No Regrets
by MystPhile@aol.com

Chapter 4--In Deep

(Post-ep Trevor)


"The people along the sand
All turn and look one way.
They turn their back on the land.
They look at the sea all day."

------All quotes in this chapter from Robert Frost's "Neither Out Far Nor In 
Deep"



This time they split the difference.  After meeting in San Diego and Washington 
DC, they now shared a bed at Chicago's Essex Inn, within view of the lake.  
Their motions were those of sailors on a gentle sea, their rocking as rhythmic 
as the tides.  They faced each other, lying on their sides, he buried within 
her.

She raised her leg higher over his hip, slightly changing the angle of 
penetration.  Ah, that pulled him deeper.  And felt even better.  The pace of 
the rocking quickened, and Dana Scully felt that she might pleasurably drown in 
the moisture, both the liquids pooling within her and those released from pores 
all over her body.  Her mind, tossing like a ship in rough seas, snagged onto a 
classic image:  Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster on the beach in From Here To 
Eternity, lost in passion, drenched by the inexorable waves.

The part of her mind that remained cogent clung to that image, convinced that 
though it might be trite, it was trite because it was true.  That *was* passion, 
real in a way that few movies had ever captured, despite the more graphic 
displays of modern films.  The primal rhythm, the *thundering*, overwhelming, 
unstoppable pounding of both tides and passions, the wetness that anointed the 
coupling, a baptism into a new state of release, of giving. Giving up, giving 
to, giving over.  The utter inability, once at sea, to chart a course; instead, 
to be flung about like a hapless cork.  Balanced by the choice to enter into the 
passion, to set sail with that particular person.  She gasped into John Kresge's 
neck as she felt his nails gently rake her buttocks.

"Dana," he murmured.  "You feel...incredible."  He clasped her waist and rolled 
onto his back, leaving her to adjust her weight on top of him.  She chose to 
bring her legs together, tightening her hold on him, squeezing him internally,  
while he continued to move her atop him in a steady motion.  "Jesus," he 
breathed, "so...tight,"  before capturing her mouth and bathing it in wetness.

Scully had felt like a walking Wasteland even before she'd discovered her 
sterility.  Her life had been withering before her eyes, eyes that failed to see 
until a fateful night at the Vietnam Memorial when she picked up a rose petal.  
Then she had recognized her aridity, the Dead Sea that her life had foundered 
into.  She was a land beset by drought, hungry for replenishment, and, out of 
denial,  blind to what was lacking.  

But now, she felt full of life, nourished by moisture and sensing the presence 
of emerging buds. She was stunned to realize that she had paid so little 
attention to her own needs, her own desires.  In these last few weeks, she had 
turned from Tiresias into the Hyacinth Girl.  In the process of doing so, she 
had come to terms with where the responsibiity for her sterility--in all senses 
of the word--lay:  with her, Dana Scully.  No more passivity, she vowed.  If she 
wanted more, it was up to her to go out and seek it.  No more blaming nameless, 
smoky conspirators.  No more subconscious blame of her partner, whose own losses 
had been substantial, and who'd offered her her freedom, with his blessing, 
after their return from the Antarctic.  She chose to stay.  She was in charge, 
not of the future but of her own actions.  Her present wish was to pursue a 
multitude of springs.

The last time she'd been with John Kresge, in DC, the cherry trees were breaking 
into blossom, their snowy canopies drawing the eye to the perfect, cloudless 
skies.  Now, a few weeks later, in Chicago, they were experiencing a second 
spring.  It seemed that wherever she went, nature greeted her with open, leafy 
arms, showing her that a bright new life was possible after all.  She didn't yet 
know what was possible for her, just that an invisible, locked door had opened, 
offering a tantalizing glimpse of possibility.  She wanted to keep that door 
ajar, maybe even, if she got really brave, agape.  There was a world out there, 
teeming with life.  And *good* things.  As Melissa used to say, just because 
things were good didn't mean they were trite.  Dana, a sophisticate and an 
intellectual snob, had thought Melissa simplistic.  Today, she was ready to 
apologize.

She moved her mouth from John's and lifted her head so she could look into his 
face.  His eyes were closed, his forehead slightly scrunched, his face, neck, 
and shoulders beaded in moisture.  "You're beautiful," she whispered, causing 
his eyes to pop open.  They were full of...it couldn't be love, she thought.  
It's just...passion.  If there was such a thing as *just* passion.  One thing 
she could see in his eyes:  Right now, she was the only person in his world.  
That was a rare feeling.  To be that important to someone, to bathe in his 
entire attention.

Her mind shut down as he flipped her on her back and quickened his movements.  
Caught up in the frantic pace of his rocking, she pressed her nails into his 
shoulder blades.  She gasped and made low humming sounds in her throat, echoing 
their rhythms.  The gasps and hums transformed into abbreviated hiccups.  His 
thrusts deepened; her legs spread and twined around his hips, pulling him 
further into the well within her.  The voyage was nearing its end, the boat 
engaged in a heated regatta.  Soon the waves crashed faster, harder, higher, 
swamping the ship. She hung on a bit longer, tried to steer, adjust the sails.  
But nature is not to be resisted.  Before she knew it, the boat had capsized and 
she was floating beneath the sea, reborn a blissful mermaid.

Some minutes later, staring at the ceiling, she murmured,  "What luck that you 
managed to attend this convention."

"Lucky this time," he said.  "Normally, I'd do everything in my power to avoid 
this kind of, uh, education.  I do my best learning on the streets, you know?"

"Mmm.  I didn't mind coming to *my* convention.  There's always a bunch of new 
stuff in my field.  And I like making the professional connections, feeling like 
a doctor for a change.  Hell, I like getting out of town."

Without Mulder, her mind continued.  Their relationship had been an elevator 
lately, one where it didn't matter which button she pushed--it could end up on 
any floor.  As usual, the blowup when Mulder discovered she'd been seeing Kresge 
had led nowhere.  Her relationship with Mulder had gone on so long, with so many 
dips and bumps, it could endure nearly anything.  They had a longstanding m.o., 
and the preferred method of dealing with conflict, unfortunately,  was to ignore 
it.  Therefore, neither had attempted to discuss the fact that she was...what?   
In some sort of relationship with John Kresge.

She'd been tempted, this time, to force him into the open.  She didn't know what 
stopped her.  Maybe the fact that she herself didn't know where this was going 
or what she wanted to say.  She was in a limbo, a happy one for the most part, 
especially when she focused on Kresge.   Obviously, her seeing Kresge bothered 
Mulder.  It was one of the few times he let her see how something concerning her 
had penetrated his tough hide.  But it still wasn't clear why, at least to her.  
Perhaps he was annoyed not to have her total attention.  He'd grown accustomed 
to her loyal presence at any time he required it.  Or, she supposed, it was 
possible he had a more personal interest in her.  His signals, as always, were 
mixed.

On their last case in Mississippi, their relationship seemed to have settled 
into an ease reminiscent of the old days--before major tragedies, before Diana, 
before they began to walk warily around each other on little cat feet.  They 
were able to joke comfortably.  No one took any cheap shots.  Scully gave as 
good as she got, nicely setting up Mulder's expectations with her mention of 
spontaneous human combustion, then reeling him in with her assertion that she 
was merely beating him to the punch.  

They worked well as partners.  They stayed together most of the time and 
actually reasoned out the case together, arriving at the discovery of the 
sister's role simultaneously.  They had no heated or sarcastic discussions.  All 
disagreements concerned science, and even there, they reasoned together towards 
an explanation, rather than attacking each other's theories.  The respect 
quotient was high, higher than it'd been for some time.

But, nothing was simple with Mulder.  Or perhaps, she thought, the complication 
lay with her own twisted perception of him, her tendency to overanalyze his 
actions, gestures, tone of voice.  Part of that she attributed to being a woman. 
Even scientists concede that most women pick up more non-verbal information than 
most men.  And part of Scully's attentiveness probably stemmed from her 
isolation, the gradual narrowing of human contact until Mulder was the person 
with whom she spent most of her time.  Therefore, he was the person she studied 
most and read most easily.  Of course, she thought, that was a fine theory, but 
it was bullshit since she often didn't understand him at all.  Where was the 
complication in this case's straightforward, partnerly behavior?  The way he 
looked at her.  

He'd been upset about her relationship with Kresge.  Then, as easily as someone 
dropping off his clothes at the cleaners, he let it go.  How did he do that, she 
wondered?  One minute his face was a thundercloud, about to drench the earth; 
the next, he was her amiable, mildly flirtatious partner again.  How did he make 
that transition?  She expected him to crawl away and lick his paw after the 
confrontation.  Instead, when she baited him with the idea of spontaneous human 
combustion, the old, confident Mulder had burst forth. It wasn't just the voice, 
which was overtly sexy.  It was the look.  Lasering into her eyes, his look told 
her the thrill was *not* gone.  She excited him.  He still wanted to play games 
with her.  Now she really should decide if she wanted to play Mulder's game, 
which had gone on so long it should have been called for darkness,  or quit his 
game and take her marbles to the Kresge arena.  She supposed it would be a big 
help if she could just figure out the rules.

Her maneuver to attend this forensics convention was another instance of the 
quicksand their relationship rested on.  After she and John had discovered that 
the dates of their conventions in Chicago matched, both had put in last-minute 
requests.  Scully entered hers directly with Skinner, not even mentioning the 
matter to Mulder.  Cowardly, she'd thought, but there it was.  She didn't owe 
him any explanations when she decided to attend a professional convention.  Even 
if she *would* see her lover there.  What did that have to do with Mulder?  Two 
days before she left, she was annoyed to discover that he, having heard from 
Skinner that she was going to Chicago, was thinking of tagging along.

"There are a few people I'd like to see out there," he'd said.  "I've been 
corresponding with a guy for years.  He's done some unusual archeological 
studies and knows a lot about the mystical powers of pyramids," he added, noting 
her mobile eyebrow shooting up.  He smiled.  "Egyptian burial customs have 
always been a big interest of mine.  Did you know that the wrappings..."

"Mulder.  What do ancient burial customs have to do with my forensics 
convention?"

"Well, death is the connection, obviously.  But I was thinking we could fly out 
together.  Then we could uh,  meet from time to time when we're not studying 
our, uh, respective corpses."  He leaned back in his chair, hoisted his legs 
onto the desk, elaborately casual.

Scully paced around the office.  She took a deep breath.  "I'd prefer to fly 
solo," she said, turning to him but trying not to look directly into his face.  
His expression when he'd told her that he was mistaken--surely Kresge had a 
sincere interest in her-- was still too fresh a wound on her conscience.  She 
did not want to hurt him.  Far from it.  She held him in great affection, much 
of the time.  All the time, in fact, except for those times she was mentally 
throwing up her hands, rolling her eyeballs skyward, and asking herself what the 
*hell* made him tick.  And, even more salient, demanding of herself what made 
*her* tick to stick with him.  Aside from the (possibly)impending invasion, that 
one sometimes stumped her despite her best efforts at rationalization.

However, she didn't want him prancing around Chicago trying to arrange meetings 
with her when she planned to spend her non-convention time with John.  How to 
dissuade him.  Hmmm.  The truth probably wouldn't be advisable at this point.  
He was already sufficiently cranky about the Kresge...affair.  But, of course, 
lying was out of the question as well.  "I...need to get away.  Breathe some new 
air."  She met his eyes.  "Alone."  She registered the hurt he tried to hide and 
felt guilty.  She felt better, however, when he immediately launched into an "I 
didn't really want to go anyway" speech, complete with the implication that he 
was doing her a favor in offering to accompany her, socially inept as she was, 
yadda, yadda.  I've got your number, pal, she thought.  And I *know* you're 
disappointed and striking out like a petulant little boy.

So she hung tough and made a clean getaway and was now lying sated in John's 
arms.  He'd been talking about how boring the sessions at his urban crime-
detection gathering were.  "It's mostly attended by guys who need to get out of 
town and get laid," he concluded.

Dana lifted her head and skewered him with one large blue eye.  "Like you?"

"Hey, where did that come from?" he asked.  He shot her a bewildered look.  "I 
came here to be with you.  Wine you.  Dine you."

Wine you.  Dine you.  Fuck you? she thought.  Then she wondered where *that* 
came from.  Here she'd been feeling just fine, renewed, invigorated, brimming 
with life's possibilities.  And then came an abrupt switch to feeling like...she 
was being used?  No.  Not that.  If use was occurring, she could be the one 
doing the using. The man was a goddamned tonic.  If she saw him any more 
frequently, she might sprout wings and fly straight for the sun, a golden amazon 
with superpowers.  She was getting a big boost out of the relationship.  So, 
what was bothering her?  Whatever it was, it was elusive, a pesky gnat crushed 
by the tide of satiation, incapable of denting her post-coital haze.  She 
brushed the gnat aside and lowered her head to John's shoulder.  She drew breath 
against his skin, soaking up his sweaty, masculine scent.  It was enough to make 
her high.

She pulled herself together.  "Sorry," she said.  "Speaking of dining, where 
would you like to eat?  Want me to check my guidebook?"

