They stopped at the hospital cafeteria for something
sweet before heading down to the basement. Kris bought
a brownie and one of those little things of milk, like
she used to have in school. Trying to comfort myself,
she thought.

Agent Scully scrutinized Kris and said, "I confess I'm
a little surprised that you aren't more familiar with
the morgue."

Kris grimaced at the dryness of the brownie and set it
aside, started peeling her napkin apart instead. "I know. 
It's hard to explain. I see dead bodies all the time
on the job, in all sorts of ways, from beheadings to
eviscerations," she looked down, brushed the remaining
shreds of napkin off of her lap.

"I guess it's the fact that once they get here,
they're...just stiffs with a toe tag....body parts. 
As bad as it can be at a crime scene, somehow I'm still
able to see that they were people, that they had lives,
even if some of them were wasted. Does that make any
sense?"

Scully capped her soda and stood. "It does. But Det.
Jorgensen, what science offers here is an explanation as
to how those lives were cut short. An explanation that
needs to be revealed....to victim's families, to ourselves." 
She looked away, remembering it was just a small portion 
of what was owed the dead. What she still owed Emily. 
And Melissa. What she and Mulder owed so many 
loved ones.

And for a split second, she saw a wave of images--
dead men, dead women, dead children swirling in her
mind's eye, freezing her in place. She took a deep
breath, swallowed hard, steadied herself. Dear God,
help me do this, she slilently pleaded, make me
ready to do this. This is how I pay that debt, Lord.
I find the answers hidden in these bodies. She asked
for herself, for Mulder. Strength, give us the
strength to do what needs to be done.

"Agent Scully, is there a problem?" Jorgenson
immediately noticed the abrupt halt in the procedings.

She recovered, professionalism locked into place once 
more. "I'm fine. Not enough caffeine this morning, 
I suppose."

"I'm sure there's plenty in the machine, I'll keep you
stocked. Just let me know when." 

"Good to know. Now let's get started, shall we?"

The morgue was what Kris expected, the nostril-searing
odor of chemicals almost more than she could bear. 
Oddly enough, the overlying sweetly rotten scent of
decay was far more manageable. There were two rows
of perforated steel tables, above which were hanging
scales like the ones you found in the vegetable aisle
at the grocery store. Along one wall were jars filled
with remains and parts of remains, she really didn't
want to get a closer look. Smaller tables held
instruments she could imagine were first used during
the Spanish Inquisition, or maybe the European Witch
Trials. She'd have a hard time putting the image of
the bone saw out of her mind.

Agent Scully walked swiftly into the room, having changed
into oversized blue scrubs and a white lab coat while Kris
waited outside. She had declined when Scully had offered
to find her a pair of scrubs as well -- there was no way
she was going to get any more involved than she absolutely
had to. "Here," Scully handed her a small bundle of cloth.
"Those are booties, a hair net, gloves, and an apron. 
I've got some wintergreen oil if you need it."

She really didn't like the sound of this. She slipped the
gloves on last and followed the other woman into the cold
room. Bodies wrapped in sheets and white plastic bags lay
on tables on both sides of the room. It was enough to give
a person a serious case of nerves. Scully had to open
a few sheets before finding the right body. "Here we are,
one Vincent Coluko."

Kris helped her roll the table into the other room and
watched as sheunwrapped the body. Vincent was not an
attractive sight.

Scully snapped on her latex gloves, "I'll take his head,
you grab his feet. On the count of three we'll lift him
onto the autopsy table, okay?"

Scully nodded, grimacing as she rotely began to probe
at his chilled flesh, surprised to see Det. Jorgensen
utterly focused on the task at hand. Once he was on
the table and under better light, she found things that
caught her attention right away. There were dark yellow
bruises around his chin, andhis nose was off-kilter,
clearly broken. At some point he had bitten through
his bottom lip. His right ear was cut through half-way. 
Another cut was on his throat, barely visible on the left,
obviously cutting through skin and fat to the muscle
beneath on the right. The Y incision was more of a U,
running from one shoulder and underneath the nipples to
the other shoulder, then a line straight down the middle,
to the left of the naval, finishing just above the pubis.

Scully snipped through the neatly stiched incisions with
tiny sewing scissors, glanced up at her curiously. "You
seem to be handling this well." Maybe better than I am, 
she thought. She used her scapel to freshen the cuts,
giving her easier access.

Kris shrugged. "It's...easier than I thought it
would be."

Scully smiled slightly. "Well, you must have heard the
secret, then. We have a saying in Forensics, 'The bigger
the cop, the bigger the drop'. "

"I like it,"  Kris said, trying to focus as the other
woman exposed Coluko's internal organs. "Should they
look like that?"

"Not ordinarilly, no. Once an autopsy is performed,
all the organs weighed, all necessary tissue samples taken,
everything is then replaced. You could reattach the organs,
but what's the point? Their families aren't interested in
seeing what we've done, only in the results we get."

"Yeah, I guess that makes sense," she watched as Scully 
lifted and prodded the various masses of flesh and tissue, 
bits of fat.  "What are you doing now?"

"Checking for anything out of the ordinary. Lumps, nodes,
odd smells."

Kris stared intently at each poke. "Right...You'd have to."

"You can tell a lot from smell alone. Did you know that in
Medieval times, physicians would diagnose many causes
of death this way, by examining the odors of everything
from feces to pus?"

"Well, I'm sure you've got that covered..."

Scully eyed her. "Can you smell the alcohol this man was
drinking before he died?" 

Kris gave a cautious sniff, concentrating on what exactly
she was smelling, and there it was. Faint, but becoming
stronger the more she inhaled. She opened her mouth, let
the flavor roll across her tongue. Rancid smell of booze
and cadaver.

"About half of the population can detect the bitter almonds
of cyanide. Unfortunately, because of OSHA regulations,
pathologists are now supposed to wear rebreathers and
metal mesh gloves, which means you don't smell anything
except plastic and recycled air, and you rarely feel
anything of note. Of course the gloves prevent you from
cutting yourself with the scalpel, but I think you lose
more than you gain..." Her voice trailed off as she
realized something, she'd smelled rum on Coluko. There 
was no rum listed in any of the coroner's reports that had 
been turned over to her this morning.

"Det. Jorgensen, I want to run this man's tox screen again.
The autopsy report doesn't list what I think I'm smelling. 
And while we're at it, re-run the screens on the others'."

"I'll take care of it I'm assuming you'll want the
results first thing in the morning."

"I would think so. You were about to ask me something
else?"

Kris made a mental note to call the coroner's assistant,
then shifted gears "Yeah, actually. I did have another
question. What about HIV? Aren't you afraid of exposure
from infected blood?"

Scully shrugged. "It's a calculated risk, and for the most
part, I practice universal precautions. Although, having
said that, I did get hepatitis from my very first autopsy,
when I was in med school."

Kris watched her inspect Coluko's hands, the insides of
his wrists and elbows, his armpit, his feet. With the
organs removed, she helped turn him over onto his stomach. 
Despite the maroon lividity, he had a number of barely
visible spiderweb tattoos on his shoulders, a clock face
without hands, a crying woman. All inked in prison,
judging by the lack of quality. He'd certainly done a lot
of time. "I wonder what kind of life he dreamt about when
he was a little boy."

"Probably not ending up on a morgue table at thirty-five,"
Scully murmured, peering at an impression in Coluko's skin
with a magnifying glass. She hadn't dreamed about slicing
open men with jaihouse tattoos with she was little,
nonetheless, here they were.

"I'd hate my daughter to end up like this," Scully didn't
reply, in fact she did nothing more than continue with
the examination, but Kris felt as if she had crossed some
invisible line. She was debating whether or not to
apologize when Scully straightened and readjusted the
overhead light to geta better look. The woman's
expression was not quite the mask of Federal implacability
she had become used to seeing.

"How old is she?"

Kris sighed. "Fifteen going on forty-seven. Convinced
she knows it all."

Scully smiled again, but it didn't quite reach
her eyes.

"Do you have children, Agent Scully?"

"I did. She died."

"Oh. I'm sorry," she began.

Scully shook her head. "You didn't know."


Silence, apart from the soft and slick sounds of body parts
being moved around, reigned until Kris' cell phone chirped.
With an apologetic glance at Scully, she answered.

"Jorgensen."

"Mom?"

"What's wrong, are you okay?" she asked, lowering her voice
and moving away from the table. Several long seconds later,
No, it's OK, I'll be right there." She sighed, turned off
her cell, "Shit."

"Det. Jorgensen?"

"It's my daughter...she's pregnant...and now there seems to
be a problem. I need to go home, probably take her to an
emergency room."

"Did she tell exactly what her symptoms were?" Scully had
stopped the examination, stripped off the gloves and was
heading toward Jorgensen."

Well...no. But I thought..."  It was obvious how unnerved
the call had made her, she was shaking. Almost imperceptably,
but Scully noticed immediately.

"I have a better idea. Let's go over there together, and I'll
do an initial triage, then we'll see what she needs."

Jorgensen let out a ragged breath, closed her eyes, and
patted her chest " I guess this mom needs your help too,
Agent Scully...Thank you."

~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X

"Hannah!" Jorgensen yelled, leading Scully past the stairs
and into the living room. "Could you come down here,
please?" Taking off her coat, she said, "Are you hungry
at all? I think I've got some ham and cheese in the
fridge, if the bottomless pit hasn't already gotten to it."

Scully was starving, actually, but didn't want to stay for
that long. She hated herself for being envious, for not
having the grace to accept her own lack with humility,
for not being able to be happy at the luck of others.
The pregnancies of other women dredged up an ache 
in her that for the most made her feel off kilter, vulnerable,
too vulnerable. And especially on a day like today,
that feeling was a luxury she couldn't afford. 
Once today was enough. Maybe later, maybe while 
she and Mulder lay in the dark, but not now. 

"Thank you, no."

She wasn't sure what she had expected, but the combination
of chintz covered furniture, needlepoint American flag
pillows, dark wallpaper, carpeting in British racing green,
and reproductions of Degas' ballerinas just didn't gel
with who Jorgensen seemed to be. Magazines littered the
coffee table, TV Guide, New Scientist, and Nature competing
for space with YM and Teen People. Two rubber plants
bracketed a bookcase beyond the back of the couch,
reaching for the ceiling with dusty leaves.

