Title: Gutless (15/16) Author: Magdeleine See Prologue for full headers; all posted chapters can be found at http://shannono.simplenet.com/gutless GUTLESS Chapter 15 The Mo-Z Inn, Room 121 6:15 PM The electricity was off at the motel. Some faint illumination came through the curtains, but the sun had almost completely set, the rain was still coming down, and the streetlights were all dark. It was still warm inside, to Scully's surprise; the heat must have been on all day and apparently the blackout was of recent vintage. She fumbled through her suitcase with wet hands -- in the dark, it was difficult to ignore the nightmare thought that the sticky damp was warm blood -- and at last she came up with her flashlight. She turned the flashlight on and swept the beam around the room. A huge ghoulish shadow rose up and batted at her with a twelve-foot wingspan, uttering a blood-curdling shriek -- Guido. The parrot flapped his wings twice and squawked at the bright light. "JACK AND JILL WENT UP THE HILL, THEY EACH HAD A BUCK AND A --" Scully turned the flashlight away and he settled down, chukking disapprovingly. Scully shed her dripping trench coat and hung it on one of the headless hangers in the tiny closet area. The clothes she was wearing were mostly dry, except for the bottom quarter of her dress slacks; her shoes were completely soaked and had water squishing around inside from the puddles she'd splashed through on her blind run back to the motel. She considered it, shrugged, and squished her way to the bathroom. The flashlight, thank God, balanced nicely on end. She propped it up on the lid of the toilet tank, where it illuminated the ceiling in a bright half-circle, the other half of the circle stretching down the wall like a half-moon made of silly putty. As thunder boomed outside, the flashlight rattled slightly against the porcelain, but stayed upright. She toed off her shoes and emptied them into the sink, squinting at them critically. Not too bad. With any luck, they'd be fine after they dried. She stripped off her slacks and pantyhose; the slacks she wrung out and draped over the shower rod, the pantyhose she wadded up and tossed in the trash. There were clean towels in the bathroom. Twice as many as there had been the night before, and Scully sensed the stealthy hand of Mae the Maid at work. Special treatment for Mulder's sake. Bitch. Her stomach twisted at that and she yanked a towel out of the stack with such violence that the remaining towels went everywhere like a white terry cloth avalanche. She almost stooped down to gather them up again, went so far as to stretch out one hand toward a little washcloth perched companionably next to the flashlight, but the gesture brought her bruised knuckles into view and stopped her cold. She'd hit him. This hadn't been some playful punch on the shoulder; she'd really clocked him. And if the way her hand was aching was any indication, she'd hurt him. The thought made her head buzz and the world seem to tip sideways as though she were drunk. Her numb mind continued to churn out short-term plans like a ticker-tape machine spewing out paper. Dry off. Put fresh clothes on. Call the hospital, check on how many stomach pumps they had and whether one was missing, and ask about any medical supply stores in the area. Call Dr. Marek and see if there was any new development in the analysis of the mystery substance they'd found. Go through the employment rosters from Taymor's again and see if anything popped out at her. Apologize to Mulder. The thought came out of the deep, shattering the tidy arrangement of surface plans, and suddenly the ugly glut of mixed emotions came welling up too. The rain had frozen her mind as well as her feet, but now everything was thawing out and she couldn't stop thinking. Too many thoughts, crowding her head, overwhelming her. She ground the heels of her hands into her eye sockets, blinding herself for a moment; for some reason it made the thoughts quiet down to a dull constant mutter instead of a hurricane of huge, shrieking, horrified voices. A little space to think in. Fine, all right, she was going to have to deal with this, but first things first. She dried her wet hair to a general dampness by rubbing it with a towel, and used a fresh one to roughly dry off her feet and calves. Some sort of pants, then. She left the bathroom, walking with short, jerky steps, the steel-wool carpet exfoliating the hell out of her water-softened feet. The flashlight stayed behind, illuminating the ceiling of an empty room; she'd only be a minute, really, why bother with hauling the dumb thing along? She was pulling on a pair of flannel pajama bottoms in the dark bedroom when car headlights swept across her window. Her head jerked up and she froze, like a cat going stock-still on a fence with its back arched and one paw in the air. The car motor idled for a moment out in the dark -- a familiar motor, she'd been listening to it for days now -- and then switched off. Car door opened, car door shut. Footsteps, crunching through the wet gravel. Keys jingling outside. Mulder's door peeled open with a rubbery sound, then slammed again. It was eerily quiet without electricity -- no televisions, no little refrigerator motors running; mostly, though, there was the spooky lack of that almost inaudible hiss that every electric light and appliance gives off. Scully could hear every one of Mulder's hesitant footsteps as he crossed the room, the *chink!