Yawning and tightening his grip on her, he muttered his agreement.  And soon, 
they were off for an evening that included another of John's passions, jazz.
                             ---------------------------------------------------
-----------------------

"The land may vary more;
But wherever the truth may be--
The water comes ashore,
And the people look at the sea."


The next night, Dana was blow drying her hair in the bathroom, preparing to go 
out to dinner.  As she lifted her arms, the hotel's white terry robe fell open, 
drawing her attention from her hair to her body.  As the robe spread, she laid 
the dryer on the counter and looked at her body, something she rarely did, at 
least with any real attention.

She saw smooth white skin blemished by the pucker of a recent bullet wound.  
Ugly, she thought.  Her breasts, when she pulled the robe back further, looked 
good: perfect globes, not large but also not sagging.  The nipples were such a 
deep, vivid pink that they were nearly red, whether from her shower or from 
sexual activity she didn't know.  She liked the color though; it made them look 
alive, as if they were touched and appreciated, not simply appendages that would 
never see the use for which nature had designed them.

She looked down at her coppery thatch, the other flash of color on her pale 
body.  It was thick and curly, still slightly damp from the shower.  She smiled 
at it in the mirror, rotating her hips slightly.  You've seen some action, too, 
friend, she smiled, and I don't think you've ever been happier.  Pulling back 
the robe, she studied her abdomen.  Still trim but a little plumper than when 
she was emaciated from the cancer.  She let the robe fall from one shoulder and 
turned to study her profile--breasts still good, especially if she pulled her 
shoulders back, fairly tight abs, a little flab accumulating on the tummy.  Not 
bad.

She swiveled to face the mirror again and brought her face closer.  The body was 
more youthful than the face at this point, she decided.  Then she noticed the 
phrasing of her thought.  Was she so withdrawn from herself that she referred to 
her own body as "the" body?  Her face as "the" face?  She frowned, which led to 
a new observation:  The years were taking their toll in the tightness around her 
full lips, the faint but visible lines forming around her eyes, the pucker line 
that marred her forehead.  Her eyes opened wide, staring into themselves in the 
mirror.  Yikes, she muttered.

Pulling her robe closed, she resumed drying her hair, wondering why she so 
seldom looked at herself.  Had she somehow lost her corporeal existence and 
turned into an entity devoted to intellect?  Had her mind become her only fully 
functioning organ?  She thought of her family, which she was beginning to think 
had been totally fucked up.  

Melissa, our Lady of the Spirits.  She scorned exercise, unless it was yoga.  
Hated to play softball and other sports.  Not much interest in the body except 
as a temple of the spirit.  Dropped out of college to study with New Age guru-
types.  She'd pretty much rejected the life of the mind.  She wanted to 
experience, to feel.  Bill, on the other hand, was Mr. Body.  Football, 
wrestling, almost any sport.  A dedicated jock.  With all the spiritual warmth 
of the Smoking Man, now known as Mr. Spender.  And only as much intellect as he 
needed to claw his way upward in the Navy. Putting aside Charlie, who'd become a 
stranger, there was Dana.  Hadn't looked at her body as something that was 
really *her* since she could remember.  Had recently rediscovered that her body 
could give and experience pleasure, that it was a fine, valuable instrument, 
willing and eager to play many different notes.  That it could sing, and scream, 
and tremble, and fall to its knees begging for more.

Keep that up, and you're going to need a cold shower, she thought.  Or, it 
occurred to her, she could open the door and pounce on John Kresge.  She turned 
off the dryer and stood in front of the mirror gazing at herself.  Too much 
mind, she thought.  You've neglected the body and the soul.  Your soul cried out 
for meaning, it yelled at you, screamed for attention when you were about to 
die.  Because you'd starved it, leaving it as hungry as your body.  You laid so 
much away in dark, secret places.  Now you try to take them out of mothballs and 
discover they're old and dusty. They don't work as well as they used to.  Rust?  
And your mind, domineering creature that it's become, will just never shut the 
fuck up.  Out, she told herself.  Do not engage in lengthy self-analysis 
*again*.  Go out and see if John's ready to eat.

She opened the door.  John was sitting on the bed, phone pressed to his ear.  He 
looked up.  His face wore a look of strain.  "It's your partner."

She closed her mouth before the word "Mulder" could emerge.  Who the hell else 
would her partner be?  And what the hell did he want?  Oh.  Now he knew why she 
didn't want him to come to Chicago with her.  The truth was out there, in the 
voice of John Kresge.  Even her knowledge that Mulder always sought the truth 
didn't make her feel good about his discovery.  But her convention plans were 
none of his business, she told herself firmly, in the time it took her to cross 
the room and take the phone.

She took a breath.  "What's up, Mulder?" she asked, consciously keeping her 
voice calm and even, not knowing what to expect.  She noticed that Kresge had 
crossed the room and plopped down on a chair, picking up a magazine to leaf 
through.  Yeah, right, she thought.  Like he's going to read.

"A lot, I guess," he said.  "But not with me."

Silence lay there, a smothering blanket.  Was the person who broke it the loser, 
she wondered.  Kresge glanced up, curious that nothing was being said.  Fuck 
this, she thought.  "So why did you call?"

He didn't speak for a moment.  "It was just an impulse," he said, his voice 
dead.  "I was going to tell you about the capture of the fugitive beaver."

"Beaver?"

Kresge put the magazine down and stared.

"The Tidal Basin beavers have been pulled in for questioning," he said.  Then 
she remembered.  At the peak of the cherry blossom season, the Basin had been 
beset by beavers who destroyed and/or damaged the famous trees.  There had been 
jokes about calling in the FBI to lead the beaver search.  Even the Washington 
Post had gotten into the act, suggesting that the Vice-President in a pink 
sombrero might be one way of driving the beavers away.  Or, alternatively, they 
suggested dispatching ground troops.  "It looks as if all available beaver have 
been rounded up," Mulder said.

Scully broke into laughter.  "Well, then, that solves that case, doesn't it?  
Were you on the scene, Mulder?"

"No," he said.  "But I was going to volunteer as an observer."  He paused, then 
spoke rapidly and tonelessly.  "I thought this would cheer you up.  Sorry.  
Didn't realize you had company.  See you next week."  He hung up.

Dana dropped to the bed and replaced the receiver.  She looked at John, who was 
still staring.   She hastened to explain about the cherry-tree-attacking 
beavers.  John shook his head.  "Let me get this straight.  You're at a medical 
convention.  And this guy calls you to tell you about a beaver?  That he 
volunteered to be an observer?  And this isn't...isn't sexual harassment?"

She shrugged.  "It's...Mulder, I guess. And everybody in DC has found it pretty 
funny.  It's not such a big deal."

John looked unconvinced. "He does this...all the time?"

"Does what?"

"Makes, uh, innuendoes."

Dana rose and pulled her robe tighter.  "Not any more than usual in...in law 
enforcement agencies.  Are you telling me that your department is a hotbed of 
decorum?  That the word 'fuck' is never heard, even with ladies present?"

He frowned.  "Why don't you get dressed.  We have a reservation."  He walked to 
the mirror and straightened his tie.  "We just got our first female homicide 
detective last week," he said.  "I don't think anyone's hit on her yet."

Dana started to pull on clothes.  "I don't think innuendo is that big a deal, at 
least in most law enforcement places.  They tend to be more crude than other 
workplaces, use street language. Deal with rude and crude criminals.  Females 
who work there don't really think of themselves as 'ladies,' you know?  We're 
generally trying to fit in and be one of the guys.  It's the only way to get 
ahead and be treated...equally."  She buttoned her blouse.

"You defend him a lot," Kresge observed.  "Did you know that?"

Her brow lifted.  "I've been told that," she said, picking up her jacket.  "I 
can only assume that he needs an...inordinate amount of defending."  She pulled 
her jacket on and straightened the lapel, noticing the glimmer that flashed back 
from the mirror.

"Might be because he's, uh, inordinately offensive," Kresge said, standing 
behind her and smoothing her jacket over her shoulders.  He too glanced down at 
the gleam on her lapel.

The dainty silver daffodil pinned to her jacket was John's gift to her, a 
delicately-wrought symbol of spring.  That afternoon, they had cut out early on 
their respective sessions to meet at the Art Institute, where they spent a 
couple of hours poring over the Renaissance and Impressionist work.  They'd also 
devoted considerable attention to the photography exhibits and the architectural 
renderings of the city's skyscrapers. Afterwards, at the museum shop, John had 
surprised her with the silver daffodil, so in accord with the spring stirring 
within her.  

After leaving the Institute, inspired by the exhibits detailing the 
architectural history of the city, they'd taken a long walking tour.  Tomorrow, 
before they flew out, they hoped to have a chance to view the city from the 
Sears Tower if the day was clear.  But at the moment, things seemed a bit 
overcast between them.

Dana turned and touched John's face.  "Don't get pissed about him," she said.  
"Let's concentrate on us.  Forget him.  Okay?"  She stretched up to kiss him 
lightly.

He looked as if he wanted to speak, thought better of it, then nodded.

                             ----------------------------

When in Rome, do as the Romans do, they say, since there's little choice.   When 
in the Midwest, eat beef, since it is so remarkably flavorful.  At Morton's of 
Chicago, over steaks so tender they could be cut with a fork, Scully asked John 
about his ex-wife.  "She's dating someone," he said.  "Maybe that's one reason 
I'm a little touchier than usual.  At least I seem to be a little edgy.  I don't 
quite know why."

"Some form of jealousy?" Dana asked, sipping her wine.  "You wanted to leave her 
but you didn't really want anyone else to have her?"

He thought about it as he chewed.  "I don't think so.  Maybe I'm afraid that 
whoever he is, he'll replace me as Janet's dad.  You know, what if he's a really 
great guy?  He'll fall in love with Janet too and shower her with 
affection...and gifts...and have time to be her Little League coach...or 
whatever.  He'll...displace me."

"No.  Real parents can't be displaced," she reassured him.  "You'll always be 
her daddy.  Even though my father is dead, he'll always be there for me.  And he 
wasn't around a lot when I was growing up.  He didn't coach Little League.  He 
was always sailing away."  She paused to ponder that one, wondering exactly what 
that fact explained about her relations with men.  Maybe more than she was ready 
to accept.  She was attracted to those who ran away from her, the elusive types, 
the *ditchers*?  Please God, no, she prayed.

"But you didn't have a substitute father come in and do all the paternal stuff," 
John said, buttering more bread.  "If another warm, loving father figure were 
around, you might have grown more fond of him than...oh, hell.  Why torment 
myself with it?"

"You don't have anything to worry about, you know." Dana touched his hand.  
"She's just dating a guy.  She could conceivably date a hundred guys and none of 
them will turn out to be Mr. Right.  Just because she's dating doesn't mean that 
Janet's going to be affected.  In fact, if Anne is smart, she'll keep the men 
she dates away from Janet unless she's really serious about one of them."

John smiled with relief.  "Now that makes me feel better.  Anne *is* a terrific 
mother.  She'd never whisk guys in and out of Janet's life."

"She'd probably make sure that you were part of Janet's life at any rate," Dana 
reassured him.  "She knows Janet adores you.  She'd make sure she still had time 
with you.  Right?"

He nodded, pushing away his empty plate, lost in thought.  After a while, he 
looked over at Dana's pensive expression.  "Penny for them."

"They're not very bright," she confessed.  "I was thinking of a little girl who 
was mine in a way.  At least, genetically.  Her name was Emily.  She died, but 
she always knew who her real parents were.  Not her genetic parents.  Not 
whoever gave birth to her.  The people who brought her up.  The ones who loved 
her.  The ones she called Mommy and Daddy."

"My homicide case," Kresge said slowly.  "The girl's mother was dead, and you 
showed up with some weirdass story."  He studied her.  "You're the one who 
showed it *was* a homicide."

She nodded.  "Phone messages from my sister Melissa," she said.

"The one who died.  And the little girl, Emily. I knew there was a connection.  
But I don't see how she could be your daughter.  You told me you couldn't have 
children."  He placed his hand over hers.

"I can't," she told him, staring down at their hands.  "Some years ago, I 
was...taken.  I was gone for months.  Then I reappeared, in a hospital in 
Georgetown.  I was in a coma and not expected to wake up. For some reason I did.  
Eventually I got stronger and went back to work."

She turned her head to stare intensely at a nearby flower arrangement.  "Much 
later," she said, "after a bout with cancer, I discovered I was sterile.  After 
that, I discovered that when I was...gone, all my ova had been removed.  
Someone, I don't know who they are, used my ova.  And ova belonging to other 
women they'd taken, the way they took me.  Some kind of medical experiment.  And 
my ova were apparently used to create Emily.  And god knows who else."

She turned back to Kresge, her eyes shining with  unshed tears.  "I keep 
worrying about those other ova.  What other children there may be.  But my point 
to you was...these children, if they exist.  They're not mine.""

