***Prologue***
October 14
Cherry Hill, NJ
"May I help you?" A short man in his mid-thirties opened the door to the condominium. He had thinning brown hair, the beginnings of a paunch and sad eyes. His face showed signs of a bone-deep exhaustion.
"FBI, sir. I'm Agent Mulder, and this my partner Agent Scully." Dana Scully and I showed him our credentials. "Are you William Browne?"
He nodded. "Please, come in." Browne led us through a living room cluttered with toys and books to the kitchen. "Please excuse the mess. My mother had to go home yesterday and I'm still learning how to cope."
"We understand, Mr. Browne. We're sorry about your wife." I took a seat at the kitchen table. The house was in the condition that I'd expect for a recent widower with four children under twelve. A nagging voice in my head reminded me that it should have been five about now, but Browne wouldn't have been a widower then.
"Is this about Kerry? And those other women?"
"Yes, sir." Scully pulled out a notebook. She was hiding behind her professional persona again.
"We are going to catch that monster, Mr. Browne." I put every ounce of certainty I could in my voice.
"Call me Liam."
***Chapter One***
October 13
Washington, DC
"Walter, how can you send us out again? We only got back last night, Mulder is injured and I've already missed Columbus Day with my family and tonight's . . . you know."
Walter Skinner took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He glanced at my left arm, which was wrapped in a bandage.
"I did my best, Dana. They wanted you to fly directly to Cherry Hill last night. Hell, they wanted you to leave in the middle of the case."
"Makes perfect sense to me. After months, suddenly they need Spooky to save their asses." No, I'm not bitter. "Scully, you want to drive to Jersey or should I?"
Walter shook his head. "You two are flying to Philadelphia *and* you are staying at a decent hotel. I got that much out of them."
I grinned. "We should use you as a travel agent more often."
"I don't come cheap." Our eyes met and held each others for a long time.
"Gentlemen?" I could hear the smile in Scully's voice. "Why don't I confirm our reservations with your assistant, sir?"
"Yes, I think that's a good idea." Skinner smiled. She patted my arm as she left the room.
The door closed behind her. Moments later, I was standing wrapped in my lover's arms, and he was kissing me thoroughly.
"I missed you, Fox."
"Missed you, too. Love you." It's still hard to say those words. I think Walter knows that because of the way he smiled when I said them. I held him as hard as I could with my good arm.
He gave me a quick kiss. "Love you, too. Damn." He let go of me. "I had plans for tonight. With you."
Tonight? What was tonight? Scully had made a point of it, too. He must have seen the confusion in my eyes because he shook his head.
"Some perfect memory. Fox, what's today's date?" Oh. *That.*
"I don't celebrate it anyway. That sort of stuff fell by the wayside after Sam."
His jaw clenched. Sometimes Walter picks the oddest moments to be angry. "Then it's past time you did." I backed away from his growl, even though I knew he wasn't angry at me. "Damn them," he whispered as he took hold of my shoulder. "Fox, when you and Dana get back from New Jersey, *we* are going to celebrate your birthday properly. And we will continue to do so."
"Yes, sir." He squeezed my shoulder gently and turned toward his desk.
"It's in here somewhere . . . Here it is." He took out a small box wrapped in silver paper and handed it to me.
"This will be a start, anyway. Happy birthday, Fox." I held the gift in my hand. "Go on, open it."
Walter gave me a snowglobe with a model of the Challenger. I couldn't help it; I grinned. For a man of excellent taste, he has a gift for inspired kitsch. His face lit up.
"You like it?"
"You know me so well, Walter. Wait'll I show Scully! *This* is going to have a place of honor on my desk." I turned it upside down so I could watch the snowfall again.
Walter smiled and kissed me again. "God, I love your smile. I'm going to miss it tonight."
"Maybe the motel has a video phone." I was going to miss him, too.
"Fox, I had no choice." His phone rang. "Yes, Kimberly? . . . Da . . . Send him in as soon as Agent Mulder leaves." He looked at me. "Damn. I wanted more time. Look, Fox, if there is any problem, anything at all . . . "
"I'll be fine, Walter. Lonely, but fine." I hoped.
"I mean it. I can be in New Jersey any time."
"Right. That'll keep us a secret. I'll see you when I get back, Walter. You owe me a birthday dinner."
"Damn straight."
I kissed his forehead and left. He was not happy, but I wasn't worried because he wasn't angry at me.
Scully was as amused by the globe as I'd thought she'd be. She didn't say anything, but I could see it in her eyes.
