MISSING CHAPTERS? GO TO:
www.geocities.com/hotsprings/8334/fic.html

MY NOTES: My first full-length novel, Cadenza was born from
my love of classical music and my obsession with Mulder and
my need to crawl into his head and lead him into all walks of
erotic experience. I'm thankful to the fanfiction community
for providing a forum for me to test my skills at plotting and
character development over a 600K journey. I had first
envisioned this story to be only around 100K and to mostly
involve a foray into m/m sexuality for me as an erotic writer.
As Joshua came into being I became more and more
fascinated by him and the erotic took a backseat to the
characters and plot that continued to grow until the scope
reached novel-length. Cadenza is both a casefile and a
Mulder/other romance with some unusual M/S situations I
don't think I've seen explored quite this way before. I hope
you all enjoy it!

TIME FRAME: Cadenza covers the period late in season six,
when to my eyes, Mulder and Scully seemed to be very
distant and bitter toward one another. I wondered why, and
also wondered why Scully, after all these years, seemed to be
so impatient with the paranormal nature of their
investigations. I wondered what would happen if they ever
came to terms with this tension and if those terms involved
an unexpected same-sex romance for Mulder. Cadenza takes
place during autumn, but doesn't necessarily follow or
proceed any particular season six episodes.

MUSIC: This fic was written under the influence of Bach,
Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Vivaldi, Rachmaninov,
Mendelssohn, Bruch, Schubert, Schumann, Tchaikovsky,
Prokofiev, Mozart, Sibelius, and the incomparable violinist,
Christian Ferras, whose recordings are the embodying soul of
Joshua. (See Music Notes for details and references to
classical works mentioned in this novel.)

HISTORICAL EVENTS: The historical events mentioned in
Cadenza are real. Some of the details are tragic to the
extreme. I took these historical accounts very seriously while
writing this novel and have included more extensive notes at
the end of this work for people who would like to know
more.

APOLOGIES: In my efforts to write as accurately as possible I
read as much as I could on both the Russian and Ukrainian
people, culture and language. I am not a linguist, however,
and would like to apologize in advance for my poor phonetic
spelling of the Russian language (translations courtesy of my
brother's lovely fiance, Masha), and in particular, the
scrambling of Russian fairytales to fit my plot--it's a bit like
sending Humpty-Dumpty over to blow down the house of
straw.

SPECIAL THANKS: This fic novel would not have made it into a
readable form without my amazingly supportive and brilliant
beta team, specially assembled to handle my first slash-
themed adventure: Sue, my apologizes for making you read
slash!!; Robbie, my apologizes for lying about the number of
chapters to come; Marion, thank you for jumping into both
Cadenza and its music; Elisa, thanks for holding the shipper
torch throughout the twists and turns of this fic; Sheri for
falling in love with Joshua and his music; Peggy for your vital
medical consultations (I feel I should file a claim with my
insurance company <g>); and most of all thanks to Michelle
for understanding my vision and providing moral, emotional,
critical, and loving support above and beyond the call of duty
and for taking such good care of my characters and loving
them as much as I do if not more.

DISCLAIMER: Mulder and Scully belong to the grand high sci-
fiction genius Chris Carter to whom I send all devoted
regards in care of 1013, FOX, and such. No infringement, no
money intended--just one fan's way of worshipping
perfection. The brilliant and beautiful Joshua, however, is all
mine.

DEDICATION: This story is for Michelle.
 
 

Cadenza

by Terma99
 

"Does a Stradivarius violin feel the same rapture as the
violinist when he coaxes a single perfect note from its heart?"

    --Johnny Depp, "Don Juan De Marco"
 

Cadenza (n)-- an unaccompanied exhibition passage in the
style of an improvisation, performed by the soloist at the
climax of a concerto.
 

"And the manna ceased on the morrow after they had eaten
of the old corn of the land; neither had the children of Israel
manna any more..."        Joshua 4:12
 

*********************************

Chapter One: The Curse

*********************************

FBI Headquarters
8:45 AM
Monday
 

"Beethoven, Bach or Brahms?"

When Mulder entered the basement, the room was resonating
with the sighs and tremors of a violin. His partner had made
herself comfortable behind his desk, upon which she had set
a compact disk player. The lights were half off and the
projector was displaying a slide of a symphony orchestra
upon the haphazardly cleared wall.

Scully sat up straighter and accepted his paper cup latte
offering as she eased the volume down on the CD player.
"You're good, one out of three. Johannes Brahms, Concerto
for Violin in D Major." She hit the advance on the projector
to a black and white head shot of an intense-looking, dark-
haired youth. "We're listening to the Brahms cadenza
performed by one of our nation's top violin virtuosos, Joshua
Segulyev. He made this recording with the New York
Philharmonic in 1988 at the age of nineteen."

"He's pretty good," Mulder commented, slurping the foam
head off his double mocha as he leaned back against the edge
of the desk they seemed to take turns occupying nowadays.

"He earned a Grammy for it too, along with a three-year
world tour contract with the London Royal Philharmonic. He
was the youngest American-born violinist to earn such a
prestigious position," she said, clicking ahead to a not-so-
promising photograph of a toothless gray-haired female.
Somehow the New York Philharmonic's serenade didn't quite
match the woman's disheveled visage.

"Meet Alice Schmidt, a 44-year-old Philadelphia vagrant
accused of planting four crudely made remote detonation
devices in the courtyard of the newly constructed
Philadelphia Regional Performing Arts Center. The explosives
were discovered last week the eve of Segulyev's performance
of the Brahms' as a part of the Center's gala opening." She
clicked to a promo photo of the violinist taken on the stage
of the new cello-shaped, mahogany-trimmed hall. "Needless
to say, the City of Brotherly Love isn't taking too kindly to
their misguided sister for threatening their 255 million dollar
investment in the arts."

"I don't blame them," Mulder commented, stifling a yawn;
the week was still too fresh for him. They'd just finished a
whirlwind dead-end tour of the Dakotas last Saturday and
he'd been looking forward to shuffling some alphabetized
papers around. It looked like Scully had other plans.
Somehow during the last year they had switched roles--she
was now the early morning chair warmer, he the tardy
coffee-fetching straggler. "Was any connection established
between the two?"

"Circumstantially. Schmidt was found sleeping near the
Center's trash receptacles the night of the gala and had on
her possession a series of fanatical letters in various stages of
completion threatening Segulyev. She's being held without
bail at Philly County right now while Investigative Response
searches every last inch of the structure."

"Good for them. Why should we be concerned? I thought we
were off bomb sniffing for the duration."

"Not completely." Scully hit the slide to display another
contemporary head shot of the artist--a rather stunning one.
It must be nice to be both handsome and exceptionally
gifted, Mulder thought, sipping his caffeine. The younger
man had a look of passionate perseverance in his eyes--the
look of someone who had been raised the toast of Europe.
"Skinner tossed us this one because of a current newspaper
clipping from the Philadelphia Inquirer." The projector
clicked once more to illuminate a headline and article from
the daily. *Artist Claims Bomb Threat Result of Ancient
Family Curse.*

Mulder rolled his eyes over at his partner. "If I didn't know
better I'd guess this was from the *National* Enquirer."

She furrowed her gaze slightly. "You losing your taste for the
unexplained, Mulder?"

He nodded sardonically. "Only on Mondays."

"Curse or not, there seems to be new evidence suggesting
that this was not the first threat made on Segulyev's life, just
the most elaborate. More disconcerting is the call Agent
Dillmont from the San Francisco Field Office placed this
morning, informing us that Davies Symphony Hall has been
receiving similar threats written in the same handwriting
where Segulyev is currently rehearsing the Mendelssohn
Violin Concerto."

"Alice was planning on pushing her shopping cart all the way
to the Pacific?"

"Not with the front wheels jigging the whole way," she
replied, shutting off the CD and the projection lamp while
Mulder sank further onto the desk with a barely stifled
groan.

"When do we leave for San Francisco?"

"As soon as you finish your coffee."
 

***************************************
Davies Symphony Hall
San Francisco
10:27 AM

The pink rosin ran smoothly over the bow, infusing the long
taut hairs with a dusting of powder, a tooth with which to
grip and tug at the strings. Deft slim fingers set the small
reddish block aside to tighten the bow another half turn,
holding the thin rod of rosewood loosely between thumb and
glancing fingers of the right hand. The left reached and lifted
the ancient dark stained neck of the Stradivarius, fitting it
under the chin, almost nuzzling the instrument like a tiny
child as it settled into place. Bow to string, the open 'A'
sounded clear and rich over the trembling wire. Below, on
the table, a small electronic sensor sent a red light flashing
across a small screen.

It was a perfect 440 A, but Joshua Segulyev already knew that
before his eyes tracked to the tuner's response. In his head
he could hear the sound of 440 cycles per second moments
before playing the note. He could also hear the tuning of the
orchestra from where he stood in the private guest artist's
green room. The damp San Francisco air was pitching the
strings slightly flat, by only a few cycles. He adjusted his
string accordingly and set about striking the rest of the
strings in chorus, turning the fine metallic knobs at the base
of the bridge until they all agreed.

Someone was rapping at the door; it was 10:30 precisely. San
Francisco's music director was never anything but punctual.

"Yes?"

"Mr. Segulyev, the symphony is ready for you."

He tucked the instrument under his arm, and bow in hand,
opened the door.
 

***************************************

6:25 PM

Mulder leaned against the stucco wall just outside the open
stage door entrance to San Francisco's impressive Davies
Symphony Hall. The Hall's ring of piano key-shaped windows
glowed, casting a brilliant gold light out onto the street.
Scully paced just inside the opened glass door, milling
around the small cluster of school-aged fans waiting
anxiously to meet the violinist on his way out.

Rehearsal had run over and the union musicians were
collecting a hefty chunk of overtime as music director
Michael Tilson Thomas took them through the final bars of
what Scully called the 'Presto' for what must be the fifteenth
time. Musicians were a determined lot. In the overhead
monitor at the head of the stairs, Mulder could see them
sitting like tiny Q-Tip heads between a deflecting barrier of
black music stands and white paper. He shifted his legs, stiff
from the long flight. He was tired; California was three hours
behind DC, making it biologically about 9:30 PM. They hadn't
had dinner yet, and the poor excuse for chicken piccata he'd
eaten hours ago on the plane hardly counted for lunch. He
should have requested the Hindu meal.

But for now he'd have to ignore his stomach and try to stay
semi-alert in the cool San Francisco autumn air. It didn't help
his mood that he had no particular interest in this case. It
sounded like an attempt to get the financially liable, always
controversial, X-Files unit to do something useful while
getting a few suits off Skinner's ass. Mulder recognized that
wasn't a very positive attitude to take on what could amount
to a serious threat to an international celebrity, but he
couldn't help it. For some reason these past few months he'd
just not been himself--not on target, enthused or focused.
Dammit, he just felt ... spent, for lack of a better word. He
felt like a hamster in a fun ball, running nowhere, blindly,
praying there wasn't a flight of stairs ahead.

He crossed his ankles and let the wall behind him support his
frame. Maybe this mood was the harbinger of some kind of
mid-life crisis, he mused. He was about due for one of those.
What was it men tended to do? Dye their hair? Get a tattoo?
Have an affair? That seemed to work for Scully, he thought,
straightening up and watching her walk back through the
pack of kiddies once more in those high black pumps she
enjoyed wearing when they were sent someplace civilized. Of
course in her case, it probably helped that she had gotten
laid as part of the deal. At this point he felt he'd rather just
skip the inking and go straight for the finale--get out of his
head for a few days.

A clatter of applause from the monitor interrupted his
thoughts as Segulyev bowed his thanks to the musicians and
headed off stage right. Rehearsal was officially over. Mulder
separated himself from the cold wall and entered the
building, ascending to the top of the stairs to join his
partner.

"You have something for him to sign?" he asked, amused to
see that she was holding an opened rehearsal schedule in her
hand.

"No," she replied, looking innocently up at him as she stuffed
it in her coat pocket.

In a few minutes the artist emerged through the double
doors. He passed his case and coat off to his manager and
began to graciously greet his admirers and sign autographs.
No wonder Scully was so anxious to take this case, the man
was as strikingly handsome as his photographs. Impeccably
dressed in pressed linen, lean build, not too tall--he favored
the Russian half of his heritage with a lighter complexion
accented with short dark wavy hair that displayed his Jewish
side. How'd he manage to escape 'the nose?' Mulder
wondered somewhat enviously. The agents lagged in the back
until the children and parents dispersed. Scully pulled her
badge instead of the program for him.

"Mr. Segulyev, we're Agents Scully and Mulder, FBI."

He raised his head in recognition. "You got here fast," he said
in a clear American voice. For some reason Mulder assumed
he'd speak with an accent. He *looked* like he should speak
with an accent.

"It's our understanding Agent Dillmont contacted you
yesterday, informing you we would be assisting on this latest
case. We have questions for you..."

"Can we meet somewhere? I'd rather not do this here," he
said in a hushed tone, subtly gesturing to the SF Symphony
members beginning to exit through the doors past them.

"Certainly."

They followed him down the stairs to his waiting car and
driver, double parked against the curb. Segulyev set his hand
against the roof over the opened rear door as he turned to
address them. "I don't really know what else I'm supposed to
tell you," he said. "I've given all the information I have to the
SFPD and Agent Dillmont."

"We're not here to investigate the Philadelphia incident,"
Mulder clarified. "We're here to find out why you told the
Philly papers this was somehow family-related."

The younger man smiled incredulously. "You're kidding. You
mean that garbage they ran about my 'curse?'"

"Are you saying you were misquoted?"

"No, just something I wish I hadn't mentioned in mixed
company," he said, ducking into the long black car and
gripping the door handle. "I'll be having dinner at New Joe's
at Geary and Mason if you care to join me." He shut the door,
leaving them in stunned reflection against the tinted windows
as the car pulled away.

"He was certainly in a hurry," Scully said, somewhat insulted.

"Maybe you can still get that autograph over dinner," Mulder
said, nudging his partner's elbow as they started back toward
the garage.

***************************************
New Joes Restaurant
7:30 PM
 

Joshua made it a private amusement to watch people while
they ate just to see what he could learn about them by
observing their dining etiquette.

This pair was a real treat.

The male agent had ordered a large cube of lasagna that he
pared at with his fork, swirling the mozzarella around the
tines before polishing off each large bite. He ate with
concentration, grace and very little fuss. His partner, on the
other hand, found it necessary to redesign her food. She had
carved up her whole leaf Caesar salad and thin slices of
Romano into little nibbles. He had ordered a glass of
Cabernet; she, a two-dollar bottle of Pellegrino, without ice.
Both had been drinking out of the same water glass for the
first ten minutes during the bread service before she noticed
and scooted the glass closer to her plate.

Analysis: They were crazy about each other, yet doing their
damnedest to hide it. It was a shame; they made a rather
handsome couple.

"Mr. Segulyev..."

"Please, just Joshua. No one's been able to pronounce my last
name correctly since my grandfather died. And if you don't
mind, could I get your names again? I never remember on the
first introduction."

The man lifted his fork. "Fox Mulder, but you can drop my
first name, I've yet to meet anyone living or dead who can
pronounce it to my liking."

His partner smiled slightly and gave her name. "Dana Scully,
no special restrictions."

"Well, agents, what can I do for you?" Joshua had arrived
ahead of them and was now full of whole shell clams,
linguini, and Pinot Noir. He hoped he could get this
embarrassment over with as soon as possible; he had a
performance series to concentrate on this week.

"It's our understanding that you've received similar
threatening letters prior to the Philadelphia incident," Mulder
said, taking a sip of wine.

"I have," Joshua nodded. "But as I told Agent Dillmont, either
myself or my personal manager, Nanette, threw most of them
out. Some of them we didn't even bother to open. I hear
from disturbed individuals from time to time."

"But you recognized the content of these letters from
before?"

"Yes, or at least Nanette did. I don't open my own mail,
usually. I guess I'm confused, I thought an arrest was made."

"A homeless woman in the central metropolitan area was
discovered with three half-written letters on her person,"
Scully said. "But handwriting tests have yet to be conducted.
We suspect she was used as a decoy."

Mulder pulled a set of folded papers from his coat pocket.
"These are copies of the letters they found on her. Do they
look familiar?"

Joshua motioned the waiter to come collect his plates so he
could take a closer look at them in the restaurant's dim
lighting. He studied them, and read what was legible. The
handwriting looked scrawled, uneven, like a child's writing,
attempting to make half-formed threats. "Yes, these look like
the same person. They all ask for more or less the same
thing. They want me to give up the stage."

"Do you remember when you received the first letter?"
Mulder asked.

"Oddly enough, I do. It was about eight months ago. I had just
returned to my residence in New York from my father's
funeral in Pennsylvania. He was a farmer. Nanette balled the
letter up and threw it in the trash. She was more upset about
it than I was. Like I said, I really don't read my own mail."

"Until Philadelphia, all of the letters were received through
your New York PO Box?" Scully asked, surrendering her
refilled water glass to Mulder who had gulped his down
already.

"Yes, at first anyway. The New York box is my main business
address, although I maintain a residence here in San
Francisco as well as one in Philadelphia. Lately, the nuisance
has been dropping the notes just about anywhere--concert
halls, symphony guilds. They're getting smarter. I may be
able to ignore them, but my sponsors take them quite
seriously. Which is why I'd like to ask for your discretion
during this investigation. I don't need any additional bad
press."

Mulder nodded, passing his finished plate off to the waiter.
"Understood. But speaking of the press, would you care to
elaborate on this?" He pulled out a copy of the Philly curse
story.

Joshua shook his head, feeling suddenly quite wary. "I don't
get it. Why would you even care about that?"

The agent folded his hands together and leaned slightly
forward, looking him in the eye. "Agent Scully and I
represent a special investigative unit in the FBI. We have a
particular interest in the not-so-obvious explanations for
criminal activity."

Joshua wasn't sure exactly what he meant by that, and more
confusing was his partner's apparent retractable reaction to
his words. "You're serious," Joshua said.

The older man nodded. "Serious and curious."

His partner jumped in a little too eagerly to explain. "We're
only interested in making sure we've uncovered every
possible angle in this case. We don't want to have an encore
of what nearly happened in Philadelphia."

Mulder glanced at her and she glanced back--only a half-
second exchange that spoke volumes. It seemed they differed
in opinion on their mission statement. Who was working for
whom here? Joshua wondered. The US government certainly
operated in mysterious ways.

"I simply referred to an old complaint of my father's while
standing too close to a member of the press."

"Which was?" Mulder encouraged, ignoring his partner's
controlled exhale.

"That we were cursed; our whole family was cursed. That we
would never be truly successful."

"In what way, specifically?" Mulder urged.

Joshua looked away uncomfortably toward the kitchen door.
He didn't want to be overheard. "My father used to tell my
mother he was being shadowed by something--a wraith of
some kind. He claimed it would appear right before a crop
blight or drought. But I think his failures had a hell of a lot
more to do with vodka."

"Sounds like the curse of the working class to me," Scully
said.

"A wraith?" Mulder asked with interest. "As in a disembodied
soul, or spectral manifestation?" Joshua met his eyes again.
The man did seem to be genuinely intrigued. Joshua hoped
this interview wouldn't be the start of one of those "special
records" he heard the Bureau kept on certain well-known
unstable individuals.

"It's a rough translation from the old Russian, 'dooch,' a
word that means 'trickster shadow'--a spirit with a need to
cause mischief among the living, or something like that. My
father claimed to be followed by one. I, of course, thought he
was nuts."

"But you think differently now that someone's causing you
mischief, as you put it."

"I'll admit it made me think of my father," he sighed, leaning
forward to emphasize to both agents his complete sincerity
in what he was about to say. "But the reality is, the world
only has so much attention to bestow upon the Isaac Sterns
and Itzhak Perlmans of the world. I'm not a child anymore--
no longer a circus act. Audiences want thirteen year-old
virtuosos to parade around in tuxedos and ball gowns. I'll be
thirty this Friday. Some of my patrons have already begun to
pull out of my proposed tour schedule. These threats against
me are just the excuse they were waiting for. I wish it was a
curse, because then maybe I'd have some way of salvaging
my career."

"You certainly don't believe your age alone will erase your
accomplishments as a musician?" Agent Scully asked in his
defense.

"No, not completely. But I may be forced into settling down,
as they say in the industry. I may need to make a choice soon
to establish myself within a particular symphonic association.
MTT has invited me to remain in San Francisco and take over
as concertmaster when Master Antolah retires in the spring."

"That's wonderful," Scully said.

He gave her a half-smile in return. "It's wonderful to anyone
who isn't used to traveling from city to city. For over ten
years now, I've never lived in one place for longer than a few
months. I'm not sure I can stand it."
 

***************************************

Marriott Hotel
4th and Market
9:45 PM
 

Mulder ended his day in the same manner he always did
when traveling, with a hot shower and a bag of sunflower
seeds. The warm water helped loosen up the kinks brought
on by a 16 hour day of either sitting or standing too long. He
peeled apart the tightly folded sheet from its mattress
mooring and laid back, tucking a pillow behind his damp
head. He reached for the remote-on-a-chain and clicked on
the TV. He popped a trio of seeds into his mouth while he
surfed through the pay-per-view selections, splitting all three
seeds apart with one practiced bite, slipping the meat out
with a swipe of his tongue. He deposited the remnants into a
courtesy cup--ashtrays were outlawed long ago in the state of
California.

His warm shower served a second purpose as well--it made
the coldness of hotel beds feel pleasant against his skin
rather than unwelcoming. A cold bed with no one else to help
warm it is what kept him on the couch for so many years
after Diana left. He couldn't stand the empty feel of the bed
they used to share and gave it away. As years went by, the
bedroom became more of a closet space, collecting and
filling the vacuum with little slips of paranormal treasure and
a pornographic periodical or two. Eliminating the symbol of
his solitude made sleeping alone easier to deal with,
enjoyable even.

