"Union" 
by Rebecca Rusnak and Pellinor

RATING: PG-13

CLASSIFICATION: XA

SUMMARY: A man is stalked by a voice - a terrifying presence that
*wants* him. Into his dangerous world come two FBI agents, newly
partnered, still distrusting each other, already doubting their
future together. Into his dangerous world come Fox Mulder and Dana
Scully...

ARCHIVE freely.

DISCLAIMER: All X-Files characters are the property of Chris
Carter, Ten Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. We are just borrowing
them for some fun.

NOTES: This story takes place between Deep Throat and Squeeze.
For the purposes of this story, the March 1992 dating for the
Pilot episode has been ignored. Mulder and Scully are still very
new partners at the time of this story.

****

Clear Lake, Texas
3:26 a.m.

The call was urgent. It could not be ignored.

"No," he moaned, whipping his head back and forth. "I don't want
to..."

The pull in his mind increased, tugging him relentlessly forward.
He didn't know where he was, or how he had gotten here.

<Bradley...> The voice, or whatever it was, crooned his name
insistently. <Bradley, I want you....>

The wooden steps were springy under his feet; splinters poked into
his bare feet. The windows of the cabin were dark eyes, greedily
watching, waiting.

Helplessly, he crossed the threshold. Rotted strings, all that
remained of the curtains, blew inward in unison. Wood creaked,
plaster bulged. The house seemed to be inhaling, infused with the
spirit of the voice.

Bradley closed his eyes, surrendering.

Behind him, something chuckled, a low, warm sound. Chills ran
down his neck, and he tried to turn around, but found he could not
move.

Something stepped from the shadows, something momentarily obscured
by the darkness of night, the darkness in the house.

Then it stepped into the light, and he began to scream.

****

J. Edgar Hoover Building
Monday, July 5, 1993
9:02 a.m.

They made her wait - long seconds measured by the gentle whisper
of footfalls as the man in the far corner of the room paced, and
smoked.

Her hands folded on her lap, she resisted the urge to clear her
throat.

"Agent Scully." Blevins spoke at last, his face hard, disapproval
like flint in his eyes. It hit her hard. She had seen nothing but
approval in the eyes of her superiors until now. She remembered
sharply that, if it wasn't for Mulder, she would be seeing
approval still.

She swallowed. "Sir?"

"This...." Blevins jabbed sharply at the file before him. "This
affair at Ellen's Air Force Base is... disappointing. We expected
more of you when you were given this assignment, Agent Scully." He
folded his hands on the desk, leaning forward, lowering his voice.
"Do you have anything to say in your defence?"

He was old, and he was authority. She hated how she saw elements
of her father in him - how the love had gone from her father's
eyes as he had rebuked her for some childhood misdemeanour. The
child in her wanted approval, but she was an FBI agent, too. She
had defied her father and followed her own path.

So she raised her chin, and didn't blink. "I believed I was doing
the right thing."

"Holding a military employee hostage at gunpoint? Helping Agent
Mulder to illegally break into government property? How is that
the right thing, Agent Scully?"

Listening to Blevins' words, the man with the cigarette curled his
mouth into a wry smile. She felt undercurrents between the two
men, and they angered her.

She clenched her fists, feeling them shake in her lap."The so-
called military employee lied about his identity, and I had
evidence that he was involved in illegal activities," she said,
firmly. She wondered when they would ask for her gun and her
badge. "I believed that Agent Mulder was in danger, and that I was
carrying out my sworn duty to defend him. I caused no damage,
neither to property nor person."

The smoking man exhaled slowly. "Your father is a military man, is
he not, Agent Scully? He disapproved of your career choice." It
was casual, though silky with insinuation. <You have challenged
the military. You have held your father, and all he stands for, at
gunpoint. You have broken the last taboo.>

Anger flared in her, white hot. "I chose the FBI because I
believed I could make a difference," she said, eyes blazing. "I
believed I could uphold the law, and fight for justice. Am I being
rebuked for this, Sir?"

Blevins raised his palm, placatingly, though she caught the glance
he shot at the other man. There was no command in it, but
rather... appeal? "No," he said, at last, slowly. "But you are an
agent of promise. We would hate to see you throw your career away
because of the corrupting influence of someone like Mulder.
Has..." He cleared his throat. "Has he been... persuading you?"

"It had nothing to do with Mulder." She was sure about that, her
voice measured. "I believe that Mulder acted wrongly, but Mulder
is a citizen, and, at the time, I believed he was being illegally
held. I will always fight for justice. Am I to understand that
this is wrong of me?"

Again, that strange, dark smile from the man in the shadows, but
it was Blevins who spoke. "Of course not." His laugh was forced.
"It was a..." A quick flicker of his eyes towards the other man,
as if seeking confirmation. "Misunderstanding," he said, at last.
"Agent Mulder put you in a difficult situation. He lied to you. He
disappeared without explanation. You are to be commended on your
actions, Agent Scully."

But there was no approval in his eyes. His hands were sweating,
and his face seemed to speak of relief. She felt out of her depth,
almost as if Mulder's ramblings of hidden agendas were true.

"But in the future..." The eyes hardened. "Remember your
assignment, Agent Scully. We all want your career to progress
satisfactorily." The echo of her father was back again, reminding
her of the glittering career ahead of her, and the vindication of
her troubled career choice. "Don't let Agent Mulder sway you with
his own agendas, Agent Scully."

She held his gaze. "I'm part of no agenda, Sir - not his, and not
yours. I want the truth, and I want justice. That's all."

It was a risk, she knew, but it needed to be said. She would not
compromise her principles to get ahead, but neither would she let
Mulder selfishly derail her career. She didn't regret how she had
acted to get him back from Ellen's Air Force Base, but she
bitterly regretted how he had put her into that situation in the
first place. She had barely spoken to him on the way home, hearing
only the screech of tyres as he had driven away from her.

"Commendable." The man with the cigarette smiled - a cold superior
smile.

<Who are you?> she wanted to demand, angry at his intrusion in
what should have been a private meeting. But she knew she had said
too much already.

Blevins shut the file and moved it aside, revealing another piece
of paper. His eyes shone. "Ah, yes," he said, though it was an
act, she knew. He was a bad actor, and a bad manipulator. He had
been saving this, hoping to disconcert her, and she resolved at
once not even to blink.

"Sir?" she asked, all calm.

"Agent Mulder." He ran a hand across his face, and she was
surprised to see that it was shaking, as if this interview was as
much of an ordeal for him as if was for her. "It appears that he's
run out on you again, Agent Scully."

She fought her anger, and maintained control. "Oh?"

"He's in the hospital in Clear Lake, Texas." Blevins exhaled
wearily. "Apparently, he called for police backup early this
morning, but, when the police arrived, they found him,
unconscious, and no sign of any other disturbance. He's..." He
looked at his notes. "He's in for observation but is due to be
released later today."

She was dimly aware that she should be feeling concern, but there
was nothing but intense irritation. What was partnership without
trust, and communication? "Am I to join him on the case?" she
asked, coolly.

"He has no case."

But she caught the flicker of a look between them.

****

Clear Lake Regional Medical Center
Monday, July 5
1:31 p.m.

Fox Mulder sighed and made a mental note to never again piss off
Dana Scully.

She had come storming into his room not quite half an hour ago,
all five feet two inches of her bristling with anger and
frustration. She had stood, refusing to sit, while informing him
that if he found their partnership so unbearable as to not tell
her when he pursued a case, she would gladly fill out the
necessary paperwork to dissolve said partnership. She had put
fisted hands on hips, leaned forward to declare that despite her
offer, for the time being, like it or not, she was still his
partner. She had spoken with a calm intensity when she had said
that she would not be ditched and left behind to follow along when
he called her out.

And then she had straightened up, folded her arms, sat down, and
said, "Is that understood?"

She sat quietly now, watching him expectantly, and Mulder had to
grit his teeth to keep back the angry response he desperately
wanted to fling at her.

"Look, Scully," he sighed, keeping his voice even with an effort.
"I already told you. I wanted to check this out for myself,
determine if there even was a case here."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Scully asked. "And why didn't you go
through proper channels? You didn't even fill out a 302 for
this."

"You really think Blevins would have okayed it?" Mulder retorted.

Scully blinked. "We'll never know now, will we?"

Mulder stayed silent, and eventually Scully dropped her eyes. She
looked at the window, at the white blanket folded at the end of
the bed, at anything but him. Finally, her eyes fell on his
chart.

"Dr. Williamson says..."

She went on, but Mulder tuned her out. He wished she would leave.
She wasn't saying anything he didn't already know.

"...what *really* happened out there, Mulder?" Her question
sounded sincere, and when he looked at her, her blue eyes were
serious, and faintly troubled.

"I don't know," he replied honestly. "I wish I did."

Scully cocked an eyebrow, and Mulder sighed again. Now it all
started again. He would tell her why he had come out here; she
would listen, with that damned eyebrow raised nearly to her
hairline. He would finally stumble to a halt, and she would
calmly puncture holes in his web of theories, with science as her
awl.

On days like this, he just didn't think he could handle Dana
Scully as his partner.

"I came out here because of one Geoff Bradley. For three months
now he has been calling the police here in Clear Lake, and the
city of Houston, saying he is being stalked. By a bodiless voice.
He claims to hear the voice at all hours of the day, even in his
sleep."

Right on cue, Scully's eyebrow rose.

"When the police wouldn't listen to him, Bradley contacted the
Houston branch of the FBI, reporting that he was going to be
kidnapped. The local SAC sent two agents out to investigate
Bradley's claims, only to find him extremely paranoid and
delusional. He was dismissed as a crackpot, a crank."

"But you think there's some merit to his claims," Scully prompted.

"No one has seen Geoff Bradley since late yesterday evening,"
Mulder said. He paused, then delivered the coup de grace. "No
one, but me."

"What do you mean?"

"I followed Bradley, last night. To an abandoned house, south of
town. I watched him approach it, and..." Mulder hesitated. "I
don't remember much of it. I guess that's when I got knocked out.
I don't recall anything after that. Just something covering my
face, and trying to breathe, and panicking when I couldn't. I
woke up here."

"Who found you?" Scully asked. A frown line marred her brow, and
Mulder realized that she was already convinced something was wrong
here. Unfortunately, she was probably more concerned with
catching whoever had knocked him out, than with the real case.

He decided to go with what he had. He could convince her later on
Geoff Bradley.

"I don't know," he said earnestly, putting all the sincerity he
could muster into his eyes.

****

Crime scene
4:00 p.m.

It was like a hand gently stroking the back of her neck. She
almost whipped round, the sensation almost over-ruling her certain
knowledge that she was alone. Instead, her hand rose, wondering.

And then she heard the noise. It was a gentle hum, as if all the
molecules in the air were dancing. Hand still on her neck, she
looked up, feeling a strange echo of a night a week earlier, when
she and Mulder had looked to the skies together, her in
bewilderment, him in childlike awe.

There were no lights this time - nothing to shake her world. Just
wires like liquid silver against the blue.

<Electricity>

As she let out a relieved sigh, she was glad she was alone. She
could imagine Mulder smirking, silently revelling in her tension.
<Had you spooked, Agent Scully, didn't it?> He would smile and
chalk up a victory. One point to him scored off his sceptical and
unwanted partner.

<Unwanted?> She checked herself. <Unwanted?> His eyes had been so
hard to read as she had left him. He had been silent as she had
driven him to his motel, unresisting and cold as she had unlocked
his room and helped him to the bed. Yet, once, she had turned
round unexpectedly and caught the tail end of something else in
his eyes - something intense, burning behind a cold indifference
which she had known, in a sudden flash of insight, was feigned.

"Get some rest, Mulder," she had said, more softly than she would
have otherwise. "I'll see what I can find out."

His mouth had opened, but then he had seemed to change his mind,
and said nothing. His eyes had been shining.

"Ma'am." She startled at the voice. She found she was still
staring upwards, and lowered her head sharply. Badge in hand, a
young police officer was approaching her, knee-deep in grass with
the sun behind him.

She swallowed, pulling out her own badge. "Agent Dana Scully, FBI.
My partner, Agent Mulder was...." She paused, then wondered why
she had paused. There really was no doubt about it, even though
there was no clear trace of any injury, or any chemical in his
body. "Attacked," she said, firmly.

The young man nodded, then held out his hand. "Martin Reeves. I'm
just...." He spread his hands, gesturing at the scene. "You know
how people talk - how news spreads. They'll trample all over a
crime scene if you let them." He gave an awkward smile. "FBI on
the case?"

She returned his smile, ruefully. His eyes were a pleasant blue,
and his hair shone. "No," she said, simply. "Just Mulder,
unofficially."

"Ah." He shared a knowing look. "Unofficially. I know the type. A
loose cannon, huh?"

Something close to anger stirred inside her. The Budahaus case had
been unofficial at best, yet she had never denied the human need
behind it. There was a difference between unofficial and
unnecessary. "And now I'm on the case too." She let her eyes blaze
at him. "My partner was attacked. That should tell us that he was
on to *something.*"

Reeves nodded, shrugging apologetically. "Never criticise
someone's partner," he muttered, then formed his face into an
almost comical expression of theatrical remorse. "I'm sorry."

"He's only been my partner for a few months," she said, softly,
wanting to see his easy smile again. "I'm not blind to his
faults."

"But you want to find out who hurt him." He changed again,
becoming quiet, sincere. "You're not on an official case, but
you're determined to find the answer. You're doing it for him. You
have a bond already." He sounded almost wistful.

It was a strange, warped deja vu. Blevins, too, had accused her of
acting out of personal attachment to Mulder, not out of an
abstract devotion to finding answers, to punishing crimes. "A man
was attacked," she said, almost angrily. "That he is my partner is
immaterial."

Then she shook her head abruptly, replaying the surreal
strangeness of the past few minutes. She did *not* talk like this
to strangers. It was not her, and it was not professional. The man
could slip into her mind and draw out words she didn't want to
say.

She cleared her throat. "Have they found anything?"

He followed her cue, and was all professional again. "Nothing. No
sign of Bradley." She started. She had forgotten about Bradley
entirely. "No tracks. No body. He apparently drove here from his
home, but there's no sign of...." An awkward shadow passed over
his face. "Anything..." he finished, but there was an "except" in
his intonation.

"What?"

He looked at his feet. In the shadow, she could see that he was
very young. "Blood." He coughed. "We found blood. Not a lot,
but..."

"Whose?" Sharp. She knew that Mulder had no injuries.

He breathed out slowly. "We don't know," he said slowly. "Embedded
in the wall close by, was a round from a...." He coughed again.
"We found Agent Mulder's gun, some way away from where he
was....attacked. It had one round missing."

Anger took her by the throat - anger at Reeves for what he was
implying, and anger at Mulder for not telling her everything.
"Have you questioned Mulder?" she said, coldly.

"He's not under suspicion," he said quickly - too quickly. Then,
"they're on their way to ask him some questions right now."

She turned silently and walked away. She had only gotten a few
paces when a thought struck her. "Wait."

"Yes?" Reeves called.

"Mulder just got released from the hospital today. You can't
question him now."

Reeves frowned. "His statement could be important."

Strangely, giving the order made her feel stronger. "I know
that," she said. "But you need to wait. Tonight, perhaps, after
he's had a chance to rest."

The officer nodded, curtly, which was enough to satisfy Scully.
Turning her back on him, she left.

****

Best Western Inn
4:15 pm

<I want you....>

He lashed his head from side to side, mouth open in silent denial.
It was no escape. There was no escape.

<I want you....> Dark with indescribable menace. <Come...>

Mulder's eyes snapped open. He ran his tongue over his lips,
finding them salty and wet with trickling sweat. His breathing was
fast and shallow, heart pounding with terror.

"I want you. I want you, Bradley..."

Words in his black ink scrawl on his field notebooks, scattered
across the bed. He had fallen asleep reading them, and they had
insinuated their way into his dreams, stealing his peace.

"I want you," he said, aloud. The words haunted him. There had
been a ghostly echo in his mind, mirroring another voice was
somewhere so deep within him that it *was* him. A voice from
nowhere, from everywhere; a voice in his mind, telling him that
she would be safe, that they would look after her; a voice he so
wanted, always, to believe.

Had it called to her, as it had called to Bradley? Had it told her
that it wanted her, calling her, while always silent to him?

Always silent....

He stood up sharply, pausing to gather his balance properly. His
mind was still cloudy with the dream, and the remnants of his
night spent unconscious beneath the stars. Before that was only
blackness - blackness of the second hole in his perfect memory in
a week. He had followed Bradley, and.... what?

Blindly, he reached for his running shoes. The hypnotic pounding
of his feet always aided his reasoning, as if physical pain forced
him to leave his body and become pure thought.

"Rest, Mulder." He heard Scully's voice in his memory, seeing
again the unspoken warning in her eyes. <If you run out on me
again, then this partnership is finished...>

"Good," he said, aloud.

He had lived a solitary life since childhood, only occasionally
letting people close, and each time getting burnt. If Scully was a
spy, then he was well rid of her. If she wasn't.... If she
wasn't.... He swallowed hard. There had been moments - seeing her
concern as she had settled him in bed, or seeing her fire as she
had taken on Ellen's Air Force Base for him - when he had caught
himself so desperately longing to trust her. He had been alone for
so long....

"Yes," he said aloud, reaching for the door. He had been alone for
so long. Solitude was safe, without risk of betrayal and loss.
Solitude was what he knew.

As he ran from his room, his eyes were stinging.

******

FBI Regional Office
Houston, Texas
6:30 p.m.

This is what detective work was all about, Scully thought with
satisfaction. Pulling off her gloves, she sat down at a computer
and punched in the proper commands, telling it what she wanted.
Within seconds, the machine was busily carrying out her orders.

When the phone rang, it caught her by surprise. Cell phones were
new to her, and she didn't often carry hers. Tentatively, she
pressed the button. "Scully."

"Where are you?"

It was a moment before she could place the voice, and when she
did, she frowned. She could not remember giving him her cell
phone number.

"I'm at the Houston FBI office, Mulder." She started to say more,
then stopped. Already, so soon after their partnership had begun,
her natural volubility was drying up.

"What are you doing there?" her partner asked. He sounded
slightly out of breath, vaguely irritated.

Scully shot a glance at the computer on the desk before her. It
was still thinking, and she said, "Running a PCR."

"Of what? Did you go to the crime scene, Scully?"

"Yes, I did," she replied. One hand stole up and rubbed the back
of her neck. "There was some blood found there, some on the
doorframe, and on the grass."

In the silence that followed, she could not even hear him
breathing. Finally he asked, "Whose?"

"I don't know," she said. "That's what I'm hoping to find out."

"It must be Bradley's," Mulder said confidently.

"You don't know that." Scully threw another look at the computer.
Just a few more seconds, and it would have all the data analzyed
for her. Then she would--

"Well, it isn't mine." Mulder spoke vehemently.

She was taken aback by his tone. He could grow so passionate over
the smallest thing, and so damn fast. "I didn't say it was,
Mulder," she said carefully.

"Look, Scully." His voice grew momentarily muffled, as if rubbing
a hand over his face. "I need to know if you're going to back me
up on this, or what."

Startled, she stood, although there was no one to see. "Back you
up on what?"

