DISCLAIMER: The characters of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are
nothing more than puppets, and Chris Carter is the puppeteer. But
ask yourself this, Mr. Carter ­ who's pulling the strings now?
Bwa ha ha!

SUMMARY: In a world where Mulder and Scully have never met, fate
intervenes and brings two worlds colliding in the city of
Charleston, as a vicious murderer reigns and a storm approaches.

CATEGORY: XAR (Mulder/Scully romance), Alternate Universe

RATED: NC-17 (sexual situations and some graphic violence)

SPOILERS: Through US6, many for the cancer arc and the Samantha
arc.

ARCHIVING NOTES: Please do not archive without permission

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Well, this is certainly a first for me ­ but I
just wanted to say so much and the first chapter's author's notes
were so damn long that I felt that they took away from the story
itself. Of course, that's the last thing that I want to do. But I
did want to explain a few things and disclaim a few things.

First of all, the hurricane in this story is fictional, though it
is loosely based on my tracking of Hurricane Floyd, even though
Floyd made landfall in North Carolina rather than its original
target of Edisto Island. This storm is based on the forecast
track for Floyd, which scared the absolute shit out of everyone
in this city. All of the information about the evacuation and the
media invasion is true, btw. Of course, in this universe, Floyd
never existed, but I did take some incidents from the storm and
adapt them to this story (i.e. the traffic jam on I-26 and some
of the radio statements).

A few notes on hurricanes ­ I am a bad weather junkie. I live for
hurricane season. The one area of science that fascinates me is
weather, particularly tropical cyclones. All of the information
given here is true, such as the Saffir-Simpson Scale and the
various components that propel a hurricane forward. If you would
like more information on hurricanes, not to mention a really
nifty computer tracker (I have one!), you can visit
www.weather.com for the Weather Channel's information on
hurricanes. Also, go read _Isaac's Storm_ by Erik Larson. It's a
fascinating account of the Galveston hurricane of 1900.

I do remember that "The X-Files" already did hurricanes ­ "Agua
Mala". But that episode made me *furious*. No one would be out
driving around in a hurricane OR a tropical storm. They took it
all so casually, and things like that irritate me. Never even
MIND the fact that they were experiencing a tropical storm out of
hurricane season... ::grumble grouse:: So I decided to ignore
that episode and deny its existence. Hurricanes are dangerous,
deadly, and destructive storms, and more often than not they are
used as mere plot devices (i.e. the Sandra Bullock and Ben
Affleck movie "Forces of Nature" ­ nobody would have an OUTDOOR
WEDDING while a hurricane came ashore!!!). I decided that in my
story, my hurricane would be one real big bitch. <vbeg>

Also, all of the geography of Charleston is pretty much true. I
did place the Police Station downtown as well as the City Morgue,
and these facilities are actually in North Charleston. I
apologize to any citizens for it, but dammit, it really worked
well in the story. <sheepish grin> And there really is a lemon-
colored house on the Battery where Scully is supposed to live ­
it's beautiful. One of my dream houses.

I will take the time right now to disclaim the snippets of music
that I injected into the story. The first is from Beth Orton,
from her delicious song entitled "Sweetest Decline". I highly
recommend any of her albums, though these songs are from her
newest album, _Central Reservation_. The second is from Tori
Amos's "Cloud on my Tongue", which is a personal favorite song of
Tori's and can be found on either _To Venus and Back_ or _Under
the Pink_. ?

Finally, I would like to thank my tireless and delightful beta
readers, Heather and Kristin, but particularly Heather for being
the most supportive beta reader a girl could ever ask for ­ you
are an inspiration, girl.

Now, without any further adieu, here's the story...

*****

SKIN: PROLOGUE

*****

"There are more worlds than the one you can hold in your hand."
--Albert Hosteen, "The Sixth Extinction: Amor Fati"

*****

Somewhere off the coast of Africa

*****

Above the churning, steaming Atlantic, a single bolt of
violent lightning flickered between two dark, malevolent clouds.
Nothing more than a single bolt, one bright current of
electricity and heat, simmering and sizzling against the dark
cobalt sky.

The clouds had started out as nothing more than a mass of
molecules, a mixture of hot and cold energy above the smoldering
summer grasslands. Above the myriad of tribes and prides, these
differing energies flowed together and converged, forming one
curious system of thunderstorms. Past the mountains, past the
rivers, churning constantly toward the tempting heat of the
Atlantic, the system traveled, gathering energy and organization
as it moved toward its destination.

Perhaps it was nothing more than a fluke; a massive cell of
rain, wind, and electricity, traveling on a system of scientific
fronts and lows that would die out as it lost energy. Or perhaps
it was merely the beginning, nothing more than the embryo of a
storm that would strengthen and intensify once it hit the hot
waters of the Atlantic and pushed its way west.

West, west, west...

Perhaps it was chance that had created this storm. Perhaps
it was science. Or perhaps it was fate, the lungs of karma
breathing strength and life into the body of the growing storm.
Perhaps destiny had a greater hold on life than science or
meteorology could ever account for.

And perhaps the same lungs were breathing life into the two
strangers far away in the United States. Perhaps they were
nothing more than masses of hot and cold energy, destined for
convergence and convection upon their meeting. In another
lifetime, under different circumstances, their union had created
one of the most tumultuous storms ever known to mankind. Fire and
ice, imagination and rationalism, all merging together and
culminating into the darkest and most beautifully tragic of
affairs.

Beneath the swirling clouds, the waves began to kick into
action, sending swells along the pristine African beaches.
Immaculate white sands fluttered and danced like diamonds on the
high winds. Like the sands of time. Sifting and turning, shifting
and changing, making way for the strengthening of whatever
powerful entity was developing on the horizon.

Something was happening. Something was changing. Whether it
was fate, destiny, or an act of God was irrelevant now.

Because nothing could stop it now.

*****

(end of prologue)

*****

SKIN: CHAPTER ONE

*****

Hands.

He was dreaming about hands.

Slender, pale hands, deft and agile, with small fingers that
looked capable and skilled. They were still and neat, folded
carefully as though in prayer, unadorned and simple. Feminine
hands. Only a woman would have hands this beautiful and sweet.
They were the sort of hands that every woman should one day
aspire to possess, and he could smell just the faintest hint of
lemon-scented lotion. They were the sort of hands that he wanted
sliding up and down his body, over his shoulders, down his back,
over his skin...

One slender hand slid over his, encasing his hand with hers, and
he looked down at that hand. The white silk cuff of her blouse
was a sweet contrast to her skin, and he noticed just the
faintest pink scarring across her hand. It was either the result
of scalding or freezing; he couldn't tell which, but there was a
strong urge to lower his lips to her wounded skin and try to heal
the injury with a kiss.

A smooth alto voice drifted to his ears, and the voice was heaven
and velvet wrapped together in one smooth stream of melody. And
her words... "My work is here now, with you," she said softly,
meaningfully. Her thumb caressed the back of his hand, smoothing
over the skin with hers. "And if I quit now, they win."

Slowly, he trailed his eyes up the lines of her sleek black suit,
devouring the way that it clung to her slender body, and then -

*****

Delta Flight 432 From Washington to Charleston
Descending into Charleston
8:43 AM, August 14, 1999

*****

Startled out of slumber, he woke up alone and uncomfortable on
the airplane. He didn't move a muscle, not even to open his eyes.
It was as though he could still pretend that he was holding the
woman's hand and hearing her voice. As if he wasn't on an
airplane taking him to the miserably muggy city of Charleston to
investigate a particularly gruesome serial killer.

But he knew that it was just a fantasy, and so Mulder grudgingly
opened up his eyes, and all that he saw were the clouds.

The plane tilted gracefully as it cut through the sky, slicing
through the cerulean color like a knife. His hair fell across his
face in a sweep of brown bangs, and one absent, careless hand
swept the hair off of his brow. He made a mental note to get a
haircut, but he was smart enough to know that he would forget the
reminder in a matter of days. As the case progressed and consumed
him like a tumor, eating his mind from the inside out, until he
was nothing more than a rotted wasteland...

A shudder quaked through his body at his abysmal thoughts. He was
already beginning to get morbid and he hadn't even begun a
profile. Perhaps these dreary thoughts were merely leftovers from
the last case, the one involving the child pornographer who had a
penchant for slaughtering his underage actors during the credits.
The screams of the dying children still haunted his dreams, and
the worst of it was that their hideous deaths were forever
captured on celluloid film.

His hands passed over his eyes as he leaned his face against the
airplane's window, and Mulder paused for a moment. Hands. The
dream that he had just woken from was still fresh in his mind,
and he looked at his own large, brown hands in curiosity. The
slender white fingers that had been threaded through his had been
so incredibly soft and supple, skilled and nimble. They were
undoubtedly feminine in their shape and size, but there was a
confidence and strength that none of his former romantic
interests had ever possessed. These were the hands of a capable
woman, a woman who was self-assured and stronger than steel or
metal.

Instantly, he missed them.

A tinny voice resounded through the cabin of the large Delta
airplane as the captain began announcing their destination.
Mulder didn't need to pay attention to the captain's words; he
already knew everything he needed to know about the historic city
of Charleston. The Civil War had originated there, the NAACP was
boycotting the entire state due to old Southern stubbornness, and
it was constantly facing threats from tropical and the
liberal political group. And it was hot. Humid, hot, and
historic.

And it was currently being plagued by a particularly twisted
serial killer.

Mulder looked down at the open file spread out on the tray. Large
color photographs of the victims stared back up at them, their
wide, startled eyes forever frozen by death and the vicious
candidness of the camera lens. Their eyes were always open,
always pleading, always broken, just like their bodies.

Their skinless bodies.

All of the bodies had been discovered on beaches and riverbanks,
scattered around the city like human driftwood, and all of them
had been skinned. The skin had been removed with the precision of
a surgeon, according to the pathologist's detailed reports. There
was no surface evidence and no leads, not to mention any
connections between any of the victims. Well, any connections but
one. They were all holding various positions at law offices
downtown. Some were secretaries, some were lawyers, and some were
simply runners. But it was still the law.

And it was the only start that they had.

A hand covered up the files that he had been looking at, and
Mulder looked up, startled. Agent Brentwood had covered up the
file photographs and was quickly replacing them in their
requisite manila folder. "We're landing," he explained quietly,
"and there are civilians nearby." Brentwood met Mulder's eye with
his own dark blue ones. "No one needs to see these, particularly
the residents returning home."

Understanding, Mulder nodded and helped Brentwood replace the
photos and reports. He shouldn't have been looking at them on the
plane in the first place, and he really shouldn't have fallen
asleep with them displayed on the flight tray. It was
irresponsible of him, and if Patterson had seen them, he would
have reamed Mulder's ass for a good hour or so. Any excuse to
ream Mulder's ass was a good one in Patterson's book.

He certainly appreciated Brentwood's assistance now. Brentwood
was a capable older agent, quiet and shadowed at the age of
forty-two. He had been with Behavioral Sciences since the
beginning, ever since it had been founded in controversy and
darkness. Mulder often looked at Roy Brentwood's haunted visage
and saw his own future if he didn't escape: broken, anguished,
and utterly destroyed. A slave to the serial killers and the
demons of profiling. It was what Patterson had made of Brentwood
and now what Patterson was trying to make of Mulder.

And every time that Mulder fell asleep and thus into another
nightmare, he felt that Patterson was succeeding. It was becoming
more and more difficult to distinguish reality from dark fantasy,
and the line between madness and sanity was blurring more and
more with every case. Mulder was starting to become scared of
himself, of the demons that were eating away at his own persona
and replacing his personality with their own demented quirks.

The aforementioned Patterson turned around in his seat to look at
his two prized agents: the seasoned warrior and the buckling
protegee. "I've arranged a rental car for us," he said
emotionlessly. "We'll go down to the police station and meet with
the Chief of Police before reporting to the morgue to attend the
autopsy."

Mulder cleared his throat, swiping again at his overgrown bangs.
"Do you have a police report on the victim?" he asked, emulating
the same voice as his mentor.

Patterson shook his head. "All that I know was that it was a
black woman in her early twenties, discovered on the banks of the
Ashley River. After the autopsy, I'll meet the two of you at the
crime scene. It's already been dusted and examined, and they've
come up with nothing so far." He snorted. "Tells you something
about the thoroughness of the local law enforcement, doesn't it."

Brentwood folded his hands in his lap, the myriad of scars and
wrinkles creasing together in his skin. "Agent Mulder and I will
go over the scene again, sir," he said complacently and softly.
Mulder hated the sound of Brentwood's gentle voice; it was the
voice of a man who had once had a spirit. It was a voice that
Mulder was afraid of developing. Monotonous, emotionless, and
uncaring.

He already had the monotone down pat.

