"Dad! Dad!" William was yelling, his voice squeaking like Mulder's.

Mulder came to the French doors, his train of thought disrupted, finger marking the place in a book.

"There's some dogs down by the pond!"

"Well, run 'em off!" Mulder said testily. Scully leaned on the rail. She could hear the ducks getting upset. Growling angrily, Tash catapulted past her and shot down the hill, bristled out like a fur badger, William after him. Mulder perked up, watching, and faded into the house for a .22 pistol they kept in the porch.

Scully stayed unmoving at the rail. The afternoon had reached that moment when the day seems endless, the sky white, when boredom sucked at one's skull like a starfish and people took siestas just to keep from going mad. She forgot herself, staring out at the expanse, hoping for a waft of chilly sea air. She still remembered her father's voice, but the things he had said to her were slipping away. He'd prepared her for a lot, but nothing like this. He was dead and burned to ashes, and the ship he sailed would be stripped and hacked up and melted down, and then only Scully and the ocean would remain.

Mulder sat on the edge of the deck, stripping the pistol's barrel. The gun was rusting in the sea air. The ducks had settled down. William came slowly up the hill, swinging a stick at the weeds. Tash came up the hill very slowly, eyes glazed, panting so hard that his tongue scrolled. He went into the kitchen with his hind end trembling.

Scully followed him in and dropped a few ice cubes into his water bowl. "You overdid it, show off. Nobody gets to chase those ducks but you," she said. The vulnerable back of the dog's head made a tight fist of love inside her; still, she refused to cut him any slack.

Back out on the deck she leaned on the rail. Mulder had disappeared. William came up the deck stairs, looking into Scully's eyes. He leaned beside her on the broad wooden rail. He made a face like Mulder, and spat into the yard. "It's hard for me to leave him," he said.

"Don't spit," Scully said. "He'll be fine. You have to go out into the world. That's what he wants for you."

"You won't let him climb on the roof, or get in a gunfight, or - " William dropped his forehead onto his arms and hunched his shoulders.

Once when William was a child and they were still in Massachusetts, Mulder was trying to drag a cat off the ridge pole of their precarious seaside house. William had famously called up, "Why don't you let Mom do that?"

"I've got him this far," Scully said, rubbing between William's shoulder blades. His back was vibrant, like horseflesh. He shivered, and she cupped his neck.

"Remember when he self-prescribed the ducks' Terramycin for his cold? And I've seen him jump over this railing, onto the lawn, when he was like, fifty!" William said, smacking the rail. "After a stupid frisbee."

"He's impetuous," Scully admitted. "He's slowing down a little."

"He hasn't slowed down at all!"

"We'll be in France for his birthday," Scully said dreamily, sliding her fingers through the ducktails in William's hair. Near the end of their trip she and Mulder would be house-sitting for several weeks near Arles, in a villa belonging to Mulder's agent's mother, and they were both looking forward to it tremendously. They weren't going to do anything, Mulder had said, but read and write and make love. Maybe a little cooking. Lots of wonderful walks.

She thought that Mulder wrote like Van Gogh painted, lots of chunky words that looked like a mess but actually made beautiful sense.

"Because my savoire faire is ooh la la," Mulder said, behind them.

"Because we're relying on Mulder's high school French," said Scully.

There was a rosy strip of sunburn across William's long nose. Scully licked the flat of her thumb and rubbed at a smudge on his cheek. "You know, I have to go up in the attic and find my skis," he said, just barely tolerating her hand on his face.

"You're going to take skis on an airplane?" Mulder asked wearily.

"I think the ski club's going to Chamonix after Michaelmas."

"While you're up there, can you look for a box that says 'raincoats'?" Scully asked.

____________________

Mulder trailed after him into the dark hallway, steering by the flash of William's Hawaiian shorts. The terracotta felt damp as peeled cucumber under his toes. Sun-blind, he opened Scully's old pine armoire and groped through the tennis rackets and diving gear for a flashlight. "Hey, while you're up there, see if you can find a little leather journal. It's about this big," Mulder said, smacking the flashlight against the heel of his hand. A stream of light wheeled up the wall and landed on William's face. "Into the perilous unknown," Mulder said, and tossed the flashlight up the stairs at him. William's hands clapped around it. He smiled and turned and leapt upward, his hand squeaking on the doorframe as he swung around the corner.

