TITLE: Gerber Daisies
AUTHOR: Discordia
EMAIL: DiscordantWords@hotmail.com
RATING: R
CATEGORY: XRA
SPOILERS: Season 8
SUMMARY: Set immediately after Three Words and continuing 
through the course of the 8th season. Mulder, adjusting to 
life after death, finds himself pitted against one of the 
most dangerous criminal minds he's ever encountered.


*

On the sidewalk Sunday morning 
Lies a body oozing life 
Someone's sneaking 'round the corner 
Is the someone Mack the Knife

-Mack The Knife, Bobby Darin

*
PROLOGUE

Maxwell Gerber stood regarding himself in the large 
bathroom mirror. His fingers drummed restlessly on the 
marble countertop, wedding band clicking against the 
surface. 

He was tall, broad shouldered, every bit as handsome as 
he'd been in his college days. His thick, dark hair was 
just a little too long and curled slightly behind his ears. 
He had changed into an expensive set of black silk pajamas 
his wife had purchased him the previous Christmas, and he 
thought he looked roguish in them. A little dangerous, 
even.  

There was a single spot of crimson on his cheek and he 
reached up and touched it, almost reverently. It left a 
rust colored smear in its wake. Reluctantly, he turned on 
the tap and splashed his face with water, washing the stain 
away. 

Then he turned and made his way down the hall, footsteps 
muffled by the plush carpeting. He paused outside of his 
daughter's room, peering in at her. She lay sprawled on her 
bed, fluffy white comforter kicked away. Her small hands 
were thrown over her head, her face placid and trusting. He 
quietly drew the blankets up to her chin and bestowed a 
kiss on her tiny forehead.

Then he made his way back down the hallway to his enormous 
bedroom, where his wife lay slumbering peacefully in their 
four-poster bed. Her blond hair fanned out around her 
stunning face, and he smiled to himself before slipping 
into bed beside her.

She stirred and opened her sleepy blue eyes to stare at 
him. "What time is it?" she murmured.

"Almost two," he said. "Go back to sleep." 

"Where have you been?" she asked sleepily.

"Downstairs," he said, and smiled. "Working on some 
paperwork." 

"Mac," she said, her voice heavy with disapproval. "You 
start vacation tomorrow." 

"Yes," he said. "Tomorrow. Not tonight. Now go to sleep." 

*

Mac woke early, drove to the florist and purchased several 
brightly colored flowers. He favored the girl behind the 
counter with his most devastating smile, and she flushed as 
she rang up his purchase. On his way home, he stopped at 
the deli and acquired four copies of a late-edition 
newspaper. 

The house was empty when he arrived home. His daughter had 
gone off to kindergarten and his wife was likely off 
shopping with one of her girlfriends. 

Perfect.

He sat down at the kitchen table, slipping soft leather 
gloves over his slender fingers. Then he carefully thumbed 
through the newspaper until he found the article he was 
looking for.

With careful precision, he cut the article out, laying it 
on the table. He did the same with the other three 
newspapers. The discarded newspapers went into the trash 
compacter. 

Carefully, he began to address four small cardboard boxes. 
He slid a flower inside each one, along with the article. 
He did not include a return address. 

He printed each address neatly in block letters, a 
handwriting style he had copied out of a book and which 
bore no relation to his usual loopy cursive scrawl. 

"I have high hopes for you, my friends," he murmured as he 
sealed the boxes. He touched each box, one by one, smiling 
fondly at the names and the memories each one conjured up.

He stacked the boxes in a shopping bag, and headed out the 
door with a skip in his step. He drove to four different 
post offices, giving each box to a different mail clerk.

The last box he handed over he watched for a long time, a 
smile curling on his lips. 

That box was addressed to Charles Scully.

*

To be continued in Part 1

*

ONE


Doctor Smith was a bland-looking man in his early sixties, 
with wispy pale hair and a crinkled, troubled face. Two 
busy white eyebrows were knitted together across a 
latticework of lines on his forehead as he studied the x-
ray in his hands.

"I don't quite understand what you want me to look for."

"Anything anomalous," Mulder said, sitting stiffly on the 
examining table and trying not to look as awkward as he 
felt in the little paper gown. 

"There's nothing," the doctor said, shaking his head. 
"You're the picture of health."

"There's no--"

"Mr. Mulder," Doctor Smith said, his voice heavy with the 
kind of patience usually reserved for small children. "Is 
there something in particular you want me to find?"

"Nothing," Mulder said after a long pause, standing up and 
reaching for his clothes. 

*

He drove back to his apartment in silence, the radio off. 
He saw Scully's car parked in front of the building and hit 
the gas, continuing down the street.

She'd be waiting inside, waiting for him and when she saw 
him she'd have that awful expectant look on her face, and 
he never had any idea what she was expecting him to do. 

He drummed his fingers against the steering wheel when he 
found himself at a red light, staring out the window at a 
happy family in a minivan next to him. A little boy pressed 
his face against the window and blew moist raspberries on 
the glass. Mulder looked away, pressing on the gas again, 
turning into a small park at the edge of his neighborhood.

He sat on a bench for two hours, watching old men play 
chess. When he returned to his apartment, Scully was gone.

*

Later he lay in his bed and watched the shadows play across 
the ceiling while he tried not to close his eyes. Closing 
his eyes brought him to all kinds of unpleasant places, 
places where men with identical faces stood unsmiling over 
him while he bled and screamed.  
 
Of course, the thoughts that swirled through his mind while 
he lay awake were equally troubling. He could just make out 
the steady gurgle of his fish tank, the sound familiar and 
distant through the thin walls. She'd fed his fish.  
 
She'd buried him, replaced him, left him behind, and she'd 
fed his fish.  
 
He wasn't quite sure what to make of that. The thought of 
her, coming to his apartment every day to keep things 
running smoothly while she calmly waited for his eventual 
return from the dead might have amused him had it not 
seemed so surreal. She'd presumed him dead before--and 
refused to believe her own evidence--but she'd never had 
proof, never a corporeal form that she could poke and prod 
and test and grieve over.  
 
Had she grieved?  
 
The Scully he'd left behind would have, he thought. She 
would have grieved, then filed it away in one of her secret 
compartments, the ones she reserved for hurts too deep to 
talk about. She would have made noise about justice, about 
vengeance, but eventually that fire would have died under 
the growing realization that for those involved, there was 
no such thing as justice. And then she would have gotten 
the hell out of the FBI, away from the X Files and all 
things nefarious, set up shop in some small town where 
she'd distinguish herself quickly amidst the medical staff, 
find herself a nice doctor--  
 
He stopped himself there, not wishing to explore the pangs 
that came with such ruminations. He'd wanted her to be 
happy, to have a future. And yet, despite his own 
altruistic thoughts, he'd wanted no part of seeing Scully's 
future without him, seeing her happy with someone else, 
happy in a life where he no longer existed. He was to be 
conveniently buried, blind to the world, content with the 
fact that his last thoughts were of her happiness and not 
his own.  
 
Still, the thought of her haunting his apartment, keeping 
things neat and feeding his fish as though he were merely 
away for a brief sojourn, unnerved him more than he knew 
how to express. How long would they have let her linger? 
Her mother, Skinner, the Gunmen--how long would they have 
let her go on feeding his fish while her stomach swelled 
from the press of new life--

He shook his head and sat up, kicking the blankets away. In 
his kitchen he found a refrigerator stocked with V-8. With 
a grimace he cracked open one of the small cans, chugging 
down the thick liquid and trying not to think about the 
fact that it had always reminded him of blood.

She'd meant well, after all. The least he could do was 
drink the stuff. 

He thought briefly of calling her--the clock said it was 
three-eighteen in the morning, and in another lifetime he 
might have dialed her number and chuckled at the sound of 
her sleep addled voice. 

He tried to imagine her answering the phone tonight. There 
would be none of her tired amusement, just badly concealed 
concern. She'd want to know what was wrong. Next thing he 
knew she'd be dragging her aching, pregnant body out into 
the night to check on him, and that wasn't what he wanted 
at all. 

He sighed and tossed the empty juice can towards his 
garbage can, hearing it clink off the side and roll 
somewhere across the floor. There would be no phone calls 
to Scully tonight. 

He moved into his darkened living room, meaning to turn on 
the television but pausing at a muffled thump from the 
hallway outside, a tentative knocking that was barely 
audible over the gentle gurgle of the tank. 

Scully, he thought, not knowing whether to be relieved or 
apprehensive. He opened the door without looking through 
the peephole. 

It was a Scully at his door, but the wrong one. Maggie 
stood in his hallway, face pale in the dim light, sooty 
circles under her eyes, her normally pristine hair slightly 
mussed. 

Dread pooled in his stomach and he opened his mouth to 
speak. "Is--" 

"No," she said, looking slightly awkward, as if uncertain 
of what he might do. "I didn't want to wake you, but..." 

"You didn't," he said, at a loss for words.

She nodded, shifting from one foot to the other, and he 
moved uncomfortably aside, clearing a path into his 
apartment. 

"Can I get you something? V-8?" he asked wryly, keeping his 
voice light, as though Scully's mother wasn't standing in 
his dim living room looking as though she was about to 
blurt out something profoundly unpleasant. 

"Fox, it's three-thirty in the morning," she said 
patiently, as though vegetable juice was the strangest 
thing about the whole situation.

*

"I couldn't--" Mrs. Scully said, sitting stiffly on the 
couch, an empty can of V-8 on the coffee table next to her. 
"I couldn't bother Dana with this. She has too much to 
worry about as it is, and she'd--" she gave a little laugh. 
"She'd just think I was being silly." 

He was reminded eerily of the first time he'd met Scully's 
mother, in the hallway of Dana's ruined apartment, pale 
worried faces bathed in flashing blue and red lights.

"What is it?" he asked.

"My son," she said. "Charlie. I don't know if you've ever 
met him." 

Mulder shook his head.

"There's been some trouble, over the years," she said 
tiredly. "Always has been, in one form or another. He's 
going through a divorce. I've been worried." She shook her 
head. "But this is different. I had a dream--a dream that 
something terrible was going to happen. I can't explain it, 
Fox, but it's the same feeling I had with Dana, and then 
with Missy--"

He shifted uncomfortably on the couch, putting one awkward 
hand on her shoulder. "Have you called him?"

"At three-thirty in the morning?" She raised her eyebrows, 
and he laughed. She smiled faintly and then reached into 
her pocketbook, smoothing out a slip of paper. "He hasn't 
left a forwarding address. This is Michelle-- his wife--" 
she faltered. "This is her number and address. In case... 
In case you wanted to try..." 

He nodded slowly and took the paper, glancing at the neat 
handwriting. 

"I'm sorry for coming at such an hour," she said, standing 
quickly and looking flustered. Her next words came slowly. 
"I know things have been strained in the past." 

They still are, he thought, but didn't speak. He suddenly 
felt more tired than he could remember ever feeling in his 
life. 

"I didn't believe it, when Dana told me," Maggie said, 
moving towards the door. "I guess I just needed to see for 
myself." She reached for the doorknob and then turned, her 
face deadly serious. "Take care of yourself, Fox. She needs 
you now." 

She'd vanished into the hallway before he had a chance to 
speak. 

*

"Hi," Mulder said, smiling brightly at the harried-looking 
woman who opened the door. He was standing on a white 
porch, amidst a riot of colorful flowers that had erupted 
from their pots under the careful eye of the spring sun. 

She smiled back, hesitantly, peering at him through the 
screen. "Can I help you?"

"You must be Michelle," he said, keeping his hands casually 
in his jean pockets. "Charlie told me a lot about you, but 
it's been years since I've seen him. I was in the 
neighborhood, figured I'd stop by and see if he was in..." 
he let his voice trail off. 

She frowned, running one nervous hand through her hair as 
she opened the screen and stepped out into the sun. "You're 
a friend of Charlie's?"

"Old college buddy," Mulder lied easily, leaning against 
the porch railing. "But, like I said, it's been years." 

"Yes," she said. "Charlie..." She laughed self-consciously. 
"Charlie doesn't live here anymore. We've separated." 

"Sorry to hear that," he said, squinting against the sun. 

Behind her, a cacophony of children's voices rose up. 

"Boys!" Michelle yelled, turning back towards the house, 
before returning her attention to Mulder with a sheepish 
smile. "They can be a handful." 

Something shattered inside the house. 

Her smile faltered. "I'm sure you must be very busy. I'll 
tell you where to find Charlie, and you can be on your 
way." 

*

The marina was half-empty, many people preferring to wait 
until mid to late May to put their boats in the water. 
Mulder had no trouble at all locating The Wanderer. 

The boat wasn't overly large, close to twenty-eight feet, 
and it bobbed invitingly on the calm harbor water. Mulder 
walked slowly past it, not paying it any more attention 
than he paid to the other boats. 

There was a man sitting on the deck, head tilted up to the 
sun. 

"Hello," Mulder said, nodding his head politely. 

The man blinked and looked up at him, flashing a quick 
grin. "Gorgeous day." 

Feeling triumphant, Mulder stopped walking and stepped up 
to the boat. "Unseasonably warm." 

"Just the way I like it," he said, standing up and 
stretching. His skin was the kind of tan a man can only get 
from spending countless hours in the sun, and the light 
glinted off of red-gold hair that had grown just a little 
too long, so that strands stood up at scruffy angles. His 
eyes were faded blue, and he regarded Mulder with poorly 
concealed curiosity. 

Definitely a Scully, although a different breed from the 
strapping Bill. Charlie was tall, but reed thin and wiry. 

"Do I know you?" Charlie asked.

"No," Mulder said. "I'm just passing through. I was 
thinking about getting a boat." 

"You're a wise man," Charlie nodded, bending down and 
rummaging in a faded red cooler, kicking aside several 
empty bottles with one sandal-clad foot. "Want a beer?" 

Eleven o'clock on a Saturday morning, Mulder noted. Then he 
nodded and reached out a hand, accepting a cold bottle. 

"Name's Charlie." 

"Marty," Mulder said automatically.

Charlie took a deep pull on his own bottle, dragging the 
back of his hand across his lips. "So... small boat, big 
boat?"

"Small," Mulder said. "Something to use on the weekends. 
You know." 

Charlie nodded, the breeze ruffling his hair.

Mulder leaned in conspiratorially, resting his elbows on 
the faded teak railing. "What do you think of this place? 
Good place to dock?"  
 
Charlie took another swig of his beer and squinted out at 
the bobbing vessels that surrounded them. "Not bad, for the 
money. It gets a little crowded in peak season. Suddenly 
everyone's a sailor."  
 
"No problems though? With security, safety, none of that 
stuff?" Mulder watched him carefully, looking for any 
reaction. 
 
"Other than the occasional drunken brawl," Charlie winked.  
 
Mulder drained the rest of his beer and nodded his head. 
"Thanks. Maybe I'll see you around."  
 
"Good luck with the boat," the other man called after him 
as he made his way down the wharf.  
 
*  
 
By the time he made it back to his apartment he had begun 
to wonder if it had all been a dream. Mrs. Scully's 
strange, middle-of-the-night visit out of worry for a man 
he'd never even met before-- the fact that he'd acquiesced 
to her requests and spent the morning tracking down 
Scully's brother, who aside from an apparent flirtation 
with alcoholism seemed none the worse for wear.  
 
There were no familiar cars parked outside of his building, 
and he let out a barely contained breath of relief. He felt 
off kilter, as though his world had gone on spinning but on 
a different axis. Like he'd come back to a world of pod 
people. Hell, maybe *he* was the pod person.  
 
He scratched at the skin on the back of his hand and 
wondered what Scully would think if he floated that theory 
by her.  
 
She would've laughed, once. Called him nuts. Maybe even 
pulled him in close to show him in no uncertain terms that 
he wasn't an android, and he'd have chuckled against the 
crown of her head, soft hair tickling his nose before 
submitting to whatever delicious torture she had in store 
for him.  
 
Once upon a time.  
 
He could just picture her expression if he asked her about 
pod-people now. She'd look positively stricken, eyes wide 
and filled with an emotion he hadn't yet been able to 
classify. He'd feel like an ass for bringing it up, and he 
certainly wouldn't know what to do to make her laugh again. 
Somehow his entire life had been turned into a cosmic punch 
line, but no one found it funny anymore.

Mulder resisted the urge to give his apartment door a good 
kick after he'd opened it, instead shutting it calmly 
behind him and stepping inside. 

He found nothing of interest on the television, and lacking 
anything better to do, began to consider how he'd spent his 
morning. 

Charlie Scully. Considerably more affable than Bill, 
although Mulder had to admit that the circumstances under 
which he'd met Bill hadn't been ideal. Perhaps if he'd 
introduced himself as Marty and given no indication that 
he'd known Dana at all, Bill would have been equally 
magnanimous.

He sighed, returning his thoughts to the task at hand. The 
man obviously loved the water, not surprising given his 
family background, although his relaxed demeanor didn't 
indicate a military history. Attractive wife-- soon to be 
ex wife-- and more than one child. Boys. 
 
He remembered Scully mentioning babysitting a nephew once, 
which had led him to believe that she and her brother had a 
fairly close relationship. Maggie's comments the night 
before made him think that something had changed, likely 
recently. A side effect of Charlie's impending divorce? 
Alcohol related? His own mother didn't have a forwarding 
address for him, and that spoke volumes.

He wondered idly if Charlie was suicidal, if that was what 
had Maggie so worried. It certainly fit a pattern-- cutting 
oneself off from friends and family, pending divorce, a 
close relationship with the bottle. But the man he'd met 
hadn't seemed like someone teetering on the edge.

Mulder sighed and stood up, glancing at the clock. Nothing 
was to be gained by trying to profile Scully's brother. 
He'd call Maggie, let her know he'd checked in and found 
nothing amiss, and tell her where she could find her son if 
she had any further worries. 

Her number was programmed in his cell phone, and he bit his 
lip as he contemplated that. He'd always been the one to 
call her with bad news. No wonder she was so awkward around 
him. 

"Hello?"

He blinked. "Scully?"

"Mulder?" She sounded confused. "What--" 

"I was calling your mom--"

"My mom had me over for lunch--" They'd spoken at the same 
time. 

Mulder laughed uncomfortably. "Anything good?"

"Just soup and sandwiches. Is everything--"

"Everything's fine," he said. 

There was a heavy pause on the other end. A *pregnant* 
pause, Mulder thought.

"Did you need to talk to--"

"Yeah," he said. 

"Right," she remained on the line for a moment, he could 
hear her breathing. When she went away, he sighed.

"Fox?" Her mother now, voice thick with concern. 

"Mrs. Scully," he let out a breath of air. "I just wanted 
to let you know I swung by to see your son this morning." 

"Oh," she said, and he heard her sigh with relief. "Is he 
all right?"

"He's living on his boat," Mulder told her. "Doesn't seem 
to be in any trouble as far as I can see." 

"I appreciate you doing this," she told him. 

"Sure," he said. 

"There's another call coming in," Maggie said. 

"Right. I, uh, well let me know if you need anything," he 
said, and hung up. 

Mulder sighed and replaced the receiver. A moment later, he 
picked it up again and dialed. 

"Doctor Smith's office." 

"Hi," he said. "This is George Hale. I was in for an 
appointment yesterday." 

"Yes," the chipper receptionist replied. "What can I do for 
you?"

"Just checking on the results of my blood tests." 

"Yes," she said again. "I have your chart right here. 
Everything's fine." 

"Damn," Mulder said, and hung up.

*

Sunday morning found him awake early, and he drove his car 
out to the storage facility where he'd left his mother's 
things after she died. He did not question the fact that it 
would all still be there, the monthly fee settled, just as 
he had never once questioned the fact that his apartment 
remained just as he'd left it. 

He was correct in his assumptions, and he drew up the door 
to reveal the shrouded boxes and furniture he'd hidden away 
a lifetime ago.

The pain was no longer sharp; he no longer felt the need to 
question why his mother had chosen to take her own life and 
leave him an orphan. If she'd known half of what he knew 
now-- she'd taken the easy way out. He could no longer 
begrudge her that. 

His own return from death had left him feeling curiously 
unfettered to life. He knew Scully was furious at him for 
risking his life the way that he had, recklessly flaunting 
his own mortality in exchange for stolen census data. He 
had no way of explaining that he was already dead-- that if 
he were to be shot or otherwise disposed of it would only 
make the reality match his internal worldview. 

The first box he opened contained a variety of dusty knick-
knacks and he pushed it aside with only a moment's 
hesitation. Perhaps he should smash the little ceramic 
figurines to see if his mother had hidden any more 
otherworldly weapons inside. The thought made him laugh, 
and he moved on without slaking his curiosity. 

There were no photographs amidst the remnants of her life, 
and thus he had no unexpected images to send him spiraling 
back into nostalgia. The things he found were just things, 
and he dealt with them with quiet efficiency. What he 
didn't throw out, he'd donate.

He moved mechanically now, feeling so separate from these 
items that tied him to his past. They were all very nice 
things. His mother had always taken great pride in 
appearances; a lovely house, two lovely children-- both of 
whom had wound up mutilated and tortured to death-- odds he 
wouldn't want to take to Vegas. In the cool interior of the 
storage garage, he felt no lingering anger towards his 
mother, not like he had in the days following her abrupt 
departure.  
 
His restless hands stilled on a dusty cardboard box, 
pulling it towards him. Fingers pulling up the tape to 
reveal a small collection of girlhood objects, toys and 
sentimental remembrances of a childhood that had only 
lasted eight years. He perused the contents of the box 
thoughtfully, wondering what would have compelled his 
mother to burn all of her pictures and yet keep Samantha's 
childhood playthings.  
 
