Anamorphosis 18/28
by Megan Reilly
eponine@prodigy.net

-18-

	Scully's OPC hearing was at nine and his wasn't scheduled until noon,
so in the morning he went to the Lone Gunmen's office after she'd gone
to the Hoover building, wearing the demure black suit she reserved for
occasions when she felt like she needed to impress people with
everything she had, including her clothes.
	"Mulder!"  Langly greeted him at the door, alerted by video
surveillance.  "We've got to get this issue to the printer's by two." 
Together, they walked into the cramped, dim office.  Byers had a yellow
pencil behind each ear and was typing rapidly into one of the many
computers.  "Wanna proofread?"  Langly shoved several pages into
Mulder's empty hands.
	"Where's Frohike?" Mulder asked.
	"Darkroom."  Byers' tone conveyed that he was too busy to waste words
or even turn his head to greet his friend.
	Mulder stood, setting the pasted-up pages on the counter.  He didn't
want to bother the guys when they were working.  He knew he should
probably head to his own office to go over his case notes before his
questioning by the OPC and whatever lawyers were going to be present. 
He'd killed a man, and even though he was right, he was not proud of
that fact.  "I just wanted to thank you guys for the tip on the house,"
he said.
	His mind wandered to  Scully, wondering how she was getting along with
the OPC.  He reminded himself, again, that she didn't need his
protection and that if he ever implied that she did, she would be
furious.  She might even leave him.
	"You liked it?" Byers looked at him, a pleased grin lighting up his
face.
	"Yeah," said Mulder.  "I don't know where you get your info, but it was
great."
	"A friend of mine is the marketer," Byers said.  Mulder noticed his
friend wasn't wearing a jacket or a tie.  He wasn't sure he had ever
seen Byers out of uniform.  Or relaxed.  Mulder couldn't keep the
corners of his mouth from turning up. Byers had a girlfriend.  "And my
sister's the estate agent," he added, looking more annoyed and returning
to the article he was working on.
	"Wow, Mulder," said Langly.  "A wife, home...you're settling down."
	Mulder nodded.  "I don't want to keep you. Tell Frohike I said hello. 
We'll have to get together."
	"Wait, I know he wanted to talk to you."  Byers dropped a third pencil
onto the table and Mulder wondered what the hell he needed pencils for
when he was typing.  Byers walked to the black door of the darkroom and
knocked.  "Frohike?"
	"Not now!" came the reply.
	Byers shrugged.
	"I'll call you. Thanks again," Mulder said, heading for the office to
face what he'd been delaying.

	"Tell us again how you determined it was Joe Wilder who brutalized and
murdered these innocent little girls."
	Scully stared at her interrogators as she gathered her thoughts.  She
disliked the way they were attempting to introduce emotion into their
questions.  A trio of lawyers as shiny and identical as though they'd
been freshly poured from a mold only that morning looked back at her,
waiting for her answer.  Her stomach was queasy with worry they would
learn her dark, dirty little secret.  "He was associated with Scott
Strader," she said finally.
	"Who never had the benefit of a trial," said one the one in the
pinstripes.
	"What do you know about Strader?" asked the one in the glasses.
	"Virtually nothing beyond what's in the report."  She'd taken a
mini-seminar on testifying in court while she attended medical school. 
Presenting evidence was an important role of the pathologist.  She
followed all of those rules now - remaining calm and neutral; meeting
the lawyer's eyes; saying only what she needed to say.
	"And yet your partner is the one who shot him."  Why did the gray
haired one sound so accusing?
	"Yes, sir."  There was nothing for her to add.
	"Where were you when your partner shot Scott Strader?"
	"Visiting my family. It was Thanksgiving."  She could feel the tension
that accompanied defensiveness leaking through her and taking hold.  She
knew she couldn't let them win and that if they got her on the
defensive, she would no longer be in control.
	"Is that usual?"
	"I had requested the time off in advance -"
	"In fact, you had a problem with this case, didn't you, Miss Scully?"
	The questions were becoming more rapid and adversarial.  And she hated
being referred to as "Miss" and wondered suddenly if her agent status
was at stake here.
	"Weren't you on a leave of absence at the time of Joseph Wilder's
arrest?"  The gray haired one leaned in too close to her and she could
smell his breath, the faintly putrid odor of a breath mint masking sour
coffee.  She wanted to run.
	"I was."  She knew it was impossible for them to hear her heartbeat,
but it sounded deafening to her own ears.  Why wouldn't he back off? 
She knew he was doing it to intimidate her and it made her angry to know
that it was working.
	"How do you explain your apprehension of him, then?"  The gray haired
man finally leaned back, smugly crossing his arms.  Like he'd just been
handed his shiny gold victory trophy.
	"I came upon him -"
	"Luck?"  She could see the laughter in his eyes.
	"A girl was murdered!" she cried. "He was at the scene and physical
evidence -"  Her hand stabbed the air, making her point.
	"None was collected."
	"What?"  It took a second for her shock to fully register.
	All three of them shook their heads, as though they were controlled by
the same string.
	"It should have been collected," she said.
	"You don't know?" The blond one's question was a condemnation.
	"I was assaulted.  By Joe Wilder.  I had a concussion and as you say,
was not assigned to the case.  I left the matter of evidence in the
hands of the other law enforcement personnel on the scene."
	"Your partner," the one with glasses supplied.  Scully was getting
tired of turning her head to look at all of the men asking her
questions.  They were circling, doing it on purpose to unnerve her. Had
she ever treated suspects this way?  She knew that she had.  But she was
not a suspect.
	"My partner and other officers," she confirmed.
	"Your partner was on suspension -"
	"Mulder was on mandatory leave," she corrected stridently.  She would
always come to Mulder's defense.  "Any time an officer fires his weapon,
some period of mandatory leave and counseling is required."
	"Why did you ask for leave from this case?"
	"I -"  She shook her head, searching for the words.  "Children - girls
- murdered in this way..."  She searched the man's onyx eyes, looking
for understanding.  She found none and it astounded her.   How could
they not be emotionally affected, or understand why she had been?  "It
was very difficult for me," she finished quietly, feeling scorn and
shame for becoming emotional.
	"And Joe Wilder was not apprehended at the scene of the murder and this
assault."
	"No."
	"You were the only one who saw him, is this correct?"
	"Yes."
	"And you were able to identify him under hypnosis?"
	She said nothing, knowing her silence was damning.  "I had
trauma-induced memory loss from the concussion."
	"It's possible that facts revealed under hypnosis could be incorrect?"
	She raised an eyebrow at him.
	He used his finger to underline words as he read them from one of the
many sheets of paper in front of him.  "'It is a rare individual who
cannot be induced to say or do anything under the care of a skilled
hypnotist.'"  He tossed the paper at her.  "Your words, Miss Scully. 
Published in a forensic journal in 1996 -"
	Her face flushed and she hated her body's betrayal of her humiliation
and anger.  "Corroborating evidence was found in Joe Wilder's home
linking him to all of the crimes."
	"Found by an agent suspended for murder, operating without the benefit
of a search warrant."
	She hadn't known.
	"You're married to your partner, Agent Scully?"
	"That has no bearing on this matter."  She said and felt even angrier
as he looked at her with disbelief.
	"It does if you married him so that you wouldn't have to testify
against him," the one with the glasses informed her savagely.  Her mouth
dropped open in shock because they couldn't think...  She scanned their
faces.  "That will be all," he said, dismissing her.
	She got to her feet quickly.  That they hadn't asked about her mental
health was a relief, but one quickly overshadowed by her other worries.
Mulder was waiting his turn in the hall, but she walked past without
looking at him, unwilling to give the lawyers any more ammunition. In
her mind, they had enough already.

	Mulder turned and watched Scully walk away.  She hadn't acknowledged
him at all.  His chest tightened and he turned to the three lawyers
waiting to question him.  One of them he recognized as working for the
bureau.  "Did you upset her?" he asked them.
	"Your concern is admirable," the gray haired man said, not answering
his question.  They went into the conference room and sat down.
	"Why did you shoot Scott Strader?"
	Hey, don't start with the easy questions, Mulder thought.  "He was
pointing a 45 caliber semi automatic at my head."
	"What became of that weapon?"
	"It was turned in as evidence," Mulder replied with total confidence.
	"Where is that weapon now?"
	Mulder's eyes widened. Damn it!  They'd lost the gun.  And since
Strader had never registered it, there was no record of him ever having
owned a gun.  They'd lost it or someone had stolen it, to make him look
bad.
	The lawyers accepted it as a point conceded by him.  1-0.  He was
losing.
	"Why did you pursue the case while on administrative leave?"
	2-0.  Shit.  He couldn't answer that question.
	"Agent Mulder?"
	"Scully - my partner - Agent Scully required my assistance."
	"Even after she walked away from the case?"
	Mulder slapped the table with his hand.  "You can't just turn it off
and on!  An investigator digests the facts of the case slowly, working
on them as he pursues other matters."
	"You were obsessed?"
	"I didn't say that!  I don't like your tone or your attitude," Mulder
snapped.
	"A man is dead and another is incarcerated, Agent Mulder. This is a
very serious matter."
	He only stared.  Angry.  Already aware of its seriousness.
	"Do you have anything to say for yourself?"  The gray haired man asked,
self assured, as though he were scolding a child.  It was that bad.
	"The evidence in this case will prove true."  He was getting hoarse.
	"The improperly acquired evidence?"
	3-0.  They sank his battleship.  "If you let him out, he will kill
again and that will be on your head!"  He pointed at them, rising from
the table.
	"You may go."
	"Good!"  He stormed out and the door slammed behind him.  His anger
collapsed the instant he hit the cooler air in the hallway. 
	He'd fucked up.
	"Damn it!" he cried again, knowing he could have handled that better. 
He shook his head and went downstairs to his office, seeking Scully.
	She wasn't there.
	He couldn't continue to worry every time she wasn't where he expected
her to be. She was holding herself together and he had to give her
credit for that.  She hadn't switched and daily he saw less moments of
pain and uncertainty plaguing her.
	Scully was getting better.
	As he sat in his desk chair in his empty office, he felt himself
growing irritated with her for not being there for him when he needed
her support. Wasn't he there for her? Hadn't he given her everything
she'd needed?
	But he couldn't let himself feel that way.  He knew that, and guilt
followed with his next breath.
	He needed her.  Why was that so terrible?
	He shook his head again.  So many things had changed since their
marriage, in their expectations from each other. On the job and not.  He
let out a breath and opened the file, ready to go over his mistakes for
the thousandth time.
	Why hadn't Scully even looked at him in the hall?  It must have gone
badly for her too. Maybe she was angry with him.  She probably needed
some time alone. So did he.  He settled back in the chair, putting one
foot against the desk, to try to find one thing he had actually done
right.

	The blue-gray light from the TV was the only light in the room,
flickering and highlighting Scully's bone structure when Mulder walked
in late that evening.  Her eyes were wide and fixed, staring at the
muted set.  She didn't look at him when he walked in and closed the
door.
	"They let him out," she said in an odd voice.  She closed her eyes and
he saw her nose and lips move as though fighting tears.  She forced her
eyes open and turned her head, focusing on Mulder's face.
	"No," he said.
	She nodded, eyes shiny.  "Back on the street."  She punched the couch
with her fist. "Because we did a bad job."
	He felt the same way she did, and couldn't say anything.
	She sat in sullen silence.  This had happened because she had put her
own problem before her job and other people's lives.  She had been weak
and she had been wrong.  Now, because of her, other girls would be hurt
and tortured and killed.
	She had never hated herself as strongly as she did at that moment. 
Mulder sat down next to her, his face upset.  When he touched her, she
knew it was because he needed her reassurance.  She couldn't bear it
because it was her fault.  How could he turn to her when she was so
worthless?
	"If you're going to touch me, don't be gentle and don't be kind," she
said quietly.  "I don't deserve it."  If she could save one girl...if
she could absorb the pain so another girl wouldn't have to...She wanted
the punishment.  She knew she deserved to suffer.
	A soft sound came from Mulder's throat.  Horrified.  What was she
asking him to do?  He didn't know.  All he could do was stare.
	He couldn't deal with this.
	He couldn't cope with Scully's guilt and blame when he couldn't handle
his own.  He didn't know what he'd expected to find waiting for him when
he opened the door, but it wasn't this.  Commiseration, planning,
love...but not this.
	He walked out of her apartment.
	Scully returned her eyes to the screen.  Waiting for the news of a girl
injured because of her utter incompetency.  She couldn't let herself
think about Mulder walking away and leaving her alone without a word.
	Joe Wilder knew where she lived.

	Mulder drove for what seemed to be endless hours, around in the dark,
losing his way only to find it again, almost playing a game with himself
to see if he could actually become lost.  Driving wasn't calming. He'd
thought he needed the time to think and now he knew that thinking was
the last thing he wanted to do.
	He wanted to go home to his wife, to Scully, to the only person who he
knew understood the way he felt.  He wanted to lie with her, he wanted
to talk to her, he wanted to lock himself inside and never have to
leave.
	She was hurting and she was scared.  That much had been written all
over her face and he'd left her there. His foot pressed harder on the
gas pedal.  He should not have left her alone like that.  But damn it,
what about him?
	He felt selfish for having those thoughts.  But running was not the
answer.  In the past, running had always been his immediate reaction -
he walked away when she didn't understand him, rather than trying to
explain, because it was easier.
	He couldn't do that now that they were married.   They needed to talk
about this.  He made a right turn, heading back to her apartment.

	She stared at the door when she heard someone trying to get inside,
torn between opening it for Mulder and pointing her gun at the murderer
who was bound to come after her.  She waited to see which it would be.
	"What?" Mulder asked, seeing her startled expression as he walked
through the door.  He closed it and locked it, feeling uncomfortable and
not certain why.
	She shook her head.  He sat down near her on the couch and turned on
the light. Scully recoiled from its brightness, having sat in the dark
too long.  Mulder turned off the television.  "We should talk," he said.
	She nodded, waiting.  He didn't  know what to say - "I know you're in
pain but what about me?" just wouldn't do.  He sighed.
	"How do you feel about this?" she asked him.
	"Angry at myself.  To blame. I should have done a better job."
	"That's funny," she said.  Mulder looked at her like she'd gone
completely insane since it was anything but funny.  "I feel the same
way," she finished.
	"We have to believe Violent Crimes will get him."
	"How many girls will have to die before that happens?" Scully demanded.
	There were no answers.  He wished he had some for her, but he didn't. 
She leaned against his shoulder and he put his arm around her.  "I
shouldn't have gone back to work," she said and he could feel the tiny
shivers running through her body. He tightened his arm.  "How many other
investigations will I ruin?"
	"You're getting better."
	"Am I?"  She picked up her head to try to get the truth from his eyes. 
He hoped that she saw it there.  "This must be hard on you," she
realized.  "Not what you expected from marriage.  Not what you wanted."
	"You're what I wanted."
	"Not like this."
	"Scully, if this had happened to me - if I were suffering would you
walk away from me?"
	She shook her head.  He was glad to know.
	"I love you, and you infuriate me as much as you always have and I
might feel helpless or need some time away -"  He stopped when he saw
her face.  "We're going to get through this.  We've come through so much
already.  But we have love and trust and that's more than some people
will ever have.  Now we're buying a house and building a life together. 
Maybe we've spent enough time on the past. Maybe it's time for us to
focus on our future."
	"But the past is all we have."
	"The future is ours, Scully."  Mulder pressed his forehead against
hers, touching her nose with his.  "It's ours."
	"I guess you're right."  She pulled back, sounding so low.  Her eyes
were dull and he wondered if she'd even heard him.
	"Cheer up."  The words were so pathetically weak as to be inappropriate
and he wished he could do something else to make her feel better.  He
touched her gently.  He wanted to make love to her.  He wanted it to be
safe for him to make love to her, emotionally safe, for both of them.
	He stared at her with dark eyes until she noticed.  Her breast rose and
fell in a slight sigh.  Like an old wife already tired of her husband's
needs.  That hurt.  While their partnership had in many ways been
marriage-like, they hadn't actually been married.  The matter of love
had never been involved.
	He withdrew, walking away from her and grabbing his jacket from the
chair where he'd dropped it when he came in.  "Where are you going?"
Scully asked as he tried to zip it up.  
	"Home. I don't know."  You can't keep running, he reminded himself, and
he knew he should listen to his instincts.
	"What just happened here?" she demanded.  "Why do you tell me you love
me and run for the door?"
	"Why do you sigh when I tell you I love you?" he replied and her
expression changed, softening into embarrassed understanding.
	"I have a lot to deal with, Mulder."
	"So do I, Scully," he threw back, being selfish maybe but he didn't
care.
	"Is it a crime that sex doesn't excite me right now?  The idea of the
act terrifies me. I can't erase that. I wish I could. But I love making
love with you, I love the way you make me feel.  If I were in the moment
I think I'd be okay but thinking about it is so hard."  She raised her
arms and took a step toward him.  "You can take what you want."
	He could only stare.  What kind of sick invitation was that?  She
wanted him to _take_ her?  _Force_ her?  No one wanted that and the
notion that she thought she did turned his stomach.
	She lowered her eyes and then met his. "I give you my permission."
	"Your body is yours, Scully."  Couldn't she see how much she was
scaring him?  Was this his insight into how truly her abuser had fucked
her mind?  
	"But love..."  she said, trailing off, walking over to him.  She took
his hand and kissed his fingertips and looked up into his eyes.  "I want
this."  She pressed his hand lightly to her lips - "and these -" running
his hand awkwardly down to her breast.  Her eyes were burning.  She
moved his hand lower.
	Mulder could only stand there his hand palm against her crotch and
wonder what the hell was going on.  "I will always ask permission," he
promised her.
	She raised an eyebrow at him.  "Even when I'm telling you what to do?"
	He was the one who had wanted to turn things to the sexual, so he
didn't know why he hesitated now.  "Mulder," she urged.  He looked at
her face.  "It's not intercourse.  But it's something."
	He nodded and his stomach turned over.  Finally hearing what she was
saying.  "Sit down," he said.
	"I don't want to talk any more," she told him and he backed her into
the easy chair, pulling her down low in it and kneeling in front of
her.  His submission to her.  She put her hands on the armrests just as
she did on airplanes, preparing for a difficult ride.
	But this is going to be an easy ride, Mulder smiled to himself as he
stripped her from the waist down and pushed her knees apart.  Scully's
eyes closed at the first touch of his fingers and he saw her hands
clench on the chair.
	He lowered his head to kiss her intimately.  She put her feet against
his shoulders and he could feel the tiny flexings of muscle that
affected her entire body.  If he'd raised his head, he would have seen
her flexing thighs and tight belly and the way her neck arched as her
head went back.  But he didn't raise his head.
	Until she shouted "Stop!"  The command was harsh and her voice was too
controlled for a woman in the throes of passion.  It froze him.  Maybe
he'd misunderstood.  She pushed him with her feet and he fell back,
ashamed.
	She crossed her trembling legs and they stared at each other.  The look
in her eyes was unfamiliar and he knew something had gone wrong.  Her
hand snaked up, seeking the gold symbol at her throat, seeking
protection.  Then she crossed herself, something Mulder had never seen
her do.
	"Scully?"  His voice shook.
	Her eyes were flat and snappish. "Who's Scully?"
	"Oh, God," he moaned and she flinched.  It was another one. One that,
unlike DK or Starbuck, didn't know about Scully.  She'd been getting
better!  He felt betrayed and he felt like it was his fault.  But he
couldn't give in; he had to roll with the wave and fight this. "My
wife."
	"I am sorry if you have mistaken me for  your wife, sir," she said
coldly, "But I am no man's wife.  What I mean is, I am wedded to our
lord and savior Jesus Christ."
	Mulder only stared.  He would have understood her better if she'd
spoken Greek.
	"You have violated a sister of the Holy Order."
	He was going to laugh or throw up.  He couldn't decide which. He wished
she was playing a joke, but Scully was not this cruel. "You're a nun."
	"Sister Bernadette."

end of 18/28

Anamorphosis 19/28
by Megan Reilly
eponine@prodigy.net

-19-

	"This is not happening," Mulder said.
	She raised a familiar eyebrow at him.  This could not be happening. 
Scully had faith, sure, but not like this.  He had to remind himself
that this was not Scully, not really.  Or was it?  He had no idea how to
cope.
	"Will you excuse me?"  She nodded coolly at her clothing, puddled on
the floor at her feet.  Mulder turned his head and shaded his eyes with
his hand, filled with horrible shame as he listened to the whisper of
her clothes against her skin.  "Now, what is going on here?" she
demanded.
	"You're a nun?"  He couldn't keep the stupid words from coming out of
his mouth.  He felt sick.
	She glared at him for his thickheadedness and fixation on that fact. 
"Yes, Sister Bernadette.  Bernadette had visions, you know.  That was
why she became a saint.  I am named after her because I am like her."
	He stared.  "You have visions?" he asked, careful but curious.  He knew
how strongly Scully took her Catholicism when she allowed herself to
believe, which was not very often.  Had she splintered further to have a
place to send those beliefs that so often did not correspond to anything
else in her life?
	"I hear the voice of God.  And there are miracles that I have
witnessed."
	"Miracles," Mulder said, trying not to anger her with his cynicism.  He
didn't believe in miracles.  As he'd once said to Scully, he waited for
a miracle every day.  That was just as true now, but it would not take a
miracle to cure his wife.  She had to heal herself.
	She was nodding.  "A boy, a stigmatic sent to me for protection.  A boy
with special powers, sent down from heaven with a special purpose.  God
allowed me to see what others could not to keep the boy safe."
	Mulder knew Scully had had a certain feeling for that boy, Kevin
Kryder, but miraculous?  
	"A four faced demon.  An apparition of a child born to a virgin
mother."  She looked at him and her eyes were scary.  "I can sense your
doubt.  You don't believe.  There have been other, smaller signs along
the way.  A cure for the incurable, wrought by prayer and simple faith. 
But you do not believe."
	"Joan of Arc heard voices."
	She nodded.  "Voices from God."
	"Schizophrenia,"  Mulder disagreed.  "What do the voices in your head
tell you?"  He could barely breathe for the fear of what she would tell
him.  He didn't want this to be real, he didn't want her to be mentally
ill, but he thought he would be even less able to handle it if she began
to prophesize, to tell him that God really was speaking to her.
	"Different things," she answered.  "They say that I'm wrong, that
science can explain what faith purports.  The voices are here to test my
faith and my strength."
	"Listen to the voices, Scully," Mulder said, hoping he could bring her
out of this.
	"Why don't you believe me?"
	"Why should I?"
	"Otherwise, your soul will be consigned to Hell."
	"I don't believe in hell," he told her. He'd never had this discussion
with Scully.  Why hadn't he? he asked himself.  He was afraid of the
faith he could not understand in someone who was otherwise so rigidly
scientific.  He did not want to hear her reject him.
	"Why not?" she asked.
	He shook his head.  He didn't want to talk about it, didn't want to
talk to her.  He wanted Scully so badly he ached.  Just to look in her
eyes and know the woman that he saw there.
	They stared at each other for many minutes.  "We should go to the
church," she said, looking about the room for her shoes.
	"No," he said, finding his voice.  He did not want to go.  But he
couldn't let her go alone - he didn't know what could happen to her out
there alone. He didn't want her to leave and never return.
	"You have sins to confess and so do I," she informed him.  He didn't
budge.  "The faithless voices in my head say you should go."
	The voices in her head didn't come from god, they came from the essence
of Scully, he thought.  He'd taken a course in religious delusions back
in college, but it didn't really help now.  All he wanted was Scully
back.
	How many more personalities hid within her?  He looked at her, wishing
this would all just stop.  He didn't want to know about more.  She
wasn't the only one who practiced denial.
	They went out to the car together and Mulder moved toward it, but she
took his hand.  He'd never noticed there was a church down the block
from her apartment building.  It was small, with a lovely stained glass
window.
	As he stared at it, he realized he had been there before.  Years ago,
distraught and seeking hope over Samantha's disappearance.  He hung
back, feeling wrong and out of place.  He did not belong.
	They knelt in the back of the empty church.  Mulder didn't know how to
do this, what he was supposed to do, and he could feel her watching him
with eyes as sharp as a hawk's.  He folded his hands and closed his
eyes.
	She began to murmur a prayer, fast, under her breath, repeating the
words when she reached the end.
	I just want her back.  I want her cured.  What were the promises he
used to make to an angry, silent god as he lay in bed at twelve or
fourteen?  I'll be good. I won't swear, I'll never sin, I'll never have
another thought about...if you just heal her of this.  I can't find a
cure for her.  I need help here.  I need help...
	He couldn't believe he was begging a deity he'd ceased to believe in,
who had never done anything for him.  He opened his eyes to check on
Scully, hoping against hope she would be blinking with confusion, once
again the woman he was married to.
	Her lips were moving and her eyes unseeing in prayer.  Her hand moved
as though over an invisible rosary.
	Please, God, if there was ever such a power...
	A bright light accompanied by stark silence began to flood through the
stained glass window, too blinding to cast the colors across the floor. 
"No," Mulder said, trying to get to his feet, but he was frozen, unable
to move.  The silence was profound and he did not hear his own voice. 
The woman beside him did not raise her head but looked eerily radiant in
the unnatural light.
	He opened his eyes, not remembering having closed them, and looked
immediately at his watch.  The glass was cracked and the hands had
stopped.  Scully lay on the floor next to him and he was relieved to see
her.  Relief turned to panic because she was unconscious and he put his
hands on her.  The pulse in her wrist was strong.
	An older man rushed in.  The caretaker?  Mulder barely glanced at him. 
"Are you okay?" the man cried.  "I think it was lightning."
	Lightning, the hand of God, a UFO...did he really care who Scully
thought she was as long as she was safe?  Her eyes opened and she looked
around, dazed.
	"Scully?" he cried, helping her up from the floor, cradling her with
his arms until she was able to hold her balance.
	She opened her mouth, moving her lips without sound.  Then she blinked
and took a breath.  "Mulder?" she said.
	He hugged her so tight she couldn't breathe.  He almost couldn't
breathe himself.  He thought he felt her ribs crack under his arms but
he was never going to let her go.  "I love you," he said, kissing her
face.
	"It happened again," she said, pulling back, worrying.  He had to nod,
to confirm her statement.  "Why are we here?"  Her eyes flicked over to
the stained glass window and back to his face.
	He didn't want to tell her.  Were there words for what had brought them
to the church?  He gripped her hand and led her out of the building. 
Rain was not falling and the night was clear, though there was a sick
smell of ozone lingering in the air.  "Mulder, tell me," she ordered.
	"A new one," he said with a broken note in his voice.  "I prayed."  It
has hard to admit that to her.  He looked at her face.  "I prayed, and
you came back."  He wanted to fall against her, to allow himself to cry
from fear and frustration, relief and grief.
	She sniffed the air and turned her eyes up to the sky.  "We'd better go
in," she said.  "There'll be lightning."
	Maybe it had only been lightning.
	She made coffee in her kitchen as he stood in her living room, falling
apart.  She put the ceramic mug into his hand and forced his fingers to
close around it.  "This happened while you were making love to me," she
said.
	He let out his breath, sagging toward the floor.  The cup slipped
through his hand.  Coffee burned down his leg and he barely felt it. 
The mug shattered, small white pieces sliding across the floor.  He
joined them, hugging his knees, unable to deal with any of it any more.
	"Come on, Mulder, you'll cut yourself," she said, her hands working to
pull him up.  Now she had to be the responsible one.
	"I can't... I can't..."  he hiccuped.  Tears were running down his face
and it hurt too much to even think about stopping them.
	"I know, Mulder. I feel that way too, but don't fall apart on me now." 
She patted his back.  "We're going to get through this. I'm sorry. I'm
sorry."  If she started to cry too, they would both drown. He was tired
and that was affecting his judgment.  She knew she'd hurt him but there
was little she could do to make up for that.  By focusing on him, she
didn't have to think about herself, the fact that she thought she'd been
under control and another personality had popped out.
	She guided him up from the floor and he leaned against her.  She
accepted his weight and put him into her bed.  His hand clung to hers,
keeping her near.  "I'm sorry," he said hoarsely.  "I shouldn't
have..."  Guilt tainted his eyes.
	"No, Mulder, I know," she said.  "Just sleep now.  It'll be better in
the morning."
	"Where are you going?" he asked, sitting halfway up in the bed.
	"To clean up.  I'll be right back."  Scully removed his hand from his
and retreated into the living room.  Shattered glass lay on the floor
like the pieces of her life.  No longer nurturing Mulder, it hit her
hard that she'd lost more time and hurt Mulder badly.  She was going to
lose him.  She knew this as certainly as she knew her name or her
birthdate or that the sky was blue. After losing herself, she was going
to lose him.
	Every time she thought it was better, that she was going to make it, it
only got worse.	This was never going to end.
	She went into the bedroom and crawled in next to Mulder without
touching him.  He didn't move, but she could hear his uneven breath,
still crying, and she tried to sleep.  They had work to do in the
morning.

