From: playwrtrx@aol.com
Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2000 22:12:34 EDT
Subject: xfc: Gutless by Magdeleine (11a/16)
Source: xfc

Title:  Gutless (11a/16)
Author:  Magdeleine

GUTLESS

Chapter 11

Cooper County Sheriff's Department
10:28 A.M.


Mulder had finally figured it out.

It had taken him a while, but he was suddenly, giddily, completely certain 
what was wrong with Scully.

He eyed her carefully, his gaze brushing the crown of her hair.  She was so 
regal, so vibrantly dignified that in this dingy, badly lit hallway she 
seemed to glow like an oil lamp.  If he didn't know her so well, he might not 
have noticed that anything was wrong.  Hell, he almost hadn't noticed anyway.

The slide and grit of their footsteps was very loud on the peeling linoleum.  
Granulated dirt was tucked into every crevice of the floor, darkening the 
jagged edges where pieces of brittle linoleum had broken off.  This building 
was new, as law-enforcement buildings went, but shoddily constructed; for 
some indefinable reason it reminded Mulder of the basement of the Hoover 
building.

The rhythmic click of Scully's heels echoed off the wooden paneling like a 
metronome.  Mulder could feel the edge of her pancake holster under her suit 
coat, brushing against one of his fingers as she walked.  He kept his hand in 
gentle contact with her back, some half-forgotten part of his mind glorying 
in this little secret that he and only he knew -- not just the location of 
her weapon, but this other thing, too.

It was obvious.  She hadn't slept; she was touchy, antagonistic, even more 
skeptical than normal; and, for the kicker, she'd been avoiding his touch.  
Now, Mulder had never claimed to be an expert on women, but in this case the 
facts spoke for themselves.  Hell, they practically *screamed*.

Mulder stole another look at her face.  From this angle, most of what he 
could see was hair, but there was a sliver of pale cheek, waxing to a 
crescent when she turned her head slightly.  A little paler than normal, 
although heat came off her in waves, particularly where his hand brushed the 
small of her back.

It all added up.

Scully was obviously coming down with the flu.

They hadn't fought in the car.  They had barely spoken.  The awkward silence 
had draped over them like San Francisco fog, guilt and regret occasionally 
flashing from their individual lighthouses.  

Mulder had let her choose their destination as a sort of peace offering.  
He'd expected her to opt for a quick tour of the two crime scenes they hadn't 
already seen -- they could tramp around outside, check for any signs of 
forced entry that the good sheriff and his men had missed, then head inside 
and nose around the actual crime scenes, see if they could sniff anything out.

Scully, however, had sat pale and serious with her hands neatly folded on top 
of the folders on her lap.  She hadn't said much, but the words she used were 
precise -- they were going to the sheriff's office.  They should speak with 
Volney, find out exactly what they were missing, and coax the missing 
statements and crime photos and files out of Volney's hands.

She hadn't looked at him.

Mulder had looked at her, though, his eyes tracing the cool lines of her 
face, and at that moment the flu revelation had crept out of back of his mind 
and tackled him, taking him completely by surprise as his eureka moments 
often did.  He had blinked, and looked back at the road, and driven to the 
sheriff's office in silence.

They were still in silence now.  And she was still pale.

His hand twitched involuntarily at her back as he thought protective thoughts 
and entertained melodramatic visions of making it up to her -- the fight, the 
flu, everything.  He could get her back to the motel and put her to bed, get 
a glimpse of those silky pajamas before he tucked the sheets up around her 
chin.  He could find someplace in this town that made good chicken-noodle 
soup, and feed it to her spoonful by steaming spoonful ... the heady image of 
Scully's lips closing around a spoon that *he* was holding was enough to 
distract him from what had been a purely humanitarian plan, and he guiltily 
squashed the thought.  

Then, of course, he could go off and take care of the case himself.  

Mulder let go of the daydream regretfully.  Take care of Scully?  Right.  If 
he tried to take care of her, Scully would tie his hand to the parrot cage 
and let Guido bite all his fingers off.  Wouldn't happen.  End of story.

As they reached the end of the hall, there was a rush of cool air, slipping 
deliciously through the overheated office atmosphere like vanilla ice cream 
in hot chocolate.  Mulder spotted Volney in a corner next to a rust-laced 
file cabinet, propping open a metal door with one big meaty hand as he 
wrestled a chunk of limestone across the floor with his boot.  

"Hey there," Volney grunted in surprise, noticing the agents at almost the 
same moment the limestone reached the door with a grinding *thunk*.  "Didn't 
expect to see the two of you today."  He released the door experimentally; it 
*thunk*ed back and forth between the wall and the impromptu doorstop several 
times in swift succession and then hovered in the middle.  Volney seemed 
satisfied.  "Sorry 'bout the cold, but some damn fool burnt a bag of popcorn 
a while back and I can't stand the smell any more."  He eyed the agents, 
scratching thoughtfully at the roots of his moustache.  "Autopsy done?"

Scully nodded, her expression grave.

"You here about the results?" Volney asked hopefully, his copper eyes sharp 
and curious.

"I have a few theories," Scully said.  She stood straight and tall, and 
Mulder felt sudden pride sweep him like sheet lightning.  "If we could step 
into your office to discuss them ...?"

Volney nodded curtly.  "Sure."  Another curl of cold air swept into the room; 
the door bounced between the wall and the stone, *thunk-thunk, thunk*.  
Volney ambled through a door with the word 'SHERIFF' lettered on it, not 
waiting to see if the agents would follow.

They followed.  Mulder let Scully pick the first of two square metal-frame 
chairs, and sat in the other, noticing with a pang that she scooted her chair 
a few discreet inches from his, sitting primly on the edge.  She did that a 
lot, sitting half-off the chair, her back straight and shoulders square; 
Mulder suspected that she only did so because otherwise her feet would not 
reach the ground.  Today, though, the chair was low; today, Scully was 
radiating ice-cold authority.

"They say it's gonna rain," Volney told them conversationally.  He settled 
into the swivel chair behind his desk and shifted his weight around until he 
got comfortable; the chair protested with a soprano shriek of frustration.  
"Not too much, I hope," he added.  "It'll be hell on the farmers for 
planting."

Mulder watched Volney watch Scully, and he caught another glimpse of that 
razor-sharp curiosity beneath the sheriff's easygoing veneer.  He felt a 
familiar flash of triumph, the victory of a safecracker as a stubborn bank 
vault finally clicks and cracks open, revealing a hint of the contents.  Just 
a hint.

Volney had a personal stake in the results of this autopsy.  Mulder couldn't 
tell what it was, but he was suddenly certain that the sheriff's keen 
interest was more than professional.

The thought was unsettling.

"So," Volney said at last, "what'd you find on the Schmidt kid?"

"The results of Joshua's autopsy were consistent with the other three 
victims."  Scully's chin tipped up with a touch of arrogance.  "The cause of 
death in each case is unknown, but probably identical.  Some aspects of the 
autopsies seem to point toward poisoning, but every tox screen has come back 
negative."

Volney leaned back, stroking his moustache; the chair uttered another angry 
squeal.  "So you're saying they *weren't* poisoned."

"Unless," Mulder said, unable to help himself, "they were poisoned with a 
substance not known to medical science." 

Scully shot him a brief gunfire glare and turned her attention back to 
Volney.  "It's far more likely that this is an enzyme that occurs naturally 
in the body.  Potassium, for instance, causes heart failure in a matter of 
seconds when it's injected into a vein, but a tox screen might miss it 
because potassium is a normal part of our chemical makeup.  We could attempt 
a more careful chemical analysis of the bodies but, frankly, with the 
internal organs missing in each case I'm not sure how accurate it would be."

"Couldn't you work backward?" Volney asked.  "Figure out what could do this 
kind of damage?"

"Normally, yes."  Scully's tone was level but the twitch of her fingertips 
was pure sour grapes.  "Except that I've never seen anything like this 
before.  I've sent blood and tissue samples to our field office in Kansas 
City, but they might not get back to us for several days."

Volney made a derisive noise as though he was in the mood to spit, but was 
too polite to do so in the presence of a lady.  There was, briefly, silence.  
The humming of the wind returned, redoubled, gained harmonic overtones.  
*Thunk-thunk, thunk-thunk, thunk*.

"There's a possibility," Scully said at last, "that this could be a binary 
poison -- two substances that are only lethal when they're combined.  One 
component could be administered hours or even days before the other, 
depending on the quantity and how it entered the bloodstream." 

Volney chewed viciously on his moustache.

"Perhaps," Scully continued, her eyes hooded, "a more expedient way of going 
about this would be to determine a motive for these killings."  She waited a 
beat, and casually let the penny drop.  "Which I believe would require 
unrestricted access to the witness depositions, the remainder of the crime 
scene photographs, and any other records you may have gathered."

Volney's face went hard.  He glowered at Scully for a long moment, then 
switched his glare to Mulder as though somehow this was *his* idea, but 
Mulder wisely did not make eye contact.  Volney's mouth twisted and he 
scowled at Scully, attempting to intimidate her into dropping the subject.

Scully did not intimidate easily.  "Sheriff, we've been coming across things 
that were not in your reports, evidence which you obviously have not informed 
your own deputies of."  She looked Volney straight in the eye and let him 
have it.  "I would like to request at this time that you share whatever 
information you have been holding back."

Volney blew a frustrated breath through his moustache.  "Agent Scully," he 
said, "I have already briefed your partner on whatever trivial information 
you may be missing."

"Agent Mulder has filled me in on the details which you gave him, sir, but 
until we have every scrap of information, I believe that there will be the 
continuing chance that we may be missing something important; trivial though 
some of these small details may seem, one of them may turn out to be a key 
piece of evidence or trigger some thought process that leads to the 
identification of a suspect."

Volney's frown drew deep lines in his face.  "I understand your concern, 
ma'am, but let me assure you that there's no reason to worry.  At the risk of 
repeating myself, I already told you everything I know."

"It is very possible that you *think* you have told us everything, sir," 
Scully said with icy clarity, "but without the actual physical documents in 
our hands there is always the chance that some piece of information has 
slipped through the cracks."  

"Slip through the cracks?"  Volney snorted.  "Hell.  Did you see the news 
this morning?"

No," Scully said dryly, folding her arms across her chest, "as a matter of 
fact we missed it."

Volney leaned forward to rest his elbows on the desk, his hands clasped 
together in a callused knot.  "Then I'll just have to fill you in.  This 
morning the Channel Ten six o'clock news ran the murder of Joshua Schmidt as 
their leading story.  Now, I'm already upset about the fact that I woke up to 
an instant replay of one of the longest nights of my life, but when I heard 
the nice lady on the news hand out a couple of quotes that she said came from 
the FBI agents working the case ... well, that just ruined my whole day."

Scully was unfazed.  "Neither Agent Mulder nor myself have made a habit of 
chatting with representatives of the media, sir.  In our line of work we find 
it somewhat inconvenient."


