TITLE: Blood On The Snow

SERIES: This House is Burning

AUTHOR: Tesla 

RATING: R

ARCHIVE: Let me know so I can dote

SPOILERS: none, but this takes place early in the canon

KEYWORD: Casefile, MSR

DISCLAIMERS: Ten Thirteen and Fox and Chris Carter and so forth

THANKS: Many thanks to MaybeAmanda for her patient beta; to Sybils for the semi-constant poking, and AnnaX for the same. Special thanks to first season Mulder for being so pretty.

Colorado

He was always freshly surprised----but not shocked----how many women could disappear in a month before anyone noticed. Horrible things happened, every day, and happened just around the corner of awareness of that laughing pair of lovers or that happy family group posing for a picture, not fifty yards away from blood on the snow.

The world was an oblivious place, he thought, looking at the dead woman, her open eyes almost hidden by drifting snow.

He could barely hear the voices.

Washington, D.C., One week earlier

It was to be expected, Dana Scully thought, that when she and Mulder finally had the chance at a dream assignment, Mulder would try to blow it.

A.D. Skinner had sketched out the scenario of women disappearing from mountain resorts. Only two bodies had been discovered, but when all the random disappearances were put together, it looked like a serial killer was moving in an arc from Washington to Colorado. Skinner would like to send Mulder and Scully, with another male/female team, to a ski vacation in Colorado. Someone wanted a profiler, and that someone was, evidently, the owner of a ski lodge the Director patronized. Enough said. Far be it from Scully to question the wanton spending of tax-payer dollars. Even Skinner admitted that the proposed undercover scenario was a little far-fetched, but he made it clear that he didn't mind lending Mulder and Scully to the Colorado task force---for as long as they were needed.

Mulder, of course, was sitting in the chair to her right, one Bruno Magli loafer tapping soundlessly on the carpet. He didn't look like a man who had been handed an expenses-paid ski vacation. It made sense; why would Mulder want to stay in a nice ski lodge with beautiful scenery, when he could be investigating cult practices in Redbug, Florida, in a very old Holiday Inn with a wheezing heater and no room service.

Scully almost had a Homer Simpson moment. Room service, mmmmm.

"Questions, Agent Mulder?" Skinner asked, the merest hint of persuasion in his voice.

Scully sat up. There had to be some string attached. It wasn't as though their names leapt to Skinner's mind when he wanted to give away a plum assignment. Or that Mulder was the first one he thought of as a profiler. Scully pushed away the faint stir of paranoia.

Mulder looked up from contemplation of his knuckles. "I don't see the X-File, sir. And it sounds as though the profile has already been done. There's no body for Scully to autopsy, yet. If this is strictly prospective, you just said you had another two agents ready to go."

"There's a few other factors involved, Agent," Skinner said.

Besides her, Mulder shifted his weight in the chair. He often told Scully that he admired Skinner's ability to address them in lengthy, grammatical sentences. "I parse them in my head as he speaks," Mulder had concluded, in pretended awe. The thought of Mulder silently doing sentence diagramming in the midst of their briefings was almost too much for her.

"One, the pattern is similar to one you noticed, yourself, a few years ago. You did a profile on the case just before you went to the X-Files. Two, the other pair of agents are not as seasoned as you and Agent Scully. And three, the unknown subject is preying on red-haired women. Agent Scully and Agent Brohman are the only red-haired women agents with sufficient training and expertise that I can release for this."

Although she wasn't looking at him, Scully could almost feel Mulder's gaze on her face, on her hair.

"Couldn't the Colorado authorities find a red-haired cop? Can't someone dye their hair red? Why does Scully have to fly out there and be the decoy? Decoys rarely work, unless the subject is killing prostitutes."

"Because Colorado has requested Bureau assistance, Mulder."

Skinner picked up a manila folder and tossed it to the edge of his desk.

"There's your cover, your travel tickets, and accommodations. The other agents will meet you at the Denver airport. The cover is that of two sets of singles on a ski vacation. You'll be outfitted at the Denver office."

After a moment, Mulder picked up the envelope. Skinner looked at his watch. "Please come back at eleven o'clock for the conference call."

"The red hair could be just a coincidence," Mulder said, not looking at either Scully or Skinner, but getting to his feet in one fluid motion and walked out of Skinner's office. Scully, as usual, had to walk at double time to keep up with him, and barely caught the same elevator.

They rode in silence, Mulder leaning against the wall and studying the flashing numbers as they went down.

Back at his desk, he said, "They'll do anything to keep us from our real work." He opened the envelope and, still standing, looked sourly at the contents. He slowly removed his suit jacket and hung it on the back of his chair.

Mulder collapsed gracelessly into his desk chair. After a moment he said, "What's on your mind?"

Scully looked up. "Mulder, have you ever read anything about Richard Feynman?"

"No, Scully, I leave the physics to you. Why?"

She ignored the sarcastic tone. "Feynman worked on the Manhattan project. After the war was over, he came back to his family in Brooklyn, and was obsessed by Hiroshima. He said he kept picturing how many people would be dead if Manhattan were at Ground Zero. He would watch people going to work, and going to lunch, and he wanted to yell at them that they all were in danger, that the world was in danger. That it was stupid to go to work and build bridges, when it was useless."

Mulder drew a sharp breath. "Oh. And since Feynman went on to win the Nobel Prize, I assume he got back to normal life?"

"He got back to work, Mulder. He also helped discover why the space shuttle blew. He wrote that, while he never forgot the nuclear threat, he realized that he had to go on with his work."

"Is that what you want me to do? Stop obsessing about the conspiracy and go on with my work? This is my work."

"I want to go on with regular work, Mulder. I can't wake up in a state of paranoia every day of my life. I would like to do ordinary forensic investigation, just as a change from world conspiracies, or whatever monster of the week you find on the wire services. Just as a break, can we just do this?"

Mulder stared at her with the almost sullen expression he wore so often, the one which meant that he knew he had lost the argument. "Yes," he said finally. "We can do this." He rocked back in his chair, and after a moment said, "Since you'd like to do it."

"Thanks, Mulder. I, personally, wouldn't mind a week in the mountains. Since I haven't had a vacation in...never mind. I think it would be interesting." She lifted her shoulders. "Besides, if it's all wrong, we won't have any problems except skiing, having Irish coffee, and sunburn."

"I hope we don't have to build any towers with office furniture," Mulder said. He stacked up several files, and shoved them into his desk drawer. "Scully," he began, his face still intent on his filing, "Do you _want_ to go skiing?"

"Yes, Mulder, I want to. I think it would be fun. And even if nothing comes of it, it's a paid vacation."

Mulder sat up, and regarded her in silence for a moment. "Do you ski, Scully?" he asked, the teasing note finally back in his voice.

"Not since high school senior trip." She had started opening her mail and reading it. "Why, do you?"

"Not since college," he said. "I wonder if the Bureau's budget stretches to ski lessons?"

"Why? D'you think you'll need them?"

"No, you will."

She threw a wadded-up envelope at him.

"Let's go up there and hear what's up," he said, slamming his top drawer and nearly catching the tip of his tie.

Upstairs, at the conference table, Mulder acted as calm as though the case had been his idea all along, taking pages of notes on a pink legal pad. Skinner eyed the pad, for a moment, before meeting Scully's eyes for a tiny second. She smothered a grin.

The conference call was coming from the Denver Bureau office. Scully gathered that the supervisor had put together a federal grant for the overtime, and had managed to gather the state Bureau of Investigations for Washington, Idaho, and Colorado.

"We think that this fellow is following a definite pattern of selecting victims at a resort area. You'll see on the e-mail that he tends to find at least two victims from each area. We have only found two disposal sites; each site had two victims. The remaining cases are open; no bodies have been found. There's seven women missing. That we know about.

"The victims disappear in daylight, on their way back to the room, or to the restroom, or to the parking area. They become separated from the rest of their parties in such a way that no one suspects they've been abducted until hours later. This indicates that the predator is watching them very carefully and picking his times.

"All the victims are between five feet one inch and five feet six inches in height, slender build, and red-haired. Ages and occupations vary, as does marital status. The bodies that have been found indicate ante-mortem and post-mortem injuries; we have found fragments of duct tape, but the remains all have suffered extensive damage from small animals."

Mulder looked up and stared steadily at the speakerphone for a moment. Scully couldn't tell what had caught his attention.

"Obviously," continued the disembodied voice of the briefing agent, "the subject must have some means of access to these resorts. We tend to think he has his own vehicle, probably an SUV or mini-van, perhaps with tinted windows, since no one has reported seeing these victims being forced into any vehicles. The disposal sites are in the rural areas, at some distance from the abduction site.

