Title: Haunted

Name: Spooky

email: ddwake1@netcom.ca

Category: X-File

Keywords: MulderTorture, Angst

Spoilers: to Je Souhaite, IMTP VS 8 and 9

Disclaimer: I'll put them away when I'm done, Ma. Honest!

Archive: Exclusive to IMTP for 2 weeks, then just let me know so I can brag!

Summary: A serial killer vows vengeance from beyond the grave, entangling
Mulder in a fight for his life - against an enemy he cannot see.



Haunted

By Spooky



Teaser

Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman
11:45 PM Central


"It's time."

Darryl Wayne Hargrave looked up at the four men gathered outside his cell.
He looked down a moment at the book in his hands, then closed it with
finality and laid it aside. He nodded at the men diffidently, shrugged to
his feet. The cell block reverberated with a tense energy, a crackle of
electricity underlying the hushed anticipation. The men paid it no mind;
they were accustomed to it. Just another day on Death Row. Just another
execution.

Well, not *just* another execution. But, at the moment, the only one who
knew that was Darryl Wayne Hargrave.

Eleven years on the Row had taken its toll on Hargrave - prison had left its
mark in the pallor of his hawk-faced mien and the weight loss in the weeks
leading up to his execution gave Hargrave a more than passing resemblance to
the skeleton he'd soon become. Yet there was a maniacal gleam in his eye and
an energy emanated from him that made even the hardened prison guards
flinch. They did not waver in their duty, however, and led their prisoner to
his fate with alacrity. One of the men happened to glance at the book laying
on the cot and felt an unaccountable shiver run down his spine.
"Transcending Death" - well he hoped that if anyone could transcend death it
wouldn't be that son-of-a-bitch Darryl Wayne Hargrave.

The death chamber was a rectangular room, smelling of fresh paint and
detergent. One-way windows lined two walls, representing the rooms from
which the chosen witnesses would view the execution. The room was dominated
by the table upon which the prisoner would meet his fate. Resembling a
travesty of a cross, the inmate was secured in place by no less than six
sturdy straps, his arms outstretched. Pristinely sanitary--more fit to be a 
clinic for saving lives than claiming them. Hargrave did not appreciate the 
irony, however. He knew only that he was about to die and someone was going 
to pay for that.

The state-sanctioned taking of life is a process that is documented and
executed in excruciating detail: Paramedics attach a heart monitor to the
inmate's chest and insert two IVs into his arm. First, the sedative sodium
pentathol sends the condemned into a deep sleep. Chromium bromide paralyzes
the muscles, including the lungs. Finally, a dose of potassium chloride
stops the heart.

Darryl Wayne Hargrave knew exactly what was about to befall him.

The guards quickly and efficiently strapped him onto the table. The warden
stepped forward and read the death warrant: "Pursuant to a verdict of guilt
and a sentence of death returned against you by the Circuit Court of
Washington County on June 27, 1990, you are hereby condemned to die by
lethal injection at Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. May God have
mercy on your soul."

The men beat a hasty retreat from the room, leaving their prisoner to face
whatever God he professed. At 12:01 a.m. the warden nodded. As the sedative
meandered through the IV, Hargrave smiled ferally. "Ready or not, here I
come. I told you, Mulder, I always finish what I start."

****

Act 1

Hegel Place, Alexandria
1:01 AM Eastern

"I always finish what I start."

The words followed him as he threw himself out of sleep, barely keeping the
scream from leaving his lips. Shit. He hadn't had *that* particular dream
for years. Odd that it had resurfaced after all this time. Oh yeah. Tonight
was the last night of Darryl Wayne Hargrave's life.

Mulder sat on his couch, bathed in the flickering light of the muted TV.
Sighing, he ran his hand nervously through his hair. The prosecuting
attorney on the case, who had, in the eleven years since, managed to slither
his way up the political ladder, had issued an invitation to witness the
execution. An invitation Mulder had been happy to decline.

Under no circumstances did he ever want to see Darryl Wayne Hargrave again.
Alive or dead.

Time had mostly effaced the scars, and other horrors had taken the place of
the memories. Mostly.

Mulder ran his hands over his face, as if he could physically banish the
memory of that time. He could still almost feel Hargrave's glee as he
struggled against his bonds, feel the sharp edge of the knife as it sliced
his skin....

Damnit, enough! Hargrave was dead - or soon to be anyway. Mulder shivered.
Despite the furnace he could hear clanging away, the November chill had
seeped into the room.

Served him right for falling asleep while watching horror flicks, he mused
as he eyed the mute, flickering images on the TV. No wonder monsters prowled
in his head. Reason enough to have nightmares. He clicked off the remote,
but the images steadfastly refused to vanish into electronic oblivion.
Frowning, he aimed the device again, swearing softly when the appliance did
not obediently shut itself off. Breathing the heavy sigh of the put-upon, he
hauled himself off the couch to turn it off the old-fashioned way. As his
hand reached for the button, the TV screen exploded outwards, showering
Mulder with daggers of glass. He stumbled backwards, hands shielding his
face, only to stumble and crash into the coffee table behind him. His back
flared with pain.

Mulder carefully brushed the shards of the shattered screen away from his
eyes, oblivious to the blood that welled from his many lacerations. He sat
on the floor of his apartment, dumbfounded, staring at his television as if
it were a friend that had unexpectedly betrayed him.

The clock on the VCR was flashing 1:01.

*******

X-Files Office

There was no hope, of course, that Scully wouldn't notice the various
bandages and stitches that adorned his face and arms when he reported for
work the next morning.

"Mulder, what happened?" she asked predictably, admirably walking the line
between her concerned friend voice and her exasperated
"what-the-hell-have-you-done-now-Mulder" partner voice.

"My TV blew up," he muttered.

"What?"

"My TV blew up," he answered more loudly. "Don't laugh," he warned his
suspiciously snickering partner.

"I wouldn't dream of it," she responded (a little too smugly, he thought).
"I'm sure it was no laughing matter. You could have been seriously hurt. How
did it happen?"

"Don't know. I was just going to turn it off - then kerplooey."

"Kerplooey?" That eyebrow was raised just so, just the way he liked it.

"Yes, Scully. Kerplooey. Ka-blam. As in blown to smithereens. Etcetera,
etcetera."

"Maybe you should take the day off," Scully suggested. "Those cuts have got
to hurt."

Mulder shrugged. "They're not too bad. And I'll hurt just as much at home as
here. Besides, I've got no TV to watch."

"And we know how lost you are without ESPN." Scully's eyes twinkled.

"Guess I'll need an alternate form of entertainment," he leered. "Any ideas,
Agent Scully?"

Scully laughed. "I'd say, G-man, that if you're a good boy, I might let you
watch TV at my place tonight."

"Agent Scully, I'm always a good boy."

Scully leaned forward, her lips to Mulder's ear. "That's too bad," she
whispered huskily. "I rather like naughty boys."

"Scuulleeee...!"

They broke into laughter, and Mulder knew that he was grinning inanely from
ear to ear. Of all the basements in all the world, she had walked into his.
And stayed, against all the odds, the abductions, the brushes with death,
the cost to her health and family.... And to think that at one time he had
resented her presence. Now he couldn't conceive of working the X-Files
without her. Of being without her. He was one lucky son-of-a-bitch.

Their levity was interrupted by a loud crash as Mulder's coffee mug chose
that moment to fly off the desk and shatter itself against the tiled floor.
They stared at it in stupefied silence for a moment, then Scully, ever
practical, grabbed a handful of paper towels and began mopping up the mess.
Mulder bent down to help her.

"Let me do it, Mulder. You don't want to get coffee on your bandages, or
give yourself another cut."

His ever efficient partner had the mess cleaned up in no time. Mulder pursed
his lips. "How the hell did that happen? Neither of us was near it."

"You must have put it down too close to the edge of the desk, that's all."

"I know I didn't, Scully. It wasn't anywhere near the edge."

"It's just a mug, Mulder," Scully said, exasperated. "It's not an X-File,
not a conspiracy." She threw the remnants of his mug into the trash.

Mulder watched her forlornly. "Now I need a new mug too," he sighed. "At
this rate I'll be out of material possessions by the end of the day."

Scully took pity on him. "I've got an extra here you can use," she offered.
"But," she wagged her finger, "you have to promise not to break it." She
shivered. "When the hell did it get so cold in here?"

*****

J. Edgar Hoover Building, Parking Garage

The day had ended, finally, amid the tedious monotony of paperwork, the bane
of any agent's existence. Five o'clock had mercifully released them from
their servitude to Uncle Sam and the American public - released them to the
possibilities of the evening.

The agents strolled through the parking garage, en route to their respective
cars. Scully eyed her partner - Mulder had become paler during the day and
lines of pain had begun to etch themselves into his face.

"Maybe you should go home, Mulder," she suggested. "You look beat." Her hand
reached out to grasp his; the most daring display of affection she could
venture in so public a place - a place where evidence of "inappropriate"
behaviour could be used against them.

"Rescinding your offer, Scully?" Squeezing her hand briefly, then
reluctantly disengaging.

"Of course not, Mulder." She rolled her eyes. "But you obviously need to get
some rest. You need to give your body time to heal."

"I'll be fine, Scully. I'll take some Tylenol when we get to your place. Or
are you just trying to get out of buying the food this time?" Actually,
Mulder *was* tired; he'd spent most of the night in the ER waiting to get
stitched up. And his back was killing him where he'd hit the table. But he
didn't want to go back to his lonely apartment. His now television-less
apartment.

"Forget it, Mulder. It's my turn to pick the movie. The food is your
department. And no pizza!" She called over her shoulder as she continued
toward her car.

Mulder shook his head as he watched her walk away. He was continually amazed
by his partner - amazed that she could feel the things for "Spooky" Mulder
that she did. He held no illusions about himself - he'd always known he was
a self-centred, arrogant bastard - and once the "Spooky" comments had
started at the Academy, he'd even cultivated the reputation. As he'd once
confessed to Scully: "Sometimes the need to play with their heads outweighs
the millstone of humiliation." Lately though, he found that he'd mellowed
somewhat. He made more of an effort to play nice, for Scully's sake. He'd
finally got it through his thick head that his colleagues' contempt of him
rubbed off onto Scully. And he couldn't bear anyone thinking that she wasn't
the most competent agent in the Bureau.

"I always finish what I start."

Mulder started abruptly out of his reverie, stuttering to a halt. He eyed
the parking garage warily, certain he'd heard the hoarse tones of Hargrave's
voice. He shook his head. His imagination was getting the better of him. He
glanced about one final time, paranoia too ingrained to ignore, pulling his
coat tighter about him. Damn but if it didn't seem colder than usual in
here, even if it was November.

A slight movement at the corner of his eye captured his attention. Mulder
swung around, his breath catching. Hargrave stood staring at him, grinning
like the madman he had been. Mulder began to run forward, only to stutter to
a halt. The killer was no longer there. Mulder looked around carefully, but
could see nothing out of the ordinary. Shit, his nightmare had definitely
spooked him. He was seeing and hearing things now.

Absorbed as he was in his ruminations, he didn't notice the sudden movement
of the blue Taurus as it quietly slipped into gear. Suddenly it was
rocketing toward him, gaining momentum impossibly faster than could be
explained by inertia alone. Instinct, and the slight blur of movement at the
corner of his eye, alerted Mulder. The agent sprinted out of the way, diving
and rolling just as the car crashed into the one parked opposite it, sending
mechanical screams of shattering glass and tortured metal throughout the
garage. Mulder clambered to his feet and stared at the driverless vehicle
in perplexed fascination.



