This is a fiction story based on the characters created by Chris
Carter.  No infringement of  copyrights held by 10/13 Productions,
Twentieth Century Productions, or Fox Broadcasting is intended.
All unrecognised characters and plot-lines belong to me.  Names,
characters, and places exist solely within my imagination, or are
used fictitiously.  No connection to any person, living or dead, is
intended, and any resemblance is entirely coincidental.  Feel free
to distribute, but please keep me as the author.  

Rating - PG

Danielle Culverson.


Touch

The main street of Haveston, South Dakota, was busy as always. 
Married women gathered on the street in small groups to pass on
gossip about other married women, and complain about the attitude
of the "young folk".  Shopkeepers stood outside their shops in
the sunshine, arranging the outdoor displays, and talking to the
people that passed.  A stray dog sniffed around the bins placed
at regular intervals along the pedestrianised street.  An empty
chip paper blew on the slight breeze, moving amongst the feet of
the shoppers.  Three children playing hooky from school chased a
fat pigeon up the street, before seeing one of the town
policemen, and running away screaming and laughing.

A pretty, dark-haired woman in her late twenties made her way
slowly up the street, smiling at the people she passed, and
looking at the displays outside the shops.  She wore a beige
jacket and skirt, with a cream blouse, and carried a leather
handbag over one shoulder.

"Good morning, Miss Thorncroft."  the grocer greeted the young
woman,  "How are you today?"

"I'm fine, Mr White.  Thank you for asking.  And you?"

"Oh, as good as can be expected, Miss.  My back doesn't play up s
much in good weather."

Diana Thorncroft smiled, and moved on.  She didn't notice the
mousy-haired man in his thirties watching her from across the
street.

There were a number of alleyways opening onto the main street,
which the shops used when they received deliveries.  Diana
Thorncroft was just passing one of these when a car pulled out of
it.  Or so it appeared.

Diana was knocked to the ground, and the car was at a standstill
before anyone realised what was happening.  People rushed over
from all around.  One of them was the mousy-haired man.  With
shock it was discovered that Diana Thorncroft was dead.  Even
more surprising was the fact that the car was unoccupied.

*          *          *

The main street of Haveston was almost deserted, except for the
litter left over from Saturday's market.  Pigeons scuttled on the
ground, scavenging for bits of food.  Every so often there was a
great flapping of wings as two birds disagreed, and then there
was calm again.  The sound of Sunday church bells rang through
the air, calling the faithful to worship.

Small groups of smartly dressed men and women, and children in
clean, pretty clothes and shiny shoes, went up the street to the
church.  They passed nineteen year old Martin Hopkins without a
word as he brushed the street clean of the litter that those same
smart people had probably been responsible for dropping the day
before.  Martin watched the people with a mild sense of awe.  He
had never been to church, never worn fancy clothes like they did. 
None of his family had.

Martin continued to brush up the litter, and shovel it into the
heavy duty bin-bag he dragged behind him.  He looked up, and saw
a smartly dressed, mousy-haired man watching him.  Martin stared
for a moment, wondering what the man was looking at.

Walking up to church with her family, Rebecca Ericson saw Martin
Hopkins brushing litter up on the high street, just as he always
did on a Sunday morning.  Then she saw one of the wires that
crossed the street fall down from it's pole, and catch Martin on
the shoulder.  The wire was live, and electricity ran down to
earth through the teenager.  He jittered and shook, doing that
"electrocution dance" Rebecca had seen in so many horror movies,
before collapsing to the ground.  The wire fell away, it's power
now earthing safely.  Rebecca and her family, and some of the
other people who were around, went over to see if they could do
anything, but nothing could be done to bring Martin back from the
dead.

*          *          *

A smartly suited man in his early thirties, with tousled dark
brown hair sat on a fake leather chair in the outer office of
"Assistant Director Walter Skinner", as the inner office door
proudly proclaimed.  He glanced up at this door every so often,
and then across to the secretary sitting nearby.  His eyes were
shadowed from harassment and lack of sleep.

Special Agent Fox Mulder waited, resigned to his impending fate. 
He and his partner, Dana Scully, worked for the FBI, and had just
closed a major case.  However, all had not gone as well as it
could have, and Mulder suspected that this was why he had been
summoned to see the Assistant Director.  A faint sardonic smile
touched at his lips as he noted that it was only him who had been
sent for, not Scully, or any of the other agents involved in the
case.  The smile vanished quickly.  He knew why he had been the
only one sent for.  Because he made the perfect scapegoat.

Mulder's unconventional beliefs, his sometimes irrational
behaviour whilst on a case, and his bizarre leaps in logic that
had earned him the nickname "Spooky", had not brought him any
favour with those around and above him in the Bureau.  His
mistrust of everyone except for his partner only helped to
increase the gap he rarely noticed any more.  When he had first
begun working with Scully, he hadn't trusted her either, with
good reason, as she had been assigned to keep an eye on him, and
keep him in line.  As time had passed, they had come to respect
each other, and although they often had differing views, they
were able to work together very well.

The intercom on the secretary's desk beeped, and she signaled to
Mulder to enter the inner office.  He went to the door, and
opened it.  Skinner was sitting at his desk.  He called Mulder
in, but did not look up at the agent at first.  Mulder looked at
the two seats standing in front of Skinner's desk, but he had not
been invited to sit down, so he didn't.  He was often kept
standing when he was in for an earwigging.

"Right, Agent Mulder,"  Skinner said finally, looking up from the
report on his desk,  "perhaps you'd care to explain what went
wrong on Tuesday with your arrest of Ian Wells?"

"The situation would not have got out of hand, sir, if Miss
Clancy had not chosen the moment she did to come out of the
bookshop."  Mulder replied.

"But it obviously did.  You should have been prepared for such an
eventuality."

"Sir, we did not have enough manpower to cover every
possibility."

"So you went into that situation, knowing that you needed more
back-up?"  Skinner growled.

"Sir, I did request..."

"You deliberately went into such a situation, putting peoples
lives in danger.  Agent Walbrook could have been killed.  It was
only sheer luck that prevented it."

"I think actually Agent Scully's actions..."

"Agent Scully did the best she could to save a hopelessly out of
hand situation."  Skinner cut Mulder off again.  Mulder didn't
answer.  Every answer he gave only seemed to make Skinner more
angry.  He waited silently, trying to keep his temper, and hoped
it would soon be over.

*          *          *

It was a fine and sunny Saturday in the suburbs of Haveston. 
Almost everyone was out in theirs gardens, enjoying the sun. 
Some people washed their cars, some mowed their lawns, some
weeded their flower beds, and some did small bits of DIY, -
putting up a new shed or fence, painting the window-sills,
building a rockery in the garden. - The children played in the
quiet streets, throwing balls, playing tag.  Some of the boys
rode around on their bicycles, the girls played skipping games. 
The younger children played in sand-boxes in their gardens.

Alice Roberts came out of her house with her seven year old son,
Louis.  She was taking him to the market, hoping to get him a new
coat for school.  She locked the front door of the house, and
stopped part way down her driveway to talk to her next door
neighbour.

"Hello Felicity, how are you?"

"I'm fine, thank you Alice.  Your family are all keeping well,
are they?"

"Oh yes.  Tom works too hard though.  I keep telling him he
should spend more time with Louis while he's young."

Louis wandered away from his mother, seeing a group of his
friends playing tag in the street.  His attention was suddenly
pulled back to her as she called to him.

"Louis, come along honey."  Alice Roberts left her driveway, and
called back to her son, who stood at the edge of the pavement, 
"Come on, or we won't be back in time for dinner, and you know
what your father will say then..."

Young Louis never found out what his father would say, as his
mother's words were cut off when she was struck on the head by
the nearby telegraph pole.  The pole had only been put up a week
earlier, and was not yet connected to the telegraph wires.  For
no apparent reason, it had fallen down, and so quickly, that
Louis' unfortunate mother never saw it.

A crowd quickly gathered around the fallen woman, and with horror
it was announced that she was dead.  Louis, watching all the
chaos from the edge of the pavement, saw a mousy-haired man step
out of the growing crowd, and walk away.

*          *          *

Dana Scully opened the door of the basement office and went
inside.  She had just been to see Assistant Director Skinner, and
had been given a new case to work on.  She expected Mulder would
be eager to hear all about it, as it looked like being their
first X-file for several weeks.

The X-files were the main concern of Scully and her partner. 
They were the cases that required the partners' unique
combination of logic and "spooky" theories to be solved.  Cases
which did not come under other areas of the Bureau's
investigations.  Mulder lived for the X-files, and even Scully
had to admit that they were often more interesting than the
Bureau's other investigations in which they sometimes got
involved.

Mulder was sitting at his desk, eating sunflower seeds.  It was a
messy habit he had, and Scully wasn't keen on it.  She didn't say
anything, however.  He had been so down lately she figured he
could do with something to cheer him up.  And if the sunflower
seeds didn't work, she could always try the new case.

Scully went over to her desk, put down her briefcase, and took
off her maroon jacket.  She went over to her partner's desk with
the case-file, cleared a small space at the edge of the untidy
desk, and perched on it.

"Are you okay, Mulder?"