***Chapter 2***
Radisson Hotel
Cherry Hill, New Jersey
"When you call Walter, tell him the local office came through for us. This is a *nice* place. I can't believe we have *Jacuzzis* in the bathrooms." Her eyes were shining.
"Before we enjoy them, we'd better call the locals."
"Damn." She smiled anyway. "You call Walter. I'll call them."
I nodded, and went through our connecting door.
I looked at my watch. He'd still be in.
He growled at me, of course. He doesn't like it when I'm two hours late, but there were delays and then we had to wait in line to rent the car, and we hit rush hour on our way out of Philadelphia. It took us almost an hour to make the 30 minute drive. The locals were going to be pretty pissed, too.
"Let them be pissed, Fox. You are there because they asked for you. All you need to do is try to catch the sick bastard, and come home. To me."
"Yes, sir!" I cannot describe what his words meant to me. It was as if they'd crawled through the telephone lines and taken residence in my heart.
"Take care of yourself, Fox. And tell Dana the same thing. Relax tonight."
"Good night, Walter."
"Fox."
Scully came stalking across to my room. "Those idiots. Those officious, unimaginative, incompetent idiots. They wanted us here. They begged Walter to send us here before you had time to feed your fish. And now they say that we aren't needed; that if we can't be on time, we shouldn't be here."
"Do they have any ears left or did you chew them all yourself?"
"Mulder . . . " She took a deep breath. "When I asked if we should come by anyway to get more information, they told me we had it all. Mulder, have you looked at the report?"
She knew I had. And I could see why she was at the boiling point. It was sketchy at best - descriptions of the bodies, but no real autopsies, no other clues or fingerprints. No interviews with the families.
"First thing tomorrow morning, Scully, we mutiny."
"You bet we do, Mulder. I'd be willing to bet at least one, if not two, more pregnant women die because of them. And I told the ASAC so. And I told him what I wanted to see in the morning. And when he demanded to speak to you, I told him that we were partners and speaking to me is speaking to you."
I lay back on the bed and whistled. "Does he have next of kin to notify?"
"We'll find out tomorrow morning." Sometimes, Scully has a beautiful smile that lights up her face. This one was . . . well, I learned a long time ago that the female of this pair is more deadly than the male. And she's also a better shot. "But tonight . . . come on, Mulder. It's your birthday, and we're going to celebrate. Out of that suit."
"Scully! I'm not that kind of girl!"
"Mulder! We'll go out to dinner at some yuppie bar, a Thursdays or a Monihans or something, in civilian drag, and forget the FBI exists. Maybe we'll even pick up a couple of boys."
"Oohh. Give me a minute, okay?"
She nodded and disappeared into her room.
The bar/restaurant was crowded, but Scully refused to use her title to let me flash my badge to get seated faster, or even to let me flash my badge. She told me to find a seat at the bar while she spoke to the maitre' d. It wasn't a long wait - fifteen minutes later, they were calling our name.
"Scully. Mr. and Mrs. Scully, party of two!"
"Does that make me Mr. Dana Scully?"
She just smiled and let me tuck her hand under my arm as we followed the hostess into the room.
The menu was exactly the way I'd expected it - full of pictures of bar-type food. I pretended to study it, but food was the last thing I wanted.
"Hi. I'm Kevin? I'll be your server tonight?" Kevin was a dark- haired kid with blue eyes and the body of a football player in the rugby-shirt and Docker's uniform, and he spoke as if he were asking questions instead of making statements.
We drove that kid crazy that night. Scully was actually an accomplished flirt, and me . . . it's a game. It flusters men and makes little old ladies happy and gets us better service from waitresses. And it doesn't take much - a look, a tilt of the head, a lick of the lips, and they are yours. So, we took turns with him. Nothing overt, of course. Nothing that would send him screaming from the restaurant, but enough that he kept staring at us - could we both be trying to pick him up? In front of the other? Scully had an evil grin whenever he approached the table.
"Scully, I've been thinking about the case."
"No work, birthday boy. Not here, and not now. What looks good on the menu, Mulder?"
I shrugged. She nodded. "Yeah, well, you can't go too far wrong with bar food. They even have buffalo wings. Too bad you hate bleu cheese."
I could repeat what she said during dinner word for word, but I couldn't tell you what it was about. Scully kept up a line of chatter about her family and movies and gossip about other agents that had me laughing and so thoroughly distracted that I ate a good half of my dinner. It wasn't bad, either - some kind of fish, I think. I just got what she did. Saved me from having to choose.
