From: syntax6 <syn_tax6@yahoo.com>
Date: 22 Jul 2003 10:22:17 -0700
Subject: New: Split the Lark 10/14 by syntax6
Source: atxc

Keywords: None.
Header: in part 0

XxXxXxXxXxX
Chapter Ten
XxXxXxXxXxX

There were things he would never say aloud.

One time at Oxford, stone cold sober, he'd climbed a tower 
and thought about stepping off the top just to see what would 
happen.  Not suicide, no.  Just for a split-second he'd 
believed that he could fly.

The dirty names he had called his mother inside his head, 
because his father had left and she had stayed to take the 
blame.  Sometimes Mulder thought she looked at him and knew 
everything anyway.

He had hoped on and off for years that Samantha would be 
dead.  Mulder and all the king's horses couldn't put her back 
together again, that bright-eyed button girl who would be 
forever turning cartwheels in the sky.

Sometimes he just wanted someone else to be the hero.

XxXxX

They rolled through the streets at a leisurely pace, always 
within the speed limit.  Mulder would have thought Watts was 
out cruising, but the car in front of him made a series of 
complicated turns that suggested Watts knew where he was 
going.  Mulder followed the demon eyes of Watts' taillights 
through dark, tree-lined suburban streets and right out of 
town.

Ten rapes and Watts had not committed a single one in his own 
backyard.

As they drove, Mulder found himself sizing up potential 
targets.  The strip mall at the center of town was too 
bright, too exposed.  Watts didn't even slow down.  A rinky-
dink second-run movie theater had a parking lot with trees at 
the back, but too many cars had crammed in together, and 
everyone would pour out from the theater at once.  The Wal-
Mart was closed, its oceanic lot shadowed and bare.  They 
continued on out from town, and Mulder spotted the white 
gleam of a Mom-and-Pop variety.  Small lot.  Many trees.  No 
one around.  Bingo, he thought, and in front of him Watts 
pulled an illegal U-turn and pulled into the lot.

Pulse pounding, Mulder stopped his car by the curb and 
proceeded back on foot.  He cut behind a narrow apartment 
building and through the wooded area to the rear of the 
store, where he could see Watts' Explorer parked nearby.  
Watts was still inside sitting at the wheel.

C'mon, whip it out, Mulder urged him silently.  I dare you.

Watts just sat there not doing much of anything for a good 
five minutes.  Leaves bobbed and waved in front of Mulder as 
he watched behind the branches.  He wondered what he would do 
if Watts tried to crawl in there with him.

Another car drove up and parked on the other side of the lot.  
Both Watts and Mulder watched a heavy set man get out, 
scratch himself, and go inside.  A minute later, Watts did 
the same.  He jangled his keys again as he walked, whistling.  
Mulder rested his finger on the trigger.

The man lumbered out again with a six-pack in his hand, just 
as another car was pulling into the drive.  This one held two 
young women, both slim and sporting matching ponytails.  They 
wore tank tops and shorts and giggled to one another as they 
got out of the car.  The man with the beer stopped to watch 
them walk away.  He got into his car, old engine coming 
sluggishly to life, and backed out onto the street.  

Mulder slipped out from the trees, sweat on his brow.  He 
switched his pocket light on and sneaked up alongside Watts' 
Explorer, all the while keeping one eye in the direction of 
the variety store.  Mulder did a quick check of the front 
seat:  empty.  No knife, no stocking cap.  Maybe Watts 
already had them with him.

At the sound of the girls' voices, Mulder thrashed into the 
woods again.  He kept his breath low and even as the young 
women returned to the parking lot.

"I don't want to go to Amy's party," one was complaining as 
her companion paused to light up a cigarette.  "Bobby is 
going to be there, and I just don't know if I can face him 
yet."

"Half an hour, Em.  Please?"

Mulder missed her reply because a third shadow appeared 
across the parking lot, stretching long behind the girls.  
The leaves quivered with Mulder's sharp exhale. Watts ghosted 
around the corner, hunched shoulders, mouth parted. Backlit 
in the glow of the neon sign, he looked large and menacing.  
The girls didn't seem aware he was there.

"If he's there with Keely," the one was saying as they 
reached their car.  "I am *not* staying."

Mulder moved closer to the edge of the woods, coiled to 
strike.  Watts advanced towards the girls.  

"Fine, okay?  If she's there we won't stay."  They opened 
their car doors and got inside.  Mulder held his breath as 
their engine roared to life.  They peeled out of the 
driveway, nearly backing over Watts in the process.  Watts 
clenched his hands and watched them drive away.

In the bushes, Mulder's heart rate receded.  Now what?

Watts ambled back to his car with his head down, keys still 
loose in his hand.  He seemed to hesitate at the door and 
scanned the woods in front of him.  Mulder froze.

This was it.  

They were just six feet apart, Mulder invisible, his prey 
carved from the shadows by artificial light.  He looked at 
Watts' hands, imagined them holding a knife to Scully's 
throat, saw him forcing her down in the dirt and prying her 
legs apart.  

Oblivious, Watts began opening his car door. He was getting 
away.  A hundred times defeated, Mulder wasn't going to let 
this one go.  Watts was easy meat.

His heart thrumming, he slipped from the trees and approached 
the man from behind as Watts inserted his key into the lock.  
It clicked in place just as Mulder cocked his trigger and 
placed the barrel on the back of Watts' head.

"Move and I'll kill you.  Isn't that how it goes?"

Watts held up his hands without turning around.  "I've got a 
hundred bucks in my wallet, man.  It's all yours."

"I don't want your fucking money."  The gun barrel held 
steady at the base of Watts' skull.  He thought of Chet 
Appleby, how easy it was for him to pull the trigger.  
Adrenaline surged again. "I want you down on your knees.  
Now."

Quivering, Watts did as requested.  "Who are you?  What do 
you want from me?"

"I'm the man who comes out of the bushes and changes your 
life forever.  You know all about that, don't you Greg?  You 
know about the man in the bushes?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sure you do.  Your lawyer can fancy talk for the press all 
she wants, but you and I know the truth, don't we.  We both 
know what you are."

"You're crazy."

Mulder licked his lips.  "Maybe," he said softly, nudging 
Watts' head with the gun again.  Watts flinched.  "You want 
to test that theory, Greggy?  You want to test it right now?"

"What do you want, man?  Just tell me!"

"I want the trophies."

"Wh-what?"

"You know exactly what I mean.  The things you stole from 
them, you sonofabitch.  I want to know where you hid your 
stash."

Watts turned his head to get a look at Mulder.  "Who the fuck 
are you?"

"Did I say you could move?"  Mulder brought his foot down 
hard on the back of Watts' leg.  "Your souvenirs, Greg.  The 
wallets, the underwear.  I want it all.  Now."

Watts didn't say anything for a few seconds.  Mulder kept 
glancing at the street to make sure no one else was turning 
into the parking lot.

"Now," he ordered again.  "Or we can do this the hard way."

"You a cop?" Watts asked, sounding less worried all of a 
sudden.  "Is that it?  You boys can't get me on honest 
charges so you're pulling this John Wayne bullshit instead?"

"Shut up."

"You must be a cop.  They're the only ones who know what's 
missing.  Unless..."  He looked over his shoulder again.  
"You happen to know one of those bitches."

Mulder planted his boot square in the middle of Watts' back, 
sending him forward against the SUV as the wind knocked out 
of him.  "You have three seconds to tell me."

Watts coughed.  "Was she the blonde at the video store?"

The gun shook as Mulder restrained himself.  "Tell me," he 
gritted out.  Let the bastard string his own noose.

"Maybe the skinny Hispanic chick?  Oh.  No, wait."  The 
funny, twitching smile appeared on his face.  "You've got to 
be FBI."

"Maybe I am.  What's that to you?"

Watts shrugged. "I read in the paper that one of those 
bitches was an FBI woman.  You know the one I'm talking 
about?"

Mulder heard Scully's sobs, felt her curled around him.  "No.  
You tell me."

"Would if I could."  He sighed.  "She must have really wanted 
it, though, or she'd have put up a fight."

Mulder howled inside.  "How do you know she didn't?"

"Papers say she didn't get the guy.  That's enough for me. I 
think she liked it."

Mulder shoved the gun at him again.  "You talk big, but I 
know what you are.  You used to wet your bed all the time, 
didn't you?  Couldn't leave mommy's house for the night 
because then everyone would know."

"You leave my mother out of this."

"Can't make it with girls.  You probably stutter when they 
try to talk to you.  But they do the stuttering when you pull 
out the knife, don't they?  Then you can show them who's in 
charge."

"Hey, I am always in charge!"

"Not right now."  Mulder was breathing hard.  "Are you?"  He 
grazed Watts' head with the gun barrel again.  "One bullet, 
and it's all over but the crying."

"You wouldn't," Greg said, but he sounded unsure.

"Think of it this way -- I'd be sparing you the trials.  Your 
mother would never know the truth about her dirty, dirty 
boy."

"You can't shoot me."

"I can."  Mulder found he meant it.  His finger hovered over 
the trigger.  He would shoot.  He would kill.  He'd done it 
before and this was no different.  He bit his lip so hard he 
tasted blood.  Watts' hands were shaking.  "I can," Mulder 
repeated.

It would be over.  He would be free.  Scully would...

Would...

"I can," he said, determined.  The gun wavered in his hand.  
Scully crying.  Rentham bleeding on the floor.  Chet in 
prison with his sad, pale face.

*You'd have done the same thing if it were your sister.*

Headlights suddenly flooded the parking lot, and Mulder 
jerked his arm back down by his side.  "Get up," he told 
Watts as an old Honda rolled to a stop where the girls had 
parked.

"I'll sue you," Watts said, defiant.  There was blood on his 
lip.

"Good luck with that."  Mulder wiped his mouth with his arm.

"I'll get off and sue the whole damn legal system from the 
chief on down.  You bastards have the wrong guy."

"You'd better run on home now, Greggy."  Mulder still had the 
gun in hand.  "Momma will be wondering where you are."

Greg glowered and said nothing as he climbed into the SUV.  
"You'll be hearing from my attorney," he said through the 
open window.  Mulder said nothing.  His heart was still 
slamming against his chest at the thought of what he'd almost 
done.  

"You'll be hearing from the district attorney," he said as 
Watts started the engine.  "The stuff is out there, and we 
will find it."

Safe in his car, Watts' casual shrug returned.  "Good luck 
with that," he said, tossing Mulder's words back at him.  The 
weird little smile spread over his face.  "And be sure and 
tell Agent Scully I said 'hi.'"

The tires screeched in reverse, leaving dust in Mulder's 
sweaty face.  He stared, still reeling, gun hanging in his 
hand, until Watts' taillights vanished from sight.  Then 
Mulder faded into the brush again, back the way he had come.

XxXxX

The shrill ringing phone made Scully sit straight up in bed.  
It was dark, and sticky hair hung down over her face.  She 
groped blindly for the receiver.  "Hello?"

"Dana?  It's Chris Clark.  I know it's late, but we have a 
problem."  He sounded stressed and angry.

Scully squinted at the clock, which read two thirty-seven in 
the morning.  "What is it?" she asked as she switched on her 
light.

"Your boyfriend is ruining my case."

"Excuse me?"

"Mulder.  He attacked Gregory Watts tonight in a parking 
lot."

Scully's stomach lurched forward.  "He what?"

"Bellamy rousted Savioshy at home and gave him quite an 
earful.  They want to press charges against Mulder for 
assault.  Dana, I understand where the guy is coming from, 
but this could mean serious trouble come trial."

Scully sagged back against the pillows and closed her eyes.  
"I'll talk to Mulder."

"Yes, do that.  Explain to him this is not helping anyone, 
least of all not your case."

"I thought you said I don't have a case," Scully snapped.

"Well, Mulder playing night stalker vigilante isn't the way 
to go about getting one."

"You think I put him up to it?"

Chris sighed.  "I don't care whose idea it was.  I just want 
it to never happen again."

"Not to mess up your case.  I've got it."

"You know what I mean."

"Yes, I think I do."

"Dana..."  Chris's tone softened.  "I'd like to pop the guy 
too.  I would.  But if we're going to put him away, we've got 
to play by the rules.  All of us."

The rules aren't getting it done for me, Scully thought.  She 
wondered how badly Mulder had bloodied Watts.

"I said I'll talk to him," she told Chris.

"I suggest you try the County Jail.  Savioshy booked him an 
hour ago."

XxXxX

County was a small jail, dating back to the early 1900s, and 
Scully had the credentials to get inside. Though it had been 
renovated several times over the last century, it still 
boasted the same heavy stone frame and sliding iron bars.  
The concrete floor looked relatively new, but one of the 
overhead fluorescent lights flickered in and out at a 
seizure-inducing rate.  Lazy ceiling fans stirred the humid 
air.  

In the first holding cell, a drunk lay on a bench and mangled 
the Miranda warning. "You have the right to remain silent," 
he told the ceiling.  "If you give up that right a lawyer 
will be given to you."

Mulder sat on his bench in the next cell with his head in his 
hands.  He looked up as Scully and the guard approached, and 
they stared at each other through the bars while the man 
unlocked Mulder's door.

"You've got fifteen minutes," he told her. Scully entered the 
cell and the guard drew the bars shut behind her.  She merely 
folded her arms and stood there.

Mulder rubbed one hand over his stubbly face and neck.  "I 
take it you heard."

"Mulder."  She shook her head.  "I don't even know where to 
start."

"Then don't."

"What the hell were you thinking?"

He pushed to his feet.  "They'd called off surveillance.  Did 
anyone tell you?  Yeah, that's what I thought.  Watts was 
footloose and fancy free tonight, Scully, and you know the 
first place he went?  A parking lot.  A dark parking lot with 
plenty of trees."

Scully ignored the clammy chill that spread over her back.  
"Where you assaulted him."

Mulder held her gaze, angry, but she did not back down.  
"What if he'd been going to your place?" Mulder asked.  "What 
then?"

"Then I would have called the cops," she said.  "Like you 
should have if you anticipated trouble."

"He knew your name."

Scully swallowed.  "What?"

"He knows your name, Scully.  He said to tell you 'hi.'"

She backed up until she felt the bars hit her from behind.  
"My license," she whispered.

"If we had that, we could prove Watts is the one.  That's why 
I followed him, and *that's* why I questioned him."  

"Did he tell you anything?" she asked, holding her breath for 
the answer.

Some of the fight left Mulder.  "No," he admitted finally, 
turning away.  "Nothing we could use in court."

"Mulder, you're going to be the one in court.  You could lose 
your job over this!"

"Yeah, well maybe it'd be worth it," he said, turning on her 
again.

She stared at him.  "Fabulous," she said flatly.  "And where 
would that leave me?"

Mulder looked at the floor.  "I did this for you."

