Part 22 of 27: Audience Participation. More or Less.

"I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies all right. But 
my damn friends, my goddamn friends. They're the ones that keep me walking the 
floor nights."

-- Warren G. Harding.

Fowley, ever observant, sensed the tension in the room immediately. She remained 
at the door, rooted to the spot with her carton of cold drinks, waiting for some 
kind of cue. 

Sauceda, however, plowed straight in, completely unconcerned, and headed for the 
table beyond the television. He was full of his usual bluster-- "Hey, kids, 
how's it going hope everyone is hungry man the traffic was a bitch"-- and 
dropped his box of styrofoam containers on the table, gesturing grandly. Not 
waiting for a response of any kind, he commenced to describe their impending 
meal with the air of a sideshow barker: its ingredients, its cost, and the 
infinite pains he'd gone through to acquire it-- without once seeming to come up 
for air. Fowley finally joined him at the table, her smile tentative, her steps 
grave with uncertainty. 

Sauceda unpacked the meal as he lectured, disclosing a dozen waxed cartons and 
insulated containers of various denominations. The air was suddenly thick with 
the sticky sweet fragrance of oriental spice and Mulder found himself starved 
for a cigarette-- anything to dispel the smell. He liked Chinese and he was 
certainly hungry enough, but his stomach wasn't at all amused by the prospect of 
actual work. 

There was a pack of Winstons on the coffee table and he caught Purdue's eye. The 
ASAC nodded at the unspoken request and surrendered his lighter with only the 
barest hint of hesitation. Mulder pretended not to notice and lit his cigarette, 
the tip burning orange to an angry red as he inhaled. He handed the lighter back 
without meeting Purdue's eyes. The ASAC accepted it in kind, and Mulder 
retreated to the depths of his chair, smoking grimly. 

Purdue, perhaps unwilling to intrude further, rose to assist in the sorting 
process at the table. Mulder listened to the three-way conversation, marveling 
that it could be just over his shoulder and yet so far removed. Would the easy 
banter, he wondered, dissolve to silence if he chose to join in? He decided he'd 
rather not know the answer to that, and remained in his chair, mute. 

 Fowley floated past him, heels whispering against the carpet. She sat an extra 
 large iced tea on the coffee table, positioning it within his reach. The waxed 
 cup was too thin for its burden and the little plastic lid had snapped up. She 
 bent to correct it. Mulder studied her briefly out of the corner of his eye: 
 her hair sweeping down, almost concealing her face, only her eye and forehead 
 visible in profile. The scent of Chanel was softer now than it had been this 
 morning. Warm and refined, it was had no place here with the candy wrappers, 
 scattered peanut shells and cheap take-out. The fragrance suited her though. 
 Fowley's head lifted finally, turned, but Mulder's gaze was set fiercely on the 
 television. She retreated quickly, as silent as she had come, and Mulder cursed 
 himself. 





*It's just a glass of tea. You don't have to be such a bastard about a glass of 
freaking tea.*

Behind him, Sauceda was still in announcement mode. He had, he declared, steamed 
dumplings and shrimp tempura for starters. No, there was no vegetable fried 
rice-- the restaurant was fresh out of that, but he'd gotten extra lo mein. 
Fowley didn't like lo mein. No matter, Purdue did. Sauceda had ordered vegetable 
egg rolls. Fowley didn't like those either but she'd kill them both for the fu 
yun shrimp. Somehow, all the picking and choosing dissolved into a debate on the 
merits of egg drop soup over wonton with Fowley and Purdue arguing the issue. 
The two scarcely noticed when Sauceda backed away from the table and 
surreptitiously slapped Mulder on the arm. 

"Come on," Sauceda insisted, sotto voce.

"What--" Mulder's question was mouthed with a puff of smoke. He had wedged 
himself low against his cushion, the tall back of his chair a wall between him 
and the voices at the table. Now he twisted awkwardly to eye his partner. 
Sauceda stood behind the chair, just far enough to the right to be able to lean 
around and reach Mulder's ear. It was a position also calculated to keep his 
back to the table and Purdue. Mulder noted the fact and his protest died on his 
lips. 

"Just shut up and come on," Sauceda hissed. There was a panicked resolution on 
his face, completely incongruous with his effortless repartee at the table just 
seconds before. Mulder hesitated, his mind whirling, but Sauceda jerked his 
sleeve insistently, a plea too pathetic to deny. Mulder complied, rising from 
his chair with no real comprehension, certain only that resistance would be an 
act of treason.

"Problem, Sauceda?" Purdue's voice behind him stopped Sauceda short. The ASAC 
was watching them from the other side of the table, perfectly motionless, his 
brows knitted, one hand holding a bowl of wonton, the other holding the lid, 
steam making a foggy shadow across his chin.

Sauceda didn't turn immediately and Mulder observed the blood rush from the 
man's face, noted how his eyes widened: a conspirator caught at the gate, 
blinded before the searchlights. When it came to subterfuge, Sauceda was a 
sprinter, and he'd exhausted all his reserves with his performance at the table. 
It apparently just never dawned on the man that life might occasionally require 
a marathon. 

Sauceda's mouth worked dully but no excuses seemed forthcoming. He turned to 
Purdue, a parody of slow motion, but duty-bound to face his accuser.

It was time, Mulder decided, for a professional. "So this thermometer," he 
demanded of his partner's profile, "is going in my *mouth* right?" 

Sauceda turned back, blinking spasmodically. His jaw still worked, but it was 
more of a quivering rather than any effort to form actual words. Only surprise 
kept him from laughing in relief. 

Mulder felt acid begin a slow boil in his esophagus. It was busy grinding at 
something resembling lead.

At the table Purdue scanned the assorted cartons of rough chopped vegetables and 
spiced meats and swore mournfully. "You going to be able to eat any of this, 
Mulder? I can get room service to send up something else if you're sick--"

"It's fine. I'm fine. Hot Sauce just wants to play doctor." Mulder shrugged and 
gave Sauceda a playful shove. "Fine with me." He put his cigarette in his mouth 
and spoke around it. "As long as I get to be on top."

Fowley raised an appreciative brow and Mulder found himself storing the response 
away for future reference without knowing exactly why. Sauceda swore gleefully, 
just a few notches short of hysterics. Mulder grabbed his arm, his grip gentle 
enough to provide Sauceda a lifeline, rough enough not to arouse suspicion. He 
was uncertain of just who was supposed to be leading this charade, but Sauceda 
needed to get somewhere else before Purdue's eyebrows became one dark line. 

"Kid's runnin' a fever--" Sauceda offered as he and Mulder tugged one another to 
the bedroom. "Just need to check him out. It's nothing. Say-- nobody touch my 
egg roll. Okay?" 

Purdue nodded, only half-listening and chewing the inside of his cheek. Mulder 
felt the ASAC's eyes burning through him, felt himself flush hot, then tremble 
like he was fighting a sudden chill. Hell, he probably *did* look ill. He 
certainly hoped so. For Sauceda's sake.

And then finally the bedroom door was closed, a barrier between them and the 
rest of humanity, blocking out the intrusive stares. Sauceda spun, planting his 
back against the door, more a motion of collapse than an attempt to thwart 
interruption.

"Len? What's going on?"

Sauceda held up his hand for silence, and whispered hoarsely, "What would you 
do, Marty, if you had a gun?"

The words caught Mulder like a slap across his jaw. He blinked, rolling his 
cigarette between fingertip and thumb, sounding out the landmine ticking beyond 
the question. Words. Simply words and suddenly Mulder felt he'd stepped back 
into one of his more horrific dreams. The room, unlit, was too dark, heavy with 
impending evil and Sauceda's face, wrapped in shadows, yielded nothing. 

Mulder reached for the light switch. "Len, what are you up to here--?"

Sauceda grabbed Mulder's arm before he could get it half extended, pushing him 
backward, away from the switch, away from the door and deeper into the room. 
Mulder's back felt exposed suddenly, cold fingers of air whispering down the 
collar of his shirt. He was afraid and it angered him, this unnamed dread 
tickling the edges of his mind. He tried to shake Sauceda free but he'd 
underestimated the pathologist's determination. Sauceda tightened his grip, 
hissing as he walked, careful to keep his voice low.

"Look, dammit. Don't think and don't ask questions." Sauceda tugged Mulder 
close, holding him still like he truly needed him to concentrate. "If--" Sauceda 
repeated slowly, "*if* you had your gun, what would you do with it?" 

Sauceda's eyes were perfectly level, fiercely determined. The drapes were partly 
opened and the ambered glow of streetlights through the sheers lent his features 
an artificial warmth. He looked battered, although Mulder could detect no 
bruises, and he held his body like a man in need of a few casts. His face was 
unnaturally calm, though, eyes reddened, garish against the deep blue-gray 
circles beneath them, cheeks and jaw still purpled with hints of razor rash. 
Mulder wondered momentarily if Sauceda had been dipping into the Valium. If he 
hadn't, then maybe he needed to.

Mulder chewed his lip a moment, trying to comprehend meanings, words spoken and 
words unspoken, lost within the difference between the two. "What's wrong?" he 
whispered. "Lenny, what's happened?"

"Christ, Marty--" Sauceda, disgusted, shoved him away and paced to the far wall. 
"I said, don't ask me-- anything. You understand? Don't ask me. I can't--" He 
stood a long minute, several heartbeats, his back to Mulder, a stubby column of 
black amongst the shadows. "Nothing's wrong," he said finally, his voice 
steadier, weighted by burdens Mulder couldn't guess at. "Just-- Just what we're 
doing to you. That's wrong." 

He turned. Mulder stood very still, watching him. Sauceda seemed to have 
difficulty swallowing, finding his voice again only with an effort. "You 
remember what you told me in the gym, Marty? That you were sorry for being so 
rough on me?" He spoke the words like they would choke him. Mulder nodded 
numbly. "Well, kid, you weren't half as rough as you should have been."

"But--"

"I deserve every bit of hell you ever dished out." Sauceda's eyes glinted in the 
darkness, unblinking. "More, even. You remember that. And don't you ever believe 
otherwise. You hear me?"

"I hear you, Len." Mulder's voice was small in the stillness and he didn't care, 
his mind swimming, damned near drowning with half-finished thoughts and 
theories, none of which made much sense at the moment. He watched Sauceda lick 
his lips.

"That's good, kid. You just *keep* remembering that. Deal?"

Mulder nodded again, wary as Sauceda fished in his coat pocket and closed the 
distance between them.

"Here." Sauceda's hand clamped around Mulder's wrist and the profiler felt the 
warmth of a pistol grip slide into his palm. His fingers closed on the polished 
wood, operating on reflex, instantly locating their respective places on the 
unfamiliar weapon. His index finger slid along the trigger guard, hesitant, and 
suddenly he was trembling again.

He shook his head. "Len, you can't do this. Purdue--"

"You can't tell Purdue, Marty. You know that, right?"

"Jeezus Christ, will you--" 

Sauceda's grip tightened, panicked as his eyes flickered to the door. Mulder 
lowered his volume to a boiling hiss. 

"Will you just tell me what the *hell* is going on?"

"I'm leaving, Marty." The words poured from Sauceda quickly, like he couldn't 
rid himself of them fast enough, like they would scald his tongue if he held 
them too long. He stepped back, staring, horrified by his decision. "You're on 
your own, now," he whispered, voice no longer quite steady.

It was not an excuse for the weapon and Mulder wanted to tell him so, but he 
couldn't quite get the argument out. Instead, he felt his knees buckle, overcome 
by an unexpected grief. He sat down on the end of the bed, dead weight just 
managing to remain upright. He had no clue why this should be such a shock. 
Hell, he'd told Sauceda to leave just this morning, right? What was wrong with 
him now? Wasn't this what he'd wanted? Hadn't he known this was coming?

Sauceda moved to the window, staring at the drapes like they were the most 
interesting view he'd seen in years. Mulder glanced down at his hands as they 
dangled between his knees, his forearms propped across his thighs. His left hand 
still clung to the remains of his cigarette. It was quietly smoking itself to 
ash. In his right was a snub-nosed .38 Smith and Wesson. A single action with a 
smooth combat trigger. Sauceda's secondary service revolver. It was the only 
weapon Lenny had ever fired off a range. Sauceda had told Mulder the story the 
first day they'd met: Sauceda and three other agents had tracked a kidnapping 
suspect across four states, finally cornering him in a railroad yard in Albany. 
The suspect engaged them in a gunfight and Sauceda, the only agent with a clear 
shot, had aimed his .38 over the hood of a brand new 1957 Buick convertible. 

And he'd missed. Sauceda had admitted the fact to Mulder with some measure of 
pride. His smile was shy as he awaited the derision that usually followed such 
confessions, but he was also too obviously pleased. And in that moment, Mulder 
had felt he understood the man: Leonardo Sauceda was a doctor not just in 
profession, but in his heart. He was proud of the fact that he'd never managed 
to take a life. Mulder had respected that. Admired it. Perhaps even envied it. 
And in the span of two heartbeats, Mulder had admitted his new partner within 
the charmed circle reserved for genuine friendship. It mattered little what 
Sauceda's reputation was otherwise, or what he would do behind Mulder's back-- 
Mulder had seen the man's true face and would stand beside him, his decision to 
do so already settled. 

The silence between them now was deafening, and had begun to compete with the 
roar in Mulder's head. He spun the chamber of the weapon. The room echoed with 
the solid *click, click, click* of a full load. Five live rounds.

So full of portent and promise. And prophesy, perhaps--

"Marty?" 

"When's your flight?" Mulder didn't look up, his voice a harsh rasp. His eyes 
ached with the effort to focus in the muted light. He cleared his throat and 
flexed his shoulders, trying to relieve himself of the weight that had dragged 
him down to the bed. He was desperate for his cigarette but couldn't manage to 
raise the appropriate hand. 

Sauceda watched him fidget, trying to comprehend the random twitching in his 
partner's arms. A column of cigarette ash glowed comet-like as it rained down on 
the carpet.

"Ahm, morning," he said. "At seven. Look, Marty, I'm sorry to dump this on you 
like this--"

"It's okay, Len. I told you should have gone. Remember? You don't owe me 
anything."

Sauceda glanced away again, Adam's apple bobbing desperately. "Don't you believe 
it, kid." He turned back, pinning Mulder with his glare. "Don't ever believe any 
of it." 

"Believe any of what?" Sauceda didn't answer and Mulder slammed the side of his 
fist against the bed, oblivious to the possible harm to his cigarette. 
"Goddammit, Len, you're not making any sense--" It was another hiss. Damn Purdue 
for being just beyond the door. Mulder wanted to roar, to shake some sense into 
Sauceda, to shake himself free of this unnamable ache. 

Sauceda flinched, but didn't move otherwise, a dark shape against the backdrop 
of the drape, arms crossed, shoulders hunched. Mulder swore again, feeling 
ridiculous-- sitting in a darkened bedroom with another man, playing with guns-- 


He dropped the weapon on the bed beside him. It felt good to be free of it, its 
weight, its potential for misery, and after a moment's consideration, he leaned 
forward and pushed it across the mattress, leaving it just beyond the reach of 
his arm. He resumed his place at the other edge of the bed and took a steadying 
puff from what was left of his cigarette. 

"Look, Len, you're obviously in some kind of trouble. Let me help you sort--"

"Shit!" Sauceda thundered across the room and snatched up the revolver. "You 
can't even help yourse-- Shit! Shit! Shit!" Sauceda stood a moment, rocking on 
his heels like he didn't know whether to run or collapse onto the mattress 
himself. He put his free hand on his hip and gestured with the weapon without 
managing to point it at Mulder. "Look," he lectured, "sometimes a man just has 
to make some decisions, okay? And this one-- this one's mine, Marty. 'S got 
nothing to do with you." 

"Uh huh. So that's why you're trusting me with a gun all of a sudden? What's 
next? A belt? A shoelace, maybe?"

Sauceda didn't answer immediately, and Mulder realized finally that the man was 
panting, dark curls plastered to his forehead despite the too-cold blast of the 
a/c. Sauceda's mouth worked again, but it took a few tries before words began to 
form. 

"Don't you do me like that, Marty. Don't you go kill yourself and leave me with 
the guilt for the rest of my life. You son of a bitch! Don't you *do* me like 
that--"

Mulder's face twisted, a combination of sarcasm and the bitter taste in his 
mouth. "Ah, come on, Len. Don't tell me you haven't fantasized about having my 
body on your gurney--"

Sauceda took two rapid steps, the gun swinging up, butt-end first, ready to slap 
some sense into his partner's head. He stopped before Mulder could react, 
however, and stood there, gasping in horror, words quite beyond him.

Mulder's head was pounding like he'd already received the blow. He didn't rise, 
though. He couldn't. He pressed the heel of his left hand against his eye, 
needing his right hand on the mattress to keep him vertical. "I'm not," he 
answered carefully, "going to kill myself." Sauceda was too quiet and Mulder 
glanced at him. Sauceda, red-faced, looked far from convinced. Mulder resisted 
the urge to grit his teeth. "Jeezus Christ, Lenny, if that was what I really 
wanted, don't you think I'd've done it by now? I swear to God--"

"We both know you and God aren't exactly on speaking terms, Marty," Sauceda 
seemed to be enjoying his anger. "I swear, you'd lie to *Him* faster than you 
would to me, even."

For some reason, that one hurt. Perhaps it was just a cumulative effect, but for 
Mulder, it was all finally far too much. Sauceda's face fell, anger subsiding 
back to anxiety, as something in Mulder's eyes registered for him. Mulder wasn't 
in the mood for apologies right now, however. And he'd be damned if he'd take 
part in some emotional striptease just to validate his own sanity.

"So," Mulder hissed, "I won't swear. And you take your fucking gun and go to 
hell."

Sauceda's shoulders slumped and he dropped his eyes, chewing his lip. The 
revolver slapped against his thigh softly. After a deep breath, Sauceda slapped 
it again, an unconscious gesture, apparently just needing to feel something 
solid and real on the end of his arm while he came to a decision. He nodded 
without glancing up.

"Okay, then, Marty." 

Mulder watched him move to the headboard and pull back the bedspread. Sauceda 
walked as though through water and it took several grabs before he located the 
sheet. He tossed the corner of it aside, then took a moment punching the pillow 
back into shape, dully pounding out the impression Mulder's head had left on it. 
The pillow endured the assault patiently, Mulder watching in fascination. 
Satisfied at last, Sauceda shoved the weapon beneath the pillow, then stood, 
staring at it. 

"Len--?"

Mulder didn't complete the sentence. Sauceda had pounced at the pillow again, 
holding it pressed down tightly with both hands. Mulder was struck with the idea 
of Sauceda trying to smother his own revolver. Somehow, though, it just wasn't 
very funny. 

Sauceda regarded him over his shoulder. "Our secret. Right, kid?"

Mulder blinked, lost in this impetuous maze. His conscious mind said he was a 
fool. Said that Sauceda was an even bigger one. That one of them was obviously 
having a nervous breakdown. Mulder's unconscious mind, however, was ominously 
still, conspicuous by its silence. 

Sauceda straightened, still watching Mulder, and chewing his lip again. He 
rubbed his hands on his thighs, scrubbing like something had soiled his palms. 
Mulder was reminded, oddly enough, of a picture he'd seen once during a rare 
trip to a friend's Sunday school class: Pilate drying his hands before the 
screaming mob. It had fascinated him all those years ago and he saw it again in 
dreams occasionally even now: the too-vibrant colors, the flat, empty faces 
portrayed by the artist. Pilate's hands crumpling that crimson cloth.

Sauceda managed a hollow smile, despite the fact that Mulder hadn't answered. 
"Right then," he chirped. "That's, uhm-- that." He said it like some business 
had been settled, and like he was glad of it without knowing exactly what 
business it was he had settled. Damned if Mulder could tell him. "Come on, 
kid--" Sauceda waved an arm awkwardly and Mulder thought at first he was going 
to be slapped. Or hugged, God forbid. "Let's go eat--"

"I'm not hungry." Mulder growled the words, fighting for the anger that had so 
insulated him of late. It was a familiar shield, a well-worn armor, and slipped 
easily into place now. It lent a straightness to his spine, steadiness to his 
limbs and he stood. The motion was abrupt, electric, and Sauceda stepped back, 
wary and suddenly anxious. It was Mulder's turn to cross to the window. He 
tugged the sheers aside and stared out without really seeing. DC at night was 
like most any other city, anyway. 

He felt Sauceda watching him and shoved his cigarette into his mouth just to 
have something to be doing. There wasn't much of it left now and Mulder heard 
some area of his brain musing over the fact that there wasn't a great deal left 
of a lot of things in his life. He didn't follow the thought very far though.

"Marty?"

"I'm gonna take a nap. I'll eat later." He didn't turn to regard the man.

"Marty, you just took a nap--"

"So I'll take another. Or is the Bureau rationing sleep now?"

He took a deep drag off the cigarette without enjoying it. Sauceda was right. He 
needed to give the damned things up. Behind him, Sauceda shuffled, approaching, 
paused as Mulder stiffened. The same shoes shuffled back again, restoring the 
distance uncertainly.

"I didn't mean to upset you with the gun, Marty. I just wanted you to be safe, 
is all. We can't-- Purdue can't protect you from everything." The final sentence 
was whispered with such pain Mulder felt the hair stand up on the back of his 
neck.

"You're not going to tell me what this is about are you?" Mulder's own voice was 
soft, kinder than he felt. He didn't turn, giving Sauceda the privacy he might 
need to reconsider. It was Sauceda's decision, and the idea of forcing the old 
man to violate it just made his gut burn.

There was no response for a few minutes, although he thought he heard Sauceda 
moan just the slightest bit, a kind of pitiful little half-choked noise like a 
kitten might make-- 

Mulder lowered his head and swore silently.

Sauceda whispered behind him. "I can't Marty. I'm sorry."

The answer echoed in the room and Mulder's mind echoed Purdue's voice right 
behind it: *Sauceda's tired, Mulder. You scare him. You know that?*

"You're gonna do okay, though, kid. Right? Purdue'll keep your back covered. And 
Fowley won't be such a bad partner once you set her straight. Besides, she's got 
better legs than me." 

Even with his back turned, Mulder could hear the smile, forced as it was. He 
nodded, ignoring the invitation to provide information on his emotional state. 
He just didn't have any at the moment. He knew only that he couldn't step out 
that door and pretend anymore. Not for a while anyway. 

"I'm okay, Len. I'm just tired." Mulder wondered how many times he'd spoken that 
lie. Wondered how many times Sauceda had told similar lies to him. Wondered how 
often those lies had become the truth. Like now. Suddenly, Mulder felt he could 
sleep forever. He leaned his hand against the window, felt the glass yield-- oh 
so slightly-- with the pressure of his palm. A few more heartbeats in silence 
and he sensed, more than heard Sauceda's slow shuffle to the door. Felt it when 
he turned back.

"Marty. I-- I'll call you. You know, to keep in touch. Okay? Will that be okay?"

Mulder nodded, again. "Sure, Len." He was grateful for the window there 
steadying him, grateful for something to hold him up against the weariness. 
"That'd be great." 

Across the room, Sauceda seemed to be weighing his sincerity. Or maybe he'd just 
lost the ability to walk. Which ever, it was a temporary problem, and he moved 
again after a long moment, Mulder certain of every step he took even without 
seeing it. There was a soft *click* as the door opened slightly, Sauceda taking 
one final look, at war with himself and losing. Then the door closed, finally, 
another soft, solid *click.*

And even with the door between them, Mulder knew what Sauceda was thinking: he 
had made, without doubt, the biggest mistake of his life. 

XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX

9:40 PM. Embassy Suites Hotel. Room 328.

"Fox?"

There was a hand on his face. The touch was as tentative as a new lover's, an 
intimate partner not yet familiar with the details of his flesh, and uncertain 
of welcome. The hand pressed whisper soft, trailing hesitantly across his brow, 
lingering, fingers ruffling his hair. Another reticent stroke, down toward his 
neck this time, and as the palm passed his cheek, there was the faintest scent 
of lavender soap. The brush of manicured nails on the pressure-points of his 
throat set up a vague warmth in his groin, then the fingers were in his hair 
again, gentle and concerned, lovingly tangling his mind around too many images: 
Phoebe giggling at him over the edge of a book, Rachel asleep on his arm, Kay 
settling her body across his to receive a kiss-- 

Passion, wrapped in various disguises, stirred, trying to free him from the 
paralyzing fever of his dream, the pounding of his heart seeking a more 
comfortable rhythm. The nightmare, however, would not be ignored. It retaliated 
viciously, dragging Kay down in its fathomless haze, engulfing Rachel in blood 
and grabbing Phoebe by the throat. Mulder struggled against the images, but 
could not escape the battlefield that lay between sleep and consciousness, held 
hostage on the front lines of his own psyche. Memories of what was real and what 
was merely imagined whirled like a Mobius strip, twisting round and round and 
round until he lost all sense of time and place, until he could no long 
distinguish between wakefulness and sleep. 

Nightmare drew the hand on his face-- soft and feminine-- within its world, and 
Mulder recalled the events of his dream, living them again in one tremendous 
rush: a child's giggle, a gasp. The explosion of a hollow point in his chest, 
the weight of his body falling backward, sprawling onto the bed. His sweat was 
blood suddenly, and it boiled like lava across his ribs, soaking into the 
tangled sheet beneath him. 

And the hands themselves-- the hands, so tender, running over his body, taking 
their fill of him before she would fill him with the blade-- 

Fingers, no longer simply dreamt, but felt, slid from his neck onto his chest, a 
gentling gesture that inflamed his every instinct and ignited adrenaline into a 
frenzied panic. The nightmare was no match for his desperation, for his will to 
live, and it fled, releasing muscles from the paralysis of sleep. Mulder grabbed 
for the woman before he even got his eyes open, clutching her with both hands, 
his chest screaming for air he couldn't draw in, would have no need for if he 
failed to stop her. She squealed, too surprised for a full-throated scream, 
caught completely off guard. He should be dead after all, shouldn't he? Shot 
through the heart. He shouldn't be capable--

-- Of feeling her knee in his gut as he wrestled her down onto the bed with 
him-- Of feeling her gasping, calling his name, pleading-- His mind had no time 
for such considerations, however. There was only one thing necessary. Where was 
the knife? Where was the fucking knife? Which hand--

Mulder straddled the struggling body in the darkness, running his palms up her 
arms savagely, crushing silk and bruising flesh, seeking her fists and the 
weapon that she surely must have ready for him. Within seconds he held both her 
hands in his-- empty! He pressed her deep into the mattress as she continued to 
resist. 

"Goddammit, where is it? Where's the goddam knife? I'll kill you right now, 
bitch!--"

"Fox!"

The voice was wholly, completely terrified. And horrifyingly familiar. Mulder 
forced his eyes to focus in the gloom.

"Diana?"

Fowley, held tight between his knees, stopped her struggling, wide-eyed, pupils 
dilated with fear. She nodded, too busy panting to manage words.

Mulder swore, releasing her abruptly. He scrambled against the rumpled 
bedclothes, getting himself free of her, of the bed. Standing was difficult, 
walking impossible, but he tried it anyway, stumbling as he backed away to the 
door. He was shivering, suddenly and uncontrollably. It possessed him like angry 
spirits. He was furious. With himself. With Fowley. With Sisyphus for not being 
here. For not letting him finally settle this--

Fowley, slowly realizing that Death had found her blissfully unworthy of 
attention, struggled to sit upright. One hand, guilty and shamed, fluttered to 
her throat, grasping a small chain of gold to steady herself. 

"I'm--" she flushed pure scarlet. "I was just checking on you, Fox. I didn't 
mean to startle you. I'm sorry...."

The apology and its sincerity almost strangled him. 

*You could have killed her. You would have killed her--* 

He remembered the feel of her body under him, the slender hips beneath his 
thighs, and snapped to the fact that she wasn't wearing a holster. If she had 
and he'd found the gun, if he'd had the presence of mind to remember *Sauceda's* 
gun beneath his own pillow-- 

The doorframe was near at hand and he leaned against it, unable to walk the 
short distance to the sitting room, unwilling to abandon a victim. *His* victim.

"I'm sorry." He surprised himself that speech was possible.

Fowley blinked at him from the center of the bed, registering he knew not what. 
She suddenly seemed aware that her skirt was way too far up her hips, though. 
Mulder turned his head as she jerked at the fabric, making a valiant effort to 
back out of the bed and right her clothing at the same time. 

Mulder kept his eyes down. He had problems of his own. His shirt was soaked with 
sweat. Icy liquid ran down his body, saturating his waistband and slicking his 
hips and thighs. His jeans felt like they'd been glued in place. His trembling 
rose and fell with each breath and he tried to tell himself it was just the 
combination of the a/c and the sweat. More lies. 

Mulder propped himself against the door and called into the sitting room. 
"Lenny!"

"He's not here, Fox." 

Mulder glanced back, surprised by the steadiness of Fowley's voice, grateful for 
it. She was almost herself again: her blouse wrinkled but tucked, her skirt down 
to a slightly more modest level. She was busy smoothing her hair into place, 
using her fingers like a comb. 

"So where is he?" Mulder demanded. His throat burned, leaving his voice a harsh 
rasp. He hated being scared like this, emotions still locked somewhere in 
dreams, coloring everything that should now be reality. Light and shadow didn't 
fall quite right, either. Vague impressions of people not actually present still 
clung to the corners of his mind, whispering just outside his peripheral vision. 
"Why isn't Lenny here?"

Fowley frowned at his injured voice. She shook her head, rounding the bed, but 
taking each step slowly, afraid of startling him again. Mulder felt himself 
blush and hated that, too.

"He was next door," she tilted her head, indicating the wall and the suite 
beyond it. "He wasn't feeling well and decided to get some rest before his 
flight. But Purdue was called out a couple of hours ago. I think he may have 
taken Sauceda with him."

"Called out? Called out where?"

She smiled, actually smiled at him, delighted to have something of value to him 
at last. The war on the bed was forgotten, apparently.

"Detective Harris," she explained, "called a few hours ago. He'd been searching 
old medical records looking for those miscarriages you mentioned. In your 
profile." She paused, frowning again as Mulder nodded, trying to hurry her past 
ancient knowledge. She obviously didn't realize the problems he was having just 
standing.

She studied him, fingering her chain of gold again. "Anyway, Harris said one of 
the names rang a bell and he kept going back to it. Then it dawned on him. 
Cecile Fuche. Sisy-phus." She said the word slowly, like she feared he wouldn't 
note the similarities without such assistance. He nodded again, irritably, the 
motion painful, his head raging. Her smile broadened with his acknowledgement, 
too caught up in her personal triumph to note his impatience. "So Harris tracked 
her down. She fit your profile to a T, Fox. Full-time housewife. Husband dead 
about a year. No kids. She'd lived in Columbus but had been making regular trips 
to Wheeling since the murders there began. Her credit cards put her in DC now. 
In the Embassy *Square* Suites on N Street." 

Which was, what? A half block up, maybe two blocks over? Fowley didn't bother 
saying the words. They echoed loudly enough on their own.

"Shit!" Mulder fled, anger lending him strength. The room tilted a bit as he 
stepped through the door, and he caught the doorframe to right it again, willed 
himself into the sitting room. He just couldn't watch Fowley play with her 
little chain any longer. The television played softly, another movie no one was 
watching, Woody Allen droning endlessly. He felt Fowley moving up behind him, 
close but not touching, giving him a measure of personal space.

"Fox? Are you all right? I--"

"They've found her, then. It's over." His voice was hollow in his own ears, 
grating, and it hurt to speak. Silence, however, was impossible. "Fuck Purdue. 
*I'm* the primary agent on this case and he leaves me napping like some damned 
old man while he goes out to make the collar. All that bullshit about trusting 
him--"

"No, Fox. It isn't like that--" 

Mulder had reached the table and turned to squint at her, both hands squeezing 
the back of a chair for support as the room took another dive. "The hell you 
say--" Purdue's actions were not standard operating procedure. Hell, they 
weren't even common courtesy.

"Sisyphus checked out of her room this afternoon, Fox." Fowley's tone was 
patient but not condescending. "Purdue didn't want to create a SWAT situation 
and called the hotel management to put them on alert. They confirmed that she'd 
check out at 3:30 this afternoon." She waited for some sign of surprise or 
disappointment, shrugged when none seemed forthcoming. "Evidence techs are going 
over her hotel room, and meanwhile we've got an APB out for every cab, bus, 
plane and rental car company in three states. We'll find her, Fox. And you'll be 
there. It's still your case."

Mulder shook his head, regretting the motion when the room whirled a bit faster. 
This time it showed no sign of slowing. He swore, blinking hard, trying to clear 
the doubled vision just behind his eyes. The nightmare was far from being done 
with him, but the impressions it had left him were too confused to be easily 
categorized and dealt with. Too many of the images just held no connection to 
the others: a motel room, a suburban sidewalk, a child's scream, a body across a 
bed. A wooded lot, trees and roots that tripped and tore. A gunshot, a 
strangulation-- his Adam's apple still throbbing from the pressure of the hands 
around his neck-- 

Not Sisyphus' hands, either. Too strong, too large. A man's hands. Besides, 
Sisyphus wouldn't kill with her bare hands. A gun, a silk tie she could hold by 
the very ends-- these were close enough for her. She enjoyed the feel of death 
but was still too squeamish to thrill to the sensation of the actual dying. Such 
intimacy embarrassed her. 

Tonight there had been more than one dream, then. More than one murder. And more 
than one murderer, with separate crimes having nothing to do with one another, 
nothing in common. Except that Mulder was privy to them both, tripping over them 
tangled together in the darkness, defenseless in his sleep. Two against one.