	Mulder woke and Scully was still asleep.  The sun was not up yet and it
was damnably cold.  His mouth was dry and his eyes were swollen from the
previous night's tears.  He hated to cry.  He got up and went running,
pounding the pain and thoughts away until his thoughts dissolved into
his heart, his breath, his muscle, bone, cartilage...
	The sun was breaking over the horizon when he returned to Scully's
apartment, frozen, drenched with sweat, but better.  A sealed brown
envelope lay in front of Scully's door. He picked it up and saw his name
written on it in thick block letters of marker.
	Frowning, he opened the door and went inside, gulping two glasses of
water from the pitcher in the refrigerator.  He wiped back his sweaty
hair and slid his finger under the envelope's flap and stopped, suddenly
needing to walk into the bedroom to check on Scully.
	She was still sleep, with her hair over her face and her mouth open. 
He loved her so much.
	Creeping back to the living room, Mulder sank down in the armchair and
opened the envelope.  Several enlarged photographs greeted him.  He
turned them over and then sideways, not certain what he was seeing.
	Scully.
	*Scully?*
	And the Cancerman.
	In a lab full of tanks.
	Scully.  That was Scully.
	He jumped and inspected the pictures more carefully, holding them close
to the light coming through the window.  There were no signs, no clues. 
They didn't seem to be doctored and some of them were horribly recent. 
They could have been taken yesterday.
	The one in the lab was older.  Her hair was longer, lighter.  Her body
was heavier.  Years ago.
	What was going on? He couldn't make his brain work. Think! he ordered
himself.
	The only explanation was that she was a spy and always had been.
	He refused to believe that.
	Had her illness...?  But _back then_?
	He had to find out.  He turned the envelope over again and picked up
his keys, driving to the FBI building and striding through the labs in
his dirty, sweaty running clothes.  It was early but most of the techies
were already there.
	"I need to know everything about this envelope and these photographs,"
he demanded.  Lucy, the lab tech, just stared at him.  "Now, I need to
know as soon as possible."
	She accepted the envelope from him and slid the photos out.  Lucy
frowned and looked at him. "Isn't this Agent Scully?" she asked, picking
up a sheet of paper from her desk.  "What case does this pertain to?"
	He stared at her, feeling for certain that the entire world had gone
mad.
	"We need to keep track.  You know that there have been some misuses -"
Lucy told him.
	He grasped her arm, desperate.  "Dinner, anything, Lucy, I need the
information.  Quietly.  Quickly."
	"It is Agent Scully," she said softly, looking at the gold ring he wore
on his finger.  She was a bright girl and she understood.  She closed
her mouth firmly and met his eyes.  He waited for her response. "I'll do
it as soon as I can," she promised.
	"Thank you."
	"Agent Mulder," she called, stopping him as he careened out of the room
with the same haste with which he'd entered it.  "Go home and change."
	He looked at himself as though waking.  He could smell his body odor
and feel the layers of grime laying on his skin. "Thank you," he said
again, this time like a human man.  He almost managed to smile before he
turned.
	He walked into the hall, hoping he could sneak out of the building and
back to Scully.  But luck was not on his side. "Agent Mulder."  The
gruff voice called after him and he had to stop and wait for Skinner to
catch up with him.  "What happened to you?"
	"What can I help you with, sir?" Mulder asked, ignoring the question
because he didn't have a very good answer and he wanted to go home.
	"OPC is not happy.  Not happy at all.  They have some ugly assignments
in mind for you and Agent Scully," Skinner warned.  "Where is she?"
	"It's barely seven a.m.  She's still in bed."
	"Are the two of you having problems?" Skinner asked, his eyes
searching, as always.
	"No sir," Mulder answered.
	"Keep a close eye on your partner," Skinner advised and started to walk
away.
	"What are you talking about? What does that mean?" Mulder demanded,
following.
	"I'm hearing stories.  Reports," Skinner said.  "Through unofficial
channels."
	"What sort of stories?"  Mulder asked, feeling his pulse race.  Not
stories about Scully, he hoped.  Anything, as long as it's not about
Scully.
	"Faceless men. Burned bodies. It's happening again, Mulder.  I don't
want to see it happen to your partner."  Skinner softened the hard-ass
routine for just one second to add, "Your wife."
	Mulder was stunned.  "This happened last night?"  He remembered their
weird experience, the bright light he had been trying to convince
himself had been lightning.  Skinner nodded gravely.  "I will get right
on it, sir," Mulder told him woodenly, worried and upset.  This could
not happen again.  Was there anything he could do?
	Skinner shook his head.  "You've been assigned to another case.  A
woman who claims she was raped by the devil.  Possibly a case of satanic
ritual."
	Mulder frowned.  There were no real satanic cults, the Bureau had
determined that in a study some years ago.  And Scully couldn't...he
didn't want to expose her to a rape case.  "There is little evidence of
the veracity of satanic ritual -" Mulder began, hoping he could talk his
way out of the assignment.
	"I know," Skinner said.
	"I don't think Scully -"
	"Scully's been assigned elsewhere," Skinner informed him.
	What?  "Where?"
	"Babysitting.  A plea bargaining scumbag."  Skinner looked like he was
displeased about it.
	"No," Mulder said.  Without someone to watch over her, what would
happen to Scully?  But this thoughts spiraled back to the previous
night. Maybe if he was away from her, she would actually do better.
	"I'm sorry."  Skinner patted Mulder's shoulder and walked away.
 	His brain once again numbed, Mulder took the elevator down to the
garage and headed for home.  His cell phone rang before he even reached
the expressway.  "Mulder," he answered, tucking it between his shoulder
and his ear as he continued to drive.
	"Mulder, where are you?" Scully sounded foggy, scared and more than a
little vulnerable.
	"I had an errand," he said.  "It took me by the office, but I'm on my
way home  now.  What happened?"
	"Nothing," she said.  He waited, certain there was a reason she had
phoned, a greater reason than his not being there when she woke up.  "I
had a bad dream," she confessed.  "And when you weren't here...after
last night..."
	"I'll be home soon.  I love you."  Mulder said and hung up so he could
drive.  He pressed on the accelerator, wondering if he should worry
about her safety.  She was all right, wasn't she?
	Was she? He wouldn't know until he got home.
	The apartment was still when he opened the door, but his eyes found
Scully sitting on the couch in her bathrobe with a cup of coffee in her
hands.  She smiled at him for a brief moment and he sat down next to
her.   He should ask her about the pictures he'd received.  He should
tell her about his conversation with Skinner.  He couldn't.
	"What's up?" he asked finally.
	She gave a tight smile and shrugged.  "What's up at work?"
	He felt the bottom drop out of his stomach, not wanting to say the
words and confirm that what Skinner said was going forward.  "Skinner's
assigned us to different cases," he said.  She didn't respond. "Scully?"
	"It's his right," she said gently.  "We fucked up on the Wilder case. 
We don't have to work together on every case.  We've consulted on other
matters before."
	He continued to watch her carefully.  Her voice had gone flat as though
she didn't really believe what she was saying, but had to say it, had to
convince herself that it was true.  "I - I'm worried -"  How could he
say it without offending her?
	"I'll be fine, Mulder."
	He nodded and she got up from the couch.  "Where are you going?" he
asked mildly.
	"To get dressed," she said like it should have been obvious to him. 
She plunked her cup down in the sink and ran some water into it,
wondering what went on inside Mulder's head sometimes.
	He hadn't been there when she woke up.  Maybe it explained the dream
she'd had about something dear and important being torn away from her. 
She'd tried to hold on, but she just hadn't been strong enough.
	He hadn't even asked about the dream, and now he was being clingy.  She
hadn't expected to spend every hour of every day with him.  She loved
him, but he annoyed the hell out of her sometimes and she needed her
time spent alone.
	Maybe the professional separation would be a good thing. Just for a
little while.  Except it meant she would have to worry about him,
whether he was getting into trouble without her there to watch his back
and tell him to be practical and not take stupid risks.
	After all, look what happened when she left him alone for a few days at
Thanksgiving.
	Thanksgiving seemed like a very long time ago and part of her longed
for the innocence of those days. Before she knew all of these new and
terrible things about herself.
	She really wasn't much of a wife to him, she thought, looking closely
into the mirror.  Fine lines and dry pasty skin greeted her.  She felt
ancient.  If only she could get one good night's sleep, she thought,
then everything would be better.  She would look good and he would love
her and she would be able to relax and control her life and do the
things she was supposed to be doing.  
	She sighed.  It wasn't worth thinking about. It wasn't going to happen
any time soon.
	Mulder knocked on the door.  "Are you okay in there?"
	How long had she been standing there to make him ask that?  Was he
being overprotective again or had she blanked out?  She didn't think
she'd done anything more than space out.  No one else had come to take
over.
	Checking her expression in the mirror to insure that it was perfectly
calm, she opened the door.  "Fine, Mulder," she assured him, playing
that old broken recording again.  She never wanted to hear or say the
word "fine" as long as she lived.
	He must have felt the same way, because his eyes turned flat like dark
stones when she said it.  He looked like she'd hurt him.  How could she
hurt him by being okay unless he only wanted her when she was broken and
damaged.
	"Ready to go?" he asked her.
	"Yeah," she responded and they went out to the car.  Mulder performed a
hesitant little dance around the car - his way of offering her driving
privileges.  She smiled and let him take his usual place at the wheel. 
For once she didn't care; didn't want to drive.
	Had he somehow sensed that something was wrong?  Was that what had
motivated his marriage proposal in the first place?  She knew her
confidence and competence scared a lot of people off.  Especially men. 
To some degree, that was part of her plan.
	She didn't think it scared Mulder off.
	"Are you going to be okay working on your own?" he asked as he slid
into the line of brake lights on the expressway.
	"Of course. I'll miss you but I can handle myself," she assured him,
trying to sound like she was okay. Did he need her to say no, to
validate him?  She looked at him, trying to figure it out. Did he?
	Mulder was not a control freak like her brother Bill or her father or
herself.
	"What'll you do if you...y'know...start to change?"  He was scared and
trying to pretend he wasn't.
	"I won't," she declared and he glanced at her. "I mean it, everything's
fine."  Fine, fine, fine, she was going to be sick in a minute.
	He looked at her then, finally, a long look to remind her she'd lost
that control as recently as the previous evening.  It wasn't a look she
could meet and she turned away. "Traffic's moving," she said.
	He stepped on the gas and the car lurched forward.  It wasn't really
progress, but it was something.

end of 19/28

Anamorphosis 20/28
by Megan Reilly
eponine@prodigy.net

-20-

	"Are you okay?" Skinner asked when she walked into his office, sat down
in her usual chair across from his desk, and crossed her legs.
	"Yes, fine, sir, why do you ask?"  The words were too light in her
mouth, despite how sick she was of being asked that question.  Her
response had become a recording that she'd played once too often. 
Someone was going to go looking for the string in her back and catch her
one of these days.
	"You seem tense," he replied off the cuff, and then leaned across the
desk to address her personally - not as her boss, but as her friend. 
Rarely did she think of Skinner as a friend, but he was.  He'd always
been there for her when she needed support.  Through her cancer.  When
she'd believed Mulder to be dead.  "Marriage is hard work.  And neither
you or Agent Mulder are easy people."
	She nodded, not wanting to let it show that her stomach had suddenly
turned panicky.  Like he was prodding her with the truth.  "Thank you,"
she said.
	"Are you comfortably not working with him?"  Leaning back, returning to
his position as her boss.  And sounding just like Mulder.
	"I am more than merely Mulder's partner," she pointed out. "I have more
to offer the Bureau than backup and babysitting."
	"I'm sorry to report that this assignment is going to be largely
babysitting," Skinner told her. "Dr. Donald Irving has decided to
testify for us rather than be prosecuted.  The trial is in two days and
I need you to be on his protection team."
	"To make sure no one kills him, or to make sure he doesn't run?" she
asked.
	Skinner's silence was answer enough.  Both.
	"So where's the file?" she asked.
	Skinner pushed a sheet of notepaper toward her. She looked at him and
then looked at it.  It was the address of the safehouse, neatly
handwritten.  The address was about 45 minutes away, out in the boonies
of Virginia.
	"Agent Whitaker will meet you there at ten for your first 12 hour
shift."
	She nodded and got to her feet, not pleased, but unwilling to
complain.  "Thank you sir," she said.
	He nodded sharply and she headed out of his office.  Mulder was waiting
on the couch in his outer office.  Their gaze met and touched, remaining
intense as they moved on opposite paths until Skinner's office door
closed behind Mulder.
	Scully noticed Kim watching her and felt her cheeks burn with
embarrassment at having been caught.  But Kim smiled.  She knew.  The
whole damn Bureau knew - Scully wondered if they'd announced it on the
PA system, or if she and Mulder had always been so pathetically obvious.
	"So, demonic rape," Mulder said to Skinner when he was handed the
file.  It was thick, and had pictures. Goody.  Mulder tweaked it with
his fingers and looked at his boss. "I'm not happy about being split
from Scully."
	"Just be glad it's temporary," Skinner retorted, responding to the
hostility he heard in Mulder's tone.
	Mulder blinked.  "What does that mean?" he demanded, his ire rising
along with the volume of his voice.
	"People are not pleased with you, Mulder.  Neither of you."
	Mulder glared back.
	"I suggest your check your attitude," Skinner suggested.  "You have
been on shaky ground since last spring.  I'd say you should be more
easygoing now that you have her at home."
	Skinner's tone had softened in the guise of friendly advice but even
that managed to annoy Mulder.  Did Skinner think about his _wife_? 
"Except you've sent me off to Kansas or someplace."
	"Close," Skinner said tightly.  "Kalamazoo."
	Mulder sighed.  Quietly, checking his attitude before he did so.
	"You knew this could happen," Skinner said, trying to make it better
but it was only more salt in Mulder's wound.  "Your flight leaves at
noon."
	Mulder got up, realizing he hadn't kissed her.  And he wanted to.  Kiss
her good morning, hello, I love you, I miss you, see you soon, and be
careful while I'm gone.  He needed to feel her lithe body in his arms
before he left.  He hurried down the steps to the basement, taking them
two at a time and skipping the last three altogether. He flung open the
door to the office.
	The empty office.
	"Damn!" he fell into his chair, even though he had a file to read and a
bag to pack and a flight to catch.  He used to leave his overnight bag
at the office, ever ready to leave on a hot tip at a moment's notice. 
Now it was at Scully's.
	He pulled the phone from his pocket and dialed Scully's cellphone. 
"Scully," she answered and he could hear road noise coming through the
phone."
	"Hey," he said softly, smiling at the very thought of her.  "You left
before I could get a kiss."
	She made a small sound, like she hadn't realized it until he said it
and now she was distressed.  "What are you up to?"
	"Little case in someplace called Kalamazoo."  He didn't know why he was
reluctant to tell her what the case involved.
	"Michigan," she said.  "What's the case."
	He was going to have to tell her.  "Demons.  The usual weirdness," he
said, trying to skirt the issue.  He didn't want to have to say that
word to her.  He was glad Skinner wasn't making her go on this case,
although he'd have liked to have her with him.
	"Demons doing what?" she asked, acutely aware that there was something
he was shielding her from.
	"I haven't looked through the file..."
	"Mulder,"  her tone was a warning.
	"Like I said, I haven't looked through the file, but...Skinner said the
demons were raping people."
	"Women," she corrected.
	He shrugged.  They'd spoken so often on the phone that he had no doubt
she could sense it when he shrugged or made faces.
	"I'm off to Virginia to babysit a stool pigeon," she said. He could
hear a quirky smile in her voice as she added, "Two pairs of agents
trading off, two days before the trial.  It should be a piece of cake."
	"Good," he said. "I hope mine won't take long."
	"Check the basement for mushrooms," she advised, reminding him of a
demon case they'd solved some years ago.  "And don't forget to look
around for Elvis. I hear he lives up there now."
	He laughed out loud. "I miss you," he said and he would never admit
that there were tears in his eyes as he said it.
	"Miss you too," she said and silence hung between them.  "I'd better
go," she said finally. "I hate people who talk and drive."
	"Me too," he said and heard her chuckle softly.  He put his phone away
and headed for her apartment to pack for his flight.

	She tossed the phone onto the seat but didn't put her right hand back
onto the wheel.  She was stopped in traffic anyway. Talking to Mulder
wouldn't have caused any danger to anyone.  She didn't know exactly why
she'd gotten off the phone, except she didn't just know what to say to
him.
	"It's okay, Mulder, it's okay."  That's what she should have said. 
He'd only called her for reassurance.
	Or maybe he just called because he loves you, she told herself, and
sighed again, not knowing why that hurt.  Because she loved him so
much?  Because he loved her?  Or was it because she knew she didn't
deserve it?
	Oh yes, she had issues, didn't she.  A hole opened up and she changed
lanes quickly.  As soon as she sped past the stalled car with its
flashers on, traffic moved swiftly and she reached the secluded safe
house quickly.
	Another bucar was parked in front.  She took a second to remember what
Skinner had told her, trying to remember the pigeon's name.  Irving.
Doctor Irving?
	Doctor?  Well, doctors always had stories to tell, she thought, but
took the pack of cards out of the glove box anyway.  If she was lucky,
the pigeon could tell Whitaker about all the appendixes he'd removed or
noses he'd put his fingers into and she could play solitaire until it
was time to go home.
	And think?  Did she really want hours of uninterrupted thinking, even
if it might do her some good?
	She walked into the house without knocking. "Why isn't the door
locked?" she asked the blond man who sat inside, staring at her.  He was
wearing a very nice, expensive suit.
	"Heard you pull up," he told her.
	"What if I wasn't FBI?" she demanded, withdrawing her badge and
displaying it to him.
	His eyes flicked over to the window.  "Bucar," he responded.
	"Where's the guy?"
	"Oh, he's here," he told her, sitting back down at the table with a
defeated air and retrieving his book of TV Guide crossword puzzles. 
She'd have been worried at his choice of activity if he hadn't had such
a disdainful air for the book, sighing as he picked up his pen to go to
work.
	The door to the bathroom opened and the sound of a toilet flushing
filled the tiny house, accompanied by the smell of Lysol and sickness. 
She looked at the tall handsome blond man who hung on the doorway. "Hey,
Scully," he said.
	She stared at him for second, then glanced quickly at the man working
the puzzles.  The man she had wrongly assumed was Agent Whitaker.
	She felt stupid.  Worse than stupid, because stupid in this situation
could lead real fast to dead.  He raised his head from the book and met
her eyes.  "Gotcha."
	"I thought he was you," she said to Whitaker, feeling her cheeks
turning pink.
	"We look alike." Whitaker's posture was careful, like he didn't want to
accidentally move too much. "Think they did it on purpose."  He sank
into a chair.
	"What's wrong with you?" she asked, turning her body toward him.
	"I'll be okay," Whitaker said. Obviously, he didn't realize the pale
green cast to his skin would undermine this statement.
	"You didn't lock the door," Irving piped up in an annoying voice,
demanding their attention.
	Scully jumped up and threw the bolt.  When she sat down, she scooted
her chair a little closer to Whitaker's.  "Food poisoning?" she asked,
looking closely at him.
	He shook his head.
	"You've got a fever," she diagnosed.  He was sweating and his eyes were
unfocused.  "Have you taken any aspirin?"
	"I'll be okay," he repeated, stopping her from getting the small tin of
pills from her bag.
	She looked at him a moment longer, then nodded. Male pride.  Agent's
pride.  She opened the pack of worn cards and began to lay them on the
table.  They'd been her present from Jack when she graduated from the
FBI academy.  "You'll need them," he'd told her.
	And she had.  Not badly, but to kill the time between bodies arriving
when she worked at Quantico, and on flights sometimes when Mulder was
asleep.  But mostly, she'd needed them to the long, lonely nights spent
in motel rooms, trying not to think of death and destruction or her
partner.  
	"Maybe you should lie down," she suggested, not looking at Whitaker. If
she'd looked at him, he'd have thought she cared and he wouldn't have
taken her advice.  She listened to his steps scuffling to the couch. He
groaned as he stretched out.
	They were blessed with perfect silence.
	It was eerie.
	She shuffled the cards.  Noise.  Whitaker dashed across the open living
space to the bathroom.  Poor guy.
	Irving scraped his chair across the floor as he turned to her. "What
was the name of David Cassidy's sister on the Partridge Family?" he
asked.
	She rolled her eyes but he didn't get the message and turn away.
Irving's gaze remained focused on her, waiting for an answer. "Um,
Dew.   Day. Susan Day," she supplied.
	"On the show. Six letters."
	Scully thought for a second.  "Laurie."
	"Thank you."  His tone was bitingly sarcastic as he inked the letters
into the page.  He had a nasty attitude, she thought.  She wondered what
he'd done to end up here, but continued to lay down cards, pick them up,
and rearrange them.
	"What's the name of the kid from the Hardy Boys?" Irving asked.
	"Frank or Joe?"  She'd found a lot more solace between the blue covers
of the Hardy Boys novels when she was eight, and they'd also been easier
to come by in her house than Nancy Drew.  She didn't think her sister
had ever read an entire book in her life.
	"In real life," Irving said in a short tone.  Like the puzzle was
important.  "Well?" he demanded.
	"I was thinking.  Parker Stevenson."
	"Shawn Cassidy," Irving said a second later and started to scribble
again.  "How old are you, Scully?"
	She didn't like the way he said her name.  "Why?"
	"You don't look like an FBI Agent."
	"You don't look like a stool pigeon."
	"So judgmental," he remarked, but left her alone.
	Whitaker emerged again and lay down on the floor near the bathroom with
a loud groan.  Scully looked at him.  He wasn't brave enough to cross
the room, uncertain he'd be able to make it back in time.  That was a
bad sign.
	She tried to ignore it and went back to her cards, already tired and
annoyed and bored.  And incredibly aware of Irving's eyes burning into
her skin.

