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The characters herein are the property of 1013, Fox and Chris Carter. No infringement on their copyright is intended. Their usage here is for entertainment purposes only.

Rating: NC-17 for sexual situations and language. If you're under 17, please stop reading now.

Author's Notes: One night, I had a strange dream. I couldn't get the image of a man incinerating on stage during a performance of Don Giovanni out of my head. It was such an odd dream that I decided that it would make a good X-file.

I was schooled to be an opera singer, and I've always felt that there are many opera plots that would make excellent X-Files. The paranormal is the norm (paradoxically) in many opera librettos, and it only seemed fitting for Mulder and Scully to encounter the operatic world at some point.

I've also always wanted to explore the reasons behind some of the more difficult questions from the show. "How can Scully see all of the things she's seen and remain a skeptic?" was definitely on my mind during some parts of the story, injected with my personal theories of her thought process. And since this is MSR, I wanted to find a way for Mulder and Scully to express their feelings and perceptions of each other and still find that there are obstacles they need to contend with. I wanted them to approach their relationship with a full understanding of the problems inherent in becoming romantically involved, and Captain Welton certainly gave them quite a bit to think about. The evolution of their relationship is too important to be taken lightly, and my versions of Mulder and Scully realize this, and react to that in differing degrees.

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Il Commendatore

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Atto premio (First Act)

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9:11 p.m., March 6, 1998 Chesapeake, Virginia - The Little Opera Theatre

The man shifted in his seat and looked down at his libretto. He noted, to his relief, that he was a few pages away from freedom. The happiness that gave him was quickly quelled by a nasty glare from his wife, sitting to his left. His seat must have squeaked, not that you could hear it over the screeching of the singers on stage in front of them. He looked up again, to see a large, grey statue prop, obviously cheaply done. It must be cardboard, he thought, cut into the shape of a military man. All you could see of the singer was his head, which he was resting at the top of the prop.

If his wife had to insist on going to the opera, why did she have to insist on going to this second-rate group? He could hear what she would say, exasperated, telling him the answer. 'You have to support the arts. You have to support the young artists. It's our duty as upper-class art lovers.'

He didn't mind supporting them, as long as he didn't have to sit through two and a half hours of this.

"Ferma un po'! Non si pasce di cibo mortale chi si pasce di cibo celeste: altre cure piu gravi di queste, altra brama quaggu mi guido!"

He glanced down at his libretto, figuring he should try to follow at least some of the plot. His wife would surely want to hear his 'opinion' of the production on the way home. The statue had just said, "Listen to me! Earthly food can no longer sustain him who has tasted of pleasures immortal. Not for such things I left Heaven's portal! Greater need brings me here today."

His wife was transfixed. If he paid attention to this part, he should have enough to say to keep his wife happy.

"Pentiti!"

"No."

"Si."

"No."

Suddenly, a reddish-orange veil dropped from the ceiling, covering the singer playing Don Giovanni. The veil fluttered, and the footlights in front of it reflected through it. More cheesy effects, he thought. The statue rolled away, off the stage. The man playing Don Giovanni writhed under the veils, still singing. A moment later, the writhing and the singing stopped. He saw his wife sit straighter up in her chair out of the corner of his eye. He looked over at her, taking great interest at her surprise.

"He was supposed to sing a few more lines before he was pulled down into Hell," she whisper-hissed into his ear.

"Too bad, the trap door must have opened early." She turned toward the stage again, a self-satisfied smile on her face. She was always so happy to notice the shortcomings of others, he thought. And no one would know that better than he.

The opera ended, and the singers came out, some alone, some in pairs, for their curtain call. First Zerlina and Masetto, then Donna Elvira and the Commendatore, then Donna Anna and Don Ottavio, then Leporello, and then...

Everyone continued to clap as they waited for Don Giovanni to come out.

And clap.

And clap.

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3:31 a.m., March 7, 1998
Backstage, Little Opera Theatre

Mulder walked in, saw Scully already talking to the detective, and headed towards them.

"Mulder," she nodded at him, and introduced him to Detective Grant. She turned back to the detective, and said, "Tell your men to keep scouring this area. He must have come through here before leaving the theatre through that back door. There were too many people in the lobby for him to have gone through there, in full costume, without anyone noticing." Detective Grant nodded at her. She turned back to Mulder, showing him the publicity shot of the missing man. "His name is Gary Heller, approximately 27 years old, six feet, three hundred pounds. He was playing Don Giovanni in tonight's opera, before he disappeared from the stage a few notes too early."

"Well, Scully, who says that he left the theatre by any of these doors? Maybe he really was pulled down into Hell."

She looked at him, mildly surprised, and a little amused. "I didn't know you were an opera buff, Mulder."

"Well, I read about the end of the opera in one of the programs on the floor out there." He gestured towards the outer seating area. "A man can never get too much culture." He smirked at her.

"Nevertheless, Mulder, I doubt that even you believe that demons came and took this opera singer, playing the part of Don Giovanni, down into the depths of Hell."

"You have to admit, Scully, that's one Hell of a bad review."

She looked at him, growing tired of listening to puns about Hell. He got the point, and listened as she turned the conversation back to more serious topics.

"So why were we called in on this, Mulder? Besides the supernatural subject matter of the opera, where's the significance of this to the X-files?"

"Have you talked to the other members of the cast yet?" She shook her head.

"No, I just got here a few minutes ago, to find out that the only thing that anyone is sure of is that this man is missing and that he must be hurt. A fairly large quantity of blood was found on the floor, about five feet away from the trap door. But no one, at any door, saw him leave, and the blood isn't trailed through any other part of the building."

"When Skinner called me with the assignment, he told me that one of the other singers said that he saw this man, the missing man, swallowed up by the floor. And get this...he was more than five feet from the trap door in the stage floor at the time."

"But Mulder, that's not possible. I walked out on that stage myself, and other than the trap door, it's solid."

"Well, let's find the guy that saw the floor open up, and see if he can ID any of the demons."

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Green room, Little Opera Theatre

Scully looked at the slight, pale man with concern. His eyes were wide, his breathing was shallow, and she fought the urge to take his pulse to see if it was as erratic as she thought it would be.

"Sharon told me that you'd all want to talk to me. She told me to try to get a hold of myself first, that I wasn't making any sense. But I tell you, I know what I saw." He looked up at them, earnest, frightened, confused.

"Mr.," Scully glanced down at her notebook, "Vecchio. All you have to do is tell us what you saw. We'll try to find your colleague."

"What happened out there tonight, Mr. Vecchio?" Mulder asked. Scully watched as Mulder sit down at the table, across from the other man. Mulder put his hands out on the table, open, as if he was waiting for Mr. Vecchio to take the truth and place it directly into his palm. Whether Mulder was conscious of the gesture or not, it seemed to calm the young singer, and he started, quietly, to speak.

"We were finishing our performances of Giovanni. Frankly, we were all getting sick of singing Mozart, and this was closing night. We'd been planning a joke on Gary," Vecchio looked up at them, "It's tradition in the theatre, or in ours, anyway." He shrugged. "Anyway, we had this joke planned. We'd rigged the trap door so that it wouldn't open when it was supposed to. We'd planned to leave him out on the stage, under those veils. We thought he'd just try to hide himself, not easy since he's over six feet tall and he's gotta weigh over three hundred pounds, but..." Vecchio broke off, noticing that he was starting to ramble. He ran his hands through his hair, self-consciously. "Anyway, it was coming to the point where he'd be inching over to the trap door, and I was watching to see our joke get pulled off. And then, the floor just opened up around him, he had to be about five feet stage right of the trap, and he fell in. In just a few seconds, he just sorta fell into the darkness. And I was watching, watching the floor where it had disappeared, and I saw..."

"What did you see, Mr. Vecchio?" Scully asked him.

"Eyes." He shuddered, visibly, and he looked down at the oak table. He absent-mindedly started to trace one of the wood grains, over and over again. "I saw pair after pair of eyes...red light being reflected back at me, like in a picture, when you look right into the lens, you know?" He looked up at them again, the hard part of his story now behind him. "I missed every cue after that. The rest of the cast didn't do anything, and I figured after they finished the last act that they'd just played a joke on me. But when Gary never made the curtain call..." he let his voice fade away.

"Thank you, Mr. Vecchio. We'll contact you if we have any further questions." Scully told him.

When Mulder and Scully left the room, a very worried looking woman who'd been sitting in a chair in the hallway looked at each of them, slowly. She got up, and walked past them to enter the room.

"Excuse me, ma'am?" Mulder started, his tone mild, calming.

She turned slowly around. "Yes?"

"We're investigating this case. Were you here in the theatre tonight?"

"Yes, this is my opera company. I also played Donna Elvira tonight in the production."

"So you were on stage when Mr. Heller disappeared?"

She nodded, quickly. "Yeah, he wasn't supposed to be able to get through the trap door, but then he disappeared. I figured that someone else must have had second thoughts about our little joke and opened the lock on the door before the performance." She looked disturbed, but seemed determined to get through the story. "None of us noticed the blood until afterwards...it was all under the veils, and since the veils were kind of a dark reddish color, well, we didn't see it. One of the stagehands went to clean up the set, and..." she broke off, swallowed, and lifted her head again, almost regally. "Well, I was there, helping to clear the set. And the stagehand lifted the veils, and then screamed. I turned around, and he was holding up his hand. It was red, just like he'd burst a stunt blood pack on his hands." She looked down again.

"This was the last night of the production, we were all expecting a joke, a prank. I thought he'd palmed one of those blood packs, from when we did Lucia di Lammermoor, and was trying to scare me. I laughed, until he looked at me, with this horrified look on his face. Then I realized that Gary must have been...hurt...somehow." She shut her eyes.

"Ms.?"

"Welton. Sharon Welton."

"We're trying to find Gary, Ms. Welton. Rest assured that there is an explanation for all of this. We just haven't found it yet." Scully told her.

"Are you sure you didn't see anything unusual when he disappeared?" Mulder asked, trying to confirm what Mr. Vecchio had told them.

"No, nothing other than what I told you. We'd all...well, none of us were expecting Gary to go anywhere out there tonight, we'd set up a prank. I guess that Vec told you about that. But I sure didn't think that we wouldn't be able to find him at all."

Scully nodded at her, furrowing her brow, deep in thought. Mulder looked at her, wondering how long it would be before she would try to find a scientific explanation. He inwardly counted backwards from three, three...two...one...

"Was Mr. Heller especially depressed recently? Did he have any enemies?" Scully asked. Mulder nearly chuckled, thinking that they must have been working together far too long if he could time her scientific explanations down to the second.

"Well, Agent Scully, that's exactly why Vec is so shaken," she looked up at Scully, and explained. "Albert, Albert Vecchio...we call him Vec. He hates his name, Albert. He says that Pavorotti wouldn't be where he is today, had he been named Albert." She looked up, picking the story up where she'd left off. "I mean, I don't believe that any of this is his doing, but Vec's a little shaken because they'd exchanged some...words recently. Nothing out of the ordinary. We're all young, trying to make our way to the next rung in the opera world, and sometimes tempers run high. They'd argued during our last rehearsal. Vec and Gary had differences about the final scene, and Gary had been treating Vec like a second-rate comprimario through the whole production."

"Comprimario?" Mulder asked.

"Sorry. It's a term for a singer who specializes in smaller, 'character' roles. Typically, comprimarios are singers who had higher ambitions, only to find out that they don't have the talent to fulfill them."

Mulder nodded. "Please, go on."

"Vec and Gary both auditioned for the role of the Don. It was Gary's first audition here. Vec had been with us for over a year." She pursed her lips. "Sentimentally, I wanted to cast Vec as the Don." She looked at them, eyes darting from one to the other. "I do all the casting here too," she explained. "But Gary had sung the role before, while he was getting his Master's in Boston. I can't take any chances. One really bad review could kill a small company like this. I've had to cut ticket prices to get an audience lately as it is. So I gave the Don to Gary, and gave Vec the role of the Don's servant, Leporello." An unpleasant look crossed her face. "And Gary took that casting literally. He treated Vec at all times like an inferior. If Vec suggested something, Gary suggested the opposite. It finally came to a head during a rehearsal that we had two days ago," she paused, clearing her throat. "Our conductor wanted to clean up a few spots before our last performance of this opera. During the rehearsal, I think Vec had finally had enough. Gary kept standing directly downstage of him, drowning him out when they were singing at the same time. Childish stuff that I know happens a lot at other companies. But this is the only company Vec has sung with, and I've always tried to keep the atmosphere here more of a supportive one." She stopped, unsure if she should continue.

"What did he do? Were there any threats exchanged?" Mulder asked.

"Oh, well, not really. I'm sure he didn't mean what he said. Vec...well, Vec told him to go to Hell." She looked up. "Well, that's what happens to the Don at the end of the opera. Some of us that had grown uncomfortable tried to make a joke out of it, to soften the situation so they could at least work together for one more night. I'd already made up my mind not to cast Gary again." She shrugged. "He wasn't good enough to warrant the upheaval that came with him. Not to put too fine a point on it, none of us liked him. But I don't think that any of us disliked him enough to...to really hurt him."

"Thank you, Ms. Welton." Scully said.

Mulder and Scully walked down the hallway, towards the stage.

"Mulder, I'd like to go back out to the stage to take a look at the area where the blood was found. We should find something there to help us explain this."

Mulder didn't believe that for a second, but nevertheless, followed her out to the stage. A young police officer was kneeling on the floor, near the circle of blood-stained wood.

Scully pulled out her FBI credentials. "Officer, excuse me. I'm Agent Scully, this is my partner, Agent Mulder. We're with the FBI. Have you taken a sample of this blood yet?"

The young man looked up. "They brought in the FBI on this?"

Scully looked at him, giving him a no-nonsense, 'please answer the question' look, and said, "Yes, we've already spoken with Detective Grant."

The officer scrambled awkwardly to his feet. "Yes, Agent Scully, we've taken a sample of the blood, but we haven't found any irregularities in the stage floor immediately surrounding the area where the disappearance occurred."

"And there were a few hundred eyewitnesses in the audience, all of whom can corroborate that no one on that stage was within an arm's reach of the man at the moment that he disappeared." Mulder added. Scully glared at him.

"Can you collect a second sample for us? I'd like to send it to the FBI lab back in DC." Scully asked him.

"Sure. That won't be a problem."

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6:09 p.m., March 7, 1998
Wilma's Bed and Breakfast, Chesapeake, VA

Scully picked up hotel phone, dialed a few numbers, and waited.

"Mulder."

"Mulder, it's me." Scully said. "I just got the results back from the FBI lab."

"So soon, Scully?"

"One of our field agents down here drove it up to Washington, and the preliminary reports confirm some of my suspicions."

"Like?"

"First, I called Gary Heller's doctor, who told me that Gary was type AB negative, a relatively rare blood type. Would you like to take a guess what type the blood that we sampled at the theatre was?"

"So it was Heller's blood there on the floor."

"I think we can be reasonably certain of that. But there's more. It was contaminated with something. They found some dust in the sample that they're trying to identify. I think if we go and take a closer look at the floorboards, that we'll find a much more mundane answer to this man's disappearance."

"But Scully, how? You, yourself, couldn't find any irregularities in the floorboards. Heller weighs over three hundred pounds...who, no...how many people would it take to drag him through that non-existent hole? And how did they drag him out of the theatre without creating a trail of blood?"

"I don't know the answers to those questions yet, Mulder. But we are going to find them."

"You go back to the theatre, Scully, and see what you can find there. I'm going to see what I can find out about Mr. Heller."

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Scully looked again at the area of the floor where Heller had disappeared. The floorboards seemed unmolested in every way, frustrating her and ruining the theory that someone had carefully cut them at the edges of the boards prior to the performance and then somehow braced them quickly back into place. She and Detective Grant had looked at every edge of the floorboards for a ten foot radius around the bloody area, and found no evidence of tampering. She had hoped that the dust found in the blood sample was sawdust that had remained on the surface of the stage floor after a secret opening had been created. She had yet to find any proof to back up her theory, and she was growing more frustrated by the minute.

She'd spoken to Sharon only to find that each of the cast and crew members had their own key, and could come and go from the theatre at will. Most of them used the building's facilities to practice or to teach voice lessons to local high school students for extra income. There was no way to determine who had been in the building on the day that Heller had disappeared...no way to tell who'd had access to the stage long enough to -

Long enough to do what, she thought. She still couldn't explain just how, exactly, Heller had left the stage.

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Albert Vecchio had gone out driving to calm himself, but it only made him more wound up than he'd been earlier. His attempt to take a nice, relaxing drive had taken him through the Hampton Roads Bridge/Tunnel. It had been backed up for over a mile due to a major accident on the North side of the tunnel. After being cut off more times than he could count by desperate motorists trying to get just that one car length further ahead, his nerves were frazzled. Finally, he'd managed to get turned around, headed home along the longer, alternate route. And that summed up his life. The 'alternate route'. The harder road. The one no one really wanted to take, unless they simply found they had no other choice.

He couldn't understand why he was always the one that got stepped on. First, his unremarkable career during college. He always a good student, but never regarded as one of the more promising talents. Then, his utter failure to get into any notable young artists' programs. A string of fifth and sixth place finishes in competition after competition. He finally found a job at an obscure theatre in his hometown, a new program put together by Sharon. Sweet, beautiful, talented Sharon, who had no interest in him. Not romantically, anyway. The first time he'd heard her sing, he'd fallen in love with her. He recalled with a cringe the evening when he'd clumsily stumbled his way through telling her. She'd been understanding, but she carefully and firmly brushed him off. He'd still loved her, but understood that she was probably waiting for someone more remarkable than he would ever be.

Then Gary had arrived. He immediately started to move in on Sharon, after their first Giovanni rehearsals. At first, she was dazzled by him. She'd even mentioned to Albert that she was concerned, over coffee after an afternoon rehearsal. She'd found herself attracted to Gary and didn't think that she could afford to get romantically involved with anyone she was trying to work with.

But Albert had watched. He watched them during rehearsal after rehearsal as Gary's Don Giovanni seduced Sharon's Donna Elvira. And he alone could see that it was Sharon herself who was truly being seduced. Over the two months leading up to the public performances, he watched as the two had obviously started sleeping together. The shared glances during rehearsals that they thought no one else could see gave them away quite completely. He grown accustomed to watching each of them so closely that he'd been in the theatre the night that Gary had seduced another woman, the young blond woman who was playing Zerlina. He knew that he shouldn't have done it, but he'd gone directly to Sharon's office. Without giving her any explanation, he brought her to the door of the costume room where she could see the two of them rutting like animals.

Albert had deeply regretted hurting her. Her face had contorted into disbelief, followed by a flash of anger crossing her delicate features, replaced quickly with a mask of pain. As he watched her, he empathetically felt all of it along with her. Just his luck...he could feel her pain in his stomach, but he couldn't seem to transfer his feelings of love for her into her heart. He'd convinced himself that he'd had to show her...he'd known that she had to see it for herself. Albert held her while she cried, relishing the feel of her warm, trusting body within his arms. He'd allowed himself to enjoy it too much. Even now he could feel his heart beating faster, just remembering what it had felt like to hold her like that. He'd wanted that for so long that he'd indulged, letting himself believe that he could change her mind. He'd thought that maybe she'd see that she really wanted someone more like him, someone who really loved her.

His lips set together as he remembered how he'd lacked the courage to say anything. They'd left the theatre after she finished crying and he'd given her a ride home. As they sat silently in his car, he willed her to realize that she should love him. But she didn't seem to have such a realization. He'd walked her to her door and stared at her face, unable to speak. He couldn't tell her that he still loved her, as he looked into her dewy eyes, eyes filled with hurt and disappointment. She'd squeezed his hand, thanked him for the ride, and disappeared into her apartment building. And as he drove home, he pictured her curled up on her bed, her body shaking from the force of her tears. And he felt guilty.

Deep down, he knew that he should regret having shown her the cause of her pain. Yet he regretted only that he wasn't there in her apartment, holding her and comforting her, making her fall in love with him.

And somewhere in the back of his mind, his thoughts took a darker turn. Why didn't he do that? If she'd let Gary touch her, make love to her, then obviously that's what she wanted. Suddenly, he felt resolute. Her apartment was just off 664. Maybe this time, his alternate route was leading him to where he really needed to be. He'd go, and he wouldn't listen to her telling him that she didn't love him. If she wanted 'forceful', that's what she'd get. His thoughts started to become foggy, he was heady with his newfound courage. This time, nothing would keep him from his prize. Not even her own incorrect notions of what she really wanted. She hadn't cast him as Don Giovanni, but this time, he'd show her that he could seduce her, whether she thought she wanted him to or not. He was sick of being ignored.

Then each of the dark images that had filled his mind vanished one by one, replaced with confusion. He had the oddest feeling that he'd been thinking about something, planning to do something, but he just couldn't remember. He drove on, hating Gary almost as much as he hated himself. He felt drawn towards home, a fatigue coming over him that he'd never felt before.

Relief washed over him as he pulled into his parent's driveway and let himself in the back door. He hated having to live in his parent's basement, but Sharon couldn't afford to pay very much right now and it wasn't enough get a place of his own. He was so tired now that he could hardly keep his eyelids open...he had to get to his bedroom. He groggily flipped the light switch and started down the dark stairway.

Damn! The light was out. He'd left all the curtains pulled in the basement, so he blindly patted the stair rail while trying to inch his way safely down the stairs. Each step was a greater effort than the one before.

He wasn't sure how, but he found himself surrounded by music. He paused, halfway down the stairs. It was Sharon's voice. Their scene. The scene that he'd waited impatiently through each one of the twelve performances to do...Leporello's seduction of Donna Elvira. He heard her voice, and that sound fueled him. His fatigue melted away with each glorious tone.

"Mi fuggirete piu?" <You won't leave me?>

He sang, his voice tearing, unbidden, from his throat, answering her.

"No, muso bello." <No, beautiful creature.>

"Sarete sempre mio?" <You'll be mine forever?>

"Sempre." <Forever> he sang back, walking down the stairs again, hands outstretched. He needed no further aid from the railing. He was drawn towards her and those beautiful words. Every night he'd pretended they were really for him. Could it be? Could she really mean them?

"Son per voi tutto fuoco." <I'm on fire for you>

"Io tutto cenere." <I'm turning to ashes>, he answered. He really believed that he'd turn the corner and see her there, welcoming him. He imagined holding her face, kissing her and feeling her hair falling around their joined lips just as he'd always fantasized. Tasting her, having her, at last. This time he'd be more forceful. This time, he'd make her see, make her love him back.

Blood rushing, head pounding, he rounded the corner at the bottom of the staircase.

And reeled backward at what he saw there. Flames. Everywhere he looked there were dark red flames, lapping at the walls, traveling across the ceiling. And then the voices, as if they were inside his head.

"Tutto a tue colpe e poco. Vieni: c'e un mal peggior! Tutto a tue colpe e poco. Vieni: c'e un mal peggior! Tutto a tue colpe e poco. Vieni: c'e un mal peggior! Tutto a tue colpe e poco. Vieni: c'e un mal peggior!"

As the music of the chorus of the damned circled in his head, he felt himself sinking into the floor. Although at first he was shocked, he found it was almost calming, it all almost made sense to him. Of course Sharon didn't want him. Of course he couldn't live without her. He stepped further into the flames...or was he being pulled? It didn't matter. For the first time in a long while, Albert Vecchio relaxed, finally accepting that he'd been beaten and it was time to give up.

That calm cruelly hardened into fear as he opened his eyes to get one last look at the world he was leaving behind. He saw hundreds of pairs of those red eyes, staring back at him. The last earthly sound that Albert Vecchio made was a tortured scream, nothing that Mozart could ever had put to music, and then he was no more.

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8:57 a.m., March 8, 1998
Wilma's Bed and Breakfast, Chesapeake, VA

Mulder's cellular phone chirped at him from the pocket of his jacket, lying over the chair in the outer area of his hotel room. He quickly put down his razor, turned off the hot water tap, and walked to retrieve the phone.

"Mulder."

"Agent Mulder? This is Detective Grant. There's another suspicious missing person report. Wanna guess where the missing person works?"

"What, did they have another opera performance while I wasn't looking?"

"No, Agent Mulder, this one apparently disappeared from his home. At least, that's the assumption that we're making. They found his car in the driveway, his wallet and keys on the kitchen table, and the back door was unlocked. Albert lived in his parent's basement, and apparently he had a bad habit of leaving the back door unlocked when he came home."

"So he's just missing?"

"Well, in his room in the basement, we found a pile of dust. Preliminary results from our lab indicate that this is probably burnt remains of a human body. We found a small quantity of blood, which we're having analyzed. The type will be checked against Albert Vecchio's, just as Agent Scully recommended to us in the Heller investigation."

"Give me the address and we'll be right over there."

Mulder took down the address, and crossed the short hallway to get Scully.

"Scully, it's me," he said, as he quietly rapped on her door. He could faintly hear...something...through the door.

"Scully!" he repeated, a little louder this time. The noise coming from Scully's room abruptly cut off, and she finally opened the door.

"Mulder, I'm sorry, I was doing a little research." She nodded towards the inside of her room. "Don Giovanni." He looked surprised. "Turns out that Wilma has a fairly large music collection, and she let me borrow her CD player. Frankly, I think she's a little scared of us. I really wish you hadn't flashed your FBI badge at her when we were signing in."

Mulder thought back to when they had checked in to the B&B, he'd been surprised that there was an actual 'Wilma' running the place. As it turned out, staying here instead of one of the hotels that Mulder would normally have chosen turned out to be a good idea. In contrast to the homey 19th century furnishings, Wilma herself was utterly aware of the 20th century. They had internet access available directly from their rooms, full fax service in the sitting room, and satellite television service piped directly to the t.v.'s in their rooms. And, miraculously, the whole deal was still under government per diem for Southern Virginia.

Listening to the opera was probably a good idea since neither of them really knew anything about it. Too bad she hadn't gotten him, so they could curl up in her comfy room together. She could have listened to the music unfold, and he could have pretended to study the translation while actually studying Scully in all of her enigmatic glory instead.

"So, Scully, was it as good for you as it was for Heller? The music, I mean?"

She waited, counting backwards from five in her head, as she did nearly every time Mulder made one of his cute little comments. Part of her wanted to stick her tongue out at Mulder when he said things like this, just as she would have done with her brother when they were growing up. Well, perhaps not exactly the same way that she would have treated her brother. She fought that urge and replaced it with a calm, reserved, 'OK, I'm Dana Scully and let's get down to business' look. She changed the subject. "Did you find anything out of the ordinary when you looked into Gary Heller?"

