Cold Comfort

Cold Comfort
by jowrites (Joann H)

RATING: R (language and themes)
CLASSIFICATION: X A
DATE: Feb, 2000
SPOILERS: S7 - Orison
ARCHIVE: Gossamer, Xemplary - Others please ask

SUMMARY: When 3 men die, the killer seems to have a story to tell, but is it the same one that people are hearing? X-Files are dangerous, very dangerous if you're working alone.

No further summary or warnings here - they would be spoilers for this story. People who like warnings are advised to bail out now. We're going somewhere angsty.

THANKS: To DJ for lots of help (including most of the commas!) and to Pat, Ann and Hui for egging me on at the vital moment.

LEGALLY: Legally these characters belong to some combination of 1013, CC and Fox. But I've decided to borrow their souls from DD and GA and will return them later. Mea culpe. Forgive?

Cold Comfort

Across the gloom of the car I study his profile, his skin alight with gold from the glow of the instruments and the flashes of white light from cars coming the other way. There's a tension in his posture and a tightness in his features that makes my pulse race. I can almost smell it, that heady mix of adrenaline and testosterone, see it holding his body painfully taut even as he so quietly drives the car. It startles me.

Such a rare thing for me to see in him. Of course it's always there, I know that, bubbling under the surface. Ready for use in moments of terror or danger. It's what has kept him alive. More than once, it's kept us both alive. But to see it outside the danger zone, it's a rare thing. Rare and dangerous. And beautiful.

And I ought to be able to see that twist of temper in his driving. I should hear it in his reaction to uncooperative traffic lights. I should feel my foot twitch towards the brake as he tries some alpha male overtaking maneuver to jump one place in line. Yet, I can't. He is all control. There are no external symptoms. My breath catches and my pulse puts on another burst of speed.

We've got a few hours more driving to do before I lose him, just freeway now. My eyes lock onto his long fingers as they caress the steering wheel. The pads of his thumbs soothing over the plastic, stroking and circling and I can't help myself, I sigh in sympathy.

I don't quite recall ever falling in love with him. And if love is blind then I guess that I must not be in love. I see him far too clearly. And yet.

His silence thunders through the car and I know why. Cool container or not, he's close to his working limits and he wants to run it off or scream or throw a ball or explode. And I want to play in the flames. I want that warmth. But I know it's not mine to take.

I remember the day they told me that they were assigning her. I read her file. I saw her file photo; it didn't do her justice. She walked through the door and I saw the trap. Looking back it was comical. With my history they sent me a rookie, a woman, a beauty, a brain, a challenge.

It's hard to imagine, but back then I had a reputation. Not just the obvious one that tagged me as spooky. The other one, the advisory note that said I liked to sleep with my partners. The females at least. So predictable. Except with Scully.

In nature, they call it overstimulation. Give the nesting bird an egg and it nests, a bigger egg and it nests more enthusiastically. She was everything I needed. Fun to tease, willing to learn, yet with so much to teach. She wanted to explore; we could do it together; we could do anything.

It started out so simply, this latest fiasco in our little shop of horrors. I hadn't even noticed that this time it was different. I thought it was just me misjudging her. My aim that was off and not hers. I'd assumed that it was just another little dig, part of the game she plays to try to convince someone that she's got a choice.

I never thought I'd want Scully removed from a case. In seven years it has never crossed my mind that I would be better off without her. It's occurred to me that she might be better off without me, but that's not the same thing at all.

Skinner looked shocked when I asked if I could ignore this case and just deflect it back down the hall to Violent Crimes. But he looked stunned when I gave as my excuse the merest suggestion that Agent Scully had been through too much on the Pfaster case.

Of course, he was right to look shocked. Scully had been assaulted by a necrophile, a death fetishist. Someone who would kill to possess the best dead flesh. So far as the Bureau was concerned, that was it. We'd worked other cases since. Psychiatric services had given Scully a clean bill of health. My name had even appeared as a counter-signature on the evaluation that rated her 100% fit for duty in the field.

If the case had been about another Pfaster, then Skinner would have understood. In fact, he'd have apologized so fast that I'd have wondered if I was the one overreacting.

I can hardly come up with the words in the privacy of my own brain, obviously I stood no chance of saying them to Skinner. Though if I'd known what was coming, I'd have found a way.

I went through too much on the Pfaster case. Yeah, I know what that makes me. Self-centered, selfish, self-absorbed. Of course. But what the hell - at least I get points for self-aware. I know what fucked me up on that case. And it wasn't Pfaster. His actions were the consequence of my failure, not its cause.

The new case was an X-File. I couldn't, didn't, deny that to Skinner. A horror story dressed in a nightmare, cloaked in a mystery, under a paranormal fog. A priest microwaved in his own confessional in an empty church, the church's doors bolted from the inside. With no signs of the requisite cooking apparatus, of course.

It wasn't that I didn't trust Scully. I didn't trust me. Funny how things turn out.

Mulder hid his doubts at first, just not very well, which angered me more than anything. He didn't even do me the courtesy of lying properly.

I know that he sneaked back up to Skinner's office when he thought I was too distracted to notice. I could guess what he said. "Scully's not ready for it." Or some such shit. I knew that from the way he shuffled around when he came back, not looking me in the eye. I knew it for sure when I saw Skinner later that day and saw the nervous appraisal in his eyes and heard that little crack in Skinner's voice as he checked that the "Pfaster thing" was truly behind me.

I, at least, did Mulder the courtesy of disguising my feelings. My furious indignation.

Oh, I'm sure in retrospect he'll think he knew. He'll be so sure that he saw all the warnings and that he should have seen it coming. He has to think that. Otherwise the profiler in him will never forgive him. Feeling guilty about getting it wrong comes more easily to him than the thought that I can hide myself from him.

I can't stop myself from seeing their bodies, their zippers open, their penises exposed and shriveled in the invisible fire that had killed them. Their sins of the flesh made obvious to anyone with eyes to see. Obvious. Men who'd slipped from their vows and made a fatal mistake.

Revealed in too-glossy photos in the case file, pinned on the board of the office at the New York field office. I'd have plucked my eyes out if the image wasn't already burned into my retina. See no evil.

It left only one question to investigate. Who did they do, who had taken revenge?

When we got to the NY field office, Scully stormed ahead of me. Is that unfair? Did she storm? Or did she merely walk quickly and assertively, poised and professional? Do I want her to walk two paces behind?

No. I'm not that insecure. She stormed. Thunder in her steps and lightning in her eyes. If she had nothing to prove, why didn't she just walk?

I know, I know. She's got something to prove every time she walks into a building full of strangers. Doctor or agent, she has to stake her territory. The boys' club can undermine, diminish and even kill. It's just - it's just it sits uneasily in my brain. It's just that I don't remember her needing to try so hard before. It scared me that she was trying so hard for me. If it was supposed to warn me off with its fit- for-duty banner headlines proclaimed in every step, it failed. It just made me want to send her home.

And I guess that's why she stormed. She could feel my fear and it fed hers. She could hear my footsteps dogging hers, so she walked faster. She could sense my need to hover, so she stood up tall and bristled with fire to force me back.

I shouldn't have pushed her. Being wise after the event is a useless skill. It's just that sometimes we get so close that I feel I have a right to push. OK, not even a right, a duty. But all I did was push her away.

The local agents had done their jobs. Three dead across two states, the latest only a couple of miles their office. They'd dug as deep as they dared to understand why innocent, harmless parish priests had died such ugly deaths. They shook their heads and tensed for the worst as they talked us through their latest round of observations.

Scully gave them a cut-and-paste FBI profile, and I suppose I should have been annoyed about that, but I couldn't get that high up the energy scale. So I just stood there, rocked back on my heels as she spoke.

