This is a fiction story based on the characters created by Chris Carter. No infringement of copyrights held by 10/13 Productions, Twentieth Century Productions, or Fox Broadcasting is intended. All unrecognised characters and plot-lines belong to me. Names, characters, and places exist solely within my imagination, or are used fictitiously. No connection to any person, living or dead, is intended, and any resemblance is entirely coincidental. Feel free to distribute, but please keep me as the author. Rating - 18 (R) - For content that couldn't be shown on Fox involving language and sexual descriptions.. Classification - X, A. Summary - Mudler and Scully investigate the latest in a series of murders, but Mulder realises he has an unpleasantly close connection with the deceased. This is for Gerry Hill, whose idea it started out as. Danielle Culverson. Deviant. Fox Mulder turned over in bed and tried to hold onto the last moments of sleep as they slipped away. Consciousness stole over him with the unwelcomeness of a large phone bill, and gradually enough awareness returned for his consciouss mind to remind him that it must be time he got up and headed to work. Mulder sighed in reluctance to leave the haven of his warm double bed, and then gave a sleepy frown as he searched his mind for the reason he had chosen to sleep in his bed last night. Then it all came back to him in a rush, and his lips stretched wide in a satisfied smile as he opened his eyes. - Tracey. Mulder stared in surprise at the other side of the bed, which was empty. The sheets were in a state of disarray, but the pillows on the far side of the bed didn't even look like they'd been slept on. Mulder gave a faint sigh, - now he knew what it felt like to wake up alone the morning after. The previous night he had gone to a bar in Great Falls Park, just south of the Potomac River. He had only been there a couple of times before, but for some reason he had decided to go there instead of his usual bar, - "Ripleys", - last night. And he had been very glad he had. Mulder had met Tracey at the bar, - an attractive, long-legged brunette, who had just had an argument with her date, and he had left her alone at the bar without a ride home. She and Mulder had got talking, and after a few hours of friendly conversation, what had started up as an interesting short-term friendship had been definitely headed somewhere else. They had both been aware of it, and both knew it for what it would be, - a one-night stand, giving some enjoyment to both of them before they parted their ways the next morning. So, when the bar owner had announced closing time, Mulder and Tracey had finished their drinks, walked back along a track through the woods at the side of the Potomac to where Mulder had left his car, and he had driven them back to his apartment. Then... Mulder gave a satisfied sigh, and crossed his arms across his chest as he closed his eyes to let the memory continue in full force. It had been the best night he had had in a long time... Giving in to the persistent voice in the back of his head which reminded him he had to be at the office in less than an hour, he swung his feet off the bed, and headed for the shower. * * * Mulder entered the ground floor of the J. Edgar Hoover building, and made his way quickly through the "bull-ring" towards the elevator that would take him to the basement office where he and Dana Scully worked. As usual, he appearance created something of a stir amongst the people he worked with, most of whom knew him only by reputation. Conversations stopped and started around him, and staring eyes followed his progress across the room, but as usual, Mulder didn't notice the hostility aimed at him. His mind was still in a daze over the events of the previous night, and he was silently, and almost unconsciously amazed that a girl he had known for only a few hours had had such an effect on him. He yawned as he crossed the room, and the good manners he had been taught as a boy showed through as he unconsciously lifted one hand to cover his open mouth. "Up late chasing UFO's were you last night, eh "Spooky"?" came a call from across the room. There was some laughter amongst the agents who had paused in their work to watch Mulder's passage, but Mulder barely heard either the remark or the laughter. - He was so used to tuning them out now that it was second nature to him. Reaching the elevator, Mulder pressed the button for down, and the door opened immediately. He stepped inside, and the car descended to the basement level. The basement was much quieter than the busy area upstairs, although the work done down here often created a much larger disturbance in the upper echelons of the Bureau hierarchy. Mostly the basement was full of old files, case notes, and bits of information gathered by the FBI since it had first begun investigating federal crimes. Also, the basement was home to the X-files. Mulder opened the door of the X-files office, and nodded to his petite auburn-haired partner who was already sitting at her desk. She looked up at him, and smiled in greeting. Getting up, she raised a hand to stop him removing his black overcoat. "I'm glad you've got here, Mulder. - We've got a new case, and Skinner wants us to get started right away." She moved towards the coat-stand, where she retrieved her own overcoat, and put it on. "Oh?" Mulder asked. Scully picked up a file from her desk and lifted her briefcase with her other hand. "A young woman was killed in Great Falls Park last night, - strangled. - Skinner wants us up at the scene as soon as possible." She held the case-file out to her partner, but he waved it aside with one hand, preferring, - as always, - her to tell him the important points of the case as they headed towards the scene. They hurried towards the elevator, on their way to the FBI car park, as Scully explained what they knew so far. "The woman hasn't been identified yet. She was found in the woods of Great Falls Park this morning by one of the park rangers. The cause of death appears to be strangulation. The time of death has been placed at 11.30pm last night. Sexual intercourse took place, probably just before death. - That's pretty much all we know. The general profile of the suspect is a male in his mid-thirties, of average to above average height, and quite fit." Mulder nodded in silence as he turned the facts over in his mind. They entered the car park, and moved quickly towards his car. He unlocked the drivers door, and then leaned through inside to open the passenger door for Scully. "Any photographs in there?" he asked, nodding towards the case-file she still held in one hand, as he did up his seat-belt. She shook her head. "Not yet, - the body was only discovered a couple of hours ago." Mulder shrugged, started the engine, and pulled away. "And there's more good news. - Skinner wants us to work with Agent Greeber and Agent Walbrook on this." "Oh, great." Mulder muttered. Scully smiled. * * * Twenty minutes later they had left the morning traffic of Washington, and were entering the woods of Great Falls park. The road they were on led past the bar where