The organizers of the Festival had set up wooden walkways on the midway, which was a blessing. Scully's feet didn't thaw, but they stopped freezing any worse, and she actually found the entire thing quite amusing. Right up until the crowning of the Winter Queen, which thankfully took place in a big pavilion. Mulder broke ground again, tugging at her gloved hand and squeezing through the crowd until they ended up at the walkway that was covered in tacky red, indoor/outdoor carpet. Holly and ivy decorated the little stage and Scully realized that it was an open air bandshell in the summer. Talk about pagan remnants, said the voice in her head that was still that little Catholic girl in parochial school. These people really were crazy, the Queen, young and blonde and buxom, stood up in a bathing suit and fur coat while she was being crowned. Mulder stared up at the bounteous blonde display and whistled under the noise of the crowd, leaned down and said, "Is she cold, do you think, or is she just glad to see me?" Scully whacked him again, this time in the stomach, not that he could feel it through his parka, but it got a wicked Mulder grin, the first she'd seen since arriving in this God-forsaken part of the world. Then, "Marcy Olafsen was Winter Queen when she was nineteen, Scully, keep your eyes open." Right. Like she was going to be able to recognize Marcy Olafsen under a knit cap, or with a parka hood pulled close around her face. But dutifully, she looked, looked hard. Looked until the young blonde Queen walked down the walkway and she recognized Inge. Her jaw dropped open as Inge sashayed past, waving to-- Pendrell. Pendrell was clapping like a maniac, his face just visible under a layer of wool. Poor kid, he was from California, this climate was as hard on him as it was on her. At least Mulder was originally from Massachusetts, it got damned cold there. Suddenly, Mulder was off like a shot, racing back out of the pavilion, still holding her hand. "Excuse me," she gasped, to the stout matron she nearly knocked over before disengaging from his grip. Then, "Excuse me again," to the matron's husband, when she stepped on his feet, trying to catch up with Mulder. She lost him at first, that thin form disappearing among the thicker ones that streamed toward the pavilion to see the new Queen. Passing a couple of giggling teenage girls, she stopped, gasping for air, the cold air as sharp as ice splinters in her lungs. "'Scuse me," she panted, "Have you see a tall man, dark hair, no hat, dark blue parka with," more panting, "fur around the hood?" The girls giggled. "Yah, sure. He went that way, toward the Yule tent. But it's closed now, they stop serving beer after the crowning." Head down, hands against her knees, Scully nodded thanks, straightened again and ran, the chill sparking pain in each lung. Damn him anyway, he got on a trail and just went fucking nuts. She was going to get Skinner for letting VCS borrow them on this one, just see if she didn't. He was the profiler, for God's sake, he wasn't supposed to be out tracking down the killer himself, but she was damned if she could ever get him to see the difference. A chill that had nothing to do with the weather snaked down her spine and she ran harder, went the wrong direction and got steered back on track by an old man wearing one of those damned hats with the ear flaps. Goddammit, she was going to kill him, she really was going to kill him when she found him, tackle him down in the snow and stuff a half-ton of it down his neck, that'd teach him to ditch his partner. He was standing at the dark entrance of a tent, having pulled the ties away. Staring into the darkness. Nothing there that she could see when she caught up to him. And she'd barely done so when he took off again, long legs carrying him out of the park and onto the slick street, precarious slide and he caught his balance again, elbows pumping. "Mulder, goddammit," she shrieked and took off again, cursing the day she'd ever set eyes on Blevins, the day she'd gone down to the basement and met smart ass, arrogant asshole Spooky Mulder. A four wheel drive full of raucous drunks made her wait to cross the street, but she cut across the residential yards, he was following the street and she'd seen him turn. The icy air was going to kill her, the cramp in her side was going to kill her, and boy, was he going to pay for it. The street was dark except for the streetlights, most houses dark, the occupants where they'd just been, at the Carnival. Mulder pelted up ahead of her toward the small Lutheran church, she was close enough to hear his breathing. It gave her a vicious spark of satisfaction to hear that he sounded worse than she did. Too much time in the basement, she told him silently and cursed again when he went up the stone stairs to the church door. Oh, please, let the door be locked, Scully thought, then took it back. If the door was locked, he might shoot the lock out, she could see the Minneapolis-St. Paul headlines, Deranged FBI Agent Shoots Way Into Church. But the door was unlocked, she saw him slam it open as she reached the sidewalk. He staggered in, leaving the door to be caught by the wind. Throwing herself up the stairs, Scully caught it, leaned heavily on it, gasping like she was dying. Hell, maybe she was, it certainly felt like it. There were no lights on, but Mulder found a switch and they flared to life, making Scully blink. "Oh, God." It was a whisper. Pulling the door shut behind her, she stumbled her way up to him and leaned on him just as heavily as she had on the door. Mulder stumbled back a step, his eyes wide and shocked and dark. Scully's head turned, but she already knew what she'd see, the chill snaked back up her spine and made her shudder. Carefully posed at the altar rail, a woman wearing a faded red one piece bathing suit stood in high heels. A well worn and motheaten velvent cloak trailed down her white shoulders, and a faded gilt crown was jammed onto her head. "The Queen is dead," Mulder breathed, "Long live the Queen." Scully shuddered. Marcy Olafsen had once again been crowned Winter Carnival Queen. Mulder shook her off, Scully caught the nearest pew to steady herself. "He's telling us that the Carnival is a pagan ritual. That holding to pagan ways is death, death to the soul, death to salvation. Marcy Olafsen is a soiled queen, symbol of the Winter Solstice, symbol of the consequences of rejecting Christ's will." He approached carefully and stood before the posed body. Scully wondered what was holding it up, then shuddered, caught her breath and walked shakily up the aisle to stand beside him. His breathing was still rough, shaken. "In Baltimore there lived a boy, He wasn't anybody's joy. Although his name was Jabez Dawes, His character was full of flaws. In school he never led his classes, He hid old ladies' reading glasses, His mouth was open when he chewed, And elbows to the table glued." Oh, God, not more Nash, please let it not be Nash. "Sinner!!!" The shrill voice turned Scully's head, raised gooseflesh under the layers of parka, sweater and thermal underwear. A woman stood in the vestry, gaunt and haggard, wearing a black dress that would have gone out of fashion before either of them were ever born, her white hair pulled back so tightly that it looked painful. "Sinner!!" she shrilled and waved what looked like a wooden stick at them. Mulder moaned and closed his eyes. "He stole the milk of hungry kittens, And walked through doors marked No Admittance. He said he acted thus because, There wasn't any Santa Claus. Another trick that tickled Jabez, Was crying "Boo!" at little babies. He brushed his teeth, they said in town, Sideways instead of up and down." "Sinner!! I know your heart, you can't hide from me." The old woman came closer, leaning on a walking stick. "You can't hide your sins, Jesus knows them all! You're going to burn in hell, Sinner." Scully frowned. Who in the hell was the woman talking to? Surely not Mulder. Absolutely not her. Although the woman was old enough that her vision might have suffered, perhaps she was addressing the inappropriately dressed corpse of Marcia Olafsen. Mulder whimpered. "I'm not a sinner," he whispered, too low to be audible to anyone but Scully. Then: "Yet people pardoned every sin, And viewed his antics with a grin, Till they were told by Jabez Dawes, 'There isn't any Santa Claus!', Deploring how he did behave, His parents swiftly sought their grave. They hurried through the portals pearly, And Jabez left the funeral early. " The old lady grinned like an evil jack o'lantern, approaching them with a shuffling step that was nonetheless relentless. "Repent, Sinner. I know about the dirty things you do, I know about your dirty filthy thoughts. Look at you, you make me sick. God will crush you like a bug, like the filthy dirty cockroach that you are. Get down on your knees!!" Her voice rose to a lunatic shout. "Get down on your knees and ask his forgiveness for your sins! Ask him to forgive the nasty things you do. Cut off your hand lest it offend!" Mulder shivered convulsively. "Like whooping cough, from child to child, He sped to spread the rumor wild: "Sure as my name is Jabez Dawes, There isn't any Santa Claus!" Slunk like a weasel or a marten Through nursery and kindergarten, Whispering low to every tot, 'There isn't any, no there's not!' " He was chanting it like a prayer, warding off evil. Scully shivered again, snatched after him fruitlessly as he took the step up behind the altar rail, stepped toward the hag with her venomous railing and her wooden stick. "Bad," the woman intoned, taking the last step to stand face to face with Scully's partner. "You were born bad and bad you remain. Get