RHIANNON

    by
                                 
 Sandra S. Tyra



Hotel Hilton
Washington, D.C.
Friday
9:30 p. m.

     Trey Williams was 49 years old.  Three weeks ago, he had been young, strong, healthy. 
Three weeks ago he had met Linnea.  Now he was old, frail, dying.  In three weeks he had
dropped 47 pounds  He was hardly aware of it though.  He saw nothing but Linnea.  She was the
most beautiful woman he had ever seen.  And she had chosen him. .  Trey Williams loved
Linnea with all of his being.  He was consumed by her.

     He checked into the motel room on a Friday evening.  His apartment was off limits since
his son was returning from college this weekend, and Trey wanted to spend every moment with
Linnea that he could.  He had felt this way ever since he met her.  He was given the key to room
1151 and he turned and walked across the lobby to his one true love.


Hotel Fillintheblank
Washington, D.C,
Monday
6:00 a.m.

     On Monday morning, when the maid, Linda Michaels, keyed room 1151 to clean it, she
found a horror awaiting her.  Trey Williams - what was left of him - lay in the bed.  Nearly
unrecognizable as the remains of a human being, Trey's body almost got tossed into a laundry
cart.   Shaking, Linda backed away from the bed.  She went directly to the phone and called
down to the desk.  

6:30 a.m.

     FBI Special Agent Dana Scully leaned over the strange dust pile that was in the form of a
human being - well, a primate anyway.  She scraped some of the dust into a specimen bag, and
stashed the bag in a case she had brought with her.  This was a decidedly weird body.  If it was a
body.  Her partner, Special Agent Fox Mulder was moving around the room, checking through
the man's clothes, making notes, puttering, in a professional sort of way.  Sergeant Collins, of
the DCPD was in charge of the scene.   The local police forensics team had been here before
them - some were still here - so most of the crime scene work had already been done.  The FBI
forensic team had also joined them and was duplicating the work of the police forensic team. 
Ordinarily, the two law enforcement agencies would not have been working right on top of one
another, but as soon as the police had identified the remains, they had called in the FBI.  Edgar
Williams, III - known as Trey - was a congressman.  He had missed nearly three weeks of
meetings, votes, etc.  And now he had turned up dead in a hotel room.    

     Mulder stepped over to where Scully stood next to the bed.  "What do you think
happened to him, Scully?" he asked her.

     "I wouldn't even hazard the opinion that this is him, Mulder.  And if it is, I have no idea
how he died."

     "How long does it take for a body to be reduced to dust?"  He asked.

     Scully shrugged.  "More than two days.  Generally speaking, the flesh rots off the bones
in days or weeks depending on whether the body has been embalmed, and the bones can last. . ."
she shrugged,  "mummies have been found with intact bones."

     "So what would it take to cause this?"   

     "Freeze drying, maybe.  Mulder, this is almost certainly not the remains of a human
being.  What we have here is evidence of a disappearance, not a murder."

     "We'll see."

     "You have a theory, right?"  She waited to hear yet another nutty idea that she would
have to shoot down and that would eventually prove to be right.  Thank God, Mulder wasn't the
"I told so" type.

     He surprised her.  "No, I don't have anything useful yet. I'm working on it."

                             * * * *

     Two days later, the results were back from the forensics lab.  Scully had worked on the
testing herself so she knew the results weren't in error.  The dust from the Hotel Hilton was,
indeed, the remains of a human being.  DNA tests were being run to make absolutely certain that
the victim was Congressman Williams, although for the time being they would operate on the
assumption that it was.  But there was nothing to say what had killed the congressman.   Oh, this
was going to be a fun case.  At least the local police would be the ones to inform his family,
although, she and Mulder would have to question them.

Neat-n-Tidy Laundromat
Wednesday
10:00 pm

     Fox Mulder liked to wait until late in the evening to do his laundry.  The Laundromat was
rarely busy then - especially on a Wednesday.  He had all the machines to himself and could get
everything done that much faster.  Laundry was something he hated doing, but when a guy's out
of clean underwear, well, what else are you going to do?

     He was sorting clothes into the machines when the woman came in - a pretty woman,
alone.  She wasn't carrying any laundry.  Being in law enforcement, Mulder knew that this was a
situation that was very dangerous to women - being alone in a Laundromat, late at night, with a
strange man.  A lot of rapes happened in just these circumstances.  He didn't want the woman to
be afraid of him or to think she had to leave.  She might be homeless and looking for shelter for
the night.  He did his best to radiate "I'm a good guy.  I wouldn't  hurt a fly." while ignoring her,
as he kept on sorting his laundry.  Whites in machine number 1, colored clothes that didn't run
in machine number 2, denims and dark clothes in machine number 3, towels in 4, reds, pinks,
and purples in 5.  Just like Mom had taught him when he was 13, after dad had moved out of the
house. 

     He suddenly thought of the time when he was just getting the hang of doing this that he
had accidently washed a red sock in with the whites and all the whites had come out pink. 
Mom, still pretty shaky over the loss of Samantha and the break up of her marriage, unable to
handle even the tiniest upset, had looked at her favorite white blouse - now pink - and burst into
tears.  He would much rather have had her yell or scream at him or even hit him.    Maybe that
was why he hated doing the laundry - it made him think of the past.  Nah.  He hated doing
laundry because it was mindless, tedious and time consuming.  

     The woman walked around the quiet Laundromat, got a soda from the machine on the
wall and a candy bar from the dispenser next to the soda machine.  She kept darting glances at
Mulder.  He noticed the glances, keeping track of the woman from the corner of his eye.  And he
kept radiating harmlessness as he added detergent to each of the machines.  As he shoved in the
quarters that started his last machine, the woman approached him.  

     "What is your name?"  That startled him and it shouldn't have.  He'd been aware of
where she was all the time she had been here!   She had a strange accent - nothing he could
identify.  It was also a strange way to start a conversation.  

     He smiled, tentatively.  "Mulder.  Ah, Fox Mulder."  

     "I am Rhiannon."  Mulder turned and looked into her eyes.  She was compelling.  He
couldn't have said why.  She was pretty, but not overwhelmingly so, and she looked tired,
rundown, a bit haggard.  Still she was making his heart beat faster.  And that wasn't the only way
his body was reacting to her.  He was having the most powerful physical reaction he had ever
had to woman in his life. Almost immediately he'd felt his pants start to get tight.  Her
pheromone levels must be really high.  Unnaturally high.  He shoved the feeling down for the
moment.