He looked up at her, and after a moment, he smiled.  It was nice
to see.  "Sure, I'm fine."  he said,  "Is that from Skinner?"  He
indicated the file she held in her hands.

"Yes, a new case for us."  Scully passed it to him,  "There have
been three bizarre deaths in Haveston, South Dakota, in the last
three weeks.  Each one could be an accident, but they each have
some strange anomalies.  Skinner wants us to take a look in."

"South Dakota?"  Mulder opened the case-file to look at the
photographs of the three victims,  "Do we have travel
arrangements?"

"The first available flight is tomorrow, Washington to Sioux
Falls, South Dakota.  There'll be a car waiting for us."

"Tomorrow."  Mulder muttered, and flicked a sunflower seed shell
at the filing cabinet which stood against one wall.  Scully
smiled.  That was more like the old Mulder.  Her gaze fell on the
poster behind her partner.  It depicted a UFO hovering above a
forest.  The caption underneath said,  "I want to believe." 
Scully's smile faded slightly.  Much as she disagreed with
Mulder's ideas about aliens and UFOs, she would rather have them
than his quiet depressions.

Scully pulled herself together.  Mulder was reading the case
summary.

"Well, any great flashes of genius?"  she asked.  Mulder shook
his head.

"Sorry, I think the genius took the day off."  He smiled.  Scully
went back to her desk.  Mulder would pull through it.  He always
did.  And then he would be as irritating as ever.

*          *          *

The next day saw Mulder and Scully traveling to Haveston.  The
flight was long, and made even longer by Mulder's quietness.  The
fourth death in Haveston had done nothing to raise his spirits. 
As he put it, they were "losing valuable time traveling" when
they could be working on the case.  Scully spent the flight
reading through the autopsy results of the first three victims. 
Mulder just stared out of the window.  What could be going
through his mind, Scully couldn't even begin to guess.

When they arrived at Sioux Falls, they wandered through the
airport, looking for the agent who was supposed to be driving
them to Haveston.  Mulder spotted the female agent in the crowd,
and led Scully over.

"Good afternoon, Agent Devenham."  Mulder greeted the other
agent.  Scully looked up in surprise.

"Good afternoon, Agent Mulder."  the reply was cold.  Scully
looked at Agent Devenham carefully.  The woman had short blonde
hair, and handsome, strong features.  She wore a navy blue suit,
with a black overcoat.

"Agent Devenham, this is my partner, Agent Dana Scully.  Scully,
this is Agent Laura Devenham."  Mulder introduced the two women. 
Scully looked from one agent to the other.

"Do you two know each other?"  she asked.

"We were in the academy together."  Mulder replied shortly. 
Agent Devenham led them outside to her car.  Mulder sat in the
back seat, Scully in the front.  Devenham drove.

"I just want you to know I didn't ask for this assignment."  she
said suddenly, apparently to Mulder.  He nodded.  "Nothing's
changed."  she added.

They traveled most of the way in silence.  Scully asked Devenham
a few questions about the case, which the woman answered warmly
enough.  It was just Mulder that she was cool towards.  Scully
doubted Mulder even noticed.  He sat silently in the back,
looking out of the window into the darkness.

Scully was glad when they arrived at the hotel in Haveston.  It
had been a long journey, and the atmosphere in the car had been
very thick.  Mulder went on ahead of the two women to get the
keys for his and Scully's rooms.  Devenham stopped Scully just as
she was about to go in after her partner.

"Is he okay?"  she asked Scully, nodding towards Mulder,  "He
seems very quiet."

"He's fine."  Scully assured her,  "He's always like this at the
start of a case."

"Oh, right.  As long as it's not me."

Devenham got back into the car, and drove away before Scully had
chance to ask her what she meant.  She stared after the departing
car for a moment, and then became aware that it was starting to
rain, and went into the hotel.

*          *          *

"So what was all that about?"  Scully demanded, her hands on her
hips.  She stood just inside the door of Mulder's hotel room,
through which she had just entered.  Mulder was sitting on the
side of the bed, not looking at her.

"What?"  he asked.

"With Agent Devenham."

"Nothing."  Mulder replied.  Scully went to sit down on the
wooden chair at the side of Mulder's bed.

"How do you know her?"

"I told you, we were in the academy together."

"That doesn't exactly explain the arctic atmosphere between you." 
Scully persisted,  "What is there between you?  Did you go out
with her?"

Mulder sighed, and sat up.  He looked at his partner, and nodded. 
"Yes, for about five months."

"What happened?"

He shrugged,  "She broke it off.  She said there was nothing
between us."

"And you didn't agree?"

Mulder smiled slightly.  It was almost irritating having a
partner who could tell what he was thinking all the time.  "No,
but that was a long time ago."

Scully looked at him for a moment, and raised one eyebrow
slightly.  Mulder and Devenham's relationship may have been over
a long time ago, but it's effects obviously were not.  She
glanced at her watch, and stood up.

"Well, I think we should both get some rest.  No doubt we'll have
a busy day tomorrow."  She left Mulder to sleep, - or not, which
was more likely, - and went to her room.

*          *          *

Mulder stood on the main street, looking at the alleyway from
which the car which killed Diana Thorncroft had come.  His hands
were thrust deep into his trouser pockets.  Scully retraced
Thorncroft's steps towards the alley.  Devenham stood a little
way behind them, next to her car.  Her arms were folded across
her chest, and she watched with a frown on her face as Mulder
went a little way into the alleyway, and stood looking out. 
Scully reached the end of the alley, and Mulder walked out to
meet her, tracing the path of the car.

"If someone was standing behind the car, and pushed it out into
the street, they couldn't possible have seen when Thorncroft was
approaching.  It would have been hit and miss as to whether or
not they hit her.  Or anyone else for that matter."  he told
Scully quietly.

"I have my doubts that a car pulling out of there could have been
traveling fast enough to give a fatal blow."  Scully added.  She
walked over to Devenham,  "It is certain that the car had been
parked there, and not driven at all in the time just prior to
Thorncroft's death?"

"Yes,"  Devenham replied,  "the tests said it hadn't been driven
for at least three hours, consistent with the owner of the
vehicle, who said he had last used it first thing in the morning,
four hours before the incident."

Mulder walked over the street to the area where Martin Hopkins
had been killed,  "This is where the second incident took place?"

"Yes.  Hopkins was standing approximately where you are now."

"Did he clean up the litter every week?"  Scully asked.

"Oh yes.  He was as regular as clockwork."  Devenham answered.

Mulder squatted down on his heels to look at the scuff marks on
the paving stones.  He stayed like that for some time, trying to
absorb the atmosphere of the area, to take in as much as
possible.  Finally he got up.

"Let's go."  he said.

*          *          *

After visiting the scene of the third incident, they moved on to
the scene of the fourth.  New pipes were being laid in one of the
side streets that led off the main road.  A small collection of
roadworking vehicles sat in Sunday silence.  A bulldozer, truck,
cement mixer, and a large pile of sand and gravel, waiting for
Monday to come so they could begin work again.

Devenham pointed to the truck,  "It was loaded with the new
pipes.  They were chained in, like they should be, but it appears
someone undid the chains, although whether purposely to hurt
someone, or for some other reason, is not obvious."

Mulder walked alongside the truck, to the place where the fourth
victim, Sissy Harfield, had been standing when the pipes had
fallen from the truck, tumbling onto her, and crushing her. 
Scully went to examine the chains.

"Mulder, look at this."  she said.  He went over to her.  "These
locks have been opened, not forced in any way.  If they were
locked during travel, then whoever has the keys must have
unlocked them."

"One of the workers had the keys."  Devenham cut in,  "Name of
Harry Grimes.  But he was with the other workers all morning. 
They all testify to that."

"So if the keys didn't open the locks, what did?"  Scully asked.

"Yes, what?"  Mulder asked quietly, talking to no-one in
particular.  He lifted one of the padlocks, and examined it
carefully.  There were no marks on it, which might have been
consistent with someone forcing it open.  As Scully had said, it
looked as though it had been opened with keys, but then any good
lock man could open a padlock with out a key, and leave no
evidence.  Mulder put the lock down again, and went back to the
car.




*          *          *

Haveston Hospital morgue was much the same as any other morgue
the agents had been in.  Bright lights, antiseptic smells,
stainless steel trays carrying strange looking instruments,
stainless steel examining benches, large sinks with bottles of
antiseptic soap hanging over them, the floor curved up to meet
the wall.

The corpses of the four victims were laid out on four examining
benches.  Each was covered with a white sheet.  Scully wore a
white overall, a cap to cover her hair, and plastic safety
glasses.  She moved amongst the bodies, examining each in turn. 
The first three had already been examined by the hospital
pathologist, but Scully had requested to make her own
examination.

Mulder stood at the side of the morgue, watching his partner at
work.  He was getting fed up with the case, as there were no good
leads to follow.  They had spent the last two days interviewing
witnesses of the four deaths, and now were spending most of this
day at the hospital, and yet there seemed very little else they
could do just yet.

"Mulder, this is strange."  Scully told her partner, as she
looked again at Diana Thorncroft's body,  "From the marks and
injuries, I'd say the car couldn't have been going faster than
twenty miles an hour when it hit her.  Mulder, she shouldn't have
died from these injuries."  Scully moved on to the body of Alice
Roberts,  "It's the same here.  The blow to the head was only
glancing, her shoulder took most of the force.  And it's the same
again with Sissy Harfield.  It's difficult to tell with Martin
Hopkins, but I'd have to say, Mulder, that from their injuries,
these people shouldn't have died."

