Past Imperfect

TITLE: Past Imperfect
AUTHOR: jowrites

DISTRIBUTION: Gossamer and Xemplary, others please ask.
RATING: R (language, themes)
CLASSIFICATION: X A

SUMMARY: The FBI wants Mulder to find out what went wrong with Bill Patterson, Bill is keen to talk, but why? Mulder and Scully consider the people who walk into the abyss and the people who they drag down with them.

Bill Patterson is Mulder's old boss from his time working as a profiler in the ISU. When he went off the rails during the Mostow/gargoyles case (S3 - Grotesque) it was Mulder who had to catch him.

SPOILERS: S6 spoilers - including Field Trip and Tithonus. This might have happened before Biogenesis!

LEGALLY: You're right, I don't own them, never have, never will. Their souls (and hopefully a percentage of the profits!) belong to DD and GA and I've merely borrowed them. This story is mine.

First Published - 2 September, 1999

My thanks to everyone who helped me during the betas of the story. Special thanks to DJ and Ann.

Joann

Past Imperfect

There was something about Skinner's tone of voice, an off-note that made nerve endings misfire. Skinner sounded like a man in charge, that wasn't the problem. Mulder's senses shifted to high alert, the smell of the anticipated hunt tickling at his nostrils. Maybe there was something about the eyes. What could he see?

Skinner obliged by removing his glasses to give Mulder a clearer view, then disappointed him by scrunching his eyes tightly for an instant and rubbing an index finger across an eyebrow. Mulder sat up a little straighter, braced himself to hear another convincingly told lie. Scully tensed in sympathy.

Skinner rose and started to prowl. "I'm not sure that it's appropriate for me to assign this to you. Given your... history."

Mulder kept purposefully still, despite the frustration that was building fast, tried to keep his eyes from tracking his boss's every movement, shook his head slightly as Scully looked towards him. "If our history means that we have experience, surely that's an advantage."

Mulder swallowed, kept his voice crisp. "Is expected to go before a psychiatric review board anytime now."

"Then you will not be surprised to hear that Dr. Patterson has been released into the care of his family."

Before he could stop them, the muscles in Mulder's arm had forced his hand into a fist. He quickly ordered it to relax, stared hard as his fingers uncurled and made sure that they gave away no further information.

Mulder nodded, unwilling to hunt for further parallels between Bill Patterson, his ex-boss turned murderer, and himself. "And the objectives of the interview?"

Mulder's finger tapped restlessly on the arm of the chair. He tried to remember how to reply and to guess what words Skinner was hoping to hear. He couldn't think of anything, decided to keep silent.

An icebreaker. Mulder noted her arrival in the fray, but saw no reason to respond. Her gaze shifted between the two men and Mulder could sense her confusion. After all, asking him to interview Patterson wasn't an unreasonable request. She had to be wondering why there was all this dancing around the issue.

Skinner said the words that Mulder had merely assumed. "He's asked that Agent Mulder visit him alone."

Mulder nodded and permitted himself a single glance in Scully's direction, acknowledging that her look of disgust was justified not merely by the task but by his lack of fight.

Walking slowly from the office, head down, he didn't allow himself the luxury of a backward glance towards his boss. The autopilot in his brain pushed the basement button on the elevator control panel and held the door open until Scully joined him.

Mulder sighed, uncertain whether the fact that the elevator had no other occupants was a blessing or a curse. "It may be nothing."

She caught the bluster of annoyance that she'd been ready to use as fuel for her words, and took a tentative deep breath. "What do you think is wrong?"

He shrugged, offered a vaguely sheepish smile in reply. "I did for three years, I don't see how a couple more days can hurt."

"He's fine. There's a certificate signed by a judge and three psychiatrists to prove it. Better than I've got."

Scully shook her head, not prepared for that conversation. "When are you going to see him?"

"After another coffee." He ignored the idea that a couple of Valium might be a better option.

Bill Patterson looked happy. Fox Mulder tried to paste on a polite smile as he accepted the suggestion that he sit down and make himself at home. The dark-haired woman, who Mulder recognized as Bill's daughter, promised coffee as she left the room.

Mulder found himself smiling for real now and nodded appreciatively. "I guess institution food agreed with you, sir. You're looking well."

"Fat? I know. Not enough happening to keep me on my toes. Do you know how many calories an active brain requires?"

Mulder let his smile fade, spoke gently. "It is good to see you. How long have you been home?"

Mulder's jaw tightened. He frowned, acknowledging Patterson's words as a compliment and sat back, trying to hide in the upholstered comfort of the couch. "Fine. Tell me. Why did you kill Agent Nemhauser?"

"You know, your interview technique always stank. I hear you're chasing Big Foot again."

"I had hoped that you would grow out of it. I'm surprised that Agent Scully hasn't."

Mulder forced himself not to rise to the bait, kept silent, a response born of long habit when faced with Bill Patterson and other bullies.

"Still, perhaps it looks good after months of grunt work." Patterson shifted forward and searched Mulder's face for a reaction. "Such a waste."

Mulder drank his coffee in silence while his old boss recounted the chase for Mostow, the gargoyle killer, the energy that he had invested in the hunt and his own personal journey into the darkness. Mulder finished his drink, then cleared his throat. "I'll look forward to reading all about it in your memoirs. But I'm still waiting for an answer."

Patterson turned dark angry eyes back on Mulder and feigned the idea that he didn't understand.

Bill closed his eyes and sank back in his chair. "Who would you choose to take you in?"

Mulder accepted the words as another compliment. Swallowed the bile that Nemhauser's sudden bloody image provoked in his brain. Whispered a silent 'sorry' to a dead colleague.

The lights were already on as Mulder entered his apartment. He scanned the room, checking for the correct positioning of the telltale markers that he'd left on the doorways. Not quite ready just yet for another visit from a wellwisher, or an assassin, or whatever Krycek or whoever planned on being next time. There was always going to be a next time. Until, of course, he was dead.

He flicked off the lights. Odd reminder of the abnormality of his life. Didn't normal people switch lights on when they arrived home? No matter. Too many thoughts already racing through his brain. Too tired to think about anything except the idea that he had to get the job done, failure was not an option. The Bureau wouldn't allow it. Patterson wouldn't allow it. Nemhauser wouldn't allow it.

With the recordings of the day's interview playing as background noise, he dug around for food in the iced-up freezer compartment.

The knock on the door made his muscles tense. He just wished he wasn't quite so wired. He decided to call out before he actually opened the door in case having his gun in his hand was going to be embarrassing. "Yeah?"

"The recital got cancelled." Scully stepped past him and into the room. "I wanted to talk."

Swallowing as he closed the door, he leaned back against it. "I." He looked around in confusion, struggling to find a way to say that he didn't. "Sure."

The all-business look on her face was replaced by sudden uncertainty. "How did the interview go?"

He stood in silence for an instant, recognizing her rising irritation but unable to find the platitudes to soothe it, then turned and headed for the welcoming seclusion of the kitchen. "Coffee?"

Now that he couldn't actually see her, he tried to talk. "So what did you do today?"

Mulder shook his head at his reflection in the coffee maker. "No. Bill will say things to me that he would never say to anyone else."

He turned to find her standing in the doorway, staring. He didn't like how loud his heartbeat sounded. Her sigh focused his attention and made his skin tingle. He turned away from her and back to face the counter before moving the coffee cups into a neater line. He heard her slow footsteps, then felt the touch of her hand against his arm as she spoke. "That's the problem."

Her hand tightened on his arm and he shivered a little. He turned to face her, looking out somewhere past her head and into the night. Leaning forward for an instant, he forgot to think and felt his fingers rise towards her hair, then carefully pulled away a few inches and looked down at her. Looked at her for the first time that evening, first time that day. The curve of his knuckles trailing gently over the contours of her shoulder.

The click of the coffeemaker brought him back to attention. "It's just an interview. I have interviewed serials before. I had a talent for it." Talent spoken as a term of abuse.

Bill's greeting was as warm as a spider's, and Mulder had to catch himself to keep his head from dropping to look for sticky gossamer webs on the polished wooden floor.

Mulder smiled at the familiar ground that Patterson had chosen for his opening shot. No notes in his notepad and a tape recorder on the desk. Sloppy, time-wasting. Mulder nodded.

Mulder shifted slowly to find the most comfortable pose for the chair, allowing his fingers to twine loosely, and his spine to engage in a comfortably unwinding stretch before letting his hands fall back to relax in his lap. He sat quiet, considering. Watched Bill Patterson carefully. Tuned himself into Bill's too regular breathing, too alert muscles and recognized Bill's stance for what it was: relaxed like the cat watching the mouse that it was pretending to free. He watched Bill's eyes brighten as his pupils went large and the little nest of lines between eyebrow and eye twitched, a movement so slight, so definite, that to Mulder it was a red flag.

Patterson smiled, no longer even pretending relaxation, predator awake and easy to see. Delight trickled quiet pleasure from his eyes. "I was locked up. Even now, it's close to house arrest. What could I have possibly done wrong?"

Patterson examined his hands as if considering whether to kept the claws sheathed. "I've known when you should have done."

Bill pushed forward in his chair, eager. "Yesterday's tapes. What suggested a problem?"

Mulder sighed. "Too many hot words." Sat quiet for an instant before answering the unspoken supplementary question. "Control."

"Control? Not fair. I've been locked away. You know that feeling. The Pinkus case. Straps on your limbs and drugs in your veins and no control."

"You only got out because Agent Scully signed you out. What did she say? Folie a deux, wasn't it?"

Mulder shook his head, soft but definite. The item was not on this agenda. "I saw something that I shouldn't have seen."

Dana Scully hit the stop button on the tape recording of yesterday's discussions between Mulder and Patterson. She looked back at the computer screen. Bill Patterson's ISU had handled thousands of cases a year. Even just narrowing it down to those cases Mulder that had worked with him didn't help much. So much blood.

Mulder had returned from yesterday's session convinced that Patterson was still a problem. The idea didn't surprise Scully. Patterson was a shrewd enough psychologist to outflank even a team of hospital doctors. That was the problem with doctors, they always wanted to imagine that their patients could get better.

The problem with Mulder was rather different. Paranoia and trust mixed in equal portions to produce breathtaking leaps of insight or equally breathtaking lapses of judgment. She started the tape of Mulder's interview playing again and tried to hear the things her partner could hear. Shifting her attention from Patterson's cases to Patterson's life, she gave the FBI databases another search to run.

Mulder pulled up, perfectly placed at the stop light, closed his eyes for an instant and took a deep breath. He checked his watch. Nine hours as the bug under Patterson's microscope was way too long. Wasn't that supposed to be the other way around, wasn't Bill meant to be his case study?

No change there then. Maybe he could get Bill, rather than Skinner, to sign his expense claim. Complete the circle properly. He tried to recall where the time had gone. Eight and three quarter hours of cat and mouse and not obvious who was what and which was which and fifteen minutes of something real and ten of them had been spent eating or cleaning up after a rather excellent peach danish. Was that what Skinner had in mind when he talked about history?

Which gave him nine hours of tape to review. To find out which five minutes were worth listening to. Maybe Bill was right, maybe he did waste time. The light changed and he pulled forward.

Patterson was always right. Mulder half smiled, recalling it as a mantra that he had never quite learned. What was Patterson playing at? A game, sure. But for real? Was there a real crime out there, a real dragon that Mulder had been primed to slay? Or a double bluff? A teaser without a story to back it up.

The apartment was dark as Mulder entered. He groaned at that. Day two and Patterson had already started eating away his defenses. He tried to think back to the morning. Had he left the living room light on or not? His hand drifted to his hip, releasing the gun from its holster. Deep breath as he entered the room. Checked it carefully. Pronounced it all clear. Switched all the lights on as he searched the rest of the apartment, just in case.

Scully had abandoned file reading after a couple of hours and decided on a more direct approach. A little trip to meet Karen Clark in VICAP.

Karen was hugging the phone to her ear and scribbling notes on the pad in front of her as Scully walked in. She smiled at Scully's arrival, waved her to take a seat at the table. ASAC Karen Clark. Dana Scully tried to suppress the quick pang that hit her as she saw her old Quantico classmate. Had it really been eight years since they did the assault course together? Where had it gone?

It was pretty obvious where it had gone for Karen. A ring on her finger, a three-year-old in nursery school, a nice office with good views from the windows and her name on the door. Scully shook her head to bring her attention back to the task at hand.

Scully hesitated and realized just how out of practice she was on small talk. "Good. How's the family?"

"Hell on wheels." Clark paused, startled by her colleague's suddenly serious expression. When she spoke again, her voice was both softer and more business like. "No, they're good. What did you want to talk about?"

"Only on his computerization project. Six months. More than enough. Took all the glamour out of profiling."

"Right. I'm with you. Were there any warning signs?" She shrugged again. "He was driven, he was a bastard. He could smile while he kicked you in the guts. I just assumed that was normal."

There was just a little apprehension in her movements as she waited for Mulder to answer the door. She could hear voices from inside, the TV she guessed, but the first voice she heard as Mulder opened the door was Bill Patterson's.

The tape recorder's accusations continued to ring through the apartment. Mulder shrugged, smiled and beckoned her into the room. He flicked the player off as Patterson started to talk about an agent who had died to save Mulder.

Scully didn't bother to acknowledge the stupid question. She sunk directly onto Mulder's couch. "I've been trying to find out more about Patterson."

Mulder's eyes flashed a warning before he quickly schooled his expression back to unconcerned. "Did you?"

She shook her head. "I had a chat with a friend from Quantico, but all that did was make me feel old."

Scully smiled, struck by the odd domesticity of the conversation, raised an eyebrow. "And how was your day, dear?"

"I... I don't know what he's doing." He pointed towards the desk and headed for the kitchen. "My report's on the printer."

Mulder raised his eyebrows a little at the cautious phrasing, nodding slightly as he took the first sip from his drink and handed the other one to her. "I'm saying he should still be locked up."

"Against the advice of a panel that knows him, people that have spent three years with him? Clinical specialists."

"Against the advice of anyone who would release him, whatever their credentials."

Mulder frowned as he shook his head. "No, they'll want conformance. Evidence might get in the way."

They were quietly spoken words, but at that moment they were like waving the red flag in front of the bull. "Do I question your ability to do an autopsy?"

Suddenly forced on the defensive, even Scully was shocked to find that she was ready to fight. "My work can be verified. This? Three independent clinicians with nearly fifty years experience between them. And you say they are wrong?"

Dana Scully had been right about how the Bureau management would react to Mulder's report.

What neither Fox Mulder nor Dana Scully had anticipated was just how fast the reaction would be. The report had arrived on Skinner's desk at eight. Mulder got invited into the management meeting at nine.

Mulder recognized most of the faces at the table, paying close attention to his breathing as he realized that he recognized them mostly from disciplinary hearings. Renowned arrogance or not, it was difficult for him to shake off the sensation that he was on trial again now.

Skinner's opening request sounded a lot like the statement of the charges. "You were asked to identify the stressors that led to Dr. Patterson's breakdown and to indicate how the Bureau could better protect its people. Could you summarize your conclusions?"

Mulder ignored the sudden instinct to declare himself not guilty. He flipped to the summary on page seventeen and kept his voice even. "He spent too long on a single case. Repeated losses, personal and professional, destroyed his ability to distance himself from his work."

Assistant Director Cassidy looked pointedly at Skinner, then resumed her customary role as chair of the meeting. She glanced towards the report. "And you go on to declare that Dr. Patterson should be returned to an institution."

"Not necessarily. I believe that he is not competent to distinguish right and wrong. And that further investigation is warranted."

"The man has been declared competent. A lot of people have to be wrong to make you right."

Mulder tensed a little, resisted the urge to smile at the casual insult. "Dr. Patterson is an expert in people manipulation as well as a skilled psychologist. He gave them exactly what they needed to hear."

The others at the table sat back, fidgeting slightly, breathing a little heavily, looking too unconcerned.

Cassidy shook her head as she spoke. "Why would Bill Patterson look for help from you, Agent Mulder?"

Skinner recalled Mulder to his office three hours later and patiently explained how the report would be edited prior to release to other parts of the Bureau's management. Lessons would be learned. Patterson's tragedy would be a cautionary tale about the failure of the Bureau's support systems.

Patterson's descent into hell had been a momentary aberration. There was absolutely no reason to besmirch the good name and reputation of one of the most successful managers and innovators the Bureau had ever had.

Mulder tried not to laugh at the thought of exactly how much damage any sort of report from him might do to the reputation of a killer whose final victim had been a fellow agent.

Skinner shifted, an uncomfortable fit in his chair. "Section Chief... Dr. Patterson has friends."

Mulder scarcely heard Skinner's reply. The words were irrelevant. The quiet commanding tone in Skinner's voice was utterly at odds with the too tidy blink pattern of Skinner's eyes. Skinner had been taking lying lessons. Mulder tried to shake the fear from his thoughts.

"You leave Patterson alone. Understood?" Mulder took too long to reply, so Skinner tried again. "Understood?"

The assistant waved Dana Scully directly into Karen Clark's office. "Karen said she'd only be a minute."

The windows drew Scully's attention first. A sunny day in the real world. She turned towards the bookshelves, not so eclectic as those in the X-Files office, these were a blend of computer manuals and FBI folders. Her eyes shifted over the personal items on the walls and on the desk, the certificates and the photographs.

Karen Clark's smiling arrival in the office caught Dana Scully unprepared. Scully quickly turned the desk photo of Karen's family back to face the correct direction. Karen spoke first, pointing at the picture. "I think you met Nick?"

"Yeah. I think that's the last time I went to a party where jello and burgers weren't the star attractions. Kim's almost four. I guess that makes it five years. Jeez, that makes me feel old."

Dana Scully felt a shiver tickle at her spine. Five years. She had already joined Mulder then, but she was still a green kid, green enough to go office parties. A year later, she'd lost three months of her life and woken up in the hospital. Hadn't felt much like partying after that.

"You wanted to talk?" Karen waited for her old friend's nod of agreement. "Let's do it over lunch."

And for once Scully was able to say exactly what she thought without censorship or hesitation. "Sounds good."

"Dr. Aston? Special Agent Fox Mulder of the FBI. I'd like to talk to you about one of your patients."

It was a few minutes before he put the phone down. He rubbed at his ear. It felt numb from the amount of time that he'd spent talking into the phone today. Patterson's doctors were cooperative, as he had expected. They'd pinned their clinical credentials to the flag when they'd given Bill the all clear, but that didn't mean they could afford to ignore a direct challenge from an FBI profiler and former colleague of their patient. If nothing else, they had to listen. If the crap hit the fan, then failing to listen would look far worse than merely being wrong.

So far, however, that was all that Mulder was getting, he was being politely listened to. He half smiled at that observation. Being politely listened to was a definite step up on what most of his Bureau colleagues generally offered.

He was going to have to tackle this from a different direction. If Patterson was already actively engaged in some kind of criminal activity, what would he be doing? All the fun of the background check fair, he decided. He started to drag files from the darkest depths of the Bureau's databases to be printed out for a little night time reading.

He returned from a brief trip to the vending machine to find his boss standing at his desk.

Skinner growled the query. "Perhaps you can explain?" He pointed to the thick pile of paper in his hand, Bill Patterson's old cases, freshly spooled from the printer. He shook his head. "Don't say anything. Your work on Patterson is through."

Skinner stepped up the intensity. "You've ignored my direct order to leave Bill Patterson alone. I've had complaints from his doctors about harassment."

"I persuaded them not to file formal charges. Should I ask them to reconsider? It's over."

The call from Skinner's secretary was not a surprise, Scully had been half expecting it. It was the tone of Skinner's briskly spoken orders, delivered almost the instant she arrived in his office, that she found more shocking. "Keep Mulder away from Patterson."

"He knows his orders. Your orders are to tell me if he disobeys them. Understood?"

Her feet felt a little heavy as she rose to leave. What the hell was going on? Skinner ordering them off a case and doing it this ferociously? Why?

She arrived back at the basement ready to ask Mulder what he thought was driving Skinner's conduct. She shivered against the thin tendrils of fear or anger that were coiling in her stomach. There was something going on. Not just Patterson having friends. Something more. She didn't mean to look angry at Mulder. In fact she felt angry with everyone but him. She saw something of the same in his response.

Their eyes met, the ice in Dana Scully's blue thawed a little, the mist in Mulder's hazel cleared as he flashed a warning in her direction before looking away. He sounded embarrassed but resigned. "I'm sorry. I can't stay away from Patterson."

She nodded, unperturbed by how easily he'd read her thoughts. "What do you think he's up to?"

Dr. Francine Jacobs, nee Patterson. Mulder ran over her biography again. Bill's daughter. Twenty-eight years old now, she was just seventeen when Mulder had first met her. He thought back, recalled the serious girl with the piercing blue eyes and vicious turn of phrase. He could see her father's genes in there somewhere.

Francine smiled at the open appraisal. "You have an awfully direct manner at times, Fox. When we met at the house I thought that you'd forgotten me. It seems I was mistaken."

"Careful? Or just suspicious?" She paused, waiting for Mulder to acknowledge her remark, which finally he did with the barest tilt of his head. "Dad's doctors called me. Letting me know that you were snooping around. We could have spoken at the house, you know. I'll be giving him a full report."

"I'm starting to remember why I had such an awful crush on you. You have this way of asking one question with your mouth and another with your eyes. It's not that you're lying exactly, it's just that the supplementary question looks so much more intriguing that the real one."

"Francine. I need to get some idea about what he's been doing. What he's reading, writing, watching on TV."

Fox Mulder was having trouble sitting still even though the placement of the telephone for the conference call meant that he had no choice. Even if it hadn't, Bill Patterson's glare would have made him think twice about moving.

Bill's words were still ringing in his ears. "You handle it yourself. You think the NYPD boys are wrong, you tell them so. Tell you what, I'll get it on tape, it'll make a nice team training exercise." Mulder was still cringing when the call connected. If only it was an exercise. Only two months out of basic training. Wasn't he supposed to be in some hick field office making the coffee?

Matthew Irving's heavy New York tones boomed through the speakers. "You people obviously don't have enough work to do. Thanks for your interest. Two weeks ago I might have cared. The case is closed."

"And a confession. And a plea bargain in progress. What do you want? Film of him ripping those kids apart?"

Mulder swallowed. "Your suspect is homeless, he has a mental age of nine and he didn't know the victims. The killer has above average intelligence, dresses well and knew them both."

"So fucking sure of yourself. Like you'd seen the bodies, visited the crime scenes, met the witnesses, interviewed the killer." "I saw the photos, read the reports. It's clear that..."

The solid clunk that stopped Mulder from completing the sentence was the sound of Irving hanging up the phone. Mulder leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table, hands pointing to the heavens in silent prayer.

Bill Patterson moved in, stood too close, crouched so that they were head to head. Mulder tried not to react and felt his heart add another twenty beats to the 110 it was already running. Bill sighed, leaning in closer still, so he could whisper in Mulder's ear. "You'll learn."

Mulder didn't flinch, turned cold angry eyes on his boss. "And how many will die while I'm learning?"

Bill nodded once, rose back to his full height. "Depends how fast you learn." He walked from the room, leaving his youngest agent to enjoy its silence.

Mulder closed his eyes and let his face hide in his hands, knowing that a killer was free to kill and an innocent man was behind bars. He also knew that Bill would still be running the video camera on the room. Yet he couldn't help himself, couldn't shut down fast enough, couldn't hold it together until he could hide properly. Had to content himself with just hiding his face behind his hands.

"I'll try not to be too obvious. But the computer files. The background searches."

"You'll need me." Scully sighed, her or maybe her computer guru friend Karen. A wave of a hand as a reply, then a hesitant smile. "Don't get caught."

She shook her head but accepted the job. "So what did you find out from Patterson's daughter?"

Mulder faked a sudden pain. "He's writing his memoirs. Bill Patterson's greatest hits."

Bill Patterson switched on the video camera. "For your Assistant Director. He asked me if I wanted to file harassment charges. I told him that I lacked evidence."

Mulder smiled and took his appointed seat, dead center on the camera's field of view. "Do you feel that I'm harassing you, sir?"

"Phoning my doctors; suggesting I be returned to a secure unit; attempting to use my daughter to spy on me? Coming here without an invitation when another agent is assigned to the case. Coming here when you've been ordered not to contact me. Sounds incriminating."

"Quite so. So what would you like to discuss? The weather. The flowering shrubs of the eastern seaboard."

"Literature. I was just surprised that you aren't using a ghost writer for your memoirs."

Patterson leaned forward, eyes focused comfortably on Mulder's. "Because you would never have the guts."

Mulder decided not to indulge in the stare-off, looked at the ceiling instead. "You could be right."

Patterson's smile was genuine. "In that case, I deserve an answer to a direct question." Mulder's twitch of a smile in reply was taken as agreement. "Why were you more scared of them after we caught them?"

Mulder moved his gaze back to Bill's face and allowed his relieved expression to admit that the question was unexpectedly easy. "You know that. I caught them when I understood them."

They talked until Bill's daughter reminded her father of his appointment to meet with his publisher. Patterson came to the door to say goodbye and suggested that if Mulder was going to make social calls then perhaps he should bring Dana Scully to dinner.

ASAC Karen Clark was all business, the speech she was making close to the ritual of the lecture room. "The database, as you use it, is designed for on-line searches. For security reasons, it's not bulk downloadable to a PC. But, it's technically easy enough if you have the right authority. Just get your AD to sign the request and I can get them for you in one batch rather than you having to query them one at a time."

Scully nagged at her lip for an instant, trying to find a way to ask without asking. "I need them today, I don't think Skinner is available. Maybe you could use some administrative reason to get them?"

Clark frowned and suddenly noticed that Scully wasn't talking business, she was asking a friend for help. She hesitated. "I could order a QC test on the files you need. I'd have to get approval from my AD first. I can't think of any other."

"No. Sorry, I shouldn't have asked. I don't want to get you into trouble. I can find another way."

Clark shrugged. "This assignment. It keeps me in the office, in DC. My daughter..."

Scully frowned, angry tight lines of frustration constricting her throat until she almost couldn't breathe. She'd forced an old friend to admit her guilty little secret, her weakness. If only she was allowed to have weaknesses. She sighed, she did have a weakness, Fox Mulder. Scully forced her mouth to smile. "It's OK, Karen. I understand."

Find another way. Another way to get Bill Patterson's old case files. By the time Mulder's call arrived on her cell phone, Dana Scully was exhausted. When he suggested dinner at Bill Patterson's, she almost screamed. She didn't. "Fine," she offered, in a tight small voice that was anything but fine.

The car was sanctuary and Mulder was grateful for the comfort of waiting inside its metal walls. He really needed to talk to Scully before they went in. This dinner, which had felt like a fair price for information, was now starting to feel like a walk to the executioner's.

"Fox." The rap of knuckles on the roof of the car and the crisp voice that accompanied it destroyed the illusion of safety.

Mulder sighed and opened the window. "Hi. I needed to make a phone call, I thought that I'd wait for Scully."

Francine raised an eyebrow. "No need for excuses. Dad thought that you would be out here, he didn't want you to get cold."

Embarrassment warred with dark sense of humor for an instant, before Mulder smiled and bowed to the inevitable. He followed Francine into the house.

Bill gave him a warm welcome. "If you wanted a caucus meeting you should have arranged a rendezvous a couple of blocks away."

Mulder acknowledged the wise words with a brief sparkle of his eyes and turned at the sound of the doorbell. Francine headed quickly to the door, leaving Bill to pour the drinks.

Mulder looked appreciatively at the bottle, "Saint-Emilion." He turned his attention back to his own glass, enjoyed the sparkle of shiny red against glistening crystal for a moment before sniffing.

Mulder didn't answer, too busy trying to tune his ears in to the female voices in the hallway.

Scully didn't look at Mulder as she entered the room. A tactical error, Mulder noted. Avoiding him only meant that Bill Patterson would get the chance to get in between them.

Francine's hand suddenly slipped into place around Mulder's upper arm. "Let's go check the food."

The table looked perfect, pristine white linen, a soft blend of pink and white irises as the centerpiece, shiny black squares of plates, glistening crystal glass. An exquisite if eclectic blend. Mulder looked at the dark-haired woman at his side and had to catch his breath. "Beautiful."

Mulder rigged the place settings to sit next to Scully, but she still avoided eye contact. The meal moved forward graciously in a haze of good aromas and glorious flavors, drifting slowly from the mostly inconsequential gossip of the first course into conversation.

While Francine argued with Mulder about the usefulness of drug therapy in the treatment of behaviorally disturbed pre-teens, Bill chatted quietly with Scully. Mulder kept trying to listen in on the other conversation, but whenever he caught a sentence or two of their words it seemed important to let it run uninterrupted. Bill was chatting happily about the stress of running a home, a family and the ISU. A stress that, as he was carefully explaining to Scully, had finally become a sickness.

It was after all why they were here, and if Patterson wanted Scully as an audience wasn't that the price they'd agreed to pay? She was an experienced agent and the partners could talk about everything later. And Francine said something about attention deficit and Mulder had to wonder if she was talking about him. He continued to eavesdrop as much as he could, but caught only that Scully seemed relaxed and that the words seemed benign.

With the coffee, Patterson got down to business. "I'm glad to see that you're able to eat normally, Dana. I must admit, I was concerned when I heard that you'd been shot. Stomach wounds can be awfully difficult."

Scully studied the surface of her coffee, rested her hand on Mulder's wrist as she saw his muscles twitch. "Thank you. The meal was glorious." She turned towards Francine. "My compliments to the chef."

"Time on my hands," Bill offered. "I avoided mushrooms, didn't want to make Fox feel too paranoid."

Mulder ignored the comment, but wondered who had been feeding Patterson with the information. Another little job for tomorrow.

Bill smiled, enjoyed the silent discomfort of his guests for an instant, looked down at Mulder and Scully's hands as they rested on the table. "Do I hear wedding bells?"

This time it was Scully who flinched and withdrew her hand quickly from Mulder's. "We aren't. We work together."

"Then he really has changed his MO?" Patterson waved a cheerfully accusing finger at Mulder.

Mulder didn't look at Scully, kept his eyes fixed on Patterson. "We work together. That's all."

Patterson sighed. "Agent Scully must be awfully committed to her work. To give up so much."

Scully quickly finished her coffee. "I must be going. I'm sorry, it's been a long day. Thank you for dinner." She tumbled over the words and came close to stumbling over the furniture in her effort to get to the door.

Mulder followed his partner, pausing only to glare at his old boss and wish Francine a good night.

She took a deep breath, trying not to be angry with Mulder or at least trying not to sound it. "He's playing with you."

Mulder felt a sudden shiver that could have been cold, but probably wasn't. "We need to talk."

It was 2 a.m. The clock was convinced about it. 2:01. It taunted her with its numbers, and she considered turning it face down and blaming its nasty green glow for her insomnia. Why the hell had she brushed him off like that? It wouldn't improve any by keeping it for tomorrow. For today, she corrected.

It wasn't as if she had to feel guilty about waking him. She gave in to the pull of her fingers and hit the speed-dial button.

Scully almost smiled at the tone of his reply. Wide awake. The smile dropped before it had chance to take full form. Had he been expecting her call? "It's me," she said at last.

Scully put the phone down and set about preparing for visitors. Patterson had rattled her in more ways than one tonight. While Mulder had been preparing to serve the food with Francine, Bill had been asking Scully the story of her life. The thing that had disturbed her was that she had actually found herself replying. Worse still, she'd almost enjoyed it.

The coffee was nearly ready when she heard the bell ring. "Twenty five," she said as she opened the door.

She could feel the weight of his eyes on her back as she made her way to the kitchen. She was grateful when he didn't follow her, just politely stopped at her couch in the living room. Another few seconds to get her bearings. She needed it.

Mulder looked dubious about the idea, but took an appreciative sip anyway. "We need to talk."

Scully snorted a gulp of coffee. That wasn't exactly the opening line she was expecting.

Mulder nodded apologetically, half smiled, relieved that the remark had broken the ice as planned. "What do you want to know?"

He accepted the ball was still stuck in his court. "My MO?" He sat back, closed his eyes for an instant. "Workaholic."

Mulder must have seen the confusion in Scully's eyes. "Jeanette was in the ISU. People thought we were married. We were waiting for her divorce to come through."

Scully unfolded her arms, picked up her coffee and studied the patterns the steam made. "It's none."

Mulder could only watch as she sat, rigid in her chair. Mirror image body language, both of them frozen solid, pushed back hard into the upholstery, hugging tight to the coffee mugs as if they were now the only warmth in the room.

