THE GHOST AT HER SIDE - Pt. 1
by - Joyce
March 1998

 

DISCLAIMER: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, and A.D. Skinner belong to CC and Fox Broadcasting.  I'm only borrowing them for a moment and will return them. Simon belongs to me and may not be used without my express permission.

ACKNOWLEGEMENTS: It takes a whole village to raise a child and I think I must have had at least a village of wonderful, talented, determined ladies to get this bird out of the nest. Ladies - thank you for your patience and for your determination that this story get finished.

SUMMARY: This is a sequel to 'The Ghost in Her Life'. Mulder is dead, but certainly not gone.  Scully gets a new partner while still learning to cope with the ghost of her old partner.

NOTE: Italics indicate thoughts.  Underlining is for emphasis.

FEEDBACK: mab49@earthlink.net
 

 

9:25 a.m., Thursday, Three weeks after Mulder's death
 

"Damn."

Special Agent Dana Scully swore under her breath as she walked quickly down the stairs to her basement office. The lines in the copy room had been longer than she anticipated, then she had to stop and accept the condolences of no less than three agents from Bank Fraud who she barely knew to speak to. Perfect strangers seemed to feel moved to make long personal statements of respect for her late partner.

"Respect my ass. Mulder was right. He's more popular dead than he ever was alive." Scully walked a little faster, hoping against hope that her new partner had not made it out of Personnel and down to the office ahead of her. Mulder was not expecting anyone but her and she didn't want to contemplate the repercussions if Agent Ambercrombie walked in and saw a partially materialized man he knew to be dead sitting at her computer.

She wasn't sure she could explain the situation. Most of the time she wasn't even sure the situation wasn't just some very detailed hallucination and she would wake up and be at home hugging a Scotch bottle trying to come to terms with Mulder's untimely death and her own soul-wrenching grief.

Ghosts did not exist. She accepted that dictum with every fiber of her scientific mind. Unfortunately, no one had thought to inform Mulder of that particular scientific law or, if they had, he ignored it with his usual flair for inconvenient facts.

Mulder was dead. She had seen him die, his head crushed by an errant baseball. Her grief was barely controlled and, at times, surged in an unruly storm of loss and might-have-beens that was only barely tempered by the appearance of what purported to be Mulder's ghost. Now she had to deal with a scientific improbability, grief for all the possibilities that had died with Mulder while feeling the warm comfort of having him back with her. Trust Mulder to complicate her life even after he died.

Scully reached the door and was relieved to find it locked. Maybe Mulder was learning some caution. The last thing they needed was for word to spread that his ghost was haunting the basement office. Some of their enemies might take up ghost hunting as a hobby and Mulder was not the most adept of ghosts yet.

"Mulder?"

Scully stepped into the office looked around for any sign of her erstwhile partner. She allowed herself the luxury of an exasperated sigh; a luxury that was becoming all-too-common in recent days.

"Mulder, where are you?" she whispered. Her new partner was due to arrive at any minute. She did not need to be overheard talking to a man who had been dead these past twelve days.

"I only left him alone for fifteen minutes," she muttered as she tried not to consider what mischief Mulder was creating. Being a ghost had opened new opportunities for him to play with the minds of some of his former colleagues and Mulder was not a great one for avoiding temptation.

"Mulder," she whispered one last time, trying not to let the faint note of worry reach her voice. He is here. He did come back. I am not dreaming. She threw the unspoken words in the teeth of her doubts and prayed she was not mistaken.

Ambercrombie would be here any minute. She had mixed feelings about this impending partnership. On the one hand, Ambercrombie was a fine young agent; on the other hand he was also the man directly responsible for the accidental death of Fox Mulder, her former partner. It was one thing to publicly absolve the young man of Mulder's death; it was going to be quite another to work closely with him without remembering Mulder's body stretched out on a dusty ball field.

"Hey, Scully," a soft whistle followed by a familiar voice broke into her grim reflections.

Relieved that once again this skewed version of reality had remained true, Scully swiveled her chair to look towards the shadowy back corner of the office in time to see Mulder slowly materialize until he was reassuringly opaque. He smiled ruefully at her and gave a slight apologetic shrug of his shoulders.

"Sorry. I just went up to check on Skinner and found him entertaining a certain smoking gentleman of our acquaintance. Skinner is going to need new lungs soon if that bastard doesn't leave him alone."

"Hear anything interesting?" Scully asked in a low voice, keeping one ear cocked for the sound of her new partner's arrival.

"Relax, Scully. Ambercrombie is still trapped in Personnel getting writer's cramp. He'll be there at least another ten minutes before they run out of forms for him to sign." Mulder chuckled. "I think if Personnel ever found out I'm still around, they would find some form I absolutely had to sign."

"So?" Scully was proud that only a hint of her impatience crept into her tone. She resisted the urge to tap her foot. Mulder was in one of his moods and she refused to allow him to see how exasperated she was becoming.

"So, what?" Mulder asked, his eyes refocusing on her with a slightly puzzled expression.

Scully restrained an urge to sigh. Death had not improved Mulder's tendency to scamper off after tangents. Sometimes she wondered if he did this deliberately to divert the direction of the conversation or whether he simply mislaid the main focus of the conversation when his mind veered off track.

"Skinner. The Smoking Man. Remember?" she asked in a deceptively calm, even tone.

"Oh, that." Mulder moved over to perch on the edge of a small table holding the printer and a slide projector. Here he was out of the way of both desks and away from the main traffic area of the office. In just two days, Scully had already begun to think of the table as Mulder's place.

"Skinner's catching hell over letting you pick your new partner. You really owe Skinner this time, Scully. You were supposed to be waiting for Special Agent Drew Franklin to walk through that door." Mulder's mouth twisted in disgust and his eyes turned dark with anger. A slight halo of static electricity began forming around him.

"Mulder," Scully hissed as she gestured at the miniature lightning storm playing about his shoulders.

"Sorry," Mulder said as he regained control of his anger. As quickly as it had formed, the static electricity disappeared.

"I keep forgetting that little side effect," he confessed. "I never realized that being a ghost could be so complicated." He smiled and gave a brief shrug of his shoulders. Scully nodded in sympathy. It wasn't any easier for her to adjust to having a ghost attached to her life. Scientifically she didn't believe in ghosts, but her skepticism was no match for the very real presence of the apparition of Fox Mulder sitting in her office.

"Franklin makes Tom Colton look like an angel. I met him a few times when I was reassigned to Violent Crimes, back when the X-Files were shut down." Scully nodded as she remembered those dark weeks of separation.

"Franklin would sell his mother's soul if it offered him a chance at a promotion. I think the plan was to do to you what you were supposed to do to me five years ago; shut the X-Files down and send you back to Quantico in disgrace." Mulder gave her a look that somehow managed to mix sternness with amusement. Scully wished she knew how he did that.

"Is Skinner going to be OK?" She had not really stopped to consider what repercussions Skinner's gesture might have for her boss.

"Probably. Cancer Man is livid, but Skinner is holding his own. Rushing the paperwork through before Cancer Man realized he had been snookered helped. Retracting the appointment now would offer Ambercrombie a chance to appeal. I doubt if Cancer Man wants to risk this little deal coming to light. Franklin has some rather unsavory details buried in his personnel file regarding his ability to work well with women who are smarter than he is - of course that does include just about every female employed by the FBI, janitorial staff included," Mulder reflected in mock seriousness. "Skinner is tough. Besides, I think he's enjoying his victory." The smile this time was genuine Mulder-mischief.

"Are you OK with this, Mulder?" Scully whispered as she reached out to touch his hand, shivering slightly as his icy aura sent chills down her spine.

Mulder started to make a flip reply, then caught the concern in Scully's eyes and bit back the quip before it could leave his mouth. She needed his honesty, not his defensive humor. His promise to be honest with her was proving to be very inhibiting to his long-established defense mechanisms.

"Do you mean am I comfortable with the fact that in a very few moments you will take on a new partner, start building a relationship of trust with him and begin going on with your life? No, not really. If you mean do I trust you enough to believe in your promise never to stop needing me? There is no one I trust more, Scully." Mulder tried a smile that wavered a bit between a smile and a grimace, but Scully gave him points for trying.

Mulder suddenly stiffened as his head swung around to face the door. His face twisted in an expression of pain and resignation. Before Scully could say a word, he faded from view. Seconds later a tentative knock followed a moment later by a firmer rap announced the arrival of Ambercrombie.

Scully drew in a deep centering breath and slowly exhaled as she faced the door. Right at this moment, Tooms might be easier to face than the man preparing to come through that door.

"Come in," she said firmly.

"Nobody here but the FBI's most unwanted." A memory whispered by a ghost tore at her heart.

There was a brief hesitation, then the door swung open. He's probably just as nervous as I am, she thought and to her surprise felt herself relaxing.

"Good morning, Agent Scully." Ambercrombie hesitated, half-in, half-out of the doorway, his tall wiry frame poised to retreat at the first sign his arrival was unwelcome.

"Scully, you're scaring him. At least let him get in the door before you start rearranging his psyche." Mulder's soft whisper came from the direction of the filing cabinets. She resisted the urge to swat at him. No need to convince Ambercrombie she was crazy any earlier than she had to. She sighed and gave Ambercrombie an encouraging smile.

"Sorry, I'm late. I think Personnel was inventing forms for me to sign," Ambercrombie added hesitantly, watching her warily as if gauging her reaction to his attempt at humor.

"Why Agent Ambercrombie what a thing to suggest?" Scully replied with a straight face. Only Mulder could have spotted the smile buried deep in her eyes, masked as it was by sadness and a tinge of resentment. Memories of bantering with Mulder, using her ability to keep a neutral expression despite laughing inside at his barbs, clawed at her composure.

For a moment Ambercrombie appeared ready to bolt before Scully took pity on him and made an effort to smile. She owed Ambercrombie a fair chance. Rationally she was prepared and ready to accept Ambercrombie as an equal partner. A small part of her, however, remained childishly obstinate. Her smile was as much for her stubborn inner child as for Ambercrombie. If Mulder could fight past his defenses and be honest with her, then she could deal with her mixed emotions.

"Relax Ambercrombie. I don't bite. I wouldn't have asked for you if I wasn't prepared to work with you," Scully reassured him.

"Right," Ambercrombie ran a hand through his cropped sandy brown hair and took a deep breath. His expression turned inward for a moment then a slow smile blossomed that transformed him from an awkward young man to a self-assured agent. He straightened up and squared his shoulders until he almost stood at attention.

"Agent Scully, can we start over?" Ambercrombie turned around without waiting for her reply and left the office, shutting the door behind him.

Mulder desperately tried to stifle a laugh at Scully's befuddled expression. A strangled chuckle escaped in spite of his best efforts. Only a knock at the door saved him from a blistering glare.

"Good morning, Agent Scully. Sorry I'm late," Ambercrombie said pleasantly as he walked confidently over to her desk and stretched out a hand. Slightly dazed, Scully took it. Ambercrombie exerted just enough pressure to make the handshake firm without trying for the manly art of seeing who could crush the other's hand first.

"Good morning, Agent Ambercrombie," Scully said with more aplomb than she felt at the moment. It wasn't helping to hear Mulder's muffled laughter in the background. Well, at least it was laughter and not the sullen silence of depression, though knowing Mulder, that would no doubt be making an appearance before the day was over.

"Welcome to the X-Files," she said as she shook the hand of the man who single-handedly had inflicted more pain on her than Cancer Man, Tooms, and Pfaster put together. She gestured to the other desk. "That's your desk. If you need anything, just ask,." she said in a carefully neutral tone. She was in control, she reminded herself. She would not allow the pain to show.

"I have laid out some files I think you should read before we get started on any cases. They represent, as much as possible, the types of cases we have handled in the past." Scully bit her lip to keep from adding that the list of files was the end result of an impassioned debate between Mulder and her over science versus the paranormal. In the end she picked four cases which represented her view that science could answer the questions posed by the X-Files while Mulder picked four cases which, to him, clearly demonstrated a paranormal explanation. At one point in the debate, Mulder had blown out all of her fuses when his temper slipped out of control. As exasperated and angry as she was, Scully had to smile at Mulder's chagrin. By the time she got the lights working again, Mulder had regained control of his temper and was extremely careful to remain calm and reasonable for the remainder of the discussion.

Ambercrombie stepped out of the office for a moment then returned carrying a large box overflowing with files and assorted knick-knacks. Scully left him alone while he adjusted the chair and began transferring his personal belongings to the desk. She took this opportunity to watch him, to try to see him without also seeing the image of Mulder dead in the dust that had been burned into her memory.

A brief icy touch of Mulder's fingers brushed her shoulder. Involuntarily she shivered. The motion caught Ambercrombie's attention and he looked over at her, puzzled yet uncertain whether to make a comment. Abruptly he lowered his eyes as a look of sadness crossed his face. Apparently she wasn't the only one who had to live with that particular memory.

Mulder watched helplessly as Scully and the man who had killed him raised the invisible barrier of his death between them.

"Damn it, Scully. Don't do this. Give him a chance. Give yourself a chance. Don't give Cancer Man an opening. That would be a hell of a way to memorialize me," Mulder pleaded as he knelt beside her. She shivered again. Mulder retreated back to his table, frustrated that he couldn't comfort her.