"What are you saying, Scully?"

"I don't know.  There's something weird going on here, Mulder. 
These people shouldn't be dead.  Their accidents shouldn't have
happened."

"Sounds just like an X-file."  Mulder smiled.  Scully went over
to the sink to clean up.  "I'll meet you in the canteen when
you're done."  Mulder said, and left the morgue.

Scully met her partner ten minutes later.  He was sitting at a
small table in the visitors canteen, and had a cup of coffee for
her.

"Do we have time for this?"  she asked,  "I thought you wanted to
get back?"

"There's always time for this."  Mulder said, and then suddenly
his eyes took on that faraway look they always got when he was
making a connection.  They came back into focus just as suddenly. 
"Time!"  he exclaimed,  "Scully, when was the first incident?"

"Er... three weeks, two days ago."  she replied.

"The second?"

"Two weeks, three days ago."

"The third?"

"The third one week four days ago, and the fourth five days ago." 
Scully completed the run-down, guessing her partner's next
question.

"Three weeks and two days, two weeks and three days, one week and
four days, five days...  Scully, these incidents are occurring at
six day intervals.  They're regular."  Mulder paused a moment, 
"And the next one is due to occur tomorrow!"

*          *          *

Agent Devenham was not entirely happy about Mulder's request to
drive around the town, looking for the next victim, but when they
came upon the fifth incident shortly after it had happened, she
silenced her objections.

The fifth victim was Michael Needham, a forty-two year old man
who had been killed when the metal bucket of the bulldozer the
agents had seen when they visited the scene of Sissy Harfield's
death had fallen on his head.  A large crowd had gathered round,
and Mulder and Devenham had to clear a way for Scully to get to
the body so she could examine it.

Close to the side of the body, Mulder saw a mousy-haired man in
his thirties crouching down.  He moved away quickly when the
agents came near, but there was a strange look in his eye that
caught Mulder's attention.  The man wore the oily blue overalls
of a garage mechanic, and a little badge in the shape of a tyre
on his chest said "Ron Pinsetti".  The man was soon lost in the
crowd.  Scully crouched down to examine the body.

"Well, if this is like the others, Mulder, there's certainly no
question that he died of his injuries.  That weight landing on a
person's head would kill anybody."  She stood up as the police
and paramedics arrived.

A little way from the scene, Devenham was talking to the police
chief, Adrian Newman, who was growing increasingly concerned
about the incidents.

"How long do you think it will be before you get a result on this
one?"  Newman was asking.

"You'd better ask Agent Mulder and Agent Scully."  Devenham
replied, indicating the approaching agents,  "They know more
about what's going on than I do.  I'm only supposed to be showing
them around."

"Agent Mulder?"  Newman asked.

Mulder shrugged,  "I'm afraid we don't know how long it will be
before we can close the case yet.  We are making progress, but
there's not much to go on."

"That's a bit of an understatement."  Scully muttered under her
breath to Mulder as they turned away.  He nodded.

"Yes. but what should I tell him?  He's going to have these
things occurring every six days for who knows how long, and we
have no idea what's causing them?"

*          *          *

The next day saw Mulder and Scully back at Haveston hospital. 
Once again, as he had on many occasions before, Mulder stood at
the side of the hospital morgue, watching Scully as she carried
out the autopsy.  The smell of the hospital began to permeate
everything after a while, Mulder noticed, until you couldn't get
away from it.  It had a rather nauseating effect, which made the
agent wonder how many of the visitors to a hospital ended up
returning to the hospital for their own treatment within a short
time of their visit.

Scully didn't seem to notice the smell, he realised.  That was
probably because she was a doctor.  She had spent years in
medical school, and had probably destroyed that part of her sense
of smell which recognised the antiseptic odour of a hospital. 
She moved around the morgue quickly and silently in her
rubber-soled shoes, getting everything how she wanted it before
she began work.

Finally satisfied, Scully turned on the overhead microphone, and
began the autopsy.

"Case number X13078.  Investigating agents, Special Agent Fox
Mulder and Special Agent Dana Scully.  Victim is Mr Michael
Needham, a Caucasian male, of age forty-two.  Excepting the head,
the only mark on the body is a small scar on the lower abdomen,
due to the removal of the victim's appendix seven years ago. 
There are no bruises, cuts, or abrasions on the torso or limbs."

Mulder switched off as Scully went through the ritual motions he
knew almost as well as her.  He drifted off into the deepest
realms of his mind, trying to find a new link in the incidents. 
Finally he surfaced to hear Scully talking to him.

"It's like I said, Mulder.  This man's death only differs from
the others in that he certainly would have been killed by the
blow to the head he received from the bulldozer bucket."  Scully
took a last look at the body, and then covered it up, and went to
remove her gloves and wash her hands.  "Of course, we'll have to
wait for the toxicology, but there's no doubt what killed him."

"Public places."  Mulder muttered.

"What?"

"All the incidents occurred in public places."

"So?"

"It's almost as though whoever is responsible for the deaths is
doing it in public to try and make us believe that the deaths are
simply accidents."  Mulder explained.

"Or it could be that the deaths are simply accidents."  Scully
pointed out.  Mulder shrugged.

"Maybe, but I get the feeling they're not.  I'm still missing
something."

"Common sense?"  Scully suggested.  She took off her white coat. 
"Come on, let's go and get coffee.  Maybe that will revive your
brain cells."

*          *          *

Mulder and Scully were in Mulder's hotel room that evening when
there was a knock at the door.

"Who is it?"  Mulder asked, from his position semi-reclined on
the bed, his hands interlocked behind his head.

"It's Agent Devenham."  came the answer through the door.  There
was a slight pause.  Scully, who was sitting at the side of the
room with the case notes on her knee, looked at Mulder.

"Door's open."  he said finally.  Devenham came into the room,
and glanced at Scully, and then at Mulder.

"Chief Newman wants to know if you found any leads when you
autopsied Needham's body."  she told the partners,  "He also
would like to know as soon as you have an idea how much longer
this case will take."

"We haven't found anything new."  Mulder answered, "And I don't
have a clue at present how long it will be before we can close
the case."

"You must have some idea..."  Devenham began.

"I'll know when I know."  Mulder cut her off sharply.  She took a
deep breath, her eyes narrowing.

"That's another thing."  she said, addressing herself solely to
Mulder this time,  "I want to know why you can't even be civil to
me.  What happened is over.  It's been over a long time.  I've
moved on with my life.  I presumed you would have done the same."

Scully raised an eyebrow.  Mulder had never been uncivil towards
Devenham.  No more than he was to anyone.  She knew some people
thought him a bit stand-offish, but that was just because there
were very few people he trusted.  Had he changed so much since he
had known Devenham?

Mulder stood up, and walked over to where Devenham was standing
at the end of the bed.  "I treat you no differently to how I
treat anyone else."  he said.

"You treat everyone like this?  You don't treat Agent Scully the
way you treat me."

"No, I trust Scully.  It's a different situation."

"And you don't trust me?"

Mulder took a deep breath before answering,  "I don't trust
anyone until I know them very well."

"You used to know me very well."  Devenham sounded hurt.

"Yes, but like you said, that was a long time ago."

"And so much has changed?"

"I don't know.  Maybe I grew up."  Mulder replied.

"You told me you would love me forever."  Devenham reminded
Mulder quietly.

"Yes, and you told me I was a fool, and that there was nothing
between us."  Mulder turned away, and went to sit down again. 
Devenham's next words halted him in his tracks.

"Damn you, Fox Mulder!  All I'm asking is that you be civil to
me.  No wonder I didn't want anything more to do with you. 
You're just like they used to say at the academy, Mulder. -
Spooky!"

Mulder turned back to stare at Devenham for a moment, and then he
pushed past her, and went out of the room.  Devenham stared after
him in astonishment.  She looked over to Scully, who was standing
up.

"It's okay,"  Scully told the agent,  "he's just a little touchy
at the moment.  Job pressure, you know.  I'd better go after
him."

Scully found Mulder ten minutes later, sitting on the terrace at
the back of the hotel.  She was glad she had stopped at her room
to pick up her coat. - It was a cold night. - Mulder always
seemed to pick somewhere cold and quiet to have his moods, and
yet he never seemed to feel the cold.  Scully sat down next to
him, and they looked out over the dark hotel garden together.

The only good thing about Mulder's moods, Scully considered, was
that they were often followed by periods of "high activity" when
he made huge leaps forward in whatever case they were working on. 
And goodness knew they needed some huge leaps in this case.

"Are you okay, Mulder?"  Scully asked after a few minutes.

"Yes, I'm fine."  He could see she didn't believe him. 
"Honestly."

Scully shrugged,  "If you say so."

He nodded, and stood up.  They went inside into the warmth of the
hotel again.

*          *          *

Mulder met Scully at their breakfast table in the hotel the next
morning.  There was a bag of sunflower seeds at the side of his
plate.  He looked at them as he sat down opposite his partner,
who looked clean and fresh as she usually did in the morning in
her bottle green skirt and jacket, and then looked quizzically at
Scully.

