By Sarah Stegall
munchkyn@munchkyn.com
 

The following is a work of FICTION (take note, lawyer scum).
It is based on characters copyrighted by Fox Broadcasting
and Ten Thirteen Productions.  All other mistakes are
my own entirely.

~~~

     "Mulder, you there?" the radio squawked.
     FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder jerked upright, then
winced as his stiff muscles protested.  He reached for the
walkie-talkie on the dashboard of his car.
     "Yeah, Wallace, I'm here.  What's up?"  He peered
through the windshield at the night.  Nothing but fog in
every direction.  He couldn't even see the house he and
Scully were supposed to be watching.
     "Cuevas called.  He and Jurgen will be here in a couple
of minutes.  I'm sending Sharp and Franklin to relieve you.
Go on home."
     "What, and miss the fun?" Mulder said sarcastically.
     "Nuts.  Borger is gonna stay holed up forever.  In any
case, you done your ten hours.  Go home."
     "Thanks.  Mulder out."
     "See you tomorrow.  Wallace out."  The radio cracked
briefly before Mulder turned it off.  He checked his watch;
it was after midnight.  He turned to his companion in the
front seat.
     FBI Special Agent Dana Scully was asleep in the
passenger's seat, slumped against the rolled-up window with
her head on her crumpled coat.  In the faint light from the
streetlight, her red hair looked black.  Her lashes lay
evenly along her smooth cheek.  Her mouth was relaxed in
sleep, and looked warm and generous.  Mulder resisted the
temptation to smooth that lock of hair back from her cheek,
to lean into that mouth so inviting...
     No, definitely couldn't do that.  He'd been able to
hide his feelings for Scully from her pretty well. There was
no point in blowing his cover now just because he was tired.
It had been a very long, boring day.  He hated stakeouts.
     He gathered up the trash in the front seat between
them: foam coffee cups, wadded up napkins, hamburger
wrappings.  One of the hamburgers remained; thriftily, he
put it in his pocket to eat later.  Mulder wondered, not for
the first time, whether FBI agents weren't the most
malnourished bunch on the face of the planet.
     He turned to toss the trash into the back seat and came
face to face with Dana, blinking like an owl.
     "Hey, wait!  Those are my lemon drops!" she snagged a
small plastic bag from his trash pile.  "How long have I
been asleep?"
     "An hour or so.  It's okay.  Wallace just radioed and
told us to go home.  He's got the relief set up."
     She yawned and stretched.  "I take it you haven't had
any sleep at all?"
     "What, sleep on duty?"  he mocked.  "Dana, I'm hurt."
     She aimed a lazy punch at him and smiled when he
ducked.  "I'll drive.  I'm fresh and it's at least a ninety
minute drive.  You catch a nap and I'll drop you off at your
place."
     He struggled with his pride for a moment, and then his
better judgment won.  He opened the door and slid out into
the chilly night.  Scully was already climbing out on her
side.
     "Okay," he said. "But I drive tomorr--"
     Two things happened at once.  An enormous weight came
down on him, crushing the breath out of his lungs.  And he
heard wind chimes.

     Dana Scully woke chilled to the bone, lying on her side
in pitch blackness.   She moved her arms and legs, relieved
to find that she was not tied in any way.  The surface she
lay on was cold;  it had a slight give to it like an
overfilled waterbed.  An acrid ammonia smell reeked in her
nose, making her eyes water.  Cautiously she raised herself
to a sitting position--and immediately flopped back down
again as a terrific pain slammed between her eyes.
     It felt like someone had her head in a vise and was
racheting it down.  She clutched her head in both hands and
groaned.
     A groan answered her.
     She jumped, despite the headache, and crawled away from
the sound.  She held her breath, listening intently. She
heard, very faintly, noises in the dark.  How far away were
they?
     Where was she?  How had she gotten here? She took a
mental inventory and decided she was unhurt.
     But who or what else was here with her in the dark?
     The groan came again, and now Dana sighed silently with
relief.  It was definitely human, and sounded hurt.  It was
also about twenty feet away, if her night hearing was any
good.  Cautiously, she slid along the floor, listening.
After a few feet she could hear harsh, ragged breathing
ahead of her.  Dana froze.  There came another groan, and
with it, recognition.
     "Mulder?" she whispered.
     A groan. "Scully?"  came a faint whimper. "Oh, God, my
head.  Scully, is that you?"
     "I'm here.  Are you all right?"
     Faint stirrings in the dark.  "Yeah, I'm OK.  Are you
hurt?"
     "My head hurts like hell, but no, I'm not hurt."
     Dana slid her hand carefully along the floor, feeling
her way in front of her.  So alert was she for indications
of a trap that it was a shock to suddenly find her hand on
something warm and firm and yielding.
     "Scully?"
     She patted his hand.  "It's me."
     "Where are we?"
     She could hear his voice, an arm's length away.  She
was glad to hear him, know her partner was near.  She didn't
want to admit to the fear she was feeling.
     "I don't know."
     "What's the last thing you remember?"
     She thought back.  "I was getting out of the car to
trade places with you.  There was...I don't know.  A sound.
Then nothing. That's all I remember before waking up on the
floor."
     "I was getting out of the car.  It felt like an
elephant fell out of the sky on me.  And yeah, there was a
sound of some kind.  Like breaking glass. Or wind chimes."
     "Yes," she said, surprised.  "That's right.  That's
what it sounded like.  But it was a foggy night, no wind."
     "Have you explored any?"
     "No.  I was sitting and holding my head when I heard
you.  I'm not sure we should move around unless we have some
light."
     Mulder sighed again, sounding very tired.  "It would be
better if we could figure out where we were.  Then maybe we
can figure out how we got here."
     "Okay.  Where are you?" she said.
     A hand smacked against her head, sending blazing stars
through her vision.  The hand steadied, felt her face, then
moved downward.  A thrill went through her when his hand
rested on her shoulder.
     "Sorry.  You okay, Dana?" Mulder's voice was close to
her ear.
     She opened her mouth to tell him  she was fine, and
then realized it wasn't true.  "I'm scared, Mulder," she
breathed.  It was true, more true than she wanted to admit
to herself.
     "Me, too.  But we have to use our heads.  You've been
cold before, and in the dark.  So let's go on from there and
start figuring this out." His hand moved down her arm to her
hand and squeezed.
     She nodded, though she knew he could not see her.  A
detached part of her noticed that she could smell Mulder--a
mixture of warm skin, soap, and a faint undertone of
hamburger from lunch.  He kept hold of her;  they sat in the
dark for a while, close enough to hear one another breathe,
but not touching.
     "What time is it?" he asked.  "My watch light doesn't
work."
     A brief silence.  "Mine doesn't either," said Dana.
"It must have broken. Mulder, I still have my gun!  How
about you?"
     After a moment, he said, "Yeah.  Why would anyone take
us hostage and leave us armed?"
     "I don't know," she replied.  "Maybe we're not
hostages."
     "Well, I didn't come here on my own, did you?  And if
someone brought us here, that's kidnapping at least.  Do you
have your purse?"
     "No.  It was in the front seat of the car."
     "I think we'd better have a look around," he said.
     "I think it might be better to crawl." she said.  "We
might walk into some low-hanging ceiling or something
otherwise.  Also, we can feel the floor ahead of us to see
if there are stairs or openings or something."
     "We don't have any way to mark our trail," he said
thoughtfully.
     "We could use some of our clothes."  said Dana.   "I'll
take off my shoes.  When I've gone twenty steps or so, we
can leave another shoe."
     "Okay.  But let's not shed too much clothing.  It's
freezing in here."
     "The walls can't be that far away."
     But so far as they could tell, there were no walls at
all.  It became obvious after the first few minutes that
they had no way to keep oriented; they might be crawling in
circles or going straight ahead.  There was no way to tell.
They didn't come to a door, a wall, anything.  Nor did they
cross their tracks, so far as they could tell; they did not
encounter any of the shoes, Mulder's tie, or anything else
they left to mark their path.  It was as though they crawled
across a vast, frozen plain, locked in the belly of night.
Finally, exhausted, they stopped, sitting close in the
darkness.
     "Dammit!"  Mulder's voice was tight with frustration.
"I don't know whether we've gone ten feet or ten miles.  My
knees hurt and I'm cold."
     Dana let go of Mulder's ankle.  "It's hopeless."
     She felt him brush against her; the mildly resilient
surface they were on gave with his weight as he shifted
beside her.  Her hand groped for his and found it. She
shivered slightly and he stroked her hand.
     "Scared?"  he said softly.
     "Cold, mostly," she said.
     "We'd both be warmer if we sat closer," Mulder
suggested.
     "Well..."  Dana said, hesitating.
     She heard the smile in his voice.  "Don't worry.  I'll
be a perfect gentleman."
     "I never thought otherwise!" she exclaimed, pulling
back.
     Mulder chuckled.  "Then you have a better opinion of me
than I have of myself.  Come here, Scully."
     His arm curved around her shoulder, pulling her against
his chest.  She resisted at first, but then sighed and
relaxed against him.  He opened his overcoat and wrapped it
around them both; it wouldn't stretch that far, but it held
their warmth better than nothing.
     He was warm, no doubt about it, she decided.  She felt
safe and comfortable next to him.  It gave her a peculiar
feeling.  Part of her wanted to snuggle, to burrow against
him, put her arms around him...and another, cooler part of
her warned against it.  They were, after all, on duty.  And
anyway, this was Mulder, her partner.  Snuggling with
someone she worked with every day would be bad policy.
     Mulder yawned.  He was so tired.  It had been a long
night on stakeout, and he'd been looking forward to getting
some sleep. Now this.  But his mind whirled, working at top
speed despite his weariness.
     "What the hell happened?"  he murmured.  "Did Borger
have closer ties to the Mafia than we thought?"
     Dana shifted against him.  "I don't know.  Do you think
he hired men to snatch us?  But that's not  how the mob
works. "
     "You're right," Mulder agreed.  "They'd more likely
have simply shot us."  At the thought, his arms tightened
involuntarily around the woman in his arms.
     "But why--" Dana began, but her stomach gave a sudden
lurch.  Mulder wobbled and she fell sideways.
     But she didn't strike the floor--she struck nothing at
all.  Panic shocked through her like a dash of icy water as
she realized she was falling, falling...then a strong hand
gripped hers and she realized she was screaming.
     "Dana! Dana, hang onto me!  Here, hold my hand!"
     Mulder's hand gripped hers tightly, but still she was
falling, whimpering...
     "Fox! We're falling!"
     "No!"  Mulder was yelling in her ear.  "Zero gravity!
Scully, we're in free fall!  Try not to move!"
     It was hard to concentrate on his voice through the
primitive terror she was feeling.  Her body knew, with the
certainty of millions of years of evolution, that she was
falling, and she fought wave after wave of panic.
     "Help me, Fox!"
     He struggled with her, groping in the dark for her
arms.  He could feel her windmilling in his arms, their
motions moving them through space, further from the floor
and whatever security that would give them.
     "Stop it, Dana!  Be still, you'll--"
     "Fox!"
     Her voice was high-pitched, terrified.  He had never
heard such fear in her voice.  He had no means to stop her
rising hysteria, save one.
     Grabbing her shoulders, Fox Mulder pulled his partner
to him and kissed her soundly.
     He had meant to shock her, and he did.  He felt the
surprise go through her like a jolt of electricity.  She
tensed in outrage, her lips stiff.  But then, astonishingly,
she relaxed into the kiss, her lips becoming warm and soft
under his.  Now the shock went through him and his body
reacted with two million years of male imperative behind it.
He slid his arm around her waist, slid his hand up behind
her head and kissed her deeply, thoroughly, passionately.