"Whatever's happening here. There's blood at the crime scene, and
I don't have my weapon." He trailed off, and when he spoke, his
voice was uncharacteristically soft. "And I don't have any
recollection of what happened that night."

"Mulder." Her shoulders straightened. "I don't think you need to
worry about this. If you did indeed fire your weapon at someone,
it was undoubtedly in self-defense. And if you didn't..." She
let the sentence die.

"I gotta go, Scully," Mulder said, as if she had not spoken.
"I'll meet you back here at the hotel." He disconnected before
she could say another word, before she could ask where he was
going.

****

15380 Saturn Lane
6:59 p.m.

Mulder paid the taxi driver and watched as the car pulled away.
Only when it was out of sight did he turn around, taking his first
good look at the house he had only briefly seen last night, in the
dark.

Geoff Bradley lived in a modest house, in a modest neighborhood.
Knee-high shrubs lined the house, and a black lamppost stood
sentinel beside the driveway. A blue Honda sat in the open
garage, and a lawnmower stood behind it; a green garden hose was
coiled in the grass, a snake ready to strike.

It was a picture-perfect snapshot of suburbia, and seeing it made
Mulder instantly suspicious. Surely nobody lived like this unless
they had something to hide.

Getting into the house proved no problem, and within minutes of
arriving, Mulder stood in Geoff Bradley's living room.

The house was quiet and sparsely furnished, with a minimum of
furniture taking up space, leaving wide-open expanses of carpet.
Everything was neat and well-kept, and fairly new.

Mulder walked through the rooms, his trained eye noting seemingly
insignificant details: the lack of any sort of photographs, the
fairly small stack of bills in Bradley's desk, the total absence
of careworn knickknacks.

To all intents and appearances, Geoff Bradley might have moved
into this house yesterday.

The only sign that anybody actually lived in the house was a local
newspaper, "The Exchange News", laying on the kitchen table. It
was open to a page devoted to community events. There was the Boy
Scout troop having a car wash, the Bay Area Museum Guild having a
luncheon, the Marine Group having an Open House. All the
attractions of a small town one would expect to find.

Mulder made a face and closed the newspaper.

The phone's shrill ring made him jump, and Mulder whirled around,
seeking the phone, and finding it sitting on the edge of the
kitchen counter, next to a bulky answering machine. For a wild
moment he thought it must be Scully, demanding to know what was
going on.

He waited, and after six rings the answering machine picked up.
Geoff Bradley's voice spoke, telling his callers that he was not
home, to please leave a message. Not once did he identify
himself.

The machine beeped, and there was a pause. Then a low chuckle
filled the room. Mulder felt the hairs on the back of his neck
rise as he listened to that laugh. Reflexively, one hand brushed
his hip, seeking a weapon that was not there.

The laughter continued, a hideously intimate sound, like the
laughter of someone who knows all your secrets, all your
weaknesses. Knows them and plans to use them against you.

<I want you>

A breathy sound escaped him, and Mulder took a wobbly step back.
The voice did not come over the phone, but there was no doubt that
he had heard it. In dream-like slow terror, his eyes traced the
phone cord, and he saw with no surprise that the phone was not
plugged into the wall.

The machine beeped shrilly, a single metallic shriek, but the low
chuckling sound did not stop. Mulder stared at the trailing end of
the phone cord for another moment, then turned and ran from the
house.

****

Best Western Hotel
7:15 p.m.

The rental car's engine died as Scully turned the key, but she
made no move to exit the vehicle. Before she got out, before she
saw Mulder, she had some thinking to do. The conversations of the
day kept replaying themselves in her head, a tape recorder on an
endless loop, and the same phrases echoed through her mind.

<I wanted to check this out for myself>

<A loose cannon, huh?>

<I need to know if you're going to back me up on this>

Only last week she had been at her parents' house for dinner,
talking brightly about her new job, the partner she tactfully
described as "focused". In the face of her mother's interest and
her father's unspoken disapproval, she had rambled on about the
exciting places she would get to travel to, the people and
theories she would be exposed to. She had been cheerful and
positive.

Never once had she let on about her doubts.

Doubts about her job, about the validity of it all. What good was
her science when no one saw it? Who was she helping by gathering
metal implants in vials?

Doubts about her partner, about his sanity. What had happened to
Fox Mulder to turn him from such a promising agent into a
paranoid, reckless mess hidden in the basement?

Doubts about her own place in the X-Files. Was she spy, or agent
of equal standing? To hear Mulder speak, she was both. But
watching him in action, it was clear he believed the former.

She did not feel she was a spy, certainly. She was assigned to
the X-Files division now, and she would do her best in her new
role. It was unfortunate that this meant crossing Mulder, but
inevitable. She would not sacrifice clarity or reason for him.

Or for anyone, she realized, thinking of the cigarette-smoking man
in Blevins' office. A small shiver ran through her as she
pictured him, the way he had stared intently at her during her
interview with Blevins. He had been waiting for something, she
was sure of it. Waiting for her to do or say something...

"I won't do it," she muttered petulantly under her breath, and was
amazed at how much better the childish words made her feel.

<I won't> she thought. She had a job to do, and she could not
allow anyone to influence her thinking.

Not Mulder <I need to know if you're going to back me up>.

Not Martin Reeves <A loose cannon, huh?>

Not anyone. <Agent Scully, we trust you'll make the proper
scientific judgment>

Her confidence restored, Scully got out of the car, then stopped
dead as her memory tossed up another phrase. <I'll meet you back
here at the hotel.>

Dammit. Mulder.

In a sudden fury, she walked quickly to his room, and knocked.
There was no sound behind the door, nothing to indicate he was
coming to answer it.

"Damn," she swore.

Well, it was too hot to sit in the car and wait. Grumbling under
her breath, Scully walked into the hotel lobby, sat down, and
steeled herself to wait.

****

15380 Saturn Lane
7:15 p.m.

Fox Mulder heard the voice still as he ran. It echoed in his mind,
ringing in his memory, calling, calling...

<For me?>

Just hours before he had longed for it, but everything had changed
in an instant. There had been nothing good in that laughter -
nothing at all. <For me?> he murmured again, hoping, longing, that
the answer was no - that he had merely intercepted a message meant
for another.

It had not been the voice of the dream that he believed so
passionately was a true memory. It had not been the reassuring
voice at his father's door.

It had been evil.

His breathing was ragged. He was scared beyond all memory, feeling
the very air like grasping fingers pawing his skin. Everywhere
seemed to hum with the echo of the voice. Moving shadows reached
for him, and he had no gun.

He had no gun....

"No," he murmured, hand grasping uselessly at the empty air. The
shadow lunged and became an arm, wrapping itself round his ankle,
pulling him down. He fell heavily. Earth mingled with the iron
taste of blood in his mouth.

Pain helped him come back.

"No..." He shook his head sharply, and almost heard the click as
he switched back into reality. A man was holding him down, and he
was human, not a disembodied voice. He had lunged from the
shadows, but he was not the shadows. The air still hummed, but the
voice had gone.

A raised fist was dark against the sky. He shouted, "no", and
somewhere nearby another voice said the same. He clawed at the
ground, pulling himself up to his knees, lashing out with his arm
to intercept the falling blow. He lashed again, his knuckles
meeting something soft, and heard a grunt of pain.

A foot struck him beneath the ribs, and again against his
forearms, knocking him down again. He twisted his head sideways
and caught a confused glance of burning dark eyes and the meaty
fist of a man more than twice his weight. Images flashed in a
confusion of movement and struggle.

"Stop." A soft voice, quiet and almost casual. "Hold him, I said,
not hurt him.

His eyes flickered towards the man who had spoken, and recognised
him. His breath hissed in shock. "Bradley," he murmured.

Geoff Bradley walked forward, standing over him like a
foreshortened giant. "What were you doing on my property?" he
asked, his voice like steel.

"I'm Fox Mulder, with the FBI. I was investigating your... what
happened to you." Talking was hard. His assailant had twisted one
hand behind his back, leaning on it heavily. He was held securely
and could barely move. "Let me get my ID."

In the pause, the pressure increased. He couldn't breathe, he
couldn't breathe, he couldn't breathe... He had a sudden flash of
knowledge that he could die, here, now - that death could come
suddenly, from the most unexpected of sources.

"Let him."

The pressure relaxed. Gasping, spitting blood and earth, he pulled
himself to his knees. The air was humming again, and spinning.
Instinct led him to his badge. His vision was cloudy and he could
scarcely see it.

"Fox Mulder." Bradley read his name aloud, running it reflectively
on his tongue. "Fox... Mulder... I haven't met you before, have
I." It was not a question.

Mulder stumbled to his feet, swayed, but managed to stand. The
heavy man was still too close, his eyes dark. "I... I don't...
know." He ran a hand over his face, seeing the dark shadow that
was the previous night.

"I've met so many." Bradley's voice was dreamy, distant. He
carried on as if Mulder hadn't spoken. "Police. FBI. They..." He
rubbed his eyes, and there was the slightest ripple in the surface
of his control. "They all thought I was crazy."

"Are you?" Mulder paused, making eye contact. He lowered his
voice. "I don't believe that you are."

Like a broken record, he heard the voice in his memory, ever
calling. <Or, if you are, then I am, too> he added, silently.

Bradley held his gaze for a very long time. He did not blink. "I
do," he said, at last. "I *was* crazy. Now I'm not."

Mulder took a step forward. "Can I talk to you, Geoff?" He
gestured with his eyes towards the large man. "Alone. I want to
help." His mind was reeling with possibilities.

Bradley shrugged non-committally. "Talk here, if you like." He
looked at the other man. "Thanks, Paul. I *think* this will be
okay now." Footsteps sounded away. There was no exchange of smiles
between the two men. "Neighbour," Bradley mouthed to Mulder.

Mulder swallowed. "What happened, Geoff?" He leant forward, as if
his eyes could burn holes into the man's mind and unlock truths.
"Were you... taken?" Then he remembered the blood, and the cloud
of guilt hanging over him. "Are you hurt?"

The faintest ghost of... *something* flickered over the man's
face, but then he smiled. "No." He patted his hands up and down
his body. In the summer evening, he was wearing a pale t-shirt and
shorts. He had been wearing the same the previous night. There
were a few dirt stains, but nothing like blood.

Bewilderment choked him. He blinked, shook his head, ran his hand
across his bruised face. "What... what happened last night?" he
asked, almost plaintive, as if he was the one who needed help, and
not the other man at all.

Bradley shrugged. "What do you think happened?" He was calm, like
a man playing a game, but Mulder could sense something more.
Underneath he was alive with emotion, though what it was, he could
not say.

Mulder took a deep breath. He half closed his eyes, hearing again
this same man's terrified voice as he called the police, saying
that it would be *this night* - that it would be *this night* and
he needed protection.

He heard again the harsh mocking laughter of the police, and heard
again the fire of his own reply as he urged them to listen.

He felt again the touch of the living darkness on his face as the
air moved around him as he crouched, and waited, and waited...

He saw again the white figure, silently moving as if in sleep. He
felt again the grass whipping round his feet as he followed, gun
in hand, watching, waiting...

He heard again a sound like the darkness breathing, and felt the
terror of a place where he could not move, could not breathe,
*could not remember*...

He told Bradley just enough. He showed none of his naked fear, and
knew he could show it to no-one.

Bradley ran his tongue across his lips. "I... I don't remember..."
He shook his head abruptly. "It wasn't like that. I remember
calling the police. I remember... God, I remember the fear. I
thought I was hearing voices."

"Whose?" Mulder heard the tremor in his voice.

Bradley gave a harsh laugh. "No-one's. Like I said, I was crazy.
I... I would drink a lot, you know." He laughed again. "I remember
running. I... I had a night and a day away from... from all this.
I just sat, and thought, and.... and lived. Like I said, I was
crazy, and now I'm not."

It was all spiralling out of control. Mulder opened him mouth, but
no words came. He cleared his throat, tried again, and managed a
single, "but..."

"But nothing, Agent Mulder." Bradley's smile again. "I know you
were only trying to help, Agent Mulder, but I don't need help. I
want to live my life, to forget that... unfortunate episode. It's
over."

But, again, the emotion, like a predator beneath the surface...

****

Best Western Hotel
8:09 p.m.

The taxi pulled into the hotel parking lots only minutes before
the Houston Police car.

Scully stood in the lobby and lifted her chin. With a calm she
didn't feel, she walked out the glass front doors. Mulder was
already climbing the steps to his room, and she followed him,
refusing to call out and demean herself further.

He saw her as he was about to close the door, and had the grace to
flush. "Scully."

She fell short of the threshold, a gape of stupid astonishment
crossing her face. When she had left Mulder this afternoon he had
appeared tired, but perfectly healthy. Now his face was cut and
bruised, and wore a thin, pinched look; his clothes were grass-
stained and wrinkled.

Mulder met her stare for a moment, then turned and walked into the
hotel room. In the parking lot, the blue-and-white police car
drove up.

"Mulder, what the hell happened to you?" she demanded, finally
crossing into the room. She shut the door behind her, but softly,
not the satisfying slam she had been envisioning for the past
hour.

"Nothing," he said curtly. He was already in the bathroom,
examining the cut on his lower lip.

"Where have you been?" She sat down on the bed, then abruptly
stood up. Sitting on a bed did not convey authority and control.
"I was waiting for you."

He grimaced, but did not apologize. "I went to see Geoff
Bradley."

That idiotic amazement crossed her face again. "He's back?"

Mulder nodded and left the bathroom, still gently fingering his
lip. "Yeah."

The knock at the door startled them both, and Scully cursed
mentally. She'd forgotten about the police. "They want to
question you, Mulder," she said, gesturing to the door.

He nodded wearily, then moved across the room. He opened the door
to reveal Martin Reeves and another uniformed officer. They
nodded polite greetings, and came in.

Reeves threw a glance at Scully, and smiled. "This is my partner,
Officer Weissman," he said, slightly stressing the word "my". It
was meant to show he had not forgotten their conversation from
earlier in the day.

She nodded.

Weissman was young, too, and he frowned at Mulder. "I understood
you weren't harmed during the attack made on you, Agent Mulder."

"I was out running and fell," Mulder replied laconically.

The silence drew out, while the others waited for him to
elaborate. When it became clear that he wouldn't, Reeves cleared
his throat. "We're here to get your statement, Agent Mulder.
There are some unanswered questions about what happened last
night."

"Maybe you should ask Geoff Bradley," Mulder said.

The two policemen exchanged a glance, and Scully drew herself up.
In for a penny, in for a pound... "Mr. Bradley has returned
from..." She stopped, realizing she didn't know where he had been.
"Mulder spoke with him this evening."

Three pairs of eyes bored into her briefly, two of them with
astonishment, and one with something akin to betrayal. She stared
at Mulder defiantly. He could run out on her and interview
whomever he liked, but there was proper procedure to be followed,
and it was obviously up to her to initiate it.

"Well," Weissman stammered, "this does change things."

"Was he injured at all?" Reeves asked, and Scully knew he was
thinking of the blood found at the crime scene.

"No," Mulder shook his head. "I asked, and he said he wasn't. He
appeared to be fine."

"Where had he been?"

"He didn't say," Mulder said. "Just that he had wanted to get
away and think."

"Did you ask him what happened last night?" asked Weissman.

"Yes."

"What did he say?"

"That he didn't remember."

"Didn't remember any of it? He doesn't remember calling the
police? Or he doesn't remember going to that house?"

This was fast turning into an interrogation, and although Mulder
was quite capable of handling it, she jumped in. "I think these
are questions you need to be asking Mr. Bradley."

Both officers turned to her, and it was Weissman who dipped his
head first.

"Did you find my weapon?" Mulder asked. He did not glance at
Scully, did not in any way react to her interruption.

"We did," Reeves said. "It's at the station."

"I'd like to pick it up now," Mulder said, nodding toward the
door.

"You can get your weapon after we question Bradley," Reeves said.
"I'd like to get his statement."

"You can't obstruct a federal officer while on a case," Scully
blurted. "Agent Mulder fired his weapon in self-defense. There
is no evidence tying him to Geoff Bradley's disappearance."

Now Mulder looked at her, with poorly concealed surprise. "Agent
Scully is right," he said. "Now why don't you say we all head
down to the station?"

****

Bay Area Natural History Museum
10:13 p.m.

The man smiled - a tight, determined smile. Had he been able to
see himself in a mirror, he would hardly have recognised himself.
He had caught glimpses earlier, in the dark windows he had passed,
and had seen himself reflected like a dark shadow of himself.

He had liked what he had seen. It had seemed appropriate.

He was breathing hard, now. Darkness wreathed around him, and the
silence of an empty building at night. He heard only the soft
whisper of leaves above him, and the gentle scraping sound of his
digging.

"There," he murmured, and rocked back on his heels. "Ready." He
looked up, to the stars first, which made him shiver, and then to
the lifeless dark eyes which were the building's windows. He felt
it was waiting for him - waiting for what was coming, when the
time was right.

He resisted the urge to laugh.

He looked down again and saw the hole, like a darker splash in the
night. It would do. Security was non-existent, and no-one had seen
him come here, and no-one had seen what he had been carrying. No-
one would see him go, either, but then he would be empty-handed,
his secret committed to the earth.

Gently, almost reverently, he laid the box in the hole, and slowly
covered it with earth. Just for a few days, he told himself. He
would mark the spot, return at the proper time, dig up the gun,
and....

He smiled again, baring his teeth to the darkness.

<I wonder who I'll kill first....>


Denny's Restaurant
11:01 p.m.

Something came through, as if from a long long way away.

"Mulder?"

Mulder blinked. His partner's face swam into focus, surprisingly
gentle. She was leaning forward across the table, hand stretched
out as if she had been about to touch his arm. He blinked again
and became aware that her plate was empty, while his food was
barely touched.

"Mulder?" she said, again. "You okay?"

He nodded. He struggled to draw the tangle of thoughts back into a
single focus. "I was thinking.... about the case." It was not a
lie. "Following leads, theories...." <Trying - trying desperately
- to see into the fog of last night...> he added, silently.

"You haven't heard me?" Her voice was tight.

"No." He heard the accusation in his voice, reflecting his
thoughts. <No. Why should I have?>

"Oh." Her eyes flickered down into her lap, and he had a quick
realization that he might have hurt her.

"Look, Scully." He sighed. He was too tired for this - too hurt,
too scared. "I'm not used to working with a partner. I was
accountable to no-one. I could follow leads without having to
explain myself. I could spend the evening lost in thought, and no-
one cared."

She looked up. "No-one cared," she echoed, in a quiet voice. Her
eyes seemed sad, even pitying. He felt pinned down by it -
impaled.

"I meant it as a good thing," he said, almost petulantly. All
evening, at the police station, and on the way back to the hotel,
he had felt her disapproval, like a mother with an unruly child,
wanting to make him suffer for simply following a lead without
waiting for her. Spy or not, she was like a gaoler.

She thrust her chin out defiantly. "But you have a partner now,
Mulder," she said, firmly. "I would like to be.... informed.
Included, even. I want to be respected."

He twisted his fork in his pasta. "Respect goes both ways,
Scully," he muttered.