Feeling Mulder retreat, Scully reached for her self-control and brought her emotions back behind the professional mask she wore to work. She needed Mulder's comfort yet his very presence played hell with her ability to control her emotions. Despite her intellectual acceptance of his ghost, the superstitious Irish lass that lurked in the deep dark depths of her soul gibbered in fear every time he touched her. Her heart wanted to feel him close, her mind still vaguely refused to fully acknowledge his existence, and her soul was a seething mass of fear, welcome and stubborn skepticism. She wished they had had more time to sort out all the conflicting emotions this new relationship evoked. Instead, she had the dual task of learning to cope with a ghost while breaking in a new partner. Why me, she thought irrationally towards heaven? Why me?

"I meant what I said at Mulder's funeral, Agent Ambercrombie. It was an accident. This is not going to be easy for either of us, but I know Mulder respected you and I really can't think of anyone else he would have wanted to . . . " Scully hesitated. There was no way she could force out the words 'take his place.' No one could ever 'take his place,' especially since he was probably standing not too far away still firmly entrenched in her life.

"Follow in his footsteps? Pick up the torch? I can think of a few others, but those probably say it best," Ambercrombie said softly. He looked up at her, in pain, but also in control. "I admire you so much for continuing what he started. You are a very brave, determined woman and I am honored that you'd give me the chance to work on the X-Files with you."

Then, as if embarrassed by revealing too much of his inner thoughts, Ambercrombie cleared his throat and went back to stuffing folders into the drawers of his desk.

Scully sat back in Mulder's chair and considered the strange complexities of this young Agent who could shift from an awkward youth to an assured mature man in a heartbeat. Ambercrombie was turning out to be as complex and confusing a partner as Mulder. Different ends of the emotional spectrum perhaps, but mercurial to the core.

Once Ambercrombie had finished stashing his belongings in the desk drawers and arranged the desktop into a comfortable clutter, he looked around the office. His expression betrayed his curiosity about the mysterious files that found their way down to this basement domain of Spooky Mulder. A slow smile spread across his face as he realized that all of these mysterious files were now open to him.

I promise I'll take good care of them, Agent Mulder, he pledged silently. They're in good hands, he added with just the barest hint of a benediction.

For now he would be content with the files Agent Scully had selected for him. He picked up the first one and quickly became engrossed in the story of the discovery of a new parasite in the Arctic. Questions arose immediately to mind. He glanced briefly over at Scully, engrossed in reading a file, hesitated as if to say something then thought better of it.

Despite her assigning him the files to read, Ambercrombie suddenly felt like a voyeur prying into the strange and complex relationship shared by the man he had accidentally killed and Agent Scully. He had heard all the rumors and gossip about the pair of them. Did they or didn't they? But now, reading this file, seeing their reports of a danger confronted and a bond of trust forged he knew that whatever they had shared was something unique and wonderful. Fresh guilt over his role in ending that partnership threatened to spill up and out. Biting back the urge to beg her forgiveness again, he stared blindly at the pages, trying to understand something of her loss. An uncomfortable silence descended on the office.

From his perch in the back of the office, Mulder noted Ambercrombie's curiosity and fought back a brief surge of jealousy; these files, *his* files, now belonged as much to Ambercrombie as they did to him. What did this kid know of the price he paid for each and every one of them? It wasn't fair.

Stop that, Mulder sternly addressed his sulking ego. He doubted if it would listen to him, it never did. Maybe it would be better if he disappeared somewhere for awhile and left Scully and Ambercrombie alone. He could feel Scully's slight unease and suspected that she might welcome a chance to get to know Ambercrombie without an old partner hovering. The idea frankly scared him a little, which was all the more reason to disappear he chided himself. Scully needs breathing room. You said you trusted her, now prove it, he admonished his doubts.

"Scully," he whispered to catch her attention.

Scully's head shot up before she could catch herself. Her mouth started to form the words 'what is it, Mulder' and she barely stopped herself in time. Ambercrombie looked up from the journal he was pretending to read and gave her a puzzled look.

"Agent Scully?" he asked, wondering if he had somehow missed something. There was an odd feel to the way she started to shift her eyes to the back of the office, then held them rigidly on the pages in front of her.

"Sorry, Scully. I just wanted to let you know I'm taking off for a bit. You don't need me hanging around right now. You can tell me all about it tonight. Remember, if you need me, just call," Mulder said as he left his perch and drifted over to Scully's desk. He made a wide swing through the filing cabinets to avoid coming close to Ambercrombie.

Scully shivered as Mulder's fingers brushed lightly across her shoulder as he left. She saw Ambercrombie's puzzled expression.

"Yes?" she said trying to put the conversational ball firmly in Ambercrombie's court until she could gather her wits back together.

"Nothing, I thought you started to say something. Didn't mean to barge into your train of thought," he said shyly.

"No bother. I was just rereading an old file trying to reconcile scientific laws and the evidence. Didn't work the first time, but I thought I would try again," Scully gave a resigned sigh.

"Does that happen often? Trying to reconcile science and the paranormal?" Ambercrombie asked, relieved to be able to indulge his curiosity before it fragged his self-control.

"Often enough, Agent Ambercrombie." Scully paused for a moment as if debating whether to proceed. With Mulder gone this was perhaps the best moment to address the problem of names. This was a complication she had foreseen, but even after two days of careful consideration she was still unsure how to deal with someone else calling her Scully. She had not asked Mulder whether he would mind; she sensed that whichever path she chose was going to hurt him.

The slight frown on her face made Ambercrombie freeze like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck. He rapidly reran his part of the conversation checking for faux pas.

"This is getting cumbersome. We're partners and I really can't see us spending the next weeks, months or years referring to each other as Agent Ambercrombie or Agent Scully. I'm Scully or Dana if you prefer. I assume you have another name as well or do you prefer Ambercrombie?"

Ambercrombie appeared to find the ceiling worthy of intense scrutiny as he considered what was said and what was not said. From the controlled expression on Scully's face, he suspected that his response was going to define their partnership for good or bad. For such an innocent question, why did he feel the shadows thicken until they threatened to choke him? Damn this insight of his. He already sensed Scully was hiding something; there was an odd feel to this office. He hoped it was merely the memory of Agent Mulder clinging to this place and not Scully's regret in letting him try to atone for his part in her partner's death.

"Simon will do. It's a lot faster to yell in an emergency," he added. "If you've read my personnel file, you know what my middle name is so you can understand if we just stick with Simon."

Scully bit back a chuckle as she saw the resigned amusement in Ambercrombie's, no, Simon's eyes.

"I could keep my mother's reading habits a deep dark secret until that damn movie came out. Let's just say the guys in VC had a field day."

"I promise, no nicknames. Besides, you don't look at all like Val Kilmer," Scully assured him with a very suspicious twinkle in her eyes. "Now that we have your name settled...."

"Since we're on the subject of names..." Ambercrombie hesitated, biting his lip in confusion.

"Scully has always worked very well . . . Simon," Scully assured him quietly.

Simon nodded, trying to put his uneasy feelings into words.

"I know that this isn't easy for you. I can feel the memory of Agent Mulder in this office. I don't want to infringe on that memory. You act as if you keep expecting to hear him, to see him. I don't want to be just a shadow partner . . . Scully." Simon's tone was wistful and tinged with a deep sadness. Regret turned his dark green eyes a rich emerald green that shone with unshed tears.

Scully started involuntarily, her eyes momentarily widening before she regained control of her expression. She barely resisted the urge to glance over at Mulder's 'place.'

The phone rang, startling them both and saving her from a difficult explanation.

"Agent Scully."

"Yes sir, we'll be right up."

"Yes sir, Agent Ambercrombie is settling in very well."

Scully slowly replaced the receiver on the phone and stared at it for a moment, lost in thought. At Simon's quizzical glance, she smiled and got up.

"Well, Simon, it seems we have a case. A.D. Skinner wants us in his office in ten minutes. If you'll wait here for a moment, I need to make a small detour before we go upstairs," Scully said as she headed for the door. Simon nodded and got up to put on his coat.

As soon as she reached the small bathroom down the hall, Scully took a deep breath and mentally focused on Mulder.

"Mulder," she whispered loudly, not sure how loud she needed to make the call, afraid of being overheard. It would just be her luck to have a stray maintenance person show up in the hallway and overhear her calling Mulder.

"Mulder," she whispered urgently, after delaying as long as she could. Skinner said ten minutes and that didn't leave her a lot of time to dawdle.

"I'm here," a soft whisper preceded Mulder's materialization by mere seconds. He looked curiously at her.

"Skinner has a case for us. I thought you might like to come along."

"Beats scaring the pigeons at the Jefferson Memorial. Damn birds," Mulder said with feeling as he faded from view.

Scully hurried back to the office, feeling Mulder's reassuring presence beside her, and met Simon coming out.

"Ready, Scully?" Simon asked as he shut the door behind him.

Scully felt her stomach twist as she realized Mulder had heard. She felt him flinch, his hand going stiff against her back. There was no time to reassure him, to help him over this awkward moment. Events always seemed to carry her best intentions away on a whirlwind.

She maneuvered slightly to put Simon on her right side, expecting Mulder to take his place as usual on the left. As Simon took his place at her right side, she felt Mulder retreat. The small of her back missed the chill touch of his fingers. For some strange reason, she suddenly felt very much alone despite Simon walking beside her. Trust Mulder to be so paranoid that he refused to walk beside her because Simon might sense his presence.

Why did some people react to Mulder's presence while others seemed totally oblivious? Scully pondered the question for the umpteenth time since Mulder barged back into her life. At some point she was going to have to come to terms with this apparition and try to understand it. The scientist in her shuddered at the notion of applying scientific method to paranormal phenomena, but she refused to spend the rest of her life with Mulder fading in and out of range whenever someone came close to her. Mulder had already confessed that he had no idea what prompted a reaction. He was adamant however that dogs hated him. For some reason he remained stubbornly silent about his effect on cats. No amount of pressure had elicited any comment other than a dark glower and words muttered too soft for her to understand. If his comment a moment ago was any indication, birds also could sense his presence. That left, as the main variable, the human factor.

As they waited for the elevator, Scully considered the possibilities posed by this new case. Whatever it was, she was willing to bet Skinner was anxious to get Simon and her away from their nemesis until the dust settled over Simon's transfer to the X-Files. Hopefully it would be something with at least a smidgen of scientific plausibility to it. She wanted to give Simon a gentler introduction to the X-Files than she got. Knowing her luck, she was not clinging to optimism.

Watching Scully and Simon walk towards the elevator, Mulder observed the two of them while fighting down the bitter taste of jealousy. As hard as he had worked to convince Scully to accept Ambercrombie, he wished she hadn't accepted him quite so easily. Despite all his handicaps, Ambercrombie was a bright, capable, *normal* agent. With him at her side, Scully was going to discover that there was no limit to how far and how high she could fly. No more 'Spooky' to clip her wings, he thought morosely.

Once the elevator doors closed behind them, Mulder concentrated on visualizing Skinner's outer office and let himself drift there. As he passed unseen through the crowded halls of the FBI building, he tried to ignore the lonely feeling he got when moving among the living. A few agents shivered slightly as he passed by, others remained completely oblivious to his silent passage. He fought down the urge to indulge in a few random acts of mischief to reassure himself that he did indeed exist. Scully would not be pleased by a public display of paranormal events by a partner who had, more or less, promised to behave.

As he waited for Scully and Ambercrombie to arrive, Mulder pondered the problem of how to associate with Scully without betraying his presence to her new partner. Ambercrombie had not indicated that he had noticed the chill in the air that marked his presence in the hallway outside the basement office. That didn't match what Mulder knew of him. Either he really was oblivious or else he was playing a very deep game. His suspicions flared, but Mulder reined in his paranoia. Scully had enough to worry about without him setting off an electrical display here in Skinner's office. There was always later, he smiled to himself as he felt Scully arrive. A new case awaited and with it the testing ground for this new partner of hers, no theirs, he reminded himself.

0=0=0=0=0=0=0

A.D. Skinner's Office

Scully was pleased to find they had reached Skinner's office within the allotted ten minutes.

"Good morning, Agent Scully. Agent Ambercrombie," Kimberly, Skinner's executive assistant smiled warmly at them. "The Assistant Director is expecting you. Please go on in."

"Good morning to you too, Kimberly," Mulder whispered softly as he lounged against the window. He wondered wistfully if he would ever get used to being completely invisible to the living. If he had not been able to get through to Scully, he would be spending his days in quiet desperate loneliness playing mindless little tricks to amuse himself. The week between his death and Scully's acknowledgment was as close to hell as he ever wanted to be.

The sound of the inner door closing snapped him out of his self-absorbed reverie. Time for self-pity later, he chastised himself as he passed through the door in time to see Skinner wave Scully and Ambercrombie to the pair of chairs in front of his desk. Remembering Skinner's reaction to his presence the last time he was here, Mulder carefully chose a corner as far away from the Assistant Director as he could find.

The air reeked of stale cigarette smoke. Scully fought to keep from coughing. A small air purifier labored valiantly on Skinner's desk but was clearly outmatched by the smoke. Ambercrombie's eyes narrowed as he sensed the lingering aura of evil trailing amid the smoke fumes. There was also the same faint trace of something that he had felt downstairs. What was the use of this extra sense of his if it couldn't be any more precise than 'something'?, he grumbled to himself. A lot of use it was. Exasperated, he shoved his vagrant extra sense into the back of his mind and concentrated on what Skinner was saying.

"Agents Scully, Ambercrombie, the Bureau's assistance has been requested in a pair of murders in Viderson's Gorge, Ohio. After reviewing the request, I believe you are the best qualified agents we have to handle this case." Skinner shifted his gaze from Scully, down to the file, lying open on his desk, then back up to stare first at Scully, then Ambercrombie.