Had they caught that bastard in Fredericksburg? Damn them--

Caught in the emotional upheaval of other people's destructions, Mulder tried 
concentrating on his breathing, something rational and normal, something he 
could control. Fowley took a step forward and he jerked away, moving into the 
room, refusing to look at her further.

"Call Purdue," he demanded.

"Fox, he swore he'd call before they made an arrest--"

"No, dammit, *call* him. Tell him to search her hotel. The other rooms. There's 
a body there somewhere." He licked his lips. "I'll lay money on it." 

He didn't need a dream to tell him the truth of it. The similarities in the 
names of the hotels were enough: Sisyphus knew where he was. There had been no 
error on her part. She was simply teasing again, playing with Purdue and his 
best-laid plans. And that meant she had plans all her own. Purdue would have 
guessed that much, though.

Fowley was searching his face. He realized the fact but refused to return the 
regard, focusing instead on the not-quite empty air just above her head. She 
didn't stare long, however, and she didn't argue. The phone was in her hand in a 
minute. She dialed without hesitation. 

"Do you want to speak to him?" she asked as she waited for the line to answer. 

Mulder gave a brief twist of his head in response. He felt far too ill, 
suddenly, the room too close, too warm, surreal within his epidemic lack of 
clarity. His skin crawled with the sensation of touch, the careful, proficient 
hands of Sisyphus-- no, Cecile Fuche. Beautiful name. As she had been beautiful 
once. Too many years ago now, she would say. And how did he know that she would 
say so? He wondered at his certainty, wondered why such things should be so 
important now. 

"It's bad, isn't it?" 

Her voice, Fowley's voice, startled him with its proximity, and he realized that 
some minutes must have passed: the phone was back in its cradle and she was 
watching him. She maintained a respectful distance, certainly, but those eyes 
would not release him, concerned and expectant, her body turned slightly away in 
an attempt not to be too invasive, fingers tense on her necklace, a private 
talisman. Mulder squinted, trying to determine if there was some small charm 
attached to the chain, an amulet, perhaps, a cross. There was nothing.

"Fox?"

"What?" He asked the question, but slowly, wanting no answer, wanting no one to 
be there to need an answer. He wanted to be alone. He really *needed* to be 
alone--

"I've read your other cases, Fox." Her voice was careful, but intent as if the 
words were being dragged from her. "You're a fine investigator. But some of 
it..." she bit her lip against his silence, his refusal to look directly at her. 
"After a while," she insisted, "you know who the next one is, don't you? Not a 
name or enough to pick them out of an entire city, but you can describe them, 
know how they're going to die--"

"Like shit." The room was closing in, the violence of his dreams catching up 
with him, and Mulder trembled against the inevitable. There was a Doppler shift 
in the light beyond Fowley's head, a subtle alteration in the color of the wall 
in just that particular spot. Air, taking shape--

Fowley stared at him, not bothering to hide her frustration. "You're denying it? 
Police and sheriffs in over a dozen counties have falsified reports regarding 
your work?" 

Mulder's arms flinched up across his chest, fingers digging into his arms, 
talons to hold himself still, to protect himself from the explosion building 
within. Fowley's voice echoed in his head and he saw Kay, her face bruised, one 
eye puffy. *He'd* done that. He could do it again. When the visions overcame him 
like this, he was capable of anything--

"Or is it shit because you wish you hadn't told them?" Fowley demanded, 
oblivious to the roar in his head, the fear making his heart skip. "Because it 
did no good: they still didn't find them in time and you came so close to being 
labeled psychotic yourself? You know what I think?" she plowed on, ignoring his 
grunt. "I think you know more than you're telling even now. Not enough to stop 
the killings, you're not that cold-blooded, but things that they'd put you away 
for just for knowing--"

"What will it take?" he pleaded. He shouldn't be pleading, dammit, but he was 
lost and losing more ground with every second. "For five minutes alone? What do 
I have to do?" He backed away from her, moving slowly, cautious in spite of his 
terror, not trusting his eyes to see the truth of things, the location of 
things. The figures were moving, slipping in and out of his peripheral vision, 
walking along the walls and whispering. Soon he'd be able to hear only them if 
he wasn't careful--

Fowley, however, didn't see them. "Fox. I... Paterson showed me your journal. 
The one he took from you in Shreveport."

Mulder froze, the shadows dancing now.

"I only read a few pages," Fowley continued, biting her lip against the 
intensity of his face. "On the third victim. Jenny Weidenfield."

Mulder turned back to glance at her, remained there, caught in some kind of 
spell. His eyes were hypnotic as she made her confession, and Fowley was unable 
to hold the words back, charmed by the cobra's gaze as Mulder focused on the 
wall just beyond her shoulder, squinting like the light hurt his eyes.

"You wrote what you couldn't tell the sheriff," she said and her voice quavered 
slightly. "How she'd believed this was happening to her because she'd stolen her 
brother's X-Man comics and hid them under her bed. That she was so sorry for 
having done it, but the killer just told her to shut up when he... before he 
silenced her. You were angry that... that no one would ever know how sorry she 
was or how much she liked cherry ice cream. That her favorite color was yellow 
and that she had a crush on Ernie, that little muppet on Sesame Street. And you 
couldn't tell them for her. Because that just wasn't done. That was certifiable 
insanity."

She bit her lip again and Mulder blinked as one of the shadows stepped from the 
wall beside her and walked unperceived across her face. Mulder's eyes followed 
the fleeing specter. The shadow turned to regard him, the rapt face of a child, 
and he turned away abruptly. 

"I'm going to take a shower," he rasped. Hide behind the wall of water where 
they wouldn't come.... Maybe, too, it would wake him up from this nightmare, 
wash it all away... And if it didn't, well, Fowley wouldn't be so close when it 
all went to hell--

Fowley followed him into the bedroom, silent, watchful, allowing him several 
lengths of distance. He walked faster, retreating before her advance but unable 
to run. He stumbled, tugging off his shirt as he reached the bed. He was 
shaking, and it was from fear. Fear because the tide was turning, the spook was 
rearing up to take control and the sea of madness was not so far behind him now. 
Fear because Fowley was here, an unknown quantity, would be here when the wave 
hit, and he had no guarantees that he could spare her from it, how it would 
react to her presence. He turned, a final effort.

"Diana, you need to leave me alone." His voice was a rasp, viciousness forced 
but unwavering. There was a thinly-veiled threat in his posture, in his tone, 
that froze her where she stood. No, this-- this wasn't right. He shouldn't be 
panicking her. He should be reassuring her that all was well-- God, he really 
wasn't handling this very well-- Mulder decided to try to recover the situation, 
tried exuding reassurance he didn't have.

"I just want to take a shower," he repeated rationally.

"I'm not stopping you, Fox." She blinked twice, body stiff, quite still, voice 
carefully patient. She was good. He'd give her that much.

"I'm not leaving the damned door open. Understand?"

She favored him with that appreciative brow again, so oblivious to the whispers 
in his head, unconcerned that several people had just stepped through her, 
fanning out through the bedroom to take their positions. "Not *every* woman on 
this planet is hot for your body, Agent Mulder," she quipped. "Don't give me a 
reason to come in there and I won't."

Mulder didn't answer, couldn't think clearly enough to speak. He stumbled for 
the dresser, amazed that he could recall that he would actually need clothes-- 
froze to find a little figure between him and the dresser. She smiled at him. 
She had two front teeth missing, and a memory he could not possibly possess, 
recalled itself to Mulder suddenly: a bedroom done up in pink wallpaper and 
Barbie sheets. The little girl's excitement as she'd slipped the teeth beneath 
her pillow. Last week. Just last week, she'd placed two tiny teeth under her 
pillow. Just last week she'd knelt down to say her prayers and said an extra one 
for the Tooth Fairy, requesting safety for her journey. 

She giggled at him now, teeth still missing, standing there a foot away from 
him, knowing his thoughts. *You didn't pray for yourself, though, did you?* he 
wanted to scream at her. She shook her head, the smile never dimming, and 
stepped aside to let him pass. 

Mulder grabbed the dresser to keep from falling down, fumbling for the knob only 
on instinct. It took concentration just to convince himself he was still sane. 

Fowley watched his choices: jeans, T-shirt, socks-- 

"No, Fox," she commanded imperiously. "Just underwear while you're in the 
bathroom. You can wrap up in a towel and change when you're back in the bedroom. 
Sauceda's orders."

"Screw Sauceda," Mulder hissed, slamming the drawer and yanking open another. He 
wasn't certain he could walk just yet, anyway.

Fowley's voice was caustic with sarcasm. "You screw Sauceda, sir. Just 
underwea--"

"Goddammit--"

"Look. You want an argument? Fine. We'll stand here and argue. I can do that in 
spades. And I'll win." She crossed her arms as he spun around to face her, but 
she took a step back. Just one step before she caught herself. Her voice was 
steady. "I'm under orders, sir. You're not taking anything but your jockeys in 
there with you. Argue with me and you'll be streaking."

Mulder's clothes twisted in his fists. Shadows, flung at light speed, splattered 
across the wall, turning slowly, peeping out at him from around the framed 
prints and the drapery. Were they retreating? Or regrouping? There was a 
horrifying pressure in his chest that he was supremely grateful for. It helped 
him to concentrate.

"I-am-not-going-to-hurt-myself." His voice was hard. He wondered why he should 
find it so important for her to believe him. 

"I'm glad to hear it," she answered reasonably. "Then you'll have no objections 
to the order."

Mulder hurled his collection of clothes onto the bed. "First you're reading my 
journal, now you're telling me what I can't wear--"

She took a deep steadying breath. "I'm sorry, Fox. I had no more right to read 
it than Patterson had to steal it. But I didn't know you then. I apologize--"

"Fuck you. You don't know me *now.* Don't you patronize me. Don't you *ever* 
patronize me. I'm taking this shower. You understand? And I'm locking the door." 
If Mulder's eyes got any darker, they'd be bleeding.

Fowley licked her lips. She formed the words carefully. "The locks, sir, have 
been removed. Purdue's orders."



                                                     He stared at her. She 
                                                     temporarily stopped 
                                                     breathing and her eyes 
                                                     changed to Kay's again. Kay 
                                                     standing shivering in a 
                                                     motel room with a maniac 
                                                     three steps away--

                                                     Mulder slammed against the 
                                                     dresser in his panic to be 
                                                     free of her, to have her at 
                                                     a safe distance. She 
                                                     stepped back as he passed 
                                                     her-- several steps this 
                                                     time, body tense-- but 
                                                     Mulder didn't notice, 
                                                     intent on his new mission. 
                                                     He stumbled to the bathroom 
                                                     door and checked the lock. 
                                                     There wasn't one. 

                                                     *Jeezus god, Jeezus god--* 



Terror overcame him. He was trembling again and it had nothing to do with locks. 
Locks were suddenly, however, his only frame of reference, the most important 
things on earth. He scrambled back to the bedroom, Fowley wide-eyed and open 
mouthed as she watched him from a safe distance. No lock on the bedroom door and 
he slammed it into the wall. He spun to flick on the light switch and scan the 
room. All the exposed electrical sockets had been sealed. The bedroom phone had 
been removed to avoid any nasty entanglements with the goddam twisted little 
cords--

Mulder paced back through the suite, ignoring the shadows dancing after him: the 
little hall to the bedroom, the cramped, empty bathroom, the sitting room with 
its half-assed kitchenette. The bar was locked. The glasses on the shelf above 
it were soft plastic. He slapped at them, jerking a drawer open: cheap plastic 
utensils and no knives. There was a stained ring in the Formica where the Mister 
Coffee should have been--

The entire suite had been politely and efficiently childproofed, probably before 
they'd even allowed Mulder into the hotel. And except for the bathroom mirror, 
he hadn't even noticed. They must have been laughing their asses off--

"Shit!" Didn't they see? Didn't they understand? If he'd wanted to kill himself, 
all he'd had to do was stay home and wait for Sisyphus to do it for him-- or 
just use Lenny's gun. "Fucking hell!"

And Fowley had followed him again. Still giving him distance, but following, 
silent as he slammed cabinet doors and overturned chairs, using every word of 
profanity he'd ever learned.

Adrenaline poured off him with the sweat. He was lost now, completely unable to 
turn the tide of mania threatening to engulf him. He could feel it, a hot breath 
rasping against the back of his neck, and there was no place to hide from it, no 
place he could run--

He spun around anyway, fleeing back the way he'd come. Fowley flinched as he 
passed her, and he stopped, frozen with the sudden realization of how truly 
vulnerable she was--

Facts ran helter-skelter with the fear now as he stared at her: she was a woman, 
not exactly dressed for a fight. He outweighed her by a good fifty pounds and 
he'd had just as much training as she had, maybe more. Some twisted part of his 
mind rolled over with the comforting thought that she'd hesitate to use a gun on 
him even if she had one. It was the same set of warped brain cells that made him 
equally conscious of the fact that he was only half dressed and she was 
breathing too hard. 

*God damn Purdue.* 

Mulder backed away, putting a additional yard of space between himself and his 
soft-eyed warden. Fowley was pale, breathing through her mouth.

"Do you want me to call Sauceda?" she asked softly, apparently not knowing 
anything else to say.

*It's too late, it's toolate, it'stoolate...* 

"I don't need Sauceda," he rasped, a plea he scarcely had words for. "I just 
need to be alone right now."

"Fox," she caught herself pleading, and choked on the words, regaining her 
composure with supreme effort. "I can't trust you alone. Purdue's orders."

Mulder bit back more profanity, jerking with it anyway.

"Just ten minutes," he managed finally. "Diana. Just ten minutes. You stand 
outside the door. In the hall. And then I'll let you back in."

"Fox, would you like something to calm you down--"

"It's too late for drugs. Help me, Diana. Please. Just ten minutes. Not a second 
longer. I promise. I'll be okay. I swear."

She trembled against the sweat making her blouse stick. He licked his lips at 
the sight of her, panicked and trembling and wrapped in softly revealing silk. 
He closed his eyes against the image, shocked that his mind could still go there 
even now. Marveled that her voice could be so steady.

"I know you need to feel in control of your life," she was reasoning aloud, the 
psychobabble he'd used too many times in similar circumstances. "I know you need 
the time to yourself, I just can't give it to you right--"

"You don't know shit," he hissed. "Don't tell me what I need."

"Then what the hell does ten minutes buy you?" She was shouting finally, the 
fear and confusion too much. "What is it you need to do in ten minutes that I 
have to be outside the damned door--"

Her loss of control was all Mulder needed to slip headfirst into chaos. It all 
snapped suddenly. He closed the distance between them, stalking, eyes hard, 
beyond reason. He watched her flinch but kept walking. He pronounced his words 
deliberately, desperately. "I'm not going to *do* anything. I just need the 
time. I need to be alone. I need you to leave me alone." It was a mantra now and 
even he wasn't hearing it.

She swallowed hard, looking up at him, his face inches from her own. She took a 
deep breath. And braced herself.

"No," she whispered.

He grabbed her upper arms-- more gently than she would have given him credit 
for-- but firm enough to lift her from the floor. She knew, somehow, that his 
intention was simply to get her out the door. It didn't make her fight any less 
desperate, however, as he carried her across the room. They had the same 
training but he had size and desperation on his side of the balance sheet. And 
this was one argument he was determined to win.

She struggled wildly, twisted in his hands. Mulder held her upper arms pinned to 
her body, however, and her nails scratched uselessly at his elbows, trying to 
claw at his bare chest. She twisted her hips, legs flailing to trip him up. He 
held her too close to knee him effectively, but he jerked anyway, twisting her 
to his left side. Her heels slammed hard into the wall, and then suddenly she 
was kicking at the door, pushing with everything she had, trying to keep him 
from the doorknob. 

Christ, wasn't there anyone out there to hear--

But no. No one was expecting attack from the inside. Not on the third floor.

Fowley braced herself to scream, to make herself heard by the agents in the 
lobby three floors down. One final kick, however, and Mulder had finally lost 
his grip. She slipped from his grasp, feet still flailing, her shout nothing 
more than a surprised "Oh!" 

Mulder grabbed her up on instinct, trying to protect her from the fall even as 
he struggled against his own overwhelming demons. His hands found her waist, the 
small of her back, and he had a clear vision suddenly of a wall in a diner, a 
petite brunette stumbling, laughing as he caught her-- 

Fowley wrapped her arms around his neck, her legs around his hips, instinctively 
allowing him to gather her up, and they stumbled together until her back was 
against the door. Mulder was panting, certain he would faint from lack of 
oxygen, longing for the event. Still, Fowley refused to yield her ground. 

"By God," she gasped, "if I'm going out the door you're coming with me--"

Mulder gulped air, trembling, his cheek against her ear, her hair plastered to 
his face, the silk of her blouse stuck tight against his chest. 

Her breathing was just as frantic as his own. "You can't do this to me, Fox 
Mulder." He could have sworn she was crying. "You can't. I'm staying. 
I'mstayingI'lmstayingI'msta-"

He shut his eyes against her voice, against her breath, hot and sweet as feather 
kisses on his chest. His body was braced no longer against her struggle, but 
against his own approaching defeat. He shook with the effort to choke back the 
tide but it was hopeless. He couldn't spare her. The wave broke over him in a 
flash of blinding agony, his head exploding with the force. It tore down his 
neck and slammed into his chest and his body clenched with the sudden impact.

Fowley cried out in terror at the convulsive transformation. Mulder registered 
her panic and released her abruptly, slamming both fists into the solid door to 
either side of her, seeking pain-- anything that would drive the horror away. 
Fowley cringed against the violence but refused to let go her grip. 

The howl that escaped him was pure animal, absolute pain.

He swore all the way down to the floor as he collapsed, swore because he was 
collapsing, swore because she was here to see. Fowley held him tight, crumpling 
down with him. He didn't resist her, pulled her to him instinctively as the sobs 
shook him. 

This was no cry of release, no washing of shame. It was hard and violent and 
harrowing. It made her body ache as it rattled though his chest and into her 
own. Her bones screamed in echo against the onslaught.

She said not a word. No soft cooing noises, no sighs of reassurance. She had 
none. Nothing was adequate for this. Nothing in her experience could have 
equipped her for it. All the pain Mulder had feared to lash out with, he turned 
resolutely in upon himself. 

In his last vestige of conscious reason, he released her, throwing his arms wide 
across the floor. Fowley refused to let him go, however. She feared him as much 
in that moment as she had when he'd raised his fists, but she clung all the 
tighter. Draped across his chest, her legs wrapped across his hips, she held him 
fast and he was powerless to prevent her. Her hands on his neck were cool, 
motionless. Her breath was warm on his chest. Her lips touched him occasionally, 
moved to the hollow of his sternum in what might have been a caress had he been 
conscious enough to comprehend.

She waited with him for the grief to concede. Not abate, not dissipate, just 
surrender to exhaustion. It was a long wait, it felt like hours. And still she 
held him, her hair fanned across his chest, and he allowed it, words and motion 
beyond him.

XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX

The bulb in the bedside lamp was amber, and the shade, a dusky Indian red, 
filtered the glow even further, casting the room in hellish hues. The air belied 
the illusion, however. It was getting steadily colder in here. The thermostat 
dutifully registered sixty-two degrees, as ordered, and turning his coat collar 
up wasn't proving to be much of a defense. A flick of the switch and the bright 
white of the overhead bulb would dispel both darkness and damnation, if not the 
chill. Still, he made no move to the appropriate wall. There was no particular 
reason for his failure to do so. Not now, anyway. But the softer light held the 
illusion of warmth, at least. It was even kind of homey, if you were into that 
kind of thing. 

Alex Krycek, however, was most decidedly not into that kind of thing. 

What he was into, at the moment, was a quiet bit of search and seizure. Nothing 
too obvious, of course, nothing that would be missed or couldn't be explained. 
An incriminating letter, perhaps. A list of lucrative telephone numbers. Or -- 
dared he hope? -- a journal, like the one he'd found in New Mexico, filled with 
formulas and scientific tables. And some very interesting notes. After three 
years, Krycek's cache was small, certainly, but carefully hoarded: a tiny phone 
book in a safe deposit box in Evanston, Illinois, three cryptic letters strewn 
from Akron to Portland. The journal bided its time in a coffin buried in a quiet 
Houston cemetery -- a kind of secret insurance policy, the cash value yet to be 
determined.

He'd been here only a few minutes, but had scanned the room thoroughly. No 
surprises in the bathroom: he'd checked the toilet tank both inside and out, 
patted down the small collection of towels, shaken the shampoo bottles for 
tell-tale rattles. The closet had yielded a suit jacket and the ubiquitous 
trench coat. The pockets of both had been empty, and he left them hanging, none 
the worse for his molestation. A pair of brogans under the bed, a candy wrapper. 
Magazines on the night stand: *Newsweek,* *TV Guide* -- open to the crossword 
section -- and *Cosmo.* No extraneous notes or papers shook loose. A weapon, a 
trim, no-frills Smith and Wesson, .38 caliber, and a wallet with credentials. 
The badge reflected the light above it, "F.B.I." burning with maddening flames.

"Shit!" Krycek hissed, shoving the items back in the drawer. The Brit was 
playing it close to the edge here. Krycek's mind whirled and he felt dizzy for a 
moment. Another bit of heated swearing made him feel better, though. Hell, he'd 
taken out bigger fish than this, he supposed. What was one more badge? Krycek 
considered his motions over the past half hour, recalling details, turning them 
over, reassuring himself that there was no trace evidence to worry about. He 
closed the drawer quietly, and moved across the room to the dresser, motions 
silent, efficient. Like most predators.

The light, such as it was, followed him, bathed him, licking tormented flames 
across his back, painting the soft leather of his jacket with a reddish gore. 
The glow threw his shadow before him and it stretched, unnoticed, climbing the 
wall, lumbering and alien. Krycek continued his advance, and the shadow twisted 
its head and shoulders flat across the ceiling, paused, hunched, sighed. 

He pulled the first drawer open and blinked down into the well of darkness. His 
orders had been precise: nothing was to be disturbed except the target. The 
words rolled over in his head, reverberating in that clipped British tone that 
too often grated down his spine. It was all so cloak and dagger, so dark, he'd 
often wondered if he'd hired himself into some old B-movie crew, a badly 
scripted film noir, its characters moving only in shades of gray: pitch black 
against charcoal against slate against ash against blinding white.

"The presentation of the target," he was reminded, "is essential." Well, wasn't 
it always? "No deviation from your explicit orders will be tolerated. You have 
no personal agenda here. Understood?" 

No matter how absurd it got, Krycek never laughed. There was a knife-edge to the 
old Brit's voice, a less-than-subtle reminder of the dagger that lay ready, 
always ready, even beneath the old man's most casual conversations. He had no 
doubt that the Brit would cut him in half as soon as look at him. And probably 
would, someday. 

Krycek's response had been calculatedly indifferent: "Of course," the slight 
elevation of one eyebrow simply repeating the words. It was a pro forma 
response, nerveless, the bravado of the terminally criminal. Sometimes Krycek 
wondered why they let him live. The possible answers to that question made him 
sweat in spite of the cold. 

He explored the recesses of the drawer with his gloved palm, probing to assure 
himself that it was indeed empty and not merely a trick of shadows. The second 
drawer held someone's sweater. Krycek patted it down, motions careful but quick, 
the activity a reflex, skillfully honed. Again, nothing.

He moved on to the third drawer, a fourth, his reflection in the mirror 
mimicking his movements. The face in the mirror was young, impossibly so, ashen 
in the shadows, blood-red when he turned just a bit, catching the light. Krycek 
was twenty-three going on thirteen, face smooth as a mannequin, scrubbed and 
ready for the back-to-school sales, inoffensive as Mary's lamb. His eyes 
glittered in the ambered light, green flecked with crimson and orange, feral. 

Krycek failed to notice this reflection. And what of it? They say only the mad 
truly see their own face, after all. A man -- a sane man -- will steal and lie, 
stab his colleague in the back, then excuse himself to the men's room to wash 
the blood from his hands. He'll glance up into the mirror then, adjust his tie 
or pat down his hair. And the glass will give back only a preordained 
reflection, the barest statistics of what is viewed. The simple truth is: the 
soul has no two-way mirrors, no observation portal into the interrogation room 
where the truth awaits, wringing its hands, eager to speak and be done. Truth is 
a prisoner relegated, without trial, to the darkest recesses of the spirit. 
Truth is an abomination and the mind cannot abide it. It is a horror that the 
heart refuses even to consider. 

Krycek -- and his shadow brooding above -- hesitated as a thought crossed his 
frontal lobe. A small twitch of vision, a tightening of the skin along one 
cheek. A blink and you missed it.

Done with the drawers, Krycek moved to check the back of the dresser itself. He 
pressed his shoulder to the wall, his shadow collapsing down upon itself, close 
as his breath. He stretched to pat down the back of the dresser mirror. Nothing 
taped to the rough wood, nothing clinging to the papered backing of the glass. 
This assignment would be a dry run, then. He didn't allow himself the luxury of 
disappointment; most of the time, he walked away with nothing. At least this 
time he'd had time to look.

"Theirs not to reason why," Krycek chanted softly in the gloom. "Theirs but to 
do or--" He failed to complete the quote. It was bad luck to speak of one's own 
death and he had enough to answer for tonight without brokering Fate face to 
face. He glanced back at the man in the bed: the tousled curls, dark beneath the 
light, one arm flung in careless repose above his head.

Krycek froze as a voice penetrated the wall next to his ear: a gravelly tenor, 
not quite distinct enough to be translated. He listened, cheekbone tight against 
the wallpaper. A door slammed somewhere and there was the slightest answer in 
the reverberation of the wall against his jaw. It vibrated his teeth softly. 
Again the voice, oh, so brief. A private dispute, surely; nothing that would 
concern him. Back, then, to the business at hand.

He turned, noting the dark shadow of a suitcase next to the chair. Possible 
treasure? One last look and then he'd be gone. He scooped up the battered old 
case and dropped it onto the bed. It bounced once, dangerously close to the foot 
peeking out from the rumpled blanket. The foot failed to note its peril, but 
Krycek slid the suitcase over a few inches, anyway, mindful of the blood soaking 
out across the sheet. 

 He'd been given a .22 Ruger for this assignment, untraceable, naturally-- 
 standard issue for an assassin unless the client wanted something truly messy. 
 The death itself was to be clean, he'd been told, the mess to be made 
 afterward. Krycek had recognized the MO from local newspaper reports but hadn't 
 commented. He'd parroted any number of crimes in the past few years. The 
 ballistics wouldn't match, of course. The details wouldn't be exact. But then, 
 they didn't have to be. They just needed to be close enough for law enforcement 
 to dismiss the crime as a copycat. Business dispatched, a threat eliminated, 
 and no nasty questions left to answer. Again, for Krycek, it was all routine. 





The first part of the night's business had been accomplished easily enough. 
Entry hadn't been difficult. He was slender and athletically inclined, and the 
ventilation system was more spacious than most. Besides, his tool kit would make 
a CIA operative blush with envy. Krycek had popped the screws and shimmied 
through the one-by-two grate in the ceiling of the bathroom, lowering his long 
frame carefully, and dropping soundlessly to the tile. His shoes were still in 
the airshaft, awaiting his return. 

It had been a nice clear shot, too. The man in the bed had already been dead to 
the world, so to speak, sound asleep, a soft snore greeting Krycek's arrival. 
The silencer had muffled enough of the blast for neighbors to mistake it for a 
sound effect on a television program; meanwhile, the old man had never known 
what hit him. He lay exactly as he had when Krycek had entered: flat on his 
back, mouth open, the hand above his head resting against the headboard, palm 
up, the other hand tangled in the blanket. The eyes were open now, though -- a 
reflex just before the heart had failed -- but the face was still pleasantly 
serene. 

Krycek frowned into the suitcase. The old boy's mother would have been proud: a 
dozen pairs of clean underwear gleamed at him in bleached cotton splendor. Some 
files had been slipped between the boxers and the rumpled collection of shirts: 
autopsy protocols, mostly, and a manila envelope filled with Poloroids. Krycek 
shuffled through them without interest. There was nothing important here, 
nothing not attainable from other sources. The phone book, black and 
well-thumbed, was an enticement he couldn't resist, however. Krycek scanned it 
eagerly, the pages tinted pink by the light: various first names written in an 
orderly hand, probably just friends and family, a bank, a dentist, dry cleaner 
and pharmacy. Krycek pocketed the book for later investigation, but without much 
hope of finding anything useful.  He took a moment to scan the contents of the 
shaving kit: an electric shaver, nail clippers, deodorant, toothbrush, 
Dentu-Creme-- 

He dropped the kit abruptly as something slammed into the wall behind the 
dresser. Tubes and toiletries thumped across the carpet. Krycek slid his weapon 
free of his belt with the speed and grace of a gunfighter. The noise, surely 
made by something small and solid, repeated itself once more, just a few feet 
farther to his left. There was the muted echo of a grunt. 

Okay. Krycek nodded in the dark, his shadow on the wall repeating the gesture. 
They were either moving furniture next door or *someone* was getting some pretty 
intense sex. 

Either that, or someone was having a pretty tough time dying. 

As yet, however, it was none of his concern. He had a job to finish and he'd 
wasted enough time as it was. He'd need to get his butt in gear before the bunch 
next door started arousing someone else's interest. Krycek squatted, collecting 
the debris at his feet, then paused again as a long low animal howl echoed, 
rumbling through the wall.

*Hell.* These guys just got more interesting by the minute. 

Krycek swore again, poking the kit into the suitcase. He stood, then froze as a 
flash of pale peach caught his eye. The barest corner of a sheet of paper peeked 
out at him from the edge of the suitcase's lining. A page of white copy paper, 
tinted all nice and rosy by the lamp shade. 

Krycek grinned. Well, well. Something hidden was always something worthwhile. 
Perhaps Fate was not as forbidding a lady as he'd imagined.

But it wasn't just a single paper. Instead, the lining yielded up an entire 
stack, Xeroxed copies of both typed and hand-written notes, tucked like padding 
beneath the quilted satin. A report of some kind. Or at least the foundation for 
one. Krycek stepped closer to the lamp, hunching down to decipher the scrawl. 
The old man's empty eyes watched him as he read. 

A psychological analysis, patient sessions. All concerning one Fox Mulder. The 
tickling on Krycek's neck intensified. He knew the name, had heard it 
alternately cursed and revered. From what little leaked through the impassive 
faces of his cancerous mentor and the Brit, Mulder -- the whole clan of them -- 
was a kind of personal treasure, beyond approach. And beyond control. From what 
Krycek had noted, he -- this Fox, specifically -- was nothing short of sacred, a 
cache against some imminent holocaust. 

Krycek fanned the papers carefully, considering. It might change his life 
tomorrow or it might not be useful for years. It might be nothing at all. Or it 
could be the fucking Holy Grail-- 

*Note!* The word caught his eye as the page flipped past and he scrambled to 
recover it: page eleven, a cramped scrawl of ink along the narrow margin. Krycek 
squinted, trying to decipher the quick, angular scribble. His own handwriting 
was just as bad, fortunately, and he had a vested interest in comprehending the 
words: 

*Re: handshake. Subject seems to have recognized my touch. Reacted strongly as 
though remembering some unpleasantness associated with my presence. Overt 
reactions included instant flight/fear response, antagonism. Subject instantly 
assumed control of the session, refusing to answer questions, distracting my 
efforts to direct topics. Arrogance to this man is an armor. Wit is dangerously 
sharp. Subject is capable of extraordinary malevolence which, while impersonal, 
is disturbing in the accuracy of its aim. I sense that he knows me. I believe he 
senses it as well, while not comprehending how. Speculation: Is this a 
manifestation of subject's attempted abreaction? Is his reaction to my touch a 
spontaneous revivification of past tests? Is he subconsciously recalling 
repressed events, events that he finds consciously intolerable? Postulated: We 
have succeeded in controlling the memories from the subject's conscious mind. 
Have we failed to do the same with his cellular memory? Subject has proven 
extraordinarily adaptive -- is he truly capable of recalling something as basic 
as touch? If so, do we have a continence plan in place? Must explore 
possibilities with Dr. Zama--*

Krycek stared at the words, read them again, trying to make sense of too many 
things at once. Perhaps -- he chewed his lip, considering -- perhaps he was too 
quick to seek simple financial gains in this business. Perhaps, just perhaps, 
there was something here far more interesting--

Krycek folded the sheaf of papers in half and shoved them into the waistband of 
his pants, next to his weapon. There'd be time to contemplate the error of his 
ways later. Right now, it was his hide that needed saving. He restored the 
suitcase to its former location, not concerning himself with the state of the 
lining. The case was old. No one would consider it important, anyway.

The old man's eyes regarded him passively as he stepped back to the bed. They 
were black, jet black, void. Even the garish shade would not reflect in them. 
Krycek shook his head. Sometimes this job just required more overkill than he 
had the grace to appreciate.

The room next door remained silent. Krycek took a deep breath, unsheathed the 
hunting knife and set to work.

XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Part 23 of 27: Moths to the Flame

 



"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.

"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat. "We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're 
mad."

"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.

"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."

- Lewis Carroll

 



A circle of light. A tunnel in great darkness and at its center, the resplendent 
blaze, radiant and pure, increasingly bright, brighter -- blinding. 

The little form was drawn to it, bidden, fearful but eager, a small glowing dot 
against the vastness of lucent splendor, dodging this way, that, then -- 
decision made -- soaring for the heart of glory, whirling, rising--

Falling, a charred husk, wings folded, useless, scorched. It joined its dead and 
dying companions on the concrete below, their bodies still illuminated, bleach 
white, by the electric glow that had been their undoing. Other companions, those 
yet living, danced high above, awaiting their turn, vying for their entrance 
into the brilliance, too dazzled to heed the little mound of corpses below. 