The plane dipped again, and Mulder briefly clutched the armrests
with his hands, grimacing as the plane began to land in
Charleston. He hated landing, dreaded it not only for the
physical aspects but for the emotional ones Landing meant
embarking on yet another case and watching another tragedy begin
to unfold. His stomach turned somersaults, and he turned his face
to the window, watching the earth swoop closer and closer.
Highways and automobiles whirred past him along with the greenery
of trees and grass. The bright sunlight of the Carolinas
penetrated the glass and made him wince. Patterson chuckled at
Mulder's uncomfortable state, and it was a brutal laugh.

"After all these years, you're still a pussy when it comes to
flying," he commented before turning around and fastening his
seatbelt. The mocking laughter continued as sweat beaded on
Mulder's brow, and Brentwood silently put Mulder's tray in the
upright position as the plane made a landing in Charleston.

Another case had begun.

*****

She was cold.

Desperately cold. The kind of cold that was more severe than a
simply physical cold. It penetrated her emotional defenses,
freezing every thought and icing over every defense. She was
helpless against it, surrounded by it, encased in liquid cold.
God, she could even taste it on her tongue, and it tasted like
ice and acid. It clung to her eyelashes and sank underneath her
skin, as she drifted away from her body and thus life itself. She
had no memories, no thoughts of her own, only the knowledge that
she had lost a final time and that there would be no rematch.

Then the ice broke.

Hands pulled her from the cold and covered her body, touching her
skin and encasing her with the warmth of compassion and concern.
Frantic fingers explored her body with an adorable desperation,
and she wanted to reciprocate the passion behind the gesture.
Wanted to reach beyond the cold to assure her rescuer that she
was all right. But the cold had robbed her of her strength and of
her clarity, so that all she could do was lie naked on the cold
ground, vulnerable and utterly helpless.

Clothing covered her, large and already warmed by another human
being's skin. A hushed, husky male voice started whispering to
her, words that were soothing in the fright that the man was
experiencing. All of this concern, all because of her. "It's
gonna be okay," the deep-voiced man whispered. "I promise you,
it's gonna be all right. I'm here now, it's okay."

And it was. His hands traveled over her face, trembling digits
stroking her hair and nose before his fingers fumbled over her
lips. "I wish I could have kissed you," that despairing tenor
rumbled, and she felt an incredible urge to kiss him. She had no
memory of his face, no memory of him, but there was a need inside
of her to feel his mouth on hers. To consume his breath and hold
it inside of her, like she could inhale his strength and use it
for herself.

But instead she exhaled one last breath and was cast out among
the stars...

*****

Residence of Dana Scully
Charleston, South Carolina
9:00 AM, August 14, 1999

*****

Sunlight streamed in through the large French doors, sending the
linen curtains billowing on sunlight and luminous summer breezes.
The scent of lemon and saltwater permeated the air, and there was
a beautiful symphony of wind chimes and Atlantic waves from
outside. One slender calico cat purred contentedly on the painted
wood of the white balcony, stretching underneath the sunlight
while her multicolored fur shimmered like velvet tiger's eye.

The cat continued to sit out in the sun for a few more moments
before she decided that she was hungry. She trotted in from the
balcony and into the bedroom, where her young mistress lay
trapped in slumber.

Tangled in the fine sheets of the queen-sized bed was a slender,
scantily clad woman. Everything was white, from the bedcovers to
the panty and camisole set that the woman wore, except for a
startling splash of mussed red hair that was spilled over the
pillows like liquid cinnamon. Her small white hands were folded
neatly under the pillow, fingers twitching in her REM sleep. One
slender, shapely leg was strewn across the bed in a haphazard yet
appealing fashion, showing off the subtle sensuality of the
slumbering woman.

Gracefully, the cat jumped up onto the bed and pawed the young
woman's hair with her declawed little feet. The woman flinched in
her slumber briefly, but fell back into sleep again. Undaunted,
the calico nudged the redhead's nose with hers, then licked the
woman's cheek. Groaning, the woman finally woke up, mumbling a
name that she didn't understand and then instantly forgot.

Slowly, she sat up in bed, wiping her wet cheek before smoothing
out her sleep-mussed hair. "Ugh," she muttered to herself, and
then she opened up her eyes to look down at her feline alarm
clock.

Dana Scully grinned wryly. "Hungry, Duchess?" she asked, and
Duchess meowed in affirmation, butting her head against Scully's
wrist demandingly. Scully groaned again, combing out her short,
efficient hair with her fingertips before grabbing the thin linen
robe hanging from the bedpost. "All right, all right already.
Give me a minute." The calico fiend trotted away, her tail
twitching proudly behind her as she left the room so that her
mistress could get dressed.

Slipping her arms through the billowing robe, Scully loosely
belted the thin material and padded barefoot up the steps. The
August breeze ruffled her disarrayed red hair into a cloud of
crimson as she stepped out onto her widow's walk, and she
absently attempted to tuck the hair behind her ear. Sunlight
poured down on her in canary-tinted pillars, and she sighed as it
hit her shoulders and face. This was the smell of Charleston;
this was the essence of this coastal city.

This was what she loved about it.

The view from atop her antique house was glorious in the
brightness of the August morning. Charleston Harbor glimmered and
shone beneath the veil of spring-colored willow trees, the waves
rolling in jewel-tinted wheels of water. The barrier islands were
apparent in the distance, protecting the city from the threat of
hurricanes or invaders and thus hiding it from the rest of the
world. Charleston was an isolated city, covered in secrecy and
Spanish moss and wrapped in lush history.

Closing her eyes, Scully leaned against the railing of her pretty
white widow's walk, absorbing the heat into her skin in an
attempt to banish the lingering cold of her dream.

She shuddered at its sudden memory. The terror of it was thick
inside of her system, pumping through her veins in liters of
liquid blizzard. The reality of the dream had been the most
frightful part of it, the cloistering feeling that this was more
memory than fantasy. And the only point of solace in that
nightmare had been the stranger's hands fluttering over her face
and body as he dressed her in his clothes.

"I wish I could have kissed you," Scully murmured aloud,
repeating her foreign savior's words. But her self-assured alto
voice couldn't breathe life into the words in the same way that
the tattered tenor had.

It had been a strange dream. Very strange indeed.

The telephone started to ring shrilly from inside and Scully
sighed. Another day had begun. Bowing her head, she abandoned her
vantage point at the widow's walk to enter her bedroom again,
locating the cordless phone and answering it in standard fashion.
"Scully," she said.

A soft, sotto chuckle rumbled across the phone line, softly
tinted with the rich flavor of a British purr. "You're going to
be late for work, Scully," the classy English voice murmured.

Scully smiled dryly, resting the phone in the crook of her neck.
"What's up, Lia?"

Dr. Ophelia Brown sighed on the other end of the phone. "I
thought that I should be the first to tell you that they've
discovered another body," she answered in a fatigued tone of
voice. "Our lovely local media covered the story from the crime
scene, where they were in their best capacity to interfere with
the investigation. More handiwork of the Southern Skinner."

Scully frowned. "The Southern Skinner?"

Lia chuckled dryly. "Oh, didn't you hear? That's the nickname
that the _Post and Courier_ have given him. Pretty sexy, huh?"

Scully rolled her eyes as she walked downstairs. Duchess found
her in the hallway and tangled her lithe body through Scully's
ankles as her mistress walked toward the kitchen. "You're sick,
Lia," Scully said, and the burn specialist sighed in return.

"Thank you."

While Scully poured dried cat food into Duchess's plastic bowl,
she listened as Lia described the revolting state of the
victim's body. "Judging from the press release, it's pretty
nasty, Scully," she said. "The saltwater must have corroded all
of the internal organs; they look pickled by now. Just like the
last one, I'm afraid. They're going to have to identify this one
with dental records. Again."

Wincing, Scully shifted the phone from one shoulder to the other
as she reached into her sparse freezer and procured a canister of
coffee beans. "You could have spared me the gritty details until
I got to the morgue," she said, and Lia's frustrated breath
was the equivalent of a dismissal.

"You're a seasoned coroner, Scully," Rachael said. "You can
handle the disgusting stuff." Her voice lowered viciously. "I did
enjoy seeing Jill Miller blanche at the sight of the body at the
crime scene ­ I hate that reporter. Bloody little snot."

Scully started to grind the coffee beans as Lia continued on with
her colorful diatribe. "In any case, I figure that you have about
a half an hour to get your tight little Yankee butt down to the
autopsy bay," the British doctor said wryly. "Oh, and there's
something else going on that you probably should know about.
Police Chief Greenberg has called in the FBI to work on the
case."

Surprised, Scully arched her eyebrows. "The FBI?"

"Not only that, but a special unit of the FBI," Lia said.
"The Behavioral Sciences Unit has sent a team down to
investigate. Including a profiler."

Scully flinched. The last thing that she wanted to do was perform
an autopsy with onlookers, especially onlookers from the Federal
Bureau of Investigation. The FBI was a particularly sore point
with her, especially nowadays when she was growing tired of her
job and of her relationship with the devious South. She didn't
want to have to confront her past choices now, not when there was
nothing she could do about them. Her life had been plotted out
and now she would have to follow its course.

It was far too late for her to join the FBI now.

"Great," Scully muttered into the phone, brushing the coffee
grinds into the filter. "Any other good news for me today?"

"Actually, yes," Lia said. "Have you turned on the Weather
Channel yet?"

Scully frowned. "No, not yet. Should I?"

An excited note made its way into Lia's usually monotonous voice.
"Only if you're interested in taking a look at the latest
tropical depression."

Immediately, Scully abandoned her coffee machine for the small
television set that was positioned in her breakfast nook,
flipping on the power and switching to the Weather Channel. Storm
Watch was on, and Dr. John Hope was standing in front of the blue
screen, pointing at a rotating mass of clouds near the Wayward
Islands. "I'll be damned," Scully muttered. "That busy hurricane
season that they were predicting is starting to kick in. I'm
impressed; I personally thought that Dr. Hope had finally lost
it."

"He always did look senile, didn't he?" Lia mused. She then
muttered a curse. "Damn. Scully, I have to run. I have to make
rounds on my Special Burns unit and then prepare a speech for my
team. Best of luck at the morgue."

"Bye," Scully murmured, transfixed by the motion of the storm
churning out in the Atlantic.

Scully pressed the "end" button on the telephone and set it down
on the kitchen counter. She turned away from the television set
as Dr. Hope gave out the statistics to the storm and returned to
making her coffee, glancing at the clock on the wall as she did
so. "Tropical Depression number 3 is positioned at 28.3 N and
73.2 W, and is moving due west at 8 mph. The pressure has dropped
to 989 millibars, so we are expecting some strengthening as this
depression gets itself better organized. This is definitely a
storm that we should keep an eye on, but it won't present a
threat for a while to come."

With that, Scully turned off the television set and moved
upstairs to get a shower.

As she pulled off her panties and camisole, Scully realized that
she couldn't keep her mind off of her earlier dream. In spite of
the rising temperatures, the cold still clung to her skin. It was
bizarre, the way that she couldn't shake this simple,
uncomplicated nightmare. But in retrospect, it wasn't really a
nightmare. Certainly it had some terrifying aspects to it, such
as that relentless cold, but there was something genuinely
comforting about it. Something very tranquil and reassuring. And
she could pinpoint just which part of the dream that was - the
stranger's hands.

Gently, her own hands smoothed her hair down, trying to generate
the same compassion that the male hands had possessed in her
dream, but it was pointless. Eventually, she just felt silly,
trying to recreate the hands of a man that didn't even exist.
"You're losing it, Scully," she muttered to herself, tucking her
hair behind her ears as she stepped into the shower.

The hot water hit her naked body forcefully but soothingly, and
Scully sighed, exhaling into the shower. Liquid warmth flowed
over her body in waves of refreshing heat, flooding over her bare
skin like fluid fingers. The memory of her cold, brutal nightmare
seemed to drop from her body as the shower continued, and she
sighed into it. The warmth was relieving as it poured over her

(like the melting emerald ice as he shattered the cocoon)

body, small fingertips touching her like a million

(frantic fingers covered her body in a desperate attempt to give
her warmth)

caresses. Frustrated, Scully bent her head to her feet, watching
the clear water swirl through her toes before it emptied into her
drain. Clear water. Not water the color of liquid jade, but
clear, safe water. There was nothing dirty or unholy about this
water. She was safe in this shower, safe from the cold ice that
had encased her, safe from the myriad of possibilities
contradictory to her science that lay in the implications of that
ice, and safe from the Antarctic...

"Wait."

Her own voice stilled the whir of words moving through her mind.
It had been the strangest feeling, the feeling that she had been
remembering things, even when these were events that had never
happened to her. Shaking her head, she continued on with her
shower, blocking any possible thoughts from her mind as she
lathered melon-scented shampoo into the fine strands of her hair.
Scully had never been near Antarctica; she was an average woman
living an average life in Charleston, South Carolina. And as much
as she might resent that normalcy, it did eradicate all
possibilities of her ever being in her dreamed situation.