Mulder ignored the feet thundering over his head and went quickly into his study while he had a moment of peace. If he ever had more than two minutes to write it would be amazing what he'd accomplish.

His third book was a memoir, a grimoire, a survival handbook. It was roughly disguised reportage of their dark years, in which he referred to Scully as 'my colleague', when he mentioned her at all, so that she seemed, in these pages, an articulate shadow calling from the morgue. Their near-escapes were glossed over in favor of data. Measurements of skulls and primitive wings, elephant uteruses, x-rays of teeth, transcribed testimonies, bloated steers, lab readings showing preposterous spikes. This book would be huge in the underground. Sometimes it seemed to Mulder that all true intellect belonged to the underground, to those who ignored mass sentiment.

The X-Files were still classified. He could not publish the book, at least not now. It would be a live thing in a box, living in limbo, unread. But at least it would not die with him.

"What is this?" William asked, appearing in the doorway sometime later, dusty and sweaty.

"Oh, whoa," Mulder said, laying his glasses on the desk. He took the video tape, which said 'Dana - Cops' on it, in Tara Scully's handwriting. He weighed it in his hand. "This is a real find, William. This is perfect. It's exactly what we needed!"

____________________

Mulder and William were up to something. Scully heard the jingle of Mulder's car keys and he came up behind her and slung his arm around her and pressed up against her so that she felt the soft delicious weight of him against her lower back. His kiss rang on her ear, and he was gone.

They were back in an hour, carrying an obsolete television as heavy as a bale of hay. They shut Scully out of the study. William emerged on quests for pliers and extension cords. He phoned Arable. He asked Scully if there was popcorn.

She hardboiled some eggs and made egg salad, and washed some coffee cups. If Mulder saw her doing the dishes he would say, "Oh, the wretched scullion in the scullery," and rub her bottom and kiss her neck while she was trying to work.

Mulder, however, was otherwise engaged. She put the egg salad in the fridge and opened one of Matthew's beers with a bottle opener, and went outside. It was twilight. The grape vines were thick around Mulder's study window, and the light flooded out. She looked down at the glowing lawn and the shaggy geometric mark on the hill. The ship would be past by now, beyond her latitude. She tilted back the cold bottle, her eyes too full of tears to see the stars.
___________________

Mulder was making a huge production out of adapting a glassy-faced TV to a late '90s VCR he'd found in an L.A. salvage store. He was versed in the archaic ancestral art of VCR operation, the last surviving member of his tribe.

"What's going on with her?" William asked from the depths of the old leather couch. William was watching him with Mulder's own perceptive eyes, so that Mulder sometimes felt that he was watching himself.

"The ship must be going by. It's got her hypnotized. Hey, could you find your poor old dad an extension cord?"

"What's the worst thing you've ever done?" William asked, as he got up.

"What, are you taking notes or something?" Mulder asked.

"No, I'm just wondering about you," William said softly.

"Well, I guess taking you back from the Van de Kamps was about the meanest thing I've ever done to anyone, and I'm saying this despite the fact that I've taken lives. I've killed people, creatures - " Mulder took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"Remember in 'Maus'?" he asked, when William reappeared, trailing a knotted orange extension cord. "Remember the aunt who poisons the children so they won't be taken to Auschwitz? How did that make you feel?"

"Well, children were automatically selected at Auschwitz," William said.

"Yes, but she presumed - " Mulder said. "Didn't you feel angry at her?"

"What is your point, Dad?" William asked.

"Oh, I don't know, I don't know, never mind." Mulder had his forehead in his hands.

"You know I'll be back at Christmas," William said.

Mulder nodded, his face in his hands.

"Then brave, brave Sir Mulder, he bravely ran away," William sang softly, trying to make Mulder laugh.

"It was just that that little boy never had a chance," Mulder said. "Can you imagine what it's like to live with that?"

"What if I never see Tash again?" William asked, a little aggressively.

"He's not going to die before Christmas," Mulder said firmly. "He's only thirteen."

"We've had him since I was five."

"We've had him since I was forty-five," Mulder said. "Believe me, it never gets easier."

"If I'm not here, I want you to bury him by the bench."

"That's what I was thinking," said Mulder.

"Bury him by the snake."

Mulder nodded. "It's a nice spot. I'd like to be buried there by the dog and the snake, with a nice view of the sky. It'd certainly confound the archaeologists, like the Neanderthals buried with wildflowers."