She sipped her wine.  "Same thing with the case in Mississippi I was telling you 
about.  The little boy named Trevor.  The convict was determined to take what 
was his, the child.  But Trevor belonged to the woman he thought was his mother, 
not that man who insisted that...that  a sperm entitled him to possession.  
Children belong to the people who love them and care for them.  Janet will 
always be yours."

"Thanks," he said quietly.

"Weirdass shit," she said, as tears trickled down her cheeks.

Kresge looked up to wave the approaching waiter away.  "Strange--yeah, really 
weirdass--things may have happened to you, Dana, but you're a...a great person.  
You can't help what was done to you.  None of it's your fault."  He enveloped 
her hand in both of his.

"Don't you want to get up and run away?" she asked, wiping away tears with her 
napkin.  "Isn't my life just too weirdass to want to be around?  Even *I* try to 
get away from it, try to pretend that this stuff didn't happen."

Kresge waved to the waiter, gestured for the check.  He turned his attention 
back to Dana, still lost in misery.  She had brought out and examined in the 
candlelight the facts she liked--was compelled--to keep tucked away in the dark 
crevices of her mind.  If she could hardly face them, how could she expect him 
to?  She expected he'd leave her soon, not too suddenly, but now he would begin 
to ease himself out of her life.  Tactfully, of course.  John Kresge was wounded 
himself; he knew how it felt.  He would try not to hurt her.  He'd close the 
door gently on the way out.

"Damaged goods," she murmured.  "Who could possibly want to be part of..." she 
waved her hand toward her bosom.  "All this.  Abductee, sterile, the possibility 
of genetically...strange children... cancer."  She waved her hand outward, 
expansively.  "Other stuff you don't know about.  You don't want to know."

"Hey," he interrupted with a fierce whisper.  "Stop doing a number on yourself."  
He reached across the table and lifted her chin.  "Look at me."  She lifted her 
shining eyes to his.  They held a glint of despair.
"Dana," he said, making sure to hold her eyes.  "I'm not interested in what some 
assholes did to you.  I mean, I care what happened.  I really do.  But that's 
not the big thing about you.  I'm interested in *you.*  You're a...a lovely 
woman."  He leaned across the table and kissed beneath her right eye, tasting 
salt.  "We're all damaged goods." He pulled back and smiled.  "Join the human 
race."

"You're much easier on me than I am on myself," she said, regaining her 
composure.  "I tend to be a little...bit of a perfectionist."

John checked the bill and pulled out his wallet. He snorted.  "A *bit* of a 
perfectionist.  Yeah, right.  Tell you what.  Let's go back to the hotel," he 
said.  "I know we said we'd go to a club.  But cuddling and dozing seem like a 
good idea right now.  Okay?"

She nodded.  Despite warm feelings about John and gratitude for his reassuring 
and accepting remarks, she felt quite worn out.
                                                  ------------------------------
------------------------


"They can't look out far.
They can't look out deep.
But when was that ever a bar
For any watch they keep?"


"All this can be yours, my dear," John told Dana with an oily smile as they 
stood on the observation deck of the Sears Tower the next day.  

She felt a little dizzy and stepped back from the view.  "You're making Biblical 
references.  I'm thinking of a movie.  I guess I really *am* a chick."

"Oh, that film all women love about meeting at the Empire State Building?"

"Got it in one."  She looked around for a bench.  "I think I need to sit down."

"Something wrong?"  He sat beside her and put an arm around her shoulder.

She squinted and shook her head.  "Don't know.  Maybe too much sun.  Too much 
sex.  Too much self-revelation.  I just feel...addled."

"An Affair to Remember, that's the chickflick, right?  Is that the kind of 
romance you want, Dana?"

She sighed.  "If I knew what I wanted, I'd answer you."  She turned to him.  
"You know, I love our time together, John.  I love that we can really talk.  
That you listen to what I say.  That we can practically make each other bay at 
the moon.  But it's all like a fairy tale.  Some alternate reality, in glamorous 
spots like this one, on top of the world."

He considered.  "Well, as someone who's been married, I'll admit that the stuff 
that happens somewhere else is more exciting than the humdrum daily stuff.  So 
as long as we're on different coasts, our meetings are always going to be a 
little...unreal, I guess you'd say.  Although, I have to say," he lowered his 
voice,  "I can still taste you.  Christ, can I ever.  And your smell is all over 
me.  That's *real.*"

She flushed, then rubbed her head.  "It's so damned sunny today.  I think I'm 
getting a headache.  What was I trying to say?  I'm getting lost."  She sighed 
again and rested her head on John's shoulder.  "Let me have another go at this.  
I'm happy when I'm with you.  Everything is great." She lifted her head to meet 
his eyes.  "But then one or both of us pack our bags and we're off for x number 
of days, back to our *real* lives.  I guess what I'm trying to say, really 
badly, is that when I'm with you I feel really...great." She gave a little 
screech and threw her hands  up in frustration.  "Jesus, I've never been so 
inarticulate in my life!  I cannot seem to say what I mean."

She forced herself to continue, dizzied by the blinding sun. "When we're 
together, you're my world.  Then we pack up and go back to a different world.  
And my heart doesn't divide that easily.  If I love to be with you, then why am 
I just as happy in my other world?  It's the division I'm having the problem 
with.  I give you my body, and myself.  Then I fly away."  She grimaced.  "And 
that would be fine if I thought there was a real prospect of some future time 
when I wouldn't fly away.  But that's just not going to happen.  Really.  So, 
I'm coming here to give you my body and lend you my soul... and then I snatch 
all of it away.  Isn't there something wrong with this picture?  Isn't there a 
nasty name for what we're doing?"

John touched her face, felt the moisture.  He began searching for a 
handkerchief.  This time it was not tears; it was sweat.  He patted her 
forehead.  "We're being honest?"

"I think we agreed to that, yes."  She pulled the handkerchief from his careful 
fingers and swabbed her face vigorously.

"Well, Dana, I think you've been divided for some time.  I don't think this is 
anything that new."

"What d'you mean?"  She stopped wiping and concentrated on what he was saying.

"I mean...you've put so much of your life into the X-Files.  Into your partner's 
life.  You're so attached."  He held up his hand.  "I know, I know.  You're 
working on detaching yourself.  But, I just sense...I don't know.  You've given 
him everything.  Except your body."  He shook his head.  "All that shit that's 
happened to you.  Unbelievable, surreal stuff.  And you're still there."  He 
leaned forward and kissed her cheek.  "That's what I mean about your already 
being divided.  You're so close to him.  He calls you up about nothing.  And 
you're not even surprised.  You explain why he calls rather than tell him to get 
lost, you're on your own time.  Yet, you say, there's no sex."

"There isn't."  Maybe there should have been, she thought, but there wasn't.  
"There's this...big history.  All the weirdass shit, as you call it.  It kind of 
glued me into place, like I just got stuck there, waiting for the next blow.  
My...mobility disappeared.  I became... passive." She handed him back his 
handkerchief.  "Now I'm trying to get..unglued.  Grow some wings.  Make some 
solo flights."  

She frowned and put her hand above her eyes to shield her from the blazing sun.  
It pierced her head, a thousand knives slashing behind her eyes.  Or maybe that 
was the pain of the years with the X-Files, she thought, pressing behind her 
eyes, trying to force her to open them up and see what was best for her life.  
To see the truth--maybe that was where the worst pain lay.

"You really don't feel well," John said, pushing her damp hair away from her 
face.  "Can I get you anything?"

"A bottle of answers, please," she said.

                 -------------------------------------------


On the plane, Dana wanted to ponder the weekend past, hoping to gain some sort 
of perspective.  But she was assailed by dizziness and nausea.  The more she 
tried to concentrate on her thoughts, the more her mind dropped to her churning 
stomach.  Yet she felt too dazed by the  wisps of fog swirling around her brain 
to seek relief in the bathroom.

Sweat broke out everywhere.  She could feel it beading on her forehead, 
dampening the underarms of her shirt, trickling between her breasts.  Panic 
threatened, bringing on her usual reaction.  She reached for a phone.

"Mulder."

"It's me," she breathed.

"How you doing?" he asked, his words wrapped tight, compact, a packet of ice.

"I'm..." Not fine, she told herself.  Say it, damn it!  "Ill.  I feel...rotten."

The ice on the other end melted.  Instantly.  "Where are you?  What do you want 
me to do?"  His voice trembled slightly on the last few words.

"I'll be landing..." she checked her watch through vision that seemed less than 
sharp.  "In a little more than an hour."  She stopped to draw in a breath, calm 
herself.  "I seem to have...caught something. Some bug."  She wiped some sweat 
from her face.  "I'm feverish, nauseous...I...I don't know if I can even stand 
up." Her head lolled back against the seat, the phone her only contact to 
reality.  Everything else was spinning; only Mulder's voice held her in place.

"I'll be there," he said.  "Get some aspirin from the flight attendant. If 
you're in...in..., uh, serious difficulty, have them radio ahead and arrange for 
an ambulance."  She heard him breathe in. "I'm on my way."

She hung up and leaned back, closing her eyes.  She felt a little better.  For 
all their duels and differences, for all the wary tiptoes alternating with 
brutal pounces, he was there for her when it counted.  As she wanted to be for 
him.  Abruptly, she leaned forward to search for the barf bag.  Her head spun 
and her vision blurred.  It was going to be a long flight.
                            -------------------------------

True to his word, he was waiting at the gate, ready to take her bag in one hand 
and her weight on his other arm.  He half carried her to his car, which he'd 
parked right outside the terminal after duly impressing the guard with his 
credentials.  The only part of the ride she remembered was his soft inquiry.  
"Do you need to go to a hospital?"

"No," she murmured.  "It feels like hell.  But it's just a virus.  I need to go 
to bed." She felt his hand on her knee, warm and comforting.

When next she had sufficient energy to pay attention, she was in Mulder's 
apartment, in a room she didn't recognize.  She had expected to be taken to her 
own apartment but was too exhausted to protest.  Instead, her mind fluttered off 
on its own.  "You have a bedroom?" she muttered.

He droned on for a while, telling her some things she didn't quite catch.  For 
some reason, and she thought her delirium must be affecting her hearing, he 
seemed to be saying a bed had magically appeared, a water bed that leaked and 
pissed off his landlord.  Beds didn't just appear, she thought hazily.  Could 
*nothing* be normal in this man's life?

"But this isn't a water bed," she drawled, her words sliding together.  "If it 
was, I'd be puking my head off."

"Good point," he said, fetching an empty wastebasket.  He sat beside her and 
helped her remove her jacket.  "I got a new mattress," he explained.  "And a 
frame.  It turns out waterbeds are prohibited here."

*Why* is he jabbering about waterbeds, she wondered.  Is he insane?  Now what 
was he saying.  Something about clothes.  She tried to focus.  It was hard. She 
tried again, harder.

He was showing her a T-shirt, long and soft, blue as her eyes.  "Can you get 
this on by yourself?" he was asking her.  "If necessary, I can help you get 
undressed."  He knelt to remove her shoes and set them aside, making sure to 
leave a clear path to the bathroom.

Time passed.  She had no idea whether it was too slow or too fast.  She just 
knew that it wasn't working correctly.  It was a haze, a blur.  Eventually she 
was wearing the soft blue shirt and propped against his pillows, a warm green 
blanket pulled to her shoulders while she still trembled with fever.  Then she 
felt a weight beside her.  Mulder's soft voice was nearby, but she was having 
trouble paying attention.  Something hard and cold touched her lips.  She opened 
her eyes, two bloodshot slits, to focus on a glass of water.  In his other hand 
were two aspirin.  "Take these," he was saying.  For some reason, he seemed to 
be repeating himself a lot.  What was *wrong* with the man?  With the instincts 
of a baby bird, she opened her mouth.  She heard a swallow, somewhere.  Her 
mouth felt slightly less like a desert, burning, dry, rough with sand.  So 
irritating.  Even her tongue was too swollen to move.  Eventually, he left her 
alone and she drifted into the hovering haze.

The next impingement on her consciousness was an insistent ringing.  She 
wondered if she was so feverish that her Saharan head was manufacturing sounds.  
But eventually Mulder's shadow crossed the dimly lit room and he leaned over the 
chair on which her clothes had been piled, by someone.  Something small and 
silver flashed in the shadows, a dim memory of a happier time.  He seemed to be 
searching her pockets.  Straightening, he spoke into something dark and compact.  
"Mulder."

Oh, she realized.  That was my cell.  Why was it still turned on?  Who would I 
want to talk to anyway?  These questions were too hard.  She closed her eyes and 
began to drift again.

The word "Kresge" brought her eyes open with the speed of those of a doll that 
is suddenly pulled upright.  John.  Of course he'd be calling.  He'd want to 
know if...what was Mulder saying?  Oh, shit.  This was his big chance.  He could 
tell the truth, a truth that would make it hard for her to convince John that 
his suspicions and reservations about Mulder were not, in fact, true.  All 
Mulder had to say were the magic words:  She's in my bed.  She can't come to the 
phone right now.  John wouldn't recover easily from those words.  Their future 
relationship would be blighted for however long the residue of distrust lasted.  
She tried to speak, but her throat was still sharp with sand.  Not even a croak 
emerged.  She was helpless.

