"Too Close"(1/2)

Date: 26 Dec 1995

"Too Close"(1/2)
An X-Files Story by Jennifer Lyon
Jenni10647@aol.com
jennyann@ix.netcom.com

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
--
Disclaimer: The X-Files and the characters therof belong to
Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and FOX network. The
remainder of this story is mine. Consider this taking place
somewhere in the third season. I owe a big thank you to a few
people: my editor, Debbie Hewett; Ann Vanderlaan and Lynne
(Buddyed) for biblical information; and Suzanne (Ecksphile),
Ray (Gylford), Pat (DiRisha) for reading this for me in
progress and encouraging me to finish it. Finally, since I have
never been to the FBI and have little knowledge of its internal
workings, I am exersizing some fictional license, as I am
towards certain parts of the Christian religion. No offense
meant to anyone's beliefs. The story is unrelated to any I have
previously written.
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Part One

Prologue
FBI Academy
Quantico Virginia

Special Agent Trainee Ezekiel Withers leaned back in
the uncomfortable auditorium chair, his mind barely noticing
the creak of the wood as he shifted his weight. All his attention
was focused on the tall, slender man standing on the dais and
the soft, but penetrating voice that spoke rhythmically,
punctuated with sharp stops. The dark hair was slicked back,
shimmering wet under the spotlight, yet already disarrayed,
bangs sliding forward, a few loose pieces curling around his
neck. Bright red spots on the speaker's tie were the only flash
of color in his dark suit, the glimpses of the white shirt stark
against the black of the jacket. But that red was a vivid echo of
the gore on the screen, almost seeming to be a reflection rather
than innate to the silken cloth.
An image of a panther Ezekiel had once seen in the
zoo flashed before his eyes, the big dark shape moving around
its enclosure with the same sparity of motion, the same fluidity
of muscle and bone as the man pacing the platform. Energy,
power, simmered below a surface which held the apparent calm
of a pond on a clear summer day, barely hinting of the secrets
trapped within its depths.
A discordant voice broke through the spell the
lecturer wove and Ezekiel jerked in his seat, as though waking
from a dream. His pen dropped from his hand with a loud
clatter, and he bent to pick it up, grateful for an excuse to hide
the blush that crept into his cheeks as others turned in his
direction. Picking up the pen, he nonchalantly settled back into
his chair as though nothing had happened, and was glad to see
the guest lecturer's bright eyes focused on another student
while he spoke.
Question, then answer, then back into the flow of the
talk. Slide after slide of horror made subject, death turned into
bare fact. And yet always with a certain reverence, a softening
in that rich voice, a haunted look in those burning eyes. There
was a sense that this man never forgot the humanity of the piles
of ragged, torn flesh displayed on the screen. A feeling
exhibited, perhaps, only by a downturn of the mobile mouth, a
tightening of the jaw, a flicker of emotion across the eyes.
Gone in an instant - but there for one who took the time to
look. And Ezekiel looked, with unwavering attention.
Absorbing it all.
And when the lecture was over, the volley of question
and answer done, the painfully thin, almost gawky young man
was one of the last to leave. Silently getting to his feet and
weeding his way through the narrow aisle, he might not have
noticed two of his classmates to his right if they had not
suddenly burst out into raucous laughter. Like a startled deer,
his head turned, brown eyes wide, staring.
Realizing they had caught his attention, one spoke
loudly to his companion. "Well, they say Spooky is supposed
to be the best in the Bureau at solving these psych cases. Guess
it takes one to catch one." With sidelong glances at the man
below, apparently involved in collecting slides, the two left the
room together, leaving Ezekiel standing frozen in the aisle. But
a crawling feeling on the back of his neck told him he was
being watched, and he turned to meet a pair of hazel eyes
burning from the stage below.
Everything closed down into that moment, the
distance between them shrinking into nothingness. Those eyes
bored into his soul, questioning, probing, weighing, sorting...
and then they were gone. The connection was broken abruptly.
The lecturer turned on his heels and was gone, leaving Ezekiel
standing alone in the room with nothing but a memory of those
green-tinged eyes.
- - - - -

Memphis Tennessee
3 months later

It was a massive manhunt. Nearly fifty of the Bureau's
men drawn off of various other assignments, now crowded into
the small environs of the Memphis office. All due to one man.
If you could call him that.
Fox Mulder grimaced at his partner, then took a
resigned bite of the semi-stale donut in his hand. Powder flaked
down across his dark sleeve, and he shook his hand absently,
his mind wandering. The local ASAC was droning on across
the room, but Mulder had learned long ago how to let one
small part of his mind act as a tape recorder, while the rest was
busy elsewhere. Simply put, they weren't going to catch this
particular psycho without more bloodshed, and most certainly
not by the kind of dogged, blanket-the-town approach this
particular FBI bureaucrat preferred. No, despite a grip on
reality that was tenuous at best, this killer was smart. Very very
smart.
Fifteen dead women, including the governor's niece,
all strangled, mutilated and then abandoned. Crosses, dozens of
them, little ones, big ones, had been carved with meticulous
detail across practically every spare inch of the victims' bodies.
Consecrating them perhaps. Sending them off to Jesus - wasn't
that always the reason? The perfect rationalization for the
adrenaline rush caused by dealing death with a kitchen knife -
sending them to the glory of God. An angel told him to do it,
therefore he was not to be held responsible. For the chosen of
the Lord was only doing what the majestic voice in his head
had told him to do.
Another bite of the donut, then Mulder gave up.
Dropping it on the desk beside him, he brushed the bits of
white sugar off his hands and legs, then abruptly froze. An
image flashed in front of his mind. One of the victims, spread
out as an offering on the cold concrete. And then another and
another. Patterns of crosses. Patterns...
Could it really be so simple?
Suddenly he was on his feet, striding across the room,
ignoring his partner's call, the mix of confusion and jeering
amusement from the other agents, as he pushed them out of the
way. Another girl was missing, and Mulder knew her time was
short. Too short to play games of protocol.
"Agent Mulder...what the hell do you think you're
doing?" yelled the regional ASAC as Mulder shoved him aside
and reached for a large black magic marker sitting below the
wall-sized map of Memphis. Giving the man an elbow in the
gut when he tried to reach for Mulder's arm to stop him,
Mulder began to systematically replace each site of death with
a cross. Some little, some big. Each a copy of the one that had
sat alone on the victim's forehead. The rest of the bodies had
been completely covered with crosses of various sizes, often
overlapping, but each had had one single, lonely cross branded
onto the space just above the eyes.
A swell of whispers broke across the room, voices
rising and falling. Snatches of conversation caught at the edge
of his awareness, "What is he doing....Spooky's gone around
the bend...wait, maybe he knows what those crosses
mean...Connolly's gonna fry his ass..." And above them all, the
murmur of his partner's voice calmly trying to soothe the
ASAC's ruffled feathers.
Finally, all fifteen were there, fifteen black crosses
disfiguring the bright map of the city like giant black spiders.
And three more empty spaces, not boxed in. Grabbing the red
marker, Mulder circled them with broad, bloody bull's eyes.
Then he stabbed at their centers, leaving a splatter of red marks
behind.
"There...The next victim will be found in one of these
three places. There or there or there."
- - - - -

It had taken some convincing, but desperate men will
try any remedy, and they had the governor himself breathing
down their necks. So six agents were detailed to the sites, with
one more young agent serving as a connection point, wired
into a telephone and a computer.
Mulder and Scully flitted from site to site, his tension
growing. "He'll kill her soon, Scully. And he needs to get her
on site to do it right."
"I know Mulder. I know," she would say. Scully
always supportive, always understanding, even when he
reached beyond her and pulled knowledge from some place he
couldn't describe, some place deep within, a meeting place for
memory and consciousness and unconsciousness, all circling
each other until a connection was made.
But the hours dripped away, and he took to standing
below the map, staring at it as though it would somehow
speak. Somehow tell him what he had still missed. What he
could do to save the life of the young woman held captive by a
monster.
"Sir...?" a tentative voice spoke to his left. He ignored
it, but it spoke again. More insistent.
"Sir?"
"What is it?" he barked, not turning his eyes away.
"I thought you might like some coffee and something
to eat." That, and the smell of the thick dark fluid wafting up
from the cup in the young man's hand, finally broke through,
and Mulder turned with an apologetic half-smile.
"Yeah - thanks," he said ruefully. Taking the mug and
the plate, he turned and perched on the edge of the desk, and
then looked up at the young agent for the first time. The face
was narrow and pointed, straight ash-blond hair framing a pair
of wide brown eyes. There was something familiar about the
face and the way he stood, like a startled deer about to bolt
back into the woods, that tugged at Mulder's memory.
His mouth pursing around the edge of the steaming
mug, Mulder tried to bring the memory into focus.
"Have we met before?"
"Uhn...no, sir, I don't think so." The voice was as
hesitant as the face, but there was a strength underlying it.
Mulder knew the boy wouldn't have made it into the Bureau
without something going for him.
"Fox Mulder," he introduced himself quietly, waiting
for the response.
"Yes. I mean, I'm Zeke Withers."
Mulder nodded, then took a bite of the sandwich and
found himself smiling as he chewed and swallowed. Unless he
missed his guess, this was chicken salad and prepared the way
he liked it, with mustard instead of mayonnaise. Scully had
teased him often about that propensity, and the pleasant
memories suddenly made him aware that his partner was no
longer in the room. His smile easing into a frown, he glanced
anxiously around him.
"Where's Scully?"
"She went down to admin to pick up a fax from
Quantico. The latest autopsy results just came in."
"Good." Mulder took another bite, then looked up
sharply as the phone rang, jarring him into sudden motion.
Swallowing, then chasing it with a gulp of the hot coffee, he
watched as Ezekiel reached for the phone.
Moments later, the young man was handing out the
receiver to him. Mulder grabbed it, hardly noticing as their
fingers brushed, and then was too busy listening to notice the
flood of color that lit up across the other agent's pale skin.
"Yes, yes... We'll be there..." he glanced his watch, "in
fifteen minutes. Get the place surrounded, I want every
possible access blocked."
Then he dropped the receiver and took off, nearly
leaping around desks and chairs, a predator who had finally
caught the smell of his prey.
- - - - -

