From: DashaK@aol.com
Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 00:45:25 EDT
Subject: Submission- The Professional
Source: direct

They had dinner at Trattoria Ottavio-- veal marsala for
him, pasta primavera for her.  They ordered a bottle of
Barolo, and finished it between them.  Dinner conversation
meandered from topic to topic: the snorkeling they'd done
on their vacation in Cozumel, global warming, the demise of
drive-ins.  Finally they got into a spirited discussion of  
martial arts movies, Mulder defending the entire genre and
Scully expressing incredulity that anyone could compare
Jackie Chan to Cary Grant.

"Well, at least admit that Steven Seagal is wooden," she
said.

"Not wooden -- just the laconic loner fighting overwhelming
odds, like Gary Cooper in High Noon."

"Now Steven Seagal is Gary Cooper?"  She shook her head in
disbelief.  "Whatever planet you're living on, Mulder, I'd
like to live there too.  I'd be Rita Hayworth."

In his car on the drive to his apartment, Scully kicked off
her heels.  She tilted her head back against the seat,
sighing with pleasure at the freedom of bare feet.  It was
a totally relaxed sound, he thought -- something he'd
missed since the night he'd told her about Amy.

It was still early, and so when they got to his apartment,
they turned on the television set.  "Witness" was on, and
the prospect of Harrison Ford in Amish clothing enticed
Scully to stay.

"Harrison Ford," said Mulder, sitting down beside her and
putting his feet up on the coffee table, "is the Western
Jet Li."

She ignored him.

They watched the movie together in companionable silence.  
"I could do that," Mulder said during the barn raising
scene, as Ford's character proved his prowess with a hammer.

Scully snorted.  "Yeah, you'd really fit in with the
Amish."

He turned his head and regarded her quizzically.  "Do I
detect a hint of scorn there, Scully?"

"Mulder, they don't have cell phones.  Or television.  I'd
give you about forty-eight hours, and then you'd be up in
the top of the closest bell tower, stark raving mad and
picking off civilians with a high-powered rifle."

"They don't have high-powered rifles either," he reminded
her.  "I'd have to use a slingshot, or maybe throw an ax or
something."

She started to chuckle.  "I know that's supposed to be a
joke, Mulder, but somehow I can see you doing it."

They were sitting side by side, and he had his arm around
her shoulder.  As the credits rolled he began to rub his
hand in slow circles on her arm.  She looked across at him,
and gave him a half-smile.

He leaned over and kissed her softly.  Scully turned toward
him and her arms circled his neck; they kissed for what
seemed like forever.  His tongue slid smoothly in and out
of her mouth.  She caressed the back of his neck, sending
little shivers down his spine.  He moved lower and kissed
her throat, and the hollow at the base of it.

She began to rub her hand over his chest slowly, and then
her hand dropped to the button of his jeans.  They kissed
as he caressed her breasts outside her clothes, like some
teen-ager making out in the backseat of a car.  In fact, he
felt rather like a teen-ager, kissing her furtively on the
couch in front of the television.  He let his hand slip
down her waist to her legs, and softly stroked the side of
her thigh.  She did the same to him, her hand sweeping from
the outside to the inside of his leg to tease gently
against his balls.

He tipped her back into a lying position, half-covering her
with his body.  Both of them were still completely dressed.  
He was surprisingly turned on -- he had flashbacks to being
seventeen, and steaming up the car windows because the girl
in the front seat with him had worked him into a state of
trembling excitement.  If he listened hard enough, he
thought he might even be able to hear the car radio playing
"Magnet and Steel":  <<With you I'm not shy, to show the
way I feel...>>

Her palm rubbed his erection through his jeans.  He slipped
his hand under her silk shell, and stroked her breast
outside her bra.  Scully assisted him by reaching around
and unhooking the clasp -- more shades of teenage years.  
He pushed her bra up and kissed her breasts through the
silk of her blouse, sucking lightly on her nipples.

"Let's go in the bedroom," she said breathlessly.

"Un-unh," he said, looking up and grinning at her.  "I want
to make out on the couch."

She laughed but did not offer any argument.  Instead she
went to work unbuttoning his jeans.

He unfastened her pants, too, and slid his hand past the
waistband of her underwear.  She was wet, and felt hot and
slick against his fingers.  Scully lifted her hips a
little, and he pushed her pants and underwear just far
enough off her pelvis to give his hand some room to work.

Her cool fingers slipped inside the fly of his boxers, and
freed his erection. She wrapped her hand around his cock
and stroked firmly up and down.

"Oh, Scully," he moaned against her mouth.

There was something wonderfully paradoxical about this --
the fact that they were still fully clothed lent what they
were doing an air of both innocence and misbehavior.  Here
they were, two responsible adults in their thirties, and
they were giving each other hand jobs on the couch like two
eager high school kids.

It made sense, though.  This was how they'd begun, one
winter night a few months ago.

Scully seemed to be getting a kick out of it, too, because
she didn't wiggle closer or pull him atop her.  Instead she
was doing a surprisingly good job of pumping her hand up
and down his cock in an even rhythm, rubbing her palm
strongly against the underside, reducing him to the same
mindless incoherence in which he'd always found himself as
a teenager.

He, for his part, was doing his best to give as good as he
got.  His fingers, slick with her arousal, worked in
determined circles on her clit.  From the happy little
whimpering sounds she was making in the back of her throat,
he suspected he wasn't doing half bad.

Finally her rhythm on his cock faltered slightly, and her
muscles tensed in the way that told him she was on the
verge of coming.  He bent lower and took her nipple in his
mouth again, licking at it through the silk of her
clothing.  She shivered and made a soft cry, arching
against him.  Drawing back to see her face, he slid two
fingers inside her, and felt her pulsing around him.

When she opened her eyes again, she smiled rather bashfully
at him.  They kissed, long and slow.  In the middle of the
kiss he felt her hand begin its skillful work on his cock
again.  He chuckled, and when they both came up for air, he
was lazy enough just to lie back and enjoy what she was
doing.

It didn't take long before he was breathing hard.  "Stop,"
he said suddenly, and laid his hand on her wrist.  Instead
she kept going for a stroke or two, then swooped down, her
hand still moving, and took him in her mouth.  He closed
his eyes and groaned loudly, pumping into her again and
again, seeing stars as he came.

When at last she pulled away, they both sighed contentedly.  
She straightened her clothes, tugging her pants back up on
her hips, and he did his best to tuck himself inside his
jeans again.

She stretched out beside him with her head on his shoulder.

They both sighed a second time.  It felt comfortable, lying
with her like this on his couch.  Scully's smell lulled his
senses, that combination of soap and chamomile shampoo and
Paris perfume.  She was soft and warm against him.  He was
sleepy, too; he didn't remember feeling quite so sleepy
afterward when he'd been a teen-ager.  He was getting old,
he thought drowsily, his eyes starting to close...

"Mulder?"  Scully's voice was soft and tentative.  "Mulder,
I'd like to ask you something."

This couldn't be good, he thought, the relaxation leaving
him in an instant. Women never warned a man that they were
about to ask him something unless the question was one he
wasn't going to want to answer.  "You would?

She sighed.  "You said going to Amy was like a
compulsion..."

He drew a deep breath.  "Yes," he said, wondering with a
sinking feeling why he'd ever thought this was all behind
them.

"And you said you kept seeing her even after I came
back..."

He nodded mutely.

She lifted her head from his shoulder and looked into his
eyes.  "So what changed?  Why did you stop?"

He drew her tighter against him.  Why had he stopped?

He could still remember that last time with Amy.  Scully
had been so sick.  He'd spent the early part of the evening
in the hospital with her, pretending he couldn't see the
wasted way her skin stretched over her bones or the dark
circles under her eyes.  He'd thought going to see Amy
would make him feel better.  Instead as she'd touched him
he'd thought only of Scully -- the real Scully, the sick
Scully, the Scully who was weak from cancer and from chemo.
When he'd come, surging into Amy, he'd called Scully's
name.

He'd been embarrassed.  Amy wasn't supposed to hear
Scully's name.  It made him seem weak; worse, it tainted
Scully somehow.  For a second, the world of Amy and the
world of Scully had merged in a way he'd never intended.

For the first time, the let-down -- that awful feeling of
guilt and shame-- hit him even before he left the hotel
room.  Riding the elevator down, he'd wished more than
anything that he could take the last hour back.  When he'd
gotten in his car, he'd sat behind the wheel in the dim,
low-ceilinged parking garage, and fought for long minutes
not to cry.

He failed miserably.

"I don't know why I stopped," he said finally, his voice a
little rough.  "When I started it felt like something I
needed.  I pretended you were alive, Scully, and that made
me feel alive again.  The sex was exciting.  Even if it was
based on a fantasy -- a lie -- it still felt good enough
that I was able to ignore the rest, that I was paying Amy
and that she was essentially a stranger.  In fact, in some
twisted way, I actually liked that she was a stranger.  I
couldn't fuck up a stranger's life.  A stranger wasn't
going to judge me.  That alone gave me a feeling of relief
that, at that time, I don't think any other kind of sex
would have given me."

Scully slipped her hand into his.

"But then," Mulder continued, "you came back, and time
passed, and you got sick. And I started to realize how much
you meant to me.  I started to recognize how much I needed
to be with you, and how different it was going to be if
you" -- he choked on the words, but kept going -- "if you
died.  Amy wasn't going to make that better.  Nothing was
going to make that better."

She squeezed his fingers.  "I'm okay now, Mulder."

"I know, but at that time . . . Every time I saw you, I
tried to store the memory up: this is what Scully was like
when I cracked a joke, this is what Scully was like when
she was exasperated with me, this is how Scully looked
sitting on the bed.  That's when it hit me, how important
you were to me."

She pressed his hand tightly in both of hers.

"Anyway," he said after a little while, "I guess I'd known
it all along, but had just never thought about it
consciously.  When I did think about it, the guilt and the
emptiness of seeing Amy started to outweigh the thrill.  In
fact, the thrill wasn't so thrilling any more.  I didn't
want to be with just anyone.  I wanted to be with you."

Scully didn't say anything, but she reached up and brushed
the hair back off his temple.  He turned his head and
kissed her brow.

A long silence stretched between them.  Neither felt like
breaking it.

Finally Scully said, "You're not a bad person, Mulder.  
You're not even a weak person.  You've just had a few weak
moments in your life."

He pulled her close.  "Thanks, Scully," he said into her
hair.  "I think I needed to hear that."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the morning, Scully woke and found the other side of the
bed empty.

She got out of bed and went to the bathroom to brush her
teeth.  She found Mulder in the kitchen, a towel wrapped
around his hips, making coffee.  He turned around and
smiled at her.