Mulder's eyes were open and directed at the TV humming cheerfully in the corner, but they were not processing any of the images. His gaze wandered to the window, searching for some daylight. He looked back at the clock, stubbornly telling him that dawn was still an hour or so away.

So much for that resolution, he decided, disgusted. No more running before sun up when his defenses were low and his blood sugar was rock bottom. Forget that. Sitting here was making him stir crazy, the clamor of voices, the kaleidoscope of incompatible thoughts, running far too loud. Ready to run them out of town.

One mile in and the clamor was quieting, two miles in and the battle lines were being drawn in black and white and red. It would be good to let Scully go, at least to let her go personally if not professionally. For once he could try kicking his profile and spoiling his MO. It would be good. Morally good. The action of a better man. Except.

Except last time he had tried to let her go, she had almost died at the hands of a rookie agent, her supposed new partner. Let her go? And if he did, would they? Why should they? They had her kids. They had a thing in her neck to switch her on or off, or drag her to her death.

And this was a dangerous line of thought and not relevant to his current problems. And his knees were starting to ache from running too hard, too fast, too out of condition. And slumping as he ran, he kept on running.

Running hard, Mulder's eyes followed the hypnotic pattern of sidewalk and street clutter of hydrants and lights and stop signs and the repetition of brick and doorway and brick and doorway. Sniffing in clear cold air as his nose finally cleared and his lungs remembered how hot the breaths could be.

The clock in his head wound back, and recalled another time, years before. He recalled the files on his desk, the photos decorating the walls. He remembered the way Bill Patterson introduced Francine, his pride and joy. He remembered leaning over the black and white images on the table, staring through the magnifying glass and trying desperately to hide the images from the young girl in front of him. The girl who looked so like the third victim. The girl who Mulder instantly saw dripping blood.

He studied the road, the sidewalk, the garbage cans, the water sweeping into the drains, tried to recall when the rain had started and couldn't. His ears heard the tide of raindrops and punctuating it, the percussion of step, step, step, as his feet hit the ground. Memories pulsed in, listing names. Recalling all the times when he didn't even know the names of those who had died, even when he could recount their scars, describe the sequence of injuries, the defense wounds, the posing of the corpse, the exact need fulfilled by the death.

There, somewhere in the nameless files, Mulder recalled losing something. Not innocence, that had flown long ago. Innocence, like childhood, vanished on a lonely night. Not the desire to understand - the more he found out, the more he needed to know. Not faith, he always had faith that there was more to be done, more that he could do.

But he had lost something. A sense of proportion, perhaps. The ability to draw the line between work and home, certainly. Somehow, they had all become personal and somehow that meant that nothing was ever personal again.

Francine smiled breezily as she opened the door. "Fox. We can't go on meeting like this."

Mulder walked into the living room and met the expectant gaze of Bill Patterson and Assistant Director Jana Cassidy. He stopped as if he'd stumbled into a wall but recovered his poise to offer a generalized, "good morning," to the room. Turned to Bill, "I'm sorry, I didn't know that you had a visitor, I'll call some other time."

"Dad told her to park inside the garage, he sensed you coming. Does he have a position finder on your car?"

When he arrived back two hours later, the garage door was open, so he could check the cars. Bill Patterson welcomed him. "Sorry about that. I couldn't resist. It was such a treat to see her face. Don't you think?"

"I'm on the fast track to the unemployment line. Maybe I'll get into writing. Got any good subjects?"

Mulder suppressed the groan. "Why did you start that on that stuff with Scully?"

Mulder swallowed, flinching back from Patterson's sudden intensity, then recovering. "I remember your wife's death."

Gave? Mulder's eyes shifted to watch Patterson's. A recollection of a day in the ISU office, and Bill hauling his grieving daughter past everyone's desks before dumping her unceremoniously in his secretary's chair. His secretary followed him into the office to work through the day's mail. Mulder remembered dragging his eyes away from the 8x10 black and white photo of victim number 3 and seeing the living, breathing, crying teenager who looked so like her. Except in some of the pictures of victim 3 that he had seen, she was still alive and smiling.

He remembered not being able to tear his eyes away from the dark- haired girl, even though he knew it was wrong to stare at another's grief. He recalled how many hours it felt like, and the five minutes it actually took for him to file away the photos, get to his feet and to persuade her to come with him for coffee in the cafeteria.

"Sure you did. I left her in your line of sight. None of the women were in the office that day. Who else was going to approach her?"

"Oh no, it had to be a man, a young one. She was going to fall in love, I was just making sure it wasn't with some kid with acne and a routine for dealing with tearful girls at parties."

"Made a move on her? I'd have been surprised if you had. But she was fixated on you for months and that was enough. You know what you taught her?"

Bill's voice fell to a whisper, seductive and rich. "That death isn't always the worst thing."

The drive from Bill Patterson's house to the Hoover Building was slow, but not slow enough to let Mulder get his thoughts straight. The story unraveled in his mind without revealing anything tangible. There was just nothing to get his teeth into. No victims to study. No crime scenes to pace. Just a vague but certain dread that Patterson was creating nightmares somewhere out there.

Death isn't always the worst thing. There was, Mulder knew, something in Bill's words. They had been chosen deliberately, they had to be the next clue. The problem was, of course, that while searching Bureau databases for sudden deaths was one thing, searching it for people not dying was a rather different matter.

Mulder was in no mood for the Florida heat or for the lecture he received from Mitch Samuels as soon as he walked through the doors of the police chief's office. Samuels' brief diatribe pronounced Washington the wellspring of the nation's liberal ills; the FBI as its strong-arm boys; and Fox Mulder as the personal embodiment of the kind of weak-kneed desk jockeys who thought they knew something because they'd read a book about it.

Mulder waited patiently for the tsunami to blow itself out before offering the mildest of token replies. "I'm here to help, sir. I've seen this cult in Georgia, they need sensitive handling."

Mulder shook his head, more mystified that anything else. "The symbols and procedures they use in the rituals are drawn from Celtic mythology with a dose of Satanism they got out of the Readers Digest thrown in."

The police chief threw up his hands in disgust. He exchanged knowing glances with his officers, making sure they knew exactly what he had to put up with. "Excuse me. I've got to go talk to some freaks about a missing kid."

Mulder recognized the story. The young woman who had been the group's first local recruit since they relocated to the town a few months earlier. "She isn't a kid. Not by any legal definition."

"They don't use drugs or physical intimidation. The ceremonies are, in principle, consensual."

"In principle? You call a kid parading around naked then getting fucked by a gang of weirdos consensual."

Mulder ignored the absence of an invitation to visit the cult's headquarters and just tagged along as part of Mitch Samuels' entourage.

Samuels didn't bother hiding his irritation. He checked Mulder out on their arrival at the farm buildings that now housed the cult, head to toe inspection, a slow sneering sweep of angry eyes. Then a sudden smile and a happy voice. "Hey, I thought you guys had a dress code?"

Mulder winced at the pettiness, then offered a brief humorless smile of acknowledgment and straightened his tie. He dutifully returned to the ferociously air-conditioned car and slipped back into his currently, nicely-chilled suit jacket. For an instant, it was a pleasure under the baking of the noon sun. He smiled at Samuels and waved a hand to suggest that they continue with the visit. Another minute or so and he'd be boiling, but there was no harm in playing it cool.

It took him most of Friday in research but by Saturday morning, Mulder had completed his homework. He'd been keen to interpret the symbols he'd spotted on one of the posters lining the walls of the cult's office. It told the faithful that it was time to fight to defend the faith and vanquish their foes in a cleansing tide. Their most serious foes, ironically enough, were another group that had once been a faction of their own organization. Exactly what Mulder had anticipated, precisely the reason Mulder had come down here in person.

The job of clearing out the infidels that Mulder had suspected in Georgia was going to be repeated here. Cleansing fire, that was how they described the arson attack that had left five dead in Georgia. Suspicion had at first fallen on the local youths who had previously thrown bricks at the windows and beaten up lone examples of the group. It was only the cleansing fire symbols that the local police had referred to the Bureau for comment that had made Mulder believe anything different.

It was going to happen soon. Today maybe. By the time Mulder reached the station, the chief had already gone on his fishing trip and wasn't due back until Monday. "Who's in charge?"

The honor fell to the man normally fourth in line. As it turned out, "in charge" was a bit of a misnomer. He didn't feel able to order anything, not even a surveillance team. That would need overtime and unless it was on his list, he didn't have the authority. The officer ran through the printed list of crimes, waving them under Mulder's nose. "See here, Agent Moulder. Doesn't mention somebody maybe thinking about doing something."

In the end, Mulder had found something that was within the remit of the acting chief. A speedboat and a driver could accompany the agent to find Mitch Samuels and then he could argue the case directly with him. Mulder signed the paperwork to indemnify the local PD. In black and white, the FBI took full responsibility for gas, accidental damage to the boat and for pissing off the police chief.

Mitch Samuels was not pleased to see the FBI agent and let him know it as soon as he got within shouting distance. Mulder did his best to ignore him until they were close enough to talk. Samuels quickly boarded the police boat, keen to ensure that the agent didn't desecrate the sanctity of his boat, bad enough that he'd already contaminated the serenity of the fishing spot.

"Don't tell me how many days off I'm entitled to, boy. I was putting in the hours while you were still in diapers."

"I'm here because the officer you left in charge doesn't have the authority to act on your behalf."

"He's got everything he needs, he knows the rules. I wrote them down so's there'd be no mistake."

"At least they're keeping it in the family. Let me know if there's a crime committed."

"Please." Mulder already knew he was fighting a losing battle. Begging now. "You know yourself. There are kids there. Pregnant women."

"There's that we again. You want to do something, you do it." Samuels started to walk away, scowling.

"Try me," offered Samuels, turning again, heading back across the link to his own boat.

Mulder stepped forward to follow him. Samuels heard the footsteps behind, spun around angrily, rocked unsteadily as the two boats shifted slightly against the sudden movements. And hit the water with a solid splash.

In Bureau mythology, it would be remembered as the day that Spooky tried to drown a police chief.

Only two of the cult's members died in the fire that occurred the following Friday. Samuels used Mulder's explanation of the wall posters to get a search warrant. It was enough to give him the evidence to get a conviction.

Dana Scully sifted through the morning mail, dutifully logging the schedule of new meetings into her diary and filing the new standing orders on expense payments into her bureaucracy folder. She slipped the unmarked CD that had arrived in the Rolling Stones case into the disk drive.

Not the Rolling Stones. All Mulder's cases from when he worked with Patterson. The summary pages from all Patterson's other cases.

Hell. Scully sighed. Had Karen put this together for her? Where to start? Thousands of cases. A needle in a haystack and she didn't even know if it was a needle that she was looking for. At least it meant that they could study it off-line without the threat of an irate Skinner suddenly demanding explanations on every computer access they made. She quickly put the disk back in its box.

The door opened and Mulder trudged into the office. Scully scanned his face for new information but the first thing she saw was exhaustion, his expression a darker mirror of her own. "Rough night?"

He shrugged, slipping his suit jacket off in a continuation of the same movement. "I think Patterson's doing more than just playing." He scarcely paused for breath before asking the question. "What's worse than death?"

Scully leaned back, momentarily fazed by the out-of-the-blue words. She shook her head and refocused. "Losing someone?"

Mulder shrugged again and turned his full attention to the computer screen. What was worse than death? What would Bill Patterson think was worse? Losing a wife, a lover, a child? Surely too obvious, too crude for Bill's needs. Even so, he ran a couple of queries on sudden deaths in the DC area, on the off chance of finding a name that rang alarm bells. He wasn't sufficiently surprised even to be disappointed when it came up blank.

Losing your mind, your job, your reputation? Mulder felt a certain warmth in the idea, a certain empathy with the motives. Who then? And how?

After half an hour trying to concentrate on her own work Scully couldn't stand the silence. "What are you doing?"

Her partner sat up sharply, as if startled by the reminder that he wasn't alone. "Bill's teaser."

AD Cassidy's phone call to Skinner had left him very little room for maneuver. Mulder offered only token objections. It took less than twenty minutes for Mulder to conclude his business in Skinner's office and return to the basement to collect his coat. Mulder's official work today had started late and was going to finish early.

Scully sounded suspicious rather than surprised. "It just seems too convenient."

Mulder nodded vaguely. "Five days suspension isn't my usual definition of convenient."

She handed him the unmarked CD in its Stones disguise. He tilted his head to ask what he was looking at. Scully pointed towards the PC. "Your ISU cases. Summaries of all Bill's other cases. Maybe it'll ring some bells."

He turned the disk in his hand, looking for some inspiration as to where it had come from. "How?"

"Hear no evil, see no evil. I don't know who it's from. I don't really want to."

She blocked her first response and agreed to compromise. "Ok. Tomorrow at seven."

Scully stayed late at work that night, only leaving when she finally concluded that she had achieved as much as she was likely to do for the day. She knew that if she stayed much later, then all her instincts would start screaming that there was no harm in grabbing a take-out and driving over to Mulder's. Her brain knew better, they'd made a deal and she had to stick to it.

Wandering around her apartment, she tried to come up with something to do. It wasn't that she didn't have a long list of chores and pleasures, personal and professional, that could easily fill every waking moment. It was just that it was hard to focus on any one thing when her mind was half way across town, locked squarely on her partner.

Her eyes drifted over to the telephone again, but couldn't induce it to ring. She could, of course, call him. Mulder wouldn't be offended. But nor was it likely that he would have changed his mind about talking. And right now, even a polite brush-off from him would just be rubbing a little extra salt into the wound.

Some things are worse than death. Really? Mulder had taught Francine that? Francine had been just a kid when Mulder knew her. What the hell was that supposed to mean? She closed her eyes, decided that such speculation was not only purposeless, it was dangerous. She'd ask him about it. Tomorrow.

Things worse than death? Should be easy to know. It wasn't as if she lacked experience in the matter. She knew how much she needed life, yet there were things that made her pause. Things that if she could only change them. Except she couldn't change them. Whatever she did. Dead babies didn't come back. Chips in the neck shouldn't be removed, not unless she planned to let them win. She stopped. Another road too dark to travel. No point going there.

Her thoughts flew back across town. Mulder, she knew, would see the dark roads and feel obliged to start walking. Maybe that was the real difference between them. In the end, she would stop in the twilight to get her bearings, whereas he would keep on going until he reached the precipice. Maybe he sensed her presence, hoped that she would be around holding the ropes if he tumbled over. Maybe he just couldn't help himself, he would have to go there, safety line or not.

Was that how it felt? Compelled to walk into the dark just to follow the path to its logical conclusion? Or its illogical one.

As for his MO, as Bill had so cynically described it. Lazy, so he slept with his partners? She sighed a little at that. Not lazy. Invested so deeply in his work that he couldn't look outside its boundaries. Where did that leave her? She stood up and walked into the kitchen and decided to study the contents of her refrigerator, suddenly angry with herself for no particular reason. It left her where it always did. Doing an important job with a man she valued. Period.

The next morning, Scully thought that she had arrived at work obscenely early. But she scarcely had chance to take her coat off when the phone rang and Skinner called her to a meeting upstairs. He had found her a job to do. San Diego. Internal audit and assessment of failures in the evidence handling processes of the field office. It was not her territory, not technically, not geographically. She pointed that out to her AD.

She considered continuing the argument, but Skinner waved a hand as a caution. "I believe you have family there? Perhaps the break will be good for you."

Hardly. Since Bill's baby had arrived, Scully's mother had been spending more and more time out west. She didn't need another reminder of where the center of the Scully universe now rested. She offered a farewell nod in her boss's general direction, sensing that the argument had been lost before she'd even reached the office.

Of course, her mother was delighted to hear the news. In fact, she was delighted enough to bring her next visit to San Diego forward a week or two, to join Dana on hers.

Mulder was less delighted. Scully was guiltily relieved to hear disappointment in his voice when she explained what had happened. She wanted to tell him to take care, but it sounded trite when she rehearsed the words. Instead she had to content herself with a reminder to him to phone her at regular intervals.

Gordon Hayes didn't bother to conceal his amusement. "And what do you expect to find?"

Mulder shrugged, lacking both the energy and the enthusiasm for yet another argument. He'd had a hat-full of them this week. He coughed again and tried not to let the single attempt to clear his throat develop into a full blown coughing fit. He failed, mumbled angry curses between peals of painful, hacking noise. His colleagues looked away and pretended to be fully occupied with other matters.

Digging through his pockets, he eventually found a relatively clean kleenex to hold over his mouth, then stared in disbelief at the amount of green sludge he'd managed to dredge up from his lungs this time. So it was bronchitis, so what? He'd just have to quit smoking. Again.

He straightened slowly as the coughing finally subsided. Every time it happened, it felt like he was being knifed, hot and painful stabbing, then just sore, like someone had kicked him. Fortunately, so far, it always stopped before he actually passed out. Pleurisy? He considered the point. He'd check in with the doctor tomorrow. Maybe he needed a bigger dose of antibiotics.

Hayes playfully motioned that he was considering slapping Mulder on the back. The look he got from another agent suggested the FBI might consider deadly force justified if he so much as touched Mulder. Mulder suddenly recognized that he was again the star attraction and then realized that someone had probably asked him a question.

The detective repeated the query. "We've been over this place a dozen times. It's been over a month. We've had storms. What do you expect to find?"

This time, Mulder avoided shrugging or doing anything else that might tax his hyper-sensitive ribs. He decided that he didn't trust his voice either. Finally waved a hand as a dismissive "dunno."

He searched his jacket for the photos he'd brought, shuffling with embarrassment as he realized they'd been stored with used tissues. Wiping them off and straightening them as surreptitiously as he could, he tried to find the exact angle they were taken from.

Hayes grinned. "Want me to get you an evidence bag to store them in? I ought to warn you, if you find any tissue samples, it'll be your DNA I run for a match."

The ISU's most notorious asset turned slowly and lifted his head to study the tops of the palms, immediately realized his mistake as another round of coughing started. This time, when the shudders stopped he accepted the open door of the Bureau fleet car as the gates of paradise and slumped into the back seat.

Agent Dawes drove him back to the hotel and called out a doctor to check him over.

When the doctor finally left, Mulder frowned at Dawes. "I didn't catch what he said."

Dawes held up his hands in surrender. "Pleurisy. Bigger antibiotics. Bed rest. You'll have pneumonia if you don't play ball."

When Dawes returned an hour later with pills, an economy size pack of kleenex and a couple of bottles of gatorade, the revised profile was already on the computer disk.

Mulder opened an eye to acknowledge Dawes' sigh of disapproval. "Get it circulated. Tonight."

Mulder pushed his shivering right hand under the comforter. "Yeah, I know, we may already be too late."

The mixed team from the Bureau and PD shuffled restlessly to keep alert in the dawn chill. The marker tapes edging the site were spinning and swaying, singing in the wind. The spiraling shapes gave the place an incongruously festive air, reminded Mulder of a kids' sports day.

The body had not yet been moved. The ME hadn't even noticed the young Fed with his trenchcoat pulled tightly across his chest. When the ME asked who the big deal was that he was supposed to be reporting to, both the local police and the FBI agents pointed at Mulder. But it seemed so unlikely that he still felt obliged to check with a couple of others.

Gordon Hayes decided to lead the ME directly to his target. Mulder was leaning against the car and trying to move as little as possible. "Hey, Fox. The ME thinks you should be fetching the coffee for the grown-ups."

Mulder didn't look up, didn't move. He spoke cautiously, knowing that it was now only a matter of time before he lost his voice. "With or without sputum?"

The ME looked puzzled, maybe he'd had the name right first time, no matter. "The woman died here, at least six hours ago, maybe as long ago as twelve. First impression, she may have died of exposure."

Mulder's voice was crackly and faint. "She was alive for hours after she was dumped here?"

Hayes moved to tap Mulder on his shoulder to get his attention, thought better of it when he saw the expression on the face of the agent who had been acting as Mulder's chauffeur. Bodyguard. Whatever. Spoke instead. "Mulder, how did you know he was going to change his MO?"

Mulder slowly shook his head, then looked up, his voice suddenly panicked and insistent. "Shit. Don't move the body."

While Hayes was still thinking about it, the agent who'd had the job of following Mulder around for the last week walked briskly across the site and began whispering orders. The ME stopped the team who were already halfway through loading the corpse into the body bag.

This time it was Hayes who understood and bounced into action. Instructions quickly relayed not to let any cars in or out of the area and to start checking out rooftops. Not that they stood much chance with the latter request, the perimeter was just too big and the sheer number of buildings potentially in binocular range of the site would make it virtually impossible to spot anyone who didn't want to be seen.

When Hayes returned, it was to find Mulder back in the car, his head pillowed against the frame of the window. "Mulder."

Mulder turned towards Hayes, but had trouble focusing, whispered. "Sorry. I should have known. That's why he chose this place. So he could watch us." Then the coughing started again.

Hayes heard the voice and it sounded so weak, not just with illness but with a tiredness and disappointment that overwhelmed. Hayes ran back to the crew, suddenly determined that they were not going to lose again. If not just for the sake of the victims, then also for the sake of the man in the car.

As Hayes had anticipated, the UNSUB had slipped away, presumably on foot. As Hayes hadn't even dared allow himself to hope, the man's car registration had been recorded by one of the team at the site. In the end it had just been a matter of honest police work. Door knocking, background checks. No profiling miracle required.

At least that was how he phrased it to Mulder when he visited the agent in the hospital a few days later.

Mulder was sitting up in bed surrounded by paperwork. With the fluid drained from around his lungs, a few days worth of antibiotics in his system and a couple of days sleep, he was feeling remarkably fit. He smiled. "Then how come you're here?"

Francine Patterson waited patiently for Fox Mulder to get to the point. She knew that, if she waited long enough, he would. After all, she was a psychologist, skilled in drawing people out and in allowing them space. Wasn't that what people did with foxes? Let them run, then hunt them down. She sighed, disturbed by the flippancy of her thoughts.

Her quarry's mouth shivered slightly. Frankie took a deep breath, that one flash of exposure had paid for her hours of effort on the man. She continued to monitor him carefully.

Mulder looked around the almost deserted bar as if checking for hidden cameras before supplying a single shift of the head that might have been agreement.

Frankie smiled, there was always plenty of time. She nudged forward with another question. "Why are you afraid of him?"

Mulder nodded, a brief cough of angry laughter rose in his throat. Francine watched happily as he let tiredness and frustration get the better of him. He paid the tab without checking for even formal agreement from her. His voice was ice cold when he turned back to question her. "Who's feeding Bill information?" She gave him no reaction. "Scully being shot was general knowledge. That fungus wasn't. Who? AD Cassidy?"

"Dad always said you let your feelings get the better of you during interrogations."

"He's right. Tell him." He froze for an instant, took an extra breath. "Just tell him, I won't follow him."

When Scully phoned Mulder that night she was surprised to find that he was actually home. "Enjoying your vacation?"

Scully studied the pale walls of the hotel room. "I'm an outsider, doing a performance review. What do you think? Almost makes me feel sorry for OPR."

Her fingers tensed around the phone, this was the conversation she didn't want to have. "It's Tara's birthday on Saturday. Mom wants me to stay the weekend."

She noted the delay before his reply, she noted that his tone of voice gave nothing away. "See you next week then."

Scully felt the shiver storm gather at the base of her spine and hoped that Mulder was telling the truth. There were times when her sanity was the only thing she had left. She reminded him to stay in touch.

Mulder was uncomfortable even typing in the question. Senior law enforcement personnel and recent psychiatric admissions. It would only be by luck if he got anything this way. Standard press services only in the search because he couldn't risk trying to use Bureau resources.

Hours later and he still didn't know the magic words. If asked, he would have readily admitted that he had no idea where he was going with the search, but right now there was no one to ask him the question. Each query came up blank or offered tens of thousands of hits, either way useless. Nonetheless, after each query he tried again.

The name was familiar. Matthew Irving. The man who had let two kids die because he was so sure of himself he couldn't be bothered to read a profile written by some fresh-faced college kid out at Quantico. Mulder frowned at the cruelty of his memory. Irving was just another over-worked, over-stressed man trying to do his job. Mistakes were the nature of the human condition. Mulder could relate to that.

Of course, Mulder wasn't a fresh-faced college kid these days. And Spooky had taken over writing profiles a long time ago and spared the college kid further discomfort.

According to the article, Irving had been leading a homicide team investigating the deaths of young women. He'd been found in bed with the latest victim, her blood coloring his body. His tie had squeezed the last breaths of life from her throat.

Mulder drove up to the city and decided to sleep in his car so he could be the first visitor to the station when the detectives started to arrive in the morning.

First port of call at dawn on the next day was the pool favored by the agents from the FBI field office. Not that he planned on going swimming. He groaned as he checked his reflection in the washroom mirror. There was something painfully familiar about this process. A brief shower and shave in the changing rooms and he slipped into the right suit. He checked his reflection again. Master of disguise.

It worked like clockwork. The station was just waking up as Mulder went in and asked for Mike Gregg.

Gregg took only seconds to come bounding down the steps. "If it isn't my favorite tight-assed Fed."

Mulder groaned slightly as he rose to greet him. "And a very good morning to you too, Inspector Gregg."

Gregg grinned. "Shit, 'good morning,' don't say they've replaced you with a real one. What you doing here? This is homicide. I thought you'd quit this stuff." He held his hand up as if taking an oath. "There's been no little green men seen within two light years of the precinct."

Mulder stiffened a little and wondered why he suddenly felt nervous about how loud Gregg was talking. "Can we speak in private?"

"Sure." Gregg moved in closer to Mulder and pointed him towards the offices, he turned the volume down so only Mulder could hear. "What's up?"

Mulder nodded and Gregg pushed open the door to an empty interview room, he let Mulder enter first. Gregg stopped at the doorway. "I'll get breakfast."

Mulder scowled as Gregg walked away, irritated that he'd given the detective the upper hand and the time to compose himself. Still, food was food. And Mike Gregg was not the enemy. Maybe getting composed was the right thing to do. He experimented with the idea.

When Gregg returned a few minutes later, it was with two plastic cups of coffee and a paper bag of donuts.

Gregg swirled the plastic cup and tried to stir in the sugar. He helped it along with the half-eaten pencil he found in his pocket. "Whatever you might think, Matt was one of the good guys."

Gregg blinked approval and swirled the cup again. "A couple of girls got killed, ODs. First off, we're thinking accident. Then pimp trouble. Then we got another one and we're thinking badly cut batch. You know."

"He came back ranting about serial killers, some psycho on the loose. Stressors, signature, escalation, the whole nine fucking yards." Gregg stopped talking and stared at Mulder, looking for clues. Found none. "Could have been one of you fuckers talking. No offense."

"He takes up with one of the girls. Next thing, she's dead, her girlfriend is dialing 911 and Matt's in bed with a corpse."

Gregg laughed. "You been reading the funny pages again? He strangled her, his tie. After he'd cut her. His prints on the knife. I've seen him, he doesn't even know his own name."

Gregg sighed, starting to feel his resistance fail. "In both of them. His prints on the packaging. I could get in so much shit for this."

This time Mulder was right behind him. "And I'll go get us some real breakfast, that deli still open?"

Asking for Mike Gregg by name and more miraculously actually finding him had bypassed all the usual protocols at the police department. While getting into the police station without waving his FBI badge had caused Mulder little trouble, the Highview Secure Psychiatric Unit was a rather different matter.

Mulder scratched at his memory to see if he knew any of the doctors here, but came up blank. He studied the staff list for clues. Dr. Martin Jacobs. Francine had married a Martin Jacobs. Maybe?

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. He decided to ignore the warnings he'd been given about harassing the Pattersons or their doctors. After all, even if it was the right Jacobs, this guy wasn't actually either a Patterson or one of his doctors. He got the extension number from the reception desk. "Dr. Jacobs. I'm a friend of Francine's."

The one word reply played back through Mulder's head at least a dozen times before Mulder was confident that he'd extracted every available nuance. "I'm concerned about her. I wonder if we could talk."

"She's not my..." Jacobs paused, the sigh wasn't quite audible down the line but Mulder could sense its presence. "Come on up."

The receptionist gave him a visitor's badge and a security officer to show him the way. Mulder walked carefully, determined not to let the oppressive white glow of the tiled walls or the acrid antiseptic smells get under his skin. The nasty blend of hospital and prison that always made his muscles twitch was doing him no favors this time.

He forced himself to ask the guard for a detour and a stop at the men's room. The guard nodded knowingly as Mulder came back out into the corridor. "Your first visit? Gets to you at first."

Mulder nodded, not wanting to argue. At first had nothing to do with it. It got worse every time.

Martin Jacobs looked too old to be Francine Patterson's husband, or even soon to be ex-husband. "You have me at a disadvantage. Mr?"

Mulder didn't like the flicker of recognition that shifted across Jacobs' face. "FBI?"

Jacobs shook his head and looked dispassionately across the desk. "He's been involving her in criminal activity since she was a child. Used to take her to the office with him. When her mother died, he treated the place like his baby-sitting circle. Or is that not what you meant?"

Mulder swallowed, irritated by the sensation of being assessed by Jacobs. "Bill's out, but he's... He may be still dangerous."

"I don't think there's much Irving left to take revenge on." The doctor waved his hand, a carefully dismissive gesture. "I'm just guessing. I'm not his doctor."

Mulder didn't argue and suddenly didn't feel any need to know more about Matthew Irving or his doctor. "You're right, sir. I'm sorry to have disturbed you."

Jacobs swallowed, hesitating for an instant before responding. "Keep an eye on Frankie."

When Mulder left the building he was still trying to figure out if the suggestion to keep an eye on Francine was a request or a warning.

It was a good time of the year to be alive. Spring in the air and summer arriving, great for kids growing up, plenty of time for a long walk along the beach, searching for shells. Maggie Scully was ready to drink in the feeling. Dana had been cancer-free for over a year and at last she felt safe to take pleasure in her recovery. She wanted to celebrate the first steps of her grandson. His birth had occurred in the shadow of a death, it had been hard to celebrate then, but there were so many more milestones to enjoy.

A chance to start again. It was close to eight by the time Dana arrived. She'd phoned ahead to tell them not to wait for her to show up for dinner. Even so, it had felt like an awfully long wait, more than long enough for the sick feeling to return to the pit of her mother's stomach. Maggie Scully tensed as she opened the door, automatically scanning her daughter's expression for some new horror story.

Her mother breathed again and drew her into the house with a hug. Dana spotted Bill standing by the living room door and smiled. She was going to make this work. Bill tried to force a smile of reply.

Maggie, having finally convinced herself that her daughter was home and in one piece, headed towards the kitchen asking Dana for food and drink orders as she went.

Bill walked smartly across the hallway grabbing his sister's suitcase from the doorstep. "Bill, that's not necessary."

He smiled. "I know. You're perfectly capable of handling it. I want to help." He led the way up the stairs brushing Scully's protests aside as he went.

"Just great." He waited as she opened the door to her bedroom and followed her inside, depositing the suitcase on the chair before turning to face her. "And how are you?"

Scully couldn't look him in the eye, couldn't bring herself to look at that earnest expression he would doubtless be wearing. She had promised herself that this would be a weekend for her mother. Reconciliation. Hope. If she looked at Bill she was going to get angry, she kept her eyes averted. "I'm fine, Bill."

It was not really a question. Dana shivered a little, she hadn't discussed the shooting with Bill, she hadn't talked about getting hospitalized by a damned fungus. Mom had told Bill. Lucky that she didn't know the rest of it. "I'm fine now."

"Sure. Fine." A pause for breath. "Why do you do this to yourself? I don't get it. After all you've been through, don't you know how precious life is?"

Whatever Bill planned to say next was lost when their mother's voice reached them from the open doorway. "Dana. Your food's ready."

"Thanks, Mom." She made her way quickly past her brother and into the warmth of the kitchen.

"In bed. Sorry you didn't get to see him. He'll be up at first light, so you'll get more than enough of him tomorrow."

Dana discussed the price and design of children's shoes with her sister-in-law and mother, and debated the merits of broccoli and spinach as vitamin sources for young children and big brothers. When Bill tried to get into the conversation she made a quick yawn of an excuse to go to bed.

She was not a child; she made her own choices. So why did she feel compelled to justify herself to Bill? Her thoughts rumbled over well-trodden ground before forcing her into an admission.

When Mulder was at her side, her efforts didn't seem futile and her sacrifices didn't seem pointless. With Mulder at the other side of a continent, explaining that she was giving up her life to keep people like them safe in theirs sounded pretentious and more than a little naive.

After all, her father had been a career Navy man. Bill had served his country for years. The Scullys understood sacrifice and duty. Yet, they hadn't faced the number of defeats that she had. They hadn't given up health, home, family and love for the greater good.

