Mulder was so morose he didn't even have the heart to choke the chicken in the shower, even though the hot water felt wonderfully sensuous against skin that was chilled inside and out. Just thinking about old woman brought gooseflesh back, even when he was under the blankets and thick down comforter and pulled them all up to his ears. Closing his eyes, he could see that contorted face, hideous with thwarted rage. Gerde Olafsson . Not so lamented mother of the widow Fulke. He wondered how Dr. Olafsson felt about her and felt another chill creep up his spine and down again. He was missing something. He'd let himself be frightened and he'd missed something key, something vital. The door opened and Scully came in and slammed it shut, stomping her feet and swearing under her breath. He pulled the covers up farther, he really didn't want to talk to her alone. Not about the old woman, not about swinging out over the yawning distance between the noose and the barn floor. Not about what the old woman had said to him. "Mulder." Scully's voice sounded irritable. "I brought you your soup, don't play possum, I know you're awake, I saw the gleam of those foxy little eyes before you decided to play dead." Foxy little eyes? Sheer indignation replaced depression and he sat straight up. "Scully, you know how I feel about--oh, thanks." He took the styrofoam bowl from her and popped the lid, busying himself in that to keep from discussing anything else. "I'm still cold. Thanks, Scully." Scully shed her coat and sat down on the edge of the other bed. "Mulder, we need to talk about this." "No, we don't." Mulder dipped the spoon into the bowl and took a bite. "Mm. That's good, Scully." "I don't think it's Campbells, Mulder." She sighed, the sound of exasperation. "Mulder, you think you saw a ghost." "So, you thought you saw a ghost a couple of times," he defended. "No big deal, Scully. It was my turn." For a moment, he was afraid she was going to smack him. But Dana Scully was the rational one. Instead, she leaned back and surveyed him without a great deal of pleasure. "Mulder, you nearly killed yourself, swinging out like that." "Scully, I didn't just jump off the edge of the loft, I made sure I had a good grip on the rope." Mulder took another bite. "You didn't bring any crackers, did you?" Another exasperated sigh. She was good at that. He wondered if Catholic schools had training in passive-aggressive behavior for young Catholic women. Or if it was an Irish thing. Or both. Getting up, she went to her coat, rifled in the pockets and returned with a handful of those packages with the little oyster crackers to toss them in his lap before she sat down on the bed again. "Oh, good, I love these, they're my favorites." Mulder happily opened two of the packages and dumped them into the soup. "Thanks, Scully. You're the best." Scully's eyes closed briefly. "Okay, Mulder. Have it your way. We won't talk about it. I'm going to get ready for bed. These early nights are starting to wear on me." "Me, too," he agreed, though he suspected that his night life had something to do with it. At least last night he'd had a more or less normal dream. Thinking about it now made him tingle a little, much better than thinking about that old harridan in the black dress. The soup warmed him enough that he sat back and cheerfully made comments on Independence Day as Scully dourly watched. By the time she made him the goddamned Ovaltine, though, she'd cheered considerably, and even put in extra marshmallows for him. It still tasted like shit. "Gah, Scully, is this stuff getting worse, or what. Are you sure that milk's still good?" Scully gave him that Pieta Madonna look again. "Of course, Mulder, I tasted it myself. Besides, it's been mostly frozen for the last two days, it's fine." He licked the marshmallows out of the cup and grimaced. "Maybe I'm just developing a distaste for it." "Very funny. But you're sleeping better, Mulder. It's working. And you haven't thrown up for a while." He had to admit that much was true. Except for the Playboy Bunny dream, he had been. And he'd certainly not had any return of the nausea. He nodded grudgingly and rinsed out the cup himself, shivering a little in the draft that danced along the bathroom floor, even in Scully's room. "You know, Scully," he told her, climbing back into his bed, "I could get used to sleeping in a real bed if I had a comforter like this one." "You don't need a comforter like this in DC," she told him wearily and turned out the light. "You'd roast, Mulder." "Yeah, but I'd roast happily." He mashed the pillows into a pleasing shape and buried himself in them, already starting to feel sleepy. Either he was behaving like Pavlov's dog or he owed Olafsson an apology. This shit really worked. Lying awake, Scully listened with satisfaction to her partner's snores. A half a Valium and no complaints. He'd get a good night's sleep and hopefully be more compliant in the morning when she explained to him that he was going to see an animal psychologist. Scully was wearing black leather again, not that Mulder was complaining. The dungeon was a little unnerving, as was the Catherine Wheel he was presently bound to, but she didn't have any little cauldrons with red hot coals, or pincers or whips. She did, however, have a demure smile on her face. This outfit was a little different than last night's. A sort of leather Playboy Bunny suit, only she wasn't wearing hose this time. Just those luscious high heeled boots that came up to her thighs. And she sashayed toward him carrying that leather paddle. "You've been a bad boy, Foxy," she purred. Foxy? On the other hand, her breasts did bob enticingly above the leather. Licking his lips, he shook his head. "I didn't mean to be bad." "But you are anyway, aren't you, Foxy." Another few steps closer and she slapped the leather paddle against her palm. "You just can't help yourself." He licked his lips again and glanced down. No more Catherine Wheel, he seemed to be suspended by his wrists now. And, damn, he was wearing that stupid red Speedo again. Why couldn't his subconscious at least provide some of those slick leather jeans? "I can't help myself," he agreed, because the evidence was unmistakable. One thing about the Speedo, you couldn't miss if he was feeling, um, any response to Scully. "You're very, very, very bad," she purred and came a little closer, drawing the paddle down the inside of one thigh. and up the inside of the other. He whimpered. "Scully, I'm sorry, I do try to be good." "But you just can't seem to manage it." She smacked her palm with the paddle again, eyeing him with a curious smile. "You ditch me repeatedly, make short jokes, tell me I have no life, and that my feet are too tiny to reach the pedals." "I'm sorry," he said humbly. Very humbly, with his eyes cast down. For some reason, he was wearing motorcycle boots. At least it wasn't mary janes again. "You have wet dreams about me--I'll bet you even fantasize about me while you're wanking off, don't you?" "Yes," he confessed. "I do." "I thought as much." She walked around behind him, which made the back of his neck tingle with a mixture of dread and arousal. The paddle struck without warning, hard across his ass several times. "Ow, ow, Scully--" It was hard to say if he wanted her to smack him again or to stop. His body was certainly confused about it. A slim hand reached around the front and tweaked the bulge in the Speedo. He whimpered again, whimpered and arched into-- Scully woke from a confused dream about body painting her partner with chocolate Cool Whip to hear Mulder whine suggestively in his sleep. Heart pounding, she slipped out of bed and leaned over him, carefully peeling the blankets back and sliding under them. It was warm there, a protected cavern of warmth and Mulder and, oh, my, wasn't he just having a lovely dream? Oh, he was, he was. Sliding the flannel pajama bottoms off, she kicked them to the bottom of Mulder's bed and leaned up to nuzzle his throat. Another whimper. Cautiously--after all, it wouldn't do to precipitate anything untimely, now would it?