If she could not speak, she could at least try to hear.  Try to concentrate, 
Dana, she urged herself.  Stay awake, damn it.  She ran her nails into the palm 
of her hand, trying to force her body to pay attention, stop drifting.  Melissa, 
where are you? she cried inwardly. Now I need to use the techniques you were 
always trying to explain to me, how to meditate, concentrate, really *hear*.

Mulder's voice was soft.  Maybe he was trying not to disturb her.  She relaxed 
into the pillow as his words finally penetrated.  Words like "feverish, 
nauseous, dizzy, can't stand up, can't stay awake."  He was not going to mess 
her up with John.  He probably knew he could count on her doing that all by 
herself, she thought, overcome by dark thoughts.  Where was the new Dana, free, 
independent, seeker of new life?  Half dead, she concluded, sinking further into 
the warmth of Mulder's bed.  Sometimes the old life was necessary too.  Like 
right now.

As Mulder's voice droned on, assuring John she would call when she felt up to 
it, Scully's thoughts continued to swirl.  Why hadn't she thought to call her 
mother?  Why Mulder?  Because she knew he'd be there.  With no tiresome 
lectures.  He wouldn't smother her or force unwanted attention or sympathy on 
her.  He would give her what she needed.  

At least when she was ill.  If he would always give her what she needed, once 
she managed to figure out what that was, she might not be seeing handsome 
detectives who lived three thousand miles away.  But seeing John did make her 
happy, during almost all of their time together.  He brought her to life.  She 
felt ripe with him, powerful, desirable.   Mulder too engendered emotions, many 
of them quite complex.  Happiness--and the other feelings John inspired--were 
not often among them.

Silence again blanketed the room, dim and comforting.  The shivers subsided, and 
her vision became clearer.

"Mulder," she croaked.

He rushed in from the bathroom carrying a damp washcloth, sat beside her, and 
spread it across her forehead.  He lightly touched her pink cheek with the backs 
of his fingers.  "You're not burning up now," he observed, leaning down to stare 
at her closely in the soft light.  "The aspirin must have finally kicked in."  
He smiled and continued to caress her cheek, his eyes kind and concerned.

"*You're* the sea," Scully said softly, her words blurring.

"What do you want to see?" he asked, tucking the blanket around her neck.  He 
sounded as if he were humoring her. How condescending of him.

"You're the sea," she repeated.  "It overwhelms the land.  People prefer the 
sea."  Her voice faded.  "I can kind of see why."

He pushed her hair back and removed the cloth from her forehead.  "Try to rest," 
he said.  "It'll be easier now that the fever's broken."  His hand brushed her 
cheek again, then cradled it, softly, as if holding a tiny bird's egg.  "Don't 
worry about anything.  You can stay here as long as you need to."

She closed her eyes, at peace.



Notes:  "The Wasteland" by T. S. Eliot mentions Tiresias, the blind seer, and 
the hyacinth girl, referred to in part 1.  The passage is:

"You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
They called me the hyacinth girl.
--Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing..."

She is an ambiguous image, as are many of the wet/dry and sea/land images used 
in this segment.  The ambiguity is deliberate.



Chapter 5--Within

(post Milagro)


My genial spirits fail;
And what can these avail
To lift the smothering weight from off my breast?
It were a vain endeavor,
Though I should gaze forever
On that green light that lingers in the west:
I may not hope from outward forms to win
The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.
       -----From "Dejection: An Ode" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge



"I met the subject, Phillip Padgett, for the first time on an elevator in 
Agent Mulder's apartment building.  He stared at me the way I eye a chocolate 
hazelnut truffle.  There was practically drool seeping from the corner of his 
mouth.  I should have called him on it..."

"Shit."  Scully highlighted what she'd written and jabbed the Delete key.  
The forceful motion made her laptop shimmy.   This was the--what?--seventh 
time she'd had to delete.   Maybe the guy's horrendous writing style was 
contagious, she thought.  After glancing through his purple prose, jammed 
with awkward, overwrought descriptions that had her blushing and melting all 
over the place,  malleable, aroused,  yearning...Yeah, she thought,  I've 
done my share of yearning, but it's as if he's written me a couple of months 
out of date.  And totally wrong a lot of the time.   She snorted, remembering 
that at one point he had described her as "naturally trusting."  Yeah, right. 
 She sighed and began anew.

"He followed me into a church and joined me in front of a picture of the 
Divine Heart of Jesus.  There he related to me a story of Saint Margaret Mary 
and Christ.  It was perhaps the power of Christ, as he related in the story, 
to remove the saint's heart, fill it with divine love, and replace it in her 
healed body that prompted Mr. Padgett's attempts to use his mind to invade 
the bodies of others in an effort to win my heart."

The Delete key saw action again.  She often wrote complicated sentences, but 
that was really too much.  Scully stomped over to the refrigerator, opened 
the door, and stared inside with glazed eyes.  She barely remembered to close 
its door as she turned to wander aimlessly around her apartment. 

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

FLASH:  My eyes open.  I'm blinded by light after the eternal darkness I'd 
envisioned--and dreaded.  When vision returns, I expect *him*, the monster, 
to be there, holding my heart in his hand.  I convulse, every muscle in my 
body contracting in animal terror.  It's not the monster I see when my eyes 
focus--it's Mulder.
                 ********************************************* 

Flashbacks, a sign of post-traumatic stress syndrome, she noted clinically.  
Okay, she admitted, this one got to me.  She had wisely deleted "win my 
heart."   Yuck, she thought  It could have wound up in his hand.  Too close 
for comfort, and not just the fact that something that doesn't even exist was 
ripping my heart out while I fired bullets into him-it--to no effect.  

She chuckled, then looked around in alarm, wondering if she was losing her 
mind.  Why the hell else would she be *laughing* about her recent experience? 
 Maybe I'm just glad to be alive, she rationalized.  A fresh peal of laughter 
escaped her as another irrelevant thought hit: Note to self--do not replace 
the white blouse this time.  It invariably winds up covered with blood.  
Hysteria swooped down, weakening her knees, and she collapsed onto the couch, 
laughing and crying.  It's too much, it's too much, her mind cried out.  Just 
when I think I'm getting myself together, this guy crawls out of the woodwork 
and makes me question everything. 

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

FLASH: Mulder looks as pale as new snow and as frozen, stricken to the core 
of his soul.  His iron hands grip my shoulders as though to reassure him that 
if my eyes have opened of their own volition, I am *here*.
                  ********************************************

She sucked in a deep breath and wiped her face.  What *was*  her problem?  
That she'd been at death's door--again.  She should consider leasing a space. 
 That deep in her mind--no, strike that, not very deep at all; damned close 
to the surface, in fact--she feared that Padgett might have succeeded in 
luring her into his bed, or was it *writing* her into his bed.  If his mind 
was powerful enough to conjure killing instruments, maybe it could have 
forced her to....  She didn't want to think about it.  

It was bad enough, having a chip in her neck that could make do things 
against her will.  Now it was conceivable that she could be controlled by a 
mere individual, one who kidded himself that he was acting out of love.  To 
win her love.  To kill to win her love.   It made her feel soiled, to be the 
reason people died.  Would the last victim have died, if she had wised up 
sooner and convinced Padgett that she was not available to him?  Or did he 
have such power that she *would* have been available to him?  The whole 
experience made her feel like throwing up.

Throwing up.  Yes, that's what she did when she was suffering from a virus at 
Mulder's.   With him helping her to the bathroom, cleaning her up, and 
fetching cool washcloths.  She wondered if Padgett had heard any of that 
through the vent.

Her mind skittered in yet another direction:  Mulder's astounding lack of 
privacy.  Another note to self:  Stay out of Mulder's apartment.  It held all 
the privacy of a beach in August.  Just off the top of her all-too-addled 
head, she recalled that it had had a camera installed in the ceiling, that he 
and she had been recorded by terrorists when he was working undercover, and 
that even his water supply had been tampered with.  The invasions ranged from 
the exotic--like Tooms, slithering through a grate--to this mundane, 
old-fashioned eavesdropping.  The gamut.  The man might as well live on a 
park bench.

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

FLASH:  I feel that dampness has penetrated my clothing, my skin.  I am 
soaked and shivering; memories of the Antarctic flood back as I awake from 
yet another chilly death with Mulder crouching over me, his brow furrowed 
with concern, his eyes glinting with tears and fear.
                      ****************************************

She wandered back to the kitchen to look for something to drink.  Tea.  Yes, 
that's what she needed.  Her mind slid back to her sick time in Mulder's 
apartment.  Maybe that's why it had been so easy to reach out to Mulder for 
comfort after being attacked by the hooded man, startled to be alive when 
she'd thought she was losing her heart.  Yes, losing heart.  That's what 
she'd been doing, for a long time.  She'd spent years losing pieces of  her 
"heart" in the sense of losing her nerve, her zest for life.  Maybe, despite 
his turgid prose,  Padgett had sensed that drain, the exhaustion that spurred 
her yearning.

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

FLASH:  I reach for Mulder, needing to connect, to relieve my chilled and 
solitary state.  I have been invaded once more, violated in the core of my 
being, my heart.  His arms close around me, and I burrow into his warmth.  My 
nose, buried in the crease of his neck, smells fear.
                   ****************************************

Scully picked up her mug and headed back to the couch,  her alarm growing as 
she realized that her mind refused to fix on any topic for more than five 
seconds.  Besides the distressing flashbacks, it just kept leaping, no, 
galloping.  Tea.  Yes, tea and Mulder.  Reaching out to him.  She'd been able 
to reach for him because they'd spent so much time together when she was ill. 
 They had touched easily, with warmth and friendship.  Maybe Kresge had 
finally chased away the tensions that always seemed to exist between her and 
Mulder.  Or maybe, she thought, sipping her tea and curling her feet under 
her, the tensions had all been in her mind anyway.  She was given, she 
believed, to over-interpreting Mulder's every action, intonation, and gesture 
while he sailed cluelessly and guilelessly through life.

Maybe that was Padgett's appeal, if that was the correct word.  Yes, he did 
have some sort of power.  A sane Scully would not have wound up sitting on 
his bed drinking coffee.  A sane Scully would have never knocked on his door 
or engaged in a lengthy, personal conversation in the church.  In her right 
mind, she would have told him if he came within 50 feet of her again, she'd 
have him arrested.  But in addition to whatever arcane power Padgett wielded, 
he'd also possessed one appeal that was merely human:  He showed a deep 
interest in Dana Scully.  How to resist someone who studied her, tried to 
understand her, interpreted her actions, sought to predict her behavior.  
Jesus, she thought, that's what I tend to do where Mulder is concerned.  Am I 
*his*  stalker?  

No.  Padgett interested me because he *noticed*, a word he used several 
times.  Being the object of attention, fascination, being a love 
object--that's pretty heady stuff.  At least to me.  I seem to crave 
attention.  That's one of the things I love about being with John--he 
notices, he listens to me.  But not in this sick way.  

How could I, if I were in my right mind, be fascinated by a total stranger 
who knew all sorts of things about me that he shouldn't have?  I even said 
that to Mulder.  That Padgett frightened me with his intimate detail, killed 
with his audacity.  And even realizing that, articulating that, I wound up 
sitting on his bed.  Shit!  How could I?   What would have happened if Mulder 
hadn't burst in, in that annoying, overly-dramatic way?  She didn't even want 
to think about it.  To lose control, to be deprived of choice--that, she'd 
recently figured out, had caused many of her problems.  Bad things had 
happened to her and she'd shut down.  So she'd decided to wrest back as much 
control as possible. But, then a man like this came along...what good were 
intentions when fate stepped in and removed the individual will?

Her mind flicked away the unwelcome thought and flittered back to Mulder.  
Yes, once more.  Tea and Mulder.  He had put away his armory of innuendo, 
declared a cease-fire in the ongoing  skirmishes that made up their shared 
history, and concentrated on keeping her comfortable.  No wisecracks, no 
manic disquisitions , no case talk.  Her needs came first.  A shower? Clean 
clothes?  Tea?  Aspirin?  Soup? Just Nanny Mulder.  Except for one instant 
that she had turned over in her mind far too often.

As she was beginning to feel human again, he'd come to take away her empty 
bowl.  Seeing that she had dripped chicken noodle soup down the front of 
her--well, his--T-shirt, he'd promised to get her a clean one.  "What team 
would you prefer this time, Madam?" he asked, leaning down to brush his lips 
across her forehead.  That did not surprise her.  Nearly all of his 
affectionate gestures came when she was ill, leading her to conclude that he 
felt a brotherly fondness for her, nothing more.  Or maybe he liked his women 
helpless.  Who knew?

"Anything from Baltimore?" she asked, adding with a wan smile, "Thanks, Mom."

