By Kel and Michelle Kiefer
ckelll@hotmail.com and msk1024@yahoo.com
 

Category:  Casefile
Spoilers: season 6ish
Rating: R
Archive:  Just ask.
Disclaimer:  Not ours.  Sigh.

Summary:  When an investigation
in the middle of nowhere opens old wounds,
2000 miles away becomes too close to home.
Can Mulder and Scully unravel the puzzle
before they fall apart?

COMMENTS:  Huge, huge thanks to MaybeAmanda and
Syntax6 for thorough and speedy beta.  Thanks to
Nell and Linda for invaluable help along the way.
Our eternal gratitude also to our own resident
veterinarian, the lovely Enigmatic Dr, for beta
and technical advice on all things sheep.

This is a "Beta-in-progress" story.  The story
is complete, and we will post as each part is
pushed and pulled into shape.  We're aiming for
at least once a week, but betas have lives too,
or so they tell us.  The team declined our offer
to chain them to the computer and force feed them
coffee.

Author's Notes: at end.
 

The world's leading authority on female sexuality was a man.
Less surprisingly, he was in Sweden.  With the six-hour time
difference, Mulder had to call him early in the day.  When
Scully gathered up some papers and announced that she was
"going over to physical anthropology to gloat," Mulder had
his opportunity.

First he locked the door.

"More questions, Mulder?  You never seem to like my answers,"
said Dr. Eklund.

"You never give me any answers," Mulder reminded him.

That had been true from the start.  Anders Eklund seemed
intrigued by Mulder's inquiries, but he always replied with
skepticism and more questions.  Mulder sometimes wished that
Eklund would speculate, extrapolate, or just plain take a guess,
but he never did.  Even so, the scientist's approach to the
subject and the questions he raised were always thoughtful
and frequently helpful.

"You're asking me to predict the sequelae for a procedure that
does not exist.  There is no technique to mature and extract
all of a woman's ova," Eklund said airily.

He had been hammering on that point since their first
conversation.

"Work with me, Anders.  Hypothetically, if a woman--" Mulder
began.

"The answer, once again, is that I don't know!"

"Hey, you have to let me ask the question," Mulder complained.

"You want to know if a woman's fertility could be restored
after the harvesting of all her eggs.  You want to know if
there would be any physical damage that would interfere with
her sexual function.  You want to know if she could regain
a normal libido--as if anyone could define what that might be."

"Not this time," Mulder said.  He'd asked those questions and
others without satisfaction.  Dr. Eklund had become his main
source because he was clean, not because he had answers.

"You understand that any of my answers are speculative, since
there is no such thing as superovulation," Dr. Eklund said.

"Unfortunately, there is," Mulder said.

"So you say.  In that case, why don't you ask your questions
of that unfortunate hypothetical woman?"

Mulder glanced at his watch, then at the door.  Scully would be
gone until noon, if not longer.  Nevertheless he lowered his
voice.

"I've read of brain damage where a person with profound loss of
sensation and function can be ignorant of his deficits," Mulder
began.  "Even when questioned directly, the victim will invent
excuses or simply deny the situation."

"That is outside of my expertise," Eklund said.

"I've heard that a person who loses his hearing eventually loses
the memory of hearing, so that he can't even imagine what sound
is like," Mulder began.

"I am not a neurologist."

"So maybe a person, a woman, who had lost the ability to respond
in that way, to feel those feelings . . ."

"Hm," said Eklund.  "She might not even realize there was anything
wrong."

"She might be better off if she didn't know," Mulder muttered.

When Eklund answered, his voice was distinctly serious.

"Obviously you don't want to torment her.  She cannot help what
she does not have."

"That's what I thought," Mulder said.

"But you can use observation.  I take it this woman is someone
you know."

Mulder nodded as he re-checked his watch.  "I know her."

"And you have a frame of reference from behavior before the
procedure."

"Er..." Mulder began.  In truth, there were so many variables
to his hypothesis, Eklund would probably laugh his ass off.
"It's complicated."

"Ah, yes.  I understand.  You've been protecting her in case
she can't respond.  Perhaps you should offer her something to
respond to," Eklund concluded.

"I could try," Mulder said.

There was a pause, and then Eklund spoke again.

"I don't say this to be cruel, Agent Mulder, but there's
another possibility you must consider.  Sexuality is so
individual, after all.  Perhaps you're just not her type."

= = = = =

"The bone specimen does not correlate with any known missing
persons for a very good reason," Scully announced.  "It's
from a sheep."

She was presenting her findings to the division of forensic
anthropology, more generally known as the "bone boys." She'd
seen them perform miracles of identification from mere chips
of skulls or vertebrae, but on this occasion, she was the one
who had forced the bone to give up its secrets.

"Now wait a minute.  I've seen sheep bones before," said a blond
with a receding hairline.

That one was Michael, Scully remembered.  Though she'd worked
with these people on several occasions, she had to struggle
to keep track of the names and faces.

"On gross examination, the morphology of the bone is entirely
consistent
with human anatomy," Scully said.  "Under the microscope,
the pattern of the osteons indicates an animal source.  The
tissue, in fact, is ovine."

"Dana, you're too good to be running around in the field.
Come to Anthropology and rule us as our queen!" proclaimed
Craig Leder.

Leder was the division chief.  It had to be a little awkward,
for him and the others, that she had been the first to take a
slide of the specimen.  Nevertheless, they were welcoming her
discovery and offering their congratulations.

Scully glowed in their recognition.  When it came to forensics,
she was the ultimate jack-of-all-trades.  She sliced, she diced,
she read PET scans, she identified insects.  Mulder took it all
for granted, but it was . . . unorthodox.  Actually, it was
insane.

The bone had stirred considerable interest when it arrived at
the FBI. It looked for all the world like a human thigh bone.
The size suggested that its source was a juvenile, but the
advanced calcification told a different story.  To complicate
matters further, a couple of marks near the head of the bone
hinted at a surgical intervention, now healed.  The bone boys
had passed it along to Scully hoping she could identify a disease
that would explain the oddities.  The last thing they were
expecting was what she had found.

"Maybe you could give me a few pointers on microscopy," suggested
a man in wire-rim glasses.

"Looking for a private lesson, Jamie?" someone called to him.

Jamie blushed at his co-worker's jibe, and Scully blushed too.
Still, it was fun to be the center of attention. The banter and
praise continued until Mulder entered the room.

Scully assumed he came bearing an important message, most probably
a new assignment that couldn't wait.  She met his eyes expectantly
but saw no urgency.  Mulder gave a barely perceptible shrug of the
shoulders, then he pulled a chair away from the workbench and took
a seat by the wall.

The chatter of the bone boys dropped to a hush.   An outsider in
a suit was a curious event for them.

"My partner, Fox Mulder," Scully introduced him.  An upward
inflection betrayed her own uncertainty regarding Mulder's
presence.

Mulder flashed one of his charming, easy-going smiles.
Unfortunately, he also spoke.

"I just dropped in to hear the scoop on your woolly biped."

"Is this a joke?" asked Michael.

"You know, the sheep that walks like a man." Mulder must have
sensed the hostility around him, but it only seemed to egg him
on.  "A lonely shepherd boy far from home, a soft, cuddly sheep--"

Scully felt her spirits drop.

"I never implied that the creature was a biped," she said
defensively, stung by Mulder's mockery. He'd been distracted
and uninterested earlier when she'd told him about the odd-ball
discovery, but she hadn't expected him to follow her up to
Anthropology to ridicule her in front of her peers.

"Maybe you're confusing it with bigfoot," said Michael.  "Sorry,
Spooky, but we're scientists."  Not only Michael, but the whole
group had closed ranks, emotionally and spatially.  Scully found
herself surrounded by forensic anthropologists.

Mulder seemed even more the outsider, and he seemed
bewildered by the antagonism he'd engendered.

"But if the animal had a hip like a human being . . . "
He let the question sputter to a halt.

"Maybe it didn't walk," offered one of the bone boys.
"A crippled individual with a congenital defect . . . "

"And yet it survived to adulthood," mused Scully.  Mulder
had in fact raised a pivotal question.

"Where did the specimen come from?  Were any other bones
included, or other tissue, or maybe soil samples?  Who
found it?"  Mulder asked.  Scully could hear the
enthusiasm in his rushed monotone.

"Time out," snapped Craig Leder.  "My budget is barely
adequate for our human cases.  We all agree this thing's
a sheep."  He looked around as his colleagues nodded
their agreement.  "Let it drop, Agent Mulder."

"Aren't you curious?" Mulder asked.

Leder turned away from him, as if to reject the idea.

"Agent Scully, this bone is perfect to stump the panel
at our next convention," he said to Scully.  "You
should be there."

Challenging the experts to identify strange specimens
was a standard feature whenever forensic professionals
gathered.  It was more like a party game than a genuine
inquiry.  The bone boys were inviting her to their party.
Meanwhile, Mulder had shoved his chair back by the
workbench and he was watching her from the doorway.

"I'm really not comfortable . . . "  She wanted to be
gracious, but Mulder was retreating from the room and
it was difficult to keep her focus.  "I'm really not
comfortable presenting a specimen before I understand
it."