down on your knees, how dare you stand on your feet, unrepentant, in the house of the Lord. Hold out your hands, sinner, hold them out!" Mulder obediently did, ignoring Scully's gasp of outrage. The wooden stick came down on his palms and the lights flickered. His eyes closed and she could see tears on his face, shiny in the light. His voice was haunted, hollow, the voice of a ghost. "The children wept all Christmas Eve, And Jabez chortled up his sleeve. No infant dared to hang up his stocking, For fear of Jabez' ribald mocking. He sprawled on his untidy bed, Fresh malice dancing in his head, When presently with scalp a-tingling, Jabez heard a distant jingling;He heard the crunch of sleigh and hoof, Crisply alighting on the roof. " The stick came down again, harder and harder. The old woman's breathing was like a train whistle, as shrill as her voice. "If your hand offends God, cut it off," she raged and struck again. And again. Scully stood frozen, stunned, unable to move, to protest. Surely he wouldn't let her, surely this wasn't happening..... Mulder's voice rose, rose up, filling the church. "What good to rise and bar the door? A shower of soot was on the floor. What was beheld by Jabez Dawes? The fireplace full of Santa Claus! Then Jabez fell upon his knees, With cries of 'Don't,' and 'Pretty please.' He howled, 'I don't know where you read it, But anyhow, I never said it!' " The woman only seemed more enraged. "Get on your knees, get on your knees and ask forgiveness, beg him not to send you to eternal hellfire and brimstone. Beg him not to let the demons flay you alive, beg him!! Filthy, ugly, nasty thing!" The stick rose and fell again, but it broke Scully's stasis and she moved forward. "Hey, dammit, leave him--Mulder, for God's sake!" He fell to his knees and moaned again, his hands still out, and the stick struck with a sickening slap on flesh that spattered Mulder's face with something wet and red. Oh, Jesus--she tried to vault the altar rail, but the body fell forward, landing against her and making her stagger back, sickened and suddenly scared to her bones. Mulder's voice echoed hollowly in the empty church. " 'Jabez,' replied the angry saint, 'It isn't I, it's you that ain't. Although there is a Santa Claus, There isn't any Jabez Dawes!' Said Jabez with impudent vim, 'Oh, yes there is; and I am him!, Your magic don't scare me, it doesn't'--And suddenly he found he wasn't!" "Mulder!" Scully's voice rose in a near-scream. "Dammit, Mulder, snap out of it!" With a final, panicked shrug, she shoved Marcy Olafsen to the floor and pulled herself out, moving fast. The lights went out, but not before she saw Mulder put his hands up over his head to protect it, saw the smear of blood that brushed his temple. "Sinner!!!!" It was a triumphant shriek. And then there was silence, not even the sound of blows. Only Mulder's voice broke it, small and wistful. "From grimy feet to grimy locks, Jabez became a Jack-in-the-box, An ugly toy with springs unsprung, Forever sticking out his tongue. The neighbors heard his mournful squeal; They searched for him, but not with zeal. No trace was found of Jabez Dawes, Which led to thunderous applause, And people drank a loving cup, And went and hung their stockings up." Goddamn motherfucking sonuvabitch. Swearing, Scully felt her way forward, grabbed the altar rail and swung her leg over it. "Mulder, don't move, you're bleeding." The lights came on again, blinding Scully for a moment. When she could see again, her partner was still kneeling there, his hands raised, head ducked to protect it. And the old woman was gone, just gone, no shuffling gait, no sound, no shrieking, just plain gone. And Mulder looked at her with wide empty eyes, pupils swollen to eat up all but the rim of hazel. "All you who sneer at Santa Claus, Beware the fate of Jabez Dawes, The saucy boy who mocked the saint. Donder and Blitzen licked off his paint." And fell face forward, hands flung outward in silent supplication. Mulder had come around when Sculy slapped him several times, but it was a dazed, confused look and she didn't really want him lucid or cognizant until she could do something for his hands, both bloody and striped with welts and cuts. Bergman was useless, just useless. She'd had to run outside, leaving her partner's limp form, and across the road to the Carnival, had found Bergman exchanging jokes with small town folk and dragged him away with a sharp tongue and harsh words. She'd told the story without embellishing or editing, and people had avoided her eye, as if they didn't want to hear it, didn't want to talk about it, didn't want to know. No one wanted to know. No one had wanted to know what they'd heard tonight. Hammond was making the sign of the cross again and again and again. God, she'd known the green, underaged sonofabitch was Catholic. Irish Catholic no doubt. Marcy Olafsen's body was collected by the good doctor who served as ME. Also named Olafsson . She had frozen to death, died of exposure. Wearing her bathing suit, from the way it looked to Scully, not that she'd examined the body all that closely. And then Pendrell brought the car, and she'd gotten Mulder up and they'd run through the ice cold wind that cut even through layers of wool and down and made Mulder shiver convulsively in the car against her. She'd held him tightly until he went out again, just plain out, and the limp feel of him made her heart hammer with worry. It was snowing again when they pulled into the motel parking lot. Scully pinched Mulder's arm cruelly and he woke again. Stared at Scully, that winsome lost and hurt little boy look that made her heart turn over. "Come on, Mulder," she said. "Come on. We're home. Let's get you into bed." Only this time, she put him to bed in her room, in the second bed that had to be cleared of her paraphenalia before she could strip his boots and coat and sweater and jeans off. He was already wearing his thermal underwear, he let her chivvy him into bed without complaint and rolled onto one side, hugging the pillow as she tucked the blankets around him. Scully went back into the next room through the connecting door to strip the bedding off the bed Mulder had been using, all the blankets and the comforter. She laid these over him too, his skin had been chilly with shock. Only then did she take a look at his hands. His eyes gleamed briefly between dark lashes as she checked them. "'M okay, Scully," he murmured. There was a nasty pressure cut on one palm, the reason for the blood on his temple and face. "Yeah," she told him. "Just a cut. I'm going to get a washcloth, Mulder, and get it cleaned up before you go to sleep. It won't take a minute." His mouth curved sweetly in the smile that generally weakened her knees. She saw it so rarely. "You worry too much, Scully." "You're my partner." Hell if she worried too much. Sometimes, she didn't worry enough. He woke again when she wiped the blood spatter from his face and temple. Blinked at her and his brows drew together. "Shhh," she told him. "I'm all done. You wanna be careful with that hand the next few days, okay?" The smile returned and his eyelids fell. His breathing became even, then sped again, he leaned up on one elbow, struggling to wake up, his mouth moving soundlessly. "Shhh," she told him and touched his hair. "Go to sleep, Mulder." "How did she die, Scully?" His eyelids were so heavy that he couldn't open them all the way. "Exposure, Mulder." By coaxing, she got him to lie down again. He'd hit his head, she didn't want to give him Valium or Dramamine or anything else. "She froze to death in her bathing suit. I'll run a tox screen tomorrow, see what I can figure out. No indication of a blow to the head or anywhere else, not even any bruises. Although there were ligature marks around her wrists, they weren't deep. She didn't struggle much." He nodded and let himself be pushed back again. "Tomorrow," he muttered and sank back into sleep. Scully sat there for a long while, occasionally stroking his hair and wondering what monsters lurked in his subconscious. Waking suddenly in the night, Scully listened to the sound of her own heartbeat and swallowed hard. Bad enough poor Mulder was having these bizarre wet dreams, now she was starting to have them, too. About Mulder. Although thankfully, none of hers involved Jurassic Park or a nun's habit. Mulder, all snuggly wuggly and rosy under the blankets she'd piled as high as the snowbanks outside. Rosy and completely ready to go, waking to give her that absurdly sweet smile as she hiked her flannel nightgown up and slid down. God, she ought to be ashamed. Lying there in the dark, Scully listened to Mulder's quiet breathing and said the rosary on her fingers, begging forgiveness for--for what? She didn't believe in the God of her childhood anymore. Didn't believe that prayers would bring surcease from pain. If that had been true, her half- voiced prayers for her partner would have worked. She didn't believe that God listened to prayers and answered them. If that had been true, she would have been in the next bed with Mulder. Although perhaps that was stretching things, she wasn't entirely certain God would answer prayers driven by lust. One of the seven deadly sins. Sighing, Scully rolled on her side and considered the lump that was Mulder. She hadn't been able to get any answer from anyone about the old woman, no one seemed to know who she might have been, and the minister had looked openly frightened. He'd hustled back to the rectory muttering of demons and exorcism. Which surprised her, she hadn't thought that Lutherans went for such papist nonsense as exorcism. And Bergman had merely cleared his throat and changed the subject, while