--she slid her hand down the front of the sweatpants. Oh, God, the Promised Land and he was hot in her hand. He arched his hips up abruptly and gasped. "Don't you dare," she muttered and stared into the gleam of dark eyes wide and shocked. "Oh, hi, Mulder." Swinging a leg over him, she pushed the sweat pants down his hips. "Sc-Sc-Scully?" His voice was breathy and startled. "What--what are you doing?" "I think that's pretty evident, Mulder. You're the one who believes in extreme possibilities," she told him and couldn't resist just rubbing her body against him. He moaned and pushed his hips up again. "I'm not sure this is a good idea," he gasped. "Oh, God, Scully, do that again." She did, leaned down and did what she'd been wanting to do for a while--she nipped his lower lip and sucked on it gently, reached down to better aim him and started to slide down. "Oh, God," he whimpered, a lot louder than she wanted him to. "Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God." Oh, God was right. His hands came up to hold her hips and Scully closed her eyes, biting her lip to keep from chanting like Mulder. Oh, yes, oh, yes, she knew her memory of sex couldn't be that far from the truth. Only this was better...... "Agent Scully? Do you need some help with him?" Pendrell's voice was sharp. Goddammit, maybe there really wasn't a God. Or maybe she had been right on the flight up, she'd died after her abduction and was now in hell. "No, Pendrell, I can handle him just fine." The hysterical urge to giggle waxed and waned, thankfully without one single snicker. But Mulder's reaction to Pendrell's was instantaneous. He deflated. In all respects. She felt it happening and disappointment almost made her shriek. But she tried hard to stay calm. "Mulder, it's okay, he's not going to come in," she whispered, a little urgently. "Oh, Jesus," Mulder moaned, "Just my luck, after four years of watching you, Pendrell interrupts." "Mulder, it's not the end of the world, we can, um, pick up where we left off." She kissed him lingeringly, but all he did was lie there limply--and she did mean limply--and moan. And not in passion, in misery. "It's no use, Scully. Just thinking about Pendrell makes my balls crawl." He gave her a tragic look. Scully briefly considered shooting him. Then, with more cause, she considered shooting Pendrell. "All right," she said wearily. "But I expect a rematch, Mulder. You've been teasing me for four years with those trousers low on your hips, that pouty mouth of yours, and that beaten puppy look." His eyes widened slightly and his lips moved without a sound. Finally, in a strangled voice. "Okay, Scully." "Good." Feeling slightly miffed, she fished her pajama bottoms out of the bottom of the bed and got out, stopping to pull them on before she got back into her own. Mulder leaned up. "Scully?" His tone was plaintive. "You could sleep here." She sighed. He looked so sweet with that beaten puppy look. He looked so winsome. So sexy. So--so--so molestible. "I don't think that would be appropriate, Mulder. Sex is one thing, but sleeping together is entirely different. Besides, if I slept there tonight, you wouldn't get any sleep until I got what I wanted." His head fell back onto the pillow and she heard another whimper. It nearly changed her mind, but it was better this way. Give him a chance to sleep off the Valium, and tomorrow night he was getting plain old Ovaltine. Assuming the shrink didn't decide he needed Thorazine. But as long as he wasn't actively delusional, she could overrule the shrink. "This really fucks the duck." Fox Mulder stood outside the Country Kitchen, rolling a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other, and glaring at the flat, steel grey of the Minnesota winter sky. His suit was GQ perfect, creases all in place beneath the overcoat with the lining. Pendrell, his face chapped with cold, shivering with the lack of adequate clothing, stood and watched him as if waiting for the sky to fall. Trask was still settling the bill when Scully joined them. Mulder tossed the toothpick into the smallest snow drift left by the last snowfall. "Can we finally get this cluster fuck on the road? We've got people to find, places to do." Bergman walked out, knocking loose a cigarette from a fresh package, ignoring the disgusted looks both Mulder and Scully gave him. Trask said he'd been trying to quit. He certainly wasn't trying this morning. Mulder glared around him, taking in the nervous looks, the jumpy, startled movements every time one of them caught him looking at them, any time he made a sudden move. Even Scully, for Christ's sake, was jumpy as hell this morning, and Mulder'd had about enough of this shit. Jurgensen and Trask fled to the safety of Bergman's car, leaving Mulder with Scully and Pendrell Pendrell, unfortunately, showed no signs of going away. He jittered along behind them as they headed to the four wheel drive. "So," Mulder dropped into step next to Scully, "you've got the Three Stooges checking into Reverend Fulke's death?" "Yeah. I think you had a good lead going there, and I want it checked top to bottom." Scully somehow had kept the keys from last night, she unlocked the driver's door, and hit the override to unlock all the doors. Pendrell grabbed the front passenger seat fast, before Mulder could get it, trying to ignore the poisonous look Mulder turned on him. Mulder slung himself into the back, then startled as Scully hit the override again, locking all the doors. Childproof locks, he noted, and he wouldn't be able to unlock them unless Scully hit the switch. She'd thought he was hallucinating. Mulder swallowed and waited, licking his lips, a slow, deliberate motion as he collected his temper and leaned forward. "Why don't you lean back and put the seatbelt on?" Scully's tone was mild. Mulder frowned. "We need to get out and talk to that choir director. I've got a bad feeling about her, Scully, and we haven't talked to her yet." Scully pulled back, out of the parking lot and down the main street, taking a left at the sign for Zimmer. Mulder sat bolt upright and stared around him at the road. "We're going the wrong way." His voice was soft, definite. "She lives south of town." Pendrell twitched. Mulder leaned in between the front seats again, feeling an old terror grip his belly. Trying to stay calm. "Turn around, Scully. We're going the wrong way." "I don't think so, Mulder." Scully's voice was still calm, ignoring his sudden, angry frown, his intentional control of temper. "Scully, I'm telling you. She's back the other way. We need to go get her, now, before we lose any more time. I'm worried, I think she might be the next victim." Mulder was keeping his voice steady and reasonable, even though his fingers were digging into the cloth of Scully's seat back. Pendrell was trying not to cringe away from him. "We've got plenty of time, Mulder," Scully told him soothingly, glancing up into the rearview mirror. "We'll go see her, we will, but we've got an appointment in Zimmer first." Mulder's jaw flexed as his teeth ground together hard. His knuckles went white. "Scully, there's another blizzard blowing in. If we don't get to her in time, we might be too late." .She wasn't listening. He kept his voice controlled, a low grind that felt like he was pulling it out of his guts. "Agent Mulder." He looked around at Pendrell's pale, tense face. "We have time. We'll just go to Zimmer first. . . " Mulder felt his face twist itself into a smile that held no humor, bitter, angry and so, so alone. Before Scully, he'd been that alone. "You don't believe me. You think I'm. . . " Mulder swallowed, stared as Pendrell's face told the truth his tongue could choke. And his smile was gone, a crafty, calm look in its place. Behave rationally, he told himself. Scully's eyes were flickering from the mirror to the road. Pendrell's eyes rolled all the way over to watch without turning. Mulder pulled his knees around, half-turned to stare into Pendrell's wide eyes. "All right, you think I'm out of my mind. I can live with that." He smiled, careful and under control, his pale color the only thing that betrayed that calm, rational expression. "I've been quoting Nash, I've been seeing a woman that half the town identifies as having died eighteen years ago. Mind, I make no claims that the woman I saw was the Olafsson woman. Other people are telling you. And I'm telling you, we're missing a chance. We've been two steps behind the killer since we got here, but we've got a chance to head him or her off, we can't afford to lose any time on this one. But you don't believe me. All right. What don't you believe? That I know that the choir director is next?" Scully glanced up into the mirror again. "Mulder, we have time," she repeated. But he couldn't stop, couldn't just shut up and let her do it her way. Couldn't stop. "Either way, you don't believe. So what harm is there in going to talk to her, to making sure she's okay? We can talk to her, maybe make sure that jackass Bergman keeps somebody watching her, and I go with you. We do whatever it is you want me to do. I won't argue." "That doesn't make a whole lot of sense from where I sit, Mulder." Scully's voice was brisk and cool in the front seat. "I can use the cell phone to talk to Bergman from here. He can send someone out to check on her, whereas we'd just be wasting time and we're going to see a busy man." Mulder sank back, feeling bitterness as acid in the back of his throat. "A shrink." No question, a flat statement of fact instead. Scully finally believed that he was crazy. "You have to admit, yesterday was a little weird, Mulder." Mulder even smiled at Scully's gentle comment. "I'll be glad to admit just that, if you do what I want. I don't give two shits what you think of me, all I care about is making sure that woman is alive and well and safe. He was leaned forward again, ignoring the way Pendrell cringed from him. "It's a win-win situation, Scully." He pitched his voice to coax, a lilt that held humor and calm precariously like a shield. "We spend just a little while, a detour. If she's okay, we'll get Bergman's men on it and I'll be glad to go calmly to talk with your shrink. No problem. Be glad to. She wins, I win and you win." "And you still go to the shrink? After we check her out?" Scully's tone was still mild. "Sure. Whatever you want. I'll go jump through his hoops." He saw Scully lick her lips. "And what if I say 'no', Mulder? What if I just drive us in to Zimmer?" Mulder worked one shoulder past the bottle-neck