-------

1989 - QUANTICO

Mulder picked up the dust brown folder again, disappointed by how 
heavy it was. Files this heavy were almost always serials. They'd 
almost always been investigated by multiple teams. Multiple 
theories had been proposed and failed. Dead bodies had been 
mounting up without motive or suspects.

Bill Patterson cleared his throat, startling Mulder, who hadn't 
spotted his arrival even though he was standing only a matter of 
inches away. He had clearly been there for some time. "Aren't you 
going to open it?"

Mulder shook his head. "I was waiting until I could work on it 
without interruption." He stared pointedly up at his boss.

"Why's that?"

Mulder kept his look benign and his voice coldly professional. "I 
know that the file's over two years old. I'm guessing. Multiple 
investigative teams, multiple victims. And it's on my desk because 
there's no forensic evidence."

Bill raised an eyebrow. "You a psychic, Mulder?"

Mulder turned his head back to the folder. "A realist, sir."

"Sure." Bill walked away. 

Mulder waited until he couldn't hear footsteps before he walked 
out of the office cubicle and towards the empty conference room. 
He checked to see if Patterson was hanging around and realized 
Bill's coat was missing from the rack. Great, Bill had to have 
gone off some place. He went into the room and pulled the door 
closed. He turned his full attention back to the folder that he'd 
brought, playing with it for another few seconds before finally 
opening it and starting to read.

In the silence of the room, and safe from other people, he let his 
guard down. Infinitely careful and mind locked solidly on the case 
in front of him, he read it and allowed his first impressions to 
take him over. It needed to be done fresh and in one hit, no phone 
calls, no 'just a quick question,' no well-meaning gossip. Just an 
hour or so of total immersion. Until it was easy to imagine that 
there were people who did this to other people. 

Once convinced that he was fully submerged in the bloody images 
and solidly into the task, he turned his attention to the phone. 
The switchboard at the LA field office took a few minutes to get 
him the right person. 

"Agent Fowley."

Mulder sat up straighter in the chair and threw his voice into a 
southern drawl. "Psychic hotline here. You in need of some 
assistance?"

"Who the hell is this?"

The accent disappeared. "Special Agent Fox Mulder, calling from 
the Investigative Support Unit at Quantico. I'd like to talk to 
you about the Moon Killer."

She didn't actually call him an asshole, but her tone of voice 
left him in no doubt. "If it helps stop the killings, I'll talk to 
anyone. Even you."

Mulder nodded, despite the fact there was no one to see. "Sorry. I 
didn't mean to insult you."

"Of course you did. Do you have something useful to say?"

He swallowed, guilty now. "Not yet. Maybe, if you'll just answer a 
few questions for me."

"Of course, Agent Mulder."

"Thank you, Agent Fowley. Can we start by talking about the 
victims' families?"

It was a long call. He heard the compassion in her voice as she 
talked about the dead girls, the anger as she detailed what little 
they knew of the killer and the frustration as she spoke about the 
investigative dead ends. 

Mulder sighed as he put the phone down. He was an asshole. It had 
just been so appealing for an instant. For once not to be on the 
defensive, not to have to brace for a "Spooky" reference used as 
an excuse to dismiss his theories. Diana Fowley had called in a 
psychic to help her find a dead body. So what? That didn't mean 
she had failed to do the standard things as well.

The news of the psychic's involvement had already had an impact at 
national level. The file had suddenly jumped hundreds of cases to 
get to the top of Fox Mulder's in-box. What the hell had he been 
thinking of, insulting the woman like that? Another case, another 
opportunity to piss off one of the good guys. He looked sadly at 
the file, psychic powers might be useful.

--------

1999 MULDER'S APARTMENT

"Fox. You still with me here?"

He looked back at her. "Sorry." He paused, saw the question in 
Diana's eyes. "For being such an asshole when we first spoke."

She puzzled over it for an instant, then remembered, smiled, 
shaking her head. "Psychic hotline, wasn't it?"

He acknowledged the remark with his eyebrows. "Jesus, you must 
have thought."

"... complete asshole," she finished.

"Strange how things turned out." 

"I can't help but think. We could make it work now."

Mulder flinched, startled from his musings. He rose quickly from 
the couch, offered more coffee to fuel the recollections.

-----------

1989 QUANTICO

When Mulder emerged from his study break in the conference room 
the office was strangely alert. The usual heads-down focus and 
background buzz of phone calls was missing, replaced by a kind of 
electric silence that made Mulder's nerves tingle.

He didn't have to wait long to find out why. "Mulder. You heard 
the news?"

"What?"

"Bill's wife. Car crash. He's gone to DC to ID the body."

"Dead?"

"Like I said, he's IDing the body."

Mulder nodded, stunned into silence. It was hard enough imagining 
that Patterson had a wife, visualizing her dead was a bit of a 
leap, even for Mulder.

When the news filtered through hours later, Mulder had at first 
misunderstood. Patterson's wife had died in a head-on collision. 
Both drivers dead. One of them drunk, lost control.

Mulder cringed as he read about yet another pointless way to die 
and noted the time on the accident report. Ten a.m. and already 
drunk. That hardly constituted an accident. It was then that he 
realized that the high blood alcohol reading referred to Colette 
Patterson, not the other driver. Did that make it worse? Probably. 
It was always better to have someone else to blame when tragedy 
struck.

He tried to recall her face. He'd met her once, at a Christmas 
party. When Bill had bundled her out of the bar at about 9 p.m., 
she had been laughing and swearing. Mulder remembered that. But he 
couldn't remember her face.

Mulder wasn't surprised that his boss failed to take the following 
day off. In fact Bill took no time off apart from a couple of 
hours to attend her funeral. He left the office a little earlier 
than usual that week, albeit with a stack of files in hand. 
Otherwise, in those days that followed his wife's death, 
Patterson's routine scarcely changed.

Mulder studied him carefully. Bill was maybe a little subdued, his 
voice deeper and softer than usual. The sarcasm was a little less 
controlled than normal and accordingly less effective in hitting 
its targets. His anger lacked the sharply honed edges that made it 
dangerous.

Mulder couldn't resist, he was hooked, fascinated by the way Bill 
Patterson grieved. He tried to control his morbid curiosity, but 
couldn't. He found himself analyzing every out-of-place word that 
Patterson said, the body language that spoke of defeat as well as 
of fierce control.

Even before Bill introduced the dark-haired teenager, Mulder 
instantly recognized her movements. She was truly her father's 
daughter. At least, that was, until her father went into his 
private office, leaving her outside in the main room, on full 
display to his team of agents.

She held her head high, challenging them to speak. Her eyes 
revealed their bloodshot rims, stark red against the frozen white 
of her skin. She sat up straight, stiff backed, only the slight 
tremor of her fingers suggesting that any life remained. 

Mulder's heart drummed louder in his chest. He licked the inside 
of his lip trying not to look at the girl and failing in his 
resolution as fast as he could formulate it into words. Resigned 
to it, he looked around the office and saw no movement, just a 
pack of ghouls closing in, vultures on the girl's emotions. He 
carefully packed the photos back into their files. Tried hard not 
to compare victim number three to Francine Patterson. Failed.

Furious with clumsy fingers, he fumbled the last bits of the 
paperwork together and stuffed the entire file into the already 
overflowing desk drawer. Wiping damp palms against his thighs as 
he stood, he walked slowly towards the trembling teenager.

"Hi, Francine, I'm..."

She cut in sharply, abrasive twist to her voice. "Fox Mulder. Dad 
introduced us. About two minutes ago."

Mulder shuffled a step back, sheepish smile. She'd been 
'introduced' to a couple of dozen people in Bill's one minute 
grand tour. "You've got a good memory for names."

"My Mom died, not my brain."

He considered the hole he was digging and carried on regardless. 
"How about a coffee, soda, something?"

She looked carefully into his eyes and seemed to find what she was 
looking for, nodded and followed him through the sea of curious 
faces. 

Outside the dungeon that housed the ISU, it was possible to find 
daylight at Quantico. At least Mulder remembered something of the 
sort. He tried not to look at Francine during the elevator ride. 
He didn't want to see the twitch of the muscles in her hand or the 
tightening of her jaw. He certainly didn't want to catch the 
tremble of her cheek bone that told him just how close the next 
batch of tears were to her eyes.

He stopped before entering the cafeteria and made sure that she 
could see the signs on the door to the ladies' room, then turned 
to face her. "Ready?"

Her jaw twitched, weakness revealed and then instantly masked. "A 
minute." 

She headed quickly into the bathroom leaving Mulder to lean 
against the wall in the hallway and wonder what the hell he was 
doing.

------

1999  - MULDER'S APARTMENT

"Do you remember Frankie? Francine Patterson."

Diana tried to fix her thoughts on the grieving girl that Mulder 
had spoken so much about during the Kurzman case. "I met her once, 
with you. Apart from that, I don't recall talking to her. I 
remember you talking about her."

At Mulder's quizzical look, Fowley stood up, decided that it would 
be a good moment to stretch muscles tired through prolonged 
inactivity. She checked her watch and her eyebrows rose at how 
fast the last three hours had passed. 

Mulder took the hint and headed towards the kitchen, suggesting 
food options as he walked.

"You've got food! During a case?"

He shouted over his shoulder. "Well, yeah, but you need to keep in 
mind that I'm actually suspended at the moment."

She smiled briefly and told him what she remembered about Frankie. 
Mostly that was the story of Frankie and Fox. 

Of Frankie herself? Factually, there was not really that much to 
tell, except for how closely the boss's daughter had matched the 
victim profile. 

Appearances were one thing, and Mulder had known as soon as he saw 
Frankie that her resemblance to the victim ran deeper than mere 
body type and hair color. He wasn't surprised that she shared a 
darker secret. All the girls had a parent or step-parent who was 
struggling with alcohol or drugs. All were described as the 
perfect student by their teachers. All had trouble making friends 
of their own age and related more easily to adults.

Mulder knew that in some way, Frankie had placed him in some in-
between category. Older than her, but not afforded the kind of 
automatic respect that she normally manufactured for "real" 
adults. Instead he was the soft target of her sweetly malicious 
turn of phrase and an opportunity to sharpen her claws. And, 
unlike her classmates, he was deemed safe, some instinct had told 
her that he would never fight back.

In the end it was that fact that had also infuriated her. She had 
finally explained, in a voice that dripped with disgust and 
disappointment, that she didn't want a punching bag, she wanted a 
man. 

Mulder was not perturbed by the memories, remembering that moment, 
in particular, as a triumph. He had been there on the day that 
Francine grew up. Even Bill Patterson noticed, and just for the 
barest instant Bill's eyes had looked at him with unalloyed 
gratitude and respect. Proud of his daughter and proud of his 
expensively trained protege.

Of course, the pride had turned to anger when Bill realized that 
Diana Fowley had been able to get herself a relocation to DC.


-----

1989 - LA

The clue to the Moon Killer was that he knew his victims. The 
bigger clue was that despite this fact, no one who knew the 
victims, also knew the killer.

Naturally, this concept was not easily accepted by the other 
agents. Mulder's facts were things that other people termed 
flights of fancy or, more generously, idle speculation. Mulder was 
cautious in his choice of words, careful to describe his 
statements as theories, hypotheses, working assumptions.

Nonetheless, anyone who heard his tone of voice had no doubts 
about Mulder's real opinion on the matter. To Mulder the theories 
were as factual as fingerprints on the murder weapon. An observer 
either bought into the fundamentals of his theory or the whole 
beautiful tower block of strategy and tactics that he had proposed 
came crashing down.

In the end, disgusted by how little influence he seemed to be able 
to exert over the California-based agents, Mulder had persuaded 
Patterson that it was time for the personal touch.

Mulder was surprised that Diana Fowley had chosen to meet him at 
the airport. She was easy to spot in the demurely cut expensive 
suit. The jacket just a little longer than current fashion 
dictated, a better match for a concealed weapon. Severe features 
but strong and attractive and with a softness about the mouth that 
suggested that she knew how to smile. She matched her Bureau 
record to a T, not even her hairstyle had changed since her badge 
photo had been taken.

He walked straight up to her. "Agent Fowley."

She accepted his handshake. "Good to see you, Agent Mulder. It's 
nice to match a face to a voice. Good flight?"

"Didn't crash once."

"Excellent, I'd heard the Bureau had quit using those economy 
carriers."

Mulder smiled and followed her to the car.

Despite the calculated risk of opening on the wrong foot, Mulder 
questioned Diana on her use of a psychic to find the body of the 
second girl. The girl had just been a missing person when a woman 
phoned the Bureau office and told them about a vision she'd seen.

The only person willing to listen to the story had been Diana 
Fowley. That was why it had been Diana Fowley who had led the team 
that discovered the dead girl in the overgrown picnic area, in a 
stretch of closed-off forest. It had also been Fowley who had 
proven to most people's satisfaction that the death was linked to 
other deaths in Santa Cruz and Monterey. Inevitably, the days of 
effort by the search team and the days of work Diana had done with 
the forensics lab experts had been forgotten.

The story had assumed mythical status. Diana Fowley had called in 
a psychic to get the FBI out of a fix.

Mulder could only try to empathize with her plight, but first he 
wanted to understand. "Why did you listen to the woman?"

"She seemed sincere."

He smiled, a 'really?' spoken only with his eyes.

"I've been fascinated by the paranormal since my father pulled me 
out of a frozen lake."

Mulder tilted his head, curious.

"I was ten, my father died when I was five."

"Delirium brought on by hypothermia?"

Fowley sighed, a heard-it-all before expression of disappointment. 
"No way of knowing. Apart from the fact that I'm alive. I just 
said that it triggered my interest."

Mulder nodded. "I." He paused, remembering that some things are 
not spoken of in public, then decided that Diana Fowley was not 
really the public. "I think there a lot of things not understood. 
Things that people choose to ignore."

Fowley laughed, recognizing a kindred spirit but amused and more 
than a little dismayed by his nervousness. It was as if the man 
didn't know that everyone already thought he was Spooky and that 
his insight came off the top of a Ouija board. She replied with 
mock seriousness. "Ever thought about a career in politics?"

And Mulder laughed too.

By the time they reached the LA office, Mulder was not only 
thoroughly impressed with Diana Fowley, he was absolutely ready to 
do battle on behalf of his Moon Killer profile.