Jorgensen had gone quite nervous. And Hammond kept crossing himself. Who was the old woman? And why had Mulder known where to find her? And why had she attacked poor Mulder. Sure, even Catholic priests weighed in against masturbation, but the poor guy couldn't be blamed, he had no time for a life. Well, maybe that was his fault, he insisted on following his quest, on the never ending search for the Truth, with a capital T, and his sister. Sometimes she wondered if it was guilt or grief that drove him. There had been times she would have gladly had her sister abducted. There were times when she wondered if her sister had been an alien. Maybe Mulder had wanted his sister to vanish, too, and when she had, he'd felt horrid, as if he'd had something to do with it. Certainly, his father had blamed him. So guilt had been layered on guilt and now poor Mulder, the FBI poster boy, the man singlehandedly responsible for boffing more field office Betties, had no life and was reduced to dreaming about her in a Miata and a nun's habit. She refused to even speculate about Jurassic Park. A knock on the connecting door. Hesitant. Soft. Pendrell? Scully got up, padded over to the door, unlocked it. Pendrell. She went back to her bed and grabbed her robe, stuffed her feet into her slippers and went back to Pendrell's room through the connecting door. Pendrell sat down on the foot of what had been Mulder's bed. "What happened out there?" Scully shrugged. Pendrell look at the carpet, at his stockinged feet. "He's going crazy." Scared voice. Soft voice. "No, he's not." Scully lifted her chin. "He's not, he's just under some stress. And you weren't there, you don't know what happened." "My father is in one of the most expensive nut houses in San Francisco because of Viet Nam, he was a quartermaster and the theft drove him crazy," Pendrell said without looking at her. "Don't let them put him in a place like that. Don't let him end up counting imaginary boxes." Scully swallowed. Oh God. Oh God. But Pendrell wasn't right about Mulder, he wasn't. "Pendrell, with all respect to your father, Mulder's never been a quartermaster." Pendrell shuddered. "Don't let him end up counting EBEs then. Don't let them put him in that kind of place." Pendrell's voice was miserable. And she didn't know what to say. Mulder would have known. "Pendrell--" Pendrell shivered. "You know what we should do. You should put him on a plane tomorrow and report his behavior bluntly." Scully did not reply, still searching for words to tell Pendrell that it was all right, that Mulder was all right. That he was just being Mulder. That this was the way her partner got into the heads of killers and brought them down. Pendrell's voice was low. "But if you do, there'll be more dead bodies.. We'd still be going in circles, trying to find the tracks. So what do we do?" "So what do we do?" Scully's voice was sharp, acidic. "You leave him the hell alone to find the killer. He's going to be fine, Pendrell, this is how he tracks them. He gets inside their heads." He gave her an accusatory look. "Mulder's lost it. Completely and utterly. Delusory." Cold anger flared in her gut. "You've seen him reciting Ogden Nash and making predictions about the killer. Want to bet that when we wake him he'll have a perfectly logical reason for his knowing figured out. Only logical to anyone with a 200 IQ, of course, but it will be. And those predictions have been right, he's right on target, dammit, so don't tell me he's lost it, his mind is working the way it needs to." Pendrell blinked at her, eyes watery. "Agent Scully, I like Agent Mulder. I respect him. You've got to get him some help." Scully thought of Olaffson. Her mouth crimped with distaste. "He's just high strung, Pendrell, and you weren't there tonight. That old woman went after him. And he was shocked from finding the body in the church. We all have moments like that, I couldn't handle the necrophiliac in Minneapolis." Now that she thought about it, that was even more chilling. What the hell went on up here in the frozen north? "I want you to keep your mouth shut about this, Pendrell. If I find you've been going around telling people he's crazy, I'll have *you* sent back under charges." Scully kept her voice cold. Analytical, utterly devoid of emotion, just flat statements of fact. Just call her Mr. Fucking Data. "He's breaking down, Scully. If we cover up something like this--That's grounds for dismissal." Pendrell's voice wavered. Scully felt her muscles turn to stone. "If you push this--they don't understand the way Mulder's mind works, they want a reason to get rid of him. They'll stuff him so full of Thorazine they'll have to show him where to take a shit." Deliberately harsh, deliberately vulgar. "He'll sit in the day room and stare at the sun making patterns on the wall and some Occupational Therapist will come by and give him plastic scissors to make collages with a big bowl of harmless wheat paste." "Shut up!" Pendrell's voice was choked. "Just shut the hell up! Okay?" Scully shut the hell up. Oh, yes, she did. At least until Pendrell got himself under control again. "He'll be all right in the morning." It hurt to breathe, hurt through and up and around her lungs and she regretted upsetting Pendrell, and couldn't really think her way past it. "Yeah. Oh yeah. He'll be fine, if I know Mulder." "All right," Pendrell told her tiredly, wiping his face. "I'll take him to Olafsson first thing tomorrow morning." Another nod from Pendrell. Scully got up. "Try to get some sleep, Pendrell. We're going to have a busy day tomorrow with that autopsy." Pendrell nodded without looking at her. Olafsson was better than Scully had expected. Not that better meant all that much. And Mulder went along with her with less flak. Which for Mulder meant he only needled her throughout a breakfast that would have killed a lesser man. At least it meant he was eating. And he did roll his eyes when she left him alone with Olafsson during the examination at Olafsson 's insistence. Olafsson was probably afraid she'd get an illicit look at something she hadn't seen before, she told herself sardonically, settling down in the waiting room with snuffly kids and tired mothers. Her book was in her bag, she lifted it out, trying not to think of poor Pendrell doing the forensics work inside the church and being asked if he had accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as his savior by Reverend Jurgensen. She'd been hard on him last night, but she hadn't expected Pendrell to come unglued over Mulder, for God's sake. *Mulder* coming unglued was such a regular occurrence that she'd forgotten how it might look to the uninitiated. But his vomiting still worried her, so here they were. There were wooden ducks on the doctor's waiting room wall. Mallards, if her eyes didn't deceive her. And the receptionist had proudly told her that Doctor had done them himself. She really hated it when physicians allowed people to call them Doctor as if the one word made them God. But Olafsson was the only physician in Timmsville. She'd have to drive farther away to get Mulder anywhere else, or take that God forsaken airplane back to Minneapolis. And someone else might die. She read steadily through her suspense novel while getting disapproving looks from the good wives of Timmsville, drawing her legs aside when a snotty nosed toddler tried to rush her. His mother snatched him back as if Scully were the devil incarnate. The way she felt at the moment, Scully mused, she might really be the devil incarnate. Those ducks staring down at her were making her tense. And it was taking a long time. Mulder finally emerged, looking disgruntled. "Come on, Scully, he wants to talk to you, too." The doctor's office was worse than the waiting room. Stuffed fish hung on the walls next to wooden ducks. Averting her eyes, Scully focused on Olafsson , who regarded her without a great deal of pleasure. "I understand that you are an MD," he intoned. "And that you frequently care for your partner's medical needs." "That's true," Scully agreed, wondering if Olafsson thought she was caring for Mulder's other needs as well. "I prefer not to prescribe drugs for this vomiting," Olafsson told her, ignoring his patient. "I would prefer to use a more natural means of stimulating his recovery from this. I find no signs of infection, viral or otherwise, and he appears to be in good physical health otherwise." There was a peculiar stress on the word physical. Scully frowned. "Yes, that's also true." "However, it is apparent that he is feeling a great deal of stress. I did," he looked at Mulder accusingly, "Suggest that a visit to Reverend Jurgensen for counseling would not be amiss, but Mr. Mulder refused to consider that." Scully felt the first faint urge to giggle. "No, he's not Lutheran, he's Jewish." Mulder frowned at her darkly. "My heritage is Jewish, I don't espouse any particular religious faith," he corrected, his tone flat. Olafsson stared at him for a moment, eyes shadowed. "Mr. Mulder, I feel strongly that your lack of religious faith is creating more stress for you on this case." Mulder stared back defiantly. "I don't think you have to be religious to feel disturbed over the murder of human beings, Dr. Olafsson ." Scully cleared her throat. "Ruling out religious counseling, Dr. Olafsson, what is your recommendation?" "Ovaltine." Olafsson looked back at her, no more pleased than he had been in the beginning. "A large cup of hot Ovaltine at night, before he goes to sleep." Perhaps, Scully thought, she'd misheard him. "Ovaltine?" "Ovaltine." Mulder began to snicker. "Ovaltine? I hate Ovaltine." Olafsson scowled. "Ovaltine will soothe your nerves, which will help to ease or