It was a gesture that made his throat itch.  She was staving off
pain.  The pain of his disbelief?
	Or was she trying to tell him something more normal?  Like she was
emotional because it was a certain phase of the moon?
	"There's always IVF.  And surrogates.  And cloning."  He added the last
because he was overwhelmed and sarcasm had always been his defense
against pain.
	"Why did you say that?" she demanded, hurt.
	He shook his head, unable to explain.  He pulled up in front of her
apartment and she got out.  He trailed after her, following in silence
through the doorway.  He saw her head for her answering machine and he
went into the bathroom to wash up and give her privacy, but his timing
was off - she'd hesitated, and the message was just beginning to play.
	The quiet, controlled voice of a woman.  He stopped to allow Scully her
space.  "Dana, it's your sister in law."  A long pause.  "I don't know
what to say to you.  We have tried...we've been good to you.  These
accusations...you can only be a very disturbed person.  Very disturbed. 
My husband, your brother, has been nothing but gentle with me and with
our son.  If you've been hurt by someone else, I am sorry, but please
don't sicken me with these falsehoods designed only to get my sympathy
and our pity.  You need help.  Professional help."
	The tape clicked off and whirred to rewind.  She didn't move.
	Mulder moved away, to pretend he hadn't heard, and she saw him.  "No
one believes me," she said, her voice thick.  "Do you believe me?"
	"Scully -"
	"Oh, God, even you don't believe me!"  She looked like he'd injured her
physically.
	"I do believe you Scully," he assured her.
	"But there's no proof and I - sometimes I can't even believe it myself.
And I don't know how to live with that."
	"You'll live through it.  You'll fight and you'll win."  He hugged
her.  "Get some rest.  It's been a long day and tomorrow will be
longer."
	"Where are you going to be?" she asked.
	"I have to call about the house," he said.  She sat down and waited for
him.  They went to bed together and just held each other close for the
longest time.  Mulder was determined to see her safely asleep and
finally he felt her relax against him and allowed his eyes to close as
well.  Trying not to think about the hearings they faced in the morning.

end of 17B/28.  [17 is the only part to have an A and B]
Comments appreciated: eponine119@att.net