She was ice. Symbolism and posing and penises and every word making even the most battle hardened agents twitch because they were coming from the butter-wouldn't-melt-in-it mouth of the pretty little redhead. And the response was perverse and unfair but that's the way things are. Because the harder she fought against her gender, her height, her beauty - the more I could sense their fantasies about her clouding their hearing.

Around and around and around, that's the trouble with raising the testosterone level in a room full of it. The hormones fuck with the brains, and the collective IQ plummets. They fixate on the tight shirt and the fuck-me shoes and the don't-fuck-with-me look in her eyes and try to add it all up. Of course, they can't.

Ironically enough, they preferred her profile to mine. In more ways than one. Sexism has its own agenda.

Afterwards, Scully almost listened to my analysis. She almost cared when I warned her against narrowing the focus of the investigating team by making a profile sound like a formula. She was even almost grateful that I'd saved my argument until we were alone.

Of course she quickly changed her mind about that and concluded that my refusal to argue in public was a sign that I didn't respect her enough to believe she could cope with dissent.

She ditched me then, physically and intellectually. She spun it around, her need to get out from my shadow and fly. Temptation came in the form of flowing black robes, ornately carved wooden crosses, and stained-glass windows. I could see her wanting it, not wanting it. I kept my distance, watched the axe swing above my head. Not capable of ducking for cover if she turned and fired.

I know now that she spoke to her mom, she spoke to the priest, she spoke to Skinner, she spoke to the local team's ASAC. She'd have probably spoken to her pizza deliveryman rather than me. She didn't talk to me about anything.

Not true, of course. She asked me things with the challenge of her eyes, with the shift of her body, with the tone of her voice as she suggested a refill from the coffee maker.

She saved my life today. And if I wasn't quite so angry, I'd be grateful. But I'm not. She nearly killed us both.

The ASAC gave the game away, his tensely apologetic brown eyes reaching out toward Mulder's and looking for absolution.

Mulder responded in a way that I've scarcely seen from him before and certainly never on his own behalf. His eyes flashed dark, bright and dangerous. His voice went straight for the jugular, bit hard, dripping venom. "What happened to the backup?"

The ASAC took a step back, feeling the threat as sharp as a knife at his throat. "Agent Scully said...."

Mulder's expression didn't change, but his eyes shifted, scanned the room and looked for me.

What was it that he once told me? That the truth would save us both? Well, today it saved ASAC George Ellison.

I didn't say that we didn't need backup. Just that, given limited resources and the laws of probability, that I would be enough.

I look at him now. Study his hands as they cling to the steering wheel, holding on like he's drowning. He's ripped off a nail, smashed up a couple of others. He must have thought he was going to die in that box.

His eyes lock on the empty road ahead and I know what he wants. An explanation. My rational scientific explanation. He wants to hear some oh-so-sensible justification of why he almost died.

It couldn't be more obvious if it was tattooed across his skull. He wants to know how I could have made a mistake like that. He wants to know why.

I listened to the words, mine, his, theirs; I pushed the self-destruct and stood around to watch the flames. I felt his fear rise as I drifted from him, I reveled in the shock to his system that I had provoked.

From the moment we were assigned the case, Mulder was preparing to bolt, up on tiptoes and avoiding my eyes. Ready to run, even as he stared at me, watching me for danger signs and all before we'd even left the Hoover building. By the time we reached New York, Mulder had wasted so much energy on anticipating disaster that he could barely crawl from the car.

Then he cornered me. Literally. That way he does. Stood too close. Leaning over me. All he needed was the long black cloak and I'd have bared my neck and called him Dracula.

Oh hell. I shouldn't have allowed that giggle to escape, it's not appropriate. Not with him this high on the high wire, not with him so close to my side. He twists his gaze from the road to look at me. Which is fine. I'm calm again and he turns away disappointed. The car ignores the exchange.

Anyway, that thing he does, him backing me into a corner, it's odd really. I don't normally notice how tall he is. When we're in harmony, everything is shared. Two halves of a whole that's more than the sum of its parts.

When we fall apart, I keep my heels high, my back straight, my voice correct and my eyes forward. Which meant that when he leaned over me, I stared at his throat. How else can I respond to a vampire?

I remember his words too well. They burned. Profiling-by-numbers, he called it. I'd trodden on his professional pride and it wasn't just that he thought I was wrong, he wanted me to be wrong.

The method. That's the cooked alive. I don't know. Mulder said it was like an electrocution or a bomb, the act of a killer who wanted to keep his victims remote and impersonal. Which I told him made sense if the killer had been sexually abused by the dead priests.

"Or even if he hasn't. We need to open their eyes," he waved vaguely towards the roomful of agents on the other side of the closed door, "not narrow their vision."

Why hadn't he raised this in front of the team? Anyone except me up there scribbling on the big white board and he'd have ripped them apart without a second thought. He didn't even do me the courtesy of treating me like he would any other agent, whatever their rank, like he'd treat Skinner, like he would have treated Patterson.

Of course not. In his eyes I exist only when I'm at his side. Get too far ahead, or get left too far behind and he has to haul me back in line. Naturally, such a harsh tug on my leash has to be delivered in private. Like the squabbling husband and wife who feign smiles for their dinner guests, then retreat to the kitchen for a little "chat."

He drove me away, not with indifference but by casting a shadow on every move I made. Father John Leonard really did feel like a breath of fresh air. The more so, because I knew that wherever John and I went, Mulder would surely not follow.

The first giveaway was when I looked in her eyes and realized that she wasn't there. I didn't panic; she does that sometimes. I put up the shutters. She switches off the lights.

I could drown in her eyes, but I know better than to swim in abandoned pools. So I let her do it her way.

I asked her to focus on the facts. She looked at me like I'd asked her to bite the head off a chicken, all high-minded disgust and bewilderment. But above all, she was offended, and if it hadn't been so serious it would have been comical to watch. Her empty blue eyes focused on the facts. While her bright sharp brain was busily burrowing down to hide in a place where nothing hurts and nothing surprises.

To describe ASAC Ellison as focused on the facts is to miss the most important fact of all. They didn't have all the facts. I mean, we never do. If we have all the facts, the case is closed, and even if the case is closed, the chances are that we still don't have all the facts.

Still. An assumption had been made at the killer's request. Three men... priests... men had been accused of abusing some unknown victim and now - though no one dared say it out loud - they'd got what they deserved.

With Scully's encouragement they'd taken the killer's word for it. The dead men's guilt had been on display. So simple to point the finger, as simple as pulling down a zipper and exposing a cock. The victims were being put on trial before the police and the FBI, and everyone knew what we were supposed to do. The executioner had given us the opportunity to know him through an act of revenge.

Her sudden enthusiasm for profiling had caught me off balance. We were sent here because of how these men had been killed, the absence of evidence, the lack of a murder weapon. I'd expected her to want to study the sites, the bodies, the things that could have slipped through the investigative net. I know that I wanted to. I'd planned to talk to the people who knew the dead men, to see if they could imagine who might hate that much. I'd hoped that she would want to do that, too.

Instead, she waded in, and I let her. I saved my complaints for behind closed doors. I don't know what I expected her to say. Not 'thanks', nor 'sorry', I neither wanted nor needed that. Maybe if I was feeling hopeful it would have been nice to hear a 'let's make sure that angle gets covered'. But I know I didn't expect her to tell me that if I wanted to get heard, I'd better get back in there and fight my own fucking battles.

I should have known better, I do know better. I can only claim that I didn't want this case and that I wanted Scully nowhere near this case. I already knew that I couldn't kick my own profile for long enough to see hers. I don't like it when Scully makes mistakes. It makes me nervous. Sometimes, she invests so much in her mistakes. It makes me panic.

Panic does not mix well with professional detachment. Cold comfort then, that Ellison was at least polite when I made the request to get more background on the victims. We conducted the usual dance. He talked about resources and priorities and referred me back to the work already done.

