E-mail: politicx@aol.com Feedback would be treasured.
Rating: R for graphic depictions of violence and autopsy gore
Category: X
Keywords: M/S UST
First posted on: March 20, 2000.
Spoilers: Everything through season 6
Disclaimer: Chris Carter owns the characters in this story. I am making no money and no infringement is intended.
Archive: Sure, as long as my name is attached
Summary: Scully ponders a series of nightmares, personal issues and a disturbingly familiar case file, while Mulder ponders the true reason for the implant.
Many thanks to my beta team: Alicia K. and Amanda for their exceptional insight and editing skills, and Kari for illumination in the dark of the night. What they did for me - gave and gave and gave - will have me forever grateful. And thanks to my family for their never ending encouragement and enthusiasm for all things I do.
Author's notes can be found at the end.

This story is dedicated to Alicia K.

My time has come.

The woods are thick, wet and black, and the ground is sinking below me. It rolls beneath me like the sea, threatening to submerge me in its undercurrents. The air is heavy on my shoulders and my legs are leaden; waves of grass and dirt pull my body down.

I am drowning.

A tepid melody washes over me. (seasons don't fear the reaper nor do the wind the sun or the rain) The placidity of the singer doesn't pacify me. Earth is cascading over my ankles, my knees, my thighs. I cast a lethargic eye heavenward, succumbing to the pull of the ground.

I'm not a psychologist, but I recognize the symptoms of catatonia even while I'm experiencing them. Rigidity is settling into my muscles just as mania is seeping into my skull. I think I could give in to somnolence if it weren't for the urgency of the music.

I wrench myself upwards and do the things that I do when I'm afraid, mental exercises to help me detach myself from the situation, dissect the scenario. I stop for a moment and try to log onto some external compass. Look at what lies before you, I say to myself, and look from whence you've come. But the music clouds my thinking and the ground is unsteady; I must run.

I'm in a forest, lost. I'm running. I don't know how I got here or why; I only know that I must ascertain a way out. There's no clearly marked path, just slippery beds of pine needles and moss. My thoughts jumble as the ground beneath me gives and I fall with a painless thud.

Hold on to the situation, I think. My pulse is rapid; my breaths are shallow. Get your bearings. (seasons don't fear the reaper nor do the wind the sun or the rain) I breathe deeply only to find my mouth filling with dirt. I choke, sputter and spit, all while struggling to maintain mental control.

Even my own vomit can't disguise the oppressing smell of cedars. I retch again. With a deep gulp of air, I bury my fingers in the ground and yank myself up. It's then that I notice the knife in my right hand.

It's a hunting knife, sharp. I thrust it into the ground and feel this otherworld tugging at my spirit, stripping me of any control I might possess. I claw at the forest floor, struggling to stand. All in slow motion, I pull, grasp and lift my body up.

I run slowly at first, trying to find footing on the forest floor, and it's pulling me, a magnet. It's alive. And singing.

Fear gnashes its teeth at my self-possession and finally rips away the carefully contained persona known as Dana Katherine Scully, and there's no trace of my usual composure now. Not since I was a child have I so felt my spirit bursting at the seams of my body. Composure will only slow me down.

I hurl myself forward, throwing my body like an object to the wind. Faster, harder, I run with abandon; wildly, tearfully, a child running from a monster. My head jerks back over my shoulder. I expect to see a demon there, chasing me. Although I see nothing but trees, it doesn't stop me from screaming.

My breathing becomes ragged and harder I run. My thoughts are no longer mine; the music fills my ears and head and I can't block it out by thinking rationally. My mental exercising has dropped off; it's hard to maintain lucidity. I begin reciting prayers, every prayer I've ever known: the rosary, the Lord's Prayer, the prayer I said as a child.

Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep; our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.

Bent branches scrape across my arms, wickedly black and leering. I use my weapon like a machete, whipping an X back and forth in front of me, desperate to escape these woods.

Tree limbs claw at my hair, rip my blouse. I feel the cutting wind where my sleeves have been torn and I glance down at them, afraid to slow my pace. My shirt is shredded and blood stained.

Comprehension strikes me at once; I stumble and almost fall. The limbs aren't ripping my blouse; they're ripping my arms, my skin, tearing them like paper.

I stop still.

With awareness that borders on hysteria, I understand that it isn't the tree limbs that have harmed me. The knife is bloody. I've been lashing out at the branches, but striking myself instead.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee! Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death! "Have mercy on me!" I sob.

I've been ripping my arms to shreds and I can't stop. The knife enters my shoulder and I watch in horror as blood pours out of my body. There's no pain, only a surge of blackness that I wave away like a swarm of flies. Skin flaps about my bones.

I'm lightheaded, but suddenly quite lucid. Music swirls around me, stirring up leaves and pine needles in a whirlwind. (don't fear the reaper we'll be able to fly)

Fly, yes.

I run again; I run from the sinking ground, the tearing limbs and the noise. Wind whistles through my ribboned arms, chilling me to my bare bones. I run again, and now I run so fast that I reach the edge of the woods. I see light ahead.

The field is hushed, the ground solid. I'm too afraid to look back at the forest, but I can feel the coldness of it on my spine. My hair stands on end as I listen to the quiet splat of blood dripping from my body to the ground. I watch it for some time, transfixed by my own insanity.

There's nothing left from my shoulders to my wrists but pink flesh drooping away from the whitened bones beneath. This is something I can't comprehend; my hands are fully functional - I flex my fingers - yet the muscles and the sinew, the cartilage and the veins of my arms have all fallen away. I drop in a heap to the ground, searching for the remains of my body.

My blood! It pools before me, muddying the earth. I lift a finger to touch my left arm. It's cold and rubbery and moves in different directions beneath my touch. I think I'm going to vomit again but crawl away instead, chanting the rosary.

I'm alone with my nightmares on this grassy plain; I have to get out of here. I force myself to stand.

There's a paved road cutting through this field and a man is walking it. He's far away from me and moving farther, still I know who he is. He's tall, dressed all in black. He walks with purpose though his head is hung in defeat. He's my lost compass.

I concentrate all of my energy on this man. I run toward him, straining with hope. I stretch myself wide, struggling to leap across the plain, feeling that I could fly if it weren't for my heavy legs. His name is a mantra on my lips.

I run, but he's faster.

Panic grips me. Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord, I pray the lord, I pray the Lord.

Mania brings with it clarity: I could fly if it weren't for the blood weighing me down. Reverberations of the dissonant music haunt me as the knife moves over my legs. When the breeze comes, I run on it.

My blouse, now black with blood, matches my long dark skirt. They flutter about me in ribbons with the flesh of my arms and legs. I feel like a ghost, a wisp of smoke from ashes. Relief floods hot through my being when I finally catch up to the man who's meant to save me.

I come close enough to feel the aura of loneliness and pain that enshrouds him. I come close enough to see the look of disgust on his face. I wonder fleetingly if he can smell the sour sweat and blood that cloud my presence.

I try to speak to him wordlessly from my soul, to sojourn with him in our usual silent manner. But he merely frowns at me and walks away.

My voice is a loud screeching wail that shouts his name, but he doesn't look back. Chills race through my body and that terrifying discord whistles in my ears. (come on baby don't fear the reaper)

I can't feel the knife entering my chest, but I can feel the terror and the sadness slipping away from me. Organs and muscles dissolve under my fingers as blood rushes over my breasts. I've spent too many years waiting, I realize, and now I relinquish all hope to this somber field. The power has been mine all along.

Power. I feel it surging through me as I take wing, stretching myself out like a sonic forest rising above the earth.

Even as I'm carried away from life, I seek him. He's still walking toward his destiny, but now he pauses to glance up at the sky. Thirty-five years of life fall away from me like prayers, showering him in red rain. "Take my hand," I whisper down to him. "We'll be able to fly."

His time has come.

"How often have you had this nightmare, Dana?" the staff social worker asks. She is an emollient to my pulsing nerves, her voice compassionate, her concern palpable.

"It first occurred about a month ago, and has been escalating..." I look down at my hands in my lap. "I'm having it nightly now."

"And what are your thoughts?" Karen Kosseff asks.

I clear my throat and look over at her briefly. "I've tried to analyze it. I think it's an obvious sign that I feel Agent Mulder is leaving me behind in his search for the truth."

"What about the self-mutilation? Have you analyzed that?"

"No, not really." She's pointing out something that I've missed while trying to piece the puzzle together. I'm suddenly uncomfortable. I came to Kosseff for help, but I'm not sure that I'm ready to face the symbolic logic of the dreams.

"Do you think you're sacrificing yourself to work on the X- Files?"

My discomfort begins turning into something darker. Kosseff is provoking anger that lies coiled in my stomach. "There are sacrifices I've made, but they come with the territory."

"Do you think so?"

I don't wish to lie again in the face of her concern, so I say nothing.

Kosseff presses me further. "Do you really believe that losing your sister, your child, losing a period of time in your life for which you cannot account..." Her voice is soft. "Do you think that comes with the territory?"

I bite my lip and work to maintain my composure. "I haven't sacrificed any more of myself than Mulder has."

"This is Agent Mulder's quest, though. He opened the X-Files. If he hadn't, no doubt you'd have a different life."

"No doubt," I say dryly. I try to squash the anger back into the hole it came from. Kosseff is goading me in her gentle way; she wants me to lash out. But I'm afraid that if my emotion unleashes itself, it may break walls that are best left in place.

"Do you begrudge him of that?" she asks.

"No."

She continues to gaze at me. "While I agree that he's not to be blamed for the course your life has taken, someone else in your shoes may feel differently."

"I chose to do this," I say somewhat defiantly. "I may not have selected the path I've taken, but when offered the opportunity, I accepted it. And when things got difficult, I never turned back."

"So, you blame yourself."

"I blame no one," I mutter. The bitterness in my voice suggests to me that I am, once again, lying. As if I ever stopped. "I just want the dreams to go away so I can sleep."

Kosseff eyes me thoughtfully. "You refer to them as dreams, not nightmares."

I stare at her. "I don't really care what we decide to call them as long as I'm able to get some rest." Surely she recognizes anger when it seethes on her sofa.

"You realize that while a sedative may help you fall asleep more easily, it can make the nightmares more vivid."

I nod, clenching my jaw. Am I not a doctor?

"Discussing your nightmares is a good form of expulsion. Purging our feelings can make us all rest easier."

I nod once again and fix my eyes on the clock mounted on the wall. "That's why I'm here," I say flatly.

Kosseff follows my gaze. "There are a couple of things I'd like to discuss with you before our time ends today. What do you think it means that the ground is sinking in this nightmare?"

If Kosseff is an exorcist, she's a kind one. I sigh and search myself for an answer. "Life as I know it or once knew it is drifting away from me. Solid ground is symbolic of comfort and security. Maybe my dream is telling me that I feel no security in the present."

She nods. "What about the song you hear?"

I shrug. "The sound of it disturbs me. I've heard it plenty of times on the radio, in the past; but in the dream it's so loud that it blocks out any rational thought. I start reciting prayers to silence it and to calm myself."

"The song is 'Don't Fear the Reaper' by Blue Oyster Cult," she says, looking dead-on at me. "The lyrics suggest suicide."

I nod my head, Blue Oyster Cult. Suicide?

Kosseff's staring a hole through me. "What is suicide, ultimately?"

"It's a cop-out," I say.

She shakes her head, no.

I think for a moment. What's suicide but a cop-out? Some people can't deal with the hand life has dealt them so they take their lives into their own... "Control. It's a matter of controlling one's fate."

Kosseff's words come rolling at me. "Control has always been important to you, hasn't it, Dana?"

I stand in a rush. "I need to get back to work."

Kosseff remains seated. "In a moment."

I look at her angrily, then sit. Expulsion is seldom pleasant.

After a long pause, she eyes me. "Why do you think he walks away from you?"

When I remain silent, she continues. "In your dream, Agent Mulder doesn't so much as pause to help you, even though he acknowledges your presence."

I swallow. "He doesn't want me to sacrifice myself for the job or for him."

"Is that all, Dana?" she probes in her caring way. Her questions are blunt, but her voice always remains soft. "Are there other issues, waking issues, you have with Agent Mulder that could be playing themselves out when you sleep?"

I shake my head and look at the floor. "I don't think so."

"Why don't you give that some thought and we'll discuss it next time."

This isn't unusual - Kosseff often leaves me with something to ponder. As I head to the elevator, I remember one of our first sessions together. During that particular appointment, I'd told Kosseff that I thought Mulder was like a compass, sure of his bearing, and unconcerned with what direction others thought he should take.

Kosseff latched onto that. "Is Agent Mulder your compass?" she had asked quietly.

Taken aback, I couldn't reply.

"I think it's important that you maintain your own direction. While you work closely with Agent Mulder, you need to keep some time for yourself. Remember that you're Dana Scully." She placed emphasis on my first name. "Not just Scully."

This gave me cause for reflection. Maybe Mulder has become my compass. Maybe I'm following him at the expense of my own personal ambitions.

It also painted a realistic portrait of my thought processes: I compared Mulder to an instrument, while he, a few months later, compared me to a work of nature.