"Grandpa Scully was buried at sea," said William.

"Just his ashes," said Mulder. "And ten minutes after his funeral your mom got on a plane to North Carolina to interview a psychopath on death row. She didn't even change her clothes."

William nodded and lay with his arms folded, looking up at the window. Mulder turned on the television and set it on channel three. The VCR head drums began to accelerate. "I don't even know why we're bothering to do this," he said. "This is almost without doubt heat-damaged or demagnetized."

"That's the spirit," William said distantly.

"Hey, let's re-mow the spiral," Mulder said, snapping the STOP button.

William shook his head.

"I don't want to lose it," Mulder insisted. The grass was growing up thickly in the brush cutter's paths.

"It makes Mom feel strange." William's hair drifted across one of his eyes. "She feels like it's a signal to outer space or something."

"Did she tell you that?"

William shook his head, avoiding his father's eyes.

If there was one thing Scully cherished above all else, it was her privacy and her anonymity. Mulder remembered her face when they saw the aerial footage on TV, and knew William was right.

"She's being weird about me continuing to take guitar lessons."

"Take what you want, it's your life," Mulder said.

"It's your money," said William.

"It's my dad's blood money," said Mulder. "The first William Mulder. Maybe it'll finally be used for something worthwhile."

_____________________

They made popcorn and conglomerated in Mulder's study that evening after Scully had walked the dog and William had loaded the dishwasher.

"Are you sure you want to watch this?" he asked Scully, as she settled demurely into the black leather couch.

"No, I'm not sure at all," Scully said, calmly eating popcorn. She chuckled a little, almost giddy. William and Arable sat on the Indian rug at her feet. Mulder put on his glasses to look at the remote, pushed them on top of his head and hit 'play'. The tape crackled and then ran smoothly. Mulder was standing around in the way, fiddling with the tracking. "Mulder, sit down!" she said.

Mulder paused the tape. "Just to put this in context, this was in our seventh year together on the X-Files. The year is two thousand. Ought ought. February, I think. We flew out to L.A. on the night of the full moon, against, it shall be noted, Scully's better judgment. But, as you'll see, my concerns weren't completely unfounded, although nothing conclusive came of the case."

"And, for the record, it was never officially honored under the aegis of the FBI," added Scully, "so it was never a case."

"Well, it was an X-File," Mulder argued.

"Just play the tape, Mulder," Scully said.

"This is a bastardized Bob Marley song," Mulder said, sitting down beside Scully. "Would you like me to crack open the Chateau Blanc?" he asked her. "Or how about some coffee?"

"Oh, my god, oh, my god," Scully said, staring at the TV. "Watch this, William. Here it comes...here it comes...there we are!"

William and Arable screamed with laughter.

"What? What's so funny?" Scully asked.

"They're just excited," said Mulder.

"Wow, Mulder," Arable said, glancing back at him.

"What," Mulder said grouchily.

"You were really handsome, Dad," said William.

"He's handsome now," Scully stated, "if you were implying that he's not." She rubbed Mulder's leg.

"Thank you, Scully," said Mulder.

"I mean, but whoa, Dad," William said. "You guys were, like, cops!"

"But cooler," said Mulder. "FBI." He pretended to hold up a badge.

"Oh! The camera adds ten pounds," Scully said sadly.

"To you or to me?" Mulder asked. "Scully, I hate to burst your little bubble of insecurity, but you look incredible on TV."

Arable turned around. "So, were you guys like going out at this point?"

"'Going out'?" Scully pronounced coldly.

"Well, um, I mean, William was born not long after this, wasn't he?" Arable asked nervously, poking William deeply in the shoulder as she forced her eyes to meet Scully's.

"We were partners in the FBI," Scully said stiffly. "We had a professional working relationship."

Mulder snorted.

Scully looked at him.

"Well, Arable's obviously done the math," he said. "Scully, could be you've got some 'splainin' to do."

"I'm not explaining anything to anybody," Scully said. The little Mulder and Scully on the screen were arguing in the street.

By the time Mulder kicked open the door they were all sagging sleepily. "Look at that, it took me ten minutes to kick down that door. What was wrong with me?" Mulder complained.

"You were just tired," Scully said, rubbing his leg. "It was also the night you saw a topless woman and flushed a toilet on national television." She leaned her head against the back of the couch and they contemplated each other.