While washing the shampoo out of her hair, she washed the
memories of her dreams out, too. There were more important things
to think about now, like the autopsy and the "Southern Skinner".
Her personal issues didn't belong.

So Scully finished showering up, not thinking twice about
Antarctica or the mysterious tenor voice that had comforted her.

*****

SKIN: CHAPTER TWO

*****

Charleston County Police Headquarters
Charleston, South Carolina
10:20 AM, August 14, 1999

*****

The police station was located in the heart of Charleston in a
large, sprawling structure that was both beautiful and efficient.
It combined both modern and historic elements to create a very
active, pretty police station that was more distinct than most of
the others that Mulder had witnessed in his time. Certainly, it
had that classic musty smell and dim, ominous lighting that
seemed to be a staple in all police stations, but the stained
glass windows and marble pillars gave it a more friendly,
accessible feel.

Groaning, Mulder reached for his necktie, loosening it slightly
from around his neck. The heat was oppressive and almost
tangible. It felt like some sort of virus, sinking through his
skin and claiming his body. "Of course, a serial killer has to
start in August," Mulder muttered grumpily as he followed
Patterson and Brentwood to the sheriff's office. Brentwood tossed
him a look of detached sympathy, but it wasn't really genuine.
The older agent didn't put very much heart into any of his life
nowadays, and Mulder felt the same apathy sinking through his
bones.

It was like this case. Five years ago, he might have gone home
and found images of skinned women lying everywhere, haunting his
dreams as well as his days. But now, they were merely a fact of
life that he had to deal with. People died. People were murdered.
And he was supposed to bring them justice. It was a routine,
losing himself in the darkness of the demons that had killed him.
And now it was becoming more and more difficult to pull himself
back out.

He was beginning to wonder if he even wanted to return in the
first place.

Inside the police station, there was a crowd of officers and
secretaries, all bustling about in efforts to rally officers and
keep the hungry media at bay. Federal agents littered the place,
probably sent from the field office in Columbia, though Mulder
recognized a few fibs from the Washington Headquarters. Their
entrance into the building was mostly unnoticed, though Patterson
and Mulder attracted a few unwelcome stares due to their
notoriety in the Bureau history.

One tall black man approached them wearing a tailored navy blue
suit and a conservative tie. "Agents?" he asked, and the three
Washingtonians turned their heads to the man who had approached
them. He smiled pleasantly at them, a grin breaking out to
display a row of straight white teeth. "My name's Brett Townsend.
I'm the Assistant to the Police Chief, Rueben Greenberg. The
Chief will be out in a little while to discuss the details of the
case with you, but he's currently tied up in a press conference."

Patterson leaned forward and extended his hand to the young
Townsend. "Thank you, Mr. Townsend," he said. "I'm Agent
Patterson, and this is Agent Mulder and Agent Brentwood." The
agents took their turns shaking hands with Townsend, who then
directed them into a closed-off area of the headquarters. Harsh
fluorescent lighting beamed down on them, proving that even
though the exterior might seem unique, the insides were typical.
The police station was always the victim of underfunding.

After everyone was seated, Townsend spoke. "This case is proving
to be a very large problem," he said, his voice smooth but
serious. "And it's getting worse every day. I'm not just talking
about the murders themselves, but the problem with the media." Of
course. No one cared as much about the case as they did about the
press. " Chief Greenberg is a very popular man in Charleston
County, which is very progressive. It has not always been
possible for a black man in this position to be popular in the
Old South. We have to handle this case with kid gloves, which is
why the local police enforcement was reluctant to bring in the
Behavioral Sciences Unit. The last thing we want is for this case
to be sensationalized by the media."

Patterson nodded understandingly. "What you want is for this case
to be wrapped up swiftly, neatly, and quietly," he said. "And you
don't want the public to be upset by the presence of FBI
profilers." Relieved, Townsend stood up and smiled again, the
pleasant smile of a man who had done his job correctly. A spark
of mischief lit up Mulder's system for a moment. He had gained
his bad reputation in the Bureau for his spontaneity and his
unorthodox methods of investigation - it would be interesting to
see how Townsend reacted to having Fox Mulder work on a case.

Townsend left the room for a moment, and Patterson turned sternly
to Mulder. "You need to keep yourself under tight reins on this
case, Mulder," he said. "This is an important case to the Bureau.
The Chief of Police is a high-standing man, and he's up for
reelection this year. And if you can't keep yourself in line,
then I'll do it for you." Danger and malice sparked in
Patterson's eyes as he glared at the younger agent. "Do I make
myself clear?"

Sighing, Mulder turned away. Bitched at again. "Crystal," he
muttered.

The door opened again and Greenberg entered. Greenberg was a man
of medium-build and middle age, black and world-weary. Mulder had
heard something of Chief Ruben Greenberg in the news and in the
_Washington Post_. He was well regarded in high political
circles, especially for his tight policies involving high school
crime. After the Littleton disaster, Greenberg had implemented a
reward system for students calling in to report weapons in the
schools. It was a smart idea, one that Mulder respected, and so
he respected the police chief.

After going through the proprieties of shaking hands and
introductions, all sat down to discuss the most important matter
of all - the case.

Greenberg, who wore a responsible-looking gray suit, placed his
hands on his knees and looked sternly at all three agents. It
wasn't an offensive sternness, just the seriousness of a
concerned man. It was appropriate. "I'm certain that my assistant
has told you that we're dealing with a very delicate situation,"
Greenberg said, his voice smooth, serious, and affected with a
rich Southern accent. "But aside from our media problems, which
are getting worse and worse every day, we've got a pretty vicious
serial killer at large.

"The murders started about a week ago, when one 24-year-old
Rachel Morris washed ashore in Mt. Pleasant, skinned. She was a
paralegal, a mother of one, unmarried. No record, nothing that
would really distinguish her from anything else. Her legal career
is all we've got to link her to our other victims, which are
Lucinda Brightman, aged 27, Caroline Brenneman, aged 33, Stella
Horowitz, aged 32, and our most recent victim, who is still
unidentified. She was found early this morning on the banks of
the Ashley River, near Drayton Hall Plantation." A disgusted note
entered his voice. "A tourist discovered the body, which, if you
can imagine, is not good for the city. Charleston's major source
of income *is* tourism, and it's not gonna look good if visitors
start finding mutilated women.

"But beyond all that, what I want is for this bastard to be put
behind bars so that our lives can continue. This is one sick
jackass out there making life difficult for Charlestonians, and
it's scaring me that we've had about twenty feds working this
case with no success." The chief of police leaned forward
confidentially, arching his eyebrows in scrutiny. "What I want to
know is why I should trust you three to solve a problem that
nobody else could."

Mulder understood the question; it made sense. This was a
vicious, violent killer, and nobody had been able to make head or
tails of what exactly was going on. There had been no surface
evidence and nothing to link the three victims. And there had
been three other investigative teams sent in before the BSU had
been called into action. All with no success.

Patterson took over command, as always. "Agent Brentwood is a
highly experienced field agent with a degree in criminology," he
said. "He's given thirteen years of service to the FBI and twelve
of those years were spent in the Behavioral Sciences Unit. He's a
decorated agent and a solid one. He won't let you down." Mulder
knew why Patterson did this. It was because Patterson had
personally broken Brentwood and wanted Mulder to bend to him as
well. One of his bribes was the praise that he poured upon
Brentwood.

With an arched eyebrow of disdain, Patterson looked at Mulder,
then mustered up some sort of good word for him. "And this is
Agent Mulder, a criminal profiler for our team," Patterson said.
"Agent Mulder is a very talented young man, graduated a year
early and at the top of his class from Quantico. We're relying on
solid police work and sound psychology to catch this killer,
Chief Greenberg."

Pleased, Greenberg stood up and passed three manila folders to
the agents. "You can find the most recent body next door at the
City Morgue," he said. "Dr. Scully, the Chief of Pathology, will
be more than happy to cooperate with the investigation."

Scully. The name rolled around in Mulder's head for a moment,
like a missing puzzle piece searching for the place where it fit.
It was familiar, and in the strangest way. It was familiar in the
way that his mother's name was familiar, reverent and loving.
Even though he was certain that he'd never heard the name before,
it felt... It felt as though he *should* know it. And he
instantly felt guilty for not having a face to place with the
name. As though he was betraying someone for not remembering a
name.

A gruff, uncaring hand clapped over his shoulder. It was
Brentwood, looking at him with mild curiosity. "We're leaving
now," he said simply, and Mulder blinked his eyes, discovering
that the room was emptying. Startled, he nodded at Brentwood, who
walked on ahead without asking him what was wrong. Of course he
didn't inquire. Words were something that Brentwood didn't waste
on civilians or on human beings not associated with the case.

Mulder caught up with Patterson in the hallway, frowning as he
walked beside the Section Chief. "Sir, have we ever worked with a
Dr. Scully before?" he asked, furrowing his brow in thought.

Patterson snorted. "Mulder, we've worked with more pathologists
than I can think of," he said. "I don't remember their names."

Shaking his head, Mulder continued, hot on the heels of his boss.
"It just seems like I know that name, Scully," he murmured. The
feel of the name rolling off his tongue felt right, felt good,
like he was whispering a prayer. Like he was calling on God to
give him solace. All of this comfort and tranquility gathered
from a name that he had never even heard before... It was
bizarre.

With a sigh, Patterson tossed a bored glare in Mulder's
direction. "Jesus, Mulder, calm down," he said in exasperation.
"We're going to be there in a minute to meet this guy, so-"

"It's a woman," Mulder said suddenly. Somehow he knew that Scully
was a woman's name, even though most of their pathologists were
men. The feeling that he received when he spoke that name was a
feeling associated with women - soft, soothing, and subtly
sensual. This was what the mere utterance of her name induced.
Dr. Scully was undoubtedly female.

Patterson rolled his eyes. "Whatever."

The three agents stepped outside to cross the street to the city
morgue.

*****

Residence of Dana Scully
Charleston, South Carolina
10:53 AM, August 14, 1999

*****

Scully stepped out into the bright Carolina morning, the smell of
fresh-blooming wisteria surrounded her. She paused briefly and
deeply inhaled it, enjoying the combination of sweetness and
richness that were imbedded deeply into the blooms of the deep
violet flowers. Duchess slunk out from underneath Scully's
wraparound porch and threaded her supple body around her owner's
ankles, purring delightedly. Scully sighed, giving into her cat's
demands as she reached down to stroke the calico's jewel-toned
fur. "I'm whipped, you know," she told the cat. "And you're
totally spoiled for it."

The cat just continued nuzzling Scully's ankles as Scully walked
toward her bicycle.

She did own a car. It was a 1991 Saturn, a fairly decent used
car, colored dark gray and affectionately nicknamed Lucy by its
previous owner. But Lucy spent the summer in the garage, mostly
unused since you could go anywhere in downtown Charleston either
on foot or on a reliable bike. Scully had chosen to invest her
money in her bike and her house.

Scully tilted her head back to glance at her paradise in
unabashed admiration. The house was a sprawling Southern
masterpiece, complete with iron-wrought gates with a unique
design of wisteria and pineapples. The white plaster wraparound
porch wound around the lemon-colored house, where white wicker
furniture and embroidered pillows were set out for summer sunsets
and iced tea consumption. The second story was mostly for the
guests that Scully never had with its three bedrooms and two and
a half bathrooms, all furnished with antiques. But her pride and
joy was on the third floor.

A magnificent balcony was set just outside of the master bedroom
and could be entered and exited by genuine French doors. The
bedroom was a loft, decorated in white linen and eyelet lace,
simple and understated in the summertime. In the wintertime, she
broke out the heavier mulberry bedroom set with its velvet
curtains and forest-green throw pillows. And on top of her
canary-colored estate was a white widow's walk, where she could
watch the sailboats and the sea to her heart's content.

A house on East Battery was difficult to procure and even more
difficult to pay for. They were usually inherited, passed down
from generation to generation, and they always included the
antebellum furniture that the house had always been equipped
with. Scully had gotten her house on a lucky break - her mentor,
Dr. Rutledge. She'd been his protegee of sorts, his model doctor
while an intern at MUSC, and when he'd passed away years after
she became Chief of Pathology, he left her his prized house.

Of course, Dr. Rutledge had given it to her in the hopes that one
day she would find someone to share it with, and that was an
expectation that she had never been able to fulfill. Yet another
disappointment to add to the long list.

With a sigh, Scully got on her BMX and pushed off, peddling down
the street and toward the city morgue.

She crossed the street and steered the bike onto the Battery,
which was nothing more than a raised sidewalk lining the Harbor.
She loved riding along the Battery, peddling toward top speed. It
was releasing, relieving, like she was speeding down the line
between land and sea. Like she was skirting the border between
ocean and society. Here, she could escape the boundaries and
restraints of the modern world, could escape the weariness and
the trials of the South Carolinian culture. She could lose
herself in the tides or in the people; either way, she could just
get lost.

Losing herself was a highly appealing idea nowadays.