"Bad news?"  he guessed.

"Skinner wants us to go back to Washington for two days to attend
some Bureau conference thing.  We'll be back here before the next
death is due to take place.  But..."

"But meanwhile we won't be able to work on the case."  Mulder
finished for her,  "Doesn't Skinner realise we're in the middle
of what could be a murder case?  Who wants us to be at the
conference?  Skinner?  Or someone higher up?"

"I don't know."  Scully replied,  "The immediate order comes from
Skinner, but he may have his orders from higher up.  Whatever,
there's not a lot we can do about it. - That is, unless you're so
interested in this case that you're willing to lose your job over
it."  Mulder frowned, and started on his breakfast.  "I know a
packet of sunflower seeds that size doesn't really make it up," 
Scully told him,  "but it was the best I could do on such short
notice."

Mulder smiled, and tried to cheer up a little.  No point in
moaning about something which couldn't be helped.  And Scully was
right.  There was no point losing his job over this.  Two days at
a conference might be just what he needed to have a really good
think about the case, and come up with the link that was still
eluding him.

"When do we go?"  he asked.

"Agent Devenham will drive us back to Sioux Falls today, and
we'll get the 6.25pm flight out to Washington.  We fly back on
Thursday."

"Just in time for number six."  Mulder remarked, and opened his
bag of sunflower seeds.

*          *          *

Four days later saw the partners back in Haveston after two
gruelling journeys, and two days of boring conferences.  They had
arrived back in Haveston the evening before, and had persuaded
Agent Devenham that it was likely a sixth incident would take
place soon.  Devenham had agreed to come with them to the main
street of Haveston, where they all agreed the sixth incident was
most likely to take place, as there would be a lot of people
there due to the Wednesday market.

They arrived at the market at 10am, just as it started to really
get going.  It was smaller than the Saturday market, but still
very busy.  Mulder was in a melancholy mood, annoyed at being
away from the case for so long, and irritated that he still had
no more clues as to why the incidents were occurring, or who was
behind them.  Devenham was very quiet.  She hadn't spoken to
Mulder at all since their argument at the hotel.  She wandered
around the market stalls separately to Mulder and Scully, who
stayed close together, all three of them hoping to see something
that would help them to solve the case.

"Are you sure that it will happen here?"  Scully asked Mulder,
after they had been walking around the crowded market for nearly
two hours,  "There's no evidence to suggest it will."

"No,"  Mulder agreed,  "but we're unlikely to happen upon it just
driving around.  We can get to the incident quickly enough if it
happens somewhere else."

They wandered on up the street, passing stalls they were becoming
very familiar with.  On the other side of the street, they could
see Devenham doing similarly.  Then it happened.

A hammer flew out of the crowd of busy shoppers, and embedded
itself in the back of Devenham's head.  Someone screamed. 
Mulder, who had been looking across at the time, had seen it
happen, and took off across the crowded street, with Scully close
on his heels.

"Laura!"  he yelled as the agent slumped to the ground.  He
reached her, and Scully knelt down at Devenham's side to check
for a pulse.  There was nothing.  She looked up at Mulder's
anxious face, and shook her head.  The crowd pressed in around
them, trying to see what was happening.  Mulder turned on them
suddenly.  "Federal Agents."  he said, producing his
identification, and waving it at the crowd,  "Keep you distance
please.  Give her some space."  The crowd moved back
respectfully, and at the front of the watchers, Mulder noticed
Ron Pinsetti, the mousy-haired man who had been in the crowd when
the fifth incident had taken place.  The man had a strange
expression on his face.  It seemed to be part anger, part
longing.  Mulder turned away, and crouched down beside Scully.

"Mulder,"  she began,  "I hate to tell you this, but this injury
wouldn't have killed her.  The hammer isn't in deep enough to
cause fatal damage, so unless some skull fragments managed to get
in some really unlikely places, she shouldn't be dead."

"So why is she?"  Mulder asked, his voice quiet so the crowd
couldn't hear.

"I wish I knew."  Scully replied, shaking her head.

*          *          *

The next morning Chief Newman arrived at the hotel while the
partners were eating breakfast.  His face was harried and tired.

"There's been another one."  he explained to the agents,  "First
thing this morning."

They set off for the scene of the seventh incident immediately in
Newman's car.  The chief explained the situation on the way.

"The victim was Ellen Jones.  She was thirty-one, living with her
fiance, Mark Harris.  They both work, and he had already left
this morning when it happened.  We had to call him out of work. 
she was apparently getting ready to leave for work, when someone
stabbed her with one of her kitchen knifes.  She made it out to
the street before she fell.  No-one saw her attacker."

Newman pulled up at a house in one of the smaller estates round
the edge of Haveston.  Police crime scene tape protected the are,
and an officer was on watch outside the house.  The body lay half
in and half out of the gate at the end of the garden path.  It
was covered with a plastic sheet.  Scully lifted the sheet to
examine it.

"There's just the one wound?"  she asked, surprised, pointing to
the kitchen knife, which was still in the woman's back.

"Yes."  Newman answered.  Scully frowned.  Mulder crouched down
opposite her, an unspoken question on his face.

"One wound there wouldn't kill her."  Scully told him quietly, 
"She'd die from tissue damage after several wounds, or from blood
loss after some time, but not like this."

At the mention of blood, Mulder looked down the path towards the
house, and then stood up to go and look closer.  A moment later
he returned.  "I know there would be little bleeding immediately
with the knife still in her,"  he said,  "but surely there would
be some blood on the path, if she had come from the house?"

"I would have thought so."  Scully agreed.  Mulder turned to
Newman.

"Was the house locked when you got here?"

"Yes.  Why?"

"Well, it's just that I don't know many people who stop to lock
their front door's after they've been stabbed."  Mulder replied, 
"From what I can see, I would have said she had been stabbed
here."

"But then someone would have seen who stabbed her."  Newman
protested,  "I have several witnesses who saw her fall."

Mulder nodded slowly,  "Was the area quite busy at the time
then?"

"Oh yes.  Everyone's going out to work you see."  Newman nodded.

Mulder grunted, and stood up.  "Any sign of forced entry to the
house?"

"No."

"No sign at all that anyone has been there who shouldn't have
been?"

"No."  Newman shook his head.

"And the knife did come from the house?"

"Yes, we found the rest of the set standing in the knife-block in
the kitchen.  There was only one empty space."

"In the kitchen?"  Mulder looked slightly puzzled,  "Show me."

Newman took Mulder round to the side of the house.  There,
without even going inside, they could see the knife-block
standing on the kitchen window-sill.  The window was slightly
open, but not enough for someone to get in, or even reach in to
take one of the knives.  Mulder frowned and shrugged.

"I guess we'll know more after Scully does the autopsy."  he
said, without much hope.




*          *          *

Mulder and Scully went to Scully's room to talk when they got
back to the hotel.  Mulder was very quiet, and this bothered
Scully, although she knew he often got quiet on cases that seemed
as hopeless as this one did.

Mulder sat on the end of Scully's bed, his chin cupped in his
hands.  he stared at the floor a few feet in front of him, almost
forgetting to breathe, he was concentrating so hard on the case. 
Scully pulled up a chair alongside her partner, and sat down.

"X-file for your thoughts?"  she suggested.  Mulder looked up,
and smiled faintly.

"I was just wondering why this incident occurred so quickly after
the other one.  We could be in a mess if we start getting copycat
killings."

"Copycat killings?  In a town like this?"  Scully sounded
doubtful,  "Mulder, I'm still not even sure that some of these
incidents are murders."

"Not murders?  As far as I know, hammers and knives don't go
flying through the air of their own accord.  Someone has to throw
them, or swing them."  Mulder frowned, and looked down at the
floor again,  "We've got to try and work out why the killer is
doing this.  What reason is behind it?"

"Well,"  Scully considered,  "a serial killer kills either
particular people, for a particular, usually personal reason..."

"Unlikely in this case, as the victims don't seem to be
connected, and the accidents they met with were not entirely
precise."  Mulder decided.

"Or the killer kills to satisfy some need..."

"Which would require contact with the body."  Mulder mused,  "All
the deaths, except for possibly Ellen Jones', were carried out
remotely.  And they were all carried out in fairly public places,
where the killer could then approach the body under the guise of
a concerned passer-by."  He went quiet for a moment, lapsing into
thought.  Scully did not break his concentration, realising he
was making connections in his mind.  "When Agent Devenham was
killed, we were on the scene immediately.  No-one was able to get
near to the body.  That's why the killer struck again so quickly. 
There's something the killer needs at regular intervals, and when
he couldn't get it from Agent Devenham, he had to kill again. 
It's almost as though he feeds on something he takes from the
bodies."

"Sexist comment, Mulder.  You can't presume the killer to be male
at this stage."  Scully chided.

"Impersonal pronoun."  Mulder replied,  "I am unbiased, at this
stage."

"Feeding on the bodies though?  You know the autopsies turned up
no anomalies like that.  You're looking to hard for an answer,
Mulder.  Are you sure you're alright after yesterday?"

"I'm fine."  he replied.

"It's okay to be upset by it, you know.  Even if she was just a
friend."