"What's tomorrow, " Mulder asked dreamily. "The Waccamaw?"

"Your job was just amazing - " Arable said, struck. "This is what you should put in your book!"

"It's still classified," Mulder said, playing with Scully's necklace.

"What was it like, being in the FBI?" William asked.

"It was a very difficult time," Scully said, trying to explain. She patted Mulder's thigh in emphasis. "It was probably the hardest time of our lives. We lost family members, friends - it was very dangerous. But," she said, warming, "the work was so incredible, so amazing, as terrifying as it could be sometimes, that - "

"It was a very happy time, too," said Mulder. "Because we were together - "

"Yes," said Scully, looking into his eyes. "It was dangerous and it was happy. But we had found each other, and we were together..."

"No matter what," said Mulder.

"Yes," said Scully, forgetting herself. Mulder nuzzled her softly.

Arable looked quickly away. William rolled onto his side and pulled the dog into his arms and gazed into his eyes.

"You know, I picked that dog out for William, singled him out of a whole box of puppies, but he still loves Scully the best," Mulder said.

"If by picking out a puppy you mean looking into the eyes of the one puppy who's standing there looking at you, and then reaching out and picking him up and walking away. No examination of his gums or the toe-pinch test."

"Because I didn't care about his gums or his stoicism," Mulder said. "He was Sir Prince Tashtego Mangelwurzel Mulder, or whatever William named him. He was the one for us."

"You always know how to humble me, don't you?" Scully said.

"I don't mean to. It's just that we all have our own puppy-picking methods."

"When I think of Jesus, I picture Mulder," Arable said suddenly, and put her head down on her knees when they all looked at her.

"Well, that's delightfully sacrilegious," Mulder said.

"You mean the feeling he gives you," William said to Arable.

"Yeah."

"Any guy who can turn water into wine can't be all bad," Mulder said agreeably, still wrapped up in Scully.

____________________

At dawn, William's car putted away down the hill. The old dog stood at the top of the drive and howled into the void.

Ten minutes later Mulder and Scully broke apart and lay getting their breath back, staring into the dusty sunlight that fell across the bed. He stroked her body and she caught his hand and gripped it, a wordless sex-communique.

Mulder was right-handed; he needed to be on the other side of her, so they rolled lazily into position. Her eyes were closed, and he cradled her in the crook of his left arm, kissing her temple, and let the friction of his fingers take over. He curled his long finger inside her.

By the time she pressed her hand over his Mulder was breathing as hard as she was. She turned quickly and pressed her mouth to his, tongues slipping against each other, and she cried out into his mouth. They kissed and kissed. This multiple-orgasm thing was a sure sign she was stressed and upset.

They heard the ducks quacking and Mulder sucked his fingers and dried them on the sheet.

"We're going to have to move again," she said. Her face contorted and she turned away.

"It's a good time for it, anyway," he said gently.

"I might go back to school, Mulder," she said, rallying, and wiping her eyes on the sheet.

"Just like Rodney Dangerfield?" Mulder asked, rubbing her belly.

"I want to do some more advanced research into a couple of things. I need to keep up with William's work."

"We'll go wherever you need to." He leaned down and kissed her pale fluttery skin, chilly as a cloud. "What's this about you discouraging William's musical interests?"

"I haven't discouraged him; it's just that the point of Oxford is to concentrate on one subject without distractions. Total immersion."

"He can also tell you the lineup at Monterey Pop in '69; it's not like he's limited to one avenue," Mulder argued. "He's got other interests than physics. I don't think he should just be shut off like that."

"I guess I keep coming back to something Mrs. Peacock said to me. She said that I wouldn't understand what love was until I had a son who would do anything for me."

"Scully, I think Mrs. Peacock was hinting darkly at something far oogier than you can imagine."

"All the same, Mulder, in many ways she was right. Do you think that's why we had him? To save me?"

"You can't think that way," Mulder said. "William's got his own life to live. He needs to get away from us. He's us, but he's not us. You can't help it that he's such a good kid, and that he's going to help you, but it's not the reason he was born. I don't want you feeling any guilt over William. Was I born just to search for Samantha? You know there's more to it than that."

Scully rolled over against him and put her arm around his neck, her breathy mouth against the side of his face, wet patch of hair against his belly. "I want to do it again."

