Title:  Gutless (13/16)
Author:  Magdeleine
See Prologue for full headers; all posted chapters can be found at 
http://shannono.simplenet.com/gutless


GUTLESS

Chapter 13


The Mo-Z Inn, Room 122
2:27 AM

*KABOOOOOOM!!!*

The blast of thunder rattled the windows like a 
tambourine and slapped Mulder awake.  He 
reflexively rolled out of bed, grabbing for his 
semiautomatic on the bedside table and 
crouching out of the line of fire before his 
foggy brain could remember how to distinguish 
between close-range gunfire and a Kansas 
thunderstorm.  This, he concluded, was thunder.  
"God," he gargled; he hauled himself upright, 
knees popping, and staggered across the room to 
the window like a man wading through thigh-deep 
water.

He parted the curtains and peeked outside, 
yawning hugely and scratching at the prickly 
stubble on his jaw in a dulled version of a 
childhood reflex.  An older cousin had once 
told him that yawning like that could dislocate 
his jaw, and for half his childhood he'd 
clutched his face whenever he had to yawn, 
terrified of the promised consequences.  He 
yawned again, scrubbing at his eyes with a numb 
hand as the thunder rumbled threateningly.

Strangely enough, there was precious little 
rain to show for all the noise -- the gravel 
parking lot was bone-dry.  Mulder squinched up 
his eyes and peered up at the glowering clouds, 
trying to remember the warning signs for a 
tornado.  Circular cloud movement, and green 
color.  He couldn't remember if the green was 
the color of the clouds or whether a trick of 
the light would make everything *else* look 
green, but, happily, nothing was green.  There 
was a hint of that yellow tinge that storms got 
right before the rain started -- the sort of 
daytime stormlight that made everything sepia-
colored like an old photograph -- but mostly it 
was just dark, the thick clouds drooping with 
suppressed rain.

He gazed stupidly at the sky for what seemed 
like a very long time, inhaled another one of 
those huge jawbreaker yawns, and realized for 
the first time that what he'd grabbed off the 
bedside table was not, in fact, his gun.  He 
was thinking loopy disconnected thoughts about 
how brain-dead tired he must be to not know his 
weapon by feel, not to mention taking so damn 
long to focus on the difference, when he 
finally looked down and noticed that the thing 
in his hand that wasn't his weapon was Scully's 
glasses.

It took a moment to sink in.  He lurched across 
the room like a zombie and sat down -- whump -- 
at the end of the bed, where he stared at the 
glasses in his hand.  It took his sleep-logged 
brain a long time to dredge up the reason that 
Scully's glasses were in his room; finally he 
remembered that she'd stormed out when he'd 
interviewed the parrot, leaving him to eat 
pizza and look at files all by himself.  He 
puzzled over her actions for a moment, sighed, 
yawned, and admitted to himself that he wasn't 
getting anywhere.

It was hot in his room.  He pulled at the neck 
of his t-shirt, trying to get comfortable, 
wondering what the hell the problem with 
Midwestern weather was.  Last night he'd almost 
frozen his ass off, so tonight he'd cranked the 
thermostat up before going to bed, but of 
course now it was so damn humid from the 
gathering storm ...  He considered turning down 
the heat, but that would involve actually 
getting up and walking.  Instead, he yanked his 
t-shirt off over his head and tossed it onto 
the sagging armchair next to the dresser.  The 
air whooshed around him, feeling wonderfully 
cool on his sweat-misted skin.  Ahhh, much 
better.

His bleary eyes slid shut -- oh, such a sticky-
sweet, seductive feeling, just closing his eyes 
-- and he turned to the question he'd been 
working on before he'd gone to bed:  if the 
murders had been committed by a native variant 
of succubus, who was playing host to the damn 
thing?  He'd already ruled out the victims, 
since the Tochok didn't kill its host; that 
left ... the living.  Hell.

Try again.

From what he'd read, the victims and the host 
would have one major thing in common -- sexual 
frustration.  He'd seen it in the victims in 
this case; all that remained, really, was 
figuring out which of the sexually frustrated 
people in town was likely to be the host, and 
which were just in line to be the next victim.  
There ought to be some kind of outward sign, 
some kind of change in personality at least, 
but ...

