Untitled Page

Parabiosis ~ Page 6
____________________

The slaughterhouse burned.

Although they'd walked miles together, slept on the ground, slept
entwined on the seat of a snow tractor, just being in Salt Lake City
turned them into edgy strangers.

"Well, let's hear your 'theory'," Mulder said testily.

Scully's nose pinched as if she already smelled smoke. She jerked open
a city map and shook it into submission. The city he almost lost her
to. Life would have been one long miserable death without her, the sun
gone from the sky. He couldn't even think about it.

He looked over at her for reassurance and the delicacy of her wrists
made his heart contract, even with the annoying crackle of the map in
his ear. Her lips were set grimly for argument. She wore no rings,
nothing to tie her to anyone, and he felt an odd little flinch of
guilt. He knew she wished for kids and dogs and a house of her own,
and a husband. What the Greeks called 'the whole catastrophe'. Instead
she had branched DNA and the promise of extreme longevity, and a
monster hunter from Massachusetts.

"It could be anything, Mulder - a dog, a bear, a human. What makes you
think it's our suspect? All we know is that an unidentified assailant
mauled an itinerant and the Salt Lake police have said assailant
cornered in a slaughterhouse, and that one of those fine officers of
the law, having heard about you on the internet - " (she raked her
gaze pointedly over him) "contacted you and requested your esteemed
opinion on the case."

"I'm not on the internet, Scully." Mulder removed a folded paper from
the inner pocket of his suit.

"You're not?"

"You make it sound like I have web shrines to my glory." He tapped her
with the paper until she took it.

Across a photocopied map of the western United States he had
pinpointed the sites of the two slayings - Payette, Idaho, and the
southern Idaho highway; and the spot in the Great Salt Lake Desert
where the wildlife camera had been tripped. They lined up perfectly.
He had connected them with a rulered slash; the red stroke went on to
directly intersect Salt Lake City.

She felt a click of surprise, and wondered if he could be right.

Her eyes wandered to her window. Shunted snow stood in piles along the
streets. If she had moved here, would he have missed her? She would
have missed him horribly. In fact, life would have been so colorless
and bleak without him she couldn't even contemplate it, it washed away
from her, leached of meaning.

She would have been here in these miserable wastes, so far away, and
he probably would have shrugged and gotten on with his life in that
heartless way of men. As it was, she continually slowed him down and
held him back. Probably he wouldn't have missed her a bit.

She eyed him surreptitiously. He looked as arrogant and impossible as
ever. "Well?" he asked. He always had to be right.

"I don't know," she said sharply. "Just don't tell me it's something
reanimated." She was sick of him renting movies about killer mummies.
Every weekend, the same thing. He had such atrocious taste in movies.

He fluttered his fingers on the steering wheel. "Scully, in 1977, a
Belgian chemist got the Nobel for the theory that life originated from
organic substances that were irradiated with energy. It's the basic
principle behind the defibrillator. Restarting a body is common
procedure."

"So what are you saying, a bolt of lightning at the stroke of midnight
in the mad scientist's lab?"

"If you like," he said defensively.

"Mulder, I don't have to tell you how preposterous that sounds!
Besides, mummies have all their soft organs removed. The brain is
extracted through the nasal passages. The heart is gone. There's
nothing there to recharge."

In the warehouse district, they swung in and parked behind a line of
police cars. Scully reached into the back seat for her Kevlar -
statistically speaking, whatever they had cornered was probably armed.
His eyes caught hers as she turned back in her seat.

"You think our mummy's packing heat?" he asked.

She stared him down. "Put yours on too."

Mulder took a slug of cold coffee and grimaced. Down the street, the
dark hulk of the slaughterhouse loomed in wait.
____________________

They stormed the slaughterhouse on an adrenal surge, the local cops
playing SWAT team, Mulder shining in the role of
monster-hunter-in-chief, Scully lagging as backup and general wet
blanket.

As they cleared each floor and it became evident that the place was
empty, they spread out, poking into the gutted rooms, the hobo nests,
the chutes and lofts.