stop the vomiting." He rose, his expression forbidding. "And now, if you will excuse me, I have other patients waiting." Scully rose hastily and looked warningly at Mulder, who showed every sign of beginning a war of words with the good doctor. "Ah, well, thank you for seeing him on such short notice, Doctor." "I can speak for myself, Scully." Mulder scowled at her again. Just don't, she begged him silently and all but dragged him out of the office. Halfway down the hall, Mulder began to snicker again. "Ovaltine. Jesus, these people really are strange. I think it's the snow, Scully. All that endless white, it's enough to make anyone crazy." "Shut up," she hissed. "And it's worth a try. You hate it when I make you take pills, it's certainly worth the effort." He rolled his eyes, but subsided. At least until after lunch. The autopsy had been a disaster. Perhaps, Scully told herself, disaster was too strong a word. It had provided them with absolutely zip in terms of useful or helpful information. "She died of exposure," Scully had told Bergman stonily. "And she appears to have been wearing her little red bathing suit at the time. The cape was added later, after death, although abrasions on the victim's scalp suggest that she was also wearing the crown when she froze." Mulder's expression was equally stony. "She knew him, she must have let him in, if Pendrell's right. No sign of forced entry. So she let him in and she put on her bathing suit to pose for him, and maybe that tacky little crown. And he took her down. But how, Scully?" "There's no sign of a blow to the face or head, Mulder. The tox screen will tell us more. Possibly a drug, but she would have had to ingest it. There's no sign of an injection site. And the only thing I got off the body was a few dark green wool fibers and cotton twine. And something under her nails. She was tied, but she must have been pretty far gone, she didn't struggle very much." Mulder was suddenly pale. "That poor damned woman. I don't suppose we can get a time of death?" "Pretty iffy." Scully sighed. "Sometime in the last twenty-four hours would be my guess based on what Jorgensen's come up with on her routine. She left work at the mallard factory at 5:00 on Thursday. We found her on Friday, and this is Saturday." "And what do we know about Jorgensen's last 48 hours?" Mulder lifted an eyebrow at Bergman. Bergman's face darkened. "Eric Jorgensen's been a deputy since 1992. He's completely trustworthy. Besides, he liked the damned woman." "Check out his schedule. I want to know about any time unaccounted for." Mulder stuffed his hands in the pocket of his parka. It was Saturday, after all, they were both wearing jeans. "Agent Scully?" Pendrell came in looking weary. "The stuff under her nails is shrinkwrap. She peeled something off with her nails and some of it got stuck there." "Great." Scully sighed. "I was hoping maybe we actually got lucky and found some tissue samples from the killer." "Luck doesn't do it, Scully," Mulder muttered and rubbed his forehead. "I need to go back to the motel and see if I can collate some of what we've got into a meaningful shape." Well, it was about time, she thought and bit that thought back. What was she saying? He never collated anything, he just sat in front of his Ouija computer and began to type. "I'll see you back there," she told him calmly. "I want to go back and talk to Olafsson . If he's the only physician in town, he might just be able to give me some information about Marcy Olafsen." Already on his way out, Mulder nodded absently, not even noticing that Pendrell gave him a wide berth on his way through the door. Scully's brows drew together. Had she felt badly for Pendrell? Well, maybe not. "Pendrell," she said evenly. "You and I are going back to Marcy Olafsen's house. I want to make sure there isn't anything we've overlooked." He opened his mouth to protest this, took one look at the gleam in her eyes and closed it again. Wise Pendrell. Sitting cross-legged on the bed, Mulder cracked his knuckles and considered the pieces he had. Leaned back against the pillows and whistled tunelessly while he cleared his mind. A blank slate. Open to whoever was out there. And his fingers poised over the keys and began to type. At two, Scully found Mulder crashed on his own bed, wrapped up in the blankets the maid had retrieved from her bed, one hand outflung like Adam reaching up to touch the hand of God. His laptop was still on, on the corner of the bed. Shaking her head, Scully saved the file and took the laptop into her room. Moved back up to the top of the document. "He wasn't the oldest, he wasn't the youngest, somewhere in the middle, he was the one who was ignored until the first tragedy, until the oldest died, paying for sins. Then they noticed him, his mother especially. They may have suspected that the death of their eldest child was no accident." Scully's brows drew together. Where did he get this shit? From the ethers? She was going to start suspecting him of channeling if things didn't change. Pressing the Page Down key, she moved through the profile. "After that, he got singled out. Second born child? Took the place of his eldest sib, but disappointed them. Dad didn't have much to say to him, Momma punished him a lot, for a multitude of sins. The Reverend preached hellfire and brimstone, the salvation of the elect, the damnation of the wicked. Momma was cold, like the frozen winter, no warmth at all, and only judgement, no matter how hard he tried. They caught him playing with himself when he was thirteen, his mother whipped him bloody with a willow switch, and his father just stood by. He washes his hands obsessively, regularly, several times a day. He believes in damnation, believes that he can only escape by saving other sinners, by Grace granted for his acts of salvation. He wants to bring them back to God, all of them, their deaths aren't murder, he sees himself as saving their souls at the expense of their flesh." Okay, Scully could dance to that, it made sense, even if there was no earthly way for Mulder to know what the killer had endured as a child. "Raintree was a heathen, even though he'd been educated at the church school. Raintree listened to the people on the reservation, didn't follow the Christian way once he left school. And he was weak, an alcoholic, he didn't accept his higher power, he didn't accept that God could cure him. And even worse, he polluted the Sabbath with his ice fishing. But Raintree wasn't the first. He started killing before that, but it somehow escaped notice. Check the death certificates out for the last fifteen years. Check and see if there are any that don't have a good explanation. The green is the rebirth of spring, of Easter. Cod liver oil is given to children to prevent rickets. It used to be given as a tonic, to keep them healthy, and the twin brothers already suffered from spiritual weakness, spiritual disease. So he cured them." Pretty final cure, Scully thought and rubbed the bridge of her nose. She still wasn't sure about the Jello salad. Easter? She was going to have to reserve judgement on that one. "Caroline Timmeson is the killing which reveals the pathology. She, like his mother, ruled the household, she pulled the farm out of foreclosure and made it pay, she was the matriarch of her family and nobody made decisions without her. That in itself might have drawn his attention, but it seems clear that without her 'sins' of drink and profanity and poor church attendance, Caroline Timmeson might have lived to a ripe old age." That was the most sensible thing he'd said so far. If he was right about the mother, the killer was expressing pathological resentments toward both parents. "It's dark where he is, he fears the devil coming to get him. He will kill more and more frequently now, and Marcy Olafsen's death fulfilled two goals. He saved her from her loose ways, fornication and drink and unwomanly behavior, and called attention to the fact that the Winter Carnival is a pagan festival, going back to the Scandinavian settlers who came here. He named it for what it was, a tribute to the old gods, the summer god who died at Lammas and is reborn at Winter Solstice. Who lies beyond the celebration of Christ's birth. Green jello for rebirth, for spiritual rebirth, celery for the bitterness of the lost Garden, marshmallows for the sweetness of the union with God....and the rest? He took communion at Caroline Timmeson's table, ate yams and ham to celebrate the flesh of Christ, drank cider to celebrate His Blood, and then tucked her internal organs neatly into the freezer. Waiting for the judgement day." Scully's gorge rose briefly. Okay, maybe he was right about the Jello, she'd grant him that, but he was going to get an argument on communion at Timmeson's table. Uck. "He's not a minister, but he yearns to be one, yearns to have all his sins forgiven. He's never married, is probably nearing his fifties, certainly over forty. He's trusted by most of the members of the community. Above average intelligence, with some evidence of compulsive obsessive behavior. Note: Caroline Timmeson's organs had been labeled in black grease pencil, neatly wrapped in freezer paper and sealed with waterproof tape. Marcy Olafsen was posed meticulously to match the new Queen's runway attitude. The twin brothers were wrapped together, arms and legs intertwined. Note: There is also sexual subtext here, a commentary on the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah. Raintree was lying with his hands folded on his breast in the Christmas tree farm. Christmas represents the birth of Christ, the savior come again, the Messiah's mission to save all men. Caroline Timmeson, despite the blood and viscera, was laid to rest, her hands also folded in prayer. He believes in the Our Father implicitly. Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, the kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread--Caroline Timmeson's fruitbread--and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever amen." There was more space after this. Almost absently, Scully pressed the Page Down key and saw what Mulder had written at the bottom. " 'Candy, Is Dandy, But Liquor, Is Quicker. Check tox screen for alchohol consumption. Also, insulin--he may have injected her with insulin, she may have been in a coma. Can insulin be taken in alchohol? Is it noticeable, and does it breakdown in the gut, rather than having the usual effect? Does he have a medical background? Or a family history of alcoholism? He lives in the dark, although people think he lives in the light." And that, she thought closing the file, was what he'd gone to sleep on. Going back in, she patted his cheek gently to wake him up. "Hey, Mulder, Pendrell is going to meet us for lunch at the Country Kitchen, let's get a move on." He blinked at her blearily. "I ate this morning," he told her, in the same tone she used to tell people collectin for charity, 'I gave at the office.' "Come on, Ace, your jeans are going to fall off if you lose any more weight." She patted his face again. Warm skin. Rosy with sleep. And she was irresistably reminded of her own dream the night before. Mulder, all warm and snuggly wuggly under the blankets, stark naked and raring to go. No, God, don't think about that, Dana Katherine, she told herself firmly, Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee..... "Scully?" Mulder's eyes flickered. "Can't you just bring me something?" "Promise to eat it?" "Uh huh. I'm really whipped." He gave her that winsome look that he was soooo good at giving. If she ever found out it was anything but unconscious, she was going to shoot him again, only aim lower. "Okay. What do you want?" For some reason, she was still patting his cheek. He smiled at her sleepily. "A cheeseburger and fries and a BLT." It sounded ambitious. But what the hell, if he kept it down, he was making up for calories lost down the crapper at the Country Kitchen. "Okay. But remember, you promised." Another winsome smile. "Thanks, Scully. I owe you." He sure did, she reflected and went back out to the four wheel drive. "How are you feeling, Agent Mulder?" Pendrell put the styrofoam containers on the bed and stood back, eyeing Mulder as if he expected him to start foaming at the mouth. Mulder idly wondered what Pendrell would do if he snapped at him, gnashing his teeth like that unlamented man-eating Pomeranian that Scully had owned prior to their meeting the alligator. Nah, the comforter was too warm, and the styrofoam was emitting odors that were making his mouth water. Pushing himself up, he opened the large, square container and inhaled gratefully. A cheeseburger the size of the Ritz, and enough french fries to make his arteries harden just sniffing them. And--his tummy rumbled with interest-- a well packed BLT. Thank God Scully had been asleep when he'd crept out of bed this morning. If she'd discovered he was still having wet dreams about her, he would have starved this afternoon. "How did you guys do at Marcy Olafsen's?" Mulder asked and picked up a couple of the fries, biting into them with a little moan of pleasure. "Find anything?" "Uh huh." Scully came in and curled up in the chair near the bed. "Not a lot, but we found a highball glass in the sink, an open bottle of vodka and another glass in the cupboard without dust, the only one. There weren't any more bottles in her apartment, so I doubt she was chosen because of alcoholism. On the other hand, she had a diaphragm inside her bedside table, and a very large supply of spermicidal cream. From her diary, she was pretty active sexually." Pendrell went scarlet and averted his eyes from Scully. Mulder considered this. "So, fornication and murder of the unborn." Scully's eyes widened. "Mulder, the pope may not approve of spermicides, but that's because he thinks the only sex you ever have should be for procreation. Many other Christian sects do not object to contraception, only abortion. And the autopsy showed she'd never been pregnant." Mulder ate three more fries. "I'm missing something crucial. Hey, where'd my laptop go?" Alarmed, he started to get out of bed, but Scully held her hand up. "It's okay, Mulder, it's in my room. I read your profile notes." Relieved, he sank back and picked up the cheeseburger, took a healthy bite. "Great. Did I say he was obsessive compulsive?" "Uh huh." Scully almost looked amused. "Washing his hands several times a day. Although I need to discuss medical facts with you, Mulder, you can't take insulin orally. The only drugs given orally for diabetes are for adult onset." Mulder nodded and chewed, swallowed and almost moaned again. God, that was good. God, it was good to be able to eat again. "Oh, he probably has some checking rituals, too, but I think we'll see it most in the area of cleanliness. And he's a visible member of the community. Did you find anything out about the deacons or wannabe deacons?" Scully nodded and leaned back in her chair. "Harald Olsen, aged 52, married since he was nineteen, has ten children, has a dairy farm outside of town. He's clear on the Olafsen murder, he's got a broken ankle and his wife and four daughters have been keeping him down while five of the six boys take care of the cows. He's also clear on the Timmeson murder, he and his wife were celebrating their 33rd wedding anniversary in full view of the entire Olsen clan down in Minneapolis the weekend that Caroline Timmeson was murdered. Like Olafsen, the body was frozen, but since she didn't drop out of sight until Friday again, since her cronies missed her on Saturday night, we can place her murder sometime during that weekend." She sighed. "And then there's Jensen Moravec. Aged 56, he insisted on regaling me with the scandal that drove the late Reverend Fulke out of the church, and which led to his replacement by Reverend Jurgensen, about eighteen years ago." Mulder's eyebrows climbed. He swallowed the fries in his mouth before speaking. "Scully, where is Reverend Fulke now?" "He hanged himself, Mulder, out in the barn on the family farm after his, ah, defrocking. He's buried in the churchyard." Scully's mouth curved slightly. "Mulder, I believe you *were* starving to death, I've never seen you wolf food down this fast." "It's good," he told her, but since his mouth was full, he wasn't sure she caught it. And it was good, it tasted like a little bit of the real world, he was going to have to go in and kiss the cook. Or maybe not. Then, once he'd swallowed. "Okay, who else?" "Ole Knudsen, aged 48, a married man with five children, four girls, and one boy. He was at an ice hockey game in Milwaukee with his wife and daughters, watching the oldest boy play." Mulder flapped a hand. "Our guy's not married. He wouldn't function well enough to pass without notice in an intimate relationship. Skip the married ones." She went through the rest. Harald Ibsen, an attorney. One insurance salesman. One man who owned a tavern. "And that's all that Reverend Jurgensen marked," she sighed. "But I asked these men if they could give me any ideas about anyone who had maybe wanted to be a deacon, but was refused. Or who wanted to, but was too shy or nervous to take it up." "Good thinking, Scully." Mulder swallowed the last bite of burger and picked up the BLT. "Anything else at Olafsen's house?" "Not that we could find. Except that it had been cleaned recently. One of the things I noticed was that it reeked of furniture polish, Pine-Sol, and whatever the hell it is people use on linoleum these days." Scully waved a hand vaguely. "The toilet and bath and sink were spotless. I mean, spotless. But Jurgensen says that Marcy wasn't very domestic. So we went back over the entire apartment. No prints, except for a few smudges that could just as easily have been made by rubber gloves." Her head tilted back on the chair. "And I think I know where she was frozen to death, Mulder. I think she was put into somebody's deep freeze. We got some of that blue ink off her back, just under her left shoulder blade. You know, the ink they use to print store prices?" Pendrell had gotten over his embarrassment and was sitting on the foot of his bed, taking off his boots. "Oh, yes, it was very clear. And I checked with the market, did a comparison of their ink. They don't use the same kind of pricing gun. So I'm going to drive around the local area to some of the small towns and see what I can find." "Well, Zimmer isn't far from here," Scully conceded, when Mulder gave her a long look. "It can't hurt to check. We can't be absolutely sure, Mulder, that our guy lives in Timmsville. As frightening as it sounds, this is the biggest small town for about 200 miles around. People come here to shop." "That *is* scary," he mumbled, around a mouthful of the best tasting bacon he'd ever eaten. "God, this is good." "Don't talk with your mouth full," Scully chided. "Oh, did Pendrell give you your coffee?" Pendrell hung his head. "I forgot it, Agent Scully." There was a crafty gleam in the little twerp's eye that made Mulder uneasy. "How can you forget coffee, Pendrell?" Scully was scowling. "Pendrell, goddammit, I told you, he lives and thrives on caffeine. It's not going to keep him awake at night." Mulder's head turned. He regarded Pendrell with real malice. "Pendrell, I'm going to get you for this." Pendrell lifted his chin. "Agent Scully pretends that you're doing just great, Agent Mulder. But I'm not