Title: Graveyard
Author: RM >lebontrager@iname.com<
Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully belong to CC, 1013, and Fox. No fringe is
intended.

WARNING::::R, for Rating and Romance. Some disturbing torture images.

SPOILER:: Up to Triangle

~~~~
Graveyard
~~~~

Chapter One
~~~~

"It's like a tomb, a corpse-filled Potter's Field,
A pyramid where the dead lie down by scores.
I am a graveyard that the moon abhors:
Like guilty qualms, the worms burrow and nest
Thickly in bodies that I  loved the best."
--"Spleen LXXIX" Charles Baudelaire

~~~~

She woke to find emptiness stretching out it long bony fingers to her
throat, unable to move or speak.

Her wild eyes cast about for help, and only spied out Him, basking in
her fear.

A moan beside her made her mind spin, and she rolled her eyes to see her
husband, curled tightly in a ball, just coming to.

She whimpered and looked back to Him, pleading with reddened eyes and a
raw throat, but nothing would come out, nothing would come. . .

"Sorry, sorry Jeanne. . .so so sorry. . ."

She moaned and flung herself up, quick and fast, furious for any kind of
escape, seeing that she was alone now, truly truly alone.

Her husand was dying, she would be next.

"I had to. . ."

She felt his cold hard hand crash to her shoulder, bringing her to weak
and cracking knees, falling hard in the dirt.

It was dark inside the place, smelled of spiders and death.

Not only hers, not only her husband's, but everyone's, all of humankind.

She felt time slow like a movie effect, each frame of her desperation
caught nanosecond by nanosecond, her hands reaching reaching reaching,
her nails digging down down down, her forehead hitting hard too hard,
too hard, into the ground, the darkness. . .

the darkness.

~~~~

"Scully, I've got a meeting with Skinner. But I'll be by at maybe
eight?"

She nodded distractedly, rubbing her skull.

"Okay."

"We've got three potential cases lined up the AD wants to see me about."

He grinned at her, but she was too deep in herself to notice his open
offer.

She sat at her little table, her knuckles tenderly making circles along
her temples, her eyes closed.

"And your line is -- ?"

Scully glanced up at him, her mind triggered by the slight annoyance in
his voice.

"Are you even hearing what I'm saying?" he muttered, turning back to his
desk for the three folders.

"Yes. I am. You've got a meeting."

"Right. Which I'm about to be late for. See you at eight."

"Eight," she echoed, watching him leave.

Her head was killing her, like a rock had been slammed hard into her
skull.

She sighed and attempted to clear her mind, needing the intense
concentration that a new case required. They had to make this one count,
had to solve it with all the strings tied, or else the X-Files were in
trouble.

Skinner had threatened, and he had made good on most of his threats. 

Forced to take on mainstream *unsolvable* cases by the powers that
didn't want them to be, the X-Files department had suffered, and their
number of solved cases plummeted. She and Mulder just weren't together
anymore, not in synch, and she couldn't figure out how to make it right
again.

They seemed worlds apart.

This new case, whichever they decided to go with, had to be perfect,
solvable, preferrably not an X-File.

There was pressure to shut down the X-Files, lots of high ranking
officials that wanted them out of the picture, and Mulder and Scully
didn't need to give them the added incentive to make that decision.

But if her headache didn't go away, there was no way she was going to be
able to even think, let alone solve a case.

~~~~

There were words in her vocabulary that had new meanings now.

Gnawing:  Starvation:  Pit:  Suffocation:  Alone:

Each of these held a certain desperation for her, a kind of hopelessness
that ate away at her gut.

Mulder was here.

She could feel him at the edges of her consciousness, a kind of soft
presence that kept her from total insanity.

He still hadn't woken up.

They were stuck down here, forever alone, with just a flat horizon of
dirt and dirt and dirt.

It was like being halfway buried alive. Except that she could see a
canopy of stars, roofing them in.

She cradled his body to her now, wishing to find some peace, some
comfort.

She was hungry. And cold. But hungry mainly.

Her belly growled with emptiness, a kind of metronome for the rest of
her body. She could feel the gnawing at her gut, a forever acid that
burned burned burned right through.

There was no food. She wished the roots were posionous things that would
kill them both. She wished she had the courage to kill Mulder; it was
kinder than to allow him to wake up to this, wake up to starvation and
dehydration and emptiness.

She couldn't though. It wasn't worth it if he died without her.

She needed him.

Her hands shook on his face and she leaned forward again, her breasts
brushing his cheeks as she reached for the little trickle of slow-moving
water.

She dipped her fingertips into the cold chill of the ice water, then
sprinkled it along his face, trying to get him to wake up.

His eyeballs rolled under his lids and she held her breath, waiting,
aching.

"Mulder?"

He kept sliding in and out of a coma, and it scared her, not so much
that he could die, but that she would be left alone down here without
him.

His presence kept her going, kept her hoping.

Someone had put them down here. She knew that. She thought she knew it
anyway. She could feel someone watching them, in the shadows, even
though she had investigated every crack for a way out.

"Mulder?" she whispered again, her voice raw and scratchy.

His eyelids flickered and he moaned.

"Mulder. . .Mulder, wake up, please please please."

Her words were a litany, on and on, a kind of lament for his dying body,
his aged soul.

His eyes opened and she sobbed.

"Mulder?"

His lips worked slowly, his Adam's apple bobbing in his painfully thin
throat.

She touched his lips with her damp fingers, letting him taste the water,
hoping to revive him.

His eyes delved into hers, like deep ocean divers searching for gold
medallions, and she leaned into him, embracing his weak body.

His hand came up to touch her back, trembling, and his chest moved as he
tried to speak.

"Scuh. . ."

She smiled into his shoulder and pulled back, selfishly relieved at his
attempts to move, to regain some sort of consciousness. She should have
just let him die. Being alive down here only meant prolonging death.

"Mulder. . ."

His eyes looked troubled and frightened and she knew her face had to be
swollen and grotesque by starvation and deprivation. She had long nasty
cuts along one cheek too, and her bruised eyes were from some kind of
deficiency. Probably Vitamin C.

She eased her body closer to his, the scraping tree roots making her
shiver, and the dirt scratching at her sensitive skin. There was also
slick rock, polished and marble-like, but she didn't know how it had
gotten there.

Once again, she felt the cold stare of Him, watching, watching, always
watching.

Mulder held a shaky hand to her cheek then rubbed a soft thumb along her
lips.

She winced and realized her lips were bloody for some reason.

Maybe, during the fitful seconds of passed out slumber, she had bit her
lips with worry, with fear, with such aching loneliness.

"Hurt?" he whispered.

She nodded, not finding it relevant to hide the obvious truth from him.

"Sorry. . .sorry."

She shook her head. "Just. . .just don't leave me," she whispered.

He caught her up in his arms, crushing her still pained body to his
chest, a tight ache in him that would not go away.

"How long. . ." he whispered into her hair, wanting to know when he'd
slipped away.

She shrugged. "Too long. . ."

He nodded again and rolled onto his side, pulling her deep into his
arms.