"No, not really. Found some information about him, nothing of note. He has a Bachelor's and Master's degree, nothing remarkable on his record. How'd you do at the theatre?"

"Well, we still haven't been able to find anything unusual about the floor anywhere near the area that Heller disappeared from. Grant assigned some detectives to look into it, checking every area of that basement for any clues that would reveal how Heller disappeared from the theatre."

"Scully, why are you listening to the opera if you think that there's a reasonable, non-paranormal explanation for what happened to Gary Heller and Albert Vecchio?"

"Albert Vecchio? What happened to Albert Vecchio?"

"That's what Detective Grant just called to tell me. He was about to file a missing person report, but then he got the results back from his lab on the ashes they found on Albert Vecchio's bedroom floor."

"Human remains?" Mulder nodded at her. "Well, what are we waiting for?"

"I'm not even sure why I brought you along, Scully." He looked up, rewarded by the raised eyebrow that he was expecting. "You'd be a lot more valuable on this case if we had something to do an autopsy on."

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10:37 a.m., March 8, 1998
Albert Vecchio's residence

After checking out the scene of Albert's apparent death, they spoke to Vecchio's mother. Sitting on her fluffy country-style couch, Mulder found himself in the middle of 'This Is Your Life, Albert Vecchio'. Albert had been an unremarkable student, but had found during high school that he'd had a talent for singing. His parents had struggled to send him to an obscure conservatory in the Northeast. Vecchio's mother had always thought that her Albert would have been so much more successful, if only he hadn't been so shy.

Scully looked over at Mulder, idly wondering if he was disappointed that Vecchio hadn't claimed to have been abducted by aliens. Or that he was an alien. Or a devout member of some obscure, maybe even satanic religion. Or a shapeshifter.

She allowed herself to enjoy those thoughts just for a moment, then reprimanded herself. It wasn't really fair to Mulder. There was still plenty of time to find out that Vecchio was a clone, or that Mulder had known Vecchio in a previous life. She had decided long ago that working on the X-files was no good unless you could have some fun with it. She just had to do it privately, lest she allow Mulder to discover her sense of humor.

As it turned out, Mulder didn't think that there was anything that Mrs. Vecchio could tell them to give them a lead. She'd mentioned that he'd been spending a lot of time at practices, that he hadn't seemed "any more depressed that usual" lately, and launched into several other observations that seemed unremarkable to Mulder.

"Do you mind if we look around Albert's room?" Mulder asked, hoping they would find a lead there.

As they searched, they found no shortage of opera-related material, marked up musical scores, and an extensive CD collection.

Finally, from the bottom drawer of his desk, Mulder brandished a new prize.

It was a small composition notebook, the type with a black-and-white speckled cardboard cover. Inside, they found page after page of poetry in Albert's sloppy handwriting, all dedicated to Sharon.

"Maybe we should talk to Ms. Welton again. She must be fascinating, to warrant all of this bad poetry being written in her honor." The part of Mulder's mind that always working overtime to present Scully with a new double entendre suggested that he continue. "Of course, the poetry I write about you is much better than this. Much more...imaginative."

"Oh, really, Mulder? How many words have you found that rhyme with - " she broke off, looking at him. He would have believed that she was deadly serious, if it wasn't for her left eyebrow lifting, just a little bit.

"That rhyme with what?"

"Nope. I thought better of it, and decided that it would be better not to give you any ideas."

"Oh Scully, if you only knew about the ideas you give me." He said, giving her what he knew she would interpret as his trademarked 'Mulder's joking around' leer. But it was lost on her. Scully had already turned around to head for the car.

And it was a good thing that she had, or Mulder would have caught her smiling after that last exchange. Lord forbid, she thought, that she would ever give him the idea that she enjoyed these little 'talks' of theirs.

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1:45 p.m., March 8, 1998
Chesapeake, Virginia - The Little Opera Theatre

As they entered the theatre, Mulder put his hand on the small of Scully's back. She'd noticed that he tended to show these protective gestures whenever he thought that they were entering a place where he believed something supernatural had occurred. He'd done this even more often since her abduction several years before, as if he'd made a promise to himself to safeguard her more carefully after she'd disappeared without a trace.

As they walked down the hallway, they heard a high, loud voice coming from within a room on their right.

"Do you think that's Sharon Welton?" Mulder asked her.

"I suppose it's possible," she answered.

Mulder tapped on the door, but his knock was no match for the sounds coming from the room. He shrugged, pulled out his FBI ID, and carefully opened the door. The sound multiplied in volume when the door opened, loud enough to give Scully a reflexive impulse to protect her ears with her hands. She rejected that impulse quickly, assuming that such a gesture would offend the singer. Scully noticed with amusement that Mulder hadn't been as successful as she had been in hiding her reaction to the sounds that the woman had been making.

The woman in the room wasn't Sharon Welton. She was slightly younger, and her attractive appearance was a far cry from the stereotypical 'braids and horned-cap' opera singer.

"Hi," the woman said, never taking her eyes off of Mulder. "I'm Rebecca. Rebecca La Domenica." She was careful to pronounce her last name with the Italian pronunciation, stressing the bright vowel sounds and sounding oddly as if she had suddenly switched languages on them. "And I assure you, those were just warm-up exercises. Nothing to be afraid of." Her 'American' accent had returned, and her prom-queen smile widened. She continued, "Are you reporters?" she asked, hopefully.

"No, Miss La - " Mulder began.

"No, call me Rebecca. Really. La Domenica doesn't exactly roll off the tongue," she purred. Scully noticed with annoyance that she was still maintaining eye contact solely with Mulder. Rebecca ran her eyes slowly over him, finally giving Scully a quick once-over as an afterthought.

"No, Miss La Domenica," Scully said, sure that Mulder would be amused at her refusal to call the woman by her first name, "We're FBI agents. I'm Agent Scully and this is Agent Mulder, and we're looking into the recent disappearances and probable deaths of two of the members of this opera company."

"Well, Gary, yeah. Who else? Hey, is Gary really dead?"

"We have reason to believe that he is. And Albert Vecchio has also disappeared under dubious and similar circumstances." Scully summed the current situation up for Rebecca, and watched the singer as her eyes widened.

"Would you mind if we asked you a few questions?" Mulder asked.

He had underestimated Rebecca's ability to talk...and talk...and talk. And apparently, she had absolutely no sense of personal privacy. They listened as Rebecca told them about her observations that Albert had hated Gary, that Albert had loved Sharon, that she believed Gary had seduced Sharon. Then she started to recount a more personal story.

"So, we were here, practicing La ci darem la mano...do you know it?" Before they could answer, she supplied them with a quickly-sung rendition of the main theme, singing, "La ci darem la mano, la mi darai di si..."

Scully remembered that duet from the CD she'd listened to. She'd listened to it a few times before reading the translation, and had been mildly surprised to find that the lovely, swelling tones of the duet actually portrayed a weak-willed peasant girl being seduced by the Don on her wedding day.

"Well, one thing led to another. Practicing our stage kiss kinda... spilled into real life."

Mulder looked delighted, playing along with Rebecca's desire to gossip, even if she had to gossip about herself.

"Then what happened?" Mulder asked.

"Well, things got...escalated. Gary led me to the costume room and told me to try on my Zerlina costume. And I got undressed, but I never did get that costume on." She still maintained eye contact with Mulder, drawing closer to him and lowering her voice conspiratorially. "And I was a little freaked out, because he'd left the door open. But he turned me with my back facing the door, and..."

"And...?" Scully asked her.

Rebecca broke her gaze with Mulder long enough to reply to Scully.

"Let's just say that I didn't notice the door, or anything else for the next hour or so."

"So, Rebecca, does anything else stand out in your memory?" Mulder asked, drawing Rebecca back into her confessional mood with his hushed, confidential tone.

"Gary told me later that he'd seen someone in the hallway. Like it turned him on, or something. And from the way that Sharon cooled off on both of us after that, I guess it was probably her. And either Albert was there too, or Sharon told him about it later, because he acted like a complete ass towards me after that."

Mulder's head cocked slightly to one side, silently asking Rebecca a question that Scully couldn't quite understand. Rebecca, apparently, had no such problem figuring out what Mulder wanted her to say.

"Oh, Sharon was completely infatuated with Gary. They'd had a thing, or something. I guess Gary needed a little variety, or wasn't as serious about it as she was. And poor Albert...he was infatuated with Sharon, followed her around like a miserable little puppy dog even though Sharon didn't seem to care. And like I said before, they both got pretty cold towards Gary and me after that." She lifted one shoulder, dipping her chin down towards it, in a suggestive version of a shrug. "I guess I'll get some horrible roles from now on since Sharon hates me, but, well, c'est la vie, n'est-ce pas?"

Oh good, Scully thought, at least I won't die wondering what Rebecca's French accent sounds like. She wondered if Mulder was currently imagining Rebecca in a little French maid's outfit, made up like someone out of one of those videos that weren't his. Perhaps one titled 'Maids to Order' or something along those lines.

"Really..." Mulder intoned, his voice dropping, drawing that one word out into several syllables. "Well, thank you very much, Miss La Domenica," he said, coming as close as he could to the bright vowel sounds that Rebecca had used when she pronounced her last name. "I'm sure that we'll be able to get in touch with you if we have any more questions."

"I'll probably be right here, Agent Mulder." She purred. "Practicing."

"Do you know where we can find Sharon Welton?" Scully asked her.

"Sure. Take a right into the hallway, go two doors down and it'll be on your left. You can't miss it. It'll be the most unimaginatively decorated office you've ever seen."

Scully pictured Mulder's treasured 'I Want To Believe' poster hanging on the wall over his desk, and doubted that he'd agree with Rebecca's assessment of Sharon Welton's office.

As they started down the hallway, Mulder leaned down and whispered in Scully's ear.

"Gotta love those artists, Scully. Are you sure that you didn't have aspirations to be an opera singer? I think you would have fit right in."

Scully glared at him, wishing that she had a snappy comeback.

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Scully offered Sharon Welton a paper cup full of water. She'd been shocked when they'd told her what had apparently happened to Albert Vecchio, and Scully had quickly led her to a chair and made use of the water cooler in the corner of the office.

"We understand that you find this shocking, but if you could talk to us..."

"No, Agent Scully, it's OK. I want to help you in your investigation. I want to help you figure out what's happened to my employees...my friend."

Mulder noted her use of the singular when she said 'friend'. Apparently one of these two men hadn't been a friend of hers, and if he were a betting man he'd wager that it was Gary Heller who hadn't made the cut.

"Did Gary Heller and Albert Vecchio have anything in common, other than the obvious fact that they worked for you?" Scully asked her.

Mulder allowed himself just one moment to reflect on that. Scully had a knack of cutting a situation down into cause and effect. She made intricate mental lists of the possibilities, examined the veracity of each piece of evidence as it was revealed, separated the facts from the bunk, and then dissected each of the theories using the facts available. Her innately analytical way of thinking must be what had allowed her to see all the amazing, unbelievable things that they'd experienced together and still approach each new situation with the same razor-sharp scientific objectivity. Dissect. Theorize. Analyze. Conclude. That was his partner.

"I was...reluctant to tell you before. I, I didn't think it was relevant. I guess I was afraid that you'd think that what I have to say makes me a suspect."

"Just tell us the truth, Sharon, be honest with us and we'll get to the truth." Scully reassured her, trying to put the woman sitting opposite her more at ease.

"Yes, they disliked each other, but I guess you could say that Gary and Albert had something else in common. Me." She said, putting her palm on her upper chest, self-consciously rubbing her collarbone as she continued.

"Gary and I were involved for a short time during the production. I knew before getting involved with Gary that Albert had feelings for me. I'd kept my relationship with Albert friendly...just friendly, but I could see that he was becoming jealous of Gary. And I should have seen earlier that Gary could see that, and that he enjoyed torturing Albert with it. Finally, I decided I didn't want to be involved with Gary at all. After a working with him for a while, we all grew to dislike him. All I can think of, well, I guess that I was the connection between the two of them. So much, that I was initially afraid that it had been Albert who had hurt Gary." Sharon's voice started to crack, and the strain almost visibly set in on her facial features, her shoulders.

"It's OK if you need to take a minute. Do you need some more water?" Scully asked her.

"No, I'm fine. I still just can't believe that Vec is...gone. He and Gary couldn't have been more different. I don't think they had anything else in common, except that they...mutually disliked each other. You know, it's strange. Peter Sellars...not the actor, there's an opera producer by the same name...he visualized Don Giovanni and Leporello as being two sides of a similar coin." Sharon settled more comfortably into talking about opera. Mulder noted that she calmed as she rejected her thoughts about her dead colleagues, retreating to the safety of talking about opera. "They behaved differently only because of their social station. A very dark view, that man's true nature will lead them to take advantage of whatever situation that they are placed into, regardless of the detriment to others. Sellars cast identical twins in the two roles, to show how darkly similar they were. I couldn't have cast it more differently. Vec was sweet, and honest. Gary...well, he wasn't anything like Vec."

So Sharon had confirmed most of the speculation offered up by Rebecca La Do-may-nee-ca, Mulder thought, allowing himself to poke a little fun at Rebecca's pretentiousness. There was something that they were missing, he was sure of it.

"Do you videotape your performances? Anything we could look at?"

"We didn't tape the performances, but I did make a videotape of the dress rehearsal. You can watch that, if you'd like. There's a VCR in the green room."

She led them to the room, rewound the tape that was in the VCR, and offered them a libretto.

"This might help you follow along. It's a translation of the opera."

"Will you be close by? We may have some questions for you." Mulder asked.

"Oh, Agent Mulder, I'm not going anywhere. I'll be right next door in my office. This company is my life, and I'm trying to salvage what's...left of it." Sharon walked slowly from the room.

"Come on, Scully. I've heard this is one Hell of an opera."

How novel, Scully thought, that Mulder had found a new context for all of his Hell-related humor. Before, he'd been confined to using it when their cases involved Satanism. She pulled a chair up to the table where Mulder was sitting and read the libretto over his shoulder as the dress rehearsal unfolded in front of them. About a half hour into the videotape, Scully's cellular began to ring and she retrieved it from her inner jacket pocket.

"Scully." Mulder watched as Scully absorbed the information, and thanked and dismissed the mystery caller.

"That was the FBI lab. They've amended their analysis of the blood that we found on the stage floor.

"Burnt human remains, wasn't it?"

Scully pursed her lips and nodded once, indicating that Mulder had guessed correctly.

"So how do you burn a human being without burning anything around them, Scully? Twice in as many days, no less."

"I know what you're thinking, Mulder, but you can't possibly believe that these are two consecutive cases of Spontaneous Human Combustion? Don't you remember the last time that we considered this, back in Richmond?"

"Do you have any better ideas?"

"Well, I do know that the cases that have been attributed to Spontaneous Human Combustion have several common features...not that I believe that those cases are correctly attributed to SHC."

"Duly noted. Please go on."

"First, most 'victims' of SHC are alone at the time of immolation. Heller was in a theatre full of people."

"Ah, but Vecchio was alone."

"I'm coming to that, Mulder. Secondly, the victims are never found completely burnt. Some part of the body is found intact, and there is usually a quantity of oil found as well. I don't recall any accounts of blood being discovered at the scene of a supposed SHC. And I won't even go on to mention all the evidence that most SHC 'cases' involve someone who had a history of falling asleep in bed while smoking cigarettes or other similar carelessness."

"OK. But since SHC has been rejected as a theory to explain these kind of phenomena, isn't it possible that, if it exists, it hasn't been studied closely enough? Scully, it could be that we're just discovering new aspects of it."

"Then explain one thing to me, Mulder. How could Gary Heller spontaneously combust, burning every last part of his body and his clothing, leaving only a small pool of blood and some ashes? Especially without burning the silk scarves that were draped around him. How could that have happened?"

"I read a recent study which suggested a subatomic particle, called a pyrotron, is the mechanism for SHC, and that extreme stress could be the trigger."

"But Mulder, if you're considering the possibility that a photochemical reaction of a subatomic particle, due only to 'extreme stress' is enough to burn you alive, then you'd have to believe that Gary Heller incinerated without making a sound. And he did so in front of hundreds of witnesses, none of whom saw anything to corroborate that. And practically speaking, in a crematorium you need temperatures around 1,300 degrees Celsius, or even higher, to reduce a human body to ash. That fact alone makes it difficult for me to believe that SHC could be legitimate."

"Stop it, Scully. You're turning me on." He leered at her.

Scully studiously ignored that last remark, and turned her attention back to the television screen. About halfway through the opera, Scully found herself thinking that the singers were pretty good. From the appearances of the small theatre, from Sharon's allusions that they were always inches away from bankruptcy, she had expected...well, she didn't know what she'd expected, but the singers sounded just as good as the singers on the CD she'd listened to earlier.

Gary was a confident performer. It was clear that the character he was playing was cocky, narcissistic, selfish. Gary might have had just a little too easy a time acting the part. Albert cowered next to him, taking his orders. Albert's Leporello, quite clearly, hated Don Giovanni. In fact, Scully was beginning to wonder if perhaps they were missing the obvious answer. She grabbed the remote control, and paused the tape.

"Mulder, is it possible that Albert Vecchio hated Gary Heller enough to kill him? Or arrange to have him killed?"

Mulder leaned back in his chair, evaluating the situation. "Of course, not ruling out the paranormal explanations, Scully?"

"Humor me, Mulder. Let's just say that I'm considering the possibility that Albert Vecchio may have hated Gary Heller enough to kill him. From a psychological perspective, what is your analysis?"

"Yeah, Scully, that fits. If I was creating a profile of Heller's murderer, I'd say he wanted specifically to kill Heller on stage, during a performance. Perhaps because the killer was jealous of him, or wanted to hurt him while he was at his most powerful. He may even have intended to steal that power."

Scully nodded, watching Mulder think through the evidence and details into the mind of a killer. It never escaped her notice that Mulder could have been noted within the agency solely for being a brilliant profiler if his pursuit of the truth hadn't brought him to the dubiously regarded X-files.

Some women were attracted to specific physical attributes. In her younger, foolish days, Scully had been attracted to men with intense eyes, the occasional muscled chest. But truly, the most attractive thing about any man was when they displayed true brilliance, intelligence, talent. Even Frohike, she thought with mild surprise at the direction her thoughts were turning, was compelling in a way, when he was engrossed in...whatever it was the Lone Gunmen spent their time doing.

"Let's just say, for a moment, that Vecchio hated Heller enough to kill him, to steal his power by killing him on stage when Heller was at his most vital. Then he found afterwards that he'd identified too closely with his victim. He'd wanted everything Heller had, driving him to follow in his footsteps one last time. Vecchio could have killed himself the same way, yet again emulating the man that he both hated and envied."

"So Vecchio may have had more in common with Heller than Sharon Welton thought. Maybe Vecchio did envy the way that Heller...conducted himself." Scully added.

Mulder nodded. "And if the characters they played really are two sides of the same coin, then playing Leporello opposite Heller's Don Giovanni could have driven Vecchio over the edge in his real life."

Scully looked surprised. It certainly wasn't the first time that Mulder had embraced a completely non-paranormal explanation for one of their cases. But it also wasn't the norm.

"Come on, Scully. Let's file our reports and leave it to the local authorities to follow up on our theory. I hate to admit it, but I think that the answer behind this case holds nothing out of the ordinary."

"But we still haven't explained how Heller disappeared from the stage."

"I've been thinking about that. With those scarves draped over him, he was difficult to see. It might have appeared that he was further from the trap door than he actually was. The cast could easily have been surprised and confused when he disappeared, due to the practical joke they'd planned. Vecchio could have gotten close to him on stage, maybe he stabbed Gary, which would explain the blood. If he managed to escape the stage, he could have been kidnapped by someone working with Vecchio. The only testimony that suggested the paranormal was given by Vecchio, who is now our chief suspect. He could have said those things in a crazed attempt to cover his tracks."

"What about the ashes and blood that we found at Vecchio's house? Is it possible that he killed himself, or that he planted that evidence to make us think that he'd disappeared the same way that Heller did?"

"Those are both viable theories, but they're theories that the local authorities won't have any trouble investigating on their own. I don't think that there's any X-file here. So, what do you say? Can you show me around the area before we have to head back to DC?"

Mulder had surprised her again. She had lived here for a while, when her father was stationed at the Navy base in Norfolk. It was, in fact, where she had learned to drive, so she knew the area pretty well. Had she mentioned that to Mulder?

"Oh come on, Scully. You mentioned something once about watching the occasional sunset at the boardwalk in Virginia Beach. I just assumed that you had lived here during your Navy brat days."

She thought for a moment, wondering if that little seafood restaurant right off interstate 64 in Hampton was still in business. "I think I might know a good place to get dinner."

Mulder clicked off the VCR and took Scully's arm as they headed back towards Sharon Welton's office. Scully had opened her cellular, dialing Detective Grant. She'd explained their theory to him as they walked, raising her voice as they neared the room where Rebecca continued to practice.

"Vorrei, e non vorrei, mi trema un poco il cor...Felice, e ver, sarei; ma puo burlarmi ancor."

"Or we could just stay here. Who knows, Scully? It might be our only chance to enjoy a little opera."

"And it might be your last chance to enjoy Rebecca La Do-may-neee-ca, hmmm?"

Utter surprise. Innocence. Shock. They played over Mulder's face as long as he could stand to keep up the act before he gave over to amusement.

The last time Scully had found herself wondering how she and Mulder had managed to work together for so long, being so often at odds in their investigation methods, she'd decided that it was all based on two very simple things. In nearly every case, she'd found that it had been equally important to balance an openness to...extreme possibilities against the practical necessity to prove each step of the investigation process. She'd long ago admitted to herself that she did occasionally need Mulder around to broaden the possible explanations for the phenomena they investigated.

Second, they honestly got along with each other. Although she usually pretended she didn't appreciate his sense of humor, she was certain that he knew she secretly enjoyed playing his straight-man. She considered that he was the only man that seemed to consistently remember her birthday, fingering the keychain in her pocket. Put simply, the second reason that they worked so well together was that they were each truly important to the other.

As she'd thought all of this to herself, she'd just been standing there staring at him, head cocked to one side. She smiled, feeling her face turn a little red as she turned her eyes to the floor.

"What is it, Scully? I thought maybe I'd grown a second head there for a second, the way you were studying me."

"Sorry, it was nothing...I was just standing here, wondering how I'd managed to work with you for so long."

"So did you finally figure it out? Was it my animal magnetism? My charm? My pectoral muscles?"

In the background, Rebecca La Domenica continued to sing. "Andiam, andiam, mio bene, a ristorar le pene d'un innocente amor!" Her voice rose and fell over the peaks and valleys of Mozart's melody as it repeated and varied.

"None of the above, Mulder. In fact, I think the jury's still out." Somehow, she still managed not to smile, but she knew her eyes were probably giving away her amusement. She had to admit that it was Mulder that she'd pictured in her mind's eye when she had thought about the muscled chests that she'd been attracted to in the past. She flashed on a conversation she'd had with Skinner about a year ago, talking about the partnership. Skinner had told her, jokingly, that he was certain they could speak telepathically. Thank goodness that wasn't true.

Just before they reached Sharon Welton's office door, Rebecca's singing abruptly broke off, replaced with screaming. They rushed to the practice room, pulling out their weapons and expertly covering each other as they entered the room.

After looking in the room, they both let their weapons fall, pointing towards the floor. They looked to each other, silently wondering what could possibly have happened. The only thing in the room that had changed was Rebecca La Domenica. Where she'd stood there was now only a pile of dust on the floor, lying neatly near a blood stain.

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5:57 p.m., March 8, 1998
Wilma's Bed and Breakfast, Chesapeake, VA

Scully sighed, and used her chopsticks to pick out another snow pea pod from her container of take-out Chinese food. She prepared for round two with Mulder, trying to make some sense out of their case.

Out of the blue, Mulder said, "Earlier, when we were talking about Spontaneous Human Combustion...that got me thinking about that case in Richmond..."

"Are you thinking...you couldn't possibly think that Dr. Banton is here, killing opera singers for no reason. Besides, Banton was killed in the accelerator at Polarity Magnetics."

"No...don't you see? I told you at Ryan's funeral that I was sure it was Dr. Davey that was killed in the accelerator. What if they have Banton, and they've been experimenting with quantum bombardment?" He instantly regretted his reference to Detective Ryan, knowing that her death had caused Scully regret and guilt.

"Who, Mulder? What if 'who' has been experimenting with quantum bombardment? Wait, it doesn't even matter if you're saying what I think you're saying. You're telling me that when the government decided to do further experiments with quantum bombardment, they also chose to use a small opera company for their test subjects. Further, they waited until that opera company decided to do an opera in which one of the characters just happens to suffer immolation. Isn't it still much more likely that someone is committing these murders and trying to emulate the immolation in their recent production?"

"Using what means? Scully, you said yourself that you didn't know how someone could generate the temperatures necessary to burn a human body so quickly. And we now have a time frame to apply to these attacks. It was a matter of seconds from the time that we heard La Domenica scream until we got to the doorway, and she was already gone by then. And this time, there was no trap door, no other way out of that room."

Scully faltered for a moment, frustrated. "I can't explain any of this, Mulder. That's exactly why we have to continue to look for something to make some sense of this. We can't just make wild assumptions when we don't have enough proof to back up any theory."

Mulder frowned a little, grudgingly admitting to himself that Scully was simply contributing her usual, level-headed assessment of the situation. This was what he'd come to depend on from her, the strength of her logic and reason. He took a deep breath, logged each of the possibilities that he was considering, and decided to follow Scully's suggestion.

"OK, Scully. What do we know right now? Let's start from the beginning and see if we've left anything out. Then we'll follow up all of the leads, no matter how remote, until we find something."

He could be reasonable, she thought. Occasionally. "We've spoken to all of the members of the opera company. After Heller's disappearance, we interviewed each of them, taking their names from Sharon Welton's employee list."

Mulder got a far-away look in his eyes, and stood up abruptly. "Do you still have that list?"

"Yes, Mulder, of course I do. It's right here." She looked down to her case file, flipping through the papers until she found the list. "It's probably a good idea to go over this again, and make sure that we speak to each..." She broke off when she heard the door to her room open. She looked up just in time to see Mulder leave the room. Taking the list from her folder, she followed him.

"Mulder! What is it?" His muffled voice answered her, coming from the direction of his room. She couldn't make out what he was saying, so she followed him further.

"I couldn't hear you from the hallway, Mulder. What did you say?" He was looking for something, without regard to maintaining any order amongst his things. The contents of his bag were strewn on his bed, and he was shuffling through some papers on the desk.