Mulder's brainstorm had paid off. It still took several
tense hours of stand-off between the psycho and the FBI's local
hostage negotiators before it exploded in sudden, final
violence, but at long last, it was over. The girl was bloody and
in shock, but alive. And the Memphis slasher was DOA, his
body ripped apart by the bullets from nearly half-a-dozen FBI
guns.
Mulder and Scully retired to their hotel rooms, Scully
insistent that he try to get the sleep he had neglected for the
past few days. He had shrugged but gone quietly, knowing full
well she would not rest until he did. That familiar, stern look in
her eyes would brook no argument.
Besides, the ASAC was in his element cleaning up the
mess, talking to the governor on the phone, lining up a press
conference. This one would look good for the FBI, even
though it had taken them 15 deaths to catch the killer. In the
end all that mattered was a front-page story with a picture of a
live victim.
Ezekiel found himself overloaded with paperwork, or
at least the computer version thereof, as they began shutting
the operation down. Normally, he would not have minded in
the least, loving the work itself. When he was at his computer,
he felt in control of the world. It was freedom, access, a place
where he could outsmart any of these loud arrogant men
without a second thought. Well, all perhaps, but one.
And thus he found himself distracted from his work.
His eyes darted from face to face, form to form, looking for
one tall, lanky but graceful man, with a flash of red by his side.
But neither the man nor his female partner appeared. So
Ezekiel tried harder, watching the screens flow from one to
another. Typing almost by rote, turning scribbled notes into
smooth easy text.
Yet his soul was elsewhere, and snatches of
conversation jarred at him. The ASAC himself and another of
his buddies came wandering by, utterly unaware - or uncaring -
of the young agent who sat nearby at his console.
"Looks like Spooky pulled off another one." The
second agent said. "Who would have believed that writing a
bunch of crosses on a map would find this psycho?"
The ASAC frowned. "So he had one good guess - I'm
not going to give him credit for that. Our men would have
spotted that location anyway. It was good solid FBI procedure
that solved this case, not one man's hallucinations."
"Yeah, but that map of crosses he made - it was an
exact replica of the one found in the slasher's basement. It was
creepy."
ASAC Connolly snorted. "So he got lucky for once.
Face it - the man is an embarrassment to the Bureau. For God's
sake, when he isn't messing with someone else's case, he's out
chasing UFO's."
The second agent shrugged. "Perhaps, but he is good
at catching these psychos. It's like he knows what they're
thinking." He shivered slightly.
The ASAC frowned then bellowed out a laugh. "Yeah
- well let's hope Washington keeps its pet crazy on a tight
leash. I'll be glad to have him out of my hair. He makes my skin
crawl."
Striding away, the two men did not notice the silent
young man they left behind, his eyes focused somewhere below
the computer screen in front of him. His hand was clenched so
tightly on the mouse that his knuckles had turned white, the
pads of his fingertips burning red. His lungs held air - held -
then released in a loud gasp as soon as they were out of
earshot. And neither noticed his eyes following them as they
stopped to exchange pats on the back with another agent, then
with broad smiles, strode out to meet the incoming press. To
take credit for an arrest that wasn't theirs to claim.
- - - - -

As they were about to separate into their adjacent
hotel rooms, a stray thought caught Mulder's attention and he
called out her name, "Oh, Scully..."
"What Mulder?" she sighed, leaning around the door
to peer at him underneath a wing of auburn hair.
He grinned a little sheepishly. "Just wanted to thank
you for sending me the sandwich."
"Sandwich?"
"Yeah - you know, my favorite kind. Chicken mustard
salad."
"Ugh, Mulder. I don't know how you stay alive on the
stuff you eat."
"Hey - it's GOOD!" he insisted with a bright grin.
"Night Scully." And then he was gone.
"Good night Mulder," she replied, gently closing her
own door behind her. As she tumbled into bed, hardly taking
time to remove her shoes and stockings, she wondered briefly
why he thought she had sent him a sandwich. But she was too
tired to care, and no sooner did her head hit the pillow than she
was fast asleep.
- - - - -

FBI Headquarters
Washington DC.
3 weeks later

It must have been fate. Less than a month after the
Memphis slasher had been caught, ASAC Connolly was
promoted and transferred to the organized crime section of the
FBI, housed in Washington DC. The first time Ezekiel saw him
in the hall of the Hoover building, the young computer expert
felt an extraordinary sense of rightness. It was as though a
sudden calm had descended upon him, bringing with it a clarity
of vision he had never before experienced. He wondered if this
was what HE felt when he made one of those brilliant, intuitive
leaps of logic that left the rest of the Bureau lost in his wake.
This narrowing of focus onto one target, the knowledge that all
was suddenly as it was meant to be.
But time for thought could come later, now was time
for action. Slipping unnoticed past clusters of dark-suited men,
Ezekiel tracked Connolly to his lair, then found his way back to
his own desk two floors below. Waiting the next two days was
one of the hardest things he had ever done, but the
groundwork must be laid properly. And with steady typing, the
machines gave him what he needed, piece by piece, as they
always did.
Mulder and Scully were safely away, pursuing a serial
killer in Cleveland. Connolly's assignment and present case-
work was there, easily accessed, easily followed. The arrogant
senior agent's new living quarters were a little harder to find -
though not much so. And the data on his car soon followed.
Bureau security recorded the entrances and exits of its agents
from the building, and Connolly was a man of habit. Some
judicious conversation with a secretary flustered by a
dysfunctional PC and Ezekiel knew every step that man would
take.
Preparing to leave a short time before he knew
Connolly would check out, he found himself sitting at his desk,
nearly frozen with fright. So many 'what if's' buzzing through
his mind. So many possibilities unfolding before his dilated
eyes. His body tensed like a coiled elastic, he reached into the
desk and found his Walkman. Soon the familiar, rich tones
were falling on his ears, wrapping him in satin, soothing his
anxieties, restoring his purpose.
It was time.
- - - - -

The underground FBI parking garage was always
dark, even on the brightest of days. And on a dusky fall
evening, it was even colder than it looked. Connolly drew the
lapels of his overcoat closer together, heading towards his car
by habit, his mind elsewhere. Got to get a wiretap approved
tomorrow for that bastard Grimaldi, he thought. He knew that
sleaze was up to his ears in dirty laundry, even if he couldn't
quite put his finger on the proof yet. Just give him time...
"Aaaannngghhhh, what the hell?!!" He cried out as
something bulldozed into his side and knocked him against one
car only to bounce against another and slide into the small
space in-between. Twisting onto his side, automatically
reaching for his gun, he paused as the face of his assailant came
into focus under the dull yellow glow of the ceiling light.
"Watch where you're going!" he growled, his hand
moving away from his gun to help lever himself off the floor.
But before he could get up past one knee, a sudden sharp pain
struck him between his ribs. His eyes widened as he clutched at
his chest, finding the steel knife handle still there. Blood
gurgled out of the corner of his mouth as he tried to speak, his
hand curling around the hilt, fingers convulsively opening and
closing. Then he toppled sideways and lay still.
His assailant freed the weapon from his body, then
stood over him, a thin dark shadow in the faint light. The slight
figure moved swiftly, turning the blade and bringing it down
hard on the dead man's wrist. Strike, and strike again, but it
still took some careful sawing to break the hand free of the
arm. Finally it was done, and the severed appendage was
dropped into a plastic evidence bag, sealed away and casually
pocketed in the long black overcoat.
Two quick steps away, then a sudden pause, the
stained knife blade lifted out from below the coat and studied
for a single breath. Then a glance backwards, eyes dark pools
in a narrow face, followed by a rapid, sweeping motion - turn,
down, wrist flipped one way, then another. Pause. And a look
of satisfaction. Now the world would know. The thief marked
by his deed, by bloody cross and ancient punishment. Justice
was done and the one who must be protected was safe forever
from this one's hatred and greed.
-----------------------
end Part One
------------------------

===========================================================================

From: jennyann@ix.netcom.com (Jennifer Lyon)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: NEW: "Too Close" 2/8
Date: 26 Dec 1995 22:21:36 GMT

"Too Close"
An X-Files Story by Jennifer Lyon
Jenni10647@aol.com
jennyann@ix.netcom.com