"I told you,"  Mulder repeated,  "I'm fine."

"Well, I have to go back to Haveston Hospital tomorrow to do the
autopsies on Agent Devenham, and Ellen Jones.  you could stay
here, if you want, and maybe interview some people who saw the
seventh incident."  Scully suggested.  Mulder nodded
half-heartedly.

"Yes, I suppose."  he answered.  Scully flashed him a worried
glance again, but decided to leave it.  Mulder was Mulder.  He
would sort himself out in time.

*          *          *

"Agent Mulder?"  There was a knocking at Mulder's hotel room
door.  He dimly recognised the voice that dragged him from sleep
as being that of Chief Newman.  He groaned.

Daylight flooded around the curtains.  A glance at the alarm
clock told him it was nearly 10am.  Mulder groaned again.  Why
hadn't Scully woken him?  He swung his feet off the side of the
bed, and only then realised that he was still dressed.  He had
fallen asleep fully clothed, after being awake most of the night.
- Probably why Scully hadn't woken him. - He stood up, and
crossed the room to the door.

There was a note on the floor.  Mulder picked it up, recognising
Scully's handwriting.  "Gone to the hospital.  See you later." 
He opened the door.

"Morning!"  Newman said cheerfully, and then noticed Mulder's
appearance.  The creased suit, bleary shadowed eyes, and a day's
beard growth was apparently not to pleasing to the eye.  "Jeez,
you look awful!"

"Thanks."  Mulder muttered, and gestured to Newman to come in.

"I tried Agent Scully's door, but there was no answer."

"Scully's gone to the hospital to do the autopsies on the last
two victims."  Mulder told the police chief.

"Ah.  Well, that was partly what I came about.  There have been
seven deaths now.  Surely you have some idea what is going on,
and who is behind it?"

"I'm getting there."  Mulder muttered, and went into his ensuite
bathroom to change his shirt.  When he came back, Newman was
still standing by the door.  "Sit down if you want."

"Sit down?  I don't have time to sit down.  I've got seven people
dead.  I've got to get back out there, looking for the person who
did it.  You should be too.  Don't you have any idea who was
involved?"

Mulder stopped for a moment, the building anger inside him
apparently knocking something to one side, and making it fall
into place.  "Yes."  he said suddenly,  "Let's go."

"Go where?"  Newman asked.

"Harry's Tyres."  Mulder replied.

*          *          *

The good thing about having a photographic memory, Mulder
considered as Chief Newman's car pulled up outside "Harry's
Tyres" with a second police car behind it, was that you didn't
always have to know something was important to remember it.  Like
in this case, - he had suddenly linked the mousy-haired man, Ron
Pinsetti, to both the fifth and sixth killings, and had been able
to retrieve not only Pinsetti's name, but also his occupation
from his memory of the badge he had seen on the man's overalls.

Mulder and Newman got out of their car, and the police chief
introduced the agent to two of his officers.

"Agent Mulder, this is PC Kevin Smalley, and PC Eric Davies. 
They're both good men who can keep their heads in a hot
situation."

"Good."  Mulder said, nodding to the two men,  "We must bear in
mind that if Pinsetti is responsible for the killings, he is
likely to be extremely dangerous.  Be prepared to take him by
force."  Mulder turned towards the garage, pushing his jacket
back on one side as he did so, and unclipping his gun from his
hip holster.

The four men entered the garage, and soon found Pinsetti
tightening the nuts on a car wheel at the back of the workshop. 
The man had his back to them.

"Ron Pinsetti?"  Mulder asked, and the man turned his head to
look at them in response,  "You are under arrest on suspicion of
murder."

Pinsetti stood up, and turned to face the men.  He held a wrench
in one hand.  He raised it slightly, and whether it was intended
to be a harmless gesture, or a threatening one, it immediately
caused all four men to draw their weapons.

"Drop the wrench!"  Mulder commanded.  Pinsetti did so casually. 
He shrugged.

"Murdering who?"  he asked.

"Diana Thorncroft, Martin Hopkins, Alice Roberts, Sissy Harfield,
Michael Needham, Agent Laura Devenham..."

"Oh, that's what it is!"  Pinsetti exclaimed, halting Mulder, 
"You want to pin the blame on somebody for the death of your ex. 
I don't know why you're so upset by it, - from what I hear, Laura
Devenham didn't even like you."

A shot rang out in the workshop, and echoed around the room. 
Pinsetti crumpled to the floor with a cry, clutching a bleeding
leg.  Newman, Smalley, and Davies all turned to stare at Mulder
in shock.

If it hadn't been for the recoil, he wouldn't have known it was
his gun that had fired.


*          *          *

Scully shivered as she was led down to the cells in the basement
of Haveston police station.  For such a small town, the police
station was surprisingly well-equipped.  There were cameras and
microphones watching each cell, and panic buttons both inside the
cells and out, which sounded an alarm.  The basement was a maze
of corridors, and Scully was glad of the bright overhead
lighting, and her escort, who seemed to know exactly where he was
taking her.  Each cell that they passed had three stone walls,
and bars across the front.  Small stone ledges served as resting
places for the inmates.  Shadowed faces looked up to see who was
passing, with little hope in their eyes.  On the far side of the
basement, somebody started laughing raucously, and was shouted
down by a police officer.

Scully's escort stopped outside a cell, and produced the keys. 
Scully looked inside, and saw Mulder sitting on the ledge, his
legs stretched out in front of him, his hands behind his head. 
He appeared to be in deep thought, but the jangling of the keys
brought him out of it.  He looked up, his face brightening.

"Scully!"  He swung his feet off the ledge, and sat up as she
came into the cell.  The guard who had brought Scully locked the
door behind her, and moved away again.  He came back a moment
later with a wooden chair, and then returned to his post.  Scully
sat down on the chair.

"Are you alright, Mulder?"  she asked.

"Fine."  he nodded, his eyes sparkling with excitement,  "I've
worked it out.  I don't know why I didn't think of it before. 
Pinsetti's telekinetic.  He caused all those incidents, which is
why it seemed that no-one was actually responsible for them. -
Remember the first incident, where we said that someone pushing
the car out of the alley wouldn't have been able to see when
someone was about to pass?  It all fits in.  Pinsetti must have
been somewhere in the street, and so he could see when Thorncroft
reached the alley."

"Mulder..."  Scully began.  He interrupted her again.

"It also explains why some of the accidents didn't seem to be
enough to kill the victims. - All he needed to do was establish
something that looked like a fatal incident, and then use his
ability to stop the victim's heart."

"But why, Mulder?"  Scully's voice was sceptical.

"I think he needs to feed on something that he can only get just
after someone has died."  Mulder replied,  "That's why the
incidents were so regular."

"Mulder, you've no evidence for this."

"Yes I do.  I've finally got evidence of telekinesis, and three
witnesses to it as well.  When we went to arrest Pinsetti, he had
a wrench in one hand, and was holding it in a somewhat
threatening manner.  We all drew on him.  He used his ability to
pull the trigger on my gun, Scully."

"He caused you to shoot him?"  Scully sounded even more
disbelieving,  "Why on earth would he do that?"

"Because I knew he was the killer, and he probably wondered if I
knew about his ability.  He tried to discredit what I can say, by
trying to frame me."

"Well I've got news for you, Mulder. - It's working."

Mulder stared at his partner,  "I know you're not exactly hot on
mental abilities, but you do believe what I'm saying, don't you? 
You don't think I shot him myself?"

"Mulder, from what I heard, he said something to you about Agent
Devenham shortly before your gun fired."

"Yes, but don't you see that's the perfect frame?  To give
someone an excuse to be angry, and in front of witnesses as
well?"

"It's also a very good reason for you to flip out for a moment." 
Scully countered,  "Mulder, I know you've been under a lot of
pressure lately, with the Ian Wells case, and the hassle you got
about it, with us not having any X-files for so long, and you
worrying about getting closed down again.  And now this case
comes along. - You were looking too hard for something out of the
ordinary, and meeting Devenham again put more pressure on you.  I
think that with her death, and the pressure of the case, you just
snapped when Pinsetti said what he did.  Under the circumstances,
it's not an unreasonable possibility."

Mulder stared at his partner for some time before speaking again.

"Scully, I didn't fire on Pinsetti.  I know I didn't.  I didn't
even realise it was my gun that had fired for a moment.  If I had
been so angered by what Pinsetti said, that I snapped, I probably
would have killed him, not just shot him in the leg."

Scully nodded,  "I see your point, but who know's what goes
through our minds when something like this happens?"

"What about Pinsetti?"  Mulder asked,  "Did they bring him in?"

"Yes, they did, but I think they'll probably interview him and
let him go.  There's no evidence that he was involved."  Scully
replied.

"And the autopsies?"

"Neither Devenham nor Jones should have died as quickly as they
did from their injuries.  And I think you were right about Jones
being stabbed where she was found. - There was no damage due to
movement of the body before collapse."

The guard reappeared at the cell door.  Scully stood up.  "I've
got to go.  Is there anything you need?"

Mulder rubbed his stubbly chin,  "A razor wouldn't go amiss."  he
said, and smiled faintly.  Scully back as reassuringly as she
could, before leaving the cell, and following the guard back
upstairs.