Then the drums started and half the restaurant was singing to me, and our pal Kevin was carrying a small cake with a candle on it. Scully just grinned at me. I had my revenge, though. I made her eat the cake while I opened her presents. She got me two ties.
"You've been getting boring in the tie department, Mulder. I thought these would help."
"You're the one who got me the boring ties in the first place."
"There's a difference between appropriate and boring."
"I can't wear the Winnie-the-Pooh to work."
She smiled, and touched the dark blue silk. "I took one look at Pooh staring at that shooting star and thought of you. You could wear the starfield tie. It's fairly subtle."
She got her credit card back from Kevin and drove us to the hotel, where she took out the extra piece of luggage she calls her first aid kit and checked my injuries.
"You're healing nicely, Mulder. I'll leave the bandages off tonight if you promise not to pick, and redress them after your shower tomorrow. I still don't know how you managed to get claw marks all over your body."
"It wasn't my fault that b.."
"I don't want to hear it, Mulder. Whatever it was, we left it behind in Wyoming. Give my love to Walter when you call him." She squeezed my shoulder as she left for her own room.
He was waiting for the call. We didn't say much - I teased him a little about Kevin and told him about Scully's ties - but it felt good to touch base. I might as well be in a long distance relationship for all the time we spend together.
I could hear Scully moving around her room. After a while, her light went off. I got out the files that we did have and began to look them over again and again. I rearranged papers and the few photos we had, but nothing came to me.
So I did it again and again. The interviews were hopelessly incomplete. It was impossible to correlate the victims, except that they were all women and all about five months pregnant, and the unknown subject, the UNSUB in Bureauspeak, had ripped the fetuses from their wombs. The women were found in various dumpsters around the area - none close to each other. The fetuses were nowhere to be found. There was a mention of notes, but no copies of them. The autopsies were incomplete. I ran the information in my mind over and over again, looking for some sort of clue, for some shred that the locals had thought to include.
I turned off the room light, and lay down on the sofa by the TV, instead of the king-sized bed. I turned the set on, muted so it wouldn't disturb Scully through the unlocked connecting door. I didn't need to see the files any more for them to dance in my mind. The dead women implored me to find the man who'd defiled them. The babies who'd never lived to cry urged me on. And there was nothing I could do. I thought about running, but it was October, the hotel was on the main strip and there were no sidewalks. My stomach tightened. This was one reason I ate less than usual on cases. Why I slept less than usual on cases. Why sometimes less than usual equaled as close to nothing as I could manage. By some miracle, the fish stayed down and I drifted off by the light of the TV.
"Daddy!" Who was screaming?
"Mulder? Mulder, wake up!"
"S-scully? W..where are we?" I was curled up on an unfamiliar couch.
"In New Jersey. You were having a nightmare." She brushed the hair from my forehead. I was soaking wet. "Do you remember anything?"
I forced my mind back. "Blood. Blood and Bibles and . . . I don't remember more."
Scully sat back on her heels. "You were calling for your father."
"My father? I've never called for him before. Have I?"
"Not when I could hear it."
"I don't remember seeing Dad." I rubbed my head. "What time is it?"
"It's 2 AM."
Five hours to get through. Damn. "I don't suppose Walter will be awake."
"I'm sure he wouldn't mind if you called."
I thought about it. Sometimes hearing Walter's voice is enough to settle me for the night. I shook my head. "I'll be okay, Scully."
"You want to bunk with me? There's a couch in my room, too."
"I'll try again here."
"Mulder . . . I do have Xanax with me."
"Scully . . . "
"I'll be right next door . . . " She kissed my forehead and went back to her room. I took off the sweats. Scully'd seen me in my boxers before. It wouldn't shock her, and it was better than being damp.
Those next few hours stretched on forever. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the blood and the women and the fetuses. I thought of reading, but I was worried it might put me to sleep. So, I watched infomercials and tried not to think about the case. Or a blue monkey - the one in the old story. People are handed a box and are told that so long as they don't think of a blue monkey in the next hour, the box will be filled with gold. No one ever gets the gold.
The hotel gym opened at six. I got on the treadmill and ran as long as I could. The demons chased me, as demons will. Sometimes they are little grey men, sometimes they smoke, sometimes they have green eyes that cut into my soul, or long brown braids. This one had the face of a man I'd never seen.
By seven, I was energized, showered and dressed. I even wore the star tie - it went with my charcoal suit. When Scully knocked on my door, she was dressed to intimidate - power suit and the highest heels she owned. Dressed in grays and black, I could fade in the background.
She insisted we have breakfast first, so I politely drank coffee and stirred scrambled eggs around my plate.