Mulder left the building, brushing cobwebs from his shoulders, and
climbed onto a low roof that abutted the main building, looking for
tracks in the crusted snow. He revolved in a circle, taking in the
empty lots in back, the scattered sheds, dirty factories in the
distance, and beyond that the Wasatch Range. The wind slapped at him,
smelling strongly of ashes. Clouds hung low overhead; it would be dark
in an hour, although it was only early afternoon.

He felt deeply regretful, sensing that he had finally come close to
the creature. He knew it was dangerous, but he thought only of how
distinctly unparalleled it was, probably the only one of its kind.
That made it wonderful, in his eyes.

Fire sirens were whooping as he returned to the front of the building.
The row of police cars had been backed into the street in a jumbled
herringbone. The city police force stood around on the sidewalk in
jovial high spirits. The slaughterhouse was on fire.

The prospect of watching it burn cheered everyone, the anticipation of
fire trucks, and the elements pitted against each other. Fire and
water. Valiant men, and lots of shiny equipment. Mulder tucked his
frozen hands into his armpits.

"Al dropped his cigarette."

Al defended himself unconvincingly. He was elbowed and patted and
teased. Smoke poured from the third floor.

"Nice work, Al." Mulder felt as happy as anyone until he started
looking around for Scully. Even then, he assumed she had gone back to
the car to pledge her fealty to the heater. She hated to be cold, and
she hadn't been particularly enthusiastic about this whole trip.

Mulder edged out of the way as the pumper truck wailed up to the curb
and now he was wondering why Scully wasn't here watching. Didn't all
women love firemen?

She wasn't in the car.

Mulder, galvanized, galloped back up the icy sidewalk into the crowd.
"Where's my partner?" he yelled. He shouted into their slow, useless
faces. Someone admitted that she had been looking for him. "Is she in
there? Did she go back inside?" he cried.

They didn't know, and they became more confused under his assault.

The firemen were unfolding flat canvas hoses across the sidewalk and
Mulder edged around them, knowing he wouldn't be allowed back inside.

Around the side of the building was the shed roof he had been on
earlier. He climbed back up, dragging his heavy body over the sharp
edge of the gutter,
his red hands grabbling in the snow. The wind wheeled him against the
wall as he stood up. He pulled his coat sleeve over his hand and
smashed in a window. Smoke gushed over him, and the fomenting presence
of fire made him check with one knee on the window sill. He yelled her
name into the darkness, smoke-tears on his face. She couldn't be in
here, she would have left the building at the first sign of fire. All
his instincts told him not to go in. His fear made him angry, and he
loathed himself intensely.

Back down on the ground he loped along the wall until he found a door
to the basement. He battered himself against it. Finally it gave six
inches and he scraped his body through somehow. Down here the smell of
smoke was still faint. He jogged into the dark, flicking on his
flashlight.

This lowest floor was pens and chutes, piled metal and wood, a few
yards of sawdust in a corner. The uneasy memories of offal and blood
underlaid the heaviness of smoke.

"Scul-lay!" he shouted frantically. It occurred to him that they might
have missed the creature, that it was still here, that Scully had
encountered it. His voice resounded through the cavernous room. He ran
through the dark, swinging his flashlight beam, panicked at the
thought that she needed him. He knocked his legs on pipes, and he
remembered his neighbors gawking at her while she lay on the scummy
tiles of his hallway floor, trying to breathe.

Overhead, he could hear the firemen running on the wooden floors. If
she was up there they would find her. His heart cantering with fear,
he sprinted into a dark back hallway and up a short flight of metal
stairs, bursting out of an unlocked door into the crisp air and light.

There she stood against a brick wall, lifting her shrewd eyes to his,
and he caught his collarbone on the door as he stumbled forward.

"Oh, God," he muttered, like a foxhole conversion.