She could hear the quiet rhythm of her father's words. 'My life felt as if it had been the length of one breath, one heartbeat. I never knew how much I loved my daughter until I could never tell her. At that moment, I would have traded every medal, every commendation, every promotion for... one more second with you.'

The pain welled in her soul as she remembered words that were never actually spoken. A vision of her father had told her his tale. How could she compete with her father? Even he couldn't have it all.

And suddenly she was in that place again. The place with gleaming walls and bright lights and the incessant hum of machinery and alarms and horrors and pain, such pain. And she opened her mouth to scream but the sound wouldn't come. And then she saw him. She had to trust someone, she trusted him. But he shouldn't be here, not here. That he was here, made it so much worse.

She closed her eyes and wished him gone. But he remained, there and real and the most terrible secret of all.

Bad enough that her brain had insisted on playing her its favorite nightmare. Throwing Mulder into the mix and giving him a leading role was impossible. Was that every night this week now?

She just hoped that no one in the house had heard. She headed to the bathroom and splashed cold water onto tearstained cheeks, studying her face's puffy lines and red-rimmed eyes. Heading for her bag, she decided that a sleeping pill was probably the lesser of several evils. Facing the worst, she wondered if she'd ever be able to tell Mulder about the nightmares. Maybe she could ask him why suddenly her dreams had become so real that they didn't feel like dreams any more. Perhaps she could ask him why suddenly they felt like memories.

Of course, she couldn't tell him. If she told him, she'd have to tell him that he, her partner and best friend, was now the centerpiece of her worst nightmares.

Inevitably, Dana Scully was asleep when her cell phone rang. She pulled her head woozily off the pillows. Who the hell would call at this time of the day? She looked at the bedside table, 9 a.m. So it would be pushing lunchtime back in DC. She looked at the windows and noted the thickness of the dark curtains. Slow progress as she found her jacket and pulled the phone from its pocket. "Scully."

The line remained quiet for a few seconds. "It's not important. I was just checking in."

Mulder and the X-Files had kept her awake all night, now he'd woken her up. "I'm with my family."

It wasn't until after he'd hung up that she noticed how abrupt her words had been or how awkwardly he had replied.

Mulder stared at the phone as if it were a snake that had only just stopped hissing. The call had not gone to plan. Perhaps that was because there hadn't been a plan, just a vague hope that talking to Scully would bump him back on track.

Before Scully, BS he noted, deciding that was appropriate somehow. Before Scully had come along he'd had to do that job for himself. He just hoped he could remember how.

He was out of the door and into his car before the phone had the chance to cool down.

The mind was such a fragile thing. Such complex machinery deserved careful handling. Of course, it didn't always get it. Fortunately, it was amazing how robust brains seemed to be. It always impressed him that when it mattered, people could turn out to be such resilient things.

Take memory for instance. He'd always admired the way it could store tragedy and triumph in excruciating detail and then conveniently push them out of the way so they didn't block the view. Yet, it held them all there. Waiting in their neat little files, looking for the trigger word or smell or emotion to bring them back to the surface.

There were whole days when he didn't think of Samantha, when he could look at Scully without thinking of chips and cancer. Those were the days when he wasn't sure if he should cheer and declare his unhealthy preoccupations cured or should bang his head against the wall to remind himself that he was an insensitive bastard and that some things were supposed to hurt.

He turned into the neatly groomed driveway, carefully locked the car door as he got out, and straightened his shirt cuffs while he waited for someone to respond to the doorbell. It was Bill Patterson who appeared. "I thought you'd forgotten where I lived."

"Of course. Let's take a stroll." Bill quickly pulled on a pair of outdoor shoes and a jacket while Mulder fidgeted impatiently on the doorstep.

Bill stepped out. "Daylight! Can you imagine how good it feels to just be able to walk out into the fresh air? No begging for permission. No waiting your turn. Do you know how hard it is to be monitored 24 hours a day? Watched every minute. In your bed. In the bathroom." He gave a sudden chuckle. "I was forgetting. Course you do. How long did they have that video rig to spy on your apartment?"

Mulder ignored the question and allowed himself only the briefest shudder to acknowledge another direct hit. "I went to New York."

"Did he call Francine?" Not that it mattered much, it would just be useful to know a little more about the net of people who were keeping Patterson updated.

"Ironic, though. Down to earth, pragmatic man like that. Who'd have thought it? Now, you on the other hand..."

Mulder almost laughed, but lacked the energy as well as the good humor. "Why are you doing it?"

"Irving. I've collected some other names too, Gordon Hayes in Nevada, Mitch Samuels in Florida, others. I have no doubt that when I follow them up, I'll see the same story."

Mulder listened to their footsteps echoing against the concrete and marveled at the lack of other noise. There was just the soft hum of city traffic deep in the background and the slap of their feet here. Now that Bill had stopped talking it reminded Mulder of a sensory deprivation chamber. Made him think of being buried alive. "Tell me that you aren't."

"I haven't been in New York in four years, I haven't seen Irving in longer. How can I be involved?"

Bill rounded the corner and strode purposefully into the welcoming noise of the bar. "You could use a drink."

Bill snarled. "It's interesting. Most men fantasize more with a little alcohol inside them. You always got somehow more sober. One might almost say, more normal."

"Alcohol is a depressant. It damps down brain function, suppressing inhibition as a side effect."

The order, that Patterson had apparently placed using only hand signals, arrived almost instantly. Patterson picked up his glass, clunked it against Mulder's. "Just a beer. I'm assuming you haven't eaten yet."

Bill smiled. "What did you learn from your latest round of hallucinations?" Bill's expression shifted slowly to a frown, irritated by Mulder's failure to respond instantly. He intensified the interrogation, leaned forward suddenly, butting into Mulder's space. "A man-eating fungus, wasn't it? The reports don't give much detail."

"You can't just recognize a drug trip and wish it away. We knew it was a delusion."

Patterson laughed, delighted at Mulder's reply. "Acting out your fantasies to test a theory. I love the way your mind works. You know. If they lock YOU up, you'll never get out."

Mulder let the splashes of color in his fish tank fill his brain. Fins and scales and flashes of gold and silver, tiny perfection, the world was a beautiful place. Their movements reminded him only of life, precious and pure, untainted by memories. At least that was what they said, fish didn't remember things.

Eels could swim from the Sargasso Sea to the River Thames. Salmon could return from the oceans and find the stream where they'd hatched. But they didn't operate on memory, at least not in the human sense. They were driven by some imprinted necessity coming from deep inside. Maybe that was a human thing too. Even without memories, there were still things that drove and defined who we were.

His thoughts flew to Matthew Irving. What drove and defined him now? Nothing, according to Martin Jacobs. Nothing, according to Mike Gregg. A blank where the man should be. Mulder wondered if fish went mad.

Avoiding being left alone with her brother had become Dana Scully's primary objective for the day. Playing at Aunt Dana with Matthew and trailing her mother had whiled away a couple of hours. She was settling back to enjoy the ride and had almost decided that it really wasn't so hard to take pleasure in just being alive with people she loved.

The phone call broke the spell, she heard it ring. Bill's sullen expression told her who was calling. Scully straightened her shoulders and moved swiftly to the phone.

It was a few seconds before Mulder replied, guilty and hesitant. "Nothing. I can phone."

Mulder quickly briefed her on Gordon Hayes. The detective's steady rise to glory in the Vegas PD and the sudden murderous urge that had seen him execute the prisoner he was interrogating.

Scully took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders and turned to face the confrontation that she'd been trying to avoid. "It's my job, Bill. I'm good at it. It's worth something."

She let her foot paw briefly at the ground before turning a cool gaze on her brother. "I hope you don't mean that I have to choose?"

"We'd never make you choose. But what about you, Dana? Aren't you worth something?"

He stepped forward, moving to stand in front of her. Reached out a hand to hers. "I won't. Just so long as you really are making the choices."

She nodded, the twitch in the muscles of her mouth threatening to pull tears from her eyes. She sniffed back the emotion, touched his arm briefly and headed quickly upstairs to her room. Took a quick decision. Once she had done her packing, she would fly to Las Vegas immediately and then directly back to DC.

Choices. Choices. Where had all her choices gone? Since Blevins sent her to the basement had she had any choice? Pulled or pushed but it seemed like a long time since she'd been able to run freely.

Why was that? The little voice nagged at her as she pulled together her things. Curiosity had swept her in, loyalty had held her in place and Mulder had bound her by a thousand threads. It would be wrong to blame him and she had no desire to abdicate responsibility. After all, he hadn't given her cancer. He hadn't stolen her babies. He hadn't put this beacon in her neck. Well, not the first time anyway. She slammed down the lid of the suitcase.

Special Agent Dawes was the Bureau's profile coordinator for the area. Scully was grateful to him for giving up a chunk of his Saturday and she was even more impressed that he'd chosen to help out by meeting her at the airport.

According to Agent Dawes, Gordon Hayes' sudden spectacular descent into insanity was not, in retrospect, such a surprise. A recent rough divorce; a major defeat over access to his kids; overlooked in the promotion stakes due to how easy he was to anger. It was not a pretty picture.

20/20 hindsight had a habit of solving all complicated problems. His colleagues could have, should have seen it coming. They certainly shouldn't have let him work on a case revolving around a dead kid who looked quite so much like the detective's own estranged son. They should have followed their own procedures and checked him for weapons before allowing him into the interrogation room. Fifteen years working homicide or not, the safeguards were there for a reason.

Scully decided she needed to get him past the hindsight and the rationalization. She tried a bit of name-dropping. She knew that Dawes had worked with Mulder, after all it was his name that had got Dawes involved so quickly and so enthusiastically. "Did you ever work with Bill Patterson? Did Hayes?"

"Hayes. Hayes didn't have a lot of time for profilers, ranked them somewhere between tarot card readers and astrologers. First case I met him, he was giving Mulder a really hard time. Really hard. Second case, he was giving Patterson a hard time for losing Mulder."

"Mulder had quit, walked out. Gone off to chase flying saucers. Hayes figured that Mulder would have got the perp after two bodies, not six. He could have been right."

Scully swallowed her first response and tried not to let the words get under her skin.

By the time she finally reached her apartment it was past midnight and Dana Scully was ready to drop. She didn't actually notice that Mulder's car was in the parking lot until he got out and offered to help with the luggage.

She looked pointedly at her watch then at Mulder. "Good work, Sherlock." She allowed him to grab her suitcase and then locked the car.

"I wasn't really thinking about the time until I got here, and it seemed silly to drive all the way over and then not even wait to say hi."

Scully unlocked the door to her apartment and Mulder pushed it open. "Can we do this tomorrow?"

She raised an eyebrow to indicate that she accepted his terms, but doubted his honesty.

He hesitated, looking at her as if he didn't quite believe that he really had to go or at least as if he couldn't think of any place to go. Then he remembered the deal, he lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender and headed out of the door. "Night."

Scully looked at her suitcase and considered unpacking. Hadn't she thought that she was dog tired? She sang softly to herself as she ran the bath water. First things first.

Mulder turned the ignition key. In the history of their partnership, visiting Dana Scully tonight had to rate as one of his dumber actions. He'd dragged her away from a quiet weekend with her family to insist that she meet urgently with an agent who was the sort of charming, well-intentioned know-it-all who actually knew nothing. To make matters worse, he'd actually waited on her doorstep to tell her as much.

Half an hour later and he was watching Francine Patterson walk through the door of the bar that he had recently visited with her father.

Mulder took the attack with as much grace as he could muster. "Actually I wanted to talk about you." Dark eyelashes stirred and she leaned her head to show that she was listening. Mulder ordered the drinks and bought himself time to rephrase his questions so that the focus really fell on her. "When we met. After your Mom died. Why did he bring you to the office?"

"He was worried some creep would take advantage of me. He was worried that you would run off with some woman and decide to get a life."

Mulder accepted that, fidgeted, looking for the ideal placement for his glass on the table. "Why were you interested in me?"

"You didn't ignore me, you didn't look embarrassed when I cried. I thought you understood me, maybe even liked me. I was very naive."

"I looked like one of those dead bodies that you and Dad loved so much. Better than therapy. You couldn't save them, so you got to save me. You dissected me, to see how I worked. You thought I was one of them."

Mulder slouched, rested his elbow on the table, letting his hand take some of the weight of holding up his head. "You were you. That was enough."

"I could never be enough. I was alive. You used me as a lab rat. Did you even notice that I had fallen in love with you?"

She shook her head, frustration driving her voice past its usual clinical detachment. She sounded hard now, commanding, more like her Dad. "Of course not. You were too busy. Getting the shit kicked out of you by Dad and the rest of them. You took what you wanted from me. Then you filed me under boss's daughter and recovering victim. You wanted to play big brother and no matter what I did, you kept me neatly pigeon-holed in my safe little box."

The tiny pulse of argument from Mulder was enough to force her anger above boiling point. "I didn't say you should have fucked me. Being noticed would have been fine."

He stared at the surface of his drink and studied the motion of the ice in the glass.

Francine downed her vodka in one swift gulp. "Dad used to say that you had no idea where you stopped and the victims started. I didn't know what he meant until I grew up."

"You could live with them because they were dead and the dead don't feel anything." She rose to her feet, triumphant. "That's your real MO."

Francine had left the bar before Mulder looked up from his drink. His ears buzzed, replaying her remarks on high echo to try and get every phrase, every pause, every variation in tone locked tight in his memory.

The hum of the bar became more insistent, starting to drown out the total recall. It descended, trapping him, like the swarming of a million bees. Some inner sense told him that really he should be crying now for things lost and things that he would never be. He touched his face, stone dry. As was to be expected. Then he saw it, the only emotion he recognized as real. At least this was true, he hated Bill fucking Patterson.

Scully looked at the clock. Pushing one and she ought to be tired, yet she wasn't. Not tired enough to want to sleep. Too much flying and too rough a week and last night's sleeping pill. Her body seemed to have lost the habit of knowing how to stop when her brain ran out of steam.

What the hell. She contemplated a run. But some combination of how nice the bath had made her skin feel, and how uncomfortable jogging shoes sounded, and the fact that FBI agent or not, after midnight wasn't a good time to be out running, stopped her from following it up.

How many had died because of the X-Files? Their personal roll call of losses was bad enough. Family, colleagues, contacts, other people had paid in blood for their crusade. And how many had they saved? If the balance sheet was drawn up today, how much difference had they actually made?

If she factored in the deaths that might have been prevented if Mulder had stayed in the mainstream? And if she had?

Unknown quantities against the possibility that they had to save the world. Really? She was going to save the world from a threat that she couldn't even define. Her partner was going to convince the planet to fight some alien Armageddon? Seven years and he still hadn't even convinced her.

It was too big. If the menace was real, it was too big. If it wasn't real then they weren't just wasting their lives and evading their real responsibilities. All this sacrifice and it could never be enough. All this sacrifice and they weren't even capable of saving themselves.

It crowded in, tingling at her senses. Electric sparks of doubt under her fingernails. Breathless, nameless fear constricting her chest.

Sluicing down a sleeping pill with a glass of water, she lay back in her bed and waited for sleep to come. She hoped for delivery to a safe quiet place where peace would hold her close.

The numbers on the clock's face edged forward, excruciatingly slowly, but forward. She drifted down, let the pill take her under.

The lights were so bright here. The cacophony of noise so loud. And Mulder's voice so out of place. The scream stuck in her throat, strangling her. She heard his voice again.

There was just too much data. There were thousands of cases. Even if Mulder narrowed it to the ones he'd worked with Patterson it was still hundreds. If he factored in the consulting work, then it just reminded him of how grateful he was when he'd walked out of the ISU.

If he was working the case officially then he could take a shot at Skinner and get someone to give him access to the Bureau's list of medical retirements and long term disability claims. Do some kind of cross-reference. Doing things unofficially using on-line newspapers was just a lucky dip. It was amazing that he'd found any names that he recognized. Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe with hundreds of cases, you meet thousands of people and maybe the stats say you should expect trouble.

He stopped, squeezed his eyes tight shut to try and clear his thoughts, then took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds. He waited until he could feel the frustration die down to something more manageable. He needed to calm down enough so that he could free himself, shake things up and start again. He looked at the clock. Eight a.m. on a Sunday was not a good time to phone his partner. There were some mistakes that he didn't need to make.

The computer flicked up the results of yet another keyword search on the CD-ROM that Scully had supplied. Mulder reread the name of the file at the top. Alan Kurzman, destroyer of five teenage girls, including one who looked awfully like Francine Patterson.

The Kurzman file. The Moon Killer, as the team had called him. The file nagged at him, it had been doing that for a while now. It kept forcing its way out of the pile, it demanded attention and Mulder knew it. Yet something kept holding him back. He listened to his breathing, forced himself to look at the photographs and tried to let it trip the memories that he knew were still seared in his brain. They refused to come. He remembered the facts of the case, he recognized the names of the investigating team, he recalled the smile that Kurzman wore as he charmed everyone he met. But it wasn't enough, he needed to remember the rest. He needed the things that weren't contained in the words of the file.

Sighing as he refilled the coffeemaker, he wondered what the hell his problem was. He rubbed wearily at the back of his neck and stretched his head upwards to look at the ceiling. If he looked really carefully he could see the telltale change in the matte surface of the paint up there, the dime-sized patch that covered the old location of a surveillance camera.

Why the fuck hadn't he moved out of here? He forced his eyes to focus properly and made his brain do the same thing. Why move? If not here, then where? Where the hell could you go to get away from those people and their video cameras and their bugs? Nowhere. So why bother moving?

Grateful that he'd resolved that particular quandary, he dug through the cupboards and the refrigerator in search of food. He was unimpressed by the selection of tuna, stale crackers and odd things that visitors had left behind.

Why the hell did he have a jar of Marmite anyway? He opened the lid and wondered what it could be made of that wouldn't have grown mold by now. He dipped a tentative finger into the brown sludge, sniffed and licked. The jar fitted better in the trash than in the cupboard. He recalled an Oxford friend describing it as an acquired taste.

Shaking his head at the displacement activities that had apparently taken over from research, he decided that it was an omen. He bowed to the inevitable and went shopping.

Fed and watered, he checked his watch. Almost ten. Maybe he could risk calling Scully. About? He winced at the sudden attack of conscience and left the phone alone.

Unable to come up with any more tasks, he settled down in front of the computer screen again. The Kurzman case. Why the hesitation? Blood sugar back up to a fully functional level, he admitted that he knew exactly why. Francine Patterson. Cursing himself for cowardice, he wondered why this hadn't been the first file he had read when he realized that Bill was up to something. Or at least when he'd started to suspect that Francine was the catalyst, Bill had 'given her' to him. Cowardice, he decided again, happy to pin a name on it at least.

Diana Fowley's name sprang out from the mass of words on the page. Angry now as well as contrite, Mulder realized what else he'd conveniently forgotten. He'd met her for the first time during the Kurzman case. So much for Patterson's clever plan to keep him away from women who might make him run away to get a life. Not that he had found himself a life when he ran away with Fowley. Not that it was instant either. Fowley didn't become a lover or a partner until a few months later.

He picked up the phone and dialed, drummed his fingers anxiously against the plastic as he waited for her to reply. "Diana. It's me. Can we talk?"

Mulder analyzed the pause and decided that Diana was surprised to hear from him. He hadn't spoken to her since he'd almost handed her a death sentence by directing her to El Rico Airbase. She was lucky to be alive and he hadn't even called her to say that he was relieved. No wonder she was surprised to hear his voice.

"My apartment? I wanted to talk to you about an old case. Not an X-File. Alan Kurzman. Killed teenage girls. You were working in the LA office."

He stopped talking, embarrassed by the too-fast attempt to emphasize that this was nothing personal and nothing to do with aliens or charred corpses. Couldn't he have even managed a 'hello, how are you,' before making it clear that this was just business? Apparently not. More cowardice.

He put the phone down carefully. At least, now that he'd shopped, he could offer her something to eat. He decided to do a little cleaning while he waited for her. He stopped, still vaguely ashamed that he couldn't concentrate on the Kurzman case, then decided to forgive himself. There was no point pretending that he was going to suddenly get some flash of insight in the next few minutes that would get him over the hump. Whereas, he could at least vacuum the place and straighten the kitchen.

She was true to her word; the dishes weren't even dry by the time Diana Fowley rang the doorbell.

Mulder didn't try to disguise his nerves as he opened the door. When he failed to move aside to let her in, she prodded him gently on the shoulder and he took an apologetic step back.

"You're looking," he hesitated, scrambled through his head for smalltalk words, "well."

"Look. About El Rico. I had no idea what was going down there. Just what that smoking bastard had told me. I never dreamed..."

"No doubt that went for all the others who showed up too. No one volunteers for cremation."

He shivered, oddly relieved to see her, suddenly elated to be off the hook. "At least, not while they're alive."

"Sorry." He froze, suddenly getting the idea that she was absolutely right in her assessment and then just as quickly brushing the thought away. "Do you remember the Kurzman case?"

She shook her head. "You don't waste time, do you." She headed for the couch and made herself comfortable.

And she laughed, remembering a young Fox Mulder and a particular light in his eyes, windows on the soul. And he laughed, remembering how easy it was to laugh.

The laughter and the flash of good memories soon died away as they started to go through the photographs of Kurzman's young victims.

Diana's jaw tightened as she recognized the California teenagers, tired frown lines worked their way across her forehead. She swallowed and pushed her hair back over her ear, her lips tense as she worked her way back through the years.

Mulder watched her and saw the memories start to race across her face. He sank down into the cushions and allowed his thoughts to do the same.

1989 was a year of changes. Looking back, Mulder knew that he'd lost Jeanette long before she walked out of the door early that year. When he'd started having the panic attacks after the screaming nightmares, she had wanted to help. He hadn't allowed her to, he hadn't been able to trust her enough not to tell Patterson or someone even more dangerous.

The odd thing about Diana was that he had trusted her almost instantly. Not her judgment, not her opinions, not even her methods, but her. Possibly because her ideas were even weirder than his. There was no way she could shop him to the Bureau's psychiatric services team or even make fun of him in front of colleagues. After all, he had plenty of ammunition about her.

They talked as they flicked between pictures until finally Mulder found that he could remember the Kurzman case.

Mulder picked up the dust brown folder again, disappointed by how heavy it was. Files this heavy were almost always serials. They'd almost always been investigated by multiple teams. Multiple theories had been proposed and failed. Dead bodies had been mounting up without motive or suspects.

Bill Patterson cleared his throat, startling Mulder, who hadn't spotted his arrival even though he was standing only a matter of inches away. He had clearly been there for some time. "Aren't you going to open it?"

Mulder shook his head. "I was waiting until I could work on it without interruption." He stared pointedly up at his boss.

Mulder kept his look benign and his voice coldly professional. "I know that the file's over two years old. I'm guessing. Multiple investigative teams, multiple victims. And it's on my desk because there's no forensic evidence."

Mulder waited until he couldn't hear footsteps before he walked out of the office cubicle and towards the empty conference room. He checked to see if Patterson was hanging around and realized Bill's coat was missing from the rack. Great, Bill had to have gone off some place. He went into the room and pulled the door closed. He turned his full attention back to the folder that he'd brought, playing with it for another few seconds before finally opening it and starting to read.

In the silence of the room, and safe from other people, he let his guard down. Infinitely careful and mind locked solidly on the case in front of him, he read it and allowed his first impressions to take him over. It needed to be done fresh and in one hit, no phone calls, no 'just a quick question,' no well-meaning gossip. Just an hour or so of total immersion. Until it was easy to imagine that there were people who did this to other people.

Once convinced that he was fully submerged in the bloody images and solidly into the task, he turned his attention to the phone. The switchboard at the LA field office took a few minutes to get him the right person.

Mulder sat up straighter in the chair and threw his voice into a southern drawl. "Psychic hotline here. You in need of some assistance?"

The accent disappeared. "Special Agent Fox Mulder, calling from the Investigative Support Unit at Quantico. I'd like to talk to you about the Moon Killer."

She didn't actually call him an asshole, but her tone of voice left him in no doubt. "If it helps stop the killings, I'll talk to anyone. Even you."

Mulder nodded, despite the fact there was no one to see. "Sorry. I didn't mean to insult you."

He swallowed, guilty now. "Not yet. Maybe, if you'll just answer a few questions for me."

It was a long call. He heard the compassion in her voice as she talked about the dead girls, the anger as she detailed what little they knew of the killer and the frustration as she spoke about the investigative dead ends.

Mulder sighed as he put the phone down. He was an asshole. It had just been so appealing for an instant. For once not to be on the defensive, not to have to brace for a "Spooky" reference used as an excuse to dismiss his theories. Diana Fowley had called in a psychic to help her find a dead body. So what? That didn't mean she had failed to do the standard things as well.

The news of the psychic's involvement had already had an impact at national level. The file had suddenly jumped hundreds of cases to get to the top of Fox Mulder's in-box. What the hell had he been thinking of, insulting the woman like that? Another case, another opportunity to piss off one of the good guys. He looked sadly at the file, psychic powers might be useful.

He looked back at her. "Sorry." He paused, saw the question in Diana's eyes. "For being such an asshole when we first spoke."

She puzzled over it for an instant, then remembered, smiled, shaking her head. "Psychic hotline, wasn't it?"

Mulder flinched, startled from his musings. He rose quickly from the couch, offered more coffee to fuel the recollections.

When Mulder emerged from his study break in the conference room the office was strangely alert. The usual heads-down focus and background buzz of phone calls was missing, replaced by a kind of electric silence that made Mulder's nerves tingle.

Mulder nodded, stunned into silence. It was hard enough imagining that Patterson had a wife, visualizing her dead was a bit of a leap, even for Mulder.

When the news filtered through hours later, Mulder had at first misunderstood. Patterson's wife had died in a head-on collision. Both drivers dead. One of them drunk, lost control.

Mulder cringed as he read about yet another pointless way to die and noted the time on the accident report. Ten a.m. and already drunk. That hardly constituted an accident. It was then that he realized that the high blood alcohol reading referred to Colette Patterson, not the other driver. Did that make it worse? Probably. It was always better to have someone else to blame when tragedy struck.

He tried to recall her face. He'd met her once, at a Christmas party. When Bill had bundled her out of the bar at about 9 p.m., she had been laughing and swearing. Mulder remembered that. But he couldn't remember her face.

Mulder wasn't surprised that his boss failed to take the following day off. In fact Bill took no time off apart from a couple of hours to attend her funeral. He left the office a little earlier than usual that week, albeit with a stack of files in hand. Otherwise, in those days that followed his wife's death, Patterson's routine scarcely changed.

Mulder studied him carefully. Bill was maybe a little subdued, his voice deeper and softer than usual. The sarcasm was a little less controlled than normal and accordingly less effective in hitting its targets. His anger lacked the sharply honed edges that made it dangerous.

Mulder couldn't resist, he was hooked, fascinated by the way Bill Patterson grieved. He tried to control his morbid curiosity, but couldn't. He found himself analyzing every out-of-place word that Patterson said, the body language that spoke of defeat as well as of fierce control.

Even before Bill introduced the dark-haired teenager, Mulder instantly recognized her movements. She was truly her father's daughter. At least, that was, until her father went into his private office, leaving her outside in the main room, on full display to his team of agents.

She held her head high, challenging them to speak. Her eyes revealed their bloodshot rims, stark red against the frozen white of her skin. She sat up straight, stiff backed, only the slight tremor of her fingers suggesting that any life remained.

Mulder's heart drummed louder in his chest. He licked the inside of his lip trying not to look at the girl and failing in his resolution as fast as he could formulate it into words. Resigned to it, he looked around the office and saw no movement, just a pack of ghouls closing in, vultures on the girl's emotions. He carefully packed the photos back into their files. Tried hard not to compare victim number three to Francine Patterson. Failed.

Furious with clumsy fingers, he fumbled the last bits of the paperwork together and stuffed the entire file into the already overflowing desk drawer. Wiping damp palms against his thighs as he stood, he walked slowly towards the trembling teenager.

She cut in sharply, abrasive twist to her voice. "Fox Mulder. Dad introduced us. About two minutes ago."

Mulder shuffled a step back, sheepish smile. She'd been 'introduced' to a couple of dozen people in Bill's one minute grand tour. "You've got a good memory for names."

He considered the hole he was digging and carried on regardless. "How about a coffee, soda, something?"

She looked carefully into his eyes and seemed to find what she was looking for, nodded and followed him through the sea of curious faces.

Outside the dungeon that housed the ISU, it was possible to find daylight at Quantico. At least Mulder remembered something of the sort. He tried not to look at Francine during the elevator ride. He didn't want to see the twitch of the muscles in her hand or the tightening of her jaw. He certainly didn't want to catch the tremble of her cheek bone that told him just how close the next batch of tears were to her eyes.

He stopped before entering the cafeteria and made sure that she could see the signs on the door to the ladies' room, then turned to face her. "Ready?"

She headed quickly into the bathroom leaving Mulder to lean against the wall in the hallway and wonder what the hell he was doing.

Diana tried to fix her thoughts on the grieving girl that Mulder had spoken so much about during the Kurzman case. "I met her once, with you. Apart from that, I don't recall talking to her. I remember you talking about her."

At Mulder's quizzical look, Fowley stood up, decided that it would be a good moment to stretch muscles tired through prolonged inactivity. She checked her watch and her eyebrows rose at how fast the last three hours had passed.

Mulder took the hint and headed towards the kitchen, suggesting food options as he walked.

He shouted over his shoulder. "Well, yeah, but you need to keep in mind that I'm actually suspended at the moment."

She smiled briefly and told him what she remembered about Frankie. Mostly that was the story of Frankie and Fox.

Of Frankie herself? Factually, there was not really that much to tell, except for how closely the boss's daughter had matched the victim profile.

Appearances were one thing, and Mulder had known as soon as he saw Frankie that her resemblance to the victim ran deeper than mere body type and hair color. He wasn't surprised that she shared a darker secret. All the girls had a parent or step-parent who was struggling with alcohol or drugs. All were described as the perfect student by their teachers. All had trouble making friends of their own age and related more easily to adults.

Mulder knew that in some way, Frankie had placed him in some in- between category. Older than her, but not afforded the kind of automatic respect that she normally manufactured for "real" adults. Instead he was the soft target of her sweetly malicious turn of phrase and an opportunity to sharpen her claws. And, unlike her classmates, he was deemed safe, some instinct had told her that he would never fight back.

In the end it was that fact that had also infuriated her. She had finally explained, in a voice that dripped with disgust and disappointment, that she didn't want a punching bag, she wanted a man.

Mulder was not perturbed by the memories, remembering that moment, in particular, as a triumph. He had been there on the day that Francine grew up. Even Bill Patterson noticed, and just for the barest instant Bill's eyes had looked at him with unalloyed gratitude and respect. Proud of his daughter and proud of his expensively trained protege.

Of course, the pride had turned to anger when Bill realized that Diana Fowley had been able to get herself a relocation to DC.

The clue to the Moon Killer was that he knew his victims. The bigger clue was that despite this fact, no one who knew the victims, also knew the killer.

Naturally, this concept was not easily accepted by the other agents. Mulder's facts were things that other people termed flights of fancy or, more generously, idle speculation. Mulder was cautious in his choice of words, careful to describe his statements as theories, hypotheses, working assumptions.

Nonetheless, anyone who heard his tone of voice had no doubts about Mulder's real opinion on the matter. To Mulder the theories were as factual as fingerprints on the murder weapon. An observer either bought into the fundamentals of his theory or the whole beautiful tower block of strategy and tactics that he had proposed came crashing down.

In the end, disgusted by how little influence he seemed to be able to exert over the California-based agents, Mulder had persuaded Patterson that it was time for the personal touch.

Mulder was surprised that Diana Fowley had chosen to meet him at the airport. She was easy to spot in the demurely cut expensive suit. The jacket just a little longer than current fashion dictated, a better match for a concealed weapon. Severe features but strong and attractive and with a softness about the mouth that suggested that she knew how to smile. She matched her Bureau record to a T, not even her hairstyle had changed since her badge photo had been taken.

She accepted his handshake. "Good to see you, Agent Mulder. It's nice to match a face to a voice. Good flight?"

Despite the calculated risk of opening on the wrong foot, Mulder questioned Diana on her use of a psychic to find the body of the second girl. The girl had just been a missing person when a woman phoned the Bureau office and told them about a vision she'd seen.

The only person willing to listen to the story had been Diana Fowley. That was why it had been Diana Fowley who had led the team that discovered the dead girl in the overgrown picnic area, in a stretch of closed-off forest. It had also been Fowley who had proven to most people's satisfaction that the death was linked to other deaths in Santa Cruz and Monterey. Inevitably, the days of effort by the search team and the days of work Diana had done with the forensics lab experts had been forgotten.