X-Files Division
Next Day

Mulder jabbed at the keyboard angrily. The computer
squealed in reply, then sat sullenly. Unresponsive.
'Error. Unable to find components of winword.exe.
Check all associated libraries.'
"Damn!" he muttered, not noticing the door as it
opened and closed behind him.
Click on 'ok' and then try again. Buzz and whir, then
squeal. "Error...unable to find...."
"Damn, damn, damn...!" The frustrated agent wasn't
even yelling, in fact he was practically whispering, but that
didn't stop his partner from leaning over his shoulder and
chiding him with amusement.
"Watch your language, Mulder."
He simply frowned at her, his high forehead crinkling
up into tight furrows as he looked back at the recalcitrant
computer screen. "Don't suppose you know what this thing did
with my word-processing program, do you?"
Scully chuckled lightly, pushing at the back of his
chair to give herself room to slip into the corner. Perching
herself on the edge of the desk, she glanced at the computer
screen.
"The real question is, what did YOU do to it?"
"I didn't do anything!!!" Mulder protested. "All I did
was turn it on and try to go into Word so that I could write my
report. Skinner is going to have my ass in a sling if I don't get it
to him today."
"I told you that you should have started it sooner."
He grimaced, though his eyes brightened as they
always did looking at her. Definitely a sight for sore eyes, he
thought appreciatively, though he held in the comments that
came instantly to mind. There were some things you just didn't
say to a woman with a gun - especially a woman who had
already shot you once.
Scully saw the green-tinted glint of growing
amusement in his eyes, which had been almost pure black with
anger a moment before, and only barely resisted asking him for
his thoughts. However, she was too tired from the last case to
feel like sparring with him, and settled for simply dropping the
latest news in his lap.
"By the way, did you hear what happened to
Connolly?"
"No," Mulder replied with little interest, still glaring at
the computer as though he could make it work out of sheer
will-power. "But don't tell me, let me guess..." He leaned back
in his chair, pretending to think, then the corners of his mouth
quirked upwards. "He got one hemorrhoid too many and bled
to death in the executive washroom?"
Scully sighed dramatically, shaking her head. "No,
Mulder. He was murdered in the parking garage."
That got Mulder's full attention, and she imagined she
could actually hear his cervical spine crack as his head spun in
her direction.
"Murdered? How? When?"
"About three days ago. He was killed almost instantly
by a knife-thrust through one lung and his right ventricle. The
knife was yanked free and he bled to death, though not before
his killer sliced off his right hand at the wrist and carved a cross
into his forehead."
Mulder was on his feet by then, pacing the room like a
caged tiger, his controlled yet frenetic movements a mirror for
the wheels spinning in his brain.
"A cross? But the Memphis slasher..."
"Is dead and buried, Mulder." She eyed him with
prepared skepticism, ready and waiting, but he had already
moved past her.
"No, the slasher made thousands of crosses," he
looked at her for confirmation and she silently raised a single
finger. He nodded and continued as though he had not
stopped, "and he never removed a body part or sliced deeper
than a few inches. This one stabbed most of the way through
the chest..."
"Yes, almost out the back in fact. Must have been a
long knife, and it was slightly curved, almost like a scimitar."
"Who's handling the investigation?"
"Colton and Greenstein." Her mouth pursed as she
answered as though tasting something sour.
Mulder grimaced, then perched himself on the edge of
the desk facing her. "Let me guess, they think it was a
signature hit of some kind. Organized crime." His voice
dripped sarcasm.
Scully shrugged. "Well, he was working in that area
for the last month. It seems the most obvious answer."
"Sometimes the obvious answer isn't the right
answer..." He broke off in mid-sentence at a series of knocks
on the door. Leaping to his feet, Mulder went to the door and
opened it, glowering down at the young man standing in the
hallway, looking like he was trying to fade into the opposite
wall.
"Yes," Mulder barked, irritated at having his train of
thought interrupted.
"Agent Withers, sir. You requested technical help
from Operations, sir?" The kid barely squeaked out, but the
words drew out a bright, toothy flash of sunshine from the
taller agent. Mulder took Ezekiel by the arm and propelled him
into the cluttered room.
"Yes, about time! This damn computer somehow lost
the word-processor and I've got a report due in this
afternoon!"
Scully smiled at the obviously overwhelmed young
agent before going over to sit in her own chair at the other end
of the room. Mulder pushed Ezekiel into his old wooden chair
and jabbed at the computer screen. "It keeps saying it's missing
part of the program!"
Ezekiel took hold of the mouse, trying to keep his
hand from shaking in response to Mulder's breath coming hot
across the crown of his head. Click and click again - and the
same response from the computer.
"See!" Mulder cried in perverse triumph.
"Yes, sir," the computer expert replied. "Something
probably got deleted or damaged. Sometimes heat or static
buildup can cause problems like this. You haven't been doing
anything inside the computer have you? Like installing memory
or..."
"I didn't do anything to it, except turn it on." Mulder
stood back a step, watching as the young agent manipulated
the windows, bringing up both file manager and sysedit. "Can
you fix it?"
"Sure," Ezekiel swallowed hard, then turned to look
up into the hazel eyes burning down at him. "The quick fix is to
simply delete and reinstall winword, but I'd recommend letting
me take a look inside to check the hardware. If it is a bad disk
or loose connection, the problem will almost certainly
reoccur."
"How long?"
Ezekiel shrugged. "An hour or two - depends on what
the real cause is. Let me see if the reinstallation works first. Do
you have the disks?"
"The disks?" Mulder looked slightly sheepish.
"I...unh...I think I took them home, to install on my own PC..."
Ezekiel managed a slightly reassuring smile. "Don't
worry about it. I have the disks upstairs, and I can upgrade you
if necessary. Besides, I have equipment up there that might
help diagnose the cause of the error."
Mulder ran a hand through his short dark hair,
knocking loose several strands that slid stubbornly over his
temples. Ezekiel's eyes followed that hand, and those sliding
bangs with nervous attention, then flew back down to stare at
the computer screen. Mulder didn't notice the attention, his
mind running in other directions. "You're the expert," he
agreed. "Do what you think is best."
Then Mulder finally 'looked' at the young man
perched on the edge of his chair, and his eyes focused. "We've
met before haven't we?"
"Unh...yes, sir. In Memphis. I..."
"That's right. Did I ever thank you for the sandwich
and coffee?"
"That's ok, sir. You had more important things on
your mind."
"Still no excuse for bad manners. So thanks."
Ezekiel felt sure he was turning bright red, he could
feel the flush working its way up through his skin. Terrified he
was appearing a fool, he turned his back on Mulder and busied
himself with turning off and disconnecting the computer, every
move feeling obscenely clumsy.
Mulder held the door for him, casually asking if he
needed a hand taking it upstairs. Ezekiel couldn't bring himself
to gaze into those too-penetrating eyes, instead he murmured,
"no," and fled down the hallway with the computer, trailing a
loose cable like a tail.
Mulder paused for a moment, watching the retreating
agent, with a sick feeling curling through his stomach. Did they
all have to treat him like he had cooties? Sighing under his
breath, he closed the door behind him and turned to his
partner. "Ummm, Scully, I don't suppose you'd..."
"Let you borrow my laptop? I'm not sure I ought to
let you within five feet of it, Mulder." She leaned back into her
chair, her full lips curved into a gentle smile.
"Haha. Seriously, I'll owe you one." He thrust out his
full lower lip in an exaggerated appeal, causing her to shake
her head in pretend exasperation.
"OK - OK - but you don't owe me 'one', you owe me
dinner!"
"Done!"
- - - - -

X-Files Division
Later - Same Day

Trying to juggle Mulder's computer and knock at the
same time, Ezekiel was surprised when the door swung open
before he had a chance to tap on it. He blinked, then barely
controlled a sigh of mixed relief and disappointment as he came
face to face with Dana Scully. He never did well with women,
especially beautiful smart ones, and Scully...well, she simply
terrified him.
"Unnnh, I brought..."
"Oh," Scully looked up from the file she was reading
in one hand, empty coffee mug in the other. Her glasses
slipped down on her nose to give her a schoolmarm look.
"Mulder's computer. That was fast."
"Yes, Ma'am. It didn't take long."
Silence.
Then, she answered. "I think it would be best if you
set it up, if you don't mind. Safer not to let Mulder do it." Her
lips curved in a gentle smile, then she went past him, leaving
him space to enter the room. He darted inside and gratefully set
the machine down on the desk.
Mulder wasn't in the office and Ezekiel froze as he
realized he was alone. In here. He stole a moment to drink in
the room, trying to commit every inch of it to memory. His
stomach turned as his eyes fell on a lurid spread of crime scene
photos, then he found himself smiling at a large, slightly faded
poster.
"I Want to Believe," he read aloud. Yes, he thought.
Yes. His mother had worked hard to teach him the importance
of God's chosen ones, like the saints in her paintings and the
preacher who spit fire on the pulpit of their church. She had
taught him the names of each of the martyrs, repeated the
stories of each of the prophets over and over until they
pervaded his dreams and filled his waking hours. And though
he himself never would qualify to walk with God's hand upon
his shoulder, as his mother had so often bemoaned, he had at
last found one of the blessed ones to help and protect.
The sound of footsteps set him scurrying to reconnect
the computer, and he was bent down under the desk when
voices spoke in the doorway.
"Damn idiot!" That instantly recognizable, usually
silken voice was now vibrant with emotion, anger and
frustration clear in the bell-like tones.
The reply was warm and throaty, tinged with both
amusement and concern. "Who? Colton or Kavorski?"
"Both." Mulder pushed the door shut, then stripped
his jacket off and tossed it onto the top of the file cabinet.
"Though I meant Kavorski. Why bother to have me write a
profile if he's simply going to ignore it? It's not like I don't have
better things to do with my time. And besides, he's got the
wrong guy."
"Are you sure?" Scully sat back down at her desk,
taking a careful sip of the hot coffee.
Mulder perched himself on the edge of the desk
beside her, unbuttoning and rolling up his sleeves as he spoke.
"Of course I'm sure. This was a carefully planned and well-
executed set of killings. Time and care was taken with the
positions of the bodies. Look at the elaborate way in which the
bodies were displayed; these were hardly spur of the moment
kills. Also, the lack of an obvious break-in means that the killer
looked acceptable. He was able to gain entry without struggle
and the neighbors never noticed him. But the man Kavorski
arrested is a street case. Sure, he has a history of violent
behavior, but he is homeless, hasn't bathed in months, is
dressed in filthy salvation army rejects and has a beard Moses
would envy. AND he can barely put together a full sentence.
Hardly someone a suburban mother is going to let into her
nice, clean home or who could pass unmarked in an upper
middle class neighborhood."
"Did you tell Kavorski all this?"
Mulder gave her an aggrieved-innocent look. "Of
course I did."
"After you told him he was just plain wrong," Scully
stated. "Or was it just plain stupid." An auburn eyebrow arched
up over one sea-blue eye.
"I didn't tell him he was stupid." The eyebrow crept a
little higher.
Mulder sighed, shrugging his shoulders. "I told him he
was a fool."
Scully's reply was disrupted by a loud crack. Both
agents were on their feet and across the room before Ezekiel
could get himself to his feet.
"Are you all right?" Scully asked, kneeling down
beside him.
"Uh...yes, I'm fine. Sorry. I was just plugging in the
computer and I hit my head on the desk." The pain lancing
across the back of his eyes was enough of a distraction to stop
him from blushing. However, heat rushed up through his arm
to fill his entire body as Mulder took him by the elbow and
helped him to his feet. He settled gratefully into the creaky
wooden chair.
"Let me see," Scully ordered in a voice Mulder
instantly recognized as her 'doctor' mode.
"No, really, I'm ok," Ezekiel protested, giving the top
of his head one more rub. Mulder eyed the young agent with
sympathetic eyes as Scully insisted on not only looking, but
also probing at the wound.
"Well, you'll have a slight bump," she pronounced,
"but nothing too serious. Put a little ice on it if it swells."
"Yes Ma'am," he replied, grateful to pull away from
her examination. Behind him, Mulder grinned slightly at the
old-fashioned honorific. Scully threw him an irritated 'look',
knowing she was probably going to get Ma'am-ed by him for at
least a week.
Ezekiel missed the exchange over his shoulder, his
only concern was to get the computer going and get out of
there before he embarrassed himself further. Why, oh why, did
he always manage to screw things up? He had dreamt so often
of how things might go if he got to work with Mulder. But it
wasn't supposed to be like this. His stomach doing somersaults,
he switched on the computer and was rewarded with a series of
beeps and whirs. A few seconds later it had loaded Windows
and was waiting for further instructions. Pointing the mouse,
he clicked on MSWord and it buzzed happily as it brought up
the program screen.
"There," he said with some relief. "I reinstalled Word
and it should be functioning now. The hardware looks fine,
though I cleaned out some dust and rearranged the cables so
they would be a little less pinched. I think it was just a fluke of
some kind. Let me know if it happens again."
He was suddenly aware with every fiber of his being
of Mulder's close proximity as the taller man leaned over his
shoulder. "Great! I owe you one."
Ezekiel shrugged, hoping he didn't look as red as he
felt. "It was nothing really."
Mulder looked down at the pale young agent and
found himself wondering if he had ever been that wet behind
the ears. No, he thought sadly. He had always had a weight on
him, put there at the age of twelve, and it carried years with it.
Mulder had given up being young the day Samantha was taken
away.
Shaking those memories aside, Mulder focused on the
nervous young agent. Ezekiel did blush this time under the
weight of that stare, and almost missed the question when it
came.
"How'd you end up on repair duty?"
"Oh...Well, the techs were a bit overwhelmed this
week, so I offered to help out. I'm really good with computers,
and I don't mind the work." What Ezekiel didn't say was that
this was the only repair request he had taken, and only after
overhearing two of the techs arguing over who had to brave
the basement to deal with 'Spooky' Mulder. Occasionally it
amazed him how much time Bureau personnel spent in gossip,
and how much of that gossip was devoted to these two agents.
But then he only had to gaze into Mulder's glittering hazel eyes
to remember why. This man was a chosen one, born with the
mind of a prophet and the soul of a saint. The others reacted
out of fear, insecurity, and jealousy.
His increasingly angry thoughts were broken as
Mulder replied with a wry grin, "Better you than me! I don't
think they like me very much."
It took Ezekiel a moment to realize Mulder meant
computers, then he smiled anxiously. "I think they know when
you don't like them, or worse yet are afraid of them."
Mulder laughed appreciatively. "Yeah, reminds me of
my neighbor's dog. At least computers don't bite." He grimaced
ruefully.
Scully grinned. "Well, maybe you ought talk nicely to
it more often."
"Sure, sure." Mulder reached over to pat the top of
the monitor. "Nice computer. Good computer." A loud
electronic bell-like sound filled the room and Mulder jerked his
hand back as though he had been bitten. "What?"
"It's just the phone." Scully told him with obvious
amusement. Then she picked up the receiver and calmly spoke
her name into it.
Meanwhile, Ezekiel quietly assured Mulder that the
computer ought to be fine. "I'd better get back upstairs," he
added.
Mulder nodded and stood back to give him room to
walk past. "Thanks," he said distractedly as his attention was
drawn by Scully repeating "yes, sir" into the phone.
"No problem." Ezekiel stopped in the doorway to
look back at the tall dark man leaning expectantly down over
the petite fiery-haired woman, her face warm and vivid as she
looked up into his eyes.
"Skinner wants to see us. I think he has a case..." Her
voice followed the young agent as he slipped away into the
dark basement hallway.
- - - - -
FBI Headquarters
Three Days Later