about to share a room with a man who's raving because of too much caffeine." Mulder growled again and pushed the styrofoam aside to lunge at him. Scully got there first. "Pendrell, I think you'd better go down the jail and stay with the deputies there," Scully snapped, throwing herself across the bed to keep Mulder from snapping the little geek's neck. "Down, Mulder, you can't kill our lab guy, it's his first field assignment, he just doesn't know you." "I'll show you psychotic, you little pencil-necked geek," Mulder growled, but subsided to take another bite of his sandwich. "You better not sleep here tonight, Pendrell, you're a dead man." "I'm not sleeping with a psychotic," Pendrell told him loftily. "I have other places I can go." Scully sighed, long suffering. "Okay, Pendrell, you can have this room, I'll bunk with the psychotic--er, with Mulder again tonight." Mulder gave her a narrow look, but decided she had just been replaying Pendrell's words. He took another vicious bite as Scully shooed Pendrell back into his winter gear, gave him the keys to the four wheel and slammed the door shut on him. After a long moment, she turned to face him. "Mulder, don't give him any more fuel for the fire, okay? He's already making noises about how I'm covering up a nervous breakdown for you." Irritation flared into real temper as Mulder took the last bite of his sandwich and stuffed another fry into his mouth. It gave him time to leash it before he answered her. "I'm not giving him fuel for his fire, I've been playing very nice with him, I haven't given him a hard time once! I didn't ask him to come into the men's room to hold my head while I tossed everything but my toenails!" Scully leaned back against the door. "I know," she agreed, "But he's worried about your state of mind. If he gets on the telephone to Skinner, this could blow up into a real disaster." "Fuck Pendrell!" Mulder scowled at her fiercely. Her mouth twitched. "No, thanks." And then it was all right, they were both laughing and she came back to sit with her feet on his bed, still laughing. Mulder sighed. "Hey, what did you find out about the old lady last night?" Her expression changed again. "Well, that's kind of problematic," she admitted. "I had several people identify her. They knew who she was right away, just from the description." "What's problematic about that?" Mulder arched an eyebrow. "They've been claiming it's a woman who's been dead for thirty years, Mulder." Scully eyed him. He stared at her for a long woman. "Why would a ghost appear in the church to terrorize the ungodly?" Scully's mouth crimped. God, he loved the way her mouth crimped, it made his toes curl. "Evidently, she discovered the Reverend Fulke humping the choir director just behind the altar rail and attacked them both before succumbing to a massive stroke." He barely made it to the bathroom before losing everything he'd just eaten. "Well, it turns out she was a real fire and brimstone kind of believer." Scully turned the damp washcloth she'd put on the back of his neck. Folded over the toilet, Mulder moaned. "Scuuuuullly. I have a cut on my palm, that was no ghost." Scully grinned. "Of course it wasn't, Mulder, I don't believe in ghosts. It was someone like this woman, but who? I used the identikit to create a composite, we have to assume that this woman is a witness--if not an accomplice." At least he'd stopped dry heaving. If he managed for another ten minutes, she was going to start him back on popsicles. "Anyway, we've only got a few small blood spots from where she smacked your hand that last time." Mulder shivered. "Or the second to last time." "Whatever." Scully rubbed his back lightly. "Anyway, I'm going to go back over Olafsen and recheck the tox and blood work. It looks like she was unconscious when she was put into the deep freeze. No blow to the head, no indication of strangulation, no indication of sedatives. So, it's something easy to overlook, potassium chloride, or maybe insulin, as you suggested. There has to be an injection site, Mulder, you don't just wash either of those down with a vodka chaser." He rested his cheek on the arm that braced him. "I hate throwing up." She rubbed his back some more and sighed. "Listen, do you still have any popsicles? No? I'll walk down to the market then, pick up some more. Did you finish your animal crackers and pears?" Jesus, it sounded like she was talking to a three year old. Which might be about right. "Okay, if you can keep down a popsicle, you can have some. Want me to go back and pick up some chicken soup for you?" He gave her a mournful look. "That's a long way to walk in the cold, Scully. Besides, it's getting dark, I don't want you out there." "Mulder, I'm a good Catholic, not a recognizable sinner." Scully eyed him back, a little amused. But his eyes were earnest. "Yeah, but to a Lutheran, a good Catholic would be a sinner. Honestly, Scully, I don't want you going that far. In fact, I'm not sure you should go at all." "Mulder, I'll take my gun." Standing up, Scully ruffled his hair lightly. "And I won't be gone long. Believe me, the last time I got abducted in Minnesota really was the LAST time I'll get abducted in Minnesota." "Be careful," he told her and moaned again. "I hate throwing up." Scully arched an eyebrow, cast around in her mind for something to distract him. "Think of anti-gravity, Mulder. Think of little grey men. Think of liver flukes." The last was probably an unfortunate choice; when she left, he was dry heaving again. Walking in the early winter dusk, Scully allowed herself to see Timmsville without thinking about a serial killer obsessed with salvation and decided it really wasn't such a bad little town. Just too damned little and too damned cold. She made her purchases in the market and walked back at a brisk pace, stopping off in the office to see the manager. Trask was presently staying with him, having given up her room to the Winter Carnivalites. She hoped that the proverb about guests and fish didn't hold true in Trask's case, and that Bjornson was in a kind mood, but his expression was so stolid, it was hard to be sure. "Hi," she told him cheerfully. "I'm Agent Scully. Listen, Dr. Olafsson prescribed Ovaltine for my partner's stomach and nerves and I was wondering if you had a heavy crockery cup I could borrow." Bjornson's brows rose. "Ovaltine? Having trouble sleeping, is he?" Scully nodded. "Well, and having trouble keeping his dinner down." Bjornson considered. At least she thought he was considering. "Yah, I bet chasing a murderer ain't all that pleasant. So Krissie says, anyhow." Somehow, thinking of Trask as Krissie was going to set Scully's adjustment to Timmsville back several days. Hastily jerking her thoughts away from wondering how Trask had gotten such a nickname, Scully nodded. "Actually, I was hoping perhaps you'd lend me a hot plate, if you have such a thing on hand. I could keep it in my room and be very careful with it." More consideration. "Yah, I think we could do that. Let me get you a big mug. You got milk?" She patted the side of her brown paper sack. "Uh huh." "Yah, Ovaltine really helps a man get to sleep." Bjornson nodded at her with more animation than she'd yet seen and vanished through the door behind the counter. Distantly, she could hear a woman's voice raised in question, a low rumble of an answer, and Bjornson appeared with a large mug bearing the likeness of a mallard duck on one side, and a fish on the other. And a hot plate AND a small tin saucepan. "Here y'are, Agent Scully. If that doesn't do the trick, tell him that m'wife swears by honeycomb." "Thanks," she told him sincerely, meanwhile thinking that she'd club Mulder into unconsciousness before deliberately feeding him sugar before bedtime. "I really appreciate it." Bjornson just nodded stolidly at her and vanished again. Back outside, Scully trudged down the snowy walk and wondered how she was going to get Ovaltine down her partner. And milk wasn't quite the thing after vomiting, or so they'd once taught her in medical school. On the other hand, she really didn't want to drug him again. Unless he had another sexually ambiguous dream about Skinner, that is. The only way to do it was to hit him with the gingerale, the popsicles the applesauce, and the cinnamon grahams. He might be grateful enough to drink it without doing more than hooting at Olaffsen's prescription. She devoutly hoped so. "What is that?" Mulder asked, aghast, tucking himself into the extra bed in Scully's room after his shower. His partner stood between the beds, holding a steaming cup. "Hot chocolate," she told him sincerely. "I thought it would soothe your stomach." Hot chocolate? The caffeine starved cells in his body sat up and took notice. "Oh. That was really nice of you, Scully. Is this the real thing, made with milk and everything?" "Uh huh." Scully's smile was smug. "With little marshmallows, too, Mulder." Little marshmallows. His mother never would allow him to drink hot chocolate with little marshmallows. She'd always said his nose was going to be expensive enough, she didn't want to risk his teeth. Moved, Mulder blinked. "That really *was* nice of you, Scully. Thanks." One sip and he knew. With betrayal in his eyes, he stared at her over the rim of the cup and spit the mouthful back into it. "Scully," he told her, stunned and hurt, "This isn't hot chocolate, this is Ovaltine." Scully's expression changed, she sat down on the side of his bed. "I know, Mulder, I was desperate. I don't want to drug you, I don't want to open my little case over there and pick and choose among the rainbow of controlled substances I keep with me, but you need some rest. And maybe Ovaltine will work. My dad