"Sir, I ..." Scully started to speak, but fell silent as Skinner held up his hand.

Curious about the case Mulder drifted carefully over to Skinner's desk, giving Ambercrombie a wide berth.

"The case was referred to me because the police chief of Viderson's Gorge specifically requested Agent Mulder's help. After speaking with Chief Talbert, I agree that the case falls within the province of the X-Files. Agent Scully, your expertise as a forensic pathologist should be especially valuable in this case. Chief Talbert is open to all possibilities, including scientific explanations, as long as this case is solved. Any questions?" Skinner's attitude suggested that it would take a brave man or an extremely foolish one to reply in the affirmative.

Mulder leaned carefully over the side of the desk, his arms folded behind his back, trying to avoid brushing against Skinner as he attempted to read the open file. Two men murdered, both prominent citizens, and a police chief who asked for him by name, that was almost an X-File by itself. Mulder tried to remember where he might have met Chief Anson Talbert. The name was vaguely familiar, but the precise memory was elusive. As Mulder craned over to read the opening paragraphs of the report, Skinner leaned forward to close the file and his head brushed against Mulder's face. Skinner jerked with shock, shivering as the chill of Mulder's aura set his teeth aching. Mulder shuddered violently and fled to the far corner of the room, trying to shake the horror of feeling a living body pass through him.

"Sir?" Ambercrombie asked, half rising in alarm. Something was wrong here. The Assistant Director looked as if he was having a heart attack. His face was pale and his eyes were wide and staring.

Stroke was the first thing to come to Scully's mind. Followed quickly by heart attack. Automatically shifting into doctor mode she started to go to Skinner's aid when the third most logical, while at the same time the most irrational, cause came to mind - Mulder.

Scully gripped the arms of her chair in an effort to keep her expression one of neutral concern. Mulder was being curious again. For four years she had wavered on the razor's edge of wanting to shake some sense into him or giving in to the urge to smile at his impulsive boundless curiosity. Death had not diminished his capacity for curiosity and she was somewhat resigned to discover that the razor's edge was still as sharp for her.

"Are you ill, Sir?" Her voice wavered a bit as she tried to control the peculiar mix of irritation and amusement that belonged to Mulder and no one else.

Skinner took a deep breath, his eyes narrowed and, after taking a long slow scan of the room, he waved Ambercrombie back to his seat.

"I'm fine, Agent Scully. The air conditioning system has been acting up recently. I just caught one of the drafts. Maintenance has promised a thorough performance check so these random drafts should be eliminated shortly."

Mulder winced. He had rather enjoyed playing with the minds of some of his former colleagues, quite forgetting that he was leaving a trail of cold drafts behind. Mulder tried to gauge Scully's mood. She had had to cope with a major shift in reality these past few days and her tolerance levels had yet to settle down to a predictable pattern.

"Yes sir." Scully tried to sound convinced by Skinner's rather lame explanation. Who was she to raise any doubts in a perfectly logical scientific explanation for Mulder's perambulations through the corridors of the FBI building?

Ambercrombie gave Skinner a puzzled look before resuming his seat. His extra sense was screaming at him, but, as usual, was not coughing up any explanation. Great, he thought, I know something is wrong, but not what or why. Really useful this talent, granma, he muttered under his breath, aggrieved at the injustice of being granted forewarning without knowledge of what he was being warned about.

"Chief Talbert's reports are in the file as are your plane tickets. Do not let the fact that Chief Talbert asked for Agent Mulder influence your investigation, Agent Scully. Agent Mulder was also known as a brilliant profiler. If there is an X-File here, deal with it. If not, then the sooner we have the perp behind bars, the better. Don't you agree, Agent Ambercrombie?" Skinner gave Ambercrombie a challenging glare.

"Yes sir. I'll try not to look for ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties, sir," Ambercrombie retorted with a straight face and in a surprisingly serious tone. Scully glanced at him in surprise, torn between shock that he would joke with the Assistant Director like that (even Mulder usually kept his unruly sense of humor leashed in Skinner's office) and dread that he wasn't joking.

"Your flight to Columbus leaves from Dulles in four hours." Skinner snapped curtly, glaring at Ambercrombie until the young agent lowered his eyes. A muttered "I'm sorry" followed by a sigh apparently mollified the A.D. Giving Ambercrombie one last stern look, he handed Scully the file and stood up, indicating that they were dismissed. For a moment Skinner looked as if he was about to say something more. A muscle twitched in his jaw then fell still. "Good luck, Agent Scully, Agent Ambercrombie."

"Thank you, sir," Scully managed with a small smile. She wondered how Skinner would react if he realized Mulder was one of the ghosties her new partner was not supposed to look for. She took the file and wondered if it held any surprises. Masking a sudden nostalgia for Mulder's wild theorizing, she walked resolutely towards the door. Ambercrombie allowed her to precede him by a half a step while he shadowed her right side. Scully's maneuver downstairs had apparently convinced him that she preferred he walk on the right.

Mulder stared at Ambercrombie trying to fathom whether he had not made a mistake when he insisted Scully take him on. Either he was faking a fascination with the paranormal or else he was on more intimate terms with it than Mulder had ever suspected. Suspicion, fanned by a rising tide of jealousy at the ease in which Ambercrombie was assuming his place at Scully's side, flared up in spite of his best efforts to control his emotions. The faintest flickers of electricity began to halo him. Alarmed by the prospect of creating a miniature lightning storm in Skinner's office, Mulder fled for the safety of his basement office.

Watching the door close behind Scully and Ambercrombie, Skinner gave his office a suspicious once-over. The air tasted like ozone and he still had the shivers from that cold draft that swept over him a few moments ago. Mechanical failure, it had to be the damned built-by-the-lowest-bidder central air system, he told himself. The distant memory of a peaceful, serene moment when he stepped outside the boundaries of life echoed for a moment then vanished like smoke on the wind.

He hoped he was doing the right thing in giving Agent Scully a case before she and Ambercrombie had gotten to know each other. Still, as he recalled, Agent Mulder gave Scully a bare ten minutes before hauling her off to a case in Oregon. "May you have the same luck he did, Agent Scully, and find in Ambercrombie a true partner," Skinner prayed quietly to whatever gods listened to harried, hassled and overtasked FBI administrators.

0=0=0=0=0=0=0

X-Files Office

All the way back to the basement, Scully felt the effort Simon was exerting to contain his curiosity. She was reminded of a German Shepherd a friend owned who lived for golf balls. The every time Ellie had escaped from her yard, she had been found terrorizing the golf balls at a nearby country club. She would wait, poised to spring to the attack, ears alert, tail making an anxious twitch, until the crack of iron to ball would signal the attack. No ball could elude her ferocious pounce. Each ball was hers and hers alone until dropped forgotten when the next ball soared into range. She became known as the Terror of the 16th Green and was actually included in the club's rulebook as an official hazard along with the accompanying penalty stroke.

Simon walked beside her, outwardly calm and professional, but Scully sensed that his entire attention was focused on the file she carried. She felt the unasked questions battering against the silence she imposed on their walk. Simon was proving even less of a match for one of her stern glances than Mulder had been. He lacked Mulder's disingenuous habit of looking sorrowfully at her from liquid hazel eyes. Maybe, just maybe, she finally had a partner who would listen first before haring off after impossible theories. Of course I've always been an optimist, she warned herself. Watching Simon stretch out to open the door before she could lay a hand on the doorknob, she was certain that if he had had a tail, it would be twitching in slow, anxious wags. She smiled at the image. Simon looked rattled and hung in mid-motion with the door halfway open, effectively barring her entrance with his outstretched arm.

"It's alright, Simon. You don't have to open doors for me. We're partners, remember?" she gently chided him.

"Sorry, Agent ... I mean Scully. Old habits die hard. Guess I'm not doing very well on the 'impress your partner with your suave demeanor' scale?" Simon gave her a self-depreciating smile and moved his arm to the top of the door to allow her to get into her own office while steadying himself so he wouldn't fall flat on his face.

"I don't recall that the FBI application form had a section on suave demeanor. Maybe that's just on the forms they hand out to the men," Scully retorted enjoying this light banter. For just a moment, she could pretend this was Mulder and things were back to normal.

From his perch in the back of the office, Mulder watched Scully and Ambercrombie banter and tried to be glad Scully was beginning to feel at ease with him. He remained a silent shadow hovering just outside the bright dawning of her new life. Time enough for them when night fell and he was alone with her again. The day would belong to Scully and her new life, but the night was his,

even if all he did was watch her sleep - she belonged to him for those few hours and no one else. He tried not to dwell on the emotion that lurked just beneath the surface of his need to be with her. It only served to torment him with might-have-beens. Scully felt safe with him; she did not need to know that his passions had not died with his mortal body.

Right now however, Scully was probably only too aware that she was driving two men nuts with curiosity. Mulder caught the faint glint of a smile deep in her eyes. She knew he was around, somewhere, waiting for her to put that goddamn file down and open it so he could read it. Ambercrombie was nearly ready to beg. Mulder could sense the curiosity rolling off of him in waves.

"Scully, quit this damn foreplay and get to the point," Mulder stage whispered.

Scully's look of surprise was instantly covered up, but Ambercrombie gave her a searching look then scanned the office. Mulder froze and let himself sink through and under the table. Ambercrombie was proving to be just a bit more perceptive than Mulder would have liked. He had gotten used to delivering these impromptu cracks from the ether and rather enjoyed Scully's startled reaction. It appeared that Scully wasn't the only one who was going to have to get used to having a new partner.

"Sorry, Scully, but you are ... well I was going to say killing me, but that is hardly accurate anymore. How about, if you don't open that file and start telling your new partner what is going on, your old partner is going to start a nasty rumor about a haunted office?"

"Scully, why don't I run home and pack while you read over the file. I can be back here in just over an hour then I can follow you home if you like and drive you to the airport. I can look at the file while you pack and then maybe we can discuss the case on the plane," Simon said in a hesitant voice, afraid of pushing into his partner's personal space, but unsure exactly how she and Agent Mulder had operated. He was flying blind as he tried to navigate the treacherous waters of this new partnership.

Scully looked startled, hearing two voices at once. She closed her eyes for a moment to collect herself. Having two partners at once was becoming quite confusing.

"That sounds like a good idea, Simon. Don't rush. I'll see you back here in ... say an hour and a half. You can leave your car at my place and I'll drive us to the airport. That way you can read the file while I drive," Scully offered in a tone just shy of a command.

Simon resisted the urge to salute. She had a point, but . . .. He supposed it was a bit early in their partnership to tell her that he had a tendency towards motion sickness. Making a mental note to take the Dramamine before he left home, he nodded and, after one last longing look at the file, left the office.

"Finally taking over the driver's seat, eh, Scully?"

"Shut up, Mulder," Scully snapped. Mulder flinched. Bad timing. Very bad timing, he chastised his erratic sense of humor. Memories of another unfortunate comment about short legs reared its ugly head in his memory. From the look in Scully's eyes, she was recalling the same memory.

"What did you think you were doing just now in Skinner's office?" Scully's tone of voice dropped the temperature in the room about twenty degrees. Mulder could feel the ice forming on his ectoplasm. "The last thing we need is for Skinner to launch an investigation into your pranks. I thought he was going to have a heart attack." Scully sighed, not really angry, just frustrated, worried and above all tired of trying to reconcile this new reality with her old comfortable scientific certainties.

"I just wanted a look at the file," Mulder explained. "I was being careful. How the hell was I supposed to know he was going to lean forward? You're so goddamn concerned about Skinner, do you have any idea how I felt? Fuck, I hate that feeling," Mulder said as he abruptly materialized.

Scully stepped back in momentary alarm as the empty air in front of her was suddenly occupied by a tall, glowering Mulder. She had grown used to his slow careful materialization. Now he just popped in. Was this a sign of irritation? Was this another signpost she needed to learn in order to read the emotional state of this new Mulder?

Mulder felt his fear and disorientation simmer as he tried to stabilize. Damn it, he knew better than to materialize this suddenly. His ectoplasm sloshed about inside his seemingly solid form until he felt slightly nauseous. The look of alarm on Scully's face wasn't helping. He hadn't meant to startle her.

"Damn it. I'm sorry, Scully. You just have no idea what it feels like to have somebody stick their head through yours. You were a physics major. Remember that basic law that says two objects cannot occupy the same space - well they can, but it plays hell with whatever it is that I'm made of now." Mulder fought to remain calm and was rather pleased to find he had managed to vent some of his fear without setting off an electrical storm.

"OK, Mulder, but if Skinner starts suspecting that the sudden drafts everyone is experiencing are something more than a faulty air system I'm not going to be responsible for the explanations." Scully gave Mulder one of her best 'I-am-not-amused glares and felt her momentary irritation fade when he began to wilt slightly around the edges. It was nice to know that her stern glares still had an effect on him. She promised herself she would use them sparingly, but they remained her most effective weapon to curb his impulsive enthusiasm.

Mulder shrugged his shoulders in silent apology before going over to Simon's desk and sitting down on top of it. He didn't look exactly repentant, but Scully decided to accept the gesture of apology and be satisfied that Mulder would try to remember to stay out of Skinner's way. She refused to give him the satisfaction of smiling at his antics.

"OK, Scully I'll be a good ghost and behave. You know, this ghost business would be a whole lot more fun if you weren't so hard-nosed about random acts of mischief happening to some very deserving people - like Colton or Blevins." Mulder gave her his special grin that blended devil with saint and made her shudder for the consequences of his ideas of mischief.