Then the new bed materialized--that ghastly fishbowl of
repose. It was so ugly he couldn't help but make himself at
home in it. It felt appropriate somehow and plus, it came
with a heater. But just as he was adapting to the upgrade in
sleep comfort, it too deflated on him like so many
halfhearted relationships. So here he was ten years later,
back where he started with a perfect plain mattress and box
spring set and no one to help warm it. He showered at night
at home now as well.

Flip flip flip...even the Spice channel was broadcasting a
rerun. He wasn't much in the mood tonight for those antics
anyway. He hadn't been for a while, he thought with some
concern. It wasn't like him to feel so disinterested in human
pleasure. Generally, he relished it, what he could
manufacture for himself, anyway. When you're a young man
self-pleasure seems like the solution to everything--the world
just disappears for ten to fifteen minutes, like hitting pause
on the VCR--take yourself out of the play for a few moments
and clear your head. Although he'd survived for years on
little more than his right hand, his aging sensibilities were
yearning for the kind of pleasure only another person could
give: a kiss, a murmur, a stroke, a warm sleepy body. He shut
off the TV and spit another set of shells onto the cup before
turning out the light and rolling over on his side, letting his
exposed back cool.

Just like the bed, even Diana had reconstructed her way back
into his life. It was strange to see her every now and again at
the office, exiting an elevator, or carrying a cup of coffee in
the hall. So much had changed; they had traveled so far in
such different directions they hardly recognized one another.
He didn't know if he could trust her now that their paths
were slowly reconnecting. One thing he did know for certain,
he thought, hugging the pillow with a faint smile--Scully
couldn't stand her. In fact, Scully was suspicious of any
woman he became involved with, professionally speaking.

Maybe it was about time he gave her good reason to be
suspicious. As much as he had dedicated his life to their
regrettably celibate partnership, there comes a time when a
man will do just about anything to feel someone's breath on
the back of his neck before he falls asleep.
 

***************************************
*********************************

Chapter Two: Joshua

*********************************
 

San Francisco FBI Field Office
10:30 AM
Tuesday

"Welcome to San Francisco," Agent Dillmont said, greeting
Mulder and Scully in the field office lobby. "I hear you paid a
visit to Davies last night? What did you think of our brooding
guest artist?"

"Brilliant/Guarded," the two said in quick succession, Scully
taking the more flattering adjective.

"But I think he has just cause," Mulder admitted. "An
audience is hard to keep when your life being in jeopardy
makes front page news."

"I hear there've been a few cancellations for the sold-out gala
this weekend. We'll have to see about getting you both some
seats. The dinner is worth it, or so I hear. I'll be watching the
'niners."

Mulder nodded and led Scully into the conference room after
the young agent. They approached two long tables pushed
together. Spread out upon them were clear plastic evidence
bags containing lined white paper, napkins, postcards, and
other snips and scraps of paper as well as a few torn edges of
cardboard.

"I take it this is the complete collection of the threats made
against Mr. Segulyev," Scully said.

Agent Dillmont fanned his hand out over the arrangement.
"Only what we were able to recover. There are fifteen in all.
The ones in the last row were mailed to the San Francisco
Symphony Association over the last week. The row above it
are the letters found on the Schmidt woman."

Mulder walked to the mid-length of the table and leaned
over, carefully reading over the varied writings. "Has the
handwriting been analyzed?"

"Yes, this morning. An analyst was flown in from Seattle. She
couldn't conclude if all the letters were written by the same
person or not. I have a copy of her report if you'd like to see
it."

"Yes, if you don't mind," Scully answered. The agent left the
room as she came around and selected a particularly verbose
letter from the center of the collection. "These messages
appear random, but I see from our copies of the Philadelphia
letters, certain phrases are repeated."

Mulder leaned further over to read the letter she was
holding. Scully's manicured nail traced under the phrases as
he read outloud "...you are the one..." "...your life is not your
own..." "...stop before we stop you..." "...you are us..." "...see
that which you will not see..."

The rest of the letters' contents were random: babblings,
confused phrases, and threats of death or violence if
demands were not met. Some letters were only a few lines
long; others, like the one Scully held, were several
paragraphs.

"See how the writing changes from phrase to phrase?"
Mulder pointed out, holding up a small ripped cardboard
message with the words "...you are us..." written across it in
black marker. "The writing is barely legible except for these
same repeating phrases, which are written neatly and
clearly."

"I noticed that. What do you think it means?"

"Here's the report," Agent Dillmont said, returning and
handing Mulder the file. Opening it, Mulder could see the
analyst paid special attention to those repeated phrases, too;
many were Xeroxed and blown up for a closer look. He took
a few minutes to read it before handing the notes off to his
partner. He waited for her to digest the information as well.

"It says these letters were all written by different people for
the most part," she noted, glancing down at the table. "The
bottom two rows match Alice Schmidt's handwriting; the
third and fourth rows all match an unidentified person; while
the first two rows match possibly three different individuals."

"Read the next page where she takes a closer look at the
repetitions," he said, gesturing at Scully to continue.

Mulder watched her flip through the enhancements. "She
says the repeating phrases seem to be all written by the same
person, in all of the letters. By a right-handed individual.
Possibly someone with great dexterity of the hands." She
paused and glanced up at him. "I would suppose whoever
generated these letters is using a few innocent bystanders to
take dictation for him."

Mulder leaned back over the table, staggering three letters
over one another so he could see the similar phrases side by
side. "Except he can't quite trust this assemblage of
belligerents to communicate his most important points? I
don't know, Scully. The last time I saw anything this
schizophrenic was in an X-File involving free-association
writing."

"Free association?"

"It's a therapeutic technique in which the subject is asked to
just write anything, any word or phrase that comes to mind--
sometimes in response to a keyword or image, sometimes
under hypnosis. The idea is to bring out the voice of the
subconscious. It's not unusual for subjects to randomly spell
out suppressed traumas such as childhood rape. Those
recollections often appear to be written in a different hand,
almost like the child itself coming back to speak."

"But what we're seeing here is an inverse representation of
that phenomena," she pointed out and Mulder nodded his
agreement.

"Yes, it's almost as if an older, more sophisticated, voice is
breaking through the ramblings of the child."

"Except the free-association in these letters can be attributed
to five completely different people."

"Exactly. Which is why I wouldn't rule out dictation at this
point, or the theory that our suspect casts weak-minded
people as decoys for his attempted assaults against the
violinist."

"You might want to rethink that assumption," Agent Dillmont
interrupted. "We've just received new evidence regarding Ms.
Schmidt. Follow me."

###

Mulder and Scully stood behind Agent Dillmont's chair as he
clicked to clear the screen saver from his monitor, bringing
up the  information. An NCIC dossier filled the screen,
showing a mug shot of a much younger Alice with better
dental care.

"Alice Schmidt, AKA Jennifer Hyatt, was arrested in 1971 in
connection with a series of Army Recruiting Office bombings
in the Denver area. She skipped bail and fled out of the state.
She's been a fugitive for 28 years."

Dillmont scrolled slowly so the agents could read the charges
filed against her and the crime scene summaries and photos.

"I'll be damned," Mulder said quietly. "The woman did know
how to plant a bomb."
 

***********************************
 

"Joshua...!"

His grandfather was yelling for him. Sitting up, the boy woke
and shook the hay off of his face. Frost had gathered under
his nose, freezing his scarf to his upper lip. He cupped his
numb mittens over his mouth and blew warm air to break the
crystals.

"Joshua...!"

Joshua tugged the damp scarf from around his face. "Coming
Grandpapa!"

Joshua stood up, stamping the hay and chill from his cold-
stiffened legs. Nell, the border collie, barked and got to her
feet. She wagged her tail and ran to the ladder to wait for
Joshua to carry her down from their nest. The boy took to
the ladder and the dog leapt over his arm. He held her over
his shoulder until they were low enough for her to jump to
the barn floor.

"Where is the boy?" He could hear his grandfather shout
from a farther distance. He hadn't heard him.

"Grandpapa!" He yelled excitedly, running to the barn door
and hammering upon it with his hands, still too cold to feel
the pounding. He waited, but there was only silence. He
couldn't hear his grandfather anymore. "Grandpapa!"

There were steps approaching the barn. "Grandpapa?" he
asked, quieter. He took a few slow steps back as he heard the
iron key slip into the lock. He lowered his head, not wanting
to look, as the lock was freed and the barn door slid open a
foot, letting in the late morning sun. The dog barked and
wagged her tail. Joshua raised his head and squinted into the
light.

"Mama?"

She stood there in her long red wool coat, torn at the knee;
her hair was out of the bun blowing in the late winter wind.
Her voice was small. "Come inside, Joshua, your grandfather
is here to see you."

###

Inside, Mama had a big fire going in the fireplace. His papa
was sitting in his high-backed chair, staring at his
grandfather, who stood by the hearth. They were not
speaking. Their faces were still.

"Grandpapa!" Joshua shouted. He ran to him and was lifted
into his arms and held against his long gray-black beard.
"Sasha, Sasha, where have you been?" he asked in his rich
Russian baritone. "I was calling for you."

"He was doing his chores," his papa said from the chair.

His grandfather set him down and brushed the hay from his
thick puff of dark curly hair. "It's lesson time, Joshua; go
clean up and find your fiddle."

Joshua ran for the stairs, taking them two at a time. He was
so happy to see Grandpapa--it had been weeks since their last
lesson. The boy ran down the hall to his small bedroom and
reached under the bed, kneeling on the hardwood floor for
his violin. He grabbed the small case with both hands since
they were still too numb to open, and tossed the case on the
narrow mattress while he rubbed off his hat and scarf,
shaking the rest of the hay from his hair. He picked up the
case and scampered for the stairs, holding it snugly between
his arms as he descended.

His father was speaking. "I told you there would be no more
lessons. I need the boy to work."

"He can work and have lessons. It is what we agreed, Sergei."

"I agreed to nothing," his father said, staring into the fire.

The boy ran to his grandfather, practically knocking him
over with the case. "I have it, Grandpapa!"

"Good boy, now get the music stand..." Joshua turned to trot
off again, but his grandfather still had hold of his hand.
Joshua didn't feel it and tugged the mitten right off as he
tried to move away. In a second his grandfather caught him
by the arm and turned him around.

"Joshua, show me your hands," he said in a whispering voice
that scared the young boy. His grandfather set the violin case
down and carefully pulled off the other mitten, his mouth
coming open in shock.

"Mirriam! Get ice, now!"

Joshua didn't understand why his mother began to cry as she
ran from the room. "Grandpapa, my fingers are white," he
said as his grandfather held them gently in his big reddish
hands.

"I said, no more lessons!" His father rose from the chair and
took up the violin case. He unlatched it and the child-sized
violin came tumbling out onto the floor with a resonating
"twong."

"Papa!" Joshua cried, trying to free himself from his
grandfather, who lifted him up and carried him to the
kitchen table, knocking the empty breakfast bowls out of his
way and onto the floor. Over his grandfather's shoulder
Joshua could see his father picking up the violin and tossing
it like kindling into the blazing fire.

The young boy screamed, aware of nothing but the sight of
his beautiful handmade instrument alive with yellow flame.
The bridge bent and the strings popped free with a
discordant roaring "ping." His mother was crying and holding
his hands while his grandfather wrapped a heavy scarf
around them, filling the wrappings with scoops of snow.

"You let that man keep your child like an animal,
Mirriam...like a horse or cow!" his grandfather was saying to
her angrily.  "He is not a cow; he is an angel. God will punish
you both for the wrong you have done. He'll punish you
both!"

###

He was being carried out of the farmhouse. His father was
gone, but his mother stood at the doorway crying and crying,
her hair catching in her teeth.

Joshua was crying too as his chin thudded against the strong
wool-covered shoulder of his grandfather. "My violin, my
violin!"

"We will get you a new violin, Sasha. But first we will get you
a doctor."
 

******************************
 

Marina Flat
11:30 AM
 

"Joshua...?"

He was awake, sitting up. His face was half covered, and he
pulled the blanket tassels from where they had fallen over
him. He was shivering, although it was warm in the single
room flat. A generous beam of yellow light fell through the
wide windows over where he had been napping on the white
linen couch. The front bell chimed.

Joshua swiveled his bare feet to the floor and rubbed his
hands together. They were warm and very much alive. A
dream. It was just a dream again. He wasn't even sure if that
was how it really happened anymore. He straightened the
tails of his untucked shirt, brushed the blanket lint from his
slacks and stood up.

"I'm coming already!" he yelled to whoever was at the door.
Didn't they know these were his rehearsal hours? He was
supposed to be left alone, completely alone, every Tuesday
through Friday until 6PM.

He opened the door. The agents were back.

"Sorry to disturb you during rehearsal hours, Mr. Segulyev,
but we have a development in your case," Agent Scully said
by way of greeting.

"Sure, come in," he said dully, stepping back.

"Is this a bad time?" Agent Mulder asked, eyeing him
strangely. Joshua wiped at his face. Shit, he'd been crying a
little. Wonderful.

"No it's fine. I was just sleeping. If you'll excuse me a
moment?"

Joshua walked across the polished wood floor of his San
Francisco home. It was a single, long, white-walled open
room with a kitchen nook at one end and a bed and dresser
shelving set at the other. The north-facing wall was almost
entirely glass, rows of panes stretching from floor to ceiling.
In the middle of the space were stuffed linen chairs, two
couches and a glass coffee table. Up near the windows sat a
classic seven-foot Steinway grand piano, hood closed. The
Stradivarius sat in its case atop it.

Joshua headed into the bathroom--a small walled square of
space in the far corner, almost an afterthought of the
architects, who apparently didn't want to mar the open
floorplan. He heard Agent Mulder mumble something like
"nice set-up" as he turned on the long chrome faucet to
splash water on his face. It *was* nice; it was half-a-million-
dollars worth of nice. He wiped his face with a towel and
stepped back out to deal with the latest speed bump in his
career.

"Please, have a seat; take off your coats," he said, gesturing
to his ring of furniture. "That is, if I'm correct in assuming
we're going to be here for a while."

"We won't be too long," Agent Scully said, removing her
overcoat, as did her partner. They did almost everything in
sync, he noticed. He flopped back into one of the chairs
across from them as they took seats at opposite ends of the
same couch.

Agent Mulder reached into his coat pocket, extracting a small
photo. "We want to know if you can identify this woman," he
said, passing it to Joshua.

Joshua reached over and took it from him, resting his bare
heels against the edge of the coffee table. It was a mug shot
of an old toothless woman. He shook his head. "Nope. Sorry.
Am I supposed to know her?"

Scully took the photo as he handed it back. "This is Alice
Schmidt, an alias for Jennifer Hyatt, a known arsonist and
domestic terrorist. She was the suspect arrested in
Philadelphia for the Performing Arts Center incident."

Joshua nodded, relieved. "Good, so they caught the right one
after all."

"It's not that simple," Agent Mulder added, leaning forward.
"Our handwriting analysis indicates she most likely wasn't
working alone. We believe someone is either hiring or
coercing people like Alice to carry out these threats on you.
Do you know anyone who would try to make such an
elaborate attempt to get your attention?"

"Attention? I thought this person was just a nut who wanted
me to go away, leave the stage."

"The behavior this unidentified suspect is exhibiting indicates
a need for recognition, attention from you," Mulder
explained. "It's classic obsessive behavior--like fans who stalk
celebrities. They believe they have an actual relationship with
the object of their obsession. After some time they find
seeing the celebrity perform is no longer enough to feed
their fantasies; they need more. Some begin by writing
letters, or visiting the performer's home. We're wondering if
you had any unusual incidents with fans, say about the time
the letters began?"

Joshua thought it over. "Nothing that I can remember. I'm
not exactly a rock star, you know. I get mostly retired people
and younger kids. The 20-40 age group tends to avoid my
art...regrettably," he added with a wry grin.

"Did you have any friendships or acquaintances end around
that time?" Agent Scully asked.

Joshua was struck with a cold thought. He turned away,
thinking.

"Mr. Segulyev?"

He glanced back, "Please, just Joshua. And it's odd you
should say that. I broke off a year-long engagement about
eight months ago, just after my father's funeral, but I hardly
think she's a threat."

"You were engaged to be married?" Agent Scully clarified.

Joshua rubbed the side of his face with his hand. "Yes."

"Was the split amicable?" Agent Mulder asked.

Joshua sighed. "No, it wasn't. Not by a long shot. But I really
don't see how..."

"We'll need to follow up on it just the same. What is her
name and place of residence?" asked Agent Scully, pulling
out a pen.

"I really wish you wouldn't. I'm sorry I brought it up."

"More lives than your own are being put in jeopardy, Joshua.
We  just want her to make a statement regarding her
whereabouts."

"What happened?" Agent Mulder asked gently. His partner
turned slightly, seemingly puzzled by his interest.

"What happened to the engagement?"

The older man nodded.

It took a moment for Joshua to find an answer. He'd never
really put it fully into words before. Maybe it was time he
did.

"I...realized something about myself after I came back from
the farm. That there was really no desire in me at all to be
married or to have a family. Going back home reminded me
of everything I despised about my parents, all the pain and
misunderstanding. I realized I had no idea why I was engaged
at all. I wasn't in love with her, at least not anymore. Besides,
who wants to live with someone who plays the violin six
hours a day?"

Agent Mulder gave him a sympathetic nod. "Still, I think we'd
better get her name. If nothing else, than to eliminate one of
your middle range-aged fans."

*********************************

Chapter Three: Spooks

*********************************

Davies Symphony Hall
5:45 PM

Joshua left rehearsal a little early. The Symphony was
working the Beethoven One for an extra half hour tonight
and he'd not had the opportunity to call for the car. Later,
he'd acknowledge this wasn't the smartest decision of his
life, to take off into the dusk of an early San Francisco
evening with a priceless Stradivarius in its case under his
arm. In fact, it was goddamned stupid, but he wasn't in the
most reasonable of moods. The circulating rumors of the
threat on his head were not only giving his booking agents
serious headaches, it was making it harder for him to
completely lose himself in the Mendelssohn. Usually the
music came easily, the tempo and flow almost subconscious.
Tonight, his rehearsal had felt forced to him, as if he was
standing outside of himself working his bow like a
marionette.

He was angry with himself and anger will sometimes lead to
self-castigation. In the case of a man who'd spent most of his
traveling hours in the back of a private bus or car, this meant
walking the mile or so back to his Marina flat, alone.

The night was deepening with the wind coming in cold and
whispery. He flipped the collar up on his coat and kept on
ahead, walking past the warm-lit bistros and pubs of Civic
Center. People were seated at cloth-covered tables, getting on
with a nice dinner in candlelight glow before trotting off to
the opera or ballet. It was his custom, when rehearsal broke
early, to stop in for a bite and call for the car; but food was
not something he felt like indulging in tonight. The tug of
hunger and the cold air against his face was welcoming to
him.

"Music is life," his grandfather would say, when money was
scarce and the evening meal bland. Grandfather peeled away
as little of his savings as he could month by month to keep
Joshua in Philadelphia's Conservatory of Music for
professional training--the most prestigious music school for
violinists in the nation. Joshua could recall entire weeks of
oxtail soup and canned brown bread. Heat was a luxury they
couldn't always afford. "With music the soul is fat and the
heart warm," Grandpapa would say, as he sat by the window
in his leather chair with a shot of vodka, watching the snow
fall.

"Play us something."

Joshua would take out the violin and play to the dark
paneled walls of their narrow apartment, pacing back and
forth along the thin green rug to keep warm.

Looking up from his recollections, Joshua realized he had
traveled several blocks on autopilot. He'd clearly stepped
beyond the refined edges of the Civic Center district and had
headed into a less favorable neighborhood. This street in
particular was accented with a selection of human vagrancy.
Urine and garbage settled into the corners and doorways of
closed businesses. There were messages: "Hungry...Paralyzed
Vet...Momma didn't love me...Why Lie to You? It's for Beer."
He flipped the beer man a few quarters and walked on,
keeping to himself.

He crossed to a less occupied street of mostly industrial
buildings. Just a few more blocks of this dilapidation and
he'd be onto the populated well-lit strip of Divisadero where
he could head north to the Marina. He wasn't particularly
unnerved by the empty blocks of cage-barred windows and
corrugated steel doors decked in graffiti, until he heard
someone behind him say his name.

He whipped around. Across the road a paint can rolled off
the curb and clanked into the street, rolling to a stop against
the front tire of an abandoned pickup.

"Someone there?" he called out.

No reply. The wind was blowing through the alley, making the
empty spaces whisper falsehoods in his ear, he decided,
turning to resume his path.

A man was standing in the road.

Joshua started. There had been no one there a second ago.
"Hello?" he said to the tall figure as it stood motionless in the
center of the road. "Did you say something?"

The figure looked thin, painfully thin, an old man in a long
black felt coat. His long wiry gray beard and gnarled hair
hung lank, missing in parts, showing his bare scalp. Joshua
decided there was nothing to fear from this gaunt man and
began forward to pass him briskly to the right. He tried not
to make eye contact as he drew closer, but in the corner of
his eye he could see the man's gaze following him. Like the
wind, the man was standing directly in front of him on the
sidewalk not ten feet away, smiling. Joshua could see the
lines of the man's skull poking through the paper-thin
grayish skin.

Joshua gasped in shock and hurried to his right into a maze
of alleys. He had no idea how the man could have moved that
fast in his emaciated condition, and hoped he wasn't being
followed as he briskly half-jogged past rusted fire escapes
and dumpsters between the tight buildings. A short while
later, he turned, looking over his shoulder. He could no
longer see the thin man.

In a few blocks, Joshua came out onto a well-lit street. He
rushed forward until he was immersed back into the mixed
company of sidewalk traffic to try and calm himself. Shit,
that was stupid, he thought, hugging the case and moving
forward toward the busy intersection ahead. He was turned
around and didn't know which street he was on. He stopped
at the corner and looked up. Divisadero. Home to Anne
Rice's vampires as well as his aging mother. He stood directly
across the street from the light-blue siding and bay windows
of the two story home he shared with his grandfather for
three years until his nineteenth birthday when his European
tour began. He blinked and looked up at the street sign
again. He didn't understand how he could have come this far
north so fast. It didn't make any sense at all.