Scully had just been closing the door to her own car when the noise of the
crash reverberated throughout the parking garage. The echoes made it
difficult to pinpoint the sound's location, but Scully headed toward the
area where she had left her partner, knowing, somehow, that he would be in
the thick of things.

She found him there, staring at a blue Ford that seemed to have slipped its
parking brake and rolled into the car across from it.

"Are you okay, Mulder?" She noted the smears of dirt on his pants and
surmised he'd had to dodge the runaway car. She frowned. Surely the car
wouldn't have been going fast enough to force Mulder to hit the ground and
roll? The distance was too short for the car to have gained any speed -
unless someone had been behind the wheel. She glanced at her partner - he
seemed nonplussed by the incident, but not concerned or agitated as if there
had been a genuine attempt on his life.

He looked up from his contemplation of the car. "Yeah, I'm fine, Scully." He
looked down at his pants in dismay. "Although I am wondering why inanimate
objects seem to have it in for me lately," he said wryly.

Scully circled the car, cataloguing the damage. It seemed excessive for a
car that had rolled such a short distance. "What happened, Mulder?"

Mulder shrugged. "It came rolling at me like a bat out of hell."

"Rolling? There was no driver?"

"Not unless a ghost was driving."

Scully pulled on the door handle, but the door was locked. The passenger
side was the same. She peered in the window, straining to see if anything
had been jammed over the accelerator.

Mulder walked up beside her. "The car wasn't running, Scully."

"Then how could it be going so fast?"

"Don't ask me. I was too busy not getting crushed." He didn't mention what
he'd thought he'd heard or seen. After all, Hargrave was just on his mind
lately. He had nothing to do with this. The man was dead, for Christ's sake.

*****

Scully's Apartment

Finally, Scully sighed as she dropped her keys on the hall table. By the
time they'd called Security to deal with the mess in the parking lot she had
been virtually faint with hunger. Unwilling to leave Mulder to his own
devices, she had insisted they travel together to get the food and the
movie. Besides, given her partner's run of luck lately, some other mishap
would surely have befallen him. She'd much rather he was somewhere she could
keep an eye on him.

It wasn't that her partner was clumsy, or careless, or self-destructive,
particularly - it was simply Mulder's own peculiar Murphy's Law: if it was
anywhere within the realm of possibility to get hurt during an activity,
Mulder would. So she got a little more practical use out of her medical
license than she had foreseen when she had chosen forensic pathology as her
specialty, and learned to keep a fully stocked medical kit handy at all
times. It made life with Mulder a little easier.

Scully turned, relieving Mulder of the bags of Chinese food and heading to
the kitchen while he shrugged out of his coat. His jacket and tie followed
suit, and he tossed his shoes to the side of the door.

Sprawling on Scully's couch, he fumbled with the remote, breathing a sigh of
relief when the TV obediently turned itself on without incident. Channel
surfing absently, his mind was not on the rapidly changing images, but on
the strange events that had plagued him over the past twenty-four hours.
Despite his assurances to Scully, the incident in the garage had unnerved
him. He couldn't get past the impression that the car had been aimed at him
like an arrow. Which might have been the case, had the car a driver. It
should have rolled gently, if at all, not racing as if a rocket had been
attached to the undercarriage.

It was almost as if the car had been a warning....

He shook his head. He could dismiss the spectre of Hargrave as his
imagination, or even accept it as a genuine apparition. The dead often
appeared to those they had connections with in life, and he and Hargrave had
definitely been connected. Unfortunately. He shivered, suddenly wondering
why Scully hadn't yet turned her heating on.

His mind lingered on other killers he'd "connected" with: Props, Mostow,
Roche, Dugas.... He wondered, not for the first time, if Victor Dugas had
been right: was he somehow like these men? Was that why he was the one who
could always find them, think like them, when others couldn't?

The clatter from the kitchen roused him from his morbid reverie. He smiled
softly, thrusting the notion away. If he were at all like those men, Scully
would have seen through him in a New York minute. She was here, ergo, Dugas
was wrong. Mulder was nothing like him. Or Hargrave.

It suddenly occurred to Mulder that he didn't *know* that Hargrave was dead.
It was possible, if unlikely, that the execution had been stayed. He made a
mental note to find out in the morning.

Or maybe not. He focused his attention on the news, wincing as the reporter
recounted Hargrave's reign of terror. Bill Patterson's name was mentioned as
the profiler who had rescued a fellow agent. Fortunately, Mulder's name
didn't come up. He glanced quickly toward the kitchen, hoping Scully hadn't
heard the report. He changed stations when it became clear that Hargrave had
met his fate on schedule. He sighed in relief. Maybe now he could get over
this, this *thing*, and get back to his regularly scheduled life. Such as it
was.



In the kitchen, Scully began dishing out the food. After a moment's debate,
she reached for a bottle of wine. Mulder, especially, could use some
relaxation after the events of the last day. The poor man was having quite a
run of bad luck. Not to mention that the parking lot incident had shaken her
as well. She frowned, remembering how closely he had escaped serious injury.
Well, she smiled to herself, she'd just have to keep a close eye on him
tonight then. For his own protection, of course.

She shivered as a cold draft brushed over her. She'd really have to get the
landlord to check the heating.

Her breath caught as a feather-light touch moved up her arm, breath tickling
her ear. She smiled in contentment; she hadn't heard Mulder sneak up behind
her. Which turned to surprised outrage as her ass was sharply pinched.
"Mulder!" She spun around, only to gape in dismay. There was no one behind
her. The kitchen was empty but for herself.

Scully was just processing this, and the fact the draft seemed to have
disappeared, when Mulder appeared in the doorway. "You called?"

She stared at him blankly. It couldn't have happened. No way could he move
that quickly. But the slight burn on her butt argued against her imagination
as the culprit. "Um, yeah. Dinner's on the table," she muttered, distracted.

"Okay." Looking at her strangely.

She shook her head to clear it, banishing the episode from her mind. "You
weren't just in here, were you?" she asked hesitantly, half expecting him to
smirk and 'fess up.

"No, I was checking the scores," he answered. "Why, something happen?"

"No," she replied firmly. "I must have imagined it."

"Imagined what?"

"I told you, nothing. I'm sorry I mentioned it."

"I'm not," Mulder answered with a grin. "C'mon, Scully, I'm dyin' here," he
wheedled. "You just can't say something like that and leave me hanging."

Damn. His eyes were doing that puppy dog thing she could never resist and
his lips were pouting just so....

Life was a hell of a lot easier before she decided she loved the big dope.

"Well, if you *must* know, I thought you were standing behind me. I could
feel you touch my arm, breathe on my neck." She felt her face colour
unaccountably.

"Well," Mulder leaned forward. "There must be more, Scully. Otherwise you
wouldn't have turned such a lovely shade of beet red," he leered.

"Eat your dinner, Mulder. It's getting cold," she replied primly. He just
wasn't going to let her get out of this with her dignity intact, was he?

"Uh, uh. You're not getting off that easily, Scully." He pushed his chair
back, and moved to stand behind her. He leaned over her, his lips to her
ear. His touch was a whisper on her arm, his breath a caress on her neck.

"Is this how it was, Scully? Was it like this? Did you feel my breath on you
here? What happened next, Scully? What did you imagine I did?"

His voice was soft and mellow and there was just no winning with him. She
sighed.

"I thought you goosed me. That's all. That's why I yelled."

"Ooh, Scully. Do you often imagine that I goose you?" Mulder whispered
huskily. "Let me make your fantasy a reality."

"You even think about it, Mulder, and I swear you'll be auditioning for the
Vienna Boy's Choir."

"Ouch," Mulder laughed, stealing a quick kiss before reclaiming his seat. 
But the look in his eyes made her spine tingle.

They dug into their meal with hearty appetites. Mulder reached for the
container of cashew chicken, only to watch in stunned amazement as it shot
out of his grip into his lap.

"What the...?" Scully had seen it, but didn't believe it. Containers of
Chinese food simply did not become ambulatory and slide themselves across
tables. She met Mulder's incredulous gaze.

His face lit up in a delighted grin. "They're heeeere."

Scully shot him a disgusted look, then wet some paper towels and handed them
to her partner. Damned if that draft wasn't back. She picked up the
offending container, examining it closely. It occurred to her that they
might have been the butt of some practical joke - it was certainly a more
likely explanation than the idea the cardboard had suddenly achieved
sentience. Or whatever theory was currently spinning around in the sometimes
squeaky wheels of her partner's brain.

"Well?" Mulder wiped the rest of the mess off his lap.

Scully shook her head. "There's no wires, magnets...nothing out of the
ordinary that I can see." Her eyes flashed dangerously. "This better not be
some practical joke of yours," she warned.

"Hey, Scully, *I'm* the injured party here. I'd hardly dump my dinner in my
own lap." He waggled his eyebrows. "I have a theory - wanna hear it?"

She leaned against the kitchen counter, arms crossed. "I bet this will be
entertaining. Lay it on me, G-man."

"Ghost." He waited expectantly.

Yep. There it was. The eyebrow.

"Gee, I didn't see that coming," Scully replied with a smile. "It's a little
predictable, Mulder. I was hoping for something a little less..."

"Less what?"

"A little less mundane."

"Ghosts are mundane?" Mulder asked, incredulous.

Scully shrugged. "For us they are."

Mulder conceded the point.

"So you think a ghost is haunting you," Scully continued, her voice
skeptical. "On the basis of one container of cashew chicken falling into
your lap."

"Scully, it didn't fall," Mulder corrected, exasperated. "Don't deny what
you saw. You even checked the box for wires, remember?"

"Sorry, Mulder," she apologized, then continued. "You're basing your theory
on one container of cashew chicken falling into your lap in an unexplained
manner. Better?"

"Marginally," he sulked. "Actually, Scully, there's more than one incident.
My TV, the coffee mug, the car, your experience earlier and now this...."

"Mulder, those incidents can be explained rationally." She paused. "Well,
maybe not this one," she conceded. Although she could probably come up with
a viable scenario eventually. He'd looked so hurt when he'd thought she was
denying what she'd seen; she'd humour him for now.

"That's a lot of coincidences, Scully. And there was a drop in temperature
at the time of each incident. I noticed it at my apartment, the office, the
parking garage and here, just now. Cold spots are well documented phenomena
of hauntings."

"It's *November* Mulder. Temperature fluctuations are common at this time of
year."

Mulder's lips pursed and she cut him off with a sigh before he could make
his rejoinder. "So you're being haunted. Okay, Mulder. By who?"

Who indeed? Mulder paled, recalling the figure he'd thought he'd seen in the
parking garage. Hargrave would have reason enough to haunt him, he knew.

"Mulder?" He started at Scully's voice. "You okay?"

"I'm fine, Scully. Just getting used to the idea of a ghost following me
around, that's all."

"Don't get too attached to the idea, Mulder. I still think you're letting
some coincidences, and an admittedly weird incident, get the better of your
imagination. There's no such things as ghosts."

"Just remember that when I'm haunting *you*, Scully. It's all in your
head...."

******

Mulder's apartment

Fear had banished any exhaustion he felt as he struggled against the ropes
binding him to the steel table. His heart was pounding so loudly in his
chest that he was certain Hargrave could hear it.

Technicolour images of Hargrave's victims flashed across his eyes and he
renewed his struggles, heedless of the blood seeping from his wrists and
ankles. There would be plenty more if he didn't get out of this.

Stupid, stupid! Stupid to let himself get so run down, to let himself be so
unaware of his surroundings. But Patterson just wouldn't let up, so Mulder
had done profile after profile, delving into the minds of psychotic killers,
until he couldn't keep his eyes open anymore. Damn, if he'd just stayed and
done the profile, rather than retreating to the motel for some much needed
shuteye, the team would at least have some means of finding him. But the
profile was complete only in his head; Mulder was doubtful his notes could
be deciphered in time to save him.