We had been heading somewhere on a case; he was driving and I was staring out the window. "Scully, you're the sea in winter," he'd declared.

I had been jerked from my thoughts. "What?" The last thing we'd discussed, I remember, was the annoying habit he had of filling the ashtray with the shells of sunflower seeds.

He had glanced over at me, his face lit from within. "You've seen the ocean in January?"

I nodded. Of course I'd seen the ocean in January. I've seen all of the oceans - and several seas - and they all look the same in winter: harsh, bitter and cold. "Frigid?" I asked him, disappointed. I'd rather be the stone that Melissa once told me I am.

He had chuckled softly. "No, no, not frigid, Scully. Cold, yeah, but calm and... and still."

I hadn't replied to this, wondering which sea he'd seen that was calm. Oceans are turbulent in winter, stormy, dangerous places associated with death and destruction.

"The real beauty lies beneath the surface," he continued, thinking about his calm sea and working a sunflower seed with his tongue. "All of the life, the colors, the mesmerizing tranquility, the mystery..." He trailed off. His voice, when it came again, was so low that he appeared to be talking to himself, staring at the road ahead. "It's the surface people see when they gaze at it, not what lies below. It's unspoiled, untainted by man, clean and honest. Breathtaking, the stuff of poetry. The sea is an enigma."

Mulder had grinned to himself, his eyes never wavering from the road. "The enigmatic Dr. Scully. You know," he'd said, louder, for he was talking to me once again. "Some people just don't get it."

I hadn't taken my eyes from him since he'd first spoken. Mulder's soliloquies were always captivating, whether he was being facetious or poetic. "Get what, Mulder?" I asked softly.

"You," he glanced at me and nodded. "They don't get you."

I tossed a smile at his profile. "Except maybe Frohike."

Mulder had grinned again and flicked a sunflower seed at me. "Oh, Frohike gets you all right, or at least he'd like to."

I smile now, thinking back on this. Mulder has all of my trust, but still I can't tell him about the dream. He internalizes everything where I'm concerned. He always assumes that he's the thorn in my side. I sigh and exit the elevator.

When I reach the office, there he is, back from a late lunch, if he ever left. Remnants of a sandwich and chips litter his desk; no, he didn't take a break. How very like him. His gaze is buried in a manila folder, and though he doesn't look up, he knows that I'm here. "Hey, Scully, look what I found."

I walk to him and glance over his shoulder at the file. "What?"

"Aural, Washington. Four women found dead in the past four days. Apparent suicide in each case, at least that's what the local p.d. is saying."

"Unfortunately, people kill themselves every day, Mulder." I walk to the chair facing him and sit, waiting for his "but."

"But check this out, each woman fits the same description: mid- thirties, successful, single..."

"And?"

Mulder finally looks up at me. There's a glint in his eye, the "hey, we may have a case" look that I know all too well. "The killer is how they did themselves in." He slaps some photos in front of me.

"Oh my God." Bile rises in my throat as I scrutinize the pictures.

"Not merely slashed wrists here, Scully; these women carved up their entire bodies."

"They...they cut their arms, their legs into-" I close my eyes to the vertiginous room.

"Into strips, yeah. Like human windsocks." Mulder pulls the photos away from me. "Something, huh?"

I'm speechless. My pulse is racing and perspiration trickles down my back. I'm going to vomit.

"What would possess somebody to do this? How could they even live long enough to finish the job? You're the doctor here, tell me."

I look up at him. I hear his words, but they're far away; I feel faint. Remnants of the dream flit in and out of my consciousness. I grab his Coke; the rim tastes salty, but it keeps the nausea at bay.

"You okay there?"

"Thirsty," I lie.

I take deep breaths and finally become clear-headed again. Mulder looks at me curiously, with a touch of concern on his features. I square my shoulders. "It would be difficult, if not altogether impossible, to lacerate oneself to that extent before losing consciousness." I drain the rest of his soda. "Even if they had taken some sort of palliatives or anodynes - painkillers - Mulder, the resulting loss of blood would render them unconscious almost immediately." I return the soda can to his desk with a clink and blink my eyes. My composure had only wobbled; now it's back.

He picks up the empty can and eyes it. "That's what I was thinking, you know." He brings the can to his lips and tilts his head back, trying to coax water from a stone. "Next one's on you," he mutters.

"Why do the police consider them suicides?"

He shrugs. "That's the million dollar question. Apparently they all left behind notes and there wasn't any evidence to support a theory of murder."

My eyebrow arches in spite of itself. "And how did this case come to fall into your hands?" I can't imagine that the Bureau will become involved since the local authorities are leaning toward suicide.

"Oh, you know." He sets the can down and toys with it. "Saw it on Skinner's desk..."

"And swiped it?"

"Borrowed it, Scully, borrowed it."

"So the FBI is involved? Why?"

Mulder waves his hand as if to dismiss the question. "Who knows? The town is small, maybe they're requesting assistance."

"And why should we involve ourselves in this? Don't you think that if Skinner wanted us on it, he would've brought it to our attention?"

"Even if we don't get the case, aren't you curious enough to at least look at the angles from our end, from the information we have here? Don't you want to know how, Scully? Why? I mean, one town, four victims, four days. The very nature of the deaths. Doesn't that intrigue you at all?"

More than you know, I think. I feel weary. "Not as much as a weekend away from this office does."

"You're not suggesting that you have an actual life, are you?"

"Not much of one," I mutter. "But it's something."

He chuckles. "So leave early for once."

I rise from the chair. It's just 3:15, too early to leave. "I've got too much to do, Mulder." I stifle a yawn and rub my eyes. "I'm behind."

His tone is sarcastic. "Let's see. Even if you leave right now and I stay late, I'll still be in a backlog wasteland come Monday."

"That's because you distract easily. If you'd just sit and concentrate for an hour, you might accomplish something."

"So go home and we'll give it a run. If I finish my paperwork this evening, you owe me dinner."

"This evening. Mulder, it's Friday. Go out, live a little."

He smiles. "This *is* living a little."

I look at his dancing eyes. "You're not going play catch up, are you? You're going to study the new case."

He winks. "Like I said, Scully, this is living a little. Go paint the town red and I'll see you on Monday."

A fleeting vision of blood streaming from my body turns my stomach. I blanche - visibly, I'm sure - and turn to grab my briefcase so that he won't notice. I'm out the door before he can change his mind.

*****

The sun peeks through dark clouds briefly, then disappears again. I've never been afraid of either thunder or lightning, but there are times when the combination can rattle me. There's some static from the radio station I'm listening to; I surf through the channels with trembling fingers, my thoughts as charged as electric particles in the air.

I'm good at holding it all in. Strength can be as simple as repressing emotions, and when I'm with Mulder, strength is all that I want him to see. But when I'm alone, the tight coils of fear begin to unwind. Sweat dampens my armpits.

Cedar trees, dark and green, contort in my vision. I blink. Music swells, not in the car, not from the radio, but in my head.

I switch the receiver to an AM station. Talk, that's what I need to hear. Not guitar riffs that sound disturbingly familiar. I wish I'd never mentioned the music to Kosseff. It stayed within my dreams before; now I can't shake it. (all our times have come, here but now they're gone. seasons don't fear the reaper, nor do the wind, the sun or the rain) 'We can be like they are,' my mind whispers.

I try to drown out the music with logic. Perhaps I read a newspaper article or a similar case file and my subconscious has been embellishing it. Maybe that's why I'm having these dreams.

My shaking hands tell me differently.

I've had visions before, fleeting glimpses of the dead. A chill touches the nape of my neck and I shiver. I've had visions before, but only when I was dying.

Cancer never leaves a person; it just hides in remission. When I was diagnosed several years ago with the disease, fear consumed me. Though the mass disappeared, the trauma of the experience didn't. I've been haunted by the cancer's absence, wondering if - or when - it will return.

I clench my fingers around the steering wheel and struggle to retain a firm grip on reality. The dream doesn't mean that I'm going to die.

A singular fat drop of rain hits my window shield and I jump. The dream isn't real, it's just a figment of my imagination brought on by stress. The fact that I'm so afraid when I wake up at night only exacerbates the insomnia. I'm too wound up, that's all. Too much caffeine.

I've never suffered from panic attacks, but I feel what must be the beginning of one forming now. I concentrate on breathing, slowly inhaling and exhaling, but my palms are slick and my heart races. I grit my teeth together to squelch the shuddering, but my breath comes in gasps. I think of the crime scene photos and I see myself in them. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.

I grip the steering wheel so hard that by the time I reach home my hands ache. I rush inside, closing curtains against the beginning rain. I turn on lamps and the tv. Still, I'm frightened. I begin cleaning vigorously: sweep, vacuum, polish, mop, scrub.

Exhausted, I finally retreat to a hot bath, complete with candles, in case the lights go out. I'm no longer terrified, but I can hear thunder booming, and I slip into a sullen uneasiness.

I'm on the sofa, staring blankly at the Post and drinking my second glass of wine, when he calls. "Hey, Scully, guess what?"

I glance at the clock - 6:45 p.m. "You're not still at the office?"

"Yeah, but-"

"You didn't get any paperwork done, did you?"

"Another woman killed herself. Five women, 5 days."

I shudder. "Same town?"

"Yeah. Aural, Washington, population 39,000. I did a computer search for similar cases, but no matches."

"So, we've got a suicide town." I head to the kitchen for the bottle of wine while finishing off what's in my glass. My body feels languorous, tired, but my mind is wired, suddenly furtive and wary. I put on a pot of coffee instead.

"Seems that way. I'm downloading some notes from a detective there who's requested FBI assistance."

I opt for regular instead of decaf. "So why don't you come over? Bring the case, maybe dinner; we'll look at it."

Ninety minutes later he's on my doorstep, brown bags in one hand, case in the other. His hair is drenched from the downpour and he looks at me quizzically. "What'd you do, get bored? It's Friday night; you're a relatively hot babe. I should think-"

"Relatively hot? Do I hear lukewarm?" I take the bags, smelling Cajun, and I'm suddenly starved.

Mulder grins. "I'd say you're about room temperature."

"I'll settle for that."

He shakes his head like a dog and I'm covered with sprinkles of rain. "Down boy, down," I tease. I feel I've known him forever and have spent most of that time scolding him.

He shrugs off his overcoat and hangs it, then makes his way past me to the kitchen. He's shining with that familiar adrenaline high of a new case and I wish to caution his eagerness. I bite my tongue instead.

As I open one of the bags, his eyes travel from the wine bottle that's still on the table to the coffee pot on the counter. Both are about half full. "Problems making decisions this evening?"

I smirk at him. "I put on the coffee when you called. I know how long-winded you get."

"Scully," he says in mock seriousness. "When have you ever known me to be long-winded?"

"Every few hours or so." I pull out a styrofoam container. "What'd you get?"

"Andouille po' boys. Hope you weren't expecting a good night's sleep."

The irony of his innocent statement isn't lost on me. I get two plates from the cabinet and open the refrigerator. "What do you want to drink?"

"Got a Sprite?"

"Coffee, wine, Sprite... put a neon sign over my head and call me a convenience store."

He grins. "Beer?"

"Beer I don't have."

"Sprite then." He pulls a chair out and begins eating from one of the containers. I prefer using china, myself.

I hand him his soda and sit across from him, placing my sandwich and fries on a plate. It looks good, but I smell something even better. "What's in the other bag?"

"Beignets," he says, swallowing. "They're for you."

I delve into the sack. "What kind of topping?"

"One's praline and the other's fudge."

The powdered pastry is meant to be eaten with a fork, but Mulder frowns when I get silverware out. "You know you want to eat it with your hands."

I shake my head, dipping into the fudge. It's still warm.

"No, look." He reaches over and tears a bit of one of the beignets, dunking it into the praline sauce. He holds it just long enough for it to drip on the table, then pops it into his mouth. Sugar dots his shirt. "It's more fun my way."

"It's messier your way."

He resumes with his sandwich, watching me continue with the fork. We pass a few minutes quietly. Mulder's not usually a quick eater - unless he's nervous or excited. Tonight, he swallows large bites of bread and sausage as if he's ravenous.

"Guess what I found out?" His right leg shimmies rhythmically, vibrating the table.

"About the case?"

He nods.

"Is it something I'll see when I go through the file?"

He nods, popping spicy fries into his mouth.

"Then don't spoil the surprise."

He smiles behind his Sprite. "That's the thing, though. There's too much about this case, too many elements. I can't see the forest for the trees." His foot continues tapping.

"And what's so different about that?" I give him a sarcastic smile.

He shakes his head. "Usually it's the other way around for me. Usually I can't see all the trees for the forest."

"Change is good, Mulder."

He grins.

"So let me look at all the pieces of the puzzle and you concentrate on the big picture."

"That's what you're here for." He wipes his lips and winks at me.

I push too much beignet in my mouth and swallow it down with warm coffee. He's like a pulsing strobe light, mesmerizing. "Oh, is that why I'm here?"

"You're a good tree watcher, Scully. You're good at the little pieces. I get overwhelmed." His foot-tapping speeds up for a minute, then ceases.