At age sixteen, after the lean years in Philadelphia, Joshua
was awarded a scholarship and stipend to come to the San
Francisco Conservatory and study under violin master
Gregory Ferras for a few years. The money and the concerts
Joshua performed regularly paid for a much nicer house--
two stories and a comfortable parlor, no more wishing for
heat. After the tour, his grandfather had elected to stay in
this city until the day he died, almost two years ago. Joshua
hadn't been able to see his grandfather more than two or
three times a year for brief visits. Once he had gone
international, his career blossomed and travel was a regular
necessity. Seeing the house made him grieve a little all over
again.

Joshua caught his breath as he stood under the streetlight,
letting pedestrians brush past as he fought with the decision
of whether or not to cross the street to ring the damn bell
and just get this over with. He hadn't seen his mother since
his father's funeral eight months ago. She moved here to stay
in her father's old house while Joshua had returned to New
York. Did she even know he was back? Did she ever read the
arts section? Had she ever read about any of his
performances?

Upstairs, he could see the center window was lit. He almost
took a step forward, then decided he'd call her after the gala.
There'd still be time to get her a ticket to one of his
performances if she happened to ask. He turned and walked
back up Divisadero to the nearest cafe to call his driver. The
guilt was settling in his bones, but he shoved it aside.

"Goddammit, I *earned* this, Mama," he said silently to the
strangers who passed him as he headed into Tibbit's Cafe to
make the call.
 

*******************************

Marriott Hotel
4th and Mission
8:30 PM
 

Mulder pushed back from the desk when he heard shuffling
in the hall. The door across the way clicked open, then shut.
She was back. He got up and opened his door and looked
out. Taking his card key, he crossed the hall to tap on her
door. "Scully?"

"Yes. Hold on." It took her a minute to get to the door. She
opened it a crack. "Yes, Mulder?"

"Um," Mulder craned his head to get a look at her. She'd
removed her suit jacket and was standing barefoot in her
slacks and snug-fit shell. "Did you have dinner yet? I was
going..."

"Yes, I ate. Was there something you wanted to discuss?"

Her tone wasn't unpleasant, just business. Still, it made him
feel hollow. He'd hoped they'd share a meal tonight at least.
Scully had been off most the day with Dillmont, cross-
checking possible suspects for a Philadelphia and San
Francisco connection while he'd been doing a little boning up
on the spirit world.

"Can I come in?"

She looked aside a second as if she were trying to find a way
out of it, but stepped back and opened the door to him with
a small nod.

She set herself to the task of unfolding and hanging up her
suits while Mulder stood in the center of the room, crossed
his arms and began to share his long day with her.

"...I found that nearly every major European and Slavic
country has some folk myth related to the trickster spirit--a
bodiless soul that exists for thousands of years, drifting until
it takes hold of a particular individual and raises havoc.
There's an old Baba Yaga tale about a ten-thousand-year-old
man locked in a closet by the witch until a young prince
happens by her hut on chicken legs..."

Mulder kept on relating the Russian fairytale, all too aware
that Scully wasn't giving his story the least bit of attention. It
made him want to take her by the arm and ask her what the
hell was going on. When did she stop giving a damn about
him? As wild as his theories could be sometimes, she used to
at least hear him out. They hadn't shared a decent dual-
perspective argument in months. Couldn't she understand by
now that he didn't expect her to believe, just to listen?

After a few minutes he just stopped talking. He was beginning
to bore himself. Eventually she noticed and looked up at him,
zipping her emptied bag shut.

"I don't know Mulder; spooks are your business. I'm here to
stop a terrorist."

"Scully, I don't get it," he said, defeatedly. "I thought you
were thrilled to be off conventional investigations and
background checks for a while. We have the opportunity to
investigate something highly unusual here and I think we
need to observe it from all angles."

"I'm sorry, Mulder," she said, not sounding one bit sorry. "I
just don't see the point."

Mulder held her gaze a moment until she dropped her eyes
and turned away.

"We have tickets to the gala this Friday, courtesy of Joshua's
manager, Nanette. You'll need to find a tux if you want to
go."

"And a date," he said a little coldly. She flipped her head up
to say something back to him.

A cellphone began to ring.

Scully blinked the response she was going to make away and
reached for the bed, fishing the phone from her coat pocket.
"Scully."

She turned and held up her hand to make Mulder stay. She
looked pensive. "Okay...thank you; we're on our way.

"That was Lieutenant Jarvis. He's at Davies Medical Center.
Joshua's been stabbed."
 

****************************

Davies Medical Center
9:30 PM
 

Mulder stood just outside the double doors to the ER, waiting
while Scully finished speaking to the admitting nurse about
Joshua's condition.

"Thank you. Let us know when we can talk to him." The nurse
nodded and walked back through the double doors.

"Is it bad?" Mulder asked in response to her stoic expression.

"No, he'll be fine. Most of the cuts are superficial, defensive
wounds, but the assailant caught him pretty hard in the side.
That's the main laceration they're concerned about. They're
suturing him right now."

"Any word on how this happened?"

"I think we should ask Lieutenant Jarvis," she said, indicating
that he should turn and look behind him. "He just walked in."

Lt. Jarvis worked his way through the ER waiting-room-
wounded to greet the agents. Jarvis was bit of the Old West
preserved in a barrel chest and a short, neat, handlebar
mustache. Mulder hadn't seen one of those since they'd
taken a case three years ago in Amarillo.

"I suppose you're wondering who skewered our fiddle boy,"
the middle-aged man said in a deep rolling voice.

"Yes," Mulder said. "Are there any suspects?"

"Yup. We got 'im. I just came back from the call. Old smelly
fella, a vagrant. Witnesses saw him fleeing the scene. Wasn't
hard to catch up with the old drunk. We got the knife off
him, too. We can shut the door on this case, nice and tidy."

"Where was Mr. Segulyev attacked?" Scully asked.

"Just outside his own front door. He's got a covered entry
hall. We think the old man decided to take a nap in there,
seeing it's such a nice neighborhood and all. Seguulg...the
boy must have surprised him."

"Where's the suspect being held? I'd like your permission to
question him," Mulder said, noticing a nurse beginning to
wave at them. They could go on in now.

"Hall of Justice, third floor. Come on by and have some
doughnuts," he laughed roughly. "Go on in and see the boy;
he's had enough of me already tonight. Oh, and take this shot
along." He handed Mulder a small black and white mugshot
along with a short stack of decoys. "See if he can identify
him. The name's Jim Harris. He's been in the can a few times
for poking folks with sharp objects. This is just the first time
he's tried for someone famous."

Mulder took the photos and followed Scully into the ER.
 

*****************

"I'm having the worst day," Joshua said to Mulder from his
narrow hospital bed. "They cut up my favorite pants," he
added sarcastically, pointing to the little take home bag of
abused clothing at his feet.

"I can see that," Mulder smiled back and dragged a chair
closer to Joshua's bedside, taking a seat. "SFPD has a suspect
in custody; would you like to see if you can pick him out of
these photos?"

"Sure. But I'll tell you it was pretty dark. My light was out.
Bastard jumped me before I knew what hit me. I'm glad they
got him."

Mulder began to set the photos out across the blanket
covering the musician's lap. Joshua had a few large band-aids
on his right arm, and a larger dressing collecting a thin line
of blood on his left side. "The doctor tells me I can still play
the violin," he joked, noticing Mulder's visual damage
assessment.

"Did you tell him, 'Good, because I never played it before?'"

Joshua gave a nervous laugh, then stopped when it clearly
hurt his side. "Congratulations, you win the prize for being
the first person to 'get' that joke tonight, Agent Mulder."

Joshua seemed to be taking this whole thing rather well. A
little too well, perhaps. His sardonic mood suggested to
Mulder that he was compensating for something. "Take a
look..."

Joshua shifted higher to survey the photos. He seemed like
he was about to shake his head, then he suddenly picked up
the photo of Harris.

"Does that one seem familiar?"

"Yes...but I..." He squinted at it for a few moments, thinking.
"Wait, I know, I gave this man some spare change earlier this
evening a few blocks from Civic Center. Is this the guy who
knifed me?"

"It would appear so."

"Damn, did that guy follow me? No...he couldn't have. I took
the car from Divisadero. Shit, I live almost two miles from
where I saw this man."

Mulder gave Joshua a few moments to figure things out in his
head. He turned back to Mulder looking a bit guilty. "I did a
really stupid thing tonight."

"What?"

"I decided to walk back alone to my flat from Davies after
dusk."

Mulder's eyes widened in mild surprise.

"I know, I'm aware how idiotic that was. What I wasn't
expecting was to be assaulted at my own front door. You
don't think this is related to the threats on my life, do you? I
mean, this guy was just a bum on the wrong doorstep."

"Honestly, I don't think it was a coincidence given the
lifestyle of our Philadelphia suspect. I don't think you do
either."

Joshua made to say something in argument and then just fell
still, glancing aside. Mulder was right, there was something
he was hiding.

"I think it's reasonable to say at this point, until we stop
whoever is threatening you, that just about anyone on the
streets of San Francisco could be a suspect. Not to mention
the fact they know where you live. I'd like to post a 24-hour
guard on you, just to be safe."

Joshua regarded him for a moment, thinking it over, then
nodded his consent.
 

*********************

"Look, I got a whole city to protect. You boys from D.C. can
figure that one out," Lt. Jarvis said in reply to Mulder's
request for a guard rotation for Joshua. As far as the
handlebars were concerned, this case was closed. Mulder
watched the man shuffle out of the waiting room back
toward the parking lot.

Scully emerged from her chat with Joshua's physician. "I take
it you're not getting a lot of cooperation from local law
enforcement concerning the continuation of this case."

Mulder looked down at her. "Nope. I hope you like mornings-
-care for the 4AM shift?"

She didn't answer that, but instead gave him the update on
Joshua's treatment. The doctor had given the musician a
Tetanus shot and a dose of antibiotics for good measure.
Then her expression changed.

"Oh, and Mulder, we've eliminated the ex-fiancee as a
suspect," she said solemnly, handing him a fax from the NY
field office.

Mulder looked down and read the fax in front of him. He
sighed. "I'll go tell him," he said, and walked back into the ER.

###

"You didn't know?"

Joshua turned his head away from Mulder, looking even
more pale than when he was brought in. Mulder knew it
wasn't the best time. But there wasn't likely to ever be a best
time for this kind of news.

"No," he said in nearly a whisper. "I had no idea...three
months ago?"

"The gunshot wound was self-inflicted. There was a brief
investigation. No other explanations could be found."

"Shit." The man had turned over away from him, trying to
bury his face in the pillow. "Shit shit shit..." he said brokenly,
beginning to release a choked sob.

"I'm sorry for your loss," Mulder said, starting to stand; then
something in him made him want to stay and just be there
for the man. He sat back down on the edge of the chair with
his eyes on the far wall, listening to the quiet intermittent
sobs coming from the musician.

"'You never play for me,' she'd always say," he said between
hitches of his chest. "And she was right, I never did. I always
played for myself." He rolled over and looked up at Mulder.
"Why couldn't I play for her?" he asked of him.

Mulder just shook his head.

Joshua breathed steadily and they caught each other's eyes.
Mulder felt something from this distressed man, something
familiar, painfully familiar. Joshua closed his eyes and turned
his face back to the pillow. "Thank you, but I'd like to be
alone now," he said softly. Mulder stood and walked out of
the room, leaving him to his grief. For Joshua Segulyev, today
was indeed not the best of days. Mulder went to tell Scully he
would take the first watch over the musician tonight.
 

****************************

Marina Flat
1:30 AM
Wednesday

Joshua's eyes were a rather surprising shade of indigo.
Mulder had noticed their unusual color for the first time
earlier tonight when they were rimmed with tears. He
wondered now why he kept trying to catch them again.

Joshua was standing between the piano and the window,
playing the violin, slowly, something low and sad and easy.
He hadn't said much to Mulder on the ride home from the
hospital. Whatever tears he needed to shed, he seemed to
have finished. The violin under his chin was telling the story
now in long sobbing notes and dual string chords.

Mulder sat in one of the chairs pretending to read a
magazine. After another minute or so Joshua just stopped
and let the violin hang at his side.

"It's beautiful. What is it?"

"Schubert, Death and the Maiden," he answered slowly. "It
sounds less lonely with the rest of the quartet."

Mulder didn't know what to say to that.

"Will you stay awake all night?" Joshua asked, still staring out
the window to the black silk wrap of the Bay flowing four
stories below.

"Yes."

"Then I think I'll sleep now."
 

*****************************
 

Hall of Justice
12:30 PM

Mulder stood above, watching the interview through the
silver-blue, high-tech, one-way viewing panel into the pen
below. The Hall of Justice had been recently reconstructed
and dubbed the "glamour slammer." It was an expensive feat
of San Franciscan engineering that had city voters howling.
They didn't seem to agree with the local commission officials
that criminals deserved such swank accommodations.

Mulder could easily see why. Harris was lolling in his chair
across from two of Jarvis' men. They had a yellow legal pad
sitting on the table in front of him and a fat dull-tipped
construction pencil. A confession was likely; all the
disheveled man wanted was a drink.

Mulder heard the observation door open and Scully came in
to stand next to him.

"Dillmont show up for the Symphony on time?" Mulder
asked. Necessity had dictated their shifts--Mulder had 8PM to
4AM, followed by Scully, who turned over the victim watch
to Dillmont at noon sharp so he and Scully could work from
midday until 8PM together.

"Yes, but he wasn't too happy about it. I think the man has
something against Davies' plush velvet seats." Mulder grinned
a bit; she seemed in a better mood today.

"How was your shift? Joshua feeling better?"

"He has some pain in his left side, but it didn't keep him
from rehearsing this morning. Eight AM sharp he was up,
dressed, bow in hand. He's quite amazing."

"So you say," Mulder teased, glancing down at the interview-
in-progress. "They're not getting too far with this guy. Three
douses with the hose and he still stinks up the room. I don't
understand how any nefarious individual could stay close
long enough to impart any influence on him... Is Joshua
coming in today to make the ID?"

Scully glanced at her watch. "He should be here in about 10
minutes. He said he'd head over during the Symphony's
lunch break."

Mulder acknowledged the time and took a step closer to the
glass when Lt. Jarvis made his entrance from the hallway
door. "Agents," he said in greeting, coming up to address
Mulder. "Still trying to make this square peg fit the round
hole I see."

Mulder turned to face the older man. "I'd like to have his
handwriting analyzed. We have several older letters left to
identify..."

The mustache was twitching as Jarvis interrupted him. "Son,
this ol' drunk can't even hold the pencil to make a
confession. I know you're new in this town, so I'll give you
some slack, but I've had this man in the can more times than
I can count. He's a boozer and nothing much else. He's
certainly a far cry from your cross-state, terrorizing, bomb-
planting lunatic. You're sniffing around the wrong bush."

Mulder tried to keep his patient face on as he attempted to
explain. "It's my opinion that our UNSUB is using local
vagrants as decoys for his attempts on the musician's life.
The Philadelphia suspect was also homeless. All we have to
link the decoys together are the handwriting samples. If
Harris doesn't match any we already have, I want him
analyzed through free association therapy by a board
certified psychologist."

Jarvis snorted good-naturedly like he was dealing with a
confused child. "A shrink? What this man needs is a week in
detox. And until you can find us some evidence linking him
to your case, he remains under my lock and key. You're
gonna have to dig a little deeper than that, son." Jarvis tipped
his forehead at Scully in parting and exited the observation
deck.

Mulder planted his foot and looked up at the ceiling with
annoyance. "Where's a decent homicide detective when you
need one? Who'd we work with last time during the quake?
Detective Meyer?"

"You're forgetting, Mulder, we don't have any bodies yet."

"Except for the fiancee." Scully gave him a quizzical look.
"She had family, didn't she? I wouldn't be too surprised if
someone was looking to blame Joshua for her suicide."

"You may have a point, but I'm afraid I'll have to take Jarvis'
side regarding Mr. Harris. I've reviewed his prison medical
records. The man is suffering from advanced cirrhosis and
abnormal brain function brought on by chronic alcoholism.
No offense to Joshua, but I find it hard to believe Harris had
the strength to even stand, let alone attack a physically fit
29-year-old man."

The hall door creaked open once more, and an officer leaned
in. "Agents, Mr. Segulyev is here for the ID."
 

***************************************
 

"That's him," Joshua said, pointing to the gray-haired shabby
man third from the left. Harris. Joshua flexed his arm. The
cuts were healing fast, but the stitched wound in his left side
was causing him some pain this afternoon. He'd certainly like
his two quarters back about now.

Mulder noted the ID and handed the paperwork off to the
officers. "Do you think you can remember where you last
saw this man?"

Joshua nodded as they exited the darkened room. "I think
so."
 

***************************************
 

"Start us off at Davies," Joshua suggested, shifting to take the
weight off his side in the passenger's seat while Mulder drove
them to retrace his path. "I can't recall the exact street."

"Joshua," Scully said from the backseat. "Did your doctor
give you something for the pain?"

Joshua glanced back at her. "Yes he did, but I can't take that
stuff during the day. It makes my head swim. The pain's not
too bad; it keeps me alert."

Mulder slowed the car as they turned up Hayes past the stage
door entrance. "Go straight a few blocks," Joshua said,
pointing ahead.

"I saw the Chronicle picked up your assault this morning,"
Mulder said as they waited at a red light.

Joshua sighed. "I saw that too. Fortunately, it was buried at
the bottom of page 12. The news has pretty much spread
through the orchestra--it's hard to hide my injuries--but I
don't think too many folks are aware of the Philadelphia case
here yet. If you can keep these bums off me for a few weeks I
might have a decent shot at another 10 country tour starting
in the new year."

"Really? How wonderful," Scully said from the back as
Mulder pulled ahead onto the next street.

"Thank you. We're still waiting on the confirmation call from
Vienna. My agents have been negotiating this deal for almost
two months. It didn't look likely until one of their scheduled
soloists became pregnant recently."

"How fortunate for you," Mulder replied.

Joshua remained hopeful. "I'd dearly love to get out of this
country for a good long while. Maybe then this idiot will find
another hobby in my absence."

It took them a few minutes and some backtracking to find
the right street. Joshua couldn't help but relive a chill of
dread when they reached the block where, just the night
before, he had walked past the seemingly harmless, sleeping
homeless.

Mulder parked the car. "Let's check this out."

All three exited the car and crossed the street. Mulder and
Scully followed Joshua into the gray stone archways of a
boarded-up antiquated office building. Tucked in the arches
were bags and rolls of clothing and papers and other clutter,
infused with the unmistakable smell of human waste.
Whoever occupied this residence was out for the day.

Joshua watched Mulder and his partner snap on rubber
gloves and begin to pick through the piles of debris. Mulder
pulled aside a tattered blanket, some newspapers, and a
paper bag that fell open, spewing an assortment of emptied
Jack Daniels bottles out onto the concrete. "I think it's safe
to say Harris slept here," Mulder said, standing and taking a
step farther into the dark narrow alcove beyond the stone
archway. He pulled out a penlight and began shining it over
the stone surface.

Joshua poked at an overturned cardboard box with his foot.
A fat happy cockroach skittered out and he jumped a little.
Under the box was part of a sign. He dragged it out with his
heel. "Why lie? It's for beer."

"What's that?" Scully asked, coming up behind him. She bent
down to pick up the cardboard.

"That's his sign," Joshua said, identifying it.

"Mulder, we may have a handwriting sample for you," she
called out to her partner who had slipped out of view.

Mulder's reply echoed through the arch. "I've got one, too, in
what looks like charcoal scratched on the stones back here.
Can you get the digital camera out of the trunk, Scully?"

A few minutes later the digicam picked up a partially
smeared message: "...we have found you...you are the one..."

"Does this message mean anything to you? It appears in
almost all the letters," Mulder asked Joshua as he handed the
penlight over for him to step in and take a peek at the far
wall. The message was crude, but readable. It looked like
someone had used the end of a burnt stick to spell it out.
Joshua held his breath against the stench as he picked his
way back out, careful not to step in anything sticky.

"I don't have a clue as to what it's supposed to mean," Joshua
said, returning the flashlight. "But I do have a question. If it's
only one person masterminding these threats, then why are
all the letters announcing themselves as 'we'?"

"That's a very good question," Mulder acknowledged. "Often
obsessive suspects will identify themselves in the plural to
give the impression of belonging to a larger, more
threatening group. Ninety percent of these cases wind up
being the actions of an individual, however. Right now I'm
operating under that assumption."

"I see," Joshua said, glancing away again, thinking.

Mulder touched Joshua's arm to get his attention. "Joshua, if
there's something you're afraid to tell me, I wish you
wouldn't hold back. We only want to help keep you safe."

Joshua crossed his arms and studied the agent's face.
Mulder's eyes were not only beautiful, but kind. He sensed
patience in the man--a level of tolerance and understanding
uncommon to most of the male gender. Joshua chewed his
lip a moment and confessed.

"I saw something else that night," he began, checking
Mulder's reaction. The agent looked as if he wasn't surprised
at all.

"Go on," he encouraged.

"After I left this street I went one more block west. I saw this
man--a thin man. He was standing in the road, smiling at me.
And I tried to pass him..." Joshua hesitated. "You're going to
think this is crazy."

Mulder took a step closer and shook his head gently. "I
won't, Joshua, trust me."

"Well, it was like he flew at me, for lack of a better word. His
feet...I didn't hear him walking...he moved so fast and he was
standing in front of me again and I just panicked. I ran into
the closest alley until I got out of there. I didn't even know
where I was going."

"Can you describe him?"

"I...I don't know. Maybe."

"I want you to describe the man to a police sketch artist later
tonight after your rehearsal. It was good you told me this,
Joshua. It will help us a great deal."

Joshua let out a sigh of relief. "Do you think we can head
back to Davies now? I don't want to be late."

Mulder gave him a reassuring nod. "Sure. Let's get going."
 

*********************************
*********************************

Chapter Four: Messages

*********************************
 
 

Marina Flat
8:00 PM

"For Chrissake! It's open!"