	Mulder read the file on the plane. Scully would have hated this case,
he decided.  A young wife who volunteered at her local church claimed
she had been molested by demonic spirits.  Not the invisible kind - the
ugly kind.
	Mulder would put cash money on the odds of the real rapist being the
priest.  He sighed.  He didn't want this case.  Scully would be
impressed that he didn't believe it was a paranormal occurrence.
	Here it's not even abnormal, is it?  Happens every day - incest, date
rape, marital rape, prostitution, child molesters, everything. 
Everywhere.  Everywhere.
	He couldn't believe it had happened to his wife. To Scully.  He didn't
trust his feelings about that.  The hurt was sharp, but okay, but the
anger...his anger...he had always carried a lot of anger, so much that
he couldn't always control it.
	He wished, thinking back, he'd ripped Bill's head off.  But he knew it
wouldn't have done any good.  It wouldn't have made Scully any better.
	He was worried.
	Finally the plane landed. For once Mulder was grateful for the holding
pattern. With the additional time, he thought he could trust himself not
to kill the priest on sight.  Now he could give the man a fair
investigation before he hung him.
	He wished Scully was there to ask him,  "What about the truth?"

	"So," Scully said sharply when she grew tired of listening to
Whitaker's rapid, wheezy snores.  " What'd you do?"
	Irving turned around. " You don't know?"   He was surprised, and he
looked happy about it.
	She should have already known.  Why hadn't Skinner told her?  "They
didn't tell me."
	"Then it's not important," he said.  She raised her eyebrows and went
back to her cards.  She started to put the cards in order to test her
shuffling ability.  She ached to look at her watch but she wouldn't let
herself. Time passed so slowly when there was a clock to watch.  She
didn't want to subject herself to that.
	"You're sure you're FBI?" Irving asked her.
	She was determined not to let him bother her. "Unless I look like
someone sent to kill you?"
	"You want to. I'm annoying you."  He was proud of it. She could tell.
	"You don't bother me," she informed him, still sorting the cards.  She
heard his book his the table with the soggy sound of a used up
notebook.  She felt her shoulders tense because she knew he was coming. 
Then he slid into the seat next to hers, much too close.
	"You look like a kid," he told her.
	She gave him a bland look and made the effort to turn the conversation
away from looks and lame pickup lines she'd heard before. "What kind of
doctor are you?"
	"Gyno," he replied with a vigor that made her skin crawl.  "Or I was.
Until I lost my license over this crap."
	"I'm a pathologist," she said.
	"That must be even more fun than sticking your hands into women's
parts," he said distastefully.
	She wondered what would happen if she started puking like Whitaker had
been.  She swallowed hard and looked up to find Irving's eyes close on
her, not missing a thing. "Fridge is fully stocked," he mention. "Sodas,
water...crackers in the cabinet."
	She pushed her chair back and  relished the opportunity to stretch and
put some distance between them.  What the hell, she thought, and allowed
herself to look at her watch. One pm.  Back up would be coming in about
nine hours.  She popped the tab on a 7-Up and took a long swallow.  She
hadn't realized she was overheated until she held the cool can in her
hands.  After a second, she closed the refrigerator door.
	Before she could turn, Irving's hands fell heavily against her hip
bones.  "You've got good hips," he told her.
	"Get your hands off me," she ordered, breaking away from his disgusting
touch.
	"You do.  I can't help but notice it in a woman. It's one of your best
qualities," he said.  He was the kind of man women usually found
charming. She could tell from his tone and the way he moved and expected
her to like him.  And then there was the bleached hair.
	"I'm married," she informed him, thrusting her ring bearing hand up in
his face like an insult.
	"Congratulations," he said.  "So was I. Things don't last."  He
sprawled back in his chair, blue jean clad legs spread wide.  He started
toying with the cards on the table like they were his.  She slid into
her chair, stiff.  She knew he'd see it or sense it and know he was
succeeding in making her uncomfortable and that would make him happy.
	"Can tell fortunes with these, you know," he said, tossing the cards
down. King of Spades, one of hearts, 10 of diamonds, Queen...
	"Is that why you're here?" she asked him, her voice more shrill than
she'd expected.
	"Want to know your future?" he asked, drawing her palm into his hands. 
He had delicate, gentle fingers. Surgeons' hands, soft and unworn by
work.  Not good hands for a man.
	"I thought you used cards."  She was fighting to remain cool.  That was
her role here: cool FBI woman.
	"Interesting life line," he said, tracing it, and then looking into her
eyes.  "Are those aqua contacts?"
	"No, they're real," she snapped.
	"Something's making you uptight," he said and began to massage her
hand.  "Amazing the tension you can carry here," he said.  "Are you
having marital problems?"
	"No!"  She pulled her hand away and began to gather the cards. In
another second, she was going to wake Whitaker or start working TV
crossword puzzles herself.
	"I could examine you," he offered.  At her horrified look, he added,
"Free of charge, of course.  See if anything's wrong..."
	She started to laugh.  This puzzled him and she only laughed harder. 
His confidence began to wither before her eyes.  Did he really find that
an effective come on line?  As though she was going to drop her drawers
and lay down so he could have a look!

	Traci Lynn Turned lay on an examining table in front of Mulder.  Two
nurses flanked his sides as her white-coated doctor poked a latex
covered finger between her raised knees.  "See that?" she asked.
	Mulder nodded and glanced away quickly.   This was wrong. To bring this
girl in here and further expose her injuries and make her remember...
	"Force trauma," the doctor concluded.
	Mulder nodded again wordlessly.
	"I wanted you to see for yourself.  Thank you, Traci."  The doctor
said, bringing down a blue paper sheet.  Mulder looked at Traci's face
for a moment.  He had no comprehension of how she must feel.
	"Was there any fluid retrieved as evidence?" he asked once he was out
in the hall with the doctor.
	"Wasn't any."  The doctor was an elegant brown haired woman, matter of
fact and forty.  "No evidence of that sort at all.  I've never seen a
case like this."
	"Brutal," he said.
	The doctor nodded.  "She didn't speak for three days after it happened.
We kept her in hospital the whole time. Traumatized."
	"So traumatized she could have blocked the rapist from her mind and
crafted a ghost story instead?"  Mulder asked.
	"The mind does have many strong defense tactics," the doctor offered,
but didn't sound as though she believed his theory.  "But wouldn't she
have remembered - and fought - when it began to happen again?"
	"Do you believe a spirit caused these injuries?" he demanded.
	"My first instinct says no," she replied, suddenly sounding like
Scully.  "But if she says it happened -"
	"A spirit remains blameless.  Irresponsible.  Not like a person," he
mused.  "And also can't be stopped."
	"No woman wants this!" cried the outraged doctor.  "I don't know what
kind of chauvinistic garbage they indoctrinate you frat boys with back
at the FBI but -"
	"I know," Mulder said fiercely.  "But at the same time, if she didn't
want to face her attacker's identity - and she is a profoundly religious
person -"
	"She did not ask for this, Agent  Mulder," the doctor insisted.
	"I know," he said again. "I know."  He walked back into the exam room,
aware that he had completely alienated the doctor.  She thought he was
some prick brained little asshole.
	Traci was in the act of dressing.  He hadn't knocked and stopped,
shocked and shamed, in the doorway.  She only stared at him, seemingly
uncaring about her nudity.  She had impossibly small breasts and an
impressive set of large bruises.  She slipped her shirt over her head.
	All of the questions he'd been about to ask her zoomed right out of his
head.  She couldn't have been more than 19 years old.  "Are you okay?"
	She nodded.
	"Where's your husband?"
	"Traveling.  He, um, works in Chicago. Commutes on weekends. It's
hard."  Her hands raked through her hair and he saw for the first time
that it was ragged, like she'd hacked it all off  herself, just eager to
be rid of it.
	"What does he think of this?" Mulder asked.
	She shrugged unevenly.
	"Who did this to you, Traci?"
	"It wasn't a person."  Her lower lip began to tremble.  "It was a
demon.  Sent by the devil."
	"Couldn't a man have been sent by the devil?" he asked her.  "Why would
the devil single you out like this?"
	"I'm a good person."
	"No one thinks you aren't, Traci.  Just because this happened to you,
doesn't make you a bad person," Mulder assured her.
	"My husband said it's because I love the church more than him," she
stammered.
	"Your husband is out of town?"
	She nodded.
	"Do you blame him for not protecting you?" he asked, afraid, because he
was asking the question about himself and his own wife.
	"No," she said in a strangled voice.  "I blame God."

end of 20/28

Anamorphosis 21/28
by Megan Reilly
eponine@prodigy.net

-21-

	"Gin," Scully said, laying down the cards.
	"You're cheating!" Irving cried. "I don't know how, but you must be."
	She grinned at him.
	"So how does a pathologist become an FBI agent?" he asked, staring
again at her face in the same way Mulder did.  Scully didn't mind it
when Mulder did it because he was safe and he loved her.  Irving, on the
other hand...she had little patience for.
	"Filled out the application. How does a doctor become a stool pigeon?"
she retorted.
	"Tell me about your husband," he countered and she felt like she was
playing tennis.
	"Having met you, I assume it wasn't money laundering," she continued
her own conversation.
	"You really want to know?" he asked, like this was something he was so
proud of he didn't tell just anyone.  She nodded.  "You really want to
know?"  Or was he warning her?  "And you won't think less of me for it?"
	Because they were such good friends already, she thought sarcastically,
waiting.  She knew he wanted to tell her, to impress her.  All she had
to do was wait, steeling herself for stories of experiments or misuse or
something terrible and common.
	"I videotaped my patients, their exams.  Sold the tapes.  Sometimes I'd
make them hot and they'd beg me to fuck 'em," he bragged.
	She jumped back so quickly she upset her chair.  She grinned at her
horrified look.  "And we offered you a deal!" she cried.
	"I wasn't the brains of the operation. I think you got him on video
piracy, and that's a big deal. I just did what I was told."
	"You'd better be more convincing than that for the jury," she advised.
	"Oh, I will be," he said casually.  She stared at him, disgusted,
wondering what she was supposed to do.  She was about to move to sit on
the floor near Whitaker when her phone rang.
	She grabbed it.  "Scully," she answered.
	"I may be home tonight."
	"Mulder," she smiled, relieved to hear his voice.  She sneaked a glare
at Irving and turned away from him, not wanting to look at his ugly face
while talking to the man she loved.
	"How's it going?" he asked.
	"Okay. I miss you."  She hoped he couldn't hear the lie in her voice. 
"So things are going well?"
	"I think so.  I want to come home," he said, letting his longing bleed
through over the long distance line.
	"I have to work here again tomorrow," she said, feeling the strain
through her limbs.  Another day with Irving.  Maybe Whitaker'd be
better. Or he'd send a replacement.
	She listened to Mulder breathe, just feeling his presence and knowing
he was there.
	"I love you," he said.
	"I love you," she replied.  Wanting him.
	"I have to go," he said and paused a long moment before he hung up. 
She waited another second, desperately missing him, and then put her
phone into her pocket so it would be close.  If she needed to call for
help, she thought darkly.
	Irving's own aqua contacts looked like a snake's eyes, flat and
sneaky.  "Sweet," he said, mocking her.  Because she was a woman and
because she loved someone.  Irving didn't love anyone.  Maybe himself
but probably not, not if he victimized people for fun.
	"So why do men rape?" she asked him coldly and waited for an answer.
	"Why not," was his answer.  Two words that made her want him dead.

	It was cold.  He could see his breath vaporize in front of him as he
stood on Todd Foster's porch.  Who could take a priest named Todd
seriously? Mulder wondered.  He was glad he'd talked to Scully.  He had
to nail this asshole to the wall for her.  Because he hadn't protected
her before.
	If he could make a difference here, for one person, for Traci Turner,
it might be worth it.
	He pounded on the door.
	Todd Foster was young, younger than Mulder, perhaps 30 years old and
already losing his hair in the front.  His body was slender and almost
girlish.  "What can I do for you?" he asked in a voice so meek it put
Mulder's teeth on edge.
	"I'm here about Traci Turner," Mulder said, displaying his badge and
walking into the priest's modest home.  It looked as though it had been
recently inhabited by an old man and Foster hadn't redecorated.  He was
a new priest.
	"How long have you been in town?" Mulder asked, inspecting the diplomas
and credentials hanging on the wall.  He could investigate schools for
circumstantial evidence, see if there were any unresolved matters Foster
might have had a hand in.
	"Five months."
	"And you're the one who put this demon idea into Traci's mind," Mulder
said, still using an annoyed tone. He hoped he could push Foster into a
confession, or a mistake.
	"No, I - what's happened to her is a tragedy," Foster responded. 
"Would you like some tea?"
	Mulder shook his head.  He already felt too wired.  And he never
accepted food from people he didn't trust.  He changed his tack and sat
down in one of the rough, uncomfortable chairs.  "How did you and Traci
meet?"
	"She and her husband Damien came to me for counseling and asked me to
perform their marriage."
	"Counseling?"  Mulder asked. He wanted it to be the priest.  The priest
was easy.  But he knew he'd be a fool if he discounted the husband.
	He felt like a cynical, lazy detective - jumping to conclusions without
any evidence.  But that was his specialty, using psychology and human
nature as his evidence in order to narrow the field.  That was why
they'd sent him on this case.
	"Premarriage counseling regarding the nature of the covenant and the
commitment. We've found that only a few hours spent in counseling
reduces the incidence of divorce," Todd said eagerly.  He had a high,
whiny voice.  What made a man become a priest, Mulder wondered,
especially in this faithless day and age.  Was it belief, or what?
	"Is that something all Catholics do?" he asked, curious as to why
Scully hadn't made him go.  She had not been strong in her faith in the
time he'd known her, but he also knew she'd renewed her relationship
with God and the church as a result of her illness.  But they hadn't
married in the Church, he thought.
	"Many people do. I see you are married yourself." Foster looked at his
ring. Mulder wondered if they taught priests that annoying sentence
construction in school.
	He didn't say anything.  He was not going to discuss his wife with this
creep.  "Did you think Traci and her husband made a good match?"
	"I married them," Foster answered.
	"What do you think about all this?" he asked him.
	"It's terrible."
	"Do you think it's the work of the devil?" Mulder asked, watching him
closely.  He didn't say anything, didn't react at all.  "Who do you
think did it?"
	"Does it matter?" Foster asked.
	"It's my job to find out," Mulder responded, "And punish the person
responsible."  He got to his feet.  "I may have more questions
tomorrow."
	Foster nodded. "Anything that would help."  He escorted Mulder out,
still looking smug and frigid.
	Mulder left angry.  He'd wanted this to be easy.  He should have known
better.  Now he had to keep working for it, and get the goods on the
husband.
	First he'd have to face Traci again, though.  He wasn't looking forward
to that in the least.

	Scully walked into her dark apartment that night, feeling drained.  It
had been such a long, hard day.  She rubbed her neck with one hand,
wishing Mulder was there waiting for her.
	She did miss him.  It was so nice to have someone to come home to,
someone to talk to.  She had the idea that had been their entire reason
for marrying, to continue their closeness after hours and stave off the
terrible loneliness.
	Or Mulder had just wanted to sleep with her.
	She felt dirty from breathing the same air as Irving all day and there
was a tension and a chill that wouldn't leave her, even now that she had
driven all the way home.
	Bath.  She started for the bathroom and the phone began to ring. 
"Mulder?" she said breathlessly.  She'd run to get it before the
answering machine and she wanted to hear Mulder's voice on the other end
of the l line.
	"Dana, it's your mother."
	She felt her heart sink.  She gave in to her weariness and pain and
said, "Did you decide to believe me, Mom?"
	"This didn't happen to you," her mother insisted.
	Hang up, urged the voice in her mind but she could not do it.  "It
did," she whispered.
	"If it happened, Dana, where was I?  I was always home with you kids. 
I would have known.  I would have kept anything bad from happening to
you.  It can't be real, Dana," her mother told her.
	"It is, though, Mom, I know because I feel it. I remember.  He used to
force me in the basement -"
	"I don't want to hear this," her mother snapped.
	"Maybe it's something you have to hear."
	"Why didn't you cry?  Or bleed?  Or tell me, Dana.  You would have said
something to me. It would not have been a secret. It could not have
been."
	"I know you don't want to believe it, Mom, but he told me he would kill
me and I thought he meant it. I was terrified.  I -"
	"Dana, it's not real!" her mother shouted.
	"Mom - I -"
	"Is he there with you?" Mrs. Scully asked.  Meaning Mulder.  "He's the
one who did this."
	"Don't blame Mulder," Scully insisted.  Her mother sounded insane.  Was
this driving her mother crazy?  "This has nothing to do with him.  He's
been wonderfully supportive -"
	"He has filled your head with lies since the beginning."
	"You used to like Mulder, Mom," she reminded her, her voice growing
smaller.  She could feel the upset in her stomach.  "What happened?"
	"Look how much pain he's caused you," her mother said quietly. "And you
think you have to prove yourself to him.  Still.  What is it going to
take, Dana?  Your death?"
	She couldn't say anything.  She wanted to hang up the phone, but
couldn't make herself.
	"I want you to leave him, Dana. Just for a little while. Just until you
feel better."
	"I'm so scared, Mom," Dana said. She'd been trembling inside all day. 
Wanting someone to protect her.
	"I'm coming over," her mother declared.  "I can help you get over
this." Mrs. Scully hung up and Dana clung to the phone.  Her mom didn't
believe her and now she was scared she would hate her.
	But she needed Mulder, too.  She was really scared of what would happen
to her without Mulder.
	Dana was just plain scared.  Carefully she placed the receiver down and
the phone rang instantly.  She cried out, startled, and saw through the
window that it was dark.  For a moment she was mesmerized by the
blackness.
	Then she grabbed the phone.
	"Scully?"
	"Yes," Scully said.  How had Mulder gotten to be on the phone when
she'd just been...?
	Oh hell.
	"Are you okay?"
	"Yeah," she answered carefully, sitting down on the couch. It had
happened again, damn it.  "How's it going?" she didn't want Mulder to
know.
	"Theory, no evidence," he reported.
	She waited for more.  "Did you want to tell me about it?"
	"It's not that interesting.  How was babysitting?"
	"Aside from Agent Whitaker puking during the entire shift and the
witness being a complete fucking asshole -"
	"Scully?"  his usually playful tone was tinged with worry.
	"I'm sorry," she said.  She hardly ever cursed like that anymore, and
usually it was when she stubbed her toe rather than when she was talking
to Mulder. It had been something of a badge of honor in med school, kind
of like cracking jokes while performing autopsies.
	"I love it when you talk dirty," he teased.
	"Oh do you?" she asked.  "When are you coming home?"
	"I don't know.  Do you miss me?"
	"Mmm-hmm," she purred, pulling her feet up and closing her eyes.   She
loved his voice.  She wished he were close enough that she could feel
his breath against her ear.
	"How much?"
	Her eyes opened.  He didn't really want her to do this...did he?  She
heard him sigh and the groaning of mattress springs as he leaned back. 
"Mulder -"
	"We're practically still on our honeymoon," he said, "And it's safe
sex.  Just words.  Words can't hurt you."  When he meant sex, he didn't
mean disease free as much as he meant non-threatening.
	She'd been trying to remember that words held no power all day.  "I've
never done this before," she confessed.
	"It's okay, Scully. Just tell me what you like."
	"I like to see you." She closed her eyes again. "I like it when you're
close and I can hear you breathing.  Feel you.  And when you touch me -"
	"Where am I touching you?"
	"On my -"  She had to stop.  Remind herself. Mulder.  Fantasy.  Not a
memory, not abuse.  Not unwanted hands up under her dress.  "On my ass. 
Hard.  Rough. You're so deep in me it hurts but it's such a good hurt." 
She sucked in a deep breath, feeling his phantom in her body.  "So hard
I can't breathe, I can't think of anything but you."
	"What next?"  His voice was tight.
	"You kiss me.  I can feel your heartbeat.  Your lips are gentle, still,
even as your body is fierce..."  She hesitated, feeling ridiculous.
	"Don't stop," he urged.
	"But you're so far away -" she complained, aware that she was sitting
on her couch, alone, in her empty apartment.
	"No, I'm close. I'm in you."  His breathing was harsh.  He was
excited.  The power of words.  "Deep.  And you're wet and soft and every
time I move I can hear your breath catch.  I'm going to make you
tremble. I can see your muscles straining.  And I touch you and -"
	She heard a key in the lock.  She turned, hoping it was Mulder, playing
a game with her because he was on his way home to love her. "Mulder,
there's someone here."  The hand lying between her thighs was heavy. 
There was no time to go for her gun.
	The door opened and her mother walked in.  "Dana, hang up the phone."
	"No," Scully said.
	"Scully?" Mulder asked, confused about what was going on.
	"You're coming home with me," her mother said.
	"Mom?"  She'd never seen her mother look so angry.
	"Scully, what is going on?"
	"Put the phone down, Dana."
	"I'll have to call you back, Mulder," Scully said.
	Alone in his motel room, Mulder listened to a dial tone in his ear. 
What the hell had just happened?
	Mrs. Scully walked in on her daughter talking dirty.  He felt guilty,
embarrassed for her.
	But they were married.
	He didn't think she'd changed - channel flipped - although the fear was
still in his mind.  Still, he'd thought sexual words would be less scary
than the actual physical act for Scully. Although he'd have touched her
if he was close enough to.
	Now he could only sit and wait for her to call him.

	"What are you doing here, Mom?" Scully asked.
	"You're coming home with me."
	"No," she said firmly.
	"We discussed this on the phone."
	"What?" Scully asked.
	Her mother's face turned very white. "I was talking to you."
	Scully's ears began to buzz.  Lack of blood and oxygen in her brain. 
"Maybe not."  She sank down in the chair.  Damn it!  This wasn't
supposed to happen any more. She'd told Mulder she could take care of
herself, stay in control, and she'd meant it.
	"I'm sorry, I can't deal with this now."  There were tears in her
mother's eyes and Scully lifted her head, searching for words to make it
all right as the other woman walked out, leaving her alone and scared. 
And abandoned.  Again.

	He couldn't sleep.  He could only lay awake and think about demons. 
His wife and her demons and the demon in this case.  He hated this,
hated being so far away from her, hated the snow and the gray sky and
the cold that seeped in around the window.
	Why wasn't she calling him back?
	What if she'd become someone who didn't remember him, didn't even
remember she had a husband?  What if she left the apartment, like she
had before. He hadn't been able to stand that and she'd only been gone a
day.  He'd wanted to die.
	He opened the case file and started to read, hoping to distract himself
by thinking of a profile.  A profile of a real life demon because Scully
had taught him well.  He didn't believe in ghosts or ghouls that wanted
to harm people, not any more.
	Was that why Scully had never believed? he wondered.  Because she had
seen this darkness in people since the time she was a child?  Had she
always known, somewhere, deep inside...
	Was that really any different than him, though?  He'd known since he
was twelve that the world was bad, that people went away and didn't come
back.  But he hadn't had anyone to blame for that except himself, and he
knew that believing in little green men was all that had given him hope.
	Did Scully have no hope?  His stomach began to ache and his eyes fixed
on the phone.  Should he call her?  No hope at all...he had t be able to
do something to help her.
	But he'd never been able to help anyone, including himself.
	He picked up the phone to call again.