"No, you don't." Mulder pressed her onto her back, and put his fingers on her breastbone, holding her still. Scully's wet, wild eyes stared up at him. The panic slid out of her slowly. He brushed her hair out of her eyes. "No, you don't," he whispered.
_____________________

"You know what I feel like? An Orange Crush. Do they still make that?" asked Mulder, on the freeway. "Remember it endlessly circulating in those plastic box-things?"

"I suppose it still exists," said Scully. Mulder was on an orange kick. He picked out orange-scented dish soap and he squeezed halved oranges over salsa, over salads, or into his beer. He claimed that orange oil repelled termites. He had plans to rub essential orange oil into Scully's labia as a sexual stimulant, although they hadn't gotten around to it yet.

"It's so weird when they stop making stuff," said William.

"Yeah. Remember Cherry Coke?"

"Yeah. Remember Pepsi One?"

"Remember Tab?" Mulder asked. "Remember A&W root beer?" he asked Scully. "Remember Nehi?"

"Jeez, you're ancient," said Arable. "'Remember sarsaparilla? Remember the Model T?'"

There was a silence. Scully looked over her shoulder and Arable blushed, jiggling her shoe against the console between the seats. William was impenetrable behind a pair of movie star sunglasses, a piece of licorice stuck in his lips. Even slumped in the backseat he had a quietly efficient air.

"So, tell me again how they scrap a ship," said Matthew. It occurred to her that William's shaggy haircut exactly mirrored Matthew's hair.

"Well, they cut it up with blow torches. This is superior steel, and they'll melt it down," Scully said, craning around, her hand on the back of Mulder's seat.

"They're taking it through the Panama Canal, because we don't have a salvage yard on the West Coast," William said. "It's going to Texas."

"This is breaking my Dad's heart," Matthew commented.

"Oh, I know," Scully said sadly. She looked over at Mulder. "I remember A&W root beer." She reached over and stroked his hand. The kids watched from the back seat.

"Hey, baby, I'd like to get you in my Model T," said Mulder.

William was struck. "God, imagine, like, being married," he whispered.

"Oh, I know," said Arable.

"Imagine having a baby."

"Oh, my God!" said Arable, appalled.

Matthew spoke up. "Hey, isn't this the freeway in America most commonly frequented by serial killers?"

Scully said, "Maybe," looking out her window.

Getting permission to board the ship in San Diego had been a reflexive action she really regretted. Her brother had called her from Scotland when the ship was struck from the Navy list, and Scully went into high gear because the USS Waccamaw was venerable, a veteran of the Cuban Blockade, and she wanted William to see it. On the base at Miramar she had waited with the other children for the ship to appear after months of absence, its fog whistle reaching across the water, calling out to them.

It was going to be hard to bear seeing the rusty, outdated beast, riding on its moorings and awaiting its fate. It would be dry-docked and torn apart at the joints, it would become bridges and slag.

"You know that old Indian rug in my Dad's office?" William said. "There's bloodstains on it."

"I had that rug cleaned," said Mulder.

"Will, nobody uses the term 'Indian' any more," Scully said.

"Except the Indians," said Mulder.

"Human blood," William said.

"Jesus, William, where are you getting this?" Mulder snapped. "That rug is clean."

"The stains are visible under fluoroscene enhancement. Mom showed me."

Mulder looked at Scully. "I was showing him how the equipment worked," she said apologetically.

"You know, my dad helped catch Monty Props back in the '80s. And he caught a serial killer called John Lee Roche. He caught a guy who ate people's livers."

"My God, who does that?" hissed Arable.

"William," said Mulder from the front seat. "The violent deaths of innocent people are not a matter of entertainment."

"Yeah. I know, sorry," said William.

"I mean, we can learn from these events. It's acceptable to be curious."

Scully swiveled around and peered into the back seat. "The thing to remember is that modern society creates people who are not really human. They're out there walking around, but there's something essential missing in them. You can't usually tell - I mean, they look like you or me."

Mulder stretched his legs a little, glancing at her fondly. "Well, they don't usually look like you, Scully."

She felt strange. She always felt a little off; perpetually she felt the psychic unease of deja vu. She seemed to walk around in a protracted off day. Her reflexes had become like lightning in her late thirties, after William was born. If something fell from a shelf her hand shot out and caught it before she knew what was happening.