     "Rhiannon - what?"

     "Rhiannon is enough."  She liked the old names.  They had a richness and a character
that was missing in today's world.  Rhiannon.  Eloise.  Once she had been Tabitha.  Only last
week she was Linnea.

     "Okay."  Mulder said.  "Can I help you?"  Gads, it had been so long since he put the
moves on a woman, he could hardly remember how to make small talk.  With Scully he had real
conversations, but you couldn't do that with a total stranger - it took time to feel someone out, to
get to know what interested them and what didn't.  

     "Are you alone?"

     "Uh, yes."

     "Do you have a wife?"

     "No."   Geez, this woman was incredibly straight forward!  "If she's getting at what I
think she's getting at, I'll have to hit a drugstore on the way home". He thought.    As soon as
that thought went thought his mind, he wondered at himself.  Still, he knew if she wanted to go
home with him, he would accept the offer.  He had to be out of his mind.  But the longer she
stood there, the faster his heart raced.

     "Do you have a woman?"  Weird way to phrase it.

     "No."  Why had he dropped into monosyllables?

     "You like women?"  Her way of asking if he was gay.

     "Yes.  I like women.  Very much."  If his heart were to beat any faster, he'd have a
coronary.  She must have really, really heightened pheromones, because his body was reacting
outrageously, but his mind only found the lady - strange.  It was an interesting phenomenon. 
He'd have to tell Scully about it.  Maybe.

     The woman, Rhiannon, rested her hand on his chest.  "I like you."  

     This was the strangest conversation he'd had in a long time.  "That's nice."  He pushed
her hand gently away.  He had decided that this was just too odd.  He was going to resist this
woman's advances.

                             * * * *

Thursday
7:00 a.m.

     Mulder strolled into the office the next morning almost humming with contentment. 
Rhiannon had turned out to be a woman not only with heightened pheromones, but with
voracious appetites.  Maybe they went hand-in-hand.  He was still amazed at what had happened
last night.  He had stopped at a drugstore, run in, and grabbed a box of condoms, wondering even
then if he shouldn't have gotten the smaller box.  He wasn't going to need a dozen after all.  But
he had used four of them!  Sometimes he amazed even himself!! It had been four in the morning
before he had dropped into an exhausted sleep, and even then Rhiannon had insisted on
snuggling against him.   He had noticed this morning that, although he looked pretty wasted, she
looked rested, happy.  

     He settled down at his desk with a cup of coffee and a sweet roll.

     Scully was already at her desk.  "Good morning."  She noticed that he looked tired - there
were dark circles under his eyes and they were red rimmed - but he was in a remarkably good
mood for him.  "You look tired."

     "Morning.    I didn't get much sleep last night.  Anything new on the body?"

     He often didn't sleep well.  If he felt the need to confide, he would.  She let it drop
without a second thought.  "Well, it's definitely a body."

     "I always thought it was."  He bit into the sweet roll.  He was really hungry this morning.
This was his third breakfast.    After he left the motel at five - he hadn't lost his mind completely
after all, he had not taken her to his apartment - he ran home, showered, shaved, dressed, nuked
and ate a bowl of oatmeal (two envelopes of the instant stuff), brushed his teeth and headed out
for the office. On his way to work he'd grabbed some pancakes and eggs at a McDonald's drive
thru, and now this. Oh, well, he'd gotten a heck of a lot of exercise last night, he probably just
needed to replenish himself.  "So what killed Congressman Williams?  Was he freeze dried?" his
second question was more than little tongue-in-cheek.

     "It's impossible to tell.  All we have is the dust of his remains.  He was completely
dehydrated, of course, but whether that was before or after he died is anybody's guess.  And no,
he wasn't freeze dried.  However, Congressman Williams isn't our only victim."

     "Oh?"

     "It seems there have been three others in as many months.  Sergeant Collins is turning it
all over to us."

     "Lucky us.  Hum.  Hey, Scully, have you ever met anybody with really heightened
pheromones?"

     "What's this have to do with anything?"

     "Nothing with the case.  I had an interesting experience last night."

     "Oh.  Okay.  Heightened pheromones?  Yeah, I knew a guy named J. R. when I was in
college.  You could feel him from across a room.  It was. . .interesting and nice."  The memory
made her smile.  "Did you meet someone like that?"

     "I think so.  We're having lunch together today, would you like to come along and meet
her?"

     "You have a lunch date with a new lady and you're inviting me?  Won't she think that's a
little odd?"  Scully felt a tiny tickle of irritation.  She knew Mulder needed a life outside of
work, but she really didn't think she wanted to hear about it. 

     "Maybe.  Yeah, she will."  Why had he asked Scully to join him and Rhiannon at lunch?
Because he wanted her opinion, that's why.  "You could ask Pendrell to join us - then it
wouldn't seem so strange."  

     "Pendrell?"  She raised an eyebrow at him.

     "It's only a lunch, Scully.  And it would make his day."

     He must really want her to meet this woman.  "Okay, I'll ask him.  Where are we
eating?" 

     "The Italian place across the plaza - Domenics."

     "Sounds good.  If we go over there in en masse we could scare her - maybe Pendrell and I
should 'bump into' you and your friend?"

     Mulder smiled.  "Yeah.  That's a good idea.  Thanks, Scully.  I'd appreciate that." 

     Scully smiled back at him.  "Now, about the case?" She steered the subject back to work.

     "When will we get the files and evidence boxes from the DCPD?"

     "Sometime this morning."  

     Scully called Pendrell around 9 o'clock and asked him if he was free for lunch.  He was
thrilled to death to be invited to lunch by Scully.  Of course he was free. No problem.  


10:09 a.m.

     Holly, one of the clerks from upstairs, poked her head in the door.  "Agent Mulder?  You
have a delivery."  

     "Send it in."  Mulder said.

     A uniform cop deposited a box containing the files on the other three cases on Mulder's
desk and asked him to sign for them.  He did.

     "Where's the physical evidence?"  Scully asked.

     "It's being checked into the evidence room by a Sergeant Collins from the DCPD." 
Holly told him.

     "Thanks, Holly."  Mulder dismissed her and she left.  