Their guns clinked together as he pulled her against him, one-armed,
her face tipping up to meet his. She said "Mul-" with her eyes
half-closed, and he smothered the word in situ. The ceramic in their
bulletproof vests wedged awkwardly between them, but her body was
pliant, and he slid his mouth against hers, seeking the deepest
possible connection. He felt the trembling of her knee, and the
pressure of her fist caught against his sternum. She pushed at him
while she kissed him back, her nose was cold and damp. Rather
recklessly, he decided that the sharp pleasure of touching her was
worth whatever impartial kismet cared to hurl at them.

Fate wasted no time in retaliation.

"Damn! I KNEW I should have gone into the Bureau!" said a cop's voice
behind him. Mulder tore himself away from her. Her eyes were slow to
open. He threw her an apologetic look as he turned away. Sure enough,
there were three of the boys in brown, happily following the
proceedings. The sheriff's department, no less.

Wearily, Mulder closed his eyes. Oh, Scully would blacklist his ass
for this. She probably wouldn't let him kiss her for another seven
years. He sighed, holstering his weapon.

Scully flicked her hair back into place with a toss of her head. She
drew herself up to a full five feet two of pissy hauteur. She still
held her gun, and she was locked and loaded and breathing pretty fast.

She pointed at the snow. "Mulder, you are disturbing evidence."

Mulder looked down, carefully lifting his feet. Circling, he picked up
some odd tracks, broad muffled prints. He dodged past Scully and
around a chain link fence, following the vague trail. "Scully, get
moulage castings, get photographs!" he called back to her.

He licked at the taste of her on his lips. The icy wind walloped him
and he flung out his arms, feeling oddly victorious.
__________________

For an hour she tails Mulder in the car while he scours the industrial
district on foot, smoke from the burning slaughterhouse oppressing the
watery winter sunset. He is a loping, dogged figure in black, at times
winged as the light catches him. He should have something on his head,
she thinks. He ought not to spend his life like this, seeking
impossible things, running before her, ever afield.

The descent of evening imbues the dirty snow with a sculptural
bluntness. There on the sidewalk is a coffee vendor, incongruous in a
district of carpet stores and loading docks. She leaves the engine
idling and climbs a rough-hewn berm of snow to sniff the heavenly
steam from his cappuccino maker. The vendor is great and solid in his
overcoat and mink hat, and doesn't appear to even feel the cold,
whereas Scully is chilled within seconds, holding her cup to her chest
with both hands.

Mulder comes back down the sidewalk, defeat evident in his flagging
pace, and she has another cup ready to press into his cold-burned
hands. They stand curbside, close to the red cart, which ekes a subtle
propane heat. He slides his wind-stung eyes to her. "They wouldn't put
out an APB on a mummy."

She shrugs. What did he expect?

He hesitates, studying her face. "I guess we gave them something to
talk about."

She tries to sigh, exasperated, takes a bite of cold wind, shudders,
and instead a smile is called forth. She tries to tuck it away. "The
world just isn't ready for you, Fox Mulder."

Heartened, his eyes crinkle and he reaches for a napkin to blow his
nose. He sniffs and takes a chug of coffee. "Good stuff," he says to
the barista, who grunts, polishing spotless stainless steel.
"Scully..." Mulder says confidingly, looking past her down the street.
"I know I should apologize, but to tell the truth," - he leans over
and mutters against her temple - "that was the best kiss of my life."
He straightens up, eyes on the raveling skyline. "And I don't regret
it for a second. So you see my dilemma." He buries his nose in his
cup.

Cold and lust are a painful combination, and she has to close her
eyes. "You're kidding," she says weakly, regrouping.

His wonderful curvilinear lips look cold and chapped, but he grins
softly at her. "Have you ever known me to kid?"

"Well, if that's the case, Mulder, we can probably do better than
that."

"You think?" There is great interest behind his squint.

"Well, it remains to be seen," she says, shivering hard.

"Luff," rumbles the coffee vendor dismissively, rattling oily black
beans into a hopper.

"It is indeed," Mulder says tenderly, leaning his shoulder against
hers for a moment.
__________________

'...and truth for him is what lives in the stars.'
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery
'Wind, Sand and Stars'
__________________

She turned on the TV and there he was, her restless unhappy son. He
was as driven as his father, ever starting hares. He was haunted by
little girls. His girlfriend showed no inclination towards the
production of grandchildren - a last, faint clutch at hope in the days
before she discovered her time was up.