"Not again."

~~~~

Scully woke suddenly, her sweat slicked hair making her hot and sticky.

Her heart thrashed in her chest, her palms were like ice, and she
couldn't understand where she was.

She still felt the dirt in her fingernails, the eyes watching them as
they played out their long suffering tragedy, and the coolness of
concrete or stone slabs lying just under her.

Her head jerked up, and she was lying on her couch, hearing the door
snick open.

"Scully?"

She got to her feet, then rubbed her eyes.

"Mulder?"

He slipped inside, then looked her up and down.

"Were you asleep?"

She shrugged. "I guess so. . ."

He nodded and pushed through to the couch, giving her a small nod of his
head.

"I brought pizza. . ."

She smiled at him, then sat back down on her couch, grabbing the box
from his outstretched hands, and opened it.

The overwhelming odor of cheese and grease caught her unexpected and she
felt her stomach wrench violently.

"Get. . .get some drinks and I'll be right back. . ." she muttered and
stumbled for the bathroom.

Her breath flew from her in great tidal waves of fear and aching, but
she couldn't understand why, or where it had come from. The images of
her dream were fuzzy and swirling around her madly, like the teacups at
Disney World. 

Slumping to the floor, she gathered her breath and tried not to be sick,
forcing away the gnawing in her belly. Her mouth filled with saliva and
she leaned over the toilet to spit it out, the fluid rising
continuously.

Mulder tapped on the door.

"Scully?"

"I'll be out in a minute," she said, and splashed water on her face,
feeling the cold water trickle down her cheeks and neck, a cool relief
to her sweating skin.

When she opened the door, he was standing there, waiting for her, but he
was too close. She could feel the heat of him along her like rays of the
sun, bright and deadly, and it was making her claustrophobic. She pushed
past him and shrugged off his concern, licking her lips and brushing her
forehead with a shaking hand.

"Scully. . .?"

"Mulder. . .I just had a strange dream. I'm fine."

He didn't take that as an answer, but she didn't offer anything more.

Shrugging and grinding his teeth with frustration, Mulder turned back to
the coffee table, grabbing their Cokes and shoving the can at her.

"Here."

"Thank you. . ." she said softly, in earnest, meaning more than for the
drinks.

He gave her a quick flash of his weary smile, and sat down.

"I've got a few cases I managed to wrench from Skinner's grasp. We get
our pick -- first dibbs Scully."

She nodded and picked up the one nearest her, smoothing her sweaty palms
over its cool papery surface.

Manilla folders seemed to be all alike, until you really looked at them,
and you saw the differences. A coffee stain in the corner, the tabs
either in the middle or the right or left, the ridges on the folding
line sometimes, or a battered corner.

This was new, recently composed, with the paper inside fresh and crisp,
the corners of the case like sharp deadly knives, waiting for an
unsuspecting finger to slice.

She glanced back to Mulder.

"So, Scully. Let's see what we can do."

She nodded and they began to work.

~~~~

It froze her to the very core.

"...And, when the bodies were found-"

Mulder glanced up as he talked, meeting her gaze. She looked sick.

"Scully?"

She jerked as if awakened from a trance, her eyes snapping from glassy
to sharp again, her mouth formed into a sharp little bow.

"Mulder. . .ah. . .I think this is it."

He glanced at her.

"This case. You think this is an X-file?"

She shivered. "No."

Mulder stared at her, not understanding, his mouth working but no words
coming out.

She stood up, and he moved to grab her, sputtering.

"Scully. . .you have to give me something to go on-"

"You never give me anything to go on, Mulder."

He stood slowly, pulling himself up to his full height, unconsciously
trying to be intimidating.

"Scully. This is important. Agencies all over the country are asking for
our help. . .asking for us to solve their toughest cases. We screw up
even one, and they have plenty to shut us down with."

She pulled away from him angrily. "Don't you think I understand that?"

He shook his head as if trying to shake loose the strangeness of her
behavior.

"We don't get to the keep the X-Files if we don't do this right."

She looked back at him, and he felt himself already relenting, with
those blue eyes digging deep into him, her almost fearful look that made
him want to hide her away forever.

"Mulder. . .I stuck with you, with the X-Files, at the worst of times,
when no one would even listen to us anymore. I stayed. I know how
important this is. Believe me. . .if only for once, believe me."

He closed his eyes and shook his head.

"Let me know what's going on, Scully." he said quietly, not looking at
her.

"I just have this feeling. . .those two people trapped together,
starved. . .I can almost feel it."

He frowned and glanced to the coffee table, seeing the glaring black and
white photos, the newer color ones, and the crisp off-white paper of the
police and Bureau reports, all of it scattered amidst pizza crust and
Coke cans and napkins.

"All right. This case is officially open."

He sighed with his words and looked back at her.

She looked anything but happy.

In fact, she looked sick.

~~~~
~~~~

Chapter Two

~~~~

"O living matter, henceforth you're no more
Than a cold stone encompassed by vague fear
And by the desert, and the mist and sun;
An ancient Sphinx ignored by everyone,
Left off the map, whose bitter irony
Is to sing as the sun sets in that dry sea."
--"Spleen LXXIX" Charles Baudelaire

~~~~

Their graves were two huge monliths set into the ground, surrounded by
decaying flowers and drooping ribbons, the funeral not even a week old.

The dirt was still fresh, with the shovel marks evident and the
headstone gleaming new and spit-shined.

Mulder toed the dirt and watched Scully crouch before the tombstone,
wondering exactly what she was thinking, why this was so important to
her.

"Jack and Jeanne Apick, bodies found arranged right here."

Scully glanced back at him.

"Their own graves?"

Mulder nodded, frowning. "These two plots had already been picked out by
the family, about three years ago, when Jack Apick's father died. They
have the whole acre reserved for the Apick family, plus grandkids, etc."

Scully rose and glanced to the folder in his hands. "How come that never
came up before?"

Mulder shrugged. "I don't know. We need to check on the other three
couples, see if the places they were found hold any significance."

He rummaged in his trenchcoat for a sunflower seed, then bit into it
with slow deliberation.

"I think we have someone fascinated with death."

"Because he placed them in their final resting place? I don't think you
can jump to that conclusion, Mulder. Maybe the killer sees this as
coming to a certian peace within himself. Maybe the graveside holds a
symbol of completion for him-"

"Scul-, hold on."

She glanced back to him, eyebrow quirking at the frazzled look he had.

Who was the psychological profiler anyway?

"I mean, he's enthralled by death, but he's not killing. At least, I
don't think he sees himself as actually hurting anyone. The first couple
found, they didn't starve to death like these two did. They were found
severely dehydration-"

"Wait. The human body needs fluids more than it needs food. How could
these two have starved to death while the other two were dehydrated?"

Mulder bit his lip. "The killer must have placed them somewhere with
water, allowing them to drink small portions. They were dehydrated. .
.but they had enough to live."

"So he starved them. Kept them. . .where?"

He shrugged and glanced to the gravesite, the brilliant gleam of
chiseled granite against the dead flowers and dead grass.

Dead grass.

"Why isn't the grass growing?" he said, frowning.

Scully glanced to her feet, frustrated with Mulder's sudden leap off
topic.

But he was right. The grass wasn't growing near the graves. Every place
else had a thick carpet of monkey grass, but here. . .there was nothing.

"The funeral service was only a week ago."

Mulder shook his head. "But. . .you can see where they planted sod. .
.it didn't take."

"Maybe it's been too hot for it to grow. It is the middle of the summer,
and in Arizona. . ."

Mulder shook his head. "Maybe."

It was bothering him.

"Mulder. Finish explaining. He doesn't see himself as a killer."

"Right. He's a scientist, an observer of death, watching and waiting.
See, first was dehydration, then wild animals, then drowning, now
starvation."

"Yes, but with the wild animals, he drugged them. It came back in the
tox screen. So he's helping out, either by aiding the process or
withholding food or water."

Mulder nodded. "But *he's* not killing them. Nature is."

Scully glanced around at the dead grass.

The graveyard was silent, beautiful, the stillness like a comforting
shadow.

She shivered.

"When we catch him. . ." she started. 

"It's going to be easy for him to plead insane, that's for sure."

She frowned. "Could he get off?"

Mulder sighed. "If we get hard evidence, I don't think so."

Scully glanced back up to meet his eyes.

"I hope I didn't make the wrong choice."

Mulder reached out and took her hand.