     Mulder and Scully spent the rest of the morning reading the files that Collins had sent
them.  The other bodies had been in the same state as Congressman Williams.  Two of them had
been found in hotels in the area, the third in a rented room.  Their effects had also been left
behind - just like Congressman Williams.  No one had been robbed.  One of them was a judge,
one was a congressional page, and one was a lobbyist.  There was, therefore, a certain amount of
connection between three of the four victims, but so far as the detectives at the DCPD had been
able to determine, it was a very tentative connection.  Certainly, a Congressman, a congressional
page, and a lobbyist all worked in the same building - but hundreds of people worked in that
building, and so far, that was the only connection.  The lobbyist had probably spoken to
Congressman Williams at least once, although no evidence of that existed.  The page could have
run errands for Mr. Williams, that was what pages did, after all.  Still, the only thing they really
seemed to have in common was proximity.  They worked in the same relatively small area.  That
and the fact that they were all male.  Age didn't seem to play into it, the page had been 18, the
judge 64.  Race wasn't a consideration either.  Three of them were white, one was black -
African-American.  

     There was also a list of the various effects found with the bodies.  Clothes, wallets, the
contents of their pockets - coins, keys, etc.  Plus other things from the places where the bodies
had been found - ash trays, a sketch book from the rented room the page had lived in, etc.

     "Huh."  Mulder said, looking up as he finished reading the last file - the one on the
lobbyist, Jerry Ackerman.  "Scully, they'd all undressed before whatever happened to them,
happened to them."

     "What?"  Scully look up from the file she was reading.  

     "All of them were found just like Congressman Williams - with their clothes in a heap,
separate from the body.  Either they undressed themselves or they were all undressed by their
assailant."

     "They were all in bed, weren't they?  I generally undress to go to bed, don't you?"

     He grinned at her, then seemed to change his mind about whatever he was going to say.
"So the assailant waits for his or her victims to go to bed and then attacks?  Okay, that's
something, at least.  No, wait a minute - wasn't Henderson on his couch?"  The page had been
named John Henderson and he had been found in his rented room.  

     "Hum." she shuffled some papers, checked something. "Yes, he was."  Scully said. 
"Maybe he slept on the couch.  You do."

     "Not always.  What else might a person do on his couch naked?"  As soon as the words
were out of his mouth, he knew the answer.  "Oh, nevermind, I know." he laughed at himself. 

     Scully grinned back at him.


12:30 p.m.

     Mulder had arranged to meet Rhiannon in front of the restaurant at 12:30.  When she
appeared, he felt the same reactions as last night.  His body ached for her.  When he was with
her, all he really wanted to do was find a private spot and jump her bones.  Still, he felt. .  sleazy,
sort of.  Last night had been great, but empty.  Sex should have some meaning.  Right?  It was
demeaning to both of them to behave like animals.  That feeling slipped away when she walked
up and wrapped her hand around his arm and looked up into his eyes.  Christ on a crutch!  He'd
better get a hold of himself or anyone who looked their way would see what was happening to
him.  

     "Let's go get a table."  He said to Rhiannon.

     "I think I have a better idea."  She smiled.  "Let's find a hotel and I will give you a lunch
to remember."

     "Oh, Lord, I love to, but I really can't." he told her.  "I have to get back to work shortly. 
Come on.  They make great fettuccini here."  She pouted as he drew her inside the restaurant. 
The restaurant was small - only about 20 tables, with red and white checkered table cloths. 
There was a deli counter at the front for take outs and, just inside the door, a crock of Chianti on
a table with a stack of glasses and sign that said, "If over 21, pour yourself a glass while you
wait."  A waitress seated them at a table fairly close to the front.

     They had just completed their order when Scully and Pendrell came in.  Irrationally,
Mulder felt a prickle of irritation when he saw Pendrell steering Scully through the place with a
his hand in the small of her back.  They stopped at Mulder's table, feigning surprise.

     "Hello!"  Scully said, brightly.   

     "Mulder."  Pendrell, added.

     Quickly, Mulder asked them to join him and Rhiannon and soon all four were sitting
around Mulder's table.  Mulder made introductions, neatly leaving out the fact that Scully was
his partner at the Bureau, saying only that he, Scully, and Pendrell all worked for the FBI.

     As Pendrell looked at Rhiannon, Scully noticed that his reaction was just as strong as
Mulder's.  They were seated boy, girl, boy, girl, so that the women were across from one another
as were the men.  This gave Rhiannon easy access to both men.  Scully, of course, had equally
easy access to the guys, but she wasn't even trying to compete.  She was studying this
phenomenon.  She had noticed Pendrell's flush of color when he first saw the woman, and that
Mulder also looked flushed.  Uh huh.  If she could have taken notes, she would have.  

     Both men paid extraordinary attention to Rhiannon, flirting with her outrageously, all but
ignoring Scully.  It reminded Scully, uncomfortably, of the kind of male competing that teenage
boys did, but without the incipient threat of violence.  

     And the flirting was reciprocated - to both of the men!  Of course, if Scully understood it
correctly, this woman had known Mulder less than 24 hours so there was certainly no reason
why she shouldn't flirt with Pendrell if she found him attractive. Still, it was kind of tacky to do
so right in front of Mulder.  And it was even tackier to flirt with Pendrell who was ostensibly
Scully's lunch date.  This woman had the manners of a. . .cow.   

     After a moment, Scully became aware of "feeling" this woman's . . whatever it was. 
Mulder had been right.  It was astonishing.   Rhiannon had  a very powerful physical presence.  

     The four of them shared a large anti-pasta salad and Scully noted that, while Mulder ate
the lion's share of it, Rhiannon ate none of it.  She pretended to - she took an olive on her fork
and licked it - provocatively! This woman did everything provocatively - but she never ate it. 
And when their main courses came, she managed to feed most of hers to Mulder, although she
did eat a small amount of it.  Scully wasn't sure if that meant anything at all, except that the
woman wasn't hungry right now or didn't like Italian food.  She was an extremely thorough
chewer, too.  She must have completely liquified every tiny bite she put in her mouth before she
swallowed it.  All through the meal, she kept stroking Mulder's hand.  And once or twice,
making it seem incidental, she stroked Pendrell's hand, too.

     Back in their office after lunch, with Mulder and Scully seated at their desks, and
Pendrell in a spare chair he had scared up from somewhere, they discussed the mysterious
Rhiannon.  

     "Well?"  Mulder asked.  "What did you think of her?"

     Pendrell grinned.  "She was . . incredible!" 

     "She was strange."  Scully said.  "But you're right about the pheromones, Mulder.  She
really radiates sexuality.  Even I could feel it."