Footfalls echoed throughout the warehouse and Hargrave was just suddenly -
there - running a finger along Mulder's stubbled jaw. The agent couldn't
stop himself from flinching at the contact. It was small consolation that
Hargrave hadn't raped any of his victims.

Cold gray eyes regarded him menacingly and Mulder saw the glint of a blade
being held over his body. It swayed slightly, as if looking for the most
vulnerable place to strike. He understood then that he was going to die, and
spend a long time doing it.

The blade descended.



Hargrave watched the agent struggle in his sleep, moaning piteously. He 
clenched the hunting knife in one hand, grinning ferally. This was working 
out even better than he had hoped. Soon, soon it would be time for his revenge.

When Mulder finally screamed and erupted out of sleep, there was no sign of
the menacing figure.

*****

End Act I



Act II



X-Files Office
Several Days Later

Scully hesitated before opening the door to the basement office, unwilling
to face another day of uncertainty. Ever since the incident in the parking
lot, her partner had been coming to work haggard and distracted. Every day,
it seemed, he sported some new injury. Although minor in and of themselves,
she was concerned they might signify a larger problem. Even in the office,
it seemed he was always knocking things over, tripping over the
furniture.... It was disconcerting in the extreme to see Mulder so suddenly
graceless. Too many reasons for his clumsiness nattered for attention in her
brain, none of them bearing thinking about. She hoped it was simply
distraction.

Of course, Mulder just blamed the ghost.

Taking a deep breath, she opened the door, mentally preparing herself for
what she might find.

Mulder was slumped at his desk, a bright new bandage peeking from beneath
his cuff. The physician in her automatically catalogued the pale, pinched
face, the dark circles beneath bloodshot eyes bespeaking too many sleepless
nights. Her eyes noted the slight tremor in his hands, the nervous energy.
She frowned. She had seen Mulder ill, she had seen him hurt, distracted,
angry, drugged, panicked.... This was not a Mulder she knew. Obviously, the
novelty of being haunted had worn off.

"Hey, Scully, look at this." Mulder forced himself to straighten and become
more animated once he became aware of her regard. Her partner was making a
brave effort to pretend that everything was normal. A skill they had both
perfected to a fine art: pretend hard enough and eventually you can convince
yourself the world hasn't kicked you in the ass.

Mulder waved a brochure beneath her nose. "Built in DVD player, surround
sound, eight speakers...."

It took her a moment to translate Mulder-speak. She shook her head. "Mulder,
your apartment isn't big enough for a big screen TV."

Mulder sighed dramatically. "Unfortunately, neither is my bank account."
Scully had to smile. Her partner looked, for all the world, like a little
boy who had just been told Santa Claus didn't exist. He eyed the brochure
wistfully. "Still...."

Personally, Scully was all for the extravagant purchase if it meant that
Mulder would actually start sleeping again. After so many years of having
the television lull him into slumber, it appeared Mulder was now impervious
to Morpheus' charms without its reassuring presence. Her partner had
rebuffed most of her efforts to get him to eat and on the occasions she had
been able to put food in front of him, he'd barely picked at it. Whatever
was wrong, he steadfastly refused to speak of it.

The ratcheting sound of a drawer in the filing cabinet sliding open then
slamming shut roused her out of her reverie. Scully opened her mouth to
question Mulder on his sudden wrath, then abruptly shut it. Mulder was
sitting at his desk as more drawers began opening and shutting of their own
accord. Her jaw dropped in amazement, affronted by their blatant disregard
for the laws of physics. Mulder spared the cabinets a disinterested glance,
then ignored the disturbance; he'd become inured to the bizarre events that
now seemed to be becoming daily occurrences in his life.

Being haunted wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

Actually, he thought he had a pretty good idea whose ghost was behind it
all, and the thought sent cold rivers of dread down his spine. Still, aside
from the TV and the car incidents, the "ghost's" antics hadn't really
amounted to more than annoyances. It was the dreams that were making his
life hell. Unfortunately, Mulder's finely honed shit-detector told him it
was going to hit the fan soon. And he'd be right in the line of fire.

The filing cabinets ended their play with a final thump, leaving behind a
stillness as unsettling as the event itself had been. Mulder wondered idly
what it signified when his life had become so bizarre that self-mobilizing
filing cabinets failed to catch his attention.

Scully crossed to the cabinets slowly, eyeing them warily. With some
trepidation, she put her hand on the handle and slid a drawer open. She
carefully inserted her hand behind the drawer, feeling for wires or some
mechanism that would explain what she had just witnessed. Damnit, objects
simply did not decide to move of their own volition! But no wires, no
mechanisms revealed themselves to her probing. She moved from drawer to
drawer, aware of Mulder's scrutiny. Finally, she reached behind the cabinet,
only to have her search prove once again fruitless.

Scully sighed. Maybe she'd have to revisit Mulder's ghostly theory. *She*
certainly didn't have a rational explanation for some of the bizarre things
that seemed to be happening around him. Like the container of Chinese food
that had upended itself in her partner's lap, she'd been unable to find any
wires, magnets, or other mechanisms that would indicate Mulder was the butt
of some elaborate practical joke.

Truth be told, she was amazed how placidly Mulder was taking this. She would
have expected him to be fully into the investigation of this X-File - one
that had literally fallen into his lap. Even if it turned out to be a hoax,
he would want to confront the perpetrator. She could picture Mulder
puttering excitedly with cameras and other esoteric paraphernalia cluttering
his apartment while Chuck Burke made incomprehensible adjustments to the
equipment, chattering about auras, energy fields and apportation all the
while. She smiled suddenly - maybe that was what Mulder needed to get him
out of his funk - an active investigation of this phenomenon. She would
happily admit this was an X-File, and ready-made to boot. While she didn't
believe in ghostly interference, she *was* curious about the *real*
explanation.

She was about to suggest this to Mulder when the jangle of the phone
preempted her. Her partner picked up the receiver, seemingly unaffected by
the filing cabinets' antics. She suddenly wondered if similar incidents at
his apartment were responsible for his lack of sleep.

Mulder spoke quietly into the phone, a frown furrowing his face as he
replaced the receiver. "Skinner has a case for us."

*****

Abandoned Warehouse

"Got to admit, this one is nasty," the florid detective puffed as he deftly
maneuvered his pot-bellied form around the milling crowd of police and
forensics technicians. Detective Charles Raynor of the D.C.P.D. was scant
months from early retirement and really didn't want to spend what was left
of his career chasing some phantom serial killer. So when the evidence had
come back with a frankly impossible suspect, he took a chance and called the
"Spooky Squad."

Sure, Raynor had heard the stories about Mulder and his partner. The
District, Alexandria, and Georgetown police departments together probably
had enough calls relating to these two to fill a filing cabinet or two. Not
to mention the scuttlebutt one heard in what was, despite inter-departmental
rivalries, actually a fairly tight-knit community of law enforcement. The
kind called Mulder a brilliant eccentric, the contemptuous (the majority as
far as Raynor could tell), a brilliant crackpot. Frankly, Raynor didn't care
if Spooky Mulder *was* a member of the lunatic fringe. He just wanted this
case solved - fast.

Of course, Raynor didn't believe for a minute that a ghost was perpetrating
these crimes. They were obviously the work of a copycat, but Raynor figured
Mulder could profile the s.o.b. anyway. Word was, he'd been good at it
before he started chasing aliens and shit. And Raynor had discovered Mulder
had some experience with the monster the perp was emulating.

Up close and personal experience, by all accounts.

Looking now at the fibbie's pale face, Raynor was reevaluating his decision.
The agent looked like a stiff breeze would knock him over. The suit was too
expensively cut to be designed to hang so loosely. The darkness of the
material only highlighted the agent's pallor, drawing attention to the
dark-circled, haunted, hazel eyes. This case was bound to push a lot of
buttons and if the guy was this rattled already.... Raynor shook his head.
You did the job or you got out. And if Mulder hadn't gotten out by now, then
he could do the job.

The agents followed Raynor in tense silence, half expecting another ghostly
manifestation. For now though, their "ghost" seemed to be minding his
manners. A few minutes later, Mulder knew why.

Raynor guided the agents to the forlorn body of a child, abandoned like so
much refuse after the killer had had his fun. Scully closed her eyes
quickly, opening them to spare an evaluating glance at her partner. He'd
gotten even paler, if that were possible. For a moment he seemed to sway as
naked torment clouded his eyes. Then the shutters closed down and he drew
himself upright, once again hidden behind the armor of his inscrutable
G-man persona.

God, she hated to see him do that, even as she knew she had automatically
done the same. Donned the mask that would hide the hurt from the world.
Aside from the horror of small, bright lives cut unnaturally short, these
types of cases just hit too close to home for both of them. Samantha, Emily,
Lucy Householder, Amber Lynn LaPierre, the evil that had been John Lee Roche
- the mental toll of these cases ripped them to shreds every time.

Scully knelt by the small, poor thing - her touch gentle and respectful - as
if he could care anymore. Unfortunately, it was all the dignity this child
would likely see now. She swallowed heavily as she took in the dark hair and
horrified hazel eyes, sparing a quick glance at her partner. Mulder had
retreated to the periphery, putting as much distance as possible between
himself and the blood-soaked body. Scully sighed again, turning her
attention to the atrocity in front of her.

She didn't need an autopsy to guess at the cause of death. Deep cuts
criss-crossed the pale skin, and Scully could only shudder at the
unimaginable depravity of a person who could do this to a child. The boy's
death had been slow and painful.

"This is the third one in as many nights. The first was a girl, the second a
boy. All street kids. Same MO, same message on the wall-" he gestured to the
messily printed words "I always finish what I start." Mulder heard a roaring
in his ears and felt himself sway. Suddenly Raynor's voice came back into
focus. "- victim's blood. He cut them until they bled to death."

"You told A.D. Skinner that some of the evidence was strange. What did you
mean?" Scully prompted. Heinous as the case was, it didn't seem to be an
X-File. And if it wasn't an X-File, then maybe, just maybe, she could get
Mulder to leave it alone.

"Well," Raynor began uneasily, "we pulled a print from the last crime
scene...."

"And discovered your prime suspect is pushing up daisies," Mulder finished
with an air of fatalism, finally joining them by the remains.

The detective blinked at the agent, surprise etching his face. "Yeah. How'd
you know?"

"I know his work. Darryl Wayne Hargrave," he continued for Scully's benefit.
"I profiled him when I worked in the ISU. He was executed in Mississippi
five days ago." About the time inanimate objects started taking a dislike to
you, a voice whispered in his mind. Mulder needed no further incentive to
believe. The sudden resurgence of the dreams was proof enough. He'd come to
believe that Hargrave was the entity stalking him.

Mulder had no difficulty believing in ghosts. His encounters with Howard
Graves, and Maurice and Lydia would have erased any doubts he'd harboured
long ago. Not that they'd convinced Scully. For someone whose religion
preached of one's immortal soul, she had a hard time believing that soul
could tangibly exist.

He was just dismayed at being the one haunted. Darryl Wayne Hargrave's
spirit might have returned to wreak his vengeance on Mulder, but he
obviously couldn't resist the lure of his old vocation. Somehow, Hargrave
had found a way to come back from beyond the grave. God, it sounded like a
hokey B movie. The agent had no doubt that Hargrave wanted to finish what
he'd begun years ago - but it seemed he wanted to play with Mulder first.
Like Roche, like Modell. The killings were just Hargrave's sick way of
upping the ante - the bastard had always gotten his kicks from the suffering
of his victims.