Mulder could hear a good deal of racket coming from inside
Joshua's apartment. It sounded like he was entertaining a
crowd and not enjoying it one bit. Mulder turned the knob
and poked his head in cautiously.

Agent Dillmont was seated in a chair to the left of the door.
He had a newspaper in his lap and earphones on, tinnily
broadcasting a football game. He seemed oblivious to the
ruckus taking place in the center of the open room. There
was a total of six people in the flat including Mulder. The
majority of them were pacing after Joshua who held the lead,
violin and bow in hand, trying to wave them off as his stereo
flooded the room with the sounds of a full symphony
orchestra in climactic crescendo.

"Nana, I *told* you I made a promise to Grandpapa," he said,
exasperated, setting the violin atop the piano and tapping the
back of his bow in the palm of his hand like a petulant
conductor.

"Joshua, my darling, you can't be so particular. These
gentlemen only have your best interests at heart."

Joshua looked down at his personal manager with a
frustrated patience. She was a diminutive, gray-haired lady
with a pointed nose and delicate French accent. "Nana, a
promise is a promise." He raised his head to address the
"gentlemen." "As you all know, I have particular restrictions
regarding my tour routes. The Vienna Philharmonic *knows*
this. I trust you will navigate through these negotiations with
proper sensitivity to my express wishes."

The gentlemen nodded in a bundle of mumbled affirmatives,
and with brisk good-byes, turned to make their way out.
Mulder stepped aside as they filed their way out of the door.
The orchestra hit its closing notes and the stereo fell silent.

Joshua was still talking with his personal manager, his hand
on her shoulder. He was saying something about his fan mail.

"I need you to forward all of my personal mail *unopened* to
the San Francisco FBI, okay?"

"But Joshua, they don't need to read everything..."

He set his bow down and gave the small woman a reassuring
hug. "Nana, they only want to help me. You need to
cooperate with them, all right?" The woman patted his arm
and reached up on tip-toe to kiss his cheek.

"I will do whatever you ask, my darling," she said and
buttoned up her coat. She gave Mulder a close-lipped smile
as she made her way out the door after the men.

Joshua took a breath and made eye contact with the newly
arrived agent. "Mulder, welcome. Take a number and have a
seat. I'll be with you shortly," he quipped, re-shouldering his
violin and hitting 'play' on the stereo, once more bringing the
music to life. He began to walk to the far end of the room,
playing his solo part along with the CD.

Mulder took the opportunity to shut and lock the door, and
tapped Dillmont on the shoulder. The younger man jumped
at the touch--keeping vigilant, certainly. "You're free to go."

Dillmont squinted up at him, lifting an earphone. "What?"

"Shift's over, you're outta here. Who's winning?"

"Dallas, by two field goals."

Mulder gave him a nod. "Did you take Joshua over to the
station after rehearsal?"

"Yes, you want to see the results?" Dillmont pulled a copy of
the police sketch from his jacket pocket. Mulder held it up in
the light and noted the emaciated face. This man had
certainly seen better days.

"No suspect matches?"

Dillmont shook his head and gathered himself to leave. "No
one's ever seen the man before in this city as far as the SFPD
can tell you."

Dillmont made his exit and Mulder re-locked the door after
him and took his chair. He picked up the discarded
newspaper and read the front page, listening to Joshua play.
 

###
 

Now that it was quiet, Joshua kept his full concentration on
the Mendelssohn finale--he was insistent on getting through
it from beginning to end without interruption at least once
tonight. His private rehearsal time had been cut short by the
police station visit earlier this evening. He had returned
home with Dillmont at 6 PM to find the hounds waiting at the
door. He was positively famished for dinner, having spent
lunch identifying Harris and digging through his trash. But he
had elected to wait until Agent Mulder came on shift before
heading out to dine. Dillmont was not fun company and
seemed rather irritated he'd been called in to baby-sit in the
first place. Mulder, however, was beginning to present
himself to Joshua as a rather interesting individual. Joshua
had been curious about the agent since he'd confessed to his
eerie encounter with the thin man. Joshua was looking
forward to sharing some conversation in lieu of what usually
amounted to solo dining.

"Well, at least today is showing some improvements over
yesterday," he said aloud to the man seated at the other end
of the long room.

"I'm sorry? Didn't catch that."

Joshua clicked the stereo's power off with his toe. "I said, so
far today has been better than yesterday." In his head, the
five measure rest concluded and he resumed his part at letter
P. It was a tricky piece, but Joshua could play it and still hold
a conversation. "Come move out of the corner and make
yourself at home."

Mulder stood up and took a closer seat on the couch in the
center of the room.

"You don't have to turn the music off on my account,"
Mulder told him earnestly.

Joshua smiled. "That's okay, I can hear them playing
perfectly well in my head. I just run the back-up to irritate
Dillmont. He's not as dedicated to my preservation as you
and Agent Scully are."

"I'll have to talk to him about that," Mulder said, indicating
his annoyance. "Scully's a much better audience. She knows
something about classical music; she'd heard of you before
we took this case."

"Really? I didn't know that. She hasn't said too much. She's
quiet, but polite. I like her."

Mulder looked at him as if he found something humorous in
that comment. Then he let it pass. "You'd both probably find
a lot to talk about."

Joshua made a small grin and continued with his solo, taking
a step away and concentrating fully on it until its conclusion.
He then elected to skip the final bars of the movement and
silenced the soundtrack running in his head, letting the violin
hang loosely at his side. "She probably won't get much of a
chance unless she switches shifts with you. You picked
'Joshua's social hours,' such as they are. So I guess I'm going
to have to educate you."

Mulder looked intrigued. "Educate me?"

"On the finer forms of music, so we'll have something to talk
about during dinner."

Mulder shrugged. "Sure. I'm a fairly fast learner."

"Great, here's lesson one." Joshua set his bow down long
enough to pick out a CD and set it in the stereo. He set it to
play and flipped the empty jewel case in Mulder's direction.
Mulder caught it and held it just as the strings began to
double-bow the opening sustained chord. Joshua lifted his
bow and joined the lead violins for the first several bars into
the first crescendo where the trumpets caught up with them.
"Know this one?"

Mulder raised a brow. "Of course, Beethoven's Ninth."

"Excellent. You already know more than Dillmont. He thought
Beethoven was a character from Peanuts."

Mulder chuckled. "Somehow that doesn't surprise me."

"Beethoven's Ninth was the ailing composer's final finished
symphony," Joshua instructed, strolling back and forth along
the wall of windows, carrying his part along with the rest of
the orchestra. "It is universally recognized as being the
greatest musical work ever composed. Since Beethoven's
death, no composer has ever written any greater than eight
symphonies..." He paused for drama as the orchestra quieted
and repeated the opening chords pitched in a new key,"...out
of respect."

Mulder made an impressed expression.

"Open the CD case," Joshua continued, as the brass and
timpani thundered in their parts. The agent did, looking
down at the empty ring left by the absent CD. "A compact
disc is just over four and a half inches in diameter and holds
a maximum 78 minutes worth of digital audio information.
Do you know why Sony manufacturers chose such an odd
number?"

Mulder shook his head.

"On average, adjusting for interpretation of tempo, the Ninth
Symphony runs 78 minutes in length from opening Allegro to
final Chorale. It is the only orchestral piece performed
strictly by itself--no intermissions, no opening overtures.
Sony saw to it that the Ninth would fit on one CD, no more,
no less."

"I didn't realize that."

"Something you also may not realize is the fact Beethoven
wrote this masterpiece while he was stone cold deaf." The
oboes kicked in, playing an eerie death march as Joshua
assisted in bringing the violins back into the Allegro's angry
refrain. "He never heard a note of it, except in his head."

"That's always puzzled me," Mulder admitted. "If Beethoven
was deaf, how did he learn to compose music?"

Joshua's expression turned grim. "He wasn't always deaf. He
went slowly deaf over a period of several years. I can't
imagine anything more horrifying to a musician--to have
your whole world slowly begin to close up on you. But
instead of despairing, he wrote this."

"The human spirit is an amazing thing," Mulder commented.

Joshua nodded and turned the stereo off with the tip of his
bow. "You can't help but be awed by the man. He even had
the balls to stand up and conduct the premiere
performance."

"How on earth did he manage that?"

Joshua smiled with deep affection for the deceased
composer. "He followed the bows of the first violins. He was
an incredibly stubborn man. Beethoven blamed his failing
ears on the disciplinary blows to the head his father gave him
as a child. When they exhumed and autopsied his body some
years later they discovered he had suffered from what today
would have been a treatable form of tinnitus."

"Is he your favorite composer?" Mulder asked.

Joshua's eyes lit up and he began to play something dramatic
and bold. "No, but he runs a close second to the man who
carried on his style....Name that tune, Agent Mulder."

"I think...Scully was playing that. Is it Brahms?"

Joshua grinned and kept on playing, throwing his shoulder
into it, perhaps showing off a bit. "The first time I ever saw a
portrait of Johannes Brahms I mistook him for my
grandfather. I jumped up and down in this neighboring
farmhouse telling everyone that was my Grandpapa up on the
wall over the piano. The woman, I forget her name, tapped
me on the shoulder and told me I was a little off. Brahms was
German, you know, but with that long dark beard it's hard to
tell the detailed features of a face. I didn't believe her;
instead I believed they were the same man. I thought my
grandfather was a composer for many years growing up. I
still strongly associate them. That's why I made the Brahms'
concerto my signature piece. I honor my grandfather
whenever I play it."

"Was your grandfather a musician?"

"Yes. He taught me how to play the violin. He was an old
Russian fiddler, defected from the Ukraine to Pennsylvania
with my infant mother in the '30s. He was quite good, but
he'd always say his hands were too big and clumsy to play
properly, which was nonsense; he played beautifully. He had
this pint-sized violin crafted for me when I was four years
old--it was a gorgeous instrument. He gave me lessons until I
was seven. Many critics will tell you I have an unusual 'old
country' Russian style for an American--I have him to thank
for that."

"I was reading in your file...your background...how was it
that you came to be under the guardianship of your
grandfather?"

Joshua's playing changed, became quieter and darker as he
searched for the simplest explanation. "He had legal cause to
take me off the family farm when I was six. My father was
found negligent."

Mulder's eyes expressed concern. "How was that?"

Joshua shook his head absently. "He had this charming habit
of locking me in the barn whenever I displeased him--which
was often. My father didn't "get" me, if you know what I
mean. I slept in the barn more often than my own bed. One
night it just got too damn cold and my fingers were
frostbitten. I was taken to the hospital by my grandfather for
emergency treatment." Joshua stopped playing and held up
his left hand that gripped the violin, flexing his fingers. "It
wasn't too bad until they started thawing me out. The middle
fingers on my left hand turned as black as a crow's foot," he
said, pointing to them with his bow. "My grandfather begged
and pleaded with my doctors to keep my fingers. It was more
of a practice back then to just cut everything off. They
listened somehow..."

Mulder appeared to be moved by the story, and Joshua
decided maybe it was time to take this man to dinner. He
walked over to the piano and put the Stradivarius to bed.

"How hard is it to love a child?" he asked rhetorically,
shutting the lid on the case. He could feel the old
resentments echoing in his chest, but he shook them off. It
was something he just couldn't care about anymore. His
father was dead and buried and he was master of his own
life.

"I thank God every day for my grandfather. It just about
killed me when he died," he said, locking the case and
turning back to his assigned companion for the evening. "Do
you like paella?"

"I don't know."

"Then it's about time you found out."
 

********************************

La Orta Espana
9:49 PM
 

In his 13 years as an FBI agent, Mulder had certainly suffered
through his share of ass-numbing stakeouts and hostile
witness vigils, but none of his subjects had ever been so
receptive to the imposition as Joshua Segulyev. In fact, in this
current situation, he didn't feel as if he was working at all,
but rather enjoying a pleasant dinner with a friend. This was
assuming he actually had friends who ate in fine restaurants--
Eddie's Cheesesteak Hut probably didn't count.

Joshua was busy explaining the particulars of Spanish
viniculture as they sat enjoying a steaming rice and seafood
paella, while a flamenco guitarist wandered by singing
joyfully about the virtues of Spanish maidens. Joshua had an
appreciation for life's finer pleasures, that was certain. He
was definitely not the type of company Mulder was
accustomed to keeping. It made for a refreshing change and
it beat the hell out of cold Chinese noodles, a bag of
sunflower seeds and stale TV.

During the course of the dinner, Mulder discovered that, in
addition to his music training, Joshua had his share of a fine
education. He'd taken a particular interest in abnormal
psychology during his years at the San Francisco
Conservatory. They shared their views on Jung and Timothy
Leary. Eventually the discussion shifted to criminology and
profiling, which Joshua seemed to find especially fascinating.

"It's grim work," Mulder said, stabbing at a shrimp. "I'm
amazed at some of the colleagues I had who have kept with
it. They're an elite force. Law enforcement agencies from all
over the world request their services. It's difficult to turn
cases away."

"Why did you give it up?"

Mulder chewed his shrimp, thinking for a sensible answer. "I
had a personal calling elsewhere that I couldn't ignore."

"This special unit you and Scully represent?" Joshua nudged.

Mulder was, for once, wary about giving this young man too
many details. That wasn't like him; he usually shoved his
purpose and opinions down everyone's throats whether they
wanted to hear them or not. Here he was being asked by
someone who took a genuine interest, yet he didn't feel
absolutely comfortable sharing it. He decided to go for the
generic description.

"Scully and I investigate unsolved cases that have been
abandoned by the standard units within the FBI. We try to
solve them by applying unconventional investigative
techniques. Or at least I do," he corrected with a grin. "Scully
is very fond of the scientific method. She's a forensic
pathologist."

"And you?"

"I'm the ex-serial killer bloodhound who decided to turn his
nose to sniffing out the unexplained."

Joshua raised his chin and took a sip of sangria. "That would
explain why my flying skeleton man didn't take you a bit by
surprise. You don't think I'm beginning to inherit the ravings
of my deceased father, do you?"

Mulder gave Joshua a reassuring shake of his head. "I may
have an open mind to extreme possibilities, but I don't follow
those beliefs blindly. At this point I'd count your spook as a
living, breathing, suspect."

"I think I'm relieved to hear that. The last thing I want is to
slip into the same mindset as my father."

"Isn't that what all men fear?" Mulder joked, in turnabout to
their earlier psychological discussions.

"Still, I was relieved to get it off my chest. I've felt something
odd was going to happen to me for some time now."

Mulder regarded him with interest. "In what way?"

Joshua sat back in his chair, running his fingertips along the
edge of his wine glass. "After the first few weeks I was in
Philadelphia, I began to feel as if I was being followed
whenever I was out in the city at night. I didn't see or hear
anything strange; I just got the feeling that I needed to leave
that town as soon as possible. I didn't connect it to the
letters then, but now I wonder if they were getting to me
subconsciously."

He paused and Mulder urged him to continue.

"Then the bombs were found after my performance and I
requested Nanette book me on the first flight out of there. I
thought coming across the country to California would shake
that feeling, and it did at first, until just a few nights ago."

"Which night?"

"The night before you and Agent Scully arrived, right before
Dillmont contacted me about the new letters. I had been
standing outside a restaurant waiting for the car and
something made me walk across the street and wait from
inside a well-lit bookstore. The whole time I was in there, I
kept looking around through the shelves as if I was expecting
to see something, but not really knowing what it was I was
going to see."

"Were there any homeless or unusual individuals loitering in
that area?"

"I'm sure there were, but none seemed to bother me. No, that
feeling of dread, of being followed or watched, only came to
me right before I saw that strange man yesterday. I feel...he's
the one who's been following me, even though I've never
seen him before. I can't really explain it and it disturbs me a
great deal. It disturbed me to see the police sketch."

"Do you feel an unnatural need to escape this presence?"

Joshua met his gaze. "Yes, I do. I don't like the effect it's
having on me, or on my concentration. I think I've felt this
uneasiness from time to time for quite a few months now."

"But it's getting stronger and more frequent?"

Joshua swallowed the last of his sangria and stared at the
tablecloth. "Yes."

Mulder gave Joshua a moment to think as he polished off the
last few bites of paella. The violinist looked as if he was
trying to get this new actuated revelation together in his
head.

"In my work, Joshua, I've seen how hard it is for some people
to accept highly unusual experiences, no matter how
blatantly realistic the phenomenon was made to them. Some
people see an unusual event once and promptly force
themselves to forget it, denying it ever happened to preserve
their world view. I can understand that psychology. But then
I've known some who have experienced many years of
ongoing unexplainable events, one right after the other, who
can still find a way to reject the possibility that there is no
simple rational explanation for what they've seen."

Joshua met his eyes with passive sympathy. "That must be
incredibly frustrating for someone in your line of work."

"It is, but I've had to learn how to accept it just as well as I
accept the unexplained." He paused, appreciating the irony in
his new-found sincerity for an attitude that had been driving
him numb with frustration lately.

Joshua waved for the check and it was delivered promptly.
He slipped a Platinum card into the cover and passed it right
back without opening it. Mulder reached into his coat for his
wallet, but Joshua refused the offer.

"The least I can do is buy you dinner for putting up with me
last night. I was in a rather morose mood. I didn't have the
presence of mind to thank you properly for staying with me."

"It's not necessary; I was doing my job."

The musician gave him a sincere look. "I'm familiar with the
standard sympathy training issued to most officers and
physicians. You actually meant it when you said you were
sorry for my loss. I appreciated that. I needed to hear that
from someone last night because I honestly didn't know how
I was supposed to feel."

"It must have come as quite a shock."

Joshua nodded sadly. "I've tried to reach her parents, but
they won't pick up. I don't think I'll hear back from them any
time soon, either. They strongly objected to the
engagement."

"Why?"

Joshua looked off. "They didn't believe I was sincere. I guess
they were right. I knew she had difficulties sometimes...I just
didn't think..." He stopped, not wanting to continue. "I guess
I'd rather not think about it right now." He sat up straighter
in his chair and accepted the charge receipt, signing it
briskly.

"Were you ever married, Agent Mulder?"

"I was engaged for two years."

"What happened?"

"She left me for a better job."

"Ouch."

"Even I was slow to accept that phenomenon. I wore the
damn ring for almost two years. It gave me some space I
guess, an excuse not to get involved again for a long time."

"What brought you out of it?"

"I married my job."

Joshua made his first genuine smile for the evening. "I think
I've underestimated you, Mulder. You and I have plenty in
common to talk about."
 

***********************************

Marina Flat
12:24 AM
Thursday

Joshua rolled over onto his side in his bed and dipped his
chin so he could watch the man seated at the far corner of
his couch, reading a book by penlight, unaware he was being
studied. It was only the second night, but Joshua found it
subtly erotic that the agent was sitting in his dark apartment
watching over him while he slept.

Throughout their evening, Joshua noticed that Mulder had a
nervous habit of running his teeth and tongue over his lower
lip while he was thinking something over or finding an
answer to a challenging question--and also apparently while
reading--as if his mouth needed something to do. Mulder was
as supremely intelligent as he was attractive. Joshua felt it a
shame nobody seemed to notice this man of late, or if they
did, hadn't bothered to dig below the surface.

Joshua had known Agent Mulder to be pleasing to the eye
from the moment they were introduced by the stage door,
but he hadn't given him much thought. The agent's offbeat
charisma hadn't arrested his full attention until this evening.
An enigma of otherworldly beliefs and predatory analysis,
Joshua soon discovered Mulder was not formed from the
same mold as other men. He was his own creation and
Joshua knew that self-archetyping could be a lonely practice.

Mulder raised a hand to the binding of the book he held
against his thigh, dragging the paper edge forward and over
with long elegant fingers. Mulder had beautiful hands, strong
and precise like a pianist's. Joshua always noticed a man's
hands first. He'd fallen in love with many pairs of untouched
hands over the years, wrapped around the neck of a cello or
manipulating the labyrinth of keys on a bassoon. What was
surprising to him was to find such a finely sculpted pair that
were intended for throwing suspects to the ground or
gripping the rough pad of a pistol.

Mulder licked his first finger before turning the next page.
Joshua couldn't keep himself from wondering if that warm
bullet-firing fingertip would feel rough or smooth against his
own passing tongue. He smiled a little at the shiver that
fantasy gave him.

These thoughts, although futile, were not unwelcome to him.
He'd been attracted to men before--he'd even had a few male
lovers. Beyond all that, he found he just plain liked the man--
it was nice to have a companion to share dinner and
conversation with. He couldn't help but feel some vanity at
the heads that turned that night when they walked into the
restaurant together. If Mulder noticed the error he made no
sign, and that had pleased him even more.

Given Mulder's apparent solitary existence, it would be a
more productive use of their time if they shared the bed,
Joshua mused. But that was many paces ahead. Mulder was
decidedly straight and the whole mystery of his emotional
connection to Scully remained elusive to Joshua. He knew he
was only bound to disappoint himself if he let these late
thoughts progress and closed his eyes, willing his mind to
quiet and bring him over into sleep.

****************************

Hall of Justice
9:30 AM

Mulder stood outside the security entrance awaiting
admission into the main lock-up. He was nursing a sore
tongue from gulping down a ghastly cup of lava-hot coffee
he'd picked up at a convenience store on his way in. He'd
been awakened from a dead sleep at 8:30 after only a four
hours' rest by the cheery boom of Lt. Jarvis.

"Good mornin' and happy Thursday! You won yourself a case,
agent. Our Harris has been a busy boy all night long. You
might want to get your tail down here and have yourself a
look at his handiwork."

Word had it Harris pocketed the construction pencil the day
before during his interview and had done a little composing
of his own across the wall of his jail cell in the dead of the
night. Mulder was anxious to get as many shots of it as he
could before Jarvis called in the janitorial services to wipe up
his precious slammer and return it to vogue status. Dillmont
was also moving his ass over to Davies so Scully could join
him at the prison a few hours ahead of schedule.

"Weapons, please."

Mulder unclipped his holster and handed it over, waiting for
the clear blue space shield technology they called a
bulletproof polymatrix door to ding and slide open for him.
He found the general absence of good solid steel bars a bit
unnerving.

A prison guard met him inside the corridor.