In the act of rooting through his drawer, which seemed to contain all kinds 
of articles, including scarves and earmuffs, he turned around and stared at 
her for a second.  Then he approached the bed, a slight smile creasing his 
face.  He sat down beside her and laid his warm hand on her arm.  "I am *not* 
your mom," he said firmly.  He touched her forehead lightly.  "That's for 
Mom."  He leaned down to give her the briefest peck on the lips, as gossamer 
as a butterfly alighting on a flower.  "This is for me."  It was a direct 
hit, not slightly off to the side of her mouth as his kisses had been on 
previous sickroom visits.  He went back to hurling objects from his bureau 
drawer, leaving a confused Scully lying there trying, as usual, to decode 
Mulder.

Well, when in doubt, use the Mulder technique for avoiding intimacy:  change 
direction.  He was an expert in broken-field running, and she had learned, 
over time.  "Watch you don't catch the plague, Mulder," she said with a 
smile.  "I wouldn't wish this on anyone."

He'd turned, clutching a clean Orioles shirt.  "You'd take care of me," he 
said.  Mulder at his best, she thought.  Direct.  Exuding a child-like 
confidence that was heartening in view of his near-crippling bouts of 
cynicism and despair.  He'd even handled the Kresge matter with tact.  When 
John called, he'd always left the room and closed the door.  He did not pout 
once.  He was so good when the chips were down, an ideal man in an emergency, 
she reflected.  Too bad he was so inconsistent on a daily basis.  She never 
knew who to expect at the office on any given day--sarcastic Mulder, cynical 
Mulder, bitter Mulder, paranoid Mulder, manic Mulder.  The man had a thousand 
faces.

Unlike the face Padgett had shown her.  One filled with devotion.  
Fascination.  Concern.  But a wacko, obviously.  Though not too wacko to 
present an interesting persona.  A man without furnishings.  Hmm.  Familiar?  
He claimed to have all he needed.  Yes, quite familiar.  He said he lived in 
his head.  Bull's eye.  He was Mulder, the flip side, the one who lived on 
the other side of the vent that marked the line demarcating the sane from the 
insane.  Like Mulder, he was an obsessive, willing to do almost anything to 
attain his goal.  He was convinced of the rightness of his cause.  He was 
intuitive to a fault, could easily have been a successful profiler.  He was 
alone, frighteningly alone, with not even a phone call listed on his monthly 
bill. He was willing to be violent or at least to set brutality into motion.  
He had no sense of the bounds of privacy, no scruples about thrusting 
himself, invited or not, into the life and space of another.  All that, she 
had to admit, was pretty damned Mulder-like.

Yet Padgett was crazy, a man who'd stepped over the fine edge Mulder balanced 
and teetered on.  And, unlike Mulder, he was passionately interested in her, 
mining her life the way Mulder studied the habits of criminals.  Padgett 
poured out his passion, declaring to her that he noticed her, had a crush on 
her, had played detective with her life, putting together her cross, the 
state of her calves (eeeww, too personal), her parking sticker, all the 
little details he needed to infer the nature of her character.  All the 
little details he had no right to.  That should have put her on red alert; 
how could she fail to deduce a madman?  Was it because he was so articulate, 
so respectful, so--let's face it, flattering--her suspicions were lulled? 

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

FLASH:  I find myself clutching at Mulder with desperate, claw-like hands.  
As the monster tried to claw his way to my heart, I tear at Mulder's back.  I 
try to crawl inside, to escape from the cold and the terror.
                     ************************************** 

She faced the fact that her record in choosing men was far from impeccable.  
Losers and psychos littered her past.  Maybe she should consider what 
attracted her in the first place.  Only Kresge had turned out all right, and 
she didn't see a future there, given the distance.  She'd like one but didn't 
want to nourish false hopes; she was willing to accept and enjoy whatever 
they could give each other, for however long it worked out.  

Maybe it's that I spend so much time with Mulder, she thought.  Not only do I 
get out of practice at judging men, but he doesn't seem to see me as a woman. 
 Which is good on a professional level, very good.  But maybe I miss the 
little edge that tells me I'm being appreciated on all levels.  I guess 
Mulder sees me as a lot of things but, except for the innuendo, I might as 
well be Bob.

She picked up the phone and dialed.  "Mulder?"

"You okay?"  She thought she detected a trace of anxiety, then decided she 
should stop analyzing Mulder.  She wasn't a good profiler, it turned out.  
Just a magnet for wackos.  How did she do it?  Was she wearing a sign?  Was 
it a pheromone?

"Yeah," she said, managing not to declare herself fine when she knew her mind 
was a pitiful jumble of self-reproach and confusion.  "Do you have good notes 
on Padgett's novel?  I read it pretty hastily at the prison, but I know you 
took more time and have a better memory."

"You don't want to read it," he said, voice stony.

"Please lose the habit of telling me what I want to do," she snapped.  "Shall 
I come pick the notes up?"

"Yeah."  He paused.  "No.  The rug cleaners are coming."

She thought of her blood flowing onto her clothes and Mulder's carpet.  From 
intact skin.  She shook her head, despairing at the strangeness of her lot.  
Even with most of the Consortium apparently burnt to a crisp, her misfortunes 
continued.

Mulder was saying something, and she hadn't heard a word.  "Sorry, I zoned 
out.  What did you say?"

"I'll drop off my notes on my way to the dentist.  Be there soon."  Click.

And good-bye to you too, friend, she thought.  

Back to the report.  She hunched over her laptop, determined to get something 
usable out of this attempt:  "Mr. Padgett sent a pendant with a heart on it 
to Agent Mulder's office.  It seemed at first to be a taunt by the killer, a 
challenge to the investigators of the case.  When it turned out that it was a 
token of his esteem for me, I stopped by his apartment to return the pendant. 
 He expressed loneliness and invited me in for coffee.  Soon after that,  
Agent Mulder arrived to arrest the suspect, having discovered that the 
victims were selected from classified advertisements in local newspapers."

Well, that sounds acceptable, she thought.  At least I didn't pour my heart 
(no pun intended) into that one.  Of course, it begs the question of what in 
the world the classifieds had to do with Padgett and why in the hell Mulder 
saw fit to break into the apartment like a storm trooper.  He seemed to be 
over-reacting a lot on this case.  He hauled Padgett in with nothing more 
than an unpublished  novel as proof.  Does this mean that the next time we 
have a wacko killer we seek out Stephen King?  The trouble is, in this case 
Mulder seemed a lot more violence-prone than Padgett, mild-mannered writer.

She read over her paragraph.  He expressed loneliness.  And projected it onto 
her, causing her to reply that loneliness is a choice.  What the hell did she 
mean?  That there were crowds of merry people ready to swoop her up whenever 
she said the word?  That she had begun her work with friends and family and a 
social life and had chosen of her own free will to devote virtually all of 
her energies to the job?  She'd denied being lonely anyway.  Yes, that part 
was true.  She was not lonely--any more.  She talked to John every two or 
three days, saw him when she could.  She'd looked up some old friends and put 
together a social life for the weekends she was spending in town.  Loneliness 
*was* a choice, one she was rejecting.  She had been lonely, but now she was 
not.  

What she'd thought earlier seemed to be true.  Most of his profile fit her as 
she'd been before, maybe when he first started studying, or stalking, her.  
He was a little late in making his approach, poor dead fellow.  Evil as his 
actions had been, she couldn't find it in her heart to hate him.  He wanted 
love; he wished to create, to live the life of the mind, to be successful in 
his field.  Many people went too far in trying to achieve their goals.  How 
many were capable of conjuring up monsters to help them accomplish their 
needs?  Maybe it was a power he didn't know he had till it was too late.  He 
seemed a gentle, harmless fellow.  But not his alter-ego, she thought, the 
one who'd been after her heart as surely as Padgett was, but in a bloodier 
sense.
                                                 -------------------------------
-----------------

 **************************************
                      
FLASH: My tears flow at last, releasing me from the unreal state of hovering 
between life and death.  They anoint Mulder's shirt, now as soaked as mine.  
I am reborn--again.  His hands stroke my back, my hair.  My muscles unclench. 
 His little soothing, wordless sounds penetrate my sobs.  His nose rubs 
against my hair, my scalp.  His breathing is uneven, labored.
                      *************************************

The bell rang, bringing Scully back from the image playing through her mind.  
"Mulder?"

"Yeah."  He stopped just inside the door and thrust a package at her.  "I'm 
due at the dentist's.  I'll stop by later if you want."

"Sure.  This doesn't look very thick.  Is this all you have?"

He hesitated.  "I didn't even write up the part where he describes 
getting...horizontal with you.  I'm not going to file any of this.  It's from 
memory, not really evidence at this point.  And you don't need this guy's wet 
dreams about you circulating all over the Bureau.  They think we're weird 
enough already."

"I wanted to see what he said," she replied, leafing through the pages.  "He 
did have a power.  I had the blood loss to prove it.  You yourself said he 
was writing the future."

Mulder turned to leave.  "I'm not always right, as you so frequently remind 
me.  Just because this guy figured out a few things, he's not the Amazing 
Kreskin.  Examine what he says with your usual skeptical outlook."  He 
started to close the door, giving the impression he was trying to escape.

"I'm not a delicate little flower, Mulder," Scully said, going over to place 
a hand on his arm.  "I know he was describing me, and I know he was wrong 
about a lot of it.  I guess you're embarrassed to have to read this stuff, 
this horrible writing that romanticizes me the way he did."

Mulder gently freed his arm and slid through the door.  "It's not that he 
romanticizes you," he said.  "It's that he misses almost everything that's 
really important about you.  He only saw the tip of the iceberg." He pulled 
the door nearly closed, and his words traveled back through the crack.  
"Don't think that what he says is the full story, Scully.  There's much more 
to you than what he saw."

The door closed.  Scully stood, staring blankly, before she shook herself 
into alertness and bolted the door.


Scully began by reading Padgett's description of her entering the office and 
discovering the gift of his heart, on the pendant.  This part was pretty 
accurate, she decided.  But any crime reader could predict what she'd try to 
discover about a mysterious gift: DNA, prints, fibers, symbolic and/or 
religious connotations.  Any intelligent person could have guessed that.

Then he turned his analysis to her psyche.  Naturally trusting, he said.    
She laughed aloud, thinking he'd surely seen what he wanted to see, a little 
woman among big men, soft and malleable, a traditional female.  He saw her as 
feeling small and therefore overcompensating, fearful of not being seen as an 
equal by her larger male counterparts.  Wrong, buddy, she thought.  Hasn't 
been true for years.  Professionally, I have confidence to burn.  Had to, to 
hold my own with Mulder.

Okay, she thought.  Direct hit here.  Strength in cold facts, organizing, 
connecting, synthesizing. He could guess this once he found out I'm a 
scientist, a doctor.  No great perception required.  She frowned as she read 
the next part.  Worried that her partner would know instinctively what she 
could only guess.  Yeah, sometimes.  But "know" and "guess" weren't clearly 
defined.

Oh, she thought, here he gets soupy.  Beautiful, fatally attractive, 
stunningly prepossessing.  She got up and walked to the full-length mirror in 
her bedroom.  Looking into a lot of mirrors lately, aren't you, she asked 
herself.  She failed to see a stunning beauty.  Standing there in baggy 
jeans, over-sized shirt, barefoot, with messy, frizzy hair without a speck of 
makeup, she looked...okay.  Rather young, actually, because of the lack of 
polish.  But nothing special.  Nothing to die for, nothing to kill for.  She 
winced and returned to the pages.

Here was the stuff she remembered about her yearning heart.  Her desire to 
let it open.  True enough, but not this month. She'd already let someone in, 
someone intelligent, sweet, and understanding, who did not go around tearing 
out hearts to win hers.

All this Padgett wrote before ever drawing near her or hearing her voice.  
Then he did approach her in the church, and again she couldn't stop herself 
from agonizing about the reason she'd talked with a stranger who admitted to 
being her stalker. Rather than feeling affronted, she'd felt a fleeting 
sympathy with the lonely man who confessed to being taken with her.  She used 
to be lonely; she knew how he felt.  And too, maybe the extent of his 
attention flattered her when it should have horrified her.  Something about 
him blunted her reactions.  Her instincts were correct throughout, but he 
prevented her from acting on them.  His voice had been soft, but his words 
were mesmerizing.

While recognizing his power, having seen its terrifying results in autopsies 
and in the creature clawing at her body, Scully still felt foolish for having 
succumbed to his will, and in truly irrational situations.  He had made her 
act unlike herself, and that bothered her on a deep level.  If she wasn't 
acting like herself, who was she?  It was another invasion, she realized, 
setting the pages aside.  Exactly what she feared most:  a continuation of 
the violations--of her uterus, her capacity to bear children, the rapacious 
attack of the cancerous cells from within, the chip, an invader she had to 
unwillingly invite back.  Others had invaded her body; the chip could 
influence her will.  So did Phillip Padgett.  God damn him to hell, she 
thought, putting her previous sympathy aside.

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

FLASH:  I cling to Mulder like a drowning woman clutching a life preserver.  
He *is* my lifeline.  He pulls me closer, enveloping me in safety.  Having 
seen my heart torn, my blood flow, I can't believe I'm alive.  Mulder's solid 
form, his muscular arms, his gentle stroking hands, his breath warm against 
my temple, his vague comforting murmurs--they convince me.  I have survived 
Death's onslaught.  Again.
                    ************************************

The phone rang, breaking the trance.  "Dana Scully, hello."