"The hell you did.  You did this for yourself, Mulder.  You 
did it to make you feel better.  You've wanted to go after 
Watts from the beginning.  The fact that he was back out 
there again was driving you crazy!"

"Watts attacks ten women and they just let him go to do it 
again.  Savioshy wasn't doing anything to stop him.  The DA 
wasn't doing anything to stop him.  Someone had to do 
something!"

"And that someone had to be you."  She covered her face with 
her hands and sighed.  "Mulder, if this case gets thrown out 
now..."

"It won't," he said steadily. 

"If it does..." She dropped her hands.  "I don't know what to 
say, Mulder.  You go out and do this tremendously foolish, 
dangerous thing, risking your life, your career, putting the 
whole case on the line for a few minutes of vigilantism, and 
then you stand here and say it's all for me.  Am I supposed 
to be grateful?"

Mulder didn't answer right away. "I hoped you'd be relieved," 
he said at length.

Scully chuffed.  "You're in jail, Mulder.  What about this 
picture am I supposed to find especially reassuring?"

"I didn't plan this part," he admitted.  He sat down again on 
the low metal bench, knees forced up around his ribs.

"You assaulted him, and what, you thought he wouldn't press 
charges?"

Mulder gave her a long, hard look, and Scully realized with a 
jolt that the original plan hadn't allowed Watts to press 
charges.  Watts was supposed to be dead.  "You're kidding," 
she breathed, and he looked away.  "Mulder..."

"Tell me you haven't thought it."

Scully said nothing.  Mulder heaved a sigh.

"Anyway," he said, "I didn't do go through with it.  
Obviously."

Scully searched him wordlessly.  "Why?" she asked at last.

His gaze flickered over her.  "You."

She felt her eyes well up, and she shook her head.  "And when 
they fire you, Mulder, and lock you up in prison for five 
years, is that going to be because of me, too?"

"Scully..."  He stood again and reached for her just as the 
guard reappeared.

"Time's up."

Scully sniffed and wiped at both eyes.  "I'll get you out of 
here, Mulder," she said without looking at him.  The heavy 
iron door slid open to let her out, and the guard clanked it 
shut when she was free.  Mulder came up and wrapped both 
hands around the bars.

"Scully, I'm sorry."

"Time's up," the guard said again, and led her away.

XxXxX

Her favorite reporter, Sabrina Kimbrough, led the charge:  
"I'm here outside the sixth district county courthouse this 
morning, where once again accused rapist Gregory Watts is the 
order of the day.  This time Watts' interests are represented 
on the other side of the table.  We've learned that Watts has 
filed charges against FBI agent Fox Mulder for assault with a 
deadly weapon.  Watts claims that Agent Mulder attacked him 
in a parking lot late Friday night and threatened him with a 
gun.  Watts, who has been charged with four rapes in the area 
and suspected of at least six more, maintains his innocence 
and states that Agent Mulder's attack was completely 
unprovoked.  The police have not commented as to motive, but 
a source inside the courthouse told WRC that Agent Mulder is 
a close associate of the FBI agent who was raped."

Scully stood in front of the TV, unable to look away.

There was a shot of Watts, wearing a Sunday school suit and 
looking like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.  "He came 
from behind me," he told the camera.  "All I felt was the gun 
barrel against my head.  He said if I didn't do what he 
wanted, he would kill me."

Scully grabbed the remote and shut off the TV.  She was 
shaking from head to toe.

*Do everything I say, or I will kill you right here.*

At that moment, she wished Mulder had pulled the trigger.

XxXxXxX

Scully knew before she reached the office that it was empty.  
The hall was dark, everything still, no sounds of Mulder 
wrestling the slide projector or playing dartboard on the 
ceiling.  He would be at home right now, polishing his shoes 
for court.  Scully scraped the key in the lock and entered 
the office.

She blinked as the lights came on, illuminating the mess of 
Rentham's files that they had strewn from one end of the room 
to the other.  With a heavy heart and slow feet, Scully made 
her way to her table and set her briefcase down on the only 
spare rectangle of space.  She surveyed the stacks of 
folders, the wall of file cabinets and the many trophy photos 
Mulder had tacked up behind his desk.  She tried to imagine 
what she would do with it all, if it became hers alone.

The phone rang.

It was Skinner on the other end, with a tone that suggested 
someone had wound his BVDs too tight. "Agent Scully, could I 
see you upstairs in my office, please?"

She considered saying "no."  "Right now?" she asked instead.

"If it's convenient," he replied, with an edge that indicated 
it had better be.

In the elevator on the way up she met two male agents, only 
one of whom she vaguely recognized from her days in the 
bullpen.  Pendelton?  Pembleton?  He was staring at her, so 
she acknowledged him with a short nod.  He nodded back.  
Scully looked at the floor, but out of the corner of her eye 
she saw Pendelton/Pembleton elbow his colleague.

That's the one, he seemed to say.  Scully felt her cheeks 
burn hot.

"I did it for you," Mulder had said, and now the whole world 
knew it.

The elevator halted for her stop but Scully didn't get out 
when the doors slid open.  "You guys have a question?" she 
asked, facing them.  Pembleton's friend coughed.  Pembleton 
went gray.  Scully took a step closer, forcing them back 
against the wall.  "Something you want to ask me?"

"N-no," Pembleton managed.  His companion focused his 
attention on the ceiling.

"Really?  Because you can go ahead and ask."  They shook 
their heads vehemently.

"No, no.  Sorry."

"Yeah," Scully said with disgust, dismissing them.  "I didn't 
think so."  She hit the button to stop the doors from closing 
and stalked off down the hall.

Kim wished her good morning, but Scully didn't reply.  She 
walked past her and opened Skinner's door.  "You wanted to 
see me?"

He said nothing but beckoned her inside.  The slits in the 
blinds behind him cast a striped pattern across Skinner and 
his desk, reminding Scully of jail.  From the deep crease on 
the AD's forehead, she had the distinct feeling that Skinner 
was having similar thoughts.

"Agent Scully," he said when she had sat.  She raised her 
eyebrows when he did not continue.  His chair hissed as he 
leaned back again, frowning some more.  "How are you doing?"

"I'm fine, sir."

He nodded.  "I hadn't said anything before, but I want you to 
know the Bureau has resources available to you if you need 
them.  Counselors, legal advisors, whatever you need, we can 
get it."

"That won't be necessary."  She sat stiffly, expressionless.

He nodded some more.  "You're, uh, not the first woman here 
to face this situation."

"And what situation is that, sir?"  Violated in a parking 
lot, rejected by the justice system, partner in jail...

Skinner looked even more uncomfortable, if that were 
possible, and adjusted his glasses.  "I just wanted you to 
know," he said.  "I regret not saying something sooner."

Scully looked at her lap and said nothing.

Skinner cleared his throat and continued.  "Mulder has been 
temporarily relieved of his duties," he said, and Scully's 
head snapped up.  Skinner pursed his lips.  "Suspended 
without pay pending trial."

"What happened to 'innocent until proven guilty'?"

"You're saying he's innocent?"  Skinner squinted at her.  
Scully didn't reply, and he sat forward with a long sigh.  
"He's charged with a serious offense, one that the Bureau is 
forced not to take lightly."

"Because it made the papers," Scully said bitterly.

"Because we can't have agents going around stalking people 
and assaulting them in public!"

"I saw Watts on television this morning, and he looked all 
right to me."

"Mulder was out of line.  You know it."

"Maybe I understand his reasons."

Skinner shook his head.  "I think everyone understands his 
reasons.  That doesn't make them right."

"Today's just a preliminary hearing," Scully said.  "It could 
take weeks or even months to come to trial.  What am I 
supposed to do in the meantime?  The X-Files office isn't 
exactly overstaffed."

"That's the other thing I wanted to talk to you about," 
Skinner said, folding his hands.  "We can't get another agent 
full time.  I've already asked.  I might be able to file for 
some part-time help, but I can't guarantee how reliable it 
would be."

"Great."  

"There is another option," he said, and Scully looked at him.  
He handed her the morning paper, and tapped the small 
photograph under the fold. "Henry Eames struck a deal last 
night to keep him off the injection table for the six 
homicides in Atlanta.  There were at least ten others, he 
claims, and he's willing to say where the bodies are buried.  
The Atlanta field office has requested a fulltime pathologist 
to aide in the investigation."

"You want me to go to Atlanta?"

"They asked for our best.  Your record more than qualifies."
 
His compliment barely registered.  "If Mulder is suspended 
and I'm in Atlanta, what would happen to the X-Files?"

"Nothing.  The office would simply be closed until your 
return."

Scully imagined a sign on the door:  "Gone Grave Digging."  
"We fought so hard to get the X-Files back.  I--I can't just 
leave." 

"It wouldn't be permanent."

"Sir, if this is some way to punish Mulder..."

"It's not a punishment.  It's an opportunity for you to..."  
He gestured expansively.  "Get away.  For a while."

Oh.  So that's how it was.  "I see."

"It's your choice, obviously," he hurried to point out.  "No 
one is trying to force you to leave.  This assignment just 
happened to come across my desk at a time when I thought you 
might like a change of scenery.  If I'm wrong, please just 
tell me."  Scully said nothing.  Skinner waited a beat and 
then sighed.  "Take the day to think about it."

In the hall on her way out, Scully kept her head down, 
thoughts blurred as she returned to the basement on 
autopilot.  A pair of agents near the drinking fountain 
stopped talking as she walked past.  They said nothing but 
tracked her progress all the way to the elevator.  She could 
feel their eyes on her back as she waited.  At last the ding 
signaled the elevator's arrival, and Scully escaped to the 
blissfully empty car.

Down in the basement, the phone was ringing again.  Mulder, 
she thought, rushing to answer.  "Hello?"

"Hello, is this Dana Scully?"

"This is," Scully said, cautious.  She recognized the woman's 
voice but couldn't place it.

"Ms. Scully, my name is Sabrina Kimbrough and I work for WRC.  
I was hoping I could talk with you about Gregory Watts and 
Fox Mulder."

"No."

"Please, I won't take up much of your time."

"No comment," Scully said, and slammed the phone down as if 
it had suddenly morphed into a snake.  Shaken, she lowered 
herself into Mulder's chair and disappeared behind Mulder's 
orphaned files.  When the phone rang again, she yanked out 
the cord with such violence that small plastic parts 
skittered across the room. 

Scully put her head down on the desk, where a wall of silent 
victims masked her tears.

XxXxX

Afternoon sun pounded the courthouse pavement, settling like 
lead on Mulder's dark suit.  Cars glinted around him in the 
treeless parking lot. Mulder tugged his tie loose as his 
lawyer, Stan Serrano, imparted some last words of advice.  
"The injunction bars you from going within one mile of Greg 
Watts, his home or his family, Mulder, I strongly suggest you 
not tempt Judge Owens on this.  He'll have your ass in jail 
again so fast your head will spin. Stay *away* from Watts."

"But what if I'm out shopping for nylon stockings and we just 
happen to run into each other?"

Serrano did not crack a smile.  "Shop online.  I mean it, 
Mulder.  Your only chance of coming out of this unscathed is 
to keep your nose clean from now until the trial."

Mulder pulled out his handkerchief and waved it at Serrano.  
"Message received, okay?" he said before wiping the sweat 
from his brow.

Serrano hefted his briefcase.  "Go home.  Don't watch the 
news because it'll just make your blood boil.  I'll be in 
touch."

Mulder bade Serrano a half-hearted goodbye and climbed into 
the inferno that was his car.  "Yow," he said, jerking his 
hand back from the steering wheel.  He turned over the engine 
and set the A/C. to blast.  For several minutes, he just sat 
there, eyes closed, letting the air stream over him as he 
replayed the hearing in his head.

"Not guilty," he had said when asked, because that was what 
Serrano had advised.  In their meeting beforehand, Mulder had 
wondered about the likelihood of that defense.  "But I am 
guilty."

"Watts doesn't have more than a tiny cut on his lip," Serrano 
had replied.  "He was an accused rapist loose in a dark 
parking lot, stalking a potential victim.  We'll argue your 
actions were not only justified, but that they probably saved 
some woman from a brutal rape that night."

Justified, Mulder thought now.  That's damned straight.

The rest of the world could see he had a right to his anger.  
Why couldn't Scully?

He reversed the car and maneuvered out onto the road. He 
drove it faster than he ought, curving hard left and right as 
the mirage puddles kept appearing and evaporating up ahead.  
If I'd found his stash, he thought, it would have been worth 
it.

Mulder cruised back roads and city streets, staying away from 
the highway that would take him to Plumtree Lane if he let 
it.  Stay away, they had told him, but that only applied to 
his body.  Mulder didn't need to see Greg Watts to follow 
him.

He drove to the drugstore where Watts had attacked the first 
victim.  He drove past the Wal-Mart, the all-night Wendy's 
Restaurant, and the Store 24.  He visited Ming's parking lot 
and recalled his time in the bushes.  Each new crime scene 
gave him another adjective to add to his list.

Careful (there was always an easy exit)
Methodical (all scenes resembled one another)
Dutiful (Watts didn't drag his dirty laundry home; he kept 
his nasty sexual crimes away from Mommy and Daddy)
Extremely angry at women (Watts researched the sites but not 
the victims; he hated all the women equally)
Voyeuristic (each hiding spot would have allowed extended, 
perhaps frequent, surveillance of potential targets)

Mulder walked Watts' steps and thought his thoughts.  He 
imagined the lust, the hate, the power, felt the anger 
sweating through his every pore.  But there was shame, too.  
Dirty Greg, hiding in the bushes with his bulging erection.  
They made him feel small, worthless.  It was their fault he 
had to hide.  

He would make them pay.

Mulder's chest was tight, his hands clenched around the wheel 
as he drove through sprawling Virginia neighborhoods.  Greg 
didn't live here, but he might have.  The lawns sparkled.  
The houses gleamed.  Expensive swing sets in the yard were 
two stories tall.

The tires screeched as Mulder jerked to a halt in the middle 
of the road.  He dug out his phone and dialed Savioshy at the 
station.

"It's Mulder," he said when Savioshy answered.  "I know where 
Watts hid his stuff."

XxXxXxX

End chapter ten.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxX
Chapter Eleven 
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

They looked like overgrown boys playing hooky on the dusty 
ball field, shirtsleeves rolled up, squinting in the summer 
sun.  Mulder waited by home plate with a battered baseball in 
his hand.  He tossed it into the air and caught it as 
Savioshy made his way across the field.  From the street 
behind the chain link fence, two uniformed cops in sunglasses 
got out of their squad car to watch the showdown. 

"I would have met you at Watts' place," Mulder said when 
Savioshy came to a stop along the first baseline.  "But 
thanks to you, I'm not allowed within a square mile."