He felt her body respond to him, her breath coming short.
It went on and on, far past the point where Dana's panic
subsided.
     After a long time, he pulled his mouth away
reluctantly.  There was a prolonged, wondering silence
between them in the dark.  Whether it was the effect of
weightlessness or the kiss, Mulder felt himself getting
lightheaded.  He wasn't sure he had done the right thing--
but he was extremely glad he had done it.  He cleared his
throat.
     "Well," he said hoarsely.  "It was either that or slap
you, and I didn't want to hurt you."
     "Th-thanks.  I think," she said.
     There didn't seem to be anything to say, so he didn't
say anything.  But he didn't let go of her.
     "Mulder, what--what's happening?  How can we be
weightless?"
     "I don't know."
     "I mean, is this possible?  Physically?"
     "Sure.  Astronauts used to do it all the time.  But I
don't know how you can achieve free fall on Earth for this
long."
     She was trembling, and she hadn't let go of him yet.
"Mulder, isn't it possible to become weightless in an
aircraft?"
     He forced himself to ignore her softness in his arms.
"Yes, in a jet cruising at high speed, and only for a short
time.  NASA used the technique for astronaut training.
They'd take someone up, do a steep dive, and they'd float
off the floor for a few seconds.  But never for this long."
     "Th--then maybe we aren't--aren't on Earth?"
     He could hear the tremor in her voice more strongly
now.  He fought to keep a similar one out of his voice.
     "I think you're right, Dana.  I can't imagine any
technology that could do this.  I think...I think we're in a
space craft."
     "One of...ours?"
     He felt the shiver that went through her.  "I don't
know, Scully. I don't know."
     She was silent a moment; he could feel her head against
his chest.  "I'm sorry for...for losing my cool," she said
softly. "It's just..."
     "It's all right.  I'm a little shook up myself." Mulder
patted her awkwardly. "I'm here, Scully.  I won't let go."
     "I hate this," she said abruptly.  "I want to feel the
floor under me again!"
     She was right, he thought.  Whatever else their captors
had in mind, if they were suspended here in mid-air very
long, they would starve.  For the sake of their sanity they
had to reach a floor or a wall.
     "Look," he said.  "We might be able to get out of this.
We could swim."
     "Swim?"
     "Sure.  For every action--" he swung his legs slowly
toward her.  "There is an equal and opposite reaction.  If
you stay still, I can use your body to push against, and the
reaction should move us toward a wall or a floor."
     "What can I do?"
     "Nothing,"  he said, moving his grip on her.  "Except
make sure we stay joined somehow.  I'm going to use your
body as dead weight; the mass should be enough to force a
reaction towards the floor."
     "How will you know what direction you're heading?"
     "I won't.  We'll just have to hope."  As he spoke, he
was lifting her, hoping the movement was enough to push them
towards the floor.  Her skirt brushed his face.
     It was very hard work.  After a few minutes, he was
sweating freely, not from Dana's weight (which was
nonexistent) but from the effort.  He felt as though he were
swimming through taffy, and silently cursed the darkness.
He was about to give up, when one of his flailing feet
struck something.
     "Here it is!" he said.
     "Where?  I can't feel anything."
     Holding tightly to one of her arms, Mulder let go with
the other and felt carefully below his knees.  There!  His
fingers brushed against something cool and solid.  It had
the same light, springy resilience of the surface they'd
been on earlier.
     Gently, he pushed some more, and felt the surface
pressing up against him.  With infinite slowness, he pulled
Scully closer to him.
     "Here, reach out very slowly.  You can touch the
surface," he said, guiding her hand.  A breathed a deep
breath of relief when she felt the surface.  He loosened his
grip on her, preparing to let her go, but she clutched him,
bouncing them gently upward again.
     "Don't do that!" he said.
     "Don't...don't let go of me!"
     "All right.  Just relax.  If you make any sudden moves,
we might--"
     Light exploded in his face.  The searing flash sent
pain lancing through his head as he squeezed his eyes tight.
Even through his clamped eyelids, the light burned.
     "Ow!" Dana cried.
     At the same moment, their weight returned suddenly and
completely.  Dana Scully fell against him, flattening him
under her weight.  Her elbow dug into his abdomen, but he
said nothing, automatically rolling over until she was
underneath him, protecting her from the searing light.
     "Oof! Mulder, get off me!"
     "Wait, there might--"
     A brief struggle ensued, at the end of which they sat
side by side, rumpled and exhausted, squinting at each
other.
     "Looks like someone turned on the light," he ventured
after a moment.  Holding his hand up to shield his eyes, he
looked around the room.
     The chamber -- he couldn't call it a room -- they were
in appeared to be an oval made of smoked glass:  glass
walls, ceiling, and floor.  It was hard to estimate size
without clearly marked walls and floors, but he estimated
its dimensions at ninety feet square.  The walls were
transparent but he could make no sense of what he saw behind
them.  He felt like they were in a glass box inside a nest
of glass boxes, with the dark reflections canceling one
another out until the other side of the wall was only half-
lit shadow and gloom.    The ceiling appeared to glow
uniformly with a faint light like candlelight.  Although not
bright, after hours in pitch blackness their eyes took time
to adjust to it.
     There was no door, no opening of any kind.  The chamber
was as slick and seamless as ice, and nearly as cold.
     "Mulder," Dana exclaimed.  "Oh, God!  Mulder, there is
no place like this on Earth!"
     He turned to look into her wide, blue eyes.  The fear
there cut his heart.  "No," he said slowly.  "No, I don't
think there is."
     Her hand clutched his convulsively, and he held it
tight.  Her face was turned up to his, tear-streaked and
disheveled.  Her blue eyes looked frightened.  Anachronistic
as it was, the impulse to hold her, protect her, shelter her
was overwhelming.  She was a liberated woman, he told
himself.  She can take care of herself.  The amber light
burnished her copper hair and lent a glow to her fair skin.
God, how he wanted to kiss her again.
     He swallowed and smiled down at her.  "Feel better?"
     She smiled back at him.  "A little."
     She looked away, across the chamber floor.  Suddenly
she frowned.
     "Our shoes!"
     He looked where she pointed, but saw nothing.  "Where?"
     "That's just it," she said.  "Where are all the shoes
we left to mark our trail?"
     They were gone.  In the empty chamber, the shoes and
tie and all the other objects of clothing should have stood
out like chessmen on a table, but the room was empty.
     Mulder suppressed a shiver.  Where could they have
gone?  Had there been someone else in the chamber with them,
in the dark?  Was there some secret door, some hidden
passage?  Or was some totally alien technology at work here?
     "Well, at least we're rid of your tie," Dana said
shakily.
     "What's wrong with my tie?"
     Her smile was wobbly, but it was there.  "You've got to
be kidding, Mulder.  The first few weeks I worked with you,
I thought you were colorblind."
     "I like that tie!"
     "I guess somebody has to.  But you are definitely among
the fashion impaired."
     He smiled at her.  "Hey, I'm a crackpot, remember?  I
have to dress the part."
     She raised an eyebrow.
     "Look, maybe we should check out the walls again," he
said.  "It may be there's some kind of concealed passage,
maybe some opening we can't see."
     He could see Dana was tired, but she got gamely to her
feet and reached a hand down to him.  "It's worth a try,"
she said.
     He stood, but didn't let go her hand.  He held it in
both of his,  shy but unwilling to release her.  "Let's not
get separated," he said.  "We'd better stick together,
okay?"
     She nodded.  "We can leave my watch here to mark our
starting point."
     Walking slowly, feeling every inch they could reach, it
took them a little over an hour to circle the room.  It was
slow going.  The walls were not uniformly textured; now and
then there seemed to be shadows embedded in them, as though
the walls were thick yielding plastic with inclusions.
Mulder pushed against them with all his strength, struck
blow after blow, but the walls and floor remained smooth,
strong, and seamless.  The ceiling was twenty feet or more
above their heads; neither of them could make out any light
source.  It merely glowed with a soft amber light, very much
like candlelight.  Neither of them mentioned the fact that
they held hands throughout the entire exploration, but
neither of them let go.
     "Mulder, we've been walking over an hour," said Dana
finally.  "I'm sure we've gone clear around this room at
least once.  Why haven't we come to my watch?"
     Mulder looked startled.  "You're right.  We should have
come to it long ago."
     "Maybe we missed it."
     Quickly, they walked all the way around the room, but
her watch was not to be found.   A cold chill went over
Mulder.
     "It's not here," he said finally.  "I don't know how,
but it's disappeared."
     "Along with the shoes, the tie, and everything," said
Dana flatly.
     "If we go on like this, we're going to be stark naked
pretty soon," said Mulder.  He caught Dana's look and
flushed.  "Sorry.  Bad joke."
     Dana sighed, leaning back against the wall.  "I'm
tired.  Let's sit down for a while."
     He obliged, and she slid down the wall.  They sat side
by side for a while, not speaking.  It was very silent,
thought Mulder.  He could almost hear his heart beating.
     In fact, he could hear his heart beating.
     Now it is a fact that no one's heart beats loudly
enough to be heard by someone else without a stethoscope,
and when this dawned on Mulder he sat up straight.
     "Scully, what do you hear?"
     Half-asleep, Dana blinked and straightened, too.
"What?  I don't hear anything."
     "Are you sure?  Do you hear a heartbeat?"
     "Sure.  Like everyone, I hear the pulse in my eardrums
if it's quiet enough."
     "No, I mean outside yourself.  Take your pulse and see
if it's the same."
     It wasn't.  "I don't understand," said Dana, puzzled.
"I hear a heartbeat, faintly, as if it were my own.  But
it's not mine."
     She grabbed Mulder's wrist.  "It's not yours, either.
It's like--"
     She stopped and looked at him, white-faced.
     "Yes," he agreed.  "It's like we're hearing someone
else's heartbeat."
     "Like...like we're inside someone's...body..." she
whispered.
     Dana suddenly felt her gorge rise.  She flinched away
from the wall, suddenly afraid of its fleshy resilience.
"Oh, my God!"
     Mulder had never really believed anyone could die of
fright, but now he wasn't so sure.  His hair was surely
standing on end as he heard the faint and unearthly beat.
It pulsed just above the threshold of hearing, so indistinct
as to be barely audible, but it was there.  It was alive.
He put his hand flat against the wall, feeling for a pulse,
but felt nothing.  It was as cool and glassy and elastic as
ever, nothing like flesh.  But that heartbeat...
     He turned at a hiccuping sound and saw Dana fighting
for self control.  Where on Earth--or off it--were they?
What the hell was happening?  It was like a nightmare he
couldn't wake up from.
     "Jesus,"  he whispered.  Instinctively, they stepped
closer to one another, alert for any change in the walls or
floor.
     Dana's arm brushed his and something crackled in his
coat pocket.  She jumped.
     "It's okay," he said.  "It's just my hamburger."
     "Hamburger?"
     He pulled it out, and the smell of grease and pickles
filled their nostrils.  "Yeah.  I put it in my pocket just
before I got out of the car."
     "Always thinking of your stomach, Mulder," said Dana
with a crooked smile.
     He tried to put the hamburger back in his pocket, but
his hand was shaking so hard he dropped it.  He let it lie.
     "So far nothing's hurt us," Mulder said.  "Maybe we're
not in such bad shape.  Could be they're just curious about
us.  Let's put our heads together and come up with a plan,
hey?  You're good at plans," he smiled.
     She closed her eyes.  "I'm so tired.  I can't think.
How long have we been here?" asked Dana thoughtfully.
"Hours?  A day?"
     "It couldn't be that long," Mulder replied, rubbing his
chin.  "I'd need more of a shave if we'd been here a whole
day."