Mulder had been the previous night, and he nodded to it as they passed. "If we're still around here at lunch time, we're eating there." he told Scully, "They do the best fried chicken north of Alexandria." Scully smiled, and said nothing, wondering how her partner could even be contemplating food so early in the morning. A few minutes later, she directed him into a clearing where a couple of police cars were parked. Mulder pulled up behind a sedan he uncomfortably recognised as belonging to Agent Greeber, and switched off the engine. Getting out of the car, he and Scully moved across the clearing to where a small tent had been set up to protect the site. A police officer approached them. "Special Agents Dana Scully and Fox Mulder." Scully introduced herself and her partner to the officer, "If you don't mind I'd like to take a look at the body." "Be my guest." the officer replied, gesturing at the body behind him with one hand. Scully moved ahead of her partner to where the body was still lying, and squatted down at the side of it to get a good look. Mulder took a good look at the area first before approaching the body, - corpses had always been more Scully's thing than his. - He leaned over her shoulder to get a look at the dead girl, who was lying on her back, one hand thrown up above her head. He drew his breath in sharply when he saw her face, and turned quickly away. Scully heard his quick retreat, and glanced around in concern. She saw him move towards the car, and quickly finished up her examination before rising to her feet again and going to see what was bothering her partner. "Mulder?" Scully asked, taking off the rubber gloves she had donned to examine the body, "Are you alright?" Mulder turned towards her, and she saw a haunted look in his eyes. "I know who she is." he said quietly, his eyes fixed on his partner, "But... are you sure she died at 11.30pm? - She couldn't have been killed later?" "Well, I need to carry out some more tests, but I'd say from the state of the body, and the amount of cooling so far that 11.30pm was a pretty good estimate." Scully replied, looking at her partner in concern, "Rigor mortis has set in completely, so she must have been dead at least eight hours, possibly longer." Mulder glanced at his watch, and saw that it was not yet 9am. He frowned in confusion. "What's this about, Mulder? - Who is she?" "Her... her name's Tracey. - I don't know her last name." Mulder replied, "I was up at the bar here last night, and we got talking. She came back to my apartment with me afterwards..." He trailed off, and from the look on his face Scully didn't need to ask what had happened. "We were up until at least 2am," Mulder continued, "but when I got up this morning, she had already left." "Mulder, there is no way this woman was alive at 2am last night." Scully said, shaking her head, "How much did you have to drink last night?" "Not much, - I was driving back. - Tracey and I walked almost right past here, on the track just through there on the way back to my car." He pointed through the trees in the direction of the woodland track. "Your car? - What was your car doing out here?" Scully asked. Mulder shrugged. "I parked it down the road from the bar. - I'm not sure why I left it quite so far away though." Scully shook her head slowly. "I don't know what to make of this, Mulder." she said carefully, "I really don't think this woman could have been alive much after midnight at the latest. - And how she could have got back here from your apartment, after 2am..." She trailed, shaking her head again. "Well, look who it is. - "Spooky" and Agent Scully." Scully turned around to see Agents Greeber and Walbrook approaching with the park ranger who had found the body with them. Mulder looked up at the two men, groaning inwardly, and prayed he wouldn't lose his temper with Greeber. * * * Scully glanced at her partner as he parked the car behind Greeber and Walbrook's outside the bar. It was only five minutes drive from the crime scene, and probably about twenty minutes on foot. Mulder had been silent throughout the journey, and hadn't bothered to tell the other two agents that he knew the victim. Scully was concerned for him. - For a woman he had known only briefly, however intimately, he seemed to be taking her death very badly. - although she supposed that being told he had spent the night with a dead woman could come as a bit of a shock. Scully felt sure that if the woman had been dead *before* Mulder had met her, he would quite happily have passed off his encounter as being with a ghost, - or a succubus, as Mulder would probably have called it, - and that would have been that. - But the woman had definitely been alive when Mulder had first met her. Mulder switched the engine off, and Scully removed her seat-belt, and got out of the car as he did the same. Greeber and Walbrook were already out of their car, and ascending the two wooden steps to the bar built in the style of a wooden mountain hut. Walbrook rapped hard on the door as Mulder and Scully joined their colleagues. The main door behind the glass outer door opened, and a middle-aged man with a pipe in the corner of his mouth, and a small goat-beard looked out. "We're closed." he said shirtily, and started to close the door again. "FBI." Walbrook held up his ID badge, "We need to ask you a few questions, Mr...?" "Rogers." the man completed absently, squinting slightly to get a good look at Walbrook's ID through the dirty glass of the outer door. Lifting one hand to take the pipe from his mouth, he opened the glass door to let the four agents enter the bar. Scully looked around at the sort of place Mulder liked to spend his evenings and pick up unattached women. The wooden tables were round, their surfaces marked with long years of glasses being placed on them, and cigarettes being stubbed out on them. The whole room was dim, with only a few small windows, covered over with net, and oil lamps to light it. Posters for old films covered the walls, growing faded and tatty at the edges. Scully refocused her attention on what was going on. Rogers had retreated to the bar again, where he had apparently been cleaning up after the previous night. Greeber and Walbrook had followed him, and Mulder was a little way behind them, apparently feeling a little nostalgic for the previous night as he gazed around the room. Scully joined the three men near the bar. Greeber produced a photograph from his pocket, - one of the polaroids which had been taken at the scene, as the main scene-of-crime photos hadn't been developed yet. - It showed the dead woman's head and shoulders. "We just want to ask a couple of questions, Mr Rogers." Greeber said, and passed the photograph to the bar owner, "Have you seen this woman before?" Rogers took the photograph, and looked at it. Then he looked up, a slight frown on his face, and nodded. "Yeah." His tone showed the confusion on his face. "When?" "Last night." Again, Rogers' tone indicated surprise and confusion at the question, "She came in her about 5.30pm with one of the regulars. - I hadn't seen her before. - She and the lad she was with