* as he tossed his keys onto the bed, the mellow *bong* as he accidentally ran into a trash can and the muttered curse that followed. It was sort of thrilling to stand in the dark and listen; it was almost as if the wall wasn't there and they were in the same dark warm room, neither one able to see the other. Almost ... intimate. It gave her a chance to realize just how well she knew his little noises, realize that she'd know his footstep among a thousand others. The thought floated to the top of her mind again, unstoppable, implacable: *apologize*. She took one step toward the door without really meaning to, and suddenly she knew just what would happen if she tried to apologize, and it made her feel both furious and nauseous. Not that he wouldn't forgive her -- when it came down to it, taking her temper out on him and decking him in the rain was a small thing compared to the other betrayals Mulder had survived in life -- but she just *knew* that the bastard would ask her to explain herself. He wouldn't let it go with a simple "sorry." Oh no, Mulder would want a *talk*. She'd have to humiliate herself by admitting that her anger had been the flip side of the unassuaged lust that had been tearing her up for days. Goddammit. Worse, to have to face him and tell him these private, secret things when she was still worn out with wanting him. She'd broken once today already, when she lost her temper -- it was not unimaginable that she might shatter down the weakened lines of the first fracture. She didn't know which direction it would go; she might kiss him or she might kill him. It was a toss-up. Her stomach twisted violently as she realized just how much she wanted that to happen. How much she wanted to break. There was a limit, dammit, a definite limit to how long any kind of tension could be maintained without going insane. She stared warily into the warm dark in the direction of the connecting door and listened to Mulder rummage around in his suitcase and then start walking around the room with more confidence. Probably found his flashlight, just like she had. She heard him cross into the bathroom and stay there for a long time, probably drying off, maybe taking a look at his jaw. Most likely the bruise was forming already, the outraged blood vessels flaring color that would look black in the dim light of his flashlight. Scully took another step toward the door, not really conscious of doing so. Just then, she heard Mulder exit from the bathroom, his feet bare -- she could tell when he had his shoes off, God help her -- and pad across the carpet, across the room. The footsteps stopped right in front of the connecting door. Scully's heart bucked. She had no proof of it, but she was absolutely positive that Mulder was standing there looking at the connecting door, just as she was, some sixth sense arranging it so that their gazes were locked through the dark and the door. She couldn't breathe. The moment seemed to last forever; in the timeless dark, it could have been an instant or an hour. *KABOOOOOOOOOOOM!* A bright flash of lightning and its clap of thunder occurred almost simultaneously, giving Scully the startled impression that she was at the center of an explosion. The moment was broken; she heard Mulder finish crossing the room, heard the bedsprings creak in a getting-comfy pattern and then stop. On the bed. He was on the bed. The *bed*. Stiffly, she took two steps back and sat down on her own bed, feeling for it with one hand first to make sure it was where she thought it was so she wouldn't end up falling on her ass. He was on the bed. Did he know? Was it an invitation? Was he lying on his bed in the dark hoping for her to walk through that door and join him? The thought knifed through her: *Had he wanted her, too, all this time?* She sat there for an eternity, staring into the dark as though she were hypnotized, exhaustion weighing her down like a quadruple dose of gravity. It would be so easy. Just open the door and walk in. So easy. So simple. No explaining, no words, just the dark and his arms around her and an end to this insanity. She stood up. She walked. Her joints seemed stiff, her movements uncoordinated, her legs jerking as though electric shocks were being applied to her thighs. Too soon the door was in front of her, warm and smooth under her hesitant touch. She stood there, her heart pounding painfully in her chest, her breath shallow and sharp, feeling as though she was about to burst into tears or scream at the top of her lungs or erupt into gasping hysterical laughter. When she touched the doorknob her hand went numb and prickly. She swallowed down a huge lump in her throat and steeled herself to turn the knob. And then she heard it. Snoring. She gaped at the door in shock. He was