"The forensic reports are not in from Utah, but we have some reason to suspect that the two victims died very close in time, as they disappeared very close in time."

"Why are you focusing your investigation on Black Mountain Resort?" Skinner asked, leaning back and clicking the button on his ball-point pen. It always set Scully's teeth on edge.

"Because one red-haired tourist has already been missing. Due to the storms in the area for the past week, the resort has been closed, but it opens again this weekend. We feel strongly that our man will want to take his second victim here, because he likes to follow his pattern."

Mulder shoved his pad in front of Skinner. He had written "I agree" on it.

"There were only three known victims when Agent Mulder did a profile for the Washington Bureau. I think these victims were included as possible Green River victims, erroneously. The disappearance of the other four, Agent Mulder, has happened exactly as you predicted."

Mulder said, "In something like this, I would have preferred to be wrong."

"Yes, I understand. But that's why we decided to ask if you were available, Agent. The task force would greatly benefit from a fresh eye, and being undercover, you wouldn't be subjected to any kind of difficulty in being an outside expert."

Mulder grinned lopsidedly at Scully.

The plan, as outlined by the task force chief, was that Mulder would be Scully's back-up, and a pair of agents from California, Martie Brohman and Donald Murphy, would be the other couple. They would meet them in Atlanta. The women would room together--- Mulder shifted in his chair, looking very much like he wanted to object---the men would room close to them, with minimum contact. All the disappearances had taken place during the day; but they were to maintain their cover at night. They would receive their weapons and other equipment in Denver, after landing, so no one would see them showing badges or weapons at any point en route.

Mulder was to be the senior agent at the stake out; although the US marshals were available as back up, the operation was to be low-key and avoid publicity.

No journalists had made the same connection that the task force and VICAP had; no details had been given to the press. The manager of the ski resort would be aware of their presence, but would not advise his employees. This was to avoid any leaks. All four agents would be connected by wireless transmission, similar to any other stakeout.

"We don't need this to bloom into a Green River," the chief said firmly. "Agent Mulder, I don't want you to hesitate to call in the troops, though, if you think there's any danger to the other agents or any civilians. It's better to err on the side of caution."

In the Atlanta airport waiting for their connection to Denver, Scully and Mulder read the thick copies of the crime reports. Scully was already irritated with Mulder, and they'd only been on this case for a day. He was scowling, which she mentally characterized as his passive-aggressive display: I didn't want to come here, Scully, and I'm not going to be any fun. She knew it was unfair of her to assume he was thinking that, but damn it, anything that wasn't his idea or something he read in 'Weekly World News'-

"I don't know if I agree with the profile," Mulder said suddenly, looking up. "And I don't know if dragging redheads across his path will have the effect they're hoping; the plan is based on using female detectives as decoys on a rape squad, but I don't know if it'll work for this guy. And if they just wanted red- heads, there's wigs, you know."

"Well, we don't know how he selects his victims," Scully said, annoyed. "And I would hope that the Bureau would choose Martie Brohman and me for more than our hair."

"Are we working for the same Bureau?" Mulder asked. "Some fucking vacation, backing you up on the bunny slopes by day and writing reports by night." He sighed, and began re-reading the report. "There's something fishy going on here," he said sotto voce.

"I'm going to get a Coke," she said, abruptly standing. Mulder shifted in the seat, and reached into his pocket for a handful of change.

"Here," he said, pouring the coins into her palm. "Bring me one, and not one of those diet, caffeine-free ones you love. The real thing."

Instead of going to the nearest concessions booth, Scully walked down the concourse to a gift shop. Why did she let herself get annoyed? It wasn't like Mulder was really trying to bait her or be obstructive; he was just being, well, Mulder. Unless the problem was that she just couldn't stand Mulder anymore, but that wasn't it, either.

No, what she needed was a real vacation, a real week at the slopes or at the beach, without looking at other people and dividing them into possible killers or victims, or civilians and law enforcement. She needed to slather herself with tanning lotion in her usual futile attempt to tan. And not wonder if Mulder was adding to the pencil collection on the ceiling. Make him go somewhere, too.

Somewhere else. As soon as they got back, she was putting in for some leave.

Just to thumb her nose at Mulder, she bought herself a diet, caffeine-free soft drink and got him exactly what he asked for.

She walked back, carrying the drinks, avoiding the shoals of fellow travelers, counting the gates, and resolving to book a week in wine country for herself. A family group had stopped to check their tickets just in front of the seating area; Scully couldn't detour around them for several moments.

When the crowd cleared, she saw Mulder, his dark head bent over his file, long legs sprawled awkwardly, various papers stacked on the chairs flanking his.

She had seen him just like that so many times, so why did she suddenly notice details about him that struck her eye as fresh, as if she was looking at him for the first time? The grace of his long fingers, as he tapped them on his lip; the strong planes of his face, the sensitive muscle next to his mouth, the fold of his eyelids. How what looked like awkwardness was really an attempt to settle his breadth of shoulders and length of legs into a tiny airport chair, into an uncomfortable office chair, into an uncomfortable life.

He looked up, just then, and his white teeth flashed in a smile. "Is that for me, then?" he asked, getting up. She couldn't answer, because a thought occurred to her with the impact of a blow to her midsection. She mutely held out the Coke bottle, and almost flinched as his fingers brushed hers. It felt like she had touched an electric wire.

Oh, God, what was she going to do?

No answer came, and fortunately, Mulder was too engrossed in his train of thought to notice her face. She felt hot enough to be a bright red.

"This profile bothers me, Scully, but I don't know why. I get the feeling that Skinner put us on it, not so much to be bait for this guy, but for us to sharpen the profile. I guess someone involved must really be a friend of the Director."

"We? You, Mulder. You're the profiler." She sat down beside him and busied herself with her own file.

"Oh, no, you're the forensic expert. Have you read the autopsies on the victims they found? What jumps out at you?"

"The proximity of the bodies," she said, automatically.

Mulder beamed at her. "Exactly right."

He was waiting for her to say something else, so she gathered her wits and put them back neatly in their cubbyholes, and looked hard at the sketches he set out on her lap. His fingertips brushed the fabric of her slacks and she swallowed.

"Okay, they're so close together that the second set of remains was found as they were gathering the first set."

"Look at the entomologist's report on the second pair."

She looked, blinked, and blinked again. "Do you think they were killed on the same weekend? The report on fly pupae indicated that the times were very close, as the insect infestation was the same on each body."

"Yeah. If you remember, there's a Bureau study in the forensics manual: two girls kidnapped, the second actually watched the first die. They died in reverse order. It wasn't disclosed, to spare the family, and, of course, in case he confessed. He eventually did. He was one of the ones Douglas interviewed in the 'eighties."

He closed his file and tapped it on his knee. "I wouldn't be surprised to find that this guy kidnaps in twos, if he can. Just that extra bit of fear. Each woman wondering which one he'll pick to rape first; which one he'll pick to kill first. And the second woman has to see the first one. He may even rape the second girl on the body of the first." He looked up, smiling coldly. "I could kick your ass for getting me into this, Scully. I hate this shit."

She was grateful for the sudden arrival of their new colleagues. One tall dark haired man, with bright blue eyes and a worried look, one short red haired woman with a purposeful stride, and her own ski boots in a clear vinyl bag.

They were a younger edition of Mulder and Scully. No, they were a parody of them.

The male agent saw Scully's hair, and nudged his partner. "Agent Mulder, Agent Scully," he said.

Mulder stood up. "Just Mulder. You must be Donald and Martha. This is Dana."

"Martie," the female agent said, setting down her bag to shake hands with them. Mulder looked like he wanted to laugh, but didn't. Scully narrowed her eyes at him, and he responded by widening his in innocence.

"Let's get in the corner here where we can talk," Mulder said, picking up his files and pointing to a row of chairs away from the gate. "Since we can't really act like we know each other once we're there."

"We're supposed to follow Dana and Martie," Donald said. "Watch out for men watching them. I don't know about that, Ag---Mulder."

Mulder nodded. "Yeah, if you read the profile, the women are grabbed whether they're with a boyfriend or a family group or whatever. I think it would have made just as much sense to go in as two couples. He's not taking them from the slopes. Not straight from the slopes."

"What makes you say that?" Martie asked.

Scully said, quietly, "Because he would have to use a snow- mobile, and they're not allowed in the three areas targeted."