The story had assumed mythical status. Diana Fowley had called in a psychic to get the FBI out of a fix.

Mulder could only try to empathize with her plight, but first he wanted to understand. "Why did you listen to the woman?"

"I've been fascinated by the paranormal since my father pulled me out of a frozen lake."

Fowley sighed, a heard-it-all before expression of disappointment. "No way of knowing. Apart from the fact that I'm alive. I just said that it triggered my interest."

Mulder nodded. "I." He paused, remembering that some things are not spoken of in public, then decided that Diana Fowley was not really the public. "I think there a lot of things not understood. Things that people choose to ignore."

Fowley laughed, recognizing a kindred spirit but amused and more than a little dismayed by his nervousness. It was as if the man didn't know that everyone already thought he was Spooky and that his insight came off the top of a Ouija board. She replied with mock seriousness. "Ever thought about a career in politics?"

By the time they reached the LA office, Mulder was not only thoroughly impressed with Diana Fowley, he was absolutely ready to do battle on behalf of his Moon Killer profile.

The girls had not been drugged, there were no marks of a struggle on their bodies. Colleagues argued that a gun to the head left no scars but tended to get cooperation. Mulder suggested that most people's response to that kind of threat left stains on undergarments. The room groaned with occasional laughter as Mulder played them with coy words and casual understatement.

Having contented himself that they were ready to listen, Mulder walked them through the profile again. He paused to highlight key places of interest; letting them throw in questions to keep them involved in the process; delivering ruthlessly succinct rebuttals to anyone expressing a counter theory.

Mid 20s to early 30s. The man looked young, attractive, nicely dressed, polite, well-spoken. He was all charm and the misfit teenagers saw him as their invitation to the adult world. He charmed and they teased and all was innocent fun and right with the world. Then, under a new moon and a starry sky for love, he would take them to an empty place. Good girls, who made no advances, who didn't demand things that he could not deliver, could live. Bad girls, who tried to take the teasing a step further, who wanted to be defiled, would die.

Of course, delusions being what they are, it was very unlikely that their UNSUB could differentiate between good and bad, even though he had chosen his own definition for bad. It was highly probable that the teenagers had been marked for death since their first meeting. It was almost certain that there were more dead bodies that had not yet been found. It was a given that he would kill again.

Mulder shook his head. "Not this time, though there may have been when he was younger. That could be where all this started. But now, the obsession is too great. He gets everything he wants from the girls. Companionship, adoration, even love. Before he kills them."

"So why haven't we seen him? Why haven't we found a common link between the girls?"

"You have. You just haven't spotted it yet. He's there, but he's a nice guy, so he doesn't stand out. The girls are loners, it's not hard for them to hide a secret attraction. That's part of why I suggested he's in a position of authority toward young people. He can tell the girls that being found out could cost him his job and they believe him."

There were nods of agreement from around the room. Mulder stayed to watch as they set to work refining their activities, building the tasks around his profile. Satisfied that he'd succeeded, he was unusually relaxed as he packed his bags at the end of the day.

Mulder shook his head, shrugged, embarrassed by the compliment. "Not really. I should be able to handle these things in my reports, over the phone. Flying out here..." He shrugged again.

He swallowed, relaxation having evaporated under the weight of self-consciousness. He tried to brush it off with a joke. "My in-box will have doubled by the time I get back."

She continued, her eyes reaching out for his. "You need to get your hands dirty. I don't see you behind a desk. Looking at photos, relying on phones and faxes instead of people. Patterson can do it, he sees these things as crossword puzzles, intellectual stimulation. But you, the people are too real to you."

Mulder pulled on his suit jacket, irritated now. After a day this good, surely he deserved to enjoy it. "Are you charging for the psychoanalysis?"

She looked away apologetically and stared at her feet. The walk to the car and drive to the airport were conducted in silence.

Mulder was pleased to reach the airport and grateful when he unloaded his overnight bag from the trunk. It had been a long day but at least he hadn't needed a stopover. He was going home to his own bed. His hand came forward to offer a perfunctory handshake to Diana. She accepted the offer, but simultaneously added her left hand to rest on his arm.

Tension vanished in an instant. He disentangled his arms from hers and wrapped her in a bear bug, breaking the contact after a few seconds with a light kiss placed in her hair.

He stepped back, maintaining contact, his fingertips resting on her shoulders. "Good luck with the case."

She had been anticipating Mulder's phone call ever since she woke up. Really, he should have been in touch by now, that was his MO. She decided that he was probably still brooding after the swift brush off she'd given him the night before. She was actually considering calling him to tell him that communications had been formally reopened.

Maybe she could tell him about the nightmares. She tried to summon up the nerve.

The phone call that did arrive took Dana Scully by surprise, she'd almost said 'hi, Mulder' as soon as she picked it up, but she had resisted on the basis she didn't need to hear another telepathy joke. As it was, it would only have proved her lack of telepathy, Bill Patterson's daughter was on the line. Odd really, because Scully didn't recall giving the Pattersons her phone number. Perhaps Mulder had?

It was Francine Patterson who did most of the talking, but the only words that really mattered were her opening ones. "I think Fox is in trouble."

After that statement, Scully had difficulty processing the rest of Francine's remarks. She asked her for a meeting. She was surprised by the enthusiasm with which Francine suggested Scully's own apartment as the venue, and right away as the time. Francine seemed to recognize the street name and didn't need to be given the directions twice.

When the doorbell rang, Scully found herself still frantically tidying and dusting, worrying the ornaments with tiny repositioning pushes. She wished she had flowers, maybe pink and white irises in clouds of gypsophila, filigree green with tiny perfect white buds, like Francine Patterson had used to dress the table for dinner the other night. She laughed at herself as she tried to remember how long it had been since another woman, apart from her mother, had visited her apartment. Hell, it was stupid, but at least it was keeping her mind off the sort of trouble that Mulder might be in.

Francine was smiling as Scully opened the door. Tall and dark and perfect and oh so young. There were only a few years between them, but Scully felt like there might as well be decades. "Thanks for seeing me at such short notice, Agent Scully. I know you've been busy this week."

Scully sighed. Well at least that explained those calls to her answering machine with no message left. She hated when people did that. She decided to forgive Francine and get back to the problem in hand. "Just Dana will do fine." They walked together to the couch.

Francine started talking as soon as she sat down. "Dana. Thank you. I've been so worried about Fox."

Francine cleared her throat and waved a hand in apology. "I wonder, a glass of water perhaps?"

Scully almost leapt to her feet, embarrassed now as well as nervous. Some hostess she was. "Sorry. I'll fix some drinks. Coffee, tea, juice, water?"

Scully was surprised when Francine followed her into the kitchen and had to bite her lip to stop herself from going into a stream of apologies about dishes still on the drainer and crumbs on the cutting board. Something told her that nothing like that would ever be seen in Francine Patterson's house.

Scully suppressed the groan, why the hell had she offered? The chances of finding a lemon in the refrigerator after a week away were negligible and of course Francine would expect fresh lemon. She opened the salad tray and found nothing of note. "I haven't restocked yet."

Now there Scully could oblige and she set to work, still not believing how flustered Francine was making her feel. As if in some bizarre way her housekeeping skills were on trial here. What the hell was happening to her? Mulder, right. Mulder was in some sort of trouble. "You were telling me about Mulder."

"Fox is inclined to let his emotions get the better of his judgment. I fear it may be happening again."

Suddenly, Scully found her age analysis reversed. It was Francine who sounded like the school principal while she felt like the socially inept eighth grader. She forced herself to focus, drew Agent Scully into the battle to work alongside Dana. "Could you expand on that?"

Scully frowned, remembering how late it had been. And then he'd demanded that Francine meet him?

Scully stood as still and silent as possible as she waited for Francine to tell her something she didn't already know.

Francine's voice was so low that Scully had to concentrate to hear it. She lost focus on it for an instant, thinking how like Mulder that was, dropping his voice rather than raising it to warn her of important words. Maybe it was a psychologist thing. Maybe it was a Bill Patterson thing.

Scully shook her head to get her concentration back. "Sorry, I didn't quite catch what you said." A plea for time and for Francine to drown the incessant chatter of background noise playing in her head.

There was something about Francine's voice, an odd resonance rumbling in there. As if there was a rhythm playing somewhere in the deep background, too quiet to hear, but Scully could feel it, like the sound of distant drumming.

Was she? She took a step back, almost falling over the stool that had been her target. "I think maybe I should sit down."

Francine moved forward, her hands outstretched. Scully almost screamed, lifted her hands in a warning to stay back and struggled to bring her voice under control. "I'm fine." She'd said it too loud, she knew that from the expression of dismay and concern on Francine's face. She listened to her breathing. Got it back together. Lied. "Sorry. I've had a virus, I just felt a little dizzy. Maybe an ear infection. I'll check in with my doctor. I'll be fine now."

Francine nodded, concern and care shining in her eyes. "Maybe I should come back when you feel a little stronger. Illness, travel. It isn't that long since you were in the hospital. I don't want to add to the stress."

"Of course." Francine spoke again. Her voice, controlled in timbre and rhythm, so hypnotic and so soft, it was slipping under the walls. "Fox is dangerously obsessed with my father. I have treated obsessives. I've lived with it too. Dad tracked Mostow for years."

Scully swallowed and acknowledged that in her head she already knew this. Hearing it from a psychiatrist just made it somehow more real. She licked her lips. "Mulder is very resilient."

"As was my father. He handled the ISU for 15 years. He vetted every case before assigning it. He picked up the pieces if his agents failed. Fox lasted three years. What does that say?"

"You can't imagine how much I hope that's true. I loved him once." Francine looked into Scully's soul, holding her attention so she could speak more softly. "He was gentle and understanding when I needed it. He made me feel important. He used me to break a case. Then he walked away without a word. He's easy to love, he uses it."

Scully hunted for the words, the correct professional terms, the solid impersonal facts. She stumbled over them. "You said that Mulder's in trouble. Can you be more specific?"

"I think you already know. Ask him about his dreams. Ask him about the dreams he has when he's awake."

"He sees things, Dana. Things that other people don't see, that you don't see. How would you term it?" Francine sighed, stepped forward to offer her hand to help Scully to stand up. "Maybe you should lie down. You look awfully faint."

Scully accepted the offer of a shoulder to lean on, but insisted that the couch was fine. She didn't need to return to bed. Francine left her with a glass of water and a TV remote control for company.

Mulder left Diana Fowley with a little homework to do. Together they had compiled a list of all the key players in the Moon Killer case. The agents in DC and California. The police officers who had originally handled the murders as separate incidents. The lawyers who steered the case through court. The judge who acquitted Kurzman at the trial. The SWAT team that finally captured Kurzman as he tried to make his getaway after killing again.

Next to each name they had placed purely subjective ratings, based on their helpfulness to the investigation and their personal amiability.

Mulder still had one more day of his suspension to serve. He blinked hard at the computer screen. Going back to work might feel like a rest after a week of working with one hand tied behind his back. He was just going to have to find a way not to get sent out of town. Meanwhile, having Diana check the Bureau databases for information would save Scully time and would almost certainly slip by unnoticed, whereas Mulder suspected that any computer searches done by either of the X-Files team could easily attract unwelcome management attention.

Scully. Mulder stopped, retraced his steps. Scully was going to hit the roof when she heard that he'd involved Diana. Well, then she'd have to, because that was the way it was. Diana knew about the Kurzman case. She knew Patterson, she even knew some of the people who might be Patterson's targets. Scully didn't.

He checked his motives and his reasoning. Diana's involvement couldn't do any harm, it might do some good. Whatever her relationship to either generation of Spender, she had no loyalty to Patterson and certainly a lot less respect for him than even Mulder possessed. As for Scully? Well, what the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve over. She had her mystery contact creating a CD-ROM for them. He had a mystery contact doing a follow-up investigation. Resigned to the situation, uncomfortable, he decided to think of something else.

It was wearing him down, yet oddly exhilarating. All Mulder's senses were firing danger alerts, then immediately canceling the alarms. Every instinct told him that Patterson was destroying the lives of men he'd once known. Yet Mulder felt no sense of personal threat or menace. For some reason he was quite sure that he was not the target. Patterson had cast him in the role of investigator, not potential victim.

But, somehow he was the catalyst. Was he? Was Francine? Maybe the familiar names he'd found during his searches were just raw coincidence. Had he just remembered their names because of how he'd felt in their company?

Matthew Irving, long-time NYPD detective and current resident of the secure unit where Francine's ex was working. Two babies had died because Irving didn't go along with Mulder's profile. Patterson's object lesson in the importance of not merely being right, but of convincing others to act. Mulder thought back, not sure who he'd hated more, Irving or Patterson. He was quite certain who he had blamed, himself. As a piece of on-the-job training it had cost two lives.

It had nearly cost a third when Mulder had driven home from Quantico after seeing the photos of the newly dead. The tears had been blocking his vision, yet somehow he hadn't noticed, hadn't been capable of thinking straight enough to stop the car and give himself time to recover. He'd driven on, not really seeing. He had been lucky. According to the hospital staff who patched him up after his car tumbled into the ditch, abrasions and sprains only. The only saving grace was the fact that no one else got caught up in the crash.

And then there was Samuels. One of the old school, that had been everyone's favorite epithet for Mitch Samuels. It had been true of his working years, it was true of his retirement. Florida for the fishing, that had always been his way. Mulder recalled taking a boat ride to find him. He remembered Samuels' fury at being found. A reaction that Mulder understood perfectly in retrospect. Mulder had contaminated the peaceful and wholesome oasis with blood.

Mulder's response at the time had almost put him in jail. More prosaically, it had led to the Bureau getting thrown off the case and a suspension. Mulder's first, and the only one that had occurred during his work in the ISU.

When he'd returned to the office a few days later, he'd handed his neatly printed letter of resignation to his boss. Patterson sat in patient silence through Mulder's confession of inadequacy. Then, infinitely polite but absolutely firm, Bill told him that innocents would die if he stopped working. Patterson showed him photos of fresh bodies, of killers on the loose. Asked Mulder how he could possibly walk away when he knew how to help.

So it was ironic but inevitable perhaps, that it had been Samuels who committed the crime of defiling the fishing oasis years later. Though in Samuels' case the blood was literally on his hands. The murder weapon was a shark gaff. The victim, some poor idiot who had had the misfortune to collide with the wrong boat. Samuels hadn't spoken since it happened, so no one knew how or if he had been provoked. Just that there was a lot of blood on the deck and not a scratch on Mitch.

The odd man out was Gordon Hayes in Vegas. Sure, he'd teased, he'd nagged, but Hayes had done nothing to deserve his fate. Deserve? Mulder sighed, deserved? Did he really mean that, was that how he actually felt about the others? He fidgeted, uncomfortable with everything now. A profiling occupational hazard, he reminded himself. Thoughts best kept locked in the subconscious forced up into the daylight.

Suddenly sickened by selective memory and even more selective compassion, he remembered the other victims, the woman killed by Irving, the man killed by Samuels. He found it harder to feel concern for the prisoner Hayes had executed, that man had murdered because he wanted to and he would have killed again. Mulder took a deep breath at that thought, it seemed like his subconscious had a vigilante streak to go with the vengeful one that he'd already dragged up.

Obsession was a dangerous word. If the opposite of obsessed was indifferent then it was better to be obsessed. Wasn't it? The word fell on the dangerous end of a continuum that also contained flattering words like committed and dedicated. So hard to draw a line, particularly when the landscape could change so fast. Scully looked for the comfort of black and white, the grays of psychology and emotion were disturbing.

Adrift and suddenly alone. She needed Mulder on this kind of problem, but he was the last person that she could look to for unbiased advice. Self-diagnosis was tough enough in the case of physical pain, self-diagnosis of mental hurts had to be almost impossible. Unless. Maybe if she could actually show him the symptoms as hard impersonal facts, then he would be able to see for himself.

Plus, if she had to take action to protect him, it would be best to have the facts close at hand, unclouded by emotion and subjectivity. Then later, when he was well again, he would understand her role better. He would know why she'd had to act.

She wouldn't be able to do it officially, of course. Even if she could come up with a strong enough case to force Skinner to help, did she want to? Too risky, Skinner would have to make her fears public straight away, an immediate reference to the Bureau's psychiatric evaluation unit. He would have to let the procedures take their course without even giving Mulder the chance to defend himself.

Another black mark on his file for certain and even with his ability to wriggle out of trouble that might be enough to get him bounced out of the X-Files for good. Particularly as AD Cassidy already had such a downer on him. And if Mulder failed to do his usual sidestep around the Bureau shrinks then what might they find? If they only knew how to look.

There were monsters and aliens in his head, a red sea of stories of nightmare and science fiction that Scully couldn't validate, except as dreams or misinterpretation or fraud. And who would fake a man that could turn into a monster if you saw through the light? A fraud of Mulder's mind alone, brought on by the stress of a hunt. Searching for a man, a man who had returned to attack him when he lay defenseless, pinned to a hospital bed. No wonder Mulder saw monsters in the dark.

Scully shivered. And what could she see? Monsters. The difference was she knew that hers were in her imagination or the products of her dreams. If they were real, then maybe remembering Mulder in the white room with the bright lights and the machines and the noise, maybe that was real too. Ludicrous. Fortunately she knew enough about reality to know the difference.

The Lone Gunmen were happy to help. Anything to get Scully's forgiveness after tricking her into a little trip to Vegas. She granted absolution in return for the loan of the latest thing in surveillance equipment, a crash course in its use and no questions asked about how or where it was going to be deployed.

Mulder didn't reach New York until ten on Monday morning. By then the police station was in full flow and Mulder knew that it would be pure luck if he managed to get hold of Mike Gregg without a struggle.

He was relieved when Mike appeared after only a ten-minute wait, but he was less comfortable about the expression on Mike's face. Gregg looked tense, almost angry at Mulder's presence. He waved for Mulder to follow him out of the building, barking a one word question as they went down the steps. "Breakfast?"

Mulder agreed in an instant. At least Mike was talking to him, things couldn't be that bad. He opted for the direct approach, talking as they headed into the nearest coffee house. "What's wrong?"

They broke off the conversation to order the latte and the cappuccino. Mulder didn't pick it up again until the waitress moved away. "What makes you say that?"

"I'm a detective, I detect you showing up without a partner, two times in one week. I looked in the log book after your last visit. You signed in as F.W. Mulder."

The hmmph of a chuckle from Gregg and the arrival of the coffees broke the ice. Mulder decided to keep moving while there were still signs of a thaw. "I'm interested in the woman that Irving killed."

Mulder argued his case until Gregg finally succumbed, bowing to the inevitable. He agreed to give Mulder whatever the agent claimed that he wanted, however stupid. The idea that the woman had killed off three of her "colleagues" would have sounded ridiculous coming from anyone except Fox Mulder. From Mulder, it just sounded unlikely.

Back at the station they set to work on the files and Gregg conveniently forgot to sign Mr. Mulder into the station log. By the time that Mulder had worked through the known record of the woman, he had demonstrated beyond any doubt that the woman was technically up to the task. And that she knew all of the victims.

Mulder's leap from there to suggesting that she could have been the killer no longer seemed that big a jump, even to Mike Gregg. Certainly it would explain the other bag of heroin found in her apartment, the one that didn't have Matthew Irving's prints on it. Mulder was in full speculation mode. Whether her hatred of them stemmed from cash and some kind of dispute over drugs or from some less obvious psychological malaise wasn't obvious. She'd had the means, possible motive and definite opportunity.

Gregg tried to draw some comfort from the idea. "You don't suppose Matt was onto her? So she..."

"So she committed suicide by stabbing herself multiple times while strangling herself with his tie?"

Gregg scowled a smile. "You should be on the stage. But, what if. What if it was someone who knew her, killed her, pinned it on Matt."

Mulder shrugged. "I want to know if her friends think she was a killer." He paused, suddenly hit by one of the names he found in the dead woman's address book, eyes brightening as they struck gold.

Gregg groaned. "If you've just found the mayor's home phone number in there, I don't wanna know."

Martin Jacobs did not look surprised to see Fox Mulder again, merely indulgent. His demeanor was one honed to perfection through years of use. Jacobs was the professionally tolerant psychiatrist quizzing his longstanding but unpredictable patient. "What would you like to talk about, Mr. Mulder?"

Mulder recognized the tone of voice and played it back like he was returning serve. "It's more a question of who I'd like to talk about."

Mulder attacked without hesitation and pushed home the advantage. "First, Dawn Appleyard, the woman killed by Matthew Irving. I believe she was a patient of yours."

Jacobs sat back, his face a mask of silence and caution. "I only worked with her for a short time."

The psychiatrist swallowed, eyes still locked on Mulder's but oddly unfocused. "Once."

Mulder hesitated, suddenly absolutely convinced that he understood Martin Jacobs' reticence, yet not quite believing it. "I'm sorry to have to ask this, sir. Did you have an affair with Dawn Appleyard?"

Jacobs lashed out, a last attempt to maintain dignity in the face of defeat. "Do you always talk in code? I had sex with her."

"She didn't, not a word. I didn't see Dawn again. Frankie disinfected the house and moved to DC."

Mulder shivered slightly as the jigsaw puzzle of evidence slipped into place around him, tight and unyielding and far too real. "You said that I should keep an eye on Francine." He leaned forward slightly, certain now. "Why?"

Martin Jacobs turned his face away, suddenly fascinated by the paper and pens on his desk. "People should be afraid of the dark. She isn't." He looked up at Mulder, confiding. "You must know how that feels."

It had become something of a ritual. It had also become a major debating point on the ISU gossip circle. Since Jeanette had walked out on Mulder, or more accurately, since she'd flown out to a job in San Francisco, Mulder had scarcely looked at another woman. Yet, here he was, regular as clockwork, taking an afternoon coffee break in the company of Bill Patterson's gorgeous schoolgirl daughter.

The whole idea was so tantalizing that it had captured the imaginations of even the most hardened and world-weary of the profilers. Their heads-down focus was being distracted for a few minutes a day by the need to get a report back on the latest sightings of Spooky and the girl.

They checked Mulder's hand as surreptitiously and frequently as they could. He was still wearing the wedding ring that he'd put on after Jeanette had moved into his apartment. Some good luck charm that had been, she'd moved on before her divorce had come through, so they'd never actually married. Yet, he still wore the ring. For old times' sake? Or maybe something more, they suggested, in murmured and cautious, almost giggled tones. Maybe he wore it because a young and naive girl like Francine Patterson would feel safer in the company of a married man.

There was general agreement that Bill Patterson's indulgence of the odd relationship stemmed not from indifference but from a blind denial that his little girl was actually a young woman. Some threw in the chuckled afterthought that Bill probably viewed Mulder as more machine than man. The consensus was that neither Frankie nor Fox would be making the same mistakes.

From a purely professional standpoint, it was a shocking thing to see. With eyes unclouded by the personal, the idea that Mulder might be bedding the boss's daughter right under her Dad's nose was just unfathomable.

From a moral and human standpoint, they equivocated. After all, in some states, Francine was already old enough to get married, with or without Dad's approval. But hell, it wasn't right. She was the same age as their daughters. She was Bill's daughter. Even without the age difference, it would be wrong. The girl was in mourning and Mulder was on the rebound from his break-up.

Yet there was another side. Francine seemed to look a little more beautiful every day, rounder somehow, the harsh spikes of grief vanishing under Mulder's careful attention. But even so.

When the photo of a giggly looking Francine being helped off a sailboat by a smiling Fox Mulder appeared on Bill's desk, the speculation was confirmed. Weird enough, these daily encounters between Mulder and the girl within the walls of Quantico. At least those were in public, could be brushed off as Mulder helping her with her homework or her grief, whichever was at the forefront of her mind today. But pictures of them together at the weekend? Smiling? Photos that were apparently blessed by Bill Patterson. Too weird.

Mulder glanced over Francine's shoulder and noted that two other members of the ISU had apparently decided to join him on his trip to the cafeteria. By remarkable coincidence, they were sitting only a few tables away. He smiled at his companion. "You're bad for productivity."

Francine smiled back, her eyelashes fluttering as her smile widened. "Dad won't mind. He says you always make up the time."

He raised an eyebrow. "Sure. It's worth it. But it was our surveillance crew that I was talking about."

"Two of them today. Let's get out of here. We don't need chaperones." His voice slipping to a teasing whisper as he stood. "Do we?"

She giggled, waved a goodbye to the two agents sitting behind her. They feigned surprise at seeing her. She smiled as she followed Mulder out through the double doors and onto the grass. "It's beautiful today."

Mulder looked around, considering, wondered if he still knew the difference between beautiful and ordinary. Decided that he did. There seemed to be a lot more blood on the ground on ordinary days. He looked at the trees and sniffed at the air, picking up mown grass on the late afternoon breeze. "Summer's coming."

Francine laughed, tapped him on the arm in mock annoyance. "Please. Madame Marie Curie." She sighed, sobering up, her eyes a little wistful. "She wanted me to be special."

She shook her head, her eyes downcast. "And I loved her. It wasn't enough though, was it?"

"Yes, it was." He murmured, quiet but definite. "It's enough because it's all we can give." He paused, breathed carefully. "You can't fix everybody's problems, you can only try."

She laughed softly, reached a hand towards his. He accepted it and held her knuckles to his cheek briefly. She started to shift her fingers against his skin, he leaned into the caress.

He took a step back, disentangling their fingers as he moved away. "Time I got back to work."

Scully worked fast, knowing that she would have little warning if he arrived back unexpectedly. She was pretty confident that she would be OK. When she called him up on his cell phone he'd said that he was in New York. So, unless he was lying, then she was safe, she had plenty of time to get it right.

And if he was lying? Then she'd have evidence, not quite the hard, incontrovertible facts that she wanted. But evidence nonetheless, proof that he was in some sort of trouble. After all, he had no reason to lie to her. Did he?

Her mind drifted towards the dangerous places. Toward lies. He'd never really spoken to her about her abduction, about Duane Barry. He'd never really questioned her on what she remembered, never urged her to go through hypnosis or psychotherapy. In fact, he'd even been reluctant to let her talk to Werber about the night that she'd come so close to being burned alive on that bridge. Why? Why did the great truth seeker not need to hear her story?

She knew he told lies, lied to everyone except her. Couched his reports to management in terms that indicated caution rather than his self-proclaimed truth-telling openness. When he decided that Melissa Ephesian was obtaining flashbacks into other lives, he'd still claimed multiple personality disorder to Skinner. He'd lied to the review board about the death of that DOD agent in his apartment. He'd forced her to lie for him more than once, covering his tracks, protecting him from prosecution.

From her, he merely withheld information. He knew about her ova being stolen, yet had said nothing. He knew that she wanted to hear more about Diana Fowley. Yet no matter how often she presented him with the opportunity, he evaded the point. Lies by omission. Had he omitted to tell her other things too? She'd had to pull him up about it even during cases, hiding even trivial things like the fact that he knew Karen, the dog behaviorist.

If he'd lie about trivia. She stopped, corrected herself. If he omitted to tell her things. Then how could she be sure that he wouldn't lie about important things? Like what he knew about her abduction. It would certainly explain why he had never needed to question her.

She chose camera positions with care, needing to know, yet reluctant to violate his privacy. She swallowed, tried to drown the loud clamor of voices in her head that were demanding she justify her intrusion into his life. How dare she talk about not violating his privacy when that was exactly what her every action represented.

As Mulder drove towards his apartment that evening, he had almost reached a conclusion. Actually, he reminded himself, he had reached a conclusion several hours earlier, it had just taken him this long to forgive himself for it.

Not a conclusion, he noted, carefully editing his thoughts in favor of the standards expected of a long time FBI profiler. He had a working hypothesis that he needed to test. He smiled at the phrasing, Scully would be proud of him.

Matthew Irving had slipped over the edge into insanity and killed a killer. Gordon Hayes had done the same thing. What if Mitch Samuels' victim had been targeted in a similar way and was not just some innocent fisherman?

He wondered if Diana Fowley had come up with anything during her searches. If, indeed she'd had the chance to do them. She had said that she'd try to get something to him before she left town today. He could only hope so.

If he made no progress tonight then he was going to have problems. If he couldn't give Skinner something tangible to throw at AD Cassidy, then no way was Skinner going to give him the time or the opportunity to pursue the case.

Plus, he was going to need Scully's help, sooner rather than later. Things were already getting hairy. Even if she couldn't do anything tonight then he at least needed to check in with her. If she'd let him.

He looked at his watch, a quick heads-up glance into the rear mirror and then he switched lanes. There was a good chance that she would be home by now. He looked down at the cell phone, winking its low battery complaints. He tried to remember what had happened to his car recharger. Not important, he'd visit her anyway. Even if she wasn't home, there was a good take-out place nearby and he could pick up his dinner from there.

When he knocked on the door to her apartment, he was pleased by how quickly she responded. Puzzled though, it was almost as if she was out of breath, had he disturbed her?

Her expression didn't invite teasing, so he was careful as he replied. "Can we talk, maybe if I got some food while you take your shower, then..."

She stood very still, blocking the narrow view around the partially opened door. She glanced over her shoulder. Looked back at him, breathing heavily again. "I'm going out."

Mulder nodded, nervous but not sure why. Did she have a visitor? A man? Someone with a gun standing behind her? "Is everything OK?" he asked quietly, scanning her for danger signs as the what-ifs raced through his head.

Better than ok? Shit, so she did have a visitor, no wonder she wanted to get rid of him. Apologetic now, he took a step back and waved a forced breezy goodnight.

Scully checked her monitor and made sure that the images from all four mini webcams were updating at regular intervals. She sighed, wishing that she'd thought faster when Mulder had shown up on her doorstep. As if it had mattered. All she had to do was invite him in, make him an iced tea and switch off the computer screen. As things were now she might even have aroused his suspicions.

She smiled suddenly, she'd certainly aroused his testosterone levels. He'd looked positively crestfallen when she'd told him she was going out. But he'd looked stunned when she'd suggested that she might have a "better than ok" reason for not wanting him in her apartment.

The sudden rustle from behind her caught her attention as she swung in her desk chair. Mulder had just arrived home. She set all systems to record and hoped that the cell phone technology hookups that the Lone Gunmen had loaned her were as reliable as their manufacturers claimed.

Flicking his head quickly from side to side, a sparkle of water drizzling onto the floor as he moved, Mulder tried to wake himself up from the shower. He had hoped it would make him feel pleasantly refreshed and cure him of the sleepiness. Instead, it had made him feel oddly relaxed and ready to do nothing.

He forced himself through the mechanical processes of his task, hoping that, at some point, learned responses would take over from conscious effort.

The promised data from Diana Fowley was in among his email. He noted the size of the associated file transfer and left the computer to its task.

The cell phone still needed a battery. He plugged it into the charger, then pressed in a number he already knew.

"You got the personnel files? Sorry there's so much of it, I didn't get chance to filter them. You're going to have your work cut out to do anything tonight. I'm sorry I can't help. It looks like I may be out of the country for a while."

"It was good to see you. And the files look like what I need. Thanks. You were great."

They closed the call with goodbyes and safe journeys and Mulder turned back to his computer.

After he read the fifth of the 87 files, he realized that he couldn't even remember who he'd been reading about. His thoughts were still bouncing around. Without one hundred percent concentration, this just wasn't going to work.

What the hell. A run then, escapism when he needed to escape, yet also a focus when he needed the one track mind back on the right track. He quickly slipped into his jogging gear and headed into the night. It was a hard learned trick, but learned early and at least a relatively healthy way to empty his mind of unnecessary thoughts.

Scully? Nothing to be done there. She needed tonight for herself. Tomorrow. He would be seeing her tomorrow. He could handle that.

Skinner? Maybe he'd find something to use with Skinner. If not tonight, then tomorrow night. So long as Skinner didn't have work that would send them out of town there was no conflict.

Fowley? She'd gone flying off somewhere again. Finding out where and why was a task for another day, another case. At least that meant that he wasn't going to have to worry about her bumping into Scully.

One mile in and the shadows were getting darker, closing in. Obvious now, with all the distractions and clutter cleared away. Real and dangerous. Chasing him along the street, demanding to know how it felt to kill as Irving and Hayes had done. And Samuels? And who else? To have no choice, to kill and have no choice and no explanation. Enough to drive a man finally insane, a man already playing on the edge of sanity. Mulder ran a little faster, feeling the chasing pack nipping at his heels.

Sudden panic as his mind flashed to a moment in the past. A lone DOD agent manning his post, doing his duty, monitoring Mulder's apartment. Over in a bang, a flash and a sickening slush of blood and gray. There was insanity in that moment, yet sanity enough to allow him to move the dead mess and re-stage the scene in his own apartment. A moment when the dead thing was something less than a man. So close to falling over the edge, yet so controlled. Bill Patterson would have been proud.