The girls had not been drugged, there were no marks of a struggle 
on their bodies. Colleagues argued that a gun to the head left no 
scars but tended to get cooperation. Mulder suggested that most 
people's response to that kind of threat left stains on 
undergarments. The room groaned with occasional laughter as Mulder 
played them with coy words and casual understatement.

Having contented himself that they were ready to listen, Mulder 
walked them through the profile again. He paused to highlight key 
places of interest; letting them throw in questions to keep them 
involved in the process; delivering ruthlessly succinct rebuttals 
to anyone expressing a counter theory.

Mid 20s to early 30s. The man looked young, attractive, nicely 
dressed, polite, well-spoken. He was all charm and the misfit 
teenagers saw him as their invitation to the adult world. He 
charmed and they teased and all was innocent fun and right with 
the world. Then, under a new moon and a starry sky for love, he 
would take them to an empty place. Good girls, who made no 
advances, who didn't demand things that he could not deliver, 
could live. Bad girls, who tried to take the teasing a step 
further, who wanted to be defiled, would die.

Of course, delusions being what they are, it was very unlikely 
that their UNSUB could differentiate between good and bad, even 
though he had chosen his own definition for bad. It was highly 
probable that the teenagers had been marked for death since their 
first meeting. It was almost certain that there were more dead 
bodies that had not yet been found. It was a given that he would 
kill again.

"Any wife, girlfriend in the picture?"

Mulder shook his head. "Not this time, though there may have been 
when he was younger. That could be where all this started. But 
now, the obsession is too great. He gets everything he wants from 
the girls. Companionship, adoration, even love. Before he kills 
them."

"So why haven't we seen him? Why haven't we found a common link 
between the girls?"

"You have. You just haven't spotted it yet. He's there, but he's a 
nice guy, so he doesn't stand out. The girls are loners, it's not 
hard for them to hide a secret attraction. That's part of why I 
suggested he's in a position of authority toward young people. He 
can tell the girls that being found out could cost him his job and 
they believe him."

There were nods of agreement from around the room. Mulder stayed 
to watch as they set to work refining their activities, building 
the tasks around his profile. Satisfied that he'd succeeded, he 
was unusually relaxed as he packed his bags at the end of the day.

Diana Fowley hovered close by. "I'm impressed. That was quite a 
coup."

Mulder shook his head, shrugged, embarrassed by the compliment. 
"Not really. I should be able to handle these things in my 
reports, over the phone. Flying out here..." He shrugged again.

"Is an admission of failure?"

He swallowed, relaxation having evaporated under the weight of 
self-consciousness. He tried to brush it off with a joke. "My 
in-box will have doubled by the time I get back."

"I don't doubt it. I don't see you as the ISU type."

Mulder shifted his weight between feet, uncomfortable now. 

She continued, her eyes reaching out for his. "You need to get 
your hands dirty. I don't see you behind a desk. Looking at 
photos, relying on phones and faxes instead of people. Patterson 
can do it, he sees these things as crossword puzzles, intellectual 
stimulation. But you, the people are too real to you."

Mulder pulled on his suit jacket, irritated now. After a day this 
good, surely he deserved to enjoy it. "Are you charging for the 
psychoanalysis?"

She looked away apologetically and stared at her feet. The walk to 
the car and drive to the airport were conducted in silence. 

Mulder was pleased to reach the airport and grateful when he 
unloaded his overnight bag from the trunk. It had been a long day 
but at least he hadn't needed a stopover. He was going home to his 
own bed. His hand came forward to offer a perfunctory handshake to 
Diana. She accepted the offer, but simultaneously added her left 
hand to rest on his arm.

Tension vanished in an instant. He disentangled his arms from hers 
and wrapped her in a bear bug, breaking the contact after a few 
seconds with a light kiss placed in her hair.

He stepped back, maintaining contact, his fingertips resting on 
her shoulders. "Good luck with the case."

She nodded, smiling. "Thanks. Till next time."

"Till next time," he agreed.

--------

1999 - SCULLY'S APARTMENT

She had been anticipating Mulder's phone call ever since she woke 
up. Really, he should have been in touch by now, that was his MO. 
She decided that he was probably still brooding after the swift 
brush off she'd given him the night before. She was actually 
considering calling him to tell him that communications had been 
formally reopened.

Maybe she could tell him about the nightmares. She tried to summon 
up the nerve.

The phone call that did arrive took Dana Scully by surprise, she'd 
almost said 'hi, Mulder' as soon as she picked it up, but she had 
resisted on the basis she didn't need to hear another telepathy 
joke. As it was, it would only have proved her lack of telepathy, 
Bill Patterson's daughter was on the line. Odd really, because 
Scully didn't recall giving the Pattersons her phone number. 
Perhaps Mulder had? 

It was Francine Patterson who did most of the talking, but the 
only words that really mattered were her opening ones. "I think 
Fox is in trouble."

After that statement, Scully had difficulty processing the rest of 
Francine's remarks. She asked her for a meeting. She was surprised 
by the enthusiasm with which Francine suggested Scully's own 
apartment as the venue, and right away as the time. Francine 
seemed to recognize the street name and didn't need to be given 
the directions twice.

When the doorbell rang, Scully found herself still frantically 
tidying and dusting, worrying the ornaments with tiny 
repositioning pushes. She wished she had flowers, maybe pink and 
white irises in clouds of gypsophila, filigree green with tiny 
perfect white buds, like Francine Patterson had used to dress the 
table for dinner the other night. She laughed at herself as she 
tried to remember how long it had been since another woman, apart 
from her mother, had visited her apartment. Hell, it was stupid, 
but at least it was keeping her mind off the sort of trouble that 
Mulder might be in.

Francine was smiling as Scully opened the door. Tall and dark and 
perfect and oh so young. There were only a few years between them, 
but Scully felt like there might as well be decades. "Thanks for 
seeing me at such short notice, Agent Scully. I know you've been 
busy this week."

Scully sighed. Well at least that explained those calls to her 
answering machine with no message left. She hated when people did 
that. She decided to forgive Francine and get back to the problem 
in hand. "Just Dana will do fine." They walked together to the 
couch.

Francine started talking as soon as she sat down. "Dana. Thank 
you. I've been so worried about Fox."

"Please, go on."

Francine cleared her throat and waved a hand in apology. "I 
wonder, a glass of water perhaps?"

Scully almost leapt to her feet, embarrassed now as well as 
nervous. Some hostess she was. "Sorry. I'll fix some drinks. 
Coffee, tea, juice, water?"

Scully was surprised when Francine followed her into the kitchen 
and had to bite her lip to stop herself from going into a stream 
of apologies about dishes still on the drainer and crumbs on the 
cutting board. Something told her that nothing like that would 
ever be seen in Francine Patterson's house.

"Do you have fresh lemon? For the tea."

Scully suppressed the groan, why the hell had she offered? The 
chances of finding a lemon in the refrigerator after a week away 
were negligible and of course Francine would expect fresh lemon. 
She opened the salad tray and found nothing of note. "I haven't 
restocked yet."

Francine nodded. "Decaf coffee?"

Now there Scully could oblige and she set to work, still not 
believing how flustered Francine was making her feel. As if in 
some bizarre way her housekeeping skills were on trial here. What 
the hell was happening to her? Mulder, right. Mulder was in some 
sort of trouble. "You were telling me about Mulder."

"Fox is inclined to let his emotions get the better of his 
judgment. I fear it may be happening again."

Suddenly, Scully found her age analysis reversed. It was Francine 
who sounded like the school principal while she felt like the 
socially inept eighth grader. She forced herself to focus, drew 
Agent Scully into the battle to work alongside Dana. "Could you 
expand on that?"

"After he left you last night, he demanded that I meet him."

Scully frowned, remembering how late it had been. And then he'd 
demanded that Francine meet him? 

Francine continued before Scully got a chance. "He takes awful 
risks."

Scully stood as still and silent as possible as she waited for 
Francine to tell her something she didn't already know.

Francine's voice was so low that Scully had to concentrate to hear 
it. She lost focus on it for an instant, thinking how like Mulder 
that was, dropping his voice rather than raising it to warn her of 
important words. Maybe it was a psychologist thing. Maybe it was a 
Bill Patterson thing. 

"Dana?"

Scully shook her head to get her concentration back. "Sorry, I 
didn't quite catch what you said." A plea for time and for 
Francine to drown the incessant chatter of background noise 
playing in her head.

"Are your hearing difficulties a new thing?"

"Please. You were telling me about Mulder."

"Of course, it must be difficult to listen when you are so 
worried."

There was something about Francine's voice, an odd resonance 
rumbling in there. As if there was a rhythm playing somewhere in 
the deep background, too quiet to hear, but Scully could feel it, 
like the sound of distant drumming.

"Dana? Are you feeling all right?"

Was she? She took a step back, almost falling over the stool that 
had been her target. "I think maybe I should sit down."

Francine moved forward, her hands outstretched. Scully almost 
screamed, lifted her hands in a warning to stay back and struggled 
to bring her voice under control. "I'm fine." She'd said it too 
loud, she knew that from the expression of dismay and concern on 
Francine's face. She listened to her breathing. Got it back 
together. Lied. "Sorry. I've had a virus, I just felt a little 
dizzy. Maybe an ear infection. I'll check in with my doctor. I'll 
be fine now."

Francine nodded, concern and care shining in her eyes. "Maybe I 
should come back when you feel a little stronger. Illness, travel. 
It isn't that long since you were in the hospital. I don't want to 
add to the stress."

"Please." Scully, almost furious now, was ready to beg.

"Of course." Francine spoke again. Her voice, controlled in timbre 
and rhythm, so hypnotic and so soft, it was slipping under the 
walls. "Fox is dangerously obsessed with my father. I have treated 
obsessives. I've lived with it too. Dad tracked Mostow for years."

Scully swallowed and acknowledged that in her head she already 
knew this. Hearing it from a psychiatrist just made it somehow 
more real. She licked her lips. "Mulder is very resilient."

"As was my father. He handled the ISU for 15 years. He vetted 
every case before assigning it. He picked up the pieces if his 
agents failed. Fox lasted three years. What does that say?"

"That he knew when to quit?"

"You can't imagine how much I hope that's true. I loved him once." 
Francine looked into Scully's soul, holding her attention so she 
could speak more softly. "He was gentle and understanding when I 
needed it. He made me feel important. He used me to break a case. 
Then he walked away without a word. He's easy to love, he uses 
it."

Scully hunted for the words, the correct professional terms, the 
solid impersonal facts. She stumbled over them. "You said that 
Mulder's in trouble. Can you be more specific?"

"I think you already know. Ask him about his dreams. Ask him about 
the dreams he has when he's awake."

"You're saying he's delusional?"

"He sees things, Dana. Things that other people don't see, that 
you don't see. How would you term it?" Francine sighed, stepped 
forward to offer her hand to help Scully to stand up. "Maybe you 
should lie down. You look awfully faint."

Scully accepted the offer of a shoulder to lean on, but insisted 
that the couch was fine. She didn't need to return to bed. 
Francine left her with a glass of water and a TV remote control 
for company. 

------

Mulder left Diana Fowley with a little homework to do. Together 
they had compiled a list of all the key players in the Moon Killer 
case. The agents in DC and California. The police officers who had 
originally handled the murders as separate incidents. The lawyers 
who steered the case through court. The judge who acquitted 
Kurzman at the trial. The SWAT team that finally captured Kurzman 
as he tried to make his getaway after killing again.

Next to each name they had placed purely subjective ratings, based 
on their helpfulness to the investigation and their personal 
amiability.

Mulder still had one more day of his suspension to serve. He 
blinked hard at the computer screen. Going back to work might feel 
like a rest after a week of working with one hand tied behind his 
back. He was just going to have to find a way not to get sent out 
of town. Meanwhile, having Diana check the Bureau databases for 
information would save Scully time and would almost certainly slip 
by unnoticed, whereas Mulder suspected that any computer searches 
done by either of the X-Files team could easily attract unwelcome 
management attention. 

Scully. Mulder stopped, retraced his steps. Scully was going to 
hit the roof when she heard that he'd involved Diana. Well, then 
she'd have to, because that was the way it was. Diana knew about 
the Kurzman case. She knew Patterson, she even knew some of the 
people who might be Patterson's targets. Scully didn't.

He checked his motives and his reasoning. Diana's involvement 
couldn't do any harm, it might do some good. Whatever her 
relationship to either generation of Spender, she had no loyalty 
to Patterson and certainly a lot less respect for him than even 
Mulder possessed. As for Scully? Well, what the eye doesn't see, 
the heart doesn't grieve over. She had her mystery contact 
creating a CD-ROM for them. He had a mystery contact doing a 
follow-up investigation. Resigned to the situation, uncomfortable, 
he decided to think of something else.

It was wearing him down, yet oddly exhilarating. All Mulder's 
senses were firing danger alerts, then immediately canceling the 
alarms. Every instinct told him that Patterson was destroying the 
lives of men he'd once known. Yet Mulder felt no sense of personal 
threat or menace. For some reason he was quite sure that he was 
not the target. Patterson had cast him in the role of 
investigator, not potential victim. 

But, somehow he was the catalyst. Was he? Was Francine? Maybe the 
familiar names he'd found during his searches were just raw 
coincidence. Had he just remembered their names because of how 
he'd felt in their company? 

Matthew Irving, long-time NYPD detective and current resident of 
the secure unit where Francine's ex was working. Two babies had 
died because Irving didn't go along with Mulder's profile. 
Patterson's object lesson in the importance of not merely being 
right, but of convincing others to act. Mulder thought back, not 
sure who he'd hated more, Irving or Patterson. He was quite 
certain who he had blamed, himself. As a piece of on-the-job 
training it had cost two lives. 

It had nearly cost a third when Mulder had driven home from 
Quantico after seeing the photos of the newly dead. The tears had 
been blocking his vision, yet somehow he hadn't noticed, hadn't 
been capable of thinking straight enough to stop the car and give 
himself time to recover. He'd driven on, not really seeing. He had 
been lucky. According to the hospital staff who patched him up 
after his car tumbled into the ditch, abrasions and sprains only. 
The only saving grace was the fact that no one else got caught up 
in the crash.