During that gray tunnel of time when they did not have William she had felt the ghostly let-down of milk in her breasts every time she thought of him, and the irrevocable love strong as anger, like a sexual pull. She wanted her hands on him and his skin against hers, she reached for him in her sleep; she wanted to smell him and watch for Mulder in his face. She madly loved his froggy legs and his little penis and the back of his baby neck. She wanted to look into his eyes and see again that someone knew her on her truest level.

Scully looked between the back seats, her hand on Mulder's headrest. How children changed! They were like different people at different ages. William narrowed his rainy day eyes and transferred his gaze to the prism sparkle of broken glass packed along the freeway dividers.

He hadn't told Scully he'd miss her, although he'd been saying as much to Mulder for weeks. Mulder was the one they all loved. Scully was always the toughest parent, poring over report cards for half an hour, standing over dentists. She would be around forever. Mulder was the one you wrestled with in the tall grass, Mulder was the one you would miss.

Normally they would stop in San Diego and see Grandma Scully, who was in a care facility. Scully stopped to visit when she could, just for the joy of getting into a niggly fight over nothing with someone who knew her so well.

Mulder had his hand on her thigh, his eyes on the road. They'd taken so many trips this way, Mulder's hand in hers, their miracle baby bored in the back. Scully would fall into a dream, something close to sleep, Mulder's thumb tracing the lines inside her hand, like a secret map he must frequently consult, William slurping at ice with a soft drink straw until one of them requested he not.

Holding hands with Mulder was still the best feeling in the world, just as nice as it had felt back in the stone age days when they'd pretended that holding hands might be something FBI agents did to comfort each other.

She remembered those distant years when they'd traveled together, dressed to the nines, carrying on formal discussions, turning to stare into each other's eyes. They hadn't really known each other then, she liked to think, but the truth was, they'd always known each other. Even during her first few days on the job she'd felt a strong attachment to him, as if he were the character in a novel she'd just read.

They'd driven together and slept in separate rooms, stared at identical ceilings. They'd gone all over the country thus, and to Siberia and Antarctica and Africa, their only real contact a little polite CPR. Her cancer took a turn for the worse, and he briefly gripped her hand. He'd kissed her hand, gazed profoundly into her eyes, and she'd thought: Of all the times to be dying, Dana.

After the Bureau they'd thrown themselves into their present life as if it were a mission, a case. William was their eighteen-year X-File. As ever, it was a joint effort. Scully recorded his inoculations in her journal, and Mulder somehow came up with two hundred popsicle sticks at eight o'clock on a school night.

Upon their move to California, Mulder had encountered Marty Glenn on a shimmery L.A. sidewalk three thousand miles from the place they'd last seen each other. Marty ran a down-at-heel cinema on Broadway, showing mostly Antonioni and Fellini, films Scully couldn't imagine actually paying money to watch.

Marty'd had a crush on Mulder the first time, too, and Scully could just imagine how he'd talked to her, his voice getting softer as he drew her gently into his trap. She was well aware of Mulder's ability to charm. Scully had chaperoned him the second time, braced for a black-and-white film about French children or Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe.

Naturally, she and Marty Glenn had nothing to say to each other, but Scully was strangely liberated by each encounter, her freakish youth gone unrecognized. The invisibility felt good, and she went back with Mulder and William to watch This Island Earth, (1955). Marty sat in the ticket booth, pushing the speaker button when it was her turn to talk. She looked over Mulder's shoulder and smiled with joy, her toes wiggling in the yellow coat of an overweight seeing eye dog whose training was slipping.

Scully really couldn't blame women who got crushes on Mulder. Scully had allowed her own crush on Mulder to completely control her life from day one, and so on unto infinity. Resistance is futile, Earth Woman.

Scully didn't want to feel invisible. When Mulder was looking down at her, incredibly tender, fingertips slow against her skin, she would begin to feel that he couldn't really see her, that he was touching a glass surface inches away. She had practically chewed him up a few times, sideways across the bed, wanting to feel him, to feel real, to come back to life.

She imagined this was the way the layers had begun to build up, why Fellig had always felt a mile away when she talked to him. Fellig, her curiosity over Fellig: another instance of her undoing. She'd always known the thing with Mulder would go too far, end in dark distortion; she just hadn't imagined this.

With Marty it was as if the layers had always been there, and were easily compensated for by a superior sense of personality. Scully didn't feel any different to Marty, because nothing, truly had changed. She was the same old Scully inside.
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