taking a nap. Oh Christ, he was taking a nap and she'd almost walked right in and -- Shame flooded over her, and furious embarrassment. Part of her mind was still reaching forward into a future that no longer existed, still crawling into his bed, crawling up his body and finding wordless relief in a kiss that cracked the world open ... Not only would there be no kiss, no bedwarm body pressed against hers, there would be no relief. Not tonight. Anger flared through her in a red haze. Vague thoughts of her gun were pushed aside by stronger, bloodier thoughts of strangling Mulder with her bare hands. Inch by inch she fought the hot rage back, pushed it into a dungeon and locked it up. It took the last dregs of her energy and left her feeling cold and hollow. She stood in the dark, head bowed, and took up the burden of control like Atlas shifting the world back onto his shoulders. Quietly she moved to the light switch and moved it to its useless ON position in lieu of an alarm clock, then stumbled back to the bed. She pulled the covers back neatly and slid between the sheets, lying on her back, staring at the ceiling like a doll tucked into a toy crib. Eventually, she slept. It was the Coliseum in DC, the last piece of the Greco-Roman architectural puzzle. On a lavish balcony the President was eating grapes with Siskel and Ebert, all of them wearing laurel wreaths and togas except for the President, who had for some reason declined the laurel in favor of a Chicago Cubs baseball cap. Scully and Mulder were alone in the arena. The sun glinted off Scully's knife as she faced Mulder, her shoulders hot under the flapping trench coat and the packed dirt hot beneath her feet. The sky was painfully bright, flawlessly turquoise. The crowd roared like an angry ocean, cheering for her, cheering for him, but most of all cheering for blood to be spilt. They circled each other warily, their arms outspread, knives at the ready. Waiting to attack. Mulder's eyes were dark and smoldering, burning into hers. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead; as she watched, one slid down his face at an achingly slow pace, binding up in the stubble near his mouth. Without breaking eye contact, he slowly wiped the back of his knife hand across his brow, mockingly. An obvious opening. A trick. She clenched her hand tighter around the hilt of her knife and slitted her eyes at him, still biding her time. A predatory smile played over his lips, as if he was amused that she'd seen through him. His eyes never left hers. This would be settled here and now. The crowd roared again, louder than ever, as the two agents suddenly flung their trench coats off their shoulders like the wings of huge black crows. The coats tumbled to the ground, raising a cloud of red dust that swirled around them. Mulder attacked first, making a bold slash at Scully's right arm. She evaded the slash easily and parried with a strike at his exposed throat, pale under its stubble. He jerked out of the way and eyed her, still smiling that smoldering mockery of a smile. Anger flashed through her like lightning and she lashed out at him again, aiming for his ribs. A hand seized her knife arm by the wrist and twisted cruelly, halting her forward motion and sending shooting pain up to her shoulder. She lifted her arm and ducked under Mulder's arm like a dancer, planning on snapping out to a position where she could wrench away, but before she could complete the turn he pulled his arms down around her, trapping her against his body. His breath puffed hot and humid through her hair and over her scalp as he tightened his grip. His knife hand traveled slowly down her torso, his knuckles tracing a torturous path between her breasts and down to her belly. In apparent slow-motion he turned the knife, pressing the hard point against her stomach gently but firmly, pressing something just as hard into her lower back. She felt his head move down, sliding against her hair, his mouth next to her ear. "Surrender?" he rumbled in his darkest chocolate voice, his lips brushing her earlobe. His hips moved against her rhythmically, rubbing a tingling path along on her spine. Up and down, up and down. "On what conditions?" she asked, her voice unsteady. She curved her lower back toward him, curling away from the knife as she rocked against him, distracting him from the stealthy movement of her left hand toward his knife. He groaned faintly into her hair and she shivered, goosebumps shimmering up all over her body. "No conditions," he breathed, and nuzzled lightly at the fine flock of hair in front of her ear. "Unconditional." She turned her head to smile sideways into his eyes. "No sale," she informed him, and grabbed his knife hand, yanking it away from her body as she wrenched out of his grasp. It took a moment for mission control to throw the correct switches in Mulder's head, but not as long as she'd expected; she barely skidded past his outstretched hands, striking out at him like a blind thing -- Blood. First blood. She'd just winged him -- the red-tinged slash on his white shirt sleeve was small and shallow -- but the