Nausea spread through his body as his brain demanded that he look at himself, drag doubts and fears from the dark places so he could look at the ugliness with the clarity of knowing how it really felt.

What was it that Bill had called it? Immediacy. The protagonist's own words. Sure, words. But smells were better, the scent of blood and fear tickling the nostrils. The adrenaline surge of someone else's death.

Scully stared at the screen, Mulder's apartment now mercifully devoid of life, giving her the opportunity to replay his words at leisure. He'd gone jogging? After a shower. Maybe not a Federal crime but odd. Something else to think about. It was a pity she didn't have a monitor on him now, while he was running, if he was running.

She contented herself with the next best thing, listening to her partner indulging in the one sided conversation that she'd recorded earlier. His first mistake was that he told her who was on the line.

"It was good to see you. And the files look like what I need. Thanks. You were great."

She listened only once to the good-bye platitudes of old friends, lovers or whatever they were supposed to be. Finding no comfort and no insight there. She took the play back to the start and listened again.

Her fingers twitched over the mouse, rolling it in neat restless circles of aimless motion.

She set it to play again, not wanting to hear the words, forcing herself to listen. Silent tears slipping gracefully over porcelain still skin.

Mulder leaned back a little further in the chair, studied the pencils embedded in the ceiling tile above his head. It would be just his luck if he got hit in the eye by falling timber, only a matter of time. He nudged the coffee cup with his foot, pushing it a little further away from the danger zone at the edge of the desk top.

"Diana, I don't know what you're expecting here. I'm just a profiler, not a psychic."

Mulder glared at the handset as the line went dead. What was wrong with people? Like the job wasn't hard enough, why was the world full of humorless bitches always wanting more, demanding. Like they were entitled to expect things. From him? As if he didn't have problems of his own.

Sighing, he reached for the phone and stabbed in the numbers to get him back through to Special Agent Diana Fowley's direct line.

"Only at times? Look. I know you've got a problem. I'll take another shot at it. He's there, I know he is. And you guys have interviewed him. But there's something about him that's thrown you off the scent. Or something I put in the profile that's stopping you seeing him. I'll revise it."

"You're not the first." He abruptly put down the phone. Smiling, knowing that a couple of thousand miles away Fowley would be smiling too.

It was just approaching four thirty, time for a little diversion. He pulled on his jacket, carefully flicking a couple of hairs and chair fibers from the expensive charcoal gray. He straightened his shirt cuffs to lie with the necessary measured elegance, showing exactly the right amount of crisp linen to contrast correctly with the dark of the jacket and the pale skin of his hands. He turned towards his watching colleagues and they quickly looked away. Smiling, he headed for the elevator.

She nodded, a small movement but with real enthusiasm in her eyes. They paused at the cafeteria to grab a couple of cans and headed outside.

They walked in silence until Francine stopped walking, looked around and confirmed that they were far from prying ears. "Fox?"

"Hmmm." He stood very still as she studied him, allowing her eyes to roll over him. Didn't challenge her, didn't respond by doing the same to her, just gave her permission to look.

When she finally decided to speak she rushed her words. "Do you think Dad loved Mom?"

Mulder smiled, wondering if he should feel insulted, but more amused than annoyed.

There was a long silence. When she spoke again, she almost stammered, a shocking chink in her armor. "She didn't know me. Mom. Maman."

Mulder's reply was instant. He was after all, an experienced interrogator who knew how to unsettle his target. "Parents see things differently."

She took a deep breath and plunged on. "You're the first person who's ever looked at me."

She licked her lips and looked at her feet, such a quiet voice. "I'd like you to be the first to see all of me."

And still he stood, motionless. Like the camera watching, unblinking, capturing all she was and everything she had.

She was silent now, embarrassed and suddenly very young. Slumping into her shell and building high walls.

He reached towards her, his fingertips within touching distance of hers. "Francine."

She stared at his hand and he followed her eyes as her fingers met his, entwining and stroking and rubbing up against his touch like a cat against its owner.

He stepped a little closer, at the same time withdrawing his hand from hers, using it to offer a playful squeeze on her shoulder then quickly pulling away, all without ever making eye contact. "I have to go back to work."

Mulder moved swiftly towards the office, pausing only to grab a large coffee from the cafeteria, holding it carefully as he waited for the elevator to return him to the under-world. He sighed as he threw his jacket back over the seat back. He did a slow scan of the office, unamused now by the curious stares of colleagues who really ought to know better. He stretched his fingers, he had some serious typing to do.

When the phone rang a couple of hours later, he knew who would be on the line. "Hi, Diana, you've seen the fax?"

She laughed. "If you tell me, 'it's elementary, my dear,' I may have to shoot you."

"You'd have to get to DC first." He paused, removed the flippancy from his voice. "What do you think?"

"I'll see you in DC." She dropped her joking manner too. "I think I can see how we went wrong."

"Yeah, it was dumb of me. I know the UNSUB doesn't have a regular lover, that doesn't mean he's not wearing a ring or that his colleagues don't assume there's someone at home for him. People get distracted by that kind of charm. If he lies about it, even just by failing to tell the whole truth, people hear what they want to hear."

"It removes some of the girls' initial inhibitions. Later on it's like a talisman he's using to defend himself from their advances. It's like he's hung out the warning flag and if they choose to ignore it, then he can blame them for what happens. It's not the kind of thing I'd say as a definite, but there's a high probability. Anyway you get the idea. Don't assume that because they say they are married, living with someone, they actually are."

Mulder looked at the ring on his finger. Let the reflection of the ceiling lights dance across its surface. He turned as he noticed a flash of blue amongst the white and gold, Francine Patterson was standing right behind him. He swallowed, spoke quickly into the phone. "I've got to go now, call me if you need more background."

Mulder scrambled back through the brief conversation, desperately trying to remember exactly what had been said. "Frankie?"

Mulder nodded apologetically, wishing her and her father a very good evening. After all, he wouldn't be having one.

Mulder let routine and ritual get him back to work. Flipping the in-box to get old mail first. Filing most incoming directly in the recycle bag. Re-routing things that should never have left the counter-terrorism unit or the Violent Crimes team, scribbling brief notes on them if they had been passed his way in the hopes of a little commentary. He emerged after a couple of hours with three much smaller piles. Possible X-Files. Possibly useful information. Bureaucracy.

A brief phone call to check on Scully's whereabouts and he'd discovered that she'd been requested by Quantico to look at a body. A young woman, a burn victim. He shivered and moved on.

He skimmed quickly over the case files, emailing or faxing notes requesting more information on some, informing Bureau offices and local PDs that he would like to monitor future developments on others. Convinced that nothing took immediate precedence over the Patterson case, he turned to the Bureaucracy files.

Less demanding than the case files. Less likely to spoil his focus by filling his brain up with irrelevant data than the information pile. Bureaucracy had its benefits, a necessary evil but mindless enough not to get in his way. By the time he'd cleared the decks of that one, filing or recycling as required, it was past 11 and there was still no word from Scully.

"It's done. They found one of those implants in her neck during the initial autopsy. There's a standing order here."

It was about the last thing that he wanted to hear. Implants, tumors, suicides, fire. Not right now. "Should I come and pick you up?"

When she hung up, Mulder felt like screaming. He was close to throwing the phone at the wall when it rang and Assistant Director Skinner requested his immediate presence.

Skinner pointed him urgently toward the visitor's chair, Mulder sat down and was surprised when Skinner joined him in Scully's customary position. The wrong side of the desk. A signal that things were about to get personal. Mulder pushed himself to sit up a little straighter and watched his boss's eyes for clues.

"A little." Two half hearted attempts to visit her, rebuffed at the door of her apartment and a couple of telephone griping sessions about the job in San Diego. Not much at all, especially given how much he needed her. And how much, right now, he suspected that she needed him.

"The San Diego office. Found her harsh and abrasive, lecturing in tone even though they were receptive to her recommendations. Does that sound like her?"

Mulder tried to sink into the embrace of the chair, couldn't think of anything to say, except that he needed to talk to Scully. If she was ill. God. What if she was ill?

Skinner frowned, obviously expecting more response than he was getting. "She lost her temper with the ME at Quantico, told him he shouldn't have removed the implant from the corpse. That he could have killed her." Skinner stared at Mulder. "Is any of this making sense to you?"

By the time Mulder called back to Quantico, he was prepared to insist that Scully let him come and collect her, but she had already left. He was just going to have to wait for her to come to him.

He had to do something though. Ok, the Florida case then, he could still get some work done. For a start, he could find out who Mitch Samuels had killed.

Cervantes had been born in Cuba, but had lived in Florida for five years. Initial queries kept showing up blank, until Mulder finally convinced himself that they were supposed to. The Lone Gunmen knew Cervantes, or more precisely a sister publication of theirs with the avowed aim of tracking undercover operatives knew him.

A covert operations specialist who'd gone off the rails and started taking work home. As the work in question was a white powder and had a street value of millions of dollars, there was a lot of blood on his biography. Mitch Samuels' eldest daughter had been caught in the crossfire during a disagreement between Cervantes and his friends.

Of course, whether Samuels had known any of that still remained a mystery. The cop of the old school hadn't spoken since the day he'd hacked Cervantes to death.

With that minor success in mind and despite the fact he knew that there was trouble ahead, he was feeling pretty relaxed as he unlocked the door and walked back into the basement office.

He was surprised to find Scully at his desk, hastily closing files. "I hadn't realized that you were in here. The door was locked." He waved a thumb towards the lock as he spoke. "Is something wrong?"

Mulder looked for a way to back out of the conversation before things got any worse. He tried to stick to work. "How did San Diego go?"

Mulder was surprised by that. He'd asked what he thought was a work question and had been given a personal reply. He listened and replayed her words in his head, heard the odd way she talked about being in trouble, wondered if it was a Bill Scully quote. "Trouble. What did he mean?"

"Did she give you something before she left. Something to take your mind off Patterson?"

What the hell? Had Scully seen Diana's car parked at his apartment? Why hadn't she knocked on the door? "She did a couple of searches for me, about a case I did for Patterson."

Mulder could hear an odd rumble in Scully's voice as if there were tears in her throat that weren't being allowed to surface. What was happening here? He proceeded cautiously. "Francine's dangerous. Maybe more dangerous than Bill."

Scully shook her head, shocked or amused, or both. "Come on, Mulder. Listen to what you're saying. First Patterson, now his daughter. Who else?"

There was that odd tone again, as if she was quoting. He tried to answer the question. "Because I'm right."

Where the fuck was she going with this? He raised his hands in confusion. "So I exaggerate. But I'm right about this. The evidence is building up. I just need to get a few more things, and I'll have enough to go to Skinner and get formally assigned to work on it. Just stick with me here."

"Don't you see what's happening? You're so locked into this obsession to hunt Patterson that you're even accusing his family. You're so blinded by hate that you ignore the evidence I gave you about Diana."

"I didn't ignore it. But this, this is about old cases. Things I did with Diana before I even worked the X-Files. I haven't given her any information. I asked her for help, agent to agent."

Hell, things were going belly-up so fast Mulder couldn't even think of a response. Certainly the truth wasn't going to work. You were tetchy; Diana was amenable. It just sounded shoddy. Weak. "I thought you wanted a weekend off."

"With my family. But no. Your obsession took precedence. I bowed down and gave in. I won't let it happen again. For both our sakes."

She rose from the chair, brisk and purposeful as she walked away from the desk and towards the door. Slammed her hand hard into his chest when he stepped into her path. She thumped the door shut as she left.

Scully headed back to the desk she used in the main office, the refuge she went to when Mulder's presence became too overwhelming or too infuriating. One foot in each camp, the mainstream of Violent Crimes and the eccentricity of the X-Files. How had they described the X-Files, her life? An indulgence for Agent Mulder?

Marshal of facts, her role by choice and destiny, she weighed the evidence. It was confused and disjointed, as was to be expected. Her personal fears and doubts about Mulder's loyalty to her and even to his own cause, called into question again now by nightmares and missing memories. It was important that she ignore the subjective data. It could easily be the product of stress. If it was not, then it was the product of a reality too fearful to contemplate.

Discarding the subjective, she moved back to the provable. Her video capture of Mulder talking to Diana Fowley. Inadmissible in a court of law, but nonetheless useful. But that was a one time throw, if she showed anyone this first recording, then it would be the only one.

Delay was unacceptable. He'd involved Fowley, how far into the danger zone did that already place him? She had thought that he'd understood, Diana and the X-Files were not compatible. He'd sat in front of Kersh and Skinner and made some cryptic remark about the danger of sleeping with the enemy. It hadn't sounded cryptic to her, she'd understood him. She thought. Yet, Patterson was enough to make him forget everything she thought that he'd learned.

What did she know about his supposed evidence of wrongdoing? That Gordon Hayes had gone off the rails? Sure. But it happened all the time. Not normally so spectacularly, nor so tragically. But breakdowns happened. Statistics said it was bound to have happened to people Mulder knew. What had she seen on the computer files? Hundreds of cases. Thousands of people.

Then there was Matthew Irving. A homicide cop in New York getting mixed up with a drugged up prostitute? Aberrant behavior scribbled in neon. The only special horror there was that no one had stopped Irving before it was too late. She would not make that mistake with Mulder.

Even if he was right, there were still procedures to be followed. The same kind of procedures that would have protected Irving and Hayes if people had stuck to them. One fundamental principle was that people worked only on assigned cases. Mulder even acknowledged the risks of obsession in his report on Bill Patterson. He had insisted that it was essential to obey an order to step away, or more poignantly to give the order. No matter how senior or experienced the investigating officer might be. The pot called the kettle black even while it still swung in the smoke.

At the end of the day, the answer was clear cut. Mulder had disobeyed a direct order to keep out of the Patterson case. No 302 existed covering his activity. He'd used other agents to obtain information covertly from the FBI's computer databases. Disciplinary offenses, by any criteria, even for a department operated as an indulgence.

She herself had disobeyed a direct order by not reporting the offense to Skinner. It was a matter that she was about to correct.

Skinner was completely thrown by Scully's battery of complaints against her partner. When his assistant had announced Scully's arrival at his door, he had anticipated an explanation of the tension she had been operating under in San Diego. Maybe even the chance to ask her about the personal impact of autopsying a woman fitted with an implant, dying of cancer. He had expected to suggest that she take it a little easier, try going home on time for a change. Maybe even take some stress management sessions with the human resources people.

What he hadn't anticipated was her demand that he take disciplinary action against Mulder. She offered lists of who Mulder had spoken to about Patterson since he'd been ordered off the case, and when and where the discussions had taken place. Mulder's indifference when challenged and his determination to run headlong into his obsession. By the end of the meeting Skinner had negotiated her down to an insistence that Mulder go into a mandatory psychological evaluation. In the end, it was the minimum action he could take.

He could only hope that Mulder knew how to handle it and wouldn't make too much noise. If word of why the assessment program had been ordered were to reach AD Cassidy, the whole X-Files project could be back under scrutiny.

Mulder found himself looking over his shoulder as he knocked at the door, uncomfortably self-conscious, nervous about a threat that he was sure was actually invisible. He didn't breathe out until Bill opened the door. "Is she home?"

As Mulder stepped past him into the house, Patterson walked forward. Peering along the road as Mulder had done, he adopted an almost teasing tone. "Was someone following you, Fox?"

Mulder gave a single chuckle of disgust. "No. I'm twitchy. You know how it is. I'm more scared of them once I start to understand them."

Bill nodded and invited Mulder to follow him into the gleaming white and stainless steel of the kitchen. "Let's rough it." He pointed at one of the high stools by the breakfast bar.

"You're family now. I don't need to show off the soft furnishings anymore. And I'd like to get Francine's dinner under way. You don't mind?"

Mulder shook his head, bemused by the incongruity of the mundane domestic debate, the designer kitchen and the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Bill handed him a glass of tomato juice, a sprinkle of salt, just a dash of Worcester Sauce. Mulder shrugged, accepted it as another blast from the past, surprised that Bill remembered the habit.

Mulder watched as his host boned the chicken. Bill was quick and efficient, losing nothing, dealing with everything, Mulder found himself admiring the precision of the knife work. His mind flashed suddenly to a utility knife and Nemhauser's hideous scars. His hand shifted involuntarily to cover his mouth.

Patterson spotted the sudden movement and paused, the knife bouncing restlessly in his hand. "You can still see him, can't you?"

Bill nodded in reply. "Me too." He returned to the cutting, dividing the meat into neat even pieces. "He comes to me sometimes. At night. Asking why. He's like you in some ways." He stopped work and looked at Mulder. "Persistent."

Mulder swallowed, sipped the last of the tomato juice. Turned his attention to his cup of coffee, studying it as if there was a movie playing in the reflections on its surface. "Why is Frankie doing it?"

"Don't know yet, I need more data. She might loosen them up with drugs, but there's more to it, she doesn't even need to be there. She finds their weaknesses and nags at them. Psychological manipulation. She learned it from you."

"All I ever did was give orders that got obeyed, orders that people like you had signed an oath to carry out."

Mulder ignored Bill's defense of his record. "She's killing people. She trashes their minds, then she sends them in like assassins, turns them into murderers."

"And you accuse me of manipulation? Then you pull a 'we' out of the hat. Manipulation's something she learned from you, you showed her how to use people who weren't even in the game."

"I'm suddenly fascinated. You've included some of my cases. Surely I get to comment?"

Bill sighed, a resigned shrug of the shoulders as he headed to the sink. He washed his hands twice. Once to get rid of the blood. Then again to remove the antiseptic smell of the first soap. "Soft copy do?"

The room was full of disappointed people. There was an air of the angry mob in the testosterone cloud that was building. The Judge had released Kurzman. Five dead girls and Kurzman, the obvious killer, was back on the streets.

At least that was what their emotions were screaming. In their heads they knew that Kurzman's guilt was anything but obvious. If it had been obvious then the prosecutors would have been able to make a good plea bargain and the flaws in the evidence handling would never have been revealed. But the defense counsel had known there was a real chance of Kurzman walking away. The fact that he walked away after the preliminary hearing, rather than after weeks of argument and hours in the jury room, was the surprise.

The long and painstaking lecture they'd just received on exactly what had gone wrong did not turn the horror story into an opportunity to learn, as the LA office SAC had suggested. It had turned it into an opportunity for finger pointing and bitter recriminations. The fact that there was more than one guilty party was hardly news and didn't make it any easier to live with.

Next up on the agenda was a new tactical analysis from Fox Mulder of the ISU. The Task Force that Mulder was talking to bore only superficial resemblance to the team he'd addressed in this room a few months earlier. That group had been eager and argumentative. This group was the snarling but defeated dog that expected to be kicked.

Mulder spoke so softly that people had to stop fidgeting in order to hear him clearly. Yet no one demanded that he speak up. Only once the room was so quiet that it was certain that you could have heard a pin drop did Mulder increase the volume to cater to those at the back or with less than perfect hearing.

The sick jokes and sly wit that had punctuated his last presentation to the team was absent, replaced by a bitter, brooding intensity that made more than one agent check his hip to ensure that his gun was ready at hand. In the quiet of the meeting room there was the hypertension of an assault team preparing to go into action. And the profiler was the commander.

Mistakes now could, would, cost lives. Far from a salutary lesson and warning shot to Kurzman, the court appearance had convinced him that he was invincible. It would not lead to a cessation of violence, it would lead to an escalation. Three months in jail would have increased the urgency of the blood lust, not deadened it.

Mulder waved a hand, drawing words from the air, talking without notes but with minimal repetition and backtracking. "Kurzman is an intelligent man, as well as a very charming one. His face is too well known for him to return to his old methods of winning trust through his work and then spending time wooing his victim. His MO has to change to reflect his new circumstances. The steps will be the same, but massively accelerated. What used to take weeks will be completed in a few hours.

"Kurzman will find a new approach. Now that he's not running his astronomy courses for teenagers, he'll have to hunt differently. He'll find lone girls in public places and befriend them. You'll need to think shopping malls, concerts, sports events. Anywhere there are crowds. Anywhere where a girl sitting alone might stand out and a young man sitting a couple of seats away from her won't look like a threat.

"He'll start up a conversation, from then on things will move very fast. You'll need to be ready."

The audience started to fidget again, restless because they knew that the actions were going to be difficult to define and implement. Round-the-clock surveillance was expensive. How long would they need to use it? If Kurzman knew that he was being watched, blood lust or not, the man was intelligent and in control. He wasn't going to make a mistake that would make it too easy for them.

Diana Fowley rose to her feet. "With Agent Mulder's assistance we've set a few things in motion that should make it possible for us to keep track on Kurzman. We've arranged for an agent to work in his office, so if he slips out during the work day, she'll be able to follow him. His previous targets have been high school kids. Given Agent Mulder's suggestion as to his probable new MO, he'll need uninterrupted hours with the girls. Accordingly, the key days are the weekends. I'll be issuing a schedule."

The group debated the detail, quizzed Mulder again on how to recognize venues and possible victims.

As soon as the discussion started to taper off, Fowley looked back towards Mulder, beckoning him to provide the final words.

Mulder stood again, hushing the crowd with his body language and urgent tone of voice. He described the victims, the lovely young women who had already faced torment in their young lives because of their parents' problems. He described their deaths, the desecration of innocents. He told them their responsibilities.

"The bottom line is, if you lose him, she will die. If you drop the ball, you pick it up."

Special Agents Kieran Mallow and Janet Hoddle had the second Saturday shift. The first weekend had been uneventful. Kurzman had been cautiously enjoying his freedom, nothing more.

In any case the smart money was on this weekend. It had been a new moon last night. Mulder had suggested it as a "more probable" but had been keen that they didn't get hung up about moons. Just because the team had originally called him the Moon Killer didn't mean it had anything to do with moons. New moons were just a nice backdrop for stargazing.

Kieran enjoyed a good game of baseball and as he was eager to point out to Janet, this was not a good game of baseball. It was a travesty of incompetence. Pitchers who couldn't pitch, hitters who couldn't hit. The only thing working properly was the umpire, a barrel of a man with a beautiful ringing voice who still seemed to find drama in shouting "strike" no matter how often he had to perform the service.

The good thing about having a man and a woman on a job like this was that, provided you stuck to your cover, you were invisible. Janet could gaze around the crowd apparently oblivious to the field of play and so long as Kieran stayed excited enough for two, onlookers would just see young love.

Apart from the man selling chili dogs, Kurzman hadn't spoken to anyone in nearly an hour. Neither agent had spotted a suitable looking lone victim and apparently, nor had Kurzman. Kieran sighed. "Bathroom break. You want me to bring anything back?"

Janet collapsed in a howl of laughter that quickly swept Kieran along with her. Kieran groaned a halt to his laugh, "I only meant that there are some concession stands along that way."

She returned to her crowd-watching, startled to see Kurzman rise to his feet. She looked around but Kieran had already disappeared from sight. That was OK, the important thing was to keep watching. Right? Kieran was going to be a few minutes. Kurzman was supposed to take hours.

Janet watched, fascinated as Kurzman went to sit behind a girl who Janet hadn't even noticed. She noticed her now, slightly built and pretty, with short blond hair, not really looking up, not hiding, but not obvious either. Kurzman was one row back and two seats to the side. The stand hadn't been full to begin with and it had been getting emptier for the last half-hour as the game petered out to nothing.

Kurzman was obviously saying something. Though, of course, Janet didn't know what. She'd always thought the Bureau should send her on a lip-reading course. The blonde girl smiled, obviously amused by something Kurzman had said. Janet checked her watch. Where the hell was Kieran? OK, it had only been five or ten minutes but even so. She didn't think men had the same waiting-in-line problems that women had at sports events. Unless, her stomach gurgled ominously, unless the chili dogs had decided to play rough.

Kurzman rose and so did the girl. Damn it, where the hell was Kieran? Janet ran down the steps, finding the row of concessions her partner had talked about. She found the men's room but didn't find Kieran. There were too many people milling around. She gave a single piercing shout of "Kieran," but no one replied. She headed for the exit gates. Looked around. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Kurzman's car already preparing to pull out of the lot.

Janet knew as soon as she started the car that disaster had struck and that there was no turning back. If you drop the ball, you pick it up. Most optimistically, any moment now, Kieran would get back to his seat and realize she was missing. He'd look for Kurzman and see that he'd gone. Good agent that he was, he would be on the phone instantly, raising an APB on both cars. Damn it, if only she'd had the cell phone, but Kieran was carrying it today. A great FBI cost saving that was. All she was carrying was a pager, like that was going to do any good.

About as much good as an APB on a car moving this fast out of LA. The one thing on their side was that they knew the kind of place Kurzman would be heading to, a picnic place in a beauty spot away from street lights. Probably, Mulder had told them, one of the sites they already knew because he'd lacked opportunity for scouting new locations.

But hell, that only made sense after dark. No one knew what he did when he wasn't inviting the girls out stargazing. Would he go straight there? They didn't even know his old MO in that kind of depth, they certainly had no data on his new one. Except that Mulder had said the clock would be ticking.

Janet drove, trying to remember what she'd been told about tailing cars. Like first, if you want to be inconspicuous you need more than one car. Forget inconspicuous, that was going to have to wait for another day. Right now, the key thing was to make sure he didn't get away.

Which was why she was about 40 yards behind him on the deserted highway. At least he was sticking to type and heading toward familiar National Forest terrain. Janet hoped that meant there was at least a slim chance that the cavalry was looking their way.

Kurzman's car swerved slightly. Janet braced herself for action, tapping the gun behind her back and leaning forward in her seat to try and get access to the holster. The car ahead swerved again, the passenger door swinging open, and suddenly there was a body bouncing onto the road. Janet swerved to avoid running it over and then slammed on the brakes. She performed a rapid about turn to get back to the girl. Jumping from the car, she rushed toward the tiny figure lying on the side of the road.

The broken leg was obvious, bone protruding below the knee straight out through denim jeans. At the speed they had been travelling it would be a miracle if she survived. She touched the girl's throat and found a pulse, faint but there. So far as she could tell, the girl had stopped breathing but was still alive. Janet maneuvered the limp figure as gently as she could, placing her onto her back. She carefully tilted her head to get the angles right and prayed that she could remember her emergency training. A final breath to focus her mind and she leaned forward, ready to start mouth to mouth.

She didn't even hear Kurzman's car stop and reverse, or the sound of his footsteps. Just felt the cold against her ear. She turned her head. It was her last action before the gun went off.

The helicopter search team that found them tried to get the girl to the hospital but the rescue had come too late. Janet Hoddle was left for the ME's crew to handle, you didn't need a doctor to know that she was dead at the scene.

Faced with six cars and a SWAT team on his tail, Kurzman decided to surrender quietly. Much to the disgust of the task force members.

When Mulder interviewed him in a nice quiet prison cell a few weeks later, Kurzman was very clear. Killing the FBI agent had been an angry aberration in an otherwise impeccably controlled career.

Since the incident with the phone call and the discussion of wedding rings, Mulder had been a little more cautious around Francine. In a place as full of death as the ISU office it was awfully easy to drain the life out of passing strangers. Not that Frankie was a stranger any more. Someone who visits a couple of times a week for several months becomes part of the furniture.

It was as furniture that Mulder looked at her now. "You're going to be a doctor?"

He smiled. "Specialist subjects, aberrant and abnormal behavior, with an emphasis on forensics. I don't do normals."

Once the loose ends were tied up on the Kurzman arrest, Diana Fowley came to town. A multi-purpose trip to debrief Mulder on preparations for Kurzman's trial, attend a training seminar and visit DC for a job interview.

Fowley greeted him with the brief hug that had become an easy custom since their first meeting. Welcome complete, she took a step back. "So this is what a Fox looks like in its natural habitat."

Mulder groaned, amused. "Did you get that job, or are you still waiting for a telepath to let you know?"

She raised her eyebrows, teasing back. "Not only did I get it, I got it on my terms."

They walked happily to the cafeteria, as good a place as any to talk and, unlike the ISU office, a place that had daylight in abundance. They'd almost finished reviewing the Kurzman paperwork when Francine Patterson appeared at the door. "Excuse me," he said quickly. "Could you pack the photos away, we've got company."

Fowley looked around, saw the stunning young girl with the long dark hair. Her eyes dropped to the table and saw victim number three. She quickly pushed the photos back into the file.

Mulder had walked across the room to intercept the girl, buying Francine a coffee and Diana a little time. They arrived at the table in perfect synchronization and Diana rose to greet them. "Diana, this is Francine Patterson, Bill's daughter, a friend of mine." He retained the courtly formality. "Francine, this is Special Agent Diana Fowley from the LA field office, also a friend."

Francine nodded, lips tight in a forced smile that didn't thaw any of the ice in her eyes. "Pleased to meet you."

Fowley shifted uncomfortably, awkward at finding herself under such intense scrutiny from a kid. Seventeen, that was what Mulder had said. Not a kid. A woman. "And you. Fox has told me so much about you." It wasn't quite the truth, but it wasn't an absolute lie either.

Mulder directed a minute shake of the head at Diana, which she instantly acknowledged by sitting back down. Mulder and Francine joined her, Mulder sitting diagonally across from Fowley, Francine at his side, staring directly into Diana's eyes.

Diana looked at the duet on the opposite side of the table and noted the identical postures they'd adopted. "So, Francine, what brings you to a dump like this on such a glorious day?"

Mulder fidgeted, his hand tightening on the coffee cup. Fowley waited and sure enough Francine's hand did the same. What the hell was she looking at here? Did Mulder know? Of course he did. He had a living, breathing clone of victim number three, right down to the tight little smile that had marked her out as a kid who needed someone to care. Had he been playing these sort of games with her since the start of the Moon Killer case?

She had a hard time keeping the fury under wraps as she waited for the chance to escape to the office. Mulder took her right to the edge of her endurance before announcing that it was time for them to go to work. A message that Francine seemed to recognize in an instant. Poor Francine, the Pavlov's dog who stopped drooling and begging on a signal, rather than the other way around.

The anger started to spill out as soon as Diana got into the elevator with Mulder. "What the hell have you been doing with that kid?"

Mulder shook his head, not understanding or not wanting to understand. "She was lonely."

"So you did what? Made her think she had a friend then took her to a clearing to watch the stars?"

The elevator doors opened and Fowley almost leapt out. Mulder scarcely moved. She waited with her hand locked on the button until he followed her into the hallway. She stood up straight, hands on hips, stood far too close and spoke far too loud for someone that near. "Where can we talk?"

Mulder walked on ahead and silently pushed open the door to the conference room.

Neither of them sat, Mulder preferring to lean against the wall, Fowley preferring to keep pacing. "You know. I was scared enough when I heard you in LA. But at least I knew where you were coming from. I thought you were just distressed about losing the court case, same as the rest of us. For fuck's sake, you'd given Kurzman to us on a plate and we'd lost. You were entitled to tell us not to lose him again. Janet Hoddle believed you. She did what you asked her to. Do you remember what you said when I told you Janet had been killed? No? 'Shame that Kurzman didn't fight it out.' Remember?"

Mulder shook his head. "What did you want me to say? I never even knew her name till she was dead. Or the girl he was trying to run with for that matter. What do I do? Cry for them? And all the other ones I haven't saved? I can't. I'd never be able to do my job."

"Then don't. Get out of this shit and start acting like a human. You know what's happening to you? You're becoming Bill Patterson."

"Bullshit. What about Frankie? You know her name. She's not dead. You walked all over her to get Kurzman. Or didn't you notice? Too busy doing your job."

"She's what? 'Better.' She's as fucked up as you are. You know she's in love with you, don't you?"

Mulder couldn't quite believe the inter-office memo the first time he read it. The second time he read it, he was annoyed. The third time, he was merely resigned to it. An order for psychological screening and re-evaluation and a series of mandatory counseling sessions starting in, he checked his watch. Starting in approximately two hours time. Someone had really pulled strings to get an appointment that fast. How kind.

He really needed to talk to Scully before he went to the session. Not to find out why she was sending him, he could already guess. Not even to check exactly what she had told them to get this kind of instant service, it wasn't really that important. What he needed to know was how much trouble she was in and then he could try and gauge whether he was going to be able to cope with it alone.

Planning the campaign, he decided to phone her rather than just wander into her office. That way, she could choose the venue and decide how to prepare herself.

When she arrived at the basement office about ten minutes later she looked so well prepared that she was positively regal. The picture book perfect agent, self-assured and dispassionate. "I expect you see my action as some kind of betrayal?"

"I've known you a long time. If I don't act, who will? I know the risks you take. You're taking unacceptable psychological risks now. You're in the eye of the storm and you don't see the danger."