I look at him hopefully, wondering if he's had some sort of breakthrough on a case that he's studied for just a few hours. His eyes are clouded over with some dark thought, but he's not talking. As animated as he was before, now he's a sulking, brooding figure. I've spent enough time with him to know that the mood changes aren't frequent unless we're on a case. When his mind is whirring and the pieces start fitting together, he's wound up. When he's confused or disturbed by the case, he's down low.

"Maybe I can offer some perspective when I look at the case notes."

He takes his distant gaze from the wall and concentrates intently on my eyes. He's not looking into them, but at a point just below them. "I've been worried about you."

"Why?" I look over my cup of coffee at him.

He shrugs. "You're okay?"

"I'm fine."

"So how long have you been having nightmares?" he asks suddenly.

"What?" My coffee goes down the wrong way and I start coughing.

"You've got circles under your eyes."

"Mulder..." I sip from my cup carefully, trying to squelch the coughs.

He takes another bite of his sandwich and pushes the styrofoam container away. "You have these yawning fits around ten o'clock every morning, too. And you look... you look like I do when I'm having nightmares."

"I haven't been sleeping well," I admit.

He nods his head toward the coffee pot. "It's no wonder."

"No," I shake my head slowly, searching for words. "I fall asleep fine..."

"But then you have a bad dream and you wake up, only to find you can't fall asleep again."

I wipe my hands on a napkin. Mulder, of all people, knows what it's like to have nightmares. He knows what it is to be afraid of sleep. "It... it's frustrating."

"You've lost weight," he murmurs.

My appetite is suddenly gone. I want to eat just to appease him, but the food would never make it past my mouth. "A couple of pounds," I say, staring at my plate. "My sleep pattern's been interrupted. It throws everything off."

"How long?"

"What?" I look up at him.

"How long have you been having nightmares?"

"Not long." I push my chair back.

He questions me with his gaze.

"A few weeks." I begin putting the uneaten food away.

"Do you run or anything? Before you go to bed?"

I shake my head, then pause. "I've tried it, yeah. I'm a morning runner, though. It tends to wake me up rather than put me to sleep."

"Swimming works for me, when I really need to unwind."

"I tried that one night." I grimace, remembering. Sleep had come quickly that particular evening, but the dream had been worse. I had awakened at midnight, sweating, and hadn't been able to fall asleep again until 5:30 a.m., thirty minutes before my alarm rang. Swimming is not the answer.

His fingers toy with his tie, tugging at the knot. "You know, I've taken sleeping pills occasionally, but... nothing's worse than not being able to wake up from a bad dream."

There's something Mulder wants to say to me, but he's struggling with words. I finish clearing the table and wait by the sink, watching him. He's been nervous since he got here. Maybe he's been planning this conversation. He certainly looks as if he's giving every word careful consideration before speaking.

He clears his throat. "And alcohol, that never solved anything," he says, his eyes on the table.

It's not his words so much as the tone of his voice that angers me. Mulder's not talking about himself any longer. He's warning me.

I turn my back to him so that he'll open up. I want him to spit out whatever he's trying to imply.

"I've never known you to be much of a drinker. But you... you seem to be drinking more lately."

I turn slowly, feeling the blood rush to my face. "What makes you say that, Mulder? Because you see a half of a bottle of wine on the table when you walk in the door?"

"Your breath." He looks at me, then away. "Your breath smells like alcohol sometimes. Sometimes in the mornings." He shifts in his chair.

I feel his eyes on me as I sit down - not next to him as I was before - but further away, at the opposite end of the table. He'll read that, I think. He reads every nuance. He's always so careful of me, watching when he thinks I don't realize it. Checking to make sure I'm okay. Most of the time, this makes me grateful. Now is not one of those times.

He thinks I'm using a crutch to cope. Anger roils in my stomach. "What gives you the right..." I begin, but stop myself at the look on his face. He's flinching.

He knows I'm angry; I know he's worried. He knows I feel guilty for being angry; I know he feels guilty for worrying. He knows that I don't need him; I know that he's wrong.

He leans across the table and grabs my hand suddenly, waiting.

I can't look at him. The wine and coffee and a month of sleepless nights are hitting me now. I'll look at him only when I know I won't cry.

"Everything gives me the right." He says this quietly.

My heart turns. Things have become more complex between us as the years have rolled by. We've become dependent on each other for survival. This is something that I have problems with. (Ah, this is my waking issue, I realize, thinking of Kosseff.) I don't want to rely on him too heavily, and I certainly don't want him to be dependent on me.

Nevertheless, if I were to die right now, his life would end, too, I'm almost certain. He could survive without me, but he'd choose not to. He'd toss those sunflower seeds out the window and take up Morleys and the darkness that they've become associated with. I'm his guiding light now; and how sad that is.

I finally look at him. Perhaps we aren't the ones to blame. Often we've been the only people we could trust. Often we've saved each other from darkness, from the devil. I've saved him from his nightmares; perhaps he should save me from mine.

I have been at these crossroads for seven years.

"I've been drinking more than usual lately, but not enough to warrant your concern." I look into his eyes, briefly, afraid of what he might see. "The truth is, I've tried everything. Nothing seems to work."

"I know. Sometimes it helps to talk about it, though."

I nod, staring at my hands. "Sometimes I take sleeping pills. Sometimes I read. Sometimes I just stay up all night."

"What are they about? The nightmares?" he asks.

I look at him directly. "I'm not ready to discuss them with you. There's something that's come up... to change my perspective on them."

"That's okay. As long as you know you can."

"I know." I push back my chair in an effort to change the subject. "Let's go to the living room. You can tell me about the case."

He looks at me thoughtfully, reading me, then nods slowly.

We settle on the sofa, tossing away the throw pillows that lie between us. He begins shuffling through the papers and photos of the case file.

When he has them sorted, he speaks in a detached voice. "All of the victims were found either in their homes or places of business. No one noticed anything unusual in their lives, no depression, nothing to indicate that these women were about to commit suicide. No unusual activity was suspected on the day of death. No strange visitors, phone calls, mail. One day they're teaching students, having dinner with their neighbors, getting their hair done, seeing patients, and the next they're dead by apparent suicide.

"The fifth victim is 34 years old; she was an attorney." He rifles through his stack of paperwork and hands me a picture. "This is a print out of a scanned image of the photograph. The quality's not great, but you get the idea."

I brace myself before looking at it. Her arms are strips, amazingly clean and evenly cut. Nausea. I breathe.

"She was found in her home at 2:00 this afternoon; the time of death is estimated at 4 a.m."

"Is there nothing at the scene? Fingerprints, hair, anything to suggest that someone else was in her house?" I ask.

"The local p.d. has really just begun analyzing it - she was found at 2:00 Pacific time - so I don't know yet. The man who's consulting us, Detective Richard Heitt, contacted Skinner yesterday. He sent along the scanned image and the few facts he has on Jamie Tosou--today's victim-- via e-mail to me just a couple of hours ago."

"So Skinner's turned it over to us, then."

He nods and hands me the pictures of the other four victims. Quietly, he begins perusing the case file.

I can't look at the photos again. "And none of the victims were married?"

He shakes his head, no.

"Children?" I ask.

"Nope, but guess what?"

"Is this the surprise?"

"Yep."

I think about the way his mind works. Broad jumps in reasoning, based on past cases and profiles. "I don't know, what?"

"Missing ova, Scully, every woman."

I feel a headache forming. "Oh."

"I don't have the autopsy notes on today's victim, but none of the others had ovaries."

I rub my forehead. "And what else? You said they left suicide notes."

Mulder nods. "If you can call them that." He hands me one of the documents.

It's a photocopy of a note found at the first victim's house. The handwriting is a scrawling mess. "Care to decipher this for me?" I ask.

Mulder takes the page and reads: "'I ran searching for an answer up the stairs and down the hall.' And the next few words are unreadable. But it ends with: 'come away.'"

"And that's it? That constitutes a suicide note?" A distinct impression is forming in my mind that the Aural police department hasn't been thorough in its investigation.

Mulder nods. "It was written on the back of an a.t.m. receipt and was found clutched in the victim's left hand. Her right hand held the razor blade that cut her up. There was a message written in blood on several walls in her home. The blood was hers. The prints on the razor blade are hers."

"What was the message on her walls?"

"The only legible words were 'come away.'"

"What weapons were used on the other victims?"

"Two used razor blades, three, including Jamie Tosou, apparently used knives. And all of them, Scully, all of them moved to Aural within the past two years. They dropped everything - their careers, homes, cars - to move there."

We peruse the files for another hour. Four of the victims had been found in their homes. The other had been in her backyard. The suicide notes are vague and brief, even poetic; most of them written on scraps of paper. The pediatrician had written on her prescription pad.

"Mulder, we need to go there." I rub my eyes and yawn. Sleep isn't far away, even with the coffee boost. I shake my head to try and postpone the inevitable.

"Yeah, I want you to examine the bodies, Scully."

I lay my head back on the sofa. My eyes are tired. I think of the victims, slicing themselves up in such a manner. It doesn't ring true. The Aural police department has overlooked something. "We need to leave tomorrow," I say. "One victim per day for the past week sounds like a pattern to me."

"Yeah." His voice is soft; it sounds like he's deep in the file. "Heitt's expecting us tomorrow."

I'm being sucked downward quickly; sleep is pulling me so fast that it makes me dizzy. I hate the sensation; this always happens when I'm too tired.

"I'm gonna check out the weather in Washington," he says, grabbing the remote from the coffee table.

I watch the tv for a moment, thinking about what I'm going to pack. There's a lunch date I've got with Mom next week that I'll probably need to cancel. Oh damn, gynecologist appointment too. "Mulder, we always seem to be out of town whenever I have something scheduled."

He looks at me. "Got big plans this weekend?"

I shake my head lazily. "Appointments next week."

His gaze returns to the tv screen. "Tell me about it. I've got a root canal to reschedule unless we can wrap this case up by Tuesday morning."

"A root canal? Mulder..." I trail off, thinking about his aversion to pain.

He shrugs indifferently and points to the tv with the remote. "Looks like there's a storm front over Spokane. Better pack an umbrella. You got any movies?"

I shoot him a sharp glance. Well, it's as sharp as I can make it while I'm feeling like a slug. "Nothing you'd appreciate, I'm sure."

"What? No Battling Bimbos from Brazil? I'm stunned, Scully." He winks at me and begins flipping channels.

My eyes close again. He apparently hasn't noticed that I'm struggling to stay awake. Or he has noticed but plans to stay the night. Fine. He can have my bed. I'm too tired to move.

My body is so heavy, yet my mind keeps running. I wonder which suits I can take on the trip and which are still at the dry cleaners. Damn. Meant to pick those up today. Mulder's up, probably headed to the bathroom. I didn't realize he was having tooth pain. Bill says root canals are hell. My mind runs. I wonder if I'll have to reschedule any other appointments. Kosseff wanted to see me again next Friday...

Some time later I feel the weight of the cushions sink down. Mulder's back, but I can't find the energy to open my eyes.

I'm running.

I've come to dread reaching the field. Everything will be so easy if I just sink down into nothingness, the hands of the earth enclosing me. Maybe I could if it weren't for that music. Sadistic, searing through me. Taunting. I reach for the knife quicker this time. (we can be like they are don't fear the reaper)

Blood pours from my arms and I begin to soar away from here. Away from this nightmare of cloying cedars and haunting music.

The field rushes up to me like a dream. Mulder's here, but he keeps walking away, and although I'm running, fast, hard, breathless, I can't catch him. I scream his name.

My legs. Have I freed them yet? No.

I bring the knife down, and suddenly he's here, looking at me, saying my name. "It's okay," he murmurs, pulling me close to him.

"You wouldn't wait."

"Hmm?" he asks, then recognition lights his face. "But I am, I am waiting, Scully."

But he's holding my arms. They aren't there; he doesn't see me. "No," I say. "My arms; you aren't supposed to hold me there."

He looks at me, at my body, then places his hands around my waist. "Here?" he asks quietly.

I nod.

He pulls me close to him, so close I can hardly breathe.

A tremble of love and desire races through me. I wrap my right leg around his left. "We can be like they are," I say in a whisper.

He bends his head to hear me. "What?"

I tilt my head up, lips close to his ear. "We'll be able to fly." I want to bite his neck, feel the blood pour from his body, free him.

His mouth rests on my cheek, but he doesn't say anything.

"Do I disgust you?" I ask.

He pulls back and looks at me in amusement. "No, Scully, not even when you forget to brush your teeth."

I cling to him tighter, more urgently. "Don't you smell me?"

He squeezes me, pulling me hard against him. My body arches toward his and he moans softly. His hands press on my back, almost covering it entirely.

"Don't you smell the blood?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," he says hoarsely.

"I did it for you, for us," I confess. I reach for the knife.

His mouth opens on my neck. "What did you do for us?"

I pull away from him angrily. "Don't you see?" I hold my arms out. They flutter like ribbons on a breeze.

He looks at them and tenses. "What did you do to your arms, Scully?"

I hold up the knife to show him; music drips from my mouth. "We can be like they are." Surely he hears the music?

He shakes his head. "Like who are?"

"Romeo and Juliet."

He lifts a hand from my back and touches my face. His breath warms me. His eyes tell me I'm an angel.

