E-Mail: COMBS-BACHMANN@WORLDNET.ATT.NET
Date Finished: March 27, 2000
Rating: NC-17 for explicit sex, and references to a difficult subject-- crimes against children. These are not portrayed, or referred to in graphic terms.
Category: S, A, MSR, RST, Story, Angst, Mulder/Scully Romance, Resolved Sexual Tension
Archiving permission: Please archive for Spookys. Anyone else may also archive this. Just keep my name with it.
Spoilers: Small ones for "Rainman" and "The Sixth Extinction." Big ones for "Amor Fati."
Disclaimer: Chris Carter, David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, and Ten Thirteen productions created and own the characters you recognize. My writing is for fun, not profit.
Summary: Mulder and Scully became lovers before Christmas. Can they manage to integrate this new level of intimacy into their friendship and work? Their new bond is tested to the breaking point when Mulder questions Scully's dedication to his quest for Samantha.
Setting: The D.C. area and a resort in South Carolina. It takes place on Valentine's Day weekend in the late winter of the year 2000. It precedes "Sein und Zeit."
Thanks: I owe thanks, as always, to the incomparable "Deep Background, " created by Pellinor, now managed by Brynna and Jenna. I also thank bugs for friendship and advice, and for the beautiful website she created for my stories. See the url below.
Wesite:http://urw.simplenet.com/branwell

He watched himself in the mirror as he conscientiously swished around a stinging mouthful of minty liquid. It was then he noticed it. A small palm print stood out darkly on his chest, just above his left nipple. The fingers were spread, forming an asymmetrical star on his paler skin. Scully had slept with her head on his shoulder, one hand resting possessively over his heart. The pressure had marked her territory.

The sight sent a shiver through Mulder. His reaction combined equal parts gratification and apprehension. Scully had chosen him as a lover, as her mate. He was fortunate, and proud, and undeserving. Mulder considered tracing the shape with a ballpoint pen and visiting a tattoo parlor later in the day. An artist could make a striking design out of that shape-stark and elemental, like cave art. He would ask for red ink, ink the color of blood. Then he and Scully would have matching tattoos-- his proclaiming his subjection to her, hers screaming her independence from him.

She regretted that tattoo, and had spoken tentatively about having it removed. He'd resisted the temptation to blurt out "Hell, yes!" Instead he mildly remarked that Frohike could recommend a good place to have it done.

He didn't say it out loud, but he was thinking that she shouldn't lose the tattoo on his account. He'd never be able to keep Scully.

Once again the terrifying idea sprouted hardily and sent out speedy tendrils. They strangled rational thought like superkudzu overwhelming an unwary landscape. She said she loved him. She did love him. Right now she even needed him. But sooner or later he would do something awful and unforgivable.

Maybe they could go back to being partners. Mulder told himself he could survive on those terms. Would a tattoo commemorating their time as lovers prove a comfort or a torment? The print of Scully's hand on his chest had already faded almost into invisibility.

He heard sounds of movement from the bedroom. It was too late to catch her nestled in vulnerable nakedness. Mulder headed for the kitchen.

Scully stood at the sink washing a few dishes left from last night's quick, late dinner. The smile she flashed over her shoulder at him still held a trace of shyness at his unabashed nudity. The light of that smile drove his dark thoughts back into the deepest, most shadowy parts of his brain. Her pale, satiny robe was the same one she wore on the day they first became lovers.

Mulder corralled Scully against the sink with his arms and body.

"Good morning," she greeted him. "I'm glad to see you too," she added as he pressed his swelling erection against her back.

"I'll make you gladder," he replied happily, rubbing his cock up and down in a tight, energetic pattern above her buttocks. His flat palms brushed her nipples through the robe with just enough friction to make her squirm back against him.

"We'll be late," Scully warned unconvincingly. "The coffee will be done in a few minutes."

"So will we," he promised, lifting her hair and blowing gently on the exposed area.

She let her head hang forward to bare more skin to him. Mulder bent down and bit her neck with cautious gusto. She responded by lifting her ass toward his groin, falling short by many inches.

Mulder hooked the step stool from under the kitchen table with his right foot and dragged it between them. "C'mon, step up on this," he told her.

"Why don't we just go to the bed . . . ." She broke off with an "ummph" when he took her around the waist and lifted her onto the plastic step.

"It's too far away," Mulder intoned dreamily. It didn't seem important to mention he'd been fantasizing regularly about taking her from behind. The pliant curves of her hips and buttocks activated a primitive circuit in his brain that led directly to his testicles.

His hands found their way under the robe. He traced the triangle of hair over her mons, gradually increasing the pressure. One finger slipped into the crack of flesh between her thighs.

Scully brought her legs together and tightened her thigh muscles forbiddingly. Mulder changed tactics and worked the tie on the robe until it fell open. Taking a breast in each hand he used his index and middle fingers to draw the nipples out with repeated gentle pulls. The tips crinkled like quilted plush.

Her thighs loosened and parted. His right hand went under her ass to her increasingly wet crotch. She jumped when he touched her clitoris. He stroked backwards, repeatedly dragging two fingers across the slippery nerve center and then dipping them into her. She moaned softly, checked herself, and then spoke.

"Doesn't it strike you as demeaning to women that men like to initiate sex while women do domestic chores in the kitchen? It's that French maid fantasy. You want to . . . do it while I do something feminine and subservient. Ohhhh."

"I don't care if you're composing your acceptance speech as Surgeon General," he rasped. "It's your ass, Scully. The way it looks from behind and when you bend over a little. It's so round, and so . . . female." He ended with a guttural moan of his own as he held her open with his fingers and slid his hard cock into her from behind. Then his right hand returned to her front, where he started making circles around her clitoris.

Scully braced straight arms on the sink, her hands still wet from dishwashing. "But you don't react like that when I bend over at the office to pick something up," she persisted. "Ummmm."

"Who says I don't?" he panted. "Scully, let's be quiet now." His breathing seemed noticeably louder in the silence that followed.

"Not that kind of quiet," he pleaded moments later. "The kind of quiet where you make those little mewing sounds," he explained. He pushed into her with renewed energy and gave the back of her neck a lengthy, liquid tonguing. Scully's warm, fine-grained skin appeased his mouth the way her silky vaginal folds eased his cock.

Scully gasped and giggled simultaneously. He responded with a firmer touch to her clitoris and she started to moan softly and continuously. She added her own up and down motion counterposed to his.

Mulder sighed with satisfaction. The rocking of his pelvis reduced its arc and took on more speed.

In less than two months of sexual bliss Mulder had forgotten how or why he'd gone so long without. His muscles were made for this, the lifting, the thrusting, the bracing of her body against his. He knew she liked it. The sensations he gave her left her speechless, forced to rely on inarticulate syllables and exclamations for expression. He, dim poster boy for the intimacy challenged, understood her sounds. Giving and taking, acting and reacting, they satisfied each other perfectly.

Every time they fucked there was a moment when she made the decision to suspend her autonomy. She put herself into his power and let him take her to places where they both lost control. It never failed to fill him with wonder and pride.

He felt the quivering begin in her extremities. Then she was crying out "Ohhh . . . Ohh Mulder." Her vaginal walls pulsed, sucking at him like a hungry mouth. The subtle squeezing and the sound of her enjoyment brought him to the brink almost instantly. He lifted Scully from the stool with a hand under each hip joint. She sank down, her arms folded across her rib cage, breasts spilling into bouncing freedom over the sink. Her forearms on its edge took the weight of her upper body.

He pushed into her faster, relishing the increased wetness that slicked his way even more thoroughly, certain that coming couldn't feel any better than this. Within seconds he found that it could. The familiar and forever new cascade of pleasure ricocheted wildly through muscles and nerves. The delight converging in his groin almost overmastered his other senses. He thought he heard himself chanting Scully's name while his balls and cock pumped ecstatically into her.

When the intensity of his orgasm faded he found himself kissing her neck again. The tender, cherishing kisses led nowhere-- they were their own sensual reward. He leaned over her more closely and whispered into her ear. "We have to go back to bed now. My legs are shaking. They're too weak to hold me up."

"You're holding me up too, Mulder. Try letting me down and see how your legs feel."

He pulled out, slightly hard but swiftly shrinking. After lowering her feet to the floor he leaned against the counter with exaggerated languor. "I'm still weak, Scully. Help me to bed," he ordered, draping one arm heavily over her shoulders.

She laughed and shook her head, but the important thing was that she went.

They lay together for another fifteen minutes. With touches light as snowflakes they petted comfort and love into each other's skin. The digital alarm clock reproached them with constant, fretful updates to the minute display. Mulder told himself they had a thousand hours of overtime accumulated on the Universal Moral Scoreboard. He rejected guilt as an irrational response.

This was perfect. Today he might not think about Samantha. Or how someday he was going to lose Scully.

*****

The afterglow survived the walk to their cars. An oppressive leaden sky and freezing puddles on the pavements left Scully unfazed. She took the road at a conservative pace. During her commute she convinced herself once again that they maintained appearances. They drove to work separately. They kept their own apartments, even if they did take turns sleeping in each other's beds.

It made her dizzy to think of how much had changed in two months.

Many years ago Scully walked into the kitchen where her harried mother argued with Bill and Charlie over whose turn it was to take out the garbage. A long holiday marked by varied schedules and odd mealtimes left the boys with scope to dispute the responsibility. Their father's authority would have settled it instantly. Their mother listened to them.

"Ah, the voice of reason," she exclaimed at Scully's appearance. "Whose turn is it Dana?"

Scully considered the matter. "Bill took the garbage out on Christmas Eve. Charlie took it out on Christmas, but Bill helped because there was so much. Charlie took the next night because Bill was at Greg's house. Then he took the next night too because Bill went to the movies with Cheryl." She paused here to smack her lips at Bill in a parody of a kiss. He frowned back and pounded a fist into his palm. "Then we all went out to eat the next night. Bill and Charlie alternated the next five nights, so tonight is Bill's turn."

"NO! I took it out last night."

"I know. But that will even it out for the double duty Charlie did while you were trying to lick the butter off Cheryl's . . . ."

Their mother broke in. "Dana! That's enough of that. A girl can be smart and still be a lady! Bill, take out the garbage. Not another word!"

Two years later, when he knew she coveted a funky, free-spirited persona, Bill revived his sister's "Voice of Reason" nickname.

If she passed the doorway of his room where he and a friend listened to Black Sabbath or Led Zeppelin, Bill would nod in her direction. "There goes the 'Voice of Reason,'" he'd shout, barely audible over the throbbing chords.