Kavorski was easy prey. It took only seconds to catch
him around the throat with the wire after a quick stab at the
elevator's emergency hold button. The agent's gasp of surprise
was strangled instantly as the thin metal cut into his skin. Pull,
twist, tighten, hold.... and then release. The thick, heavyset
body crumpled in a heap to the floor.
Then the eye - that took a little longer. But it was late,
the building nearly empty, so there was no real hurry. Still, it
was difficult to control the surge of nausea when fluid gushed
out of the hole in a raspberry swirl of white and red to join the
puddle draining onto the floor from the open throat. But it was
done. Dropping the severed orb into an evidence bag, which
was then secured inside a yellow interoffice envelope, he next
sent the elevator sliding down to the basement.
One last triumphant glance at his handiwork, then he
stepped out into the dusty hallway. He could have walked this
pathway in his sleep, he had done it so often before. Around
the corner and two doors down, coming to a halt before the
thin wooden door with the small bronze plaque. Just one name
on it - the only one that mattered.
Pulling out two lumpy envelopes from inside his
raincoat's copious internal pockets, he carefully propped them
against the door. One more deep breath, a raspy catch in his
throat, then he tightened the raincoat around his slender frame
and hurried off down the hall. The stairwell was dark, but it led
to a rarely used side door. Out into the night, and no one to
know he had been there at all...
Except for the evidence left deliberately behind.
- - - - -
X-Files Division
5 Days Later

Mulder balanced his way down the cramped hallway,
hands awkwardly clutching the top of a paper sack and two
Styrofoam cups, the heat from them warming his cold fingers.
Several files were tucked haphazardly under his left arm,
squeezed against his side in the hope that they wouldn't fall out
until he had reached the sanctuary of his office. But already
three slick glossy photos were beginning the slow slide
backwards, the corners tipping dangerously towards the floor.
He gave one quick thought to what Skinner might say
to a request for a secretary, then dismissed it nearly as soon as
the idea arose. It was hard enough to convince the powers-
that-be to let two agents 'waste' their time on the X-Files. The
cost of paying a secretary even a minimal wage would be
beyond the pale. Besides, when it came down to it, the thought
of having someone else poking into HIS files, messing with his
carefully arranged system - or worse yet, trying to clean his
desk - made him cringe. He LIKED things the way they were.
Ah, finally the door. He might - just - make it. Trying
to press the two cups against his chest with one hand so that he
could free the other to open the door, he lost control of his
files and they tumbled to the floor. Folders flew open and
documents scattered across the dusty linoleum.
"Damn!" he muttered, abandoning the attempt to
open the door in favor of putting the coffee cups and paper bag
down carefully on the floor. As he began to retrieve the
scattered files, his eyes were caught by a pair of lumpy yellow
interoffice-mail envelopes. Forehead crinkling as he reached
out to add them to the pile of paper in his arms, he felt one
squish slightly under his fingertips.
"What the hell..." he murmured under his breath, a
sudden prescient feeling stabbing at his mind. That creepy
intuitive sense of knowing that had, even more than his
fascination with the paranormal, earned him the nickname
'Spooky' was setting off bells. Something was terribly wrong
here. His first instinct was to drop the envelopes, to pretend
irrationally that they weren't there. But the second impulse was
stronger. The need to KNOW.
With a sense of resignation he picked them up, added
them to the pile clutched in his arms, then opened the door. His
pulse rate accelerating, he patiently took the time to pile the
folders on his desk, the two mysterious envelopes resting
precariously on top, then retrieved the two cups and bag from
the hall.
Closing the door, he rested one cup in the small neat
area that was by definition Dana Scully's domain, then took the
other and the bag to his own desk. Taking the cover off the
cup he breathed on the hot beverage then took a small sip,
pursing his lips at the scalding heat, while his eyes never
wavered from the waiting envelopes.
Then, one hand delving into the paper sack to bring
out a powdery jelly donut, he closed the other around the
unlatched flap of the top envelope. Just as he took a bite of the
donut, causing bright red raspberry jelly to ooze out of the
resulting hole, he pushed his fingers into the envelope and
pulled on the plastic edge of the bag inside.
Using the back of the donut filled hand as leverage, he
removed the sheer plastic bag and held it up to the light. And
froze as the yellow glare of the ceiling light hit on the contents
plainly.
He was still sitting there, unmoving, when his partner
found him only a few short breaths later. One hand was
clutched around a leaky half-eaten jelly donut, red goo sliding
down over his fingers, the other clenched on the edge of a
plastic evidence bag, the bottom corner swelled out with the
unmistakable red-streaked white orb of a detached human eye.
----------------------------
end Part Two
-----------------------------

===========================================================================

From: jennyann@ix.netcom.com (Jennifer Lyon)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: NEW: "Too Close" 3/8
Date: 26 Dec 1995 22:24:11 GMT

"Too Close"
An X-Files Story by Jennifer Lyon
Jenni10647@aol.com
jennyann@ix.netcom.com