The group around her seemed to back off.  Scully realized
how harsh she sounded and softened her tone.

"Can we draw any conclusions about how this animal might
ambulate?"

"Our work is based on measurements gathered from hundreds
of specimens," said Jamie.  "What you're asking for would
be pure speculation."

"Understood."  She nodded.  "Can we speculate?"

"I don't really see the point," Leder said.  "Maybe if we
get a slow day, I'll have one of the boys crank out some
possibilities."

Scully sighed in resignation.  Earthbound, the bone boys
could no more speculate than they could fly.

"Thanks guys.  I'll be in touch."

= = = = =

What Mulder wanted more than anything was to find a
two-legged sheep monster so he could bring it back to
the slimy creeps in Forensic Anthropology and let it
stomp them to death.

And he would watch and say, "Tough luck, fellas.  I
guess it can walk."

What a dull bunch they were.  Give them a rib and a
jaw, and they were perfectly content to sketch it
into a whole person.  But give them something entirely
new, and they backed off.

Scully was pissed at him for calling her discovery a
woolly biped, but at least he was taking it seriously,
which was more than you could say for the bone boys.
It seemed like a hell of a coincidence that a sheep
would just happen to have a deformity that gave it a
human hip bone.  Mulder wanted to check it out.

So, what did he know about the sheep bone?  Not much.

He knew it was from Montana.

Significance?  Unclear.  Montana had sheep, after all.
Sheep, cows, mountains, trout, right-wing survivalists,
big-time drug-smugglers . . .

Perhaps he was being unfair, Mulder thought.

The bone was discovered by a hunter and his dog.

Of course, hunters finding bodies was like UNSUBs
turning out to be white males between 20 and 45 years
old.

The bone was discovered in a sparsely populated part
of the state.

D-uh.  If you took everyone in Montana and put them
in one room, you still couldn't call it a crowd.

Mulder turned to his computer.  Perhaps there was
something in Montana besides sheep, trout, and psychos.

Now, this was interesting.  Weymouth Scientific had a
major facility in Montana.  In the same sparsely
populated corner that had produced the sheep bone.

Weymouth Scientific was a name Mulder recognized from
the financial pages; the company had rebounded from
bankruptcy to become the darling of Wall Street.  He
was fuzzy on the exact nature of their business;
something medical, as he recalled.

He needed to learn more about Weymouth and more about
sheep.  He could poke around on the Internet, but he
was reasonably certain he'd find nothing to explain
a human's thigh on the body of a sheep.

Scully had once expressed admiration for his willingness
to sift through files and transmissions that any other
agent would just throw in the garbage, but he
knew she wouldn't feel that way if she was watching
him now.

He skipped past NAKED FARM GIRLS LOVE THEIR ANIMALS
and thousands of references to the cloning of Dolly
the Sheep. A link to a university site seemed worth
a click, but when it opened, he saw that it was a
poem.

Interesting, though.  The beginning caught his eye:

"Farm boys wild to couple with anything, with
soft-wooded trees, with mounds of earth. mounds
of pine straw, will keep themselves off
animals by legends of their own..."

He had to laugh.  The last thing he'd expected in
a poem about bestiality was humor.  Then came the
legend, the admonition the farm boys shared:

"I have heard tell, that in a museum in Atlanta,
way back in a corner somewhere, there's this thing
that's only half sheep, like a woolly baby pickled
in alcohol, because these things can't live."

Aha.  Maybe he would forward this to the blockheads
in Anthropology.   With their stunted imaginations,
they would accept it for fact.  Probably take a
field trip to Atlanta.

The poem took another unexpected twist, and the last
part was told by the half-sheep itself, dead in a jar:

"I am here, in my father's house.  I who am half of
your world..."

Then the poem described the sheep, mother to the
sheep-child, seized by something "from another world"
and forced to carry within her the creature doomed
to die.  "Because those things can't live."

Mulder remembered another child who was not meant to be.

It was probably a clever poem, startling, maybe, but
not upsetting.  A morality tale to resist a temptation
that wasn't a temptation, except in legend.

It was about the wild farm boys, not the innocent ewe.
The sheep was an object.

Mulder found himself nauseous as he reread the poem.

Scully.  Twice they took her and twice they used her
for a container.  A fuckin' incubator.  Someplace to
grow monsters and half-breed babies who had to die.

When Scully entered the office he kept his eyes on his
monitor.  He wasn't ready for conversation.
Unfortunately, she was.

"Was there a reason for your unexpected visit to
Forensic Anthropology?" she challenged him.

"The bone," he mumbled in reply, slowly raising his
eyes to take in her pale, serious face.

Scully frowned.

"When I described the specimen this morning, you
couldn't have been less interested," she said.

"I was busy," he said.

"Busy studying the clock," she countered.

"Yeah, well, I had to make a phone call.  Six-hour
time difference," he explained.

"Personal call," Scully said.  "You were waiting for
me to leave."

He didn't try to meet her eyes.

"Personal," he agreed.

She continued her inquiry.

"You completed your important personal phone call, and
then you decided to follow me to Anthropology so you
could ridicule me in front of my peers," she said.

Scully, here and now and in his face, was a powerful
antidote to the memories of Scully frozen and mute.
He pointed his finger at her.

"Bullshit," he said.

"Woolly biped?  Was that a phrase chosen for its
scientific accuracy?" she asked.

"I don't care what you call it.  I just want someone to
tell me what it is," he said.

"They don't know," she said.

"They don't care.  They just want it for show and tell
at their next convention," Mulder said accusingly.

"They have their hands full identifying human remains.
An animal specimen takes a lower priority," Scully said.

"Leaving us to follow up on your discovery," Mulder said.
"That's what I'm doing now."

She dropped into her chair, and the confrontation was over.

"Don't try to snow me.  You're checking out porn," Scully
said.

Mulder remembered what was on his screen and how slow
his computer was.  He started the log-out process.

"You wanna see?  Hot, horny coeds who love to party?"

"I'll pass."

=  =  =  =  =

The poem Mulder finds online is called "The Sheep Child"
by James Dickey:

http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/poetry/dickey/sheep.htm

~~~
 

Bone of Contention (2/15)

"If the pattern continues, we'll fly the final leg in
a crop duster," Mulder said.  They had spent the entire
day in transit, switching from one plane to another.
They awaited their last ride in a primitive airport
whose only attempt at entertainment was a pinball
machine.

"Do we have to talk about airplanes?" Scully asked.

Scully's vague anxiety about flying had all but disappeared
over their many miles flown, but she still didn't like
small planes, especially at night.  Mulder was torn between
humming "Peggy Sue" and trying to offer some distraction.

"I think we should start our investigation at Weymouth
Scientific," he said.

"Mulder, you're positively fixated on that company.  The
bone was found in Montana, and Weymouth is in Montana, but
that's not exactly a smoking gun," Scully said.

"The bone was found less than thirty miles from Weymouth.
Thirty miles, Scully, in a part of the country where there
are miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles."

"And what exactly does that prove?  It could be completely
coincidental."

"Weymouth is a medical research company," Mulder said.
"The bone represents a mutation."

"We don't know what the bone represents, beyond an
odd-looking sheep.  It might be a pure coincidence that
it resembles a human bone," Scully said.

She definitely sounded distracted.

"Furthermore, whatever grandiose thing you read on their
web site, Weymouth is in the business of making tubes,"
she continued.  "Not clones, not monsters, not woolly
bipeds.  Tubes."

"Tubes?" Mulder echoed.

"Catheters, Mulder.  For angioplasty, for epidurals, for
nephrostomies.  They make tubes," she said.

"Weymouth was one of the hottest properties on NASDAQ,
back in the '80's," Mulder said.

"Everything was hot back then," Scully said.

"They began to plummet in 1990.  Weymouth bought back
thousands of shares, successfully avoiding a meltdown.
Prices stabilized and recovered," Mulder said.

"Do *you* even know where you're going with this?" she
asked pointedly.

"Here's a company that that narrowly missed bankruptcy.
Now, for reasons unknown, they choose to hide their research
center on the edge of civilization.  And then we have the
sheep bone, an inexplicable mix of human form and sheep
DNA, and it turns up in the same remote location."

"It boggles the mind," Scully said.

"Sarcasm is easy, Scully."

"No, really.  It boggles the mind that Skinner approved this
case."

"That brings us to my final argument," Mulder said.  "Skinner
wasn't hooked until I brought up the Weymouth angle."

"Interesting.  I don't suppose he shared the reason for his
interest," she commented.

"All I can tell you is that he was his usual irritable,
uninterested self until I dropped the name Weymouth."

"And then he said, 'Now it all makes sense.  Go get 'em,
Mulder.'"

"Actually, he frowned, sneered, and muttered something that
sounded like, 'Look into it.'  I thanked him and left before
he could change his mind."

"And here we sit," Scully said somewhat woefully.

Mulder stood and stretched.  "I'll see if someone can tell
me how much longer we have to wait."

= = = = =

If Skinner knew a reason to investigate Weymouth Scientific, he
knew more than Scully; if Mulder knew a reason to investigate
Weymouth, he hadn't managed to explain it.

Scully hadn't bothered to challenge Mulder when he proposed the
case because she was sure Skinner would nix it anyway.  The
joke was on her, and here they were.

She understood Mulder's motive, if not his logic.  He was flipping
the bird to the forensic anthropologists.  They'd lost interest in
the sheep bone and Mulder wanted to show them up.  He wanted to
demonstrate to Scully that he took her findings seriously, even
when her colleagues did not.

She understood her own motive as well--where Mulder went, she
followed.

"Women love Mulder," Langly had said once, in a complaining kind
of way.  He'd said it to Scully, as if she was something other
than a woman herself.

Scully was a woman.  Scully did love Mulder.

But it was so much easier for all the other women who
loved Mulder, because they didn't have to put up with him.

He was a rigid man of strong beliefs that changed suddenly,
drastically, and unpredictably.  He was articulate and
verbose, yet on the whole uncommunicative.  He told her
she completed him, that he couldn't go on without her.
Of course that could be said of his cell phone as well.

"You need to get out more," her mother once said.

Wonder if Mary Magdalene's mother ever her told her that. "Mary,
you need to get out more.  What about that nice boy, Peter?"

Despite his messiah complex, Mulder was not Jesus Christ.  Where
Jesus cast out demons, Mulder attracted them.  Jesus walked on
water and Mulder did the crawl.  Jesus multiplied the fishes
and Mulder flushed them down the toilet and bought more.

But there was one similarity.  Neither one of them was the dating
type.

Scully sighed.  It was all very well to complain that Mulder had
a messiah complex, but it was her own choice to build her life
around him.  It wasn't her first choice, but it was the best of
all the available options.  Mulder filled her life without
fulfilling her needs.  She couldn't live without him, and he
didn't leave room for anyone else.

Mulder stood leaning against the counter, talking on a desk
phone.  He hadn't come back to report on the status of their
flight, but he didn't have to.  The noise she thought she was
imagining grew into a certainty.  An aircraft was approaching.

Mulder rejoined her.

"Good thing I called, or we wouldn't have a car," he said.

"Lariat screwed up again."

"No, the travel office screwed up.  Lariat doesn't have an
outlet here, but they booked us anyway."

"So we've finally ventured beyond the realm of Lariat.  Does
that mean we'll find a couple of mules tied to a hitching
post?" Scully asked.

"Accounting's gonna bust a blood vessel.  I booked us with
Avis--that's all there is."

"We'd better be damn sure to document that when we submit
our expenses," Scully said.  Of course, she was talking to
herself.  That would definitely be her task.

"Explain about the private jet, too.  No scheduled carrier
and all that," Mulder said.

"Private jet?"  He hadn't mentioned that before, and she
knew it wasn't an oversight.  Commercial aviation
maintained a decent safety record, and had for years.
General aviation was spottier.  Your life really depended
on the integrity of the pilot.

"Sorry."  Mulder's little nod acknowledged that he'd held
off on sharing the unwelcome news.

"I hate when you do this," Scully said.  "You hoard your
information until you decide I'm worthy to receive it."

"You would have worried about it all day," Mulder said.

"Or maybe I would have made different plans.  At least I
could have checked out the aircraft and the pilot," she
said.  But that wasn't even the point.  Mulder had no
business protecting her, if that's what he thought he
was doing.  He had no business standing between her and
the facts.  Besides, protecting her was only part of his
rationale.  Mostly, Mulder didn't want to listen to her
complaints.

"I said I was sorry."

He wasn't off the hook, but this wasn't the time or place.
Judging by the noises from outside, their ride was here.
Even if the damn thing was a crop duster with a picture of
Patsy Cline stenciled on its nose, she was going to have
to get in.

"We might as well go outside," Scully said.  She hoisted the
strap from her carry-on over her shoulder as she rose from
the bench and set her suitcase on end so it could roll.

She looked up to see that a man had entered the building.
His weathered Stetson and brown suede jacket made her think
of a cowboy, but logic told her he was probably their pilot.

"At least he's not wearing a baseball cap," Mulder muttered
under his breath.

"Evening, folks," the man called.  "You must be my passengers."

"Rock Creek.  Is that where you're headed?" Mulder asked.

"You bet.  I'm Brian Yates, and I'll be your pilot."

He had a long, easy stride, and he reached Scully's side in
time to relieve her of her luggage.

"Let me help you out, miss," he said, the very picture of
Western chivalry.  How refreshing, Scully thought.

He had sandy blond hair and a mustache a little darker.  He
should lose the stash, Scully thought.

"We'd like to see your maintenance log," Scully said as they
started toward the door.

"It would be my pleasure to show you," Yates answered.

= = = = =

Rock Creek, Montana, was a strange, strange place.  The
airport was large enough to accommodate commercial flights,
but it didn't seem to get any.   No Avis office, either.
That was in town, at the Exxon station.

Avis was willing to pick them up at the airport, but the pilot
said it was on his way anyhow and he could give them a lift.

Mulder was about to accept, but Scully beat him to it.

"Thank you, Brian," she said.

Good thing one of them had remembered his name.  Mulder would
have probably answered in a John Wayne voice, and he would
have said something like, "Much obliged, Slim."

Naturally Slim drove a pick-up truck.

Mulder tossed his suitcase into the back of the truck, while
the pilot did the same for Scully's bag.  When the doors to
the cab were unlocked, Mulder waited for Scully to climb in
first.  If the driver was unsavory or lecherous, Mulder would
have taken the middle seat, but Brian appeared to be housebroken.
Scully took her place in the middle, and Mulder climbed in
after her and closed the door.

"Whoopi Goldberg," Scully said suddenly.

Mulder eyed her quizzically, but she was turned to the pilot.

"Oh, yes.  Definitely," he agreed.

Apparently Mulder had missed something by napping on the plane.

They drove along through the rugged, rolling terrain.  In places
the road climbed high to crest the hills, and elsewhere the rock
had been blasted aside, leaving sheer walls of red and gray stone.
Old Drummond Road ran two lanes east and two lanes west, but for
most of the ride they had all four lanes to themselves.

"It's pretty," Scully commented.

A few minutes later they passed a sign: Junction 1 Mile, Peyster
Road.

"That's how you get to Weymouth," the pilot informed them.
Mulder wondered if he was passing along some general information
or if Scully had mentioned their interest in the company.

"Do you ever fly for them?" Mulder asked.

"Sure."

"Weymouth maintains a small corporate fleet, but mostly it serves
the eastern office.  Brian picks up a large share of the work from
the Rock Creek research center," Scully explained.