When his father was home on leave the dissonance of rebellion buzzed behind the stretched fabric of the speakers like trapped flies. The rest of the year it rattled the windows. Bill ignored his sister's stern warnings of cumulative damage to the hair cells of the inner ear.

If friends arrived and asked for her at the door he never failed to put on a show. "Dana? Dana? Oh!" He hit his forehead with the heel of his hand and showed relief at finally understanding. "You mean 'The Voice of Reason?'"

When he left for the academy Scully missed Bill even less than she expected. But the label stayed with her-- both a jeer and a comfortably defined identity. After she joined the X-Files she clung to it with desperate passion.

Two months ago she gave it the heave-ho. She made an occasional feeble gesture toward rationality. Sometimes she went through the motions of pausing to consider all the implications of a choice. It was never an important one, like the choice she and Mulder made to become lovers.

There had been a moment of choice, hadn't there? In her memory the event took on the fatality of an avalanche roaring down on unsuspecting Alpine skiers. There was no escape, but they could try to swim with it.

For now she let unleashed desire sweep her along in a mad rush down the mountain. Today they would be late for work.

On New Year's Eve she let him kiss her in public, just as the ball dropped into the next year. She barely remembered to break it off quickly and casually. Before she did her expression probably revealed as much as a love sonnet to any bystanders.

Just last Sunday Scully made a last minute excuse to get out of dinner at her mother's. "I think I feel a cold coming on. I'm going to bed early." It was her panties coming off under Mulder's eager tugs that compromised her schedule. The part of the lie about early bed turned out to be true.

In her bureau lay a silk Valentine's Day tie. It wasn't red; Mulder couldn't see red anyway. It was silvery gray, with a woven pattern of rose and brier entwined in love knots. She knew exactly how sappy it was. She still planned to give it to him this Sunday. If his mood held he'd probably wear it to the office on Monday. Skinner would be hard pressed to remain in the dark as they beamed at each other over manila folders.

*****

At the end of the day they went to Mulder's apartment. Tonight it was his turn to play host. But first they had a social engagement. Frohike had been nagging them to come over and admire the Gunmen's latest cyberspace accomplishment. Their computer model of the alien space ship found on the African coast was ready for its unveiling. Somehow Mulder ended up agreeing to bring dinner. Scully phoned in the pizza order before they left.

Mulder drove through the wet, misty streets one-handed. He used his right hand to reassure himself of Scully's presence beside him. Occasionally he went too far in checking details and she wrestled his hand playfully to the seat, trapping it between her own. After a sly pause he'd reclaim it and resume his tactile survey of Scully's hills and valleys.

Inside Barthalomew's Pizzeria the warm air was heavy with moisture and garlic. Scully felt that everyone must recognize her hot cheeks and bright eyes for what they were. But the two men spinning pizza dough appeared oblivious. They took her money without comment and passed three large boxes back across the counter.

After the requisite pause for a security check, Frohike opened the door to the agents and their fragrant offering. "I've cleared off the table," he said, nodding toward towers of CD's, diskette cases and papers leaning against the wall.

No one bothered with plates or silverware. Byers handed around paper napkins and straws for the sodas.

"Do you want the Special with onions?" Mulder asked Scully as he opened the first box.

She tried to read his face. Was he going to have onions? She would eat them in self-defense.

"No, I'll have the cheese only," she answered.

He set that box aside and helped them both to slices of cheese pizza. Scully realized that Frohike had watched the whole exchange with a sardonic grin. Maybe they hadn't kept up appearances as well as she thought.

While they ate Langly enthused about his model. He'd taken Scully's enlarged photos and wrapped the pictographs around a computer-generated form.

"Maybe they took the ship but we've got it in the virtual world," he asserted.

Scully would have preferred to forget all about the mysterious, ovoid shape, and her surreal experiences on the African coast. But that would be dishonest. It all happened. Somehow it had to fit into the universe.

She wouldn't hurt Langly's pride by observing that they didn't have a clue about the interior of the craft. An engineering analysis would be far more telling than tentative solutions to a pictorial code. She'd already decided it might be the alien equivalent of nursery rhyme wallpaper. Maybe infant aliens lisped couplets about Adam and Eve, and houris with breasts like melons, instead of poems about Jack and Jill and moon-vaulting cows. Maybe all of earth's religions had more in common with the Cargo Cults than they knew.

It was only a few steps from the littered table to the heart of the Gunmen's lair.

She knew they kept every computer they ever acquired. Frohike rebuilt them constantly as chips gained in speed and capacity. Langly networked all of them, remorselessly patching the operating systems as needed. The mismatched array of jumping screens and flashing lights made Scully think of a New Millennium Frankenstein's monster.

"It's unnatural," Mulder said, when he saw three-dimensional rotating graphics of a spacecraft on a screen rigged into an old Commodore casing.

Langly smiled and zoomed in on a section of hieroglyphics. "Wait 'til you hear the computer's new voice. Frohike's been working on the audio database. Play them the greeting Byers," he ordered.

Byers looked pained, but he clicked on an icon of full red lips.

"Happy birthday to you, Mel-vin," sang a breathy, little-girl voice.

"We voted on it," Byers said disapprovingly. "It wasn't unanimous."

Frohike sat at a different monitor, scrolling through the results of a search. "Here are the details on that lead. It's a negative, like I told you last week." He glanced over at Mulder, who nodded absently. Scully shrugged and shook her head when Frohike looked a question at her. He elaborated.

"A body turned up in a morgue in Paterson, New Jersey last week. They found her when they started digging the foundations for a new housing development. A pre-adolescent girl with an old break in her collarbone. They estimated the burial took place between 1970 and 1975. But it only took them two days to make a positive identification from dental records and scraps of clothing. She was Teresa Bucher. Went missing from a campground in 1972 when she wandered away from her family. They're running DNA tests to be sure. It's cut and dried-- not like that case back in August."

Scully's stomach lurched. She prayed Mulder hadn't been listening. He turned casually to Frohike and blasted her small hope.

"What case in August?" Mulder inquired.

Frohike went on scanning as he answered. "The one Scully told you about. The body they found near the old leprosy research facility at Perkey, West Virginia.

"Scully?" He turned to her with a worried frown. "Did you tell me about a body in West Virginia and I forgot?"

He'd presented her with the perfect out. She could explain that yes, she told him and he must have forgotten. It would add only one more degree of anxiety to his lingering doubts about possible brain damage from his unorthodox surgery.

She couldn't do it.

"No Mulder. I didn't tell you," she answered. Scully felt her cheeks growing hot with shame. The torchbearer for ethics, the denouncer of ditching tactics, had to admit to a deception.

"You said he was satisfied . . . ." Langly began with an insistent whine.

Byers came up behind him and clapped a hand on his shoulder. Langly winced and glared over his shoulder at Byers, who broadcast bland and thoughtful.

Mulder just sat staring at her.

"You weren't really well yet. I checked it out myself. It wasn't Samantha. I was satisfied on his behalf," she directed defensively at Langly.

"But . . . ." he began again. "Owww!" he broke off, as Byers fingers turned white on his shoulder.

Frohike looked as sad as if he'd caught Scully rifling his wallet.

"Tell me about it now, Scully," Mulder said in a carefully neutral voice.

She gulped and prepared to do penance.

"It started when Les Cooley went squirrel hunting in the woods near the old institute. His dog brought back a human bone. Mr. Cooley followed him and found signs of a grave and a few more scattered bones. He went to the local sheriff. He and a deputy dug up the body of a young girl. She'd broken her left collarbone at some point. It had healed before she died. There was other . . . damage that hadn't. They found no clothes with the body. There was a plastic doll in the grave."

"Did they record the removal of the body and preserve the surrounding soil?" Mulder asked grimly.

Scully shook her head. "They took a few pictures, put the bones into a body bag and delivered it to the county coroner. Sheriff Payton said that once the ground was disturbed, animals would scatter the bones during the night. There wasn't time for a team to get there."

"They could have guarded it," Mulder muttered.

"There were only the two of them. Anyway . . . ." she faltered at the sight of his coldly composed features. "No one who lives there will go near that old facility after dark. They say it's haunted."

"I don't doubt that," Mulder said scornfully. "The question is 'Who haunts it?'"

"Frohike called me . . . you . . . on a Thursday. I answered your phone and told him I'd look into it." Scully set her jaw firmly. "You were still pacing the floor six hours a day when you weren't out running, or knocked out by medication. I decided to handle it. I made arrangements to do a post mortem myself that Saturday."

"No rush, huh? It's only the most important thing in my life to find out what happened to my sister." He rose and started stalking back and forth between the door and the table where Scully sat.

"I couldn't leave right away," she forced between clenched teeth.

She couldn't leave until she'd made arrangements for someone to check in on him. That week he was so emotionally fragile he wept at every twilight. So frantic he kept the radio, television and CD player all blaring constantly in case the voices returned. He insisted on helping her profile the Broad River Butcher. The next day he couldn't stop moving or talking long enough to eat. It took twice his usual medication to put him to sleep. He wouldn't admit his need for care, then or now.

Scully kept her temper and continued with a sigh of resignation. "When I got there the sheriff apologized. The remains had been mislabeled and picked up for cremation by mistake. It was too late," she finished with a lift of her chin.

They all jumped as Mulder stormed across the floor and hit the table with both fists. Scully felt the Gunmen's horrified stares on them both. The three were trapped like children forced to witness a violent quarrel between their parents.

"Damn it, you had no right to keep me in the dark. I would've gone there right away. We could've had DNA testing done. Maybe it was her!" He spun away, his hands still clenched at his sides as he strode to the door.

"No, it wasn't her. I made sure," Scully protested to his stiff back. Everything had blown up so quickly she was floundering. What could she say to calm him into a reasonable mood?

" They used radiation on those people," he said. He leaned against the wall by the door with an unfocused look. "Burning them, making them sick . . . . ."

Scully rose and went to him, her arms outstretched. "Don't, Mulder. It wasn't her. I can't prove it, but when I talked to an old woman there . . . ."

He pushed her hands away. "Don't you. Don't touch me. You're the one who's always telling me it's not worth talking about if you can't prove it. How can you be such a fool? They stole her body to keep me from finding out the truth." Grief and anger distorted his face. "Damn. Damn. I thought I could trust you." He slammed out the door, leaving a silence as cold as deep space.

Scully blinked back tears and turned to face three pairs of judgmental eyes.

"I know you meant well, but, uh, he's probably right about the body," Frohike suggested in a subdued voice.

"Yeah. Getting rid of a thirty year-old corpse would be nothing. We've seen it all before," Langly chimed in.