And then there was Samuels. One of the old school, that had been 
everyone's favorite epithet for Mitch Samuels. It had been true of 
his working years, it was true of his retirement. Florida for the 
fishing, that had always been his way. Mulder recalled taking a 
boat ride to find him. He remembered Samuels' fury at being found. 
A reaction that Mulder understood perfectly in retrospect. Mulder 
had contaminated the peaceful and wholesome oasis with blood. 

Mulder's response at the time had almost put him in jail. More 
prosaically, it had led to the Bureau getting thrown off the case 
and a suspension. Mulder's first, and the only one that had 
occurred during his work in the ISU.

When he'd returned to the office a few days later, he'd handed his 
neatly printed letter of resignation to his boss. Patterson sat in 
patient silence through Mulder's confession of inadequacy. Then, 
infinitely polite but absolutely firm, Bill told him that 
innocents would die if he stopped working. Patterson showed him 
photos of fresh bodies, of killers on the loose. Asked Mulder how 
he could possibly walk away when he knew how to help.

So it was ironic but inevitable perhaps, that it had been Samuels 
who committed the crime of defiling the fishing oasis years later. 
Though in Samuels' case the blood was literally on his hands. The 
murder weapon was a shark gaff. The victim, some poor idiot who 
had had the misfortune to collide with the wrong boat. Samuels 
hadn't spoken since it happened, so no one knew how or if he had 
been provoked. Just that there was a lot of blood on the deck and 
not a scratch on Mitch.

The odd man out was Gordon Hayes in Vegas. Sure, he'd teased, he'd 
nagged, but Hayes had done nothing to deserve his fate. Deserve? 
Mulder sighed, deserved? Did he really mean that, was that how he 
actually felt about the others? He fidgeted, uncomfortable with 
everything now. A profiling occupational hazard, he reminded 
himself. Thoughts best kept locked in the subconscious forced up 
into the daylight. 

Suddenly sickened by selective memory and even more selective 
compassion, he remembered the other victims, the woman killed by 
Irving, the man killed by Samuels. He found it harder to feel 
concern for the prisoner Hayes had executed, that man had murdered 
because he wanted to and he would have killed again. Mulder took a 
deep breath at that thought, it seemed like his subconscious had a 
vigilante streak to go with the vengeful one that he'd already 
dragged up.

-----------

Obsession was a dangerous word. If the opposite of obsessed was 
indifferent then it was better to be obsessed. Wasn't it? The word 
fell on the dangerous end of a continuum that also contained 
flattering words like committed and dedicated. So hard to draw a 
line, particularly when the landscape could change so fast. Scully 
looked for the comfort of black and white, the grays of psychology 
and emotion were disturbing.

Adrift and suddenly alone. She needed Mulder on this kind of 
problem, but he was the last person that she could look to for 
unbiased advice. Self-diagnosis was tough enough in the case of 
physical pain, self-diagnosis of mental hurts had to be almost 
impossible. Unless. Maybe if she could actually show him the 
symptoms as hard impersonal facts, then he would be able to see 
for himself.

Plus, if she had to take action to protect him, it would be best 
to have the facts close at hand, unclouded by emotion and 
subjectivity. Then later, when he was well again, he would 
understand her role better. He would know why she'd had to act.

She wouldn't be able to do it officially, of course. Even if she 
could come up with a strong enough case to force Skinner to help, 
did she want to? Too risky, Skinner would have to make her fears 
public straight away, an immediate reference to the Bureau's 
psychiatric evaluation unit. He would have to let the procedures 
take their course without even giving Mulder the chance to defend 
himself. 

Another black mark on his file for certain and even with his 
ability to wriggle out of trouble that might be enough to get him 
bounced out of the X-Files for good. Particularly as AD Cassidy 
already had such a downer on him. And if Mulder failed to do his 
usual sidestep around the Bureau shrinks then what might they 
find? If they only knew how to look.

There were monsters and aliens in his head, a red sea of stories 
of nightmare and science fiction that Scully couldn't validate, 
except as dreams or misinterpretation or fraud. And who would fake 
a man that could turn into a monster if you saw through the light? 
A fraud of Mulder's mind alone, brought on by the stress of a 
hunt. Searching for a man, a man who had returned to attack him 
when he lay defenseless, pinned to a hospital bed. No wonder 
Mulder saw monsters in the dark.

Scully shivered. And what could she see? Monsters. The difference 
was she knew that hers were in her imagination or the products of 
her dreams. If they were real, then maybe remembering Mulder in 
the white room with the bright lights and the machines and the 
noise, maybe that was real too. Ludicrous. Fortunately she knew 
enough about reality to know the difference.

The Lone Gunmen were happy to help. Anything to get Scully's 
forgiveness after tricking her into a little trip to Vegas. She 
granted absolution in return for the loan of the latest thing in 
surveillance equipment, a crash course in its use and no questions 
asked about how or where it was going to be deployed.

------

Mulder didn't reach New York until ten on Monday morning. By then 
the police station was in full flow and Mulder knew that it would 
be pure luck if he managed to get hold of Mike Gregg without a 
struggle. 

He was relieved when Mike appeared after only a ten-minute wait, 
but he was less comfortable about the expression on Mike's face. 
Gregg looked tense, almost angry at Mulder's presence. He waved 
for Mulder to follow him out of the building, barking a one word 
question as they went down the steps. "Breakfast?" 

Mulder agreed in an instant. At least Mike was talking to him, 
things couldn't be that bad. He opted for the direct approach, 
talking as they headed into the nearest coffee house. "What's 
wrong?"

"You're suspended?"

They broke off the conversation to order the latte and the 
cappuccino. Mulder didn't pick it up again until the waitress 
moved away. "What makes you say that?"

"I'm a detective, I detect you showing up without a partner, two 
times in one week. I looked in the log book after your last visit. 
You signed in as F.W. Mulder."

"Who else?"

"Not 'Agent.' I want a straight answer. What's got you 
investigating Irving?"

"I'm not, except as a possible victim."

"Of?"

"Bill Patterson."

"Jesus."

"Nah, Bill only thought he could walk on water." 

The hmmph of a chuckle from Gregg and the arrival of the coffees 
broke the ice. Mulder decided to keep moving while there were 
still signs of a thaw. "I'm interested in the woman that Irving 
killed."

"She was just..."

"Yeah, I know, one of the girls. I need names, contacts, places."

"You got a death wish?"

Mulder argued his case until Gregg finally succumbed, bowing to 
the inevitable. He agreed to give Mulder whatever the agent 
claimed that he wanted, however stupid. The idea that the woman 
had killed off three of her "colleagues" would have sounded 
ridiculous coming from anyone except Fox Mulder. From Mulder, it 
just sounded unlikely.

Back at the station they set to work on the files and Gregg 
conveniently forgot to sign Mr. Mulder into the station log. By 
the time that Mulder had worked through the known record of the 
woman, he had demonstrated beyond any doubt that the woman was 
technically up to the task. And that she knew all of the victims. 

Mulder's leap from there to suggesting that she could have been 
the killer no longer seemed that big a jump, even to Mike Gregg. 
Certainly it would explain the other bag of heroin found in her 
apartment, the one that didn't have Matthew Irving's prints on it. 
Mulder was in full speculation mode. Whether her hatred of them 
stemmed from cash and some kind of dispute over drugs or from some 
less obvious psychological malaise wasn't obvious. She'd had the 
means, possible motive and definite opportunity. 

Gregg tried to draw some comfort from the idea. "You don't suppose 
Matt was onto her? So she..."

"So she committed suicide by stabbing herself multiple times while 
strangling herself with his tie?"

Gregg scowled a smile. "You should be on the stage. But, what if. 
What if it was someone who knew her, killed her, pinned it on 
Matt."

"You been reading the funny pages again, Mike?"

"So what are you looking for?"

Mulder shrugged. "I want to know if her friends think she was a 
killer." He paused, suddenly hit by one of the names he found in 
the dead woman's address book, eyes brightening as they struck 
gold.

Gregg groaned. "If you've just found the mayor's home phone number 
in there, I don't wanna know."

"Better. I've just found her shrink."

---------
 
Martin Jacobs did not look surprised to see Fox Mulder again, 
merely indulgent. His demeanor was one honed to perfection through 
years of use. Jacobs was the professionally tolerant psychiatrist 
quizzing his longstanding but unpredictable patient. "What would 
you like to talk about, Mr. Mulder?"

Mulder recognized the tone of voice and played it back like he was 
returning serve. "It's more a question of who I'd like to talk 
about."

Jacobs nodded, conceding ground. A mistake.

Mulder attacked without hesitation and pushed home the advantage. 
"First, Dawn Appleyard, the woman killed by Matthew Irving. I 
believe she was a patient of yours."

"For a time. She was a very troubled woman."

"Troubled enough to kill?"

Jacobs sat back, his face a mask of silence and caution. "I only 
worked with her for a short time."

"I'll take that as a yes. Did Francine ever meet her?"

The psychiatrist swallowed, eyes still locked on Mulder's but 
oddly unfocused. "Once."

Mulder hesitated, suddenly absolutely convinced that he understood 
Martin Jacobs' reticence, yet not quite believing it. "I'm sorry 
to have to ask this, sir. Did you have an affair with Dawn 
Appleyard?"

Jacobs lashed out, a last attempt to maintain dignity in the face 
of defeat. "Do you always talk in code? I had sex with her."

"How did your wife react?"

"She didn't, not a word. I didn't see Dawn again. Frankie 
disinfected the house and moved to DC."

Mulder shivered slightly as the jigsaw puzzle of evidence slipped 
into place around him, tight and unyielding and far too real. "You 
said that I should keep an eye on Francine." He leaned forward 
slightly, certain now. "Why?"

"She's gifted, powerful 'influencing' skills."

"But you don't like how she uses them?"

Martin Jacobs turned his face away, suddenly fascinated by the 
paper and pens on his desk. "People should be afraid of the dark. 
She isn't." He looked up at Mulder, confiding. "You must know how 
that feels." 

Mulder thanked Jacobs for his time.

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

1989 - QUANTICO

It had become something of a ritual. It had also become a major 
debating point on the ISU gossip circle. Since Jeanette had walked 
out on Mulder, or more accurately, since she'd flown out to a job 
in San Francisco, Mulder had scarcely looked at another woman. 
Yet, here he was, regular as clockwork, taking an afternoon coffee 
break in the company of Bill Patterson's gorgeous schoolgirl 
daughter.

The whole idea was so tantalizing that it had captured the 
imaginations of even the most hardened and world-weary of the 
profilers. Their heads-down focus was being distracted for a few 
minutes a day by the need to get a report back on the latest 
sightings of Spooky and the girl.

They checked Mulder's hand as surreptitiously and frequently as 
they could. He was still wearing the wedding ring that he'd put on 
after Jeanette had moved into his apartment. Some good luck charm 
that had been, she'd moved on before her divorce had come through, 
so they'd never actually married. Yet, he still wore the ring. For 
old times' sake? Or maybe something more, they suggested, in 
murmured and cautious, almost giggled tones. Maybe he wore it 
because a young and naive girl like Francine Patterson would feel 
safer in the company of a married man.

There was general agreement that Bill Patterson's indulgence of 
the odd relationship stemmed not from indifference but from a 
blind denial that his little girl was actually a young woman. Some 
threw in the chuckled afterthought that Bill probably viewed 
Mulder as more machine than man. The consensus was that neither 
Frankie nor Fox would be making the same mistakes.

From a purely professional standpoint, it was a shocking thing to 
see. With eyes unclouded by the personal, the idea that Mulder 
might be bedding the boss's daughter right under her Dad's nose 
was just unfathomable.

From a moral and human standpoint, they equivocated. After all, in 
some states, Francine was already old enough to get married, with 
or without Dad's approval. But hell, it wasn't right. She was the 
same age as their daughters. She was Bill's daughter. Even without 
the age difference, it would be wrong. The girl was in mourning 
and Mulder was on the rebound from his break-up.

Yet there was another side. Francine seemed to look a little more 
beautiful every day, rounder somehow, the harsh spikes of grief 
vanishing under Mulder's careful attention. But even so.

When the photo of a giggly looking Francine being helped off a 
sailboat by a smiling Fox Mulder appeared on Bill's desk, the 
speculation was confirmed. Weird enough, these daily encounters 
between Mulder and the girl within the walls of Quantico. At least 
those were in public, could be brushed off as Mulder helping her 
with her homework or her grief, whichever was at the forefront of 
her mind today. But pictures of them together at the weekend? 
Smiling? Photos that were apparently blessed by Bill Patterson. 
Too weird.

Spooky was the right name for him.

-------- 

Mulder glanced over Francine's shoulder and noted that two other 
members of the ISU had apparently decided to join him on his trip 
to the cafeteria. By remarkable coincidence, they were sitting 
only a few tables away. He smiled at his companion. "You're bad 
for productivity."

Francine smiled back, her eyelashes fluttering as her smile 
widened. "Dad won't mind. He says you always make up the time."

He raised an eyebrow. "Sure. It's worth it. But it was our 
surveillance crew that I was talking about."

"Again!"

"Two of them today. Let's get out of here. We don't need 
chaperones." His voice slipping to a teasing whisper as he stood. 
"Do we?"

She giggled, waved a goodbye to the two agents sitting behind her. 
They feigned surprise at seeing her. She smiled as she followed 
Mulder out through the double doors and onto the grass. "It's 
beautiful today."

Mulder looked around, considering, wondered if he still knew the 
difference between beautiful and ordinary. Decided that he did. 
There seemed to be a lot more blood on the ground on ordinary 
days. He looked at the trees and sniffed at the air, picking up 
mown grass on the late afternoon breeze. "Summer's coming."

"Mom loved the summer."

"But hated Mom," Mulder added, a light chuckle dancing though his 
words.

"God yeah. Mama! But I had to call her Mom at school of course."

"Split personality."

"By day, Miss American Pie."

"By night, Mademoiselle Folies Bergere."

Francine laughed, tapped him on the arm in mock annoyance. 
"Please. Madame Marie Curie." She sighed, sobering up, her eyes a 
little wistful. "She wanted me to be special."

"She loved you."

She shook her head, her eyes downcast. "And I loved her. It wasn't 
enough though, was it?"

"Yes, it was." He murmured, quiet but definite. "It's enough 
because it's all we can give." He paused, breathed carefully. "You 
can't fix everybody's problems, you can only try." 

"And if you fail?"

"You know you tried."