She'd watched the moths for hours as they danced before the security bulb across 
the parking garage. Silly little creatures. But then, aren't we all? She was no 
different, certainly, for here she sat, awaiting her turn with just as powerful 
a force. 

No. A greater one. 

She'd tried to convince herself that it was otherwise, that he was the moth to 
*her* light, bidden and seeking, eager. The truth, however, was quite the 
opposite; it did no good to pretend. *He* was the electric flame, deadly bright, 
the source which drew her forward, driving her, no other choice possible. She 
could no more avoid him than live without oxygen. He knew, and it comforted her 
that he took no pride in the knowledge, that he'd simply accepted it as a matter 
of course, as part of her nature. It remained unspoken between them, naturally. 
Even in the bar while she'd watched him eat his soup, while he'd watched her 
warily, appraising her with no hint of embarrassment as she sang to him. He'd 
been in far too much emotional pain to recognize her, too locked in grief, an 
ancient ache that had engulfed him long ago, long before she'd become aware of 
his existence. 

She'd regretted that, and had come to him later, to his apartment, hoping to 
heal, hoping to end it for both of them. She hadn't been quite ready for death 
at that moment, however, and let the opportunity pass, content to simply watch 
him sleep, a painful, nerve-wracking activity for him, apparently. She'd availed 
herself of his spare car keys before she left, leaving him an earring: an 
exchange of personal effects as lovers are wont to do. 

With her second visit he had abandoned her, called away to see to that fool in 
Georgetown. She'd noted her displeasure, certain he would not mistake her 
determination for a proper audience.

On the third visit -- although the lock was a simple affair -- she'd knocked, 
uncertain of the drug's effectiveness in caffeinated beverages. She hadn't been 
entirely disappointed when the door was answered. She'd dealt with the man 
quickly: a single shot, the muzzle against his chest, angling upward into the 
heart. He'd jerked even before she'd pulled the trigger, the result of muscles 
primed to flee, and the body had bounced, falling across the table. 

There were two of them, though. She'd made note of the fact earlier in the 
evening, counting the figures through the windows as they'd crossed back and 
forth. So secure behind their walls, so smug, weapons ready, daring her to prove 
their prowess. Neither figure had been *his*, she was certain: the one too 
stocky, the other moving with such a total lack of grace-- 

With one down and one to go, she'd closed the door behind her, gliding silently 
into the apartment, into the living room, into *his* presence-- 

A blonde young man -- the stocky one -- had come barreling out at her from the 
bedroom. He was bleary with drugs and had the audacity to look surprised before 
fumbling for his gun. She'd shot him full in the face -- not as serious a wound 
as she would have imagined at that distance, not with a .22. Painful, yes. Oh, 
very. Almost completely incapacitating, in fact. Blondie dropped his weapon -- a 
nice semi-automatic cannon as far as she could determine -- and stumbled back 
the way he'd come, making small choking noises that might have been some attempt 
at speech. She followed calmly. No one here was going anywhere; she had all 
night. Blondie noted her presence behind him and panicked. He fell across the 
bed, misjudging distance in his agony, and tried clawing his way to the far side 
of the mattress. She ended the struggle with a single shot, muzzle of her Ruger 
against his back, a clean blast through the heart, just the way she liked it. He 
flopped to his back, eyes wide, glassed as a china doll's, mouth gulping 
fish-like for one final gurgle. She'd wiped blood from her pistol using the 
corner of the blanket, slipped it in her pocket and returned to the living room.

*He* was still on the couch, waiting patiently, his eyes scanning frantically 
beneath closed lids, locked in his accustomed harassed slumber, so still, so 
thin, so bruised. So beautiful she'd simply stood there, drinking him in. Only 
the blaring of a television commercial finally forced her to move -- a profane 
hawking in the death chamber. She'd located the remote, her gloved finger 
pressing the "mute" button. Then she'd knelt beside him. Removed her earrings. 
Prepared for her work. Knife poised-- 

And he'd breathed. One deep, lingering breath. 

In the strobic glow of the television light, her blade had flashed red, green, a 
thousand shades of blue, and she'd stared, fascinated, as his chest rose with 
the process of breathing: up, up, filling with oxygen, rising steadily toward 
the point of the knife-- Then, even though they were surely sated, his lungs 
refused to fall for one long moment, tender skin waiting only millimeters from 
the blade, taunting death even in his drugged stupor. The exhale, an eternity 
later, had been just as slow, a lingering sigh, a regret. Then the chest had 
risen again, but it was too late: he had frozen her where she knelt. The muscles 
of her arm were suddenly fixed: elbow out and bent, knife clutched tightly, its 
tip hovering bare inches from the soft well of flesh that nestled between his 
ribs and sternum.

She'd sat there for over an hour. Just watching him breathe, again completely 
unable to touch him. She'd left him a note, more discreetly placed this time. 
Just something between the two of them, not meant for unworthy eyes.

This could not go on, though. This wasn't life for either of them, this dance, 
this waiting for Fate. He knew it as well as she did. All things being equal, he 
would have been out looking for her now, tracking her until she found him, but 
*they* wouldn't allow it. What did they know? To them, she was an evil to be 
captured, punished, studied perhaps. To *him,* however, she was no monster, no 
specimen to be bottled. To him -- she could not speak his name, would not even 
in her mind, it was magic, her particular magic, and called forth too much of 
the terrible future -- To him, she was not something to be catalogued and 
inventoried, filed away in his list of accomplishments, a freak. To him, she 
wasn't fascinating, no, not even particularly rare. To this man, she simply 
*was,* a separate entity quite beyond him, autonomous, sovereign. The 
realization thrilled her. Since childhood, she had gauged her right to live by 
her usefulness to another, had solidly believed that every breath had to be 
earned, or it was stolen. And thieves went to Hell. Her mother, haggard and 
exhausted, had been her proof. Her father had reminded her of the fact daily. 
Nightly. Her husband, too. Thus all her life, she'd breathed shallowly. 

Until that night with the knife, the TV light, and the regal form upon the 
couch. He'd breathed deeply, hypnotically, had done it again, again, and yet 
again -- and finally, she'd inhaled, too. Hesitant, chest muscles jerking, 
abdomen tensed for impact, she'd breathed a lungful. It had choked her, left her 
dizzy. And she'd done it again, over and over, inhaling as he exhaled, exhaling 
has he inhaled, a transference of mutual need, drawing in his life as he 
received the last of her humanity. Then she'd risen quietly, off to leave her 
calling card upon the body on the bed. She saved the one on the table for last, 
taking special care with him since he was closest to the door. First 
impressions, you know. She wanted them to understand, you see, wanted them to 
realize that she needed no pity, no defense, no rehabilitation. This was who she 
was. This was what made her happy: the jerking of the knife through sinew and 
flesh. The give of raw tissue, the occasional grating shudder through her arm as 
the blade scraped bone. It was something solid and real, something beyond the 
various shades of numbness which defined her routine state of existence. The 
sensation of the blood, its warm, forbidden fragrance, the color of rubies 
mesmerizing with its gloss, catching light, dragging it down into itself and 
swallowing it whole. She had made a mark in someone's life. There was someone 
now who would attest to her presence in the world. Someone who could not fail to 
make mention of her reality.

And *this,* tonight, would be her final kill. What pleasure would there be after 
him? What joy could she hope for without him in the world? She would end it 
then, with the same gun that would take his life. The next bullet in the 
chamber. There was a kind of fitting tribute in it. *He* would understand. Of 
course, he would be dead by then, beyond understanding, but that couldn't be 
helped, could it? She nodded, comforted. He knew she was here, didn't he? 
Waiting for him. He couldn't help but know. 

And she was not alone.

There were two agents in the garage, waiting with her. They were in 
plainclothes: jeans, t-shirts, tennis shoes. She knew they were agents, however, 
and prided herself with her knowledge. They'd been here most of the evening, 
stepping from their car occasionally to sweep the area with their flashlights, 
not being too obtrusive, switching their lights off quickly, their pace becoming 
an ambling stroll whenever a car passed through. She would watch one approach 
her vehicle, wait, wait, then ease herself down across the car seat, no sudden 
movements to reveal her presence behind the dark glass -- and he would pass, 
rejoin his partner with a shrug or a jerk of his head. They would then return to 
their own vehicle, awaiting their next sweep of the garage, awaiting the arrival 
of one already there. 

She'd shared dinner with them. Well, not *with* them, actually, but she'd eaten 
when they had, enjoying her cheese sandwich, careful to keep the crumbs off the 
upholstery, watching as his defenders sorted through their bag of snacks. She 
was close enough to see the glint of light off their soda cans, too close, 
really, only a few parking spaces behind them. The proximity didn't overly 
concern her. The garage was fairly dim, dimmer still in her particular space, 
and the windows of the Monte Carlo were heavily tinted: she was a shadow within 
a shadow -- unsuspected within the shadow of these, her enemies. And in *his* 
car. She'd driven it from his apartment at nightfall, right out from under their 
noses, and parked it here, in the very belly of the beast. There was a luxurious 
thrill to it all that was somehow excruciatingly satisfying. 

The shift change had come a few minutes after nine. She'd watched the activity 
across the expanse of the garage: the arrival of a dark green Impala. Her two 
companions crawled from the depths of their nondescript Buick and converged on 
the new arrivals, comparing notes, giving reassuring nods. One man had laughed 
deeply, the sound resonating in the concrete cave of cars. His partner had 
yawned, stretching kinks from his back, and she'd caught a glimpse of the weapon 
on his belt, the holster a deep shadow against khaki slacks.

The changing of the guard. The prince, then, was still within, held hostage in 
his small kingdom just three floors above. A world away. Another forbidden 
thrill shuddered through her, and she closed her eyes to revel in it, breathing 
deeply, filling her head with the fragrance of new car leather and the lingering 
scent of aftershave, both equally dark and masculine. Her right hand snaked out 
to stroke the leather of the seat beside her, her left hand raising to caress 
her headrest. His head had rested here, and now hers shared the same pillow. The 
very seat that had received his body -- how many times? -- now cradled hers and 
the thought made her blood pound. The vehicle was more than simply his. It was 
him. Or at least as much of him as she'd allowed herself to enjoy. Until now. 
Outside, the conference continued. Only the sound of an engine starting brought 
her eyes open, her focus reluctantly returning to the task at hand. 

The Buick pulled away with one hand waving from a window. There was no answering 
hand from the Impala. It took the Buick's place, backing in deftly, engine 
cutting after a brief moment, lights off immediately after. Her two new 
companions wasted no time: the garage echoed with the click of a car door, the 
dome light bathing both men as they crawled free of the vehicle, dimming again 
as the doors shut simultaneously.

The driver was the older of the pair, the short-lived light had revealed some 
gray in his sideburns. The face he had turned briefly toward her was calm, long 
in the chin but handsome. He was dressed better, too, long dark trench coat, a 
turtleneck and dark slacks. Very distinguished. She liked him instantly. She 
would kill him first, she decided, coming up on his side of the vehicle and 
shooting him in the back of the head, or at least as far back as his headrest 
would allow. She'd take the other one out with a shot to the face before he 
could get his gun free. She didn't have anything against him personally, of 
course: he was shorter, huskier, the sweater type, apparently. He reminded her 
of her husband. Shooting him would be easy. She imagined the series of 
expressions he would regard her with -- surprise, dismay, horror -- just before 
she pulled the trigger. One clean shot would do it, she was certain. And she 
knew, even as excited as she was, she wouldn't miss. 

Practice makes perfect.

Mutt and Jeff fanned out through the garage, flashlights at the ready, Mutt 
heading to her right, Jeff to her left. Her eyes followed Jeff and his long, 
confident strides, coat flowing regally. She lost sight of him as he took a turn 
into the darkness. She waited patiently, noting his progress by the bobbing halo 
of his light as it swept along the walls, the beam narrowing, widening, winking 
this way and that. 

The flash of another beam caught suddenly in her rearview mirror, so intense she 
saw stars temporarily. Mutt was approaching from the rear, his own beam 
twisting, looming larger, closer -- much too close. She waited until the light 
had swept right before collapsing abruptly down onto the passenger seat, 
silently cursing the gearshift as she slammed a rib against it. The light swung 
again, closer now, mirrors reflecting its progress in stereo, right to center to 
left, the beam reflecting and illuminating the interior of the car, her face and 
hands glowing hot white -- she just knew it, hot white -- against the soft black 
leather of the Monte Carlo. She cringed, willing herself smaller, smaller, 
smaller still, hands clenched against her dark sweater, face buried into the 
upholstery, heedless of oxygen, heedless of all but that damned searching, 
omniscient, omnivorous bulb. Footsteps echoed. Nearer -- pausing suddenly, 
leaving the blood pounding against her forehead, slamming against her ears. 

Her eardrums would burst. They would burst and the blood would run to the seat, 
filling the little hollows stitched into the leather. Surely, they had burst 
already, she imagined-- 

The shoes outside scuffed concrete, shuffling uncertainly. 

And then suddenly, she was in the dark again. 

It took her an eternity to realize he'd switched his flashlight off. Of course 
he had: the better to draw his weapon -- he made no sound, however, no demands, 
there was no sudden slamming into the vehicle, no shout for compliance. The 
shoes rasped, pacing to the hood of the car, pausing again. 

Even expecting it, she jerked as a voice rang out:

"Got anything?"

The voice came from the area of the front right fender. Mutt, but--

Jeff, nearer than before, but still approaching: "Nah. You?"

"Nada."

She had to force herself to breathe, to render enough oxygen to her brain to 
process her rare and marvelous good fortune. 

Mutt was blind as a bat.

She blinked, uncertain whether to believe her luck, wondering at some trick, 
some SWAT procedure that might be playing out at her expense. The shoes at the 
fender, however, scuffled again, away, further, distancing. An answering pair of 
soles -- Jeff -- approached calmly, and she waited. A car door snapped open, 
closing a moment after, the sound echoing like a shot within the concrete 
cavern, another door closing immediately after it, softer, but no less final. In 
the silence: the far-off wail of a siren, it, too, growing increasingly distant.

She lifted her head. Her shoulders. Eyes just high enough for her vision to 
clear the dash. Mutt was digging in the back seat. She licked her lips, stopped 
breathing temporarily as he righted himself, a flash of metal in his fist. A 
soda can. Jeff laid his seat back slightly, his head bobbing as he sought a more 
comfortable position.

She wasted no time clambering for the back seat.

XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX

22nd Street, N.W., Washington, DC. 11:32 PM.

 



Horn blaring, Purdue jerked hard to the right, engaging his brakes. The Mercedes 
continued its illegal left-hand turn in front of him, never slowing, headlights 
hazy as they swept his rain-drenched windshield. The ASAC blinked against the 
glare, peering after the vehicle as it passed. 

*Damned diplomatic plates --* 

High-beams flashed in his rearview mirror, reminding him that he was now stopped 
in an intersection with his side of the traffic light still green. He nudged his 
Chrysler forward, grateful that the hotel was already in sight. He really should 
have gotten some sleep before deciding to take over this shift. 

*Sleep. Yeah. I knew there was something I was forgetting this week.* His cell 
phone buzzed to life and he pulled to the curb in front of the Embassy Suites. 

*God, please--* Please let it be Jack Heller, reporting that his boys at Dulles 
had Fuche in custody. Or maybe a similar report from Mills whose team was 
blanketing the Metro system.... Purdue had units at Union Station and National 
Airport as well -- some of the most highly-skilled investigators on the planet 
at his disposal, yet every hour on the hour they'd managed to call in with the 
same pertinent detail: nothing. Their primary suspect had vanished from the face 
of the earth. 

Purdue slammed the Chrysler into park and pounced on the phone, fumbling for the 
button, the lights of a delivery truck temporarily blinding him as it passed. As 
days go, this one had been forty-one flavors of hell and it wasn't over yet.

It wasn't Heller. Nathan Harris' voice, too tinny through the electronics of the 
phone, greeted him instead. 

Purdue slumped against his car seat. He had resorted to pestering Harris for 
long-distance updates, trying to assuage his increasing despair. So far, Harris 
hadn't bothered to rub his nose in his misfortunes; in fact, the detective had 
endured Purdue's harassment with unusual grace. Personally, Purdue would have 
preferred a good cussing, anything to distract from the fact that he had failed 
to locate their assiduous Sisyphus. 

Harris, of course, could afford to be magnanimous: the Columbus PD had extended 
him every courtesy, even inviting Harris to be guest of honor as their forensic 
unit processed Fuche's home. Purdue's gut had ached to join them on-site, but 
he'd endured the ulcer stoically.

"What you got?" Purdue barked the question, instantly regretting it. Harris was 
working his butt off. He at least deserved a "Hey."

Harris allowed the oversight to pass, however, brimming over with information 
and eager to deliver. He'd spent the evening at their suspect's home: a 
meticulously ordered little nest in one of Columbus' quieter south side suburban 
neighborhoods. Now, they not only had receipts placing Fuche in Wheeling at the 
time of each murder, they had mementos: Mr. Businessman's cigarette lighter, 
Officer Kress's missing class ring. There were other items, too, each one 
lovingly displayed in a china cabinet in the living room: a tie pin, coins, a 
bottle cap, a spoon matching the pattern of silverware from apartment 304 -- 

"We've got more mementos than we have bodies, though, Reg. And I don't think 
it's just because she took more than one item from some of her victims. Tell Mr. 
G-man his theory was dead on: she's well-practiced. So far, we've got another 
five unsolved murders we might be able to close with this one. Columbus is 
checking their books--"

Purdue let him ramble unhindered, suddenly consumed with the image of more 
recent victims, those Sisyphus hadn't had time to commemorate on her brag shelf. 
Purdue chewed his lip with the thought: Mr. American Lit -- as Mulder insisted 
on calling him -- Seilman... What mementos had Fuche treasured from them? Or-- 
sweet Jeezus, what had she taken from Mitch, from Gregg? A key? A lapel pin? 
Purdue tried to picture the young agents. What had they worn that evening that 
the ERT wouldn't know to account for? Had Mitch been wearing his class ring? 
What might Gregg have had in his pockets--? 

Even Purdue's deepest concentration, however, rendered the two men as little 
more than a blur of nondescript jeans and pullovers. The realization hurt. Mitch 
had been with Purdue's team for the better part of a year, Gregg transferring 
into VC only a month later. Yet Purdue saw clearly only one image from that 
night: Mitch's earnest face in profile, head bowed as he took dictation from 
Sauceda, Gregg behind him -- Gregg forever standing behind, last, like it was 
his rightful place in life -- Gregg standing behind him, calmly blinking. Had 
their faces been any clearer to Sisyphus? Had she taken note before she planted 
her bullets? Had she even looked at their faces, even if only to relish the 
terror in their eyes as their lives had flashed before them, fleeting, fleeing, 
gone? 

Purdue repressed his grief, compelled by the extended silence on Harris' end of 
the connection. He rubbed at the tension behind his eyes.

"What is it, Nat? What else?"

The detective hesitated. Purdue hadn't bothered to conceal the anguish in his 
voice. Harris had other concerns, however.

"Reg, she... she had Mulder's badge. And a pack of cigarettes with his prints. 
She'd scarfed a page of a report he was working on, too, framed it, probably to 
preserve his handwriting." There was another pause on the line; Purdue waited it 
out, concentrating on keeping his breathing even. "Mulder was the central focus 
on the shelf," Harris said the words with some amazement. "The items from the 
other victims were laid out around his stuff like offerings at some kind of 
religious shrine."

"It fits, Nat. She rearranged her focus when she found Mulder." Purdue's 
explanation was quiet, the result of fatigue more than patience, his grief 
firmly checked. "She read that damned article in the 'Sun' and reordered her 
entire history. Now she's got someone to share with." Purdue wasn't trying to 
pin blame, just stating facts, and Harris didn't burden him with another apology 
about his choice in media hounds. 

The detective cleared his throat, a quick, quiet rasp through the line. "Kay's 
heart was in the freezer. In a Tupperware bowl."

Purdue leaned his head against the window, rain and the thump of his wipers 
drowning out the static of the cell phone. Kay's missing heart had been one 
reason he'd refused to let Mulder see the report. *One* reason. 

A van passed, driving too fast and in serious need of a dimmer switch. Purdue 
closed his eyes against the onslaught of headlights. His lids lit red, 
translucent, then quickly black as the vehicle sped on. He kept his eyes shut, 
wrapping himself in the darkness, bright dots of remembered light dancing 
hypnotically across his blindness. Water splashed the window; with his head 
resting against the glass, Purdue could feel the impact of each droplet, small 
explosions, microscopic worlds destroyed with every passing second.

"How's the kid holding up, Reg?" Harris' voice tickled in his ear. Purdue could 
feel the echo of the words invading his brain, living beings, savage electric 
marauders he had no defenses for. 

"Reg? You there?" 

Purdue didn't answer immediately, busy replaying life as he currently knew it. 
Earlier in the evening, cell phone in hand, he'd reached his limit. Without 
thought, without plan, Purdue had driven the thirty-five miles to Quantico and 
cornered Bill Patterson in his lair, a cluttered basement office wallpapered 
with photos of some of VICAP's most notorious cases -- solved and unsolved. 
Patterson had been as insufferable as ever, of course. Feet on his desk, he'd 
cleaned his nails with a letter opener, making the ASAC wait while he completed 
a call to Frank Black. Black was in the field, apparently, profiling a case 
somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. Purdue was quick to note that Bill had 
called Black; he noted, too, that Patterson's call didn't appear to be much 
welcomed. 

Patterson didn't seem to discern the fact, however, and Purdue marveled, not for 
the first time, that a man so well-versed in abnormal human behavior could 
perceive so little in his less criminal associates. Or maybe he just didn't 
care. Purdue opted for the latter, especially as Patterson's steely gaze swept 
over him, intent as an entomologist with a new species of bug to pin on his 
display. Unfortunately for Patterson, disaster had Purdue fairly well numbed 
now; the ASAC's feigned nonchalance had come easy. Patterson, realizing he was 
irritating no one but Black, cut the conversation short. 

With the master profiler off the phone, Purdue didn't bother with all the 
niceties. He told him about Mulder: the mood swings, the dreams, the case. Kay. 
To his credit, Patterson had listened -- truly listened. Deep beneath the 
bluster and the bullshit, Patterson seemed to have a genuine, if grudging, 
concern for his former protégé. It surprised the hell out of Purdue. And 
frightened him a little.

Not that the man wasn't cagey. Patterson was holding out, all right; his answers 
were cautious, his body language betraying nothing. Purdue, watching him, edited 
his list of symptoms carefully. Patterson's eyes slit almost shut -- he smelled 
the rat -- but Purdue didn't relent. 

*You show me yours, Bill, I'll show you mine.* 

Patterson licked his lips, hungry for what Purdue had not revealed. Purdue'd be 
damned before he'd speak the words, though. The monkey blood. Patterson knew 
about it, surely, Purdue had no doubt of it. Patterson, like God Almighty, knew 
everything, except perhaps the current addresses of the FBI's Most Wanted -- and 
he was working on those. Patterson wouldn't give Purdue the pleasure of 
admitting to the knowledge, however, which spoke volumes. Purdue was willing to 
wager that the man knew what Mulder had for breakfast this morning.

Patterson did ask, however, if Mulder had been looking through other cases, if 
he'd been exposed to any files that might be preoccupying him. He glowered as 
Purdue denied it.

"*Specifically*," he growled, "anything that would have excited a strong 
*visual* connection: photographs, physical evidence, as opposed to something 
he'd merely heard. *Maybe,*" his voice had a way of raising its eyebrows, 
"Mulder's actual *presence* at a crime scene?" 

Purdue felt himself flush hot under that all-knowing glare, and recalled 
Fredricksburg: a grave in an empty lot, Mulder's hand, long, sensitive fingers 
laid across the chest of skeletal remains-- and Patterson nodded sagely. Damn 
the son of a bitch, he'd known about that little incident, too. And why not? The 
entire Bureau was buzzing with it: Spooky Mulder had gone for a Sunday drive and 
delivered thirteen bodies... Thirteen corpses, the work of one serial killer. 
Yet somehow, Purdue had failed to consider the incident even remotely relevant. 
It was past history, wasn't it? Over and done with, the Fredricksburg PD 
refusing the Bureau's offers of assistance.

He should have known better. *You screwed up, Reg. Just when you thought you 
were paying attention...*

Admitting nothing, Patterson purred. "They haven't caught their killer yet. You 
realize that, don't you?" And he'd picked up his pen, shifting papers on his 
desk. The audience, apparently, was terminated. 

The pen hesitated as Purdue stood, however. Patterson spoke without lifting his 
head. 

"Mulder hasn't let it go." The words were spoken with resolute indifference but 
the tip of the pen wavered. "He doesn't know how." 

Purdue had shown himself out of the office, his steps pursued by the furious 
scratching of that pen.

"He knows more than he's saying, Reg." Harris' voice had finally eaten its way 
through to Purdue's spine. "I'm not implying he's irresponsible or anything, 
whatever it is he's not telling probably won't help the investigation. But 
five'll get you ten, that young man has more going on in his head than he's got 
words for. You -- you keep an eye on him, my friend."

Purdue offered some lie about being called away and disconnected the line 
abruptly. He didn't need Patterson, or Harris, three hundred miles away, 
reminding of what his own gut kept screaming. 

He rammed the vehicle into drive and fled the rain for the relative quiet of the 
parking garage. The Chrysler's tires squealed and Purdue backed off the engine 
and pulled onto the first level. His fists tightened on the wheel reflexively, 
suspicious as a figure strode out of the darkness toward him. His headlights 
focused on Agent Chris Lamott, flashlight in hand, staring at him just as 
suspiciously. Purdue rolled down his window, allowing the agent to identify him 
and Lamott waved him on with an apologetic shrug. Purdue chose a spot close to 
the elevator and headed for the hotel lobby without bothering for a report. 

How many versions of "nothing happening here" could he expect, anyway?

XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Embassy Suites Hotel. Parking garage. 

She saw the Chrysler but almost failed to recognize it. In the muted 
fluorescents of the garage it was an unexpected smoky silver. When she'd seen it 
earlier today, though, the paint had been powder blue. She'd thought then that 
it looked like the type of car a man would buy for his wife: powder blue 
exterior, deep blue interior. Certainly, it was the antithesis of Mulder's 
cherry-red-with-black-interior sports sedan. She liked the silver better, she 
decided. Not that anyone was asking.

Jeff had noted the vehicle, as well. He and Mutt had been engaged in one of 
their prowls, circling the garage with their perpetual flashlights. After that 
first sweep, they had stuck mostly to the periphery of the garage, not bothering 
to do much more than cast a beam of light down the rows of vehicles. Sisyphus 
had taken to simply sliding down lower in the seat rather than tucking and 
diving every time a blast of light hit her rearview mirror. She was slumped down 
now as Jeff's radio sputtered to life. From where she sat, Mutt's voice was 
little more than static, like one of those drive-through burger joint clowns. 
Mutt might have been saying: "It's Purdue and he's pissed." What she heard 
sounded more like, "extra pickles, hold the cheese." Whatever the message, it 
had Jeff on the alert and moving to intercept the ASAC's car.

Purdue wasn't interested, however, and waved Jeff back with a flick of his hand. 
He found a spot well across the garage and parked with a squeal of brakes, the 
car jerking as he slammed the gear home. Jeff needed no further motivation to 
head back for his Buick, and Mutt wasn't long in joining him. Purdue, his dark 
face closed, proceeded to the elevator, shaking the wrinkles from his coat as he 
paced. He disappeared into the elevator, heading safely upstairs, and only then 
did Mutt's shoulders slump in relief. She watched from her vantage point as the 
two men debated the significance of the arrival. Sisyphus chewed her lip, 
engaged in her own thoughts. She had the two of them, now. Purdue *and* that 
woman. It could be done, though, no question. She'd simply have to bide her time 
and think it through a bit more carefully --

A piercing squeal brought her upright. In the silence of the garage, there was 
no disguising the rasp of metal on metal. It echoed through the cavernous 
structure, and the agents in the car in front of her were on instant alert, 
heads bobbing and twisting. Sisyphus slid across the back seat, squinting into 
the darkness, waiting. The squeal had ceased almost the second it had begun, and 
now it resumed, softer this time, slower, furtive. By the time it had stopped 
again, she'd located its source: with her forehead pressed quite hard against 
the passenger side window she could just make out the corner of a metal grate 
lying on the concrete several rows over. It was near the wall, suspiciously 
close to a bulky array of metal shafts anchored to the concrete. As she stared, 
a shadow fell across the grate, a great lumbering form that seemed to unfold 
itself endlessly.

Her heart skipped several beats. He had escaped to her. He'd grown tired of 
waiting and had taken matters into his own hands, fleeing to her just as she'd 
known he would, as he surely knew he must. 

She slipped the .22 from her sweater pocket, cursing herself. She should have 
killed the agents already, but she preferred working the hours just before dawn 
and had feared their being missed too soon.

Even now, she was too late. Mutt and Jeff were already on the move, slipping out 
of their vehicle soundlessly. With their guns at ready, she didn't have a prayer 
of intercepting them. She wasn't that good a shot at this range and knew it. She 
might hit one and be dead before he hit the ground, shot by his partner. Damn-- 

Perhaps *he* would provide the distraction necessary. She licked her lips, 
watching the shadow growing against the wall. It was a viable plan: she'd wait 
until Mutt and Jeff had subdued him for her, cuffed him, as surely they would: a 
violent man kept in control for his own safety and the safety of others. 
Suitably distracted, and at closer range, she could take them both out quickly 
while he watched. A final proof of her intentions, if he needed one. A further 
display of her competence and devotion.

She waited her cue, watching Jeff stalk silently, trench coat billowing like a 
cape as he moved into position, ready to intercept from the left. Mutt did the 
same, taking a more loping direction to the right. She checked the chamber of 
her revolver and snapped off the Monte Carlo's dome light before sliding to the 
far door. Jeff and Mutt were keeping their eyes trained on the great hulking 
shadow struggling free of the ventilation shaft. She could do this. She could 
slip out of the car and stay low behind it, then simply skip from car to car, 
carefully, of course, until she was upon them --

Sisyphus popped the door latch. The sound was lost in a sudden reverberating 
burst of thunder and she smiled. Fate, that marvelous woman, was being kind 
tonight after all. Across the garage, the shadow stood to shake itself and her 
smile broadened: a young man, thin and agile. Her intended, surely. The one they 
called Mulder. 

 She could see Jeff's shoulders relax. He shifted his weapon to only one hand, 
 holding it low and unthreatening. If it had been Sisyphus emerging from the 
 vent, he'd have shot her as soon as look at her -- the certainty of that fact 
 sent a thrill of pleasure through her, a gathering warmth low in her hips that 
 grew increasingly more distracting as she eyed her prize: the tall, slim figure 
 surprised in the shadows. 





She slipped out the door, and paused, crouched low, panting with exhilaration. 
Mutt was speaking, a deep and well-modulated baritone she hadn't expected 
somehow. She couldn't catch the words, there was still too much of an echo left 
from the thunder, but the intent of the tone was clear enough: firm, in control 
without being threatening. 
We're-all-just-family-here-and-we're-taking-you-back-home-now. She chanced a 
glimpse over the fender.

Mulder was a figure of darkness, shades of gray, and she only barely made out 
the shape of his head, his face turning as he sought out Jeff to his right. 
Finding him, he shrugged a greeting. The echoes had silenced but he spoke 
softly, a barely distinguishable tenor: "...musta taken a wrong turn over the 
kitchen..." The rest was a vague mumble. 

Mutt laughed good-naturedly as the voice fell silent. He swung his gun hand 
lazily as he gestured, the muzzle pointed down and away. Jeff smiled, too, 
holstering his weapon as he stepped forward to take the profiler into custody, 
shaking his head --

And Mulder shot them. 

Both. 

A surprisingly quiet "pop-popping" noise left Sisyphus blinking, the blast of 
the bullet striking fire as it left the muzzle. The ignition of gunpowder lit 
the scene like a strobe light, shadows dancing in four dull flashes. Mutt jerked 
first, scrunching down slightly as the bullet hit his chest, then straightening 
up as the second bullet plowed a hole between his eyes. This was the 
instinctive, rapid-fire chest/head shot of a trained assassin. Sisyphus had read 
her share of Jack Higgins. She knew these things. Jeff took one to the chest 
before he could bring his weapon to bear; the second shot missed his chest, 
though, slamming into his shoulder. He spun as he fell, landing on his side, 
stunned, revolver skittering across the concrete. 

Through it all, Sisyphus remained quite still. It *wasn't* him after all, not 
her Mulder-- a most disappointing realization. The muzzle blasts had illuminated 
a young face, and a handsome one, certainly, but the nose was wrong, the hair 
color, the jaw-line. By the second shot she was certain of it. Not *him.* Not 
the man she'd come to collect. 

The stranger scanned the garage, seeking more takers, and she hunched low 
against the car. *Oh, my dear, you have no idea...* 

A soft shuffle had her chancing another glimpse. He was examining the bodies, 
kneeling briefly, glancing this way, that way, as practiced fingers probed along 
the sides of each victim's jaw. She watched, fascinated, straining to 
distinguish the shadows more clearly. A car approached, exiting one level for 
the next, following the twisting roadway through the garage, headlights raking 
the wall, never slowing. In the temporary floodlight, the stranger moved to 
Jeff's body and took the agent's head in his hands. It was a loving gesture, 
palms against Jeff's cheeks, long fingers trailing back into the lush head of 
hair. The stranger took one final glance across the garage, then jerked, 
delivering a sharp twist to Jeff's neck as the light failed, the vehicle passing 
on to its destination, oblivious. 