Too stunned by the sudden catastrophe to argue, Scully prepared to follow Mulder. She struggled numbly with the buttons of her coat, remembering to grab his coat on her way out.

"Don't you want a ride?" Byers stammered hurriedly. "We saw on the surveillance camera that Mulder drove tonight," he explained with a look of apology.

Scully searched for the monitor that showed the area where they parked. Byers was right. Mulder had taken the car and stranded her at the Gunmen's.

She nodded and stood mute while Byers collected his coat and briefcase. He ushered her out the door and into his car as if she would burst like a soap bubble under a careless touch. A long succession of orangey-pink streetlights flashed by in silence. Then she noticed that Byers was switching lanes to take the route to her apartment. "No. Take me to his apartment," she corrected him.

He drifted back into the through lane. "It might be better to give him time to cool off," he said after a moment of hesitation. After he's had time to think . . . ." His sentence faded into the sound of tires hissing on watery pavement.

"My car is there. And I've got his coat." Her sensible words came out less confidently than she wished.

"Call us if you need someone," Byers told her at the door. He showed no surprise when she took out a key and let herself into the dark apartment.

"Thanks for the ride," she said. She entered and closed the door while Byers still stood undecided in the hallway.

Scully called Mulder's name as she turned on the lights. After checking the bedroom and kitchen she returned to the living room and sat on the couch to wait. She could explain everything. She could ease his suffering over Samantha's possible fate. He had to listen.

At the Gunmen's place something had kept him from hearing her. He had to listen to her here. When it was just the two of them he'd be more open-minded. Usually he was receptive to a fault.

But how could she blame him for losing faith in her? She had lied to the Gunmen. Maybe not in words. Certainly by implication. And she withheld facts from Mulder. She put off the telling again and again, until finally the incident no longer occupied a significant place in her thoughts.

In her own mind the issue was settled. She knew the truth-- the body was not his sister's. Once she thought it a kindness to spare Mulder the details. Now she would have to work a thousand times harder to convince him they were true.

They had come through so much together. It hadn't occurred to her that he could ever question her trustworthiness again. As the shock from his tirade wore off, the hurting began. And it was all her fault.

Mulder drove in a blazing rage. He felt himself glowing with righteous fury, like a comet incandescing in the solar wind.

She had no right-- no damn right-- to keep a possible lead to his sister from him. His only chance to learn Samantha's fate might be gone. Because Scully didn't care about the truth as much as he did. Other things came first-- like his mental health. That was a laugh. When had it ever been better than marginal? Never worth sacrificing the truth to preserve.

His instincts had been right all along. His quest was his alone. No one would or could share it. Emotional relationships had no place in his life. They only drained his energy and complicated things.

Sex. It was the sex. Like every man since Adam he'd let himself be seduced into complicity. While he played house happily with Scully, Samantha might be . . . anything! It was his fault as much as Scully's. No. His guilt was much greater, because Samantha was his sister.

He would tell Scully that their intimacy was over. They could still be partners, but she had to regain his trust. He was no boyfriend to be led around by his dick.

Lonely despair flooded him as he reached these decisions. It had a dark, bitter taste, like a lungful of cigarette smoke after long abstention. It also brought the same heady rush, and sense of comfortable familiarity, as that first, re-addicting drag.

This was how his life was meant to be. One long SNAFU---Situation Normal, All Fucked-Up. He told himself this truth over and over while he looked for a bar close to his apartment building. Tomorrow he'd go to Perkey, West Virginia and conduct his own investigation down a hopelessly cold trail. In the meantime he'd throw a wake for his short-lived happiness. It would be a small but tasteful affair, attended only by himself and a bottle of tequila gold.

*****

In the cab going home Mulder muddled through disjointed memories of the past few hours. He thought he remembered the bartender at The Apocalypse taking away a bottle still half-full. How could he feel this unsteady after only half a bottle? Back at Oxford . . . . He maintained he could have walked home. That one unlucky stumble on the way out brought the bouncer over, synthetic concern oozing out in a fake smile. He levered Mulder into a chair and placed a big, friendly hand on his shoulder while the bartender called a cab. Mulder didn't care enough to fight.

Most of his brain was satisfactorily anesthetized now. His stomach didn't share the benefit. He realized quickly he should avoid thinking about it. Instead he appreciated the irony of his situation for the first time.

For weeks he'd lived in fear that he'd do something to drive Scully away. He'd never once considered the possibility that she'd commit the outrage, and force him to renounce her.

Maybe he hadn't figured the tip right. The cab driver roared away instantly when he shut the door. There was a definite suggestion of malice in the way he gunned his motor. Mulder negotiated the icy steps outside his apartment with exaggerated caution. People fell and hit their heads in this kind of weather. They died of hypothermia on their own doorsteps.

The elevator reminded his stomach of its grievances. He fumbled with the keys, but dropped them only once. As soon as he opened the door he saw Scully sitting on his couch, hurriedly straightening her posture and organizing her features into a serious, sympathetic expression.

"I'm glad you're home. I've been worried about you."

"What are you doing here?" He responded with a conscious challenge in his voice.

She opened her mouth, but no sound came out for a long moment. Ha! He'd nipped that "You're accountable to me" ploy in the bud. When she spoke he was sure it wasn't the speech she planned originally.

"You don't understand what happened in Perkey. I have to explain . . . ."

"Scully, I know you can explain. You can rationalize anything. You've been trained. I've provided unbeatable challenges to hone your skills. And you've performed like a pro."

A telltale flush crept up her neck and into her cheeks. She was getting angry.

"Mulder. Listen to me. I admit I was wrong. That doesn't change the facts. That wasn't Samantha's body. An old woman came to me and explained that it was her granddaughter's body."

"Right. I'm listening. When was she reported missing?"

"They never reported her missing. They told everyone she went to live with her mother in Kentucky."

Mulder found himself hoping. He wondered confusedly about what it would mean if she settled his doubts. Did it invalidate his decision to end their relationship? It didn't change anything about the realities of his life. He questioned her further.

"The grandmother thought she ran away but never filed a police report? Is that what you're saying? So she went to the police and claimed the body they found?"

"Well, no. She'd known all along Brandi was buried there. She didn't want to make it public."

"I guess not," Mulder observed, allowing sarcasm to seep back into his voice. "She committed murder, or covered one up, and then spilled it all to you. And you kept quiet about it. You haven't testified for any grand jury recently. That doesn't sound like the Scully I know." He understood now. He wasn't going to be forced to reconsider his decision.

"It wasn't that simple. She didn't do it. And there wasn't any case. There were no records that justified opening an investigation. The grandmother disappeared the day after I spoke to her."

"Shut up, Scully. That's enough. So there's no proof. It would have been a hell of a lot easier to swallow six months ago. Especially if you'd come to me voluntarily instead of being exposed accidentally."

He enjoyed seeing the guilt on her face---his self-appointed ethics advisor caught between a lie and an obfuscation.

"I . . . I was worried about you for a long time. I didn't think it would do any good to tell you and it might do harm. There was no need to hurt you again. We were . . . happy for a while." Her last words came out in a whisper.

The tears weren't good to see. They had too much power to shake him. He had to end this.

"Get out."

"What? It's after two o'clock. You've had too much to drink. Let's go to bed and talk about it in the morning."

"I've decided we can't . . . be lovers anymore," he announced. There, the hard part was over. "I can't afford the distraction. Things like this will happen over and over."

The shock on her face frightened him. Scully hadn't looked so pale since she'd been hospitalized for a gunshot wound. He had to get her out before his resolve failed.

"No. I know I was wrong. You can't want to throw everything away because I made one mistake," she protested.

"I was wrong to think this could ever work. Maybe we can still be partners. I'm not sure." Now that he'd seen her, he wasn't sure. The impulse to embrace and reassure her almost won out over reason. He'd have to summon hot anger to overcome his weakness.

"I won't leave like this. It doesn't make sense," she said stubbornly.

"This just proved something I suspected all along. Why won't you admit it? You're jealous of my focus on Samantha."

"Mulder how . . . ? After all I've done to help you . . . ."

He still saw disbelief alternating with the pain reflected in her expression.

"Just like you were jealous of Diana!" he thundered triumphantly.

How could Scully still be sitting on that couch? He walked up to her and pointed to the door. She didn't seem to be afraid of him. She should be.

He pulled back his right foot and brought it up as hard as he could under the coffee table. It hurt like hell, but it made an impressive noise when the table turned over and scooted a few feet across the room. The empty glasses on it shattered. Magazines and papers skidded in several directions. He couldn't bring himself to raise his hand to her, but he stood threateningly closer.

"You're right Scully. I'm drunk and right now I don't give a shit about anything. My life is shit. Do you want to stay and watch while I demonstrate how little I care?"

He still wasn't sure she was as scared as she should be, but she stood up and pulled on her coat. With deliberate politeness he opened the door for her and closed it very quietly in her white face. Sagging against the wall for a moment, he reflected that this was probably the first personal confrontation he'd ever won.

Then he staggered to his bedroom. The bed drew him with the gravitational force of a black hole. He fell into it.

*****

If he'd hit her she might have been able to forgive him, but he could never have forgiven himself. They both had a lot to forgive each other already. She'd be foolish to stay and multiply the sins.

The dramatic, total reversal in Mulder's attitude defied explanation. It was clearly linked to the possible lead to Samantha. Otherwise she'd have been tempted to test his water supply for drugs.

She expected anger. Still, in her worst imaginings she hadn't pictured this dismissal. She hadn't considered the possibility he'd stop loving her and cut her out of his life.

During the drive to Georgetown through dark, half-frozen streets, she fought hard to stay analytical. If she weren't careful the onslaught of emotion would knock her off her feet. Her hard-won connection to Mulder would be lost forever in a painful jumble of hurt feelings.

Mulder's comments about Samantha and Diana made no sense to her. She'd done everything humanly possible in Perkey to sort out the truth about Samantha. He wouldn't even listen to her account, as though he believed she'd lie about something so important. Although they'd never talked about it, they both knew that Diana had betrayed Mulder in the cruelest imaginable way. Scully couldn't summon up enough respect for the pathetic tool Diana had become to make jealousy possible.

Instead of questioning her investigation, Mulder had attacked her frantically, personally, testing different weapons until one worked to drive her away. What was he afraid of if she stayed?

As she lay in the bathtub, trying to leach the cold ache out of her body with hot water, Scully let the tears and sobs emerge. Their painfully constructed understanding, their joyful experiments in physical intimacy, their warm moments of mutual comfort and pleasure-- all were to be sacrificed uselessly to Mulder's quest.