"No, that's thanks to you."  Savioshy squinted as Mulder 
tossed the ball again.  "After the stunt you pulled Friday 
night, I probably shouldn't even be talking to you."

"So why are you?"

Savioshy shrugged.  "You worked all those years with the 
Bureau, chasing some pretty weird shit, and they haven't 
fired your ass yet.  I figure there's got to be a reason."

Mulder threw the baseball to him.  "You play ball as a kid?"

"Sure," Savioshy said, inspecting the worn stitching.  
"Didn't everybody?"

"Fly kites?  Climb trees?"

"Yeah, I suppose," Savioshy replied with a touch of 
impatience.  "What's that got to do with Watts?"

"When was the last time you did any of that stuff?"

"Huh?"

"You know, tossed the ball around, or built a fort in your 
living room?"

Savioshy looked at him like he was high.  "Mulder, I don't 
know what you're getting at here, but--"

"The tree house," Mulder told him.  "In Watts' backyard. He's 
been too old for that thing for over ten years now but it 
hasn't been torn down.  It has meaning for him somehow.  Ten 
to one that's where you'll find his stash." 

Savioshy threw the ball back.  "The tree house, huh?"

Mulder nodded.  "Probably hidden, but it's there."

"We'll check it out," Savioshy said, already starting to jog 
away.  "Thanks," he called over his shoulder.

"Let me know!" Mulder yelled after him, and Savioshy waved an 
arm in the air to show he'd heard.  Mulder watched through 
the backstop as both he and the uniformed cops went roaring 
away.

Mulder pulled his arm back and flung the ball as hard as he 
could into the outfield, shielding his eyes to watch it arc 
and fall under the sun.  It landed beyond the imaginary 
centerfielder on a patch of brown grass.  Mulder kicked home 
plate with his dress shoe and then went to warm the home 
team's bench.  And he waited.

XxXxX

The shrill ring of her telephone greeted her as she walked in 
the door.  Scully made no move to answer it, but approached 
the phone table as if it were a dangerous animal.  The red 
light on her machine flickered madly.  She stared at it, 
transfixed, until the ringing stopped.  Quickly, she 
unplugged it before the noise could start again.  Then she 
went and did the same thing in the bedroom.

Late afternoon light bathed her room, yellowing the walls and 
lengthening shadows across the carpet.  Scully pulled her 
suitcase from the closet and bounced it open on top of the 
bed. It smelled like dust and airplanes and backwater 
mutants.  She sprayed it with Lysol and went to stare at her 
rack of suits for a while.

Ten years ago, it would have been a dream assignment, heading 
up an FBI forensic team, solving cold cases under a national 
spotlight.  Now it was a punishment she felt obligated to 
accept.

She kept thinking it was over, that the worst had happened, 
but somehow her life was still sliding away from her, an 
avalanche under her feet.

Numb, she stood in front of her closet, unable to make even 
the smallest decision.  At last she grabbed the first three 
suits from the rack and shoved them in her suitcase.  She 
could sort it all out later, away from everything.  Shoes, 
shirts, nylons -- she packed in a flurry, hardly noting what 
she threw into her luggage.

Wait.  She stopped, surveying her work.  Something was 
missing.

Scully went back to the closet in search of her white blouse, 
the one she took everywhere because it matched everything and 
she didn't have to think about it.  She muttered a curse when 
she saw the empty hanger and remembered where the blouse had 
gone.  Crossing the room, she fished it out of the garbage.

The flecks of Rentham's blood had dried to brown.  Scully 
fingered the silky edge and considered the piles of folders 
back at the office.  Whatever those people had been seeking, 
Rentham hadn't been able to deliver it.  She went to shove 
the blouse into the trash again, but hesitated at the last 
second.

Scully took the blouse to the kitchen and wrapped it in a 
plastic sack, figuring she could drop it by the lab on her 
way out of town.  It was as much of a goodbye note as Mulder 
was going to get from her.  

Maybe this way, he would have some answers.

XxXxX

Mulder took the steps to her apartment two at a time.  
Pounding on the door with the fleshy part of his fist, he 
crowded near the knob, eager to enter.  "Scully?  Scully, 
it's me."

The door opened and Scully appeared, looking annoyed.  
"Mulder, what is it?"

"I tried calling you but you weren't answering your phone," 
he said as he pushed inside.  Scully stepped back, palms up.

"Mulder, this really isn't a good--"

"We found the stuff," he told her, and her eyes grew round.  
He nodded for emphasis.  "Yeah, we did.  Watts had it stashed 
in the old tree house at his parents' house.  It's all there, 
Scully.  All of it."

She shook her head faintly.  "I don't understand.  You were 
supposed to stay away from Watts, Mulder."

"I did!  Savioshy and his men went in.  I just told them 
where to look."

She stared at him, and he smiled a bit, pleased he'd been 
able to do this one small thing for her.  There would 
certainly be a trial now.  Scully would get her day in court.  
He nodded some more, still smiling at this welcome piece of 
good fortune.  

"How did you know where to look?" Scully asked, and his smile 
faded.

"Uh, it was a guess, really.  A hunch."

"You called Savioshy in on a hunch?"

"A strong hunch."

"Uh huh."  She narrowed her eyes at him, and Mulder knew he'd 
been caught profiling again. 

The adrenaline from the hunt, the tension from waiting, it 
had all been worth it when he had gotten Savioshy's terse 
call.  "We have the stuff."

Mulder had seen it, too, briefly at the station as they'd 
brought it in and tagged it all as evidence:  the wallets, 
the licenses, the rainbow of women's underwear.  Mulder had 
looked, but he hadn't known which pair was hers.

"The cops never would have found his stash," he told her now.  
"They were all giving up.  Savioshy, Clark... even--"  He 
stopped and her head snapped up.

"Even what?"

He looked at her hard for a second.  "He'll go to trial on 
all counts, Scully.  Isn't that what you wanted?"

Scully's face fell, and she absently stroked the back of her 
sofa.  "None of this is what I wanted," she said at last.

"Well, then tell me what it is you want, because I sure as 
hell can't guess anymore."

"No one asked to you guess!  No wait, I did ask something of 
you, Mulder.  I asked you to leave this alone, but that was 
the one thing you couldn't seem to do."

"So you'd rather I sat on my hands and did nothing.  You'd 
rather he just walked.  Jesus, Scully.  The cops were 
practically turning cartwheels when we brought the stuff in.  
Your friend Clark was over the moon.  They're even talking 
about ways to drop the charges against me.  I thought you'd 
be happy that the cases can go forward."

"Oh, I am," she said, hugging herself.  "I'll be happy right 
up until tomorrow morning when the papers come out with this 
latest riveting installment:  FBI hero Fox Mulder defies law, 
charges to his partner's rescue.  Maybe I should call Sabrina 
right now and offer her the exclusive."

"I am sorry for that, Scully.  I am.  But I think the greater 
good outweighs a little uncomfortable publicity here, don't 
you?"  She said nothing.  Mulder gathered his words 
carefully.  "You're not the only one this happened to.  
Scully, there were nine other victims hidden in that tree 
house."

"And the men in their lives, where were they?  I didn't see 
them hunting Watts."

"Scully," he said, and waited until she looked at him.  "I am 
here to tell you unequivocally:  they would if they could."
	
She searched his face, and he let her, let her see the truth 
in the new lines around his mouth, the sweat on his collar, 
the fatigue in his eyes.  She nodded, resigned.  "Maybe 
you're right," she said.  "But thanks to you, they don't have 
to."

"Thanks," he repeated ironically.  This was some thanks he 
was getting.

"Yes," she said with more conviction. "Thanks."  She 
shuddered and squeezed the sofa back.  "You're right.  What 
you did, it was right.  You're--you're a good man, Mulder."

He gave her a wry smile.  "Why does that sound like an 
epitaph?"

Her eyes had watered but she worked to return his smile.  
"There are worse ways to sum up a life."

"Certainly mine," he said, and took a step forward.  "Just 
think of your other possibilities, Scully.  Fox Mulder:  man 
who never organized his computer desktop.   Or, Fox Mulder:  
man who held the record for consecutive hours of grade B 
movie viewing.  Fox Mulder: man who could burn water in a 
pan."

He stood just inches in front of her now. She was focused 
intently on his shirt buttons. "No," she said, "it would 
probably read, 'Fox Mulder: man who regretted sticking his 
finger in that goo.'" 

His laugh caught in his throat.  "Yes," he said, taking her 
by the shoulders, "it probably will."  He rubbed her up and 
down until she softened.  She did not resist when he pulled 
her to him, but neither did she hug him back.  He put his 
lips to her hair.

"It'll be okay, Scully.  You'll see.  By next week the papers 
will have--" He stopped short when he saw the suitcase 
sitting in the living room.  "You're going somewhere?"

She stiffened again under his hands, and he pushed her back a 
bit so he could see her face.  She kept her lashes lowered, 
but the down-turned mouth, the slumped shoulders, and the 
heavy silence were all too familiar.  He dropped his hands 
away from her.  "Let me guess: Utah?"  

"Atlanta."  She looked at him.  "It's just temporary."

"How long?"

"Not that long."

"How long?"

"Six weeks to three months."

"I see," he said.  "And what?  You were just planning to drop 
me a postcard with a peach on it?  'Toured the Coke Museum, 
Mulder!  Wish you were here'?"

Scully glared at him. "Yes, I could have sent it care of the 
county jail."

Mulder glared back at her for a second before taking a deep 
breath and running both hands through his hair.  "Okay, fine.  
I suppose I deserved that."

"No," she sighed.  "Look, Mulder, I realize this is 
unexpected, but I didn't know myself that I was going until a 
few hours ago.  It wasn't my idea."

He straightened at the news.  "Then don't go."

"What?  I--I can't."

"You can't," he repeated, as if it would make sense when he 
said it.

"I already said I'd go, but more than that, I want to.  I 
have to."

"Scully--"

"Mulder, I swore I wouldn't let what happened to me affect my 
life, but it's *become* my life.  Worse yet, it's become 
yours."  Her chin lifted in challenge, daring him to deny it.  
He scuffed his toe along the floorboard.

"It'll be different now.  The case is closed.  The charges 
against me will certainly be reduced, if not outright 
dismissed, and Watts is a slam-dunk at trial."  

She was shaking her head even as he argued.  Finally, he just 
stopped, deflating. "I am going for a lot of reasons.  But 
mainly... I look at you," she whispered in a small voice, 
"and it's like I can't even see you any more.  There's just 
too much in the way."

His heart broke.  "I'm right here, Scully.  I've always been 
*right here*."

"I know that."  She swiped at her eyes.  "I'm not blaming 
you.  I'm not."

"Then tell me what to do.  Whatever you need, I'll do it."  
He was the Red Queen, running as fast as he could just to 
stay in place.  Everything he'd been working so hard to save, 
it had been lost all along.  He just hadn't noticed. 

"I need to go to Atlanta," she said, drawing herself up.  "I 
need to help find those girls.  I need to think about 
something other than my life for a while."

"What about... what about the X-Files?"  It sounded slightly 
less pathetic than, "What about me?" but he figured after 
seven years together, her answer would apply equally to both.

Scully gave him a sad smile and went to her bedroom.  When 
she returned, she was carrying something wrapped in a plastic 
trash bag.  She placed it in his hands.

"The truth is still out there, Mulder."  A horn honked 
outside, and Scully turned toward the window.  "That's my 
taxi."

As she gathered her things and they walked to the door, 
Mulder scrambled frantically for something, anything, to halt 
the slide.  Don't leave me, she'd said, and now she was the 
one disappearing down the hall.  She stopped at the end, 
window ablaze with light behind her, and turned back to him.  

"Mulder?"

"Yeah, I'm coming."

Outside, the taxi driver shut her suitcase in the trunk with 
a very final-sounding slam. He climbed back behind the wheel 
while Scully lingered at the rear door.  Mulder cradled his 
trash sack.

"So, don't call you, you'll call me?" he joked.

She took a step forward. "Two months," she said.  "Maybe 
less."

"What happens then?"  The words felt tight in his throat.

"Fall," she said, managing a wobbly smile, and she touched 
his cheek. 

Mulder hated fall.  Hated to watch the leaves die and the 
darkness creep in.  Under the orange summer sun, it felt a 
million years away.  He took her hand and squeezed it hard.  
"October," he said, "a month for monsters, madness and Fox 
Mulder." 

This year he'd be forty, half his life gone, and that was if 
he were lucky.

"It's a date," Scully replied, squeezing him back.  She got 
into the taxi then, and he stood with exhaust curled around 
his feet, watching as she grew smaller and smaller in the 
distance.  

Scully escaped to a new shiny life, and Mulder was left 
holding the bag.

XxXxX

They found the first one, Emily Randall, buried in a field 
behind an abandoned factory, right where Henry Eames said he 
had left her.  Low gray clouds hung in the sky, threatening 
rain, and periodic wind gusts blew the grasses flat.  No one 
said much of anything.  The factory looked on with its broken 
window gap-toothed smile as men and women in uniform 
reclaimed Emily's bones.

Thirteen when she'd died, she would have been twenty-six now, 
in the ground as long as she'd been above it. 

Scully stood and watched the bones come up.  They would go to 
her now, laid out on a shiny metal coffin under the bright 
lights of the big city.  Scully's job was to do what Emily's 
parents no longer could: identify their little girl. 

She thought of herself at thirteen, with braces and glasses, 
riding her bike all afternoon and hunkering down under the 
covers with a flashlight and a book every night, and for the 
first time in many weeks, Scully felt grateful for her life.  
For the first time, she realized she was still breathing.

The morgue was her oyster, and she was in control. Six other 
agents did exactly as she asked, and none of them whispered 
when her back was turned. Scully worked harder than all of 
them, up to her elbows in tiny bones that all told the same 
sad story.  

She filled herself with their lives and forgot about her own.

XxXxX

Stan Serrano was puffed up like a skinny peacock inside his 
gray suit.  "Glad you came to your senses, Adleman," he said 
as the prosecuting attorney signed off on all charges against 
Mulder.  Mulder had spruced up for the occasion, looking like 
a law-abiding citizen with his new haircut and buffed shoes. 

Adelman made a sweeping signature.  "Don't thank me," he told 
Serrano even as he glared at Mulder.  "I think it happened 
just like Watts said.  I think your client went off half-
cocked and attacked an unarmed man in a parking lot.  But I 
can't *prove* he did it, not when my complainant in this case 
is about to go down for serial rape."

Mulder clenched his clasped hands but said nothing.  "You say 
nothing," Serrano had commanded before the meeting.  Mulder 
figured the order left little room for interpretation.

"Between you, me and the lamppost," Serrano said, "your 
victim is a viper.  He should watch himself or someone else 
might decide to take a crack at him."

"Off the record, I might agree.  On the record, I remind 
Agent Mulder that the restraining order against him still 
stands.  He is not to go within one mile of Gregory Watts, 
Watts' family, or his residence."