He was surprised how much it still hurt that she had refused point
blank to investigate Ellen's after the men had warned them off.
She had refused to be a proper partner to him, yet had made him
out, afterwards, to be the guilty one. Anger was justified, yes,
but hurt? It wasn't as if he cared what she, or anyone, thought of
him. It wasn't as if he needed anyone.

She sighed deeply. "If Bradley hadn't come back...." She closed
her eyes, as if praying silently for strength. "Mulder, you could
have been in a.... a *difficult* situation with the police. If you
break rules, you'll get caught, or, at least, cause people to look
at your actions with suspicion. If you go off without telling
anybody...." She broke off, and passed a hand across her face,
apparently exasperated. "Mulder, I want this to be a proper
partnership, but.... It's hard, Mulder. You make it so hard."

"Then walk away." He made his voice harsh. "Go. Go to a *proper*
partner."

<Let me get back to how I want to be....> He clenched his fist
under the table, and was surprised to find it shaking. <I want the
safety of loneliness....>

She was silent for a very long time. She almost seemed to be
considering it, and definitely looked tempted.

He couldn't breathe...

She looked down, not meeting his eyes. "There is.... unfinished
business here, Mulder. I want to find out who attacked you first.
I want to find out who you shot. I want.... I even want to find
out why Bradley's apparently become sane over night."

He scarcely heard her words. He had heard the "first", and knew
its meaning. <Before I leave you...> He knew he ought to feel
relief, but it almost felt like a physical blow. Loneliness was
safe, but it was still loneliness.

"Bradley..." she said, thoughtfully, apparently unaware of him.
"He'll confirm your story?"

He felt a spark of anger, and drew on it. "Why shouldn't he? It's
true. You think I shot him, don't you?"

They had called Bradley from the police station, but the line had
been dead. Mulder, standing behind the others, had been sweating
and pale with fear, half expecting *that* voice to come from the
phone, calling, calling for him, *for him*....

They had visited his house, and found it dark and silent, though a
neighbour had confirmed Bradley's return, and his apparent well-
being. The policeman, Reeves, had shrugged. "We'll come back
tomorrow," he had said, casually, as if he had lost all interest
in the case now he no longer had a fed under the shadow of a
murder charge.

Leaving the house, Scully had glanced up at the electricity wires,
and frowned, thoughtfully.

"Yes." Now, Scully gave a rueful smile. "But he has psychological
problems. He has changed once. It is a reasonable assumption that
he may change again." Then she leant forward impulsively. "Why
can't you trust, Mulder? Why do you assume the worse of me? No."
She shook her head, almost wonderingly. "You don't assume the
worse. You assume that *I* will assume the worst of you. You
assume that *everyone* will."

"There's a reason for that, Scully," he said, hoarsely, caught off
guard. She slipped through his fingers like a fish, constantly
amazing him, constantly evading his attempts to label her.
"Everyone does," he finished, gruffly.

She looked at him for a very long time. Once again, her gaze
cornered him, made him want to run, pounding the darkness, pushing
himself into sweet, purging exhaustion.

She opened her mouth as if to speak, then appeared to think better
of it. "I want to solve this, Mulder," she said, firmly, though he
knew it wasn't what she had been going to say. "Together. It's my
job."

"Your job," he repeated, and suddenly, surprisingly, felt safe
again.

****

Tuesday, July 6, 1993
8:34 a.m.

The streets were quiet, a typical suburban setting where everybody
had already left for work, and kids were still inside eating
breakfast and watching morning cartoons. Mulder drove the rental
car, fiddling with the air conditioner controls and the radio.
With an effort, Scully balled her hands into fists and sat still.

He settled on an oldies station as they turned onto Saturn Lane,
and he pointed out Bradley's house. Scully peered at it
thoughtfully, seeing nothing out of the ordinary: just a one-story
brick house like all the others on the street, car in the
driveway, and shades pulled down against the brutal Texas heat.

They turned into the driveway, and Mulder turned the radio off
with an ugly sound. She glanced at him, and he grimaced.
"'Twilight Time'," he explained. "I hate that song."

She shrugged and got out of the car.

Behind them Reeves and Weissman pulled up, and unfolded themselves
from the car. Scully nodded greetings to them, then turned back
to Bradley's house in time to see the front curtain twitch as it
dropped back into place.

Mulder saw it, too. "At least he's here," he murmured. He
sounded decidedly unenthusiastic, and Scully looked at him
curiously.

Mulder either didn't notice, or chose to pretend he hadn't. He
led them up the walk. Bradley had the door opened before they had
mounted the porch. He stood framed in the doorway, and Scully got
her first look at the man.

He was of medium height, a bit slender, but already beginning to
develop a middle-aged paunch. His hair was light brown, a bland,
nondescript shade that along with his gray eyes, gave him a
colorless appearance. He was utterly unremarkable, in every
facet; the sort of man who you would not remember seeing in a
crowd.

Bradley let them in and Mulder made the introductions.

Reeves got right down to business. "Where were you on the night of
the fourth, Mr. Bradley?"

"I was out," the man said shortly.

"Out where?" Reeves asked, with no trace of humor.

Scully took the chance to look around the house, at the simple
decor, the fairly new furniture. Everything was clean; nothing
was out of place.

Mulder, she saw, was staring the phone that sat on the end table.

"I went to Galveston," Bradley said. "I needed to get away from
here, to clear my head."

"Clear your head of the voices you heard?" Weissman asked
sarcastically.

Mulder perked up at this, and Scully saw him frown.

Bradley nodded calmly, however. "Yes. As I told Agent Mulder, I
had been drinking some, and...well...I guess I went a little
crazy." He smiled briefly. "I'm fine now."

"Mr. Bradley, we found blood at the crime scene," Scully said.
"Were you injured at all?"

"No," the man said, shaking his head. "A little hungover, but I
wasn't hurt, no."

"Do you remember seeing Agent Mulder two nights ago?" Reeves
asked, frowning as the agent in question wandered into Bradley's
kitchen.

Bradley shook his head with a sorrow that Scully was suddenly sure
was feigned. "No, I don't."

"Still hearing voices?" Weissman asked.

Bradley flushed. "No," he muttered.

"Sir, is there anybody in Galveston who can vouch for your
presence there?" Scully asked. Mulder might not have shot
Bradley, but she could not rule out the possibility that Bradley
had attacked her partner. The man was clearly not well.

"No," he said, again with that faked sorrow. "I didn't stop
anywhere. I just drove down to the beach, sat for a while and
thought, then came back. I didn't stop to talk to anybody, or
anything."

<Of course> she thought sourly. "Can you remember seeing anyone
else that night at the house?"

Another head shake. "No, ma'am."

Mulder emerged from in the kitchen, and walked over to the front
door. He looked at the others expectantly. Already recognizing
his signal, Scully ended the interview. "Thank you for meeting
with us, Mr. Bradley. You'll let us know if you plan on going
anywhere, in case we need to contact you further?"

"Sure," Bradley agreed.

On the porch, the two policemen separated from the group, and
Scully followed Mulder to their rental car. "What?" she asked.

Mulder merely shook his head and looked at her innocently.
"Nothing." Scully pursed her lips but remained quiet. She had
hoped their frank conversation last night might have changed
Mulder's attitude toward her.

No such luck, however. Apparently Mulder still believed he was
the FBI's "most unwanted."

****

Best Western Hotel
9:45 a.m.

With Scully gone back to the Houston FBI office, Mulder settled
into his hotel room and phoned a number from memory.

"Lone Gunmen," answered a muffled voice.

"Turn the tape off," Mulder said, by way of greeting.

"Hey, long time no see, Mulder," Langly replied.

Mulder said nothing. In truth he had planned to visit the guys
after the fiasco at Ellen's Air Force Base, but he had been too
scared. Something had been taken from him there, something he was
desperate to retrieve. But to tell the Gunmen, to admit his folly
in sneaking onto the base, to face them and explain that he knew
*something* was out there, but not know *how* he knew...

And after his encounter with the man Mulder had mentally begun
calling Deep Throat, really there had been no reason to come to
the Gunmen. The older man had as much as told him what that
something was at Ellen's, that something which Mulder would never
remember.

There was a double click as the other extensions were picked up,
then Frohike interrupted his thoughts. "You still owe us for
those cheesesteaks last week, my friend."

"I know, I know," Mulder said, wishing for a moment that he could
just once forgo chasing after the paranormal and content himself
with chasing after friends who owed him five bucks for a sandwich.
"Look, guys--"

"How's the new partner?" Byers broke in.

"Run him off yet?" Frohike laughed.

"No, I haven't, and it's a her, not a him, Frohike," Mulder said
smugly.

A full second of silence descended, then Langly said dubiously, "A
chick?"

Mulder nodded, even though they could not see him. "A doctor.
Her name's Scully."

"Doctor of what?" asked Byers.

"A medical doctor," Mulder answered.

"What's she like?" Langly asked with frank curiosity.

He'd been expecting the question, but it still threw him off.
What *was* Dana Scully like?

Annoying. Persistent. Stubborn. Loyal. Honest. A sight for
sore eyes on an air base in Idaho. Endearing when wet to the bone
in a graveyard in Oregon.

She was a mystery. She called him crazy with both her voice and
her eyes. She deflated his theories with cool aplomb. She'd
given away their only evidence in the Billy Miles case to Blevins.
One moment she blathered on about field reports, and the next
watched aerial phenomena with him in wonder. Yet she'd stormed
onto an air base for him, and her first act of business upon
arriving here in Texas had been to check on him and his well-
being.

She was a puzzling mixture, and Mulder mentally conceded defeat.
"I don't know," he admitted. "I haven't figured her out yet."

"Ah," Frohike said in a profound voice. "When do we get to meet
this *enigmatic* Dr. Scully?"

Mulder chuckled. "Down, boy. First I need you guys to do
something for me. I need some information." He pulled an object
from his pocket, something he'd found in Geoff Bradley's kitchen.

"Then you've come to the right place," Langly said smugly.

****

Spencer Highway
Pasadena, Texas
11:15

The doctor's eyes were cold, wary. Scully stiffened, then forced
herself to relax. She knew the man was reacting to her not as a
person, but as a personification of prying authority. She knew,
too, that it was a look she would have to get used to seeing.

She put her badge away, and told him her name again. "Doctor Dana
Scully," she said, with a slight stress on the "doctor."

Dr Mortimer visibly softened, and she felt a vague sense of hurt
at it. She had chosen the FBI over medicine, against her father's
wishes, looking for a place where she could excel and gain
respect. Yet it seemed, sometimes, as if all her status, all her
respect, came from that small title before her name. Even
Mulder.... He had handed an autopsy over to her and asked her
examine Billy Miles, yet he always held back on sharing facts and
theories, as if he saw her as being useful only as a doctor,
filling in one of those rare gaps in his own expertise.

She swallowed hard, forcing herself back to the present. "Dr
Mortimer." She smiled. "I'm sorry to disturb you. I.... I would
like to talk to you about one of your patients."

"Oh." His lips pursed. He asked no questions.

"Geoff Bradley." She persisted, though his eyes were wary, now,
and unfriendly. "He has had.... mental problems. He says he's okay
now." The man made her feel awkward, wanting to stumble over her
words, and apologise. Instead, she raised her head defiantly. "I
need to know if he has a history of this sort of behaviour. I..."
She reached into her briefcase, pulling out the file. "I have a
blood sample. I need to know if it's a match with his."

"How do you know he's my patient?" Mortimer asked quietly. "I'm
not the most likely candidate."

She let her breath out. This, at least, was easy. "He used to call
the police - even the FBI. He was raving about a voice. 'Even Dr
Mortimer says it's a hallucination, but it isn't,' he kept
repeating."

"Oh." A flicker of something passed over the doctor's face. It
could even have been remorse. "He.... He didn't want to hear what
I could tell him. I.... I couldn't tell him what he wanted to
hear."

"That the voice was real?" She leant forward. "That you knew how
to get rid of it?"

He opened his mouth, then closed it again, and merely nodded.

"Has he a history of this sort of behaviour?" she persisted. She
was torn between interacting with him as a doctor, an equal, or as
an FBI agent, and somehow, in a never-stated but very real sense,
the enemy.

Mortimer passed his hand over his brow. "I don't know, Agent...?"
His voice went up at the end, questioning. "Dr...? Dr Scully..."
She smiled her acceptance of either title. "Dr Scully," he said,
firmly.

She smiled again, and this time with sincerity. She felt he had
decided to treat her as a colleague, to confide. "You don't know?"
she echoed, quietly.

The man shook his head. "He's only recently arrived in the area.
He gave the address of his old doctor, but they had no record of
him. I've not been able to get any of his old records."

In her mind, she wrote this fact down, underlining it firmly. "Did
he say anything that led you to believe it had happened before?"

Mortimer frowned, considering. "I... No. Maybe..." He gave a
mirthless bark of laughter, as if embarrassed by his own
confusion. "He said something once. He said it had to stop ending
like it did last time. Then...." He took a deep breath. "Then he
was unresponsive for a whole minute, and, when he came back, he
denied all knowledge of a last time. He *believed* it, too, I'm
sure of it."

She ran her finger up and down the blood test results. "Can I see
his records."

He shook his head apologetically. "You know I have to respect a
patient's privacy, Agent Scully." Despite the use of that title,
his eyes were no longer hard. He clenched his fists briefly, then
relaxed. "Is he a suspect?" She thought she saw fear in his eyes.

"No." Then she paused, wondering. "I... I don't think so," she
admitted. He had cornered her, making her think, making her
wonder. The case was not nebulous. Just what did Mulder see in it?
What were they looking for? She smiled shakily. "He seemed like a
victim for a while, but now he's back, claiming that nothing is
wrong. I spoke to him, and I think he's lying. I... I think he's
still sick. I think he's...."

"Scared?" Mortimer leant forward. "Scared his voices will come for
him if he tells anyone he's still hearing them?"

She frowned, then nodded. "Maybe. I..." She took a deep breath.
"There is *something* he's lying about, or has forgotten. My
partner saw him the night before last, in a deserted house, but
Bradley denies knowledge of even going to the place. *Someone*
attacked my partner, and..." Again, she held out the blood test
result. "We found this."

This time, he took it, glancing at it almost casually. "I can't
let you have his records," he said, again, and this time it was
less than friendly. "Why do you believe it's his? Is he injured?"

"No," she said, without thinking. His eyes seemed to accuse her.
"No," she repeated, and felt a sudden intense anger at Mulder. He
doubted the most obvious, seeing lies in simple facts. He spoke
his madness with a silver tongue, and she was caught up, wasting
her morning on a crazy line of investigation that would go
nowhere. "Of course it's not his." Her voice was shaking slightly,
angry with Mulder, and with herself.

Mortimer handed the paper back, and it seemed to tremble in his
hand. "I... I don't understand the blood," he said, and his eyes
seemed naked, honest. It was almost as if he had been playing a
part before. "I understand the rest."

"Understand?" she said, sharply, glad to be back in control,
asking questions. "Bradley's voices? My partner being knocked out
by.... *something* - something that left no chemical trace in his
body? Bradley's apparent cure?"

He nodded. "I have a theory - yes." He looked down, as if
embarrassed. "Do you know why Bradley came to me?"

His silence directed her. She looked around his office, and
finally took in the pictures on the notice board, and the titles
of the books on his shelves. Until a few weeks ago, she had never
seen books like this. Already, they were becoming accepted and
unremarkable furniture. "You believe in... paranormal
occurrences?" She kept her voice level, without inflexion. <Not
another one> she thought.

"Oh no." He smiled. "I don't believe. I *explain* them."

"Explain them," she echoed, coolly. "Explain this."

****

11:30 a.m.

He gave up the pretence of reading the words on the computer
screen. All the words that mattered were in his head, and the
images that came to him, wouldn't leave him, whenever he shut his
eyes.

Images, and words...

"I want you...." A phone, wires not connected to the wall, and a
voice, calling...

Bradley, brightly saying that he was well, now - that he had been
crazy when he had heard the voices. The look in those policemen's
eyes, and Scully's, saying that they knew it as a fact that anyone
who heard voices was crazy. For some reason, seeing that belief in
*Scully's* eyes hurt him.

"Tell me I'm crazy, Scully," he had said to her once, hiding it
with a smile, though lost inside.

<Tell me I'm crazy, and then leave me alone, again - alone. Go.>

<Tell me I'm *not* crazy. You don't have to believe me, but
support me, respect me. Please....>

He still couldn't begin to say which one he longed for more
intensely. Both scared him.

"Scully." He heard her voice, entirely real. The phone was in his
hand. Thinking of her, he had hardly been aware of picking it up,
of calling her.

"Hello?" she said, voice rising.

He smiled at the sound of it, yet his heart was beating fast,
almost with fear. "Scully?" His voice was cracked, unused for two
hours. "Found anything yet?"

"No." Her voice was tight, unfriendly. He knew there ought to be
no surprise in it, and no hurt. "Not what you want me to find,
anyway."

He blinked. "What do I want you do find?"

"I don't know, Mulder." She sighed. "I honestly don't know."

He couldn't speak. He paused, shut his eyes, then forced himself
to laugh. "I'm an enigma, Scully. I..." He couldn't keep it up any
longer. "I want the truth, Scully. You know that."

She acted as if he hadn't spoken. "I'm with Bradley's doctor,
Mulder. He has a.... a theory."

He closed his eyes. He knew it would be a theory that would
confirm her in opposition to him, giving him nothing, looking at
him with cold eyes. "What?" he asked, wearily.

"I'm still hearing it. I'll tell you. Later."

There was a click, and then nothing, though still the voices
echoed.

<What do I want you to find? What do I want you to find?>

The phone slipped from his fingers. He slumped back on the bed,
hearing it as an accusation. <Why are we here, Mulder?> had been
in her voice, clear as words. <Where's the case?>

He knew he had been drawn to Bradley's case by the image of a man,
alone against the world, fighting something that no-one else would
believe in. No-one should be alone like that - alone with that
fear, that ridicule. It was his duty to help.

But now.... Now...?

He had lost another night from his memory. He had heard the voice.
Whatever it was it was real.

Whatever it was....

The phone rang, its harsh sound ripping him from his reverie. <I
want you. I want you. I want you....>

His hand was shaking. He reached for the phone, pulled back,
reached...

His eyes flickered towards his running shoes, towards the door
handle. He could run. He could run...

He swallowed hard. His hand was sweaty and slippery on the phone.
"Mulder?" he said, almost a croak.

"Hey, Mulder. We've got something."

He let out a shuddering breath. "Frohike." He found himself unable
to engage in their usual banter. "What is it?"

"We're disappointed in you, Mulder." Frohike affected a mock stern
voice. "No lights in the sky. No conspiracies. Nothing."

He ran his hand across his face. "What?"

In Bradley's kitchen, he had found a matchbook, unused yet much
handled, stained slightly with something that could have been
blood. It was labelled with the name of a restaurant in Boston - a
restaurant whose name rang a bell in his mind. Since his reading
was almost entirely concerned with the paranormal, his first port
of call was
always his unusual friends, not the Bureau.

"Just a murder." Frohike's voice made him shake off the last of
his fear, and just laugh. It was so casual, so dismissive.... so
endearing. These guys were true friends. "A double murder,"
Frohike continued. "In February of last year. We've dug around,
and there doesn't seem to be hints of anything.... interesting."