had an argument, and he stormed out." "So she left alone?" "No." Rogers frowned again, and nodded towards Mulder, "She left with him." Greeber and Walbrook glanced at Mulder in surprise, and something like anger crossed Greeber's face. Mulder saw the expression, and groaned inwardly. Walbrook tried to regain his composure. "Umm... did you see anyone at all suspicious hanging around last night? Anyone who left shortly after the girl?" Rogers shook his head. "Not that I noticed, but then they didn't leave until closing time." Greeber nodded. "Okay, thank you, Mr Rogers. - We'll get back to you if we need to ask you anything else." His anger showed through slightly in his voice, and as he turned away from the bar owner, he glared at Mulder. The four agents moved to the door, and went outside. "What the hell is going on, Mulder?" Greeber demanded as soon as the door had closed behind them, "Why didn't you tell us you knew who the victim was?" "I did tell Agent Scully." Mulder defended himself. Scully nodded in agreement. "There wasn't time to tell you, - we were in a hurry to get here." "But we didn't need to come here, - if you left the bar with her at closing time, you must have been the last person to see her! - She died only half an hour after the bar closed." "Last but one person to see her." Mulder corrected, "The last person was the one who killed her." Greeber shrugged non-committally, and then tried a new line. "So how come you left together?" "We got talking after her date ditched her. - She didn't have a ride home. After a couple of hours talking, we were getting on very well. When Rogers announced closing time, I invited her back to my place. We left, and walked down the woodland track to my car." "So how come she didn't go back with you? - Or do I need to ask?" Walbrook asked. - The inference in his addition was obvious. Mulder hesitated for a moment, and then admitted. "She did come back with me. - I drove us back to my apartment." "But you couldn't have. - She was dead at 11.30pm, and she was killed here." Walbrook countered. Mulder shrugged. "I know, but all the same, we spent the remainder of the evening at my apartment, went to sleep at about 2am, and when I woke up this morning, she was gone." "Well I'm not surprised, she was here. - And you'd dreamed the whole thing in some alcohol-induced stupor. - As if a girl that attractive would need some weird jerk like you, anyway." Greeber said cuttingly. Mulder bristled with anger, but said nothing, merely shaking his head. "So how much did you have last night, Mulder?" Walbrook asked. "Three alcohol-free beers." Mulder replied, and he met Walbrook's gaze, and held it. "I wasn't drunk." "You wouldn't need to be, - you can hallucinate well enough without it." Greeber remarked in an undertone, "That's why you keep seeing little green men." "Grey." Mulder contradicted, also in an undertone. Scully elbowed him to keep quiet as Greeber looked up in confusion. "Look, there's obviously something strange going on here." Scully said, "Perhaps if we wait until I've had a chance to properly post-mortem the body, and can determine exactly what happened prior to death. - Then we'll be working with something slightly more definite." "Okay." Greeber agreed grudgingly, and then glared at Mulder, "Just as long as you're not planning on leaving the state, Mulder." With that he turned on his heel, and stalked off towards his car. Mulder stared after him as Walbrook followed his partner, and Scully looked at her partner in concern. "Come on." she said, "Let's get back to Washington, and sort this out." * * * Scully entered the morgue, and her eyes moved to the sheet-covered figure lying on the stainless steel autopsy bench in the centre of the room. As the swing doors closed behind her, she moved to the sink, and started to scrub her hands and arms. The morgue was a cold room, with white tiles on the walls, and stainless steel sheet on the floor, curving up to meet the tiles without leaving any corners. The smell of strong disinfectant permeated the air, and infused everything in the room. Trolleys of instruments stood waiting around the room, their impressive array of clamps, saws, and knives like the artifacts of a medieval torture chamber. Along one wall were the heads of the stainless steel refrigerated drawers where the bodies were kept before and after the autopsies. Scully pulled on a pair of rubber gloves, washed her hands again, and then turned to face the corpse in the centre of the room. She moved towards it, lifted back the sheet at the head to expose the head and shoulders of the young woman, and then moved to the feet to check the toe-tag on her left foot. Reaching up, she switched on the overhead light, and the microphone that would record her observations as she worked. "Preliminary examination, carried out by Special Agent Dana Scully, at 11.21am, on the 9th of November, 1996. Case number PR-2100-67837. Investigating agents are Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, and Agents Greeber and Walbrook. Victim identified as Tracey Hilton, aged 29." Scully moved around the body with a tape measure, recording her measurements as she did. "Victim is a Caucasian female, five foot eight in length, brown hair and eyes. She has a mole on her left shoulder, and a small birthmark on her lower right leg, but no other distinguishing marks. The body shows some bruising and abrasion around the neck, consistent with strangulation, and there is no other visual cause of death. There are no marks on the wrists as would have been consistent with a struggle, suggesting that the attack, when it occurred, was over very quickly. However the body does show signs of recent sexual intercourse." Scully picked up a long pair of tweezers, and a small mirror from the tray at the side of the autopsy bench. Leaning over the body, she examined it carefully for any clues about what had taken place in the woods. Holding the mirror between the corpse's legs, she frowned. "Although the tissue lining the vagina is torn, suggesting recent and somewhat violent intercourse, there is very little bleeding, suggesting that intercourse took place *after* death had occurred." Scully tried not to think to hard about the implications of what she was saying as she removed a small piece of a dead leaf from the body with her tweezers, and put it into a glass bottle. "There are particles of dirt and plant material within the vagina, strongly suggesting that intercourse took place in the woods where the body was found. The evidence at the scene also suggested that the victim was killed in the place where she was later found." Scully took a deep breath as she turned away, and picked up a scalpel from the tray at her side. She wondered briefly what her partner was doing with himself, - she had left him in the basement office on their return to Washington. - He had barely spoken all the way back from Great Falls Park, although what had been going through his mind she couldn't imagine. Turning back to the body, Scully began making the Y-shaped incision that would open up the thorax. * * * Scully opened the door of the