A tall, porcelain doll with thick braided hair; he vaguely 
remembered his father bringing it home from a business 
trip. The doll's face looked uncannily like Samantha, only 
the eyes were wrong, a bright painted green. She'd always 
liked it, managed not to break it in her rough and tumble 
ways, kept it safe and protected. He touched the doll's 
cold face with one finger, smiling a little at the memory. 
Then he set it aside, mind made up to drop it off at one of 
the nearby hospitals to donate to the children's wing. He 
sorted carefully through the other toys before his fingers, 
brushing the bottom of the box, encountered something soft.  
 
He drew the small rag doll out and studied it thoughtfully. 
If he thought hard enough, he could bring back the memory 
of his mother, belly swollen in front of her, carefully 
sewing the doll while he sat and watched, feet kicking 
restlessly at the rungs of his chair. In his memory, she 
was radiant. Happy and hopeful and completely ignorant of 
the tragedies to come.  
 
He turned the doll over in his hands and considered it. It 
had once sat on the ledge overlooking Samantha's crib when 
she was a baby, eventually finding a permanent place on the 
back of one of her shelves as other, more fanciful pursuits 
developed. 

Had his mother ever wondered, before things went bad, what 
would become of her children? Had she had hopes and dreams 
for his and Samantha's futures, hopes that didn't include 
aliens and conspiracies and death? Could she ever have 
guessed, while pregnant with him, that her son would live 
the kind of life he had?

His thoughts brought him unwillingly to Scully, and he 
wondered idly what kind of hopes and dreams she had for the 
child she carried. She hadn't spoken to him about it, about 
anything of consequence really. 

It still stung to look at her, to take in the swollen belly 
and to know he had no part in it. They'd tried to become 
parents before they'd become lovers, and when that didn't 
work they'd endured the heartbreak together. When they'd 
finally crossed that last line, he'd thought they'd both 
been content in what they had in each other. 

From the look of her, she was at least eight months 
pregnant, although he hadn't managed to muster up the 
courage to ask. The thought that she'd kept trying, never 
telling him, leaving him out even as they'd merged their 
lives together made his stomach do painful little flips. 

Just what *had* he interrupted with his untimely return 
from the dead? 

Perhaps it was irrational, but the mere mention of John 
Doggett set his mind reeling. His suspicions about the 
man's intentions had been somewhat alleviated, but just the 
thought of another man in his office, with his *partner* 
made him bristle with the kind of territoriality he thought 
he'd left behind him. 

It was absurd, really, he thought. Dead men held no 
territory. 

But what on earth could Doggett and Scully have spent all 
those months working on? He'd had to cajole her into nearly 
every case they'd investigated together, had to convince 
her of its validity as paranormal phenomena. From 
everything he'd seen, Doggett was even more rigid; he 
didn't have the kind of worldview shaped by seven years of 
smoke and mirrors. Had they just sat down there and laughed 
at each case file that came across the desk?

He delivered a savage kick to a box full of his mother's 
best china, the sharp crunch of shattered memories 
satisfying him in a way that a thousand therapy sessions 
never could. 

He loved Scully more than anything in the world. Loved her 
so much it made him ache to think about being displaced 
from her life. But those missing months stretched between 
them, a chasm that he couldn't even fathom bridging. They'd 
spent seven years growing toward each other, inexorably 
tangling their lives together. It was hard to imagine that 
in the months following his disappearance and death she may 
have begun to grow in a different direction. 

His cell phone trilled sharply, startling him from his 
thoughts. He didn't know whether to be angry or relieved at 
the interruption.

"Mulder." 

"Fox," Maggie Scully said.

He raised his eyebrows. "Something the matter?"

"My son just called," her voice sounded strange. "I 
think... would it be too much trouble for you to take a 
ride over here?" 

Mulder hesitated a moment. "I'm on my way." 

He took the little rag doll with him.

*
TWO


Scully answered the door at her mother's house, smiling 
faintly at him. 

"Thank you for coming," she said, her tone formal.

"Sure, Scully," he said. "What's up?"

Maggie was standing in the living room, her hands clasped 
in front of her, her face pale and pinched. Mulder cringed, 
praying that he hadn't been wrong, that something hadn't 
happened to Charlie only moments after he'd pronounced him 
okay.

"Mom," Scully said, moving cautiously towards her mother, 
one hand pressing protectively against her rounded belly. 
"Are you going to tell me what's going on now?"

"That was Charlie on the phone a few minutes ago," Maggie 
said to her daughter, smiling sadly.

Mulder watched curiously as Scully sucked in her breath, 
biting her lower lip for a moment. "Oh," she said, and her 
voice sounded very small. 

"He didn't tell me much," Maggie continued. "But you and I 
both know he wouldn't have called if it wasn't... if it 
wasn't something important. He said he needs your help-- it 
may be an FBI issue." She was shaking her head, looking 
both frustrated and impatient.

Scully raised her eyebrows. "An FBI issue?" Her voice had 
such a ring of familiar skepticism that Mulder felt a sharp 
pang of longing in his chest. 

"I'm worried about him," Maggie said, glancing over at 
Mulder. He looked blandly back at her. "You know I wouldn't 
bring this to you if I didn't think..." 

Scully sighed, glancing down at the floor. "I'll go talk to 
him." 

"I don't think--"

"Mom!" Scully glanced up sharply. "He says its an FBI 
matter. I'm an FBI agent. It's as simple as that."

Maggie looked distraught. "That's why I called Fox. He-- 
you-- I don't think you should be taking on any additional 
stress." 

Mulder coughed, feeling the attention in the room shift to 
him. He discretely glanced towards the exit. 

Scully set her jaw, and Mulder knew immediately that she 
wasn't going to leave room for argument on this one. 

"Let's go," she said to him. 

*

"She called you," Scully said quietly when they'd settled 
into his car. It wasn't a question.

"She was worried," Mulder said. He glanced over and watched 
her struggle with the seatbelt for a moment, trying to 
stretch it over her swollen stomach. A smile quirked on his 
lips. 

She glanced over at him, and released a breath of air that 
sounded like a sigh. She shot a small smile in his 
direction. "You mind?"

He shook his head, reaching over and gently tugging the 
belt into place. He allowed one finger to trace down the 
side of her face, and swore he heard a sharp intake of 
breath. When he looked at her, her eyes were closed. 

How easy it would be, he thought. To lean over and touch 
his lips to hers, in that casual-familiar way they had 
grown so used to in the brief months they'd been together. 

Her eyes fluttered open. "Mulder?" Her voice was soft, 
almost a whisper. 

The naked emotion he saw in those eyes was unnerving. Pain, 
longing, fear, anger, want-- he wasn't quite ready to take 
any of that on right now. He leaned back in his seat, the 
moment broken. He coughed and looked away, trying to 
pretend he didn't hear the tiny chuff of disappointment 
that fluttered past her lips.

*

The sun was high and hot in the sky as Mulder and Scully 
made their way towards Charlie's boat. He reached out an 
absent hand to help her step up onto the wood, and though 
she touched him only briefly her hand left fire in its 
wake.

Charlie was sitting on a folding chair on the deck of his 
boat, eyes closed, face tilted towards the sun. From inside 
the cabin a radio played softly-- Bobby Darin singing "Mack 
the Knife."
 
"Hello again," Mulder said, as Charlie blinked up at him 
from the deck. He appeared to be several beers in, if 
evidenced by the empty bottles that rolled gently across 
the floor in time with the lapping waves.

"Marty," Charlie nodded. "Back so soon?" He hesitated as 
his eyes fell upon Scully. She wore the same neutral 
expression she usually reserved for interrogations. 

"I was told there's been some trouble," she said calmly. 
"What do you need me to do?" 

Charlie scratched the top of his head. "You're not Marty, 
are you?"

"Fox Mulder," he said, sticking out his hand. "Sorry for 
the deception."

Charlie crossed his arms and shut his eyes. "Aren't you 
supposed to be dead?"

Mulder let a wry smile cross his face. "So they say." 

"Well, shit." He shrugged and accepted Mulder's hand.

"Charlie," Scully said.

"What happened to the other guy?" Charlie asked, glancing 
from Scully to Mulder and back again. "Mom said you were 
working with some other guy." 

Mulder had to fight hard to keep himself in check. He 
settled for coughing and turning to face the water, 
watching the waves gently lap against the sides of the 
dock. It was lovely, really. He imagined he might enjoy 
boating if it didn't always make him so damned queasy.

"I'm currently working with Agent Doggett, yes," Scully 
said, and her voice was flat, professional. She sounded as 
though she were relaying facts to a complete stranger. "I 
didn't inform him of this. I was under the impression you 
wanted this to be... unofficial." 

"I don't know," he said. "I'm not in any trouble. Not 
really. Not yet." 

She crossed her arms and pursed her lips, a look Mulder 
knew well and usually attempted to avoid. "If there's 
something you need to tell me, Charlie, just tell me. Don't 
make me play these guessing games." 

He nodded, tossing his empty beer bottle aside. "Right." 
Then he glanced at Mulder, and his tense smile wavered. 
"No, seriously though. Wasn't there a funeral?"

"A lovely service," Mulder said. "Although if I were to do 
it again I think I'd invest in a roomier coffin." 

"Is he-- are you serious?" 

"No," Mulder said, straight-faced.

"Charlie," Scully sighed impatiently, turning slightly so 
that her back was to Mulder, a subtle but effective signal 
for him to shut up. 

"Well, hell," Charlie said. "If I'd known, I wouldn't have 
sent those flowers." 

"I'll refund your money," she said testily. 

Charlie hiccupped and patted her awkwardly on the head. 
"You never did have much patience." 

"What little patience I have is rapidly running out. Get to 
the point, or I'm going home." 

He heaved an overly dramatic sigh, gave Mulder one more 
dubious look, and set his half-empty beer on the ground. 
"Once upon a time--" His voice faltered at the look Scully 
shot him. "Oh, all right. Michelle showed up about an hour 
ago with a package that arrived at the house yesterday, 
addressed to me. Obviously, we haven't worked out a way to 
have my mail forwarded here." He let out a harsh little 
laugh. 

"What was in the package?" Scully asked softly, looking 
tired. Mulder found himself intensely curious about the 
history between the siblings. 

"This," he said, producing a pink flower. 

"A daisy," she said flatly.

"A Gerber Daisy. They've gotten quite popular over the 
years--" 

"Do you think we could skip the horticulture lecture and 
explain why you felt the need to get mom upset over a 
Gerber Daisy?" 

"It came with this," he held out a crumpled newspaper 
article. 

"East Hampton woman murdered," Scully read out loud.

"No suspects," Mulder added helpfully.

"The package has no return address," Charlie said. "But 
it's from an old college friend." He raised his eyebrow and 
Mulder.

"So an old friend from college sent you a flower and a 
newspaper article," Scully said, looking supremely put out. 
"You haven't spoken to anyone in the family in months, and 
suddenly you expect me to drop everything because of a 
flower--" 

All traces of humor had bled from Charlie's face, making 
him look older, frailer somehow. "You have no idea what 
this means." 

"What, Charlie? What does it mean?" Her voice was a mixture 
of desperation and impatience. 

"It means he's started. And it's only a matter of time 
before the others start too." 

*

Two ginger-haired young boys were wrestling on the lawn of 
the small house Mulder had visited the day before. He 
watched, mildly amused, as the boys tumbled across the 
grass and rolled into the flower beds, trampling several 
small plants.

Scully, apparently, wasn't so amused. "Pete! Sean!" she 
yelled, and Mulder glanced at her in surprise. She'd been 
so cautious, so gentle around him, that he'd forgotten how 
downright frightening she could be when she went into 
authoritative mode. 

The two boys stopped fighting and ran towards her, the 
oldest one reaching her first. He stopped a few paces away, 
regarding her curiously. 

"You're big," he said, peering at her stomach. 

She laughed. "Not too big for a hug, I hope." 

The boy smiled, a genuine, toothy smile, and gave her a 
brief squeeze. His brother came up behind him and grinned 
shyly. 

"Hi, Aunt Dana."

"Hi, Pete."

Mulder blinked as a memory came to him. He smirked at the 
two boys. "Which one of you was the one obsessed with 
'Babe'?" 

"Babes?" Pete giggled, swatting at his older brother. "Sean 
likes babes."

"Aw, I was little when that movie was out," Sean said, 
reddening. "I didn't know any better. Daddy told me pigs 
don't talk." 

"Did you know your aunt used the secret phrase from 'Babe' 
to get an entire pen full of pigs to move?" 

He could feel her eyes burning into him, but he didn't 
turn. 

Sean's eyes went wide, "She did?" 

"She sure did. As a matter of fact, I have it on good 
authority that your fondness of that movie got us out of a 
sticky situation." 

"Really?" 

"You bet." 

"Wow," he said, and looked suitably impressed. Then his jaw 
dropped as he realized his father was in the back seat of 
their car. "DAD!"

Charlie slid out of the car and held his hands up in mock 
surrender. "Hey, chief."

"MOM!" Pete yelled, turning and running towards the house. 
"MOM! DAD'S HOME!" 

"Only you, Mulder," Scully said, hiding her mouth behind 
her hand. "Only you could take what was possibly the most 
gruesome case we'd ever dealt with and turn it into 
something to tell an eight year old." 

"Were you concerned I left something out?" 

They made their way slowly up the drive and towards the 
house, towards the concerned female figure that had taken 
up residence in the doorway.

"Dana?" Michelle said, blinking in surprise.

Mulder stood by awkwardly while Scully was tugged into a 
stiff hug from her sister-in-law.

"And you..." Michelle studied him with an odd expression. 
"College friend of Charlie's-- right?" 

"Dead man," Charlie corrected as he approached the porch. 
"That's Fox Mulder." 

Michelle blinked. "But we sent flowers--"

"Michelle, I'm sorry to intrude on you like this," Scully 
said, cutting in. "But Charlie seems to think there's some 
trouble, and he needed us to take a look at some of his old 
photo albums." 

"What kind of trouble?"

"Nothing to worry yourself about," Charlie said.

She studied him with somber eyes for a moment. "You look 
like you haven't been eating right. The boys... they miss 
you. They don't understand where their father went." 

"This is not the time," Charlie hissed. "I'll be in and out 
in less than an hour. Just pretend I'm not here." 

She shrugged weakly and waved her hand. "Your stuff's in 
the attic." 

*

The "attic" was, in fact, simply an upstairs room, bright 
and airy like the rest of the house. Charlie's belongings 
were packed into simple cardboard boxes and stacked up 
against the walls.

"She said she'd keep 'em until I got myself a place," 
Charlie said, laughing a little bit. "Might take a while." 

Scully bit her lip and sighed in frustration. "Will you 
please explain to us why it was necessary to drive all the 
way over here so you could tell your story?"

"I needed visuals," Charlie said.

"I have an active imagination," Mulder muttered. He felt 
claustrophobic in the little room, with its cheery yellow 
walls and beautiful, lonely reminders of a life that hadn't 
worked out. 

He wondered if Scully had boxed any of his belongings, if 
his things had been neatly categorized and stacked to the 
side of the room so as not to cause anyone to trip. Maybe 
she'd spent the night before his return to his apartment 
frantically unpacking things and attempting to hide the 
fact that she'd given up; said goodbye.

Charlie let out a triumphant exclamation and held up a 
dusty photo album. "Here we go. Charlie Scully, the college 
years." 

Mulder watched out of the corner of his eye as Scully 
lowered herself, panting, into a folding chair. Some part 
of his brain began to fret-- was the room too warm? Had she 
been on her feet too long? Could the stress of an obviously 
tense family situation be too much for her in this 
condition? Had she ever, in the few strange days they'd 
spent together since his resurrection, wished he'd remained 
in the ground?

He gritted his teeth and glanced over at Charlie, who was 
leafing through the album with a serious little scowl on 
his face.

"Here," Charlie said, thrusting a picture under Dana's 
nose. It was a group shot, four guys and a girl, arms 
casually slung around one another's shoulders. "That's Mac, 
Joey, Tyler, yours truly of course, and Zoe." 

"All very fascinating," Scully sighed. "But--"

"The package came from Mac." 

"And you know this because...?"

"His last name was Gerber." 

"Ah," Mulder said. "A smoking gun." 

"So this Mac Gerber," Scully said. "You think he killed 
this woman?"

"Of course he did." 

"Of course," Mulder echoed, scratching idly at the mostly 
healed scabs on his cheek. He'd rapidly lost patience with 
Charlie and his penchant for dragging out a story. 

"I didn't bring you here to mock me," Charlie muttered. "I 
don't have to help you at all." 

"What would help," Scully said through gritted teeth. "Is 
if you would tell us what you know about this woman's 
death."

Charlie sighed. "It was an intellectual argument, a purely 
hypothetical discussion. We did that a lot-- debated 
something purely for the enjoyment of the debate. We were 
rarely serious about any of it, you know? You ever have one 
of those conversations where you don't actually mean 
anything you're saying, you're just arguing it for 
argument's sake?"

"All the time," Mulder said with mock earnestness.

Charlie shot him a sidelong glance and then shrugged. "It 
was Joey's birthday. The five of us were at his apartment, 
just getting drunk. Typical Saturday night." 

"Obviously."

"Mulder," Scully snapped. He shut up.

"Mac kept playing that song on the radio. 'Mack the Knife.' 
Joey was trying to learn it on his guitar..."

*

1987

It was Joey's twenty-first birthday and they'd spent it 
drinking beer in his living room, the stereo wailing. 
Somehow Mac had gotten a hold of the old Bobby Darin 
cassette Charlie had taken from his parents and had the 
volume cranked up-- he'd always loved 'Mack the Knife' with 
all the fire of his egotistical machinations. They'd gotten 
Joey good and drunk; he could barely hold his perch on the 
couch, guitar clutched in numb fingers. He plucked at the 
strings and they'd tried not to listen-- he had difficulty 
holding a tune when he was sober. 

Mac was sitting on the tattered love seat, arm slung around 
a girl with teased blond hair. He had a beer in one hand, 
the sweating bottle pressed against her bare arm, and she 
didn't seem to mind. A cigarette smoldered between his 
lips. 

Tyler was sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, 
a pile of empty cans next to him. He had broad shoulders 
and a big, square face, blond hair cut close to his scalp. 
His eyes were a little too close together, and many people 
upon first meeting him thought him dumb. Yet he clutched a 
well-worn volume of poetry in one meaty hand, and was 
reciting in a soft, gentle voice to the off-key warbling of 
Joey's guitar. 

Zoe was the only girl they'd ever counted as part of their 
group-- Mac circulated girls in and out of their lives with 
alarming frequency, but none of them ever stuck around long 
enough to become regular fixtures. Zoe wasn't like them. 
She was a little on the heavy side, with a serious, 
flawless face and black hair cut in a blunt bob that ended 
just below her chin. She was intelligent and bold and had 
no patience for the typical girl shenanigans that kept Mac 
playing the field. Yet lately she'd been looking to Joey 
with her big, damp eyes, and the look on her face made them 
believe that it wouldn't be long before she couldn't be 
considered a de facto guy. 

A damn shame, Charlie thought, draining another beer can 
and tossing it aside. He'd liked Zoe. They all did. Once 
she crossed that line and began to demand to be looked at 
as a woman instead of one of the boys, then they couldn't 
like her as much anymore. It was like a rule, or something. 
Only a matter of time before she started nagging them to 
pick up after themselves.

"Dom's having a party tonight," the blonde on the couch 
spoke up, looking up at Mac with her dark lined eyes. 

"Fuck Dom," Mac said, leaning forward and tilting his head 
towards her with the sort of practiced casual indifference 
that drove the girls wild. "We're better than Dom." 

The girl-- Ashley? Amanda? Annie?-- stared at him for a 
moment before sighing and reaching for the cigarette in his 
hand. He let her take it, a small smile on his face as he 
watched her inhale. 

"We're better than Dom," Joey said, several moments too 
late for his statement to have any impact. He clenched one 
hand into a fist and almost dropped his guitar. 

Tyler stopped his quiet recital, closing the book and 
staring up at them with his small blue eyes. 

Charlie laughed and opened another beer. "Guys like Dom," 
he said earnestly, sitting forward and fixing the blonde in 
his sights. "They have no idea what it means to really 
live, you know? Bunch of monkeys." 

"At least they have fun," she said doubtfully.

Zoe let out a derisive little chuckle from where she sat, 
and Mac slid his arm out from behind the blonde. 

"Fun?" Mac said, winking at Charlie, his signal that he was 
going to take over. "You call packing into a room with a 
hundred drunken frat boys fun?"

"You guys are drunk," she said, handing him back the 
cigarette.

"We're expanding our minds," Mac said.

"Whatever." 

"No," he said, his voice taking on a harder edge. "It's not 
the same thing. Guys like Dom, all those guys, they don't 
deserve to live." 

Joey laughed, and this time the guitar did slide out of his 
hands. It hit the ground with a discordant twang and he 
fumbled for it, pulling it back into his lap. "We should 
kill 'em." 

"Oh hell," the girl said, and stood up, wobbling unsteadily 
on heels. "I'm going to the party. All you guys do is mope 
around and drink." 

"Go," Mac said dismissively. "But you're better off with 
us. All the guys at that party are going to do is try to 
get you drunk and get up your skirt." 

She narrowed her eyes at him, hair falling over her 
forehead in a teased and sprayed tangle. 

"Don't think they'd have much trouble, at this point," he 
said, eyeing her critically. 

She raised one perfectly manicured middle finger, and 
stalked from the room, tall leather boots squeaking. Tyler 
resumed reading from his little book.

"Too bad," Charlie said, watching her go. "She was hot." 

"They're all hot," Mac said, shrugging. "Tomorrow there 
will be someone else. I wish they could understand how 
predictable they are." 

"I wish someone that predictable would look my way," Joey 
sighed, earning a predictably longing look from Zoe that he 
predictably ignored.

"It gets boring," Mac said.

"Oh, to have your kind of boredom," Charlie grumbled.