Not that he could tell this D.C. detective that his killer *really* was a
ghost. That'd go over well. He'd just have to find some way of dealing with
Hargrave himself. Just how did you kill a ghost anyway?

*****

Mulder's Apartment

Scully had hurried her partner home as soon as practical - Mulder had begun
looking downright green as the investigation dragged on. She'd do the
autopsy later. Right now, she was busy listening to Mulder's dry heaves. The
crime scene had affected him out of all proportion; gruesome as it was,
they'd seen worse. Scully suspected that far more had happened eleven years
ago than Mulder had let on.

Mulder emerged from the bathroom, looking only marginally more composed. He
ran a trembling hand through his hair, eyes studiously ignoring hers. There
was no chance Scully was going to leave this be - she would demand an
explanation. He simply didn't know if he could force himself to relive the
experience. He'd never spoken of it, not even to the shrink they'd tried to
send him to when it was all over. He sighed in resignation, letting himself
collapse onto the couch, shoulders slumped in surrender. Scully regarded him
expectantly.

"What's going on, Mulder? I've never seen you like this."

"Something I ate?" Mulder attempted a weak grin that fell flat about two
feet from his face.

"I might buy that if you'd actually eaten anything," Scully answered
sharply. Her voice softened. "It has to do with Hargrave, doesn't it?"

Mulder's gaze was fixed on the wall, his eyes years away. "You ever wonder
what evil is, Scully?" he asked unexpectedly. "With all the criminals I've
profiled, I could always trace the source of their psychoses. I could at
least see how they could come to be, why they did the things they did. But
Hargrave...." His voice trailed off, then gained strength again. "Hargrave
had no trauma in his past, no abuse, nothing to explain his motivation. He
made a conscious decision to kill. He liked it. He liked the terror he
evoked. I looked into his eyes and I saw nothing but evil." Mulder's voice
had fallen to a whisper. Scully could see his body shudder in remembrance.
She understood. She'd seen the same in Donnie Pfaster's eyes.

Mulder himself had recently had his own personal brush with evil. He'd not
only seen it - he'd tasted it, breathed it - nearly been consumed by it. He
had looked into the abyss and it had nearly claimed him.

Mulder had profiled Darryl Wayne Hargrave early in his career, when he had
still been Bill Patterson's golden boy. After months of brutal cases that
had left him exhausted and raw, Patterson had sent him to Mississippi to
profile another kid killer. Another baby butcher. Hargrave had lingered over
his victims' deaths, inflicting days of torture - carving hundreds of
shallow cuts with his hunting knife, gradually making them deeper and deeper
until his victims, finally and mercifully, bled to death. Mulder had spent
days without sleep, without food, trying to get a handle on a killer who
seemed to defy any conventional analysis. He had been beyond exhaustion.
Intent on catching a few hours sleep before writing his profile and turning
it in for the morning briefing, he'd taken a cab back to his motel.

Where Hargrave had been waiting for him.

Too tired to be alert, he'd been easy prey for Hargrave, who had somehow
recognized the new face from Washington as a threat. Ironically, it had been
Patterson who had flown out and saved Mulder's ass, shaping his agent's
notes into a coherent profile. Still, it had taken the cavalry three days to
find him. Three of the longest days of his life.

Mulder finished his monotone recitation, glossing over his actual captivity
and torture. No way was he going there - reliving it in his nightmares was
bad enough. You could still see the scars if you knew where to look. Mulder
wondered if the important ones had healed at all.

There were times during his long, nightmare-ridden convalescence when he had
cursed Patterson for finding him.

He was aware of Scully's shocked silence. He'd kept his gaze locked on the
wall, unwilling to face the horror and pity he knew would cloud her eyes.
His mind, however, was years away, consumed with images of the things he
hadn't told her - the grating sound of Hargrave's laughter, how his breath
had hitched with excitement with each new cut, the acrid smell of semen as
the killer stroked himself to orgasm. The slow leak of blood from each
wound, the fire of pain from wrists mutilated in Mulder's struggles against
his bonds, his whimpers of pain when his throat had become too abused to
scream.

The certainty he was going to die. Then finally, the praying, the begging
for death, for release. Hargrave's elated laughter at Mulder's hoarse
pleading.

Those memories had broken - no, crashed - through the barriers he'd placed
around them. It was all he had been able to do not to run from the crime
scene - run from the realization the nightmare was beginning all over again.
Worse this time, because he didn't have to imagine what those poor children
had gone through - he knew. Lord, he knew. He'd seen that poor, discarded
lump of flesh and knew exactly what that boy's last hours had been like -
knew there had come a time when the body had surpassed its limits, when it
had become impossible to feel more pain simply because the nerves were
already overloaded. Knew there had come a time to beg for death. Knew these
things, and had come so close to losing it all. Fortunately, Scully had
divined the distress he didn't dare show and got them out of there, covering
his ass yet again.

Sometimes he hated his photographic memory.



Scully could only shudder in sympathy as her partner recounted his tale of
horror. She could see his eyes drift away in tortured remembrance, his body
tremble in anguish. He spared her the details of his experience, unwilling,
perhaps, to relive them himself, or burden her with his pain. It didn't
matter. She could only too easily superimpose Mulder's features over those
of the morning's victim. What he must have endured.... God, no wonder the
crime scene had affected him so strongly. Hargrave's execution had
undoubtedly resurrected those terrible memories from whatever depths in
which they'd been hidden. No wonder Mulder hadn't been sleeping, eating.

And, she realized suddenly, with a knot in her stomach, it explained more,
much more. Mulder had never really dealt with his experience, had he? It ate
away at him still, fueled by his recent ordeals. Hargrave's execution had
been equivalent to removing a tourniquet from a gangrenous limb. Now the
infection was spreading. It explained why Mulder was suddenly sporting so
many injuries: in his distress, he was acting out, subconsciously hurting
himself. A silent plea for help. But help was one thing that Mulder would
never admit he needed - so he convinced himself that a ghost was responsible
to protect himself from the truth. Scully wanted to weep at the delusions
her friend had created in order to keep himself functioning. Delusional. Oh
God. Not Mulder. It chilled her to the core. If Mulder's problems had become
so serious that he was injuring himself, knowingly or not....

He needed help. Hargrave had simply been the last straw. Months of arduous
cases had finally sent Mulder hurtling to a breaking point anyone else would
have passed long ago. Her partner needed help and Scully knew he would deny
it. As long as he could blame everything on a ghost, he could deny he wasn't
well. Deny that he needed professional help.

And how was she to convince him that *was* what he needed, when he was
certain to consider it a betrayal on her part?

Her breath held a long moment as the realization hit her. She was a doctor,
she had an oath to uphold. How had she missed the signs? How long had she
been oblivious to her partner's suffering? In retrospect, she should have
seen this coming. After all, how could someone go through so much in so
short a time and *not* be affected? Even Mulder was not indestructible, she
had to admit. She had to help him, but he would fight her all the way.

But she couldn't let him go on like this. She couldn't.

What about the car, whispered a voice in her head, the voice that didn't
want to believe her partner was in trouble. He didn't do *that* to himself.
That had simply been a coincidence, she told the voice. No more, no less. A
bizarre accident. And she could believe Mulder had broken his own TV,
perhaps all unknowing, his mind lost in a nightmare, creating an explanation
he could live with.

It all pointed to her partner being in a lot of trouble, and she was
terrified the severity of the injuries would increase as his mental state
deteriorated.

He sure as hell didn't need to be profiling a serial killer now. Especially
not this one.

But how to broach this to him? How to get him to realize he was ill? How to
get him to seek help without turning against her? She was unwilling, yet, to
report her suspicions. They were, still, just suspicions. She had no real
proof he was a danger to himself. Except for the impossibility of his
claims. There was precedent. Pincus. Folie à deux. And reporting him would
be tantamount to slamming the door on him. Too many people would seize on
the opportunity to lock Mulder away. She wanted to avoid that, if she could.

She closed her eyes, willing the tears away. Mulder couldn't see. She had to
be the strong one here, the rational one. But images flitted across her
retinas: Mulder in restraints after attacking Skinner, joking to hide his
fear; Mulder writhing in pain in a sterile, padded room, driven to near
madness by his exposure to an allegedly alien artifact.... He had been
fortunate both times. She prayed he would be as fortunate again.



Mulder finally let his gaze wander over to his silent partner, taking in the
twin looks of consternation and horrified realization on her face. He gave
his head a slight shake, crossing to the window. He leaned his forehead
against the cool pane. He needed help, but not the kind she was obviously
contemplating. Hargrave had to be stopped; there had to be a way. Chuck
Burke was the closest thing he knew to a ghostbuster, this would be right
up his alley. At least he wouldn't assume Mulder needed to be committed.

He wanted to be angry with her, wanted to feel betrayed that she thought him
so unstable. But he had neither the time nor the energy for her concerns.
Hargrave was escalating and Scully's "help" would get him killed. The
murders were Hargrave's way of announcing his intent. The killer knew each
murder would only heighten Mulder's anguish, making his final surrender all
the sweeter. If he was to stop Hargrave from killing again, prevent himself
from becoming a discarded piece of meat like Hargrave's previous victims, he
had no time to lose to Scully's good intentions.

He could hear the rustle of fabric as Scully crossed the room, felt the
comforting warmth of her hand on his arm. He waited for her pronouncement on
his mental state, but she surprised him.

"You should get some sleep, Mulder."

"What, you're not going to tell me I'm suffering from PTSD?" He'd meant it
to sound light-hearted, but it sounded only tired and bitter to his ears.

"I think," she answered carefully, "that you already know the answer to
that." She sighed heavily. "I can see that this case is bothering you,
Mulder. You don't have to pursue it. Skinner will understand." She
hesitated, moving her hand along his arm. "It's not wrong to need help once
in a while."

He turned from the window, finally meeting her gaze. This time it was Scully
who looked away.

"That's what you think, isn't it? Ole Spooky has finally snapped and needs
to be locked up?" The anger had finally sparked and he gratefully fanned the
flames.

God, this wasn't how she wanted to do this. "Mulder, you know I don't think
that. But ordinary cases don't have you vomiting and looking like the dead,
either. With everything that's happened lately...." She trailed off, not
quite knowing how to state her concern. "These injuries you've been
getting.... I just don't want to see you hurt, is all."

He stared at her, incredulous. "Shit, you think *I've* been doing this,
don't you? You think *I'm* hurting myself. Despite what you've seen? I
suppose I've suddenly become telekinetic and started playing with the filing
cabinets too."

"So someone has picked an incredibly bad time to play a joke on you," she
responded heatedly. "Mulder, you've been having problems ever since
Hargrave's execution, haven't you?" Her voice softened, and Mulder bled to
hear the pity in it, the assumptions she was about to make.

She moved until she was standing next to him. He backed up a few steps,
unwilling to have her betrayal so close. Scully took another step forward,
then relented, allowing him his space.

He was a skittish as a puppy that had just been kicked. And she had done
this. Was doing this.

"Mulder...you obviously still have issues about what happened to you. Things
you haven't dealt with. You need to talk to someone about it. Please."

The words of denial died on his lips, because suddenly he wasn't so certain
her assumptions weren't true. The part of him that still remembered he was a
psychologist knew it was all so damn rational. When his ordeal had ended, he
had spent so much time convincing everyone he was all right that he'd fooled
himself into believing it. He'd simply gone on as if the nightmares and
scars didn't exist. And in time, he'd convinced himself they never had.