     "But how long were we unconscious?"
     "I don't--"
     Dana gave a gasp and jumped back, staring at the floor.
"Mulder, look!"
     He looked and stepped back quickly.  The hamburger he
had dropped was disappearing into the floor.  As they
watched, it sank slowly out of sight, as though the floor
beneath it had liquefied.  A dimple remained in the floor
for a few minutes, and then the floor was smooth once more.
Gingerly, Mulder tested it with his foot; it was springy and
elastic as ever.
     He turned on his heel and was quietly, thoroughly sick.
As his stomach heaved in agony, he felt a cool touch on the
back of his neck.   He waved Dana weakly away, but she
ignored him, holding his head until he was done.  Then she
led him several yards away and sat him down.
     He heard a rustling sound and then, "Here, this will
help the taste," she said, handing him a lemon drop.  She
put the bag in his other hand.
     He took it without looking at her, face flushed with
shame.  Her hand remained on his shoulder, calm and
comforting.  "Sorry," he mumbled.
     "I think you need some rest, Mulder," she said.  "I'll
be all right, but you're at your limit.  I'm beat, but you
must be even more tired.  I slept in the car, you didn't.
How long has it been since you had any sleep?"
     He rubbed his eyes with one hand.  "I don't know.  I
got up at six this morning...or  yesterday morning, by
now..."
     "Hush," she said firmly.  "Lie down.  I'll wake you if
anything...new happens."
     "But you--"
     She placed a hand on his lips and he paused at her
touch.  "Doctor's orders," she said.  "Lie down."
     "I'm afraid to touch the floor," he said hoarsely.
"What if it...swallows me the way it did the hamburger?"
     "Lie on your coat," she suggested practically.  "I'll
keep one hand on the floor next to you, and if anything
starts to change I'll wake you."
     They spread the overcoat out as far as it would go, and
Mulder lay down cautiously on one half of it.  After a
moment, Dana knelt on the other half.  They were quiet a
long time.
     "I don't know what's going to happen, Dana," Mulder
said quietly.   "I don't know where we are or why or how
we're going to get...home.  But I'm damned glad you're here
with me." He closed his eyes and was asleep in a few
minutes.
     Dana sat for a long time, warily watching over the
empty room.  Nothing moved, nothing changed, and the floor
beneath them showed no sign of dissolving under them.  After
what seemed like hours, she took a deep breath and relaxed
slightly, allowing herself to lean against the wall.
     She was ashamed of herself for losing control so
completely.  She was a trained agent--why couldn't she
remain as cool as Mulder?  While she had never experienced
free fall--and could hardly believe it now--she was supposed
to handle surprises better than that.  Maybe it was simply
the primitive fear of falling, the most basic human dread,
she told herself.  Still, she wished it hadn't happened.
She was especially embarrassed that it had happened in front
of her partner.
     Which thought led directly to his kiss.
     Objectively, it made better sense than slapping her,
and was a lot more humane.  But the truth was it disturbed
her.  She remembered vividly the feel of his mouth on hers,
the taste of him, the smell of his hair and his wool
overcoat, and the sudden and dramatic reaction of her body
to him.  She had been taken completely off guard, and she
didn't like that.  She didn't like what it told her about
her feelings toward her partner.
     It was hard enough to be a woman in law enforcement
these days, fighting prejudice at every turn.  It was harder
when your partner, although brilliant, had a reputation for
eccentricity.  Among the conservative community that was the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, Fox Mulder fit in like a
clown at a funeral.  And the scorn that he was held in
reflected on her.  More than once she had wondered whether
sticking with Fox Mulder was a good career move.  But she
had never seriously considered a transfer.
     A gentle snore rose from the floor beside her, and she
looked down.  Fox Mulder was relaxed in sleep, his wide,
generous mouth slightly open.  His dark lashes lay along the
high cheekbones; why, she thought irrationally, was it
always the men who had great eyelashes?  She gazed at the
long, straight nose, the unkempt dark hair .  A faint shadow
covered his cheeks; time for a shave, she thought. Dana
smiled and put her hand on his sleeve.  He moved slightly in
his sleep.
     She wasn't sure exactly when the feeling began, but
sometime later Dana Scully became aware that she was being
watched.  It wasn't a feeling she could put a name to, but
it was unmistakable.  It had never led her wrong.  She
looked carefully around the chamber, but saw nothing.  The
walls, as usual, were murky and full of shadows.  She had
just about decided that she was imagining things, when one
of the shadows moved.
     Holding her breath, she peered across the way.  There
was a vague rippling motion, almost too modest to be seen,
but it was real.  It moved to her right, in a direction that
would bring it closer to her and her partner.  Without
taking her eyes from it, she placed a hand over Fox Mulder's
mouth.
     He came awake instantly, but lay still.  As soon as she
knew he was awake, she pointed to the shadow.  Mulder lay
prone but turned his head to look.
     The shadow ghosted their way, moving as slowly as the
hands of a clock.  It changed shape constantly, with a
liquid silhouette that held no distinct form.
     "What is it?" whispered Dana.
     "I don't know.  Maybe it's what took us?"  Fox Mulder
barely moved his lips.  "I can't reach my gun.  How about
you?"
     Slowly, Dana reached behind her to slip the gun out of
her waist holster.  "Got it."
     "Don't do anything rash," he whispered.  "But be ready
for anything."
     "I am," she said with determination.  This time she
would not make a fool of herself.
     The creature drifted closer; now the curvature of the
wall made it hard to see.  If they remained where they were,
they would be unable to see it when it came up behind them.
Without discussion, both agents began sliding cautiously
away from the wall and out into the center of the chamber,
keeping their eyes on the shadow all the time.
     "Do you think it can see us?" asked Dana.
      "I'm sure of it," murmured her partner.  He had sat up
and now carefully slid his own gun out of its shoulder
holster.  She heard the soft click of the safety.
     "Scully, move out to my left," said Mulder.  "We're too
good a target this close together."
     Obediently, she stepped to the left, her gun trained on
the shadow now directly in front of them, about ten feet
away (she guessed) through the wall.
     It was only a dark, semi-transparent blob.  She could
see no mouth, no eyes, no features of any kind.  What was
it?  More importantly, what did it want?  Could she shoot
it?  And where should she aim?
     She felt a sudden numbness in her legs.  "Mulder, I--"
     She heard the faint sound of wind chimes, and
everything went gray.

     Mulder spun just in time to see his partner fade in
front of his eyes like a hallucination.
     "Dana!"
     He lunged for her but there was nothing but empty air
where she had been.
     He whirled to face the shadow on the other side of the
wall.
     "Bring her back!  Dammit, don't hurt her!"
     The shadow remained motionless.
     Mulder steadied one hand with the other in approved
Academy fashion and took aim at its center.  With something
like a prayer, he squeezed the trigger.  The shot was
deafening in the enclosed space, but he could not see that
it had any effect.  Cordite burned his nose, and when he
stepped closer to the wall, he could see a faint indentation
in the wall.
     And inside the wall, trapped like a fly in amber, was
the bullet.
     "Jesus Christ!" he said under his breath.
     On the other side of the wall, unmoved, the dim shape
remained.

     Dana woke in a narrow pink chamber.  Her entire body
was immobilized; strain as she might, she could not move so
much as a finger.  Only her eyes and tongue worked.  She
tested each muscle group separately, to no avail.  Whether
she was held in remarkably effective restraints or was
paralyzed by drugs, she was helpless.  She looked carefully
at her surroundings but they told her nothing:  pink,
slightly transparent walls, diffuse overhead lighting, a
smell of candle wax (or grease?).  She could hear nothing,
and could make no sound, but she believed she was alone.
     Where was Mulder?  Where, for that matter, was she?
Who could have done this?  She closed her eyes.  She was
tired, so tired.  She was a trained agent, but nothing
Quantico had taught her had prepared her for the bizarre
circumstances she found herself in.  Try as she might to
deny it, the conviction grew in her that this was no
ordinary kidnapping.  She had not hallucinated or imagined
zero gravity.  Where on Earth could she be rendered
weightless in a moment?  Nowhere.
     Dana Scully had worked with Fox Mulder long enough to
know what his conclusions would be.  She desperately wished
he was here, that she could talk to him, hear that fine mind
go to work on their situation.  This time, she would not
think him crazy, no matter what theory he came up with.  She
remembered the feel of his hand, anchoring her sanity when
she floated up off the floor of that room...
     Suddenly there was a sound of wind chimes, and the room
darkened.  Dana's heart began to pound.  The light did not
disappear completely, but it was so low she could barely
see.  Her heart leaped as a shadowy form appeared just below
her range of vision, about where her feet would be.  There
was a tingling in her left foot, and a sensation of warmth.
     She tried to wet her lips, to ask a question, but her
tongue barely moved in her mouth.  She strained in the semi-
darkness to see who--or what--was standing (sitting?
floating?) near her feet.  The smell of candle wax grew
stronger.  So did the tingling in her feet.
     Nerve induction, she thought suddenly.  The feet
contained nerve endings that ran through the entire body,
from the brain to the sole of the foot.  Any being examining
a human might look first to the nervous system, a detached
part of her mind told her.
     Suddenly pain shot through her entire left leg; had she
not been paralyzed, she would have screamed.  Her eyes
squeezed shut as stars shot past her eyes.  She choked,
feeling strangled as her heart speeded up but her breathing
remained even.  Partial paralysis of the voluntary muscles,
she thought as the pain receded.  She could not scream,
therefore she could not pant and gain more oxygen for her
laboring heart.  If that happens again, she thought grimly,
I will pass out from lack of oxygen.  Or die.
     Fearfully, she felt warmth and tingling in her other
foot.
     Oh, God, she thought helplessly.  Not again...

     Fox Mulder sat hunched on the floor, holding Dana
Scully's bag of lemon drops clutched in his hand.
     Anguish filled him:  he had let Dana down.  He had been
completely helpless to stop the aliens--he was sure they
were aliens--from taking her away from him.  What were they
doing to her?  Was she dead?  Would they hurt her?  Would he
ever see her again?  His heart ached and his throat felt
choked.  He no longer looked at the shadow beyond the wall,
no longer cared whether it was there or not.
     All that mattered was that Dana was gone and he didn't
know where she was.
     I'm in an X-file myself, now, he thought to himself.
Me and Dana.  Who had taken them?  Why?  Worst of all, what
had happened to Dana?
     He remembered his sister's cries, begging him to help
her as he lay paralyzed, not understanding, on the night she
disappeared from their bedroom.  He had always known she'd
been abducted by unearthly forces, always hoped he could
find her some day.  But he had never expected to become an
abductee.
     Had they--whoever or whatever they were--taken him and
Dana because of their investigations into X-file incidents?
Were he and his partner getting too close?  A chill went
down his back.  What were they doing to Dana?  The thought
of her, scared and alone and hurt somewhere, twisted in him
like a knife in his guts.
     Mulder was hungry.  In this place there was no way to
count the passage of time, but he knew it must have been
hours since they woke here.  His stomach growled, reminding
him that his body's clock was still set to Virginia time; it
was probably at least morning outside.  Or back on Earth.
Mulder wondered if he and Dana had been missed yet.  Was the
Bureau looking for them?  He had little hope that the FBI,
which for years had looked askance at his work, would take
it seriously enough now to go through his X-files in an
attempt to find them.  Hell, he wouldn't know where to look,
himself.
     He heard wind chimes.
     Whirling, he looked eagerly around the chamber.  On the
opposite side of the room, the floor slowly bulged upward in
a semitranslucent lump; within it was a shadow about six
inches across.  Over the next few minutes, the top layer
thinned, and it dawned on Mulder that he was watched some
object travel upward through the floor like a grape being
pushed through gelatin.  Finally the surface of the floor
thinned and broke open and the object lay whole on the
smooth floor.  When he picked it up, he gawked in sheer
disbelief, and then began to laugh.