She could fight creatures and conspiracies that attacked from the outside world. Only Mulder could defeat the malign influence of his own internal monsters. His mind had too many dark places where they grew fat and sleek.

He'd put them both through hell before he figured things out and came to her for forgiveness.

She didn't kid herself. She loved him and would forgive him. But she wouldn't let him batter both of them emotionally while he struggled to keep his distance. Going to the office on Monday would feel like stepping into a boxing ring. She wouldn't do it.

Instead she'd take up some old friends on a long-standing invitation. They'd be in Florida at this time of year. There was no rental demand for their condominium on the South Carolina beach in February.

"It's good for a property to have someone living in it. Who knows what could happen all those weeks it stands empty. Burglars? Squatters? I know how much you like the seaside, Dana," Mrs. Griffin told her vaguely.

When Naomi Griffin hired Scully to baby-sit all those years ago she provided long lists of phone numbers and strong cautions against opening the door to a stranger. Now she cut articles about assaults and burglaries out of the newspapers. She scratched bright red lines under the worst atrocities, and mailed them to her friends. It seemed to provide a distraction from the back pain that had gradually reduced her to a semi-invalid.

Every Christmas she called Scully to pass on the news about little Timmy and Brian. Scully had never felt so old as she did the year Brian earned his master's degree in political science. She remembered the time he pushed his brother downstairs for hogging the leftover brownies.

A month and half-ago Mrs. Griffin had once again invited Scully to use their Myrtle Grove condominium. In theory all she had to do was call the real estate company that managed the property, and make arrangements to pick up the key. Scully would find out if it was that simple.

Before dawn she gave up on lying in bed and packed a bag. The realtor's office hadn't opened yet; she left a message. While she waited for the return call, she sat at her PC and pulled up the file on the body found in Perkey. Eventually Mulder would return to sanity and ask for the information she'd found.

Her head swam in a tumult of anxiety for him, rage at his infantile self-absorption, and guilt at her own role in sparking the explosion. But she hadn't lost hope. She clung to the belief that seven years of devotion trumped one brief misunderstanding. A small, secret voice whispered that physical passion alone would undermine Mulder's intention. Now she knew how susceptible he was to small intimacies. How would he react to playful manipulation of his tie after a week of celibacy?

Once he'd asked her not to give up on him in spite of his shortcomings. In return she'd warned him she was stubborn. He had no idea.

In the midst of updating her notes on Perkey, the realtor called back. Scully found that Mrs. Griffin had spoken accurately. If Scully presented her ID at the office during business hours, she could have the key to unit 223 at the Delightful Haven. When she had the address, Scully printed a map of the Myrtle Grove area, and then the unfinished report. The map went into her purse, while the notes stayed for later evaluation.

She'd tell Skinner she was taking vacation time for family reasons. He hated to challenge her when she requested time on that basis. She knew he had to deal with his own guilt feelings about the X-files. Maybe he'd appreciate a chance to expiate some of it.

Scully avoided thinking about whether she should leave a message for Mulder. Her pride assured her conscience that this was a personal matter. After his repeated refusals to listen to her, she had no obligation to risk another rejection. Let him come to her. If she hadn't returned when he came around, he'd worry. Too bad. Maybe he'd get the idea that emotional confrontations had real consequences.

In her absence he could fight his inner demons with minimal trauma to both of them.

She conjured up the reliable roar of the surf, the salty, wet taste of the air on the beach, and the cleansing freshness of wind blown in over miles of ocean water. The Atlantic seacoast would be cold, gray, misty and damp, and she'd love it. Jogging and walking on the lonely strands would bring back childhood, when the sea could drive everything else from her mind. For a few days she'd try to forget everything since those innocent times.

Once she'd remarked to Mulder that it was the simplicity of the empty sky over open water that soothed her.

"You can see for miles without a shadow or hiding place."

"But Scully," he said with an amused grin, "there are depths beyond our reach in the ocean. In the last twenty years we've found eyeless creatures living on boiling hot chemicals that shoot out of vents in the ocean floor. It's the most mysterious place left on earth."

"Not if you stay on the surface," she answered determinedly.

*****

When he woke up the next day Mulder felt worse than he had after fighting zombies in the basement. He wouldn't have been surprised to feel the top of his spine protruding from his skull when he gingerly touched his aching head. Every step intensified the agony and renewed the nausea coiled in his belly. Water helped, followed by two packets of saltines left over from an order of take-out chili. On his wobbly way to the couch he sternly directed his thoughts away from chili.

The mess on his living room floor brought back a vivid picture of Scully's miserable face as he closed the door on her. If he hadn't been drunk, he never would have been so blunt and violent. But maybe he wouldn't have had the balls to make the break either. It was done now.

Chronic despair and loneliness once again dominated his psyche. Life would limp on as before. He refused to examine the uneasiness about Scully that dogged his thoughts. His plans to drive to Perkey took precedence over emotional concerns.

He'd handicapped himself by driving Scully away before he got the details of the case. Luckily she was big enough to overlook his tantrum and give him the information he needed. The thought brought a sudden lump to his throat. He remembered how small she had been wrapped in his arms on this very couch. Two nights ago she'd sat here on his lap and smiled that beautiful, grave smile. He'd never see it again.

Unless he decided to forgive her. The traitorous thought popped into his head with quantum randomness. He squelched it instantly. That wasn't the point. In his heart he'd already forgiven her. He couldn't go back to a state where he trusted her as he trusted himself. Her deepest needs and fears were a closed book to him. They would remain so. When she made choices her priorities would always override his. Scully was loyal and supportive, but finally a factor beyond his control. Physical intimacy tempted him to forget this fact. He wouldn't make that mistake again.

Mulder almost yelped with the pain in his bruised foot as he rose from the couch for another glass of water. After he called her and apologized, he'd ask for her notes. Scully always had notes.

He put off the telephone call until after he'd taken ibuprofen and waited for it to take effect. Then he found he had to have a shower. While he shaved he realized his stomach could handle some coffee. Since it was Saturday he'd take the time to use his coffee machine. First he had to go out and buy the coffee and filters.

It wasn't until he reached the sidewalk that he remembered he had a ten-minute walk to his car. Half a block down from the Apocalypse he drove by the American Bagel Factory. He decided to forget about making his own coffee. An order for a whole-wheat bagel with lite cream cheese leapt out of his mouth automatically when it was his turn at the counter. That was Scully's usual order.

Reality slapped hard at the careful walls he'd erected between his thoughts and emotions, like a sudden wave taking a big bite out of a sandcastle. His heart seemed to lose track of its rhythm, giving a series of erratic thumps. When it steadied again it galloped much too fast. He hurried out with the unneeded bagel and two coffees. It was two-thirty in the afternoon and he didn't even know whether she'd made it home safely last night. He must be losing his mind.

Dropping the food on the kitchen table he rushed to the phone and tried her number. When the answering machine clicked on, he choked and stuttered for several beats, and then hung up. After a moment's thought he called back.

"Hello Scully. It's me. I wanted to apologize for acting like an asshole last night. I didn't plan on doing things that way. You surprised me by being there. Not that that's an excuse. . . . Can I come over and we'll talk? I'm not changing my mind about . . . you know. But it's not your fault. Not your fault at all. It's my fault."

If she was there she wasn't picking up. He tried her cell phone with no luck. She was really, really angry. It was probably just as well he hadn't left a message about wanting the notes on the body in Perkey. He called back.

"Scully, it's me again. Please pick up. Or . . . or if you don't want to talk to me, how about calling back and leaving a message so I'll know you're all right. I'm worried about you." Too late he remembered his nasty response to her expression of worry last night. "Please. I know I don't deserve it," he finished lamely.

He hung up quickly and set off on a hunt for his cell phone. His anxiety intensified when he located it pinned next to Scully's under the overturned coffee table. New batteries didn't make either of them work. He hovered around his phone for half an hour, in hopes that Scully was letting him suffer but planned to relieve his torment soon. It was three-thirty when he gave in and dashed for his car.

"Please Scully. I had to know you were all right. Can I come in and we'll talk? If you don't want to talk yet, open the door so I can see you're all right. Then I'll leave."

During the drive Mulder rehearsed his plea miserably, trying to anticipate every possible response from Scully. He'd go crazy if she didn't answer at all. He had a key and he'd use it. If she spoke through the door, he'd beg to see her. If she let him in . . . . He pictured himself holding her in place until she listened to his litany of self-recrimination.

His stomach launched itself into flip-flops of dismay. Where was last night's revulsion from pleasures that might be denied to his sister? Already he'd weakened. He wanted to touch Scully, grasp her by those small, square shoulders, brush his fingers along her strong jaw to her soft lips.

No! He'd make a straightforward apology for his violence and meanness. She had no part in the wrongdoing. It was all his fault that she was in a position to endanger his search. When he explained it she'd understand. That once again he'd failed, promising what he couldn't deliver. Things would go back to normal between them. They'd be partners with no maze of complicated emotions to negotiate.

After ten minutes of knocking and talking through the door, he let himself in. At first he skulked just inside the apartment, calling her name diffidently. As the minutes passed he boldly trooped from room to room, searching for clues to her whereabouts.

The suitcase she took on short trips was missing. So was her gun. Her answering machine blinked with the news of his messages. They hadn't been played until he did it. He used her phone to check his own answering machine for messages left in the interim. Nothing.

Mulder sat down at Scully's PC. He intended to ransack her e-mail and follow her trail across the web to discover her plans. Then he noticed the papers left in the printer. Scully had already printed out the information he needed about the body in Perkey.

August 14, 1999 12:30 P.M.
Dana Scully speaking. This tape will hold the results of my investigation into the identity of a body found near Perkey, West Virginia. I'm approaching the town, where I have a 1 o'clock appointment with the sheriff of Blueridge County. My time here is limited. I hope to collect enough information to complete the investigation off-site.

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

Aug. 14, 1999 3:30 P.M.
I'm currently enroute to the area where the body in question was found.

I met as scheduled with the local police at the County Coroner's office. Sheriff Charlie Payton and Deputy August Fugate serve as law officers in Blueridge county, West Virginia.

They told me that Mr. Les Cooley came to their office at two- thirty on August 10, 1999. They identified Les Cooley as a lifelong resident of Perkey. He has no criminal record in the state. Sheriff Payton's written report, filed in the Perkey folder, includes a background check on Mr. Cooley.

At the time of his visit, he reported finding a body on the grounds of an old research facility west of the town. Both officers accompanied him to the grave site.

Note: This facility was the site of an X-Files investigation in late 1995. The case has never been closed. So far there is no reason to suspect a connection to the present investigation. However it cannot be discounted.