Sisyphus slipped back into the Monte Carlo as the young man stood. A final 
glance, this way, again, and then that way, as he zipped his leather jacket, and 
all was well once more. He was simply any young man, striding confidently, not 
too-hurriedly, across the garage, no doubt in search of his car. He approached 
the Monte Carlo, hands fisted in his pockets against the evening chill, but she 
didn't bother to hide this time. He strode within four feet of her, never 
seeing, and she allowed him to pass, unmolested, her weapon undisturbed on the 
seat beside her. She could recognize a kindred spirit when she saw one. That was 
why she was here, after all. 

Besides, he'd done her a favor, hadn't he? He'd shown her the way in.

 



XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX 

Part 24 of 27: Bystanders at the Massacre

"I'm quick to perceive a horror, and could still be social with it-- would they 
let me." --Moby Dick.

Embassy Suites Hotel. 11:29 pm.

 Purdue's sigh rivaled the pneumatic wheeze of the door that admitted him into 
 the lobby. Rows of open landings towered above him, tiers on a wedding cake, 
 and he slapped self-consciously at his coat of many wrinkles, the under-dressed 
 guest at the ceremony. His loafers flaked dried mud, a crumb trail marking his 
 path across the carpet.

Agent Emil Sandidge nodded at him from across the room. Sandidge lounged on a 
corner couch that gave him full visual access to the doors above, and he made no 
move to rise. His legs were crossed, one foot bobbing absently. Purdue offered a 
half-hearted wave but continued on to the elevator. If Sandidge had anything 
interesting going on, he certainly wouldn't be sitting on his can shooting the 
breeze with the desk clerk. 

Christ, had they really only been on this case nine days? It felt like years, 
Purdue decided. Like he'd grayed and grown feeble in the span of a week. And 
Sisyphus -- *No,* he corrected himself, *Cecile Fuche* -- still held all the 
cards. She was probably somewhere close this very minute, watching them sweat, 
laughing while she prepared to play her next hand. She'd probably already picked 
out her next victim.

Hell, odds were she'd already butchered him.

Purdue poked the elevator button, jabbing at it once more -- and again, -- just 
for the satisfaction. By the fourth jab, the machinery took the hint and 
obediently swallowed him up. Purdue counted down the floors through the 
elevator's glass walls, oblivious to the scenic view of the lobby as it fell 
away at his feet: rich burgundy carpet, the color of drying blood, a central 
fountain chattering pleasantly, the pervasive odor of flowering potted plants. 
It smelled like a funeral home.

Purdue's head throbbed relentlessly. He'd popped several aspirin on the way from 
the car, but didn't expect much from them even once they had a chance to 
dissolve. He patted his coat for a cigarette and had stuck it in his mouth 
before he remembered he'd left his lighter in Wheeling.

"Shit."

How long had he lived this way, he wondered: every day unveiling its own 
peculiar horror, week in, week out, an unending parade of tragedy? How had it 
managed to sneak up on him without his noticing? And when had he surrendered, 
finally allowing it to consume his life? 

Yeah. Sure. What life?



                                                      The elevator door chimed 
                                                      pleasantly. Purdue shoved 
                                                      the cigarette into his 
                                                      coat pocket and left his 
                                                      hand in there with it as 
                                                      he approached Room 328. 
                                                      Olivia had been on his 
                                                      mind entirely too much 
                                                      today, he decided. The 
                                                      drive back from Quantico 
                                                      had become a gauntlet, her 
                                                      memory merciless. He'd 
                                                      rolled the windows down 
                                                      and turned the volume up 
                                                      on the car radio, but her 
                                                      voice had continued its 
                                                      relentless whisper, an 
                                                      agonizing treasure still 
                                                      tightly wrapped around his 
                                                      auditory nerve: words, 
                                                      phrases, a disconnected 
                                                      jumble of memories that 
                                                      made his hands shake even 
                                                      now-- 



Jeezus, he hated this. Didn't need it. Not now. Hell, didn't Mulder have enough 
grief to deal with without Purdue hauling *his* dead through the door? 

Patterson's voice, begrudging and mournful, reverberated with the now constant 
pounding in his head. *Mulder hasn't let it go. He doesn't know how.* 

"Well, hell," Purdue hissed. "Welcome to the club, Agent Mulder."

He raised his fist to knock. Softly, he reminded himself. Mulder could be 
sleeping. He could hear the television droning, though: Letterman doing his Top 
Ten routine. Great. That was all he needed to top his evening. Letterman and his 
damned Stupid Pet Tricks.…

Beyond the door, another voice was suddenly quite distinct. Fowley. Her tone, 
bitter and frightened, made Purdue forgo knocking and grab for his key.

"DammitgetupFox! *Please--*"

There was no answering reply, at least nothing Purdue could hear over the tumble 
of the lock. Fowley glanced up guiltily as Purdue swung the door open. He 
hesitated, his hand still on the door knob. 

Mulder was on the floor, half-naked and splayed out like a man on a torture 
rack. Fowley stood over him, twisting his arm, or maybe just tugging at it. 
Purdue would have had cause to be more upset about the situation if Fowley 
didn't look so desperate. She dropped Mulder's arm and took a step back. 

"Sir," she assured huskily, "I can explain--"

"Is he breathing?" Purdue requested the information and closed the door calmly. 
Fowley blinked; this wasn't quite the question she'd expected, apparently.

"Ye-- Yes, sir. I--"

"Are you hurt?"

There was considerable venom in the question and Fowley held her breath, mouth 
open in mid-sentence, taking a second inventory of her ASAC. Purdue didn't want 
to know what she saw: a man in need of a shave and an antidepressant, he 
imagined. He dropped his head on the pretense of shedding his overcoat, made a 
show of shaking it out and folding it vertically before finding a chair to lay 
it across. Fowley, ever the diplomat, allowed his little pretense. She slipped a 
strand of hair behind her ear before answering. 

"No, sir. Agent Mulder just wasn't feeling well when he woke up. I was trying to 
help him back to bed."

Purdue scanned the room, chewing the inside of his cheek. Three of the table 
chairs were overturned and plastic cups littered the floor. "Is he dreaming 
again?"

"Yes. I think so. At least, he *was.*" Fowley followed Purdue's focus and seemed 
to have difficulty swallowing. "He, uhm, he woke up a little disoriented." 

"So I gather. You didn't notify Sauceda?"

Fowley pursed her lips. Purdue sympathized. Maneuvering your way through the 
rock and the hard place could get a little tough sometimes. "I thought I could 
handle it, sir. And, if you'll excuse me for saying so, I believe I've done just 
that."

Purdue's brows crawled for his hairline. "Uh huh," he said.

Fowley flushed but didn't take the opportunity to debate the issue as he 
approached. Purdue loosened his tie, bending over to assess the agent on the 
floor. Mulder blinked up at him, eyes fully dilated despite the intensity of the 
overhead bulb. The rings of color around his pupils were thin and faint, the 
palest gold. Purdue leaned slightly to his left. Mulder's eyes did not track the 
movement. Purdue leaned to his right. Still no response. 

"If you're not hurt, Agent Fowley," Purdue glanced up from under dark brows, and 
Fowley took an involuntary step backward, "then perhaps you'd care to tell me 
who the hell he slugged to wind up with knuckles like that?"

Fowley stared down at Mulder's hands and licked her upper lip, considering. Both 
of Mulder's fists were bruised, the crusted remnants of old wounds now oozing 
pinkish liquid, the flesh various shades of yellow, blue and purple, none of 
them exactly a complimentary color. Purdue could see Fowley rolling over the 
possible explanations, categorizing each for potential damage control. She 
flushed under the ASAC's penetrating glare and Purdue found himself suffering 
from an acute case of deja vu. 

"As I said, sir, he was disoriented. Upset by his dream. He hit his fists 
against the door--" Fowley took a deep breath, weary of playing the defensive 
position. "To be frank, sir, I'm grateful this happened. I think it's allowed 
Agent Mulder and me to come to a kind of understanding--"

"What? He takes a swing and you duck?" 

Fowley's ruby-studded earrings flashed fire. "No, *sir.* He hit the door. He hit 
it because he *aimed* for it. It was a response to frustration, not anger, and I 
don't appreciate your insinuation that I can't handle my job. If--"

Her vehemence seemed to have roused Mulder, and she silenced as he moaned 
softly. He blinked in her general direction without actually seeking her out. 
Blinking again, he found Purdue. He stared at the ASAC, or maybe just through 
him. It was difficult to tell with his eyes alternating colors like that. 

Purdue glanced back at Fowley, but she offered nothing further, arms folded 
across her chest, holding her secrets tight. She was covering for someone, 
Purdue decided, -- for herself, for Mulder, maybe both. Whatever had happened 
here tonight, he'd be getting only the expurgated version, he was certain. He 
tried telling himself he didn't care one way or the other, but it was just one 
more lie he'd need to keep track of later. 

Mulder, meanwhile, finally seemed to register that something was expected of 
him. He moved like a drugged man struggling to consciousness: one knee up, a 
random motion of a hand across his chest, eyes grazing the ceiling. Something 
deep in Purdue's chest knotted up at the sight. He ran a hand across his eyes, 
grabbing at his headache, blocking the image. He was supposed to have made 
things better for Mulder. He'd promised it. Sworn it to Skinner. Purdue 
swallowed hard. He'd promised Mulder. *You lying son of a bitch.* 

Mulder's arm brushed the ASAC's shin, a random motion as the profiler struggled 
to find the floor and prop himself up. It surprised Purdue, however; accidental 
as the touch might have been, it felt too much like a request. Mulder seemed 
alarmed by the contact himself. Barely managing to prop himself on his elbows, 
he scooted over several inches, putting that much more space between himself and 
human kindness. 

Purdue dropped to his knees. "You can run, Mulder, but you can't hide." He 
tugged Mulder up into a sitting position and acknowledged that there was 
perverse thrill in blocking the escape. After some futile arm-slinging, Mulder 
stopped struggling, and allowed Purdue to hold him steady while he regained his 
bearings. He kept his head down and turned away, however, eyes invisible, his 
breathing tense.

Purdue couldn't help himself. "I think you'll live, son." 

"Shit," Mulder commented roughly, and Purdue grinned, glancing up at Fowley. 
Purdue must have done something right; she was watching the proceedings with 
open disapproval.

"I think you've had enough for one evening," Purdue told her. "Go home and get 
some rest." 

"But, sir, I--"

"I'll call you in the *morning.* If we haven't found the suspect by then, you'll 
have the afternoon shift." He paused. "Unless, of course, you'd prefer a more 
*permanent* change of venue?"

Fowley didn't hesitate. "No, sir. I don't think that will be necessary."

"Neither do I." Purdue nodded at her obvious relief. His headache had taken a 
sabbatical, he realized, easing to a dull tension that he could *almost* ignore 
entirely. On the television, Stupid Pet Tricks was well under way: a chihuahua, 
and a cockatiel with a top hat. 

"Get out of here and get some sleep," Purdue ordered. "One of us needs to be 
relatively conscious tomorrow."

Fowley returned the nod, but hesitated as Mulder met her eyes. Purdue saw only 
in profile: Mulder's expression was intense, a question perhaps, a demand. 
Whatever it was, it remained unspoken between them. The politics of partnerships 
could run remarkably deep, Purdue knew. Most were a minefield of 
barely-negotiated tolerance and fierce loyalties, a mutual concession of 
conceits that took on the intensity of a marriage. He hadn't expected Fowley and 
Mulder to have developed this kind of solidarity, however, not this quickly. 
Once more, he'd managed to underestimate someone. Mulder, probably.

Mulder dropped his head to stare at the carpet between his knees. The 
visualization approach to standing, no doubt, an attempt to recall the necessary 
motions. 

Purdue's legs were starting to go numb from lack of circulation. He shifted, 
propping his knee behind Mulder's back, something for the profiler to lean 
against until he re-oriented. Fowley busied herself collecting her things: purse 
from the locked cabinet, her coat from the couch. Purdue took advantage of 
Mulder's confusion to risk a slightly more thorough examination. He ran his hand 
through Mulder's hair, fingers probing the scalp for some indication of injury. 
Mulder shook his head, then butted his shoulder into Purdue's chest when the 
ASAC failed to take the hint. The motion was clumsy and painless, a feeble 
attempt at independence, but Purdue yielded with a grunt.

"I don't believe he hit his head, sir." Fowley regarded them from the door.

"Did you give him anything? Any drugs? Alcohol?"

"Food?" she minced. "No. He just... woke up. Sir, if I may suggest, Agent Mulder 
is obviously suffering from exhaustion. He should be in a hospital. This case is 
killing him. The *work* is killing him--" 

"I'm fine, dammit." Mulder's voice was brittle and raw -- his "f's" stuttering 
on their way out -- and he obviously resented the effort needed to make himself 
heard. It didn't help that he was speaking to the carpet. "Stop talkin' 'bout me 
like I'm not fuckin' here." 

"But, Fox--"

"I'm not going to a goddam hospital," Mulder hissed, unconcerned with slurring 
consonants this time. He jerked sideways to glare at Purdue, but the effort left 
him reeling, hand on his chest, dizzy even as he sat on the floor. It only 
seemed to increase his irritation, and he had no reservations about taking it 
out on his ASAC -- another good sign, Purdue decided. "I'm not going to a 
hospital," Mulder insisted. "You promised--"

Fowley shook her head. "I'll get Sauceda--" 

"The hell you will." The vehemence in Mulder's voice stopped her with her hand 
on the knob. Purdue kept a firm grip on Mulder's shoulder.

"Fox, you need --"

"Enough," Purdue barked. "I'm still the Assistant Special Agent *in Charge* 
here." 

Mulder glanced at him again, his dizziness abated. "Oh, really?" his face said, 
but he kept his mouth firmly shut. Purdue tightened his grip enough to make 
Mulder wince then released him with a little shove. He favored Fowley with 
slightly more patience. "Go home. The day I can't handle this pissant punk is 
the day I'll retire." His tone brooked no argument.

Fowley raised her brows cautiously, but excused herself without further comment. 


"Pissant. Is that what you think of me?"

Purdue slapped his knee against Mulder's back before even turning to look at 
him. It was a childish effort to release frustration, but done without thinking 
it over too closely and thus allowable. And it worked. Mulder looked like he'd 
kill if he had the energy. 

"Just what the *hell* do you think you're doing, Mulder? I don't know what went 
on here," Purdue spat, "and I don't really give a shit. But you try holding that 
promise over my head just one more time and I'll slap your butt into Electronic 
Surveillance and keep you there until you learn to kiss my ass and *like* it. 
Understood?"

Mulder didn't look like he believed it much, but kept his mouth shut just in 
case. Purdue took this as further evidence of the profiler's returning sobriety 
and stood. It required a bit more effort than he was accustomed to, but he 
couldn't afford the energy to think about that just now. He noted the two dirty 
smudges marring the white paint on the door. Each mark was about the size of a 
man's fist, set at roughly the same level, two, maybe two-and-a-half feet apart. 
There were dark scrapes across the wall next to the door as well. They looked 
like the tracks left by... someone's heels? Mulder was wearing socks--

"Did you hurt her?" Purdue demanded. "Dammit, Mulder, is she lying to me?" 

Mulder, legs sprawled, glanced up in surprise. He grew solemn almost 
immediately, however, and Purdue frowned. Purdue had expected a haughty "no" and 
a severe cussing. The fact that Mulder had to actually give the question some 
real thought did not set too well. 

Mulder chewed his bottom lip as he ran a mental replay of the evening's events. 
"No," he answered at last, a husky, almost vowel-less rasp, the barest hint of 
questioning lilt on the tail end.

Purdue sighed. He supposed he would get the truth out of Fowley eventually. 

Maybe.

"Can you walk?" This time Purdue didn't wait for Mulder to assess himself for an 
answer. He grabbed the profiler by the upper arms, tugging him up from the 
floor. Mulder struggled to assist in the process, his own limbs blearily 
protesting their involvement. Still, it took a few tries for Purdue to get him 
vertical. Mulder was more compact that he looked, heavier, solid muscle filling 
out his lithe frame, and Purdue was doing most of the grunting. Mulder did most 
of the swearing.

With both feet finally planted, Mulder pushed the ASAC aside and headed for the 
couch. He wasn't steady on his feet yet, though, and swayed like a drunkard. 
Purdue wrapped an arm around his chest, as much to tackle the man as to keep him 
upright.

"No, you don't, Mulder. You're going back to bed." Purdue wouldn't allow himself 
to be shrugged off this time, and Mulder took to swearing again.

"I'm not tired, godammit--" 

"Well, I *am.*" Purdue kept a firm grip on Mulder's arm as the young man shifted 
to free himself. "And I'm not putting up with your shit tonight, mister. You're 
going back to bed and that's an order."

Mulder twisted and blinked at him, perplexed. "You can't order me to bed like 
I'm some kid." The words were still slurred, but braced with a dignified 
defiance.

"Fine," Purdue nodded. "Then we'll just sit out here all nice and cozy, and you 
can tell me what the hell all *this* was about." He kicked one of the errant 
plastic cups across the floor. 

Mulder watched the cup spin over the carpet and lose itself beneath the sofa. He 
drew himself to his full height, a deposed monarch requesting the terms of his 
abdication. 

"So, if I go to bed, can I still watch TV?" 

Purdue grit his teeth to keep from swearing. "Just get your ass in gear."

Mulder grinned, obviously satisfied and Purdue's palm itched to slap the crap 
out of him. He didn't, but Mulder's knees buckled all the same. Purdue caught 
him as he staggered, tugged Mulder's left arm across his shoulder and wrapped 
his free arm around Mulder's back. To his surprise, Mulder allowed this 
assistance, accepting Purdue beside him like some suddenly attached limb, 
awkward but welcome. Purdue kicked another plastic cup aside and they headed for 
the bedroom. Mulder was solemn suddenly, contemplating the distance across the 
room. Purdue caught himself feeling guilty for wanting to slap him. Told himself 
to get over it.

"You wanna tell me about this dream of yours, Mulder? Is Sisyphus keeping 
herself busy somewhere? Is that why we haven't located her?" He glanced over at 
Mulder's bowed head. Mulder's jaw worked in concentration. 

"No." Another vowel-less rasp. Another uncertain disavowal. But of which 
question? 

"Look, Mulder, I know it's been tough--"

Mulder head came up and he jerked unexpectedly, stumbling to his left and 
pushing Purdue with him. It was an awkward but deliberate motion; they seemed to 
be circling something, skirting invisible furnishings. Purdue, caught off guard, 
allowed the course correction, trying to read Mulder's body language. Mulder 
looked surprised, oddly enough, turning his face away briefly as though to watch 
something pass. 

"What's wrong, Mulder? What's going on?"

"It'ssss... nothing." Mulder faced forward guiltily. "I... I'm just disoriented, 
that's all." He didn't sound entirely certain, though. He seemed drained, 
suddenly, his skin the color of spent ash. There was a fluttering in his cheek 
as well, a nervous tic Purdue hadn't noticed before. He'd get Mulder to bed, he 
decided, then, early morning flight or not, he'd have Sauceda in here to look 
the man over. 

They'd taken only three more steps before Mulder froze, tugging Purdue to a 
skittering halt beside him.

"Mulder, what in the hell--?" 

The remaining words refused to form. The hair had begun rising on Purdue's arm, 
a tickling against his shirtsleeve that refused to be ignored. The sensation 
passed from the wrist of his right hand, up his forearm, and Purdue searched the 
ceiling for an air vent, something to explain the sudden draft. There was 
nothing. One side of his sleeve was plastered to Mulder's back by sweat, 
Mulder's body heat radiating through Purdue's jacket and shirt; on the other 
side, this same arm endured the advance of an arctic storm. Frost tickled 
Purdue's bicep and shoulder, traced soft fingers across his spine and then fled 
down the other arm. 

All the while, Mulder's eyes tracked something unseen across their path, his 
vision following the direction of the chilling breeze--

Tales learned at his grandmother's knee returned to haunt Purdue. Tales of 
ghosts and malevolent spirits, of mediums cursed with visions of the dead--

*Bullshit.* 

Mulder grunted as Purdue's arm tightened around him, jerking him up straight. 

"Let's get a move on it, Mulder." 

Mulder pulled back a little, twisting to see him better. Purdue leveled a 
forbidding glare at him, daring him to argue. Instead, the ASAC's breath caught 
in his throat. Reflected in Mulder's ultra-dilated pupils, was an image: 
Purdue's face, stern and dark, and another floating beside him, just the 
briefest glimpse, a second face, there behind his shoulder. The image was 
captured in stereo as Mulder focused on him, an identical exposure perfectly 
reflected in each eye. There was no disavowing this as an aberration of light. 
It was a child, a boy no more than eight or nine, the reflection so clear Purdue 
could have picked him out in a lineup. 

Purdue felt his mouth go dry. He gripped Mulder's wrist, steadying himself as he 
turned. No one. Nothing. Perhaps the child had stepped around behind Mulder, but 
no. There was a glare across the television and it reflected the room very 
clearly: the couch, the chair, misshapen and concave at the edge of the screen, 
he and Mulder severely distorted -- but there was no other living being in the 
room.

Purdue turned back to his profiler. Mulder's brow furrowed under Purdue's 
scrutiny and he faced forward abruptly, tugging to disentangle himself. Purdue 
maintained his hold on Mulder's wrist, however. He didn't want to be left alone 
with the child standing behind him, didn't want Mulder left alone with him, 
either. That too-gray figure with its vapid eyes and painful smile... Mulder 
yielded after only a token resistance and Purdue resumed his plodding, dragging 
Mulder with him. They'd covered barely a yard before the hair started rising on 
Purdue's arm again -- the other side this time. 

It, whatever It was, was coming back. 

Like a time out of place, Purdue recalled an event some seven months old to him 
now: a nondescript Sunday morning, Purdue, the dutiful widower, home alone with 
too much time on his hands and too many memories. He'd been standing at the 
kitchen sink, washing dishes in self-defense, when he'd heard a footstep, a 
single whisper of soft shoes stepping onto the kitchen tile. The door was to his 
right, less than a yard from his shoulder, and he'd glanced back. Nothing. No 
one. But he'd felt her presence. *Knew* she was there. 

The glass he'd been washing slid back into the soapy water. He'd needed both 
hands to steady himself against the cabinet. As he turned, though, she had 
continued on, a soft whisper, come only for a brief visit, come to see how her 
home was faring under his administration. She hadn't slighted him, he understood 
that in the space of seconds; she'd been here before when he hadn't known, 
watching after him, but this visit had a different purpose and she hadn't the 
time to linger. He felt her moving, a shifting of air molecules more subtle than 
a breeze and he struggled to call out. The cat did it for him, a bright, 
contented "me-ew" as it trotted into the kitchen. His wife's silver-point tabby, 
pale blue eyes serene and staring up as it trotted, following his mistress, tail 
held high with joy, dark tip twitching. 

Olivia had continued without pausing, through the kitchen and into the den. 
Unable to trust his legs, Purdue had tracked her progress beyond the bar that 
divided the two rooms. The cat circled the den -- the Sunday Washington Post was 
scattered on the couch, but the room had been fairly well-ordered otherwise -- 
tail up, steps bouncing, staring fixedly. It mewed twice, making the trek back 
up the length of the den, still following, stopping at the entrance to the sun 
room. The French doors were closed, a defense against the October morning chill. 
They were no barrier to Olivia, though. The cat mewled his disappointment, tail 
sagging, pink-padded paw against the lowest pane of glass. He'd mewled again, 
louder, and Purdue knew that Olivia had continued on, far beyond, the wailing 
cat left to overcome his own disappointments. She'd had other promises to keep. 

Purdue waited, though, breathless, but she hadn't returned for the tabby. Nor 
for him, either. He hadn't the heart to step out into the back yard to see what 
she might have disapproved of there. He and the cat had spent the rest of the 
day on the couch, mutual partners in grief.

This was no gentle, familiar presence, however, no faithful spirit stopping by 
on its way to tend the business of eternity, Purdue was certain of it. His gut 
was knotting so tight it hurt to breathe. Grief could do strange things, he 
reminded himself. You only wanted to believe it was her that day, now you've 
been thinking about her again. Maybe--

Purdue glanced at his profiler. Mulder's eyes were focused firmly forward, a 
single bead of sweat tracking down his cheek and staggering drunkenly over the 
stubble on his jaw. Purdue's rationalization died only half-formed as he finally 
made the connection: whatever it was Purdue merely sensed, Mulder *knew.* Mulder 
could *see.* Like that silver-point tabby. Mulder could see it. 

And it was Mulder tugging them forward now, putting one foot before the other, 
at least as best he could, his arm tense across Purdue's shoulder. The returning 
chill discovered Purdue's neck and lingered, and the ASAC shivered 
involuntarily.

*They want him--* Purdue had no clue why the thought should occur to him, no 
idea what it might mean. He recognized it as truth, however. He shook his head 
to rid himself of the thought. *Stress,* he insisted, almost a prayer. *It's 
just the damned stress--* 

They progressed like snails, fleeing for their lives. Despite his logic, 
Purdue's heart pounded with a wisdom his head did not possess. He cursed his 
fear, unwilling to capitulate, and pulled Mulder forward as the profiler paused 
to glance back again. Mulder, disoriented and distracted, did his best to keep 
pace. 

Two hard-won steps, and the frost invading the base of Purdue's skull slid down 
his spine suddenly. He felt three distinct pressures midway down his back, very 
solid -- the impress of fingertips? -- then, a definite shove. He stumbled, 
biting his tongue as he struggled to remain upright, to keep Mulder from going 
down with him.

 Mulder grabbed for him, instinct overriding his trauma. The two men tumbled 
 together against the coffee cabinet, plastic cups rattling in the sink from the 
 impact. Purdue searched Mulder's face breathlessly. The chill was gone, and the 
 ASAC realized he was drenched in sweat. The floor shuddered beneath his feet 
 with the rumbling approach of thunder. Mulder stared at him, surprised, mouth 
 working without sound. He wouldn't speak the words, couldn't. Couldn't trust so 
 much-- 





He glanced away, focusing on some innocuous stain on the Formica. Purdue wiped 
blood from his mouth and swallowed. 

"Let's go, son."

Mulder didn't question the order, allowing the ASAC's arm across his back even 
though his steps were steadier now. Purdue preceded the agent through the 
bedroom door sideways. The room was bathed in twilight, the light behind them 
not strong enough here to even throw their shadows. Purdue's heart skipped as 
Mulder froze again, in mid-step, and swayed slightly. 

Purdue twisted his neck, seeking out Mulder's face. The young man refused to 
return the questioning look, blushing darkly before glancing down. Purdue 
searched the room: he saw was only the dresser and the drapes beyond, two 
hulking, rectangular voids against walls of deep gray. Purdue realized that he 
feared what *Mulder* had seen, however. He also realized that Mulder hadn't 
pulled away. Purdue had sensed the intention to do so as they'd paused, an 
ominous trembling in Mulder's arm across his shoulder. The profiler had found 
some kind of strength in the crossing, a renewed determination. It bled from him 
now. But Mulder hadn't released him. His arm remained around Purdue, almost a 
protective gesture. Purdue wasn't certain he liked the implication. 

Because if it frightened Spooky Mulder, Purdue didn't have a prayer. 

No. This was ridiculous. The very idea--

Yet, Mulder waited for his decision, licking his lips, a thirsty gesture. Purdue 
tried, but he just couldn't find it in him to turn around and head for the 
couch. Hell, he couldn't even turn on the bedroom light. That would be an 
admission of weakness, something Purdue had never allowed himself to afford.

Mulder wouldn't fault his cowardice, though. The certainty of that surprised 
Purdue, but he didn't question it. Mulder would never mention this moment, not 
even with a knowing glance many years hence. Purdue wasn't ready to accept such 
largesse, however. Not even from Spooky himself. 

*Spooky? Shit.* Purdue snarled, lip curling with distaste. *I'm getting as bad 
as everyone else in this hare-brained outfit.*

"Come on, son." He hissed the words, and Mulder relented without comment. 
Mulder's face was calm, Purdue noted, but his eyes were shut: a man resigned to 
death but unwilling to watch it slither across the room for him. Purdue swore at 
no one in particular and tugged the young man across the short distance to the 
bed. 

Mulder stumbled, stocking feet catching on carpet as he shuffled. He didn't go 
down, however, and Purdue sighed gratefully, easing the profiler over to the 
near side of the bed. He turned Mulder around, and gave him a shove when Mulder 
didn't take the hint on his own. 

Mulder dropped onto the bed, dead weight, his feet still on the floor, torso 
falling back, arms out, his head bouncing gently from the impact with the 
mattress. Then, he simply stopped moving. 

"Oh, no, you don't." Purdue snapped on the bedside lamp, macho posturing be 
damned. The shade cast its glow only half-way across the room, a charmed circle 
against evil. Purdue slapped Mulder's knee with a bit more force than necessary, 
still unaccountably overcome by a pervading sense of urgency. "In the bed, son. 
You get some sleep and we'll sort all this out in the morning." The sound of his 
own voice was a comfort, so certain and calm. It was a lie.

*Damn, but it was cold in here.* 

"Mulder? Are you listening to me?"

Mulder didn't nod. He didn't even blink. He was conscious though, just very 
still, like a man listening to something distant and indistinct. Purdue opened 
his mouth to complain, but only a puff of frozen air escaped, the words 
forgotten on his tongue. The hair was rising on his arm again, tickling his 
sleeve. It was his left arm this time, the arm farthest from the light, and he 
jerked the limb back, cradling it against his chest as he squinted into the 
darkness at the foot of the bed. 

With no change of expression, Mulder turned his face away from that same 
darkness. He didn't pull his arm away as Purdue had, though, and Purdue watched 
as the flesh prickled on Mulder's forearm, the dark hair flattened against his 
skin. Mulder's fingers turned grayish-blue, trembling. The phenomenon traveled 
up Mulder's arm and Purdue stared, fascinated, as the short hairs on Mulder's 
neck and chest rippled, a response to a strengthening breeze. 

Only there was no breeze. The air was so still, in fact, that Purdue had to gasp 
to take in oxygen. 

There was a presence here, in the ambered circle with them, an impossible entity 
come to conduct business. Purdue was as certain of the fact as he was of his own 
name. He was equally certain that this was not the force that had pushed him 
moments before. It... *felt* different. There was nothing playful here, nothing 
impish or mischievous. This was sheer malevolence, hatred given breath, a soul 
of evil come to collect a debt. 

And it had come for Mulder. An exchange was taking place on the bed, a plea, a 
demand, heard by only one. Mulder shook his head, one slight jerk, a refusal. 
The response was immediate: Mulder's hair plastered tightly against his skull, 
the skin of his neck and shoulder goose-pimpling as he endured the entity's 
silent roar. The outer edge of a gale buffeted Purdue and he blinked 
convulsively, squinting as turbulence washed over and past him. Mulder shook 
against the onslaught, but he remained resolute, his own eyes carefully closed, 
waiting it out. 

Beyond Mulder, traveling from the foot of the bed, depressions were forming, 
elongated dimples in the bedspread, pushing into the mattress itself, one, two, 
appearing, disappearing as a third took its place a good half foot away. About 
like a man's knees and shins might make crawling across the bed--

No. Way. In. Hell.

*Stop!* Purdue screamed the word, but only in his mind. Watching Mulder shudder, 
he was beyond speech, beyond the confines and protocols of reason. He jerked 
with the effort to vocalize his resistance and lunged for Mulder, folding down 
over him, employing his body as a shield to block the assault. He hoped it was 
enough.

Mulder flinched beneath his weight, but didn't move otherwise. Purdue felt the 
young man's gasp, a sudden rise of Mulder's chest against his ear, his skin 
scorching Purdue's cheek despite the sub-zero temperature of the air that 
surrounded him. Purdue paid no heed, focused on the encroaching darkness at the 
end of the bed, Mulder's frozen fingers gripping the bedspread, fisting it up, 
searching for a lifeline, something solid and real in this hellish wonderland.

A final blast that left Purdue blinking -- and it was over. The presence exited 
so abruptly that Purdue could have sworn he'd heard a "pop" in the air, the 
explosion of atoms colliding as the air pressure sought to equalize. The bed 
shook -- no, the room shook, the lamplight wavering slightly as a deep, moaning 
roll of thunder gripped the building. Then stillness. Silence. 

Purdue jerked as a hand slapped him in the back of the head.

"So, get the hell off already."

Mulder's voice was ragged and haggard, heavy on bravado and short on conviction. 
Purdue rolled off him and sat up, wiping sweat off his face. Mulder rolled in 
the opposite direction but had a bit more difficulty getting himself into a 
sitting position. Purdue didn't offer assistance, taking time to get caught up 
on his own breathing, and re-evaluating the world as he knew it. 

Mulder slid off the bed using his hands against the mattress to help him stand. 
The lamplight washing over him was not kind. There were stark shadows developing 
beneath his ribs and he was shivering, tiny periodic tremors that shuddered 
through muscle and then fled. At least the goose bumps were disappearing. Mulder 
put his hands on his hips and moved his shoulders, shrugging back into his skin. 
He lolled his head forward, back, working too-taut tendons, trying to convince 
himself he was still in possession of his own body. 

Purdue chanced a deeper glimpse around the room: shadows which were *only* 
shadows were all that greeted him now. He glanced back at Mulder, who was still 
working his shoulders. Mulder lifted his chin, eyes closed in concentration. As 
his head tilted back, Purdue stood, staring. There were streaks across his 
windpipe, the skin mottled deep red, irregular stripes across flesh blue with 
evening stubble. Purdue, familiar with violent death and strangulation, 
recognized the pattern. It was the imprint of fingers. 