Office of the Assistant Director
Same Day

"There is no question, Sir," Agent Scully spoke with
the cool professional tones of an experienced forensic
pathologist. "The eye found by Agent Mulder is the one
missing from Agent Kavorski's body. And the hand belonged to
SAC Connolly. The envelopes and the plastic evidence bags
are being examined by the labs now, but preliminary results
indicate they are clean of any useful fingerprints or trace
evidence. It seems obvious that the killer is quite familiar with
the Bureau and FBI procedure, which is not surprising since he
obviously has easy access to this building."
Assistant Director Skinner's scowl somehow managed
to deepen. Behind the thin wire-frame glasses, his eyes burned
with barely concealed anger as he glared from one of the
agents facing him to another. Most squirmed slightly in their
seats as he focused on them, but Mulder managed to look
relaxed and at ease, his long, lanky body sprawled across the
chair with apparent unconcern. However, Skinner knew the
brilliant, difficult agent better than that. Nothing could mask
the fire in those gleaming hazel eyes, and while the tension
might not be apparent in his stance, it was writ large around his
eyes and tight-lipped mouth.
If Skinner could read his Mulder-sign right, the agent
was about ready to explode, his hatred for wasting time in
protocol and bureaucratic meetings waxing strong behind the
closed face. And that was the last thing his superior needed
now - Mulder out playing the Lone Ranger. Especially since
the bad feeling between the unpredictable agent and the agent
in charge of this case was already legend.
Skinner's eyes flickered over to Colton's surfer-
handsome face, its skin tone slightly flushed, even though every
strand of his blond hair was perfectly in place. The slightly
stocky agent was dressed in an FBI standard suit and tie,
pressed and neat, not a single stray piece of lint marring the
presentation. A young agent on the rise, appearing in direct
contradiction to Mulder, the Bureau maverick whose short-
cropped hair was already mussed, bangs sliding stubbornly
over the high temples, his dark suit thrown off balance by the
riot of color in the tie. The AD's eyes narrowed as he
contemplated the bright spots on that thin piece of silk. Could
those possibly by flying saucers? Good heavens!
Skinner swallowed hard and forced himself to deal
with the mess confronting them. "All right," he said pensively,
rising from his chair to briefly stare out the window behind
him. "I think it is clear that we have a possible serial killer
operating within the FBI itself."
"Or someone clever enough to gain access. Possibly
someone both men knew and thus were willing to bring into
the building." That was from Colton's partner, Greenstein, a
slightly pudgy man with a receding hairline and streaks of gray
in his dark hair. His face had a slight hangdog look to it, but
the eyes were sharp, holding the experience and cynicism of a
long-time law enforcement officer. It would not do to
underestimate his intelligence, as many a criminal had only to
find themselves caught in a steel trap. It was Skinner's hope
that he would be a good influence on the ambitious, reckless
Colton.
"Security has no record of visitors entering the
building at the times of the deaths," Scully disagreed. Skinner's
eyes focused on the only woman in the room, his eyes
betraying only a slight flicker of approval. She was an
outstanding agent, probably second only to her partner in her
sheer talent as an investigator, and Skinner felt a familiar sense
of sorrow that she had been caught up in Mulder's dangerous
world. "I think it is safe to assume the killer is a Bureau
employee with full access to the building," she continued,
returning her boss's gaze with cool confidence.
"We have lists of everyone who was signed in during
the relevant hours," Greenstein took her opinion seriously, he
had only been proposing a possibility he still didn't think could
be ignored. "But we all know that the agents don't always sign
in, especially late at night. And there are side doors that
someone with a key could use to enter and leave."
With return professionalism, Scully gave a slight nod
of her bright auburn head. Tapping her pencil against her knee,
she frowned in concentration. "It IS possible that both
Kavorski and Connolly met their killer at one of those doors
and let the person in. But that still leaves the fact that the killer
obviously knew their way around the building, was able to take
and use internal envelopes and evidence bags, and was able to
find Agent Mulder's office in order to leave the two body parts
there."
Skinner nodded. That much was obvious. "But why
leave the body parts in the basement for Agent Mulder to find,
especially since anyone with that much internal access ought to
have been able to find out that he - and you - were out of town
for several days? They must have sat in the hallway for at least
three days."
"Closer to five," that was Mulder's first contribution.
He shrugged as four pairs of eyes turned to focus on him.
"From the amount of dust on them."
Colton chuckled slightly, muttering under his breath.
"How could you tell?"
His partner, Skinner and Scully threw him impatient
looks, Mulder simply ignored him the way someone might
ignore a buzzing fly. His mind was occupied with another
question.
"And why me?" He glanced over at his partner. "Or
Scully, I suppose. But I think they were meant for me to find."
"Maybe the perp just wanted to dump them
somewhere they wouldn't be found for a while, and the fact
that it was outside your door was an accident," Colton
interrupted in a sharp-edged voice. "Maybe it has absolutely
nothing to do with you."
Mulder considered that for a moment, then shook his
head. "No, it wasn't an accident. The killer is trying to
communicate with me...somehow..." His brow crinkled as his
voice trailed off. He bit at his lower lip in concentration, then
he looked up at Skinner. "I'll start piecing together a profile but
it would help to have full access to the case files, and to the
cases that both agents were presently working on. And..."
"No way!" Colton broke in, getting to his feet. "This
is my case. We don't need your interference." He glared at
Mulder, who slowly, languidly eased himself to his feet.
Towering over the shorter agent, Mulder leaned down
and stage-whispered. "I think you need all the help you can
get." Then he turned and stepped closer to Skinner's desk.
"Look, the killer has already involved Agent Scully and myself.
For some reason, he wants my attention. And while I don't
particularly like giving this guy the attention he craves, I doubt
he is going to give up now. If we ignore this now, he'll simply
try again - and I think he is likely to escalate."
"The whole world doesn't revolve around you,
Mulder," Colton snarled. "There is no evidence that the killer
meant to involve you. The bags ending up outside your door
was pure coincidence. Hell, the guy probably thought he was
dumping them outside the maintenance supply room."
"Yeah, that's right Colton," Mulder replied with
taunting humor. "All supply rooms have a plaque on the door
that say 'Special Agent' on them. Whether you like it or not,
Scully and I are involved in this case."
"I won't have you interfering in my investigation!"
Colton bellowed. "I've already had to pick up the pieces after
you once!"
That finally did it, and though Mulder's fury was self-
contained, he gave off waves of sheer electricity as he
glowered down at Colton, stepping up to stand bare inches
from the other man. Jabbing at his chest, Mulder spoke in a
cold, steely tone. "The only mess was one that YOU made, and
it almost cost Scully her life. Your damn-fool arrogant
stupidity almost got my partner killed!"
"THAT IS ENOUGH!" Skinner roared. Colton jerked
around to face his angry superior, while Scully tugged at
Mulder who was still staring with nearly coal-black eyes at
Colton. He resisted her attempt to pull him back, then gave in
when she persisted, his shoulders working tensely as he turned
towards her uplifted, pleading face.
Silence fell, then Skinner pronounced judgment. "This
remains Colton and Greenstein's case, they will proceed with
their investigation as planned." Colton preened, breaking out
into a smile of triumph that instantly fell into an angry scowl as
Skinner continued to speak. "However, I expect Agent Scully
to continue with the forensics aspect of the case, and I want
Mulder to pursue a psychological profile of the killer. All of the
case files will be made available to him, and I expect to see the
result on this desk in an appropriate period of time. I expect
full cooperation from all of you on this case. I don't give a
damn if you're not going to be racquetball buddies - but I do
expect you to work together in a professional manner. Two
agents are dead. I want this killer caught before there are more.
IS...THAT...CLEAR?"
"Yes, sir!" Scully and Greenstein spoke in unison.
Colton bit off the same words. Mulder simply inclined his head.
Skinner sighed, it would have to do. Sitting back down at his
desk, he waved his hand at them.
"Dismissed."
- - - - -
Next Day

The FBI was abuzz with rumors. Fear mixed with
curiosity, leaving clusters of agents whispering intently over
desks, water cooler, bathroom sinks. People mixed and
wandered, each looking at the other with just that slight edge
of uncertainty. A killer stalking the halls of the FBI itself was
enough to unnerve the most experienced of agents. If you
couldn't trust your own, who could you trust?
But Ezekiel passed his day in comfortable anonymity.
Finishing up the last details of the case that had held him
preoccupied for the past week, he finally found some time to
sit at his desk, relax and think. His mind circled itself, running
around and around. Bits and pieces of conversation floated
around his cubicle, most focused on the two deaths, some on
the investigating team itself. Of course, Mulder and Scully had
become involved - that was only as it should be. But to have
COLTON in charge of the case - no - that could not be borne.
Ezekiel had known from the beginning that he was sacrificing
himself, and had little fear of that eventuality. He welcomed it.
But not like this.
Memory flew him backwards on beating wings. The
face of his mother as she lay dying centered in front of his eyes.
She looked up at him, her eyes almost bruiselike in their color
amid the white, wrinkled parchment of her skin. Her hand
clutched on his hand, then pulled away, as she stared at things
he could not see. He had knelt there, praying, as he had for so
much of his childhood, to be given the gift to see what she did.
To see the glory of God's angels as they hovered around his
mother's deathbed, to see their wings beating as they took her
soul away to heaven.
But there was nothing for him, for as always his soul
was tainted by his father's evil. The shadow of a father he had
never seen, but who had left him with a smudge of the devil in
his heart, a darkness that kept him from seeing the light of God
as his mother did. As the others of his mother's faith did. How
jealous he had been of them, as they collapsed and writhed in
the hands of God, speaking in the tongues of the ancients,
glowing with the knowledge that their savior was within. And
he, always alone on the outside. Praying, begging, for some
sign of welcoming that had never come. Until now.
The moment he had set eyes on the tall, intense agent
whose words held such power, whose eyes burned as though a
fire raged within, he had known in an instant of certainty so
pure it stole the breath from his lungs. His time had come at
last. In the service of this Chosen One, he could finally redeem
himself of the taint of his father's evil and purify his soul for the
meeting with God. And perhaps, his mother would be there,
when it became his turn to ascend to the heavens, her eyes
finally shining with the pride he had never before earned from
her.
But not this way, not at the hands of that devil-spawn
Colton. No, it must be at the hands of God's earthly angel that
he left this flesh and went to meet his maker. Then the
realization struck him that again, things were indeed as they
should be. For his tasks were not yet done. There was more,
much more for him to do before the time came for him to fall
at Mulder's feet. And Colton, yes, his heart ached with a burst
of pleasure, then he buried his head in his hands, sending up a
silent prayer begging for forgiveness for the gladness in his
heart. But for all his search for humbleness, he could not fully
mask the joy he felt at the thought of crushing that demon with
a pretty face and sending him to burn in the fires of hell.
- - - - -
Afternoon
FBI Files and Records Department