The officers unearthed a body they described as a skeleton with a few shreds of dried tissue still attached to it. They believed it was a child's body. There was a baby doll buried with the bones. The remains were bagged and placed in a refrigerated drawer in the county's morgue. The doll was stored separately. I asked why they didn't summon a forensic team to perform proper evidence collection. Sheriff Payton told me that animals would have destroyed the remains that night.

The coroner, a Dr. James Gant, examined the body the next day. He concluded the bones belonged to a young person, aged 10 to 14, probably female. There was a healed break in the left collar bone. The hyoid bone was fractured in a manner consistent with throttling. No healing had taken place before death. Dr. Gant estimated the bones had been in the ground from twenty to forty years. He scheduled further tests, but the body was accidentally destroyed the next day.

The body was removed erroneously by Jewel Otts, the assistant director of the Morristown Funeral Home, on August 12, 1999. Apparently Ms. Otts took the wrong body. An adjacent drawer held a very old skeleton found in a cave. It was awaiting settlement of a legal controversy over its burial. A local historical group claimed the remains were those of a Cherokee Indian. They were agitating for a tribal funeral ceremony. When a circuit judge ruled that the county could dispose of the body, the coroner called Ms. Ott and arranged a quick cremation.

The clerk on duty was Mr. Fred McKane, a lifelong resident of Perkey. Mr. McKane and Ms. Otts claim the bodies were identified incorrectly. Apparently office procedures are out-dated and poorly enforced. The system depends on cards slotted into metal grooves on the drawers. These cards could have fallen out and been reinserted incorrectly. Dr. Gant, Mr. McKane and the janitor, a Mr. Edward Peabody, all denied touching the cards. Mr. McKane admitted that he didn't cross-check the numbers on the tags before he released the body.

Full background checks on Mr. McKane, Ms. Otts and Mr. Peabody have been filed in the Perkey folder. Nothing was found to suggest suspicious connections.

I examined the doll found with the body. It was mass-produced and unremarkable, made of rubber or plastic. In most places the original pink color had faded to white, with brown mottling from mildew. The eyes were stuck shut with dirt. There were no fingerprints.

The sheriff and deputy were friendly and cooperative until I asked them to accompany me to the grave site. They said it would serve no purpose. They provided me with a map. It's filed with the copy of Dr. Gant's report in the Perkey file. The sheriff advised me to wait until daylight tomorrow. I can't leave Mulder alone for that long.

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

Aug. 12, 1999 10:00 P.M.
I'm on the road back to Washington.

I believe I've identified the body. I failed to find hard evidence to back up my conclusion. Further enquiries may locate someone who can provide it, although I believe this to be unlikely.

Sheriff Payton's map was correct, but difficult to follow. He was right about having problems with poorly marked dirt roads. I didn't find the grave until after seven o'clock. The sun hadn't set, but in the heavily wooded area the light had begun to fade. I used my flashlight to examine the grave itself and the surrounding area. I found nothing but leaf mold, and clods of dirt. When I went to examine the remaining sections of a chain link fence, I noticed a woman standing in the shadows of a stand of pine.

I took no notes. I rely on memory to re-create our conversation.

The woman wore a red head scarf and a baggy gray coat. Her galoshes were old-fashioned, with front clasps, like the ones boys used to wear in the rain. The clothes were an odd choice in the heat and humidity. In spite of their weight she looked pale instead of flushed. I judged her to be about sixty-five years old. She wore wire-rimmed glasses. Her nose was very hooked. Her chin was long and pointed. She coughed frequently while we talked, holding a handkerchief to her mouth. She spoke first.

"Most folks won't come around here after sundown. They think there's ha'nts hidin' in the woods."

"I don't believe in ghosts. You must not either, or you wouldn't be here."

"You bet I do. There's one I'd like to see. You're not one yourself, are you?"

"I'm afraid not. I'm from Washington."

The woman looked alarmed and turned halfway around. I tried to reassure her. If I got her to cooperate she might be a valuable source of local history.

"No, please don't run away. The government didn't send me. I'm trying to get . . . some information for a friend."

"Must be mighty strange information." She pointed toward the empty hole. "You know what that is?"

"Yes. I talked to Sheriff Payton. They found a body there last week."

"Les Cooley huntin'!"

She laughed a little and coughed before she went on.

"As if everybody didn't know he'd do anything to away from that wife of his! Somebody from Washington come through here a while back. They said nobody should the eat the squirrels or deer from more nor a thousand acres around Perkey. They're poison. Radioactive."

"You should listen to them."

The woman shrugged and sucked her teeth.

"Maybe I'd have ended up like the star of one of those drive-in movies. The incredible shrinking woman? Fighting with spiders in the basement?"

"It could shorten your life."

"My life's already longer than some. Like hers."

She was looking at the small grave. I took the opportunity to question her.

"Has there been a lot of gossip about finding the body? Do any of the older people around here have any ideas about who it was?"

"Is that what you come to find out?"

"Yes. For my friend. He was just a boy when his little sister was kidnapped. He's been looking for her ever since."

"How long?"

"Twenty-six years."

"She's probably dead."

"Yes, but he can't let go until he knows for sure."

"He needs to forget about it. You can't mend the past. What would he do if it was her?"

"I think he'd find some peace. He keeps wondering if she's out there, waiting to be rescued, maybe suffering . . . ."

"How could this girl be her?"

"The timing is right. And this girl had broken her collarbone like his sister did."

"I didn't know that."

"How could you? It takes a close examination of the bones to see."

"I never laid eyes on her until Julie, her mama, dropped her off that summer. She was eleven, small for her age. She had a close-mouthed way with her. Her daddy was my son, Roy. He'd been livin' with me for the last six months, since Leroy died. He hadn't got along with his daddy too well. Roy left Julie years ago. She had rounder heels than most."

"I don't understand. Who did Julie drop off?"

"My grandaughter Brandi. I didn't even know I had one 'til that old Mustang jounced up to the door. Brandi popped out and Julie waved good-bye before I even got out to the car. 'It's his turn for the next ten years,' she yelled back at me.' Then she was gone."

"So your daughter-in-law left your granddaughter to stay with you and her father? That's your son-- Roy?"

"Julie wasn't 'in-law.' But you got the gist. So I wasn't even for sure how old Brandi was. How would I know she broke her collarbone?"

"Are you saying it was your granddaughter who was buried here? What makes you think that? How did she end up out here?"

When the woman started to back away from me I realized I'd stepped forward, and gotten louder. I moved back a little and looked away, down the dirt road. And made myself listen.

"She stayed with us for two months. I put her on a pallet in my room. Brandi never complained, but she was stubborn. When she dug her heels in there was no getting around her. When Roy tried to be nice to her, give her a little affection, she'd look at him like she'd just had a big bite of green persimmon.

"She knew how to keep herself to herself. Most of the time I hardly knew she was there. It seemed like no time 'til it was August. It looked like Julie meant what she said. We'd have to start Brandi in school in the fall.

"Then one Saturday night I came home from the flea market. He, Roy I mean, was sittin' at the kitchen table lookin' like the Wrath to Come. 'She fell down, Ma. It was an accident,' he says.

"'What?' I said. 'Who fell down?'

"'Brandi. She was in the bathtub. I heard this crash and ran in. There she was. Dead as Queen Anne. She must have hit her head.'

"'Show me,' I said. He made me go in first. She was lyin' naked in the tub, her face half underwater. I threw a towel over her.

"'What's that?' I asked Roy. I was pointin' to her neck. There was a ring of purple bruises around it. He was sweatin' a lot. Course it was a hot day. He had an answer.

"'Before I knew she was dead I pulled her head out of the water. I was shaking her to wake her up,' he told me.

"'Have you called the sheriff yet?' I asks.

"'No. Ma.' He looked pastier than raw piecrust. 'I can't let them see those marks on her neck. Right before I came here . . . There was some trouble in Georgia. I had to jump bail. I was innocent but they were going to frame me. I don't want to go back to jail. Nobody will listen to me.'

"It was a poser. I can tell by that look you're giving me, that you don't see the problem. Innocent until proven guilty, you'd say. Let the law take its course. Haven't you ever seen an innocent person go to jail? I was sorry for Brandi. I was sorry for Roy. I knew I hadn't stuck up for him as much as I should have when he was little. I could stand up for him this time."

"'C'mon, Ma. It won't do her any good for me to be in jail. I didn't do anything wrong but panic.' He wheedled me like when he was a boy.

"Roy never did think too smart when he was scared. I remembered once he took a shortcut through the bull pasture. When Herod took out after him he ran off and left the gate open. He was too scared to go back and shut it. Our hound Max got gored to death trying to herd that crazy bull. Finally Leroy had to shoot poor old Herod. Then he laid into Roy with his belt.

"Did you ever read that article in 'Reader's Digest' that said the bathroom is the most dangerous room in the house?

"That night I helped him bury Brandi right here. She was dead. It wouldn't help her if he went to jail. Nobody ever came near the old leper colony if they could help it. I put an old baby doll that belonged to our girl, Ellie, in the grave. It felt less lonesome that way.

"Brandi hadn't been here long. Hardly nobody asked about her. If they did we said she was back with her mama in Kentucky."

I wanted to ask her about identifying the body, but I didn't want to scare her away. When I stayed quiet she kept on talking.

"It was only two months after that when I came home early from church with a headache. I heard crying from the back room. Lord in Heaven! For a minute I thought it was Brandi. I mean . . . I don't know what I thought.

"I knocked on the door and there was scrambling inside. Roy opened it and Jessie's daughter's youngest ducked out under my arm. She was only ten, a little scaredy-cat, wouldn't say 'boo' to a goose. Her face was all red and tearful. She ran like the devil himself was on her heels. Roy told me he'd been ticklin' her and she laughed so hard she cried.

"He had an accident with his gun the next week. Died instantly from a rifle shot to the chest. Roy always was careless with cleaning guns. Never had a plan when he sat down.

"One time the high school English teacher tried to get me to sign a petition to make it harder for people to buy guns. She said there were more people hurt in accidents with guns than on purpose."

The woman went quiet. I waited for a long time before I asked her.

"Will you come to the sheriff's office and sign a statement about how Brandi died and was buried?"

"No. I can't do that."

"But how can I prove to my friend that your story is true?"

If she made a statement there would be consequences. The sheriff would open an investigation. At the very least she'd have to answer painful questions. It was unlikely that she'd be prosecuted for her actions, but not impossible. It was the first time she seemed upset and at a loss for words. Then she took one step closer and got an earnest look on her face.