"Hey, Scully, FBI.  How ya doing?"  John's voice was warm and intimate.  It 
settled around Dana's angry heart and radiated soothing vibrations.

"I'm better," she lied, then caught herself.  "Well, that's not really true.  
I've been reading the notes from Padgett's manuscript and since it's about 
me....It's not fun, John.  How're you today?"

"Busy as hell.  Got two new murders, no suspects at all.  But let's face it.  
My cases are goddamned humdrum compared to your heart-tearing maniac.  What'd 
the guy have to say about you?"

"Let me see." She leafed back to her place.  "You sure you want to hear this? 
 He's pretty wacko."

"Dana, I'm used to wackos.  Meet 'em daily.  If you don't want to read it 
because you don't want me to hear what this guy thought of you, that's okay.  
You're entitled to your privacy."

"That's so good to hear," she said, her heart warming to him.  "I was just 
lamenting to myself how invaded I feel, that this guy could overpower my 
will.  He wanted to deny me any privacy at all, just have me act like his 
puppet.  What kind of love would that be?"

"No kind, I guess.  It's only love if it's freely given.  In my 
not-very-humble opinion.  But, really, if it has to be forced, it's rape or 
slavery."

"You're a great guy."  It was fortunate, she thought, that she already 
appreciated John Kresge.  Otherwise, she would be falling hard in the course 
of this one conversation.  His opinions were so...comforting.

"I know.  People tell me that all the time."

"Damned smug, too.  They tell you that?"

"All the time."

"Listening? Okay.  He's writing a scene describing me after I've autopsied 
his latest victim, a young kid.  He said I was aroused, flattered.  The 
stranger's compliments had played on the dampened strings of my instrument 
until the middle C of consciousness struck and resonated."

Kresge groaned. "Jesus. No wonder this guy was so desperate for success. The 
dampened strings of your instrument?"  He laughed and lowered his voice.  
"I'd like to have my fingers on your dampened strings right about now, Dana."

"And I'd like them to be very active on my dampened strings.  To the point 
that they were soaking strings," she responded, her voice lowering.  "Isn't 
this cheap?"

"Yeah.  Go on."

"Where am I?  Yeah, here.  His flattering words had presented her a pretty 
picture of herself.  Quite unlike the mask of uprightness mirrored back at 
her by medical examiners, lawmen, etc.   He sees her--that would be 
me--looking at the charm, rebuking herself for her girlish indulgence."

"You never strike me as girlish," John commented. "Pure woman, as far as I 
can see.  Where'd this joker come up with this shit?"

"I don't know.  I'm starting to lose faith in his power.  The fact is, when I 
finished that autopsy, my feet hurt and I felt all grimy.  I wasn't standing 
around feeling aroused.  I hate doing autopsies on young people.  The waste 
always depresses me.  He has me going into this girlish flight of fantasy.  
Listen.  She lets in images, images come perforce--"

"Perforce? You gotta be kidding."

"Yeah, you heard me.  Perforce.  Like from sugar confection from her 
adolescence."

"God, that is so not you."

"Thank you, John.  I needed to hear that.  I feel as if I'm waking up from 
being brainwashed. He didn't know me.  He may have exerted power over me to 
make me think he knew me, to fascinate me, what's the word?  I think he 
managed to enthrall me, like in the old fairy tales."

"Yeah, I know what you mean.  Janet likes those. He's a wicked witch whose 
spell needed to be broken.  Too bad you nearly got broken before his hold 
over you did."

Scully was silent for a moment.  "Yeah.  And other people died as well.  It 
creeps me out, that he'd kill for my attention."  She flipped a page.  "Okay. 
 We're nearing the end of the section of notes I have.  I'm on his bed.  My 
senses are new and ungoverned by fear and self-denial."

"You?  Self-denial? Dana, you don't deny either of us one single thing."

"Well, I think he profiled me before I met you.  I *was* afraid of 
relationships, with men.  Mainly because things never worked out, as I've 
told you. My experience with Padgett is fairly typical for me, these past few 
years."

"Then you must be thrilled that I'm not a psychotic killer, huh?  I didn't 
realize I was such a great catch."  He laughed.  "What else does the fucker 
say?"

"Okay.  He sees me full of desire, looks into my eyes, and knows me better 
than I know myself.  Eewww.  Creepy.  The me he created, the one who went 
into his apartment and sat on his bed, that's the one he's talking about, not 
the real me.  *I* wouldn't do something like that. Not if I was in my right 
mind.  For God's sake, I asked his name and was sitting on his bed within 
about three minutes.  That's bizarre."

"It is.  What's next?"

"He's admiring my black lacy bra.  Yuck.  He says I'm wild, feral, guilty as 
a criminal." 

"But that's ridiculous.  Wild is the same as feral.  Why repeat the word?  
And do wild things feel guilt?  I don't think so. Dana, this guy was not only 
a weirdass, but he was one of the worst writers I've ever heard of."

"I know.  That's why it's so shocking that I could carry on conversations 
with him and even think what he said so interesting.  I really gave him the 
upper hand.  When I was in his apartment, *I* asked him why I was there when 
my instincts were all screaming at me to leave. I told him I felt 
uncomfortable; then I sat, docile as he could want, on his bed.  It's 
appalling."

"Well, I know you." John said in a reassuring voice. "You're not easily 
convinced of anything.  He had some power; we know that.  What did he say 
when you asked him that?"

"Oh, that I was armed so probably didn't feel threatened."

"Good answer."

"Yeah, he was so fucking plausible.  He said motivations are always hard to 
figure.  As a writer, he needed to get into my head.  He'd noticed me in my 
old neighborhood, studied me that way.  Because a writer needs to know a 
character better than she knows herself."  She sighed.  "John, I think he 
*did* get into my head.  And I hate it."

"I know, sweetie."

"Don't call me ooky names," she whined.

"Okay," he said, like a man soothing a rearing horse.  "You have any other 
bits of his deathless prose?"

"Prose of death," she corrected. "This is all I have.  Had the stranger 
unleashed what was already there?  Or only helped her discover a landscape 
she had by necessity blinded herself to?"  She groaned. "So much of what he 
says is bullshit.  But until I came across you again, I'd blinded myself to 
that particular terrain.  I was cutting off half my life, the part that dealt 
with desire and sexuality.  Want. Need."

"But this creep had nothing whatever to do with you, Dana.  He built up a 
picture of you in his demented mind.  He thinks he created you and that he 
could control you.  But since you're a real person and not a character in a 
book, that's not possible.  For a few minutes maybe. And as a matter of fact, 
nothing dire happened with him.  He didn't even touch you, did he?"

"No.  But I'm not sure I'd have stopped him."  It cost her to confess that. 
Dana Scully, who so valued her control.  Who'd lost control of her life in so 
many vital ways.  Who still suffered daily from those losses.

"Well, I am. Your instincts were screaming at you the whole time.  They would 
have stepped in if there were really any violation.  Trust your instincts, 
why don't you?"

She groaned.  "I guess I lost faith in them for a while.  But, you know, 
John, talking to you has made me feel so much better.  I was doing a mind 
number on myself.  Recrimination, doubt, you know my methods, Watson.  But 
you've helped me regain my senses. Thanks."   Scully's voice was warm with 
gratitude. "I know you're busy.  What do you have to tell me?  How's Janet?"

"Great.  She's coming to my place to sleep over this weekend.  We're planning 
a great time.  She's got a whole list of stuff for us to do."  He raised his 
voice to cover talking that echoed in the room at his end.  "Gotta go.  
Meeting's about to start."

"Thanks a lot, John.  Hope I see you soon."

"Oh, me too," he said, his low but fervent tone nearly inaudible among the 
louder voices in the room.  "Bye, Dana."

Wow, Scully thought, a guy who actually says good-bye.  What a paragon.  She 
smiled, her mood much brighter, as she folded Mulder's notes and turned to 
her laptop again.  "After Agent Mulder discovered the girl's body concealed 
beneath the flowers, we returned to the prison to release Phillip Padgett.  I 
failed to see how the body of a new victim, clearly murdered while the 
suspect was incarcerated, could suggest his guilt.  Agent Mulder was 
convinced of one of two things:  either Padgett imagined the murder, somehow 
conjuring the corporeal form of the psychic surgeon two years dead, or he had 
a tangible accomplice.  My view was that Padgett had not been proven guilty 
of anything.  He had merely written a manuscript.  At any rate, it was 
decided to release the suspect after proper warrants had been obtained to 
surveil his apartment."

Not too bad, she thought.  Maybe we're cookin' at last.  Then she remembered 
Padgett's release.  Mulder was baiting his trap, declaring with unusual 
humility that he'd made a mistake.  But so had Padgett.  In my book, he'd 
told them, I'd written that Agent Scully falls in love, but that's obviously 
impossible...Agent Scully is already in love."  And off he trotted, leaving 
two pole-axed agents in his wake.

Okay, Scully thought.  Rationality has returned.  So let's reason this out.  
First, this guy is full of shit.  Just because he made some lucky guesses and 
held a mysterious power doesn't mean that he knew the first thing about me.  
He was wrong, wrong, wrong about my psyche whenever he wrote about it, at 
least as it exists today.  He may have detected a numbness or unhappiness 
about me if he started to "notice" me months ago.  So, assumption number one. 
 Padgett had no special knowledge.  He could get inside my head--to control 
and influence my thoughts and actions.  But he could not get inside my head 
to read my personal thoughts and preferences.  My true thoughts were a 
mystery to him.  Mind control was within his range.  Mind reading wasn't.

Okay.  We're doing okay with this one.  It isn't true when he says Agent 
Scully is already in love.  It's his opinion, and not a very informed one 
since he didn't see much of me lately.  Now, who did he think I was in love 
with?  Well, the answer leaps up and gives a snappy paranormal salute.  He 
gave us a strange look when Mulder was questioning him and I laid my hand on 
his arm.  A meaningless gesture to which Mr. 
I-Fancy-Myself-A-Judge-of-Character could ascribe all sorts of significance.  
Just the sort of leap his romantic little mind would be likely to take.

It's also a face saver for him.  He'd thought he could write me into his bed. 
Now he was lucky he wasn't clicking and clacking away from a jail cell.  He 
may have noticed that he had...misinterpreted me.  That I wasn't going to 
fall for him, unless he used his will in such a way that even he couldn't 
imagine I was freely giving my tender, voluptuous, etc. body to him.  To use 
Padgett-speak.  So he needed a reason to explain my unaccountable resistance 
to his attractions, which had included extracting hearts for my benefit.  The 
reason he failed to engage me, charm me as he assumed he would?  The man 
whose arm I touched.  The man whose apartment I often visited.  

Scully paced around the room, now growing dark.  She stopped to draw the 
shades.  What if he was right?  Don't fuck with your mind, Dana, she told 
herself.  You've figured this out.  Now leave it alone, for Christ's sake.  
IF he was right, who was she in love with?  She loved John Kresge, sure, but 
she wouldn't say she was *in* love with a man she felt she could never have.  
What would be the point?  You don't offer your heart where it will have no 
chance of being accepted.  She winced at her inadvertent phrasing.  

She flopped onto the couch and laid her head back, staring at the ceiling.  
She loved Mulder, for that matter.  But the same thing that was true for 
Kresge applied to Mulder:  She wouldn't say she was in love with a man she 
could never have.  You don't risk your heart unless there's a reasonable 
expectation of requital.  Only men like Padgett ripped hearts from their 
moorings and exposed them to the harsh light of day.  Hearts deserved their 
privacy, their secrets.  They should open only when emotion bade them to, 
when they could meet the similarly open heart of another and join as one.

Scully sat up straight.  Romantic in your old age, she told herself.  But she 
felt much more cheerful and decided it was time to forage in the fridge to 
see what she could come up with.  Just as she rose from the couch, the 
doorbell rang.  It was Mulder, returned from the dentist and looking ready to 
settle in for a while.  Great, she thought.  Why not?  She had spent days 
convalescing at his apartment.  Turnabout is fair play.  She went off to deal 
with food.


"I have some lasagna that hasn't expired from old age.  That do you?" Scully 
called.

"As long as it doesn't have gray hair."  Mulder was lounging on the couch 
flipping through the notes he'd brought over earlier.  "One side of my mouth 
won't taste much anyway."

"Get a filling?"

"Two.  I've been putting this off for a while."

While Scully busied herself with heating the lasagna, searching for salad 
ingredients, and preparing garlic bread, her mind returned to the scene it 
had been haunted by all day, the images flickering in and out like random 
lightning.  When her panic subsided and her mind resumed its function, a 
process that seemed to last several eternities, she had pulled away and 
looked at Mulder. She saw that his eyes were glued to her blouse.

She looked down, seeing for the first time that the wetness she had felt was 
her own blood.  The stiff, icy fabric was scarlet.  She raised her hand to 
her throat.  It came away wet and faintly sticky.  She studied her fingers, 
brought them to her nose and sniffed.  Her eyes rose to meet Mulder's, which 
still held an undercurrent of panic.