Mulder nodded. "The time frames are a little loose, but the women were taken in the parking lot or in the lodge. These are all self-contained ski areas, too. You just don't walk over to the slopes from the town, you have to get there by car, and the entrance is removed from the actual towns."

Mulder, putting his pen in his mouth, opened up one of his files to display a couple of photocopied maps. "See? He's getting them very near the parking lot, where he probably has a van, or a SUV with tinted windows. Someplace to subdue the victims and contain them, until he drives up to the disposal site."

"Is it a disposal site, or where he actually kills them?" Donald asked.

"Well, we don't really know," Mulder said quietly. "Winter will really skew any possible time of death."

The other three looked at him. "There's already a missing redhead," he said. Her body hasn't been found. The high winds closed the resort last week. High winds mean that the snow moves. Unless he decided to save her for the second victim to see. Stored somewhere, in an outbuilding."

Scully sat back and watched the younger pair. They looked thoroughly startled, and ready to reconsider the whole "field- work" idea and go back to their office. Their flight was called, and they got up together.

On the plane, Scully was walking back to the restroom, when she saw Mulder reading, his brow furrowed, a true crime paperback with a lurid cover.

Jeeze.

Black Mountain Resort, Colorado

That first afternoon, Martie ditched Scully on the beginner's lift, and Scully saw her no more until sundown. Scully assumed that Donald could keep up with her. All she could get on her headset was static. For herself, she spent the morning on the bunny slopes, then after a solitary lunch, took the lift to the first of the higher "green" beginner slopes.

Impossible to feel paranoid in the clear mountain air; she could laugh at her romantic imaginings at the airport. It had just been a while since she'd been around any other man but Mulder, Scully told herself firmly. Nothing like a little skiing and a little work to shake such silly ideas from her head.

Her first problem occurred when she slipped and fell. Shakily, she got herself back on her feet, remembering her long-ago lessons, and somehow missed a wide turn. She hurtled down a short stretch under the lift poles, and wiped out again.

This time, she couldn't get up without sliding. She struggled, getting sweatier by the second, when she heard her own name.

Of course, it was Mulder.

He expertly schussed up to her, and stopped his ski inches away from her outflung, mittenless hand. He looked disturbingly attractive in what was obviously his own, old ski parka and new boots. After a second of expressionless appraisal, he stuck the tip of a ski pole into the latch of one of his skis, and stepped out, to do the same with the other. He shoved the poles into the snow, somehow wedging the skis, and walked over to her with the peculiar, Frankenstein-like gait of the experienced skier.

She was hating him long before he bent down and helped her to her feet.

"These skis are too long for you, Scully," he said, going on one knee to check her boots. "This isn't a matter of will, you know. You just need shorter skis." The crown of his head was all she could see of him as he fiddled with the latches on her boots. She started to shake the snow out of her glove, and nearly overbalanced, and had to clutch at his shoulder.

"You realize you're on the edge of an advanced slope?" he said shortly, straightening up and away from her hand. "How are you planning on---" he stopped, and went over to his own skis. While he was stamping his boots into them, he said, over his shoulder, in a different tone, "Why don't you just follow me down? I've been down once, and you can just follow my tracks." He edged over to her. "Don't look down the hill. Just look at my back, or look at the tracks, and it'll be okay."

She had been looking down the hill, and swallowed hard.

It worked for ten minutes, down three of the curves, which Mulder took in wide arcs. Then, she hit an icy patch or just lost control, because the next thing she knew, she was on her back, one ski dangling by the ankle strap, sliding past Mulder. She saw his teeth flash, in a grin or a grimace, she couldn't tell, because he swooped in front of her, and she landed, hard, against his shins. He held out one pole for her to grasp, and then bent and heaved her up with one hand under her armpit.

"I know you're supposed to act vulnerable, but isn't this carrying it too far?" he asked. It was a grin.

She raised one glove, again clotted with snow, and tried to put ice down his collar. "Now, Scully." He looked smug. "I'm not even trying to dust the snow from your butt." He straightened up, and slid downhill until he was right in front of her. "Put your skis inside mine, take both your poles with one hand, and put the other around my waist."

She obeyed, her irritation and fear submerged under the wave of embarrassment.

"Now, just keep your skis inside mine. Lean on me if it's easier. Just two more drops and we'll be at the intersection of a green slope, and you can be on your way." He pulled her wrist forward, so her chest was pressed against the small of

his back. "Just concentrate on feeling the skis. Don't try to look."

"Couldn't if I wanted to," she said, against his parka. It was heaven, a thought she squelched. She hoped he thought her shortness of breath was due to the altitude.

They started off, Mulder saying, "Just follow my feet. When you feel me move, move in that direction. I'm going very slowly." Suddenly, it was easy. Easy for her, she realized, because Mulder's breathing became definitely ragged as they went down the hill. Then, after a few feet of level ground, he stopped. "Okay," he said, and pulled her hand away from his hip.

"I can't go down that way," Scully said, appalled.

"That's a green slope, Scully. We're getting close to other skiers. We shouldn't hang around too much. You're the decoy. Get going."

"Hang around," she said. "Aren't you being paranoid?"

His eyebrows arched over his sunglasses. "I'm doing what I've been told to do. Watch you. I can't watch you if you won't go away."

"You just want to make things difficult because you don't want to be here. You are so pig-headed!"

Mulder snorted, and skied down the other, black diamond slope. She couldn't believe he had left her there. She side-stepped her way to face the other direction. After she dropped her sunglasses to wipe her streaming eyes, she happened to look up, where they had just skied. The damn thing looked nearly vertical.

She fell twice more on the way down to the lodge.

That evening, at dinner, while she and Martie ate in the Italian restaurant, Donald sat at the bar and watched them. Scully couldn't see Mulder at all, but he was probably sitting in the rental car outside. She shook out a couple of ibuprofens and offered them to Martie.

Martie was in mid-confessional mode. She had blurted out that Mulder intimidated her. "Of course, Dana, it's because our supervisor kept telling us for God's sake not to embarrass him by getting killed. He said people got killed around you two." This in a whisper so as to preserve their cover. Not that there was anyone around but exhausted families trying to feed loud children. Another reason why Mulder was in the car, probably listening to a basketball game on the radio and cursing the reception.

Reception—--she was going to have to mention the wireless reception---

"Do I know your supervisor? His name isn't Tom Colton, is it?" Scully asked hollowly. If that sonofabitch had somehow been promoted, then the Bureau was going to hell in a handbasket.

"No, he's---he said to tell you he was involved in the Warren Dupre case before he transferred to California. Jim Bruskin." She turned her head to signal the waitress, and Scully was able to keep her expression neutral.

There you are, Dana. The Dupre case. When Jack Willis died. You thought you really loved Jack, too. Yes, people do die around us. How nice to know what was being said about you.

Martie turned back around, and her young, unlined face was bright and full of confidence. "Of course, Mulder's really an experienced profiler, isn't he? Donald said his class had to read the Monty Props - or some such name - profile. You both have had a lot of interesting cases in a few years. Do you think you'd ever want to do something different, though?" Her whispered voice and bright eyes would have led a bystander to think she was talking about her lover.

It's like looking at myself, Scully thought, before I knew what an X-File was.

"All the time," she said, and raising her voice, asked Martie if she wanted to take a ski lesson this next day. They finished dinner talking as if they were, indeed, two single women on their ski vacation.

She called Mulder when they got back to the inn. "Mulder, it's me. I couldn't hear anyone on the headsets." Martie came out of the bathroom, and dropped into her bed. Scully mouthed, "Mulder," to her, and the other woman nodded, pulling up the blankets.

"I noticed," Mulder said. "I've already called the sheriff and Skinner's office. This case gets worse and worse."

"Oh, Mulder," Scully said. "Next you'll say we were given bad headsets on purpose."

"It hadn't occurred to me, but now that you mention it---" she clicked off and turned to speak to Martie. Martie was already asleep.

Scully woke up, sweating despite the cold. Cautiously, she raised her head from the pillow and peered at her watch, sitting beside the lamp. Two-ten.

She had been dreaming again. Dreaming that she was strapped down and someone was poking at her with cold, cold fingers. It was a familiar dream; even awake, Duane Barry's face swam in her memory. She sat up, her eyes open in the dark.

In the other bed, Martie slept soundly.

Scully suddenly, desperately, wanted to find Mulder.

No, not after calling him and then hanging up. He wouldn't exactly be pleased to see her, would he? Find Mulder, because she was scared of the dark. Find the person she didn't want to go to. She couldn't go to him unless all her defenses were up. If not, he would be able to read her secret thoughts.