"Aha! Let's compare these two." He was shaking a thin, vaguely familiar booklet at her. "It's the program from the production of Don Giovanni at the Little Opera Theatre. Maybe there were some volunteers that worked on the production. If they weren't paid they probably wouldn't show up on the employee list, but they might have seen something." He led the way back to her room, handing her the program as they walked. "Start reading off the names, and I'll cross reference them against the employee list."

Scully scanned the program until she found the first listing of names, the Dramatis Personae.

"Don Giovanni is played by Gary Heller," she read.

"Check."

"Donna Anna is played by Wendy Miscota." She thought back over her uneventful conversation with Miscota. The woman was fairly new to the area and this was her second production at the Little Theatre. She spent a great deal of time teaching voice and hadn't really socialized with the other singers. Scully hadn't found anything suspicious with her story.

"Check."

"Don Ottavio is played by Steven Franklin."

"Check. I talked to him. Nothing to make me think that he was involved. He's just a student at University of Virginia and didn't spend much time here. He had to drive in for each of the rehearsals and performances and left right after the final performance to get home in time for an all-night study group. He's been taking exams ever since then, and has multiple witnesses covering the approximate time that Albert Vecchio disappeared."

"Donna Elvira is played by Sharon Welton. Check."

"Hey Scully, you're stepping on my lines."

"Sorry." She looked down, trying to find where she'd left off. "The Commendatore is played by Captain Robert Welton."

Mulder ran his finger down the employee list to the W's. He found Sharon's name, but failed to find Robert Welton's name above hers on the list. "It's not here, Scully. Welton...would I be jumping to a conclusion if I said that he's probably related to Sharon Welton?"

"I think we need to talk to her again." She started to get up from the chair, continuing, "Let's - "

"Scully, why don't you stay here and continue to cross reference?" She sat back down as he tapped the pocket where he kept his cell phone. "Let me know if you find anything."

"OK, Mulder." she said, reluctantly, and picked up her Chinese food container. Cold. That figured.

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Back in his room, Mulder punched 10 numbers on his cell phone. Before putting the phone to his ear and in an all-too practiced rhythm, he punched the keys on the phone that would erase the number from the automatic memory feature. He heard Langly answer as he brought the phone up to his ear.

"Hey, this is Mulder."

"Mulder. You should see this streaming live video site that we found yesterday. I swear, it's enough to make you..."

"Sounds great, but could you find the time to do a little favor for me?"

"Rock 'n roll, man, what is it?"

"I just need a little data on a Captain Robert Welton. Whatever you can find."

"Sure, no problem. Why don't you come by in about an hour to get it?"

"I'm not in town, so just get some stuff that you can give me over the phone, OK?" Mulder knew that wouldn't go over very well with the Gunmen, but he needed their skills to confirm his hunch that Robert Welton had something to do with the disappearances.

"Uh, OK. We'll get back to you." The line abruptly went dead.

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8:56 PM, March 8, 1998
Chesapeake, Virginia - The Little Opera Theatre

Mulder noted that there was only one car in the parking lot, but he was willing to wager that he knew whose car it was. He approached the door, wondering if he could knock loudly enough for the person inside to hear him, but the doorknob turned effortlessly under his hand. He heard some familiar sounds from the end of the hallway, and followed them. The light was on in Welton's office, but she wasn't there. He continued towards the green room, where he and Scully had watched part of the dress rehearsal tape earlier that day. Someone was watching that same tape, and as he peered into the room he saw that it was indeed Sharon Welton who was the theatre's only occupant. She was watching the tape, surrounded by a tabletop full of discarded tissues. He rapped quietly on the doorjamb, trying to get her attention without alarming her.

Without turning around, she said, "I've been expecting you. What took you so long?" When she finally did turn, her face was blotchy and red. Her eyes were blank, lips trembling. "Oh, Agent Mulder. It's you."

"Who were you expecting?"

"Who else? The killer. I think I'm next. I mean, I could be next. I was afraid, but then I realized that there was probably nothing that I could do about it. I just decided to wait here until...the inevitable." Tears started to skirt along the reddish rim of her eyes. She was clearly exhausted, terrified.

"Ms. Welton, if you think your life is in danger, you should feel that you can call us. We're trying to get to the bottom of this before there are any more disappearances. In fact, I have a few more questions for you."

In a tiny voice, she responded. "Sure. Whatever you need, of course."

"We interviewed most of the people that were involved in your production just after Gary's disappearance, using your employee list. When we looked at the program that you gave us, we found at least one name there that didn't appear on the original list. Is Captain Robert Welton related to you?"

"He's my father."

"And he was in the production of Don Giovanni?"

"Yes, he played the Commendatore. Since he didn't receive any compensation, he doesn't appear on my employee list. I'm so sorry for the oversight, Agent Mulder."

"I have Agent Scully cross-referencing the two sources now, but I wanted to ask you a few questions about your father. It's not often that you find ex-Captain opera singers."

"No, but my father is a remarkable man. After my mother died, he made it a priority to really understand the things that I became interested in. I started taking voice lessons when I was fifteen years old. My father started taking voice lessons a year later." Her eyes moved away from Mulder, focusing on some point on the wall behind him as she remembered the details. "I can still picture him at one of our studio recitals, standing there in his Navy uniform and looking more nervous than I had ever seen him before. When I needed a Commendatore, the only person I could picture was my dad. The part just requires a little singing and the look of a distinguished, older, military man. He was perfect for it." She smiled, and looked down at her hands. "What else did you need to know?"

"We've interviewed everyone on your employee list who could have been in the theatre the night that Gary disappeared. We just need to talk to your father to make sure that we've spoken to everyone who might have seen something."

"I can give you his phone number. He doesn't live too far away from here. He moved to Southern Virginia after he retired from the Navy to be closer to me. He loves the area - he was stationed in Norfolk for a while, and visited me here several times right before he retired. But he loved teaching, too. It took quite a bit of goading for him to give up his teaching position."

"Where did he teach?"

"He was a Physics professor at the Naval Academy in Annapolis."

"When did he retire...recently?"

"No, a few years back. It must have been...sometime in the summer of 1996. He finished the second semester of that year, and then retired."

"You said that he visited you several times just before he retired?"

"Yes, he accompanied a student of his to Richmond several times, to assist with his thesis. He always made sure to take a few days of vacation afterwards and visit me here. It was when I was first starting the theatre, and to be honest, I needed all the support that I could get back then." She had written down his telephone number as she spoke, and handed the paper to Mulder as she finished talking.

"Thank you, Ms. Welton." Before turning to leave her, he remembered that she'd been frightened earlier, something about being 'next'. "I can probably make a call and get you some protection if you believe that you're in danger."

"Agent Mulder, I'm not sure that would do any good. I was in my office across the hall from Rebecca's practice room, and you and Agent Scully were in the hallway, and none of us could help her. I know it sounds crazy, but I'm starting to believe that...whatever is doing these things, they're not human."

Mulder extracted one of his business cards from his wallet, and handed it to her. "Now you have my cellular number. Feel free to use it, Ms. Welton."

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Scully hung up her hotel room phone after talking to the last of the three people that hadn't been on the employee list, other than Captain Welton. Rolling over on the bed, she unwillingly reflected on the possible reasons that Mulder had wanted to go by himself to ask Sharon Welton about Captain Welton.

Her reasonable side was telling her that Mulder, as a psychologist, needed sometimes to see a person's physical reactions to certain important questions, in certain situations.

Her professional side wondered if Mulder sometimes gave her 'busy work' tasks while he investigated what he considered the most viable leads to reinforce some sense of hierarchy between the two of them.

"Who's being the psychologist now?" she muttered to herself.

And some small part of her was annoyed that again, Mulder was going out of his way to spend time alone with an attractive female witness while tying his partner up with more mundane investigative tasks. She wondered if his unattached-male libido had ever really gotten in the way of an investigation before. That would have to be why she was annoyed at him. She felt that any possible attraction that he had for Sharon Welton was not only inappropriate, but might interfere with their ability to solve the case. Yes, she decided, that had to be it. She fought back the impulse to cell him on his cell phone and check up on him. Instead, she decided to get to bed early, so she could get up early and hopefully find some better leads than they'd found so far.

She changed into a pair of pajamas, glancing at the borrowed CD player as she pulled the pajama top over her head. She'd never been much of an opera or classical music buff, but she'd found that she'd enjoyed the CD set of Don Giovanni that Wilma had loaned her. It was only 9:45 according to the digital clock on her nightstand. That was still early enough to find Wilma and ask her to recommend another CD that she could play as she tried to fall asleep.

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Mulder drove along interstate 664, heading from the theatre back to the hotel. He was trying to put together the puzzle pieces of this case that were rattling around in his mind. Their case involving Dr. Banton and Polarity Magnetics had been in early 1995 about an hour away from Chesapeake, in Richmond. Just after that, Captain Welton had visited Richmond. His area of expertise also fit Mulder's hunch, only a physics professor would have had any reason to assist with a thesis being written at a lab like Polarity Magnetics. He wondered if Captain Welton could be linked directly to Polarity.

If there was a connection, perhaps the technology behind the strange effects that Dr. Banton had suffered had been further investigated. But what was the pattern? Why kill these three people?

He hoped that Langly was still close to the phone and called him back to give him more details. He quickly summarized the case for him, including the information he'd just gotten from Sharon Welton and asked him to look into the possible connections. He'd had to speak quickly to stay under the Gunmen's strictly enforced telephone call duration.

He continued to mull over the clues, but this was the kind of thing that he usually figured out while talking things over with Scully. Even when she made it clear she thought he was nuts, talking to her always seemed to focus his mind.

Well, not always, he had to admit. Sometimes being around her tended to cloud his mind. As that warm, unfocused sensation she sometimes gave him began to crystallize in his thoughts, he tried desperately to push it away. He honestly tried to do this every time he found himself straying out of the bounds of platonic thoughts about Scully. Normally he didn't have a whole lot of success. Think about... basketball, think back to that one-on-one pickup game that you played last week at the park. Remember the exertion, how tired you were afterwards, how you worried that you were getting old, even though you'd managed somehow to pull out the victory. Then he'd come home, taken a shower, and...

He'd come home, and in the steamy, relaxing shower he'd started to think about a different kind of activity he enjoyed that two people could engage in. But not just any two people. Himself, of course, to begin with. He'd tried to keep the picture of the woman in his mind's eye generic, to not quite see her face, her hair, her body. He'd tried not to put details to his fantasy partner. But unbidden, just as it had been for years now, the details dropped into place one by one. First came a flash of full red lips. They were covered in a shade of lipstick he knew quite well, and in his mind's eye he saw them silently form his name. Her beautiful red hair surrounded him as their lips touched. Heat suffused him as he imagined being able to explore further into her mouth, to feel her return that hunger as well.

He was reliving the fantasy that he'd had weeks ago, in his apartment's shower stall. And if he was being honest with himself, a fantasy that he'd had often over the past few years. He'd started to have them shortly after he'd first laid eyes on her in his basement office, despite having wanted so much at first to hate her.

Be practical, he told himself. These were no thoughts to engage in while operating a motor vehicle. He looked down at his speedometer, illuminated softly in the darkness of the car, and wasn't entirely surprised to learn that he was now clipping along at almost ninety miles an hour. He'd been zipping from lane to lane amongst the sparse late-night traffic, his actions automatic and well-practiced due to the Bureau's driving courses.

Someone had apparently decided that he needed to be punished for his illicit, inappropriate thoughts about his partner, he realized as the red light rotated in his rear-view mirror. He signaled and pulled to the side of the road, planning to flash his FBI identification and get out of the ticket.

Twenty minutes later, Mulder started back down the stretch of 664 that still separated him from his hotel room. There were some policemen who weren't impressed by Bureau credentials, he thought as he glanced at the citation sitting in the passenger seat of his car.

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Scully finished thanking Wilma for yet another CD loan. Bizet's Carmen, she read as she ascended the staircase, peripherally careful not to trip on the hem of her robe. The landing was graced with an arch window, presumably for guests to enjoy a view of the bay. Scully found herself looking through the glass, not at the water but at the small portion of the parking lot that was visible from that angle. How long could it possibly take to ask someone a couple of questions?

She pushed her irritation away as she looked out the window, refusing to acknowledge that her 'irritation' could probably more accurately be described as jealousy. She had decided to borrow a CD and enjoy it, dammit. She'd enjoy it so much that she'd fall into a relaxing sleep. It was a sensible plan, one that she planned to complete.

A dark determination drove her back downstairs to get a better view of the driveway. It was simple concern for her partner, she told herself. And it was simple chagrin that sent her quickly up the stairs a dozen or so minutes later when she'd seen Mulder's car pull into the B&B's driveway. There was no need for him to know that she'd waited up for him. No need whatsoever.

In the safety of her room, she queued CD 1 in the player, flipped open the little libretto that came with the CD, and pressed the play button. Halfway through the overture, she heard Mulder's unmistakable footsteps in the hallway. Step, step, step...pause? Was he pausing at her door? The footsteps answered her question as she heard them again. The noise died away, suggesting that he was now walking further down the hallway away from her room and towards his own. She relaxed, wondering how long she'd been holding her breath, only to find herself listening to those same footsteps coming closer to her door again. Then further away, and then silence. That was followed by two similar patterns, which was just enough to make her investigate.

She opened her door to see Mulder skulking there in the hallway, halfway between the doors of their rooms.

He tried to smile casually. "Scully! What are you doing up so late?"

"Mulder, it's only 10:30."

"Well, we probably have a full day ahead of us. You should get a good night's sleep. I'll fill you in tomorrow morning on what Sharon Welton told me tonight."

"Are you too tired to do it now, Mulder?" she said, sounding nastier than she'd planned. How strength-draining could a twenty-minute round trip and investigative interview have been?

"Well no, I...I actually wanted to discuss a few of the things I discovered tonight with you. See if we could find a connection." His gaze dropped to the floor, instantly regretting his seemingly innocent choice of words. Using the word 'connection' brought back the imagined sensation of her lips connecting with his, her hair connecting with his neck, his hands moving lower and relieving her of her clothing...

"Mulder?" she moved closer, cocking her head to one side in an attempt to re-establish eye contact.

"Hmmmm? Scully, did you say something? I'm afraid I might be a little more tired than I thought. I seem to be having trouble focusing."

She looked him over, sorry that she'd snapped at him, and noticed for the first time the piece of paper clenched in his fist. "I said, what's that orange piece of paper? It looks like a traffic citation."

"It is. I got clocked at twenty miles an hour over the speed limit on the way back here. I guess I just couldn't wait to tuck you in." That's it, he thought. Important to keep that twisted sense of humor going so she doesn't see how flustered you truly are. He was normally much more careful to separate his fantasies of her from the time that he spent around her. He worried that she'd grow uncomfortable working with him if she ever saw a glimmer of those thoughts in his eyes. But, oh God, his guilty admission about the ticket had warranted that raised eyebrow from her. He carefully swallowed, breathing steadily until he recovered from his reaction to Scully's eyebrow altitude. Concentrate, man. Concentrate on that positively un-sexy bathrobe of Scully's, the way it folds in the front and gaps slightly at each of her exhalations. Damn, that wasn't helping.

"Mulder? Why don't you get some sleep, and come by in the morning to discuss your new information? You're obviously tired. You can hardly keep your eyes focused."

"OK, Dr. Scully, whatever you say. Who am I to argue with my personal physician?"

Scully turned, finally disappearing from Mulder's sight. He reached into his pocket to retrieve his room key, only to find it missing. Maybe it was on the floor of his car. And if he had to go back out to his car, he'd have to walk past Scully's room again. He started back down the hallway, pausing again by Scully's door.

As he put his ear to the door, he could hear music. He strained to hear the melody, surprised to find it was a melody he knew. Bugs Bunny? Had he heard this in a Bugs Bunny cartoon?

Inside her room, Scully flipped to a page further into the libretto. It was a translation of the aria that Wilma had told her to listen to, and the first part made her chuckle.

'When will I love you? I've no idea! Perhaps never, perhaps tomorrow, but I am certain that it's not today!'

You really had to admire anyone that could manage that kind of a blase approach to their love life. If she was being truthful, Scully had to admire anyone who actually had achieved a love life. One beyond the realms of fantasy, she amended.

After a few verses, she followed along in the libretto again.

'Love stays away and you must wait for it, then when you don't expect it, there it is. All around you, quickly, quickly, it comes and goes and then returns.'

She supposed a corollary of that could be applied towards Mulder's unfortunate habit of occasionally disappearing when they were in the midst of a case.

Mulder. Always back to Mulder. How that annoyed her.

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The sounds were beautiful. As it wrapped around him, he let his imagination drift around the possible connections between the three missing individuals. It was strange that he'd been thinking about Polarity Magnetics earlier in this investigation only to find a mystery witness who was in that same area just after the time of Dr. Banton's experiments. A physics professor and DoD employee, no less.

Captain Welton. Sharon's father. He paused. They had largely overlooked Sharon's admission that Albert and Gary had both been closely connected to her. She'd had an unpleasant affair with Gary Heller, she'd been the uncomfortable object of Albert Vecchio's desires, and Rebecca La Domenica had betrayed her. Besides the obvious connection between the three missing individuals, the opera theatre, they were also connected much more closely to Sharon Welton herself, and the pattern was becoming more clear with each victim.

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As Mulder was made the connection, Captain Welton sat abruptly up in his bed, five miles away. For the fourth time in his life, he felt an immediate, pounding certainty that his daughter needed him. It roused him instantly from his deep slumber. His daughter was in trouble again, and this time he had no idea how to save her. He knew, although he didn't completely understand how he knew, that this danger couldn't be eliminated in the same manner without bringing more danger. Were they...police? He wasn't sure, but he knew if he made them disappear that more would come to investigate. Some other way must be found to distract them, to influence them. He wasn't sure how to use his...talent to accomplish that. But he'd sworn to his wife that he'd protect their only daughter, and he wasn't planning to break that promise now.

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"Scully," he said as he knocked on the door. He heard her shuffling around in the room, followed with an abrupt halt to the music. The door swung open, and his annoyed Dana Scully came into view. This usually amused him, how clearly he could see her fighting to be pleasant with him even though he was breaking through the last shred of her patience. At the moment, he only had time to wonder what she'd think of his latest theory.

"Can I come in? I'm not really as tired as I thought I was, and I'd like to talk about the case."

She wordlessly opened the door further, allowing him access. He settled into an armchair on the left side of her room.

"So what did you find out from Welton?"

"It turns out that Captain Welton is her father. And I was wondering, what's the connection between these people? It's Sharon Welton, when you think about it. Not just her theatre, the woman herself."

"I suppose there's a connection there, but couldn't you say she has a connection to everyone that works there?"

"Not as close as the three people who've disappeared." He outlined the ways that Gary, Albert, Rebecca, and Sharon's lives were intertwined.

"So you think that Sharon is behind it all? Crimes of passion?"

"Well, it's a possibility, but I don't think she's capable of it. I'd really like to talk to her father. Maybe he was angry that Gary Heller and Rebecca La Domenica hurt her, and maybe he worried about Albert Vecchio's attachment to her."

"I think you could say that most parents feel a desire to protect their children. If Captain Welton is doing this, he must have had help. He was onstage when Gary Heller disappeared."

"Unless it's not necessary for him to touch these people in order to hurt them. Do you remember when we talked about Polarity Dynamics earlier?" She nodded, and waited quietly as Mulder presented the information about Captain Welton's trips to Richmond.

"That's clearly a coincidence, Mulder," she said, quietly. "Richmond is a large city. There are thousands of people that live or visit there, and that doesn't mean that they were involved."

"I have Langly looking into that for me now, hopefully he can tell me if there is a connection there...a true connection, not just a coincidence of geography." He could hear irritation creeping into his voice, something he hadn't meant to bring to her tonight. He was tired, and even though he knew intellectually that Scully's constant insistence for proof was vital to their investigation's validity, his fatigue was starting to show through.

"OK, we should know about that as soon as Langly gets back to you. Did you find out anything else?" Anything useful, she thought to herself.

"Scully, is there something wrong? Do you want me to go?"

Yes, she thought, I do want you to leave. "No, Mulder. I'm not too tired to talk about the case."

"That wasn't what I asked you, Scully."

"But that was my answer, nevertheless. I'm perfectly willing to talk about the case right now." She had stressed the word 'case', and her verbal effect wasn't lost on him. They talked in circles for a few more minutes, getting nowhere.

I need proof, Scully thought to herself for perhaps the thousandth time since she'd been partnered with Mulder. As they argued, the words she spoke were automatic and meaningless. As fervently as she believed them herself, she knew that Mulder would throw away any evidence in favor of one of his hunches.

Why can't you just trust me, Mulder wondered. He listened to Scully once more explain to him the importance of evidence and proof, as if for the first time. They were at an impasse. This wasn't productive, and he knew it was just multiplying the minor annoyance they were both feeling. He could hear the strain in Scully's voice, and he knew he was reaching a similar breaking point.

"What's that, Scully?"

"What's what?"

"That ringing I hear. It's a bell. Can't you hear it?"

Her eyes narrowed as she concentrated, listening for Mulder's bell. "I don't hear anything."

"Don't worry, it just means that round one is over."

Her eyes, impossibly, narrowed further as she looked at him. "I'm not arguing with you, Mulder."

"Could have fooled me."

"What's the matter with you?"

"I was about to ask you the same thing."

"I'm just fine. I'm accustomed by now to you giving me the busy work assignments while you chase after some shadow, some half-baked hunch that you believe is the key to the case."

He had no idea how to respond to that. He couldn't quite argue with it, although he felt an immediate need to defend himself. Against his better judgement, he stepped into the mud-slinging ring with his partner.

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As the agents argued, a figure quietly made its way to the back door of the building. Quietly, he concentrated his thoughts on the deadbolt lock. Inorganic matter was always more difficult to manipulate, the strain multiplying as he fixated on it. As he let his mind concentrate on the lock's shape, smoke began to billow from it. Minutes later there was only a hole in the wood where the lock had once been, and he opened the door unimpeded.

If he could read their intentions, he could change them. The others, the ones that he'd gotten rid of, hadn't deserved the effort that it would take to manipulate them. Eliminating them had been easier, safer, more satisfying. He couldn't quite bring himself to do that to people who were just doing their duty.

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"Get out, Mulder."

"Perturbed, Scully? Because you can't admit that you're rigid?"

"No! Angry that you can't admit that you're..."

"Flaky? Is that the word you were groping for?"

Hearing that word again nearly cleared her mind of the anger that had gripped her. She struggled to regain control before they said something they'd regret. "I already told you, three times over the last half hour, that I didn't mean to say that."

"But you thought it, didn't you?" Mulder tried to regain his composure. Despite his annoyance, he was distressed to find that he yet again found Scully attractive when she was upset at him.

Scully took a deep, cleansing breath. "We should continue this in the morning. After a good night's sleep we'll have some perspective. I'm not trying to make this case difficult, Mulder. I'm just trying to ensure that we follow some reasonable method."

With the return of his calm, cool, intellectual Scully, he found his own heart rate returning to normal. He managed to smile at her, and saw that he'd surprised her. "As cute as you are when you're angry, I think you're right. Let's get some sleep. I'll get the information from Langly tomorrow, and that will undoubtedly clear up this argument."

And I'll be right, thought Scully.

And I'll be right, thought Mulder.

He touched her hand quickly before turning to leave her room. After closing the door behind him, she pressed the play button on the CD player, trying again to relax. A good night's sleep was what she needed. She heard Mulder go into his room, followed a few minutes later by some sound in the hallway. She'd braced for another knock from him, some re-hash of their argument, relieved when there was no knock at her door.

As Mulder changed into a comfortable T-shirt and fresh pair of boxer shorts to sleep in, he heard noises in the hallway. He pictured himself leaning up against Scully's door earlier, and wondered if she was doing the same now. Considering the shaky ground their mutual patience was on, he decided not to look in the hallway. If she was outside his door, she had her own reasons and was likely to be annoyed to be discovered.

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Captain Welton made his way through the foyer, following some shuffling noises back to the kitchen. The proprietor was cleaning up as he knelt by the doorway to the kitchen and concentrated on her. He pictured the anatomy of the brain, centering his concentration on her pineal gland. After he visualized that small structure at the center of her brain, he carefully radiated his command. Melatonin. It's time to produce melatonin.

He glanced quickly at his watch. Due to the lateness of the hour, the woman was probably tired already. Her newly raised melatonin levels should cause her to fall into a deep sleep within a half hour. She'd stay in that deep sleep for six or seven hours, at least. Perhaps the few hours that he could distract the people upstairs tonight, plus the time they'd spend sleeping through the night would be long enough. It would take some time, maybe more than he could really spare, to talk Sharon into leaving.

Captain Welton moved quickly up the stairs, hiding in a closet he found in the second floor hallway. After about twenty minutes, he'd noticed that the noises that he'd faintly heard coming from downstairs had stopped. The woman downstairs was probably asleep, but he waited another half hour just to be sure.

When he'd decided to leave the closet, he quietly walked down the hallway and leaned up against the first door that he came to. As he put his ear to its wood surface, he heard music. He recognized it a moment later, music from the second act of Carmen. The music was probably enough to distract the woman inside for now. He could sense that she was troubled, but he couldn't place the subject of her anxiety. It wasn't about his daughter, and that was all he needed to know.

He moved to the door further down the hall and listened there, as well. He wrinkled his nose when he realized what he was listening to. This man was at least as distracted as the woman had been, but the source of his distraction was much different. He listened to the moaning and sleazy music, rolling his eyes. He'd find it distasteful to reach into this man's mind, but it had to be done. He closed his eyes, picturing the structure of the human brain in minute detail. His breathing deepened as he searched, cataloguing the movement of electrical current as it moved from synapse to synapse.

He was truly surprised at what he'd found. The man inside the room was listening to the movie, but he was thinking about someone else entirely. This man was thinking about someone he knew. Welton purposefully waded deeper into those thoughts, and found that those fantasies were directed at the woman across the hall. As repulsive as it was, he'd have to manipulate those thoughts in order to protect his daughter.

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Mulder was long past feeling guilt over his predilection for the racier forms of entertainment. He was a healthy young man whose job gave him little time for a personal life. He did feel some guilt, as he had earlier, for thinking about Scully.

He rapidly forgot the guilt as his fantasy progressed. He leaned back, closing his eyes tightly.

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The man inside the room relaxed, and Welton took that opportunity to begin to influence his thoughts. He again pictured the man's brain, centered on the areas that determine the difference between fantasy and reality. As he concentrated, he gently pushed the man's thoughts from the area that handled fantasy to the area that perceived reality. The man panicked but then quickly came to embrace this new authenticity. Welton was amazed yet again at the brain's ability to find a context for new situations, to adapt. Just to make sure that the man in the room would stay engaged in his new 'reality' of his fantasy, he stimulated the man's adrenaline level and slightly increased his blood pressure. When he was certain that the man would be utterly distracted, he would turn his attention back to the woman.