     "You could?"  Pendrell looked alarmed.  

     "Relax, Pendrell."  Mulder grinned.  "Scully doesn't swing that way."

     "Did either of you notice that she was almost incapable of carrying on a conversation?" 
Scully asked, steering the discussion in a different direction.

     "No."  Pendrell admitted, sheepishly.

     "I kind of noticed it last night.  At first."  Mulder said, "But it doesn't seem to matter to
me like it should.  I really like being with her."

     Scully raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.  


Friday
8.45 am

     Rhiannon had spent the night at Mulder's apartment and he'd had a little trouble getting
her to leave that morning.  She wanted him to take the day off - to stay home in bed with her.  He
had firmly insisted that he had to go work.  He had showered and dressed and prepared for the
day, and she was still lying in his bed, pouting and telling him to take the day off.  He had all put
pushed her out the door when he was leaving, having convinced her to get dressed. 

     He and Scully were now examining the rented room that John Henderson had lived and
died in.  The DCPD had searched it very carefully and everything they had confiscated was now
in the FBI's evidence room.  This "efficiency apartment" consisted of one large room with
kitchen facilities on one end and a large hide-a-bed style couch and matching chair dominating
the living area.  It made Mulder's apartment look positively gargantuan.  Of course, it's small
size made it easy to search.  

     "Well?"  Scully asked.  "Do you see anything significant?"

     "After a month?  We're lucky it's still empty.  I guess we can go."  As they headed for
the door, Mulder glanced back into the room.  "You know, Scully, that report that said he was
found on the couch was a sort of misnomer - his couch was his bed."


11:00 am

     Back in the office, Mulder brought in the free-standing chalk board that he kept stashed
somewhere here in the basement and started making a chart on it.

     "What's that for?"  Scully asked interested.  

     "Oh, the usual.  See how things line up."  He wrote for several minutes and when  he was
done he had made up a list of the victims with information concerning them:

      Judge Normanson         John Henderson           Jerry Ackerman            Con. Trey Williams

Age:       64                      18                      37                           49

Ht:       5' 6"                    6'                     6'2"                         5'11"

Wt:       208                     170                     200                           210

Occ:     Judge                  Con. Page                Lobbyist                    Congressman

Race:    Black                    White                   White                         White

Found:    Bed                Couch/sofa-bed                Bed                           Bed


     Scully watched as he did the chart - completely from memory, without resorting to the
files from the DCPD.   He added various bits of information from the files - dates of death, the
places the bodies were found.  He was looking for points of similarity. 

     Watching him at the blackboard, Scully realized that his clothes were hanging loosely on
him.  He had lost a little weight lately.  Weight that he really couldn't spare.  And the dark
circles under his eyes were looking worse than yesterday, too.  


                             * * * *

     Mulder spent the entire weekend with Rhiannon - in bed with Rhiannon - getting up only
to use the bathroom or to eat.  It had been a wild weekend - well, sort of.  They had done little
but watch videos - his special collection - and make love.  And "make love" was an extremely
polite term for it.  Bunnies had nothing on this woman!!! They had finished off the box of
condoms and he'd had to run out for another.  Rhiannon had tried to convince him to do without,
but he had told her "My mother may have raised an easy kid, but not an irresponsible one."  
He'd gotten a larger box this time - 3 dozen instead of 1 dozen.

     On Sunday evening she had started talking about him staying home with her the next day. 
 He had explained that it wasn't possible, that he had work to do.  She pouted, which should
have irritated him, but somehow didn't.  She coaxed, wheedled, pleaded. He told her firmly that
he was going to go to the office in the morning.  Period.  But he never tried to explain how
important his work was to him.  He didn't think she'd care.

     He was aware on some level that Rhiannon's presence in his life and his apartment didn't
make sense, but when he looked into her eyes, he just didn't care. At other times, he found
himself wondering why he was in this relationship.  With Scully, he interacted as a human being,
as a man, and as a law enforcement officer.  With Rhiannon he interacted only as a male animal,
never as a man. To put it vulgarly, he screwed her.  He never talked to her. He wasn't in love
with her. It would be stretching it to say that he liked her.  He screwed her.  She screwed him. 
Nothing about her reached his heart or his mind.    But then,  his mind wasn't working at it's
best, lately.  He felt fogged and slow.  In some ways, it was a relief to reach the office and go to
work.


Monday
7:00 a.m.

     Scully walked into the office, her briefcase in her hand, and stopped dead.  The place
was littered with food containers.  A Styrofoam pancake box and a paper hash brown bag from
McDonalds were on one corner of Mulder's desk.  In fact, there appeared to be containers from
every fast food joint between Mulder's apartment and FBI Headquarters on his desk, or
somewhere around his desk. His waste basket was over-flowing with food wrappers, the floor
around his desk was littered with them.  In among the debris, Mulder sat, working over a file.
There was a pink box on the desk next to him, the kind that doughnut shops put the doughnuts in
when they sell them.  It was big enough to hold a dozen doughnuts.  There was half a doughnut
left in it.  

     "Did you come in over the weekend to work on the case?"  Scully asked Mulder,
offended that he would have worked the weekend and not let her know, and .wondering why the
janitorial staff hadn't have taken care of this mess.

     Mulder looked up at her. "Huh?  No, why?"

     Scully was shocked at what she saw in Mulder's face.  His eyes were dull, he looked
exhausted, and he had dropped some weight.   Just over the weekend, he had lost enough weight
for the loss to be visible!  

     "Mulder, are you all right?"

     "I'm fine, why?"

     "You look terrible, to be honest.  Are you sure you're all right?"

     "I haven't been sleeping real well - don't worry the water in my apartment is fine.  I
check the softener every other day or so and I haven't seen anything to indicate that anything is
being added to my water.  Besides, I only drink bottled water now, you know.  I've just been...
ah, well, I haven't been sleeping enough.  When I do sleep, I sleep like a log."

     "Hum."  Scully muttered and changed the subject.  "If you weren't here over the
weekend - where did this mess come from?"   

     "Mess?"  He looked around "Oh, um, I guess I was hungry this morning."

     "You ate all of this this morning?"

     "Yeah.  I couldn't seem to stop.  Weird, huh?"  

     Yes, it was weird, but Scully decided to let it drop for the moment.  From the look of him
he hadn't eaten all over the weekend, which would certainly account for some of his  increased
appetite.  And they had work to do.  