"This must be why I'm here. I'll tell you something about that doll. Nobody would know except the person who put it in the ground with Brandi. It had these glass eyes that opened and closed. Roy poked them back into the head one time when he and Ellie were fightin'. They looked awful. So Leroy, he took the head off and tried to fix them. Something was broken. He could push them back into place, but he couldn't make them open and close again. They had to stay one way or the other. So he fastened 'em shut from the inside with a piece of fine gauge wire. You take a look."

"Where do you live? What's your name?"

She turned away. I called after her. She ignored me. After a few steps, all of a sudden she was gone. I went back about twenty- five yards into the trees, but found nothing.

When I got back to Perkey it was nine o'clock. I called the sheriff anyway. He sounded relieved instead of angry at being disturbed. I asked him to meet me at the Coroner's office. When he got there, I explained what happened while we removed the doll from storage. He didn't say anything about the story.

I opened the doll with the sheriff's hunting knife, cutting from ear to ear and then back around the base of the head. I shook out some dirt and wiped it clean. We could both see the twisted, rusty wire that held the eyes in place. Then Sheriff Payton finally talked. He started by asking me a question.

"Why do you suppose that woman was wearing boots and a coat tonight? It must be seventy degrees right now."

"Some old people feel the cold very easily," I suggested.

"We have a lot of gun accidents around here. There was an odd one in 1974. It was Roy Varney. He was living with his mother, Susan Varney, about five miles outside of town. She must have been over fifty when it happened. That would make her more than eighty years old today."

"She didn't look that old," I had to admit.

"I remember it because my father was sheriff at the time. He had me sitting in a chair while he took this long dowel and held it next to me at different angles. Something seemed wrong to him about the entrance and exit wounds. I didn't understand it at the time. Now I know he didn't think the angle was acute enough to come from a gun propped on the floor. Mrs. Varney said that was his position when she stepped into the back room.

"Before the hearing Mrs. Varney added to her statement. She said her son planned to polish the stock with the rifle laid out on the kitchen table. He might have put it up there before she left the room. That pretty much answered Dad's objections. He couldn't prove it was anything but an accident.

"The mother left town at the end of the year. I heard she went to go live with a sister in Kentucky. Why would she be spooking around in the woods up there? How would she know the body was found?"

It was a good question, but I thought he underestimated the speed of gossip among old cronies. I challenged him.

"What if the story is true? Her conscience might drive her to come back when she heard a body was found. Maybe she had to tell someone. What about the doll's eyes?"

He looked at me, but didn't say anything more about it.

I asked him to follow up on locating Susan Varney, and then I had to leave.

February 12, 2000 Addendum to the Perky Report

It's been six months. Neither Sheriff Payton nor I were able to trace Susan Varney through local contacts or national databases.

I can't prove what I know to be true. The body found in Perkey was Brandi Varney's, not Samantha Mulder's.

Last summer I made the decision to keep this story to myself for the sake of Mulder's peace of mind. He's heard too many stories like it. Whenever he investigates one of these tragedies, I know he imagines his sister suffering the same fate. This time I thought I could bear the burden for him.

I was wrong.

He was furious when he found out. He saw it as a betrayal of trust so serious that he's decided to end our personal relationship, and possibly our partnership as well.

Although I believe my actions in August were right, I was at fault for continuing to keep information from him. This is bitter knowledge.

*****

Mulder shuffled through the pages of the report again, looking for the next page. When he didn't find it, he powered up the PC, and located the file. He scrolled to the end, but there was nothing more to read.

The resignation in the tone at the end sent a chill through Mulder. That couldn't be her last word on the subject. What about his overreaction? What about her plans to convince him she was right? Why did it stop so abruptly?

She surely understood that he spoke in drunken anger last night. He didn't mean they couldn't EVER be lovers again---just until he found the truth about Samantha. Or at least until they had some clear rules that forbade keeping each other in compassionate ignorance.

Scully must have known that this document would convince him she was right. The events were weird, like a great many things in their lives. He could accept weird. Scully's integrity and concern for him permeated the narrative. His scattered memories of August made sense of it.

He remembered the Friday she said she had to attend to family matters the next day. He assured her he'd get along fine, just fine without her. The words were spoken with bravado, not confidence. He hadn't been alone for more than a few hours since he got out of the hospital.

She looked back at him with worried eyes. He knew it bothered her that he comforted himself with loud background noise. It was just a precaution against the return of the voices. But he'd helped her with that profile of the Broad River Butcher. Didn't that prove he was almost back to normal? Scully smiled at him encouragingly and questioned him further.

"A friend of mine asked if she could come by today and see you. One of her psychiatric patients claims he's a peeping tom. She's afraid his habits might escalate into an assault. I told her you might have some insight from your profiling experience. Her name is Bibi Warner. Is that OK?"

"Sure, Scully." The request boosted his confidence. Scully must think he was in pretty good shape. He'd show her she was right.

The next morning she was gone from her customary place on the couch before he woke up. She returned early Sunday morning, again while he slept. He hadn't asked about where she'd been. In his relief at her return he accepted the goodness of her exhausted presence without question.

Now he looked back and the landscape of the past shifted as he gazed.

He wondered if he could have lasted out that twenty-four hour absence without the visit from Dr. Warner. Her son Jerry came with her. He sat on the couch and searched the cable channels for sports, while Mulder and the doctor discussed the peeping tom. Somehow they ended up staying the entire afternoon. Then Jerry went out for chicken dinners and they all watched baseball on television. At the time it didn't strike him as odd that Dr. Warner brought him his nightly sedative without being asked. He didn't quite remember what time they left.

Scully had known he wasn't ready to be left alone. Or to be plunged into the brutal details of yet another child murder.

Hell should open up and swallow him instantly. He'd destroyed his life, and Scully's, in a fit of blind rage. And until now he hadn't even taken in the fact that his decision affected her life as deeply as it did his. He should be put down, like a mad dog, before he could do more damage to Scully and everyone else he cared about.

He had to find her and tell her that it was all his fault. If she couldn't forgive him, he could at least relieve her guilt. Double-damn him for setting things up so that she blamed herself.

The trailing comments in her report bothered him a lot. Someone who'd given up might write comments like that. Someone who was seriously depressed.

Mulder started working his way back through the internet history file. He immediately found a link to a map of Myrtle Grove. Using every trick the Lone Gunmen had taught him, he searched fruitlessly for evidence of a reservation at a motel in the area.

Scully had to be staying somewhere. He suddenly flashed on a series of troubling images. Scully parking askew where a gravel road dead-ended on a beach. Striding across clammy, packed sand. At the water's edge kicking off her shoes. Giving a wild, distraught glance around to ensure her solitude. Then wading, fully clothed, into the shockingly cold waves. In waist deep water stopping to pull at something around her neck. Giving a fierce tug and flinging her cross and chain behind her. After that never stopping, never looking back, struggling past the surf into the deeps until . . . . "

Mulder shook his head impatiently. Scully didn't dramatize herself. Practical, even-tempered, and self-controlled, she embodied rationality. She'd never make a suicidal gesture.

No, jeered a wicked inner voice. She's a medical doctor who examines dead bodies to determine the cause of death. There'd be nothing gesture-like about her actions. They'd be a pattern of quiet competence.

It was time to ask for help.

Frohike sounded wary. "You mean you two didn't make up last night? Where are you calling from? The caller ID is blocked."

"I'm calling from her place. I need to find her and talk to her."

"Yeah, I think you were a little hard on her. Stranding her with us like that. She deserved to be yelled at but . . . ."

"Scully deserves to have me crawl across the floor to her and grovel at her feet. You have to help me find her."

"Whoo, boy. It's worse than I thought. She's got you whipped. What do you need?"

"I need you to trace her phone calls and credit card purchases for the last twenty four hours."

"Um, Mulder don't you think that's kind of a violation of her privacy? I mean, what if she's taking a little R and R of a, uh, personal nature?

"Damn it, that's not important. Frohike, what if she's, you know, depressed? Seriously depressed."

There was no reply for a long minute. Then the answer came, loud and angry. "Who do you think you are, fucking Hamlet? What exactly did you say to her last night?"

"What I said last night is irrelevant. And it doesn't matter if I think I'm Napoleon to her Josephine, or Harpo to her Marx. Have your joke. The important thing is Scully's welfare."

"Your plan sounds more like stalking than an apology."

Mulder closed his eyes and tried to think without the ominous intrusion of those seaside visions.

"Frohike, Scully and I are involved," he said desperately.

"That comes as a huge surprise," his friend replied with heavy sarcasm. "But it doesn't convince me your motives are pure."

"I think I said something about Diana last night. About how Scully was jealous of Samantha like she was of Diana. And that maybe we couldn't be partners anymore." It all sounded even worse when he said it to Frohike. If Mulder hadn't been consumed with anxiety, the guilt would have been past bearing. He waited for the verdict.

"Oh, Mulder," The sad resignation in Frohike's voice unnerved him more than anger or bitterness. "The chance of a lifetime, and you blew it. Call me from a pay phone in a couple of hours. The Dr. Scully I know is the soul of reason. I don't think it's her you need to worry about." He finished on a note of calm reassurance.

"I'm starting for Myrtle Grove. I'll call you on the way," Mulder told him. Later he'd allow himself to feel last night's killing blows. For now he had to go on as though he weren't mortally wounded. Scully might need him.

Like most of those built on the shoreline, the Griffin's condominium shared design elements with the old boxcar style houses. The layout allowed four units, side by side, to have an ocean view. The only entrance led to a long, dark hall with a bedroom located on each side. At the hall's end the living room opened out in a deceptively spacious effect. Mirrors along one wall combined with a huge window to create the illusion. The kitchen was crammed into the right rear corner of the living room. The master bedroom opened off it on the left. The bedroom also boasted a wall-sized window with a view of the beach.

Scully set her suitcase beside the bed in the master bedroom and looked around. The Griffins had left a great many personal items in the condo. There were sheets and blankets in the closet, canned goods and frozen foods in the kitchen. An army of pill containers occupied half the counter space in the bathroom. As she made up the bed, Scully conceded that poor Naomi might not exaggerate the back pain she complained about.

The eight hour drive after her miserable night had exhausted Scully. As she slid the last pillow into its case she felt like rolling straight into bed. Instead she made herself put on her sweats and go out for run on the bleak winter beach. She knew that exercise would improve her spirits and the quality of her sleep. Last night she'd been shocked to realize that only two months of sharing a bed with Mulder made it feel sad and wrong to sleep alone.