The wind whipped through her hair, pushing it into a torrent of
red, as she turned onto Broad Street. She had no idea that merely
three minutes away, a man that she had never met but had always
been in love with was walking toward her same destination to meet
her.

She had no idea that she had just crossed the line between ocean
and land.

*****

Charleston City Morgue
Charleston, South Carolina
11:03 AM, August 14, 1999

*****

She turned into the parking lot at the same moment that he walked
out into the sunlight. She curved the bicycle gracefully into the
turn, feeling her hair fly about her face in a torrent of
brightness.

It was that same banner of red that caught his eye.

A streak of ginger ignited the sky, cinnamon exploding into a
firestorm of silk. Startled, he turned his head to follow that
rich ripple of ruby, to see who its owner was, and he was frozen
in his path at the sight of the beauty that the red hair belonged
to.

One slender, petite woman curved a metal bicycle around the bend
that led into the parking lot, wearing a pair of worn blue jeans
and an exquisite cream-colored blouse that billowed around her
body as she rode. Wind and speed pushed her hair into a torrent
of vermilion, radiant and rapturous in its copper-threaded
extravagance. That hair, those highlights and those streaks of
strawberry and sunlight... It was all so exquisitely beautiful,
so proud and defiant in the Carolina sun.

She turned her head, and felt herself nearly lose her grip on her
handlebars. Someone was watching her, a stranger in a black suit
and a wildly-colored necktie, and that stranger was one of the
most striking men she had ever seen. A unique face stared at her,
with high cheekbones and summer-colored skin, all marked by a
dominant and slightly crooked nose. But it was his eyes that
caught her attention. The color swarmed together in the distance,
displaying only dark brown the color of cocoa beans. Yet it was
what resided in those eyes that she could discern even now.
Intelligence, intensity, and a deep, heartbreaking flavor of
sorrow.

That was what was all focused on her now, and felt her own heart
clench and tighten with a thick pain. That distant figure that
she couldn't recognize was breaking her heart, not only with his
beauty but with this strong sense that she should be by his side.
She should be standing next to him, completing him, feeling him
complete her. Instead she was riding a bicycle to a workplace
that she detested, and he stood alone and longing.

Her face was solemn when she turned it to his, and from across
the street, he could discern the bright crystal blue of her eyes
and the sharpness of her features. But he was attracted to her
mouth most of all, if only because it was the only softness in
her angular face. And it was also the most intriguing feature
that he had ever seen on a woman before. Sensual, determined, and
lined with berry-colored regret.

This woman was sad that she had seen him.

Then the moment passed, and Mulder was left alone on the street
corner, abandoned by his colleagues and by the beautiful biker.
She was turning her face away from him, and so he tore his gaze
away from hers. He had a job to do, and lingering on a woman
wasn't going to solve the case.

When Scully glanced over her shoulder again, she saw the tall man
cross the street toward the morgue, and felt a shudder run down
her spine. It was the same kind of chill that she had tried to
eradicate with her earlier showering, the same cold that had
penetrated her bones and stole her strength before. The same
strange feeling of missing something passed through her body
again, all with the sight of this handsome and exotic man.

All because she thought that she was supposed to know him.

*****

SKIN: CHAPTER THREE

*****

The bland, sterile walls of the city morgue were a welcome
blessing for Scully as she entered from the back. Her brain was
jangled and her mind was confused, and she felt distinct
disorientation take over her mind. It was the disorientation of a
woman who had just found something she'd lost wrapped up in a
stranger's caramel-coated eyes. The only problem was that Scully
had never had anything to lose, so she couldn't pinpoint why she
had been missing a man that she had never met before.

Pathologists and assistants paced the hallway as the white tails
of their lab coats flared up like angel wings. Scully actually
took brief comfort in the typicality of the morgue for a moment.
The boring monotony of the days was a welcome refuge from the
strangeness that she had experienced outside when glancing at the
enigmatic stranger, and it grounded her, numbed her, prepared her
for the autopsy that she would need to perform. Her sudden bout
of displacement couldn't interfere with the murder case,
especially when the FBI was in town.

The FBI... That was a whole other can of worms that Scully wasn't
going to open yet. She had experienced enough distress already
today and she wasn't prepared to deal with the implications of
her past failures. Wordlessly, she slipped past the emotionless
lab workers and moved toward her office, but then she paused
outside of her door to read the gold plaque hanging there.

"DR. DANA SCULLY, CHIEF PATHOLOGIST". It was a title that she had
spent the past six years earning and the past three years
loathing. This was what she had spent her entire life working
for, all of her years studying medicine, forensics, criminology
and pathology. She had accomplished her goal, and even if she
hated her career and her life, at least she knew who she was. She
was Dr. Dana Scully, Chief Pathologist of the Charleston City
Morgue. Nobody else but that.

Usually she hated to remind herself of that fact, but her odd
experience outside had somehow made her want to remember herself.
She needed to have the strict fact that stated who and what she
was. Dr. Scully. No more, no less.

Even if that stranger's sorrow-riddled eyes made her wish that
she were somebody else.

Briskly, she entered her office and closed the door soundly
behind her. No sense in dwelling on a past that she couldn't
change.

Scully turned around and took in the sight of her office. It was
neat and tidy, well organized and sparsely decorated with used
furniture that had already been broken in when she'd purchased
it. A high-backed leather chair with cracks in the upholstery was
placed behind a sturdy pine desk, and everything was lit in the
typical medical harshness of fluorescent lighting. Only a
smattering of photographs littered the desk, and they were only
the pictures of her immediate family. No lovers, no children, no
memories. It was the simple life of a single woman.

Another eerie feeling that there was something missing drifted
through her mind. It was the sensation she felt when she noticed
that her office lacked clutter and color.

Shuddering, Scully threw the idea out of her mind as she shrugged
into her pristine white lab coat. //You're losing it, Scully,//
she thought to herself. She opted to save these musings for
another time, when it was just her, her widow's walk, and a nice
summer sunset. And maybe a glass of iced tea... The thought was
more than tempting. But now she was trapped in this cubbyhole of
an office with her bland autopsy reports and another autopsy to
prepare for.

Scully sighed as she sat down at her desk and put on her slim
wire-rimmed glasses. There was Lia's typed report on the gunshot
victim from West Ashley. She breezed through it and found nothing
unusual. The toxicology screening came up clean; no signs of drug
abuse, and it appeared that the gunshot wound was truly
accidental. The kid's record coincided with the findings of the
autopsy - the kid was clean at the time of death.

There was only one more file in her in-box, from the Police
Station. A muscle in her jaw clenched tightly as she steeled
herself for the inevitable - another victim of the Southern
Skinner.

This woman was nothing more than a Jane Doe at this point,
discovered by a tourist at Drayton Hall Plantation. Scully winced
at the thought of a foreigner stumbling across the body. Instead
of finding magnolias, there were corpses. It was what upset her
about the case so badly. In spite of Scully's growing discontent
and her poor opinion of the locals, she did have a deep love of
the land itself. The swamps, the marshes, the sand dunes and
plantations all held a special place in her heart. Hearing of
crime and murder invading those historic habitats broke a piece
of her.

It was as though everything that she knew was being destroyed.

Furrowing her brow, she continued reading the preparatory report
on the body. There was no trace evidence discovered at the crime
scene, which was not unusual. The killer was smart, very
methodical and thorough and exceptionally good at what he did.
Scully had performed all of the autopsies on the victims to date,
and the pathologist in her couldn't help but admire the skill and
smoothness of every incision. The precision and gracefulness with
the blade... She had made a suggestion to the original team of
feds that this man was either an artist or a surgeon, but nobody
had paid attention to the redheaded Yankee pathologist.

Nobody ever did.

Funny, how she could love land so much and despise the people who
lived on it. The South had enchanted her from her first day, with
its beautiful houses and streets, and Scully had always harbored
a fondness from the sea. It was something that she had inherited
from her Navy captain father ­ a love of water. She sailed, she
walked the beaches, she swam and she sunned. And the Southerners
themselves were so calm and pretty, with their lulling language
and politeness to every guest. Yet Scully had discovered that
Charleston was a society that could only be entered by being born
in the city or at least raised there since childhood, for many of
them harbored a resentment for Yankees such as herself, as if she
could steal the South from them. Inheriting a beautiful house on
the Battery had not helped her situation much, either ­ she had
been rejected doubly for inheriting the Compromise House of
downtown Charleston.

So she became a hermit. A recluse. She lived in her house,
dissected the dead, and associated only with British Lia Brown
and a few men who were enchanted by her stoicism or just wanted
to melt the Ice Queen. She'd slept with a few of them and
rejected all of them in return once they began mocking her for
her loneliness and her love for a land she hadn't been born on.

Yes, the South was a place of love and hate indeed.

Gritting her teeth, Scully continued reading the police report.
It was all the same information as before, just with different
sites and different names plugged in. A woman, in her mid-
twenties to early-forties, discovered on either a riverbank or a
beach, skinned and decaying from being tied down and weighted. No
surface evidence and no fingerprints anywhere on the site. It was
her job now to try and discover if there was anything unusual
about the body, to try and find the killer's error, if there was
one at all.

A knock sounded on her door, and Scully looked up from the
report. "Come in," she called, and the door opened, revealing
three men in business suits.

And one of them was him.

When Mulder stepped through Dr. Scully's office door, the last
thing that he expected to see was her. The red-haired woman from
outside on the bike was now sitting at a clean pine desk, wearing
the immaculate white coat of a doctor. She looked up from a
manila folder, startled out of her work, and her face was thus
tilted so that he could see her close-up. From a distance, she
had been glorious, but now she was magnificent. Her flawless oval
face was lit with rose both from her hair and from her Irish
complexion, and there was a smattering of freckles over her nose
that makeup couldn't conceal. Summertime freckles. The kind that
came from long afternoons spent at the beach and in sunlight.

He saw nothing in the room except for her, this lovely young
woman who looked at him with blatant intrigue that lasted only
for a moment. Then she arched one gingery eyebrow coldly,
disdainfully. "Are you the FBI agents from Washington?" she
asked, and Patterson took over, clearing his throat and extending
his hand.

"You must be Dr. Scully," he said. "I'm Agent Patterson, and this
is Agent Brentwood and Agent Mulder." Her sharp china gaze
glanced over the other two agents before pausing on him. He
stared back at her, trying to read her thoughts underneath the
bright blue ice of her eyes, and he felt a sudden tension simmer
between them. Electricity crackled in her eyes, sparkling and
sizzling with clear cerulean heat, before they settled into
closed-off, reserved pools of frost.

Dispassionately, she looked over the three men and nodded. "I
take it that you're here to discuss the murders," she said, and
Patterson nodded.

"We understand that you performed the previous autopsies and that
you will perform the autopsy on the latest victim this morning,"
Patterson said, and Scully nodded. "Can you tell us any of your
findings? Anything unusual that you noticed?"

Dr. Scully stood, and Mulder was suddenly surprised by her petite
stature. Earlier on the bicycle, her presence had been so
commanding that he had not noticed her physical size. But in the
company of three men, it was difficult to ignore the fact that
she was less than five and a half feet tall. A brief image
floated through his head, a fine fantasy for him to indulge in.
Of this woman, wrapped around his body, with his chin resting
snugly on the crown of her bright red hair...

The sound of her clearing her throat broke him out of his
reverie, and Mulder looked up to see her staring at him directly
and archly. Then she averted her eyes to meet Patterson's as she
began reciting the details of her autopsy findings.

"There was not very much physical evidence," she said. "We found
no fingerprints, no blood from anyone other than the victim, and
even that was difficult to find due to the levels of saltwater in
the rivers and in the seawater. The poor condition of the bodies
makes it difficult to perform a standard autopsy, so we've had to
be somewhat creative in the bay lately." Patterson snorted and
Dr. Scully ignored him. "The toxicology screenings have all come
out varied; some of the victims were doped and others were not."

"Probably depended on how much the victim trusted her attacker,"
Mulder mused aloud, and Scully nodded over at him in agreement.

"I would look at the girls who didn't require sedation," Scully
suggested. "Perhaps they were directly linked to the killer."
Before she could elaborate on her theory, Patterson interrupted
her, impatient and uncaring.

"We'll draw the conclusions, Dr. Scully," he said, and the
smoothness of his voice only served to condescend to the
pathologist rather than soothe her temper. And Mulder could tell
that she had a temper. A woman like this always did.

Beneath her cold, unfeeling exterior, Scully felt her pride start
seething from the way that Patterson had attempted to humiliate
her. Scully didn't feel embarrassed in the least by the way that
he had dismissed her; it was the attempt that pissed her off.

"Then I hope you have a solid investigative team, *sir*," she
said sharply, placing unneeded emphasis on Patterson's title. It
was her way of telling him that if her help wasn't wanted, then
she wouldn't dispense it. "In any case, it has been difficult to
deduce how the skin was removed from the bodies, again thanks to
the saltwater. I did deduce that whoever removed the skin was
very precise; there was no error at all. Everything was clearly
methodical and calculated, even done to the removal of the scalp
and fingernails."