"What happened?" he whispered.

"I'm not sure," she whispered back.  For some reason, neither had full use of 
their voice.  She flexed her cold, stiff fingers and tried to unbutton the 
blouse.  But she was clumsy and Mulder had to help.  His fingers weren't 
working well either.  It took two of them over a minute to undo six buttons.  
While they fumbled with the blood-slick buttons, she murmured, "As I tried to 
leave, this...hooded man appeared.  He threw me to the floor and started 
to...to rip out my heart.  I could see it happening.  I...imagined I could 
see my heart."  Her voice cracked and she couldn't speak any more.

"Okay, okay," Mulder soothed, as their fingers tangled over the buttons.  One 
thing she liked is that he didn't say, "You're okay."  She obviously wasn't.  
She hated to be told she was okay, as if she didn't know how she was.  Just 
as it was her prerogative to be "fine" whenever she so decreed, equally she 
could judge when she was far from fine.

At last the buttons were undone and they pulled the bright red, sodden blouse 
aside.  Her skin was unbroken.  "But I...thought I saw my heart," she 
breathed.  She reached for her bra, which had once been white but was now 
scarlet.  She pulled the center section aside and peered underneath.  The 
skin *was* unbroken.  

"It makes sense," Mulder said.  "If you can call any of this sensible.  The 
victims had unbroken chest skin, remember?"  Blood, removed heart, intact 
skin."

Scully, already white, turned a shade that would make a pure-white lily look 
pink by comparison.  "Get me to the bathroom," she cried, clamping a hand 
over her mouth.

Mulder picked her up, transferring large splotches of blood to himself in the 
process, and got her there just in time.  Once more, he performed washcloth 
duty.  Then he went off in search of more of his clothing for her.  If she 
kept it up, she thought, her head lolling against the sink, she might acquire 
his entire wardrobe, at least the stuff that went on top.  She didn't really 
see herself wearing his pants.

"I called 911," Mulder told her, returning and kneeling at her side.  He took 
a clean washcloth, warmed some water, and soaked the cloth.  "Can you wipe 
yourself off?  Here's a clean shirt.  Here's a towel.  We'll have an 
ambulance take you to the hospital.  Even with no tearing, you've lost an 
awful lot of blood."

She nodded weakly.  "And I'm in shock," she informed him, always willing to 
self-diagnose.  "What happened to Padgett?"

He shrugged.  "Good question.  I left him by the incinerator when I heard 
shots."  He stopped and stared at her.  "Jesus! What shots?"

"I...I forgot about it.  When the hooded man was trying to rip at my...at my 
heart, I shot at him.  The shots went...through him.  I don't think he felt a 
thing.  I think I emptied my clip.  That's ....all I can remember."

"Jesus," Mulder said again, getting up and rushing to the living room.  
"Yeah," he called.  "I see some in the ceiling, some in the wall."

Scully tried to clean herself up.  It seemed to take forever because the 
edges of everything she tried to see became blurry.  Her fingers grew thick 
and clumsy.  They refused to function.  She finally gave up and curled up on 
the cold bathroom floor, naked from the waist up.  Oblivion descended.

Her next memory was of being in Mulder's bed, wearing one of his shirts, 
covered by his blankets, and growing warmer.  Voices--many of them, loud, 
babbling--seemed to be all over the apartment.  They echoed through her 
confused consciousness.  She felt a tightening on her upper arm and turned 
her head.  Her vision had cleared and she found herself staring at a young 
EMT, who was engaged in taking her blood pressure.  

"What is it?" she croaked, medical instincts kicking in.

"Ninety-four over sixty," he said.  "That's better than it was ten minutes 
ago."  He pulled the blanket over her arm.  "The guy outside told me you're a 
doctor and that I should tell you everything I know about your condition," he 
grinned.  "So, the good news is that you're pretty much all right.  Your 
heart rate was slow and your blood pressure was way down.  All those are 
getting into normal range now.  Your respiration's improved.  I think you 
need a good rest, that is, unless you feel you need to be hospitalized."

She shook her head.  "No.  I want to go home.  Tell Mulder, will you?"

She drifted off again, awakening when she felt a weight beside her on the 
bed.  She squinted up at Mulder, who was staring at her thoughtfully.  
"What's happening?" she asked.

"Padgett's dead, in the basement.  I'll give you the details later.  Right 
now, you're safe. But you've been through a lot.  I'd stay with you at your 
place, but there are two different crime scenes right here in my humble 
abode.  We also have Padgett's apartment to go over.  How about I call your 
mother?"

She'd agreed, she had rested, and now here she was, as good as new-- except 
for suffering from flashbacks, self-recrimination, and embarrassment.  Fairly 
typical case of post-traumatic distress syndrome, in other words.  Just 
"fine," she snorted to herself, finishing her meal preparations.

Over dinner, Mulder surprised her.  "This one was my fault," he told her, 
swallowing a large chunk of lasagna.  "This guy did everything but submit his 
message to a skywriter.  He tried to attract your attention with the stolen 
hearts, he sent you a heart pendant, he met you in the church and told you of 
his regard.  He was giving you trophies, pure and simple.  He wanted you to 
have his heart."

"Well, that's pretty much what you thought," Scully pointed out, nibbling 
some garlic bread.  "You were right.  He *was* behind the killings.  So 
what're you talking about?"

"My denseness," he said bluntly.  "Here I am, usually able to imagine the 
unimaginable without much of a stretch.  On this one, I was wearing blinders. 
 I expected him to have a real, tangible accomplice.  Dead Brazilian, faked,  
or someone else.  My imagination didn't have enough elastic on this one.  
That almost got you killed."  He stopped chewing and looked up.  "And I'm 
*sorry*."

"I don't see how any of this was your fault."  She paused, then blurted.  "A 
lot of it's my fault because I didn't make it clear to him immediately that I 
would never be interested in him.  I should have delivered a clear rejection. 
 I didn't.  I let him draw me in."

"Well, he had the power to do that."  Mulder laid down his fork.  "Let me 
tell you how I almost got you killed.  I followed Padgett to the basement, 
where he was preparing to burn his novel.  You, in the meantime, were 
experiencing the end of his novel.  He told me--the ending is that you got 
killed."

She laid down her fork and listened carefully.  "So the guy in the dark hood, 
the apparition, was the killer in the book.  I was being killed by a fucking 
fictional character!"

He nodded.  ""Padgett was trying to burn the novel to keep the ending from 
happening.  He was trying to save your life." He paused.  "I guess he *did* 
love you.  He gave his life for you, made the sacrifice.  Anyway, I didn't 
believe what he was saying.  Instead of letting him throw it into the fire, 
which would make the killer disappear, I suddenly became your standard 
government-issue employee.  I told him he couldn't destroy evidence.  Fine 
time to go by the book, huh?  And if I hadn't heard your gunshots and left 
him alone to run back to my apartment, you'd be dead.  Because after I left, 
he was able to throw the book into the fire, saving you from the killer.  The 
killer disappeared when the book no longer existed.  Then he ripped out his 
own heart, in a gesture rife with symbolism."  He threw her a bitter smile.  
"I guess his heart belonged to you."

"You couldn't be expected to know that," Scully said.  She poured them both 
some wine.  "Stop blaming yourself.  He had a way with words, he could cloud 
people's minds.  Maybe he sent some of his power your way, made you just a 
little bit slower on the uptake.  Maybe he *wrote* you that way."

Mulder picked up his fork and dug in again.  "He sure wrote you in a 
spectacular way.  All that beauty, desire, yearning.  He turned you into the 
heroine of one of those films I don't watch."  He smiled, the first genuine 
smile she'd seen from him in some time.  "His titian-haired beauty."  He 
shook his head.  "All the time failing to notice you had a large, 
well-functioning brain in your head and a...a kind, caring heart.  He 
objectified you, Scully.  He didn't do you justice."

She sent him one of her own genuine smiles, a ray of sunlight in the 
darkening room.  "Thank you, Mulder."

They finished the meal in a comfortable silence.  Afterwards, clearing the 
table, Scully turned to Mulder.  "Did you really think that because Padgett 
had written a sex passage with me in it that I'd slept with him or was going 
to?  You seemed to place that in the same category as the crimes: if he could 
describe them so accurately, they must be going to happen."

Mulder didn't answer for a bit.  Eventually, they returned to the living 
room.  "I thought he had some sort of power to write the future, that he 
might somehow maneuver you into his bed.  The fact that I found you in his 
bedroom didn't convince me otherwise."

He turned from the window, where he'd been peering through the blinds.  "But 
what you said *did* make me doubt Padgett's power.  You reminded me that I 
know you better than that."

Scully turned that over in her mind.  What Mulder actually knew about her is 
that she had entered into an affair with a man who lived three thousand miles 
away.  That the affair began suddenly, not after any dating period.  For all 
Mulder knew, at least in the past weeks, Dana Scully was someone who hopped 
into bed with men with whom she had no long history.  It wouldn't be a new 
characteristic in his eyes; she knew the Ed Jerse case still rankled in his 
pretty-near perfect memory.  So when she told him he knew her better than 
that--it wasn't reassuring to him.  He had told her to finish the book, a 
statement at odds with the nod he had given as she assured him that she had 
no intention of carrying on a romance with Padgett.

She joined him at the window.  "He had a lot of power.  But I really believe 
he couldn't make me do something contrary to my nature.  He didn't understand 
me well enough, despite all that crap he wrote about knowing me better than I 
know myself."

Mulder nodded.  "Guess I'd better get going.  My rug should be clean by now.  
Yesterday I had my walls and ceiling plastered and repainted."

"I'm hell on your apartment."

"You're never hell, Scully.  Quite the opposite."

Scully sighed, not having the slightest idea what he meant--as usual.  
Innuendo?  Declaration of affection?  Light, meaningless remark?  She took 
his arm.  "I wanted to thank you, Mulder.  You were great when you found me 
all bloody on your floor.  I was ready to freak, and you kept me sane."

"No problem," he smiled.  "I'm *always* ready to freak and you *nearly* 
always keep me sane."

"Well, you've been doing the caretaking recently.  And I wanted you to know 
that I appreciate it."  Walking him toward the door, she picked up his jacket 
and held it for him to slide into.  "Let's both stop blaming ourselves for 
this one," she suggested.  "Sometimes there are things outside our control.  
And we've just got to...let it go."

"Yeah."  Mulder pulled his jacket closed. "Some of his words do haunt me 
though. Just as some make me roar with laughter.  The note he wrote from jail 
to put us onto the death of the girl.  Some of that stays with me," he said, 
putting his hand on the door knob.

"Love was in endless supply in the universe, a...germ that can't be 
eradicated from even the darkest heart?"

"And how it can turn to hate.  As I guess it did with Padgett. Then back to 
love again, apparently, when he decided that he wouldn't kill you even if he 
couldn't have you." He began to twist the knob.

Scully reached out and pulled his hand back.  For once, she spoke 
impulsively.  "You didn't believe what he said about me being already in 
love, did you?"

Mulder scratched his head and shrugged.  "That's the kind of question that 
even a stupid asshole like me knows enough not to answer."

She laughed, reached up to his face, and pulled it down for her own quick, 
butterfly kiss.  Let *him* wonder for a change, she thought.  If he has any 
curiosity at all.  "I love many people, but I'm not *in* love," she said.  
"My heart is my own."

Mulder touched her face, studied her eyes, and nodded.  "Glad to have had 
this heart-to-heart talk, Agent Scully.  See you tomorrow?"

"Yup."


Chapter 6--Skeptic

(post The Unnatural)

"The universe may or may not be very immense.
As a matter of fact there are times when I am apt
To feel it close in tight against my sense
Like a caul in which I was born and still am wrapped."
            -------From "Skeptic" by Robert Frost


"You seem to be lost in the stars today, Dana."

Scully looked into the intense sunlight surrounding her and her old friend 
Ellen.  Seated on Ellen's terrace and shaded by an umbrella, they leisurely 
sipped Sunday morning coffee and nibbled on croissants.  Scully reached for a 
chocolate pastry and gazed with appreciation at Ellen's tulips, a mass of pink, 
purple, and white.  A pink dogwood provided a colorful backdrop.

"Quite a trick, in sunlight like this.  Your yard is absolutely gorgeous."

"We'll see how long I can afford to keep it," Ellen said with a frown.  She was 
in the midst of a divorce and not favorably disposed toward men at the moment, 
the only exception being her son Trent.  "Who knows," she continued with a 
snort, "Larry may need a new boa."

"Whoa!  Just because he's discovered he's gay doesn't mean he's into 
crossdressing."

Ellen slammed her cup down.  "Allow me my bitterness, Dana.  I'm entitled after 
putting thirteen years into this marriage."

"Yeah, I can understand that.  You thought you knew him, didn't you?"

"Well, of course I did!"  Ellen jammed a piece of croissant into her mouth. She 
took a fierce bite.  "It makes me lose my...my faith in humanity, you know?  I 
slept beside this man for years and years, thinking we'd grow old together.  I 
felt secure, damn it.  I don't see why he couldn't have discovered his...his 
proclivity before fucking up me and Trent and Jenna."