"Was the murderer caught?" Mulder leant forward, flicking the
screen saver off his laptop, ready to do his own research.

"No. He's still out there." Frohike made his voice hollow. "Blood
on his hands, still waiting for the sequel."

Mulder heard faint sounds of the others laughing in the
background. They obviously didn't consider the case important
enough to talk to him about. "Hey, Frohike!" Langly shouted.
"Tell him to find us something better next time."

"You hear that?" Frohike asked, then shouted, "he heard that!" He
lowered his voice. "Is she blonde, this partner of yours? Can I
have her number? Payment for services provided, and all that?"

Mulder's laugh sounded false in his ears. <I heard a voice> he
wanted to whisper. <I heard it...>

He said nothing.

****

11:39 a.m.

<I want you>

His head whipped up, eyes dilated, breath coming in short pants.

<Bradley...>

"No," he whimpered, rising to his feet, scanning the room wildly,
seeking the source of the voice.

<I want you, Bradley>

He ran from the living room, out the back door, feeling grass
underfoot. Somewhere in the house, his shoes lay forgotten.

<I'm coming>

"Please!" he cried, pressing his hands together, wringing them in
a gesture suggestive of old men and pantomimes.

<...>

No answer, other than a soft chuckle floating through the air.


Best Western Hotel
12:02 p.m.

Mulder lay back on the hotel bed, arms crossed behind his head,
and frowned up at the ceiling.

He was fast having to re-think this case.

He'd come to Clear Lake at the possibility of an alien abduction.
He'd read the wire report from the Houston FBI office with growing
excitement. On his way home, while packing, on the flight to
Houston--the entire time he had been busily planning, running
through various scenarios in his head.

Pushed to a corner of his mind was Dana Scully. The idea that
Geoff Bradley was not about to become a multiple alien abductee
had been only half-formed, scarcely acknowledged.

Yet now, only two days later, Mulder was forced to admit that he
could have been wrong.

In all the UFO literature, he'd never heard of an abductee being
called by a human voice. The call, the summons, the pulling
sensation--they were all internal, something more *felt* than
heard.

So what was calling Geoff Bradley? Mulder did not doubt for a
second that Bradley had indeed heard something. There was no
erasing that voice from his own memory; those moments of sheer
terror in Bradley's kitchen were forever branded on his mind.

A ghost, maybe? A spirit from beyond, full of unrest? <Just a
murder> Frohike had said.

He closed his eyes and fell into "Spooky" Mulder mode, letting his
thoughts free-fall, making mental associations and connections
where no one else saw anything but disjointed facts. Always
willing to follow an extreme line of thinking, tending to follow
non-linear thought patterns, he was never long in coming up with
answers.

This time was no different.

The matchbook from a restaurant. A double murder. The stains on
the folded paper, possibly blood. The newness of Bradley's
possessions.

Geoff Bradley was hearing a voice. The voice of a ghost. There
was suddenly no doubt in Mulder's mind what had happened. Bradley
had witnessed the murders in the Boston restaurant. Possibly
might have been in a position to stop them. Regardless, he had
done nothing, merely watched as two innocent people died.

And one of those innocent people had refused to accept death. One
of those murder victims was haunting Bradley from beyond the
grave.

Mulder sat up, filled with renewed purpose. From memory he
dialled a Washington number, and was about to hang up when someone
answered on the other end. "Danny, hey," he said eagerly. "It's
Mulder." A small smile crossed his face at the other man's
response. "Yeah, I know, who else?" His smile died. "Listen, I
need you to do some checking around for me."

Danny was all ears as Mulder spelled Geoff Bradley's name and
described him. "Look in Boston, starting about six months ago,
and work your way back. Check for anything out of the ordinary.
Where he came from, when he left, why he left." He listened, then
sighed. "I know it's vague, but it's all I got. Look, I'll get
you some pre-season Redskins tickets. Whaddaya say?"

He grinned as Danny acceded to his request. "Great! I owe you
one, Danny."

He had just laid the phone back in its cradle when it rang again.
Flush with his success, Mulder picked it up confidently. "Hello."

"Agent Mulder?" Bradley's voice was hoarse. "I need to speak
with you."

****

Houston FBI Office
1:14 p.m.

"Agent Scully? There's a phone call for you." The young agent
hung around long enough to see that she had heard him before
leaving.

Scully sighed. She'd hoped to grab some lunch. She'd left Dr.
Mortimer's office intending to begin writing her field report in
relative peace and quiet, but the office had been abuzz with
activity, and she had gotten very little done.

Now she looked down at the blinking light on the phone with
distaste. It was probably Mulder, wanting to drag her somewhere
new, afire with a new theory, neither caring about nor consulting
her.

She pressed her lips together into a thin line, then picked up.
"This is Scully."

"Agent Scully." The voice was slightly gruff, older, definitely
not Mulder's. It took her a moment to place it. Blevins.

"Yes, sir?" She kept her voice neutral and did not reveal the
sudden pounding of her heart.

"Agent Scully, there is some concern as to why you and Agent
Mulder have not returned yet."

She threw a quick glance around at the other agents, but they were
all busy, heads down at their desks. Nobody paid her any
attention; she was safe for the moment. "No, sir. We--Agent
Mulder and I have stayed to ascertain that..." She stumbled to a
halt, recalling the words that had ended her last interview with
him. <He has no case.> "We wanted to make sure there was no
reason for us to remain here."

"And have you?"

"Have I what, sir?" She hated to ask, hated that every time she
spoke with this man she seemed to utter no opinions of her own,
only echoed his words to her.

"Have you made sure there is no reason to remain in Texas?"
Blevins sounded bored, almost, and she frowned.

"We are working toward that end, yes sir."

"But you'll not be staying." It really wasn't a question.

"Sir? I'm not sure I follow."

"Agent Scully, I'm calling because Assistant Director Skinner
asked me to. He and I are concerned about the lack of procedure
that has been followed here."

She was nonplussed. If there wasn't a case, what procedure was
there? Wisely, she kept silent.

"I suggest you and Agent Mulder return to Washington, Agent
Scully. There are matters here that require your attendance,"
Blevins said.

"Yes, sir," she replied automatically, "but there may be reason
for Agent Mulder and I to remain here. A man was missing, for
undetermined reasons. Agent Mulder was attacked."

Blevins' silence was telling. She waited him out, and he finally
cleared his throat. "We'll expect you back in DC tomorrow
morning, Agent Scully."

She bowed her head in frustration. "Yes, sir."

****

Best Western Hotel
1:20 p.m.

The man was shoeless, his eyes wild and staring, his hair spiked,
as if raked through by anxious fingers. He leant on the door frame
with one hand, his head lolling forward, his chest heaving as if
he'd been running.

Mulder spoke without preamble. "You heard it again - the voice?"
He was ashamed to feel something close to relief - relief that, if
Bradley was still hearing it, it had not shifted its whole
attention to *him*. "You heard it. It's *not* gone, has it?"

"Yes."

Mulder paused for a moment, then decided to take the answer for
what he wanted it to mean. "Why did you say it was gone?" Bradley
raised his head, his eyes scared. Mulder lowered his voice, only
now gesturing for the man to enter the room. "Did it threaten
you?" he asked, voice low. "Did it tell you it would punish you if
you told anyone it was still with you?"

His hand unconsciously edged closer to his gun, imagining
invisible eyes, watching, and an invisible hatred ready to attack,
to punish.

Bradley was silent. He was still breathing fast, and his feet were
flecked with blood. Still, he made no move to deny it.

Mulder sat down on the edge of the bed, directing Bradley to the
chair. "You didn't really go to Galveston?" he asked, quietly. "It
took you. Was silence the price of your return?"

Bradley pushed himself to his feet, his face suffused with sudden
bitterness. "I went to Galveston. You don't know anything."

Mulder half closed his eyes, tensing. He let out a long breath. "I
know more than you think," he murmured, his mind full of the
horror of that voice. "I..." He twisted his hands in his lap. "I
heard the voice, too, just before you found me last night."

"You don't know anything!" Bradley was across the room in a few
quick paces, and slammed his fist into the wall, emphasising his
words. "You haven't a clue."

Mulder sucked in a breath, surprisingly hurt. He hadn't told
anyone else about the voice, holding on to it as a secret fear - a
secret sign of weakness.... or madness.

Bradley's breathing was audible.

"Then tell me," Mulder said, suddenly, gambling. "Tell me about
Boston. There was a murder there...."

Bradley's fists flexed. He looked almost.... <dangerous> Mulder
suddenly realised. It occurred to him suddenly that he had missed
the most obvious solution. If Bradley was haunted by a ghost from
that Boston murder, it was more likely to be because he was the
killer, not a witness who had done nothing to help. The
possibility had never even crossed his mind before. Why? Because
he had heard the voice and felt the fear, and shared something
with this man? Because he identified with a man who was alone in a
world that thought him crazy?

As his hand moved towards his gun, he wondered if his feeling of
identification had clouded his judgement, making him fatally
blind.

"I don't remember a murder," Bradley said at last, his eyes
glittering. His face was tense, but he spread his hands, as if
showing his honesty. He looked scared.

Mulder edged away from the gun, though he remained tense, alert
that the situation could change in an instant. He was playing a
dangerous game. "Are you sure?" He reached for the matchbook and
moved toward the man, pressing it into his hand. "It was here."

Bradley turned his palm round, uncurling his fingers. Horror and
dread washed over his features. He was visibly losing colour, his
eyelids drifting down over his eyes as if in a dream. "I... I
saw.... blood." His voice was a terrible croak, as if each word
was dragged out from some place deep within. "I saw.... him. He
won't stop coming. He.... He says I know him. I don't..." He
lashed his head from side to side. "I don't.... I won't recognise
him. *I won't.*"

Mulder became aware that he had been holding his breath. The very
air seemed tense, listening. He shivered. This time when the
explanation came to him, he felt it with an air of certainty. This
was no theory; this was the truth. He had been seeking mysteries
in the prosaic, seeing ghosts and aliens when there was only a
very human murder.

"The murderer?" he said, gently, aware that Bradley was in a state
close to trance. "You were a witness. He thinks you can identify
him, so he's come after you." His mind was racing ahead. Not so
human after all. "He has.... powers. He can call to you
telepathically, in some way - send psychic threats."

Bradley raised his head, the twisted fear gone from his face. His
voice was brittle, as if he was stating a rehearsed lesson, in
danger of cracking at any minute. "I don't know about the killing.
I don't remember." He shook his head briskly, as if waking up. "I
don't remember it." He paused, passing his hand over his face.
"I'm sorry. I came here a few months ago. I have.... gaps....
before."

Mulder nodded, trying to show understanding. Then he was off
again, grabbed by a sudden thought. <The blood...> He could only
assume that he had shot at and wounded the killer, surprising him
in the very act of kidnap or murder. And if he had shed blood....
He exhaled in relief. The killer was but a man. A man with special
abilities, but a man who could bleed.

A man who could be killed....

"I'll make sure you're protected," he said, leaning forward with
intensity.

"No!" It was a sudden shout, loud and.... angry? Bradley stood up,
snatching his hands close to his body, protectively. "I don't want
to be watched."

"I want to help." Mulder reached out for him, palm upwards, in the
universal signal of sincerity. "You came to me. I know you're
scared, but... Let me help, Bradley."

"No!" Bradley ran to the door, fumbling unseeingly at the handle.
"Stay away from me, or you'll suffer. I promise you, you'll
suffer." It was phrased as if it could be a warning... or a
threat.

"I don't care about that," Mulder said, simply. It was the truth.
He had always walked open-eyed and willing into danger if it saw
the need for it.

"I do." Bradley lashed at him with his arm. He was wild-eyed -
unrecognisable from the calm man of the previous evening. "*I'll*
suffer too. You'd stop me..." He grimaced, shaking his head. "Just
let me go. Forget this. Please."

****

Best Western Hotel
2:00 p.m.

"Scully." His eyes were bright, eager. Before knocking, she had
paused, almost expecting to hear the silence that would attest to
his having left without explanation again. Instead, she had heard
the quick light footfall of his pacing. He spoke as soon as he
opened the door. "Listen, Scully. I've got..."

"No." She held up a hand, silencing him.

He let out a breath, his shoulders visibly slumping, deflating.
His face took on a look of resignation, as if he had expected no
less from her.

She felt, vaguely, as if she had done something wrong.

"I've been talking to Blevins," she said, at last, suddenly
reluctant to say it at all. She wished, now, that she had let him
speak first, but the damage had been done. "He wants us back by
tomorrow morning."

He gave a harsh laugh. "Telling tales, were you? His golden
protege reporting back on my latest waste of Bureau money?"

All sense of guilt vanished in an instant. She was angry -
intensely angry at him. "He called me, Mulder." She let her anger
show as ice, her voice controlled and level, chill. "I defended
you. I told him that you'd been attacked - that there was a
possible case here."

"Possible?" He laughed again, harshly, though his eyes were bleak.
"I have a case here, Scully."

She took a deep breath, ignoring him. She could hold onto the
anger, and let their partnership disintegrate into a chilly
nightmare of working beside each other, hating each other, or she
could speak.

She spoke.

"Two days ago, Mulder..." She sighed. "Two mornings ago, I was
called in my Blevins and told..." She raised her chin. "He told me
I was a disappointment to him, Mulder. *They* consider that I
support you too much. I have been *rebuked* for what I have done
for you."

He made as if to speak, the closed his mouth, and said nothing. He
looked as if he was thinking fast.

"Mulder." She pressed her fingers against her brow, kneading at
the sudden stab of a headache. Intellectually, she was challenged
more on one day of a case with Mulder than in a month of her old
job. That was a good challenge. Dealing with Mulder, though, was
just so emotionally wearing. He refused to give, refused to trust.

"Mulder," she said, again. "I judge each case on its own merits. I
don't take sides. I won't follow you beyond reason, but I won't
follow Blevins beyond justice. I don't have their prejudices. I
won't be loyal to you without question, but you *can* trust me."

Again, he opened his mouth to speak, but again he said nothing.
She had half expected him to laugh, and for their partnership to
break down before it had properly begun.

"I defended you to Blevins, Mulder, but, to you... " She
swallowed. "Speaking to you, Mulder... I'm not convinced we have
cause to stay."

His head snapped up. His eyes lit up. "Yes, we have." His face was
transformed by a smug smile, and she warmed to him, suddenly. She
knew he wasn't convinced that he could trust her, and still more
than half thought of her as a spy, but he held no grudges. "We
have a case, Scully," he smiled. He fluttered some papers in front
of her. "Not even Blevins could deny this one."

She sat down. "A case?"

"A case. Threatened kidnap. A murderer fleeing across state lines.
I'd say it was a case." She got a sense that he was enjoying
himself. "Bradley witnessed a murder in Boston. It disturbed him
deeply. He fled here to make a new start, but the killer, who
thinks he can identify him, has found him and is threatening him."
He smiled, triumphant.

She swallowed. "Is that it?" she asked, dryly. She had expected to
have to fend off tales of ghosts and aliens - to hear theories
that no sane man should utter. "You have evidence?"

"I have evidence."

It gave her little comfort. She already knew that Mulder's so-
called evidence was little more than wild surmise and huge
impossible leaps.

"Evidence." He counted off on his fingers. "The murder happened.
That's documented fact. A... contact at the Bureau faxed it over
to me." That was one. He moved to the next finger. "Bradley was at
the murder scene, at some point." Two. "I spoke to him just now.
He... said things.... things that support it."

He cleared his throat, suddenly awkward, but then seemed to
recover. He was playing a part, she saw, suddenly. It was her
first meeting all over again. He was throwing evidence at her,
daring her to oppose him, playing the part of being in control.
There was.... something.... beneath it. There was emotion there,
but she could not read him well enough.

"And you can prove it, Scully," he said, quietly, almost shyly. He
had shifted again, surprising her. "One of the victims had blood
beneath her nails. I have the analysis here. Could you..." He
seemed to need a moment to steady himself. "Please, Scully. I
would appreciate it if you could compare this with the blood found
at the house the other night."

She took the sample, barely glancing at it. "Is this it, Mulder?"
He never ceased to amaze her. "No X-File? Just a... a completely
ordinary case, but you still want to work it?" Her eyes narrowed.
"What aren't you telling me, Mulder?"

"Does it matter?" His voice grew defensive. "You have your case.
Blevins has his case." He coughed. He couldn't meet her eyes. "I
believe the killer is sending threats to Bradley using psychic
means." It all came out in rush, scarcely above a mumble. "It's
just the medium, Scully - the means of communication. It doesn't
change anything. You can still accept the case, can't you?"

And suddenly she laughed, and it was completely genuine, and it
felt *good*. The man had moments of complete charm. But, "I can
test the blood, yes," was all she said. Then the laughter died and
she was seized with awkwardness. She had to tell him, though - had
to. She knew it would ruin their brief moment of good humour, of
communication.

She cleared her throat. "Mulder. I spoke to Bradley's doctor
today. He had a theory, too."

He stiffened, wary. "Oh."

"He has an.... interest in the paranormal." She clasped her hands
in her lap, and wondered why she was finding it so hard to tell
him. It was certainly no secret that she didn't believe his
theories. "He believes.... Mulder, he believes that so-called
alien abduction experiences, near-death experiences, hauntings....
all of them are explainable by unusual brain activity,
particularly temporal lobe epilepsy."

"Oh," he said again. His face was closing off to her.

"People who are prone to temporal lobe disturbances...," she
began, carefully. "It can be triggered by things such as a strong
electromagnetic field. It can cause very strong hallucinations,
feelings of floating, feelings of paranoia. In tests, people have
reported to hearing voices, to being *sure* that they had been
abducted, when they had been in a chair, under observation, the
whole time. Others report, like you did, being unable to breathe,
unable to move, and even to losing consciousness."

"No." It was hardly above a whisper. He looked stricken. "No. I...
I know this theory, Scully. I've read it. Of course I've read it."
He passed his hand across his face. "You believe it?"

"I..." She cleared her throat. "I don't know. Dr Mortimer believes
that Bradley suffers from temporal lobe epilepsy, and you saw it
yourself, Mulder. Both his home and that deserted house are close
to electricity lines. It makes..."

"Go now, Scully." His voice was quiet, deadly. He turned his back
on her, and she could see the muscles of his shoulders shaking
with tension. "I don't want to hear it."

She folded her arms. "I thought you were able to hear opposing
theories, Mulder. As I see it, that's what I'm here for."

She heard him swallow. It sounded almost painful, and she wondered
suddenly if he wasn't angry at all, but hurt. "Theories, yes, but
not this. Not this, Scully." He sighed, shakily, still not looking
at her. "If you're going to adopt this as your explanation, go
now, Scully. You'd use it for everything - *everything.* Every
case, every testimony, *everything*... It would all be dismissed
as a hallucination by you. That's not putting my theories to the
test of science; it's categorically dismissing everything I
believe in."

She closed her eyes, headache pounding. "I can't just ignore it,
Mulder."

He breathed out. "No."

She could still hear the echo of his triumph as he explained the
case. There was nothing of that in his voice now - nothing at all.

She wondered what she had done.

****

Bay Area Natural History Museum

In the late afternoon, he was just another man, just another
walker out for some air, defying the Texas heat.