of the seats and was watching the road and wheel as steadily as Scully. He was doomed, damned forever to have to prove his sanity to people when he couldn't explain where he came up with things out of the ether. When he couldn't explain how he could tap into the sick mind of a killer who quoted Nash. Pendrell was hyperventilating. "If you decide to drive in to Zimmer," Mulder's voice was calm, and rational and confident, "then you will need whatever it is that you've got in your hand to get me there. And you had better pray it works fast." Pendrell started to lunge back, but Mulder was in motion and suddenly had one hand, steady and hard on the wheel. Pendrell's shriek and Scully's curse together didn't cover his soft laugh. "It's okay, I'm not taking us off the road." Pendrell flattened himself against the seat and closed his eyes. The car had barely twitched. "Just one detour. I don't care who you send me to after that." Not so easy to stay calm now. Not begging, but asking so hard. "Please, Scully. Please. I didn't want to do this. . . we can't let him. . . Scully, I can't let you throw her life away like that because you want me to go see some shrink this morning. The shrink can wait. Please turn around. I can tell you exactly where to go." Pendrell's hands pushed against the dashboard. The world flashed by far faster than it should have, although Scully clearly had lifted her foot, the vehicle was starting to slow. Mulder sprawled between the seats, the storage box gouging his ribs, but his hand was steady and he watched the road and waited for Scully to decide what her next move was going to be. Finally, slowly, she nodded and started to tap the brake, pull over to a U- turn, pulling over onto the shoulder of the narrow county road. Mulder let himself collapse in relief between the seats, breathing hard with the tension he'd let go. He stayed there until they had turned and were going back, then pulled himself back into the back seat. Pendrell stared back at him, shocked and numb. Mulder curled into a corner of the back seat and watched the back of Scully's head, feeling the loss of trust and hope burn like the flames he'd always feared. They were nearly to Minne Gerdstrom's house when Mulder began to speak again. Sepulchral tones that made the hair on the back of Scully's neck rise, that made her shiver despite the fact that she had the heat cranked up on high. "Love is a word that is constantly heard, Hate is a word that is not. Love, I am told, is more precious than gold. Love, I have read, is hot. But hate is the verb that to me is superb, And Love but a drug on the mart. Any kiddie in school can love like a fool, But Hating, my boy, is an Art." When she glanced back at him, his eyes were dark, the pupil swallowing up the iris, as shiny as onyx and about as lifeless. "We're too late," he added and hunched his shoulders inside the overcoat. "She's dead." Of course, he was right. Minne Gerdstrom, perhaps a few years younger than the good Widow Fulke, had been done up like someone's conception of a hooker in the fifties. She sat stiffly in the recliner in front of her television, one side of her short skirt hiked up to reveal thighs that had definitely seen better days. Hands in his pockets, Mulder stared gloomily at the body. "The Scarlet A," he muttered and closed his eyes for a moment. The woman had been made up deliberately garishly, dark red rouge and scarlet lipstick, one eye open and the other closed in a caricature of a dissolute wink. Scully swallowed hard and reached out to close the open eye, but it wouldn't close. Frowning, she leaned forward and swallowed hard again. "Mulder, I think this eye has been glued open somehow." "Hardly surprising." Mulder's voice was ghostly in the room's dimness, his breath puffed white. There was no heat. The killer had turned the furnace off, evidently. On the television screen, couples writhed and twisted in faked ecstasy. She supposed it was a measure of Mulder's gloom that he didn't even notice. "You were right," she admitted. "But you're still going to the shrink, Mulder." "I told you I would." Mulder looked away from her. "I think you'll find that the note has been inserted into her....." His voice trailed off in uncharacteristic avoidance. Bending, Scully peered. "We'll have to find out at the morgue." Pendrell was outside, throwing up into the snowdrifts that covered the shrubbery. Bergman and Trask were on their way. And the minute they got there, she was putting Pendrell to work and taking Mulder to Trask's cousin. No more delays. If she didn't want him to end up in a rubber room, she had to act now. It was a strip mall of four stores. The two on the end were respectively pet and livestock supplies, the third and fourth had been combined into one office. Linoleum floor and the office smelled like a vet's office. Mulder gave her a sharp look as a fresh-faced blonde teenager came out with a man who resembled Trask to an alarming degree. The teenager was carrying an overweight pug dog that Scully immediately disliked. "Just play the tapes for him every night," the man told the girl, "We'll break this food addiction, Myrna, never fear." "An animal psychologist?" Mulder hissed in her ear. "Jesus Christ, Scully, you're my goddamned partner! I expected better from you." Dr. Sondheim turned toward them. "Can I help you?"he asked, smiling beatifically. "I'm Agent Scully, this is Agent Mulder, we have an appointment." Scully found she was nearly babbling, holding on to Mulder's arm and leaning all her weight into it in case he decided to bolt. "Ah, yes." Sondheim actually rubbed his hands together. "It's really rather exciting, having a human patient again. After all, that's what I trained for. It's just that the church seems to take over my role up in these parts. Come right this way, Agent Mulder. Er, Agent Scully, I'll have to ask you to wait outside." Scully sighed, wondered whether or not she should warn Sondheim that Mulder might bolt. A glance at his face persuaded her to keep her mouth shut. "Ingrid will give you the paperwork," Sondheim continued, still smiling. It was such a nice change, after all the dour Strindbergian characters they'd been meeting, that Scully smiled back. Mulder turned his head and gave her such a furious look that her smile evaporated almost immediately. But he let Sondheim lead him back anyway. Mulder stood by the window looking out. He did not stop his perusal of the snow covered countryside while Sondheim stepped back out. He heard Sondheim's voice, then Scully's in counterpoint. The door opened again. Footsteps. This room was carpeted and the carpeting muffled them. The hand on his shoulder was gentle. Mulder did not turn. "I like watching the hills," the voice behind him said. Mulder said nothing. "Agent Mulder, please come and sit down." "Why? So you can tell her that I'm experiencing severe PTSD? That I hallucinate and get angry easily? That I'm having fucking flashbacks?" "Is that what's happening?" Sondheim's voice was honestly curious. Mulder put a hand to the window, pressed against it. "No. But that's not what you'll tell them." "You don't know me. You don't know what I'll say." The voice was intelligent and educated, but it carried a trace of the northern twang in its deep baritone lilt. Not quite "Doncha know." "I know what you'll say." "Because you're a psychologist and you know what categories your behavior falls into?" Gentle voice. Mulder gritted his teeth."Yes." "You probably find this more frightening than an untrained person." Mulder did not respond. It was an opening. Too deliberate. Too easy for Sondheim to get the answers he sought. "If you want to stay there and look at the snow for a while, all right. I'll wait until you want to talk." Sondheim went away, or at least fell silent. Mulder looked at the snow, studying the way the snow weighted tree branches, turned everything white and pure. Sinless and stainless. He lost track of the time, staring out at the endless white, watching the way the wind skirled across the surface, raising little snow devils, small cyclones of white. It kept him from thinking of Minne Gerdstrom and Gerda Olafsson . He replayed and replayed the morning's events, trying to find some way he could have saved her, something he could have said. Tried to find some way that let him know his partner didn't believe he was crazy. Certifiable. After a while, he heard the knock at the door, heard Sondheim talking to someone in a low voice. Recognized Scully's mumur. The door closed again and Scully went away, leaving him to blink hard against the feeling of being alone and betrayed. He realized that he must have been standing in front of the window for nearly an hour. Realized what this meant. He turned. "You cleared your schedule for me?" Sondheim shrugged. "Like I said, it's exciting to have a human in this office again." Mulder stared at him. "You shouldn't do that." Sondheim arched an eyebrow. "Why not?" "I'm just one patient." That beatific smile again. "But you're the patient who needs me right now." Mulder's chin came up. "I don't need you." Sondheim nodded. He wasn't going to fight. "Your partner is worried about you." Mulder turned back to the snow, abandoned it after a few minutes more. He kept seeing the snow glare when he turned back to face the