Scully stretched at the end of the walkway to the beach and watched two joggers puff by in a cloud of steamy breath. She shut off her thought processes as part of her warm up. This activity shouldn't be another grim duty. Her physical being deserved care and relaxation. A run on the beach could provide enough pleasant distraction to overcome even the heartache of her temporary estrangement from Mulder.

She'd obsessed over her offense against him, and his reaction to it, for all the long hours of her drive. It was time to stop. He couldn't persist in his plan to destroy their happiness. She foresaw a different resolution.

When she returned to the office in the middle of the week he'd be stealthily conciliatory. On Friday she'd leave some personal belonging at work. He'd seize on it as the excuse he needed to come to her apartment. There would be no need for a lengthy scene that exploded in emotion-laden words. They'd both be aching for each other's touch. In a matter of minutes they'd apologize, settle on new ground rules, and seal the bargain by making love with eager haste. They'd seal the bargain again and again that weekend, until they were both quite satisfied with its terms.

Scully found herself smiling in anticipation. Her muscles protested mildly at her speedy pace, but when she hit her second wind she felt as though she could go on forever. The ocean's dependable susurration soothed her. The absence of tourists meant less litter. Only a few gulls made swift curving flights over the water. Their lonely cries could have depressed Scully if she'd permitted it. Instead she dwelled on the mathematical perfection of their sweeping circles.

No red sun appeared to delight the sailor. The pale gray sky faded to a darker gray. Halfway through her return loop, Scully slowed down to compensate for poor visibility. The air thickened with a fine, chilly mist. Moisture clung to the hair that stuck out from under her cap. When she stopped, the chill would steal over her in minutes.

By the time she reached the condominium she was shivering. In her haste to climb into the shower she forgot to leave any towels within reach. She had to lean way out from the tub and snatch a towel from the bar by the sink. The end of the towel flipped several pill containers off the counter top. Scully swore as she heard the tell-tale splash signalling that one of them had fallen into the toilet.

After she dried herself, she fished the plastic cylinder from the water. There had been only a few pills left. Nevertheless, she couldn't risk stranding Naomi with none of the pain medication she needed. Previously Scully had planned on getting by with a frozen Weight Watchers' dinner. Now she had to go out anyway to get the presciption refilled. Maybe she'd make a stop at the Food Lion. After a wakeful night and a long run she shouldn't have any trouble sleeping. A glass of wine would make it even easier to drift off. Bedtime could still be early.

*****

Myrtle Grove proper lay at the end of a long strip of road lined by closed restaurants, and darkened stores. The town's tall condominiums clustered at the water's edge, as given to crowding as a community of penguins. Shorter, humbler buildings lined up behind them, across the road from the beachfront properties. Streetlights glowed like gas nebulae in the clammy haze of the night.

Mulder hadn't seen a soul for the last half hour. Maybe it wasn't odd that all the windows were dark at two o'clock in the morning. The place still felt strangely deserted.

Even if Scully had been the only person remaining in the almost empty resort town, he had no way to locate her. There were hundreds of buildings with dozens to hundreds of units. Getting the number of the realtor's office hadn't helped. After five all they could get was a recording. The Gunmen hadn't found any trace of a motel reservation made by Scully. It didn't help to know that she'd used a credit card at a gas station near Richmond. Mulder would call Frohike again in half an hour. In the meantime he'd drive around and look for her car.

The big places had multi-storied, covered garages. The small ones made do with a square of asphalt off the road. Low-lying fog put the final obstacle between him and his objective. Mulder cursed himself again in a tired reflex at his own hopeless behavior. This place was dank, dark and deserted. Scully had come to right place to intensify the fourth 'D'-depressed.

When he got Frohike on the phone outside a closed post office, he heard the difference in the Gunman's voice immediately.

"You've found something," Mulder pronounced shortly.

"Just stay calm. Panic won't help."

"Panic? Who, me? Come on. Give."

"Impulsiveness got you into this. Don't do anything stupid. Scully used her Master Card to pay for a prescription at the Myrtle Grove Pharmacy. It was prescribed for one Naomi Griffin who lives in condominium 223 at 23378 Ocean Boulevard. That's a building called 'Delightful Haven.'"

"Thanks. I owe you big for this. I'm at 15766 Ocean Boulevard right now. I can be there in fifteen minutes. I'll look around, but I'll probably wait in the car 'til it gets light. She's mad enough without me waking her up in the middle of the night."

"Just a second. Listen to me. The prescription was for Dilaudid. Fifty pills, 4 milligrams each. They filled it seven hours ago," Frohike added.

Sudden sweat stung Mulder's armpits. His heartbeat thundered in his ears like a runaway train about to jump the tracks.

"Oh shit. Oh shit, Frohike. Is there a phone number for this Naomi?"

"I already tried calling. It's disconnected," he admitted. "There may be a perfectly reasonable explanation . . . ."

Mulder hung up and bolted for his car. Afterwards he had no memory of covering the distance. He only remembered seeing the sign loom up out of the mist.

The Delightful Haven was one of the more modest buildings at the north end of Ocean Boulevard. Scully's car sat alone in the lot, equidistant from the two yellow lines that bounded its parking place. It was Mulder who parked askew. He tore up the outside stairs and only paused long enough at the door of 223 to give one loud thump. Then he used his picks on the cheap lock in the doorknob.

Why hadn't she used the chain? He wondered distractedly as he shoved the door open. Did she want to be murdered in her bed? If he gave in to the hysterical laugh that rose in his throat he might lose control. That could be fatal to Scully.

He moved swiftly down the hall, flipping lights on in the bedrooms, rapidly scanning for any sign of life. Silence answered his cracked attempts at calling at her name. Only her coat on a hook in the hall, and her purse on the kitchen counter, betrayed her presence. Outside the last closed door he swayed and braced himself against the wall. This was the end of his search. Everything depended on what lay beyond. Why hadn't he understood that this was everything until it was too late?

As he opened the door and flicked on the switch, he registered Scully's movements in the bed.

"Wake up and talk to me Scully. Everything will be all right," he said with forced calmness.

She wasn't dead yet! He didn't let that glorious fact distract him from actions crucial to saving her life. Mulder's eyes raked the room for spilled pills or containers and found nothing. He grabbed the bottle of chardonnay from the bedside table and noted it was half-empty. Seconds later he retrieved the discarded pill container from the bathroom wastebasket.

Scully pushed herself up on one elbow. He re-entered the bedroom clutching his find. His words all wanted to burst out at once, in a voice that threatened to dip and climb like a roller coaster. He disciplined himself. Above all he had to reassure Scully and win her cooperation. She still hadn't spoken to him. If she hadn't been impaired she'd have given him several kinds of hell by now for invading her solitude.

"Don't worry, sweetheart." Mulder knelt by the bed and gave in to his need to touch her face as he spoke. She looked at him with sleepy, questioning eyes.

He leaned closer to smell her breath and estimate when she'd drunk the wine. When she gave him a pleased smile and a soft kiss on the lips he thought his heart would break. But there was no time to waste on self-recrimination.

"Now, Scully," he coaxed. "Just tell me one, no two, things. Did you take all these?" He couldn't control the tremors in his hand as he held out the empty container for her to see. "What time was it? You took them with wine didn't you? Didn't you!" Unintentionally he'd raised his voice and alarmed her. He forced himself to speak softly. "No, no don't be scared. I'm not mad, sweetheart. Not at all. I can't call an ambulance from here, so I'll have to take you to the hospital myself."

Scully looked confused. Confusion was a symptom of narcotic poisoning. He pulled his flashlight out of his jacket pocket and shone it with no warning straight into her eyes. She squeezed them shut instantly, but not before he'd seen a normal pupillary reaction.

"Mulder, what the hell . . . . Have you gone crazy for real?"

The remarks delivered in her normal voice almost made him think it wasn't an emergency yet. "Maybe it's not too late to pump your stomach. But you may need Narcan," he encouraged. "When did you do it? Did you eat something first?"

"What's the matter? Is there bad news . . . Is my family OK?"

"Your family is fine. It's you I'm worried about. You took all of these, didn't you?" he insisted, brandishing the pill container with more composure this time.

"Let me see that," she ordered.

Mulder found himself meekly handing over the evidence of her disturbed actions to the woman he believed was dying of a narcotics overdose.

"There were three pills left in this when I got here. See the date?" She pointed to the label.

He noted the December 18th date and tried to make sense of her words.

"After I accidentally knocked this into the toilet I had to get it refilled. The refill is still in my purse on the kitchen counter."

A day and a half of emotional upheaval began to take its toll on Mulder. The ground shifted under him again.

"Why didn't you use the chain?" he remembered to ask.

"It's broken," she shrugged.

He moved mechanically to the kitchen, where he checked her purse and confirmed her statements. As he stared at the small container, his thoughts locked into an endless loop of baffled action. Should he keep on going, down the hall, out the door, and away from Scully? He couldn't think clearly enough to figure out whether this was feasible.

On the living room side of the breakfast bar stood a shallow, over-pillowed wicker chair. He sank down onto it and balanced uneasily on the too short seat. The nervous energy that had driven him for hours drained away. Perhaps he'd slide down onto the thick blue carpet and go to sleep.

Scully emerged from the bedroom and approached him with a determined step. He remembered those soft, navy blue pajamas from their visit to Kroner. A whirlwind driven cow almost made hamburger of him. The violent near-miss didn't stop him from appreciating the silk covered sway of Scully's breasts, as she helped dig him out from under the debris. The pajamas found an immediate role in his erotic fantasies. Even now, when his life lay around him in ruins, he felt a twinge of arousal at the sight of them.

He had to be misinterpreting the expression on her face. The irritated element he understood. She seemed strangely amused by his presence.

Silence ballooned around them until there was no room for air. Mulder couldn't come up with anything clever to say to reduce it to manageable proportions. Maybe Scully had something clever to say, and that was why a smile hovered on her lips. He wondered if he looked as stunned as he felt.

He had to speak, to explain his graceless intrusion. "I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking. I got this idea that you might . . . hurt yourself because of what I did." Humiliated by his exposed egotism, he didn't want to look her in the face. Directing his eyes sideways toward the mirror proved a worse choice. A slack-jawed man returned his haunted gaze. He looked back at Scully. "Of course you could never care that much . . . If you left me . . . . I mean . . . ." He trailed off tiredly.

In spite of tousled hair and sexy pajamas, Scully was self- possessed. She spoke matter-of-factly.

"Mulder, I didn't really believe you'd left me forever. I knew you didn't mean it. But what if you had left me for good? How could I do something like that to my mother? And even to you? It would be awful to leave you feeling responsible for my death."