"I didn't say you had, ma'am, but it's a hell of a case in point.  There is a 
leak, and it's a big one, and I don't know where it is.  I know it's probably 
not the two of you because this was happening long before you showed up, but 
the fact is I can't afford to let this information out of my hands."

"I assure you," Scully said, etching her words in granite, "we are well 
versed in taking extra security precautions for confidential documents."

Volney shook his head.  "I'm not letting those documents out of this 
building," he announced.

Scully's chin went up another centimeter, her eyes like blued steel.  
"Sheriff Volney, I am qualified as a medical doctor as well as a federal 
agent.  Agent Mulder has an Oxford education in psychology and was an analyst 
with the Violent Crimes Unit for several years.  If you are looking for 
someone more qualified to track down this killer, *sir*, you may have to call 
Sherlock Holmes and see if he can catch the Concorde from London.  As it is, 
I suggest that you cooperate and give us what we need to do our job."

There was a long moment of silence.  The wind thrummed again, pulling music 
from the door as though it was a bronze harp string, and the door 
*thunka-thunka-thunka-thunk*ed several times before settling down.  Volney -- 
this big, graying heap of a man who in another life might have been a stoic 
bachelor farmer or an assistant director of the FBI -- turned his attention 
inward, briefly, eyes narrowed as though consulting an inner set of scales.

Scully studied the sheriff, her face thoughtful as she weighed her options.  
The pallor that Mulder had noticed when they were alone had vanished; Scully 
was in full federal agent mode, suspending her private weaknesses in the 
interests of What Must Be Done.  It was a breathtaking sight, and Mulder was 
not immune.

Volney returned from his internal journey and focused on Scully.  The two 
stared at each other in steely silence, the air tense with the clash of wills.

When Scully spoke again, her voice came like a whip-crack.  "Sheriff," she 
said, tilting her head to the side the tiniest bit, "I would like to suggest 
a compromise."

<X><X><X><X>

Please continue to Chapter 11b.

Title:  Gutless (11b/16)
Author:  Magdeleine

<X><X><X><X>

The pile of file folders was not very thick.  Scully had tried not to 
exaggerate it in her mind, but nonetheless she'd expected ... well, more.  
Large, important-looking files that would correspond to the amount of effort 
put into gaining access to them, not this scrawny bunch with crumpled pages 
straggling out of the pale manila folders.

Mulder was more vocal about his disappointment.  "That's it?  All of it?"

"I told you there wasn't much to it," Volney said, laying one big, callused 
hand on the little pile as though it were a favorite dog.  "Few pictures, 
coupla depositions, some notes I typed up.  Logs from the crime scenes.  
Lists of items found at the scene, evidence reports, that sort of thing."

"Nice," Mulder muttered.  Scully sighed, and turned away from him to examine 
their impromptu library.  It seemed to be a conference room of sorts -- tiny, 
square, paneled with the same faux wood that covered the walls of the 
hallway.  The ceiling was low and reminiscent of an elementary school, with a 
single row of recessed fluorescent lights, slightly off-center; one of the 
rectangular plastic covers had apparently fallen and was propped in a corner, 
looking isolated and forlorn.  An oblong banquet table in the center was 
surrounded by a number of metal folding chairs, each with "CC Sheriff's 
Dept." stenciled on the back in a powdery blue.

Scully's gaze accidentally intersected with Mulder's; their eyes locked for a 
brief second before she lifted a wry eyebrow and turned back to the sheriff 
with a tight lipped smile.  "We appreciate this, sir."

Volney gave her a wry look.  "I'm glad to hear that."  He jerked a thumb at 
the door.  "You remember our agreement, now.  These documents do not leave 
this room.  When you go, they stay.  I'm not making any exceptions to that."

Scully felt her smile fading, as though it were being erased.  "We weren't 
asking for any.  Sir."


The sheriff nodded firmly.  "Just as long as it stays that way."  He watched 
them for a moment.  "I'll be back down the hall.  You yell when you're done." 
 He turned and unceremoniously walked out the door.

Scully glanced at Mulder.  He caught her look and tipped his head toward the 
table, raising his eyebrows slightly in a silent question.  She examined the 
selection of folding chairs and picked one, the legs clanging dully against 
the chair next to it when she pulled it out and again when she scooted back 
in after sitting.  Mulder sat on the other side of the narrow table at a 
careful diagonal from her -- not directly across, nothing confrontational.

Scully took out her notebook and a pencil and nudged the pile of files across 
the table at Mulder.  He started to reach for one, but hesitated, his eyes 
flickering up to her face.  She shrugged a little and gave the files a harder 
push.  Mulder lifted his eyebrows, processing this.  He sifted through the 
pile and selected one; after a thoughtful look at it, he offered it to Scully.

She accepted it gingerly, with a little nod.  Silence fell in the little 
room, broken only by the rustle of paper as the two agents perused the files.

"Scully, could you pass me the --"

"This one?"

"Yeah.  Thanks."  

Another lull.  Mulder's chair squeaked as he shifted his weight, his knee 
brushing Scully's under the narrow table.  She glanced up at him.

"Sorry."

"Mmhmm."

Silence.  The whispery scratch of Scully's pencil as she took careful notes 
in her little notebook seemed abnormally loud.  The fluorescent lights hummed 
like an old refrigerator.

Footsteps.  A skinny deputy glanced idly into the conference room, locked 
eyes with Scully, and looked away, embarrassed.  He walked into the darkened 
room directly across the hall and flipped on the light, revealing a battered 
copier with a smudgy rosette of footprints near the paper tray.  The machine 
made loud groaning sounds; the deputy shifted back and forth in a little 
waiting dance, his eyes fixed on the business end of the copier.  A copy 
emerged; the deputy grabbed it, switched off the light, and left, going to 
great lengths to avoid looking into the conference room.

Scully felt Mulder's eyes on her.  She glanced at him, but by that point he 
was staring at the folder in front of him.  She shrugged it off and went back 
to reading.  

A few moments later she could feel him looking at her again.  She set her 
pencil down perfectly parallel to her notebook, *click*, and looked up.  
"Yes, Mulder?"

He slid a file across the table, pushing it cue-stick style with a single 
finger.  "Evidence lists," he said shortly.

"What about them?"

Using the same finger, Mulder flicked the file open.  The finger ran lightly 
down a column, seeming to read it by sense of touch, and tapped 
significantly.  "Contents of the drawer of Lola Gruber's night table."

Scully read it out loud.  "One bottle of Tylenol.  Toenail clippers.  Three 
paperback romance novels."  She raised an eyebrow.  "Sixty-seven business 
cards from Taymor's Staffing services, tied with a red ... satin ... ribbon."

"Mmhmm."  He flicked the page over and tapped at a new spot.  "Lola Gruber's 
desktop."

Scully humored him.  "Sixteen pencils.  Checkbook.  Calculator, broken.  
Three-hundred and ninety-four page handwritten manuscript of a lurid romance, 
staring a heroine named Lena Grabel and the handsome owner of a temp agency 
named John Taylor."

"With originality like that," Mulder deadpanned, "I'm sure she'll be 
published posthumously."

"Mulder, does all this oblique hinting mean that you believe Lola Gruber had 
a crush on Jim Taymor?"

"Not just her."  Mulder single-fingered another anemic file across the table 
and flipped it open.  This time he stopped at a photograph, and tapped it.  
"Here.  This is the wall directly across from Greg Marks' bed."

The shot was in color, starkly lit -- a wall and a door which apparently led 
to the hallway.  The door and door frame were unmarred; the wall next to it 
was narrow, barely wide enough to accommodate the huge, unframed oil painting.

It was abstract, in garish colors that reminded Scully of other crime scene 
pictures, bloodier ones.  These colors, though, were blues and purples and 
vivid greens all swirled together, a maelstrom with a man's face leering out 
of it.  A stylized face with vivid blue eyes, in a picture that somehow 
screamed sexuality without giving her the faintest idea how it was 
accomplished.

Scully looked up at Mulder; their eyes met and locked.  "Jim Taymor," she 
said, voicing the name hanging fire between them.

Mulder nodded, a feral smile lighting his eyes.

She examined the picture again.  "Greg painted this himself?"

"Bingo."

Scully considered it, shuffling ideas and laying them out like a game of 
solitaire.  "Marjorie, Lola, Greg.  What about Joshua?"

"That one I don't know yet, but three out of four ain't bad."  Mulder tapped 
his index finger on the file in front of Scully, his expression dark and 
intent.  "Scully, is it just me, or were all of the victims somewhat less 
than popular?"

She arched an eyebrow.  "Meaning ...?"

Mulder lifted his head and began ticking off points on his fingers.  "No 
significant others.  Few, if any, friends.  And, judging from what we've 
heard, all of them were pretty much on the bottom of the food chain in the 
local dating scene.  Beyond the fact that none of them were nominated for 
Prom Queen, I'm wondering if their common social status might point toward a 
motive for their murders."

"Mulder, are you saying that what we have here is a serial killer who targets 
the radically unpopular?"

He spread his hands casually.  "The weakest members of the herd are easiest 
to pick off.  Even human predators seem to instinctively target social 
outcasts -- prostitutes and hitchhikers are classic examples.  These people 
may be the small-town equivalent."

"I don't think --"  Scully stopped, her mind whirring and clicking.  

Mulder looked at her warily.  "What?"

"Have you read Aimee Marks' statement?"

He snorted.  "Yeah.  Sounds like her brother was having a party for one 
before he died."  He shook his head.  "Makes going blind look like a 
preferable alternative, eh, Scully?"

She shot him a dirty look.  "This isn't funny, Mulder."

"I know."  For a moment there was something bleak behind his eyes that she 
recognized from her mirror.  Gallows humor could only be bought with the coin 
of sympathetic humanity -- every good cop worried about those coins running 
out and leaving them empty.  Federal agents, too.

The recognition resonated between them, a single note plucked on the violin 
string of their connection and radiating into the stillness.  Scully looked 
away, something under her ribs vibrating sweetly with that note; she was 
surprised to find the string had not been snapped by their earlier battle.

"No witnesses have been found for Lola's murder, or Marjorie's," she said, 
building a stone foundation with her words.  "Joshua's family went to bed at 
nine and were only awakened an hour later by a scream from his room.  Aimee's 
account is the only clue we have about what led up to these deaths."

Mulder held up a finger, his brow furrowed.  His alarmed expression made 
Scully think of cartoon gauges spinning wildly out of control, whistles 
shrieking from their drama-frown openings.  "Are you going where I think 
you're going with this?"

"In all four autopsies, there was an extreme congestion of blood in the 
genital area," she informed him dispassionately.  "This may indicate a high 
level of sexual arousal at the time of death.  All four corpses were 
discovered lying on their backs, on their own beds, in the dark.  It may 
point toward similar activities in the moments preceding their deaths."

Mulder stared at her in thunderstruck silence.  "Scully," he blurted at last, 
"are you saying that these people *masturbated* themselves to death??"