He grinned every time he walked over the miniature grave he had
made. The gun buried underneath seemed to call to him, it yearned
to be unearthed, picked up and lovingly caressed. It wanted to be
a part of him.

None of them understood. None of them could possibly know.

The time was close now. Very close.

Nothing after this point mattered. There was only the knowledge
that release was coming, and soon. And no one would stop him, not
the police, not Bradley, nobody.

Not even two FBI agents.

******

2:38 p.m.

She was silent for so long that Mulder allowed himself to hope
that she had left, had sneaked out the door on silent feet.

But then she sighed softly, and he admitted to himself what he had
known all along: she was still there.

"Scully."

"Mulder."

They spoke at the same time, and he finally turned around, faced
her. "What."

She appeared at a loss for words; genuine regret was in her eyes.
"Mulder, I want you to know..." She stumbled to a halt.

Abruptly he thought, <She can't say it either. When it's from the
heart, when it *means* something, she can't say it>. The
realization was stunning, and the final piece of the puzzle that
was Dana Scully clicked home. When it came to her emotions, and
revealing pieces of herself, Scully was as bad as he was. Both of
them hid behind internal walls, behind words. Whether of sarcasm
or logic, the intent was the same: Keep away.

He could deal with this, though, and Mulder smiled to himself.
Maybe Dana Scully would make a good partner, after all.

"I know," he said. "I didn't mean to accuse you."

Something like relief flashed through her eyes, then she frowned.
"You don't know what I was going to say."

Two could play at this game, and Mulder raised an eyebrow.

Scully relented. "I am a scientist, Mulder. As such you should
know that I won't just categorically dismiss your theories. They
need to be tested and weighed individually, on their own merit.
That's my job, that is why I've been assigned to you." She paused,
then went on. "If the Bureau wanted to discredit you and your
work in one sweeping gesture, they wouldn't need me. OPR could do
that by themselves."

He nodded, then gestured to the blood analysis she held in her
hand. "I'm glad to hear you say that, because I could really use
your help on this."

She blinked, then looked down at the papers. "What am I looking
at?" she asked.

"That's a sample from one Natalie Finley, aged 32. She was one of
the murder victims at a restaurant in Boston last February. She
and another woman were killed late one evening as they cleaned up
in the kitchen, after the restaurant was closed."

"What does this have to do with Geoff Bradley?" Scully asked.

"I think Bradley witnessed the murders, Scully. I think he either
saw them happen, or saw the killer soon afterward. Either way, I
think he can identify the killer, and is being pursued by this
killer."

"Who is sending him threats through telepathic means," Scully
said, but with a hint of amusement.

Mulder nodded graciously. "I believe so, yes. I believe the
killer is stalking him. And if you can match that blood with what
we took from that abandoned house where Bradley disappeared, we
can establish proof of this."

"All right." She took a step toward the door, then paused. "What
are you going to do?"

Mulder walked toward her. "I'm coming with you. I want to do some
research into these Boston murders, see what I can dig up."

Scully nodded, opened the door, then paused. "Mulder, Blevins
wants us back in DC tomorrow morning. He relayed that order from
Assistant Director Skinner."

Mulder frowned slightly. "Skinner? I didn't think he even knew
the X-Files existed."

"Apparently he does," Scully replied. She looked at him
expectantly.

"Why don't we wait and see what we can turn up?" Mulder offered.
"If we don't find anything worth investigating, I'll get on a
plane tonight, okay?"

Seemingly satisfied, Scully nodded.

Mulder smiled to himself as they left the hotel, glad that she
couldn't see his crossed fingers.

****

Houston FBI Office
4:55 p.m.

The two samples did indeed match, and Scully stared at them for a
long moment, nonplussed.

She did not share Mulder's confidence in his theory, although she
could easily picture a killer coming after the one man who could
identify him. Nonetheless, of the two people who had been at the
crime scene Sunday night, neither Mulder nor Bradley remembered a
third person being there. And if that third person could not be
established at the house, and since the blood obviously was not
Mulder's, that left only one potential suspect.

Geoff Bradley.

*Could* Bradley be a killer? Could he have repressed his memories
of a winter night in Boston? His insistence of a voice calling
him, threatening him, might that not just be the voice of
conscience?

Or perhaps Bradley truly didn't remember the murders. It was not
unheard of for a killer to block out the memories of the actual
moment of killing. Maybe, although even Scully had to admit she
was reaching, maybe he suffered from Multiple Personality
Disorder. And his "hearing voices" was merely another personality
speaking.

Scully shook her head. She was not the pyschologist, after all;
her partner was.

Partner. She sighed, thinking of Mulder. He had apparently
forgotten the incident in the hotel room, treating her as an equal
on the drive to the FBI offices. He had told her about his
conversation with Bradley, how scared the man had been, how he'd
said the killer knew him, and that Bradley would recognize him.
"I'd like to offer him immunity, Scully," Mulder had said. "Get
him in the Witness Protection Program. He says he doesn't want to
be watched, but his testimony could be important."

She nodded and agreed. Already she recognized in Mulder the need
to protect the innocent, and those who could not protect
themselves. It made him empathetic to victims, to people in need
of help.

Already she admired that about him, and at the same time,
recognized this character trait as his biggest weakness.

They had separated upon arriving at the office, Mulder
commandeering an empty office and immediately dialing up the
Boston field office. She had gone back to the forensics lab, to
hold up her end of their bargain.

Now she had her results, and Scully left the lab, pausing only to
remove her white coat. She walked down the hall and climbed up a
flight of stairs to the maze of offices and cubicles where she had
last seen Mulder.

To her irritation, he was nowhere to be found; only his suit coat
remained in the office he had used. She asked a young agent who
had been in the office across the hall, but the woman did not
recall seeing him. Finally, an older man spoke up. "He's not
here anymore, Agent Scully. He got a phone call and left."

She gritted her teeth and reminded herself that this man had done
nothing to her. "When did he leave?"

The agent shrugged. "About an hour ago."

****

15380 Saturn Lane
4:47 p.m.

Bradley's blue Honda was not in the driveway, or the garage, but
Mulder walked up to the front door anyway. He raised his hand to
knock, then frowned.

The front door was open.

<Too late!> his mind cried. Mulder pulled his gun out and pushed
the door open, leveling the weapon, eyes moving rapidly about the
room.
Seeing nothing, he went inside, calling, "Federal agent! Is
anybody in here? Bradley?"

He listened, hoping for a groan, for some indication that Bradley
was still alive, but there was only silence.

Mulder moved into the kitchen, then the dining room, again
shouting into the empty house. He started for the stairs,
intending to check the upstairs rooms. Halfway there, his
attention was arrested by the footprints on the white living room
rug. They headed up the stairs, and Mulder followed them
soundlessly, his gun still out and held in both hands.

The prints turned right at the top of the stairs and disappeared
in what had to be Bradley's bedroom. This room, too, was
abnormally neat and sparse. The only things out of place were the
clothes Bradley had been wearing earlier, on his visit to Mulder's
hotel room. The shirt and pants lay strewn carelessly across the
bed.

Mulder turned to go, then stopped. Two of Bradley's dresser
drawers gaped open, one of them revealing jeans, the other showing
a neat side by side stack of T-shirts.

Obviously Bradley had been in a hurry, coming home after his
meeting with Mulder, changing clothes, then leaving again. But
why? What had been so important that he had not taken the time to
pick up after himself, and what could have possessed him to leave
his front door open?

The rest of the house was deserted, as Mulder had expected, and he
went back downstairs in defeat. "Dammit," he sighed. He had
gotten a cryptic phone call at the FBI offices, asking him to come
as soon as possible, but it appeared he had taken too long.
Whoever Bradley had been afraid of, whoever had made him run, *he*
had gotten to Bradley first.

He took out his cell phone, intending to alert Scully, when it
rang.

The voice spoke without preamble, before he could even say his
name. "Mulder. I have him."

He tensed, for a moment not recognising the voice, then let his
breath out in a relieved rush. "Danny. Tell me."

Then he saw something on the kitchen table, and froze. He murmured
words, scarcely hearing them, only able to hope that they were
coherent. "Wait, Danny. Wait... There's something...."

Phone pressed to his ear, he ran outside, careful, even in his
urgency, not to disturb anything more in a house that should
probably be considered a crime scene. With one hand, he fumbled at
his car door, clambered in and started the engine. It was all the
work of seconds.

Distantly, he heard Danny give a wry laugh. "So, having a
partner's calmed you down, Mulder? You consider before acting,
now." The voice was warm with friendly irony.

Mulder swallowed. "I think...." Outside, the streets passed by in
a blur. He had the map of the area like a photograph in his mind,
and followed the route almost by instinct. "Bradley's gone, Danny.
Taken, or running... I don't know. He was scared, though -
desperate. I think he knows where the killer is. I think he....
maybe he's gone to confront him. He's desperate. I don't think he
cares if he dies. He just wants to be free."

There was a pause. "Mulder, I learnt something...." Then the sound
of a breath. "Where are you going? Tell me, just in case." The
laugh sounded forced. "I'm the only one who knows, aren't I?
You're going alone into danger, and I'm the only one who knows."
There was the sound of something slamming down. "Damn it, Mulder.
I'm a researcher. I don't want this responsibility. Why do you do
this to me?"

Mulder gave a laugh, refusing to let Danny darken the situation.
"Tickets, Danny. You know it's worth it." He slowed down, then
turned left, getting close. "Nothing's going to happen to me. "I'm
just checking out a.... a hunch. There was a newspaper on the
table. It was there the other night, and I closed it, but it was
open again on the same page. There was an announcement of a Museum
luncheon and open day. It was smudged, as if he'd run his finger
over it again and again."

"A hunch." Danny sounded disapproving. "Told your partner?"

"I was going to, but you called." He was surprised to find that he
sounded defensive. It was as if everyone, himself included,
expected him to be failure as a partner, unable to trust, unable
to confide. After their brief moment of connection early on, he
had *wanted* to tell her. It was a peace gesture, of a sort.

"Yes. About that...." Danny cleared his throat. "I've done some
digging. I think I have your man. I think I know who he... who he
*was.*"

Mulder was instantly alert, all thoughts of Scully forgotten.
"What?"

"That murder in Boston...? The same night, an apartment close by
was totally destroyed by fire. Arson. The occupant, one Craig
Packham.... His remains were never found, but he has never been
seen since. He... Mulder, I haven't seen a picture of your
Bradley, but he sounds the same, from your description. Same
build, same age, same colouring."

It was further confirmation. "He saw it. He was scared. He knew
the killer would come after him, so he erased everything he could
about his life and started a new one, with a new identity."

Danny made a soft noise of agreement, but there was something else
in his voice - some uneasiness.

And then he was there. Almost as soon as he saw the museum, he saw
the car - Bradley's car. It was clumsily parked, as if driven in
in a panic. Mulder pulled up behind it and switched off his
engine. "Thanks, Danny."

"No! Not yet. There's more."

The urgency in the other man's voice made him pause. With one hand
he checked his gun, then opened the door, but still he listened.

"Craig Packham... I checked everywhere, Mulder. There's no trace
of him being born, or.... or anything. He existed for a year in
Boston, but nowhere before that. Like Geoff Bradley, he has no
past. He is a construct."

Mulder passed his hand over his face. He heard the words, but his
focus was all on the building, scanning the windows for signs of
the man he had to help. He was scarcely listening, not processing
the meaning at all.

"Why would a man construct *two* fake identities within a year? I
can understand him changing his name to hide from the killer, but
*twice*, Mulder? Twice? Listen." His voice rose with urgency.
"It's not the action of an innocent man, Mulder. Stop. Please.
Call your partner. Call someone. I warned you. God, Mulder. I
warned you."

"Mmm." Mulder mumbled in vague acknowledgement.

He had seen him.

****

FBI Office
5:00 p.m.

Scully slammed the cell phone back onto the desk with barely
concealed anger.

He had gone. He had left her. He was talking to someone else on
the phone, and she couldn't even call him.

<Contacts> she remembered him saying. "Contacts," she repeated,
scathingly. It was a melodramatic word, speaking for her partner's
paranoia. It was a word from a spy movie. It was a fantasy, from a
world in which the government was plotting against its citizens,
and a boy's sister could be abducted by aliens.

And her job was to penetrate his carefully constructed fantasy
world, and challenge him to ground it in reality.

If he let her get close enough to do it.

She sighed, frustrated. With Mulder, it was one step forward and
two steps back. They had a moment when they worked like partners,
and then he swept it all aside and ran away without her.

But, then - <I didn't mean to accuse you...> - his words came to
her suddenly - his apology. Even through her irritation, she half
smiled. She knew he didn't yet trust her, yet he had left her - he
had persisted in leaving her. He left her alone with vital
evidence, not feeling the need to hover over her, watching her.

It was a gift. He was giving her respect. In a very real way, he
was giving her trust. She doubted that he had even realised it
himself.

She corrected herself firmly. It was two steps forward, and *one*
step back. It was a troubled journey, but it was progress. It was
hard, but she had joined the FBI because she loved a challenge.

She would wait, and he would return, and this time she would greet
him with evidence, not anger.

She would wait, and she would work.

****

Bay Area Natural History Museum
5:09 p.m.

"Bradley! Wait!"

Something in the set of the man's shoulders made Mulder pull back
his hand. He had been about to touch his arm, to pull him back,
but he knew the man was on a knife-edge of terror. He used his
voice only, an urgent murmur. People milled around them, and, for
Bradley's sake, he had no desire to make a scene.

"Bradley!"

He had seen the man almost immediately, heading for the museum
entrance. He had been coming, not from the parking lot but from
the other direction, the grounds. His t-shirt and hands were
stained with earth, and his eyes were wild.

"Bradley," he hissed, urgently. "I want to help."

"No." They were through the doorway, now. In the crowded lobby,
Bradley whirled round, his pale face flecked with sweat. "Leave me
alone. I know you're trying to help. I don't want you to get hurt.
Follow me, and you will."

Mulder held the man's gaze, breathing in, then out. "I'm following
you," let me follow you back outside, where we can call for help
and get you placed into protection, but, if, showing he was
unarmed. "I'm staying with you," he said, simply.

"Suit yourself." Bradley shrugged. "I warned you. You'll die now,
you know," he said, almost conversationally. "I'd have preferred
it if it wasn't you." As he moved slightly to one side, Mulder
caught a quick glimpse of the gun that was concealed beneath his
jacket.

"I'm staying." Mulder raised his chin. He clenched his fists at
his side. "Is the killer here - the man who's been threatening
you?" He lowered his voice. "You've come to kill him before he
kills you?"

"It's not here yet." Bradley switched again, as he had before,
going from calm to scared in an instant. This time, Mulder knew
that, in a few minutes, the man Bradley became would deny all
knowledge of the words he was about to say. "It's not calling me.
But it will come. It will come soon, and I'll be ready. It wasn't
enough last time. This time, I'll give it more. It has...." He
passed his hand over his brow, his fingers digging deeply. "God,
it has such an appetite."

His thoughts were whirling. The words were madness. His carefully
constructed theories had no place for them. He swallowed.
"Bradley..."

"I'm not Bradley!"

The thought of possession flashed into Mulder's mind, but he
instantly discounted it. "I know," he said, gently. "You created
the name after you.... after the murders. What is your real name?
Who are you really?"

"I'm not talking," Bradley spat out bitterly. "It's time."

"Time for what?"

Bradley laughed harshly. "Freedom."

Mulder bit his lip, thinking. He felt the situation tumbling out
of control, Bradley's words saying nothing he could understand.
Yet he knew this: Bradley was unstable, and had a gun, and they
were in a crowded building. His mind raced, seeking a way to
minimise damage. He let his eyes flicker from side to side,
looking at the doorways off the lobby.

"They'll stop you," he began, confidingly. "I want to help - you
know that. Trust me. All these people.... There are too many.
They'll overhear, and call the police. It'll look bad for you,
with the gun."

"I'm not giving it to you." Desperate.

Mulder cursed inwardly, though, really, he had had no hope of it
working. "I know," he said, gently. "I'm not asking you to. I know
it's your passport to... to safety. I just think we should go into
a smaller room, with fewer people." He pointed to the conference
room he had noticed. It was small, an interior room with no
windows, just a long wooden table and some chairs. Through the
open doorway, he could see only a small handful of people. He dug
his nails into his palms, and wished he could pray.

Bradley said nothing, but he walked forward, he took the hint.
Mulder's breath shuddered from him in relief.

"Okay." He knew his nerves had to stay out of his voice. In his
ears, it was controlled, firm. "We're in. It's safer here." He
raised his voice, wildly signalling with his eyes. There were only
three other people - one old lady, and a younger couple. He willed
them with all his strength to leave the room. Then he could shut
the door, and just *talk* to the man with no risk of anyone
innocent getting hurt.

"Bradley," he began. "I...."

"No!" Bradley whirled round suddenly, the gun suddenly in plain
view in his hands. He thrust it right into Mulder's chest. "I've
listened to you too long. It's time for you to listen to me."

Somewhere, someone screamed.

Mulder exhaled shakily. He raised both hands above his head,
fighting the urge to step back. He could feel the gun at his side
as if it was a physical touch.

"Now, shut the door," Bradley hissed. "Slowly. Don't try anything.
I'll kill you, and then them. I won't miss."

He considered his options, but saw no choice in the matter. If had
been just him... He swallowed hard. He would be powerless to save
the others if he had a bullet in the heart. Instead, suffused with
the shame of impotence, he reached out for the door and gave it a
push.

It clicked shut, locked automatically.

"Good." Bradley ran his tongue over his lips. He looked exhausted.
"Now... Now, we wait."

"Wait?" It came out hoarse. He was desperately aware of his gun,
of the torture of knowing that it was not yet the time to try to
use it. Go for it too soon, and he could kill everyone. Go for it
too late, and he could kill everyone.

"Wait... for it." Bradley's face was paper white with fear. "I'll
kill no-one until it's here. I.... I want it to be over, but I...
I have to wait."

There was a strange noise in the background, and Mulder realised
suddenly that it was whimpering. The three other people had drawn
together, their faces masks of terror. The older woman had her
head raised, dignified; the younger one was sobbing.

Bradley's hands flexed on the gun. He seemed to be working through
his thoughts, coming to some realisation. "But.... But maybe I can
draw it here, make it.... God, I want it to be over. If there's
blood.... Maybe it will bring it here. It wants blood."

Mulder's arms were growing stiff with lack of circulation, held
above his head. "Killing these people won't bring you freedom,
Bradley."

"Oh, I won't kill anyone, not yet." Bradley spoke as if it was
obvious. "I'll save the blood until it's here. I just want..." He
shrugged. "A pint or two? Whose?"

Mulder didn't even think of hesitating. There was only one answer
he could give. "Mine." He still hoped he could go for his gun, or
use his words to stop the man.

But the roar of a gun stopped his thoughts.


Houston FBI Office
5:16 p.m.

Somewhere behind her a door slammed with the sound of a gunshot,
and Scully's head snapped up. The man's voice on the other end of
the phone faded, dimming under the sudden rush of blood roaring in
her ears.

Without knowing why, her thoughts were suddenly on her partner.

"...Agent Scully? Are you there?"