     She sat down and they started discussing the case, which was going nowhere fast.  They
needed one of Mulder's jump-to-the-right-conclusions-with-insufficient-evidence hunches. And
he wasn't having one.  He was working on a profile of the killer - he'd started that last Friday,
but he hadn't completed it yet.   

     On Friday, they had talked to Congressman Williams' family and to John Henderson's
landlord. 

     Williams had been recently divorced and had rented a condo on the high-priced side of
town.  They had searched that and found little of interest except that the waste basket had held
several used condoms - so the Congressman had been seeing someone.  And it wasn't the
woman he had been having an affair with when his marriage collapsed.  They had gone to see
her and she told them that she hadn't seen Trey in over three weeks.  "He just stopped calling
me.  I don't know why."  From some of his colleagues they learned that he had met someone
new and was very taken with her.  But none of them had met her.  No one could describe her.  

     "Mulder," Scully had asked, "If he had a condo, why did he go to a hotel?"

     Mulder flipped open a file and checked, "His son was in town for the weekend. 
Apparently, the congressman wanted to keep his new honey and his son apart."

     Henderson's landlord had never seen him with a lady friend, but his waste basket, too,
had several used condoms in it.  It was suggestive. Although in the era of AIDS, it wouldn't have
had to be a lady friend. A call to the DCPD filled in the information that the other two had also
left evidence that they had engaged in sexual activities shortly before death.       

     Scully sent down to the evidence room for all the physical evidence on the four deaths. 
They'd had it last Friday, but had returned it before leaving for the weekend.  The box was
brought up and Scully thanked the delivery person and sent him away.  She pulled the various
bags out of the box and spread them out on her desk.  All of their wallets were there.  She
removed each of the wallets from its respective bag and went through them one by one.  
Nothing.  Family portraits.  Money.  Credit cards. Nothing that was any help.  

     Fingerprint evidence from a hotel room was problematic if not downright useless. 
Hundreds of prints had been lifted from the various surfaces in the hotel rooms.  The folks in
fingerprints were still sorting them out.  Getting matches on any on them was going to be a long
shot.  And even if they could get matches on some of them - what would that prove?  That the
person they belonged to had been in that room sometime in the last - what, week?  Month? 
Year?

     Scully looked over at Mulder, who was munching a sandwich from one of the machines
in the building, "Any luck on the profile?"  She asked.

     "Not much." he said around a mouthful of corned beef.  "Our killer is female." he
swallowed.  "Over 20, probably attractive.  That's about it."  This wasn't the first sandwich he'd
had today.  Scully had been keeping a mental tally, and by her count Mulder had consumed
nearly 20,000 calories so far this morning.  In all the time she had known Mulder, Scully had
never seen him eat like this.  Usually he had to be reminded to eat.  She'd even seen him ignore
food that was in front of him because he was so wrapped up in the work he was doing that he
forgot it was there. 

     "Motive?"

     "I'm not sure.  The victims had so little in common - even if you take politics into
account, and they weren't all from the same political party, by the way - for a while I entertained
the idea of a contract killer.   But Henderson isn't likely to be the target of someone like that, 
unless he gambled, and everyone who knew him says he didn't.  It's got me baffled, Scully.  I
won't say that's never happened before, but I don't think this case should be giving me so much
trouble." he looked very disgruntled.  "I don't think it should be giving me any real trouble at all! 
But, this isn't even a profile!  Anybody could have deduced this!"  He was disgusted with
himself.

     "Maybe not the age part."  Scully picked up the large evidence bag with Henderson's
effects.  There was a sketch pad in it.  She pulled that out and began to flip through it.  He had
been a pretty good artist.  Landscapes, portraits. Still-lifes.  Scully stopped and stared at one of
the drawings.  It was a charcoal drawing of a woman.  It was Rhiannon.  Sort of.  She was
dressed in some sort of costume that made her look like she was from the mid 1700's.  

     "Mulder," Scully said.  Mulder looked up from the profile he had gone back to working
on, "I think Henderson knew Rhiannon."  

     "My Rhiannon?"

     That rankled for some reason.  "Yes, your Rhiannon."  She handed the sketch pad to
Mulder.  He looked at it for some moments.  Scully went on, "Maybe you should bring her in
and we'll question her."

     "It's not her."

     "What do you mean?"

     "It's just someone who looks like her.  It's not her."

     Scully shrugged.  She went back to looking through the sketch pad.  A photograph fell
out on the desk.  Hum.  She wondered how and why the DCPD had missed it.  It seemed to be
the model for the sketch.  So, maybe it really wasn't Rhiannon after all.  The photograph seemed
to be of a painting.  It wasn't very clear.  She pondered the photo for a few moments and set it
aside.   


Tuesday
7:00 am

     Scully made her way to the basement office, wondering what she would find today. 
Would Mulder be back to himself?  He had certainly eaten enough yesterday to replenish any
calorie deficit he might have had from fasting for the weekend.  Not that it was possible to
compensate for two days of total calorie deprivation in one day.  She was almost afraid to open
the door. She had been searching her medical books and her memory for what might be causing
his problem and she had a pretty good idea.  

     He was worse.   He looked even thinner than yesterday, if that was possible in just 24
hours - no, it hadn't been that long since she had last seen him - it wasn't more than 12 hours.  
This couldn't go on.  And the office was again littered with food wrappers.  It was as bad as
yesterday morning, maybe worse.  

     "Mulder," she said, dropping her brief case on her desk, "I have to talk to you about
something."

     "Sure, what?"  He looked up from what he was reading.  The dark circles under his eyes
were darker, his cheeks were getting hollow, he looked emaciated. 

     She walked around behind him and sniffed him.  Under the odors of bath soap and
shampoo and mousse there was a sour smell.  An unhealthy smell.  

     "What are you doing?" he asked her.

     "I'll explain in a minute.  Bear with me."  She put her hand under his chin and tilted his
head up, "Breathe on me."

     "What??!!" 

     "Breathe on me.  I need to check your breath."

     "I haven't been drinking, Scully!"

     "I never thought you had.  Breathe on me, please.  It's a doctor thing."

     Puzzled, he nonetheless complied.  "Un huh."  Scully muttered.

     "Uh huh, what?" he asked, starting to get worried.

     "Have you weighed yourself lately?

     "I know I've lost some weight, Scully.  It's nothing to worry about." 

     "Yes, it is!  I think you've gone into ketosis."