Which was the king, which were the pawns?  Jim 
Taymor, Fred Schmidt, Amber Volney, the 
Sheriff, Jean Denison ... Aimee Marks?  Marty 
Schmidt?  Scully had mentioned something about 
one of the motel housekeeping staff acting 
strangely ...  He fumbled sleepily at the 
problem, but his mental dexterity seemed to 
have mittens on.  He could get the pieces set 
up, but couldn't seem to manipulate them 
without knocking the whole chessboard over.  He 
stared down at Scully's glasses, turning them 
over and over with numb hands, his mind going 
blank.  

Thunder crackled from east to west like it was 
in Dolby Surround-Sound, and Mulder roused 
enough to find a dull bit of humor in sitting 
here in his T-shirt and boxers, slumped into a 
quotation mark.  He blinked, but couldn't seem 
to get his eyes all the way open.  He blinked 
again, slowly, and discovered that he could get 
*one* eye all the way open if he left the other 
one closed.  Cool.

He leaned forward ponderously, swinging an arm 
up like an ape to poke the 'power' button on 
the television.  Ooooh, the Sandie Shores 
marathon was still on.  He made sure the volume 
was way, way down and sat back to watch.

Slowly the flickering image came into focus:  
two busty blonde women, wearing only high heels 
and silicone, writhing against each other in a 
bathtub.  He thought he recognized the one on 
the bottom, although at the moment it was tough 
to tell -- she wasn't in what you might call a 
recognizable position, and Mulder's drowsy eyes 
were having trouble focusing.  The moans coming 
from the television were muted, soft as a 
kitten's breath, much gentler than the frantic 
action on the screen would warrant.

After a few minutes, Mulder became aware that 
the tiny moans were being echoed somewhere 
behind him.  He turned around, his muscles 
reluctant as old rubber bands, and blinked at 
the parrot cage.  Guido seemed half his normal 
size; he crouched on his perch in a dense 
feathery bundle, head low, and stared at the 
television with his eyes hooded and his beak 
half-open, echoing those tiny kittenish moans.

The parrot cocked his head to one side, focused 
a single beady eye on Mulder, and winked.

*KABOOOOOOM!!!*

This time the thunder not only rattled the 
windows, it knocked out the power -- the 
television went off with a faint popping sound, 
plunging the room back into darkness.

Mulder groaned in defeat and collapsed backward 
onto the bed.

A quiet *snick* made him lurch upright again, 
blinking hard to make his eyes adjust, staring 
at the connecting door to Scully's room.  As 
the darkness resolved itself into many shades 
of gray, the door opened.

She looked like a ghost, pale and noiseless, 
her features indistinct.  Lightning flashed 
outside and she froze in the doorway, taut with 
indecision, one white hand still clutching the 
doorknob.

"Scully?" he asked, more for her benefit than 
for his.

Wide eyes turned toward him, glinting like a 
cat's.

"Let me guess," he teased softly, "you're 
scared of the thunder and you don't want to 
sleep alone."

Silence from the pale figure.  "I didn't mean 
to wake you," she said at last.

"I was already awake."  He squinted, trying to 
get a better look at her.  "What's up?"

"I was ...  I wondered ..."  She stopped and 
folded her arms across her breasts.  "I felt 
hungry," she said in a flat voice.  "I thought 
maybe there might be some pizza left."

"Um ..."  Mulder shot a guilty glance at the 
empty pizza box jammed into the wastebasket.  
"Not really.  Sorry."

"Hmm."  

He couldn't quite make out her expression in 
the dark.

"I've got some change if you wanna hit the 
vending machine," he offered.

"I'm not going outside in the middle of the 
night, Mulder.  Besides, isn't it raining?"

"Thunder and lightning, no rain."  He shrugged.  
"Welcome to the Midwest."

She didn't reply, probably didn't even hear him 
from whatever Scullyworld she was swimming in.  
He saw the dark shape of her head turn back 
toward her room.  "I'd better go back to bed," 
she said, very matter-of-factly.