"Fingernails?" Brentwood asked, and Scully nodded, removing her
glasses with one steady hand.

"Yes, the killer removed the fingernails as well as the
toenails," she confirmed. "That makes it more difficult for us to
find trace evidence. If the killer had accidentally left a print
on one of the nails, we couldn't lift it." She had tried. The
autopsy process for all of these victims had taken hours upon
hours, trying to apply a practiced method to a mutilated body.
There had been nothing to salvage, nothing human to dissect, when
everything was a mass of blood and pulp, barely resembling
anything female or living.

"Are you planning on performing the autopsy on the latest victim
this morning, Dr. Scully?" Patterson asked, and she nodded.

"I will have the results in about four to five hours, depending
on the state of the body," she said. "Is there a number where I
can reach you to notify you when I finish?"

Before Patterson could pass out any cellular numbers, a soft,
murmuring tenor voice spoke from the back. "I'm going to stay."

All of the frigidity, all of the numbness that she had mustered
up to protect herself with, melted under the velveteen caress of
Agent Mulder's rich, mocha-flavored voice. It was the same voice
that had melted the cold and kept her sane during her dream; she
felt that certainty flood her veins and flow through her
circulation with a rapidly intensifying heat. It was the heat of
a thousand words that she had never heard rushing inside of her
and around her, and she looked up at him suddenly.

And she realized that she had already known every feature before
she saw his face.

Every detail, every crevice and every flaw, not to mention a few
that weren't even there anymore. But she knew that crooked nose
that was an inch too large for his face, and she knew that
subtle, full mouth that was parted slightly. She had already
memorized the fall of hair across his brow and the rich luster of
the mahogany and copper that was so deliciously intoxicating to
touch...

But she hadn't ever touched him before. She had never seen this
man before today, so there was no possible way for her to know
the texture of his dark brown hair.

It was Patterson who spoke and thus brought her back into
reality. "Good," he said. "Brentwood, you come with me to the
police department. I want to get as much background information
as I can get on this case." Tearing her eyes from Agent Mulder,
Scully nodded briskly at Patterson, smiling tightly and formally
at a man that she didn't respect or like. There was a coldness
about Patterson, a detachment from the brutality of the case,
that she didn't admire.

"Then I will have Agent Mulder contact you when the autopsy has
been wrapped up," she said. Instantly, she felt a set of intense
hazel eyes fall on her, but she didn't return their
inquisitiveness. Before they could turn to leave, she walked to
her desk and passed four large manila folders to Patterson.
"These are my previous findings on the other victims. I hope that
they can provide some insight into the case."

"Thank you, Doctor," Patterson said absently, and Scully nodded.

"Please let me know if you have any questions," she said, passing
them a small card embossed with her name, cellular number, and
work number. After that, the men disassembled, leaving her small
office.

All except for Agent Mulder.

The two stood alone in her office, silent and still, though
Mulder had the distinct impression that they were sort of
mentally circling each other. Analyzing each other, sizing each
other up. Her hair fell around her face in a tamed tumble of red-
gold, and he placed his hands on his hips, resisting the urge to
smile at her. There was something so deliciously challenging
about her, about the constant dare in her sharp blue eyes.

"Why did you want to stay for the autopsy?" Dr. Scully asked. The
question was phrased with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion,
and Mulder realized that she was wondering if he was staying
because he didn't trust her ability to perform an adequate
autopsy.

Narrowing his eyes, Mulder looked down at the petite pathologist.
"I can assure you that I do not share Agent Patterson's opinion
of your work or your ideas, Dr. Scully," he said carefully,
meeting her eyes in assurance. "In fact, I found your suggestion
that the sober victims were linked to the killer very
interesting."

One of her slender ginger eyebrows arched upward in an
exclamation of surprise. "I appreciate that," she said. "But it
still doesn't explain why you chose to witness the autopsy." She
crossed her arms over her chest, staring him down until he
answered.

"The truth is that I am required to stay for the autopsy," Mulder
answered. "It's part of my job."

Realization dawned, and she felt an instant admiration for this
man. "You're the profiler," she said, and Mulder nodded. "So it's
true - they finally decided to call in Behavioral Sciences..."
There was a bitter tone in her voice that made him pause, and she
caught the look of embarrassment on his face. She quickly
dispelled it. "I'm of the belief that if they had stopped paying
attention to bad media and called in the BSU earlier, we might
have been able to close this case earlier."

Mulder nodded. "Then you'll have no problems cooperating with the
Bureau during our investigation," he said, and that cinnamon
eyebrow remained high and proud.

"Only if the Bureau keeps me informed," she said. "I don't like
being kept in the dark. Not on a case like this." A muscle near
her jaw clenched in determination and pride. "If you expect me to
perform my job to the best of my abilities, I will need all
information that is pertinent to the investigation."

Mulder shook his head. "I can only give you what I am instructed
to give you, Dr. Scully," he said. "But I can arrange for my
instructions to include keeping you well-informed." In other
words, whatever she wanted, he'd give her. Coolly, she appraised
him with one quick scan of her piercing lake-colored eyes.
Apparently, she accepted whatever she saw.

"I need to get changed into my scrubs and then I'll be back," she
said. "Feel free to take a seat. This will only take a couple of
minutes." Before she left, she tossed him a tight, professional
smile from over her shoulder, and Mulder watched her leave the
office.

He had never seen such an enchanting smile.

*****

SKIN: CHAPTER FOUR

*****

Charleston City Morgue
Charleston, South Carolina
11:23 AM, August 14, 1999

*****

There was nothing as comforting to Scully as the cold sterility
of the medical scrubs. Their bland mint green and their
uncomfortable polyester was only tolerable to the numbed and
uncaring body, not to mention the fact that it put her in her
place. As soon as she donned the uniform, she felt her identity
and her emotions leave her body, replacing them with the cool
intuition and control of a medical examiner. The uncertainty and
intrigue that the FBI's earlier arrival had inspired were now
banished from her body and thoughts, and all that was left was
the calculating mind of the skilled pathologist.

Coolly, Scully turned around in the locker room to face her
reflection in the mirror. None of that pride or interest was
portrayed in this presented image. All that the glass showed was
a woman preparing to perform an autopsy. Skilled, capable, and
utterly uncaring. She was the picture of medical detachment, and
she furthered that image as she tied the medical cap around her
bright auburn hair. Nimble and practiced fingers tied the strings
behind her ears, and a surgical mask hung loosely around her
neck. All that was left was for her to remove her one simple
piece of jewelry - the gold cross that dangled around her neck.

As soon as that was done, she was prepared. And if she was
prepared to go into a cold, unfeeling room and dissect the
mutilated body of a woman, then she could face this enigmatic
stranger and all of the strange déjà vu that he seemed to be
inspiring within her. Scully could handle holding the scalpel;
she could handle Special Agent Mulder of the FBI.

Tilting her chin, she eyed herself in the mirror, presenting
herself with a challenge. //Hold it together, Scully,// she told
herself. //Hold it together during this autopsy, and hold it
together in front of this man. Don't try to prove yourself to
anybody other than yourself. Right here, in this mirror.//

It was the same challenge that she had always given herself. Be
better than she expected. Succeed in all ways, personal and
professional. And never lose control of the situation, no matter
what tragedy befell her. These were the three rules and
regulations of living life as Dr. Dana Scully. It wasn't never
let them see you cry. It was never let them see *you*.

As her cold blue eyes met their twins in the glass, Scully felt a
sudden chink in the thick armor that she had wrapped herself in.
It was the feeling that no matter how high she built her walls,
he was going to see through them. This feeling that he already
knew everything about her and that she could know anything she
wanted to about him.

Abruptly, Scully slammed the metal door of her locker. No. That
was impossible. This man was a perfect stranger, someone that she
had never met before, never seen before. He knew nothing about
her, and she knew nothing about him. To even fathom the
possibility... It was ridiculous. This was the sort of thing that
her sister believed in, but not logical, sane, rational Dana
Scully. Agent Mulder was just an investigator, and she was just
the pathologist.

Determined to hold her own, Scully walked out of the locker room
and back toward her office.

When she opened the door, Scully found Agent Mulder sitting on
the edge of her polished pine desk, glancing curiously at one of
her few but cherished framed pictures. "I'm ready," she said
harshly, meaning to startle him and perhaps rattle his nerves.

But he was as cool as a cucumber, never blinking an eyelash at
her cold tone of voice. "Is this your father?" he asked, flashing
a picture of Bill Scully at her. Clenching her jaw, Scully
crossed her arms over her chest and nodded.

"Yes, it is," she said. "Could you please put that down? It's the
only one I have of him." The last thing that she wanted was for
the last photograph of her father to be shattered and broken on
the floor of her sterile, impersonal office.

Mulder replaced the picture on her desk before looking down at
the desk itself. Plain, simple, somewhat outdated but nonetheless
serviceable. "I like the desk," he said, somehow feeling that he
should compliment it, and Dr. Scully frowned, puzzled.

"Thank you," she said, eyeing him carefully in the same fashion
that Mulder often eyed his more unstable suspects. "The body has
been brought down and we can begin at any time."

Gracefully, the agent stood up and straightened his necktie,
which was splashed with subdued but still unusual splotches of
green and blue. Scully had noticed it earlier; it stood out when
compared with Patterson's stripes and Brentwood's solid charcoal
color. "Let's get this over with," he said, opening the door for
her so that she could lead him to the autopsy bay.

The cool metallic light flooded the room, illuminating the harsh
angles and the brightness of the operating tools. The body was
placed in the middle of the room, covered in a sheet that was the
same mint color of Scully's scrubs. Scully saw blood seeping
through the fabric, and she glanced briefly at the FBI agent's
face. It registered nothing; he had prepared himself before
walking into this room. That was good. The last thing that she
wanted to deal with was some greenhorn who couldn't hold his
lunch in while she was autopsying a particularly gruesome body.

Scully tied on her mask, nimbly knotting the strings behind the
base of her skull. Mulder took a seat in the corner of the room
that was untouched by the brutal light, and was instantly veiled
in subtle, flattering shadow. Darkness masked his unique
features, all except the intense light of his eyes. Scully tore
her eyes from him and looked back at the body that she was
preparing to autopsy. She was going to ignore this observer and
continue on as planned.

Briskly, she flipped on the switch of the recorder, stated the
required information, and removed the sheet.

Scully sucked in her breath sharply. "Oh, my God..."

Instantly, Mulder stood up and approached the pathologist and the
body. "What is it?" he asked, furrowing his brow. She gestured
down at the mangled mass of flesh on the slab, and Mulder looked
down at it, instantly disgusted by the violence that had been
inflicted upon the victim. Everything had been ravaged, ruined
and destroyed by another person, leaving nothing but this carcass
and the memory of what was once human.

But the grotesque state of the body was not what had interested
Scully. Something else had caught her eye. She picked up a
slender metal probe and used it to show the agent what she had
discovered. "Burns," she said, and Mulder looked up, startled.

"But your autopsy report states that the victims were skinned
using a blade," he said, and Scully nodded.

"The other victims *were* skinned by a blade," she said. "We
discovered chips and scraped on the bones, and some of the
muscles were torn. That helped us date the victims, actually. As
the killer progressed, he grew better at what he was doing." She
shook her head, troubled. "But I've never seen any burns before."

"So you're suggesting that now he's burning the skin from the
victims?" Mulder said, and Scully looked up, one eyebrow arched
and a bloody scalpel in her fingers.

"No," she said. "If the killer had burned the skin, then there
would be burn marks all over the body. The muscle tissue would
have been burned, and there would be some charring on the bones
as well. Not to mention that burning isn't the most efficient way
to remove skin; there would be patches left over." She frowned.
"But oddly enough, this is the cleanest job I've seen yet." And
it was. There had been some traces of skin, a few odd patches
where the killer had been unable to remove every pore. Now she
could tell even without the aid of the microscopic lens that
there would be very little left of this latest victim. It was as
if this latest murder had only been an improvement on his ability.
Like he was perfecting his methodology.

Mulder's voice was quiet and thoughtful in her ear. "Is there any
way to tell if a blade was used in this latest killing?"

Scully picked up a scalpel and began peeling apart the layers of
skin, muscle, bones and veins that made up the victim's left
shoulder. As she worked, Mulder watched over her shoulder,
watching the deft fingers pick apart the remains of the murdered
woman. It had always astonished him, all of the different
components inside of a human being. Veins, muscles, blood, and
bones, all covered by a fine layer of skin. It was the skin that
was most important, for it was the skin that kept everything
human concealed and protected. It was the skin that was coveted
because it was the skin that created the barrier.

"Here," Scully said, interrupting his brief foray into the
darkness. "Look at this."