Jorgensen picked up a throw crocheted in colors reminiscent
of 1973 and folded it, tossed it over the arm of the couch.
"Would you like something to drink? I've got coffee, decaf,
tea, soda.. ."

"I'm fine," Scully answered, wishing she had suggested
the girl go to the nearest emergency room, instead.

"Mom?" The speaker was tall and skinny, straight, mouse
brown hair falling past her shoulders.

"Hannah, this is Dr. Scully, a colleague of mine. She
agreed to come take a look at you, make sure you weren't
miscarrying or anything like that."

Sullenness, thy name was ever 'teenager'. Scully couldn't
quite work up a smile that reached her eyes, not after
the look of intense dislike thrown at her from Hannah. 
God, she hoped she had never treated the guests of her
parents in the same manner. No, that would've never
happened. "We could do this in private, if you prefer."

Hannah looked nervously at her mother, then nodded
her head.

"Okay. I'm not an obstetrician, so this is at most
just a preliminary checkup to make sure you're not on
the verge of a miscarriage. You'll need to see your own
doctor as soon as possible, and by that I mean within
the next day or so, okay?"

"Listen, I'm going to go make a few calls, see if I can
get an appointment as soon as possible," Jorgensen said,
already heading out of the room.

Scully took a deep breath and began the examination. 
She did what physical checking she could, given the lack
of equipement, asked questions and received enough terse
answers from the girl to ascertain that neither she, nor
the baby were in any immanent danger. She knew she wasn't
a patient person, even though it was obvious that this girl
felt embarrassed about the whole situation. This was the
reason she preferred the dead over the living. The dead
never lied, didn't try to sway a person towards one answer
or another, didn't need coaxing and prodding. There was
always a clear cut answer with the dead, once you asked
the right question, the whole story was revealed.
Hannah on the other hand, revealed just enough, not an
iota more.

She finished, repeated her recommendations, and watched
Hannah scurry off to her room. Good deed for the day
all done, she only wanted to get back to the hotel
and take a nap. She just needed some time for herself,
to not think of what she couldn't give him, what she
couldn't have. She'd let Mulder soothe the rest of it
out of her tonight, including this morning's fear and 
hesitation. He'd gotten quite good at finding the hurts 
and making them go away, and she'd gotten
better at letting him.

A wave of self-pity lapped at her, so she distracted
herself by wandering over to the bookcase to see what
Jorgensen liked to read. There was the usual panoply
of general knowledge books, atlases and dictionaries
and a well-thumbed Roget's International Thesaurus.
Jorgensen had some of the same texts as Mulder -
the Crime Classification Manual, the Death
Investigator's Handbook, Sexual Homicide: Patterns
and Motives. Oddly enough, she also had several True
Crime books, which Scully would have thought Jorgensen
would avoid, considering her day job. Then again, even
she herself had a few titles stuck somewhere in the back
of her closet.

"Agent Scully?" Kris was standing in the doorway, anxiety
writ large on her features, "How's my girl?"

"It looks like some minimal spotting, no abdominal
pains, so I think we're in the clear. But she needs
to see an OB/GYN as soon as she can."

"I've got her got an appointment with my doctor at
Illinois Masonic, 11 am tomorrow. I'm on duty, but my
best friend Rachel will take her." Scully's response
had smoothed out the tension in her face, and she sighed
with relief. "Excuse me for a sec, I need to inform my
darling daughter of her upcoming itinerary."

Scully wanted to get going, she'd pulled herself together
again, but was sure it would last long if she had to be
part of a mother and child reunion. Her cell phone
trilled in her pocket, "Scully."

"Miss me?" Mulder's innuendo was just what she
needed to hear.

"I'd say it's you who misses me. You're the one calling,
after all."

"Busted. We'll, I do have another reason for interrupting
your busy day at the morgue."

"I'm not at the morgue. Jorgensen's daughter need a
medical evaluation and so the good Detective and I are
at her house."

"Anything serious?"

"Well, the daughter's pregnant and there was a possibilty
of miscarriage...everybody's good, though.

"Including you?" He knew something like that would weigh
heavy on her.

She waited a beat, "Yeah, I'm OK. What was the reason
you called?"

"The interrogation was a washout. I did meet somone who's
guilty of several murders, but not the one's we're
investigating. And just as a parenthetical aside, he didn't
leave enough evidence for anyone to do anything about
the killings he's actually responsible for. I spent the
rest of the afternoon doing a little record diving. 
And you, Agent Scully? You come across anything tasty?"

"Well, I wouldn't exactly call it tasty, but one of the
deceased smelled of alcohol. Rum, I think. I asked for
all the tox screens to be run again, since this
particular man's autopsy report didn't show anything
but trace amounts of beer, peanuts and possible residual
use of PCP."

"Why all the tox screens? Sounds like you're making 
a leap here, Scully."

She could hear the amusement in his voice. "You're right,
the end of civilization must be at hand. Seriously, I just
want to be sure nothing else got missed. What about you,
did you come up with anything?"

"Well, for one thing, facts in the police reports and
the local papers pretty much mirror each other. The
killings were so well publicized, coverage so detailed,
that we could have anyone of a number of copy cat killers
at work here. One thing stands out, though. Since the murders
started about two weeks ago, they've occurred every three
days. So we're due soon for another, if the pattern holds."

"That's the good news?"

"That's the news. I tracked down Gonzales' girlfriend
at home, and it's probably a good idea we talk to her.
Alex Ruiz-Cardenas was a witness to his shooting. Maybe
she can help us to connect Gonzales and the other deaths,
maybe give some idea where to look for suspects. She's
at 424 Diversey Parkway. At least it's near the lake,
Scully. "

She looked up to see Kris back in the room, motioning
that she was ready to go. "I'll have Jorgensen drop
me off...424 Diversey Parkway? I should be there..." 
Jorgensen mouthed 'thirty'. "In a half hour."

"Good. I'll be in the lobby. Hey, Scully?"

"Yeah?"

"I need a house call, Dr. Dana...I've got this condition..."

"Good bye, Mulder." She hit the off button, but there
was just the wisp of a smile at the corner of her mouth.


~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X

The Whole Catastrophe
Chapter Four  - Penthouse Suite
By Diehard and Dryad

They could see the north end of Lincoln Park as they
rode in the glass-walled elevator, dotted with the red
orange stands of trees saluting the peak of Midwest autumn. 
Directly across from them, Lake Michigan shimmered
burnished gold as the edges of the sun's fading western
light dappled its waves. Looking down, Alexander Hamiliton's
bronze countenance pointed the way toward the running path,
with its after-work joggers, and the black, wrought-iron
entrance to the zoo was just visible at the far end.

Cardenas was waiting for them in her 26th floor penthouse.

It was Scully who spoke first, "Well, I'd say you won that
pissing match." There was a slight smirk caressing her
lovely face.

He was rocking back and forth on his heels, feeling flush
with victory. "I'm not sure I know what you mean."

Neither one of them looked at each other, but they could
see their wavering images in the glass.

"You know damn well what I mean. I realize that our
thick-necked friend at the desk was being a tad too gung-ho
in his zealousness to protect the tenants."

"Extremely rude, I thought."

"OK. But when he asked you what our business was, I
believe your response, 'F. B. I. Business. Business that
doesn't concern you', accompanied by brandishing your badge
close enough to his face to give him whiplash,...That was
very... Alpha male of you."

"Well, I suppose I could've been silent and just let you
shoot him. You do seem to be able to fire on a man in order
to make a point."

"And I can do it again, don't forget."

"So you admit I'm not the only one with aggressive
tendencies, eh, Scully?"  He turned and leaned in
toward her.

She tilted her head in his general direction, "You know,
Mulder, other couples seem to be able to flirt with each
other without mentioning gunplay. One of us seems to always
bring it up."

"That's what makes us special, Scully. By the way, is that
what we're doing here, flirting? I thought you were
reproaching me for unseemly conduct. We're still on
the clock, partner..."

As the elevator slowed and stopped, the doors opened just
in time to save him from her retort.

The first things they saw were a small hallway with mauve
colored walls, a gilt framed oil of what Mulder recognized
as Old Habana in its heyday, and an enormous ginko in a
planter. Walking toward them with her outstretched right
hand was tall, elegant figure of Dr. Alejandra Ruiz-
Cardenas. Her other hand was kept behind her back. 
She was what used to be his type, tall, with a curvy
figure beneath white jeans and a loose white sweater. 
She wore no jewelry, save an expensive wristwatch---
nothing gilded her heavy-on-the-cream cafe-au-lait skin.

"Agent Mulder? Elliot told me you were on your way up.
I'm Alex." She'd given him the full wattage of her
perfect smile. Even, white, beautiful teeth. It would've
been lovely except Mulder couldn't help but notice
that her smile never reached her eyes.

Looking at his companion with something less than
delight, she drawled, "And this must be your...
assistant?"

"I'm Special Agent Mulder," he dryly replied as they
shook hands, "and this is my partner, Special Agent
Scully." He made sure there was just a hint of extra
emphasis on the word 'partner.'

"Ah, I see..." Turning to the other woman, Cardenas
made a show of seeming apologetic.  "Please forgive
me, Agent." Again, the outretched hand.

"We appreciate you making time to see us." Scully replied,
her smile now just as dazzling. Interestingly, her smile
never made it to her eyes either. The handshake was
phenomenally lukewarm.

Alex eased her hand away and looked at the two of them, 
"Where are my manners? Please come into my home, we can
talk there." She turned on her heels and walked back
into the open door just a small distance away. As she did,
both agents noticed her left hand was wrapped
in a bandage.

Mulder and Scully's eyes were set on scan as they followed
Gonzales' former girlfriend into the huge suite, as she
led down a long foyer. Almost simultaneously, they noticed
an oil painting of St. Peter next to the door, which Mulder
would guess was 17th century Spanish. Otherwise devoid
of decor, the only other items were a small marble-topped
table that held a faience vase of Bird of Paradise. 
By contrast, the painting was glaringly out of place with
its ornate, colonial-style gold leaf frame.

The foyer opened up into the living room and the rest of
the penthouse. It too, was starkly furnished, very
Bauhaus, white rugs, black leather and shades of gray
as accents, chrome tables and lamps. One whole side was
wall to ceiling glass, with a spectacular view of
the lake. An oil portrait of Our Lady of Mercy, in an
elaborate wrought iron frame hung in counterpoint to all
the simplicity on the far wall.  The bedroom, kitchen,
and study all clearly visible, coming off the main room
like the spokes of a wheel. The living room was by far
the largest room, but the others were by no means small. 