Both men looked at Mulder, who sat forward.  "Is this the 
part where I say, 'I do'?"

Serrano swung his briefcase up onto the edge of Adelman's 
desk and began collecting the paperwork.  "He agrees."

And so Mulder slipped through the cracks once again.  He had 
been in and out of jail more often than a two-bit hooker, but 
the justice system never managed to hold him.  Privately, 
Mulder suspected that this was because justice recognized him 
as a fellow naf, running around with his blindfold and his 
scales, expecting that the truth would win out in the end.

In the hall, Serrano clamped him on the shoulder.  "Your life 
is your own again, Agent Mulder.  Stay out of dark parking 
lots for a while, eh?"

He was not going to jail, but he didn't have his job back and 
Scully was living in another state.  If this was his life, 
Mulder did not recognize it.  "Thanks," he told Serrano, as 
he shook his hand.  "I appreciate it."

Serrano strolled off whistling, and Mulder shook his head.  
It was four-thirty in the afternoon.   If he hurried, he 
could make the Avengers rerun on at five.

"Mulder!"  

He turned at the sound of his name and saw Christopher Clark 
coming down the hallway.  Mulder rocked back on one heel, 
smoothing his tie over his stomach as he waited for the other 
man to catch up.  Clark stopped, a bit winded, and slapped a 
folder against Mulder's back.

"Heard you were in the building," he said.  "How did it go 
with Adelman?"

"All charges dismissed."

Clark stuck out his hand to Mulder.  "Fantastic news," he 
said as Mulder shook it.  "But I can't say I'm surprised.  
Bob wasn't relishing the idea of taking this one to trial.  
He'd tell the story, and twelve men and women would wish 
they'd been the one to bloody Watts' lip."

Mulder spread his hands and looked at them.  "I'd line them 
all up to take turns."

"Listen, I said this to Dana already, but I wanted to tell 
you too:  I'm sorry for going off on you before about this 
whole thing with Watts.  If I'd been in your position..."  He 
shook his head. 

"You talked to Scully?"  Mulder shifted.  "Um, recently?"

"Yeah, we spoke last week.  She's going to testify at the 
trial in September."

"Oh.  Right, of course."  Mulder had not talked to Scully 
since she had left for Atlanta.  He'd glimpsed her on CNN 
once, shot with a telephoto lens from far away as she had 
worked the crime scene in her FBI windbreaker.  POLICE LINE -
- DO NOT CROSS, it had said in front of her, and Mulder was 
heeding the advice.  He had not called.
 
If she couldn't see him any more, it was a fair bet that she 
wouldn't be able to hear him either.

Clark was still standing there, so Mulder kept talking.  
"How's that going?" he asked.  "The trial?"

"So far, so good.  Bellamy sure has been quiet since you guys 
found all the stolen property Watts had stashed away.  I 
expect Greg Watts will leave prison an old man, if he ever 
gets out at all."  He slapped Mulder with the folder again.  
"I've got to run.  Good to see you, Mulder.  I'll make sure 
to save you a front row seat, huh?  We can watch the bastard 
go down together."

Mulder nodded and waved because Clark was already walking 
down the hall.  He didn't bother to explain.

The restraining order would keep him far away from any trial.

XxXxX

God clapping his erasers, Sister Mary Caroline used to say 
when it thundered, and He was smacking the clouds together 
with extra force as Scully made the hundred-meter dash from 
her car to the hotel.  The ground rumbled and water fell in 
sheets, soaking her blouse to her skin. 
 
Inside her room, the A/C evaporated the warmth from the rain 
and sent her shivering into the bathroom for a thick white 
towel.  She blotted her wet hair and wiped the moisture from 
her face.  Her makeup looked like something from the "The 
Texas Chainsaw Mascara," and her bra stood out in stark 
relief against her now transparent blouse.  She had it 
halfway unbuttoned when her phone rang.

"Dana, it's Chris," came the voice on the other end.  "I 
didn't catch you at a bad time, did I?"

"No, no." Scully lay back with her towel against the pillows. 
"I just got in."

"I saw on the news that you guys found another girl today."

Tamara Jenkins, aged fourteen.  Her mother had called her 
home from a friend's house for dinner eleven years ago and 
never seen her again.  Eames had broken both of Tamara's legs 
before he'd crushed her skull.  The shattered bones waited 
for Scully back at the lab.

Scully pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers.  
"Yes, although we haven't made a conclusive ID as yet.  Her 
parents were there when we raised the body.  I don't think 
they had seen each other in three years before today."

"How are you holding up?"

Scully's eyes snapped open.  "Fine.  This is what I was 
trained to do."

"Of course," Chris said, backpedaling.  "I just meant that it 
seems like a rough case, all those dead children."

"They've been dead a long time."  There was a hard silence on 
his end.  "I've shocked you," she said.

"No, no," he replied, perhaps too quickly.

"You cry for all the victims in your cases?"

"Not all."  He paused.  "Some."

Scully raised her knees to her chest and took a deep breath.  
"The part with the parents, it never gets easier, but that's 
not why I'm here.  This wasn't my case.  I didn't search for 
the girls, never hoped to find them alive, never had to meet 
their killer.  I just give them a name."

"Closure," he said.

"Of a sort."  She leaned back against the pillows again.  
"But I'm sure that's not what you called to talk to me 
about."

"Actually, in a way, it is.  The trial is getting closer, and 
I'll need to go over your testimony in person.  Any chance 
you'll be back up this way soon?"

"Oh."  Scully looked at the rain against her window, as if 
the outside would provide some answers.  She hadn't allowed 
herself to think about going back.  "Uh, I won't be finished 
here for at least another three weeks.  I could come up 
sooner if it were really necessary... as soon as this 
Friday?"  Her heart sped up and she held her breath for his 
answer.

"Friday would be great.  We could meet in the afternoon and 
you'd be home in time for dinner.  Hey, you'll never guess 
who I ran into today in the hallway:  Mulder."

"Oh?"  Mulder was another thing she hadn't allowed herself to 
think about.

"Adelman dropped all the charges against him in the assault 
on Watts.  He's free and clear now."

"That's... that's really good news."  She gripped the 
receiver tighter.  He would get his job back, the files; he 
would be expecting her return.

"Yeah, it is.  Everything's falling into place now, Dana.  
You'll see."  She could hear him smile.  "I'll see you 
Friday, then.  Around two?"

"Two is fine."

She hung up and wandered back into the bright bathroom, where 
she stared at her disheveled appearance.  Her life was 
mending itself in her absence, she thought.  

Soon she would have to see if it still fit.

XxXxX

Mulder unlocked the door to the X-Files office, and it opened 
with an extended creak.  Stacks of files lay just where he 
had left them.  Scully's map was spread out on her table as 
though she would be returning at any moment.  Dust had piled 
up the way it always did in government buildings cooled by 
industrial fans.

He crossed the room and pulled Scully's plant down from the 
top of the file cabinet.  Limp, feathered branches hung over 
the sides, tinged brown at the ends.  Mulder bit his lip and 
held it out at arm's length for study.  "Sorry, buddy," he 
said at last, "everything dries out in the basement."  

He pitched it into the garbage for two points just as his 
phone rang.

"Mulder," he said, reclaiming his chair.

"Agent Mulder, this is Len Sturvis from the lab.  I have 
those results you asked about this morning."

Rentham's shirt.  Right.  Mulder sat up.  "Yeah?"

"Agent Mulder, I think you might want to come take a look for 
yourself.  I've never seen anything like this."

XxXxXxX

End chapter eleven.

XxXxXxXxXxXxX
Chapter Twelve
XxXxXxXxXxXxX

Mulder stalked the basement halls of Sanctuary House with 
Sheriff Seaver on his heels.  Their flashlight beams crossed 
as they walked.  "Explain to me again what the heck we're 
doing back here?" the Sheriff asked.

"We're looking for evidence."

"Evidence of what?"

"Alien activity," Mulder said as he entered the room that had 
contained Rentham's files.  The Sheriff stopped in the door.

"You expect to find a UFO parked out back, Agent Mulder?  Or 
how's about ET hiding in the closet?"

Mulder barely listened.  The jokes he'd heard before.  He 
opened one empty file cabinet after another, slamming them 
shut again when he saw there was nothing inside. 

The Sheriff leaned against the doorjamb.  "Only aliens we got 
around these parts are the wetbacks.  You want to chase them, 
be my guest, but Jared Rentham was as white as they come."

Mulder pushed past him back into the hall.  He went to the 
next room, the one that had been Rentham's personal quarters.  
There was a bed, a dresser, a desk, and not much else.  
Mulder rifled through the drawers as the Sheriff looked on.

"I'm beginning to think you're crazier than he was."

"He wasn't crazy," Mulder said without halting his search.  
"He was a hybrid."

"A what?"

"Half human, half alien."

"Pshaw.  That's bullshit.  Jared Rentham was a pissant little 
faggot who thought he saw lights in the sky. Chet Appleby did 
the world a favor when he shot him in the head."

Mulder did not answer.  He started feeling his way across the 
wall, looking for loose bricks.  Plaster crumbled under his 
nimble fingers.

"I repeat," said the Sheriff, "I don't know what you're 
really expecting to find here.  No one has seen hide nor hair 
of Rentham since his body went missing from the morgue."

"Medical records," Mulder said, pushing on another loose 
brick.  "If he was conducting tests on these people, there 
would be evidence of it somewhere."

"What tests?"

The brick came out, and Mulder stuck his hand through the 
dark opening.  His fingers brushed against what felt like a 
short stack of folders.  He dragged them out.

"What the hell is that?" the Sheriff demanded, coming into 
the room at last.

The top one was the file Mulder really wanted:  Miriam 
Rentham, his dead wife.  Underneath, there were records on 
all the women who had lived at Sanctuary House.

"You sonofabitch," Mulder whispered.  "These people weren't 
your rapturous followers.  They were your lab rats."

XxXxX

They used a stark conference room instead of Clark's homey 
office.  He sat at the head of the long table, legal pad in 
front of him, while Scully sat to his right in a swiveling 
chair.  The blinds were mostly drawn over the large windows 
to prevent the late afternoon sun from blinding her, but 
Scully felt the glare all the same.  Clark was prepping her 
for questions that Nora Bellamy might ask.

"And that's when you called 911 from your cellular phone, is 
that right?"

"Yes," she said, fighting the urge to rub her head.  They had 
been at this for three hours.

"What happened next?"

She took a breath.  "Two officers arrived about five minutes 
after I made the call.  One stayed with me while the other 
entered the wooded area in pursuit of my attacker."

"Whom he never found, is that correct?"

"No one was arrested that night, no."

"You participated in a police lineup some days afterward, did 
you not?  A group that included my client?"

"Yes."

"And did you identify him as your assailant?"

"No."

"Why is that?"

Scully paused.  "I never saw his face.  The night I was 
attacked, I mean.  He wore a mask."

"Your assailant wore a mask the whole time?"

"Yes."

"Ms. Scully, why didn't you tell the 911 operator you'd been 
raped?"

Her mouth went dry and she clutched the arms of her chair.  
"What?"

"When you called you made no assertion that you'd been raped.  
Why is that?"

"He held a knife to my throat, pinned me down and raped me.  
All three are covered under the definition of 'assault.'" Her 
words became more clipped as she continued. "I didn't mention 
the knife either, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen."  

"Hey, easy."  He leaned toward her.  "I'm still on your side 
here."

"I know."  She forced the word out:  "Sorry."

"Yeah," he acknowledged softly.  He drummed his pen on the 
pad.  "It's getting late, and we've been shut in here for 
ages.  Why don't we stop for now?"

Her heart sank at the words "for now."  "You mean there's 
more?"

"Fraid so. Bellamy's tough.  We need to be ready for her."  
He started gathering his papers.  "But we're done for the 
day.  You're doing great so far, Dana."

"Yeah," she said, lifting her fingers from the chair and 
letting them fall again.  "Great."

"No, I mean it.  I wish all my witnesses were as collected 
and articulate as you."

"I've testified before," she replied.  

He looked at her.  "Not like this."

"No."  She looked at her lap.  "I suppose not."

He reached over and squeezed her hand.  "You're going to do 
just fine."

Scully relaxed back in her seat, exhaling away some of the 
tension of the past few hours.  "I will just be relieved when 
it's over."

"On that point, we agree."  He smiled and they both rose.  
"Are you headed out now?  Do you time for a drink or maybe a 
bite to eat?  Somehow I missed lunch today."

"I--"  Mulder's apartment was only a few miles away.  She 
could feel it radiating out to her like a homing signal.  She 
imagined him drawing her in with a smile, imagined sitting 
with him on his low flat sofa as they talked about plants 
that lived to be a thousand years old and whether leprechauns 
brought good luck or bad.  "I'd love to," she said to Chris.  
"But I have somewhere I have to be."

XxX

Scully knocked and bit her lip while she waited.  No 
footfalls came from the other side.  She rapped again and 
then used her key to enter.  His apartment was warm and 
stale, no windows open and the A/C had been off for quite 
some time.  The fish tank burbled in one corner but otherwise 
the room stood still.

Scully walked in slowly, stopping to touch his wall, his coat 
rack, his smooth dining room table.  The Washington Post 
spread out in front of the couch was dated three days ago.

His leather couch heaved a sigh as she sat down.  She stroked 
the scratchy Indian blanket and wondered where he'd gone.  
There had been no excited late night phone call this time, no 
slideshow of desiccated corpses or lights in the sky.  She 
did not know whether to be dejected or relieved.

Her stomach rumbled.

Scully leaned way back against the couch and stared at the 
cracks in Mulder's ceiling.  If she were lucky, he would have 
a Hot Pocket frozen to the floor of his freezer.  She dug out 
her phone.

"Hi, Chris?" she said a moment later.  "It's Dana Scully.  
Are you still interested in that drink?"

XxX

They took thick gourmet sandwiches and a bottle of cheap wine 
to his greenhouse, where they ate sitting on over-turned 
crates with their bounty spread out on a towel in front of 
them.  "You're sure this is okay?" he asked as he poured more 
wine into plastic cups.  "We could always go somewhere more 
respectable."

"This is fine."  She looked around at the shoots and stalks, 
the hanging flowered vines, and the baby green leaves now at 
eye-level.  "Are these the same ones we planted last time?" 
she asked with surprise.

"Yeah, can you believe it?  They change a lot in a few short 
weeks."  He smiled and reached out to touch his glass to 
hers. "To growth."

"To growth," she agreed.  After a sip or two of wine, she 
asked, "So is this a working visit, or are we just here to 
admire the scenery?"

"Depends."  He gave her a lecherous grin.  

"On?"

"If you feel like getting dirty."

Scully felt her face warm.  "Just what did you have in mind?"