*          *          *

The next morning Mulder was taken to an interview room to be
interviewed by the FBI.  The Bureau's policy of policing their
own may pay off for some agents, Mulder considered, but with his
reputation in the Bureau, he didn't start off on a level field.

The interview room was bare except for a table and three chairs. 
There was a panic strip running around the outside of the room. 
There were two agents interviewing him, Agent Phillip Broomhall,
and Agent Angus Gorrell.  Broomhall was the younger of the two,
and had evidently heard very little about Mulder's reputation. 
Gorrell on the other hand, had heard a lot about Mulder, and had
friends amongst the agents in Washington.  He immediately got the
interview off to a bad start.

"So, Spooky, what have you been up to?"

Mulder managed to refrain from making a sarcastic comment, or
taking noticeable offence at the use of his nickname.  He sat
opposite the other two agents, and looked Gorrell straight in the
face to reply,  "I haven't been "up to" anything."

"What happened yesterday when you went to arrest Ron Pinsetti?"

"I arrived at "Harry's Tyres" at about 10.25am, with Chief Newman
and PCs Smalley and Davies.  We were all armed, and I instructed
them before we went in that if my suspicions were correct, and
Pinsetti was responsible for the incidents, he was highly
dangerous.  I warned them that it may be necessary to arrest him
by force.

"We went inside, and found Pinsetti working on one of the cars in
the workshop.  When I told him he was under arrest, he stood up,
and turned to face us, holding a wrench in one hand in a manner
that caused all four of us to draw our weapons on him.  I told
him to drop the wrench, and he did so.  On being told the charges
against him, he commented,  "Oh, that's what it is!  You want to
pin the blame on somebody for the death of your ex.  I don't know
why you're so upset by it, - from what I hear, Laura Devenham
didn't even like you."  A moment later, my gun fired, wounding
Pinsetti in the leg."

"Why did you shoot Pinsetti?"  Gorrell demanded,  "Because of
what he said?"

"I didn't shoot Pinsetti."

"You just admitted now..."

"That my gun fired, yes.  Not that I fired it."

"Agent Mulder,"  Broomhall put in,  "Chief Newman, PC Smalley,
and PC Davies have all stated that you fired the shot at Pinsetti
with your own weapon."

"Chief Newman, and the two PCs were not in a position to see what
happened."  Mulder replied.

"You don't deny that you were holding your gun when it fired?" 
Broomhall asked.

"No."

"So what happened?"

"Ron Pinsetti is telekinetic. - He has the ability to move
objects with the power of his mind. - This enabled him to both
carry out the murders Agent Scully and I are investigating, and
fire my gun on himself."

"Telekinetic?"  Gorrell repeated, scorn in his voice,  "What a
surprise that is, coming from you, Spooky.  Next you'll be
telling us that Pinsetti is an alien!"

"What caused you to believe that Pinsetti was responsible for the
recent spate of deaths in Haveston?"  Broomhall asked.

"I deducted that the killer was taking something from the bodies
of the victims, shortly after they died.  This was substantiated
by the fact that after the sixth incident, where Agent Scully and
myself were on the scene immediately, and the killer had no
chance to get to the body, there was another killing earlier than
expected. - Before then they had always been six days apart. - I
saw Pinsetti at the fifth incident, touching the body, and again
at the sixth, where he looked angry that he could not get close
to the body."

"You said he was taking something?"  Broomhall asked.

"I think he was feeding his ability.  Have you ever heard of
morphogenetic fields?"

"What?"

"In the 1980's, Dr. Rupert Sheldrake did some experiments into a
type of energy he called morphogenetic fields.  It's a type of
energy emitted by plants, people, and some objects which can be
received by other living organisms.  I think it is possible that
Pinsetti feeds on this energy, and he has to touch the body to do
so.  He appears to have to feed every six days, and I would
suggest that if he is unable to for a period much longer than
that, either he will die, or his ability will fade."

Agent Gorrell had gone quiet for a while.  Now he spoke up again. 
"I hear that you and Agent Devenham used to see each other."

"Yes, when we were in the academy."

"I also hear that she broke it off, and you weren't altogether in
agreement."

"Yes."

"From talking to Chief Newman, I heard that you and Devenham had
an argument about your past relationship, which resulted in you
losing your temper, and leaving the room."

"Yes. - Although the argument was more about the way Agent
Devenham perceived my reaction to her than our past
relationship."

"But you were worked up, and had to leave the room?"

"Yes."  Mulder admitted.

*          *          *

Pinsetti sat in the seat Mulder had occupied just a few minutes
before, watching the two agents who sat opposite him.  He knew
that Mulder had just been interviewed, but knew nothing of what
had been said.  He waited patiently, quietly confident that
everything would work out alright.

"Okay, Mr Pinsetti,"  Gorrell began,  "could you tell us in your
own words, exactly what happened yesterday when you were
arrested?"

"Er, sure."  Pinsetti nodded,  "I was working on the wheel of one
of the cars we had in the workshop at "Harry's Tyres".  I was
just tightening the nuts on the wheel, when I heard someone
behind me say my name, and that I was under arrest for murder."

"What did you do?"

"Well, I stood up, and turned round to see who was behind me. 
There were two men there in suits, with two uniformed cops.  I
think they musn't have liked the look of the wrench I had in my
hand, 'cause they all pulled out their guns, and one of the two
in suits, - Agent Mulder, - told me to drop the wrench."

"Which you did?"

"'Course.  I didn't know what they were talking about though, - I
never murdered anybody. - So I asked them who they reckoned I
killed.  Agent Mulder, he started reeling off this list of names. 
I guess I was a bit nervous, - I mean, I've never been accused of
murder before, - but when he said "Agent Laura Devenham", I
remembered something I'd heard, about him going out with her, and
her finishing it when he thought they'd got something going.  So
I said something about him trying to pin the blame for her death
on someone, and I said,"  Pinsetti hung his head, looking as
ashamed as he could,  "I said that I didn't know what he was so
bothered about, seeing as she didn't like him anyway.  I guess I
must have touched a raw nerve, cause he shot me when the words
were barely out of my mouth."

"You're sure it was Agent Mulder who shot you?"  Broomhall asked.

"Yes sir, I saw his face take on this strange expression right as
he did it, and the gun moved, and well, if you've ever been shot
you'll know what I mean when I say you know which direction the
bullet comes from."

Broomhall nodded in slightly unwilling agreement.  Pinsetti
looked back at Gorrell.

"What will happen to him?"  he asked,  "I mean, he shouldn't get
off with it just because he's FBI.  He tried to kill me!"

"Believe me, Mr Pinsetti, the Bureau takes matters like this very
seriously.  Agent Mulder isn't going to get away with anything. -
Although I doubt he meant to kill you, because if he had, you
would be dead."  Gorrell replied.




*          *          *

The guard stopped outside Mulder's cell, and let Scully into it,
locking the door after her.  Mulder was sitting on the ledge at
the side of the cell, his head resting in his cupped hands.  He
didn't look up when Scully came in, but he greeted her as she sat
down on the wooden chair which was still inside the cell.

"Hi Scully.  How's things?"

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?"  she smiled.  Mulder looked up,
but he didn't return the smile.  "I heard what you told Broomhall
and Gorrell."  she said,  "Morphogenetic fields?  Mulder, you're
way out of your depth here.  Don't you realise that?"

"I know the morphogenetic fields thing was a long shot, but it's
perfectly plausible.  Whatever, it doesn't change what happened,
- Pinsetti killed those people to somehow feed his ability."

"You're still sticking to this idea?"  Scully asked, her voice
was worried,  "Don't you realise that no-one will believe you?"

"I realise that now."  Mulder replied,  "Having sat through that
interview with Gorrell.  But what else can I say?  Either I tell
the truth, or I say I shot Pinsetti.  Whichever, I'm going to be
out the Bureau, and facing charges of assault with a deadly
weapon, and intent to murder and maim.  I'd rather stick to the
truth, if you don't mind."

"You really believe that is the truth, don't you?"  Scully
sighed.  She leaned forward to look closely into his face. 
"Mulder, can't you accept the possibility that you did shoot
Pinsetti, and spontaneously forgot your action, because of the
emotional and psychological stress you've been under lately?"

"Scully, I know what happened.  I don't have any blank patches in
my memory.  I didn't shoot Pinsetti."

"Mulder..."

"No!  I know I've been under stress lately, but it goes with the
job.  We've both been in situations much more stressful than this
case before now, and I've never shown any abnormal behaviour
before, have I?"

"Mulder, your version of normality is so abnormal that in anyone
else it would be considered a symptom of extreme stress.  You
show extreme paranoia, sleeplessness, severe depressions, and
occasional bouts of almost manic activity.  You become obsessed
with every case that interests you, to a point where you are
blind to all possibilities other than the ones you come up with. 
If I didn't know this was your normal behaviour, I would have to
say that you show all the symptoms of someone about to undergo a
severe psychological breakdown."

"But like you said, that's just normal for me."

"Mulder,"  Scully said carefully,  "these last few weeks you've
been very depressed, even for you.  I believe that you believe
you didn't shoot Pinsetti, but that doesn't mean you didn't."