Scully yawned and stretched, sitting on the edge of the
kitchen table.  "Do I take this early morning liveliness to
mean that you're planning to make breakfast?"

He grinned.  "Only if you're a very, very good girl."

She leaned back on her elbows, well aware of the way it
made her breasts push against the thin material of the t-
shirt she'd worn to bed.  "What, precisely, does being good
entail?"

He stepped up to the table and flashed her a wolfish look
that reassured her immensely.  While she appreciated the
fact that he was feeling guilty and remorseful about Amy,
she was getting a bit tired of the hangdog look he'd been
wearing ever since.  She wanted her old Mulder back--
sarcastic, silly, sexy, horny Mulder.

Mulder grabbed one of her thighs in each hand and tugged
her so she was sitting near the edge of the table.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"I'm going to have some breakfast," he said, chuckling.

She smiled in anticipation.  Come to think of it, the
kitchen table was one of the few pieces of furniture they
hadn't defiled in their short time together as a couple.

Mulder leaned down to kiss her and she nearly smiled
against his lips, happy to feel him touching her and making
love with her for nothing more than just for the hell of
it, for fun.  It had been a while since they'd had one of
those times together.  Since Amy, to be perfectly precise.   
She reached with her hand and pulled off his towel.

"What do you want?" he whispered in her ear.  "Whatever you
want this morning, I'll do it for you."  She shivered at
his words, and the way he started running his tongue along
her earlobe.

"I want--" she whispered and Mulder looked at her in
anticipation.  "I want blueberry pancakes and a half
grapefruit."

He groaned in annoyance, and mock-swatted her cheek.  "Just
for that, you don't get to pick anymore."  His fingers slid
down her body and found her panties, and he pulled them off
without preamble.  

"I think what you're doing will be just fine," she gasped
as he spread her legs apart and began teasing and circling
with his fingers in the way he knew drove her insane.

"You like that?" he said and pushed up her t-shirt to suck
at her nipples with an eager mouth.

She nodded and gave a small yowl of pleasure in response.

Mulder smiled.  "Good, because I love to make you feel
good, Scully.  Nothing gets me as hot as watching your face
when you're hungry for it.  The way your cheeks get pink
and your lower lip pouts."  He moved still closer and she
felt his erection brush against her leg.

"You know what gets me hot, Mulder?" she whispered.

He leaned closer and she took a deep breath of his sleepy
morning smell.  "Tell me," he growled.

"When you fuck me, really hard."

Mulder tipped his head back, moaning at that, and she
smirked in triumph.  She wasn't one to talk dirty to him a
lot, since it wasn't really in her nature to do so, but the
right words, used judiciously from time to time, could have
a powerful effect indeed.

His response was the correct one, though, and that was to
pull her right to the very edge of the table and wrap her
legs around his waist.  One quick thrust later and he was
buried to the hilt in her, still standing.  She brought her
arms around his neck and hung on as best she could, as
he moved in and out of her in long, quick slides that made
her bite her lower lip and cry out with each stroke.

"So good," he hissed in her ear.  "No one, Scully, no one
feels like you do."

And no one could possibly feel like Mulder making love to
her, she thought.  She loved watching his face when they
had sex in the daylight, especially the dazed and blissful
look in his eyes as he neared his orgasm.

Scully reached between their straining bodies and found her
swollen clit with her middle finger.  Mulder's eyes
followed her hand and he licked his lower lip.  "I love
watching you do that," he said.

She would have thought up a snappy comeback for that one,
but it was impossible as her climax started approaching and
she was caught in its pull, bucking against Mulder as it
hit her.  

He began to really lose it, she happily noted through the
post-orgasmic haze, as he shut his eyes and softly swore
under his breath.  

"Come on," she said breathlessly, "you can let go now."

And presto, he came with a groan of the agony of relief.  
She felt like a goddess, with her ability to make him come
with her words.  I am woman, hear me roar, she thought and
started to laugh.

As soon as he stopped panting, Mulder said, "What's so
funny?"

Her smile was small and secretive.  "Nothing you'd find
amusing."

He kissed her with the soft and giving lips of a man
exhausted by his exertions.  "You're something else, Dana
Scully."

With her foot, she playfully poked at his bare ass.  "I
know," she said.

They separated and he helped her down off the table.

"So," Scully said, "You were saying something about
breakfast?"

Mulder rolled his eyes.  "I can never satisfy you, can I?"

"Nope."

And in the distance she heard the ringing of a cell phone,
most likely in the living room.

"Yours or mine?" he asked.

"I think it's yours."

He padded off to the other room and she heard the low hum
of conversation.  

A minute later he returned and set the phone down on the
kitchen counter.  "Breakfast is going to have to wait,
Scully."

"How come?"

"Detective Watters called.  A body was found, in Richard
Haskell's car."

Her hand rose to cover her open mouth.  "Oh God, it's not
Amy, is it?"

Mulder shrugged.  "An identification hasn't been made, but
a credit card receipt in Amy's name was found in the coat
pocket of the victim."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After setting a land-speed record for showering, they
headed off to the crime scene, wet heads and all.  "We'll
catch colds," Mulder muttered, gulping coffee with one
hand, and switching on the ignition with the other.

Scully slammed her door shut.  "Colds don't come from wet
heads in chilly weather, Mulder.  They're caused by
viruses," she said, stating the obvious.

They drove through the gray morning in tense silence.  The
whole way, Mulder was berating himself for not finding the
killer before it was too late for Amy.

Her reappearance had posed problems for Scully and him, but
he still shuddered at the thought of her dying at the hands
of a madman, alone and terrified.

It wasn't a long drive.  The body had been found in the
parking lot of Grace Episcopal Church, only eight blocks
from Scully's apartment, in another quiet, residential end
of Georgetown.

The tableau was an eerie repeat of Friday morning -- a
waiting ambulance, several police cars and a gathering of
trench coats.  Mulder parked the car on the far end of the
lot and they walked over to the crime scene.

Detective Watters was standing by a teal Lexus SUV, smoking
a cigarette and talking to another man, clearly another
homicide detective.

"Thanks for calling me," Mulder said.

Watters nodded.  "I thought you'd be interested in this,
since the MO is the same . . ."

"Have you identified the body?" Scully asked.  He was
almost surprised to note the tone of anxiety in her voice.

The other detective nodded and looked down at the clipboard
in his hands.  "Name is Lisa Horton."

Mulder felt the air hiss out of lungs.  He hadn't even
realized he'd been holding his breath.

"I recognized her," Watters said, stubbing out his smoke
with his wing-tip.  "I interviewed her on Friday morning
about the Maitland murder.  She's a call girl friend of Amy
Callahan's."

Out of the corner of his eye, Mulder spotted the familiar
figure of Richard Haskell.  He was intently talking to a
tall woman with blonde hair in a French twist.  Mulder
jerked his thumb at the couple.  "What's the story with
Haskell?"

"He reported the car stolen late last night.  He and his
wife drove down to Richmond in his wife's car on Friday
afternoon for a family party and came back to find the car
stolen.  Guy's got an air-tight alibi; he was seen by
approximately seventy-five relatives on Friday and
Saturday."

Watters' cell phone rang, and he turned his back slightly
to engage in a brisk conversation.  Mulder realized Scully
was no longer standing by his side.  A quick glance found
her on the other end of the Lexus, peering through the back
windows with a man by her side.  A tall young man with
light brown hair and glasses, just Scully's type.  And
standing much closer to her than professional etiquette
would advise.

Mulder grimaced at his thoughts.  He was jealous -- now
wasn't that rich, given the circumstances?

He walked over and Scully looked up.  "This is horrible,"
she said.

"What do we have?"

"Maybe you'd better ask John."  She gestured toward the man
standing at her side.  "John McMillan, I'd like you to meet
my partner, Fox Mulder.  John was the coroner on the
Maitland case, and so he was called out on this one, too."

McMillan shook hands with him and nodded.  "Without an
autopsy, I'd say we've got the same perp here.  It looks
like another clean cut to the neck and anal rape.  But he's
done more this time . . ."

Mulder tilted his head.  "More?"

"Yeah," the coroner said.  "He cut the word `whore' into
her thigh.  And looking at the rigor mortis, it looks like
she was killed sometime on Friday or early Saturday
morning, not last night."

Steeling himself, Mulder looked in the window and saw a
slender young woman, nude and lying in the nest of a
reddish fur coat, sprawled in the back of the car and rigid
with death.  More unseeing eyes, he thought, more garish
display of killing.  The gray interior of the car looked
like an abattoir, splashed with baroque red blood.

"That's consistent," Mulder said.  "He's trying to get his
message across.  The killer wants to rid the world of
immorality and he believes he needs to label his victims."

Scully shook her head, as if in disbelief.  "Even after all
this time in law enforcement, I just cannot understand that
state of mind."

Mulder grimaced.  "Unfortunately, after all this time, I
can . . ."

Watters came stalking across the asphalt, hitching his
baggy pants as he went.  "Hey Mulder, we've been trying to
reach Amy Callahan.  You got any idea where she is?"

"We had her in a hotel room to protect her and she took
off," Scully said.  "I think she went to New York to be
with her boyfriend."

"You got a name?"

"Michael Corey," Mulder said.  "But I don't have a phone
number."

The pudgy detective made a face.  "Damn stupid hookers.  
Why would she think she's safe in another city?  I'll try
to get his number up there and talk to her.  If this dude
is targeting her friends, she's not safe anywhere."

Two attendants rolled a stretcher over to the car.  The
coroner unhatched the back and leaned inside to attach bags
to the body's hands to preserve any possible skin or hair
samples.  "Hey Dana," McMillan called out, twisting his
head around.  "There's something reddish under her
fingernails."

Her eyebrows rose.  "Blood, you think?"

"Possibly.  It certainly wouldn't hurt to get more DNA
samples to match with the ones we got off Vanessa
Maitland."

Scully moved closer to the coroner and they began to talk
rapidly in medical gibberish that Mulder couldn't possibly
follow.  Standing around the corner of the car, Mulder felt
incredibly ineffectual.  It was all very well and good to
be able to profile, but it wasn't exactly helping much, now
was it?

He wished he hadn't left his coffee in the car as he shut
his eyes and tried to fit the jagged pieces of the puzzle
together.  Something nagged at him, but it wasn't coming to
him.

Think of the obvious, Mulder.

The obvious refused to come.

He started at the light touch of Scully's hand on his arm.  
"I'm going to go downtown with John for the autopsy."

Mulder nodded.  

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"I'm frustrated," he said.

Lisa Horton's body was lifted from the back of the car and
loaded on a stretcher, covered in a blanket.

"I can understand that," Scully said.  "We don't have
anything solid right now."