His gaze fell to his wrists, to the barely visible remnants of the scars
there. It had been real; Hargrave was real then and now, wasn't he? Because
if he wasn't, then that meant Scully was right. He hadn't seen Hargrave in
the parking garage, felt his presence stalking him everywhere. He was
delusional. But Scully was wrong, he knew that too. It wasn't Post-Traumatic
Stress Disorder; he wasn't subconsciously reliving his torture, hurting
himself in his delusions. There was evidence: the cold spots, the TV, the 
car, the filing cabinets and the myriad of other manifestations that
had suddenly erupted in his life. Scully refused to see that so many
coincidences simply could not *be* coincidence; she had used her logic to
manufacture a more reasonable explanation. Reasonable. Right. Sure it was
reasonable to assume Spooky had finally flipped - wasn't the whole Bureau
just waiting for the day?

"I'm not leaving the case."

"Mulder...."

"I'm fine." He stared out the window again, unable to face her with the lie.
Two simple words, so rife with unspoken meanings for the two of them.
Unassailable. "Like you said, I just need to get some sleep."

She left quietly, and he heard the door snick softly shut behind her. As if
a door was shutting on his life. She'd go to Skinner, wouldn't she? Tell him
that Mulder was a danger to himself. Get him taken off the case. Remanded
for psychiatric evaluation. They'd done it before.

And Hargrave would have him.

"Damn you, Hargrave," he muttered into the glass. "Just get this over with."
In his mind he could hear a ghostly laugh.

******

Mulder's Apartment

Mulder's apartment had taken on the character of a mad scientist's wet
dream. All it needed, he reflected, was a Jacob's ladder sending electricity
frizzing up and down its wires in pointless abandon. Chuck Burke, however,
was too genial-looking for the role of a mad scientist. Too genial to
pass as Spock either, he thought, as he considered how closely his apartment
now resembled a Star Trek set. The original series, of course. Mulder was
nothing if not a purist.

The small living room was crammed with cameras and odd-looking electronic
equipment, most of which utterly surpassed Mulder's ken. Cables meandered
across the floor and it would take only one misstep to send thousands of
dollars of sensitive equipment crashing. He had tried to pace around the
obstacle course, earning irate glances from his friend. Mulder finally gave
up the effort in favor of inspecting each piece of equipment Burke had
installed. His earlier fatigue had succumbed to a burst of adrenaline. The
prospect of finally being rid of Hargrave's harassment lent a spurt of
energy to his tired body. At least Scully would stop thinking he'd lost his
mind.

Scully. Her visit still left a bad taste in his mouth. He had been consumed
with the desire to prove her wrong - to show her incontrovertible evidence
that Hargrave had returned from beyond the grave. But there was that nagging
seed of doubt she'd planted, too, that it was all in his head. God knew he
was the poster boy for repressed memories; could he really have fooled
himself that badly? He needed to know; hence his call to the one person he
thought might be able to help him make sense of it all.

Burke barely refrained from rolling his eyes in exasperation. At least a
hovering Mulder was better than a pacing Mulder. Sort of.

"Thanks for calling me, Mulder," he enthused as he puttered, making tiny
adjustments to each esoteric piece of equipment. "This is a great
opportunity."

Mulder couldn't help but smile at his friend's enthusiasm. "'Who're you
gonna call?' You're the only ghostbuster I know." He gestured to the room at
large.

"So what, exactly, *is* all this supposed to do?"

"Well," Burke rubbed his hands together, clearly in his element. "All living
things are surrounded by energy fields, which some people are able to
perceive as auras. The same is true of what we call ghosts. Spectral energy
exists on a different wavelength than our own. So, if we can isolate that
frequency, we should be able to generate an interference wave, thereby
disrupting the spectral wavelength and banishing the entity."

"No proton packs or particle throwers?"

"No, sorry."

"Too bad. Damn, they were cool."

"This should be a lot cleaner. No possibility of being slimed. Well,
theoretically."

"Theoretically?" Mulder's voice rose sharply.

"Well," Burke had the grace to look embarrassed. "It hasn't exactly been
tested yet." He added proudly, "The equipment is my own invention. I've been
looking for a bona fide entity to test it on."

"Great," Mulder muttered, running a hand thorough his hair. Now the
prospects of getting rid of Hargrave seemed less certain.

Burke continued, unfazed by his friend's apparent lack of faith. "We've got
video and still cameras, as well as audio. We'll be recording in both
visible and infrared spectra. If anything happens, we'll catch it."

Mulder didn't care much about catching anything at this point, he just
wanted to send the s.o.b. back to Hell where he belonged.

Burke made one final adjustment, then stepped back to admire his handiwork.
"Now we wait."

Fortunately for Mulder's frayed nerves, but unfortunately for Burke's
expensive equipment, they didn't have to wait long.

A noticeable chill began to permeate the apartment, the first harbinger of
Hargrave's presence. Mulder felt his heart speed up and a cold knot form in
his stomach that had nothing to do with the chill. He was suddenly certain
that this wasn't going to be nearly as easy as Burke thought.

The scientist checked the thermal sensors. Apparently a thermometer was just
too mundane. "Cool. Temperature's down five degrees and still dropping," he
reported gleefully.

Immediately he began tapping away at his keyboard. Mulder heard cameras and
machines whir into life as Burke issued his commands.

"Whoa. Look at this!" He gestured Mulder over to the monitor. "This is from
the infrared camera - see it?"

Mulder did indeed see it. A vaguely humanoid-shaped dark blue blob standing
out against the reds and oranges of the apartment.

"There he is," crowed Burke. "Yes!" He pumped his arm triumphantly. "Mulder
old man, you've got yourself one primo haunting here. All we need is some
poltergeist activity."

Mulder cringed, hoping Hargrave wasn't getting any ideas. "Shouldn't you be
trying to jam that frequency?" Mulder frowned, with an uneasy glance at the
blue form on the monitor. Shit, this better work.

Burke went back to his keyboard, fingers flying as he input more commands.
"I'm trying to isolate the frequency now."

Too late, Mulder thought, as his friend's expensive camera toppled onto its
side. Burke cringed as the lens shattered.

"I think you'd better hurry," Mulder suggested, casting a wary eye about the
room. The cold was growing in intensity. Both men jumped as another piece of
equipment tumbled to the floor.

"Chuck," Mulder repeated, warningly. He could swear he felt Hargrave
breathing down his neck.

Burke returned to his console, typing furiously, his eyes flitting about
uneasily. Suddenly this was so much more than an academic exercise. Despite
Mulder's assurances that his life was in danger, Burke hadn't quite believed
it. Not that the agent was lying to him or anything, of course not, it was
just that vengeance from beyond the grave of the sort Mulder described was
generally the province of the entertainment industry. Although, Mulder had
told him of one case, hadn't he, of a murderous ghost? Some guy protecting
his secretary...?

Burke's computer beeped for his attention, rousing him from his reverie. The
frequencies on his screen merged, then canceled each other out. He whooped
with glee.

"Take that you misogynistic, ectoplasmic reject from hell!"

There was another crash, and Burke was unashamedly relieved Mulder's
computer was the sacrifice this time, and not another piece of his
equipment. Ruined equipment, especially equipment ruined by a ghost, was a
bitch to explain to the Dean.

The two men waited with baited breath as silence fell over the apartment.
When moments passed with no further ghostly activity, they ventured small
smiles, which broke into elated grins.

"It worked," Burke said wonderingly. "It really worked."

"Thanks, Chuck," Mulder said, clapping the smaller man on the back, his
appreciation heartfelt. "I really appreciate this. I'm sorry about your
equipment."

Burke shrugged philosophically. "Hazards of the job. Besides, think of the
paper this will make!" He happily began righting his equipment, taking stock
of the damage, too focused on his paper to be concerned what the Dean might
say.

Mulder shook his head bemusedly, amazed at his friend's ability to see this
as an adventure. He was just relieved it was over. He figured he'd be giving
X-Files regarding ghosts a wide berth for a while.

Suddenly, the temperature plummeted - Mulder could see his breath condense
into a puff of mist in the suddenly arctic air. Time seemed to stand still
as the air crackled with energy, as if drawing in on itself. It reminded
Mulder of the unnaturally still air before a summer thunderstorm. Then it
was abruptly let loose, as if the gate holding it back had suddenly opened.
Gale force wind circled the tiny room, causing Mulder to stagger against the
wall. Burke dived for shelter beneath Mulder's desk as the gale smashed its
way through Mulder's apartment, sending Burke's equipment crashing to the
floor, into walls. A camera launched itself at Mulder's head; he ducked as
it hit the wall, showering him with debris. He could swear he could hear
Hargrave roaring with rage over the noise of destruction.

The tornado ended as abruptly as it had begun. Mulder guessed that
Hargrave's rage had used up whatever reserves of energy he had and he needed
time to recharge. At least he hoped so.

"I think he's pissed," Burke said mournfully, staring at the remains of his
cherished equipment. The Dean was going to have a fit. He added seriously,
"I've seldom heard of a spirit this strong or this destructive. Be careful,
Mulder."

Mulder nodded. "Now how the hell do I get rid of him?"

Burke sighed. "It may be time to use more traditional methods. I know a
medium who's very good. Maybe she can help."

A medium. He could just envision what Scully would say to *that*.

********

end Act II



Act III

Home of Clara Holdridge

"Come in, come in," Mulder and Scully were ushered out of the frigid
downpour into the foyer of a fairly standard suburban home. Any
preconceptions Scully had about musty Victorian mansions and wild-looking
clairvoyants with thick European accents went out the window. Clara
Holdridge, Chuck Burke's friend, was about as far from the stereotype as it
was possible to get. She was a tiny black woman in her 60s, slighter even
than Scully, with greying hair and a face crinkled by laugh lines. Her dark
eyes, however, were still sharp and piercing. She sucked in a breath as
Mulder stepped over the threshold. "Charles was right. You do have a dark
presence following you," she said worriedly. Her eyes took on a distant
gaze. "Very dark," she repeated distractedly. "Very powerful. So full of
hate...."

Scully suppressed an urge to roll her eyes. The trappings might be
innocuous, but the spiel was obviously old hat. Why the hell had she let
Mulder talk her into this? Feeding his delusion.

No, the voice in her head corrected. You just want him to prove you wrong,
this once. Because you don't want to face the alternative.

And was the idea of a ghost so improbable, really? Hadn't she stood in
Yankee Stadium, fighting with a woman possessed by evil incarnate? Suddenly
her assumptions seemed less certain.

Clara's voice interrupted her reverie. "Come, come," she clucked, taking
their wet coats and beckoning them into the dining room. "We have our work
cut out for us today."

"I can't believe you talked me into this," Scully muttered, sotto voce, as
they followed their hostess. "Mulder, this is so...hokey."

"I told you what happened last night," Mulder hissed, angry at his partner's
continued resistance. "Or do you think Chuck and I smashed all his
equipment?"

"A gust of wind could have come in through the window, Mulder," Scully
replied wearily.

"Through a closed window, Scully? Pray tell, what's the scientific
explanation for that?"

She had none of course, and they both knew it. Dismayed, Scully wondered why
it was so much easier to believe her partner was losing it than to believe
in his contention he was being stalked by a ghost. The events of a certain
Christmas Eve aside. Didn't the events he'd related of last night prove
something? Or had he managed to pull his friend into his delusion with him?
Folie à deux, redux. Of course Chuck would see what he wanted to see, what
Mulder wanted him to see.

"We have a case to solve, or had you forgotten that?"

The look he gave her should have dropped her frozen to the ground. "I'm not
likely to forget that, Scully. Believe it or not, by stopping Hargrave we
*are* working on the case."

The two agents halted their bickering as they entered the dining room. Three
other people were already waiting.