*          *          *

That evening saw Mulder back in the interview room opposite
Broomhall and Gorrell.  The second agent had a self-satisfied
smirk on his face as he looked at Mulder.  They sat in silence
for several minutes before Gorrell spoke.

"Well Spooky, looks like your story just went completely down the
toilet. - If anyone ever had the slightest doubt that it wasn't
already in there, that is."

"Oh?"  Mulder did not change expression.

"Yes, there's been an eighth death.  If someone is responsible
for these incidents, they're still on the loose."

"An eighth death?  No, it's too soon."

"Didn't you hear me, Spooky?  You're all wrong about Pinsetti,
about the reason behind the incidents, about everything.  There's
been another death, and Pinsetti was here at the time."

Mulder stared at Gorrell for a moment, his mind going into
overdrive.  "I'll bet the incident took place somewhere that
Pinsetti knew well. - Near where he lives, somewhere he hangs
around a lot, or in the garage where he works."  he said. 
Broomhall gaped in astonishment.

"It was at the garage."  he revealed,  "How did you know?"

"Because Pinsetti is obviously trying to frame me.  To discredit
what I know about him, by making it seem that I'm having some
sort of breakdown.  He can use his ability without being nearby,
so he uses it somewhere he knows well, to kill someone he knows
will be there.  That way it looks like the incidents are still
going on while he can't possibly have anything to do with them. 
I imagine this incident was the first one that was an accident
waiting to happen, rather than an unlucky person getting in the
way of an accident, like all the others were?"

"Well, yes."  Gorrell admitted,  "Apparently someone had spilled
petrol all over the ground at the back of the garage.  The
victim, Derek Morris, always goes to stand at the back of the
garage to have a cigarette in the mid-afternoon, according to his
work-mates. - This afternoon when he lit up, he really lit up."

"I should think the petrol used was in a place where Pinsetti
knew there was some."  Mulder mused,  "And so Pinsetti first
spilled the petrol, and then hoped that it would work.  If it
didn't, he would try again with something else."

Broomhall stared,  "You really do believe all this?"

"Don't let it bug you."  Gorrell told the younger agent, 
"Spooky's always coming out with weird explanations for things. -
Most of these incidents were clearly only accidents."

"How does a hammer fly through the air by accident?"  Mulder
enquired.

"Oh, we're back to Agent Devenham, are we?  I think that's the
root cause of all this.  You're so stuck on her, that you can't
see two feet in front of your own face.  Face it, Spooky, you're
so stressed out you don't know what you're doing."

"I may be stressed out,"  Mulder retorted, his voice taking on an
angry tone,  "but that's because I have to sit here listening to
idiots like you talking about things they know nothing about."

"Hey, don't get so wound up over it, Spooky."

"Why not?  Isn't that what you've been trying to do ever since
you came into this investigation?  Wind me up?  You just want me
to lose my temper so that you can add it to your list of
stress-indicating symptoms that I'm showing!"  Mulder had risen
to his feet as he yelled these words in Gorrell's face, but no
sooner had he stopped speaking, than he realised he was doing
just that.  Losing his temper.  He forced himself to sit down
again.

"Maybe, but whether I am or not, it's certainly worked."  Gorrell
remarked.  Mulder bit down on his tongue, and held his silence.

*          *          *

Mulder lay on the ledge in his cell, thinking about what Scully
had said the day before, and the interview he had just been in. 
He was tired, as he hadn't slept all the previous night.  His
thoughts kept returning to what Scully had said.  He had been
under a lot of pressure over the Ian Wells case, and he did worry
when things went wrong that the "shadow people" in the Bureau
would close the X-files down.  They'd done it before.  He knew
that things with Devenham hadn't exactly been perfect, but he'd
harboured no grudges about it, as Scully seemed to think he had. 
True, he had been upset by her death, but no more than he would
be over an old friend he hadn't seen for years.  He'd got past
the heartache he had at first felt when they had broken up, and
moved on with his life, whatever Devenham had thought.

Mulder's thoughts gradually drifted apart, and having only four
hours sleep in the last fifty took it's toll on him.  He slipped
into sleep.

He was in a room which was almost dark, but not quite.  Shades of
grey mingled throughout the room, blurring if he looked to
closely.  There were faint outlines of furniture here and there. 
Moonlight pierced the thin curtains, making a lighter square of
grey amongst the darkness.  A cool breeze drifted towards him
from the curtained window.  The sound of crickets and tree frogs
were carried on it.  Everything seemed serene.

He was afraid.  He knew only too well what was going to happen. 
Again.

In the distance, he could already hear the faint sound
approaching.  It sounded like a train, but he knew it wasn't.  He
knew only too well what the sound meant.  As it grew louder, his
fear grew with it.  His nervous breathing and heartbeat
quickened.  He tried to move back, and felt himself paralysed.

Light stabbed through the curtain, sharpening the dull outlines
in the room.  Even so, everything was seen in black and white. 
He watched, unable to move, as the figure of a young girl rose
near the bright square of closed curtain, and drew the curtain
back.

The light that flooded into the room hurt his eyes, making him
squint and lift a hand to shield his eyes.  The small figure was
engulfed by the light, and then both light and figure were gone,
and the rumbling sound faded beneath the sound of his screams. 
He screamed the name of the girl who had been taken by the light,
twenty-two years ago.

"Samantha!"

*          *          *

Scully entered Mulder's cell.  Her partner was sitting on the
floor at the back of the cell, his legs bent up in front of him,
his arms resting on his knees.  He stared at the floor just in
front of him, and made no response to her arrival.  She went over
to him, and crouched down at his side.

"Mulder?  Are you okay?"  she asked, her voice concerned.  After
a long pause, he raised his head, and looked up at her.  The
tired defeat and hopelessness she saw in his eyes stunned her. 
"Mulder, I spoke to the guards.  They said you cried out
"Samantha." in your sleep last night.  They didn't know what it
meant.  You were dreaming about your sister again, weren't you?" 
He nodded in answer, and dropped his eyes back to the floor. 
"Mulder..."  Scully stopped.  He was nodding in reply already.

"I know."  he said quietly,  "I always have that dream when I'm
stressed. - It's not exactly surprising that I'm under stress
though, is it?  I've got three witnesses to a telekinetic
incident that I was the subject of, and no-one will believe me." 
He pushed his hands back through his tousled hair.  "I don't
know.  Maybe you're right.  Maybe I did shoot Pinsetti, and then
forget that I had.  Maybe Gorrell's right as well.  Maybe I was
wrong about everything.  The telekinesis, Pinsetti, the reason
behind the incidents.  Maybe you were right when you said I was
looking too hard.

"I just don't know what to think, Scully!"  he cried, looking up
at her again, his eyes pleading,  "I was so sure that I was
right.  It all seemed to fit together.  I was so sure..."

Scully sat down on the floor beside her partner, and waited for
him to be ready to go on.

"If we could only get proof, one way or the other..."  Mulder
said longingly.

"Maybe we can."  Scully suggested,  "How do you think we would go
about making a telekinetic reveal his ability?"

"By threatening his life."  Mulder replied, his voice growing
thoughtful,  "Preferably in a situation where there are no
witnesses to see what he has done."

"Perhaps we can do that."  Scully encouraged,  "Everyone believes
that you had a psychological breakdown.  Pinsetti knows that you
didn't, but he may be persuaded that you were already under such
stress that this whole fiasco has tipped you over.  If you were
to threaten him, he might believe you would really kill him."

"It sounds like you might just have the makings of a master plan
there, Scully.  Just a few problems.  I'm locked up in here,
nowhere near Pinsetti.  You don't believe in telekinesis, and you
do think I've had a breakdown.  And we won't have any proof if we
don't have any witnesses."

"There are tiny security cameras in all the cells.  They will
provide proof of what happens.  I'm willing to go and spread
rumours to Pinsetti in order for you to try and prove what
happened."  Scully replied,  "You agree that you need treatment
if you did shoot Pinsetti, don't you?"

"Yes, I guess."

"So this will establish whether you are sick, or Pinsetti is
telekinetic."  Scully said firmly, and stood up,  "I'll go and
see Pinsetti, and get him a little worried about you.  We'll
formulate the rest of the plan later."  She went out of the cell,
leaving Mulder to face his growing fears about his sanity.




*          *          *

Scully entered Pinsetti's cell, and thanked the guard, who turned
and went back to his post.  Then she turned to Pinsetti.  He was
sitting on his ledge with his feet stretched out along it.  He
looked up at her curiously, his head cocked on one side.

"Hello, Mr Pinsetti."  Scully greeted him,  "I'm Dana Scully,
Agent Mulder's partner."  She went forward and sat down on the
end of the ledge.  "I came to apologise on my partner's behalf. 
I'm sure he's very sorry for what he's done, - or at least, he
will be, once he accepts that he did it. - I'm afraid this has
been coming on for quite a while now."

"What has?"  Pinsetti asked.

"Mulder's breakdown.  He's been working too hard, and there's
been a lot of pressure on him.  Then with this case, him meeting
Agent Devenham again, and then her death, it just stretched him
to breaking point.  Once it got to that stage, any little thing
could have tipped him over.  Unfortunately it happened to be
you."

"Yes,"  Pinsetti agreed,  "although I was very foolish to say
what I did about Agent Devenham."