"Those gladioli by the door need to be repotted.  Really, 
they needed it two weeks ago, but I haven't had much of a 
chance to get down here lately."

He kept his words light, but Scully noticed for the first 
time the tired lines around his eyes. The weight of the case 
wore so heavily on her, she sometimes forgot it was not hers 
alone.  "We shouldn't keep them waiting, then," she said, 
taking a final swig of wine.  Dusting the crumbs off her 
pants, she began rolling up her sleeves.  "You'd better lead.  
They'll scream if they see it's just me coming at them."

Chris laughed and stood also.  "Plant horror movies? 'It Came 
From the FBI!'"

"Yes, well, Mulder and I nearly got eaten by a plant last 
year.  These days I look at even my mother's geraniums with 
new suspicion."

He handed her terracotta pot.  "You're joking."

"About the geraniums?  Yes.  About the other?  Sadly not.  
Here's a tip:  if you ever visit North Carolina, don't order 
anything with mushrooms."

He laughed and asked her more about it, and over dirt and 
flowers she told him about some of their colorful cases.  
Chris put big band music on the radio, Sinatra belting out 
the occasional tune as they talked and worked.  Scully's 
tension drained away with each clump of dirt she packed into 
the pots.  She left her fingerprints in the dirt and fluffed 
up the leaves.  Chris shared some of his trial stories and 
told her more about growing up with a southern lawyer father.  
"Instead of grace, he used to give opening arguments at 
dinner:  why the turkey should be spared."

Scully smiled at the right places and focused on the plants.  
She let his chatter fill her up like tiny bubbles. 

"All of Me" came on the radio, and Chris brushed the soil off 
his hands.  "I love this song," he said.  "We must dance."

"I'm covered in dirt."

"So am I," he said, taking her hands.  "Who cares?"  

Rigid and self-conscious, Scully let him twirl her around in 
the narrow aisle.  He hummed along with the song and pulled 
her to him again.  His hand was warm at her waist.  Scully 
gamely followed as he led them past a hibiscus plant.  He 
kept smiling and humming and pretty soon she had no choice 
but to smile too.

"I don't know that anyone has told you this," she said, "but 
you are a just little bit crazy."

He grinned and dipped her.  "Ever seen the movie?" he asked.  
"All of Me?"

"No."

"Oh, you should.  It's quite funny.  Steve Martin and Lily 
Tomlin trapped in one body."  The song changed then, to an 
instrumental version of "Strangers in the Night."  Chris 
slowed.  "I feel that way sometimes.  Like two people trapped 
in one body."

"How do you mean?"

He gave a half shrug.  "I love what I do.  I wouldn't trade 
it for the world.  But in some ways, this is never how I 
pictured my life would turn out -- forty years old and still 
living alone in an apartment.  By the time he was my age, my 
dad had a wife, two kids and a mortgage.  Me?  I have a cat 
and an excellent deal on renter's insurance."

"You have a cat?"

"Rusty.  He probably weighs as much as you do.  I have to 
work sixty hours a week just to keep him in Kibble."

She smiled.  "I hope he's properly appreciative."

"No, he still feels entitled to play hockey off my bedroom 
door with his toys every morning.  Despite intensive 
training, he has yet to grasp the concept of 'Saturday.'" 

"Probably a lost cause by this point," she agreed, and he 
squeezed her hand.  He was staring down at her, and she felt 
her ears warm.  "What?" she asked.

He said nothing for a moment, still swaying them gently back 
and forth, and then he shook his head.  "You know, it's 
probably not my place to say this, but Mulder is a fool."

Her chest tightened.  "Excuse me?"

"Not to want to see you tonight."  When she said nothing, he 
continued, "I mean, I assume that's the reason for my good 
fortune here, right?"

"Mulder's away."

"Oh, on a case?"

She had no answer.  Scully stopped dancing, and Chris sighed.

"I'm sorry.  Forget I said anything," he said.

She tucked her hair behind her ear.  "No, it's okay," she 
replied, when it obviously wasn't.

Chris leaned against the closest table.  "When I was in 
college, my girlfriend was raped."  She looked at him, and he 
nodded.  "Yeah.  Sherry.  It was finals week, and she wanted 
to go to this party, but I had a history exam in the morning.  
I said go without me.  This guy we both sort of knew, Rob, he 
brought her drinks and hit on her.  Sherry said no.  When she 
went outside for a smoke, he followed her out there and raped 
her."

"What happened?"

"Sherry told me and I went and beat the shit out of him."  He 
shrugged.  "She never reported it.  I begged her to, but she 
said no.  We broke up after that.  Sherry, well... she had a 
hard time, and I'm ashamed to say I didn't handle the whole 
thing very well.  I dumped her right before Spring Break."

Scully wrapped her arms around herself.  "So this is what?  
Penance?"

"No."  He stood.  "No, never that."

"Then what?"

"I just wanted to say I have some idea what it's like, and if 
Mulder is being a dick right now, it's certainly not your 
fault."

She shook her head.  "You don't understand."

He hesitated and then held up his hands.  "No, you're right.  
You're right.  I'm sorry.  I shouldn't have butted my nose in 
where it doesn't belong.  Forgive me?"

She nodded, mute.  They stood there awkwardly for another 
minute, and then she drew a deep breath.  "I think you should 
take me home."

"Yeah," he said quietly. 

She hung back, stroking one velvety leaf while he gathered up 
their picnic in silence.  Neither of them said much in the 
car on the way home.

"Well," he said when they reached her apartment.  "Here we 
are."

Scully looked at her hands in her lap.  "It's not Mulder 
who's the problem," she said.  "It's me."

"What do you mean?"

She shook her head, not looking at him, tears in her eyes.  
"You can't blame him.  No one can blame him."

"Dana..."  He rubbed her arm gently.  "No one is assigning 
blame."

She looked at him, lips pursed to still their trembling.  
"He's a good person.  Through everything, that is one thing I 
am still so sure of."

"I believe you."  He smiled sadly.  "And I'm sorry if I upset 
you.  It's the last thing I ever wanted to do."

"No.  I know."  She sniffed, settling back.  She took a 
breath and forced herself to give him a smile.  "You're a 
good person too."

He touched her cheek.  "So are you.  Don't forget that, 
okay?"

"You don't even know me," she said ruefully.

"I know enough."

She searched his face.  "Chris," she said.  "You keep asking 
me to dinner.  You keep taking me out.  Why?"

He shrugged.  "You keep saying yes."

XxXxXxXxX

Mulder walked the lonely streets of New Orleans.  On a 
Tuesday night, away from raucous Bourbon Street, the city was 
heavy, silent, and dark under a clouded sky.  The pavement 
was wet but there was no rain, just impossibly humid air.  He 
could smell the Mississippi.

A film of sweat formed on the back of his neck as he walked 
out of the main city, past the cemeteries to where Miriam 
Rentham had died.  Lit herself on fire, the police report had 
stated, but now Mulder had a better idea of what had happened 
that December night over four years ago.  Memories of the 
Ruskin Dam flooded back, charred flesh and stark terror as 
he'd run through the bodies.  There had been over a hundred 
people there.  Why, he wanted to know, had Miriam died alone?

The occasional passerby eyed him with suspicion.  Mulder 
didn't know whether that was due to his out-of-town dress or 
the gun that bulged at his back.  Each one stared at him a 
moment and then retreated into the shadows before Mulder 
could say a word.  He felt them out there, though, still 
watching.  It was a crawling feeling that rippled his skin 
and made him quicken his step.

Mulder stopped at a street corner and squinted down the road 
in either direction.  Scully teased him sometimes about his 
navigational intuition, but the truth was he never knew how 
he felt until first she offered her opinion.  Without her, he 
was lost.

He took a few tentative steps up one way, plunged in 
darkness.  Something rustled in the alley.  Mulder reversed 
direction swiftly and began walking up the road the other 
way.  He passed doorstep after doorstep, until a hand shot 
out and pressed a knife to his ribs.

"Wandered a bit far from home, have you," said a low voice 
behind his ear.

"My wallet is in my back pocket," Mulder said, and the voice 
laughed.

"You think I want your money, Agent Mulder?  You think a few 
bills could help me out?"

The creeping feeling intensified.  "Rentham," Mulder said, 
identifying his assailant at last.

The knife pressed in.  "You don't sound surprised."

"I've known your kind before."

"You know nothing of my kind."

"I know you're a collaborator, a willing slave to an alien 
race."

The flat of the knife slid along his ribs.  "You know 
nothing," Rentham repeated softly.  "Even after all these 
years."  Mulder jerked, and Rentham laughed.  "That's right.  
I know you.  I know you and your partner."

"What do you know about Scully?"

"I know..."  He paused.  "I know she's not here to save you."

"You leave her alone."

"Oh, spare me the grand gestures, Agent Mulder.  I have no 
interest in your partner.  You either, for that matter, but 
the problem is you won't seem to return the favor."

"You hunted those women, you lied to them and took them in 
just to further your own monstrous agenda. If you know me as 
well as you claim, I think you'll understand my continued 
interest."

"Fox Mulder, always looking in the wrong places for answers," 
Rentham said with disgust.  "You can't split the lark to get 
the music."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

A car roared past, headlights illuminating their dark stage.  
Rentham shoved him forward to the next opening between the 
buildings.  "The gun," he said, breathing hard.  "Give it 
now."

Mulder handed back his weapon.  The knife eased away.  
Slowly, Mulder turned and faced his opponent.  He was bald 
and white as remembered, but there was a puckered scar over 
his left eye.  Below the scar, the pale eye no longer saw.  
It sat fat and blank in the socket as its mate sized up 
Mulder from head to toe.

"You're more trouble than you looked," he said.

"You're less dead than you looked."

Half of Rentham's mouth lifted in a wry twist.  "Ah, were it 
but true."

"Those women at Sanctuary House," Mulder said, "what were you 
doing to them?"

"Exactly what I said:  rescuing them from a terrible fate."

"Which fate?  Yours?"

Rentham looked at the ground and shook his head.  "Everything 
you think you know is wrong."

"So enlighten me."

"We're more alike than you believe."

"I am nothing like you."

"You hope so, don't you?"  Rentham smiled.  "I never 
misrepresented myself to those women.  I was only trying to 
help them."

"They're all missing now.  Tina Appleby is dead.  What do you 
have to say about that?"

"Not my doing."

Mulder snorted.  "Convenient."

"The truth often is."

"What do you know about the truth?"  His million dollar 
question.

Rentham did not say anything for a stretch.  "I loved my 
work," he began at last.  "As you do.  I fought as you do.  I 
believed as you do."

"Your DNA says otherwise."

Rentham continued as if Mulder had not spoken.  "I served my 
time.  Miriam hers.  But they wouldn't let us go.  Let's just 
say I gambled everything and lost.  Make no mistake, Agent 
Mulder, you're following a dead man.  And if you don't back 
off, you'll end up just as dead."

If Rentham meant to kill him, Mulder figured he would have 
been dead already.  "Who?"

"You know them.  They killed Miriam.  They probably killed 
all the other women too.  My filxes are gone, all of them.  My 
whole life..."

"Who?" Mulder said more harshly.  After seven fucking years, 
he wanted a name.

"You know them," Rentham said again.  "They're the ones who 
took Scully."

Mulder rushed him, knocking the gun to the ground and pinning 
Rentham up against the building.  Rentham sputtered and 
coughed.  "What do you know about Scully?" Mulder demanded.  
Blood roared in his ears.  "Answer me, you sonofabitch!"

"Let me... let me go."  He coughed again and blood appeared 
at the corner of his mouth.  Mulder just crushed him tighter.  
"I... I can't help you.  No one can."

"She knew you," Mulder accused.  "You were there."

"Doesn't matter."  He shook his head weakly.  "All the data, 
lost..."

Mulder relented a little.  He stared at Rentham as the other 
man's head lolled back against the brick.  "Not all," he 
said.  Rentham's good eye glittered as he waited.  "I found 
the ones hidden in your room," Mulder said finally.

Rentham seized up with a sudden, fierce energy, startling 
Mulder and upsetting his balance.  "You have my files?  You 
have them here?"

"Not on me," Mulder said, stating the obvious.

"They're mine.  I want them back."  Rentham did a slow 
advance.  "You don't have the knowledge required to interpret 
them anyway."

"But you could give it to me."

Rentham hesitated.  "What are you proposing?"

"I'll give you the originals back," Mulder said.  "You'll 
tell me what they mean."  His heart pounded.  "And you'll 
tell me what they did to Scully."

Rentham shook his head.  "You don't want to know."

"You'll tell me," Mulder said.  "Or there is no deal."

He had come full circle, bargain for Scully again.

"What if I told you she would hate you for it?" Rentham said.  
"What then?"

Mulder said nothing.  Eventually Rentham sighed.  "Meet me at 
Miriam's grave in two hours.  You know where it is?"  Mulder 
nodded.  He'd been before.  "Good.  Bring the files, all of 
them."  Rentham looked Mulder over one last time.  "I'll tell 
you whatever you want to know."

XxXxX  

Mulder sat on a crypt with the files in his lap.  His eyes 
had long ago adjusted to the dark, but still he could make 
out only vague shapes.  The moon hid behind thick, rolling 
clouds.  Trees wafted around him, night creatures singing 
their song, and Mulder clutched his bounty closer.  He chewed 
his nail.

"What if she would hate you for it?" Rentham had asked.

I'd never tell her, Mulder thought.  But it didn't ease his 
mind.

After what seemed like ages, Mulder heard someone coming 
through the cemetery.  A flashlight came on about twenty 
yards away, and Mulder stood.  The light shone in his eyes 
but did not advance farther.

"I brought the files," Mulder said, and something hit him 
from behind.

All went dark.
XxXxX

End chapter twelve.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxX
Chapter Thirteen
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxX


Mulder opened his eyes to a boxed particleboard ceiling and a 
dull throbbing at the back of his head.  His shoulder ached, 
and his left knee felt like someone had taken a lead pipe to 
it.  He derived some comfort from the fact that, at least 
this time, there were no tubes coming out of him or machines 
turning his vital signs into electronic song.

He gave his fingers and toes an experimental wiggle, and then 
turned his head to look for the bathroom.  The sight of 
Scully stopped him cold.

She sat in a chair a few feet away, dressed in tennis shoes 
and civilian clothes.  There was a magazine in her lap and 
she didn't look like she had slept recently.  She gave him an 
uncertain smile but did not say anything, so he did not say 
anything either.

A month without talking to her, it was as long as they'd gone 
without speaking since her abduction, but he found he wasn't 
quite ready to break the silence.  The days without her had 
been long but predictable; the minute she spoke, his world 
would go topsy-turvy again. 

"I'll admit," she said as she closed the magazine, "I've 
wondered on occasion who would win the contest between you 
and a brick wall, Mulder, but I never expected you to go out 
and perform the experiment."