There was a "yield" sign where Peyster Road crossed Old Drummond
Road, but no one to yield to.  They drove on.

"Sure you have enough gas to make it to the service station?"
Mulder asked.

Brian laughed.

Mulder had called it the edge of civilization, but that didn't
do it justice.  It was more than the middle of nowhere, it was
the essence of nowhere, a paragon of nowhere.

"Maybe next time you could set us down a little closer," he
complained.

"Not in a fixed-wing I can't."

"Honestly, Mulder.  We'd take at least this long to get home
from Dulles," Scully reminded him.

She was right, and he'd probably complain about all the traffic.
But this was disturbing.

When they reached the Exxon at last, Mulder felt actively
relieved to see other cars and other people.

"We're staying at the Silvermine Inn," Scully said when Brian
stopped the truck by the service station office.

"Only game in town," Brian said.  "It's another eight or nine
miles down the road."

= = = = =

Scully slept well through the night but awoke in the morning
feeling uneasy.  She had an unpleasant task ahead of her, and
it had nothing to do with the investigation.

She had to tell Mulder.

What was so hard about that?  Just look him in the eye and say
it:

"I have a date tonight."

It wasn't as if she owed him an explanation.  They weren't
married.  They weren't anything.  Really, why make a point
of telling him at all?  It might never come up.

But it would.  After they talked to whoever they were going to
see at Weymouth Scientific, maybe poked around in the area
where the bone was found, and whatever--at the end of the day
Mulder would want to get something to eat.  He would expect
Scully to come along.

She didn't want to lie to him, nor was it a practical solution.
Omission was one thing, but bald deception was another.

Scully reminded herself that she hadn't done anything wrong.
She had been invited to dinner by a handsome, charming,
intelligent man, and she had accepted.  The only reason she
felt so peculiar about it was because she was out of practice.

She was surprised when Brian Yates asked her out, and even
more surprised to hear herself agree.  She could barely
remember the last time she'd been on a date.  It would be
fun.  Pointless, but fun.

She pulled on her robe and walked across the hallway to rap
on Mulder's door.  Worrying about how to tell Mulder was
taking up way too much of her attention; she would just
do it and get it over with.

All that resolve, and Mulder wasn't even in his room.  Scully
went back to her own room, determined to stop ruminating
about her date and to deal with the investigation ahead.
A phone call to Weymouth Scientific secured an appointment
with the director of the lab.  She dialed again and touched
base with Rock Creek's sheriff.  Satisfied, she stepped into
the shower.

She hurried herself along her morning routine.  Mulder could
return from a run and be cleaned up and ready to go in a matter
of minutes, and Scully didn't want to be the one who held them
up.

Her efforts came to a halt because she didn't have her toothpaste.
She knew exactly where it was; at home, in a zippered bag, along
with several other essentials.  She'd brushed with tap water the
previous night, but it wasn't very satisfactory.

Toothbrush in hand, she went back across the hall, and this time
Mulder opened the door to her knock.

"I need to borrow some toothpaste," she announced.

"Only if you don't try to return it," he answered, stepping
aside to let her into the room.  He was buttoning the cuffs of
his shirt, and his damp hair was pushed back on his head, except
for the few places where clumps of it stood on end.

"You sound positively chipper," she said.  He'd been such a grouch
the night before, mouthing off about the long drive from the airport.

"Spectacular place for a run.  No traffic."

Scully found Mulder's toothpaste by the bathroom sink and squeezed
a bit onto her brush.

"I found where they're hiding the people," Mulder continued.  "If
you keep heading east there's a road down into the valley.  Mostly
newer construction, but some big old houses too."

Scully rinsed her mouth.

"I reached one of the directors at Weymouth.  He'll see us this
morning," she told him.

"I was expecting more resistance."  Mulder sounded disappointed.
He was sitting on the bed when she exited the bathroom.

"Ready in five minutes?" she asked, and he nodded distractedly.
She was all the way to the door when he called to her.

"Scully?  You look really nice."

She didn't even have her make-up on yet.  Maybe that was his
point.

"Thanks," she said uncertainly.

Ten minutes later they were in the car, heading to the research
center.  This time they had to share the road with a scattering
of other motorists.  Probably people from the houses Mulder had
discovered, heading for their jobs at Weymouth Scientific.

"Who did you talk to?" Mulder asked.

"Dr. Sage Revere, director of research.  I told him we were
interested in their use of animals, and he invited us for a
tour," Scully said.

"Snow job," Mulder predicted.

"You're just disappointed that you don't have an excuse to
break in."

"What does that mean?"

She'd intended her statement as a joke, but Mulder's tone had
that snotty edge that meant he was offended.  Too bad; she
had no intention of backing down.

"If he'd refused to see us you'd say he had something to hide.
He agreed to let us in, so you're sure it's a snow job.  Why do
we need to talk to him at all?  You have it all figured out."

"I'll explain it to you."  He couldn't have sounded more
pedantic.  "We'll follow along on his orchestrated tour and
hang on every word he says.  There's nothing more seductive
than an attentive audience.  If he has something to hide,
he'll slip."

Mulder was so damn sure of himself.  So positive that Revere
was going to lie to them.  Maybe Revere would take them
directly to his lab to meet with Woolly the Wondersheep.

"Don't tell him you're a doctor.  Don't say anything smart.
Just smile and nod."

"Do you want me to flirt with him?"  she asked acidly.

"Don't be ridiculous," he answered, appearing to be vaguely
amused at the concept.  Scully had to restrain herself from
punching him.

Dr. Sage Revere turned out to be as smooth and elegant as his
name and diction.  He greeted them with a mixture of cordiality
and bemusement. He was the host who was too well-bred to
mention that he hadn't invited you.

"Perhaps you could share the reason for this visit," he said,
but Scully sidestepped, and he didn't push for an answer.

"I crewed with a Chuck Mulder at Dartmouth.  From Chappaqua,"
he told Mulder expectantly.

"The Chappaqua Mulders."  Mulder nodded knowingly.  "Yes."

Revere's smile froze.

"Well then," he said.  "Let's begin our tour."

The scientist removed his suit coat and folded it over the
back of his chair. He took a white lab coat from a coatrack
and donned it.

Scully had worked with researchers who took pride in their
ragged, stained lab coats.  Revere was from the other school;
his lab coat was impeccably white, with a colorful crest on
the shoulder bearing the "Weymouth Scientific" logo.

She and Mulder followed him into the elevator, then through a
heavy door into a room with rows of small glass tanks.

"We're very proud of these fellows," Dr. Revere said fondly as
he lifted the top off one of the tanks.

Mulder pushed closer, seemingly fascinated.  Scully wondered
if he expected Revere to pull a sheep out of the tank.

Revere opened a pack of latex gloves and put them on carefully.

"Have a look," he said.  He reached into the tank and drew out
a flat brown worm.  "Leeches.  Used medically to enhance
perfusion."

"You're kidding!"  Mulder *was* good.  Anyone would think he
adored bloodsucking worms.

Meanwhile, Scully was biting back a yawn.  There was nothing
revolutionary about applying leeches to reverse venous
congestion after certain surgeries or injuries.

"Can I hold it, or will it bite me?" Mulder asked.

Revere pointed to the box of gloves, and Mulder turned the
art of putting on gloves into a display of clumsiness.

Mulder the naive science groupie.  *Don't be afraid, Mr.
Scientist.  I'm just a buffoon.*

For the rest of the morning, Scully kept her eyes open and her
mouth shut while Mulder peppered the lab director with questions.

He sounded like a ten-year-old on speed, Scully thought.  What
do you feed the mice?  Can we go in there?  Do you have any
monkeys?  What's behind that door?  Can I pet the cow?  The
questions were meant to sound pointless, but Scully knew what
he was doing.  Gradually his oblique approach was revealing
the shadows in the landscape, the subjects and locations that
were discouraged or forbidden.

Scully couldn't bring herself to join in on Mulder's chorus
of wows and gee-whizzes, but neither did she point out that
Weymouth's idea of research seemed to be a rehash of
well-established technology.

The Weymouth employees went about their business quietly,
glancing up from clipboards or monitors only long enough to
note the presence of the lab director and the two strangers.
A team of security guards in blue blazers followed them along
at a respectful distance.

Around noon, Revere glanced at his watch, gave a tight,
humorless smile, and announced that regrettably he had an
important meeting to attend.

"Okay if we poke around on our own?" Mulder asked innocently.

"That would be neither safe nor appropriate," Revere said.
The two guards moved closer until they were at his side.

"Perhaps we can continue the tour later?" Scully suggested.
It was almost the first time she'd spoken.

"I've been more than generous with my time," Revere said.
"You've been less than candid regarding your purpose here."

It was a strangely civilized confrontation, because
everyone, including the guards, continued to smile.

"We're interested in your work with sheep," Scully injected
hurriedly.

"Sheep," Revere echoed.

"A very unusual sheep," Mulder said.

The guards had advanced until they were flanking Mulder and
Scully.

"We have some information that we'd like to share.  And some
questions.  We can have this cleared up in a matter of
minutes," Scully said.

Revere seemed to consider.

"Two o'clock.  I'll hear what you have to say."

= = = = = = =
 

Bone of Contention (3/15)
 

It was a number he rarely called, but Sage Revere knew it
by heart.

A Chicago area code, although he didn't believe the party
was really in Chicago.  It didn't matter; the phone would
ring unanswered, and minutes later, someone would call
him back.

When Revere was approached by the shadowy investors'
group almost a decade ago, he'd asked many questions