     "A hamburger?"
     Holding the neatly wrapped hamburger in his hand,
laughing wildly, he sat down on the floor.  The wrappings,
he noticed, were from Ned's Hamburger Stop, where he and
Scully had picked up their last meal before settling down to
the stakeout.  Laughter turned to hiccuping, and then, a
little calmer, he unwrapped the hamburger.  The rich smell
of hamburger grease and ketchup started his stomach growling
again.  It felt like a lifetime ago.  God, he was hungry.
     So now he knew something about the chamber they were
in; objects could be transported through the wall.  Maybe,
he thought, he had better stop thinking of it as a wall, as
though it were solid.  Maybe it was more like a membrane or
a force field.  Whatever it was, it was strong enough to
stop a bullet.  Hell, it was strong enough to catch a
bullet.
     He bit into the hamburger, savoring the juiciness of
it.  It tasted perfect.  Some part of him relaxed a little
at its familiar taste, and the unacknowledged fear in the
back of his mind--that their captors would starve them to
death--receded a little.  But hungry as he was, he did not
finish the hamburger.  Somehow, sometime he would find Dana.
And she would be hungry.  He wrapped up half of the
hamburger.  Then he curled up on his overcoat and slept
again.

     Something in the room had changed.  Mulder snapped
awake.  "Dana!"
     There was a whimpering sound on the opposite side of
the space; he could see a hunched form.  Heart beating fast,
he skidded across the room and fell to his knees.
     "Dana!"
     She was lying on her side, facing away from him.  And
as far as he could tell, she was stark naked.  Her skin was
flushed and mottled in strange patterns; his heart clenched
in him like a fist at the sight.  He touched her shoulder
gently.
     "Don't touch me!"  She flinched away.  "Go away!"
     "Dana, are you hurt?  Did they hurt you?"
     "Yes!  Now leave me alone!"
     "No, I won't leave you alone.  My God, Dana, what did
they do?  Can I help?  Are you...bleeding anywhere?"
     "No.  No, I don't think s-so.  P-please leave me
alone," she sobbed into her hands, drawing up her knees
until she lay in the fetal position.
     Mulder ran back for his overcoat and knelt by her
again, looking her over carefully.  He could see no bruises
or cuts on her fine, milky skin; he noted distantly that the
nape of her neck was smooth and silky, that her waist sloped
deliciously to her round, exquisite bottom.  Something
stirred deep inside him, but he buried it ruthlessly as he
spread the coat gently over her shaking torso.
     "Please," he said gently.  "Let me help you, Dana."
      He lay down beside her and put one arm around her
shuddering body.  His heart ached in him and he pulled her
tightly to him.  She tensed, and then suddenly rolled over
to him and buried her face in his chest, sobbing.
     "Oh, God, Mulder, it hurt!"
     He ground his teeth even as he wrapped his arms around
her.  Fury surged through him.  If he ever got his hands on
one of them....
     But she needed comfort now, not anger.  He stroked her
soft coppery hair and pulled her head against his shoulder.
     "I'm sorry, Dana," he said.  "I'm sorry I wasn't able
to help you.  Sorry I couldn't stop them.  Oh, God, I'm
sorry."
     "They--they were doing some kind of--of test on me.  I
think it was a neurological exam.  They kept shooting jolts
of pain along my neural a-axes.  It was like--like nerve
induction.  It was horrible!" she wailed.  "Oh, God, I
completely fell apart!  I couldn't move, I could hardly
breathe, I--I would have screamed if I could but I couldn't!
Oh, God!"
     Her sobs increased and he felt her body pliant against
him.  Anguished, he heard the rising hysteria in her voice.
He was achingly, keenly aware that he was holding a naked
Dana Scully in his arms.  He wanted to comfort her, soothe
her.  But he also wanted something else.  He was staggered
at the rush of blood to his head, the desire that flamed
through him.  His whole body melted towards her with the
force of his longing; his cock leaped into iron rigidity.
It took all his will not to allow his hands to roam down her
back, to lift the overcoat and feel her warm skin, her
breasts, her hip under his hand.  His heart pounded like a
wild thing in his chest.
     Dana rolled abruptly away from him, her mind in a
whirl.  So much had happened in the past hours.  She felt
she was coming apart, flying asunder in a shower of Dana-
fragments.  Pain, exhaustion, fear all warred within her,
draining her of her will to go on.  She didn't care that
Mulder was her partner, officially off-limits to her.  Right
now she needed reassurance and a friend to lean on.  To hell
with protocol, she thought, and turned back to him.
     But Mulder was gone.

     It was very, very quiet.  The light in this chamber was
even lower than the light in the other, thought Mulder.  It
was so dim he could barely see, but he thought the walls of
this room were semi-transparent, like the other.  He tried
to move his arms and legs, but he was held fast by invisible
bonds.
     One moment he had been with Dana Scully, and the next
he was here, immobilized and helpless.  And very much
afraid.
     They had hurt Dana, that much was clear.  What were
they trying to find out?  What did they want with them?  He
tried to speak, but no sound came.  It was extremely hard to
move any part of his jaw or face; his eyes were the only
part of him that moved freely.  His chest felt tight, as
well.
     There was a sudden coolness, and a faint jingling.
Fear washed over him as a shadow moved near his head.  He
felt a prickle at the base of his skull and braced himself
for pain, and so was totally unprepared for what happened
next.
     Like a flood released by a breaking dam, pleasure
surged through his body, wave after wave.  His skin fairly
glowed with the cascading animal sensuality of it.  He
couldn't tell whether he was erect or not, how his body was
reacting to this sudden onslaught.  He hung on the edge of
orgasm for hours, it seemed, stimulated by a constant flow
of images, feelings, sparks of sheer carnal lust along each
nerve.  He had felt nothing like it in his life.  Surely his
bones would melt.  Surely it would kill him.  He felt his
heart pounding and gasped for oxygen, wondering when he
would die, and not caring.

     Dana rubbed her eyes and huddled under Mulder's
overcoat.  It smelled of him; she closed her eyes and rubbed
her cheek against the lapel.  It was cold in the room again,
and she was hungry, but she didn't care.
     Bleary-eyed, she watched the walls.  They were there,
she knew, watching and waiting for something.  She didn't
know what.  They had taken her, now Mulder.  She knew what
they were doing to him, how they were hurting him.  Her own
flesh remembered and her skin crawled.  Why?  Who were they?
     She was terribly, terribly thirsty.  She had cried and
cried for hours, it seemed, terrified and alone and worried
about Fox Mulder.  Now she was spent, and a sort of dull
listlessness had set in.
     They were never going to get out of here, she thought
despairingly.  Someone, or something, had stolen them for
its own purposes, and they were helpless pawns.  She knew
Mulder's gun was still in the coat pocket; she would use it
if she had to.
     But Mulder might come back.  She had.  He had to come
back...
     Since the room did not change, and the moments dragged
on one after another monotonously, there was nothing for
Dana to do but sit and think.  Having exhausted the puzzle
of their imprisonments, she thought about Fox Mulder.
     His behavior puzzled her.  In all the time they had
worked together, he had never shown any interest in her
other than as another officer, a colleague.  Oh, he had
teased her now and again, but he was always correct and
professional when they were alone.  Never in her wildest
dreams did she think he would hold her, kiss her!
     A shadow passed along the wall before her.  She glared
at it irritably.  It didn't speak or act, it only watched.
Damn them!
     She shifted, and something rustled in the pocket of
Mulder's overcoat.  With some astonishment, she drew out the
other half of the hamburger she had seen disappear only a
few hours ago.  Where had it come from?  She stared at it
awhile, and then shrugged.  What did she have to lose?  She
ate the rest of it and tossed the wadded up wrapping onto
the floor in front of her.
     Moodily she watched the floor swallow it.
     Hours later, she was roused from a doze by the sound of
wind chimes.  Immediately her senses came to full alert,
knowing that the sound usually warned of some action by the
aliens.  Did they announce themselves deliberately?  she
wondered.  Or was it only a side effect.
     She saw a shimmer in the air before her, and suddenly
Fox Mulder was there, curled into the fetal position, stark
naked.
     "Fox!"
     She leaped for him, and caught him in her arms,
ignoring the shock of bare skin on skin.
     "Fox, are you all right?"
     He was trembling all over, and covered with sweat,
wound so tightly into a ball she couldn't see his face.
     "Are you hurt?"
     In a strangled voice, he croaked, "Go away, Scully!
Get back!"
     "It's all right," she said softly, enfolding him in her
arms.  Her belly pressed up against his back, she cradled
the back of his head against her breasts.  "I know it hurts.
Just let it--"
     "NO!" His jerk away from her was explosive.  "Don't
touch me! Oh, God!"
     "What's wrong?  Did I hurt you?  Let me look," she said
with concern.  Damn, she wished she had her medical bag.
Firmly, she grabbed his arm and rolled him towards her.
     "No!--" he protested, but it was too late.
     Fox Mulder had the biggest erection she had ever seen
in her life.  It was huge and purple and glistening;
detachedly, she decided he was probably already over the
threshold of orgasm and couldn't imagine what was holding
him back.
     "Fox?"
     He spun away from her, hunching his body protectively
around his middle.
     "Please," he gasped.  "Oh, God, Dana go away!  I can't-
-"
     "What have they been doing to you?"
     "I don't know.  Just, please, I can't stand it!  Don't
come near me!" he cried.  "It won't stop!"
     He shuddered with the effort at self control, and
looked at her for the first time--his eyes were tortured.
"I think...I think they're testing my...sexual reflexes," he
said.  "I don't know how, but they've got my...my body on
overdrive or something...I can't come and I can't stop! Oh,
Jesus!"
     Understanding dawned on her.  Priapism--somehow, his
body was locked into near-orgasm, unable to release.  The
aliens had done this to him?  Why?  And what should she--
what could she do?  Bewildered, but unwilling to abandon
him, Dana shrugged the overcoat off her shoulders and lifted
it over him.  As she did so, her bare breast touched his
shoulder.
     All hell broke loose.  He yelped, gave a smothered sob,
and fell on her like a brick wall, rolling them both over
and over until they came to a stop, with Fox Mulder on top
of her.  His face was pressed into her neck, his arms around
her, and his cock was pressing into her belly with an
urgency she could not ignore.  The sounds he was making were
inarticulate and hungry.
     "Fox, what are you doing?"
     He gasped, and she felt his shaft between her thighs;
she could feel his pulse through it.
     "No!" she cried, but it was too late.  He drove into
her with one powerful thrust.  He was so big he hurt her.
He slammed into her, pounding inside her as though he meant
to smash her to jelly.  Her breasts were crushed against
him, her breath was short.  She struggled, but he held her
in an iron grip.
     "No, please, Mulder, stop!" she was crying over and
over.
     And then he was spasming against her,  and a long
moaning cry escaped him.
     Stunned and betrayed, Dana lay limply under him,
weeping silently.
     He lay on top of her, breathing raggedly.  Their bodies
were stuck together with sweat and other juices.  Then with
a  cry of horror, Fox Mulder rolled off of her.
     "Oh, my God," he whispered.  "What have I done?"
     Dana crawled away from him, hunched into herself, tears
running down her face.
     "Oh, my God," he cried, dismayed.  "Dana, did I--Oh,
God, I did!  Oh, no!"
     Dana tried to speak, but her mouth was dry.  She licked
her lips and tried again.  "Why?"