"It's Fredricksberg. Isn't it?" Purdue whispered the words before they'd even 
had the chance to form clearly in his mind. This was beyond reason. The more 
rational areas of Purdue's brain cautioned him to hold his tongue, tried to 
place the malignant entity within his developing theory. But it *was* 
Fredricksberg. The certainty came from a place beyond knowing, and he had too 
little pride left to argue with the insanity of the situation. "Patterson was 
right. That's what all this has been about. All those kids..." Mulder watched 
him warily. "Deny it, damn you! I dare you to deny it."

Mulder didn't deny anything. He paled suddenly, eyes widening, jaw clamped. His 
hand rising to his chest as he turned and fled back the way they came. Purdue 
swore and grabbed Mulder's upper arm. His grip tightened when Mulder tried 
shrugging him away. 

"You're not running, dammit. You're going to stand here for once in your life 
and give me an answer--"

Mulder, his throat working, doubled the fist of his restrained arm and 
back-handed Purdue in the face. Purdue released him, grabbing for the stars 
blinding his right eye. He felt his cheek swell beneath his hand, an answering 
echo in his sinuses that threatened to set his nose to bleeding. His left eye 
was still functioning, however, and he made another grab for Mulder, but missed, 
his fingers leaving dark, angry whelps along Mulder's upper arm as the young man 
fled.

Mulder didn't get very far. He was doubled over by the time he reached the door, 
wracked with pain. Purdue stumbled after, his vision returning in tentative 
flashes. He skittered to a halt, almost tripping over Mulder as the profiler 
collapsed against the door frame. Mulder slid to the floor with a moan, his head 
falling back, jaw clenched as he choked back bile. One side of his body was lit 
by the amber lamp of the bedroom, the skin rendered deceitfully warm. The 
bright-white glare of the bulb in the sitting room blasted across other side of 
his body and Mulder glowed ghost-white, ashen as a corpse. The mysterious whelps 
on his throat were even more prominent now. Almost as prominent as the blood 
trickling from his nose. Purdue knelt, bruised cheekbone forgotten. Mulder was 
holding a hand across his abdomen, the gesture of any nauseated man. Except that 
beads of blood were pooling from it, trickling, thread-thin, down into the 
waistband of his jeans--

"Jeezus Christ--" 

Purdue jerked at Mulder's hands. Mulder resisted, but Purdue slapped his arm 
back, fingers still stinging as he ran them over Mulder's stomach. His free hand 
felt along Mulder's neck for the artery, seeking any hint of arrhythmia in his 
pulse. He could find no irregularities, and Mulder's abdomen presented no 
injury, no break in the skin. The blood was fresh, though, and there were no 
smears to indicate that he'd obtained it from the nosebleed. Mulder, meanwhile, 
held his bloody hand before his face, staring at it like he'd never seen it 
before. 

Purdue searched his back pocket for a handkerchief. He didn't bother to unfold 
it, patting down Mulder's abdomen, seeking the source of his injury. The blood 
wiped up obediently, but there truly *was* no wound. The ASAC gasped as the 
blood frothed again: bubbles the size of pin heads, foaming from Mulder's pores, 
glistening in the two-tone light--

"God Almighty damn," he rasped, "God help--"

Purdue scrambled for his feet, ignoring the pain that now defined the right side 
of his face. Mulder grabbed for his wrist as he stood. The grip was desperate 
but his fingers were slicked with someone's death; Purdue tugged free easily and 
lurched for the bed. He tossed the bedspread aside and jerked up the blanket. 
The far corner was tucked too tightly and it took extra effort to loosen it. He 
tugged harder. Purdue had been trained to act, not to react, and procedure 
steadied him now. He needed to get Mulder warm before shock set in. Mulder's 
pulse had been strong, but his skin was clammy and too damned pale. He was 
breathing shallowly and far too rapidly-- 

*Maybe he's just scared, Reg. Scared? Hell, *I'm* scared--*

Purdue jerked the blanket free with one final, exasperated tug. A gleam of 
burnished metal caught the lamplight as he did so. He froze, blinking, not 
trusting his injured eye. A snub-nosed .38 slid from under the pillow and 
tumbled to the middle of the bed, harsh black against the thick, creamy expanse 
of the blanket. Bad eye or no bad eye, Purdue recognized it instantly. 

"Son of a BITCH--" 

He snatched up the weapon and spun, kicking past the bedspread. Mulder couldn't 
fail to note the fury in the man lumbering for him and tried to slide backwards 
into the sitting room, stocking feet propelling him across the carpet. He didn't 
get far. Purdue caught him before he could get past the coffee cabinet, grabbing 
his ankle and jerking it hard enough to make Mulder yelp. 

"Tell me you stole it from him, Mulder," Purdue insisted, shaking the weapon at 
him. "Tell me you stole it, or I'll shoot him myself, Godismywitness--"

Mulder didn't bother feigning ignorance. He didn't bother explaining, either, 
beyond a reluctant shake of his head that could have meant anything. He rested 
on his elbows, waiting to see which way the wind would blow next. His eyes were 
very quiet, watching Purdue. 

Purdue glanced down at the weapon in his hand and froze. He'd had his finger on 
the trigger. What the hell was wrong with him? He'd had his finger on the goddam 
trigger-- 

Purdue snapped the cylinder open and shook the bullets out onto his palm. 

*What the hell was Lenny thinking? What could have possessed him to pull 
something this stupid?* Purdue pocketed the bullets and shoved the revolver into 
the waistband of his slacks, snug against his back. 

"How often have you done this, Mulder?" His own voice was unsteady. "How many 
years have you bled like this?" 

"Just--" Mulder looked Purdue in the eye, an effort to prove his sincerity. He 
wasn't quite up to the strain, however, and his focus slid away to a spot just 
over the ASAC's left shoulder. He didn't seem to be tracking anyone this time, 
though. "Just the once," he whispered, vocal chords grinding. "In my apartment." 


Purdue pursed his lips. "The one Sauceda reported?"

Mulder nodded, glancing at Purdue's face briefly, gauging effect, then away 
again. 

It was everything Purdue could do to keep from kicking him. "You bastard. You 
expect me to believe that?"

Mulder fought a wave of shivering and let his head loll back, lifting it again 
with a grunt of pain. He recoiled when Purdue grabbed for him, sliding him 
around to prop his back against the coffee cabinet. Purdue was far from gentle 
about it, but Mulder blinked his thanks once it dawned on him that he wasn't 
being attacked outright. 

"Just the once, huh?" Purdue didn't believe it, but he'd play along for now. 
"Just when you dreamed about Kay, right?" Mulder didn't answer. He was still 
shivering, and hugged himself from the chill, head down so Purdue couldn't see 
his eyes. It wasn't like Mulder to incite pity to get himself out of mischief, 
and Purdue returned for the blanket he'd left on the bedroom floor. "Are you 
still dreaming about her, Mulder?" His voice bounced as he trotted the short 
distance. "Is that why you're bleeding again?"

Mulder shook his head, coughing, and pulled his knees up protectively. The 
bleeding, never much to begin with, had stopped. He flinched as Purdue dropped 
the blanket over him. It was an involuntary reflex, but it hurt Purdue to see it 
nonetheless. Purdue bit his lip to keep from swearing at the profiler, draping 
the thick fabric around Mulder's shoulders, tucking it in against the cabinet. 

"Look, I'm going to get Sauceda. Can I trust you on your own for about a minute 
and a half?"

"Probably not." Mulder grimaced, and seemed to have difficulty swallowing. He 
snaked one hand from under the blanket to probe his windpipe, wincing at the 
damage he found there. He glanced furtively at Purdue.

"Yeah, I noticed it." Purdue settled back on his haunches with mock aplomb. "Cut 
yourself shaving, huh?" He tugged his cell phone from his jacket pocket and 
started dialing with his thumb. There were no land phones in this suite. Purdue 
had had them removed before Mulder had arrived. The wall cords too. He'd seen 
too many suicides accomplished with electrical cords and had only left the lamps 
intact because they needed some type of light and the cords were unusually 
short.

Mulder frowned, watching him dial, and pulled the blanket up to his chin. "I'll 
be okay." The lie came too easily. "I just need to take a shower--"

"Don't start that crap, Mulder."

Mulder grunted and struggled restlessly, dropping his legs flat to the floor, 
then drawing his knees up again, blanket bobbing as he worked out his 
frustration. "I've just got to get this... *stuff* off me," he moaned. "Please. 
I'm not lying."

"No, not much you're not." *Christ, now it's "please" and everything.* Purdue's 
eyes narrowed. "You're going manic again, aren't you?"

Mulder, scandalized, dropped his legs flat and left them there this time. "No, 
I'm not *manic.*" He spat the word indignantly. "Does this look like a state of 
euphoria to you?" Purdue held up a hand of truce, but Mulder wasn't through with 
his diagnostic analysis. "My attention span is still relatively healthy, I have 
no special plans for world domination and I certainly feel no compulsion to 
*chat* excessively. And I'm only irritable because you insist on pissing me 
off."

"Jeezus, Mulder, it's not an insult, it's just a question."

"Well, it's a *pissant* question. And the answer is *no.* Fuck you." 

Purdue raised a brow but didn't argue. With Mulder calm, he finally finished 
dialing Sauceda's number. Another wave of shivering struck the profiler and 
Purdue chanced a second question.

"When was the first time you did this?" he demanded softly, cell at his ear. 
"This dream stuff. When did they start? Can you remember?"

Mulder glanced away, holding himself tightly, but the shivering was short-lived 
this time. Mulder shrugged when it released him, the gesture meaning nothing, 
just something to fill the space as he gathered enough control to speak.

"First time," he frowned, concentrating. "First time was Shreveport. I think."

"You think?" 

"Pretty sure." Mulder's brow furrowed. "I don't remember anything like it before 
then."

"You lying sack of--" Purdue could hear the ringing in the phone in his hand, 
the muffled echo of Sauceda's phone through the wall behind him. "You were doing 
this crap in the Academy when Patterson was slipping you cases against orders. 
You had to have been. I saw the files. There's no way you came up with those 
answers from the kind of evidence you were given. Hell, it's all VCU talked 
about for months. Spooky Mulder solved the Freeway Killings. Spooky Mulder 
glanced at a few photos and found a senator's niece--"

"All I found was a corpse--"

"In a field fifteen miles from nowhere with nothing but a class photo and a 
damned tire track. Don't tell me Shreveport was your first case like this."

"It *was!* Goddammit. What do you want from me? Christ!" Mulder jerked at the 
blanket, burrowing deeper. "I don't remember afterward." The confession was 
reluctant and seemed to surprise him. He didn't look up. "I just started 
noticing it after the Barnett case. The one *you* brought me in on." It sounded 
like an accusation, too harsh even for Mulder's anger, and he added, "After I 
got out of the hospital, anyway." He fell silent, chewing his lip. 

Purdue remembered the shooting. Last September VICAP had been working a rash of 
armored car heists. It was Purdue's first major case as ASAC and it had dragged 
for months with few leads. Patterson, happy to rub Purdue's nose in his 
misfortunes, had sent Mulder to profile the UNSUB for them. Mulder had pissed 
Purdue off just looking at him walk through the door, all fresh-faced and 
self-assured. Mulder had already built a formidable reputation as BSU's premiere 
profiler, though, and there was no arguing with his stats. By every indication, 
Mulder was a natural inductive. He wrote profiles using the principles of 
subatomic chaos, the physics of a world governed by the random collision of 
quarks and anti-electrons, where time could stop on a whim and double back over 
itself. That was Patterson's theory, anyway. Purdue knew only that Mulder could 
make the most impossible connections and develop a plan of attack while everyone 
else sat on their thumbs and bitched about not being able to track the logic. 
With no other options in the offing, Purdue had taken a chance and made the 
quantum leap with Mulder. His profile had been dead on target, and Mulder had 
even helped to set the trap for John Barnett, had fired the bullet that brought 
the man to his knees. 

They'd been loading Barnett into the back of the ambulance, a U.S. marshal at 
one corner of the gurney, when Barnett, in spite of two gunshot wounds, one in 
the shoulder and one in the hand, had grabbed the marshal's gun. There had been 
a wild struggle and Mulder had run to join in the fray. Barnett had aimed 
wildly, but there was no doubting his target. The bullet hit Mulder, throwing 
him backward off the bumper of the ambulance. The wound itself was nothing, a 
glancing shot to the left bicep, but Purdue could recall the first time *he'd* 
been shot: the sickening pressure of the bullet penetrating flesh, the 
disorientation as you spun and fell, body still too shocked to feel much, the 
nerves too busy jerking to register the pain. 

Then the realization of how close death had come. For some, it was 
psychologically devastating. But Mulder had held up well, even laughed when Reg, 
panicked, had dropped to his side to stanch the blood flow. 

Mulder wasn't laughing now, though, and all he was doing was recalling dreams. 

"You went back to BSU after the Barnett case. Covered the Baytown murders. Then 
straight on to Shreveport." Purdue's eyes narrowed, considering, the phone 
forgotten at his ear. "You were having these kinds of problems there, too? And 
no one reported it? Sons of bitches--" 

Mulder wasn't listening, coughing softly, unconcerned with this run-down of 
closed cases. 

"Sauceda knew, didn't he?" Purdue wanted to hear someone admit it. If not 
Mulder, then he'd shake it out of Sauceda himself. "How'd you convince him to 
keep his mouth shut? I swear to God I'll have his pension--"

Mulder shrugged away from Purdue's vehemence. "It's not like that. He didn't-- 
I-- I don't ever remember it being this bad." He scrubbed at his face, trying to 
untangle the filaments of memory, how things were, how things should have been. 
"It's like it all happened to someone else," he lisped. "Like looking at a film. 
Only I'm holding the camera..."

"You don't remember the cases?"

"I remember the damned cases," Mulder snarled -- what was it about genuine human 
concern that made him so nervous? But the extra effort to speak left Mulder 
wincing, his throat raw. "I just don't remember the dreams," he whispered 
hoarsely. "*If* I dreamed. Or what I knew when. What came first." He drew his 
knees up again and leaned his forehead against them, his admission mournful and 
tired, muffled by the blanket. "It's not so bad when I'm profiling from a desk. 
Or when there's not so many bodies." He shrugged again without glancing up. 
"Ollie North disease. 'Senator, I do not recall'." 

Purdue watched Mulder grit his teeth as another bout of shivering demanded his 
attention. The unanswered buzzing of the phone had finally grated through to 
Purdue's last nerve and he hit the power button, huffing as he stood. 

"All right, Mulder, here's the deal: I'm going next door just long enough to 
slap Sauceda out of bed. If I come back and find you in the shower, I'm crawling 
in it with you and hauling your butt out. And I'm not a very happy camper when 
I'm cold and wet. Understood?"

Mulder, head still down, nodded. Purdue frowned. He didn't trust this 
newly-compliant version of Fox Mulder, no matter how sick he appeared. He 
wouldn't call down for Sandidge to fetch Sauceda, however. Purdue had a few 
choice words to say to the pathologist, and he'd be damned if it would wait. He 
left Mulder huddled on the floor, tucked tight beneath his blanket. 

Sandidge glanced up as Purdue stepped to the railing outside the door. The lanky 
Midwesterner had been with Purdue since Purdue had made ASAC, and had served 
with him in the ranks for several years before that. A brief signal was all that 
was necessary between them now. Sandidge nodded and assumed a watchful stance 
midway between the elevator and the short hall to the service stairs. If Mulder 
made a dash for it and managed to get past Purdue just one door away, then 
Sandidge -- and his less obvious backup -- would be waiting to run interception. 


Purdue stopped at Sauceda's door, tapping softly. The hotel had been gracious 
enough about their more intrusive arrangements, but Purdue didn't see the point 
of waking fellow patrons just to get Sauceda to the door. He tapped just a 
little harder and waited another minute before fumbling for the key. 

*Dammit, Lenny, you could sleep through a freaking hurricane--* 

The thought brought back more ghosts. Purdue squelched the unbidden image of 
Kay, rain-soaked, her pale fist pounding at Sauceda's door in the dead of night. 
The key in Purdue's hand shook, scraping at the lock before he managed to jam it 
into the hole. He swore under his breath. He was doing an awful lot of swearing 
lately. Ever since he'd acquired Mulder, in fact.

The sitting room was dim, lit only by the amber glow of a lamp from the open 
bedroom door. The lamp light surprised him. Maybe he'd finally managed to wake 
the man... It was cold as hell in here, too. Someone must have been seriously 
messing with the thermostat. The hairs on the back of Purdue's neck were 
prickling. It was not the violent invasion he'd confronted in Mulder's room, 
however. This was the more familiar prickling of instinct, the awakening 
certainty that something here was very wrong.

"Len? You up?" Purdue pocketed his key as he crossed the floor, freeing his gun 
hand without thinking why, a habit honed to instinct by years of criminal 
investigation. He didn't reach for the weapon, however. Quick eyes scanned the 
sitting room, alert, finding nothing to justify the alarms ringing in his head. 
The room had the air of a converted tactical command post: crumpled and 
abandoned, awaiting yet further assault. Take-out boxes were stacked on the 
cabinet next to the coffee machine, the carafe still half-full although the 
machine's indicator light was off. The atmosphere was thick with cigarettes, 
pepperoni, and testosterone. The upholstery here didn't have a prayer.

"All right, Lenny! Get your pants on, Mister, you've got a patient." 

The empty .38 rubbed against Purdue's back as he walked. He'd deal with that 
later. Mulder may or may not be heading for shock right now, and he'd let the 
young man put off a good medical exam long enough. 

There was no answer from the bedroom, and Purdue tapped the door jamb before 
sticking his head in.

"Lenny?"

The room seemed in perfect order: a suitcase next to the chair, 'TV Guide' on 
the bed stand. The bed covers were pulled down, a tangled lump at the foot of 
the mattress. The light was dim, too golden to display colors properly or to 
distinguish shadows. Purdue needed no further illumination, however. There were 
splotches on the sheets, the carpet. They sparkled, coppery black in the lamp 
glow. The stench of blood was almost enough to knock him down. 

From the bed, Sauceda regarded him calmly, the barest hint of a smile upon his 
lips. He'd been gutted from sternum to groin, organs lying neatly on the bed 
beside him, slick and dark like great swollen bruises.

Purdue stumbled backward into the bathroom. And for the first time in his life, 
he vomited at a crime scene.

XXXXXXX

Sandidge needed no orders as Sauceda's door jerked open and Purdue burst out. 
The ASAC grabbed the rail to keep himself from flying over it, noting instantly 
that Sandidge was on the move, overriding the elevator control, radio at his ear 
as he barked for backup. Purdue scrambled for Mulder's room, aware he was 
mumbling to himself, unable to decipher his own convulsive language, aware of 
the acid aftertaste burning the back of his throat. His hand was shaking too 
hard to operate his key efficiently, and the elevator pinged as he finally got 
the room unlocked.

"Mulder!" Purdue slammed the door open, shouting the name. The profiler, huddled 
against the cabinet, should have been clearly visible from the door. 

Should have been. Wasn't. The blanket was simply a lump of fabric tossed on the 
floor. Purdue registered Sandidge behind him as he raced for the bedroom. A 
single dresser drawer was open, clothing spilling out of it. 

Behind the closed bathroom door, the shower was running. Purdue swore. How had 
he possibly failed to notice? He spun, Sandidge dancing backward to avoid a 
collision. 

"Frost and Lamott are on their way up, Reg. I'm still trying to get through to 
Fendley and Heller in the garage."

Purdue nodded, brain assimilating the information without consciously 
interpreting it. 

"Mulder!" he bellowed the word, pounding his fist against the bathroom door. 
"Muld--" 

The door, lockless, snapped open under the force of the blow and slammed open. 
The shower curtain was closed. 

Purdue lurched into the room, heart in his throat. He knew what he would find, 
something about the way the water ran, something about the screws rolling on the 
floor. He jerked the curtain back, plastic rings snapping loose and flying 
against the tile. He stood there with the curtain in his hand, heedless of the 
water splattering the arm of his jacket.

Sandidge followed his gaze. High on the wall was an air vent, grateless, a 
gaping, empty exit from a world gone truly mad. Sandidge hissed into his radio, 
"Dammit, someone pull the plans for the ventilation system! Heller, you son of a 
bitch, give me a status report--"

Purdue shook his head. "When we find Mulder," he whispered, "I get the first 
shot."

XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX 

Part 25 of 27: Your Actual Mileage May Vary

"It is a man, it was one all along. No it isn't. It is a man with the conscience 
of a woman, always coming out of something, turning to look at you, wondering 
about a possible reward. How sweet to my sorrow is this man's knowledge in his 
way of coming, the brotherhood that will surely result under now darkened skies. 
The pressing, pressing urgent whispers, pushing on, seeing directly--" -- John 
Ashbery, "Haibun 4." *A Wave.* Penguin Books. New York. 1985.

  



Friday, May 20, 1988. 12:02 am. Embassy Suites Hotel. Ventilation system. 

She was claustrophobic. Hell of a time to realize this fact, she decided. 
Crawling on your hands and knees in a too-tight shaft in the belly of a -- what? 
-- ten story building--?

That thought, and the image it invoked -- the tons of masonry and steel towering 
above, a massive, mysterious architecture just beyond the thin sheaf of metal 
shaft -- only escalated the pounding in her chest and temples. Her vision 
swirled with the onslaught, and she believed, sincerely believed for the space 
of one heart-crushing moment, that she had felt the building sway. Tectonic 
plates, stationary for eons, were shifting. The earth, that violent, 
blood-thirsty goddess, was opening its jaws to swallow her whole, prepared to 
devour half a city just to have *her.* Her sister-in-blood. 

Sisyphus froze where she knelt, body convulsing, heart pounding fist-like 
against her ribcage, and waited for the squeal of metal, the flesh-destroying 
impact of concrete as they -- she and the Embassy Suites -- dropped into the 
heart of the earth. She huddled, panting, eagerly anticipating. There was a 
rumble. An echo. She wasn't imagining this--

The rumbling deepened, shuddered, sighed and then rolled on, high above, 
distant.

Thunder? Was it only thunder? Surely not--

She waited with the infinite patience of those resolved to the certainty of 
death: palms flat against the floor of the shaft, forehead pressed down between 
them. Her knees were beneath her now, her butt in the air, a pilgrim rendering 
homage to Mecca without benefit of compass.

Another deep-throated rumbling, more distant this time, faint. 

Thunder. 

She lifted her head and blew air out her cheeks. She might have felt ridiculous 
if her lungs were working properly; instead, she just felt nauseated. The shaft 
was narrow and she wasn't a tiny woman, nor was she accustomed to crawling about 
on all fours like some dissipated cat. The fabric of her black slacks provided 
far too little cushioning for her knees, her back hurt, her shoulders ached, her 
head throbbed--

Well, it was just her luck to have found the *exhaust* shaft, she supposed. The 
air here was plentiful and constantly regenerated, but it was hot, and too humid 
to breathe easily. Could one suffocate in an air shaft? She hadn't a clue, but 
decided that if anyone could pull it off, it would probably be her. 

The warning signs had come early; she couldn't fault her body for lying to her. 
There had been that fluttering in her chest from the get-go, when she'd first 
shoved herself into the vent. She'd been too excited to listen, too proud when 
she'd proven fit enough to leverage herself up the short vertical section of the 
shaft and into the infinite horizontal plane on which she now traveled.

That initial elation had carried her a surprising distance. The lighting in the 
shaft was dim, an oh-so-faint glow from the parking garage that glimmered and 
reflected its way down the recess before her. She'd taken this bit of 
illumination for granted, had assumed, contrary to all logic, that it would 
remain with her, or that the shaft had come equipped with some kind of lighting 
system -- a necessary detail for maintenance, surely.

The second corner had proven her folly. She'd entered darkness, a blackness so 
complete, it might have been a living entity. It certainly had mass, a density 
that suggested physical presence, and it enveloped her in impenetrable arms. It 
had hands, too, impossibly heavy. They stroked insistently: her hair, her face, 
her breasts. She'd tucked her thighs together tightly without thinking why, 
waited, gasping, the lazy fluttering in her chest bursting into spasmodic 
tremors, sharp throbs of panic that gripped her lungs and intestines. 

No. No, she couldn't stop. He was waiting--

The black beast heaved, a seething blast that tore the breath from her throat. 
Sympathetic stars flared before her eyes, phantom light registered by a brain 
frantic for visual stimulus. 

Was she even conscious? In the darkness, she couldn't honestly say. Wondered if 
it mattered. She continued moving -- into dreams, visions or reality -- 
determination carrying her forward, against all reason, into the tunnel of 
night. 

Because he waited.

Her progress was slow, made slower still by the fact that her hands were 
clenched like claws, nails scraping against the metal. 

He waited.

A screw, misfed or loosened from its hole, impaled her hand as she sought her 
way. She yelped, more in surprise than pain, sucked at the blood running slick 
against her palm, grateful for something real, some reassurance of life. 

He waited for her. 

She couldn't disappoint. 

Somewhere above her, metal creaked, a quiet threat that might have been a laugh. 
She took a deep steadying breath. He'd be worth it, she reminded herself. 

She'd make certain of it.

 



XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Excerpt: Criminal Investigative Analysis, UNSUB: Multiple Homicide. Wheeling, 
WV. May, 1988. Analyst: F. Mulder, VCU.

"...Despite compulsive anti-social behavior, the subject is not insane by 
accepted legal and psychiatric standards. She understands the rules of society 
and is aware of the potential consequences of her actions. The consequences 
simply do not concern her. Her behavior is a result of choice, freely exercised. 
She is rational, always aware of what she is doing and why. Her kills are 
casually executed, the aggression cold, lacking any form of intense emotional 
arousal. She is a psychopath: highly adaptive, socially functional, behaviorally 
upright, morally insane.

Uncharacteristic of most psychopaths, however, the subject is rarely glib or 
grandiose. She will flatly deny being deceitful, appalled at the suggestion. In 
her non-homicidal roles, she is rarely manipulative and displays a level of 
responsibility bordering on compulsion. She prides herself on being a "good 
girl." Neighbors will describe her as gracious, if not socially gregarious, a 
model citizen. She has no criminal record.

Subject's PRIMARY CHARACTERISTIC is a profound lack of empathy. She is 
indifferent to all that makes life joyful or interesting. Love, horror, humor 
are beyond her experience and have no ability to move her, and she cannot 
comprehend that others are moved by them. If she has ever known joy, love or 
compassion, she cannot recall them as sensations, and knows only that 
"something" is missing, without comprehending the intensity of the loss or lack. 
An above-average intelligence has allowed her to compensate socially, and she 
has learned the appropriate emotional responses required by others. These 
reactions are strictly paint-by-number, however. Her emotional life is 
non-existent, and she has no experiential knowledge of human feeling. Locked in 
this emotional void, she lacks even the capacity to feel sorrow for herself...." 


 



XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Fingers, slick with grit, reached down into nothing. She grunted, snatching 
blindly at the place where metal should have met her hand and didn't. The 
broiling air rushed faster here, slapping her hair into her face and blasting 
down over her fumbling hand. The current tumbled from high reaches, an invisible 
Niagara, eager to be gone, hungry for the heart of the earth. Disoriented as she 
was, it took an additional minute for her to register the significance.

A vertical shaft. 

Her stomach knotted. The moment of truth had finally arrived. Her breath caught 
in her throat. There has to be a service ladder, she reminded herself. The one 
she'd been anticipating since she'd entered the shaft. There had to be a service 
ladder to the next level, right? So that people could fix things. Ever so often, 
surely someone had to fix something-- 

*But there are no lights,* her eyes accused, throbbing in their sockets. Yes, 
the air was occasionally sprinkled with stars, but these were only the private 
inventions of her stubborn brain. The truth was simple: there were no lights. 
There were no lights because no one ever came here. Because there was nothing 
here to fix, just a tunnel full of air. 

She could die here, she realized without wonderment. She could fall clear to the 
subbasement and die and no one would ever know. They probably wouldn't even 
notice enough to complain about the smell while she rotted--

Sisyphus laid down and reached into the rioting wind, extending her body as far 
as she dared, one hand steadfast against the wall beside her, the other hand 
groping into darkness. 

Nothing. She reached further, blind eyes squeezed tight against the pounding of 
the gale. Her hair lashed her cheeks, sharp as slivered glass. She ignored the 
sensation, black leather pumps sliding in her struggle to reach farther into the 
emptiness that blocked her way. Just a few more inches, surely, just a little 
more-- 

Her fingertips brushed metal, hot, dry, and far too distant. A flat wall. She 
tapped it out, fingertips tracing, scraping, coaxing secrets from the dark. The 
wall of metal yielded nothing. 

Rage overwhelmed her and she flailed her arm at the wind like a wild thing, up, 
down, left, right, body balanced precariously. Air and smooth metal wall just 
beyond the full reach of her arm. More of the same to her left. She slapped her 
palm to the right and the shaft resonated with the impact and with her yelp. 
Hand still stinging, she rubbed it across the metal in the darkness. 

No hint of hardware. No rungs. No recesses. Nothing. 

No. This wasn't possible. She had *plans.* She hadn't been consulted--

Sisyphus resettled herself, panting, wordlessly cursing the darkness, too 
incensed to speak. No one, nothing, said "no" to her. She simply wouldn't have 
it. How dare--

She was moving again, struggling to hold her position in the shaft, wind-chafed 
hand searching the stretch of wall that dropped down below her. More seamless 
metal. She swung the arm like a pendulum. Left. Right. Left, growling-- 

Wait. Something brushed her fingertips, the barest change of air current that 
set her hand to tingling. She strained, wriggling her upper body forward. Just a 
few more inches-- and she flattened her palm against metal. The vertical shaft 
had a floor, then. Well, of course it did. She was just below the first floor 
and her tunnel was the exit. The sub-basement would have its own ventilation 
system. Some building code nonsense, probably.

Sisyphus folded herself carefully, trembling, not daring to hope. Discovering a 
floor in the darkness might be significant, but that was for later, when she'd 
be needing to locate her exit. Right now, *down* was not a direction she was 
particularly interested in. She slid into the shaft, careful as the metal 
creaked beneath her feet. Unhindered now, she explored the walls, confirming her 
earlier appraisal: no ladder, no access to the heights above. 

The darkness left her dizzy and the sudden space beneath her hand -- the 
entrance to her own tunnel -- was a welcome friend. She climbed back inside, 
then slapped one hand against the ceiling of the tunnel, left it there, sliding 
it slowly as she pushed herself back out into the vertical shaft. Her legs 
collected beneath her, muscles tightly bunched, bracing the weight of her body. 
She reached up, straining, a cursory exploration before collapsing back into her 
little crawl space. The results were no surprise. More metal walls, ascending. 
No hint of purchase, no indication of an entrance for the next level. Michael 
Jordan might have found it, she surmised. Cecile Fuche would not.

She was enraged. She could tell because her heart was pounding in time with her 
head, her blood pressure thundering in her ears. She was gritting her teeth, 
too, and her left hand was clenched so tightly the nails bit into her palm. All 
this physical turmoil, however, was quite distant and distinct from the silence 
within. Her mind calculated quietly. With her back against one wall and her feet 
braced against the wall opposite, she might be able to propel herself upward, a 
delicate counter-balance of push and shove and traction. She'd seen it in a film 
once. Some fabrication about the life of Harry Houdini. She could do it. But not 
in these shoes. Not in her flabby physical condition. Not at her height. She 
wouldn't be going up this shaft. Not in this lifetime.

She sat still for a moment, stunned by impossibilities. She hadn't cried since 
the early years of her marriage, when tears could still manipulate and incite 
guilty obligations. Tears were not possible for her now, even if there had been 
someone here to see and grant her desires. The air, boiling in at her, had dried 
her tear ducts. She could no longer tell when her eyes were opened or closed. 
What did it matter to one gone blind?

She laid down on her belly, and slid backward a few feet into her shaft to 
nowhere. She reached out one hand, fingertips intruding into the vertical column 
to be assaulted by the wind. The pounding in her chest steadied and she 
contemplated the whispering of the torrent and the gentle hum of 
air-conditioning. She didn't think, didn't need to. Deep inside, things -- 
impulses, unbidden decisions -- were shifting quietly. She waited for further 
clarity, squeezing her fist harder, harder, meanwhile, enjoying the sensation. 

The noise had gone undetected for some time before she noticed: a change in the 
background melee which, although distant, traveled down the network of metal 
tunnels as though through a badly connected amplifier.

*Thump-screech-pause, thumpthump.* Repeat.

She tilted her head, considering. The sound lacked any real rhythm, but it was 
rapid. And nearing, as best she could tell, coming down the shaft from some 
distance above. The squeaking bothered her most, however. It was vaguely 
familiar... Fingernails on a chalk board? But she'd never actually heard anyone 
run their fingernails across a chalk board. She was reminded of televised 
basketball games, though: Nikes sliding roughly across a polished court. 

Tennis shoes. On metal. 

Her hands flattened and she concentrated on her breathing. The rolling in her 
soul had stilled, awaiting further development. There was a distinct warmth 
growing low in her hips.

Above: a long screech, the protest of rubber against metal. A hastily muffled 
yelp -- human. Masculine. A heavy thud. A long quiet. 

Then the *thump-screech-pause* resumed. A bit more cautiously this time.

She smiled, content, the warmth spreading up her belly and down both thighs. She 
ignored the sensation, and gathered herself for retreat with honor. Still on her 
stomach, feet slightly elevated, she shoved backward with both hands, the effort 
sending her sliding several yards back down the way she'd came. And silently, 
too. The distance traveled surprised her, and her smile broadened. She should 
have thought of this earlier. She'd be back to the garage in no time-- 

"Mmmmmlllldrrrr!"

It was little more than a hiss reverberating down the maze of shafts above, 
consonants ricocheting on metal, vowels -- if there had been any vowels -- too 
mangled to have mattered much. 