"Together in eternity," I breathe. I look into his eyes. "Don't be afraid, Mulder. Don't fear the reaper."

Realization tracks across his face and freezes there.

"We'll be able to fly!" I flail my arms about. "We'll be able to fly!"

"Stop it, Scully." He grabs my shoulders. "Wake up." He shakes me. "Dammit, wake up, Scully."

(Oh, he thinks this is a dream.)

I know what happens next. He's going to walk away now; he's going to continue without me. I double over in pain.

His hands touch my waist, lifting me up. I push at him. "Go away!" Anger rushes from my mouth and disintegrates. I stand as tall as I can and stare into his eyes. "Go on," I say firmly. "You don't see me anyway."

He bites his lips and cups my face with his hands. "You're *all* that I see, Scully." The intensity of his eyes burns through me and I can almost forget everything else.

"Hold me here," I say, sliding my palms over my waist.

He wraps his arms around me and pulls me to him with a gentleness that belies the hardness of his body.

I arch myself up to him, clinging, wanting. "Take my hand," I whisper, pulling his head down to my lips. The music is inside me; it pours from my mouth. "We'll be able to fly."

He looks down at me. "Don't fear the reaper," he says quietly.

I nod, yes. He hears the music too.

He shakes his head sadly. "This is a dream, Scully. This is a beautiful, frightening dream. I want you to wake up."

"No!" I jerk away from him, disentangling arms and legs. I turn and run, flying on the breeze.

"Scully!"

But I'm gone, running for the forest; it's safer there. The woods embrace me like a wayward child and I run willingly into their deep darkness. He's close behind; I feel his breath on my neck. Trees bend toward us, black and rustling.

I've spent so many evenings in the embrace of these same smothering cedars that I've grown almost accustomed to their particular dampness. Always the earth has clung to me in bits of wetness, sucking me downward in a numbing sensation of coldness and fear. But it's warmer here now, humid, hot.

I stop. Damp earth hisses beneath my feet, sending up clouds of steam like hidden hot springs. The forest ahead is still wet, but I'm standing in a place that's rapidly drying.

Scorching heat is on my back and I turn to face it. Mulder is just inside the forest, ten yards away from me, running in slow motion. Pine needles rise in flame all around him, swirling like fiery tornadoes. His eyes are glowing embers.

The ground below my feet begins to crackle and shift. I stand transfixed.

Smoke wafts from his body. His left foot lands on a branch and I watch it burst into flame. His right foot causes a small anthill to explode. My chest grows warm. Mulder is bringing the heat with him. I feel it spiraling toward me in a six- foot, two inch wave.

He's a few feet from me when something over my sternum suddenly becomes red hot. My cross.

I grab it and experience a pain so blinding that I drop it instinctively, only to feel the necklace melting on my skin. I scream at Mulder, but I can't see through the smoke, now a heavy cloud around him.

I turn from him and run just as he reaches out. The forest is ablaze; it heaves around me, hacking up dry, putrid air in my face.

Bent tree limbs drip cinders on me, sparking my blouse and skirt. "Drop and roll! Drop and roll," I think. But the ground beneath me is doing its own rolling, sending wave after wave of fiery dirt against my legs. If I drop, I drown.

The cross, my talisman, is melting. I feel a hole in my chest beginning to open beneath the molten metal. Flesh is smoldering away from blood; I'm burning.

I do something that I've never wished to do: I grab at the necklace and yank. The chain flies away from me, but the cross doesn't. It's embedded, carving a cavity that goes deeper as I run.

I can feel it burning its way into my esophagus. It travels down like swallowed lava to my stomach; my chest is a gaping wound now. Air hits hard against my ribcage, coaxing little fires away from my blouse and into the cavity below. I press my hands against the hole, dodging a fireball from above.

"Mulder!" I feel him behind me, fire igniting the backs of my legs, burning my skirt. Familiar music hits my ears.

I slow my gait enough to throw a glance back at him, and he's so close I can feel his breath on my skin. His lips move, but no sound comes from his mouth. It comes, instead, from his entire body. The song envelopes him in a white rush, seeping from his pores, growing and fading with each breath he takes.

Screaming one long wail, I turn and run. My skin is charred, my hair is smoldering and my shoes are melting away. Sparks fly from within the hole in my chest. I'm burning from the inside out. Only the knife in my hand remains cool. I press it to my face, remembering.

Blood is liquid.

I slice my arms as quickly as I can and the blood streams, cooling my skin instantly. But I've slowed down too much, and Mulder tackles me. Heat, red and blinding, tears through me.

He's smothering me with fire, his body melting mine. The forest continues to blaze around us. I twist beneath him, pushing and struggling. He lifts up, his mouth still moving soundlessly, and I plunge the knife into my stomach. Blood spurts. The relief is euphoric, but short-lived.

Mulder rolls off of me. He lies close by, still emitting heat, but the smoke is gone. He looks languorously at my crimson smeared body.

I shiver uncontrollably. Heat surrounds me but I'm cold suddenly, as blood gushes from my abdomen. Cold. I huddle on the ground, not having the strength to move. My bones are useless against this freezing red rain.

I doze in never-never land, somewhere between fear and numbness, until something large falls on me. It mats the blood to my stripped arms, enveloping me further in this icy stillness. I cry out and push the object away, but it presses closer. I open my eyes to it. Mulder.

He's wrapping his coat around me, staring at me with eyes that are suddenly frightened and aware.

"You're too late," I accuse him. Words fall from me in a slur as my body lifts away from here, soaring skyward.

I leave him as he is, as perhaps he always has been, bent over unforgiving bones.

Of all of the places that I could wake up from this nightmare, I'd probably choose my own bed first. The quiet softness of my bedroom has dispelled turbulent dreams many times in the past. Usually I awaken with a start and the familiarity of the place leads me into the gentle state of lucidity.

If not my bed, then perhaps my sofa or somewhere else in my apartment. Or Mulder's apartment. Even waking from a nightmare to find myself at the office would be preferable to waking in a hospital.

But there's no mistaking the smell.

I open my eyes to see Mulder, hovering. He smiles at my mother and then at me. "Glad to see you, sleeping beauty."

"What happened?"

My mother gently pushes away hair that isn't in my eyes. "Your doctor said that your electrolytes are low, that you're anemic."

"How long have I been out?" My gaze is on Mulder. "What time is it?"

He glances at his watch. "It's just after 12:00."

"What happened?"

Mulder eyes my mother. "When I checked on you this morning, you were out of it. I tried to wake you up so that we could catch the flight to Spokane. You felt feverish and your pulse was rapid-"

"He panicked." My mother smiles gently.

"Where's my chart?"

"Your doctor has it. She just walked out the door a second ago."

I continue to look at Mulder. I feel that he's hiding something from me, that I've missed something during unconsciousness. "You're going on today?"

He nods. "I'm catching the 1:45 flight." He rubs his neck. "The case isn't pausing for us."

I catch his meaning. "I'm not surprised." I think for a moment. "After I meet with my doctor, I'll let you know my plans."

He nods. "Nothing she said to me sounded serious, but I imagine you'll be hooked up to that saline drip for a while. Apparently you've just run yourself down, Scully." His look is concerned but not grave. I take comfort in this.

He leaves minutes later, but only because my mother is here. She and I exchange a tired look and small talk. I don't want her with me now. I want to be left alone. Moreover, God help me, I want to sleep again, no matter what dreams I have. I'm more tired than I can ever remember being.

Thankfully, she seems to understand this. She's reluctant to go, however, and stays with me until early evening. As light wanes from the small window in my room, I give her the only push she needs. "The truth is, Mom, that my body has taken a beating over the years. It's more than likely that I'll spend a lot of time in and out of hospitals for the rest of my life. I prefer to see you on other terms."

She balks a bit, but she does leave. She's just walking out the door when I feel my lids closing. Sleep comes to me again.

The woods are dark and deep, there's no trace of the previous wildfire or Mulder...and I'm stumbling, tripping and sinking with the ground. Mud clogs my nose and I wipe at it. Although I continue wiping, I can't get it out of my nostrils; breathing becomes difficult. I can't think. Blood rushes in my ears, drowning out the music. I'm suffocating.

A piercing sound cuts the air and I jolt awake. It's my bedside phone. I reach for it, sweating.

"Scully, it's me. Think about me when you fall asleep tonight. If you have a nightmare, imagine that I'm there with you. Imagine that we're together."

I nod wordlessly and hang up the telephone; it's slick in my hands. I wipe my nose and it's then that I feel it. A rush of adrenaline pumps my heart and I rip away the i.v. My feet hit the floor so hard it hurts and I run to the bathroom, flipping on the switch. Light blinds me for only a moment and then I see my reflection in the mirror.

Blood is dripping from my nose.

*****

By eleven o'clock on Sunday morning, a time when I'm often in the healing stages of repentance, I'm staring down at the world from wispy white clouds. The airplane is beginning its descent and will soon bring me to a city that may unlock answers to the cedar-drenched forest of my dreams. I treasure this quiet moment of clarity.

Mulder is waiting for me below. I haven't told him of the mass that's made its roots in the very spot it inhabited several years ago. I haven't told him of the weakened state of my body, how a month of sleepless nights has made it vulnerable to disease. I haven't told him that I lied my way out of the hospital, promising my doctor I'd return once I packed some clothes and made a few calls. I haven't told him of the heightened sense of awareness that's been growing for several days, leading me to believe that I must be losing my mind.

I've only told him that I'm feeling better, which is true. I do feel better than I did last night, when I saw the blood.

He gave me a wake-up call a few hours ago that I didn't need. I haven't slept since staring into the tiny mirror in the hospital bathroom. For several minutes, I was unable to move. I just watched my reflection as realization settled into my eyes. When I was able to react, there were no tears. I had my doctor paged and requested an x-ray. There was simply no reason for an MRI; the shadows present on the black and white film showed me all I needed to know.

Remission is over.

The plane circles over Spokane and I steel myself for Mulder's scrutiny. I don't wish to hide the cancer from him, but I don't want to waste our time by mourning something that can't be changed. One day I'll tell him everything. I'll tell him of nightmares and dreams, fears and hopes, death and life and cancer, one day. For now, they all stay on this plane.

*****

Mulder throws questions at me from the time he meets me at the gate to the time we're seated in the rental car. "What did the doctor say? Did you have another nightmare? How are you feeling?"

I dodge them all as nonchalantly as I can and insist on learning his findings since he's been in Aural. "There's been another one, hasn't there? Another death?"

He nods. "Casey Gusolitch. Thirty-seven. Geologist. She was found at seven-thirty yesterday morning, three hours after she died." He hands me a manila folder stuffed full of photographs and copies of suicide notes, preliminary autopsy reports and crime scene details.

"And the manner of death?" I rifle through the case file, skimming its contents. I don't want to try to read while he drives. Not on an empty stomach.

"The same."

It grows quiet in the car as Mulder maneuvers his way out of Spokane. He turns onto an interstate and exits a few miles later. "So tell me, Scully," he says as his eyes travel over the quiet road. "Suppose you were called into a meeting with a teacher, a pediatrician, a systems analyst, a dentist, an attorney and a geologist. What could you assume about these people before the meeting begins? Going only by their titles?"

"Not much. That they're all professionals, degreed."

He nods. "Right. Now let me tell you that their names are Chris Choat, R.J. Lewis, Jessie Ramsey, Mickey Bonner, Jamie..." He thinks. "Jamie Tusou, and Casey Gusolitch. Anything else you can tell me about these people from their names?"

This is something I hadn't given any thought to before now, but still I know what he's asking. "They're all somewhat androgynous. Gender can't be presumed merely from the names."

He nods.

"And you're going where with this?"

"That depends on the evidence. I want you to examine the bodies as if these women were abductees."

I look at him warily. "You expect me to find implants."

He nods again, chewing on his lip.

"And if I do?"

"Their ova were harvested."

I don't want to touch on this area yet; their ova were missing, yes, but for what reason remains unknown. "So where are you going with the androgynous names?"

He shrugs. "I'm not sure. A death a day for the past week, all in Aural. If there were any indication to suggest that they were murdered, I'd say we have a serial killer on our hands, and that the last death would take place today, Sunday. I'd say that this week was important to him somehow."

"But we don't have a serial killer on our hands, unless the Aural police have completely botched up the evidence."

"And I don't get that, Scully. I don't get that impression at all. Heitt's overseeing the investigation; he's been thorough. The crime scenes were methodically inspected. They did their job right."

"So we're walking into this already assuming suicide. They couldn't have done it, Mulder. No one is physically capable of incising their arms like that. They were even cuts, from what I could tell from the pictures, not some hatchet job."

"There's a pattern here that we're not seeing."

"Mulder, you said it yourself the other night. There are lots of pieces to this puzzle. Sorting through them is going to take time."

"We don't have time, Scully. I'm wondering if whatever's killing these women is on a time-frame." A lock of hair falls into his eyes.

"So let me concentrate on the individual pieces, Mulder. You concentrate on the larger picture. There's something you're onto..."

"What?"

I shake my head. "The serial killer methodology. It makes far more sense than anything else you're suggesting. Maybe you need to assume that these women didn't kill themselves. Let me worry about the how and why and you concentrate on the who."