She pulled a light over to illuminate the exposed bones and
joints, and the light glinted and gleamed across the perfect bone
structure. Scully picked up a magnifying glass and narrowed her
eyes, looking closely at the surface of the bone. "It's in
perfect condition," Scully said. "Nothing. And there are no bone
fragments in the surrounding tissue."

"Interesting," he murmured.

She eyed him briefly before returning her gaze to the body. "What
makes it even more interesting is the fact that there are surface
burns directly over the shoulder," she said. "There should be
some signs of burning on the bone, considering the severity of
the burn. But there's nothing, which as far as I know is
impossible." Helplessly, she shrugged her shoulders. "I'll call
in a burn specialist from the medical university to get a look at
this, but I think that Dr. Richardson will concur with me on
this." She shook her head again. "Still, I've never seen anything
like this before..."

"It's strange," he agreed. "Very strange indeed."

Scully picked up another scalpel, a larger one, and moved toward
a patch of burned flesh over the heart. "I'm going to check and
see if there's any damage to any of the internal organs," she
said, her voice low and husky from the level of concentration she
was placing on the victim. She continued her autopsy as Mulder
continued his observation.

He was not observing the enigmatic doctor. His attention was
placed solely on the victim, on what this woman must have once
been. It was not something that he wanted to dwell on, especially
when gazing upon the tattered remains of the woman, but it was
his job to do so. It was his job to get under the woman's skin,
or what was left of it.

That had been the killer's job, after all.

While Dana Scully cut underneath the layers of flesh and muscle
with the sharp blade of her scalpel, Fox Mulder performed his own
psychological autopsy of the woman. Of the person that she had
been in life, of what had made her such a prime target. What had
been under her skin? What had resided beneath all of that
protective covering? What rested underneath the surface?

Before Mulder could ponder the thought further, Scully discovered
it when she stumbled across the woman's blackened heart.

The heart was charred and burned, seared into a crisp until it
was nothing but ash and cinder. "Oh my God," Scully said in a
low, hushed voice that was built of shock and confusion. Wide-
eyed, she reached for a slender metal instrument and began
probing the charred remains of the woman's heart. As soon as the
instrument touched one of the valves, they crumbled into soot.
"Christ."

"What happened?" Mulder asked, puzzled.

Scully shook her head, astonished. "I... I don't really know,"
she said, her voice full of awe. "I've never seen anything like
this. The valves and chambers are utterly destroyed, burned out,
as are the veins and arteries directly leading from the heart.
Look at this." She pointed carefully to one slender vein that was
black near the heart but slowly faded into normalcy the further
it got away from the heart. "It's almost as if the heart was
struck by lightning, but..." She shook her head. "That makes no
sense."

Mulder shook his head at her words. "No, it makes perfect sense."
At her confused look, he reached for a pair of latex gloves,
snapping them on. He gestured to the small metal probe that she
held in her hands. "May I?" She passed him the probe and he
leaned down, touching the center of the heart. "Look at the
severity of the burns... It's centralized. It's like an
earthquake; this is the epicenter of the damage. As it spread out
through the system, it weakened, which is why the veins are less
burned as they move away from the heart."

Furrowing her brow, Scully looked away from the body, looking up
at the brown-haired agent. "That's impossible," she said
staunchly. "Hearts don't explode like that. Particularly when
there is no other damage to the thoracic cavity."

Mulder placed his hands on his hips and pursed his lips at her.
"Well, how do you explain it then?" he asked, and she arched her
eyebrow at him, irritated at his tone of voice.

"I don't explain it," she said coldly. "Not until I can finish my
autopsy, perform a toxicology screening, and call in a specialist
who can assist me with this."

He laughed shortly. "You can do all of that, Dr. Scully, but I
doubt that it'll change the fact that this woman's heart exploded
in the middle of her chest."

She removed the surgical mask that she had been wearing
throughout the autopsy. "I don't accept that theory," she said.

Mulder stepped closer, towering over her petite stature. "I don't
see you presenting any theories of your own," he countered.

Her reply was punctuated by one arched ginger eyebrow. "That's
because I don't theorize," she said. "Not until all of the
scientific evidence has been gathered and properly analyzed."

Both stood their ground, gritting their teeth. The tension in the
room sizzled and crackled, churning between them like a third
entity. The tight coldness of her blue eyes flashed brutally at
him, and his eyes burned with hazel fire into hers, trying to
sear past her walls. Her jaw settled and tightened, jutting
forward in a challenge and Mulder looked at the slender spitfire
standing in front of him, her temper flaring up in frozen flame.
She met his eyes, shocked by the heavy-lidded kaleidoscopes of
greens and golds that seemed charged with electricity. The
intensity of all of those colors, that hurricane of vibrancy and
passion, lit up and smoldered at her, and she had never witnessed
something so intangible and beautiful. No brush, no artist, could
ever recreate those colors, and no poet could describe the
feelings invoked by his fierce gaze.

His heart skipped a beat when she sucked in her breath and licked
her lips with her tongue, and all attention was suddenly drawn to
the perfection of her mouth. It was luscious and ripe, sensual
and sexual, tinted the color of raspberries on fire. During their
earlier argument, the surgical mask had covered her mouth, but
now it was exposed and beautifully feminine. All that he wanted
to do was capture that succulent set of lips within his own and
never let go.

But she interrupted the moment by turning away from him and
picking up a bone saw. The whirring sound of the saw's motor
effectively ruined the earlier sensuality between them, and
Mulder chuckled to himself as Scully continued her autopsy.
Nothing ruined sexual tension better than the reminder of death.

"If you find anything, let me know," he said before turning his
back on her and walking out of the autopsy bay.

*****

Charleston City Morgue
Charleston, South Carolina
12:31 PM, August 14, 1999

*****

One of the comforting consistencies of his travelling was the
knowledge that no matter where he went, morgue coffee was
terrible. Charlestonian morgue coffee was no exception to the
rule.

Flinching, Mulder swallowed the bitter black liquid, feeling the
coffee flood through his system. The terrible taste was somewhat
satisfying; he had expected it to be awful and he hadn't been
disappointed. But it had provided the jolt to his system that he
had needed: a jolt of reality.

He was not someone who could stand around and enjoy a strange
woman's mouth. He was a man who had been sent her to burrow into
the deranged mind of a madman. It was his job, his duty, his
responsibility to the victims and to himself. The last thing that
he needed was to fall prey to the fiery words and hair of a
strange pathologist.

So he concentrated on the bizarre case at hand.

In all of his years at the Bureau, he had dealt with the more
mundane human monsters: child molesters, murderers, rapists and
mutilators. Their tools had been depraved but tangible: knives,
guns, heavy objects. They had selected more domestic items with
which to torture their victims. No one had ever burned hearts.

Taking another sip of his disgusting coffee, Mulder mused over
what he had seen on the slab. The victim was nothing more than a
mass of tissue, muscle, and bone. The skin was the defining part
of a person, what brought them all together while protecting what
remained inside. And the killer had removed it, had stripped that
defining sense of humanity away from his chosen victim. For what
purpose?

To see what was inside. To destroy what resided underneath the
skin.

And what would link him to the killer would be to understand what
was underneath his victims' skin that was worth destroying.

The door to the autopsy bay opened, and Dr. Scully emerged from
it. Her hair fell around her face in a nimbus of crimson,
crowning her features with a fiery halo. One of her deft hands
smoothed out the locks as she walked toward him, and Mulder stood
up to meet her.

"Everything else coincided with the previous victims," she said.
"I found no evidence of a blade being used, no scrapes or
erroneous cuts. There were a few more stray burns, but nothing
else like what we witnessed with the heart." A muscle near her
jaw twitch. "Except for this." She procured a small cylinder
filled with a black powder, and Mulder frowned as he took it from
her.

"What is it?" he asked, tilting it back and forth so that he
could get a better look at it.

"I'm not sure yet," she said. "It looks like some kind of
explosive, something that could have aided in the damage that was
done to the heart. I'm sending a sample to the toxicology lab,
but I'm giving some of this to you to send to your labs in
Washington." She shook her head. "This case is becoming more and
more strange as the days go by." //And the strangest part so far
is you,// Scully thought to herself.

It was the truth. He was the strangest man that she had ever
seen, only because he was utterly attractive and aggravating all
at once. The intensity and the passion that she had seen inside
of his eyes was intoxicating, even when his preposterous ideas
were as irritating as hell. But aside from his personality, it
was the feelings that she was experiencing that made him truly
odd. Scully never felt anything for anybody. Not even Lia, who
was supposedly one of her best friends. She was numbed to
everything and everyone, but Agent Mulder not only intrigued her,
he excited her.

Pensively, he turned the canister up and down, tilting it in the
light to watch the powder fall back. "Very interesting," he
murmured, and Scully nodded. He rose suddenly, his tall and lean
frame towering over her. "I need some fresh air ­ care to join
me?" He offered her his coffee. "Here, you can even finish this
for me, if you have a taste for something truly disgusting."

Scully hesitated for a moment, tilting her head to the side and
examining him. She'd been getting the oddest feeling about him
all day, as if she were being cloistered by déjà vu, but she
shook it off. She didn’t even believe in déjà vu. It was just a
glitch in the human brain, where the sense of memory got crossed
with a different sensation. He was harmless ­ just a nice agent
with a pair of remarkably intense hazel eyes.

"Sure," Scully replied, accepting his offer and the Styrofoam cup
before following him out of the building.

The humidity slammed them with its wet wall of heat as they
stepped out behind the building. Instantly, Scully wilted
underneath its oppressive touch, bending to its will in a way
that she hated. She hated surrender, hated relinquishing control
and strength. But the humidity was demanding and invisible; a foe
that she could not defeat. Sighing, she felt her energy fall away
from her body as the heavy August heat flooded through her system
and pumped through her veins. Unflinching sunlight poured down on
them, and the heavy brick of the building did nothing to absorb
the wretched heat.

Sweat beaded Mulder's brow as he closed his eyes, leaning heavily
against the brick wall. "Christ, it's hot," he muttered, and
Scully rolled her shoulders, trying to remove the tension that
had been crackling inside of her.

"Get used to it," she said. "August is the most miserable month
of the year, especially down here." She took a tentative sip of
the black coffee and instantly felt nauseous. Hot coffee combined
with humidity was not particularly appetizing. And neither was the
coffee - Mulder had not been kidding about its disgusting flavor.

Mulder's large, slender hands dipped into his suit pocket, and
Scully wondered if he was going to produce a pack of cigarettes.
Instead, he pulled out a small Ziploc bag of sunflower seeds, and
that made her chuckle softly to herself. "How do you manage?" he
asked, and Scully shrugged, feeling the coffee burn her fingers
through the Styrofoam.

"You get accustomed to it over time," she replied. It was the
truth. When she had first arrived in South Carolina, she had been
suffocated and smothered by the heat, by struggling to beat it.
But she had recognized it as an oppressive force that she could
not defeat, and now she lived under its thumb along with the rest
of the coastal city.

Pensively, Mulder chewed on a sunflower seed, pursing his sensual
lips to spit out the seed. She had been focusing in on his mouth
for the past few minutes; he had the most intriguing way of
moving his mouth and shelling the seeds with his tongue... Oh,
she should *not* be thinking that. "I know that Patterson
wasn't eager to listen to your ideas on the case," Mulder said,
and Scully blanched. "But we're up a creek without a paddle, if
you know what I mean. Any input is appreciated as far as I'm
concerned."

Scully nodded. She understood completely. The FBI and the local
law enforcement had been working on this case for two weeks so
far, and the murders were escalating in intensity and in
sophistication as the days passed. They were getting desperate.
"The killer is improving," Scully said. "The earlier bodies were
cruder, still sufficient, but with less style. There were stray
marks on the body from the blade, cuts and slices, but the killer
is discovering new techniques. Even though we can't explain it,
the burning is obviously efficient and effective."

Mulder expelled a salted shell from his mouth. "He's enjoying
this more," he murmured. "When he first started out, it was an
idea that he had toyed with. Now he's obsessed."

Scully agreed with him, watching as the intensity in his eyes
faded and glazed over slightly as he began losing himself in
thought. She had never seen a profiler in action, but judging by
the dedication that Mulder had displayed so far, it was obvious
that he was quite talented. "In spite of the accidents in the
beginning, it's very obvious that whoever is behind these murders
is highly skilled with a knife," she said. "My guess is either
one of the following: a surgeon, an artist, or someone who has
performed this act before in a different place."

Mulder shook his head in disagreement. "I'm leaning toward the
first two," he said. "There seems to be a learning curve here.
Someone's just figuring out the lay of the land." A troubled look
passed over his face, clouds mulling and gathering over his eyes.
"It means that we're dealing with an escalating murderer...
Something that you never want to deal with."