It was a test, just like a thousand similar challenges before. All I had to do was take a deep breath, declare myself Spooky, Behavioral's hottest and then rip his head off with a few carefully chosen expletives and he'd have buckled. I didn't have the heart.

A beautiful place for such an ugly death. A whole lifetime echoed in a single room. From the soft stone dish that welcomed new babies, to the little marks ahead of the altar that told brides and grooms how to stand side by side for once, to the well-padded carpet where adults kneel to reaffirm their faith, to the crypts in the wall that remind us that everything dies.

And in between all those magic moments comes the living bit. And in the living bit, people get things wrong and make mistakes and sin. This church acknowledges mistakes, revels in them even, solidifies their existence with beautifully polished wooden boxes and the illusion of anonymity in the confessional. It's almost worth becoming a Catholic, just for that escape.

I liked the warm glow of the place, the play of soft sun streaming through stained glass. The polished sheen on the wood and the love that's in that labor. The candles that fluttered and flickered in the dark. Too many candles that day, of course. As befits a flock that had lost its shepherd. People had lit candles to say goodbye.

Not as many as you'd expect, though. This was obviously a healthy, wealthy church, with a good-sized congregation and pious people. They had reopened their doors yesterday. And it looked like most of the people were too ashamed to light a candle for their dead priest. They'd read the newspapers, they'd believed the worst. They didn't need an FBI analyst to tell them how to jump to conclusions.

I don't really know that much about microwaves, apart from how quick they work on a dish of lasagna, of course. I knew that there were no microwave coils found in the building. I know they can be beamed in from dishes, but that the dish power would have to be of Star Wars proportions to boil a man from any realistic distance away. I know they can be guided with special mirrors. I knew that the wooden walls of the confessional were not tampered with. Dark magic at work to kill like this. But why kill like this at all?

Scully, my brain suggested as I roamed the rich stillness of the place. Do we know for sure that the men actually died in the confessional boxes? Could they have been killed elsewhere and brought here? Of course, Scully wasn't there to ask.

She had her own agenda. Judge Scully and Jury Scully had declared the victims guilty as charged. She had done so, I'm sure, to prove to me or herself or someone how tough she is and how unfazed by talk of priests, churches and confessionals she had become. So impartial that she would assume the worst of men of God and accept the word of their executioner.

Of course, that didn't mean that she would allow the executioner to get away. Scully doesn't really approve of capital punishment. Usually.

She'd gone to visit the seminary where all of the men in their time had worked. Which was, of course, an excellent idea. It was just that I needed to know more about the kill, before I could expect to know the killer. I like to be prepared.

The lady with the flowers and candles startled me. Younger than I'd expected, 30-something, 40 maybe, just like the dead man. Her eyes so red and yet so transparent, as if the tears had washed all their color away.

I slid quickly from my seat. She didn't seem surprised when I walked straight to her. "Can I talk to you about him?" I offered a wallet full of Bureau credentials in her direction and she tensed in response. "Please, tell me what he was like."

I don't know why I'd doubted the killer's accusations about the dead men. I guess something to do with the close and personal handling it would have taken to pose them like that and the impersonal death he'd granted them. Too deliberate. Too staged. It must just have smelled off.

Anyway, an hour's chat with his housekeeper just confirmed my suspicions. I'd like to think that if Scully had been there then things would have gone differently after that.

Mulder's eyes look too tired for this job, too glassily fixed on the road ahead. I wonder if he can actually see through that watery haze that mats his lashes. I guess I should suggest we stop and grab a coffee, which would give me a chance to take over the wheel. He shouldn't really be driving after today. I guess the agents back at the office were right, we should have stayed the night in town. It's almost 3am.

Mulder sowed doubts in my brain, but I was too angry to let them grow. Every time one tried to take root I scratched it away.

The dead men had only a few things in common. Well, except for the obvious ones like they were priests and now they were dead. Father Flynn was fifty, which sounds like a tongue-twister. The latest victim, Father Fitzpatrick was 42. Father Blainey was only just 30. Each of them had assisted for a year or so at the seminary soon after they became priests. Each of them had worked as liaison with the pupils of the nearby Parochial High School. All normal practice, but then they had not been accused of being normal.

Accused by their murderer. I guess you shouldn't take a killer's word. I guess Mulder has fallen into that trap before.

Father O'Connell had led the seminary for almost twenty years and knew all three men, but only as the most fleeting of faces in a sea of them. At 80, he was thinking of retiring soon. His eyes twinkled as he placed me in the safe hands of Father John Leonard.

John's eyes twinkled in reply to him and in greeting to me as we walked and talked.

Is it a sin to say a man is wasted as a priest? I remember trying to educate Melissa about that.

I can sometimes smile when I think of her now. It doesn't hurt me anymore to remember how bold she seemed as she took on Mom and Dad in a battle for freedom. I can see her wink at me as she licked her lips in catechism class. I can see her so clearly, gazing sheep-eyed up into the generous smile and black hair of the young priest. It was his first job in our version of the big wide world, not quite ready to fly solo yet, just assisting at Communion all those years ago.

I argued fiercely, told her a priest was not a waste of a man. She threw back her hair and laughed and asked how would I know. She whispered conspiratorial words that said that he was a man first and she'd bet he was still fully functional. She teased so well, even suggesting a little scheme to test her theory.

I understood her words as things I'd read in books, studied in biology class, but I could only guess why her idea of kneeling before him was profane rather than sacred. Is that the start of real sex education? The moment that you find out that sometimes, nobody's thinking about making babies?

I heard her, I could tell from her tone of voice that I was hearing about something real and wicked and delicious. I didn't want to giggle or blush. My body took the choice away from me and forced me to do both. I was never such a good little girl that I objected to fantasy. Just as well, given that I've had only fantasy for so long now.

And that beautiful young priest was the ultimate fantasy object. Not merely Latin in looks, but with all the right soft, exotic undertones in his voice. Brought up in a Brazilian slum. The romance was crushing.

So unlike the straight-line histories of all those Navy men and their cadet sons. So far removed from those other priests I'd heard before, who all seemed to share cozy echoes of an old Irish accent, whether that was true to their origin or not.

The ultimate fantasy object. Better than those kids with bikes who pulled up a hundred yards from the house so that Melissa could slip away without Mom or Dad hauling her back inside.

The best fantasy object because there was no danger of any reality to get in the way of the beauty of the image. I cried when he left and lived for months off remembered smiles and well-dones given because I could recite my psalms from memory and I never fidgeted during mass. He once told me that he loved to hear my voice.

That's what makes a fantasy object really so worthwhile. You can replay them over and over and hear them say exactly what you want to hear and nothing more. No inconvenient man to interfere with the dream.

Still, sin or not, Father John Leonard was surely wasted as a priest. In truth, it would have been unfair to keep him set aside for one woman, but even restricting him to one congregation was unreasonable. He should have been up there on a Hollywood sign somewhere.

His names belied his looks, he should have been a Juan or at least a Leonardo. But that might fail him too. My grandmother would have cut straight to the chase and declared him a mongrel, full of hybrid vigor. I couldn't help but ask if he'd ever been involved in sports. He'd smiled and told me about the knee injury that had ended his pro football ambitions at 19.

He introduced me to so many people, we opened so many files. I could feel muscles in my face sighing at the release of being used again as I smiled with him, as he took me to my next meeting or showed me the joy of the next fresco on the wall. And other unused muscles sighed and wished they could find release too.

Later, as we sipped coffee in his office, I felt that fresh delight, I knew the smell, it smelled like childhood. The polish, the books, the velvet, the slight mustiness. The same everywhere, however many times we moved base with Dad. However different our houses had looked, there was always a place like this in my life. In a church, or a library, or a tutor's study. You don't even notice that it's missing until the ghost of it returns, like now.