	She couldn't stay there.  She didn't feel safe.  Her brother had been
in this apartment and her mother came over without warning.  She changed
in this apartment, bad things had happened in this apartment and she
couldn't stay there.  She couldn't stay.
	Where the hell could she go?
	If only Mulder was with her.  If only her mother hadn't come, if only
she were in control and didn't have to spend another twelve hour day
with the biggest asshole the Bureau was letting off.  If only none of it
had happened to her in the first place.
	They owned a house.  She remembered it suddenly.  That was going to be
their haven.  Nothing bad would ever happen in that house.  It would be
good and filled with love and most importantly, she would be safe there.
	They didn't own it yet, not entirely.  They'd signed some papers. 
Byers' sister had something to do with real estate and that was how the
guys had found the house for them in the first place.  They were helping
the process along as much as they could.
	No one could care or say anything if she went there.  They needed to
make plans to move.  She didn't know if she loved her apartment any more
when all she could see when she sat there alone was Duane Barry's face.
	She had never had a problem being alone before.  This new dependence
she felt for Mulder scared her.
	She grabbed her things and ran to the car.

	The phone rang 100 times before Mulder put it down.  Where could she
have gone?  She wouldn't have gone with her mother, would she?
	He was worried because she wasn't answering. Maybe Maggie believed her
now and they'd been able to resolve their differences.  He seized the
phone again and dialed Scully's mother's number.  She'd made him
memorize it once, "just in case."  Unfortunately, he had had occasion to
use it more than once.
	Why didn't "just in case" ever mean something good had happened?
	"Hello?"  Mrs. Scully's voice was sleepy. Mulder looked but couldn't
see his clock.  It had gotten late without him noticing.
	"Mrs. Scully, this is Fox Mulder -"
	"I don't want to speak to you," she said, but her voice was mild.  She
didn't sound angry, just resigned.
	"Is my wife there?" he asked.
	She sighed.  "No, Fox.  She doesn't want to see me.  Why do you have to
do this?"
	"I'm not doing anything but offering your daughter the love and support
that she needs."
	"I love her," Maggie said and now she was beginning to sound upset. 
Maybe she should be, he thought.  "You're the one who's breaking my
heart."
	"She's not there with you?" he asked again, feeling guilty and not
wanting to listen to this any more.
	"I wish she was."
	"Thank you," he said, knowing it sounded cold, and hung up.  His worry
was manifesting as anger now.  He dialed Scully's apartment and had the
thought to call her on her cell phone. Even if she'd gone out as an
alter, she might have it with her.  He could only hope that she did.

end of 21/28

Anamorphosis 22/28
by Megan Reilly
eponine@prodigy.net

-22-

	The house was dark and cold. We have to get the power turned on, she
thought, wandering through pitch black rooms.  Her eyes slowly adjusted
and she began to envision what her life would be like when she lived in
this house with Mulder.
	The floor was dirty.  Maybe we can take the weekend and clean it, she
thought.  Or paint.  She'd never lived anywhere that didn't have
regulation white walls.  As a kid she hadn't even been allowed to use
tape or nails on the walls.
	Paint, she thought happily.  But damn it was cold.  She pressed the
button to light up her watch.  It was getting late and she had to be at
the safehouse early in the morning.
	She couldn't sleep in the house, that much was clear.  Not without heat
or light.  But she did not want to go home. She had a terrible feeling
something would happen if she went home.
	Mulder's apartment.  The idea blossomed in her mind and she jumped up
to go.

	Mulder was sleeping fitfully when the motel phone began to ring.  For a
second, he thought he was at home and reached for his alarm clock,
picking it up.  When it didn't stop after several hits to the snooze
bar, he fumbled for the phone.
	"Yeah," he sighed, sitting up. It was beginning to occur to him that
this could be The Call.  The we've locked her up in the looney bin or we
regret to inform you call.
	"Mulder."
	It was her.  He didn't know how to feel, relieved or joyous or
irritated at having worried.  "I was waiting for you to call.  What
happened?"  he sat back against the headboard.
	"My mother..."  she stopped herself.  He didn't need to know her mother
wanted her to leave him.  She was never going to do so.  "I'm at your
place.  I thought you should know."
	"Why?" he asked. "Are you okay?"
	"I didn't feel safe there.  At home."
	"Are you okay now?"
	"Uh-huh." There was a long silence.  She didn't know what else to say. 
"I just wanted you to know in case you called me."
	"Thanks."  He didn't need to tell her he'd already tried to call,
already worried far too much.  "I miss you."
	"I miss you too," she said and slid the phone back into its cradle.

	He went to Traci's in the morning.  She looked thin and sick. It was
clear to him that she hadn't slept.  "How are you faring?" he asked
kindly, and then reached over to touch her.  He stopped himself
instantly, remembering Scully.
	Traci shrugged.
	No hope, he thought.
	"I'm going to get this resolved. I'm going to catch this guy and put
him away," Mulder said, trying to give her hope.
	An odd light brightened in her eyes and her lips curled into a sick
smile. "You're going to arrest the devil?"  She sounded almost giggly.
Hysterical.
	Well, it wasn't like he hadn't tried to do it before, he thought. 
"Traci, I honestly believe it was a person who did this to you. I know
it's a horrifying crime -"
	She shook her head.  "What could you possibly know?" she said with more
fire than he'd ever seen from her.  Maybe a little life was not such a
bad thing.  "What do you know about evil?"
	"I'm very sorry, Mrs. Turner," he said honestly.  He knew a lot about
evil.  He'd looked it in the eyes, and how it lived in his house and
slept in his bed.  He knew.  "Where is your husband?"
	"Working," she mumbled.
	"He didn't come home? To be with you?"  Mulder stared at her.  The
Turners were practically newlyweds, as he was.
	"Would you?" she asked sourly.  "Would you drop my case and run home if
your wife said come?"  She glanced at his still-shiny ring.
	"Yes I would," he said.  He knew that.  He hated being away from her. 
If she needed him, he would be there. Without question or hesitation.
	"'n get fired?" she continued to challenge.
	Mulder stopped and thought.  He was committed to his job.  That was a
commitment he'd proven and renewed.  He needed to work on the X files
even when the cases were stupid and lame and not what he would have
chosen.  He knew they were in trouble - in danger of being fired.  You
only get so many strikes before you're out of the game.
	"See," Traci said and when he looked at her, her eyes were dead. 
Completely flat and hollow.  The way Scully's would be if she needed his
help and he wasn't there.
	That was the other thing about his wife.  She would never ask for help.
	Had Traci ever been that strong?
	"Where did the attack take place?" Mulder asked.
	"In my bed."
	He nodded.  A common place to find a woman vulnerable and alone at
night.  Her husband would have a key.  He wasn't sure he could picture
the priest breaking in, though.
	"What're you thinking about when you look like that?" Traci asked.
	Mulder blinked.  He hadn't realized he'd spaced out. "May I see?" he
asked.
	Traci shrugged and led him back.  An old, underfilled waterbed
dominated the room.  He wondered how hard a woman would have to fight in
order to puncture it.
	"I changed the sheets if that's what you're thinking.  Washed 'em,"
Traci offered.
	Mulder nodded.  "May I have your husband's phone number?" he asked.
	She gave it to him.  "I have to go to church now," she said.
	"Do you go every day?" he asked her.
	"I do now. I don't want to Devil's seed to take hold," she said it like
it was so normal, so common.  Traci picked up her acid-washed denim
jacket and escorted him out.

	"Where's Whitaker?" Scully asked Agents Jones and Donnelly the next
morning in the cabin as they made their way out.
	"Not coming," Jones answered with a smug looking smile.
	She stopped where she stood, blocking their path so they couldn't
leave. "Why not?" she demanded.
	"He's sick," Donnelly told her with a kind crinkling of his eyes.
	"Who's his replacement?" she asked.
	Jones shrugged. Donnelly shrugged.  Scully glared at them as they
walked away.  Two pairs of agents, she wanted to shout at them as they
got into their cars and drove away.
	She did not want to be alone with Irving.  She pulled out her cellphone
and was dialing as Irving threw open the door to the safehouse and
grinned at her. "Come on in!"
	She put her finger in her ear and requested Skinner from the FBI
operator.  She could barely hear - it must be all the VA trees blocking
her phone. "Where's my backup?" she demanded.
	"We've had a big case break open, and we don't have anyone available,"
Skinner said, sounding apologetic and also practiced.  He'd been waiting
for her call.
	"Tell Jones or Donnelly to turn around and come back," she ordered.
	"I can't do that."
	"I don't care if they sleep, I can't be here alone," she said, lowering
her voice to try to keep Irving from hearing her.
	"Scully -"
	"Then get down here yourself, sir. Protocol dictates -"
	Skinner interrupted her angry tirade by laughing.  He was laughing at
her!  "When have you ever followed protocol?" he asked.
	She glared.
	"I can't do it. I'm sorry."  A burst of static almost drown him out. 
"I'm losing you," Skinner said.  The perfect excuse.  Then he hung up.
	Her back stiff and straight with anger, she walked into the house. 
"What's wrong?" Irving purred from the couch.  He was sprawled on his
back and grinning like a cat.  "Afraid to be alone with me?"
	"I'm an FBI agent," she informed him.  "I've faced killers and honest
to God monsters.  You don't scare me."  Her voice was tough to cover the
fact that she felt weak.
	"Good," he said.  "Did you bring your cards?"
	She flung the package at his head.  "Play solitaire."  She'd already
decided that if someone came to kill him, she'd allow them to.  She
might even help.
	"Sex is a great cure for PMS," he called to her as he picked up the
cards from where they'd fallen.
	"No wonder they took away your license," she replied, opening the novel
she'd brought with her to read.
	"Hubby not up for it?" he asked.  "Oh, that's right, he's out of
town."  His words had become menacing.  "Leave you lonely?"
	She kept her jaw locked and closed and looked at her watch.  Only 11
hours and 45 minutes to go.

	Mulder went back to the motel to call the number Traci had given him.
Damien Turned worked in the financial industry.  Mulder didn't
understand why they seemed to have so little money.  Their small home
was filled with shabby things.
	"This is Agent Mulder.  I'm with the FBI. I'm calling about your wife
-" he began.
	"Oh god, what's happened now?" Damien asked with a put-upon groan. It
wasn't the reaction Mulder had expected.
	"I was wondering where you were at the time of the incident and if
there were -" Mulder asked.
	"Buddy, you still lost me, what incident?"  Damien had an annoyingly
flat Chicago accent. Mulder found himself wondering how  Traci and her
husband had come to be together.
	"The rape..."  He didn't even want to say the word.  There was only
silence on Damien's end of the line. "You didn't know?" he asked.
	"No. I didn't know."
	Something in his voice told Mulder not to believe him.  "She didn't
tell you."
	"No, she just started talking about all that church crap and I, kinda,
turned out, you know?" Damien said.  "She's gotten worse since we got
married."
	"Worse how?" Mulder asked, hoping to get anything at all he could use.
	"More into that crap, you know.  The devil and god and all that."
Damien said. "Is she okay?"
	It had taken his way too long to think of that, Mulder thought. He'd
also been way too quick to point out his wife's religious tendencies. 
Calling her crazy and blaming it on the devil was easy.
	Mulder still thought it was the husband.  "Where were you on the
afternoon and evening of..."
	Damien laughed. "I was working."
	"I don't even have to give you the date for you to know that," Mulder
said curiously.
	"I'm always working."
	"Convenient."
	"What are you trying to imply?" Damien demanded.
	"Nothing," Mulder said quickly. "You were working.  Okay."
	"You sound like you don't believe me," Damien accused.
	"Why wouldn't I believe you," Mulder said, making it clear that he
didn't.
	"Look, I got to get back to my work." Damien said and hung up.  Mulder
looked at the phone in his hand and finally replaced it. He wasn't going
to get any answers out of Damien.
	No evidence, he thought.  Damn it.

	"Why don't you come over here?" Irving wheedled.
	"I warned you once already," Scully informed him.  She turned the page
in her book even though she had no idea what had happened.  She couldn't
concentrate.  She was angry with Skinner. He was supposed to look after
the agents in his care.
	But you're not a little girl any more, Scully, she reminded herself. 
You can defend yourself now. No one is going to hurt you again.
	Good thing, she thought as Irving moved to occupy the chair opposite
hers, drawing it in close.  Almost touching her.  The proximity made her
incredibly uncomfortable and she worried that it showed in her face. If
he knew, he'd get off on it, she knew. She also knew she didn't really
need that.
	"You're so uptight," he said in an oilslicked tone she imagined he
found seductive.  Then he reached for her.
	She punched him square in the jaw.  He recoiled, his eyes full of
hated.  "Ooo roke eye raw!" he said, a thin dribble of blood trailing
down his chin.
	"You feel," she said, ice cold.  She got up from her chair and walked
away, claiming the couch.
	"Oo really roke by raw!" he cried, even more alarmed.  She felt a
twinge that she hated.  Men had hurt women for centuries.
	Stooping to their level makes you as bad as they are.
	You swore to first do no harm, that voice in her head said.  It was
quickly joined by other voices, offering her commandments and her own
memory to make her guilty.
	Mulder would be ashamed of her.
	"Awen't ooo oing to _do_ romething?"  She glanced at him, feeling
sick.  His blood was bright and freely flowing.  She couldn't leave him
broken and in agony for hours.
	She pulled out her cell phone and dialed.

	"There's nothing I can do here," Mulder told Skinner on the phone. 
"Mrs. Turner won't press any charges since it's the devil."
	"Mulder -"  He could picture the glare on Skinner's face.  He knew that
tone of frustration.
	"I tried.  She believes it was the devil.  She laughs when I mention
charges. Even if she admitted it had been her husband, I doubt she would
do anything about it."
	"You think it's the husband," Skinner said.
	"Yes," Mulder answered and prepared to defend his opinion.
	"I agree, sir," Mulder said.  There was a tiny click on the line and
Mulder flinched. It had been a long time since he'd given any thought to
wiretaps.  Who would be interested?
	"I have another call," Skinner said. "But I recommend you give it
another day." Mulder groaned and Skinner heard it.  "I know you want to
be home with your wife, Mulder, but give this case your best regardless
of that."
	"Yes sir," Mulder said. Skinner disconnected their call and Mulder
muttered, "Damn."   He hated wasting his time when there was nothing
more he could do.

	"Sir?"  Scully was Skinner's other call.
	"What is it now?" Skinner growled.
	"The prisoner requires medical attention," she reported, glancing over
at Irving.  He looked harmless and helpless, now.  She knew she should
not have hit him.
	"He's not a prisoner," Skinner reminded her.  "And you're a doctor."
	"His jaw's broken."
	"How did this happen?  Was there an attempt?" Skinner cried, concerned.
	"I hit him," she said softly.  Irving tried to smile at her admission
and instantly yelped in pain.  Her stomach turned.
	"You what?" Skinner demanded.  "You'd better have a damned good
reason."
	"He's a rapist and I'm alone with him and he was about to touch me,"
Scully informed him in a flat, unemotional tone.
	"I will send someone," Skinner informed her. "Do you feel safe there
until they arrive?"
	"Do NOT patronize me," she snapped.
	"We'll talk later," Skinner said. It was not an invitation for a
meeting.  The phone disconnected and she forced herself to put it away
calmly.  She didn't want Irving to know. He was smug enough already.
	"In trouble?" Irving asked, his eyes lit with hope.
	She wasn't speaking to him.
	"I'm gonna sue you!" he slurred.
	She had no doubt. Once again fear began to wind through her stomach. 
She was going to lose her career.  They were going to find out and her
abuser was going to have the final say in her life.
	And she damn well wasn't going to cry.

	"You again," Traci opened the door, but didn't step back, not allowing
him into the house.
	"Are you sure about what happened."  He couldn't keep the sigh out of
his voice.
	Her face twisted.  "I am so sick of you and your disbelief," she
snarled. "I know what happened!  I was lying in bed and someone held me
down. Someone I couldn't see. And I couldn't move and they _violated_
me."  Her mascara began to run as she started to cry.
	Once again he wanted to touch her to comfort her, but he knew he
couldn't.  Shouldn't.  He could see Scully there in her pain.
	But her story was different. It sounded almost like an alien
abduction.  Sans abduction and mostly sans aliens.  He didn't need
Scully there to know what she would say.
	Dream paralysis while not asleep. It happened to a small fraction of
the population. At the conference he'd attended almost a year ago, a
so-called expert had attributed all abduction phenomena to dream
paralysis.
	Mulder knew not all abductions occurred while lying in bed.  And it
didn't explain Traci's doctor-verified rape in this case.
	But it could explain the presence of the devil.
	"I wish you would let me help you," Mulder said, studying her eyes.
	"I wish it would happen to you so you'd know," she offered cruelly.
	It has, he thought of Scully.  "I'll call again tomorrow before I'm
scheduled to leave," he said.  She closed the door and he headed for the
motel.
	Feeling sad.
	Feeling he'd failed.

	Skinner sent Donnelly and an ambulance. "Thanks, bitch," Donnelly
sneered as he walked past her.
	Scully didn't react.  She was used to male agents treating her with
acid disrespect.  The man had worked 12 hours and had to return because
she wasn't doing her job. She'd be angry too.
	"You're through," Donnelly informed her. Telling her to leave.  He
turned to  Irving and for a second she thought the two men were about to
high-five each other.  She was horrified and left quickly.
	Skinner was a man.  He wouldn't understand either.  What would her
punishment be for striking a witness?  When guarding the witness had
already been meant as a punishment.
	Maybe she should quit.  It had crossed her mind so many times over the
years.   She wasn't a quitter.  She'd had something to prove and now
that times had grown hard she should only work harder.  Except it was so
hard.
	The only other reason she had was Mulder and they were married now.  He
wouldn't feel abandoned.  He wouldn't feel she'd left him because she
wouldn't be leaving him.
	She didn't want to.
	She knew it was a steep uphill climb but she didn't want to quit. 
Unless it was no longer her decision to make.  She sighed. Mulder was
going to be disappointed in her.

	Mulder was still sad when he reached the motel.  He had nothing to do
except wait for morning to come so he could ask Traci again.  She would
say no, again, and he could go home.
	He wanted to go home.  Even though right now things were hard and
painful.  Scully was there.   She was what he needed for strength.
	He had no passion for this work without her.  Mulder spread out on the
bed and turned on the TV.  Maybe he could sleep the time away.

end of 22/28

Anamorphosis 23/28
by Megan Reilly
eponine@prodigy.net

-23-

	She sat silent and demur in  Skinner's office, aware of his utter
anger.  She couldn't look at him and she hoped that didn't make her look
guilty. Guiltier.  She was already guilty.
	"Why did you hit him?"
	"I told you," she said quietly.  Absolutely determined to remain calm.
	"If you were unable to handle the assignment -" Skinner began. 
Sounding pissed off and condescending.
	"I called you and expressed my concerns, which you did not listen to,"
she stated.  She l lifted her head and they stared at each other.
	"What did he do?"
	"I told -"
	"Tell me again," Skinner said.  She hesitated, recognizing a common
interrogation technique - repeating the story until it changed or fell
apart.  He continued, "I don't want to put you in front of the OPR twice
in the same week."
	"He was scum. Sir," she added the last absurdly.  "He spent twelve
hours sneering and leering and bragging about what he did.  What he did
that the Bureau is condoning by letting him go free.  So today when he
sat down inches from me and reached out, I reacted."
	Skinner didn't move.  There was no change in his facial expression. 
"You hit him."
	"Yes, sir."
	"How close was he?" Skinner asked after a short pause.
	She just looked at him. He nodded, waiting for an answer.  "You've got
to be kidding!" she cried, rising from her chair.
	"It's your word against his. I need to know you reacted to actual
physical danger," Skinner told her.  Sometimes she saw him fight to hide
emotion, so she knew he had them.  He'd even had a wife; he was a man. 
But as a boss....
	His marine training made him cold and unattached.
	"A woman is always at fault for unwanted attention," she railed. "How
short is my skirt?"  She knew it covered her knees.  "Maybe I invited
him. So I could tease him. Forget that I'm _married_. Just being female
is an invitation. Women always want it, isn't that right sir?" she
asked, making her sarcasm tantalize as she moved closer to his chair. 
His eyes followed her with interest.  "If he'd thrown me on the floor
and did to me what he's so proud of doing to those other women, I should
have -"  her voice broke because her emotions were rising in her chest. 
The tears in her eyes wouldn't put her voice above a whisper.  "I should
have sat back and enjoyed it," she finished coldly.
	"That wouldn't have happened," Skinner told her.  He had to lean all
the way back to see her face because she was standing so close to him.
	"No, because I punched him in the jaw," she said, a touch of smugness
tainting her voice.  She was overtly aware of how close she was
standing.  She could smell the Zest soap he'd used in the shower that
morning.  His splayed thighs were almost touching hers.  She leaned in,
putting her face near his.  "And this is how close he was to me," she
told him, holding her position before stepping away.  Her blood still
boiled with anger.  She watched Skinner to see what he would say.
	Finally, he spoke.  "I think there are some autopsies awaiting you at
Quantico," he said.
	"Thank you, sir."  Her knees were shaking as she walked out of his
office.  He was bound to notice.

	When Mulder woke, he was disoriented.  It was dark and he didn't know
where he was.  After a moment, he remembered the motel, Michigan, the
case.
	He'd been dreaming about  his father.  The man who taught him to fish
and track and told him he was stupid.  The man who smoked three packs a
day and drank after dinner and knocked him out once for swearing.
	It had not been idyllic.  But back then, parents spanked their kids.
Mulder hadn't thought anything of it.  He'd known he was to blame for
losing his sister, the way he was to blame for everything.  He knew it
as surely as he knew his own name.
	He'd accepted it, and that had influenced him to use gentle touches and
study psychology that told him no one was to blame.
	How had her experiences made Scully who she was?  Strong and proud...
Was getting smacked the same, but different, from what Scully and Traci
and so many others felt?  It had to be, he thought, so maybe he never
would understand.
	Everyone is abused as a child, he thought and sighed.  Even though it
was late, he picked up the phone to call Scully, to tell her that he
would be home sometime soon.  He wanted to tell her how much he wanted
to see her.
	He dialed his apartment and then hers and there was no answer in either
place.  He worried, and what had he to do?  What could he do?  He
worried.

	The phone stopped ringing in the instant she pushed the door open. 
Exhausted, she ran for it, hoping she could catch Mulder leaving a
message on her answering machine.
	She stopped short.  She hadn't turned the machine on before she left. 
Her shoulders sagged.  She'd wanted to hear his voice.  She'd autopsied
five victims that day.  Two of them she'd done before an audience of
trainees.  She needed to feel some confirmation of life now, after
spending her day with death.  The beating of her own heart was no longer
enough to remind her.
	She couldn't call him because it was late and what if it hadn't been
him on the phone?
	Once Irving gave his testimony, he'd be free.  And he struck her as the
type who might try to take revenge.
	Unlike Joe Wilder, who had been smart and disappeared after his
release.  After thinking such thoughts, she found the silence and the
darkness threatening and in spite of her exhaustion, sleep was hard to
come by.

	The ringing phone interrupted her sleep.  She was still tired and the
light burned her eyes and turned her stomach as she squinted against it.
"Yeah," she mumbled through the hair that had somehow come to cover her
face.
	"I'll need to see you in my office at eight thirty," Skinner said.
	"Okay," she managed and fumbled the phone back to its home, thinking
only of sleep.  She fell back against her pillow.
	She was in trouble again.  Again, or still?  She forced her eyes open. 
It was seven thirty by her clock.   She could hardly believe it.  With
traffic, she was already late.

	Mulder sat in the chair in his motel room, tapping his foot, the TV
off, not eating, not reading or sleeping. Just tapping and waiting to
ask Traci Turner again what she wanted to do.
	If she changed her mind, he wouldn't be able to catch his plane at
noon.
	He'd never longed for home as much as he did at that moment.  Because
home was no longer a place for him - it was a person.  Scully.
	Marriage gave him ground and roots in a way he had never imagined.  He
had never imagined that he would like it so much.
	The phone rang and he smiled.  He was thinking of his wife and she was
thinking of him.  Sometimes he thought she was the tiniest bit psychic. 
She'd deny it if he said it to her, of course.
	"Hey honey," he said playfully when he picked up the phone.
	"Mulder?"
	He almost dropped the phone when he heard Skinner's voice. He wasn't
psychic.  "I'm sorry -" he began.
	"I need you back here on the first flight," Skinner ordered.
	"What about the case?"
	"We can't prosecute the devil, you said it yourself," Skinner said
wryly.  It almost resembled a sense of humor. "We need you back here."
	"What happened?" he asked, afraid something had happened to Scully.
	"We've got another dead kid," Skinner informed him.
	"I'll be there as soon as I can," Mulder said and hung up, dialing the
local bureau to assist him in making new, rush travel arrangements.
	