He told her to take care, but he didn't call when he got back to the
east coast. She had read somewhere that to have a child is to take
your heart from your body, and watch it walk away.
__________________

>From the leather armchair she tried to grok his meaning. He turned
archetypal from the commonality of grief, but was no less individual
for this. "Give out love and see who gives it back," her mother once
said. Scully was hungry but the stiffening remains in the AB pizza box
no longer registered as food. She shut her eyes against the chaos of
the coffee table, a bowl of apples, water glasses pincushioned with
bubbles. Mulder was flat on the couch with his arm flung over his
eyes. The aquarium smelled like a wharf.

In the rush of her life he was always there beside her - perhaps that
was part of his meaning. Without him, she had been completely wretched
in Africa, and maybe that was part of a person's significance - the
feelings they evoked in other people. Mulder gave her more feelings
than she knew what to do with, and he gave her a place to be.

She concentrated on not falling asleep. She'd been on the road for
days. She'd just spent several hours working over his mother in a
chilly autopsy bay. She was hurrying through her life, checking her
watch in hopes of pinning down time. She threw on coats as she passed
through doors, descended into the earth to work, turned right against
red lights. She plugged in rotary saws and cracked open rib cages,
shook soap into the dish washer, defended Mulder to review boards and
superiors and brothers.

Mulder shook peanuts into her palm on an airplane, uncurling her
fingers with his. He broke into research facilities, the Pentagon, the
Department of Defense for her. He told her she had saved the world.
She gave out love, and Mulder gave it back.
__________________

She is sitting on his coffee table in the middle of the night, leaning
towards him with her chin in her hand, eyes heavy with sleep. She
waits gravely for his words as lamp light glows through her earnest
swatch of hair. He can't imagine how he has ever come to deserve her.
__________________

For all his truck with gods and hellbroth, he seemed unprepared for
this. Mulder always made her face the painful truths of her own life,
and somehow she thought he would have girded himself for tragedy, the
way Rasputin built up his immunity to arsenic for the inevitable day
when he would be poisoned.

Their hands were together, brushing and turning like skirmishing
birds. They pretended they weren't holding hands, just as they had
always pretended they didn't love each other to pieces.

In her endless ruth for Mulder she refused to leave him on his first
night motherless, and she stayed near him and heard his muttered pain,
and like that through the horse latitudes of the night.
__________________

Mulder and Scully, as usual, were joined at the hip, as thick as
thieves, exchanging their exclusive looks. Something invisible coursed
between them. Skinner felt like a third wheel just being in the same
car with them, but somebody needed to come along and hold Mulder's
leash.

As usual, Mulder's behavior had been less than exemplary. A calibrated
light of imbalance gleamed in his eye, and Agent Scully looked like
she'd been pushed pretty far herself. The woman ought to get hazard
pay just for being his partner, as the Smoking Man had once observed,
back in the days when he sat around in Skinner's office, smoking and
observing.

But as usual Mulder seemed to have more insight into the case than
anyone else, and although the last place Skinner wanted to be was in
California looking for what was in all probability a dead little girl,
he had felt it prudent to oversee the mission. If something happened
to either of his agents, he would have to deal with the other one
going berserk.

They were rabidly devoted. They were obviously sleeping together, not
that he could fault Mulder for that particular development; anyone
would have snapped after so many years in confined spaces with Scully
and those bored, unkissed lips. She looked and smelled like a wedding
cake, was fiery, brainy and imperious. She had an ass that wouldn't
quit. Mulder was plainly one lucky bastard.

Aside from professionalism, there was no reason they shouldn't be
involved. What was amusing was the way they hid it and denied it, as
if the heavens would fall if they displayed a moment of human
weakness. They apparently thought they were destined to save the
world, just the invincible two of them, like a turn-of-the-millennium
Steed and Peel.