"When that shark bites!" Joey bellowed abruptly, out of 
tune and off key with what he was attempting to play with 
his guitar. "Scarlet billows start to spread!"

"God," Zoe said, wrinkling her nose. "Someone take that 
guitar away before he hurts himself." 

"You know," Mac said thoughtfully, "it is an interesting 
idea."

"What?"

Tyler stopped mumbling poetry to look up at him, small eyes 
bright with interest.

"We...the five of us here...we're in agreement that we're 
intellectually superior to the majority of people around, 
correct?"

"Of course," Charlie said.

"Macky's back in town," Joey slurred.

Mac turned to Charlie, eyes shining. "How would you rank 
us, in terms of intelligence?"

"Joey's last," Zoe said sourly, looking at the object of 
her affection with more than a little resentment. He gave 
her the finger from where he sat slumped in his seat. 

"What if we could prove it?" Mac asked, and he didn't seem 
drunk at all. He seemed energized, electrified. 

"That we're intellectually superior?" Charlie asked. "How?"

"I always figured we were proving it by avoiding all the 
idiots," Tyler said, blinking. 

"You ever think about murder?"

"All the time," Joey said, glancing down in dismay at his 
guitar, as though realizing for the first time that the 
noises coming out of it could not, in the most kindest of 
definitions, be considered music. He tossed it aside and 
the strings let go with a sad snap as it hit the wall. 

"Where are you going with this?" Zoe asked.

"Murder as an intellectual exercise," Mac said, turning the 
magnetic charm that he usually reserved for sultry co-eds 
on in full force. His cheeks had flushed with high color 
and he leaned forward a little bit, resting his hands on 
his knees. "I've done a lot of reading on serial killers. 
They're predictable."

"Are you proposing we become serial killers?" Charlie asked 
with a laugh.

Mac cocked his head and gave a little half smile. "For 
argument's sake, suppose I said yes." 

"You're crazy."

"Perhaps," Mac conceded. "I'm not talking about taking up 
knives and crashing Dom's frat party tonight. I'm talking 
about planning. About ideas. About how people kill because 
it's impulsive or it fills a need, not out of intellectual 
curiosity. And I think about it sometimes, about what would 
happen if the police had to go up against someone who had 
no emotional investment in the murders he committed."

"Cold rationality," Tyler nodded. "I like it." 

"These wouldn't be murders of passion. They wouldn't be 
murders borne of some sick desire or need. None of us, as 
far as I know, ever tortured animals or wet the bed or 
displayed any of the stereotypical signs. If we chose to do 
this, we'd be unstoppable."

"Knowing you," Charlie said, "this is going to be a contest 
of sorts."

"Of course," Mac shot them a crooked grin. "We forget this 
conversation ever happened. We go about our lives, graduate 
college, drink too much on weekends, get laid as much as we 
goddamn can. But some time in the future, one of us will 
decide it's time to start. And that lucky first person will 
send the others a sign."

"That sounds fantastic," Joey said, his voice slurred. It 
was fairly certain that he'd have no trouble forgetting the 
conversation.

"And," Mac continued, "when you receive the sign, then you 
start. Murder. Detached. Last one standing wins."

"So what, a race to be arrested?"

"If you're at all as smart as I hope, none of us will ever 
be arrested," Mac said, and he smiled. "And if not...we'll 
have our ranking, won't we?"

"Hell," Zoe said. "I'm in."

"Me too," Joey nodded.

"Yeah," Tyler said with a little laugh.

"Why not?" Charlie said, laughing, and reached for another 
beer.

*

"We never spoke of it again," Charlie said. "It was like 
the majority of ideas we'd discussed but never carried out. 
I'd convinced myself it was purely hypothetical. Murder for 
sport-- it's a crazy idea." 

"And now this flower has you thinking otherwise," Mulder 
said, his voice low. 

"It's a fucking Gerber Daisy. It has to mean something." 

Scully shook her head. "Charlie," she said with a sigh. "I 
think it means you need to get help." 

"What, like AA?" He asked with a laugh. "Right. Great. A 
lot of good that will do when Mac comes calling. Mack the 
fucking Knife." 

"Five serial killers working in tandem would go against 
everything in the book," Mulder said.

"Mac doesn't go by any book. He writes his own." Charlie 
shook his head. "Besides, it's not in tandem. It's a 
competition. Completely independent."

"Well," Scully said, standing up with a wince, her hands 
moving to her lower back. "Let us know if you get any more 
flowers." 

She turned to walk towards the back stairs without checking 
to see if Mulder followed.

* 
 
To be continued in Part 3

*
THREE


Mulder waited until they were in the car before he spoke. 
"So what do you think?"

"I think," Scully said, and let out a hiss of air between 
her teeth as she settled herself into the passenger seat. 
"That he's full of shit." 

He nodded and reached around her to click the seatbelt in 
place. He carefully avoided eye contact as he returned his 
hands to the wheel. "You have to admit that the flower is 
pretty strange." 

"Mulder, he probably mailed it to himself," she sighed. "I 
know you want to take this at face value, but this is 
classic Charlie. He's always had this pathological need for 
attention." 

Mulder nodded, troubled. "You're right. I don't know him at 
all." 

She raised her eyebrows at him. "You think this is a 
possibility then? That across the country, three other 
people are just going to walk away from their jobs and 
families and go on a killing spree?"

He shrugged. "It might bear some investigating." 

"Then by all means," she muttered. "Go and investigate." 

He started the car and pulled into the road, clenching the 
wheel a little tighter than he'd intended to. 

"Mulder?" she asked after a moment, her voice disarmingly 
soft.

He tilted his head towards her, not trusting himself to 
speak. 

"Why did my mom call you?"

He sighed, keeping his eyes on the road. "She was worried 
about Charlie. She came to see me." 

"She came to see you?" Her eyebrows arched up in a comical 
expression of disbelief. "When?"

"Friday night."

Scully let out a little breath that sounded like it might 
have been a laugh. "My mother." 

"Your mother," he agreed.

"Mulder, she doesn't even..." Her voice trailed off and she 
turned her head, suddenly interested in the passing 
scenery.

"Like me?" he offered. "I know." 

"No," she said. "She likes you. She's always liked you. 
It's just..." 

"I'm a bearer of bad tidings." 

"Something like that," Scully sighed. "Some of that's my 
fault." 

He didn't answer her, just kept driving. 

"She does," Scully said. "Like you, you know. There was a 
period of time when she was extremely fond of you. It was 
before the bad things began to pile up." 

He was quiet. Was that how she'd viewed their partnership? 
A series of bad things piling up?

"She never stopped liking you," Scully said, as though 
realizing that she was digging herself into a hole and 
attempting to talk her way out of it. "Circumstances just 
became a little more difficult." 

"Scully," he said, looking over at her. "Why are we 
psychoanalyzing your mother?" 

She did laugh at that, a tired little huff of air that 
escaped her upturned lips. "I don't know, Mulder. I guess 
I'm just trying to figure out why she'd call you." 

"She had a dream," he said finally. "About Charlie. About 
something bad happening to him. She had that same kind of 
dream before you were taken." It surprised him, the frank 
honesty with which he was able to spit out those words.

"Oh," Scully said. 

"She thought you might laugh at her." 

"Mulder, it's been quite a few years since I would have 
laughed at that." 

He didn't know what to say to that revelation. 

"I've seen things," she said, eyes downcast. "You know 
that." 

Mulder took a deep breath, glancing away. "Scully, do you 
think there's any chance that what your brother is saying 
could be true?"

She blinked at him, her eyes searching his face. "I guess 
there's a chance. I don't... I don't really know him 
anymore, Mulder." 

That was true about a lot of things, he thought, but kept 
quiet as he eased his car through the Sunday traffic.

*

Having little else to do to occupy his Sunday evening, 
Mulder logged in to the FBI database from his home computer 
and conducted a little background check on Charles Scully. 

Dishonorable discharge from the Navy at nineteen. He'd 
barely survived a year in the service. 

Finding nothing else of note, Mulder ran the name through 
an internet search engine. 

He found several archived short stories and poems from a 
university newspaper, obviously written during Charlie's 
college years. Curiously, Mulder scanned through the 
stories. They were well written, polished, and contained 
all the signs of keen intellect. Some thinly disguised 
diatribes against a family he found too stifling. 

Nothing that indicated he was destined to become part of a 
pack of Ted Bundy wannabes. 

He scrolled down past the short poetry entries from other 
students, pausing as one name leapt out at him. 

-The Truth
-By Maxwell Gerber

-I am better than you. 
-Don't forget it.

Mulder leaned back in his chair and studied the two short 
sentences. A warning, masquerading as bad poetry? Charlie 
had hinted that his friend thought himself superior to 
others, and felt a desire to prove that. 

"What have you been up to for the past fourteen years, 
Mac?" he murmured, entering the name into the search 
engine. 

He blinked in surprise at what he found. 

Maxwell Gerber, wildly successful CEO of a Long Island 
based dot com called Silverline Industries. His name 
appeared in several news articles, all full of high praise. 
A slowly-loading picture revealed Mac to be a strikingly 
handsome man in an expensive suit, with a lush mop of dark 
hair that he wore just a little too long, hinting at the 
more casual atmosphere of his employment. A stunning blonde 
woman stood next to him, clasping his arm and beaming at 
the camera. In front of them, smiling shyly, was a small 
dark-haired girl who appeared to have inherited her parents 
genetic blessings. 

The caption under the photo read: Silverline CEO Maxwell 
Gerber, wife Gabrielle and daughter Devon at the annual 
company picnic.

It was the picture of pure domestic bliss. Mac Gerber 
didn't look like the kind of man who moonlighted as a 
serial killer. 

Still, Mulder couldn't help but wonder. 

*

Mulder had come to find that being inside the Hoover 
building was a surreal experience. He'd returned to his 
life to find that he'd been displaced, his office was no 
longer his, his partner was assigned to someone else-- 
pregnant with *someone's* child. His colleagues, who had 
usually given him a wide berth, now felt free to ogle him 
openly. 

His superiors didn't seem to know what to do with him. He 
had no official assignments. Until the paperwork was duly 
sorted and he was officially listed as among the living, he 
could not be assigned a desk or any investigative duties. 
 
Skinner had given him his badge and gun, as a gesture of 
good faith. Kersh had been less than thrilled. But the fact 
remained that until certain technicalities could be sorted 
out, Mulder didn't really exist. 

He did have specific orders to stay the hell away from the 
X Files. Which was a shame, since the basement office drew 
him in like a moth to the flame. 

It still looked the way he'd left it, which only added to 
his feelings of unreality. It was as if he'd blinked and 
the world had moved on. 

It was Monday morning and he'd arrived at work looking 
freshly pressed and as far from dead as he could muster. 
The scabs from his cheeks had fallen off onto the shower 
floor as he'd scrubbed his face that morning, and he'd 
peered into the mirror to reveal a face that was more or 
less undamaged. The jagged scar on his chest had begun to 
itch and flake in places, revealing smooth skin underneath.

It frightened him to think that he'd have no lasting 
reminders of his ordeal. It was as if it had never 
happened. 

"Mulder?" Scully asked, her voice heavy with concern as she 
stepped delicately into the basement office. He was leaning 
on the edge of his old desk-- who's desk was it now? 
Scully's? Doggett's?-- and he cradled a manila envelope 
full of the pictures he'd printed the night before. 

"I thought you might want to take a look at the man Mac 
Gerber grew up to be," Mulder said, handing her the 
envelope. 

"CEO of Silverline Industries," she said without opening 
the file. "All around model citizen." 

He smiled. "I see you did your own digging." 

"I put in a call to his company. His secretary told me he 
was on vacation," Scully said.

Mulder raised his eyebrows. "You don't say." 

"Any guesses as to what that vacation might entail?"

"Ten to one he's not at Disneyworld," Mulder muttered. "You 
up for another visit to your brother?"

"Let me just leave a note for Agent Doggett." 

Mulder scowled but stood quietly by the door while she 
scribbled something on a piece of paper. Of course, 
ordinary colleagues did things like that-- let the other 
know when they'd be out of the office. He and Scully had 
developed their own sort of rhythm over the years, coming 
and going with few if any clues left behind to their 
whereabouts. The closer they'd gotten, the less inclined 
they were to stray far.
 
But, this was a different Scully. And Agent Doggett was 
most definitely not Mulder. 

She looked up as she finished writing her note, brushing 
past him as she moved through the doorway, her eyes daring 
him to say something. 

"Where is the esteemed Agent Doggett this morning?" he 
asked, the words past his lips before he'd even considered 
speaking.

"He had a meeting with Kersh." 

"Ah." 

She cut her eyes at him but said nothing, and he resisted 
the urge to touch her arm as they walked down the hallway 
towards the elevator. If he squinted and ignored her slight 
waddle, he could almost convince himself that it was like 
old times.

*

Charlie was standing on the dock, hosing down the side of 
his boat when they arrived. He grinned sheepishly at them, 
his ginger hair waving in the stiff breeze coming off the 
water.

"Back again?"

"I did some digging into Maxwell Gerber," Mulder said, 
crossing his arms.

"Convinced yet?"

"I've got some suspicions," Mulder said evasively.

"Good," Charlie said. "Because I got another package in the 
mail today, and last time I checked it wasn't my birthday." 

Mulder glanced at Scully who was already reaching into her 
pocket for gloves. He quirked a smile in her direction-- 
some things never changed.

"Has anyone touched this besides you?" she asked, running 
one latex-encased finger over the rough edges of the 
cardboard box. 

"Well, the mailman, obviously. And about ten thousand other 
people at the postal agency. It was sent overnight express. 
But I haven't opened it, if that's what you mean." 

There was no return address on the package, just Charlie's 
name and address written with thick black marker. Scully 
produced a pocket knife and carefully slit the side of the 
box open. 

"Walt Whitman," she said, lifting the book out of its bed 
of styrofoam nuggets. 

"Tyler," Charlie murmured, closing his eyes. 

"There's a newspaper clipping," Mulder said as Scully 
opened the book, a thin piece of paper fluttering from the 
pages. 

"Texas," he said, scanning the text quickly. "A woman shot 
to death." 

"And then there were three," Charlie said.

"I'm taking this back to headquarters," Scully said. "See 
if I can pull any prints." 

"They know better than that," Charlie sighed. "They'll 
follow a certain pattern. They'll want the police to know 
it's a serial case. But they won't be stupid enough to tie 
the evidence to themselves. They've had years to plan." 

"Your friend Tyler seems to have wasted no time," Mulder 
muttered. "For a group of people you claim never spoke of 
these plans outside of one drunken conversation." 

"Obviously I was the only one who didn't take it 
seriously." 

Scully muttered something, causing both Mulder and Charlie 
to swivel their heads to look at her in surprise.

"What was that?" Charlie's voice had dropped dangerously 
low.

"I said," she raised her eyes to meet his, shoulders stiff. 
"That it's not surprising." 

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"That you held a drunken conversation about organized 
serial killing, made a *pact* with these people, and that 
instead of being disturbed by that fact you simply held it 
as a fond college memory." 

"I'm sorry," Charlie said, his voice pure acid. "We can't 
all have fond college memories of sleeping with our 
professors." 

Scully recoiled as if slapped, and Mulder stepped forward, 
uncertain as to what he should say but knowing that he 
ought to say something. Scully stopped him with a cold 
glare, which she then turned on her brother. 

"You've obviously got something to say, Charlie," she said, 
her voice deadly calm. "So say it." 

"I just think it's funny," he said, picking up the hose and 
returning his attention to the side of his boat. "You and 
mom and Bill-- you all say I need so much attention. But 
really, Dana, it's you."

"Excuse me?"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about. You finish med 
school, decide to throw everyone for a loop by joining the 
FBI. Dad--" his voice shook slightly, "Dad dies, and 
somehow it's all about you. Your guilt. You know, Dana, you 
*should* feel guilty. You killed him." 

She sucked in a breath, her face suddenly white. 

"For Christ's sake," Mulder said, touching her hand and 
scowling at Charlie. "Your sister's pregnant--"

"Oh, yes," Charlie said, laughing now. He was on a roll, 
short of getting struck by lightning nothing was stopping 
his momentum. "You know, I'm surprised you haven't noticed 
this pattern by now. It's always All. About. Dana. Michelle 
gets pregnant-- Dana disappears for three months and turns 
up in a coma. They talk about disconnecting life support-- 
no hope and all, we make our peace and then suddenly she's 
fine. 

"Bill and Tara announce they're expecting a baby-- Dana 
gets cancer. She has Mom and Bill spending all their time 
at the hospital waiting for her to die-- and then she's 
magically better. Just like that. Overnight. Then it's a 
tragedy because she can't have kids. So what happens? Tara 
gives birth to Matthew and Dana finds some kid she 
magically claims is her daughter. In spite of the fact that 
she'd never been pregnant. Then the kid dies. So instead of 
celebrating Matthew's birthday, everyone's gotta go to a 
funeral for her imaginary daughter. 

"I lose my job-- Dana announces that she's pregnant and 
that the baby's father has disappeared." He shot a venomous 
look in Mulder's direction. "Pregnant. The girl who 
couldn't have kids, in case you weren't keeping score. 
Then, Michelle files for divorce-- and you turn up dead, 
Mulder. Dead. You think I got any of mom's attention while 
poor pregnant Dana was home mourning? No. So, tell me, what 
happens next? Three months go by, and then they're 
supposedly digging up your grave? And you're somehow still 
alive down there? You've got to be fucking kidding me. Is 
there a person alive who bought that story?" 

Mulder narrowed his eyes but said nothing. 

"She," Charlie said, pointing one trembling finger at his 
sister. "Is the reason for every bad thing that has 
befallen this family. Bill blames you, Mulder. He's awfully 
protective of his baby sister, and he hasn't had much use 
for anything I have to say. But I think I'll place blame 
squarely where it belongs. Right on my sister's pretty, 
treacherous little head." 

Scully remained rigid next to Mulder, regarding her brother 
coolly. "Is that all?" 

"Fuck," Charlie said, dropping the hose and climbing back 
onto his boat. "Maybe I should have become a serial killer 
after all." 

Scully studied him for a moment longer before turning and 
striding away with as much poise and dignity as her 
condition would allow. 

Mulder stood his ground for a moment, watching the man in 
front of him with a new perspective. "You're wrong," he 
said finally.

Charlie waved his hand dismissively in the air, face turned 
towards the water. "So what if I am?"

*

He found Scully already in the car, seatbelt buckled 
securely. She looked resolutely out the window at the 
parking lot, not meeting his eye. 

"Scully?" he said, uncertain how to proceed. 

"I never realized how much he hated me," she said quietly, 
still looking away. 

"That's not hatred," Mulder said. "That's anger. Fear. Your 
brother's scared or he would never have asked to see you 
about this."

She nodded slowly, and he couldn't tell if she was agreeing 
with him or just trying to get him to stop talking. 

"I'd like to go home," she said.

*

I can do this, Mulder thought. 

He'd been sitting outside Scully's apartment for close to 
an hour, engine running, watching the sun go down. The 
wrapped present sat on the passenger seat next to him.

He hadn't intended to give her Samantha's rag doll, not 
consciously. But he'd brought it with him from the storage 
garage, and it had sat on his desk for the next day, 
watching him with dispassionate stitched eyes. 

When he'd returned from dropping Scully off at her 
apartment after their meeting with Charlie, he'd sat down 
in his chair and contemplated the simple little doll. 

It seemed so tangled up in happy memories. His mother, 
smiling and humming to herself as she sewed. He'd been so 
eager for the baby to be born, believing his mother with 
wide-eyed certainty when she told him she was positive she 
was having a girl. 

He'd thought Scully could use a little dose of happy at the 
moment, so he'd wrapped the doll up, recalling her glee as 
she'd torn into his Christmas present a lifetime ago. 

And somehow, during the twenty minute drive to her 
apartment, he'd lost his nerve. 

You can do this, he told himself again.

His mind kept going back to what Charlie had said in the 
height of his anger. *Dana announces that she's pregnant 
and that the baby's father has disappeared.* The words 
echoed through his head, over and over again. 

He glanced out the window at the apartment building again 
and rested his head on the cool glass. Was that true? She 
hadn't denied it, but she hadn't jumped to her own defense 
on a number of things her brother had brought up.

The easiest-- and most painful-- thing for him to believe 
was that she'd continued the in vitro attempts without him. 
Maybe with donor eggs. Or hell, maybe after everything he 
was the problem. Maybe her failure to conceive had nothing 
to do with her own body. 

Maybe she'd tried another path, and hadn't wanted to tell 
him until it was certain that it had worked. Maybe she just 
never got the chance--

Or maybe she hadn't been trying. Maybe it had been purely 
accidental, the product of--

He laughed to himself then. The product of what? Short of 
alien intervention, there was no way Scully could have 
gotten pregnant the conventional way. Right? He asked 
himself. Right? 

With a sigh he reached over for the wrapped package and 
stepped out of the car. Baby steps, he told himself. 
Changed or not, she was still the most important person in 
his life. 

*

I can do this, Mulder thought with more certainty once he 
realized how easy it was to slip into his old familiar 
banter with Scully. She'd answered the door, her voice 
slightly nasally, as if she'd been crying before he'd 
arrived. But he was pleased to see her smiling as she 
teased him, and even more pleased to note that there was 
none of that terrible expectancy in her voice, no eyes 
begging him to answer a question he didn't know the answer 
to. 

He'd even slipped in a joke about the pizza man and 
Scully's pregnancy, just to show he was paying attention. 
She'd smirked at him but hadn't offered up any information.

And then, right in the middle of their enjoyable repartee, 
she keeled over in pain, and Mulder felt his heart stop.

*

Mulder had grown so accustomed to the sights and smells of 
the sterile hospital corridors that he barely shot a glance 
in the direction of the nurses he passed on the way to her 
room. 