"All right."  He abruptly remembered what he 
was holding in his hand.  "Hey, Scully --"  She 
turned back.  "Here."  He offered her her 
glasses, out at the end of his long arm.  "You 
forgot these earlier."

She hesitated for a long moment, then took one 
step towards him.  Another.  Her hand reached 
out and wrapped around the glasses, one cool 
finger straying over his thumbnail like an 
unconscious caress.  "Thanks," she whispered.

The television snapped back to life, drenching 
the two of them in swift blue light.  Scully's 
eyes went wide with shock, her eyes locked on 
some spot below his chin, her lips parted 
slightly.  The moans from the television and 
from the parrot started up again in erotic 
counterpoint, but to his surprise Mulder could 
hear Scully's harsh gasp over all of it.

Her eyes wrenched up and met his for a single 
stark moment and Mulder saw anguish there -- 
anguish, and a desperate hunger held in check 
by some terrible force of will.

It suddenly became very clear to him that 
Scully did not have the flu.

*KABOOOOOOM!!!*

She blinked, and her composure snapped into 
place like a glazed pane of glass, obscuring 
his sense of her.  "Thank you," she said again, 
more formally, and pulled her glasses -- and 
her hand -- away from him.

"Are you okay?" he asked stupidly.  It wasn't 
the question he wanted to ask.

"I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

She shot him a flame-thrower's glare from 
beneath her brows; a night-darkened arc of hair 
curved perfectly down the middle of her face, 
teaseing her nose and shimmering red around the 
edges.  She did not answer.

His hand still hung in the air like a pendulum 
in arrested movement, the waiting and 
expectancy pervading the six feet between the 
two agents.

She looked at him for a long time.  He looked 
back.

"I'll see you in the morning, Mulder," she told 
him, and walked out.

<X><X><X><X>

It was twilight in the jungle.  

The air was dense with steam and with the smell 
of growing things, rotting things, things that 
prowled and hunted and whose eyes gleamed 
yellow in the shadows.  Scully could feel the 
humidity wrapping around her body like a wet 
trenchcoat.  Condensation fogged the windows of 
the rented car, obscuring the glass; as she 
watched, Mulder wiped it clear, and the 
moisture beaded and ran down the window in thin 
quicksilver rivulets where his hand came away.

He looked outside through the clear patch, 
relaxed and focused as he always was on 
stakeout, sprawled over the bucket seat and 
slumped a little so that his knees almost 
bumped against the dashboard.  One hand tapped 
on the steering wheel in slow motion, a low 
bomph-bomph-bomph-bomph like a drumbeat, a 
heartbeat.

Mulder watched the outside.  Scully watched 
Mulder.

She coiled herself on the passenger seat like a 
whip, taking in his every movement with hooded 
eyes.  Shadow painted her hands with cool 
stripes in the heat.  She could feel a bead of 
sweat trembling on the upper edge of her lip, 
tiny and bulging against gravity; she lapped at 
it with a swift curl of her tongue, her eyes 
never leaving Mulder.

His shirt was off and he was glossy with sweat, 
the twilight gleaming along the planes of his 
body, shimmery dark like onyx where the half-
light could not reach.  The short hairs on the 
back of his neck were dark with sweat, sticking 
to his skin and melting together into a hundred 
soft wet paintbrushes; the hair on his chest 
plastered against him, shallow furrows 
directing the sweat to the dark central line 
like tiny tributaries bleeding into a river.

Scully sat still and calm and let her eyes 
devour that bare chest, sat still while the 
caged animal paced behind her eyes and hurled 
itself against the bars, howling with need.  
Her hands curled into claws, nails sharp 
against her palms.  The ache to touch him cut 
straight to the bone, gripped at her stomach, 
thinned her breath to a panther's shallow pant.

The tropical insects hissed their chorus 
outside the car, thousands of individual songs 
blending into an undulating backdrop of sound 
as pervasive as the humidity.  A loud 
*crrrrrrack* resounded somewhere to the West, 
dragging across the distance as though the 
hammer of some unbelievably large pistol was 
being cocked unbelievably slowly.