	The radio assaulted her from the moment she got in the car.  "A killer
released by the FBI due to lack of evidence has struck again..."
	Oh no, she thought.  She was definitely in trouble.  It would somehow
be her fault that Wilder was out to kill again, because she was a bad
risk to the Bureau.  Another little girl was dead.  For a second she
couldn't breathe because it hurt so badly.  The radio didn't give any
details, but she knew them well enough from the previous killings.
	She remembered her own pain and fear and confusion at what had been
done to her when she was a child.  She could still feel the skin
stretching until it ripped.  She shuddered, barely seeing where she was
driving, knowing that Wilder had done that to another little girl, but
he'd used a knife instead of his finger or a broomstick or his adult
penis.
	A horn blared and she jerked the wheel.  She didn't know where she was
for the moment before she recognized the turn to the parking lot at
work.  She'd lost the entire drive to her dark and ugly thoughts.
	Or had she lost the drive to one of the others?  The one who left fear
trembling in her stomach, who could drive while she thought.  What if
one of them came out while she met with Skinner?  It hadn't happened
yet, but it could.
	But thirty years had passed without her noticing them at all.
	She was scared.
	Fear was the one thing she could not handle.
	Dana parked the car and went upstairs to Skinner's office.  Things had
seemed to change since she'd last been there.  She didn't know how or
why, but it was different.
	Dana was afraid Joe Wilder would be there.  He was a mild mannered
school bus driver - how could he have killed those children?
	"I should probably wait to speak to you until Mulder gets here,"
Skinner told her before she even sat down.  So she didn't sit, eager to
please him and afraid to disappoint him.  Dana always wanted people to
be pleased with her.
	"The Bureau wants both of your badges for this. If you'd gone by the
book before, this kid wouldn't be dead," Skinner looked over his glasses
at her.  "Sit down."
	Scully crossed her legs after she sat down, and Dana uncrossed them. 
"It isn't our fault he went free.  We identified and arrested the
killer," Scully argued.
	Dana was afraid to let her break through even though she was also
afraid to stay in the meeting.  She had been filled with fear since her
abduction.  It overwhelmed her and made her completely unable to work. 
She was more gentle now, although she had always been kinder and softer
than Scully.
	Even Scully knew that Dana didn't belong at work.  She only knew she
was not in control, and control was what she needed at that moment in
order to save her job.
	Her job and Mulder's.
	"Maybe you're right," Scully heard herself say.  She looked just as
shocked as she felt.  "I feel terrible about this," Dana added softly.
	"I don't think there was anything you could have done differently,"
Skinner admitted.  "And I will say as much on your behalf."
	She nodded.  "Did you get him this time?" Dana asked timidly.
	"Yeah."
	Scully didn't see what the problem was if she and Mulder had identified
the right man.  If the Bureau wasn't so desperately out to get them,
this murder would not have happened.
	"This sucks," DK declared.
	Dana was incredibly embarrassed.
	Scully struggled to silence them all, worried Skinner would notice she
was completely insane.
	To her surprise, he merely nodded.  "Keep a low profile until Mulder
gets back," he advised.
	"Mulder's coming back?" Dana and Scully said at the same time.  It
surprised Scully and it made Dana pull back.  What did it mean if she
and Scully felt the same way about Mulder?
	Skinner nodded.  "This afternoon.  We'll talk later."
	Scully nodded.  Dana was wondering who was really married to Mulder.
She was pretty sure it was her.  She'd loved him longer than Scully
had.  Dana walked downstairs slowly, almost dreamily, thinking about her
husband.
	Afraid the time away had made him realize that he didn't need her or
love her.
	She didn't like the fear or the doubt, so she let Scully do the expense
report so she wouldn't have to think about it any more.
	After a cup of coffee and about an hour of working with the calculator,
Scully felt like herself again.  It must have been the shock, but it was
too easy to blame that.  She needed to learn to deal at whatever life
came up with and be able to stay in control.  Because numbers were
straightforward, she returned to the expense report.

	Mulder walked in hours later, practically dragging his suitcase along
on the floor.  The plane ride had been long and his transfer had been
even longer. He was pleased to be back, even if he was due to be in
trouble.  His office felt like home, especially when he saw Scully
sitting at the desk, a pencil stuck behind her ear and another in her
hand.  For a second, he felt normal and carefree and fought the urge to
rush at her and hug her tight.
	"Hey," he said instead, hanging back.
	She turned and grinned. "You're back.  How was it?"
	"I'm a failure without you," he told her.  "What's going on?"
	"There's been another murder.  They got Joe Wilder on it, but they want
to get us for screwing it up in the first place," she said.
	"They just want to get us," Mulder commented.
	She pursed her lips and regarded him.  "My being completely psycho
doesn't really help," she added.
	"What does that mean?" he demanded, studying her.  "You didn't sound
too good last night."
	She shook her head.  She hadn't been too good.  "I punched the witness
I was guarding," she admitted, watching him to see how he would react.
	It took him a second, but then he said carefully, "I'm sure you had a
good reason."
	She smiled.  He was a great guy.  That was why she didn't want to tell
him she'd felt very tenuous this morning.  She had managed to pull
herself together and the expense report had gotten finished in the
process, another bonus.  "We should go see Skinner."
	"Do you want to?" he asked her.
	"Of course not," she said.
	"Was he very upset?" Mulder asked her.
	"I think he's on our side," she told him. "For what that's worth.  One
of these days he won't be."
	"Do you really think so?" he asked, moving closer to her. He'd been
dying to touch her since the moment he'd left.
	"We've got to be such a pain in his ass," she said.  "If you look at it
from his point of view."
	"You ever think about moving out of the field?" he asked her, meeting
her eyes.
	She could stare into his gaze for days, but she had to be honest when
she did.  "All the time now," she admitted
	"I hate being out there without you," he said.  Her head was tipped
back to look at him and he finally dug his fingers into her hair at the
temples.  "I hate it."
	"What happened to my independent partner?" she asked, her lips twisting
in a tiny smile to know he'd missed her and he'd needed her.
	"I kept telling myself all the things you would have said." With his
hands still in her hair, he leaned down to kiss her. Finally.  "This
woman believed so strongly in the devil..."
	"What did you think I'd have said?" she asked, her lips still feeling
the pressure of his. Her heart was still in her stomach.  She wanted
him.
	"That she couldn't accept the evil in other people so she attributed it
to the devil."  He watched her face. "Is that what you would have said?"
	"Probably."
	"Why did you hit someone?" he asked her.
	She shrugged.  A tight shrug like she was ashamed and didn't want to
talk about it. What had she gotten into while he was away?  But he knew
that wasn't what she wanted him to think.
	"Was it you?" he asked.
	"Yes," she said, mildly irritated.  She pulled her face away from his
hands.  Instantly her expression tempered. "I'm not sure if that's
better or worse. It would be easier to deal with if it was one of the
others, in some ways."
	"Are they staying away?" he asked.
	She looked away.  "I've been struggling," she said, her eyes focused on
his poster hanging on the opposite wall.  "We should go." She got to her
feet and walked past him, pausing by the door to wait for him.
	"I'm so looking forward to this," Mulder remarked dryly.  They both
fell into silence as they walked up, thinking.  They'd received their
disliked assignments in punishment for their previous offenses - what
would their punishment be now?
	Scully reached to squeeze his hand before they went into Skinner's
office. To assure herself as much as to assure him. He turned and smiled
at her.  Glad of the support and the strength of their partnership.
	Skinner looked even more pissed than usual, an imposing figure behind
his desk as the slid silently into the facing chairs like kids in the
principal's office.  Oh no,  Scully thought and saw Mulder turn his head
out of the corner of her eye as though he'd been able to hear her.
	"Joe Wilder confessed," Skinner said. "Everything.  Working with
Strader, his assault on you."  His eyes found Scully.  "You two are off
the hook."
	"Good," said Mulder, and the word was too weak.
	"Thank you sir," Scully replied, finding her voice.  She didn't feel
vindicated at all for being right, just moderately relieved.
	"Is the expense report finished?" Skinner turned his glare to Mulder.
	"Yes. I'll get it to you later this afternoon," Scully answered for
him.
	The three of them looked at each other.  "Mulder, you look tired.  Did
you solve the case?" Skinner asked.  Mulder shook his head.  "Your solve
rate is really getting bad," Skinner went on, looking from Mulder to
Scully and back again.  "Any problems?"
	He was asking about their marriage again?  "Everything's fine," Mulder
said.
	Skinner nodded.  "Scully, if I could have a word with you?"
	Her eyes widened.  "Certainly," she said. Mulder looked at her as he
got to his feet and headed out of the office, his eyes lingering on
her.  She nodded as though to tell him it was okay.  The door closed and
she was alone with her boss.
	"Is everything all right?" he asked her.
	"Fine, sir," she said, yet again.
	"Honestly," he suggested.  "You seem different, since you and Mulder
were married.  Is everything okay between you two?"
	"I love him and he loves me. We've bought a house.  We are going to
have a  happy life together," she said.
	"Then is it something else that's bothering you?" Skinner asked, his
eyes searching hers. "I would appreciate your honesty here.  In light of
what happened this morning. Your reaction was not like you, and you know
that."
	She took a deep breath.  She had to tell him. It was the only right
thing to do, but how to say it?  Why did this feel like it was going to
be harder than telling her family had been?  "I...recently remembered
incidents of abuse that occurred during my childhood."  She forced
herself to meet his eyes.
	"I'm sorry," he said.  He wasn't shocked.  "Do you want me to refer you
to the counselor?"
	She shook her head.  "I'm okay," she told him.
	"If it becomes too much for you to deal with..." Skinner offered.
	She shook her head.  "I'm getting better.  Mulder's helping. It just
takes time." Listen to me, she thought, I sound like I mean it.  Like
it's really going to happen.
	And he's not going to penalize me or fire me or say anything.  She
actually felt lighter inside and smiled.  He didn't smile back, but she
felt like she was on better terms.
	She felt safe.
	"Thank you," she told him before leaving his office. That changed the
look on his face.  His eyebrows went up and his expression changed,
becoming more open. He'd helped her, just by asking, and now he knew it.

end of 23/28
comments appreciated:eponine@prodigy.net
Anamorphosis 24/28
by  Megan Reilly
eponine@prodigy.net

-24-

	She slipped out and went back down to the basement office.  Mulder was
looking over the expense report. "Looks good," he told her, raising his
eyes to her face.
	"I can't believe you're doing that," she said.
	"Needed to be done. I can't believe you did this whole thing."
	"I needed something else to think about," she told him.  
	He nodded, his eyes clear and focused on her.  "What did Skinner want
to see you about?"
	"I told him," she said.
	"How did that feel?"
	"Good.  I thought it would be harder. I thought there would be
repercussions. But I guess this kind of thing happens to everyone."
	"I was having that same thought," he said.
	She tilted her head and put her chin in her hand, staring at him. 
"Were you?"
	"Not like you were," he said.  She saw a slight flex to his shoulders. 
He was uncomfortable.  He shouldn't be uncomfortable telling her this. 
Did he feel like she'd invalidated his feelings?  Was she totally and
completely selfish?  "Not sexually."
	"Tell me," she urged.
	One shoulder went up and then back down but she wanted to hear him
answer.  "No, Mulder, honestly. We have spent what feels like weeks just
talking about me. I want to hear about you."  He continued to hesitate. 
"I do."
	"It was okay to hit kids back then. You know," he said.  "Mostly it was
my dad, mostly when he was drinking, but I never thought of it as
_abuse_."
	She nodded.  "You know you're not to blame for them taking your
sister."
	He nodded.  "I know that in here."  He tapped his head.  "And I remind
myself. But when we found those files...it was supposed to be me.  I
could have saved her from whatever pain they've caused her. I wish I
could have saved her from that."
	"I know," she said.  "I wonder if he hurt Melissa too, or maybe I kept
him from..."  She closed her eyes on the tears, then forced them open
again.  "I wish she was here so I could ask her."
	"It's okay."
	"I know. And now I've turned his around to make it about me again." 
She pushed a smile onto her face.  "I want to paint our house. This
weekend.  I went the other night and I want to move in."
	"Of course we're going to move in," he said, but he was glad.  He was
tired of commuting and never feeling like he was home in her apartment. 
He wanted them to have a home that was theirs, both of them together.
"What color do you want to paint it?  Should we find someone to do it?"
	"I want to do it all ourselves.  Together, and make it ours," she said.
	"Why do I have such a hard time picturing you with a paintbrush in your
hand?" he asked her.
	"I don't know - why do you?" she asked in return.  She knew she
radiated an air of perfection - she worked at it - but he knew she was
not perfect.  He'd seen her at her absolute worse, crying and destroyed.
	"You just don't seem the type," he offered lamely.
	"Sometimes I think we don't know each other very well," Scully told
him, her mouth turning down unhappily.
	He pulled a quick breath but couldn't let it out, couldn't relax. 
"What does that mean?"
	Now he was going to make a big issue out of it, she thought. Had she
intended to start an argument?  Unconsciously.  " We have a whole
lifetime," she told him.
	"Are you happy?" he asked.
	What could she say?
	He turned away, scraping his hands down over his face.  "We have a
whole lifetime," he muttered, repeating her answer.
	"Are you?" she asked.
	He nodded vigorously.
	"There are moments that make me happy," she told him. "But right now
I'm living in anticipation of happiness.  Our house will make me happy. 
Getting over all this will make me happy."
	"This isn't something you get over, Scully," he told her.  From
experience.  "This is something you live with."
	She nodded, but he could see that she didn't believe him.  She would
learn, he thought, and he didn't want her to learn.  He wanted her to be
as happy as he felt about simple things - as simple as the knowledge
that he was married to her.  But now he knew nothing he did could make
her feel that way.
	Maybe he would have to learn to live without it.
	"Let's go to the paint store," he sighed and got to his feet.
	"Now? Aren't you tired?  Don't you want to go home and change?"  Her
eyes flicked over his rumpled suit.
	"Not really," he said. He didn't care how he looked. If the house was
what would make her happy, fixing up the house was what they would do. 
He only hoped she knew she couldn't move away from her problems. He'd
tried that when he went away to college in England, running as far from
his pain as he could get.  It had been good for a while, but he'd
trusted the wrong people and it had all crumbled in the end.
	He always trusted the wrong people.  And with that thought he couldn't
help wondering, because he trusted her with his work, what made him
believe that he could trust her with his heart?  It had all happened so
suddenly.
	They walked out, stopping to drop the expense report off in Skinner's
office, then got in the car to go and look at paint.  "Why did you marry
me?" Mulder asked.
	"Having regrets?"  There was no surprise in her eyes or her tone, and
he didn't know how he felt about that.
	"No," he murmured and it was a few seconds before he realized she'd
deflected his question without answering it.
	"You're the only one," she replied several moments later.  He glanced
at her because it wasn't really a compliment.  But she meant it.  It was
the only thing she could say - it defined their relationship so
completely for her.  He was the only person she could see herself being
with.

	"What color?" Mulder asked, standing in front of a rack with thousands
of paper cards bearing every shade and nuance of the rainbow.  He picked
one up. Marigold, it said in tiny letters.  "Yellow?"  He offered it to
her.
	"It's yellow now," she said, her fingers flicking over the numerous
shades.   Her nails were still so ugly, torn and bitten down.  She
frowned at them.
	"Who could tell?" Mulder asked flippantly, selecting butter, buttercup
and buttercream.  Softer shades of yellow.
	"It is run down," she admitted, picking up a foresty green.
	"I like this one," he offered her 'Yield,' a traffic-stopping shade of
yellow.
	"Who wants to live in a yellow house?"  Her nose wrinkled, drawing his
attention to her freckles.  He wanted to touch those tawny flecks in her
skin.
	"Yellow houses sell better because they make people happy.  Everyone
wants to live in a big yellow house," he told her, picking out a faintly
yellow white.
	"Not me."   She was stubborn.
	He leaned against the rack, knowing he'd lost.  "So what color were you
thinking?"  Since she obviously already had her mind made up.
	She plucked a brown, a green, a peach - offering them to him.  Her eyes
were wide and waiting.  He slid the peach from her fingers.  It was
orangey, but still too close to pink.  The brown was too dark.  That
left green.  He lifted his eyebrows.
	"Green," she said.  "Oh, here's more."  She started flipping through a
newly discovered segment of colors.
	Mulder was extremely bored.  He titled his head and began to look at
the reds, ranging from purple to pink.  Then he lowered his eyes to
orange.  With a smile, he picked one out and held it up, closing one eye
to compare it with Scully's hair.  His smile deepened as he found the
right one, turning to blue to find her eyes.
	"What're you doing?"   She turned and caught him in his squinty
comparison.  She could tell from his smile that he was up to something.
	He offered her the orange card.  "It matches your hair."
	A crazy laugh of a grin crossed her face.   He watched her slide the
card into her pocket and recompose her face into a semblance of
seriousness.  "Blue?" she asked, taking the pale teal from his hand. 
"Did you like this?"
	"I was trying to match your eyes."
	"It's a nice color."  She leaned past him to pluck a watery confederate
gray card from the selection.  "Your eyes," she said.
	"They are not that color!" he cried.
	She nodded saucily.  He grabbed the card.  "You're the one who thinks
my hair is tangerine," she pointed out.
	"Better than chartreuse."  He threw a green card at her.
	"Can I help you?"  An older man with an orange apron and paint under
his fingernails approached them to ask.  The card Scully was about to
hurl slipped to the floor.  The man just looked at them.  "Paint?" he
reminded.
	"We're painting out house.  Any suggestions?" Scully asked brightly.
	"Yella's nice," he suggested.
	Scully sighed.  But it was the kind of sigh that matched Mulder's
efforts not to laugh.

	"I'm so tired," Mulder declared as he dropped the gallon cans he was
carrying and flopped down on Scully's living room couch, tossing his
head back and closing his eyes
	Scully walked over the check her answering machine. No messages.  A
good sign.  She joined Mulder in the living room, bending down to
inspect their choices.  Ice blue. Mulder had convinced her of yellow
trim.  There was a whole collection of brushes and rollers in a giant
plastic bag, new and just waiting to be used.  She couldn't wait to get
started.  "I want to go now," she declared.
	Mulder groaned, not lifting his head.  She looked at him, surprised. 
Was this what he did?  Was this the way he spent his evenings, deposited
dead on the sofa, TV on or off?
	He was entertaining similarly dark thoughts about her workaholic
tendencies.  Not that he wasn't a workaholic himself, but he wanted her
to curl up next to him, put her head on his shoulder and settle in for a
movie on cable.
	She picked up a book and plopped into the chair. Mulder changed
channels on the TV at random.  They sighed in unison out of boredom.
	"Going to read in bed," she told him, meaning it to be an invitation. 
He'd been gone for two days and she'd missed him.  Not just his presence
or his arms around her at night, but as a lover.
	They'd had a lot of problems, but she still marveled at how quickly
that change in their relationship had come to be an important part of
her life.  She felt stronger than she had in many nights. Maybe it was
the resolution of the Wilder case, or the decisions they'd made about
the house, or maybe it was just finally time.
	She wanted him.
	So she was supremely disappointed, lying in her queen sized bed that
she'd come to think of as theirs.  Did she have to be more specific or
more obvious when she said she was going to bed?  She closed the book
and tossed it aside, stretching out under the covers, her irritation
growing.
	Just when she was ready to jump up and yell at him, she heard the TV
turn off.  Here he comes, she thought with a little pulse of
excitement.  The sheets made a whispery sound against her skin s she
shifted to turn toward him, propping herself on one elbow.
	He shed his dress shirt, dropping it, as he moved in toward the bed,
falling onto it like a dead man.  He moved his arms and legs to get
comfortable, burrowing his face into the pillow.
	She frowned and moved closer to him.  "Mmm, Scully," he mumbled,
welcoming her presence.
	He's tired, leave him alone, the voice in her head advised.  But Scully
had the feeling that he was avoiding her.  Even in the same apartment,
it was possible for him to do that - by waiting until she'd fallen
asleep.  He didn't want her because she'd been such a freak and she
wasn't going to be a freak tonight, not any more.
	She had to prove it to herself as much as to him.  "Mulder," she said.
	"Yeah."  He turned his head and cracked his eyes open.
	She wet her lips, suddenly nervous. "I want us to make love tonight,"
she said softly, moving closer to him, holding his eyes with hers until
she kissed him gently.
	He responded and his hand slipped under the covers to find that she'd
forgone pajamas.  He gave a tiny chuckle the sound of which she could
feel deep into her belly.  She let out the barest sound as she felt the
pleasure - actual pleasure! - of him touching her skin.
	But when she reached to unfasten his trousers, he pushed her away. 
"Mulder?"  She sat up, not bothering to grab the sheet to cover herself.
	"Scully, we shouldn't -"
	"I want to," she interrupted, reaching for his neck so she could kiss
him again.
	"Scully, I'm really tired," he repeated, his voice firm and growing 
loud.
	He didn't want her.
	That hurt.
	"But it's okay," she whispered, trying to convince him and explain all
the things she'd decided.  She'd decided to prove she could beat this
and prove to him she loved him and prove to them both -
	"I'm _really_tired_," he said again.
	"But Mulder -"  She heard the girlish whine and hated herself for it. 
She ran her hands along the sides of his torso, working her way down.
	"Stop it, Scully, I can't," he told her bluntly.
	She stopped and stared at him.
	"And don't stare at me."  His voice was rough with anger and
self-loathing.  "It happens."
	Now she understood the meaning of "really tired" in Mulder-speak.
	"I'm sorry," he added in a sigh that told her he wasn't, really.  He
turned over and put his face back into the pillow.  She lay on her back
with one arm over her head, feeling the cool air on her exposed skin. 
Listening to the voices in her mind laugh at her.
	DK wanted to come out and get his attention. Scully was not going to
let her, but sort of wanted to take DK's advice herself.  She could feel
her stomach rise and fall too quickly, upset.  Mulder we should talk
about this, she said.
	He groaned.   This only made her feel worse.
	"I guess we could talk in the morning," she tempered her statement and
he sighed, thrashing around to face her.
	"What do we need to talk about?" he asked her.
	"You're avoiding me."
	"_I'm_tired_."
	"Any excuse," she murmured.
	He sighed again, very loudly.  Now he was annoyed too.  They were both
completely annoyed.  "It's been a really long day.  I do have off days,
Scully, just like you.  With as many as you've had, I would think you'd
understand how I feel."
	She closed her mouth.  What could she say to that?  He had been
wonderfully undemanding - and she had to respect that from him as well. 
"I'm sorry," she said finally, chastised.
	He mumbled a response that wasn't meant to be understood.
	She lay back, still convinced that he'd decided that he didn't want
her.  Even if he said he did, his body had decided she wasn't worth
bothering about.
	"Is it okay if I -?"  she said after a second.
	He said "Yes," before she finished, so she wrapped her arms around him
like he was a pillow and she put her head against his shoulder. 
Listening to his beating heat, she was asleep quickly.
	Mulder lay awake for a long time after.  Maybe he had reached the point
of being so tired he couldn't sleep; he didn't know.  He was thinking
about them.  Her rush to throw her arms around him had seemed almost
desperate...all of her behavior had seemed almost desperate.  Finally
she'd been ready to make love, and all he could think about was the last
time, when her other personality who thought she was a nun  had dragged
him off to church.
	This had never happened to him before, his inability to perform.  But
he was thirty-seven years old, well past his prime, and it had only been
a matter of time and opportunity.
	She might have had another negative response anyway, even though she'd
been eager.
	He needed to tell her about her other personality, but he didn't want
to.  The hole in the stomach sick kind of didn't want to.  After what
had happened in the church, he'd wanted to believe she'd been cured. By
god or by some miracle...he didn't really believe in such things and he
knew it was too much to hope for.
	As he lay there beating himself up over his body's betrayal - the only
time, it had to be with Scully?  Why not with someone he didn't love? 
He let his hand drift down into his pants, his fingers daring the flesh
there to respond.
	It didn't.
	He only felt worse and considered to rub the tender skin, his
frustration mounting until he was on the verge of screaming tears
because nothing happened.
	"Fuck," he said and Scully stirred.  He could feel her breath coming
moist through open lips.  Closing his eyes and thinking about something
else, he finally managed to fall asleep.
	He dreamed that he was fucking her, savagely and angrily from behind,
with his arm around her neck so she could barely breathe well enough to
cry.  She was crying and that didn't stop him.
	The dream burst into wakefulness, but he was afraid to open his eyes,
afraid he'd hurt her in his sleep.  Finally, he opened them.
	He'd been thrusting his hips against the mattress.
	Wake up, darling, I'm ready, he thought with a sarcastic smile even as
his body turned limp.
	He made himself sick.
	He slid out of bed.  The sun was coming up, so he might as well be up
too, he thought, even though he didn't feel rested at all.   He'd just
opened her cabinet full of food that he didn't want to eat [he was
having a real craving for strawberry frosted Pop-Tarts] when his cell
phone rang from somewhere in the living room.
	He scrambled for it, not wanting it's shrill scream to wake her. 
"Yeah.  Hello.  Mulder."  He grabbed it.
	"You haven't returned my calls," a woman said.
	"Who is this?" he demanded.
	"Lucy.  You left some pictures with me..."
	The pictures.  He'd completely forgotten.  His stomach clenched.
"Good.  Are you in the office now?" he asked.
	"Yeah."
	"I'll be right there."  Breakfast forgotten in his rush to gain
knowledge about the mysterious photographs, he put on his shoes and
slipped into the bedroom for a clean shirt.  Scully was still asleep and
he felt a pull at his heart for leaving her.  Carefully, he pressed a
dry kiss against her cheek before he dashed out of the apartment.