"Hope you brought your reading glasses," he said, escorting
Mulder down the long hallway lit by refracted natural light
panels. Most of the cells on this hall were empty.

"Are any of the messages legible?" he asked, anxious to see if
his theory was correct.

"Depends on what you'd qualify as legible, but you'll
certainly have a fine selection. On your left here."

The cell door was open, and at first Mulder thought they'd
already begun to paint in the far corner where the wall
looked darker. A few nearsighted steps closer and it came
clear--the wall was darker because it was nearly covered in
graphite. Messages upon messages had been written and
rewritten and written again, one over another, across all
three walls, most of the floor and even some parts of the
ceiling. Harris must have stretched up from the edge of his
single bunk to write that high. The majority of the writing
was smeared or scribbled in arcane letters that one could
assume were attempts at the English alphabet. However,
between the drivel were the tell-tale phrases drawn in a
steady hand Mulder had certainly seen before, but never to
this extent.

"Don't step on the floor," Mulder warned the guard as he
leaned in, trying to get a basis of where to begin cataloguing
the collective works. "I don't want to lose any of this."

The guard stepped back and stood patiently in the hall while
Mulder got down on all fours just outside the cell and
examined the closest words first, taking digital shots as he
went. In the distance Mulder heard another ding and the
familiar click of thick high heels. Something caught his eye in
the corner of the cell near the toilet. Pulling on a pair of
gloves and crawling forward, careful not to disturb anything,
he picked up the ragged end of a thick flat yellow stick no
more than an inch long.

"What did you find?" Scully asked from behind him. Mulder
pushed himself back up and stepped out, holding it up for
her to see.

"The construction pencil, or what's left of it."

"It looks like it's been chewed," she noted.

"It has," said the guard. "The prisoner sharpened the darn
thing with his teeth."
 

**********************************

11:30 AM

Harris gave Mulder a filthy graphite-black smile as he sat
slumped across from him at the interrogation room table.
Now sober, the man was shaking and unpredictable, spitting
on the floor next to him every few minutes, making a slimy
black puddle.

The expulsion of the vagrant's salivary glands was the most
communication he and Scully had managed to draw from the
man in the last twenty minutes. He clearly wasn't in his right
mind.

Mulder tried once more. He took the printout of the digital
shot he'd taken an hour earlier from the west wall of the cell.
It was a cleaner strip of letters that spelled out "...you were
stolen from us..." He pushed it directly in front of the shabby
man and asked him again.

"Who made you write this, Harris?"

Harris grinned and spat, this time catching the edge of the
table before it ran off onto the floor near his own foot. "I
donn write nuthin'..." he repeated again.

"If you didn't write these messages on the walls of your cell,
Harris, then who did?"

Harris wagged his head back and forth. "Donn no, dunno..."

"Was it a man, Harris? A thin man?"

Harris began to make a sick gurgling sound that could have
been laughter. "Fuck....the thinmman...wanno go home."

"You're not going home for a long time. You might as well
make your stay more pleasant by cooperating with us," Scully
offered, standing behind Mulder's chair.

"Did you see a man in your cell, Harris? Did he tell you to
start writing?"

Harris looked around the room almost as if he was waiting
for something. "The man...he keeps on comin.'"

"Does he frighten you, this man?"

Harris just bobbed in place, a dribble of spittle beginning to
drip out of his lip as he made a low moaning sound.

Mulder pulled out a copy of Joshua's gaunt suspect sketch
and pushed it in front of the man. The response was
instantaneous.

Harris leapt to his unstable feet with a shout and tumbled
backwards, knocking the chair over. Mulder was up and
around the edge of the table, grabbing the picture and
holding it close to Harris as the disheveled man tried to crawl
under the table away from it, babbling.

"Go away, go away!" Harris yelled at the sketch and Mulder
could feel Scully's hand on his arm urging him to pull back.

"Mulder, they're coming..."

Mulder heard the safety door ding and he got to his feet.
Harris was still kneeling on the floor bent over, holding his
head, mumbling, "We've found you, We've found you..."

Lt. Jarvis stepped in, shaking his head. "You're not going to
get too far that way, son. Now the man's gone and pissed on
the floor."

"That's spit," Mulder replied sharply and exited the room.
 

******************************

*********************************

Chapter Five: Duet

*********************************

Davies Symphony Hall
3:30 PM
 

Mulder and Scully had fashioned a makeshift office between
Terrace rows F and G, seats 18-20, as they sifted through the
digital camera's printouts of the inscribed cell walls. Down
below on the stage, the San Francisco Symphony was
rehearsing the second movement of the Mendelssohn,
refining itself to Joshua's interpretation. Dillmont had found
a way to get himself called onto another case for the
remainder of the afternoon.

"I'm going to deaccelerando eight bars before letter C, right
before the key change. I want to milk that phrase just a little
more."

Mulder could hear Joshua's voice expanding and echoing in
the Hall's precision acoustics, followed by his violin.

The conductor tapped his stand. "Let's take that
again...everyone, ten before C."

On his lap, Mulder was sorting digital prints, separating out
the words written by the repeating phantom hand. It wasn't
easy as the seat next to him flipped up, scattering a sorted
stack to the floor between the bolted rows of chairs. He bit
his lip to keep the obscenity he wanted to exude from
echoing off the first balcony overhead.

"Mulder..." Scully leaned in from the row behind, whispering
to him under the pianissimo pulse of the orchestra. "Can't
this wait until later?"

Mulder looked up from where he had knelt down between
the rows, picking up photos. "I want to decipher this message
as soon as possible before our violinist becomes the artist
formerly known as Joshua Segulyev."

"Do you believe deciphering the message will end the
attacks?"

"Right now it's the best lead we have. I'm certain now these
common phrases all point to the writings of a single slender
individual."

"But Mulder, you saw the surveillance tapes of the lock-up.
No one but the block guard entered or exited that section
last night. Harris was incarcerated. He had to have written all
this himself."

Mulder set the disorganized pile back on the cushion,
pressing it down and wedging in his laptop to hold it in place.
Brushing off his pant leg, he climbed over a row, taking the
seat next to his partner so they could communicate more
clearly.

"Last night at dinner, Joshua told me that he'd been somehow
expecting to see the Thin Man, like he had come to him as an
omen."

"Joshua believes that now?" she said, questioningly.

Mulder gave her a straight look. "Yes, he does."

Scully looked down at the paperwork in her lap, refusing to
make an issue of it. "Well then, maybe you both should
consider the psychological profile I just finished reviewing on
Alice Schmidt. She's been diagnosed as a borderline paranoid
schizophrenic given to delusions and high suggestibility. She,
too, had a strong ambiguous reaction to the police sketch we
faxed over last night."

Mulder closed his eyes and stretched his neck back, taking a
moment to collect himself. "I'm sorry, Scully; I didn't get
much sleep last night."

She blinked in acceptance of his apology for being snappy
this early evening and passed the report over to him. He
glanced at it and set it aside. He rubbed his eyes, too tired to
read it. "So where does this leave us?"

"It leaves us with two suspects who have highly unstable
psychological profiles. My guess is that they've encountered
this Thin Man, as you call him, and he was able to intimidate
them to the point where they believe they still see him."

Mulder crossed his arms and tried to get more comfortable
in the small plush seat. "That doesn't explain Joshua's
sighting."

"No," she admitted. "Not entirely, but he is under a great deal
of stress."

"Are you suggesting he's met this man before?"

"It's possible. If this man is skilled in hypnosis or other
suggestive techniques, he could be planting thoughts and
images in these people, including Joshua."

"But Joshua's the one being threatened. If our masterminding
suspect was able to get close enough to hypnotize him, then
why didn't he just make good on his promises and..." Mulder
made a trigger-pulling move with his hand.

"Perhaps killing Joshua isn't his final goal? Have any of the
repeated phrases actually mentioned death? The words of
violence, as confusedly as they've been spelled out, have
been from the hands of Schmidt and Harris, who incidentally
both attacked Joshua in a violent manner that was particular
to them. The Thin Man, if he even exists, may only be trying
to scare Joshua into hearing his message."

Mulder gave that some serious thought. Whoever was
influencing these people, he was getting better and faster
results. "Which makes clarifying the message even more
important," he said to her, reaching forward and picking up a
photo he'd missed under the adjoining row. He flipped it
around, thinking. Something caught his eye in a flow of
markings he had previously taken for scribble.

"Scully...look at this. Does that look like Cyrillic to you?"

Scully took the photo from him, shifting it around. "I don't
know, my Russian is pretty spotty. Do we have a translator in
San Francisco?"

"Yeah, but I think he's busy with a concerto right now."
 

***********************************
 
Guest Artist's Greenroom
4:00 PM

"I'm sorry; I may look Russian, but I never learned to read or
write it," Joshua said, handing the printout back to Scully. He
was off for the rest of the day while the orchestra rehearsed
the remainder of their program. "It might be Cyrillic, but
aside from a few general terms of endearment and profanity,
I never heard my grandfather speak Russian. He was very
'Anastasia' about that--he wanted to forget everything about
his homeland."

"Your mother lives in San Francisco. Do you think she might
be able to help us?" Scully asked.

Joshua felt the pull of guilt in his gut. "She might, but right
now she doesn't even know I'm in town. I'd like to keep it
that way for a few more days if possible. And I'd really prefer
that she didn't find out about these letters at all. I can call
Nanette. She speaks a little Russian, I think."

Mulder looked puzzled. "I thought your manager was
French?"

Joshua sat down in his dressing chair, draping his arm along
the back to ease the ache in his left side. "She is. She was
born there, but she was raised in Chutove, the same
Ukrainian village my grandfather came from. I think their
parents knew one another or something. She's taken care of
me for years."

"When did Nanette begin to work for you?" Scully asked.

"When I was about seventeen, after we moved to San
Francisco. My grandfather arranged for her to come live with
us."

"That must have been difficult, considering the communist
state of the Ukraine during the early '80s," Scully
commented.

"I suppose so. My grandfather was always tight-lipped about
any dealings he still had with Soviet Russia--he detested the
entire revolution, collectivization in particular. He just
wanted to come to America, start a new farm, and forget. He
had to leave my grandmother behind when he defected, you
know."

"Was this the same farmland your mother inherited?" Mulder
asked.

"Yes. When she married, my grandfather gave over the deed
to her and her new husband as a wedding present. He'd done
well with it in the almost thirty years he worked it, and saved
enough money to retire to Philadelphia. I can't say the same
for my father, though. The land was virtually worthless and
my mother penniless when he passed away. That's why she's
living in our old Divisadero home now. Nanette sees that a
portion of my income goes to her each month. She's well
cared for even if she doesn't quite appreciate it."

"We'd like you to ask Nanette to look at these photos
tomorrow morning and see if she can translate any of it,"
Mulder said, dragging a couple chairs from the dressing
table. He took a seat across from Joshua and offered the
empty chair to Scully. She took it, and sitting, filed the cell
photo away in her bag.

"We interviewed Harris today," Mulder continued. "He
reacted very strongly to the sketch of the Thin Man. I think
he's seen him before and was compelled by him to continue
the message writing. I haven't had an opportunity to piece
the entire message together, but in all, it seems to be a
mixture: random hateful babblings in Harris' handwriting;
some legible phrases written in the familiar second hand; and
now something that looks like a few lines of Cyrillic."

"Does the message say anything meaningful yet?" Joshua
asked, with apprehension. A part of him wanted to
understand what this thin man was asking of him, while
another part didn't want to even think about it.

"From what I can tell, the core message seems to reflect a
discovery, an end to a search. 'We have found you...you are
the one...' You seem to represent a significant end to a
quest."

"But why me? I don't understand what it is I'm supposed to
represent."

Mulder glanced briefly at his partner before he continued.
"Are you familiar with the Tales of Baba Yaga?"

Joshua could see Scully's tension rising at the mention of the
fairytale. He wondered why her partner's methods continued
to come as such an unwelcome element to her. He turned
back to Mulder. "Yes, my grandfather used to read them to
me. The witch is the most well-known of the old Russian
fables."

"Can you recall one involving a legend about a ten-thousand-
year-old man?"

Joshua felt an unexpected chill run up his spine. He could
recall an illustration from the book his grandfather used to
read to him, a watercolor drawing of an emaciated old man
with long gray hair and a beard. "Uh, the witch has the man
locked in her hut for years, until a young prince comes by
and finds him chained in a closet. The...old man tells the
prince if he'll set him free, he'll give him a magical map to
find a...I'm forgetting...a golden shield, or something like
that. He lets the man go and the prince leaves on his quest
which takes years and years--so long, that when he succeeds
and returns, everyone he knew from his youth is dead and he
has aged beyond recognition and lost his kingdom." He
looked at Mulder, questioning the connection.

"That's the one," the agent said with an odd grin. "I can
understand the old man's wish to be released from bondage,
but what doesn't make sense, according to what I learned at
BSU, are his motives for cursing the prince for freeing him."

Scully appeared to reach her capacity for entertaining
Mulder's tactics and interceded. "What I believe my partner
is trying to say, is thus far we've only been able to establish
method. Harris has a history of assault with sharp
instruments, and Schmidt has a history of domestic
terrorism. They acted out their aggressive compulsions in
like manner. What we can't establish with either of these
suspects is motive."

"You mean why they would want to attack me?"

"Yes," Scully continued. "Or how they would even gain
awareness of you--your rehearsal schedule, or private
address, for example. Ten-thousand-year-old-men aside,
what we're seeking is someone with a tangible grievance
against you...and one area we've been looking into is the
death of your ex-fiance."

Joshua couldn't hide his uneasiness at this admission. Scully
continued, in a careful tone. "I contacted Elise's stepfather
today. I told him we were investigating a series of threats
against you. He wasn't very cooperative, but I did manage to
establish the fact he and his wife were upset you hadn't
attended the funeral. They claim to have sent several letters
to you, none of which were received, apparently."

"What?" Joshua opened his mouth in shock. Why hadn't he
received them? No wonder they weren't returning his calls.
He thought it over; there was only one reasonable
explanation.

"Nanette," he said, setting his forehead in his hand. "She
must have felt she was protecting me." He held the thought
for a few moments before he looked up at the agents again.
"I think it's about time I spoke with her, about more than just
her Russian."
 

*******************************

Marina Flat
8:00 PM

When Mulder parked outside the Marina flat, he was
surprised to find Joshua and Dillmont at the front walk,
awaiting the musician's private car. Joshua had his tux and
long coat on, the Stradi case tucked under his arm. Dillmont
had made an appearance after their talk with Joshua at
Davies so Mulder could head back to the hotel for a nap and
a bite to eat before his shift. His mood had improved
considerably, despite his growing irritation at Scully for
making him feel he needed permission to conduct this case
according to his own instincts.

Joshua at least seemed pleased to see him. "Mulder! Just in
time. You get a free concert tonight," he said, nodding his
quick good-bye to the other agent, who looked very relieved
as Mulder came up onto the curb to take his place. "Not that
I wouldn't have taken Agent Dillmont, but he's not half the
classical aficionado you are."

Mulder nodded his incredulous thanks. He was mildly
flattered. He had just barely begun to know anything about
the subject. "I didn't know you had to play tonight."

"Neither did I. I just got the call. Thank God--there's the car.
We need to get out to Berkeley in twenty minutes." Joshua
seemed genuinely excited as he rotated his wrist to check the
time.

The car pulled up half onto the curb and the driver stepped
out to open the back door for the two men.

"I'm going to get spoiled by all this chauffeuring and
catering," Mulder told him as the doors were shut and the
car pulled quickly out onto Jefferson.

"Not quite the same treatment you get as a government
employee, I assume?"

"Not even close, but we do get all government holidays off.
Even if I don't take them, ever. What will I be forced to listen
to tonight?" he asked with a mock sigh.

Joshua set the case down at his feet and shifted his coat off
his shoulders. "Do you like Bach?"

Mulder's interest piqued. "I do. In fact I'm well acquainted
with him. My mother had a vast collection on vinyl. I'm quite
fond of the Brandenburg Concertos."

"Good. I think the chamber orchestra is playing one after my
set. We'll stay and listen if you like."

"What are you playing?"

"Bach Concerto for Violin and Oboe. Will called me in a fit
about twenty minutes ago. His violinist is stuck behind a
chemical spill on the Nimitz freeway just outside of San
Jose."

"Will?"

"William Bennet, SF Symphony principal oboist. They do
small chamber concerts six times a year at St. John's
Presbyterian in Berkeley. He's just amazing; wait until you
hear his tone--phenomenal. Beats the hell out of Heinz
Holliger, but don't tell any Swedes I said that," he said with a
laugh; then he suddenly went silent as if arrested by a
thought.

"Ah...shit. Driver, can I use your phone?" The driver reached
back, handing a cellphone to Joshua.

"What's wrong?" Mulder asked.

The musician smiled, shaking his head. "I forgot to ask what
key we're playing in tonight."

"What key?"

Joshua nodded, smirking a bit to himself then frowning
briefly when the phone message service picked up and he
beeped off the phone. "Damn, they must already be in the
green room. Yes--you see, the Bach Oboe and Violin Concerto
wasn't originally written for Violin or Oboe; it's a
transcription from clavier. Sometimes people read the D
Minor version, which is pitched easier for the oboe--others,
the C Minor," he explained, thanking the driver and returning
his phone. "I can play both from memory, but I really hope
it's in C Minor. It's my favorite key; it breaks the heart. I
think you'll like it," he said with a smile.
 

****************************************

St. John's Presbyterian Church
Berkeley
8:50 PM

Turn-of-the-century Gothic architecture was made for more
than worshipping a deity, Mulder discovered, gazing up at
the high arched alcoves and stained glass windows that
bounced and projected the melodies of the chamber
orchestra. Each note resounded in the high space, from the
tiny cling of the harpsichord, to the deep groan of the cellos
and basses, all seated closely together on the raised steps
before the altar as they played the concerto's opening
Allegro. Joshua and the yellow-haired oboist, William, stood
in the front sans music, passing the counterpoint back and
forth as the movement wound down into the final bars.

He could get used to a life like this--traveling the world from
metropolis to capital, rushing off to a church while his ward
took on an unexpected chamber gig. Moreover, it was
pleasant to have an excuse to just sit back and listen to the
classics for the sake of enjoyment--not just during an
elevator ride or a frustrating turn on hold. He didn't even
mind the cold wooden pew under his ass, or the fact he had
to sit sideways to cross his legs. For the first time in his life,
Mulder was enjoying sitting quietly in a church.

In the silent pause that occurred between movements, the
oboist took a quick sip of water while Joshua let the Stradi
hang at his side for a brief arm stretch before tucking the
instrument back under his chin. The oboist sucked the
double reed once or twice and their eyes clicked. With a
barely perceptible nod, William began the Adagio and the
orchestra followed in the next breath.

In his mind's eye, Mulder began to see the notes forming an
image of two young lovers. The raindrop pizzicato of the
cellos metered the love poem, sung through the long
plaintive cries of the oboe reaching toward its higher
register; while Joshua's patient bowing led and nurtured the
young maiden into his embrace, seducing her, making her
sing only for him.

Joshua held his instrument so delicately, it was a miracle it
didn't slip from his fingers as it wove itself around the slurs
and vibrato of the reeded woodwind. Mr. Bennet held under
ten fingers a cluster of glinting keys that exuded the most
sublimely penetrating tones from such a small core of wood.
The control these men had over their inanimate extensions
was unbelievable--they became the instrument.

Mulder soon found he could no longer look at the musicians'
faces as they played this Adagio without feeling a unusual
ache painfully filling his throat. The soul of every note played
freely across their eyes as they fell open or slightly closed
without shame. He could not imagine what it was like to
know an art so thoroughly one could simply fall in step with
another musician of comparable skill and together create a
sound so pure and effortless. Did these men know one
another, or was he bearing witness to the briefest of
marriages, captured between the bars and measures of
sustained whole notes and half rests under the echoing
arches of a decades-old church?

He envied them--their ability to communicate intimately in a
form so timeless and readily accepted and shared with the
opened ears of the audience that filled the pews. He felt
himself pulled so close into it he could barely breathe...and
at all costs doing everything he could to hide it.

The Adagio was winding down, crawling ever more slowly as
the two instruments struck longer and stronger sustained
chords together. Then the oboe rose and gave one final
statement of exaltation alone before the chamber group sang
one last note along in chorus and all fell silent together.

Mulder held his breath through the brief pause until the
frolic of the final Allegro got underway. He swallowed his
emotion and took the respite to let his heart catch up on the
oxygen it needed to keep beating. Joy and celebration in
Bach he could take; it was the simple beauty of the slow solo
voices that tore at him. He opened the small program he still
held in his hand. It had been ages since anything had moved
him that unexpectedly.

The Concerto was in C Minor.
 
 

***********************************

Marina Flat
1:00 AM
Friday

Mulder stood at the window looking down at Marina Blvd.,
running along the Bay Shore. He could see his reflection in
the glass. His face looked aged to him--like somehow years of
his life had flown by in a moment and now here he was older,
quieter, standing in a strange apartment well after midnight,
with the minutes ticking by so slowly he could feel the long
silences between the seconds.

Joshua was showering before bed, and Mulder found himself
wishing the night would fade and the sun would rise so he
could leave, and go back to his empty hotel room where he
could feel numb, neutral. The silence disturbed him and he
found himself eyeing Joshua's CD Rack and stereo to his left.
He'd been invited to make himself at home many times, so
why not now? There were still echoes of emotion in him that
had been called up by the music he'd heard tonight. He
wanted to find something to make the seconds tick past
faster--something that would help distract him from the
uneasiness he was feeling.

Vivaldi Guitar Solos. They seemed as good as any. He slid the
disc in and hit play. The clean pluck and strum of a single
acoustic guitar with string accompaniment dropped lightly
into the room as Mulder heard the shower shut off. They'd
been out late. Joshua had met up with him at intermission
and they stayed for the Brandenburg. It was nice; it felt
friendly. Mulder was pleased Joshua would make the time for
him, to just sit and listen to Bach together.