She was sleeping, but he woke her anyway, feeling more than 
a little guilty for staying away. 

She smiled at him, didn't seem at all irritated or 
bewildered, and he realized with a pang that was what she 
expected of him--to haunt her, ghostlike, at odd hours. He 
had never held to regular visiting hours, save for the time 
he thought she might really be gone for good, and even then 
she'd been surprised to see him. 
 
"What did the doctor say?" he asked her, watching her face 
cautiously. 

"That I had a partial abruption. Which means that my 
placenta started to tear away from the uterine wall. 
They're going to need to monitor me for a while."

Mulder had a brief urge to drive back to the dock and drown 
Charlie in the murky harbor waters, but he suppressed the 
desire, instead giving Scully a small smile. "But you're 
going to be fine?"

"Yeah," she said. 

The relief he felt was crushing. He almost staggered under 
the weight of his own gratitude, but instead he startled 
himself by reaching out his hand to touch her belly, 
spreading his fingers across its rounded smoothness. Some 
emotion he couldn't quite name was bubbling up inside of 
him but he kept his hand on her abdomen and couldn't help 
but return the sweet smile she sent in his direction.

She took a deep breath, her chest rising and falling, and 
Mulder watched and felt something break loose inside his 
chest. When he thought about it later, he realized he'd 
been staking his claim.

He was going to be a father.

* 

To be continued in Part 4

*

FOUR


"Mr. Mulder-- Hale-- whatever the hell name you're using 
today, I don't see the point in this," Dr. Smith said, arms 
folded across his crisp white lab coat. 

"Can't be too careful," Mulder said.

"You were just here a week ago. You underwent a full 
workup. Blood tests, X-rays, everything came back normal."

"That was last week," Mulder said sourly.

"Why are you here?" 

Mulder sighed, leaning his back against the wall. He had 
grown increasingly preoccupied with his health since his 
impromptu return from the dead, but was at a loss to 
explain why. 

There was a niggling little voice in his brain that told 
him that he was hoping the doctor would find something 
seriously wrong so that he could resume his rightful place 
under the ground. He studiously avoided such thoughts, and 
instead scanned X Rays and MRI results with an anxious eye, 
wondering what he'd do if he found something abnormal. 

"If I start to turn into something else," he told the 
silver-haired doctor. "I want to be the first to know about 
it." 

The older man regarded him with raised eyebrows. "And what, 
may I ask, do you think you might turn into?"

"Just take another set of X-rays, all right?" Mulder said, 
shutting his eyes. "I'm paying cash." 

*

"I just got the results from the lab," Scully's voice came 
through his cell phone, firm and clear. 

Mulder stood on the curb outside the doctor's office, 
squinting into the bright sun. "And?"

"No fingerprints on the contents," she said. "The lab tech 
thought I was kidding." 

"Did you tell him anything?" Mulder asked as he slid behind 
the wheel of his car. 

"Just that we were taking the threat seriously." 

"What threat?" Mulder muttered as he pulled out of the 
parking lot. 

"That's exactly what he said."

He sighed. "I'll take it over to VCU, but I really don't 
think they're going to find anything worth following up on. 
No one is going to buy into a serial killer theory based on 
a newspaper clipping and a story about a drunken night 
twelve years ago." 

"Mulder," she said, and her voice was soft in his ear. 
 
"Yeah?"

"What if he's right?"

"I thought you were the skeptic in this partnership." 

"We're not partners," she said, and then immediately fell 
silent. 

"No," he said softly. "I guess we're not." 

"Mulder--"

"You're breaking up," he said, pulling the phone away from 
his head. "I can't hear you. Sorry. Gotta go." 

He hung up and got into his car, scowling. He started 
towards his apartment and then made an abrupt u-turn in the 
road, earning angry honks from other drivers. 

He drove straight to the airport.

*

The traffic heading towards the east end of Long Island was 
atrocious. Mulder sighed and leaned his head against the 
window of his rental car as he inched along the one lane 
highway that meandered past scenic farm stands and 
expensive boutiques. There was a wide variety of cars on 
the road, but most indicated extreme affluence. 

He finally turned off onto the tree-lined side street that 
housed Maxwell Gerber's impressive estate. The house was 
set back, barely visible behind a thick row of privet 
hedges. A red Porsche gleamed in the driveway behind a 
wrought iron gate. 

Mulder sat and studied the front of the house for just a 
moment before moving on. He navigated the winding back 
streets in search of the address he was looking for, 
finally pulling up in front of an equally handsome mansion. 

A yellow strip of police tape stretched across the 
driveway, and a lone police cruiser sat in front of the 
high foliage. The police officer flashed his lights at 
Mulder as he slowly drove past. 

"Police business," the officer said. "Move along." 

"FBI," Mulder held up his badge for inspection. 

The man cocked his head to the side. "FBI? For this?" 

"We're investigating some possible connections." 

"You need to get inside?" The officer tilted his head 
towards the house. "I'll get Detective Murray to let you 
in." He reached for his radio, and Mulder pulled his rental 
car over to the side of the road. 

A small man in a dark gray suit emerged from the mansion, 
picking his way carefully down the gravel driveway. He 
waved his arm at Mulder as he pulled the police tape away 
from the driveway.

"You with the FBI?" he called.

"Yeah. Fox Mulder." 

"Detective James Murray," the man said, offering his hand. 
"I've been inside the house, going over a few things. 
There's something about this case that just..." 

"Just what?"

"Doesn't make sense," Murray offered a weak grin.

"How so?"

"This living room window was jimmied open--on the surface 
it looked like a burglary gone wrong." Murray said, running 
his finger along the scuffed windowpane. "But if I didn't 
know better, I'd say this was a hit."  
 
"A hit?" Mulder raised his eyebrows.  
 
"Well, yeah. I know you feds have been keeping tabs on 
Warren Blake."  
 
"The dot com CEO?" Mulder blinked, his mind churning 
rapidly. Skinner had mentioned something about a 
wiretapping assignment when he had first been reinstated, 
something to do with Blake Industries...  
 
"Yeah," Murray nodded. 'You know, most of those companies 
have been dropping like flies with the stock market being 
what it is lately. "But Blake Industries and Silverline are 
our two Long Island success stories. They've got themselves 
a fierce rivalry going on."  
 
"And you think this murder is connected to Silverline?" 
Mulder asked eagerly.  
 
"Silverline? Are you kidding me?" Murray let out a sharp 
bark of laughter. "The deceased, Edna Sullivan, moonlighted 
as a freelance writer for the New York Times. Business 
editorials. She made Max Gerber, the CEO of Silverline, 
sound like the second coming of Christ. One of his biggest 
supporters. So if you're looking for a motive--look no 
further than Warren Blake. She'd made it her mission to 
single handedly run him out of business."  
 
Mulder rocked back on his heels, lips pursed in a frown. 
"You said there was something weird?"  
 
"Well, yeah," Murray shrugged. "Like I said, if I had to 
guess, I'd call it a hit. But I've never seen a hit that 
looked like this." He held out a file folder, which Mulder 
quickly flipped open.  
 
The images were black and white, stark, horrifying. Edna 
Sullivan, who looked to be in her mid-sixties, lay in an 
undignified heap on a once-bright white carpet. A silk 
nightgown had been carved away from her body with a series 
of deep, brutal knife strokes. The carpet around her body 
was heavy with dark blood. A gaping wound arced from one 
ear to the other, leaving her throat open in a grotesque 
parody of a grin.  
 
"Jesus," Mulder said.  
 
"Hit men usually aren't so...personal. Or messy," Murray 
said with a grimace. "They don't necessarily like to get 
their hands dirty."  
 
"No prints?"  
 
"No prints. No hair, fiber, nothing. It's as if this guy 
was a fucking ghost."  
 
"Or Mac the knife," Mulder murmured, already walking away.  
 
*  
 
"Edna Sullivan was a kind soul, a generous and altruistic 
human being, and a writer of immeasurable talent. I am 
honored to have been able to call her a friend, a mentor, a 
kindred spirit. Her abrupt departure from this world has 
left behind a void that shall never again be filled..."  
 
Maxwell Gerber's clear voice rang out through the quiet 
cemetery plot. The bright spring sun peeked through the 
trees, glinting off of his hair in a most becoming way. He 
wore a somber, dark suit and his voice was choked with 
enough emotion to move even the staunchest of souls. Around 
him, a cluster of people in dark dress, damp eyes turned 
upward, reverent expressions on grief stricken faces.  
 
Mulder moved uneasily among the headstones, keeping the 
small ceremony and the man of the hour in his sights. Once 
quite comfortable amongst the macabre reminders of 
mortality, he now found himself increasingly nervous 
surrounded by the stone memorials. He couldn't help but 
imagine the moldering cemetery denizens writhing and 
clawing at the lining of their coffins, silently screaming 
for absolution.  
 
The thought made him shudder, and he quickly returned his 
attention to the huddled group of mourners. A photographer 
moved furtively through the crowd, camera held out, eyes 
downcast, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible.  
 
"Before we say our final farewell," Maxwell Gerber said, 
with a quick look and a reassuring nod to his wife, who sat 
in a half circle with the others on hard plastic chairs, 
small daughter clutched to her chest. She looked 
appropriately tragic and supportive, and Mulder was not 
surprised to see the photographer snap a few quick shots of 
the exchange.  
 
"I'd like to take this moment to say that we have all been 
touched by this momentous loss," He nodded, his sleek dark 
head bowed under the undulating sunlight. "And no one more 
than I feels the sting of the current rumors being 
whispered around town. As you know, Warren Blake and I have 
had our share of professional differences, but the fact 
remains that we are both professionals, and the insinuation 
that he might have something to do with the tragedy we have 
all experienced is sickening. Should those rumors prove 
true--" he shook his head and glanced down. "I hope from 
the bottom of my heart that in this time of mourning we can 
look beyond our own petty creative differences and join 
together in pursuit of the truth. That is, after all, what 
Edna would have wanted."  
 
He stepped away from the podium to crouch down by the 
coffin, running one tanned hand over the smooth wood. Then 
he moved towards the crowd, taking his wife's hand, hugging 
his daughter tightly. His movements were graceful, refined, 
controlled. His eyes were red-rimmed and damp with barely 
repressed emotion.  
 
His grief appeared genuine; he was almost beautiful in his 
sorrow.  
 
Mulder watched as several people approached Gerber, 
touching him on the shoulder, whispering words of 
condolence. The comely family of three continued across the 
lush green of the cemetery grass, towards the parking lot 
and its crush of luxury cars.  
 
"Mac!" Mulder called just as the Gerbers stepped onto the 
pavement, moving towards a sedate black BMW sedan. They had 
chosen to forgo the flash and pizzazz for this occasion, he 
noted.  
 
"Hey, Mac!" he called again.  
 
The man in front of him turned slowly, releasing his wife's 
hand and fixing him with a slit-eyed stare. "Can I help 
you?"  
 
"Mac, right?"  
 
Gerber let out a little chuckle, but the smile did not 
reach his eyes. "I'm sorry, no one's called me that in 
years."  
 
"Not since college, right?"  
 
Gerber raised his eyebrows, studying Mulder with new 
interest. "Do I know you?"  
 
"Not yet."  
 
"Are you a reporter?" Gerber's wife stepped forward, 
frowning. She had tiny stress lines around her pretty blue 
eyes.  
 
"Honey, please," Gerber said, touching her arm gently. 
"Take Devon to the car. I'll just be a minute."  
 
When she had gone, Gerber let a lazy smile spread across 
his face. "What do you really want?"  
 
"The truth."  
 
"The truth is that a very dear personal friend of mine has 
been murdered. I've been forced to cut my vacation short 
because of it. This is a dark time for me and for my 
family. We would appreciate our privacy."  
 
"Sure," Mulder said, stepping back.  
 
"Very well then," Gerber turned to leave.  
 
"Oh, and Mac?" Mulder called. "Those were some nice flowers 
you left at the grave. What were they...Gerber Daisies?"  
 
The other man turned back slowly, eyes glittering, brows 
knitted together in a tight scowl. "I wouldn't know. My 
wife handles those trivial domesticities."  
 
*  
 
He caught an early evening flight out of New York and found 
himself back at his apartment under the harsh glare of 
street lights. The pungent aroma of pizza hit him as soon 
as he opened the door, and he cursed himself for not 
properly scanning the cars on the street outside.  
 
"Mulder," she said, as he came around the corner to find 
her sitting on his couch, one hand curled protectively over 
her stomach, the other fisted tightly at her side.  
 
He nudged the pizza box open, raising his eyebrows at the 
grease-stained cardboard. "Nothing left?"  
 
She shrugged apologetically. "The baby was hungry."  
 
"Oh, the baby was hungry," he said, a teasing lilt to his 
voice in spite of himself. "And your own predilection for 
mushrooms had nothing to do with it."  
 
"I don't see any mushrooms," she said innocently.  
 
"Not anymore," he muttered, letting the box fall shut and 
sitting gently on the couch next to her.  
 
She shut her eyes and leaned her head back. "Where have you 
been?"  
 
"I took a little trip to Long Island to see about Maxwell 
Gerber."  
 
She raised her eyebrows, but her eyes remained closed. 
"And?"  
 
"Your brother's right. He is a genius. And he's extremely 
dangerous."  
 
"So you think he did it," her voice was flat.  
 
"I'm certain he did it. But proving it is going to be damn 
near impossible."  
 
"We'll have to tell Charlie," she sighed. He studied her 
out of the corner of his eye, not used to seeing her so 
passive.  
 
"I'll tell Charlie," he said quietly.  
 
"Okay," she mumbled, eyes still closed.  
 
"Everything all right?"  
 
"Mmm," she said. "Just keep talking. It's soporific."  
 
A smile quirked on his lips. "I see. You come here, watch 
my television, eat my pizza, and now fall asleep on my 
couch?"  
 
"My pizza," she said.  
 
"Didn't even leave me a scrap of cheese... a single stray 
mushroom..."  
 
"Mulder, what I said this morning--"  
 
"Shh," he said. "It doesn't matter."  
 
"It's not what I meant--" her voice was drowsy, sleep-
drugged yet insistent.  
 
"Do you ever listen?" He tugged the blanket down from the 
back of the couch and gently tucked it around her. "Sleep."  
 
Her head fell gently against his shoulder and she complied. 
Mulder studied her peaceful face, cast in blue from the 
aquamarine depths of his fish tank, and he wondered if 
things would ever be the same again.  
 
*

"By yourself today?" Charlie asked as Mulder strolled 
across the dock towards him. The sky was just beginning to 
pink with the approaching dawn. 

"I'm going to make this quick," Mulder said, pausing by the 
boat and looking Charlie over with a critical eye. "I have 
another issue that needs my attention." 

"And what issue is that?" 

Mulder scowled. "Something important. Something that's 
being ignored." 

"Aliens?"

"Can you just cut the crap?"

"Someone's irritable this morning," Charlie muttered. 

"I went to see your friend Gerber." 

"Mac the Knife?" Charlie perked up. "How's the old bastard 
doing?"

"He's done all right for himself," Mulder inclined his head 
towards the boat. "He's also every bit as dangerous as you 
suspected."

"So he did kill the old bag." 

"Genius, really, to kill his most vocal supporter."

"Mac has always burned a little brighter than the rest of 
us." 

"I want to know everything about him," Mulder said. 
"Everything."

"You could just arrest him and ask him yourself."

"The charges would never hold. You know that." 

"I don't know anything these days beyond the number of cans 
I've got in my cooler. Right now that number has dwindled 
significantly, which means I'm going to have to take a walk 
down the block to the grocery store."

"You're treating this like a game."

"It is a game," Charlie said, a slow smile spreading across 
his face. "It's Mac's game, and I hope to hell he hasn't 
figured out who you are and where you came from." 

"On the contrary, I'm counting on it." 

Charlie froze. "He'll figure out that I told you. He's 
smart. He'll know I--"

"I want him to know," Mulder said calmly. "If he's as smart 
as you say he is, he'll have tracked me down within an hour 
of our conversation."

"But--"

"It's my job to be smarter than him," Mulder said. 

"Just try to keep him off my boat, all right? Jesus. Just 
once, I'd like to wake up to some good news." 

"Instead of making that trip to the grocery store, why 
don't you spend the rest of the day jogging your memory 
about Maxwell Gerber? I want everything you know. How many 
girls he dated, the classes he took, what kind of 
cigarettes he smoked."

"Yeah," Charlie said, running one hand through his tousled 
hair. "Yeah, okay." 

"I've got to go," Mulder said, glancing at his watch as the 
sun began to peek over the horizon. "There's an oil rig 
calling my name."

"Yeah, those oil rigs, they do that," Charlie muttered, 
shaking his head. 

*
 
To be continued in Part 5

*

FIVE

A week in quarantine. Difficult under the best 
circumstances for someone with his amount of nervous 
energy, unbearable now.  A week away from the work he 
needed to do. A week in close quarters with John Doggett, 
who admittedly wasn't the antichrist he'd assumed the man 
to be, but not particularly pleasant company nonetheless. 

Scully couldn't fly down to meet them because of the late 
stages of her pregnancy, and Mulder found himself anxious 
for her presence. 

A week in a plastic room with John Doggett. It had only 
been a day and a half, and Mulder felt like he was losing 
his mind. He paced. He stood up and sat down. He drummed 
his fingers against an instrument tray until the other 
agent snatched it away in irritation. 

He'd spent three months in a coffin. Three months of his 
life, gone. Now a week, wasted with the same kind of 
careless indifference. He'd been the one to demand a 
quarantine on the rig, but that had been when others were 
involved. Not just he and Doggett. He knew damn well that 
neither of them were infected. 

"Mulder," the other man said, and he glanced over in 
irritation. He tried to remind himself that he didn't hate 
Doggett, probably wouldn't mind him at all if he hadn't 
been the one to stand by Scully's side for all those months 
while he was under six feet of dirt. 

"What?" Mulder snapped.

Doggett raised his eyebrows at him and tilted his head 
towards the door. Skinner stood behind the plastic wall, 
scowling. 

"Sir," Mulder said, standing up and moving towards the 
door. 

Skinner opened and shut his mouth a few times without 
making a sound, and Mulder began to wonder if he'd ever 
seen his boss looking more peeved. 

"I brought you some reading material," Skinner said 
finally, and his voice was tight and controlled. Mulder 
glanced uneasily at Doggett, who closed his eyes and let 
his head fall back in defeat. 

Yeah, they were in deep shit. No doubt about it.

"What is--"

"Scully wanted to be sure that you got it. She managed to 
find time to tell me that in between the autopsy and the 
tests she's been running." 

Oh.

"Sir--"

"She's running herself into the ground for you, Mulder," 
Skinner growled. Then he shook his head and sighed. "I'll 
give this to the doctor for you." He held up a scuffed 
marble notebook and turned away.

When the doctor, in his white hazmat suit, came into the 
room a half hour later to check on them, he brought the 
notebook with him. Mulder snatched it out of his hands and 
began flipping through the pages while his blood pressure 
was being measured.  
 
"What is that?" Doggett asked, leaning over to get a better 
look.  
 
Mulder didn't answer. The book was filled with hastily 
scribbled words, some legible, some not. A handful of 
yellowed photographs had been pressed between the pages. 
Mulder removed the first one and studied it thoughtfully.  
 
Charlie and Mac Gerber, standing on a balcony, smoking 
cigarettes. Charlie had a beer in his hand and was smiling 
for the camera, the wind whipping his hair. Mac regarded 
the photographer with a far more serious expression, barely 
the hint of a smile on his lips.  
 
The next photo was of Mac with a girl, a tall blonde with 
teased hair and bright lipstick. She grinned at him 
adoringly, and he regarded her with the same practiced 
indifference.  
 
The third photo made him freeze. It was a classic family 
photo, smiling people sitting at a long table around a 
Thanksgiving turkey. He recognized Maggie Scully, though 
her hair was long and dark and her face devoid of the 
stress lines he normally associated with her. Her smile was 
genuine, not pinched. Bill sat next to her in his Navy 
whites, proud and tall and beaming. Next to him slouched 
Charlie, hair too long, a sheepish grin on his face that 
told anyone who was paying attention that he had adopted 
that particular posture just to irritate his big brother. 
Next to him, at the head of the table sat Captain Scully, 
smiling proudly. On the other side, across from Charlie, 
was a the dark haired figure of Mac Gerber. He had a half 
smile on his face, the kind that didn't show his teeth, and 
his arm was slung casually across the back of the chair 
next to him. And in that chair, grinning proudly for the 
camera in all of her glory was Dana Scully.  
 
Mulder let the air hiss out from between his teeth as he 
sat down on the uncomfortable hospital bed. Scully was 
smiling toothily for the camera, her hair almost as long as 
it had been when he'd first met her. Her cheeks were full 
and her clothing was atrocious-- some sort of beaded vest 
over a turtleneck-- but the sight of her smile still 
stopped his heart.  
 
"Family pictures?" asked Doggett, coming up from behind 
him.  
 
Mulder had an irrational urge to hide the picture, to keep 
that image of Scully to himself, but instead he nodded. 
"Part of a case I'm looking into."  
 
Doggett let out a low whistle. "Is that Maxwell Gerber?"  
 
Mulder glanced up with sudden interest. "You know him?"  
 
"When I was with the NYPD we got involved with him over a 
few minor incidents. He liked to smack strippers around." 
Doggett shook his head. "No charges were ever pressed. Guy 
always gave me the creeps though."  
 
"Yeah," Mulder said absently, turning back to the notebook. 
Charlie had scrawled a series of stream-of-consciousness 
recollections of Mac-- some whole anecdotes of behavior, 
other just fragments and impressions.  
 
On the very last page, he'd written: 
 
Mac - loves his games, loves himself. He already knows he's 
going to win or he would never have started this. It's not 
fun unless it's rigged. 
 