Scully pursed her lips.  "People change.  Don't you think so, Ellen?  They don't 
stay the same throughout their lives.  If you're...human, you keep growing, 
changing.  Don't you?"  She wondered who she was talking about, really. Herself, 
Mulder, Ellen, Larry?  She sounded as if she were pleading.

"So who *do* you have in mind, Dana?  You've been out of it all morning.  Last 
night, when I called to tell you to pick up the croissants, I got your machine.  
Hot date?"

"It was kind of chilly, actually," Scully said.  "And it wasn't a date.  I was 
out in a baseball field being given batting lessons by Mulder."

"Your partner?  I thought you were seeing this homicide detective in San Diego."  
Ellen poured them more coffee and picked up her sunglasses, polishing them with 
her shirt.

"Yeah, I am.  John Kresge's a great guy.  He's gotten me off my ass and out of 
the rut I've been living in.  But I still backslide sometimes."

"How'd ya mean?"  Ellen was chomping away, crumbs flying, to the birds' delight.  
Scully estimated that her friend had gained at least fifteen pounds since Larry 
stepped out of the closet.  She wondered if she should have picked up yogurt-
filled croissants.

"Oh, yesterday, for example.  I'd made up my mind to have a life apart from the 
X-Files.  This would include having free weekends like normal people.  But 
somehow Mulder got me in there Saturday morning to haul old records out of the 
library.  He managed to rope me into packhorse duty, against all my new 
resolutions."

"You're a big girl, Dana.  Just say no."  Ellen looked as if she'd have no 
trouble refusing any man anything, including a life preserver in a shipwreck.

"Yeah, I should have," she admitted.  "Old habits die hard, you know?"  She 
pushed herself back from the table to avoid further temptation.  At this rate, 
she would literally be a "big girl."  She and Ellen could join Overeaters 
Anonymous together.  Maybe they could get a group rate.

"They're all bastards, Dana.  Don't trust 'em."  The gentle Ellen, a placid 
woman for the twenty-plus years Scully had known her, looked quite warrior-like.  
This is the face of betrayal, Scully thought.  It is not a pretty one.  Is this 
how I look when Fowley slinks on to the scene and Mulder clings to her every 
word?

She sighed.  "You have to put your trust in someone, Ellen.  I tried isolating 
myself.  Pretty much going it alone.  And I got so lonely that  I didn't 
recognize myself any more."  She pushed her hair back.  "I like to think that 
I'm making a comeback."

Ellen snorted.  "Kid yourself if you like.  Who was it in search of an honest 
man?  Demosthenes?  Diogenes?   Well, whoever the fuck it was, he was wrong.  
They'll all take you in and fool you, even over a long period of years.  But in 
the end, they'll stab you in your over-trusting heart."

Dana glanced toward her chest, remembering the glimpse she had caught recently 
of her heart being ripped from her chest.  And not metaphorically, as seemed to 
be the case with Ellen.  She supposed it was that traumatic event that had made 
her agree to come to the office on a Saturday, despite all her good intentions.  
Lately, Mulder had been there for her, supporting her, first through illness and 
then, through the hysteria following the attack.  It'd seemed petty to refuse to 
go into the office, especially when her only plans were to take a solitary 
springtime walk.  Spring was still here today, in full, luscious bloom.  What 
had she lost, except a few hours of her time.

She turned to Ellen, who still looked bitchy and bruised.  "I'm so sorry for 
what happened to you, Ellen.  No one could be more surprised than I was.  I 
thought you had it all, and I'm really, really sorry about the way it's turned 
out.  Don't let it destroy your faith in everyone.  Brighter days are sure to 
come, eventually."  She hated herself for the cliche, but the problem was, she 
believed it.  "They'll have to."  

She was more disappointed than she could express.  Ellen, during the years Dana 
had been drawn deeper and deeper into the world of shadowy conspiracies and 
stunning personal losses, had steadily evolved--in Scully's mind--into her 
ideal.  She was living the life Scully could only aspire to.  A smart, talented 
woman who had married a loving, compatible man and had two handsome, charming 
children.  She lived in a beautiful house with a garden that belonged in a 
magazine.  There was a *real* white picket fence beyond the dogwood tree.  
Ellen, she'd thought, had it all.  She had chosen "normal."  And it had 
looked...enviable.  Something that at certain desperate times, she would nearly 
have killed for.  And now Ellen, like Dana, was hurt and bereft.  She, too, had 
lost someone she loved.  Not to death, but to...human change.

"I can't help it, Dana."  Ellen poured her undrunk coffee onto the lawn beside 
the patio.  "I go to my support group.  And yell my ass off.  Did you know that 
there are so many 'coming out' men that we have two support groups just in this 
tiny neighborhood?  One for men who are gay but want to stay with their 
families?  And the ladies' auxiliary, of course," she sneered.  "And one for gay 
men who are walking out--or who have already walked.  And one for their dames."  
She sighed.  "And I moved from the first to the second.  At first, we thought we 
could salvage something.  But it was hopeless."

"I can only hope you'll...adjust, eventually.  In time.  Realize that all men 
aren't bastards.  There're still some nice ones out there.  Really."  John 
Kresge, for example, she thought, hesitant to talk about a man she found so 
attractive when Ellen was feeling like a total reject.  And even Mulder has his 
moments, she admitted to herself.  

"I am so tired of wallowing in my misery,"  Ellen confessed, flinging her 
sunglasses to the table with a clunk.  "I can't sleep.  I stuff my face all the 
time.  I'm turning into a blimp.  Life is a shitcake."  She covered her face 
with her hands and rubbed it vigorously, as though trying to erase her miserable 
face and replace it with her old happy one that had gotten lost underneath.  
"Let's not dwell on it.  I do that too much."  She started counting on her 
fingers.  "In my head.  At my shrink's.  At the support group.  To my few 
remaining friends who can still put up with a bitter bitch.  I need a time out.  
Tell me about this baseball thing with your partner.  Amuse me."  She forced a 
smile.  "Please?"

"He asked me out to give me a batting lesson."

"You?  You used to play second base when we were in junior high.  Didn't you 
tell him?"

"I thought I'd make him happy," Scully said, fiddling with her cup.  "I spend 
half my life arguing with him, and he looked really...kind of happy for a 
change.  Really happy, not just sarcastic.  Said it was an early or late 
birthday gift.  So I decided that the least I could do was give him the gift 
of...of allowing him to present the gift to me."

Ellen gave her a piercing look.  "And you're *sure* this Kresge's the one?"

The eyebrow arched.  "I didn't say he was the one.   I said he wasn't a bastard, 
that I find him trustworthy.  That doesn't mean we're pickin' out china 
patterns.  In fact, we're so far apart, geographically I mean, I don't see what 
can become of this at all."

"Anything is possible, Dana.  If you really....Oh, shit.  How could I, of all 
people, be preaching about the joys of love.  I really am an idiot, if I haven't 
learned anything from all this.  Fuck."

The two were silent, each lost in thought.  Scully was thinking about Ellen's 
earlier words: lost in the stars.  That's where she'd been last night.  For some 
brief but magic moments, she felt it all come together:  life, the universe, and 
everything.  Often, she was overwhelmed by the immensity of all that lay outside 
her ken, the physical universe and the paranormal element which had encroached 
on her life these past years. Sometimes, she felt like an insignificant speck, 
an obscure star among the infinite numbers that lay in galaxies too far away to 
see or even conceive of.  Other times, the pressures of the universe pressed 
upon her, backing her into a corner, intimidating and frightening her.  At these 
times, she longed to believe in a higher power.  Something that regulated the 
whole chaotic mass of creation, particularly of mankind, that most unpredictable 
of creatures.  If only she could know that some such force existed.

That's what was bothering Ellen and what had eaten away at her--the uncertainty.  
How to *know*.  Would she ever break out of her narrow earthly perspective and 
join the...mystical whole?  Last night, she had felt close.  The stars, the 
happiness in the air, the harmony which permeated her being.  For a moment, all 
had gone still, soothing her restless soul.

She glanced at Ellen, lost in misery.  Distraction was clearly called for.  "He 
put his arms around me to show me how to hold the bat."

It worked.  Ellen returned.  "That old trick," she sneered.

"It was really something.  He started to tell me all this stuff about making 
contact, not thinking, just letting it fly."

"And you saw a double meaning in that?" Ellen asked, flashing her first genuine 
smile of the day.

Scully returned her smile.  "Well, yeah.  Combined with him being wrapped 
*closely* around me, muttering all this stuff directly into my ear, getting his 
hands all tangled up with mine on the bat."  She giggled.  "And instructing me 
on how to hold the bat in such a way that a double entendre *had* to be 
intended."

"The old gripping the wood trick?"

They both giggled.  "He called the bat a piece of ash.  And gave me quite 
elaborate instructions on how to grasp it."  Scully shook her head.  "It's kind 
of sad, isn't it.  We laugh because it takes us back to our junior high days.  
When boys were afraid to come right out and say they liked you, so they had to 
resort to these...stratagems."

"You think it was an adolescent maneuver, huh?  The old rub-the-groin-against-
the-girl trick?"

Scully stopped to think.  "Partly, I guess.  But he seemed to sincerely  want me 
to...to share his joy in the game.  It was kind of like he was offering baseball 
to me like therapy, as a way to forget my woes.  It was sort of obvious and 
adolescent and...genuinely touching, all at the same time."

Ellen scrutinized her friend.  "You trust this guy?"

She shrugged.  "With my life, a lot of the time.  But...his judgment isn't 
always what I'd like it to be.  He's...strange."

"How?"  Ellen at last seemed to be distracted from her misery.

"I think he may have been putting the moves on me.  But not necessarily.   He's 
very...hard to read.  I can never tell for sure.  I think that's part of...being 
Mulder.  Maybe he got rejected so often, he's afraid to risk himself again.  So 
he never makes a direct approach.  That could bring on rejection.  Instead, he's 
so oblique that you...I never know for sure what he's thinking."

"So instead, you're seeing a guy who tells you what he thinks?"

"I guess you could say that.  I don't...really compare the two in my mind.  Or I 
try not to.  Mulder is part of my daily life.  We have a huge history.  Kresge 
is...kind of a getaway, an escape into something better, where I can become 
myself again.  The one you knew in school."  She paused.  "He's really something 
special...a very fine man."

Ellen started clearing the table.  "But he doesn't make you see stars?"

Scully smiled.  "A different kind of star.  He makes me see...and feel...a lot.  
But Mulder, he can touch my heart.  Break my heart."

"Like mine,"  Ellen said, her misery returning.  "If he has the power to hurt 
you..." she broke off.  "I don't know what I'm talking about.  For once, Dana, 
I'm not gonna sit here and give you my expert advice on men.  As an expert, I've 
been defrocked.  I'm just a schmuck."

"Don't."  Dana remembered all the happy moments she had witnessed in Ellen's 
house.  The times they had insisted she join them to share the family fun.  
"Don't cheapen what you had.  When it was there, it was real, and good.  I saw 
it."

Ellen bowed her head.  "I know.  I'm just bitter.  You know that."  She looked 
up again.  "But you, you're not.  You know?  For so long, you've seemed so down, 
so...unwilling to try anything.  Now you're all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, 
like him."  She gestured toward the squirrel who was performing acrobatics in a 
vain effort to reach her bird feeder.  "You've really changed, Dana.  It's like 
you're back again."

And you're gone, Dana thought.  Having plumbed the depths of misery, she felt 
sorry for Ellen.  "I'm trying," she replied.  "Just like you.  To make sense of 
things that don't seem...sensible.  Things that just...shouldn't happen."  She 
smiled.  "But there are the good moments.  Like last night.  Under the stars, I 
could just feel that Mulder was  really happy for once, connecting with me, 
connecting with the wood.  That made me happy."  She patted Ellen's shoulder.  
"Gotta live for the moment.  Wait for the good ones to come along.  They will."

"I know.  Somewhere down deep.  I just have to keep reminding myself."

Scully nodded.  "I know the feeling.  I get all caught up in things these days.  
I think spring has given me a shot in the hormones.  Or I've got a severe case 
of Kresge-itis.  I feel like a flower about to burst into bloom."  She thought 
about what she just said, then qualified,  "But then I calm down and see that 
things are pretty much the same.  Maybe."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, last night, for instance.  It's nice and symbolic and all that, Mulder 
and I holding the bat together and hitting the ball.  But it'd be nice if he'd 
thought to let me bat on my own.  You know?  It didn't seem to occur to him."

"Oh, yeah.  I wish I'd batted more on my own, Dana.  For the last thirteen 
years, I've been holding onto the bat with a man whose groin ceased to find me 
stimulating.  And when he let go of the bat...Well, I just keep whiffing.  I 
should have learned to bat on my own."

Dana threw her arms around her friend.  "No, alone isn't always the best.  
Believe me.  I think...I think we need to do both."

Ellen returned her embrace, and they sat for a long time, holding each other, 
watching the squirrels, the birds, and the flowers.  Spring, and life, hold 
moments of great beauty.