Reluctantly she turned her attention back to the phone, to the
field agent at the Boston FBI office. "Y-yes, I'm here."

The agent repeated what he had just said. "There were really three
unsolved murders at that time. The two young women in the
restaurant, and a young man who lived nearby. We never found
anything on either one of those cases."

Mulder was quickly forgotten. "A young man?"

"Yes," the Boston agent said. "Someone by the name of Craig
Packham. His apartment was set on fire, a clear case of arson.
But we never found any remains. Damn near lost the entire
building--another young woman was badly burned."

Scully forced herself to stay calm. "Agent Burns, I don't suppose
you have a description of Packham, do you?"

There was a rustle of papers, sounding incredibly far away over
the phone line. "Yeah, we've got something. Just an artist's
sketch, based on the landlord's statement. We used it as a reward
poster, if anyone had any information on Packham."

"Could you fax that to me, please?" Her heart was pounding
rapidly, and her free hand gripped the edge of the desk.

"Sure," Burns agreed. "What's your fax number there?"

She gave it to him, then hung up. She took a deep breath, and
picked up the phone again. She had nearly completed dialling
Mulder's number when an agent suddenly stood up at the desk beside
hers.

"There's been a shooting at the Bay Area museum," he announced.
It was not an alarm, just a general announcement. "Police just
took a whole bunch of 911 calls."

There were a few headshakes, and mutterings about nutcases, but
nothing else. The police could handle a random shooting on their
own.

Scully looked back at her phone, which was still waiting for that
final digit to be pressed, and lifted her thumb.

"Agent Scully?"

Startled, she nearly dropped the phone. "Yes?"

"You got a fax. Here." An older woman handed her two pages, then
walked away.

She took them, noting that her name was spelled wrong on the cover
sheet, then laid that one aside. The other page was a charcoal
drawing, with reward information below it, and the phone numbers
to the Boston PD and FBI offices. The drawing was rough, and not
quite accurate, but there was no doubt as to the man's identity.
Scully stared down at it, and felt her heart constrict in her
chest as she gazed into the expressionless eyes of Geoff Bradley.

****

The gun went off, and he felt a split second of disbelief that it
was not aimed at him, after all, then the young woman who had been
crying screamed, a shockingly high-pitched sound. She fell
backwards, into the man she was with.

Mulder threw himself at Bradley, knocking the man off his feet.
They fell to the floor, the older man crying out in frustrated
rage. They grappled for the gun, held between them. In such close
quarters, Mulder could not reach for his own weapon, and he
concentrated on gripping Bradley's wrist, on slamming it against
the floor, trying to make the man drop the gun.

"Help us!" the older woman screamed, and the gun went off again.
The discharge was deafening, and in those first few silent
heartbeats after it fired, he was not aware of the pain, not aware
he had been hit.

Then Bradley was free, rolling clear of Mulder, leaping to his
feet, shouting something Mulder could not hear. He held the gun
out, turning in a wide circle, facing the three people huddled at
the other end of the room.

Mulder started to rise, and was abruptly halted by the sudden
eruption of pain along his right side. He fell back to the floor,
gasping, unable to move as Bradley approached and bent over him.
The gunman's lips moved, but through the roar in his ears Mulder
could not hear him speak. Bradley's lip curled into a sneer as he
removed Mulder's weapon, and tucked it into the waistband of his
jeans.

The man walked away, and Mulder closed his eyes against the pain,
against the hot blood that soaked his shirt. Shot. He was shot.
He had been shot *at* before, but never actually wounded.

The floor vibrated under him, and he opened his eyes, saw Bradley
approaching. The man knelt down beside him, and when he spoke
this time, Mulder could hear him. Bradley's voice was nearly
indecipherable, coming through miles of static, but still audible.

"You have to let it bleed," he said. "Let *it* smell the blood.
It will come now." He gestured with the gun. "Sit up."

Over the man's shoulder, he could see the other occupants of the
room. The older woman had her arms around the young man, who in
turn, held the young woman. Bright crimson stained her chest, and
she lay very still.

"Is she all right?" Mulder managed to croak.

Bradley shook his head. "She doesn't matter. She can't help me
now. It's too early." His expression turned hard. "Sit up."

Painfully, Mulder complied, bracing his weight with his left arm.
Blood was seeping under him, and he looked down hesitantly, afraid
at what he'd find.

The wound was not as bad as he had anticipated. Instead of
lodging itself in his body, the bullet had merely grazed him,
tearing a chunk of flesh from his side, just under his rib cage.
The wound bled freely, and Bradley's eyes lit up as he saw this.
He reached down and ripped Mulder's blood-soaked shirt, eliciting
a cry of pain from the agent.

"Quiet," Bradley hissed, and Mulder relaxed slightly when he
realized his hearing was nearly normal again. "You've got to let
it bleed," Bradley said, almost encouragingly. "That way it will
come."

"It?" Fresh blood streamed from the wound, wetting the tops of his
trousers. "Bradley, what will come?"

The man stood, apparently satisifed at the rate of bleeding. "It
thinks it knows me," he said. His head tilted back and his eyes
roamed the ceiling, unfocused. Suddenly he threw up his arms,
shaking the gun at the sky. "But *I* don't know *you*!" he
screamed.

Mulder pushed himself backward with rubbery legs, sighing with
relief when he felt the firmness of the wall behind his back.
"Bradley, killing us isn't going to get you anywhere," he said
wearily.

At this, the young man across the room began to cry, sobbing into
the older woman's breast. She held him, her face impassive, but
her eyes bored into Bradley's, burning with hate. "What do you
want with us?" she demanded.

"Shut up!" Bradley shouted. "You don't have to do a damn thing.
All you need to do is sit there. Sit and wait."

"Wait for what, Bradley?" Mulder asked. He tried to arrange his
thoughts into some semblance of order, but the insistent hot pain
in his side would not let him think.

"You'll see," the other man crooned. A smile crossed his face.
"Oh, you'll see."

****

Houston Field Office
5:25 p.m.

<Mulder. Thank God.>

Scully let out a breath, picture still held in her tight grip.
With her other hand she reached for her cell phone, confident that
it would be her partner. She paused only long enough to wonder at
the relief she felt. Had he affected her so soon, infecting her
with her paranoia? He was absent, following a lead of his own.
There was no reason to assume that he was in trouble.

"Mulder."

A man cleared his throat. "Agent Scully?" His voice was high for
man's, and he sounded young.

She closed her eyes, rubbing at her still-lingering headache.
"Yes."

"My name's Danny. I'm a.... friend of Mulder's. Has he contacted
you? Have you seen him in the last few hours?"

"No. Why?" She leant forward, weariness forgotten. There was
something in the man's voice - something that made her want to
reach for her gun, alert with tension.

"I'm worried about him." The man sounded positively terrified.
"I.... I didn't know what to do. He was looking for a man. He
thought he was a victim, but I don't think he is. I think he's
dangerous. I tried to warn him - I tried."

"I'm sure you did." She spoke to him as she would speak to one of
her nephews, soothing and dishonest. One day, she swore, she would
sit Mulder down and force him to tell her all about all his
'contacts', and how to deal with them. "What's happened, Danny?"

"The museum. He...."

She heard no more. A wordless exclamation escaped her lips. She
stood, the picture fluttering, ignored, to the floor.

"Agent Scully?"

She swallowed. "The museum? There.... there was a shooting there."

At the other end of the phone, the man sucked in his breath. "I
tried.... It's not my fault. I tried to warn him."

She waved with one hand for someone - anyone - to notice her. This
was information that needed to be out, fast. If one of their own
was involved.... <God> she thought. <He would have called. If he
could have, he would have called after this.>

"I found out all I could. I did what he asked me," Danny was
babbling. She wondered suddenly why Mulder used him, or who he
was. He was out of his depth, scared.

"Is that what you do?" she asked, harshly. "Find out things?"

"I work in the FBI records department. I have contacts."

"Then use them," she said, firmly. Then she felt a sudden spark of
anger. "You know Bradley is Packham? You knew, and you told
Mulder, but you didn't think of telling anyone else? What if the
Boston office *hadn't* told me?"

It was Mulder she was angry with, she knew. Mulder. He followed
all cases as if they were personal crusades, using his own
'contacts' instead of proper channels, erecting his own web of
intrigue to the most basic detective work. If he came through
this, something would have to change.

"He is more than Packham," Danny said, quietly. "Packham is a
construct. He has done this before."

"Then dig." She slapped him with her words. "Find out who he
*was*. Find out the name he was born with. Find him."

****

Time was relative - he knew that now. Running, lost in something
that was akin to a hypnotic trance, time flew. Waiting, waiting,
with blood sticky on your shirt, and the gaping hole of a gun
barrel pointing at your chest, seconds were hours, were years.

He had to talk. It would draw attention to himself, maybe get
himself killed, but he *had* to talk. Silent, he would drift into
a pain-filled stupor. Silent, he would be passive, like a boy
watching as his sister drifted from him, just letting it happen,
doing nothing to stop it.

Doing nothing.

"You want freedom, Bradley?" His voice was hoarse. "Is this how
you hope to get it?"

He saw the old woman's head snap up, and the young man's head move
sluggishly. They were placing their lives into his hands, letting
him talk for them. They were placing responsibility for their
deaths upon him, putting their blood on his hands.

He wanted to scream, to shout, to hand it over and cry, "I don't
want it." Yet he could no more do it than he could stop breathing.
He had steered Bradley into this room. The young woman's unmoving
body may as well have been killed by his own bullet.

"I hope. Yes." Bradley nodded.

"They will be out there, Bradley." He gestured with his head to
the door. "Police. FBI. They will find a way in. If you kill these
people, there will be no escape for you. There will be no taking
an assumed name, no feeling, no new start this time."

Bradley 's head snapped up. The dark maw of the gun barrel loomed
close. "Do you think I haven't though of that? I accept prison.
Prison free of *it* is no prison. Life like I already have it....
That is the true prison. Bars can not hold me like *it* does. Bars
can not hold my mind, or steal my sanity."

"So..." He shifted position, his side screaming. "You plan to kill
us, then what? Surrender?" He swallowed. "You have no demands?"

He saw a flash of black and a shattered blow to his cheekbone sent
him reeling. The back of his head slammed against the wall; his
cheek exploded into fire. Instinctive tears welled in his eyes,
hot and scalding.

"You don't get it." Bradley hissed. "I have no demands. They,
outside, are nothing - nothing. I will not negotiate. They can
offer me nothing to make me change my mind. I *will* kill you all.
Accept that."

"Kill us," he croaked, and even that small movement of his jaw
hurt like twisting burning wire. "Why?"

"*It*," he shrieked. "It wants me. It says it wants me. If I give
it four people's blood, it will be satisfied and stop wanting
mine."

"Was it satisfied after the two in Boston?" Mulder met the man's
eyes, and refused to let go. "And the... how many?.... before? It
found you again, didn't it? It always finds you. It's you it
wants, and no-one else."

He was guessing, floundering. He was lost in the darkness,
following the smallest glimmer of light, of understanding. The man
was raving, but the fear was real, and he, Mulder, had heard the
voice.

He had heard the voice, and the fear of dying was as nothing to
the terror of hearing it again, coming for him, right at the very
end.

****

Bay Area Natural History Museum
6:00 p.m.

She saw pale faces, and hands pressed to mouths, and dark shadowed
eyes fixed on the quiet building. She saw fair hair, and dark
hair, and grey hair of the crowd. She saw uniforms, keeping them
back, and fluttering crime scene tape. She saw a familiar face.

She couldn't see Mulder.

"Reeves."

The man gave a tense smile of acknowledgement. "Agent Scully."

"Where's Mulder?" She hadn't meant to ask so fast, but how could
she not? She had only known him for weeks, but she would mourn his
death. She would mourn Reeves' death, or Blevins'. She was human,
and all deaths were fitting cause for grief.

Reeves' eyebrows raised. "Mulder? Is he here? I..." He passed a
hand over his brow, and suddenly seemed human, and vulnerable. "We
don't have much. We have a locked door, and gunshots behind it. We
have had no contact. We believe there are hostages."

She clenched her fists. "Then I believe that Mulder is one of
them, and that Geoff Bradley is the man who is holding him. I
believe that Bradley has committed murder before."

"Oh." Reeves swallowed. "That's.... That's good."

She was shocked beyond words.

Reeves smiled apologetically. "Good. I mean, good - yes." He shook
his head. "We have someone on the inside. We can call Mulder, and
establish communication with Bradley. We can find out what his
demands are. Then, when the hostage retrieval team arrive, I'll
have it all in hand."

"Call Mulder," she echoed. She had barely heard his other words.
"Is that a good idea?"

And, suddenly, she was overwhelmed with a terrible feeling of
powerlessness, of being lost. She had trained at Quantico,
covering the theoretical side of it, then worked in the safe
confines of an autopsy bay. She had done so few cases in the
field. She felt young, and unsure, and inexperienced.

But Reeves' eyes were on her. She dug her nails into her palms,
raised her chin, and said, "Call him."

****

6:04 p.m.

The dead woman lay in the corner of the room, long hair mercifully
covering her face. The young man she had been with sat beside
her, his eyes blank and shell-shocked, his expression as dead as
the girl beside him.

The older woman had helped him to the corner, then returned to the
conference table, taking her seat with stiff dignity. She gazed
at Mulder from across the room, her eyes calm in her aged face.
Behind her stoic facade, he could practically see her mind at
work, and he sent her a silent prayer, that she would not try
anything rash.

Bradley sat in the middle of the table, the gun slack in his right
hand, Mulder's gun still tucked into the waistband of his jeans.
Large sweat stains mottled the back and underarms of his T-shirt,
and beads of perspiration dotted his face. His shoulders were
slumped, and his head was bowed forward, concealing his face in
shadow.

Mulder sat quietly, his hands in his lap, head back against the
wall. Blood still sluggishly oozed from the wound in his side,
and more of it was drying on his face. It hurt to breathe, to
move, just to think. Occasional shivers ran through him, and his
hands were cold. Vaguely he wondered if his cheekbone was broken.

For a time, there had been footsteps and chaos outside the locked
door of their tiny prison. Security guards had shouted, and
museum patrons had screamed in fear. An alarm had gone off, only
to be quickly silenced.

Now, nearly an hour later, they had heard nothing for some time.
Presumably the museum had been evacuated. But where were the
police?

The silence was nearly unbearable, broken only by the sounds of
four people breathing.

Bradley's head jerked upward, then dropped back down. In the
brief moment when his face was in view, Mulder saw that the man's
eyes were closed.

<He's exhausted> Mulder realized.

Exhausted, or just waiting? It didn't matter, Mulder decided. He
counted to sixty, then again, then a third time. Bradley remained
still, his head lowered, eyes still closed.

Slowly, Mulder drew his legs in. He kept his eyes on Bradley,
ready to freeze if the man showed any signs of noticing, but
Bradley didn't stir. At the other end of the room, the old
woman's eyes widened, but she said nothing.

Another count to sixty. Bradley's shoulders hitched, and Mulder
let his head fall back against the wall, closed his eyes and held
his breath, praying the gunman wouldn't look up.

A faint hissing sound got his attention, and he peeked open one
eye. The old lady had her lips pursed, and she stared at him
intently, relaxing when she saw him looking at her.

Bradley's position hadn't changed, and Mulder nodded at her,
silently thanking the woman.

Moving again with that careful, agonizing slowness, Mulder leaned
forward, off the wall. Silvery pain shot through his side, and he
clenched his teeth against a groan. Sympathy crossed the old
woman's face, and Mulder deliberately looked away from her. He
didn't *want* her sympathy; he just wanted her to stay quiet, and
let him do what he had to do.

Manuevering onto his hands and knees was an enormous effort, and
by the time he was done he was nearly panting, his mouth open in
an attempt to stay silent. Sweat had broken out on his forehead,
and the side of his face throbbed sickly. Fresh blood ran from
his side; his trousers were wet nearly to the knee.

Bradley was oblivious. He sat at the table, a human statue, head
bent, eyes closed.

Mulder crawled, inching forward a bit at a time, forcing himself
to keep moving despite his pain and fear. If he gave up now, if
Bradley saw him...

When he reached the table, he paused, then slowly sat back on his
heels. His side protested the movement, and he sank his teeth
into his lower lip to keep from crying out. Christ, it hurt.

Imperceptibly, he began to stand. An inch, then two, then three.
He scarcely breathed; his eyes were locked on Bradley, ready to
spring if the man showed signs of life, yet terrified he wouldn't
be able to move that fast.

He reached his full height and began stretching out an arm. The
gun on the table was tantalizingly close. He drew a shallow
breath, and his fingertips brushed metal; nerve endings tingled in
anticipation.

And then Mulder's cell phone rang, shattering the stillness, and
Bradley's eyes popped open.

****

In the agonizing second when the connection was unformed, Scully
knew Mulder was dead. She did not think this with hysteria, or
grief, or wonder, or anger. She merely acknowledged it as fact.

Then his phone rang, and she let out a breath she'd been unaware
of holding.

**

For a split second their eyes met, then they lunged for the gun,
hands meeting, fingers touching.

**

The phone rang a second time, and she suddenly wondered if they
were doing the right thing.

**

Bradley howled, an inarticulate sound of rage. His hand clamped
down on the gun, index finger sliding over the trigger.

Mulder settled for gripping Bradley's wrist, no longer slack
flesh, but a snake writhing under his hand. The man's skin was
hot to the touch.

**

Reeves met her troubled gaze, raised an eyebrow.

From down the street, a siren sounded. The Hostage Negotiation
Team was finally arriving.

**

The elderly lady rose from her seat, lips pressed into a tight
line, eyes gleaming with excitement.

Bradley lifted the gun from the table, and Mulder slammed the
man's wrist downward.

**

<Something isn't right> The phone continued to ring, an endless
buzz, broken by a few seconds of stillness. At each pause, her
heart lifted slightly, waiting for his voice.

**

With a roar, the gun went off as Bradley's finger jerked on the
trigger reflexively. The bullet buried itself in the wall.
Prudently, the old woman suddenly disappeared, dropping below the
table.

Mulder hung on desperately as Bradley stretched to his right,
pulling him forward so he was leaning over the sitting man.

**

"Shots fired!" somebody cried, and her heart stopped.

**

Too late, he realized Bradley's intentions, and could not sidestep
the wild swing of the man's left arm.

The blow knocked him into the table, setting his side on fire
again, forcing him to let go of Bradley's wrist. His knees
buckled at the flare of agony from his wound.

As he fell, Bradley stood.

**

<Answer.> She could not breathe. <Why don't you answer?>

**

The gun was coming around to bear on him, and Mulder hit the floor
with a grunt.

Bradley's mouth twisted into a grimace of hate. "You..." he
breathed.

**

<Mulder, please> She pressed the phone hard against her head, an
empty gesture of yearning.

**

>From on the floor, the old woman screamed in a cracked falsetto.

Bradley's head snapped up, seeking the source of the sound, and in
the moment it took for him to realize that she was cowering on the
flooor, sanity returned to his eyes.

**

When the phone was finally answered, at first she thought she was
imagining, experiencing an auditory hallucination due to her
desire to hear something, anything other than a ringing phone.

Then the voice repeated itself. "What do you want?"