Scully closed her eyes and began reciting the rosary, hoping the familiar repetition would push away her memory of Duane Barry loading her into the trunk of the car, of Barry shooting the state trooper....

She nodded off, only to dream again she was in the dark trunk.

She desperately needed to have a light on.

She sat up. Three o'clock. It wasn't fair to Martie to turn on the light, but there was someone else in the hotel, with a room to himself who never, as far as Scully knew, minded a light on at night. She pulled on her moccasins, carefully picked up her parka and her room key, before easing out into the hallway.

Mulder was just two doors down. Scully put her ear to the door, and heard the faint sounds of a television. She stepped back and knocked. It sounded like thunder in the quiet hallway.

His voice came through the door, just above her head. "Who is it?"

"Mulder, it's me. Let me in."

She heard the rasp of the chain, and then he swung the door open, the room lit behind him, and the radio in the corner was going.

Blinking a little, he stepped aside and waved her inside, before fastening the door behind her.

He stood, looking calmly down at her, so close that she could feel the warmth of his body. He didn't look like she had awakened him, but he was wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt and sweatpants. Although she thought she was returning his gaze with one just as calm, there must have been something else in her face that wasn't so relaxed. "I'm sorry," she said, almost inaudibly. "I'm sorry to disturb you."

He tilted his head to one side and asked, "What's wrong?" and the creases around his eyes softened slightly.

"I had a--I dreamed about Duane Barry," she told him baldly. "I can't sleep in the dark."

His expression didn't change, but he made a sudden movement, as if he were going to touch her and then changed his mind. "Well, you'll have to share," he said. "As you see, only one bed. I can turn the radio down, though. If I turn it off, you'll get to hear the couple in the next room."

She shuddered, already feeling more like herself in his presence. "No, leave it on."

He shrugged, and flicked the comforter back from the unused side, before sitting down on his side. She slid in, and lay with her back to him, pulling the covers to her chin.

"Light on or off?" he asked.

"Off is okay." Now that I'm in bed with you, she thought. The light went out, and the mattress sagged under his weight.

"Never worry about disturbing me," he said, his voice half-muffled by the pillow. "Don't hesitate, okay?"

"No, I won't," she said, and closed her tired eyes. She could smell Ben-Gay.

She thought he said, "Fucking head-sets," but the next thing she knew, the window had the pearly gray of pre-dawn, and she had migrated closer to Mulder during the night. When she realized that she was lying with her arm around his waist, her eyes snapped open. No wonder she had slept so well.

He was snoring, so he was obviously asleep. Carefully, like a burglar extricating herself from a sleeping watchdog, Scully removed her arm and slid back to her---cold---side of the bed.

I've got it bad, she told herself, when I'm watching the back of his head.

But he was stirring, and she felt him moving one arm, probably to look at his watch. "Scully?" he breathed, so quietly that she wouldn't have wakened if she had been sleeping. He turned his head, as she was trying to decide whether to feign sleep. She stared back into his eyes. She didn't know his eyes were so green in the morning. He half-smiled, and said, slightly louder, "It's only seven. Were you leaving?"

She shook her head, mute from a mix of hope and fear - of what, she couldn't describe to herself.

He smiled again, a whole one this time, before he turned back into his pillow.

Scully waited until his breathing deepened, and the snoring began again, before she edged herself, with infinitesimal care, over to his side again.

That morning, all four of them rode to the top of the mountain in a cable car, so they could talk privately. Scully noticed that Mulder looked oddly up and around the car, and then bent a peculiar look at her. She raised her eyebrows, then realized that the effort was lost behind her ski goggles. Naturally, Mulder had the latest trendy sunglasses dangling around his neck.

"Donald and I haven't noticed anyone who seemed to hang around you two on the slopes," Mulder shifted his weight, and said, parenthetically, "Damn. My knees hurt. So after a couple of runs, you two need to hang out around the lodge. We'll see if anyone hangs around you."

Martie and Donald exchanged glances. "You don't think this is going to work, do you, sir?" Martie asked.

To his credit, Mulder didn't blink at the "sir." He gave them an almost Skinneresque stare. "I'm not sold on it. However, there's still a missing person who could very well turn up. Dead." The car swung a little, and he looked outside for a second. "I think if he's here, he'll approach one of you after lunch." He looked at the other three. "Have any of you noticed any other redheads around? This could get nasty if the guy snatches a civilian."

"Have you just thought of this?" Scully asked. They were almost at the top of the mountain.

"I thought of it in D.C. Skinner and I asked the resort manager to try to screen out guests with red hair. Of course, we could still have redhead with a day pass, but I tend to think he's looking for someone staying near the ski slopes. Unless he's at a completely different ski resort. Questions?"

Martie leaned forward, her hands clasped between her knees. "Agent Mulder, Donald and I can't help but feel that we're just red-shirt crewmen here."

Mulder put his sunglasses on. "Oh, yellow shirts, surely?" he said. For Scully's benefit, he began, kindly, "On classic Star Trek, Scully---"

"I know, Mulder," she said, barely able to keep from snapping.

The younger agents grinned.

"What about the headsets, sir?" Donald chimed in as the cable car came to a gentle rest at the deck.

Mulder opened the door. "I've complained about the headsets. Keep your cell phones with you, although the reception probably stinks."

They all stepped out.

"Ensign, with me," Mulder said, in a passable Patrick Stewart imitation. Martie gurgled delightedly and they stepped on their skis and schussed away in a very professional-looking way.

"I hate him," Scully said to Donald.

He immediately straightened out his grin. They looked around; there was no one else at the top of the hill. "Well, it does seem a little like busy-work," he said apologetically. "Like I told Martie, it seems weird but we'll just go and have a free ski vacation. It's not like the daily report takes up much of my time at night."

"You don't have trouble sleeping at this altitude?" Scully asked casually.

"Not me," Donald said, puffing a little as he bent to adjust his skis. "Mulder told me he has insomnia in hotel rooms."

Scully snorted to herself.

"Look, Ag--Dana," Donald corrected himself. "You can't muscle your way through skiing. A lot of athletic people think they have to use their strength, and they just get tired and sore. Skiing is a sport anyone can do, as long as your equipment is right. You may want to go and get your skis waxed. But right now, just remember to lean against the front of your boots, and let your weight just tilt you down the mountain." He skied in front of her. "You're trying too hard, if you don't mind me saying so. Just remember the basics."

Just remember the basics, Scully thought to herself. It was like a fortune cookie. Just remember the basics, she thought, painstakingly skiing downhill. Remember that, basically, Mulder is not going to be your boyfriend. He would be horrible as anyone's boyfriend. And let's face it, a forensic pathologist? If you had any bedside manner at all you wouldn't spend your career in the morgue.

It was the second night. Once again, Scully lay awake, broad awake. That was a poem she had heard once, but not being Mulder, she thought, she couldn't cite the source. She ached all over, but despite a hot shower, a soak in the hot tub, she couldn't sleep.

It was a mental ache.

Neither she nor Martie had noticed anything different. No one seemed to be watching them. Donald and Mulder had agreed, saying that the women wouldn't notice anything different. "This guy is operating in his comfort zone. You wouldn't notice him. It could be a blitz attack before he transports the victim," Mulder had commented. "So we've got to be alert. I tend to think, though, that he waits until the victim can't get away from him before he attacks."

"Should we take any special precautions tonight?" Martie had asked.

"No, this guy makes his move in daylight. I think he would watch one of you, but if he moves, it'll be in the morning."

Scully was annoyed at the respectful silence of the two younger agents. "Tell them why you think that, Mulder, and don't say it's your tarot cards."

Mulder laughed. "Just reading the reports on the earlier victims. They're all missed after lunch. The autopsies show no breakfast type food residue. Security camera records them last in the morning. Of course, there was only one camera. It's just looking at the details."

It's a flash of insight, Scully thought now. Damn these double rooms. She could, of course, sit in the bathroom and read, with a towel under the door, but it seemed awfully uncomfortable.

So why was she really outside Mulder's door again? This time, he was watching television. "Scully," he said, without surprise. "Why not take something? Or is it the altitude?" He touched her, lightly, on the shoulder, and guided her inside.

"Take something? From Mr.I-don't-need-a-sedative?"

Mulder locked the door.

"You can sleep with me, though?" he said gravely, without even a glimmer of humor in his eyes at the double entendre.

She nodded. "I thought you had insomnia, too," she said. "You're always up."

"Yes, but I've had it for years, " he said, picking up the remote and lowering the volume. Some bald man with a large gold belt draped over his shoulder was challenging someone else to give him a shot. "I fall asleep with the television on. Seems to work."