"Does it help?"

"No."

She laughed softly, reached a hand towards his. He accepted it and 
held her knuckles to his cheek briefly. She started to shift her 
fingers against his skin, he leaned into the caress.

He took a step back, disentangling their fingers as he moved away. 
"Time I got back to work."

-------

1999 - MULDER'S APARTMENT

Scully worked fast, knowing that she would have little warning if 
he arrived back unexpectedly. She was pretty confident that she 
would be OK. When she called him up on his cell phone he'd said 
that he was in New York. So, unless he was lying, then she was 
safe, she had plenty of time to get it right.

And if he was lying? Then she'd have evidence, not quite the hard, 
incontrovertible facts that she wanted. But evidence nonetheless, 
proof that he was in some sort of trouble. After all, he had no 
reason to lie to her. Did he?

Her mind drifted towards the dangerous places. Toward lies. He'd 
never really spoken to her about her abduction, about Duane Barry. 
He'd never really questioned her on what she remembered, never 
urged her to go through hypnosis or psychotherapy. In fact, he'd 
even been reluctant to let her talk to Werber about the night that 
she'd come so close to being burned alive on that bridge. Why? Why 
did the great truth seeker not need to hear her story?

She knew he told lies, lied to everyone except her. Couched his 
reports to management in terms that indicated caution rather than 
his self-proclaimed truth-telling openness. When he decided that 
Melissa Ephesian was obtaining flashbacks into other lives, he'd 
still claimed multiple personality disorder to Skinner. He'd lied 
to the review board about the death of that DOD agent in his 
apartment. He'd forced her to lie for him more than once, covering 
his tracks, protecting him from prosecution.

From her, he merely withheld information. He knew about her ova 
being stolen, yet had said nothing. He knew that she wanted to 
hear more about Diana Fowley. Yet no matter how often she 
presented him with the opportunity, he evaded the point. Lies by 
omission. Had he omitted to tell her other things too? She'd had 
to pull him up about it even during cases, hiding even trivial 
things like the fact that he knew Karen, the dog behaviorist.

If he'd lie about trivia. She stopped, corrected herself. If he 
omitted to tell her things. Then how could she be sure that he 
wouldn't lie about important things? Like what he knew about her 
abduction. It would certainly explain why he had never needed to 
question her.

She chose camera positions with care, needing to know, yet 
reluctant to violate his privacy. She swallowed, tried to drown 
the loud clamor of voices in her head that were demanding she 
justify her intrusion into his life. How dare she talk about not 
violating his privacy when that was exactly what her every action 
represented. 

Damn it. She was doing this for him. For his own good.

--------

As Mulder drove towards his apartment that evening, he had almost 
reached a conclusion. Actually, he reminded himself, he had 
reached a conclusion several hours earlier, it had just taken him 
this long to forgive himself for it.

Not a conclusion, he noted, carefully editing his thoughts in 
favor of the standards expected of a long time FBI profiler. He 
had a working hypothesis that he needed to test. He smiled at the 
phrasing, Scully would be proud of him.

Matthew Irving had slipped over the edge into insanity and killed 
a killer. Gordon Hayes had done the same thing. What if Mitch 
Samuels' victim had been targeted in a similar way and was not 
just some innocent fisherman?

He wondered if Diana Fowley had come up with anything during her 
searches. If, indeed she'd had the chance to do them. She had said 
that she'd try to get something to him before she left town today. 
He could only hope so.

If he made no progress tonight then he was going to have problems. 
If he couldn't give Skinner something tangible to throw at AD 
Cassidy, then no way was Skinner going to give him the time or the 
opportunity to pursue the case. 

Plus, he was going to need Scully's help, sooner rather than 
later. Things were already getting hairy. Even if she couldn't do 
anything tonight then he at least needed to check in with her. If 
she'd let him.

He looked at his watch, a quick heads-up glance into the rear 
mirror and then he switched lanes. There was a good chance that 
she would be home by now. He looked down at the cell phone, 
winking its low battery complaints. He tried to remember what had 
happened to his car recharger. Not important, he'd visit her 
anyway. Even if she wasn't home, there was a good take-out place 
nearby and he could pick up his dinner from there.

When he knocked on the door to her apartment, he was pleased by 
how quickly she responded. Puzzled though, it was almost as if she 
was out of breath, had he disturbed her?

"I was just getting ready for a shower."

Her expression didn't invite teasing, so he was careful as he 
replied. "Can we talk, maybe if I got some food while you take 
your shower, then..."

She stood very still, blocking the narrow view around the 
partially opened door. She glanced over her shoulder. Looked back 
at him, breathing heavily again. "I'm going out."

Mulder nodded, nervous but not sure why. Did she have a visitor? A 
man? Someone with a gun standing behind her? "Is everything OK?" 
he asked quietly, scanning her for danger signs as the what-ifs 
raced through his head.

"Better than OK." She smiled, gave him a knowing wink. "I'll see 
you at work."

Better than ok? Shit, so she did have a visitor, no wonder she 
wanted to get rid of him. Apologetic now, he took a step back and 
waved a forced breezy goodnight. 

----------

Scully checked her monitor and made sure that the images from all 
four mini webcams were updating at regular intervals. She sighed, 
wishing that she'd thought faster when Mulder had shown up on her 
doorstep. As if it had mattered. All she had to do was invite him 
in, make him an iced tea and switch off the computer screen. As 
things were now she might even have aroused his suspicions.

She smiled suddenly, she'd certainly aroused his testosterone 
levels. He'd looked positively crestfallen when she'd told him she 
was going out. But he'd looked stunned when she'd suggested that 
she might have a "better than ok" reason for not wanting him in 
her apartment.

The sudden rustle from behind her caught her attention as she 
swung in her desk chair. Mulder had just arrived home. She set all 
systems to record and hoped that the cell phone technology hookups 
that the Lone Gunmen had loaned her were as reliable as their 
manufacturers claimed.

When he headed to the bathroom, she politely turned down the 
sound.

------

Flicking his head quickly from side to side, a sparkle of water 
drizzling onto the floor as he moved, Mulder tried to wake himself 
up from the shower. He had hoped it would make him feel pleasantly 
refreshed and cure him of the sleepiness. Instead, it had made him 
feel oddly relaxed and ready to do nothing.

He forced himself through the mechanical processes of his task, 
hoping that, at some point, learned responses would take over from 
conscious effort. 

The promised data from Diana Fowley was in among his email. He 
noted the size of the associated file transfer and left the 
computer to its task.

The cell phone still needed a battery. He plugged it into the 
charger, then pressed in a number he already knew.

"Hello."

"Hi, Diana. It's me. Just wanted to say thanks."

"You got the personnel files? Sorry there's so much of it, I 
didn't get chance to filter them. You're going to have your work 
cut out to do anything tonight. I'm sorry I can't help. It looks 
like I may be out of the country for a while."

"It was good to see you. And the files look like what I need. 
Thanks. You were great."

"Is Scully there?"

"She's busy tonight. I'll be seeing her at the office tomorrow 
anyway."

"You think this is about Francine, don't you?"

"She's in a lot of trouble."

"Do you think she's doing something with Bill?"

"Maybe. But she's in the eye of the storm."

"Don't get swept away with it."

"I'm safe for now. She thinks I'm stood there with her, observing"

"You'll need help. I wish I wasn't leaving."

"Don't worry. I've got Scully."

They closed the call with goodbyes and safe journeys and Mulder 
turned back to his computer.

After he read the fifth of the 87 files, he realized that he 
couldn't even remember who he'd been reading about. His thoughts 
were still bouncing around. Without one hundred percent 
concentration, this just wasn't going to work.

What the hell. A run then, escapism when he needed to escape, yet 
also a focus when he needed the one track mind back on the right 
track. He quickly slipped into his jogging gear and headed into 
the night. It was a hard learned trick, but learned early and at 
least a relatively healthy way to empty his mind of unnecessary 
thoughts. 

Scully? Nothing to be done there. She needed tonight for herself. 
Tomorrow. He would be seeing her tomorrow. He could handle that.

Skinner? Maybe he'd find something to use with Skinner. If not 
tonight, then tomorrow night. So long as Skinner didn't have work 
that would send them out of town there was no conflict.

Fowley? She'd gone flying off somewhere again. Finding out where 
and why was a task for another day, another case. At least that 
meant that he wasn't going to have to worry about her bumping into 
Scully.

One mile in and the shadows were getting darker, closing in. 
Obvious now, with all the distractions and clutter cleared away. 
Real and dangerous. Chasing him along the street, demanding to 
know how it felt to kill as Irving and Hayes had done. And 
Samuels? And who else? To have no choice, to kill and have no 
choice and no explanation. Enough to drive a man finally insane, a 
man already playing on the edge of sanity. Mulder ran a little 
faster, feeling the chasing pack nipping at his heels.

Sudden panic as his mind flashed to a moment in the past. A lone 
DOD agent manning his post, doing his duty, monitoring Mulder's 
apartment. Over in a bang, a flash and a sickening slush of blood 
and gray. There was insanity in that moment, yet sanity enough to 
allow him to move the dead mess and re-stage the scene in his own 
apartment. A moment when the dead thing was something less than a 
man. So close to falling over the edge, yet so controlled. Bill 
Patterson would have been proud.

Nausea spread through his body as his brain demanded that he look 
at himself, drag doubts and fears from the dark places so he could 
look at the ugliness with the clarity of knowing how it really 
felt.

What was it that Bill had called it? Immediacy. The protagonist's 
own words. Sure, words. But smells were better, the scent of blood 
and fear tickling the nostrils. The adrenaline surge of someone 
else's death.

---------

SCULLY'S APARTMENT

Scully stared at the screen, Mulder's apartment now mercifully 
devoid of life, giving her the opportunity to replay his words at 
leisure. He'd gone jogging? After a shower. Maybe not a Federal 
crime but odd. Something else to think about. It was a pity she 
didn't have a monitor on him now, while he was running, if he was 
running.

She contented herself with the next best thing, listening to her 
partner indulging in the one sided conversation that she'd 
recorded earlier. His first mistake was that he told her who was 
on the line.

"Hi, Diana. It's me. Just wanted to say thanks."

"It was good to see you. And the files look like what I need. 
Thanks. You were great."

"She's busy tonight. I'll be seeing her at the office tomorrow 
anyway."

"She's in a lot of trouble."

"Maybe. But she's in the eye of the storm."

"I'm safe for now. She thinks I'm stood there with her, observing"

"Don't worry. I've got Scully."

She listened only once to the good-bye platitudes of old friends, 
lovers or whatever they were supposed to be. Finding no comfort 
and no insight there. She took the play back to the start and 
listened again. 

Her fingers twitched over the mouse, rolling it in neat restless 
circles of aimless motion.

"I've got Scully." 

She set it to play again, not wanting to hear the words, forcing 
herself to listen. Silent tears slipping gracefully over porcelain 
still skin.

--------

1989 - QUANTICO

Mulder leaned back a little further in the chair, studied the 
pencils embedded in the ceiling tile above his head. It would be 
just his luck if he got hit in the eye by falling timber, only a 
matter of time. He nudged the coffee cup with his foot, pushing it 
a little further away from the danger zone at the edge of the desk 
top.

"Diana, I don't know what you're expecting here. I'm just a 
profiler, not a psychic."

"Fuck you."

Mulder glared at the handset as the line went dead. What was wrong 
with people? Like the job wasn't hard enough, why was the world 
full of humorless bitches always wanting more, demanding. Like 
they were entitled to expect things. From him? As if he didn't 
have problems of his own.

Sighing, he reached for the phone and stabbed in the numbers to 
get him back through to Special Agent Diana Fowley's direct line.

She picked up instantly. "Diana Fowley."

"I hadn't realized the conversation was over."

"You just really piss me off at times."

"Only at times? Look. I know you've got a problem. I'll take 
another shot at it. He's there, I know he is. And you guys have 
interviewed him. But there's something about him that's thrown you 
off the scent. Or something I put in the profile that's stopping 
you seeing him. I'll revise it."

"Sorry about hanging up like that."

"You're not the first." He abruptly put down the phone. Smiling, 
knowing that a couple of thousand miles away Fowley would be 
smiling too.

It was just approaching four thirty, time for a little diversion. 
He pulled on his jacket, carefully flicking a couple of hairs and 
chair fibers from the expensive charcoal gray. He straightened his 
shirt cuffs to lie with the necessary measured elegance, showing 
exactly the right amount of crisp linen to contrast correctly with 
the dark of the jacket and the pale skin of his hands. He turned 
towards his watching colleagues and they quickly looked away. 
Smiling, he headed for the elevator.

Francine was already waiting for him at the reception desk. 

He smiled. "You're early today, fancy a walk?"

She nodded, a small movement but with real enthusiasm in her eyes. 
They paused at the cafeteria to grab a couple of cans and headed 
outside.

They walked in silence until Francine stopped walking, looked 
around and confirmed that they were far from prying ears. "Fox?"

"Hmmm." He stood very still as she studied him, allowing her eyes 
to roll over him. Didn't challenge her, didn't respond by doing 
the same to her, just gave her permission to look.

When she finally decided to speak she rushed her words. "Do you 
think Dad loved Mom?"

"Loving's easy. Living's hard."

"What about you and Jeanette?"

"Same thing."

"Do you think you'll ever be able to live?"

Mulder smiled, wondering if he should feel insulted, but more 
amused than annoyed.

There was a long silence. When she spoke again, she almost 
stammered, a shocking chink in her armor. "She didn't know me. 
Mom. Maman."

Mulder's reply was instant. He was after all, an experienced 
interrogator who knew how to unsettle his target. "Parents see 
things differently."

"She saw me through a cloud of alcohol." 

Mulder watched her as she struggled for words, he let her find 
them on her own.

She took a deep breath and plunged on. "You're the first person 
who's ever looked at me."

He looked at her now, watched her breath catch in her throat.

She licked her lips and looked at her feet, such a quiet voice. 
"I'd like you to be the first to see all of me."

And still he stood, motionless. Like the camera watching, 
unblinking, capturing all she was and everything she had.

She was silent now, embarrassed and suddenly very young. Slumping 
into her shell and building high walls.

He reached towards her, his fingertips within touching distance of 
hers. "Francine."

She stared at his hand and he followed her eyes as her fingers met 
his, entwining and stroking and rubbing up against his touch like 
a cat against its owner. 