"Maybe the autopsy will shed some light."

She smiled, her eyes almost gray in the dull morning light.  
"Let's hope so, for Amy's sake.  And Vanessa and Lisa."

For a moment, she looked like she was about to kiss him,
but shook her head as if remembering where she was.  

"Go on," he said, pushing her away.  "Go perform your
scalpel magic."

"Call me if anything comes up," she said and walked off to
John's car, where he was already behind the wheel.

Detective Watters looked over at him.  "Hey Mulder, we're
gonna canvass the neighborhood, see if anyone saw anything.  
Grunt work, but you wanna pitch in?"

Mulder nodded.  Why the hell not?  It wasn't as if his
profiling was working miracles.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"On the run from the FBI . . ." Amy mused as she finished
unpacking her suitcase.  "I feel like we're Bonnie and
Clyde."

He stepped up to her, and wrapped his arms around her
waist.  "I'm just glad you're here with me."

"Me, too," she said.  She tipped her head back and smiled
up at him.
 
Yesterday she'd met him outside the Sheraton, where he'd
had a rental car waiting.  They'd sped off to the airport,
grinning and with their hearts pounding, as if they really
were two fugitives on the run.  On the shuttle from DC,
they'd held hands while she'd told him about Vanessa and
the hotel room and how much she had missed him.  When
they'd gotten back to his apartment, they'd fallen
immediately into bed and made love wordlessly in the dark
for what seemed like hours.  She'd slept like a baby beside
him all night.

Michael cupped her cheek in his palm.  "I'm not letting you
out of my sight again," he said.  "Until you called me I
was going crazy, wondering where you were and whether you
were okay or not."

"I'm okay now," she said.  "No one's going to find me
here."

He kissed her, his lips soft on hers.

She was so glad to be back with him.  It was where she
should have come in the first place, she thought.  Mulder
and Scully meant well, but she had felt so cooped up in
that hotel room, she might as well have been in prison.  
With Michael, she had both safety and freedom.

Michael let her go, and walked over to the foot of the bed.  
"That man I met . . ." he began hesitantly, reaching out a
finger and tracing the pattern on the comforter.  "That FBI
agent . . ."

"Mulder?"

"Yes, Mulder," he said without looking at her.  "He was one
of your clients, wasn't he?"

There was something odd in Michael's tone, Amy thought.  
Jealousy?  Insecurity?  That wasn't like Michael.  

"He was," she said calmly, "but that was a couple of years
ago."

"I thought you said the men you saw were mostly older --
married businessman and middle-aged politicians."

She noticed the tense set of his shoulders.  She walked
over and set a hand on his arm.  "You're not going to get
all weird on me, are you?  It doesn't matter to me what
they look like.  You know that."

"I'm not jealous," he said, still not looking at her.  "I
don't really care what they look like either.  It's just .
. .well, I'd hate to think you've been lying to me, on top
of everything else . . ."

His voice was soft, but she drew back in shock.  "Lying to
you?  I'm not a liar, Michael."

He turned to face her.  "No, I know you're not.  Except
that your family thinks you're an art dealer, don't they?"

She felt stung by the sly insinuation in his words. "That's
different.  I don't want to hurt them."

"I see.  You lie to them because you don't want to hurt
them.  Does that mean you do want to hurt me?"

She looked at the floor and said tightly, "Michael, don't
be like this.  You know the difference.  They would never
understand, and you do."

He was quiet for a minute, then he sighed.  He reached out
and took her hand in his.  "I'm sorry, Amy.  You're right.  
I do understand."

She breathed a sigh of relief.  She didn't think she could
face an argument with Michael just now, after all she'd
been through in the last week -- first Jess's death, then
Vanessa's.  She knew Michael was only human, and that
everyone had insecure moments, but part of what attracted
her to him was his open-minded acceptance of her work.

"We just need to take some time for ourselves, I think,"
Michael said, a little sadly.  "We need to forget about
Tiger Lilies and this stalker business for a little while,
and let things get back to normal."

She nodded.  "I'm not going back to Tiger Lilies, at least
not any time soon.  Not after what happened to Vanessa."

He smiled, a warm, genuine smile that touched his eyes.  
"I'm so glad to hear that, Amy.  Judging from everything
that's happened lately, it's just not safe."

"I know," she said.  "I'll start asking around, and see if
I can find an agency here in New York."

His smile vanished, replaced by a look of disbelief.  "You
mean you're going to work here?"

"Of course," she said.  "We still need money for the
gallery, don't we?"

"But what about the danger -- "

"Please, Michael."  She held up a hand.  "Let's not talk
about this now, okay?  I'm just not up to it."

He frowned, and turned away.  He was worried about her, she
knew.  But she simply couldn't handle arguing about it
right now.  After the awful week she'd just endured, she
didn't have the emotional resources left to discuss it with
him.

Besides, she knew Michael would come to realize that she
was right about working here in New York.  Cape Cod was a
nice dream, but it was his dream, not hers.  This way, they
would be together, and she could keep saving.

He sighed, his shoulders slumping.  "I'm going to my
studio, Amy," he said in a defeated voice.  "My show is
coming up and I have a lot of work to do."

Her heart sank.  It wasn't like Michael to avoid her.  "Can
I come with you?" she asked, the request tentative.

He stood still for a minute, then turned to her with a
gleam in his eye.  "You want to come to my studio with me?"

She was touched by his obvious eagerness to spend time with
her.  "Of course," she said.  "It's been a while since I've
seen you work.  Besides, even if DC is a couple of hundred
miles away, I still feel safer being with you."

"I think that's a really good idea," he said.  A smile
spread slowly over his features.  "I would love for you to
come to my studio.  In fact, I have a few surprises I'd
like to show you."

She took his hand.  "Let's both go, then," she said, and
kissed his cheek.  "You know how I love surprises."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Halfway to the morgue, the drizzle that had been plaguing
the city started up again and John turned on the windshield
wipers.  This is the most pathetic excuse for an April in
the history of Aprils, Scully thought, sipping at the
coffee she and John had stopped for on the way.

"So," John said, turning left, "you and your partner, huh?"

Scully's back stiffened against the car seat.  While she
and Mulder hadn't been keeping their new relationship a
secret, they hadn't exactly been advertising it, either.  
"What about Mulder and me?" she said in a guarded tone.

He turned to her and smiled, that sunny, amused smile that
had attracted her to him in the first place.  "Just that
he's the one you're seeing.  Is it tough, spending all that
time with him as your partner and then being involved?"

"Why do you think we're personally involved?" she asked.

John switched the radio from NPR to a jazz station.  "Dana,
I'm not blind.  You both show up at the crime scene with
matching sets of wet hair.  Hmmm, what would *you* think?"

"I'd probably think what you're thinking," Scully said, her
mouth twitching in the beginnings of a smile.

"Well, it's what I get for not acting on my first impulse,
which was to ask you out that day we met last year.  I kept
steeling myself to go over to you at the reception and just
do it, but I chickened out.  My divorce had just become
final and I was feeling out of practice."

She took another sip of the strong coffee and looked at the
moving cityscape through the rain-misted windows.  "John,"
she said in a gentle voice.  "Don't take this the wrong
way, but I probably would have said no a year ago, too."

He pretended to bang his fist on the steering wheel.  "So,
is it my personality, or were you guys already involved
then?"

"Neither."  She shook her head.  "But let's just say that I
had already made the commitment all the same."

It was true.  Even if she hadn't been able to admit it to
herself at the time, she'd loved Mulder then.

"Well, I'm just relieved to hear it's not me," John
chuckled.  "And Dana, I am happy for you.  It's hard to
find someone these days."  He pulled into the parking lot
adjoining the building.

She nodded her head.  It was hard, but she'd been lucky.

Mulder was an imperfect being, but then again, so was she.  
She was going to have to learn to let go of her idea of the
perfect relationship, the ideal man, because there was no
such thing.

Two hours later Scully hustled out of the autopsy bay.  
She'd stripped off her latex gloves, but was still wearing
her blood-daubed surgical gown as she marched down the hall
to the locker room, her heart beating madly.

As she unlocked the locker door with shaking hands, she
could hear her cell phone echoing in the metal walls.  

She grabbed the phone.  "Scully," she said breathlessly.

"I've been trying to reach you," Mulder said, in an equally
out of breath voice.  "I was hoping you'd finish up soon,
because we had a major break here, canvassing the
neighborhood.  We found--"

Scully interrupted him.  "We found something, too.  
Remember how Lisa Horton had something reddish under her
nails?  We thought it might be blood, but it's not.  It's
an oil-based paint, the kind used by artists.  Are you
following me?"

Judging by his sharp inhale, he was.  "That just confirms
what we found out.  An elderly woman who lives across the
street from Grace Church was taking her dog out at 4:30 am
on Saturday and she saw a young man park the Lexus in the church
parking lot.  He walked out of the lot and right in front
of her house.  She described him as in his late twenties,
dark hair, handsome, and with a stud in his nose."

She nearly dropped her phone.  "Does Michael Corey have a
nose ring?"  She'd never met the man, but Mulder had.

"Exactly.  And I got busy and woke Frohike up.  He found
airline records of Michael's trips to DC, all jibing with
the murders.  And he found a record of Amy and Michael
taking the 7:00 pm shuttle to New York last night."

"Oh shit," she breathed.  "That is not good news."

"Watters has contacted NYPD and they're getting a search
warrant for his apartment."

Don't let it be too late, she silently prayed.  Don't let
the monster strike again.  

Mulder interrupted her thoughts.  "Scully, I think we
should go up to New York."

"There's not much we can do up there, Mulder," she said.  
"It's really more for the NYPD to handle."

"I know, but I'd feel better if we were there, too."

"You're probably right," she said.  She and Mulder were
alike in that way, hating to be out of the loop of the
action.  And she bore some of the responsibility for Amy
being in harm's way, having let Amy slip out of her fingers
with such a ridiculous ruse.  "Book us a flight and I'll
meet you at the airport."

"I'm on my way right now and I'll meet you at the United
counter."

"I'll be there," she said, and turned off the phone.

Oh Amy, why did you go back to him, she frantically
thought.

As quickly as she could, she changed and then charged out
into the hallway.  Halfway down to the exit, she spotted
John, talking to another staff member.

She hated to ask him for a favor, she truly did, knowing
how he was attracted to her, and how she'd had to turn him
down.  But desperation was desperation.

"John," she said, "is there any possible way you could give
me a ride to the airport?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Amy finished reading the last page of Michael's copy of The
Village Voice and returned it to the neat stack of
magazines beside the futon.  "How's it coming?" she asked.

Michael glanced up from the canvas he was working on, an
expression of complete absorption on his face.  "What?"