     "And that means?"

     "Basically, it means your body is breaking down.  You're ill." 

     "Thank you, Dr. Scully," he cut her off, "but I'm just a little run down and I have work to
do." he told her. He knew it was more than that.  He didn't know what, but it was more than run
down.  He had very little energy and he was starving all the time and eating constantly and losing
weight.  He bent his head back over the paper he had been working on.  The damn profile wasn't
any further along than it had been yesterday.  His mind was dull and he couldn't work.  Damn. 
Damn.  Damn.

     "Bull!"  Scully said.  "Mulder, stop reading and listen to me."

     "Okay."  He sat back and tossed his pen onto his desk.  What the hell, he could barely
absorb what he was reading anyway.

     "Ketosis is caused by fasting or starvation or possibly uncontrolled diabetes mellitus."

     "Well, obviously, I'm not fasting."  He indicated the multiple food wrappers that littered
the office. "Diabetes?"  God, he didn't even want to think about that.  He was pretty sure that
would be grounds to dismiss him from the FBI.

     "This came on awfully fast to be diabetes.  And you aren't fasting but you could be
starving."

     "How?" 

     "I think you must have picked up a tapeworm somewhere.  Or maybe some other kind of
worm or parasite and it's reached a size or a stage where it is leeching all the nourishment from
what ever you ingest."

     "Worms?  Like dogs get?"  If he had the energy, he'd be insulted.  But he was also
relieved.  Not diabetes.  Thank God, not diabetes.

     "People get tapeworms, too.  I want to take a blood sample and send it up to the lab.  And
possibly a stool sample."

     "Where would I have picked this up?"

     "Well, when we were in Florida a while back, you did take that dive into the swamp."   

     "Oh.  Blood and stool samples, huh?"   He looked at her for a long moment, thinking
about refusing.  But, damnit, he felt like hell, and if this was something that simple it would be
easy enough to cure.  "Sure."

     "Roll up your sleeve."

     "Here?  Now?"

     "Sure.  Why waste time?"  She had brought what she would need to get the blood.

     He rolled up his sleeve and Scully wrapped a rubber tourniquet around his upper arm,
tapped the vein inside his elbow to get it to rise, inserted a hypodermic needle into the vein, and
extracted two vials of blood.  "We can wait to get the stool sample until we see what this shows
us."  She extracted the needle.  "You should probably make an appointment with your doctor as
soon as you can."  She folded up a gauze square and pressed it against the puncture wound and
put a band-aid over it and bent his arm up.  "Leave that there for at least fifteen minutes."  He
nodded.  She turned to tuck the vials of blood into a small case to carry them upstairs.

     "Scully?"  He said quietly.  She looked up from storing the vials to look into his eyes,
"I've lost fourteen pounds."

     Keeping her voice level, she asked, "In what period of time?"

     "About a week."

     Her mouth dropped open.  "A week?  Seven days?"

     "Not quite a week."

     She finished stowing the blood vials.  "Maybe you should check into a hospital for a
thorough exam."  She said, keeping her voice very matter of fact.

     "It's not that bad. Besides, we have this case."

     "I'll take care of the case.  It's not worth risking your. . ." she stopped herself. 

     "I'll be okay."  He smiled, wanly at her.  "And, Scully, thanks."

     She smiled.  "No problem.  I'm going to take these up to the lab and see what's what."

     "How do I get rid of the worms?" he asked as she headed for the door.

     Stopping with her hand on the door knob, she grinned an evil grin and said, "You take
something that kills them and they. . pass through you."

     He grimaced as she left the office.

     Scully was on her way to the lab when she ran into A.D. Skinner.  "Agent Scully," he
said,  "I'd like to speak to you, if you have a moment."  It only sounded like a request.

     "Yes, sir."

     He looked uncomfortable, then "Agent Scully, is Agent Mulder ill?"

     So he'd seen Mulder.   "Yes, sir, I think he is."

     "Do you know what his problem is?"

     "Not yet, sir.  I've convinced him to get some tests."  She indicated the case she carried. 
"I've started one test already."

     "Is he contagious?"

     "I don't believe so, sir.  I suspect he picked up a parasite when we were in Florida two
weeks ago."

     Skinner nodded and dismissed her.  She took the blood on up to the lab.

     The blood tests were negative both for parasites and for elevated sugar levels.  Scully
pondered the meaning of that.  It mostly meant they'd have to do the stool sample.  After she'd
gotten back to the office from the labs, she had flipped through Mulder's Rolodex, found his
doctor's name and number, and made the appointment herself.  Mulder was in the bathroom at
the time.  When he came out she had presented him with the appointment as a feat accompli.

     "Gettin' a little pushy in your old age, aren't you, Scully?" he commented, smiling
weakly.

     "I don't want you to die."  She said.  That stark statement froze him for a long moment. 
And then he nodded.  When he glanced down to see when the appointment was for, he saw just
how pushy she had gotten.  It was for Wednesday afternoon at 1:00. 

     "Tomorrow?"

     "The sooner the better."

        
Tuesday
6:00 pm

     Rhiannon was waiting for Mulder in the parking garage, leaning against his car.  Scully,
getting into her own car, glanced over and nodded a hello, then slid under her steering wheel and
drove away.   As she handed her ticket to the lot attendant, Scully found herself thinking that
Rhiannon had looked different somehow.  She couldn't have said how - just that something
about her had changed, subtly.  It was as if she were being painted in more vivid colors.  Maybe
she'd changed her make up style.

     Mulder was surprised to see Rhiannon waiting for him.  He gave her a quick kiss and
they climbed into the car. "Want to get something to eat on the way home?"  He asked her.   

     "Okay."  

     He headed for the nearest fast food restaurant.  He wasn't all that crazy about fast food,
but lately he was just too hungry to wait to be served at a sit down place.  


Wednesday
8:00 am

     He looked worse.  But Scully had expected him to.  As soon as they got a diagnosis, he
would be medicated and shortly thereafter, he would be back on his feet. 


Wednesday
1:00 pm

     The doctor did a pretty much standard physical, plus she took blood as well as urine and
stool samples.  Mulder's blood pressure was low, but not seriously.  Besides, low was good,
right?  The rest of his vital signs were normal.  He knew that.  His eyes were dull and glassy.  His
reflexes a little off.  He was now down sixteen and three quarters pounds.  He'd lost almost two
pounds over night.  The doctor put a rush on the lab work - marked it emergency, although she
didn't tell Mulder that or let him see the order.  She'd wanted to hospitalize him, but he refused.  
     