"Yes, and I'm sure you would make a very nice paperweight if the Morley man ever found out you were still around. I'm not the only one with a bottle, Mulder," Scully scolded gently trying to laugh at their greatest fear. She had once threatened to track him down and stuff him in a bottle if he tried ditching her again. The image had seemed amusing until she caught the look of uneasy fear in Mulder's eyes. Apparently the idle joking threat held fearful possibilities for him, at least a gnawing uncertainty.

Mulder shuddered briefly even as he tried to come up with a witty comeback. The notion of spending eternity crammed into a small space was not an option he wanted to consider. He wasn't sure what kind of bottle it would take to confine him, but if anyone could come up with such a bottle it would be Cancer Man. Scully was right, but did right have to be so boring?

"He won't. After all, who but Spooky Mulder ever believed in ghosts?" Mulder quipped lamely with a shaky grin and a shrug of his shoulders.

"Just see to it you don't give anyone here reason to start believing, OK, Mulder?"

"I'll do my best, Scully. Now, can we please take a look at that damn file before Ambercrombie gets back," Mulder pleaded.

Scully smiled innocently at him and spread open the file on her desk. Mulder leaned in and began pouring over the sparse facts as related in Chief Talbert's report.

Four days ago, Thomas A. Jackson, prominent businessman and Alderman of the town of Viderson's Gorge was found dead in his fenced backyard at 9:30 p.m. when neighbors investigated a loud scream. Cause of death - massive trauma and blood loss resulting from a cut that extended from his right shoulder down through his lower rib cage. The blow severed his collarbone, spine and several ribs indicating that the assailant possessed great physical strength.

The victim was a man of medium height, slightly overweight, but in otherwise excellent health. He was 52, married, no children. Wounds on the hands indicated that he had tried to defend himself. Despite there having been a heavy rain earlier that day, there were no footprints other than the victim's. The gate to the fence was locked and there were no signs that anyone climbed over the fence.

Jackson was respected, if not particularly well-liked in town, and had no known enemies. His wife said that her husband had heard the dogs barking and had gone down to investigate. She heard her husband shout at someone or something then he screamed. No one saw or heard anyone approach or leave the yard. The two dogs, a husky and a chow, were found cowering under the deck.

Mulder raised an eyebrow at the description given by a deputy of how he found the two dogs pressed up against the foundation of the house whimpering and snapping at anyone who came close. Tranquilizer darts were finally used to sedate the dogs and remove them to the local vet's.

Scully carefully read the autopsy report. The time of death was estimated at between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. based on examination of stomach contents and temperature of the body. The official time of death was judged to have occurred at the moment Jackson's scream had broken off. The medical examiner estimated that death was probably instantaneous though the victim could have lingered for maybe a minute after his windpipe had been severed by the blow. What caught Scully's eye was the doctor's speculation that the blow was caused by a heavy-bladed sword such as a machete, saber or cutlass delivered with enough force and skill to instantly cleave Jackson almost in half.

Mulder caught the twitch in Scully's eyebrow and quickly scanned the report. Despite the seriousness of the case, he couldn't help smiling.

"Wouldn't have guessed that Jackson was the sort of man to engage in a duel in a wet backyard at nine o'clock in the evening, but then you never know about these stolid middle-age men," he teased.

"Difficult to duel when only one person is armed, Mulder. There is no evidence that Jackson was armed or even expecting trouble. Still, maybe a chance to meet Duncan McLeod of the Clan McLeod might brighten up this trip. Makes a nice change from sewer monsters," Scully quipped in an absent-minded tone of voice that barely concealed a chuckle.

Mulder flung up his hands in mock surrender and retreated back to Chief Talbert's report. It felt good to be back to normal. Well as normal as things could be now, he amended sadly.

The second death occurred two nights ago. Samuel "Toby" Culver was found on the sidewalk just outside his office on Main Street at 8:00 p.m., dead from a bullet wound to the chest. There were no witnesses even though the café next door was still open and had several patrons lingering over coffee. The patrons claimed they heard a loud shout at approximately 7:55 p.m. and rushed out to investigate and stumbled over Culver's body.. No one saw anything suspicious.

Culver was a small man, widowed, somewhat frail of health with a tendency towards hypochondria. His doctor said that other than a touch of arthritis and gastritis, Culver was in good health for a man of 73. He owned and operated an Internet cafe/bookstore and lived alone. He was active in the local church, a past president of the local Audubon Society, founding president of the local Internet Society and was serving his seventh consecutive term as chairman of the library board. He was considered a pleasant man, but not a friendly one.

The autopsy report cited the cause of death - gunshot wound inflicting massive trauma to the heart and lungs. The bullet recovered was a musket ball - untraceable.

As Scully read that, she frowned at the page in front of her. Without a word, Mulder reached over and plucked the report out of her hands and read it over to see what the problem was.

"Different," was all he could manage to get out. A sword, now a musket ball. Nice untraceable weapons, but how in the world did someone parade around town carrying a sword and musket without being noticed? This was definitely beginning to look like an X-File, but he didn't have a clue about what or who could be behind it.

"Any bright ideas, Mulder?" Scully asked hopefully. Obviously this was not going to be a simple open and shut case. She didn't see any indications of paranormal activity which was a relief. Chief Talbert had probably heard of Mulder's profiling skills and wanted his opinion on whether there was a pattern here.

"Other than the fact the whoever is doing the killing is rather old-fashioned, no. I'm puzzled about the dogs though. Huskies and chows have never struck me as even knowing how to cower. Something scared them or maybe they were drugged. Did anyone do a blood test on the dogs, Scully?"

Scully rifled rapidly through the various appended reports and shook her head.

"Damn."

"Have you remembered where you met this Chief Talbert? His request to the Columbus FBI office does specifically ask for you, but won't say why. The closest he comes to explaining is the phrase: 'I think this case merits Agent Mulder's unique and verified skills as an investigator.' Quit grinning Mulder. I'm the one who has to live up to your reputation. Apparently the district office neglected to tell him you were not among the living anymore." Scully scowled at Mulder's chuckle.

"Let's see, Columbus is Dickerson's territory. This Talbert must be someone with a lot of influence or just plain stubborn. Dickerson hates to let anyone other than his people into *his* territory. I bet he was hoping Skinner would tell Talbert that the man he wanted was dead and bounce the case back to Dickerson."

"Well it would certainly help matters if you could manage to remember who Talbert is. I thought you had a photographic memory?" Scully shifted through the pile of reports again in hopes of finding some clue as to why the chief of a small rural Ohio town would know and specifically request Mulder to assist in solving these murders.

Mulder spread his hands in apologetic puzzlement and headed over to the computer on Simon's desk. Scully had finally gotten the systems manager to release his files. Burrowing happily among his stored files and directories, Mulder felt more at ease than he had since a little white ball had blasted him into the afterworld nearly 14 days ago.

As he searched for information on Viderson's Gorge, he pondered the name Anson Talbert. Nothing in his files gave any indication that he had worked with the man or even met him. Still, something about the name haunted him. Mulder paused to smile at the imagery. Being dead apparently was no easy cure for a chaotic memory. He wished he could make Scully understand that just because he couldn't forget things didn't mean he couldn't mislay them.

Viderson's Gorge turned out to be a normal rural town with a population of 2,000 reasonably law-abiding souls. The crime rate, aside from the arrest of a major drug ring who thought hiding their operation in a small town was a smart move, was about average though with a significant rise in juvenile crime in the past two years. The town housed five churches, a library, a variety of retail stores, fifteen antiques shops and a restored, functioning grist mill.

"Hey, Scully - remember Home, Pennsylvania? Well I think we just found its twin in Ohio," Mulder offered in a teasing tone of voice.

Scully gave him a steely glare to cover her smile. "Well, Mulder, if we run into any more pigs, I'll let you handle them. I checked, my job description does not include pig-herding," she said with a deceptively innocent smile.

Mulder grinned. He could almost pretend this was a normal day in the X-Files office, if he ignored the fact that he could see the keyboard through his fingers.

Half an hour later Mulder started to shove his chair away from the computer and found himself drifting slowly through the chair to the wall.

"Bright move," he grumbled to himself as he focused on solidifying his body. One of these days he was going to remember to keep at least half of his attention on retaining form and substance when he was using furniture. A quick glance over at Scully told him she had not noticed his lapse of attention. He really was trying not to spook her any more than necessary.

He copied and printed out all the relevant information he could find on Viderson's Gorge for Scully to read. Nothing very remarkable. Nothing to indicate why someone would succumb to an urge to murder their neighbors with antique weapons. With all the antique shops in town, procuring the weapons would be simple. No doubt this Chief Talbert had already made the rounds looking for recent purchases. Mulder wished Scully would hurry up and finish with those reports. He wanted a chance to look them over before Ambercrombie came back.

"Scully?"

"What is it, Mulder?" Scully sounded distracted. Mulder smiled as he recalled her penchant for getting engrossed in reading files. He used to tease her that an elephant could march through the office and she was merely move aside to allow it to pass without missing a word.

"Just wondered when I was going to get a chance to look over the rest of the files. Remember, I can't exactly ask you for them on the plane," Mulder reminded her.

Scully looked blank for a moment then nodded. Sitting like this, exchanging comments over case files, she had forgotten.

"How are you going to get to Viderson's Gorge, Mulder?" she asked suddenly. "I thought you said you couldn't go where you haven't been before?"

"I thought I'd hitch a ride with you. Always wanted to be a stowaway. Actually tried running away once when I was eleven, intent on making it to Boston harbor and stowing away on a tramp steamer." Mulder chuckled as he recalled his childhood fantasy of exotic travels.

"Made it as far as the ferry landing on the island. Didn't even manage to stow away on the damn ferry. The pilot caught me sneaking aboard and called my father. I ate standing up for the next three days. Thus began and ended my career as a stowaway."

Scully smiled at the thought of a young Mulder trying unsuccessfully to steal a ride on a ferry. Apparently his luck had never been good where infiltration was concerned.

"I'll follow you onto the plane and I should be OK."

"Just don't distract the pilot . . . or the stewardesses."

Mulder grinned, but made no promises. It would give Scully something to worry about while flying other than the case or whether the airplane had passed all its safety checks and had a competent pilot.

"Any luck on Chief Talbert?" Scully asked as she handed him the file. Mulder scooted the chair over to her then pushed back and let the chair roll back towards the other desk.

"No. I know I know him, but I can't put my finger . . .."

The sound of the office door opening startled Mulder into invisibility, his words trailing in the air behind him. Horrified, Scully saw the case file folder hanging suspended in mid-air still clutched in Mulder's hands and then begin to fall.

"Mulder!" she hissed as two things happened simultaneously. Ambercrombie walked through the door and the file skidded across the desk to land in a jumbled heap of disordered paper against a large framed photo of a desert scene.

"Oh shit," Mulder swore softly as the file flew across the desk. Frantic that the file was slipping through his fingers he had literally thrown it towards the desk as he faded into thin air. Very cautiously he got up from the chair and wafted over to his perch on the printer table. Scully had a look of stunned disbelief on her face as she looked towards the file then at the empty chair and then at Ambercrombie standing stock-still in the doorway.

"Simon," Scully's voice cracked slightly. "You're back early."

"I had a bag packed for emergencies and traffic was light. Miracle of miracles, no one managed to have an accident in my lane." Simon stared at Scully who was reassembling a neutral expression on her face. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, Simon." Scully tried to think of a way to get Simon out of the office long enough to discretely reassemble the reports and shut off the computer. She didn't like the way Ambercrombie was studiously avoiding looking at his desk. Why didn't he say something? Could it be that he actually hadn't seen or heard anything? Could she be that lucky?

"Did you find anything interesting in the files?" Simon asked curiously as he made his way to his desk. He wasn't surprised to find the files scattered across the desktop. That was the sound of rustling paper he had heard as he entered, but what had caused the creaking sound? His odd sense was going off, telling him that something strange was going on. There was that odd feel again; bone-chilling cold mixed with what he could only describe as a faint electric charge to the air. From the way Scully was acting she knew what was going on, but apparently was not choosing to trust him with it. OK, for now, he promised her silently, but sooner or later you and I are going to have to talk about this.

"No," Scully answered, almost too quickly. Damn it, slow down and calm down before you blow everything, she sternly ordered herself. "Nothing that seems out of the ordinary except the weapons used to kill the men. I'll let you read the file and you tell me what you think."

"Fine with me, I was always rather good at word puzzles," Simon said with a smile as he gathered up the file, put the reports in order and turned off his computer without once indicating that he found any of this strange.

"Shall we go, Scully? I think I should warn you now, I'm paranoid about missing airplanes. I have been known to get to airports two hours early. Why don't we just get started now. If we're early we can grab coffee somewhere and try to map out a plan of action. Sound good?" Simon kept the tone of his voice casual and open. Whatever secret Scully was hiding wasn't going to be forced from her - not if half of what he had heard about her was true. She would either tell him voluntarily or he would find out on his own.

"Sure, fine. You can follow me to my place and start reading those files while I pack." Scully grabbed the report Mulder had printed out and stuffed it into her briefcase before hustling Simon out of the office ahead of her. She turned back to switch off the light and saw a very faint hazy Mulder materializing in front of the file cabinet. She tried to smile at him and gave him a brief wave masked in the sweep of her hand on the light switch. See you at my place, she mouthed and was relieved to see him nod in acknowledgement.

Mulder listened to Scully's and Ambercrombie's footsteps move down the hall and disappear into the elevator. That had been too close. There was no way Ambercrombie could have missed all of that. Suspicion, worry, even a tiny bit of fear warred for dominance and Mulder stood in the middle of a glowing halo of electricity as he fought for control. Ambercrombie would bear watching. For all his innocence, he could still be an unwitting tool of their enemies. For Scully's sake, Mulder wanted Ambercrombie to work out, but he admitted he also didn't want to share.