"Bricks?" he said.

"They dug chunks of one out of your skull.  You don't 
remember?"

He shook his head and regretted it.  "I know there was a CAT 
scan."

"Which was clear, thankfully."  Her brow wrinkled.  "How are 
you feeling?"

He closed his eyes and sunk further into the pillow.  "Let's 
just say, for the record, that the wall won."

"Mulder... what happened?"

Rentham's words echoed inside his pain-filled skull: *what if 
she hates you for it?*

"Brick meets head.  Brick dents head in several places.  It 
was a brief yet torrid affair, Scully.  I think you've got 
the whole tragic story."

"Mulder, they brought you in half-conscious from a cemetery.  
The police have been waiting to talk to you."

"The police."  He rubbed a hand over his eyes.  "Tell them I 
don't remember anything."

"Is that the truth?"  When he did not answer, she leaned 
forward.  "Mulder?"

He looked at her.  "Rentham's alive."

Scully seemed less surprised than he would have predicted.  
Her eyes narrowed.  "You're saying Jared Rentham did this to 
you?"

"Brick from behind, Scully.  I don't know who did this to 
me."

She was silent for a minute, picking at the corner of her 
magazine.  "How did you find him?"

"I didn't.  He found me."

Scully swallowed visibly.  "What did he want?"

"He wanted his files back."  The originals had vanished with 
Mulder's attacker, of course, but Mulder had made copies 
ahead of time.  He had learned a thing or two in seven years.

"What files?" Scully asked. 

He could answer, he thought, could continue their volley as 
though they were back in the office discussing other people's 
lives instead of in a hospital room avoiding their own.  
Providence alone had stopped him from making the deal.  He 
wasn't sure that was enough.

"Why did you come here, Scully?"

"What do you mean?  They called and told me you were hurt."

"Well, you can see now that I'm fine.  It's just mild 
concussion and they'll let me out soon.  There was no need 
for you to leave Atlanta and come all the way here."

She stared at him.  "Why, Mulder?  Were you afraid what I'd 
find?"

For a split second, he feared she knew everything.  "No," he 
said at last, his voice hollow.  "There's nothing here any 
more."

XxX

They released him with a prescription for painkillers and a 
warning to take it easy.  Scully drove him in silence back to 
his motel, a run-down walk up with no parking lot and a drunk 
asleep on the sidewalk by the front door.  Paint peeled from 
the walls in the narrow, humid stairway.  The effort of 
climbing made Mulder's pulse pound, throbbing inside his 
skull.  He trudged up the stairs to his room with Scully 
trailing after him.

At the door, he dug out his key and turned it in the lock.  
It caught for a second before the tumblers slid into place, 
and when Mulder opened the door he found out why.  His room 
had been tossed from top to bottom.  

Mulder stood and stared.  He felt Scully behind him, waiting.  
"Mulder?"

He bit back a curse and flung his keys on the bed.  "They got 
the files," he said as he stepped into the room.  Scully 
paused at the threshold to survey the mess.

"Who did this, Mulder?"

He lowered himself to the mattress and flung one arm over his 
eyes.  "Does it matter?"

He heard the door close and the sounds of Scully righting a 
chair.  "Mulder, I'm worried about you.  I'm worried what 
you've gotten yourself into here."

"It's just another routine day on the X-Files," he replied 
from under his arm.  "Things that go bump on the head and 
files that disappear in the night."
"We could get a fingerprint team in here, maybe they--"

He waved her off.

"Well, then what?  You didn't even mention Rentham to the 
police."

He raised his arm and gave her a pointed look.  She sighed.  
"Send them after a dead man?  It would just be a waste of 
time," he said.  "Either Rentham clocked me himself or the 
men after him finally caught up.  I doubt whoever it was 
stuck around after the fact for another round of cat and 
mouse."

"So what are you going to do?"  She sat in the chair, 
surrounded by strewn pieces of his clothing.

"Get some sleep.  Get a plane.  Go home."

"I'll go with you."

"That's not necessary."

She frowned.  "Mulder, I won't leave you one thousand miles 
from home with a head injury."

So that's all it takes, he thought wearily.  A head injury 
and a few hundred miles. 

"You're off the hook this time, okay, Scully?  I made the 
mess and I'll clean it up."

Scully said nothing for a moment.  "Why do I get the feeling 
that I've been cut from the team?" she said finally.

Mulder just shrugged.

"If you want to punish me, fine.  But don't do it at the 
expense of your health."

"I'm not punishing you, Scully."  God, he was tired.  Too 
tired to fight.  "Really," he added when she looked dubious.  
She crossed her arms.  "I'm just giving you what you wanted."

Hurt flashed across her features.  "That's not fair."

"My return ticket says Washington, Scully.  What does yours 
say?"

"I--I don't have a return ticket."  He looked at her, 
expectant, and her chin stuck out.  "Mulder, you know I have 
to finish out my term in Atlanta."

He smiled sadly.  "And that's what I'm trying to tell you, 
Scully.  I won't stand in your way."

XxXxX

In her dream, he was on top of her, his breath on her face 
and his long legs mingling with hers.  She wound around him, 
hot, needy, and urged him inside.  His harsh pants rasped 
near her ear as he thrust again and again.  The headboard 
pressed against the top of her head.  The sheets grew damp 
with their efforts.

She gripped his strong arms.  His teeth bared.  She could 
feel it building, coming.

Mulder Mulder Mulder.

Scully jerked herself awake, sweaty and disoriented in her 
hotel bed.  Her heart was pounding, and her body throbbed in 
rhythm.  She curled herself tight around the pillow to try to 
stop the ache.  Phantom Mulder teased her senses, so close 
she could almost smell him.  

Scully shuddered and hid in her blankets.  Guilt.  Shame.  
Need.  They twisted inside her like the sheets around her 
legs.  She hugged the pillow closer, trying to squeeze 
everything away.  Tears burned her eyes.

Mulder, she thought.

XxX

It was late September before she came home again for good, 
just two days before the trial was set to begin.  Her 
apartment smelled foreign, stagnant air settling heavily over 
possessions she had not touched in weeks.  Scully set her 
suitcase down in the living room and took her stack of mail 
to the kitchen table.  

The sight of her plants gave her pause.

All three of her pitiful pots sat in her kitchen sink, 
soaking their feet in an inch of water.  Scully walked over 
and rubbed a leaf between her fingers, smiling down at them.  
In her hurry to leave, she'd forgotten all about her plants, 
but Mulder obviously had not.  "He's better for you than I 
am," she told them.

She poured herself a glass of water and sat down to 
contemplate her mail.  Bills, bills, and more bills.  Even 
when she wasn't living it, her life was expensive.  She 
fished a letter from her travel agency out of the mess and 
slit the end.

"Dear Ms. Scully:

This is to remind you of your scheduled itinerary from 
October 13-14 of 2001."

Scully let the paper fall aside as she slumped in her chair.  
Mulder's birthday present, she remembered.  She had made the 
reservations months ago on a whim, after the first time they 
had slept together.  It seemed like another lifetime.  

These days, she would be lucky if he agreed to go across the 
street with her, let alone across the country.

She bit her lip and peeked at the letter again.  There was a 
cancellation number posted at the bottom.  Scully took the 
letter to the kitchen counter, where her phone sat.  She 
picked up the receiver and leaned her hip against the counter 
as she dialed.  Just as it rang through, she noticed the 
plants again.

"Sullivan Travel, this is Linda speaking.  How may I help 
you?"

"Sorry," Scully said.  "Wrong number."

She hit the "off" button and pressed the phone to her middle.  
A few minutes later she dialed another number instead.

XxXxXxX

Scully sat in the easy chair and tried to make up her mind 
what to do with her hands.  She put them first on her knee, 
then at her sides, before folding them tightly in her lap.  
No reason to be nervous, she thought.  It's just your whole 
life on the line.

Across the oriental rug, Dr. Wheeler gave her a relaxed 
smile.  "It's good to see you again, Dana.  How are you 
doing?"

Scully had been programmed since birth that there was only 
one acceptable answer to this question:  "I'm fine."

"I see in the papers that the trial is set to start 
tomorrow."

"Yes, but I won't be testifying for at least two days."

"How do you feel about that?  About testifying."

Scully took a deep breath.  "To be truthful, I haven't 
thought about it much.  I don't expect it will be an 
enjoyable experience, but I am looking forward to having it 
over with.  Watts will be there.  I've thought about that 
aspect.  I haven't been in the same room with him since... 
since it happened."

"What have you thought about when you thought of seeing him?"  
Scully shook her head, unable to verbalize the constricting 
feeling inside her.  Dr. Wheeler looked thoughtful.  
"Afraid?" she asked.  "Nervous?"

"Not afraid, no.  I know he can't hurt me physically.  He 
can't even talk to me."

Dr. Wheeler shifted in her seat.  "You say he can't hurt you 
'physically.'  Is there another way he can hurt you?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Let's put it this way:  you're coming into the courtroom, 
you're ready to take the stand, and you see Watts sitting at 
the defense table.  What do you think at that moment?"

Scully tried to visualize the encounter.  "I think... I can't 
believe it's him.  I can't believe that..."

"That what?"

Scully swallowed.  "That he raped me."  She opened her eyes 
but kept her gaze trained on her lap.  "I guess part of me 
still can't believe it's real."

"And the trial, that would make it real for you?"

"I don't know.  Maybe.  I don't know why that should be.  
I've said the words out loud in front of doctors, in front of 
cops and lawyers.  There's not really anyone left to tell."

"No?"

"Well, there's Mulder."  She had never told him the details, 
and he had never asked.  She wondered if he would come to the 
trial.

"Mulder... he is your partner at the FBI?"

Scully nodded and picked imaginary lint off her pants.  
"We've been seeing each other outside of work," she said. 

"I see.  Since before the rape?"

"Yes."  Scully paused.  "I don't know what's going to happen 
now, though.  We haven't talked much lately."

"Why is that?"

Scully shrugged.  "It just got so hard," she said in a small 
voice.

"What got hard?"

Not Mulder's dick, Scully thought suddenly.  Her heart 
squeezed inside her chest.  "I don't understand," she said, 
"why, if rape is about power and not sex, it should interfere 
with your sex life."

Evelyn's forehead wrinkled.  "My word, whoever told you 
that?"

It was Scully's turn to be confused.  "All the books say the 
same thing... rape is a crime about power, not sex.  It's 
about forcing your will on someone and controlling them."

"Well, yes.  All that is true.  But it's also about sex."

Scully was almost relieved.  If this were true, there was a 
possibility she was normal.  "You're the first person to say 
that," she told Evelyn.  "I think these days it's a somewhat 
radical viewpoint."

"I've always been a radical."  Evelyn smiled.  "But in this, 
I speak only the truth."  Scully hesitated, afraid to 
believe.  Evelyn leaned forward.  "Look, Dana," she said 
bluntly, "the man didn't hold you up and make you do his 
laundry, did he?  He didn't make you wash his car or mow his 
lawn.  He raped you."

The words fell like bricks on her chest.  "He--he raped me," 
she repeated, feeling lightheaded.

"The books, the movies, the after-school programs and the 
academics -- they can't tell you why this happened to you.  
They can't tell you what will make it better."

Her throat ached.  "Who can?"

"That's the hard part," Evelyn said with regret.  "The part 
you have to figure out alone."

XxXxX

The day of the trial, Scully dressed with extra care, as 
though a pressed suit and perfect makeup would ward off Nora 
Bellamy.  She very deliberately did not turn on the morning 
news.  Passing on breakfast, Scully forced a half-cup of 
coffee into her balled up stomach before driving to the 
courthouse.  

Thankfully, the real action was inside and so no reporters 
mobbed her on the front steps.  A court official showed her 
to a private lobby where she could wait until it was time to 
testify.  There were benches on all four walls, sparsely 
populated.  One man with slicked-back hair and wingtip shoes 
paced the floor.  In the corner, under a window, someone 
waved at Scully.  She squinted and recognized the woman she 
had met at Chris's office, Glory.

Scully answered with a weak wave, but the woman kept 
beckoning.  Head down, Scully propelled herself in Glory's 
direction.

"Dana, hi!  I wondered if I'd see you here today."  She moved 
her huge purse so Scully could sit.  "Are you nervous?  You 
must have been here a hundred times, huh.  The only other 
time I've been to court was when I was seventeen and trying 
to get out of a speeding ticket.  Which one of us do you 
think they'll call first?"

"Uh, I'm not sure," Scully said.

"No offense, but I hope it's me.  I've got butterflies 
dancing with clogs in my stomach."

Scully hid a smile.  "I think the anticipation is the worst 
part."

"Maybe," Glory said, not sounding convinced.  "That Bellamy 
lady scares the crap out of me.  I saw her in the ladies' 
room earlier, and I swear she was putting on her makeup with 
a blow torch."

Scully coughed as Glory rummaged through her purse.  "Gum?" 
Glory said a minute later, offering a stick.

"No, thank you."

Glory chewed in silence for a minute.  "You got family here 
today?"

Scully shook her head.  She had asked her mother please not 
to come.  Mulder... she tried not to get her hopes up one way 
or the other.

"My mom took off work," Glory said.  "Like I was in the 
school play or something.  It's a good thing they frisk you 
at the door for weapons, though, because otherwise she might 
have been packing."

The court official reappeared and called Scully's name.  
Glory hugged her purse on her lap.  "Looks like you won the 
coin toss," she said.  "Good luck."

"Thanks."  Scully considered a moment.  "Good luck to you, 
too."

She smoothed her skirt down and followed the woman to the 
courtroom.  It wasn't as large as she had imagined it would 
be for a trial of this magnitude.  All was quiet as Scully 
entered the room.  Greg Watts kept his eyes on the table in 
front of him.  Chris gave her a quick smile as she took the 
stand.  Her mouth was dry but she didn't want to reach for 
the water and make it obvious she was nervous.  She looked 
but she did not see Mulder among the spectators.

Chris wished her good morning.  He then led her matter-of-
factly through the events in Ming's parking lot, neither 
oozing sympathy nor playing up the horror.  It was easier 
than she had expected to say the words.  After an hour or so, 
he had no more questions.

Scully tensed in her seat as he turned the floor over to Nora 
Bellamy.

Bellamy had had her hair done for the occasion, Scully 
noticed as the woman rose and crossed the floor.  She smiled 
at Scully but her eyes focused in like a cat's on its pretty.  

"Agent Scully, how are you doing?  Would you like some 
water?"

"No, thank you.  I'm fine."

"How long have you worked at the FBI?"

"Twelve years," Scully replied.  "Almost thirteen."

"What sort of training do you have to complete to be an FBI 
field agent?"

"There are many courses, covering everything from federal law 
to ballistics."