Did they call each other 'Mulder' and 'Scully' in the sack? They were
an odd pair; he wouldn't put it past them.
__________________

It was Sunday, her one day to sleep in, but it was still early when
Scully snapped to the awareness of a presence darkening her bedroom
door. Alarmed, she was on her feet in one fast writhe, huffing as she
slapped at the bedside table. Her head jerked up as a mammoth
Mulder-shaped hulk lifted a calming hand.

"Damn it, Mulder, I might have blown your head off!" She was clammy,
trembling, humiliated to be caught acting so shell-shocked.

"Put the damn chain on your door," he growled. She could not read his
face in the dimness.

"You picked the lock!"

"Eddie Van Blundht stole my keys," he said tersely. He crossed the
room and loomed at the window, opening the curtains. The scattered
pixels of her vision began to collect. Veiled crystal light washed the
room, and she became aware of her white silk pajamas, her heaving
chest. "We're going to Atlantic City. I'll wait while you shower," he
said quietly. He looked rankled and insular, his eyes black in the
gloom of dawn. He whacked her morning paper against his thigh, circled
back through the room and flung himself on her unmade bed.

"Make yourself right at home, Mulder," she said coldly. He might at
least have taken off his shoes.

He touched the crown of his head to the bars in the headboard, his
trench coat unfurled around him like wings, his hand tangling in the
sheets where she'd slept. She tasted metal in her mouth.

"In ancient starlight we lay," he said to the ceiling.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" She began to unbutton her
pajama top, trying to rattle him. Mulder's eyes followed her fingers,
but he managed to seem preoccupied.

"Did you watch the news last night?" he asked, his eyes jumping to
hers.

She backed through the bathroom door, frowning at him as she slammed
it.
____________________

She pondered his words in the shower. Late last night, surfing the
hardsell of TV for more iniquitous entertainment, she'd woven past the
news: the usual wrecks, fires, and human tragedies. There were
terrible floods in Mozambique.

She remembered as she was combing out her hair. It was hair, long
brown hair, naturally dreadlocked, as she had seen flashed on the
news, a small bony shoulder, a glimpse of eye. The sense of something
unfolded from under a stone, damp and perfect as nature.

She trimmed her sails, put on her robe and opened the door. Mulder was
still on her bed, ensconced in the pillows, drinking coffee and
reading her paper. His shoes were off. It might have been a cozy
little tableau, if he wasn't such a pain in the neck. His socks were
black, and she had the urge to clench the length of his long foot in
her hand.

"They found a girl," she said.

"They captured a wild girl," he amended. "They tranked her, Scully, in
the New Jersey woods."

His eyes sharpened with this new preoccupation. He was so encircled by
women - his mother, his sister, herself, and so many missing little
girls. She understood that, pointless as it seemed to go see this
child, he needed to, and he needed her with him the way he needed her
for everything.

Still, she stood looking at him helplessly, as if she yet cherished
the hope that he might someday settle down and take things calmly,
sensibly, and see that life wasn't always what you managed to tear
from it, but often what settled graciously, fortuitously, into your
waiting hands.
__________________

They were shown to an observation room in a psych facility in Atlantic
City, but they found it overflowing with a television news crew, their
extension cables trailing out into the hall. Like intestines, Scully
thought, as though they were in there gutting something out.

Mulder tensely chewed his lip, folding his arms and leaning against
the wall. The crew chattered, squeaked their shoes, and began tapping
on the glass, trying to get a reaction out of the girl. A soft drink
opened with a carbonated snap. Somebody cracked a joke and the whole
room laughed. It was dark in there, but Scully knew that the girl was
naked, and she felt a protective indignation.

Mulder's nostrils widened and his eyes rolled sideways. His hands
flattened against the wall at his sides. Knowing the warning signs,
Scully looked around quickly and grabbed a passing nurse. She had to
flash her badge to curtail filming, and the crew withdrew slowly,
sticking a microphone in her face, jostling Mulder, winding up cords.

Mulder came in behind Scully and shut the door. The room they stood in
was unlit, and contained only a table. He walked slowly up to the
glass and looked in at the wild girl, who lay on the floor of an empty
interrogation room beneath aching flickering lights.