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Mulder heard a soft knocking at his door, and quickly shut off the television. That knocking was either Wilma or Scully, and he didn't really feel like explaining away his evening's entertainment to either of them. He crossed the room to the door, and opened it.

And his mouth fell open.

Scully was standing there. At least, he was fairly certain that it was Scully. Lord, she looked like Scully, but she wasn't at all the way she normally appeared. Her hair was full around her face, tousled. As he looked down at her face, he noticed that she'd deviated from her normally restrained use of makeup. Her eyelashes seemed just a little bit longer, her lips a little redder, her cheekbones more defined. And that dress.

She was wearing a blood red dress. It hugged her from her shoulders to just above her knees. Scully's normal officewear hid quite a bit that was made clear in this dress. He felt heat radiating into his stomach as his eyes caught on her breasts. His breathing quickened and his mouth went dry as he made out the outlines of her nipples through the thin fabric of the dress. Oh God, Scully. You aren't wearing any underwear, are you? His gaze traveled downward and noted a distinct lack of panty line on her hips.

"Mulder, I'm so sorry that we argued earlier. I couldn't sleep until we got this straightened out. Can I come in?"

You can do anything you want as far as I'm concerned, he thought.

"Sure, Scully. Come in," he said, trying to sound casual. He coughed quickly when he heard his voice rasping out of his suddenly dry throat, about a half octave too high.

Scully crossed the room, carefully balanced on two inch-high heels, headed towards the overstuffed chair in the corner of his room. He noted that the combination of the dress and the heels made her walk differently. Her hips swayed slightly from side to side, unrestrained breasts bouncing with each step.

His mind fogged, and he wished more fervently than he had ever wished for anything before that the chair she was walking towards was further away.

She turned towards him to sit in the chair, perching carefully on its edge. The hem of her dress edged upwards as she did, and Mulder wondered whether her pantyhose went all the way up to her waist or if it stopped at her thighs. He'd take it as absolute and irrefutable proof of the existence of God if he found the answer to that question for himself.

"Mulder, I think we work really well together. We forget that when we argue."

"Scully, I never forget that."

"I'm glad." She uncrossed her legs, and re-crossed them the other way. The hem slipped even further up her legs. "You know, when I insist on certain investigative procedures, on proof and hard facts, it's only to preserve the validity of our conclusions."

Perhaps more than Scully's appearance was turning him on, her ability to string along a well thought out sentence excited him even more. He remembered his earlier thoughts about his healthy young libido, and how his work schedule guaranteed that he didn't get to indulge it very often. He'd always assumed that was the reason he found himself attracted to Scully, because they spent so much time together. But looking at her tonight, he had a moment of clarity. He fantasized about Scully because she was Scully. Beautiful and intelligent. And a million other things.

"And because I've grown to need you as much as you need me."

Mulder blinked a few times, wondering how Scully could have answered something he hadn't said out loud. As he began to ponder that, Scully stood in front of him. He wondered, idly, when he had crossed all the way to the other side of the room. He didn't really remember walking there, but he couldn't imagine why he wouldn't want to be as close to Scully as possible.

"Mulder? We spend so much time together," she said, reading his mind again. "I've always told myself that it would be a mistake for the two of us to get involved."

"It would certainly change the way we work with each other, Scully," he said, feeling his heartbeat accelerating. "Probably for the worse."

"Do you really think so? We risk everything for each other, Mulder. We trust each other, and we've been brought into the same passionate quest for the truth for intimate, personal reasons. What is there that we wouldn't do for each other now? Would it hurt you any less now if something happened to me than if we were...closer?"

"No, Scully. Everything you say is true."

"Then what's stopping us?"

"Scully..."

"Mulder?"

"I...I love you, Scully. I've always been afraid to say that. I thought that it'd make you uncomfortable, or that you might shoot me again." She laughed, and he enjoyed being treated to the sound he'd heard so rarely in the past five years.

"Do you see anywhere that I could be hiding a gun, Mulder?"

Mulder slowly walked around her, a maddening trip. He wondered if this was how the moon felt, following its inescapable orbit around the earth. He took in details of every inch of her that was visible, and fantasized about every inch that wasn't.

"Scully, if you're hiding a gun anywhere, then you're a more exceptional woman that even I've thought." She laughed again, putting her hands on his shoulders as she did. He smiled down at her, only to have his amusement replaced with naked lust as her hands moved slowly down his arms. As her hands traversed the border between his shirt sleeve and the skin of his arms, he shut his eyes and inhaled slowly through his mouth. When her hands reached his, she took them and placed them on her shoulders.

"You didn't answer me, Scully," he managed somehow to say.

"Did you ask me a question, Mulder?"

"Not directly, but since you've been reading my mind all night, why don't you do it one more time and answer the question that's torturing me?"

She carefully took his hands and slid them to her waist. He nearly fainted when his palms scraped along the outer curve of her breasts, but he somehow survived it as she stepped into his arms. He remembered many times she'd been there before, moments when they'd needed comfort. This time, he realized that this intimacy had been between them for years, unacknowledged.

"Yes, Mulder. Of course I love you. How else could I put up with you?"

"When you tell me in a few seconds that you're kidding, Scully, promise to be kind."

She craned her neck slightly, bringing her lips nearly to the same height as his. In doing so, she leaned more closely against him. As she came into full contact with his chest and pelvis, his composure was finally and completely broken. He moved his lips slowly to hers, touching them gently and trying to memorize every sensation. He felt her lips soften in return, and he opened his mouth slightly. Take this slow, he thought. Take it slow, and savor every second.

And then he felt the back of her hand brush his pants; taking things slowly became the furthest thing from his mind.

"Scully, you have to tell me now if this is what you want. Us, here." Perhaps not the most eloquent thing that he'd ever said, but he was hoping she would understand what he meant.

"Yes, Mulder. I want this too."

Her hands went to the bottom of his T-shirt, pulling it upwards. She ran her hands over his naked chest and he couldn't believe what it did to him. Nerves twitched under his skin and his muscles tightened. When she bent her head and took one of his nipples in her mouth, he was certain that he'd never live to make love to her. Her tongue swirled and lapped, and then her beautiful little teeth nibbled and bit at his sensitive skin. His hands came to the back of her head, and the combination of her torturous mouth and the feel of her hair in his hands became the beginning and the end of his existence. He had a distant sensation of her other hand traveling to the waistband of his boxers, and found himself quite vulnerable a moment later. He gently tilted her head upwards and looked down into her eyes.

"I'm at a bit of an unfair disadvantage now, Scully."

"Really, Mulder? I can't see any disadvantages in your body from my perspective."

"What are you wearing under that dress? I need to know... I haven't stopped thinking about it since you came in."

"Were you really wondering?"

"Of course, I was wondering."

"Do you really want to know?"

I'd give both arms and both legs to find out, he thought. I'd traverse any gauntlet that you could possibly put me through. "Yes."

She stepped carefully backwards, first one step, and then two. She reached behind herself, her movements slow and graceful. She found her zipper, and started to pull.

"Scully, wait." She stopped, and he continued to speak. "Could you turn around first?" She obliged, and he was able to watch as her fingers found the zipper again. Slowly, she pulled it downwards, splitting the dress in two and revealing her ivory skin inch by inch. He watched as the muscles in her back flexed slightly, a reaction to her movements to shimmy the dress down her torso. She bent at the waist and slid the dress completely down to the floor.

And it was that moment that he discovered that her pantyhose was the kind that only came to her thighs. He realized that he had pictured this earlier, but his imagination was nothing compared to the spectacular reality of her body. He tried to maintain some semblance of composure, and found that a more difficult task after she turned around. His first sight of her breasts was breathtaking. Her nipples, slightly darker than the surrounding skin, were already drawn tightly. He wondered if they could possibly harden even more under his hand. He glanced downward, and he had to explicitly concentrate to keep his breathing regular. Her flat stomach turned into a petite patch of hair where her legs met, and he felt his erection stretch uncomfortably in reaction to this visual stimulus overload.

"Scully..." he picked her up, one arm under her knees, the other circling her shoulders. He crossed the room, placing her carefully on the bed. She arched her back while waiting for him to join her there, and it was the most inviting image that he'd ever seen. He lay down next to her, and turned to kiss her again. She moved her head upwards at the last moment, and whispered into his ear.

"Lay on your back, Mulder." When she finished whispering, she nimbly sucked his earlobe into her mouth to punctuate her request.

He complied, of course. Under these circumstances, she could probably ask him to walk back to DC naked, and he'd have no qualms about granting her request.

She planted a single kiss on his neck, her breath hot against his neck. A moment later, he felt her suck one of his nipples into her mouth, pulling her tongue across it. And because Scully wasn't the type of person to play favorites, she soon gave the same treatment to his other nipple.

She kissed and nibbled the peaks and valleys of the muscles in his chest, and then playfully thrust her tongue into his navel.

Her hands went to his erection, and he lost the ability to concentrate on anything else. Her fingers swirled around the tip, tracing a torturously wandering line, first downwards, then upwards, and then closed tightly around his entire length. Her index finger found the slight indentation on the underside, just beneath his tip, and she applied light pressure there in slow circles. It took every bit of control he had not to orgasm right away. He wanted this to last as long as possible, no matter how difficult Scully made it for him to hold out.

He felt her warm mouth close just over his tip, circling with her tongue as she had around his nipples. Her hand moved up and down, massaging him in rhythm with the movements of her mouth. She took him a little more fully into her mouth, and he couldn't suppress a tortured groan. When the sound escaped him, he felt a slight shudder go through her. He realized, dimly, that it aroused her to hear the effects that she was having on him. When she dragged her upper teeth gently along him, he rewarded her with another groan. As she began to alternate between taking him completely into her mouth and almost releasing him totally, more sounds escaped from him and he began to raise his hips slightly to meet her thrusts. He looked down at her and couldn't believe how arousing the sight was. When he saw her hand slowly moving down her body until it was between her legs, he couldn't make it through this for one second longer.

"Scully..."

She looked up at him, and he pulled gently on her shoulders until her face was level with his.

"That feels so incredible, but if you keep doing that, I won't be able to do this."

"To do what, Mulder?"

Instead of answering her question, he rolled both of them over, careful to be as gentle as possible. His legs remained along her right side, and he took the opportunity to feel Scully under his hand for the first time. His fingers brushed her stomach first, and her head arched into the pillow beneath her head. He felt her hair between his fingers, and then he slid lower, brushing her clitoris. She was already wet, and he took a deep, calming breath. Her eyes were closed, her lips crushed together. When he brought his other hand to enter her, first with one finger, and then with two, she moaned deep in her throat. His body reacted immediately to her sounds. Was this how she felt as he moaned a few minutes ago? Did she feel as absolutely aroused as he did now? He started to slowly slide his fingers in, and then out of her. He moved his other hand over her clitoris slowly, her hips arched upward and she cried out sharply. He was afraid for a moment that he'd hurt her, but when he stopped her right hand flew quickly to his arm.

"Please don't stop, Mulder."

He continued, varying the speed of his thrusting fingers, curling them into different areas inside her vagina as his other hand massaged the hardening nub of her clitoris faster and faster. Her hands dug into his shoulders, and he watched her face and listened to her as she breathlessly punctuated his efforts with encouragement.

"Oh, Mulder, yes. Right...there, mmmmm. Oh, God...that...feels... so...good."

Her eyes flew open, and he knew that she was close. He quickened the pace of both of his hands slightly, using more a more circular motion with the hand massaging her clitoris. She cried out again, louder and more sharply. Her grip on his shoulders tightened for a few seconds, contractions pulling strongly at his fingers. When her body relaxed, he pulled his fingers slowly and gently out of her. His own erection was now painful and he longed to feel himself slip into her, but he knew that she needed some time to spiral downwards from her orgasm.

It was incredibly difficult to wait. He laid his forehead on her shoulder, trying desperately to think of something else. What seemed like hours later, she whispered in his ear.

"I need you inside me, Mulder."

That was, by far, the best invitation he'd ever received. He shifted onto her, and felt her legs wrap around his waist. When he did thrust into her, he thought, he'd be so deep...

She was now incredibly wet, and the head of his penis slipped effortlessly into her. He twisted his hips slightly as he slid the remainder of his length into her, and their eyes met.

He felt the muscles of her vagina pulse against him, and he pulled slowly back out of her. Despite the blindingly pleasurable friction of his withdrawal, he felt an immediate sense of loss at no longer being deep within her. He needed to thrust into her again. He quickened his pace a little the next time that he pushed into her, and then quicker still the third time.

He felt Scully's legs tighten strongly around him, and he realized that she was holding him above her, preventing him from being able to fill her completely. There was a glint of playfulness in her eyes, and he realized that she was going to help him prolong this as long as they could. He swallowed slowly, and took a deep breath. He attempted to move his hips downwards, and her legs tensed again. She gave him enough room only to slide the head of his penis into her, so he took as much of her as she offered him. His pace grew faster, and he could see that her resolve to deny him full access was wavering.

Her eyes closed, and he kissed her neck, her earlobe, and finally moved to her mouth. She returned the kiss, and her legs relaxed. He moved completely into her again, stopping momentarily to savor the newly restored sensation. He started a regular rhythm. He was close to orgasm several times, yet he somehow managed to stave off the inevitable. He needed to whisper in her ear.

"Scully, I need you on top of me." She nodded, and they moved as one entity until Mulder found himself on his back. She leaned back, arching her back and pushing him even further into her. As deep as he'd felt himself within her when he was on top, he felt himself even further inside her now. He watched her breasts move as her back arched, and his hands slid slowly up her ribcage.

"Oh, Mulder."

He took her full breasts into his hands, pinching her nipples between his fingers. She started to move over him, unhurriedly, with a slightly circular motion. The sensation of that movement was the most incredible thing he'd ever known. An 'mmmm' sound rose from deep within her throat as he continued to alternately manipulate her full breast, then just her nipples, and then her full breast...

Her pace accelerated.

"Scully, you have to slow down. I can't last much longer like this..."

"Oh, Mulder, I'm so close, I'm so close."

He pressed her shoulders back slightly to allow him access to her clitoris as she moved over him. He started to rub her as he had earlier, and he fixated on two things. He needed to make her come again, and he needed to do this before he could give in to his release. Thankfully for him, he knew she was close. She looked deep into his eyes as they moved together, cried out his name, and he felt the powerful muscles that surrounded him pulse again and again. The sensation pushed him over the edge as well, and he emptied into her, thrusting his hips upward.

Seconds later, he was dimly aware of her sliding to his left to lie next to him, her beautiful head resting on his chest. Mulder fell into the deepest sleep that he'd had in years.

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When Captain Welton was convinced that the man inside the room would be occupied for the rest of the evening, he went to the woman's door to find some way to distract her. He reached out into her mind, and wasn't entirely surprised to find that she was thinking about the man across the hall.

"Why aren't they just staying in the same room? It sure would make things easier," he whispered to himself. He concentrated again on the woman inside the room, picturing her brain and repeating the same exhausting procedure on her that he'd just performed across the hall...

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Scully poured herself another cup of hot water from the coffee maker, and dunked her tea bag into it.

She had to put their recent disagreement out of her thoughts. This was their constant conflict and she'd learned long ago that there was absolutely nothing to be gained in worrying about it. They worked together quite well in spite of their differences, so there was nothing actually wrong with the way they interacted.

Except of course, that they didn't really interact. She thought back to the few real conversations they'd had, and realized how many aspects there were to her that Mulder didn't know. There must also be an equal amount about Mulder that she was completely unaware of, and that saddened her.

She recalled her evening with Van Blundht, the night that she'd tried to confide in her partner. She'd drunk several glasses of wine and told him story after story about her ex-boyfriends, dipping into her memory all the way back to her high school years. It had been so nice to have Mulder listen to her and really hear the things she was saying. She had a secret fear that he never really paid attention to what she said, unless he was trying to make a double-entendre or needed a medical opinion.

She leaned back on the bed, beginning to sip the hot tea. Unfortunately, the liquid was still too hot and she burned her tongue. She turned to the bathroom, knowing a glass of cold water would soothe her, and stumbled backwards a few steps at what she saw there.

"Mulder? What are you doing in my room?" Her annoyance was building. Who did he think he was, sneaking into her room while she was trying to relax?

"I wanted to make sure you were OK. I know that I make things difficult sometimes, I know I drive you crazy. I'm sorry that I didn't knock, too. I was just going to peek in here, see that you were OK, and then slip back out. But once I got here, well, I want to talk to you, Scully."

"Mulder, I can't talk about this case for one more minute tonight. My throat is already sore after doing all those phone interviews. All I want to do now is put my feet up, listen to some music, and go to sleep."

"I didn't say that I wanted to talk about the case, Scully."

"What else could you possibly want to talk about?"

Mulder looked down at the floor, shuffling his feet. He looked back towards Scully a moment later, but she noticed that he was just a few degrees off of meeting her eyes as he normally did. "I want to know what Eddie Van Blundht knows."

She was immediately uncomfortable. After the escapade with Van Blundht, she hadn't been able to find a way to explain it to him, or to herself. He'd obviously seen that she was about to let 'Mulder' kiss her. Oddly, that didn't seem to be the part of that evening that had bothered him. Whenever he'd brought it up, he appeared to be much more troubled at the notion that Eddie had made a better 'Mulder' for her than he did himself. Despite the fact that his thoughts on the matter seemed turned only towards jealousy, she'd been worried about the ramifications of what he'd seen. She'd been mortified at the revelation that she'd wanted to be intimate with that 'Mulder', and didn't want it to change their partnership for the worse. She'd tried to resume the status quo, surprisingly successfully so far, but she couldn't help having felt a little exposed. Although Mulder seemed to treat her the same way after the event, she approached Mulder's question rather carefully.

"Mulder," she began, only to be interrupted.

"Scully, I can tell already that you're preparing yourself, trying to find some way to answer the letter, but not the spirit of my question."

"Mulder, I..."

"And if you're about to tell me that I'm wrong, then you might as well just say 'I'm fine', and give me the complete catalogue of Scully White Lies."

She looked up at him, eyes widening, but she was relieved when she saw that he wasn't angry. He was just poking fun at her.

"No, I'm not angry or annoyed with you, Scully. In fact, I understand your desire to present specific image of yourself at all times, to control the way that people view you. That's just part of you, Scully. A part of you that I've come to grow fond of."

She felt the urge to arch her eyebrow, but she fought it successfully. She was trying to be serious with him, and the last thing she needed to hear right now was how endearing Mulder found her expressions. "Thank you, I suppose, Mulder."

"It was a complement, Scully."

"Duly noted. Was that all, Mulder?"

"No, didn't you hear me before, Scully? Months ago, you spent an entire night pouring your heart out to, well, me...only I didn't get to hear it. I've been thinking about it, and I decided that I want to know what you were ready to share with me."

"On demand, right now? The atmosphere, the circumstances were different that night. Not the least of which that I was a little drunk."

He magically produced a bottle of wine from behind his back. How had she not noticed it earlier?

"Mulder, we need to be alert and ready to work tomorrow. People are disappearing, this is serious."

"And we're both professionals. I have no doubts about our ability to recover from a few glasses of wine and put in a full day's work that's worthy of our government pay."

"And I was a lot more relaxed that night, Mulder."

He put his hands in front of him, chest high, palms toward him, and entwined his fingers. Suddenly, he turned his palms toward her, cracking his knuckles, and she recognized the universal 'I'm getting ready to give you a massage' gesture. He followed it by rubbing his hands together, apparently warming them up for her.

"All right, Mulder. Let's have one glass of wine, but then you have to promise me that you'll let me go to sleep."

"Uh-unh. I'm not promising anything."

Scully gave him a look that tacitly asked, 'Why?'

"Give it a chance. If I can't relax you, put you at ease, then I'll leave."

Oh hell, she thought. What could it hurt?

"Now, let's take care of your tired neck muscles. I saw you massage your neck earlier, in the car on the way back from the theatre. Come on, don't tell me that I warmed my hands up for nothing." He moved a chair closer to where she was standing and gestured at the seat. She acquiesced, and sat down. He moved behind the chair, and leaned over to whisper in her ear.

"Lean against the back of the chair. You can slouch for once. It's OK, I won't tell." She followed his suggestion again, reasoning that the more she cooperated with his sudden need to 'relax' her, the faster she could get rid of him and go to sleep.

She heard him rubbing his hands together again, and then he placed them carefully on her neck. She had expected him to do sort of the traditional kneading motions. Then maybe he'd make some strange joke and then retreat from her room, leaving her wondering what the last fifteen minutes had been about.

But the reality of his hands on her neck was nothing like she'd imagined. Instead of kneading, he was running his warmed hands slowly and deeply over the muscles in her neck. He worked his way upwards to her hairline, then downwards to her shoulders.

"Oh."

It was Mulder's turn to raise his eyebrow.

"'Oh', Scully?"

"That does feel good."

"I'm glad. I gave you a boring, tiring assignment, I know. This is the least I can do to make up for it." His hands ran along her skin, a little faster now. She started to move with him, craning her neck slightly when he moved upwards, then pushing her head backwards into him when he moved downwards.

"What about your temples, Scully?"

"Hmmmm?"

"Your temples. How do they feel?"

"Mmmmm, my temples? I guess they're a little tight."

He lengthened the distance that he covered, now going from her temples, over her neck, and down her shoulders.

"Anywhere else?"

"My arm hurts." She was beyond trying to get him to leave the room. She had been tense, and Mulder's impromptu massage was working. She hadn't realized how much tension she'd been carrying around.

His arc lengthened further to allow him to massage her arms.

"Oh, Mulder. That feels great."

"How about your feet, your calves, maybe?"

"Oh, you don't have to - "

"I don't mind."

"No, really..."

He circled around the chair, pulling over another chair to sit on. He gave her feet, ankles, and calves the same wonderful attention that he'd given to her head, neck, and shoulders.

"Wow, Mulder. If you ever quit the bureau, I'd suggest going into physical therapy. Those hands of yours work miracles."

"Maybe it only works on you, Scully."

"I doubt it. My neck is starting to miss the attention." She surprised herself, half hoping that he'd make a joke about splitting the difference between her neck and her feet. That would put him just about...well, somewhere even more interesting.

"I'll make a deal with you. First, tell me if this is working. Are you more relaxed? Am I helping you get ready for a good night's sleep?"

"Oh, I'm definitely more relaxed. I have to admit, I didn't think it would work, but you're changing my mind."

"OK, Scully, here's my proposal. You tell me one, just one, story that you told Van Blundht. I'll reciprocate if you want me to, and then I'll leave you alone for the evening. Deal?"

She hesitated. In truth, she hadn't expected to get off so easy.

"While you think about it, can I pour you a glass of wine?"

"OK, Mulder."

He stopped massaging her, and she corrected herself.

"Not, 'OK, I'll have some wine', that was 'OK, I agree to your deal'." She opened her eyes, looking at him just as he resumed, starting to work on a knot in her left calf muscle.

"Anytime you're ready, Scully. Take your time."

She thought back to that night, the stories she'd told, and chose one of the safest ones to relate to Mulder.

"OK. When I was ten years old, I went on a camping trip with my father, and my tent - "

"Oh no, Scully. That does sound fascinating so far, but I want a juicier tale than that. Something that Chaucer would be proud of."

"That wasn't part of the deal, Mulder."

He stopped massaging her abruptly, and she immediately missed the contact.

"If you're going to go back on your part of the deal, then I'll just get myself a glass of wine and get out of your way." She looked at him again, just to see if he was wearing an appropriately devilish expression. And of course, he was.

"Get one for me too on your way out."

"Oh come on, Scully. How about you tell me about your first date? That couldn't be that embarrassing."

"You wouldn't say that if you'd been there."

"Now you're just teasing me. Come on, Scully. I'll even let you drive tomorrow."

"How can I pass that up?" And before she realized what she was doing, she was telling him about her first date. Sitting in that movie theatre, hands desperately hanging onto the popcorn box because she was scared witless that he'd try to hold her hand. After the movie, his father picked them up and drove her home. Little what's-his-name had walked her up to the door, and she remembered him giving her a kiss on the cheek there on her parents' porch. She also remembered seeing her father peering through the curtains of the front window and witnessing the whole thing, resulting in a rather uncomfortable talk about the birds and the bees the next afternoon after church.

When she was finished, he told her about his first date. Some of the details were similar, and Scully wondered if every American teen's first date took place in a movie theatre. It turned out that Mulder hadn't quite been able to bring himself to kiss his date, but that he'd squeezed her hand just before he left her at her house. His eyes darkened, and he ventured into some difficult territory.

"I didn't kiss her that night because I realized that she reminded me of Samantha. We'd been joking around, I teased her about her long hair or something stupid like that during the ride back to her house. Something about it reminded me of joking with Samantha. I hadn't really spent time with any girls other than my sister, so I guess the comparison was inevitable." He looked up at her, obviously desperate to lighten the mood. "And before you start wondering about my emotional stability, I did eventually get over it and discover that kissing a girl was a very enjoyable activity."

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah, in fact, I had this one girlfriend in high school...I remember perfecting my technique with her in between classes. I had so many late passes that semester that my mother got called in for a parent/teacher conference."

"Come on, Mulder, what could you possibly have learned from a high school girl about kissing?"

"Ah, analytical as usual, Scully. It was more of a mutual discovery process. I learned plenty through trial and error with her."

"Like what?"

Mulder leaned forward, just inches from Scully's lips. "It's not really the kind of thing that you can explain in words."

"Well then, was it this?" She quickly closed the distance between them, pressing her lips to his. She opened her mouth slightly, and lessened the pressure she exerted on him. He responded instantly, moving with her and following her lead. She broke contact long enough to say, "Show me."

She felt his hand touch her shoulder, and it slid downwards until it rested on the small of her back. With his other hand, he found hers. He pulled her gently from the chair until she moved towards him, finally resting lightly on his lap. He reclined her, supporting her neck carefully.

His mouth moved over hers, and she had the oddest sensation that he was drinking her in. She wondered how much of her would be left when he finished, and that disappointed her. It troubled her that he would, at some point, stop kissing her.

And as if he'd known what she'd been thinking, he stopped.

"Did it work, Scully?"

Groggily, she tried to reply, but she was only really capable of repeating part of what he'd said.

"Work?"

"Did I relax you?"