"I won't let you hurt her. Not this time. Not anymore." Mulder threw the words into the shadows, defying whatever forces protected their enemies. Suddenly feeling rather foolish cursing the empty shadows in his office, Mulder shrugged and faded away. He would keep his suspicions to himself and let Ambercrombie prove or disprove them. Scully wasn't easily fooled and if their enemies thought her helpless and alone, well they would learn the price of their folly. Smiling at the memory of how many times Scully brought him to heel, Mulder let himself drift towards the safe familiar scent of Scully's home.

0=0=0=0=0=0=0

Scully’s Apartment
 

Arriving at Scully's apartment a mere moment after he left the office, Mulder paused to check for the presence of maintenance men before materializing. He had popped in yesterday to find a man busy steam-cleaning the blood stain out of the carpet. Fortunately he appeared behind the unsuspecting worker. He disappeared again before the man could register the sudden drop in temperature or turn around and find a specter standing over him.

Mulder remained fascinated by the ease in which he could travel between places. It had only taken the time it took to visualize Scully's living room for him to travel across Washington to her apartment. As long as he had been to a place during his lifetime, he could travel there. Try as he might, however, he could not go somewhere he had never been, no matter how detailed a description he was given.

"Does that mean we leave a piece of ourselves in every place we've every visited?" Mulder wondered aloud as he paced restlessly.

Being dead had not diminished his restless impatience, he noted with wry resignation. The visual image of the file lying on the seat beside Scully tantalized him, lured him into wondering how Scully would react if he abruptly materialized in the front passenger seat of her car.

Disastrous was the word that sprang to mind. The more he considered the matter, the more he realized that disastrous was probably too mild a term. Scully was adapting remarkably well to his re-appearance. Pulling a stunt like that could shatter her willingness to tolerate the idiosyncrasies of his new existence.

Bored, frustrated and impatient, he roamed the apartment trying to remember why the name of Anson Talbert was familiar. There were several Talberts in his past, but none with the first name of Anson and certainly none likely to end up as chief of police in a small Ohio town.

Irritated with his inability to pin down the name, Mulder's eyes suddenly lit on Scully's computer. Hesitating only for a minute, he went over and booted it up and logged on to her account. The ethics of using Scully's account didn't bother him in the least. Scully might have a few choice words to say to him, but she had asked him to find out why Chief Talbert specifically requested him. He reminded himself of this virtuous excuse as he typed in her password and user name.

Once in, he sent an e-mail to the Lone Gunmen in her name asking them to dig up everything they could find on Chief Anson Talbert and what connection he had with her late partner. While it seemed strange to write about himself in the third person, he wanted an answer, not trigger the guys' paranoia. His friends might believe in every outlandish conspiracy theory out there, but ghosts might be a bit far-fetched, even for them.

Resisting the urge to surf the Net, Mulder dutifully logged off and shut down the computer. Concentrating very intently, he could feel Scully approaching. It felt good. He wasn't sure why he could focus so easily on her, but he had experimented and found that he had an awareness of her that distance did not seem to diminish. Even as far away as the Vinyard, he maintained a spider-like awareness of her moving about on the far edges of his web.

Before long he heard the car pull up. As he heard the key in the lock, he remembered that Ambercrombie was following her. Scully opened the door cautiously, speaking loudly to Ambercrombie who was striding up the walk. Mulder quickly faded from sight. Where to go was the immediate problem. Deciding that Ambercrombie would remain in the living room, Mulder moved directly through the wall into Scully's bedroom. He was learning caution, especially where Scully was concerned.

"I'll only be a few minutes. Make yourself at home," Scully assured Simon as she headed straight for the bedroom.

"That's OK, take your time. This will give me a chance to start on the file," Simon responded cheerfully as he began to spread the file across the coffee table.

Scully was not surprised to see a transparent shadow gradually becoming opaque standing just inside her bedroom door. Perhaps she was getting used to this.

"Remember anything yet?" she whispered as she took out a suitcase and began adding suits and blouses to the basic essentials already packed.

Mulder felt a painful lurch in the general region where his heart used to beat. Each suit represented a memory, a case where their combined skills had coalesced to bring the bad guys to justice. Not always successful and most times barely agreeing on who or what the bad guys were, nevertheless they had made a difference. Being dead seemed to be one long continuous string of good-byes.

"Mulder...?"

"Sorry." Mulder hauled his attention back to Scully and the problem at hand. "I'm working on it." Not a lie. He had promised her honesty, not the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Scully finished packing in silence, a slight frown of concentration on her face as she tried to search her own memory for any reference to Anson Talbert.

"Scully, as far as I know, I have never met the man. The only thing I can come up with it that someone I worked with knows him and recommended me."

Scully considered this possibility. It was the most logical explanation. So why did logic suddenly make her so suspicious? When had paranoia replaced simple obvious logic?

"You've worked with me too long, Scully," Mulder teased. "Just because an explanation is obvious does not make it suspect."

"Scully?" Simon's light baritone filtered in from the living room startling them. "Did anyone run blood work on the dogs?"

"Bright boy." Mulder grinned with reluctant approval even as he turned his head slightly to hide from Scully the longing that darkened his eyes into pools of shadow.

"He'll do," Scully replied coolly. Then, with a quick glance to gauge Mulder's mood, she continued with a straight face. "He's a lot like a new car, Mulder. Runs faster, smoother, looks classy, but the old model was comfortable and its quirks familiar and predictable. I went to a lot of trouble breaking in the old model, I wasn't ready to trade it in."

"Classic or sports?" Mulder asked with deadpan seriousness. His eyes however lightened to a crystal green that sparkled with tiny diamonds of amusement.

"Oh definitely classic - along the lines of a Duesenberg Model J roadster. Fast with a sleek, trim chassy," Scully mused, lost in a daydream that sent a slight flush to her cheeks.

"Always heard they were hard to handle," Mulder responded cautiously, no longer sure where this conversation was going, but sensing dangerous curves ahead.

"Not if you knew what you were doing," Scully replied giving him a totally unreadable stare from eyes that held secrets looming in their clear blue depths.

The sound of the front doorbell shattered the moment. Scully blinked and drew the curtains back over whatever secrets had peered out a moment before.

"I'll get it," Simon yelled.

Alarmed, Mulder looked at Scully. "Have you warned him about answering doors?"

Scully shook her head as she headed for the living room. "Simon, wait a..."

"Shit," Mulder swore as he vanished and translocated to the front door just as Simon opened it to reveal a very young-looking delivery man holding a small bouquet of dark red roses.

"This the Scully residence?" The boy had a voice that would have made a bass tuba proud.

Mulder hovered just behind Simon, too concerned about a possible repeat of Monday's attack to worry about the effect of his aura on either man. Simon might have the edge of training and height, but the boy looked like a linebacker. Despite his suspicions and paranoia, Mulder found the sight of this very large block of a man carrying a bouquet of roses and lilies of the valley incongruous. Mulder wouldn't have been surprised to see him whip out a pistol and start blasting away. He watched the boy in the same way a mongoose studied a cobra. Lacking a solid reason for his suspicions, but consumed by them none-the-less.

"Yes," Simon answered succinctly as he tried to fight an irrational urge to reach behind him and rest a hand on his gun. His sixth sense was gibbering hysterically at him. A wave of numbing cold roiled against his back creating an almost impossible urge to shudder and run. The boy looked bored and completely oblivious to the storm brewing in front of him.

"Sign here," the boy shoved a clipboard into Simon's hands. Catching a sight of Scully striding towards the door, he smiled professionally then whistled very softly under his breath. Mulder swore he could hear the boy hmm suggestively under his breath and forcibly restrained an urge to pick him up by the throat and hurl him back into his van.

Simon scrawled something that might have been a signature if the reader had been feeling especially generous and almost slammed the clipboard into the boy's chest. His nerves were on full battle alert for no reason that he could tell and all he wanted to do was get rid of the boy before he made a fool of himself before his new partner.

"Flowers for the lady," the boy attempted to reach around Simon to hand the bouquet to Scully. Momentarily distracted by the clipboard, Simon tried to intercept at the same time Scully reached out for the bouquet and Mulder went semi-transparent to block the transfer.

Confronted by an apparition that appeared out of thin air and grabbed his wrist with an icy grip, the boy yelped, dropped the flowers and bolted for his van. Startled by Mulder's sudden appearance and the icy menace she felt pouring off of him, Scully stepped back. Completely confused, alarmed and on a hair-trigger reaction, Simon started to spin around to see what on earth spooked the delivery boy and why he suddenly felt the flight or fight urge sideswipe his usual calm assessment of dangerous situations. His eyes caught a misty shadow hovering in the air behind him for just a second before it was gone. He shook his head and wondered if adding that second cheese Danish for breakfast might not have been too much of a good thing. This was turning into a very strange day.

Confronted by several options for action, Mulder opted for disappearing again. Keeping a wary eye on Simon, he knelt down by the bouquet and carefully scanned it for explosive devices or other such surprises. To his slight chagrin, it appeared to be nothing more than a simple bouquet.

"Sorry, Scully," he whispered softly. Her attention was focused on Simon, but he caught the slightly irritated glint in her eyes. No doubt he was going to be in for a lecture. He tried to feel remorse, but the memory of Monday's assault was too vivid. If Scully wanted to blister his ectoplasmic ass off, he'd take it, but he would not promise not to do the same thing again.

"What the...." Simon began shakily.

"Sorry, Simon. Guess I'm still a bit shaky from what happened the other day," Scully said as she reholstered her weapon. No need to tell Simon that the gun had only been drawn in the last two seconds. She was going to have to have a very long talk with Mulder. Not that she didn't understand his paranoia. She did, in fact she was beginning to share it, but appearing like that could have disastrous consequences. He just didn't think things through, she complained silently.

"Sure, I understand," Simon responded politely but not very convincingly. His expression screamed out for an explanation, but Scully avoid his eyes and bent down to retrieve the bouquet.

Scully felt the brush of Mulder's cold fingers linger for just a moment and understood his silent apology. She sighed softly and nodded acceptance. He meant well and was probably anticipating a stern lecture on over-protectiveness. Maybe she'd surprise him and just let the subject drop. He was Mulder after-all. It's just now his tendency to over-protect her had a much broader range of action.

As she carefully shifted the roses and lilies back into some sort of order and went to hunt a vase, she admired the quality of the roses and let the rich heady scent envelop her. Nothing more than a simple gift of flowers, she admonished herself. As she unwrapped the flowers to put them in a vase, she noticed the simple white card.

Check is not checkmate.

A wise man, or lady, knows

the price of the game before

they presume to play.

There was no signature, but Scully thought she could catch the faint stench of cigarette smoke coiling around each word. A loud angry hiss beside her betrayed Mulder's presence and his own suspicions. Could poison be hidden in a smell, she thought briefly before squelching such an insane thought.

"He never sent me flowers," Mulder's words came out of the air beside her, fear barely hidden behind the forced humor.

"Later, Mulder," she whispered back, jerking her head towards the living room in silent warning. "Not now. Not here."

Scully felt two cold fingers rest for a moment on the hand that held the card and sensed Mulder's reluctant acquiescence.

Squaring her shoulders and assuming a neutral expression, Scully carried the vase back into the living room and placed it on the table by the front door. Beautiful flowers to camouflage what she could only accept was a warning from her enemies.

"Secret admirer?" Simon asked in a cautious tone. His nerves were relaxing, but he was still sensing unease, alarm and anger eddying in the air.

"Just a belated sympathy gesture from a . . . a man Mulder had business dealings with."

Simon nodded. This was obviously not the time to push Scully for answers. She managed to say nothing while conveying the fact that he had stepped into deep and treacherous waters. His common sense tried to assure him that Scully was dealing with an overload of grief and the residual effects of the attack on her in this every room earlier this week. His sixth sense however was looking for a convenient rock to hide under. He would have been a lot happier with answers, even answers he probably really didn't want to know about, but he had to believe that Scully would tell him what he needed to know in her own good time. She was too good an agent to leave him hanging out to dry just because she didn't want to talk about something.

Simon watched her return to the bedroom, presumably to finish packing, but more, he suspected, to recover her equilibrium. Restless and still a bit uneasy, Simon paced about the room, trying to piece together what happened and formulate a theory. He had all the pieces, he thought, but nothing fit together. On a crime scene, he would immediately assume that some of the pieces were missing, but he was a witness here and as far as he knew, all the pieces were present. This was like one of those jigsaw puzzles made from a Jackson Pollack painting - all abstract splashes and dabs with no coherent pattern to follow, just dumb luck and a careful matching of size and shape.

Drifting over to the flowers, Simon paused and considered them as one of the stranger pieces to this puzzle. The roses were a deep red, almost black. Funereal in the extreme with an overpowering scent, almost reminiscent of myrrh. The smell brought with it images of death, power and above all a cold indifference to life. Simon shuddered violently and stepped carefully away from the flowers. He regarded them as he would a rattler hidden in the brush. The warning was clear, he just wasn't sure what the warning was or why it was even issued.

"I'm almost ready, Simon. Get the files together and I'll meet you out at the car."

"OK, Scully." Simon was glad to get out of this apartment with its shadows and the looming sense of being watched.

0=0=0=0=0=0=0

During the long drive to the airport, Mulder listened to Scully and Simon review the file. Curled up in the trunk with just his head poking into the back seat, he maintained a bare hazy cohesion - just enough to anchor himself to the car, but not solid enough to be seen and far enough away to blend in with the air conditioning.