Sisyphus held her breath. The *thump-screech* had paused, too, listening as 
intently as she was. 

"Mlldrr!" The profanity that followed after was surprisingly distinct, even 
filtered by distance. The squealing thump resumed, however, making its 
precarious descent down the shaft. 

*Thump-thump-ping-thump.*

She wriggled, insuring her own comfort, and pushed again. Harder. Oh, yes, 
indeed. This would do quite nicely. 

*Thump-screech-thumpa-thump--*

Good things do come to those who wait.

 



XXXXXXX

She slipped free of the shaft and staggered back, breathless. After the 
prolonged darkness, even the dim light of the garage was blinding, white-hot 
lancets piercing her optic nerve. 

She reveled in it. Giggled.

She tripped but kept her footing with difficulty. Mutt, damn him, had caught 
against her heel. She steadied herself, eyes gradually re-adjusting, and gave 
his lifeless body a kick for his insolence. He scarcely registered her anger, as 
immune to it, at last, as she was. 

Her eyes widened, Mutt forgotten almost immediately. There were two guns on the 
concrete beside him. A high caliber pistol of some sort, high tech, too, from 
all appearances, and no doubt complicated. It lay just beyond the reach of 
Mutt's out-flung hand. His fingers were still curled to grip it, unaware that 
such things were unnecessary now, untrained in the fine art of knowing when to 
say when.

The second weapon lay only inches from his chest. A .22 pistol very like her 
own. 

Sisyphus reached instinctively for the weapon holstered against her ribs -- no, 
it was still there. Curious. She picked up the duplicate weapon, examining it 
carefully. A semi-automatic Ruger, compact, light as guns go. And recently 
fired....

Ah. The young executioner. *He'd* left it behind. Well, it made a certain kind 
of sense. Professional killers, or so she'd read, didn't use the same weapon 
repeatedly. Such frugality would provide a trail of ballistic matches, allow law 
enforcement to combine clues from multiple crime scenes, and intensify the risk 
of exposure. Then there would be all those additional charges to deal with. The 
young man had left the weapon here, then, deciding, no doubt, that *here* was 
just as good a dumping place as any other. 

Sisyphus, of course, had no such desire for anonymity. She was proud of her 
accomplishments and worked hard to make certain her calling card was easily 
identifiable. One should always, she believed, take pride in one's craft.

She slapped the weapon against Mutt's knee. Again, he had no reaction and she 
giggled, giddy with anticipation. The mirth was hollow, and echoed back at her. 
The garage was as cavernous as the crawl space had been, and sounds here were 
distorted, writhing echoes. She could still hear that rhythmic *thump-squeal* 
thundering in her head--

No -- her hand gripped the cast-off pistol and she stood. No, these were not 
thumps. They were footsteps. Footsteps echoing across the garage-- 

A black man, bulky, his trenchcoat flapping as he ran, rounded the cars several 
rows over. His hand fumbled at his hip.

"FBI!" he shouted, "Stay--"

She shot him without thinking, and was surprised when he grunted. She'd never 
trusted her aim on a moving target. Not at this distance-- 

But he spun, staggered. She fired again, and again as he went down, blood 
splattering from his temple and onto the white column beside him. She waited, 
unmoving, the .22 weighting her hands, her wrists tingling from the recoil. She 
fired again, the gun responding with only the empty click of a spent cartridge. 
He lay still, one arm visible beyond the rear wheels of a station wagon. The 
hand didn't seem to be moving, either. Not even a twitch.

*Whump.* She jerked at the hollowed lumbering in the wall beside her and brought 
the gun to bear on the opening to the vent. She winced at her own foolishness, 
leaned to drop the pistol soundlessly onto Mutt's chest, fumbling her own weapon 
free in the same motion. Her foot slipped on drying blood and she stumbled, one 
leather pump finding purchase to the left of Mutt's leg, the other to the right. 
She kept her eyes and her weapon firmly trained on the opening, her breath 
steadying.

*Thump. Ump.*

He materialized in sections and sound. A solid thud, the whispering of fabrics. 
His shoes were too dark to distinguish clearly from the gloom of the shaft. Even 
his jeans were a bare hint of dimension: slender columns of black against deeper 
black. His torso was yet to be revealed, still behind the wall above the vent. 
The Nikes shuffled as he got his bearings, decided his course.

Her stupidity reviled her suddenly, and she bit her lip to keep from swearing. 
She should have found a hiding place: out of sight around the wall, a few feet 
away behind a car, perhaps. Should have waited for him to get free of the shaft, 
and taken him unawares when he'd been certain of his freedom. As it was, he 
needed only to withdraw back up into the darkness whence he'd come. The walls 
were concrete, impenetrable to her .22. He could pull himself back up, kick her 
senseless if she attempted to pursue.

It was too late for plans, however. Her movement -- to hide, or to avail herself 
of Mutt's larger caliber firearm -- would only alert her prey and she would lose 
him altogether. 

She just wanted to see his face, she told herself. She could kill him where he 
stood -- regrettable, certainly-- but she had to see his face as he discovered 
her. Watch as the realization dawned. 

She remained where she stood, body bathed in shadows, gun trained on the shaft, 
hands steady despite her rising excitement. 

This was joy. Surely this was joy. 

Mulder's hands slid into view first, long tapered fingers so familiar to her 
from hours spent watching him sleep. The hands were animated now, tensing as he 
crouched, countering his body weight as he shifted in the confined space. His 
sweater was impenetrable black, his arms and torso invisible as he dropped to 
his knees, all disembodied hands, the face in profile, neck and a V-shaped 
glimpse of chest. 

This was like... eloping, she decided. She wondered if he would feel the same, 
just as she'd wondered how her husband had felt so long ago. Mulder's face, 
bathed in darkness, was too closed to tell her. Did he have the same burning in 
his gut, did he wonder at the wickedness and wrong of it all, sneaking away from 
all who loved and cherished you, away into the wholly unknown? Into the arms of 
one who did not cherish, into the arms of one who merely wanted you?

His dark head ducked down almost immediately, one hand fumbling to his face, 
fending off the glare as his eyes adjusted to unaccustomed fluorescence. His 
free hand, more reliable than his vision, probed the air before him, seeking the 
non-existent grate. He glanced up, bewildered, blinking spasmodically, his face 
in the shadows a series of deepening grays. Intent upon the opening and still 
half-blind, he didn't see her, but, after a moment's confusion, he focused 
further, to the carnage on the garage floor.

He saw Jeff first. Difficult not to, considering Jeff lay sprawled to his right, 
almost directly beneath him. Jeff's face was turned toward the shaft. Sisyphus 
watched Mulder's face, aching to see what he stared upon: the lax jaw, the 
flaccid features, the skin so smooth it seemed inorganic. The vacant eyes that 
somehow managed to make you feel that they saw so much more than you did. 

She waited his reaction, willing herself not to breathe, not to destroy this 
singular, perfect moment.

Mulder's breath had frozen in his lungs, but beyond the sudden cessation of his 
chest muscles, there was disappointingly little reaction. His hand clenched to a 
fist, skin pale against the darkness. His jaw tensed, too, but otherwise all 
expression had washed from his face. Or perhaps it was there, just hidden by 
shadow. Sisyphus clamped her jaw. *Not* squeezing the trigger was taking real 
effort now. She deserved better than this. Sure, Mutt and Jeff weren't truly her 
work, but *he* had no way of knowing--

Mulder leaned slowly forward, vision moving on, his face finally, fully, into 
the light as he located Mutt's out-flung arm, the hand, so pale there, glowing a 
fluorescent milky-white against the concrete. But Mulder's face, so intent, 
revealed nothing. Beyond a kind of resolved sadness and a convulsive swallowing, 
there was simply no expression. 

There would be, damn him. Before the night was out, she'd have her money's 
worth.

He looked at her then. His eyes startled her with the suddenness of their 
attention. There had been no lingering transition from Mutt's body to her own, 
no slow panning from Mutt's face, down his chest and hips, to her feet, then, 
disbelieving, moving upward to find her there. There was no dreadful 
recognition. He'd simply looked from Jeff's hand to her face, the shift so 
sudden she couldn't even say that he'd blinked. 

Her hand tightened on the gun, her mouth frozen in the process of forming words. 
But there was nothing to say. He simply stared at her, without remorse or fear. 
And completely without surprise. There was no evaluating appraisal in the 
glance. No sizing-up of an opponent. No judgment rendered. No plans being 
re-evaluated. Just an electric meeting of the eyes, an acknowledgment of 
presence and person. 

He'd been expecting her.

She forced herself to breathe deeply. This was... wrong. He was making no 
attempt to flee, no effort to avail himself of Jeff's gun. He remained crouched 
in place, his fist loosening to rest on his thigh. The other hand remained 
forgotten against the wall of the shaft. His shoulders, too, had eased, a 
voiceless sigh of relief, as though he'd discovered an old friend at the end of 
his journey. She was struck suddenly by how young he was, how boyish, except for 
those too-steady, shadowed eyes. Perhaps he'd already seen far worse than she 
was capable of. 

Oh, no. He'd seen nothing yet.

"I'm going to climb out now." 

The gravely tenor surprised her: warm with no hint of tension or concern. He 
might have been asking her permission. She nodded, rendering consent without 
being entirely certain. He shifted again, working his long legs free of the 
shaft, but he did not take his eyes off her. His focus was unnerving, as much as 
she hated to admit it. Predators do not like being stared at, and he should have 
known better. He did know, but he stared all the same.

Leveraging himself free of the wall, he stood. Jeff's gun was to his left, 
closer to the grate than she felt comfortable with, a deep shadow within a 
shadow. Perhaps he wouldn't see it. Perhaps she wouldn't have to kill him here. 
Despite recent setbacks, she still had hopes for the evening. Still had plans. 

His foot brushed the weapon as he stepped forward to present himself and he 
glanced down, froze. Sisyphus raised the site on her .22, a warning, and he 
turned to her, his brows lifted bare millimeters, offended that she would be so 
distrusting. But that was the way of the world, was it not? He raised his foot 
carefully, never wavering his attention, and kicked the weapon away. It spun 
into the deepest shadows behind her, metal grinding across the concrete as it 
fled.

"Wise man." She smiled over the gun sight, finding it easier now to return the 
unblinking gaze. 

"Enough people have died, I think." He didn't so much speak the words as submit 
them for her consideration.

"One more to go." 

His brows tightened. "But *just* one." 

This was not a submission. The steel in the graveled voice caught her off guard 
and pushed all the wrong buttons at once. Her finger tightened on the trigger. 
She could do this here and now. Between Mutt and Jeff, she had an arsenal in 
this corner. She could fend off a swat team long enough to rip him open--

Those unblinking eyes closed suddenly. Mulder lifted his chin and his hands slid 
to his hips. She watched him stretch his torso and shoulder muscles, uncertain 
of this new tactic. He moved slowly, with measured pauses. The garage lights, 
distant, shone behind him, outlining his right shoulder in bright neon yellow. 
One side of his face and his hand was red, chafed by the shaft and his effort to 
descend. The other side of his body remained in shadows, a deep too-cold blue. 
There was a dark stain on his hand, drying blood, perhaps. But it was his neck 
that held her gaze: the sliver of yellow halo-ing from behind, bathing the first 
inch of skin before fading to red and, finally, deepening to a blue rough with 
evening stubble. 

He breathed then, slowly, very deeply, head still back. And she understood 
without knowing the proper terms to explain: the beta male was exposing his soft 
underbelly to the alpha, submitting without defense. His Adam's apple bobbed 
once, and the sight left her trembling with hunger. Her finger eased from the 
trigger, satisfied.

He lowered his head in a languid, fluid gesture, his hands returning to his 
sides, each movement carefully executed. He opened his eyes and focused on her 
again, but this time no higher than her belt buckle. He turned his head 
slightly, keeping even this gaze indirect.

*I have the gun.* She wondered why she felt it necessary to remind herself of 
such a fact, to remember that she was the one in control. He had surrendered, 
hadn't he?

"They'll be looking for me." It was not the grandiose statement of the braggart, 
merely a quiet observation. "Shouldn't we be going?" There was no resistance in 
his tone, no hidden dagger waiting to strike.

"To the car," she ordered. "Fourth row over. Try anything and I swear I'll kill 
you here and now. And then I'll shoot everything that moves in this garage for 
the next two hours. Understood? They'll all die--"

"I get it." More steel, and the eyes flickered to her face, but jerked away 
again after only the briefest glimpse, too quick to read clearly. He shrugged, 
hands raised, demonstrating submission. "I... get it."

"Then get in the car."

He complied, moving carefully, maintaining a respectful distance and keeping his 
hands in clear view. Stepping to the first row of vehicles, he paused. She 
followed his gaze: the fallen agent there beyond the station wagon. She watched, 
waiting: he squinted hard, his jaw clenching spasmodically. In profile, she 
thought he may have licked his lips briefly. He turned his head away from the 
spectacle, however, and moved forward before she could remind him to do so. 

She followed, black patent leather shoes stepping free of Mutt's dead body, 
deftly avoiding the slick of blood pooling on the garage floor. 

"Fifth row--"

"I see it." His tone was difficult to gauge. It might have been resentful. It 
might also have been simply weary. The tension across his shoulders was not a 
significant indicator, she decided. He'd been tense like this even in his sleep. 


As he moved, light flowed, opening like water around him. His sweater, jet 
black, soaked in the light and refused to surrender it in kind. He was a reverse 
negative, defined only by the halo of diffused florescence surrounding him. He 
was the darkness given form and animated.

He approached his own vehicle, shuffling a few steps uncertainly. He glanced 
back at her, and shrugged, mumbling. 

"I musta forgotten my keys in my other pants."

She smiled. She couldn't help herself. A gun to his head and the certainty of 
death, and he could still joke. It would indeed be an interesting evening. 

"In the ignition, love. Just keep your hands where I can see them."

He grunted, turning away as he muttered something else. The roar of the garage 
obliterated the words, but the tone was completely without inflection, yet oddly 
appreciative. It might have been, "I bet you like it on top, too." 

She didn't ask him to clarify.

 



XXXXXXX

Purdue burst from the stairwell in time to see Mulder's car pull past and on 
toward the exit ramp to the street.

The ASAC yelped and lunged, slamming his hip and both fists against the hood of 
the trunk as the vehicle rolled past. The garage echoed the impact, its 
futility, flesh against steel. Purdue clung to the hood, fingers scraping at the 
hinge, desperate and determined. A face loomed at him from the darkness of the 
rear window. The face of a woman, unnervingly omnipotent. It was the face from 
Purdue's fax machine, the face Harris had sent him from Columbus. 

And she was smiling.

Purdue slid free of the vehicle, stumbling to his feet, empty handed and 
panting. The Monte Carlo swerved, already moving too fast, heedless of the 
confines of the garage. The motion varied the light within the car, just so, and 
Purdue caught a second glimpse: the glint of metal, as bright and lifeless as 
her eyes. A revolver. The point of the barrel was pressed against Mulder's 
skull, just below his right ear and angling upward. Mulder's face in the 
rearview offered no plea, hooded by too many shadows. They were the eyes of Mr. 
American Lit, gutted on his couch, his pupils large and dark as any doll's. 

The eyes of a dead man.

These images, minute as flash photos, were impressions only. Purdue's brain 
supplied the details, burning them into his retina, processing in patterns of 
white on black, blurs of red and green. 

Sandidge materialized from nowhere, scarcely registering on Purdue's 
consciousness even as the man brushed past him, sending Purdue staggering. 

Sandidge's shouts -- "Federal agents! Stop!" -- went unheeded. He pursued the 
vehicle up the ramp on foot, weapon drawn, but not fired, unwilling to risk the 
return fire, exposed as he was.

Purdue's stagger became a full run in the opposite direction, back toward his 
own vehicle. He fumbled in his pants pocket as he ran, seeking keys, twisting 
past rows of cars. 

He faltered seconds, precious seconds, when he found the body: a black man, 
well-dressed, a former linebacker, surely, face down, coat flapped back 
revealing the unsnapped holster, the weapon still sheathed. Agent Warren Thomas. 
Blood pooled beneath the man, mingling with an old oil slick. 

Purdue leaped to clear the corpse, heart pounding in time with his legs. He 
slowed his momentum by slamming his body into driver's side of his Chrysler, 
jamming the key into the lock in the same violent motion. 

He followed Mulder's example, taking the ramp at frightening speed, tires 
squalling in protest. The Chrysler burst into the street, shocks bouncing with 
the variation of pavement and Purdue's sudden stop. It was close to one a.m. and 
traffic was minimal, virtually non-existent, but what had been rain earlier was 
a downpour now, and Purdue swore heatedly, engaging his wipers. 

There was no sign of Mulder. 

Purdue fought with the window gear, struggling to hear Sandidge's shout as the 
agent ran back up the street toward him. A sheet of water poured through the few 
inches of open glass, soaking him instantly. 

"M Street!" Sandidge screamed, one hand shielding his vision from the deluge, 
the other arm gesturing south. "He's heading west on M! M!" 

Purdue gunned the engine, leaving Sandidge flapping his arms on the sidewalk. M 
was the first corner, and Purdue took it on squealing tires, not bothering to 
note the color of the traffic light. He was not a praying man but he was praying 
now. "Clear the roads, just clear the roads--" a mantra to Whoever might be 
listening and otherwise concerned. 

M street was a four lane and the few cars traveling it were proceeding 
cautiously in deference to the weather. Purdue identified Mulder's tail lights 
almost immediately: they were the blood-red smears fleeing like that bat out of 
hell everyone talks about. Purdue fed his engine, passing an offended Nissan 
sedan just barely visible in the downpour. The rain was hitting the ground with 
enough force to splatter it back up again a good foot or more. It rose in a fine 
mist from the pavement.

"Where the hell are we going, Mulder?" Purdue growled. His voice was lost to his 
own ears, drowned by the combined roar of rain and engine. "Where the hell would 
this bitch be taking you?" 

*Some place quiet --* the Chrysler ate the road that separated them -- *some 
place rural. She's not been in town long enough to know the city well--*

A blur of yellow hanging in the near distance. Now red. Purdue swore again. A 
traffic light. Wisconsin Avenue. 

Mulder plowed through the red light without even tapping his brakes. Only a few 
car-lengths separated him from Purdue now and the light was still red when 
Purdue hit the intersection. Suddenly, Purdue had no time for swearing. A blue 
Ford materialized from behind a wall of water to his right, swerving in a 
surrealistic flash of red and white and blinking yellow. 

Purdue fought the wheel and his own dread, keeping his focus determinedly on 
Mulder's receding tail lights while the Chrysler floundered. He was completely 
into the far eastbound lane before he recovered, horns blaring angrily behind 
him. He didn't glance back. 

Mulder turned abruptly left and Purdue followed, making the turn himself seconds 
later, hydroplaning, but somehow maintaining his course. Only as the guard rails 
sped past did Purdue recognize the route: the Key Bridge, crossing the Potomac. 

They were heading south, then. Shit, what was south? Virginia, at the end of the 
bridge. Was Mulder heading for Alexandria and home? No way. Sisyphus wouldn't 
haul Mulder back to his apartment. She hadn't evaded them this long to suddenly 
be that stupid. 

What then? Purdue replayed possibilities. Harris had said that Cecile Fuche was 
a homebody, as best they could tell, rarely wavering from her accustomed trek 
between Columbus and Wheeling. What would she know of Virginia? Hell, what would 
any tourist know from a map and a half-decent guide book? The entire state was a 
spattering of national parks and Civil War battlefields, so many nice quiet 
places prized for their privacy....

Purdue poured on the gas, taking advantage of the clear shot of road to attempt 
to pull up alongside the Monte Carlo. But Mulder's driving was relentless, 
matching Purdue's pace mile for mile and bettering it. The ASAC backed down, 
unwilling to exacerbate the situation, particularly on a bridge.

"Goddammit!" Purdue rattled his steering wheel helplessly. "Goddamn General 
Motors products and goddam Chrysler!" His head was throbbing, his right eye 
still tender from Mulder's sucker punch, but his vision, thankfully, was 
unimpaired. He fished under the dash for the switch to his police radio, flipped 
it on. They were rapidly running out of bridge.

"Attention any available units--" Purdue gasped as his car bounced unexpectedly, 
his speed overemphasizing the slightest variation of pavement as the bridge 
became highway. "Attention any available units," he repeated. "Federal officer 
in need of assistance, southbound on Whitehurst."

"This is One-Charlie-twenty, Fairfax County Sheriff's Department." The voice, 
remote and unfamiliar, was the herald of angels. "What is your situation?"

"I have a 41-40, kidnapping in progress. In pursuit of a red Chevy Monte Carlo 
two-door, license number Robert-Union-Union Seven Four Seventy-five. Suspect 
wanted for multiple homicide, armed and dangerous. Hostage is a federal agent 
and is driving at gunpoint."

More static. "Sounds like a situation to me," the voice answered. "Dispatch, 
One-Charlie-twenty, code three...." 

 



XXXXXXX

She'd chosen the back seat as a kind of refuge/assault base. She enjoyed ease of 
movement here and the confidence of absolute control. He was readily accessible 
to her, yet she shared nothing with him but her air. 

Mulder sat hunched slightly forward over the wheel, peering into the 
rain-ravaged darkness. She checked his speedometer, slid to the far passenger 
side to check the side mirror.

A sign loomed out of the darkness and rain, legible only when they were almost 
half past it: "Interstate 66" in great white, reflective letters. Suddenly they 
were rising, the gentle slope of an on-ramp. 

"Where are you going?" She grit her teeth on the words, gripping the weapon, 
keeping it level with his head. She hated admitting ignorance, hated the not 
knowing more. 

"You know," he answered carefully, testing the waters. "*I'm* not the one 
initiating a kidnapping with no pre-established get-away plan." 

"Oh, I have a plan, sir," she purred. "It's called six bullets in your skull in 
rapid succession if you don't get this thing parked in the very near future."

"That might take all the fun out of it, don't you think?" His face in the 
rearview was impossible to read. There was a dizzying sensation as the Monte 
Carlo slid left, easing smoothly past a tractor trailer.

"I'll make up for it when I get around to your friend back there," she tossed 
her head in the direction of the several sets of headlights following them. 

Mulder raised a critical eyebrow. "So, that's the thanks I get for saving myself 
for you," he muttered.

"Oh, did you now? Liar." 

His eyes flickered to the rearview but he thought better of it before he 
focused. She smiled. He was intelligent, sensitive. This was going to be 
marvelous.

"I thought you wanted someplace quiet." His voice was subdued, submissive once 
more. "Just you and me, right?" His sincerity didn't fool her.

"Stop the car."

"Stop the car." He repeated the statement with minimal inflection, squinting, 
examining the words for hidden meaning. "Stop the car?" 

Sisyphus slid to her favored position, dead-center of the back seat, braced at 
the edge of the upholstery. "Stop the car." She emphasized each syllable 
patiently. This close to her intended target, she could afford to be gracious. 
"I do believe I can handle one half-assed Fed, thank you."

He blinked at her in the rearview. "To which half-assed Fed are you referring, 
may I ask?"

She leaned forward, enjoying the involuntary tension of his body as she invaded 
his personal space. "Oh, your ass is just fine, love." She lowered her pistol 
between the bucket seats and dragged the muzzle across the side of his hip. The 
front sight caught on his pocket and she tugged at the fabric, teasing, watching 
his face freeze, his entire body stiffening. "It's your shadow, darling," she 
whispered, nodding in the general direction of the back window, "that I take 
exception to." She returned the pistol to the level of his head. "Now quit 
stalling and pull over."

She watched him search the road ahead before glancing at her in the rearview 
again, his eyes shifting briefly to the headlights behind her. His focus 
returned to the road and he shook his head with enough genuine regret to make 
her pause.

"I can't do that, Cecile."

She blinked, jamming the gun into the hollow below his skull. He winced, but 
didn't try looking at her again. 

"Excuse me," she announced, "but compliance is not optional here. I'm *not* 
asking. Understand?"

He took a deep breath, biting his lip. "No--" he shifted his shoulder, pulling 
away from the rapidly increasing pressure of the barrel against his neck. "It's 
just-- It's just that it gets this whole Catch-22 situation started. You know, I 
stop *my* car, he stops *his* car. You try to blow him away. I try to stop you. 
You shoot me, then you shoot *him.* Or maybe, he shoots you first, but then he 
feels bad about me getting whacked... It's just a vicious cycle--" 

"What do you care?" she hissed. "You'll be dead."

He shrugged his eyebrows, considering. "Yeah, well, there's *that,* at least," 
he said.

A siren wailed, nearing, to her left. The rain-smeared windows ran blood red 
suddenly, then electric blue, then red again, a cyclic revolution of emergency 
lights, their source impossible to distinguish for the glare, but somewhere 
behind them. Close. 

Mulder searched his mirrors. "Ahhh... shall I pull over now?" he requested 
mildly.

She jerked at his seat, slamming the butt of her pistol into his headrest. He 
winced, body tensed for the blow she scarcely managed to contain. 

"Just drive, you sonofabitch. You so much as slow down, and I start looking for 
people to shoot. How's that for your Catch-22?"

He didn't slow and didn't argue. His hand moved to the stick shift and she 
tightened her grip on the gun. There was a click and the car shot forward 
effortlessly, the tachometer dipping with a sigh. Overdrive. 

She shoved her body to the far passenger side, chancing a glance out the rear 
window: a haze of lights, red, blue, yellow, white, surrounded them. They lit 
the interior of the car like a strobe, tossing her shadow, here outlined in red, 
there redefined in hues of blue, color and darkness splattering in constantly 
shifting angles. She shimmied back to the center of the vehicle. The view of the 
front seat was only marginally better. The sensation was akin to being 
physically assaulted. 

Powerless. She would not be powerless--

"Idiots."

Mulder didn't answer, eyes flitting briefly to the rearview, back to the road, 
back to the mirror, in little spurts. She slapped his headrest again, this time 
with her open palm. He returned his focus to the road and kept it there. 

"Bunch of idiots," she hissed again. "Tell me what you're profiling off of." She 
tugged at his sweater through the space between the seats. "Tell me where you 
got your information, smart ass. This bunch sends you into prisons to do your 
little surveys and fill out your little charts, and make up profiles on people 
you don't even know. Think about it! All the information you have on file about 
killers is from the ones *stupid* enough to get caught." She sneered. "Yeah. 
Sure. Then you think you're going to waltz out here and profile me. You arrogant 
little shits." 

Mulder rubbed his right palm against the wheel, flexing his fingers before 
gripping it again. The sweat sparkled on the leather, reflecting an angry red 
that made her thirsty suddenly.

"Maybe," he hesitated. "Maybe you should just rethink this situation--"

"You expect me to surrender?" Her mouth twisted with the word, the impossibility 
of the concept. "Maybe I *did* pick the wrong half-assed Fed."

She didn't mean it, though, and he knew it. One glance in the rearview told him. 
He jerked his eyes back to the road, gripping the steering wheel that much 
harder. She smiled. He understood so much more than his graphs and his surveys, 
didn't he? More than he wanted to know. Especially now.

She sighed, resting her forehead against the side of the passenger headrest, and 
raked her eyes down the length of the lean body beside her. Just being near him 
had been enough to get her heart to racing. It was a good sign. A very good 
sign. 

She had been killing for years: animals, at first. Her mother. A particularly 
pathetic co-worker behind a bar one evening. Those had been quiet little 
affairs, listed simply as robbery-homicides, unsolved. Spectacular only in their 
savagery. 

The kills had been intensely satisfying, as only intimate betrayal could be. The 
problem was, Cecile didn't know enough people well enough to truly attain that 
level of pleasure routinely. There had been her mother. Her husband, that 
co-worker. And that was about it. She hadn't the patience to make friends. Too 
much effort, too much requisite self-restraint. Unfortunate. Otherwise she'd 
have had a bigger list from which to glean. 

Small matter. She was resourceful by nature and had discovered ways to 
compensate. Savagery had substituted for intimacy. In some ways, sometimes, it 
had proven even more enjoyable.

Lately, however, killing just... didn't seem to do it for her. It no longer 
revived her, made her feel alive. When she had been young, one kill would 
sustain her for months. Years, sometimes. This satisfaction, however, had waned 
recently, growing increasingly more short-lived. And more difficult to attain. 
Like a junkie, she needed more and more control, more and more gore, more... 
something. 

And the *something* had been eluding her for months. 

Until *this* man. She'd killed that young cop in Bridgeport for this man, a kind 
of tap at his door, if you will, an acknowledgment of intent. A salute. It had 
been intensely satisfying, but in so many unusual ways, a kind of sharing she 
had never expected: imagining his reaction, anticipating his comprehension. His 
appreciation.

The woman in the diner. That... that had been the best. She had touched 
something deep with that one. Something very personal to him. Shared whole new 
levels. It had been *his* blood on the floor that night in the diner: blood he 
had roused. Skin he had cherished. A body he had made his own. 

And Sisyphus had made it hers. Then graciously returned it. An invitation to 
share. As had been all the kills thereafter. He had understood this, naturally. 
Accepted it in spite of his companions' interference. As he would accept so much 
more....

Her hand touched his side, low on that long torso, below the ribs, the sweater 
as soft against her fingertips as it was against his skin. She let the weight of 
her hand drag her fingers slowly down: the smooth tension of his flesh beneath 
the fabric, the sweater bunching slightly at his waist, the thickness of his 
waistband. The slight curve of his hip, denim pulled tight as he sat behind the 
wheel, the solidity of his thigh as she rested her palm on his leg, fingertips 
angling inward toward his groin, nails pressed lightly against more denim....

 She didn't need the rearview to see his profile at this angle. Erratic light 
 flickered across his face. His lashes, long and lush, closed, a blink, only a 
 blink, focus held carefully forward. A flash of fire at his cheekbone: a single 
 bead of sweat reflecting the lights of sirens and dash dials. She watched the 
 tiny ball of water descend, leaving its damp track trailing across his cheek, 
 over the curve of his jaw, sliding slowly down his neck--





She caught it with her tongue at the curve of his shoulder and he gasped. She 
felt the car waver slightly, smiled against his skin as he recovered, vehicle 
moving steadily again beneath them. His shoulder rose and fell beneath her lips, 
short, shallow breaths that never reached his lungs. She kissed the damp, salty 
spot her tongue had claimed, kissed the skin beside it. He stopped breathing 
altogether, his heart thundering in the vein at her cheek.

"She died quickly," she lied, her whisper warm and humid in his ear. "You owe me 
for that, you know." 

There was no question who *she* was. He nodded, a delicious motion beneath her 
questing mouth.

"Yeah. I owe you for that."

XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Part 26 of 27: Note: Objects In Mirror May Be Closer Than They Appear

"He who has waited long enough will wait for ever. And there comes the hour when 
nothing more can happen and nobody more can come and all is ended but the 
waiting that knows itself in vain. Perhaps he had come to that. And when (for 
example) you die, it is too late, you have been waiting too long, you are no 
longer sufficiently alive to be able to stop." -- Samuel Beckett, *Malone Dies*; 
New York: Grove Press, Inc. 1956. 

 



Mulder did not take the expected detour onto the Beltway. Instead, he continued 
west on I-66, averaging speeds of 75 and 80 miles per. He maneuvered carefully, 
making no attempts to shake his escort. 

Purdue stubbornly remained the center vehicle of the chase, Virginia Highway 
Patrol and Fairfax County Sheriff's vehicles fanning out behind and before him, 
left and right as traffic allowed. No one wanted Cecile Fuche panicking, but the 
weather rendered helicopter tracking an impossibility, and dropping back to 
allow Mulder room to breathe was not an option Purdue was willing to take. The 
slick roads allowed few opportunities for forcing a safe stop. State troopers 
informed Purdue that they were preparing a roadblock just east of Centreville. 
Traffic, such as there was at this ungodly hour, was being diverted. 

Purdue's responses to the updates were short but grateful. He would take what 
hope he could. He'd chosen the Embassy Suites himself, worked the routine to a 
fine science, yet this woman had taken the place by storm, killing four agents 
in the process, butchering one while Purdue sat in the next room--

He gripped the wheel, hands numb but holding desperately. Sauceda's presence was 
heavy in the car, real as his own breath. If he glanced over he would find blood 
on the floorboard, Lenny in the passenger seat, holding his guts together, 
slamming his hand against the dash. *Faster, dammit! Drive!*

Purdue didn't glance over. Didn't want to see the seat, empty or not. Grief was 
not someone he wanted in control of the wheel right now. Not in a high speed 
chase with rain relentless against his wiper blades. 

He tried to imagine what was going on in the vehicle ahead. Water sheeted the 
rear window of the Monte Carlo, reflecting the emergency lights in a cycling 
kaleidoscope, and he could catch only the occasional glimpse of Mulder's dark 
head. He noted Sisyphus's position when the effect cleared sufficiently; she was 
a second head upon Mulder's shoulder, merging, her proximity a weapon as 
unnerving as any knife-- 

Then they were gone again in a wash of cold blue, red, and horrific yellow. 

What was it like, he wondered? What was it like to be Mulder, to know what he 
knew and to find such a creature breathing in his ear? What was it like to 
recall that endless parade of snapshots, crime scenes, victims discarded, 
splayed in all their horror... And to know that, despite all hope, you were 
next. You were *now.* 

Purdue's foot ached to accelerate. Suicide by cop, Mulder had warned him. She'd 
go out in a blaze of glory, taking as many as she could with her. And Purdue had 
no doubt: Mulder would be number one on the list. 

