TURNING AND RETURNING

by Jori

Years have passed since Fox Mulder and Harmon Rabb last met, but now they are drawn together again to investigate a series of mysterious deaths on a Naval base. Written from Mulder's POV, the two men try to keep the past they once shared in proper perspective. NC-17 for m/m sex


TURNING AND RETURNING
by Jori

April 1999

Scully's voice rises up to the warehouse rafters where I'm standing as someone questions her jurisdiction. I peer down through the grate to see her standing opposite another woman. She is taller than Scully and wearing a military uniform. A Marine, I think. It isn't a dress uniform, and the color is indistinguishable to me, standing here in the darkness above them.

"Ma'am, I don't know who would have called out the FBI on this matter . . ." the uniformed woman tells Scully, her voice also rising to the catwalk I'm on above them. The woman's tone is serious, yet has a slight lilt to it. Her presence is commanding, but not any more or less than is Scully's.

"We were called here to investigate the unexplained deaths of one Seaman Andrew Hilton and one Petty Officer Jorge Marado. I believe they were found sealed in a container in this warehouse," Scully answers, holding her ground.

Another uniformed person appears from the shadows, as I begin to make my way to the stairway down from here. This one is a man. I can see he is dressed better than the woman he is with, and I can barely make out his uniform as Navy. He's taller than Scully, but he doesn't use his height to daunt over her. Instead, he simply starts to ask her questions.

"Agent?" he asks, not knowing her name.

I stop, and my heart starts beating just a little faster. I try to get a better view through the old, metal ramp I'm on, but can't see very well through the grates.

"Special Agent Dana Scully," Scully answers him, taking out her badge. He examines it briefly.

"Agent Scully, I'm not sure who called you out on this, but from what I understand, this is being handled by the Navy," the man says.

Shit. My heart wasn't wrong. I know that voice. It has been years, but I know it. I make my way down the remainder of the noisy metal ramp, and jump the last three feet to the cement floor, my trench coat floating up behind me. All three of them look at me as if Batman just appeared out of nowhere.

"Problems?" I say, focusing only on Scully.

"We don't appear to be wanted here . . ." Scully starts to say. I can see out of the corner of my eye that the Naval Officer is watching me, for he knows me well.

"Fox?" he asks, as if he's guessing.

"Good to see you again, Harm," I say. The woman he's with doesn't look as taken aback as Scully does. Perhaps people call him Harm all the time. Most people we knew in common called him Rabb. Just like I am Mulder. Scully cocks her head to the side, her eyes questioning me. Of course, she knows the only people who call me Fox are my family. And old lovers.

"Um, Mulder, it seems as if we are having a little problem with jurisdiction here," Scully says. Harmon Rabb hasn't broken his stare at me, and I uncomfortably try to focus on Scully and the woman accompanying Rabb.

"So, what's the problem here, Lieutenant Rabb?" I ask, and his partner clears her throat.

"Lieutenant *Commander* Rabb," Scully corrects me, nodding at his uniform. So he's been promoted in the last few years. Nothing was ever lost, no hard lessons learned.

"And this is Major Sarah MacKenzie," Rabb adds, referring to his partner.

"I'd like to know who called you out here. We know that the base is being closed this month, but the victims were both Naval personnel," the major asks us.

"Admiral Harrington called this morning, and we discussed this case thoroughly. He said he'd get in contact with JAG and see if we could possibly work together on this . . . unexplained event," I say, as I absent mindedly take a sunflower seed out of my pocket and place it in my mouth. Rabb raises an eyebrow at me, and I don't know whether it is over my statement or some far away memory of the taste of sunflower seeds.

Scully crosses her arms in front of her, for this is news to her as well. I never mentioned the Admiral when I told her about the case, just that some enlisted men were found in a sealed barrel, severely decayed, only an hour after they were last seen together going into this warehouse.

"I have to be in court in . . . two hours," Rabb says, looking at his Rolex. "Can we discuss this further, perhaps tomorrow? I'll be in my office all day."

I take a business card out of my pocket and hand it to him, and he turns it over in his palm to read it.