Not Mulder. Geoff Bradley.

*******

Fox Mulder was floating. Eyes closed, he let himself drift, held
up by the arms of the cold grey ocean. The waves whispered and
roared, swelling in his ears. He was dimly aware that somewhere
behind him was pain. Here, though, was nothing but the supporting
grey water....

And the voice.

<Voices> he thought, weakly, almost wonderingly. He became aware
of a strange and heavy duality. Part of him was still conscious -
still in the body that hurt, feeling the wall against his
throbbing head, and the sticky pain of his side. Vaguely, he heard
Bradley's voice, talking about death and blood, and measuring out
his remaining minutes of life in his words.

The other part, though - the part that was drifting away from
awareness - heard another voice, softly whispering in the waves.

"You won't stop him. You can't. Not you."

In the grey clouds of his vision, he saw again a little girl,
floating as he could only watch and do nothing, try nothing. It
was not *that* voice that spoke to him now, he knew. It was his
personal image of failure, and his mind supplied it.

"You can't stop him, and he can't stop me." The voice grew louder,
deeper. It was stormy water, gleeful when it caused drownings. "I
will come for him. You are a bonus. I will take your blood, and
take his soul."

Horror took him by the throat. "You?" Before, when he had heard
the voice, he had run, fleeing Bradley's house as fast as he
could. This time, he was bound by the water, surrounded by the
voice. The only place to run was back to the pain, back to death.

"Me." It laughed, like a thousand rocks scraping on the shore.
"Yes. He waits for me. He is scared, and hopeful. He thinks he can
give me others' blood, and it will satisfy me. But it's *him* I
want." It was like a hungry child, longing for ice cream. There
was a deep yearning in the voice, even through the horror.

He felt hollow with terror, but angry, too - angry. He would
fight. He would die, but he would fight. "You're here, now. Then
why are you waiting?"

It laughed. "I enjoy watching. Your pain; your pathetic attempts
to play the hero; his hope... I enjoy the spectacle. Soon,
though." There was a wet noise, as if it was smacking its lips. "I
will show myself soon."

"You enjoy pain? What does that make you?" He was seized by a
wild, flickering hope that, whatever it was, he could talk to it,
anger it, and force it to make a mistake.

Even as he spoke, he knew he was wrong.

"I like blood, and pain, and death." The voice rose until it was
the shriek of a storm wind. "He does too. He won't accept that. He
runs from the truth; he runs from me. He - runs - from - me."

"He escaped you, too." In his mind, he clenched his fist, raised
his head, and stared defiantly at.... what? "How many times, now?
He kills for you, and you take the blood he offers, and let him
slip away? Is that how it works?"

"Not this time." Hissing painfully. He felt cold breath on his
face, like a knife blade on his cheek. "This time, I take him
first, then we come for you. We *know* you, Fox Mulder. You have
no hope."

And he saw again his grail, his little girl suspended in the air,
leaving him. He reached for the memory, and treasured it, and
spoke as much for her as he did for himself, now. "I will always
have hope," he said, simply, quietly. "Always."

His only answer was a laugh. Pain flared in his side and his face,
and the only voice was human, and very real.

Geoff Bradley was killing him, condemning him with words.

****

"What do you want?"

Scully and Reeves held the cell phone between them, her fingers
resting on his, his breath on her cheek. Geoff Bradley was
talking, and she was suddenly, terrifyingly, aware that she didn't
know what to say to him. She was not a hostage negotiator, and had
never been trained as one. She was supposed to call for back-up,
follow proper procedure, let the experts handle the tasks they'd
been trained for.

She was Mulder - impatient, rash, wrong.

But Reeves' eyes were shining with anticipation. "What do *you*
want?" he asked, quietly.

"Nothing."

Reeves ran his tongue over his lips. "You're holding people in
there?"

"Yes."

"Agent Mulder, too?"

"Yes."

She could feel the tension in Reeves' hand, and in her own. Held
between them, the phone was shaking. She was dimly aware of people
shouting commands, and running, and felt like a small girl caught
smoking by her mother. This was wrong - wrong.

"Are they still alive?" She caught her breath at Reeves' words.

"One died." He sounded almost accusing. "The others are okay.
Agent Mulder's hurt." There was a rustle of clothing, as if the
speaker had turned round. "I think he's unconscious at the moment.
He was trying something when you called." His voice rose angrily.
"Would have got the gun if you hadn't called."

Instinctively, she raised her other hand to her mouth. She looked
for the same horror in Reeves' eyes, but saw nothing.

"What do you want?" Reeves asked again. "Why are you holding them?
What are your demands?"

"Nothing. Nothing *you* can give me. I am asking nothing, and I
*will* kill them all. There is not a thing on earth that you, or
the police, or the FBI can offer me that will stop me. I *will*
kill them, as soon as...." He cut off abruptly.

Reeves leant forward. "As soon as what, Bradley?"

"Bradley?" The man gave a derisive laugh. "That's not my name, not
any more. I was never Bradley. Bradley was my life away from this.
Bradley can't stop me."

"What...?" She spoke suddenly, but the words wouldn't come. She
coughed. "What is your name?"

He was silent for a very long time. She hardly dared breathe. She
could hear him breathing, feel Reeves breathing, and, very quiet,
almost imagine that she could hear Mulder breathing, pained and
scared.

"What's your name?" Reeves demanded, in a voice very different
from her own gentle question.

"I was George Bailey but he died and I can't remember him." It all
came out in a rush, angry and defiant. "It wants me to remember."
His voice rose, becoming an unearthly shriek. "I won't! I don't
know it! I don't...."

"Bradley?" She started. It was Mulder's voice, very quiet,
speaking not to her but to the man who was going to kill him.
"Bradley, I spoke to...."

There was a click, and then nothing.

Reeves snatched the phone from her hand, and threw it to the
ground with a curse. "I nearly had him..."

"No." She turned the full force of her anger on him. "We didn't
nearly have him. We were never close."

****

It was coming. It was closer.

"Come on!" he shouted. "Come and get me!" He raised his fists
over his head, still clutching the gun and cell phone.

Any moment now.

"What are you, afraid? I said, come on!" He laughed in sudden
abandon.

Maybe it would not come, after all. Maybe he had finally cheated
it of what it wanted. It knew it could not have him, and had
slunk away in defeat.

<...> A ghostly chuckle wafted through the room.

The man who had once been George Bailey screamed.

****

Bradley's scream jolted Mulder back to the present, back to pain
and blood and cold.

Sitting in a poorly ventilated room under a broiling Texas sun,
Mulder shivered. A part of him knew he was slipping into shock,
that his chances of talking Bradley out of murder were growing
slimmer by the minute.

The rest of him didn't care.

"Why are you going to kill us?" The old woman, nearly forgotten by
Mulder, spoke in a tremulous voice. All her earlier poise and
self-control had vanished when Bradley had roused from his stupor,
had been only seconds from killing Mulder. "What have we ever
done to you?"

Bradley's head whipped to the side, staring at the woman with wide
eyes. "Wh--what?"

She swallowed visibly. "Why?" was all she could manage.

Slowly Bradley lowered his arms, but did not reply to the woman.
He turned his head in short, jerky movements, trying to see
everything at once.

Mulder breathed in as deeply as he could through the ice-cold fire
in his side. "What is it, Bradley? What's coming?"

"Shhh!" Bradley shouted. "Listen! It's coming!" His eyes
glittered with feverish excitement.

And something was indeed coming. Mulder could feel it, feel the
electricity level in the room increase, the hairs on the back of
his neck standing nearly on end. A darkness seemed to be creeping
over the edges of his vision, a darkness that vanished when he
turned his head and tried to look at it straight on.

"What is it?" Mulder asked, more insistently. Faced with forced
disillusionment, of the shattering of all his theories, he found
he was not at all eager to know the truth anymore. Having to hear
that voice, to see what produced it...he shuddered convulsively.

Bradley looked at him with a sudden clarity all the more startling
for its sharpness. "You already know what it is," he said simply.

Mulder blinked. "I do?"

"It follows me," Bradley whispered in agony. "I can't make it
stop, it won't stop, it won't leave me alone." His voice rose.
"It won't leave me alone." Abruptly, he dropped to his knees
beside Mulder, lowered his voice back to a confiding whisper.
"But it will now. I'll *make* it go away."

Some response was required of him, and Mulder forced himself to
sit up straighter. "How will you do that, Geoff?"

Bradley giggled, a shockingly high-pitched, repulsive sound.
"*You* are going to make it go away. You," he swiveled from the
hip, gestured at the old lady, "and you," and one more turn, to
face the young man in the corner of the room, sitting deathly
quiet next to his dead girlfriend, "and you."

He faced Mulder again, raised the gun. "Only not with this. You
thought you could stop it with this, but you were wrong. You only
injured it; you can't kill it. Nobody can kill it. But I can
make it go away. I can."

Stunned, Mulder could only gape at Bradley. He *had* shot
something that night at the abandoned house. Something that had
bled, and left behind evidence of its existence. And in doing so,
he had created a diversion, allowing Bradley to flee, only to
postpone the inevitable.

Surprisingly, this revelation produced only one thought. <At least
Scully will have to believe me now.>

Bradley was silent and Mulder let his head tip back against the
wall. That coldness, that precursor to shock, was still steadily
creeping over him, rendering him lethargic. He shivered and
blinked rapidly, striving to keep Bradley in focus.

"You wanna hear something, Agent Mulder?" Bradley said, still in
that conspiratorial whisper. "My name isn't Geoff. It isn't
Bradley, either."

"What is your name, then?" Mulder asked dully, knowing he should
remember, Bradley had shouted it over the phone. But his memory
was clouded, it was too difficult to think.

Overhead, something laughed, a low chuckle that sent cold spikes
of horror through Mulder's veins, chilling him in terror. He
shrank back against the wall, his feet feebly pushing at the
floor, trying vainly to blend into the drywall behind him. He
could not stay here, he did not want to be here when that
laughter, when that *thing* arrived.

Bradley lunged to his feet, shrieking. "All right, then! Let's
get it on!"

Seated at the table, the old woman cried out in fear, and lowered
her head onto crossed arms, sobs shaking her body.

The laughter grew and swelled, became a young girl giggling at a
manic speed, and Mulder clapped his hands over his ears, suddenly
knowing if he had to listen to that laugh one more second he would
go insane.

"Where are you?" Bradley screamed. "Come out! Show yourself, you
bastard! Come on!"

Like a radio being turned off, the laughter suddenly died.

****

The leader of the Hostage Negotiation Team was named Barrett.
Scully's pleasant surprise at discovering a fellow woman officer
was short-lived, however.

"Who made the phone call to inside the building?" the woman
demanded. "Who authorized that?"

For a moment, Scully prayed Reeves would be a gallant gentleman,
but to her chagrin, he immediately pointed to her. "She did."

She bit her lip. <Bastard.> She should have known. This was the
'90s; women law enforcement officers were common, and chivalry was
dead.

Barrett turned to Scully, and although her tone softened, her
words were still harsh blows. "I understand your desire to reach
your partner. However, in putting your own concerns over those of
all those hostages, you may have further endangered them."

<It wasn't my idea,> she thought angrily. But there was no point
in saying it.

"The gunman, Bradley, he has the phone now?"

"Yes," Scully said. "And it's probably safe to assume he has two
weapons, as well. His own and Agent Mulder's."

Reeves looked at her sharply, and Scully raised her eyes to him
defiantly.

Barrett nodded. "Okay. What's Agent Mulder's cell phone number?"

Willingly, Scully gave it to her. She watched through dull eyes
as the negotiator walked off.

Barrett was right, of course. Never mind that Reeves had been
pressuring her. She *had* put her own selfish interests ahead of
the hostages, ahead of Mulder's welfare.

Sudden tears stung her eyes, and she turned away. "Excuse me," she
murmured to Reeves.

The parking lot was a scene of controlled chaos, and she wove her
way through police cars, men with radios, and yellow-jacketed
Hostage Negotiation Team members. None of them seemed to notice
as she walked by; only the curious spectators behind a line of
police tape paid any attention to her.

In the late afternoon sun, the museum appeared peaceful, a beige
building slumbering under a bowl of bright blue sky. It was the
sort of building that drew you in, its cool and dimly lit rooms
beckoning as an oasis from the unrelenting heat.

Scully's lip curled into a sneer. <What a crock.> Somewhere in
that building lay a dead person, and her injured partner.
Somewhere in that deceptively calm-looking facade, panic and
terror had been given free rein, and the results had been deadly.

She reached the police car that had brought her to the museum,
stopped walking, and sighed. She closed her eyes tight against
the tears, hating them, hating her weakness, hating the ignorance
that had gotten her into this situation.

Was there anything she could have done differently, anything to
have avoided all this? Reluctantly, she conceded that there was
not. Short of putting Mulder on a plane immediately after her
arrival in Texas two days ago, there was nothing she could have
done.

Mulder, she was already learning, had an innate ability--or
talent, really, she thought cynically--for getting into trouble.
And it was dangerous trouble, whether it was running into the
woods of Oregon, or getting two teenagers to help him sneak onto
an Air Force base. Or walking brazenly into a murderer's house.

What was it, that made him act that way? She could not understand
it, the impulsive, reckless behavior that marked her partner. Was
that one of the reasons he had been banished to the basement of
the Hoover building? Out of sight, out of mind? Did Blevins, did
AD Skinner know the risks they took if they gave Mulder his head?

Suddenly, irrationally, she was angry. Of course they knew. They
knew, and in order to avoid the fallout from such an action, they
deliberately kept Mulder in check. They gave him a desk and a
nameplate, stuck him in the basement, and tried to forget about
him. They disallowed his 302's and said his cases weren't worth
wasting time and money on. They stuck him with a partner who was
supposed to rein him in, throw cold water on his enthusiasms,
debunk his work and generally give the administration a reason for
getting rid of him.

The anger within blossomed into full rage. They had done this,
and she had gone along with it. Of course she had not known their
intentions, but she knew them now, by God, and she would not let
them continue. She would be a scientist, use her logic and
medical knowledge on a case, but she would not play their games.

She was surprised at herself, at her anger. Just two days ago she
had been willing to dissolve their partnership herself. And now,
now she would be damned if she let anyone break them up. They had
assigned her to Mulder, to the X-Files, and that was where she was
staying.

Mulder...a pang shot through her, and she raised her head, looked
up at the museum. He was somewhere inside, injured and in pain,
probably scared, definitely alone.

She wasn't quite sure what she thought about her reckless partner.
He irritated her, made her laugh, challenged her, made her
question his sanity. He could go from charming gentleman to
arrogant jerk in a matter of seconds, and then do a complete
reversal and ask for her opinion, and genuinely want to hear it.
He was intelligent, sarcastic, and hid deep within a sensitive and
vulnerable side.

In short, Fox Mulder was an enigma, and Scully was suddenly
determined to figure him out, his ambitions, his reasons for doing
what he did.

She started forward, and halted when her cell phone rang. It
couldn't possibly be Mulder, yet she found her heart racing as she
answered. "Scully."

"Agent Scully, this is Danny. I've got some information for you."

****

Light reflected from the beads of sweat on Bradley's brow. Bloody
handprints on the floor were smeared into a wild, swirling shape.
Every chest rose and fell in a different rhythmn.

Seconds seemed endless. His head moving sluggishly, Mulder saw
every small detail of the scene with crystal clarity, as if
recording a snapshot of the scene of his death.

The dead woman wore a pink blouse with the top two buttons undone,
revealing motionless white skin. The older woman's t-shirt had a
picture of an animal on it. Perhaps it was a tiger. He couldn't
tell.

Death was close now. The presence - the voice - was close, but
silent. He could almost feel its breath on the back of his neck,
ruffling the soft hairs there, whispering, "Why can *you* feel me?
Why can *you* hear me? I am not for you..."

"No," he murmured, struggling to pull away. <No. You're not real.
If this is real, I don't want to believe.>

A wisp of laughter like smoke, and the touch withdrew. Mulder let
out an involuntary moan.

Bradley's head snapped up.

"It's time," he said, firmly.

******

She scarcely heard the words. Danny spoke in a nervous torrent,
flustered, apologetic. Eyes fixed on the yellow suits moving with
purposes, ears straining to hear their shouted orders, she heard
him as a bee, buzzing too close to her ear. He was an irritant.

"I have a possible for his previous identity," she heard, as a
black- clad man with a gun walked, with fluid grace, to the museum
door. "Wanted on suspicion of stabbing a man."

There was movement in a van. She saw quick, tense smiles.

".... too many." He was like a child, reporting failure. She heard
him with only half her mind. "... huge task..."

Those words cut like a knife, seizing her attention. "Huge?" she
echoed, as an ambulance drew up, and waited, and waited. "You're
safe. Try being hurt and alone, locked up with a madman with a
gun, facing death that *you* got him into by not telling anyone
when you found out Bradley wasn't who he appeared to be."

She took a deep breath, biting off her torrent of words. She
wasn't being fair and she knew it. She was angry with Danny, angry
with Reeves, even angry with Mulder.... Really, though, she was
angry with herself, and ashamed. She had seldom allowed herself to
make mistakes before.

She closed her eyes for a moment, steadying herself. "I'm sorry,"
she said, quietly. "We think his real name is George Bailey. Does
that help?"

"George Bailey," Danny mumbled. "Sounds familiar. I think he was
on my list of possibles. Wait a minute..." He sounded close to
tears, and she wondered suddenly if he was Mulder's friend, not
just his contact. There was so much she didn't know about her
partner. He remained there when she left the office, and was there
before she arrived. It had never occurred to her to ask what he
did outside work, or to wonder about Mulder the man.

"Agent Scully?" She whirled round, and saw one of the hostage
team, his face giving away nothing.

She swallowed hard, then mouthed, "Yes?"

"I was asked to tell you... Seeing as Agent Mulder is your
partner...." He gestured towards the van. "We have a microphone in
place. We can hear what's happening in there."

"Is he okay?" she asked, quickly. "Mulder?"

It was a revelation to herself how much she cared, how much she
needed to know that he would be safe. Already, life before the X-
Files seemed grey. Mulder had infuriated her, stretched her
intellect, challenged her, and shown her a world she would never
have even been aware of. He had respected her, throwing her
straight in at the deep end, daring her to hold her own. She had
already realised that she could thrive on the challenge of
*working* with him, but, perhaps, she was already close to
*liking* him.

"He's alive," the man said. "It's all I know."

"George Bailey." She started, having forgotten the cell phone. She
realised that her fingers were clutching it until they were white
and shaking. She breathed in, and out, and forced herself to
relax. "There's something... He.... he killed someone when he was
seven."

"Killed?" she echoed.

She saw it for what it was, and understood it with a bone-deep
sense of fatalism. Mulder had seen a pathetic victim crying for
help, had offered that help, and would die for it. He had never
stood a chance. It had never crossed anyone's minds that they
were dealing with a man who had killed since childhood - killed
repeatedly, and got away with it. The talk of voices was a lie -
had to be. He was playing with them, courting capture by drawing
attention to himself. No truly insane man could have engineered a
lifetime of successful identity changes. He was sane, an excellent
actor... and utterly deadly.