and received very few answers.  In the end, he'd accepted
their offer of a financial bail-out despite his misgivings.
In exchange for their dollars and their demonstrated
political clout, he agreed to use his knowledge and his
company to pursue certain pet projects.

Revere's biggest mistake had been in believing that
Weymouth Scientific represented the syndicate's only
investment in the biomedical research sector.  Weymouth
was one of many medical and pharmaceutical companies that
the investors controlled, and it was far from the largest.
Weymouth's big project, which seemed so audacious to Revere,
was really only a little training exercise.  The investors
had no stake in the outcome, except as a test.  Success
would give Weymouth--and Revere--a chance to be part of
the real work.

Success at the trial project would prove his competence.
It would also prove his capacity to expand his personal
morality past the conventional limitations.  It was a
painful process, but once begun, it couldn't be abandoned.

Revere's call-back was prompt, as always, but the voice
on the phone was a new one.

"Good afternoon, Dr. Revere."

The voice seemed very young.  Revere surmised that the
investors' group inevitably assigned the Weymouth account
to their most junior employee.

"I have visitors from the FBI asking about sheep.  Your
organization is supposed to spare me that kind of
annoyance."  He shaded his accusation with an undertone of
arrogance.  The syndicate might be huge and mighty, and
Weymouth might be their merest pawn, but Revere himself
was a man of distinction, and the man on the phone
sounded more like a boy.

"You have safeguards in place, doctor."  Young or not,
he sounded self-assured and disinterested.

"Safeguards?"  Revere echoed.  He knew of no safeguards,
beyond the protection of the investors' group.

"Hold on, please."  After a couple of minutes of silence,
the young man got back on the line.  "Project Zero is to
be isolated at all costs."

"I'm aware of that," Revere said.

"The rest of your work is expendable."

Revere felt his chest tighten.  The investors' syndicate
had pledged to shield his company from poking and prying
by the government.  He was not going to be brushed
aside by a lackey.

"I want to talk to Mr. Terranova," Revere demanded.

Terranova, the top man at the syndicate.  Revere saw him
a few tense and nervewracking times a year when he came
out to inspect the program.

"He's unavailable.  Look, Dr. Revere, there's really no
problem.  They're asking about sheep.  You have sheep to
show them."

"Show them the sheep?  Just give them up?" Revere asked.

"Appease them.  Your secondary experiments were chosen
for that purpose."

Revere saw considerable potential in those experiments
and significant grief if he shared them with government
investigators.

"There will be consequences," he said.

"Our problem, not yours.  It will be handled."

"Why wasn't I forewarned?  More to the point, why wasn't
the investigation quashed at the source?"

"Since you've somehow caught the attention of the FBI,
you should be asking yourself where your own security
has failed.  Look to yourself, doctor, and those around
you.  Either someone's been careless or you've been
betrayed."

=  =  =  =  =  =

"He's hiding something, Scully."

Mulder unwrapped his ham and cheese on slightly stale
white bread and took a bite.  Pickings in Rock Creek
were somewhat slim, so lunch was courtesy of the Exxon
Mini-mart, brought back to Weymouth Scientific's
parking lot where Mulder positioned them stakeout
style with a view of the front door.

"I agree," she said, reaching into the paper bag on the
seat between them.  "I'm just not sure he's hiding what
you think he's hiding."

Scully sighed as she spread the paper napkin over her
lap with exaggerated care and unwrapping her turkey on
wheat.  He knew she hated eating meals in the car.
Mulder wasn't unsympathetic, but for him, this was
a step up from eating dinner standing over his sink.

"If it isn't 'Ovis Erectus,' what is Revere trying to
conceal?"

"Medical research is a cut-throat business, Mulder.
Scientists guard their work like a shepherd does his
flock."  At Mulder's grimace of disbelief, she went on.
"Revere could be hiding a dozen things that the scientific
community would consider heinous and none of them are
necessarily a tap-dancing sheep."

"Baaaaa," he bleated, leaning close enough to smell the
light citrus scent of her shampoo.  She pushed him firmly
back into his own airspace.

Scully bit into her sandwich, grimacing slightly as she
reached for her coffee.   Mulder smiled in sympathy; his
sandwich was pretty dry too, distinguished only by its
utter tastelessness.  He washed another bite down with
a gulp of barely cold soda.

Mulder rolled down his window allowing a blast of crisp,
autumn air to flood the car.

"Ahhh," he said, taking a deep breath.  "Gotta love that
fall smell."

Scully shot him an annoyed look as she pulled her jacket
closer around her.  Shivering, she cradled her coffee cup
between her palms.  "Mulder, it's 50 degrees out there."

"Bracing, isn't it?  Reminds me of fall back East.
Bonfires, football games, making out under the bleachers.
Those were the days."

"Reliving your youth?"

"To be honest, it wasn't much fun the first time.  But I
do miss some things," he said, wistfully.  He fidgeted
with the plastic wrap from his sandwich.  If you want
to go fishing, he thought, you have to cast out your
line.  "So, Scully...did you date a lot in school?"

"What?" she asked, turning sharply to face him.  "Where
did *that* come from?"

"Just trying to pass the time.  So, did you? Date, I
mean."

"In high school? Not much," she said, shaking her head.
"I was a bit of a bookworm."

"Me either.  I was awkward around girls--six feet tall,
one hundred fifty pounds worth of teenage insecurities.
Ate, slept and breathed basketball."  His mouth was
already dry when he swallowed the last of his sandwich.
"I didn't come into my own until college.  How about you?"

"Still on the dating thing?" she asked, shooting him a
curious glance.  At his 'go on' gesture, she continued.
"Okay.  I went out more often in college and med school.
But by the time I was in my residency, what I craved
wasn't a man, but a full night's sleep."

And now she lived like a nun.  With a gun.  Might as
well reel in the fishing line.  "What do you miss about
it?"

"Mulder," she said, her expression becoming more unsettled.
She stalled for time, taking a sip of coffee.  "What's up
with you today?"

"I told you, just passing the time.  Go on--what do you
miss?"

Scully placed her cup in the car's plastic holder and sat
back, arms folded across her chest.  "I don't know...getting
dressed up, I guess."

"*That's* what you miss?"

"Yeah.  I used to really enjoy getting ready to go out
for the evening--taking time with my hair and makeup,
choosing what outfit I'd wear, pulling out special clothes
I couldn't wear to work."

Mulder pictured a fishing line pulled out of a cool, blue
lake, swinging empty in the bright sunlight.  He had no
clearer picture of pre-abduction Scully as a sexual being
than he had before his fishing expedition.  Maybe if he
took a different approach--asked a more specific question.

A simple direct question about her sexuality.  That's what
he needed.  *By the way, Scully, how often do you
masturbate?*

Yeah, right.

Mulder cleared his throat.

"Scully--" he began.

"It's two o'clock," she said, stuffing her half-eaten
sandwich back in the paper bag.  "Let's go look for
your sheep."

=  =  =  =  =

"Research today is about politics as well as science.
It's not enough to gain knowledge; you have to win the
hearts and minds of the public," Revere said.

"People who don't think twice about eating a hamburger
burst into tears over a fur coat," Mulder commented.

"It's sentimentality without logic," Revere said.

Revere and Mulder were walking ahead, and Scully felt
as if she was scampering to keep up.

"You said you could explain the bone specimen," she
said, mostly to assert her presence.

"The sheep bone." Revere sounded polite and cultured,
with no trace of his earlier irritation.  "We do use
sheep in some of our work."

"Why sheep?" Scully asked.  Pigs and cows were fairly
common as research subjects, but sheep were not.

"The femoral artery is the same size in man and sheep,"
Revere answered, "which presents certain opportunities
when it comes to the development of medical devices to
be used in humans.  The artery is superficial in humans,
making it relatively straightforward as an entry point
to other arteries, or the heart.  In standard sheep, it
is considerably deeper."

"Standard sheep," Mulder repeated, and Scully knew he
was thinking about Ovis Erectus.

"I'm going to show you something that might look
startling, or even cruel," the scientist said.  "I
want to explain that the first of these sheep resulted
from a spontaneous mutation.  Weymouth's role was not
to create these animals, but only to recognize their
potential for use in medical research."

And to breed more of them, Scully thought.

Revere had brought them to a large door.  Black stenciled
letters declared "Restricted Access," and a keypad lock
reinforced the point.  Revere paused before he opened it.

"How you felt about animal testing in general?" he asked.

"Hey, if you're the dominant species, go ahead and flaunt
it," Mulder said.

"Animal testing is justified when there are no adequate
alternatives and it is conducted humanely," Scully said.

"Which is also our philosophy at Weymouth Scientific.
Now, these sheep may look peculiar, but there's nothing
to suggest that they're not as happy and healthy as any
other sheep," Revere said.

He opened the door.

There was straw on the ground, and the bleating of sheep
in the air.

"It's necessary to use some ingenuity to duplicate the
conditions we'd find in human use," Revere explained.

Scully was riveted by what she saw, and she barely
registered his words.

There were eleven of them, these mutated sheep.  Four
were on the ground, three with their back legs stretched
out behind them as they supported themselves on their
forelegs. The fourth was actually sitting, its legs
splayed in front of it.  When one of the sheep took a
few steps, its rear legs dragging uselessly as it walked.

Three of the sheep were hanging from harnesses, munching
contentedly from a rack of feed.

The final four sheep were also held in harnesses, but
their hind limbs were locked in braces.  A clunking
machine forced them to march in place.

Scully took it all in, trying to imagine what a life
like this would mean to an animal.  At the same time,