Assistant Director's office, and went inside ahead of the three agents with her. Mulder was immediately behind her, and behind him came Agents Greeber and Stanton, who since the autopsy had started treating Mulder as a suspect for the crime they were investigating. The Assistant Director looked up in surprise to see so many visitors, and put down the pen he had been working with. Scully stopped by the desk, and turned back to glare at Greeber and Walbrook, her arms crossed across her chest. - She just couldn't believe they were suspecting Mulder of committing the crime, which was coming to look more gruesome by the minute. "Good afternoon, agents." Skinner said, a slight frown on his face, "I doubt you can have solved your case already?" "No, sir." Walbrook replied testily, and glared at Mulder, who shrugged and sat down, as no-one else seemed to be interested in the two chairs in front of Skinner's desk. The whole affair was beginning to bore him now, despite the fact that he hadn't yet managed to come up with an explanation for how he had started the previous evening with a woman who had been very much alive, and apparently finished it with her ghost. "So what's the reason for this?" Skinner enquired. "We've run into... complications." Walbrook said cagily. "Huh!" Greeber grunted behind his partner. Mulder raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Skinner frowned. "Would someone care to explain to me what's going on here? - Agent Scully?" Skinner turned towards the smallest agent, knowing her to normally be the most sensible of the four. "Sir, when we arrived at the crime scene this morning, Agent Mulder identified the body, - a young woman by the name of Tracey Hilton." "You knew the victim, Agent Mulder?" Skinner asked, surprised. "On a short-term basis, sir." Mulder replied. "Very short-term." Greeber snarled. "Umm... Agent Mulder met the victim at a bar about twenty minutes walk from where the body was found, last night." Scully continued, trying to find words to describe just what she gathered had happened between her partner and the woman. "They left the bar together at closing time, - about 11.05pm, - and walked back along a woodland track to Agent Mulder's car, parked about a half-hour away. Agent Mulder drove them to his apartment, where the woman stayed the night, except that she was gone when he awoke this morning." "Am I to understand by this that you were intimate with the victim last night, Agent Mulder?" Skinner turned to Scully's partner. Mulder nodded. "It was more this morning, than last night." he muttered, and seeing the look on Skinner's face, explained, "We didn't go to sleep until 2am." "However," Scully continued, "when I post-mortemed the body, I ascertained that the woman died at about 11.30pm last night, certainly no later than midnight. She was found a short distance from the track she and Agent Mulder had walked along on their way to his car, at a point consistent with where they would have been at the time she died. - In other words, Agent Mulder and the victim passed the place where she was killed, at the time she was killed, and proceeded on to his apartment." Skinner raised an eyebrow, and glanced at Mulder, before returning his concentration to Scully. "The woman was killed by strangulation, and the profile we were given was that the killer was probably male, in his mid-thirties, of average to above-average height, and reasonably fit." "And guess who that fits." Greeber muttered, "It's so consistent it's *spooky*." Mulder's face went suddenly impassive, and Scully recognised the reaction as meaning Greeber had struck a nerve. She quickly continued with her narration. "The body wasn't moved from the place where the murder occurred, and during my autopsy I discovered that what we previously believed to have been mutually consenting sexual intercourse at some point not long prior to death, was almost certainly actually intercourse taking place in the woods where the body was found, *after* death." Mulder's head snapped round to look up at his partner, and Greeber and Walbrook stared at her as well. - She hadn't informed them of this particular twist in the crime when she had completed her autopsy. "Agent Scully, - you're saying that the killer raped the victim in the woods *after* killing her?" Skinner asked. She nodded. "You're sure about that?" "Yes, sir. - The physical evidence was quite conclusive." Skinner looked down at the papers in front of him for a moment while his mind processed the horrible information he had just been given. Then he looked up at the agents again. "So, as I understand it, Agent Mulder says he spent the night with a woman who was being murdered at the time he was passing the place where she was murdered. We have a woman who was raped after being murdered. And Agent Mulder... - I assume the two of you were intimate in the fullest sense of the word?" Mulder had the decency to flush slightly. "Yes, sir." "And Mr Rogers, the bar owner." Walbrook added, "He claims to have seen Agent Mulder leaving the bar with the victim at 11.05pm." "Well, at least there's one thing we all agree on." Skinner said. He glanced at Mulder, "There seem to be too many over-lapping facts here. Either Agent Scully's autopsy results are wrong, or Agent Mulder isn't telling the whole truth about what occurred between him and the victim, or we're missing something vitally important." "A time warp?" Mulder muttered. - Even in his position, he was perfectly aware of how ludicrous the facts were, and he was surprised that Skinner was taking it so well. - If Greeber had had his say, Mulder was sure he'd have been charged with murder by now. "Memories are very subjective things." Skinner continued, looking at Mulder again, "So many things pass us by as they seem totally innocuous at the time. - Perhaps if we could know every little detail of what went on in the woods at Great Falls Park last night, we'd find the vital link we're missing." "What are you saying, sir?" Mulder asked calmly. "Agent Mulder, I'd like you to undergo regression hypnosis, to see if you remember anything other than what you've already told us from last night." "Sir, is that really necessary?" Scully interrupted, "After all, Agent Mulder has a photographic memory..." "Still, people sometimes shut out things they don't want to remember." Skinner answered. "It's okay, Scully." Mulder told his partner, "I've done it before." Indeed he had, when he had been trying to recover his memories of his sister's abduction. - And Scully knew how much those memories had damaged him. She didn't want it happening again. * * * Mulder entered Dr. Heitz Werber's office slightly ahead of his partner. Greeber and Walbrook were waiting for him outside. - They had been unwilling to let him go in without them, but had eventually had to back down to the conditions Scully had laid down. The office looked pretty much like it had when Mulder had last been in. The dark leather couch and wing-backed chair looked like something out of an old movie. Dr. Werber sat at his wooden desk to one side, and he looked up as the agents entered, a small smile of greeting on