"Well, Mulder's been very touchy about Devenham all through this
case.  A week ago last Friday Agent Devenham came around to our
hotel to discuss the case, and they ended up having a huge
argument over Mulder's feelings for Devenham, which resulted in
him storming out of the room.  He's been acting crazy for ages,
but you should hear him now, - he says you've got some mind
power, sort of like telepathy, only involving the movement of
objects, and that you fired his gun, not him.  I also heard that
last night he was screaming in his sleep. - I just didn't want
you to think you were the cause of it, or anything like that. 
Mulder probably would have had this breakdown even if we'd never
taken this case."

"Well, that's nice to know, not that it does my leg much good." 
Pinsetti nodded towards his bandaged left thigh.  Scully shook
her head in sympathy.

"I don't know if you've heard, but there was another death
yesterday.  Obviously this puts you in the clear, and I'm sure
they'll let you out once they've gone through all the motions. 
Apparently when they told Mulder that you couldn't be
responsible, he wouldn't accept it, and flatly denied that the
last incident could have taken place."

"I hadn't heard."  Pinsetti admitted,  "Thank you for telling
me."

"That's alright."  Scully smiled,  "I'd better get back to work. 
After all, the person responsible for the deaths is still out
there, whatever Mulder may say."

*          *          *

Scully returned to Mulder's cell, and found him looking decidedly
more hopeful.  He looked up when she came in.

"Well?"

"Ron Pinsetti is now convinced that you had a breakdown, either
as a result of what he said, or as a result of his framing you." 
Scully told him,  "I gave him a few bits of information, so that
he can verify some of what I told him if he wants.  That way
he'll believe everything I said."

"Good."  Mulder said,  "I've worked out how we can get the proof,
but I'm going to need your help.  We'll give Pinsetti a night to
think about it, and then tomorrow, you must come here, let me
out, and give me a knife I can threaten him with."

Mulder explained the plan to Scully in detail.  When he had
finished, he paused, a worried look coming into his eye.  "You
must watch the monitors."  he said,  "If I do actually hurt
Pinsetti, you must sound the alarm."

Scully looked at him for a moment, suddenly aware how afraid he
was of being out of control.  She took his hand in hers, and
squeezed it.  "It'll be alright."  she told him,  "Everything
will work out for the best."

*          *          *

The next day Scully went to Mulder's cell, and opened it with her
set of skeleton keys.  Then she gave him the pocket knife she had
brought, and a key to Pinsetti's cell door.  With a quick warning
of  "Be careful."  she went to carry out the next part of the
plan.

Scully went to Pinsetti's cell.  Pinsetti was sitting on his
ledge, his arms folded across his chest.  He sat up when he saw
Scully outside his cell.

"What is it?"  he asked.

"Agent Mulder's escaped from his cell.  We don't think he's
armed, but he may be.  Don't worry, you're not in any danger.  If
he comes here, just sound your panic alarm, and someone will come
as fast as they can."

Scully hurried away from the cell, and to the control room.  She
knew it wasn't often monitored, and as her luck was in, it was
empty.  Sh went inside, locked the door behind her, and went to
the monitor board.  A selection of small television screens
relayed what was happening in the basement.  She switched off the
panic alarm in Pinsetti's cell, and then waited for Mulder to
begin his part of the plan.

*          *          *

Mulder approached Pinsetti's cell cautiously, the pocket knife in
his right hand at his side.  In his left hand he held the key to
Pinsetti's door.  He reached the bars.

"You!"  he yelled,  "You lying, good-for-nothing.  You've wrecked
my life, do you know that?  Are you happy now?  First you killed
Laura..."

"Laura?"  the startled Pinsetti queried, standing up, and moving
away from the bars.

"Laura Devenham, don't pretend you don't know!  First you killed
her, and now you try and wreck my career!  I'll lose my job over
this, and everyone who knows me thinks I'm crazy. - But I'm not
crazy.  I know what you did.  You're telekinetic, I know you are. 
You fired my gun, not me."  Mulder paused, and sniffed the air. 
He looked at Pinsetti.

"That's Scully's perfume."  he declared,  "I can smell Scully's
perfume.  You've been talking to Scully."  Mulder moved up to the
bars, and gripped them with both hands.  "You turned my partner
against me?  I'll kill you!  You've taken away everything I cared
about.  I'll kill you!"  Mulder held up the pocket knife.  It
gleamed in the light.

"You can't get in here."  Pinsetti said shakily, edging his way
along the wall to the panic button.  He pressed it.  Nothing
happened.  His expression turned to one of horror.  Mulder
smiled.

"You're on your own this time.  Just you and me.  And I have the
knife.  And the key."  Mulder held up the key, and then started
to unlock Pinsetti's door.  He opened the door, and went inside
the cell.  Pinsetti pressed himself against the back wall, his
eyes glued to Mulder, as the agent progressed across the cell
towards him.  The knife sparkled wickedly in the light as Mulder
held it out in front of him.

When Mulder was less than two metres from Pinsetti, the terrified
man lashed out.  He kicked a foot up at Mulder's wrist, sending
the knife flying into the air.  It landed near the front of the
cell, just inside the bars.  Mulder caught Pinsetti's raised
foot, and with a swift tug landed his opponent on his back.  He
turned to get the knife, and saw it slide out of the cell through
the bars, apparently of it's own accord.  He turned back to
Pinsetti.

"So?  I'll kill you with my bare hands if I have to."

Mulder began to advance again.  Pinsetti sat up, and raised a
hand in front of him in a "Stop" gesture.  Mulder stopped,
although not by his own decision.  He was still three metres from
Pinsetti.  The mousy-haired man got up from the floor, and made a
pushing gesture.  Mulder flew backwards into the bars at the
front of the cell, his feet dragging along the floor.  Pinsetti
lowered his arm, and Mulder began to move forward again,
muttering under his breath.

When Mulder was only a metre away from him, Pinsetti raised his
arm in the "Stop" gesture again, halting the agent's progress. 
then he lifted his arm, and Mulder lifted into the air about two
feet.  Pinsetti made the pushing gesture again, this time sending
Mulder, who was still two feet up in the air, flying backwards
into the cell wall.  The agent hit his head, and slumped to the
floor, groaning.  Pinsetti flicked one finger towards him, and
Mulder's head slammed against the wall, knocking him
unconsciouss.

The cell door was still unlocked, and Pinsetti hurried out of it,
to come face to face with Scully at the end of the corridor.  She
had her gun drawn, and was blocking his way.  He pushed her to
one side, while still several metres from her, and hurried on. 
He never saw Chief Newman in one of the cells he passed, and by
the time he heard the Chief's gun fire, it was too late.

Scully ran down to Pinsetti's cell, and squatted down beside her
partner.

"Mulder?"  A quick check told her that he was still alive, just
unconsciouss.  Then Newman arrived.

"Is he alright?"  he asked.

"He's going to be fine."  Scully replied,  "But he'll have a
nasty headache when he wakes up."

*          *          *

As Scully had predicted, Mulder suffered nothing more than a few
nasty bruises from his encounter with Pinsetti, and three days
later saw them back in Washington completing their reports.  All
charges against Mulder had been dropped, although there were
still doubts in some people's minds about the telekinesis aspect
of the case.

"How's your head today, Mulder?"  Scully asked, coming into their
basement office.

"It's better, although I still have to lie on my side."  he
answered.  She smiled.

"Looking forward to explaining ourselves to Skinner?"  she asked, 
the sarcasm dripping from her voice,  "I know I am."

"Oh yes."  Mulder replied,  "I can't wait."  He looked down at
the report on his desk.  "You freed a man about to be charged
with assault with a deadly weapon, and gave him a knife and the
keys to the cell of the man he had most reason to use it on. 
Then you switched off the panic alarm so that help could not be
called.  I attacked a man with a knife, threatening to kill him. 
I'm sure Skinner will love us."

"Well, it could have been worse."  Scully said,  "If you really
had had a psychological breakdown, and Pinsetti wasn't
telekinetic.  What would Skinner say then?"

"I don't like to think, but I probably would never hear it."

Scully sat down at her desk, and lifted her report to read
through it one last time before putting it into the case-file.

"Despite the video tapes obtained of Agent Mulder's encounter
with Pinsetti, I am reluctant to accept my partner's belief that
all the incidents in this case are based purely on telekinesis,
the ability of the mind to move objects, and Pinsetti's need to
feed his ability.  I believe that to accept the paranormal
without question is to give up all hope of understanding the
world around us.

"Even accepting the theory of telekinetic talents, there is no
substantial proof that Pinsetti was involved.  His presence at
several of the incidents has been confirmed, as has his
telekinetic ability, but this is only circumstantial evidence. 
His attempt to frame Agent Mulder, and the fact that all
incidents have now ceased, does add weight to the case, but does
not prove it beyond doubt.  However, as the incidents have
stopped, further investigation, which would almost certainly be
impossible now that Pinsetti is dead, is unnecessary."

Scully passed her report to Mulder, who slipped it into the
case-file.  She stood up.  "What are we waiting for?"  she asked,  
"Let's go face Skinner."

The End.


I'd greatly appreciate any comments or constructive criticism from fellow
X-Philes.  Email me at <smythja@bravo.aston.ac.uk>.

Danielle Culverson.