Special Agent Tom Colton walked briskly down the
hallway, ignoring the glances that swung in his wake. His face
bent into a scowl, his mind kept reviewing the meeting that
morning. Damn that lunatic Mulder, and to hell with Skinner
too. He would solve this case without them, and finally win his
bump up the ladder. It had taken months to get past the Tooms
fiasco, and now that he was back on the VCS's fast track, he
intended to make it take him all the way. No one was going to
stand in his way!
He stepped around a corner and entered the huge
quiet file room, his mind barely on the pursuit at hand.
Normally, he'd have sent someone else to do the busy work of
pulling the personnel records of the people recorded present in
the building during both deaths, but this case was too
important. He needed to catch this killer and quickly before
Mulder could steal the credit.
Brusquely giving the yawning clerk his authorization
to enter, he waited impatiently as the young woman tapped at
the computer in front her then turned and stamped his pass.
With barely a muttered thank you, he hurried around her desk
and stalked down into the seemingly endless rows of paper
folders, lined up in shelf after towering shelf. Behind him the
clerk threw him an irritated glance, then settled down to
continue her interrupted game of Tetris.
An hour later, her eyes focused tightly on the
computer screen, she barely noticed the thin young agent who
hurried past, waving him by absent-mindedly as she instantly
recognized the thin narrow face with its shock of sandy-
colored hair. He waved back at her, then slipped quickly into
the files.
At her desk, the clerk never wavered from her games,
except to answer the phone. In the midst of one of those brief
conversations, her mouth tightened in annoyance at the
impossible demands echoing in her ears, the corner of her eye
caught the slender young man as he hurried out, his hands
clutching the file he had retrieved from the 'vault.' She
grimaced at him as he passed, and gained a quick, shy smile in
return. And moments later, she had forgotten he had been there
at all, so familiar was his presence, and so preoccupied was she
with a sudden influx of calls for information.
When the day finally ended, she watched the
computer screen turn blank as she switched it off. Then she
gathered up her coat and purse, and scurried out the door,
locking it behind her. Her only thoughts were focused on the
dinner ahead and the movie she had picked up on her lunch
hour. "Interview with A Vampire"...nothing like a cozy night
curled up on her couch with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt for
company. A stray wish for a live man to share it with impinged
on her thoughts, but no memory of the agent who had entered
her domain so many hours before, and had never come back
out, ever cluttered her mind.
- - - - -
X-Files Division
Two Days Later

Crunching on a sunflower seed, Mulder looked up as
the door opened to admit his partner, her arms overflowing
with envelopes and files.
"Need a hand?" he asked, swinging his chair around
towards her, though he remained seated. She walked over,
dumped the mail in his lap, dropped the files on the pile in front
of him, then leaned back against the edge of the desk.
"Sure, most of that's yours anyway."
He grimaced, tossing most of it up onto the cluttered
desk, then swooping down to retrieve a few scattered pieces
off the dusty floor.
Watching him, Scully smiled softly, an expression of
pure warmth that faded into seriousness as he sat back up,
throwing two pieces of obvious junk mail in the general
direction of the wastebasket.
"By the way, have you heard from Colton recently?"
she asked.
His head jerked up from his perusal of yellow
interoffice envelope, his eyes focusing intently on her face.
"Are you kidding? He's been trying to avoid me all week, and I
still don't have the complete case files I need to write my
profile." He frowned, then looked at her sharply.
"Why?"
Scully sighed, tucking her bright hair behind her ears.
"No one is able to find him. Greenstein is going nuts, and
Skinner is on a rampage - apparently Colton missed a meeting
with him."
Mulder grimaced, then got to his feet, still clutching
the now forgotten envelope in his hand. Scully watched him
silently, recognizing his movement as a reflection of his mind's
frenetic pace. It was as though he needed to release a flood of
energy, the wheels turning in his mind forcing his body ahead
of it - letting out the pressure of its own effort through the
muscles below.
"It's not like Colton to miss a chance to kiss the AD's
butt," he said dryly, though his expression was abstracted, his
face taking on the look she had dubbed as his 'I've lost my keys'
look. The one where he was just on the edge of putting the
pieces together. So she sat back and waited patiently for him to
work it through.
"And this investigation is too important, he wouldn't
just abandon it." Mulder was talking aloud, but Scully knew he
wasn't really speaking to her, he was simply expending energy
again, letting the words coalesce into meaning as he spoke.
"So something must have happened to prevent him.
But what? Why Colton?" He stopped in mid step, one foot still
raised, then he dropped it to the floor and spun to face her. "Of
course, Colton, of course. It had to be..."
"Had to be what, Mulder?" Scully broke in, her
patience beginning to fade.
"Colton had to be the next victim!" he exclaimed,
waving the interoffice mail folder at her, his eyes alight with
discovery. "I couldn't figure out what the connection was
between Connolly and Kavorski. They never worked together,
probably didn't even know each other. The Bureau isn't that
small, and Connolly had only been in Washington a couple
weeks. So I assumed they were random choices. Taken
because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. But I
knew that didn't feel right, Scully." He rubbed at his chin with
his empty hand, then came over to sit on the edge of the desk
facing her.
"The killings themselves were almost - well, sloppy.
Quick and easy. As though they were a chore that had to be
gotten out of the way. But the taking of the hand and the eye,
that part was well-thought out. It was done for a reason. To
send a message. The deaths were less important than the
symbolism of the mutilations. Or that is what I thought." His
voice faded out, his eyes focusing on empty space, as though
reading invisible writing suspended in the air itself.
"But you don't think that now?" Scully prompted. He
jerked in response to her words, then turned to look at her
again.
"Why send the body parts to me? A demand for
attention, of course. But why me?"
"Despite your penchant for weird cases, Mulder,
you're still considered one of the best behavioral analysts in the
Bureau."
Mulder smiled and nodded gravely at the complement,
then his expression turned wry. "An opinion not exactly shared
by either Connolly or Kavorski, though. Or by Colton. To say
the least."
Scully stared at him, her eyes widening, but not quite
able to put it into words. So he did it for her, his voice grave
and certain, though he couldn't suppress the shiver that shook
his slender frame.
"Someone has decided to start killing my 'enemies'. I
think the 'gifts' were not a demand for attention or a challenge,
I think they were some kind of sick tribute."
"But why? And who?" Scully's voice rose at the end
of her question, while her skin bleached.
Mulder shook his head, walking around her to sit
back down in his chair with an almost imperceptible sigh. His
eyes were dark pools of granite as he returned her wide-eyed
gaze.
"I don't know. But my guess is that Colton's body will
turn up soon as will..." His eyes suddenly focused on the
envelope still in his hand.
"Mulder?" Scully asked as he cautiously placed the
envelope down on the edge of the desk and undid the flap. She
moved to lean over his shoulder, as he poked at the inside of
the yellow folder with the tip of a pencil. His breath catching in
his throat as the probe met resistance, he snagged the bag
inside and carefully, slowly, drew it out.
"Oh my God," Scully whispered as Mulder displayed
the clear plastic evidence bag with its small, pitiful contents.
"He took the tongue."
- - - - -

It took more than a few hours to search the FBI
complex for the missing agent's body. The one piece they had,
that particular, gruesome little piece of flesh, sat in sad
isolation in the path labs while teams of agents scoured the
nooks and crannies of the sprawling building for its former
owner.
Finally, the body was discovered, wedged into a dark
corner of the 'vault' - the massive storage facility for decades of
Bureau paperwork. Scully took charge of it quickly, and
Mulder was grateful to be able to stand back, a silent figure on
the edge of the scene. Absorbing it all with the eye of a trained
investigator, it was still difficult to ignore the series of
pinpricks that ran up and down his spine. A chill seeped
through his bones, forcing him to unconsciously draw his
jacket tighter around him as he watched the body being sealed
up into the inevitable black bag.
And then there was the sensation of being watched.
Eyes, curious, hostile, watching, focused on the back of his
neck - not just those of the unknown killer. His stormy, bitter
relationship with Colton had been fodder for Bureau gossip,
and this was only adding fuel to the fire of speculation. And he
couldn't really blame them. He knew he was at the center of
these deaths, that certainty pounding at his heart with a familiar
weight of guilt. Could he have missed something important?
Seen something, done something, noticed something, anything,
that could have prevented this from happening?
Frozen in place, his eyes pinned to the spot where the
body had lain, unnoticed, for two days, Mulder didn't notice
Scully beside him until she closed a small hand on his elbow
and gently tugged.
"Are you all right?" she asked gently.
He shook himself, almost like a wet dog, then turned
to look down at her. "Yeah."
She shot him a disbelieving look, but said quietly,
"Come on, let's go."
He nodded and followed her down the aisle.
---------------------------
End Part Three
---------------------------

===========================================================================

From: jennyann@ix.netcom.com (Jennifer Lyon)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: NEW: "Too Close" 4/8
Date: 26 Dec 1995 22:26:47 GMT

"Too Close"
An X-Files Story by Jennifer Lyon
Jenni10647@aol.com
jennyann@ix.netcom.com