She was taller than he'd expected - she looked closer to 13 than 11.
Her dark brown hair, which had been very long, was hacked off in short
starburst spikes by the people who had attempted to clean her up. The
administrator he'd talked to on the phone had said that they'd had to
tie her up to wash her - they'd trimmed back her nails but could do
nothing about her teeth. They couldn't keep clothes on her. She lay on
the floor naked, patting it idly and licking her fingers. Mulder
realized she was miming eating ants.

She was thin, but long-boned, narrowly muscular. The media was calling
her Rima.

Mulder's forehead fell against the glass. "This is no kind of life for
her," he said brokenly.

Beside him, Scully folded her arms. "Would you have her live out her
life in the wilds, without human interaction, without medical
attention, without speech or education, eating out of garbage cans?"

Mulder's hand came up and slammed the glass. Scully started. He looked
furious.

The girl looked up alertly at the one-way glass, her narrow brown
cat-face as beautiful as anything in the forest.

Mulder caught his breath, astounded. "She looks like her mother," he
whispered.
__________________

Chapter 9

"Mulder, wait."

He ignored her, crossing the parking lot. He dashed the coffee
viciously from his cup. Above him, power lines clutched at nothing.

She drove through a district of industrial estates and ship yards on
the way to the freeway, trying to imagine living rough, venturing into
an area like this for food. How hostile and devoid of meaning the
world would seem. It made her hungry just to think of it, although
usually she could go for hours with her stomach folded up inside her,
forgotten, but now she wanted to take him somewhere for lunch, make
sure he actually ate today, although he probably just wanted to get
home.

His hand dropped down beside the emergency brake. He was restless when
she drove. She remembered his hand closing the Jersey Devil's eyes,
and the girl's hand, patting the floor, Mulder's hand slamming the
glass.

"Mulder, you tried to save her mother, and now this little girl has a
chance to be safe. She still has her life ahead of her, and she can
live it like a human."

"But she's a wild creature, completely without speech. The
anthropologists will be all over her, she'll be institutionalized her
whole life. Look at what the linguists did to Genie. Look at how Lucy
Householder's life turned out."

Scully knew he was seeing the track marks in Lucy's arms; Samantha,
trapped and abused, slashing herself with her fingernails. She saw
again that brown urchin face, lovely and rough and wild as a little
wolverine.

Mulder's head fell back against the seat, signalling that he didn't
want to talk. The sky was a negative space, absent of heat or light.
Driving inland always gave Scully a dragging feeling, as though the
ocean were pulling at her.

For years Samantha had been a small child to her, a picture on
Mulder's desk, conjuring up those little faces on milk cartons. But
these past few days, Samantha had become very real in her mind. Scully
could vividly remember being 14, those huge feelings, the confusions,
the constant shocks of the adult world. She had been in a steady
environment with people who cared about her. It was hard to grasp what
it must have been like for Samantha, whom Scully pictured as having
Mulder's sensitivity, his rapacious intelligence. And the way Mulder
felt about her, she couldn't have been someone you would soon forget.
__________________

Mulder began to cry silently, his face turned to the window. His
misery was like black water filling up the car, and she could barely
see where she was going. Tears stung her nose and she shook her head
sharply. She wanted to hold him and kiss him and tuck him in bed,
bring him soup. She thought of the Smoking Man and elaborate
vengeance, but none of it would give Samantha back her life, none of
it would give Mulder back his life. He had been right all along to
look to the skies, but for reasons he could not imagine.

She turned on the headlights as they encountered sheets of mist.
Outside Washington, twilight came sudden and hard. A string of red
tail lights ran down the hill before them and the windshield wipers
scraped hectically. He shuddered, and she reached over, rubbing his
arm, easing the car forward one-handed. He put his hand over his eyes
and gasped.

