Something red and demonlike darted from the shadows of the trees across the road, and Scully hit the brakes sharply. A small, agile child, not in a mask but in some kind of red makeup, cut an insolent look at her. It bobbed its head as if laughing, then scrambled up onto the curb and dashed away. It happened so quickly Scully almost thought she imagined it.

She drove on, watching street signs, feeling his impending presence. His voice on the phone had seemed gruff from disuse; he'd had to clear this throat once or twice, and said he thought he was coming down with a cold. Long ago she would have believed he was fighting tears, but this was a different Mulder than one she'd seen led out of the courtroom in handcuffs. She could feel him over the phone line, an older, quieter Mulder, with a maturity she once wished for him and now almost regretted.

He had agreed to see her. Just agreed. Not savored her name with relief and joy, not enthused over a reunion. It had been a full three years, four months, and two weeks since he had last spoken to her, and her legs had gone weak with the sound of his voice. But in that voice there was no welcome, only caution, only acknowledgment that it was necessary to meet and to talk business. No weak knees on his end of the line; that much was obvious.

The house was easy enough to find. It was in a cul-de-sac, a two story brick job in an older, settled neighborhood, surrounded by knobby oaks and some tall pine trees, with a wide driveway sweeping up to a two car garage.

There was no car in the driveway but she saw the gleam of metal through a garage window and knew he'd parked inside. It was the only unshuttered window fronting the house; all the others had drawn blinds or curtains, closing out the world. Closing out her.

She sat in the car after she turned off the motor, listening to the sizzle of the radiator, the subtle noises of the cooling engine, like a tired animal settling down for sleep. Mulder was in the house, about fifteen feet away. Probably he had heard her car drive up and had already come to the door. Was standing behind it now, waiting for her knock. How could it have been that he had not answered a single letter, not taken a single call in all this time? Their last conversation hung in the air, faded with the years, but still there, something about Senator Matheson; he had been in the hospital for colon surgery, and Mulder wanted to know if he'd had a history of it or if it was sudden onset.

The moon watched patiently, tangled in the branches. Scully scanned the neighborhood; it was quiet. Few of the houses had jack o'lanterns or paper ghosts hanging from the trees. Once Halloween had been the Day of the Dead, still was in some countries, and then civilization had beaten it down to a docile children's holiday, but it had only been waiting all this time in the dark; now once again it was a time of poisoned apples and razor blades, of masks that revealed as many monsters as they concealed, of the smiling jester with the knife hidden in his cloak.

Scully shuddered all over and got out of the car quickly. She strode up the curved cobblestones to the massive oak door and used the lion's head knocker to rap sharply three times. He was there; she could see the stirring of curtains, feel the shift behind the door. But he didn't answer. It was not yet dark, but no lights were on in the house. No sign of him. And yet she knew he was there without a doubt, a few feet away. Dreading the encounter? Steeling himself for it? Wishing she had never come to his-

The door opened abruptly, without so much as a click of the latch. Mulder stood in the shadows of the foyer, bigger than she remembered. She could smell him, feel the air displaced by his presence, sense the warmth of his body a few feet away even with the chilly air between them.

"Scully," he said, in that gruff voice she'd heard on the phone. "Come in."

She stepped inside the house and he shut the door behind her. For one incredible instant she panicked, felt a blink of terror at being enclosed in this small space with someone who had become an unknown factor, a dangerous stranger. Then she felt him pulling back, moving away from her even as he reached out to take her coat. She shrugged the navy blue London Fog off her shoulders and it slid into his hands. He turned and opened and door, put it on a hanger, as she stood clasping the handles of her briefcase with white knuckled fear.

"Hi," she heard herself say. "How are you doing?"

"Glad to be home," he said, unsmiling.

Home? This was one of his mother's houses; she hadn't even asked herself if he had ever lived here before, though she knew Mrs. Mulder had returned to it in her last years.

"I'm sorry about your mother," she said.

He made a slight gesture as he walked away from her, towards a larger room she presumed was the living room. "Skinner told me you were a great comfort to her when she was in the hospital."