"Any defense training?"

"Yes, some."

"How did you perform in these defense classes?"

"Well enough to pass."

Bellamy smiled again.  "In the course of your work, have you 
ever had to disarm a criminal who was larger than you are?"

"Yes."

"Ever use your self defense knowledge to immobilize one of 
these attackers?"

"Objection," Chris said.  "Agent Scully's work history is not 
material to this case.  She wasn't working the night of June 
eleventh."

"Sustained," the judge agreed.

Bellamy did not miss a beat.  "You never saw the face of the 
man who attacked you, is that correct?"

"Not very well, no.  He wore a stocking mask."

"In fact, my client participated in a police lineup after 
your attack and you failed to identify him.  Isn't that 
right?"

"Yes."

"There was no hair, no fibers, and no semen recovered at the 
hospital.  What do you make of that?"

"I don't make anything of it.  Sometimes they just get 
lucky."

"Interesting choice of words," Bellamy observed.  "Lucky.  
Let's talk about your luck for a second, shall we?  This 
summer wasn't your first trip to the hospital this year, was 
it?"

"No."

"In fact, you've been to the emergency room seven times in 
the last two years alone.  Isn't that true?"

"That sounds about right."

"Many of these visits have been the result of alleged violent 
attacks on you by another individual."

"Objection," Chris said again.  "Agent Scully's medical 
records are not at issue here."

"Goes to credibility, Your Honor," Bellamy countered.  "I'll 
confine my questions to the legal aspects of Agent Scully's 
many victimizations."

"Objection!" Chris said.

"Over-ruled," the Judge answered.  "But you've got a short 
leash here, Counselor.  Step wisely."

Bellamy nodded and turned back to Scully.  "Last year," she 
said, "you were involved in an incident just a few blocks 
away from Ming's restaurant, were you not?  A death in your 
partner's apartment building?"

"Yes."

"You were attacked, isn't that right?"

Scully kept her voice level despite the fact that she could 
see where the conversation was heading.  "Yes, that's right."

"By whom?"

"That has never been determined."

"Oh, the individual got away?"

Scully did her best not to squirm.  "He was never 
apprehended, no."

"Huh," Bellamy said, as if stymied.  Then she regrouped. 
"Isn't it true that the local police recorded that you had no 
injuries from this alleged attack despite being covered in 
blood?"

"Yes, that's true."

"Care to explain how that happened?"

"I can't explain."

Bellamy crossed for her notes.  "I have the statements you 
and your partner gave to Detective Savioshy immediately 
afterward.  You both mention some sort of phantom...?"

The jury looked puzzled as Bellamy's question hung in the 
air.  Scully shifted.  "It was one theory."

"A theory you believed in?"

All the heads turned back to look at Scully.  "As I said, 
that investigation was never completed.  My assailant was 
never identified."

"I see.  What about the time you ended up half-burned to 
death on a dam in Pennsylvania?  Was it an imaginary attacker 
who did that one, too?"

"I--I don't remember much about that incident."

"I heard it was some sort of mass suicide by a UFO cult," 
Bellamy said.  "Is that true?"

"No," Scully said definitively.  "It was not a cult."

"But the UFOs...?"

"I told you," Scully said, struggling to remain calm.  "I 
don't remember."

"But you remember it's not a cult."

Bellamy continued on that way for some time, hammering away 
at every public -- and some private -- aspect of Scully's 
life, making her seem like a chronic victim who was a few 
fries short of a Happy Meal.  Scully figured by the time she 
was finished the jury would vote that was Watts innocent and 
was Scully guilty by reason of insanity.

When at last Bellamy exhausted her questions, Chris got to 
his feet for the redirect.

"Agent Scully, on the night of June eleventh, was it an 
invisible man who attacked you?"

"No, it wasn't."

"Was it an alien?"

"No."

"I show you again People's exhibits F and G, which were among 
the property recovered from Gregory Watts' home.  Is this 
your wallet?"

"Yes."

"Are these your underwear?"

Scully didn't waver.  The jury was silent and still.  "Yes," 
she said.

"I have no more questions, Your Honor."

XxXxX

They broke for lunch with the conclusion of her testimony.  
Chris looked a little shaken but he put on a smile as she 
approached.  "You came through that just great," he said.  
"Nora was left with nothing but smoke and mirrors.  Her 
client is guilty as sin, and she knows it."  His smile 
faltered.  "That's some kind of work you do there at the 
FBI."

"I told you my job was unusual."

"Yeah, but I had this vision of you inspecting places like 
Roswell for fallen UFOs.  This sounds, uh, rather darker."

She shrugged.  "Pays the rent," she said lightly.

As they walked to the door, she cast one last glance around 
for Mulder.  Despite everything, she had harbored hope that 
he would be there.  But he wasn't, and the men and women 
looking back at her viewed her with vague distaste, as if her 
craziness might be catching.  She was glad to escape to the 
freer hallway.

"Heading out?" Chris asked.  "I'll walk you."

She noted he did not ask her to lunch.  They walked out into 
the afternoon sunshine, where he guided her skillfully past 
the hungry reporters.  "No comment, no comment, no comment."

When they reached the cluster of trees by the edge of the 
property, they stopped.  Breathless, Scully pushed back her 
hair.  "Really," Chris said, "You did a fine job.  Thank 
you."

Scully was not listening.  She had noticed a familiar figure 
across the street, loping toward them from the distance.  He 
noticed her watching and stopped to wave.  Scully smiled 
broadly.

"Dana?" Chris touched her arm.  "I've got to run.  Will you 
be all right?"

"Yes," Scully said, still focused across the street.  "I 
believe I will."

"Great.  I'll catch up with you later, then."

He disappeared, and Scully waited for the traffic to clear 
before crossing the street to Mulder.  She kept going until 
she stood just inches in front of him.  They smiled stupidly 
at one another.

"Here," he said, handing her a giant purple daisy. "I heard 
you're into flora these days."

She twirled the stem like it was a pinwheel.  "You came," she 
said.

"I promised I'd be here."  He cast a furtive look up the 
street.  "If Bellamy spots me, though, it's back to the chain 
gang for me.  You want to go somewhere?  Get something to 
eat?"

She linked her arm through his.  "No," she said.  "Let's just 
go home."

XxXxX

End Chapter Thirteen.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX
Chapter Fourteen
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

They sat on Mulder's couch talking as the hour grew late and 
the sunshine dissolved in a sepia melt across the walls.  
Scully tucked her legs under her skirt, nyloned toes sticking 
out as Mulder lounged against the other end of the sofa.  The 
Indian summer breeze wafted in through the open windows.  
Mulder served iced tea in tall glasses.

He told her a little bit more about his adventure in New 
Orleans:  "Rentham said the men in charge didn't want to let 
him go.  I think... I think they may have murdered his wife." 

"Did he explain what his role was in the testing?"  She 
waited, tense, remembering the tingle of Rentham's hand on 
hers.

Mulder hesitated just a beat.  "No.  He didn't have a 
chance."

Later, she told him about seven little girls whom she had 
reassembled like jigsaw puzzles:  "Eames said he gave up the 
bodies so he will have a clean conscience.  Mulder, I don't 
know how you could ever relieve the weight of all those 
bones."

"At least now their families can have peace," he said.  
"That's something."

"I guess," she said, trying to believe it.  "I saw some of 
the families at the burial sites, Mulder.  They looked 
anything but peaceful."

"Peace will come later," he replied, and she wondered if he 
still saw Samantha every time he looked up at the stars.

At dusk, Mulder fetched another round of tea from the kitchen 
and returned with a silver bowl full of pretzels.  He set the 
bowl between them and propped his feet on the coffee table.  
"So," he said.  "How did it go today?"

"Okay."

"Yeah?"

"Well, the X-files have always made for good courtroom 
drama."

He winced.  "I was worried about that."

"Don't," she said easily.  "It wasn't that bad.  Bellamy can 
mock me all she likes, but in the end, the evidence will 
speak for itself."  She paused.  "That's thanks to you."

Mulder looked embarrassed as he studied the ice cubes in his 
glass.  "I'm just sorry I couldn't have been there."

The words needled at her, making her flush, and she searched 
herself to figure out why they bothered her so much.  Mulder 
was just being kind.

"I'm sorry about that," he mumbled again, and she had her 
answer:  since the rape, Mulder had been apologizing to her 
almost every time he opened his mouth.

"Mulder..."  She shifted so her position mirrored his, 
shoulder-to-shoulder with their feet on the table.  "You know 
what happened to me wasn't your fault, right?"

"I know that," he said too quickly.

"Because I would hate for you to think that."

"I don't."  She watched him sideways while he swallowed 
several gulps of tea.  It occurred to her that, in four 
months, she had never once asked him how he felt about what 
had happened.  The thought that she could ask him now, and 
worse, that he might answer her, made her pulse spike.   Her 
arms and legs became rubbery.

"Mulder, what do you think?"

He froze with the glass at his lips.  "Huh?"

"About what happened."  She steeled herself.  "About the 
rape."

"I think it's horrible, Scully.  You know I would give 
anything to change what happened to you."

"Yes, but I mean aside from that."

Mulder looked at her as though she were laying a trap.  "I 
don't know what you mean," he said carefully.

Her heart slammed like one of those caged nightclub girls 
dancing her ribs.  "You can tell me the truth," she said.  
"Really.  I know the images you must have.  I know it must 
be-"  She faltered.  "Off-putting.  I can understand that, I 
can."

"What?  God, Scully.  No."  He set down his tea and faced 
her. 

"Mulder, please.  You don't have to protect my feelings on 
this.  I know we're supposed to be enlightened and modern 
about the whole ordeal, but truly, it's *not* just like being 
mugged or carjacked or whatever else, and I would prefer we 
just acknowledge that out loud."

"Scully, you've got it all wrong."

"Texas," she said, and shut him up fast.  They stared at each 
other a moment, and then Scully took a deep breath.  "I don't 
blame you, Mulder.  If you feel weird, I think that's 
normal."

He ducked his head.  "You're wrong," he said again.  "I don't 
associate you with what happened, Scully.   I'm not... put 
off.  Quite the opposite."

The opposite.  She turned her drink around and around between 
her hands and considered his words.  If he wasn't put off, he 
was... turned on? 

As realization dawned, she looked over at him.  He seemed 
like he was wishing the couch would suck him in like a sofa 
bed.  "Mulder?"

"It's, uh, not like that," he said in a rush.  "No."  He 
shook his head emphatically.  "I hate what happened to you.  
I hate it so much I can't breathe when I think about it.  But 
I went there, Scully.  I stood where he stood, and god help 
me, when I think about what happened I associate with *him*."

"You're not him, Mulder."

"I'm not even talking profiler, here, Scully."  He looked at 
her, dark eyes intense, his mouth set in a straight line.  
She forced herself to listen.  "I mean, I know what it's like 
to watch you and want you.  I know *exactly* what that guy 
was thinking when he was looking at you from the bushes.  
Seven years, god, the frustration -- sometimes I thought 
about just reaching out and... and..."  He grabbed weakly at 
the air with both hands.

"Taking me?"

Mulder's hands fell.  "Yes."

"Well," she said.  "Me too."

He blinked.  "What?"

"You think you have the market cornered on sexual 
frustration, Mulder?"  She smiled.  "There was one time you 
came into my motel room after a shower and you flopped down 
on the bed all damp and, well, naked."

"I was never in your motel room naked."

"Near enough.  I wanted to rip the towel right off of you."

"It's not the same," he protested.  "Scully, I wanted to do 
you up against the filing cabinet whether you wanted it or 
not."

"I think we've established by now that I did want it, 
Mulder."  

"You don't understand," he said, sounding miserable.  

She stopped teasing. "Explain it to me," she said as she 
rubbed his arm.  "Because I'm not hearing anything so far 
that would give me reason to doubt your good character."

Mulder would not look at her.  "Well, for one thing, I've had 
this fantasy."  Haltingly, he told her of an explicit 
scenario that started with an argument in the basement and 
moved to forceful sex up against the wall.  "You said no," he 
told her quietly.  "I didn't even care."

She leaned her cheek on his shoulder and hugged his arm.  
"It's a fantasy," she told him.  "Fantasies aren't real.  You 
know they're not."

"But after everything--"

"Mulder, I'm not afraid of you."  She squeezed him again.  
"I'm not afraid of your fantasy, either."

"It doesn't make you sick?"

"No.  It makes me want to get a file cabinet for my bedroom."  
He looked at her, and she smiled and cupped the side of his 
face.  Her thumb grazed over his stubbly cheek.  "Mulder, 
you're nothing like Gregory Watts.  You never will be."

"No," he murmured, looking into her eyes.  He covered her 
hand with his own.  The corner of his mouth twitched.  "You 
wanted to rip off my towel, huh, Scully?"

"More than once."  They leaned foreheads together.

"Whenever I flopped on your bed, I always thought you wanted 
to shoot me."

"More than once."

He laughed and hugged her tight. 

XxXxX

The day of the verdict, Scully went back to court.  Once 
again, Glory waved to her from the gallery.  "Saved you a 
seat," she said as Scully approached.  "Hey, this is my mom.  
Mom, this is the FBI agent I was telling you about."

Glory's mom had tight jeans and long red fingernails.  Her 
hair was tinted blonde like her daughter's.  "Pleased to meet 
you," she said, giving Scully's arm a good workout.  "I came 
to watch the bastard fry."

"I'm afraid that's not going to be an option," Scully said as 
they sat.

Glory rolled her eyes.  "I keep telling her that.  Maybe 
she'll listen to you."

"Well, it ought to be an option," her mother retorted.  "At 
the very least they ought to take his pants down and fry his 
little--"

"Mom!"  Glory slouched in her seat.  "I apologize for my 
mother."

"Not necessary," Scully said.  She leaned across Glory to her 
mother.  "I quite agree."

The room quieted a bit as the judge entered.  Scully could 
only see the back of Watts's head at the defense table, but 
the slump of his shoulders suggested that he was not 
optimistic about the outcome.  Nora Bellamy was 
uncharacteristically subdued as the jury filed into the room.

The judge read the verdict and handed it back to be read 
aloud.  Glory grabbed her mother with one hand and Scully 
with the other.  Scully squeezed back.

The foreman read the verdict:  "We find Gregory Thomas Watts 
guilty of ten counts of forcible rape," he said, and both 
Scully and Glory let out a breath.  Scully barely heard as 
the jury found Watts guilty on a slew of lesser charges.

"We did it," Glory whispered.  Scully nodded.

Behind the defense table, Greg Watts's parents looked quietly 
devastated.  Scully wondered if it was because they had lost 
the case, or whether they finally realized they had raised a 
monster.

To bring a child into this world, she thought, and have him 
go forth and do evil.

Mrs. Watts put her hands over her face and wept.