     When Mulder got back to the office, Scully was scowling over the four files from the
DCPD.  "What'd she say?"  She asked.

     "She'll get back to me with the results.  That's what all you doctors say.  What's up?"

     "I think I found another area of commonality."

     He sat down at his desk.  "Yeah?"

     "Each of them stopped going to work, dropped his hobbies, basically disappeared from
his life two to three weeks before they were found dead.  They ceased nearly all contact with
everyone." 

     "Huh." he sat back, trying to concentrate on what that might mean.  God, he was wasted. 
The illness - worms, ugh! - and insufficient sleep, were using him up at an alarming rate.  He
was hungry, too.   

     "Mulder," Scully said gently, "Why don't you go on home and go to bed?"   

     "I'll finish out the day.  I may stay home tomorrow, though."

     "Well, I've got some leg work to do.  I think you should stay here and go over these files,
see what you can find and work on that profile.  Okay?"

     She watched his face.  He was too bright not to know what she was doing.  "Sure, Scully. 
I'll be a good boy and stay here, nice and quiet."  He was being sarcastic, but he'd do it.  He
knew he wasn't in any shape to do anything physical.  "I'll add this new information to the
chart."  

     She had the snapshot from Henderson's sketch pad in her pocket. She wanted to have it
digitized and clarified so that she could get a good look at it. Pendrell had left on vacation on
Monday and she didn't want to wait for results on the picture so she had decided to see if the
Lone Gun Men would help her with it.  

     Frohike was sitting at his desk fiddling with a piece of electronic equipment, when she
walked into the office.  He jumped to his feet.  "Agent Scully!"  He seemed delighted to see her,
"What can I do for you?"

     "Well, I have a photograph that I'd like to get a better look at. I was hoping you could put
it in the computer and clear it up." she held out the picture in question.

     "My pleasure, dear lady."  He took the picture and slid it into a scanner, then sat down at
his terminal and started moving the mouse around the pad.  He talked while he worked, "What's
this for?'

     "A case."

     "Why didn't Mulder bring it?"  

     "He's ill."

     That didn't sound right to Frohike.  Mulder would have to be at death's door to take a
day off.  "Is it bad?"

     "Worse than he'll admit to.  He's at the office right now, telling himself that he's getting
something constructive done, but he really should be at home in bed."  

     The scanner made a whining noise and a light came on inside it.  The light moved back
and forth the length of the scanner bed.  "That sounds like Mulder."  Frohike chuckled.  The
picture was on his monitor screen now.  He kept moving the mouse around and clicking the
buttons on it.  He adjusted the brightness on the picture.  Fiddled with the color.  Ran it through
a couple of image enhancement algorithms.  And the picture began to clear up. As it did, it
became obvious that it was a picture of a framed painting.

     Langley and Byers came in.  "Agent Scully!"  Langley's long blond hair bounced as he
walked.  "What brings you here?"  Byers simply nodded a hello.

     "I'm helping her on a case."  Frohike interjected.

     "Oh?"  Byers looked over Frohike's shoulder at the computer monitor.  "I know that
picture."

     "What is it?"  Scully asked.

     "I don't know it's name.  But it's over in the Smithsonian.  She was special, whoever she
was."

     "Where in the Smithsonian is it?"

     "I'd be happy to take you to see it."  Byers smiled.  Frohike cleared his throat.  "We
could all go."  Byers amended.

     Langley volunteered to stay and man the office while the others took off for the museum. 
  
                             * * * *

     Byers led them confidently through the various rooms in the National Art Gallery until
they reached the right one.  It wasn't a very big painting and it was off to one side, more or less
in a corner.  Scully leaned over the painting -  as close as the red velvet, don't-go-any-closer
ropes would let her get - and stared at the painting.  It had been painted in 1744.  And it was
unmistakably Rhiannon.   

     "Mulder knows this woman."  Scully said.  

     "How so?"  Frohike asked.

     "I think he's sleeping with her."  Scully scowled.  Frohike noticed the sour look on her
face.  He could sympathize and empathize.  "It hurts when the one you want doesn't want you."
He thought. 

     "Agent Scully," Byers was saying. "This painting is 253 years old - give or take a month. 
Mulder can't know this woman."

     "Well, he knows her doppelganger then.  I've met her.  She looks just like this."

     "That's spooky."  Frohike said.  

     "Yeah, weird."  Byers nodded.


Thursday

     Mulder stayed home on Thursday.  Rhiannon coddled him and cuddled with him, but she
couldn't seem to remember to feed him.  He ordered in.  It didn't matter much what he ate right
now as long as he kept something going into him.  Had to feed the worms.    

     Scully continued to work on the case, but it wasn't progressing very much.  She took the
picture of the portrait around and showed it to family members and friends of the four victims. 
No one seemed to recognize her.   She took it to the capital building and showed it around. 
Better luck there.  Several people thought the woman in the picture looked familiar.  It was
something at least.


Friday

     Scully reported to Skinner on the case.  She didn't have much to report.  

     "Agent Scully we have a dead judge and a dead congressman.  The public isn't going to
like it very much if we can't solve this one.  Especially after that mess over the Atlanta
bombing."

     "I know, Sir. I'm sorry, Sir.  But it just isn't going anywhere."

     "Agent Mulder concurs?"

     "Agent Mulder has taken the last two days off, Sir."

     "How is he?"

     "Not good.  I'm stopping by his place tonight to see if he's gotten any results back from
his doctor yet."

     "Keep me posted.  You're dismissed, Agent Scully."

     "Yes, Sir."  She left his office as quickly as decorum allowed under the circumstances.

     Mulder's doctor called on Friday morning.  All the tests had been negative.  She wanted
to admit him to the hospital immediately.  He agreed, but after he hung up the phone he simply
went back to bed.  He made no effort to even contact the hospital, let alone go in and admit
himself.

     Late on Friday Mulder made some kind of transition, he couldn't have explained it to
anybody, but he knew suddenly and surely what was wrong with him.  He knew he didn't have
worms.  He knew what the parasite was.  It was okay. He didn't mind.


Saturday Afternoon
Mulder's apartment

     "Mulder," Scully argued, "You have to go into the hospital!  You were supposed to go
yesterday.  It isn't a parasite, but something is killing you!  Please!"