     He stared at her in open-mouthed shock.  His face was
as white as a sheet of paper.  There was nothing he could
say.  He didn't know what had come over him.  Loathing and
self-disgust rose in him like a tidal wave, and he turned
away to avoid her eyes.
     "I don't know.  They...did something to me...no, that's
no excuse.  I won't excuse it.  My God, Dana, I'm sorry.
Oh, God, I'm so sorry!"  He felt his life coming apart
around him.  How could he do this?  How could he forget
himself so far?  He'd acted like a wild animal.  He'd raped
the woman he--
     ---the woman he loved.
     And now nothing would ever make her trust him again.
He'd never trust himself again.  Groaning in despair, he
flung himself on the floor and prayed that it would eat him.
     Dana crept further and further from him, dragging the
overcoat over her to hide herself.  She felt violated and
humiliated, and her heart felt that it would break.  How
could he do something like that?  She tried to calm herself,
to force herself to think rationally, but her mind kept
coming back to that driving, pounding assault.  She was sore
and bruised; her innermost domain had been invaded and
taken.
     "Dana," came a whisper from Mulder's prone form.
"Dana, my gun is in the pocket of that coat.  Use it."
     She gasped.  "What?"
     "Shoot me, goddammit!  Please!"
     She was tempted for only a moment; rage and despair
warred in her.  But something in her refused to betray
herself.
     "No.  I won't do it."
     He extended a hand, still not looking at her.  "Then
give it to me and I'll do it myself."
     "N-no!"  She scooted a few more feet, dragging the
coat.  "Stop it!"  Dana Scully crept away and cried for a
long time.

     Fox Mulder lay for a long time in a stupor.  All he
could think about was the faith he'd lost, the trust he'd
betrayed.  All he'd ever wanted or hoped for with Dana was
shattered beyond repair.  His fantasies about her, about her
beautiful mouth, her ripe body, had been wild at times but
never violent.  He'd had lovers before, women who moaned in
his arms, but she did something to him no woman ever had.
And now he'd thrown it all away in a moment, for an impulse
he couldn't understand even now.
     He'd never noticed the transition from the chamber with
the alien in it to this one, he only knew that in the midst
of that shattering orgiastic response he'd suddenly been
confronted with Dana Scully, warm and beautiful and naked
and touching him.  And he'd reacted like a savage.  He had
hunted rapists in his career, knew them to be driven not by
lust but by anger and fear.  What had driven him to attack
Dana?  Could he blame it entirely on the aliens'
manipulations?  He was afraid they had only exploited what
was already there in him.  And he hated himself for it.  He
felt the tears start and wept silently for the man he had
been, for the man he had betrayed.

----------------------------------------------

     For what seemed like an eternity, they lay wrapped in
despair at opposite ends of the room.  Silence lay between
them like a brick wall, impenetrable, impassible.  Slowly,
the air in the chamber turned cold, and the smell of
ammonia, always present, grew stronger.  Mulder's throat was
dry, his stomach rumbled, but he was too dejected to pay any
attention to them.  He heard Dana's sobs subside, then stop.
He wondered what she was thinking.  Not for worlds would he
have turned to look at her.  He could never face her again.

     So wrapped up in his own misery was he, he at first
missed the faintly musical susurration.  As soon as he
recognized it, he jerked around to find Dana.  She was
there, asleep under the overcoat on the other side of the
room.  But the floor between them was bulging upward as it
had before; as he watched, the room 'delivered' three more
hamburgers.  But instead of subsiding, one bulge rounded
itself, dimpled, and became a raised hollow that slowly
filled with water.  Or what might be water.

     Cautiously, Mulder tried it.  It certainly appeared to
be water.  He tasted one of the hamburgers (noting again
that it was done up in a Ned's Hamburger wrapping) and
decided it wouldn't poison either of them.  Then he gingerly
deposited two of them next to Dana and hastily retreated to
the other side of the room.

     He ate the remaining hamburger, watching Dana sleep.
 
 

     Dana Scully had no way to tell time, but she had slept
several times for what seemed like a full eight hours.
Maybe a whole week, she thought.  He kept as far from her as
possible, and mostly kept his face turned away.  She slept
poorly, waking suddenly at the slightest sound, or at no
sound at all.  Twice she had wakened to hear muffled sounds
from his side of the room; she thought he was crying.  She
had not spoken to him at all.

     The only time he had spoken to her since the rape had
been to tell her, in a ragged voice, about the water and the
hamburgers.  The food and water had appeared at regular
intervals since then, giving her another means to estimate
time.  She decided that if they were being fed about every
six hours, then they had been in this hell hole for ten
days.  But she couldn't be sure. Time distortion was a
common feature of sensory deprivation, she knew.  She didn't
know as much about it as Mulder, but she couldn't ask him.

     Their physical needs were well taken care of, she was
glad to discover.  The first time she had shamefacedly
relieved herself in a corner, she had been grateful to see
that the floor removed it immediately.  How did the floor
know to distinguish between her body's waste and, say, Dana
herself?  she wondered.  Was that what the examinations had
been about?  To program the chamber to absorb hamburger
wrappings and bodily wastes but not to assimilate Dana and
Fox themselves?  She hoped the floor was a fast learner.

     She wore the overcoat all the time now, and it was
beginning to stink of her sweat.  Now and then she attempted
a bath when she knew Mulder was sleeping, scooping up the
water in the now-permanent dimpled basin to splash over
herself under the coat.  She wouldn't take it off, however,
refusing to bare her body before Mulder again.  He was still
as naked as when he'd been returned the first time, but she
could hardly bring herself to look at him.  It did seem to
her, however, that he was thinner than he had been.

     The trauma and shock of his attack had faded somewhat,
but she was still bewildered and hurt.  Physically, she was
recovered, but nothing could repair her peace of mind.  Once
she had waked from a nightmare, reliving the violation, and
was horrified to find herself across the room from Mulder.
She had wakened him, and he was looking at her with
unreadable eyes.  He looked away immediately, a dull flush
rising up his face.  It was one of the few times he had
looked directly at her.

     It was about the middle of the eleventh day, she
guessed, that the shadow returned.  She had been sitting
with her arms wrapped around her knees, staring at the wall,
when a disturbance in her field of vision caught her
attention.  She gasped.  The floating, nebulous silhouette
was back, and it was directly behind Mulder.  Without
thinking, she cried out,

     "Fox!  Behind you!"

     He looked up, surprised to hear her speak, and then
spun around.  When he saw the creature, he stood up and
strode unhesitatingly to the wall.  His back to Dana, he put
both hands up to the wall and pushed.

     "Talk to me, you bastard," he muttered.  "What do you
want?"

     He jumped when Dana's voice sounded right behind him.
"I don't think it can hear you,"

     For a moment, they were their old selves again,
partners investigating a mystery.

     "It may not have ears, but it has to communicate
somehow," he said.  "Light?  Heat?  Smell?  Come on, buddy,
give us a clue," he said to the shadow.

     The shadow only drifted, seemingly aimlessly, to their
right.  They followed it slowly around the chamber.

     "Mulder, there's another one," said Dana in a low
voice.  He looked where she pointed; another shadow had
appeared directly opposite the first.

     "It's the first time we've seen more than one.  Are
they stalking us?" he wondered aloud.  "Maybe they're trying
to separate us."

     Dana's voice was cold.  "No need, surely?  You've done
a pretty good job of that."

     His head whipped around to stare into her angry blue
eyes.  For a moment, he saw all her pain and fury laid bare
in her eyes, then he dropped his gaze.

     "I only meant that for safety's sake..."

     "I know what you meant, Mulder," she said.  Her voice
was like ice.

     When he looked up, both the shadows were gone.  Fox and
Dana were standing within arm's length.  She started to turn
away from him.

     "Dana, wait," he said urgently.  She turned slowly to
face him.

     "I...I just want to say how sorry I am," he said
cautiously.  He forced himself to meet her angry glare.
"You have every reason to hate me.  I hate myself.  I won't
even ask you to forgive me or understand me; I don't
understand or forgive myself.  All I can say is that I'd
give the world for it never to have...happened.  Oh, God,
Dana, I can't live with myself!"

     "My sympathy is worn a little thin these days," she
said acidly.

     He nodded.  "I know.  I just want to ask--are you okay?
I mean, did I...hurt you or anything?"

     "My pride is in tatters, but my body has healed," she
said flatly.  "If it matters."

     "It does," he whispered.  "I have never been so
confused, so humiliated, so disgusted in my life.  I swear
to God, I don't understand what happened.  I would never,
never....but you don't believe me, I know.  Just please
believe me when I say I'd rather die than have that happen
again."

     "That makes two of us," she said.  "Fox, why did you
rape me?"  Her voice was hard.

     He looked away from her.  "I don't know," he said
thickly.  "I was in a room, they had me paralyzed."
Briefly, he told her what had happened.  "And then all of a
sudden, there you were, and I was...was in agony.  I mean,
blue balls are one thing, but this was something else.  It
was like I was driven, out of control.  The opposite of
paralysis.  If you hadn't been there, I think I'd have
died."

     "So, you're telling me you're grateful?" she growled.

     He looked at her, startled.  "No.  No, I'd rather have
died, believe me.  I'd never want to hurt you, to...to
betray you like that.  You're my partner...my friend.  Or,
you were."

     "And you're telling me it was nothing personal," she
said.

     "No. Yes.  I mean..." he stopped.  He was overjoyed
that she was speaking to him, at least, but unsure how much
he could reveal to her.

     She will never trust me until I trust her, he thought
to himself.  I've stripped away her sense of security, the
least I can do is strip my own away.

     He drew a deep breath and looked her squarely in the
face.  "Dana, it was very goddamn personal.  I don't know
how many nights I've lain awake wishing, dreaming I
could...m-make love to you.  But to attack you, hurt you,
take you like that, no, it's not in me.  Or I thought it
wasn't."

     "You...you dreamed about me?"  she asked uncertainly.

     "I've been going crazy over you for the better part of
a year," he said, dragging each word out.  "I couldn't tell
you.  I know how you feel about me, how the whole Bureau
feels about 'Spooky' Mulder," his voice turned bitter, but
he went on.

     "You're the most beautiful, the most passionate, the
most wonderful woman I ever saw in my life," he continued,
watching her face.  "I never wanted any woman the way I
wanted--want you.  But I didn't ever, ever want you like
that.  So yes, it's personal."

     There was a long silence, while Dana looked away and
Mulder felt himself go hot, then cold, then hot again.

     "I...I didn't know," she whispered after a while.  "You
didn't say anything.  B-but then you kissed me, when we were
in zero gravity, and I couldn't think why.  I
thought....never mind what I thought."  She felt the tears
start and couldn't stop them.  The grief and loss rose in
her, past the barriers of anger.  She'd believed in Fox
Mulder too long, trusted him too completely, to lose it all
in one blow.  With a distinct sense of the absurd, she
realized the person she most wanted to comfort her was the
man who'd raped her.  She looked up at him.

     "Oh, God, Fox," she wept.  "I trusted you.  I liked
you. And now I don't have anyone to t-talk to."

     His heart breaking, Mulder forced himself to stand
still.  This was his punishment, he told himself.  To stand
here and hear her weep, and be able to do nothing.

     "Dana, I'm sorry," he murmured.  "I don't know why you
should believe me, but I'll never hurt you again.  I'm
sorry."

     Blindly, she reached to him.  His hand closed on hers,
strong and warm.  His other hand touched her cheek, gently.
"My God, Dana," he breathed.  "Please, please forgive me.
I'll die if you don't ever trust me again."