Sweat gathered at the hinge of Mulder's jaw, 
slid down the long vertical ridge of muscle, 
caught and pooled in the hollow of his throat.  
His carotid artery pulsed steadily under his 
skin, making the little pool of sweat tremble 
like water in a worn stone when the earth 
shook, building up on the edge of his 
supersternal notch micrometer by agonizing 
micrometer.

Beat.

Beat.

Beat.

The weight of the third dimension became too 
much and the pool welled over the cusp, a flat 
stream trickling into his chest hair.  Scully 
exhaled sharply and the world went heavy and 
dim.

She had her mouth on him before her next 
breath. 

Her tongue lapped up the tiny river fleeing 
downward, licked the salt from his body in long 
swipes.  He made a surprised groan low in his 
throat, and she felt it rumble under her hand 
as she palmed his chest, his hot hair curling 
around her fingers as she bared her teeth 
against him in a triumphant smile.  He smelled 
like summer shadows, dark and warm and spicy.  
She breathed him in through her mouth, tasting 
his scent, and placed a lingering openmouthed 
kiss over his left nipple.

His chest heaved; air whuffed out through his 
nose and ruffled her hair.  She treated the 
right nipple to a matching kiss and trailed her 
tongue downwards, drinking from his skin as she 
followed the coarse dark line down his stomach.  
His abdominal muscles jerked away from her in 
surprise as he exhaled sharply, and her tongue 
stretched out to follow, the tip barely grazing 
him, tracing delicate lines around his navel.  
He gasped and started to pant, harsh hnnnnn 
hnnnnn noises echoing far over her head.  She 
nipped at his stomach right above the waistband 
of his jeans and his legs jerked involuntarily, 
one knee striking the dashboard with a dull 
thud.

The hot denim was already damp from his sweat 
when she slid her hand up to stroke him through 
his jeans, rubbing her palm slowly up and down 
the hard straining length of his cock as she 
nuzzled at his stomach.  He made a desperate 
sound, a swallowed agonized sob, and his hand 
slapped down on the control console on the door 
armrest, bracing against it as his entire body 
tensed.

The automatic door locks slammed down and up 
and down again as he arched up into her touch.

She slipped down a little further, burying her 
nose in the concave side of the denim tent 
stretching over his cock, drowning in the musky 
heat rolling off his body.  He was white-hot 
even in the sweltering holocaust of the car, 
his thick moan loud against the backdrop of 
jungle noises when she traced the zipper of his 
jeans with her nose.  She opened her mouth 
slowly, so slowly, gripped his cock lightly 
between her teeth and dragged down his length, 
the friction from the cloth burning her lips as 
though she were striking a match.  

He made a strangled noise and bucked shallowly, 
trembling with the effort of restraint.

A button unbuttoned, a zipper unzipped.  She 
dipped her hand inside and between humid layers 
of clothing, curved her fingers around his cock 
through the thin layer of cotton and gave him a 
slow stroke before finally drawing him out into 
the open.  Her hand curled around his 
circumference and his hips pumped up into her 
fist, just once; she could feel the slight give 
of the tight silky skin as he moved.

She stroked her hand down to the base of his 
cock, dipped her head, and licked him once, 
roughly, flat-tongued like a jungle cat.  He 
ground out a harsh moan as she did it again, a 
long sandpaper taste rasping over the length of 
her tongue.  Smoky, salty, coppery as blood.

She growled and gave him a third harsh lick.  

This time she slid down and swallowed him 
whole.

She devoured him with long sucking strokes, 
feeling his pulse on her tongue.  Hips 
thrusting against her, he groaned broken words 
in a broken voice, choking out a gravelly 
baritone aria that sounded more and more like 
an animal cry as she brought him closer to the 
edge.  

She growled in the back of her throat.  He 
seemed to struggle against her as though he 
were trapped, cornered, losing control of his 
movements --

Stroke 

Stroke

Stroke

"SCULLY --!"

<><><><><><><>

"SCULLY!"

Scully hurled herself into a sitting position, 
ripped out of sleep by Mulder's voice, and 
stared into the muggy dark with painfully open 
eyes, gasping for air, heart thudding as though 
she'd just run a marathon.  Oh God.  Oh God.