Skinner. Scully ducked her head to hide her smile. It had taken this terrible thing to show Skinner for what he was, and the Gunmen, and Tina Mulder. And maybe her, too. Mulder's imprisonment had brought out the best in each of them; they had been tried by fire and found worthy. Skinner may have been right; she may actually have been a comfort to Mrs. Mulder, as she had called Mulder's mother right up to the day she died. But in her quiet strength there had been a kind of passion that had amazed Scully, a love for her son that wasn't manifested in hugging and kissing and family dinners, but rock solid in its own way.

She had brought the lawyers in, turned over everything to Scully in her living will, listed every last condition in case Samantha was ever found, and made completely sure that her son's assets were safe before she allowed death to take her.

"Some people make their peace with God," Frohike had said later; "She made hers with her accountant."

But they had all attended her funeral, even Skinner, and although Christina Mulder had few friends, there was an aura of real grief in those who attended. On the surrounding hillside there had been strangers, too, like wolves watching the human's circle of fire from a distance, longing in some strange wild way to come closer and be warmed. Ironic, because that's the way she had always thought of Mulder, on the outside, yearning for human connection but unable to make it.

He sat on the camel backed sofa, and she sat across from him in a petit point wing chair that must have cost more than she made in a month. It was not quite dark, but the shadows in the living room made it hard to see, and when he reached to the end table and turned on a green-shaded lamp, it didn't help much.

There was a large bowl of sunflower seeds on the Ethan Allan coffee table. Mulder reached down and took a few, put them in his mouth. Then he leaned back and put his arm on the back of the sofa to look at her, chewing thoughtfully.

Scully aimed her face at him without looking at him. She felt dazed, her emotions running together the way vivid colors run together to make an impenetrable black. Part of her was thinking of excuses to flee back to town; another part of her felt that everything she had worked for and believed in was right here in this room, if only she could find it.

He was wearing a light blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the collar open. His hair was a little longer on top, a little shorter at the neck. He looked like a poet; there was a dreamy, ethereal quality about him. Still, she couldn't concentrate on looking at his face, into his eyes, for fear of what she might see there. Or for fear of what she might not see.

"So do we need a lawyer for this, or what?" he asked.

"No, I've already taken care of everything. There are some papers that have to be notarized, but basically you just have to sign some things and then tomorrow we can find a local notary and finish it all up."

"Where are you staying?" he asked.

"I drove straight through. I haven't found a place yet."

She could feel the shiver run through him, slight, but the slightest movement alerted her like a deer drinking at an alligator pond.

She looked up. The last of the orange October light was fading from the sky, but it paused long enough to let her see him clearly. His eyes were dark, hooded, not hazel or green, but colorless, the way death's eyes might look in a dream, gleaming deep in their sockets.

His face had a ruined light that made it somehow transcendent of beauty, something so rare there hadn't been a word made up for it yet. His mouth, a line drawn to match a bird with its wings outspread in flight, turned up slightly at the corners. His nose, the way his ears lay flat against his head, the high hard cheekbones that stretched the skin, the lines that in anyone else would be wrinkles but in Mulder were so expressive it was as if he was wearing his soul on the outside.

Scully said nothing, but inside, her soul spoke his name, and looking into her eyes, Mulder blinked once as if he had heard it.

She said, "I..." at the same time he said, "You..." and they both stopped, waiting for the other to continue. But in fact there was nothing to be continued. They had a thousand years of history between them and it seemed impossible to push one more minute into the future without acknowledging the past.

He flung himself forward suddenly, startling her. "Scully! I'm sorry, I didn't even think. Would you like something to drink? You drove all the way through? Did you have any dinner?"

She shook her head. "I'm not hungry," she told him. "I would like some water, though."

"Water?" He got to his feet in one fluid motion, hardly bending his knees. Even from across the coffee table he seemed huge; their height disparity had long ceased to register with her and now it seemed astonishing. There was not one ounce of fat on him; she imagined she could see the outline of his ribs under his shirt. His motion sent a wave of fresh Mulder across the room, and she inhaled deeply on the pretense of a sigh. Soap. Tide. Minty mouthwash. She had a sudden sharp vision of him standing over the bathroom sink, washing out his mouth with green rinse, his eyes looking at his own face in the mirror, and at that moment he had been thinking of her.

"Ice?" he said. Then to himself, "Of course ice." He nodded at her. "I'll be right back."

She wished he had offered something stronger. A prozac cocktail, washed down by some of the expensive brandy she saw behind the glass liquor cabinet. Then maybe this would get easier as the moments ticked by.

********

tomorrow: The Change