She shrugged.

He gaped at her, hanging in suspended animation on the leading edge of 
laughter.  "You know, I'm pretty sure the Surgeon General would disagree with 
you.  Masturbation is guaranteed not to cause blindness, hairy palms, 
insanity, or the disintegration of internal organs."

She waved it aside.  "You said it yourself, Mulder -- they were all single, 
and at least three of them seem to have been enamored with Jim Taymor.  A 
high level of sexual frustration requires some form of release, and without a 
partner ..."  She trailed off.  There was a weird thrumming in the air like 
someone bowing the lowest string of a cello, something subliminal and 
frightening.  They were both acting remarkably professional under the 
circumstances, but neither one was really looking at the other -- their gazes 
were stuttering, skidding off each other's faces.   

"If this is a binary poison," she continued stoically, "it's possible that 
only the first component was actually administered by the murderer.  The 
second component may be enzymes naturally created by the victims' own bodies 
during a ... an instance of auto-erotic activity."

She should have known better than to try the more delicate term; the tension 
in the room began to ripple and shift into an almost hysterical comic 
atmosphere.  

Mulder's lips twitched as he obviously suppressed a grin.

"Oh, for God's sake," Scully exploded, "this is *not* funny."

"Scully, do me a favor," he said, eyes twinkling.  "Say 'auto-erotic 
activity' again."

"*Mulder*."

He chuckled, crossed his arms on the table and hunched over, tilting his head 
boyishly.  It was a normal gesture, the first truly normal moment between 
them in an hour.  She felt relief swell up in her like a helium balloon, 
buoyant and slightly ridiculous.  "Tell me something," he demanded.  "We're 
finding new details in these files just based on what we know *now*.  What 
happens tomorrow when we know more; do we come back here and look through the 
files again?"

"I don't know."  She sighed, hunching forward in unconscious mimicry of his 
posture.  "I'll try to talk Volney into letting us have copies."

He just looked at her.  He didn't have to say it; it was obvious that Volney 
would never agree.

"I'll think of something," she insisted.

Footsteps rang out in the hallway; Scully looked up to see Volney himself 
peek around the doorway, chewing on his moustache.  She straightened up, 
feeling absurdly as though she'd been caught passing notes in study hall.  
"How're things coming?" Volney asked, that razor-edged curiosity glinting 
through his casual air.  "About done?"

Scully reluctantly forced herself back into negotiating mode.  "Sheriff 
Volney --"

A hand settled over Scully's knee.  Her head whipped around and she stared 
wide-eyed at Mulder, who was looking at Volney and being very casual about 
the fact that he only had one hand on the table.  As she looked at him, 
Mulder's hand tightened, his thumb sliding neatly into the sensitive notch 
along the edge of her kneecap.  Scully started to shake.  It was nothing -- a 
silent suggestion to keep quiet, that was all -- but the shock of feeling his 
hand on her body, and the irrepressible fantasy of the places it could move 
from there, almost overwhelmed her.  

"We're fine, Sheriff," Mulder lied smoothly.

Volney did not appear convinced.  "Agent Scully?"

Mulder met her eyes across the table with a minute shake of his head.  Oh, 
the bastard.  She'd kill him.  She'd kick his ass from here to next Thursday, 
as soon as she could regroup from this watery weakness threading through her 
veins.

"We're fine," she managed, sounding slightly strangled.  She frowned at 
Mulder, a piercing no-nonsense stop-screwing-around look, and brushed at him 
with a feeble hand, trying to shove him off.

"If you're sure --"

"We're sure," she lied through gritted teeth, and swatted at Mulder's hand 
again.  This time he seemed to get the hint, and removed his hand after one 
last squeeze.

Volney seemed mollified.  "Okay.  I'll be back in a few minutes."  And with 
that, he departed.

Mulder was on his feet and gathering the files together almost before the 
sheriff was completely out of the room.  "Run interference for me," he hissed.

"*What*?"

He thumped the edges of the files against the table once in an effort to 
straighten the pile.  "I'm gonna make some copies.  Keep an eye out for 
Volney."

She gaped at him.  "Mulder, are you *crazy*?"

"Hey," he tossed back at her with that lopsided reynard grin, "that's crazy 
like a Fox."

He was across the hall before she could gain her feet.

"Shit," she whispered furiously, and made her way to the door.  There was 
nobody in sight; she let her eyes flick from one end of the hallway to the 
other, like a woman trying to make a left-hand turn in heavy traffic.  Her 
right hand itched for the weight of her weapon, a comfort that this level of 
adrenaline demanded despite the circumstances.

The copy machine was a noisy sonovabitch, and slow.  It groaned and 
complained as though it were in labor, ignoring the interesting little rain 
dance that Mulder was doing in front of it.  Five copies, now.  Six.  Seven.

Scully hated this kind of surveillance.  She associated it with Kevlar vests 
and jumpy triggermen, hostage situations and bombs.  There were none of the 
backhanded comforts of routine team surveillance, no cold French fries to 
share with Mulder or bizarre conversations to stave off the boredom.  This 
was all edge.

A deputy wandered across the glass door at one end of the hallway, in and out 
of her vision in an instant, sending her heart rate into orbit.

"Hurry," she hissed.  Mulder waved impatiently at her and continued his slow 
progress.

She could hear murmurs at the other end of the hallway, the one that ended in 
the break room.  The wind-beaten door *thunk*ed rapidly a few times; there 
was the scrape of limestone on concrete and then the door slammed.  The 
conversation seemed to grow louder -- she couldn't make out any words, but 
one of the voices was definitely Volney's.

"Mulder," she growled in warning.

"Almost done," he whispered back.  The copy machine groaned, as though in 
denial.

Volney's voice was louder now, and Scully heard footsteps.  The hair on the 
back of her neck stood up.  

"Mulder, will you MOVE YOUR ASS?"

Mulder came flying into the room at almost the same moment Volney appeared at 
the end of the hallway.  Loud, measured footsteps ticked away like the second 
hand on a stopwatch.  "Here," Mulder hissed, shoving half the copies into her 
hands.

"What the hell am I supposed to --?"

Mulder made a frustrated noise as he tossed the originals haphazardly onto 
the table.  "Like this --!"  He rucked up his suit coat and stuffed his 
handful of copies half-down the back of his pants, draping his jacket back 
over it.  Scully imitated him, furious, moving at light speed, maneuvering 
around her holster.

She had barely put herself to rights when Volney appeared in the doorway, 
looming larger than life.  There was so much adrenaline in the air, a person 
could get high just from breathing.

Volney crossed to the table and thumbed through the files.  He looked up 
suspiciously at the agents from beneath bushy brows.  "You folks done?"

Mulder smiled his best G-man smile.  "Oh yes, sir," he said sweetly, "we have 
everything we need."

<X><X><X><X>

End of Chapter 11  (11/16)

Title:  Gutless (12a/16)
Author:  Magdeleine

GUTLESS

Chapter 12


The Mo-Z Inn
Room 122
7:45 PM

"You call it.  Heads or tails?"

"Heads."

"... Oooh, tough luck."

"Damn!"

"Hah.  Remember, Mulder, no sausage this time."

He reached for the phone and paused, one hand 
touching the receiver.  "Green peppers?" he 
asked hopefully, giving his partner a forlorn 
look.

"Fine."

"Olives?"

Scully was sitting cross-legged in the middle 
of the floor, surrounded by a melange of prim 
official files and the crumpled copies they'd 
pilfered from the sheriff's office.  She glared 
at him over the rims of her glasses, unwilling 
to crane her neck just to make proper eye 
contact.  "Don't push it, Mulder."

He shrugged philosophically and thumbed through 
the meager pages of the Tehtonka-Leotie-Parker 
City phone book, the phone receiver tucked into 
the crook of his neck.  "There's only one pizza 
place in town."

"At least there *is* one."

"... Anchovies?"

She gave him a sharp look, saw laughter behind 
his eyes, and allowed herself a small smile.  
"I know I keep telling you to get more seafood 
in your diet, Mulder, but I don't think that's 
the way to do it."

He seemed satisfied, and sat down on the bed to 
dial.  "Think the place is any good?"

She was barely listening, distracted for the 
moment by picking carpet fuzz off her slacks.  
"I'll be happy if it's still hot when it gets 
here."

"Oooh," he grinned.  "I love a woman who's easy 
to please."

"Don't get used to it."

"I wouldn't dream of --  Hello, yes, I need to 
make an order for delivery.  Mulder.  Room one-
twenty-two at the Mo-Z Inn.  Large pepperoni, 
with mushroom, green peppers ..."

"Extra cheese," Scully said without looking up.  
She smoothed out another crumpled copy and 
placed it on top of one of the manila folders 
from Taymor's, matching up the parallel sides.  
It seemed to hover, held aloft by the wrinkles 
ingrained in its surface. 

"... Extra cheese.  Hey, Scully, thin crust or 
thick?"

"Thin."

"THIN," a squawky voice echoed from Scully's 
room; Scully leaned back and glared at the 
parrot through the open connecting door.  Guido 
ducked his head slyly away from her gaze and 
fluffed his wings, muttering to himself in 
scratchy bird-talk.

"Thin crust.  Uh-huh.  One large iced tea, one 
large Diet Coke ...  Thirteen fifty-eight?"  
Mulder dug out his wallet one-handed and 
counted out a short stack of money onto the 
bedside table, eyed it critically and took back 
a few dollars.  "Uh-huh.  You too.  Bye."  He 
hung up and collapsed back onto the bed, 
bouncing slightly.  From Scully's viewpoint, he 
vanished from the knees up.  "Hey, Scully?" his 
disembodied voice asked.

"Yes, Mulder?"

"Wanna hear a funny story?"

"No, Mulder."  She examined another copy, cast 
an eye around for the correct file to match it 
to, and placed it appropriately, square in the 
middle.

"Hmph."  One orphaned foot scooted over to the 
other as though for company, slid up to scratch 
at the exposed sock, and came back down, toeing 
off first one shoe, then the other.

"Keep your shoes on," she warned.

The toes wiggled in their checkered socks, a 
This Little Piggy kickline.  "Too casual for 
you?" Mulder's distant voice inquired.

"No," she said patiently, "your feet smell."

"Your shoes are off and *I* didn't complain."

"My feet," she informed him, "do not smell."

Mulder made a noise of amused effort and 
hitched his feet up onto the bed, reappearing 
from the waist up as he sat cross-legged in the 
middle of the bed.  He snaked out a long arm 
and snagged his laptop computer from the 
bedside table, phone wires trailing after him 
like IV drips.  "Wanna hear what I found on the 
internet?"

"Download those pictures on your own time, 
Mulder."

The corners of his eyes crinkled slightly.  
"Sorry to disappoint you, Scully, but this time 
I just looked up some information on succubi."

"OH PLEASE," Guido put in from the next room, 
and whistled.