Mortification. For the second time in one night. He was just trying to relax her. That's all this was. And this kissing was just a little joking around, since they'd been talking about his kissing technique. Trying to recover her dignity, she tried to disengage herself from him and stand up. She only succeeded in sitting straighter up on his lap, so she decided that she'd better start talking.

"Yes. I'm much more relaxed after your massage. I should be able to get to sleep easily now." He looked confused. "Thanks for the demonstration of your osculation skills. Really made your story come to life."

His brow wrinkled and his head drew back from hers. "Is that what you thought I was doing?"

"I...didn't think...with the...when you..." She mashed her lips together in frustration, and gathered her stumbling excuses into a single coherency. "Well, weren't you?" Better to make Mulder explain than try to stammer her way through this on her own.

"I'm not sure you recognized it, but I was kissing you. I was really kissing you. And to be honest, I thought you might kick my ass, but I wasn't expecting you to think I was kidding."

"I didn't think you were kidding, not exactly. More like an illustration to go along with your story. I certainly didn't think...well, not that I actually minded, but I didn't assume that you were trying to...well, not that you were trying to do anything...except maybe just - "

"Scully, shut up."

"What?"

"Don't misunderstand me, Scully. I like to hear you talk, and you usually have something quite intelligent to say. But not this time. And frankly, if you're using your lips to speak, then I can't use them for this." He punctuated his sentence by resuming where they'd left off.

She figured that experiencing this was worth being told to shut up. For now. There'd be plenty of time to be annoyed with him later.

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Welton realized they were both fully engaged in their fantasies, and their minds would be so stressed from their experiences that it would be many hours before they could possibly resume their investigation.

They could be to Pennsylvania by then, maybe further.

Welton left the inn quickly, off to talk his daughter into stealing away in the night. They'd both be safe from the people that could hurt them or keep them apart, he'd see to that.

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"Mulder, let's move this to the bed."

His eyes widened just then, and he quickly quoted the bureau's policy against fraternization to her. She felt her cheeks redden, then heard him say, "Gotcha."

"Well, if that's how you feel about it, Mulder, then I promise to cease any and all allusions to, or requests for, sexually-oriented activities."

He stood up, carrying her just long enough to whisper in her ear.

"We're long past that."

As if sensing that she was a little uncomfortable to be held completely off the ground, he put her down.

"Oh, you think so, do you?"

Concern showed on his features immediately. He took two quick steps backward, putting a more conventional distance between himself and his partner.

"Scully, I'm so sorry. I obviously got the wrong idea. I've been in here all night bothering you, dragging personal information out of you and making apparently unwanted advances. I promise, I'll leave right now and never say another word about it. I just hope that you know that I thought you felt the same way, and I never would have done anything if I'd realized that..."

She interrupted him before he started to beg her not to file a sexual harassment grievance. "Mulder, did anyone ever tell you that you talk too much? Or that you give up too easily? Or that they took 'gullible' out of the dictionary?"

"Don't you mean that they put my picture in there, where the definition used to be?"

"Mulder?"

"Yes?"

"What are you doing still talking to me?"

"I was...I mean, I wanted to make sure that, you know, that we were on the same page, oh hell." Obviously exasperated with being tongue-tied, he appeared to have decided just to kiss her. Scully backed up carefully, until she felt the bed behind her legs.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, she thought to herself. She pulled him gently backwards, and they bounced down onto the bed. Mulder started to move from her lips to her neck, and he miraculously found the most sensitive part. He expertly nuzzled the area where her neck and shoulder came together. Somehow, the memory of how his hands had felt while he was massaging that area and the current sensation of his lips and tongue there merged together. She couldn't think of any way to describe it...the only word that she could grab from her brain was, 'incredible'. She took a deep breath, and was surprised at the sound that came from her. She had positively growled at him. He stopped when he heard it and looked over at her, utterly tortured.

"Scully, what are you trying to do to me?"

"You know that old saying, don't you, Mulder?" She heard her own voice, deeper and breathier than she normally spoke. "If you have to ask, then I'm not doing it right."

"Oh, Scully. You're doing it right. Trust me."

"I do, Mulder."

"Then trust me to do this." His hands went to the buttons of her pajama top, and he looked inquisitively at her. She nodded her consent, subconsciously taking a deep breath in anticipation. She knew she was in good shape, the bureau would have it no other way. Regardless, she was definitely experiencing some anxiety at being revealed to him like this.

He resumed kissing her, one hand supporting her head and the other doing a hit-and-miss job of undoing her buttons. She felt a distinct temperature change, and realized that he'd succeeded in relieving her of the slight burden of the silk pajama top. He raised his head, and she immediately missed the weight of his lips on hers. She felt Mulder shift his weight backwards, away from her. For one crazy moment she imagined that something about what he was seeing was repelling him, and she opened her eyes to gauge Mulder's reaction.

His mouth was open, almost emulating the comic proportions of one of those cartoon wolves. It wasn't difficult him with a big long tongue rolling out of his mouth and his eyes literally popping out of his head. The image nearly caused her to burst out laughing.

"Mulder?"

"Mmmm?"

"What is it, Mulder?"

"Mmmm?"

"Mulder!"

He shook his head. "Scully, huh?"

"What is it?"

"It?"

She widened her eyes at him, silently hoping that he would be able to reply to her soon.

"Scully, that's got to be the most beautiful thing that I've ever seen."

"'That'?"

"You. You have to be the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I wish you could see yourself the way I do right now. You're lying back, your hair is spread out around your head, your face has this enormously sexy blush to it and now I'm just unwrapping the rest of the present. And pardon my male hormones taking over at this point, but your breasts are amazing, Scully. You're amazing."

"I...I don't know what to say."

"You can say anything you want to say. But you don't have to say anything at all."

So she just smiled at him. He smiled back, and she noticed his gaze running all over her body. He became serious then, and said, "Scully, I have to see the rest of you." For the second time that night, she silently nodded to him, bracing herself on her elbows to make his job easier. She felt the silk slide over her stomach and legs, and again felt self-conscious as he openly stared at her.

"You're not quite relaxed yet, are you, Scully." It should have been a question, but it came out like a statement.

"No, Mulder, I'm fine."

"Oh, no. Don't do that to me now. I set out to relax you, and relax you, I will." He pulled off his T-shirt, and then slipped off his sweatpants, leaving him only in a pair of cotton boxers. He put out his hand to her, palm upwards, offering to help her up. She put her hand in his, and he pulled her gently to her feet. He led her into the bathroom, leaned over to the tub, and turned on the faucet. When it grew warm enough, he put the stopper in the drain, turned to the counter, and grabbed the complimentary bottle of bubble bath.

"How could I have guessed that you hadn't used yours already? You need to relax more often."

"I guess you'll just have to keep showing me the way," she replied, as he poured a generous amount of the pink, viscous liquid into the flow of the water. The bubbles started to appear right away, and he turned back to her. After helping her into the tub, he urged her to lean back against the porcelain.

"Is that too warm?"

"No, it's fine, Mulder. Too bad there's not room for both of us."

"This is for you...I want to do this for you, at least for right now. Just lay back, and I'll take care of everything."

He took a handful of water and ran it carefully through her hair, wetting it down to take some shampoo. Thoughts of Donnie Pfaster came immediately to her mind, though she hoped that Mulder wouldn't realize what she was thinking about. He must have felt her muscles tense, because he immediately reassured her.

"It's OK to remember that, but also remember that you're here now, and that you're safe. I'll die before I ever allow anything like that to happen to you again."

"I know that." She reached up and ran the first two fingers of her right hand down his face. He caught her hand at his jaw, kissed it, and leaned to whisper to her.

"OK, you. Lay back and relax."

She closed her eyes when she heard the telltale click of the shampoo bottle. As she just felt him rubbing the warmed-up suds into her hair, she realized that he must have put the shampoo in his palms and warmed it for her. He scratched lightly at her scalp at first, working the bubbles completely through her hair. Then he began to massage her head more deeply. And it felt wonderful. She'd had her doubts about allowing him to do this, but she was a little disappointed when she felt him carefully begin to rinse the bubbles away.

"Don't worry. I'm not done with you yet."

He picked up the soap, rubbing it between his hands and working up a lather just as he had with the shampoo. He picked up each of her arms in turn, rubbing the soap onto her skin. He moved to her shoulders, skipped down to her legs and feet, and then looked at her sheepishly.

"I've never known you to do anything halfway, Mulder," she said, finding a subtle way of letting him know that she was ready for him to touch her more intimately.

He re-soaped his hands and put them tentatively to her breasts. She couldn't stop a moan from escaping from her lips, and the sound seemed to steel his courage. He cupped one breast, rubbing the soap onto it, and then moved to the other. He brushed the water in the tub over her to clear away the lather, and bent his head to take the nipple closest to him into his mouth. She gasped again as she felt him start to suck and bite at her skin. She wasn't sure how much of this she could take before she either got out of the tub or pulled him in there with her. He raised his head, and she again immediately mourned the loss of contact between his lips and her body.

"Scully, can you keep your eyes open?"

"Yeah, I think so. I should be capable of - " She stopped when she felt his hand slip between her legs, aided by the water that created an almost frictionless surface on her skin.

"Scully, I want to watch you, and I'll understand if you have to close your eyes. But if I could look into your eyes, that would be incredible."

"I'll try," she managed to squeak out. She silently added, 'but I'm not making any promises'. She already felt the urge to close her eyes. It was instinctual. It would certainly make it easier for her to concentrate on exactly how Mulder's torturous movements made her feel, but she also felt safer with her eyes closed. She could hide how profoundly this was affecting her, giving her more time to gauge if this night held the same significance for him.

She looked into his eyes, and mentally locked herself on that position. Mulder began to move his hand from her clitoris to the opening of her vagina, circling lazily around each area along his path as his fingers found it. With his other hand, he found her left nipple and began massaging it again. Circular motions, light pinches, and deeper rubs, all contrasting with the course that his other hand was taking. She struggled to maintain his gaze, sure that her face was now contorted with the effort.

"God, Scully, you're so beautiful. I want to kiss you so much, but I can't stop watching your breathtaking face."

"It's so hard, Mulder," she struggled to say. "The urge to shut my eyes, it's - "

"I know it's hard, Scully. But don't shut me out. Let me see you, really see you. That's all I need from you. If that's all I got tonight, it would be more than I ever thought would be possible for us."

Scully wasn't sure if it was Mulder's words, the relentless motion of his hand, or a combination of both that was about to push her over the edge. "Oh, God, Mulder. That feels so good. So good." She inclined her chin in utter ecstasy, remembering at the last second not to break eye contact with him. She saw his eyes darken, and his hand slowed. The hand he'd put on her breast moved to her opening, and he slowly pushed two of his fingers into her. He started a slow rhythm, moving in and out of her. He synchronized his slow circles with his thrusts, completing three hundred and sixty degrees each time that he reached the apex of his thrusting motion. She had to bite down hard on her bottom lip to stop herself from closing her eyelids. He groaned when she did so, and accelerated his movements.

"Scully, let me do this with my mouth."

Her eyes widened, and she pictured him trying to hold his breath and do what he'd just proposed while she was still in the tub.

"I mean, let me take you to the bed where we can try this a little differently."

He helped her up, wrapped a towel around her so she wouldn't catch cold, and they walked back to the outer room. When they reached the bed, he spread a second towel that he'd brought with him on the bed. She let the towel encircling her drop, and she laid on the bed, relishing the feel of fluffy linen against her back. He removed his boxers, and she finally got to see him in all his glory. Mulder went to the foot of the bed, and paused for a moment, staring at her hungrily and looking like the cliche of an idyllic marble statue. He climbed onto the mattress, starting to move over her, and she began to wonder in earnest what he would feel like inside of her. When he stopped at her stomach, she remembered that he had some ideas about further preliminaries. Her legs clenched a little at the thought. He saw that she looked a little tense in anticipation of the total and complete vulnerability that she'd feel, and he kissed her stomach lightly to get her to relax.

"You're beautiful, Scully. All of you, and I want to know every inch. There's nothing to worry about. It's just me."

Just Mulder, she thought. Just Mulder's head between her legs...nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to dwell upon. Lord help her, she hadn't been this nervous since she'd had to testify in front of Congress.

His tongue tentatively found its way through the folds of her skin. When he reached her clitoris, she instinctively thrust upwards to deepen the contact. She moderated that reflex, mindful that she could break his nose if she wasn't careful. That was one emergency room explanation that she wasn't really prepared to make.

His tongue moved downward from her clitoris, and circled her vagina a couple of times before thrusting into it. She knew that she was still wet from the bathwater, but she felt herself grow even wetter. His mouth lifted, and she heard him begin to speak.

"You even taste incredible, Scully. God, I'll never get enough of you; you just keep getting more amazing."

She laid back, relaxing her legs just a little bit more. When she did, she realized that her thighs had still been tense, each one just centimeters from his ears. As her head fell back, she mentally opened herself completely to him. She felt his hands slide under her to cup her buttocks, and he lifted her slightly.

He mimicked with his tongue, teeth, and lips, the movements that he'd made under the water earlier with his hands. He seemed to know just when she was approaching orgasm, each time slowing down or moving in a way that staved off the final, wracking pleasure for a few minutes more. His right hand came out from underneath her, sliding down her thigh, and then resumed its earlier place inside her vagina. He was learning every detail of her, unveiling each of her secrets one by one. Just as he seemed to decide to push her towards release, she realized that she didn't want the first orgasm that Mulder gave her to be a solo adventure. She pulled herself upwards and his head popped up, immediately concerned.

"I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"No," she said, hearing that her voice was now a pale, whispering shadow of its former self. "I don't want to do this alone."

"Scully, part of why I wanted to do this was so that I wouldn't be tempted to rush you. I want you so much, Scully, I'm not sure how long I'll last, and I don't want to disappoint you."

She pulled him up so she could whisper in his ear. "Put yourself into me, and I swear, there's no way you could disappoint me. What you were doing felt so incredible, but I need to feel you filling me up. I want to see you, Mulder. I want to look down between us and see you slipping inside me."

"Scully, do you know how much money you could have saved me in 1-900 calls if you'd started whispering to me like this years ago?"

She kissed him, unable to believe how much it excited her to taste herself on his lips. As they deepened the kiss, Mulder moved between her legs.

"I'm still all wet, Mulder." She realized her double entendre a minute too late.

"I know you are, Scully. And I can't wait to get there."

She could feel him entering her, slowly. He was holding most of his body weight up on his arms, and she realized that he was doing it so that she could look down and watch his entrance, as she had said that she wanted to do.

She looked down, watching as he disappeared into her body. When their bodies had closed together enough so that it blocked her view, she looked up into his eyes and tilted her hips upward. She felt him slip into her further as she did it, and they kissed again. She hugged him closer to her, trying to get him to release his weight onto her, and he complied, pulling her more closely underneath him. He began to thrust, in a rhythm now as familiar to Scully as her own heartbeat. Mulder tried to get his hand in between them to massage her as he moved into her, but it was clearly too difficult to do that and support his weight as well. Scully counted to three in her head, then quickly shifted her weight to the right, ending up straddling Mulder's waist. She pushed upwards from her knees, drawing him out of her, and then relaxed again, feeling him slide through her again. She repeated that several times, speeding up, and she felt her breasts start to bounce. His eyes dropped to watch their movement, and she realized that was the first moment since he'd been inside her that their gazes weren't locked.

"Mulder, keep looking at me." She'd grown addicted to that shared stare, their deep examination of each other.

He stopped moving his hips upward, shocking her with a feeling of sudden starkness. She hadn't realized how many sensations he lit in her until he'd stopped.

"Do you trust me, Scully?"

"Yes." No bullshit. No jokes. Just a simple yes was all that she knew he needed to hear.

He held her shoulder, pulling himself further up so that they were both somehow sitting up, yet he still managed to stay inside her. Although he was still leaning back slightly, he now could easily reach between them and apply more direct pressure to the incredibly sensitive fold of skin just above her vagina. She hugged her legs around him, and felt herself about to orgasm.

"So...exquisite...it almost hurts, Mulder, but oh, God, don't stop."

"Scully..."

"Harder, Mulder, oh, Jesus, harder." His hand rubbed against her, savagely circling between them. He was hardly leaving her vagina now, but he was thrusting forward as hard as he could, and with each thrust, she tensed her legs in an attempt to hold him against her. She couldn't believe the language that she was thinking in, but there was only one way to get across the idea in her head at that moment.

"Fuck me, Mulder. God, don't stop."

It was Mulder's turn to bite his lip, but when he felt the contractions of the muscles inside her, he knew that he could finally follow her to his release. He emptied into her, and she thrust against him to meet each of his spasms. They whispered utter nonsense to each other, things that meant everything to them at that moment but would be incomprehensible at any other time. They held each other, unmoving, as they recovered, ignoring the cries of their muscles, tired of holding their final, precarious configuration.

Later, after they'd shifted to a more comfortable position, Mulder was the first to break the silence.

"I never knew you had such a mouth on you, Scully."

And if she hadn't been so tired, she would have hit him instead of smiling wanly. Letting a remark like that go meant only one thing. She was obscenely tired, and feeling warm and safe in their embrace, there was no longer any obstacle keeping her from sleep. She felt his arms tighten around her as she drifted off, and wondered if his whispered, "I love you, Scully" was real, or the first part of her dream.

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11:05 a.m., March 9, 1998 Wilma's Bed and Breakfast - Chesapeake, VA

Mulder stirred in his bed, reaching beside him to pull Scully close to him again. The only things that he could find there were pillows and blankets, and his disappointment at not being able to reach her roused him from sleep.

"Scully? Where are you?"

He was a little hurt that she'd leave while he was still asleep, considering the monumental step that their relationship had taken the night before. Perhaps she'd needed something from her room, or maybe she was in the shower. He listened closely, but couldn't hear the rush of the shower head. Hmmm. Maybe she went back to her room to shower and get dressed. After all, her toiletries and clothes were in there, and she'd probably just made the practical decision that her morning activities would be more easily accommodated in her own room.

Try as he might to rationalize why she'd leave, he still felt like sulking after waking up alone. He padded to the bathroom to make himself more presentable in case he ran into Wilma in the hall - he was going to talk to Scully and make sure she hadn't had second thoughts. He wet his hands under the faucet and smoothed out his unruly hair, then quickly brushed his teeth.

He was still a little shocked at his life's most recent twist. He remembered being together with Scully the previous night, and realized that these were wonderful memories that he'd be able to think about for the rest of his life. Sure, they had some obstacles. The bureau's attitude towards consorting with one's partner was certainly an immediate concern. Mulder wished it was the most important of their problems, but he was more afraid that Scully would be even more vulnerable now. Perhaps someone would discover their new, closer association, and they would attempt to use her to control him.

I just won't let that happen, he thought. We're partners, and we'll just have to keep protecting each other.

He walked back to his suitcase to put on some clothes, enough to make the trip across the hall, since Scully had -

He looked down, and realized that he was wearing the boxer shorts and grey T-shirt that he'd intended to sleep in before Scully's visit. When had he put his clothes back on? He shrugged. Maybe he'd been cold in the night, and pulled his clothes back on, trying to get warm. He shrugged, putting on a pair of pants that he grabbed from the top of his overnight bag.

He couldn't imagine how any bed with Dana Scully in it could be cold, and smiled to himself at the thought. The night had been perfect. He'd fantasized a thousand times about making love to her, but the reality was more than he'd ever hoped for.

Now, across the hall to scold my partner for leaving me alone like that, he thought, and pursed his lips to whistle some off-tune melody. Just as he started to blow, his cellular rang, and in a strange moment of incongruity he wondered how he could possibly have made that noise. He fished it from the suit jacket he'd worn the previous day, and pressed the 'send' button to answer it.

"Mulder."

"Hey, Mulder. I've been doing some interesting reading all night, buddy."

"Couldn't measure up to my night, Langly."

Silence came from the other end of the phone, and Mulder realized that he really had to try to be discreet, no matter how happy he was about last night's events.

"So, what did you find?"

"Mulder, you plugged in down there?"

Mulder assumed that Langly was actually asking if he had internet access. "Yeah."

"Get yourself a copy of a master's thesis that's registered at the Library of Congress. Written by a student with the last name Atwater in 1996. His faculty advisor was Captain Robert Welton, and you need to check out where this kid Atwater did his internship."

"Thanks. I will."

And with that, Langly unceremoniously hung up the phone. Mulder shrugged, and figured that Langly had reached his limit of how much information he was comfortable with giving out over a phone line.

As Mulder headed for the door, he realized that he was a little unsure how to approach Scully, how to go about asking why she'd left before he'd gotten up. He was definitely in unprecedented territory for them, and it would take some time to get accustomed to the changes. He pictured her in his mind's eye, and remembered that the rewards were well worth the effort.

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Scully heard a knock at her door, and she lifted her head, trying to come to some state of alertness. She was surprised to be by herself, but she immediately considered the possibility that Mulder's tendency toward insomnia might have caused him to leave, rather than wake her by making noise in the middle of the night.

She grabbed for her robe, expecting to be naked under the sheets, but realized she'd put her pajamas back on at some point in the night.

There was a knock at her door, and she hoped it was Mulder, bringing her a 'good morning' treat. As she got up, she thought that his massage the night before must have been amazingly successful. Even after all the exercise they'd gotten the night before, she wasn't at all sore. She opened her door, and was somewhat surprised to see Wilma standing there.

"Ms. Scully?"

"Yes, Wilma. Good morning. Have you seen my partner yet this morning?"

"Well no, in fact, that's why I came up. You mentioned last night that you needed to get to sleep because you had a lot of work to do today, and you needed an early start on the day. When the hour started to get late, I decided to come up and make sure you both weren't oversleeping."

"What time is it?"

"A little past eleven o'clock."

Scully's eyes widened. "What?"

"Oh, I knew I should have come up earlier. I'm so sorry."

"No, no. It's not your fault, of course. I must have forgotten to set my alarm last night, and I...had some...trouble, getting to sleep." She hoped that this nice woman hadn't heard anything the night before. Wilma knew that they were FBI agents, and probably would have been scandalized beyond belief if she'd realized what had gone on.

Of course, Scully was a little scandalized at the memory of what they'd done as well. Maybe Mulder was too. Perhaps that's why he'd left without telling her, because he was having second thoughts. She'd have to be careful when they talked about it later today.

"Agent Scully? Is there anything I can do to help? If you had an appointment, I could call ahead for you while you're getting ready."

"Well, we were actually waiting for some information, and I was expecting Agent Mulder to contact me when that came in. I guess we must still be waiting on it, since he hasn't bothered me yet this morning."

"You must not get too many opportunities to sleep in, do you?"

"No, not normally." Oh no. Could this be some subtle way of saying that she heard something last night?

"Well, I slept like a rock last night. Haven't had such a sound sleep in years."

Scully felt her face grow hot. That just had to be Wilma's way of telling her that she'd heard something, but that she had no intention of saying anything to anyone else.

"That's great." There was an awkward pause. "I think I'll go check on that information we were waiting for."

"Certainly. And I can still make you breakfast, if you think you'll have time."

"I'd really appreciate that. I'm starving."

Wilma left her room, and Scully grabbed her robe, getting ready to head across the hall and see why Mulder had let her sleep so late. The thought crossed her mind that he might have gotten up and gone out without her. If he'd done that, regardless of what had happened the night before, he'd have a lot of explaining to do.

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Scully and Mulder met in the hallway, opening their doors at almost the same instant. Wilma scurried away to make breakfast, reiterating that she'd be happy to do anything she could to help them offset their late start on the day. At being alone again with Mulder, Scully immediately felt self-conscious, although she knew that it was a ridiculous reaction.

"Good morning, Mulder."

"Good morning yourself." He walked closer to her, lowering his voice. "Where did you go last night?"

She wrinkled her forehead, embarrassment forgotten and replaced with confusion.

"What do you mean? I was in my room all night."

A textbook definition of 'denial' leapt from Mulder's memory and he nearly recited it to her. He realized, just before he'd started to speak, that she was serious. He thought back, remembering that his bed had been unmussed, and he'd been wearing the clothes that should still have been strewn on his floor. All the inconsistencies he'd noticed that morning, now the explanation seemed clear. The next thought that he'd have, he knew, would ruin his mood for weeks.

It didn't happen.

None of it. It wasn't real. It was one hell of a mirage, though. He'd had some fantasies, some really hot dreams before, but this one blew all of them away.

"Mulder? Are you going to answer me, or are you just going to stare at me."

"I dunno, Scully, I thought maybe I'd just stare at you."

"Funny. So, did you get that information from Langly?"

This was reality. Scully was all business.

"Yeah, I'll tell you all about it in the car. Why don't you go get ready, and we can drive over to Captain Welton's together."

"OK." She seemed to hesitate. "Mulder, when you asked me a minute ago where I was last night, I was just about to ask you the same thing."

He looked at her inquisitively.

"So, are you telling me that you didn't come to my room last night?"

"Yes, I did. When we had that little disagreement. Then I went back to my room, and I could have sworn that you came to my room about twenty minutes after that."

Her eyes grew wide. "And I remember you coming to my room at about the same time."

"What did I say?"

She debated whether to tell him the truth or not. She decided to try to compromise between the complete truth and her dignity.

"You asked me about some details from one of our past cases. I told you what I remembered, and then I went to sleep." Technically, all of that was true. But oh my, the stuff she was leaving out...

"And I thought that you came to my room after we had that fight, so that we could smooth things over." Right idea, just no details, he thought.

"What a strange dream to have, especially since I haven't slept that soundly in a long time."

"Me either."

"Mulder, Wilma said the same thing, when she came to wake me up a few minutes ago."

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Several minutes later, Mulder plugged in his laptop to follow the lead that Langly gave him. He and Scully scanned through the thesis, finding that its author, Atwater, had been one of Captain Welton's students at the Academy. Further, his thesis had been written based on research he'd done while doing an internship at Polarity Magnetics.

"Scully, what if they continued Banton's research? What if they found other ways to manipulate the human body, other than just incinerating it? And alternate ways of performing that manipulation? Captain Welton would have had an opportunity to be involved with that research, perhaps through this student."

"I suppose it's conceivable, based on the research that you've earlier alleged was taking place at Polarity, that a more advanced process for manipulating human tissue could have been discovered."

"And maybe it's even the kind of thing that you could do in front of hundreds of witnesses, without even laying a finger on your victim."

They looked at each other, went back to their rooms to hurriedly get dressed, and headed out the door. Wilma sat in her kitchen, wondering what she'd do with six slices of toast, and trying to remember how she'd slept so soundly the previous night.

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In the car, Mulder dialed the Lone Gunmen's number, surprised when Frohike picked up.

"Hey."