She laughed.  "Sorry, didn't mean to break your
concentration.  I just asked how the painting was coming."

"Really well," he said.

She got up, and came to stand behind him.  They gazed
together at the canvas.  "Nice work," she said approvingly.  
"I love the way the light seems to flicker across the
torso."

She liked it here in Michael's studio -- it seemed so
*Michael*.  There were paintings all around, and the
mirrors he used when working with a live model, and the
smell of paint.  Yet the overall impression wasn't merely
that of an artist's workplace, but of impressive order and
organization.  Everything was arranged just so: the neat
row of canvases, the art brushes in their box, the easel
turned to the sunlight.

"So when are you going to show me my surprises?" she asked
with a smile.

He put down his paintbrush, and wiped his hands on the
towel beside his palette.  "In a little while," he said,
standing and turning to face her.  "Right now I've earned a
break, don't you think?"

She grinned as he took her in his arms.  "Definitely."

He began unbuttoning her blouse as they kissed.  She helped
him, her hands competing with his for the buttons.  When
they broke the kiss, she reached around and unzipped her
skirt.  It fell to the floor and she stepped out of it.  
The rest of her clothes quickly followed.  

She looked over her shoulder at him as she walked back to
the futon.  He was tugging off the rowing sweatshirt he was
wearing.

"Michael!" she said.  "What happened to you?"

Long red scratches marred his chest and upper arms.  Some
of them looked ragged and deep.

He glanced down at himself as he tossed his shirt on the
floor.  "I guess I must have scratched myself up,
stretching canvases the other day."

He shed the rest of his clothes, and they lay down together
on the futon.  As they kissed and touched each other, Amy
remembered the promise she had made to herself in the hotel
room -- that when the two of them were together again, she
would make love to him, long and slow.

It was long and slow.  And sweet.  The sunlight spilled
through the studio windows, bathing their skin in light as
they made love.  She moved atop him with a gradually
building rhythm, enjoying every moment, drawing it out as
much as she could.  She stared into his eyes, feeling the
connection with him that she never felt with her clients.  
He gazed back, his green eyes grave and unblinking.

"I love you," she whispered.

When it was over, when she had shuddered into orgasm above
him and he had rolled her underneath him and finished in an
intense burst of passion, they lay together, flushed and
sweaty.

"There's something I want to show you now," he said
quietly.  "Your surprise."

She turned onto her side and watched as he reached for his
jeans, pulled them on, and got up.  He went to the drafting
table between the windows and, reaching under it, retrieved
a brown expanding file folder.  He unwrapped the elastic
closure, and took out a sheaf of papers.  

"What are those?" she asked, sitting up as he walked with
them back to her.  

"Drawings of you."  He sat down on the futon beside her,
and passed her the first one.  "Look.  This is you, the
night I first met you.  Do you see how beautiful you are?"

She examined the drawing -- a charcoal sketch of her, her
hair a little longer than it was now, an expression of
wistful happiness on her upturned face.  She *was*
beautiful in it, she thought.  Michael was an extraordinary
artist and he had captured a charm and a vulnerability in
his drawing that made sudden tears well up in her eyes.

"And now this one," he said, taking another drawing from
the thick stack.  "I drew this the night after I found out
what you did for a living."

He passed it to her, and her breath caught in her throat.

It was drawing of her, her face contorted in an ugly mask,
her hair whipping around her features like snakes.  She was
naked in the picture, sprawled obscenely with her legs
spread wide.

And her throat was cut.

Her heart began beating wildly against her ribs.  
"Michael," she said, her mouth suddenly gone dry, "what is
this?"

He looked down at the drawing she held in her shaking hand.  
"I tried to make you stop," he said.  "I tried everything I
could think of -- reasoning with you, offering you a better
way to live your life, trying to open your eyes to the evil
of what you were doing . . ."

"No," she said in a whisper.

"This is one of you fucking some other man," he said
dispassionately, handing her another drawing.  "And here's
another one just like that.  I didn't draw their faces
because their faces don't really matter, do they, Amy?  You
don't care who it is."

She heard herself moan.

"And this one -- see how you're bleeding, here?  And this
is another one of you with another man.  And in this one,
you're dying, choking on your own blood . . ."

Stunned, she did not look down at the drawings he kept
pushing mercilessly into her hands.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They did not talk much until the airplane was off the
ground.  Mulder sat in the window seat, staring out at the
diminishing landscape below, while Scully leafed
distractedly through the in-flight magazine.  They were
both too preoccupied with their thoughts about Amy and the
deaths they had already witnessed to feel up to talking.

Something else was preoccupying Mulder, too.  He kept
thinking of John McMillan, and the way Scully had smiled at
the coroner as she'd stepped out of his car at the airport
curb.  He'd thought she was more or less past her
resentment over Amy.  Now he wondered just how much he'd
screwed things up.  Maybe she was already looking for
someone else, if only subconsciously.

He checked his watch.

"The New York police are working on it, Mulder," Scully
said beside him.

He sighed.  "I know.  I just hope they're not too late."

"At least we should have some good evidence to convict.  
John was able to recover semen from both the previous
victims."

Mulder winced, the suggestion that Amy might join the ranks
of "previous victims" only compounded by Scully's casual
use of McMillan's first name.

"In fact, John was the one who ID'd the paint under Lisa
Horton's fingernails."  Her expression turned pensive.  
"He's a nice guy . . ."

Well, there was the perfect opening if ever there was one,
Mulder thought.  "So," he said, clearing his throat, "have
you known him long?"

She tucked her magazine back in the seat pocket in front of
her, and shook her head.  "Not that long.  We met about a
year ago, at a conference.  We talked a lot.  I think he
was a little lonely.  His wife left him and his divorce had
just become final."

Mulder frowned.  The guy was good looking, a fellow
pathologist, single, and Scully knew all about his personal
life.  Wonderful.

"He asked me out at the Maitland crime scene," she said.

Mulder wasn't quite sure how to respond to this.  For one
thing, it seemed like only half a sentence to him.  "He
asked me out at the Maitland crime scene" ought to end with
something more, something like "but I said no."  He waited,
but she didn't elaborate.  

"And?" he said finally.

"And what?"

"Scully," he said, suddenly feeling tired and depressed,
"if you want to go out with him, don't let me stop you."

She sat in silence for a moment, apparently stunned by his
words.  At last she said, "Do you want me to go out with
him?"

He laughed shortly, a sound that had nothing to do with
amusement.  "What do you think?"

"I have no idea, Mulder.  Why would you say something like
that?"

"I don't know," he said, his stomach twisting.  "It just
seemed like the right thing to say.  You like him, don't
you?"

"Of course I like him."

"Well, then . . .I wouldn't want to stand in your way."

He meant it to come out sounding noble and mature, and yet
it sounded so...petulant.  Jealous.  Insecure.  He sat
there, listening to the dull roar of the jet engines,
wishing he could take back the words.

Finally he felt Scully's hand on his arm.  "Mulder..."

He turned his head away and stared out the window.  "What?"
he said, hoping for reassurance, and hating himself for
being so needy.

"Mulder, I like John, but I have no intention of going out
with him.  I love you.  I'm with you now."

"But he might be better for you," he argued, wondering even
as he did so what awful impulse was making him say these
things.  Was he really trying to talk her into going out
with another man?   

Brilliant, he thought, wanting to kick himself.  Tell
Scully you've been with a prostitute one week, then push
her into the arms of someone else the next.  No wonder he
had never excelled in the relationship arena.

But she seemed to understand that he didn't really want her
to agree with him.  "I'm with you now, and I have no
intention of being with anyone else," she said, firmly.  
She gave his arm a quick squeeze before turning it loose.

He merely nodded.  On the outside, his expression was
restrained, but on the inside he felt a flood of relief.

When the plane landed, a uniformed officer met them at the
gate.  He led the way to a waiting squad car, a level of
cooperation neither had expected, especially since they
were working unofficially.  Apparently the New York police
appreciated a tip as concrete as the name and address of a
wanted serial killer.

"Any news?" Mulder asked, once they were in the squad car
and on their way out of the airport.

The policeman riding shotgun shook his head.  "Last we
heard they had a warrant and were searching the apartment,
but the suspect wasn't there, and they hadn't found
anything helpful."

"We know she's with him," Scully said.  "We have to find
them."

Mulder was on edge the whole way into Chelsea.  He could
sense that Scully was, too, from her tense posture and
controlled breathing.  They stared out the car windows at
the city, counting the seconds.

Fortunately, it was a Sunday and traffic in Manhattan was
at its lightest.  They reached Michael Corey's Chelsea
neighborhood in good time.  Several police cars were parked
in the street, their lights flashing.

They produced their badges for the policeman guarding the
door to Michael's apartment, and went in.  Inside, the
search was already winding to a close.  They found the
detective in charge, a stocky man with a weary attitude.

"Nothing," he told them glumly.  "He's not here.  We'll
station a unit on the street to watch for him, but for now
we've come up empty handed."

"What about Amy Callahan, the woman he had with him?"
Mulder asked.

"We found a suitcase in the bedroom with her name on the
luggage tag, but all of the clothes had been put away in a
nice orderly fashion.  There's no sign of foul play."

"She's got to be with him," Mulder said.  "If she's still
alive, it's just a matter of time before he kills her."

Detective Rinaldi held up his hands in a helpless gesture.  
"What can I do?  Look at this place.  This guy is more
organized than Martha Stewart.  He didn't leave anything
for us."

The apartment was tidy and uncluttered -- eerily so, Mulder
thought.  In the kitchen, identical plastic containers of
cereal, rice, beans, and pasta lined the shelves in a
perfect row.  The countertops were spotless and bare.  In
the living room, magazines were spread on the low coffee
table in a fan, arranged alphabetically from left to right.  
Nothing was out of place.  

"I thought this guy was an artist.  This place looks more
like a laboratory or a hospital or something," the
detective said, looking around him with a frown.

"It's part of the profile," Mulder mumbled, with a growing
sense of frustration.  "He's someone who wants to impose
order on the world."

Scully held out a hand, and pointed at a framed poster
hanging on the wall over the couch.  "What's that?"

Rinaldi glanced at it.  "Poster for a gallery exhibit
of some kind."

"No, I mean what's that address on the bottom?"

Mulder drew closer to the poster.  The boldest caption
displayed Michael's name, the gallery address, and the
dates of the show.  In the lower right corner, however, an
address appeared in smaller type.

The detective peered over Mulder's shoulder.  "Not a very
swanky neighborhood," he remarked, taking in the Lower East
Side address.

"An artist would have a studio," Mulder said, realization
dawning.  "That's Michael Corey's studio."

"He took her there," Scully breathed.