The mist wafted open and a transient appeared on the median, holding a
seagull by the feet. Its great wings lapped slowly at the air,
arrow-shaped and blinding white, quilted with feathers. They seemed to
touch the car as they floated past, motion slowed, the man and the
gull caught now in spangled grey-gold sunlight through mist, and
Scully was positive she felt the wings touch the car, felt it inside
her like a sound, a rasp of feather over steel, a brush of flight
feathers over her life, over Mulder's.

Then they were past and the car was travelling normally, the evening
locking down, and Mulder's lashes were prickled together. He looked
back between the seats but said nothing, cracking his window as the
car fogged up.

It took forever to find a parking place in Alexandria, and they had to
run two blocks under a cloudburst, water running in sheets down the
sidewalk. It went down the back of her neck and it flooded her shoes,
icy February rain.

Inside his apartment, all she could feel was relief that the roar was
dulled. Hanging up his sodden trench coat, Mulder missed and had to
pick it up off the dusty hardwood floor. He stood there drawn,
chilled, staring at his feet. "I need to get warm," he muttered,
sliding away into the shadows.

Scully sank down and stuck to the black couch as the pipes squealed in
his bathroom. The thought of warmth rattled a shiver through her.
Exhausted, she hugged her knees, road bumps making the floor rise
under her feet. She decided to close her eyes and just hang onto her
breathing until he was finished with his bath, then make sure he got
to bed before she went home and climbed into hers. She felt as
sluggish as if her metabolism had slowed for the winter.

The floor creaked before she felt him lift a wet rat of hair from her
neck. It seemed several minutes before he said anything. Her chin down
on her knees, she pushed her eyebrows up enough to look at the little
round table across from her.

"You're cold."

If she stared at the table hard enough it divided in two. The white
lines of the freeway came up and slapped her in the face. She flinched
and looked up at Mulder.

An understatement, she telegraphed.

He stared at her. Rain was never attractive on him. He looked like a
drowned kitten. She studied the way his grooved lips fit together, a
small miracle of construction. The tub thundered, one spot of womb-hot
heat in the void around them.

"Come on," he said, so quietly it was only his lips moving, it might
just have been imagining. Based on this imagining, she shut herself in
the bathroom with the running tub. One light bulb sapped the light
from the air. In the mirror above the sink was a wraith, white,
shadowy, shocked. She felt old, very ancient and weary of pretense,
pared down to the core like a guru.

She brushed her teeth with the toothbrush she kept at his place, and
removed her watch, her earrings, feeling petrified, trying to recall
what underwear she was wearing. She hoped to God it was black.

She let the bathroom door fall open, and took off her shoes, waiting
for him. She tested the water in the tub and turned up the hot a
little further.

When she looked around Mulder was there, his tie hanging loose. He
looked at her questioningly before he swiped at the wall, putting them
in the dark.

Scully went still, uncertain what to expect.

He turned off the water, and in the sudden silence began to lay his
clothes across the sink. Scully found that she was braced defensively,
convinced that any other man in the world would be all over her at
this point, but Mulder was decidedly unusual, which was why she liked
him so well. His belt clinked against the porcelain, and she began to
unbutton her shirt.

It was thick felty dark. The seepage of sodium vapor light filtering
from the bedroom windows didn't penetrate the cramped bathroom. She
folded her shirt across his clothes on the sink. Although she couldn't
see him, he seemed to get larger the more clothing he shed, until she
was amazed they weren't brushing each other like clouds. She was
holding her breath for long stretches of time. She told herself that
it was like getting down to the basics of who they were, taking off
their clothes together. She heard him step into the water, sucking
through his teeth at the heat.

She was taking off her bra, feeling vulnerable, when he muttered and
climbed back out, dripping water, and went into the bedroom. He opened
a cabinet or a box with a cascade of noise, a sense of rubble. Scully
stepped quickly into the tub and sat down.

She heard the clacking of batteries inside a flashlight. He was back
in the room, turning on a flashlight and setting it down on the floor.
An opaque, blanched pillar of light shot up, spotlighting a watermark
on the ceiling. As he turned to climb in the tub, his hand cut through
the beam, gyrating the dust and steam that swam in the tube of light.