always swore by it." Great. He was paying the price for Dana Scully's unresolved Electra complex. No, wait, that was older women yearning after their sons. Oedipal then? Whatever. He was paying for it. "But Scully, I hate Ovaltine." Her expression was so sincerely worried that he leaned back, trying to protect himself. Would it work to put his fingers up in a cross? Probably not. "Mulder, you need the rest, you need your stomach to settle down. Come on, you know that. Pendrell's almost convinced that you've gone completely around the bend, that you're delusional. If he calls Skinner, you know what will happen." Without changing her expression, Scully drew one finger across her throat. "And once Skinner believes him, he's going to have you sent back, he's going to arrange for a nice, cozy padded cell. Skinner believes in investigation by the book, he's not going to like the way you get these things." Mulder regarded her doubtfully. "Skinner wouldn't do that to me," he finally told her, "He likes me. I think. In a way. Why wouldn't he? Our resolution rate is well above the Bureau average." Scully sighed, managed to look heartwrung. "Mulder, Mulder, Mulder, when will you learn. Even if Skinner was madly in love wi flinched. "Even if he worshipped at your feet, he wouldn't have a lot of choice. That cigarette smoking weasel would have you committed faster than you could say Max Fenig." Blink. Blink. Blink. "Oh, all right," he said testily, "It's not worth making a scene about. But it was lousy to lie to me, Scully, I'm your partner. If you start lying to me, how am I ever going to trust you?" She was so sincere it was scary. "You're right, Mulder, and I apologize for that. I wasn't sure that reason was going to work." He drank a mouthful, shuddered and swallowed it quick before it could rest too long on his tastebuds. "God, that's awful." "Keep drinking," she coaxed. He did. Drained the cup to the nasty dregs and then spent another moment using his finger to retrieve the melted marshmallows from the side of the cup. "Gah. The marshmallows are the only redeemable thing about this, Scully." "That's why I got them, Mulder." A sweet, Pieta Madonna smile and she took the cup from him, carried it into the bathroom. Lying down, Mulder pulled the blankets up. Oddly, it seemed warmer in Scully's room. Heh. Pendrell was going to have to keep the cold room, he was in here, warm and cozy, with his partner. The partner with the cupid's bow lips. The partner who had been the subject of many a daytime fantasy and wank. Which would lead to him being stripped naked and covered in honey over a fire ant colony if ever she discovered it. Not that *he* was going to tell her. Sleep nibbled at the edge of his consciousness as he listened to her rinse out the cup. The door closed briefly and she emerged after a while with her face scrubbed pink, wearing her flannel pajamas and--oh, god, dare he say it, even to himself, bunny slippers. How in the world had he missed them since their arrival? And they were pink. It was a major effort to keep his face from revealing his inner hilarity. Instead, he gave her the single whammy, the slightly loopy smile that seemed to thaw women's hearts and loosen their thighs the world around. Glancing at him, she smiled back reflexively. "Try to get a decent night's sleep, Mulder," she told him and got into her own bed. Taking the remote, she thumbed the TV to life, the volume down low. Aw, that was so damned sweet of her, he thought, suddenly feeling maudlin. Even considering the Ovaltine, a man couldn't have asked for a better partner. A more considerate partner. A more scrumptious partner. And sleep was definitely wiping out his brain's ability to function rationally. Blinking, he pulled the blankets up and curled on his side around one pillow, staring at the screen as Xena demolished another bad guy. "Night, Mulder," Scully told him and and lay down, pulled her own comforter up around her ears. "Night, Scully," he answered drowsily and blinked. Blinked again, more slowly. And finally closed his eyes. Falling straight down the rabbit hole. Fox Mulder blinked. His partner, Dana Scully, stood in front of him, wearing a bunny suit. Not a bunny suit as in rabbit, but a bunny suit as in Playboy Bunny. And Mulder had to admit, she looked fetching in it, despite the large, surrealistic pocket watch that she kept pulling out from between her breasts. He wondered how in the hell she got it there, but she looked up and gave him a worried look. "I'm late," she squeaked, in most un-Scully like tones, "I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date, no time to say hello, goodbye, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late...." She kept repeating it as she teetered off down the path in dangerously high heels. But man, oh, man, she had nice legs from this angle. And a really cute little....never mind, he told himself and gave chase. Despite the fact that his legs were longer, he lost her in the trees. "Damn," he said and sighed, slowing down. Maybe she was hiding. Maybe she knew how that bunny suit was affecting him. Looking down at the effect, he was stunned to note he was wearing an Alice in Wonderland dress. White anklets. And black Mary Janes. How revolting. Sitting down on the grass, he took off the shoes and socks, relieved to notice that his legs hadn't been shaved. The dress was tougher, but he finally managed the hooks and eyes and pulled it over his head. To reveal that he was wearing a red Speedo. And that Scully's effect had faded in his consternation over his attire. Well, that was fine, he'd find her again. And when he found her..... A large cat wearing glasses was sitting up on a branch watching him with a steely look. "I'm hunting wabbits," he told it, "Be vewy, vewy quiet." "Agent Mulder," the cat intoned, in an awfully familiar voice. "I insist that you go by the book. Put those things back on at once." "Hah," Mulder sneered, "I'm Spooky Mulder, I don't have to go by the book, I just have to tap into the universal consciousness, spout a lot of poetry and then, zap, I make a bust." "By the book," the Skinner cat repeated, more irascibly this time, and bringing its eyebrows together. "This isn't the Spooky Mulder show, this is Alice in Wonderland, Agent Mulder, and I'll thank you to remember it." "You're just jealous since you don't look as good in a Speedo as I do," Mulder taunted. The Skinner cat merely arched one eyebrow. "Nonsense, if I wore a Speedo, Agent Mulder, women would faint and men would shoot themselves in envy." Mulling that over, Mulder narrowed his eyes. "Oh, yeah? Easy for a cat to say, no one makes Speedos for cats." Abruptly, the Skinner cat vanished, leaving only the faintest trace of an outline in the air. An outline that suddenly shapeshifted into a very large man, wearing a very narrow Speedo and solidified into his supervisor, Walter Skinner. Skinner smiled smugly at Mulder and gestured to the Speedo, which was very snugly packed. Mulder's jaw dropped and he looked down at himself, feeling suddenly forlorn. When he glanced up again, Skinner was fading, fading, slowly disappearing until all that was left was the relevant part of his anatomy. The corners of Mulder's mouth drew down. It was a good thing he didn't have his gun. And now that he thought about it, it was a good thing that Scully hadn't seen Skinner in his Speedo. That spurred him forward again, carefully picking his way along the increasingly difficult to discern path. The forest grew darker, more redolent of the smell of green growing things and rot, and he stepped more carefully, pausing to listen for any rustling sounds caused by Scully's bunny tail brushing foliage, for any click click of spike heels, for any sound that might be her bunny ears waggling as she hurried..... Following the path around an extremely large tree, he came to a doorway in a wall that seemed to stretch out for miles on either side. A very small doorway. "Oh, no," he told the door, "I know about you. And in this dream, I don't wanna see what's in the Eat Me box, or in the Drink Me bottle. So just forget it. Obligingly, the door grew to his height and opened, tantalizing him with the smell of cheeseburgers and fries. He hesitated, one bare foot over the threshold. "I wouldn't go in there if I were you," said an all too familiar voice. Turning, Mulder saw a giant caterpillar seated upon an even larger mushroom. The caterpillar was smoking a Morley cigarette. "What are you doing here?" he demanded and stomped one foot. "This is my dream, it was bad enough to have Skinner show up!" "You don't want to go in there, Agent Mulder. The consequences would be--" A long puff and the Cancercaterpillar blew a series of smoke rings, "difficult, to say the least." "You always want to cover up the Truth," Mulder told him and stomped his foot again. "Well, you don't belong in my dream, so get the hell out." "Can't." Another long puff, this time resulting in a lovely, hourglassed shape houri in a Playboy Bunny suit. "I suppose you're looking for your partner again. You always are." Now, in spite of Skinner, he wished he had his gun. Pointing his finger, Mulder said, "Bang." A low, raspy chuckle. "You'll sacrifice anything to the Truth, won't you, Mulder. And remember, you can't scare me, I've watched presidents die." "Probably helped 'em," Mulder sulked and turned to look inside the door. It was shadowy, hard to make out, but it suddenly seemed more alluring than ever. "Did--did Scully go in here?" "That's for me to know and you to find out." The Cancercaterpillar took another deep drag and stubbed the Morley out on the tree beside him. One of his many arms handed another cigarette up, the white cylinder passing