"John." He tipped his head as he said it, adding sweet temptation to the untouchable fantasy. Teasing me from the safety of the Father, the priest, to the just-tipping-my-toe-in-it danger of John, the man. He licked his lips. "I didn't know them personally. I don't want to believe it."

Ah, but we must be brave, we must believe. And if it's only the evidence that's lacking, then we must want to believe. For once, I wanted to believe. What's so wrong with that? I wanted to believe that those men got what they deserved in this life as well as in the next. I wanted to believe in man's judgment as well as God's.

So what if the man doing the judging was a murderer, I didn't want to see any more dead innocents.

It's an ugly thought, these men weren't mine to judge, and were certainly not the killer's. But I was expecting to see death in those photographs. And I see so many dead innocents who should have lived and loved and never felt pain. And I stumbled into weakness and wanted it to be true that those men were not so innocent after all.

In truth, I had no more evidence after my hours of discussion than I did before. No one wanted to think too badly of the dead. No one had ever raised alarms when they were alive. There were half-remembered gestures and looks exchanged which might mean more now, but which meant nothing when they happened.

I didn't see Mulder that night. John's study was too good an opportunity to miss. John's company and help as I started to review the lists of names and dates and people that I would need to deliver back to the Bureau for cross-referencing was too obviously a good thing. It was the first time I'd shared a pizza with a priest. I can taste it, like the taste of forbidden fruit. Just the two of us sitting on the floor and reminiscing about how once I had been afraid of men in black.

I saw Mulder at the next morning's team briefing. I saw Mulder's jaw clench as I told the agents that the men were remembered as more friendly than forbidding toward the children they handled. More inclined to take a rowdy child aside for a little private talk than send him to the principal for a little punishment.

It seemed like my angry complaint of the day before had been heeded; he made sure his next complaint was a public one. "Sounds like they were good teachers."

When I next saw Scully, she had moved on. Leaped straight past the initial accusation and directly into collating evidence in its favor. She denied that charge, of course. Which was fair enough, she hadn't actually said the words. She hadn't proclaimed the victims as child abusers or adult abusers come to that. Not in words.

Just in whipping up a little retrospective mist and declaring it smoke and pointing out the smoke and waving a dismissive hand that screamed that it was always possible that smoke indicated fire.

I can't help it, sometimes I wonder which of the FBI agents, which of the police officers, which school teachers, which kids actually said it aloud when Sam went missing. I know they were all thinking it.

Maybe poor little Samantha's dad was abusing her. Remember that fractured collarbone? What if it wasn't a fall from a swing? Maybe there was something worse going on behind closed doors, something that Sam didn't like, something that her dad had to hide. Maybe now she was old enough to tell. Maybe that's why he'd had to kill her.

Maybe spoiled little Fox didn't like the attention she got. Maybe one of those brother/sister scraps got out of hand. After all he was big, she was small. Just a little too rough and sure it might have been an accident but she'd still be dead. And the cliffs are so tall and the sea's so rough. And he admits he was a witness. So how come he doesn't know who took her?

But there's a difference between thinking it and saying it out loud. Out loud and maybe some fact can disprove the theory - like Dad was playing cards next door - like if I'd taken her to the beach to discard the body it was a five-mile hike and I didn't have time. But just sticking to thinking it and acting like you think it, there's nothing to be done. There's no way to fight back against the cold in their eyes.

Scully didn't accuse the victims of anything. Except her body screamed its distrust. Her tone of voice howled its dismay.

I swallowed down twenty-odd years of reactions and tried to tip the balance back a little. Which wasn't really possible, because I had no evidence either.

"Not that it proves anything. But the latest victim was having an affair with his female housekeeper. She's 37, he was 42. She can't imagine him abusing anyone."

I should have seen that coming. The odd thing was that it really hadn't crossed my mind that anyone would see his lover as anything other than a character reference. Though I guess it should have done. After all there's good reason why we're suspicious of a wife's evidence on her husband's behalf. But the idea that he broke his vows suggested what? That he was an even better candidate for other kinds of sexual misconduct?

The link was lost on me for the moment until I recalled her reaction to Skinner's night in the arms of a prostitute who had been murdered as he slept. If a man goes out and hires a prostitute, what else is he capable of? Ah Scully, in a world of black and white, good and bad, maybe sex really is the original sin.

I shouldn't have said what I said, I shouldn't have let any emotion into my voice. I wished the words would disappear as soon as I said them, but they froze in the air and taunted me. "I guess he mentioned it in confession. Still, I'd have thought a couple of dozen Hail Marys was more fitting than getting cooked alive."

It was an ugly thought, but it sent me off on another track. Who were the priests' confessors? Was it possible that one of them had killed them for their sins, reported or imagined? Once the initial ruffling of hypersensitive God-fearing feathers had been soothed, they did at least add some of that work to the team's actions lists for the day. I even got official blessing to go to visit the other two dead men's churches to try and find out more about their homes.

Plus, I finally got the chance to ask Scully about whether it was possible that the bodies had been moved to where they were found.

She was angry with me for asking that in public. But how was I supposed to guess which were the private questions and which were the public ones? It hadn't even occurred to me that she hadn't read the autopsy reports in sufficient detail to answer the question. She mumbled something about them being killed sitting up.

So I asked her again, because I already knew that. I'd read the notes on how the blood had pooled in the body. Yes, but could they have been moved, chairs and all, to the confessionals? Could I take the confessionals as dump sites or were we still supposed to be looking for some mysterious microwave-generating mechanism that had been temporarily positioned in those churches?

Scully looked embarrassed at first and I didn't understand. Then her eyes closed to angry slits and she reminded me that she'd been extremely busy on other aspects of the case.

Was I trying to put her in her place? Send her back to the lab and the autopsy bay? Stick her in a white coat and scrubs and keep her out of my playground? I don't think so. Maybe I was, maybe a long way down in my subconscious that was the message. I didn't mean it to be. But maybe it was inevitable that it would sound like that to her.

It's just that I've trusted her to give me straight answers to questions like that for so long that I just assumed. I should know better, after all I've had lessons in not making assumptions like that. After the most public lesson, I ended up in restraints. I asked her to autopsy a man as a favor. As a favor, she told me she couldn't feed my delusions. Of course, when I repeated the request it was as a necessity. I begged her, and she dutifully saved my life. She always does.

So I know that I shouldn't assume that Scully is instantly available on demand with her microscope and her scalpel. But sometimes I forget, and it's an expensive mistake. Compounded this time, for her and me, because I'd publicly trampled on her professional pride. The other agents looked vaguely embarrassed to witness it. The ASAC looked like he was wondering whether to step in and ask if we needed to get one of the local forensics boys down here.

Scully ended the standoff. "I'll discuss the results with the lab and the MEs and get you an answer today."

The other agents all breathed out in unison. I could see them silently congratulating Scully on her restraint and her professionalism. My hard-working partner had shown that she was above petty disputes about roles and responsibilities, just proven herself capable of giving more, above and beyond the call of duty, yet again.

I, on the other hand, had just proved myself to be an ungrateful asshole. One who was lucky to have a partner that didn't deck me for forcibly and publicly putting her back in her scientific pigeonhole like that. A fair analysis really.

I don't think he meant to hurt me when he asked if the bodies had been moved post-mortem. I don't think he even noticed the twenty other agents in the room as he put me in my place. I don't believe that he even saw the double standard at work that said I had to have all the answers, not just the ideas.

The nausea hit me as soon as he asked the question. I should have known the answer. He knew that, I knew that. Why he had to give the rest of them a chance to gloat over my mistake, I don't know. After all, it was a question that they should have had the answer to themselves. A question they would have had the answer to if they'd done their jobs right. The kind of question that it didn't need a specialist in the paranormal to ask.