"I find contact is easier to establish with a larger group," Clara
explained, as she gestured the agents to take their seats. "Everyone here is
experienced - we've had many séances together."

She took her own seat and addressed the group, introducing first Mulder and
Scully, then the other attendees. "Because of the strength of the dark
entity pursuing Fox, I want everyone to envision a white bubble of
protection around himself. Imagine it surrounding you with a brilliant glow
- it is the light that keeps the darkness at bay, the truth that defeats the
Father of Lies." Her voice took on a lilting, soothing tone. She addressed
herself to Scully next, giving her a knowing smile. "I can see your
scepticism Dana, but I've never found belief a prerequisite for a
manifestation - especially when it comes to the darker entities among us.
They love to have our attention, to cause mischief. I do, however, urge you
to take this seriously - for your own safety. Better to look foolish, isn't
it, than to leave oneself vulnerable to attack?" she finished mildly.

Scully felt her face burning at the gentle admonishment. She could see the
others had closed their eyes, the better to visualize their protection. She
gave an internal shrug. Sure. Fine. Whatever. She wouldn't look anymore
foolish than any of *them*. Even Mulder had closed his eyes in
concentration. It occurred to her then, with a pang in her heart that
actually hurt, that Missy would have felt quite at home here. Scully sighed,
closing her eyes. It couldn't hurt, she supposed. And when nothing happened,
she'd confront Mulder. No more denial - for either of them.

Scully tried to envision her bubble of light, really she did. Unfortunately,
the image of her partner in restraints kept intruding. She opened her eyes,
admitting defeat. She resolved to stay alert - this entire setup was a phony
as a three dollar bill and it was up to her, as always, to maintain
perspective. Mulder depended on her for that.

Contrary to expectations, Clara didn't dim the lights, or light candles, or
ask them to hold hands. "You can if you want," she'd said and Scully was not
entirely unsurprised when Mulder reached out for her. She took his hand
gladly, needing the contact herself. A tacit apology for the harsh words
they'd spoken earlier.

Finally, Clara deemed she had the proper atmosphere. "Darryl Wayne Hargrave,
I feel you near. I know you can hear me. You also know your presence here is
unseemly. There is forgiveness for you, if you but seek it. In the name of
the light, and the One Who Created All Things, I abjure you to leave. Find
your path, Darryl Wayne Hargrave; it lies before you, in the light, not in
the shadows here in this realm."

More theatrical than Harold Piller had been, but Scully hadn't been overly
impressed with Harold's alleged psychic abilities either.

She could hear the ticking of a clock in the deafening silence. How long
were they going to have to listen to this, she wondered, until someone
admitted nothing was going to happen? But of course something would happen -
that was what these things were all about. Something would happen because it
was manufactured to happen. Have to keep the marks coming back, after all.
Most people wanted nothing more than to speak to Great Uncle Joe - only Mulder 
would want to exorcise a serial killer.

She tried not to squirm in her chair, the wooden seat suddenly extremely
uncomfortable. There must be a window open somewhere, she thought, as a cold
breeze tickled her neck. Beside her, she could feel Mulder stiffen in alarm.

"He's here," Clara suddenly spoke. Scully's eyes narrowed, another
explanation for the wind springing to mind. An old con gone hi-tech. She
pitied Mulder suddenly, that he felt the need to engage in this charade. He
was intelligent enough, certainly, to see past the smoke and mirrors. He
just didn't want to. Allowing Madame Clara, or whatever she called herself
when she wasn't trying to impress the FBI with her legitimacy, to take
advantage, to turn him into a victim, a mark. She wanted suddenly to cry,
that it had come to this. That these people, despite their apparent
sincerity, were here for the sole purpose of pulling the wool over Mulder's
eyes. It was all a cloak. Good actors, of course; they had to be.

What had begun as a cool breath of air had, somehow, without her registering
it, become a frigid breeze.

"Your tricks don't impress me, spirit," Holdridge snapped. "You have no
place here. In the name of the Sacred, in the name of the Holy, I cast you
out! The one you seek is within our protection - you cannot harm him. No one
here fears you - we are proof against your evil. Embrace the light, spirit,
while you can."

The only response was a strengthening of the wind and another drop in
temperature. Everyone jumped as a vase plummeted to the floor. Very good
actors, Scully commented silently.

"Remember your bubble of protection," Clara reminded them, her voice
rattled. Nice touch, thought Scully cynically. How could anyone be taken by
this? The least they could do was add some ghostly moans, rattling chains,
maybe a ghostly light? But the lights were all blazing and there was nothing
remotely ghostly about this. It was rather sad, really. She hoped Mulder
wasn't being taken in by this - it was strictly amateur hour. Maybe the lack
of pizzazz was meant to make it seem more realistic.

What happened next almost made Scully doubt it had all been staged.

There was a huge crash, and the windows flew open, letting the cold rain
lash in. Someone got up to close them, only to stagger back when the glass
suddenly shattered. Scully rose from her seat to help; she was still a
doctor, fraud or not.

Then the lights, rather predictably, went out.

Scully staggered to a stop, unable to see her way in the unfamiliar
surroundings. She heard someone hiss with pain and someone else navigating
the room with considerably more ability than she had.

"Everyone stay still, I have some candles here somewhere," Clara called. A
moment later a small flame leapt to life, followed by others as Clara lit a
series of tall tapers. The unnatural cold reluctantly dissipated, leaving
only the damp November air coming through the shattered windows. She heard
Clara's sharp intake of breath and turned to follow her gaze. In the dim
light she could just make out the words written on the wall in dripping
blood, "I always finish what I start." Standing in front of the wall,
clutching his bleeding arm, was Mulder.

*****

Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman

Morning had finally come - after another restless night punctuated by the
echoes of his screams and Hargrave's gleeful laughter - without a summons
from Skinner, or the men in white jackets waiting for him at the basement
door. He'd assumed that meant Scully hadn't told Skinner of her suspicions.
She had arrived at the office a short while later, bearing coffee and
danishes - a mute apology. But she still wouldn't meet his eyes.

She'd taken him to the ER the night before with scarcely a word; her silence
telling him more eloquently than words ever could that she believed him
deranged. That in the midst of what she considered a hokey fraud, he had
sliced open his own arm and written on the walls in his own blood. Not
consciously, of course. At least, he didn't think she considered him that
far gone. He could have told her he recognized the handwriting, that it
wasn't his. She had only to pull the case file to see that - the writing
matched that of the crime scenes. But what was the use? If she hadn't
believed he had done it to himself, she would have been accusing the others.
Better he bear the brunt of her accusations than the people who had only
been trying to help him. Scully might have believed that last night had been
a set up, but he knew better. He had felt Hargrave's presence, heard his
derision. He remembered the sad look on Clara Holdridge's face as they had
left; her mute apology for her failure to help. He was beginning to fear
that Hargrave would win after all.

The drive from the airport had been similarly silent and tense. Scully,
white-knuckled, driving with her concentration fixed fiercely on the road
before her. She had been adamant in her refusal to let Mulder drive, and for
once he did not challenge her. In truth, he simply did not have the energy.
He knew Scully was secretly hoping he would doze off in the car, as he had
failed to do on the plane, but he dared not. He couldn't take the risk of
Scully hearing him scream in his sleep - he couldn't give her any more
ammunition to use against him. The regulations regarding agents in
psychological distress were very clear. Ignoring them could lead to
dismissal. Although, to her credit, she was doing a fine job of ignoring
them so far. Of course, if they'd reported him every time he seemed to be in
psychological distress, he'd have spent his entire stint in Violent Crimes
in a straitjacket. He'd avoided it because they'd all bought into the
"Spooky" mystique: Spooky Mulder was a moody insomniac who caught killers on
psychic vibes and worthless clues. He was able to catch psychopaths because
he was only one step away from being one himself. There had been times when
Mulder had been clinging to the edge of the abyss by the tips of his
fingers. Patterson had been willing to ignore all sorts of sins as long as
his precious solve rate held. And Scully, in the guise of helping Mulder,
would unknowingly condemn him.

His hand crept to his chest, fingering the bandage beneath his shirt. When
he'd screamed himself awake from yet another nightmare of Hargrave cutting
him, he'd found himself covered in blood. He'd stared at the mirror mutely,
glaring at the long, shallow cut that now adorned his chest. A partner to
the one gracing his arm. Tracing the path of the scar left by the first cut
Hargrave had made on his body eleven years ago. He had even been affected
enough by Scully's assertions that he had looked for a knife with which he
might have injured himself, if he was as far gone as Scully seemed to
believe. There was none, as he had known there would be. He'd simply
bandaged it and gone on with his morning.

It was itching like hell now, though. He had to consciously keep his hand
away - it would fit too nicely into Scully's appraisal of his mental health
if she knew of it. No way would she believe he hadn't done it to himself.



Mulder and Scully accompanied the guard to the cell where Darryl Wayne
Hargrave had spent the last five of his eleven years on Death Row.

"Not much to see," the guard commented. "All his stuff's already been boxed
up."

"Is it still here?" Mulder asked, stepping into the small cell.

"I guess so," the guard answered. "Wasn't anyone to ship it to."

"Did you know Hargrave?" Scully queried.

"Sure. I've been on the Row for a couple of years now."

"Did Hargrave have any friends, anyone he might have confided in?"

"Hargrave? Nah. Even the inmates thought he was creepy. He just had this way
of starin' at ya, ya know? Like he was just waitin' to rip your heart out."

"I know the feeling," Mulder muttered, prowling the small space. He shook
his head, exasperated. All Hargrave's personality had been expunged from the
cell in anticipation of its next occupant.

"He was a weird one all right," the guard continued. "Spooky. Always reading
about the paranormal, life after death, reaching out from beyond the grave,
that kind of shit." The guard shrugged. "Guess anyone who's gonna die wants
to think there's something else waiting."

Abandoning his inspection of the cell as futile, Mulder stepped toward the
door, only to be suddenly flung against the far wall by an invisible force.
He could feel a hand of bitter cold close about his throat.

Scully jumped to her partner's aid, only to stop short as the cell door
clanged shut in front of her. She watched, horrorstruck, as her partner was
tossed against the wall like a rag doll, as if an invisible hand had flung
him across the room. "Open the door, open the door!" she yelled at the
flustered guard, even as he called for the guard down the hall to override
the electronics.

She could see Mulder fight for breath, see his waning struggles against
his invisible attacker. Even as the guards struggled with the
recalcitrant cell door, she could only futilely watch her partner's struggles
without comprehension. This, this was not delusion. This was...something
else. Something that wasn't rational, wasn't logical. Could Mulder have been
right? *Was* he being stalked by Hargrave's ghost? She thought of Howard
Graves, and of his efforts to protect Lauren Kyte, even from beyond death;
the force that had taken possession of her partner's body not long ago and
sent it on a hunt to kill her. Could Hargrave's vengeance be so strong as to
defy mortality?

The cell door sprung open as mysteriously as it had closed, at the same time
the mysterious force released her partner. Mulder slumped to the floor,
gasping for breath. Scully wasted no time reaching his side, wincing at the
livid bruises on his neck. Bruises in the undeniable shape of fingers.

Mulder lay panting on the floor beside her, still struggling for breath. The
eerie chill that had filled the cell was now gone, but Mulder knew he had
won only a brief respite. Hargrave was escalating, growing stronger. Soon,
his need for revenge would overwhelm him and Mulder would be dead.

He met Scully's horrified eyes. "Still think it's all in my head?" he
wheezed.

******

Scully's Apartment

Mulder propped himself on his elbow, watching the woman slumbering at his
side. Scully-watching was his favourite pasttime, particularly when she
slept. Years of pain seemed to fall away, and her face softened, losing the
harshness it had acquired over the years. So long she had stood beside him -
sharing his quest, supporting him, protecting him, defending him.... His
free hand gently twined itself in her hair, lightly brushing her cheek.