"Call me tomorrow, at the office. If I'm not there, I can be reached on my cell phone. I always have it," I say.

"I will be in contact with you. Good afternoon, ma'am," Rabb says, nodding to Scully, and he and his partner turn to leave the building through the front entrance.

Scully leans closer to me, and whispers, "What was all that about, *Fox*?"

"We knew each other. A long time ago," is all I can tell her before we exit out the back door.

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

1991

"Good game," a man says, sitting down next to me at the bar. I look over to see that I recognize him from the team that beat us tonight. Reggie talked me into playing on a city league basketball team, and tonight was our first loss.

"Yeah. For you," I say, and the man raises an eyebrow at me and smiles. He is about my age, maybe younger.

"Hey, it's our first win of the season," he adds, as he flags down the bartender and orders a drink. "My name is Harmon Rabb, by the way. Call me Harm."

"Mulder," I say, as I pick up my beer and take a sip.

"I'm guessing that since you are on Perdue's team, you must be FBI. Right?" Rabb asks, and we both watch the bartender place his beer before him.

"Yes," I say, "and I'm guessing you are Navy?"

He screams Navy. His hair. His posture. The way he speaks.

"JAG Corps," he replies.

"Lawyer?" I ask.

"Yes. Barely," he answers.

This chat is stiff and unmoving, as he tries to find some conversational common ground. I'm not much help. It was a shitty day at work, followed by a losing game, followed by the fact that Diana has moved herself into my apartment and I still don't know what to make of that.

"Hmm...." I say, nodding at nothing in particular. He doesn't look like a lawyer. Looks more like the flyboy type, with their fancy little wings on their chests and gold Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses.

"I was an aviator, but now I'm a lawyer," he mumbles into his beer.

And that, folks, is why I'm a profiler.

"I didn't know you Naval aviators ever gave it up to be lawyers," I say, as I try to focus on the game on the television.

"Had no choice," he says, not going into it further. "So, what do you do for the FBI, Mulder?"

"I'm in between things right now," I say, not wanting to go into the details anymore than he wants to tell me why he's a lawyer and not landing some fighter jet on a carrier ship. Right now I'm walking a tenuous line at the bureau, and I can feel the eggshells crumbling under my feet. I'm getting into something they don't want me to, and if it weren't for Diana, I would be alone. Sometimes, I'm even alone with Diana. We have a strange relationship.

"So, why did you join the FBI?" he asks, his tone light, yet official. I'm sure he quite used to questioning people, as am I.

"I thought . . ." I start to say, realizing the reasons I did it are changing. Do I tell him why I did it in the first place, or do I tell him the new reasons for staying?

"You could save the world from predators?" Rabb finishes.

I smile at him. "Yeah. From predators. So, how did you end up in the Navy, Rabb?" I ask, turning his questions back at him.

"My father was an aviator. He disappeared in Vietnam in '69," Rabb says, his voice suddenly filled with the same hollow sound that mine acquires when I talk about Samantha.

"Disappeared?" I question him. A lot of things can happen to men during war. Samantha wasn't at war. She disappeared from her own home. Our home. And I was supposed to be watching her.

"We were informed of his Missing in Action status on Christmas Eve 1969. I've spent a lot of time searching for him since then. A lot of time," Rabb says, his voice filled with the love that a son should feel for his father. Mine hasn't acquired that tone in a while.

"It is hard. I understand," I say.

"No you don't," Harmon Rabb counters, as do most people who have lost someone.

"My kid sister, Samantha . . . she disappeared from our house when she was eight. I was twelve at the time," I tell him. Only in the last few years, I have been able to fill in some of the missing pieces. Yet, the more pieces I put in, the bigger the puzzle becomes.

"Well then, Mulder, I was wrong about you. Unfortunately, It seems we have more in common than playing on lousy city basketball teams and our boyish good looks," Rabb says with a smile and I laugh.

"Yeah. It would seem that way," I say, as we both settle in for a conversation over our beers.

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

1999

"Mulder, where have you been? Commander Rabb has called twice for you, and he said he wasn't able to reach you on your cell phone. Which isn't surprising, considering it is on your desk," Scully says as I walk into my office. She is sitting behind my desk, eating a salad out of a plastic container. She has several reports spread out in front of her.