Mulder swallowed. Eye of the storm? Quoting again? Who? Hadn't he said something like that to Fowley the other night, about Francine Patterson? "I see a lot of danger. I also see that we'll be safer if we stay together on this."

She tensed, her chin pulling at her mouth, her eyes widening in apparent disbelief. "That's what I'm trying to do. Yet you push me away. You hide things from me."

For an instant, Mulder thought that she was going to run, but she stood her ground. She fought for balance like the floor was liquid underfoot. "Diana."

Involving Diana had been a mistake then? No, it hadn't, Diana had helped him unlock the lid on the Kurzman case and that was going to be crucial. The emails they'd swapped the night before had given him a few timely reminders about both his role in that case and Francine's life. He still couldn't believe he'd used Frankie that way. Diana had assured him that he had and that he was just going to have to live with it. "She's been helping me remember an old case. Nothing more."

"Irving and Hayes didn't have anyone to protect them. I have to live with my actions. I'm not going to drop the ball."

Scully? Where the hell had she picked that phrase up from? Another quote. He couldn't be sure but he had a feeling Diana might have said something about that in last night's email to him. Sure. You drop the ball, you pick it up. A phrase that had stuck in Diana's memory for years, a phrase that had probably buzzed through Janet Hoddle's brain a thousand times as she followed Kurzman from the ball game. "Have you been spying on me?"

"Might be more interesting if I went home now and skipped the appointment, don't you think?"

"They'll be furious? And how will you be, Scully? Scared of what I'll find if I get there before you?"

"In the eye of the storm?" Mulder sat back, flicked a hand angrily through his hair. To watch Scully lie with such vehemence and such enthusiasm was frightening. Yet, she had not lied. There had been no denial of the accusations, merely a show of righteous indignation and an angry preening of feathers. She was so convinced that she was right. He nodded. "Maybe you're right about how much I need to see them."

Scully nodded, smiling with relief, her face almost exultant in victory. "I'm glad." She left the office with a spring in her step.

Mulder waited until she had closed the door before he picked up the phone to talk to Walter Skinner. He sweet-talked his way past Skinner's assistant to get put straight through to his boss.

"Could you invite Scully to that meeting you're running?" Mulder looked at his diary and recalled how he'd successfully wriggled out of the event. Operational targets, provisional budgetary assumptions - estimating standards and guidelines.

Mulder resisted the urge to cheer as he put the phone down. He rearranged his own meeting with psychiatric services with talk of double bookings in his diary and planning meetings, words taken very seriously by any Bureau employee.

He drove home cautiously, mindful of how little of his brain was focused on the task of driving. He wasn't even really sure if he wanted to do this. If he found that Scully had placed bugs in his apartment, then what? Maybe it would be better not to find them and he could just accept that label of paranoia she'd been trying to hang around his neck. He'd lived with that for a long time, finding that it had reached new heights might be less distressing than finding out exactly how much trouble Scully was in.

The first of the webcams he found was in his living room. Hidden in plain view, disguised by the shadows on the wall behind the bookshelf. How long had it been there? He shivered, hoping that the combination of poor lighting and tiny optics had left him at least a little privacy. As soon as he saw the cell phone adaptation that allowed it to beam its pictures out, he knew where it had come from. The Lone Gunmen had been mumbling about toys like this.

He picked up the phone, furious as he spoke to Frohike and quizzed him on surveillance equipment and Dana Scully's acquisitions. Even more angry when he realized that he had another three to find.

One in the kitchen, picking up power from the track lighting above the cupboards. A great view of the refrigerator. Did Scully keep a record of how many cartons of orange juice he got through?

One in the bedroom, he sighed, putting that one in the same category as the bathroom unit.

He switched on the computer and checked the wording of Diana's last email. So she'd been intercepting his mail as well. Great. He changed all his passwords.

He tried to stay angry. Angry felt better than humiliated. He gave up the idea and just felt nauseated instead. Why hadn't she come to him? He thought back, maybe she had and he just hadn't noticed. So caught up in looking at Patterson that he really had been blinded by obsession and hadn't noticed Scully's despair.

It had all happened so fast. Dinner at the Pattersons', then off she went to San Diego and by the time she returned it was as if everything had fallen apart. Maybe he hadn't been blind, maybe he'd just been blind-sided at the vital moment.

Glaring at the evidence bags with their selection of surveillance gear, he labeled them with date and location. He had no doubt that if he ran them through the forensics lab he would find her fingerprints. She wasn't a covert-ops specialist. Though, he admitted, he was impressed by her dexterity and ingenuity in placing them and wiring them in. He'd have to congratulate the boys on the high standard of their training program.

They wouldn't be going to the forensics lab, of course. The point wasn't to convince other people of what Scully had done. The point was to convince her that it was a problem.

Mulder sat composed while Skinner paced. The outcome of the meeting was too important for Mulder to let any emotion spoil his argument.

Skinner told Mulder about Scully's angry, frustrated performance at the planning meeting and about the speed she'd left his office at the end of it. Mulder nodded, grateful again for his boss's faith.

Mulder already knew what had happened next. Scully had zoomed straight down to the psychiatric services unit and demanded to know if Mulder had kept his appointment. The debate about Scully's agitation and why her fears for him were so strong had occupied most of Mulder's subsequent session. It had become a tour down memory lane with Mulder describing moments of danger and rescue. They'd been through a lot together. They were very protective, over protective almost. The psychologist had nodded his head, reassured by Mulder's lack of anger.

The evidence that Mulder had stopped Scully from destroying now lay on Skinner's desk. Skinner flinched every time he noticed it. Mulder sat very still and let Skinner feel the agitation for him.

Skinner sounded almost apologetic. "If I send her for counseling, It'll give ammunition to people who want the X-Files closed or given to agents less... emotionally involved."

"Doesn't matter. I won't fail the evaluation." Mulder stared pointedly at Skinner, almost smiling, challenging Skinner to deny that the possibility had crossed his mind.

"So do I. This is not my obsession, sir. Initially I thought it was Bill's. I'm starting to think that it's Francine's. And I'm certain that Scully's in more psychological danger than I am." Mulder glanced at the cameras to underline the point.

"Scully needs the source of her problem removed. That source is Francine Patterson."

Skinner slowly shook his head. "I can't let you investigate Patterson's daughter."

"You don't need to, sir. If you'll just read the 302. It's to cover discussions with Alan Kurzman at the Federal prison in LA. In particular to look at whether he may have had other victims."

Skinner sat down at his side of the desk, finally sure of his role, FBI manager. "And where will Scully be?"

Skinner nodded, seeing Mulder's point. Even if it did nothing more than keep them away from the Pattersons it might be worthwhile. It would certainly give them a chance to talk. "If anything happens. To Scully. Or to you. I want to know immediately. Understood?"

"Yes, sir." And Mulder meant it. Every nerve ending and pain receptor in his body was on high alert now, looking for trouble, fearing that the next mistake could cost him his soul.

The flight to LA was conducted in nervous silence. Mulder insisted that he needed to study the case files and advised Scully to do the same. Initially, she had been resistant to the whole trip, still stunned that Skinner had agreed to let Mulder leave town.

She had been even more shocked to discover that he did so with the blessing of the psychiatric evaluation unit. They still wanted him to attend regular sessions as a matter of respect for his partner's recommendation. But they had found nothing to suggest that there was any reason to stop him working in the field. They based their opinion on a four-hour preliminary evaluation that covered an extended session with a consulting psychologist and a series of formal assessments.

When she started to question Mulder on their lack of judgment, she had felt chilled by his oddly calm response. She couldn't help but wonder if there had been a secret thrill in his voice as he suggested that maybe Bill's shrinks had made the right call too. He'd almost been teasing her as he talked about psychologists, an untrustworthy bunch, particularly when dealing with one of their own kind.

In the end, she had read the 302 and been surprised but almost reassured by its contents. A low risk case, just what they needed. A conventional case, not an X-File, so no reason to deviate from procedures. And no attempt by Mulder to leave her behind, she could keep watching him for danger signs.

The danger signs were, not surprisingly, awfully close to the surface. He could hardly look at her. Every time he did look at her, his eyes demanded to know how she could justify the cameras. He seemed indifferent to everything else.

She didn't have a good explanation for him. She'd considered lying but couldn't even come up with a lie that worked for her. She'd tried to apologize, but every time she tried to say the words a "but" or a "because" or an "if he hadn't been acting so strangely" arrived in the sentence, spoiling the impact of the "sorry." It was inevitable really. She was sorry she had been caught. She was sorry that she had needed to do it. She had done it for him.

Every time she tried it, Mulder would turn to her and listen patiently until the first qualifying statement then turn away again. After the sixth attempt, he'd mumbled a sharp command to "drop it." She tried to think of something else to talk about, failed, finally decided to read the case file as her partner had suggested.

Mulder, of course, already knew the case file. The words racing through his mind as he stared out of the plane window looking for novel patterns in the passing clouds were not in the folders that Scully was reviewing. He was busy replaying Bill Patterson's memoirs.

Francine had told him about them, the story of her childhood and his. It wasn't until he read them that Mulder had fully accepted the implications.

His work was there in Bill's files, whether in the form of glimpses in passing comments or recreated in gory and unnecessary detail in whole chapters, he was there. Whether mentioned by name or not, he saw himself over and over again.

It came as no surprise to find Matthew Irving of the NYPD, Mitch Samuels from Florida, Gordon Hayes in Nevada. Not named, but readily identifiable. Mulder hadn't yet had time to check up on the current health of the other people described.

Frankie had been right, it was the story of Mulder's FBI "childhood" written from Bill Patterson's perspective.

A biography of Patterson's Mulder who had always got everything right at school, been perfect in every way through Quantico. Irving's blunt rebuke had shown him that being right wasn't enough. Samuels had shown him that some people just hated to be helped but liked to get the credit.

Hayes, Mulder sighed, Bill was too hard on Hayes, he'd have to get him to correct that story. Hayes hadn't pushed him so hard that he'd ended up with pneumonia, demonstrating that no one was going to play mommy out there. Hayes had merely enjoyed the Spooky show and been too good an audience to disappoint. That was not his fault. It was a pity Mulder hadn't been able to correct Bill's assumptions before Francine had read this. A pity? It was a fucking nightmare.

Shit. It had happened again. Sympathy for Hayes and how did that mean he felt about the other two? Could it get any worse?

Of course it could, Bill had profiled him under the bright unforgiving lights of 20/20 hindsight. Not by name and not all in one place. Nasty cold little snippets were scattered anonymously throughout the book as "one such profiler" or "one of my younger agents" or "one analyst who had to leave the team." Individually they represented only minor assaults, together they were a dissection.

Mulder had always thought of his time in the ISU as an exercise in survival. Bill apparently saw it as a series of triumphs, every dead body a learning opportunity. Personal identification with both victim and killer had been the secret of Mulder's success. The horror stories internalized and reenacted should have destroyed him. Nightmares, taken so much to heart that they should have ripped him apart, were walked away from without a scratch. Indestructible. Oblivious to killers and victims alike. Empathizing equally with everyone and therefore equally indifferent.

The only people who ever got under Fox Mulder's skin were his colleagues. Even they only got past his defenses if he was too distracted or too sick or just too young to recognize them as threats. Once he grew up, he was the perfect profiler. Aware of everything, tuned into every emotion and sensation, but with no morality, no values, no interference in his understanding, a blank sheet.

Patterson's observation that his young profiler would also have made a perfect serial killer came as no surprise to Mulder. Though he didn't accept it as altogether fair. In any case, indifference to other people, born of a deep seated indifference to himself was not a healthy social adjustment.

Even so, he was vaguely amused by Bill's analysis of his departure from the ISU. Perfection was apparently, too boring.

Mulder could feel her eyes on him again. On another day, he might have actually enjoyed that kind of personal attention. Maybe even considered making some teasing joke about hormone trouble or allowed himself to indulge in a little fantasy about the true nature of their relationship. Not today.

Today, Dana Scully was watching her partner like a hawk, clearly fearful that at any moment the facade would crack and that Skinner's faith that Mulder was up to the trip would be proven catastrophically wrong. And if she kept staring at him like that, she might well be proven right.

He attempted not to look at her, maybe this hadn't been the smartest move after all. Perhaps assuming that he could crack the case and simultaneously handle Scully alone had just been wishful thinking, renowned arrogance run amok.

He'd had to get her out of town, away from Francine Patterson, at least he'd thought he had to do that. Why? He already knew that, as a minimum, Frankie had been able to target people in New York, Florida and Las Vegas. New York almost made sense, at least she might have known Matthew Irving, though he had no evidence of them ever actually meeting. He had zero evidence of her spending any time playing mind games with Gordon Hayes. Had she ever even been to Vegas? Or Florida?

He was starting to panic now. What if Francine didn't need to see her targets to do the damage? What if all he'd done by bringing Scully out here was remove them both from other support systems like Scully's mother, Walter Skinner, even the Bureau shrinks.

He rose, starting to pace. He chuckled silently to himself, they'd only been inside the prison walls for fifteen minutes and he was already stir crazy. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dana Scully staring at him again. He could see her excitement, she was happy to witness his agitation, it would be confirming every delusion she harbored, every fear that was driving her. She would see this as positive feedback that she was right.

Fuck. Mulder sat down and tried to remember how the Spooky show worked. Hell. It was such a waste of energy and he was way out of the habit. From the first time they'd worked together he had tried to be honest with her, hadn't always succeeded, but that was to be expected. He'd cried on her shoulder for God's sake, a lapse previously permitted only in front of a couple of lovers, no one else. He'd trembled naked in her arms.

And he laughed when he hit that thought. Seemed like he still had trouble distinguishing between partners and lovers. What an MO.

Deep breath to stop the laughter and suddenly all was calm. In one sweeping breath he was suddenly indifferent to emotion, unimpressed by his own or anyone else's.

He turned to face her, truly eye to eye for the first time since they left DC. Dead calm. He counted the tiny red lines marring the too perfect blue and white of her eyes. He tuned himself into her shallow breathing, saw the exhaustion in her posture and sniffed. She didn't smell right, she smelled scared.

Cool and blank, he responded to her fear, decided to use it against her. "Serial killers are an acquired taste, don't you think? They appeal to the worst things in our own psyches. They've done the deed that others don't even dare fantasize about. And they've done it repeatedly for a reason that only they believe is valid. That's a dilemma, isn't it? What if their reasons are valid?"

"We declare these people sane, yet they don't see the world as we see it. It's fascinating really. All those different frames of reference, all apparently, legally speaking, the product of sane minds. Sanity gets too much respect. Don't you think?"

She didn't move, kept her head averted. Mulder listened as her breathing became more labored.

He sighed lightly, as if answering his own question. "If you killed the way Irving did, maybe it's best not to know. But Gordon Hayes? An execution they called it. I don't know. Maybe I have killed like that. Just take an example. Maybe I left just enough uncertainty in my tone of voice when I challenged John Barnett to let him think he might escape, just enough doubt so that he would hang on to his hostage and give me an excuse to open fire. It's an interesting dilemma. How do I differ from Hayes, or from Irving, or even Kurzman, come to that?"

He paused, allowing Scully time to respond, even though he knew that she couldn't. "I think Bill admired me in an odd way. He liked that when it really mattered, I was a chameleon. No personality to hang onto and color my fantasies."

He looked towards the door as he heard the guard's footsteps approach, it would soon be time to meet Kurzman. Ice cold voice as he looked again at Scully. "Maybe you'd prefer to observe the interview. Kurzman may find you... distracting. Incarceration may have increased his interest in older women."

The guard told them that Kurzman was ready to see them. Mulder nodded, regally arrogant in neat Armani blue, cuffs aligned just so, head held high with a haughty contempt for lesser beings. Scully tried to match him step for step. Mulder's expression as she followed him into the interview room was one of suit-yourself indifference.

Mulder didn't argue as she seized the chair across the table from Kurzman, indulgently amused by her apparent belief that she could seize the initiative as well.

Kurzman was as sweet as the day he'd entered prison. As charming as the first time he'd told a young girl how to find Cassiopeia. "It's hard being inside at night. I miss the stars."

Scully spoke from her notes. "You worked in a campus bookstore. And in the evenings you worked at summer camps and youth associations running tutorials in astronomy."

"I'm sure you're correct, but I don't recall her. People don't understand, the stars were always the important things. I wanted them to love the stars, the way I do. I'm not that good with names." Kurzman offered a brief good-humored chuckle to accompany his words. "Except of constellations!"

Mulder leaned against the wall, vaguely amused that Kurzman still denied the other murders. The man's fantasy life had to be rich and full and intoxicating. He'd have to talk to him about it.

"That woman agent followed us. And I knew what everyone would say. That I kidnapped the girl, but I didn't. I should have stopped the car and let her explain. But I was so angry. I'd been in prison for months, for an awful crime, and I was innocent. The other prisoners, the things that they did to me." Kurzman slowly shook his head, let Scully see the horror and terror in his eyes. "I was in hell. I panicked. I was so angry."

Mulder took over, casual and fast. "So you pushed Carol Highams out of the car while you were doing fifty. Then stopped, reversed and shot Janet Hoddle at point blank range. Tell me, was there a lot of blood?"

Kurzman seemed surprised by Mulder's brusque response. "You understood. I remember you, you were the only one who understood."

"How to get angry enough to kill? Sure I understood. The other girls were the ones who intrigued me. How did they get you that angry?"

"Where could they touch you before you got angry? Your hand? Your arm? What about your thigh? Your cock?"

Kurzman leaned forward, bumping bound hands into the table, trying to get Scully's attention. "Please. I didn't hurt them. I was cleared."

Mulder didn't give Scully time to respond. "You just took them to watch the stars?"

Mulder listened to the replies, talked about time of year and blackness of the sky and the kind of girls who liked star-gazing and the best places to see the night.

Kurzman edged the key questions, yet was oddly keen to talk. Proud of his relationships with teenagers who needed love. He was eager to convince Mulder of his talent as a tutor of astronomy and his role as a shoulder to lean on in time of need. All subjects were admissible so long as Mulder did not suggest that the girls had died. Occasionally Kurzman would lean forward, trying to smile at the woman, wishing that he could know her thoughts, hoping that she understood his, contenting himself with watching her, breathing in her air.

Scully scarcely moved, didn't speak again until they were safely back at their hotel.

She only spoke then because Mulder insisted that she say something. "Goodnight."

Kurzman would be going to jail forever. A respectable outcome. After all, there were no actual witnesses to the deaths. Janet Hoddle had removed her gun from her holster. There was no proof that he knew that she was a Federal agent. Kurzman was bitterly remorseful.

In sudden rage and panic, Kurzman explained contritely, he'd opened the car door and pushed the girl out, not realizing how fast he was travelling. As soon as he understood the awful thing that he'd done he'd stopped the car and turned back to try and help. Hoddle had turned a gun on him, no mention of who she was. He'd fired first, before she hurt him.

The prosecution had picked at his story. Why hadn't he just walked away? Why did he have a gun in his hand anyway? And at such close range? 99 years for murder was a logical response.

Mulder read the report for lessons, but found it mostly uninspiring. Just a pity they'd failed at the first trial. Case closed and nothing more to be done.

Almost nothing more. Diana Fowley's furious outburst was now a fading memory. Fortunately.

They'd become lovers that night. Mulder promising not to become Bill Patterson. Diana Fowley promising him that there was life before death as well as after it.

Mulder had laughed at her jokes and swooned under her body. And she'd returned the compliment. As of last week, she was officially working out of the Violent Crimes group in DC, he would be seeing a lot more of her. The plan labeled 'escape from the ISU' was in full swing and Reggie Purdue was pulling almost as hard as Mulder was pushing.

Even for Francine, life was life. The little bird was fully fledged and it was time for her to fly the nest. Surrogate brother or priest or whatever it was he'd become, it was his job to force her to make the move. He'd been weaning her off for weeks. Talking like a psychologist when she'd raised emotions, talking like a model FBI agent as he demanded a "strictly the facts ma'am" response to his questions about school and home and friends and hobbies.

As she'd become bolder, more aggressive in trying to provoke responses from him, so he'd become more compliant. Accepting criticism of everything from his taste in ties to his taste in women with a self-mocking docility that was just making her angry. At first, she'd seen it as teasing. So she'd upped the pressure, made sure that it was obvious that she was not a mere child to be teased and indulged.

Mulder had watched as she preened her feathers and checked out her wings, knowing that change would come soon.

It came on a hot, sticky evening. She'd asked him to attend the summer swimming gala at her school, he'd agreed when he realized that her father who had gone out of town on a case had failed to return in time. Surrogate brother duty he noted with grim clarity, angry that he'd made it so easy for Bill to slip out of his daughter's life. Scrub that, he corrected, he'd made it easy for Bill to avoid ever actually getting involved in Frankie's life.

He went straight from work, resplendent in neat gray suit and perfectly preened hair. Frankie had arrived in front of him in her dripping wet swimsuit, dark hair looking almost black with the water. A wet hug at his arrival, she'd stood on tiptoe to kiss him. Playing to the gallery behind her, perfect body in the arms of the perfect man. There were a few startled gasps as classmates, who'd never looked before, saw the beauty for the first time.

Mulder took a step back, disentangling himself. "I can't believe you swim with your hair loose."

When Bill Patterson arrived half an hour later, Francine was already on her way into three finals. Mulder contemplated leaving but decided that it might be too cruel and abrupt an action. Besides, as soon as Bill sat down he started interrogating him, catching up on the week's progress on the ISU's cases. Mulder tried to draw the line. "Bill, that's not even my case. Wiggins is the agent."

Despite the fact they were sitting a reasonable distance away from the rest of the spectators, Mulder was conscious of the hush that had fallen over their section of the bleachers. He glared at Bill, picked his words like a code talker trying to avoid too much blood and guts.

Francine had been parading with enthusiasm. Smiling for the photographer of the yearbook. Giggling at the boy whose speedos were looking uncomfortably snug after she walked past. The fact that it had been a while since either Mulder or her father had looked in her direction with any more interest than a distracted wave was not lost on her.

On her next tour she found herself a companion. Tall and blond, a football playing Adonis oddly out of place in the pool. Not competing. He was there as a guard only, demonstrating his perfect pecs and an even more perfect tan. She had broken free, swimming costume had become fancy dress for the night, liberating Francine Patterson from the ghosts of Marie Curie or any other woman. She was almost drunk on the power it gave her. It was there in the swing of her hips and the smile on her face.

Even coming in third, fourth and second in her three finals did nothing to dampen her spirits. At the end of the night she made her way to the men in her life.

Mulder looked down at her, politely offering congratulations and commiserations as required.

He rose, squeezed her once and let his lips peck briefly at her forehead, then pulled back.

"You were more enthusiastic before Dad got here." She shuffled her weight between feet, angry at Mulder's lack of reaction, rapidly becoming furious at the indulgent smile in his eyes. "Was that a gun in your pocket, Agent Mulder?" She was boiling now. She exploded when the shine in his eyes brightened rather than dimmed at the assault. "I guess so. Presumably that woman keeps yours in a glass jar."

Mulder resisted the impulse to laugh, suspecting that the chlorine bath that might follow an assault by Frankie would be bad for the expensive suit as well as the actual gun in his pocket.

She sounded angry, but more than anything she sounded disappointed. She turned to her father. "I guess he really is your punching bag. It's a shame, he would have made a nice man." One fast backward glance at Mulder and she was gone.

Once he was confident that she wasn't coming back, Mulder let himself smile openly. The scene was not something he would have planned or wanted, but it was effective nonetheless. Francine had flown away, for an instant it felt like a triumph. He turned to his boss, ready to apologize, or defend himself, or whatever was required. But for once there was no reprimand in Bill Patterson's expression.

Just for the barest instant Bill's eyes looked at Mulder with unalloyed gratitude and respect. Proud of his daughter and proud of his protege. A good night's work.

Fox Mulder was tired, but an awful long way from sleepy, too thoroughly nauseated by his own performance and too terrified by thoughts of tomorrow, to want to lose consciousness. Not enough time had passed since he'd watched his partner walk defeatedly into her bedroom, hating him with a passion that had made his stomach roll. Brilliant. He took a step back from his life and admired his handiwork. He was Bill Patterson.

His loving contribution to Frankie's childhood had helped deliver a serial killer. He'd never felt especially paternal, maybe this was a rather salutary lesson in why that was fortunate. Perhaps he should be feeling some sense of familial pride, certainly Frankie's ability to kill without even getting her hands dirty marked her down as something special. Nice to know he had a magic touch.

First task was to flick on the TV, the last thing he wanted was silence. He liked the noise even though he couldn't actually hear the words of the basketball commentary over the clamor in his head. His brain raced indignantly through its lists of self- justification, it argued the case in legalese and Bureau speak, it claimed self-defense and justified use of force.

Scully had attacked, all he'd done was protect himself. By switching off. Survival skills that good were hard to develop, he should be glad they were still available on demand.

In terms of the professional balance sheet, it was even arguable that the day had gone well. The real reason he was here was to interview some of the team who'd worked the Kurzman case and determine which ones might be targets for Frankie's little project. Forewarned might be forearmed, if he did it right. Maybe. Though it might help more if he actually knew how she did it.

The meeting with Kurzman had been merely window-dressing, necessary to create the right credibility for talking old times with the locals and an easy justification in the 302. As it happened, the sheer indifferent, impersonal malevolence of Mulder's performance had probably given them clues to the identities of four more victims and what might be four burial sites. Maybe he wouldn't have done so well if he'd not let Spooky run the show. Scully had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Her choice. She was a big bad Federal agent. What did she expect from a serial killer?

It sounded almost plausible. If he said it loud enough, often enough, he could almost believe it. Bottom line was, it wasn't true.

Scully was not a big bad Federal agent today. She was the victim of a sustained psychological assault by Francine Patterson. A woman so good at her task she'd already destroyed the minds of at least three people. Scully was here, at his side, for her own protection, not as a one hundred percent fit employee of the Department of Justice. The fact that he didn't have the nerve to tell her that she was in protective custody didn't mean that it wasn't true.

Protective custody? He winced from the implications. He'd protected her by ripping her to shreds when all she was doing was worrying about him. He'd then left her one step better off than catatonic during the meeting with Kurzman. With nurturing skills like these, he had a future operating torture chambers.

As for Kurzman scaring her. Hardly. The only person who'd scared Dana Scully in that interview room had been her own partner.

The ends justify the means. It had never been a slogan he'd liked, it had always hit a little too close to home. Hell, for all he knew, it might have been the family motto. He could make up for it tomorrow. He'd be a kinder, gentler Fox Mulder tomorrow. Yeah, and all the pigs were carrying extra fuel and cleared for take off.

A lot of things to do tomorrow. A body hunt to set in motion. Agents to interview for warning signs and insights. An explanation of Francine's methodology to develop. But Dana Scully was the priority. How the hell had he forgotten that?

The pizza congealed quicker than he could eat it. He hadn't even had the nerve to ask Scully if she wanted to go and get some food. He looked at the clock, it was far too late now.

The recriminations and the apologies would have to wait. He admired the way his fingers shivered at the idea, closed them into a tight curl, flexed them open. Sleep would be a really smart move. Maybe he could count sheep jumping fences, bodies in shallow graves. Something. What the hell was happening here? Since when had he reached ground zero on concentration as well as humanity. One or the other surely, but both at the same time? Talk about fucked up.

The first sound was just a distant, indistinct scratch. Yet, it reached in, past the white noise of the TV and the clamor in his head. Scully. He rolled off the bed and stood at the connecting door. A low whine. He blocked out the noise of the TV and tuned into the sound of his partner's nightmare. Unsure if she'd locked the door or not, he tested it as an experiment and was surprised to find that she hadn't.

Mulder. He heard his name as the scream got louder. Mulder. He didn't need to be tuned in now, she was drowning out the TV. Another few seconds and some neighbor on the other side of the paper-thin walls would be knocking in retaliation.

He reached for her, glad that his fingers had stopped trembling. He rested his hand over hers, gently stroked his thumb over the back of her wrist. Spoke softly through the haze of her screams.

He felt her sudden movement and kept on talking, his voice the only calm place in the storm of her panic. She sought him out, reached for him, he gave her his other hand and she found it, gripped it like a vice, clinging like it was the only thing keeping her from drowning.

Mulder hesitated, not sure what he was supposed to do. She'd gone to sleep hating him. What she would think when she woke up he didn't dare imagine. But when she'd called his name and he'd touched her, she'd moved towards him so easily. Then she'd put this death grip on his hand. He had a choice, pull away, wake her up, or just keep still.

Keeping still was easy. This was the closest he'd been to her since before she went to San Diego. The distance between them had been physical as well as emotional. The grip on his hand now was almost painful but at least it made him feel real. After days of feeling like nothing, he'd even cling to this as comfort. It seemed to be comforting her as well. Her breathing had steadied, her pulse was calming. He'd just stay crouched by her side until she was through with him. A guilty pleasure masquerading as a prop for her.

He wasn't quite sure how long she'd been awake before she spoke, he got to his feet quickly as Scully's words startled him from his daydream. "Yeah. You ok? You were... You called my name. I thought..." He stopped talking.

A few seconds of silence as she slowed her breathing, regained control. "You can go back to bed now."

He started to leave, grateful that at least she hadn't screamed or panicked or howled at him to get out. Better than he'd anticipated, or deserved for that matter.

As he moved, he saw Scully's phone on the floor at the side of the bed, the recharger in its customary place on her bedside table. He moved automatically to plug it back in. Stopped. "When were you using the phone?"

She looked at the phone, not really fully awake, but recovering fast. "I wasn't."

He pushed the caller ID but it gave the last caller as 'number withheld'. "Who was the last person to call you?"

He showed her the display and walked back to his own room. A few minutes later he had a DC phone number on his pad. "Do you recognize it?"

He paced, restless now, realized that his jeans weren't fastened, corrected that. Circled the room working on the implications, Frankie had visited her? "Tell me about the nightmare."

She was silent for too long. Mulder slowed down, finally stopped circling and sat down on the floor beside her bed. He rested his back against the mattress and looked straight ahead, eyes locked on a scar in the paint on the wall. His voice was a murmur. "Please."

He waited it out through the silence, heard the indistinct buzz of the TV still chattering to his empty bedroom and listened to Dana Scully trying to breathe.

He shivered, closed his eyes to try to concentrate, sensing that he might only have one chance to hear this story.

"There were lights. They were so bright, I had to close my eyes. But I couldn't. And there was a noise, an alarm. And I screamed."

He fidgeted, tried to find the dispassionate calm that was needed to conduct an interrogation, swallowed as he spoke, almost choking on the words. "How often have you had the dream?"

Mulder tried to maintain the impersonal tone, sensing that his apparent calm might be the only thing stopping Scully from screaming. "We need to get their old telephone records. And we need to start taping any calls made to us. Whether we know about them or not."

"You said I was in the eye of the storm. You told that woman, Fowley, that I was in trouble."

He felt like screaming himself now, ready to howl the roof down about her spying on him and it was so hard not to scream at her and demand to know how she could have been so stupid and fall into Frankie's trap and why she'd rather trust Frankie and how dare she talk about Diana like she was the enemy when she was under attack and screwing up and putting damned surveillance gear in his home. In his home. Just like them.

He stayed quiet, stabbing his fingernails into the palms of his hands to see if it would remind him that some things are real and some things aren't. "I was talking about Frankie. She's in the eye of the storm."

Scully was silent and he wanted to open his eyes and turn around and hold her and tell her that everything was going to be fine. But even as he rehearsed the thought, it didn't work. If he looked at her, he was going to lose it. He'd demand to know if she'd enjoyed the shower scene that had been beamed back to her PC. He'd want to know what insight she'd received from the fact he'd fallen asleep watching the cartoon channel on Monday night. How could she do that to him?

Her voice rumbled with fear controlled, but not subdued. "We're under attack, aren't we?"

No, no, no. The angry voice shouted in his head. How dare she assume anything about him. She was under attack. He was fine. Suddenly exhausted, he tried to stop the thoughts racing through his brain. He wasn't fine, he was miles from fine. He couldn't think, couldn't concentrate. He'd only made it through the day by putting on the damned Spooky show for Scully and Kurzman. He paid attention to his breathing, caught the lull. "Yeah, I think we are."

Mulder was still on DC time, not that it really mattered. When you weren't actually asleep, the idea of it being time to wake up was pretty redundant. After a little debate in the middle of the night, they'd switched off both cell phones and unplugged the room phones. It was unlikely that anyone would need to contact them. If they did and it was really that urgent, then the caller would surely contact the motel and get someone to knock on the door.