she felt a reasonable certainty that she'd found the
source of the peculiar bone.  These crippled
sheep might very well have humanoid femurs.

"We rotate them through the three phases.  That
maintains them and also mimics, at least roughly,
the human experience," Revere said.

"What are you testing?" Scully asked.

"As I explained, these are useful for anything that
is inserted via the femoral artery," Revere said.
"It's solid, responsible work, but it looks cruel
and bizarre."

"I suspect an x-ray of those sheep would prove a
match with our bone specimen," she said flatly.

"I'll save you the trouble," Revere said.  "We are
prepared to accept full legal and financial
responsibility for violating government
regulations."

"We have more questions," Mulder said hurriedly.

"I have some of my own," Revere replied.  "I expect
a full account of where the bone was found, and by
whom, and of how it made its way to the FBI.  By
our own policy, medical waste should be burned
completely in our on-site incinerator.  I need to
learn how and why our policy was breached."

"Dr. Revere, I understand your desire to bring this
matter to a close--"  Scully began, but he interrupted
her with a preemptive wave of the hand.

"If you check with your superiors, you'll find that
arrangements are already in place.  We've offered a
generous settlement and the FBI will make available
the information we need to repair the obvious flaws
in our waste disposal plan."

He was probably telling the truth, Scully thought.
It wouldn't be the first time Mulder and she had
been undercut by their own agency.

"Hey, how about those leeches? Think we could see
them once more?"  Mulder asked.

Good try, she thought.  Stall for time and maybe he'd
miraculously stumble on old Ovis Erectus pouring
herself a cup of coffee in the break room.

"Let's go, Mulder."

Her partner nodded in agreement, and Scully felt
uneasy.  Logically, their work was done.  They had
found the source of the puzzling thigh bone, and
they even had an admission of wrongdoing from the
medical company.

"I guess there's nothing left to do but write up
the reports," she offered tentatively.

"Well, as long as we're here, Scully..." Mulder
began.

"Yes?"

"We might as well have a look at the spot where the
bone turned up."

"I talked to the sheriff this morning.  It's kind
of out of the way," she said.  "I don't really see
the point, Mulder."

"Nice walk in the woods?  I bet it's beautiful.
Wild, unspoiled..."

"I suppose I could call Sheriff Morris again and ask
him to meet us," Scully said.

"That's okay.  I took care of it."

"Thanks for letting me know," she said sourly.

"I did let you know.  Just now."

Wonderful.  If only he'd let her know earlier, she
could have brought a change of shoes.  Her low-heeled
boots looked casual enough for a walk in the woods,
but the soft leather would be ruined.

They'd probably be hiking around the wilderness right
up until dinner time, and there was still the matter
of her date.  She still hadn't mentioned it to Mulder.
If she put it off much longer, Mulder would get the news
from Brian himself.

=  =  =  =  =  =

Tom Morris turned out to be a suit-and-tie sheriff, older
and more citified than Mulder expected from their brief
phone conversation.  He drove them out of Rock Creek
along the ubiquitous Peyster Road, past Weymouth
Scientific finally turning off onto a dirt road.

Actually, "road" was a rather ambitious term.  It was
more of a dirt path, a scrabbled-out track, a furrow.
Morris' cruiser bumped along the ruts until Mulder was
sure the fillings in his teeth had come loose.

"We'll have to go the rest of the way on foot," Morris
said, stopping the car.  The path had deteriorated into
nothing but rocks and vegetation.  They got out of the
car, and Mulder hoped Scully was wearing shoes that
were suitable for hiking.  He'd certainly hear about
springing this on her if she turned an ankle in high
heels.

Scully glared at him as they picked their way along
behind the sheriff as he moved through the brush.
He chanced a look down at her feet.  Low heels.  He
was safe.

"Fella was out here from California hunting deer, when
his dog started rooting around in that clearing ahead."

Sheriff Morris led them beneath a bower of branches to
a spot where the sunlight poured down on a floor of
ferns and small rocks.

"County coroner thought it was a child's bone at first,
but it couldn't have been because we don't have any
children missing around here."

Mulder knew Scully would bust if he didn't challenge
the sheriff's logic.

"The victim wouldn't have to be a local child," he said
mildly.

"Of course, of course.  But we're over an hour to the
interstate, further still to the rail line.  When
there's a stranger in town, I know about it," Morris
said.

"So you contacted the FBI?"

"Yeah.  Just to be on the safe side.  I honestly didn't
think I'd hear back on it.  So, you said the bone was
from a sheep."

"You find that surprising?" Mulder asked, watching Scully
out of the corner of his eye.

"Well, yeah.  This is cattle country.  You don't find
many people raising sheep in this part of the state."

=  =  =  =  =  =

Bone of Contention (4/15)
 

"Getting ready for your big date?" Mulder asked.  He
was lounging on the bed in Scully's hotel room while
she finished applying her makeup in the bathroom.

"You do have your own room, don't you, Mulder?" she
called back through the open door.

Half an hour ago, he'd poked his head into her hotel
room to ask her where she wanted to eat. She'd answered
casually that she had plans.  Very, very casually.  He
must have looked like an idiot with his mouth wide open.

"You have plans?" he'd asked.

"I have plans," she'd answered.

"And may I ask with whom?"

"Brian Yates."

He'd almost laughed then, which would have been a
huge mistake.  Scully had watched him with some
curiosity, waiting for a reaction.  Mulder would
be damned if he gave her one; he'd kept his
expression as neutral as possible.

Scully was a lousy liar.  Couldn't con her way
into a kid's party, much less a government
facility.  No, she always let him do the talking
because she was as transparent as a pane of glass.
What the hell was she up to, trying to pump a suspect
for information?  She was always protesting that
*his* techniques were unorthodox, unethical, and
unprofessional.  Not that she didn't reap the
benefits when he bluffed his way past the various
gatekeepers and guards.

Not that Yates was a suspect.  He didn't work for
Weymouth Scientific, but he flew for them often.
He'd know who came and went around the facility.
Scully had obviously gotten to know him pretty well
while Mulder had caught up on his sleep.  Stupid,
stupid nap.

He should have seen the signs.  Scully, smiling as
she handed her suitcase to that over-grown Ken doll
in a Stetson--the woman who prided herself on carrying
her own weight letting the big, strong man take over.
Where the hell was her pride?

And then there was the flirting.  Scully didn't
flirt.  That was one thing he could bank on.
Mulder'd been oblivious at the time, but thinking
back, there was a considerable amount of sidelong
glances and breathy laughter.

Mulder looked down at his shoes.  Scully would yell
at him for putting them on her bedspread.  He frowned.
It wasn't like they were muddy or anything.

"I wanted to discuss the case with you.  We asked
simple questions, and instead of giving us an answer,
they tried to dazzle us with bullshit," he said, picking
at a loose thread on her bedspread.  What we could have
talked about over dinner.  If she wasn't going out with
that damn flyboy.

"What?  I can't hear you," she called back over the
sound of the water running in the sink.

Mulder was too lazy to get up off the bed, but he
raised his voice.

"They're trying to con us with fancy footwork and
decoy sheep."

"Decoy sheep?" she asked, leaning around the
bathroom door.  She looked different, somehow.  Her
eyes were sparkling.  He didn't like that one
bit.  "Now that's a phrase you don't hear every day."

"They didn't show us everything, Scully."

She retreated into the bathroom again.  Mulder pulled
at the thread, watching as a hole developed in the spread.

"I don't doubt that, Mulder," she called out.  "I told
you before, scientists are very protective of their work."

"What do you think you're going to find out from Yates?"
he asked.

"What are you talking about, Mulder?"  Scully had left
the bathroom, hands on her hips.  She wore a white blouse
and black skirt.  Clothes he'd seen dozens of times
before, but somehow, tonight, they looked different.
Softer.

"I know what you're planning.  You'll ply him with liquor
until he spills his secrets," Mulder said.  "Just remember,
he's looking to do the same thing to you."

"You do have your own room, don't you?  Or maybe you could
go sit in the lobby," she asked, sounding distinctly
unamused.

"Be careful, that's all.  I won't be more than a couple
of minutes away," he said.

"Get that right out of your mind, Mulder.  You're not
going to follow me," Scully said.

"You need backup, Scully.  I don't know where you got
this idea in the first place.  You're not exactly
Mata Hari material."

"What the hell are you talking about, Mulder?" she asked,
her voice sharp and raised in anger.  When she continued,
her voice was lower, but the anger unmistakably remained.
"It's not a mission.  It's a date.  Nothing more, nothing
less.  Dinner between consenting adults."

Scully on a date.  Damn it, they didn't date.  Wasn't that
in the Mulder and Scully rule book?  On the same page as
suggested activities to pass the time while you sit by
your partner's hospital bed and how to check for
surveillance equipment.

Apparently, Scully had tossed out the rule book at the
sight of Brian Yates striding through the airport.
Tall, tan, and reassuring.  Confidence in a cowboy hat.
"Hi there, folks.  I'm Brian Yates."  And all of a sudden
Ms. "I'd Like to See Your Maintenance Log" had no problem
getting in that tiny little plane.

Like a fool, Mulder had used the flight to catch up on
his sleep.

"It's a real date?  Not part of the investigation?" he
asked, still reeling from the news.  "Cause you--we--don't
really date that much."

"I've noticed," she said, turning to face him.

"What happened to your face?" Mulder asked haltingly.

"You don't like it?" she asked.

"Do you did want my honest opinion?" he asked.  He
wanted to scrub the smooth matte finish right off her
skin to expose the dusting of golden freckles.

"No," Scully said.  She picked up her necklace from the
dresser, the cross glinting in the light, and held it
around her neck.  "Can you close it for me?" she asked.