He stepped a little closer, at the same time withdrawing his hand 
from hers, using it to offer a playful squeeze on her shoulder 
then quickly pulling away, all without ever making eye contact. "I 
have to go back to work."

Mulder moved swiftly towards the office, pausing only to grab a 
large coffee from the cafeteria, holding it carefully as he waited 
for the elevator to return him to the under-world. He sighed as he 
threw his jacket back over the seat back. He did a slow scan of 
the office, unamused now by the curious stares of colleagues who 
really ought to know better. He stretched his fingers, he had some 
serious typing to do.

When the phone rang a couple of hours later, he knew who would be 
on the line. "Hi, Diana, you've seen the fax?"

"You're sure that you aren't a psychic?"

"Merely brilliant."

She laughed. "If you tell me, 'it's elementary, my dear,' I may 
have to shoot you."

"You'd have to get to DC first." He paused, removed the flippancy 
from his voice. "What do you think?"

"I'll see you in DC." She dropped her joking manner too. "I think 
I can see how we went wrong."

"Yeah, it was dumb of me. I know the UNSUB doesn't have a regular 
lover, that doesn't mean he's not wearing a ring or that his 
colleagues don't assume there's someone at home for him. People 
get distracted by that kind of charm. If he lies about it, even 
just by failing to tell the whole truth, people hear what they 
want to hear."

"You seem pretty sure he's wearing a ring."

"It removes some of the girls' initial inhibitions. Later on it's 
like a talisman he's using to defend himself from their advances. 
It's like he's hung out the warning flag and if they choose to 
ignore it, then he can blame them for what happens. It's not the 
kind of thing I'd say as a definite, but there's a high 
probability. Anyway you get the idea. Don't assume that because 
they say they are married, living with someone, they actually 
are."

Mulder looked at the ring on his finger. Let the reflection of the 
ceiling lights dance across its surface. He turned as he noticed a 
flash of blue amongst the white and gold, Francine Patterson was 
standing right behind him. He swallowed, spoke quickly into the 
phone. "I've got to go now, call me if you need more background."

He put down the phone and swiveled around to face the young woman. 
"Hi."

"I came down to wait for Dad."

"How long have you been there?"

"Since she called you."

Mulder scrambled back through the brief conversation, desperately 
trying to remember exactly what had been said. "Frankie?"

"Dad's here."

"I'm sorry, you weren't supposed to hear."

Her voice was hoarse, barely a whisper. "A lesson in living."

Mulder nodded apologetically, wishing her and her father a very 
good evening. After all, he wouldn't be having one.


-------

1999 - X-FILES OFFICE

Mulder let routine and ritual get him back to work. Flipping the 
in-box to get old mail first. Filing most incoming directly in the 
recycle bag. Re-routing things that should never have left the 
counter-terrorism unit or the Violent Crimes team, scribbling 
brief notes on them if they had been passed his way in the hopes 
of a little commentary. He emerged after a couple of hours with 
three much smaller piles. Possible X-Files. Possibly useful 
information. Bureaucracy. 

A brief phone call to check on Scully's whereabouts and he'd 
discovered that she'd been requested by Quantico to look at a 
body. A young woman, a burn victim. He shivered and moved on.

He skimmed quickly over the case files, emailing or faxing notes 
requesting more information on some, informing Bureau offices and 
local PDs that he would like to monitor future developments on 
others. Convinced that nothing took immediate precedence over the 
Patterson case, he turned to the Bureaucracy files.

Less demanding than the case files. Less likely to spoil his focus 
by filling his brain up with irrelevant data than the information 
pile. Bureaucracy had its benefits, a necessary evil but mindless 
enough not to get in his way. By the time he'd cleared the decks 
of that one, filing or recycling as required, it was past 11 and 
there was still no word from Scully. 

She responded to her cell phone at his second attempt.

He tried to keep it light. "How's it going?"

"It's done. They found one of those implants in her neck during 
the initial autopsy. There's a standing order here."

"To call you?"

Her voice was crumbling as she spoke, he heard it crack. "Yeah." 

"Are you ok?"

"She had a tumor. She killed herself because she was dying."

It was about the last thing that he wanted to hear. Implants, 
tumors, suicides, fire. Not right now. "Should I come and pick you 
up?"

"I've got my car here."

"Are you ok?"

"I'll be back this afternoon."

When she hung up, Mulder felt like screaming. He was close to 
throwing the phone at the wall when it rang and Assistant Director 
Skinner requested his immediate presence.

Skinner pointed him urgently toward the visitor's chair, Mulder 
sat down and was surprised when Skinner joined him in Scully's 
customary position. The wrong side of the desk. A signal that 
things were about to get personal. Mulder pushed himself to sit up 
a little straighter and watched his boss's eyes for clues.

"Have you spoken to Scully?"

"I just got off the phone."

"And over the last few days?"

"A little." Two half hearted attempts to visit her, rebuffed at 
the door of her apartment and a couple of telephone griping 
sessions about the job in San Diego. Not much at all, especially 
given how much he needed her. And how much, right now, he 
suspected that she needed him.

"I've had complaints."

"Sir?"

"The San Diego office. Found her harsh and abrasive, lecturing in 
tone even though they were receptive to her recommendations. Does 
that sound like her?"

"I assume they didn't like hearing what they were doing wrong."

"She fell asleep at her desk while she was there."

Oh shit. "Maybe she's ill."

"She woke up screaming when someone touched her. She was screaming 
your name."

Mulder tried to sink into the embrace of the chair, couldn't think 
of anything to say, except that he needed to talk to Scully. If 
she was ill. God. What if she was ill?

Skinner frowned, obviously expecting more response than he was 
getting. "She lost her temper with the ME at Quantico, told him he 
shouldn't have removed the implant from the corpse. That he could 
have killed her." Skinner stared at Mulder. "Is any of this making 
sense to you?"

"Maybe she's ill." He offered again, weakly this time.

By the time Mulder called back to Quantico, he was prepared to 
insist that Scully let him come and collect her, but she had 
already left. He was just going to have to wait for her to come to 
him.

He had to do something though. Ok, the Florida case then, he could 
still get some work done. For a start, he could find out who Mitch 
Samuels had killed. 

He did, but it took hours rather than the minutes he'd 
anticipated.

Cervantes had been born in Cuba, but had lived in Florida for five 
years. Initial queries kept showing up blank, until Mulder finally 
convinced himself that they were supposed to. The Lone Gunmen knew 
Cervantes, or more precisely a sister publication of theirs with 
the avowed aim of tracking undercover operatives knew him.

A covert operations specialist who'd gone off the rails and 
started taking work home. As the work in question was a white 
powder and had a street value of millions of dollars, there was a 
lot of blood on his biography. Mitch Samuels' eldest daughter had 
been caught in the crossfire during a disagreement between 
Cervantes and his friends.

Of course, whether Samuels had known any of that still remained a 
mystery. The cop of the old school hadn't spoken since the day 
he'd hacked Cervantes to death.

With that minor success in mind and despite the fact he knew that 
there was trouble ahead, he was feeling pretty relaxed as he 
unlocked the door and walked back into the basement office. 

He was surprised to find Scully at his desk, hastily closing 
files. "I hadn't realized that you were in here. The door was 
locked." He waved a thumb towards the lock as he spoke. "Is 
something wrong?"

"Why would there be?"

"You sounded upset, by the autopsy."

"And you think that's inappropriate?"

Mulder looked for a way to back out of the conversation before 
things got any worse. He tried to stick to work. "How did San 
Diego go?"

"My brother thinks I'm wasting my life. That I'm in trouble."

Mulder was surprised by that. He'd asked what he thought was a 
work question and had been given a personal reply. He listened and 
replayed her words in his head, heard the odd way she talked about 
being in trouble, wondered if it was a Bill Scully quote. 
"Trouble. What did he mean?"

"That my life isn't my own."

"What?"

"How's Diana?"

Diana? He decided against lying. "I think she's travelling again."

"Did she give you something before she left. Something to take 
your mind off Patterson?"

What the hell? Had Scully seen Diana's car parked at his 
apartment? Why hadn't she knocked on the door? "She did a couple 
of searches for me, about a case I did for Patterson."

"Francine came to see me." 

Mulder could hear an odd rumble in Scully's voice as if there were 
tears in her throat that weren't being allowed to surface. What 
was happening here? He proceeded cautiously. "Francine's 
dangerous. Maybe more dangerous than Bill."

Scully shook her head, shocked or amused, or both. "Come on, 
Mulder. Listen to what you're saying. First Patterson, now his 
daughter. Who else?"

"Let me show you the files. You'll see."

"Because you've got me, haven't you?"

There was that odd tone again, as if she was quoting. He tried to 
answer the question. "Because I'm right."

"98 percent of the time?"

Where the fuck was she going with this? He raised his hands in 
confusion. "So I exaggerate. But I'm right about this. The 
evidence is building up. I just need to get a few more things, and 
I'll have enough to go to Skinner and get formally assigned to 
work on it. Just stick with me here."

"In the eye of the storm?"

"Scully?"

"Don't you see what's happening? You're so locked into this 
obsession to hunt Patterson that you're even accusing his family. 
You're so blinded by hate that you ignore the evidence I gave you 
about Diana."

"I didn't ignore it. But this, this is about old cases. Things I 
did with Diana before I even worked the X-Files. I haven't given 
her any information. I asked her for help, agent to agent."

"Why didn't you ask me?"

Hell, things were going belly-up so fast Mulder couldn't even 
think of a response. Certainly the truth wasn't going to work. You 
were tetchy; Diana was amenable. It just sounded shoddy. Weak. "I 
thought you wanted a weekend off."

"With my family. But no. Your obsession took precedence. I bowed 
down and gave in. I won't let it happen again. For both our 
sakes."

"There's evidence."

"I have evidence too."

"Scully?"

She rose from the chair, brisk and purposeful as she walked away 
from the desk and towards the door. Slammed her hand hard into his 
chest when he stepped into her path. She thumped the door shut as 
she left.

Scully?

--------

Scully headed back to the desk she used in the main office, the 
refuge she went to when Mulder's presence became too overwhelming 
or too infuriating. One foot in each camp, the mainstream of 
Violent Crimes and the eccentricity of the X-Files. How had they 
described the X-Files, her life? An indulgence for Agent Mulder?

Marshal of facts, her role by choice and destiny, she weighed the 
evidence. It was confused and disjointed, as was to be expected. 
Her personal fears and doubts about Mulder's loyalty to her and 
even to his own cause, called into question again now by 
nightmares and missing memories. It was important that she ignore 
the subjective data. It could easily be the product of stress. If 
it was not, then it was the product of a reality too fearful to 
contemplate.

Discarding the subjective, she moved back to the provable. Her 
video capture of Mulder talking to Diana Fowley. Inadmissible in a 
court of law, but nonetheless useful. But that was a one time 
throw, if she showed anyone this first recording, then it would be 
the only one.

Delay was unacceptable. He'd involved Fowley, how far into the 
danger zone did that already place him? She had thought that he'd 
understood, Diana and the X-Files were not compatible. He'd sat in 
front of Kersh and Skinner and made some cryptic remark about the 
danger of sleeping with the enemy. It hadn't sounded cryptic to 
her, she'd understood him. She thought. Yet, Patterson was enough 
to make him forget everything she thought that he'd learned.

What did she know about his supposed evidence of wrongdoing? That 
Gordon Hayes had gone off the rails? Sure. But it happened all the 
time. Not normally so spectacularly, nor so tragically. But 
breakdowns happened. Statistics said it was bound to have happened 
to people Mulder knew. What had she seen on the computer files? 
Hundreds of cases. Thousands of people.

Then there was Matthew Irving. A homicide cop in New York getting 
mixed up with a drugged up prostitute? Aberrant behavior scribbled 
in neon. The only special horror there was that no one had stopped 
Irving before it was too late. She would not make that mistake 
with Mulder.

Even if he was right, there were still procedures to be followed. 
The same kind of procedures that would have protected Irving and 
Hayes if people had stuck to them. One fundamental principle was 
that people worked only on assigned cases. Mulder even 
acknowledged the risks of obsession in his report on Bill 
Patterson. He had insisted that it was essential to obey an order 
to step away, or more poignantly to give the order. No matter how 
senior or experienced the investigating officer might be. The pot 
called the kettle black even while it still swung in the smoke.

At the end of the day, the answer was clear cut. Mulder had 
disobeyed a direct order to keep out of the Patterson case. No 302 
existed covering his activity. He'd used other agents to obtain 
information covertly from the FBI's computer databases. 
Disciplinary offenses, by any criteria, even for a department 
operated as an indulgence.

She herself had disobeyed a direct order by not reporting the 
offense to Skinner. It was a matter that she was about to correct.

---------

Skinner was completely thrown by Scully's battery of complaints 
against her partner. When his assistant had announced Scully's 
arrival at his door, he had anticipated an explanation of the 
tension she had been operating under in San Diego. Maybe even the 
chance to ask her about the personal impact of autopsying a woman 
fitted with an implant, dying of cancer. He had expected to 
suggest that she take it a little easier, try going home on time 
for a change. Maybe even take some stress management sessions with 
the human resources people.

What he hadn't anticipated was her demand that he take 
disciplinary action against Mulder. She offered lists of who 
Mulder had spoken to about Patterson since he'd been ordered off 
the case,  and when and where the discussions had taken place. 
Mulder's indifference when challenged and his determination to run 
headlong into his obsession. By the end of the meeting Skinner had 
negotiated her down to an insistence that Mulder go into a 
mandatory psychological evaluation. In the end, it was the minimum 
action he could take. 

He could only hope that Mulder knew how to handle it and wouldn't 
make too much noise. If word of why the assessment program had 
been ordered were to reach AD Cassidy, the whole X-Files project 
could be back under scrutiny.

-------

BILL PATTERSON'S HOUSE

Mulder found himself looking over his shoulder as he knocked at 
the door, uncomfortably self-conscious, nervous about a threat 
that he was sure was actually invisible. He didn't breathe out 
until Bill opened the door. "Is she home?"

"You're here to see Frankie?"

"I'm here to see you."

"Then you'd better come in." 

As Mulder stepped past him into the house, Patterson walked 
forward. Peering along the road as Mulder had done, he adopted an 
almost teasing tone. "Was someone following you, Fox?"