"My sentiments exactly," Scully said dryly.  
She turned an abused copy right-side up and set 
it in place on a stack of others like it, 
puffed up to cartoonish height like the TV 
commercial version of a fifty-nine cent 
hamburger.

Mulder pressed onward.  "The local Plains 
Indians have a variant on the myth that sounds 
like it might f --"

"Mulder," she interrupted, irritation spiking 
her like a tequila shot, "is this really 
necessary?"

Silence.  She looked up, belatedly concerned, 
and caught the tail end of his hopeful smile as 
it slowly faded into something wary and 
watchful.  The agents studied each other across 
the room for a moment, without words, the 
rickety balance between them tipping back and 
forth and trying to right itself.

For some reason he was being far too careful 
with her.  She groped for the motive behind it, 
felt it slide away from her like a minnow, 
leaving behind an uneasy sense of dread.  When 
Mulder was careful, it meant trouble; it meant 
his profiler's mind was at work, and although 
she had seen him make some spectacularly bad 
calls at profiling women, she couldn't be sure 
that this would be one of them.  If he'd 
sniffed out the fantasies she'd been 
entertaining about him, the dream she'd had 
last night --

She willed away both the thought and the stab 
of fear that came with it.

Without thinking about it, she stood up and 
padded across the room, her pantyhose rasping 
oddly between the carpet and the ball of her 
foot, the crooked toe-seam twisting between two 
toes.  She sat down on the edge of the bed, 
reached out and pulled the laptop toward her.  
"All right.  Let me see."

The image on the screen was some kind of 
artist's rendering, not the Native American 
pictorial that Scully had expected.  The female 
"demon" seemed as human-looking as the prone 
figure it pressed against, except that the 
victim was swathed in a blanket and the demon 
was nude, with obscenely large breasts.  
Without the blanket, it would have been a 
clipping from a pornographic comic book; as 
things were, it looked like a couple attempting 
a bizarre form of birth-control, with enough 
smoke billowing around to ensure that the 
casual observer would comprehend that this was 
a Supernatural Event.

She met Mulder's eyes and was relieved to find 
the wariness gone, submerged again in the 
electric current of his intense interest.  An 
arachnid thought crept around the wall in her 
mind, murmuring hot words about what that high-
voltage intensity would feel like focused on 
her.  A shiver rippled across her skin and she 
had to grit her teeth to keep from arching her 
neck.

"Scully?"

"Are you going to tell me," she said in a 
remarkable facsimile of her normal voice, "or 
do I have to figure out what this is myself?"

Mulder made an amused noise deep in his throat 
and pulled the laptop to a position midway 
between them, brushing at the touchpad to 
scroll down past the cartoonish figures.  "The 
local Okomhaka tribe has a myth about a spirit 
creature they call the Tochok.  It's said to be 
a spirit being that attacks people in their 
sleep, just like the succubus or any of the 
others; the difference is that the Tochok 
actually kills its victims."  

Scully gave him the eyebrow, right on cue.

He lifted his hands to proclaim his innocence.  
"I didn't just pull this out of my ass, I 
swear.  It's right here."

She chuffed quietly but let him continue.

"The Okomhakas say that the Tochok invades a 
physical body -- a host, not a victim -- and 
sleeps inside it during the day, only coming 
out to hunt at night.  The host, for the most 
part, is unaffected.  The victims, however, are 
attacked while they are sleeping, pressed on to 
the point of suffocation, and then the Tochok 
drains them of their spirits."

"Drains?"

"Yeah.  Here's the important part, Scully-- 
victims of the Tochok are said to have a big 
red mark seared into the skin of their 
abdomens.  If we assume that 'draining them of 
their spirits' is a semi-religious misnomer for 
somehow liquidating all internal organs and 
sucking them out through the victims' mouths, 
then this looks a lot like a certain M.O. we've 
been seeing lately."

Scully stared at him.  "First of all, Mulder, 
'liquidating' is *not* an M.O., it's something 
you do to assets."

"Really ...?"  His gaze dropped mischievously.  
"Your assets look pretty solid to me."

"Second," she continued, stone-faced, "the only 
way to liquefy human organs besides ordinary 
decomposition is to drop them into a blender 
and hit puree."

Mulder chuckled and reached over to manipulate 
the laptop touchpad.  "Right here, Scully.  The 
Okomhakas say that the Tochok would appear as 
the person that the victim desired the most.  
Perhaps that pressing on the abdomen is a close 
enough approximation of sexual contact to 
release some pent-up energy, sparking some kind 
of combustion that evaporates the organs and 
leaves the muscle tissue alone."

"Mulder," she growled, "that is the most 
ridicul --"

"-- ridiculous theory, yeah, I know," he 
agreed, overlapping her words in an all-knowing 
way that made her want to punch him in the 
nose.  "But look at it this way, Scully.  All 
four of these victims were bona fide members of 
the Lonely Hearts Club, and all of them were 
hopelessly infatuated with Jim Taymor --"

"Except for Joshua Schmidt," Scully informed 
him dryly.  "Unless you've decided his obvious 
stalking of the sheriff's daughter was just an 
act to cover his true preferences."

Mulder pointed his index finger at her like a 
gun.  "Bingo.  The others had it bad for 
Taymor, and Joshua had it bad for Amber.  Every 
single one of them sexually frustrated."

She stared at him for a moment, looking for a 
way she could blow holes in his theory without 
having to use the word 'sexual.'  There wasn't 
one.  She sighed.

Guido was muttering to himself in the other 
room, sounding remarkably like a flu patient 
doing some preliminary gagging, and shuffled 
his feet noisily.  He whistled suddenly; when 
the agents' attention turned to him, he 
preened, twisting his head from side to side.  
"PRETTY BIRDIE!"

Scully groaned.

Mulder chuckled, and took the chance to wind up 
his argument.  "That would explain why there 
has been no evidence at any of the scenes, no 
trace evidence on the bodies, and why nobody's 
ever seen the murderer.  A demon could coalesce 
inside the victim's bedroom and then disperse 
again the moment the deed was done, leaving no 
sign that it was ever there."  He grinned.  
"And no eyewitnesses."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that."

"What?  Who?"

She lifted her chin, a streetfighter daring an 
opponent to go for the knockout punch.  "Fred 
Schmidt."

"Scuhllee," Mulder drawled, his eyes drooping 
lazily, "I thought you had that dismissed as a 
clear-cut case of sleep paralysis."

"I'm not saying it's not.  It's entirely 
possible that Fred Schmidt caught a glimpse of 
the murderer and incorporated it into an 
episode of sleep paralysis."  Her lips twitched 
involuntarily.  "Granted, Fred Schmidt is not 
the most reliable witness in the history of 
crime, but that doesn't mean we should 
completely disregard his account of events."

"Fred's account of events is that he was 
attacked by a dark-haired, green-eyed 
demoness," he said pointedly, "which would back 
up my theory more than yours.  Especially if 
we're right about Fred's unrequited lust for 
Marty Schmidt."

"Marty Schmidt," Scully ground out, "is not the 
only woman involved in this case with dark hair 
and green eyes."

He furrowed his brow at her.  "Where are you 
going with this, Scu --"

"Amber Volney is dark-haired, green-eyed, and 
vehemently vocal in her dislike of the 
victims."

"She's a kid," Mulder glowered.  "She's the 
*sheriff's* kid."

She shrugged neatly, crossed her legs and 
wiggled her toes inside the pantyhose.  "The 
children of any authority figure are often 
prone to misbehaving, particularly during their 
teen years."

"Speaking from personal experience?"

"Not a lot of teacher's kids in my classes.  
Nuns are celibate."

He smiled automatically, but his attention was 
already laser-locked on another target.  "Do 
you really think that a small-town teenage girl 
could do this, Scully?"

"We've seen worse," she reminded him.

"Right."  He mulled it over, frowning.  His 
right hand, apparently lacking explicit orders, 
began picking at an unraveled quilting thread 
on the nylon bedspread.  Scully could barely 
hear the silky scritching sound, but it 
registered along her spinal cord, branching out 
in tiny silver tingles down her nerves.  
Szzzicc szzzicc szzzicc --

She grabbed his hand, holding it prisoner six 
inches above the bed.  He looked at her in 
honest surprise and the reality of his flesh 
hit her like a brick -- the weight and mass of 
his big hand in hers, the heat, the rasp of 
dissimilar fingerprints along her own.  His 
fingers squeezed hers reflexively and for a 
moment she forgot to breathe.

She let go with the exaggerated care of a woman 
on a tightrope, her hand swimming back into her 
personal space to land like a lunar module on 
her lap, her head buzzy with bloodrush.  Mulder 
looked at her oddly and scratched at his neck 
with his newly released hand.  "All right, 
convince me.  Means, motive, opportunity."

"Fine."  Scully removed her glasses, folded 
them neatly and set them on the bedside table.  
"Opportunity.  Amber does not have a valid 
alibi for last Friday.  She told her father she 
was going to a movie with her cousin.  Her 
cousin, the nurse from the hospital --"  She 
groped for the name and could not remember it.  
Her little notebook was propped up against her 
shoes, all the way across the room, 
unavailable.  "She said that Amber was working 
late with her boss, Jim Taymor, and couldn't go 
to the movies.  Jim Taymor said he was working 
late, alone."

"Teenagers lie to their fathers," Mulder 
shrugged.  "She could have been anywhere."

"Motive.  Amber is in love with Jim Taymor."

He looked at her blankly.

"She has a crush on him, Mulder.  When I hinted 
that Marjorie could have been having an affair 
with him, Amber went through the roof.  She's 
jealous, and taking out the competition -- or, 
in Joshua's case, removing an irritant."

He blinked.  "Hold on, Amber said that Taymor 
wasn't having an affair with Marjorie, or with 
any of the others.  If she's the murderer, 
wouldn't she go after his wife?"

"No," she sighed, "not necessarily.  I'm not 
sure about how teenage boys operate, but for 
teenage girls ..."  She paused, trying to patch 
together a clean explanation without invoking 
personal experience.  "When a teenage girl has 
a hopeless crush, she tends to see the 
girlfriend or wife of the crush as ... 
invulnerable.  The legitimate significant other 
serves as a focus of jealousy, but there is a 
certain ... fear of retribution involved."

Mulder was eating this up.  He looked like a 
preschooler at Story Time, listening wide-eyed 
to her story, his long legs folded in front of 
him in an awkward pretzel.  "Fear of 
retribution from the girlfriend?"

She shook her head.  "From the crush.  Fear 
that the crush will hate her, or in some cases 
..."  Her mouth grew dry for no good reason and 
she had to swallow before she could continue.  
"In some cases, a simple fear of exposing her 
feelings."

Mulder tilted his head, his curious gaze fixed 
on her.  "... So what you're saying is that the 
girl projects all her frustration on everyone 
else who is in the same boat?"

"Essentially, yes."

"Which is your whole reason for suspecting 
Amber Volney?"  His tone was carefully neutral, 
but Scully's hackles rose nonetheless.