"I don't want to wake up Martie," she said. She was allowing him to lead her to the bed.

The bed. Those feeling she had laughed at were back. Her pulse hammered in her throat.

"Can't let her know you aren't Super Agent, either, can you?" He pulled the comforter back. "Well, come on, let's put our neurotic self-images to sleep."

He yawned. "We're like an old married couple---no sex."

"We've spent more time together than some married couples, " Scully said, trying to sound more like the Dana Scully who hadn't fallen in love with her partner. Crush. She had a crush on her partner. Try to act like normal, or he'll know. He's not stupid. She kicked off her shoes and put her feet under the covers.

"Too true," he said, rolling into bed beside her. He offered her the remote.

"Want to watch anything?"

"I thought you did? Is that Goldberg?"

He shook his head, rolling his eyes.

She took the remote and turned the television off, before putting it on the bedside table. He had tossed a T-shirt over the desk lamp and it cast just enough soft light. His laptop sat beside it; Mulder had evidently been working.

"You have a very restful effect on me. I'm sleepy already." He smelled of Ben-Gay again, only stronger.

"Gee, that's what you like to hear when you're in bed with a man."

The heavy lids of Mulder's eyes lifted. "Oh, very good, Scully," he said approvingly. "C'mere, then." He slung one heavy arm around her. His arm lay over hers, not really hugging her. She was facing him, one hand under her pillow, the other clasping it. The effect was to keep him just enough away to avoid intimacy.

Intimacy? Said the mocking voice in her head. You're in bed with him.

And I feel at home in his bed, she thought.

"I'm tired," he said, his eyes closed. "This is the most incredible waste of taxpayers' money. Nothing's going to happen. Two red-haired women as bait is just over-kill." He shifted, getting more comfortable, and left his hand clasping her shoulder. "Like I said before."

"Well, I do think it would be odd to come to a resort and not ski," she said.

"Lots of people just go and hang out at the slopes, I suppose," he replied, eyes still closed. "I don't think this guy is skiing and stalking. Take it from me and Donald, following a woman on skis is tiring." She felt one finger stroke the material of her shirt. She let one hand fall back against his chest.

"He has to have a gimmick. He has to have something that would make him----"

His eyes opened, and he looked at her with an odd expression, and let go of her.

"What?" she said, apprehensively. He sat up.

"Thought of something," he said, and swung his legs out of bed. He tucked the blankets back in around her, and went to the laptop. But after booting it up, he didn't do anything, just stared at it.

Oh, God, I'm busted, she thought. Her throat burned. "Mulder----"

He didn't turn. "Go to sleep, Scully. I need to think about something."

After that, of course, she didn't think she could sleep. She lay as still as possible and watched his shoulders, the width of them, and his hands as he slowly began looking for something online.

She was nodding off, as she lay there, and she regarded Mulder carefully.

He was hunched over his laptop, writing away. The altitude and the lack of sleep were catching up with her. She could close her eyes for a moment...

....in the trunk of the car. Seeing the state trooper drop. No, Donnie Pfaster. . .

.. . .Donnie Pfaster running a bath, because he like to have sex with women who were cold as death. He was sitting down beside her...

"Mulder!" she choked out, waking up and finding him beside her. His arm was around her, and he pulled her to his chest.

"Shh," he said, his cheek resting on the top of her head. She was shivering violently, and her teeth chattered when she tried to say something. "Shh," he said again. He stretched out one arm, and wrapped the bedclothes around them.

She clutched at him with shaking fingers, and she felt her hand being taken and held against his heart. He was saying something to her, but she couldn't comprehend it. It was sensory overload. Oh, the nightmare was fading away fast, now, from the forefront of her mind. If Mulder only knew how fast she was forgetting it, and that the shivers that made him tighten his hold on her weren't from fear.

"Do you know why I haven't teased you about coming in here?" he said in a low voice. He sounded as though he was repeating himself.

She had wondered. "No, why?"

"Because I can't sleep when I profile." He was stroking her hair, but still talking in a lazy monotone, exactly as if he was explaining the designated hitter rule. "I hate profiling, Scully. I hate seeing the world through that guy's eyes. I hate lying in bed and thinking about how he would have tied them up. How he would have picked his victim. Who he's---" He shook himself, exactly like a dog shaking off water, and said, "Why he likes what he's doing."

She felt like she was cheating him in some way. Her nightmares were there, true enough; but they had been around for a long time, and just having Mulder in the room with her when she opened her eyes was enough to drive them away.

The fleeting thought crossed her mind that she should be holding him, but she dismissed it. "But Mulder, why go on?"

"Because once I start, I want to finish it, " he said, releasing her. The moment was, apparently, over. He turned the light out, and lay back in the dark.

:

"I had a theory," Mulder said to the other three.

They were at a broad open step where several ski trails crossed. It was twelve-fifteen, and most people were at the cafe or in town, eating lunch. The four of them were all perched on a picnic table tucked in a tiny stand of trees. Picnics for the insane, Scully thought, averting her eyes from the view.

"I thought this guy was imitating someone he'd read about," Mulder said. "But then I thought that he was escalating. Escalation didn't seem to go with a copy-cat."

"Why would a killer copy another one?" Martie asked, closing the eye nearest Scully in a fraction of a wink. Just playing along with the boss, the wink seemed to say.

"He gets off on reading about the other murders. It's what excites him, what's closest to the movie in his head." Scully noted with satisfaction that Martie's expression altered subtly. "See, Martie, Donald, these guys spend years fabricating the fantasy. It's a scenario that's alive in his head; and there may be other guys at this resort who have weird fantasies, who have weird dreams, but this guy wants to act them out with real flesh." Mulder had on his sunglasses, and constantly scanned the slopes for any other skiers. "Some guys would just collect the true detective magazines and then download pictures; some guys get snuff videos. Some guys make snuff videos, but they're not the ones we're worried about."

Mulder was rolling little snowballs as he spoke, and Scully stared at his gloved hands. She wanted to slide her finger along the inch of bare wrist between the glove and his sleeve. She wanted to remember how his body felt next to hers, last night, but she couldn't.

"So, this guy," Mulder looked at them, and no one said anything "he's working out his signature. He's not a rapist, and he's not primarily a physical sadist; he gets off by the fear and the control he's exerting. He gets off from the killing, but it's the control. I'll bet he taunts the victim." He dusted the snow from his hands. "Then he kills her."

The sunlight and the snow were still dazzlingly beautiful, but Scully shuddered "Do you think he's here?" she asked.

"I don't know. I don't know why the body hasn't been found. I don't know where he took her. Donna Grant was kind of a transient. She'd worked at different ski resorts but didn't have any ties to the area. And her car and belongings were still in the parking lot; her skis and ski poles were still in the rack outside the cafe. So she didn't just decide to leave and go somewhere else."

Donald was fiddling with the latches on his ski boots. "I don't see---he seems like he's releasing his violence in controlled bursts, doesn't it? The bodies were treated pretty brutally."

"But mostly post-mortem," Martie contributed. "So was the sex," she added, half under her breath.

"He's like Bundy," Donald said. "Do you think Bundy is the one he's imitating?"

"Exactly. Improving on. He may have read books about Bundy, and they excited him. And he thought he could be a better Bundy. Then he started. I don't know if he started in Washington State, but Bundy did - the lake killings. Then he came to a ski resort in Utah, then he moved to Florida. That's when Bundy killed the women in the sorority house. He lost control there, because he didn't take the girls away, he killed them on site. There wasn't the planning that he had used with all the others. His personality was imploding on itself, and he couldn't control his violence any longer."

"A better Bundy," Martie said, looking at Scully with wide eyes.

"That's just my theory," Mulder said quickly. "Who knows what he's really like?"

"You know, though, don't you, Mulder?" Scully asked, on impulse. "You know exactly what he's thinking."

"You make it sound like voodoo," Mulder said lightly, his eyes on the younger agents. "Profiling is just projecting a personality to fit the crime and the crime scene. It's a learned skill."

"If he's imitating Bundy, it's because he relates to Bundy," Donald said. "Since Bundy's history is so well known, the subject could have a lot in common with Bundy."

"A seducer, rather than one who blitzes his victims," Scully said thoughtfully. She squinted at Mulder. "But you do think you're in his head."