"Accidentally," Danny added. "Maybe." He sighed. "He'd stolen his
father's gun. The official line is that he and a friend were
playing with it, and it accidentally went off, but there were....
doubts. The dead boy's sister said that she heard George
threatening to kill her brother. There had been certain other
incidents - times when George had threatened children, or hurt
them."

"What was his story?" She was held by it now, needing to know any
detail that would help them negotiate, but needing also to see
Mulder, and hear him.

"He said he didn't remember any of it. It seemed to scar him,
though. He became docile. There was no more trouble with other
children. But he also stopped excelling at school, and became
merely average. It was as if he lost all his.... his spirit." He
paused, as if skimming through a report. "His.... disturbance
started at sixteen," he said, finally. "He went missing a few
months afterwards."

"And has been killing ever since," she said, harshly. She had no
desire to delve into the man's psychology, or understand why he
did what he did.

He was a killer, he had her partner, and that was all that
mattered.

****

"I know you're there, watching me." Bradley whirled round in a
full circle, gun sweeping in a wild arc. Spit sprayed from his
mouth as he spoke. "Pretending you're not here, playing with me.
*You're here.* You think you've come for me..."

"I *have* come for you." There was no trace of laughter in the
voice now - none at all. There was menace there, but there was
almost yearning, too. Mulder felt inexplicable tears start in his
eyes.

"No." Bradley gestured wildly with the gun. "I have offerings for
you. Take her...." A jab with the gun. "And him." Jab. "And him."

"Not good enough. You *know* it can only ever be you."

"You took the others last time, and the time before, and the time
before, and..."

Mulder swallowed. How many times? How long had this blood-soaked
tragedy been unfolding? Through his cold shivers and stupor, he
resolved that he would be the *last* in the long line. There were
two lives to save, and more in the future.

"I was... distracted by the blood," the voice admitted. "We
*share* that, Bradley." It said the name mockingly. "How long
since you let yourself feel it? Let yourself feel it again,
George. Feel it like you did then. Feel the old lust for blood,
the old love of hurting others. Don't kill as an offering to me,
but for yourself - for *us.* You let yourself forget, George." An
intense, low hiss.

Bradley shrieked. "You're lying," he sobbed. "It was an accident.
It wasn't me."

"It was us, and now we will be whole again."

Mulder was mesmerised. He was dimly aware of the old woman's eyes
flickering in panic, wonderingly. He heard her speak - wild,
scared words meant only for him: "I can't hear anyone. Who's he
talking to?"

****

"Who's he talking to?"

Scully pressed her hand against her mouth to stop herself crying
out. She was unnecessary, she knew - let into the van only because
Mulder was her partner. This time, she would let the experts
handle it.

"He's hearing voices in his head." Barrett cursed. She held
Mulder's cellphone in her hand, and she was all tension.
"*Talking* to them. The crazy ones are hardest."

Scully barely heard. She was straining to hear any sound that was
recognisably Mulder, but heard only Bradley, talking to.... to
*nothing.*

She had never before felt so completely, utterly powerless.

****

"You say you lust for blood?" Bradley laughed, his laughter like a
shadow of that *other* terrible laughter. It was the same timbre,
even the same voice, though without that terrible creeping evil.
"Then it's time. I'll give you blood."

He raised the gun.

****

"Now."

Warped by the microphone, Mulder's cellphone rang, and rang.

No-one answered.

They heard footsteps, and a woman whimper, and voice saying,
"Whose blood first? Believe me, you won't be able to resist it."

And ringing....

****

It was a struggle to stay conscious. There was a rushing sound in
his ears, like waves on shingle, and that itself stirred vague
uncomfortable memories of a voice. And through the rushing was a
ringing....

Bradley's footsteps left bloody stains on the floor. <Probably
mine> Mulder thought, vaguely, then wondered why it mattered.

The ringing bothered him.

Then a strangled scream needled his consciousness, jerking him to
full awareness. He saw images like snapshots, like reality frozen
by a strobe light.

Bradley, gun raised, looking down the barrel at the sprawled form
of the older woman.

His cell phone, discarded and stained with blood....

****

The tension was a physical ache in her stomach. From the
microphone, from the cell phone, there was silence. From
somewhere, she heard a woman's terrified breathing.

"Geoff Bradley?" Barrett's voice made her start. She wondered why
the woman was talking, why she was holding the phone as if it was
a lifeline.

"No." It was a hoarse whisper, and urgent. "Mulder."

****

His hands were slippery on the phone. Distantly, he heard a
woman's voice, and was vaguely disappointed that it wasn't
Scully's. Even now, with lives depending on him, he wanted her to
hear the laughter, to challenge her to explain it.

"Will Bradley talk?"

"No." He had to hiss through the pain of his face. "Not to you.
He's past that now. He *will* kill us." And, God, he was scared.
He would resist, and fight, and die, if he had to, to save the
others, but he was still scared and hurt.

The laughter swelled. There were taunting words there, too. *It*
was telling Bradley to kill by all means, but it would make no
difference. "We can enjoy the blood together, and then kill them
outside too."

"You haven't got time," he whispered, desperately. "You *hear*
him."

Bradley's finger was on the trigger. He was shaking, as if
fighting an internal war. The old woman seemed to have fainted.

"We can break the door down, but it's an extreme measure. It could
startle him - make him kill."

"Damn it, he's going to kill us anyway." He felt rising panic. In
his mind, he could hear the thud of falling bodies, and knew that
it was his fault. He had been so close, earlier - so close. Just a
second faster....

A trembling finger on a trigger half-pulled....

"Wait!" he gasped. If the sudden noise could startle the man, and
the woman's life was at stake.... "Bradley," he called. "Bradley!"
The man's shoulders stiffened, but he didn't turn round. He tried
again. "Bradley, it's had a taste of my blood already, and liked
it. It makes sense to kill me first."

The man turned round, gun swinging with him. There was murder in
his face, but a desperate plea in his eyes. The sound of the
laughter was torture.

As he stared into the barrel of a gun, Mulder shouted, "Now!"

****

"Now!"

She heard his voice, and knew what he had done, and felt fury.

"SWAT team, now!" Barrett repeated Mulder's words. "Now."

Confusion welled. There were shouts, and crashes, and orders, and
footsteps. She heard someone cry out, and.... <is it Mulder? Is
it> God, she could not *see.*

And then she heard a gunshot, and everything stopped.

****

He let the phone drop from his nerveless fingers. A black-booted
foot stood on it, crushing it. He was dimly aware of hands
reaching for him, and someone touching him.

He couldn't move. His breathing was racing, but he couldn't catch
a breath properly. His heart was fluttering, yet his limbs felt
cold, as if starved of blood. His head was on fire, and his vision
was clouded. Others would handle it now, and he was hurt more than
he had ever been hurt.

"George?"

Sluggishly, he raised his head at the soft whisper. He saw
Bradley, lying on the floor, blood seeping from his chest. Around
him, the air seemed to be indistinct, as if.... as if *something*
was bending over him.

"I didn't want this to happen, George." It was a soft, almost
loving whisper. "I wanted you. I wanted us to be one again."

Bradley exhaled. His lips moved, but no words came out.

There was a fond, triumphant laugh. "You remember, do you? Or are
you too weak to fight me now?" The indistinct patch of air seemed
to contract, to close in on the bleeding, broken man. It was
almost like.... <like arms embracing him> Mulder realised,
suddenly.

Bradley groaned. "No..."

"Yes." The voice smiled. "We'll die as we were born - together. I
am part of what you were. Together, we *are* what you were. Call
me by my name."

Bradley was silent for a very long time, then he sighed, as if
defeated. "George." It was little more than a breath.

And then the patch of air was gone, and Bradley opened his eyes,
and there was a knowing look in them that was totally new to him.

Mulder found himself close to tears. He couldn't begin to
understand, yet, at the same time, on some deeper level, he
understood completely. It was a reunion. It was a man accepting
the dark side of himself. It was a man returning to what he was,
long ago, before he changed.

And he cried the tears of a man scarred by a single childhood
incident which killed the boy who *had* been, and the man who
*could* have been.

****

Clear Lake Regional Medical Center
Wednesday, July 7, 1993
9:18 a.m.

For the second time in three days, she sat by her partner's
bedside in a hospital room in a southern suburb of a big city in
Texas.

A single, terse phone call to Blevins' secretary had established
that she and Mulder were not coming back to DC this morning, that
they would not be going anywhere for several days.

Dana Scully, however, was not going anywhere, period.

The events of the evening before were blurred together in her
mind, a photograph left out in the rain, the colors blending
together, obscuring the image beneath. She found she could
remember specifics, small details, but she could not for the life
of her string together more than five minutes' worth of memories.

They had not let her into the building, Barrett stubbornly
ignoring her pleas, so the first time she had seen Mulder was when
they had carried him from the musuem. Half-conscious on a
stretcher, an oxygen mask over his face, and covered in blood, she
had nearly wept at the sight.

Geoff Bradley was dead. A search was on, to ascertain the man's
true identity, but Scully knew what they would find. A man named
George Bailey had died in that museum, along with a young woman,
an innocent bystander caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Her fiance was in the psych ward two floors below, and the old
woman had already been released this morning, after being kept
overnight for observation.

She remembered the ambulance, too, red and blue lights playing
over the faces of the police, of the yellow jackets of the hostage
team.

Then, nothing. She supposed some kind officer had given her a ride
to the hospital. She did not remember that.

She did recall arguing with Mulder's doctors, protesting their
decision to not allow her to see him. She was his *partner* she
had repeated, over and over until the word had ceased to hold any
meaning, and become a mere chant, a verbal touchstone to hold
onto.

The medical jargon, the science of medicine, all that she had
comprehended easily. Mulder had been gotten lucky; another inch
and the bullet would have damaged vital organs, causing him to to
bleed internally, probably killing him. As it was, he was
weakened from blood loss, and there was a worry of infection
setting in.

Now, on the morning after, she found herself clear-headed and
lucid. Everything around her was in focus, but slightly muted.
Those things, the pastel environment, the hospital personnel, they
did not matter.

Mulder was the important thing.

He was still asleep, victim of a 4 a.m. sleeping pill, although he
would awaken soon, and then they would have to talk. There were
questions she needed answers to; as well, she had answers for the
questions Mulder was sure to have.

****

<I am part of what you were.>

<I want you.>

<Why can *you* hear me?>

<I am not for you.>

There was no wind this time, no water. Just the voice and the
pain. Those things were constant; he could not escape from them.

<mulder?>

The voice changed, became a woman's, full of tenderness and
compassion. It was a voice he should know, one he should
remember.

<I am not for you.>

>From the blackness of memory came another voice, a young girl's,
vibrant with energy, and the joy of just being alive. <Fox!>

It was easy, in this half-world, in this place between sleep and
awareness, to put a shape to the voice. It was a simple matter to
give form to the indistinct blur that had hovered over a dying
Geoff Bradley.

It had been a man. Part of a man. A man's soul, his spirit, his
essence.

<Mulder?>

<I am part of what you were.>

<Fox!>

He ached, he hurt so bad, he did not want to leave this place, did
not want to wake up. But the worst of the pain was within, an
ache for what he could not have...<I am not for you>...and what
Geoff Bradley had, in the end, been lucky enough to achieve.

Union. With himself. With a part of himself that had been
missing, for an unknown length of time, creating a vacuum, an
empty space in the man called Geoff Bradley.

"Mulder?" He could hear her now, her voice sounding over the dark
and the pain, and the other voices, which began to fade into
memory.

Fresh pain seized him, for himself, for *his* missing essence, for
the part of him that had been cruelly taken from him, along with a
young girl, twenty years ago. He would never regain that part of
himself, and he would mourn that fact for the rest of his life.

"Mulder?"

Reluctantly, he opened his eyes, and saw Dana Scully smiling down
at him.

****

J. Edgar Hoover Building
Friday, July 19, 1993
2:30 p.m.

He made her wait, long seconds measured only by the rhythmic
ticking of a clock from somewhere in the office.

Her hands folded on her lap, she resisted the urge to clear her
throat.

"Agent Scully." Blevins spoke at last.

"Yes, sir?" she asked. She kept her voice calm, her face neutral,
revealing nothing. Already she felt an obscure kind of comfort in
these kinds of meetings; she knew what to expect, knew how to
react.

The cigarette-smoking man was not present.

Blevins seemed irritated by the interruption, and his eyes
hardened slightly. Scully lifted her chin higher and refused to
look away from his gaze.

He glanced down at the file on his desk, her report, she knew, a
document he no doubt had read many times over.

"Agent Scully, your report on this case is of a satisfactory
nature. I see no mention in here of Agent Mulder's claims,
nothing to substantiate them, or refute them."

"No, sir," she replied. "I cannot confirm nor deny Agent Mulder's
version of events."

Blevins looked at her blandly, waiting for her to expand on this,
and when it became clear that she would not, he frowned. Briefly,
she wondered what he thought of her harsh words against Officer
Reeves, his selfish enthusiasm that had nearly gotten Mulder
killed. "What do you believe happened out there, Agent Scully?"

Confused, she hesitated. Was he asking her off-the-record? The
absence of the smoking man seemed to make Blevins more relaxed,
more at ease, but could she trust him?

Deciding, she gave him her most innocent look. "I believe my
report speaks for itself, sir. If you are unhappy with it..."

Blevins' eyes narrowed, and although she knew he saw through her
deception, he chose to go along with it. "Your report is fine,
Agent Scully." He cleared his throat, closed the file on his
desk.

She understood she was dismissed, and she stood up, nodding
briefly to her superior.

****

His office was comfortingly familiar, books and files stacked on
every available surface, posters covering every inch of wall
space.

Posters. I Want To Believe. He had gotten that particular one
just weeks after getting the greenlight from Blevins to open the
X-Files. He had brought it to his new office, unrolled it, spent
the better part of an hour searching for just the right place to
hang it. Now it hung right behind his desk, arresting the eye of
all visitors, providing a friendly backdrop for his daily routine.

Mulder stared at it now, drinking in the greens and blues, the
stark white of the lettering. The poster was a study in
simplicity, something he had only recently wished he could
rediscover in his own life.

For life was anything but simple now. With the advent of the X-
Files, with the assignment of Dana Scully, his formerly dull
existence had been transformed, turned upside-down and violently
shaken.

Before this, before now, he had only had himself to rely on, to
trust. Before Scully he had gone about his work, unchallenged by
anyone, except for an occasional bout of verbal sparring with Bill
Patterson. Before the events of the past few months, he had never
personally encountered anything of the paranormal.

The things he had experienced had only cemented his beliefs. There
*were* other forces out there, other beings.

Others...Mulder looked up from the poster, glancing at the door.
Scully was meeting with Blevins now, and would be back soon. With
an almost wry amusement at himself, he realized he was
anticipating her return. He and Scully had not had a chance to
talk much during his recovery, and he relished an opportunity to
tell her what had happened. He wanted to throw the information at
her, wanted to watch her scramble to come up with a plausible
theory, wanted to debate with her.

He wanted her as his partner.

The revelation was simple, but startling. For years he had
resisted any attempts at a partnership, preferring to work alone.
Bill Patterson had understood that, so had Reggie Purdue. Jerry
Lamana had merely had the misfortune of being assigned to Mulder,
much as Scully had. The difference was, Lamana hadn't lasted.

Dana Scully was like no one he had ever met before, Mulder
realized. She challenged him as much as she confounded him.
Confronted by her strict rationality, he was pressed to stay
honest, to keep his feet on the ground. It was a change of pace
from his usual style, and Mulder found he could grow to like it.

Footsteps approached from down the hall and Mulder sat up
straighter at his desk, only grimacing slightly at the pull in his
side. She was coming.

They had much to talk about. Scully had told him the labs at
Quantico had informed her that the blood found at the abandoned
house in Clear Lake was indeed Geoff Bradley's. The fact that
Bradley's body had not been injured at all beyond the fatal
gunshot was a mystery unexplainable by anyone. The events of that
night were still a mystery to Mulder, and probably always would
be.

Further investigation had begun to reveal the patchwork that was
Bradley's past, the numerous personas he had donned over the
years, the many places he had lived, all in an attempt to avoid
the inevitable.

For years he had stumbled from one city to the next, his killing
escalating in a desperate attempt to appease his dark nature, to
keep it from consuming him. Police from several states were
coordinating their efforts, and eventually, Mulder knew, they
would have pieced together as much of Bradley's past as they
could.

A knock sounded at the door; Scully still obviously was unsure
about her role in this partnership. He knew she had a luncheon
meeting on Monday with an old Academy friend, someone named
Colton. She would probably tell her friend all about "Spooky"
Mulder, and how difficult it was to work with him. Mulder could
not entirely blame her.

The door opened, and Scully walked in, hesitantly. She shut the
door, her back to him, then seemed to gather herself up, and
turned around to face him.

Mulder smiled at her. "Hey, partner."

****

END

****

NOTES (from Pellinor): For two years, now, my "next story" was
going to be "that post-Deep Throat one." I have always seen quite
a difference between the way Scully acts towards Mulder in Deep
Throat and the way she acts towards him in Squeeze, and I was sure
there was a story there. Since I normally write a Mulder and
Scully who are intensely angsty and intensely important to each
other, I relished the challenge of writing something set in those
far-off days of distrust, before Scully, in particular, had any
real cause for angst. Character-wise, I had the whole thing worked
out. Plot-wise, though, I had nothing. I simply could not think of
a case file to base the whole thing around.

So, a few months ago, I described this idea to Rebecca, and,
before I knew it, there we were again, writing another of our
"start at the start without plan, and let it evolve where it
wishes" stories. Last time we did one, I had a dazzling array of
computer problems and had to run repeatedly through town clutching
floppy disks, in search of a computer that worked. This time, my
monitor died, then the my new one was incapable of showing any
colour but fluorescent pink, and some parts of this story had to
be dictated over the phone at exorbitant trans-Atlantic rates.
Still, we survived, and here it is.

At risk of going on for too long, I must also thank Andrew for
throwing various Fortean Times articles at me, and Ursula LeGuin
for writing "The Wizard of Earthsea", which gave me certain ideas
regarding being pursued by the physical manifestation of the
darker parts of the soul.

NOTES: (from Rebecca) When Elspeth first mentioned this story idea
to me, it was a casual remark, a "I'd like to write this" line. In
fact, I believe the remark arose from a discussion of what story ideas
we had carried around for months, what ideas we had always wished to
write about. I was intrigued by this idea, and challenged, and as we
both began to discuss it, the story evolved. We've attempted to remain
as true to Carter's early vision of the show as possible, in the style
of those early case files.

I didn't have any computer problems, myself, fortunately, but I can
tell you this: Never try to write a scene that involves shooting
Mulder while at work. Trust me on this: your boss will find a way
to peek over your shoulder just as you begin writing about blood
and gunshots. <g>

On a final note, I'd like to thank Jen for her feedback and
suggestions, Kevin for his support. Apologies to those readers
familiar with the Houston/Clear Lake area, for taking liberties with
what does exist, although the museum is our own construct. Finally,
thanks to Elspeth, for sharing her idea with me in the first place,
and allowing me to write it with her.

FEEDBACK: Feedback will be warmly received, and replied to, by
either or both of us.

rrusnak@avana.net
Pellinor@astolat.demon.co.uk