end of 24/28

Anamorphosis 25/28
by Megan Reilly
eponine@prodigy.net

-25-

	The sound in the dream was off. It got louder and quieter with no
scheme or warning and there was a painful pressure inside her ears, like
she was underwater.  She could feel the pressure inside her nose too. 
She felt like she was drowning.  There was a bright light shining down
on her like when she was eight and had her tonsils taken out.  Her body
felt dead like anesthetic too, but if she was under anesthetic, why was
she awake?
	Except she was dreaming and maybe that explained it.
	Then it was another woman on the table and she stood over her in a
pristine white lab coat.  It was weird, because when she performed
autopsies, she usually didn't wear a lab coat.  But the woman's belly
was open and she thrust her hands inside, digging.
	She couldn't hear anything. Not even the hum of the overhead lights or
the squelch of fat and muscle and organ or the smack of the damp blood
against her gloves.
	She realized she woman wasn't dead because her eyes opened, pleading
with her.  She jumped back, seeing the woman's lips move, but everything
was silent and still.  Her heart was racing.
	She looked down and there was an alien looking fetus dying and turning
blue in her hand.  She stared at it, dangling from her fingers, and
after a second it began to scream.  Its thin lips didn't move and that
was why she could hear its horrifying death howl - it was inside her
mind, bouncing off the painful walls of her skull and she wanted to die.
	She forced herself to wake up from the nightmare and realized the
scream was her alarm clock bleating good morning at her.  She slapped it
off and sat tense in the bed.  Listening. Cataloguing the sounds she
heard, and there were sounds - her breath, traffic, kids on the way to
school, a plane somewhere far away, the tap in the bathroom dripping,
her heartbeat.  Reassuring sounds.
	Mulder was gone.  "Damn it," she whispered.  Now he wouldn't even face
her.
	Her skin prickled  as she thought about the dream.  She wasn't entirely
convinced it had been a dream.  Her heart rate picked up and she
stumbled into the show, rejoicing at the hot, hot water on her chilled
skin, telling herself it couldn't have been a memory because it had been
too weird and utterly symbolic.
	The part when she'd been lying on the table with the sound screwed up -
she'd remembered that before about her abduction.  "The procedures" was
what Penny Northern had called them.
	She rinsed shampoo from her face and lathered her body, inspecting it. 
Nothing had changed.  There were no incision scars, none of the scars
that would have to remain if she had been subjected to what she had
performed on the woman in her dream.  There were no marks on her smooth
stomach at all.
	Why did she think she had performed the procedures?  She'd been a
_victim_, not one of the perpetrators.
	She slipped as she stepped out of the shower, barely catching herself
before she felt.  She couldn't get the feeling of guts off her fingers.
It had all been so real, so horribly detailed.  The woman had asked her
for her help, begged her for mercy.
	Had she herself begged her captors for mercy?
	She couldn't shake the feeling that she had been one of them, that she
had been involved, but she didn't know how to prove to herself that she
had not been.  She dressed quickly, wondering where Mulder had
disappeared to.  She couldn't face breakfast.
	Ask the others, Dana told her.
	What about you? she demanded.  Dana had been the one who had been there
for the abduction.  She was the one who now lived in fear of seeing
Duane Barry's face at the window again.  In order to get through the
day, Scully had to believe she would have reached her gun first or
overpowered him with a kick.  She had to believe that she could have
stopped him.
	In the way she hadn't, as a little girl, been able to overpower her
brother and say no.
	She needed to remember.  If she didn't, she really was going to break
down into a thousand tiny psychotic pieces.  She thought again of
Mulder's ketamine and electric shock experiment and felt the desperation
he must have felt. Finally she understood.
	Go to work and find him, she ordered herself.  Before anything happens.
Unconsciously, her fingers rose to the bony vertebra above the clasp of
her necklace, touching the skin under the small metal chip that held all
the answers, but also held the power to kill her.

	Mulder hesitated before knocking on the door to the lab. He'd
completely forgotten about the pictures - or blocked them out because he
didn't want to deal with them or what they could mean.
	Can't deny the truth.  He knocked and Lucy unlatched the door. 
"Early.  Precautions," she apologized for the lock with a shrug.  Mulder
nodded and stepped inside.  It was warm.  Lucy pulled off her white lab
coat to reveal a camisole and damp skin.  Her arms crossed as she leaned
against the counter and looked at him.  "Why didn't you call?"
	"I was away.  On a case.  Got in last night, didn't get my messages,"
he replied.
	She nodded.  "You're married to Agent Scully," she said, looking down
at his ring.  "Did you tell her about these?"  She pulled out the
envelope he'd given her a few days earlier.
	"Not yet."
	She nodded, agreeing matter of factly.  Stalling, she put a strand of
chestnut hair behind her ear and then her clear hazel eyes fixed on
his.  "Fingerprints were easy," she said.  "They were the clue that
unraveled the rest."  Lucy turned over the envelope to show him the gray
powder.
	He waited for her to tell him.
	"Your old friend Alex Krycek," she said.
	His chest deflated.
	"Want to hear the rest?"
	He only nodded.  Trying to prepare himself for whatever she was going
to say.  She slid the pictures out of the envelope and pulled out the
one he knew was old.  "This was taken with an older model surveillance
camera.  One of the tiny ones, that's why it blew up so grainy.  The
Bureau was using this model in late 1994 - about the time Krycek was
your partner."
	Mulder nodded.  She was good.  She'd checked out his personnel file and
everything.
	"He was never officially assigned such a camera, however."
	"Officially," Mulder highlighted.
	"Officially," Lucy agreed, whipping out a magnifying glass.  Her hip
bumped his as she stood next to him, holding the lens over the photo. 
"That scratch was made after the fact on the negative.  The paper was
manufactured recently.  This is a reprint, just for you," she
concludted.
	"No fingerprints?"
	She shook her head and pulled one of the other photos.  "This was taken
much more recently."
	He could tell that from his wife's appearance in the picture.
	"With a spy camera that isn't supposed to exist.  I'd say it's
communist, probably from China.  Maybe Hong Kong after its transfer from
the British.  It's nice," she concluded.  "Clean, totally clean. 
Without getting into the stuff you can get from the picture itself," she
went on,  "there's this."
	She moved the magnifying glass.
	"I don't see anything," Mulder said.
	"It's a residual fingerprint.  Our photographer touched the lens of his
high tech camera," she said.  "The same print is on all three photos." 
She moved the magnifier from photo to photo.
	"So you know who took the pictures."
	She nodded.  "Alex Krycek."
	"Good thing he used his right hand," Mulder muttered. Lucy looked at
him blankly and he shook his head never mind.
	"I'd say you need to talk to Krycek," Lucy advised.
	"Know where I can find him?" Mulder demanded sarcastically.
	"Nope, but you owe me a meal."
	He gave in and smiled.  He did owe her, big time.  And having breakfast
with her would put off having to think about the findings for another
hour or so.  "Where to?" he asked her.
	"It gotta finish one thing," she told him.  "Give me fifteen."
	"I'll be in my office," Mulder told her, thinking of a book he wanted
to look something up in, and it only took her ten.

	Scully got to their office and instantly sensed Mulder had just been
there.  There was a warmth, an essence, that she could feel in the room.
	Believing in auras now, Scully? she asked herself ironically, sinking
into Mulder's leather desk chair. It was warm.  He had just gone.
	Where?  She reached for the phone, half tempted to call Kim to ask if
he'd gone into a meeting with Skinner, but she knew she couldn't do
that.  She scanned his desk, trying to recreate his thoughts before he
got up from the chair.
	The book open on the desk was a good place to start and she pulled it
toward her.  It was a book about Nazi experiments.  She turned it over
and began to read - he'd left it open to a chapter on prisoner
physicians.
	She frowned and began to read in earnest.  She knew about Mengele's
work, of course, and various reports from sketchy sources that Nazi
genetic scientists had continued their work here in the US under the
guise of Operation Paperclip and the ominous 'Project.'
	It didn't make sense to her that the xenophobic Nazis would want to
work with alien DNA.  But they wanted their super race...
	Her eyes scanned down the page and she turned to the next one.  Jewish
doctors and nurses, imprisoned in concentration camps, had been enlisted
to help in the experiments carried out there.  They had turned against
their own people to assure their own survival.
	"Oh God," she whispered.
	She felt a sick kinship, an understanding of their dilemmas.  She knew
now the dream she'd had was real.  Perhaps warped a little by her
psyche, but real.
	She had done to those women what had been done to her.  Why? she asked
herself, but here were no answers inside, only emptiness.
	Penny Northern.  Her friend.  And the other women who'd died, she'd
killed them.  Had she been so stupid as to trust the men who operated
the Project, had she really believed she would not also become their
victim?
	There were similar stories in the book and she hurled it across the
room with all the strength she had in her arm.  It broke the glass on
the curiosities cabinet with a tinkling crash.
	The crash of glass as Duane Barry launched through the window into her
apartment, intending to kill her.  She'd kicked as she clawed for the
phone, screaming for help.
	"They" told him to hurt her.  The voices in his damaged brain that he
attributed to alien implants.  She'd done what she had to in order to
survive.
	Afraid he would come back for her.
	Aware of the evil inside the men he delivered her to.  The memories
were unclear, but she knew that was how it must have happened.  Duane 
Barry had told Mulder the truth - he'd traded her in his own place.
	Just as she'd traded the pain of those women for her own temporary
safety.  She was a doctor and they had been able to use her skills for
their own goals.
	Putting her head into her trembling hands, she focused on the woman
from her dream and the terrible, dying alien child.
	Pain shot like fire through her neck, turning the nerves in her legs to
jelly.  She gasped and tried to stand, clutching at the desk for a
moment, then hurried from the office.
	Go home.  It was the only thought in her head.  She felt like a slave
to the notion and knew in the still conscious part of her mind that the
idea radiated from the red hot piece of metal next to her spine.
	She got into her car and drove.  On the expressway, she found the
implant telling her that home was in West Virginia, but she forced the
car on toward her apartment in Georgetown, her muscles tight and wiry in
her arms, straining to control the vehicle, to make it go where she
wanted it to, not where they wanted.
	If she could just get home, she thought, she would be safe.

	Mulder was worried Lucy was going to hit on him.  He didn't know why,
but the feeling had been mounting ever since she shed her heavy white
coat in the overheated lab to reveal a lovely full figure encased in a
lacy tank top and stretchy black skirt.  Mulder usually preferred thin
women, but  Lucy had the lush curves of an Old West prostitute.  He
would have just enjoyed the view except she kept glancing at him and
then looking away quickly.
	"What?" he asked finally, dropping his fork back into a decimated plate
of strawberry crepes.  Not the perfection of Pop Tarts, but damn good.
	"I don't know if you know this," Lucy began and Mulder fought the urge
to stop her words.  But she surprised him.  "I used to work with
Darren.  Pendrell," she specified.
	Mulder only stared.
	"He told me a lot about the cases you and Scully came to him with.
Weird crap."  She doused another pancake with syrup and paused to look
at him.  "Once he asked me advice on neural nets.  Some kind of
microchip?"
	Mulder nodded, not sure what she was getting at.  She looked at him. 
"What was that about?" she asked directly.
	He knew she was thinking of the photographs she'd analyzed for him.
	His cell phone rang.  Her eyes slid away to give him some semblance of
privacy as he answered.  "Mulder," he said, watching her shovel away
another whole pancake and sausage. 
	His eyes drifted down just for a second to her firm cleavage but
bounced back up when Skinner demanded, "Do you know where Agent Scully
is?"
	"I left her in bed," Mulder admitted, filled instantly with alarm.   
He tried to swallow and almost choked.  "Why?"  Lucy was staring at him
again.
	"Several cars pulled off the road to West Virginia just off the
expressway," Skinner said.
	"And?"
	"And now there are unidentifiable charred remains and a witness with
rag doll stitching on her orifices," Skinner told him in a pissy tone
that only betrayed his worry.
	"In broad daylight?" Mulder demanded.
	"It just happened."
	"I'll meet you at the scene," Mulder said and hung up.  Lucy's eyes
followed him as it took three tries to get his arm through the sleeve of
his overcoat.
	"What's happened?" she asked, getting to her feet and calmly untwisting
his coat for him.  He loved scientists.  It was January, why wasn't she
cold? he wondered, staring at her for several moments. "Mulder?"
	"I have to go," he said, renewed in his urgency.  He dropped money on
the table to cover their meal.  "Thank you."  Hers weren't the only eyes
on his back as he sprinted to his car, praying that Scully hadn't been
here.
	He dialed her cell phone but it only rang and rang and rang.

	Home, home.  The thought pushed her to drive faster, absorbing her
entire mind.  She had the feeling she'd left a holocaust behind her. 
Shivering, she found herself in front of her apartment without much
memory of the drive.
	She felt the rush of flame up into   her head and squeezed her eyes
closed, curling into a ball on her living room couch, putting her arms
up over her head, trying to shut it out.
	She couldn't. 
	The memory unfurled like silent movie in her mind.  She felt like
someone else in her own body. Bruised.  She moved gingerly, like she
expected to feel pain even when none came.  She wasn't herself, but she
was.
	Another self.  A recovered memory she couldn't stop, didn't want.  An
impossible room with women on tables, looking pregnant.  Not pregnant,
though.  Test subjects.  Her patients.
	Her own belly was mercifully flat as her hand drifted down.  She
couldn't hear the even beeping heart monitors.  Couldn't hear anything. 
Why couldn't she hear anything?  A flashing red light grabbed her
attention.  She hurried to the woman's side, reading the monitor.
	There was no time.  Like in her dream, she sliced the woman open and
plunged her gloved hands in, digging through tissue and gore.  She held
the child up.
	It looked perfectly normal.  Pale, with its skin turning blue.  The red
light flashed more vigorously.
	They were both dead.
	She lifted her head.  It had happened.  The memory continued to reel
through her mind, unstoppable.  That had happened, she'd been there,
she'd been a part of it.  She was so sad.  It filled her like dirty
water spilled onto a painting.
	She'd done that.  During the three months she was missing, she'd
violated every principle she believed in and every vow she'd ever
taken.  How could she have possibly done that?
	But she had.
	And she was so sad.  All of her was sad.  Dana especially.  And scared.
Dana was always afraid of something - the darkness, other people,
herself.  DK was just angry.
	Anger, overwhelming sadness and self-hatred.  She dragged herself up
from the couch, her movements lethargic.
	Then they'd turned around and done it to her.
	Her stomach hurt.  Burned.
	She was supposed to die, too.
	How could she have done it?
	How?
	To try to save herself?  She wasn't worth it.
	She couldn't even cry.  All that sadness and she couldn't even cry. She
turned on the taps on the bathtub, running it full of hot water. 
Sighing.

	"Where is she?" Mulder demanded, tearing out of his car when he arrived
on the crime scene.  Skinner was there in his trenchcoat, looking grim. 
The stench of burned flesh choked Mulder.  This was not clean.  The
paramedics looked shocked, and Mulder had never seen that before.
	Skinner shook his head.  What did that mean?  Mulder panicked.  He'd
know it if she was dead, wouldn't he?  He'd be able to feel it.
	And he hadn't even been able to make love to her the night before.  He
wanted to smack himself in the head, knock some sense into his stupid
brain.  Treasure every moment of possibly happiness because when you
blink, it will be gone. He knew that.
	"I don't think she's here."
	The magic words.  "I tried to call but she didn't answer," Mulder said.
	"We need to get her here," Skinner said. "These incidents are
escalating.  They can not continue."
	Three in one year. Mulder turned and looked again at the bodies of what
had been people.  Even one incident was too many.  "Where's the
witness?" Mulder asked.
	Skinner nodded sadly.  "With the medics. I don't know how much she'll
be able to tell us."  He led the way and Mulder followed. Teams of
police photographers were clicking through rolls of film.  The press was
starting to gather on the side of the yellow tape.  They wound through
the crowd to the ambulance.
	It was horrific.  A young girl, her face bruised and bloody.  Thick
black twine served in Frankenstienian stitches.  She was completely
unresponsive.  One of the medics was hanging an IV, but it wouldn't do
much good. If she survived the inevitable infection...
	Mulder's stomach was churning. Gingerly one of the medics moved to snip
the stitches out. "Wait," he said, stepping forward.  The girl
twitched.  The medic's hands hovered above her, as though threatening
with the scissors.
	Mulder looked closer and saw tiny threads moving under the girl's
skin.  He took a stepback.  "This girl needs to be quarantined."  They
all stared at him.  Were they stupid?  He knew Skinner wasn't stupid.
"Now!" he ordered.
	"Do it!" Skinner added his voice and authority to Mulder's command. 
The medics began to move.
	"She's not going to make it," Mulder said.  "Do we have IDs on any of
the victims?"  Skinner shook his head.  "We have to get Scully out
here."  He began to walk back through, looking at cars, making himself
look at the bodies.  "She's the only one who can help here."  Mulder
pulled out his phone.
	"Not the only one."  Skinner's tone made him look up. Following the
other man's gaze, he saw a familiar figure on the other side of the
crime scene tape.
	"Let the bastard through," Mulder hollered, attracting the police's
attention.  He motioned with his arm.  "Let him in."
	Krycek scurried over like the rat he was. Dressed as usual in black
jeans an a black leather jacket.  "Don't you ever change your clothes?"
Mulder remarked, itching to hit him.
	"Nice to see you too," Krycek replied, looking around.  There was
genuine pain in his eyes at the carnage surrounding them.
	"What do you know about this?" Mulder demanded.
	"Nothing.  I swear, I just heard about it."
	"And thought you would come down to offer your help," Mulder stated. "I
know you're working for the other side, so spill it your scum sucking
gutbag."
	"We've had a falling out," Krycek said. "I've always been on the side
of right and you know that."
	"This is great, boys, but it's not helping us," Skinner pointed out.
	"He can go in with the witness." Mulder grabbed Krycek by the collar of
his jacket and saw how frayed it was.  The seller of secrets had fallen
onto hard times. Maybe he was telling the truth.
	"I'm immune to the oil." Krycek jerked away, his false arm swinging
awkwardly.  He headed for the paramedic truck on his own accord.
	"One of these days, you're going to have to explain all this to me,"
Skinner told Mulder without looking at him.
	"When I get more facts," Mulder replied.  His hands were already
enjoying the ache they would have after he beat Krycek bloody for the
answers he had.  Not just about the oil.
	He stayed outside the ambulance, dialing Scully again.  There was still
no answer.  Damn it.  He pulled himself up into the van.
	"She's dead," Skinner said, sounding angry.
	"Where's Scully?" Krycek asked.
	It was too much for Mulder.  The last straw.  He threw Krycek against
the wall, wreaking havoc in the tightly packed van.  "What do you know
about my wife?" he hollered.
	"Not in here," Skinner suggested, approving of Mulder's desire to kill
Krycek, just not his choice of location.
	"We need to talk," Krycek said, his body tense and ready to defend
himself.  He didn't swipe at the trickle of blood from his nose that was
pooling at his lip.
	"No fucking kidding," Mulder said.
	"She needs to hear it too," Krycek said. Determined.  He wasn't going
to talk.
	"What do you know about this massacre?" Skinner demanded.
	"There's only a handful of people who could have done that to the
girl," Krycek said.
	"The smoking fucker?  His friends?  *Your* friends? I want their names
this time," Mulder could feel himself completely overreacting, but he
was so incredibly angry.
	"Marita," Krycek said.
	Skinner surprised Mulder by saying, "We were told she was dead."	
	"Nobody dies," Krycek said.  "She escaped.  Learned the truth.  The
hard way."  His glance at Mulder spoke volumes.
	"Like I've had it easy?" Mulder demanded.
	"You said it, not me," Krycek pointed out.
	"Save it for recess, boys," Skinner ordered.  "We've got to get Agent
Scully down here. Maybe an autopsy on the witness will give us a clue." 
He looked from Krycek to Mulder. "Scully's immune to this black...crap,
right?"
	They both nodded silently.  Then Mulder looked at Krycek, wanting to
know what he knew about it.  "I'm going to get her," Mulder said,
worried about who he might find waiting when he got home if she heard
about the massacre.  "You're coming with me."  He grabbed  Krycek's arm.
	"Will you quit touching me?" Krycek demanded, throwing him off.
	Skinner pulled Mulder aside for just a second.  "I don't have to worry
about any killer bees, do I, Agent Mulder?"
	"Who the hell knows any more," Mulder remarked.  "Arrange to have to
body shipped to  Quantico with the highest precautions available." 
Skinner nodded.  "I'll call when  I know anything." He moved to rejoin
Krycek.
	"Don't kill him, Mulder," Skinner suggested. "He's our most valuable
informant."
	Mulder nodded, hoping he wouldn't have to kill the other man, but
willing to do whatever was necessary.

end of 25/28

Anamorphosis 26/28
by Megan Reilly
eponine@prodigy.net

-26-
	
	Scully heard the phone ring but it barely registered through the fog of
her sadness.  She looked at her naked body in the mirror, seeing the
body of a murderer and a liar.  A traitor.
	She was the embodiment of all that she detested, all that had caused
her pain and fear.
	She could not live with that.
	Raising her wrist, she looked at the faint white marks there, the ones
she hadn't remembered making.  Now she knew.  Death had been her only
escape from herself and the things she had willingly done under the
guise of the Project.  But she hadn't died.
	She didn't want Mulder to know and she knew she would have to tell
him.  She didn't want to see the betrayal in his eyes, more painful than
if she had given her body to another man.  She had given her soul to the
devil.  Was his sister one of the woman she'd hurt?
	She had to silence the only witness.  There were others who might try
to use this against him, but if she was gone, so would their power be. 
She had to protect him.
	Dana was scared but told her she should do it.  Other voices she
recognized confirmed that this was the only way.
	She remembered the blood dripping painlessly onto white tile.
	The bathwater was getting cold.
	She split her thumb on the razor that Mulder used to shave with in the
mornings.  It stung and she immediately put her thumb in her mouth, the
pain zapping her sadness for a second as her survival instinct was
activated.
	She sucked at her own blood, feeling the cut skin with her tongue.  She
was a coward.  She trembled, sucking harder.  This was not the way.  She
couldn't let Mulder find her lifeless and bloody.
	Memory brought the image of Mrs. Sim, dead in her bathtub.
	Mulder would think it was murder.
	She put on her bathrobe.  Blood brushed onto the old white terrycloth
sleeve.  She could still feel activity singing through the implant in
her neck, like electricity.  She raised her eyes to a God who would not
love her if she took the life he'd given her.
	The awful screwed up painful completed fucked life where the only thing
she had to live for was Mulder and he hated her, or would hate her.  She
did not ever want to see hatred in his eyes.
	If only he would come, she thought desperately, crouching  on the floor
and dipping her right hand into the now-tepid water in the tub.  A thin
curl of blood spun from her thumb and then stopped.

	"Slow down," Krycek snapped from the passenger seat.
	Mulder only pushed his foot harder onto the gas pedal.  Something was
wrong, he could feel it.  "Got the photos you sent," he told Krycek
bitterly. Off the surprise on the other man's face, he chuckled.  "Yeah,
I know you were behind them.  Tell me where they were taken.  Where she
was when you brought her home to me a month ago?  Abducted, stolen from
our bed?"
	"Your wife is very sick," Krycek said gravely.
	Mulder stopped, his body humming like a plucked hard string.  He
couldn't say anything.
	"Dissociative fugue is what it's called.  I did some reading."  Krycek
was talking fast.  For his life, maybe, or just to save Mulder the long
exposition.  "Duane Barry was supposed to kill her."
	Mulder's fingers clutched white on the wheel.  Krycek wasn't blind to
how upset he was.  "Can we pull over?" he suggested.
	"No!" Mulder barked.
	"Look, I know you love her -"
	"You don't know anything!"
	"This is going to be hard for you to hear," Krycek said quietly.
	"I'm ready," Mulder informed him.
	With his eyes fixed on the orange speedometer needle hovering close to
100 miles per hour, Krycek began to tell Mulder everything he knew.