Mulder took off his sunglasses. "Yes," he said flatly. He looked at the treeline. "He hates women. He---he may have been adopted by his grandparents, and thought his real mother was his sister. In Bundy's time, illegitimacy was more frowned upon. Our guy, he could just have a mom who was on drugs, and his grandmother got custody. Something in Bundy's hatred, and Bundy's history, sparked a sense of recognition in our guy. He's athletic; whatever job he has, he's able to move on to new areas without problems. He practiced in another state, then he came here Because he has a fantasy he's fulfilling. To be a better Bundy--- or to use Bundy's crimes as a basis for his own, as a framework. I wonder if he wants to see blood on the snow, or red hair on the snow."

Mulder stood up, looking down at the ski lodge. The other three didn't move, not wanting him to stop.

"He thinks of himself as a marathon runner, rather than a sprinter; he's priding himself on his discipline and his ability not to give into his urges. He probably has a camera and takes pictures, or a camcorder. So he can relive it and think of ways to perfect it. The reality is never quite what he wants, and it's probably a lot messier, but there's nothing like the real thing. Nothing like the look in the woman's eyes when she realizes that you are going to kill her, and no one is going to save her." He blinked, for a moment, and hunched his shoulders.

Scully looked at the other two. They looked stunned. Mulder looked at their faces, and he stood up, straightening his shoulders. He smiled faintly. "Then, again, he may not be here at all."

"Why didn't you say any of this to Skinner?" she asked, not returning his smile. "You thought of it right away, didn't you?"

"Because it's a hunch. I have nothing to base it on." He waved his hand at the decks of the lodge, which were filled with people eating lunch in the sunlight. "You want a particular kind of woman, you go where they hang out. Beaches. Ski slopes." He rubbed his forehead. "Scully, do you have any Ibuprofen?"

"Just this," she said, pulling a foil pack of cold tablets out of her pocket. Mulder took them on his palm, then walked over to his skis. "Lunch," he said, to no one in particular. The other three watched him step into them and ski rapidly down the slope.

"He is spooky," Martie said. Scully gave her a quick glance, but the other woman's face was free of malice.

"He's just good," Scully said, and put her skis on. "He's just good."

Looking across the thinning crowd in the cafeteria, she thought about that phrase. Mulder was just good, she thought, in the way her mother used to say, "He's got a good heart." If he didn't have that inner goodness, he wouldn't be so hard to get along with. Mulder thought others should act like reasonable, good people and was constantly disappointed in his every day interactions with normal people. Mulder was brave in that he thought the truth counted, though the heavens fell.

He was leaning one elbow on his table in the corner, negligently sweeping the crowd, and Scully couldn't believe that no one was looking at him, no one else was aware of him.

Her throat closed with foolish love of him.

"I almost agree with Agent Mulder," Martie said that night, spitting out a mouthful of toothpaste and rinsing the sink. "You can have it now...I mean, we're probably looking for the type he described, but what're the chances that he's here?"

Scully sat on the end of her bed, pulling on her socks. "Because the missing woman is from here," she replied. "I don't understand the pattern, though. The women at the different dump sites were missed at such random intervals. So this victim could be a one-off, if you'll excuse the pun, or not the same guy at all."

"Or he's planning his next one," Martie finished. She snapped off the bathroom light. "We only have two more days, though."

"Well, we can't help that. All we can do is give him the opportunity," Scully said absently. Give him the opportunity. Opportunity. "I'm going to go see Mulder," she said, sounding strained even to herself.

She sped down the quiet hallway, feeling almost desperate to get to Mulder, to hear his voice. She rapped at the door, and rapped again.

When she put her ear to the door, she heard the faint buzz of the television, and the creak of the mattress. She stood away from the door just as he opened it.

"What's up, Scully?" he asked. "Still can't sleep?"

His expression was as blank as it was the first day she had met him. His was drowsy, the long eyelashes shadowing his eyes.

"No, I can't. My nerves are jumping. Did I wake you up?"

"Just nodding off," he said. "I took those cold tablets of yours."

"God, you must really feel terrible if you took something," Scully quipped.

His expression did change, then. Mulder always looked blandest when he was wariest, and he did now. "Okay-dokey," he said. He placed the remote control in her hand, and unceremoniously slung back the comforter and blanket.

"I don't want to watch television," she said, feeling off- balance.

"Turn it off, then, " he said, reaching for the lamp.

Scully clicked off the set, dropped the remote on the dresser, and stepped over to the other side of the bed. As soon as she did, Mulder turned off the light, leaving her to kick off her shoes and scramble under the covers. While she was struggling to pull the sheet up, she felt her elbow connect with his shoulder.

"Shit, Scully!" he yelped. "That hurt!"

"I'm sorry, Mulder." She rose on one elbow and rubbed his shoulder. "Is that helping?"

He had jumped slightly when she touched him, but she felt him relax. "Yeah, but you can stop."

No, I can't, she thought.

For one awful second, she thought she had said it. Then she felt Mulder's shoulder move under her hand, and heard him yawn.

"Night," he said. She was still rubbing his shoulder, when she heard his breathing deepen into sleep.

She must have gone to sleep rubbing his back, because she woke up and found herself pressed close to him, her hands flat on his back. Under his shirt.

Scully awoke completely. She had spread her palms over his back, and she could feel the heat of him through every skin cell. She felt the same heat in her throat, in her chest, between her legs. And as if she was having an out of the body experience, she lay with eyes wide open in the half-light, and slowly pulled his shirt up so she could put her face against his back. The bright moonlight streamed through the mini-blinds.

Mulder slept on, snoring a little. She grew bolder, and slid her hands around to feel his chest, and his quiet breathing. Her left palm brushed his nipple, and she almost moaned. He stopped snoring, and suddenly turned in her embrace, so he was lying on his back. Scully stealthily pulled the blanket up, against the chill of the room, and put her lips to his sternum.

"Scully," he said thickly, "What the hell are you doing?" He lay with his eyes still closed to her fearful glance, arms still outflung and caught in the shirt she had tangled.

"I wanna see if you have a fever," she heard herself say lamely.

"Huh?" He didn't open his eyes. She didn't reply, and didn't remove her hands. He squinted up at her.

"Are you trying to play doctor, Doctor?," he whispered. "I can't move my arms." She could see the reflection of the moonlight in his half-opened eyes. She must be dreaming: he was the embodiment of all the fantasies she didn't know she had.

So Scully pulled his shirt off, over his head, tossing it on the floor. Mulder lay back, smiling. She could see his teeth glint. "I have something hotter," he said, bucking his hips up. "Wanna check it out?" She was already moving his hand to his erection as he put his hand over hers.

He was hot. He was hard. Scully thought she was having a cardiac event, her blood pounding in her ears. "Let me check your fever," Mulder said, and brought his other hand under her shirt to tweak her nipple. She almost squeaked. But she had stepped away from her daylight self, and felt fearless. This was right. This was Mulder.

"This stuff has me hallucinating," Mulder muttered. "Help me out, here, Scully." He arched his back and pulled his waistband down, and his dick sprang up and throbbed against her stomach. "Now you," he said, and tugged at her pants.

Scully lay back in the cocoon of blankets and pulled off her sweatpants. lifting her hips as she did so. She had a queer feeling of deja vu; she had done this so often in her secret, half-remembered dreams.

Mulder rolled on his side, and slowly, so slowly, brought his big hand up along her inner thigh until his thumb was at her cleft. "You're so hot and wet, baby," he said, delighted. "Is that a fever?"

She meant to say something back, like, I'm the doctor, but just then he slid one finger inside her and she almost screamed. She had never felt the way Mulder was making her feel, with one hand on her, and the long, naked length of his body pressed against hers. She had meant to pull off her shirt, but Mulder just pushed the hem up, and bent his dark smooth head to put his hot mouth on her breast. She moaned, and felt him pressing his thumb against her clit. "Here?" he asked. "Or here."

"Oh, god oh god oh god," Scully said, her back arching.

"Here, then," Mulder said thickly. And his hand moved, and next she felt him entering her. He pulled one of her legs up, high, and she felt the cold air on her thigh. She wanted to remember everything, keep every detail in her memory, but the urgent 'now' was blanking her thoughts.

He said something, breathlessly, and she couldn't hear it because she felt herself clenching up. Oh god, god god god....and she went blind for a second, because her eyes were still open. Mulder was still there, but he shuddered, and his back was sweaty under her hands. He buried his face in her neck and was still inside her when sleep took her.

It was dawn when she woke up, and Mulder was curled up beside her, his back pressing against her side. Her shirt was still slung around her neck.

Her daylight self slammed into her consciousness. Oh. My. God. What had they done?

Her heart hammered in her chest in panic. What had gotten into her? Had she lost her mind? She had fucked Mulder, fucked _Mulder_.