Afterwards, they joined a few orchestra members at a
Berkeley late-night cafe for some coffee and conversation.
Mulder let Joshua make the introductions--he knew he didn't
want them to know he was FBI. For once Mulder didn't want
them to know, either. It was nice to just be labeled "friend"
and included even if he had no answer to "What do you
play?"

Violin and viola cases stuffed the booth they all occupied as
stories were shared. One of the men could recall working
under the direction of Leonard Bernstein during his final
years with the New York Philharmonic. Names of composers
and musicians living and dead--they were spoken of as if they
might drop by and share a cup with them at any moment.
Music kept people alive. It also connected the living. Joshua
had never met these men before, yet they had hours of
stories to share and a common language to speak in. It was
quite simply one of the best evenings he'd had in a long time.
Yet, somehow he couldn't bring himself to voice that
gratitude to Joshua as they rode back to the city together in
the back of the car, silent.

"Ah, caught you."

Mulder turned away from the window, a little startled.
"Vivaldi, good choice. Very relaxing." Joshua appeared from
the alcove, robed, and drying his short dark hair with a
towel. "I think I'll restring my 'A' before bed. It will give it
time to loosen before morning," he said, tossing the towel
aside and reaching for his case which he brought over to the
back of the piano, unzipping and unlatching the lid. "Why
don't you sit down, Mulder? You make me nervous pacing
around."

Mulder pushed his hands into his pockets and made his way
over to the couch, sitting at the end farthest from the
Steinway. "Sorry."

"It's all right; you're just doing a job..." he said somewhat
oddly, reaching into a bookshelf drawer for a slip of fresh
strings. "But you could take off your tie for a change. We
know each other that well at least," he said with a brief grin.

Mulder complied, if for no other reason than to convince
himself there was nothing to be feeling awkward about. Yet
he did feel strange, like he was somehow there under false
pretenses.

"Thank you for the concert--and the coffee. I enjoyed it," he
said simply, feeling a bit more at ease as he slipped his tie off
and folded it on the coffee table. "I don't get the opportunity
to do that very often."

Joshua turned the tuning peg on the violin, loosening the
aging A string. "To go out with a bunch of musicians, or to
listen to Bach?"

"Either."

"I figured that," Joshua answered as he flicked on a small
halogen light over the piano, casting him in a mini spotlight
in contrast with the dim interior of the studio.

"Was I that obvious?" Mulder asked, with a somewhat
embarrassed grin.

Joshua only nodded as he unwound the string slowly with
precision.

"It was interesting. I think I'm learning more about this art
every day."

"You are. That's what I like about you, Mulder, you're very..."
He paused to bite his lip as he pulled the string free with a
twang "...curious. It's refreshing to meet someone who's
experiencing classical music for the first time. It's like taking
your kids to Disneyland," he remarked with a shrug. "Or so
I've been told."

Mulder chuckled at that comparison and relaxed, settling
back into the corner of the couch, letting his arm rest along
the cushions. "I've never been to Disneyland either," he said
softly, wondering why the heck not. "That's supposed to be
every American's dream, right? Disneyland, Old Faithful,
Empire State Building...you're done. You can die now."

Joshua smiled, feeding the new string into the burrowed hole
in the peg. "Well, I guess I'm done for, I play at the
Disneyland Hotel in two weeks. I'll send you a postcard."

"Thanks."

"There aren't too many places I haven't been to for at least a
few hours," he said, slowly tightening the peg a few turns,
before pausing and rewinding to begin the process again with
less string feed.

"That must have been something--touring Europe and Asia
for three years."

Joshua nodded, keeping his eyes on his work, crossing one
bare leg over the other as he settled his hip against the piano.
He was quiet for a few moments and Mulder wondered if
he'd touched a sore subject. "People have been very kind to
me," Joshua answered. He seemed satisfied with his
threading, and turned the knob quickly to pull the string
taut. He plucked it and gave the peg another half turn. "You
should let yourself out more, Mulder, just be with people. It
sharpens your perspective and broadens your thinking."

Mulder chewed his lip, wondering what the young man was
getting at. He wanted to ask if he was suggesting he had a
narrow mind. It amazed him that anyone would think that.
That almost made him sound normal for a change. "I may not
be that immersed in the general public, but I do see my share
of mind-broadening events."

Joshua agreed with a nod. "That, I can imagine. But it's not
quite the same thing...there we go...let's try this." He picked
up the violin and plucked the strings in pairs, making fine
adjustments with the knobs at the base of the bridge. He
began to walk with the instrument under his chin, plucking
and adjusting, making small sounds along with the guitar on
the stereo. The man could make music even when he was
tuning.

"How long have you been involved in these obscure
investigations?"

"Almost ten years," Mulder answered, wondering at how long
it had been himself. No wonder Diana seemed so different to
him now. She had been there at the start. A person can
change a lot in a decade, X-Files or no. "I created the unit to
examine and perpetuate a forgotten collection of
unexplainable cases--everything from ghosts to UFOs. I've
spent these years trying to find the connections between
them. It's amazing how often the history of the unknown
repeats itself."

"What is it you hope to learn?" Joshua asked, walking around
the back of the piano. He reached down to strike a key as he
passed, plucking some more with a twist of the knobs.

Mulder opened his hand. "Answers, truths. I believe I'm
seeking proof positive of mankind's greatest riddles."

Joshua laughed. "Which are those? I keep forgetting."

Mulder shrugged. "I suppose the most confounding questions
are the simplest ones--Who are we? Where did we come
from? What is our purpose? What is the meaning of life?"

"Have you ever killed a man?" The plucking stopped, and the
musician came to a stop at the window where Mulder had
been looking out a few minutes earlier.

Mulder rubbed his chin nervously. He hadn't been expecting
that.

"You don't have to answer if it makes you uncomfortable," he
added.

"Yes, I have."

"Just once?"

"No. Many times."

"How?" Joshua asked with something that sounded like
sadness and awe.

"I shot them." A direct answer to a direct question. Why did
it make him sound like a beast?

"With the weapon you're wearing now?"

"Yes, or one very much like it. It's standard FBI issue..."

"I see, but what I meant was *how.*"

Mulder looked at his firing hand resting in his lap. It was
easier than looking at Joshua turned away from him. He felt
like this might just exclude him from that sense of
"belonging" very swiftly. It was bound to happen sooner or
later. The nature of the life he had chosen always drove in an
inevitable wedge. He just hadn't wanted it to happen tonight.
He had liked being normal, for a few hours at least.

"I'm trained. All agents are trained. We are taught to analyze
the situation and act accordingly. Deadly force is an
unfortunate, but necessary option sometimes."

"You just...react," Joshua said without emotion.

"Sometimes a drilled reaction is the one move that saves
your life or the life of your partner. I didn't say it was easy. I
think about it a great deal afterwards, wondering if there was
a better way."

"Who have you killed?"

Mulder released a breath. He didn't think he wanted to
answer that.

"I don't mean names, just what kind of people--criminals?"

"Yes. Murderers, rapists, serial killers, pedophiles. I don't
think they're missed."

"Have you ever killed a woman?"

"No! Never. Joshua, what's this all about?"

Joshua turned around to face him again with a look of
apology, of acceptance. "I'm sorry. I wanted to know."

Mulder licked his bottom lip, looking away, trying to calm
himself--trying to understand why this was upsetting him so
much.

"I've upset you. I'm sorry. You were having a nice evening. I
shouldn't have pried. It can't be easy for you."

Mulder sat up and leaned forward, drawing a hand through
his hair. He wanted to flee--to go crawl back under a rock by
himself somewhere. This was why he didn't "get out" more. It
served him no purpose. His life was bound to the abnormal,
the unbelievable and the profane. No one could understand
that. No one except maybe Scully. He wished he could see her
right now.

He must have been staring very intently at the white throw
rug at his feet to not notice Joshua approaching. He held out
the Stradivarius to Mulder at arm's length. "Take it," he said.

Mulder looked up at him, confused. Joshua nodded, watching
him carefully with dark blue eyes. "Take it for a moment."
Mulder reached out with two hands to hold the violin as
Joshua released his grip on the neck. It was surprisingly light,
like a dried leaf. Mulder set it in his lap, fearful it would fold
in his hands.

"In 1726 a small artisan by the name of Antonio Stradivari
sat in his workshop in Cremona, Italy, and began planing the
wood for this violin. He gouged it and shaped it and bent it
until it fit a form in his mind's eye. This chamber," he said,
pointing to the curved holes in the sides of the violin before
taking a pluck at the new string, "made the exact same
sound, this same 'A,' almost 275 years ago. Both you and I
and Antonio all have that much in common now. This small
handmade instrument connects us."

Mulder glanced down at the violin with its dark, age-tinted
stained wood. "What is it worth?" he asked out of curiosity.

Joshua looked down at him with a somewhat distant
expression. "The last time this instrument was sold was to the
Philadelphia Conservatory in 1956, for the equivalent of 1.3
million dollars today."

Mulder looked up at the man in the robe standing over him.
"I think I'd like you to take this back now."

Joshua smiled at him and folded his arms--it appeared he was
enjoying Mulder's discomfort. Mulder wasn't letting more
than the tips of his two index fingers touch the instrument
settled in his lap.

"When they awarded me this instrument I couldn't even pick
it up for a month. I was almost sixteen. I left it in the case. I
would open the case, check the barometer every few hours
or so, but I couldn't even touch it. It was too much. I would
lie awake and get up in the middle of the night to just stare at
it. Finally, my grandfather said to me, 'Sasha, you fool, go get
the fiddle. What's wrong with you? You need me to show you
how to play?' I told him I didn't think I could touch it, that I
couldn't ever play it. That I'd never be good enough to play
it.

"A few days later it was my birthday. Grandpapa took me by
the arm and told me he had a surprise. He told me I had to
play for a very special guest and blindfolded my eyes, led me
into the drawing room, and sat me in a chair before my
waiting audience. He then went and got my violin and set it in
my hands. I took the bow and played the first note. I knew
immediately it was the Stradi, but I couldn't stop; I had to
perform. My instinct, my training, made me play right to the
bitter end. I was glad for the blindfold, because I wept the
entire time. When I finished there was only silence. I removed
the blindfold to see I had played to an empty room."

Mulder didn't know what to say in the pause that followed.
He wanted to say something and he wanted to turn away.

Joshua blinked and continued.

"The instrument is now considered priceless. It will never be
sold again--only loaned to another violinist after my death or
retirement."

"I don't think I've held something quite this valuable before,"
Mulder said, trying to sound grateful.

Joshua looked at him, held his gaze closely. "I think you
have," he said quietly. With a sure touch, he took up the
violin and nestled it under his chin, walking away to finish
tuning.

Mulder watched him move slowly across the reflecting glass
of the window panes. A white robe and a dark violin, plucked
tenderly by its lover pane to pane. He walked back to the
case and set the violin in to rest.

"I'm going to sleep now," he said without looking up. "Do you
mind turning off the stereo?"

Mulder got up from the couch and walked on numbed legs to
the stereo, clicking the power as the lights came down and
went off. In the dim glow of the moon he saw Joshua turn
down the bed, pull off his robe, and slip into the sheets.

'Do you have an instrument?' the men had asked him.

Now Mulder had an answer for them--a gun.
 

***********************************
 

*********************************

Chapter Six: Truth

*********************************

He was back in Vermont, sitting on the white bench by the
swan pond. He came here in the mornings after a sleepless
night so the flutter and bob of the birds could calm his mind.
In the night he would wake, reaching for the violin, but they
had taken it from him. The instrument was sitting silently in
New York, waiting patiently on the back of a piano for his
return.

He could see her walking up the path toward him as she was
accustomed to doing at this same time early each day. She'd
smile at him; he'd smile back. She was pretty, small and fair.
But she hadn't said hello, not yet. She just kept walking. But
not today.

"I'm a poet," she said, taking the seat next to him.

"Have they taken your paper and pen?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Do you miss them?"

"Yes, and no," she said, brushing her long light brown hair
back from her shoulder. "It's nice to not have the option."

"I suppose," he answered, feeling the darkness rising in his
gut.

"So what are you?"

"I'm a musician...a violinist."

"Are you good?"

He grinned a little. "Yes, I am."

"You must be if they sent you here."

"How is your poetry?"

"It *was* good."

"What happened?"

"It began to corrode my blood."

He could see the places, traced in thin scars across her
wrists, where she had tried to extract it.

###

Later, in his bed, they tried to find answers to the questions
that had been eluding them. Why is the moon made of paper?
Why is the sea just a line of painted blue on the horizon? Of
what is each of us made?

The sweet smell of her skin under him, her arms reaching
down his back, pulling him deeper into her. This was a place
where questions didn't need to be asked and they found
themselves disappearing here again and again. Until one day
he knew it was time to go home. It was time to accept the
cruelties of life and learn to focus on the beauty.

For a while it seemed that philosophy had been born into her
as well. He had placed it there, inside her. It was something
they could share and build on. These were the gifts lovers
had to offer.

###

If it was an open grave that had sent him to that place in
Vermont, it was a newer grave that brought him home.

He stood alone, watching the men lower his father's casket
into the frozen ground. Ice covered the dead meadow grass
and crunched underfoot. He felt his breath sealing in crystals
around the edge of his scarf, holding in the unspoken
scream. Looking across the chasm between them, he could
see his mother crying and crying for someone who had died
in his heart the day his first violin crumbled into ash.

###

"Are you here for Valentine's?" she asked, her pale blue eyes
filled with joy at his arrival home.

He kissed her hands and took her outside, where her family
had a small goldfish pond.

"I have a poem for you," she said, placing a small slip of rice
paper in his hands. He didn't open it.

"Will you play for me tonight?" she asked, hoping once again
that he had brought the violin.

"I can't..." he said, and let the paper slip from his fingers, the
ink bleeding from it as it floated on the surface of the pond.
 

********************************

Marina Flat
8:30 AM
Friday

Joshua woke. The sunlight was piercing through the windows
he had left uncurtained last night. He rolled over to look at
the couch. Like a magic spell, one partner had transformed
into the other at sun-up. Male to female.

"Did I wake you?" Agent Scully asked.

He scratched the back of his head. "No, I need to get up.
Dress rehearsal this afternoon, very exciting."

She smiled pleasantly and resumed her writings in a small
notebook while he reached to the floor for his robe and
headed to the bath to clean up and dress.

Joshua closed the door and turned on the faucet. Nanette
would be here in half an hour and he still hadn't figured a
way to approach her on the subject of his mail. It wasn't
entirely her fault; at one point he had been glad to let her
take over his dealings with the rest of the world. He
shouldn't be too surprised to find her editing out the trials of
life for him. She wanted him to stay happy. She didn't want
to see him deteriorate like he had two years ago when she
coerced him into spending six weeks at Appassionata in
Vermont. It was a refocusing program for "confused" artists--
a nutfarm disguised as a polite vacation with charming
bungalows.

He bent over the sink to run handfuls of water through his
hair. He wasn't crazy, not even then. Where is the madness in
grieving? Still, it had served its purpose. It got him playing
again. They probably printed that in their brochures.
 

***********************************

 9:10 AM

"Would you like some coffee, Agent Scully?"

"Yes I would, thank you."

"Nana?"

"None for me, darling," his manager said, fishing in her
briefcase for her reading glasses. Joshua had no idea of her
real age, but she did seem to be about ten years younger than
his grandfather, who'd passed on at 85.

Agent Scully had spread seven photos out on Joshua's small
kitchen bar. He didn't own a table; he never ate here. He
filled two mugs and set one next to the agent as he brought
over the sugar and creamer. He pulled up a stool and sat,
watching Nanette squint over the first photo of the cell
writing as he sipped.

"Yes, yes," she said in her French-tinted lilt. "This is Russian,
for certain. This word here means animals, farm
animals...livestock, you know. And this word here below it
means wheat or grain."

Agent Scully looked mildly surprised and glanced at Joshua,
who shrugged.

Nana picked up the next photo, turning it to find the letters.
"This word is hard to read; it says...oh, I don't like this word.
Why are you asking me to read this? This is a bad man..."

Agent Scully touched Nanette's wrist to calm her. "We need
to know what this means if we're going to stop the attacks."

Nanette looked up at Joshua and he nodded for her to
continue.

The old woman set the photo flat on the table and touched
the first word. "This word, 'zariezam,' it means...to kill, to
slaughter; and this word means to bury in the ground."

Agent Scully was writing the words down in her notebook.
"What about the letters in this last set of photos?"

Nanette looked at the last three photos taken of the same
word at different angles. "It means...to hunger, or to starve.
That is all I see in this. How can this help you?" She asked the
agent, flustered.

"My partner believes that these key phrases and words are
part of a message, mixed up like a word scramble. He
believes if we take all the words and arrange them in order,
we can understand what this person or persons are trying to
say."

"I think it's nonsense," Nanette said stubbornly. "They keep
writing them because you keep reading them--paying
attention to them. I was right in throwing them out."

"Nana," Joshua spoke up reluctantly, looking into his mug.
"Protecting me by keeping me ignorant of things like this will
only hurt me in the long run."

"But Joshua, you need to keep focused on your playing."

He looked up at her, trying to find the courage to make
himself clear. "I know, Nana, but not if it's going to get me
killed. I have to ask you--did you keep Elise's funeral
announcement from me?"

The old woman looked shocked. "What, darling? No! How
could you say such a thing?"

Joshua gave a nod toward Agent Scully. "The FBI called her
parents, Nana. They said they mailed me many times."

"No. Joshua, no. I did not do this. I did not see any letters
from them. If I did, I would have brought them to you. I
didn't hear about this tragedy until you called me from the
hospital."

Joshua felt like he couldn't quite believe her, but kept those
unsettling feelings to himself. His mail was being handled
care of the FBI now, anyway. She was an old woman--afraid
for him, that was all.

"I'm sorry, Nana; of course you didn't," he said, setting down
his mug. "Now tell me how things are going with Vienna."
 

***********************************

Marriott Hotel
Union Square
1:10 PM

There was a knock at his door. Mulder sat up from where
he'd been lying across the bed, arranging and rearranging the
words and phrases he'd copied onto torn pieces of Marriott
stationery, trying to make sense of the mysterious message.

"Mulder? Are you awake yet?"

"Yeah, Scully. Hold on," he replied, reaching for his slacks
and pulling them on before letting her in. He'd showered and
begun to dress when a particular strain of text had caught his
eye-- "...we were sacrificed for you...you must see where you
came from...you are us..."

Although Mulder still believed the plural was a ruse, the
voice was demanding that Joshua pay notice to some sort of
mass suffering or sacrifice. It was the only demand the
phantom seemed to have.

Mulder opened the door. Scully stepped in, giving him a
frustrated look. "I've been trying to call you for over an
hour, Mulder. Why did you turn off your phone?"

"My phone?" Mulder absently reached for a pocket which
he'd yet to put on. "Oh, I forgot. I was at a concert last night
with Joshua in Berkeley. They requested all pagers and
cellphones be turned off."

"You went to Berkeley with him?" she asked, somewhat
surprised, as Mulder shut the door and walked to the bed to
pull on his shirt and do up the buttons.

"Yeah, a Bach chamber concert...Scully, did you get that
translation this morning?"

She reached into her blazer for a small notebook. "Yes. You
were right, Mulder; it's Russian, but the words don't form a
full sentence." Mulder looped his tie around his collar and
took the notes from her, ripping out the page and then
tearing out each separate word.

"Sounds like farming terms," he said, laying them out on the
bed with the other scraps. "I wonder if it's in reference to
Joshua's childhood?"

"It could be," Scully agreed, coming to stand at the end of the
bed to read over his arrangement. "Mulder, did you know
that Joshua voluntarily checked himself into a psychiatric
recovery program in the spring of 1997?"

Mulder stopped knotting his tie at this new fact. "He did?"

"Yes. It seems he suffered a mental breakdown earlier that
year and canceled his tour dates. Newspaper reports claim he
collapsed after the conclusion of a concert in Paris. He had
been informed during intermission that his grandfather had
passed away here in San Francisco after suffering what was to
be the final of a series of minor strokes."

Mulder felt saddened by this news. Joshua hadn't told him
how his grandfather had died.

"It was during his stay at this program that he met his fiance,
Elise Strathmore."

Mulder finished with his tie and reached for his shoes, sitting
at the edge of the bed to put them on. "What was she in for?"

"Suicide attempt. One of several throughout her life. Which
leads me to believe her parents probably aren't likely to
blame Joshua's desertion solely for her death."

Mulder stood and pulled on his coat, reaching into his pocket
to make sure he turned his phone back on. "I suppose that
leaves us with even fewer leads," he said dejectedly.

Scully licked her upper lip in an equal show of frustration. "I
don't understand, Mulder; what's the connection between
Schmidt, Harris and Joshua? Nothing in their past records
indicates a thread of commonality, and we've yet to
determine who wrote the first of the letters."

Mulder brushed her arm and pointed back to the display on
the bedcover. "I'm more certain than ever that the answer is
here, in these words. We just need to find the key to their
meaning. Consider the series of events: First, Joshua happens
upon Harris; a few minutes later the thin man appears to
him. Less than an hour after that, Joshua finds himself at
Harris' knife point. It's almost as if the Thin Man was sending
a message to Joshua, letting him know Harris would be the
next assailant. At first I thought we were searching for
something natural, but the more dead ends we hit through
conventional means, the more I'm convinced we're dealing
with the unnatural."

Scully raised her eyes to him and sighed, exasperated.
"Mulder..."

"What, Scully? Why does the idea that this Thin Man might
not be made of flesh come as such a impossibility to you?
When you, yourself, have witnessed a harbinger of death first
hand?"

He hadn't wanted to bring it up--that case of the murdered
co-eds near the DC bowling alley. He hated to bring up any
mention of those bleak days, when she had been sick. But
somehow he couldn't help himself--he wouldn't let her
dismissing remarks go unchallenged this time.

It seemed she didn't appreciate the reference either, and her
hands found their way to her hips as she snapped back at
him. "Baba Yaga, Mulder? Who's next on your suspect list,
Mother Goose? You're grasping at straws."

Mulder sucked in his lower lip before he let his growing
irritation get the better of his tongue. "If you have a better
theory, Scully, I'd love to hear it."