Alex turned to her guests, "Please feel free to look around.
Let me make you both un cafecito. I'll just be a moment."

Scully replied, "Really it's not necessary."

"Oh, but it is, Agent Scully." Alex pulled her jet black
hair to one side, draping it over her shoulder. "I'd never
live with myself if I didn't offer you something." With that,
she moved into the kitchen. In a few seconds they could hear
the hiss of an espresso machine. Cardenas' back was to them
as she busied herself at a workstation.

The rest of the suite was furnished in the same spartan
elegance. Black lacquer funiture in the bedroom, chrome
in the study. Luxurious and simple at the same time, but
there was something cold about it. Virtually no personal
effects to be seen, save photos in the living room of
Alex and what both agents assumed were her parents,
and one of Cardenas and Gonzales apparently on vacation,
which rested on a nightstand near the bed. Judging from
the first photo, the attire of two older adults and the
sumptuous surroundings would indicate that Alex came
from a wealthy family. How Alejandra Ruiz-Cardenas
was able to afford an apartment overlooking Lake Michigan
on a professor's salary was beginning to make sense to both
of them.

They continued their self-conducted tour as the hissing
of the espresso machine grew louder, accompanied by the
sporadic clatter of dishes coming from the kitchen.

"Rich girl." Mulder said over his shoulder.

"Very rich girl from the looks of things." Scully opined.

"Very rich girl with old money form Cuba, who would seem
to be a little bit of a control freak." Mulder drew close
enough to whisper in Scully's ear.

"You think?"

Even the study was ordered to the extreme, even though it
held a huge amount of artifacts. They were all neatly
labeled and placed on stands or display tables. Mulder
noticed though no strictly religious or ceremonial
artifacts, only those that held functional value or were
objects of personal adornment. There was also a small, rough
looking chest with a padlock and with an oblong cedarwood
box resting on top. It didn't go with the rest of the room.
Scully winced a little as they looked over the perfectly
organized work area, files, computer station. Mulder caught
her pained expression.

"What?"

"Was I that bad, Mulder?"

"I think that's one of those questions like 'Does this make
me look fat?' "

"Thanks." Her lips quirked in a grin.

"Don't mention it." He brought the tips of his fingers to
the small of her back for just a second, and what about to
say soomething else, when a oil paintng of St. Teresa in
a bronze die-cast frame stopped them both in their tracks.
Mulder moved away to more closely inspect the piece.
Touching his elbow, Scully caught his eye and his solemn
nod told her he'd made some connection.

Now the kitchen noise had been replaced with music.
It was clearly Latin, melodic and slowly rhythmic. 

Ruiz-Cardenas emerged from the far side of modern kitchen,
and strode leisurely back toward the living room, passing
gray granite worktops, a professional grade stove, and a huge
stainless steel Sub-Zero refrigerator. She reminded herself
she'd have to start interviewing someone to do the cooking
soon, the last girl was a nightmare.

Mulder strolled to the window, ostensibly to check out the
twilight skyline and the boats on the water, but really
he wanted to watch Ruiz-Cardenas' reflection unobserved.
>From what Jorgensen had initially told them Nat Gonzales
was a good man, intelligent, a hard worker, but not someone
who moved it the same circles as his girlfriend. Personally,
he figured that anyone who gained the respect of someone
like Hector Dean Shinoda had to fall on the extra side of
ordinary. He had some idea why this woman would be attracted
to a man so far outside her universe.

The two women were at the breakfast bar, which was situated 
just outside the main work area of the kitchen, bracketing
the main layout of the living room. Scully was on a stool
on one side, and Alex on the other, laying out an expesso
pot, demitasses, cream, sugar.

Scully said, "Professor Cardenas..."

"Alex, please." Her tone just barely avoided being
patronizing. It was the way one might invite a long-term
employee to useyour first name.

"Alex, I'm really sorry we have to ask you all these
questions again."

"Don't concern yourself. I know it's necessary in order
to arrest Naftali's murderer." 

Her expression was one of detachment, an odd one for the 
still grieiving lover, Mulder noted, as he turned and walked
toward them, taking a seat next to Scully. 

Ruiz-Cardenas gave a close-lipped smile, pulling a leather
covered stool around with her unbandaged hand and easing
herself down. "Allow me a small boast," she requested
as she poured, "Cafe cubano. The only way to drink coffee."

He didn't respond.

"Thank you, for all this effort...especially when you've
been injured." Scully said.  Now she was the one with
the slight tone in her voice. It was the voice of Dr.Scully,
and Mulder always enjoyed watching her zero in. "What
happened to your hand?"

Ruiz-Cardenas turned away from them and reached down
into the bar. Jet black hair now spilled down her back,
evenly cut right beneath her shoulderblades. She pulled
out some demitasse spoons and set the on the counter. 
"Yes...well it's somewhat embarrassing...when I heard
what had happened. I lost it...threw a glass against the 
wall...and cut myself trying to clean it up." Mulder
watched her intently, her expression didn't match what
she was saying. She didn't seem all that embarrassed
to be telling two strangers a story of an supposed
emotional outburst. As a matter of fact, she seemed calm,
too calm, she could've been reviewing her syllabus with
some graduate students.

"So, that was about two weeks ago?"

"Yes, ridiculous thing to do, wasn't it?

"Grief can make someone do things they wouldn't do
ordinarily." It was Mulder's voice now.

"Yes. Yes it can." A momentary shift, in which both
Mulder and Scully could see something a little wild
in Alex's eyes, something that quickly was banished
and replaced with smooth calm and a practiced diffidence.
She poured them all cofee, very deliberate
in what she did, with great economy of movement. Mulder
guessed that being a cultural anthropologist would make a
person hyperaware of what they were doing at all times. 
The point was to observe, not be observed. In a way,
psychology was the same thing, only on the micro-linear
scale. And it was his turn to observe Cardenas, observe
and draw the right conclusions.

"But you need me to tell you about that night, don't you?" 
Alex was clearly giving the signal that the line of
questioning about her hand was over.  "I was already
waiting at the restaurant. I was early. The guest lecturer
for one of my classes cancelled due to illness, so I popped
home and told Naftali I'd meet him there. Our table is right
next to the front window. We like to watch people as
we eat," she smiled briefly. "I had a glass of white
wine. . .spied him stepping off the curb, walking towards
me with that big grin that always means he's had a good day. 
A car slowed to let him cross, and I see the window rolling
down, which I thought was odd, because although it's not
winter yet, it was a cold day. There was a flash of light
from the car window, but not from the window itself. 
I think it was light from the restaurant glinting off
of the gun. Anyway, the next thing I see is a bright
flash, then he's on the pavement."

Scully hadn't touched her espresso. Ruiz-Cardenas went
into her solititous host routine, "Our cafecitos are an
acquired taste. Perhaps you'd prefer some tea, Agent
Scully...I know how the Irish love their 'tay.'

Mulder finished his and fought a grin as he imagined
the look on Scully's face. No eyebrow, not even a twitch
of the lip, just a straight-on, dead glare that said 
'And the horse you rode in on, too'. Ruiz-Cardenas would
learn.

"You didn't recognize the car or the driver?" asked Scully,
icily ignoring that cultural swipe.

"No. All my attention was on Naftali. I could have cared less
what the driver looked like. But I've already told the
police all of this, is it really necessary to go back over
it again and again and again?"

"Well, Professor Cardenas, should this go to trial, you'll
certainly be expected to do so again, yes." Her words hung
in the air.

Ah, there it was. Scully's bright head turned towards
him in their traditional 'jump in any time, Mulder' 
interview stance. Ruiz-Cardenas looked at him too, her
face losing its let's-be-pleasant-about-this expression
for a moment. It returned when he went on, "You have a
lovely home, Professor. I'm surprised to see there aren't
any objects of veneration displayed in your collection." 

"I beg your pardon, Agent Mulder? "

"I found it fascinating that you only seem to have objects
of everyday use or adornment on public view ," he replied.

"You must respect other cultures in order to be respected,
Agent Mulder. What about you, Agent Scully, would you mind
if your family bible was torn up and sold as an nothing more
than an item of curiosity? Surely your devout Irish clan
would be beside themselves.'

Scully said nothing, but started sipping delicately
at her espresso.

Mulder jumped on the opportunity. "Point taken, but tell me,
Alex, why would you display evidence of your devotion to
Ellegua, Obatala, and Oya? That's the significance of
those wonderful oils you have, if I'm not mistaken."

The bullet hit the target. Cardenas' cool dissolved and
both agents were treated to a look of shock and anger.
She was however, able to rally quickly. "Agent Mulder,
I didn't realize you were familiar with the Seven Powers.
But I'm hardly a devotee. What would make you say that?"

"The placement of the pictures. Only a devotee would make
sure each image repressenting a god would be placed in its
sacred delegation in the home."

"You flatter me. I'm afraid my attention to detail is
my interest in maintaining cultural sensitivity and a
certain historical accuracy. The paintings were from
an estate in Cuba, pre-revolution. The owners were
important Santeristas, unusual in that they were of the
educated class." A pause, and then a full display of
those beautiful teeth again, "It's a gesture of scholarly
respect, Agents, nothing more. She glanced at the Chanel
watch on her left wrist, "Speaking of scholarly things,
I have office hours tonight, and I'm afraid I'll have to
be on my way soon. Please forgive me for cutting our
discussion short. But feel free to come again, should you
think I could be of any further help."

"Well, actually, there was just one more thing, Alex." 
Mulder wanted to cast one more line. "I noticed what
seemed to be a locked chest and a cigar humidor in your
study...those are yours?"

Ruiz-Cardenas looked at him long and hard before
answering. "No, they're just a way to keep Naftali near.
You can't blame me for doing that, can you?"


~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X


The Whole Catastrophe
Chapter 5
By Diehard and Dryad

Scully slid into the passenger's seat, and sat
up as straight as possible, they'd just done an
interview, and it was time to compare notes.
Surprisingly, Mulder hadn't taken the lead in
pulling together their observations.

She took a deep breath, brushing away an errant 
strandof hair from her eyes.  "You know, Mulder,
Cardenas shouldn't still be bandaging a cut that's
over two weeks old. I'm thinking it's more recent."

"And that would mean..?"

"That she's had some injury, possibly in the last
day or so, one that she didn't want to tell us about.