Tyler - Uses his appearance to his advantage. Constantly 
underestimated. Often plays dumb but is in reality one of 
the most intelligent people I've ever met. 
 
Zoe - She's always been a wild card. Never behaves 
predictably. 
 
Joey - If he starts, he's the most likely to mess up. 
Smart, but scattered and eager to please.  
 
Mulder nodded slowly, leaning back and feeling the 
vertebrae in his neck pop. Much of what Charlie had written 
down felt detached, as though he was writing the outline 
for a novel instead of identifying real friends as 
potential killers. 

Shaking his head, Mulder refocused, flipping back to the 
beginning of the notebook. His hand moved rapidly over the 
pages, making his own notes in the margins. He didn't even 
hear Doggett retreat to the other side of the room.

*

"Happy hunting," Scully read, gingerly holding up a cheaply 
framed needlework of a smiling moose.

"Montana," Mulder muttered, the news clipping slipping from 
between his fingers and fluttering down to the coffee 
table. The time in quarantine hadn't done them any favors 
in terms of staying ahead of the developing situation.

Charlie stood awkwardly in the doorway, leaning against the 
wall. He seemed somehow lessened by the absence of a beer 
in his hand. "That'd be Zoe. She was always reclusive. 
Always the odd duck. Had a hell of a sick sense of humor, 
too." He nodded at the needlework.

"So, assuming your other friends aren't just having a 
laugh," Mulder said, leaning back against the couch 
cushions and closing his eyes. "That means we've got three 
active serial killers, not working together but in direct 
competition."

Scully's cell phone trilled, and she picked it up without 
glancing at the caller ID. "Agent Doggett, what do you have 
for me?"

Mulder looked away, his eyes flitting to the muted 
television. A gray-haired man, chalk-faced and surrounded 
by flashing cameras, was being led away in handcuffs. 

A name appeared on the screen. Warren Blake.

"Son of a bitch," Mulder said.

"Brilliant," Charlie breathed.

Mulder glanced sharply at him. Charlie looked slightly 
dazed, his lips parted, his eyes wide. There was no fear on 
his face; only awe.

"Assuming Zoe has indeed picked up the hunt," Mulder said. 
"That leaves two. Joey-- and you."

"Mulder," Scully said, and something in her voice made his 
blood run cold. 

He turned to her, and she looked stricken. 

"What?" he asked, his voice softer and calmer than he could 
have hoped. 

"They..." She took a trembling breath. "The oil rig. It's 
not good news." 

He smiled a little bit. "Is that all?"

"Mulder, you don't understand. They're talking about 
shutting us down." 

"I've been expecting this," he said. He was surprised by 
how calm he felt as he said it out loud. And yet, he 
supposed it wasn't odd at all, really. He hadn't felt at 
home in the FBI for some time now. He doubted anyone at all 
would miss the presence of a man who was, after all, 
already dead. 

Her eyes were wide, bright with unshed tears, "Mulder--" 

"I've got a meeting to get to," he said, moving towards the 
door. 

"And after that?" she whispered.

"I'll have a lot more time to bother our friend Mac," he 
tossed over his shoulder, already on his way out the door. 

*

It was, as he'd expected, remarkably easy to let go of the 
X Files. His career, his quest, his beliefs, the things 
he'd held close to his heart for most of his life, had all 
slipped away long before he went through the final 
formality. His hold on those things, and their hold on him, 
had vanished the moment he'd been lowered into the ground. 

Mulder did not feel the deep sense of loss that he would 
have years earlier. Only the vague sense of relief, the 
sense of a great burden being lifted from shoulders too 
long under strain and the mild nostalgia for the 
disappearance of some old friend.

It was important, he saw it now, that the X Files be left 
in the hands of someone who might be taken seriously. 
Doggett had seen what they were up against. He was 
skeptical, brash, and honest. If the truth was going to 
come out, no one would accept it from a once-dead, 
paranoid, raving true-believer. 

He could have drifted, easily, as untethered from reality 
as the ghostly spectre he so often felt like; started over 
in an anonymous town with an anonymous name and enough 
inheritance from two dead parents to make sure that no one 
ever questioned his true identity ever again. 

There were, however, two ties keeping him firmly bound to 
earth, to this reality, to his own often unpleasant and 
frequently dangerous existence. One was the strange, 
wondrous knowledge that however strained things had become 
with the person who had once known him better than anyone, 
they were bound together, inexorably, through some 
befittingly unusual twist of fate. He thought she might 
once have called it a miracle, but he could no longer lay 
claim to her thoughts. 

The other was the smoldering excitement that the new 
mystery, and challenge, of Maxwell Gerber had ignited in 
him. It had been a long time, too long, since he'd been 
excited by a case simply by its intellectual implications. 
For too long he'd been exhaustedly going through the 
motions due to his own personal convictions. 

Now he was free. Free to pursue Gerber on his own terms. 

And somehow, he felt that if he could just come out on top, 
just manage to best him, that he'd start feeling alive 
again. Really alive. And maybe he'd stop waiting around for 
death to remember that he'd been left behind. 

* 

He almost purchased two tickets to Los Angeles, and then 
hesitated when it occurred to him in a rush that Scully was 
in no condition to fly anywhere with him. He felt a fierce 
rush of longing for something he thought he'd already lost 
and grieved for and long moved past- the prospect of 
whisking her off on a plane and explaining gruesome case 
details along the way. Her hair brushing against his arm as 
she leaned over his shoulder to look at crime scene 
photographs. 

And then he'd smiled grimly to himself, purchased two 
tickets anyway, and put the second one in the name of 
Charles Scully. Perhaps Charlie's appearance might be able 
to scare some sense into the last law-abiding member of his 
old college group. 

"Charlie," he called, standing on the sun-faded dock, 
listening to the gentle waves lap against the wood.  

Charlie emerged from below deck, wiping at bloodshot eyes. 

"It's too early for you," he said sulkily. 

"Pack a bag," Mulder said. "We're going on a trip."

"Why would I go anywhere with you?" 

"Beats getting a head start on tomorrow's hangover." 

Charlie sighed and reached for the sun-faded cooler on the 
deck, but seemed to think better of it and instead stumbled 
over to the railing and began to retch, chest heaving as he 
unloaded the previous night's excess into the murky bay. 

Mulder watched him silently until he quieted, raising a 
pale face up into the sun once more, wiping a shaky hand 
across wet lips. 

"When you're done," Mulder said finally, "Tell me 
everything you remember about Joseph Battista. I want to 
know what we're dealing with." 

"Shit," Charlie said. "You probably know more than me."

"Dr. Joseph Battista, beloved family dentist. Member of 
three charity organizations as well as the local PTA. 
Father of two." Mulder squinted in the bright early morning 
sun. "I know what's on paper. I want to know more about the 
man himself. What kind of hold your friend Mac might have 
over him." 

Charlie sighed and spat over the railing. He shut his eyes 
for a moment and then his shoulder sagged as he resigned 
himself to his fate. 

"Fine. I'll go. I'll tell you everything on the way."

*

Charlie continued to look queasy as they boarded the plane, 
and Mulder watched with silent bemusement as he ordered and 
downed two vodkas on the rocks from the attendant before 
they were even in the air. 

"I hate flying," Charlie said, laying his head back against 
the seat. He was sweating, and his hair clung damply to his 
brow. 

Mulder supposed that Charlie hated a lot more than just 
flying, but he refrained from commenting, instead asking, 
"Joseph Battista?" 

"Yeah," Charlie said, swallowing. "Joey. I haven't seen him 
in years. Five years, probably. Maybe more. We lost touch." 

"What do you remember about him?"

"I've already told you he wasn't very bright. I mean, he 
was book smart, we all were, that's how we met. But he was 
no genius at interpersonal relationships." 

"Imagine that," Mulder said, eyeing Charlie. 

"He... There's some bad blood there. Between him and Zoe. 
She had a thing for him back at school, and I don't think 
he ever noticed. Right before graduation she made a move, 
and it went badly.

"That was the beginning of the end for all of us, I 
suppose," Charlie continued. "She refused to be around him, 
and he got quite belligerent with her in return. I think he 
was embarrassed and tried to cover it up by being callous 
and cruel."

Charlie sighed and signaled the attendant for another 
drink.

"I invited all of them to my wedding. Zoe was the only one 
who didn't come. I didn't expect her to. Joey was married 
by then. His wife was already pregnant with their first 
child. For a long time, I thought she simply cut all ties 
with our group, but I later found out she kept in touch 
with Mac." 

"Hm," Mulder said thoughtfully.

"Mac never had much use for Joey. I imagine he said all the 
right things to Zoe to feed her anger." 

"Joey sounds like an unlikely serial killer," Mulder said. 

"He's even less likely than I am," Charlie said, with a 
strange little smile.  

*

Joey's house was in a cheery Los Angeles suburb, all orange 
tiled roofs and waving palm trees. A tan SUV sat in the 
driveway, a slightly off-center bumper sticker proclaiming 
"PROUD to be YOUR Dentist!" 

"Looks like the doctor's in," Mulder said, loping towards 
the front door. 

Charlie hung back, hands jammed awkwardly in his pockets. 

As Mulder stepped up onto the porch, it became immediately 
apparent that something was amiss. A potted plant lay 
overturned on the steps, soil spilling out. The front door 
sat wide open; hastily packed luggage lined the 
entranceway. 

"Hello?" he called into the dim interior. "Dr. Battista?" 

"Go away!" someone hollered from inside. 

Mulder glanced back at Charlie, who looked like he'd be 
more than happy to oblige. Then he scowled and stepped 
inside, shoes crunching on broken glass. 

"Joey Battista?" he called. 

There was a crash, and the sound of muffled swearing. A 
paunchy, bespectacled man with a wild-eyed expression 
rounded the corner and stood staring at Mulder, panting. 
Huge sweat stains had spread across his button down shirt, 
and he wiped a meaty forearm across his forehead. 

"Who the hell are you?" he wheezed.

"Joey," Charlie said from behind Mulder, stepping forward. 
"It's been a  long time."

"Oh, Jesus," Joey said, backing up and jumping as he bumped 
into a wall. "You get out of here. You just... Stay the 
hell away from me!" 

"Relax," Mulder said. "We just want to talk to you." 

Joey shut his eyes and stood trembling against the wall, 
breathing in great, shuddering gasps. "You can talk while I 
load the car. I have to get out of here." 

He grabbed a suitcase and heaved it up into the air, 
knocking over a small table and sending several framed 
photographs crashing to the ground. 

"Where are you going?" Mulder asked, following a few paces 
behind as Joey hurried out into the sunlight towards his 
car. 

He grunted and tossed his suitcase unceremoniously into the 
trunk. "Far away from here." 

"Is it Mac?" Charlie asked.

Joey stopped, fumbling in his pocket for a handkerchief to 
mop his brow. "Is it Mac? What kind of question is that? Of 
course it's Mac! You got the package. And then Tyler, and--
" he grimaced. "Zoe." 

"You're afraid they might come after you?" Mulder stepped 
forward. 

"Might?" Joey laughed, a bit hysterically. "I have no 
intention of killing anyone. It's only a matter of time 
before Mac decides I'm a loose end, and that he ought to 
make an example of me." 

"Where's your wife?" Mulder asked, glancing around. 
"Melinda, is it? And your daughters?"

Joey froze. "Who the hell ARE you? How do you know--"

"He's FBI," Charlie said.

"Former." 

"You got the FBI involved?" Joey ran his hands through his 
thinning hair, making it stand up on end and wave somewhat 
crazily as he moved about. "Oh fuck, man. Fuck. Not a smart 
move." 

"So you believe this to be a serious threat," Mulder said 
slowly. "Not a joke. Not a prank." 

"Mac doesn't make JOKES," Joey spat. "He takes himself 
very, very seriously. He's already planned out how this is 
going to end. And there's no one left standing but him." He 
bolted for the front of the house, seized another suitcase, 
and moved back towards the car. Then he seemed to sag, all 
of the energy going out of him, and he dropped the bag onto 
the gravel driveway. 

"Melinda is with her mother," he said. "I couldn't tell her 
what's going on. I was afraid of what she'd think of me. I 
told her that I was having an affair with my secretary." He 
let out a harsh bark of laughter. 

Mulder glanced over at Charlie, at a loss for words.

"I'm going. I'm getting out of here before he decides to 
come looking for me. And I think I might stop and pick up a 
newspaper, pick out a nice, juicy murder, and mail the 
story to him. Might buy me some time." 

He looked at Mulder and let out another sharp laugh. "FBI. 
Jesus. Good luck, man." 

He clambered into his SUV without bothering to go and close 
his front door. The engine roared to life.

"Hey," Mulder said, rapping on the side of the window with 
his knuckle. "Take my card. If you think of anything, call 
me." 

Yeah," Joey said, taking the card and smiling wryly. "Will 
do." 

"Don't hold your breath," Charlie said to Mulder as the car 
backed out of the driveway and accelerated down the quiet 
suburban street. 

"Let's find a motel," Mulder said. "We're staying in town 
for a bit." 

*

"Scully." 

Her voice sounded the way it had in his former life. Fully 
alert, slightly pissed off, none of that lingering, breathy 
concern that had so characterized her speech in recent 
times. 

"Hey," Mulder said, cradling the phone against his ear, 
fearing that her demeanor might start to change when she 
realized it was him and hating himself for it. 

"Where the hell are you?" she demanded. Annoyed. Pissy. But 
none of that quiet resignation and uncertain, trembling 
concern.

Mulder felt a smile creep across his face. 

"I decided to take a vacation."

There was a pause. "A vacation?"

He could almost hear the raised eyebrows in her dubious 
delivery.

"A little visit to sunny Los Angeles, Scully. Getting used 
to my retirement. Some male bonding. You know how it is." 

"Male bonding." 

"Turns out your brother hasn't been on a plane in a while. 
Can you imagine that?" 

He thought he heard a muffled chuff of laughter on the 
other end. There was a long pause before she spoke again. 

"You're sure about this, aren't you?"

"Yes," he said seriously. "Without a doubt." 

"I'll put in a call to VCU. Local police should be able to 
tail Tyler and Zoe based on the information we've got. 
Getting to Maxwell Gerber might be substantially more 
difficult."

"Exactly the way he wants it, I'm sure." 

"Watch out for yourself, Mulder. I like this less and less 
the more I find out about Mac Gerber." 

She hung up without saying goodbye, and he kept the phone 
tucked against his ear for a few extra seconds, just 
smiling. 

*

Joseph Battista, dentist, PTA member, father of two, had 
abandoned his car in the lot of a nearby grocery store. He 
stumbled down a darkened alley, sweat pouring from his 
face, weaving drunkenly, bouncing off the occasional 
dumpster. 

"Shit," he said. "Oh shit." 

He'd made it exactly six miles before fear and paranoia had 
crashed over him like a wave. He was certain that Mac had 
already gotten to him; put a tracking device on his car.

His wife and kids were probably already dead. Calling 
Melinda on her cell phone and hanging up when she snapped, 
"What do you want?" had done nothing to assuage his fears. 
It could have been a recording. Mac could have had a knife 
to her throat even as she spoke. 

Joey paused, gripping the side of a green dumpster for 
support, his fingers sliding in something foul and sticky. 
He bent over and vomited, feeling as though his insides 
were coming apart from the force of it. When he was done, 
he realized he was sobbing. 

"Hey," someone said, and Joey looked up in a haze of fear. 

A man in a white kitchen uniform was standing mere feet 
away, emptying a bucket of hot water into the alleyway.

"You okay?" the man asked. "Need a doctor?" 

Joey launched himself at the man without even thinking. His 
feet slipped in the puddle of hot water, and he hit the man 
with the full force of his weight, slamming him against the 
wall and then rolling to the ground.

The man made a grunting, wheezing sound and attempted to 
fight back, but Joey had knocked the wind out of him. 

Joey scrabbled on the sidewalk for a weapon, any weapon, 
and settled for a chunk of concrete that was used to prop 
the kitchen's back door open. He brought it crashing down 
on the man's face in an explosion of blood and tissue. 

The man twitched and was still, yet when Joey raised up the 
bloodied concrete chunk, he could see the ruined mouth 
still working, forming silent words even as blood bubbled 
up between torn lips. 

He hit him again.

Then, heart pounding in his chest, clothes sodden with 
blood, Joey ran. 

*

Continued in Part 6

*
SIX


The newscast was brief and to the point. Man murdered in 
alleyway. Beloved family dentist sought for questioning. A 
family friend quoted as saying she'd thought Joseph 
Battista had been in the midst of a breakdown-- confessing 
to affairs with his secretary and throwing his wife 
unceremoniously out of the house. The secretary vehemently 
denying said affair. And through all of it, a picture of 
Joey himself, smiling a little self-consciously at the 
camera, his arm around someone who had been cropped out. 

"Shit," Charlie said, taking a long sip of coffee. "Looks 
like I was wrong." 

Mulder paced in the doorway of the small room, cell phone 
tucked against his ear. He listened quietly as the 
detective on the other line fed him information, but his 
mind was racing in several different directions. How had he 
not known what Joey was going to do? How had he not noticed 
the absolute desperation in the other man's actions? How 
had he mistaken it for simple fear? 

If he'd been able to delay Joey's departure, take him in, 
talk to him and calm him down, an innocent man might not 
have died. 

He did not need crime scene photos to know what kind of 
ruin the dead man had been left in. His imagination, fueled 
by years of gruesome sights, filled in the blanks quite 
nicely. It went without saying that this kind of dead 
stayed dead.

The detective finally finished talking, and Mulder hung up 
the phone after promising to let him know if he found any 
further information.

"He left his prints all over the scene," Mulder told him, 
hanging up the phone. "They had them on file from a DWI 
conviction ten years ago. At least three people saw him 
enter the alleyway. One of them said he looked drunk."

"You think they'll find him?" 

"His face is all over the news here. It's a big story." 

"If they find him, he's going to squeal all over the papers 
about Mac's game." 

Mulder sat for a long moment, considering. "We've got to 
find him first." 

*

Mulder was standing in the wrecked living room of Joseph 
Battista's charming California home, studying family 
photographs on the wall and trying not to trod on pieces of 
broken glass when his cell phone rang. He was not expecting 
good news, and as soon as he heard Scully's grim voice, he 
knew he was not to receive any. 

"VCU just about laughed me right out of the room," she 
said, and she sounded more than a little pissed off. "Said 
there was no evidence that either the Texas or Montana 
murders were serial cases. Local police are holding 
suspects for both incidents. Maxwell Gerber has an airtight 
alibi."

"Meanwhile, a Los Angeles dentist has been spooked into 
murder." Mulder glanced at a picture of Joey and a smiling 
little girl holding fishing poles and winced.

"Mulder, you have to bring him in. He might be the best 
chance we have of getting VCU to take this seriously." 

Mulder sighed. "He seems to have disappeared into thin 
air." 

"I've done some digging," Scully said. "There have been 
three more execution-style shootings in Texas in the last 
two weeks. Police think they're gang related, but all three 
people live within five miles of Tyler Walker's last known 
address." 

"It's just a matter of time before someone picks up the 
pattern." His fingers trailed along the rich, cherry frame 
of a large eight by ten of Joey and a woman, presumably his 
wife, standing in front of an impossibly blue lake. White 
capped mountains loomed in the distance.

"Mulder, you have to find Joey. These people want their 
trail discovered, eventually, but they don't want anything 
tying them to it. Joey is a loose end. And if we lose him, 
we lose our best chance of ending this." 

Mulder sighed.

Scully paused on the other end of the line, and he could 
hear volumes in her silence. 

"Mulder," she said, slowly, as though wrestling with 
something she didn't quite have the words for. "Did--" 

"I could've stopped him," he cut her off. "Your brother and 
I saw Joey yesterday. He was packing. Frantic. Seemed to 
think that Mac was going to come after him. He ran off and 
I didn't see this coming." He looked again at the picture 
of Joey and the little girl, both beaming, holding fishing 
poles, snowy mountains behind them even in the warm summer 
sun. He thought about how that little girl's life would be 
irrevocably changed by these events. 

"You had no way of knowing that he was going to do this." 

"I should have known, Scully. That man was scared." 

"There was nothing you--" 

"Don't make excuses," he snapped, turning the picture over 
so that it lay flat on a nearby table, no longer keen on 
regarding the smiling, frozen faces. 

She inhaled sharply on the other end of the line and fell 
silent. 

Mulder shut his eyes and tipped his head back. 

"Scully--" 
 
"Mulder--" 

They spoke at the same time and each paused, waiting for 
the other to continue.

After a moment, Mulder spoke again, his voice tight and 
strained. "There has to be somewhere local he would go. 
He's panicked. A man in his state is going to seek comfort. 
Familiarity." 

"His office?"

"Too obvious. The police will have already checked there." 

"Then where?"

He let out a hiss of impatience between his teeth. "That is 
the question, isn't it?"

"There are lots of questions," she said softly.

"Yes," he said. "I guess there are." 

After a long moment, Scully cleared her throat. "I'm going 
to speak with Agent Doggett about getting some information 
on Gerber through the NYPD. He seems to know quite a bit 
about him." 

"You knew him," Mulder said, unaware that he had been about 
to speak and thus unable to stop the words from slipping 
out. 

"What?"

"Maxwell Gerber. Mac. You knew him." 

"I met him a few times," she acquiesced. "He was Charlie's 
best friend." 

There had been a strange, sickening sensation in his 
stomach since he had laid eyes on the snapshot from a long-
ago Thanksgiving; the sight of Maxwell Gerber sitting next 
to his partner at the dinner table, arm slung around her 
shoulder in that casual-familiar way sent his mind reeling 
in directions he did not wish to explore. There were so 
many questions he wanted to ask. So many answers he feared 
receiving.

"What was he like?" Mulder said, his voice remarkably calm.