She turned away, a flush of crimson rising to her cheeks. She
had nothing to offer him. The discussion was closed as tightly
as their divided grips on the nature of the world. Why did a
pairing that used to complement so well do nothing but lay
mortar between the stones of their ideals nowadays?

"I realize we differ in our approach to solving cases," he said
thickly. "We've always differed. What's changed is you used
to respect my methods."

"Mulder," she said with an audible level of hurt in her voice.
"I respect *you.* What I don't respect is your lack of common
sense and tact when dealing with other professionals."

"You mean Joshua."

She closed her eyes.

"I'm sorry if working for the X-Files embarrasses you," he
said, grabbing his card key and heading past her for the
door. "This is my life."
 

*************************************

Davies Symphony Hall
Grand Green Room
7:00 PM

Joshua emerged from his private room dressed in his
performance best--a white bow tie and vest with classic 19th-
century collar, black waistcoat and tails. Ostentatious
perhaps for evening wear, yet still well within code for world-
class soloists. It was an hour before downbeat and most of
the Symphony musicians were milling about the main green
room, tuning instruments, checking reeds, and blowing spit
valves.

Joshua greeted a few of the musicians and wished them a
good performance as he made his way through the crowded
room. He loved galas; they always brought out the city's
finest citizens--from mayors to movie stars--all dressed to
the nines and strutting about looking important, nibbling
finger sandwiches and sipping champagne. It was a spectacle
he was always thrilled to be at the center of. He was looking
forward to seeing the audience filling the seats and corridors
instead of the SFPD's Emergency Response team, which had
been doing a final sweep of Davies during the afternoon
dress rehearsal. Mulder told him the team had been
searching for traces of explosives in the early morning hours
during the previous week as well. So far every stairway and
ceiling tile had turned up clean. Even though Alice Schmidt
had been the only suspect to send in bomb threats, they
weren't going to take any chances with an, as yet,
unidentified accomplice.

Joshua had seen the FBI about throughout the day as well--
Scully, Mulder and Dillmont, plus a few others he didn't
recognize. They appeared to be interviewing and double-
checking staff members and ushers as they reported to work.

Joshua flipped back his tails and took a seat at one of the
tables, idly flipping through the day's paper. Aside from a
preview of tonight's concert, there was no mention of the
'curse,' his attack, or the near miss in Philadelphia. Joshua
hoped his fortune would turn now for the better and the
evening's performance would run as smoothly as the
impromptu Bach last night.

Joshua smiled a little to himself--he'd enjoyed spending
yesterday evening with Mulder more than he'd like to admit.
His growing fondness for the man was probably not going
entirely unnoticed by the agent, but if Mulder was becoming
aware of it, he showed no sign. As much as Joshua was
looking forward to performing tonight, he was looking
forward even more to those quiet hours afterwards. It wasn't
hard to see that the music was beginning to have its subtle
effect on Mulder, even if the man was trying his best to hide
it--fearing the emotions the notes could evoke as a weakness.
As much as Joshua enjoyed educating Mulder in music, he
yearned to show him how being with a man, like opening the
heart to Bach, was anything but a show of weakness. In truth,
he found it to be an ultimate act of masculinity--to overcome
the lies and perceptions of misguided faith and beliefs and
discover that deep down we are all the same, both needful
and giving.

Joshua knew Mulder was a fine vintage better left to age
slowly in its cask than to be swallowed in haste, but his
inextricable attraction to him was beginning to get the better
of his careful pacing. It had been well over a year since he'd
led anyone into his bed, and there was no mistaking his
reviving thirst for it.

"Mr. Segulyev?" A backstage tech with a headset approached
him, disrupting his thoughts. "If you're ready, Security would
like to brief you."

Joshua nodded at him briskly, and followed him out into the
hall. He was still hoping to downplay the extra security
measures, which at this point hadn't gone unnoticed by
anyone in the Symphony Association. Fortunately, most had
yet to connect the bomb threats to him directly. It seemed
for some of them, bomb scares were not an unheard of
occurrence. The tech held open the door to Davies' security
monitoring room. The security chiefs and Agent Dillmont
were awaiting him inside.

"We finished the sweep and all is clear," said the chief.
"They're about to open the doors and begin admitting the
guests. Anyone acting suspicious will be pulled aside and
inspected. Extra ticket handlers are posted to assure
authentic admission. At $100 a seat, we're not likely to be
seeing many vagrants trying to wander in."

"Agent Mulder will be staying with you until you go on," said
Dillmont, checking his watch. "He's probably arriving at your
green room now. We'd like you to return there immediately
following this interview. Once onstage we'll have extra
security posted at each entrance to the Hall. After your
performance we'll ask you to wait backstage until the
concert's conclusion, when you'll be escorted safely out of
the building."

Joshua sighed his regret at the soon-to-be cattle herding of
his person. So much for mingling with the city's elite. He'd be
enjoying the gala from backstage tonight.

Dillmont was eyeing his chest. "Are you wearing the vest?"
Earlier, before he began to dress, the agent had brought him
the latest in kevlar fashions. Joshua had left it thrown over a
chair.

"No," he said, unabashed. "I refuse to play in a suit of armor.
I need to be able to move my arms freely, you know."

"Your choice," Dillmont shrugged. "If security is finished with
you, you can return to the green room."

The security chief nodded his dismissal. "I think you should
reconsider the vest, however," the man added as Joshua
headed for the door.

"Tonight I begin a new decade in my life," Joshua said over
his shoulder, pushing the door open to return to the
musicians. "I'll take whatever comes my way."
 

*******************************

Guest Artist's Green Room
7:15 PM
 

Mulder knocked on Joshua's door before entering. There was
no answer, so he opened the door slowly before stepping in.
He had no idea what sort of preparations a musician took
before a performance and he didn't want to disturb Joshua's
concentration. His caution was needless as he soon
discovered the room was empty. He wasn't concerned. He
knew Joshua was around somewhere nearby and Security
would direct him back here soon enough. What did concern
him, however, was the vest left hanging from the back of a
dressing chair. He should have known that was a futile
request.

Mulder took a seat and straightened his tie. He'd just
returned from the hotel where he waited for Scully to change
into a gown for the evening. They were going to be seated in
the audience where they could keep a closer eye on Joshua
during the performance. He had completely forgotten about
renting a tuxedo and selected his best suit instead, a dark
rust brown coat and slacks with a dark blue shirt--a
combination of colors that he hoped would make him look
more fashionable and less Federal.

Scully had emerged from her room in a devastating scooped-
neck number with long sleeves and white sequins. As
breathtaking as she was to look at, he knew she still hadn't
forgiven him for the early afternoon outburst in his hotel
room. To be honest, Mulder had yet to forgive himself. He
hated being at odds with her; it made him feel lost inside. He
counted on her so much for stability during their casework;
he had begun to take it for granted, perhaps. Whatever strain
had been pulled between them, he was desperate to ease it,
yet found he didn't have the slightest idea how. Their ride
back over to Davies had been as silent as an ice covered
pond.

The door opened and Joshua entered, looking rushed. "For
godsake, Mulder, do they have to keep those techs following
me every second of the day? I feel like I'm part of an
international broadcast with them reporting my every move."

Mulder gave him an understanding nod. "I'm sorry about
that. For what it's worth, most of these security measures are
coming from Davies' management, not us."

Joshua seated himself in a chair across from Mulder and
took a deep breath. "I just want to give a good concert
tonight--that's all, and don't give me shit about the vest."

Mulder glanced at the discarded safety measure sitting to his
right. "I won't. I don't think you're likely to have anything to
fear tonight. I'm keeping my eye out for tall gaunt men."

Joshua laughed despite himself, running a calming hand
through his hair as he glanced over at the violin lying
patiently in its open case. "Well, I'm as ready as I'll ever be.
The orchestra will play the Mozart overture first and then, at
twenty after eight, I'm on."

"Do you get nervous anymore?" Mulder asked.

"Not really," Joshua said, shaking his head. "I've played just
about every major violin concerto in existence in front of a
live audience. I know the Mendelssohn like I know my own
heartbeat. It would play out of me even if Rome were burning
down. But I do get excited. If you took my pulse right now
you'd find it running at a good clip."

"I've had days like that," Mulder added. "I usually wind up
going for a run to bring myself back in focus."

Joshua looked over at him with a somewhat daring
expression. "You want to know what I do to focus before a
performance?"

Mulder was uncertain as to what Joshua was about to tell
him. "Sure."

Joshua stood up and opened the dressing room door. "Follow
me."

###

Mulder followed Joshua down a long hall to an unmarked set
of double doors somewhere deep in the back of Davies Hall.
Joshua pushed them open and Mulder followed him up a long
turning stairway. When they'd climbed about three flights,
Joshua opened another smaller unmarked door to reveal a
dark, narrow staircase heading straight up. It was blocked at
the bottom by a tall gate.

"You can unlock the gate by tugging the chain like this," he
showed him, pulling the gate open so they could ascend the
stairs. "We'll need to be very quiet now," he said in a
whisper, going carefully up the flight to a door at the top.

Joshua tapped lightly on the door and a man in a black t-
shirt and headset opened it a crack and peered out.

"Joshua. I was wondering if we'd be seeing you tonight," he
said, squinting at Mulder. "Who's this?"

"A friend," Joshua answered, giving Mulder a look he
couldn't quite identify. "We'll be very quiet."

"All right, come on in," the man said, opening the door to
them.

Mulder stepped into the dim room, waiting for his eyes to
adjust. The ceiling was low, just barely clearing his head. The
walls were covered in thick foam tiles. To his right was a set
of shaded one-way windows. Stretched below the windows
was a massive computerized control panel with hundreds of
switches and blinking lights manned by the technician. They
were in the main sound room.

Joshua was standing at the windows, waving Mulder over to
him. "We're at the highest point in Davies right now," Joshua
said, just over a whisper. "I like to come up here to watch the
audience collect in the seats."

Mulder looked down through the glass and experienced a
second of vertigo as his mind took in their new positioning.
He had no idea they had climbed this high. You could see the
entire concert hall from up here. An intercom system piped
in the broadcasts of the technicians throughout the building
along with a running background of the audience members
beginning to wander into the Hall. Closed circuit televisions
kept an eye on the main entrances so the sound men would
have some idea of the assembling attendance.

"Take mic five down another three feet," a voice was heard
saying through the comm line. "Mic five descending," replied
the sound tech into his headset as he flipped a switch in the
panel in front of him. Mulder could see a microphone on a
long cable slowly descending from a small hole in the ceiling
to join about four others dangling several feet down,
hovering over the stage directly below.

"Are they recording tonight?" Mulder asked.

Joshua glanced his way from where he was standing close to
the glass, serenely observing the miniature people below.
"Yes, they're making a digital recording for EMI Classics all
this week, so try not to sneeze between movements, okay?"

Mulder made a 'who me?' expression.

"Where are your seats?"

Mulder pulled his ticket from his coat pocket. "Lower
orchestra, row A, seat 22. Scully has 23."

Joshua moved a step to the right, pointing down. "You'll be
right there, near that woman in the green dress and feather
collar. Front row, right below me. I always stand stage right,
so the violin faces the audience and I can make eye contact
with the conductor."

"You'll be within arm's reach should there be any problem,"
Mulder said.

Joshua nodded, and returned to the glass. "Look there, at
that family coming in," Joshua said, pointing to the lower
orchestra seats. A man and woman were leading their
polished and fluffed boy and girl, maybe ages six and ten, up
the aisle to look at the stage. A few orchestra members were
out upon it already, warming up.

"I love seeing that. The children. It's so important to expose
them to music as early as possible. I don't know if you're
aware of this, Mulder, but learning music is like learning a
language. You'll never be able to pass as a native speaker if
you don't begin to make the proper vowel sounds before age
five. Music is the same way. A child must begin to develop an
ear before age six, or they'll never be able to attain perfect
pitch and advance to the virtuoso level."

Mulder crossed his arms and leaned into the support
between the panes, drawn to watching Joshua in profile,
gazing down over his audience--a little like Zeus atop Mt.
Olympus looking favorably upon his people.

"I've heard that term before. Perfect pitch. What does it
mean, exactly?"

"Musicians with perfect pitch can pick a note out of the air
and tell not only its place on the piano keyboard, but its
exact intonation as well. Some people are born with it and, if
trained, can maintain it throughout their lives. Some schools
argue it can be taught. But I've only ever seen it in musicians
who were given their first lessons before they knew how to
read words or ride a bike."

"Do you have it?"

Joshua grinned. "Thanks to my grandfather, yes. The long
warm-up notes you hear the oboe down there playing...that's
middle C...now he's going to the D...and now a high D an
octave above it." Mulder listened, but could barely detect the
notes filtering in through the intercom. "Oboists are always
worrying over their harmonics. You'll see them come out
onstage first before the rest of the orchestra to fuss with the
ill-tempered woodwind. See...look at that boy there now
tugging at his father's arm," Joshua said, warmly. "He's
telling him that's an oboe."

Mulder leaned in closer to the windows. He could see the
boy, but could not hear the words. Joshua's sense of hearing
must be truly exceptional to pick a child's voice out of the
light jumble of gathering sound emitting from the speakers in
the sound booth.

"I don't know how you could hear that."

Joshua smiled. "Years and years of practice."

"I can imagine the pursuit of music at this level takes
tremendous dedication," Mulder said, seriously.

Joshua had a far-off look come over him as he began to
relate another chapter from the story of his childhood to
Mulder, his eyes flickering over the movements below.
"When I was ten years old I came home from school one day
to find my private violin instructor from the Philadelphia
Conservatory sitting in our small living room, talking to my
grandfather. They called me over to them, and I put my book
bag down and came and stood before the man. He told me I
had been invited to join a very special training program for
young violinists. Outside, I could see the boys from my
school running down the block throwing snowballs across
the road at one another. This professor told me he would
give me until the end of winter vacation to decide if I wanted
to join their next semester after the holidays. But he also told
me I needed to understand that the program would be very
difficult. I would be expected to practice more than I ever
had in my life--six hours a day, six days a week--no
exceptions. I would have to leave my school and work with a
tutor at home and do my homework in the evenings. He said
he understood this was a big decision, but if I agreed to these
things, he knew in his heart I would grow up to be one of the
finest violinists in the world."

Joshua paused in inner reflection before he continued.

"I spent that winter holiday playing in the snow with my
friends and in the evenings I spent a lot of time alone with
my violin in my upstairs bedroom. My grandfather didn't say
a word to me about it until New Year's Day when he sat me in
his lap and took my hands in his. He told me there were two
kinds of men in the world. There were men who went to
school, grew up, raised families and lived very happily like
everyone else, doing the best they could; and then there were
men, very special men, who were willing to give up all the
comforts of a simple life to have just one moment of true
greatness. He said both men were equally honorable in the
eyes of God. 'What do you choose, Joshua?' he asked, and in
his eyes I could tell he would love me no matter what I
became.

"I know he thought it was quite a lot to ask of an ten-year-old
boy who barely knows the world, but for me the choice was
very easy. Since I had first heard Grandpapa fiddling lullabies
to me in my bassinet, every night when I closed my eyes to
sleep, I heard the violin--in my dreams, whispering comforts
to me in the voice of God. No sacrifice would be too much, I
felt, as long as He continued to speak to me."

"Do you still hear Him?" Mulder asked after a beat of silence.

"I do," Joshua said, turning to him with a very honest
expression. "Every day when I play, I go back to that ten-year-
old boy and I remember what it was like to dream of this,
this life I have, this ability to create a sound so complex and
beautiful from such a simple instrument. There's something
people don't realize about children--they put truth into their
playing--it takes maturity to learn how to lie. I'm certain the
day I forget the truth in my playing is the day God will
abandon me."

"Then you'll need to hold onto that truth, Joshua. Never let it
leave you."

Joshua gave a faint smile and resumed his place at the
window, reaching out with the fingertips of his right hand as
if to touch the tiny people below. "I know you have held on,
Mulder, and I admire that more than you'll ever know--
because I understand the sacrifice involved. You and I gave
up throwing snowballs years before the other kids; and I
suspect, like myself, you've never given it one moment of
regret."
 

******************************

*********************************

Chapter Seven: On the Ruins

*********************************

Applause for the overture. Waiting in the open wing, the
soloist watches for the conductor's arm to extend and
beckon him forward in a wordless introduction.

The instrument is under his arm and the bow dangles from
his forefinger as he steps out onto the polished stage floor to
the rising applause of the audience--filling the seats, boxes,
tiers, mezzanine, balcony and terrace with people he can
sense, but cannot see as his eyes are filled with the
brightness of the lights.

He comes forward upon the stage and turns to his right to
face the Hall as he settles the wise wood of the Stradivarius
under his chin and he breathes in its familiar mustiness. The
clamor fades quickly as he lifts the bow over the strings,
ready to begin. He makes eye contact with the conductor and
the baton descends. Three brief beats of the Allegro molto
and he sweeps the first dotted quarter note from the violin.

For over 150 years the Mendelssohn concerto has been
performed countless times by countless musicians, but never
before has it been performed quite the way this musician
plays it as the microphones catch the occurrence overhead.

He feels the meaning behind the notes as he plays them--
their sensibility is a communication that he shares with the
audience. The expression he chooses is not bound exclusively
by the written notes; rather, he bends the basic framework
laid out by the composer into his own understanding. It's the
refinement of that inner expression that marks a virtuoso.

The four fingers of his left hand press the strings precisely
against the smooth black neck of the violin--first position to
second position and back to first--fingering the A, the C, the
B flat, running the tip of his smallest finger up the neck to
catch the high E before descending to drop into the low D a
half breath later. The hairs pull flat against the strings
making them sing. The bow moves smoothly, and never
rushes. It drops and climbs and strikes and chatters across
the strings. These are a thousand tiny movements and
adjustments made per second that are scarcely
distinguishable to the eye. Only the ear can pull the resulting
vibrations he feels under his chin and hands into focus; the
rest is instinct--the meaning behind the music, the contents
of his heart.
 

###
 

In the seats directly below, a listener falls prey to the voice
speaking on the stage. For all the many things he has seen in
the world, there are few that have made him wonder so much
at the impossibility of what he is witnessing, the ability to
bring something so complex as a concerto to life.

The sound of violin he's heard before in modest space is now
echoing off the second floor balcony and reflecting off the
sound deflection shields hanging high over the stage as the
orchestra quiets and the musician begins his cadenza. His
solo voice begins in low phrases of flirting statements and
brash recapitulations culminating into rapid-fire arpeggios--a
full seven note chord struck note for note in faster and faster
succession until the tones become one, the spaces between
them melting into solid sound.

The Andante begins a minute later, the bassoon carrying the
audience into the second, slower movement. The sounds are
warm and loving, unashamed. There is a wonderful moment
where the solo changes and divides into two separate
melodic lines, as if two violins were playing to one another,
but there is only one pair of hands creating the sound. The
bow is pulling two strings at once as the fingers hold the
double stop to play two lines against each other. The result is
a seamless duet.

The listener turns his head slightly to watch her where she
sits next to him. She is almost smiling as she listens. She
looks unguarded, peaceful. She hasn't looked that way to him
in years.
 

**************************************

The Cliff House
Land's End
11:30 PM

"Oh God, please don't tell that story."

Joshua sat at the head of the table, hiding his face in his
hands laughing, as the man to his right, a cellist formerly
with the New York Philharmonic, set about sharing an old tale
of their past antics together.

"We were playing Radio City, a Christmas Beethoven Festival,
during one of the worst storms in recorded history in New
York," said the cellist, smiling as Joshua peered up, giving
him a 'you wouldn't dare' look.

"That was in '93, right?" someone bellowed from the far end
of the long table, ringed with an assemblage of raucous
orchestra members and friends, who had instructed Joshua's
driver to detour him here to Land's End for an after-hours
surprise 30th birthday feast. Bits of roasted lamb and wild
rice with glazed carrots still stuck to the edges of the nearly
emptied china plates. Gold helium balloons were tied to their
chairs, floating, while the champagne was flowing freely.

"Ninety-three, or -four, doesn't matter," the cellist
continued, taking another generous swig from his own glass.
"Joshua was playing the Triple Concerto with Yang Kikumo
and who was that pianist...?"

Joshua sighed, defeated. "That lunatic
Austrian...Helmut...something." He leaned toward Mulder
who was, incidentally, the only completely sober man in the
room; which was good considering he was also the only one
armed. "I have no idea what he's talking about; he's gravely
mistaken," Joshua said, poorly defending himself. Mulder hid
a grin and took his last bite of lamb so the waiters could
clear his plate for the dessert service. He was going to be
doing a lot more running back in D.C. after this case to make
up for all the fine dining.

"Ah, my good friend Helmut Schratz, how we miss him here
in the States. Will he ever return?" someone
melodramatically lamented from Mulder's side of the table.

"Not after Radio City. It nearly ruined his career!" chuckled
another.

"Anyway," the cellist continued, for those who were
unfamiliar with the story, "after the concert, which was
dreadfully long as most Beethoven festivals are--When will
they learn you can't play all nine symphonies and five piano
concertos in one night?--the storm had grown so fierce that
the guests were advised to stay inside until it settled some."

"That would have been fine if the fire marshal didn't have
this issue with people staying in their seats," added Joshua,
still feigning ignorance.

"Exactly," said the cellist. "So our conductor, Maestro
Thompson, was asked to drag the soloists back out onstage
for a little light entertainment to keep folks calm and
seated."

"Christmas carols!" someone yelled out.

"Yes! Christmas carols were requested. So Maestro Thompson
came back into the green room to find the Beethoven Three,
who had unfortunately found the hot pot of mulled wine
several hours earlier."

Joshua ran a hand through his hair as laughter skittered
about the room. "This is not making me look good right now,
is it? I swear I wouldn't have touched the stuff if I knew we
were going to go back on. And it wasn't my fault Helmut
decided to slip half a bottle of spiced Austrian Schnapps into
it either."

"You knew about the Schnapps, Joshua. You were in the room
when he did it."

"Bullshit! I swear I never saw that man do a thing! He was
insane; he used to practice the Triple Concerto backwards,
note for note--what the hell good does that do? I tried to
avoid being in the same room with him if I could help it."