I looked around the room and they looked back blankly. How many hours had they put into the case without getting that answer? Without asking that question? Of course, I guess that was why we were here. I guess Skinner had sent us to ask the impertinent question that gives the pertinent answer.

If Mulder's question had been directed at the rest of them as well, I could have easily accepted it as a reminder of his sharpness, of why sometimes I revel in having him at my side. But it was directed so squarely at me that it felt like an accusation. It bit into me as an order to get in my white coat and stop playing in the big boys' club. It sounded like an instruction to get back to my lab and stay out of Father John's study. Another tug on the leash.

It's hard to tell what he intended as I watch him now, his fingers white-knuckled from the desperation of his grip on the steering wheel. I can see him clinging tight, like the cliff edge is far too close.

Mulder approached me immediately after the team meeting broke up and apologized for putting me on the spot. I told him that it was a legitimate question. He tensed his jaw to try a reply but never found the words, finally shook his head and asked if I was joining him on the visit to the other two churches.

I told him that I needed to answer his question first and that I'd call him when I could.

Of course, he was right. We needn't look for a magic microwave teleported into place around the confessional box and vanishing as quickly as it came. The chairs were essential, they had almost certainly died on those seats. The scorch damage to them, caused by the dripping of hot fat from the bodies matched the damage to the men. Man and chair could have been moved, with great care and difficulty, but moved. The investigation had a new agenda, jump-started by the lack of magic and mystery.

The slow work through a list of industrial size microwave ovens in factories, bakeries and cafeterias could now take on new urgency, its relevance obvious again. The whole case took on more urgency as Mulder asked about the role of the priests' own confessors.

After a morning talking to the labs and testing out theories with contacts back at Quantico, I could step out of the white coat. I turned my mind back to my other chores.

Father John was not surprised by my arrival. He smiled so warmly into my eyes and shook his head so gently as he told me I seemed distressed today. Distressed? He poured me a cup of chamomile tea and asked me why a disagreement with a colleague should cause such pain. Surely, argument and debate were inevitable in my line of work, just as surely as they were natural consequences of life and growth.

Such strength in his words as he sifted through more files and told me about his missionary work. Proud to recall how his arguments, even with his fellow priests, had made him stronger. Every challenge, from the urgency of contraception in the poorer world to the role of women, from the interpretation of miracles to the significance of celibacy, had made him look deeper within himself and others.

His eyes melted, a hint of dark chocolate against the gold of his skin. He reached out with his hand and I felt the moment freeze as the possibility that he might touch me surged through my head and made my heart pound. Within inches of my cheek he withdrew, sweeping his fingers on and back to brush against his own cheek, like a kiss blown across a crowded room. "Your smile seems sad today."

I didn't answer, there wasn't an answer. Just the look but mustn't touch of his fingers, the permission to look deeper in his eyes.

He took me to meet the men who were most likely to have heard the priests' confessions. They were a pleasure, good men full of love and understanding. They were also surprisingly forthcoming even though they each carefully reminded me of the sanctity and secrecy of the confessional.

They expressed satisfaction that the Bureau had sent someone who understood their sensitivities. They told me things. The truth and nothing but the truth? That much I was confident of. The whole truth? How could I know?

In a way, my visits to the other two churches were almost redundant. I'd probably made up my mind before I even got there. I like to imagine that I've got an open mind, but sometimes the tracks I'm supposed to find and travel seem just too clear. So clear that I wonder why other people haven't already followed them.

Is it the robes that put them off? If the men had not been priests, wouldn't my colleagues have been digging deep to find the closest relationships in these men's lives and then worked their way out from there?

The first man to die had left behind a wife. Not a legal one, of course. Not the kind who wears a ring and lives at her husband's side. But I've seen that look in the eyes of widows before. I knew who she was, what she was. She'd lost her husband and she wasn't even allowed to grieve.

She'd just about lost her job. It's hard enough getting leave from work if a husband dies, but no one gives special care to a woman whose priest has just been murdered. She wasn't very good at her job anymore, found it hard to concentrate, cried for no reason, lost her temper with colleagues.

She tried not to cry as she showed me the family photo album and asked me why anyone would hurt him and why they would want to keep on hurting him by smearing his memory in death.

Was that what my colleagues were trying to do, too? Then why didn't it feel like that?

Was it the confusion over the deaths, the mechanics of the executions? The doors bolted from the inside? It's never easy to see past the myths on a case like this. The Bureau guys only picked up the case after the second death. The only time they had a clean crime scene was on the latest. Multiple teams, all rushed in their own ways and with no big picture to scan first to tell them exactly which missing pieces they needed to go looking for.

Anyway, bolted from the inside just meant that someone had had to push the door in to let the cleaner get inside, her own key hadn't been good enough. But a man's shoulder had been. Sure, that's possible, I mean even I've done doors and I don't really rate as Arnie material. But in all sincerity, the groundskeeper at the first site was a very nice man but, in his sixties, not an especially powerful one. And these weren't the flimsy doors of a low security apartment, these were the heavy wood of a monument.

The doors had already been broken through, that much was obvious to me. Obvious, seeing it now, from this distance, devoid of the shock and horror of cooked flesh. Someone had just gummed the things shut as he left, something like that. The groundskeeper had pushed against resistance, but not wood and metal. Hard to prove, of course. The cleaner and the locksmith had cleaned and locked too well after the police left. But it made easy sense.

The profile of the killer took shape now, it had its own life, not just the one the killer had requested that cast him in the role of avenging angel. This one was all too human. Big and fit. Even if he'd used tools to assist breaking the door from its frame (and he probably had), it was still a job for a heavyweight. Which was also a good thing when it came to moving the body.

Access to an industrial size microwave, into which he could freely and safely move a man and a chair. Why would someone take a chair into an oven? Duress? Not physical, there would have been more bruises. A gun to the head perhaps. Or perhaps not.

He knew the churches, too. He knew them in enough detail to know which door the staff would use to get in and therefore which door to rig.

Intelligent, dangerously so. Yet so bent on showing off that he was willing to over-elaborate the deaths to the point where he was bound to get caught. Only luck had given him three victims.

Unless it was to confuse us and intrigue us I couldn't make sense of that either. A subtle ploy to make us look in the wrong direction and blame the victims, not the killer. Yet, why be subtle, when nothing else spoke of him trying to avoid us? Over-elaboration gets you caught. However many miles off the profile falls, sooner or later somebody sees the white van and the man with the heavy load.

Which made the other point clear, our UNSUB had access to some sort of vehicle in which the men could be transported in their seats and upright. It had a powered tailgate to make the maneuvering of the dead men possible. Which could take us back to those bakers and food factory workers, I guess, but something kept sending me away from that thought.

It's funny now. In retrospect I understand so easily where the profile came from. I don't understand why I had such a hard time justifying it to the team. I told them to go looking for a priest wannabe and they looked back at me like I was trying to put their investigation back a couple of weeks. They were all so busy.

So busy with their interviews of social workers and doctors and anyone else who might have heard rumors from their young patients. People who might have known about abuse but not quite put two and two together and realized that the unimaginable was happening. That's the way things go, once someone actually suggests the unimaginable, it becomes almost impossible to imagine anything else. The elephant in the living room.

I didn't see Mulder until the team briefing the next day. I tried not to see him then. I didn't want to be overwhelmed by some new indignity until I'd had time to recover my poise. I didn't want to talk to him, until I could sound like his partner.

The air was full of rush and hurry and no time to lose and the scent of victory and a target in our sights, and Mulder kept trying to slow us down. He really stood very little chance, the steamroller was already rolling.