Hands shaking slightly, he leaned down, almost touching
his nose to her neck.

"Drakkar," he said.  "That's mine."

"I didn't pack any cologne," she said apologetically.
"Do you mind?"

The clasp caught, and he stepped away.

"Have a good time," he said.

= = = = =
 

Mulder had nothing to worry about, he told himself.

Brian Yates was a pilot, and Scully really didn't
like airplanes.

Brian Yates lived in Montana, and Scully lived in DC.

Brian Yates suffered from halitosis, impotence, and
uncontrollable flatulence.  Most likely.

But it was really okay, Mulder decided.  Nothing more
than a wake-up call.  If Scully wanted to keep company
with a man, that was fine.  Mulder'd just have to find
a way to remind her that he himself was a man.

He'd half convinced himself she'd closed that part of
herself off--or that it had become closed off because of
the things they'd done to her.  His nightmares offered
him the choicest images of violation: her belly distended
obscenely, the whirring drill piercing her; red hair
floating in aspic as her eyes stared unblinking and
her body incubated a monster.

He refused to contemplate what this date meant.

Instead of watching the clock and wondering
when Scully would get back, he would use his time
productively, digging the dirt on Weymouth Scientific.

Breaking and entering usually called for the basic
black get-up that Scully referred to as his
suicidal-jogger look, but today he stuck with a suit
and tie.  He armed himself with the customary gun,
flashlight, utility-knife combo, then added a camera
and a key card, which had conveniently found its way
into his possession during the official tour.  More
than half the access codes in the world are 1-2-3-4,
but not this one.  He’d watched carefully as the crafty
crew at Weymouth punched in 2-3-4-1.

The parking lot was almost a quarter full although it
was eight o'clock.  His car would not attract unwanted
attention.  The key card opened the front entrance and
he proceeded to the elevator bank without interference.
The elevator indicators showed some activity at the
upper levels, but almost nothing in the lower half.

Because Mulder had been patient and alert, listening
for nuance and fact amid Revere's overblown PR, he had
a destination:  Level three.

The elevator made the stop but didn't open.  A keyhole
next to the button told the story.  Mulder rode the
elevator up another floor.

The fourth floor was quiet and dark.  He found the exit
to the fire stairs protected by an alarm bar.  The other
doors along the corridor were locked.  When he heard an
elevator stop and slide open, he ducked against a doorway,
holding his breath as a woman emerged, dragging along a
cart with a bucket and mop.  She opened one of the locked
offices and rolled her cart inside.  At the sound of water
hitting the floor, he edged toward the room to have a look.
Maybe there was a way to snag her elevator keys.

The woman had pushed her cart to the far corner of the room
to begin her cleaning.  If that's where she kept her keys,
he was out of luck.  Instead, he returned to the elevator.

Much better luck here.  The elevator car remained in place
with the door open. Inside he found a ring of little keys
hanging from a lock in the button panel.  Mulder stepped
into the car, turned the key, and took it down to level
three.

A different key released the door.  He pocketed the whole
set before exiting into an area that smelled like a barn.
Using his key card to open a heavy door, Mulder was greeted
by a noisy hum of clanks and rumbles.

The corridor was wide, and the doors on either side were
wide as well.  He pushed on a door, startling a white-haired
man in a lab coat who had been engrossed in the display
on his computer monitor.

"Restricted area," he barked indignantly.

"Are you talking to me?" Mulder asked.  He had made a
career of entering places he didn't belong, and his
instincts told him that this man would respond to a bully.

"This area is supposed to be off limits," the technician
said apologetically.

"And yet here I am.  Doesn't that tell you something?"
Mulder asked arrogantly.

"It'll only take a sec for me to check back with
security," the man said, reaching for the phone.
"Usually somebody lets me know in advance."

"Your injured feelings don't concern me," Mulder said.
"You're supposed to be ready at all times."

"It's not that--" the man started to explain, but Mulder
cut him off.

"So far you haven't impressed me," he said, and the man
shrugged helplessly.

"Gray door at the end of the hall," he said.  "Do you
want me to go with you?"

Mulder gave a small sneer as he shook his head.

= = = = =

The gray door wasn't locked, but it was unexpectedly heavy.
Mulder put on some vinyl gloves before he pushed it open and
entered a large, dim room full of equipment. Long fluorescent
tubes glowed on the ceiling, but most of the light flickered
from monitors and digital displays.

The room was full of electronic gadgets, with one wall taken
up entirely by what appeared to be a series of computer
terminals and television screens.  Near the center of the
room was a large rectangular tank resting on a platform.

The machinery closest to the tank seemed different in
character from the other equipment.  The noises from these
machines were not the artificial pings and hums of electronic
devices but the clunks and whirs of moving parts.  Rhythms
melded and clashed.

The tank dominated the scene like the coffin at a wake.
Mulder fished his camera from his pocket as he approached
it.

Thick hoses and bundles of wires snaked over the top of
the tank connecting with the machines surrounding it--
An aquarium run amok. He got an impression of green gel
inside, but maybe the walls of the tank were green.

He was close enough to touch the tank, and the smooth
warm surface clinked like glass when he tapped on it.
He could see there was something moving inside.

The thing in the tank might be a sheep, but Mulder
really couldn't see it well enough to decide. It could
be a goat; it could be a dog.  If the tank was open
on top, he'd have a better view from above.  He could
probably get enough of a toe-hold on the platform to
hoist himself up.

He stuffed the camera back in his pocket in preparation,
but he wasn't keen on making the climb.  Stalling, he
wiped the glass with his gloved hand, vainly hoping for
a clearer view.

He heard a scuffling noise from inside the tank, followed
by a phlegmy gurgle.  The form in the tank pressed up
against the glass and then retreated.  Something pressed
against the glass, matching itself to where Mulder's hand
was pressed.

Matching itself finger to finger, its hand against his.

The thing in the tank had hands.

When Mulder heard the heavy door open he realized
that he hadn't photographed his discovery.  He should have
done that right away, and he should have instructed the
white-haired technician to remain at his station.

"I'll need your name for my report," Mulder said curtly as
he raised his camera to his eye.  When he felt a hand on
his shoulder he knew it was not the white-haired technician.

"Wait for me outside," Mulder said imperiously, but it
didn't work.  *Shit, Whitey must have called security
after all.*

Hands gripped him from behind and a soft mask pressed
against his face. The vague shape in the tank, with its
hand against the glass, blurred and doubled until
blackness washed over everything.

= = = = =
 

Maybe Scully had sworn herself to chastity,
somewhere along the line, and she just didn't
remember.

It wasn't as stupid as it sounded, she decided.
Maybe under torture by government doctors.  Or
how about one of the times she thought Mulder
might be dead.  She could have thought or
uttered something along those lines--*God,
just let this turn out okay, and I'll never
have sex again.*

Or maybe it was Mulder who had struck the
bargain.

Or maybe she was just another silly girl with
a crush on a mentor who couldn't or wouldn't
return her feelings.

Scully had certainly noticed the rugged pilot
who flew her and Mulder on the last leg of their
trip.  He was good-looking, ringless, and the
right age.  She'd sized him up casually and
automatically, the way she might admire a coat
in a shop window as she walked by.

She was astonished when Brian Yates asked her
out, and just as surprised to hear herself
accept.  She didn't go out much.  Hardly anyone
asked her.

It was pretty clear Mulder no longer saw her as
a woman.  Somewhere along the line, she'd become
a neutral being in his eyes.  Maybe it happened
at the same time she took her vow of chastity.

She remembered being vaguely pleased that Mulder
didn't treat her differently from male agents.
His propensity for holding doors and guiding her
around were vestiges of his up-bringing.  When
push came to shove, he knew she could do the job;
he was gender-blind in a way.  For a woman who had
worked so hard to be taken seriously in a man's
world, this was an amazing, wonderful thing.

But apparently, she'd sacrificed something vital
by keeping her femininity under wraps.  While she
saw Mulder as the man she loved in all respects,
he had ceased being able to make the leap.

She was Scully.  Friend, partner, agent.  Nothing
more.

Maybe that's what threw her about Brian.  He saw
her as a woman.

Not that Mulder wasn't possessive.  He hadn't been
happy to find out this was a real date.  It upset
the status quo.  She was supposed to be there, in
lock step with him, a fixed point in the chaos of
his life.   But that wasn't the same as being
interested in her as a woman.  Or being in love
with her.

Now Scully sipped her after-dinner coffee as Brian
told her about the time his little niece decided
to surprise him by decorating his new pick-up.

"See, I always tell her how much I love her pictures,
and she thought I'd be happy," he said.  "I wish I
could get it repainted but I'm afraid to hurt her
feelings."

"Maybe she's the next Picasso," Scully suggested.
"It could be worth a lot of money one day."

"Do you like art?" Brian asked.  "I own a real
Picasso.  A lithograph, but it's signed and numbered."

"You're a cultured cowboy," Scully noted.

"Hey, just because I like to live out where you can
see the stars at night doesn't mean I don't know my
way around the galleries," he said.  "Tell you what.
I'm flying to Amsterdam next week.  Take a few days
and I'll show you the Stedelijk museum."

"Brian, I don't think so," she said, although she
found herself tempted.

"Yeah, I know.  You only want to see the Van Goghs,"
he said with an exaggerated sigh.

Scully wondered if she might suggest something more
local.  The Freer, perhaps.  Would that be too forward?