     She reached for him and he wrapped his arms around her,
held her as delicately as crystal, as solidly as stone.  She
laid her head against his chest, ignoring the soft hair
tickling her face, feeling the warmth and intensity of him,
and sobbed out her hurt and fear and anguish.  His tears
fell silently into her hair.

     "Dana," he whispered over and over. "Oh, God, Dana."
He felt  a glacier in him melting, a long winter coming to
an end.

     After a while she drew a long shuddering breath and
straightened.  She glanced up at him uncertainly, still held
in the circle of his arms.

     Mulder smiled down at her.  "I regret that I have no
handkerchief to offer you, ma'am.  Feel free to use the coat
sleeve, however."

     She grimaced and wiped her nose on the sleeve.  The
front of the topcoat flapped open and shut as she did so,
giving him a tantalizing glimpse of bare breast.

     "Let's sit down," he suggested, and they sat side by
side, backs against the wall.  He held her hand in his.
They were silent awhile, at peace for the moment if a little
wary.

     After a while they began to talk.  Dana told Fox her
estimate of the time they had been captive, and he pondered
it a moment.

     "I suppose you must be right.  I hadn't thought of it,
myself," he said ruefully.  "I haven't been thinking much at
all.  But there's one weird thing I've noticed." He ran a
hand over his chin.  "I should have quite a beard by now,
but as far as I can tell without a mirror, I still only have
a five o'clock shadow."

     She looked up at him, studying his face.  "You're
right.  You look just the same as when I woke up in the car
at the stakeout."  It felt like a lifetime ago.

     "Maybe they're putting something in the food or water
to stop it," he mused, rubbing his chin with a rasping
sound.

     "There isn't any way to suppress beard growth, except
by hormone suppressants or castration. Clearly--," she
swallowed.  "Clearly not the case with you."

     "Maybe it's a side effect of...of whatever they did to
me," he muttered, looking away.  "In any case, it's nice not
to have to scrape my face every day.  Although I'm sure it's
no treat to look at.  You know, this is the first time since
I was, oh, fourteen that I didn't have to get up and risk
scarring myself for life with a razor every morning.  I kind
of like it."

     "You started shaving at fourteen?"

     "Yeah.  My voice changed the same year.  It was
embarrassing as hell."

     "Adolescence is a constant state of embarrassment," she
agreed, remembering.

     He grinned suddenly.  "Yeah, it's good for you. Keeps
you humble."

     Dana smiled tentatively back, and felt a tiny glow
start in the ashes of her heart.  It would be nice to be
friends with Fox Mulder again, she thought.  If she could
ever...forget.

     But suddenly she was flooded with the memory of him on
her, in her, pounding, with his face gone gray and blank,
eyes unseeing.  She scrambled away from him,.

     "What?  Dana?  What did I do?"

     "N-nothing.  I-I just...keep remembering," she said.
"I...I can't forget what happened, Fox.  What you did."

     He nodded grimly.  "Me neither.  Post-traumatic stress
syndrome, Dana.  First we're kidnapped, then tortured, then
I--I raped you.  It's a wonder you're not outright
catatonic.  But I swear to you, Dana Scully, you are safe
with me.  I won't touch you again. Unless...unless you want
me to."

     Dana sat out of reach until after the next meal, and
then, with several glances at him for reassurance, curled up
in the overcoat and slept.

     Mulder stayed awake a long time, too keyed up to sleep.
 
 

     They played chess.  Without a board or men, it took a
great deal of concentration to keep the board in mind, but
after a few 'days' practice it became a regular habit
between them.  Dana was beginning to worry about the length
of their captivity, about the lack of stimulation.

     "Mulder, we've got to establish some kind of routine,"
she had said one day when they were playing chess.  "King's
pawn to Queen three."

     "What?  Damn!  Now I have to...eh?"  he looked at her,
distracted from the game.  "King's pawn, King's pawn."

     "Mulder, you know what happens to prisoners kept in
solitary," she said.  "Isolation, deprivation, they can all
damage the mind after a while.  We need a routine, some
anchor for our days.  Otherwise we'll go nuts in here."

     "Hmm.  Some of us already are.  How come I didn't see
that coming?"  He looked at her thoughtfully.  "You're
right, of course.  Any ideas?"

     She shrugged.  "We don't have anything to write on or
read.  Let's see.  We could set up an exercise program, to
at least keep in shape.  Although," she said slowly.  "It
looks like you're losing weight.  I probably am, too."

     He glanced at her.  "In that topcoat you could have
gained fifty pounds and no one would ever know," he said
conversationally.  "Besides, a steady diet of hamburgers is
not recommended by the FDA."

     "True," she said.

     "Do you speak any foreign languages, Dana?"  he asked.
"Spanish?  French?"

     "Some French," she said.  "A little Greek."

     "Greek?"

     "My dad was a naval officer.  When I was eight we were
stationed in Cyprus for a while and I picked it up from the
neighbors.  I can't read or write it but I can speak it."

     He smiled.  "Okay.  I studied Spanish in high school.
We can have Spanish and Greek lessons once a day.  How good
are you at math?"

     "Pretty fair."

     "Any calculus?"

     "Of course," she said.  "Why?"

     "We can do derivatives in our heads," he suggested.

     "Maybe you can," she smiled.  "If I have to do trig in
my head, you have to learn the names of all the muscle
groups in the body."

     He groaned.  "Latin, too?"

     "Sure.  Then we'll move on to taxonomy. You know,
Mulder, there are millions of really interesting fungus
groups..."

     "Fungus?  Jesus, Scully, you're going to teach me
mycology?"  He looked at her in amazement, to find her
grinning at him.

     "Just kidding," she said.  "But I do know a lot about
bacteria.  We can review the major groups."

     He groaned, but was secretly pleased.  She was
unbending enough to joke with him, at least.  "All right.
And then I teach you the entire roster of Major League
Baseball."

     "This is going to be harder than I thought," she
smiled.  "Your move."
 
 

     Three days later Mulder disappeared, fading from sight
in the middle of a pushup.  Dana was sitting and trying to
touch her toes, when she heard the chimes.  Too late, she
lunged to grab him but he was gone.

     Through seven meals she worried and waited.  It was the
longest he had ever been away from her.  With mixed
feelings, she tried to think what she would do if he didn't
come back.  She couldn't sort out her emotions; on the one
hand, she was still wary of him, still wrestling with her
anger.  On the other hand, he had not so much as touched her
after their reconciliation, going out of his way to make her
comfortable without physical contact.  He was very reserved
with her, and she with him, but some kind of mutual
companionship was growing between them.  She didn't want
them to hurt him.

     She had about decided, with despair, that he was dead,
when the chimes announced his return.  He dropped out of
thin air to land heavily on the floor. He was covered with
blood.

     "My God, Mulder!" she cried, but did not approach.  Not
after the last time, she thought.

     He sat up wearily, looking down at himself.  "It's
okay, Dana," he said in a rasping voice.  "I'm not hurt
anywhere.  I think this is some kind of...ointment they put
on me."

     "What did they do to you?"

     He looked at her grimly.  "I don't want to talk about
it.  It was not...pleasant."

     She leaned forward but stayed put, wanting to help but
afraid.

     "It's okay," he said, looking her in the eyes.  "They
haven't turned on my sex drive again.  I won't hurt you."

     Relieved, she came closer and touched his arm.  The
blood appeared to be just that.

     "Lie down, Mulder," she told him.  "I want to take a
look and see if you're hurt."

     "Dana, I--"

     "Lie down, Mulder," she said firmly.  "Doctor's
orders."

     Impersonally, she gave him as thorough an examination
as she could without instruments.  She palpated his arms and
legs, thumped his ribs.  He made no complaint, but winced
several times.

     "Your heart and lungs are okay," she told him
afterward.  "Nothing seems to be broken.  Do you hurt
anywhere?"

     "Thank you," he said, sitting up again.  "Everywhere,
but nothing serious."

     "So far as I can tell, this is your blood but it didn't
come from a wound.  My guess is that it's from broken
capillaries in the skin.  You are going to be terribly
bruised, I think.  Were you in any kind of vacuum chamber?"

     He shook his head.  "No, I don't think so.  But it was
very cold."  He shivered.

     "Well," she said.  "Although I didn't think it was
possible to actually sweat blood, that seems to be what
you've been doing.  So far as I can tell without tissue
sampling, something has forced your epidermal capillaries to
exude blood into the upper layer of your skin."

     He looked white around his eyes.  "Yes.  It
was...pretty bad."

     He would tell her nothing more than that, and shortly
went to the other side of the room and curled up.

     The next day she approached him.  He was still covered
with blood, now dried and flaking on him.  He lay on his
back, eyes open but with bags under them.  He looked at her
but said nothing.

     "God, Mulder," she said as she got closer.  "Look at
you!"

     He was mottled with bruises from neck to knees, ranging
from a light rose to deepest purple.  She stretched out one
hand, to find it trembling.  She snatched it back.

     "I'm so sore I can hardly move," he said.  "I couldn't
find any comfortable way to rest last night, so I haven't
really slept.  Is there...is there any way you can bring me
some water?"

     She brought him water in her cupped hands and knelt by
his head to let him drink.  His lips on her hand were
electric.  When he had finished, she smoothed his hair back
from his forehead.

     "It's okay," she said.  "Just rest.  I'll look after
you."

     His eyes flew open.  "Dana, you don't have to do this.
You don't owe me anything at all, after I--"

     "Hush," she said, putting a hand on his lips.  "We're
still partners, Mulder, and I can't afford to let you get
hurt or...or die.  If anything happened to you, I'd be all
alone.  I would go crazy then."

     He sighed and smiled a small smile.  "I feel better
already," he said.
 
 

     The next time they took Mulder, he came back blind.

     Again, he had disappeared before her eyes, out of her
reach as he was walking back with a hamburger in his hand.
As his startled look of realization registered, she heard
the chimes and leaped for him, but he was gone.  This time
it was eleven meals--three days, by her calculations--before
he came back.

     She heard the crash of his body against the floor and
was next to him immediately.

     "Scully?" he whimpered, flinching from her touch.
"Scully?  Are you there?"

     "Yes, I'm here."

     "I can't see you.  Have they turned out the lights
again?"

     She went cold from head to foot.  Holding her hand
before his staring eyes, she said, "How many fingers am I
holding up?"

     "I can't see anything," he said frantically.  "What
happened to the lights?"

     "Mulder, the lights are on," she said firmly.  "I can
see perfectly well.  What did they do to you?"

     He coughed and trembled, but sat up straight.  His arms
went out blindly and she grabbed his hand.  He held tightly
to her.

     "I was in a room with a bright light.  Even when I
squeezed my eyelids shut it was too bright, but I couldn't
move, couldn't put my hands over my face."

     She shivered.  "What else?"

     "That's it.  It just went on forever.  Once I felt heat
on my shoulders and head, but most of the time it was just
this enormous silence, and that goddamn light."

     "Do you see darkness or light right now?"

     "I don't...I don't know.  I know that sounds stupid,
but I can't tell what I'm seeing."

     "It might mean many things, but the simplest
explanation is a mild retinal burn.  You say you kept your
eyes closed?"

     He nodded, gripping her hand.  "Is it...is it
permanent?"

     "I don't know," she answered truthfully.  "We'll have
to wait and see.  Oh, God, Mulder."  She leaned against him
and he wrapped his arms around her, smelling her hair, her
skin.  He rocked gently back and forth with her.

     "Thank God you're all right," he whispered.  "I was
afraid that with me gone, they might....do something to
you."