On another day, if I'd been banging the same drum, it might have turned out differently. If he'd bothered to spend a bit of time talking to the team before now, it might have made a difference, but he'd cut and run as soon as we arrived here. So far as the men in that room were concerned, he had his investigation and they had theirs and while parallel tracks might conceivably be thought of as a good thing they had no plans to shift a degree or two off their path just to meet his.

That day, nothing he said mattered. Out of deference to his DC consultant status they didn't try to involve him in their work, and the ASAC paid lip-service to accommodating his suggestions in their plans. Not that his ideas were ignored, that would have been the kind of foolish mistake that could lose any upwardly mobile ASAC his next promotion, just that they were so far down the long list of things to do, and things to remember, they would not interfere with anyone's work.

Mulder came to me at the end of the meeting and there was such pleading in his eyes that I could scarcely look at him. It was a test of will, I forced my eyes to lock on his face and he almost flinched.

How could I say no? After all, he hadn't told me what to do, or asked me to follow him. "I want to carry on the work at the seminary."

He nodded, stiff staccato peck that said he wanted to argue but didn't dare. We'd only been working apart for two days and he was acting like I'd kicked him out of my life for wearing his boots in bed.

We spoke a little in the car. Well, no, I spoke a little and he tried to act as if he was listening. Hell, maybe he was listening. I listed some of the people I'd met, some of the files I'd worked through and explained how I expected to tie up a few more loose ends today. Ready to brief the team again tomorrow and try to play mix and match.

His ability to feign interest soon deserted him and he stared blankly out of the car's window and mumbled something that I guess could have been an observation or a question. "Their confessors didn't mention abuse."

An affair? Was that the right word? Committing adultery if they were truly married to the Church.

Father John's smile was a smile shared, some for me and some for Mulder. Only I returned the smile. Mulder looked shaken, then a little confused, but he recovered quickly. Without looking at me, he asked John how to find information on men who'd left the priesthood or had dropped out during training. John delivered him safely into the hands of the priest who counseled men who found that the life was not for them. I didn't look at Mulder before I left with John.

We slipped happily back into our searches, still looking for common links. A name or a time shared in common among our men, something that would give us a fast route to a shorter list of suspects. The team back at the office was doing the systematic things. Looking for microwave ovens. Looking for vans. Looking back through years of history with Social Services and others.

Which meant that I was free to work my own way, still hopeful of making the leap and grateful that Mulder hadn't insisted on keeping my feet on the ground by hovering over me.

John was a presence and a help, and we talked. Oh, how we talked. It didn't feel like gossip, it felt like we were freeing ourselves, approaching a mindset that might let us understand the dead men better.

John asked it in such innocence and with such a lack of challenge or reproach and I tried so hard not to stutter or gag on the reply. "We've caught some dangerous people. Sometimes..." I guess I should have just said yes, but the words had bubbled up before I stopped them and they were more dangerous than yes. I don't think John would have pushed me if I'd just said yes.

Bless me Father, for I have sinned. "It's hard to explain." Did I want his blessing?

Confession, so everyone claims, is good for the soul and my soul soared under the prospect of his forgiveness. Mulder can't forgive his own faults, but he wanted to forgive me. So, he tried to take my faults and add them to his. On one level, he lied for me. But in his heart, he lied for himself.

"I've killed to save innocent lives. I..." And I killed Pfaster for the same reason. And the difference is hard to explain. And I prayed at John's side as I explained my acts in tiny snips of thought and analogy and in hopes of forgiveness.

But John didn't forgive, I was God's child to forgive. And I was grateful, because he was not Mulder and not Skinner and not my mother and not 101 counselors at the FBI offices. He was not going to try to wash my sins away. I could keep my sin. I could hate my sin and learn to love the sinner.

I could have bought gas before we left town, but I didn't. We could have stayed in town for the night, but we didn't. Doesn't matter, I'll stop at the next place and worry about the could-haves another day.

Like I could have kept Ellison and his people properly informed about my investigations of the murder victims. I could have put on my best don't-fuck-with-me voice as I gave them the preliminary profile in the team meeting. I could have demanded that they forget the chain of command and listen to someone who used to be good at this shit.

I couldn't do it. Just as surely as I couldn't stop looking at how Scully had seen a reflection of grace and hope in the Reverend Orison. As certainly as I couldn't stop myself from feeling relief when Orison died, a de-facto accessory to his own murder. Just as damning as the way I couldn't force myself to see the danger that Pfaster posed afterwards. Some fucking profiler I've turned into.

It scares me, how dependent I've become on her, how much I rely on Scully to be Scully. God knows, it's not that I think she's perfect. I don't even like some of the things she does. She can treat me like I'm a stranger. She can treat strangers like she can see devils inside. No one's presumed innocent by Scully. Of course, in our line of work, sometimes she's right. But even when she's wrong, it's so well intentioned, that I can't condemn her need to judge.

I wonder about Pfaster, she was right to see his demons. I saw them too, evil in a human who did inhuman things. I think that when she fired, she only saw his demons, she didn't see him anymore. I hope she didn't see me. Pfaster's body wasn't really that good a shield from Scully's bullet. Fate saw us through.

If I hadn't been there at all, would it have been easier for Scully? No complications like whether Pfaster was still a threat. Just Scully and her gun versus Pfaster and his demons. I spoiled the purity of her victory. I wish I hadn't been there. I wish I'd been there sooner. I wish I hadn't closed my eyes and hoped for the best when Orison died.

Seeing her with Father John Leonard caught me off-balance. Seeing her smile almost knocked me out cold. Not just a polite smile or a happy one or a signal that she was at peace, it was more. She gave him my smile. The one I only see when I wake up in a hospital bed. The smile I thought our work had stolen from her. That I had stolen.

I wish that I'd felt jealous, that would have seemed like a normal human reaction, healthy even. I just felt numb, like the world might be a better place if the earth just opened under my feet and swallowed me up. Save everybody a lot of trouble and let Scully smile again.

Fortunately, as always, the impulse passed as quickly as it came. I wonder if one day it won't. And then?

I listened to stories of men who wanted to be priests and who found that they had wanted the wrong thing. Not so different from any other group of students, doctors, psychologists or FBI agents, for that matter. It looked right and then it didn't.

Too much pain, not enough gain. Too much optimism before the reality. Too much of an attempt to fulfil someone else's dreams and not enough about fulfilling their own.

Most of the reasons were frankly, mercifully dull. From my lofty perch I could deem them as inadequate for my purposes, not emotionally charged enough to slide into the gap between normal disappointment and the kind of trauma that prepares a man to kill. Not the stuff of drama, just of life.

It was enough, enough to know that I would recognize him when I saw him. A man who'd given up his dreams about a mission to save and his search for the greater truth because he loved a woman.

The precision of the targets made sense. The posing made sense, but the accusation was that the victims were sexual men, not abusers. Easy to hunt their killer now, such a strong image in my mind. I knew him so well.

I knew how he'd look, thirty or so, big and fit. I knew about the van he drove. I knew he roamed from church to church, trusted and known at all of them. I knew he knew about the men and their secret lovers. I just needed to know his name.

Hell. Why isn't she asleep? More wishful thinking. I point vaguely toward the dial because I can't find the words. Deep breath. Try harder. "Do you want to get something to drink?"

I see her nod of the head without actually seeing her face. I guess I'll have to look at her some time. I was planning on next week maybe.

The diner is warm and clean and more inviting than it ought to be. I ought to be offended by its anemic decor and its over-packaged food. But it's so bright and crass and antiseptically shiny with its white tiles and stainless steel counters and fluorescent tubes. It's got nothing in common with the soft mahogany, polished brass and glowing light of the churches. I like this place. It doesn't scare me.

Scully grabs two coffees without asking, I guess she's worried that I'll fall asleep at the wheel. She chooses a table free of neighbors and distractions, but well located so that I can look around the room while I sit. I suppose I should be grateful that she's so sensitive to my paranoia.