Mulder gave a single chuckle of disgust. "No. I'm twitchy. You 
know how it is. I'm more scared of them once I start to understand 
them."

Bill nodded and invited Mulder to follow him into the gleaming 
white and stainless steel of the kitchen. "Let's rough it." He 
pointed at one of the high stools by the breakfast bar.

Mulder frowned, suddenly nervous of everything. "Why?"

"You're family now. I don't need to show off the soft furnishings 
anymore. And I'd like to get Francine's dinner under way. You 
don't mind?"

Mulder shook his head, bemused by the incongruity of the mundane 
domestic debate, the designer kitchen and the sick feeling in the 
pit of his stomach. Bill handed him a glass of tomato juice, a 
sprinkle of salt, just a dash of Worcester Sauce. Mulder shrugged, 
accepted it as another blast from the past, surprised that Bill 
remembered the habit.

"I seem to recall it was as close as you got to food some days."

Mulder closed his eyes briefly and tried not to remember. "I hated 
it, Bill."

"Bullshit. What you hated was liking it. That and being so good at 
it."

Mulder watched as his host boned the chicken. Bill was quick and 
efficient, losing nothing, dealing with everything, Mulder found 
himself admiring the precision of the knife work. His mind flashed 
suddenly to a utility knife and Nemhauser's hideous scars. His 
hand shifted involuntarily to cover his mouth.

Patterson spotted the sudden movement and paused, the knife 
bouncing restlessly in his hand. "You can still see him, can't 
you?"

Mulder nodded. 

Bill nodded in reply. "Me too." He returned to the cutting, 
dividing the meat into neat even pieces. "He comes to me 
sometimes. At night. Asking why. He's like you in some ways." He 
stopped work and looked at Mulder. "Persistent."

Mulder swallowed, sipped the last of the tomato juice. Turned his 
attention to his cup of coffee, studying it as if there was a 
movie playing in the reflections on its surface. "Why is Frankie 
doing it?"

"Because she can?"

"Don't fuck with me, Bill. I'm past the playful stage."

"How do you think she does it?"

"Don't know yet, I need more data. She might loosen them up with 
drugs, but there's more to it, she doesn't even need to be there. 
She finds their weaknesses and nags at them. Psychological 
manipulation. She learned it from you."

"All I ever did was give orders that got obeyed, orders that 
people like you had signed an oath to carry out."

Mulder ignored Bill's defense of his record. "She's killing 
people. She trashes their minds, then she sends them in like 
assassins, turns them into murderers."

"Who do they kill?"

"Not the point, we're supposed to be the good guys."

"And you accuse me of manipulation? Then you pull a 'we' out of 
the hat. Manipulation's something she learned from you, you showed 
her how to use people who weren't even in the game."

"I'm taking her out, Bill. I need a copy of that book you're 
writing."

"You didn't show much interest before."

"I'm suddenly fascinated. You've included some of my cases. Surely 
I get to comment?"

There was a warning in Bill's voice. "Mulder."

"You know me. I never walk away."

"Frankie thinks that you will."

"Why?" Mulder froze, suddenly sensing real danger. "Scully?"

Patterson made no movement, neither to confirm nor deny.

Mulder nodded. "She doesn't know me. And she doesn't know Scully."

"Fox. Just. Just, watch your step."

"I'd love to read your memoirs."

Bill sighed, a resigned shrug of the shoulders as he headed to the 
sink. He washed his hands twice. Once to get rid of the blood. 
Then again to remove the antiseptic smell of the first soap. "Soft 
copy do?"

"Sure, it'll look nice when I print it on Bureau letterhead 
paper."

----------

1989 - LA

The room was full of disappointed people. There was an air of the 
angry mob in the testosterone cloud that was building. The Judge 
had released Kurzman. Five dead girls and Kurzman, the obvious 
killer, was back on the streets. 

At least that was what their emotions were screaming. In their 
heads they knew that Kurzman's guilt was anything but obvious. If 
it had been obvious then the prosecutors would have been able to 
make a good plea bargain and the flaws in the evidence handling 
would never have been revealed. But the defense counsel had known 
there was a real chance of Kurzman walking away. The fact that he 
walked away after the preliminary hearing, rather than after weeks 
of argument and hours in the jury room, was the surprise.

The long and painstaking lecture they'd just received on exactly 
what had gone wrong did not turn the horror story into an 
opportunity to learn, as the LA office SAC had suggested. It had 
turned it into an opportunity for finger pointing and bitter 
recriminations. The fact that there was more than one guilty party 
was hardly news and didn't make it any easier to live with.

Next up on the agenda was a new tactical analysis from Fox Mulder 
of the ISU. The Task Force that Mulder was talking to bore only 
superficial resemblance to the team he'd addressed in this room a 
few months earlier. That group had been eager and argumentative. 
This group was the snarling but defeated dog that expected to be 
kicked.

Mulder spoke so softly that people had to stop fidgeting in order 
to hear him clearly. Yet no one demanded that he speak up. Only 
once the room was so quiet that it was certain that you could have 
heard a pin drop did Mulder increase the volume to cater to those 
at the back or with less than perfect hearing.

The sick jokes and sly wit that had punctuated his last 
presentation to the team was absent, replaced by a bitter, 
brooding intensity that made more than one agent check his hip to 
ensure that his gun was ready at hand. In the quiet of the meeting 
room there was the hypertension of an assault team preparing to go 
into action. And the profiler was the commander.

Mistakes now could, would, cost lives. Far from a salutary lesson 
and warning shot to Kurzman, the court appearance had convinced 
him that he was invincible. It would not lead to a cessation of 
violence, it would lead to an escalation. Three months in jail 
would have increased the urgency of the blood lust, not deadened 
it.

Mulder waved a hand, drawing words from the air, talking without 
notes but with minimal repetition and backtracking. "Kurzman is an 
intelligent man, as well as a very charming one. His face is too 
well known for him to return to his old methods of winning trust 
through his work and then spending time wooing his victim. His MO 
has to change to reflect his new circumstances. The steps will be 
the same, but massively accelerated. What used to take weeks will 
be completed in a few hours.

"Kurzman will find a new approach. Now that he's not running his 
astronomy courses for teenagers, he'll have to hunt differently. 
He'll find lone girls in public places and befriend them. You'll 
need to think shopping malls, concerts, sports events. Anywhere 
there are crowds. Anywhere where a girl sitting alone might stand 
out and a young man sitting a couple of seats away from her won't 
look like a threat.

"He'll start up a conversation, from then on things will move very 
fast. You'll need to be ready."

The audience started to fidget again, restless because they knew 
that the actions were going to be difficult to define and 
implement. Round-the-clock surveillance was expensive. How long 
would they need to use it? If Kurzman knew that he was being 
watched, blood lust or not, the man was intelligent and in 
control. He wasn't going to make a mistake that would make it too 
easy for them.

Diana Fowley rose to her feet. "With Agent Mulder's assistance 
we've set a few things in motion that should make it possible for 
us to keep track on Kurzman. We've arranged for an agent to work 
in his office, so if he slips out during the work day, she'll be 
able to follow him. His previous targets have been high school 
kids. Given Agent Mulder's suggestion as to his probable new MO, 
he'll need uninterrupted hours with the girls. Accordingly, the 
key days are the weekends. I'll be issuing a schedule." 

The group debated the detail, quizzed Mulder again on how to 
recognize venues and possible victims.

As soon as the discussion started to taper off, Fowley looked back 
towards Mulder, beckoning him to provide the final words.

Mulder stood again, hushing the crowd with his body language and 
urgent tone of voice. He described the victims, the lovely young 
women who had already faced torment in their young lives because 
of their parents' problems. He described their deaths, the 
desecration of innocents. He told them their responsibilities. 

"The bottom line is, if you lose him, she will die. If you drop 
the ball, you pick it up."

------

Special Agents Kieran Mallow and Janet Hoddle had the second 
Saturday shift. The first weekend had been uneventful. Kurzman had 
been cautiously enjoying his freedom, nothing more. 

In any case the smart money was on this weekend. It had been a new 
moon last night. Mulder had suggested it as a "more probable" but 
had been keen that they didn't get hung up about moons. Just 
because the team had originally called him the Moon Killer didn't 
mean it had anything to do with moons. New moons were just a nice 
backdrop for stargazing.

Kieran enjoyed a good game of baseball and as he was eager to 
point out to Janet, this was not a good game of baseball. It was a 
travesty of incompetence. Pitchers who couldn't pitch, hitters who 
couldn't hit. The only thing working properly was the umpire, a 
barrel of a man with a beautiful ringing voice who still seemed to 
find drama in shouting "strike" no matter how often he had to 
perform the service.

The good thing about having a man and a woman on a job like this 
was that, provided you stuck to your cover, you were invisible. 
Janet could gaze around the crowd apparently oblivious to the 
field of play and so long as Kieran stayed excited enough for two, 
onlookers would just see young love.

Apart from the man selling chili dogs, Kurzman hadn't spoken to 
anyone in nearly an hour. Neither agent had spotted a suitable 
looking lone victim and apparently, nor had Kurzman. Kieran 
sighed. "Bathroom break. You want me to bring anything back?"

Janet collapsed in a howl of laughter that quickly swept Kieran 
along with her. Kieran groaned a halt to his laugh, "I only meant 
that there are some concession stands along that way."

"That's a relief."

"So?"

"So what?"

"So do you want anything? Popcorn, drink, a jaunty hat?"

"Thanks, I'll pass." 

She returned to her crowd-watching, startled to see Kurzman rise 
to his feet. She looked around but Kieran had already disappeared 
from sight. That was OK, the important thing was to keep watching. 
Right? Kieran was going to be a few minutes. Kurzman was supposed 
to take hours.

Janet watched, fascinated as Kurzman went to sit behind a girl who 
Janet hadn't even noticed. She noticed her now, slightly built and 
pretty, with short blond hair, not really looking up, not hiding, 
but not obvious either. Kurzman was one row back and two seats to 
the side. The stand hadn't been full to begin with and it had been 
getting emptier for the last half-hour as the game petered out to 
nothing.

Kurzman was obviously saying something. Though, of course, Janet 
didn't know what. She'd always thought the Bureau should send her 
on a lip-reading course. The blonde girl smiled, obviously amused 
by something Kurzman had said. Janet checked her watch. Where the 
hell was Kieran? OK, it had only been five or ten minutes but even 
so. She didn't think men had the same waiting-in-line problems 
that women had at sports events. Unless, her stomach gurgled 
ominously, unless the chili dogs had decided to play rough.

Kurzman rose and so did the girl. Damn it, where the hell was 
Kieran? Janet ran down the steps, finding the row of concessions 
her partner had talked about. She found the men's room but didn't 
find Kieran. There were too many people milling around. She gave a 
single piercing shout of "Kieran," but no one replied. She headed 
for the exit gates. Looked around. Out of the corner of her eye 
she saw Kurzman's car already preparing to pull out of the lot.

She quickly jumped in her own car and followed.

Janet knew as soon as she started the car that disaster had struck 
and that there was no turning back. If you drop the ball, you pick 
it up. Most optimistically, any moment now, Kieran would get back 
to his seat and realize she was missing. He'd look for Kurzman and 
see that he'd gone. Good agent that he was, he would be on the 
phone instantly, raising an APB on both cars. Damn it, if only 
she'd had the cell phone, but Kieran was carrying it today. A 
great FBI cost saving that was. All she was carrying was a pager, 
like that was going to do any good.

About as much good as an APB on a car moving this fast out of LA. 
The one thing on their side was that they knew the kind of place 
Kurzman would be heading to, a picnic place in a beauty spot away 
from street lights. Probably, Mulder had told them, one of the 
sites they already knew because he'd lacked opportunity for 
scouting new locations. 

But hell, that only made sense after dark. No one knew what he did 
when he wasn't inviting the girls out stargazing. Would he go 
straight there? They didn't even know his old MO in that kind of 
depth, they certainly had no data on his new one. Except that 
Mulder had said the clock would be ticking.

Janet drove, trying to remember what she'd been told about tailing 
cars. Like first, if you want to be inconspicuous you need more 
than one car. Forget inconspicuous, that was going to have to wait 
for another day. Right now, the key thing was to make sure he 
didn't get away.

Which was why she was about 40 yards behind him on the deserted 
highway. At least he was sticking to type and heading toward 
familiar National Forest terrain. Janet hoped that meant there was 
at least a slim chance that the cavalry was looking their way. 

Kurzman's car swerved slightly. Janet braced herself for action, 
tapping the gun behind her back and leaning forward in her seat to 
try and get access to the holster. The car ahead swerved again, 
the passenger door swinging open, and suddenly there was a body 
bouncing onto the road. Janet swerved to avoid running it over and 
then slammed on the brakes. She performed a rapid about turn to 
get back to the girl. Jumping from the car, she rushed toward the 
tiny figure lying on the side of the road. 

The broken leg was obvious, bone protruding below the knee 
straight out through denim jeans. At the speed they had been 
travelling it would be a miracle if she survived. She touched the 
girl's throat and found a pulse, faint but there. So far as she 
could tell, the girl had stopped breathing but was still alive. 
Janet maneuvered the limp figure as gently as she could, placing 
her onto her back. She carefully tilted her head to get the angles 
right and prayed that she could remember her emergency training. A 
final breath to focus her mind and she leaned forward, ready to 
start mouth to mouth. 

She didn't even hear Kurzman's car stop and reverse, or the sound 
of his footsteps. Just felt the cold against her ear. She turned 
her head. It was her last action before the gun went off.

The helicopter search team that found them tried to get the girl 
to the hospital but the rescue had come too late. Janet Hoddle was 
left for the ME's crew to handle, you didn't need a doctor to know 
that she was dead at the scene.

Faced with six cars and a SWAT team on his tail, Kurzman decided 
to surrender quietly. Much to the disgust of the task force 
members. 

When Mulder interviewed him in a nice quiet prison cell a few 
weeks later, Kurzman was very clear. Killing the FBI agent had 
been an angry aberration in an otherwise impeccably controlled 
career.

---------

QUANTICO

Since the incident with the phone call and the discussion of 
wedding rings, Mulder had been a little more cautious around 
Francine. In a place as full of death as the ISU office it was 
awfully easy to drain the life out of passing strangers. Not that 
Frankie was a stranger any more. Someone who visits a couple of 
times a week for several months becomes part of the furniture.