XxXxX

On the first morning of his forty-first year, Mulder awoke 
and considered his brave new world.  Forty, he thought, and 
feeling fine.  He headed to the living with his toothbrush 
still sticking out of his mouth and stopped in front of the 
fish tank.  Woodward and Bernstein swam to the top, eager for 
their breakfast.  "Morning, boys," he said around the 
toothbrush.  "I'm forty today."  They did not pause from 
their eating.

Mulder was about to start coffee when he noticed something on 
the floor by his front door.  It was an envelope.

Mulder looked around the room for anyone who might have put 
it there, and then ambled over to pick it up.  There was no 
writing on the front.  Shadowy informants sometimes slipped 
him newspaper clippings or phone numbers this way, but this 
felt a bit heavier.  Maybe they had gone all out for his 
birthday at "Conspiracies R Us."

Mulder lifted the flap and found an airline ticket inside.  
To Las Vegas.  With his name on it.  Still with the 
toothbrush in his mouth, he yanked open his front door and 
peered down the hallway.  It was empty.  He was in the 
process of checking the flight information on the ticket when 
his phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Happy birthday," Scully said from the other end.

"Scully, you're not going to believe what I found under my 
door this morning.  Some stranger just slipped me a ticket to 
Vegas."

"What a coincidence," she replied, deadpan.  "I seem to have 
a ticket for that exact same flight."

"Really?  But how do you know which flight..."  He paused.  
"Scully?"

"Howdy, stranger," she said, sounding pleased. 

He smiled and looked down at the ticket again.  "Why Vegas?"

"I figured our luck was due for a change."

XxXxX

They touched down in bright Vegas sunshine, desert dry and 
warm in the early fall.  They could have been anybody, in 
their casual clothes and dark shades, but they weren't.  They 
were Mulder and Scully, embarking on a tentative foray into 
happiness in a town where the lights in the sky came courtesy 
of the casinos and the only alien around was Wayne Newton.

Scully checked them into the Bellagio hotel, which featured a 
marble desk that stretched for about a mile.  A huge skylight 
covered with stained-glass flowers decorated the ceiling, and 
the air conditioning wafted the fragrant smell of the indoor 
garden throughout the lobby.

Their room was done in peach and tan fabric, with thick 
carpet and a view that looked out over the front of the 
hotel.  Mulder grinned when the fountains shot up thirty feet 
in the air.

"I could do the backstroke in this tub," Scully called from 
the bathroom, and Mulder walked over hoping for a different 
kind of water show.  But alas, she was just fixing her hair.

He met her gaze in the mirror.  "Well, Mulder," she said.  
"We're here.  What do you want to see first?"

He grinned.  "Everything."

XxXxX

Scully knew she had made the right choice as they walked 
along the strip and Mulder pointed out one spectacle after 
another like a little kid in neon sign store.  She mocked a 
woman wearing a T-shirt that read, "Kisses: 25 cents," and so 
Mulder promptly bought her one.  She promised never to wear 
it.  In revenge, she purchased him a baseball cap that had 
giant hands attached, which one could clap together by 
pulling on a string.  Sadly, he wore it immediately.

They wandered in and out of casinos, admiring the lions at 
MGM and the faux volcano at the Mirage.  Mulder won ten 
dollars at video poker.  

"I know just what to do with it, too," he said as they walked 
on.  The sun had disappeared and Vegas flickered to life.

"What?" Scully asked, fearing another shirt.

"That."  He pointed at the enormous roller coaster that 
encircled the New York, New York casino.

"Okay," Scully said.  "Have fun!"

"Scully..."  He tugged on her hand.  "It's Vegas.  Live a 
little!"

"Life, yes," she agreed.  "That's my concern here, and I 
would like to hang on to mine."  The track looked impossibly 
narrow, and at least part of the ride was spent upside down.

"It's my birthday," he said. 

Scully hesitated.  "I don't know..."

He grinned, knowing he had her, and tugged her hand again.  
"Come on, Scully.  I want to hear you scream."

In line, she eyed the cars hurtling past while Mulder rubbed 
his hands together with glee.  "You know, studies show that 
roller coasters are like the ultimate dating tool," he said.  
"Horror movies aren't bad either."

"As long as we aren't mixing the two," she said, still 
watching the plummeting coaster warily.

"Fear promotes attraction.  The brain takes the intense 
emotion and interprets it as lust."

Scully figured this explained some things about her life over 
the past seven years.

At last it was their turn to climb on board.  "I hate you," 
Scully said clearly as the car started forward.  The wind 
tangled her hair.

"See?" Mulder yelled.  "Intense emotion!  It's working 
already!"

Anything else he said was lost in her scream as they hit the 
first drop.  Scully gripped the rails and shut her eyes.  She 
heard the metal wheels rattling along the tracks, the wind in 
her ears, and beside her, Mulder laughing the whole time.

XxX

They cleaned up for dinner.  Because it was his birthday, not 
hers, Mulder did not wear a suit and tie.  He dressed in dark 
pants and a crisp white shirt open at the collar.  Because it 
was his birthday, not hers, Scully wore a short, skin-tight 
black dress with no back and her three-inch spike heels. 

His warm hand grazed down her bare spine as they walked to 
dinner, and Scully tingled.  "Hungry?" he asked.

"I think I left my stomach back on top of the Empire State 
Building."

Mulder, it turned out, had no such problems.  He put away a 
starting course of crab-stuffed mushrooms, a steak as big as 
his head, three glasses of wine, and over half of the 
breadbasket.  Scully had a spinach salad with sugared pecans 
and crumbled bleu cheese, and a nice piece of fish.  She did, 
however, manage to keep pace with him on the wine.

"Is this the part where the waiters sing 'Happy Birthday'?" 
he asked, leaning across the table as one of the tuxedoed 
wait-staff whisked their dinner plates away.

Scully regarded him over her wine glass.  "If you wanted a 
birthday serenade, Mulder, you should have picked a 
restaurant with a clown on the outside."

"I'll settle for a birthday dance then," he said, and held 
out his hand.

Scully glanced at the dance floor and listened to the 
stringed music being piped in; it did not sound too fast.  
She guessed she could manage the mix of music, high heels and 
alcohol, at least for one dance.  Mulder's strong hand caught 
hers and helped her to her feet.  She followed him in silence 
across floor.

The found a shadowed corner for themselves, and his palm once 
again pressed against her bare back.  She placed her hand 
lightly over his bicep and tried not to flush.  "Thank for 
this," he murmured as they swayed.

"It's just a dance, Mulder."

"No, the whole trip.  I don't know what I did to deserve it, 
after everything that's happened, but I'm grateful 
nonetheless."

"Mulder-"

"Just listen for a sec, okay, Scully?  I know these last four 
months have been absolute hell for you, and I know I didn't 
always do everything I could to make them easier.  The fact 
that despite it all, despite the big mess we've made, you'd 
still want to be here with me, tonight..."  He grinned.  
"Dressed in that outfit..."

"Mulder."

"It means the world," he said, sobering.  "So thank you."

Scully blinked rapidly and managed a wobbly smile.  "Mulder," 
she said, "the fact that you still want to be here, with me, 
tonight, after everything that happened, is *exactly* what 
you've done to deserve this."

He pulled her closer, and she kissed his neck.  "So thank 
you," she whispered.

XxX

The door to their room swung open, and Mulder and Scully 
stumbled in, still attached at the mouth.  Mulder did not so 
much carry her across the threshold as drag her there, with 
her shoes scraping the carpet the whole way.  She backed him 
up against the wall, climbing him like he was her own 
personal jungle gym.  Mulder's hand found its way under her 
dress to her ass to help her out.

She felt his arm muscles, hard under his shirt, supporting 
her like she was nothing.  His fingers splayed over her ribs, 
and she hugged his waist with her knees.  Kissing.  God, 
she'd missed kissing him.  He smelled like cotton, like skin, 
like sweat.  He tasted like wine.  

Scully ran her hands through his hair, feeling his warm scalp 
and the tender skin behind his ears.  Mulder made agreeable 
noises against her mouth and kept her busy with his tongue.

Breathless, she broke away and pressed tiny kisses along his 
throat.  Mulder hugged her.  Scully leaned back to smile at 
him, and found him staring back at her with huge dark eyes.  
He was smiling, yes, but he also looked a little bit scared.  
She placed her palms on the wall behind him.  He licked his 
lips.

"Mulder," she said softly, "you know we don't have to do 
anything you don't want to do."

"That's supposed to be my line."

She pushed some hair back from his forehead and smiled.  "You 
can say it too, if you want."

He thrust his hips at her.  "Does that feel like I want to 
stop?"

No, thank God.  Scully grazed her lips along his cheek, his 
jaw.  She remembered things could change.  "Just... no 
pressure," she said into his neck.  He rubbed the back of her 
head.

"No pressure," he agreed.  They held each other for a long 
minute, and then Scully eased herself to the floor.  She took 
his hand and led him in the direction of the giant bed.  He 
stood close, his breathing shallow, while she slipped off her 
sandals.  When she was done, she stretched up and took his 
face in her hands, bringing him down to her mouth for another 
lingering kiss.

"Happy birthday, Mulder," she murmured as they rested their 
foreheads together.  His fingertips glided over her shoulders 
and down her arms.  Her nerve endings sparked like the Vegas 
lights.  They stood there, her arms loose around his waist, 
his hands stroking her.  She placed her ear over his heart 
and listened to the erratic beat.

He nudged the straps of her dress down.  "I am dying to know 
what you're wearing under this thing," he whispered into her 
hair.

"Not a whole lot."

"So I am discovering."  His thumbs slid up her ribs and 
glided over the swell of her breasts.  Scully tugged his 
shirt free from his pants and giddily devoured the naked skin 
underneath.

He kissed her.

Scully's heart picked up speed with each article of clothing 
that they lost.  Mulder stood mostly naked before her, 
erection obvious through his boxers.  She was half afraid to 
touch it for fear of scaring it away.  His hand reached 
around her ass again, fingers toying with the edge of her 
underwear.  She could feel the tension in him.

"Mulder?"

"I, uh, I brought the condoms," he said.  "They're in my 
bag."

She kissed his chest.  "It's okay."

"Yeah?"

It did not make for the most romantic chitchat, but she owed 
him the full truth.  "Watts had to give a blood sample for 
the DNA test before trial, and they tested it for HIV.  He's 
clean."

"Scully, that's great."  Mulder hugged her.  "Really great."

"Yeah," she said from where she was smushed against him.  "So 
lose the boxers, G-man."

"Yes, ma'am."  And so Mulder took off his clothes.  Scully 
followed suit and joined him on the down-turned covers.  He 
gathered her into his arms for some more kissing, his thigh 
slipping lazily between hers.  Her body felt hot and heavy 
with desire.

She touched the smooth skin over his hips and the long plane 
of his back.  Mulder put a couple of inches between them so 
he could stroke between her thighs.  She jerked at the first 
contact.

"Okay?" he asked, somewhat worried.

"Yes," she hissed between gritted teeth.  It was all she 
could do not to thrust down on his hand.  She closed her 
eyes.  She could feel him watching her as he worked, her 
nipples hardening.  Her breath came high and fast.

"Scully," he said, a whispered word over her mouth.  She 
grabbed him and kissed him hard.  

More, more, more, she thought, dizzy and hot and almost, 
almost there.  Mulder worked a couple of fingers in and out 
of her, his thumb on her clit and his tongue in her mouth.  
He was in her and on her and everywhere and she never wanted 
to leave him again.

"Oh!" she gasped as the waves started.  She clutched him 
tight, arm around his neck as she arched up from the bed.  
Mulder said something in her hair but she didn't understand 
him.  "Oh," she sighed again a minute later, breathing hard 
as the world came back into focus.  Mulder lay half on top of 
her, kissing her temple.  His erection poked her belly.  She 
stretched to kiss his lips.  "Mmmm," she said, figuring that 
covered everything she was feeling right then.

Mulder chuckled.  "Liked that, did you?"

"'S not even my birthday," she replied, hugging him.

Mulder was quiet.  "Well, at least this way you won't be 
disappointed, no matter what," he said at last.

Scully drew back and looked in his eyes.  "Mulder," she said, 
toying with his hair, "you have *never* disappointed me.  
Never."

He smiled like he didn't quite believe her.

"Never," she repeated, rolling him on top of her.   She 
stroked his brow, his arms, his chest.  He smiled down at 
her.

"So, Scully, when people ask me if I got lucky in Las 
Vegas..."

"Well, Mulder..."  She smiled.  "Let's just say luck is lady 
tonight."

He held his breath as he pushed inside her.  When he was 
fully in, they both relaxed.  "Good?" he asked, still 
anxious.

"Very."  She ran her hands up and down his back.  They kissed 
as he began to move.  Scully caught his rhythm and lay back, 
enjoying the thick feel of him sliding in and out.  Mulder's 
breathing accelerated.  He got that faraway look in his eye 
that made her feel powerful and tender all at once.

"Scully?" he said uncertainly.

"I love you," she said near his ear, and he was lost.

XxXxX

At the end of October, Gregory Watts was sentenced to ninety 
years in prison.  That night, snuggled against Mulder on his 
couch, Scully watched Watts on the news.  He looked blank 
with terror, as if he might just pass out in the courtroom as 
the judge passed sentence, as if the enormity of the 
situation had dawned on him at last.

"He's just sorry he got caught," Mulder said.  "I hope they 
throw away the key."

The judge had a few words about how vile the crimes were.  
Scully did not need to listen to that part; she had lived it.  
She eased away from Mulder.

"The food will be ready by now," she said.  "I'll go get it."

They were trying a new Indian place on the other side of 
town.  Mulder caught her hand and squeezed.  "Scully, I can 
go.  You stay here and relax."

"No," she said firmly.  She gave him a quick kiss and stood.  
"You set the table.  I'll be back in a few."

She grabbed her purse, her keys, and her glasses, humming to 
herself as she went out the door.

This time, she took her gun.

XxXxX

~End~

Author's notes:

First, big chocolate-covered Mulders of thanks to my ace beta 
team: Amanda, bugs, Elizabeth and Tali.  The story is 
stronger for your input, thank you!  Bugs had to listen to me 
kvetch and moan on the phone about the story. She also served 
as my "read it in one gulp" beta.  Tali and Elizabeth 
patiently went over it chapter by chapter, spotting my errors 
and offering encouragement.  Amanda, however, gets the beta 
purple heart.  She saw the story line by line and then reread 
it all at once.  She was unflagging in her support for five 
very long, long months.  Yay, Amanda!

Mwah to all you!  Thanks!

Thanks also to those who have come along for the ride.  I 
know this wasn't an easy story. 

If you made it to the end, I would love to know what you thought.
I can be found at syn_tax6@yahoo.com

Cheers, syn 

Split the Lark

Feb 200e - July 2003