Aching. So what? I check them, at least there's no fresh blood. The missing fingernail's a mess. I should have let them dress it again before we left, at least I wouldn't have had to look at it. It'll hurt more tomorrow, I know that. It may be a few days before I can drive again. The worse thing is the stiffness in my arm from where he punched that hole in me. Oddly, that stab to my right arm meant that most of the real damage is to my left hand. Which is lucky, I suppose. I guess I should be wearing a sling. Tomorrow.

I know she's waiting for an answer, I'm not used to her trying so hard, I suppose I'd better try. "Nothing permanent." Nothing ever is.

My eyes slip shut as I take the first mouthful of coffee, or dishwater, or whatever this stuff is. And she takes it as an opportunity.

She's trying so hard and I'd like to reward her for her effort, but if I open my mouth the wrong words might come spinning out. "I'm not tired."

She soothes a hand across her face, and I make the mistake of watching her fingers as they move. She looks so pale, so tired. She should be asleep. We both should. And just as soon as I come down off this adrenaline high that I'm flying, I'll crash like a sack of cement. Go to sleep, Scully. It'll be better in the morning.

I'm not that paranoid, Scully. If you'd known - you'd have made sure I had backup. I know that. "It's past." It really is.

I nod and wait for Scully the interrogator to return. But her voice remains soft, almost too soft to hear.

Oh, Scully. I know what you're saying, I hear your preacher's rich harmonies in those words. I guess you noticed it then.

I found him a little hard to take, Scully. Couldn't you have found one who looked a little less like my better-looking, happier, tougher cousin? That's not rational, is it? After all, we aren't... And anyway, he's loyal to his vows, even that one about celibacy. I'd laugh, but the parallel's not that funny.

Love the sinner, not the sin. I know what you're saying, Scully. Do you know what I'm hearing? "Nice philosophy."

Don't, Scully. Don't start offering to resign, don't expect me to beg you to stay. Save it until I've slept. Save it until you've slept. Then. If you still need reassuring. Then. I'll take a shot at it.

"Let's get home." I sluice down the rest of the coffee substitute, fast enough so that I can't taste it. She takes the hint and stops trying to appeal to my human side, just knocks her drink back and heads to the ladies' room.

Mulder gives himself away. His eyes are dull, smokey from the fire smoldering low inside. He's paying such close attention to every movement that I'd swear he'd be walking on tiptoes if his muscles weren't too tired to obey his commands.

And I take shallow slow breaths to stop myself from gagging. The dampness in my eyes stings like acid and I wish I could just let the tears fall and wash it all away. But I can't, I don't dare. If I start crying now, I may never stop.

I want to be angry, with him or with me. I want him to be angry. I want to get us both back to familiar ground. I want to kiss it better. Pathetic fantasy, I know.

Our table's already empty by the time I get back out there. No sign of us to spoil the plastic sheen. I hunt for his presence, but he's long gone.

He's already back in the car. I guess I should be relieved that he didn't just drive off. As soon as I'm safely seated, he pulls away. By the time I've fastened my belt, he's accelerating back onto the highway.

The shiver that chases down my spine leaves me in no doubt. I'm entering the danger zone, and it's hard to ignore his proximity or this suicidal urge to take him along for the ride.

The gap between us is so narrow now that no one could squeeze into the space. Not even my dreams, my thoughts of another life, can survive in the vacuum of our relationship. Which angers me. And yet.

I play games with him, nasty little games. I tease him with ideas of a life we can't have. I hint about family Christmases, houses in the suburbs, kids to hug, a dog to walk, a car to wash.

I imply that I'm attracted by a world that he can scarcely believe exists, one that he certainly can't give me. One that even I don't take seriously. I wonder if he knows? I'm sure he suspects, but does he know? Maybe he wants to believe. I almost laugh at the thought.

So I deliver the sucker punch and hope that it'll make him see me. "Don't you ever just want to stop the car?"

He jerks his head in reply. If he was a lion it would be a gesture designed to show off the full glory of his mane. But he's not a lion. He's just a man. So all that happens is the car gives a lurch of sympathy. He swallows, bites down angrily, clenching his jaw, ashamed to have given any response.

Mulder's phone call to the office came too late. Why hadn't he told me how close he was? Why had he just let me carry on doing work he already knew was worthless?

Because I didn't know it was worthless? Because I didn't want to leave Father John's study? Oh, Mulder - don't tell me that he scared you off, that you thought that I would turn away from you if you tried to pull me back. You ought to know about John, I want you to know him. He was good. He was so very like you.

So very like you. The good listener that you are to people you don't know. The soft empath you are with strangers. He looked at me with those same gentle eyes you have for people who can't see your scars. Father John, you see, was my own personal Fox Mulder substitute.

But the real Fox Mulder could have pulled me out if he'd wanted me. In the end I guess that's what happened, he called me back to his side. Almost too late.

Mulder doesn't have the energy to look at me. He hasn't got any words for this. But I need to tell him, he needs to understand.

"When I first saw John, I thought of him. But when I got to know John, I realized that it was you that he reminded me of." Oh, hell, this isn't going right. Get to the point. "I keep thinking if I'd told him about your profile sooner - -"

I'm intrigued by her taste in men. Really I am. She flies away. And when she returns, she shows me her broken wing and I coo and fuss and I wonder who she thinks I am. Her brother? Her father?

If I dissociate myself from my own reality, I can see the humor in her choices and mine as well. Scully and me, the great thing is we stick to our MOs.

He's silent and unmoved by my words and his eyelashes flutter out some coded message to stay away. So I have got to let it drop, but I really wish he'd let me explain.

Of course, I didn't talk with Father John about Mulder's profile. Not until it was almost too late.

Mulder's words on the phone still play on high echo through my brain, but they've lost something. They've been degraded by the number of repetitions they've made as they go spinning around my thoughts. Each one a little less real than the original, until all that's left are the words and not the meaning. I'll never forget the words.

Mulder's voice is so careful. Its rhythm, its tone, its volume are precision instruments, all tuned to tell me more than he says. But on the phone, sometimes it's hard to catch. And in a roomful of eager, ready-to-roll agents, Mulder's softness can sound less urgent than the drum beat that's driving them.

At least, I think so. I hope so. I don't want to think that I just discarded his voice because I wanted to be right, so he had to be wrong.

That was the irony, of course, if things played out my way then we would both be right, and I was almost proud of that. I spent an hour walking that team through my theories about abusers and Mulder's description of the man's body, his age, his skills and even his van. The stage was set for us all to converge on the bad guy by playing mix and match on the files we'd hunted.

All except Mulder, who hadn't bothered to check in at the office that morning. He'd gone out, somewhere, without saying where. When I phoned him he just mumbled something about retracing his steps, that there was something he'd missed.

The match was perfect. Too perfect as it turned out. The man whose website ranted and raved about perverts in the church and the hypocrites who protected them, even through the silence of confessional. That was the same bakery worker who delivered to all the churches. He was the same man whose life had bounced him from one institution to the next. Who'd learned his trade as a cook in jail, while he served his time for almost killing a priest.

The team sensed blood in the air and wanted it over. Wanted to pat one another on the back and celebrate a job well done. Perversely, wanting it all the more because we didn't even need to cry for the dead, no searing recriminations about not getting there faster. We could hate all of their sins and not even try to love the sinners. Everybody would be happy with a job well done.

Mulder's call came too late. We were already heading for the door, prepared for our move, confident that it would lead to a fast checkmate.

Ah, Mulder, but you didn't even know who 'he' was. Surely you know it sounded like paranoia. If I close my eyes and replay your words with just the right cadence, I can hear that panicked edge in your voice and claim you sounded... unsure.