"I wouldn't say it's my *whole* reason, 
Mulder," she snapped.  "Besides the fact that 
Amber Volney had daily contact with each of the 
victims and obviously bore all four of them ill 
will, I would venture to say that after years 
of investigative work I can spot a liar as well 
as you can."

He took a careful look at her, then shrugged 
and tilted over to one side, stretching his 
long legs out along the bed.  "All right," he 
agreed mildly, and propped his head up on one 
big hand.  "Answer me one question.  You 
yourself haven't been able to figure out 
exactly how these people were killed.  How good 
are the chances that an ordinary, small-town 
Midwestern high school student could come up 
with a mysterious binary poison that could 
baffle an FBI forensic pathologist?"

<X><X><X><X>

Please continue to Chapter 12b.

Title:  Gutless (12b/16)
Author:  Magdeleine

<X><X><X><X>

Scully went very still as she formulated her 
reply, her posture straight and her face 
expressionless.  "Despite what I may 
accidentally have led you to believe, Mulder, 
forensic pathology is hardly a science that is 
set in stone.  Human beings find new ways to 
kill each other almost every day, and there's a 
certain amount of catch-up time between the 
inception of those new methods and some 
pathologist discovering them and writing them 
up in the medical journals so that they become 
common knowledge.  The chances that a small-
town teenager could accidentally come up with a 
brand-new modus operandi are slim, I will grant 
you, but they are infinitely greater than the 
chances that a mysterious demon is stalking the 
local population of sexually frustrated 
citizens."

Mulder shrugged, a curious smile on his face.  
"Point taken."

"Thank you."  She could still feel the aura of 
heat coming off of him where his weight made 
the mattress dip.  Gravity tugged at her, 
urging her to tip over and tumble into him, and 
she closed her eyes briefly to consider 
defining this in Einsteinian physics, with 
Mulder as a white-hot star and herself a comet 
curving around his gravity well. 

"I'll withdraw my assumption that she 
*couldn't* commit murder," he said at last, 
causing her to open her eyes and stare at the 
laptop.  "I just don't think she could get away 
with it.  No fingerprints, no forced entry, no 
trace evidence -- either this kid is really 
lucky or she's hiding some serious brainpower."

"You said it yourself, Mulder," she informed 
him, letting her eyes focus on his reflection 
in the laptop screen.  "She's the sheriff's 
daughter.  It's possible that he may be 
protecting her."

He balked at that, his mouth pulling up on one 
side.  "Oh, come on."

"It makes sense.  He's the only one who has all 
the evidence in his possession.  He's the only 
one who has been at all the crime scenes --"  
Mulder made a stubborn face; she pointed at a 
very rumpled set of copies with flaring self-
righteousness.  "He's the only one signed in at 
every one; you saw that yourself, he was the 
first man on the scene every time.  He has kept 
information from his own deputies and attempted 
to keep it from us.  For all we know, he may 
still be withholding evidence -- he may have 
even destroyed evidence."

"He's the sheriff, Scully."

"He's a *father*, Mulder."  A memory flashed 
across her field of vision, embedded in reality 
like a subliminal message in an advertisement:  
her father, tall and terrible, threatening 
another man with his fists as little Dana 
stood, amazed, to one side.  She had been five 
or six, playing uninvited in the neighbor's 
yard, and had taken the petals off of flower 
after flower to see how they were put together.  
The neighbor had caught her and chased her off 
his property with a hoe, only to encounter Big 
Bill Scully, home on leave.

"He's a father," she repeated, "and fathers 
will do anything to protect their daughters.  
Even if they're in the wrong."

"We don't have any proof on this."

"We haven't looked for any," she retorted.  "We 
do, however, know that Volney is willing to act 
to protect his daughter; he already admitted 
that he threatened Joshua Schmidt."

"Waitaminit, you don't think Volney did this 
himself --"

"No, no, I don't believe he would have 
volunteered that information on Joshua if he 
had."

Mulder sighed deeply and rolled onto his back, 
hands tucked behind his head, staring at the 
ceiling.  "Scully, I don't like this."

"I know," she said quietly, still not looking 
at him.

There was a moment of silence before Mulder 
spoke again.  "Do you think there really is a 
leak?"

"I don't know, Mulder.  It's possible.  Perhaps 
*Volney* is the leak."  She shrugged.  "At any 
rate, it would give him the excuse he needed to 
keep all the information under lock and key."

"Mmm."  He mulled it over; even without looking 
at him Scully could tell he was chewing on his 
bottom lip.  "If he knows -- or suspects -- 
that Amber is the killer ..."

"He probably didn't think the FBI would pay 
attention," she filled in.  "It took three 
deaths, after all."

"Right," Mulder said in a voice drenched with 
irony.  "I think there's another possibility, 
Scully.  He could want to have her caught -- 
just not by him, or anyone under his command.  
That way he could justify it to himself."

She half-looked at him, cutting her eyes around 
to the side without turning.  "Agent Mulder, 
does this mean you believe my theory has 
merit?"

"Agent Scully," he rumbled, an arm tossed over 
his eyes, "I always do.  In this case, though, 
I hope you'll forgive me for hoping you're dead 
wrong."

She smiled wryly, stealing this quiet moment 
while he couldn't see her, watching the rise 
and fall of his chest and gleaning a strange 
comfort from his respiratory process.  A 
wordless, primal longing reared up in her like 
a sob; she wanted nothing more than to lie down 
next to him and wrap her arms around his chest 
and bury her face in that spot between his neck 
and his shoulder.  She stared at that spot 
dizzily, breathing hard through her mouth.

White light flashed outside, illuminating the 
room like a movie set for half a second.  
Thunder grumbled along after it, forever late 
for the party; Scully's head snapped up 
guiltily at the sound.

A loud whistle of surprise from the next room 
shrilly echoed the thunder.  "FUCK ME 'TIL I 
*FAINT*!"

Scully groaned.

Mulder started to chuckle, his arm still thrown 
over his face, his laughter shaking the bed.  
"Hey Scully, how 'bout we take Guido back to DC 
with us and keep him in the office?"

"I don't think it's a good idea," she told him, 
her eyes resolutely on the doorway despite the 
fact that she couldn't see the parrot from this 
angle.

"Why not?"  He lifted his arm slightly to peer 
at her, grinning.  "Against regulations?"

"Perhaps."  There was a knock at the door, and 
she stood up to answer it, grateful for the 
excuse.  "I think the more pertinent reason, 
however, is that by the end of the first week 
I'd shoot you both."

He was still chuckling at her as she scooped up 
the money from the table and answered the door.

The pizza boy was very young and very shy, and 
Scully felt for some reason that she was 
scaring him.  She tipped him an extra dollar as 
a result, trying to assuage her illogical 
guilt, and shut the door very gently with her 
foot.

She turned around and discovered that the room 
was empty.

"Mulder?"  Scully set the pizza down on the 
bed, snatching the unstable drinks off the box 
top and depositing them on the bedside table.  
She scanned the room, going very still and 
listening hard, her hand straying back to slide 
along the grip of her weapon.  "Mulder?  Where 
are you?"

"In here, Scully," a voice replied from the 
other room.

She peered through the connecting door into the 
dark room.  "What are you doing in there?"

"Dinner entertainment," he said, and suddenly 
he filled the doorway, brandishing something 
huge and bullet-shaped, unrecognizable in the 
dim yellow light of the motel-wattage lamps.  A 
bolt of lightning scorched through the sky 
outside, illuminating the scene so that Scully 
could see --

The parrot cage.

Guido hunched sulkily in the cage, the feathers 
along the back of his head puffed up, his beak 
open in a soundless complaint and his pointy 
little parrot-tongue showing.  As Scully 
stared, nonplussed, Guido spread his wings 
slightly and made a hissing noise.

Scully folded her arms across her chest, giving 
bird and man her most ironic eyebrow.  "This is 
the entertainment?"

"If you can't beat 'em, join 'em," Mulder 
announced, setting up the cage and stand in 
mid-room.  "Since we can't make him shut up..."

"... You're planning on teaching him to sing 
'Jailhouse Rock'?"

He grinned.  "Maybe tomorrow.  Hey, Scully, did 
you know that the kea parrot of New Zealand 
will occasionally attack sheep and eat the fat 
surrounding the sheep's kidneys?"

"Is this your new theory of the modus operandi 
for this case, or have you been looking up 
useless information on the internet again?"

"I don't think it's useless," he protested.  
"It's good incentive for keeping this cage 
locked, for one thing."

She snorted and crossed back to the bed, 
opening the pizza box without ceremony and 
scooping out a droopy wedge.  The cheese 
stretched, stringy dairy lifelines snapping one 
by one, the last few broken by a sweep of her 
finger.  She scooted into the middle of the 
bed, maneuvering her pizza hand carefully to 
keep the orange grease in the cheesy crevices, 
well away from her clothing.  The first bite 
was hot and gooey, cholesterol and fat and 
tomato sauce, everything tasty in the universe.  
She closed her eyes to chew, relaxing into the 
calorie respite the way some people relaxed 
into a bottle of Scotch.

The bed dipped under a mysterious weight and 
breath rasped nearby.  Mulder.  She kept her 
eyes closed, reading his actions from the 
movements of the bed and the sounds he made and 
a vague sixth sense that came from years of 
familiarity.  At first he'd only had one knee 
on the bed, leaning in to grab some pizza; now 
he was arranging himself up against the 
headboard and pillows; now he was taking a 
drink; now he was eating, and looking at her.

His feet brushed her suddenly, came to rest 
along the outside of her thigh where she'd 
tucked her feet up in a modified lotus 
position.  She sucked in hot oregano-scented 
air and opened her eyes to find him looking at 
her, just as she'd known he was.  He crossed 
one ankle over the other and poked at her with 
his big toe.  "Do you need to be alone with 
that?" he teased.

She gave him the eyebrow and took another bite.  
Mulder was eating like a kid, with great gusto 
and a happy smile.  He was already halfway 
through his first slice and eyeing a second, 
pizza sauce smeared along his upper lip in a 
red clown's moustache.  "Mulder," she said 
disapprovingly, shaking her head at the mess.

"MULDERRR," Guido echoed, mimicking her tone 
perfectly.  His little black eyes glinted.  
"MULDER FBI!" he added, in a clear Mulder-
voice.  He stretched his neck to proudly 
display his profile.  "PRETTY BIRDIE!  CLEVER 
BIRDIE!"

Mulder pounded on his chest, wheezing with 
laughter.  "We gotta keep this bird," he 
declared, gesturing at the cage with his pizza 
as though there were a vast number of birds in 
the room to choose from.

"After all the damage you've inflicted on your 
apartment, Mulder, I somehow doubt you'll be 
able to afford the additional pet deposit."  
Scully took another neat bite of pizza.