"I'd say that sounds right. And I'm not sure I buy her
story about those paintings."

"Why am I not surprised to hear you say that?
There's a lot that doesn't add up. Overall, her
behavior was odd." Scully paused, looking over
at her partner, whose eyes were on the road.

"Very. No love of the Irish, either." He could hear
a chuff coming from the passenger's side.

"Mulder, you still haven't told me." She knew Alex
was a stunningly beautiful woman, an enigma, and if
she knew anything at all about her partner, he'd
already assumed there was some paranormal 
connection to all this. 

"Told you what?"

"What you think of Alex Cardenas."

"Aside from the obvious facts that she's a snobbish,
wealthy intellectual, with more than a passing interest
in Santeria? That she's displaying some seriously 
incongruent behavior after witnessing the shooting
death of her lover?...You mean beyond that?"

"I guess she didn't make much of an impression, then."

"I'm trying to withhold judgement."

She cut him a look, and saw him biting his lip, trying
to smother a laugh. "Right. Well, I guess we should
review the rest of the visit with our lovely host
once we get to the hotel."

"Well, actually, I'm relegating my impressions to my
unconscious mind. Using the occult process of discovery
that such a tactic offers, I'm sure further light will
be shed on the situation by morning."

"What?" She twisted herself around and leaned against
the window. She wanted to get a good look at this.
"Explain."

He turned a gave her a squinty look, "In laymen's terms,
I'm giving it a rest until tomorrow. And so should you.
Go on, Scully, assume the position."

"Excuse me?"

"Lay that head back down, close your eyes and let me
shuttle you in my golden chariot."

"Chariot?'

"Taurus. Whatever." Much to his satisfaction, a second
later she was head against the head rest, eyelids
fluttering shut. He went for her hand, and lacing her
fingers in his, she drew them both against her chest.
The Drive rolled on before them, purple in the dusk, 
with Lake Michigan darkening in the fading light.

"Mulder, you know I know."

"Know what?"

"Alex Ruiz-Cardenas is a gorgeous woman."

"Really? I hadn't noticed. Besides, I've got this thing
for redheads."

"That was the right response. Smart man."

~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X


She rode the rest of the whole way with her eyes closed,
sinking back into the passenger's seat of their Taurus.
What she wanted was a clean, quiet place to lay her head,
a hot bath, and she hoped to God Mulder hadn't gotten them
rooms in the worst fleabag in town.

She was tired physically, but no more than what she'd expect 
her first day back. What she felt was a kind of mental 
exhaustion, the cost of containing this morning's episode. 
What she'd flashed on at the morgue took its toll-- deeply 
disturbing her, even though it'd only lasted a second. 
Afterwards, it had taken a tremendous amount of psychic 
energy to stay detached and keep back the ghosts. 
The last six months had been a reprieve from defenses 
that were second nature to her, defenses she'd built up from 
the moment she'd sliced open her first cadaver.

But Mulder had pulled back the layers one by one with
a lover's infinite care. It was just what she'd needed,
for all the obvious reasons, but it had opened up those
parts of her she'd kept sealed tight. The grief and pain
and terror of her life were hers alone to bear, or so
she thought. Her survival plan had worked pretty well,
too. The only problem was that it'd kept anyone from being 
able to touch her.

All that had changed. And slowly, slowly, she was learning
to let down her guard. But now she'd have to to flex some 
of those protective those muscles again, too much 
depended on her resolve for her to weaken, too many souls 
who needed her to put the pieces together. Her little side trip 
to Jorgensen's house hadn't helped her equilibrium either.
It had pushed old grief into the foreground, and a new
assignment in the field was not the place to visit
memories of what she'd lost.

Lulled by the motion of the car as they cruised the Drive, 
she remembered a night months ago, sated and lazy in 
each other's arms. He'd told her they were a force of nature, 
unstoppable together. 

She'd laughed then, but now she just wanted him to be right.

~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X

He found the local jazz station and Mc Coy Tyner's piano
soothed her spirit. The shimmering notes filled the car
as they cruised south on Lake Shore Drive. His right hand
was still on hers as it now lay on her lap, cupping it
loosely as the car spanned the long blue stretch of road
in the settling twilight. She let her mind wander, not
thinking about anything except the feel of his palm on the
back of her hand. Minutes passed, she wasn't sure how long,
she wasjust glad to be able to wind down, at peace in the
wordless comfort between them.

"Hey Scully, you asleep?"

"No, just resting my eyes."

He'd been watching her from the rearview mirror,
letting the music weave its way around them. It was some
kind of coda to their first day in the field, something
bringing them home to each other.

"How was the first day back?" He was asking about a
day that included corpses, latex and morbid lividity, 
women who could have children, and wanted to know if
there was a slow bleed in his partner's heart.

"Long. Hard. Harder than I thought it would be. But I
ended up spending time with a guy who's so crazy, it was
just the distraction I needed."

"Lucky you. The only thing I had to keep me going was
knowing I'd end the day in the arms of a woman who lives
to keep my ego in check."

"Anyone I know?"

"Behold, the rapier wit of my beloved." He cut a glance
toward her and saw her smiling slightly, eyes still shut. 
His hold on her hand tightened.

As they pulled off the exit ramp, he thought about Shinoda
and the interrogation leading to nowhere. His old self would
have made the man one more obsession. In the past, he 
needed his obsessions, his frantic searches, brandishing 
them like a badge of courage. His relentlessness was in part, 
a way to not feel the pain of Sam's disappearance. 

Scully'd taught him other things could soothe that loss.

He was not the man to unravel Shinoda's secret, not this
time. He could live with that. And if their paths crossed
again, if it was his task to capture his man, he could
live with that, too. She'd also taught him acceptance,
strengthened his belief in fate.

Meanwhile, Naftali Gonzales was dead, and there were
plenty more of the dead whose bodies held the truth,
waiting for him, waiting for Scully and the questions
only they could ask. Somehow, Santeria or the community
of believers in Santeria were a part of this. How,
exactly, he didn't know. Tomorrow, they would
do more investigation, review the lab results, debrief,
reconstruct, deconstruct. Mulder was going to get
answers, he'd find a way to stem to the chaos and
brutality that had killed a good cop and left a trail
of bodies in its wake.

But Scully had finally brought him to the place where
he could value having his own life, where he could fight
each battle, one skirmish at a time, one day at a time.

"Mulder, are we there yet?"

"Agent Scully, we are approaching our destination.
Get ready to feast those baby blues on our refuge from
the storm."

~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X

Scully did some light reconnaissance of the building's
entrance as he pulled up to the curb. It was smooth granite
and carved cupolas, cornices that spoke of Louis Sullivan,
and bronze letters spelling out their destination. She was
hit with the dazzle of levered glass and the entrance of
clearly one of the better hotels in town. Before she could
say anything,a valet hustled over to the driver's side and
welcomed both of them.

The Burnham.

Her personal deliverance from seven years of variations
on the Bates Motel.

Mulder. He did this.

When he slid out out their rental to retrieve their
luggage, she took in the full effect of the phalanx of
red-coated doormen, bellhops, and car parkers swirling
around the terazzo walkway. Out of the rear view mirror,
she saw him slip one of the troops a couple of bills,
and the luggage was whisked away. She craned her neck
to take in her partner as he sauntered toward her, hands
shoved in his pockets. He seemed more than amused,
judging by the smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

He opened the passenger door and gestured toward the
entrance with a flourish. "I know you're used to some
place with more character, but duty calls. We'll just have
to make the best of it."

"Oh my God...How can we...?" peering up at him over
the bridge of her nose, still partially under the influence
of a temporary haze. She didn't resist when he helped her
out of the passenger's seat with his hand on her elbow,
or utter a single word as their chariot was whisked to
the netherworld.

Mulder thought he was home free, slipping his hand to
its familiar spot at the small of her back as he steered
her toward the door. But by the time they'd made it through
the threshold, whatever she was feeling had morphed into
full-out resistance. Digging her heels into the lush
Persian carpet that spanned a third of the lobby, it was
time for an explanation. Visions of expense reports, audits
and Kersh's office flashed before her eyes. How was her
brilliant, albeit crackpot partner going to justify this
in their report?

"You better explain how we ended up here, because I don't
plan on taking another step until you do." She reached
behind her,took his hand and drew him in front of her. 
"I mean it, I want to hear it, all of it, and it'd better
be good."

His eyes shifted from gray to green, barely containing his
enjoyment." Well, one explanation is that the CPD so
appreciates our time and expertise that they made
sure we were well taken care of."

"Right. So they booked us accommodations at a luxury
hotel. Just because no one else who's requested us on a
consult has done anything remotely like this in all the
time we've been in the Bureau shouldn't make me suspicious.
How about we try this again, with you telling me the truth
this time?" Fingering his lapels, she pinned him where he
stood with a look that told him she was worried, and not
about to back down, either.

He raised his hands above his head in surrender.
"I give up, Scully." He tried looking sheepish, but
felt way too self-congratulatory to pull it off. 
"I was me, G-woman, I'm the guilty party. Lazarov told me
this was the best small hotel downtown, so I booked the
reservation after the interrogation this afternoon."

Now she was tapping his shoulder, "That much I already
figured out. Listen, this kind of unwarranted expense could
get us a reprimand, if not a suspension. Jesus, Mulder....
Kersh could transfer us to Cornhole, Kansas for this.
Seriously, we just got the X-Files back..."

"Scully, The Burnham is close to the Field Office, the 11th
and State lockup, and City Hall, so we can safely make the
case there's a practical reason this is a good choice.
And there is nothing about this hotel stay that Skinner,
Kersh or any bean-counting geek in Cost Override Control
will take issue with. The Bureau's Amex gets a charge for
the per diem rate, and I had the rest put on my Visa."

"Why are you doing this ?"

"I figure I needed to make amends for all the times you
stuck itout with me in rat traps, forests, caves, you know,
our usual accommodations." His voice softened, and he took
her by the hand, "I thought...I thought it might be hard
to plunge back into all the slicing and dicing...I wanted
to make it a little easier."

"You know you don't have to."

"But I want to Scully. I want to because I finally can."
He smiled, his vulnerability so transparent, it made her
heart clench in her chest to see it. "Because...because
you've let me in. Maybe it'll help with the rest of the
day, too"

She took both his hands in hers, her fingers stroking his
knuckles, She could accept this attention, this care,
but as his equal, always his equal. "Just so we're clear,
we take care of each other, Mulder."  She held his gaze
in hers, "Right?"