his face. He rose to his feet, and moved around the desk to shake both their hands. "Agent Mulder, how nice to see you again." he exclaimed. Mulder said nothing. - He had broken off his sessions with Werber after recovering his memories of his sister's abduction, despite the psychiatrist's belief that he needed further counseling. He was perfectly aware of the very thin barrier that was between his conscious and his painful memories. - And he didn't want that barrier breached. "And you must be Agent Mulder's partner, Agent Scully." Werber turned towards her, "Assistant Director Skinner called me and told me you were on the way, - although he didn't say what was so urgent?" "I need to go over my memories from last night." Mulder replied shortly, "Skinner wants as much detail as possible about everything that happened between 6pm and my waking up this morning." Werber raised his eyebrows, "But as I recall, you have a photographic memory... - Are you suffering from amnesia?" "No." Mulder said sharply, "But Skinner wants precise and detailed information. - He thinks I may be blocking something out." Werber shrugged. "Okay. - Agent Scully, will you be staying for the proceedings?" "Yes." Scully replied, knowing that Mulder needed her strength as well as his own at the moment. Werber nodded, and moved towards the couch. "Would you both like to sit down?" he said, indicating the couch for Mulder. Scully pulled the chair from Werber's desk over to the couch, and sat down. Werber took the wing-backed chair. Twenty minutes later Werber turned to Scully, and announced that Mulder was in a hypnotic trance. "He said from 6pm. - Do you know what he was doing at that time?" "He was at a bar in Great Falls Park." Scully replied, "He'd just arrived, I think." Werber nodded. "Mulder, I want you to think back to last night. - Do you remember going to a bar?" "Yes..." Mulder said in the slow drawl of a hypnotic trance. "Do you remember what time you arrived?" "5.50pm, - the sports news had just finished on the radio." Mulder replied slowly. "Okay, I want you to go back to that time, just as you were arriving at the bar. You're just going inside now. - What can you see?" Mulder opened his eyes, and looked around him, although he didn't focus on anything in the room. "Just the bar." he replied, "It hasn't changed much since I was last here. There's an old man and two loggers sitting on the bar stools, and Al Rogers is behind the bar, talking to the old man. He's looking at me now, looking to see who's coming in. I doubt he recognises me, - it's been a while since I was last up here." "Is the bar busy, Mulder?" "Not too bad. - There's a couple of youths by the juke box, sharing a cigarette that doesn't look to legal. There are a few people sitting at tables. - A man and his wife, eating sausage and chips. A small group of bikers in their late twenties and early thirties eating fried chicken burgers. And a man in glasses reading a newspaper which he's laid out on the table." "What are you doing now, Mulder?" "I'm going up to the bar. Al asks me what I want. I order an alcohol-free beer. - Got to drive myself home tonight, Scully won't be happy if I call her up asking for a lift at midnight." Scully smiled slightly at this declaration, and crossed her left leg over her right. "Al brings me the glass, and I pay for it. Now I'm going to a table in the corner, where I've got a decent view of what's going on. It's not too far from the bar, either." Mulder turned his head slightly, and looked into the distance. "There's an argument going on amongst the bikers. One guy is yelling, and the woman with him is crying, and trying not to show it. He's got up from his seat, and is going to the door. She turns away from him as he goes out, and I can see the hurt in her eyes. She goes to the bar, and orders another coke. Al brings it to her, and she sits down on a stool at the bar. The other bikers are getting to their feet now, and are leaving. She doesn't even look around as they go, although she must hear them. - I hope she's got a way to get home now, if she came with them." "Do you find the woman attractive, Mulder?" Werber asked, perceptively picking up on the tone of Mulder's voice. "Umm... she *looks* quite attractive." Mulder replied slowly, "But I doubt from what I've seen of her so far that she'd anywhere near match up to some of the women I know." "What do you mean, "match up to"?" "The attraction's only on the surface. She's pretty, but I want more than that." "What sort of woman *do* you want, Mulder?" Werber asked. "I'd like her to be pretty, but I'm more interested in someone intellectually drop-dead gorgeous than physically so." Scully raised an eyebrow at this statement. "Do you approach the woman at the bar?" "Yes. - When I finish my drink, and go to the bar to get another one, I stand quite close to her. While Al is busy getting the drink, I mention that I saw her date leaving, and ask if she's got a lift home. She nods and says she'll be alright, but I get the impression she's just a little wary of me. I return to my table without saying anything else, and a couple of minutes later she comes over to me." "Why does she come to you?" "She says she's sorry she was rude at the bar, but she thought I was trying to hit on her. She's sitting down at my table, and she says that she'll probably call one of her friends to come and pick her up later. She says her name is Tracey." "Do you talk to Tracey for long?" "Until Al calls closing time." "And how do you get on together?" "Very well. - I think she's attracted to me too, although I think we both know it's only a sexual thing." "What happens at closing time?" "Al calls out from behind the bar that last orders are over. I ask Tracey if she wants a lift home, or if she wants to come back to my apartment." "You feel comfortable asking her that?" "Yes." "And what does Tracey say?" "She says she'll come back to mine. We finish our drinks, and leave to walk to my car. We walk along the woodland track through Great Falls Park. - I left my car about a half hour's walk from the bar." Scully put one hand on Werber's arm, warning him not to rush through this time. He looked around at her and understood, - this was what was important. "Do you talk while you walk with Tracey?" he asked Mulder. The agent nodded slightly. "We carry on talking like we were in the bar." he replied. "And what do you talk about?" "Her memories of coming to the park as a child, and having picnics with her parents." Mulder answered. "Do you see anyone as you walk to your car?" "No." Mulder answered, "There's no-one about here at all." "Do you notice anything unusual as you walk?" "No. - It looks pretty much as it did last time I walked down here." "Okay, what's happening now?" "We're about ten minutes walk from my car. I haven't seen any sign of anyone since we left the bar. - No-one's followed us, and no-one even realises where we've gone. I put my hand on Tracey's arm, stopping her. She's turning towards me, an expression of concern on her face. I pull her towards me, and she puts her hands against my chest, trying to push away. I'm stronger than