Office of the Assistant Director
Next Morning

Skinner was not happy. He had three dead agents, the
FBI director breathing fire down his neck, and a room full of
uneasy agents, and no goddam leads. Forcing himself to take a
deep breath, the AD ignored the stares of the men in his office
and eyed the door with well-concealed irritation. Where the
hell were they?
As though in direct answer to his unspoken command,
the door opened to admit a pair of agents. Mulder was a tall,
dark shadow behind his fiery-haired partner, his skin peaked,
eyes dark sunken pools. Scully, however, was all business, and
throwing her partner only one quick glance of concern, she
launched into her report.
"Agent Colton was killed by strangulation. Initial
examination of the body suggests that he was first struck a
non-fatal blow on the back of the skull with a blunt
instrument." She paused, carefully considering her words.
"Without further examination, I can't be sure...but I'd guess it
was the butt of a handgun or pistol. Regardless, once Colton
was rendered unconscious, his tie was used to constrict his
windpipe until he died of asphyxiation. Based on the lack of
extensive bleeding, I'd say that his tongue was removed
following death rather than before. It seems likely that the
tongue delivered to Agent Mulder this morning is the one
missing from the body, though that is yet to be officially
confirmed. I'd estimate the time of death to be somewhere
between forty-two and forty-eight hours prior to discovery of
the body. With any luck we'll have more information after the
autopsy."
Skinner nodded, then looked pointedly at Greenstein
who was standing in the corner. The bulky agent stepped
forward, then paused, his hands unable to stay still. He tapped
at his tie, his sides, brushed at his hair, then suddenly stilled.
"The last time I saw Colton was two days ago. I was running
down a lead from Connolly's latest case, which took me away
from the building until late last night. He wasn't at his desk
when I got in, but I figured that he'd already gone home. But
when he didn't show up this morning, I called his wife, and she
told me that he'd not come home in two days. She was nearly
frantic, since he always called if he couldn't make it home. That
got me worried, and I started looking for him. About noon,
Agent Scully called to say that Mulder had received another
body part and that he thought it was Colton's. So we grabbed
some people and started a more thorough search. We found
him in a corner of the 'vault'."
"Surely, he must have checked in and out of the file
room?" Skinner asked.
"Yes, sir." The reply came from another agent, a
middle-aged man with alert brown eyes and curly blond hair
that fell back from a deeply receding hairline. "That is," he
corrected himself, "Agent Colton is recorded as having
checked in at 1:17 pm, but there is no record of him leaving.
The front-desk clerk does remember him coming in, but things
got busy that afternoon, and she apparently forgot he was in
there."
"Forgot!?" Skinner frowned mightily.
"Yes, sir," the curly-haired agent continued. "We have
the list of people who went into the file room between Colton's
entry yesterday and the discovery of his body this afternoon,
but I'm afraid that it may not be complete. The clerk was called
away from her desk more than once during that time, and there
were a large number of requests coming through. She and the
rest of the file room staff were kept hopping that afternoon. So
someone could have easily gotten in without being seen."
Skinner opened his mouth to begin a tirade on the
failure to follow proper procedure and security precautions,
but clamped his lips down tight, swallowing the words. This
was not the time. Instead he nodded gravely, then focused his
eyes on the tall man leaning against the office door.
"Agent Mulder?"
Mulder eased up out of his slouch, then hunched his
shoulders slightly and stepped forward. "Obviously, our
perpetrator is an FBI 'insider'. My guess would be a full agent
rather than a secretary or clerk. He has access to the entire
building, and knows his way around well. He is handy with
tools, and is an expert at blending in. He probably looks like an
average agent, a Caucasian male in his late twenties or early
thirties, unmarried and doesn't date much. His colleagues
probably consider him a good, even diligent worker.
Conscientious, thorough, dedicated, and easy to get along
with, he is likely to go out of his way to be friendly, especially
to the staff. The secretaries probably adore him."
Mulder paused, running a slender hand through his
straight dark hair, closed his eyes briefly, then continued to
speak. "The killings themselves were quick, almost haphazard.
Seemingly disorganized. The manner of death is different in
each case, a knife wound in the chest, a wire through the
jugular, strangulation after a blow to the head. No pattern
there, and I think the means of death is not considered
important, rather as a messy chore that must be done. What IS
important to the killer is the mutilation. Here he becomes more
organized - more patterned. The taking of the hand, the eye,
and the tongue has significant meaning. It takes time and
planning to remove them, with added risk of discovery given
the increased time at the scene. Therefore, he was careful in his
planning of the attacks, picking locations in which he could be
assured enough time to finish without being disturbed.
"The first trophy wasn't sent to me immediately, it
was held until the second killing, then both were sent at once.
I'd guess that idea came later. The first killing was an
experiment, and taking the hand may have been an
afterthought. He was more prepared for the second one, and
then decided to send the pieces on to me. They are meant to
communicate something specific - something *I* am supposed
to understand."
Mulder frowned. "The killer is directing this at me
specifically. But I don't think it is meant as a threat. A
challenge perhaps, daring me to catch him. That's possible..."
His voice trailed off, his eyes focused on empty air, staring off
over Skinner's shoulder. Aware and yet unaware of his
audience, almost as though he were talking to himself.
"But more likely, he is trying to give me a message of
some kind. The choice of body parts is vital, as is the fact that
he chooses victims who have had public confrontations with
me. Connolly and I had our share of disagreements in
Memphis, Kavorski and I had an argument barely a week
before he was killed, and Colton - well..." A quick wry grin
quirked at the corners of his mouth, then his lips settled into a
thin line.
"As for the meaning of the mutilations. Cutting off the
right hand could be a punishment for a theft of some kind. Or
related to some action the killer perceives Connolly as
responsible for. The taking of Kavorski's eye seems obvious, a
statement that Kavorski was blind to something the killer
thinks he ought to have seen. Taking Colton's tongue is either a
way to shut him up, or a punishment for something he said."
Mulder stretched his head back, as though relieving tension in
his shoulders and neck. "Of course, they could be meant as part
of an over-all pattern the killer is trying to make, but if so, I
can't yet see what it is. What I do know is that he's escalating.
He didn't start sending the trophies to me until after the second
death, but he sent the tongue on to me even before Colton's
body was found. The first two deaths were carefully committed
while I was out of town, this one was done with me here. And
the timing between deaths is getting shorter. I'd say he's already
getting psyched up for the next one."
Mulder bit at his lower lip, then focused a burning
pair of eyes on Skinner's impassive face. "And he's close by.
I'm certain he's someone I know, maybe even someone in this
office right now." He slowly, silently stared from one face to
another. Some met him straight on, others shuffled, their own
eyes darting away from the disturbing intensity of his gaze.
Skinner broke the silence, clearing his throat, then
issuing a series of brisk instructions. Everyone in the building
was to be questioned, and the results cross-checked by teams
of agents working in threesomes. Special attention was to be
paid to those who were in on the Memphis slasher case, and on
those who knew Agent Mulder personally. Greenstein would
be coordinating, but regular progress reports were to be made
to Skinner himself. Meanwhile, Scully was to coordinate the
forensics effort, with priority given to the autopsy on Colton.
When he was finished, Skinner leaned back in his
chair and waved a hand in dismissal. The agents filed from the
room in pairs and groups, whispers and unsubtle glances
directed at Mulder who had stepped off to the side. His hands
dug into his pants pockets, Mulder stood quietly, almost
melting into the wall, until he and Scully were the last to
remain in the room. She placed a hand on his arm, her fingers
wide-spread across his biceps.
"Let's go," she told him softly. He nodded, and moved
to follow her towards the door. But before they could exit
Skinner spoke abruptly.
"Agent Mulder, could I have a minute."
Mulder stopped abruptly, stood still with his
shoulders squared for a long tense second, then he turned
around. "Yes, sir" he replied softly. Scully remained silent by
his side.
"Was that really necessary?" Skinner asked, leaning
back in his chair to look up at the tall agent.
"Was what really necessary?" Mulder echoed.
Skinner's jaw twitched, then he leaned forward.
"Tension is high enough in the Bureau right now without you
throwing around unsubstantiated accusations."
"Unsubstantiated?" Now Mulder stepped forward, his
eyes sparking. "Someone here is a murderer, and it could well
be someone working on this case. You know as well as I do
that serial killers often have a fascination for law enforcement
and may get involved with their own cases."
"That may be so, but even if you were right - it was
not the time or place...
"So let me know when it is the time and place? In the
meantime I've got a murderer to catch." He turned as though
to leave, and was again stalled by Skinner's voice.
"No."
"No?" Mulder echoed again, this time with obvious
sarcasm.
"No," Skinner was implacable. "I think it would be
best if you stepped back from this investigation."
"No way!" Mulder was just as determined. His eyes
darkened to coal. "I'm in the middle of this. The killer sent his
little gifts to me, remember. Those men were killed because of
me. I may not know why yet, but there is no way I could walk
away from this even if I wanted to." His lips curled up into a
bitter smile. "He won't let me."
Skinner shook his head. "First, there is no real
evidence that the killer is focused on you." Mulder opened his
mouth to speak, but Skinner forestalled him, waving his hand
in the air between them. "There could be other reasons he sent
the body parts to you. As you said yourself, it could be a
challenge. Or it could be a set-up. You do realize that about
half the Bureau thinks that you are responsible for these
killings."
Mulder's face darkened, but Scully interrupted,
pushing herself between the two men. "Sir, that is impossible.
Mulder was in Cleveland during the first murder and in Seattle
during the second. There are plenty of witnesses to that,
including myself."
Skinner sighed. "I know that, you know that...but
people are scared and angry. They are looking for someone to
blame and ...Mulder... you have hardly gone out of your way to
make friends. If I let you in on this investigation it will only
make a bad situation worse."
"It's only going to get worse, period." Mulder stated
coldly. "And I don't give a damn what 'people' think. He's
going to kill again, and again, until he is stopped. That goon
squad of yours isn't going to catch this guy - he's too smart."
"You are not the only agent in the Bureau capable of
solving a case."
"But I am the one the killer has chosen to
communicate with. He's someone close to me. Someone I
know. I can feel it." Mulder gestured vehemently, his usually
generous mouth drawn tight with frustration.
"If you are right, then that is all the more reason for
you to step back away from this. You're too close to it. That's
final." Skinner was adamant. "By all means finish your profile,
but I don't want you involved in any other way."
"Sir," Scully interrupted. "I think we need to take one
more possibility into consideration. As Agent Mulder
mentioned before, the sending of the mutilated parts to him
could be construed as either a challenge or a threat. We can't
underestimate the danger he might be in. I think we should set
up some protection for him."
"What? Place me under guard? Is that it?" Mulder's
voice dripped bitterness, his face set in stone.
"Mulder..." her voice was soft, pleading.
"Please...what if he comes for you? What if he's sending you a
warning, trying to scare you before he attacks. We can't rule
out that possibility." She pressed her hand against his arm, he
jerked away.
"No." Mulder was dead certain. "He's not trying to
hurt me. He wants to tell me something. He's trying to
communicate with me. I just haven't deciphered all the clues
yet. But I will." He spun on his heels and marched out the
door.
"Mulder!" Skinner barked, getting to his feet. Scully
put her hand up between them, signaling for him to stop. He
paused and looked at her.
"Let me talk to him, sir. Please."
Skinner thought for a second, then nodded. "All right.
But keep him away from the investigation. Tempers are high
right now and the dead agents had a lot of friends. Friends who
are angry and looking for a scapegoat."
"I understand, sir," Scully responded, then she turned
and hurried after her partner, trying not to run.
- - - - -
X-Files Division