He prodded affectionately at her with his foot.  
It slid up farther this time, hitting her toes, 
sliding briefly along the length of her 
metatarsal bones and returning on the same 
path.  A flash of heat slithered up her thigh, 
lightning-quick, and her body thrummed with 
silent thunder.

She pulled her foot away, tucking it beneath 
her tailor-style as casually as she could.  The 
stodgy bite of chewed-up pizza sat on her 
tongue, unswallowed, unswallowable.

"Scully?"

She focused on him so abruptly she could feel 
her pupils constrict.  Mulder had a mouthful of 
pizza and was giving her a very curious look.  
"Scully?" he said again, garbling it so that it 
came out as 'Scuhyee,' "y'okay?"

She shot him a frosty glare.  "I'm fine," she 
told him in a tone that brooked no argument, 
despite being choked around a squishy ball of 
chewed-up pizza.

He watched her for a moment, shrugged, and 
turned his attention to the parrot cage.  "Hey, 
Guido, how're you doing over there?  You don't 
like pepperoni by any chance ...?  No?"  His 
tone changed, turned crafty.  "Hey ... 
Marrrjorie."

Scully choked down the bite of pizza.  "What 
are you doing?"

"Conducting an interview," Mulder said, as 
though this were obvious.  "Hey, Guido.  
Maaaarrrjorieeee."

"MARJORIE LOVES GUIDO.  MARJORIE LOOOOOOVES 
GUIDO."  Guido bounced smugly on his perch, 
head-banging to some silent music.  

"Mulder, you can't be serious."

"Watch me."  Mulder took another sip of his 
iced tea and, as though suddenly thinking of 
it, handed her the other drink.  "Here."

She accepted it gingerly, like a HazMat vial.  
"Thanks."

His eyes brushed over her thoughtfully as he 
chewed on the crescent moon of crust.  There 
was a question forming, brewing over his head 
like a storm cloud, and she glared at him over 
her Diet Coke until the cloud dissipated.  He 
shrugged faintly and turned his attention back 
to the parrot.  "Hey, Guido, here's another 
word for you.  *Taymor*."

Guido perked up, stretching until he was 
several inches taller.  "TAYMOR'S STAFFING 
SERVICE," he piped in a high, drawly voice.  A 
chill ran down Scully's spine as she realized 
that she was hearing the workday greeting of a 
dead woman.  "WE DO OUR BEST TO SERVE YOU 
BETTER.  HOW MAY I HELP YOU?"

Mulder made his thinking noise, a low rumble in 
his chest like a cat's purr.  She could 
practically see the wheels and gears in his 
head whirling like mad.  "Hey, Guido," he said 
slowly, "... *Jim*."

"JIIIIIIIIIIIM," Guido echoed, still in that 
same high drawl.  "OHHHH, JIIIIIIIIIMMMM."

Scully blinked.

"OHHHHH.  OOOOOOOOH.  JIM, OHHHHH, JIM."

Mulder shifted awkwardly, scooting further up 
against the headboard.  Scully sat very still, 
one hand stiffly holding the half-eaten piece 
of pizza out over the cardboard box.

They carefully avoided looking at each other.

"JIM.  *JIM*,  OH GOD, JIM ..."

Mulder shifted around again, digging in with 
his heels to get better purchase on the 
slippery polyester bedspread.  The gravity 
center of the bed shifted abruptly and Scully 
started to tip over; her pizza hand shot out 
for balance and for a bizarre roller-coaster 
moment she tried to catch herself and not drop 
the pizza and not spill the drink in her other 
hand and whatever happened make sure she didn't 
fall on Mulder --

She didn't spill the drink, but she dropped the 
pizza.

Her hand came down directly on Mulder's leg, 
clamping on involuntarily.

"OH GOD, JIM -- OH YES, OH YES, YES, YES!"

Mulder jumped, startled; Scully stared at her 
hand, equally startled.  She seemed to be 
frozen in position, resistant to her mind's 
frantic messages to leggorightnow, and when she 
tried to pull away by leaning back, her hand 
slid down Mulder's strong calf slowly, 
lingeringly.

"JIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMMMMMMM!!!!"

Scully managed to pull away.  "Excuse me."  She 
got her feet on the floor and made for her room 
step by torturous step, still clutching her 
unspilled Diet Coke in her left hand.

"Where're you going, Scully?"

"I'm going to bed," she snapped.  "I'm tired 
and we're obviously not getting anything else 
done tonight."

"Don't you want any pizza?"

She caught sight of Mulder's puzzled face as 
she whirled to grab the doorknob.  "I'm not 
hungry."

"But --"

"Goodnight."  

She shut the door hard.  There was a moment of 
silence.

In the other room, Guido began to chuckle 
knowingly.

<X><X><X><X>

End of Chapter 12  (12/16)

Title:  Gutless (13a/16)
Author:  Magdeleine

GUTLESS

Chapter 13


The Mo-Z Inn, Room 122
2:27 AM

*KABOOOOOOM!!!*

The blast of thunder rattled the windows like a 
tambourine and slapped Mulder awake.  He 
reflexively rolled out of bed, grabbing for his 
semiautomatic on the bedside table and 
crouching out of the line of fire before his 
foggy brain could remember how to distinguish 
between close-range gunfire and a Kansas 
thunderstorm.  This, he concluded, was thunder.  
"God," he gargled; he hauled himself upright, 
knees popping, and staggered across the room to 
the window like a man wading through thigh-deep 
water.

He parted the curtains and peeked outside, 
yawning hugely and scratching at the prickly 
stubble on his jaw in a dulled version of a 
childhood reflex.  An older cousin had once 
told him that yawning like that could dislocate 
his jaw, and for half his childhood he'd 
clutched his face whenever he had to yawn, 
terrified of the promised consequences.  He 
yawned again, scrubbing at his eyes with a numb 
hand as the thunder rumbled threateningly.

Strangely enough, there was precious little 
rain to show for all the noise -- the gravel 
parking lot was bone-dry.  Mulder squinched up 
his eyes and peered up at the glowering clouds, 
trying to remember the warning signs for a 
tornado.  Circular cloud movement, and green 
color.  He couldn't remember if the green was 
the color of the clouds or whether a trick of 
the light would make everything *else* look 
green, but, happily, nothing was green.  There 
was a hint of that yellow tinge that storms got 
right before the rain started -- the sort of 
daytime stormlight that made everything sepia-
colored like an old photograph -- but mostly it 
was just dark, the thick clouds drooping with 
suppressed rain.

He gazed stupidly at the sky for what seemed 
like a very long time, inhaled another one of 
those huge jawbreaker yawns, and realized for 
the first time that what he'd grabbed off the 
bedside table was not, in fact, his gun.  He 
was thinking loopy disconnected thoughts about 
how brain-dead tired he must be to not know his 
weapon by feel, not to mention taking so damn 
long to focus on the difference, when he 
finally looked down and noticed that the thing 
in his hand that wasn't his weapon was Scully's 
glasses.

It took a moment to sink in.  He lurched across 
the room like a zombie and sat down -- whump -- 
at the end of the bed, where he stared at the 
glasses in his hand.  It took his sleep-logged 
brain a long time to dredge up the reason that 
Scully's glasses were in his room; finally he 
remembered that she'd stormed out when he'd 
interviewed the parrot, leaving him to eat 
pizza and look at files all by himself.  He 
puzzled over her actions for a moment, sighed, 
yawned, and admitted to himself that he wasn't 
getting anywhere.

It was hot in his room.  He pulled at the neck 
of his t-shirt, trying to get comfortable, 
wondering what the hell the problem with 
Midwestern weather was.  Last night he'd almost 
frozen his ass off, so tonight he'd cranked the 
thermostat up before going to bed, but of 
course now it was so damn humid from the 
gathering storm ...  He considered turning down 
the heat, but that would involve actually 
getting up and walking.  Instead, he yanked his 
t-shirt off over his head and tossed it onto 
the sagging armchair next to the dresser.  The 
air whooshed around him, feeling wonderfully 
cool on his sweat-misted skin.  Ahhh, much 
better.

His bleary eyes slid shut -- oh, such a sticky-
sweet, seductive feeling, just closing his eyes 
-- and he turned to the question he'd been 
working on before he'd gone to bed:  if the 
murders had been committed by a native variant 
of succubus, who was playing host to the damn 
thing?  He'd already ruled out the victims, 
since the Tochok didn't kill its host; that 
left ... the living.  Hell.

Try again.

From what he'd read, the victims and the host 
would have one major thing in common -- sexual 
frustration.  He'd seen it in the victims in 
this case; all that remained, really, was 
figuring out which of the sexually frustrated 
people in town was likely to be the host, and 
which were just in line to be the next victim.  
There ought to be some kind of outward sign, 
some kind of change in personality at least, 
but ...

Which was the king, which were the pawns?  Jim 
Taymor, Fred Schmidt, Amber Volney, the 
Sheriff, Jean Denison ... Aimee Marks?  Marty 
Schmidt?  Scully had mentioned something about 
one of the motel housekeeping staff acting 
strangely ...  He fumbled sleepily at the 
problem, but his mental dexterity seemed to 
have mittens on.  He could get the pieces set 
up, but couldn't seem to manipulate them 
without knocking the whole chessboard over.  He 
stared down at Scully's glasses, turning them 
over and over with numb hands, his mind going 
blank.  

Thunder crackled from east to west like it was 
in Dolby Surround-Sound, and Mulder roused 
enough to find a dull bit of humor in sitting 
here in his T-shirt and boxers, slumped into a 
quotation mark.  He blinked, but couldn't seem 
to get his eyes all the way open.  He blinked 
again, slowly, and discovered that he could get 
*one* eye all the way open if he left the other 
one closed.  Cool.

He leaned forward ponderously, swinging an arm 
up like an ape to poke the 'power' button on 
the television.  Ooooh, the Sandie Shores 
marathon was still on.  He made sure the volume 
was way, way down and sat back to watch.

Slowly the flickering image came into focus:  
two busty blonde women, wearing only high heels 
and silicone, writhing against each other in a 
bathtub.  He thought he recognized the one on 
the bottom, although at the moment it was tough 
to tell -- she wasn't in what you might call a 
recognizable position, and Mulder's drowsy eyes 
were having trouble focusing.  The moans coming 
from the television were muted, soft as a 
kitten's breath, much gentler than the frantic 
action on the screen would warrant.

After a few minutes, Mulder became aware that 
the tiny moans were being echoed somewhere 
behind him.  He turned around, his muscles 
reluctant as old rubber bands, and blinked at 
the parrot cage.  Guido seemed half his normal 
size; he crouched on his perch in a dense 
feathery bundle, head low, and stared at the 
television with his eyes hooded and his beak 
half-open, echoing those tiny kittenish moans.

The parrot cocked his head to one side, focused 
a single beady eye on Mulder, and winked.

*KABOOOOOOM!!!*

This time the thunder not only rattled the 
windows, it knocked out the power -- the 
television went off with a faint popping sound, 
plunging the room back into darkness.

Mulder groaned in defeat and collapsed backward 
onto the bed.