Mulder nodded grimly.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Michael pushed her down roughly onto her back, ripping the
sheaf of drawings from her frozen hands.  "Why'd you have
to do it, Amy?" he said, looming over her.  "Why'd you have
to turn out so bad when I loved you so much?"

She tried to twist away, but he clamped a hand down on her
throat, pinning her to the futon.

"I was waiting for you to change, Amy.  I gave you chance
after chance," he hissed, his eyes glittering feverishly.  
"But even when I inherited that money from my grandfather,
you wanted to keep on working.  It wasn't the money that
really mattered, was it?  You're a whore.  You do it
because you want to be fucked by anyone and everyone."

"No -- "

He clapped his free hand over her mouth and pushed down
savagely.  "Don't talk.  I don't want to hear the lies and
the excuses.  I loved you so much, Amy.  It almost killed
me when I learned what you were."

She stared up at him, her eyes stark with terror.  Oh my
God, she thought to herself, over and over.  Oh my God.  
It's Michael.  Michael's the one who's been stalking me.
Michael killed Vanessa.

He gazed down at her with a flushed face.  "I gave you so
many chances -- first patience, then trying to reason with
you, then hoping to scare some sense into you with the
photographs.  But none of it worked, did it, Amy?  You were
a whore then, and you're a whore now.  You didn't even wake
up after what happened to Jess.  You went running right
back to your whore friends."

Oh God -- Jess.  She flashed on a sudden picture of
Michael, brutally slashing her dog's throat.  Jess had
loved and trusted him.  It would have been easy for Michael
to let himself in with his key.  Jess would have come
running.

She squeezed her eyes shut in horror.

"You thought I was in New York then, didn't you, Amy?"
Michael hissed above her.  "You thought you could come
trotting up whenever you liked, and I'd be waiting for you.  
I came at the bottom of your list of priorities.  At the
bottom of your list of men to fuck..."

He took his left hand from her mouth, while his right dug
brutally into her throat.  She tried to scream but he
shoved his palm down harder, cutting off her air.

"Well, I wasn't in New York," he said, as he stretched out
his left hand and groped under the futon for something.  "A
cell phone is a very useful thing.  All I had to do was
stay one shuttle ahead of you, and you never even guessed
about Jess.  Or Vanessa.  Or Lisa."

Lisa?  Oh God, Michael must have killed Lisa too.  A jolt
of renewed terror shot through her and she clawed at his
hand, battling for breath.

Michael showed no sign that he even noticed her struggles.  
"You never knew because you're a stupid whore," he said
with a frightening calm, still searching blindly under the
futon with his left hand.  "You think you're so smart,
don't you, Amy?  'I went to Northwestern, I'm going to open
a gallery.'  How much brain power does it take to fuck men
for money?"

Finally he found whatever it was he had been groping for
under the futon.  With fear-wide eyes she watched as he
drew out a long, white shape -- something about six inches
long, with a short silver hook on the end.

A razor, she thought in the same breathless instant as he
unfolded the blade from the mother of pearl handle.  A
straight razor.

He laughed when he saw her eyes fixed on the gleaming
blade.  "The money wasn't the only thing I inherited from
my grandfather."  

This couldn't be happening, she thought in disjointed
terror.  This couldn't be real.  Her terrified gaze
followed the razor as he brought it closer and closer to
her face.

He touched the sharpened edge to her cheek.  She froze,
afraid to move.

"So pretty on the outside," he said, and she gasped in pain
as he sliced her cheek lightly with the razor.  He moved
the blade to the other side.  "And so ugly on the inside."  
With a light flick, he sliced her face again.

She tried to stay absolutely motionless, but her cheeks
stung, and terrified sobs shook her body.  She felt
something trickle down the side of her face, inching toward
her ear, and wondered if it was a tear or a rivulet of
blood.  It was hard to think at all.  She was terrified,
and she was growing dizzy from the lack of oxygen.

He slashed her arm deeply with the razor, then leaned down
so that his lips were barely inches from her ear.  "I'm
going to kill you," he whispered, "and then I'm going to
fuck you like the dirty whore you are."

She shook with wordless sobs.

He straightened, a look of relish giving his handsome face
an almost demonic glow.  "Remember -- you made me do this."

She closed her eyes as he raised his arm to strike.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It seemed to happen so quickly.

They gathered on a run-down Lower East Side street in a
neighborhood that had clearly chosen to ignore Mayor
Giuliani's clean-up campaign, since the sidewalks were
strewn with fast-food wrappers, crushed cigarette butts and
the odd broken bottle of malt liquor.  Michael Corey's
studio was in a six story brick building that housed an
occult bookstore and a kosher butcher shop on the first
floor.

Four squad cars and two unmarked vehicles were gathered in
front of the building.  There was a huddle in the chilly
air as Detective Rinaldi laid out the game plan like a
football coach.

"You two know Corey, so I want you going in first," he said
in a voice redolent of deepest Bensonhurst, pointing at
Mulder and Scully.  "Officers Lin and Young will back you
up and everyone else waits out here for a signal.  We got a
call in to SWAT, in case he decides to take her as a
hostage."

If Amy's still alive, she thought.  Scully took a deep
breath, trying to calm the adrenaline rush coursing through
her bloodstream.

Detective Rinaldi took Mulder and Scully aside.  "If the
girl is alive, try to talk him down, keep him calm."

Mulder nodded.  "We both have hostage negotiation
training."

"Good," said the short, squat detective.  "And I want you
two going in wearing vests.  No telling if Corey has a gun
or not."

She slipped on the Kevlar with practiced fingers, all the
while praying Amy and Michael were inside, and that Amy was
still unharmed.

For all they knew, the two of them were eating Chinese and
discussing the return of Art Deco.

She nodded to Mulder, who nodded to the uniformed officers.  

"Let's do it," she said, patting her holster for
reassurance.

The four of them climbed the stairs of the building, going
up four flights of stairs past walls scribbled with
graffiti and covered with flyers for punk shows and gallery
events.  They were silent as they went, each intent on the
task at hand.

The hallway on the fourth floor was deadly silent, lit only
with a few ineffectual light bulbs.  

"It's too quiet," Mulder whispered to her as they traveled
down the corridor to #402, which belonged to Michael.  "I
don't like this."

"Don't project," she hissed back.

Outside the door, the four of them stood and pondered their
options.  "Knock or break the door down?" Lin said, sotto
voce.

"How about trying the knob?" said Scully.

She and Mulder drew their guns.  She reached out and
grasped the doorknob.

One, two, and . . .

To her surprise and relief, the knob twisted in her hand
and the door opened.  Weren't New Yorkers supposed to be
fanatical about locking doors?

She jerked her head at Mulder for him to follow her and
walked into a narrow hallway.

And then she heard it, a low moan in a woman's voice.

Her skin broke into goose bumps when she heard the
terrified noise coming from down the hall.

The inhuman moan became words, "No, Michael, don't do this,
no, no, no!"

Scully's stride accelerated into a run and she reached the
end of the hallway, Mulder at her heels.  An open doorway
led to a large room with huge windows that let in the
fading light of the day.  Her eyes rapidly scanned over
several large canvases daubed with paint, a mirror, and, in
the corner, a futon.

Amy was there, alive.

Thank God.

Amy was lying on the futon, nude, with a tall dark-haired
man straddling her.  He wore only a pair of jeans, and his
back glistened with sweat.  A glint of something caught
Scully's eye and she realized it was a straight razor and
he was holding it to Amy's neck.

She raised her gun and trained it on Michael.  Without
looking to her side, she knew Mulder was doing the same.  

"Drop the razor, Michael," Mulder said in a loud, firm
voice.  "FBI."

The man turned his head and his dark eyes widened at the
sight of the two of them.

That was the precise moment when things began to speed up
with the herky-jerky quality of an old movie from the
1920s.

She saw Amy's head shift and her mouth open, blood running
in streaks from two livid slashes on her cheeks.  A look of
sudden hope lit her eyes.  And then Amy's leg rose and she
caught Michael square in the crotch with her knee, just as
he was distracted by Mulder's words.

The young man roared in pain and fell back onto his knees
on the futon.  Amy scrambled out from under him and ran
across the room, right into Mulder's arms, bursting into
tears.

"Get out of here," he hissed at Amy, and pushed her toward
the hallway.  Her pale arms clung to him for a moment
before finally letting go.

"The blade," Scully said to the man gasping in pain.  It
was still gripped tightly in his right hand.  "You've got
two guns pointed at you and a dozen law officers in and
around the building.  Give up the blade and it'll all be
over."

Michael sat up and shook his head, as if trying to clear
his head of the pain.  He looked straight at her, and she
noticed the sudden look of shock in his cool eyes.  "Amy?"
he said in confusion, staring at Scully.  His eyes narrowed
as he worked to puzzle out the obvious resemblance.  "You
look so much like Amy," he breathed.

He staggered to his feet, holding the straight razor
loosely in his hand.

"Drop it now," Mulder said in a voice that was meant to
sound soothing, but she could detect the tightness
underneath it.

Michael smiled and ran his left hand through his short,
straight hair.  "I recognize you," he said, addressing
Mulder.  "You're one of the men who fucked Amy.  You
understand, don't you?  She's bad.  She has to die."

"No one has to die today," Scully said through clenched
teeth.  Her arms were beginning to ache from holding the
gun on him.

"What are you going to do?" he asked, still smiling.  "You
can't arrest me.  I'm only doing what needs to be done.  
Amy's a whore.  Ask him."  He gestured with his head toward
Mulder.  "He knows."

"Put the blade down, Michael," Mulder said.

Taking a step closer, Michael continued, "You should be
thanking me.  He can tell you how dirty she is.  She tempts
people.  You think you're a good person, but then she
tempts you, and before you know it, you're dirty, too."

"Put the blade down," Mulder said again, exaggerating each
word.

He raised his hands in surrender.  "I'm dirty," he said, in
a dazed voice.  "Amy made me that way."

He took another step closer.

Then, with a sudden motion, so quick that neither of them
had time to prevent it, the blade flashed as Michael drew
it swiftly across his own throat.

"Ah!" Scully gasped, jumping back involuntarily as a spurt
of blood splashed across her Kevlar vest.  In the same
instant she heard the thump of Michael's body as he
crumpled to the floor in a heap.  The blade dropped from
his fingers, falling with a clatter on the wood
floorboards.

They ran to his body and crouched by his side.  Mulder
pulled out a handkerchief and picked up the razor blade,
setting it carefully off to the side.  

Michael twitched on the floor, his eyes open and his dark
lashes fluttering.   "Amy," he choked as blood bubbled from
his mouth.  "She's bad . . ."

The two NYPD officers burst in.  "What the fuck?" Young
said.