It was as furniture that Mulder looked at her now. "You're going 
to be a doctor?"

"Psychiatrist."

"Why?"

"You're a psychologist, you figure it out."

He smiled. "Specialist subjects, aberrant and abnormal behavior, 
with an emphasis on forensics. I don't do normals."

"Figures."


-------

1989 - QUANTICO

Once the loose ends were tied up on the Kurzman arrest, Diana 
Fowley came to town. A multi-purpose trip to debrief Mulder on 
preparations for Kurzman's trial, attend a training seminar and 
visit DC for a job interview.

Fowley greeted him with the brief hug that had become an easy 
custom since their first meeting. Welcome complete, she took a 
step back. "So this is what a Fox looks like in its natural 
habitat."

Mulder groaned, amused. "Did you get that job, or are you still 
waiting for a telepath to let you know?"

She raised her eyebrows, teasing back. "Not only did I get it, I 
got it on my terms."

"They're going to let you quiz patients in secure units?"

"Absolutely."

"To check for telepathic and other skills?"

"I just mentioned cognitive tests, I didn't actually say."

"Fraud!"

They walked happily to the cafeteria, as good a place as any to 
talk and, unlike the ISU office, a place that had daylight in 
abundance. They'd almost finished reviewing the Kurzman paperwork 
when Francine Patterson appeared at the door. "Excuse me," he said 
quickly. "Could you pack the photos away, we've got company."

Fowley looked around, saw the stunning young girl with the long 
dark hair. Her eyes dropped to the table and saw victim number 
three. She quickly pushed the photos back into the file.

Mulder had walked across the room to intercept the girl, buying 
Francine a coffee and Diana a little time. They arrived at the 
table in perfect synchronization and Diana rose to greet them. 
"Diana, this is Francine Patterson, Bill's daughter, a friend of 
mine." He retained the courtly formality. "Francine, this is 
Special Agent Diana Fowley from the LA field office, also a 
friend."

Francine nodded, lips tight in a forced smile that didn't thaw any 
of the ice in her eyes. "Pleased to meet you."

Fowley shifted uncomfortably, awkward at finding herself under 
such intense scrutiny from a kid. Seventeen, that was what Mulder 
had said. Not a kid. A woman. "And you. Fox has told me so much 
about you." It wasn't quite the truth, but it wasn't an absolute 
lie either.

"He's never mentioned you."

Mulder directed a minute shake of the head at Diana, which she 
instantly acknowledged by sitting back down. Mulder and Francine 
joined her, Mulder sitting diagonally across from Fowley, Francine 
at his side, staring directly into Diana's eyes.

Diana looked at the duet on the opposite side of the table and 
noted the identical postures they'd adopted. "So, Francine, what 
brings you to a dump like this on such a glorious day?"

"Car."

"Right. Do you spend a lot of time here?"

"Depends how you define a lot. Let's say it's quality time."

Mulder fidgeted, his hand tightening on the coffee cup. Fowley 
waited and sure enough Francine's hand did the same. What the hell 
was she looking at here? Did Mulder know? Of course he did. He had 
a living, breathing clone of victim number three, right down to 
the tight little smile that had marked her out as a kid who needed 
someone to care. Had he been playing these sort of games with her 
since the start of the Moon Killer case? 

She had a hard time keeping the fury under wraps as she waited for 
the chance to escape to the office. Mulder took her right to the 
edge of her endurance before announcing that it was time for them 
to go to work. A message that Francine seemed to recognize in an 
instant. Poor Francine, the Pavlov's dog who stopped drooling and 
begging on a signal, rather than the other way around.

The anger started to spill out as soon as Diana got into the 
elevator with Mulder. "What the hell have you been doing with that 
kid?"

Mulder shook his head, not understanding or not wanting to 
understand. "She was lonely."

"So you did what? Made her think she had a friend then took her to 
a clearing to watch the stars?"

The elevator doors opened and Fowley almost leapt out. Mulder 
scarcely moved. She waited with her hand locked on the button 
until he followed her into the hallway. She stood up straight, 
hands on hips, stood far too close and spoke far too loud for 
someone that near. "Where can we talk?"

Mulder walked on ahead and silently pushed open the door to the 
conference room. 

Neither of them sat, Mulder preferring to lean against the wall, 
Fowley preferring to keep pacing. "You know. I was scared enough 
when I heard you in LA. But at least I knew where you were coming 
from. I thought you were just distressed about losing the court 
case, same as the rest of us. For fuck's sake, you'd given Kurzman 
to us on a plate and we'd lost. You were entitled to tell us not 
to lose him again. Janet Hoddle believed you. She did what you 
asked her to. Do you remember what you said when I told you Janet 
had been killed? No? 'Shame that Kurzman didn't fight it out.' 
Remember?"

Mulder shook his head. "What did you want me to say? I never even 
knew her name till she was dead. Or the girl he was trying to run 
with for that matter. What do I do? Cry for them? And all the 
other ones I haven't saved? I can't. I'd never be able to do my 
job."

"Then don't. Get out of this shit and start acting like a human. 
You know what's happening to you? You're becoming Bill Patterson."

"He does what he can."

"Bullshit. What about Frankie? You know her name. She's not dead. 
You walked all over her to get Kurzman. Or didn't you notice? Too 
busy doing your job."

"She's... You didn't see her when her Mom died. She's..."

"She's what? 'Better.' She's as fucked up as you are. You know 
she's in love with you, don't you?"

"She's just a kid."

"She's a woman. You know what? You are Bill Patterson."

-----------

1999 - X-FILES OFFICE

Mulder couldn't quite believe the inter-office memo the first time 
he read it. The second time he read it, he was annoyed. The third 
time, he was merely resigned to it. An order for psychological 
screening and re-evaluation and a series of mandatory counseling 
sessions starting in, he checked his watch. Starting in 
approximately two hours time. Someone had really pulled strings to 
get an appointment that fast. How kind.

He really needed to talk to Scully before he went to the session. 
Not to find out why she was sending him, he could already guess. 
Not even to check exactly what she had told them to get this kind 
of instant service, it wasn't really that important. What he 
needed to know was how much trouble she was in and then he could 
try and gauge whether he was going to be able to cope with it 
alone.

Planning the campaign, he decided to phone her rather than just 
wander into her office. That way, she could choose the venue and 
decide how to prepare herself. 

When she arrived at the basement office about ten minutes later 
she looked so well prepared that she was positively regal. The 
picture book perfect agent, self-assured and dispassionate. "I 
expect you see my action as some kind of betrayal?"

Mulder replied in kind. "I'm sure you feel it's necessary. May I 
know why?"

"I've known you a long time. If I don't act, who will? I know the 
risks you take. You're taking unacceptable psychological risks 
now. You're in the eye of the storm and you don't see the 
danger."

Mulder swallowed. Eye of the storm? Quoting again? Who? Hadn't he 
said something like that to Fowley the other night, about Francine 
Patterson? "I see a lot of danger. I also see that we'll be safer 
if we stay together on this."

She tensed, her chin pulling at her mouth, her eyes widening in 
apparent disbelief. "That's what I'm trying to do. Yet you push me 
away. You hide things from me."

"What things?"

For an instant, Mulder thought that she was going to run, but she 
stood her ground. She fought for balance like the floor was liquid 
underfoot. "Diana."

Involving Diana had been a mistake then? No, it hadn't, Diana had 
helped him unlock the lid on the Kurzman case and that was going 
to be crucial. The emails they'd swapped the night before had 
given him a few timely reminders about both his role in that case 
and Francine's life. He still couldn't believe he'd used Frankie 
that way. Diana had assured him that he had and that he was just 
going to have to live with it. "She's been helping me remember an 
old case. Nothing more."

"Irving and Hayes didn't have anyone to protect them. I have to 
live with my actions. I'm not going to drop the ball."

Scully? Where the hell had she picked that phrase up from? Another 
quote. He couldn't be sure but he had a feeling Diana might have 
said something about that in last night's email to him. Sure. You 
drop the ball, you pick it up. A phrase that had stuck in Diana's 
memory for years, a phrase that had probably buzzed through Janet 
Hoddle's brain a thousand times as she followed Kurzman from the 
ball game. "Have you been spying on me?"

She pawed at the ground. "Mulder. Don't you know how paranoid that 
sounds?"

"And how paranoid will it sound if I go and do a search of my 
apartment?"

"You've got an appointment with the counseling staff this 
morning."

"Might be more interesting if I went home now and skipped the 
appointment, don't you think?"

"You can't. They'll be furious."

"They'll be furious? And how will you be, Scully? Scared of what 
I'll find if I get there before you?"

"Listen to yourself. You're attacking me. I'm the one protecting 
you."

"In the eye of the storm?" Mulder sat back, flicked a hand angrily 
through his hair. To watch Scully lie with such vehemence and such 
enthusiasm was frightening. Yet, she had not lied. There had been 
no denial of the accusations, merely a show of righteous 
indignation and an angry preening of feathers. She was so 
convinced that she was right. He nodded. "Maybe you're right about 
how much I need to see them."

She calmed in an instant, regally composed again.

Mulder gave a brief apologetic smile. "We can talk after the 
session."

Scully nodded, smiling with relief, her face almost exultant in 
victory. "I'm glad." She left the office with a spring in her 
step.

Mulder waited until she had closed the door before he picked up 
the phone to talk to Walter Skinner. He sweet-talked his way past 
Skinner's assistant to get put straight through to his boss. 

"This had better be good."

"Sorry, sir, I know you're in a meeting. I need your help."

"Can it wait?"

"I've got reason to believe that evidence will be destroyed if I 
delay."

"What do you need?"

"Could you invite Scully to that meeting you're running?" Mulder 
looked at his diary and recalled how he'd successfully wriggled 
out of the event. Operational targets, provisional budgetary 
assumptions - estimating standards and guidelines. 

"What? Is that it?"

"It would be very good for her, sir. I can explain later." 

He was met by a long-suffering sigh from Skinner followed by a 
brisk, "OK."  

Mulder resisted the urge to cheer as he put the phone down. He 
rearranged his own meeting with psychiatric services with talk of 
double bookings in his diary and planning meetings, words taken 
very seriously by any Bureau employee.

He drove home cautiously, mindful of how little of his brain was 
focused on the task of driving. He wasn't even really sure if he 
wanted to do this. If he found that Scully had placed bugs in his 
apartment, then what? Maybe it would be better not to find them 
and he could just accept that label of paranoia she'd been trying 
to hang around his neck. He'd lived with that for a long time, 
finding that it had reached new heights might be less distressing 
than finding out exactly how much trouble Scully was in.

The first of the webcams he found was in his living room. Hidden 
in plain view, disguised by the shadows on the wall behind the 
bookshelf. How long had it been there? He shivered, hoping that 
the combination of poor lighting and tiny optics had left him at 
least a little privacy. As soon as he saw the cell phone 
adaptation that allowed it to beam its pictures out, he knew where 
it had come from. The Lone Gunmen had been mumbling about toys 
like this.

He picked up the phone, furious as he spoke to Frohike and quizzed 
him on surveillance equipment and Dana Scully's acquisitions. Even 
more angry when he realized that he had another three to find.

One in the kitchen, picking up power from the track lighting above 
the cupboards. A great view of the refrigerator. Did Scully keep a 
record of how many cartons of orange juice he got through?

One in the bathroom, what the hell did she expect to be recording 
in there?

One in the bedroom, he sighed, putting that one in the same 
category as the bathroom unit.

How could she? More to the point, why had she?

He switched on the computer and checked the wording of Diana's 
last email. So she'd been intercepting his mail as well. Great. He 
changed all his passwords.

He tried to stay angry. Angry felt better than humiliated. He gave 
up the idea and just felt nauseated instead. Why hadn't she come 
to him? He thought back, maybe she had and he just hadn't noticed. 
So caught up in looking at Patterson that he really had been 
blinded by obsession and hadn't noticed Scully's despair. 

It had all happened so fast. Dinner at the Pattersons', then off 
she went to San Diego and by the time she returned it was as if 
everything had fallen apart. Maybe he hadn't been blind, maybe 
he'd just been blind-sided at the vital moment.

Glaring at the evidence bags with their selection of surveillance 
gear, he labeled them with date and location. He had no doubt that 
if he ran them through the forensics lab he would find her 
fingerprints. She wasn't a covert-ops specialist. Though, he 
admitted, he was impressed by her dexterity and ingenuity in 
placing them and wiring them in. He'd have to congratulate the 
boys on the high standard of their training program.

They wouldn't be going to the forensics lab, of course. The point 
wasn't to convince other people of what Scully had done. The point 
was to convince her that it was a problem.

---------

SKINNER'S OFFICE

Mulder sat composed while Skinner paced. The outcome of the 
meeting was too important for Mulder to let any emotion spoil his 
argument.

Skinner told Mulder about Scully's angry, frustrated performance 
at the planning meeting and about the speed she'd left his office 
at the end of it. Mulder nodded, grateful again for his boss's 
faith. 

Mulder already knew what had happened next. Scully had zoomed 
straight down to the psychiatric services unit and demanded to 
know if Mulder had kept his appointment. The debate about Scully's 
agitation and why her fears for him were so strong had occupied 
most of Mulder's subsequent session. It had become a tour down 
memory lane with Mulder describing moments of danger and rescue. 
They'd been through a lot together. They were very protective, 
over protective almost. The psychologist had nodded his head, 
reassured by Mulder's lack of anger.

The evidence that Mulder had stopped Scully from destroying now 
lay on Skinner's desk. Skinner flinched every time he noticed it. 
Mulder sat very still and let Skinner feel the agitation for him.

Skinner sounded almost apologetic. "If I send her for counseling, 
It'll give ammunition to people who want the X-Files closed or 
given to agents less... emotionally involved."

"Understood. Besides, there's nothing the counselors can do for 
her."

"I know you don't think I should have sent you."

"Doesn't matter. I won't fail the evaluation." Mulder stared 
pointedly at Skinner, almost smiling, challenging Skinner to deny 
that the possibility had crossed his mind. 

"I didn't want you to interview Patterson, I remember the Mostow 
case."

"So do I. This is not my obsession, sir. Initially I thought it 
was Bill's. I'm starting to think that it's Francine's. And I'm 
certain that Scully's in more psychological danger than I am." 
Mulder glanced at the cameras to underline the point.