"I can't do it this time, Scully. I can't see beyond the individual pieces to the broader picture. It's like working those 3-D images with your eyes. I can't get my focus this time." He looks at me. "It's your dream, it's throwing me off."

"What?"

Mulder clears his throat. "You want to tell me what this is?"

I'm startled by his tone of voice. His eyes remain on the highway, but his palm is open and something plastic and metal lies in it. "It's a fire starter, Mulder."

His look, when he takes his eyes from the road for a second, is dense.

"It's a utility lighter for fireplaces or barbecues." I take the object from his hand and press a button. "You know, a fire starter." I flick it on and off a couple of times.

His brow is furrowed, as if from concentration. "Do you remember Friday night at all?"

He whispers this to me as if we are lovers. "Of course," I say. I click the fire starter on and off, trying to distract myself from the tremor that rolls up my spine, but the flame is gone.

He casts another glance at me. "What do you remember?"

I feel as if I'm being tested and no matter what I remember, it won't be enough. "I left work early. I cleaned house. You came over with dinner and we discussed the case."

"Do you remember falling asleep?"

"I remember sitting on the sofa. You were watching the Weather Channel." I shake the wand in my hand and click it again. Nothing.

"Let me fill in the blanks for you." He flips the radio station off and grabs the lighter from my hand, holding it.

The car is suddenly quiet, save the muted whish of tires flying over asphalt. I stare at him, dreading what's about to come.

"I was watching tv on the couch. You were sitting beside me, asleep. I was only half awake myself; I'd been flipping channels. When you got up and went to the kitchen, I barely noticed. I heard you moving around, but I figured you'd woken up thirsty or something.

"I must've fallen asleep then, because the next thing I remember is your scream. I jumped up and saw you standing in the kitchen doorway, staring at me." He shivers slightly. "You were yelling for me. You were just standing there yelling. When I calmed you down, you said things that made me realize you were sleepwalking."

My fingers pick lint from my jacket while his words filter through me. I don't remember any of this; I don't want to hear it.

"You were having a nightmare, Scully. You were dreaming that you'd cut your arms up." He holds the lighter up. "Like this was a knife."

I swallow and blink my eyes. This isn't how I had planned discussing my dream with him. "Mulder, I -" The nightmare looms before me. He had been there, he'd witnessed it.

"You held your arms out to me like they were a prized possession. There were marks where you'd run the lighter up and down them." He places the fire starter on the seat.

I take my eyes from him and stare through the window, contemplating the easiest way out of this conversation.

"So are you going to tell me what you're dreaming at night? Because I've got a good idea, Scully. You're slashing your body up just like the victims did."

I reach for the bottle of water that rests next to the lighter and take a sip, buying time. "Mulder," I finally say. "The dreams are metaphorical. My counselor believes that they point to personal issues."

"Okay, I buy that, but it's not the whole story." When I remain silent, he slams his open palm on the steering wheel. "Dammit, Scully."

He's right, it isn't the whole story. No matter what issues I have with my growing dependence on Mulder, the dreams do have their own face value.

I think of trees: green, black and resinous. Bark that's mottled gray-brown and rust. I think of pines, hemlocks, cedars and firs. I think of slippery needles and rolling earth. I think about music, rising in crescendo until it seems to beat within my chest. I think about Mulder, leaving me when I need him most, and the words begin falling out of my mouth. "It always begins the same. I'm in a forest, lost..."

At first, I can only look at my hands. But as I begin to lose myself in the dream, I stare out the window at cedar trees rushing past. I can smell them.

*****

Mulder's quiet. He's been silent throughout my story-telling, as if he's detaching himself from the situation. But the graying of his face gives him away, and I know that he's disturbed by what I've told him.

"The dream is metaphorical, Mulder. Surely you can see that?"

His closed face tells me nothing of his thoughts.

"It points to issues I have that need to be resolved. My need for stability that this job doesn't provide. The sacrifices I feel I've made for the past seven years. How much I want to continue in our work even though I feel it's smothering me."

He rubs one long finger against the steering wheel, but still says nothing.

"The manner in which these issues present themselves is unsettling, yeah. They keep me awake. I've tried taking sleeping pills and I've tried counting sheep. I've tried running in the evenings rather than the mornings. I've tried nightcaps. I've tried Nyquil; anything to knock me out, because once I wake up I'm too scared to fall asleep again.

"It's no wonder that I'm run down. Mulder, the main significance of the dreams is the manner in which they affect my body. I'd give my right arm for seven hours of sleep without interruption."

He blanches.

I touch his elbow lightly. "Freud would have a field day with my unconscious mind."

He dips his hand into a pocket and pulls out a single sunflower seed. He clenches it between his thumb and forefinger before popping it into his mouth. "Scully," he says finally. "All dreams are metaphorical to some extent. You're right, Freud would have a field day with yours. He'd tell you that they're paphian dreams, that the sexual symbolism runs deep."

"Mulder." I glare at him. "There's nothing erotic about them."

He gives me a challenging look. "The sinking ground, the deep forest, the wet trees. The piercing of the knife as it enters your flesh. Sacrificing your body. And then the dream you had Friday night, when the forest was on fire and I tackled you. You said I was melting on you, that we struggled together on the ground until you plunged the knife into your belly and the blood spewed. If you're going to suggest that these dreams are to be taken only figuratively, you can't discount the sexual symbolism."

It's my turn to blanche.

"You're reading too much into them, Scully. Maybe it's your way of coping." His face is grave. "Usually you ground me. You rope me in when my ideas get off track, but this time it's you who needs roping in. You've got to face the obvious. Hiding behind symbolism is no way to cope; you've got to face this with me. We have to face it together."

The hospital is rather large for the size of the town, old and rambling, with narrow corridors and yellowed tiles; it has an autopsy suite, a fact which greatly pleases me. Nothing's worse than conducting examinations at a mortuary, unless it's travelling thirty miles to the next town over to perform an autopsy and thirty miles back to continue the investigation.

The suite is ancient and tiny, with a single porcelain autopsy table. The rooms are cramped and stocked full of bodies, dead and alive. Besides the six females, there are also three male corpses - two dead from gunshot wounds and one from a heart attack. It's been a busy week in Aural, Washington.

The pathologist is here, waiting for us with the assistant that helped him perform the autopsies over the course of the week, and Detective Richard Heitt makes introductions all around. He's a tall man, graying and slender, with a bent nose and broad shoulders. His face is animated and intelligent, his eyes warm. His regard for Mulder is one of respect and familiarity; apparently, they've hit it off well. Heitt's regard for me is another story.

His eyes stay on mine throughout our brief introduction and he seems reluctant to pull them away to tell us of the latest news. "Another one was found twenty minutes ago. I'd like to get you both over to the crime scene."

Mulder shakes his head. "I'd rather you stay here," he says, looking at me. "I'm anxious to find out the results of your examination."

I nod, mutely. I'm watching Heitt, looking impossibly like Alan Alda in a charcoal blazer and denim shirt. Heitt is, in turn, watching me. There's something there, an attraction that's both immediate and mutual. My mind flicks unconsciously over the choices I've made in my life and possibilities that will never be realized. I sigh.

Heitt peels his eyes away from me to glance at Mulder. "It would be nice to have another scientist on the scene. With all due respect to how you want to go about things, Dr. Scully can always come here later in the day."

Mulder looks at me, waiting for my decision.

"Thank you, Detective Heitt, but I agree with my partner on this. There's something that we need to know about the victims as soon as possible." I stare into his brown eyes. "Something that may have been overlooked."

Heitt nods. "Of course." He waves a hand at the room. "The people of Crashton County, both living and dead, are at your disposal. If there's anything you need..." His words trail off.

"I'll call you." Mulder says to me. He points to the case file that I've been holding since we departed from the airport. "Take a look at the pictures when you get a minute; the quality's a lot better."

As they exit the autopsy bay, the door swings slowly shut behind them and I hear Heitt's whispered voice. "Why didn't you tell me - " and the rest is lost to my ears.

The manner in which Heitt had gazed at me leaves me feeling amused and flattered. Apparently the under-eye concealer I buy is worth my money. It's enough to buoy me up for a few moments, before I begin my work.

Examining the bodies will be a slow process. What Mulder believes is that I'll simply cart each one out, give it the once-over, and be done. What he fails to realize is that we need to conduct thorough inspections of each body. Thoroughness may be painstaking, but it's proven to answer questions in the past. I want to know that the locals haven't been sloppy in their work. I want to know if there are clues that have gone undiscovered. I want to satisfy myself and this is not done in speed.

Impatiently, I wait for the Aural pathologist to take me through the results of his autopsies. He seems to be a diligent man, carefully slow. I listen as he reads his notes, but I don't hear him.

My mind is focused on the coffee cup he holds. It's a dark- colored piece of stoneware- black, red and brown swirled together. It's the color of a tumor.

I tell myself that the association I've just made is due to the nature of my work. Autopsies are sickening whorls of blue- tinted flesh, black-red blood, brown-yellow bile and gray-brown brain tissue.

The smells are just as complex. Despite menthol under the nose and formaldehyde in the jars, the odor of death can't be masked.

A forensic pathologist doesn't become accustomed to the hues and aromas of death; she just tunes them out. For most, this means detaching themselves from the situation. Once the autopsy is over and the doctor returns to the world of the living, she tunes herself back in to the messages the occipital and parietal lobes are sending her. She can leave the coroner's office or crime scene or morgue and go home to her quiet apartment, appreciating the soothing pink of her easy chair and the strong scent of freshly brewed coffee.

Sometimes, however, the forensic pathologist can no longer continue the attach/detach dance. She may find that she's tuning in to the frequency of her occipital and parietal lobes during an autopsy. She may find herself suddenly aware of the yellow-white mucus and the yellow-green pus; she may find herself suddenly aware of the cloying, foul stench of death. She may become dizzy or faint. She may vomit into the open bowels of a cadaver. She may leave the autopsy bay vowing never to return.

Or, instead of tuning in at the inappropriate times, the forensic pathologist may find that she's tuning out her occipital and parietal messages altogether. She may find that she no longer processes color or aroma even when the information being sent to her nose and eyes is pleasant. She may not notice that her partner is wearing a deep maroon tie or a nice cologne. Her appetite may suddenly vanish, as the rich smell of her mother's spaghetti sauce no longer pierces her senses. She may take careful time with her wardrobe and appearance only to be surprised when she opens her closet one day to discover nothing but monochrome suits.

The forensic pathologist may find herself becoming dulled by the routine of autopsies. She may find herself searching for something more than skin that's stripped from shoulder to ankle, for something more than missing ova or carefully placed microchips. She may find herself searching for something more gruesome, more outrageous, more interesting.

She may find herself pleased when another anomaly presents itself.

*****

At three o'clock Mulder stops in to check on my progress and on my general well being. "You find anything?" He watches me from a couple of yards away as I examine the feet of one victim.

"I'm only on my third, Mulder." With the back of my arm sleeve, I wipe away a strand of hair that keeps falling over my field of vision. "The first two do have implants, though. And missing ova." And other aberrations that I'm not willing to discuss until I've finished examining all of them. "What did you find?"

He runs a hand through his own disheveled hair. "Seventh victim is Kim Timur. Thirty-one; an engineer. Single. Same method, same everything. Messages written in blood on her walls."

I walk to the other end of the table that holds Jessie Ramsey and begin manipulating the head. "What do the messages say?"

Mulder glances at a notepad he's removed from a pocket. "The walls are hard to read. What we could decipher from them was due to the content of her note: 'I dreamed last night you were driving circles around me...it's the blaze.'"

My head bobs up in recognition. "Across my nightgown. It's a song, Mulder. 'It's the blaze across my nightgown.' I can't remember who sings it, though."

"Well, this just keeps getting stranger all the time, doesn't it? You were hearing a song all through your dream. 'Don't Fear the Reaper.'"

Something bothers me, and it's not the similarity between my dreams and the victims' deaths. "Do you have the other suicide notes?"

He flips the pages of his notepad. "Yeah. The first one was 'I ran up the stairs and down the hall, not to find an answer, just to hear the call of a night bird.'"

"And the others?"

He reads from his notepad and I listen, my ears searching for familiar words. "I think they're all song lyrics, Mulder."

"I'll check it out. Have you eaten?"

I nod, though it was only a pack of crackers from the hospital vending machine two hours ago.

"I'm going to do a quick walk-through of the other crime scenes." He rubs his neck. "I only got to see three of them yesterday. I'll check back with you later."

I nod again and he leaves.

When he's gone, I move back to Ramsey's feet and examine something that had caught my attention before he walked into the door. There are markings on an area of the right ankle that haven't been obliterated by a knife. I push the cut folds of skin together so that the markings form a small picture. Dolphins.

Ramsey's body, like those of the two victims I've already examined, has a tattoo.

*****

Time is being marked by organs. They've all been previously removed per the parameters of autopsy work, and are packed in jars and containers, weighed and labeled. The skin has been measured. Each strip of flesh is approximately three centimeters wide and as long as the limb it's attached to. Seven to nine strips of flesh for each arm. Thirteen to fifteen for each leg.

