textfiles/sf/XFILES/twl6

This story is PG 13 for some adult situations.  There is a somewhat 
steamy, (though NOT explicit,) dream encounter between Mulder 
and Scully, so if that sort of thing gives you fits - even as a dream - 
you can skip that part.  This is not a "romance" in the accepted sense, 
however, so please feel otherwise safe in proceeding.

Comments welcome, critique encouraged, flames humbly accepted.

"Those Who Love" is posted in seven parts, all parts posted on 
September 6, 1995.

Fox Mulder, and Dana Scully are the property of Ten Thirteen 
Productions, lovingly borrowed without permission, and without 
any intent to infringe, annoy or otherwise upset.  The rest of the 
characters are mine.

*****************************************************
THOSE WHO LOVE - Part 6

	Both Mulder and Scully had dressed more practically, in 
jeans and work boots, that morning, so the walk back out to the 
Colter house was a little easier this time.  Mulder unlocked the side 
door with the key Bowman had given him, and they stepped into the 
cool passageway that lead from the back door to the kitchen.  Mulder 
glanced up at a row of wooden pegs close to the ceiling and 
speculated that the passageway had probably been used to dry 
medicinal and cooking herbs in the late fall, for winter storage.
	"You really *do* know a lot about these old houses, don't 
you,"  Scully commented.  Mulder shrugged, running his hand along 
a ceiling beam.  Much taller than most men from that day and age, he 
could reach it easily.	
	"My mom has a passion for this stuff," he explained, 
gesturing her through the doorway.  "I think I've probably been 
through ever Revolutionary period house in eastern Massachusetts.  
She knows a lot, and talked about it all the time.  A lot of it stuck, I 
guess."
	They stepped into the original kitchen.  The room was very 
large, easily half the house, stretching across the whole back.  The 
wide pine board floors were bare, and Scully could see the wooden 
pegs that held it secure.  She thought again, of Mulder's story about 
the value of iron nails, and smiled.  The ceiling was low, and open 
beamed, with rusted iron hooks still sticking out in places.  Scully 
almost asked Mulder if he thought they were original, then let it go.  
Such bits and pieces of information might be interesting, but they 
were not the reason the two agents were there.  Scully chuckled to 
herself at the thought.  The god's honest truth was, other than 
humoring her partner, she was not really sure why they *were* there.  
She turned around slowly, looking around.
	The dominating feature to the room was the fireplace.  It 
stretched almost the entire length of the back of the kitchen, wide and 
deep, with a deep brick hearth, and two beehive shaped openings, the 
bread and baking ovens, on one side.  One of the openings still had 
its iron door.  To the right of the fireplace was a door.  Scully stepped 
through into a small room and was immediately struck by a sense of, 
well, not foreboding, exactly, but the room definitely had a strange 
feel to it.  She glance left and right.
	This must be Mulder's "borning room," she thought.  What a 
strange thing to call it.  Still, she could understand why such a place 
would be convenient spot to house the infirm, or parturient women. 
The room actually stretched *behind* the fireplace, so it would 
always be warm, and, since most of the farm's indoor activities 
would have taken place in the kitchen, there would have always been 
someone around to help, without interrupting, unnecessarily, other 
chores.  There were no windows in the room, she noticed, and it was 
very small, just large enough, really for a bed, and maybe a chair.  
She noticed some shelving built into the walls, and tried to imagine 
what it would be like for a doctor to try to work under those 
conditions.  She shook her head.  Then she thought about what it 
would be like to be a woman giving birth, and the thought made her 
shudder. 
	This must have been the room in which Jeremiah Colter and 
Catherine Hewlett both died.  Scully remembered the early part her 
dream the night before, and felt a little sad.  Those two dream lovers 
had seemed so real to her, that she suddenly felt their deaths like a 
personal loss.  A creeping chill settled over her, and she rubbed her 
arms.  
	Scully walked back into the kitchen, and crossed over to the 