     She shook her head.  "I don't know why but they only
took me the first time.  I guess you're more interesting."

     "Worst possible time to become popular," he said.  "I'd
just as soon they ignored both of us."

     Gradually, as time wore on, Mulder's sight returned.
She refused to leave his side, except to fetch water and
food.  After a while, he blinked and squinted at her.

     "I can see you," he said.  "God, what a beautiful
sight!"

     She smiled and pushed her hair off her forehead.  "I
haven't had a proper bath in weeks, and my hair's a mess."

     That she should care about her appearance after what he
did gladdened Mulder.  It meant she was healing, returning
somewhat to her old self.

     "You will always be beautiful to me," he smiled.

     To his surprise, she sat close to him and leaned into
his shoulder.

     "Fox, do you think about...it?  About what you did?"

     Mulder tightened his lips.  "Yes.  And I think you
ought to press charges when we...when we get back."

     "No. I'm not as...angry as I was."

     She turned in his arms to face him, her face very near
his.  Her mouth was small and generous and red, and he
wanted it very much.  Hypnotized, he watched her draw
closer, closer...

     "I...I'm trying to forgive you," she said slowly.
"I've known you for years, Fox.  You're just not the kind of
man to...to do what you did.  It's like you became someone
else.  I was afraid you would turn into that man again."

     "Never," he whispered.

     "I don't know what to think," she sighed after a while.
"Before you...did that...I was starting to...to wonder. I
mean, all of a sudden you had kissed me twice in one d-day.
I didn't know what it meant, but I was starting to hope that-
-that you were attracted to me.  Now you say you love me,
but I don't...don't know if I can believe you."

     "I do love you, Dana," he said quietly.  "I have for a
long time.  I just couldn't say it.  I was afraid you'd
laugh at me.  I'm only saying it now because...because I'd
rather have you laugh at me than fear or hate me."

     He looked down at her upturned face, so near.  "Do you
hate me?"  he whispered, mesmerized.

     "No," she said, her perfect lips making an O.  "Fox, it
was bad enough to be assaulted,"  she said softly.  "It was
made a hundred times worse because it was...it was you.  You
turned into a stranger.  When you...when you were on me...in
me--" She stopped, throat working.  "It was so terrible.
Not just because you were...hurting me, but because it was
such a...a perversion of what I had wanted."

     "Wanted?"

     Dana blushed.  "You aren't the only one with secrets."

     He felt everything--time, his heart, the universe--slow
almost to a dead stop.  She was here, alive and beautiful
and so very, very kissable.  He would have traded his hope
of rescue for the courage to kiss that mouth, to show her
how he really felt.  But he would not.  He had lost that
privilege forever.  So he just sat, and tried to breathe,
and looked at her with his heart in his eyes.

     It had taken her a long time to come to this point, and
her breath was tight in her chest.  Days and nights of
confusion and worry, of struggling to know her own heart,
fell away when she looked in his hazel eyes.  She forgot the
moment he forced himself on her and remembered the long
nights on stakeout together, the long talks, the smiles, the
shared memories, the dangers they had survived together.
She remembered the way it had felt the first time he had
kissed her.

     Mulder took her hands, forced her to meet his eyes.
"What are you saying, Dana?"

     She took a deep breath.  It was time to tell the truth.
"That I...I wanted you, too," she said.  "I couldn't admit
it to myself.  I mean, we were partners, we weren't supposed
to--"

     "And now?"

     She looked at him for a long moment, and then away.

     He brought her hands up to his lips and kissed each
palm slowly, lingeringly.  A tiny shiver went through her.

     "Whatever you want from me, Dana Scully, I give it to
you," he said.  "My friendship, my love, the heart out of my
body. Name it, Dana."

     "Your apology is accepted," she said.

     For the first time, she touched him before he touched
her.  She put a hand up to touch his cheek; he turned his
head and kissed her palm. Her other hand came up to frame
his face; her coat fell open and Fox closed his eyes.  The
smell of her--skin and hair and a faint tang of sweat--
filled his head with the immediacy of her.  He was acutely
aware of every tiny movement she made.

     Dana had had lovers before, knew the boundaries of her
own passion.  But Fox Mulder stirred her profoundly,
touching her in some hidden, private part of her she had
opened to no man.  She wanted very, very much to feel his
hands on her.  Slowly, deliberately, she leaned up and
kissed him.

     The taste of her flowed through him like fire and
honey.  He was awash in pure sensation, pure lightness.  He
felt his body rousing, but it was almost an afterthought.
Foremost in his consciousness was the fact that she was
kissing him, on her own, not out of despair or fear or a
need for reassurance, but because she wanted him.  A
fathomless silence fell on him.

     Her tongue teased him, unhurried and sensual.  He let
her take her time, forcing himself to be still, fighting the
urge to roll her under him...

     Dana savored the warm male smell of him, skin and sweat
and hair.  His lips under hers were mobile and sensitive.
She heard his breathing change cadence and knew he was hers;
the sense of power it gave her was heady.  She smiled into
the kiss and felt him smile back.   Her hands traveled from
his face to his neck to the broad shoulders and strong arms,
feeling the power held (trembling) in check. She closed her
teeth gently on his full lower lip and felt him jerk in
response.  She ran her tongue down the full, strong column
of his neck, kissing his Adam's apple in passing.  He
shivered and she felt the goose flesh rise on his skin under
her hands.  Lazily she trailed a hand down across his chest
in a preliminary exploration; soft curling hair and skin
stretched warm and taut greeted her hand.  She studied the
ripple of muscle over his stomach, and trailed a hand lower.
He gasped when she found his cock, silk over steel in her
hand, urgent against his belly.  She slipped her hand lower,
to cup the heavy balls in her hand.

     Fox made a strangled sound in his throat, and his hands
clutched convulsively at her, but he didn't move.  He let
her explore his body as much as she wanted, determined not
to force the moment.  But it was costing him all of his self-
control.

     Dana let go of him and straightened until she was
kneeling, facing him.  Leisurely, she slid one arm, then the
other out of the overcoat and let it fall behind her.  Fox's
eyes widened as he took in her body, the milky skin glowing
in the amber light, her nipples rosy and perfectly centered,
bobbing only inches from his face.  Her waist was trim, her
hips flaring full and promising, while between her thighs
the auburn thatch invited his hand.

     She basked in the look he gave her and reached for his
hands, placing one on each breast.  A shudder went through
him as he cupped their warm weight, their softness.  His
thumbs pressed delicately against her nipples, rousing them
into hard points.  He bent his head forward and closed his
lips on the left one, then the right.

     His mouth on her was intoxicating. She arched her back
in pure delight.  Tingles shot down her spine, goose flesh
shivered down her whole body as his tongue tasted her
breasts, her nipples, her skin.   His hands went to her
waist, stroking her skin.  She felt his hands slide around
to cup her bottom and she felt wetness flood her center.  He
kneaded her buttocks gently and she squirmed deliciously.
The feel of his hands and his mouth, his tongue, his breath
on her skin, built fires in her head.  She took hold of his
shaft and felt it leap in her hand, his whole body stiffened
at her touch.

     She rose up and straddled him on her knees, leaning
close in to him.  His arms were around her, his hands on her
bottom pulling her in to him.  She felt his cock rigid at
her entrance, felt her warm wetness anointing him, and
wanted him in her as she had never wanted a man in her life.
But she placed her hands on either side of his face, which
was buried in her breasts, and lifted his face to look into
hers.

     His eyes were wide, his lips parted, need and wonder
written on his face naked and clear.  She felt him trembling
with his longing, his desperate need to thrust into her, but
she kissed him softly, gently.

     "Fox, I want you," she whispered.  "But we aren't going
to do this."

     His head snapped back, his eyes dark.  "What?"

     "No," she said seriously into those angry eyes.  "I
need to know I can trust you.  I need to know you can stop
when I say no.  I'm saying no."

     His eyes squeezed shut with the agony of it.  He opened
his mouth, but then closed it tightly.  Swallowing
convulsively past the tightness in his throat, he nodded
once and took his hands off of her body.  Sweat was pouring
off him now, but he put his hands flat on the floor and
pushed himself away from her.  He felt nauseated with the
force of his desire for her, but compelled himself not to
look at her.

     "I--I guess I deserve that," he choked out at last.
"But I--I'd rather next time you just shot me, okay?"

     She looked at him, facing away from her, his whole body
condensed into a taut, struggling line.  Memory showed her
the same man, newly returned from the aliens, gasping in the
grip of an unyielding arousal.  She remembered how he had
struggled to keep her away, she remembered how the tide had
broken him and thrown him on her as surely as driftwood is
thrown on the shore.  And here he was, as close to sexual
frustration as he had been then, but he was moving away from
her.

     He was obeying, moving away from her.

     And her whole being rose up in revolt.  No, she
thought.  He is mine!  Mine! And I will not lose him!  Not
even to my own pride!

     Lunging forward, she caught his arm.  He turned his
head and saw her coming just in time to catch her.

     And then she was above him, sinking down onto him,
burying him in her soft and yielding flesh, and he cried out
without words.  He was enormous, stretching her, rough and
warm inside her.  She leaned down and her breasts flattened
against his chest, her nipples brushing against his chest
hair. His hands came up to tangle in her copper hair, to
stroke her breasts, to slide down her waist to her bottom
and back, over and over again.  She raked the backs of her
nails down his arm, his chest until the marks stood out on
his fair skin.  But he lay still, letting her move, rocking
back and forth with an unhurried but steady rhythm.

     Dana looked down at him, her arms on either side of his
head.  His eyes were closed, his head thrown back.  As she
watched, a smile of purest joy spread across his face.  She
leaned down and kissed it, and his arms went around her,
crushing her into him, linking them as he rose to meet her,
giving himself over to the pace she was setting.  Their
bodies slid together in an urgent, liquid rhythm, in perfect
harmony.  With every stroke, she felt the tension below her
belly building, pulling at her, waking her response.  His
hands broke free to roam over her body again, stroking,
restless, clutching now at her breast, now at her buttocks,
now sliding between their bodies to caress their joining.

     She was close, too close to stop now, and she rode him
faster, feeling him rock-hard in her, his shaft stroking
her, stroking her, urging her onward and inward, while the
energy curled at the base of her spine.

     And then it shot upward to spark into fire in her
brain.  Her whole body shuddered with the force of the wave
of pleasure that rolled over her again and again.  She felt
his hands on her head, bending her face down to his.

     "Dana, look at me!" he commanded.

     And she opened her eyes and looked at him and came,
with his eyes on hers and their hearts naked.  When she
cried out, his hands came down and locked on her waist,
holding her while he thrust deeper and deeper. He buried his
face between her breasts and moaned.  He arched under her
and gasped, and she felt the tremor that ran through him at
his release.  He gushed into her in a hot flood; she
immediately felt it wet and sticky on her thighs.  He was
tense for a few more minutes, then he relaxed utterly.  She
smiled and leaned down to him.  He wrapped her round with
his strong arms and they lay still joined.

     "Ah," he breathed in her ear.  "So beautiful."  His
eyes opened and he looked deeply into hers.  "I love you,
Dana," he said softly.

     She smiled back at him.  "I love you, Fox."

     "I thought you might," he grinned back at her cockily.
"It was only a matter of time."  Then his face grew serious.
He stroked her cheek.  "This is more what I wanted.  Not
like...not like last time."

     "We won't count that," she whispered, her lips on his
ear.

     "No," he said quietly.  "We won't count that.  This--"
he patted her bottom lightly.  "This is where we begin."