Purdue had seen a great deal in his career. Some people, he'd learned, kill by 
wholesale slaughter. Some kill just a piece at a time, preferring the lingering 
afterburn of psychological butchery. This one had done both, destroying Mulder 
by degrees, whittling him away, bit by bit, with every victim, every cut of her 
blade. Murder on the installment plan. And now she would finish the job. Her 
persistence was a matter of record. Nothing would keep her from her appointed 
desire. 

But Purdue would be damned if he'd just sit back and watched her.

The Monte Carlo changed lanes ahead, drifting slowly left. The trooper out 
Purdue's window and slightly ahead, drifted with him, maintaining as much of the 
distance as possible, a patient pace car. The deputy behind Purdue did not fill 
the space, allowing the ASAC to change lanes as well. 

The play of light across Mulder's window cleared briefly and Purdue caught 
another glimpse into the Monte Carlo: Mulder's head visible above his headrest, 
Fuche's head and shoulders an indistinct lump beside him, arm wrapped around 
Mulder's bucket seat. The sight, although expected, made Purdue's heart shudder 
against his ribs. Mulder's head moved, a quick check of his side mirror, then 
forward again, returning his focus to the windshield. 

Purdue recalled a similar movement suddenly: Mulder laying across the bed -- 
what? a half hour ago? -- under duress, under attack. And turning his head 
briefly. A refusal, not open to negotiation. 

And what of that refusal? What was it he had refused, and to whom? A ghost? A 
phantom of his own mind? 

No. A breakdown, he could understand, he'd seen the results, the razor cuts, the 
oozing wounds across Mulder's thighs, tokens of desperation. The hemorrhaging, 
too -- an extreme psychological manifestation of stress, right? 

But what psychological aberration was capable of changing air pressure or... 

Or forming knee prints in a mattress? 

*Sweet Jeezus...* 

What was he saying? That Mulder's behavior had simply been a sane response to 
insanely impossible phenomenon? Did Purdue dare believe... 

Believe... what, exactly?

The view into the Monte Carlo vanished, lost in mists of red and gold. Purdue 
concentrated on his breathing, alternately tensing and relaxing his hands on the 
wheel, trying to restore feeling. *You don't have time for this right now, 
dammit. Right now you've got a psychopath with a gun. A one-woman plague that 
functions without restraint of conscience.* 

The weapon pinching against his spine was an accusation: *Mulder has no weapon. 
You made certain he had no weapon--*

Purdue grit his teeth, willing the voice into silence. 

"I'm sorry, Lenny. I didn't know...." 

He spoke the words and they were sincere, but too hollow to persuade even 
himself. No redemption here. No such gifts deserved. 

They passed an aging Pontiac, the driver's rheumy eyes staring wildly as the 
convoy swirled by, a vast beast of lights and riotous sound. Mulder resumed the 
middle lane after a respectful distance and the escort followed suit, everyone 
nice and cordial.

Purdue's calf muscles clenched, spasming with the effort to keep his foot steady 
on the accelerator. A sign loomed out of the bombarding rain: "Centreville 6 
Miles."

"Play to it, Mulder," Purdue whispered. "Play to her fantasies. Make her let you 
live long enough for us to reach you." 

 



XXXXXXX

Her hand moved like one familiar with him, laying claim to a manifest destiny. 
He chanced a glance at his rearview: a haze of lights, merging, impossible to 
distinguish one from the other. Help so near. So distant. 

Her fingers brushed the edge of his collar, his neck, slid languidly across his 
collarbone, down a few inches, rubbing lightly at the soft hairs curling above 
the V-neck of his sweater. 

Her hands were cold as death. And why had that surprised him? Typically, 
psychopaths had inordinately low blood pressure; if he ran an EEG on her, the 
results of that would not be normal, either. At least that much of ViCap's 
research was not open to speculation. 

Such trivia should serve to keep him calm, he supposed. But it didn't. Sisyphus 
was too excited. It radiated off her like body heat, suffocating him. He pried 
his right hand from the wheel, leaden fingers seeking the air vent controls. He 
felt her watching him, her breathing, carefully controlled, growing increasingly 
rapid.

Her hand slid down under his sweater, probing. She found his left nipple and he 
forced himself not to flinch as she lingered there, teasing. Her breath was too 
warm against the right side of his neck. Oxygen, heavy with rain, blasted at him 
from the dash but he was unable to inhale. He could do little more than whisper.

"We need to be looking for a sign." 

"A what?" More hot breath against his neck, another languid kiss that made his 
skin crawl. 

He spoke louder, needing to be heard over the barrage of rain on steel, the 
wipers, and the hum of the engine. His voice was harsh, too highly pitched, 
alien in his own ear. 

"I said, we need to be looking for a sign. An exit sign." 

He felt her frown but steadfastly refused to glance at her in the rearview. The 
physical assault was enough; he didn't need to see, didn't need to watch this 
macabre seduction. 

Another kiss, wet this time, the barest tip of her tongue on the crease of flesh 
behind his earlobe. He bit his lip as she giggled. Coppery taste of blood in his 
mouth. She'd want to share that, too--

*Stop the car. Just stop the goddam car. Right here and let them finish it. 
Finish her. Four open lanes and -- what was it now -- five cars following? No 
way she walks away from this, no way she escapes--*

But he'd be dead before she crawled out of the car. She'd be certain of that 
shot. And she had the patience and presence of mind to be certain of a couple of 
more before she died, too. 

Funny how precious life turned out to be when death is breathing down your neck. 
And giggling.

A rise in the road. The Monte Carlo climbed the slight incline with no 
noticeable change in the engine; they might just as well been airborne. 

Mulder's eyes narrowed as the vehicle hit the crest of the rise. A flash -- a 
row of lights in the far distance -- gone as quickly as it was glimpsed.

Something wrong about the lights. Something odd. It hit him as soon as the words 
formed in his head. Red and white lights. Blue lights above, but red and white 
below. Police cars, trooper's cars, red rear lights, white *headlights,* 
scattered, a staggering pattern across the road. Mulder checked his rearview: 
the vehicles behind were falling back, not much, but noticeable.

"Roadblock."

That brought the lovemaking to a distinct halt. Sisyphus jerked her head up and 
pushed back, gun still tight against the back of his head -- he had a throbbing 
headache centralized just there -- and surveyed the view out the back window. 
The muzzle shifted a few millimeters and she was back at his shoulder again, 
peering out at the road ahead, wipers slinging water furiously.

"Where, dammit! Where is it?"

"Ahead a few miles, I think. It's hard to judge--"

"I'll kill you before you get this damned thing stopped. You understand? I'll--"

"I get it, Cecile--"

"You get it," she mimicked, mouth twisting as he glanced at her in the mirror. 
She had a face that was more interesting than pretty, petite enough to be 
deceptively fragile, but her strength was belied by the way she moved. Her face, 
suddenly twisted with anger, was inhuman, washed with cycling reflections of 
blue and red and the occasional yellow. 

Jeezus. He'd wound up in someone's acid dream... 

"You *get* it," she hissed. "I don't *care* if you *get* it. Just *get* us out 
of here! I won't stand for any more of your tricks!"

"Tricks? Shit!" Mulder exploded with too much pent-up energy, too much fear. He 
slammed his open palm against the steering wheel and she jerked reflexively. 
"Tricks? I'm the one telling you we need to find a fucking exit, bitch. This is 
not a goddam trick." He couldn't resist. "*Get* it?"

She stared at him, and he risked another glance at her face. She was livid, 
mouth forming words that would not come, bottom lip trembling with rage.

"I have the gun," she managed finally.

"You've got the gun," Mulder nodded. His explosion had quieted him, energized 
him into a calm certainty. He had a plan. Somewhere under all this mess, he had 
a plan. The problem was staying alive long enough to figure out what it was. 
"Yeah, you've got the gun," he acknowledged, cut his eyes at her sharply. "And 
I've got the wheel." 

She stopped breathing for the space of three heartbeats. There was a sharp 
intake of breath as realization dawned.

"I'll kill you."

"And I'll take you with me. Use that gun and we both die. Your choice."

"Stop the car!"

Did he detect a hint of panic? "No." 

His seat shuddered as she slammed her body against it, the muzzle of the .22 
shoving him sideways. The wheel shuddered in his hands. The slick pavement and 
their speed magnified the shift in steering and she tumbled back, weapon finally 
falling away from his skull as she lost her balance at the edge of the seat. 
Mulder tapped the brakes, righting the car, and the muzzle was back against his 
neck in the next heartbeat. He regained speed, restoring the rhythmic 
*pa-pump... pa-pump... pa-pump* of the tires rolling across the concrete spacers 
of the road.

"Don't do that again." She was panting. Mulder considered: self-preservation was 
a powerful force. Quite possibly the only true emotion she understood.

A sign. At last, a sign: "US 50," and a smaller sign attached above it: 
"Airport." Mulder changed lanes abruptly, sending the trooper's car at his right 
taillight scrambling to compensate. The trooper dove for the paved shoulder and 
then overcorrected, hydroplaning back across the highway, into the headlights of 
the remaining escort. Tires squealed behind him as vehicles scattered, trying to 
avoid the inevitable collision. 

Mulder cursed beneath his breath, tapping his brakes once more. One trooper's 
car passed him, overshooting him, a second close behind. Mulder jerked his wheel 
hard to the right, taking the exit, and suddenly it was all behind him, cycling 
lights abruptly gone. Even the direction of the rain had shifted, pounding his 
side of the vehicle harder now. His headlights sought the route: US 50, another 
four-lane, widening to six, heading northwest. The little town of Pender flew 
past, a blur. The spacers raced away under them now, *pa-pump, pa-pump, pa--*.

Headlights in his rearview. The familiar cycling of red and blue. The rising 
scream of a siren. 

Sisyphus dropped all pretense of holding the gun to his head. Perhaps she was 
just too busy trying to stay upright. Mulder didn't know what she was doing. 
Didn't care. He was doing eighty-five and finding it difficult to hold the wheel 
steady on the slick asphalt. 

The road dipped slightly, rose again. Two sets of headlights followed them now, 
washing the rear window with their combined glare: a trooper's car, and another 
vehicle without emergency lights. Both holding steady. 

*Shit.*

Sisyphus' head popped back up at his shoulder, blocking his view. "This isn't 
the plan!" she hissed, teeth clenched defiantly. "This isn't how it's supposed 
to go!"

"So adapt." 

His growl, only half-considered, was followed by a long, intense silence. He 
chanced a glimpse at the mirror. Sisyphus' face reflected back at him, staring 
through him, her eyes cold as glass. Without a word, she slid deliberately back 
against the seat behind her, and over, out of sight. 

So, Mulder marveled, this was how it ended. After all the struggling, all the 
dying, this was it. Finally. 

The certainty brought a surprising level of calm, even gratitude. He was sick of 
fighting the wheel, of anticipating, of holding so many other lives in his 
hands. 

He eased off the gas without realizing it, leveling the speedometer out at 
seventy-six. His shoulders ached, his eyes burned, and his right calf was 
cramping like a sonofabitch. He wondered if he could drive with his left foot 
just as well, but it was no longer something he'd need to worry about, was it?

He had a sudden ridiculous craving for a cigarette--

"She was a long time dying." 

Sisyphus, very quiet. He'd expected an explosion, the impact of a bullet 
slamming through his skull. Her voice, by contrast, was far too still, but its 
aim was every bit as accurate. The throbbing behind his left eye escalated 
abruptly and he slid his hand from the wheel to hold the eye within its socket. 
The pain was excruciating, throbbing violently against the heel of his hand, 
vital as he tried to avoid her voice.

"She begged me to kill her."

"Don't--"

"I held her heart in my hand while it was still beating. Then I chopped it out 
of her. She was in too much pain to scream. It's astounding what the human body 
can endure when the desire to live is strong enough." Another hiss: "And my, but 
she must have wanted to live."

Mulder was silent, the air in his lungs a fist that threatened to crush his 
heart. There were no words to speak. How do you hurt a creature who has no 
capacity for compassion? No concept of human dignity or shame? Thoughts echoed, 
unheard, memory focusing a single image before his vision: Kay's arm on his 
empty pillow as she slept, white skin in the darkness. The bend of her elbow. 
The taste of her flesh as he kissed her just there in the hollow of her forearm. 
Her sigh....

A pickup truck approached in the center left lane, headlights too high, horn 
blaring as it passed. It swerved to the far lane, giving the trooper's car ample 
room, then disappeared into the darkness behind them, miles away in moments. 

Mulder dropped his hand back to the wheel, still blinking from the onslaught of 
lights. He found himself still on the road, driving through the rain, the 
darkness. Sisyphus was back at his side, leaning forward to gauge the accuracy 
of her assault. She seemed to enjoy the results. 

Mulder no longer cared. His body was numb, the weight of his hands the only 
thing holding them to the wheel. He noted that he was blind in one eye, his left 
eye no longer willing to participate in the proceedings. Sisyphus' frozen 
fingers sought his shoulder, his collar. He didn't even flinch this time, his 
mind shutting down to bare essentials as she stroked his chest.

"You think I don't deserve to live." She whispered against his neck, so far 
away....

"No one does." He heard the words, heavy with fatalistic bravado, uncertain if 
he actually spoke aloud. "It just happens."

She nuzzled his ear, tongue leaving a slick track in the crevice behind his 
earlobe.

He blinked slowly, listening to something stirring in his chest.

*Pa-pumpa-pumpa-pumb--*

 



XXXXXXX

Dulles Airport cops offered their regrets, but they had an emergency of their 
own to deal with. They suggested Purdue obtain the services of the Fairfax 
County Sheriff's Department. Purdue dropped the radio mouthpiece into the 
passenger seat, not bothering to thank them for their time. 

The rain was easing; it wasn't light by any means, but at least it wasn't the 
deluge it had been. Mulder had dropped his speed slightly and Purdue settled in 
to simply keeping pace, grateful he'd taken the time to refuel on his trip back 
from Quantico. The trooper at Purdue's left flank matched him mile for mile. 

Good man, Purdue acknowledged. Pursuing another good man. 

Purdue could still see Mulder occasionally when the lights hit just right. 
Sisyphus was little more than a growth on Mulder's shoulder now: a shark on a 
feeding frenzy. She'd be looking for weak spots, detecting vulnerabilities and 
pushing all the right buttons. If Mulder survived this, it would only be because 
his buttons were intact. Purdue's heart was beating furiously.

There's a conversation there, surely, Purdue decided. Mulder's using his name, 
using it repetitively because names identified people, made them less easy to 
perceive as "things," as "targets." He would be telling her his personal 
history, inviting her to take the stroll down memory lane with him: childhood 
events, remembered joys, his favorite color, *anything* to make this personal. 
To make pulling the trigger harder for her. 

Or would he? Would that only feed her delusions that she was Mulder's intimate 
companion? That he belonged to her, his body, his every thought, even the ring 
upon his hand. Was she capable of hearing anything outside her own fantasies? 
Did Mulder know better than to waste his breath?

Probably.

Purdue's radio snapped to life and he recognized the voice of the trooper beside 
him. It shamed him to realize he didn't even know the man's name.

"We've got Loudoun County deputies waiting at the county line. We're going to 
try to force him off the road. Fishtail 'em. Then try to draw her fire. Maybe we 
can run her out of ammo before-- Well. Maybe we can run her out of ammo." 

Purdue acknowledged the message and dropped the radio again. 

Sometimes he wondered if there even was a God.

XXXXXXX

Another sign: "Welcome to Pleasant Valley."

Pleasant Valley. Sounded like a funeral home. It was gone before he knew to miss 
it, Sisyphus' fingers clutching his neck as she peered into the darkness, ice 
clinging to searing heat, devouring it whole. 

Forward and to their right was a dazzle of lights. A tower. 

Dulles Airport. 

Mulder blinked hard, clearing his vision. The little town of Chantilly spread 
away to his left. The road was deserted, cops parked at major intersections, 
their lights whirling, blurs of red, white and blue in the blowing rain. Not 
pursuing. 

 Similar lights drew his attention back to his right. Beyond a high chain-link 
 fence, a runway ran parallel to the highway, slick tarmac defined by the 
 reflected lights of emergency vehicles. 

 The Monte Carlo's left tires thumped over lane markers. Mulder corrected his 
 course and chanced a second glance at the runway: a graceless mass in the far 
 darkness, the hulking tail of a cargo plane highlighted by halogens and fire. 
 The arching path of chemical foam competed with the storm. Mulder and his 
 little situation were blissfully insignificant here tonight. 





There was a tremendous *whoomph,* a concussion that slapped at the Monte Carlo's 
right flank even at this distance. Flames burst from the rumpled aircraft, 
boiling into the sky. 

Sisyphus scrambled for a clearer view, watching the steam billow and hiss. "It's 
beautiful, isn't it?" she lisped. "Death."

"Yeah." His windpipe constricted, mangling the words on their way out. "There's 
nothing I like better than a good slaughter."

She laughed, a soft sound in the back of her throat as she slid back toward him, 
dropping to her knees in the floorboard. She resettled the .22, her cheek 
brushing the stubble on his jaw. She felt him flinch involuntarily and chuckled 
as he tried to cover it. "You'll have to tell me if I got it right, you know." 

"Got what right?" Why did he bother playing to this, he wondered? Because 
anything was better than acknowledging the zeal of that mouth against his skin--

"Death." It seemed to be the catch word of the evening. "You've seen so much of 
it," she insisted, "you'll have to tell me if I got it right. Just-- I don't 
know, a little nod before you stop breathing. Maybe--"

The car erupted in static as he flipped the radio on. 

"Turn that off," she demanded. 

He twisted the dial savagely, fingers clumsy from lack of oxygen. She was off 
his neck, at least, the pistol shoved back into its familiar spot at the base of 
his skull. Between the two of them, he preferred the pistol. 

The radio sought human contact: Mel Tillis. James Taylor. The rapid-fire edict 
of an insurance ad. The thunderous roar of Guns 'N Roses. 

She shoved him aside, slapping the button impatiently. 

"I said, turn it *off.*" Her voice was petulant, strident. 

Careful, Mulder....

*Careful, hell. I'm dead already.*

Mulder slipped his free hand back to the wheel. "You don't want me falling 
asleep, do you, Cecile?" he complained. "You got a poem for me? No? How about a 
song? You know, some traveling music to set the mood." She didn't answer and he 
shrugged a levity that no longer existed in his world. "I've always been fond of 
the Stones, myself," he marveled where the words were coming from, who was 
speaking with his mouth. "How about 'Sympathy for the Devil?' You do the lyrics 
and I'll do the 'whoo hoo's' on the chorus." 

"The others didn't fear me, either," she whispered huskily. "Not at first 
glance." 

His jaw tightened. She felt the bone shift, the motion repositioning the muzzle 
of the gun by millimeters. It was his only concession to her voice. 

She inhaled deeply, like she could absorb him whole. One tremendous gulp and he 
would be gone--

"After a while," she breathed the "while," a tremendous sigh across his ear, 
sensuous, hungry. She repeated the words, enjoying the affect, watching his face 
in the mirror, tense next to her own. "After a while, you learn to prolong the 
fear. Just... incapacitating them enough to keep them still, but not dead, yet. 
No," another extended syllable, a corresponding shiver through the veins of his 
neck as her free hand slid across his shoulder to encounter exposed skin. "No, 
the victim should be alive, don't you think? There should be *someone* there to 
appreciate the pains you take with them. And who better to appreciate, but the 
one experiencing the deed firsthand. Hum?"

His response, aside from a narrowing of the eyes, was cut short. There was a 
sudden *whump* as the Monte Carlo encountered a change in pavement: asphalt 
abruptly replaced by tar and gravel. 

Mulder returned his focus to the road: the six-lane was rapidly dropping to two. 
"Loudoun County" was a small, unobtrusive sign to his right. Just past the sign, 
lights flooded the interior of the car: sheriff's cars to either side of the 
road, snapping on their headlights and joining in the chase, rubber squalling on 
gravel. Purdue and his escort dropped back, allowing room.

"Shit."

"What?" she demanded, squinting over her shoulder. "Lose them, dammit! Lose them 
now!"

The road here was remarkably slicker, oil from the tar mixing with rain. The 
Monte Carlo's tires squealed, finding traction with difficulty. The sheriff's 
car to his left was faring considerably better. His headlights filled Mulder's 
side mirror, blinding him. 

Mulder shifted in his seat, fleeing the glare, reacting on instinct. Half-blind, 
he searched his rearview mirror: the second deputy had pulled back, forcing 
Purdue and the Fairfax trooper's vehicle to fall in behind him on the narrow 
stretch of road, clearing the shot for the lead deputy. 

A fishtail maneuver. Mulder had been trained in the procedure at Quantico, a 
lifetime ago. It was designed to bring a high speed chase to a relatively quick 
halt, with as little injury to life and property as possible. The idea was 
simple: a pursuing unit delivered a quick, solid tap to one side of a vehicle's 
bumper. Executed properly, the concussion was enough to spin the suspect's 
vehicle around, causing the driver, startled and disoriented, to instinctively 
hit his brakes. Pursuing law enforcement could then move in for the arrest.

Mulder had barely enough time to brace himself for the impact. In a brief burst 
of speed, the deputy rendered the necessary blow: a tap on Mulder's left rear 
bumper-- just a tap. 

It exploded like a concussion in the vehicle. Cecile squealed, disappearing into 
the back seat, kicking frantically. 

Mulder didn't fight the wheel as expected. He tracked with the force of the 
blow, allowing the Monte Carlo to take its right angle swing, controlling it 
rather than fighting. The car slid to the shoulder and threatened to disappear 
into the dirt field beyond, the deputies pursuing. Mud and gravel rumbled 
beneath the passenger-side floorboards and Cecile slammed into the back of 
Mulder's seat. Her arm fumbled across his shoulder, grabbing sweater and skin 
with equal determination. 

Mulder ignored her, wincing as her nails drew blood, but intent upon the wheel. 
He made his correction, finally, with the last of the gravel shoulder under his 
left rear tire.

He corrected carefully, but the shift and the resulting struggle for traction 
had Cecile screaming. Or had she always been screaming and he simply hadn't 
noticed? His head was throbbing, and for the life of him, he couldn't remember. 

"I'll kill you! I'll kill all of you--!" she squealed, drowning out sirens and 
the whine of the engine.

Mulder's left front tire hit gravel again after an eternity. Behind him and to 
his right, lights swirled, growing distant: two deputy's units well into the 
plowed field, wheel-well deep in mud. Mulder regained the road and Purdue and 
his escort fought to resume the chase, their headlights approaching rapidly.

Traction be damned, Mulder floored the muddy two-door, shooting forward into the 
darkness. Sisyphus, breathing hot against his neck, was finally speechless.

 



XXXXXXX

Gilbert's Corner, Virginia, is simply that: a corner in the middle of nowhere in 
particular, the merest mark on a map. Aside from a smattering of blurred lights, 
he would have missed it. He did notice the deputy's vehicle, however, parked to 
the left, just at the opening curve of the road. Its lights were out, but 
tell-tale reflectors danced as Mulder's headlights grazed the rise of a small 
hill beyond, no more than a mound, farm house and barn forming a skyline in the 
near distance.

Christ, but the men in this county were persistent, he'd give them that.

The rain had let up considerably, dissolving into a miserable drizzle that ate 
at the brain. Mulder squinted, conscious only of seconds fleeing. Precious 
seconds. 

Only one vehicle. For a roadblock it was blatantly undermanned. Mulder chewed 
his lip. This stretch of US 50 was almost a straight shot, with no sharp turns 
and few curves. Excellent for driving, piss-poor if you were expected to lay a 
last minute road trap. 

Still... Mulder's mind raced, speeding past time and the rumble of wheels on 
pavement. He noted the motion of a solitary figure beside the darkened vehicle.

A one man, one vehicle roadblock. No one was that confident unless--

Spikes. The man had laid out a TPD, a tire puncturing device, Mulder would lay 
money on it. The chain of vicious metal claws was standard issue for highway 
patrol. 

Cecile noted the sudden change in tension and shoved forward, gun tight against 
Mulder's skull, a sensation as common to him now as his own breath. 

"What is it?"

"Hang on," he hissed.

He took the shoulder again, heading into the curve of the hill beyond the 
deputy's car. Beside him Cecile yelped, gripping both him and the passenger 
seat, knuckles white.   Mulder clipped the rear bumper of the deputy's vehicle 
as he passed it, turning his wheel into the hill's incline, just missing the 
barbed wire fence at the summit, tires slinging mud, rock, and sod. 

It had been a calculated gamble, and he fought to complete the turn and regain 
the road. As he had hoped, the slope of the hill had allowed water to run off 
swiftly. The ground beneath him held. He gathered traction as he dove back to 
the pavement, hitting the road hard, shocks groaning with the impact. Sisyphus 
released him abruptly, protecting her head from the ceiling as she bounced. She 
scrambled to recover -- the gun apparently welded to her hand. Mulder ignored 
her, scarcely noticing the muzzle shoved against his ribs this time. He sped 
onward into darkness. 

In his rearview mirror, the deputy stood stunned a minute too long, then 
scrambled for the TPD. 

Too late. Purdue's escort hit the chain of spikes, tires exploding. Sisyphus 
took a moment to register the significance of the resulting havoc, then squealed 
her delight. The hapless trooper slammed into the field below the hill, taking 
out the fence before lumbering helplessly into the mud. 

Mulder searched the road behind him until darkness swallowed it whole. There was 
no sign of Purdue's Chrysler.

The interior of the Monte Carlo was silent for several minutes, Sisyphus' 
excited panting growing more steady in the brief space of a mile. Mulder didn't 
trust the silence but was grateful for it all the same. Off to the west, clouds 
were clearing, framing stars of great piercing heat. The moon was a slender 
shard, a sickle prepared for harvest but what little light filtered to the earth 
offered no wisdom. 

He shook his head. "I can't believe I don't even rate a damned poem."

 



XXXXXXX

His voice was that of a man speaking from far below the surface of things, from 
a small, hidden room in his gut, a place so far down in the depths of the human 
soul that the mind could speak only the echo, unaccustomed to giving voice to 
intimate confessions, making up nonsense, since true words did not exist there. 

Unaccustomed to such depths herself, Sisyphus ignored him, tuned to her own 
frequency, scanning the landscape fleeing past her window. 

The soft hand on his shoulder must have been expected, Mulder didn't even 
flinch. Was he so tired? Or was he simply resolved to his fate?

She purred at his ear, "I like foreplay as much as the next girl, but this has 
gone on long enough, don't you think?" God, but he smelled marvelous. The climb 
down the shaft, the drive, nothing had robbed him of that essential essence, 
that rich warm scent that was uniquely his.

He licked his lips, considering. The image made her thirsty. "The evening was 
just getting interesting," he noted.

She smiled, knowing he could feel it without glancing in the mirror, a shift in 
the tension of her check where it grazed his neck. 

"That's right," she promised. "It *is* just getting interesting." She smiled 
pleasantly, leaning forward between the seats to insure his attention, his 
appreciation of her charity. "You've done so well, so far. Tell you what, you 
stop the car, and I'll let you live."

He glanced at her sidelong, eyes slitted, pupils lost beneath dark lashes. "Like 
you did Kay?" He faced forward abruptly, a dismissive tilt of the head that left 
her growling.

"There's no one to save now, my angel. One way or the other, this vehicle is 
going to stop." She jabbed the pistol against his rib cage, feeling muscle and 
bone give slightly. He winced, shifting, keeping his hands carefully on the 
wheel, his foot steady on the gas. He shook his head.

She grabbed a handful of hair and jerked, batting his head into the headrest 
with a satisfying thump. "No one tells me no," she hissed, emphasizing each 
syllable. "I said stop the damned car." 

The speedometer rose slightly, his only answer. She cuffed him with the side of 
the pistol, not too hard, she hoped, but enough to insure his attention. Mulder 
grunted, the wheel jerking in his left hand, his right hand grabbing at his 
temple. 

Rage, frustration, and the tantalizing scent of blood were finally too much for 
her. She jerked forward and took the wheel for herself, yanking it hard to the 
right. She would stop the car in spite of him, allow the mud of the field beside 
them to do it for her. Then she would begin in earnest, have what she had come 
for, enjoy the fruit of her patience--

She glanced up just in time to realize her folly. A narrow arch bridge glistened 
in the headlights, approaching rapidly. The bridge and its guard rail were 
stone, hand-quarried, hand-set, hand-mortared when the country was young. "Built 
to last," her father would have said. Strange how the mind can wrap itself in 
trivia at such a time. The highway sign beside the road announced "Little 
River." Mulder, right eye filling with blood, saw it just as she did. He 
tightened his grip on the wheel.

And pressed the accelerator to the floor.

They mounted the bridge with a tremendous jolt of shocks, then hit the guard 
rail, her terror consumed by the scream of twisting metal and the explosion of 
stone. 

Sisyphus slammed face-first into Mulder's headrest. Seconds later she could not 
recall the details, only note its results: her eyes aflame with stars, the 
sickening sweet smell of her own blood filing her sinuses. And the pain.

Then they were airborne, her body rising. The top of her head collided with the 
upholstered roof, slapping her back against the seat. The double impact knocked 
the wind from her chest, smothering her scream. She watched the .22 fall from 
her hand, tumble to the floorboard and disappear beneath Mulder's seat. She was 
vaguely aware of Mulder's body crumpling down but it was not the gun he was 
after. There were other things more deadly now. His seat belt held, but momentum 
flung him sideways, hurling him against the center console-- 

Why was it all in slow motion, she wondered? How strange. They were running in 
slow motion, like movies do to highlight pivotal scenes-- 

She marveled, watching Mulder's arms rise to protect his face from the impact. 
His body jerked, slowly... so slowly...

Sisyphus tumbled back to her seat, languid, like Alice leisurely tumbling down 
the rabbit hole. As she fell, she noted the scene beyond the windshield: water. 
Water without horizon, swirling, the river heavy with rain. 

The vehicle shuddered, concussed. The swollen river rose to meet the windshield, 
headlights burning through the murky depths: algae and debris, clay of the 
riverbed rising, deep red and pockmarked like the surface of Mars. The wheels 
and one front fender scraped the bottom before natural buoyancy lifted them 
again, rattling her teeth with its dance.

Mulder pushed himself back from the dash with a groan, and Sisyphus grabbed for 
him, too far gone to surrender him now. Her arm found his neck and she pinned 
him in a pseudo choke hold, tight against the passenger headrest. He made only a 
feeble effort at resistance, too stunned to react. 

The engine sputtered. Angled nose-down in water, they bobbed like a heavy cork, 
the current boiling around them, eager for the sea. The river pushed the vehicle 
before it, slammed the tail of the Monte Carlo into the bridge, bumper and left 
rear fender catching on the arch. 

Sisyphus was airborne again suddenly, flying. Mulder fell forward as well, 
instinctively sliding sideways and grabbing for the wheel to hold himself in the 
seat. Without his body to weight it, the passenger seat flipped forward and 
Sisyphus tumbled over it, her shoulder ramming the windshield. Tiny hairline 
cracks fractured the glass on her impact. She felt that her body must have 
shattered as well, unable to even draw in air.

She remained conscious somehow, adrenaline insisting that she live. She 
scrambled blearily, trying to regain a sense of time and place. Droplets beaded 
against her cheek, her blood diluted by river water oozing through the fractured 
glass. 

She rolled free of the dash, an awkward, excruciatingly painful motion, and 
managed to land almost upright in the front passenger seat as it snapped 
upright. She didn't allow herself to think about the pain, incapable of that 
much clarity.

The arch of the bridge forced the car's nose deeper, ever deeper. Metal squalled 
above, panicked, desperate. Or was that his voice she heard? Was he speaking? Or 
only grunting? 

She forced her eyes to focus, her brain to concentrate, to locate him. She found 
him beside her, slipping free of his seat belt, twisting wildly. He was bloody 
and convulsing-- no, not convulsing. He was just struggling with the window 
control. 

Now, why would he want the window down, she wondered? Didn't he realize it was 
raining? Didn't he realize they'd get wet?

The window gave grudgingly, and water splashed her face as Mulder tried to force 
the glass. The icy spray brought a measure of clarity and she attacked him with 
the vengeance of the demented. He could not escape. She could not allow it. He 
was hers. Hers. Pain only lent her fight an enhanced desperation.

Mulder refused to release the window control. She reached past him, body 
screaming, clawing at his hands. He jerked one hand free, ratcheting the lever 
violently, using the other hand to drive the glass down into the door. Finding 
no traction for her fingers in the blood that soaked his skin, she grabbed a 
handful of his hair, tugging blindly. 

He refused to turn around. He jerked his body against hers, knocking her back 
into the passenger seat, knocking the breath from her lungs. The vehicle bobbed 
as she landed, and she tumbled to the dash, yelping as she hit the gearshift. 
More stars and pain she could not identify, new sensations she had no frame of 
reference for. There was something wrong with her lungs. Her sternum had 
transformed into a dagger of some kind--

She struggled up, her pistol regarding her from the floorboard, baleful in the 
murky water. The river splashed in from Mulder's slowly opening window, a 
waterfall, threatening to become a torrent as the water level rose. 

Sisyphus scrambled for the weapon, slapping at Mulder's leg, insisting on her 
property. The window gave at last, water pouring in, and they were suddenly 
sinking in earnest. He kicked, gathering his knee beneath him, kicked again, and 
she realized finally that he was not fighting her. He was trying to push his 
injured body through the window.

She grabbed him by the waist and clung for dear life, pulling him down despite 
the agony wracking every muscle in her body. Mulder clung to the opening, 
grunted, gasped as water rushed over him, rising higher, at his chin now. She 
clawed his eyes and he cried out, despair, agony, and desperation at war within 
that single animal syllable. He caught her with his elbow, jabbing it backwards 
at her ribs. Pain radiated everywhere at once, too intense for sound or thought. 
But she did not let go. 