Sticking to the code of conduct he'd agreed to with Scully, he didn't switch the cell phone back on. He did plug the hotel line back in to make his call to Bill Patterson. It had been hard to wait even for this long. He was just going to have to hope that Francine had left home to go to work on time.

Pleasantries duly disposed of, Mulder got down to business. "Fine. I need access to your phone records."

Mulder hissed out a breath, a little stunned at still being treated as Patterson's pet profiler despite the fact that Bill wasn't his boss any more and hadn't been for years. 'Testing assumptions and reasoning,' as Bill had always described it. He took a deep breath, this was not a good time to lose his temper and this wasn't a good enough reason. "Because you want me to stop Francine while there's some of her left."

"That's an interesting thought. But irrelevant. Francine's the person whose name appears on the account. You'll have to ask her. Should I get her for you?"

He turned when he heard the noise coming from behind him. Dana Scully was leaning on the frame of the connecting door, eyebrows raised in a look that might have been annoyed but was certainly full of disbelief that he'd made a mistake so basic.

"Whatever." He shook his head, paused for a moment, then a sudden slow smile. "No. It's fine. It's good that she knows. She'll come to us now."

If there was one thing that Mulder and Scully could agree on when it came to interviewing the remaining members of the Kurzman Task Force, it was that no news was good news. A few had retired, a few had moved on, and some of them wouldn't be available today. But basically, all appeared to be well. No one seemed in immediate danger of catastrophic breakdown.

Even Kieran Mallow, the agent who'd had the misfortune to be left behind at the baseball stadium when Janet Hoddle had chased Kurzman, was in good shape. Ten years was a long time to get over a personal and professional nightmare. The wounds had healed but Kieran had never forgotten Janet and never forgiven Kurzman. Offered one last chance to do something for Janet's memory, he leapt at the opportunity.

A conviction against Kurzman would close the book emotionally if not legally on all the crimes that he'd committed and would be welcomed by everyone. Kieran Mallow relished the opportunity, but was as puzzled as any of them about why suddenly Kurzman was back under investigation. "You interviewed him years ago. Why didn't you get this then?"

Mulder glared back, irritated. Why didn't any of them get this information back then? "I was focused on the convictions that we could get. He might not have wanted to talk about the others."

"Might not have wanted to? We could have made him. If we'd had any idea that there were more bodies. We could have."

"Yeah, like we could have got him on the five we did know about. I don't have time for this."

Mallow winced, raised a hand in apology as he realized what he had just said. "What do we need?"

"A small team. We'll go with them to the first site and see what we can do. The rest are all yours. If you get anything, someone will need to see Kurzman."

Mulder shrugged. They were going to have to talk. Really talk. So far the only tactics on which they'd agreed were that they couldn't risk switching on the cell phones and they couldn't afford to be separated. Scully was still working on the Kurzman case. Mulder was rapidly losing interest in it, even as a cover story.

They got their chance to talk at a campsite in a forest. Too big and featureless an area to search, too old a possible crime scene to still be carrying obvious surface scars and too many tree roots in the best body-burying terrain to make it easy to use the ground survey equipment.

Mulder had almost despaired of the location. He wondered if they might have more luck by doing a visual analysis of the other ones, rather than just wasting hours to even get a partial inspection done here. Scully shook her head at the suggestion and kept on patrolling.

Arms folded, Mulder tried to will himself to look for a good place to bury a body but kept coming up with "everywhere." He tilted his head back and tried to refine the process, looking instead for a good place for Kurzman to bury a body.

Scully had to shout to get his attention even though she was only a few feet away. She was pointing at a fork in one of the trees. "The Plough."

Mulder looked as directed, winced at the sight. "She'll be under the North Star then."

Mulder turned to Scully. "Good catch. I should have noticed, Kurzman kept throwing around all those constellations when he talked. I didn't connect."

Mulder barely stopped himself from storming away to brood in peace. He couldn't keep the annoyance from his voice. "With my obsessions?"

"For God's sake, Mulder. I live with your obsessions, I've dug with my bare hands because of your obsessions. You, of all people should know how important this is. We're taking these girls home."

Stunned for an instant, then furious, he stood his ground. How dare she? "It's important. The question is whether we have to do it ourselves. Francine is killing people, that's urgent."

"It was urgent when you thought every corpse might be Samantha's. Then he gave her to you. Nothing's a big deal now, is it?"

What the fuck was she talking about? Mulder was ready to explode. First he was obsessed with the Pattersons, now he was supposed not to care because the Cancer Man had given him Samantha? How was that cocktail supposed to work? He looked towards the trees and noted that the search crew had gone into a silent huddle. They were obviously looking expectantly over a possible dig site. He ought to go and check. He looked down at Scully, her face was all fire and fury, he studied it.

Fuck. He replayed Scully's words. Scully would never say those things to him. Never. Yet, this Scully had not only said them, she seemed to believe them. He pointed towards the car. "We need to talk."

When she failed to move, he reached for her hand, pulling her with him, holding her wrist so tightly she was temporarily stunned into silence. Before she got chance to speak or scream or fight, he let go of her, whispered quietly but absolutely insistent. "You can report me to OPR, file charges, whatever you like. But right now, they," he waved his hand towards the forensics crew, "don't need the distraction of us fighting."

She refused to get in the car. Mulder decided that he didn't care. He preferred to sit down, it reduced the likelihood of a sudden impulse actually making him grab her again.

Scully leaned against the hood while Mulder spoke through the open door. "You said it yourself. We're under attack."

Mulder carried on. "I hear her every time you open your mouth. She's trying to get you so angry that you'll kill."

He took a deep breath, spoke with more despair than annoyance. "Just let me finish. Look at the MOs. Hayes, Irving, Samuels. They all killed in a sudden frenzy. A brainstorm so furious it wiped them out. Yet their choice of target was completely rational. They found someone they wanted to kill. They were in full control of their actions until the killing started."

Alan Kurzman was enjoying his sudden celebrity. His cellmate joked with him. "Go on. These guys sound desperate to talk to you. Maybe if you play your cards right they'll get you permission for a telescope and a cell with a skyview."

After all things were looking up. No visitors for months and then three had come to see him in a couple of days. First the two FBI agents and now this other one had come to visit. Another woman, a doctor who'd heard his story and who wanted to talk to him about the time he'd spent awaiting trial on the earlier case. She was interested in people whose lives had been blighted by wrongful arrests. People who'd gone through such hell in short prison stays that they'd come out changed for the worse.

She was waiting for him in the interview room. She had such beautiful hair, he could barely look at her. She was stunning and she smiled at him, she was playful and young and innocent and she had such fun in her eyes.

The other one, the one who came with Mulder, she'd been beautiful, but she had looked so sad. He'd wanted to give her the stars, to see if they would make her happy.

Dr. Francine Patterson smiled, she already had stars in her eyes. She apologized for the fact that he was in irons for the visit. Maybe once they knew one another she could arrange for them to meet on more equal terms.

She told him about the shooting stars that she'd seen that week. She explained how it made her feel like she was part of something bigger and better.

Then she wouldn't talk about the stars any more. She kept asking about that man, that Mulder. What was there to be said? He was just a man.

And Alan wanted to tell her about the telescope and the stars and the night and the way street lights killed the night and the smog made the Milky Way vanish and it wasn't right for people to live like that. If they'd just open their eyes to look they'd be able to see so much. But no, they just cared about men and women and girls and touching and who died.

The guard who dragged Alan Kurzman off Francine Patterson's unconscious body had never seen anything like it and never wanted to again. He thought he knew violence and violent men and he'd genuinely believed that Kurzman wasn't one of them. He'd always seemed the most placid of men; it had been hard to imagine Kurzman as some sort of monster. He could imagine it now.

Leg irons hadn't slowed him down, the ties at his wrists hadn't stopped his movement or thrown him off balance. Everything had become a weapon to Kurzman - his nose, his jaw. To the guard, it had all been a single swirl of madness as he hauled the prisoner off the woman. He'd thought, for a moment, after he slammed Kurzman back into the wall that even his colleague's stun gun might not do the job. Of course it did.

Francine was only out for a couple of minutes. The guard could only gabble apologies as the EMTs helped her to the ambulance.

Kurzman needed a lot of straps and a lot of drugs before he could be carried to his.

Walter Skinner had spent a lifetime trying to do the right thing. Whether that meant identifying between right and wrong in the grand scheme of things or making sure that his people got all the help that they needed, he always tried. He'd become a target for trying to help Mulder and Scully. Yet, he'd always felt as if he hadn't helped them enough.

Faced with the possibility that the X-Files agents couldn't help themselves at the moment, Skinner looked for the right thing to do.

Whether he was chasing down UFOs in the Antarctic or mutants living in the pipework, Mulder threw body and soul into his work, his life. The thought of that kind of passion being controlled by someone as coldly manipulative as Bill Patterson had always bothered Skinner. Watching Mulder slide willingly into nightmares to follow Mostow and Patterson had sickened him. He had known that nothing good could come of exposing Mulder to Patterson again. He had tried to keep him away.

In retrospect that had been a mistake, it just wasn't possible for Mulder to stay away, not once he'd started. Mulder could write dispassionately in his report on Patterson about the losses that had destroyed the man's ability to distance himself from his work. Yet, for himself, Mulder had no concept of distance. He was his work.

Skinner paced as he thought, his footsteps locked into a pattern of increasingly tight circles around his office. He should have given Mulder the case officially. He had known that Mulder was going to stay on it until satisfied that all was well. Skinner just hadn't wanted to believe it. If Mulder and Scully had been given the investigation officially, he could be monitoring it. He could demand reports; he could argue the tactics; he could judge their fitness to continue. Above all, he could make sure that backup was in place when they needed it.

Instead what he had was two agents on the wrong side of the country doing God knows what. Each agent was accusing the other of mental instability. The sickening thing was that, according to the evidence of his own eyes, both were right.

Scully had presented him with a list of breaches of direct orders made by Mulder together with a summary of his lies and omissions. Mulder had shown him the surveillance gear that Scully had installed in his apartment.

He stopped pacing, rubbed at tired eyes and frowned. Mulder had shown him something. Whether it was something that Dana Scully had been using to spy on her partner was a rather different matter. He had no real evidence of that. Even if the prints were Scully's, it proved nothing. Her reasons for handling the cameras might have been entirely legitimate, nothing to do with covert monitoring of Mulder.

Scully might be nothing more than a concerned partner trying to force her best friend to get the help that he desperately needed. When it came right down to it, her agitation and distress was nothing that he hadn't seen before. Scully had been just as driven when Mulder went missing on that ghost ship and Scully knew that she had the power to save him.

It was just so difficult to believe Scully and ignore Mulder. Yet how had Mulder described Patterson? "An expert in people manipulation." All Mulder's known actions in this case suggested trouble. The only thing that hadn't was his breathtakingly cool performance in Skinner's office as he showed him the alleged surveillance cameras. Was that just another demonstration of people manipulation?

Skinner looked at the report that had arrived from the LA office. A body had been found and was believed to be another victim of Kurzman. They had a list of other sites to be investigated. Kurzman had become violent soon after his discussions with Mulder and Scully and was now too heavily medicated to be interviewed. There was no reason for them to stay in California. It was time for him to haul them back and settle this thing.

Fox Mulder hated secure psychiatric units. Hardly surprising, he had few fond memories of hospitals, psychiatrists or prisons. Throw them into the same brew and it was a pretty unappetizing combination. From the antiseptic smell to the peeling paint, it made him think of death, physical or mental, same thing really. The only redeeming feature was that he was just a visitor.

He looked toward Scully who was sitting on the other side of the empty waiting room. "I don't think we'll get anything here. You've seen his charts. He's going to be zoned for days on the drugs they've given him."

Mulder turned away, unable to think of a reply that wasn't an expletive. Knowing that they were under attack was one thing. Feeling it and making allowances for it was a different matter. They'd worked out a kind of stalemate solution. No one talked to the Pattersons. The phones stayed off. They didn't separate.

It meant that if Mulder did something out of line then Scully would be there to see it. The flip side was that she would not get the opportunity to imagine something worse.

The trouble with that kind of twenty-four hour surveillance was that the assault on personal space alone was enough to push every angry paranoid button they owned. Another few days of this and one of them really was going to crack and do Francine's job for her.

They waited as the doctors debated until they were finally given access to Kurzman with shrugged shoulders and comments that it couldn't do any harm. As Mulder had predicted, there was nothing to see. Scully went directly to Kurzman's bed and started checking out his charts, automatically testing his temperature with the back of her hand as she read.

Mulder didn't come all the way into the room, just hovered in the entrance and leaned back against the door. He let his mind absorb the images. He catalogued the restraints that held Kurzman to the bed. Wrists, ankles and chest. Old fashioned padded leather straps, heavy duty for someone who might fight hard. Velcro fastenings for ease of fixing and additional metal buckles for really bad days. It was hard to imagine a bad day on the quantity of thorazine that Kurzman had been given.

Maybe he should go and visit Gordon Hayes. Perhaps he could do that, once all this was over. Mulder noted the red blink below the camera; it was far too easy to spot one of those. He looked at his own arms and tried to recall how they'd looked with the straps pinning him down. Sucked in the reaction. He wondered what the response of the staff would be if he started crying for no reason.

He watched her as she smoothed Kurzman's hair and was suddenly horrified. "Leave him alone Scully. He's not your patient." His additional declaration of "and I'm not your patient either" stayed mercifully under wraps, confined to his own thoughts.

She pulled her hand away as if she'd suddenly encountered fire. She turned. "Why do you think Francine did this?"

Mulder shook his head, pointed towards the camera and then towards the door. She followed him from the room and past security. She waited impatiently as he signed them both out and retrieved their weapons. She resisted questioning him any further until they were safely out of the building. "So?"

Mulder stood at attention, voice like dry ice, allowing no room for argument. "Frustration. She wanted us; she had to have someone. Plus, she's showing off. She wanted to show me how good she is."

"I could only pick at the outer layers of Kurzman. She could go right in and bring out his heart. She showed him his true self. That's why he's in that bed."

Don't? He'd asked her about forever and she'd told him about right now. He let her off the hook for the slip. "Well, I have. Frankie doesn't have much to scare me with that I don't already know."

At that moment the doors of the reception area opened behind them. They turned in unison, tuned to read every sudden change as a danger sign.

The flight back from LA was surprisingly less tense than the flight out had been. Possibly because so much of what had been kept hidden was now in the open. Maybe it was just that fatigue, emotional and physical, had washed most of the color and heat out of the situation.

It was Mulder who broached the subject that he knew would raise the temperature. He waited until they were about to pull out of the airport parking lot. "Where are we going?" Dealing with connecting rooms at the motel in LA had been one thing, but around-the-clock monitoring was difficult from across town. Except by using Scully's methods, of course.

Scully tried to huddle up into herself and hide away, but Mulder's eyes and her own conscience wouldn't allow it. "I'd prefer my place. If the couch is OK for you."

The silence built fast, an oppressive blanket that even switching on the radio didn't dent.

By the time they entered Scully's apartment, blood pressure and adrenaline levels were flying high. Mulder tried to escape. "I should go for a run."

He tried to interpret her response. Yes. No. A question. A plea. A threat. His heart fluttered as he demanded that his famed profiling expertise should switch on and rescue him. He looked around the room and then back at her. "Where's your computer?"

"Don't think what? You don't think I'm entitled to see the recordings you made?"

And Mulder froze for an instant, pawed the ground and waited expectantly for the excuse that always followed sorry. It didn't come. He allowed himself to breathe out. "I have to see them."

Mulder turned away, looked into the mirror and counted the books that he saw reflected there, experimented with speech. "It's who I am. I have to look."

The slump of her shoulders conceded defeat. She led him to the machine and showed him the files.

A bit of him, a tiny, tiny fragment of his paranoia suggested that the camera in the living room was almost acceptable or at least tolerable. He'd shared his living room with spies before. In his more panicked moments, he'd even wished he had a camera on Scully. Just to check that she was ok; that she was in no danger and preferably that she was smiling because he wasn't around.

In a grim piece of self-mockery, he almost understood the view of the bedroom. He'd shared his bed with spies before. If Scully thought Diana... Best not to go there, he decided. Safer. He almost laughed at what she had actually recorded, a few images of him hanging up a suit in the closet. Maybe she had learned something. He could be tidy if it was worth it.

He closed his eyes, rubbing them as he shook his head, shoulders hitching as he started to laugh.

The longer the discussion with Skinner continued, the more confident Scully became. Initially suspicious, she'd gradually seen that she had no reason for nervousness, Skinner had accepted her concerns as legitimate and asked her for clarification.

It was difficult, but then clarifying an X-File was never easy. It helped that Skinner didn't want to discuss the men that Mulder had referred to as "Francine's previous targets." Any attempt to deviate from the subject of the meeting was swiftly quashed. The topic was not the validity of the unassigned casework. The topic was why Mulder had disobeyed a direct order to leave it alone.

Scully knew. "Because Bill Patterson, with or without his daughter's assistance, won't let him."

Mulder attempted to butt in and was greeted with a swift, "enough," from their boss. "You either speak when spoken to, or you get out. Understood?"

Mulder slumped back into silence, his muscles tense from the effort to remain still.

Scully tried to carry on by arguing that Mulder's performance in LA showed the pressure that he was under.

Skinner just looked confused, he shook his head as he spoke. "The LA office was very pleased with your work."

Scully understood. "I found the burial site." Skinner looked back at her, puzzled. She continued. "Normally he'd catch those things."

Why wouldn't she? She hesitated, why was it wrong for her to get there first. To get there first, you had to know Kurzman. She didn't want to.

Mulder lifted his head, still almost smiling. He ignored Skinner's attempt to shush him. "Did you install surveillance equipment in my apartment?"

Mulder looked away again, studied Walter Sergei Skinner's life history as told by the photos and certificates on the wall.

Skinner sat back, disbelief merging with anxiety as he thought about everything he'd heard. They were both in trouble and he was the one who was going to have to pull the plug. No cases out of town. No cases in town until they'd both visited the psychiatric services crew.

This time, the warning on Mulder would be more strongly worded, drawing their attention to his skills in manipulating others and his awareness of what psychologists liked to hear. The request on Scully would make clear that to get the right answer from her, you needed to ask the right question.

The standoff between the agents continued most of the day as they made each other, and everyone else they met, uncomfortable. The fact that Dana Scully hardly ever removed her eyes from her partner and the fact that he scarcely looked at her, did not go unnoticed. The occasional breaks in protocol caused by Mulder suddenly turning to look at her and her flinching away gave it an added twist.

Fortunately, only Mulder had noticed Scully's hand dropping to check her holster during a couple of these exchanges. It crossed his mind that things may now be so close to crisis point that they ought to have someone else around. A little backup in case things went too far. He thought about making another visit to see Skinner. Maybe alone this time.

What he didn't really understand was why things were still deteriorating. So long as they were meeting with Francine he could come up with ideas. She could be using hypnosis to soften her targets. Maybe it was a direct implantation of thoughts as Pusher had supplied. Perhaps it was by manipulating the dream state like Cole, the soldier who never slept. If they spoke to her by phone he could see how the feelings might get retriggered. But if not even her voice was required then what was the mechanism? What was the defense?

If it was astral projection then why did she follow them to LA? Just to show that it was her? As if he didn't already know.

The wear and tear on them was too great. Bodies and psyches were complaining about the strain of the last few days. They weren't going to be able to keep this up much longer. It had to be brought to a resolution quickly. Another week and they wouldn't be able to fight.

Mulder looked at his partner and immediately changed his mind. Scully was spoiling for a fight and if she kept this up much longer she was going to get one. Shit. He slumped forward in the chair, elbows resting on the table, simultaneously supporting and hiding his face. The shudder of hitched breaths could have been the start of laughter or tears and Mulder neither knew nor cared which it was going to be.

Scully edged closer to his side and hunched down to whisper in his ear. He resisted the temptation to push her away. He pulled his breathing back under control, swallowed hard and told her he wasn't feeling too good. Maybe things were starting to catch up with him.

She pressed her fingers to his forehead, whether to soothe or to check for fever Mulder wasn't quite sure. He allowed the contact and took another, deep cleansing breath. He shivered into her touch. "I'm sorry. I know this isn't easy for you. And I'm not making it any easier."

She rocked a little on her heels, her mouth falling open as she looked for the right response.

He ducked his head away from her touch, hiding his face from the full force of her gaze.

He gave her a nervous laugh, apologetic and a little weak. "Sorry. I need... a minute." He swallowed, trying to clear his throat but still as dry after the motion as before. He shrugged, embarrassed.

He tried to make a plan for her, it sounded so banal when said out loud. Maybe he could go and get a drink. Then perhaps, he should go home soon and get some sleep. He tried to clear his throat again, but first he could really, really use a drink. He started to stand but swallowed the lump in his throat as he rose, harsh and uncomfortable. He sat back down again.

She offered to get him a glass of water and then she would drive him home and everything would be all right.

By the time Scully started banging on the office door with a bottle of water in her hand Mulder had already reached his car.

Scully's apartment was not the right place for a confrontation. Her mind had been violated and so had her home. Furthermore, Mulder was convinced that the battleground was his to choose and his choice was to play at home.

Scully would come looking for him. Francine would come looking for them both. This would make it easy for them to find one another.

Mulder was only mildly surprised to find that Francine was already waiting in his living room when he arrived home. His greeting to his uninvited guest was one of warmth and welcome. "Hi."

He smiled at the perfect mirror. "You should let Scully go. This isn't her game."

He made no move to confirm or deny, simply breezing past her and into the bedroom. He hung up the suit and dressed for comfort, checking both the gun at his hip and the one in the ankle holster. Feeling a little unsteady as he looked in the mirror, he wondered who he saw. Dad? Patterson? Frankie? Fox fucking-chameleon Mulder?

He felt giddy with it all, the stress and dread and indecision and suddenly he knew that he had to warn Scully. He tapped the numbers in on his phone but just got an automatic voice telling him about a switched off phone. She would have to go and stick to her end of the deal. He barked a message into her answering machine. Tiredness was sweeping through his spirit. He could smell defeat in the air. Frankie was winning. He was bringing Scully into her trap.

He ran away from the mirror, away from the bedroom, past Francine laughing on the couch and out of the apartment. Where? He looked along the street, felt the pack at his heels, the hot breath on the back of his neck and he heard her laughing.

He ordered himself to think, but his mind insisted on betraying him. It kept skipping over little details like the route Scully would have to take to get to his apartment and how to plot an intercept course. It kept jumping straight to the meat. Scully destroyed and doped out of her head in some hygienically sterile hospital bed, smelling of stale milk and staler clothes. At least he wouldn't be alive to see it.

Maybe if he just sat here then at least he could stop her going inside. Premonitions made his hand shaky as he checked the gun at his ankle. He could feel the reassuring weight of the hip holster, suddenly shivering as he remembered that he wasn't wearing a jacket and this wasn't really good little FBI agent conduct. Laughed at the thought. Good little FBI agents didn't have killers in their apartment lying in wait for another agent as part of a trap configured by their own partner.

Scully was driving too fast to park well. Mulder ran to her. He had the passenger door open before she could get out. "We've got to go. Frankie's here."

There was a ringing laughter in Francine's voice as it cut in from behind. "Absolutely right. I think we should talk this through. It has to end sometime. Agent Scully, I believe I've got the evidence that you need."

Francine's wink told him that it was already too late to talk. She kept Scully carefully positioned as a shield and smiled as Mulder's hand moved up and away from the gun at his hip. "Good boy."

The apartment was a nice size for one, not too cramped but not a place that ever felt really empty. With the fish, the books, the TV, the files and the rest of it, the place looked alive. Right at this moment it looked more alive than Mulder felt. It also felt awfully claustrophobic for three.

Every muscle in his body was demanding action. Every neuron in his brain was asking `what?'

Maybe he should stand up and walk out of here. Call 911. And say what? That Francine Patterson was trying to talk Dana Scully into killing him? He could call Skinner. Get some backup here. Then what? Didn't matter. If he got Scully away from here then he could sort it out and go one-on-one with Frankie.

He tried to focus on what Francine was saying to Scully but kept getting distracted by the look of anger and anguish on Scully's face. Frankie had some photos. Of what? He could guess of who. Scully needed evidence and Frankie had promised. Scully looked toward him, her mouth working on the problem, she turned away. Her eyes widened, pushing her face into a dark frown of concentration, her gaze locked on the story Frankie was telling.

Hell, he couldn't think in here, couldn't even breathe. Frankie would not kill Scully. That wasn't how the game worked. Frankie found and revealed the murder in the heart and removed the rules that said it wasn't to be acted upon. Frankie didn't get her own hands dirty. He wondered if she got a kick out of playing surrogate victim for Kurzman?

For the second time that night he ran. Spun down the stairs as fast as he could until he could hide in the basement with the water filters and the washing machines. Just far enough away from the action to find a tiny shred of his brain that still understood how to do his job. He dabbed his fingers across the buttons on the cell phone, missing the numbers twice and having to start over.

It had all taken too long. He had to get back up there. What if this was what Frankie wanted? He was running around down here when all the time Scully was up there on her own, needing him. What if Frankie took her and ran? Sure, he thought he knew her MO, but MOs change and Frankie could think on her feet. After all, the Kurzman thing was an anomaly. Just showing off, doing it because she could. She could change again.

When Mulder crashed back into his apartment Francine Patterson was all alone. "Where is she? What have you done to her?"

The gun was in his hand and then it was resting on Frankie's ear and Frankie just kept on smiling. The anger in his voice was overtaken by despair and disbelief. "Where is she?"

"The bathroom. She wanted a little privacy. Oh, don't worry, I cleaned up in there a little before you came home."

Mulder was already banging on the door. "Scully. Scully. Please. Answer me, Scully." The lack of response made his heart beat too fast. So fast he had to close his eyes to try and listen for sounds on the other side of the door. The damp from his eyes matted his eyelashes as he understood.

He tested the door and found it locked. "I'm coming in," he shouted it, even though he knew that no one was listening. Concentrating, he kicked hard and felt a little give the first time. The door opened at the second attempt.

Scully was slightly crouched and rock steady, the gun held light but firm in her right hand, her left supporting her wrist. Ready.

Mulder dove straight at her feet, off-balancing her in an instant. She recovered in time to make a good landing, taking her weight neatly through the extended muscles of her left arm and her outstretched fingers. The gun had been retained and was still tightly locked in her clenched right fist.

She went limp for an instant. He hesitated, started to move more slowly and carefully. She coiled herself to get the timing right and raised a swift knee as he shifted. He yelped out a lungful of air at the contact then groaned at the pain. "Fuck."

Throwing her head back, she flailed and kicked and thrashed to get from under him, all the time trying to drag her right hand forward.

He slammed his arm into hers, dislodging the gun from her fingers and pinning her down with his weight. "Scully. Please. Listen to me. This is Frankie's doing. Anything you've seen. I would never betray you. Never. Please."

And suddenly all was calm again. She went still. He started to ease his weight from her. Her left hand sprung out from below his chest. She swung and connected with his eye. He fell back and in an instant she had stretched away from his grasp, freed her right hand and had found the gun again.

Catching her by the hair, he slammed her back to the floor, removed the gun from her hand in the same swift movement and threw it behind him, comfortably away from her reach. She was so silent and so still. Mulder moved back hesitantly and knew that this time it was for real.

He edged forward again, panic-stricken now. He found her pulse at the third attempt. It took him a while to convince himself that she was breathing. He couldn't really see anything through the damp shine that was blocking his vision.

Not that it would have mattered. Frankie had a remarkably good record in her karate classes. It was something that had occasionally been useful to her hospital colleagues too, an extra pair of powerful hands on call for difficult patients. She had his hands cuffed behind his back in seconds. He kicked back but she'd anticipated that, stamped down a neat stiletto shoe into his calf muscle.

He slumped forward. She didn't make the same mistake as Mulder had done with Scully; she just slipped a neat plastic restraint in place to lock his ankles together.

He slumped for real now and started to understand what had happened. As his breathing recovered he realized how he was lying and tried to get his weight off his still silent partner. He pressed himself sideways and managed to give her a little more space to breathe. He turned his attention back to their attacker. "Let her go, Frankie. Call 911. I'll come with you if you want. Whatever you want. But she needs help."

Scully groaned slightly and he knew that he was still crushing her, so he tried to pull himself further away. Francine assisted the process by dragging him backwards letting his head thump into the ground as he slipped off-balance.

Scully groaned again as the last of his weight was removed from her. Francine helpfully pushed Mulder into a sitting position and let him rest against the doorframe.

He glowered, more from anger with himself than with her. "Bondage fetish, Frankie?"

He gave himself a few seconds to steady his voice and get his breathing back under control. "I couldn't let her kill me, she'd never have forgiven herself."

She shook her head, as if baffled by his stupidity. "I don't mean five minutes ago. Yesterday, last week. You had all the time in the world."

No. He mumbled into his chest, turning his head away, suddenly seeing it all clearly and wishing that Scully had shot him, just turned and opened fire with no regrets. She'd delayed for long enough to let him get control of the situation. He looked at his tied feet and tensed the cuffs behind his back. He dared to look at his partner's motionless body. He turned quickly away from the horror story in the bathroom, worried at his lip, studied the floor. Oh yeah, he'd certainly taken control of this situation.

A sudden bite of adrenaline surged as he tensed his fingers against the metal at his back. He smiled, humorless and pale, like the ghost of a smile. "No. You wouldn't be here. You'd be busy destroying someone else."

She almost danced in the lamplight. "A stranger perhaps. Because strangers are more important than the people you love?"

He understood, empathy complete, understood it all so clearly now. And for the first time on the case he was truly terrified, because to know the truth was to know the dark. Angry and scared and the words he used were oh so bitter and so heartfelt. "You cheated, Frankie. Scully didn't want to kill me. She hasn't got it in her. You fucking cheated."

Francine was everything that was calm against his panic. "You're so wrong. I didn't cheat, you did. You scared her so she could see the bad. You even did your circus act for Alan Kurzman. He told me all about it."

"And did she understand about Diana too? Or did that give her a little fuel for her nightmares? Perhaps it made you seem a little untrustworthy?"

He stalled, playing for time, even though he didn't know how time could help him. "You think I made myself a target?"

"And I used her to see if I could do to her what you did to people like Hayes and Irving?"

Francine's voice was all pride. "You'd need to practice. Even knowing your lab rat you still couldn't quite make it over the final hurdle. I had to help."

He pushed his head back against the wall. Tilted his eyes to look at the ceiling. "What did you tell her? What were you showing her?"

"Just photos. You and me, Diana, Marita, Krycek, others. You know what's odd about those pictures?"

Only the hum of the fish tank and the occasional hitch of excitement in Francine's breathing broke the silence. Long moments passed as Mulder listened to the sea and tried not to drown. Francine watched him, content and expectant.

He shifted against the wall, hunting for a position that would reduce the numbness in his legs and maybe take a bit of the pressure off his arms. It was a task that at least contained a possibility of success. Trying to reduce the creeping paralysis that was working its way through his brain was a different matter.

Scully's tiny groan pushed his body to attention. He forced his eyes to focus in the vague hope that if they did, then his brain would follow. Francine looked happy, and Mulder wondered if he wanted to see anything after all. He swallowed the sigh, Frankie looked beautiful. He'd seen her like this before, cool and confident and ahead of the pack. He remembered a school swimming gala, where she'd turned heads and shone. He sniffed the air and filtered out the panic and nausea because he knew those were his. He finally identified the unfamiliar odor in the room: the sweet smell of success.

He found his voice and forced it to obey. He looked intently into Francine's eyes, tipped his head for an instant to point towards Dana Scully's silent body. "You might as well let her go. She won, we lost."

"You gave her conjecture, speculation and innuendo and asked her to read between the lines. And she did. She's not stupid. She heard what we told her. But it wasn't evidence."

"You gave her nightmares and photographs of me smiling. Not enough for a death sentence."

"She could have fired before I got in the bathroom. She had time after I opened the door."

"She didn't even get close." And in that instant he knew the bluff he was feeding to Francine wasn't really that big a bluff at all. They'd worked together and they'd trained together. Scully had fought him like it was a training exercise, with no expectation of victory or, at least, no appetite for blood.

He was already braced for the question but it still made his stomach roll. He scrambled for an answer that would keep him in the game. "I hate when she can't believe."

Mulder knew from the mistimed blink of her eyes, not only that she liked that idea, but that she, like her father, had been reading the reports on X-Files, conflicting conclusions and all.

Her eyes brightened and she licked her lips. Mulder swallowed as Francine's throat tightened.

Slowly but inexorably, Walter Skinner found that he fully accepted Mulder's perspective on Bill Patterson. Actually, he now realized that he'd accepted Mulder's analysis right from the start of the case. It was his tactics and their implications that he hadn't approved of.