brief surprise in his eyes made savage joy skyrocket through her. Too soon his surprise faded into a magnanimous sneer. *Lucky shot,* he mouthed at her, and drove in toward her again. His knife caught her blouse right under the arm, barely missing her -- she felt the cold blade slide by less than an inch from her breast as she flinched away. Her rage flared white-hot and she stabbed at his thigh, overbalancing as he jerked out of reach and she instinctively lunged after him. Something hard slammed into her wrist and her knife-hand went numb; she yelped and tried to hang onto the weapon, but her stunned nerves wouldn't communicate the messages to her hand and the gleaming knife plunged to the red ground. He was coming at her again and she saw the knife at eye-level. Without thinking, she grabbed his forearm and *bit*, tearing at his flesh with a growl. He cried out and grabbed her hair with his left hand, trying to rip her away, but she ignored the pain. She held on with grim determination, eyes shut tight, worrying at him like a terrier. The crowd roared its approval. Mulder's knife fell just as he succeeded in pulling her away from his arm. He yanked her head up with his fist full of her hair and stared at her in outrage, his chest heaving, his hot breath coating her. She laughed triumphantly up into his face and licked his blood off her lips, savoring the thick tang of it. He looked so stunned at that that she laughed again, howling like a wolf, and lunged at him. They overbalanced and hit the ground hard with Scully splayed on top of him, his fist still clenched painfully in her hair. She clawed her way toward his throat, all humanity forgotten, weaponry meaningless in the rush of pure savage bloodlust, grabbing handfuls of his shirt to pull herself up his body. He locked his hands around her hips like a man stomping on the breaks of a speeding car, and rolled them over, crushing her beneath him. "Gotcha," he rasped, gulping for air. "That's ... what ... you ... think ..." she panted, one hand scrabbling in the dirt beside her. She swung a leg over and around his hip, throwing her weight so that they twisted over and she was on top again, straddling him, her skirt hiked up around her thighs. This time the knife was in *her* hand. Mulder froze, his gaze caught on the blue flash of the blade as Scully whipped it up, sweeping it through the air toward his throat -- His hand shot up and grabbed her forearm. The knife jerked forward, back, forward again as they struggled. Back. Forward. Back. It trembled in the middle for a long moment and then Scully ripped away from him, the knife high in the air. Their eyes locked. Scully made a move toward him; Mulder's hand mirrored the movement to block it. She feinted to the left; he followed it and she jerked back to swoop in from the right. He blocked her at the last minute, hitting her forearm hard. The knife went flying and suddenly he had a firm grip on both her wrists, pulling her hands out to both sides like a face-to- face double crucifixion. Her chin socked into his collarbone. His breath was hot on her throat as he panted for air, his back curved slightly as though he were about to sit up, head tucked in. "You fight ... dirty ..." she gulped. "You ain't seen ... nothin' ... yet ..." The hot humid breath on her neck suddenly solidified into his hot wet tongue tracing her jugular, tasting the pulse at the base of her throat before he latched on and suckled hard. She gasped and arched against him, shifting her hips to center herself on the hard bulge that had been beating time against her upper thigh. "Mulder ..." His mouth skidded up her neck and across her cheek. Their teeth clashed, clicking wetly together like broken crockery, mouths striking wildly at each other in a frenzy of biting and sucking and snatching each others' breath. Mulder groaned deep in his chest and pulled her hands back in, working them between their bodies. He tucked one of her hands over his heart, as though they were slow-dancing; the other one he slid down until she found herself cupping him, her fingers curling around him as he moaned into her mouth. "Touch me, Scully --" She ran her hand up and down his length and he whimpered and bucked against her, his hands carving a path down her back and crushing her to him. She nipped him high on his throat and sucked the tiny wound dry, her teeth scraping him as she found his mouth again and drank him down. He reared up, pushing her into a sitting position, and ripped her blouse open, burying his face between her breasts. His stubble scraped and burned as he turned his head blindly and pushed the fabric of her bra aside enough to pull her nipple into his mouth, sucking hard; she gasped and stroked him faster, her wrist bumping against her clit and sending a shower of sparks across her vision. Her free hand slid up and scrabbled against his shirt; she yanked on it but only succeeded in breaking one button off. "Your sh-shirt," she managed, and he grinned his wolfish grin against her breast and reached up to rip his own shirt open. She pushed her hand inside the shirt greedily, eating up