Silence hung heavy in the air along with the humidity. The sound
of palm fronds swayed and rushed with the Atlantic wind, and
Scully lifted her eyes away from the back of the building to the
ancient city surrounding them. Charleston had always seemed
shrouded by its history, protected by its past, but it was not
impenetrable to the violent dementia of a serial killer. Whatever
was out there was building, growing, like that tropical cyclone
out in the Atlantic. And whichever storm hit first would destroy
something.

And maybe that something would be her.

*****

SKIN: CHAPTER FIVE

*****

Residence of Dana Scully
Charleston, South Carolina
10:51 PM, August 14, 1999

*****

The bright silver of the moon glittered off the sapphire waters
like a bright diamond, penetrating the faint cloud cover with its
shimmering rays of light. She could almost smell the silver in
the air, faintly mingling in with the smell of wisteria and
azaleas. Everything was lit up at this time of night, by either
candlelight or mellow streetlight, and that included Scully as
well.

The computer screen provided her with light as she read through
the report from the toxicology lab. No drugs, no sedatives.
Claire Banks had died clean, sober, and in intense pain. Blood
loss had killed the previous victims, but it was Claire's
scorched heart that had killed this formerly pretty young woman.

Scully's eyes drifted away from the glowing screen of the
computer monitor to the color photograph next to the keyboard.
The photo showed a young woman, mid-twenties, with a proud chin
and dark black eyes that glittered like obsidian left in the sun.
Claire's hair was elegantly swept up away from her sharp, angular
features, and her skin was the dark, sweet color of chocolate.

Scully didn't want to think about where that skin had ended up.

The toxicology lab had analyzed the black powder and all of their
doctors were baffled by its outcome. It was a substance that was
usually found around lightning strike areas, charred earth, and
they couldn't understand how such a substance could be found in
Claire's thoracic cavity, crowning her blackened heart. It was a
mystery, they said. A sinking feeling in her stomach churned when
she realized how perfectly it coincided with Agent Mulder's
eccentric theory.

The bland autopsy report sat on her screen with blaring light,
and Scully sighed, closing that window so that she could read her
e-mail. Another storm warning had come in from her hurricane e-
mail list, and Scully opened up the 11:00 advisory to see how the
tropical depression was progressing. Now it was Tropical Storm
Becky, a storm with 60mph winds that had pretty much exploded
over the day.

Funny, how everything had seemed to be exploding lately.

The screen blurred before her eyes, and Scully winced, leaning
back and away from it. She needed a break; she had been working
all day, both at the office and at home. All of her attention had
been focused solely on the murder case and on its investigators.
Her hands ached from holding the scalpel, and her back hurt from
crouching over the corpse.

Grabbing her glass of iced tea, Scully abandoned the upstairs
computer and walked up the steps to her widow's walk, feeling the
sea breeze hit her the instant that she stepped out onto the walk
itself.

The night was radiant. Everything was painted in rich, heavy
strokes of sapphire and silver, turning everything into luscious
shades of violet and dark cerulean. The magnolias glinted like
silken moons, and the waters of the harbor were tranquil and
inky. Summer permeated the air with its heavy floral scent, and
even the burdensome humidity had strayed for the night, leaving
everything breezy and just a tad balmy.

Smiling, Scully tilted her head, closing her eyes as the wind
picked up her hair and ruffled the red locks around her face. The
feeling was that of cool fingers caressing her hair. Cool,
slender, comforting fingers...

A sigh exhaled from her lips, suddenly exhausted. She had let her
thoughts drift to him again. The dark, intense presence of Agent
Mulder had been heavy in her mind lately. The brooding hazel
eyes, the luscious, silken mouth, the oddly adorable nose... It
was all marked by a heavy intensity and sadness tinged with just
the faintest oil of regret. She had prohibited all thoughts of
him earlier, but now, under the dreamy summer moonlight, she
could let her thoughts wander away from daily life.

She wondered what he looked like in moonlight, obscured by the
delicious colors of chiaroscuro. Appetizing, she bet. Absolutely
delectable. She pictured the lines of his sleek, swimmer's body,
covered by the fine fabric of his Italian suits, unclothed and
nude, shimmering under the illumination of August's full moon.
What he would look like cutting through the Atlantic surf like a
knife, like a blade constructed out of sinew and flesh...

A flush swam through her body, hot and sultry, and she wondered
if it was the humidity making its obligatory appearance or the
beginning of desire churning low in her belly. Perhaps it was a
more intoxicating combination of the two. The heavy heat and her
dark arousal, all propelled by the entrance of a new man.

A tendril of red caressed her cheek for a moment, and the
sensation was electrifying. Like the whisper of words across her
skin, the low murmurs of promises or confessions. Intimacy and
trust, all touched by exquisite sensuality. The Carolina jasmine
twisted and turned on the vine like little lemons, and Scully
leaned forward briefly, inhaling their heady perfume.

Funny, how sensation could be rediscovered only by the
introduction of a man who smelled like cigarette smoke and
mystery.

All of her senses were melting together to create a stew of
sensuality, mixing and mingling into a tumultuous tumble of
smell, taste, and touch. The aroma of flora and seawater, the
fleeting flavor of the Atlantic brine on her lips, and the
feeling of her hair dancing across the sensitive nape of her
neck, not to mention her imaginings of Mulder's fingers
flickering over her collarbone.

Then her hand dropped away from her body and she shook her head,
chuckling. "You're losing it, Scully," she murmured, sitting down
in a wicker rocking chair. She picked up her abandoned glass of
iced tea, taking one sip of the lemon-touched liquid. It was odd,
how she had exchanged only argumentative words with this man but
still liked him. More than that, she was genuinely and admittedly
attracted to him. Not only physically, but mentally as well.
Mulder challenged her, brought forth new ideas and concepts that
had never illuminated her dull morgue.

The light silk of her robe fluttered as another breeze pushed in
from the Harbor, and Scully looked out to see a pair of sailboats
cutting through the sea. Their slender white sails bobbed back
and forth in time with the wind and the tide, and then they
flickered to life as strings of electric lights lit up all over
the boat. Those were the boats of lovers.

Love was something that Scully had never been looking for. During
all of her solitary years, she had never longed much for company.
She had rather longed for understanding. An understanding of
herself, of her place in the world. She had a great need for a
sense of purpose, and that lack of direction was what kept her
tethered to her job and the haunted city of Charleston.

She had never thought that she could feel purposeful or
meaningful in the presence of a tortured FBI agent.

Her eyelids drooped over her eyes as the breeze caressed her
body, soothing her towards slumber. Sleep sounded ideal, just a
quick nap overlooking the endless Atlantic, as sailboats
illuminated by electric candles drifted past like ivory
luminaries...

A secretive smile crossed Scully's lips as she fell asleep.

*****

Holiday Inn
Charleston, South Carolina
12:22 AM, August 15, 1999

*****

Like a multicolored banner, his tie twisted and turned in the
heavy and humid wind, until he untied it and held it loosely in
his hands.

The balcony branching off of his modest hotel room overlooked the
soft marshes of the Ashley River, and the salty smell wafted up
toward him. It was a multi-layered smell, the smell of earth,
water, and air all combined into an indescribable perfume. It was
the smell of Dana Scully before she changed into her medical
scrubs, the smell of Charleston and determination.

Frustrated, Mulder shook his head and loosened the top button of
his dress shirt. Scully. She was the last thing that needed to be
on his mind, what with all of the recent data to process and the
findings that had been sent to him on the black powder found in
Claire Banks's chest cavity.

It had been a wild, hare-brained theory. Lightning centralized
solely in this woman's heart. But somehow, the black powder
provided him with enough evidence to support that theory, at
least as far as he went. So now the killer was fixated not only
on the skin, but on the heart as well.

He was focusing now on the outside as well as the inside.

The photograph of smiling, strong Claire Banks was imprinted on
his memory. Pride and dignity were the clear factors of that
angular, striking face. Briefly, he wondered if that strong chin
had trembled when she realized her fate, or if her sharp black
eyes had filled with tears as the killer smiled and leaned in
closer...

It was all about control. This was nothing new; it always was
about control. Every murder was about power, and that was why it
became intoxicating. The feeling of the knife, the screams, and
the pleas for life. The murderer became a twisted version of God,
holding the life of another in his hands, and in the end, the
choice was always made to destroy. It was the same with rapes,
with molestation incidents, and it was the same with the murderer
in Charleston. Though perhaps this killer possessed a more
intriguing kind of power.

Glossy color photographs of Claire's burned heart had been faxed
to the FBI, and none of their labs could explain it. Science was
at a loss to provide a solid reason for the state of Claire's
body, including the rigid science of Dr. Dana Scully. Everything
in nature said that the murder was impossible, but it had
happened. Claire Banks was dead, and it seemed as though her
heart alone had been struck by lightning.

Fortunately, Mulder was not a man of logic or reason.

It simply was not his job to investigate solely through reason or
science. His science was a darker one: the science of the mind.
He was used to abandoning reason and throwing himself into the
unknown, plummeting through the barriers of rationalism and
common sense to a place that was inexplicably unexplainable. When
he learned what had possibly happened to young Claire Banks, he
had no trouble throwing aside science to look at it from a
different angle.

The angle of extreme possibility.

First, one had to accept the unacceptable. The heart had been
struck by lightning. All right, now how had it been struck by
lightning? The killer had obviously had a part in this murder;
Claire was a successful young paralegal who was working her way
to the top of South Carolina social security advocacy. She would
be a prime target for a killer obsessed with professional,
successful women. And her skin somehow had been burned off
without damaging the muscle or tissue underneath.

But how had it been done? Why had it been done? And who could
have done it?

Mulder knew one avenue of possibility to look at: the occult.
During his studies at Oxford, it had always been fascinating to
him. The study of the paranormal and the lure of the impossible
had been intriguing subjects to him, of the unexplainable and the
illogical. That which had contradicted science had intrigued Fox
Mulder. Part of what had earned him his Spooky Mulder nickname
had been his mental encyclopedia of paranormal knowledge.

It had been a hobby of his ever since his sister...

No. This had nothing to do with her. This was about the killer in
Charleston, not about his lost sibling in Massachusetts. He
wasn't going to concentrate his efforts on the little eight-year-
old girl that he'd lost when he was only twelve.

Flinching, Mulder wrapped his hands around the metal railing of
the balcony, feeling that dizzying nausea grip his body in its
iron fists. The panic, the cloistering panic of struggling to
remember and being unable to do so. He remembered lights,
remembered... Remembered Samantha's eyes, terrified and pleading,
pleading for help that he had been miserably unable to give
her... Remembered distant, distant screaming...

And nothing else.

Nothing until two days later, when he'd woken up in a hospital
room with his mother glaring hatefully at his father and his
father laying the blame on him. All because he'd lost her. He had
lost Samantha, and it had all been his fault. Something inside of
him told him that, told him that there was something that he
could have done to save her, and that feeling was as undeniable
as it was indescribable.

The feeling intensified, and Mulder stumbled on the balcony,
feeling himself waver and weaken with the power of the memory.
She had been standing right there, only inches away from him; he
could see the faint pattern of sheep on her cotton nightgown.
How she'd worn small pigtails, little girlish pigtails; Mom had
put those in and why couldn't he remember what had happened to
her?

Pained, Mulder closed his eyes tightly, not wanting to dwell but
being forcibly compelled to do so. Sam, his kid sister Sam, the
one who'd disappeared so suddenly and forgotten by everyone but
him. She was the one who'd played baseball with him in the front
yard, the one who'd tattled on him to Mom when he'd called her
names or said swear words, the one who should still be here
today. But Mulder was the one who was the big miserable failure,
the one who had let everyone down starting from the day he'd let
his little sister vanish.

Washing his hands over his face rapidly, Mulder tried to escape,
tried to run away from it, but there it always was. The bitter,
acidic taste of failure.

And then the attack stopped, leaving him weak and sweaty on the
floor of the balcony. A gentle wind caressed his face, soft and
sweet, like little cool fingers. The cool fingers of a woman,
caring and compassionate, touching him in a way that he had
needed back when he was twelve but had never received. But they
weren't fingers or hands, nonetheless those capable white hands
from his dream. They were simply the imaginary fingers of the
river wind.

Sighing, Mulder brought himself to his feet, feeling the typical
headache begin pounding behind his eyes. It was the same old song
and dance, the attacks starting over the years and intensifying
as he grew older. He wondered if these attacks would kill him one
day, leaving him a babbling idiot in a convalescent home. His
parents would probably be thrilled; it would be the punishment
that their feeble son deserved for losing their treasured
daughter.

He pulled out a small bottle of pills from his pants pocket and
dry-swallowed two small white capsules. Medicine for his frequent
panic attacks and subsequent headaches. It was his only doctor
when he was on a case, and it was often the only thing that cared
in the least about his welfare. Loneliness was not something that
Mulder dwelled on, but there were occasional moments of yearning
that he allowed himself. And he allowed himself now to yearn for
the presence of one proud, beautiful pathologist.