ASAC Ellison was hesitant when I told him. He was more than a little scared of Mulder, I think, or at least scared of what he'd heard of Mulder's reputation. If Mulder had phoned him and not me, he might have sent in the cavalry just to cover his ass. If Mulder had thrown his full arrogant-asshole-with-an-attitude weight behind his demands, I've got no doubt Ellison would have given him whatever he wanted.

I nodded. I would be enough. I've always been enough. I wasn't upset about missing the arrest. I would be there for my partner, sympathizing with him over the non-event he'd led me to. Meanwhile Ellison and his men would be across town getting the glory.

The woodwork gave the game away. I knew that I'd already seen him, seen his work at any rate. Not just the dead bodies. I'd seen him in those churches and I just hadn't quite understood how.

It was obvious in retrospect, as so many things are. The dead men were sitting down. I knew what I was going to see as I looked at the chair in the confessional. It was a chair that matched the church. The right design, the right color, the right amount of polish, the right degree of wear. Apart from the charring of course. If it hadn't matched, I'd have noticed first time out.

Which meant that the chair had been taken to the oven and returned along with the dead man. Who moves furniture and why? The same man who could break a door and rig it to look locked again, yet leave it so that one good push could open it and leave the damaged bolt on the floor as evidence of force.

The churches shared a repair shop, of course, a workshop close to the seminary. The dead men had all still been regular visitors to the chapel there, they'd always brought their confessions home to the seminary. All roads led to the same building. So I went. It's what I do.

I saw the wires as soon as I looked hard enough. No one else had needed to look until now. I saw the microphones needed to pick up private words in the confessional and I knew what was happening. I knew it was possible, no, probable, that I was being watched and I didn't know if I had two seconds or two minutes or two hours, so I phoned Scully and asked for backup.

Contrary to popular belief, I don't have a death wish. I can die any time I like, what's the point just wishing for something you can have that easily?

I don't know what went wrong. I guess I was unsure where I stood with her and somehow that must have made me sound like I wasn't serious about this. I knew as she hung up that I'd not done enough. So, instead of running, like my body was screaming for me to do, I hit a fresh set of buttons and waited. Unbelievably, I just stood there, listening for a reply from Ellison or one of his men, instead of listening for danger entering the room. Instead of getting the fuck out of there.

The gun was in my right hand and the phone was in my left and that's a fucking stupid thing to do. And all of it was, I guess. But a phone and a gun? Juggling's definitely not my thing.

Bigger than me? God, was he ever. I guess I should be grateful that he only had a chisel in his hand as he slammed a neat little puncture into my arm. If he'd had a hammer, I wouldn't have been driving tonight.

But he didn't did he? He didn't like it to get too personal. So, according to the rules, I had to try to make it personal and he had to try to avoid it. Which was why I got locked in the confessional. Which was how I ripped my hands apart trying to get out.

I was impressed. The workmanship was beautiful. Such a labor of love to create a thing like that. I asked him about it, trying to keep it personal, talked to him through the microphone. He didn't answer me, but at least he didn't switch on the current.

It's funny, the way wishful thinking works. I'm not a science philistine, really I'm not. I knew that the phone wasn't going to work, but it didn't stop me looking at the display and hoping. Even though I knew exactly where I was.

My impersonal killer had locked me in the only mahogany-lined microwave oven in the country. At least, I hope it's the only one.

I asked him what had happened to his wife. Had she died or had she left? He'd given up his calling to the priesthood for a woman. Then he'd lost the woman, just like he'd already lost his mission. That much was obvious. Doubtless, dad knocked the mission into him as a kid, just in case he'd missed the point about being called.

So he'd punished these men for having their cake and eating it. So ugly and so angry. I couldn't help but wonder about the posing. Had he known how we would interpret it? Had he worn gloves, used tongs to handle them. Were bodies always dirty, was that what had scared his woman away?

You have to be awfully careful about how personal you get. Especially when the only feedback you're getting is that you aren't yet being cooked alive. Funny how hard it is to convince yourself that sweating is your body's own choice, not the first sign you're dying. I mean, I don't know how it would feel, I've no experience. An active imagination can be a bitch sometimes.

So I tried to get personal about me. But that was just as dangerous. I can go for months without saying the word 'unflappable' but what happens when I meet the guy with big ears? Whatever you do, don't mention missions, or the truth or imagining you can save people or... Well, I guess the moral of the story is clear, why don't I learn to just shut the fuck up.

I don't know if I distracted him. I don't know if I bought myself some time. I don't even know if he was listening to anything I said. I just know that I didn't have another plan. The bastard had both my guns and all I had was a cell phone with a no-service light blinking.

And I kicked at the door and scratched at the hinges and screamed at him that he didn't have to do this. That I understood. That I cared. That I knew how much he loved her.

Thou shalt not lie. I mean, if you're going to break a commandment, where better than in here. Just keep your fingers crossed as you say it, right? Thou shalt not kill. Hey, you out there with the power switch and the guns. Thou shalt not kill. I guess he skipped school that day.

I suppose that really, it all happened very fast. It only seemed like forever. After all I was only a mile or so from the Bureau office.

Even so, I guess a team would have taken a while to get there. To convince, to organize, to move in according to standard operating procedures. It would all have taken more time. Much longer than it took for Scully to get there alone. Maybe it was better this way. Maybe she was right.

Father John gave me directions to a handyman who'd wanted priesthood. A young priest who'd wanted a wife. A husband whose wife had rejected him after less than a year. A man who now lavished his love on keeping the plague of time away from the woodwork.

I was running by the time I hit the chapel. When had I realized that Mulder was right? As John gave me the abbreviated version of Joseph Pounder's life? As John told me about Joseph's trade as an electrician and how his father had taught him to work in wood? Or was it when he told me how Joseph regularly took the elderly out in the van that was specially adapted to carry their wheelchairs?

I already had my gun in my hand when I reached the chapel. I already had my heart on my sleeve when I opened the door. I screamed my orders, "Federal Agent - drop your weapon," before I'd even seen Joseph's hand. I knew what I was going to see.

I think he was ready to die. Mulder had said that in his profile. That the man was doing too much, embellishing the crime in a way that said he wanted to be known, that to be known and understood might be better than to live another day.

He raised the weapon and I knew its muzzle. Mulder's gun. How had he been disarmed? When? Was he already dead?

And Joseph turned to look at the switch on the wall and his hand followed his eyes, and I screamed. "I'm armed, stop or I'll fire."

And he didn't stop, just shook his head and threw the switch and shrugged like he didn't see that he had a choice.

And then he didn't. No more choices. Just the crack of a bullet flying and a sick gurgle of blood. I pushed the switch back up and hoped I was switching the current off and not on.

Mulder was still scratching at the door of the confessional. He almost fell through it as I threw the bolts back.

He staggered upright in a hiccup of movement. Tiny robot steps, kept on moving until he could rest his head against the wall, painful angry gasps in every breath. I could see the blood on his hands, the stiffness that told me that his body hadn't yet accepted that it was safe, his desperate need to get it all back under control.

"Are you OK?" Puny little words. I wanted to go to him, kiss it all better, but somewhere along the line I knew I'd lost the right.

Mulder turned, twisted against the wall, using his head as a pivot point. Twisted until he could see me, then closed his eyes again so he couldn't. "How is he?"

Joseph was smiling at me. His hands were empty. Just a sad smile on his lips and a question in his eyes.

I slipped the cuffs around his wrists and tried not to see him. My fingers found their own way across his head and looked for a steady pulse. My hands unbuttoned his shirt and my mouth mumbled soothing nothings about keeping calm. The bullet had hit high in his chest. Painful, but probably not fatal.

I didn't look at Mulder. I tapped in 911 on my phone to get an EMT. Tapped in Ellison's number to get his agents up here.

Mechanical processes and learned responses guided me through the motions and I checked Joseph's condition and held a pad to his chest. And I didn't look at Mulder.