room. "Scully was born worried," he said and rubbed his face with both hands. "Would you like to sit down?" "All the seats are lower than your chair." "Never take a psychologist as a patient." Sondheim was a big man, not fat, just tall and big muscled, with a blond neatly trimmed beard over his round face, and reading glasses that sat halfway down his nose. He picked up his pad of paper, a thin folder, and a tape recorder, moved from his seat in a desk chair to the love seat, spread himself out it. "They know all the tricks. There? Satisfied, Mr. Mulder?" Mulder turned and sat down on the loveseat across from Sondheim. There was a small slurry of melting snow where he had stood, like what a ghost might leave in a story you tell your kids on Halloween. Sondheim smiled at him again. "Have you ever been in therapy?" Mulder licked his lips. "I. . .when I was a kid, and then a couple of times when policy mandated it." Sondheim nodded, turned the tape recorder on. Mulder swallowed. It was all happening again, only this time it was the one person he trusted above all. "Can we come to an understanding?" Sondheim considered him. "I don't know. Can we?" "If I tell you some things, you won't lock me away. I know what reality is. I'm not psychotic. I'm not going to hurt myself or hurt anyone else, I promise you that." He leaned forward. Cursing himself for wanting to tell anything, almost leaping out of his skin at wanting to tell someone and have them listen, listen and understand what it felt like, what he felt like, what seeing that body that hadn't been there yesterday had done to him. "I can't promise you that," Sondheim's voice was gentle. "I can tell you that if you tell me things I won't tell anyone, not even your friend." Mulder rubbed his eyes. "That's not good enough." Never mind. He would go through the spiel. Make this short. Give the good explanations that would get him back in the field. It didn't matter. It really didn't matter. Tell the lies that made everyone happy with him. "But at the moment, I don't see any reason to lock you away, despite your partner's assertion that you hallucinated yesterday. I know you're under stress, I want you talk to me and tell me the truth, but I can't make promises like that. I know you're hurting. And it's obvious to me from the way you came in here and just stood there, staring at the city that whatever's going on it's hitting pretty deep." Jesus, for a man who counseled pug dogs about overeating, this guy wasn't bad. Mulder shrank back against the arm of the loveseat. "I'm not. . .I'm okay." "Tell me the truth. I'm not the overworked MSWs the FBI hires. I'm not some sweet kiddie psychologist like whatever ones your parents sent you to. Don't underestimate me, Mr. Mulder, just because I chose to work out my own issues with workaholism up here in the piney woods. I've worked with disturbed adults before, and I'm not going to accept any lies." Sondheim's face was grave, but his voice stayed gentle. Mulder wrapped his arms around his chest, nodded, closed his eyes. The lies wouldn't work. In some strange, almost masochistic way he nearly welcomed it, even as he felt panic bursting in his chest and the warning that this man could destroy him, destroy everything. And he would never be allowed to find the truth. "Okay. I don't know what she told you. We--we went out to the Fulke farm yesterday and spoke with Mrs. Fulke. It used to be the Olafsson farm. We went out to the barn to see where her brother had died, where her husband killed himself. I, uh, I saw this old woman, she'd been at the church when we found Marcy Olafsen's body there. She called me a sinner and--well, Scully saw her, too, that time, I wasn't hallucinating. And she cut my hand." He pulled one hand free and showed the cut to Sondheim, who nodded gravely. "She did tell me about that." Somehow, that was comforting. "Yesterday--when I saw her...she vanished like she did at the church, about that quickly, but Scully didn't see her." "Tall scarecrow of a woman, black dress?" Sondheim arched an eyebrow in question. Mulder nodded. "And you saw her in the loft? No surprise there, the loft is haunted, everyone within two hundred miles knows that. That's why they don't use the barn anymore." Sondheim smiled reassuringly. "What other hallucinations have you had?" Mulder's jaw had dropped and was presently testing its flexibility. "Um," he finally managed and leaned forward again. "None. That was the only one. Although I've been having some really weird dreams." "Dreams?" Sondheim clicked the pen. "Tell me about them." Licking his lips, Mulder considered. "Well, the first night," he began, "I dreamt I was with my partner in Universal Studio's theme park, in the Jurassic Park section. In a Miata." "And what were you doing there," Sondheim encouraged. A slow smile spread across Mulder's face. "Fooling around." Another arched eyebrow. "Tell me all about it," Sondheim murmured and leaned forward. Mulder did. Scully hated medical forms. With a passion. And why she always seemed to be fil God, they'd been in there nearly two hours at this point. Her stomach tightened uneasily as she glanced at the clock. Maybe she should have called Skinner about this. Maybe she was crazier than Mulder, taking him to an animal psyc She shuddered, thinking about Skinner's reaction to *that* piece of news. Pendrell, that little suckup, was bound to tell him, while virtuously pointing out that he, Pendrell, had advised calling Skinner at the first sign of erratic behavior from Mulder. She certainly hoped that Sondheim was doing Mulder some good. It was starting to get dusky outside already, the consequence of being halfway to fucking Canada. And she didn't like the thought of having to drive back in full dark, not with those hairpin turns on the county highway. On the other hand, Mulder's life had been so fraught, they'd probably taken this long to get to the day he left for Oxford. Sighing, she leaned back again and picked up her book to reread the same page for the fourth time. If only she hadn't been raised Catholic. Guilt really sucked. "Actually," Sondheim was saying, leaning back comfortably with a shot glass of schnapps, "The differences between human and animal behavior aren't as striking as you might think. Your dreams, for example. Most animals dream of hunting. Humans, in this case you, dream of sex with a willing and attractive partner. The nun's habit probably signifies your earlier feeling that she was unavailable, taboo. But clearly, you're coming around to see her as a receptive partner. The bunny suit--well, you went to Oxford, I only went to Northwestern, that's so obvious it's amusing." Mulder sipped at his own glass and nodded thoughtfully. "Fuck like a bunny," he murmured and leaned his head back against the back of the loveseat. "You know, I hadn't thought about the similarities between animal behavior and human behavior, but I suppose it's true. Humans have their own types of territorial displays, just like animals." Sondheim grinned. "True, but it doesn't generally involve pissing on someone or something. On the other hand, I've speculated that the golden showers enthusiasts are responding to animal instinct to own or be owned." Mulder grimaced. "Eeeew." Sondheim nodded. "Speaking of pissing, human behavior in that arena is pretty interesting, too. Do you know that the Dutch, I believe, have found that if the human male is given a focus, he manages to aim more accurately and give the women in his life less to bitch about when cleaning the bathroom?" "A focus?" The schnapps was making the tip of Mulder's nose numb. "What kind of focus? A target?" He slid sideways into the corner of the loveseat, snickering. "Exactly!" Sondheim's voice was delighted. "They've painted a fly in each urinal and toilet. And the public restrooms stay much cleaner." "Cheerios," Mulder chortled, remembering his own toilet training. "My mother put Cheerios in the toilet bowl and had me aim for them." Sondheim belly-laughed at that one. "So, you see, we aren't that removed from our cousins in the animal kingdom." "Boy, I'll say." Draining the shot glass, Mulder set it aside and stood up, just a little unsteadily. "Doc, it's been great shooting the breeze with you, but I've got a murderer to catch." Sondheim rose with him, reached out and steadied him with a benign smile. "Just remember what I told you. Repressing all that unresolved sexual tension is only going to increase your stress, Mr. Mulder. If your partner's as willing as it appears, just go for it." Mulder nodded, unable to keep from snickering again. "Willing? Heck, she practically molested me last night. And then that jerk Pendrell...." His smile faded. "I oughta shoot that little worm." "Now, now, don't get mad, get even. Bring him by tomorrow and I'll check him out." Sondheim's eyes twinkled. The door seemed farther away than Mulder remembered, but he made it out into the waiting room under his own power and gave Scully a broad grin. God, she gave him that fishwife from Sligo look again, he nearly moaned in pleasure. "Mulder, you're drunk!" "He needed a little relaxation," Sondheim agreed and winked at Mulder. "Mr. Mulder, if you'd just wait a moment, I'll have a word with your partner and give her my recommendations." Mulder began snickering again, tried unsuccessfully