she is though. I kiss her, and... "Owww!!! - She bit me!" Mulder exclaimed, one hand rising to cover his "injured" mouth. "You bitch! - You'll pay for that!" "What's happening, Mulder?" Werber asked. "I've pushed her to the ground, and I'm kneeling over her, my hands around her neck. I'm looking right into her face, and I can see her terror as I crush her neck with my hands. She's afraid of me. - She's wishing she hadn't agreed to come out of the bar with me now, the stupid bitch. - Her eyes are watering, but she's barely blinking, her eyes fixed on me. Now they're starting to lose their focus. "I can feel her pulse in her neck beneath my hands. It's growing weaker now. Fading. She's not struggling any more. There, her heart's stopped. She's gone, and good riddance. Now she'll have to give me what I want." Scully lifted her hand to her mouth in horror, her eyes wide at what Mulder was relating. Surely what he was saying couldn't be true? Surely in a minute he would sit up and laugh and say he hadn't really been hypnotised at all, he had just been playing games because he was angry with Skinner for not believing his story completely. But it didn't happen. After a few moments in order to recollect himself, Werber spoke to Mulder again. "What are you doing now, Mulder?" "Stripping the bitch." came the immediate reply. Scully blanched. "Going to get what I came for." "Tell me exactly what you're doing." Werber said, and Scully heard a slight tremor in his voice, and guessed that the psychiatrist really didn't want to know any more about what Mulder had done. - But she had a pretty good idea what was coming. "I'm pulling her jeans off. - Damn tight things won't come past her shoes. - There, that's done it. Now her panties. That's better. - She'll give me what I want now. Better this way anyway. - Don't have to worry about keeping her happy while I'm having a good time. All the fun and none of the pressure of trying to keep the relationship going. - Who knows, if no-one finds her I could even come back tomorrow for seconds. - A steady relationship, if you like. Ha-ha." Scully closed her eyes for a moment, and swallowed convulsively, wondering just what it was that was going through her partner's mind right now. He continued with his ghastly monologue. "Now I'm removing my own jeans." There was a short pause, and then a grunt as in his mind Mulder apparently entered the corpse. Scully couldn't drag her eyes from his face, much as she wanted to close them and look away, or make Werber stop the session. In horror she saw that he was smiling faintly as in his mind he raped the body. "She's still very warm." Mulder commented, a tone of disgust in his voice, "Never mind, other people cope." There were a few minutes of silence, punctuated by occasional groans from the prone man on the couch. Then his eyes snapped open again, as he apparently finished his deplorable act. Werber took a deep breath, steeling himself for the answer. "What are you doing now?" "Putting my jeans on again." Mulder replied, as though it were the most normal thing in the world, "Now I'm getting up, going back to the track, and heading for my car. It's only about ten minutes away. I should be home by half past twelve." "Do you see anyone on your way to the car?" "No." "And what happens when you reach it?" "I get in and drive home. Then I go to bed." Mulder replied. Werber looked around at Scully, and she could tell from the look on his face that he wanted to wrap this up as quickly as possible. She nodded weakly, still trying to process what she had just heard. - How could Mulder possibly be responsible for Tracey Hilton's death? How could he do something as terrible as what he had just described? "Mulder, I'm going to count to five, and when I reach five you will be wide awake, feeling refreshed, and you will remember everything. - One, two, three, four, five." Mulder opened his eyes again, and stared up at the ceiling for a moment. Then he turned his gaze towards Scully, and she saw the horror and pain in his expression. The monster who had been on the couch a moment ago had gone, and now she saw only the petrified face of her partner. "Scully." he whispered hoarsely, "What have I done?" Scully held his gaze for a long time before being able to formulate an answer to his question. Finally she shook her slowly, and said, "I don't know, Mulder. - You must have projected what you know about the case onto your memories, and this was the result." Mulder shook his head, "But I remember it now, Scully. - Clearly. More clearly than I remembered Tracey coming to my apartment, which was always more a knowledge that she had, rather than a memory of it, if you know what I mean." Scully nodded weakly, "Mulder, people are always coming up with false memories under hypno-regression..." "No, Scully. - This was real." His tone was filled with dejected conviction. "Mulder, how do you know?" "Because it is. Because it has to be." he said simply, and then lowered his head as he admitted, "Because I remembered what happened to Sam under hypno-regression, and if I can't trust those memories, then I've got nothing to live for." "Nothing?" Scully felt a twinge of hurt that he could so casually dismiss all the work they had done in the X-files, all the work which was normally so important to him. He met her eyes. "Nothing except you." he amended. Scully's eyebrows rose. - It hadn't occurred to her that he hadn't included her in his statement. - She reached out to him and took his hand in hers, hoping to offer some comfort. But Mulder's eyes were filled with the painful knowledge of what he had remembered doing, and he seemed reluctant to make physical contact with her, as though his evil could be passed to her through his touch. From outside the room, Scully heard the sound of raised voices. Glancing briefly at her partner again with an expression of concern on her face, she rose to her feet, and moved towards the door to see what all the shouting was about. She was halfway across the room when the door burst open, and a red-faced Agent Greeber came in, his gun in his hand. He was closely followed by Agent Walbrook, and from the looks on their faces Scully knew immediately that they had been watching the session from the observation room next door. "You're not going to tell me where I can and can't go!" Greeber yelled as he stormed in, apparently still raving at Werber's secretary who had been refusing to let him enter the room while the doctor was in session. The agent's eyes met Scully's, and hers narrowed. "Agent Greeber, how dare you storm in here while Mulder is in session." she said in a low voice, standing between the angry agent and her partner, who was still lying on Werber's couch. "I'm going to take that... that animal to Assistant Director Skinner," Greeber declared, his eyes small and fixed on Mulder. "No, you are not." Scully countered, her voice rising. Greeber tried to push her aside, reaching for his handcuffs as he did so, which were in a holder just behind his gun holster. "I don't think you heard me properly." Scully yelled, and shoved Greeber back towards the door, "Agent