Not after the guy offered to fly her to Europe.

"I never take out my passport until at least the third
date," she said.

"I'm in Baltimore a couple of times a month," he said.

"Baltimore," said Scully.  "Well, well, well."

=  =  =  =  =  =

Roger liked working the late shift 'cause no one was
around.  He could do things at his own pace, without
anybody calling him slowpoke.  He could talk to the
animals without anyone snickering about it or saying
things to make him feel stupid.

Roger knew about animals, but at Weymouth Scientific
he had to do things the way he was told.  He showed
Mr. Metzger how easy it was to kill a white mouse by
rapping its head hard against a countertop, but Mr.
Metzger said that was wrong.  Snap the neck like this,
with your thumb.  Roger liked to use his big knife
for castration.  Slit the sack, twist, and cut.  But
Mr. Metzger said to use the Burdizzo.

Roger filled his pocket with alfalfa cubes before he
went to settle the cripple sheep for the night.  He
liked it when they took their treats right from his
hands.

Pamela used to do that, too, he thought with a sigh,
but now she was gone.  Roger knew a lot about tending
sick animals, but nothing was any use.  Dr. Revere was
there when she died, and he said, "You did everything
you could."

Dr. Revere was the boss of everybody, even Mr. Metzger,
but he was a nice man.  He didn't say "shit" and "fuck"
and "bugger" like Mr. Metzger did.

Dead animals were supposed to get burned in the
incinerator, but when he picked Pamela up, he felt her
legs dangle down like a person's would do.  It just felt
wrong to burn her like trash.

Nobody saw him take her out to his van.  Nobody saw
when he buried her in the woods, but it was a pretty
spot that a sheep would like.

She was named for Pamela Anderson, 'cause that was
a pretty name.  It wasn't like Roger thought she was
a real girl.

Roger was in with the cripple sheep, making sure the
place was clean and everybody was comfortable, when Mr.
Metzger came in to get him.

"Got a job for you," he said.

It was a different kind of job, that was for sure.
Roger knew all about animals, but they wanted him to
take care of a person.

The man was sleeping on the couch in the staff lounge,
with a security guard sitting next to him.  The guard
got up to leave, once Roger was there to take his place.

"What should I do?" Roger asked.

The guard shrugged.

"Keep him comfortable.  Keep him asleep until Dr. Revere
gets here."

"Okey-dokey," Roger said, settling into the chair that
the guard had vacated.  For a while he just sat and
watched. The man looked comfortable just the way he was,
but that didn't mean he would stay sleeping.

Roger had the medicine that made the sheep go to sleep,
for when they got their experiments.  The man looked big
enough that he could have some too.  Roger was afraid
he'd wake up when he took the fancy city jacket off him,
but the man was sleeping hard, so hard that Roger
figured he'd had a shot already.

He pulled the man forward until he was sitting, his head
lolling drunkenly as Roger pulled first one jacket sleeve
and then the other off.  The man's arms flopped around like
over-cooked noodles.  Roger dropped him back onto the couch
and stood looking down on the sleeping man.  It was hard
to tell if the man was breathing, so Roger placed his hand
on his chest.  He only relaxed a little when he felt the
chest rise and fall.

The medicine was a little creepy.  It wasn't natural for
a sheep to sleep so hard, or a person either.  But the
way Doc had explained things, it was good medicine, and
as long as everyone kept breathing, it was okay to give
as much as you need.

=  =  =  =  =  =  =

If this was her date for the year, at least it was a
good one, Scully thought.  There were awkward moments
but there were also long stretches of comfortable
conversation.  Brian invited her to his place to see
his Picasso, then babbled in embarrassment to assure
her that it wasn't a line.

It was Scully herself who suggested a drive up the
mountain for some star-gazing.

"You don't have the light pollution we have back home,
and the elevation must give you a fantastic view,"
she said.

"It sounds like a line to me," Brian said, but he
agreed to take her.

She was going to reply with a quip about getting him
drunk, but she held off in case he would take it as
a reproach.  Brian couldn't drink because he was on
stand-by, and Scully had abstained as well, despite
his insistence that it wasn't necessary.

Scully's social skills were not as rusty as she had
feared.  She was able to talk intelligently about
things unrelated to aliens, insects, or Mulder.
Mulder was very much on her mind, however.  She felt
slightly disloyal about leaving him on his own.  She
hoped he found a good game on TV.

Even when she wasn't thinking about Mulder directly,
she was using him as a standard for comparison.  She
found herself surprised when Brian put cream in his
coffee, because Mulder drank it black.

He drives like Mulder, she thought approvingly as
he guided the car up the empty, climbing highway.

"Can you talk about the case you're working?" Brian
asked, and Scully saw no harm in sharing the basic
facts.

"It started with a specimen sent to the FBI for
identification," she began.  "Local law enforcement
assumed the bone was from a child, because of the
size, and they feared foul play."

"Oh, God," said Brian, and Scully realized again that
most people didn't deal with crime every day of their
lives.

"It wasn't from a child," she hurried to explain.
"We knew that almost immediately, because of the
degree of calcification."

"A small adult, then," Brian concluded.

"A sheep, actually.  Under the microscope, the
arrangement of the osteons clearly showed that
the bone wasn't human," Scully said.

"Let's hear it for the osteons," Brian said.  "But
I can't believe you traveled all this way to find
out who had lamb chops for dinner."

"This wasn't from anyone's dinner," she said.  "The
reason everyone thought the bone was from a human
child was because of the shape.  It looked like a
human hip bone."

"Okay," Brian said, drawing out the syllables.  "But,
um, so what?"

Mulder's reaction had been nearly identical when
she'd first brought the weird bone to his attention.
She'd asked him pointedly why his fuzzy photos could
justify spur-of-the-moment jaunts to any damn place
he wanted to go, while her duly documented and
processed specimen was only good for a "so what?"

Mulder saw the bone as a way to top the geeks in Forensic
Anthropology and here they were.

"An abnormal specimen like that raises some interesting
questions," she told Brian.

"Oh, I'm not complaining," Brian said.  "I'm glad you're
here."

"So, tell me about your work," Scully said.

"I get by," he said modestly.  "My contract with Weymouth
Scientific gives me a nice chunk of change with a lot of
flexibility, and that's what I like."

He slowed the car and drove it onto the shoulder of the
road.

"Where are we?" Scully asked.

"Good spot for star-watching," he explained and he got out
of the car.

They were near the summit, and it was easy to imagine
that they stood at the edge of the world.  Scully knew
that beyond the peak lay a valley, and no doubt another
mountain beyond, but she couldn't see them.

"There's Orion," Brian said, pointing at the sky.

"That's an easy one," said Scully.

"The Big Dipper," he continued.

"Okay, now I'm impressed," Scully laughed.

He didn't answer, but laid his arm across her shoulder.
She took a small step away from him.

"See that very bright star that forms Orion's shoulder?
That's Betelgeuse," she said.

"So, you really like stars," said Brian, putting his
hands in his pockets.

"Down on the right, that other bright star is Rigel,"
she said.

"They all have names, huh?" he asked.  He sounded amused.

"Actually, no.  There's one... I can't really see it
now, but it's by Alnitak.  They just call it HR 1988,"
she said.

"You seem nervous," Brian said.

"A little," Scully admitted.  "Maybe this wasn't a
great idea."

"It was a wonderful idea," he said.  "Tell me the
rest of the stars."

"You're making fun of me," she said.

"Dana, I'm trying very hard to behave myself.  Work
with me here," Brian answered.

"Right."  She turned away from him and back to the
stars.  "The middle star in Orion's belt, that's
Alnijam."

"Does that mean something?" he asked.  His voice was
so close that he had to be leaning down to talk to her.

"Mulder would know,"  Scully said, aware of the slip
as she made it.

"Sounds Arabic," Brian commented, unperturbed.

She looked up into his eyes, noting that they were blue.
Denim blue.  Why did she find it surprising that they
weren't hazel?  Brian stood so close she could smell
his aftershave.  Or maybe it was hers.

Brian's face seemed to be moving closer to her, and she
wondered if he was going to kiss her.  She wondered if
she was going to let him.  Before her muddled brain
could decide what to do, the sound of a cell phone cut
through the night.

"Damn it," said Brian as he flipped his phone open.

If he'd turned away or lowered his voice, Scully would
have gotten into the car to give him some privacy, but
he seemed comfortable to take the call in her presence.

"Yeah, I'm on it.  You have lousy timing, that's all,"
he said.  "And I want that jet fumigated afterwards."

"Going somewhere?" Scully asked when he closed the phone.

"I have to pick up the human ashtray," he said.

"What?" Scully asked in surprise.  Prickles of curiosity
traveled through her.

"Mr. Terranova.  He smokes like a chimney," Brian explained.
"Maybe we can finish my astronomy lesson another time."

"That would be nice," Scully said, but her mind was elsewhere.
There were thousands of chain smokers, she told herself.

"If it was anyone else I'd invite you along for the ride,"
Brian said apologetically.  "This guy is not someone you
want to meet if you don't have to."

"How often does he come out here?" Scully asked.

"Couple of times a year, but it's always been pre-scheduled.
That's the trouble with being on-call.  Sometimes they call
you."

"What does he look like," Scully asked.

"The ashtray?"  He smiled a goofy smile as he opened
Scully's door for her.  "Now that I think of it, he *looks*
like an ashtray."

"Older man, gray hair, drooping features--" Scully prompted
him.  It had to be him.  He *did* look like an ashtray, cold
and flat and gray.  She had to call Mulder.  They must be very
close to something if the smoking man was here.

"Dana, I have a better question," Brian said.  "What does
tomorrow look like?  The stars will still be here."

= = = = = =

end Ch5