	Mulder wasn't coming back.  She'd convinced herself.  He hadn't left
her a note.  He must already feel disgust for her and not know why.  He
would know soon enough. She had to spare him...
	No, suicide was selfish.  The only person she would be sparing was
herself.  She'd decided to die before, losing hope in a hospital bed,
knowing she had nothing to live for.  Mulder had been her only tether
and now she would definitely lose him.
	End it, the voices advised gently.  DK concurred with "Fuck them all."
Starbuck whimpered.  They were in agreement.
	The bottle of sleeping pills seemed heavy in her hand.  I'm scared,
Dana said, I don't want to.  But Dana was too scared to live, either,
so  Scully gave no weight to her opinion.
	Such sadness.
	She left the bathroom and lay down on the bed, already weary.  She knew
she should leave a note, some words for Mulder, but she could see him
carrying them with him forever.  Blaming himself when she wanted him to
forget.
	She tried not to think of her mother and brothers.  If here was
something beyond this life, she could be with her father, her sister. 
She could be free.
	She wanted to be free.
	Tears burned in her eyes and she thought if only she could cry, she
wouldn't have to do this.
	The first pill was so easy.  She closed her eyes and swallowed a
second, hoping it would all be so easy.

	Mulder listened in stone silence.  Robotic.  Frozen. Not thinking.  He
absorbed like a sponge but he could not let himself think about what he
was hearing.  It couldn't be true, he kept telling himself.  Like Scully
would.  There was no evidence but a liar's word and some ambiguous
photos.
	He didn't wait for Krycek as he jammed the car into an ill fitting
parking space and ran to the door.  The damn key wouldn't work. Krycek
took it from him and held the door.
	"Scully!" Mulder yelled, tearing into the apartment.
	
	She picked up her head.  It was so heavy and she'd  only swallowed two
of the pills.  Maybe three, but she thought it was two.  And now she
thought she heard Mulder's voice.
	"Scully!"  He burst into the bedroom.  
	His face changed when he saw her and her face crumpled with shame. 
"I'm sorry," she said.  "I'm sorry."
	"There's water in the bathtub," Krycek dashed in to report.  The bottle
slipped from her fingers when she saw him. Pills rattled across the
floor.
	Mulder stared at her, his eyes blazing and confused.  "What are you
doing?" he demanded.
	"I remembered something.  Terrible."  Her eyes dipped closed and she
struggled to open them again.
	"Stay with me," Mulder took her hand and bent to look into her eyes. 
"How many did you take?"  He couldn't believe this. It had to be one of
the others, not Scully.  Scully was the strong one, she wouldn't do
this.  He needed her.
	"Two.  Three.  Two."  She decided on two.  "Tired."  She put her head
down against her arm.  She had to tell him what she'd remembered.  "I
hurt them," she said, "When I was gone, I -"
	"I know," he said, his voice like sandpaper.
	"Who -?"  When she raised her head, she saw Krycek.  His eyes locked
with hers and he made a little gesture with his hand.  Adrenaline raced
through her sluggish body.  He knew.  He turned and walked out of the
room.  He had known all this time.
	"He told me. It's not that bad."  Mulder was petting her hair with his
hands.  "Nothing's that bad.  It was one of the others, not you."
	"It was me."  She felt sick.  Mulder sat down on the bed next to her
and she leaned against him.  "I'm tired," she said.
	"You're cold."  He put his arm around her.
	"Tired."  She closed her eyes and snuggled down into his arms.  He
loved her.  He said he knew  but he must not, if he still loved her.
	"Scully."  He jostled her, but she was asleep.  "Scully," he said
again, shaking her.  Her eyes opened a crack.  "I think you need to
throw up what you took. Just in case."  He lifted her and walked her
into the bathroom.  She was heavy and limp against his side.  
	The tub was full.  There was blood in the water.   His razor was on the
sink, not where he'd left it.  The realization that she had planned on
cutting her wrists terrified him.  He would not have been there in time.
	She sagged against the wall as he dug through her medicine cabinet,
finding a bottle of ipecac.  She glared at him angrily as she was sick. 
"Get you for this," she mumbled.
	She'd sleep it off.  He wiped her face with a washcloth and put her to
bed.  How could she look so peaceful? he marveled.  He checked on her
twice before leaving her alone to sleep.
	Krycek had fled.
	Of course.
	He didn't really care.  He was more worried about Scully and how to
help her.  She wasn't like him, she wasn't one to give into momentary
impulses.  He had been there with the gun to his head, smelling the
powder that he wanted to end his sorry fucking life.  He'd been there
before.  Because he thought he'd lost her.
	No hope.  He remembered Traci Turner with her absent husband and empty
life.
	Would this ever get better?  Would any of this ever really end?  He'd
accepted that he would never know the truth - could Scully accept that
too?
	The phone began to ring and he swore as he tripped over paint cans in
his rush to answer it.  "Mulder," he said and realized it could be
anyone on the other end of the line.
	"Where's Scully?" Skinner demanded.
	"Sleeping," Mulder said.  "I was just going to call you.  She's gonna
be asleep for a while.  She took something.  Keep the body on ice for
her."
	"Done," Skinner promised.  "Is she okay?"
	"I think so." Mulder didn't sound so certain.
	"Where's Krycek?"
	"I lost him," Mulder admitted.
	"Figures," Skinner muttered and hung up. Mulder sighed and stared down
at the cans of paint, feeling the utter stillness in the house.  The
paint cans symbolized their hope for the future: a happy marriage, a
house, a life together.  Without all these stupid specters and ghosts.
	He knew in his depressed pessimistic heart that they would never be
free.

	She woke from a sick, dreamless sleep with a headache and a dry mouth. 
Mulder was lying next to her, dressed, on top of the covers.  She looked
at his face and felt her skin flame with the memory of the stupid thing
she'd done.
	Maybe he didn't know.  She got up and went into the bathroom to get a
drink of water and saw that the room had been cleaned.  Damn it. He
knew.
	She felt so stupid.
	"Are you okay?" he asked, standing behind her.  She hadn't realized he
was awake.  He hadn't announced his presence with a touch and she hadn't
even realized he was there.
	"Embarrassed," she admitted, turning to face him.  "I don't know what
possessed me."
	"I do."   He tapped the back of her neck and she jumped as he connected
with the implant.  She reached up under her hair to finger it and looked
at him.  "A dozen men and women were burned to death earlier today, in
broad daylight.  Like on the bridge in Pennsylvania almost a year ago."
	"They were after me," she said.
	"Maybe," he said.  "A witness was mutilated at the scene and exposed to
the black oil.  The body is waiting for you.  When you're ready."
	She nodded and went to get dressed.  It was easy for them both to hide
behind their work.  Mulder took a deep breath and followed her, stopping
at the bedroom door.  "We need to talk about this," he said with some
effort.
	Her shoulder blades stiffened and froze.  Her fingers completed the
task of clasping her bra and she turned to face him.  "You said you
knew," she said and he nodded.  Was he encouraging her or agreeing with
her?  She unlocked her jaw and forced herself to speak.  "I remembered
working for them.  On the other side.  On their experiments. I killed
all those women...and they turned around and did it to me."  Her
confession.  She couldn't breathe.
	"Because you had a conscience. Unlike them," he said. "You didn't know
what you were doing."
	"I did," she said. "It was me."
	"It was an alter.  Named Diana."
	"They're all me," she informed him.  "I knew you'd hate me and that's
why..."  She trailed off, not intending to speak of that afternoon's
incident.  She _was_ stronger than that.  That was why she'd managed to
stop herself after only taking two pills.  She'd overcome the need to
die.
	He made a small sound in the back of his throat when he sighed and
enfolded her in his arms.  He held on like he would never let her go. 
And that was exactly what she needed.
	"You've changed," he said when he pulled back.
	"Is that a good thing?" she asked, trying to keep her face still but it
kept contorting to try to hold back both smiles and tears.
	"I think so," he whispered, his eyes warm.  "Stronger."
	She nodded.  She believed him.

	She dressed and they went to the Bureau.  Skinner met them there, his
eyes checking Scully over.  "Are you okay?" he asked her, unable to
cover the concern over his usually rough demeanor.  She was on to him.
	"I'm good," she said.  "What happened this afternoon...I think I was
supposed to be there."  As long as they were talking business, she would
be all right.
	Skinner nodded.  Mulder's hand lying against her back heated her entire
body.  "I don't know what to tell you -" Skinner's eyes went down to her
shoulders.
	"I know," she said.
	"The body is missing," Skinner informed them.  "It never arrived. 
We're checking with the crew that was at the scene, verifying their
identities and credentials.  But with Krycek gone -"
	"We won't get any answers," Mulder finished for him angrily.  He was
the one who had let Krycek go, again.
	"The burned bodies are being identified.  All of them had implants." 
Skinner paused.  Scully felt a quiet, unsettling sorrow.  "One of them
was Cassandra Spender."
	"Oh no," she gasped, surprising herself with the pain that filled her. 
Mulder's hand moved reflexively, comfortingly, against her back.  "Damn
it!"  She broke away from Mulder and took several steps toward the door.
	"Scully, wait, there's nothing you can do," Mulder called after her.
	"I have to talk to him," she said, meeting her husband's eyes.
	"Scully -"
	"I _have_ to," she added and walked away.
	
	Her eyes searched the cubicles.  She didn't exactly remember the way,
peeking around corners.  What the hell was she going to say?
	She found Jeffrey Spender sitting at his desk, palms up, staring at the
blank wall.  He already knew.  "I'm sorry," she said softly.
	His shoulders slumped and curled in toward his chest.
	Being sorry wasn't enough.  This was on her now, she was the one who'd
wanted to come down here and talk to him. She moved in closer and knelt
next to his chair, putting her hand up on his shoulder.  "I know how you
must feel," she said.
	She looked up and saw his throat working.  "I tried to prepare myself.
I tried to tell myself..."  His voice broke and he shook his head,
trying to hold the tears back, "I tried to tell myself she wasn't coming
back but I never really thought..."  He stopped, fighting.
	This could be Mulder she was talking to and her eyes were damp.  It had
been such a terrible day.  "Time can make anything better.  You have to
believe that. No matter how much this hurts, you have to go on."  She
patted his shoulder. He looked at her and she waited for him to tell her
to fuck off.  She looked at his face and saw that this "punk kid" was
probably as old as Mulder was.  "I know. Such things..."  His eyes had
found hers and she felt the first of her tears fall.  "You know.  You
lost your father, too."
	His gaze hardened.  Several seconds passed before he said, "Thank
you."  It was a real struggle for him to force the words out.
	She nodded and got to her feet, feeling old and wise.  "Call me.  If
you need to talk."  He nodded and she knew he wouldn't call.  "Any
time," she added.
	"Maybe I will," he said quietly, when she'd almost reached the hall. 
She turned.  She hoped that he would.
	Mulder was waiting for her and effortlessly slipped his arm through
hers, searching her face.  She nodded and blinked back the residual
tears.  "Byers has some papers for us to sign about the house tomorrow,"
he said.
	"What about tonight?"
	"It's been a long day.  And there are still bodies from earlier -"  he
stopped short.  Acting like he thought she was too fragile to handle it.
	She put on her best determined face.  "I need to work," she told him. 
"I can't sit around. I can't live with this eating me inside."
	It was easy to decide that everything was going to be okay from now on,
but it was still damned hard, especially with Mulder's eyes following
every move she made.  The bodies were horrifying when she looked at them
down in the morgue and she remembered how strong the call had been for
her to join them.  She had almost been one of them, and not for the
first time.
	Poor Mrs. Spender.  Where had she been all the time she was missing? 
Touring the universe with alien guides?  Scully still wasn't certain she
believed in such things.  Everything she had remembered supported her
belief in a shadowy government substructure.  She pushed it all from her
mind and turned back to face the bodies.  There were tests to be
conducted, burn patterns and accelerants to look for. "I'm going to be a
while," she told Mulder.  "If you want to go home and get some rest. 
You've also had one hell of a day."
	He hesitated, but then picked up his coat.  Trusting her.  She had
convinced him that she could handle this and it made her feel proud. 
"I'll see you at home," he said.
	She nodded and only caught a glimpse of his face as he turned to leave.
His odd, closed up expression made her stare after him. What was going
on in his head?  She wondered.  But she didn't know - couldn't know -
and turned to focus on the death in front of her.

	Hours later, her neck and shoulders were screaming with protest and her
eyelids were heavy.  She noticed her feet dragging but couldn't seem to
do anything about it.  A glance at the clock told her it was after two
o'clock in the morning.
	She hoped Mulder hadn't waited up.
	Sighing, she forced her eyes open, worried about her capability to
drive home.  She thought for a second about calling Mulder to pick her
up, but she knew he was asleep in her living room with the TV on.  She
didn't want to disturb him.  She'd head over to the McDonalds across the
street for some coffee and something to eat before she got into the car.
	It was cold at two in the morning- damp, foggy and incredibly dark. The
night could be breathtakingly beautiful.  She shoved her hands deep down
into her coat pockets and put her head down to walk across the street as
the light changed in her favor.
	Someone fell into step with her. She picked up her pace and the person
matcher her.  She cleared the curb and turned down the sidewalk.  The
person continued to keep in stride with her.  She turned her head to
look and stopped.
	Krycek.
	Feelings she couldn't understand welled up in his and she frowned. 
"What're you doing?" she asked, aware in one part of her mind that she
was standing on a deserted street in a bad neighborhood with a
completely untrustworthy man.  But she could only stand there. Not
arresting him, just watching him.
	"We should talk," he told her intensely.
	Her stomach felt odd but she nodded.  "I was going to get some
coffee."  She raised her hand toward the lighted restaurant.
	He opened the door for her and she found herself staring at his arm. 
She had to pull her eyes away.  "Sorry," she mumbled.
	"I'm used to it."  He didn't touch her as they walked together to the
counter.  It was strange to have a man standing as close to her as
Mulder did but not touching her.  He also didn't consult her before
ordering fries and two cups of orange juice, then walking away to select
a booth.
	"I told your husband today about your abduction," he said, not looking
at her, focused on the application of ketchup to the small selection of
fries he'd claimed as his own.
	"Why now?"  Her voice was devoid of the emotion sweeping through her. 
"It's been, what, four years?  Why wait? Why tell?"
	He didn't say anything. He'd started this.  She said his name so
sharply he jumped and a greasy fry leapt to the sticky floor.  He stared
silently, his eyes fiery on her face, deciding what he should say.  It
took him a long time and her heart began to race from being stared at.
	"Call it therapy," he said finally in such a soft, uncertain voice she
could barely believe it came from the man she knew him to be.
	"Fuck you, Krycek," she said. That was what she thought of his answer. 
He was an assassin and she was suppose to care how he _felt_?
	He had so much sadness in his eyes. "I used to care a lot about you. 
But you've married him now and I have to let the past go."  He shrugged,
aware that it sounded stupid.  "How much do you remember?"
	"Too much. Not enough."  It was her turn to avert her gaze, to focus on
unwrapping the straw to insert into her juice.
	"You weren't yourself. Not really, not you. I did some reading later,
it's something called a dissociative fugue."   He watched her face to
make sure she was following him. "Sometimes, some people block out their
entire lives and create a new one.  When  I knew you, you were an
amnesiac named Diana."
	Her mouth curled as she felt her self-hate growing again. "And I hurt
all those women."
	"Everyone who works on the Project believes what they are doing is
right.   That's what you and Mulder are too short-sighted to see." He
stopped, aware she was not going to listen to him.  He took a deep
breath.
	"When I was a boy, I knew a girl who was deaf.  She was beautiful, not
just on the outside, but her soul.  I really loved her.  I've been
thinking about her a lot, since this."  His arm clunked against the
table as he flexed his shoulder toward her.  "The way she didn't care
about her handicap.  It made her a beautiful person."
	He looked at her frankly.  "You were like that.  Are like that."
	Her mouth opened.  "Why are you doing this?" Damned tears were in her
eyes again.  She didn't want him to see them but she couldn't hide any
more.
	"You needed to know."  He got up from the table and her chin rose as
her eyes followed him.  He walked over so he was standing next to her
and paused for a second. Oh no, she thought, unable to do anything up
look at him in silent alarm.  His eyes were too gentle.  He lowered his
mouth to hers in the chastest of kisses she had ever known.
	She waited for the attack, but it never came.  A whisper soft, moist
touch and he was gone.
	Leaving her alone and confused in an empty early morning restaurant
with a cold mound of french fries.  It was a long time before she headed
home, having decided not to tell Mulder anything about it.

end of 26/28

Anamorphosis 27/28
by  Megan Reilly
eponine@prodigy.net

-27-

	He was leaning back on the couch but opened his eyes when she walked
into the TV-lit living room.  "You must be exhausted," he said.
	She shook her head, keeping her lips closed. Needing him.
	"What's wrong?"  He started to sit up and she went to him, burying
herself in his arms.  He hugged her and pressed his cheek against her
hair, waiting.
	"Did you sleep here?" she asked.
	"Not sleep."
	"You shouldn't have waited up."
	"I didn't mean to," he said.
	She looked at his face.  His beautiful, ugly face that she loved so
much.  "I know it's late, but could we - I mean, if you want to -"  She
couldn't get the words out.
	He nodded with a faint curl of a smile.  "I think that could be
arranged," he said.  She stood and he joined her, their fingers
entwining as they walked together into the bedroom.
	He reached for the light automatically, but she stopped his hand. 
"There's enough light," she told him. It was almost dawn and already
bright streaks were beginning to wash the walls.  He nodded, watching
her as though for a cue.
	She felt like this was their true wedding night.  She put her hands
over his large ones and placed them against the buttons on her blouse. 
He slid the buttons from their holes slowly, following with his mouth
until her skin was hot.
	"You look like man in love," she murmured, looking into his eyes.
	"I am." Greedily, he claimed her mouth and she met him, their desire
becoming more urgent with the battle they fought with lips and teeth and
tongues.  She put her teeth playfully into his lower lip and his hips
surged against hers, startling her at first to feel the depth of
sensitivity of her own body.
	Still, he moved hestitantly, like first time lover or a man carrying a
soap bubble, afraid the slightest pressure would burst it.  It turned
his caresses soft.  Too soft.  "I want to feel it when you touch me,"
she told him, putting her hand over his again to show him.  She didn't
know where her boldness had come from.  She'd never made an effort
before to get what she'd wanted.  She'd never known what she wanted.
	"I don't want to hurt you."
	"Hurt can feel good and I'm stronger than you think," she breathed,
using her fingernails to try to show him.  She hadn't realized they were
sharp until he winced.
	"Not everyone was initiated into pain," he told her, withdrawing from
her.  "It's not normal."
	"It's normal for me," she protested.  What was he telling her?  That
she was tainted and dirty and should be ashamed of herself?  That it was
his way or no way?
	"You don't know what normal is," he said, trying to make his words
gentle.  He started to suck on her neck but she pushed him away.
	"Do you really want to do this now?" she asked, pulling the blanket
over her body.  The sun was up.
	"Do what?"
	"The sexual history conversation.  You can't treat me like I'm broken
and something you can fix, and you can't treat me like a virgin who's
never been properly loved.  I'm a thirty five year old woman and I know
how my body responds."
	"All I hear is you asking me to hurt you. Like you want to relive your
past so you can hate me too."
	"I'm not."
	"Then maybe we should have this conversation," he said and waited. 
"Like two people just beginning a relationship."
	"That's what we are," she said.
	"Six weeks into marriage.  When I've loved you for six years."
	"Don't you want to make this work?" she asked. "I want a real
marriage.  I don't want the rest of my life to be a perfect, platonic
partnership."
	"Neither do I.  Checkmate.  We both have a lot to learn."  He sighed,
looking at her hard jaw and the blanket that had crept up to her neck. 
He jumped out of bed and jacked the thermostat from a sensible 65 up to
a tropical 80.  The heat vent began to blast hot, dry air.  "Who
starts?" he asked her.  Since she didn't start talking, he figured it
was his turn.  He wanted to forget the past, since they were the present
and the future.
	"Age seven.  Fox Mulder kisses a classmate after school.  She slaps him
so hard he doesn't try again until high school.  When he takes a summer
romance at sixteen to the next level and she cries and never speaks to
him again."
	Scully just watched him.
	"She wanted to try it, but changed her mind after, not realizing what
it would be like. College, lived with Phoebe for three years.  Fucked a
lot, even though it should have been making love since I loved her. 
Should have had a clue when she started bringing home curable diseases. 
Is this necessary?"
	She shrugged.  He went on. "Fell in love with Diana after the academy. 
Then she left.  I'll admit I don't want to mess this up."  His eyes
turned to her.  "No diseases or infections or strange proclivities. 
Just love. Your turn."
	She was slow to find her voice.  "When I was kid, I went through a
phase when I was a complete slut.  I was fourteen and Charlie had just
been born and I'd started high school and I was confused and angry. I
never let them touch me and it made me feel powerful."
	DK had been telling the truth.
	"Then  I made friends and got over it.  I had a huge crush on my friend
Marcus in 12th grade but I don't think he ever knew it.  We went to prom
and there was one moment when he looked at me...like he loved me...but
then it was like he remembered who I was."  The sound of her voice was
plaintive.  He'd never seen her regretful before.  "He never even kissed
me.
	"In college, men were the adversary.  Competition.  I didn't even have
time to sleep.  Every once in a while, I'd find someone, but it was
temporary."
	He wanted to ask her how often once in a while was, but couldn't.  "In
the academy, I met Jack and he wasn't scared off by me.  He was married
and I learned a lot from him about  being an FBI agent.  He
couldn't...he was impotent but that was fine. If you go long enough
without it, you start to forget why it ever mattered.  For a year all I
could think about was how much I wanted you to kiss me, like you were a
high school crush, but then it didn't matter any more because there were
other things to do."
	He wanted to know when that had been.  "Did telling me that make you
feel what you needed to feel?" he asked.
	"No."  Honesty.  Scary.  She looked at him and he looked back.
	"What do we do now?" he asked.
	She didn't know.
	"Show me what you mean by hard.  And rough. Show me what 'normal' feels
like," he told her.  She stared at him.  He held out his hand and met
her eyes.  She wrapped her fingers around his hand.  "We'll learn
together."
	She let the sheet fall to her waist and hesitated.  Her skin was pink
from the heat.  She put his hand on her breast and he waited.  She
rubbed his hand futilely, then stopped.  "This isn't working."
	"Like this?"  He feathered his fingers over her skin, watching her
face.  Her eyes looked up at the ceiling like this was something she had
to endure.  "Say when," he teased, manipulating and squeezing and
rolling until she had to breathe through her mouth.  He let himself be
drawn into her sexuality, listening intently to her breathing, focusing
completely. This was intense.
	"Uhhh..."  Her jagged sound of irritation made his hand fall away.
	"Too rough?"
	"Too much."
	"Moving on?"
	Reluctantly she took his hand again, surprising him with the force she
used to press against her own skin.  It was pliable - she was right, she
wasn't going to break.  His fingers ached under the pressure of hers. 
Her  breath quickened as she used his fingers to massage herself.
	"Now," she told him, glancing into his eyes when she was slick and
ready for him to enter her.
	"When do I get my turn?" he asked her, molding his fingers around hers
and dusting them over his skin.
	"God it's hot in here," she murmured.  They were both sweating, sitting
on the winter-made bed, facing each other like study partners.  "This is
too much like a formula, no spontaneity," she complained.
	"Tell me about it," he told her and their eyes held a significant gaze.
	"Okay," she said. "I get it."
	"So do I," he told her.
	The tension grew exponentially as they sat there. "So do it already,
Mulder," she ordered.
	"Do what?" he challenged.
	He was such a pain.  A completely irritating annoyance when he was
trying to teach her a lesson.  "Please."
	"Make love to you?" he asked, kissing her sweetly.  "This is love," he
told her as she lay down for him.  This time when he started touching
her skin, she felt arousal and wondered how their lovemaking would be.
	"Is love always this gentle?" she asked like a novice.
	"No."
	"What makes you the expert?"
	"I'm not.  But there a lot of different climaxes," he told her.  "Hard
and soft and perfunctory and angry and helpless and urgent."
	"I have come before," she informed him, bordering on sarcasm.
	"I know," he reminded her.
	"Is this another lesson?  What're we going for today?"  The sarcasm was
getting worse.  It didn't belong in the bedroom...or did it?
	"Surprise me," he said against her mouth as he slammed into her, hard
enough to make her gasp.  He felt tentative convulsions begin to suck
against his body.  "Like that?" he asked her.
	"Yeah," she breathed, wrapping her legs around him, trying to pull him
in harder and faster, but he didn't let her.  Changing his tactic
because he really was teaching her a lesson.  He was determined to teach
his beautiful, strangely insecure, hurt and inexperienced wife every
last thing he knew.
	"See how it starts to hurt in a delicious way?" he asked her, barely
able to support his body on trembling arms.  Her body was rigid with the
strain of not letting herself go.
	He raised a hand to massage her face and she snarled at him.  "Relax
and let it happen."
	"No," she said, forcing her body against his, pushing herself too far. 
She always had to fight, he thought.  He didn't move, determined not to
even though the moment seemed neverending before she stopped, frustrated
and tight and tense and confused.  	"Take a second to enjoy it," he
suggested.
	"I want..."  It was all she could manage.
	"You do?"
	"I'm gonna kill you," she told him.
	"But you love me."  He kissed her, feeling his own twitches of oncoming
orgasm.  He wasn't going to be able to do this.  He could barely breathe
when he released her lips, but he'd be damned if she outlasted him.
	They were duelling. This had become a battle of wills.
	He put his hand between them and began to stroke her clitoris.
	"Mulder..."  He'd certainly never heard her say his name like that. 
Her entire body reacted with the force of her climax, shaking and
jerking.  Her toes curled against his thighs.
	He let out a low rolling moan as he came.
	She was still shaking when he opened his eyes.  "Mulder -" she began
and stopped.  He got the idea it was meant to be a reprimand but she
couldn't follow through.
	"Yes, my love?"  He wasn't really joking.
	"I - never - "  She couldn't even talk.
	He kissed her cheeks and held her close, his ego swelling.  "Don't ever
try to kill yourself again," he ordered and she shivered in the too-hot
room.
	"Those people," she said into his chest, barely audible.  He felt like
a bully.  Would he really make her cry every time they made love?
	"It's morning," she said, raising her head and he saw that she wasn't
crying after all.
	"The house can wait."
	"The house."  She grinned, still feeling warm wiggles of sensation in
her belly and lower.  "You're amazing."
	"You're amazing," he countered, then hugged her and closed his eyes. 
She was already mostly asleep, having found the most profound relaxation
she'd ever known.