fireplace.  Staring at the wide cavity, she could almost hear the clatter 
of dishes, almost smell food cooking there, and hear the voices of 
women talking amongst themselves.  It was a strange feeling, but not 
unwelcome.  She knelt down on the hearth, and looked into the 
fireplace cavity.  She tipped her head to look up the flue.  Dark as the 
inside of a pocket, she could not see a thing.  She shrugged, and 
looked at the walls of the cavity.  They were black from many years 
of cooking and heating, the soot impressed indelibly into the rough 
brick.  She could see holes in those bricks, too, from the brackets that 
had held the cooking pots.
	Scully settled back on her heels, and ran her hand over the 
hearth.  She smiled softly, thinking about the generations of women 
who had lived and loved in that house, cooked at that hearth to feed 
their men and their children. Gave birth and died in that little room 
behind the kitchen.  A warm, almost peaceful feeling filled her, and 
she sighed.
	"Scully."
	She turned and saw Mulder watching her from the opposite 
doorway.
	"What are you looking at?"
	"Nothing," she said with a smile.  "I was just thinking about 
the generations of women who scrubbed this hearth,  the hands that 
toiled, here, for their families.  I don't know, life is so short, and 
yet, 
somehow, when I look at things like this, it just seems so timeless."
	Mulder joined her at the hearth, squatted down beside her.
	"I know what you mean," he agreed.  "When I was in 
England, I can remember going to Stonehenge, and Glastonbury Tor.  
Standing in structures that was thousands of years old, thinking 
about the people who had stood there, once, to predict a harvest or 
anticipate the turning of the sun..."
	He smiled at her, and for a moment the world around them 
faded, and they were just two people joined in the mystery of 
generations.  Then Mulder stood up, and held down a hand to her.
	"Come here a minute, I want to show you something."
	Scully took his hand, and let him pull her to her feet.  He lead 
her into one of the front rooms.
	"I think this is the room Bowman was attacked in," he said.
	"What makes you think so?"
	"Well, he said there was a fireplace, and in the other front 
room, the fireplace is boarded over.  And this is the larger of the two 
rooms, I guess it stands to reason that it would be used as the living 
room."  He pointed up at the ceiling.  "This was the original part of 
the house, you can see.  This back part with the kitchen was added 
afterwards.  See the seam?"
	Scully looked into the room.  She noted that the walls were 
bare and water stained, that faded patches in orderly patterns were 
probably from pictures that had once hung there.  The fireplace itself 
looked crumbly, and there was a small pile of loose bricks by the side 
of the hearth.  Scully looked up and duly noted the "seam" in the 
ceiling architecture.  Then she smiled up at her partner and sighed.
	"You know, Mulder, this has been fascinating, really, but I'm 
still not sure why we're here," she reminded him.  "What is it we're 
looking for, anyway?"
	Mulder shrugged. 
	"I don't know, Scully, a sense of something.  A feeling of the 
extraordinary?"
	"That old paranormal bouquet?"  she teased.  He made a face 
at her.
	"You have to admit that this old house does feel odd, 
somehow.  Almost, well, occupied..."  He shuddered a little, and she 
watched him curiously.
	"I will admit that there is something strange about this place, 
yes," she agreed, surprising him.  "There is something about this 
whole trip that has excited the imagination.  It... it's a piece of 
history, 
it has a certain magic to it, a certain wonder..."  She lay her hand on 
his arm affectionately.  "I don't know, Mulder, maybe it even *is* 
haunted.  God knows I've seen stranger things in your company.  But 
that still doesn't prove a connection to those deaths.  And it still has 
nothing to do with us."
	Mulder just looked at her.  Then he sighed, and nodded 
slowly.
	"You're right," he surrendered, resting a hand lightly on her 
shoulder.  "It's been fun, but it's time to go home, now, huh?"
	Scully just cocked her head at him.
	"Okay," he agreed with a sigh.  Then he looked at her 
questioningly.  "Can we at least look around upstairs, first?"
	His expression was so hopeful that Scully felt a dizzying rush 
of sheer affection for this man.  Her face split into a wonderful smile.