Mulder knew he should have just translocated to the airport and waited for Scully to show up. Getting to Dulles would not have been a problem. He knew that airport better than he knew the back of his hand. Riding in the back end of Scully's car was really serving no purpose except to placate the imp of jealousy that had him firmly in its grip. He felt foolish and knew Scully would be disappointed in him. After all his high-minded words about giving Simon a chance and trusting her to need him, Mulder found himself battling an irrational and embarrassing fear that Scully was adjusting too easily to Simon, adapting too well to a new partner. He wanted the faint chill of his presence to remind her that he was still here.

Simon was smart and almost too damn quick to pick up the nuances in the report that had screamed inconsistency to him. Either they had an extremely clever killer on their hands or the police of Viderson's Gorge suddenly became sloppy at certain points only to resume their highly professional investigation without anyone noticing the lapse. Simon was living up to his reputation as one of the best crime scene investigators in the VCU. Ruefully, Mulder realized that as a team, Scully and Simon would probably be able to run rings around any other team in the Bureau on sheer application of scientific logic and deduction.

At least he was spared listening to Simon extrapolate a profile from the reports he was reading. Mulder decided that he could learn to accept Simon beating him out in laying down a solid, scientific foundation for investigation. It would have taxed his powers of restraint and control to the limit if Simon had displayed a hidden talent for profiling from scattered and obscurely related data.

Mulder smiled with guilty relief when Simon began spinning a theory that their perp had either been involved with law enforcement or perhaps taken a few criminal justice courses at the college level. This must be a change for Scully to hear a rational, extremely mundane explanation that forced her to rebut without first having to disabuse her partner of the notion that there was anything paranormal involved. Mulder watched Scully glance over at Simon several times with an expression he could swear was part relieved surprise and part (he hoped) wistful remembrance of his off-the-wall theories.

So far Scully seemed to be keeping her own theories to herself, but Mulder was skilled in observing the minute signs of her thought processes. When he was alive, he was usually too caught up in his own theories, in the excitement that maybe, this time, he would get the proof he needed to show the world he wasn't a crackpot. He acknowledged, now when it was too late, that too often he ignored the signs, stampeding over Scully's reasoned arguments when he should have tempered his arguments at the beginning and worked with her to launch his theories off of her rational science. Maybe he would have been able to garner some of that proof he had been pursuing so hotly.

If he started tabulating lost opportunities he would never get anything done, Mulder scolded himself. Somehow he didn't think that was what Gordon had in mind when he sent him back. Of course, Gordon wasn't exactly forthcoming about what he was supposed to do. Another lost opportunity, Mulder sighed. Then again, being dead was a shock. Still it wasn't everyday he encountered an angel, caretaker or whatever Gordon was, who bluntly told him he wasn't supposed to be dead and calmly informed him that he was going right back as a ghost. Perhaps he could be excused for not pumping Gordon for more details.

As he lay amid the luggage, Mulder began to review the facts he had gleaned from the file reports. There was a pattern to the killings that was making him very uneasy. The little voice that had earned him the nickname of Spooky was whispering to him that the choice of weapons was the key to understanding the murders. Weapons, not chosen to misdirect or conceal, but as essential to the motive behind the murders as the victims themselves.

Preoccupied by reviewing the data and trying to comprehend the pattern his subconscious was detecting, Mulder tuned out the conversation in the front seat, even forgetting for a moment that he was lying in the trunk of the car.

"Scully, I think...." Mulder began as an idea struck him.

Startled by the sound of Mulder's voice behind her, Scully hit the brakes hard, slamming the car almost on its nose as it swerved onto the median strip and screeched to a stop. Simon grabbed for the handlebar over his door with one hand and tried to hold the files together with the other, with marginal success. Papers spewed out of his lap across the floor of the car, carpeting it in photos, reports and print-outs.

"What the hell?" Simon sputtered as Scully wrestled the car as it bucked to a stop. One look at Scully's flustered, angry expression and he decided he could wait for an explanation.

Meanwhile, Mulder found himself about twenty feet in front of the car sailing down the road. Absorbed in his mental gymnastics he had forgotten to maintain his solidity and had flown straight through the front seat, past the engine and out into the air in front of the car before he realized what was happening.

"Damn! Well, that answers one burning question - the laws of physics still apply," he grumbled as he gradually lost momentum and came to a stop. This was not good. He was almost afraid to turn around. The prospect of looking right into a pair of blazing blue eyes was enough to make him shudder. He hadn't meant to startle Scully; he had simply forgotten he was dead in the excitement of coming up with an idea he wanted to bounce off of her. In a moment of inattention, he had reverted to habit. This ghost business was proving to be a lot harder than he thought.

After checking to make sure he was invisible, he reluctantly turned around. Sure enough Scully was staring straight ahead, hands griping the steering wheel so hard he saw her knuckles whiten. She couldn't see him and probably still thought he was somewhere in the car behind her, but Mulder could see her mouth working as she chewed back a string of curses aimed, no doubt, at his head. He watched as Simon reached over and carefully touched her arm. Scully jumped a bit as she came down from a combination adrenaline high and fury. She gave him one of her half-smiles and shook her head before mouthing some reassuring platitude as she edged the car back into traffic. Mulder thought he caught the words small animal and once again realized that Scully was covering for him.

As the car passed him, Mulder saw Simon's expression slowly return to normal even though his breathing appeared to be ragged and shaky. Simon was getting one hell of an introduction. He must also wonder about the sanity of his partner, Mulder thought ruefully. I'm not helping her, he thought as he stood on the side of the road and watched the car disappear into traffic. Letting her drive off without him was painful. He wanted to be the one sitting beside her, pitching outrageous theories like baseballs for her to hit out of the park. Then again, perhaps that particular imagery wasn't particularly apropos, he corrected himself with a dark, grim smile.

"Simon, I hope you know just how damn lucky you are. I wish I could hate you. I want to hate you, but it wouldn't do any good. I'm dead and no amount of hate is going to change that or give me another chance to be a better partner." Mulder wrestled with his anger. There was so much to get used to, so much he missed and desperately wanted back. Jealousy swirled in black eddies amid the growing spiral of electrical energy forming around him. Frightened by the immensity of his own fear and anger, Mulder fled into the ether. There, merely thought floating in a gray, formless cloud, he gathered up the shards of his anger and slowly regained control.

Time had no meaning in the gray place, but Mulder sensed the thread binding him to Scully lengthening. With a single thought he launched himself towards the lodestone of his universe. There was still time to reach her before she left the airport. He let her spirit draw him to her until he saw her standing alone by the waiting room window staring out at the arriving plane. Simon was walking down the concourse towards the coffee bar. Mulder wondered if Scully had sent him off on an errand to give him a chance to announce his presence.

Mulder gave a soft whistle, followed by a feather-touch on the small of her back to let her know he was there.

"I'm sorry," he whispered softly just for her ears alone. "I forgot."

Without saying a word, Scully let a sad smile form and gave a slight nod of her head to acknowledge his apology. Her eyes did not give away her inner feelings. Mulder felt a slight chill and suspected that she was waging her own internal war.

"Later," she breathed, not even loud enough to be called a whisper.

"Later," he acknowledged as he withdrew. She was asking for space, the least he could do was give it to her. Besides, Simon was on the way back. No need to further convince him that his partner was as spooky as her former partner.

Mulder slipped aboard the plane and managed to find a seat in the rear of the near empty flight. For once he had no trouble stretching out his legs across an entire bank of seats. He left Scully and Simon to themselves in the front of the plane and occupied himself by watching the earth pass by underneath while concentrating enough to stay with the plane. He deliberately refrained from listening in to the conversation between Simon and Scully.

Time to earn his keep and try to reconstruct the idea that surfaced briefly in the car. Scully needed a profiler, not a ghost who couldn't manage to remember that he was a ghost. With a small sigh of regret for the taste and feel of the sunflower seeds that once helped him to think, Mulder began reviewing the files from memory. If the idea had come to him once, it would come again, he just had to coax it out of hiding.

0=0=0=0=0=0=0

Columbus, Ohio
 

By the time the plane landed in Columbus, Mulder was well on his way to being bored. What ever stunning revelation had struck him in the car had slithered back into hiding. A photographic memory was all well and good, but he needed to review the actual file; to pry out of its reports and photos the secrets they hid. He missed the stimulation of running into the brick wall of Scully's scientific rationalism. Now that he was 'out there' so to speak, the argument had lost some of its flavor. He was beginning to realize what else was out here with him and frankly the possibilities scared the hell out him.

Scully and Simon exited the plane deep in an animated discussion. Squelching a vicious surge of jealousy, Mulder hung back and followed them at a safe distance. Scully's eyes were flashing blue sparks as she defended a theory or poked holes in some idea Simon was offering - Mulder was too far away to tell. Still, in spite of his simmering jealousy, he smiled to see Scully come alive again, in her element and confidently aware of her skills.

"Simon, there are a dozen better ways to commit an untraceable murder without resorting to using antique weapons. If the perp is a student of criminology as you maintain, he should be well aware of those ways. Why choose weapons that are clumsy at best and difficult to use?"

Scully zeroed in on the weakest point in Simon's argument with a zest she had not expected to ever feel again. It felt strange to argue about a case without fielding outrageous suggestions involving poltergeists, planetary alignments or aliens. She kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and felt slightly adrift when it didn't. She had not realized how much she actually enjoyed arguing science versus Mulder's paranormal enthusiasms.

Listening to Simon attempt to rationalize the use of antique weapons with only half an ear, Scully tried to sense if Mulder was around. Since that brief exchange in the Dulles airport, she had not felt him near. Apparently he was keeping well away to avoid any future accidents. She appreciated the effort, but rather missed the slight chill in the air that told her he was close by.

Now that her nerves had settled down, she realized how unfair her reaction was. Mulder had repeatedly pointed out that this entire situation was confusing to him - he was here yet he wasn't. Maybe it would have been a good idea to have taken some time off to simply get used to interacting with Mulder's ghost.

Scully shuddered at the manifestly unscientific admission that Mulder was a ghost, but if science had taught her one thing above all else, when the evidence points to a theory despite all prior scientific laws to the contrary, then that theory is likely valid. She had seen Mulder die, read the autopsy reports and watched as his coffin was lowered into the ground. The evidence of his death was incontrovertible. So far so good. Unfortunately, Mulder was a living, well rather existing, contradiction of established law.

"Scully?" Simon probed his partner's inattention cautiously.

Scully came back to the present with a start. Later, she reprimanded herself. Time enough to debate the scientific basis for Mulder's existence when she was alone.

"Sorry, Simon. Just thinking," she tried to assure her new partner without telling him that she was trying to reconcile the continued presence of her deceased partner with her science.

"Well, I was just about to point out that we seem to have company, but he's already here," Simon whispered hurriedly as he stepped slightly in front of her to confront the man who was blocking their way, giving her time to collect her thoughts.

"Agents Scully and Ambercrombie, I presume," the man said in a cold tone that held a tinge of distaste. He was a beefy man with a thick thatch of grizzled hair glistening with the mousse that shaped it into a bouffant wave that almost, but not quite, covered the emerging bald spot on the back of his head.

Simon nodded curtly, his hackles rising as he realized that the courtesy of a simple handshake had not been offered.

"And you would be....?" Scully replied in a tone cold enough to freeze hell, but overtly very polite.

"I am deputy director Dickerson, agent in charge of the Columbus office. I don't know what Talbert thinks he's getting in you two, but the sooner both of you just tell him his blasted oracle Spooky is dead, the sooner my people can start dealing with this case. Do I make myself perfectly clear?"

Scully absently noted that Simon's nostrils were flaring like a bull's and his left hand was clenching in a most unprofessional way. She felt her own temper rise with a flush of heat that no doubt was tingeing her cheeks red. Then, knowing exactly the effect it would cause, she relaxed and gave Dickerson a cold smile.

"Absolutely. No doubt Assistant Director Skinner just overlooked consulting you about our assignment. But, since we're already here, I think we'll just drive down to Viderson's Gorge and take a look at this case," Scully said in a pleasant voice that dripped with professionalism.

Dickerson was turning a very unpleasant shade of mauve by the time Mulder edged close enough to hear what was going on. Hearing that particular tone in Scully's voice sent chills down his spine and a sly smile to his lips. He never liked Dickerson. As he listened to Scully dissect Dickerson's ego, he entertained a number of diverting ways to make Dickerson's life miserable.

Staying far enough away from her to keep Simon from detecting his presence Mulder gave a soft reassuring whistle. The sudden light in Scully's eyes warmed his soul. She had missed him. No matter how angry she might be at his failings, that single fact gave him hope that somehow they could reconstruct their partnership.

"Don't let the fact that Agent Mulder bought himself some high-level protection persuade you that you have the same protection, Agent Scully," Dickerson snapped as he abruptly turned on his heel and stomped away.

"This the usual sort of reception you and Agent Mulder received, Scully?" Simon asked curiously. He was rather proud that he had hung onto his temper. The entire time Dickerson had been talking, Simon kept visualizing the effect of his fist on the man's noble Roman nose.

"Not usually so up-front, but the attitude is not unusual," Scully replied with a tight smile.

"You mean to tell me that the X-Files are not my ticket to the top of the ladder?" Simon asked with a mocking smile.

Scully shook her head and tried to loosen up her smile in appreciation for Simon's effort to lighten the mood. In a voice almost too soft for Simon to hear she whispered, "But they can be more rewarding than your wildest dreams."