A quiet *snick* made him lurch upright again, 
blinking hard to make his eyes adjust, staring 
at the connecting door to Scully's room.  As 
the darkness resolved itself into many shades 
of gray, the door opened.

She looked like a ghost, pale and noiseless, 
her features indistinct.  Lightning flashed 
outside and she froze in the doorway, taut with 
indecision, one white hand still clutching the 
doorknob.

"Scully?" he asked, more for her benefit than 
for his.

Wide eyes turned toward him, glinting like a 
cat's.

"Let me guess," he teased softly, "you're 
scared of the thunder and you don't want to 
sleep alone."

Silence from the pale figure.  "I didn't mean 
to wake you," she said at last.

"I was already awake."  He squinted, trying to 
get a better look at her.  "What's up?"

"I was ...  I wondered ..."  She stopped and 
folded her arms across her breasts.  "I felt 
hungry," she said in a flat voice.  "I thought 
maybe there might be some pizza left."

"Um ..."  Mulder shot a guilty glance at the 
empty pizza box jammed into the wastebasket.  
"Not really.  Sorry."

"Hmm."  

He couldn't quite make out her expression in 
the dark.

"I've got some change if you wanna hit the 
vending machine," he offered.

"I'm not going outside in the middle of the 
night, Mulder.  Besides, isn't it raining?"

"Thunder and lightning, no rain."  He shrugged.  
"Welcome to the Midwest."

She didn't reply, probably didn't even hear him 
from whatever Scullyworld she was swimming in.  
He saw the dark shape of her head turn back 
toward her room.  "I'd better go back to bed," 
she said, very matter-of-factly.

"All right."  He abruptly remembered what he 
was holding in his hand.  "Hey, Scully --"  She 
turned back.  "Here."  He offered her her 
glasses, out at the end of his long arm.  "You 
forgot these earlier."

She hesitated for a long moment, then took one 
step towards him.  Another.  Her hand reached 
out and wrapped around the glasses, one cool 
finger straying over his thumbnail like an 
unconscious caress.  "Thanks," she whispered.

The television snapped back to life, drenching 
the two of them in swift blue light.  Scully's 
eyes went wide with shock, her eyes locked on 
some spot below his chin, her lips parted 
slightly.  The moans from the television and 
from the parrot started up again in erotic 
counterpoint, but to his surprise Mulder could 
hear Scully's harsh gasp over all of it.

Her eyes wrenched up and met his for a single 
stark moment and Mulder saw anguish there -- 
anguish, and a desperate hunger held in check 
by some terrible force of will.

It suddenly became very clear to him that 
Scully did not have the flu.

*KABOOOOOOM!!!*

She blinked, and her composure snapped into 
place like a glazed pane of glass, obscuring 
his sense of her.  "Thank you," she said again, 
more formally, and pulled her glasses -- and 
her hand -- away from him.

"Are you okay?" he asked stupidly.  It wasn't 
the question he wanted to ask.

"I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

She shot him a flame-thrower's glare from 
beneath her brows; a night-darkened arc of hair 
curved perfectly down the middle of her face, 
teaseing her nose and shimmering red around the 
edges.  She did not answer.

His hand still hung in the air like a pendulum 
in arrested movement, the waiting and 
expectancy pervading the six feet between the 
two agents.

She looked at him for a long time.  He looked 
back.

"I'll see you in the morning, Mulder," she told 
him, and walked out.

<X><X><X><X>


Title:  Gutless (13b/16)
Author:  Magdeleine

<X><X><X><X>

It was twilight in the jungle.  

The air was dense with steam and with the smell 
of growing things, rotting things, things that 
prowled and hunted and whose eyes gleamed 
yellow in the shadows.  Scully could feel the 
humidity wrapping around her body like a wet 
trenchcoat.  Condensation fogged the windows of 
the rented car, obscuring the glass; as she 
watched, Mulder wiped it clear, and the 
moisture beaded and ran down the window in thin 
quicksilver rivulets where his hand came away.

He looked outside through the clear patch, 
relaxed and focused as he always was on 
stakeout, sprawled over the bucket seat and 
slumped a little so that his knees almost 
bumped against the dashboard.  One hand tapped 
on the steering wheel in slow motion, a low 
bomph-bomph-bomph-bomph like a drumbeat, a 
heartbeat.

Mulder watched the outside.  Scully watched 
Mulder.

She coiled herself on the passenger seat like a 
whip, taking in his every movement with hooded 
eyes.  Shadow painted her hands with cool 
stripes in the heat.  She could feel a bead of 
sweat trembling on the upper edge of her lip, 
tiny and bulging against gravity; she lapped at 
it with a swift curl of her tongue, her eyes 
never leaving Mulder.

His shirt was off and he was glossy with sweat, 
the twilight gleaming along the planes of his 
body, shimmery dark like onyx where the half-
light could not reach.  The short hairs on the 
back of his neck were dark with sweat, sticking 
to his skin and melting together into a hundred 
soft wet paintbrushes; the hair on his chest 
plastered against him, shallow furrows 
directing the sweat to the dark central line 
like tiny tributaries bleeding into a river.

Scully sat still and calm and let her eyes 
devour that bare chest, sat still while the 
caged animal paced behind her eyes and hurled 
itself against the bars, howling with need.  
Her hands curled into claws, nails sharp 
against her palms.  The ache to touch him cut 
straight to the bone, gripped at her stomach, 
thinned her breath to a panther's shallow pant.

The tropical insects hissed their chorus 
outside the car, thousands of individual songs 
blending into an undulating backdrop of sound 
as pervasive as the humidity.  A loud 
*crrrrrrack* resounded somewhere to the West, 
dragging across the distance as though the 
hammer of some unbelievably large pistol was 
being cocked unbelievably slowly.

Sweat gathered at the hinge of Mulder's jaw, 
slid down the long vertical ridge of muscle, 
caught and pooled in the hollow of his throat.  
His carotid artery pulsed steadily under his 
skin, making the little pool of sweat tremble 
like water in a worn stone when the earth 
shook, building up on the edge of his 
supersternal notch micrometer by agonizing 
micrometer.

Beat.

Beat.

Beat.

The weight of the third dimension became too 
much and the pool welled over the cusp, a flat 
stream trickling into his chest hair.  Scully 
exhaled sharply and the world went heavy and 
dim.

She had her mouth on him before her next 
breath. 

Her tongue lapped up the tiny river fleeing 
downward, licked the salt from his body in long 
swipes.  He made a surprised groan low in his 
throat, and she felt it rumble under her hand 
as she palmed his chest, his hot hair curling 
around her fingers as she bared her teeth 
against him in a triumphant smile.  He smelled 
like summer shadows, dark and warm and spicy.  
She breathed him in through her mouth, tasting 
his scent, and placed a lingering openmouthed 
kiss over his left nipple.

His chest heaved; air whuffed out through his 
nose and ruffled her hair.  She treated the 
right nipple to a matching kiss and trailed her 
tongue downwards, drinking from his skin as she 
followed the coarse dark line down his stomach.  
His abdominal muscles jerked away from her in 
surprise as he exhaled sharply, and her tongue 
stretched out to follow, the tip barely grazing 
him, tracing delicate lines around his navel.  
He gasped and started to pant, harsh hnnnnn 
hnnnnn noises echoing far over her head.  She 
nipped at his stomach right above the waistband 
of his jeans and his legs jerked involuntarily, 
one knee striking the dashboard with a dull 
thud.

The hot denim was already damp from his sweat 
when she slid her hand up to stroke him through 
his jeans, rubbing her palm slowly up and down 
the hard straining length of his cock as she 
nuzzled at his stomach.  He made a desperate 
sound, a swallowed agonized sob, and his hand 
slapped down on the control console on the door 
armrest, bracing against it as his entire body 
tensed.

The automatic door locks slammed down and up 
and down again as he arched up into her touch.

She slipped down a little further, burying her 
nose in the concave side of the denim tent 
stretching over his cock, drowning in the musky 
heat rolling off his body.  He was white-hot 
even in the sweltering holocaust of the car, 
his thick moan loud against the backdrop of 
jungle noises when she traced the zipper of his 
jeans with her nose.  She opened her mouth 
slowly, so slowly, gripped his cock lightly 
between her teeth and dragged down his length, 
the friction from the cloth burning her lips as 
though she were striking a match.  

He made a strangled noise and bucked shallowly, 
trembling with the effort of restraint.

A button unbuttoned, a zipper unzipped.  She 
dipped her hand inside and between humid layers 
of clothing, curved her fingers around his cock 
through the thin layer of cotton and gave him a 
slow stroke before finally drawing him out into 
the open.  Her hand curled around his 
circumference and his hips pumped up into her 
fist, just once; she could feel the slight give 
of the tight silky skin as he moved.

She stroked her hand down to the base of his 
cock, dipped her head, and licked him once, 
roughly, flat-tongued like a jungle cat.  He 
ground out a harsh moan as she did it again, a 
long sandpaper taste rasping over the length of 
her tongue.  Smoky, salty, coppery as blood.

She growled and gave him a third harsh lick.  

This time she slid down and swallowed him 
whole.

She devoured him with long sucking strokes, 
feeling his pulse on her tongue.  Hips 
thrusting against her, he groaned broken words 
in a broken voice, choking out a gravelly 
baritone aria that sounded more and more like 
an animal cry as she brought him closer to the 
edge.  

She growled in the back of her throat.  He 
seemed to struggle against her as though he 
were trapped, cornered, losing control of his 
movements --

Stroke 

Stroke

Stroke

"SCULLY --!"

<><><><><><><>

"SCULLY!"

Scully hurled herself into a sitting position, 
ripped out of sleep by Mulder's voice, and 
stared into the muggy dark with painfully open 
eyes, gasping for air, heart thudding as though 
she'd just run a marathon.  Oh God.  Oh God.

Jungle insects hissed their furious white-noise 
song like a Wagnerian pit orchestra.  The 
darkness was too thick to breathe.  She felt 
charged, electrified, every hair on her head 
standing at attention and the lighter hair on 
her arms fuzzy with static.

Where the hell *was* she?

The sound of a fist pounding on a door, almost 
in perfect time with her racing heart.  
"SCULLY??"

She stared down at her body, eyes slowly 
adjusting to the dark.  Bed.  She was in a 
motel bed.  Her pajamas were clinging to her, 
soaked with sweat.  The rough cotton sheets 
were twisted around her like pythons and the 
slippery comforter had puddled off the side of 
the bed, one corner still hanging onto the 
mattress like a rock climber clinging one-
handed to a cliff.  The Wagnerian symphony 
outside wasn't insects, it was a deluge; Rainy 
Season had come to Tehtonka.

A dream.  It had only been a dream.

A dream.

Something inside her stretched and ached 
unbearably at the thought.  She buried her face 
in her hands, humiliatingly close to tears; her 
sinuses closed up and two big invisible hands 
clamped around her skull to compress her 
temples.  "God DAMMIT," she yelled hoarsely, 
voice muffled by her palms and the anguish that 
had her by the throat.