"We made the choice. We stick together."

~~~~

Scully bit her lip as her scalpel probed the body of Jeanne Apick,
wincing as embalming fluid squirted out from the intestines.

The bloodwork had already been sent to the lab, and Scully herself had
discovered the tiny puncture wound in the back of her thigh, plus the
way the tissue was severely infected. She wondered how the previous
medical examiner had missed all the clues.

The woman had definitely been drugged, and by her prelim on Mr. Apick,
so had he.

Mulder chose that moment to push open the doors and stick his head
inside the autopsy suite, brushing a hand across his nose before he
gradually got used to the smell.

She nodded him inside, grinning slightly with a grimace.

"You were right. The grass isn't growing because these two were so
drugged, it didn't leave their system. It ate right into their tissues,
Mulder."

He frowned. "What drug is it?"

"Not sure. The bloodwork is being done right now."

"I've been talking to the Apick family, trying to piece together the
last time anyone saw them, see if I can establish point of contact."

"Did you get anything?"

"Well. . .we'll talk later. I have to make a phone call."

Scully glanced up in surprise, her eyebrows quirking as he turned to
leave.

"Mulder?"

He looked back, nodding to her. "I'll come pick you up at about ten."

She shrugged. "Okay, that should give me enough time to review the other
bodies."

He pushed open the doors and left her to a long day of autopsies.

~~~~

"It was a cocktail of drugs, Mulder, all of which are diuretics. That's
how they starved so fast."

Mulder nodded as she shut the car door, pulling on her seatbelt even as
he sped off.

"Which kinds?"

"Acetazolamide-"

"Hunh?"

"Acetazolamide. It promotes excretion of sodium, potassium, bicarbonate,
and water. Those are some of the key elements needed for cell function."

"So, it wasn't really starvation, then, right? More like their cells
couldn't keep going?"

She shrugged as he turned a tight corner. "Not quite. That drug, along
with amiloride hydrochloride, and triamterene, caused everything to go
nuts."

"Ah, is that your scientific answer?"

She smirked and lifted her chin. "No. Acute blood dyscrasius due to drug
poisoning."

Mulder grunted and pulled into their parking spot at the motel.

"Okay, okay. Explain that to us medical dummies."

Scully opened the car door as she talked, walking up to his motel room
door and waiting for him to unlock it.

"It means their electrolytes were all screwed up, and the blood wasn't
getting the elements it needed to supply enough oxygen and nutrients to
the body."

"So, by starving them and administering this drug cocktail, he managed
to kill them faster than normal?"

She nodded.

"How fast? Are we talking a week?"

Licking her lips as they entered the room, Scully hesitated.

"Scully?"

"I can't say for sure Mulder. I can guesstimate how much was given based
on decomposition rates, and maybe from the tissue, but. . .maybe a
week."

He sighed and sat down in the rickety chair, rubbing his brow.

"Okay, so let's say a week. What about Howard and Jasey Grey, the first
couple?"

"I managed to get drug readings off the last three couples, but their
murder happened a year ago, Mulder. I can only guess."

"Do you have *anything* concrete, Scully?"

His burst of anger surprised her more than hurt, and she glanced up from
her hands to look in his eyes.

"Mulder. . ."

He sighed and waved his hand, as if apologizing for his behavior.

"Keep going."

She stiffened and shook her head. It wasn't worth it.

"The Greys, not sure. Maybe chlorothiazide, which increases urinary
excreton of water. Probably something along those lines."

"Okay, so he's got a working knowledge of drugs. How rare are these?"

"Not rare. . .but you'd have to get them from a hospital or
pharmacuetical company."

"I'll get working on finding out about any large shipments of those
drugs, or stolen supplies if you'll write those names down."

She nodded and pulled out a pen. "Also, chloral hydrate, for the two
eaten by wild animals, and carisoprodol."

Mulder watched as she wrote, then took the napkin from her outstretched
hand.

"What are those?"

"Chloral hydrate is a sedative, and carisoprodol is a skeletal muscle
relaxant. It's similar to the drug I perscribed for Van Blundht."

"So, that was for the drowning victims?"

She nodded and leaned back against the headboard, rubbing her skull
again, trying to rid herself of the headache.

"I'll get the Lone Gunmen to check this out," he said, pulling out his
cell phone.

She nodded and closed her eyes, listening to the tempo of her headache
as it pounded against the inside of her temples. It didn't help that her
sleep had been interrupted by horrible nightmares that only left her
with a sick sense of dread, and nothing else.

She could hear Mulder's conversation just outside the range of
consciousness, and she tried to focus on staying awake, but something
was making her drowsy.

Next thing she knew, a hand was on her forehead and her body was slumped
down the bed.

Her eyes opened and Mulder's worried face was hovering over her.

"Scully, you okay?"

"I'm fine," she muttered, and pulled herself up.

Just as her head began spinning, Mulder grabbed her shoulders and pushed
her back into his motel room bed.

"Stay right there, Scully. You did eight autopsies today. . ."

"Oh!"

"What?"

"I found a latent. . .near the injection site on Jeanne Apick's 
thigh. . ."

Mulder stared at her for a moment, then shook his head.

"You must be getting tired, Scully. Did you run it through the national
databank?"

"Of course. It was still searching when I left."

He nodded. "Okay, we'll look into that tomorrow."

Lying against the headboard, she felt the overwhelming sickness start up
in her gut, gnawing on her insides again, just as before. She bolted
from the bed, and into the bathroom, keeping her food down only by mere
seconds.

Mulder was right behind her, handing her a washcloth when she stopped
heaving, then pulling her hair away from her face as she sat back.

Her eyes slipped shut slowly.

"Have you eaten anything today, Scully?"

Her eyebrows quirked and she reached over to flush the toilet.

"Yeah. . .I don't know if you just saw that or not. . ."

He snorted and squatted down next to her, taking the washcloth from her
limp fingers and wiping it along her brow, then her lips.

"Better now?"

"Far from it."

He pulled her gently out of the bathroom, taking her up into his cool
embrace, and then back onto the bed.

She struggled for a moment, then gave in to his soft fingers and smooth
hands.

"Stay here, Scully. I'll go get some Pepto-"

"No. . .no. Let me just sleep it off."

He nodded and worked her shoes off her feet, then her stockings,
grinning when she sighed.

"Okay. Tomorrow, I'll let you sleep in. Not doing much anyway."

She opened her eyes. "No. . .wake me, Mulder. Wake me so I can help
you."

He was about to respond, but when he glanced up, her eyes had slipped
shut and her breath had evened out.

"Night, Scully," he whispered and pulled a blanket around her shoulders.

~~~~

She was lost, wandering around in snow and ice, trying to find her way
into warmth.

She dragged Mulder's limp body behind her, but his cheeks had long ago
turned blue with death, and his lungs had stopped filling with breath.

She wanted to sob, but found she couldn't even feel.

Her entire body was numb, frozen to the core.

She kept walking, knowing she would walk and walk and walk until she
dropped dead.

~~~~

Mulder's eyes flew open suddenly, but he wasn't sure why he had woken
up.

He glanced to the next bed over, and saw Scully shivering, huddled
tightly under the blanket, her lips blue and her fingers clawlike around
the sheets.

Frightened, he pushed out of sleep and over to her side, touching her
brow with a hand.

Her eyes snapped open, and crystal blue stared out at him.

"Cold."

A sense of deja vu left him panic-filled and he pulled her into his
chest, cradling her to his body so that he could pull down the sheets
and comforter.

When she was again settled in bed, with piles of blankets over her, she
was asleep again, and he wondered if she was dreaming.

"Scully?"

She remained oblivious and he stayed by her side, watching her breathe.