through several hands before it reached the bastard's mouth. A lighter was likewise passed up and its flame flared as the Cancercaterpillar held it to his lips. "Yeah, well," Mulder kept his chin up, but wavered indecisively. Then-- "What the hell, if you want it covered up, it must be the Truth. I'm going in." "On your own head be it," the Cancercaterpillar intoned, but his voice faded when Mulder stepped across the threshold. It was the Lone Gunmen's office. Hell, Mulder didn't want to be here in a Speedo, but since Frohicke had frequently expressed lust for Scully, he felt it was only right that he try to find her and defend her. So, he made his way through the crowded office and down the stairs, and out the door of the building to a Victorian Garden, with a hedge maze as the entrance. The scene he emerged to see made him stop in his tracks.was wearing a bizarre hat. Frohicke was in the teapot upside down. Byers was reading aloud from the Lone Gunmen. Scully was sitting at one end of the table, legs crossed demurely. And Skinner, thankfully clad in more than a Speedo, sat at the other end, his gaze burning, regarding them all with contempt. "Um. Hi." He kept his voice bright. "Mind if I join you?" With her arms crossed like that, Scully's breasts teetered on the verge of falling out of her costume. Maybe that's why Skinner was doing the stonefaced, silent routine. He was waiting for them to fall out. Mulder didn't blame him. Taking the chair next to Scully, he smiled engagingly at Langley. "You don't mind if I join you, do you?" "Of course not, " Langley told him absently, trying to stuff more of Frohicke into the teapot. "I wouldn't have the tea, though. You might have one of those cakes." The cakes, predictably, had Eat Me writting in white icing on the top. Shrugging, Mulder took one and nibbled at the corner. Oooh, it was fantastic, rich and dark and sweet and chocolate. Much better than goddamned Ovaltine. "Hi, Scully," he told her, between bites, "I like your outfit." That got a sultry smile. "Do you, Mulder? I like yours, too." Reaching out with one hand--which had the disadvantage of letting her breast settle back into place--Scully snapped the waistband of his Speedo. "I've been waiting for you, big boy," she purred in a decidedly sultry voice. "Off with his clothes, off with his clothes," piped up Byers, pounding on the table with what looked like a rolled up copy of The Lone Gunmen magazine. Scully tugged at the waistband of the Speedo again. "C'mon, Mulder, don't be shy. Why even Skinner's loosened up, look." Hardly daring to, he looked, and saw Skinner standing at the foot of the table. "Agent Scully, don't waste time," Skinner growled. "Get him up on the table and do him like he needs to be done." Mulder stared. Mulder flinched. "Hey, wait a minute," he began, but Langley approached on his other side and obligingly helped him up onto the table. Against his will. And Scully came with him, standing over him with a spike heel on each side of his body. "Ooooh, Mulder, is that your gun, or are you just glad to see me?" Scully purred and bent to squeeze his crotch through the silky nylon of his Speedo. "Uh uh," Mulder glanced nervously back to see Skinner standing with folded arms. Oh. My. God. Skinner was nodding in approval as Scully began an impromptu striptease, kicking off her feels and raising one leg to peel off the fishnet stocking. He'd always thought that Bunnies wore tights. The other stocking came off. Langley was shrilling in time with Byers, "Off with their clothes, off with their clothes." Skinner's deep voice suddenly joined them. "Uh, Scully," he began nervously, "Couldn't we go somewhere more private?" She blinked at him fetchingly and walked her fingers up to her cleavage. "Don't be ridiculous, Mulder, we need to do it in public, it's the only way. It will make so many people happy,. you can't imagine." Her hands went behind her back to unzip the Bunny suit. It came down slowly, revealing Scully in Venus de Milo splendor. Except Scully had arms. It would certainly make him happy to do it with her at all. But in front of Skinner? Oooh, white shoulders and lovely breasts with coral nipples and...she leaned over him, her nipples brushing his chest and kissed him soulfully, her tongue halfway down his throat. He no longer cared if Janet Reno or Louis Freeh joined the chorus of "Off with their clothes," he was just glad that Scully took instructions literally. Kissing her back enthusiastically, he put both arms around her slender, satiny body and wiggled her the rest of the way out of the Bunny suit. He was getting more and more excited, and when he discovered there was another Bunny suit under the first one, it seemed a minor obstacle. By the time he got to the third one, he was starting to get annoyed, but his arousal was so intense that he felt a little faint. Skinner's voice was sounding a little irritable. "Off with her clothes, dammit, Mulder. Can't you do anything right?" "That's why we like you, Mulder. You're the only one who has less luck with women than we do," Byers jeered. "Ooooh," said Frohicke from the depths of the teapot, "She's hot, Mulder. Too tasty to wait. Want me to show you how?" He most assuredly did not, he told Frohicke silently, peeling the third suit off with frantic speed. And Scully's lips and fingertips and tongue were teasing him beyond endurance. The fourth and fifth suits came off in shreds, he no longer cared. The sixth one made him whimper, and the seventh nearly made him weep in frustration and desire. But after the seventh, Scully was as bare as the day she was born, and when he touched her, she was wet and slick and ready and the minute he started to guide himself inside her....... Scully woke with her ears ringing from an agonized scream torn from Mulder's throat. Rolling out of bed, she cursed Olafsson and her own credulity in trying the Ovaltine, peering in the faint light from the test pattern on the television set to find her partner huddled against the wall. No longer screaming, thank God, but with his arms locked around his knees, rocking back and forth, his t-shirt soaked with sweat. The redolent odor of semen told her what soaked his sweatpants. God, the poor man really needed to get a life, she sighed inwardly and climbed over both beds to sink down beside him. "Mulder, it's okay, it was just a bad dream." Only Mulder could have bad erotic dreams. He wept into his knees, rocking steadily. "Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God." "It's okay, partner, it's just another nightmare." "I was soooo close," he wept, "So close, and then, wham. Just like that." "Wham, what?" She stroked sweat-damp hair and kept her tone pitched to soothe. "Tell me, Mulder, what happened. You'll feel better." That got an incredulous and wide-eyed look. "Better? How can I feel better. Scully," a more earnest tone. "I've never suffered from premature ejaculation in my life. Never." But he put his face back into his knees and wept. She rubbed his shoulders patiently. "Was it Skinner again?" "Skinner?" Mulder raised his head. "Oh, God, no, but he was there. Watching. And Frohicke, Langley and Byers were, too. And they were all watching. And laughing, Scully, they were laughing." Considering that, Scully decided to risk asking. "Watching, um, what?" "Watching me make love to you," he told her and moaned despairingly. "You were wearing a Playboy Bunny outfit, Scully. Well, actually, you were wearing several. And I'd just gotten the last one off when..." He hiccoughed and rubbed his eyes like a child. "Oh, God, the humiliation." A Playboy Bunny outfit. Bemused, Scully patted him again. If he weren't obviously in distress, she'd hurt him. How dare he dream about her in a Playboy Bunny outfit. Besides, her breasts weren't large enough to wear the damned thing. "Mulder," she soothed, "Mulder, it was just a dream. It was just a dream." More heartbroken sobbing. "Mulder," she offered, stricken by inspiration, "Have you considered that maybe it was performance anxiety? I mean, with all those people watching. That would be enough to throw anyone off." The sobbing ebbed. Stopped. And he lifted his head hopefully. "You think?" "Certainly," she told him firmly. "I don't think I could perform normally under those circumstances." A long, woebegone sniff. "Maybe that was it," he whimpered. "I'm sure of it," she told him and turned her head as the connecting door opened. "Pendrell, that better not be you, I'm not in the mood for you right now." The door shut again hastily. "Do you need any help with him?" Pendrell asked, in sepulchral tones. "He's fine, he just had another nightmare." Levering Mulder up by main force, Scully pushed him back into bed. The hell with the shower. He'd have to get one in the morning anyway. "He's back in bed, and he's awake and he's fine now, Pendrell. Go back to sleep." There was the faintest grumble, not quite audible, and presumably Pendrell did exactly that. Scully slid across Mulder's bed and bent to tuck him back in. Jesus, his mother must have had fun during puberty. Loud screams at night. Sticky pajamas and sheets in the morning. What a treat. "I'm sorry, Scully," he told her earnestly, "I want you to know that I've never once considered what you might look like in the Playboy Bunny suit." "Good." Scully considered that. "How did I look, Mulder?" The half a Valium she'd added to his Ovaltine was pulling him back under pretty rapidly. "Hmm?" "How did I look, Mulder?" she repeated, a little more urgently. Dammit, he'd better not go back to sleep before answering. His mouth curved, even as his eyelids slid down. "Sensational." Well, at least there was that, Scully told herself and got back into her own bed.