Mulder isn't going anywhere just yet. When he's ready, we'll all leave together. - Now get out!" To emphasise her point Scully reached for her own gun, in a holster at her waist. Greeber finally got the point, and unwillingly backed out of the door in the face of Scully's anger. She turned back to look at her partner, and saw his eyes cloud over with pain. For a moment she thought she saw tears in his eyes, and then he turned his face away from her to hide the emotions he could no longer hide behind his usually impassive mask. * * * Mulder walked through the main entrance hall of the J. Edgar Hoover building, his head lowered in shame. His hands were handcuffed behind him, and in any other circumstances he would have felt embarrassed and angry to be publicly humiliated in this way, but right now he was in too much stress mentally to worry about what other people were thinking. Scully was walking at his side, her head up, looking confident, her eyes defying anyone to say anything about what was happening. Behind them walked Agents Greeber and Walbrook. Both the agents had their guns trained on Mulder, and Walbrook held Mulder's own gun in his left hand, having taken it from this distraught man before they left Werber's office. Mulder had said nothing when they demanded it. He hadn't said a word, or even made any acknowledgement as Greeber roughly patted him down as he looked for other weapons. Since coming out of the hypnosis he had retreated into a small part of his subconsciouss, and was quite happy to stay there. Scully glanced around briefly at Greeber and Walbrook, and glared at them when she saw that they were still blatantly keeping their guns on Mulder. The four had been forced to use the main public entrance to the building as the swipe card system that operated one of the entry doors at the entry most of the agents used was off-line. It just wasn't right that they should be exposing Mulder like this, - why didn't they believe that he hadn't been involved? Glancing over at her partner, Scully sighed inwardly, - even he didn't believe he hadn't been involved. - This was the last thing he needed now. It might well be the final straw which snapped to let his sanity crumble. They approached the metal-detector arch and security desk which monitored who went in and out of the building. Scully smiled at the young security guard there, and showed her identification. "Good evening, Agent Scully." the guard nodded, smiling back, "Would you mind putting your weapon in the dish while you go through, - it scares off the visitors if the alarm goes off." "Sure." Scully took out her gun, placed it in the dish on the security desk, and walked through the detector arch. Picking her gun up again, she turned to see Walbrook coming through behind her. "You'll have to take his handcuffs off." Walbrook commented to his partner, nodding towards Mulder, "Or it'll set the alarms off." "Who cares?" Greeber asked arrogantly, "So everyone will turn and look at the necrophiliac and wonder what's going on. - Big deal." "Take the cuffs off him, Greeber." Scully said angrily, "Or I'll come back through and do it myself." From her tone Greeber realised that making her do that was definitely not a good idea. Glancing at the security guard again, he nodded in unwilling acquiescence, and started to remove the cuffs from Mulder's wrists, trying as hard as he could not to come into contact at all with Mulder's skin. Finally the metal rings fell free. Greeber lifted his gun again. "Now walk through slowly, and let Walbrook cuff you again." he ordered. He dropped the cuffs in the dish on the counter. The security guard frowned, wondering what was going on, as he recognised Mulder to be an FBI agent. Mulder turned to the archway, and walked through it. The alarm went off. A shrill beeping sound which cut through the air for a few moments until the guard cut it off. "He must have another weapon on him!" Greeber yelled to his partner on the other side of the archway, although there was no need to shout as they were only a few feet away from each other. Walbrook trained his gun on Mulder, who was standing passively on the other side of the arch. Greeber dropped his gun in the dish, and went through quickly, picking it up again, and training it on the agent once more. Walbrook moved forward, and patted Mulder down again. then he stepped back, shaking his head. "He doesn't have his other gun with him." Scully said, "He keeps it at his apartment unless we're going away on a case." Greeber and Walbrook both looked disbelieving at her words. The security guard picked up his metal detector wand, and stepped out from behind the security desk. He ran the wand over Mulder, but couldn't find anything metallic on the agent. "Walk through the arch again." he instructed. Mulder shrugged, and walked back through the turnstile and then in through the arch. The alarm went off again. The security guard frowned. "It's always been very sensitive." "Yes." Scully said thoughtfully, "It has. - Could I borrow the wand for a moment?" She held out her hand to the security guard, and he shrugged and handed it to her. Slowly and carefully, she ran it over her partner, making sure it covered all of him. As it ran close over the back of his neck, it beeped. Scully pursed her lips, and handed the wand back to the security guard. Standing on tip-toe, she pulled the collar of Mulder's grey jacket down at the back, and then his shirt. Looking closely, and pressing his skin with her fingers, she found what she was looking for, - a small hard lump beneath a tiny red scar. "What's that?" Walbrook asked, looking over Scully's shoulder. "An implant." Scully replied. Mulder turned his head sharply to look at her, the first interest he'd showed in anything since leaving Werber's office. "Like the one you had?" he asked. "I can't tell." Scully replied, "But if we go to one of the labs I can take it out under a local anaesthetic for you, and then we can get it analysed." "Wait a second, - he's got to go and see Skinner. - He's under arrest for murder." Greeber protested. "This may be why." Scully said simply, and, putting her body between Mulder and Greeber, she pushed her partner along in the direction of the lab she wanted to go to. * * * Half an hour later, Scully lifted the small piece of metal from Mulder's neck. She gazed at it closely, and then exclaimed in awe, "It *is* a micro-chip!" Mulder said nothing, afraid to get his hopes up. He was sitting on a high stool in the corner of the lab where Scully was carrying out the minor surgery. A bright table lamp shone down on the back of his neck, and it felt slightly warm, although he didn't know if that was just psychological as he couldn't feel anything from his neck to his elbow except the numb proddings of Scully's rubber-gloved fingers. Across the room from them, Greeber and Walbrook were watching the proceedings, unwilling to let Mulder out of their sight. "I'm going to take it upstairs to Pendrell." Scully announced, "- I want an analysis of it as soon as possible. - You just stay here and wait for the local anaesthetic to wear off. And don't worry. It'll