Frohike was a man of few words, so Mulder jumped right to the main event. "I need everything you've got on this Atwater kid."

"How about that he's dead?"

Mulder swallowed, then asked a question whose answer didn't matter. "How?"

"Lab accident. At his first job after he'd gotten out of school, he was caught in a lab fire. Place burned to the ground with him in it."

"Thanks." He hung up the phone, then paraphrased the conversation for Scully. He continued to drive, knowing in the pit of his stomach that they were too late.

They reached Captain Welton's apartment several minutes later, knocked on the door, and then forcibly entered the residence after concurring that they had probable cause.

There was no one to be found there; only a most interesting piece of evidence. On the kitchen table, they discovered a handwritten note, addressed 'To Whom It May Concern'

"By the time you read this, I assure you, my daughter and I will be long gone. You will no doubt try to find us, and we will try to elude you. I don't know which of us will be successful.

I am a man of the service. I believe in duty and honor, and I respect my country and its laws. However, a father's duty to protect his daughter comes even before a soldier's loyalty to his nation. I understand the effort that law enforcement puts into these sort of investigations, and it is for this reason that I will attempt to save you the trouble of continuing to evaluate suspects.

I hereby confess to the murders of Gary Heller, Albert Vecchio, and Rebecca La Domenica. I acted in sound mind, and I was without conspirator in those acts." He'd signed and dated the document, in careful, disciplined handwriting.

Scully looked first at the letter of confession, then back to Mulder. "I guess we know who to issue an APB for."

"They'll never find him."

"No, maybe not. But I think we can head back to Washington after we call in the details and descriptions of the suspects. The local authorities are capable of coordinating this manhunt."

"Yeah, Scully, you're right. I suddenly have this urge to go home myself."

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Somewhere along Interstate 64

Captain Welton looked in the back seat at his sleeping daughter. He had really hoped she would have appreciated more how he'd protected her, once he'd explained how she'd been in danger. When she'd resisted leaving the area, giving up her identity in return for her safety, he'd had no more choices. He'd taken a terrible chance, putting her to sleep so quickly, but it had been an emergency. He hoped that she'd wake up soon, so he could try to get her to listen to reason.

They'd just have to disappear, taking on the new identities he'd already secured. He'd been prepared for that after he'd eliminated Heller. Obtaining new identification for himself and his daughter had been easier than he'd thought, and also a necessity. He'd known that someone might find a way to tie one of them to the murders. Not that he regretted what he'd done; he didn't. And if anyone ever tried to hurt his daughter again, he wouldn't hesitate to act just as decisively.

Because that's what his wife would have wanted.

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Atto secondo (Second Act)

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Sharon's first awareness that she was in a car came from the incessant bouncing, instantly reminding her of childhood bouts with carsickness. After a dozen or so 'military family' moves she'd grown out of it, but she still hated long car trips.

She sat up, groggily rubbing her eyes.

"You used to do that when you were a little girl. Just like that, what you're doing right now. You used to call me into your room when you'd had a bad dream, and you'd rub your eyes just like that."

"Dad, where are we going?"

"There's an envelope on the floor behind the driver's seat. It's probably too dark to read it now, but your new identification is in there. I closed my bank account weeks ago. With my savings, we have enough money to live on for a while."

"What are you talking about? Why are we leaving?"

"You don't remember, do you? I put you to sleep so fast, I thought it might have some effect on your short term memory. Sharon, honey, you have to listen to me. Promise that you'll listen to me until I'm done explaining it to you."

"What do you mean, that you put me to sleep? Are you saying that you drugged me?"

"Sweetie, no. You won't understand until you listen. We're going sixty-five miles an hour, and I'm not stopping this car. Since you're not going anywhere you might as well listen to me. I know you'll understand, but you have to hear the whole story."

She found herself more confused, more frustrated than she had ever been. It had taken her years to earn respectability for her opera company. She'd fought off bankruptcy, refused her father's financial help, and finally started to succeed. Just when she was starting to repay some of her debts, the mysterious disappearances of her fellow singers put them in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Her father had apparently been involved somehow, although she couldn't understand how. Yet here he was, barking orders to her as if everything was normal, just as he had when she was growing up.

But what else was she to do? She wanted to know what was going on, and her father was pleading with her to hear his story. So she'd listen, and then decide what her next step would be.

"I'm listening, Dad. Explain it to me."

"I'm protecting you, sweetie. It was all for you. They were all threats to your safety, to the way that you'd built your life."

She'd been so blind. It was so obvious that it was cliche. In Don Giovanni, it was the Commendatore that returned to take vengeance on the Don for what he'd done. She remembered with irony the moment that she'd decided to ask her father to be in the production. What remained of her sense of humor noted that this was the opera world's version of 'the butler did it'.

"That monster, Heller. I could feel his every thought during Friday's performance. He was lusting after that child Rebecca as well as you, trying to find a way to carry on with both of you. He even pictured all three of you together, in his perverted mind's eye. And that Vecchio character, that gutless coward. He thought he loved you, but he was consumed with his jealousy and hatred of Heller."

"What are you saying?"

"They were threatening you, and everything you'd worked so hard to put together."

"Dad, I was going to fire Gary. Rebecca was just a naive kid. And Vec just had a crush. What did you do to them? How? You couldn't have! You were onstage when Gary disappeared!"

"No!" His voice rang painfully in the enclosed space, reminding Sharon crazily of the way that Gary had sung 'No!' to her father's Commendatore. "You don't understand, you couldn't. You trust everyone. They all wanted to hurt you and you just didn't see that."

"No, I did see that. Gary and Rebecca did hurt me, but I survived. I would have been fine. I just fell down and scraped my knee, Dad. I needed a band-aid, not a vigilante." She had never, in her entire life, spoken back to her father. He'd never given her reason, and she'd known that he wouldn't tolerate it. Part of her hoped he war raving, taking responsibility for actions he simply wasn't capable of.

"Young lady! You will listen to your father!"

She stiffened in the seat behind him, recognizing quite well that her father had started giving orders he expected her to take. She could feel her heartbeat, her pulse banging through her veins in concert with the pounding in her head. Her heartbeat slowed, her lungs drew in longer breaths. Although she was no less frightened of what her father had become, the calming effect of her deep breathing and slower pulse stole her anger and replaced it with profound fatigue.

"Sweetie, do you know how hard that is for your father? How hard it is to control your heart and lungs while I'm trying not to kill us both here on the highway? I need you to control yourself."

She wanted to argue, to try to make sense of the crazy things her father was saying, but she couldn't. She was too weak. She fought to stay awake, trying to listen to what her father was saying.

"Honey, listen to me." He worried about her. He'd lost control of his abilities before, but he was terrified of hurting her in his efforts to slow her growing panic. "Say 'OK' if you're still awake."

"OK," she managed to squeak out.

"Gary Heller was hurting you and he didn't care. He had every intention of throwing himself on his knees and begging you to take him back. He knew that you would, that you'd forgive him. And then he'd keep sleeping with anyone that would spread her legs for him. Casting him as the Don, that was typecasting. Say 'OK' again if you understand me so far."

She tried not to speak, but her father's voice had modulated to a soothing tone. She obeyed him before she could stop herself.

"OK."

"Albert Vecchio was on his way over to your apartment to hurt you. He thought that you only liked men that forced themselves on you. And he was prepared to do that, sweetie. Do you know what I'm trying to say?"

"He wouldn't do that. I trusted him," she rasped.

"He would, after he'd decided that's what you really wanted. He couldn't imagine how you'd ever consented to sleep with a monster like Heller, and I have to say, that's the only thing that he and I had in common. I thought I'd raised you to have more sense than that. But he was on his way to hurt you, so I diverted him."

"Why didn't you just call and warn me? Or call the police?"

"You wouldn't have listened! You still don't believe me, for chrissake's! And the police don't give a damn about a crime that someone is about to commit. But they'd be happy to come in and 'investigate' after the weasel had forced himself on you. They can't protect you, but I could and I did. And I'd do it again. I'll never let anyone do that to you."

"What about Rebecca? She was just a dumb kid that let herself be seduced."

"She wanted to team up with Heller. She was using you until she could get an audition somewhere better."

"Dad, I'm always happy when one of my singers moves on to a more prestigious theatre."

"But, she seemed so happy that you were hurt. I just lost control."

"Dad, you weren't protecting me. You were avenging me. There's a difference." The strain of controlling her and talking must have worn her father down; she was starting to get her strength back. "Yes, Gary hurt me. I was disappointed and embarrassed to see Gary and Rebecca in the costume room. But I would have recovered, and I would have learned something. Rebecca was talented, Dad. She probably would have been around for one more production before another audition came through for her, and I would have wished her well. I would have hoped that she'd grow up, realize that just because someone is your competition doesn't mean that they can't be your friend. And how do you know that Vec would have taken advantage of me? He might have had some crazy thoughts, but who's to say that he'd have followed through? What if I'd decked him, or thrown him out?"

"What if he'd hurt you?"

"That would have been awful," she agreed, "but it would have been my life. My decision to trust him, my choices, good and bad." She paused. "Daddy, I'm glad that you want to protect me, but you're taking this too far. Nothing that any of these people did to me deserved a death sentence." As the truth sank in, that her father was somehow a murderer and that there was really no way to prove it, she started to break down. She stretched out on the back seat and softly cried as she realized that her father was somehow able to manipulate her. She'd never be able to get away and resume her carefully built life.

"Don't cry, sweetie. I have this all figured out. The hardest part, once you accept it, will just be to respond to your new name. Calling you Julie instead of Sharon will be difficult for me too, but we'll both get used to it. Just sleep, honey. It'll all make more sense when you wake up."

And for the next few terrifying moments, Sharon fought against her own body as it fell asleep. Her thoughts clogged together, and she kicked and punched against the back seat in a vain effort to keep herself awake. Her eyes closed, and she found that she couldn't quite open them again. Her last thought, as her father's attention was completely focused on putting her to sleep, was the only thing that gave her hope since she'd awakened in the car. With the last moments of her consciousness, she reached into her jacket pocket and felt for the one thing that might save her from this nightmare. She finally gave in to the urge to sleep when she realized that she still had it, that thin rectangle of cardboard, given to her by another man who promised to protect her.

----------------------------------

9:11 a.m., March 11, 1998
Fox Mulder's office

Mulder looked up from his computer, watching Scully as she furiously typed her report. He'd found it necessary to keep editing his. If he turned in a complete account of the last week, Skinner would probably have Scully reassigned to protect her from Mulder's runaway libido. He hadn't finished punishing himself for spending the night fantasizing about Scully while their suspect vanished. Sharon Welton had also disappeared, and he held his evening of errant fantasies responsible for that as well.

"Mulder, are you done?"

Flagellating myself? No. Feeling guilty? No. Feeling disappointed it wasn't real? Absolutely not, Scully. I'll never quite get over that.

"Not yet. If yours is ready, I can take it to Skinner when I'm done with mine. I'm still trying to...perfect my profile of Captain Welton."

Oh, he'd been so serious since they'd returned. "No, Mulder. That's not what I meant. I meant, are you done watching me doing my report?"

"Ah. In that case, yes. I think I'm done with that."

She opened her mouth, searching for something to say, and failed miserably. She watched him as the clicked furiously on his mouse, as if scrolling through the document.

"Mulder..."

"There's nothing here, Scully. Nothing to explain what happened."

"Mulder..."

"Do you have any theories? What did you put in your report?"

"Mulder..."

"Because if you can find some explanation for what happened, if you can find any evidence that could be used to convict Captain Welton, then..."

"Mulder! If you stop interrupting me, I can try to answer some of your questions."

He paused, looking at her expectantly. "Well?"

"Well...I'm afraid that I don't have enough evidence to form a coherent theory. In the absence of relevant data, I believe that we should avoid making assumptions and trying to form a hypothesis that we can't prove."

"So you don't know."

"Mulder, we have a full confession. Once he's apprehended - "

"If he's apprehended! Scully, it's been a day and a half! He could be in Tahiti by now."

"I realize that. But until we have more to go on, I can't. I won't jump to wild conclusions and half-baked theories."

"You'll leave that to my report."

"Your report is under your discretion, and mine is under mine! If you want to read it, go ahead. I'll even print it out for you. Why don't you just pencil in your changes and I'll make them when I get back from my early lunch." She grabbed her jacket from the back of her chair, and angrily jammed her arms into the sleeves.

"It's not even 9:30 yet!"

"Well, I'm suddenly hungry, and I need to take a walk." And I need to get away from you, she thought. Her hand was on the doorknob when Mulder's voice stopped her.

"Scully, what about our lost evening? How did you explain that?"

With her face turned away from him, she could afford to let her emotions play over her face before putting her cool exterior back into place. "I'm not sure which evening you're talking about."

"The night that Welton escaped. The night that we both got twelve hours of sleep. Do you know it's been years since I've had eight uninterrupted hours of sleep? Except, of course, for the occasional coma?"

"We were tired."

"I didn't feel tired, Scully."

"What about the argument we had? It was silly. A clear indication that we were both suffering from fatigue due to the stress of the case. I'm surprised that we don't conk out more often." Her eyes narrowed. "If you didn't feel tired, then how did you sleep for that long? Mulder? Were you asleep?" As much as she was embarrassed about this particular aspect of the case, she still wanted to find an explanation for it.

"It appears that I was. The dream I had was so vivid that I was convinced it was real...until it became obvious that it wasn't."

She flushed for a moment, wrestling with herself before choosing her next words. This was a serious case. They had a confession for three murders from a suspect that hadn't been apprehended. Any aspect of the case could be a clue. It would be irresponsible to withhold any relevant detail from her partner. Up until that moment, she'd managed to convince herself that several aspects of that final night of the Chesapeake case weren't important. Well, to the case, anyway. But she couldn't deny that it certainly seemed to be fortunate for Welton that they'd both been knocked out long enough for him to get away. Dammit. He was looking at her. She had to come up with something.

"Did we get the results back from the lab yet?"

He looked surprised. "I found them on your desk this morning. I'd assumed that you'd read the report already."

"No, Mulder, I haven't. Why don't you summarize them for me?"

Please don't point out that my pen is hooked on the outside cover of that report, Mulder. Don't point out that I wouldn't have begun my report without seeing the lab results. Come on Mulder, just overlook it.

"Scully, I could have sworn that you'd read the results. They aren't even on my desk anymore," he said, lifting up files and papers looking for the folder from the lab.

"I picked it up to read, but I must have...forgotten...to read it."

He blinked at her several times, shrugged, and apparently decided to let the matter slip.

"Well, the gist is simple enough. The blood they took from me, you, and Wilma contained no trace of drugs. They also checked the Chinese food, just to be safe. There was nothing out of the ordinary in there, other than the MSG. I thought that most restaurants had stopped using that stuff." He put one finger to his lips. "Aha, Scully. Maybe that's it...maybe we're allergic to the MSG."

"I don't think that's it, Mulder. It isn't an allergy, but rather an intolerance that some people experience after ingesting monosodium glutamate. Even then, it would have to be consumed in large amounts in order to trigger deleterious symptoms. Even if one of us had a serious MSG intolerance, the symptoms are much more minor than an extended loss of consciousness...flushing, sensations of warmth, headache, facial pressure, chest pain, and feelings of detachment." Scully did a mental checklist...she had experienced flushing, warmth, and perhaps even a feeling of detachment. But she knew it had nothing to do with MSG.

"So, a no go on the lab tests. How do you explain our sleeping beauty syndrome?"

She thought back, moving past the fantastic memory of lying back on the bed with a soft cotton towel below her; her skin was glistening wet from the bubble bath, and Mulder was slowly moving down her stomach...downwards... She coughed abruptly, trying to clear her head. Some logical part of her brain flashed back to the hallway of the hotel, the morning after her little side-trip into fantasy.

"Mulder, the morning that we discovered the Weltons missing, you said something in the hallway."

"What did I say that seems important now?" Oh no, Scully. Don't. Don't remember that I said - "

"You said, 'Where did you go last night?' And you were acting strangely."

"Oh c'mon, Scully. What's 'strangely' when it comes to me?"

"Normally, I'd agree with you. But you seemed convinced that I'd come to your room after our disagreement. When we realized that we'd been knocked out, you seemed...for lack of a better word, disappointed."

"Uh, disappointed. Naturally," he stammered clumsily. Shit. No, Scully. Not that raised eyebrow.

"Yes...and...? What were you disappointed about?"

"Well that, uh, Langly hadn't called me yet. I had an instinct that time was running out on us."

"Ah yes. Well." What an astute observation.

"That's what it was."

"What does that have to do with me coming to your room the night before?"

"Nothing." Perhaps it was time to 'fess up. He knew Scully...she'd tell him that everything was OK, that they'd work around his attraction for her. 'Let's be professional,' she'd say, 'and we can get through this.' Then one day, she wouldn't be able to deal with him. She'd be tired of wondering what he meant with every comment, analyzing what he was thinking with every glance. And she'd have to ask for a transfer. His quest would go back to being an empty, unfulfilling, lonely chore.

"Mulder, let's get out of here." She took a deep breath, acknowledging somewhere within herself that she'd known this moment was inevitable for the last forty-eight hours.

"Where are we going?"

"Anywhere but here."

"Your place? My place?" Good lord, had he actually just asked Scully, 'your place or mine?'

"I don't know. We need neutral ground. Private, neutral ground."

Mulder got his jacket from the coat rack and guided his partner from his office. "I know just the place."

----------------------------------

She'd been surprised when they'd left the building via the street entrance instead of through the garage. Apparently, the neutral ground that Mulder was leading her to was within walking distance, and the muscles in her stomach were already tensing in dread and anticipation. Dammit. She'd been hoping that she could talk Mulder into driving separately, giving her private time in the car to reflect on how to frame the details. She wasn't certain that she was entirely prepared for Mulder's revelations, either. Wild theories about his dreams, about buxom nurses from space, danced through her head. She used every moment as they waited silently at each crosswalk, trying to find a professional way to convey her experiences.

She could just hear herself stumbling through the story. Would she stammer through it, using medical terms to give her some feeling of detachment?

'Agent Mulder, on the night in question I believe that my subconscious put together a fantasy in reaction to the stress that I was experiencing at the time. You were the object of this, and I believe that my mind placed you in that position due to our nearly continuous proximity to each other. This fantasy included, but was not limited to, digital manipulation of my immediate head and neck regions, more commonly known as 'deep massage', cunnilingus, and sexual intercourse in several variant positions. Oh, and a bubble bath.'

She shook her head, walking about a half-step behind Mulder so that he wouldn't see that her cheeks were flushing. Maybe she should get right to the point.

'I apparently spent twelve hours unconscious, fantasizing for several of those hours about virtuosic sexual intercourse between two consenting adults. They happen to be the two people in this room now.'

Dana Scully, get though this in as few words as possible. Like a band-aid, just rip it off and scream.

'Mulder, I spent the whole night dreaming that you were fu - '

"We're here," he announced abruptly.

She looked up at the building that Mulder was pointing to, and her mouth dropped open in shock.

"Mulder, this has to be the ritziest hotel..."

"Shhhh, Scully. I have a plan. Did you bring your credentials?"

She nodded, wondering if he really thought that she'd leave her credentials just lying around in their office.

"Good. Just follow my lead."

Mulder strode confidently into the lobby of the hotel, and threaded his way through the sparse crowd to the registration desk. A uniformed man waved them over to the counter, and Mulder pulled out his badge.

"Mr...?"

"You can call me Sean, sir."

"Sean, I'm Special Agent Mulder. This is my partner, Special Agent Scully." She flipped out her badge for Sean, and watched as his eyes darted back and forth between them. "Is there a manager on duty?"

"Oh, yes sir! At all times."

Mulder smiled calmly at the young man. "Could we possibly...speak to the manager on duty?"

"Yes, of course! Wait right there." He started to move jerkily away from them, then turned back, apparently changing his mind. "Actually, follow me. Come behind the desk."

They followed him to the room behind the counter. They were nervously introduced to the manager, and Sean left the room, quickly closing the door behind himself.

"We need your help," Mulder began. "We're following a suspect, and his office in on the fourth floor of the building just across the street. He could be there for up to ten hours today, and the things he's doing in his office," Mulder glanced at his partner, his face utterly solemn. "Well, those things could have an effect on our," he leaned in, whispering the final two words, "National Security."

The portly man sat up in his chair. Scully thought, but she wasn't quite sure, that his incredibly obvious toupee had shifted on his head as he'd moved so rapidly.

"Agent...uh..."

"Mulder."

"Agent Mulder, this hotel would be honored to assist in a matter of," he leaned in, mimicking Mulder's posture and tone, "National Security. I'll find you a room on the west side of the hotel. With the luxurious architectural features of this building, not the least of which is the vaulted ceiling on the ground level," he said, sounding oddly as if he were quoting a hotel brochure, "I'd say that the fourth floor of the hotel is roughly even with the third floor of the building that you're...watching. Will you require anything else?"

"I'm afraid that it could be hours before our backup arrives. Government cut-backs. We could probably use some lunch. Anything you could scrape together. Your government would appreciate it."

"Agent Mulder, consider it done. Just dial one twenty-six when you're ready. That's my extension, and I'll see to it personally." He made a call to the bellman. Within minutes, they were being escorted to a huge suite on the hotel's third floor.

When they were alone in the room, Scully whirled around.

"Mulder, are you familiar with the term, 'abuse of power'? Do you know how...improper...this is? We don't even have any monitoring equipment with us. Don't you think he's down in his office right now, wondering about that? What are we supposed to be doing? Squinting?"

"Cutbacks?" She glared at him, and he decided to give her a more serious answer. "Scully, did you see that guy? He took one look at our badges and nearly handed us the deed to the hotel. He'd not thinking about anything other than helping his country."

"And we're taking advantage of him."

"Scully, this room was probably going to remain empty tonight. It's a Wednesday, during the low tourist season in downtown D.C. Not exactly a busy time for the high-priced hotels. We're making that guy feel important. Think of this as bureau public relations."

"Mulder, I'm not sure I'm comfortable..."

"This has nothing to do with being comfortable." That shut her up, he thought.

They began to talk at precisely the same moment.

"Mulder, I - "

"Scully, there's - "

They stared at each other, cutting their sentences off abruptly. Scully took a deep breath, and decided that this was definitely an 'age before beauty' situation.

"You first, Mulder."

"No, Scully. Ladies first."

Oh hell. She'd been through worse. He'd seen her lying back on the couch with Van Blundht leaning over her, about to seduce her. He obviously knew that she'd been attracted to him, at least for that one night. Five years spent stammering through explanations that she knew Mulder didn't believe, trying to have some sort of life in the middle of chasing down Mulder's aliens and conspiracies, and her most uncomfortable moment since they'd met would come down to a few badly-timed hours of lurid dreams.

"Sit down."

He looked quickly to the flimsy looking chair near the desk, then to the bed. These were his two choices, and he normally would just have flopped down onto the bed. But then again, he normally felt a lot more comfortable talking to Scully than he did today. Better to be safe than sorry, he thought, as he pulled the desk's chair closer to where he was standing and sat down as she'd requested.

He looked up at her, ready to listen to her story before having to tell his. She was shocked, eyes glazed over, mouth slightly hanging open. Her hand covered her eyes, and she whispered something he couldn't quite hear.

"Scully! What is it?" He was immediately concerned. If they had somehow been manipulated or drugged, there could be after-affects.

"I can't do this. I can't think of any way to tell you this. Every time I look at you, it brings back some memory from that damn dream that makes me wish we'd left the case before Rebecca was murdered!"

"Scully, if you're having some sort of flashback, it might be relevant." Perhaps that's what Scully has dreamed about. Being a victim of immolation like Heller, Vecchio, or Rebecca. Maybe she'd been frightened and was now embarrassed to let her tough exterior shatter in front of him. Perhaps he should have told her his story first, so she could be too busy being wary of him to worry about whether he thought she was tough or not.

She removed her hand from her eyes and looked at him. Thank God, he'd gotten up from that damn chair. All she could see when he sat down was a scene from her dream. She remembered how he'd gently pulled her from the chair where he'd been massaging her to the chair he was sitting in, and she'd sat on his lap, kissing him. It was the moment of the dream when she'd realized with a confident, unafraid certainty that they were going to make love. The sensations that had come back to her were painfully tactile. Every moment that his hands had been on her, every place where his skin had touched hers, jumbled into one overwhelming memory that left her shivering and vulnerable.

"Scully!" He moved to her, putting his hands on her shoulders and steering her towards the bed. Reality and fantasy crazily shifted and tumbled in her head, and she began to feel faint. She allowed Mulder to recline her, and only a last minute realization that they weren't actually being intimate kept her from pulling him down on top of her.

"Mulder?"

"I'm here. I'm going to call a doctor, and then I'm going to personally find the idiot in the lab that ran those blood tests. We obviously were drugged, and you're having a reaction to it."

"Mulder, listen to me. Put your phone down." He sat down on the edge of the bed, and Scully had to swallow hard and concentrate on her grasp on reality to tell him what was happening to her. "I don't believe we were drugged. I'm experiencing some...flashbacks...to a hallucination that I experienced, accompanied by some dizziness." She felt her mental grip loosening as she blurrily looked at Mulder sitting on the bed with her. She used her last, fleeting moment of sanity to push him away. "Mulder, please get off the bed, or I won't be able to continue."

He got up, looking at his partner and wondering what could possibly have affected her so deeply.

She pushed the story she'd been preparing to tell to the back of her mind, and felt her head clearing. "Mulder, I have to do this slowly. And I can't explain it, but I might need you to move, or even leave the room for a few minutes if I'm going to make it through this story."

"If this is painful for you, maybe you could talk to the bureau counselor first. Or you could just write it down."

"No, Mulder. If I'm having a reaction like this, I think it's definitely relevant to the case. So we have to investigate it, no matter how difficult this is for me."

"You don't have to worry, Scully. If you were scared, you can tell me. I won't lose any respect for you."

She was so annoyed with this whole mess. Losing her patience, she suddenly overcame her modesty and blurted out the problem. "I'm not frightened, I'm mortified! We had sex!"

His eyes bulged. "What? I think I would remember that."

"No, we didn't. But we did. I thought we did. Goddammit, Mulder, that's what I dreamt about when we were knocked out. And it all came back so suddenly when I was trying to tell you about it."

"It looked like you were going to pass out."

"It felt like it, too." He reached out for her hand. When their skin came into contact, Scully pulled her hand back, returning it to her face to cover her eyes. "Please, don't."

"Can you tell me about it?"

"Do you really think that the details are important?" she said from behind her hand.

This would be easier than he'd anticipated, now that Scully had broken the ice. "I had a similar experience that night."

"You did."