Scully did smile now, letting the memory of her journey into Mulder's world of shadows and monsters flow up out of the tightly sealed room in her mind where she kept all her most precious memories. The X-Files had brought her headaches, loss and more enemies than she could keep track of, but they had also brought her challenges beyond her wildest dreams and, most of all, they had given her Mulder, who was perhaps the biggest headache of them all, but also the most treasured.

Simon held his silence, sensing that Scully would not have heard any answer he gave. If she was letting herself remember, perhaps she was beginning to heal. He was no psychologist, but he was intimate with the stages of grief. Scully was too strong and too intelligent to dwell in the past, but the past had to be accepted before the future was possible. Another one of his grandmother's favorite lectures, Simon reflected with pensive humor.

And how, Granma, do I reconcile my past into a hope for the future? What price does a man's life bring these days?, he whispered to himself.

"Excuse me!" a loud irritated voice boomed out from behind them.

Simon started guiltily as he realized they were standing stock still in the middle of the concourse. He nodded at the fuming businessman and stepped aside to allow him and his baggage cart to pass. Scully also shook off her introspective mood with more than a little irritation at her lapse of control.

"Come on, Simon. Let's get our bags and the car. We have about a two-hour drive to Viderson's Gorge," Scully said crisply as she took off down the concourse.

Simon did a half skip to catch up to her and started to open his mouth to volunteer to drive when Scully continued matter-of-factly.

"I'll drive. You keep studying the files. The answer is in there, somewhere. We just have to find it."

With a resigned sigh for his slightly queasy stomach, Simon nodded agreement and popped another Dramamine chiclets into his mouth. It was going to be a long partnership if she never let him drive. He made a mental note to discuss this with her when they had gotten a bit more used to each other.

Mulder gave them a good head-start before drifting after them. Dickerson was proving to be more of an asshole than he had remembered. Power was not improving the man's already extreme sense of self-worth. So far, it appeared that Dickerson was willing to give Scully a chance to fall on her face. Mulder estimated that Dickerson's patience would probably last two maybe three days before he would start trying to horn his way into the investigation. It must be driving him wild trying to figure out why Chief Talbert wanted Spooky Mulder on the case over any of his well-trained agents.

Mulder grinned wickedly. He could just imagine how wild it would make Dickerson to know that Spooky Mulder was on the case. Dickerson was going to find himself writing some rather 'spooky' reports if he tried barging in on Scully's investigation, Mulder vowed. What Scully didn't know about, she couldn't call him on. As he recalled, he promised to be honest, he didn't promise to volunteer truths not asked for. Scully deserved a chance to shine on her own considerable merits. If he had to run interference he couldn't imagine a more deserving person than Dickerson to interfere with.

 

On the Road to Viderson's Gorge
 

Perched in the back seat of the rented Saturn sedan, Mulder was concentrating on remaining cohesive enough to stay in the car while trying to see if he could control the cold aura that betrayed his presence. At the cost of driving Simon nearly nuts trying to adjust the air conditioner, several resigned looks directed into the rearview mirror from Scully, and at least two times when he floated free of the car, Mulder thought he was finally getting the hang of the problem. The less cohesive he was, the less influence he had on the surrounding air. It was a delicate balance to maintain and required extreme concentration, but he was willing to exert the concentration required if it meant he could sit inside the car like a normal living person instead of curled up in the trunk like an extra piece of luggage. Now he could eavesdrop in comfort.

Keeping a wary eye on the backseat, hoping whatever Mulder was up to did not involve a sudden appearance, Scully tried to distract Simon from his incessant fiddling with the air control buttons. Simon seemed restless, almost fidgety, rifling through the files, seemingly unable to concentrate for more than a minute or two on any one folder. At first she had put his unease down to Mulder's rather erratic antics in the back seat, but she hadn't felt a single blast of cold air for the last thirty minutes and Simon was still unable to remain still.

"Still holding to your belief our perp is an amateur cop?" she asked pleasantly.

"Not sure what I believe anymore," Simon sighed. He fought another battle with his queasy stomach as Scully took a curve a good ten miles over the recommended speed. The Saturn held the road perfectly, but Simon felt the meager contents of his stomach careen sloppily from side to side until they hit the straight-away again. Unfortunately, another curve greeted them almost immediately and Simon felt his outraged stomach begin to make a serious protest. He couldn't even read to take his mind off his queasy stomach since reading only intensified the problem so he was reduced to watching the scenery. At least the blasted air conditioner had finally settled down to a steady stream of cool air instead of the periodic eruptions of cold air that had cursed the first hour of their trip.

"Simon, are you alright?" Scully asked as she noted the slight greenish tinge to Simon's normal lightly tanned complexion. As she recalled, Simon had turned down the airline's lunch offering, though she gave it no thought at the time since she also decided that a cardboard ham and cheese sandwich still cold in the middle from the freezer didn't appeal to her.

"I'm fine, Scully," Simon managed to reply in a more-or-less convincing tone.

Scully raised one eyebrow and started to politely tell her new partner to stow the crap when she heard a muffled laugh from the back seat. A quick glance, first at Simon who remained oblivious to the sound and then in the rearview mirror, showed a comfortably vacant backseat so at least Mulder was keeping himself safely invisible, if not completely silent.

"Touche , Scully," Mulder chuckled, "I think you have met your match in the 'I'm fine' department."

Poised on the brink of a retort followed by a quelling glare, Scully suddenly saw the humor in the situation and gave a soft chuckle. As the new agent on the block four years ago, she would rather have died than confess to not feeling up to tackling her weight in grizzlies. Of course she wasn't counting on strange marks appearing on her back, but that momentary break in her stoic demeanor had meant all the difference in her partnership. Somehow, hopefully without running into evidence of purported alien abductions, she had to convince Simon that he could trust her.

It occurred to her that perhaps she could learn something about trust and exposing her occasional lapses in good health in the process. Guess I always felt I had something to prove to you, Mulder, she thought sadly. You always expected me to keep up with you and never gave a thought to the chauvinistic idea that a woman couldn't keep up with a man. You were ... are the most unchauvenistic man I ever met and I guess I just didn't want to risk introducing you to the idea that I might need some slack once in awhile.

"Really, Scully, I'll be alright. I . . . I just . . . I'm fine," Simon finished lamely. Good job, Simon, he thought, convince your partner that you're a basket case on road trips. I'm just amazed Ansler's story of having to stop the car every ten minutes coming down off the Skyline Drive never reached the basement. It was on his top ten stories of 'Why I Hate Rookies' hit parade for nearly a month. Naturally he never thought to mention that he was taking that damn twisting road at a godawful forty-five miles-per-hour when every damn speed sign clearly said twenty-five miles-per-hour max.

Just remembering that road and his losing battle with motion-sickness gave his stomach that extra bit of incentive to rebel in force. Willpower battled nausea as Simon fought to curb his urge to yell for Scully to stop the car.

In the back seat Mulder sensed an abrupt change in, for lack of a better word, the aura surrounding Simon. He was no expert, but the rather sickly green tinge to the halo of faint electrical energy outlining Simon's body was not a good sign.

"Uh, Scully? I think you better stop the car . . . now," Mulder said with rising anxiety. His sensitive hearing was picking up the first faint sounds of a stomach determined to purge itself. "Now," he almost shouted as he leaned forward making a deliberate effort to throw the chill of his presence against Simon hoping to distract him.

Reacting automatically to the note of urgency in Mulder's voice, Scully smoothly pulled the car over to the side of the road and came to a rolling stop. Almost before the car had come to a complete stop, Simon was leaning out the door taking in great shuddering gulps of air. Doctor-mode kicking in, Scully leaned across the seat to support Simon as he regained control of his now motionless insides.

"Shit," Mulder muttered in relief. Poor Simon. Not a hell of a way to impress a new partner. Despite his uncertainty about Simon and his motives, Mulder couldn't help but feel sorry for the man. He remembered Scully's defiant 'I'm fine' responses throughout their partnership every time he allowed himself to openly express his concern. Simon was shaping up to be as stubborn as Scully. Should be an interesting experience for Scully, he thought as he watched Simon win the battle with his stomach. I knew better than to tell her I was 'fine' since I was usually stretched out in a hospital bed when she got around to asking the question.

"Simon?"

"I'm fine," Simon responded feeling highly embarrassed. This was not how it was supposed to happen. He shoved himself out of the car and began slowly walking around, taking care to breathe evenly and deeply without hyper-ventilating. Fainting would be the last straw, he grumbled to himself.

Scully sighed in mild exasperation for male pride and just a little for heaven's tendency to indulge in payback. If she read the signs right, her new partner had a fairly strong case of motion sickness. That was probably non-prescription Dramamine gum he had been chewing all day. She would have to see about getting him a stronger dose for road trips involving country roads.

"Thanks, Mulder," she whispered. A cool brush of fingers along her cheek told her he was near.

"No problem. Simon will work out. I should have guessed he had a problem. He didn't strike me as the gum-chewing type. You can live with motion sickness, Scully. It just helps to drive."

A sudden thought struck Scully and she twisted slightly in the seat to stare into the back seat. As expected she didn't see anything, with Simon pacing around outside the car, Mulder would have been a fool to coalesce even to a hazy shadow.

"You? That's why you never let me drive?"

Scully felt the fingers stop for a moment and then felt a light tap against her forehead.

"Got it in one, partner. And I bet you thought I was just being selfish all those years?" Mulder chuckled as a verbal expression of his grin. "You aren't the only one with a stiff-assed pride, Scully. I had enough trouble with the nickname Spooky. I wasn't about to try for Pukey or whatever else the guys in VC might come up with."

"How did you get away with it when you were in ISU?" Scully asked curiously.

"You've seen me profile, Scully. I could have stripped down and danced naked on Patterson's desk and the VC boys would simply have chalked up another aberration to Spooky's golden profiling skills."

"You bastard. You let me think that you were a selfish SOB just so you could protect your manly pride?" Scully wasn't sure whether to be irritated or burst out laughing.

"Yeah, well, do the words 'I'm fine' ring a bell," Mulder retorted, smiling through the words. His fingers rested against Scully's face drawing warmth from her spirit.

"Mulder . . . " she started when she caught sight of Simon trudging forlornly to the car. He resembled a dejected puppy - a very large and potentially ferocious puppy, but still a puppy. She felt Mulder's hand withdraw and raised a hand to the spot where his fingers had rested to hold the cold of his touch on her face for a moment more.

"Simon, why don't you drive the rest of the way. It will give me a chance to study the autopsy reports again." Scully got out of the car and moved around to the passenger side.

Simon looked doubtful for a moment then gave her a long intense stare as if searching for any glimmer of pity. Finding nothing except Scully's calm expression, he shrugged his shoulders and slipped into the driver's seat, nearly breaking both legs against the steering wheel before he got the seat moved back. Mulder hastily slid over behind Scully before his legs shot through Simon's body as the seat hurtled backwards.

As Simon started the car, he shot a surreptitious look of gratitude at Scully who was sorting through the reports with obvious preoccupation. Feeling much better behind the wheel, Simon faced the prospect of another hour on a scenic country road with something akin to enthusiasm.

Careful to remain focused on the reports to give Simon a chance to retrieve his battered pride, Scully felt a passing brush of Mulder's hand on her shoulder. "Well done, partner." Mulder whispered from behind her. Smiling to herself, Scully plunged into autopsy reports and only mildly regretted handing over the wheel. It should be Mulder at the wheel, but somehow, here in her usual spot, she felt at home, even a bit at peace with what she had lost.

0=0=0=0=0=0=0

Viderson's Gorge, Ohio
 

Twilight was full upon them by the time they reached the outskirts of Viderson's Gorge. Scattered farms abruptly gave way to weathered clapboard houses lining the main street. Antique rusted farm implements dotted the lawns serving as silent advertisements for such establishments as "Treasure Trove Antiques" or "Grandma’s Attic".

"I wish my Granma had stuff like that stored in her attic," Simon commented with a rueful grin.

"What no Chippendale furniture?" Scully retorted. Her eyes ached from trying to make sense of the crime reports. Two men were dead, by obvious means, yet there seemed to be no motive and worst of all, no pattern to the deaths. She had this looming sense of dread that Mulder’s particular talents were going to be very necessary and very difficult to explain when presented in her report.

"How about forty years of the Grainville Howler stacked haphazardly in piles along with forty years of recipe clippings from every newspaper and magazine published within two hundred miles of her home?" Simon replied with a huge sigh. It had taken him a week to clear out the accumulated papers. He counted it as a minor miracle that the entire mess hadn’t spontaneously combusted years ago.

"Bit of a pack-rat?" Scully asked curiously. She knew she was trying to avoid thinking any more about the case until she had more to work with. So far she had too few clues to form any theory. Usually with Mulder it was a case of too many clues to shift through to find the ones that really counted.

"It’s a family curse. I am absolutely convinced that as soon as I throw a piece of paper away, I will discover that it is essential to whatever it is I’m working on at the moment. My mother has fifty years of National Geographics neatly stacked in her attic. It’s a wonder the ceiling hasn’t caved in."

Scully chuckled and busied herself putting all the files back in the right folders. Her back was beginning to warm up again after feeling Mulder leaning over the car seat reading over her shoulder for the past hour. She was going to have to remember to start bringing a sweater along on these rides. Still, it kept Mulder occupied and his occasional whispered comment sorted out some of her thoughts about the case. Even Mulder wasn’t coming up with any snap solutions, but he seemed to be burrowing after an elusive idea.