In his weariness he responded unguardedly. "You don't understand," he answered with a shake of his head. "It's not the sort of thing you reason out like that. It just hurts and hurts and hurts until . . . ."

The horror overtaking amusement in Scully's expression brought him to his senses. He stopped in mid-sentence. He needed to change the direction of her thoughts in a hurry.

"Does that mean you forgive me?" He stammered his big question hurriedly, forgetting the elaborate apology and careful lead-in he'd planned earlier in the day.

"What if I don't forgive you, Mulder?" she asked, pronouncing each word carefully. "Will you 'hurt' yourself?" Her eyes narrowed into rifle-scope focus on his face.

He was in for it now. He let the anger roll over him without reacting.

"Are you telling me you consider suicide an option?" she continued. "That someday you might desert me that way?"

Mulder tried for a tolerant, rational tone of voice. "No. No, what I'm saying . . . Let's not talk about this right now."

"I don't want to either. But maybe we'd better. What ARE you saying?" she persisted, her face darkening with emotion.

He'd have to placate her with something. It was too late to deny everything. "I don't know for sure that I'd never do it. I admit it. I might not be strong enough to live with the pain. But I'd try. I'd try not to leave you," he explained simply.

Scully's eyes were full of tears now, but she still looked furious. He couldn't help flinching in anticipation of a slap when she stepped toward him. She grabbed his shoulders and shook him as though motion could rearrange the thoughts in his head.

"You bastard. How could you leave me without hope? Leave me all alone with no one who understands or cares?"

He reached out and pulled her awkwardly onto his lap. Throw pillows cascaded to the floor. As he hugged her to him, he felt her shoulders rise and fall in silent spasms. Scully couldn't be sobbing. She never lost control that way.

"Maybe I couldn't, Scully. Maybe I couldn't," he answered shakily. "You know, you were right to keep me away from Perkey," he said into her hair. "Later I remembered how things really were. But even if you hadn't been right, I should have accepted your judgment."

Her breath caught on every word, but she answered him. "I was wrong to keep it from you afterwards," she said. "It was as bad as you keeping the information about my stolen ova from me."

Mulder winced at the reminder of his own lapse from honesty. Rooted in his desire to be protective, that cover-up too had resulted in more pain in the long run.

"But you gave me the benefit of the doubt," he said. "You assumed my motives were unselfish. I accused you of . . . " She really had seen the truth about all this for a long time. Understanding dazzled him like sunlight in the eyes of a cave creature. Words were inadequate, but he tried.

"I trust you, Scully. Not because you're perfect. Because you love me and I choose to put my life in your hands. I can't win love unless I take the risk."

"It's like Pascal's wager," she said thickly, from against his collarbone.

"A little bit," he corrected her. "But it's different too. Pascal assumed the wager was free and the winnings would be claimed beyond the grave. I have something to lose. My life and everything I hope to accomplish. And my prize is here and now. Although I admit sometimes the reward seems infinite." He tightened his embrace in emphasis.

Scully lifted her head and looked at him with reddened eyes. "I thought sometimes I might lose my wager," she said, her dignity only a little marred by an ill-timed hiccup. "A lot of times you're wrong," she added. "But you always listen to me. You've never closed the door. Please, don't ever close the door," she said with a quaver, before she hid her face once more.

It was fearful to contemplate the odds. He thought the decision to accept love was more like Kierkegaarde's leap of faith than Pascal's wager. Nothing but belief in love's reality, flying in the face of human folly and error, could supply the last measure of energy needed to make the final connection.

Mulder imagined love arcing like electricity across the distance between them. The power of their belief blasted love's plasma path through the dead air and the insulating boundaries of their own skins. In daily acts of loyalty and affection they built up the potential for those rare, transcendent moments.

The grandeur of his vision made him feel unbearably small.

He owed Scully some kind of explanation.

"What I did. It was so stupid. What happened with the body, I think it was just an excuse. I'm so afraid you'll leave me, Scully. It scares me every day. It seemed like if I got it over with, and gave up something, maybe I could keep something. You staying my partner would be my consolation prize. I don't understand how I didn't see what was happening."

"Jesus. You should know me by now. We've been together for seven years. What would it take to convince you?" she asked. She couldn't entirely conceal the exasperation in her voice.

"Nothing," he admitted. "There's nothing that could convince me I deserve the happiness of being loved by you."

"Then you'll just have to take it on faith, Mulder. And remember that my happiness is in your safekeeping too." Scully took his face in her hands as she spoke, and looked squarely into his eyes for a long moment.

He could have sat for days contemplating the miracle of love and Scully's restoration to his arms.

Mundane discomfort interfered. The edge of the chair cut into the back of Mulder's thighs with the force of their combined weights. He tried to shift undetected, and felt Scully move to stand up.

"No, don't," he protested.

"Your legs must be numb."

"I hardly notice you're there," he boasted. "But I can move us somewhere more comfortable."

He rose carefully on stiff legs with Scully clutched to his chest. The pins and needles were manageable, but he had another problem. On the first step his right leg buckled with the pain shooting up from his toes. He stumbled heavily, just managing to set Scully safely on the ground before he grabbed the counter for support.

"Are you all right, Mulder?"

"My foot," he muttered. "I didn't notice it until now."

"What did you do . . . .Oh. Last night," Scully replied. She reached for his hand. "Let's lie down and get some sleep. You drove here, didn't you? It'll be a long drive back. Maybe we should get your foot x-rayed first."

Mulder let her take his hand. He didn't follow her lead to the bedroom. The pain had reminded him of the things she didn't know yet.

"I'd better tell you. Your cell phone got smashed along with mine under the coffee table.

"Both of them broken? We're going to have to pay for those you know." Scully took a deep breath and let it out again. She tugged at his hand again and took a small step toward the bedroom door.

"Also, the Lone Gunmen know about us." He dropped his eyes at her quick frown. "I had to tell them. They were the ones who found you by tracing your credit card."

"Damn it, Mulder. I knew they suspected, but they had to be careful before. Now the innuendo will never stop."

"You underestimate their respect for you. I'm the one who'll be ridiculed to the end of his days over this fiasco," he said with a grimace.

Scully sighed. She renewed her efforts to move him from where he leaned against the counter. This time he let her lead him to the bedroom.

Mulder lay on the bed fully clothed while Scully used the bathroom. He shut his eyes in pretended sleep against the anguish of seeing her return in pajamas. Two nights ago she hadn't needed pajamas. On his own way to the bathroom he flipped off the light with a quick "'Night, Scully." He left his boxers on to show that he respected her limits.

Arranging himself carefully on his back in the bed, Mulder left room for a sword between them. Then he permitted himself one small overture. He extended his right hand, palm upward, to the exact middle of the mattress. If she ignored it, it wasn't a rejection-- just a reluctance to stir from her comfortable position.

Scully grasped his hand and rolled herself up in his arm, like a dancer twirling herself into her partner's embrace.

Mulder's spirits leapt in wild celebration. This was forgiveness. He wouldn't mess things up again. Whatever she was willing to give, he would take. Yesterday, with his insane renunciation of their relationship, he'd forfeited the right to make claims.

So he resisted the impulse to flip her over and strip her pajama bottoms off. Instead he ran his hands over and over the buttery smoothness of her back. Scully's right hand explored his bare chest and belly, following the sparse line of hair below the waistband of his boxers. He tried to return her kisses with precisely the same degree of passion she put into them. The rush of blood to his penis was beyond his control.

He relaxed when he felt Scully's smile against his cheek. Not only did she approve, she encouraged his growing erection with a few gentle squeezes. When she began easing his shorts off he co- operated enthusiastically by lifting his hips and legs at the proper times. Then he dared a few words.

"Can I take these off?" he asked, running a finger down the line of buttons on her front.

"Are you sure you want to?" she asked quietly, with no hint of a laugh in her voice.

The serious undertone almost panicked him. In his anxiety to make things clear, he garbled his answer. "If you want to . . . I don't expect . . . Yes!" he stammered.

"OK. It's OK," she calmed him. " I just don't want rush you into . . . ."

"I'm way ahead of you, Scully," he returned, as he unfastened the first button.

Peeling off those slippery pajamas in a confused muddle under the covers was as exciting as he'd always imagined it. He still left the lead to Scully, restricting his initiatives to pajama removal and roaming hands. When he'd teased her nipples to tightness and her vaginal opening to swollen wetness, he waited for Scully to climb astride him. His fingers continued to work at her clitoris. She slid down onto his cock with a cry, while he bit his lip to distract himself from coming.

Her breasts jiggled voluptuously above him, just beyond the reach of his mouth. Mulder grabbed the headboard and pulled them both closer to the wall. Then he curled partly upright and stuffed a pillow behind him. Now her breasts practically fell into his mouth. He suckled them fiercely in turn, tugging the nipples with his tongue, trying to remember not to leave any marks.

Scully rose and fell over him in sinuous waves, gracefully instinctive in her response. When he started kneading her ass, she moved smoothly into her orgasm, with long shuddering, whimpers of pleasure. He didn't postpone his climax, as he usually did, until he could move into the superior position. In unfamiliar passivity he relinquished control, and let his own body respond to hers. He moved as much as he could, but Scully had to do most of the work.

She kept rocking with his rhythm until he suddenly stopped, groaning with helpless intensity. She stopped too. He strained up into her and spent himself, briefly unsure if he'd survive the sensation of being emptied to the core. Then he slid them both down in the bed and pulled her close. She lay splayed over him like a small blanket.

Her hands rested between them, pressed into Mulder's chest by her weight. He maneuvered his hands into position over hers and pulled them even harder against his breast.

"Don't hurt yourself, Mulder," she protested languidly.

"I want to wear your mark, Scully," he said. "I want it to go all the way through, to my heart," he said.

"No you don't. Trust me. I've got a better valentine for you," she yawned.

Mulder went still and tense under her. He remembered seeing countless displays and advertisements for Valentine's Day specials during the past week. Somehow he'd never gotten around to doing anything about them.

"You didn't remember did you?" She chuckled softly. "I'm not surprised."

"On the contrary-- your sympathy card is in the mail, Scully," he answered with a sigh.

"Go to sleep, Mulder. There'll be other Valentine's Days," she murmured sleepily.

He felt a warm glow envelope him at her casual reference to their future together. Maybe this was a good time to ask her.

"What would you say to moving in together?" he inquired

Scully said nothing. He slipped one hand out and rested it on her back. It moved up and down regularly with her deep breathing. She was already asleep.

Well, it wasn't a "No," anyway. There would be other chances to ask, he comforted himself. He drifted off to sleep before the thin dawn light began to trickle in around the window blinds.