She had jumped him, jumped him in his sleep. Did she tell him she loved him? She didn't think so. At least some of her dignity was still intact, then. She suddenly felt, for a moment, Mulder's paranoia, his hyper-alertness. Had anyone been watching them?

She slowly edged away, watching him sleep. He was still asleep by the time she had found all her clothes, and she silently picked up her room keycard and left.

Martie sat up in bed, her face tight, as Scully opened the door to their room. "Why won't you sleep in here?" she blurted. "Are you afraid of me?"

"Afraid of you?" Scully said blankly, sitting down on her unused bed. "Huh?"

"Because of the gossip," Martie said, her hands clenched on the top sheet. "Come on."

"I have nightmares, and Mulder has insomnia," Scully said. "I've been with him, because I didn't want to wake you up." She didn't want to hear about Martie's problems, Martie's inner life. She could still feel Mulder's touch on her skin. God, couldn't Martie smell the sex? But no, she could tell by the look on the other woman's face that she was going to hear it anyway. "What gossip?"

"That I'm gay," Martie said miserably.

Scully sighed. "People say that about every female agent who doesn't sleep around."

"But I have-" Martie said, her voice rising. She swallowed, and said, more normally, "I've slept with other agents."

Despite herself, Scully was interested. "I don't see the problem. Gossip-"

"The last time I was undercover, the other agent didn't want to stay in the room with me, either," Martie said. "Gossip will kill you. God knows what's in my file."

Scully suddenly wondered if that was why Martie was on this assignment with them - to finish off her career, if she failed in the decoy assignment. She hadn't denied being gay. "But what about Donald?"

"All he thinks about is the Bureau. That's why he's sucking up to Mulder. Our boss told him to learn all we could from you two. No one wants to be in the field with me. I feel like I'm being shunted onto a dead-end path."

"Mulder and I being the dead-ends?" Scully asked absently. She crawled into her bed as she said it.

"No, but this is such an odd assignment. And Agent Mulder is so pessimistic-"

"Oh, don't worry about it," Scully said. "You can over-analyze things, you know." She put one hand to her mouth and yawned. Her palm still smelled of Mulder's soap. "Mulder's never said a word, and he's the most judgmental, critical-" she cut herself off.

What the hell? She was channeling her high school self now. Maybe one day, just once, she would have sex and could just enjoy the moment.

"Oh," Martie said. "Well, I'll go back to sleep."

Scully hid her face in her pillow. Mulder hadn't said anything, she recalled. Neither one of them had. So why are you panicking? She asked herself. What's the problem?

She had wanted Mulder. But she wanted more. She had wanted him to tell her that he loved her. She wanted to kiss his eyelids and the mole on his cheek, find the scars from his wounds and press her lips to them. It had been good sex, but just sex.

Scully realized that she was lying with her hands clasped to her heart. She was such a romantic fool. She wanted Mulder to love her, to love her like a lover and not a friend or a partner.

She couldn't fool herself into thinking he'd given away anything of himself last night. She could have been anyone. Did he even say her name?

She wanted him to tell her he loved her.

She lay awake and listened to the sounds of the other guests - doors opening and closing, people going up an down the hall, talking softly, then loudly, as the day began.

Martie got up and went to the bathroom, and came out fully dressed. Scully got up, aching in unfamiliar places, and dressed.

"I'll see you at breakfast," she told Martie. "I want to catch Mulder."

The other woman nodded, her face skeptical.

This time, when he opened the door, his face wasn't bland as it was last night. He blinked at her, one hand on the door, the other holding his jacket by the collar.

A demon made her ask, "How'd you sleep?"

Mulder's lean cheeks were red. "I had strange dreams," he muttered. "I was hallucinating, thanks to your drugs."

Scully couldn't believe her ears. They had hot sex and he thought he had dreamt it? He couldn't have had wet dreams that were that real. "Dr—drugs?" she stuttered.

"Yeah, I - never mind. Come in, we don't need to be seen together."

Her eyes narrowed. She had lost half a night's sleep for this?

She said the first thing she could think of. "Martie thought that I've been spending the night with you because I'd heard gossip that she was gay."

"Is she?" Mulder asked inattentively, looking for something on the dresser; Scully raised her voice.

"She didn't say. But she made me wonder if we were given a bogus assignment, after all."

Mulder turned around, looking at her. "What made you say that? Did she say anything that gives you that idea?"

"Just that no one wants to be in the field with her. That she wondered if you were right and this was a wild goose chase. Sounds like she's got your paranoia now."

He stood up, looming over her. "Why won't you believe me? Why don't you ever believe me?" His complexion was normal now, and he very deliberately went to the dresser and began shifting his guy paraphernalia into his pockets: wallet, sunglasses on a cord, lift pass on an elastic string around his neck, badge, gun. He looked up and caught her reflected gaze in the dresser mirror. "Did you read any of those leather bound classics on your bookshelves, or did you just buy them with the Readers' Digest collections because the bindings were pretty?"

"Excuse me?" His tone was corrosively disdainful. She couldn't believe he was being so obnoxious.

"Because you should read about Cassandra. Apollo gave her the gift of foresight, but because she didn't become his lover, he cursed her with unbelief. She would always be right, but no one would ever believe her."

Scully snorted. Trust Mulder to go off on some tangent, rather than face what was obviously bothering him.

"Fine. We aren't going to do this, Scully," he said, his face and voice as snotty as if she were a criminal subject.

"Then we finally agree, Mulder," she said, flinging aside caution.

"Without all the crap. Let's go do our job."

Mulder picked up his jacket and literally stomped out.

Scully went downstairs and impatiently looked for Martie. She couldn't see her in the cafeteria, and she stepped outside to see if Martie was getting her skis waxed, or something else athletically competent. In the long covered walkway between the buildings, Scully saw a dropped cafeteria tray, and a spilled carton of juice. She stopped, poking at the tray with her toe. It was cracked.

Then, for a jolting second, she had a sudden vision of violence, and dropped to one knee to look closer.

There was a red hair in the crack of the tray.

Scully ran as fast as she had ever run, skidding on the icy patches of the shaded walk, until she reached the parking lot where their two rental cars were located. There were a few people unloading from the ranks of cars, but it was still early.

At the north end of the lot, she saw a Land Rover stopped, turning onto the state highway. Through the front passenger window, she saw a cascading flash of color, of red, as though someone with red hair was slumped into the shoulder harness. Scully's hand closed around the outside of her parka pocket, and felt the car key. She was inside the car and had the ignition on before the door was closed.

Scully punched the gas, clumsy in her hiking boots. Driving one- handed, she shook her cell phone out of her pocket and hit the speed dial with one finger.

"Mulder? He's got Martie. I saw him load her into a Land-Rover. I'm following, but I'm way behind - I don't think he's seen me."

"Let him see you," Mulder said, his voice crackling over the bad connection. "Donald saw you running. We're at the parking lot. Do we turn right or left?"

"Right." The seat belt alarm was dinging, and she ignored it.

"....calling the sheriff," Mulder said. Scully tossed the cell phone onto the passenger seat and tried to get more acceleration. It was like a bad seventies movie: brave woman agent chases killer through pristine, Christmas-card perfect scenery. She pressed her back against the seat, just to reassure herself that she had put her gun and paddle holster on.

'He likes to have sex with them when they're dead,' Mulder's voice came unbidden in her mind, and she had to force herself to unclench her fingers from the steering wheel.

"He likes to taunt them, too," she muttered to herself. "Hold on, Martie. Hold on."

They were on a winding mountain round, and just around the first switch-back, Scully saw a moving dot of green; he was on an access road. She gunned the Ford and heard the undercarriage scrape through the gravel. She bit her lip and forced herself to slow down; she couldn't wipe out. She moved her thumb and started honking the horn. Maybe he'd hear it - maybe. He probably had the windows up and the radio on, just in case his victim - Martie - yelled.

The branches of the fir trees scraped the sides of the car before she saw the other vehicle, passenger door open, on the edge of a little clearing. Scully jammed on the brakes, threw the car in park, and stumbled out leaving the motor running. They were at the lip of a little hollow of the hillside, and she stepped down into it, looking around. No one. Had he heard her? She saw a spot for a campfire, saw bright yellow nylon rope looped around the trunk of a tree, saw two tire tracks in the snow.

"FBI! Put your hands up!" Scully yelled, her weapon out. She cautiously stepped down the track. No one but...Martie. Lying face-down on the ground, but the back of her jacket moving with her breathing.

Scully turned slowly around, leading with her gun. No one. He had gone.

She knelt in the snow beside Martie, touching the bright red hair, with the dull red of a scalp laceration. Martie rolled on her back, her eyes wild. "It's okay, he's gone," Scully said gently.