his skin with her fingers, marking him with her nails. His hands were under her skirt now, cupping her ass and sliding back between her legs, and she began rocking against him, against her hand and his cock and his hands. He groaned deep in his throat and tore his mouth away from her breast to bite her shoulder as she found the zipper on his slacks and pulled it down, reaching inside to bring his cock out. "Scully --" "Get -- my underwear --" That was enough for clear communication; he yanked twice at the lacy barrier and it ripped away. She lifted up, positioning him with her hand, and then slowly slid down onto him, the sensation burning her from the inside out as he wrapped his arms around her back and gasped. And the crowd went wild. Up. Down. Again. So good, so good -- She threw her head back, exultant. Mulder made a desperate noise deep in his chest and pushed her back, pushed her over, pushed her down into the packed gritty dirt with his delicious weight covering her. Her legs wrapped around him and he thrust into her, the force of it driving her backwards in the hot dirt. Thrust. Thrust. *Thrust*. Harder each time, each thrust shoving her further backwards, the ground scraping her skin beneath the thin shirt, the heat burning her back. His hand slicked down between her legs and began to work her clit in a tight circle, and as he gasped and grunted against her neck and pounded into her she began to feel flames licking at her, the heat building and building and build -- And -- The bedroom lights turned on. The hard edge of consciousness slammed into Scully like jagged concrete and she jolted awake, the light burning red through her knotted eyelids as she gathered herself to scream in frustrated agony and -- -- *couldn't breathe* -- There was something crouched on top of her, its enormous weight crushing her, squeezing the breath out of her and scorching her belly and ribcage. Scully's defensive reflexes reared up and she tried to turn on her side to buck the attacker off *but she couldn't move* -- *Paralyzed*, her mind screamed, but she couldn't make any sound come out of her mouth. Her entire body had turned to stone and no matter what she tried to do she couldn't move, couldn't breathe -- The red light shrieking through her eyelids went suddenly black; for a frantic moment she thought that she had passed out, but her awareness remained sharp. The lights, then, had gone out again. Dimly, beyond the pulse pounding in her ears and the thick haze of her growing fear, she could hear thunder rumbling as the storm continued unabated. A terrifying heat was twisting through her lower torso, illuminating each of her internal organs with a low, sensual fire -- she had sudden firsthand knowledge of exactly where her spleen was, could sense each of the twists and curves of her intestines. Burning -- she was *burning up* and that more than her paralysis threw Scully into a state of pure panic: she had to move, had to move *now*, had to move move move move MOVE MOVE MOVE -- Her eyes flew open in the dark and she stared up, like a corpse on a stainless steel table, at the shadowed face of her attacker. Even in the dark, she knew that face. She was still staring up at him in betrayed horror when the electricity flickered on again and the full glare of the lights came streaming through the empty eye sockets and open, leering mouth of the Mulder-shaped thing on top of her. Scully's paralysis broke. The thing cackled into her face with brimstone breath as her arms pistoned up to push it away. She felt its skin give like some kind of horrible taffy and she had enough time to think that she was almost up to her elbows in what looked like Mulder's ribcage and then -- then the springy surface snapped open and it was if she'd thrust her arms into a pottery kiln. She yanked her arms back with a choked cry and rolled out of bed, thudding painfully onto her hands and knees. One hand -- stinging as though from a sunburn -- slapped up onto the bedside table as she scrabbled away, searching for and finding her semiautomatic in a matter of milliseconds. She threw herself into the nearest corner, gulping air, and trained her weapon on the thing hovering over her bed. There was enough time -- barely -- for Scully to notice with adrenaline-fueled clarity that there was only one surface to the thing, the frontal, ventral side; the back of its head and body were missing and she could see through it to a smooth pink interior like the inside of a rubber mask -- -- and then the creature reared up, shimmering like hot blacktop, its two-dimensional Mulder-face beginning to run like melting butter, and it screamed a hot thin scream like lava pouring into the ocean. It leered at her with that funhouse face and suddenly it was shooting away from her like high- powered steam -- -- shooting across the room through the connecting door and then it was gone. Scully's gun dropped to her side as her arm relaxed all at once, weak and trembly. Gone. Fled back to its host, whoever and wherever that could be -- A soft sound came from Mulder's room that made Scully's hair stand on end. And