"He's down," Scully shouted.  "Call for an ambulance."

"Already done," Lin said.

The razor had severed Michael's carotid artery, Scully
could see at once.  Fresh blood pumped from the open wound.  
Mulder tossed her the sheet he'd ripped off the futon, and
she pressed it to Michael's throat in an attempt to slow
the flow of blood.

"Amy," he said in a strangled voice, his eyes fluttering
closed.  

Normally this was the part where she desperately prayed for
the victim to live, but this time she found herself
heartlessly wondering if perhaps death wasn't the fate that
Michael deserved.

Blood poured through the white cotton and stained her
hands.  She pressed harder, despite her feelings for the
man.

Behind her, she could hear Amy's sobs over the rattle of
Michael's labored breathing.  She turned her head just long
enough to see Amy, huddled in a blanket she must have
gotten from the police, weeping brokenly.

Scully crouched over Michael's body for what seemed
like an eternity.  

Finally, the EMTs arrived and bundled him onto a stretcher.  
Scully stood, her knees popping from having knelt on the
floor for so long.

Amy hugged the blanket tightly around her, her hair wildly
tousled and tears streaking her bloody cheeks. "Will he
live?" she whispered.

"I don't know," Scully said, shaking her head.  She looked
down at her hands, stained with the killer's blood.  "It
doesn't look good."

An eye for an eye, she thought for some reason.

Mulder was talking intently with one of the officers.  He
turned to her and gave her a strained smile to reassure
her.  "Amy's safe," he said.  "That's more than we really
expected to find."

"He slashed his own throat," she said dully.  

Mulder nodded.  "He was sick."

Behind him, Amy burst into a fresh torrent of weeping.  She
came stumbling forward and leaned against Mulder,
inconsolable.

Hesitantly, Mulder closed his arms around her.  He looked
over Amy's head at Scully, an apology in his eyes.  I can't
help it, his expression seemed to say.  She needs someone
right now.

Scully turned away, and lifted her blood-spattered Kevlar
vest off over her head with exhausted arms.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Amy clutched Scully's hand as the ER doctor put ten fine
stitches in her arm.  "I guarantee you that you'll only
have a tiny scar," he said in a West Indian accent.

Scully peered at the sutures.  "He's doing good work, Amy."

Closing her eyes, Amy nodded.

Michael.  Oh God, he'd been the one all along.  Her stomach
rolled with nausea, even though it was empty from vomiting
at Michael's studio.

How could she have missed the signs?  Had there been any?

Her brain was too muddled look back at it properly.  The
doctor had given her a dose of Valium before injecting her
arm with Lidocaine to do his suturing.  It dulled the pain
somewhat, took the edge off the bite, but the raw hurt was
still there.  It would probably always be there, she
thought as Dr. Kingsbury applied gauze to her arm.

She'd been with Michael for five years, good times and bad.  
After they'd spent their second or third weekend together,
she'd never doubted that he was the man with whom she'd
grow old.  He was so loving, so gentle with her.  He seemed
to understand her fully.

Now she wondered about that, wincing from the internal
pain, not the pain in her arm or on her face.

Was it truly her fault?  Had her professional life turned
him this way?

She winced again, feeling fresh tears flowing down her
face.

Scully squeezed her hand.  "Are you still feeling a lot of
discomfort?" she asked.

Amy shook her head.  "No, I'm thinking about Michael."

A look of sympathy crossed the face of the pretty agent.  
"This must be so difficult for you," Scully said.  "I can't
imagine what you're going through."

"I don't understand it," Amy said.  "I never thought for a
moment that he was the one doing those horrible things.  I
thought I knew him."

"Amy, the kind of killer that Michael is, it's often hard
for anyone to know.  They can appear to be the most normal,
loving people on the outside, but there's something wrong
with them on the inside."

She sniffled.  "I just thought he loved me."

Scully nodded.  "I'm sure he did in his way," she said.  
"But something inside him just snapped."

What do I do now, Amy thought.  She'd never thought of
herself as beholden to any man, even Michael, but she now
understood how much of her vision of the future was filled
with the plans they'd made together -- the gallery they
would open, the house in the country, the city apartment,
the children they'd have after they married.

She was going to have to start all over again.

The doctor stepped back and nodded at her.  "All done now,
Ms. Callahan.  You can go home.  Just make sure you keep
the area on your face clean and no foundation makeup until
the scabbing heals.  Go see a doctor back home in a week to
see how your arm is shaping up, okay?"

Nodding, she thanked the doctor and he handed her a
prescription for Tylenol 3 for the pain.

"What are you going to do tonight?"  Scully asked.

"I called my friends Kate and Simon.  They live on the
Upper West Side and Simon is coming to pick me up.  I can
stay with them tonight."

"Good," she said.  "I don't want you to be alone tonight,
Amy."

But now she'd be alone for a long time, perhaps forever.

I got what I deserved, she thought, I'm nothing but a
whore.

She hadn't realized she'd spoken those words aloud until
Scully squeezed her hand even tighter than before.  "Amy,"
she said in a firm voice.  "I don't want you thinking like
that.  Nothing you did could possibly justify what Michael
did.  The blame belongs to him, not to you."

Amy shrugged.

"Listen to me, Amy," Scully went on.  "I don't want you
blaming yourself.  Please promise me that when you go home,
you'll find a therapist to talk to about this.  It helps
after a traumatic situation like this.  Believe me, I
know."

"I'll do that," she said softly, "because I don't want to
feel like this for the rest of my life."

Scully got off the examining table and helped her down.  
"Come on," she said.  "Let's go out to the waiting room
until your friend comes."

"Thank you," Amy said.  "You've done more for me than I
have a right to expect.  You saved my life."

"Just doing my job, ma'am," Scully said in a horrible
impression of an old movie detective.

Amy almost, but not quite, laughed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the morning they got coffee and bagels and wandered down
Fifth Avenue, looking in the windows of the exclusive shops
and at the parade of Monday morning New York humanity.  
They really should have taken the first shuttle home, but
Mulder had called Skinner and explained to him that they
wouldn't be in the office until Tuesday.

After all, they hadn't had much of a weekend off.

They'd slept in until 9:00 am, the two of them exhausted by
a draining night of dealing with giving statements to NYPD
and taking Amy to the hospital.  After midnight they'd
checked into the midtown Hilton and fallen asleep almost
before hitting the sheets.

Surprisingly, neither of them reported bad dreams upon
waking.

Now Mulder felt like a tourist on vacation as he and Scully
walked down the street holding hands.

They reached the majestic structure of St. Patrick's
Cathedral.  Scully stopped and looked at him.  "Do you mind
if we go in for a second?"

The cathedral was dark and smelled of the musty scent
unique to churches.  Scully dropped his hand and went
inside the nave.  He watched as she genuflected and entered
a pew.  She sat down for a moment and bowed her head, and
he knew she was praying.

Mulder wondered what she was praying for.

Not for the first time, he envied the way she believed.

After a few minutes Scully rose and rejoined him at the
back of the pews.  "Let's light a candle," she whispered.

She stuffed a few dollars in the collection box and lit two
candles.

"What are you lighting them for?" he asked.

She turned to him, her blue eyes luminescent in the glow of
the many candles.  "One is for Amy," she said.  "The other
is for you and me."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At Amy's request, Mulder stopped by her apartment on his
way home from work.  He hadn't seen her in almost a week,
not since the bloody encounter in Michael Corey's studio.  
As he drove through the rain to her apartment, he wondered
if something else was wrong.  When she'd called and asked
him to come see her, her voice had been firmer and more
confident than he remembered it, but tinged with sadness
too.  

She answered his knock with a slightly breathless air.  She
was wearing a gray cashmere sweater set and a snug pair of
jeans, and her feet were bare.  The cuts on her face where
Michael had slashed her with the razor were already
beginning to heal.

"Oh," she said, tucking a wayward strand of hair behind her
ear.  "I didn't expect you here quite so soon.  You caught
me a little unprepared.  Come on in."

He stepped into her apartment, wondering why she'd asked
him over.  

She turned and started walking down the hall.  "This way,"
she called over her shoulder.  "I'm afraid I'm in the
middle of packing."

He followed her down the short hallway to her bedroom.  A
suitcase stood open on her bed, already half full of
clothes.  A little pile of lingerie -- bras, underwear,
silk slips -- lay on the bed beside it.

She moved to the bed and quickly began folding the clothes
in the pile, packing them neatly in the suitcase.

"So why did you ask me here?" he asked, standing in the
doorway, feeling a little awkward.  He wished he'd brought
Scully with him.  Being alone with Amy reminded him too
much of the times he'd met her at the Marriott.  Without
the business of sex to conduct, he wasn't sure quite how to
talk to her.

"I wanted to thank you for your help."

He felt a small flash of annoyance.  "You could have done
that over the phone."

She looked up from her packing, and smiled slowly.  "That
would hardly have been adequate thanks, now would it?"

He watched as she deftly folded a black slip, the smooth
silk shimmering in her hands, and laid it in the suitcase.  

"No," she said softly.  "When I think of how close I came
to dying  . . . and about Vanessa, and Lisa  . . ." She
shook her head.  "I just can't believe all that really
happened to me, little Amy Callahan from Evanston,
Illinois."

There was no mistaking the look of pain on her face.  "So
what now?" he asked her.

"I'm moving to San Francisco.  There are just too many ugly
and sad memories here.  There's a flourishing art community
out in San Francisco, and I can get a new start."

"Are you planning on . . ." -- he groped for a tactful
phrase -- "on working out there?"

She stopped packing and gave him a forthright look.  "Yes."

His forehead creased in frown.  "But you could be so much
more, Amy."

"I know that."  A faint smile curved her lips.  "But at
heart, I'll always be a professional."

He felt a sense of disappointment at the words, and
wondered why her choice should bother him.  Before, in
those days when he'd paid for his sessions with her, he had
never really stopped to think about her life outside the
hotel room.  He gave her money; she gave him sex.  They
both got what they wanted.  It had seemed to be a
convenient and satisfactory arrangement on both sides.

It didn't really seem that way to him any more.  He'd seen
too much of her life now to be able to separate Amy the
professional from Amy the intelligent, vulnerable woman.

"Is everything going to be okay between you and Agent
Scully?" Amy asked.

He looked away.  "I think so," he said.  "I hope so."

"I liked her," Amy said, placing the last piece of loose
clothing in the suitcase.  "You make a good team."

He nodded but did not comment.  He didn't like talking
about Scully with Amy.  It seemed disloyal, somehow,
talking about Scully with the woman he'd once pretended was
her.

Amy walked over to him.  She laid a hand on his arm, and
picked a speck of lint off his jacket.  "You know, I owe
you a great deal," she said, looking up at him through her
lashes.