Jungle insects hissed their furious white-noise 
song like a Wagnerian pit orchestra.  The 
darkness was too thick to breathe.  She felt 
charged, electrified, every hair on her head 
standing at attention and the lighter hair on 
her arms fuzzy with static.

Where the hell *was* she?

The sound of a fist pounding on a door, almost 
in perfect time with her racing heart.  
"SCULLY??"

She stared down at her body, eyes slowly 
adjusting to the dark.  Bed.  She was in a 
motel bed.  Her pajamas were clinging to her, 
soaked with sweat.  The rough cotton sheets 
were twisted around her like pythons and the 
slippery comforter had puddled off the side of 
the bed, one corner still hanging onto the 
mattress like a rock climber clinging one-
handed to a cliff.  The Wagnerian symphony 
outside wasn't insects, it was a deluge; Rainy 
Season had come to Tehtonka.

A dream.  It had only been a dream.

A dream.

Something inside her stretched and ached 
unbearably at the thought.  She buried her face 
in her hands, humiliatingly close to tears; her 
sinuses closed up and two big invisible hands 
clamped around her skull to compress her 
temples.  "God DAMMIT," she yelled hoarsely, 
voice muffled by her palms and the anguish that 
had her by the throat.

Only a dream.

"SCULLY??"  Mulder kept banging away at the 
door.  Damn the man.  Oh, damn him.  

She forced herself to uncurl from her fetal 
position and swiped an angry hand across her 
eyes as she yanked the sheet off, despite its 
death grip on her leg, and climbed out of bed.  
She stumbled to her feet and grasped blindly 
for her robe, swallowing hard through the rocks 
in her throat.  It was like a damn sauna in 
this room but she couldn't conceive of opening 
the door for Mulder without the robe on.  It 
wasn't armor, but it was the most she could do 
on short notice.

Thunder rumbled outside, a huge leisurely 
building-shaking rumble that sounded like a 
boulder crashing down a flight of stairs.  A 
wave of giddiness almost knocked Scully to her 
knees; she sat back down on the bed 
unceremoniously, her hands twisting the ties of 
her robe like tourniquets.

"SCU --"

"ALL RIGHT," she yelled, eyes shut tight, the 
added vocal strain almost strangling her, "I'm 
awake, Mulder, will you SHUT UP ALREADY?"

The abrupt silence from his side of the door 
would have been hysterically funny under other 
circumstances.  She could easily imagine the 
popeyed look on his face, his mouth caught 
open, the heel of his palm arrested mere inches 
from hitting wood.

"Hang on a minute," she added as she tested her 
balance and stood again, the pressure of 
imminent tears turning her voice into a low, 
throaty Marlene Dietrich growl.  Very sexy.  
How ironic.

She got herself moving with the old trick of 
suppressing her knowledge of cause and effect -
- her mind was completely wrapped up in the 
goal of the door, unlocking the door, opening 
the door, but she refused to think about what 
would come through the newly-opened door.  If 
she thought about facing Mulder with her face 
flushed red and her hair standing up, smelling 
of sweat and dream-induced arousal --

She ignored it.  She walked.

The shakes hit her halfway across the floor, 
limbs trembling uncontrollably, feet placed 
unsteadily in a random forward path; lo, behold 
the revenge of a sleep-deprived body for a bare 
twenty or thirty minutes of sleep after pacing 
the floor for hours and hours.  She fumbled the 
lock open with ravaged hands and tugged at the 
doorknob.

The door wouldn't open.

Relief hit like a tsunami, and she sagged 
against the door in its wake.  Oh thank God, 
she didn't have to look at him.  She didn't 
have to let him see her like this.  Her 
mindless litany of thanksgiving was the closest 
to real prayer that she'd come in weeks:  thank 
God, thank God, thank God, thank God.  She lay 
her forearm against the blood-warm wood and 
pressed her forehead to it.