	"I have never slept that well," she announced when he emerged from her
bedroom well after noon.  Her eyes were bright and she looked free and
happy and in love.
	"You've never been loved that well," he pointed out with pride.  He
needed coffee to get started.  
	She rolled her eyes the way she did whenever he proclaimed a bizarre
theory.  "We get a fresh start with every relationship," she said.
	"This is forever."
	She nodded, seriously.  "So, painting," she said, pulling her hair up 
into the sloppiest ponytail he'd ever seen.  She grinned, knowing it was
ridiculous. He'd put that grin on her face.  It made him grin himself.
	Two hours later, there was more paint on the two of them than there was
on the house.  "We're not getting anywhere," Scully lamented, looking at
the huge expanse of dingy yellow that still had to be covered.
	"It's going to need two coats," Mulder told her and she groaned,
sitting down on the porch and putting her chin into her hands.  Only two
seconds too late did she realize there was paint on her hand, which
she'd transferred to her face.  "I hope this is water based," she
commented, wiping at the sticky blue liquid and only smearing it more.
	"Me too, since it's in your hair," he said, leaning against the door. 
"All this painting requires beer," he remarked.  The sun was warm on
their faces and they weren't wearing coats.
	"What do you know about it, Tom Sawyer?" she snapped.  "You have no
paint on you at all."
	"That doesn't mean I haven't been working," he informed her.
	"My arm is _broken_," she complained, making him start to laugh madly. 
"It is!"   She tried to raise it and stopped with a twinge.
	"You're weak," he told her.
	"Just wait'll you're sore tomorrow," she warned.  "You'll get no
sympathy from me. None."
	"We'll just have to stay in bed tomorrow then," he grinned.
	"In your dreams.  We have a house to paint."  She stopped and stepped
back to look at it. "It's going to be beautiful."
	"It already is."  He leaned down and kissed her, recoiling a moment
later.  "Augh! You only did that to get paint on me!"
	She laughed gleefully and he couldn't remember the last time she'd
laughed.  She flicked the excess paint from her brush in his face .  He
stepped back to grab his roller.  "Oh, no!"  Scully yelled, running.  He
chased her around the house twice before she fell onto the grass and he
rollered over her legs.  She sat up and laughed more.
	"Scully, are those my grey sweatpants?" he asked a moment later and she
gasped, clutching her stomach which ached from laughing.
	"Oh, that hurts!" she moaned.
	"How the hell are those staying on you?" he demanded, peeking up under
her sweatshirt to see the waistband she'd rolled low on her hips.  He
could see the lavender band of her panties and wanted to touch.
	"Mulder, don't."  She rolled away and got to her feet.  "We have work
to do," she added to cover the fact that he'd unnerved her.  Last night
had unnerved her, because she had completely given up her control over
her body.  The body that had betrayed her when she was a child by
responding to the pain of her abuse.
	A few moments later, Mulder joined her and they returned to the toil of
painting.  She enjoyed the physical activity and fresh air and that it
was something they could do together.  He  began to whistle - thin and
tunelessly, completely pathetic.
	So she started to sing at the top of her lungs.  The look he gave her
made her laugh again and they fell into a grinning silence as they
painted.
	"Do you want to get a dog?" he asked her.  She stopped moving,
remembering their previous conversation.
	"I had a dog and it died," she said.  I also had a daughter and she
died.  "Do you want children?" she asked.
	"Only if they're yours," he said and she flinched.  "I never thought
about it before you found out you couldn't have any and I saw how strong
your desire for them was," he told her.  "I don't trust the world enough
to put children into it.  More people I care about that they could
hurt."
	She nodded, toying with her brush.
	"You said you thought they were wrong," he reminded her, questioning.
	"Like you said before, Mulder.  It's nice to believe things even if
they're not true."  She sighed.  "It doesn't hurt as much as it did.
Maybe someday..."
	"It won't stop completely, not ever," he said.
	"I know," she breathed.  "We can still have our perfect life in our
perfect home."
	"Perfect is so boring," he told her.  "It's the flaws that you love."
	She watched him go back to painting, amazed by the wisdom he had
sometimes.  He amazed her. Life amazed her.  She thought about the way
his left eye didn't react to light and his nose and his crooked teeth
and how much she loved them all.  Less than perfect.  Like having a
kidnapped sister and a belief in UFOs.
	Like having a dark past and a slightly splintered personality.  No, she
wouldn't stop striving for perfection in herself.
	"I hate painting," he informed her.
	"I love it. You can stop," she offered.
	"I'm looking forward to cleaning up too much," he admitted.
	"Mulder, why do we only talk about sex?"
	"Do we?" he asked her.
	"We didn't used to."
	"You'll have to develop an interest in the Knicks," he suggested.
	"You'll have to read a book," she retorted.
	"You'll have to get hooked on documentary TV," he continued. "Ever see
'The Civil War'?"
	"No."
	Obviously he missed the distaste in her tone because he continued,
"You're in for a real treat. I've got it on video. You have to watch
it.  There's this one part with this letter -"
	"Mulder, the Civil War makes me gag.  My dad was a Civil War buff and
as much as I loved him..."  She shook her head.  "I think that's why he
retired to Virginia."
	"He was?  That's cool," Mulder said.
	"He was a cool guy," she said, feeling warm inside.
	"I'm sorry I never got to meet him."  His voice turned quiet.
	"I don't know if you'd have liked each other. I hope so," she said.  A
second later, a new spray of paint thwacked against her back.  She
turned and glared at him.  "What the hell was that for?"
	"We need to make some happy memories," he said.  "Why're you looking at
me like that?"  Her grin was completely evil and before he could blink,
he had half a bucket of paint on his head.
	"Ooops, look what I did," she said.
	"Bitch," he teased.  "What time is it?"
	She had to wipe the paint off the face of her watch to read it. 
"Four-thirty."  Wow, time really did fly, she thought
	"We were supposed to meet Byers at 4:30 to sign the rest of the
papers," Mulder said. He pulled out his cell phone and Scully startd
closing up the paint cans.  Their day of fun seemed to be over.

	Mulder drove so they made it to the office in 15 minutes.  Byers' eyes
bulged when he saw them.  "What the hell?" he said.
	"We were painting," Scully said.
	"Really."  Byers was incredibly sarcastic. She'd always hated his
disapproval.  She'd never understood why he treated her the way he did. 
The door swung open and a petite blonde stepped out. Her smile froze in
place when she saw Mulder and Scully.  "This is my sister, Emily," Byers
said.
	Scully's heart sank and Mulder's hand found hers.  Lots of people had
that name, she reminded herself.  Even pretty blondes with big blue
eyes.  "We were painting," Mulder said, subdued.
	"I see," she said casually.  "John has told me you're very excited
about the house."
	"We are."  Scully squeezed Mulder's hand and he squeezed back.  So she
squeezed harder and soon her hand was about to fall off.
	"We just got married," Mulder said happily.
	"John told me.  Let me get the papers and bring them out here," Emily
offered.
	"She won't let us in her office," Scully said. She caught Byers' frown
on her way to catch Mulder's eyes.
	"You're completely irresponsible," Byers said to  Mulder. It sounded
almost affectionate.
	Mulder shrugged carelessly.  "Call the guys. We'll have cheesesteaks
tonight," he offered.
	"Aren't you going to clean up first?" Byers' eyebrows were almost in
his hair.
	"We'll go to our house," Mulder suggested.  "Call the guys. Ask Emily
too."
	"Ask me what?"  she asked, presenting them with a contract.  Scully
accepted it and began to read.
	"We're having a new house party tonight.  To celebrate.  Want to come?"
Mulder invited.
	"Sure, why not?"  Emily smiled and looked at her brother. "Sourpuss,"
she told him.
	"Am not!" Byers cried, stuffily tugging down his jacket.  "I'm gonna go
call the guys."  He disappeared into the real estate ofice.
	"You look so happy," Emily told them with a radiant smile.  "How long
have you known each other?"
	"Six years," Scully said.
	"We work together." Mulder took the contract from her hands while she
was distracted and signed it with a flourish before she could finish
reading it.  Scully gave him a dark look and added her signature.
	The house was theirs.
	"Congratulations," Emily said, taking the contract from them. "You now
have a mortgage."
	"The guys are on their way," Byers reported.
	"Party time," Mulder said in his usual deadpan, understated way.

end of 27/28

Anamorphosis 28/28
by Megan Reilly
eponine@prodigy.net

-28-

	It turned into much more than cheesesteaks by firelight. Langly brought
a boombox and Frohike brought the booze.  It was a real celebration.
	"Who'd have imagined your friends could actually be fun?"  Scully
whispered to her husband as they stood shoulder to shoulder, watching
Byers boogie to the music, a bottle in one hand and a paintbrush in the
other.
	It had become an all night painting party and god only knew what the
place would look like when the sun came up.
	"They love you, Scully," Mulder told her, utterly serious.
	She nodded.  "I'm very lucky."
	"Want to?" Frohike approached to ask her, nodding to the stereo.
	"She's married, ya doof," Langly reminded him.
	"So?" asked Frohike.
	"So leave her alone!" Langly suggested.
	"Shut up, you hippie *girl*."
	"Munchkin!"
	"Boys," Mulder warned and they wandered away.
	"I never thought I would have such a wonderful housewarming," Scully
admitted.  She'd never imagined she would have such an interesting
husband, either.
	"I'll be you never imagined a lot of this," Mulder told her, nailing
her thoughts and sounding as insecure as ever.  She shook her head,
agreeing with him.
	"Dance with me?"  Mulder stretched out his hand to her.  Someone had
nudged the radio over to a soft rock ballad station.  She smiled and
took his hand, allowing him to wind her in close to his body.  "Look,"
he whispered and in four steps, turned her around so she could see
Langly slow dancing with Emily Byers.
	She turned her head.  "Byers isn't happy," she noticed, seeing his
angry scowl.  "Maybe we should go -"
	"No," Mulder said, bouncing her closer to him.  "This is our time."
	"It's all our time now," she murmured, closing her eyes and moving her
feet.  They had danced together before this, out on cases, casually
flirting around the attraction that pulled between them.
	It had all happened so fast.
	Six years was not fast.
	But the way her arguments had fallen away was fast.  She wondered why
they'd waited so long.  Maybe they were waiting until they truly needed
each other.
	"You're tired," he said, looking down at her.
	"Mmm hmm."  She yawned delicately, not even trying to cover it up.
	He put her hair back behind her ears and she shook her head until the
strands fell free again.  "We're still covered with paint," she
remembered.
	"I still can't wait to clean up," he told her.
	"Is this how it's supposed to be?"
	"I think so."
	She accepted that quietly.  "What happens when we're not like this
anymore?" she asked suddenly.  He looked at her curiously.  "When we're
old like our parents got and don't have kids to stay together for the
sake of?"
	"We'll just wait for that day to come," he told her, putting his hands
on her hips and staring down at her.
	A clinking sound filled the air.  They both raised their heads to look
and saw Langly and Frohike beating beer bottles with ballpoint pens,
like at a wedding reception. The boys grinned, waiting for them to kiss.
	Mulder gave Scully a big, sloppy kiss, which she returned
enthusiastically.
	"We're going home," Mulder said and Scully jerked as he pulled her up
off her feet into his arms. She would have struggled but she was too
surprised and didn't want him to drop her.
	"What the hell are you doing?" she demanded.  His look was innocent,
but he let her down onto her feet.  "I am not some submissive,
subservient woman for you to marry and dominate."
	"Scully, it's traditional," he said.  "It was a whim."
	"It's traditional like men raping their brides is traditional!"
	"Scully -"  He didn't know what to say to her when she got like this.
"I didn't mean it that way."
	"I know," she admitted.  They got into the car and he flipped on the
lights. "You don't know what it's like to be small and have people move
you if they want to."
	"No, I don't," he admitted.  "I'm sorry I made you feel like your will
and your feelings weren't important."
	"God, you're a great apologizer," she said with passion.
	"Practice," he told her and put the car into gear, heading down the
dark road to his apartment.
	"What're we doing here?" she asked.
	"Cleaning up."
	"Why not my apartment?" she asked.
	"Why your apartment?" he countered.
	"Mulder, I think we're going to argue again."
	"Why?"  He patted her shoulder. "Go with it, Scully."
	She hated it when he said that.  "Why do you get to make the
decisions?"
	"Why do you?  We've been living in your apartment."
	"That's why we bought the house," she said.  He looked at her and she
gave in. "I don't want to fight with you tonight."  She opened the door
and got out, listening to his footsteps following her.
	"First shower," she called, running her hand through her stiff paint
coated hair.  Mulder bit his tongue on an offer to share.  She saw him
and said, "What?"
	"Don't you think it'd be fun to share?" he asked, trying to make it
sound like he didn't really care if she rejected him.
	She hesitated.  Their mutual decisions never seemed to be terribly
mutual.  It shouldn't be up to her to say yes or no.  If only Mulder
wasn't so ever-ready...but he loved her and he was trying to show it.
	She went into the bathroom without saying anything, leaving it up to
him. She began to strip off her clothes and the door opened a crack. 
"Scully?" he asked.  She yanked on the hand that rested on the doorknob
and he fell against her.  "You have  paint under your clothes," he
said.  She nodded and started the hot water running.  "Scully, are you
talking to me?" he asked, frowning until she peeled off the last of her
clothes.
	He joined her under the spray ten seconds later.  She blinked water out
of her eyes and looked at his lean body as it grew damp.  He was looking
at her the same way. His mouth fastened on hers, pushing her head back
until she felt like she was drowning.  She pushed on his shoulders and
he let her go, looking at her with unfocused eyes.
	"Water," she said.
	He nodded and poured shampoo into his hand, rubbing it into the crown
of her hair with careful fingers.  He leaned over her, intent on his
work.  Then he turned her around and stood her under the water, petting
her hair to rinse the suds away.
	Suddenly she felt vulnerable.  Only he was just as naked and wet as she
was.  She picked up his cake of soap and lathered it in her hands.  He
watched her, probably just as she'd watched him.  Her fingers were
tentative as she reached for him.  But she enjoyed having him under her
hands.  He enjoyed it, too.
	He began washing the paint that had soaked through her clothes.  She
could tell by his body that he wanted to take her there.  He pulled at
her hips but she knew one of them would get hurt if they tried it in the
slippery shower stall.  "Not here," she said and fumbled for the water
taps as he began kissing her.
	He was in a hurry and stumbled trying to get out of the tub.  He
tripped but managed to clear the tub.  They fell together onto the
bathroom floor as much by accident as by design.  As soon as he could
lift her hips, he entered her.  She surprised herself by crying out at
the force of his thrust.  She kept her eyes open, focused on his face as
he strained for release.
	This is Mulder, it's safe, let go.  She knew she was thinking more than
she should, so she closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on what she
was feeling, letting a breath out through her lips.
	He said her name and she climaxed suddenly, distracted from all her
thinking by the sound of his voice, pulling her into the moment.
	They lay there, spent, on the bathroom floor. His lips were teasingly
close to hers and his eyes almost closed trying to focus on her face.  
Her body was still in turmoil and she wished he would just kiss her.
	"Did you really daydream about me kissing you?" he asked.
	Now she knew he was doing this on purpose. "Yeah," she confessed.  "I
know is sounds juvenile, but..."
	"Just kissing?" he asked, pulling himself up onto his elbow, his eyes
never leaving hers.  "Nothing else?"
	"It was a fantasy. When we started working together.  I knew nothing
would ever..." But it had, hadn't it?  The nearness of his lips was
driving her mad.  "Most men don't really like kissing, Mulder," she
said.
	"And you do?"
	She licked her lips and nodded.  Why was he always teasing her? 
	"God, you're serious, Scully," he said and pressed his mouth against
hers.  She met him eagerly, sucking and tasting and caressing until
she'd had her fill.
	No, she would never have her fill.  She knew kissing was safe.  She
knew it was because Bill  had never kissed her so she didn't have to
worry or fear, but she also had thought it was a lost art.  Until she
met Mulder.  He had a mouth that was made for this and he knew exactly
how to do it. He must like it too because he didn't rush to get it over
with.
	She sighed and curled closer to him.  The steam was beginning to
dissolve and she was beginning to be aware that she was lying wet on
bathroom tile.  "What're you thinking?" he asked, his eyes fixed on her
collarbone, which he was tracing with her fingertips.
	"I want to renew our wedding vows in the house when it's finished."  He
looked at her, but didn't ask her why.  She was glad, because she didn't
want to tell him their union was a foggy blur in her memory.
	"Okay," he said.
	"I want to invite my mother."  They hadn't broached the subject of her
family.  "I don't know if she'll come but I feel like..."  she stopped,
her chest filling with unshed tears at the estrangement.
	"Maybe it will be a way to begin to forgive," he said, understanding. 
He was thinking of his own mother and wondering if she would be willing
to make the effort to attend.  Things had seemed better over Christmas. 
The house would be a new start for them.  Their new life.  "I love the
idea," he said, turning to wrap her in his arms.

-Epilogue-

	The house was painted and fixed up and finished the first weekend of
spring.  The sun shone and its warmth was beginning to coax life from
the barren ground as it did every year. Winter came, but it never
stayed.
	Scully rose early, needing to spend some time alone. She went on a walk
through the house, checking on details that no one would ever notice,
but she needed to know that everything was absolutely perfect.  She went
outside to check the flowers she and Mulder had arranged the day before
for the ceremony.  Dew lingered on the fresh petals, waiting to be
burned off by the sun.
	She felt good.  Dana and DK and the others had grown quieter in her
head.  She felt them rather than heard them now, like a normal person
might think of herself in the past.  It had been so long since she'd
been normal that she'd forgotten what it was like.
	She had been afraid the nightmares would come.  They still did, once or
twice a week, sending her back into a helpless child's body, or into an
experiment she was powerless to stop.  She was getting more successful
at reminding herself that it was in the past and it could only hurt her
if she allowed it to.  Mulder's presence helped.  She had never had
someone so completely in her life.  They bickered constantly but his
arms were there for her when she needed them, and she was learning how
to ask.
	She wouldn't have survived without him and she knew it.
	"Hey."  Mulder put his hand on her shoulder and she turned.  His hair
was sticking up everywhere and he was barefoot and shirtless, his loose
pajama bottoms hanging into the mud.  His eyes were quiet and serious. 
"Second thoughts?"
	"Never," she vowed.  "I'm so glad we're doing this."  Hand in hand,
they went inside.  Their guests would be arriving soon.

	At noon, they gathered in the yard. Mulder put on his grey suit and
Scully wore the dress she'd purchased for the occasion, a soft floral. 
The kind she never wore, but looked beautiful in.  It was a symbolic
ceremony, so no priest or justice was present.  Mulder's mother was
frail, suddenly, since Christmas, and Frohike had taken on the
responsibility of watching over her.  Scully looked at her own mother. 
Strands of steel gray twined through her dark hair and there were knew
lines that Scully knew she herself had caused.  She had found a few
white hairs decorating her own scalp recently.
	Skinner looked out of place even though Emily Byers kept talking to
him.  She was really sweet and Scully wondered if she would be attending
another wedding one day very soon. Langly was wearing a polo shirt, but
his long yellow hair hung loose ad he still looked like the same old
hacker.  It had been hard for Byers to accept his little sister's
attachment to his friend.
	Mulder couldn't believe his good fortune.  He had never even dreamed of
anything like this.  He remembered the cold winter day he'd asked Scully
to be his wife - he hadn't even asked, just expressed a desire.  He'd
expected her to laugh, to crush his feelings under the pointy heel of
her little shoe.
	It had been a damn hard three months, but he knew all about cocoons and
trials.  They'd survived and cemented their lives.  He threaded his
fingers through hers and she smiled at him.  At any other point in his
life, he would have been mortified to stand up in the sunshine in front
of his friends and family and hers and confess his feelings.
	He turned and took her hands in his, probably squeezing too hard, but
maybe he was still a little scared.  He'd never gotten anything he
wanted before.  She smiled encouragingly at him.
	And there were no words.  Everything he'd been practicing in his head
for a week disappeared.  He felt his grin turn idiotic. "I love you,
Scully," he said and saw the slight color that rose in her cheeks.  He
hoped he would always see it there.  "I've learned to take every moment
and I've learned that every moment can be worth taking, that it's safe
to love and trust and build a life."  His eyes returned to hers. "But
mostly, I love you."
	She wet her lips and spoke.  "Mulder, you are the most patient and
gentle and giving man  I've ever known. I had lost my hope that life was
worth living and I lost myself. You found me.  You helped me find me
ever since we met."  She'd forgotten the onlookers who were there to
witness and celebrate their bond.  This was her opportunity to tell
Mulder all the things she couldn't normally say, things that didn't come
up in daily life.
	"Kiss her already!"
	Mulder and Scully turned, surprised, because the voice belonged to
their boss.  The top of his head was reddening but all of their guests
were grinning at them.
	Mulder took Scully in his arms and they made their kiss juicy and
showy, until they forgot themselves again.  His hands slid down and he
tried to bury himself in her mouth.
	"Party!" Langly yelled jubilantly.
	The lovers' kiss parted with a soft smacking sound.  They had all the
time in the world.  The stereo was cranked up and the buffet in the
kitchen raided as Mulder and Scully hung back from the crowd, lingering
alone together.
	"We have the rest of our lives," she said.
	"What're you trying to say?" he asked her.
	"Let's go have some fun with the people who love us."  She tugged at
his hand.  He didn't budge, holding her in place with his fingers.
	"You're crazy if you think I'm ever going to let go," he informed her.
	"Don't you dare."  She put her other hand over his and they went into
the house together, where they were greeted with applause from their
friends.

		THE END!

-Author's Notes-

Thank you so much for reading all the way to the end!  I hope you've
enjoyed the story.  I wrote this because I'd read so many stories
featuring Scully's identity problems - Scully vs. Dana.  So I wanted to
do a story with multiple personality syndrome, and childhood sexual
abuse is the main cause of that syndrome.

When I began to do research,  I was shocked at how many characteristics
of "abused child syndrome" the writers of the X Files have worked into
the way they write Scully's character.  For example, the incident with
the rabbit that Scully remembers in "Christmas Carol" seemed completely
out of place to me until I read "A tactic of some abusers...is the
actual or threatned abuse of small animals.  In some instances rabbits
and other small creatures were destroyed before the eyes of terrified
children." [Secret Survivors, E. Sue Blume, pg. 63].  I don't know why
the writers would make this choice, or if it was even something they
decided to do, or if the "symptoms" of child abuse are, as many have
thought, so vague and general that they could apply to anyone.

I did a lot of reading because I wanted my story to accurately portray a
painful subject.  I felt that anything less than a serious portrayal
would be in insult to people who have experienced abuse themselves.

Here is a partial bibliography for anyone who might be interested in
where I got my ideas or who want to say "That isn't so - you're wrong!" 
I would love to hear from you if you think I'm wrong. I might be.  But I
have sources. :)

MULTIPLE PERSONALITY
1. "Nightmare" - Emily Peterson and Nancy Lynn Gooch as told to Lynn
Freeman
2. "Katherine, It's Time" - Kit Castle & Stefan Bechtel
3. "Voices" - Trula Michaels LaCalle, PhD

FALSE MEMORY SYNDROME
1. "Confabulations: Creating False Memories, Destroying Families" -
Eleanor Goldstein with Kevin Farmer
2. "Suggestions of Abuse" - Michael Yapko, PhD
3. "Lost Daughters" - Reinder van Til

SEXUAL ABUSE AND INCEST
1. "Secret Survivors: Uncovering Incest and its Aftereffects in Women" -
E. Sue Blume
2. "The Courage To Heal" - Ellen Bass & Laura Davis