He stayed for hours.

~~~~ 

The Lone Gunmen called him back at ten in the morning with four names,
and then two companies that they deemed were 'fishy'.

Scully seemed better, but he wished she would stay in the motel room and
recover; however, she insisted on tagging along with  him to interview
the people on their list.

The first was Charles MacInteer, and his address was about fifty miles
from Hancock, Arizona, where the Apicks were buried. Mulder attempted to
keep her awake, since she confessed to not getting very a restful
night's sleep, while Scully tried to keep her stomach stilled.

"What were you dreaming about?" he finally asked.

She glanced over at him. "What?"

"Last night, what were you dreaming?"

"How'd you know I was dreaming?"

"You sort of woke, and said you were cold, so I got another blanket and
tucked the comforter around you."

Slowly, she looked away from him, her glance straying to the window and
the dull brown passing by her eyes.

"I don't know. . .all I remember is being cold."

He nodded and made a left hand turn onto the interstate, watching out
for oncoming traffic.

"Have you had trouble sleeping lately?"

She shivered. "Actually. . .yeah. I keep having these nightmares. . .but
I can never remember them completely, just snatches. Hot. Cold, snow,
ice. You."

He looked over at her sharply, then back to the road, easing on the
cruise control.

"Me?"

"You. Dead or unconscious or something. I'm not sure. You're there, but
you're not."

He grinned. "Like most times. . ."

She looked over at him, far from relieved.

"I think it has to do with this case," she said softly.

His swift glace almost made her wish she hadn't told him, but he didn't
probe.

"Oh."

She nodded. "I think. . .I think I'm seeing the victims in my dreams. I
had a horrifying dream about being eaten alive, but too weak to even
move. . ."

Mulder's breath hitched. "The Ezells. . .they were killed by wild
animals."

She sighed. "And feeling thirsty, like my tongue was on fire and you
were right there, and someone. . .someone else. Watching. Watching us
die."

"The Greys."

She shivered. "So when you had that case folder. . .it was like a sign."

Mulder's brow rose at her words and she shrugged, smiling softly.

"You dreamed being cold last night. . .no one's died from the cold yet."

She slowly shook her head. "It could have been. . .could have been a
dream about Anarctica. . .I have those sometimes."

She raised her head slowly and glanced at him, feeling weak and
vulnerable and hating it.

He sighed but said nothing, merely concentrated on the directions
written before him, and turned into a long bumpy road.

As the car bounced over the potholes, Scully's lips creased into a
frown, a thread of thought stitching through her subconscious.

Something. . .

She shrugged when the car stopped and stepped out, waiting for Mulder to
round the driver's side and meet with her.

He nudged her forward with a hand to the small of her back, then rang
the doorbell.

Charles MacInteer.

Recently acquired every single one of those drugs on Scully's autopsy
list, along with about forty drug companies, twenty-two area hospitals,
and three other individuals.

Mulder was starting with individuals, alphabetical order.

The door open and a man stepped into the light, broad-shouldered and
bearded, his eyes a strange gunmetal grey.

Scully took one look and panicked.

~~~~
~~~~

Chapter Three

~~~~

And hearses, without drum or instrument,
File slowly through my soul; crushed, sorrowful,
Weeps Hope, and Grief, fierce and omnipotent,
Plants his black banner on my drooping skull.

"Spleen LXXXI" Charles Baudelaire

~~~~

Mulder felt her propel backwards into him, but he stopped her with a
soft touch and a glance, then returned his gaze to Charles MacInteer.

Scully was afraid.

He could feel her fear like a live wire across his skin, electrifying
and terrifying and sharp as a sword.

Shifting on his feet, Mulder flashed his badge, grateful when Scully
reluctantly followed suit.

"Mr. MacInteer?"

The man frowned, but nodded. "What can I do for you?"

"I'm Mulder, this is Agent Scully, and we're with the FBI. We were
wondering if we could have a few moments of your time."

MacInteer glanced once at Scully, then shrugged.

"Sure, okay. Come on in. If you'll excuse the mess. . .my cleaning lady
doesn't come until Tuesday."

Nodding, Mulder pushed Scully forward, feeling the stiff muscles of her
back and wishing he could understand what had her so tense.

"So what's this about?" MacInteer said, gesturing for them to sit down.

Scully sat on the edge of the couch, Mulder beside her, feeling tight
and wound up.

He wondered what she was thinking. . .or if she even *was* thinking.

"We're investigating some local murders, and we wondered if you might
have been robbed recently, or had some shipments stolen."

"Shipments?"

"Your name is on the receipt for cases of certain drugs:  acetazolamide,
carisoprodol, chloral hydrate-"

"Yes, yes. I purchased those."

"Did you notice if anything was missing? Did some of the cartons come up
empty or short a few? Did anyone report the shipment to be damaged in
any way?"

"No. Why do you ask?"

"It's relevant to our case. . .Now, Mr. MacInteer, would you tell us why
you bought these drugs? Some aren't that commonly used, even in
hopsitals."

He blinked once, then shrugged. "I work for a drug company. Surely you
found that out when you checked up on me, Agent Mulder."

"Yes, I found that. But why did you order these things for yourself?"

"They're not for myself. I'm a rep, and I travel to a lot of different
hospitals and hospices. I need samples to give out and distribute and I
had run out of some. So I restocked. I do it all the time."

Mulder saw Scully fiddle with her notebook from the corner of his eye
and recognized their signal to leave as she smoothed her hair behind one
ear.

"Thank you, Mr. MacInteer. . .you were simply first on our list. Here's
my cell phone number in case you need to reach me, if you remember
anything more. . ."

"Yes, yes. I'll certainly call."

MacInteer pushed them for the door as soon as they stood, smiling with
his bearded grin and herding them like baby ducks to water.

As soon as Scully was safe inside the car, with her seat belt on and
Mulder's keys starting up the engine, she shivered.

"Him. He was watching us in the dream. It was him."

Mulder pulled down the man's driveway, tapping on the steering wheel.

"He's our druggie?"

Scully nodded. 

"That's him."

Mulder, for once, didn't question.

Neither did she.

~~~~

Scully shook her head with remorse, trying not to step on Mulder's legs
as she walked to the other side.

"Mulder. . .it was just the sleeplessness. . .I-"

He issued a short grunt when she accidentally kicked his shin, then
shook his head back at her.

"Scully. I saw you in his house. MacInteer freaked you out."

She frowned. 

"I wasn't freaked out, Mulder."

He glared at her. "Then you were afraid."

She turned her face, looking toward the television rather than the
knowing look in Mulder's eyes.

"I. . .was caught off guard."

"By what? The similarity between your dream and reality?"

Scully's frown deepened and she sat heavily on the foot of the motel
bed, her knees even with Mulder's head.

He wrapped a hand around her calf and tugged, making her look down at
him.

"I know you have trouble believing in this, Scully. But if you can help
save two more people. . ."

Sighing, she placed her chin in her hands, feeling Mulder's warm palm
against the back of her leg like a brand.

"The confidence is gone, Mulder, but still. . .those eyes were like ice
into my heart."

Her eyes closed and suddenly, the touch of him was sharper and more
defined, a tangible and weighty thing that pressed in close and refused
to be ignored.

His hand smoothed up her skin to the back of her knee, his fingers
deftly massaging muscle and tendon, then slid between her knees to
balance there, as if he were testing her.

Scully paused mentally, the world narrowing to a small pinpoint of
touch, his fingernails trailing fire along her body as he casually
stroked her skin, his knuckles scraping her other knee.

She shivered and kept her eyes tightly shut.

"After lunch we need to see if MacInteer has any connections to the
victims."

Her eyes flew open and she found her gaze locked with his, tight and
unwavering.

"All right."

His hand was still there, still rubbing tiny circles between her knees,
but the focus of it was gone.

MacInteer.