"Always, Scully. Always."

The earlier smile has been replaced with a full-tilt
shit-eating grin. "You know, sometimes I'm so clever
I scare myself."

"And is this where I offer to console you?" The level of
intimacy receded with that little boast and she was
now brushing away some imaginary lint from his sleeve.

"Actually, since I've been a bad, bad, boy by keeping this
from you, maybe you just better take me to bed without
any supper."

"Isn't that 'send' you to bed without any supper?"

"I won't argue with you over semantics. You can explain
the difference to me in a tutorial. That's what I need,
Scully, a little one-on-one." He was going to steer her
toward the registration desk, but she'd already eased past
him, heading in that direction.

Over her shoulder she teased, "C'mon Mulder,
play your cards right and maybe you'll get that private
instruction."

"Promises, promises." He stood there for a second
enjoying that stride of hers, that glorious rear view,
and then decided he'd appreciate it more once they were
behind closed doors, and sprinted to her side.

They strolled under a vaulted tin ceiling toward the
curvedbrass reservation desk, complete with a pair a
bright, young clerks poised at the ready. Huge potted
palms flanked a nearby alcove flagged with a placard
which read, 'The Redoubt', the hotel's bar, she guessed.
Passing paisley covered wing chairs, they spied another
couple having what appeared to be Cosmopolitans. She
sighed with satisfaction, something not lost on Mulder.

His popularity quotient was soaring as her heels
clicked on the maple parquet floor. Once they'd
made it to the desk, she noticed he got them registered
in record time. Leaning in as he finished signing,
she whispered, "You're going to spoil me."

He tossed the pen aside and turned to face her.
"That's the plan, Scully, that's the plan. Unless of
course, you think this place is overkill...'cause we
could always hit The Pacific Garden Mission. I hear
there's at at least 100 beds, and a soup line
to die for. "

"The only place I'm going with you tonight is
upstairs," as they made their way toward the elevator, 
"After all, Agent, Mulder, it's in your best interests
to get us to our rooms as soon as possible."

"Why is that, Agent Scully?"

"Where else would I be able to properly thank you?"

He had plenty of suggestions, but didn't say a word
as the elevator doors slid shut.


~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~


She was sure she'd been speaking English, and he'd
given the impression that he'd been paying attention
to what she'd been saying. Mind you, it wasn't
particularly brilliant or complicated, but it would do
the trick. They'd both go into their separate rooms--
adjoining ones, of course--unpack, make an effort to
have their rooms looked used and reconnoiture in his
room in about an hour.

These basic steps would be repeated every night, while
alternating the finale destination.

Simple.  Right.

He'd given her the room key in the elevator, number
1008--he was in 1010. She'd outlined the plan of action,
and should be opening the door right now. So why was he
planted in her doorway, not going into his room, not
unpacking, and looking sly, sexy and immovable?

"You look a little tired Scully, why don't I help
you unpack?"

"I think I've got that covered."

"Really? I can be very helpful. You know, lay out your
clothes, draw your bath, help you undress..." He started
worrying his lower lip with the tip of his tongue and
she was aware of the blush creeping up her neck.

"No thanks, your concern is touching, though." Snaking her
arm around his waist, she began to fiddle with the lock.
She had to bite down on the inside of her cheek to keep
from laughing.

"C'mon, let's play bellboy and business traveller. Or you
could take me into protective custody. That's it...I'm
a man with a terrible secret and you have to keep an eye
on me at all times. Especially when I take off my clothes,
moving slowly, very slowly. "

Now she was chuckling, and the lock wasn't opening any
more easily. She kept trying to get a clear shot at it,
but he kept darting in front, blocking all her efforts. 
She was really laughing now. 

"Step away from the door. Really, I'm serious."

"You don't seem all that serious." He was laughing now.
He was pushing it, definitely pushing it.

"I am." She stopped struggling with the lock, and in one
swift, decisive move, pulled back and pinched him hard
around the middle.

He leapt back, yelping, and she moved with a purpose.
Key in lock. Lock turning, door opening.  Scully on
the other side of the threshold. Blowing away a strand
of auburn hair that had gotten mussed in all the exertion,
she took in the sight of him rubbing his side, mouth open
in shock. Victory.

He started toward her and she shut and locked the door,
peeking at him through the peephole. He was still standing
there, waving at her.

"Mulder?," she yelled through a couple of inches of
solid oak.

As soon as her heard her, he turned on his heel and
let him himself in next door.

A split second later she heard the ring of the phone
by the nightstand. She went over and picked up, fairly
sure who was on the other end.

A sultry drawl, "Unpack. Make the room look lived in.
Then get that beautiful ass in here."

Click.

"I'm on it, partner," she said to no one in particular
as she pulled her suitcase onto the bed.


~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~


This was risky for her, she knew it. She'd plumbed Mulder's
hidden depths as his lover, coming to understand his need
to be touched, for tenderness, for simple reassurance.
And he's tapped into something the others never found,
something she'd kept buried even from herself. Desire. 
Not just that feeling of wanting, but the need to see it
reflected in the eyes of your lover, the power of it.

And so here she is, standing at the connecting door of
their rooms with a tray, two glasses, two bottles of Scotch
from the minibar. She has on her blouse, her skirt, her
heels, and nothing else. This isn't anything like her and
it's everything like her. None of few and far between men
from her past ever suspected her capable of this. She'd
spent years telling herself she didn't have that kind of
hunger, but it was Mulder who proved her wrong, with
his hands stroking her skin, whispering in her ear,
whispering things she wanted to believe.

That she owned him body and soul. That she wasn't some Ice
Queen, but just the opposite, a match for him in every way. 
That after everything they'd been through, they were meant for this. 
And like many things that had come to pass in seven years, 
he told her she had to trust that he was right.

But there are still shreds of doubt that still her hand
before she can knock. She is Ahab's daughter, and there is
part of her that feels embarrassed to be so bold. She lets
herself imagine him lying naked in the next room, touching
himself, calling her name.

She knocks, and in a heartbeat Mulder's thrown open 
the door. His shirt sleeves are rolled up to the elbow, 
tie loosened. His eyes rove over her body, but he's silent.
Instead of inviting her in, he's frozen in place.

Her worst fear is coming true, she thinks. "I know..." 
Instead of looking at him, she stares down at the carpet. 
"This is so unlike me... I..."

Mulder doesn't move because the blood in his head is
rushing to his groin, his heart is pounding and he's
telling himself he's not dreaming. The second he opened
the door he could see her nipples pressing against the silk
of her blouse, the bare, smooth skin of her legs. That,
plus the idea that she might have no panties on, 
literally makes him speechless.

She tries to smile, "I guess you didn't order room
service." She starts to turn away, and before she knows
what's hit her, Mulder has her in his room, the tray's
out of her hands, and he's kissing her, kissing her,
kissing her.

Then he's laughing and groaning and pressing her against
the door with his body, fumbling for the lock until it clicks
behind her. His hands weave through her hair, and he's biting
her earlobe, then his mouth becomes one long, hot drag until
he reaches the hollow of her throat. She can feel his cock
through his dress slacks, through her skirt, pressing against
her thigh. Now one hand is over her heart, and the other
is sliding underneath her skirt.

She's breathing heavily, she wants this, all of this, and the
look in his eyes as he finds her, sends of shock of heat right
through her. No else ever looked at her that way, and it's
almost too much. She takes his hand from her chest, kissing
the knuckles, biting the soft pad of his thumb. He slides his
hand between her legs, tracing the outside of her labia,
feathery touches. He shudders as she grows more and more wet. 
She stills his hand, and they're both suspended as the room
spins around them.

"Mulder...I need..."

"Anything, just tell me...Tell me, Scully."

For a second, she's Ahab's daughter again and remembers
that actions speak louder than words. With his hand warm
in hers, she walks him to the chair across from the foot
of the bed.

It's dark in the room, except for the light from the bathroom
and the skyline spanning in front of them. She guides him down
and straddles his lap, foreheads touching. Working his tie
free, she lets herself caress his beautiful throat. She
unbuttons his cuffs and the front of his shirt. She revels in
the smooth planes of his chest, the tips of her fingers sliding down,
down. Her hands find their way to undo his belt, unzip his pants.
Lifting up just enough, she finds hard length of his shaft and pulls
him free. She traces the veins that run up and down, feels every 
pulse as she does. Licking her thumb, she circles and strokes 
the head of his cock

Now he stops her, takes his time following her lead. The cuffs
of her blouse are undone and he strokes figure eights on her 
wrists with his thumb. One by one, his fingers undo her buttons, 
andhe makes an 'X' on each spot he exposes. Bending his head
down, his kisses the rise of her breasts, nips and suckles on her 
nipples. She feels dizzy, but doesn't want to stop, can't imagine 
stopping.Then he eases his hands under her skirt, working it up 
toward her hips. Sliding them under her ass, he lifts her up,
and she braces herself with her hands on his shoulders.
They look at each other, they're at the deepest part of the river
here. There's a smile in the recesses of her eyes, and he knows.
He eases her down over his cock, and she's a delta--lush,
wet, ready.

He thrusts up and into her and she moves into him, sliding up
and down, up and down. Tightening and pulling him deeper
and deeper, she knows by his breathing he's close. His eyes
are shut, but a single tear runs the length of his jaw.

"Only you," he rasps, and her hand's already
brushed it away. "Always...you."

Then he unfurls against her, slowly, intensely.
Once. Then again. And again. A rapid final release
and he's spent, his head on her shoulder, and
she can feel the wetness again.

"Shhh,'' she tries to calm him.

"Don't." He raises his head and kisses her with such
tenderness that she thinks her heart might break.
"I'm good."

Now she feels tears on her own face. "Yes.
Yes, we are."

They hold each other for a long time, motionless, and
then Mulder stirs. Taking her hand in his, he brings both
hands to the place where they're joined. He's softened,
but he's still inside her. She looks up at him, and he
nods. Circling her clit with her own fingertips, his palms
cupping the back of her hand, they travel around and 
around her perfect knot. Then his hand slides underneath 
hers, and its him touching her there, his fingertips moving 
in perfect rhythm. She swells against his strokes, burgeoning, 
blossoming, and she watches him watching her--his gaze 
fixed on that auburn swipe of hair, mesmerized by the flash 
of pink flesh beneath. 

"This is beautiful," he whispers.