     They were silent together, wrapped in a warm and
companionable afterglow that had something in it of their
old partnership but also something new, something deep,
something rich.  Neither of them wanted to break this
precious new silence between them, but their hands could not
be still--touching, stroking, exploring.  Dana thought she
would never get enough of his strong, long-limbed body, its
grace and power hers to enjoy, obedient to her body's
command.  Fox could not stop kissing her; he kissed
everything his mouth could reach.  His hands stroked her
constantly with a gentle soothing touch that held
possessiveness and sensuality in it.

     This time when he rolled her over it was smoothly and
purposefully.  He had never left her, so when he began to
harden again they were halfway there.  He moved in her
slowly, languorously, rocking them both in a lazy, unhurried
motion.

     He needed to exorcise his shame and guilt in her, to
redeem himself in her eyes and his.  "This...and this..." He
kissed her mouth, her neck.  "This is what I wanted you to
feel."  His mouth moved down her body, trailing fire.  "And
this...and this..."

     She closed her eyes and stretched herself against him,
feeling skin against skin, pulling his heat into herself,
melding them.  "Yes," she purred.

     "I want to make you forget what went before," he
whispered.  "I love you.  I want to make you happy.  I want
to make you squeal and moan--"

     His hand dropped between her thighs.  She gave a small
squeal of delight.  He laughed.

     It was the first time he had laughed since their
capture.  Dana felt a bubble of joy forming in her chest,
rising into the light, unstoppable.

     He set himself the happy task of pleasuring her, making
her forget all that had gone before.

     They drifted from pleasure to sleep to waking, back and
forth, for hours.  They forgot the chamber they were in, the
alien presences they feared.  They forgot the Federal Bureau
of Investigation.  They forgot Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.
They were only a man and a woman alone and in love and
touching each other for the first time.   For a while, deep
in each other's eyes, they could forget, and they did.

--------------------------------------------------------------
 

     They woke hungry and sore, to find a pile of hamburgers
on the floor.
     "God, I am sick of hamburgers," complained Mulder,
handing her one.  "Why wasn't I carrying a steak in my
pocket?"
     "A raw steak?"
     "Champagne," he answered.  "Coq au vin.  Pizza.  A bag
of dried apricots.  Potato salad.  Anything."
     "Shut up and eat," she said.  "You're killing me."
     "Well, at least we have dessert," he said innocently.
     "Mulder! You outrageous--"
     "You don't mean you ate all the lemon drops?"
     Probably it was the first food fight in outer space.

     Now Dana really lost track of time.  Sleeping and
waking were only the boundaries of a country she was
exploring with Fox Mulder.  He proved to be indefatigable,
practically inexhaustible.  Surely they were setting a
world's record for coitus, she thought.
     "You've made quite a study of this," she said at one
point when they had stopped to catch their breath.  "I
wonder who taught you."
     He grinned.  "Jealous, Dana?"
     "A little, maybe."
     "Don't be.  I investigate mysteries for a living," he
said, fondling her right breast.  He licked a circle around
it, observing that it seemed fuller, rounder than before.
"Woman is the greatest mystery of all.  I just did my
research."
     "You learned -- Oh, God, Fox -- you learned this in the
library?"
     "Sure," he switched to her other breast.  "Librarians
are experts at arcane research."
     "Oho," she said through clenched teeth.  "I -- unh --
suppose they taught you everything they knew?"
     "No, you are teaching me everything I know about Dana
Scully.  The rest is just instinct."
     She whimpered as his mouth moved lower.  "You have--Oh,
Lord--fine instincts, Fox."
     Then she couldn't talk any more.

     It was not possible to separate; if they were apart for
more than a few minutes, they found themselves gravitating
toward one another immediately.
     "It's partly because I'm afraid they'll take you away
again," admitted Mulder.  He brushed a lock of red hair off
her forehead and cupped her round cheek in his hand.  "God,
if they took one of us away, I would die.  I swear it."
     "Me, too," she said.  They clutched hands, sharing
their fear.
     But the aliens left them alone, delivering hamburgers
at regular intervals and continuing to supply water.  The
monotony began to wear on them but they passed the time.
They eventually resumed their chess games and language
lessons, but they sat side by side, touching constantly.
     One day -- or night, no one could tell -- Dana woke
nauseated.  She retched quietly against the wall, hoping not
to wake Mulder, but felt his hand on the back of her neck.
     "Dana?"
     "It's...all right," she smiled weakly.  "Something I
ate?"
     But Mulder was not smiling.  "I feel fine, and I had
the hamburger too."  He looked speculatively at the floor.
"Maybe their--replicator or whatever--is out of whack.
     "Could it be the water?  I mean, if they're recycling
our...our body wastes without a thorough knowledge of human
anatomy, they might be recycling pathogens right back into
our drinking water."
     She turned a little green.  "Thanks, Fox.  That makes
me feel a lot better."
     "Oh, God, I'm sorry, Dana.  I didn't mean to upset you.
I'm thinking out loud again."
     "It's okay.  You know, I actually feel hungry now."
She was surprised.
     "Okay, but I'll taste anything you eat first," he said
firmly.  She was too weak to argue.
     She ate the hamburger he had tested and was fine.  But
the next morning the same thing happened again.  And this
time a tiny suspicion grew in the back of her mind.
     "Fox, how long have we been here?"
     "I thought we agreed we weren't going to ask that
question," he said.
     "I know.  But it's important."
     He squinted at her.  That fine brain of hers was at
work again, he knew.  "What are you thinking, Scully?"
     She glared at him.  "Why do you always call me Scully
when you are 'on duty'?"
     He looked surprised.  "Do I?  I hadn't noticed.  Habit,
I guess.  When we first started working together, I tried to
put as much distance as possible into our relationship.  I
knew if I didn't I would make a laughingstock of myself."
     "Why?"
     He looked at her askance.  "You have to ask?  I have
already proved it three times in the last twenty four
hours?"
     "Oh.  Well, I mean, it's weird to have your...your
lover calling you by your last name."
     He smiled.  "I love it when you call me that."  His
hand came up to cup her head against his chest.
     She wriggled free, however.  "You've changed the
subject.  How long have we been here?"
     "God, let me think," he said, closing his eyes.
"Roughly, oh a couple of months, I guess.  Why?"
     "A couple of months?  Are you sure?"  She was aghast.
     "Well, yes.  Pretty sure.  I mean, we know how many
meals we get a day, and I've, well, I've been keeping track
of the days.  I used the chessboard as a calendar.  At least
of the days I was aware of."
     "How do you keep track of the days on a chessboard?"
     "There are sixty four squares on a chessboard.  I
started with the Black Queen's Rook and assigned a day to
each square.  I'm up to White's King's Pawn."
     "Oh, my God," she whispered, her face going white.
     His heart contracted when he saw her.  Understanding
and fear mirrored each other on her beautiful face.  "Dana,
what is it?  You've figured something out."
     "Fox, I--I have a calendar, too," she gulped.  She
looked up at him, blue eyes staring into brown.  "All women
have a calendar."
     Realization hit him and he blanched.  "My God.  I
forgot. And we've been--Oh, God.  And you haven't--"
     "--had a period since we arrived," she finished.  "Oh,
no."
     He reached out and gathered her into his arms, his lap
remembering the precise weight and feel of her.  "It can't
be, Dana," he whispered.  "Look at me, I should have a beard
to my knees by now.  We know alien abductions include time
distortions, it's one of the hallmarks.  This is just like
my beard not growing.  Your body is...frozen in time like
mine.  It's not what you think."
     But it was.
     The nausea grew worse, being a regular occurrence.
Dana found herself growing fatigued easily, and napped often
in Fox Mulder's arms.  He sat with her asleep in his arms
and cursed life, the universe, the aliens, and his own
potency.  What had he done to her?  Worse, was this why they
had been taken?  As breeding stock?  It was demeaning, it
was humiliating.  It meant the aliens did not even care
about his investigations, his curiosity, about the
individuals that were Dana Scully and Fox Mulder.  Any
random mixed pair would have done as well.
     Most humiliating of all, it explained his sudden surge
of libido, the arousal that had led to the rape.  It
dehumanized the act even more than it had been, and twisted
his heart.  Mulder's already deep anger was fueled even
hotter.
     Dana was too miserable to be humiliated.  As a doctor,
she was well acquainted with the theory of pregnancy, but as
a woman she had never experienced it.  As her strength was
sapped by nausea and restlessness, nameless fears swept
across her mind.
     Once Mulder woke to find her sobbing quietly beside
him.  He held her and patted her wordlessly, waiting for her
to calm.
     "What--what if it's not--human?" she gasped against
him.  "Maybe they--they did s-something to m-me--"
     He hugged her tightly.  "No.  It's not possible," he
cried against her desperately.  "No, don't think that.  God,
Dana, I'm sorry I did this to you, everything I do seems to
hurt you.  But I know, I know it's mine."
     And it was true.  The conviction soared through him,
lifting his heart, filling him with a strange and
unaccustomed pride in his own virility.  "It's mine, Dana,
mine and yours."  He placed a hand on her abdomen, warm
under his hand.  "Our child."
     She looked at him with wonder.  "You don't care?"
     "Don't care?  Of course I care.  If I could, I'd marry
you.  Right now, right here."
     "M-marry?"
     He kissed her, lingering on her lips.  "Yes.  I love
you.  I will love our child."
     But after she slept again, he stayed awake, worried
about the future.
     A thrill ran through him.  A baby!  His!  Awe and
wonder sang in him.  He'd never felt so powerful, so
curious, and so humble in his life.  He cradled the woman
and the child in her close to him.

     Dana's belly grew.  A soft, rounded firmness gave way
to a definite, mounded hump in her middle.  Eventually the
nausea ceased and her normal sleeping pattern returned.  But
with the return to normal sleep her mind cleared and she
began to worry, too.
     "Fox, we have to talk," she said one 'evening' after he
had made tender, careful love to her.  "I'm going to have a
baby, and there's no one to deliver it but you."
     "I know," he said, threading his fingers in hers.  "I
wondered if they would...would take you away.  I don't know
if I should try to stay with you or let them do it.  They
might...might have very advanced medical techniques.  If I--
If I fought them, even if I was successful I might be
exposing you and the baby to danger."
     "I want you there," she said with conviction.  "And we
can't rely on the aliens.  They know so little about us,"
she said.  "I'll just have to teach you everything I can.
Can you do it?"
     His mouth made a firm line.  "Yes.  Yes, I can.  I
will.  But I never wanted to pray so badly in my life."

     "Fox, what is the matter with you?" Dana struggled up
onto her elbows, glaring at her partner who was tossing and
turning beside her.
     He turned away from her.  "Nothing.  I can't sleep."
     "I know," she said with exasperation.  "Neither can I.
Neither can the baby, because of your wiggling."
     He inched away.  "I'll be still.  Go back to sleep."
     But something in the set of his shoulders, the way his
hips drew in, made her suspicious.  She peeked over his
shoulder.
     "Oh, my!" she said mildly. "Very nice indeed.  No
wonder you can't sleep."
     He flushed deeply.  "Well, I didn't want to b-bother
you,  with the baby and all."
     She smiled sleepily and reached her hand over his body.
"I can help with that."
     "No, really, it wouldn't be fair."
     She cocked an eyebrow, which she knew he adored.
"Fair?"
     "I mean, I can't--we can't--it's not fair to leave you-
-"
     Dana pulled him gently, and he followed, rolling over
to face her.  "Idiot," she said affectionately.  "There are
other ways, as you know very well."
     "But the baby--"
     "Will not be hurt in the least," she said, turning her
back to him and pressing hers