She shivered this time for entirely different reasons.

~~~~

MacInteer shut the door to his mansion with an almost-panicked jerk of
his wrist, then hollered up the stairs to his son.

"What have you done?"

The man who walked down the wide staircase was the image of his father,
thick shouldered and bearded, with a gaping grin that revealed perfect
white teeth.

"Don't get all bent out of shape. . .I'm just having fun."

"What are you talking about? I've helped you get what you needed. . .
what are you doing, Jeff?"

"Cool down. Just having some fun."

"What have you done? Those agents talked about murder."

"I have *not* murdered anyone."

Charles watched his son fairly glide through the living room and up to
his father.

"I'm not a killer. You, of all people, should know that."

Jeff had suddenly been an orphaned six year old when his natural mother
had died, and at that time, his biological father, Charles, had rushed
into his life, only then finding out he'd even had a son.

"I know," he said softly, and roughly embraced the boy.

Charles was a physical man, always hugging his son or showing him
affection. His wife, Jeff's stepmother, had been insistent upon their
having a wonderful, fruitful relationship.

After so many years not knowing each other, she wanted them to never
regret the times they had together.

Annie had died three years ago in some strange circumstances, alone in
her room with her hands curled into fists at her sides.

Doctors had told him she had died of a stroke, a massive one, but that
she hadn't displayed any warning signs in her yearly check-up two days
before.

Jeff had been the last person to see her alive.

It made his skin crawl to dwell of the ramifications of what that
thought meant.

"Was the woman an FBI agent as well?" Jeff asked suddenly.

"Yeah. Both were."

"She looks like mother. . ."

Charles cast a look to the door, as if he could see right through it and
to the agents beyond.

"Somewhat. Same hair and coloring. But your mom was a bit taller."

Jeff didn't seem to be listening. Instead, he had settled his features
into that look of feigned interest. Charles knew he had already lost
focus of the conversation and was off in his own little world.

Jeff patted his shoulder with a gentle hand and smiled.

"Don't worry, Charlie. . .I'm okay."

Another thing that bothered MacInteer. . .

Never Father or Dad or Pops, just this almost inferior sounding
nickname, Charlie.

~~~~

Mr. and Mrs. Ezell knew their son had been excited about his new wife,
and anxious to get away with her for a sort of second honeymoon.

Even if the second had come only one year after the first.

Birdie Ezell fondly recalled his enthusiasm, retelling a particular
story including his attempts to keep it all a secret, and his shy good
looks that had attracted his wife, May, in the first place.

"Well, he worked up at the Grand Canyon on weekends, as part of his job
for the National Park Services. That's where May saw him. She was on a
tour; she loved the Grand Canyon. He saw her and asked her out. . .and
well. . ."

Her voice trailed off and she glanced to the living room.

"Her little boy, Matt, is such a darling. My son. . .oh, John adored the
boy."

Scully's brow rose and she shot a look to Mulder, somehow having missed
this last bit of evidence.

"Matt's with you now?"

"Yes, May's parents are dead."

"It's really very kind of you to take him in. . ."

Mrs. Ezell waved her hand. "We're not so old we can't take care of our
grandson. John adopted him before. . .before. . ."

There was an awkward silence as she tried not to cry, and everyone
sitting around the kitchen table looked around the room rather than
watch this brave woman struggle with her grief.

"Thank you Mrs. Ezell, Mr. Ezell. We'll try not to bother you any
longer."

Mr. Ezell, who'd been deaf since birth, seemed to understand from her
facial expression that they would be leaving, so he nodded briskly and
stood.

Leading them out, he motioned for them to stop for a moment.

Quickly, he signed and spoke at the same time.

"Please. . .leave us alone. My wife can't take this anymore."

His words were muffled by his thick speech, but Mulder nodded and rested
a hand on the grizzled man's forearm.

"We'll leave you now."

Scully smiled softly at the man, aching for the depth of sorrow so clear
in his eyes.

Mulder turned and led her back to the car with a gentle touch, both
mulling over the information they had been told.

~~~~

Sitting in the floor, his back against the bed, Mulder watched her
scroll through the website on her tiny laptop, her eyes squinted against
the glare of the light and the lack of her glasses.

"Find anything?"

"Not yet. Just a lot of PR for Charles MacInteer's company. Trand
Corporation sounds pretty above board Mudler."

"Try looking for any personal bios on the man. I'm sure it talks about
his family somewhere in there."

When questioned, the Greys and the Ezells had not heard of Charles
MacInteer, but both couples had heard their sons mention a son, Jeff
MacInteer.

Scully's focus began to shift away from the search as the computer
waited for the results, and she couldn't help but look at Mulder's
intense frown.

He flipped through the case reports, looking for more similarities than
the placement of the bodies, knowing that they had discovered something
very important, but not sure what.

She smiled to herself and looked back to the screen, clicking on the
first web page.

"I can't believe it," he whispered suddenly.

Scully's concentration, what little she had, was shot when his startled
exclamation ripped through her senses.

"What?"

"Why didn't we notice this? John Ezell. . .worked for the National Park
Services. . .killed by wild animals, with some help, of course. The
Greys, both of them worked as supervisers on the water treatment plant
and they were dehydrated. . . The Apicks, Jeanne was a chef and they
were starved, and the Vaughans were drowned and they met while being
lifeguards at the Gulf of Mexico."

Scully's mouth dropped open and suddenly, more details clicked into
place.

"All of them had one son, Mulder. A son. . .Charles MacInteer has a son
that both the Ezells and the Greys knew."

"I bet anything that the other victims' families will have heard of the
son too." he said, nodding.

Scully glanced back to her futile search, chewing softly on her bottom
lip.

Had that feeling been so very wrong in the man's house? She had been so
sure Charles MacInteer was the killer, had positively recoiled when
she'd met his eyes.

Watching. 

All through the interview she'd felt as if they were being watched. And
maybe, they had. But by the son, and not the kind elderly man who had
opened the door to them.

Mulder's tongue slipped over his bottom lip as he flipped through the
cases, one after another, trying to fit everything into place without
jumping to any conclusions.

"So you agree with me? It's the son, Jeff MacInteer?"

Scully hesitated for just a second too long.

"Come on, Scully. All the facts point to him."

She finally shook her head. "But it's coincidences and speculation.
Nothing to build a real case, nothing to prosecute him on. We need an
airtight case. . .you know that, Mulder."

"So let's get the evidence. . ."

She looked warily at him. "How do you suppose we do that?"

"That's what our friends in low places are for. . ."

He flashed her a grin and pulled out his cell phone.

Within seconds, Frohike was jostling for payment from Mulder, in the
form of several videos that Mulder claimed not to own, and the hounds
were unleashed.

If Charles or Jeff McInteer had anything to hide, their secrets would be
found soon enough.

They hoped.

~~~~ 
~~~~

Chapter Four

~~~~

And Man, who is never untwisted from hope,
Scrambling like a madman to get some rest!

--"The Voyage" Charles Baudelaire

~~~~

Jeff MacInteer fingered the mausoleum walls with a reverence he rarely
showed in his public life, nor to his father even.

His mother's crypt was dark and dank, and her presence seemed to fill
the cold walls with a marble chill.

He remembered his mother's dark eyes as she had told him what to do.
Take this pill box here, dump them all into her mouth, she couldn't 
do it herself, too weak, the illness had taken too much of her 
strength. . .

Then the water, easy now, easy, let it slide down her throat.

And then a soft sigh, and her eyes had stared right into him, and then
she'd been gone.

Quiet and simple.

Except she hadn't gone.

She hadn't made it to the afterlife, hadn't passed from this world to
the next.

He wanted it to end, for everything to be over with.

His mother haunted him.

He could feel her through his soul, passing between the thoughts like a
spector, her soft voice and soft hair brushing him with melancholy.

He had to end it. He had to make it all stop.

He loved her, but he just wanted it to end. He had to figure out how to
end it. How to make it stop.

Hardened by this thought, Jeff passsed through the single door set low
in the chambers, walking down damp steps to the room beyond.

Her casket lay there, almost as if she were waiting for him to open it
and free her from eternal sleep.

His eyes cast about the room and came to rest on the couple lying
huddled in the corner, shivering uncontrollably as the utter dampness
and chill turned their naked bodies slowly into stone.

He watched the way they tensed, how the woman turned into the man's arms
as death approached, her lips and fingers and toes a purple-blue that
matched the berries on the bushes over what would be their graves.

Jeff took in a deep breath, smelling the fear and the finality, knowing
that they had finally faced their own mortality.

Death was an interesting event, a spectacle he liked to observe, a show
of the human's will to survive finally being overcome by fatigue and
hopelessness.

He was trying to understand how his mother could have been taken from
him so quickly, but not have left.

She wouldn't leave. . .dead. . .but not.

To so want death that she would ask him. . .without him even noticing a
flicker of her illness, a hint of her hopelessness, a shimmer of the
fire dying in her eyes.

How could he make her stop haunting him? How could he get her presence
out of his head?

The man on the floor, his body drugged senseless, lifted his head, his
eyes meeting Jeff's with absolute hatred and horror.

"Murderer. . ." he spat and sunk back to the cold marble, his lips
moving no more.

The woman wailed, her sobs like the scream of the banshee on the moors,
and Jeff watched intensely, waiting for the moment when she would stop
holding onto hope, stop waiting for the daring rescue, and know, in her
heart, in her very soul, that she could not continue on without her
husband.

The moment was like lightning, like a bolt from God straight into her
eyes.

She stilled suddenly and placed her head to the man's chest, her breath
slow and even.

Her eyes slipped shut, and her entire body relaxed, beyond even the
ability of the barbituates he'd given them both.

Unconsciousness was followed quickly on the heels by Death, and she
breathed her last.

But Jeff's careful, impartial observation was disturbed by the man's
parting words.

<You murderer.>

He *wasn't* a murderer.

He wasn't.

He just had to let his mother rest in peace.

Peace.

It was all he wanted.