"Oh," Scully said. "Charming. He was charming, Mulder. I'm 
sure you could have imagined that." 

He could imagine too much. 

"There wasn't--" she laughed softly, uncomfortably. "He 
came home for Thanksgiving dinner, Mulder. Years ago. Spent 
the whole day charming my mother, irritating my father and 
blatantly trying to get into Missy's pants." 

"Oh," he said, feeling suddenly foolish.

The cadence of her breathing had shifted slightly. He 
wondered if she were crying. 

He looked up at the wall again and his eyes fell on Joey, 
grinningly recognizable even in goggles and winter gear, 
holding ski poles and standing at the head of a great 
precipice. And behind him, ever blue, the lake. 

"Tahoe," Mulder said. 

"What?"

"I've got to go." He hung up without saying goodbye and 
slipped the phone into his pocket.  

*

Headlights flashed by on the highway as the sun sank slowly 
behind them, painting the sky with glorious pinks and 
oranges. Mulder stared at the road, watching the yellow 
lines flash past; at the exit signs; at the people in the 
passing cars. Happily families. Boisterous teenagers. He 
noticed a car pulled over on the median, a harried-looking 
man fumbling with a dog's leash as the animal relieved 
itself on the grass. They faded into the background quickly 
as he pressed on, the cheap rental car shuddering as he 
accelerated. 

The drive should have taken eight hours. Mulder, pushing 
the rental as hard as he could, intended to make the trip 
in seven. 

He glanced over at Charlie, who was slouched in the 
passenger seat, head resting against the window, eyes 
closed but not asleep. The setting sun seemed to set his 
hair afire. 

In the silence, broken only by the soothing hum of the car 
engine and the rumble of passing trucks, Mulder was free to 
wonder once more at the circumstances behind Charlie's 
alienation. 

The anger he had displayed towards his sister was part of 
it, Mulder was sure. Rage like that didn't develop over 
night; it festered for years, just under the surface, 
draining away good feelings until nothing remained but 
anger. But a man didn't abandon his family and become a 
drunken wreck solely because he was angry at his sister. 

There was the alcoholism, of course. That alone would have 
been enough to push his wife away. With fewer and fewer 
tethers to family life, perhaps it was simply easier for 
Charlie to turn away, to drink and rant and rage about how 
unfairly life had treated him. He had isolated himself so 
perfectly on his boat, content to wallow in his own misery, 
chasing the sun across the sky with beer after beer, the 
days bleeding endlessly together. 

"You're staring at me," Charlie said suddenly, opening one 
eye. 

"I was just thinking," Mulder said, tightening his hands on 
the wheel. "You've got it all wrong. About Dana." 

There was a long pause as Charlie straightened up in his 
seat, running one deeply tanned hand over his face. 

"I don't think you really believe what you said," Mulder 
pressed on. "I think you're hurt, and angry, and scared, 
and you're lashing out. But she doesn't deserve that." 

"What the fuck prompted this?" Charlie asked miserably. "I 
didn't ask for your advice." 

"You got me involved," Mulder said. "So you're a captive 
audience." 

"You're one to offer observations on the human condition. 
You're like a goddamn alien." 

Mulder stiffened in his seat. "What do you mean by that?" 

"You move around like you're completely uncomfortable in 
your surroundings. Like you've never seen anything like 
this before. Even the way you hold the steering wheel--" 
Charlie inclined his head towards Mulder's clenched hands. 
"It's as though you need to make sure it's real before 
you'll trust it." 

"Maybe I'm not sure it is real."

"I'm not interested in a philosophical debate." 

"I was in a coffin for three months." 

The words hung there, and Mulder felt suddenly tired, as 
though he could shut his eyes and sleep for days. He 
retightened his grip on the wheel instead. 

"Tall tales," Charlie said. 

"I don't deal in fiction. Only truths most people are too 
short sighted to recognize. 

Charlie laughed softly and said nothing. 

"My skin had begun to decompose. The places where they cut 
into me, where they did their tests, they were the first to 
go. My cheeks. My chest. Cells breaking down, returning to 
the earth. I'm sure you can imagine what that looked like." 

"And yet here you sit." 

"Most men don't have the luxury of returning from the grave 
to pick up where they left off. Most times I'm not 
convinced they did me any favors by digging up that grave." 

"All this stuff... Is it true? Aliens? Conspiracies?" 

"Yes." 

Charlie nodded slowly, deliberately. He did not speak 
again. 
 
*

Joseph Battista's in-laws owned a charming vacation home on 
the shores of Lake Tahoe. The windows were shuttered and 
fastened tight, no lights visible from outside, and for all 
intents and purposes the place looked deserted. 

The haphazardly parked car in the driveway, however, said 
otherwise. It was a battered-looking nineties Honda, wheel 
beds coated with grime, a half peeled sticker advertising 
an illegible university clinging to a dented and damaged 
bumper.  

Mulder leaned over and withdrew his gun from the glove box. 

"What do we do?" Charlie asked, leaning anxiously forward 
in his seat. 

"We convince your friend Joey that he needs to come with 
us." 

Charlie rolled his eyes. "And how the hell do we do that?"

"Stay here," Mulder said, opening the car door and stepping 
outside into the warm night air. Every joint in his body 
cracked as he stretched, and he groaned. 

He could see Charlie in the passenger seat, working his 
mouth as though he were gearing up to say something, and 
quickly shut the door. 

He turned to regard the house for a moment, a large, 
rambling, log cabin style home with a cheery welcome mat 
and a colorful flag with flowers on it fluttering in the 
breeze. Just an empty house, waiting patiently for someone 
to come along and fling open the windows and breathe in the 
delicious mountain air. 

It looked somehow sinister in the moonlight, but Mulder 
thought that might simply be because he'd spent the better 
part of his life skulking around outside of sinister houses 
in the darkness. 

He stepped gingerly up onto the front porch, steps creaking 
under his feet, and tried to think of what could convince a 
desperate, frightened, possibly dangerous man that it would 
be best to abandon his temporary safe haven and turn 
himself in. 

As he reached out to knock on the door, it creaked inward, 
already open. And then he heard soft strains of music, and 
his blood ran cold. 

Bobby Darin. Mac the Knife. 

Mulder shoved the door open and ducked quickly to the left, 
hands fumbling against the wall for a light switch. Bright 
light flooded the room, revealing a sea of red on the 
floor, a scarlet-drenched figure in the middle of the room, 
tied to a chair, and behind that, holding up the severed 
head of the man who was once a PTA member and father of 
two, that good-natured dentist turned murderer; a woman. 

"Zoe," Mulder breathed. 

She was visible for only a moment. Pale-faced, ghostly, 
black hair cut into a severe bob that framed her ivory 
cheekbones. A fine mist of blood across her perfect, 
flawless skin. She grinned, quickly, a flash of teeth from 
behind red lips, and then she threw the head at the lamp 
and the room went dark. 

He fired blindly at her, could hear her heavy footsteps on 
the wood floor, heard a smash of glass as she barreled 
through the kitchen, and even as he stumbled his way to the 
back door he knew he had lost her to the night. 

*

They flew home in near silence. Charlie sat on the aisle, 
flagging down the flight attendant and downing 
progressively stronger drinks, occasionally muttering 
Joey's name and various combinations of expletives. 

Mulder sat against the window, staring out, watching the 
scenery shift below him; all those tiny, miniature people 
with lives to lead and purposes to fulfill and no real idea 
of how suddenly, how horribly it could all go wrong. 

He wanted to talk to Scully. His Scully, not the pale 
imitation sitting beside him, muttering into his drinks. He 
wanted to talk to Scully before they got too far apart, 
before they became just another casualty of the indifferent 
fates. 

*

She was not at her apartment, and he stood in the hallway 
for almost a half an hour, waiting for her, too 
uncomfortable to use his key because he wasn't sure if he 
still did that in his new life. 

When she didn't return he gave up, returned to his car and 
drove around through various neighborhoods, thinking about 
the families that lived in each house, the lives they might 
have, the terrible things they might or might not know. He 
drove until he thought he could face returning to his 
apartment alone, and when he finally got there he realized 
he wasn't alone. 

Scully was on his couch, staring at the television when he 
went inside. When she heard the door swing open she shut 
off whatever she had been watching and turned to stare at 
him, face pale, eyes swimming with that indefinable emotion 
they had been drowning in ever since he returned. 

"Hi," he said, surprised and yet not surprised to see her 
sitting there. After all, it always ended up this way.

"I heard what happened," she said. "It's all over the 
news." 

He shook his head, "She'll go underground now. They'll 
never find her." 

"They'll find her," Scully bit her lip. "They've linked her 
to the Montana murders, now. It's only a matter of time." 

"VCU taking this any more seriously?" 

"They're treating it as an active investigation, yes. 
Gerber is still untouchable." 

He nodded and sat down on the couch next to her, near but 
not touching. "I could have stopped this." 

"Kersh is furious that you stepped into an investigation 
without authorization. That you took it upon yourself to go 
to Tahoe without alerting proper authorities of your 
suspicions." 

"I thought I could reason with him."

"With Joey?"

"I thought I could reach him in a way that a SWAT team 
couldn't. I thought I could get him to come in."

She nodded and looked down. He wondered how often she had 
cried on his account. 

After a moment she glanced back up at him, eyes bright. "I 
think you should back away from this. VCU is involved, now. 
They have all the evidence." 

"Is that you talking, or Kersh?"

"How can you even ask me that?" Her voice was sharp, angry. 
"Ever since you've been back it's as though you're hell 
bent on killing yourself all over again." 

"You think I'm responsible for what happened to me?"

"I think you went out there knowing what might happen," she 
said, and then she gasped and looked away, as if she'd said 
too much.

"You think I...?" he shook his head, astonished. But he 
found himself suddenly at a loss for words. 

"That night, when you went," she said, and her voice was so 
low he almost couldn't hear it. "You were saying goodbye."

He thought about it, about a long embrace in a deserted 
hallway, about how easily she had fit into his arms once 
upon a time and about how right it once felt to hold her 
that way. And he wondered if she wasn't right after all, if 
he had been holding her that way for the last time because 
he knew, on some level, that he wouldn't be coming back. 

He found himself unable to come up with an answer. 

"I found out I was pregnant and that you were gone on the 
same day," she said, raising her head to look at him. There 
were tear tracks on her face. "The same day, Mulder." 

He still could not think of a single thing to say, so 
instead he put his hand out and took hers, squeezing it 
tightly. She let out a shuddering sob and shut her eyes, 
but for a brief moment he could see in her face that she'd 
wanted more, and he wasn't yet sure if he had more to give. 

*

The cemetery was quiet and nearly deserted under the pink 
dawn sky. Mulder walked slowly amongst the rows of tombs, 
hands in his pockets, pausing occasionally to study the 
names and personal messages etched into stone. 
 
He tread softly on the grass, nerves jumpy, aware that he'd 
never again feel truly comfortable amongst the dead. 

As he crested a well-manicured hill, he became aware of 
another man, steps ahead of him, wearing a sharply tailored 
suit, crouching in front of a burial plot to set a bouquet 
of flowers before a headstone.

Mulder tensed as he realized the plot the man was standing 
over was his own. 

"Excuse me," he said loudly, stepping forward.

The man turned around and smiled, gleaming white teeth set 
in a handsome face framed by too-long dark hair. 

Maxwell Gerber.

"Agent Mulder," He said, still smiling. "Or should I say 
Mr. Mulder, these days?" He offered one gloved hand, which 
Mulder did not accept. After a moment he let his hand drop 
back to his side, still smiling. 

"What are you doing here?" 

"Paying my respects," Gerber said. "Yours is an interesting 
story. And since you paid me a friendly visit, I thought it 
would only be polite to do the same for you." 

"And you even brought flowers," Mulder said with an incline 
of his head. "How sweet." 

"Gerber Daisies," he smiled. "Since you seemed so enamored 
of them when we last spoke. I do wish you best of luck, Mr. 
Mulder. And I must admit I'm a bit surprised to see you 
here. I do not believe that many men have the luxury of 
visiting their own graves." 

Mac smiled again and turned away, suit jacket flapping in 
the breeze. 

Mulder simply stood rooted to the spot, standing down at 
the etched stone that bore his name, brightly colored 
flowers resting in stark contrast against the cold marker 
of death.

*

Continued in Part 6

*

SEVEN


The moon hung heavy and swollen in the night sky, pale 
illumination filtering through gently swaying leaves. A 
woman stood staring up at a wrought iron gate, nestled 
among tall privet hedges, concealing a large house set well 
back from the road. Her hands fiddled at the small control 
panel, finger hovering over the call button.

She was uncertain about announcing her presence. 

She touched the gate and it shifted slightly; the last 
person through had not properly shut the latch. She smiled 
at her good fortune, a full smile, teeth gleaming in the 
moonlight. 

Then she stepped through the gate and onto the expensive 
cobbled driveway, silently; the hinges were well-oiled and 
did not so much as squeak in protest. 

She was dressed in all black and felt as though she could 
meld right into the shadows, save for her pale skin and the 
gleam of her teeth, bared in a ferocious grin. She'd been 
grinning off and on since digging the side of a box cutter 
into Joey's fat, stupid neck and hearing him howl as the 
blood began to spurt forth. 

She'd wanted to take her time with him, make him to suffer 
at least as much as she had for all those years, yearning, 
waiting for him to notice her. But, in the end, once the 
blood had started flowing and his screams had turned from 
pleading to guttural, animalistic snarls, she'd discovered 
that she was having too much fun to go slow. She'd hacked 
her way through muscle, arteries, and bundles of nerves, 
the handle of the box cutter growing slippery and difficult 
to hold, the blade dulling until she'd had to whack against 
his spinal cord almost ten times before she'd had it 
completely severed. 

But then, THEN, just as she'd sat back to admire her 
handiwork, she'd heard the sound of approaching footsteps, 
a sound that set her heart hammering in her chest and 
ruined all her good feelings. 
 
That bastard, Charlie. He'd given up the game. 

She reached the front steps; marble, she noted with mild 
bemusement; and bypassed the bell in favor of a heavy iron 
knocker. She rapped once, twice, three times on the wooden 
door, the sound satisfyingly thunderous in the late night 
stillness. 

A light went on in the upstairs window, and scant seconds 
later-- it was too fast, she thought, he'd obviously known 
she was coming-- the door was flung open to reveal his 
scowling form. He was clad in black silk pajamas, dark hair 
appropriately sleep-mussed, but his eyes were far too sharp 
for one who'd been jarred awake in the wee morning hours. 

"Let me in or I'll make a scene," she said. 

Maxwell Gerber stared at her coldly for a moment, just 
enough time to make her think that this had been a bad 
idea, a stupid idea, one not nearly thought-out enough; and 
then he stepped aside to allow her passage. Her sneaker-
clad feet whispered against marble flooring as he shut the 
door behind her. 

*

There was a bag of sunflower seeds on his coffee table and 
a fresh twelve pack of V-8 in his refrigerator. Mulder took 
one of the cans and cracked it open, a trickle of red juice 
moving carelessly down his cheek as he picked up the phone 
and dialed the doctor's office. 

The receptionist did not sound thrilled to hear from him, 
but she dutifully transferred his call. 

"You're fine," Doctor Smith said. "Fine. No problems, 
nothing."

"You're sure? The x-rays--" 

"Are completely clear." 

When he hung up, Mulder realized that he felt more relieved 
than disappointed, and he wondered if that meant he was 
making progress.

The calm, quiet ground seemed farther away than it had in a 
long time. 

*

He drove to Long Island, relishing the breeze in his hair 
and the discordant hum of traffic, the smell of truck 
exhaust tickling his nose. He left the radio off, 
preferring the company of his own thoughts. His cell phone 
rang, and he ignored it. 

It was dark when he arrived; the stately mansions gated off 
and foreboding in the moonlight. 

Mulder parked his car under a tall maple tree, tore open 
his bag of seeds, and waited. 

*

His phone rang at four in the morning, jolting him away 
from the talk radio session he had been half-listening to, 
and he didn't have the heart to ignore it again. 

"Scully," he said, knowing it would be her.

"Where are you?" she asked, her voice low. 

"I've always wanted to see an East Hampton sunrise."

She sighed. She always seemed to be sighing these days. 

"Maxwell Gerber left flowers on my grave," he said after a 
long pause. "It was a threat. Or a warning. Or maybe he was 
marking me as his equal. I'm not sure yet." 

She did not answer him, and for a moment he thought the 
call had been dropped. But then he heard a tiny, trembling 
breath in his ear.

"Your grave," she said, her voice small. 

"He was there, so now I'm here." Mulder laughed 
humorlessly. "I've got a lot of time on my hands. Felt like 
making Mac the Knife squirm."  

The silence on the other end of the line was deafening. 

Mulder had begun to feel uncomfortable. He fidgeted in his 
seat as he pressed the phone tighter against his ear. 
"Scully are you... is there some reason you called?" 

There was only the click of the call disconnecting. 

*

The sun brightened the horizon slowly, sending out rays of 
pink to chase the last vestiges of darkness away. At six-
thirty, the gate in front of the Gerbers' mansion swung 
open and a stunning blonde in exercise clothes jogged out, 
long ponytail swinging behind her. She paused on the curb 
to stretch, and then loped off down the block.

Mulder watched her go, his own muscles crying out miserably 
from being trapped in the car all night. 

Nothing compared to a coffin, he told himself. 

A shadow suddenly passed by the side window, and he 
started, glancing up sharply. 

Only the charming maple trees, swaying gently in the 
morning breeze.

He sat stiffly in his seat for another hour, finally 
deciding to abandon his stakeout in favor of a cup of 
coffee and a bathroom. As he started the engine, Gabrielle 
Gerber jogged into view again, skin shiny with sweat, 
ponytail still swinging behind her. She hesitated as she 
passed his car, locking eyes with him. 

He turned off the car and moved to open the door, not quite 
sure what to say to her but feeling as though he ought to 
try something. 

"Stay away from me," she said, voice trembling. "You get 
back." 

He stepped out into the sunlight, squinting, joints 
popping. "Mrs. Gerber, I only want to ask you a few 
questions." 

"I've already called the police," she said, backing up 
further. "I saw your car this morning. Saw you parked 
outside all night." 

"I'm with the FBI," he said.

Her hands were fumbling behind her and she came out with a 
pocket knife, blade glinting in the early morning sun.

"Stay BACK," she said, waving the knife at him. "I won't be 
another one." 

"Another one?"

"MAX!" she screamed, her voice echoing on the quiet street. 
A flock of birds took flight from the nearest tree. 

"Calm down," Mulder said, holding his hands up non-
threateningly as he stepped towards her. "I'm not going to 
hurt you." 

The handsome iron gate swung open and Mac Gerber exploded 
out into the street, looking far less put together than 
usual, feet bare, lean body clad in black silk pajamas. 

He did not speak as he stalked across the street. When he 
reached his wife he put a hand on her sweaty shoulder, and 
she jumped slightly.

"Gabrielle, go inside." 

She stood rigidly for a moment, white knuckles still 
clenched around the knife. 

"He--" 

"I know. Go inside. You're all right." 

He touched her face, smoothing strands of sweaty blond hair 
out of her eyes. He nodded reassuringly, rage gone, 
handsome face now simply lined with concern. After a 
moment, she nodded back, and then turned towards the gates. 

Maxwell Gerber stood, arms crossed, smiling benignly at 
Mulder until his wife disappeared behind the tall privet 
hedges that lined their home. Then he dropped the genial 
act. 

"You have no right to be here." 

"I was looking for a place to get a cup of coffee. Must've 
made a wrong turn. Got any good suggestions?"

"You've upset my wife," Gerber said, inching closer. "She's 
on edge. Everyone here is." 

"I imagine living with you would put anyone on edge." 

"Kindly drop the act," Gerber said. "Some might find your 
cheekiness amusing, but I just find it tiresome." 

"You won't be able to maintain this illusion for long," 
Mulder said. "People make mistakes. Killers make mistakes. 
Even you make mistakes. And when you do, all of this is 
going to come crashing down around you." 

Gerber smiled humorlessly at him. "The only one making 
mistakes is you. If you're not out of here of your own 
volition in five minutes, you'll be forcibly removed. 
That's not a threat, Mr. Mulder. That's a promise."

*

Mulder left. He drove back through the winding, hidden 
streets to the main township, losing himself in a sea of 
luxury automobiles. He spied a promising coffee shop and 
stopped inside, inhaling rich aromas. His stomach rumbled. 

"Coffee and a muffin," he requested of the man at the 
counter, who was staring distractedly at a small television 
mounted on the wall. 

"Sure thing," the man said, moving slowly, not tearing his 
eyes away from the screen. "Blueberry or bran?"

"Blueberry." 

The man plucked a blueberry muffin out of the basket 
without turning to look. He set it in front of Mulder and 
busied himself pouring coffee. 

"Feels like the end of the world, don't it?" He spoke 
without turning around. 

Mulder blinked. "How so?"

"Serial killings. That big feller out in Texas. The woman 
in Montana. Everything that's been going on here." 

"Texas?" Mulder said slowly, and then raised his head to 
the television. A blonde reporter was gesturing towards a 
warehouse cordoned off with police tape. 

"It's been all over the news this morning. They trapped him 
in there late last night. He's the one who's been shooting 
all those people." 

"And the woman in Montana?" Mulder asked, scarcely daring 
to hope.

"Still loose," the man said. "She can stay out there, far 
as I'm concerned. We've got enough trouble." 

"Trouble here, you mean." 

The man finally tore his eyes away from the news broadcast 
and favored Mulder with an incredulous gaze. "You're not 
from around here, are you?" He studied the rumpled clothes, 
the bloodshot eyes, the stubbled chin, and then shook his 
head. "Not from around here at all. Should've known. I can 
usually tell who's local, who's summer, and who's tourist." 