In retrospect, the Pattersons had been given an easy ride, courtesy of AD Skinner. The road to hell, he noted, was paved with good intentions. He had wanted to keep Mulder away from Patterson. He had planned on keeping Mulder out of the line of sight of Cassidy and the others who were still gunning for him. And he'd failed miserably in both objectives. He'd suspended Mulder, but all that had done was take the leash off. He'd blocked Mulder's attempts to handle the case officially, and that had just forced Mulder to cut all the safety lines.

He should have known better. Mulder might make mistakes, but if he pointed out a crime and a criminal then he was seldom wrong. It was just so hard to ignore Scully. Normally so loyal and supportive, it was almost impossible to imagine that she'd be wrong in her judgment of her partner's health or his decision making.

Yet, she had been wrong before. She hadn't liked what she'd seen on the Mostow case. She'd been frightened enough to imagine that it was Mulder rather than Patterson who had fallen into the dark. Her stated determination not to encourage Mulder's delusions had led to her abandoning him during the Pinkus case. Skinner knew that story well, after all, he'd had to put Mulder into the hospital that time.

Her fear of insanity had forced her from Mulder's side. And Skinner had allowed her fear to block his judgment.

He looked down at the computer records in front of him knowing that he'd made a mistake and still uncertain how to correct it. It had taken a couple of days for his request for the computer security check to be done. But he now had a list of the people who'd downloaded the archive files on the Kurzman, Irving, Hayes and Samuels cases, and he'd thrown in a sampling of recent X-Files to act as a filter.

The list was short and, under the circumstances, rather poignant. Diana Fowley was there and so was Skinner himself. Mulder wasn't and neither was Dana Scully. The only oddity was finding the name of ASAC Karen Clark on the list. Skinner had politely asked her supervisor for permission to talk to her and naturally it had been instantly granted.

Skinner sensed from Clark's hesitation that she had something to hide, though he couldn't really see why. She was happy to talk about the file downloads. She hunted back through her own paper records to find Skinner the unusual request to create an archive of cases on CD-ROM. A selection of X-Files. A selection of ISU cases. The request had been signed by AD Jana Cassidy. It was the type of request only an AD could make or approve. Skinner didn't push Clark on whether she'd made extra copies of the disks. Karen was with Scully at Quantico and Skinner really didn't need to know how close their friendship ran. Besides, if Mulder had a copy of the files, then it was only something that he should have been able to get without subterfuge.

Mulder hadn't even set foot in Patterson's house when Cassidy started pulling Mulder's cases off the archives. Skinner couldn't believe that he'd let her set the agenda for the review of Mulder's report on Patterson. She'd only had to bark about meeting Mulder at the Pattersons, and Skinner had reacted by biting Mulder with a suspension.

Skinner walked into Cassidy's office knowing that he should be on the warpath. The trouble was that he was as annoyed by his conduct as he was by hers. Bitterly aware that he had failed to get to the heart of the Patterson problem, he concluded that Cassidy's ability to influence his handling of Mulder was just a symptom.

He didn't quite trust his voice to explain his sudden arrival in her office, so he handed her the computer report and copies of the requests she'd made to Karen Clark. While she took in their meaning, he spoke, careful to put the necessary authority into his tone. "Care to explain why you are monitoring one of my people?"

She looked dismayed, a response that didn't surprise Skinner. He'd been surprised that a computer check had a useful result too. She soon got back into her stride. "My committee removed Agent Mulder from the X-Files for good reason. When I hear that a deal has been done to bring him back, I'm interested in why. His work for AD Kersh was sub-standard, yet he's deemed crucial to the X-Files."

She didn't back down, stared pointedly back at Skinner. "You accepted Mulder's removal from them. As the chair of the management committee, I'm entitled to understand why you changed your mind."

Skinner couldn't actually believe her nerve, yet her words threw him off balance. He'd supplied the ammunition. He knew he should be demanding an apology but was too guiltily uncomfortable to hammer the point home. He put as much righteous indignation into his voice as he could muster. "Then you should have asked me."

"I was planning to. However, having read the files, it was clear that Mulder's performance has improved, so I didn't feel it necessary."

"I recognize that, Walter. I'm sorry if it appears that I've gone over your head. That was not my intention."

Fine, he was losing the stomach for the fight. He decided to quit while he was relatively ahead and turn that apology into something tangible. "Where's the CD that was created?"

He turned to the next sheet in the computer report and Mulder's work for Patterson. The color drained from her face. Skinner's voice fell an octave as he asked her simply. "Why?"

"The X-Files unit may be under you, the ISU is not. The files were for research."

Skinner couldn't believe that she wasn't even going to do him the courtesy of finding an excuse. "Research for Bill Patterson's memoirs?"

She stiffened a little, her lips narrowing to angry lines. "That sounds like an accusation. You already have two agents operating a vendetta against Bill Patterson. There's no 302 covering their activity. I see that their refusal to drop that campaign of harassment has forced you to send them both for evaluation. I thought that was a positive sign."

Skinner's fist tightened. He'd provided all the ammo. He decided to get out of her office before frustration led him to say something else that he might regret later. His mind was racing as he made the short walk back to his own office. He was making too many mistakes, he needed to get his mind back on the job. He slumped back into his chair and took a few seconds to give himself the time and oxygen to think.

Easing a little, he rubbed at the tired muscles in his neck and slowly rotated his head to try to work the knots out of his shoulders. He'd been feeling his age a little more since he'd stopped boxing. He hadn't found a suitable substitute for that kind of mental and physical release. He hadn't really looked for one either. It seemed too much like planning for the future and he didn't see how he could. It was a mistake; even living day to day was no fun if your body started to ache from inaction.

Maybe that was why he'd been so off the pace with this case. Perhaps he'd just been so keen to make it through another day, without seeing Mulder and Scully get hurt, that he hadn't really thought about what was going to happen next.

He called the basement, but there was no response. It was only just past seven, an early night for Mulder? Unlikely, he decided. Mulder simply wasn't working in his office and that meant that he was working somewhere else.

He tried Mulder's cell phone and then Scully's. They were switched off again. He'd known these two for years and they seldom switched off their phones, yet that seemed to have been the norm for days during this case. Another sign that things were difficult for them.

He tried Mulder's apartment. When the answering machine didn't pick up, he decided that maybe Mulder was actually home and left it to ring a little longer.

The voice that finally answered sounded like it was fighting for words. "Hello."

She apparently recognized him without being told. "Yes, sir." She also knew what his next question would be without him asking. "Mulder's gone."

Bill's daughter? Skinner tapped his hand impatiently on the desk. Why would Mulder go off with her and without Scully? He remembered how pale Scully's voice sounded. "Agent Scully, are you injured?"

He froze, then recalled the need for words. "Stay there, I'll be right with you."

Mulder was glad that Francine had let him drive, it gave him something to do with hands. At the moment it was about the only thing stopping him from strangling her. He sighed, self-conscious about the observation, and unwilling, for the moment, to lie to himself. Actually, the only thing stopping him from strangling her was the fact that humans were designed to operate as cooperative and socialized beings and he had already spent a few decades learning to act like a human.

His breath caught in his throat, suddenly so very alone. He really didn't want to be here. It felt like. It felt like he was part of them, not part of the world where Scully lived. His fingers bit into the steering wheel and the car twitched in sympathy. He quickly caught the movement and straightened up. Francine gave a brief victory laugh. Mulder kept his eyes on the road.

Blanking his mind, he focused on the taillights of the car in front, allowing them to hypnotize him back to indifference. Scully, at least, was out of the game. He'd achieved something today.

He was still stunned by his capacity to get things wrong. He wondered if he could still recognize getting things right.

Skinner was prepared for the worst as he entered Mulder's apartment. In fact, he'd spent most of the drive over working through a list of worst case scenarios and wondering why the hell he hadn't sent an ambulance to check on Scully.

The place in his conscience that supplied excuses offered him Scully's own statement that she didn't need a doctor. It extracted a banshee wail from the rest of his brain. Did he trust her judgment to be one hundred percent right now? This was the same woman who had worked through cancer until the day she'd needed to be carried unconscious from a meeting. And she always knew what was good for her? Or for Mulder?

The door to the apartment had been left unlocked and the implications of that made him wince. He raced into the room and saw Scully, huddled uncomfortably at one end of the couch. He was just relieved to find her still there and still conscious. She sat up soldier straight when she saw him, slumped back down again almost instantly, exhaling heavily, as if even that exertion had been too much.

Skinner moved quickly across the room and crouched down in front of her. "Are you hurt?"

He looked at her eyes, the bloodshot rims, the way her nose twitched and her chin jutted as if she was ready and waiting to take his next, best shot. He noted the way her normally perfect make-up was smeared and damp with sweat and tears.

Sensing that he was intruding on something private, he rose and went into the kitchen, returning with a glass of water and paper towels. Positioning them on the low table immediately in front of her, he pushed the table forward a little so that everything would be in easy reach. Soft spoken words, professionally impersonal. "What happened here?"

She tried to clear her throat and failed. Recovering slowly, she hesitantly reached out and took a sip of water, then blew her nose. She cleared her throat again. "I attacked Mulder."

Skinner sat down heavily on the opposite end of the couch. He studied her and recorded the disheveled clothes and makeup. He noted the angry red marks on her hands and wrists that looked like they were going to turn into finger bruises. If she had attacked Mulder, then it looked as if he had responded in kind. "Where's Mulder now?"

"I don't know. I was," she faltered, the words sticking in her throat. "I was unconscious for a while."

Skinner's hand reached instantly into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. She'd been unconscious, but she didn't think that was worth medical attention? He mumbled a silent prayer for someone to spare him from the self-diagnostic skills of doctors.

She moved, faster than Skinner had thought she was capable of. She almost knocked the phone from his hand as she hissed out a, "no!"

He lifted his hands and the phone in a gesture of submission, or at least of hesitation, then shook his head to ask 'why the hell not?'

"I'm fine, sir," she mumbled quickly. "I checked. My eyes are not dilated, my vision is normal, I'm not dizzy, I don't feel nauseated."

She shivered a little on the last word, an act that Skinner interpreted as meaning that she felt like being sick but denied that it had anything to do with her head injury. Skinner put the phone down on the table and waited for her next words.

She took a deep breath before continuing. "Mulder told her that he wanted to see Patterson. Then they left." She shifted uncomfortably. "They didn't know that I heard them."

She turned away. "I should have stopped him from going. We have to find him. She's. She's dangerous."

"I do. He needs me." Her voice rose in sudden anguish. "He needs me and I let him go."

Unsure of his ground, Skinner conceded, his desire to believe in her overriding his doubts. Once they actually found Mulder, then he'd call out reinforcements.

Bill Patterson smiled at his daughter. He'd come out into the hallway to welcome them as soon as he heard the car pull into the drive. He turned his attention to the man at her side. "Fox! Still looking over your shoulder?"

"I don't need to. I can see the danger now." His fingers jumped as he heard the quiet click of the front door locking. No more world. "Mind if I use the bathroom?"

Mulder pulled the door behind him and wondered how long he could get away with hiding in here. It felt disturbingly like refuge. The desire to run burned so brightly that it was almost overwhelming. He could run. He could just walk out of here, straight back out through the front door and into the night. He gripped the sides of the basin, pushing in until his back muscles protested at the futility of the action and his whitening knuckles finally took the hint that he should stop.

Frankie might have been in the eye of the storm until now, but it was time to force her out into the full blast of the gales. He hadn't even started work and he already hated himself, just knowing what he was about to do. But he had so little time left, so the recriminations would have to wait. If he couldn't end it tonight then he had no Plan B. Another few days of this and exhaustion would take him out of the game. He was just glad that Scully wasn't here to witness it.

He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror and decided that he looked like shit. He shrugged, at least he looked better than he felt. He washed his face and combed his hair. It was a shame that there wasn't a razor in here. One way or another, a razor might be useful. He tried to come up with an excuse not to leave the antiseptically clean haven and found that his body was disturbingly willing to oblige.

Washing up again, he re-checked the reflection and was hit by a sudden wave of helplessness, cruel and intense as it swept through his brain. The crushing paralysis of indecision. He froze in place, his hands resting on the tiled wall, either side of the mirror. Focusing on the mundane details, he tried to breathe. Panic was not a pretty sight. The harsh little hitches in his breath were making his throat hurt and his chest was on fire. He'd come here without a real plan or even an ultimate objective. He couldn't even remember how to hope. He closed his eyes and let the tremors wear themselves out.

Using his forehead where it rested against the mirror's glass as a balance point, he pressed himself upright. Splashing cold water over his face, he carefully dabbed himself dry and combed his hair. He sucked in an uncomfortable lungful of air, suddenly embarrassed by the empty mechanical processes he was repeating. He knew that this time he had to go out quickly and face them or else the panic cycle would begin again. He cleared his throat, took a deep breath and opened the bathroom door.

The hallway was mercifully deserted, and Mulder wasn't quite sure if he felt like screaming or laughing or crying, so he ordered himself to do nothing. Made a final slow scan of the front door as a reminder that he was in control here and that he was making his own choices. He held a long deep breath then relaxed, straightened his shoulders and walked into the kitchen.

Mulder shrugged and accepted the glass. His eyes swept the room for escape routes and obstacles. He walked past Francine and around to the other side of the breakfast bar, sitting down on the stool next to Bill's. Best to be on this side, when the time came he might need Bill close by. He took a first sip of the juice and found it oddly soothing against the burning in his throat. He spoke softly to his over-attentive audience. "Why?"

Mulder laughed, a brief, desperate, humorless snort of a laugh. "Cute doesn't suit you, Bill. Why did you do it?"

Mulder sat back, sipped at the juice, grateful for the focus it offered. "I wanted to imagine that you were cured."

Bill laughed, unimpressed. "Of course, the irony. You, making the same mistake as those doctors." He shook his head. "Though actually, they were right. I am sane now. The targets deserved it."

Mulder's jaw tightened as he analyzed the words. An eye for an eye, the oldest motive in the book. Essential that he keep the ball rolling and his nerves under control. Fighting Bill demanded total concentration and he could already feel his thoughts slipping away. He threw out an easy question while he hunted for focus. "You're saying people like them drove you to kill Nemhauser?"

The venom of Patterson's answer surprised Mulder and taut muscles eased a little as he allowed himself to see hope in Bill's agitation. His heart skipped forward a half beat as he concentrated on the words and tried to see the nightmare from Patterson's perspective. He was grateful that he couldn't. Bill had spent a couple of years in near-isolation working on who was to blame for turning him into a killer. Mulder could see that.

He shivered, nauseated by how easy it was to visualize Bill sitting with paper and pen in his cell, cataloging the stressors and the precursors and turning it all into one big beautiful ball of cause and effect. He should have known, should have been able to help him. But he hadn't even visited Bill in the hospital. He shook the images from his brain and tried to see why he hadn't been Bill's first target. "And you think they drove me away?"

Mulder shook his head, almost amused by Bill's naivete, wondering if it was for real. "I drove me away. I was becoming something I didn't want to be."

Bill barked a laugh, then swallowed it back. When he continued, an edge of cold command had replaced the almost teasing tone his voice had been carrying up until then. "Why are you here?"

Mulder was relieved that Bill had been the one to bring it up, he would never have had the guts to do it himself. Then again, Bill had always been quick to use guilt to deliver the knife to the heart. He glanced across the countertop at Francine and saw her dark, empty eyes. She was tired, too. It had to end tonight, for all their sakes. He needed that to be true. If he could just believe what he was doing was right, then he could pull this off. Maybe. He took a couple of soothing breaths to get him back in touch with his body and found concentration enough to attack.

He gave a single shake of his head before turning dark angry eyes on Patterson. The words flew like daggers. "My creation? Lie to yourself, don't lie to me. What did I actually do? I talked to her for a few minutes a day, for a few months, when she wanted someone to talk to. She had a crush on me and I didn't return the interest."

Francine almost didn't have the breath to make her words coherent, she hissed them out. "You used me."

Mulder sighed, twisted back to face her, and fixed his eyes on her distress. "So what? So, I got something out of the relationship, too."

The knife twitched under her hand and Mulder tensed in anticipation of her next movement, at once accepting fate and ready to fight it. Bill caught her action too, and gave her a single shake of the head that seemed to induce instant calm.

Bill smiled, a look of sudden admiration as he turned back to Mulder. "I knew you wouldn't walk. Now, Frankie here, she thought that you wouldn't hurt Scully. I guess she must still have a crush on you."

Mulder felt the electric shivers race along his spine. One way or another, it would be over soon. "She's your daughter. How could you use her like this?"

"She needed it. That little whore who Matt Irving killed, you know what she did?"

"She fucked Frankie's husband. So what? They've brought in a death penalty for adultery?" Mulder kept his eyes averted from Francine and tried to tune his ears not to hear the catches in her breath.

"And this is a holy war for justice and Matt Irving was cannon fodder? Come on, Bill. You set me and Frankie to work on Scully and if we'd succeeded, I'd have been dead. You tell me you aren't mad. So tell me, how fucked up are you?"

Bill's eyes brightened under attack. "Why target you and Scully?" He smiled, his fingers dancing on the table, enjoying his audience. "It was Frankie's first time, I wanted it to be with someone special."

"YOU ripped his face apart. You've ripped people's minds apart. You tried to do it to Scully. You're doing it to Frankie."

Francine reached forward, slamming tightly clenched fists onto the countertop. "Don't talk like I'm not here."

Mulder sat bolt upright, looked at Francine for an instant, then turned back to her father and brushed her off with a barked, "We're working."

Bill's eyes shone bright and dark, all glacial intensity and sudden delight. As Bill studied Mulder, Mulder mirrored the cold back. They paused, locked in place, a shroud of silence protecting the moment. Mulder's mind flashed on an image of wild animals circling and posturing. He listened to the blood as it pulsed through his ears and tried not to get swept away, sensed lightning cracks of energy making the air crackle, despite the fact that neither man was moving a muscle.

A sudden smile from Bill sent a shiver cascading down Mulder's spine. He caught it and allowed himself to savor the adrenaline buzz that it provoked.

Patterson laughed and his daughter's throat tightened to stifle a scream. Bill shook his head. "Your timing sucks."

"What can I say? I get hungry." Mulder swallowed down the mouthful of bile that rose to burn his throat. "And some coffee? Maybe another juice too?"

They argued and debated as Bill prepared sandwiches. Francine stayed in place on her side of the breakfast bar, playing daintily with the knife, experimenting with the sharpness of its tip. Meanwhile, Mulder demanded a lesson from Bill in how to handle the filter coffee machine. Bill told him about his discussions with Irving and with Samuels. Both men already had targets in mind, it was just a matter of lowering inhibitions.

Matthew Irving's relationship to Dawn Appleyard had been misunderstood, he had been a regular non-paying customer of one of Dawn's victims. Dawn and Matt? She was a hooker, what could be a more convenient way of getting her alone.

It was when the focus shifted to Gordon Hayes that Mulder felt inclined to set the record straight. Bill shook his head and told Mulder that he overestimated his role in this. Hayes wasn't punished for alleged crimes against Fox Mulder and his ongoing commitment to the ISU. Hayes had been punished for upsetting Bill. Mulder nodded, agreeing with Bill that maybe he felt a little easier about that.

They gossiped as they worked, Bill was happy at last to be understood. Mulder talked with an easy camaraderie that kept the emotional reality of the horror story at a safe distance from the banality of just how Bill had selected his targets and how easy people were to influence. Just choose the right people and find out what they have to do, then let them do it. A talent Bill had always possessed. Bill smiled as he recalled that he'd never had to actually order Mulder to work hundred-hour weeks in the ISU. A talent to influence that Bill had nurtured with care and attention during his period in the hospital.

Bill was sure that Mulder could do the same, just a matter of setting his mind to it. After all, Mulder didn't have any qualms about believing in the hidden power of the human mind. And Mulder did have a head start. Otherwise would Scully have stuck around for all these years? Would the Bureau have indulged Mulder's paranormal passions?

Bravado was the only defense that Mulder had left. He didn't want to understand Bill. He already knew him too well.

From this location on the quiet street, Skinner could tell that the lights were on at the back of the house. From changes in the pattern of lights since they'd arrived almost half an hour earlier, they could tell that the house was occupied, probably by more than one person.

Skinner couldn't stop himself from asking the impossible question. "Do you think he's in there?"

This answer was a little trickier, she frowned as she spoke. "No, at least not physically. When she released him, she just asked him to take off his spare gun. I didn't see her with a weapon."

Scully bit at her lip as she replied, trying not to think too far ahead. "She's hard to ignore. It's different. Modell pushed people to do things that they didn't want to do. She makes people do what they do want to do."

"You attacked Mulder." It was not quite a question and certainly not a rebuke. The words stood between them for an instant in the quiet cocoon of the car.

"Is it wise? What if she makes you," he paused, unwilling to say the words, before finally trailing off with an, "again."

Skinner nodded, acutely aware of their vulnerability and his own misgivings. He should get some support up here, he'd happily take the flak if it was false alarm. He started to push into his jacket to retrieve the phone. The sound of the first shot cut a sickening hole though his thoughts. He quickly grabbed the phone and pushed 911.

He tried to keep up with Scully as she ran toward the house. He screamed his message into the phone. Shots fired; FBI agents at the scene; possible hostage situation. He had to grab Scully's arm to stop her from running solo up to the front door. A sharp shake of the head as a reminder that cool heads were mandatory when lives were in danger.

She accepted the rebuke. He made her pause at his side so that he could safely complete his call.

With backup on its way, they quickly agreed on a first campaign plan. First of all, a quiet easy circle of the house to try and work out who was in there and where the shot had come from.

Mulder recognized the gun in Francine Patterson's hand, it was his. A stupid mistake, he noted, recalling their time in his apartment. She'd made him take off the ankle holster and leave it on the table, but she'd already removed his main weapon in the same lightning strike that had seen him cuffed and bound. Watching her play with the knife had distracted him from the real threat. Funny how the brain conveniently ignored things too alarming to contemplate.

If he didn't make it out of here, no way was anyone going to piece together what had actually happened. Even if he did get out, there was a good chance that no one would believe him.

How many opportunities to walk away had he ignored? How hard had he worked at making Frankie explode? Would they know that it hadn't been her fault? Even Scully would assume that this was Frankie's game. He could even imagine some completely fucked-up reality in which Bill was absolved of all blame, he just wondered if it would be posthumously.

Excruciatingly slowly he shifted along the counter, backing away from the breakfast bar, Frankie and his gun. He held his hands palms forward, submissively in front of his body. His eyes hunted for the first practical weapon. The combination of years in the ISU and even more years working on X-Files had affected his judgment. Everything looked like a weapon. Though how to persuade his attackers to stick their hands in the toaster was beyond him right now. Practical weapon, he reminded himself, worried by his brain's lapse of concentration.

A knife would be traditional, he supposed. After all he'd been attacked by people with knives in kitchens before, strange how some things never changed.

Bill was still alive and Frankie was still angry. There had been no frenzied attack following the failure of her first bullet to hit its target, there had been no attempt to deliver the coup de grace despite the near-ideal situation. On her feet, she was balanced and poised for action using the breakfast bar as a defense and its countertop to provide extra stability for the gun. Whether Mulder's role as Bill Patterson's human shield was relevant was not obvious. What was obvious was that the tears in Francine's eyes were spoiling her aim.

The knife in Bill's hand danced along Mulder's spine. Their slow drift away from Francine's fury paced by the point of Patterson's knife blade and Mulder's tiny steps back into its pressure. Knives, Mulder considered idly, the kitchen killer's weapon of choice. He wasn't convinced by Bill's performance and found it hard to believe that Bill would just stab him. It wasn't going to happen. Was it? Best not to test that theory.

He couldn't see much of Bill, just his left hand where it wrapped around his waist. Even there, Mulder had trouble seeing it purely as a restraining grip intended to block a sudden dive for freedom. It felt oddly calming, almost protective. He frowned at the idea and wondered if he was mistaking Bill for someone else. He could hear Bill though, breathing heavily and humming tiny, almost inaudible lullabies.

Mulder looked down at their feet and had to gulp air to avoid the laughter that nearly erupted at the incongruity between the nightmare situation and the impossibly domestic setting. Bill was in carpet slippers and Mulder was still in stockinged feet having removed his trainers at the front door. A mark of respect for house rules and cream carpets.

He didn't laugh, he suspected that Francine Patterson would not be amused. Her face was regal in its pain, from the open tremble of her lips to the tiny tears that pooled in her eyes without ever falling. She was breathless, catching and releasing gasps of oxygen like she was drowning and then coming up for air. If she fired right now, it would be only be an accident if she hit anyone.

The fact that she hadn't even tried was a relief yet not at all reassuring. Mulder would really have preferred her to have burned off a few more rounds. As it was, the breakfast bar ensured that she was well defended from a headlong dive, and Mulder's gun, with only one shot fired, meant that she well-armed.

Mulder ran through the permutations and possible outcomes. None of them looked favorable. The likeliest was that Frankie would run out of tears and open fire, a two for one shot. He felt a shudder of deja vu at that thought and hoped that no one asked Scully to do the autopsy. Ask her? He hoped that Skinner would stop her from doing the autopsy.

What if he dropped Bill? Obviously he could, he knew he could. Bill had indifference to inflicting pain on his side, but Mulder had age, fitness and training on his. Mulder could imagine the scene where he'd knocked Bill to the floor, taken the knife and was standing over him. What he couldn't imagine was what would happen next. Would Bill accept being disarmed as game-over and just stop fighting? And what would Frankie do then?

He tried to think. He'd talked himself into this situation. Hell, in the car coming over here, he'd just about rehearsed the exact words that he would use to get them to this point. It was just that he hadn't dared hope that he'd succeed. So he hadn't really thought about how to escape.

He'd just been too anxious for it to be over with. Before Scully got dragged back in, before any other innocents got hurt. He looked at Frankie. Poor Frankie. But it was OK. All he had to do was stop Frankie from killing anyone and Frankie could get past this. Just like Scully would. He hoped. He edged back again, slowly away from the gun and into the welcoming knife point. The so-controlled, no-longer-insane Bill Patterson at his back and the slowly-regaining-control, suddenly- insane Francine Patterson ahead of him. Both of them appearing frighteningly comfortable with their weapons. Having talked himself into it, there had to be a way to talk himself out of it. Surely? He looked at Frankie and doubted if she could even hear.

He felt the tip of the knife play with his neck and leaned forward against Bill's restraining left hand. Bill took the hint and moved the knife back a little and down, so it was barely in contact with Mulder's shoulder blade. Mulder stood up straight again, taking comfort in the slow little dance they had just performed. Bill wasn't ready for a physical confrontation with him. The tickle of the knife had been a mere tease. Bill's real interest was still in Francine and the status of her aim.

The men edged back in tandem and Mulder studied the glass bubble of the coffeepot. A pot of near boiling coffee would certainly constitute a weapon against Bill. He tried to calculate the odds, and caught their reflections in the immaculately polished stainless steel and dark glass of the microwave. At least he now had an idea of knife position that wasn't dependent on him leaning against its pressure. He forced himself to look, repelled by the image but seeing its advantages.

When he heard the sound of breaking glass, it took the decision away from him. He knew what he had to do. First, an elbow slammed low to Bill's ribs, left hand side so that the motion swiveled him away from the blade. Mulder hit the floor hoping that the breaking glass was the sound of the unasked-for cavalry arriving and not of some accident-prone cat.

Bill was instantly with him on the ground and battling, willing to make it hurt. Mulder was forced to offer his left arm as a shield. A little something for the autopsy, "defense wound number one," he mumbled as Bill drew blood. Or maybe Scully had left bruises. Patterson was heavy and it was that, rather than the blade, that was a problem right now as Mulder grabbed Bill's knife wielding wrist. There was a brief stalemate as Mulder tried to hold position, lacking both the space to twist and the necessary pivot points to push up against.

The sudden voice was of a man in charge, someone who expected to be obeyed. "Federal agents, we're armed! Drop your weapons."

Cavalry. Mulder sighed as he heard Scully swiftly swapping notes with Skinner. He didn't try to decipher the words just found inspiration in the duos sudden and miraculous appearance. He squeezed his fingernails into Patterson's wrist and forced the heel of his other hand up into Bill's throat. In seconds he had pushed Bill far enough back to be able to slam the knife from his hand.

Bill rolled away immediately, alert enough to know that he'd lost and sharp enough to surrender. Mulder heard Scully saying something that sounded like an order and he knew that it must have been, because Bill obeyed it and in an instant was ready to act defeated and compliant as Scully scooped his hands back into cuffs and told him to lie on his stomach. Perfect control, just as he'd claimed. And Mulder felt his stomach reel, because control meant that Bill had had a choice and Mulder didn't want to know that.

Shivering against cold fear and unwelcome knowledge, Mulder started to get back to his feet, froze again as he recognized the pressure on his ear. His fucking gun.

And he thought that maybe he heard Scully telling him something but wasn't sure if the words were for him or Frankie or Bill and couldn't even follow the words except that everything was going to be fine and there was no reason for blood to be shed.

And Mulder knew that they were talking to him. Skinner was telling him something about not moving and Scully was telling him that she was right with him and Frankie was breathing in heavy gasps and demanding that he look at her. He closed his eyes, unable to think straight with all the overloaded inputs feeding him too much data. He didn't need to hear his heartbeat being amplified by the gun pressed to his ear and he didn't want to feel the slippery warm dribble of blood that was snaking its way down his arm. He knew that he really ought to have his eyes open looking for opportunities to escape and signals from Skinner and Scully. But sight was the only sense he could switch off, so he did.

He could still see the gun with his eyes closed. He could imagine Skinner and Scully with their eyes and guns locked on Frankie.

"You win, Frankie. Like Scully. Too good for us." Mulder recited it softly like a mantra. Pause and repeat. Pause and repeat.

He tried not to assume anything as the pressure on his ear eased fractionally, just continued with his whispered chant.

And Mulder listened to Skinner's mantra and it merged with the one in his head, rolling and rolling and repeating until he heard Scully's voice too. "He doesn't deserve to die, Frankie. You win. You're better than them. But he doesn't deserve to die." And the merged chants continued until Mulder felt all his senses reduce to monitoring just their sound and their rhythm without even hearing the contents of the words. And then he realized that he was praying alone.

He opened his eyes as he heard the sudden footsteps behind him. The gun was on the floor and Skinner was coming forward to cuff Frankie. Mulder looked across the kitchen and saw Bill, not smiling, but serene, as if proud of his little girl and his protege. Patterson acknowledged Mulder with an approving nod and a light smile. If it was necessary to lose, then it was an honor to lose to his own young.

Mulder's hand was mercifully only a little shaky as Skinner gave him the gun that he'd picked up back in Mulder's apartment. Skinner, business-like and precise as he worked, dropped the weapon Francine had been using into an evidence bag. He left his agents to watch over their suddenly compliant prisoners. When he cautiously opened the front door, he kept his hands visible and empty so as not to cause alarm and was grateful to find that the first police car had already arrived. He thanked them for their swift response and canceled the request for a SWAT team and hostage negotiators.

Skinner was all professional calm and stoic reassurance, the situation was under control and they had two prisoners to take in. High security. Assault on a Federal agent. The prisoners were to be held separately and for that matter, kept away from everyone else. Interviews could wait until Skinner supplied an agent to liaise and until the victim of the assault was available to make a statement.

The EMT who patched up the knife wound in Mulder's arm talked about being lucky. Mulder just shrugged away, not quite listening to the advice to put ice on the bruising to his face. Logging it with all the other information that was of use to someone else.

When Dana Scully came back into his field of view, the first thing he saw were the bruises. He tried not to look, but every mark dug around in his memory until it hauled out the blow or hold that had caused it. He swallowed when he realized that she was no longer moving his way, that she had arrived and was standing directly ahead of him, touching distance close. "Sorry," he murmured.

He shrugged, a vaguely mystified ghost of a laugh instantly formed and faded. "I'm trying not to." He almost hiccuped a laugh at that thought too. "Frankie says that's my MO."

She shook her head and tried to force a smile. "Skinner says that you don't think she was involved in the other cases."

"She wanted to impress daddy." The words were hard to say. "She wanted to out-do me."

She let her hand slide forward to find his. He swallowed at the contact but welcomed it, slid a thumb over the back of her knuckles. She took another step and he stretched his arms around her. A warm, peaceful envelope in a cold, violent place. She mumbled words into his chest. "What I said in there. I just guessed what you were doing. Anything to talk her down, I didn't mean..."

She shivered, even in the warmth of his arms. "She had no excuse, Mulder. Neither did I."