So he'd been drawn to Scully. She was everything in a woman that
he'd never thought he'd wanted, both physically and mentally.
He'd always had tall, dark-haired girlfriends that had smooth
smiles and cool, agreeing eyes. Women would break him and thus
add to his myriad of failures. He was intelligent enough to
realize who and what he was. He was the kind of man who sought
out women who would hurt him, because he thought that he deserved
it.

Mulder knew that he didn't deserve a woman like Scully.

From the fire in her eyes to the passion and vehemence in her
words, she had both annoyed and fascinated him. It was a heady
attraction, something primal and magnetic, like the pull of a
riptide. She was dangerous, because he could do something with
her that he had never done before. He felt the strange but
definite notion that Dana Scully was a woman that he could fall
in love with. And he felt the notion that she was a woman who
would not break him.

Sweeps of wind brushed across the Ashley River, turning the
smooth, glassy surface into a mass of dancing turquoise. He
tilted his head toward the night sky, gazing pensively up at the
moon. It shimmered and danced like a live being, untamed and
wild. The dunes and marshes below him swayed in the breeze like
amber ballerinas, and Mulder watched them waver back and forth
for a brief moment, smiling softly as his headache faded.

A pair of small sailboats drifted by illuminated by strings of
electric lights, and they looked as though they were floating
galaxies on the river. The world seemed to be suspended briefly
by the soft glow of starlight, and Mulder felt the cool violet
glow of the river reflected on his face. It was nice to lose
himself briefly in the beauty of the world. He often forgot that
it was there in the first place.

A knock sounded on his door, and Mulder turned his head to see
Patterson striding through his hotel room, wearing a stern look
that broke the enchanted glow of the night. "So instead of trying
to catch a killer, you're slacking off," Patterson said. Mulder's
fingers loosed their grip on the bottle with resignation; he
wasn't a man who could afford to smile at sailboats or ponder
redheaded spitfires. He was a man who was meant to wander through
the darkness of life.

"Just taking a break, sir," Mulder muttered, subtly pocketing the
bottle of pills. He didn't want to give Patterson the
satisfaction of knowing that he was falling apart.

Patterson glared at him coldly. "We can't afford to take breaks,
Mulder," he said. "There's a killer at large. It's not our job to
stand around like jackasses." Mulder took silent note of the fact
that Patterson was standing in front of him wearing a terrycloth
robe and pajamas. It was a nightly ritual; Patterson would come
in before he fell asleep to urge Mulder to practice the hallowed
art of insomnia. "And the next time you make a report to me,
don't talk about the ideas of a small-town pathologist. Her job
is to dissect the victims; yours is to dissect the killer. Don't
forget that."

Mulder resisted a short laugh. God, it was impossible to forget
it. "Whatever you say, sir," he said. Sometimes he wished that he
still had it in him to fight Patterson, to struggle against the
coldness and the darkness, but he was too tired nowadays to wage
war.

Satisfied, Patterson turned his back on Mulder and started to
walk toward the door. But he paused for a moment and threw a
smirk over his shoulder. "You were right about one thing,
Mulder," he said, and Mulder arched his eyebrow tiredly. "That
coroner is *definitely* a woman."

With that, Patterson left, and Mulder chuckled to himself.

She most certainly was.

*****

SKIN: CHAPTER SIX

*****

Baker's Café
Charleston, South Carolina
10:34 AM, August 15, 1999

*****

The Baker's Café was one of her favorite restaurants in the city.
It was a place that was solely meant for breakfast and brunch,
and its odd hours and delicious Southern cooking made it a
favorite for locals and locals alone. It was a sort of hidden
secret for Charlestonians, and it was their constant business
that made it a success. She knew most of the residents that
frequented the café, like her neighbor Patty and her lawyer
friend, Marvin. All of them were subtle Southerners that dressed
in simple Polo shirts and khakis, with soft smiles and lilting
accents.

Mulder stuck out like a sore thumb.

Dressed in a severe but striking charcoal suit, he sat in the
back corner of the café, jiggling one leg and fidgeting with his
set of silverware. His short brown hair was dark and his face was
deliciously exotic, and she took a brief moment to be amused with
the look on the waiter's face as Mulder ordered unsweetened tea.
He was the only Yankee in the room other than herself, and
without a doubt he was the most striking man in the clustered
café.

His heavy hazel eyes lifted from his menu and turned to her, and
she caught a dark fire of mocha and amber in those thick-lashed
orbs. She smiled dryly as she walked through the café and
approached this table. "So I get this call at 9:30 in the morning
saying to meet you at the best breakfast place in town," she
began, and Mulder grinned a little at her. "You said that you had
new information on the case that I might be interested in."

"Yes," he confirmed, and she placed her hand on her hip, arching
her eyebrow at him to show him that she was utterly unimpressed.

"Well, the Baker's Café is an expensive eatery," she said. "I'd
like to know if you're going to interest me enough to make me
stay for breakfast or if I should just head on over to work."

Still smirking slyly at her, Mulder reached into the pocket of
his suit jacket and procured one slender vial of black powder.
"Remember this?" he asked. She nodded.

"It's the powder found in Claire Banks's thoracic cavity," she
said. He nodded, turning it in his fingers like an hourglass.

"I had the lab technicians in Washington run a check on it," he
said. "Would you care to know the results?" She had to admit it;
the substance had intrigued her. It was atypical to any other
substance that she'd ever seen in an autopsy subject, and she'd
had her share of burn victims over the year. After all, fireworks
were legal in South Carolina. The Fourth of July was a busy time
of year for her.

Scully nodded, leaning slightly on the wooden chair in front of
her. Mulder grinned a little, mischief glinting like bright
copper in his eyes. "Then you'll have to sit down and have
breakfast with me," he said. A smile threatened to break her
impartial façade; there was an irresistible boyish quality to
this man that she was drawn to like a moth to light. Energy and
excitement radiated off of him in waves, and she couldn't help
but be a little swept up in his fervency.

She exhaled in a sigh of feigned resignation. "All right," she
sighed, sitting down at the table in the seat across from him.
"But you're buying."

Mulder smirked at her. "Then you're ordering cheap."

Scully primly opened her paper menu. "That's what you think," she
replied archly. Their waiter approached again, pouring her coffee
and giving Mulder his glass of unsweetened tea. She smiled at him
brightly, a beguiling smile that flushed Mulder's skin to the
bones. "I'd like to order the Monte Cristo," she said, a warm
smile turning her cheeks carnation. "Complete with the hash
browns and a side of croissants." Mulder didn't need to check the
prices to know that her meal was expensive; her tone of voice
supplied him with that information.

He ordered a more modest chicken salad croissant, and the waiter
departed. As soon as they were alone in their cozy corner, he
leaned forward and lowered his voice. "They cannot directly
identify the substance," he said. "But they did state that it
contained high levels of carbon, which, coincidentally, is
something that is very common with lightning strike victims."

Mulder mustered a grin when her eyebrows nearly shot through the
roof. "You're kidding," she said, her voice full of surprise and
shock. "Lightning?" He nodded as he took a sip of his iced tea.

"Another interesting fact is that there was a surprise
thunderstorm cell near Summerville, South Carolina the night
before the body was discovered," he said. "Now, you know your
South Carolina geography better than I do, but isn't Summerville
very close to Drayton Hall Plantation?"

It was. Summerville was a small community on the outskirts of
Charleston, and the various historic plantations were lined up
along the highway leading to the sunny town. "Yes," Scully said
reluctantly. "But coincidences happen."

Mulder pulled a small map out of his suit jacket pocket and
spread it out across the round table. Bright red ink marks were
splashed across it, some highlighted and others not. "This map is
a record of the thunderstorm cells in the South Carolina state
since the murders began," he explained. "Every night that a
murder has been committed, there has been a thunderstorm cell
near the various areas where the bodies were discovered." His
smooth fingertips traced the paths on the paper for her, and
Scully's eyes followed his train of thought skeptically.

"But there was no evidence of any burning on any of the bodies
until this last victim," Scully reminded. "The thunderstorm cells
are irrelevant. We've had a busy weather season so far,
particularly in the counties that you've highlighted."

Mulder's eyes sparked at her, and a slow grin curved his mouth.
"And why do you think that is?"

Scully rolled her eyes at that and took a long sip of coffee. She
needed the caffeine this morning to follow the wild ideas that
Mulder was throwing at her. "I'm not a meteorologist, Agent
Mulder, but I can tell you right now that I highly doubt that our
severe weather can be linked to a serial killer," she said.

Mulder dismissed her science with the wave of his hand and then
began refolding his map. "I went online to check that out as
well, Dr. Scully," he said. "The National Weather Association
currently has no scientific explanation for the recent string of
severe thunderstorms in the area surrounding Charleston, South
Carolina."

She placed her coffee cup back in its saucer and leaned forward.
A lock of gingery hair loosened itself from the tight mane of red
and fell in her eyes, casting a shadow across her features. "And
do you know why that is?" she asked, her voice low and
confidential. "Because they are pop-up thundershowers. They are
mixtures of high pressures and low pressures. It's weather,
Mulder." She paused for a moment, somewhat startled at what she
had said. She had dropped the formality of addressing him by his
Bureau title and simply called him by his last name. The strange
part was that it felt more intimate than if she had called him by
his first.

Tilting his head, Mulder looked at the surprise on her face and
smiled a little at her, reassuringly. "Everyone calls me Mulder,"
he said. "I don't particularly like my first name."

To give her credit, she recomposed herself elegantly and quickly.
Nobody other than him would ever be able to tell that her
confident composure ever faltered. "I don't particularly like
mine, either," she said simply. "But maybe we both need to be
reminded of the fact that I'm not an FBI agent." He instantly
understood what she was saying; he shouldn't be giving her this
much information on a case that she was not investigating.

Pensively, Mulder leaned back in his chair, eyeing her from
across the table. He didn't really know why he was telling this
pathologist the details of a case, particularly considering the
fact that she didn't even believe his theories. She was a
scientist, plain and simple. She was a woman who relied on logic
and reason to give her answers, and he was a man who preferred to
push the boundaries. Yet he had called her to lunch here, feeling
the need to tell her of all people his outlandish ideas.

"I'm not the kind of agent that usually follows the rules,"
Mulder slowly said, and the redhead chuckled, breaking that tight
thread of tension.

"I'm sure that your superiors are thrilled about that," she said.

A smile crinkled his eyes, making them sparkle with copper light.
"I'm very lucky in the fact that my job doesn't require me
following the rules," he said, and she shook her head.

"I don't recall that being in the job description when I
applied," she said, and Mulder's eyes widened, surprised. She had
almost become an FBI agent?

The waiter chose that moment to return with a basket of hot
biscuits and a bowl of their special rhubarb and raspberry jelly,
and Scully calmly took one from the basket and began buttering
it. "I almost walked down that path about ten years ago," she
murmured, her voice soft and contemplative. "I applied and was
accepted to Quantico, but I opted for a residency in forensic
pathology at the Medical University of South Carolina." Her soft
smile turned somewhat bittersweet. "I was registered at Quantico
until two days before classes started."

Two days... She had been two days away from becoming an FBI agent
and following her heart rather than her father's. She remembered
the days of pressure and promises of disappointment, of the
agonizing choices that had been spread before her. The FBI or the
medical profession. She had compromised by going into forensic
pathology, tying her to her father's dreams and turning her away
from the life that she had wanted for herself.

"Do you regret it?"

The soft, compassionate tenor disrupted her foray into her past,
and Scully lifted her head. Mulder was looking at her through
warm, hazel lenses, and she allowed herself a wistful smile.
"Sometimes," she admitted. "Sometimes I wish that I had not
disappointed myself."

That was all that she would discuss; the conversation was over.
He saw that much in the finality of her gestures as she folded
her hands in her lap, abandoning her biscuit and the topic of
discussion. Mulder respected that. "So, Scully," he began, and
she noted the use of her last name, "should I continue breaking
Bureau protocol or should I leave you and your pathology lab
alone?"

She picked up her biscuit again and resumed fixing it. A small,
enigmatic smile curved her lips, and it was the definition of a
true Mona Lisa smile. "You can do whatever your judgment tells
you to do," she said archly. "But you have my number no matter
what." It was an invitation to continue updating her; he heard it
in her tone of voice and in the teasing way that she chose her
words. Mulder grinned and finished his biscuit.

Their food arrived shortly thereafter. The simple chicken salad
croissant that he had ordered was delicious, filled with fresh
ingredients and spices that added zest and uniqueness to a dish
that was usually plain and bland. He was accustomed to dining in
dives and fast food joints in the cities that he visited, mostly
because he had never had a resident to tell him where to eat. He
now recognized the necessity of having a guide to direct him to
these eateries, because the Baker's Café was a gem that he never
would have picked up on if he hadn't met Scully.

"This is great," he mumbled through a mouthful of food, and
Scully smirked. He acted as though he hadn't eaten in days,
devouring the croissant before she was halfway through her Monte
Cristo. He leaned forward to spear some of her hash browns with
his fork, and