be alright." She glanced around the lab, and her eyes fell on the small room off to one side where the technicians went for coffee. It had a row of soft chairs, which Mulder would be able to lie down on. She took his hand in hers, and pulled him to his feet. "Come in here, and lie down for a bit. - Whatever happened last night, you must be exhausted." She smiled as she spoke, to tell him that she knew he hadn't killed Tracey. Mulder barely heard her words or noticed her expression, however. He followed her into the room, and lay down on the chairs when she urged him to. Scully glared at the two agents who had come to stand in the doorway to tell them to give him some peace while she was gone. Then she hurried out of the room with the micro-chip to go and see Pendrell. Mulder took a deep breath, and, suddenly realising how tired he was, he closed his eyes and fell asleep. * * * Scully pushed open the door to the electronics lab Pendrell worked in, and hurried inside. The young "tekkie" was still at his work bench, as always working longer hours than he was really supposed to, because he was still too new to have been disillusioned with the job. Pendrell looked up when he heard the door open, and an eager smile spread across his face when he saw who his visitor was. Leaping up from the stool where he had been sitting for the last four hours, - and quickly regretting it when he realised his left leg was completely numb, and he nearly fell over right in front of Scully, - he asked, "What can I do for you, Agent Scully?" "I wondered if you had the time to take a look at this for me." Scully held up the small glass sample tube she had put the micro-chip in. Pendrell glanced at it. "Sure I do. - I'll have a look at it now for you, - if you don't mind waiting, that is. - I haven't had anyone come in here for ages." Then, apparently realising his innocent statement could be taken two ways, he reiterated, "That is, no-one's been in here for a long time,... I..." He held his hand out for the tube. - It was easier than trying to save himself when every word he said only got him in deeper, and Scully was starting to smile in amusement at his confusion. As he accepted the tube he saw her face light up in a smile of gratitude, and he could feel his face reddening as he turned away from her towards the microscope he used for examining micro-chips. Placing the chip carefully on the platform, he adjusted the height of it until the chip came into focus on the screen at the side of the microscope. He looked at it closely. "Wow..." he muttered, Scully almost forgotten for a moment as he looked closely at the image. After a moment's silence, Scully broke into his thoughts. "What is it?" she asked. "Umm... Agent Scully, this chip is years ahead of current technology. - I didn't think we could produce anything like this yet." "But it is man-made?" "Yes." Pendrell agreed, "Not like that chip you found in your neck last year. - It looks like some sort of memory chip, but there's something about it that's not right. - It's like it's set up to send, instead of to store. It's extremely complex. Like a whole virtual reality program scaled down onto one little chip." "Virtual reality?" Scully asked, one eyebrow raised. Pendrell nodded. "Agent Pendrell, if this chip were part of a computer, what would it do?" "Well, I guess it would transfer whatever's been encoded on it onto the memory of the computer." "Like a computer disk?" Scully enquired. Pendrell nodded. "Sort of. - A highly advanced one." "And if it was implanted into a human being?" "What? - You've been pulling micro-chips out of yourself again, Agent Scully?" Pendrell laughed, thinking she was joking. Then he saw the serious expression on her face. "Umm... I guess it would impose whatever's been encoded on it onto the mind of the individual." he replied. Scully's eyes lit up with an undefined possibility, and she smiled suddenly, and picked the chip up from the platform, returning it to it's bottle. "Thank you, Agent Pendrell." she said, and then turned and hurried from the lab. * * * When Scully arrived back at the lab downstairs where she had left Mulder, she found him sitting up on the chairs where she had left him lying. An expression of surprise adorned his face, and he looked up at her as she came in. "Mulder?" Scully asked, sensing something had changed. She glanced at Greeber and Walbrook, who had taken seats opposite Mulder, but they both shrugged in response to her unasked question. "Scully, I... I'm remembering something else now." Scully nodded. She had been hoping ever since she left Pendrell that this would be the case. If the chip really had been imposing it's memory onto Mulder's, then hopefully it's removal would restore the true memories to his mind. "What are you remembering, Mulder?" she asked, and belatedly hoped that it was not some new variation on the story he had told in Werber's office. However, one look at his face told her that it was a good memory. "I remember talking to Tracey at the bar. When I asked her again at closing time if she had a lift, she said no, so I gave her my phone to call a taxi-cab, and offered her some money for the fare. She didn't want to take it, but eventually she did. - I didn't invite her back to my apartment. I went outside with her to meet the taxi. She got in, and then I left on my own to walk back to my car. I drove back to my apartment, and went to sleep on the bed for once. "Then I was woken by three men holding me down. Two were holding my arms, and one my legs, and another gave me a shot of something, which I think was sedative. Then he held what looked like a gun at the back of my neck, and I heard a bang. It hurt like anything, and for a moment I thought he'd shot me. Then I guess I fell unconscious. The next thing I knew I woke up." Scully smiled. "They must have implanted the chip in you then. - Pendrell says it's a highly advanced micro-chip, which seems to be capable of storing and transferring information. Without me telling him what had happened, he said that if it was implanted in a human, he thought it would cause the information encoded onto it to be transferred to the individual's memory." "So I didn't kill Tracey?" Mulder asked, thankfully. Scully shook her head. "No, you didn't." she smiled. "So we've explained my memories of murdering her. - But why did I remember her at my apartment at first?" Mulder asked. Scully shrugged. "I don't know, Mulder. - Possibly a side-effect from the chip. - But with your twisted mind, who knows?" Mulder grinned for what felt like the first time in weeks, and looked over at the two agents watching him. "Do you think there's any chance they'll let me go before we catch the real killer and make him confess?" he asked his partner. Scully glanced over in the direction he was looking. "No way." she smiled. Turning back to her partner, her eyes met his, and her hand searched out his. She squeezed it reassuringly, and he squeezed back. Now all they had to do was convince Skinner. The End. I'd greatly appreciate any comments or constructive criticism from fellow X-Philes. Email me at . Danielle Culverson.