Only a dream.

"SCULLY??"  Mulder kept banging away at the 
door.  Damn the man.  Oh, damn him.  

She forced herself to uncurl from her fetal 
position and swiped an angry hand across her 
eyes as she yanked the sheet off, despite its 
death grip on her leg, and climbed out of bed.  
She stumbled to her feet and grasped blindly 
for her robe, swallowing hard through the rocks 
in her throat.  It was like a damn sauna in 
this room but she couldn't conceive of opening 
the door for Mulder without the robe on.  It 
wasn't armor, but it was the most she could do 
on short notice.

Thunder rumbled outside, a huge leisurely 
building-shaking rumble that sounded like a 
boulder crashing down a flight of stairs.  A 
wave of giddiness almost knocked Scully to her 
knees; she sat back down on the bed 
unceremoniously, her hands twisting the ties of 
her robe like tourniquets.

"SCU --"

"ALL RIGHT," she yelled, eyes shut tight, the 
added vocal strain almost strangling her, "I'm 
awake, Mulder, will you SHUT UP ALREADY?"

The abrupt silence from his side of the door 
would have been hysterically funny under other 
circumstances.  She could easily imagine the 
popeyed look on his face, his mouth caught 
open, the heel of his palm arrested mere inches 
from hitting wood.

"Hang on a minute," she added as she tested her 
balance and stood again, the pressure of 
imminent tears turning her voice into a low, 
throaty Marlene Dietrich growl.  Very sexy.  
How ironic.

She got herself moving with the old trick of 
suppressing her knowledge of cause and effect -
- her mind was completely wrapped up in the 
goal of the door, unlocking the door, opening 
the door, but she refused to think about what 
would come through the newly-opened door.  If 
she thought about facing Mulder with her face 
flushed red and her hair standing up, smelling 
of sweat and dream-induced arousal --

She ignored it.  She walked.

The shakes hit her halfway across the floor, 
limbs trembling uncontrollably, feet placed 
unsteadily in a random forward path; lo, behold 
the revenge of a sleep-deprived body for a bare 
twenty or thirty minutes of sleep after pacing 
the floor for hours and hours.  She fumbled the 
lock open with ravaged hands and tugged at the 
doorknob.

The door wouldn't open.

Relief hit like a tsunami, and she sagged 
against the door in its wake.  Oh thank God, 
she didn't have to look at him.  She didn't 
have to let him see her like this.  Her 
mindless litany of thanksgiving was the closest 
to real prayer that she'd come in weeks:  thank 
God, thank God, thank God, thank God.  She lay 
her forearm against the blood-warm wood and 
pressed her forehead to it.

The knob turned by itself beneath her palm in a 
stealthy caress, whispering with soft metallic 
friction as the latch slid all the way open.  
There was a long pause, and then the knob 
turned back; somehow she knew, even after the 
movement ceased, that Mulder's hand was still 
on the knob on the opposite side.  "Scully, are 
you all right?" he asked in a low voice.

"The door's stuck," she admitted, torn between 
absurd pride and equally absurd guilt.  The 
condition of the door was most likely due to 
the fact that some mental giant had carefully 
painted both the door and the frame with semi-
gloss paint that had, under these conditions of 
high humidity, miraculously transformed into 
carpenter's glue.  Any efforts of her own, 
Herculean as they seemed inside her own head, 
were in fact unimportant and unworthy of the 
self-congratulatory cartwheels she wanted to 
turn.

"Did you unlock it?" Mulder asked, sounding 
skeptical.

"Of course."  Her voice came out high-pitched 
and bitchy instead of the ringing authoritative 
tone she'd meant to access.  Damn.  She flushed 
with anger or humiliation -- at this point, it 
was impossible to distinguish between them.

"Hang on."  A meaty *thunk* jarred the door 
under Scully's hand, unmistakably Mulder 
ramming against it with his shoulder.  He tried 
again, *thunk*.  The door was unimpressed with 
the macho man routine and remained epoxied in 
place.

She stepped in before he battered himself 
senseless against the stubborn wood.  "Mulder, 
don't.  If it's jammed this badly, you'll just 
damage the door frame."  Silence from the other 
side, tacit agreement.  "Just ... just talk to 
me through the door."

He made an amused noise that was stripped of 
its overtones by the inch of wood between them.  
"All right.  Did the Kansas City lab ever get 
back to you?"

"Halfway," she replied, the strain of speaking 
through a door starting to rub her voice raw.  
"Dr. Jane Marek called and said that the 
residue found in and on Joshua Schmidt's mouth 
was definitely the result of some kind of 
visceral pyrexia.  They found cell samples of 
every internal organ, as well as some muscular 
tissue.  Dr. Marek, and I quote, wanted to know 
if someone had tried to make a funky margarita 
out of the kid, unquote."

"Sounds like my kind of woman."

"She's married," Scully snapped, a little 
harsher than she meant to.

"Touchy.  Any news on the blood work?"

"Heightened hormonal levels consistent with a 
state of sexual arousal at the time of death.  
They found extremely low levels of a foreign 
organic substance that could not be identified, 
which may possibly be the mystery toxin we've 
been looking for.  They're running more tests 
today to determine if the foreign substance 
reacted with the hormones to induce the 
visceral pyrexia."

There was a long silence as Mulder digested 
that one.  The rain hammered down outside, a 
steady straight downpour that sounded like a 
giant bathtub faucet had been turned on over 
Tehtonka.  Scully rested her ear against the 
door and closed her eyes, listening for him.

She heard his touch whisper over the painted 
wood and, hypnotized, she lifted her hand to 
echo his movement.  Quiet, slow.  She let her 
fingers trail down the warm door, remembering 
the dream-feel of his chest, and unconsciously 
turned her face to nuzzle the hard surface.  

"Scully?"  His voice was almost a purr.

"Mm-hmm?"

"... What're you wearing?"

She jerked away from the door.  "Dammit, Mulder 
--"

His voice shifted into that misunderstood puppy 
dog whine.  "No, seriously, are you dressed 
yet?"

"Mulder, you woke me up.  I'm in my robe and 
pajamas."
"Get dressed."

She glared at the door as though she could bore 
holes through it with her gaze and take him to 
pieces, atom by atom.  "Why?"

"Just a little something they taught me at 
Quantico.  Always get dressed before going on 
stakeout."

"... We're going on stakeout."  Her voice was 
expressionless as her mind made the short leap 
back to the dream stakeout in the jungle, 
Mulder shirtless and moaning under her touch.

"Right."

"Whom, exactly, are we staking out?"

"You get three guesses," he told her slyly.  
When Mulder used the same tone of voice to 
describe a stakeout that he usually reserved 
for enthusing about an upcoming Knicks game, 
Scully counted it as a sign of danger.

"It's too early for this game, Mulder."

"I'll give you a hint.  The Tochok uses a 
sexually frustrated being as its host, and 
spots its victims during the course of the 
host's daily life.  So we're looking for 
someone who's been in contact with every one of 
these victims when they were near the object of 
their unrequited passion; probably someone at 
Taymor's Staffing Service."

Even in this questionable mental state, she 
arrived at the conclusion before he'd finished.  
"Amber Volney."

"Ooh, Scully, got it on the first try.  You get 
a gold star."

"Suffice it to say, Mulder, I don't think she's 
possessed by a demonic entity."

"I didn't expect you to, but at least we agree 
on the suspect."

She considered it.  "And you want us to go 
stake her out?"

"Yes."

"Right now."

"Yes."

"Mulder, do you know what time it is?"

"Um ..."  His presence disappeared briefly from 
the other side of the door, only to return a 
moment later; Scully sensed his approach the 
same way animals feel impending earthquakes.  
"It's six-oh-eight."

She gave her alarm clock an outraged glare, 
long-distance across the room, as though it had 
somehow conspired against her.  She hadn't 
planned on getting up until six-thirty.  Twenty 
precious minutes lost.  "What exactly did you 
plan on accomplishing that couldn't have waited 
until breakfast?"

"I'm not sure whether she's going to school or 
going to Taymor's today.  I thought if we 
tailed her from home instead of looking for her 
later, we might save a little time ..."

"Right *now*?"

Silence.  She pressed her ear into the door and 
listened to her own heartbeat, reflected back 
seashell-style.  There was a flash of 
lightning, the thunder spitting out in several 
distinct beats, a stately timpani solo.  The 
darkness was no longer absolute; dawn was 
crawling over the plains like a wet cat, skinny 
and pissed off and slinking along on its belly.

Mulder's answer, when it came, was unrelated to 
the question.

"Did you get back to sleep all right?"

"Yes."  The lie was heavy on her tongue and 
tasted like bronze.

Mulder's answering silence was accusatory.  The 
short hairs at her nape jerked upward as though 
an ice-cold hand had slipped up the back of her 
neck -- something was wrong.  Something was 
very wrong.  This was not the fragile treatment 
of last night, this was something new, a 
question on the brink of being asked.

He knew.

No.  

He might know, he might not; he definitely 
suspected.  

Whether or not he investigated his suspicions 
would depend upon what he thought he'd find.  
What he wanted to find.  This might sound like 
small talk, but there were razor blades 
embedded in every inch of it.

"Are you going to be up to this?" he asked, 
using the same tone that usually heralded 
unexpected autopsies.

"I'll be fine."  This lie was smooth and cold 
as iced milk; it went down easier than the 
first but it coated her throat on the way down.

"Scully ..."  He stopped, and she heard his 
touch whisper along the surface of the door 
again.  "Can I come around the front?"

"No."  She shook and shook her head like a 
child, so internalized that she'd forgotten he 
couldn't see her.  "No, you can't," she 
elaborated, each word like a brick.  Her heart 
was pounding, the pulse hard and painful in her 
throat.  She gathered more hard words in a 
mental hand, hefting them, waiting for him to 
make a move so she could hurl them at him, 
drive him away before he could attack.  

Silence.  The rain hissed down.  A truck with a 
muffler problem drove by, crashed through 
puddles along the road one by one -- *spffffff 
spfffffff spfffff* -- and rattled off, humming 
like a giant drunken bumblebee.  Scully had a 
strange vision of herself and Mulder crouching 
on either side of the door, armed, safeties 
off, each waiting for the other to kick through 
the door.

Mulder cleared his throat, seeming to sense the 
stalemate.  His tone changed.  "I mean, can I 
bring the parrot around."

It wasn't what he'd meant originally, Scully 
knew; but she was willing to go along with it.  
"Let me get dressed and you can bring him in 
here before we leave."

Thunder rolled across the sky, strangely 
distant compared to the too-present rain.  
Mulder's smile was practically visible through 
the door.  "Admit it, you have a soft spot for 
that bird."

"If you believe that, Mulder, you have a soft 
spot in your head."

<X><X><X><X>

End of Chapter 13  (13/16)

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