He shrugged.  "You needed help."

She smiled enigmatically.  He could smell her perfume --
Paris, the perfume he'd given her.  Scully's perfume.

"I know, but I like to pay my debts."  Her voice had
shifted to a sexier, more inviting register.  "What would
you like, Mulder?  Anything you want -- it's on the house."  

"Amy, don't," he said, with a slight shake of his head.

"No?  You must know that's why I asked you here.  I want to
thank you properly."  

"I didn't know."

She smiled and looked up into his face.  "It's okay, I
wouldn't tell Scully.  Whatever you want.  Just name it."

He shook his head.  He was not even tempted.  "No," he
said.  "No, Amy, that's not what we were about.  I wouldn't
do that to Scully."

She gave him a questioning look.  "You did it plenty of
times before."

"I wasn't with her then," he said.  "And I was wrong."

She shrugged, and turned around.  "Whatever you say."  She
went back to the suitcase and resumed her packing.

It bothered him that she thought she owed him something.  
He'd helped her because she needed him, because she'd been
in danger.  Why should she think he expected payment?  She
didn't have to offer him sex to settle the score.

To compound matters, he sensed he'd offended her by turning
her down, maybe even hurt her feelings.  She was
transferring clothes into her suitcase with a rigid back,
not looking at him even though he was standing in some
confusion not six feet from her.

Poor Amy, he thought.  She'd let so many men buy her that
even she had begun to believe her worth depended on what
she could give them.

He cleared his throat.  "Thanks for the offer, Amy," he
said.  "If things were different . . ."

She nodded.  "They wouldn't be the same."

What a strange association, Mulder thought.  It was
completely backwards: they'd started out with sex, then
she'd come to depend on him, and now they had a slightly
distant, awkward acquaintance.  Soon she would be the width
of a continent away, and he wouldn't even know her any
more.  It was like traveling through a normal relationship
in reverse.

"Good luck in San Francisco," he said.

She smiled.  "Thanks, Mulder.  Good luck to you, too."  She
took a wooden jewelry box from a top drawer, and slipped it
into her suitcase.  Then she turned to him with something
in her hand.  "Here," she said.  "I want to give this
back."

He looked down at the cool little puddle of gold she'd
pressed into his palm.  It was the cross necklace he'd
given her, the one he'd once asked her to wear when they
were together.

"Now there are no loose ends," she said.

He looked up at her, and smiled.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mulder ran, his mind a blank except for the rhythmic slap
of his running shoes on the wet pavement.  The muscles in
his legs were starting to burn, and so were his lungs.  He
sped up.

He was heading east along Prince Street.  It was raining
lightly, and now and then he caught a watery glimpse of his
reflection in the puddles which lined the road.  When he
reached the intersection with Fairfax, the traffic light
had just turned red.  He checked over his shoulder for
oncoming traffic, and crossed the street without slowing.  

It was his favorite part of running -- clearing his head of
all other thoughts as he hit his stride.  He liked to feel
the ache of lactic acid in his muscles, the harshness of
the cool air in his lungs, the jarring impact of bone
against pavement.  It took his mind off things: his
problems, his shortcomings, his doubts.

Finally he reached his goal -- the Potomac.  It stretched
before him, its waters glittering gray in the wet early
spring evening.  He drew up short, breathing hard, his
hands on his quadriceps.  When he'd caught his breath a
little, he straightened, and dug in the pocket of his
sweatpants for the necklace Amy had given him.

He held it up, letting the cross on its thin gold chain
dangle from his fingers.  In the cloudy outdoors, it was a
dull thing, the metal pale and cold.

"I won't be needing you again," he said.

He balled the necklace up in his fist.  With a wind-up
perfected in his childhood baseball days, he sent it arcing
through the overcast sky, sailing out over the river.  It
fell into the water with a barely perceptible plop, so far
out he couldn't even hear the splash.

Then he turned and began running for home again, feeling
freer than he'd felt in a long time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The rain had stopped and the sky cleared by the time she
parked down the block from Mulder's apartment.  Scully got
the grocery bags out of the backseat and stopped for a
moment to breathe in the fresh scent of rain.  It smelled
warmer, somehow, as if spring had finally arrived after
dragging its heels.

When she reached his building, she saw Mulder, dressed in
sweats, unlocking the front door.  He'd clearly been for a
run-his hair was damp and sticking up in places, and his
face was flushed from his exertions.

"Hey," she said and he turned around to flash her a
surprised and delighted smile.

"What are you doing here?"

She juggled the bags in her arms.  "I'm a woman of many
surprises."

Mulder held the door open for her and they walked inside
the lobby and towards the elevator.  "So, what do you have
in the bags?"  He punched the up button.

"I felt like cooking, so I thought I'd make dinner for the
two of us.  I still owe you after all the meals you made
for me during my recovery in January."

The elevator door slid open and Mulder grabbed the bags,
Scully following behind.  He hit the button for the fourth
floor and the elevator began to rise with a creak.

He set down the bags and patted his belly.  "What are you
making?"

"I can't cook many things, but I can make a great pan of
lasagna.  And I got a couple of bottles of Chianti to go
with it."

Mulder's eyebrows rose.  "Oh, I don't know what I did to
deserve all that, but I'll gladly do it again . . ." He
reached over and punched the emergency stop button and the
elevator shuddered to a halt.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

He grinned and moved a step closer to her, so their bodies
were nearly touching, and she could smell the unique scent
of his sweat.

Many mammals can instinctively recognize the scent of their
mates, she thought.

Mulder's hand strayed in her hair.  "It's an emergency," he
whispered.

"What is?" she asked, playing dumb for once.

His response was to lean over and kiss her, his lips, warm
from exercise, a pleasant contrast to her chilled flesh.  
She shut her eyes to block out the dinginess of the
elevator and let herself be lost in the sensation of
kissing Mulder-the sweet-salt of his mouth and tongue, the
touch of his hand on the back of her neck, the pounding of
her heart under layers of wool and cotton.

He pulled away and she stared at him, still breathing hard.  
"Do I get a kiss like that every time I decide to make
dinner?"

"Yep."  Mulder grinned and nodded.

"Well, I'm warning you, I only know how to make three
things: lasagna, stir-fry and grilled tuna."

He applied a gentle kiss to her neck.  "I'll buy you a
cookbook, Scully."

"How about if *you* cook?"

His answer was to push her against the elevator wall and
give her another crushing kiss.

"Oh," she sighed when they finally separated.  "I think we
need to eat out less."

Mulder switched off the emergency stop and the elevator
again began rumbling upward.

Once inside his apartment, Scully dragged the bags off to
the kitchen while Mulder unlaced his wet running shoes.  
The ice cream went into the freezer and she began looking
for the frying pan.

With her head in the cupboard, she felt him come up behind
her and gasped as his cool fingers slid under her sweater
to cup her breast.

"I was thinking," he panted in her ear, "that we could put
off dinner for a while."

It was a tempting thought, especially with the way he was
gently squeezing her breasts and pressing his erection into
her back.  But she was a sensible woman at heart.  First
things first; they had all night to make love.

Scully extricated herself from his grasp and turned around.  
"If I don't get the lasagna started we won't eat for hours.  
And I'm hungry."

"So am I," he whined.

Pushing him away with a playful hand, she said, "Go take a
shower so you'll be nice and clean for me."

He made a chagrined face and looked down at the hard-on
tenting his sweatpants.  "I suppose it'll keep . . ." he
muttered.

"Good," she said and turned back toward the counter.  
Sometimes it was in a woman's best interest to make her man
suffer, she thought, remembering the giggly high school
night when Melissa had told her that after returning home
from a date.

It was fast work making the lasagna.  The sauce had been in
her freezer, made by her mother with the last of her garden
tomatoes the summer before.  She quickly browned some
crumbled spicy Italian sausage and added it to the sauce.  
Then she set to work assembling layers of uncooked noodles,
ricotta cheese mixed with egg and basil, sauce and pre-
shredded mozzarella cheese.

Scully was just assembling the last of four layers in the
pan when she heard the padding of bare feet across the
carpeting of the living room and then on the kitchen
linoleum.  Mulder was still damp and glistening from his
shower, wearing only his boxer shorts.  She smiled to see
him with his hair wet and slick as a seal's.

Mulder sniffed the air.  "Mmm . . . it smells good in here.  
It's nice to have the little woman where she belongs, in
the kitchen and cooking for me."

She snorted derisively and turned back to finish sprinkling
the last of the mozzarella on top of the lasagna.

The cheese fell out of her hand in one unsightly clump as
she felt his warm breath on the back of her neck and his
hand snake around to unbutton the fly of her wool trousers.  
"I'm still trying to cook here," she warned, but she knew
that nothing would deter him at this point.

"It looks delicious," he murmured, and undid the zipper on
her pants.  "But if we're having an Italian meal, don't I
get some antipasti?"  Her pants slid to the floor in an
untidy heap and she briefly worried about wrinkles until
she felt his fingers fan out over her behind.

"Ooh, black lace, Scully," he breathed.  "You know how I
feel about you wearing black lace."

Scully turned and smiled at the expression on his face,
oddly reminiscent of a wolf licking his chops over a fresh
kill.

"Sorry to interrupt your cooking," he said and let his
fingers move over to the front of her panties.

"It's okay," she said.  "I'm done now."

One dark eyebrow cocked.  "Good, cause I'm ready to eat."

Her eyes widened and she felt the telltale signs of growing
arousal-- her breasts felt heavier and the thin sweater she
wore suddenly felt far too warm for her taste.  "Do you
have some kind of . . . thing . . . about this kitchen,
Mulder?" she teased, remembering the morning not so long
ago when they'd enjoyed the dubious comforts of his kitchen
table.

Mulder's answer was to tug off her sweater and send it
flying in the direction of the refrigerator.  She stifled a
laugh at the sight of his eyes nearly popping out of his
head as he took in her new black lace bra, which was cut
nearly down to the tops of her nipples.

"I'll admit it," he said, pausing to kiss each of the twin
globes pushed up and out by underwire.  "I have a thing for
this kitchen and I especially have a thing for you in black
lingerie.  Go ahead, call me a pervert."

"At least you don't have a foot fetish . . ." She gasped as
he pulled down the lace of one of the bra's cups and drew
her nipple in his mouth, running his tongue along the
stiffening flesh in circles.

He raised his head.  "Nah, if I have a fetish of any kind,
it's for your breasts."  The other cup was tugged down and
he repeated his ardent attentions with lips and tongue on
the second nipple.

Scully leaned against the counter, her hands grasping his
neck for support, and hoped she wouldn't knock over the
lasagna pan as he took his sweet time sucking her breasts.  
Her entire center felt heavy and swollen with need and she
pushed his head to signal him to go lower.