I study photographs of the women from the case file Mulder left me. Seven lives cut short by their own hands. I can't understand how those hands managed such a perfect job. The incisions are too precise to have been self-inflicted; no one could have done this to themselves. Still... my mind drifts back to the dream and I remember clearly the straight line drawn on my arm by the knife. It had been painless, in the dream; the knife had almost moved of its own volition.

I go back to work, alternately reading notes, examining tissue and surveying the hulls of the bodies left. The most recent victim will be brought here shortly and I'd like to be finished when she arrives. I don't want to follow up on someone else's autopsy with her; I want to conduct my own.

The fourth woman is blonde, fair-skinned and small. Her tattoo is not of dolphins, but a heart. It's not on her ankle, but on her arm. Her ovaries were not found when the pathologist did his work on Friday. She has a chip implanted in her neck. I place it in a small jar and label it.

And so it goes. When Mulder comes in again, I'm weary. It's almost eleven p.m. and I'm finishing the seventh victim, the engineer. Her body, once whole and healthy, is an empty shell.

I've removed all of the organs, leaving open pits in the chest, abdomen and pelvic regions. There were no ovaries to cut in half and examine, but I incised the neck, and the microchip is in a row of bottles with the others.

Kim Timur's brain is hanging by a string in a jar of formaldehyde. When it's stable enough, the pathologist's assistant will slice tissue samples for study and the brain will be incinerated with the rest of her organs. Kim Timur, whose organs currently reside in bottles and jars, whose body lies open on the table, will never be whole again. Parts of her will go to a grave and parts of her will be burned. The parts of her that I've been most interested in will become slides under a microscope.

I stand over the shell of her body. The whole top of her head is gone and the scalp is pulled down over her face. I feel, as I sometimes do, like a vulture, feasting on a carcass.

Mulder stares at her with either detachment or fixed horror; it's hard to tell which with his frozen face. "What've you got?"

"They're all the same, Mulder."

"Implants?"

I nod.

"Missing ovaries?"

I nod. "And tattoos. They all have tattoos."

He tears his eyes from the body and studies me in fascination. "What kind of tattoos?"

I shrug. "Different. Butterflies, dragons..." I point to the table. "Elvis. All different."

"You have a tattoo, Scully."

"It's not that uncommon."

"Not in this case, at any rate." He cracks his knuckles, one by one. "It's not something I expected, but it ties in with the theory I've got."

I want to separate myself from the immediacy of death before getting into semantics. "Why don't you wait for me outside? We'll head back to the motel and review."

Mulder leaves and I look at the pathologist, who has stuck with me through almost twelve hours of endless death, on a Sunday, no less. His autopsy bay is overflowing. Tomorrow morning the bodies will be transported to the various funeral homes chosen by the victims' families; there's simply no room for another Aural death.

All that remains is for me to give the word to the pathologist's assistant to do the sutures. When Timur's body is closed, the organs won't be inside. Her body will be sunken and twisted like Frankenstein's bride when she reaches the mortuary. It's my job to determine cause of death; it's someone else's job to make her presentable for the ceremony which follows.

I nod at the assistant, signaling him to close her up, and to the pathologist himself, signaling him my appreciation. He answered all of my questions, allowed me to further examine the bodies he'd been so thorough with and bowed aside gracefully when I asked to perform the seventh autopsy myself. I strip off my gloves to shake his hand.

*****

After I've showered, Mulder and I sit at his table until two a.m., arguing. He thinks these women were all subjected to the same testing that I was several years ago. This isn't what I disagree with. It's his more bizarre theory of cerebral manipulation that I balk at.

"So you're saying that these women were being sent messages via the implants? Suicidal messages?"

"It's all in the chips, Scully. We know that they were made using advanced technology. Your friend in the lab told you himself that he'd never seen anything like it." His sips his cold decaf and traces the outline of victim number seven's face. "The tattoos. There's another key. Why do they have them? Why do you have yours?"

I stretch my neck and back. "It was just a thing, Mulder. Something to mark a certain time in my life."

"But you're not the type of person who would just go out and get a tattoo."

"I'd thought about it. But not seriously, no."

"So it was impulse shopping?"

"Something like that. I just wanted to do it and I did."

"I think that can be said for each of these women. I think it's something they did for reasons they weren't altogether sure of. Like dropping successful jobs and moving to Aural."

"You think the implants controlled their actions."

He nods.

"What about the suicide notes?" I look at the papers that surround me. Mulder hadn't researched the notes yet to discover if they were, indeed, scraps of songs. But I'd gone over them mentally. "I recognize three of them, Mulder. They're definitely song lyrics."

He pulls the notes away from me and reads. "Okay, I'll buy that they're all lyrics. That would fit with your nightmare." He stands and yawns. "I'll get the boys on it tomorrow. Frohike is a veritable trivia bank."

I leave everything on his table - my autopsy reports, my laptop and my coffee cup - and head toward the connecting door. We don't usually have adjoining rooms, but I think Mulder wants to keep tabs on me tonight.

"Are you going to be okay?" he asks quietly.

I nod as I walk through the door. Wearily, my clothes are shed and I fall onto the mattress. The sleep is heavy and, for the first time in thirty-three nights, I do not dream.

Mulder raps on the dividing door too soon. I'm lying in bed in what must be a mild state of shock; I'm lucid but I can't move.

"Scully?" he calls.

I stare at my left arm.

He opens the door slightly and peers in. "You okay?"

I shake my head. No, I'm not okay.

He walks into the room and sits on the bed. "Everything all right?"

"No." The word sounds rusty. I shake my head again to clarify what I've just croaked. No. Everything is not all right. I hold up the fingernail file, still wielding it like a weapon.

He leaps off the bed and is suddenly on the other side, staring at my left arm. There's a puncture wound just below my shoulder and a clean, even cut reaching from it to my elbow. His fingers hover over my arm tentatively and he looks at my face.

"It's deep, Mulder."

"It's not bleeding." He stares again at my arm, his fingers trembling.

"It will," I say, just as the blood spurts up and out, staining his shirt.

Mulder yelps in fear and surprise, but recovers quickly, pressing his hand over the wound. I watch as blood begins seeping between his fingers.

His phone is out and he's dialing with one hand. Three numbers. "I need an ambulance at the Cedar Grove Motel on Highway 98."

His face is pale and I find no strength in it. I remember the passage in Proverbs - "She let strength and honor be her clothing," or something to that effect - and I place my hand over Mulder's bloodied one before lethargy takes me down.

*****

Forty-two stitches later I'm watching him pace the motel room, alternately speaking to Heitt on the telephone and pulling clothes from the dresser drawer. His bag is opened on his bed. We're leaving Aural.

He clicks the phone off and looks at me. "You didn't dream last night, but you put the knife to your arm just the same." He runs a hand through his hair.

"It wasn't a knife."

"But it was the best substitute you had on you. And you don't remember?" There's doubt in his voice.

"No." I remember nothing - no pain, no dream. "Mulder, if we go home now, it's going to continue. There'll be more victims."

"And if we stay here you could be the next one. We don't know how to stop this thing, Scully. We can't remove your implant."

I touch the back of my neck self-consciously. "And you're certain that's the answer."

"We've seen evidence that the implants control people to some extent. It's the only answer that I can come up with. Seven victims, almost eight. All arrive in this town quite suddenly, dropping everything else to get here. All of these successful women put knives and razors to their bodies and killed themselves for no apparent reason. There's no evidence at the crime scenes to even remotely suggest that they weren't alone at the times of their deaths. That in itself says a lot, Scully."

I agree. With the technology available to us today, a person can't enter a house without leaving incriminating evidence. Even if he has gloves on, even if there are no witnesses, even if everything else goes as smoothly as the perp plans, he leaves behind traces of himself. Hair follicles, for example. Unless a person shaves himself from head to toe, he sheds constantly. No black caps or stocking masks are going to prevent that. "So what's left for us to do? Who's to say that something similar won't happen when we get back home? I can't lock away knives and scissors and fingernail files. I can't be a prisoner in my own life, Mulder."

"It's the implant," he mutters. His face is drawn and tired. "You can't live with it and you can't live without it."

I brace my hands on my knees. "Maybe I can. Maybe we can remove the chip."

He blinks.

"Remission is over."

He had been leaning on the back of a chair, rocking it under his hands. Now he almost flips it over. "What?"

"I had a nose bleed Saturday evening; my doctor ran a couple of x-rays. It's back, Mulder. Same location. The mass is about the size of a marble."

His Adam's apple bobs as he swallows convulsively. His hands rub over his face and then push through his hair. His fist, when it slams on the table, makes so much noise that I practically jump off the bed.

"So maybe we can remove the implant," I say softly. Quiet descends over the room as Mulder turns away. I know that he's crying. I can see his reflection in the mirror.

Not knowing whether it's anger or remorse he feels, not knowing the words to help him cope with this sudden revelation, I leave the room, wandering outside through the parking lot. There's a couple here, flirting and laughing, so I keep walking, around the side of the building.

I'm deep in thought, recycling the options that he and I have. I think that removing the implant is, in the end, the only course of action viable to us. Maybe it's the town itself causing the suicides. Maybe all of the victims had dreams like mine, maybe they were drawn to Aural to kill themselves. Maybe there's a radio frequency here that's signaling something in my chip. Maybe.

It's not as if removing it will trigger the cancer anyway. It's already there, growing even as we wait. And death by a tumor is more acceptable to me than death by a dream induced suicide.

When I look up, I'm standing in a small field at the back of the motel. Cedar trees loom all around me, their scent heady. I've always loved trees, cedars in particular, but they've become associated with fear and violence. I think I'll opt for a fake fir this Christmas, if I live that long.

There's a well-worn path cutting through this field, leading into the forest. I walk it slowly, trying to find an answer.

I'm going to die, that much is certain. Whether it's now or in the future isn't for me to know. All I can do is prepare for the inevitable, setting my house in order. I thought I'd done just that when I was being eaten up with cancer before. I thought I'd gotten everything ready. I want my death to be a clean, even cut across the lives of people who know me, not some festering, bloody wound that never heals.

I believe that I've straightened out things with my family and with God. But I haven't resolved issues between Mulder and me. Words, unspoken, have grown like thick vines between us. They twist, tendrils curling and tangling, growing fatter with time, binding us together but keeping us apart.

To prepare for death, I've got to face the wilderness between us and break my silence.

At the edge of the woods, I stop and look back. The motel is still close and my cell phone is in my jacket pocket. This is just a forest.

The path leads me through hardwoods and evergreens, berry bushes and fallen limbs. Whippoorwills call and insects buzz about. From a distance, I can hear a tractor and somewhere closer a gurgling stream. The familiar sounds comfort me.

I've never been ready to vocalize my feelings for Mulder, but it's what I have to do now. It's not fair for him, to disclose what I've known for so long just because I'm afraid that I'm dying. But maybe if I say the words, my death will be a clean, even cut for him and not some terminal wound.

By the time I reach the clearing, I'm trying to form the words that need to be said. Several large rocks cluster together and I sit on one, tired.

Cedars form a circle around the little grove. I spent a lot of time as a child running through forests like this, climbing trees and finding small treasures. I chuck my boot through the fallen needles in a lazy back and forth manner.

The sound of my shoe scraping across the ground is the only thing I hear. I freeze for an instant and total silence surrounds me. Gone are the whippoorwills and the distant tractor. I glance about, marking the similarities between these woods and those in my dream. Cedars blend with hardwoods; pine needles scatter with leaves and moss on the forest floor. A lot of forests are like this. I continue swinging my foot.

My cell phone rings suddenly, the sound foreign and piercing, causing me to jerk out of my reverie. "Scully."

"Would you feel safe here tonight if I kept watch over you?"

"You've changed your mind."

Mulder sighs into the phone. "We can't run from this Scully. I was wrong for wanting to."

I agree, we have to face it head-on. "But, Mulder, I don't want you keeping a suicide watch." I slide down from the rock and sit on the softer ground. "I don't think I'll be sleeping much tonight anyway."

His voice is emphatic. "It won't be a suicide watch. I just want to see what happens when you sleep."

I look at my fingernails and wonder if they'll become weapons if there aren't any sharp objects near my bed. "I was sleepwalking last night. That fingernail file was in my makeup case in the bathroom."

"You were sleepwalking Friday night, too."

"So what are you planning to do? Are you going to play voyeur? Because I don't think I can lie in my bed all night knowing that you're watching me." I try to lighten my spirit with a poor attempt at humor. "And don't even think about restraints."

His tone feigns indignity. "Did I mention handcuffs?"

"I know how your mind works, Mulder."

"Where are you, anyway? Those painkillers must be kicking in by now."

"I'm behind the motel and I didn't take any painkillers." Actually, I haven't needed to. The only time I felt pain in my left arm was while I was being sutured.

"So come back to my room, macho woman, and share them with me, cause I ran out of mine."

"Tooth hurting?"

"Among other things."

"Maybe this thing will be wrapped up by tomorrow and you can pay a visit to your oral surgeon and have the root canal."

"Too late, I already cancelled."

"In that case your drug dealer is on the way."

*****

Beneath this morning's banter there was an underlying current of tension. Fear is making us crazy, but it's anger that fuels us now. I want to rip the chip right out of my neck and end the misery for both of us.