"Yes, I did. Let's just discuss. it, get it out in the open, and we won't have to feel like we're hiding anything."

For the first time in days, she was calm. They were in the same boat. Perhaps in sharing their discomfort they could put their partnership back together.

"I'll start. I'll continue for as long as I can, and you can take over when I start to feel...odd."

"Deal. Anytime you're ready. Take your time." He looked around the room. "Where do you want me?"

"For God's sake, don't sit in that chair or on the bed."

Mulder assessed his other choices in the room, and chose to lean up against the desk. He looked to Scully, evaluating her reaction, and she seemed at ease with his choice.

"Well, after our fight, I was trying to relax. I was sipping tea when I burnt my tongue. When I got up to get a glass of cold water, you were in my room." Easy so far. "Which of course, you actually weren't."

"Not to my recollection." He looked at her, reassuringly, acceptingly.

She was still nervous. This fantasy of hers was certain to reveal quite a bit about the way she saw him, about herself. She realized with a start that she would get an equal opportunity to see the way that he'd envisioned her. But not yet. It was still her turn.

"Are you OK?"

"Yeah, I'm ready to continue." She took one more breath of freedom before rejoining the story. "I, of course, asked you what you were doing in my room. You told me that you were just checking up on me, but once you'd gotten there, you'd realized that you wanted to talk."

"About what?"

"You said that you wanted to know what Eddie Van Blundht knows." She paused, letting the information sink in.

"Well you were right about that. I do want to know what Eddie Van Blundht knows."

"Do you want to hear the rest of this?"

"Yes, if you can continue." He mimed for her...picking up an imaginary key and locking his lips with it, throwing it over his shoulder when he was done. It lightened the mood a little, and strengthened her resolve to continue.

"I was uncomfortable. I've never had any intention of revisiting my motives the night that Van Blundht impersonated you. Either to myself or to you. I've attributed my behavior to fatigue and an uncommon amount of alcohol. I tried to tell you, but you wouldn't let me leave it at that."

He was dying to tell a joke, to say something to distract her from her discomfort, but he had indeed promised to keep his mouth shut.

"You told me that you admired me for wanting to portray a certain image to you. Strong, self-sufficient. That relaxed me. I felt that you understood, that it would be alright to show some vulnerability. Especially if it meant that I could give you some information that you'd been curious about. And I was tired, Mulder. So tired of fighting you for the millionth time. This seemed simple enough. I hadn't told any stories that I was particularly embarrassed about, so I hoped that I could fulfill your request and then finally get some sleep."

He nodded, processing the information that Scully had told Van Blundht several stories, but that they were all fairly innocuous. Since she'd been under the influence of more alcohol than she was accustomed to drinking, he was starting to understand how she could have mistaken the imposter for her partner. He still wasn't pleased that she'd accepted a weak facsimile so easily, but she'd probably chalked his strange behavior up to his customary eccentricity.

"You had a bottle of wine with you, and eventually you talked me into having some. We made a deal, I'd drink one glass of wine and tell you one story, and you agreed to reciprocate." She pursed her lips, wondering where she'd come up with some of the details. "Mulder, did you kiss on your first date?"

His eyebrows raised. "My first date with...?"

"Your very first date."

He inclined his chin, thinking, then replied. "Yeah, I think so. Why?"

"Hmmm. I guess I thought that you hadn't." She shrugged.

"What are you talking about?"

"The stories we traded. They were about our first dates."

"I'm sorry I missed that."

"It's not that interesting a story. I got a kiss on the cheek from my date that didn't really result in anything other than a lecture about the birds and the bees from my father."

"And what did I say?"

"You said that you'd had a good time, but that something ruined it in the end. You didn't kiss her. Wait, I forgot something. You also gave me a massage."

"How did I get away with that?"

"You said you wanted to relax me. I was angry that you were in my room because I was trying to relax, so you tried to help." She paused again. "It was just my shoulders and my temples, Mulder."

"How did I do?"

"You were good at it. It worked, I relaxed. And then," she stopped, and then decided just to spit it out as quickly as possible, "you sat down in the chair opposite me and massaged my legs."

"Is that what you flashed back to earlier? When I sat in that chair?"

"Well, it was...related...to that. While you gave me the massage, we exchanged stories. After the revelation that you hadn't gotten a kiss on your first date, you threw in a bonus story about how you'd bounced back in high school and gotten plenty of practice."

"At least you got something right."

"And then we kissed, Mulder."

"We did?"

"Yes."

"We did."

"That's what I said."

"So the moment that we committed to kissing. That happened simultaneously?"

"Well no, not quite."

"So who went first?"

"Does that really matter?"

"It does to me."

"Well, I don't think it's relevant."

"So it was you."

"I didn't say that."

He made circular motions with his hands, palms facing towards his chest, gesturing for her to proceed.

"Anyway. We both had moments of misunderstanding, we both thought that we'd stepped over the line. Eventually, we figured out that our feelings, at least for the moment, were mutual."

"Were they really, Scully?"

Her vision blurred, and she blinked repeatedly to try to refocus. When her world resolved around again, it was different. Mulder was still there, but he had his gray T-shirt and boxer shorts on instead of the suit he'd been wearing. Now he was sitting on the edge of the bed, palms face down on the mattress as if he were crawling towards her.

"What are you doing?"

"Scully, what's wrong?" he whispered, moving slowly towards her from the foot of the bed. He hovered above her, hands braced on the headboard. Scully closed her eyes, instinctively knowing that she was sinking into something that was illusory.

"Mulder, describe the room for me. What you're wearing, where you are."

"Scully?"

"Just do it."

He looked over to the bed, at his partner lying there, her face turned uncomfortably away from him.

"We're in the hotel down the street from the Hoover building. I'm wearing the same suit I was wearing this morning. It's blue, one of my favorites, in fact. I'm still leaning up against this desk, where I've been since you started your story."

Scully's head began to clear, and she carefully opened her eyes and turned in the direction of Mulder's voice. He was attired as he'd said, and still leaning against the desk. He was not looming over her as she'd have sworn he was a moment before.

"Mulder, I lost track of where I was a minute ago. I thought you were on the bed with me. I was certain of it."

He swallowed. Showtime. "Then I guess it's my turn."

"OK. But stay where you are."

"I'm not goin' anywhere, Scully." He thought back to the moment where he thought his dream had begun. "After our fi - uh, disagreement, I was trying to wind down from the day. I found a movie that I hadn't seen yet on the satellite system."

She nodded, starting to feel more stable as she focused on the details of Mulder's story.

"There was a knock at my door. I turned off the TV and answered it."

"Why turn off the TV?"

He set his lips together. "Because I did."

"Oh." She guessed at the content of Mulder's movie, but she wasn't in the mood to tease him about it.

"So I answered the door. It was you. Except, you were different."

"Different?"

"Your hair. It was...bigger."

"Bigger?"

"Scully!"

"OK. Big hair. Gotcha. Please continue."

He sighed, obviously unhappy give her the description of her from his mind's eye. "And you were wearing a red dress."

"Mulder, I don't even own a red dress."

"And it didn't really happen, so I guess you didn't have to use your own wardrobe."

"I'm sorry." She nodded to him, trying to spur him to begin again.

"So. The dress was very suggestive. There wasn't a whole lot to it. And it was pretty tight."

She nodded again, trying to keep her face impassive. So this was Mulder's idea of a fantasy Scully?

"You told me that you'd come to make sure that I understood why you'd said the things you'd said during our disagreement. You explained...again...how important facts, evidence, and proof are to you. I'd heard it all before, but this time I really listened. I finally listened to you, and realized that's all you really wanted. I didn't have to change my mind, I just had to listen to you with an open mind."

Her mouth was open in shock. He understood what she'd been trying to do since they'd begun working together. Sure, he'd known that she'd occasionally been valuable to have around, but he'd finally seen that her point of view was important.

"As attracted as I was to you, poured into that dress, I realized something. Anyone else could have been there in your place. Fabulous body. Beautiful face. Whatever. But I wouldn't have felt the same way about anyone else. Just you, because of who you are."

She wasn't meeting his eyes, and he shifted his weight nervously from left to right. He'd already begun, he might as well follow through.

"You knew what I was thinking, I didn't have to say a word. You told me that the final reason that I...loved you was because, well, you needed me as much as I needed you."

"What about - "

"What about what, Scully? What about propriety? What about bureau regulations? What about our enemies finding out and exploiting our vulnerability? You pointed it out to me in that dream, and the part that's driving me crazy is that everything that you said is true! Do you know what you said to me in that dream? You said that you knew that I don't give a damn about propriety or bureau regulations! I've flaunted them both before for reasons that weren't nearly as important! And if you got hurt, it would kill me regardless of whether I acknowledge my feelings for you or not. And I'm scared to death that it'll ruin our work, that you'll turn me down or that you'll push me away. But that's what was in the dream. That's what you wanted to know, right?"

"Mulder, stop! Just...stop."

He got to the bed in two quick steps, and sat next to her. "It wasn't just a dream. Not all of it. You are everything to me."

"I think you're getting caught up, like I did a moment ago. Just relax for a moment."

No, Scully. I'm not caught up. I love you.

"These hallucinations are overwhelming, Mulder. I'm not saying that the directions that our imaginations took aren't important or significant. But we can address that after we get through this. And we have to get through this, because three people are dead and another is missing. You rest, and I'll pick up my story again."

She got up from the bed, and Mulder followed Scully's orders to rest, sinking down to the mattress. She paced along the foot of the bed, trying to remember where she'd left off.

"We were in the chair. I was sitting on your lap, and we were kissing. We moved to the bed, and progressed rapidly towards..."

"It's OK. I think I know what you mean."

"You took off my pajama top, and - "

"Why was I wearing your pajama top?"

She sighed in exasperation. He was recovering his wit much more quickly than she liked. "No. You removed the pajama top from my body."

"Did I enjoy the view?"

A deep breathing technique that she'd learned in the only yoga class she'd ever found time to attend was the only thing that kept her from losing her temper. She was revealing quite a bit, she might as well not leave anything out.

"Actually, I recall being quite worried about that. You pulled back after you'd finished with all the buttons, quite abruptly. My eyes were closed, because we'd been kissing, and I didn't immediately know whether you'd pulled back in surprise, shock, or disappointment."

"Scully, look at yourself. You don't have anything to be worried about."

"That's what you said in the dream, too. Something along those lines. So, you finished undressing me, and I helped you get your T-shirt off. That was when you - "

"The big event?"

She restarted her sentence, wondering if Mulder's second grade report card had said, 'brilliant child, but he needs to learn not to interrupt the other children.'

"No. You gave me a bubble bath. I apparently wasn't relaxed yet, and you intended to fulfill your promise to help me unwind."

He pictured her lying back into bubble-filled water, her skin glistening in the scant, inviting inches that broke through the surface of the water into his field of vision.

"I ran the water, and then waited outside like a gentleman?"

"No. You filled the tub, helped me in, and shampooed my hair. Then your hands slipped under the surface of the water and you finished your massage. All the places that you'd missed earlier."

He sucked in a breath, picturing himself in that scenario, touching Scully in the way she'd described. He'd had an easier time envisioning himself undressing her, even kissing her. Until that point, they'd each been affected primarily by their own stories. Mulder, however, was beginning to fell his heartbeat quickening as his partner's voice painted these intimate, arousing images.

"You asked me to keep my eyes open. You wanted to watch me as I reacted to you...to what you were doing. And it was quite difficult, but I managed to do it. Quite...extraordinary." And although she knew it was foolish, although she knew it would push her away from reality again, she looked to him and sought out his eyes. He sat up as their gazes locked, equally caught up in Scully's fantasy as she was herself.

In his mind, he was screaming. Pleading with Scully to forget about the case they'd tried to leave behind. He needed her to stop talking...there were so many reasons that she had to stop. He hoped that he'd be able to regain his control, if he could just get a moment that wasn't tortured with her voice, describing her most impossibly erotic fantasies. When her words finally broke off, they were replaced with her eyes, diving deep into his. He could see that her imagined memories were beginning to form into a false, all-encompassing reality for her. He reached within himself, looking for the strength to pull her out of her confusion. He found none of what he needed.

All he found was the most incredibly visceral reaction to the desire that darkened his partner's features. He found himself on his feet, heading for her before he'd even realized the decision that he'd made. He caught her beautiful, strong chin in his hands, never breaking their visual bond, and he pulled her closer. As their bodies came into contact, he slid his hands to the back of her head, inclining it towards his, and he kissed her gently.

Someplace deep within her, she knew that they had come to this moment in the wrong way. There was something more at stake than they realized. There had been a case, something that was a more pressing concern than her need to feel his body against hers, his lips brushing hers. That realization died away to a whisper as she felt him begin to deepen the kiss. His tongue brushed tentatively against her lips, then jousted suggestively with hers, making every coherent thought she'd been capable of crumble. Slowly, she felt herself distilling into pure sensation, living only to react to the torturously slow movements of their lips moving in concert.

He slipped his hands into her suit jacket, slowly moving over her through the soft cotton bodysuit that she wore beneath. Instinctively, she dropped her shoulders backwards, and felt her jacket slipping away from her body to the floor. Mulder's hands left her for a moment, just long enough to shed his jacket to join hers. He weakened as her hands slid from his waist over the muscles of his chest. The fabric of his shirt rubbed exquisitely against his skin, the friction created by her hands was maddening. She whimpered as he stopped kissing her long enough to whisper in her ear.

"What happened after that?" She shuddered as his lips brushed against her skin. Noticing her sensitivity, he kissed a trail from her earlobe down to her shoulder blade. He nudged her hair aside, and found an especially sensitive area just under her jawbone. As he kissed her there, he felt her pulse playing its steady, unrelenting rhythm hypnotically across his lips. Distracted so completely with just one inch of her, he barely heard the answer to his question.

"Your hands, Mulder. They were caressing me, and it felt so good that I nearly pulled you into the water with me. Then you said that you wanted to replace your hands with your mouth. You helped me out of the bath to the bedroom, and that's what you did. Flawlessly."

Despite the intoxicating feeling of her skin on his lips, he broke contact from her neck, pulling his head back to look into her eyes again.

"But you don't know if that's what I'm really capable of."

"No, I don't." Her voice, low and full, washed over him. Her tone answered his implied question.

Her hands went to the buttons of his shirt, undoing them on by one. She gently pulled it free of his waistband, discarding it when she was through. He pulled her closer, hands finding the closure and zipper of her skirt. He fumbled, frustrated at the unnecessary complexity of female clothing. Scully expertly released the clasp and zipper for him, and the skirt slid down to her feet. She was left in her bodysuit, which he found incredibly sexy. If the bodysuit had been a bathing suit, it would actually be rather modest, but Mulder found the continued mystery intriguing. He could see every sensual curve of her body, yet she was still hidden from his view. The anticipation created a wonderful, nearly painful tension that he could feel throughout his body.

"What happened next, Scully?"

"It's difficult to describe."

"Why don't we give it a try?"

Her arms curled around his neck, and they kissed again. Mulder's hands rubbed along her ribcage, finally resting on her breasts. His index fingers moved softly over her nipples, and her head relaxed backwards, exposing her long, regal neck. He kissed along her now-exposed neck, stopping when he came to the strap that held up her bodysuit. His hands moved away from her breasts just long enough to slide the fabric down her arms, and Scully was lost in a feeling of deja vu. She was back in the dream, the trepidation at being exposed to him projected onto her again. She brought her head back to look at Mulder, and found that he was already leaning slightly sideways to take her already stimulated nipple into his mouth. His hands found her waist, then slipped slowly inside her bodysuit to cup her buttocks. Soon afterwards, her partner had been able to work that cotton barrier down her hips and legs, and it rested at her feet. Her pantyhose quickly followed, and she fought the immediate urge to use her hands and arms to shield herself from Mulder's view. She knew that her feelings of modesty were misplaced in her current situation, but she worried nonetheless. He straightened to his full height, holding her gently by the shoulders, and brushed her hair back from her face.

"You're perfect. You're blushing, but you're perfect."

She kissed him again, mostly in an attempt to break his open stare, but also to get an opportunity to unclasp the belt around his waist. She briefly considered throwing it to the bed, maybe to use later to tie his hands to the headboard. She thought better of it, deciding it wasn't an appropriate element for their first non-fantastical intimate contact. She broke the kiss as she pulled the belt from the loops on his trousers, and looked directly into his eyes.

"Scully, you look positively devious."

"I'm making future plans for you, Mulder," she said, pulling the length of his belt from his trousers through her left hand. When she'd released it, she pulled it taut between her hands momentarily, giving him an evil look. After noting that Mulder appeared to be assimilating that image, she let the belt drop to the floor.

What would it be like, he wondered, to have her brilliant mind turned towards the subject of making love? He silently prayed that he wasn't just dreaming this again. He wasn't sure that he could take the disappointment of losing it all again.

Her hands released the button and zipper of his pants expediently, and in her usual efficiency, she removed his pants and boxers in one motion. She slid slowly down his body as she did, and helped him out of his shoes and socks when her knees had reached the floor. Her eyes moved upwards, stopping at his erect penis, and she noted, just for novelty's sake, that her imagination hadn't been too far from the truth. Her hands moved up his legs, and the suddenness of Mulder's voice startled her.

"Scully! That tickles! Cut it out!"

She made a mental note that Mulder's inner thigh was ticklish, and she moved her hands to cup his buttocks, similar to the way that Mulder had done to her earlier. That position brought her closer to his body, and she ran her cheek against the impossibly soft skin that covered the shaft of his penis. Her hands registered the tightening of his muscles, and she pulled her head back. She placed a careful, almost chaste kiss just at his tip. Her mouth opened, and she slid her lips over his warm, smooth skin. She withdrew, just long enough to swirl her tongue around him, and then plunged over him again. She grew used to the feel of him, and started a regular rhythm, sometimes using her teeth or her tongue to caress him as she guided him in and out of her mouth. Occasionally, she would find a sensitive spot, indicated by Mulder's quickly inhaled breath. She would stop, breaking her rhythm to pay more attention to the areas that affected him more intensely. And then back to their rhythm, the cadence that had already been established between them. It was yet another tacitly-reached agreement between them, pure perfection.

She withdrew, knowing what he felt like in her mouth, and needing to know what he'd feel like inside her hands. She varied the techniques that she used to explore him, sometimes lightly, sometimes applying more pressure. She used both palms, and then just the tips of her fingers. Softly, she blew over his sensitive skin, and followed that with kisses along his entire length as her fingers massaged his tip.

After Scully's torturous treatment of every sensitive inch of his penis, Mulder needed to stop her, soon, before this came to an abrupt end. He wanted to make love to her for a more extended period of time than he'd currently be capable of.

"Scully..." He helped her to her feet, placing one protective hand on the small of her back and guided her to the bed.

Then, perhaps the most unwelcome sound ever to enter Fox Mulder's ears invaded the room...the sound of his cellular phone ringing through the fabric of his jacket. They looked at each other, trying to gauge what the proper response would be. After a moment of silent communication, they both knew that the call would have to be answered, despite the virtual certainty that it would be the end, at least for now, of their current activities. Mulder rummaged through the pile of their clothes, located the pocket where the phone was hidden, and answered it. If he had one wish, it would have been for the voice on the other end to say, 'Sorry, wrong number,' and leave them to what they'd begun. Instead, he heard a voice that he easily recognized from his recent past. It brought back into focus the very reason that had led them from their office, earlier that morning.

"Agent Mulder. I think I understand what's happened. I didn't want to believe it, but now I need your help." Mulder started to speak, but she interrupted him abruptly. "Please, there isn't time. We're at a truck stop off Route 75, just north of Lexington. The last sign I saw suggested that we're heading directly for Cincinnati. I'll try to call you when we stop somewhere for longer than a bathroom break, but he's not leaving me alone for very long. I have to go."

The line went dead, and Mulder turned around to look at his partner. She'd been busy while he'd been on the phone, her pantyhose and bodysuit covering her again. Suddenly aware of the clothing differential, he quickly pulled on his boxers and dress shirt.

"Who was that?"

"Sharon Welton. Someone, I'm assuming that person to be her father, seems to have taken her against her will. They're currently heading towards Cincinnati."

"Then that's where we should go."

"I agree. She's going to try to call again, but in the meantime we should try to get as close to their approximate route as possible."

They finished dressing, and Mulder took advantage of their invitation to call the hotel manager to get some lunch and an atlas. Their now-familiar flurry of activity was well-coordinated, and they had airline reservations, a hotel, and a rental car set up in an astoundingly short period of time. Mulder called the hotel directly, and explained that he intended to forward his cellular phone there in the event that Sharon found the opportunity to call while they were on the airplane.

"It doesn't sound like she's getting too many opportunities. I hope that she doesn't happen to find a moment away from her father while we're in the air."

Their lunch and atlas arrived, personally carried by the manager of the hotel. He tried unsuccessfully to peek past Mulder at their super-secret surveillance setup, but Mulder blocked him by saying, "Need to know basis. You understand."

Scully gave him the same look he'd gotten earlier, when she'd realized how he intended to scam his way into the hotel. He just shrugged, apparently guilt-free about his misappropriation of his FBI-granted authority.

"We leave in two hours," he said as he flipped through the atlas looking for Ohio. "That's just enough time to finish here, pick up some clothes, and head to the airport."

"Find anything in that atlas?"

"Yeah," he waved her over. He pointed to the section of Route 75 that was north of Lexington, where Sharon had reported her location. There's not much along 75 until you get to Cincinnati, so I think our assumption that they'll pass through that area is sound. After that, he could take her anywhere. Route 74, if he's planning to head west into Indiana. He could stay on 75 or switch to 71, if he's going to head north." He looked up, clearly concerned about this new development in their case. "Or he could switch to the smaller country roads. We'll have to rely on Sharon finding another opportunity to call, and hope she can pinpoint her location."

"Mulder, is it possible that she's given us false information?"

"Sure, it's possible, but she sounded sincerely frightened. And this is the only lead we have."

"No, I agree. But we need to consider the possibility that this is a diversion. She could be covering for her father, or she could be mistaken. We obviously had some," she grasped for an adjective, "illusory experiences while we were in Chesapeake, incredibly realistic delusions. If Captain Welton can somehow manipulate thoughts, she could have been made to think that she was in Kentucky."

An interesting, if depressing conclusion, he noted. It make him wonder how they could possibly keep their focus if they managed to find him.

She continued, "But we have no other lead. We just have to hope that Sharon's mind was clear, and that this isn't a diversion."

"And if it is a diversion, then we just rack up more frequent flyer miles."

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After vacating the hotel room, they returned to the office to get the Polarity Magnetics case file, then stopped by their apartments to quickly pack their bags. They both studied the file on the plane, sharing it over their tray tables.

"So Scully, how do you make the technological leap from a walking, talking black hole to this kind of massive psychic manipulation?"

She opened her mouth to remind him that they had no proof to support any of their theories. Everything they'd discussed, other than their own perceptions, was speculative. She shut it again, realizing that this might well be an appropriate moment for a little speculation. She could analyze the information later, a thought she would normally have rejected. She was already fighting to maintain her composure, having spent at least fifty percent of the time she'd been 'studying' the case file distracted by her partner. She watched his hands as they shuffled through the papers and she tried unsuccessfully to ignore the occasional brushing of his forearm against hers as they tried to share the pages in the cramped space in front of their seats. Her attention had been turned only intermittently to the case that should have been her only concern.

She'd been afraid this would happen. Even a momentary lapse in concentration or judgement could represent the difference between a properly handled situation and a terrible tragedy. She knew what it felt like to be afraid. She'd been afraid so many times in the past few years, for herself, her future, and of the suspicions she had about some of the men purporting to represent her own government. A startlingly small number of those moments had equaled the concern that she'd felt for her partner during his all-too-frequent moments of distress. She could recall with alarming clarity each of the times that she'd witnessed, or even been the impetus for his relentless disregard for his own physical vulnerability. The personal risks they'd both taken, the price they'd each had to pay with their safety, their very lives, and with those of their families, had already been great.

How much more difficult would it be if they tried to maintain a non-professional aspect to their relationship? What sort of balance could they find?

Mulder wasn't thinking about any of this, though he would probably have agreed with her if she'd voiced any of these thoughts. Not now, not as long as she was there beside him, yet temporarily untouchable as they wrapped themselves in the specifics of a case. Every word that fell from her mouth caused his eyes to drop to her lips, renewing the memory of her. Echoes of sensation, glittering fragments of their interrupted encounter shone in his mind. He grasped at the remains of his shattered strength, trying to rebuild it into a sanity that had left him the moment Scully had allowed him into territory he'd long ago considered forbidden.

Her words from earlier in the day came back to him. She'd reminded him that three people had been murdered, and that Sharon's life may very well depend on their investigation.

"Scully, I think it's only natural that we may have trouble concentrating for the duration of this case. We may be interacting with a man that has the power to distract us with our own fantasies. It is vital that we try to avoid doing anything that will jeopardize the case."

She looked down, discomfort evident on her face. He knew that his words would evoke feelings of guilt in her, feelings that he should make clear that he was experiencing as well.

"I'm finding it difficult to concentrate too. It will likely be a problem that we'll encounter often until we can come to some...personal...resolution. If Welton's power allows him to see our weaknesses, then the most powerful weapon that we have against him is to be honest with each other. If we aren't hiding anything, he can't use it against us."

She longed to argue with him, as they had no evidence that Welton truly did possess such powers. With so many aspects of her life jumbled together, she was simply incapable of arguing with him.

"I have to be honest with you, Mulder. I'm confused right now. I can't explain the reaction I'm having. I'm annoyed with myself for allowing my feelings to make a complete mess of this case. But I'm also annoyed that we were interrupted."

They had an awkward moment, wondering how to react, how to commiserate without losing control.

"And above all else, I'm not sure anymore which of these impulses I'd normally follow and which of them are after-affects of the hallucination." She instantly regretted having suggested that she was re-examining her motives when she saw the disappointment hit him. "I truly don't think that I regret the journey we've begun. These are my feelings, Mulder, but my confidence in my own judgement has been compromised."

"We'll have to do this together, Scully. I trust you, I believe in your strength." He held out his hand, and she took it in hers. It was a gesture of simple faith that gave them comfort, but Scully still couldn't shake her guilt and confusion.

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8:19 p.m., March 11, 1998
Near Cincinnati, Ohio

The drive from the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport to their hotel in Covington would be fairly short...too short for Scully. Disturbing thoughts had begun to float through her mind, inner voices that hadn't spoken earlier started to present a darker aspect to their current situation. She'd been able to stall as Mulder phoned the hotel to check for a message from Sharon, trying to sort through her more recent thoughts. Judging by the look on Mulder's face, he wasn't concerned about anything other than Sharon's inability to find another opportunity to contact him.