	"Yes, of course we can look around upstairs first," she agreed, 
laughing. Mulder lead the way.
	"Careful here," he said near the top of the stairs.  "Some of 
the steps are missing."  He spanned the missing planks with the wide 
reach of his long legs, then held his hands down to Scully to help her 
up.  He steadied her on the landing for a moment, as she regained her 
balance.
	"I'd be careful walking around up here," she cautioned him.  
"No telling how much else of this floor is rotted out..."
	Mulder nodded, and guided her down the narrow hallway.  
There were three rooms on the second floor, all laid out around the 
forward chimney.  He wandered into the largest of the rooms, in the 
front of the house, as Scully turned to the smallest.  She stopped 
outside the doorway, and hugged her arms, suddenly overcome with 
a feeling at once warm and ice cold.  She started to turn away, then 
something inexplicable made her enter the room.  She gasped.  For a 
moment, she could see it as it once had been, furnished sparely, but 
neatly, and with care.  White curtains blew out the open window.  
Beside the window was a straight backed chair.  Next to the chair 
stood a desk-like table with wooden baskets attached to both sides.  
A lady's sewing table, Scully, who had never seen one in her life 
before, suddenly knew.  This had been the sewing room, Catherine 
Hewlett's favorite place.  She had planned her future there, sewed the 
sheets and linens that would be part of her dowry.  Mended 
Jeremiah's shirts with all the love she had in her heart, dreaming of 
the day she would finally be his wife.
	Scully felt tears well in her eyes.  
	"That was her favorite spot, there by the window in the sun."
	"Scully?"
	She turned.  Mulder stepped into the room.
	"Did you say something?"
	Scully glanced around.  The room was bare, old wall paper 
peeling from the walls.  A window pane was missing and there was a 
huge water stain on the floor.
	"No," she replied, unaware that she had spoken out loud.  
"It's nothing."
	Something must have showed in her face.
	"Are you all right?"  Mulder insisted.  She sighed.
	"The truth is, I'm feeling a little light headed," she admitted a 
half truth.  "I think I'm just feeling the effects of the lack of sleep, 
but 
it is awfully airless up here."
	Concern for her overrode Mulder's disappointment at the lack 
of evidence, spectral or otherwise, that he had found.  He took her 
arm.
	"All right, let's go back down," he said.  "Can you make it 
okay?  Do you want to sit down for a minute?"
	Scully assured him that she was all right, and let him help her 
back down the stairs.  Once back in the kitchen, she went out 
through the narrow passageway to the back door and breathed 
deeply of the fresh air outside.  She looked out across the overgrown 
yard.  The old stone well crossed her line of vision, and she felt a 
sudden hot flush of emotion as her dream of Mulder from the night 
before suddenly came back to her with all its vividness.  She gasped 
slightly, and felt a sudden desperate need to be away from this 
house.  Everywhere she turned, it seemed, something waited to 
assault her senses, her emotions.
	"There's a modern kitchen and bathroom way at the back of 
the house,"  Mulder called as he joined her in the doorway.  "What 
are you looking at?"
	Scully jumped a little at the sound of his voice, then searched 
the perimeter quickly for something to talk about, to deflect what she 
recognized as his growing concern for her state, and to cover her own 
agitation.  She noticed a flock of crows bounding and diving near the 
ground in at the edge of the woods.  Grateful, she pointed, feigning 
sudden interest.
	"What do you think is going on with those birds over there?"
	"I dunno,"  Mulder replied following her gaze.  "Probably 
some dead animal.  Want to go take a look?"
	Scully did not, particularly, but now that she had made an 
issue of it, she thought they probably should.  She nodded in 
agreement, and started toward the birds.
	The crows lifted off their find in a black cloud as Mulder and 
Scully approached.  It was an animal only in the sense that the 
human species is part of the animal kingdom.  Scully looked down at 
the still form of  Leslie Hendricksen, her eyes getting round for a 
moment, then looked over at Mulder.  She did not bother the seek a 
pulse; the entire back of Hendricksen's head had been blown away.