~~~~

Scully woke with a bone deep cold that refused to leave her, even with
the blankets piled to her chin and the electric heating pad at her toes.

And it was Arizona. . .

She hadn't felt this kind of cold since coming to on a vast expanse of
whiteness, her breath and Mulder's mingling in a frozen mist of icicles
across the distance.

After Antarctica, she never thought she'd be warm again, but once the
feeling had passed, she was sure she'd never have to experience that
kind of cold for the rest of her life.

Yet here it was again.

The, 'I'm going to die out here' kind of cold that slid easily through
the skin and pierced the bones, down to the marrow, so that every new
blood cell was made already frozen and spread through the body like a
cancer.

She shivered and wriggled free of the massive pile of blankets,
tiptoeing to the door.

She could hear the television still running infomercials and the steady
sound of the remote as Mulder clicked past the paid programs.

Her stomach was jumping in time to his channel surfing, but her
incredible cold moved her forward.

Mulder's head snapped up when she entered the room and he shook his
head.

"Sorry. I'll turn it down," he said, thumbing the volume lower.

She shook her head, and when she went to explain why she'd walked in so
late at night, her teeth chattered.

"Scully?"

His voice made her shiver, and when she started she found she couldn't
stop.

He stood immediately and pulled her into his arms.

"Dream again?"

She nodded and closed her eyes to the cold, inviting the warmth of his
body full against hers.

"Was it. . .Antarctica?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. . .I don't think so. It was
different."

"Are you cold?"

She nodded into his chest and let him pull her to the bed.

Carefully, trying not to disturb her, Mulder laid her down, then slowly
drew his arms around her, letting her rest on his chest.

"I can feel the cold. . .in a way that dreams and nightmares can't even
get close too."

He nodded into her hair and smelled her fear like waves of heat in the
intensity of the sun.

"It's okay, Scully. . ."

"If another couple is found. . .from exposure. . .it'll be my fault,
Mulder. I wouldn't let you go-"

"No. Scully, you were right. We need hard evidence. And hopefully, the
Lone Gunmen will get that for us."

She nodded, too exhausted to speak now that she was getting warmer.

"Just sleep for now, Scully."

"I should go," she mumbled.

He shook his head and pressed her back down, even though she hadn't been
struggling much to leave.

"You need to stay warm," he answered.

She nodded and was soon back asleep.

~~~~

The shrill ring of the bedside phone jerked her from sleep and she
blinked rapidly as she watched Mulder answer it.

He nodded, and she assumed he was speaking, but his voice was low and
soothing and she couldn't make out his words.

When he hung up, his eyes were dark and fathomless, and she felt a chill
settle over her soul.

"They found another dead couple positioned over their graves. Some kids
found them at two o'clock this morning."

Scully's bleary eyes travelled to the alarm clock and she read the
digital numbers with a sinking stomach.

2:23

"Let's go," she whispered, and crawled from the bed, only then realizing
she'd been in Mulder's room.

Standing straight, she turned to see Mulder yanking off his ratty white
T-shirt, his hair sleep tousled.

"Thanks, Mulder," she said.

He glanced over to where she stood, precariously balanced in the
doorway, her hand on the knob and her eyes heavy with sleep and sorrow.

"My pleasure," he replied and then watched her leave, her dignity firmly
wrapped around her shoulders.

He grinned and pulled on a grey T-shirt and jeans over his boxers.

~~~~

The Shappley's gravesite was a monstrous thing, with one large angel for
the centerpiece, and two smaller angels on either side.

One grave was filled already, the name of a miscarried son chiseled into
the marker and fresh flowers placed around the still damp soil.

It was chilling to see the couple carefully arranged on their graves,
arms crossed over their chests and eyes delicately closed.

The woman's frail hand was stretched to her side, as if reaching for the
baby already interred, and her face was turned to her husband.

The ground around them was wet after a midnight rain, but their hair was
still relatively dry, so the police assumed the placement had been
recent.

Mulder glanced around the cemetery, noting the large mausoleums off to
the right, behind high fences with locks and barbed wire placed
nondiscreetly at the top. Only family was allowed in that portion, and
the security was heavy, with cameras and alarms.

The policeman nearest him noticed his gaze and explained that they'd had
a lot of vandalism on the huge crypts, and the private memorial park had
paid for high systems to ensure a peaceful rest.

Mulder nodded and resumed his careful study of the layout, noting the
several entrances and the heavy treeline just meters from the graves.

It wouldn't have been easy to carry these two here, even if it was one
at a time, without someone noticing. 

He glanced once more to the mausoleum, then back to the Shappley's pale
and refined features.

Sighing, he led Scully away from the site, and got inside their rental
car.

"Are you doing the autopsies?" he asked.

She nodded. "In an hour."

"Let's see if we can get some breakfast first, then I'll drive you over
there."

Scully glanced over to him and sighed. "Sure."

~~~~

Frohike's voice was loud in his ear and he pulled the phone away
slightly, wincing.

"Yeah we got it, Mulder. Some wack-o stuff."

"What'd you find?"

"This kid, Jeff MacInteer, evidently didn't know he *was* a MacInteer
until his mother died and her will stated that Charles got custody.
There are some social services papers here that state that Jeff was
having a difficult time coping, that he had violent tendencies. There
was also some speculation that Jeff had assisted his mother's suicide,
but at six, no one wanted to bring him up on charges."

"All this in the records?"

"Well. . .sealed, of course."

"Right. Anything else?"

"Well, little fun-fact for ya. The date for his mother's death is
February 23, 1964,"

Frohike waited for Mulder to make the connection, the silence filled
with unspoken surprise.

"February 23. . .that's. . .that's Scully's birthday."

"Exactly. Nuts, huh?"

Mulder remembered her dreams, the feeling of being cold, so chilled that
she had come to him that night for warmth.

Nuts. . .yeah.

"Is that all?"

"Hardly. Illegal posession of drugs, two misdemeanors. He stole it from
his father, and the court ordered that he be counseled. The counselor
assigned to his case at that time reported that Jeff had never fully
gotten over his mother's death, and harbored ill will toward his new
family."

"Sheesh, this kid's a walking powder keg."

"Well, about three years ago, stepmom died and Jeff was the last one to
see her. Massive stroke, officially, but the autopsy doc thought it was
something more. However, Charles MacInteer was so devastated, the doc
didn't want to bring it up. Small town, close family. Blah blah blah."

Mulder snorted. "Death seems to follow this kid, huh?"

"Looks like."

"Thanks Frohike. I'll get you those videos."

"Right. And they better not be bootleg copies."

"What would you care?"

"Quality, man. Quality."

Mulder shook his head and hung up, clicking off his cell phone and
turning around in the room.

Jeff MacInteer.

Looked like he was the killer.

Although Mulder was pretty sure he didn't think of himself as one.

They needed evidence. They needed solid, airtight evidence.

They needed to find out where he was taking the victims.

He phoned Scully.