to smother it and teetered into a chair. Boy, the world wouldn't stop moving, it was making him a little dizzy.... Scully followed Sondheim into his office. "What did you give him?" "Just a few shots of schnapps." Sondheim patted her shoulder in an avuncular way. "He'll be fine, Agent Scully. You have nothing to worry about." "So he's not crazy," Scully demanded, and bit her lip, wishing she'd phrased it more diplomatically. "Oh, my, I didn't say that, he's as crazy as a junkyard rat," Sondheim disagreed cheerfully, "But he's functional, which is really all that matters these days. He's not delusional, he's in touch with reality, he doesn't need to be hospitalized or tranquilized." Scully's mouth fell open. Closed again without comment. "So," she finally said carefully, "In your opinion, he's fit to work." "Absolutely," Sondheim told her happily. "And he's quite good at it. I'm very impressed with him." Sondheim was crazy, Scully decided. The lunatics were running the asylum. "Thank you for seeing him on such short notice," she told the psychologist and backed toward the door. "I'll call you if we have any more trouble." "Certainly, certainly. Although that young pathologist, what was his name? Pendrell? I think he needs some counseling on sexuality. You might bring him by if he's free." Sondheim nodded, still affable. It certainly would be justice, Scully thought darkly and made her escape before hearing any more about the character assassination Mulder had doubtless performed on Pendrell. Once in the car, Mulder pushed the seat back and cheerfully leaned against the window, humming off key and occasionally giggling until he either fell asleep or passed out, depending on how you preferred to view it. It had better, by God, be sleep, because she had plans for him later. "He's drunk!" Pendrell accused at the motel, while helping her to get the semi-conscious Mulder into her room. "Dr. Sondheim fed him schnapps," she snapped, "Just help me get him into bed." Pendrell obeyed, grumbling under his breath as Mulder tried to find his feet and mumbled incoherencies about women in black and straight edge rulers. Once they'd gotten him on the bed, Scully chivvied Pendrell into helping her further, stripping Mulder down to his thermal underwear. Only a man, she thought resentfully, could wear thermal underwear under a suit and have the suit hang right at the same time. Mulder gave her a childlike smile and immediately curled around one of his pillows, eyes sliding closed almost at once. "Mulder," she told him irritably, "You're a goddamned cheap drunk, that's all I can say. Two shot glasses of schnapps isn't enough to put *me* out." Pendrell sniffed disdainfully. "Drinking on duty," he began and Scully whirled to face him, her expression dangerous. He thought better of whatever regulation he was going to quote and gave her a cowed look. "Would you like to have dinner now, Agent Scully?" "Yes," she growled. "And I want a lot of it. You'd better hope Inge's not back on duty, lab-boy, or you're a dead man." Sexual frustration, she mused a moment later, watching Pendrell rabbit for the phone, could really make a person irritable. "I need the autopsy reports." Mulder's voice emerged from behind the bathroom door when Scully came after dinner, carrying a couple of styrofoam containers for him. She heard him pee, heard the toilet flush. "I need to know if I was right about the note for Minne Gerdstrom. I need to look at all the photos from the crime scenes." He stepped out from the bathroom, eyes blood shot, still in silk thermal underwear. No wonder his goddamned suits hung right. His step was indecently springy. And the dead will rise on that day and speak again. "How are you feeling?" Scully asked, resisting the urge to smack him. He gave her the standard boyish, self-deprecating Mulder grin. "I'm okay. Schnapps on an empty stomach, though..." A shrug, accepting his own faults and that wide-eyed, egg sucking look that always made her knees turn to water. He ran a hand through his hair. "I smell food." Scully nodded. "Why don't you come eat, and leave the work alone." It was a patented calming voice and Mulder turned to her, stared at her, eyes narrowing. And evidently decided it wasn't worth it. "I'll eat in a minute." He stalked over to his bag, grabbed a clean henley and a pair of jeans, pulled them on over the long underwear. "I haven't written any psych stuff in a couple days. They'll have my butt back at Quantico." The laptop settled on the bed just as the telephone rang. She was closer, she picked it up. "Scully," she told the phone. "Tell your goddamned poetry spouting wonder that now we've got two dead kids." Bergman's voice was a rasp, he broke off and began coughing. "Thirteen and fifteen, both boys. Down at Swenson's Lake. I suppose one of you can read a map, can't you?" Scully sighed. "Yeah. We'll be down there shortly, Sheriff." Mulder looked up from his investigation of the styrofoam boxes, put a french fry into his mouth and arched an eyebrow in question. "Another murder," she told him and felt guilty when his expression closed in on itself. "Get into your parka, Mulder, it's down at Swenson's Lake." Picking her map up from the desk, she spread it out and studied it. "Swenson's Lake," Mulder told her gloomily, "Off country road 15, about thirty miles north of town." figured, she told herself and counted to ten. "Alcohol's a depressant, Mulder," she muttered and pointed at the large styrofoam cup of coffee. "Drink some." He didn't answer, but he did pick it up after zipping his coat. "Here, Mr. Eidetic Memory," she told him, holding out the keys. "Since you seem to know where we're going, you drive." "Uh uh. I'm going to try and eat my cheeseburger before we get there. With any luck, I'm on a winning streak and I won't throw it up." He tugged on one glove with his teeth, switched the cup to that hand and opened the door. Oh, right, she thought, usually, you had to pry the keys out of his hands, suppressing the urge to make them cold, dead hands, and now he'd had a change of heart. "Certainly," she told him sweetly and went out ahead of him. The blizzard that Mulder had predicted was still only a light snowfall on the drive to the lake. In between wolfing the double cheeseburger and french fries, Mulder gave her directions, then finally sank back into gloomy silence after the last turn and, "Straight on from here, Scully." At least until they reached the ambulance and police cruisers, their red and blue lights casting a lurid glow on the scene. Then, like the dead rising again, Mulder spoke. "Children aren't happy without something to ignore, And that's what parents were created for." She glanced over at him and pulled in next to the first cruiser. "What?" "These kids were probably a problem for their parents." Mulder glanced back, popped the door open. "And our killer decided to just turn his hand to avenging them." How did he know these things? "How do you know these things?" she asked, exasperated. "Does the Serial Killer Fairy come and whisper in your ear at night?" He shuddered visibly. "Don't even joke about that, Scully." The door slammed. Muttering under her breath, Scully got out and followed him to the edge of the lake where Bergman stood with Jurgensen, Trask and Dr. Olafsson . "...a terrible thing," Olafsson was saying mournfully. "Yes, it is," Mulder agreed. "What happened?" Bergman took a drag off a cigarette and gave Mulder a truculent look. "While you were off having a chat with my lame brain cousin by marriage, the psycho decided to drown a couple of kids." "You're sure it wasn't an accident?" Scully stuffed her hands in her pockets. She never wanted to see snow again. Ever. Not even on Christmas cards. "Oh, I'm sure, all right. Go have a look at their bodies, Agent Scully." Bergman's tone was scornful, he used the hand holding the cigarette to gesture to the blanket shrouded shaped on the ground. "Say, Sheriff?" A burly man wearing one of those ridiculous hats with the ear muffs came over, clapping his hands together. "Can I take these boys to the funeral home yet?" "Not yet, Lars. We gotta wait for the FBI to give their opinion." Bergman took another drag. Mulder bent and pulled the blanket back from the first shape. Flinched when he saw the naked body, the words written in fluorescent and waterproof marker on the boy's chest and belly. "And that's what parents were created for," he murmured. Scully knelt, frowning. "There's something wrong with his mouth," she murmured and bent to look more closely. "Yeah, you could say that. The bastard cut the kids' tongues out." Bergman flicked the cigarette into the snow and crouched down beside her. "The other one says, 'Children aren't happy without something to ignore'. Mean anything to you, Spooky?" A quick glance and Mulder shrugged. "What do you know about these boys." "They're a handful, "Jurgensen offered, giving Bergman a wary glance. "Their mama and dad have a lot of trouble with them." "That's what I thought." Mulder let the blanket fall. "Go ahead, take them in. You found them in the water?" "No, we found them in the fishing hut." Jurgensen pointed. "Got a call from their folks, said they hadn't come home, we find them out here a lot. Smoking pot and fishing and drinking with their buddies. But they were the only two