The knob turned by itself beneath her palm in a 
stealthy caress, whispering with soft metallic 
friction as the latch slid all the way open.  
There was a long pause, and then the knob 
turned back; somehow she knew, even after the 
movement ceased, that Mulder's hand was still 
on the knob on the opposite side.  "Scully, are 
you all right?" he asked in a low voice.

"The door's stuck," she admitted, torn between 
absurd pride and equally absurd guilt.  The 
condition of the door was most likely due to 
the fact that some mental giant had carefully 
painted both the door and the frame with semi-
gloss paint that had, under these conditions of 
high humidity, miraculously transformed into 
carpenter's glue.  Any efforts of her own, 
Herculean as they seemed inside her own head, 
were in fact unimportant and unworthy of the 
self-congratulatory cartwheels she wanted to 
turn.

"Did you unlock it?" Mulder asked, sounding 
skeptical.

"Of course."  Her voice came out high-pitched 
and bitchy instead of the ringing authoritative 
tone she'd meant to access.  Damn.  She flushed 
with anger or humiliation -- at this point, it 
was impossible to distinguish between them.

"Hang on."  A meaty *thunk* jarred the door 
under Scully's hand, unmistakably Mulder 
ramming against it with his shoulder.  He tried 
again, *thunk*.  The door was unimpressed with 
the macho man routine and remained epoxied in 
place.

She stepped in before he battered himself 
senseless against the stubborn wood.  "Mulder, 
don't.  If it's jammed this badly, you'll just 
damage the door frame."  Silence from the other 
side, tacit agreement.  "Just ... just talk to 
me through the door."

He made an amused noise that was stripped of 
its overtones by the inch of wood between them.  
"All right.  Did the Kansas City lab ever get 
back to you?"

"Halfway," she replied, the strain of speaking 
through a door starting to rub her voice raw.  
"Dr. Jane Marek called and said that the 
residue found in and on Joshua Schmidt's mouth 
was definitely the result of some kind of 
visceral pyrexia.  They found cell samples of 
every internal organ, as well as some muscular 
tissue.  Dr. Marek, and I quote, wanted to know 
if someone had tried to make a funky margarita 
out of the kid, unquote."

"Sounds like my kind of woman."

"She's married," Scully snapped, a little 
harsher than she meant to.

"Touchy.  Any news on the blood work?"

"Heightened hormonal levels consistent with a 
state of sexual arousal at the time of death.  
They found extremely low levels of a foreign 
organic substance that could not be identified, 
which may possibly be the mystery toxin we've 
been looking for.  They're running more tests 
today to determine if the foreign substance 
reacted with the hormones to induce the 
visceral pyrexia."

There was a long silence as Mulder digested 
that one.  The rain hammered down outside, a 
steady straight downpour that sounded like a 
giant bathtub faucet had been turned on over 
Tehtonka.  Scully rested her ear against the 
door and closed her eyes, listening for him.

She heard his touch whisper over the painted 
wood and, hypnotized, she lifted her hand to 
echo his movement.  Quiet, slow.  She let her 
fingers trail down the warm door, remembering 
the dream-feel of his chest, and unconsciously 
turned her face to nuzzle the hard surface.  

"Scully?"  His voice was almost a purr.

"Mm-hmm?"

"... What're you wearing?"

She jerked away from the door.  "Dammit, Mulder 
--"

His voice shifted into that misunderstood puppy 
dog whine.  "No, seriously, are you dressed 
yet?"

"Mulder, you woke me up.  I'm in my robe and 
pajamas."
"Get dressed."

She glared at the door as though she could bore 
holes through it with her gaze and take him to 
pieces, atom by atom.  "Why?"

"Just a little something they taught me at 
Quantico.  Always get dressed before going on 
stakeout."

"... We're going on stakeout."  Her voice was 
expressionless as her mind made the short leap 
back to the dream stakeout in the jungle, 
Mulder shirtless and moaning under her touch.

"Right."

"Whom, exactly, are we staking out?"

"You get three guesses," he told her slyly.  
When Mulder used the same tone of voice to 
describe a stakeout that he usually reserved 
for enthusing about an upcoming Knicks game, 
Scully counted it as a sign of danger.

"It's too early for this game, Mulder."