The main center of town looked like any other normal mid-western town, full of feed and seed shops, a hardware store, two auto repair shops, a couple of restaurants and a brick courthouse surrounded on both sides by modern-looking two-story offices clearly marked as police and city hall offices. Large oak trees shaded the park in front of the courthouse. A low brick building under construction opposite the courthouse bore the sign – The New Home of Viderson’s Gorge Public Library. A bank building occupied the third side of the square around the park. Further down the street from the square, a couple of church steeples peeped over the tree-line.

Simon pulled the car into a parking spot in front of the police station. He got out, stretching the kinks out of his back, and studied the area. Everything looked normal. There was no sign that the recent murders had alarmed or frightened the community. His eyes drifted over to the spot in front of the Widow’s Tea Room where Samuel Culver had been killed. There was plenty of light, unless one of the street-lights was out. Someone had to have seen something.

Mulder gave Scully a long head start before exiting the car. He was torn between wanting to check out the murder sites and beating them to the police station to check out this mysterious Anson Talbert who claimed to know him. Paranoia won and Mulder drifted past Simon and Scully in a close approximation of a dead run for him.

The police station was quiet. Mulder counted seven cubicles arranged around the room, their walls low enough that a standing man could see over them, but high enough to give each occupant a semblance of privacy. A high counter closed off the room from the front. A young serious-looking man was diligently typing something into a very up-to-date computer. Beyond the open office area, Mulder saw two heavy-paneled doors. One had a sliding bolt and two locks. Just on a guess, Mulder decided that probably led to the local jail. The other door had a small name plate affixed to it that read simply, Chief of Police.

"OK, Mister Chief of Police Anson Talbert, let’s see who you are," Mulder muttered as he headed to and through the door. As he passed into the office, he heard the front door open and Scully’s voice announcing their arrival.

Chief Talbert’s office was a surprise. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases lined the walls. A large oak desk sat in front of a large bay window, a tall man sat at an auxiliary desk scanning files on a computer, muttering to himself. There was something familiar about the man that Mulder just could not place. A knock on the door caused the man to look up. Mulder grinned as he finally realized who Anson Talbert was.

"Yes?"

"FBI, here to see you, sir," a young voice answered as the door opened. Mulder felt Scully approach and moved quickly over to one side.

Chief Talbert rose and walked around his desk to greet his visitors. He looked older than Mulder remembered him, but then he supposed he would have looked just as much older to Talbert; college was a long time ago in a land far away.

"Good afternoon, Agents Scully and Ambercrombie. Thank you for coming so quickly." Talbert’s kept his heavy baritone muted but it still sang in an orator’s pitch.

"Chief Talbert?" Scully began. This was not who she was expecting. Talbert couldn’t be much older than Mulder. He had a broad open face with muddy blue eyes and a lean limber look of a runner.

"You’ve got him," Talbert acknowledged with a smile as he shook Scully’s hand, then Simon’s in a firm welcoming grip. Formalities over, he gestured them to a pair of comfortable chairs and took his place in the third chair on this side of his desk.

Mulder noted the gesture. Apparently Talbert retained his cavalier attitude towards formality. Mulder could sense Talbert exerting his particular talent for setting people at ease. Simon was visibly relaxing and even Scully seemed to be allowing her cool professional demeanor to ease off a bit.

"Before we get started, I would like to extend my condolences, Agent Scully on the death of your partner. Fox Mulder was a close friend when I needed one the most. This is the kind of case I think where I think his special talents would have saved us time and possibly more lives," Talbert said then stopped and shook his head. "Sorry, I didn’t quite mean that to sound as if I doubt your abilities, Agent Scully. It’s just that I don’t think we’re dealing with a normal case of murder here."

"I understand, Chief Talbert. I worked with him for four years. No offense taken. He is sorely missed," Scully replied trying to tread carefully between truth and half-truths, aware that Mulder was in the room somewhere eavesdropping.

"Well, then now that I’ve stopped putting my foot into my mouth, what do you need from me?" Talbert smiled and Scully felt an answering smile rise up. Something about Talbert’s smile was infectious. Scully tried to feel uneasy about the relaxed camaraderie Talbert was infusing between the three of them.

"It’s OK, Scully. Tonto here has a natural tendency to charm anything that walks, crawls or flies. He’s harmless, well, mostly harmless," Mulder assured her with a laughing lilt to his voice.

"Tonto?" Scully queried. She realized that she must have spoken aloud. Chief Talbert had paused and was looking at her while Simon was glancing around the room with a decidedly puzzled expression on his face. This was not good. She either had to tell Mulder not to speak to her at all when other people were present or she was going to have to learn to think on two levels at once.

"I see Mulder mentioned me," Talbert said with a rueful grin.

Scully nodded with what she hoped was a knowing expression. Not for the first time, she wished ghosts were telepathic. Rapidly putting two and two together, Scully guessed that Chief Talbert and Mulder had been friends, probably a very long time ago if the acquaintance had totally slipped Mulder’s mind.

"I had hoped to surprise him," Talbert admitted as he stared up at a group portrait hanging on his wall. He fell silent as his expression grew distant. Scully suspected he was lost in memories of a time and a Mulder she could only guess at; a time before her partner had become consumed by his quest. What would that Mulder have been like? She suspected she had caught a glimpse of him during the ballgame, just before he died – laughing for the sake of laughing, reveling in the competition, confident in his skills. The silence drew her in and held her in the grip of memory.

Mulder felt the emotional charge in the room suffocating him. Too much grief, building up with nowhere to go. He felt like a fly trapped in congealing amber. Talbert was leaking emotional pain, part grief, a very large part anger at the unknown killer stalking his people, but most of all a sense of loss.

"OK, Scully. It’s getting rather deep in here." Damn it, he had forgotten Talbert’s little habit of infecting everyone around him when he forgot to shield himself. Mulder winced at the New Age crappy vocabulary, but he never really came up with a better way to describe how Talbert could shunt off his emotions, much less how he could affect everyone around him when he forgot to close them off.

Mulder went over to Scully, careful to avoid coming too close to Talbert. Kneeling beside her, he took her hand and deliberately let her have the full force of his cold touch. Scully shuddered spasmodically. Mulder felt the thick gooey atmosphere of the room shatter as Talbert jerked back to himself and regained control. Mulder almost felt the click as Talbert slammed the gate on his emotions.

"Sorry, Scully. You’re here to solve two murders, not to hold a wake for me. Catch the killer and, if Talbert is the same man I remember, you’ll get a chance to throw a real old-fashioned wake with all the trimmings."

Still, shivering, Scully managed a discrete nod. She looked up to see Simon giving the room a careful scan. It was becoming rather obvious that Simon could somehow sense Mulder’s presence without knowing what it was he was sensing. This could be a problem, but not one she wanted to deal with right now. Mulder was right. They had two dead men and a killer on the loose with every expectation that he or she would kill again.

"Agents Scully, Ambercrombie, my apologies. Fox Mulder was a very good friend, but he would be the first to remind me that we have a killer on our hands," Talbert apologized.

"Do you have any leads not contained in the reports? Any ideas, even hunches as to the reason behind the killings?" Simon asked, hoping to relieve some of the uncomfortable silence.

"Motives aplenty for each man alone, but none that I can see that link them. Tom Jackson could be a hard man when he put his mind to it. Didn’t take well to opposition and he usually had a fair amount of it. He liked to think of himself as a visionary. He had a sharp tongue and the wits to flay a man alive with it should he put his mind to it. He had plenty of enemies, but not one of them likely to take up a sword and cleave him in half." Talbert looked exasperated, as if he had gone over and over the list of enemies and the method of death until there was nothing but an endless circle without beginning or end.

"How about Culver?" Scully asked. "He was shot, apparently with a musket. That doesn’t take a great deal of strength."

"Have you ever tried firing an old musket, Agent Scully. It can kick harder than a jackhammer and is about as accurate as a drunk on a straight line. The killer had to know how to load the musket, somehow manage to conceal it until the last moment and then, on a crowded street, fire, tear a great blooming hole in Toby’s chest from a distance of more than ten feet, and then disappear all in the space of two minutes."

"Why ten feet?" Simon asked. He almost heard Scully smile beside him and sighed. "Sorry, of course, no powder burns on the clothing."

"What’s worse, no powder burns or flash-marks anywhere." Talbert actually smiled at the way Scully’s eyebrows shot up. He noticed that it took Simon a moment or two, but he wasn’t far behind her in understanding the significance. Mulder must have been very proud of his partner. She caught on faster than his entire force.

"Muskets throw out a lot of powder. There should have been powder residue at the place where he stood. I had my men go over the entire block foot by foot and there simply was no powder residue anywhere to be found." Talbert surged up out of the chair and walked over to his desk. Simon watched the muscles tighten in his neck and wondered if the man was about to break something.

"Damn it, I have two impossible murders committed with two antique impossible-to-trace weapons and a god-awful feeling that the killer isn’t done yet. I need your help Agent Scully, Agent Ambercrombie. I needed Mulder’s ability to look inside the killer’s mind and tell me how to catch the bastard before he kills again." Talbert said in a voice straining with anger and weariness as he stared out the window at the early evening shadows creeping over the park.

"Tonto, I’m here. I wish I could let you know that, but it’s too dangerous, for you, for Scully. Of all people, I think you would understand. Scully’s good. On hard evidence, better than I ever was. We’ll catch your killer. One way or the other, I promise," Mulder vowed as he forced himself not to reach out to comfort his friend. This time he made sure Scully could not hear him. His words fell into the silent chasm between the living and the dead.

"Well, I don’t have Agent Mulder’s insights, but I did a lot of crime scene investigations when I was in the Violent Crimes division. I can go over the crime scenes again. Maybe fresh eyes . . . " Simon hesitated, not wanting to imply he thought Talbert’s men weren’t competent.

"I’d appreciate that, Agent Ambercrombie. My men are good, but we’re more used to dealing with the occasional burglary, domestic violence, even drug traffic, but there hasn’t been a murder in this town for nearly twenty years."

Talbert turned and noticed Simon’s hesitant expression.

"Agents, don’t hesitate to suggest any course of action. I wouldn’t have called you in unless I was willing to take any and all suggestions. Mulder wasn’t exactly known for coming up with normal solutions to cases. So you can guess how far out into left field I’m willing to go," Talbert assured them with a smile.

"Fine then. I assume that the body of Thomas Jackson has already been released for burial?" Scully asked.

"In fact, no. The widow is not at all happy with me, but the local judge sees the wisdom in keeping all of the evidence available for the experts, that’s you two by the way. Both Jackson and Culver are occupying space in the freezer in the funeral home. They await your convenience."

Scully looked surprised and gave Talbert an approving nod of her head. She decided she could get to like this man. With a slight sigh she got up, prepared to head over to the funeral home and plunge into autopsies.

"Agents, it is almost supper time. You have both had a long day. Jackson and Culver aren’t going anywhere. Get some supper, I’d recommend Sally’s Kitchen if you want plain well-cooked food. If you fancy something a bit more elaborate, and expensive, the

Grist Mill Tavern has the best ribs and steaks in the entire county. Katie Millins has set aside two rooms for you. She runs our bed and breakfast inn. It’s clean and a hell of a lot closer than the nearest motel which is in Sanderson, about forty miles away. She’s expecting you."

The thought of a decent meal followed by a chance to talk with Mulder alone was an overwhelming temptation. Simon had perked up when food was mentioned and she remembered that he probably had not eaten since breakfast. Duty warred with a simple desire to eat, rest and get a fresh start in the morning.

"Go ahead, Scully. Have a leisurely dinner and then relax. I’ll scout around and see if I can pick up anything. Just call me when you’re ready, I’ll come tuck you in," Mulder added mischievously. Scully maintained her poise, but Mulder caught an answering glint of amusement in her eyes. She was getting better at this, he thought with pride.

"As much as I would like to," Scully nearly chuckled when Simon’s expression turned forlorn, "get started on the autopsies, I think getting a good night’s rest might be best. Simon?"

Simon almost sighed with relief as he hastily nodded. His stomach had begun reminding him that breakfast had been a very, very long time ago. He was also tired. He had been too keyed up last night to sleep more than an hour or two. Now he wanted nothing more than to eat something and collapse into bed. Right now he doubted if he could make sense of a Nancy Drew mystery, much less a real life crime scene.

"Good. Sally’s OK?"

Both agents nodded. Scully was too tired to appreciate expensive food. As long as it was fresh and didn’t fight back, she was ready to eat anything.

"I’ll phone over to Sally and let her know you’re on your way. I’ll also stop by on my rounds and tell Katie you’ll be showing up after dinner." Talbert escorted them to the door.

"Agents, thank you for coming. Tomorrow morning I’ll introduce you to my deputies. Anything you need, just ask."

He watched as the two FBI agents walked out of the office. They were his best hope. It was too soon to trust them entirely, but if Agent Scully had worked with Mulder for four years, then surely she was prepared for extreme possibilities. The other agent was an unknown.

"Mulder, you just had to get yourself killed just when I needed you. You realize of course you still owe me for diverting the warden." Talbert returned to his office, immersed in pleasant memories of a midnight race across the college commons with the warden and his deputies in hot pursuit of a pair of young rascals.

"I haven’t forgotten. You might just be surprised, Tonto. If you’re real good, I might just forget about that deck of marked cards you used on more than one occasion to milk me out of my quarterly allowance," Mulder muttered with a sly smile as he drifted out in Scully’s wake. Who would have thought that Tonto would turn up on a small town in Ohio as chief of police – master criminal maybe – policeman -- not in his wildest imagination.

 

Go to Part 2

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