there today. Just like that. Big damned hole in the ice, looks like somebody dropped 'em in on a fishing line and let them drown." "Hypothermia would certainly have killed them," Scully murmured. "We'll know more after the autopsies. Here," she handed Mulder the keys. "You take the car back, I'll ride in to the funeral home with the bodies." Lars gave her an uncertain look, but nodded when Bergman grunted affirmation. "Okay, Miss. You'll want to ride in front, though. It's warmer, doncha know." "I'll go roust Pendrell," Mulder told her wearily. "He's escalating. The intervals between murders are getting shorter and shorter." "Uh huh." Bergman sounded tired, too. "I'll see you folks in the morning. I've got to go and tell their folks." There didn't seem to be anything to say to that. After a moment, Scully followed Lars to the front seat of the ambulance. Mulder sent a decidedly unhappy Pendrell to the morgue; he suspected that the buxom Inge was lurking behind the door of the room that had once been his, but was feeling too dispirited himself to even rib Pendrell about it. He didn't go to the morgue. He went to see the parents. Bergman was already there, introduced him to Mr. and Mrs. Ivar Larssen, both red-eyed and dumb with grief. It appeared that Mrs. Larssen had already been given a sedative by Dr. Olafsson , who hung over her like a gargoyle, his long face even longer. There were other adults, not introduced, and another woman who helped Mrs. Larssen up from the couch and into the back bedroom. An elderly woman hung back in the corner, watching with her lips pursed. Larssen sat on the couch, staring at his hands. "They were good kids," he mourned. Olafsson's mouth crimped. He put a hand on the bereaved father's shoulder. "Now, Ivar, you can't blame yourself." Consolingly, but his expression was somehow--judgemental. 'I know," said Larssen and laced thick fingers together. "I know you said spare the rod and spoil the child, Doc. But you know, I'd get home tired, and Matty just didn't have the steel to be firm enough with the boys." "I know, Ivar. It's not your fault." A pat on the shoulder again. Mulder's eyes narrowed, he focused in on the doctor's hand. A bit reddened, but doctors had to wash their hands a lot. Even in this era of thin latex gloves. Still, it made his skin prickle. "Mr. Larssen." He pitched his voice low. "Yah, they snuck out the window. After they was supposed to be in bed, doncha know." Larssen didn't appear to hear him. The elderly woman in the corner gave Mulder a stern look, shaking her head. Beckoning him. At least she wasn't dressed in black and didn't resemble the harridan at the Church or the Fulke barn. He let himself be led into the kitchen, stood near the back door. "Young man, don't you be bothering those folks in their time of sorrow. Those boys were both as bad as any bad seed, they were born bad and they died bad." That disapproving look again. "Matty Larssen spoilt those boys something awful, and Ivar wasn't any better, doncha know." He blinked. "Who do you think did this?" "That's for you to find out, young man." Tartly. "But I'll tell you something, a lot of people wish those boys had been drowned like unwanted puppies." He wondered if she was one of them. "A lot of people?" She snorted and folded her arms across her rather impressive bosom. "Young man, those boys tormented small animals, small children, they stole, they lied, they caused trouble at school. Why, even Gus Olafsson , who isn't any better than he should be, wouldn't see them any more, although he was treating Ivar for high blood pressure, and had Matty on Ovaltine." Ovaltine again. He didn't like Olafsson particularly, and the Ovaltine connection was driving him up the wall, but.....he nodded blankly at the elderly woman. Turned and walked back out into the livingroom where Bergman gave him an odd look. Christ, he'd forgotten to get the woman's name, he really ought to have that, he turned on his heel and went back. But there was no one there. At all. He flicked on the light, stood there with his mouth hanging open for a moment. "Agent Mulder?" Bergman's voice over his shoulder, gruff and perplexed. "Is there something you want to examine in the kitchen?" Mulder turned to look at him. "Uh, no. No, thanks." Turned off the light. Stood looking into the darkened kitchen for several minutes. A Loki, a trickster.....again? He shivered and went back to the livingroom, Bergman watching him like he was cracking up. Bizarre dreams aside, he didn't think he was. But he wouldn't bet the rent. So he went back to the morgue to see what Scully had to offer in the way of information. The night was cold and clear when they finally left the morgue. Mulder relaxed back into the seat, closed his eyes. Scully turned the ignition and debated locking the doors, but decided not to add insult to injury. He'd come back to the morgue with his eyes even more haunted, but he hadn't said or done anything to cause her concern. They drove through the frozen night streets, the snow and ice gleaming and glittering in the headlights, the desolation of winter, reminding her of the old fairy tale about the Ice Queen. Timmsville wasn't that big, but the driving was tricky, Scully focused on staying on the road. The silence had gone on a long time when Mulder's voice startled Scully from the boredom of the drive out to the motel. "Scully, you actually believe in God, don't you." It might have been a question. It might not. Scully paused, long and long, wondered at it, finally nodded. "Yes. I don't believe in God the way I was taught, but I believe there is a God." "I'm afraid to believe in God." The voice was a pale whisper, dry as the subzero chill in the air. Scully waited, half-hoped for more, but the silence held and only the engine spoke, until finally they pulled in, and even that fell quiet. Mulder seemed to shake himself back from wherever he'd been as Scully got out of the car. He moved slowly, carefully, as though things wouldn't stay where he thought they were and she wondered if the schnapps was still affecting him now that the adrenaline rush of the crime scene was done. He jumped when Scully slammed her car door, closed his own so softly it barely caught. The cool dark of the rooms was a haven, and Mulder seemed half-asleep already. Scully paused to see if he'd pull his own jacket off, not wanting to have to treat Mulder like a child. Breathed a sigh when Mulder stripped off his coat and outer clothing, down to the long johns, and kicked off his shoes. He didn't sprawl in sleep, relaxed and comfortable. He pulled into the center of the bed, lying on his side with knees drawn up and arms crossed over his chest, a huddle under the blankets. Scully watched until his breathing had settled into an even rhythm, and his face smoothed into enigma. Damn. She'd really been hoping....don't go there Dana Katherine, she told herself ruefully and dug her own pajamas out of her bag. The night was still young, maybe he'd have another dream. Or maybe not. She hadn't liked his silence, thought irritably about the schnapps again. Thought about Mulder. When they'd arrived, he'd gone to the center of the bed and tucked himself fetal. This morning, Mulder's look, throwing himself forward, taking over the steering wheel. His expression at the lake. She sighed, went into the bathroom to put on her pajamas, sensible flannel, linking her to a world as sensible and solid as the unalluring flannel. What world was this? It was the world of ice and snow, the world of Odin and Loki and Freya, of sacrifice and death. An older world than her Christian world, the safe world of the crucifix. Clad in her flannel, she left the bathroom and looked at the two beds, got into bed instead with her partner, spooning behind him, her arm over him, hugging him. She didn't like this world, but if anyone could decipher the symbols of the murderer, it was Mulder. Cracking up or not, it was Mulder. He was haunted by the power of those ancient gods, he didn't believe in the God she'd known from childhood. Mulder made tiny smacking noises in his sleep; she tightened her arm and closed her eyes. It was her job to hold him together, wasn't it? She was his partner and his friend and whatever the hell else they were to each other. She was his lifeline back to reality, to the safe world. Besides, if she was ever going to get a taste of that luscious mouth, she'd have to be. And on that thought, she let herself relax, let the weariness draw her under into sleep. Mulder was lying on his couch, head tilted back over the arm, hand in his shorts, eyes half-closed as he considered Scully in that cranberry bustier. Frohike had understated the matter, Scully wasn't merely tasty, she was.....beyond tasty. He stroked himself and whimpered, froze suddenly at his partner's voice. "Mulder, stop that!" He yanked his hand free, sat bolt upright, staring wildly around the room. No Scully. "Muuuuulder, don't be a moron, look at the screen." Ooooh, the fishwife tone that turned him on. He looked at the television screen and discovered that the writhing couples had been replaced by Dana Scully. Not in a cranberry silk bustier, but in a dark green lace bustier. Dark green garter belt. Stockings. Spike heels. No panties. Arms folded under those entrancing breasts, the barest edge