"Which am I?" Mulder asked with a half smile.

"You're trouble." The man punched a key, and the register 
sprang open. "That'll be seven-fifty." 

"For a coffee and muffin?" 

"Welcome to the Hamptons." 

Mulder fished a ten out of his wallet, and started to hand 
it over. As the man's fingers closed around the bill, 
Mulder pulled back.

"I've been thinking about buying a summer place out here. 
Can you give me any reason why that might be a bad idea?"

"Aside from the hurt on your wallet?" the man laughed and 
tugged the bill from Mulder's fingers. "Coffee ain't the 
worst of it out here." 

"If money wasn't an issue." 

"If money wasn't an issue, I'd tell you to buy yourself 
some new clothes. Maybe invest in a motel room instead of 
sleeping in your car." The man scowled and leaned closer. 
"And maybe I'd tell you to look elsewhere." 

"Why?"

"Because someone's been offing the summer clientele. Rich 
businessmen and their families. No celebrities yet, that's 
why it's been kept out of the news. Every summer, 
billionaires come here to play. This town is going to dry 
up quick if they're all to scared or too dead to do that." 

"Any suspects?" Mulder pressed.

"Hell," the man leaned away and turned his disinterested 
gaze back to the television. "What do I know? I'm not the 
goddamn chief of police." 

*

He called Scully as he left the coffee shop, stepping out 
into the warm sunshine. It was going to be a nice day, and 
the charming township with its rows of high-end shops 
should have been crammed with bustling shoppers; the rich 
and those seeking to emulate them. Yet, curiously, it 
wasn't. A woman with a small dog in a handbag gave him a 
wide berth as he stepped off the curb towards his car. 

"Where are you?" she asked as the call connected, not even 
bothering with a greeting. 

"Still in East Hampton," he said. "The local population 
seems to have been thinned out." 

"There have been twelve murders there since this began." 

Mulder froze with his hand on the door handle. "Twelve?" 

"Yep. Some of them made to look like break-ins, others just 
straight up murder. He likes close work, Mulder, all of 
these people have been killed with a knife. The same knife, 
as far as they can tell." 

Mulder shut his eyes for a moment. The number of victims, 
in such a short time, was staggering. "They haven't even 
seen fit to bring him in for questioning yet?" 

"Mulder, we're just getting wind of this today. Agent 
Johnson from VCU called to give me a heads up. East Hampton 
has its own police department. They've been trying to keep 
this quiet. There have been three false arrests, all men 
with motives. They've been released for lack of evidence. 
Up until last night, police were treating the crimes as 
separate incidents, a burglar with a penchant for violence 
and a thrill killer." She laughed softly, incredulously. 
"It's like they never wanted to catch him at all." 

"Gerber knew what he was doing. He's deliberately making a 
laughingstock of the local justice system." 

"It's over, Mulder. Within hours, FBI agents are going to 
be swarming all over that town. It's not just a serial 
case, it's an incredibly high profile one. Gerber only has 
a matter of time before someone catches him in a mistake." 

He heard the unspoken request in her voice. Come home.

"Scully, Gerber's been planning this for a long time. I'm 
not entirely sure he has made a mistake." 

She sighed heavily. When she spoke again, her tone was 
hard. "Tyler Walker has been shot to death in a Texas 
textile mill." 

"I saw." 

"Everybody makes mistakes, Mulder. Even those who have been 
planning for years. I think you should step back now. Let 
VCU come in and do their job." 

Mulder smiled humorlessly. "I kind of like this town, 
Scully. Has a certain charm. I think I'll stick around for 
a while." 

"Dammit, Mulder," she breathed. 

"I'll be in touch," he told her. And he thought that maybe 
he meant it. 

*

He took the coffee shop man's dubious advice and checked 
into a motel. The rate was ludicrously high for a room with 
a bed and a shower, but it felt good to draw the shades 
against the sunlight and shut his eyes. 

When he woke up, he flipped the television on and watched 
his way through several different reports on the Texas 
murders, reporters and police officers and so-called 
specialists all theorizing about what drove Tyler Walker to 
murder. There were pictures, a stocky blond man with eyes 
too close together and baby pink skin that didn't seem at 
home under the Texas sun. 

On another channel, more self-named specialists were 
discussing the recent spate of serial murders in Montana, 
and how they'd suddenly and inexplicably halted. The only 
picture of Zoe they could seem to produce to air was an old 
one, she was almost as young as she was in the picture 
Charlie had shown him. Heavier then than she was now, 
wearing a crooked smile and sporting a bad haircut. Mulder 
didn't think anyone would be recognizing the woman he'd 
seen from that picture. 

And then, in red letters on the bottom of the screen, a 
breaking news ticker. Serial case in East Hampton, New 
York. No suspects. 

Mulder supposed it was only a matter of time before some 
enterprising reporter or eager field agent dug up a college 
connection between Zoe and Tyler. Would they follow that 
trail to Joey's cold, mutilated corpse? Would they sense a 
connection between named killers and the one who still 
moved around undetected, unsuspected?

Mulder thought so. And he thought that maybe Maxwell Gerber 
was ready for that, too. 

And when the reporter discussing the Hampton murders 
touched his ear, and then told the people at home somberly 
that summer residents were packing and traveling elsewhere 
until these matters were sorted out, that just mere hours 
ago, Maxwell Gerber and his family had boarded their 
private jet at Gabreski airport and headed south to their 
Naples, Florida beach home, Mulder was certain of it. 

He was glad he'd thought to pack dark clothing. Although 
he'd not packed with any particular goal in mind, some part 
of his mind must have known that he'd wind up skulking 
about in the dark. He always did. 

He dressed in the dark, and when he left the motel on foot, 
he might as well have been in a ghost town. 

*

Gerber's house was dark and ponderous on a street crowded 
with dark and ponderous homes. Nothing stirred. Mulder was 
not fooled by the impression of emptiness.
 
He bypassed the front gate, choosing instead to shimmy 
awkwardly up a maple tree that leaned partially over the 
side property. Bark scratched at his hands, drawing blood, 
and when Mulder let go of the branch and toppled over the 
high fence with a startled chuff of surprise, he was forced 
to admit that it had been too long since he'd done this 
with any semblance of enjoyment. 

He regained his balance, felt his knees creak with the 
unexpected effort, and proceeded grimly on. 

*

Continued in Part 8


*

EIGHT


Mulder eschewed the marble entryway and foreboding frosted 
glass door. He moved carefully through the pristinely 
manicured side yard, flowers- Gerber Daisies- brushing 
against his ankles. 

He found the side entrance he was hoping for, a nondescript 
wooden door with a functional stone walkway leading to the 
garage. A utilitarian service entrance, so that no one 
would muddy the grand marble foyer. He was prepared to 
break a window to get in, and was pleasantly surprised when 
the knob turned freely under his hand. 

The darkness, and its innumerable mysteries, beckoned him. 

He had stepped inside, reaching one hand into his jacket 
pocket for his flashlight, when he thought he heard a soft 
intake of breath. 

Too late, he realized that what he had mistaken for good 
fortune was instead an act of deliberate anticipation. 

Then pain exploded behind his eyes, he felt something sharp 
jab him on the back of the neck, and the dim shadows in the 
room went black. 

*

He was dimly aware of motion, slow and rocking. Occasional 
beams of light struck his eyes and made him groan. 
Headlights, he thought, and tried to turn his head. 

A fuzzy form in the seat next to him. Dark clothes. Dark 
hair. Pale face illuminated by the passing cars. 

"Shh," she said, and he felt something sharp prick his neck 
again. Her form faded from view. 

*

Light spilled through the corners of his eyes, working its 
way under his clamped lids, bringing with it consciousness 
and awareness. 

Mulder groaned, went to touch the achy spot on the back of 
his head and found he couldn't. His hands were bound 
tightly behind his back. He settled for opening his eyes, 
squinting into the bright light, and waiting for the shapes 
revealed to make sense. 

For a moment, he feared that sense would elude him. The 
figure standing over him, smiling at his uncomfortable 
struggle back into consciousness was not Maxwell Gerber, 
but instead a woman. A woman with short, severely cut black 
hair. 

"Zoe," Mulder said, straightening up. The floor seemed to 
shift underneath him, making his stomach queasy. He heard a 
creak of wood and a gentle slosh of water, and groaned as 
his aching head tried to make sense of it all. 

She grinned at him, perfect white teeth gleaming, and there 
was something unsettling in that grin, something that 
seemed to be clinging to reality with an increasingly weak 
grip. 

"You're the one who ruined my buzz," she said, advancing on 
him. He saw the quick flash of a blade in her hand and 
winced.
 
She followed his gaze and her grin widened. 

"Afraid of losing your head?" she smiled. 

"It's not high on my list of things to do," Mulder said.

She looked down at the box cutter in her hand as if seeing 
it for the first time. "Mac has other plans for you."

"How long have you been working together?" 

"Why do you assume we're working together?" 

"Because if you were working against him, you'd be dead." 

She laughed at that, threw her head back and crowed a 
terrible, high-pitched sound. Mulder imagined her laughing 
like that, head back, bathing in the still-hot sea of Joey 
Battista's blood, and turned his head and retched miserably 
onto the floor. 

"You're a quick study, Fox Mulder," she said. "You'd have 
fit in with us, I think." 

"I've got nothing in common with you." 

She smiled again. "You're trying to bait me. You think I'm 
crazy, and if you make me mad, I might do something 
erratic. I might make a mistake." 

He was silent.

"It's a good tactic. It might have worked under other 
circumstances. But I'm not crazy."

Mulder thought back to the bloodbath in Tahoe, the way 
she'd grinned and lobbed Joey's severed head at the lamp, 
and thought she might be wrong about that. 

"Joey and I had a history," she said, as if reading his 
thoughts. "He deserved it." 

"His wife and children might disagree with you," Mulder 
said.

"And the man whose face he smashed to pieces in an alleyway 
might disagree with them," Zoe said, sounding like a 
petulant child. 

If Mulder had control over his hands, he might have raised 
them in a gesture of surrender. "We could go around in 
circles, or you could tell me what it is, exactly, you've 
got planned. Where are we, Zoe? We're not in Maxwell 
Gerber's house anymore, are we?"

"Patience is a virtue." 

Mulder was distressingly reminded of a long ago day, bathed 
in the sunshine that illuminates fond remembrance, where he 
and Scully stood in his office and batted cliches back and 
forth, quick, catlike grins on their faces as each hastened 
to best the other. 

He wondered how he could have ever turned his back on all 
that light. 

*

Time passed, slowly. Zoe seemed electrified by what was to 
come, and she paced back and forth in front of him, idly 
playing with her box cutter, flicking the blade between her 
thumb and forefinger. Occasionally she froze, cocking her 
head as though she'd heard some strange noise, and then 
she'd resume her pacing, a small smile playing on her lips. 

Mulder fidgeted and fussed with his bindings, but she'd 
done a good job. He stood little chance of worming his way 
free, and instead began to crane his neck around, getting 
an eyeful of their surroundings. A small room. Scuffed wood 
flooring. Stained vinyl seating against the wall. Crumpled 
beer can in the corner. The floor shifted again, and Mulder 
leaned his head back and breathed in the sea, and wondered 
why he hadn't figured it out earlier. 

He wasn't in a room. He was in a cabin. 

"How--" he began to ask.

She saw the awareness in his eyes and chuckled. "I zonked 
you out. Mac gave me the stuff. You went down like a ton of 
bricks." 

"You drove us here." 

"Normally, traffic's a bitch, but we left late enough at 
night that it was smooth sailing. So to speak." 

He sat very still for a moment, his head aching 
thunderously, his mouth dry and cottony, stomach churning 
from both the bobbing motion and the aftereffects of 
whatever drugs she'd given him.

"What time is it?"

She smiled enigmatically. "Does it matter?" 

"I'd like to know." 

For a moment, she seemed on the verge of continuing her 
strange game, but then she shrugged. "We left Long Island 
around midnight. Got down here around six. I made a few 
wrong turns. I'm not from around here, you know?" 

He dipped his head in acknowledgement. 

"I've been told to keep you quiet and out of sight, which, 
if I do say so myself, I've been doing quite well. You've 
been asleep for a long time." 

Mulder favored her with a strained smile. "You didn't 
answer my question." 

She grinned. "You *are* a fun one. Joey wasn't even this 
much fun. He just screamed and screamed. I don't know why I 
wasted so much time mooning after him." 

Mulder sighed.

Zoe groaned and dropped her chin to her chest, hair hanging 
down over her face. "It'll be dark soon, all right? Mac 
will be here when the sun goes down." 

"Whatever he has planned, you know it's not going to end 
well for you, don't you?" 

She lifted her head and quirked a smile at him. "I like to 
think I've proved my usefulness." 

"But that wasn't the game, was it? Mac doesn't want you to 
be useful, he wants you to be clever. To elude detection. 
Going to him is tantamount to asking for help." 

"Shut up." 

He thought perhaps he'd hit a nerve, and he dug deeper.  

"Your name has come out in connection with the Montana 
murders. You've already lost. The game was already up long 
before you lost your cool with Joey." 

Her lips curled in a snarl, but she held her ground. Cold 
rationality. It was Mac Gerber's bible, and the others had 
been studious and eager learners. He realized he had little 
hope of baiting Zoe into recklessness. 

Beneath him, the boat bobbed gently in the bay's calm 
waters. 

"Where's Charlie?" he asked her. 

"Sleeping off a hangover. So to speak." She smiled again. 
"You should relax. Mac will be here soon."


*

He had almost fallen asleep; not deeply, but nudged along 
by the remaining drugs in his system into a dreamy half-
doze in which he moved ever closer to Scully, the one he'd 
once loved, the one with whom he'd aligned himself against 
the world.

And then he felt a cold hand against his face, not 
soothing, not caressing, but still short of a slap. He 
jerked awake and looked up at Zoe, who stood over him, 
tapping her fingers on his cheek in a sort of nervous 
staccato. 

"Wake up," she told him. "He's back. You don't want to be 
sleeping when he comes in." She let loose another bray of 
laughter, spraying his face with spittle. 

Mulder groaned. He'd woken from the dream and entered the 
nightmare. Par for the course with him, of course, but less 
and less appealing as time went on. 

Still, he straightened slightly in his seat, feeling his 
muscles tense as he looked towards the door, wondering just 
what, exactly, Mac Gerber had planned for him. 

He heard footsteps, and the door swung open, not in a burst 
of frenzied energy like he'd expected, but instead in a 
slow, measured arc. Mac Gerber poked his sleek, well-
manicured head in from the darkness. 

"Ah," he said, his gaze alighting on Mulder. "Glad you made 
it. I was hoping you'd drop by." 

Then he disappeared again, and Mulder could hear the sounds 
of some brief, fierce scuffle. Moments later he re-entered 
the room, his hair slightly mussed, a strange light in his 
eyes. With him was a woman, bound and gagged, struggling 
mightily against her ropes. 

For a moment, she was Scully, and Mulder's heart went to 
his throat as his mind mechanically catalogued the 
thousands of ways he'd like to tear Gerber apart. But it 
was all wrong, the height, the hair, and this woman wasn't 
pregnant, wasn't holding the weight of the world in front 
of her. 

Still, she was familiar. Her eyes met his and she let out a 
muffled sob. 

Not his Scully. But a Scully, nonetheless. 

"Michelle," Mulder said. "Try to stay calm. He--" 

Gerber returned to the room with his next two charges, and 
Mulder understood the reason for her panic. Little boys, 
faces pale in the harsh lamplight. Ginger hair, matted to 
their heads by sweat and rough treatment. 

Charlie's sons. Scully's nephews. 

This was going to be a hell of a night. 

*

"Now that the gang's all here," Mac Gerber was all smiles. 
"I suppose some introductions are in order." He turned to 
Michelle, who glared back at him from underneath the 
tousled tangle of her hair. "Michelle Scully, it's a 
pleasure to make your acquaintance. My name is Maxwell 
Gerber, and I'm an old college friend of your husband's." 

He stuck out his gloved hand, gently squeezing one of her 
tied fists. 

"And the children. Peter and Sean, correct? Forgive me if I 
can't exactly tell which is which, all small ones look the 
same to me." He favored each child with a perfunctory pat 
on the head. 

Michelle's mouth was working frantically, and the duct tape 
peeled away from the corner of her lips, curled with sweat 
and spittle. "You bastard, stay away from my children!" 

Gerber raised his eyebrows and turned to face her. 

"Whatever business you have with Charlie, it's got nothing 
to do with them. Or me." 

"I'm sorry to say that's just not true," Mac said, and he 
did indeed sound remorseful. "Charlie broke the rules of my 
little game, and for that, unfortunately, you must pay." 

Michelle's eyes were bright with fevered rage. "What is it? 
Drugs? Some gambling debt?"

"Far more serious than that, I'm afraid," Gerber said.

"Shall I bring in the guest of honor?" Zoe asked.

Gerber smiled. "Yes, I suppose so." 

Zoe flashed a grin, all predatory white teeth, and 
disappeared up the cabin stairs. There was a brief gleam of 
light, hot, white summer light and the sound of the open 
sea, the cry of gulls. 

"Where are we?" Mulder asked. 

"At the end of the road for you, I'm afraid." Gerber smiled 
benignly. 

"This was your plan all along." 

Gerber raised his eyebrows and leaned against the wall, 
folding his arms across his chest. 

"You knew Charlie would be the weak one. You always knew." 

"Any businessman worth his salt always has a contingency 
plan." 

"When they find us, you'll be long gone. What are you going 
to make it look like? A murder suicide? And maybe you'll 
execute it with the same knife you used on all the others. 
Tie it up neatly." 

"You *are* good," Gerber said, clapping his hands together. 
He appeared delighted. "I'd hoped, of course. It's not easy 
to find a worthy adversary in this world. Not even easy to 
find worthy friends." He cast a sour look towards the 
stairs. 

"Charlie has no alibi. He's been living on his boat. No one 
sees him come or go. You could twist it any way you want." 

"It's a shame you let yourself get caught, Mulder. I would 
have enjoyed dragging this out." Gerber's hand stole inside 
his light jacket and returned holding a hunting knife with 
a curved, wicked-looking serrated edge. He held it out in 
front of him, squinting at it, letting the light play off 
of the blade. 

Mulder stared at it, imagined his skin parting ways under 
that gleaming steel, and found he didn't much like the 
thought.

"I'll spare you the 'you'll never get away with this' 
bullshit," he said. "Because I think you will. I think 
you've thought this through." 

Gerber smiled and tightened his grip on the knife. Across 
the cabin, Michelle whimpered.  

There was a commotion at the head of the stairs, sunlight 
flooded the dark cabin once more, and Zoe shoved a bound 
and gagged figure roughly to the floor. 

Charlie. Sunburned, skin almost as red as his hair. Tear 
tracks streaming from the corners of his eyes. 

Zoe turned and smiled at Gerber, wide eyed like a child 
looking for praise, and he reached over and casually slit 
her throat with the flick of his hand. 

Her eyes goggled. Her pale hands went to the crimson river 
of her ruined neck. Beads of her blood spattered onto 
Charlie's face and he turned away, moaning. 

"Now," Gerber said, smiling. "Who's next?"

*

Continued in Part 9


*
NINE


There was a postcard of a woman in a bikini tacked up on 
the wall of the cabin, slightly yellowed and dingy from the 
constant exposure to salt air. A single, dark red splotch 
darkened the patch of sky right over the woman's smiling 
face. 

It was easy to mistake that splotch for dirt if one ignored 
the horror on the floor, the crumpled woman in black 
clothes, shocked eyes still open and staring sightlessly at 
the ceiling, pooled blood congealing around her still form. 

Across the room, bound and gagged, Michelle and her 
children studiously avoided looking at the corpse. Mulder, 
tied tightly to his chair, found that he could not look 
away. 

He had been a corpse. Probably would be again soon. All of 
his struggling and failure to fit in with a life that had 
passed him by would suddenly cease to matter; he'd be gone 
again, for good. Scully would bury him again. They'd keep 
the same plot. She'd be heavily pregnant this time, a 
visible tragedy. Burying a brother and a... what exactly? 
Not a partner. Not anymore. Not a lover. Friend did not 
begin to touch the true scope of what they were, what they 
had meant to each other, what they could have been. 

Charlie was slumped on the floor, sobs muffled by the rag 
in his mouth. He kept his red, flushed face turned towards 
his family. "Om horry. Om horry." 

I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Maxwell Gerber, Mac the Knife, one clever sonofabitch, 
stood by the stairs leading up to the deck, casually 
swinging the knife in his hand, making no move towards 
them, simply smiling down at the scene of growing misery 
and tension. 

This was his moment, Mulder realized, and he intended to 
drag it out for as long as possible. 

"I'm not going to pontificate," Gerber said. "We're all 
here because of choices we made. I chose to plan. To study. 
To take this little game seriously. Zoe chose to let her 
emotions rule her. To break with the cold hard reason that 
should have been her religion. She had, all along, been 
nothing more than a little child, begging for approval. 
You, Charlie, chose to be weak. Not only did you scoff in 
the face of our long-ago pact, you revealed it to others. 
Tried to ruin it for the rest of us. Instead, you've 
created my perfect alibi."

He removed his linen jacket, miraculously unstained by the 
spray of Zoe's blood. He neatly folded it and lay it down 
on a chair. Immaculate, as always. Unstained. Untarnished. 

"Your wife and children are unfortunate casualties. I have 
a small child of my own. I don't relish cutting their 
throats, piercing their little hearts. Hearing their 
piteous voices cry out for mercy--" 

"You bastard!" Michelle spat. Her face was sweaty; hair 
clinging to her cheeks. She looked feral; wild and 
snarling. If her hands weren't bound, Mulder thought she 
might be ready to do some damage. 