She wants to say he is beautiful, that they're beautiful
together, but it's hit her and she trembles and grinds
into his lap. She can't stop herself, not even to tell him
how precious he is to her, how necessary. Rippling,
rippling, flowing in and away and to him, always to him.

~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~

A couple of hours have come and gone and they've showered,
ordered room service, eaten their fill and toasted each other
with the Glenlivet she'd snagged earlier. Right now, they're lying
face to face in his king-size sleigh bed. He's got his long thigh
draped over her hip, and her head is nestled against his chest.
They're having a conversation, sort of, the kind that's a hazy
trail leading nowhere in particular. It's the kind you have with
the trace of your lover still on your lips.

Every once and a while, post-orgasmic Mulder waxes literary.
He has a range that spans quantum physics to bad puns, but
tonight it's Irish poetry. Scully's always a good audience,
and tonight's no different. She loves the sound of his voice,
especially in bed, when it's rough and slurry and sweet beyond
belief. So she plays on his eidetic memory, asking him to name
his favorite Irish bard and recite his favorite poem.

"Easy. W B. Yeats. 'When you Are Old and Full of Sleep.' "

"Go on, I'm waiting."

And he does, and it's lovely. His voice does the poem
justice--gravelly, slow and sensual. But one line throws off
his recitation.

"But one man loved the pilgrim's soul in you, and loved
the sorrows of your changing face." His voice quavered
on that one, and she stopped him with her fingers on
his lips.

"My pilgrim," she whispers, and they watch the skyline,
the lights of the buildings, and she tells him there's no room
for sorrows in their bed.

~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~

It's later, much later. They've both drifted in and out of sleep,
but now they're awake. She knows he's thinking about something,
she can sense it.

"Mulder?"

"Hmmm?"

"What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing."

"Liar." She stifles a yawn, she wants to know, but
Morpheus is beckoning. "Tell me."

"Nothing...everything." He shifts from where he's rolled away
while asleep and draws her close. Now she's lying her back to
his front, and he runs his fingers through her hair.

"You better tell me." She's breathing a little more slowly.

"Wolves.  I was thinking about wolves.  And geese. 
That's what I was thinking about."

"Why?" Sleep calls and she's hovering, back and forth,
but she's trying to rouse herself.

"Because they mate for life."

"Ah...I see..." The bed is so soft, his arms around her feel
so right, and her eyes flutter shut.

"Scully?" He wasn't going to wait. They'd waited too long
and lost too much time.

"Hmmm?"

"Marry me."

There is only the sound of her snuffling into the pillow.
He raises himself up and leans over to see the long,
slow pulls of her breath.

"Don't worry," his whispers into her ear, into her dreams.
"I won't take no for an answer," and settles down next to her.

Morpheus finds him, too.

~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~


The Whole Catastrophe
Chapter 6
By Diehard and Dryad

6:00 am---breakfast finished. They were both feeling 
sleep deprived, but neither one of them was 
complaining.

He was already in typical hotel-room-briefing
mode--siting up against the headboard, crime scene 
and autopsy reports strewn across the bed. 
With his black suit, white dress shirt and black tie, 
he was a well-tailored island in a sea of photos, 
Xeroxes of police files, handwritten notes in his 
semi-legible scrawl.  Nothing new there.  
She had her back to him, brushing her hair as she 
stood in front of the beveled mirror above the dresser. 
Watching his reflection as he scanned the papers, 
she'd always been amazed at the amount of data 
he absorbed, how quickly he'd make connections, 
take point on each case. 

Last night, he'd waited for her to bring up the interview
with Cardenas. This morning, as room service cleared 
their trays, he'd asked her how she wanted to proceed. 
He was deferring to her more, seeking her input. She 
could see the effort he was making to have things on a 
more balanced footing.  She liked it, although it'd taken 
her a minute to answer, to get her bearings.

"Something wrong, Scully?"

"Not wrong...just surprising. You usually
don't ask me my opinion at the outset."

He sheepishly shuffled through sheaves of paper, 
"It was long overdue. Let's just say I have a new found 
appreciation for where some of my strengths lie."

"That almost sounds like flattery, Mulder."

"Not flattery...just a statement of fact."

She stopped what she was doing and turned toward 
him. "Then I can't let you down, can I?"  
Her eyes held a glimmer of warmth that her
intent expression couldn't hide.  "Well... 
each of the deceased were also arrested for crimes 
like the ones resulting in their own deaths. It seems 
important to check those crime scene photos against 
the ones taken on this case to check for discrepancies."

He slid off the bed and strode to the writing table 
where he'd set up his laptop, settling in as best he 
could into a chair that was clearly a tight squeeze 
for his lanky frame. 

"Agreed. I'm guessing you can get those from Det.
Jorgensen. I looked at Gonzales' case files
yesterday and again this morning, but I'm interested 
in what you'll see once you review them and check the 
autopsies of our unholy dead."

"I'll ask her to pull a set of photos from Gonzales'
files when she calls...which should be any time 
now. Apparently the CPD is sending a squad car
to pick me up this morning."

"Ah...the VIP treatment. Just make sure they don't
make you sit in the backseat. You know...if it 
looks bad..."

She finished it for him, "...it's bad for the FBI."
She chuffed after that one, and her eyes narrowed,
the scope of the day settling in.  "Well then, my day 
looks pretty mapped out...what's on your agenda, 
partner?"

"I'm looking over the most recent crime scene 
data one more time. And just to be sure, I'll set up a 
walkthrough with the someone from the evidence 
collection team. So far, there's no indication of anyone 
present at the these new murders, except the 
deceased."

You certainly won't win any popularity contests 
doing that."  She'd done enough of these consults 
and knew that the local PD always chafed at the idea 
that anyone would be looking for blind spots, mistakes.

"I think Lazarov and his people are already clear I'm
a pain in the ass." He shrugged off the knowledge that
that it could be problematic. Truth was, he didn't care.
Besides, there was one other thing, another approach
beginning to occupy his attention

"I...also want to locate a footnote in an old X-file."
He paused a second and went on.  "It refers to 
a Santera practice concerning retribution and 
untimely death. There may be similarities to certain 
Haitian voodoo rituals, and cross-referencing may 
give us a better handle at some possibilities. After 
that, I'm thinking I want to visit some botanicas to 
get some firsthand information." 

"Mulder...Isn't it a little soon for us to make that 
kind of leap?"


"But Scully...that's why we get the big bucks."


X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~



He memorized every move as she slipped on her jacket 
and shrugged on her trench coat. Coat, brown pantsuit, 
beige silk blouse---had all been smoothed into place 
with an efficiency and grace that fascinated him. 
It was that same fluidity of movement when she made 
a Y-incision, sutured his wounds, pulled the trigger. 
Leaning back from his laptop, he wanted to make sure 
he could fully appreciate the view---her daylight persona 
in place, ready to take on the world, adjusting her holster 
as a finishing touch.

Jorgensen had called to say a car was on the way
and Scully'd arranged for the photos to be at 
the lab when she arrived. She also made sure 
the dieners pulled all the bodies from the cooler 
and set them up in an exam bay, and that all the 
tissue samples and test results were available. She'd 
already hit the ground running, and expected everyone 
else to keep up. 

Her drive was apparent on their first case. It took him a 
while to admit it to himself, but it spoke to him, made him 
willing to trust her, even though he knew she thought he 
was probably certifiable. Time and tragedy had given him 
many more reasons, not the least of which was somewhere 
along the way he'd fallen in love with her. 

She'd caught him red-handed.  "We're on the clock, Mulder."

"My nose is pressed to the grindstone."  He was smiling
despite his transgression.

"Grindstone, huh?   I don't think so."  She leaned back 
against the dresser and folded her arms across her chest.

"I could see how you might miss the level of intensity.
I tend to hide it...it can be intimidating."

"Uh huh." There was the barest hint of a smirk teasing
the corner of her mouth.

"Seriously, I'm deeply focused on uncovering new leads."

"You just won't stop, will you?" 

"I've got some momentum here, Scully.  Can't blame 
me for tryin' to run with it ."

She walked over, put her hands on his shoulder and
whispered in his ear, "I can see it's up to me to keep you 
in line.  Go on.  Get to it, Mulder.  We've got our work cut 
out for us..."  She brushed her lips against his jaw.  
"I'll see you tonight, partner."  

He turned so that they were facing each other, and his 
hands snaked up and around to lace behind her neck,

"I'll be good.  See you tonight."

X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~


The ride to the Coroner's office and the County morgue
was brief. The complex was attached to the County public 
hospital just south and west of the downtown area. 
The building was a huge slab of dark cement and  
steel---ugly, utilitarian---harsh looking even from the 
outside. Scully felt her composure shift and slide. It was 
a cold, slate-colored day, typical for October in Chicago. 
As rain pelted the windows of the squad car, something 
coiled tight in her chest and she worked at drawing slow deep 
breaths. There was no room for a repeat of yesterday--
no room for hesitation, today had to go by the numbers. 

It'd never occurred to her to tell Mulder what had happened 
at the morgue yesterday.  It wasn't something for him to fix.

The patrolman let her off at the staff entrance,
and she tried without success to shake off the chill, making
her way down the dank, poorly lit halls to Bay #3,
where Kris Jorgensen was waiting. She strode to the 
doorway, paused to take a deep breath, to force down
a wave of dread that tasted like bile.

Scully walked quietly toward the other woman and 
saw a keen interest lighting the her features as she 
checked out the dressing on two of the corpses, bending 
close to examine the wrapping, the ties.

"Detective?"

Kris jerked away from the light touch above her elbow,
then immediately flushed with embarrassment. 
"Agent Scully, sorry. Didn't see you there."

"You seem absorbed, Det. Jorgensen.  Feeling less
put off by the dead in this setting, it would seem."
I wish I could say the same, she thought. 

"Actually, I should thank you for insisting I stick it
out yesterday." 

"Why is that?"

She looked away from Scully and focused on some of 
the linen dressing, fingering it as she spoke, "This is all so...
fascinating.  I feel like a new avenue of investigation's been 
opened up for me. This is work I'd like to be more familiar 
with, understand better."  She stopped to consider something 
for a moment,  "Who knows?  Maybe I'll ask for a 
transfer to the Forensic Unit."

Scully swallowed hard and nodded in response to 
what appeared to be her liaison's rapid-fire conversion 
from avoidance to affinity  "Great.  Are we ready to get 
started?"