She'd been adamant that he not be alone, now that she was convinced of what
he had known all along. He'd seen the guilt and the shame in her eyes as she
knelt beside him in that cell - the conviction she could have prevented this
if only she had believed. Believed in him.

They would have to talk about it; they knew that. She had tried to stammer
an apology on the plane ride home, and he had told her not to worry about
it. Still, he had been hurt and angered by her assumptions, regardless how
reasonable they had seemed. Part of him was angry with her still. Despite
the strides they had made, the habits of nine years of talking in
generalities, of talking around the important issues, were still hard to
break.

A gentle smile graced his face. Despite the recent tensions, they were still
here. Still together. And Scully was fierce in her determination to protect
him from this menace, when he didn't even know how to protect himself. Not
from this. His smile faded. A sense of futility had begun to weigh down his
heart - the dread that this time there would be no cheating death - no
miraculous rescue, no Scully on her white charger with guns blazing. It was
the way life always kicked him in the ass - whenever he tried to grasp some
happiness - touch the brass ring - it always slipped through his fingers.

A cool draft blew warningly across the bed, bringing with it the cloying
stench of evil. Mulder froze. No. No and no and no. His life might be
already forfeit - but he was *not* going to lose Scully to Hargrave's mad
vengeance.

Mulder swung himself out of the bed carefully, casting one last glance at
Scully's sleeping form. Giving into temptation, he gently brushed his lips
against hers, too aware that this could be goodbye. His body was vibrating
with nervous energy, a violin string pulled too taut. He knew, somehow, that
it would end tonight, however it finally played out. Hargrave would wait no
longer. Tomorrow would come and he would be alive or not, but Scully would
be safe and that was all that had mattered to him for a long time now.

"You want me, Hargrave. Come and get me." The icy breeze seemed to accept
his challenge.
*****

Mulder's Apartment

Mulder wasn't certain what he expected when he returned to his apartment.
Perhaps another angry whirlwind gyring through the place. What there was,
was pervasive cold; cold that triggered unpleasant memories of lying
abandoned on Arctic ice floes. He shivered, his breath condensing in the
air. "C'mon, Hargrave," he taunted. "You can do better than this."

He rubbed his hands together, breathed on them to warm them. This was
ridiculous. Hargrave was going to freeze him to death?

The weight on his heart seemed to grow heavier, bringing with it an
unutterable weariness. Mulder yawned; suddenly it seemed all he could do to
keep his eyes open. His manic energy abruptly fled, and he half fell onto
the couch, no longer able to sustain his frenetic pacing. Another yawn, and
his eyes were falling shut, despite the warning bells that were shrilling in
his head. A futile struggle to raise faltering eyelids, then he fell into
Morpheus' arms.

He struggled, but the nightmare wouldn't relinquish him from its grip. The
ropes cut into his body, holding him motionless. The knife stung as it
sliced into him again, and the too familiar tang of blood assaulted his
nostrils. His life trickled slowly over the warehouse floor in dark rivulets
and he was faced with the certainty that no one was going to find him this
time....

No.

It wasn't real. It was just a dream. Just a dream. Like Scully said,
Hargrave's execution had simply churned up memories he had never really
dealt with. He could actually *hear* Scully's voice in his mind, ordering
him to wake up and leave the nightmare behind.

Easier said than done.

He couldn't force his body to move; it was like a ton of cement was weighing
him down. He opted for the next best thing, opening his eyes. Even that was
a Herculean task; someone had glued his lids shut when he wasn't looking....

Ah. Finally triumphant, Mulder blinked owlishly in the dim light - to find
the copper tang of spilled blood had not dissipated. He struggled to rise,
but, as in his dream, his limbs refused to obey his commands. He heard a low
chuckle - comprehension was slow. He blinked to see Darryl Wayne Hargrave
standing above him, grinning wickedly. Mulder blinked again, but the
apparition was still there, surprisingly solid. As was the bloody knife in
his hand.

"I've been waiting a long time for this," Hargrave laughed. He leaned over
the supine agent, his breath caressing Mulder's ear: "I told you, didn't I?
I always finish what I start." The knife flashed again and Mulder found
himself spiraling into darkness, vaguely amazed that his end - which he had
always envisioned would come as the result of his quest - was to come at the
hands of a ghostly serial killer. He thought he heard the ringing of a
phone, but it came from a great distance and he couldn't convince his limbs
to move to answer it. Then everything went black.
*****

Scully's Apartment

Scully let the phone ring one more time before conceding defeat. Damn the
man! No more ditching - he'd promised! When would he get it through his
thick skull that he didn't have to protect her? She could take care of
herself, damnit! Better than he took care of himself.

She had brought her partner directly to her apartment once their flight had
landed, despite Mulder's vociferous protests. They had left Mississippi
after confirming that no one had desecrated Hargrave's resting place,
leaving the puzzle of the fingerprints unsolved. But not really. Scully just
had to look at Mulder's bruised neck to see the truth. She was ashamed.
Ashamed that she had doubted him, that she had thought him mentally
unstable. Again. When would she learn? She had doubted him before - with
Bill Patterson, Linda Bowman, Greg Pincus...with nearly tragic results.

She had overridden Mulder's objections by the simple expedient of ignoring
them. She was not going to let him face this alone - she needed to do
something to atone, to prove her newfound belief. She had doubted him; would
have had him committed. His reluctance to endure her presence was
understandable. Even now, doubt was beginning to tinge her knowledge of what
she had witnessed. It was just so unbelievable. No wonder he couldn't
forgive her. Although she knew, deep down, that was untrue. Mulder was
simply trying, in his endearing but utterly frustrating way, to protect her.
Although it was patently obvious just who required protection.

She bit her lip, unable to shake the vision of her partner thrown against
the prison walls, struggling for breath, the livid bruises of strangulation
abound his neck.... Scully dressed hastily, grabbed the car keys,
exasperation warring with concern. Sometimes she was tempted to shoot the
man again.
*****

Mulder's Apartment

He didn't answer her knocks, so she let herself in with her key, hoping
against hope she'd find him merely catching some well-deserved sleep on his
couch. No such luck. The stench of blood assaulted her at once and she
reached back to unholster her weapon. Realizing only after she'd drawn it
that it was unlikely to be effective against whatever she'd find.
Nevertheless, she didn't holster her gun.

Oh God, let him be all right. Please,please,please.

"Mulder," she called out quietly. She passed silently through the foyer,
glancing quickly at the kitchen and bathroom. Tensing, she headed into the
living room.

The amount of blood staining the battered leather, and the motionless form
on it, sent her heart into shuddering paroxysms. She quickly knelt by her
partner, pressed trembling fingers to his neck. Almost collapsed with relief
when she felt the faint throbbing of his pulse. Cell phone in hand, she
desperately tried to keep her voice steady as she called for assistance.
Leaving his side briefly, she quickly checked the remainder of the apartment.
Whoever - whatever - had done this to her partner was long gone. No way
had he done this to himself. Holstering her weapon, she loaded her arms with
towels, and set about trying to prevent Mulder from bleeding to death.

She felt that 'click' deep in her psyche, the one that switched her from
friend and lover to doctor. Her hands steadied as her training kicked in, as
she worked to see Mulder as simply another patient. If she hadn't, if she
had allowed herself to see the man beneath her ministrations, she would most
certainly have screamed in despair - and that would not help Mulder one
iota.
**********

end Act III



Act IV



Georgetown University Medical Center

Skinner strode purposefully down the hospital corridor, so intent on his
goal that he did not notice the personnel he scattered in his wake. He
spotted his quarry finally, and pulled up short. Scully was slumped
dejectedly on the drab couch, her head held in her hands. Those who had
followed his intent progress through the hallways saw his demeanour abruptly
soften. He approached the woman tentatively, as if afraid of disturbing her
grief.

Skinner hesitated, then eased himself down beside his agent. "Agent Scully,"
he said softly, fearing the worst.

Scully's head popped up at his gentle inquiry, startled. She calmed when she
saw who sat beside her. Skinner could see by her red-rimmed eyes she had
been crying. He felt a knot of horror clench his gut. Of all the times
Mulder had been hospitalized, of all the times he had faced death, Skinner
had never, ever, seen Scully cry.

"Is he, is..." He choked on the words, wanting and not wanting to know.

Scully looked at him, uncomprehending. "He's still in surgery," she answered
dejectedly, her gaze returning to her hands. "He's lost a lot of blood."

"What happened?"

Scully refused to meet his gaze. "Darryl Wayne Hargrave happened," she
muttered.

Skinner was confused. Hargrave was dead. Despite fingerprints that shouldn't
have existed, that was incontrovertible fact. Fingerprints that had allowed
him to call the case an X-File, when the real reason he'd assigned Mulder to
the case was for his profiling expertise and his familiarity with the m.o.
Knowing Mulder would have fought against the case otherwise, he'd patted
himself on the back for outwitting the agent. Now he felt his cheeks burn
with shame over the deception. He'd known what Hargrave had done to Mulder;
he should have realized the case would have uneasy resonances for his agent.
Should have known how precarious Mulder's equilibrium was. He was paid to
know those things, damnit.

Hesitantly at first, then with growing steam, Scully related the events of
the last week. To Skinner's dismay, she put the blame for Mulder's condition
squarely on her shoulders. "I shouldn't have doubted him," she said, her lip
quivering.

"Scully," he admonished, "what you were thinking was reasonable. *I* was the
one who knew about Mulder's experience with Hargrave. *I* should have never
put Mulder on the case."

It was telling, he thought, that she did not disagree with him about his
culpability, only her own. "I should have known better," she insisted. "He
was right about Modell, about Linda Bowman...."

"And nearly got taken in by them both," Skinner reminded her. "Maybe we're
both to blame," he conceded. "But that isn't going to help Mulder. How is
he?"

"No one's told me anything yet," Scully admitted. "They've got a lot of
sewing up to do." A lot, she repeated to herself silently.

It suddenly hit him: Scully had just told him a ghost was responsible for
the murders of three children and Mulder's brush with death. A ghost with a
vengeful agenda. He'd seen too many bizarre reports cross his desk to
dismiss Scully's contention outright. But he, too, remembered the Pincus
case, and had to wonder if either of his agents were operating at full
capacity, especially after the stress of recent events. Could there be an
explanation for the events Scully had witnessed; could their copycat have
made Mulder his target as Hargrave had? Scully was right: such things were
far easier to believe than a killer returned from the dead. Just how the
hell was he supposed to protect his agent from a ghost?

************

Location Unknown

Mulder blinked, staring up at the starlit canopy. He sat up, noticing
without surprise that he seemed to be suspended in space, stars all around
him. He'd been here before, he remembered, on the bridge between life and
death, while Albert Hosteen had performed the Blessing Way ceremony,
petitioning the spirits on his behalf. Then he'd been aware of beings
surrounding him; he'd spoken to his father, to Deep Throat. Now, however, it
seemed that he was alone. A throat clearing behind him disabused him of that
notion.

"Albert!" Mulder broke into a smile at seeing the Navajo elder. The shaman
had died while Mulder was battling the voices the alien artifact had
awakened in his head. Yet somehow, he had managed to send his spirit to
comfort Scully, to pray with her.

The smile soon turned into a frown. "Am I dead?"

Albert answered serenely, "Not yet."

"Then why am I here?"

"This is a place of your choosing," Albert answered. "I prefer someplace a
little more...earthbound."