     "No." he told her flatly.   "I'll be okay, Scully.  Rhiannon will take care of me.  I'll see
you on Monday."  

     Resigned, Scully nodded and turned to go.  It didn't look like Rhiannon was much for
nursing the sick, though.   As she opened the door, she looked back over her shoulder at him, and
knew that it was good-bye.  He wasn't going to see Monday morning and there was nothing she
could do for him.

     As Scully pulled out onto the street, she considered going back to the office to see if
Skinner could help get Mulder to a hospital.  But she didn't think it would do any good.  Mulder
was a mentally competent adult. He had the right to chose to stay out of the hospital.   She
hadn't gone more than a block when she had to pull over.  She was blinded by tears.  She sat for
moment, trying to pull herself together.  And suddenly the pieces of the puzzling case and
Mulder's bewildering malady came together in her mind.  She knew what was happening to him. 
Hitting the gas, and making a screeching U-turn, she headed back for Mulder's apartment.

     She let herself into the apartment with her key and hurried across the small living room
to the bedroom.  "Mulder!!  Mulder, I know what's wrong with you!"

     They were in bed, wrapped around one another, but they weren't making love.  Probably
Mulder wasn't able to any more.    "Scully?"  He half sat up, "What the hell are you doing back
here?"

     "I know what's wrong you!"

     "He knows, too."  Rhiannon smiled at Scully, an oily, smug smile.

     "What?" Scully looked from Mulder to Rhiannon.  She drew her gun and leveled it at the
monster that was killing Mulder.  "Get away from him!"

     "Scully," Mulder rolled off the bed and stepped toward her, "Scully, for God's sake, get
out of here and go home.  This is personal!"  As he was wearing only his boxer shorts, his body
was visible.  He was little more than a skeleton.

     "I can't let you die!!"

     "He is mine."  Rhiannon joined Mulder beside the bed.  "He will do as I wish."  

     "Move away from him."  Scully ordered the witch.

     "No."  Rhiannon slid an arm around Mulder's bare chest and smiled her triumph.  "You
can do nothing.  He is willing.  He is mine."  She wasn't even bragging, just stating a fact.  

     Mulder looked dull-eyed and dazed, but not mindless.   "Scully, butt out."

     Dana Scully, Special Agent with the FBI, looked at her partner, looked at the woman he
had been sleeping with, looked back to her partner.  And then she gave him her career and her
freedom, and very possibly her life.  She fired her weapon, taking Rhiannon in the forehead,
sending her brains splattering over the wall and the bed and Mulder.

     Mulder was stunned.  Beyond stunned.  He stood for several moments staring at what had
once been a woman.  He dropped to his knees and reached out and touched Rhiannon's shoulder. 
"Scully, what have you done?"  He asked.  And then his mind started to clear.  His will became
his own again.  "Oh, God, Scully - what was I doing?!"

     She didn't answer.  He looked up to see Scully slumped against the bedroom door. 
"Scully?  Are you okay?"

     "I don't. . .I don't know.  She was killing you.  Do you get that, Mulder, SHE was killing
you."

     "I know.  I. . .God, Scully, we have to do something.  No one will believe that you had to
do this.  Get my spare gun.  It's - uh - it's around here somewhere.  Find it and we'll put it in her
hand and fire it.  We'll make it self-defense."

     "No, Mulder.  No."  She could never explain why to him, but she couldn't do that -
couldn't create a lie.  "I'll handle it, somehow."

     He wanted to argue it some more - to try to convince her, but he was crumpling from
physical weakness. "Scully," he still hadn't moved from where he knelt beside the dead woman. 
"I'm ready for that hospital, now."     

                             * * * *

     Mulder was staring at the ceiling when Scully came into his hospital room.

     "Counting the ceiling tiles?"  She asked.  As she pulled a chair up beside the bed, she
said, "How are you feeling?"  She was smiling.  Relaxed.  What was going on?

     "I don't know.  Full for the first time in a couple of weeks.  Scully," he hesitated,
"Scully, I knew what she was doing to me.  Not at first, but towards the end - for the last couple
of days at least - I knew what she was doing.  And I wanted it.  I wanted to give her what she
needed."  He finally looked directly at his partner.  Now he focused completely on her, not just
with his eyes, but with his mind and his heart as well.   Thanks for . .what you did."  The words
seemed kind of inadequate to thank her for the enormous sacrifice that she had made for him.
"How much trouble are you in?" 

     She had killed an unarmed woman with no visible justification.  There was no way to
even begin to show that Rhiannon had been killing Mulder.  Scully could wind up in prison -
probably would if they couldn't find some way to prove that she'd had a reason for shooting
Mulder's lover.  Why hadn't she agreed to plant Mulder's spare gun in Rhiannon's hand?

     "None, as it happens."  She smiled, ruefully.

     "What?!" he sat up a bit, a very small bit.

     "Some very strange things were found in the autopsy."
     
     "Strange in what way?" he settled back down onto his pillows.

     "Her stomach was the size of walnut and her intestinal track was as thick as a piece of
thread.  She couldn't possibly have ingested food like a normal person. She was feeding on you
Mulder.  You weren't her lover, you were her lunch. Your reaction to her - use - of you is
probably necessary for the survival of her species."

     "Her what?!!"  

     "She wasn't a human being.  Not according to the autopsy.  There were all sorts of
abnormalities in her DNA.   So they weren't sure what to charge me with.  They couldn't even
go with cruelty to animals.  She was of no known species.  They couldn't even cite me for killing
the last member of an endangered species - she wasn't on the list."  Scully was actually smiling.

     Mulder stared at her.  He was stunned.  "Not human?  What was she?  Was she an alien?"

     "I doubt very much that she was an alien. Probably she was more like Eugene Tooms or
Leonard Betts.  But, I have no idea what exactly.  And I'm not going to get a chance to find out. 
The body's been confiscated."

     "By whom?"  

     "I wasn't told.  Skinner doesn't know either.  Someone came into the morgue with the
right paperwork and walked off with her.  Case closed.  And I'm off the hook."     
     
     "Speaking of the case. . ."

     "She was the case, Mulder.  She killed all of them.  Just like she was killing you."

     She was right, of course.  And if he had been thinking more clearly, he would have seen
it.  Wouldn't he?   

     "Well, I have to get back to the office." Scully stood up and came over to the bed.  "You
sure can pick 'em." she grinned.  She kissed his cheek, then turned and left the room.


                             THE END