of nipples peeking over the dark green lace. The pursed set of her mouth softened back into a cupid's bow. "That's better, Mulder." Approvingly. My God, she looked delectable. He whimpered. "Scully, what are you doing in there?" "Trying to get your attention." Scully rolled her eyes. "Jesus, how dense are men, anyway, Mulder?" She leaned forward and suddenly, her head popped through the screen, she climbed out of the television, those delicious little breasts almost popping free of the bustier as she did. He bit the heel of his hand, nearly swooning. "About damned time," Scully grumbled and straightened one stocking. "There." And she offered him one of her rare, genuine, delighted smiles. He was turning to a puddle. Or something. Certainly, all the blood that usually fed his brain was below his waist. "Uuuuh." She sashayed over to him, still with that smile. Oh, God, and he'd thought the pursed lips were sexy, this was unreal. This was.....a dream come true, a fantasy gone one step better. "Uuhh." "Now, we just have to get rid of these," she murmured and snapped her fingers; he was suddenly naked, rampantly erect, and when she straddled him, he gave himself up for dead. He had to be dead. Maybe there was heaven after all. Oh, God, she felt so good, she radiated heat as she reached down for him, to guide him and he whimpered again, all capacity for coherent speech gone. At least until the pounding on the door began. Actually, he was able to ignore that, mesmerized by the way Scully licked her lips as she prepared to slide down, but the eldritch shriek of "Sinner!" completely unmanned him. He whimpered again, this time in despair. The door burst apart, splintering wood almost as shrill a sound as the voice of the hag who had used an axe on it. "Sinner!!!" Long bony finger pointed at him. "Look at you, rutting like an animal!" But he wasn't. And Scully popped into invisibility like the damned genie of the lamp, leaving him naked and alone and he hastily put his hand over his deflating erection. "I'm alone," he yelped. It was an awfully big axe. "Yah, that Gus, he never would listen to Mama one bit." The new voice made him turn his head briefly, to see the widow Fulke sitting in his arm chair, knitting. "But Eric, he was always a good boy, he'd spend time in the kitchen with Mama, he'd listen to her read to him from the Good Book." His skin prickled with embarrassment as well as terror, but when he looked, the harridan was gone. And he was no longer naked, but wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants. Socks. "Who do you think killed your brother Gus, Mrs. Fulke?" "The Good Lord delivered us," she told him comfortably and suddenly leaned forward to grab his crotch gently. "Gus never was any good, doncha know." He yelped again.... ...and woke up in the motel room in bed with a warm shape at his back and a hand inside his thermal underwear. Small hand. Warm hand. Scully. She was asleep, his dick was asleep--must have been the axe. He took in a slow, deep breath, wondering what had awakened him. That dream, the good widow Fulke--he needed to talk to the woman again, ask some more questions. Dr. Eric Olafsson needed a closer look. Olafsson. Olafsson was definitely looking better and better to Mulder, and he was damned if he were going to argue with his subconscious. Well, maybe about the axe. If he didn't have any good evidence to suspect Olafsson, Scully was going to drag his ass back to Sondheim. As if that resolution had released him, Mulder gently removed Scully's hand, tucked it under his own and slipped back into sleep. Scully woke to the smell of coffee, opened her eyes to the sight of Mulder sitting on the edge of the bed, fully dressed, waving a styrofoam cup near her. "Coffee," he crooned, "C'mon, Scully, coffee." Damn, they'd both slept through the night. It must have been the combination of the schnapps and the crime scene. Ah, well, she'd been tired, too. And he was being sweet. "Thanks, Mulder." She pushed herself up on one elbow, accepted the cup. He gave her that bone melting smile. "I want to talk to the widow Fulke again, Scully." She didn't like *that* idea particularly, but it explained the coffee and the sweet smile. "Why?" Warily and she sat up against the headboard, bracing herself for the explanation. He offered her that smile again and laid a map across her knees. "I went back and marked the actual locations of the mysterious deaths, Scully. And the site of the Olafsson family farm. Now, remember, we're talking about an UNSUB who actually started killing very young, so their mobility would have been somewhat limited, except when he was with his parents." She took another sip of coffee, her eyes on the map. He hadn't done connect the dots and yet.....and yet...."Jesus, Mulder." Seeing the barely discernible pattern. He beamed at her. "Yeah. Anyway, I want to see what else the good widow might remember about her childhood." Taking another sip of the coffee, Scully stared at the map. "Give me enough time to take a shower, Mulder. We'll head out there." He beamed even more brightly. "I'll go get you some breakfast, Scully, while you're doing that." She nodded again, glanced at her watch. Not even seven-thirty. "How long have you been up, Mulder?" "Five thirty," he told her happily. "I worked in the bathroom, didn't want to wake you up." He rose, moved toward the door, shrugging into his overcoat. "Any requests." Scully sighed, swallowed more coffee. "Surprise me." "You got it." He went out the door, letting in a icy draft. Sinking back down under the comforter and blankets, Scully considered the map. Even when you thought he was losing it, Mulder was brilliant. The best guess was that he'd put the pieces together in his unconscious mind and awakened at 5:30 to start documenting it. There were days she could cheerfully kill him, she decided, if only for that arcane and eerie ability, but this morning wasn't one of them. A good cup of coffee, a good night's sleep....now if he managed not to throw up or have ghostly visitations again, they could both get very, very lucky tonight. Very lucky. She certainly hoped that fate smiled on them today. Because she wasn't going to ask God, she wasn't quite depraved enough to petition the Almighty for the opportunity to fornicate with her partner. And she hadn't quite sunk to the level of petitioning the devil. Yet. "Pets?" Mrs. Fulke had offered them tea again. It felt like it was the only heat in the room, Mulder thought, but he knew that wasn't true. For one thing, his breath didn't show. "Yah, we lost some pets. But this is farm country, doncha know, and you lose pets. Sure, there were kittens and cats out here, but not in the house, Mama wouldn't have animals in the house, she set great store by having a spotless house." She took a sip of tea. "Yah, she'd have us scrubbing from dawn to dusk every day during the summertime, we looked forward to going back to school." Mulder nodded encouragingly, even though she'd spent the last forty-five minutes regaling them with stories about her childhood that seemed to bear little relationship to any question asked. "Can you remember any specific pet? Anything you might have thought was an odd death?" She gave him a curious look. "Well, yah, there was those kittens that Eric drowned once, but doncha know, he'd heard Mama talking about it. Papa took a strap to him." His ears almost came to a point. "How old was Eric?" Mrs. Fulke waved vaguely. "Six or seven?" Aha. Mulder looked at Scully, who looked back at him, her eyes widening slightly. Scully cleared her throat. "Mrs. Fulke, it's beginning to look as if your husband may have been murdered. Did your husband have enemies?" Mrs. Fulke blinked in dismay. "Murdered? Max didn't have a mean bone in his body, doncha know, who would ever want to murder him?" Mulder swallowed hard. "How did your brother Eric feel about Max?" There was a moment of silence, and Mrs. Fulke's eyes filled with tears. "They never did see eye to eye." Whatever that meant. "Look, Mulder, I don't like Olafsson much either, but we've got to have more evidence that your profile before we go after him." Scully frowned at the snowy landscape instead of at him, which was reassuring. "I know. I wonder if he has a deep freeze." Mulder was glad of his sunglasses, the sun gleamed diamond sharp off the snowbanks, it was enough to blind a man. "He certainly has insulin. I haven't been thinking, Scully, we need to find out where anyone would get enough castor oil to drown two men." Her lips pursed. He eyed her sidelong, nearly whimpered. God, that mouth. The Miata of his dream was beginning to look really, really good. Oh, yeah. Hastily, he jerked his eyes back off those lips to focus on the road. "Um. I'd like to find out if there was anyone Dr. Olafsson kept company with at any time. He's never married, but he may have tried to simulate a normal relationship to keep from attracting attention." "Bergman and Trask might be able to point us in the right direction," Scully sighed. "We really do *not* have enough physical evidence." He nodded. "I know. And he's definitely escalating....I don't want anyone else to die." Another quick glance. "We need a break, Scully." She nodded, not looking at him, her mouth pursed thoughtfully again. They rode the rest of the way back to town in silence. Bergman and Trask didn't know much about Olafsson's private life. Sitting behind his desk, Bergman lit a cigarette, scowled at the blotter. "I suppose if anyone does, it would be Ingrid Ibsen. That old biddy, I swear, she and her brother have dirt on everyone in town, back three generations." Mulder grinned. "A gossip?" "Yeah." Bergman nodded grudgingly. "Both of 'em, really, although he only tells Ingrid and she tells everyone else. He's too damned much of--what's that word?