	David Bowman arrived on the scene at the same time as the 
local police.
	"Agent Mulder?"  he queried, coming up to Mulder's side, 
and emphasizing the "agent".  Mulder looked a little sheepish.
	"Sorry about that house-hunting story..." he began.  But 
Bowman just waved his hand dismissively.
	"Oh, I knew you weren't looking to relocate," he said, "I could 
tell that right away.  Frankly, I thought you were a couple of ghost 
hunters, we get them up here now and then.  I must say, I didn't 
expect the F.B.I., though.  Surprised me, when I heard your call 
come in over the scanner."  
	Bowman looked up, and nodded at Scully, who was 
approaching from behind Mulder.
	"Mulder, Chief Rydell would like to speak to you?"
	Scully looked at Bowman, gave him a rueful smile.  
	"Mr. Bowman."
	"*Agent* Scully, a presume?"  Bowman quipped, his voice 
tinged with amusement.  
	"Look, I really want to apologize about the charade," Scully 
began, giving Mulder an evil look.  Bowman only laughed.
	"No apology necessary, Ms. Scully," he assured her.  Beside 
him, Mulder chuckled.
	"I guess my acting job wasn't all that good, after all," he 
admitted.  Bowman shook his head.
	"Since you two are *not* here hunting ghosts," he went on, 
"then I assume that you think there is something suspicious in the 
deaths of those three young men, earlier this month?  You think it 
might be related to whatever happened to that fellow out there?"  He 
nodded out toward the circle of men standing around Hendricksen's 
body.
	"Well, yes and no," Mulder replied.  "Yes, I think there is 
something suspicious in those deaths, but no, I don't think they're  
related to this one at all.  This was obviously some kind of gangland 
murder, maybe involving drugs.  Those earlier deaths are a 
completely different cause.  You see, Mr. Bowman, we really *are* 
hunting ghosts, you guessed right.  I believe those three young men 
were deliberately frightened to death."  He nodded politely.  "Would 
you excuse me?"
	Mulder turned and went to find Police Chief Rydell,  leaving 
Scully to smile apologetically at the surprised and bemused 
Bowman.  She murmured something that sounded like "excuse me", 
and followed Mulder across the field.
	"The license in his wallet says his name is Leslie Hendricksen, 
but I doubt that's his real name.  We'll have to ID him, but I'll bet my 
left nut that this guy is tied in with the Giacottis, one way or the 
other,"  Chief Rydell was explaining to Mulder as Scully walked up.  
"Guy took a 9mm to the face.  I hope he's got some teeth left."
	"The Giacottis?"  Mulder asked.
	"Yeah.  I was explaining to your partner, earlier, that this 
whole area has become a hot bed of drug related crime in the last five 
years.  It used to be, years ago when Cumberland was a farming 
community, that none of the big pushers, none of the "families" 
would bother with it.  Just not enough money here, not enough 
interest, to make it worth their while.  But in the last few years, 
Cumberland has become a big bedroom community for Hartford.  
Lots of executives live out here, now.  Therefore, lots of money lives 
out here, and lots of unsupervised kids with time on their hands.  The 
drugs just inevitably followed.
	"Even worse, this whole area has become a central drop for 
the Hartford/Springfield/Providence triangle.  Probably half the coke 
in lower New England passes through our little town, these days."
	Rydell shook his head.
	"I suppose I'm exaggerating, but it feels like that some days.  
The truth is, we just don't have the manpower, or the expertise, to 
deal with it.  Cumberland County as joined a three county task force 
to try to combine resources, and we've still had no luck in cracking 
this ring.  We just need one break.  But that break doesn't seem to 
want to come."
	"Maybe it just did,"  Scully replied, nodding at the draped 
corpse in the weeds.  Rydell shrugged.
	"Maybe, but I doubt it.  This guy is probably pretty low on 
the totem pole.  And even if he can provide us with a positive link, 
the guy's dead.  He's not going to do us much good that way.  We 
need to get the bastard who shot him, and we need to take him alive."
	Mulder nodded, and glanced at Scully, but said nothing.  
Rydell eyed him speculatively.
	"Might I ask what the FBI was doing here in the first place?"  
he finally asked.
	"An unrelated project, actually," Mulder replied, more or less 
truthfully.  "We're interested in the Colter property.  We just got 
lucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."  He said 
no more, and let the man speculate about whether or not there was 
something illegal going down with the land deal, or the realty 
company behind it.   The air of secretiveness saved him.  Actually, 
Rydell did not really care, as long as the Bureau was not treading on 
*his* turf.
	"Well, I'll need the two of you to come down to the station 
and make a statement..." he concluded, his mind already drifting off 
their presence, and on to the task at hand.  He turned to his men.
	"We about buttoned up, there?"