Mulder stared about him in awe. The endless starry vista had been replaced
by a wooded canopy. A small fire glowed cheerily, and Mulder could hear a
brook babbling in the distance. Albert sat by the fire, gesturing him to do
the same. The shaman stirred the coals, while Mulder basked in the silence.
It was peaceful here. It occurred to him that peace was something he'd
seldom known in his life. And if he *was* dead, well, this was a nicer
afterlife than any he had envisioned.

"You are not dead," Albert repeated. "Not yet, anyway."

"Then what's going on?" Mulder asked, without any real urgency. He frowned,
remembering. "I saw Hargrave. He killed me, I thought." His gaze swept over
his unmarked torso.

"He almost did," Albert conceded. "And he still might. You cannot fight the
evil in your world, you must defeat him in his."

"How?" Mulder asked, but Albert and his surroundings were becoming dim and
he suddenly found himself -


- in a disturbingly familiar warehouse; tied down with Hargrave over him
with the ever-present knife. It was his nightmares given life; he could
believe he had gone back in time, forced by cruel fate to relive the most
horrifying moments of his life. He heard Hargrave cackle with glee as the
blade lanced his flesh, just as it had eleven years ago.

The pain helped him focus. "You're not real," he ground out. "You're dead.
None of this is real."

"Wrong, *Fox*," Hargrave answered cheerfully. "This *is* real. You belong to
me now. You always did. *I* make the rules here." The knife bit into him
again. "Doesn't this feel real?"

It did, Mulder had to admit as he stifled a scream. Just as real as it had
felt eleven years ago. But this time there was no one to save his ass - he
didn't think this was a place Scully would be able to find.

I'm sorry, Scully, he apologized silently.

"The kids were fun," Hargrave went on dreamily, lost in the enticing aroma
of thick red blood. "But this...this is better." He leered at Mulder. "It
was easy to break them, to taste their fear. It's sweet, did you know that?
Sweet and hot, like sex...." He laughed, a mad cackling that made 
Mulder's gorge rise. "But this is more challenging, more satisfying."
Hargrave's hands dropped to his groin, stroking himself through his jeans,
his eyes closed. "You...you're different. Your fear tastes different.
More mature. Full bodied." His eyes opened, grinning madly. "Like a fine,
red wine, Fox." The killer tossed his head back. "I've been dreaming about
having you again for the past eleven years." He sighed. "Intoxicating."

He looked down at the agent. "What, nothing to say, Fox? You weren't nearly
so quiet last time we met."

"Would it make any difference?" Mulder struggled to keep his voice steady,
struggled not to let his captor know how terrified he was of what was to
come. He recalled how he'd tried to reason with Hargrave eleven years ago,
using all of his profiling skills to stay alive until he could be found -
deliberately and consciously prolonging his suffering in hopes of rescue.
Until he finally hadn't cared anymore.

Mulder tried not to shudder as the knife caressed his chest - just teasing
this time - a thin line of blood revealing the knife's path.

"No, it wouldn't," the killer admitted, surveying his handiwork. The blade
was honed to razor-sharpness - Mulder barely felt it penetrate his skin. It
was the fire the blade left behind in its wake that made his nerve endings
scream. And yet, he knew with certain dread that it was going to get worse.
Much worse.

The knife descended again, deeper, and Mulder bit his lip to keep from
crying out. He could taste his blood now. Hargrave grinned. "You won't be
quiet long, Fox," he promised maliciously. "Oh no. You'll be screaming for
me in no time. Then we'll have some fun."

The blade flashed and the world tilted again....

....and he was standing free, blood dripping from his wounds. Hargrave's
voice echoing around him.

"I've thought of something even more fun. Let's have a Fox hunt! Guess who's
the Fox?" Hargrave laughed uproariously.

"Real original," Mulder muttered, wondering for the nth time why the hell
his parents had stuck him with that name. And why every serial killer on the
planet thought going on a Fox hunt was hilariously funny.

It didn't look like running was going to be an option here - not if he was
where he suspected. His physical body, he surmised, was probably in a
hospital somewhere, or perhaps still bleeding itself out on his couch. It
looked like the only way he was going to be able to get back was to take
Hargrave out - however he was supposed to do that. Albert had indicated it
was possible to defeat Hargrave - but how? Was it possible to "kill"
Hargrave here and banish him to wherever he was supposed to have gone?
Escape, even if it were possible, wouldn't be enough, would it? Hargrave
would just find him again, kill more innocents. No. It had to be done here.
He had to kill Hargrave. Whatever the outcome - it ended here. Spurred into
motion, Mulder silently slipped into the shadows, searching for anything he
might use as a weapon.

A broken length of two-by-four met his needs nicely. He crept through the
dim warehouse on silent feet, doing his best, by sheer force of will, to
ignore the persistent fire in his wounds and the slow leak of his blood.
Damn, he hated this. Hargrave could be anywhere. He pondered a moment.
Hargrave seemed to be able to manipulate this environment at will, perhaps
Mulder could do the same? "There's no place like home," he muttered,
picturing Scully's face, resisting the urge to tap his heels together three
times. Nada. What he wouldn't give for a pair of ruby slippers right now.

A noise from up ahead sent his heart racing. He gripped his makeshift bat
tightly. He took a step forward.

And nearly dropped his weapon.

Blood oozed from hundreds of wounds, and Mulder could barely recognize the
boy from the warehouse - was it only two days ago? - standing in front of
him, strips of flesh hanging from his face, mouth bared in a sickly smile.
He shuffled toward Mulder, arms outstretched.

Mulder backed away from the apparition. He swung around in a panic, intent
on beating a hasty retreat, the memory of New Year's Eve zombies surging to
the forefront of his mind. He whirled....

....straight into Hargrave's waiting arms.

"That was just too easy," the killer grinned.

******

GUMC

Scully sat by Mulder's bedside, her fingers interlaced around his, mindful
of the many tubes and leads that kept her partner alive. Her fault. HER
FAULT. If only she had listened to him, if only she had believed, he
wouldn't be here now. She should have insisted on staying with him, paying
no heed to the fact she had no idea how to deal with a ghost.

He was slipping away from her, and there was nothing to negate her
culpability. She snuffled, barely noticing the tears falling down her
cheeks. It had been bad enough, all those times, thinking she was going to
lose him. But the feelings between them had been unspoken then.
Now...now.... She wondered how her mother had borne it, losing Ahab after so
many years. She couldn't possibly conceive of losing Mulder; not when they
had already weathered more crises than most people would in a dozen
lifetimes. After prehistoric wood mites, carnivorous fungi, mothmen, not to
mention allegedly alien viruses...Mulder just could not be felled by a
mundane serial killer. Even if that killer was a ghost. He just couldn't.

She stroked his hair back from his forehead again, although, like her
partner, it hadn't moved from her last ministrations. "Come back to me,
Mulder. I need you," her voice hitched, husky with repressed emotion. "I
love you."

******

Location Unknown

The blow took Mulder by surprise; he grunted in pain and fell to the dirty
floor. The boy had vanished, dissolving into thin vapor like the smoke from
Cancerman's Morley. The agent managed to retain his grip on the two-by-four
and swung it at his attacker. Unfortunately, his position robbed him of
leverage, and Hargrave evaded the blow with a laugh.

"I really thought you'd be more of a challenge," he taunted. His knife
flashed, and Mulder howled at the pain erupting in his arm. The wood dropped
to the cement floor, leaving Mulder defenseless. He knelt at Hargrave's
feet, his body sapped of strength, clutching his bleeding arm. As he looked
up at his adversary, at the bloody knife clutched in Hargrave's hand, he
understood that he had finally lost. There would be no miraculous rescue as
there had been eleven years ago. He was spent; there was nothing left. He
closed his eyes briefly, a silent prayer to a God he wasn't certain he
believed in, to let Scully know he had tried. That he had fought against
this fate. He opened his eyes then, determined to see death coming for him
when it did. So many times he had teased death, danced around it, cheated
it...it seemed, finally, death was about to receive its due. His head raised
defiantly, he struggled to his feet to meet his fate. There was still pride,
when all was said and done. And though he knew from bitter experience he
would beg and plead before his ordeal was over, he would cling to pride, and
the memory of *her*, as long as he could.

The kick threw him off balance and he landed hard. The breath whooshed out
of him and he tried to scamper out of the way while regaining his breath.
Another kick caught him in the side and he heard the sickening crack of
ribs. His side erupted in a cacophony of pain and he bit his lip to keep
from screaming. He was still struggling to regain his feet when the next
blow caught him on the side of the head. He was flung on his back, arms
spread wide as if accepting crucifixion. Through dazed eyes he could see the
steel glint of the knife, and he knew his end was at hand. A core of
stubbornness refused to succumb, however, and he vainly tried to force his
body to respond to his commands.

He was spent: blood loss, fatigue, shock and shattered ribs overrode his
mind's urgent commands. Glazed eyes looked up at Hargrave poised above him,
his face contorted into an inhuman leer. He turned away then, unwilling, at
the last, to witness his death. He felt the pain from a long way off,
recognizing his mind had already begun to protect him from his body's
trauma, from the inevitable conclusion. He could be grateful for that. His
thoughts, of course, turned to Scully, in those final moments. He hoped she
would not blame herself, that she would be able to get on with her life. He
thought then, of course she would, she was stronger than he, after all.
Thoughts of her sent warm thrills through his body, an effective
counteragent to the cold of bloodloss.

It took a moment for him to realize what he was seeing: a warm glow of light
just beyond his right arm. He had the presence of mind to wonder if this was
the tunnel of light reported by near-death experiencers, but then it dawned on
him
that the light was warm red, not white. It exuded a familiar
warmth...


Fascinated by the light, he found he could stretch his arm enough to reach
it. It burned brightly, but with comforting warmth, cupped in the palm of his
hand, the same shade as Scully's hair, he mused, idly wondering if blood
loss was affecting his perceptions. Amazingly, the light reminded him of his
partner, as if he held her essence in his hand.

Fascinated he might have been by his discovery, but not too fascinated to
notice how Hargrave drew away from the glow. Mulder held the light in his
hand, regarding it thoughtfully. At length, Hargrave gave him a malicious
grin, and the knife began to sweep down.

Where he found the strength, Mulder couldn't say. But as Hargrave leaned
forward to deliver the killing blow, Mulder swept his arm, cradling the ball
of light, into the killer's face. Hargrave screamed piteously, clawing at
his skin. Warm, inviting red turned abruptly to flaming crimson, Mulder's
midnight nightmares of fire given horrific life. The light bit into
Hargrave, gradually devouring him; his skin glowing incandescently,
obscenely lit like the victim of a nuclear holocaust. Behind him, Mulder
could just make out a dark shadow, hungry for flesh. As Hargrave's screams
rang in Mulder's consciousness, he barely had the cognizance to reflect that
Hargrave's deeds had caught up to him at last, that the dark shadow would
exact the restitution that the killer had avoided.

Mulder's surroundings began to grow dim, and the agent couldn't say whether
he would wake or not. "I love you, Scully," he was able to mutter before the
darkness consumed him utterly, hoping somehow she'd heard his words.

Light, when it burned his retinas, was an assault of red - which eventually
resolved itself into a veil of titian tresses and brilliant blue eyes.
Scully's words said "Welcome back," but her eyes communicated much more. He
smiled tiredly in acknowledgement before gravity claimed his eyelids. All
was now right in Fox Mulder's world.

******

Tag

Around a campfire - somewhere

Albert Hosteen nodded to himself, tossing another log on his little
campfire. He lifted his eyes to the silent figures circling him, just out of
the light cast by the fire.

He nodded to them gravely. "Soon," he told them. "Soon the FBI man will meet
his destiny."

*******

Finis