He drives me through Aural in the rental car; we're following Detective Richard Heitt, whose navigation skills make our time more efficient. We're both caught up in our own turmoil and the car is quiet. It isn't the easy silence we're accustomed to, but a disquietude. I can almost hear him grinding his teeth together.

He's taking me to the crime scenes, hoping I'll catch something that a dozen others have missed. I just want to see the blood on the walls.

We happen to glance at each other at the same time, pulling up to the first house. I know what he's thinking. He wishes this case was over. I wish it as well. We dip our heads slightly in quiet acknowledgement of our determination.

I touch his arm as I look at the street sign and realize that this is the first victim's home. Mulder's a man of intelligence and sensitivity. He's taking me to the houses in the order in which they became crime scenes. He wants me to be witness to the emergence of a chronological pattern, if there is one. I know that this is his plan without him telling me. I know him.

Chris Choat was a teacher who arrived in Aural twenty-two months before she died. She lived on a relatively busy street in this small town. There is no driveway, so we parallel park behind Heitt. I exit the car and look up at the high embankment and the set of steps that lead to the green- shuttered cottage. Mulder's hand is on my back as I follow the detective.

Choat's neighbors were close. There's perhaps twenty feet of lawn separating the houses on either side; no one, however, reported hearing or seeing anything unusual on the night of her death. The inevitable privacy fences begin behind the houses; frosted and glass-block windows dominate the architecture and, where the windows are clear, blinds are in place. I step up to the small porch.

Once he has unlocked the door, Heitt moves aside. I feel the weight of Mulder's hand pressing me into the house, just as the notes from a distant song reach my ears. It's muted, like maybe it's coming from a car, but I can hear a woman murmuring words that begin resounding in my head - 'just like the white- winged dove.'

The front door opens into the living room, small and cramped with oversized furniture. Apparently, Choat had been accustomed to living a larger life in southern California. I pick up a framed photograph from an end table. Before Choat had been sliced up, she was a pretty, fresh-faced blonde with high cheekbones and green eyes. I remember that she was the one with the tattoo on her left buttock - a stream of tiny butterflies rising from an Aladdin's lamp. Or were they doves? I bite my lip and try to clear my head.

This is where she was killed, right here in the front room. I glance at the windows overlooking the porch. Heavy curtains block any view.

"Flip on some lights, would you?" I call to either of the men as I gaze at the blood stained Oriental rug. "And close the door." I want to concentrate my attention on the crime scene without having to filter out the song that seems to seep into the house. Whoever is playing the music must have cranked it up as soon as we walked inside.

Mulder moves past me and clicks a few lamps on. Heitt closes the door softly. I look up at him. The music seems louder now. The singer is 'running up the stairs and down the hall.' "Do you hear that?" I ask.

Heitt purses his lips. "What?"

"Hear what?" Mulder echoes.

I begin shaking my head, but freeze suddenly.

The walls are just as the police found them - pale yellow streaked with a bloody message. The song ricochets in my ears; there's music in this house. I squeeze my hands into fists and try to block out the sound of the words I'm reading. 'Come away,' the singer begs me.

No, I think. I won't come away, I won't run up the stairs and down the hall. I won't be a prisoner to her music.

It quiets somewhat as I wander into a small study and the bedroom beyond. There are traces of blood everywhere; death wasn't contained to the living room. The kitchen faucet is smeared with red and I can still hear the music quite clearly. It seems to be getting louder the longer I'm here. It calls me.

'And so, with the slow, graceful flow of age, I went forth.' Led by her haunting voice, I follow the singer to the front room where the music booms.

Mulder and Heitt are squatting side by side at the fireplace, poking ashes. I can barely hear their discussion; the music's just too loud. I open the armoire, looking for a stereo, but there isn't one.

"Where's it coming from?" I yell to Mulder.

He turns his head and whispers. "What?"

"Why are you yelling?" Heitt mouths.

"Where's her stereo?" I cover my ears; the song is unbearable.

Mulder stands and slowly walks my way. "What do you hear, Scully?"

"The song!" I yell.

"What song?" he yells back.

I point to the blood spattered walls and the words etched there. "Her song."

*****

We visit the other six houses, one by one. They're all the same. Music, quiet at first, builds in crescendo at each crime scene. And I'm the only one to hear it.

"What's going on, Mulder?" I ask.

He chews on a sunflower seed. "You hear whatever the victims heard when they died. Like your dream, Scully."

Heitt sits with us in the rental car. "So you have a psychic connection of some sort with the victims?" His question is neither cynical nor disbelieving.

Mulder speaks for me. "She's had this nightmare for about a month now. She hears a song playing loudly. She's in a forest in Aural. She slices her body up just like the victims."

"Jesus Christ. So then we start getting victims and you fly out here because it's a part of your job. But you... Jesus. That's bizarre."

Mulder stares out the window. "The dreams ended when Scully arrived in Aural."

"Do you think the other victims were having dreams, too?"

"It's the only thing that makes sense. They were all professional women. They weren't leaving behind jobs when they moved here, they were leaving behind careers."

I look at Heitt, who is leaning on the front seat. "Mulder believes that these women were the victims of mind control."

"Scully was kidnapped several years ago. She was returned two months later with a microchip implanted in her neck. We don't know why it's there or what it was meant to do. But all of the victims had the same type of implants."

Heitt turns toward me. "Why not remove it?"

"We did," I say. "But I became ill. Although we're not positive, we think that my illness was linked to the removal of the chip. We had to replace it." I give Mulder a hard look, hoping that he won't explain further. "Mulder thinks that the victims were all being manipulated through the chip. He thinks the women were programmed to kill themselves."

Heitt looks at me with careful regard. "And what do you think?"

"I think they went insane."

We sit at the table in Mulder's motel room, a replay of last night. "So you think that seven women went insane and came here to commit suicide?" He plays with a coffee stirrer.

"I don't think it's that cut-and-dried, but yes, that's the basic idea."

"That's a nice little catch-all theory," he says sarcastically. "If you can't explain a person's actions, then they must be insane."

"And if you can't explain a person's actions, then there must be mind control going on."

"Hey, at least I didn't suggest an invisible assailant. I could have, you know. There have been cases where - "

"I don't want to hear it, Mulder."

"Then give the mind control thing a chance." He pokes at my sleeve with his coffee stirrer. "Suppose I can link our two theories together. Would you listen to me then?"

"Maybe."

He clears his throat. "Okay. The microchips control actions, that's the theory. And we've seen some evidence to suggest this - like all of those people visiting Ruskin Dam that night for no apparent reason. I think that whoever created the device is now testing it. They want to see how effective it is, or what flaws it has, before selling it or mass-producing it."

"Testing it how?"

"By running tasks for the subjects to perform. Altered behavior. Manipulating brain signals in a proactive manner; not just toying with how a person thinks, but how they act. For example, driving to a dam in the middle of the night, or moving to a city you've never even seen before -"

"Or getting tattooed," I say quite suddenly. His enthusiasm for the theory is catchy.

He nods. "Once the series of tasks is completed, the chip is programmed to cause suicidal tendencies in the subject. But the victims can't kill themselves in a convenient method; they have to do something that will be entirely against their will. The death has to be slow and painful."

"So that the experimenters will know that their science is at work, and not some outside factors."

"Salience, Scully. If this is an experiment, then someone's monitoring the outcome. Each task has to be something that the subject would not do under normal circumstances. It has to be an action that stands apart from other actions. Suicide by gunshot wound or sleeping pills or even slit wrists has a low salience factor, because it's a common occurrence. Maybe the subject killed herself because she wanted to. But no one willingly cuts their arms and legs into strips."

"What I'm bothered by isn't the idea you're trying to sell here, Mulder, but the parameters of it. There are too many loopholes..."

"Such as?"

"If somebody went to such great lengths in designing this chip - and I'm not even going to question its value -"

"You know how much governments would pay for this technology? To be able to manipulate people through a computer programmed microchip?" His leg starts shimmying, vibrating the table. "Soldiers, politicians..."

"Why go to so much trouble in placing the implant when the obvious first reaction for most people would be to remove it if they ever discovered it?"

He shrugs. "It's just one of the risks. How many people are going to find it, anyway? How long did it take you to find yours? I'm not saying that the study isn't flawed... But I think they obviously thought out the chip removal scenario. When it's taken out, it sets off a biological reaction - cancer. And not just any cancer, but a specific one. A nasal- pharyngeal tumor."

"And a naso-pharyngeal tumor is salient?"

"More so than lung cancer, yeah. More than a heart attack."

"But what about the harvested ova?"

"I think there are different reasons to take the ovaries. For cloning purposes, the whole alien-human hybrid scenario. Or maybe they're removed because of the threat of pregnancy in the subject. The men who planted these chips want a control group to study. Pregnancy in one or more of the subjects could throw a curve on the data. Or maybe the altered body chemistry would counteract the effects of the chip." He shrugs.

"There were a lot of men that night at the dam. They had implants."

"I have a theory about that. I think there are multiple experimental groups; yours is just one of them."

"But why women, Mulder? I mean, the choice is obvious if they're harvesting ova for reproduction purposes, but in this particular experiment, when the primary motive is to alter behavior, why choose women? Physiologically, men would be a more ideal choice of study in this situation. Women have hormonal fluctuations -"

He nods eagerly. "There are two possibilities I've come up with to explain the choice of women here. The first has to do with their names, which are all androgynous.

"Maybe the experimenters have discovered that they don't know whether some subjects are male or female just from reading a printout of all the names. Maybe they've decided they need more control in the study, and they're eliminating all people with names that are neither positively female nor positively male."

I shake my head. "That's too simple, Mulder. I can't buy that subjects are chosen based solely on name. What's the other possibility?"

"Maybe these women were chosen for a specific reason. Maybe they scored high on their tests; maybe they were manipulated easily and are now being destroyed systematically. Or maybe they scored low on the tests, and are being eliminated for that reason."

"Low scorers would be the ones who didn't comply with the all of the chips' instructions?"

He nods.

"Then how plausible is that, Mulder? The women who didn't follow the power of suggestion are the ones who cut themselves up so heinously?"

"Not all of them did. You didn't. And if the victims had the same dreams that you've been having...maybe they were more than willing to end it all. Maybe it didn't seem so weird to them that they were holding knives and cutting up their bodies. Maybe they did go a bit insane. Maybe it was an end to all of the madness that surely they felt - and you feel - at having nightmares every single night."

"And what about Penny Northern's group? I was a part of that, Mulder. My ovaries were taken for experimental purposes." I think of Emily. "It doesn't make sense."

"I think you're the wildcard, Scully. I don't think you were originally chosen to be a part of either group." His shimmying leg slows. "I think they wanted to place the implant so they could keep their finger on you and me."

I nod, feeling the effects of my adrenaline rush wearing off. I'd been quite excited when his theory made some sense, but there are too many questions. Still, I don't see any answers staring me in the face. Well, one. "If you're right, if the implant is doing this, you realize what it means?" I stare at my hands. "There's no living through this for me. There's no way out."

He covers my hands with one of his and shakes his head. "I don't believe that. There's a way, we've just got to find it. You didn't have the dream last night; that means something, Scully. Maybe the message it's been trying to send you through the dreams is already in place in your subconscious. Maybe it's a matter of sending opposing messages."

"No. The only solution is removing the chip. The cancer is already there, growing as we speak. Taking the implant out isn't going to change that, but it will stop the self- inflicting injuries. It'll help me sleep at night."

He shakes his head. "I'm not sure that I believe the tumor's really there. You didn't have any extensive tests run to determine the nature of what showed up on the film. It could've been a shadow."

"That's wishful thinking."

"It's the only thinking that keeps me sane."

*****

We walk to the forest together. It's twilight, Mulder's favorite time of day, and he wants to see the grove that's so similar to the one in my dream. "Is the music here?" he asks, sitting on one of the large rocks.

I shake my head and sit beside him. Cicadas rasp out the only song I hear, winsome and lonely.

It's intimate, being in this other world with him. The tree shadows cloak us in stillness, like a quiet dream. He turns to face me, touching my cheek with his fingertips. The forest seems to hold its breath.

Fear can only be sustained for so long before giving way to other emotions. I've run the gamut these past few days, angry and sad, frightened and weary, but now it's gratitude I feel as his touch glances over my face.

"We're going to beat this thing," he whispers to me. "We'll find the answer."

"Sometimes the answers aren't what we want to hear."

His eyes are vehement, his voice soft. "You remember what you said to me that time? That it wasn't my time to die, not like that, lying passively in my bed while a war raged outside my window." He presses his lips together. "It's not your time, Scully."

I tangle my fingers in his, wanting to tell him everything by touch. "There aren't any wars outside my window." I smile sadly. "Just the ones inside."

"The implant."

"It's coming out."

He sighs and shakes his head. "I think you need to have more tests run tomorrow. I don't trust the x-ray you had in D.C. It could've been a shadow you saw."

"It wasn't."

"If the implant was in my neck, would you be so quick to tell me to remove it? No, you'd want to examine it; you'd want tests run. You'd want to know what we're facing so that we could make the best decision. This isn't any different."