"Well, actually...there's one thing. We've got all the bodies
here, except for Nat."  Jorgensen looked at he rows of 
corpses.  "When we tried to exhume, Nat's family told us that 
Alex Cardenas had power of attorney. She blocked it...
said it was too painful..."

"Nothing we can do about that."  Scully was sure Mulder
would jump on Cardenas' reluctance to cooperate. 
That woman was anything but the typical grieving lover.
They'd get to her later---right now, the dead were demanding 
her attention.  "What about the tissue samples?"

"They're in collection jars next to each body, just like
you asked."

She stared at the line of dead bodies. Vincent Coluko, 
Ashleen Wienhoft, Albert Breen, La Shawn Michaels,
Dakota Roberts.  A bitter lump started to form in her 
throat and she had to force down the urge to dry heave.
Taking another deep breath, "We've got plenty of work 
to do, so let's get started." 

As she walked to the display of photos laid out on the 
Assistant M.E.'s desk, her mind formed just three words,
a prayer.   'Please. Help me.'



~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x

Scully let Jorgensen pace up and down the rows between 
the exam tables, studying the bodies, while she looked at the
crime scene shots, the crimes these dead had committed.
Children, mothers, couples, old people--gutted, raped, 
sodomized, shot, stabbed, branded, garroted. She could 
feel a trickle of sweat between her shoulder blades, even 
though it was almost as cold as storage in the bay.  
I have to do this, she told herself, I have to.

"Agent Scully," a voice from amidst the cadavers, "should
I suit up? I've got gowns, masks, and latex gloves."  She
was ready for action, and feeling a little restless.  It was time
for revelation, and she wasn't about to miss a thing.

"You do that."  Scully piled the pictures with care into
some kind of organized whole---Murderers on one side---
Victims on the other---first dead at the bottom, with the most 
recent staring at her from the top of the pile.  "I'll be there 
as soon as I'm done looking at these."  She took the new lab
results and checked the the drug screens against the write-ups 
of all the stomach contents.  No rum.   No rum in any 
of these victims.  Maybe the thing with Coluko was a fluke. 
There was only one way to find out.  She made her face 
into a mask of passivity--bland, unreadable.

"What about the tissue samples?"

"I plan on checking them after each autopsy, away from 
the bodies. We may have a repeat of what happened with
Coluko, where the scent is evident on exam. If so, then 
checking the samples separately is an additional safeguard.
If not, then it's a more discrete method to find if rum is present."

"You're very thorough." Jorgensen's admiration was evident.

"It's what the job requires..." Scully's voice trailed off.

"Agent Scu..." 

"I''m coming, Det. Jorgensen."

 ~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x

On the surface, it all appeared to go smoothly. First, 
checking and finishing the re-dressing of Coluko, then 
beginning the re-autopsy of Weinhoft. Only someone who 
knew her would sense that she was struggling, the set of her 
jaw was just a little too tight, her grip on the scalpel whitening 
her knuckles. Jorgensen was too enthralled with the 
proceedings to notice any of it, not even Scully choking back 
the nausea that would appear erratically. The sweating had 
stopped a while ago, and she felt drained and hollow, but she 
went on, providing a running commentary for Jorgensen's 
benefit. 

It was a perverse relief, having to focus on explaining 
the routine of slicing through skin and muscle, sawing through 
bone, weighing organs, instead of thinking about  what these 
people had done.  Jorgensen wrote down the specifics on 
the chart, inspected the straight line bruise across Weinhoft's 
back where her spine had been snapped, while Scully 
looked over her shoulder.

"So she fell, or was pushed against the sofa, that's how 
she broke her back?" asked Jorgensen, forehead creased in 
concentration. "It's obvious there was a fight in the living room, 
but who attacked who?"

She stretched her arms over her head, leaned to her left, 
then her right, rolled her shoulders and neck back and forth 
several times before answering. Don't, don't do it, she told 
herself, stay focused.  Scully looked over Wienhoft.  Despite 
pallor and rigor, she could make out that the twenty-five 
year old had been pretty,  but her youth and her beauty had 
begun to fade. Her shoulder-length dark brown hair showed 
traces of gray, her face etched with the legacy of life on 
the stroll--wrinkles at he corner of her eyes, bitten and broken 
nails tipping her slender fingers, her full breasts, narrow waist  
and long legs mottled with bruises, and the ragged cut 
in her pelvis, a horrible, bloody gash. 

For an instant, the image of the young couple Wienhoft and 
Coluko garroted for the fifty dollars in the man's wallet had 
flashed before her eyes.  Scully could feel herself blanch, 
her grip on the instruments slacken and tighten. Keep going, 
she urged herself.  Just keep going.

"Let's review the findings.  Although both of her fingerprints 
were on the beer bottle, I'd concur with the assessment he 
didn't hit himself in the back of the head with it. Aside from 
the implausibility of self-abuse, the angle and the amount force 
precludes any other option but a another party. His skull gets 
cracked and he bleeds all over the floor in front of the tv. 
Coluko manages to get up, somehow tries to stumble towards 
the kitchen when according to the ME, Wienhoft apparently slits 
his throat from ear to ear.  Despite his injuries, he manages 
to get up, drag her toward the living room where he's able 
to not only able to assault her, he get the knife away from her 
and guts her in a crude hysterectomy. Judging from the crime 
scene photos, it's assumed he shoves her, forcing her to trip 
over the coffee table and she just lands wrong on the edge of 
the couch. The ME postulates a double murder, with the lovers 
killing each other, which would make sense, except..."

The other woman's head bobbed up in curiosity, "Except 
for what?"  

"The amount of alcohol in their systems would have impaired 
both strength and motor skills...I don't think she could've done 
that kind of damage in a struggle."

"So the ME was wrong?...Maybe some drug use we didn't catch?"

"The screens were the most comprehensive available." Scully'd 
already catalogued this one as an X-File--unexplained dual murder.

"So what are you saying?" Jorgensen was feeling confused 
and a little pissed. This investigation was unraveling the loose 
ends, not tying them up in the neat resolution that Lazarov 
was expecting.

"I'm saying the ME made a reasonable assumption at some 
level, given that there was only evidence of two people in the 
apartment. The condition of the livers support a diagnosis 
of chronic alcoholism on both their parts. He assumed that 
chronicity was at the maintenance level, still affording them 
the capability to function. I disagree, even at the maintenance 
level, the savageness and the extent of the attacks suggest 
some other variable."

"Like a third party?  Agent Scully, did you find something?
Skin under the fingernails? Something the ME missed?"
Jorgensen was getting worked up. Maybe there was a lead,
something to point to a perp.  "I helped with the evidence
collection...there was no physical evidence present but the 
victim's. Not a single goddamn clue to be had. Not in Coluko 
and Wienhoft's apartment, not in any of the crimes scenes."  

"Sometimes one has to consider extreme possibilities." 
  
"Like what?  A killer who can murder at will and not leave a 
trace? That's not something I'm comfortable with." 

Scully had managed to push back the nausea yet again.  
"Welcome to my world, Detective."

She'd spoken slowly and deliberately as she leaned 
down, sniffing at the abdominal cavity. She wanted 
to wretch and the sweating had started again. But there 
was one thing she was sure of.

The faint odor of rum coming off Ashleen Weinhoft.

She beckoned Kris Jorgensen closer, grabbed the
sample jar and walked them about fifteen feet away.

"Here's some on-the-job training in forensics, Detective,"  
handing over lump of flesh floating in the jar.   "Open it."

Jorgensen did what she was told after only a second's 
hesitation. Closing her eyes,  she took a whiff of the 
contents.

"Rum. I smell rum."


~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x


They took a brief break in the afternoon, giving the dieners 
an opportunity to move away Weinhoft to the far side of 
the bay, and place Albert Breen in the central exam area. 
Over late lunch from the vending machines by the snack 
station, Scully barely finished half of a sandwich, relieved 
that she could keep it down. She hoped she might be 
leveling off, with whatever she was going through this 
morning, finally over.  Focusing all her attention on the 
repeat tox screens, she saw confirmation of the initial 
findings of PCP use in La Shawn Michaels'--vodka and 
sedatives in Breen's--heroin and cocaine in Dakota Roberts'.  
There was so far, no explanation of the anomalous odor--
both of them had smelled rum emanating from Coluko and 
Wienhoft.  If the same happened with Breen,  Scully honestly 
didn't know what she'd say to Kris Jorgensen.  She'd already 
decided Mulder would have to come up with one hell of an 
intuitive leap to piece together this puzzle. 

As she walked back in Bay #3, Jorgensen in tow, Scully 
had a strong flash of intuition, one she couldn't ignore. 
She was getting more and more like her partner all the time.
Not knowing why, she grabbed one of the dieners by 
the elbow as he was leaving, "Take the tissue samples 
and put them back in storage."

Jorgensen shot her a surprised look. 

Ray Faneuil, the diener, started to protest,  "Jeez, Doc...
My shift's over...'

Scully cut him off,  "Just do it and do it now.  I don't think 
you want me calling the ME over this."

Faneuil gathered each jar, set them on a rolling cart and 
hustled his way to cold storage.  Not completely under his 
breath, he muttered,  "Fucking bitch."

Scully pretended she didn't hear a word. 


 ~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x


Scully glanced up from her examination of Albert Breen's 
bruised lung and blinked.  This was going well enough.  
They were a couple of hours in--no sweating, no urge to 
vomit--just the still, cold dead, formalin, scalpels, bone 
saws, body parts weighed in grams. She'd peppered her 
play-by-play of this exam with bits and pieces of forensic 
history. For example, the origin of the manner of wrapping 
cadavers. Jorgensen was enthralled when Scully revealed 
it had started with the ancient Greeks, with its current style 
having been developed in the Middle Ages. 

Now they were taking who's who in the field.

"My opinion as to who's the top forensic specialist? 
I'd have to say Dr. Henry Lee."

"Is he published?"

"Absolutely. His 'Crime Scene Handbook' is a text 
at Quantico."

Then the conversation took a turn for the worst. It went 
bad when Scully glanced up from re-closing the gaping 
abdominal wound. There was definitely an odor of rum 
emanating from the man, slight, subtle, buried underneath 
the stench of putrefaction and the slight sweetness of 
ethanol from the breakdown of bodily processes. Somehow, 
she could still smell it after working on bodies since early 
this morning.  It must be some kind of marker. Of what, 
she wasn't ready to say.