~~~~

Scully licked her lips and carefully lifted the latent print from
Elizabeth Shappley's left eyelid, inwardly rejoicing.

Even though it was too soon to be sure, she had a feeling that this was
the evidence they needed.

This fingerprint, combined with the vast circumstantial evidence that
Mulder was accumulating, would no doubt put him away.

She hoped.

There were good lawyers out there, and the MacInteers were rich.

Visions of an OJ court case danced through her head and she quickly grew
sober, making sure she did everything exactly right.

Her focus was so intense that she missed the soft swish of the double
doors opening, or the intense grey eyes that stared at her.

All she felt was the thick object connect against her head, and then the
deep, velvety blackness surrounded her.

~~~~

Frowning, Mulder heard the operator click over once again, explaining
that the cellular customer he was trying to reach was either out of
range or couldn't answer the phone.

He was positive she wasn't out of reach.

And he'd never had problems contacting her inside the autopsy suite
before.

He rubbed a hand thoughtfully over his chin, glancing around the motel
room for some indication on what he should do.

He wanted to check out the graveyard again, wanted to dispel that
feeling he'd gotten upon arriving early this morning.

Something about the place made him uneasy, and it wasn't just the dead
people that got to him.

He wondered if it was possible to get inside those mausoleums without
triggering the security cameras and wires and alarms.

That would be an ideal place to store the bodies, convenient and
untravelled. The killer could wait there, carry them out one by one,
arrange the bodies.

Mulder pulled his suit jacket from the chair and headed for the car.

Scully would call him when she was finished with the autopsies.

~~~~
~~~~

Chapter Five

~~~~
Man wanders among symbols in those glades
Where all things watch him with familiar eyes

--"Correspondences" Charles Baudelaire
~~~~

She woke to a heat burning her leg, and the babble of a voice echoing
around her head.

A vibration passed through her body, and then a jolt slammed her head
into the floor.

A van.

She gagged on the stench that assaulted her next, rolling into a ball to
get away from the pain driving through her skull.

Driving.

A van.

She jerked up, hitting her head on the side of the vehicle, noting the
thick rope about her neck, which was then tied to her hands and on down
to her feet, both also bound with silver duct tape.

Gagged too.

She choked on the smell of vomit and blood and death, a kind of soured
stench of green beans and other dinner smells, and then the fragrance of
her own deoderant.

She was hot.

The van had been stripped of the carpet, so that her body lay on the
black, hot metal that the carriage of the car rested on.

It burned her leg and side, and made her skin melt to the metal.

The voice reasserted focus in her mind and she cast wary eyes to the
driver's seat.

"Hello, hello."

Her nostrils flared as she breathed, trying to fight down panic.

She'd been in this kind of situation before. She could do it again.

<Mulder always saved her. Mulder.>

She hung on to that delusion for about as long as it took her to breathe
in again, then she felt tears of fright slip down her cheeks.

"We're going to stop this, Mom. I'm going to stop you haunting me, and
everything's going to be okay again. I know how it's supposed to work
this time."

Scully's eyes rolled up to the left, frantic.

She shook her head violently.

"We're gonna do it right this time, Mom. I've been studying. I've done
real good, Mommy."

She felt the hopelessness rise in her like bile and it brimmed in her
eyes.

"Oh!" he said suddenly, glancing at her through the rearview mirror.

"That's it. That's it. See, you have to have that look. Like
everything's going to just be *over* and you can't do anything to stop
it."

She breathed in pants, trying to get enough oxygen through her nose,
even as he heart raced and her blood thundered in her head, drowning out
the man's voice.

"Jeff. . ." she moaned, trying to do *something* anything, to make him
see what he was doing.

"I'll help you Mommy. I'm older now. It'll all be okay."

~~~~

The car hummed pleasantly beneath his hands, the road meeting the
suspension with easines and grace, like a swan through water.

Mulder liked this little Honda. It was such a nice driving car.

Their customary Fords were bouncy and ragged, as if the entire thing was
still raw with machinery and assembly line.

The rental agency hadn't had anything else to offer, and even though the
Bureau had a policy of renting only American made, cheap cars, he'd been
forced to accept the compact.

There was no way he was going back to Fords.

Glancing to the map, Mulder noted the left turn he'd have to make at the
light, then shifted in his seat, trying to put Scully out of his mind.

Something was bothering him though.

The cell phone trilled sharply in his jacket, and Mulder fumbled for it
with a grunt, expecting Scully's voice to tell him about her autopsies.

"Mulder."

"Agent Mulder? This is Charles MacInteer. I probably should have called
you a long time ago."

"About your son, sir?"

A sigh greeted his question and Mulder was silently joyful. If the
father could be persuaded to testify, then maybe this case would be just
as airtight as they needed it to be.

"Agent Mulder. Those drugs you mentioned. . .Jeff took some. He told me
he was bailing out a friend who was in trouble with a dealer. Usually, I
would never have let him, but he was just getting clean. Just getting
over that phase of his life and I wanted to show him I supported his
change."

"Mr. MacInteer, you should have told us that before-"

"I know. But the real reason I'm calling is. . .Agent Scully. . .Jeff
kind of hinted that he was going out with her. He said he was going to
pick up his mother. . ."

"His mother?"

"The day you came over, he said that Agent Scully looked like his
mother. I didn't think anything of it, but tonight he said he was going
'out' and that he had to pick up his mother first."

"Do you know where he might have gone?" Mulder asked tensely.

"No idea. But there's something I need to warn you about."

"What's that?"

"When his mother died. . .it was suicide and the police told me that his
prints were all over the box her pills were in, and the water glass. He
didn't kill her, but he assisted her suicide. Agent Mulder, he was only
six. I don't know what that did to him, but he's always been a sad kid."

Mulder's mind raced to fit in all the puzzle pieces.

"Mr. MacInteer, where is his mother's grave at?"

"Oh, Memorial Park. But it's not a grave, it's a mausoleum. It's in her
name, Danielle Pixton. I guess you could say I felt guilty for never
knowing about Jeff and tried to make up for it. . ."

Mulder's blood froze and he braked at the stop light, switching on his
turn signal.

"Thank you so much for calling, Mr. MacInteer," he said curtly.

"Wait-"

Mulder hung up and cranked the wheel, then floored the gas.

He had Scully.

Jeff had Scully.

~~~~

Elation was like a jolt of lightning to her weary, tense body.

Jeff didn't have any weapons with him.

No gun, or knife, or even a syringe.

<That you can *see*.>

He must think she'd willingly go along with him.

If he thought she was his mother. . .

Nothing made sense, though. He was crazy. It was all she could hold on
to, all she knew right now.

He was just plain nuts.

"Okay, Mom. It's going to be okay this time."

Scully finally worked the gag off her mouth and wondered if she should
say something, or just take him by surprise.

But his eyes lifted to the mirror and bored right into her soul.

Those eyes.

She knew those eyes.

"I can feel it Mom. . .it'll be right this time."

She shook her head. "I'm not your mother. . .she's not me."

He laughed. "Mom mom mom. You forget we have this connection. I can feel
you everywhere I go. I don't like feeling you!"

His eyes had hardened to thin points of steel, his gaze like a sword
running through her gut.

"Please, please, I'm not your mother. All you have to do is let me go."

"I'm going to end this right now, Mom. No more. I can feel you. I know
you can feel me. How else would you have haunted me all this time?"

She froze, hearing his words echo off the metal interior of the van.

<I know you can feel me.>

The dreams. . .

No no no.

"I'm not-"

"Shut up! Just shut up. I can't stand you. All the time, all the time,
you hound me. It's not my fault it didn't work the first time. You don't
have the right to haunt me for 35 years! I want you GONE!"

Scully flinched as if he had physically slapped her, then ducked her
head and decided speech wasn't the way to get out of here.

Once they stopped, she would have a better idea of a plan.

Right now, she had to work on getting the duct tape off the ropes
surrounding her wrists and ankles.

Then, all she had to do was escape.

Escape.

She chewed the inside of her cheek to keep from crying, then focused on
the tape.

First things first.