She found him in his office, seated at his desk, staring
off into space. Closing the door behind her, she walked up to
him. "Mulder..."
"He's close Scully. I can feel him." He angled his head
to look up at her, his eyes glinting green in the soft light. "I can
FEEL him."
"I know." She perched herself on the edge of the
desk, unconsciously tucking her hair behind her ear. "And that
is all the more reason to take Skinner's advice."
"You mean his orders," Mulder replied brusquely.
"Well, he IS our boss," she reminded him gently.
Mulder grimaced, then got up to begin pacing the room. Back
and forth, like a caged tiger caught in too small a space, yet
marking what space there was as his own.
"I can't just pretend this isn't happening Scully."
"No one is asking you to. Work on your profile,
Mulder. Think about the case, but leave the leg-work to
Greenstein. It's what you do best anyway."
He shrugged his shoulders, bending his neck from one
side to another. Then he rested an arm on the top of a filing
cabinet and stared at her for a moment. "They really think I
might have done this, don't they?"
Scully answered as gently as she could. "No one really
thinks that, it's just that they're upset. People aren't thinking too
clearly. They want someone to blame..."
"And I'm an easy target. Yup, ole Spooky has finally
gone around the bend this time." His voice was light, almost
playful, but she knew him well enough to read the anguish in
his stance. His entire body was one coiled spring, taut and
ready to explode.
"They'll find the killer. There is a finite number of
people who have that kind of access to this building. In the
meantime, you just have to try to relax. Let Skinner and
Greenstein do their jobs while you do yours. Though right
now, I think what you need is some sleep. You didn't sleep at
all last night, did you?"
Mulder shook his head, "No. I'm not tired." He
rubbed at the back of his neck. "And I've still got that profile to
finish." He walked around her and sat back down at his desk.
Picking up his pen, he looked at it for a moment, then sighed
and turned his eyes up to her warm face. "I'm missing
something, Scully. He's trying to tell me something and I can't
hear it. He's right here, and I can't see him. He's so close."
"Maybe he's too close, Mulder. I think Skinner was
right about that. You're way too close to this investigation.
You need to step back and let someone with some distance
handle it."
"I can't Scully. If I don't figure this out, someone else
is going to die. Soon."
"You don't really have a choice. Skinner said you
were not to be involved, he meant it." Scully brushed his
shoulder with her hand, almost reaching up to sweep the loose
dark bangs off his forehead, but her hand wavered in mid-air
and then withdrew before completing the caress. Her voice was
soft and resigned as she added. "I've got an autopsy to finish.
Why don't you go home and try to sleep. You won't do anyone
any good if you're asleep on your feet."
Mulder pursed his lips, then sighed. "Maybe in a little
while," he offered.
She smiled a mixture of warmth and resignation,
knowing full well he wasn't going anywhere. Going to the
door, she stopped before she left the room to give him one
more word of caution. "Be careful, Mulder."
He nodded and waved. She left. And he sat alone in
the harsh, unforgiving fluorescent light, pen clasped tightly in
his hand, his eyes staring out at something not quite there.
- - - - -
Computer Crimes Division

Several floors higher, Ezekiel Withers was ostensibly
busy at work on his computer console, tracing the lines of
evidence in a computerized bank fraud case. Normally it was
just the kind of case he loved, the kind he excelled at. He was
the FBI's best in these investigations, he knew that with a sense
of fatalistic recognition. He wasn't particularly proud of his
skills, they just were. Surface phenomena that didn't cut to the
heart of his soul. The sounds echoing in his ear did.
His Walkman earphones pressed to his ears, the wire
ran down his chest and into his desk drawer. Anyone who
bothered to look would simply assume that they were attached
to a tape or CD player out of sight in the drawer. Only the
young man listening intently as his fingers ran automatically
over the keyboard in front of him knew that it was something
entirely different.
Instead of the soft refrains of music, he heard a
woman's voice say softly, "You don't really have a choice.
Skinner said you were not to be involved, he meant it." A short
silence followed, and then she continued, "....if you're asleep on
your feet." This time her voice was sincere and concerned,
gentle and throaty. Reaching out to the man whose reply was
short and indeterminate.
Ezekiel savored each of those few words
"Maybe...in...a...little...while...", wishing for more, but it didn't
come. One last echo of the woman's voice then silence
descended on his ears. Silence broken only by the occasional
tap-tap of a pen against wood and the faint echo of a man's
breathing.
Stabbing at the keyboard, Ezekiel found the quietness
soothing. Somehow even in that lack of sound, he could still
sense the mind within it working. If he closed his own eyes
briefly, he could *see* the man seated at his desk, his long-
limbed body sprawled in the old wooden chair, perhaps with
his head cocked slightly to the side.
Finally, Ezekiel reached into the desk drawer and
rewound the tape, repeating the conversation again and again,
stopping every so often to check for signs of activity in the
basement office. There was nothing, leaving him to concentrate
with increasing fury on the meaning of the words he had
previously ignored in favor of their very sound.
Skinner had taken Mulder off the case? Mulder was
being blamed for the deaths? No. No. No. That was wrong, so
very, very wrong. Anger boiled in his chest. Those fools. That
damned bureaucrat of an assistant director. Yes, this was
Skinner's fault. He was more than willing to use Mulder,
sending him off on the most dangerous of cases, risking his life
and limb, but only when it suited the pleasure of the earthly
powers and their satanic master.
And how very clever to slide the blame for these
deaths onto Mulder's already overburdened shoulders. Nail the
innocent to the cross, let him pay for the sins of others. But not
this time. This time God was ready to see His Chosen One
protected, and Ezekiel himself would be the instrument of that
purpose. First, the Assistant Director, and then the others,
would suffer for their sins.
Before he could begin to plan further, voices sounded
from down below.
- - - - -
X-Files Division

Mulder jerked in response to the sudden sharp knock
on the office door. His mind still focused on the case, it took
him a moment to remember where he was, then he got to his
feet and walked over to the entrance-way. Opening the door,
he found himself facing a pair of men in navy blue suits, both
with FBI nearly etched across their foreheads. Barely stifling
the impulse to ask them why they weren't wearing their
sunglasses, he remained standing in the doorway, one hand on
the knob, the other hanging loose by his side.
Tall shoulders held high, he blocked them from view of the
room behind him.
"Yes?" he demanded abruptly.
"Agent Mulder?" The shorter of the two asked,
shifting slightly on his feet.
Mulder simply nodded, staring at them with barely
concealed impatience.
The other man responded this time, his eyes a faded
blue behind small wire-framed glasses. "Agents Harper and
Tibbit. Assistant Director Skinner assigned us to you as
security."
"Security?" Mulder echoed blankly, then his face
hardened bleakly. "Forget it," he tried to close the door, but
Agent Harper got his foot into the doorway and stopped it
short.
"We're under orders, sir, not to let you out of our
sight, especially in this building. The Assistant Director
believes that you may be the next target of the FBI killer."
Mulder snorted. "The Assistant Director is full of
shit." Releasing the door, he ignored the shocked look on the
two men's faces and turned away. "But never let it be said I
ignored his orders," he added wryly, reaching for his coat.
"Look...," Tibbit began, but Mulder waved him off,
donning his overcoat, then pushing past them into the hall.
"Close the door behind you, please," he instructed over his
shoulder, his long legs eating up the hallway as he strode away.
- - - - -
The streets of Washington DC
Early Evening

The pavement was hard beneath his feet, but the wind
in his face was exhilarating. Mulder ran like a gazelle, legs
eating up the ground, his arms pumping at his sides. His
breathing steadied, instinctively matching to his pace. God,
how he loved to run. This was freedom, the air rushing past
him, the cool wind stinging his cheeks and his lungs, the streets
rushing past in a blur of shapes and shadows. He sometimes
felt that he could run forever, just keep going until he hit the
end of the world.
His route so engrained that he could have followed it
in his sleep, he was able to let his mind wander. A vivid
slideshow of images shot across his field of vision, each
captured and preserved by his perfect memory, each bringing
with it a kaleidoscope of emotions, sounds, and smells. He was
close to the answer now, very close. And that thought brought
with it another image, one of a woman's heart-shaped face,
stubborn slightly pointed chin framed by a wing of bright
copper hair. Scully. She had said he was too close to this case,
and he knew she was right. But that was as much a strength as
a weakness for him, though he knew she'd never understand.
It was his ability to get close to these killers, to see
the world through their eyes, or through the eyes of their
victims, that had given him some of his greatest successes.
Painful, yes it often hurt even more than he could have ever
expressed. Sometimes it felt as though they were still within
him, the psychopaths with their twisted, skewed views of
reality. And the victims, he felt them too. Their anguish was as
much as part of him as the air he breathed. But it was a gift, a
talent he could use to save lives, to keep more innocents from
falling under the butcher's knife. He couldn't save the ones
already lost, but every one he could save tipped the balance in
his favor, paying back some of the failure he would live with
for the rest of his life. If he couldn't save his Samantha, he
could at least try to save someone else's.
A familiar knife twisted in his gut, then was gone in a
final burst of speed. Now everything was focused down into
the motion itself, each impact of his foot on the solid ground,
each breath of cold air burning into his lungs. Another and
another and another. On and on...until he came to an abrupt
stop, bending down, his hands clasped onto his knees, his face
tilted towards the ground.
His eyes watered for a moment, then refocused on the
dusty gray expanse of concrete. Where was he? He stood up,
wiping the sweat out of his eyes with the back of a ropey
forearm, the muscles bundled under taught skin. He was in the
park, which meant he had managed to run nearly four miles.
And in response to the thought, his body suddenly felt the
effect of its exertion.
Taking a deep breath, he looked around for the
'babysitters' Skinner had insisted on assigning to him, but there
was no sign of the one who had been running behind him or of
their FBI-issue blue car. In fact, he appeared to be alone in the
approaching dusk. Guess I must have lost them, he thought,
chuckling under his breath as he broke into a gentle walk,
slowly working down the muscles as he moved. Skinner was
going to be furious!
And then it hit him in a sudden flash of understanding.
An instant of pure recognition, nearly blinding in its intensity.
Skinner. Of course. His eyes darting around him, he focused on
the familiar metro sign in the distance, then broke back into a
gallop. He had to get to Skinner now.
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end Part Four
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