again, easily audible in the rain-pattered silence: He moaned. A sudden slideshow memory slammed through Scully's mind of Fred Schmidt and his nephew and Mulder's idea that the murderer, when balked by Fred, had simply gone on to the next best thing -- "MULDER!" she screamed, and launched herself across the room. The door was stuck. "Damn!" She dropped her gun onto the bureau next to the television set and yanked at the doorknob with both hands but the door remained as steadfastly sealed shut as it had been twelve hours ago. "Mulder!" she yelled, banging on the door with both palms. Another soft moan from the other room. "Mulder, wake up!" There was no answer other than an indecipherable murmur of sleeping speech. Scully screamed in frustration and beat her fists on the door -- She snatched up her weapon again and ran to the front door, unlatching it -- if she couldn't get through the connecting door, Mulder's *front* door would work -- and stopped just before she threw the door open. God. She didn't have the key to his door. Any efforts to get the key from the front desk or break in through the front would take too long; shooting the lock in would be tricky and ran the risk of having the bullet pass through the door and hit Mulder. The only option left was to try to break down the connecting door and hope that the noise would somehow wake him. "MULDER!" she yelled again and threw her weapon back on the bureau, her eyes darting over each piece of furniture in her room, judging each instantly for solidity and weight. "Come on, dammit, *wake up*!" She spotted the shelf next to the parrot cage, remembered the shelf was heavy, and practically flew across the room to grab it. "Come ON, Mulder, WAKE UP!" The shelf was slightly too high for her to pull down easily; she jumped up to slam one end up with her outstretched hand and knocked it off the wall. It came crashing down, striking the parrot cage en route to the floor, and narrowly missed Scully's bare toes as she skipped back out of the way. Guido, sleeping inside the cage, stirred but didn't wake. Scully grabbed the heavy plank of wood and charged back across the room. "DAMMIT, MULDER," she shouted as she adjusted her grip on the shelf, "will you WAKE UP already?" "*Scully* --" She whirled around. The intonation was Mulder's but the voice -- "*Scully* --" Guido muttered again, apparently talking in his sleep. "*Scully, touch me* --" She stared, caught momentarily in a dream of knives and blood and a crowded coliseum, hearing those words in Mulder's voice. The HOST. Oh, Christ, the PARROT was the host. And the thing that it was playing host to was about to kill Mulder. "MULDER!" She slammed the shelf against the door, near the knob. *WHAM.* "You were right!" *WHAM.* "You were right about the whole thing!" *WHAM.* "Will you just WAKE UP, DAMMIT?" *WHAM.* *WHAM.* *WHAM.* The door wouldn't budge. When Scully paused for a split second to catch her breath, she could hear Mulder moaning almost continuously in the next room. "*MULDER!!!*" she screamed in despair, beyond hoping that it would wake him up, and lifted the board for another attack on the door. A low chuckling started behind her. Guido. She whipped around and stared at the parrot, chortling away in his little cage, and an idea came to her -- a last-ditch crazy idea, a Mulderish idea. <*Kill the host, kill the creature.*> She grabbed her gun and leveled it at the birdcage, hearing Mulder's groans become more and more frantic in the background. Her finger tightened on the trigger. What if it wasn't the bird? What if she did this and it *still didn't save him*? "Dammit!" she howled, her face contorting in an agony of indecision. "Mulder, WAKE UP, this isn't FAIR!" "YOU AIN'T SEEN ... NOTHIN' ... YET ..." Guido rasped in perfect Mulderspeak. In the other room, Mulder uttered a wordless preorgasmic shout. Scully aimed at the parrot's head and fired. Mulder rocketed through Scully's front door seconds after the sound of the gunshot had died away, his semiautomatic at the ready, the unlatched door flying into the wall hard enough to put a dent in the drywall. Scully looked up at him with wide eyes, her weapon at her side, her face pure white. "What happened?" he demanded. One side of her mouth jerked up in a humorless smile, then down again. "I found the host." "What?" He trained his gun in a sweep around the room, expecting an intruder to leap out from behind some furniture somewhere. That was before he saw the birdcage. Feathers and blood were everywhere. The little corpse was lying on the floor of the cage, one wing cocked up as though Guido was waving goodbye. Mulder lowered his weapon to his side and stared. After a moment, he felt Scully join him. They stood side by side in silence, looking for a long time at the mess. Finally, Mulder roused himself to speak. "You know," he said, looking down at the crown of Scully's fantastically rumpled hair, "there's a Monty Python joke in here somewhere ..." "Just leave it alone, Mulder." End of Chapter 15 (15/16) Feedback to playwrtrx@aol.com All posted chapters can be found at http://shannono.simplenet.com/gutless