"Yes, yes," Gerber said patiently. "I've heard it all 
before. Please accept my most sincere apologies, Michelle, 
for the way that this all must come to an end." He bowed 
his head a little. "As for you, Agent Mulder, I daresay I 
wish we'd met under different circumstances. You were a bit 
bothersome there, for a few moments, but I do appreciate 
you keeping me on my toes." 

He crouched down and yanked the cloth out of Charlie's 
mouth.
 
"Any last words, old friend?" 

"You can't pin it on me," Charlie gasped. "You're already 
under suspicion. You're supposed to be in Naples. Someone 
will notice. Someone will see." He lay miserably on his 
stomach, sunburned hands tied behind his back, and Mulder 
could see that the twine had started to slip-- in her zeal 
to impress, Zoe hadn't double checked the knots. 

"My wife watched me sail off on a charter boat for a bit of 
deep sea fishing early this morning. I paid cash for a 
private plane to take me to D.C." Gerber smiled. "Brought 
Michelle and the boys out here to the rendezvous in a 
rented motorboat. By the time your sorry corpses are 
discovered, I'll be back in Naples, dining on fresh fish 
that I can claim to have caught." 

"You--" 

"This has been a fascinating intellectual exercise," Gerber 
said. "I find that I enjoy the act of murder; even more 
than I thought I would. But the key to true indulgence is 
self control. I have no compulsion to kill. Once today is 
over, I will return to my old life with nary a look back. 
And no one shall be the wiser." 

Mulder felt a slow smile spread across his face. His heart 
had begun jackhammering in his chest. A chance, perhaps. 
Not much of one, but he'd take the odds. "That's not your 
style." 

Gerber whirled away from Charlie and studied Mulder with 
slit eyes. "Please, we're all dying to hear your keen 
insight."

"You think you'll be able to go home. Distance yourself 
from all of this. And I believe that you might be able to 
do that, if not for one little thing." 

"Go on." 

"It's going to eat you up, hearing about all of this on the 
news. When they pin your carefully constructed, intricately 
carried out murders on Charlie Scully."

"I'll just be laughing about how I fooled them all." 

"For a while," Mulder said. "But sooner or later, it's 
going to get to you. Once the novelty of the case has worn 
off, they'll start turning up. Journalists looking to trace 
the origin of a serial killer. Books will be written. All 
of them ascribing your work to him." He cut what he hoped 
was an appropriately disgusted look towards the prone 
Charlie. 

Gerber opened his mouth and shut it; only the briefest of 
tics, but Mulder could see he was getting to him. 

He pushed on. "You're too much of an egomaniac to let that 
happen, Mac. You said it yourself; Charlie is weak. No 
strength of character. Not nearly enough intelligence to 
pull something like this off. You're going to sit back and 
watch the credit for your masterpiece go to this sorry sack 
of shit right here--" 

Gerber lunged.

Mulder was ready for him, swinging his entire body forcibly 
to the left, feeling the ropes bite into his skin, feeling 
the chair tip and then topple, upended legs catching Gerber 
right in the chin and knocking him to the ground, grip on 
the knife temporarily lost--

"CHARLIE!" Mulder screamed, knowing it was his only chance, 
knowing that if Charlie failed to act now it would be the 
end for all of them--

Charlie reacted to his name as if a gun had gone off. He 
jerked his limbs, his hands breaking free from the 
carelessly tied twine with an ease that seemed to shock 
him. He rolled to the right, blistered fingers scrabbling 
on the teak floor for the knife.

Gerber recovered his balance and scrambled on his hands and 
knees towards Charlie, both men lunging forward, fingers 
finding the handle at the same time. 

The chair Mulder tipped over had cracked up the back, 
affording him some more wiggle room, and he jerked his body 
left and right, feeling his bindings begin to give ever so 
slightly. His muscles tensed, sweat poured down the back of 
his neck, and his heart pounded with a will to live he 
hadn't suspected he possessed. 

Gerber and Charlie rolled over each other on the ground, 
both trying to force the blood-stained knife into the 
other. Michelle was screaming, calling Charlie's name over 
and over and over again, while trying to shield the boys 
from the worst of the struggle. 

Mulder thought of Scully, the thin-lipped, perpetually 
grieving Scully that he'd come to know in recent days; 
thought of her standing in front of his grave with her head 
down. Thought of her wishing she'd never dug him up in the 
first place; hadn't ripped the scab off the wound only to 
gouge it open again.

He thought of her, of the child she was carrying, the child 
whose origins he still dared not question but who was 
undoubtedly his in spirit. 

And he realized that he didn't want to die. Didn't want to 
live with one foot in the grave. Had no desire to be twice 
buried. 

He lunged again, feeling the back of the chair splinter 
away, his arms tearing free. A shard of wood lodged into 
his shoulder and he felt hot blood trickle down the arm of 
his t-shirt. 

He crawled forward, legs shaky from the hours of 
inactivity, muscles still sluggish from the drugs. Charlie 
and Gerber were locked in struggle mere steps away, eyes 
gleaming like men possessed, lips pulled back in snarls of 
equal concentration and hate. 

Mulder flung himself forward into the fray, slamming into 
Gerber's back and sending him toppling sideways; the knife 
skittering along the floor. His head smacked against the 
wall and there was a hot flash of pain, and then he was 
scrambling to his feet, dizzy and disoriented but not 
wanting Gerber to regain an advantage. 

Gerber was bleeding from his lip and nose, fat drops of 
crimson staining his light shirt and pants. His face was 
smeared with dirt and blood, his hair sticking up crazily 
in the back. His cheeks were flushed deep red. 

Immaculate no more. 

They squared off for a moment, Charlie swaying dizzily to 
his feet behind them, and Mulder had just enough time to 
realize that if Gerber charged them now, two drugged and 
exhausted foes, he might still take them down. 

But Gerber didn't charge. He looked first to Mulder and 
then Charlie, wild-eyed, and he turned and bolted for 
Michelle, his blood-stained hands reaching out and closing 
around her head. 

Charlie flung himself forward with a yell, metal flashed in 
the dim room, and the blade bit deep into Gerber's back. 

Gerber screamed, an inhuman, high sound, and let go of 
Michelle to grope wildly at the knife jutting out of his 
back. A deep red stain had begun to spread across the back 
of his shirt. He jibbered wildly, eyes rolling with blind 
panic, spittle flying from his lips. 

Then he dropped to his knees, hands still grabbing at the 
handle, slick with blood and unable to grip. His face, pale 
now, turned up to stare with wide-eyed wonder at Charlie.
 
"It can't be you."

"Hope hell is hot enough for you, asshole." Charlie said, 
and turned away. 

Gerber stayed upright for another second, blinking, mouth 
opening and shutting like a fish gasping for air, and then 
he sank down onto his stomach. Blood trickled out of his 
mouth, and he twitched once and was still. 

Mulder slid down the wall to the ground, breathing hard. 
His fingers worked at the remainder of the bindings around 
his ankles, and he tore them free, tossing the shattered 
remnants of the chair aside. 

Charlie dropped to his knees next to Michelle, tugging at 
the ropes around her wrists, burying his face in her hair 
as he did so. He freed her, and she hugged him, clawing at 
his back to pull him closer. They embraced for a moment and 
then turned to untie Pete and Sean, both of whom regarded 
their parents with tear-streaked faces and then flung 
themselves forward to be hugged.

Mulder staggered back to his feet and started towards the 
stairs, stepping up into the sun, as he heard Charlie's 
hoarse voice behind him. 

"I want to come home." 

*

The sunlight was blinding as Mulder, squinting, stepped up 
onto the deck and took in the great expanse of sea all 
around him. Gerber's abandoned motorboat bobbed serenely 
alongside. 

He turned towards the wheel, intending to radio for help, 
when the sound of a purring engine caught his attention. He 
moved instead towards the bow, holding up his hand to 
shield his eyes from the sun, feeling his heart leap as he 
recognized the ship as a Coast Guard cutter, speeding 
across the blue towards him. And there, on the deck, 
wearing a navy blue windbreaker over her pregnant belly, 
hair tied back, was Scully. 

Her face was pinched with worry, but as soon as she saw him 
it melted away into an expression of relief so genuine that 
he wondered how he could have ever doubted her intentions. 
Had that been there all along? That gratitude? That relief? 
Mingled with the discomfort and awkwardness, the strained 
conversations? 

He thought that perhaps it was. 

And he thought that perhaps he had more to learn about 
being alive. 

The cutter slowed as it approached, and Mulder tossed them 
a rope so they could pull up alongside. 

"FBI," he said, and then he smiled. "Former FBI, I mean. 
There are two bodies below deck." 

"Mulder," Scully said, and she moved to step across. 

"Whoa," he said, stepping up and over onto the cutter 
instead. He put his hand on her arm, felt that warmth, and 
let his arm slide around her shoulders. 

"You're hurt," she said, looking at the blood.

"I'm alive," he replied. 

They locked eyes for a moment, and then she nodded, a small 
smile touching her lips. 

"Charlie?" she asked. 

"He's below deck with Michelle and the boys. They're all 
right." 

"Gerber?"

"Dead." Mulder dropped his face down and breathed in the 
scent of her hair. When he spoke again, his voice was 
little more than a murmur. "How did you find us?"

"I went to speak with Charlie this morning. His boat wasn't 
at the marina. I played a hunch." 

"Hell of a hunch." 

She quirked a smile at him. "This whole mess started with a 
hunch, remember?"

"Dana Scully," he said, teasingly. "Hunches. Psychic tips." 

"I never said anything about anything psychic." 

"Po-tay-to, po-tah-to," he smiled. 

One of the Coast Guardsman came up from below deck and 
shouted over to one remaining on the cutter. "We got a 
double homicide! Radio it in." 

His partner nodded in the affirmative. 

He turned to Mulder, "Will you be able to follow us to 
shore?" 

"I think we can manage," Mulder said. 

He turned back to Scully, reluctantly sliding his arm from 
her shoulders. He thought he heard a tiny sigh escape her 
lips. 

"Pizza?" he asked her. "When we get back. After I give my 
statement. Mushrooms. Pepperoni. The works." 

"You know the way to a woman's heart," Scully said, and she 
smiled at him. A full, wide smile. 

Mulder smiled back-- his cheeks had begun to ache from all 
the smiling-- and he turned away and stepped back onto 
Charlie's boat. 

* 

Less than fifteen minutes later they were moving, wind 
whipping across the deck, chasing off the worst of the 
heat. Michelle sat on the deck, both boys cuddled up close 
to her. Charlie stood at the wheel, red-skinned and blood 
splattered but clear eyed and sober. Mulder stood next to 
him, eyes fixed on the bright copper stream of hair on the 
ship ahead of them. 

"Mulder," Charlie said, his voice low and almost 
unintelligible over the roar of the engine. 

Mulder turned towards him.

"You said some things," Charlie said. "I needed to hear 
them. And I'd like to thank you for saving my life. My 
family." 

"What I said to Gerber was meant to bait him into action 
and nothing more," Mulder replied.

"Doesn't make it untrue."

They stood in silence for a moment, staring out at the 
approaching shore.

"You should rethink your stance on your sister," Mulder 
said finally. "She's got a reserve of strength you wouldn't 
believe, and she's someone you want in your corner." 

"I'm rethinking my stance on a lot of things," Charlie 
said. "I let this happen. To me. To my family." 

"You've got another chance now," Mulder said softly. Unsure 
whether he was really speaking to Charlie or to himself. 
"Don't blow it." 

Charlie smiled grimly and reached a hand into the pocket of 
his bloodstained shorts. He withdrew a folded and creased 
photograph-- five smiling faces, young and fresh and years 
removed from bloody ruination. His expression was stony as 
he studied their faces; he, the unexpected survivor, the 
last one standing. 

Mulder watched him, and thoughts of fate and destiny and 
chance spiraled through his cluttered brain. He'd been an 
only child, once. Full of the unspoken promise of youth. 
Then he'd had a sister, and she, too, had once had dreams 
and hopes. Then he'd been an only child again, hopes and 
dreams and ambitions changed forever. The thought that one 
so small, so young, a child he'd known for only eight years 
of his life, could have the power to alter the course of 
his existence so profoundly was almost unbelievable. 

His story had been one of passion and obsession and not a 
little madness. And his story had ended in a patch of 
moonlit grass, all torn skin and broken limbs. The book had 
been shut. Final chapter written. Fox Mulder, under the 
ground. Hopes and dreams, contrasted with jarring 
realities, all come to a screeching halt. 

And yet-- an epilogue, perhaps. A singular opportunity. The 
chance to end his story with something other than tragedy.  

Charlie slowed the engine as the marina swam into view 
ahead of them. The picture fluttered from between his 
fingers, catching the breeze and hanging overhead for the 
most fleeting of seconds. Then it spiraled away, skimming 
across the surface of the sea before finally settling into 
the murky water. 

Up ahead, the Coast Guard cutter had pulled up to the dock, 
and Scully was stepping from ship to shore, looking capable 
as ever in spite of her pregnancy. Looking radiant, perhaps 
because of it. 

Mulder watched her as she leaned against a pier to gain her 
balance, sunlight glinting off of her hair as she tucked it 
behind her ears against the breeze. 

"Don't blow it," he repeated. 

* 

Continued in Part 10


*
TEN


They ate pizza in Scully's apartment, a companionable 
silence between them. He smiled at her when she reached for 
a third slice, and she didn't complain when a blob of oily 
cheese topped with a pepperoni slice oozed off of his plate 
and plopped to the floor. 

He rummaged in her fridge, found a long abandoned beer 
bottle, and cracked it open. She opted for hot tea. 
 
He helped her settle herself on the couch, and offered to 
put on a movie. She acquiesced, and he chose 'Night of the 
Living Dead.' She raised her eyebrow at him, but she was 
smiling as she did so. 

He sat down next to her-- not too close. And she made a 
small noise of protest and moved closer to him, laying her 
head on his shoulder as the movie began. He felt her hair 
tickle the sensitive skin underneath his jaw, and before he 
could stop himself or second guess his actions, he pressed 
a gentle kiss to the top of her head. 

They both stared at the screen as the opening struggle 
between woman and zombie in a cemetery unfolded, and Mulder 
leaned over so he was speaking right into her ear. 

"You're lucky I didn't come back with a taste for human 
flesh." 

She chuffed and swatted his arm. 

So this is how easy it is, he thought.

*

She fell asleep halfway through, her light snores coming in 
an easy, soothing rhythm. He helped her up from the couch 
and led her into the bedroom, smiling a little at how 
childlike she was in her slumber, tumbling back down onto 
pillows and blankets with her hair fanning out around her. 

He went to leave.

"Stay," she mumbled.

He stayed. Climbed into bed next to her and clumsily put 
his arm around her, his fingers splaying out across her 
rounded belly. 

That night, he had no dreams.

*

In the morning, he awoke and padded to the kitchen. He 
clumsily scrambled eggs in a pan, spilled too much salt, 
and had to throw away his first attempt. Scully walked in 
just as he was spooning eggs onto yellow plates, and she 
paused in the doorway, hands on her hips.

"I don't think you've ever made me breakfast." 

He gestured to the still-steaming pile of eggs in the 
garbage can. "There was probably a reason for that." 

He waited for her to say something else, some other clever, 
throwaway clip, but she didn't speak. After a moment, he 
looked up at her. She was staring at him, bright, unshed 
tears in her eyes. 

"What?" he asked.

She shook her head, shrugging her shoulders. 

He stood awkwardly in the kitchen for a moment, still 
holding the skillet, before setting it down on the stove 
and stepping forward.

"This is weird," Scully said into his chest as he 
delicately put his arms around her. 

"That's my middle name." 

"You died."

Ah, there it was. At last, she spoke of it. 

"You died, and now you're here in my kitchen, making 
breakfast. Watching zombie movies and cracking jokes." 

"Would you prefer I try and eat your brains?"

"Mulder," she said, stepping back slightly and looking up 
at him. "How can you joke about it?"

"I think the real question is, how can we not joke about 
it?"

"What are you talking about?"

"I think the mistake we've been making all along is that we 
haven't been able to joke about this."

"Mulder-"

"Shh," he said, pressing a finger to her lips and silencing 
her protest. 

She blinked back at him with questioning eyes. 

"I've been so worried about the implications. About where I 
stand in this new, post-death world. To me, it's like I 
fell asleep, had a nightmare, and woke up to find that 
everything changed. I've had the misfortune of trying to 
reclaim a life that had ended, you've had the misfortune of 
trying to rectify my sudden re-existence." 

He laughed a little bit, a humorless, bitter laugh. 

"Treating this seriously hasn't done us any good, Scully. 
Because if you think too much about it, about what 
happened, you'd just go mad from the horror of it all."

She quirked a smile at him. How often he'd seen that smile-
- fond humor through tears. "So you've decided that, in 
alignment with possibly every self-help book ever written, 
that laughter truly *is* the best medicine?" 

He chuckled. "No, I... I just think it might be better to 
make light, lest things get too heavy." 

She stepped forward again, leaning her forehead against his 
shoulder, the swell of new life between them. 

Mulder listened to her breathing, felt his own heart 
beating steadily and faithfully against his ribcage, and 
thought that perhaps, finally, his equilibrium was 
returning. 

He had finally returned to earth.

*

He sat on the couch watching news reports while she 
showered. Journalists snapped and snarled at one another 
like rabid dogs for exclusive bits of the Gerber story. 
Video footage of Gabrielle Gerber, resplendent in her 
sorrow, blond hair spilling down on a modest black dress, 
caught his eye and he paused. She held firmly to the hand 
of a small child, publicly mourning, groomed and beautiful 
for mass-consumed tragedy. 

The ticker at the bottom of the screen read: "Gabrielle 
Gerber denies knowledge of husband's crimes." 

Behind him, he heard the water shut off.

He returned his attention to the television just as grainy 
camcorder footage began to play-- a much younger Gerber, 
wearing a red sweater, smiling and hamming it up in front 
of a Christmas tree. Gabrielle behind him, grinning the 
easy, careless smile of the rich. A diamond glittered on 
her finger, and from the way she kept looking down at it 
with wide-eyed wonder, he could only guess the engagement 
was still new. 

The picture changed: Mac Gerber standing up at Edna 
Sullivan's funeral, crafting his lie with smooth words. 

A somber-faced newscaster came into view. "Could this be 
the face of a killer? That's the question that everyone's 
asking. Maxwell Gerber, wildly successful CEO of Silverline 
Industries, loving husband, doting father, noted 
philanthropist-- accused of shocking crimes. Could this 
man, beloved by many, have moonlighted as a serial killer? 
We have the exclusive details of his last moments--" 

Mulder changed the channel. He heard footsteps behind him 
and turned to see Scully, dressed for work, drying her hair 
with a towel. She was looking over his shoulder at the 
television with some amusement. 

"Oprah, Mulder?"

He turned back to the screen. "I just changed the channel." 

She smiled at him and tossed the damp towel in his 
direction. He briefly breathed in the fresh scent of her 
shampoo and thought, if this is the afterlife, I want to 
stay.

*

It ended in sunlight.

Mulder returned to his apartment and opened the blinds, 
letting the warm shafts of light pour in. He fed his fish, 
those miraculous pets that had outlived him. 

He dialed Charlie and Michelle, not really knowing why, but 
feeling as though he needed some closure. 

Charlie answered the phone. His voice was slightly harried, 
but unslurred.

"Just checking up," Mulder said.

"Calls from a dead man," Charlie said. 

"Are you there for good?" Mulder asked, and his voice was 
serious. 

"They impounded my boat." 

"That's not an answer."

Charlie laughed, a sad laugh, and Mulder knew the days of 
their uneasy friendship had come to an end. 

"Don't forget who to call if any more deranged killers 
target you, all right?" 

"All right," Charlie said. "And Mulder?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks." There was a long pause. "Things aren't all right, 
really. There's a lot of hurt here. A lot of bad stuff to 
get over. But I'm trying, and... I think it might work 
out." 

Truer words have never been spoken, Mulder thought. But 
instead of speaking, he hung up gently, resting the phone 
in the cradle. 

He opened the fridge and found one lone V-8 remaining. He 
drank it and dunked the little can into the garbage. 

He sat by the window and waited for her to call him.  

*

Her apartment door beckoned and he stood for a moment, 
contemplating the wood frame. So many times he'd burst 
through in the wake of some great danger. 

Now it felt like crossing the threshold to some entirely 
new life. One as alien as his old life had been familiar, 
but somehow still good, somehow still right. 

He knocked on the door. 

She answered, smiling that inimitable smile at him.

"Hey," he said to her. "Ready to roll?"

"Yeah," she said, backing away from the door. "Let me just 
get my keys."

He moved to her couch, knowing he might be going a little 
overboard but wanting her to see that he was ready to live 
by the words he'd told her- ready to laugh, ready to smile 
and step into sunlight.

"Relax the back," he said, hastily stuffing a throw pillow 
under his shirt. "Breathe in, breathe out." 

She didn't laugh the way he thought she would, although she 
did favor him with a raised eyebrow and the quirk of a 
smile. "How do you know all these things, Mulder?"

"I'm unemployed. I have a lot of time on my hands." He 
cocked his head at her, knowing she knew that wasn't true, 
that since leaving the FBI he'd remained every bit as busy 
as he'd always been chasing down madmen and monsters. His 
mind jumped to that very morning, on her couch, easily 
joking with the television remote. "Oprah. I watch a lot of 
Oprah." 

That got a chuff of laughter out of her, chased that 
pensive look away a little bit.

He stepped towards her, not knowing what she might say 
next, but knowing that it didn't matter; that they were 
united again, that time would slowly erode the remaining 
distance between them. He wanted to kiss her- really kiss 
her, the way he once had- but sensed it wasn't the right 
time, she had other things on her mind. But soon. 

Soon.


* 
 
THE END