The detective had a dark look on her face  "How could 
he do it?"

It didn't register.  Somehow she'd capped what she'd 
been going through before. This autopsy was just her doing 
what she did. With Kris Jorgensen's remark, that terrible 
knowledge sprung forth again like tainted water from a 
polluted well.  Breen had been suffocated and shot, gutted 
like a fish, lower intestine removed, sodomized and there'd 
been traces of semen present in his mouth. Scully had 
managed to block and compartmentalize, and shut-down 
and soldier on and it'd gotten her this far. And then she was 
brutally shoved back to Ground Zero. She could feel a 
knife-sharp pain twisting her gut---pain so strong it made her 
stop suturing and grip the table.

Breen.  Albert Anthony Breen.  A man who raped and murdered 
a child in front of her parents, who eviscerated a ninety-year old 
woman, then sodomized her while she was dying, using  part of
her own intestines as a condom.  Scully's field of vision 
narrowed, she thought she might faint.  She didn't.  Instead of 
the relief of blackness, she saw the ten year old, suffocated, 
her Winnie-the-Pooh pillow held tight over her small mouth, that 
same small mouth corrupted beyond all understanding, her parents 
screaming until Breen shot them dead, an old woman whose last 
sight in this life was a man slicing her open, her bloody entrails 
pulled like a leash while he took her from behind. Her punishment 
for opening a door to a man who said he was lost.

Scully's breath was shallow, and she could feel the sweat bead up 
on her forehead.

Jorgensen did notice that. She was about to ask what was wrong, 
when her cell phone trilled in her pocket. Hannah.  It was Hannah 
calling from Rachel's house. It was eight o'clock and her daughter 
had been waiting since three for a ride home. Jorgensen walked 
to the far end of the room, and stood near the doorway.

"Sweetie, I'm sorry...I'm really sorry...Yeah, I got caught up 
at work.  Again."  A pause.   "OK...I'll come get you...I know 
Rachel had class,that's why she couldn't drive you home...I know, 
it's my fault."  She needed to get her head out of her ass, go pick 
up her daughter, bring her home, and try acting act like a concerned 
mother. She could think about the Forensic Unit and these stiffs 
later. She did want to know if Agent Scully was all right, see if 
she should come back to the morgue once Hannah went to bed.   
"No...don't try to walk home, it's too far. Stay there, I'm on 
my way." 

Jorgensen strode back to the table, where Scully stood ramrod 
straight, lightly mopping her brow with a Kleenex from her pocket.

"Are you OK?"

"I'm fine, really."

"You sure?"

 "Yes, Detective, I'm sure. Probably a combination of bad food 
and too little sleep."

"I guess you heard everything, huh?"  She hesitated. "I...need 
to go pick up Hannah, get her home, make sure she's settled in. 
But I can be back later, by about ten... "

"It won't be necessary, Detective. I've done this alone for almost 
a decade."

"Are you sure, Agent Scully?  You know, it wouldn't be a prob..."

"Just go.." She managed to paste a wan smile on her pale 
face.  "Like I said before, I'm fine."

~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x

Jorgensen had been gone about fifteen minutes, but Scully 
hadn't moved. She made herself pull deep, cleansing 
breaths, tried to find the center, tried to talk herself down. 
She almost made it, too.

Looking at Breen's lower abdomen, Scully saw something pushing 
up out of his pelvis.  It was tiny, wriggling furiously. Snagging 
the tweezers from the instrument table, she quickly and carefully
probed the spongy flesh for the larva.  She caught a glimpse of 
white and immediately went after it, holding up its soft body under 
the lamp. Depositing the maggot in an empty sample jar, she turned 
back to search the body further. Maybe she'd find another.

She didn't have to worry, Breen's body was now swarming 
with them,a seething, milky-white mass. Reflexively, her eyes 
darted to the adjoining tables that held the rest of the bodies. 
All of them, teeming with maggots, swarms of them working their 
way through the dressings, making steam rise from the heat thrown 
off by their feeding frenzy. She felt her hand drop to her side 
and the tweezers hit the floor.  "Good.  Let them eat your 
miserable flesh, you sonovabitches," she murmured.

Whatever thin strands of control she'd tried to hold had finally
shredded to nothing.

The room filled with obscenities she realized were coming from 
her own mouth. Her voice -- she was screaming at corpses, 
shaking and sweating like a pig. Bile scorched her throat, with 
one vicious epithet after another hurtling through the air like  
molotov cocktails. Reeling from the venom and the rage that 
coursed through her veins, the room spun, and her hand went 
instinctively to her throat, her fingers brushing against her cross.

It was her undoing.  

Who had she become?  All too quickly, the bitter knowledge 
washed over her.  Faithless.  Vengeful.  Someone without 
discipline, courage or strength.  Betraying everything 
she'd built her whole life upon. Scully felt the scalding, 
stinging tears stream down her face. She wanted to pray, 
but she could feel the spasms start. Running to the bathroom,  
she barely locked the stall before vomiting, wretching 
violently into the ancient toilet.


~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x


White as a sheet, weak, and still trembling, Scully put all her 
effort into pulling herself together. She had to get back in there,
get someone to help her clean off the bodies. With handfuls of 
rough paper towels, she bathed her face in the icy tap.  Reaching 
out for God and science---she desperately prayed out loud,    
"Please, give me the strength."  By the time she dried her face
and rinsed her mouth, she could feel herself start to calm.

As she made her way toward the bay, a litany ran through her
mind---she needed her other bedrock---science---and its
answers.  'Egg to larva to pupa to adult, and  then the cycle 
repeats until the optimal conditions for that particular species 
have passed.   What had she seen in there?  Calliphora vicina, 
Cynomyopsis cadaverina, Phormia regina, Sarcophiga carnaria.'  
Latin for the common bluebottle, the shiny blubottle, the black 
blow fly, and the family of flesh flies.  Sarcophiga carnaria---
Flesh flies.   Both pupa and adults can consume a fifty times 
their body weight in carrion.'   She could feel her heart race 
as she opened the door.
~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x

Breen's body was no more than a skeleton.  Scully ran and 
hastily undid all the wraps on the cadavers---only skeletal
remains. The maggots had slithered off the bodies, and 
were one swirling mess on the floor.  Scully walked over 
to the intercom the wall and paged the dieners. Pulling 
herself up, and squaring her shoulders, she wanted to appear 
in charge, able to minimize any possible resistance from 
staff in handling the clean up. It felt like posing after 
what'd just happened. 

After a wordlessly staring at the floor and the bodies,
Joe Gilliam, the 60 year-old second-shift guy, who'd seen it all, 
asked dryly,  "Why do I always get the weird-ass calls?"

Over her shoulder, as she passed him on her way to storage, 
Scully yelled, "Good to know you've got it covered." 

She could see wisps of her breath as she opened the jars 
containing Breen's, Michaels', and Roberts' samples. 
Taking a whiff of each---there it was---what she'd smelled all
day long.

~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~x


Yesterday, his instincts told him Shinoda wouldn't be a 
viable lead. Today--so far, so good. Lazarov didn't dig 
in his heels when he'd called to ask to for the walk-throughs,
he'd been able to locate the necessary reference, and 
a combination of web surfing and the yellow pages 
narrowed down the list of locales friendly to Santeria. 
Something told him he should make his search based 
on Alex Cardenas' choices for veneration. 

Lucky for him, of all the dozens of botanicas in Chicago, 
there was only one connected with Oya, and one associated 
with Obatala.  Apparently, there were no cults of Ellegua, 
no botanicas dedicated to him, so he'd have to punt to come 
up with how to locate his devotees. Hopefully, he'd be able 
to get these walk-throughs done by mid-afternoon, 
and start interviewing members of houses after that. Right now 
he was on edge, his sixth sense tingling. He was going 
to find something important to the case. Something hidden, 
something no one was expecting. 

Pacing in front of the Burnham for about fifteen minutes, 
his trenchcoat flapping in counterpoint to his steps, 
he was close to wearing a groove in the rain-slicked  
pavement. Waving off the doorman's offer of an umbrella, 
the nervous energy came off him in waves. Mulder ran his 
hands through his hair and and shuddered off the excess 
dampness like a dog shaking water off its fur.  It'd been 
a little over two hours since Scully left. 

"Where the hell is the asshole from the ECU?," he spat out 
under his breath. 

Grabbing his cel, he'd started punching in Lazarov's
number again, when he felt a tap on his shoulder. Whipping
around, he almost fell on a woman wearing a CPD windbreaker 
over jeans, a Bears' sweatshirt and shoulder holster. She was 
almost his height, athletic build, her curly brown hair pulled 
into a ponytail and tucked under black a baseball cap. She'd 
jerked back to avoid a head-on collision, her brown eyes flashing.

The woman brushed herself off reflexively and adjusted
her cap,  "I'm Detective Patricia Garrett, Evidence Collection 
Unit.  I'm supposed to assist you."

Mulder just kept taking the woman in.  Fair skin, thin lipped, 
not smiling.   Definitely not smiling.   He decided to go for the 
obvious joke, which proved to be a very bad choice,  
"So you're Pat Garrett..." 

"Uh-huh. Before you say anything else, I've heard every 
half-assed Wild West, Billy the Kid, OK Corral remark on 
the planet, so let's not go there..."  She straightened her
jacket, muttering,  "I must've really fucked up to pull this 
assignment."

Mulder extended his hand, hoping to salvage the situation,
making his voice as placating as he could.  "Sorry.  I'm 
Special Agent..."

She didn't reciprocate. "I know who you are, why you're 
here, and for the record, I'd rather be doing anything else 
than giving you a guided tour so that you can try to hang 
us out to dry. We know how to do our job, Agent.  And just 
for your information, I'm fifteen years on the job, five 
as ECU Supervisor."

Mulder wanted her on his side, but his own frustration was 
eating at him by this point.  "Detective, I'm here to find the 
truth, I assume you are, too. I was invited here to do what 
I do and I'd appreciate you removing whatever's crawled up 
your ass so that we can get on with it.   You and me.  
Together."

That appeared to get through, some of the hostility subsiding,
"All right then, we'll get started. I'm parked around the corner... 
I'll wait for you...Get your car and follow me." She turned to go
and Mulder motioned one of the car hops to get his rental.

Garrett turned back, "Agent Mulder?"

His head snapped around, "Yeah?"

"Just remember, I didn't invite you here."

X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~