	

	"Making statements" turned out to be a lot more time 
consuming, and confusing, than anticipated, and it was not too long 
before Mulder realized that they were not going to make their plane 
back to Washington.
	"Mulder, what are we going to tell Skinner?"  Scully groused 
as her partner changed their flight until the following afternoon, and 
made arrangements with the motel to keep their rooms for one more 
night.  "There is no way we can be missing for this long, and not 
have anyone notice..."
	"The truth," Mulder replied.  "Actually, now we've even got 
some truth to tell.  We were up here doing preliminary investigation 
on a possible X-File, and we stumbled onto the murder.  What's he 
going to say, come home anyway?"
	"He's going to want to know what we were doing here in the 
first place,"  Scully replied,  "And he's not gonna be too happy with 
your reference from 'New England's Haunted Places'."
	Mulder just grinned.
	"I'll call him.  As soon as we get back to the motel."
	That did not seem like it was going to happen any time in the 
near future.  They were still sitting around the station at 2:30 pm 
when positive ID came through on the body.
	"Victim's name really *is* Leslie Hendricksen,"  Chief Rydell 
told them.  "The poor bastard's so small time he couldn't even afford 
an alias.  And he's *not* connected with the Giacotti family, or any 
of the other mob families, that we can find out.  Small time dealer, 
front man for another small timer named Harold Peters."  Rydell 
shook his head in disgust.  "So we've got nothin'."
	Mulder shook his head, feeling for the man.  It was not his 
area of expertise, or even a side bar of interest.  He had little 
experience with drug related crime, his own training before the X-
Files having dealt primarily with serial killers.  In fact, the only 
"mob" 
related work he had ever done was that wire-tap stint Skinner had 
stuck him on as disciplinary action while the X-Files had been closed 
down.  On the other hand, he had nothing better to do while they 
were waiting to get out of there the next day, Scully was right that 
there was nothing they could do about the Colter farm, no matter 
what he personally believed, and he really did feel for this Chief of 
Police, who had been rather more decent to them than his ilk usually 
was.
	"Look, Chief Rydell, I don't want to step on any toes here, 
but my partner and I are stuck here until our plane leaves tomorrow, 
and we've got nothing better to do right now.  Our, uh, other project 
looks like a dead end, and we were on our way home, anyway..."  He 
took a breath.  "If you'd like, what if I take a look at that file for 
you?  
See if I notice anything?"
	Rydell gave him a hard look, and Mulder raised his hands.  
	"Off the record, of course.  And you're free to say no.  It's up 
to you.  But we *are* here..."  He shrugged benignly.  Rydell looked 
at him for a moment longer, then slowly nodded.
	"Thank you, Agent Mulder," he replied.  "That's decent of 
you.  I'd be grateful for anything you might turn up."
	"That *was* very decent of you, Mulder," Scully quipped 
when he told her about the offer.  "Are you feeling all right?"
	Mulder gave her a dirty look, then smiled.  But the truth was, 
he was restless, his adrenaline was pumping, and he just could not 
bear the thought of spending another afternoon and evening hanging 
around with nothing to do, while these officers struggled around him.  
He did not expect to find anything, but it would give him something 
to focus on.  And one never knew.  He made it clear to Scully that 
she did not need to consider herself part of this volunteer operation if 
she wanted to go back to the motel and get some sleep, but she said 
she wanted to stay.  They spent the rest of the afternoon and well 
into the late evening with Rydell's files, and found nothing that 
would help Rydell with his task.  It was sometime late in the evening, 
too, that Mulder realized he still had Bowman's key.