"I'll give you a hint.  The Tochok uses a 
sexually frustrated being as its host, and 
spots its victims during the course of the 
host's daily life.  So we're looking for 
someone who's been in contact with every one of 
these victims when they were near the object of 
their unrequited passion; probably someone at 
Taymor's Staffing Service."

Even in this questionable mental state, she 
arrived at the conclusion before he'd finished.  
"Amber Volney."

"Ooh, Scully, got it on the first try.  You get 
a gold star."

"Suffice it to say, Mulder, I don't think she's 
possessed by a demonic entity."

"I didn't expect you to, but at least we agree 
on the suspect."

She considered it.  "And you want us to go 
stake her out?"

"Yes."

"Right now."

"Yes."

"Mulder, do you know what time it is?"

"Um ..."  His presence disappeared briefly from 
the other side of the door, only to return a 
moment later; Scully sensed his approach the 
same way animals feel impending earthquakes.  
"It's six-oh-eight."

She gave her alarm clock an outraged glare, 
long-distance across the room, as though it had 
somehow conspired against her.  She hadn't 
planned on getting up until six-thirty.  Twenty 
precious minutes lost.  "What exactly did you 
plan on accomplishing that couldn't have waited 
until breakfast?"

"I'm not sure whether she's going to school or 
going to Taymor's today.  I thought if we 
tailed her from home instead of looking for her 
later, we might save a little time ..."

"Right *now*?"

Silence.  She pressed her ear into the door and 
listened to her own heartbeat, reflected back 
seashell-style.  There was a flash of 
lightning, the thunder spitting out in several 
distinct beats, a stately timpani solo.  The 
darkness was no longer absolute; dawn was 
crawling over the plains like a wet cat, skinny 
and pissed off and slinking along on its belly.

Mulder's answer, when it came, was unrelated to 
the question.

"Did you get back to sleep all right?"

"Yes."  The lie was heavy on her tongue and 
tasted like bronze.

Mulder's answering silence was accusatory.  The 
short hairs at her nape jerked upward as though 
an ice-cold hand had slipped up the back of her 
neck -- something was wrong.  Something was 
very wrong.  This was not the fragile treatment 
of last night, this was something new, a 
question on the brink of being asked.

He knew.

No.  

He might know, he might not; he definitely 
suspected.  

Whether or not he investigated his suspicions 
would depend upon what he thought he'd find.  
What he wanted to find.  This might sound like 
small talk, but there were razor blades 
embedded in every inch of it.

"Are you going to be up to this?" he asked, 
using the same tone that usually heralded 
unexpected autopsies.

"I'll be fine."  This lie was smooth and cold 
as iced milk; it went down easier than the 
first but it coated her throat on the way down.

"Scully ..."  He stopped, and she heard his 
touch whisper along the surface of the door 
again.  "Can I come around the front?"

"No."  She shook and shook her head like a 
child, so internalized that she'd forgotten he 
couldn't see her.  "No, you can't," she 
elaborated, each word like a brick.  Her heart 
was pounding, the pulse hard and painful in her 
throat.  She gathered more hard words in a 
mental hand, hefting them, waiting for him to 
make a move so she could hurl them at him, 
drive him away before he could attack.  

Silence.  The rain hissed down.  A truck with a 
muffler problem drove by, crashed through 
puddles along the road one by one -- *spffffff 
spfffffff spfffff* -- and rattled off, humming 
like a giant drunken bumblebee.  Scully had a 
strange vision of herself and Mulder crouching 
on either side of the door, armed, safeties 
off, each waiting for the other to kick through 
the door.

Mulder cleared his throat, seeming to sense the 
stalemate.  His tone changed.  "I mean, can I 
bring the parrot around."

It wasn't what he'd meant originally, Scully 
knew; but she was willing to go along with it.  
"Let me get dressed and you can bring him in 
here before we leave."

Thunder rolled across the sky, strangely 
distant compared to the too-present rain.  
Mulder's smile was practically visible through 
the door.  "Admit it, you have a soft spot for 
that bird."

"If you believe that, Mulder, you have a soft 
spot in your head."

<X><X><X><X>

End of Chapter 13  (13/16)

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