"How sure were you that the events of that last night in Chesapeake were real, Mulder?"

"Up until the point that I realized that you didn't share my memories, I would have been my life on it."

"And what are you feeling now?"

"I..." he stopped, unsure of the possibility that there was an accurate way to phrase what he was feeling. Thankfully, she interrupted him.

"It's all right, Mulder. I think I understand. I think it's similar to the way that I'm feeling." She looked at him, seeing the relief in his features as she let him off the hook. "How can we be sure this is real? That we truly would have chosen to intimate these feelings to each other? Even in the hotel room, we were getting fantasy and reality jumbled. What about now? How can I be sure that the things I'm doing are...real? My perceptions, you, and your motives?" The tell-tale first symptoms of panic began to take hold, and she recognized each of them. First, accelerated heart rate and breathing, followed by an inability to concentrate. It was as if she'd looked within herself and found nothing she could recognize.

"Scully, when we talked about this on the plane - "

"Actually, we didn't talk about this on the plane. We talked about being distracted. I'm talking about being deluded."

"If you want time to think, it's yours. If you need to talk, I'll understand. Whatever you need, I'll give it to you. I won't pressure you. Having your trust, in me, in yourself, is more important to me than anything else."

"Maybe I just need some time to get some perspective. It would probably be good for the case, as well."

"Then from this moment on, it's business as usual." He turned his attention momentarily away from the road, giving her a comforting smile.

Every moment, every gesture he made to reassure her was paid for out of his own happiness and optimism for their recent revelations. He made a conscious decision to keep the mood lightened, giving her plenty of room to sort out her inner conflict. In the end, he hoped she'd realize what they had, that they should have done this long ago.

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Scully kicked off her shoes once she was alone in her own hotel room, intending to take a short nap. She hadn't slept very well the night before, and the travelling had used the last of her energy. She wasn't confident that she would be able to relax enough to sleep, but she stretched out on the bed and hoped that her fatigue could overcome the cacophony of her doubts.

I wouldn't do that. The things we started this morning. I'm not sure that was me.

The words repeated in her mind, coalescing into the frightening possibility that she no longer controlled her own will. Could Welton have turned them both into helpless slaves to their fantasies, heedless of consequence?

It was so difficult, the desire to act on her impulses was so strong that she could barely suppress it. She longed to forget about the case, immerse herself in the mere possibility that the fantasies she'd considered forbidden could become reality. She herself had felt the disappointment that she'd seen buried deep within Mulder's eyes as she'd told him of her concerns. She had maintained just enough self-control to realize that it was paramount that they pursue the truth, whether that truth came from the forces around them or from within. Until she was certain that they weren't pawns in another man's strategy, she was determined to maintain the bonds of their relationship that they had observed until that morning.

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It was all over before it had begun, Mulder observed. He'd finally accepted that Welton's power had affected Scully deeply, that her resulting feelings of vulnerability meant that she may never be able to acknowledge any of the feelings she had for him as her own. Mulder had distracted himself by hypothesizing possible explanations for the power they'd encountered, and had begun to wonder if Banton's powers had been a crude first attempt to affect a material on a subatomic level. Since their original encounter with Polarity Magnetics, a way may have been found to control the effect so the power could be used at will, focused on specific objectives. Captain Welton's demonstrated power to control matter at will apparently extended to a frighteningly minute scale.

Depression accompanied the certainty that his theory was an accurate explanation for the phenomena they'd encountered. It meant that Scully had an even more sound reason to believe they were still experiencing residual effects of Welton's attempts to control them. It was certainly credible that these were their true desires, but that the decision to act on them was not. Mulder had, from time to time, been tempted by his impulses, yet he'd never truly considered making them a reality prior to their encounter with Welton.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sharp chirping of his phone. He answered it quickly, hoping it would lead him, finally and gratefully, to the end of this case.

He tapped the send key. "Mulder."

"Agent Mulder. It's Sharon. He's left me alone at the hotel, just long enough to get his medicine. He has a heart condition. I'm not sure how he's planning to get it without his prescription, but I'm afraid he's going to hurt someone. He left me in the room after yanking the phone from the wall, and he took the only key. I managed to prop the door open and get to this pay phone, but I'm scared. Please, listen carefully. I think he's planning to stay here tonight. We're at the Sunrise Motor Lodge in Hamilton, Ohio. Room 17. Please, Agent Mulder, stop my father before he hurts anyone else."

She hung up, leaving Mulder to contemplate the dial tone for a moment before planning the imminent capture of Captain Robert Welton.

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Scully walked through a dark house, disoriented when she realized that she didn't know how she'd gotten there. It seemed familiar to her, but each time she tried to identify it the answer flittered away from her, eluding definition. She walked through each room on the ground floor, all of them empty as she looked within, and she was disappointed. She was searching for something, and knew that she wouldn't recognize it until she saw it. Her futile search had nearly come to an end as she entered the hallway, the last place she'd left to search. The sight of the spiral staircase there surprised her, she was certain that it hadn't been there before. Driven by the need to solve the mystery, she cautiously ascended the stairs. At the top, she was met with another long hallway leading to an open door at the far end. She was drawn towards the room, its comforting bright light spilling from the doorway.

When she reached the room, she was awash in the most overwhelming sensation of peace. It was a tranquility that she'd never believed possible. Further into the room was a window, overlooking a glistening lake. Surrounding the water, a lush blue-green grass blew in the wind and two trees cast their shadows, shielding some of the area from the glow of the sun. She was attracted to the window, to that water, the grass, the trees. She looked onto that paradise, a feeling of ownership flowing over her. As she watched the ripples of the wind playing across the water, the glass began to darken and a profound feeling of loss replaced her serenity. The window transformed before her eyes, until it was completely opaque. When she could no longer see the garden, the glass became a mirror. And the feeling of loss turned to fear, to panic, as the image in that mirror solidified.

A likeness that was not her own stared back from the glass. She tried to process that impossibility, but was distracted by a desperate pounding from behind her. The noise seemed to cause the room to change; the mirror disappeared, the wall in front of her was now featureless. She turned to the door, to confront the sound, and -

She awoke, sliding from the bed and crossing the room to stop Mulder's frenzied thumping, simultaneously trying to forget the images from her dream.

"Scully!" he yelled, just before she reached the door. She struggled to shake her grogginess, hoping that he'd heard from Sharon Welton.

"She called. There's a possibility that we can locate them before they get moving again."

Leaving Scully's room, they rushed to the rental car, directions from the hotel clerk clutched in Mulder's hand. If it was possible to restore Scully's faith in her sense of reality, Mulder's instincts told him finding Welton was the key.

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2:16 a.m., March 12, 1998
En route to Sunrise Motor Lodge

They drove along the dark road, the miles passing in silence. Mulder had considered starting a conversation about something they could argue about, just to break the tension. They spoke only when it was necessary to double-check the directions, and the time slowly passed until they reached the Sunrise Motor Lodge.

Mulder started to leave the car, worried that they would be manipulated again. He wanted to keep Scully away from Welton, hoping that she could escape this case without experiencing his powers again.

"Mulder."

The sound of her voice stopped him. Something told him that this was his opportunity to make himself clear to Scully, before they were subjected to Welton's control again. Wondering where to start, he opened his mouth to speak. She spoke before he could begin.

"I know you're probably concerned that I won't be able to handle this."

"I'm more concerned that he will find another way to divert us, but I don't intend to let that happen this time. I know what I believe, Scully, and I won't let him use it against me again."

His words, his faith, strengthened her. "I have every intention of maintaining control of my own actions, Mulder. I've followed you into stranger situations than this."

"And you will again." He reached up to touch her face, lit by a strange combination of soft moonlight and the gaudy neon sign of the motel. "This is my choice to do this, because I want to, because I choose to. And if you choose not to let me, I'll understand." He leaned forward, touching his lips gently to hers. She didn't pull away, allowing the brief contact.

"I think we'd better give the government some of our time, since they're paying for this little trip," she said, opening the car door. A quick conversation with the hotel manager and a flash of their badges got them the keys to room 17.

They found the room along the back of the motel, drawing their guns and readying themselves for their initial contact with the suspect. They shared a quick look, finding just the right moment to enter the room.

When that moment came, Scully turned the key noiselessly in the lock, quickly finding her gun.

"FBI!" Mulder's voice filled the room, and two figures sat upright in the dark.

"Sharon?" Scully hoped that Sharon would answer her. The darkness of the room prevented them from positively identifying either father or daughter. A sleepy, familiar voice answered from the left side of the room. The agents shifted, pointing their weapons at the figure on the right.

"Sharon, you're going to be OK." Scully said, hearing only a mumble of a response.

"Captain Welton. Put your hands in the air, where we can see them. We don't want anyone to get hurt." Mulder's voice was even, an attempt to keep their suspect calm.

Welton frowned in the dark, squinting in the direction of the voice that addressed him. He concentrated on the man, finding familiarity there, but encountered a strength that would make manipulation difficult. Annoyed, he moved his thoughts to the inert material of the weapon in the man's hand, forcing the molecules within it to move, heating the metal. Mulder felt the result of Welton's efforts, and soon had no recourse but to let it drop onto the floor.

Scully heard it drop, and glanced towards the noise. In her moment of distraction, Welton turned his thoughts to her. He immediately saw her weakness.

Without warning or explanation, she found herself in the room where she'd encountered the mirror. A now too-familiar disorientation replaced her earlier determination. She was again drawn to the window, but fear kept her motionless. As if the sound was coming from far away, she heard Mulder call her name. She whispered aloud, refusing to reject the truth she'd known a moment before to embrace this illusion.

"This place doesn't exist, it's from a dream. I can control anything that happens here." Her confidence grew, and she approached the window. It abruptly changed into the mirror, and Scully's eyes shut, a reflex response. Before she opened them, she spoke again.

"If this is a mirror, it will return my own reflection." She opened her eyes, and saw her own image staring back at her. Behind her, she could see the darkness of the hotel room where they'd found Captain Welton and his daughter. She blinked her eyes again, and the mirror from her dream had disappeared.

"Scully?" She heard Mulder's voice next to her.

"I'm OK."

Relieved that Scully seemed to have won her battle, he made another attempt to end the standoff. "Captain Welton, we can work this out. We don't want any harm to come to you or your daughter. But we have a job to do." Appealing to his need to protect his daughter was probably their best chance to end this.

His words were returned by silence, until the faint strains of music began. It was barely audible at first, but soon grew in intensity. The music overcame the agents and they became surrounded by it, inhabited by it.

"L'amour et un oiseau rebelle..." The Habenera from Carmen had started as a figment of the imagination, but it had become a tangible reality for them. As her last coherent thought, Scully had a dim memory of lying back in a bed, hearing this music and trying to forget about Mulder.

And the change began, as Welton created another distraction. She was no longer an FBI agent, she never had been. She was independent, not bound by any quest for truth or for answers. An overwhelming sense of freedom and recklessness had taken residence in her, replacing her determination and commitment. Deep within her, there was a fraction of awareness that recognized the transformation and mourned what had been supplanted. That inner voice was far too weak; the only thing that mattered to her was her current whim. For now, it was a man.

She knew without looking at him that he was staring at her, and she was pleased. When she did turn to his face, she found not desire, but disdain for her. She was infuriated, and turned to leave the room to avoid causing him harm for displaying such indifference. She would get no satisfaction from killing him. The true satisfaction would be to break him. She would, before she drew her last breath, see him beg at her feet.

When Scully left the room, a voice came to Mulder in the darkness of the room.

"You must follow her. She has done a terrible thing, and it is your duty to escort her to justice."

His words made sense to Mulder, although he couldn't remember how he had come to be here. He felt shame for being distracted, for letting the woman escape him. Duty filled him, but it was sprinkled with doubt. He would find her and attempt to return her to the scene of her crimes, but he could already feel conflict growing within him. Although he was bound by his obligation, he was even more powerfully drawn to her with a more primitive, driving force.

"Follow her."

Mulder turned, and ran from the room. Captain Welton grabbed his daughter's arm, ignoring for the moment that the agents couldn't possibly have found them without her help. It had been a mistake to leave her alone, a mistake that he wouldn't make a second time.

"I thought you understood. I thought you knew," he whispered to her as he pulled her from the room.

Scully heard her pursuer's pounding strides behind her, and knew that he would want her more the longer that she allowed him to chase her. She broke into a run, leading him around the strange building into the shadows. He followed, predictably falling deeper under her control. Although she wasn't fatigued, she slowed, pretending that she couldn't keep up the pace.

"Stop!" He yelled. To her delight, she could hear the raw desire, his desperation for her in his voice.

She turned as he reached her, holding her arm outward in a false gesture of surrender.

"I am yours. It was useless to try to escape you," she said. The lies dripped from her mouth like a gentle, rhythmic rain. He roughly took the arm she'd offered her and she allowed a flash of pain to briefly play across her eyes. As she could have predicted, his concern made his emotions utterly transparent to her. It forced him to drop his defenses, and the desire she'd heard in his voice could now easily be found within his gaze.

He pulled her close, and she savored the moment when she knew she had truly taken control of him. That thought, that the man before her was utterly hers, dominated her mind as she touched her lips to his.

'He is mine, I am in control,' she thought, drunk with power.

'I am in control,' she thought again, and was annoyed to be distracted by a noise in the background.

She recognized the sound, the jarring noise of a car's engine engaging. It didn't fit. Something was wrong. What had she been thinking?

'I am in control.'

'I am in control.'

She broke away from him, regaining autonomy over her actions.

"Mulder. He's getting away. Snap out of it. Welton's getting away!"

Mulder looked dazed, as though he understood what she was saying but didn't quite understand what it meant. She grabbed his hand, dragging him towards their car, and was relieved when he followed her. He probably hadn't totally regained his senses, but she still had time to talk some sense into him in the car. They reached the car, and she fumbled for the key in Mulder's jacket pocket while she tracked the direction that Welton's car had disappeared in.

"Get in!"

In his suggestible state, he followed her barked orders obediently. Inside the car, she began to talk to him.

"You have control, Mulder."

"Wha...Scully? Where...?"

"Mulder, repeat after me. You have to say this, and keep saying it until I tell you to stop. 'I have control.'"

In truly annoying fashion, Mulder interpreted her literally.

"You have control."

Exasperated, and distracted as she concentrated on driving the car, she corrected him. "Repeat, exactly the same words that I'm about to say to you." She paused. "I have control."

"I have control."

"Keep going."

"I have control. I have control. I have control. I..." He stopped, shaking his head slightly.

"Mulder?"

"Scully. Where is he?"

"Probably just ahead of us. I think we can catch him, but he's going dangerously fast. We need to get him off the road before he hurts someone."

Their car shot down the road in the direction Welton had driven in. Scully had an illogical but unmistakable instinct that their suspect had another trick that was yet to come. Since they had surprised him and he was probably operating without a plan, he could be driving aimlessly away from them as quickly as he could. But just in case he'd had the foresight to plan for this possibility, she frequently scanned her rear view mirror for any sign that he'd evaded them. The area was deserted, no parking lots or side streets to hide in, but some portions of the road's shoulder were shadowed enough by the surrounding forest that it might be possible to hide by the side of the darkened road.

Her hunch paid off when she saw the car in her rear view mirror, pulling out and U-turning onto the road. He was now heading back in the direction from which they'd come. She checked for oncoming traffic, determined the way was clear, and executed a spin that changed their direction. He'd made a mistake, pulling out so soon after his pursuers had passed. Welton was starting to get sloppy, panicked.

Scully hit the accelerator, just fast enough to remain in sight of the car. Mulder was dialing his cellular phone, connecting to the local police.

"I'm a federal agent, identification JTT047104111. I need local assistance with a manhunt."

He outlined their position, and was given a rough estimate of the time and place of the barricade the local PD intended to put up. They just had to follow Welton and hope he remained on his current course.

Mulder checked his watch nervously, wondering if the Hamilton PD's response time would be quick enough at the rate Welton was travelling. He found relief, about a dozen minutes later, when he saw the blue lights of the police cruisers reflecting off the forest ahead of them. Welton began to slow, and Scully matched the reduced speed. Soon, they could make out the officers standing next to the cruisers, guns trained on the target that approached them. They were small-town officers that were certainly unaccustomed to this sort of thing, and Mulder silently thanked them for coming through.

His relief was ripped away the moment he saw Welton's car begin to accelerate again, heading directly for one of the cruisers behind the wooden barricade. The officers first ran, then leapt out of the way just before the sound of crunching metal pierced the silence. The cards bounced sickeningly, Welton's rolling several times before coming to a stop on its hood. Scully drove, without flinching, through the new hole in the barricade. Her concern for Sharon and Captain Welton was evident on her face as she stopped a few feet away from the wrecked car. She hurriedly extracted herself from the car and made her way to them, as quickly as she could.

"Get us some medical attention here!" She'd yelled to one of the officers, while making her way across the road.

Mulder followed her, but didn't reach her before she'd already had a chance to look inside the upside-down vehicle. She stood, walking to the passenger side of the car.

"Captain Welton's hurt, but he's still conscious. He may have cracked his collarbone, and he probably has a concussion." She lowered his voice. "Sharon wasn't wearing a seat belt. It looks like she was in the back seat, and she's unresponsive. She's lucky she didn't go through the windshield, but I have to be honest, she doesn't look good. I don't want to move her, but I'd like to try to get a pulse. Can you help me clear the glass out of the window?"

Mulder wrapped his jacket around his hand, and carefully reached through the hole in the glass. He knocked the remaining glass from the passenger door out onto the asphalt, and helped Scully kneel on the ground. She felt Sharon's neck, then her wrist. She stood again, her face grave.

"We're going to need a coroner, Mulder. And I know we can at least arrest Welton for vehicular manslaughter. We both witnessed it, clear-cut, nothing supernatural about it."

The ambulance pulled behind them, the team emptying from the vehicle and making their way to where Mulder and Scully stood. She conferred with the team, directing them to take another look at Sharon. After removing her from the car, they pronounced her dead almost immediately. It had been impossible for Scully to see it while Sharon was still in the car, but her neck had been twisted during the crash. It was a solid break that had probably killed her instantly. Her father, still being extracted from the driver's seat, had already begun to moan.

"She's gone, oh God, no. It just doesn't matter, none of it matters." He muttered, varying the pattern of words, but not the sentiment. He was grief-stricken, but his short-sightedness and recklessness angered Scully.

"Didn't it occur to him, the danger he was putting his daughter in? Could it really have been so important to him to evade capture that he would gamble his daughter's safety?" Scully asked aloud, to no one in particular.

"I think he believed that he was protecting her. Now that she's gone, he doesn't care anymore." They put him into the ambulance, and it pulled away. Minutes later, the second rescue vehicle pulled up to retrieve Sharon's body. Scully spoke to them as the new team got out, giving them the grisly news.

"The female occupant of the car didn't make it. The first crew has already taken her father to the hospital."

The crew loaded Sharon's body into the ambulance, and they began the disturbingly slow trip to the hospital. Mulder led her to their car, and they pulled onto the road. Scully watched the vehicle ahead of them, noting darkly that there was no reason to turn on the lights or siren. There was no reason to rush because Sharon was already gone.

"Dammit, Mulder. This is our fault. If we hadn't been so easily manipulated, we could have saved that woman's life."

Mulder couldn't argue with her. He felt the same guilt that she did.

They rode along in silence, each of them contemplating the mess they'd made of the case. Mulder's blood ran cold when he realized that she was probably thinking that they could no longer effectively work together. In reaching out to her, he had lost her.

In mid-thought, his eyes caught sight of a vehicle identical to the one they followed, lying in the trench of dirt at the side of the road. Scully must have seen it as well, because he heard her sharp intake of breath just before he began to pull the car over. She immediately unhooked her seat belt and was headed towards the darkened ambulance as soon as the car came to a stop. She heard Mulder following behind her as she climbed through the already wide-open rear doors.

Regardless of everything she'd seen before, the evil they'd encountered in their investigations, nothing ever really prepared her for sights like this. Welton was gone, but he had obviously been there. Blood stained one of the cots and medical equipment that the EMTs had been using on him littered the area. The two technicians that Scully had spoken with at the accident scene were crumpled in the far back corner, their necks viciously broken. Her mouth set as she surveyed the devastation.

She turned to leave, heading to check on the driver although she assumed that he'd been killed as well. As she jumped down to the ground and rounded the back corner of the vehicle, she found Mulder coming towards her. He shook his head, silently communicating that her instinct had been right. The ambulance crew had been killed, and Welton had disappeared.

She exchanged a glance with Mulder, wondering who could have been following their case closely enough to orchestrate this. Frustration, fatigue and anger brewed within her, and Mulder gave voice to her new mental state.

"Fuck them, Scully, they got us again. We were manipulated again! They used us to find him and now he's disappeared." He whirled as he said it, gesturing wildly to the trees.

They'd been down this road enough times to know they'd been beaten. Welton would remain out of their grasp. The mystery surrounding Weston's apparent ability to telekinetically control minute physical matter would remain unexplained.

They looked at each other, silently sharing the same conclusion. After assisting with the wrap-up of the crime scene, they drove back to the motel, keeping their thoughts to themselves. Each of them needed more time to reflect on the events that had led them to this dead end.

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An undisclosed time
An undisclosed location

Doctors leaned over Welton's barely conscious form. He was steadily improving, nearly to the point where they could begin the tests.

This was important, they'd been told. In their work, they'd encountered many situations that were vital to their country's security. That knowledge gave them the strength they needed to keep their experiences secret, to perform procedures that went against their Hippocratic oath.

None of this kept a shiver of remorse from sliding down the spine of one of the doctors, the man who had overheard the plans for the patient before him. He'd known about Banton. He'd been the doctor who had unsuccessfully attempted to save Banton after he'd undergone a particularly destructive procedure designed to unlock the secret of the condition within him. The thought that this elderly man was destined to endure the same butchering sent guilt and concern coursing impotently through him.

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4:47 p.m., March 12, 1998 Hallway leading to Fox Mulder's office

"What are you planning to do, Scully?"

Nearly without pause, she answered him. Their silence since the abrupt ending of their current case had given her plenty of time to think through her plans for the day. "I was thinking of picking up my laptop and heading home. I need to finish this report, but I'm exhausted."

He nodded, pausing much longer than necessary. She'd expected him to grunt in acknowledgment of what she'd said and let her go. The needed time to sort out the things that had occurred. He must realize that, as quiet as he'd been. Certainly he couldn't want to dive into such topics when they were both so -

"Scully, we need to talk," he said quietly as he inserted his key in the lock and let them into the office. She walked past him, quickly enough to hide her expression of dread.

"I know what you're going to say. We need some time. We're still confused, perhaps even still experiencing after-effects from the power we encountered."

She drew in a breath, but realized that Mulder had already said what she had intended to say. She clamped her mouth shut, looking up to him and hoping that he could read the sincerity of her need to have more time to think.

"I've been thinking, Scully. I've been going over my own experience, and why it was so powerful. I still can't explain it entirely, but I think there are some things I am sure of." And he knew at that moment that it was imperative to get this out, before Scully had a chance to go home and rationalize it all away. "I don't think we ever really lost control. I think we lost inhibition. I didn't do or say anything that I wouldn't have done if I'd had more courage." He knew a longer speech was now forming in his mind, and it would spill from his lips regardless of his contrary intentions. He'd wanted to keep this short, hoping just to give her enough to keep her from killing what they'd started. To his surprise, she sat in a nearby chair, a willing and open audience for his thoughts.

"Go ahead, Mulder. I need to know what you think."

He continued, feeling breathless and just a little light-headed.

"I've loved you for a long time," he began, shocking even himself despite having admitted this to her several days ago. "There have been so many reasons to push it away. Our partnership, regulations, my own doubts that you could ever feel the same way. But I think you do, Scully. I can't decide it for you, and I can't take back the things Welton did to you, the confusion he's caused. All I can do is tell you that I believe those two things...I love you, and you love me. And I'll never say another word about it until you let me know that you're ready. And if you never do," he swallowed, wondering if his next words would actually kill him, "I will respect and live with that. I don't mean to make you feel uncomfortable. Our working relationship is so important, and I need you for all of this," he gestured around him, to the filing cabinets that housed their cases, "as much as I need you for myself."

She hadn't tried to interrupt him, and looked oddly undisturbed by his words. An eon later in Mulder's personal reckoning of time, she opened her mouth and uttered two maddeningly cryptic letters.

"OK."

He bent his neck, leaning his head towards hers, and waited for her to continue. When she didn't, he took a chance and prodded her.

"'OK', what?"

A small smile found its way to her lips as she answered, giving him hope that she wasn't as troubled as she'd been after they'd set out for Ohio.

"All of it. I think I'm getting my perspective back, figuring out where all of this fits in." She longed to reach for him and pick up where they'd left off in the hotel down the street, or where her imagination had taken her in the hotel in Chesapeake, but that wasn't the way it was meant to be. Their connection had always been unspoken, their ability to synchronize with each other innate. Even in moments of exasperation or true anger, their own rhythms had always meshed into a complimentary counterpoint. She wasn't fully recovered from her confusion, and she wanted no doubts to remain in the back of her mind due to a mistake made at this tenuous point. Her new perspective and the nature of her relationship with Mulder guided her through the next moments, the fleeting fragments of time that would, in fact, determine their future.

She reached out, wordlessly, and took his hand. It was a simple, clean gesture. Almost too bland, too chaste.

Silently, their eyes met. The connection, as it had always been, was so strong and sure that it was nearly tactile.

The voiceless words passed silently between them, denying them to the walls that surrounded them.

'I love you too, you know.' she confirmed to him by looking deep into his eyes.

'I know that,' he returned.

'I'm still afraid,' she admitted to him, knowing what his response would be.

'Me too.'

His hand fell gently on the small of her back, and he waited patiently while she gathered her laptop into its carrying case. When she was done, they shared one more extended glance.

'Let's get out of here.'

The seemingly innocent contact between them sustained him as they walked to her car in the garage. Somehow, he'd known that she wanted to drive. Her earlier confusion had given way, but even the minor control that she would feel from the simple act of guiding the car would be a comfort to her.

She drove, the silence occasionally punctuated the brush of his palm against her hand or a quick glance during a red light.

They reached her building, joining hands as they made their way to her apartment. They would not follow their desires to conclusion today. They needed this time to reach into themselves and into each other. It was the only way they could find the strength to risk the most important thing they had in order to transform it into the most extraordinary thing they would ever know. It would not be quick, it would not be the transition that a traditional courtship would take. But it would happen. They now knew this with their own shared, silent, certainty.

end

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