Masonry crumbled in little *pings* against the rear window, penetrating her 
consciousness. She rolled her face against his back, glancing over, up, to see 
what could possibly be happening now. She saw only the black underbelly of the 
bridge, a dark beast bathed in the fiery red of the Chevy's tail lights.

And then the world rolled over.

Suspended between buoyant air pressure and rising water, the Monte Carlo lost 
its struggle with the swollen current. The fender came free of the bridge in a 
great high-pitched whine. The car bobbed bitterly once. 

Mulder lost his grip, gulping a mouthful of water that left him choking. He 
tumbled backward, on top of Sisyphus as she reached out a hand, seeking to 
correct her own balance. Her fingers found the windshield, water lapping 
hungrily just beyond the glass, the fingers of a tree branch scratching at her, 
begging for admittance. 

The vehicle twisted drunkenly, more metal crumpling high above. The arch caught 
them again, the other fender this time. The river raged, hammering relentlessly, 
forcing the front bumper to follow the current, bridge or no bridge. The Monte 
Carlo surrendered, flipping front to end, upside down into the dark water. 

Sisyphus screamed as she and Mulder tumbled together to the roof of the car. He 
landed first, softening her landing and she held him there beneath her, 
marveling as the water poured in from the open window and the dash, filling the 
vehicle with impossible speed. Mulder gasped, struggling as his head went under, 
the steering column holding his legs captive. Sisyphus felt his rib give beneath 
her hand, felt him convulse. She smiled, waiting for his body to still. He 
clawed at her, a savage, hungry for air, grabbing flesh with one hand, 
upholstery with the other. She didn't care if he managed to tear her skin off 
but the water was rising without mercy. Sisyphus managed to gather one final 
mouthful of oxygen for herself before the river swallowed her whole. 

Mulder's hand slid away, still, and she kicked upward, arm flailing at the 
hapless passenger seat, driving it back as she sought *up* and the remaining air 
pocketed within the overturned vehicle. She opened her eyes as she surfaced, 
head slamming into the floorboard: less than half a foot of the Monte Carlo's 
interior remained above the water line. It spun around her like a thing 
possessed, dragging her with it. The world convulsed as both fenders caught the 
stone bridge in rapid succession. 

It took her only seconds to realize that Mulder had not surfaced with her. She 
growled, gulped air and kicked, pushing herself back below the water level. Silt 
and muck burned her open eyes but the headlights still burned, reflecting in the 
water's haze, dash and buckets seats casting deep shadows. 

Mulder was half-way out of the window already. She flailed at him, grabbing one 
leg and holding it fast, climbing up him, her lungs screaming for oxygen. He 
kicked at her, equally determined, eyes large in the roiling water, impossibly 
green... 

There was a sharp snap from the dash. Sisyphus glanced back. The tree branch 
that had pleaded with her earlier had found the weakness in the windshield. It 
was pushing through the glass, seeking her with surrealistic patience; a dark 
companion limb battered the passenger window with similar results. 

The world had turned to slow motion again, she noted, moving at some random 
speed. Caught up in the wonderment and the need for oxygen, she failed to see 
the tree attached to the limb. Failed to realize that it, too, was tumbling 
through the glass -- the windshield and the window -- ripping through the 
Chevrolet's roof--

Mulder's final image of her would be one of nightmare: her hair swimming wildly, 
eyes wide with surprise, mouth open in a little "O," a scream she could draw no 
air for. He kicked free just before the shattered oak drove through her chest.

Her final view of the world was lit by headlights: bubbles like bright moths 
flying away to the surface....

 



XXXXXXX

Another kick and Mulder's body floated without his efforts. He couldn't tell 
which way was up, whether he fell or rose, didn't truly care. There was a 
roaring somewhere, metal screeching... Stone... Something else. The sounds 
rolled over, though him, reverberating through the water, shaking his ribs and 
gripping his spine. 

He had breathed twice before he realized he was doing so, great gasping gulps 
that left his lungs screaming. He glanced up into a blood red sky, blinked.

No. Not sky. The underside of a bridge, lit by the taillights of a car-- 

His brain fought to make sense of it. Taillights of a car-- 

His car. 

And he remembered. 

Relived. 

The bridge slid away, presenting him with the sky, deep black, the moon and its 
stars, if they existed, invisible behind miles of clouds, oblivious. The water 
roiled around him, carrying him aloft. He floated with it, unaware that he 
should resist, incapable of it. 

A branch, too small to offer rescue, brushed his face. His feet encountered 
clay, slid away, his brain registering only the merest distress, his battered 
body unresponsive. His head fell forward, and he hadn't the strength to lift it, 
felt the current twist around his legs, pull. He blinked in resignation and 
numbed amazement as the river tugged him under.

Water flooded his nose and he tasted silt, thick and alkaline in the back of his 
throat. He struggled not to cough, fighting to lift his head. The current 
refused to yield, however. It jerked his out-flung arm and wrapped itself around 
his chest. His lungs throbbed with the relentless pressure and he kicked, back 
straightening against something solid. He yelped, water pouring from his mouth. 
His ribs, his shoulder, his brain shuddered, twitching spasmodically. 

It was not the current squeezing his chest, he realized. It was an arm. Pain and 
relief forced his feet into action, scrambling frantically for the soil that 
sloped beneath him suddenly. The arm shifted, releasing his wounded ribs, and 
became hands under his armpits, dragging him backward, free of the water. 

The hands lowered him to the ground, turning him to his side as he choked up 
river water and blood.

"Mulder. Mulder, can you hear me?"

The world settled, finally. Soft sounds, his body shivering. A large hand 
holding his shoulder, steadying him.

Cold, it was so gloriously cold, even more than the river had been. It was good 
to feel something again, even this. 

"Mulder!"

He nodded, struggling for clarity, recognizing the voice. Purdue. Purdue who had 
pursued him without headlights, waiting for his chance, waiting for Mulder to 
give him that chance.

And had he? He tried to think, memory twisting petulantly, second-guessing 
motive, obscuring detail. Hell, he was alive, so he must have, he supposed. God 
owed him no favors and Sisyphus... well--

"She's in the car," he gasped. He found Purdue's wrist beside him and grabbed 
it, grateful for something solid as the ground rolled beneath him, riotous as 
the Little River overrunning its banks. "She's still in the car. We've got to 
get her out. She's--"

"She's dead, Mulder." Purdue's hand squeezing his shoulder. "She's dead. It's 
over. Just let it go."

Mulder slapped the arm away. He flopped to his back, writhing to ease the pain. 

Over? What did he know of *over*? He blinked against the rain, a fine mist that 
penetrated the skin. 

Over.

Mud beneath him, dark sky above. Purdue's face, drenched in sweat and water, 
blocked the drizzle. His dark skin sparkled in the headlights of the Chrysler 
parked across the water, just beyond Mulder's field of vision. He had left the 
car door open; the Chrysler's warning bell pinged patiently, just 
distinguishable over the growling of the river.

Purdue lifted a hand to Mulder's face, hesitated, then turned Mulder's chin, 
checking his eyes. 

"I'm okay," Mulder promised, still blinking against the misting rain. He was 
*numb,* actually, he realized, and it was beyond a mere matter of semantics. He 
closed his eyes, unable to make his voice steady, unable to block the relived 
terror of hours, of days, the grief of endless weeks. "I'm okay," he insisted -- 
I *am,* I *am* --"I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm--" 

He continued the words, failing to hear them any longer. His grip on Purdue's 
wrist was the central pivot upon which the galaxy spun, the only thing holding 
him to the world. He clung to it, nails digging deep, unable to let go. 

"I'm okay. I'm okay--" 

Purdue's hand slipped over his, but the ASAC did not try to break free. 

"You're okay, Mulder," he promised and Mulder believed. "Everything's going to 
be okay." 

 



XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX 

Part 27 of 27: Epilogue: Regularly Scheduled Maintenance

"The dead remember." -- Vernon J. Geberth. *Practical Homicide Investigation*, 
Third Edition. Boca Raton: CRC Press LLC. 1996.

 



"Because you're a bungling fool!" 

The sharp British voice made him flinch. His physical reaction, however, was 
little more than a startled wince; the sedatives held him tightly under, 
refusing to yield. He licked his lips in a vain search for moisture. His throat 
was tight, stuffed with cotton batting, the same thick layers of fluff that 
blanketed his brain. The discomfort was distant though, and he did not resist 
the drugs, content within this spell of non-pain, non-thought. 

He moved, the trembling of one hand, fingers sliding aimlessly across fresh 
linen. Then stilled.

Quiet again. 

It was good to be here, he decided, wrapped in this cocoon of unconcern. He was 
dry. Warm. There was the random beeping of omniscient machines; even their 
alarms were a kind of indecipherable comfort. A slight pinching on the back of 
his left hand -- just beyond the edge of actual awareness: tape tugging skin -- 
was a reassurance that he was, indeed, still alive at some level; that there 
were as yet no dreadful realities waiting to scorch his impenitent soul. 

"I did what I thought was best for the project--" 

Soft tenor, plaintive, a casual whine. The acrid fragrance of smoke, old 
cigarettes. The voice and the accompanying scent left Mulder mildly unsettled, 
overcome with an impending sense of doom revisited, as though his cells recalled 
events his conscious mind could not. There was something familiar here. 
Something old and awful at the edge of memory....

"You did nothing but satisfy your own warped curiosity." The Briton again, 
scolding jealously. The voice was quieter this time, though, little more than a 
cultured hiss somewhere to Mulder's left. "The very idea that you would put the 
project at risk for some petty personal--"

"I would have allowed no harm to come to him--"

"No harm?" Frustrated, disgusted growl, a parent weary of pointless argument. 
"Get out. I'll deal with this myself. Out, I said!"

Footsteps shuffling. Another lungful of acrid smoke that burned with the oxygen 
being force-fed through Mulder's nostrils. His stomach rolled vainly, stilled as 
Sauceda's voice echoed in his head: "Need to give those things up, kid. They'll 
kill you." 

He heard the quiet "huff" of a heavy, well-cushioned door. The continual almost 
subliminal beep above his head and to the right. Another, different, beeping 
beside him, rhythmic, steady. Hypnotic. 

He could feel his own heartbeat. His lungs, inhaling. Exhaling. Deep sighs. The 
consolation of unyielding darkness.

The whisper of fabrics beside the bed....

This was all just a dream. Right? Another dream. Or maybe the doctors had 
returned, or the nurse. Hadn't she just been here? The nurse? Mulder could 
recall her clearly, though he had perceived, not actually seen her: the strong 
hands, cool on his wrist when she had been here moments ago -- or was it days? 
It was difficult to be certain. The deceptive nature of dreams and drugs... Time 
simply did not exist in this room of soft beeps and swirling voices. He'd 
learned her voice, though, always the same, hopeful, coaxing without 
condemnation: "Hello, Fox. It's Nurse Owens, again--" 

Owens? Or was it Olson? Owens. Olson. Owens-- 

Well, O-something. She had been inordinately kind to Mulder, and, defenseless, 
weary, he had allowed it. Her proddings were gentle and discrete, and she had 
patiently explained her every intent, as though he could comprehend or care. The 
bandaging, the protesting of alarms as she adjusted this and that... 

There was nothing for him to concern himself with, she'd promised. He shouldn't 
worry. When they were ready, they would wake him, and meanwhile, the important 
thing was rest. Just... rest. Solid advice any sensible man would take. And 
Mulder prided himself on being a sensible man.

But, no, this... this was not Nurse O-something. It was the Briton again, 
reassuring, persistent, speaking softly. He was not fussing now-- not at Mulder, 
anyway. The odor of stale cigarettes dissipated slowly, fading from Mulder's 
consciousness, lost to memory in the space of a breath. The Briton's voice 
remained familiar, however. Familiar without that nameless dread....

No, everything was better, his visitor promised. Everything was well and would 
be well and there would be no more dreams and no more visions. All a terrible 
mistake. Talents awakened too early, yes, but there was no permanent harm, 
Mister Mulder, nothing to concern him. He would not even remember...

No permanent harm. How comforting-- 

Chilled hand against his neck, cold as death but kind, the sharp prick of a 
needle--

And the world of beeps and faceless voices disappeared into luxurious darkness.

XXXXXXX

 



Saturday, May 21, 1988. 11:48 p.m. Georgetown Medical Center Hospital. 

 



He shut the door behind him quietly, leaned against it, eyes closed, listening. 

No footsteps. No one searching for him. Not yet anyway. 

Mulder registered the fact with relief but did not move. The room was cold and 
the door, sheathed in metal, was ice against his temple. The cold radiated, 
piercing the throbbing pressure in his brain. Pain bled out his ears, oozing, an 
invisible fire down his neck, leaving him vaguely disoriented.

He'd woke with the headache, a slightly less intense version of the one he had 
suffered over the past several months. This one seemed to be centered 
differently, as well: a dull, general throbbing that crept up his spine and 
slammed fist-like into the base of his brain. His body offered little sympathy, 
having problems of its own, aches trapped deep inside muscle and bone. His 
ribcage was bandaged tightly, an excuse not to breath too deeply and set his 
lungs to screaming. There was an ominously thick padding around his right thigh, 
but his leg seemed to be in one piece, twinging only when he stepped too quickly 
right or left. 

By concentrating, he could avoid limping, and ignore the sharp pain below the 
bandages across his ribs. He'd staggered occasionally on the way down from his 
room, but the disorientation had been intermittent, there one step, gone the 
next. The halls had been all but deserted in this area of the hospital; the few 
personnel he had passed had not seemed to notice anything too unusual. Certainly 
no one had stopped to question him.

His knee shuddered menacingly now, ceased when he opened his eyes. The lights 
were dim here, blessedly so. His left eye had almost stopped throbbing, nerves 
relaxing hesitantly, loosening their sympathetic synchrony with his heart. 
Mulder twisted to face the room, rolling his head against the door as he did so, 
allowing the back of his skull to seek its share of cooling relief, grateful for 
this unexpected dispensation. He finally allowed his eyes to focus.

The room was large: chrome cabinets to his left and right, a wall of stainless 
steel facing him, awash in gloom and reflected colors. Light filtered in through 
an open door, distant and to his left. There was a hall beyond the door, more 
rooms. The name plates were invisible to him due to distance and angle, but he 
knew them. He'd visited here often enough. He could walk the layout in his 
sleep: labs running to the left of the hall, a break room, a vending machine 
just before the service elevator. The autopsy bays were to the right. Someone 
was busy tonight. The third door on the right was open, a gap where light bled 
across the linoleum. Aretha Franklin's "R-E-S-P-E-C-T" bounced on the com 
speakers. 

Lenny would have approved.

A deep, twisting ache shot through Mulder's abdomen. He refused to bend, 
however, to bow to the grief. He hadn't the luxury of yielding. Hadn't the 
right. He'd understood that before he had come here, as soon as the news report 
had penetrated the residue of drugs -- the television's volume low, a mumble 
across his room, then names, significant nouns: FBI, Fuche, spokesperson. 

Victims. 

Sauceda. 

He pushed away from the door, swayed, and planted his feet to recover his 
balance. The room waited, cool and inviting, patient as Fate. And why not? 
Everyone came here eventually, didn't they? Here, or at least to a room very 
like it: utilitarian white walls and stainless steel. Standard morgue. This one 
was better equipped than some he knew, but death seemed to demand the same 
provisions no matter where he found himself. Gurneys and vials, chemicals, pans 
and scales, measuring devices, pipettes, cutlery and spoons. Drawers and shelves 
stood ready, too, filled with more of the same, provisions sufficient for a 
holocaust. 

The Egyptians were right: the dead seemed to require so much more than the 
living somehow. But who could begrudge them their one final excess?

Mulder approached the wall of drawers, shuffling carefully, paper shoes 
whispering his progress. Stainless steel reflected his image back at him: stolen 
scrubs from the tiny lounge beside the nurse's station, physician's coat. The 
name tag flashed briefly at his collar, the name a smear within the washed 
chrome reflection, the photo bleary, a dark, East Indian man, smiling. 

The pale man in possession of the badge staggered, staring at his own reflected 
face. Deep blue and purple pooled into little wells below his eyes. A row of 
tiny surgical Band Aids ran across his right temple, glowing ghostly in the 
gloom. Stubble ran heavy on his jaw and down his throat. His skin was the color 
of cigarette ash.

Jeezus. When had he gotten so old? And why had no one told him? 

He laid his hand upon the reflection, on that face, steadying his legs, 
refocusing. The metal reflected blood on the bandage at his wrist. He didn't 
see.

*There's no time for this. Labels. Read the labels...*

Next to his hand was a white tab of tape, "A-15: Atkins, J." written across it 
in fine felt-tip marker. Chest-level and to his left: "B-14: McKenzie, P." 
Mulder stepped back, his hand-print a damp multi-limbed shadow upon the metal, 
burning away as he read. 

"B-12: Doe, Jane." "B-10: Fuche, C."

He paused, swaying again. His tongue sought his lips and he reached out to touch 
the drawer, fingers barely brushing metal before he caught the hand back, 
pressing it to his abdomen, cradling it like a thing bitten. His fingertips left 
two fine rings just at the edge of the drawer. He watched them fade, debating.

No. 

No. He had not come for this. He wouldn't look on her face again--

He turned, allowing the walls of drawers to steady him, waiting for his brain to 
focus on each carefully printed tag. "A-9: Afonse, R." "B-8: Hoffman, C." 

"A-7: Sauceda, L."

Mulder's lungs refused to function, muscles frozen. He didn't notice for at 
least a full minute, insensible to the cool metal rising beneath his hand, the 
thump as his palm slid and his shoulder hit the wall of drawers, hard and real, 
chill penetrating the cotton jacket. 

The label radiated in the light of the open hall, the drawer itself reflecting 
blue, neon, a sparkling mirror of indicator lights from the centrifuge across 
the room. The felt-tip letters of the label stared at Mulder accusingly: 
"Jeezus, Marty. Just look at this shit. They can't even get the damned label 
stuck on straight--" 

Mulder's lungs drew breath. The resulting pain, the clarity it brought, was as 
welcome as the voice of an old friend.

"Hey, Lenny."

Silence. He deserved that, he supposed. But... Maybe it was another Sauceda, L. 
It was possible, right? It had to be possible. The reporter had been confused -- 
or the drugs had reordered the words as Mulder had struggled to sit up. Lenny 
was in Memphis. Probably hauling his wife through Graceland--

Still, Mulder's hand refused to obey his brain, fingers fumbling metal, missing 
the latch on the drawer by several inches. He took as deep a breath as he could 
tolerate, biting his lip, but his shoulder still refused to reposition his hand. 


*Shit--*

His throat refused to voice the word, his tongue managing only a sickly click 
before clinging to the roof of his mouth.

*Please, God--*

The latch, at last. He paused, disbelieving, metal grainy beneath his fingers, 
slick at his thumb. A click and the drawer slid free several feet, rolling 
easily. 

Mulder took another struggling breath. 

Inside the drawer was a sheet lit in deepest blue, disappearing into the dark 
recesses of the wall. A folder, pale beige, lay across what was surely a man's 
chest--

Mulder stepped to the side of the drawer, careful to hold it still partially 
closed. His fingers sought a desperate hold on the crimped metal edge, but he 
avoided touching the sheet, eyes focused steadfastly upon the folder. The steel 
grew hot beneath his hand and he concentrated on simply breathing, ignoring the 
chemical tinge to the air, and other... things.

*Chart. Read the chart. That's all you need--* 

Mulder reached for the folder, paused, resuming the motion after a moment's 
care. He watched his hand, giving his brain time to process the position of the 
paper, to coordinate his aim. A great clarity washed over him, a certainty of 
time and place, of smell, the sensation of air across skin. A moment as memory 
penetrated soul, merging with his heart, a bitter treasure. Precious. Such are 
moments that remain in the consciousness of the race, that follow the soul to 
lives beyond. That create, and recreate the world--

 He opened the folder where it lay, using his right hand, his left hand unable 
 to release the drawer. 

 Autopsy notes. Hastily scrawled, preparatory to transcription and official 
 report. The handwriting sprawled across the paper, deeply slanted, foreign and 
 unconcerned, alien, so unlike Lenny's patient, meticulous print. Mulder's eye 
 ran down the sheet, seeking, not finding, finding too much-- 

 "...single gunshot wound... massive hemorrhaging, multiple incisions 
 postmortem, translateral incision to the spleen, colon and kidney...."





Toxicology followed: several sheets of print-outs, information too indistinct in 
this light, ink pale from overuse of the ribbon. Then a master sheet: doubled 
columns of chemical names, small boxes checked off to the left of the words, 
comments or numerals on tiny lines to the right. The list was only partially 
complete but the histamine results were there. 

Mulder stared at the number. Moisture formed on his lashes and he blinked it 
away, trying to hold the papers still, unable to believe, to hope. But there it 
was, the number quite clear. Proof. Certainty. Lenny had died quickly. She'd 
killed him before she'd begun her work, like the early victims. Inexplicably, 
she hadn't forced the old man suffer. 

She'd granted him this much, then, somehow. For some impossible reason, she had 
given Mulder this much. 

There was a breath across Mulder's neck. He blinked at the paper in his hand, 
waiting. Somewhere above the ceiling, there was a mechanical shudder, a hum: the 
air conditioner changing its cycle. The breath continued across his shoulders, 
cooler now. 

Simply air. 

Mulder returned the paperwork to the folder, careful to maintain order, closed 
the file. He waited several seconds -- how could he be sweating in a room this 
cold? -- and pulled the drawer slowly open.

It was Lenny all right. Odd, Mulder realized, how he could distinguish Sauceda's 
form even beneath the anonymity of a sheet: the lump of shoulders, the barrel of 
the chest and abdomen....

A corner of the sheet fluttered gently in the down draft. A pause, and Aretha 
resumed her warbling, forever vibrant and eager while Leonardo Sauceda lay 
quietly on a slab like those he had so often stood above in life. Lenny 
lingering among the dead with whom he'd had such a passing acquaintance--

*Hey, kid.*

A shiver jolted through Mulder's body, grabbing his shoulders before tumbling 
down, quickly down the height, disappearing into the floor, electric, alive, a 
bolt to wake the dead. Sauceda's voice, however, was only memory and longing, 
the goose bumps across Mulder's arms simply a response to the blowing of the air 
vent above. 

He rubbed a still trembling hand across his eyes, unable for a moment to accept 
the truth: there were no ghosts here. Amazingly enough, after so many months, no 
spirit stood at his elbow. There was no private communication, no request. None 
that Mulder could perceive, anyway. Nothing beyond the sense that something 
*should* be here, that someone watched. The tingling in his gut made it 
difficult to decide whether he was disappointed or grateful. Best not to think 
about it. What did it change?

Frantic feet ran past the closed door, shoes pounding. They didn't slow, fading 
past without breaking rhythm. They were looking for him, surely. What other 
emergency could there be in a morgue, save searching the halls for runaway 
patients?

*You shouldn't do Purdue like this, kid. He'll kick your ass.* 

More memory, but Mulder shrugged anyway. *Maybe I deserve it.*

*'Course you deserve it, kiddo. But that's beside the point.*

Mulder didn't have an argument for that, and this internal dialogue was just a 
little frightening. He focused deliberately on the wall beyond him, its detail 
lost in shadow, stainless-steel plumbing glinting here and there, reflecting 
more indicator lights. He did not notice, eyes unseeing although squinted, the 
mind focusing on interior landscapes. He waited, soul tense.

And still no one came. No familiar touch upon his shoulder, no desperate sigh 
upon his forearm. 

Mulder's mouth worked in concentration, wondering who could have negotiated this 
sudden truce, convincing the dead to leave him in peace-- 

*Lenny?*

There was no response. Sauceda's body waited patiently, admitting nothing, 
denying less. Mulder blinked down upon the sheet, awaiting permission, at least, 
a "no" that would not come. He released the gurney, placed one hand to either 
side of Sauceda's head and carefully, slowly, folded the sheet back, still 
waiting for that "no."

Sauceda's face was surprisingly calm, reassuring so. Except that the skin lay 
too loose across his cheeks, a harsh gray re-tinting the once rich brown 
complexion. The razor burn had cleared considerably, no longer its angry red, 
simple bumps across the line of the jaw. The brow was smooth, the lips parted 
only slightly as if in deep sleep--

Mulder let the sheet fall, fingers too numb to feel the cloth any longer. It 
folded gently down across the body mid-torso. 

He willed himself to look down, to focus: Lenny's chest had been sewn shut, a 
great jagged V-shaped slit that began at the nipples and disappeared, bled 
white, under the sheet across the pathologist's abdomen. 

Sisyphus' calling card, her great "V" of victory and vengeance. 

Other incisions had been sealed as well, wounds of autopsy only slightly more 
professional than Sisyphus' blade, necessary to provide access to the chest. 
Such terrible damage... Still, the body is a crime scene unto itself, an expert 
witness, and Lenny would have been the first to insist on telling his tale. The 
stapling looked hastily done, though, so unlike Sauceda's own usual methodical 
work. Dark curling hair sought to hide the sacrilege, ashamed. Sauceda's 
shoulders were slumped, so vulnerable, but they shouldered nothing now.

Mulder felt the weight of thousands across his own neck and shoulders. He could 
not raise his head, he realized, although the sight of Lenny only made the 
pressure worse. He shifted beneath the load, widening the distance of his feet, 
locking his knees. He would not falter here, would not faint and shame himself 
in this man's presence. Sauceda deserved better. His partner, his 
sometimes-unwilling friend, deserved the dignity that life had seemed so 
reluctant to give him. The compassion that Mulder had been too selfish to 
afford....

Goddam.

Sauceda offered no rebuke, though. Eyes patiently closed. Mouth open in its 
sleepy half-smile. Mulder gripped the edge of the drawer, fingernails of one 
hand scraping metal, fingertips twisting cotton sheeting with the other. He felt 
the words before he spoke them. Felt them gather in his chest with a fury that 
frightened him. He tried to choke them back. What did words matter now? Too 
little. Far too late. Impossible that Lenny should hear him--

The plea would not obey, however, swelling, swirling, pushing its way into and 
through his throat, bursting forth in a painful gasp.

"I'm sorry, Len."

The sentence echoed back at him in the stillness. 

Just words, with no one to hear. 

But the constriction in his chest eased with their escape, the trembling of his 
body subsided. The pressure across his shoulders remained, steadying him, a 
harsh but welcome arm across his upper back. And he knew.

The apology-- beyond all reason-- had been accepted.

XXXXXXX

 



Purdue was waiting for him when he stepped into the hall. The ASAC did not move, 
his back against the wall, arms folded, legs crossed at the ankles. Silent. 
Staring down the hall.

Mulder allowed the door to close quietly and set his back against it, palms flat 
against the metal, waiting. He glanced down the corridor, following Purdue's 
gaze. 

Nothing but the closed doors of an elevator, and, next to it, an abandoned cart 
of towels.

Mulder kept very still, focused on the cart. He asked quietly, "So, who called 
Imelda?"

"Me." The response was only slightly more than a grunt.

Mulder frowned and glanced back at the ASAC. His palms were sweating, sticking 
to the door. He didn't move them. "Should have been me," he said. 

"It was me." Purdue turned his head to look at him, but he didn't change 
position otherwise. He had managed to shave and probably shower. The suit, at 
least, was relatively unwrinkled. There was a dark bruise rimming his right eye. 
Mulder vaguely recalled his fist connecting with bone just about there.... 

It felt like a lifetime ago. 

Mulder bounced his shoulders against the door once. Twice. Glanced back up the 
hall.

"How is she?"

Purdue's foot shuffled, stilled. "She asked about you. Wanted to know if you 
were okay."

How could mere words inflict so much physical pain...? Mulder lowered his head, 
eyes burning, focused tightly on the cart of towels. "Wasn't my question," he 
noted.

"Yeah, well. It's all the answer I've got." Purdue shifted away from the wall, 
one step closer to the profiler. But no closer. Mulder watched this movement as 
it was reflected in the polished surface of the elevator doors. Purdue stared 
down at his own shoes. "It's all the answer *she's* got right now," he admitted, 
regretful, respectful. "She's quite a lady, isn't she?" 

Mulder shook his head. It wasn't a comment. He simply knew no suitable response.

"I, ahm," Purdue sighed, glanced up, gulping air, and tried again. "I heard from 
Fredricksburg this morning." 

Mulder blinked steadily at the elevator. Purdue had found Mulder's reflection 
there, too, and was watching carefully.

"They found their killer," he continued. "Shot him as he fled." 

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Purdue squinted across the distance. "Happened about the time you got to 
bed last night." 

*About the time someone tried crawling across the bed looking for you--* 

Purdue didn't speak the words but they hung thick in the air along with the 
faxed photograph he didn't mention: the latest victim. The earnest face of the 
child Purdue had seen reflected in Mulder's eyes. 

"Anything you wanna tell me, Agent Mulder?"

Mulder bit his lip, released it. Shrugged. "You look like shit?"

Purdue's mouth opened and he dropped his arms to his sides, both movements very 
deliberate and controlled. 

Mulder squeezed his eyes shut. He was too tired for this argument. He'd 
surrendered too much already, dammit, and the room had started up a kind of 
slow, hazy rolling motion--

He opened his eyes just as Purdue grabbed him by both arms. His head bounced 
back against the door and Purdue held him there, pain and surprise preventing 
any real resistance.

"Hey!"

"Hey?" Purdue's grip was vice-like, his face pinched and unyielding. "Hey?" he 
repeated viciously. "Hey, you know what I've finally decided, Mulder? I've 
decided that I'd have to be crazy to put up with your crap for the rest of my 
life." He shoved Mulder tighter against the door, and Mulder gasped with pain, 
bowing his head against the nausea welling up from his thighs and digging 
through his gut. His moan escaped through clenched teeth, involuntary. 

Only then did Purdue seem to realize what he had done. He released Mulder 
abruptly, eyes widened with horror at his own violence. He breathed through his 
mouth, watching Mulder recover, lips working silently, trying to place the exact 
moment when he'd lost his mind. 

Mulder managed not to double over, rubbing his left arm unconsciously, working 
at the fingerprints Purdue had left beneath his sleeve. He managed to control 
his gasps, keeping Purdue in focus peripherally, wary, offering nothing. 

He had nothing left. 

Purdue stepped back, the fingertips of his right hand pressing lightly against 
Mulder's chest as he distanced himself. Mulder allowed it. His ribs were 
screaming, his right leg spasming ominously. The pain allowed him to focus, 
though, and he searched the ASAC's face.

Purdue removed his hand after a moment's hesitation, and stepped back another 
yard, like he didn't trust himself anymore.

"There." Purdue's tone was very quiet. "See what I mean? I'm certifiable 
already." His voice wavered. "You're conscious less than an hour and I'm ready 
for a stint the nut ward." He flapped his arms helplessly. It might have been an 
apology, but he didn't seem to be able to find the words for it. He frowned as 
Mulder shook his head. "What?" Purdue asked bitterly, shamed. "You don't think 
I'm nuts? You don't--"

"I don't know, Reg," Mulder admitted. He held Purdue's gaze lightly, sighed 
around the rib scraping his left lung. "I don't profile my friends."

Purdue froze. It seemed to take him a long moment to resume breathing himself. 
"Uh huh," he said. He tilted his head warily, blinking. "Scared to, huh?"

Mulder grinned despite the pain. A chuckle started somewhere low and converted 
instantly into a fit of coughing that finally doubled him over. He moaned, 
gasping air. Lacerating pain gripped him from head to ankles, radiating from his 
ribs, down his legs, and up his spine into his brain. He felt the world going 
black, darker than his tightly clenched eyelids. He fought it, gripping his 
knees. The darkness retreated and the coughing subsided with effort. He finally 
became aware that Purdue was bent over beside him, rubbing his back in great 
arching motions. Mulder's first impulse was to push him away, but he remained as 
he was, unwilling to antagonize his body further. Purdue's hand stilled finally, 
and moved to his arm, a steadying pressure only, unwilling to intrude.

"You okay?" Purdue asked, and Mulder nodded carefully. Purdue didn't argue, but 
he didn't sound convinced, either. "Let's get you back to your room, son. I 
think I saw a wheelchair up--"

"No!" Mulder wrapped his arm across his chest and forced himself to straighten. 
"No, I can walk. I'll... I can do it." He didn't look Purdue in the eye but 
Purdue respected the effort.

"Okay, so you walk. But when I get you back to your room, I'm going to get that 
half-wit doctor of yours to order up something to knock you on your ass. You 
need to get some rest. The nurse said you had some more tests in the morning, 
Doctor--" he tapped Mulder's stolen ID badge and squinted at the text-- "Doctor 
Devananda. Good likeness, by the way. Does you justice."

Mulder made a bitter face. "What tests?"

"I dunno what tests. Hell, Mulder, it's a hospital. They do that sort of thing, 
you know?"

Mulder nodded without actually agreement. He kept his shoulder against the door 
and took a cautious step, pausing to adjust to new sources of pain. Purdue 
slipped an arm across his back and waited with him. Mulder hesitated and raised 
his arm to lay over the ASAC's shoulder. Purdue flinched at the movement, 
recalling past assaults, but he didn't release Mulder. Mulder settled his arm, 
biting his lip to keep from blushing.

"Don't get fresh," he advised. His focus was on the floor, though, gauging 
distance and fortitude.

Purdue grunted. "Don't flatter yourself. You couldn't handle it."

"Really?" Mulder tried to sound intrigued. Five safe steps down the hall 
bolstered his confidence, and he asked with feigned maliciousness. "So, what 
happened to your eye?" 

Purdue bent his head to judge the expression on his face. "I cut myself 
shaving," he assured. He grinned. "Hell, you should see the other guy."

XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX

END