"Are you trying to tell me something?" he said, laughing.

She nodded.

"Good."  He kissed her, plunging his tongue in her mouth
with hungry authority.  "But first I have to tell you a
secret."

"Don't you think we've shared enough secrets lately?" she
groaned in dismay and frustration.

"This is a good one," he whispered.

She nodded and reached to stroke his hard cock through the
thin cotton of his shorts.

"I-I can't think when you do that, Scully," he stammered.

"Good, you tend to think too much," she said and freed his
cock from the confines of his boxers, enjoying his groan as
she did so.

"Oh, that's good," he muttered as she wrapped her fingers
around him and began to stroke up and down the length of
his hard shaft.

"You were saying something about a secret?"

"Yeah," he said, his fingers sliding between her legs and
into her panties to twine in her pubic hair.  "We've talked
before about how we fantasized about each other before we
were together like this."

"Mmm-hmmm," she said, unable to say anything further as his
fingers moved between her wet folds.

"My biggest fantasy about you was always about going down
on you."

For some reason, a flush began to spread across her face.  
"It was?" she said, as he slid a long finger to the hilt
inside her.

"Yeah.  I pictured you spreading your legs for me and
tasting you for the first time.  I can't tell you how many
nights I touched myself and thought of you, Scully,
straddling my face and letting me lick you until you came
again and again."

Scully cried out as one finger became three and the index
finger of his other hand circled her clit.  "Oh my God . .
."

"So many times I just wanted to hike up one of your little
skirts, pull down your panties and eat you right there in
our office."

A dark thought crossed her mind and threatened to short-
circuit the orgasm she felt sparking to life.  Her voice
came out in a raspy whisper.  "Did you think of me when you
did that to Amy?"

Mulder violently shook his head.  "I never went down on
Amy, Scully.  Never.  For that there was no substitute."

She let out all her breath and he sank to his knees on the
floor.  "Only you, Scully."

His tongue ventured out and licked her where the line of
her pubic hair met her belly.  "My tattooed lady," he said
with a smile, brushing the fingers of his left hand on the
phoenix character on her hip.  With swift fingers, he
pulled off her panties.

Scully felt her knees turn watery with her desire and she
grasped the edge of the counter harder.  She lifted one leg
over his shoulder to give him better access.

"God, you're wet," he said admiringly, beginning to deeply
thrust his fingers into her again.  "It makes me feel so
good to know I can turn you on like this.  I always
wondered, all those years . . ."

And then his mouth began its skilled journey of her most
private areas, his tongue traveling up and down her folds,
making detours to circumnavigate her clitoris.

"You do," she hissed, pushing herself into his face.  "From
the beginning you've been able to make me feel this way."

Even in her most private moments of Mulder fantasy in the
past, alone with her vibrator, she'd never been able to
picture him with his dark head between her legs, tasting
her with such abandon.

One strong hand grasped the curve of her ass and he began
to suckle at her clitoris.

Never, never had she imagined this.

With one last push of his fingers into her, she tipped back
her head and moaned, the sound echoing around the kitchen
as she shuddered with the overwhelming force of her orgasm.  
She nearly collapsed onto the lasagna, but managed to right
herself at the last second.

Mulder looked up at her, his full lower lip still
glistening with her juices.  "Sometimes fantasies are
disappointing in real life, but in your case, my fantasies
pale next to the real thing."  He stood and kissed her and
she tasted herself on him, remembering how odd, yet
exciting, it had been the first time he'd gone down on her
and kissed her.

She leaned against his strong body.  "Wonderful," she
crooned, her eyes still shut.

His fingers run through her hair.  "When we're together,
it's always wonderful, baby . . ."

Baby.  She smiled at the unaccustomed endearment.  
"Mulder," she whispered.  "I'm glad we're together."

She pulled him closer and felt the strong beating of his
heart against her cheek.

"Hey Scully?" he asked in a quiet voice.

"Yeah?"

"How about we get the lasagna in the oven . . ."

"Are you still hungry?" she said, enjoying the feeling of
his chest hair next to her skin.

"I just thought it would be a good idea to get it cooking
before we go off to the bedroom and I take my time making
love to you."

The breath caught in her throat.  Sometimes it still seemed
unbelievable that they were together.

Scully looked up and smiled to see the joy on his face.  
"It's a good idea, indeed," she said.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In his bedroom, he stripped off his boxers and high jumped
onto the bed in a Fosbury Flop that would have made any
track coach proud.

Scully moved a bit more deliberately, walking with heavy-
lidded eyes toward the bed.  She took off the black lace
bra that was the last of her remaining clothes before
joining him there.

She pressed her nude body along the length of his, smiling.  
"What do you want?" she said in a low, sultry voice,
echoing his words from the Sunday before, when they'd
christened the kitchen table.  "Whatever you want tonight,
I'll do it for you."

He grinned.  "Whatever I want?"

"Within reason, of course," she amended, and wrested a
laugh from him.  Even when she was trying to be abandoned,
Scully would always be Scully.

She trailed her hand up his bare thigh, and his eyes
fluttered closed as an ecstatic shiver ran over him.

"Do you know what I'd really like?" he said.

"I'm almost afraid to ask."

"I want this," he said, and pulled her eye-to-eye with him.
The eagerness he had been feeling in the kitchen was giving
way to a different feeling, a yearning to be close to her.  
He lowered his voice and whispered, "I really want to be
inside you, and watch your face, and make you come again."

She swallowed.  "I think maybe we could do that..."

Her drew her lips down to his.  They kissed, their tongues
twining.  He caressed her face.  He was aware of how warm
she was, how soft, how sweet she tasted.

He rolled her under him, so that he was atop her.  "I love
you," he said quietly, at the same moment as he entered
her.

She sighed and he began to move -- gently, with long, deep,
slow strokes.  He could feel her breasts, her nipples hard,
pressed against his chest.  He could feel her hair, as fine
and smooth as silk, spilling over his hands.

He stared down into her face as they made love.  It was
actually making him ache, how good it felt.  She was so
soft and slick, and it felt so good to be buried inside
her, to be this close to Scully, to actually be joined with
her this way.

She smiled tenderly at him.  He did not smile.  For some
reason it seemed completely serious to him this time --
something that, for God knew what reason, was actually
bringing a lump to his throat.

"Relax, Mulder," she whispered, apparently mistaking the
look of awe on his face for worry, or guilt, or one of the
many other emotions she was probably all too used to
seeing.  She stroked his back.

He swept his hand down between the two of them, finding her
clit, touching her, catching her moan in his mouth.  He
wanted to hold back, he wanted it to last, he wanted the
sort of leisurely passion that would not burn itself out
too soon.  A line from a poem kept repeating in his head:  
"Pray love me little, so you love me long."  He wanted this
moment to go on forever.

But he couldn't make it go on forever, however much he
wished it.  Soon they were both trembling.  Her fingers
tightened on his shoulders, and she made a soft, breathless
sound with every stroke.

When she came, he came too.  She moaned and shuddered
against him; he held still, sighing against her face as he
gushed deep inside her.

Afterward, he kissed her, lifted himself off her, pulled
her onto her side against him.  They lay spooned together,
quiet and relaxed, as their heartbeats slowed.

"I'm going to fall asleep," he mumbled.

"That's okay."

"The lasagna is going to burn."

She started to laugh.  "I forgot all about the lasagna."

Her head was on his arm; his other arm was draped across
her.  He liked the warmth of her body tucked securely
against his.  "Wake me up when the apartment catches fire."

She chuckled.  "When it does we're going to look funny,
running out in the hallway naked."

"I'm going to look funny," he said sleepily.  "You're just
going to look unbelievably beautiful."

She snuggled back against him.  "Your neighbors are
probably past being surprised by anything you do anyway."

She was joking, but for some reason it seemed much more
than a joke to him.  It seemed -- it seemed to mean she
accepted him, just as he was.  She had never made the sort
of mistakes he made, and yet she understood him.  He felt
his eyes grow hot with unshed tears, and thought, at the
same time as he fervently hoped he wasn't actually going to
start to cry, that she was the best thing that had ever
happened to him.  The best thing that would ever happen to
him, more than likely.

He kissed her hair.  "Are we okay?" he whispered quietly.

"Yeah," she said.  "Yeah, we're okay."

END


Dasha:  Margarita, PD?
PD:  I think you mean several, don't you?


Author's notes:

Writing can be a lonely business.  You walk around in the
real world, going to meetings and spending time with
friends and family, while in your brain, characters are
talking and plots are spinning.  Even if you have writing
friends, being immersed in the world of your story can feel
rather isolating, since you have no one with whom to truly
share the development of your story.

This is why collaboration with another author can be so
rewarding.  You have someone who understands the minute
details of the plot, who can tell you if your latest idea
is awful or not, and the instant gratification of being
able to send off the latest chapter and get their feedback
on it.  It can be frustrating at times-- outlines can spin
wildly out of control and there can be disagreements on
plot and character development, but in general, there is
nothing so wonderful as a collaborative co-write.

Writing "The Professional" has been a wonderful experience
for us.  Sure, it's taken up nearly all of our already
limited free time, but we had an enjoyable time telling
this tale.

Forgive us for inaccuracies in law enforcement procedure
and the world of prostitution.  Neither of us is a cop,
pathologist or call girl, and while we did research, there
are limits . . . <g> Dasha *did* make a pan of lasagna
strictly in the interest in research. It was tasty.

It wasn't just the two of us working on this story, though.  
We were helped by a veritable fleet of wonderful
reader/editors who spent their time offering their
suggestions and insight, and thanks to them, it turned out
to be a far different and better story than we'd started
with.  Becky kept us, and especially our Scully, honest.  
Betsey was kind enough to read for us while in the north
woods, and had a multitude of helpful suggestions. Blueswirl
came to the rescue with some insight on the early chapters.
Gwen was our doyenne of fine grammer and style advice.  
Lisa helped us, in a most crucial way, to raise the angst
meter.  Shari served as a generous cheerleader and advocate
for story spooning.  We don't know how to properly thank
these fine women except to say that this story would not
have been written without their assistance. They were
gracious about holding the hands of two people intimidated
by writing their first semi-casefile.  

Thanks to our families and friends who tried to understand
as we spent a month writing like crazy.  And this story most
definitely would not be here without the moral support and
good humor of our darling friends in the root cellar. <g>

Dasha would also like to thank Michaela for some special
support when it was definitely needed.  You're better than a
therapist, baby!

If you enjoyed this story, how about dropping us a line?

dashak@aol.com and pdeniabililty@hotmail.com

Thanks for spending time with this story,

Dasha K. and Plausible Deniability

August, 1999