--yeah, too damned much of a workaholic." In Timmsville? How much legal work could there be in Timmsville, Mulder wondered, then remembered what Scully had said about Timmsville being a metropolitan center for the small townships nearby. Frightening thought. "I had her on my list to talk to anyway," Scully mused, holding her coffee between both hands. "It can't hurt." "It won't hurt anything but your ears," Bergman told them and took a drag off the cigarette. Bergman hadn't been kidding, Mulder thought blearily and propped his chin on his hand, tried to focus on the drone of Ingrid Ibsen's voice. Scully was still managing to nod and look interested, but he suspected that she was somewhere far away and warm. A beach. Maybe wearing a bikini. A very teeny weeny bikini, he hoped distantly and realized he was staring at his partner's breasts, well defined under the cashmere turtleneck she wore under her suit jacket. Was she wearing a Wonderbra? He started, sanity returning and tried again to focus on Ingrid Ibsen, who was now up to the last generation's follies and sins. Anything he needed to know? Nope, she hadn't gotten to the Olafssons yet. His eyes drifted back to Scully. She really did have perky little breasts. He let himself think about the abortive, er, episode two nights before. Her skin had been sooooo soft, so silky and he had to stop thinking about that now or he was going to embarrass himself. And give Ingrid Ibsen something else to talk about. There *was*, to be sure, a certain demented pleasure in considering that he'd be part of the Timmsville lore, but not under these circumstances. "....Olafsson wasn't any better than she ought to be, doncha know." Ingrid Ibsen nodded at Scully. He snapped to attention. "Gerde?" Hopefully. "Oh, yes. They say she pranced around like a holy maiden, but she was lying down in the barn with Gus Olafsson and they'd barely even met!" Ingrid turned to him, nodding emphatically again. Mulder nodded back involuntarily. "What was she like?" "She was mighty full of herself, doncha know, she had to be just perfect, and so darn holy, and she pretended that Gus Junior was premature, and that child weighed ten pounds if he weighed an ounce, my Mama told me." To Mulder's bemusement, Scully's head was bobbing in time with Ingrid's, just as his was. They were never going to make it back to DC sane if he didn't cut to the chase. "So, what about Gus Junior's death?" he interrupted, forcing himself to stop nodding. Ingrid nodded again, her lips pursed. "A terrible accident. What a shame, and he was so young, too." "I would imagine that Dr. Olafsson was upset over losing his older brother," Scully put in. "Hmmph. Eric Olafsson is a cold fish. Yah, you'd think a little boy would be heartbroken, but he just carried on as if not a darn thing had happened." Ingrid nodded to herself again, touched her hair. "He's always been like that, never married, doncha know, never even kept company with anyone for very long. He asked me out a few years ago, doncha know, and when I went, I had to pay for everything myself! And all we did was go to dinner and a church service." Aha, they'd struck a nerve, Mulder leaned forward. "So he's never been married?" "No, and it's no wonder, he's so tight he squeaks." Righteous annoyance. "He *said* he'd had a bad romance down to Minneapolis, when he was at medical school, but if that's what soured that man, I'd be surprised. He was sour in high school, my sister told me, and he was sour when he came back with his medical degree. And doncha know, he was furious when his sister married Reverend Fulke. You woulda thought *he* was the head of the family, and not his Mama." A brief pause and Ingrid pursed her lips again. "Yah, and his mama didn't much like it, but after all....." Her voice trailed off. Mulder briefly debated the merits of pressing her for more information, but they'd been there almost three hours as it was, it was getting dark and it was starting to snow again. And he was hungry. Scully intercepted his gaze, nodded and rose. "Thank you, Miss Ibsen, we'll be back in touch with you if we need anything else." Her tone suggested she hoped that wouldn't be necessarily, a sentiment with which Mulder devoutly concurred. Ingrid walked them to the door, still talking. Mulder let himself run on automatic, hoped that Scully was catching anything that might be important, focused on escape and one of the cheeseburgers from the Country Kitchen. "And you know, that Inge Larsen, works at the Country Kitchen, she's no better than she ought to be, either. Why, she's carrying on with that young man who came up here with you two!" Mulder nodded reflexively. Evidently, Pendrell was ignoring his advice. With any luck, he wouldn't end up at the wrong end of a shotgun. Once in the car, Scully tipped her head back on the headrest. "Oh, my God." Wearily. He doubted God had anything to do with it. Felt something come rolling out of the underpart of his mind. "A lot of people go around determined not to hear and not to see and not to speak any evil// And I say 'Pooh for them, are you a man or a mouse, are you a woman or a weevil?'// And I also say 'Pooh for sweetness and light,' //And if you want to get the most out of life why the thing to do is be a gossiper by day and a gossipee by night." When he glanced sidelong at Scully, she was giving him a gimlet eye, faintly alarmed. "I'm fine, Scully, but if anyone fits that, it's Ingrid Ibsen." More alarm. "You think she's next?" He sounded himself subjectively. Felt a small quiver in his midsection, but wasn't sure if it was hunger or foresight. "It can't hurt to have Bergman put someone on her," he said doubtfully. "I'm not...maybe." Scully took out her cellphone, dialed the police station and spoke quietly. Disconnected and sighed. "How's your appetite?" "I'm ravenous." He looked sidelong again as she tucked the cellphone back, saw her lift her chin, the curve of her throat and was suddenly spitted again on a shaft of lust so sharp that he nearly drove into a snowbank. Suppressing a whimper, he righted the steering wheel, guided the car back into a safer ride. "Mulder?" Worriedly. "'s okay, Scully, just hit an icy patch." Oh, God, if only, if only she hadn't done what she'd done, he'd be safer if he didn't actually *know*, if he was still going on fantasy. At least it had been dark. If he'd actually seen that pale, soft skin, he'd be driving off the road for real. "Country Kitchen's that way." She didn't seem entirely reassured. "Oh, yeah." He slowed, turned, fantasies of cheeseburgers now regrettably interspersed with a nun's habit and a garter belt and stockings. But at least she usually wore pant suits. That meant the garter belt was out, he didn't have to strain his eyes trying to see the edge of her stockings.... Cheeseburgers. Definitely think about cheeseburgers. *************************************************************** Some hours later, replete, he lay on his bed in Scully's room, watching her go over notes. A little sleepy, they'd had a broken and late night the night before. "...if you want to get the most out of life why the thing to do is be a gossiper by day and a gossipee by night," he murmured and grinned when she glanced at him. "Hey, Scully, wanna come over here and keep warm?" That gimlet look again. It wounded him a little, after all, she'd been in his bed the last two nights, by invitation or not. "I'm working, Mulder. And it's almost time for your Ovaltine." He grimaced. "Scully, I slept okay last night. And I've been eating fine again." Long look. "Let's keep that trend going." Something had put her knickers in a twist. He wondered if it had been Ingrid Ibsen. Sat up suddenly. "Scully, are you upset about Pendrell and Inge?" She scowled at him. "Don't be ridiculous, Mulder," primly, "What Pendrell does in his off time is his own business." Whoa. He wondered if it stung to have your adoring fan turn to another taller, blonder, more buxom babe. "Inge is an airhead," he told her. Her mouth pursed even more. "Mulder, I am not upset about Pendrell and Inge." Quellingly. She was. He might not be the world's expert on women, but he could see that. No chance of getting lucky tonight, he thought mournfully. Another black mark to add to the growing list of Pendrell's sins. Although, as he curled around the pillow to watch Baywatch, he found he felt a sneaking sympathy and pride for their labboy. After all, Inge was a beautiful girl, and a head taller than Inge. Go, Pendrell, he thought. It wasn't quite enough to make him forgive Pendrell for treating him like an escaped lunatic, or deliberately forgetting his coffee, but what the hell. Male solidarity was important, after all. At least one of them was getting lucky. He just wished it was him. ***************************************************************