"You say counseling can't help her?"

"Scully needs the source of her problem removed. That source is 
Francine Patterson."

Skinner slowly shook his head. "I can't let you investigate 
Patterson's daughter."

"You don't need to, sir. If you'll just read the 302. It's to 
cover discussions with Alan Kurzman at the Federal prison in LA. 
In particular to look at whether he may have had other victims."

Skinner sat down at his side of the desk, finally sure of his 
role, FBI manager. "And where will Scully be?"

"With me in LA."

Skinner nodded, seeing Mulder's point. Even if it did nothing more 
than keep them away from the Pattersons it might be worthwhile. It 
would certainly give them a chance to talk. "If anything happens. 
To Scully. Or to you. I want to know immediately. Understood?"

"Yes, sir." And Mulder meant it. Every nerve ending and pain 
receptor in his body was on high alert now, looking for trouble, 
fearing that the next mistake could cost him his soul.

---------

The flight to LA was conducted in nervous silence. Mulder insisted 
that he needed to study the case files and advised Scully to do 
the same. Initially, she had been resistant to the whole trip, 
still stunned that Skinner had agreed to let Mulder leave town. 

She had been even more shocked to discover that he did so with the 
blessing of the psychiatric evaluation unit. They still wanted him 
to attend regular sessions as a matter of respect for his 
partner's recommendation. But they had found nothing to suggest 
that there was any reason to stop him working in the field. They 
based their opinion on a four-hour preliminary evaluation that 
covered an extended session with a consulting psychologist and a 
series of formal assessments.

When she started to question Mulder on their lack of judgment, she 
had felt chilled by his oddly calm response. She couldn't help but 
wonder if there had been a secret thrill in his voice as he 
suggested that maybe Bill's shrinks had made the right call too. 
He'd almost been teasing her as he talked about psychologists, an 
untrustworthy bunch, particularly when dealing with one of their 
own kind.

In the end, she had read the 302 and been surprised but almost 
reassured by its contents. A low risk case, just what they needed. 
A conventional case, not an X-File, so no reason to deviate from 
procedures. And no attempt by Mulder to leave her behind, she 
could keep watching him for danger signs.

The danger signs were, not surprisingly, awfully close to the 
surface. He could hardly look at her. Every time he did look at 
her, his eyes demanded to know how she could justify the cameras. 
He seemed indifferent to everything else. 

She didn't have a good explanation for him. She'd considered lying 
but couldn't even come up with a lie that worked for her. She'd 
tried to apologize, but every time she tried to say the words a 
"but" or a "because" or an "if he hadn't been acting so strangely" 
arrived in the sentence, spoiling the impact of the "sorry." It 
was inevitable really. She was sorry she had been caught. She was 
sorry that she had needed to do it. She had done it for him.

Every time she tried it, Mulder would turn to her and listen 
patiently until the first qualifying statement then turn away 
again. After the sixth attempt, he'd mumbled a sharp command to 
"drop it." She tried to think of something else to talk about, 
failed, finally decided to read the case file as her partner had 
suggested.

Mulder, of course, already knew the case file. The words racing 
through his mind as he stared out of the plane window looking for 
novel patterns in the passing clouds were not in the folders that 
Scully was reviewing. He was busy replaying Bill Patterson's 
memoirs.

Francine had told him about them, the story of her childhood and 
his. It wasn't until he read them that Mulder had fully accepted 
the implications.

His work was there in Bill's files, whether in the form of 
glimpses in passing comments or recreated in gory and unnecessary 
detail in whole chapters, he was there. Whether mentioned by name 
or not, he saw himself over and over again.

It came as no surprise to find Matthew Irving of the NYPD, Mitch 
Samuels from Florida, Gordon Hayes in Nevada. Not named, but 
readily identifiable. Mulder hadn't yet had time to check up on 
the current health of the other people described.

Frankie had been right, it was the story of Mulder's FBI 
"childhood" written from Bill Patterson's perspective. 

A biography of Patterson's Mulder who had always got everything 
right at school, been perfect in every way through Quantico. 
Irving's blunt rebuke had shown him that being right wasn't 
enough. Samuels had shown him that some people just hated to be 
helped but liked to get the credit. 

Hayes, Mulder sighed, Bill was too hard on Hayes, he'd have to get 
him to correct that story. Hayes hadn't pushed him so hard that 
he'd ended up with pneumonia, demonstrating that no one was going 
to play mommy out there. Hayes had merely enjoyed the Spooky show 
and been too good an audience to disappoint. That was not his 
fault. It was a pity Mulder hadn't been able to correct Bill's 
assumptions before Francine had read this. A pity? It was a 
fucking nightmare.

Shit. It had happened again. Sympathy for Hayes and how did that 
mean he felt about the other two? Could it get any worse?

Of course it could, Bill had profiled him under the bright 
unforgiving lights of 20/20 hindsight. Not by name and not all in 
one place. Nasty cold little snippets were scattered anonymously 
throughout the book as "one such profiler" or "one of my younger 
agents" or "one analyst who had to leave the team." Individually 
they represented only minor assaults, together they were a 
dissection.

Mulder had always thought of his time in the ISU as an exercise in 
survival. Bill apparently saw it as a series of triumphs, every 
dead body a learning opportunity. Personal identification with 
both victim and killer had been the secret of Mulder's success. 
The horror stories internalized and reenacted should have 
destroyed him. Nightmares, taken so much to heart that they should 
have ripped him apart, were walked away from without a scratch. 
Indestructible. Oblivious to killers and victims alike. 
Empathizing equally with everyone and therefore equally 
indifferent.

The only people who ever got under Fox Mulder's skin were his 
colleagues. Even they only got past his defenses if he was too 
distracted or too sick or just too young to recognize them as 
threats. Once he grew up, he was the perfect profiler. Aware of 
everything, tuned into every emotion and sensation, but with no 
morality, no values, no interference in his understanding, a blank 
sheet. 

Patterson's observation that his young profiler would also have 
made a perfect serial killer came as no surprise to Mulder. Though 
he didn't accept it as altogether fair. In any case, indifference 
to other people, born of a deep seated indifference to himself was 
not a healthy social adjustment.

Even so, he was vaguely amused by Bill's analysis of his departure 
from the ISU. Perfection was apparently, too boring.


------

LA

Mulder could feel her eyes on him again. On another day, he might 
have actually enjoyed that kind of personal attention. Maybe even 
considered making some teasing joke about hormone trouble or 
allowed himself to indulge in a little fantasy about the true 
nature of their relationship. Not today.

Today, Dana Scully was watching her partner like a hawk, clearly 
fearful that at any moment the facade would crack and that 
Skinner's faith that Mulder was up to the trip would be proven 
catastrophically wrong. And if she kept staring at him like that, 
she might well be proven right.

He attempted not to look at her, maybe this hadn't been the 
smartest move after all. Perhaps assuming that he could crack the 
case and simultaneously handle Scully alone had just been wishful 
thinking, renowned arrogance run amok. 

He'd had to get her out of town, away from Francine Patterson, at 
least he'd thought he had to do that. Why? He already knew that, 
as a minimum, Frankie had been able to target people in New York, 
Florida and Las Vegas. New York almost made sense, at least she 
might have known Matthew Irving, though he had no evidence of them 
ever actually meeting. He had zero evidence of her spending any 
time playing mind games with Gordon Hayes. Had she ever even been 
to Vegas? Or Florida?

He was starting to panic now. What if Francine didn't need to see 
her targets to do the damage? What if all he'd done by bringing 
Scully out here was remove them both from other support systems 
like Scully's mother, Walter Skinner, even the Bureau shrinks. 

He rose, starting to pace. He chuckled silently to himself, they'd 
only been inside the prison walls for fifteen minutes and he was 
already stir crazy. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dana 
Scully staring at him again. He could see her excitement, she was 
happy to witness his agitation, it would be confirming every 
delusion she harbored, every fear that was driving her. She would 
see this as positive feedback that she was right.

Fuck. Mulder sat down and tried to remember how the Spooky show 
worked. Hell. It was such a waste of energy and he was way out of 
the habit. From the first time they'd worked together he had tried 
to be honest with her, hadn't always succeeded, but that was to be 
expected. He'd cried on her shoulder for God's sake, a lapse 
previously permitted only in front of a couple of lovers, no one 
else. He'd trembled naked in her arms.

And he laughed when he hit that thought. Seemed like he still had 
trouble distinguishing between partners and lovers. What an MO. 

Deep breath to stop the laughter and suddenly all was calm. In one 
sweeping breath he was suddenly indifferent to emotion, 
unimpressed by his own or anyone else's.

He turned to face her, truly eye to eye for the first time since 
they left DC. Dead calm. He counted the tiny red lines marring the 
too perfect blue and white of her eyes. He tuned himself into her 
shallow breathing, saw the exhaustion in her posture and sniffed. 
She didn't smell right, she smelled scared.

Cool and blank, he responded to her fear, decided to use it 
against her. "Serial killers are an acquired taste, don't you 
think? They appeal to the worst things in our own psyches. They've 
done the deed that others don't even dare fantasize about. And 
they've done it repeatedly for a reason that only they believe is 
valid. That's a dilemma, isn't it? What if their reasons are 
valid?"

Scully turned her head away, unwilling to participate in the 
stare-down game.

"We declare these people sane, yet they don't see the world as we 
see it. It's fascinating really. All those different frames of 
reference, all apparently, legally speaking, the product of sane 
minds. Sanity gets too much respect. Don't you think?"

She didn't move, kept her head averted. Mulder listened as her 
breathing became more labored.

He sighed lightly, as if answering his own question. "If you 
killed the way Irving did, maybe it's best not to know. But Gordon 
Hayes? An execution they called it. I don't know. Maybe I have 
killed like that. Just take an example. Maybe I left just enough 
uncertainty in my tone of voice when I challenged John Barnett to 
let him think he might escape, just enough doubt so that he would 
hang on to his hostage and give me an excuse to open fire. It's an 
interesting dilemma. How do I differ from Hayes, or from Irving, 
or even Kurzman, come to that?"

He paused, allowing Scully time to respond, even though he knew 
that she couldn't. "I think Bill admired me in an odd way. He 
liked that when it really mattered, I was a chameleon. No 
personality to hang onto and color my fantasies." 

He looked towards the door as he heard the guard's footsteps 
approach, it would soon be time to meet Kurzman. Ice cold voice as 
he looked again at Scully. "Maybe you'd prefer to observe the 
interview. Kurzman may find you... distracting. Incarceration may 
have increased his interest in older women."

She twisted towards him, face red with anger and disbelief. "Fuck 
you."

"He wouldn't want to. It's all about women with Kurzman."

The guard told them that Kurzman was ready to see them. Mulder 
nodded, regally arrogant in neat Armani blue, cuffs aligned just 
so, head held high with a haughty contempt for lesser beings. 
Scully tried to match him step for step. Mulder's expression as 
she followed him into the interview room was one of suit-yourself 
indifference. 

Mulder didn't argue as she seized the chair across the table from 
Kurzman, indulgently amused by her apparent belief that she could 
seize the initiative as well.

Kurzman was as sweet as the day he'd entered prison. As charming 
as the first time he'd told a young girl how to find Cassiopeia. 
"It's hard being inside at night. I miss the stars."

Scully spoke from her notes. "You worked in a campus bookstore. 
And in the evenings you worked at summer camps and youth 
associations running tutorials in astronomy."

Kurzman smiled. "You seem very well prepared."

"Amy Jane Barber was a student of yours at summer camp?"

"I'm sure you're correct, but I don't recall her. People don't 
understand, the stars were always the important things. I wanted 
them to love the stars, the way I do. I'm not that good with 
names." Kurzman offered a brief good-humored chuckle to accompany 
his words. "Except of constellations!" 

"You killed them."

"I made a terrible mistake and it's right that I pay for it. I 
know that."

"One mistake?"

"I met a girl at a baseball game. She wanted to see the stars."

Scully sounded stunned. "What?"

Mulder leaned against the wall, vaguely amused that Kurzman still 
denied the other murders. The man's fantasy life had to be rich 
and full and intoxicating. He'd have to talk to him about it.

"That woman agent followed us. And I knew what everyone would say. 
That I kidnapped the girl, but I didn't. I should have stopped the 
car and let her explain. But I was so angry. I'd been in prison 
for months, for an awful crime, and I was innocent. The other 
prisoners, the things that they did to me." Kurzman slowly shook 
his head, let Scully see the horror and terror in his eyes. "I was 
in hell. I panicked. I was so angry."

Scully remained silent.

Mulder took over, casual and fast. "So you pushed Carol Highams 
out of the car while you were doing fifty. Then stopped, reversed 
and shot Janet Hoddle at point blank range. Tell me, was there a 
lot of blood?"

Kurzman seemed surprised by Mulder's brusque response. "You 
understood. I remember you, you were the only one who understood."

"How to get angry enough to kill? Sure I understood. The other 
girls were the ones who intrigued me. How did they get you that 
angry?"

"They didn't."

"Did they touch you when you wanted to watch the stars?"

"That didn't make me angry."

"Where could they touch you before you got angry? Your hand? Your 
arm? What about your thigh? Your cock?"

Kurzman leaned forward, bumping bound hands into the table, trying 
to get Scully's attention. "Please. I didn't hurt them. I was 
cleared."

Mulder didn't give Scully time to respond. "You just took them to 
watch the stars?"

"That was all."

"You were there alone with them?"

"Watching stars."

"Where did you go to watch the stars?"

Mulder listened to the replies, talked about time of year and 
blackness of the sky and the kind of girls who liked star-gazing 
and the best places to see the night. 

Kurzman edged the key questions, yet was oddly keen to talk. Proud 
of his relationships with teenagers who needed love. He was eager 
to convince Mulder of his talent as a tutor of astronomy and his 
role as a shoulder to lean on in time of need. All subjects were 
admissible so long as Mulder did not suggest that the girls had 
died. Occasionally Kurzman would lean forward, trying to smile at 
the woman, wishing that he could know her thoughts, hoping that 
she understood his, contenting himself with watching her, 
breathing in her air. 

Scully scarcely moved, didn't speak again until they were safely 
back at their hotel.

She only spoke then because Mulder insisted that she say 
something. "Goodnight."