He's right, but I just want the chip out. "Mulder, it's making me feel trapped. My body's a ticking bomb, and we've got to deactivate it. Removing the implant is our only choice."

"I've never known you to give up so quickly," he says angrily.

"I'm not giving up, I'm just trying to make the most expedient choice possible."

"Haste makes waste," he mutters and turns away.

"Mulder." My voice is a command and his gaze slowly meets mine again. "It's the only thing in my control right now. It's a matter of standing and fighting, or falling and succumbing to whatever happens." I reach out for his hand and grasp it firmly. "It's time for us to stand."

His eyes stay on mine for an eternity and then he places a light kiss on my forehead. It's the only affirmation I need.

*****

The emergency room is almost empty, but it's after ten p.m. in this small city, and I'm not surprised. If we were in D.C., I'd still have a three hour wait ahead of me, even if I am a doctor. Even if I am an FBI agent. I'm glad I'm here when the nurse takes my information.

"How's the arm?" she asks, looking at my chart.

"Fine, but there's a piece of shrapnel in my neck," I tell her. "It'll take fifteen minutes for a doctor to remove."

Mulder stands straight, towering over the nurse. "We want it out tonight."

The procedure is simple and would be straightforward if it weren't for the cancer. My doctor wants to run an x-ray to get a better idea of the size of the chip and its location, and it's then that I warn her. "You're going to see something on the film that has nothing to do with this. Several years ago, I was diagnosed with cancer, a naso-pharyngeal tumor. It went into remission but it's back now. It's about the size of a dime."

She asks no questions, but sends me off to have the x-ray taken while Mulder waits in the examining room. When I return, he's alone, standing with his hands in his pockets. "I've decided that in my next life I'm going to live in a small town in Indiana, drive a beat-up old car, and sell insurance door-to- door."

I sit on a stool and study him. "Sounds fascinating."

He nods, jingling some loose change. "I'll have a cottage that's in a constant state of disrepair, but it'll be paid for. It'll have a fireplace in the bedroom and lots of books. But no t.v., no telephone, no computer."

My left eyebrow arches.

"I'll marry my high school sweetheart and we'll spend our weekends going to barbeques and hoedowns and raking leaves. We'll stay up late, discussing Steinbeck and drinking wine and arguing over who's turn it is to mow the lawn."

"I'm not sure you're going to find someone with such low expectations, Mulder, not even in Indiana," I say lightly.

He looks chagrined and I realize that he's serious. "I think it sounds idyllic," he argues. "The only time we'd worry about the government is when we pay our taxes."

"We?"

He stubs his toe on the floor. "My wife and me."

"The high school sweetheart," I say dryly. "I suppose she's the cheerleader/prom queen who settled for being a happy homemaker."

He shakes his head. "No," he says softly, appearing to mull this over. "She's more like the bookworm/science club president who never settled for anything she didn't want."

I stare at the faded tile his shoe keeps marking, but I see a small cottage instead. The paint is peeling in places, but the windows are large and the floors are that rich, dark color of old hardwood. "I bet she's a teacher."

He nods in my peripheral vision. "She always liked to teach."

We stay lost in this vision of the future, silently conjuring our own images. Unspoken words are tangled vines between us, but the thorns are few, and this garden can be tended.

The doctor returns, interrupting our reverie. Mulder stares at me solemnly before I bow my head to the alcohol rub and the quick incision. She drops the chip in a jar without a word and sutures my neck herself.

When Mulder and I prepare to leave, she stops us with the swish of a manila envelope. "You'll want to take this to your oncologist," she says, handing me the x-ray. "When's the last time you took a look at the tumor?"

"A few days ago."

"And you said it was the size of a dime?"

I nod. "A small marble, maybe two centimeters in diameter."

Her eyes reveal nothing, but her posture straightens. "It's grown."

Residual dreams, that's what Mulder calls them. Whatever they are, I've ventured into a hazier state of panic since waking up this morning. I didn't try to harm myself last night, but my left arm throbs and my neck stings. I'm tired from unconscious running.

He hangs up the phone. "No deaths yesterday, Scully." He looks hopeful.

"You think it's over?" I look at my laptop on the table in his room. It's never over when questions remain.

He shrugs. "There's not much we can do even if it isn't. The police are working with the local real estate agency, asking it to report any females from out of town looking to purchase homes in Aural. From what Heitt told me, the rumors floating around here have the real estate agents spooked to the extent that they're losing money. One of them warned away someone on Saturday: a man in his early twenties looking for rental space."

"I guess the town is pretty scared by now. All they know is that every day someone dies."

Mulder nods. "Another agent that Heitt spoke to told him that five homes went on the market this week. In a slow place like Aural, that's something."

"People are leaving when they're not even sure what's going on."

"Plague fear, Scully. If these deaths had taken place over a longer period of time, no one would've noticed. But to have half a dozen women suddenly die like that... it scares people. They think maybe something's in the air, that it's contagious."

"Why Aural, Mulder? If the chip is to blame, then why is it programmed to send the women here?"

"Small town, better to isolate the women and study their behavior. Far enough away from their original homes that it's another test, to see if someone will drop her successful career to move to a town with no possibilities of finding a job paying her an equal salary as what she's been accustomed to. All of the victims moved here from fairly large cities."

"And you're willing to close the file and admit there's nothing we can do?"

"If I'm overlooking something, tell me. We can't broadcast a public announcement for people to examine their necks for an implant. If the chips are removed, there's a sudden increase in the cancer rate."

"What if we're wrong, though? What if it isn't the implants?"

"Then the only other theory that makes any sense is your suggestion that these women went insane. And there's nothing we can do about that, either."

I still feel that we could be missing a key to the puzzle, but I can't figure out what it is. I think about all of the ways the women were alike - tattoos, implants, missing ova. "What about the song lyrics?"

"Well, I know that I've experienced something close to insanity whenever a song gets stuck in my head and I can't get rid of it." He looks quite serious.

"And which theory is going to make it to your report, Mulder? Insanity or implants?"

"Insanity induced by the implants."

"So we just go back to D.C."

"And keep an eye on it from there. If more bodies turn up - here or somewhere else - we'll look into it." He hands me my laptop. "There are other reasons we need to go back."

My health. Mulder wants me to be near my oncologist now that the chip has been removed. I can't argue on this account; it's the most practical thing to do. "It would be nice to go home," I agree, and leave his room to pack my suitcase.

The drive to the airport is silent but not peaceful. I lean my forehead against the passenger window and watch the forests pass, firs swirling in my vision until I'm dizzy. Running, that's what we're doing.

Mulder seems to read my thoughts in that uncanny way of his and he pats the steering wheel. "It's okay for us to be leaving, Scully."

I say nothing, staring at the trees.

"There are other cases that need our attention. There are other people we can help." His tone is firm.

I finally find the words to tell him my state of mind. It can't be over, not like this, not with everything unresolved. "I don't like it ending this way."

His hands tighten on the steering wheel but he remains quiet. I think about his faith, as strong as the cedars rushing past the window, and I touch my necklace. It's not just faith that hangs there, around my neck, but hope, strength and love. I want to give it to him.

*****

Home again. And again and again. Four weeks after our return to D.C., Flux, Louisiana, reported three unusual suicides within three days. By the time we arrived, a fourth woman had set herself on fire. When we left the swampland, the total was seven.

Almost a month later, the mayor of Tempest, Michigan filled her tub with acid before taking a bath. And though we flew there before her death hit news stands, we were unable to prevent six women from melting and burning away in similar fashion. So we came home again, preparing ourselves for the next round.

And still, I have the dreams. Not nightly, not like before, but periodically, just before another round of suicides. I turn restlessly in my bed, apprehensive. It's been almost four weeks since the last deaths; Mulder and I wait for the return of my nightmares, certain that they're coming.

Even though I'm worried, sleep comes tumbling toward me. I've accepted the metaphorical sense of the dreams; I'm where I need to be right now. If I sacrifice too much of myself for this job, then perhaps it's a sacrifice for the greater good of the future. And although my losses are deep, I'm humbled by how much I've gained. Love is the fuel that keeps me going.

As soon as we returned from Aural, I commissioned a jeweler to replicate the cross that hangs around my neck. "Make it larger, less delicate," I told the man. "I want something simple, like this one, but heavier." And today the jeweler called me.

I hold the necklace tight in my fist, feeling it's contours making an impression in my palm. Love is the strength that keeps me going despite the tumor that's grown to the size of a walnut over the course of two months. The cancer has appeared to stabilize during the past week, but I don't count on that. I hug my blanket and close my eyes. Hope lives in my heart.

I can't hope for a longer life than the one I've been given; I can't hope that he will be able to rest with unspoken words once I'm gone. I shouldn't hope for anything, but still I do.

I hope there is a tomorrow. I hope it brings grassy fields and Mulder waiting on the road.

*****

Cedar trees bend toward me as the ground rolls under my feet. A wave of nausea jars me to my senses and I'm running before I realize that I'm no longer afraid. Motion sick, yes, but I won't fall here.

Waves of grassy dirt splash at my ankles, but I don't waver. I'm strong, straight, unyielding. I run faster toward the field, wanting to see the soft blue sky. Music swells in my ears. (we can be like they are don't fear the reaper)

The knife twitches in my fist and I feel my arm rise up, as if to swat at the tree limbs that tangle my path. I know what the knife is for; I remember the blood. "Leave me alone!" I yell out angrily.

(baby take my hand we'll be able to fly)

Fly. I remember the freedom of letting my body slip away; I remember soaring and running on the wind. But the freedom this knife brings is one I can't accept.

The only way I can allow this to end is by refusing to sacrifice myself to this forest. I have to let go of my weapon.

I open my palm and try to shake the knife away, but it's glued to me. I hold it before me like a snake I've grabbed by the throat, keeping my eye on it as I run. It will hold no power over me. I am Dana Katherine Scully, M.D., FBI, and I won't fear the reaper.

"I will fear no evil," I chant as I run. The words are strong against the bitter chords of the music; a prayer.

I want to smell the tender lilac and run my bare feet through the cool grass. I want to leap to the moment that I can quit running. I want to feel the firmness of solid ground beneath my feet. I want to stand. All of these things I pray for with five words: I am Dana Katherine Scully.

The knife veers toward my left shoulder. I struggle with it, pushing it toward the open air. "I will fear no evil. I am Dana Katherine Scully," I say over and over. "And I don't fear the reaper."

I see light ahead.

Dandelions wink up at me, tickling my legs. I'm at once absorbed in them, finding pleasure in their quiet familiarity. My pulse slows. My arms aren't strips of flesh, fluttering in the wind; they're whole. I kick my shoes off and curl my toes around the dirt. The ground is firm.

I hear his footsteps though he's far away. Mulder's walking the road. I wave to him. He pauses for a long moment, staring at me. I know that he'll continue his journey without me for now, but I realize that we'll catch up with each other later. I'm not being abandoned.

I smile at the distant vision of him and turn a circle in the field, facing the forest. Strains of the music reach my ears: we can be like they are. "No," I say softly. I can't be like they are.

The knife is still in my hand. I look at the forest, seeing it for what it is: a dark dream. I bend and begin carving the ground. I will fear no evil. I am Dana Katherine Scully. I am strong. Still. Calm. I am the sea in winter.

I AM.

"Yes, you are," a voice says firmly.

I look up to see Mulder, standing beside me, staring at the ground. His eyes are clear but filled with emotion. "Let's go, Scully," he says.

I hold my hand out and the knife is gone; what's there, instead, is a simple cross.

"What's that?" he asks.

I stare at the metal, flicking it against the light, and I remember what it signifies. "Faith." I reach up to place it around his neck; he bends slightly to accommodate me. "Hope," I say.

"Love?" he asks, touching the necklace in reverence.

"Yes."

He stands straight. He's the sun, glowing, warming me, staring at me with such intensity that I feel the coolness of the shadow I cast to the forest. "Then do you think you're finished?" he asks in a quiet voice.

"Finished with what?"

"Running."

I nod and look toward the distant road. "I think so."

"Good." He gazes at the road, too, and points. "My house is about half a mile from here."

"Come on, then," I say and lock my hand into his. I pull him along, fairly floating over the ground. I remember his home, though I've never seen it. It's a cottage, he once told me, in a constant state of disrepair.

"The paint's peeling," he says, as we move toward the road. "And it needs some yard work. And it's got a leaky roof."

I squeeze his hand. "And hardwood floors," I murmur.

The ground shifts beneath our feet, swirling and dropping, but we're not sinking. We stand, but we move. We race through the field like human streams; we travel smoothly on the road like the blood that courses through our veins. We're not running but rushing, flowing, moving together like liquid.

And this is flying, I think. This is flying.

Any errors you see here are no fault of my beta readers. These women read and edited until they were blue in the face, keeping up with me through rewrites. My hat's off to them.

"Paphian Dreams" began with a song. I hadn't ever paid much attention to "Don't Fear the Reaper" until I saw "The Stand." The use of it there just creeped me out in a lovely way, and the song became a favorite of mine.

Thanks to all of you who plowed through this, and thanks to those of you who've offered me encouragement through this process. It's been a long journey.

Politic X
politicx@aol.com