Martie sat up, clutching at Scully's arms. "He's gone? We lost him?"

"I wanted to see how you were," Scully said. She pushed the bloody hair back so she could see the slowly oozing cut on the scalp.

"You stopped to check me out instead of chasing-" Her wrists were lashed together with a ski binding.

"I wish I had a first aid kit." At her uncomprehending look, she reminded the other woman, "I'm a doctor."

Martie's lip trembled. "That's why?" She put her bound hands up to

Scully's wrist. Scully ignored the touch.

"Can you see? You've got a black eye."

"Scully!" they heard Mulder shout. Scully put her arm around Martie's shoulders.

Scully twisted and shouted back, "Here! She's all right!"

In a moment Donald and Mulder were with them. They both had their weapons at the ready.

After one comprehensive look, Mulder holstered his gun. His face was rigid in disgust, and for a terrible moment, Scully thought it was for her, but his first words banished all such thoughts. "He brought you to the disposal site, Martie. It was him." Scully realized he was trying to shield her from something...a body...behind him.

"He hit me with a cafeteria tray. When I was outside the cafe."

"A little crude for our guy, but I guess he saw a random chance and took it. If we hadn't been so close on your ass. . .But we weren't close enough."

Somewhere down the road, Scully could hear the faint sound of sirens. Mulder was trying to tell her something with his eyes, and she eventually realized, He wants me to come look at the body. She was oddly reluctant to leave Martie's living warmth.

"The LandRover's still there," Donald said. "He has to be here in the woods, somewhere." He went to the edge of the clearing, trying to see through the brush. "Martie, did you get a look at him?"

"Not very well," Martie said shakily. Mulder put his hand on her upper arm and pulled her to her feet. "I saw the tray. Then he was pulling me out of the car by my collar. He had already tied my hands. I heard the other car coming, and so did he."

"Can we take this off?" Donald asked.

"Not until we get a picture of it," Scully said, looking at Martie's wrists. "Well, we can cut the other side---we'll need to preserve the knot."

"This looks like an old logging road," Mulder said absently. He had his back to them, looking down at the corpse. "He may have had another vehicle - one with a camper shell - if he could leave the LandRover." He turned around. "There's going to be more than one body here."

He came over to Martie and Scully, looking down at them. "A little closer than I like," he said, still in the same quiet voice. "Were you wearing your badge around your neck?"

Martie pulled away from Scully. "No, it's in my zipper pocket."

"I announced myself, but I never saw him. I don't know if he heard that I was FBI."

Scully got up and went to look at the dead woman. Face up, her features blurred by snow, her red hair spilled across the snow.

They could hear the sirens clearly now, and the first Jeep came over the rise, flashing red and blue lights.

"Think they can catch him?" Donald asked Mulder.

"He's gone," Mulder said, and went forward to meet the first deputy.

On the trip back to Denver, Scully was in misery. She had been mooning over Mulder, and she had let herself be distracted from her job. No one knew that but her, but she had to live with it.

Everyone else was mildly pleased that the profile had worked, and that the original missing woman had been found. Rather than disclose to the killer that the Bureau was interested in him, the press was given the story that he had been interrupted in his second abduction by 'other skiers,' who had seen him loading Martie into his vehicle and followed, calling the sheriff on the way.

No one blamed Martie for not seeing him; he had blitzed her, and she agreed to be hypnotized later, to see if she could remember anything from those two seconds he had faced her. And it was really an extraordinary piece of luck that had let Scully see the flash of red hair against the passenger window.

Mulder was silent. He stayed with the sheriff's investigators, pointing out possible trails to check, and did a quick search of the LandRover. There was nothing in it, of course, superficially. "Probably used gloves, or he's never been fingerprinted," Scully overheard him saying.

Mulder and Scully flew into Atlanta, landing just as a huge snowstorm took hold. It wasn't supposed to last, so they told to stay close to the gate for their connecting flight. Despite the late hour, travelers were milling about. Mulder dropped his carry-on bag and laptop at the end of a row of seats, and dropped himself into the seat next to them.

Scully did the same, but almost immediately realized that she had to pee. Wearily, and with seemingly every muscle in her legs aching, she put down her newspaper and stood.

Mulder's eyes were closed, but he wasn't asleep. His face wasn't this tight when he was sleeping. "I'll be right back," she said. He moved one shoulder in assent, and she walked stiffly away down the concourse.

The restroom mirror showed her with hollow eyes and hair flattened by wearing her wool hat. She held her hands under the taps for a long while, trying unsuccessfully to wake up. Back in another airport restroom, she thought, with the taste of failure in her mouth.

She sneered at her reflection. Very poetic. I was the one who thought it was just a ski trip, that the subject wouldn't go after such obvious bait. I told him I wanted a nice assignment. And now, Martie's getting a commendation for risking her life, and Donald and Mulder and I are getting faint praise for rescuing her and not catching the bad guy.

Perhaps she would get the shakes, later, but she didn't think so. Martie's abduction had served, somehow, as therapy for her own.

Mulder was the one who was suffering.

Yes, she knew he loved her, was devoted to her, in fact; but it wasn't the kind of love she wanted him to feel. She was his compadre, his partner. That one night of sex was an aberration; no wonder he had acted so distressed. She had gone over the line and gotten too close; she had jeopardized a relationship he had been sure of. He would never forgive himself for her abduction, and anything that reminded him of it made him miserable. He had more post-traumatic stress than she did.

Mulder gave every appearance of catatonia, and he had let a woman and her toddler take the spot next to him. The gate seating was completely full.

Scully stopped, dismayed. Mulder blinked once, and got slowly to his feet.

"Here, sit down, Scully," he said. He sounded like he had a cold. "Sit down, Scully," he repeated, impatiently.

Scully sat, and Mulder nudged his carry-on over on its side, and sat down on it, with the air of being perfectly comfortable. "Does your head hurt?" he asked, not looking at her. He was fiddling with the cord on his sunglasses, which still dangled from his neck.

"Not really," she said.

"Too bad," he replied.

Scully sat up. "Oh, and I thought you were worried about me, Mulder." They glared at each other for a moment, and she dropped her eyes first.

"I was," he said. "I don't like being worried." His voice hadn't changed, but she looked up. He half-smiled. "I told you, I hate this shit. This profiling shit." He stopped smiling. "I can't get him out of my head."

"Does your head hurt?" she asked, and forced herself to put her hand, palm up, on her knee. It was the kind of gesture she used to make all the time, without thinking. God. You've been crawling in bed with him for days, and you won't pat his hand?

In the time it took her to process those thoughts, Mulder put his hand in hers and squeezed it slightly.

"Yeah, I can hardly see." They listened to the loudspeaker, but it wasn't their flight, yet.

"We'll get the bad guy next time, Mulder," she said tenderly.

He let go of her hand. "I don't want there to be a next time," he said, and roughly scrubbed at his face. "It's----I hate these cases. I told you."

Before, she could have taken both his hands in hers and comforted him. She could have talked to him without carefully framing her words, or lying awake wondering what he meant by his; she could have hotly argued with him about saying "I told you so," and they would have both cheered up. Even the pale, untanned patches around his eyes were immeasurably dear to her.

"You can't have distractions in this job," he said.

Was this an oblique reference to 'It'? Was that all he was going to say?

She was so afraid of letting him know how much he meant to her that she had to force her face into stiff, severe lines, to offset the unusual softness of his expression. She drew a breath to speak.

A child caromed suddenly into Mulder, almost knocking him over, and he caught the little girl before she fell. "Careful, sweetie," he said. "Where's your mommy?" He held her gently around the middle, listening with attention to something she was murmuring.

"Tell the nice man you're sorry!" said a woman, coming around the other side of the desk. "Thank you so much. She just darted off when I was checking our tickets."

The little girl was homely, with hair, eyebrows and lashes so fair as to be invisible. She said something inaudible, and Mulder said, "You're welcome," and let her go, watching her walk to her mother.

Scully sought vainly for something, anything, to say.

But it was too late; when he looked back at her, his expression was once again the bland, blank one that she dreaded.

"Want a de-caf Diet Coke, Scully?" he asked, standing up and jangling the change in his pocket.

"No," she said. "No."

The end.

Notes: Anyone who wants to read about the remarkable Richard Feynman could do worse than to read his two books of anecdotes, and James Gleick's excellent biography, "Genius".

As far as I know, there is no Black Mountain Resort in Colorado, but I spent time at a similar resort west of Colorado Springs.

Part 2: A Thief's Diet