"So after a few rushed minutes of bow tie straightening and
splashes of cold water, the men were brought back
onstage..."

Joshua leaned toward Mulder again, tonight's bowtie long
undone, pretending to fill just him in on the sordid details.
"Someone had found a set of flashing reindeer antlers and
snapped them on my head just as I went out. I was so
distracted trying to find my bow, that I didn't even realize it."

"Flashing his Rudolph best," the cellist said over the
mounting giggles, "Joshua proceeded to attempt to lead the
two in a rousing rendition of Jingle Bells, in diverse keys."

"Now the part you fail to appreciate, my friend," Joshua said
interrupting him, "is that Kikumo only spoke Japanese and
Helmut only knew German or Dutch or Latin or some other
useless language. I'd like to get my hands on the fool who
thought it would be a good idea to send an English-speaking
Jewish violinist out to teach a Buddhist cellist and an legally
insane agnostic pianist the correct key for 'Little Town of
Bethlehem.'"

The cellist patted Joshua's arm affectionately as the group
had a hearty laugh at his expense. "It was not your finest
hour, that's for certain. But to make it all better there was a
columnist and photographer from the New York Times
snowbound as well."

Joshua downed the last of his champagne and set the glass
back down rim first on the tablecloth like a shot glass. "You
had to mention that, didn't you?"

"Front page, Christmas morning, there was a full-color spread
of Joshua and his merry trio fumbling their way through "We
Wish You a Merry Christmas," laughed the cellist.

Joshua looked sheepishly at Mulder. "They caught me in full
antler-blink. Remember, I have to live in that city."

Mulder smiled and accepted a cup of cappuccino from the
waiter. "So is this what they call musician humor?"

The cellist leaned forward on his elbows. "I have one for you,
Mulder. What's the difference between a trombonist and a
dead snake in the road?"

Mulder took a sip of espresso. "I'm afraid to ask."

"The snake was on his way to a gig!"

Both the cellist and Joshua found that hilarious as they
laughed heartily over it.

"Okay, I'll gladly admit I don't 'get' that one," Mulder said
good-humoredly.

"That's okay, Mulder. You'd have to be a trombonist to really
appreciate the subtleties of that joke," Joshua said. "And
thank God none are present."

The lights were dimmed then as a quartet of waiters came
out singing "Happy Birthday," carrying a sparkling-candled
German chocolate cake. The throng joined in as the dessert
was set before the special guest, flinging sparks on the
tablecloth. Joshua made a valiant effort to blow them out a
few times before he got smart and plucked them off like
Fourth of July sparklers and doused them in his water glass.

"German chocolate...everything with you is German,"
someone teased. "You play Beethoven, Brahms, Bach--where's
the Russians?"

Joshua looked up from his task of making the first cut into
the cake. "I've played the Tchaikovsky."

"Once," the heckler insisted.

"Fair enough; I guess I don't care much for that concerto. I'd
play Rachmaninov if he'd bothered to write for violin, or
Stravinsky if it didn't call for whacking on the instrument
with the back of my bow...Here, who needs this knife?"

The waiter took the knife and the cake away to serve it up as
the maitre'd stepped up to Joshua to let him know he had a
private call. "I'll be right back," he said, licking caramel icing
from his fingers. "Eat, everyone, please."

Mulder was halfway through his square of cake when Joshua
reappeared, holding up a champagne glass and clinking it
with a knife to get everyone's attention.

"Distinguished ladies and gentlemen of San Francisco. As
much as I am honored by the offer to assume the roll of
concertmaster next season, I'm afraid I'll have to politely
decline," he announced, barely controlling a smile. "It would
seem I'm being shipped out to some rag-tag band of fiddlers
in Vienna next January for an eighteen-month world tour."

Joshua was plainly ecstatic as his party guests whooped and
rose from their seats to congratulate him in his success with
cheers and a round of bumbling hugs and handshakes.

*********************************

12:15 AM
 

Mulder stood in the Cliff House's first floor hallway, reading
the framed vintage newspaper headlines covering the Great
San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, and waiting for Joshua
and his driver to finish gathering his coat and gifts.

Presently, he saw two men approach him on their way to the
facilities.

"Mulder, right?"

Mulder turned away from the yellowed newsprint to accept
the man's handshake.

"Steven and I would like to congratulate you and Joshua on
this tour. You must be very excited," the man said, suddenly
wrapping Mulder in a hearty hug.

Mulder was a bit stunned at the burst of affection, as the
man broke the hug and "Steven" took a turn shaking his
hand.

"Yes, thank you," he said, not bothering to correct them.
With his FBI identity hidden, it was an honest mistake. One
can't expect to seen out and about with a man every night in
San Francisco and not fall under that assumption. He just
hadn't been expected to be slapped on the back for it. He
smiled politely as they went on their way.
 

###

Ten minutes later, Mulder was helping Joshua's driver load
the gift boxes into the back of the limo.

"Here's the last of them," Joshua said, handing his driver a
final bag. "God, would you look at that?"

Mulder followed Joshua's gaze down the cliffside to the
ocean below. The waves were breaking against what looked
like the crumbling walls of an ancient ruin. The moon was
reflecting in some of the shallow pools formed between the
decapitated concrete foundations.

"What is all that?" Mulder asked.

"It's what's left of the Sutro Baths from the 1890s. We should
have a closer look. Come on," he said, brushing Mulder's
coat sleeve before starting down the nearby path into the
darkness.

Mulder eyed the ever-patient driver. "I guess we'll be right
back," he said and fished inside his coat for his flashlight.

###

Joshua must have been down this path many times before to
be able to navigate it so well in the dim moonlight, Mulder
thought, stepping over a thick root in the trail. He could just
see him reaching the base of the cliffside and disappearing
behind a stone wall.

"Hold up," he shouted, skipping the last of the switch-backs
and crunching through the iceplant. Joshua was waiting for
him just beyond the bend, standing beside a broken block of
cement, its rusted and twisted rebar reaching toward the
night sky. "I don't think you want to fall on one of those."

Joshua gave him a mischievous look and Mulder followed
him through the foundation maze, working their way closer
to the sea. The smell of pooled algae was thick in the cold air
as the wind whipped off the rolling waves. "Step up here,"
Joshua said as he climbed up onto a tumbled cement block
to reach the high edge of a wall. "You can see better from up
here."

Mulder climbed the broken block until he came to stand next
to Joshua. The musician moved about on the three-foot-wide
shelf, pointing out landscapes in the crumbling remains.

"This was the mineral bath here, the long rectangle. Over
there, behind it, was the men's private bath. The Baths were
built just before the Turn-of-the-Century and the men needed
a place to recuperate from all those fine ladies in bloomers,
you know," he winked and continued, pointing out toward
the sea. "They built the world's longest salt water swimming
pool out there along the shore; the sand's almost choked the
outline now. Lifeguards patrolled it in rowboats. They used to
host a small carnival in the dunes behind it: candied apples,
bumper cars and pony rides--quite the place to take the kids
on a Sunday afternoon... But it's all gone now. They took it
all away," Joshua said, taking a small jump to the next wall so
he could follow its outline to the last barrier before the
ocean. Mulder caught up to him just in time to arrest his
errant footing as he made his way to the far edge.

"Joshua!" Mulder grabbed his arm and righted him. In all his
efforts to guard him, the last thing he needed was to let this
man slip off a six-foot wall into the sea.

"I'm sorry," he laughed and Mulder released him as he
straightened himself, keeping close. "I'm feeling very happy
right now. I think...the champagne may have gone to my
head."

From the look he was giving him, Mulder could swear he was
about to be kissed, but before he could crack a joke about it,
Joshua did just that--took him by the arm of his coat and
kissed him softly just to the side of his mouth.

Mulder was stunned by both the abruptness and sincerity of
the action.

"I'm sorry...I'm not..."

Joshua smiled like he'd been anticipating his reaction.

"I know you're not. That's all a part of why I find you so
appealing." He smiled to himself and turned his face back
into the sea wind. "You're not, and yet here you are."

Mulder looked down again to make sure he still had good
clearance from the edge of the wall. This crumbling San
Franciscan ruin was the last place he expected to be having
this type of conversation--no decent footholds.

Joshua stood with his hands folded inside his coat, warming
himself. "When I first came to San Francisco I was paired with
a 20-year-old accompanist," he said, looking out to sea. "He
was a lot like me, uprooted, displaced. He was living with
extended family, a cousin he'd never met, and when you're a
young man alone in a big city for the first time, it's easy to
become guarded.

"We didn't get along well at first. I think we were both trying
to show off. He resented me for being sent on scholarship,
but gradually something began to happen. We started
spending a lot of time together and day by day really began
to open up and become friends. Our playing improved as
well, once we stopped fighting one another and realized our
talents were put to better use when shared.

"We played to a standing ovation at Zellerbach Hall one
summer. It was a wonderful feeling...something we didn't
want to let go of. We became lovers that night and for many
nights afterward. I wasn't too surprised; I'd felt it coming on
for a long while. The fact I was with another man didn't
surprise me nearly as much as the tenderness--to have
someone who knows how you work make love to you, who
knows how your body feels.  I've had my share of straight
relationships, but I've never really found that again."

Mulder squinted at the horizon; he could see the red and
green lights on the fishing boats steaming back into port.
"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I think you've felt it coming on for a while now,
too."

Mulder let his eyes fall on the younger man standing next to
him. Joshua was still looking off, giving him the space he
needed to think this over. The problem was, he wasn't sure
he wanted to think. Thinking had been getting him nowhere.

Mulder shuffled from one foot to the next, hearing the aging
concrete surface crumbling in the gravel under his shoes.
What he wanted, he decided, was to get down off this
goddamn wall.

"I think we should go back," he said.

Joshua nodded his head slowly. "We'll go back."
 

*******************************

In the car again it was quiet. The lights and colors of the
party were gone and the space the virtuoso and his protector
occupied was now dipped in shadows. Fleeting beams of
street lamps flickered over their faces at they kept their
thoughts to themselves.

Mulder was seated in the corner, trying to slip back and shut
his eyes, feigning some kind of fatigue if for nothing else
than to convince his heart to slow down. It was becoming
uncomfortably warm in his coat, but he didn't want to attract
the other man's attention by removing it.

Joshua sat with his face turned in profile, his thumb knuckle
pressed to his lower lip as he watched the dark store fronts
shuffle by. Mulder couldn't help but glance over at him. A
part of him wanted the violinist to keep his gaze away, while
another part, a more urgent part, wanted him to turn his
head and ask him one more time.

"I didn't get to wish you a happy birthday..." Mulder was
surprised to hear himself say.

It broke the man sitting next to him and he rolled his head
back against the seat with a small indeterminable sound and
his eyes, those deep blue eyes were on him, saying everything
they'd been trying to hide for the last week--in that look was
the simple agony of want.

Joshua's arm came up along the back of the seat. His
fingertips came to rest at the nape of Mulder's neck where
they paused to touch the curve of his jaw before slipping
back into the fine hairs behind his ear.

Mulder closed his eyes and just let himself feel the caress as
it stirred the tiny hairs and smoothed against the base of his
skull, around and around slowly, precisely. It was electric,
shooting sparks of feeling through a system that had shut
itself down long ago. The central core was beginning to
respond, and respond with a vengeance.

He felt the young man shift, coming to sit almost against him,
laying his palm against his cheek. He felt him lean in and the
warm softness of his lips touched his jaw, his neck, below his
ear--small gentle kisses, nudging their way under his chin
until a warm wet tongue traced the underridge of his lobe.
Mulder flinched and emitted a small sound and the musician
whispered, "Open your eyes..."

He opened his eyes and this time what he saw didn't scare
him half as much. Deep down he felt he could trust this man.
Joshua kissed his cheekbone, then kicked the intercom on
with his foot. "Driver, take us up Embarcadero...but don't
exit."

Mulder soon began to understand that once you stop
fighting, the surrender is almost a blessing. The need to
belong, to be accepted into this man's life, was so powerful it
equaled the compulsion of arousal. Indeed, Mulder knew
himself to be aroused, pushed to the brink with such
intensity he no longer remembered the reasons why this was
supposed to be wrong. He let his head fall back against the
seat and gave himself over freely to the touch of Joshua's
fine manipulative hands, slipping loose the knot of his tie,
undoing another tight button at his neck and another, lower-
-taking his time to touch his exposed skin with kisses and
brushes of his nose. He felt warm fingertips slipping through
the cotton of his shirt to graze his skin with small callouses
that marked the man by occupation.

A musician's practiced hands stroked his belly as his shirt
hung open, the fingers felt their way along the patch of hair
to his belt. Mulder turned his head suddenly in a mixed
response of acquiescence and doubt. His nose in Joshua's
hair, he could smell the man where his head lay against his
shoulder, under his chin, a tongue licking its way down his
throat. He didn't know where to put his hands, so he kept
them off--one on the door, one on the back of the seat. It
mattered that he do this right, he felt; it mattered that he not
offend the man; it mattered that he cared enough to want
him; and then nothing mattered as his belt slipped free and
those searching hands found him hard and ready.

###

The things you see. The things your eyes come to focus on
when the brain has slipped are what Mulder would remember
later. Up some forgotten street they had passed a gang of
dangerous children, running up toward the car as it sped past
them. A white cat bright as sunlight walked along the back of
a fence. An old man carrying a baguette stepped off the curb
into a puddle as he crossed the street. A streetwalker in a
pink sequined top, standing with her friend under a browned
street lamp, smiled at him where his forehead had
connected, pressed against the glass of the window looking
out, looking at everything--until his eyes rolled back into his
head and he came.

***************************

Another window. Joshua found him looking out again
through the windows of his flat--standing staring at the
water, at the empty street. He'd been so quiet, hardly a
sound had escaped him that long circuitous ride home in the
car. Mulder's shirt was still unbuttoned, hanging loosely like
a curtain opening to the perfect sculpture of his chest.

"You look good in blue," Joshua said, approaching him
slowly. "Very few men do." He came and stood behind the
man and took the shirt by the collar, slipping it off of him.
He kissed his bared shoulder and let his hands run down the
curve of his back. Mulder had done-up his pants before
leaving the car, the beads of sweat across his upper lip the
only remaining indication he'd been pleasured just moments
before. Joshua still felt the ache in his jaw from the effort it
took to bring him to climax. It was nothing compared to the
unsatisfied ache he felt for wanting this man; but where this
elusive FBI agent had shown patience with him, he was fully
willing to make the return sacrifice. He slipped a hand deep
into Mulder's left pocket and felt him there, rising.

Mulder turned his head, with a look of wonder and
confusion. "What are you doing to me?" he whispered.
Joshua pressed against him, letting him feel his own hard
need.

"I'm helping you feel again."

***************************

Naked, they sat together on the hard piano bench, straddling
it. Joshua had pulled it into the center of the bare floor, and
removing his clothes, sat upon it, beckoning Mulder to join
him.

Joshua's cock, slick from its own emissions, was thrusting
firmly against the small of his back while the musician's
tongue and lips worked their way around the muscles and
slopes of his back and shoulders.

The violinist's hands were between his thighs, urging them
apart as his fingers slipped low under his balls, caressing
them gently with each firm thrust against his back.

It was bizarre, different, incomprehensible--yet undeniably
erotic. In truth, Mulder had never known himself to be so
easily seduced; to have someone he'd known for so little time
bring him to such an extreme with so little fight.

Joshua's hands had left him and only one arm gripped him
fully about the waist as the man moaning softly behind him
jerked and let go a gasp as his warm fluid released, running
down between them, down the small of his back where they
sat pressed together.
 

*********************************
 

The moon moved into view through the wall of glass. It cast a
pale light over the back of the quiet Steinway onto the floor,
dragging the shadows of the turned legs to the edge of the
bed where two long bodies lay against one another--leg to
leg, arm over arm, draped in lazy serenity against each other.

An indeterminable amount of time passed before Mulder
opened his eyes to see Joshua looking down at him, his head
propped by an elbow, his other hand moving over the surface
of Mulder's chest.

"Was I asleep?" he asked, lifting his head, fearful that their
exertions had knocked him completely out of his sense of
duty.

"Yes, but I stayed awake. It's okay. You didn't sleep long. Your
gun's right over on the dresser."

Mulder closed his eyes and rested his head back against
Joshua's arm, letting himself give into the languidity of post-
pleasure bliss. Soon, he felt lips kissing his temple and he
opened his eyes again. Joshua looked as pleased as he was, if
not more so, and he'd barely touched the man tonight. He
needed to make up for that. Now that they were relaxed,
perhaps he could put aside his insecurity and find the
courage to give back a small portion of what had been
offered to him.

Mulder shifted up onto his elbow in like fashion and returned
the touching down Joshua's smooth stomach to his groin,
brushing the man's lighter skin with the back of his hand.
Something that had puzzled him earlier now became obvious
in the moonlight. The man was virtually hairless. It made him
look younger in an odd way--maturely pre-pubescent. Mulder
let his thumb pass over the bared scrotum; the skin
contracted and loosened under his touch.

"I suppose I'll need to explain that," Joshua said, letting his
leg slip back over his knee so Mulder could continue to
discover him. "I shave my testicles," he said with a nervous
grunt. "Damn, for some reason it sounds ridiculous when
explaining it to a man. Women don't mind. They generally
prefer not getting a mouthful of hair, and I enjoy the
freedom."

Mulder looked up at his new lover in this beautifully
awkward moment and for the first time tonight felt almost at
ease lying naked in bed with another man. He smiled despite
himself and shifted lower on the bed. "I guess I'll have to test
that theory."

Joshua shut his eyes and let his head fall back onto the pillow
as Mulder rotated his wrist to take his naked scrotum fully in
hand. "Please do."

Up close and personal, Mulder had to admit the sight of male
genitalia didn't do a whole lot for him. But holding Joshua's
maleness gently in the palm of his hand did give him a sense
of excitement, knowing that he could touch this man in a way
that was familiar to himself. He let his hand slide over the
naked sac and slip loosely around the younger man's half-
filled penis. He squeezed and tugged gently, feeling his own
arousal beginning to rebuild up out of restfulness as the
organ in his hand grew longer and fuller, stiffening at his
touch.

"Turn this way," Joshua whispered, brushing his hip and
Mulder complied, aligning his own burgeoning erection
against the violinist's perfect mouth.

It began with stroking and touching, Joshua mirroring his
moves as they entered the mutual serenade. Then with an
introductory kiss, Mulder let his mouth open to him,
uncertain of his accuracy, yet giving it his best try. Joshua
aided him in silent duplicate instruction--if it was too much
he let him feel it, if it was too little, he let him feel the
frustration as well. Step by step a method was formed as the
minutes ticked by until distracted by arousal to the point of
mindlessness, both men began to communicate their needs
through deep sucking mouthfuls and firm twisting grips
slickened by salivation for one another's climax. Joshua was
first to release, moaning in intense appreciation, keeping the
reciprocation earnest and constant though his contractions.
Mulder felt the sensation and bitter taste of come on his
tongue and quickly swallowed it, forgetting the temporary
foreignness as his own gripping peak reached him so much
easier and more lovingly than the night's first orgasmic
struggle. He clutched the man's ass with a groan and pushed
his own hips into his face until his ejaculation ceased.

Mulder rolled over onto his back and looked up at the high
ceiling and track lighting rails. As much as he knew this was
not the most conservative thing he had done during working
hours, he wasn't about to regret it, either. It was about time
he got paid to get fucked in a manner that pleased him. And
he was surprised at how much it pleased him.

"I never thought I'd find myself like this," he admitted, still
tasting the echoes of the other man's climax in the recesses
of his mouth. It was a little unnerving, but just a moment
earlier, he'd found the flavor of an aroused cock as sweet as
a woman and not particularly different.

"Most men don't," Joshua replied, shifting to rest the soft
waves of his hair against Mulder's hip. The tips of his fingers
brushed over Mulder's abdomen--the gentle strokes keeping
the nerves registering the euphoria of release in his groin and
belly alive and reverberating. "For some reason we're taught
it's wrong to share emotions with other men. We're not
allowed to cry or love one another. It's ridiculous. Why
shouldn't we be allowed to show affection?"

The affection concept was something that Mulder felt he
could understand, and focused his swirling feelings on it.
Never in his life had he been emotionally close to anyone of
his own sex, not his father, not his peers, and certainly not
any of the Gunmen. A vision of Frohike in a fluffy vest and
tutu pirouetted through his head and he laughed.

"What?" Joshua sounded like he wanted to be let in on the
joke.

"I'm sorry," he chuckled. "It's just that I don't believe I could
quite reach this level of intimacy with any of my current
male friends even if I wanted to. I think attraction has
something to do with it as well."

He raised his head to catch Joshua's shy flattered smile. He
hated to shatter the moment, but now that their sexual
cravings had abated he felt he'd best reassume the roll of
Federal agent before he fell asleep again. The thought of
Scully walking in at 4AM finding them wrapped up in one
another was more than he could process at this time. He sat
up and swung his legs over the end of the bed. He didn't have
the slightest idea how to explain this to her and figured it was
a much better plan if she just didn't find out. "I'd better get
dressed," he said and Joshua nodded compliantly. Mulder
knew from his expression the man would rather he stayed in
bed next to him and it touched him.

Mulder stood and collected his clothing, which had made
itself at home across Joshua's armchairs, couch and piano.
The imprint of two asses was still visible on the polished
black piano bench. Evidence, he thought, and ran his shirt
quickly over it.

Joshua rolled over sleepily to watch him dress. Mulder had
his pants and shoes back on and was working with his shirt
buttons and tie when he felt the need to ask. "You never told
me what happened to your lover."

"You mean, what happened to the man, or how did it end?"

Mulder looped the tie over, beginning the knot. "How did it
end?"

Joshua slipped his bare arm under the pillow and adjusted
himself more comfortably against it. "His family ran out of
money. Tuition was too high. He didn't make scholarship and
was sent back to New Jersey. I never saw or heard from him
again."

"I see," Mulder said, and cinched the knot up snugly against
his throat.

**************************************