~~~~
~~~~

Chapter Six

~~~~

Astounding voyagers! what noble stories
We read in your eyes, deeper than the seas;
Show us those caskets, filled with rich memories,
Marvelous jewels, hewn from stars and aether. . .

Tell us, what have you seen?

--"The Voyage" Charles Baudelaire

~~~~

Mulder pulled into the cemetery parking lot and looked around for other
vehicles, trying to determine if Jeff was there or not.

Six o'clock wasn't a popular hour to visit the dead, so Mulder nudged
the car out of the lot and into the Taco Bell across the street.

Jogging across the six-lane road, he checked out the mausoleums through
the tree cover, trying to see if he detected any movement.

Nothing.

He should have asked the father what kind of vehicle the man was
driving.

The trees formed a fence around the graveyard and offered a cool,
sheltering canopy of leaves at the entrance.

Discreetly, Mulder drew his sidearm and checked that it was loaded, then
edged his way onto the main road.

The path wound along gardens and artificial waterfalls, stopping at the
Memorial Park Building, where the funerals services were held, and then
continued on before ending at the mausoleums.

Mulder carefully checked the surrounding area as he made his way to the
gated structures, their morose and dark architecture leaving no doubts
as to their purpose.

He checked the names etched into the mortar, finding that Danielle
Pixton's was elaborate, and most definitely the most expensive vault
there.

By the size, he could tell that the building was more of a crypt or
catacomb rather than a real mausoleum, underground rather than above. 

He stood by the fence, trying to figure out how to scale the barbed wire
without killing himself, when he heard the sounds.

A car rushing along the path to the mausoleums, the heavy tread of the
tires, and the gutteral shifting of the engine.

Mulder glanced around wildly, knowing that the element of surprise was
all he had going for him, while Jeff had Scully.

He backed away from the clearing and moved to the trees about twenty
feet from the fence, concealing himself behind a massive oak.

He waited, hand clutched tightly around his weapon.

~~~~

When the van slowed to a stop, Scully prepared herself to make a run for
it, but when Jeff opened the back doors, she didn't have a chance.

As she dropped to the pavement, she recognized the graveyard, and the
huge mausoleums off in the distance.

Jeff had parked crookedly she noticed absently, and as she struggled to
stand, she wondered if he had given her drugs after he'd knocked her
out.

She felt weak and sick.

Vomit rose in her throat, but she forced it down, trying to keep her
strength as long as possible.

He must have given her something. . .

Jeff took her arm and pulled her along, making her stumble crazily over
her feet, tripping over things that weren't there, and stubbing her toe
on the back of her own shoe.

They stopped before the fence, and Jeff let go of her arm to pull out
his key, and Scully thought to herself --

this is it.

"Freeze! FBI! Step away!"

The sudden burst of noise caught both her and Jeff off-guard, but she
recognized the voice and recovered faster than the man beside her.

Lurching to her right, she slammed hard into Jeff, then twisted her body
to the left, managing to fall almost gracefully, then roll away.

She heard a curse and felt a needle graze her arm before she rolled
clear, then things took on a tired, drawn-out feel, as if someone was
playing the action in slow motion.

A hand came to her back and she tensed, waiting for another needle, but
felt only softness.

"Scully, it's me."

Sighing in relief, Scully shifted position to see his face.

Mulder was hunched over her, one hand gripping the gun and holding Jeff
back, his eyes flinty but concerned.

Safe. She was safe.

Blackness descended.

~~~~

Mulder crouched low over Scully, almost like a protective animal, ready
to snarl at the middle aged man across from him, poised to spring.

"Stay right there, Jeff. Stay right there," he warned.

Checking for a pulse, he breathed out in relief at the steady rhythm,
but knew he had to get her to a hospital, just in case.

The man shifted from one foot to another, back and forth, his eyes
darting from Scully to Mulder's gun, then back to Scully.

"I gotta make her stop haunting me."

Mulder slowly stood, then stepped in front of Scully's unconscious form,
blocking her from Jeff's sight.

The man grew agitated.

"I have to do it right this time. . ."

"You're not doing anything. Put down the syringe."

Jeff shook his head and licked his lips.

"I have to get her out of my head! You don't understand! She's got this
link with me! She won't let go. . ."

"Put down the syringe, Jeff. This is the last time I have to tell you.
Put it down."

Jeff's eyes suddenly switched. 

From desperate and hopeless to steel and determination.

He lunged toward Mulder, needle outstretched and teeth bared.

Mulder fired once, then twice, and Jeff dropped mid-arc to the ground
with a heavy thud.

Breathing sharply through his caution, Mulder carefully walked over and
kicked the syringe from the man's curled hand.

Pulling the cell phone from his pocket, Mulder dialled 911 and gave the
emergency operator his badge number.

When the call was completed, he crouched down next to Scully's still
body, checking her pulse again.

Steady and strong.

He sighed and pulled her head into his lap.

~~~~


Mulder stood in the hospital corridor, Scully at his side (where he
thought she most definitely belonged), her face close to the window.

Jeff MacInteer began his high-pitched, childish screaming again,
throwing his head back and thrashing in the bed, pulling against the
Velcro restraints.

Scully turned back to Mulder, her face looking just as haunted as Jeff
claimed to be.

"You don't think his mother. . .really is haunting him. . .?"

Mulder couldn't help but be intrigued by the remarkable coincidences
between Danielle Pixton and Dana Scully, how one's death was the other's
birth, and the picture of Danielle was so eerily a reflection of Scully.

"Maybe her memory, Scully," he said finally.

She sighed in something of relief, then glanced once more to the man
crying pitifully in his bed. Charles MacInteer sat beside the man,
trying to calm him in his elderly way, patting his hand when the boy
didn't snarl at him, content to sit back when he did.

"The dreams I had. . .they were just dreams, right Mulder?"

He wanted to put her at ease, he really did.

But he couldn't lie to her. And she would know if he were lying.

"No. I think the dreams were more. I think maybe his mother might have
been trying to make him stop. . .sent you those dreams to help capture
him."

She shivered. "If you can believe that, then what's stopping you from
believing that his mother is in me somehow?"

Mulder took her hand in his, squeezing until she turned to look in his
eyes.

"Because I know you. You're Dana Scully. You're not his mother, and
you're not the type to kill herself because of a disease. You had cancer
but not once did you ask me to help you end your life."

She sighed and nodded, appreciating his effort, trying to tell herself
that this was ridiculous.

Mulder leaned down and kissed her forehead gently, trying to pull her
from her thoughts.

"If you're going to start believing, Scully, why couldn't you start with
my aliens?"

She chuckled softly and enjoyed the smell of his aftershave and shampoo
wrapping around her tightly.

He leaned his forehead against hers, breathing in her sudden peace.

"You're right, Mulder. . ."

He grinned. "Never thought I'd hear that coming from you. . .maybe you
*are* Jeff's dead mother."

Put like that, she had to laugh again, this time at her own moment of
doubt, and reached up to touch his chin, rubbing against his skin.

Suddenly the air between them shifted and shimmered into something alive
and aware, different and tense.

She wanted to back away, to move her skin from his touch, but she
couldn't.

His breath came in hot spurts across her nose, tickling her cheeks, and
she closed her eyes.

She felt his lips grace her eyelids, like flower petals brushed against
her skin, and she shivered in his arms.

"Feel okay?" he whispered, worried because she'd insisted on being
discharged immediately.

"Mm, I feel. . .okay," she lied.

More than okay.

He tickled her harline with another butterfly kiss, his lashes like tiny
fingers.

"We. . .we have to go give our statements," she said, and managed to
back away from him.

A spurt of courage allowed her to look up into his eyes, and instead of
disappointment, she found an odd hope dancing in his dark pupils.

He took her hand and winked.

"All right. But after that, you're mine."

~~~~

end
adios
RM