"I had to look into something," I say, as I sit down opposite from her.

"Well, while you were looking into something, I was battling with the powers that be over at Fort Marlene, trying to get my hand on these. Luckily, I knew the pathologist on duty today, and he let me sit in on one of the autopsies. That would be Petty Officer Jorge Marado," Scully says, indicating the pictures before her.

I pick the picture up, and examine what used to be a 21 year old man. His flesh looks as if it has been tanned, and his leathered appearance has forced a strange grimace to remain on his face. Both Marado and Hilton's uniforms were intact, while their bodies looked like the mummified remains of Peruvian natives dug up out of Andean salt plains. Perfectly preserved and leathered.

"Find anything?" I ask Scully as she stabs at the last piece of lettuce in her bowl.

"Nothing yet, Mulder. I have some theories, but I'm going to wait for the toxicology reports to come back," Scully says. "So, where were you? I was out at 5:30 a.m. investigating this case of yours, and you don't bother to show up until after 1 o'clock."

"Please, dear, not now. I have a headache," I say to her. She cleans off my desk and stands up, and I slide into my own chair.

"Are you going to call Rabb back, or do you want me to do that, too?" Scully asks, as she takes the seat I just left.

"I'll get to it, okay? I just don't know about this case . . ." I say, and watch her eyebrow fly sky high.

"What's wrong with it, Mulder? It practically cries out for you. Mysterious deaths in a poorly lit warehouse, government cover-up possibilities, perhaps even a twenty percent chance of an alien abduction or two," Scully says to me with a smile.

What do you want me to say to you, Scully? That I don't want to get involved now because I once slept with one of those JAG attorneys back when we were much younger, and I don't mean Major MacKenzie. What would you say to that? I don't even know what to say about it. After thinking this through all night, I don't know if I want to reopen that period of my life.

"I'll call him and arrange a meeting," I say, as I pick up the message with the Falls Church number on it, but don't make a move towards my phone.

"Fine. I'm going to check on those lab reports. I'll see you later," Scully says, as she rises out of the chair and leaves the office.

I pick up the phone and slowly push the buttons.

"Commander Rabb? This is Special Agent Fox Mulder," I say, sounding overly professional. "Can we arrange to meet about this warehouse case sometime this week? Sure. That sounds good. I'll be there."

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

1991

"Looks like we'll be playing on the same team this time, Mulder," Harmon Rabb says to me as he stands by my side. His actions follow mine, and his fingers go up and lace into the chain link fence behind home plate. We met a few times while we were playing on different basketball teams, and always ended the evening sitting in some bar, having a few drinks and discussing . . . not much. He is far more amiable than I am. I have a few friends, but acquiring new ones isn't a priority right now.

"Good to see you again, Rabb," I say, without looking directly at him. The opposing team is warming up and I'm just sizing up the competition. I get to play right field again, like every year I sign up.

"Don't tell me you play ice hockey, too?" Rabb jokes, and I shake my head 'no.'

"Occasionally I play some football . . . American football, that is. And I can actually play a mean ass game of cricket. But never ice hockey. Fear of losing my teeth, I guess. So, what position do you play?" I ask, nodding at the field. We don't get many new team members each year, so I guess we started recruiting outside of my division at the bureau.

"I'm the pitcher," he says.

"I suppose you were once the quarterback at the Naval Academy, too?" I ask him and he laughs.

"And where did you go to school, Agent Mulder, that you know how to play cricket?" Rabb says, in a tone I'm sure he uses to cross examine witnesses.

"Oxford," I answer. "Psychology."

"Ah. So you work for what division again? Violent crimes? Then you must be a profiler," Harmon Rabb says. He's smart, intuitive, and just a little bit cocky, but not in an unsettling way. No more unsettling than I am. I never mentioned exactly what I did for the FBI. Most of our past conversations involved sports and who's going to win the presidential election next time around.

"For now," I say, knowing that my future might be changing soon.

"Are we going to get a chance out there? I'm a little rusty and expected to get more practice in before the first game. I didn't expect to get called away," he says. His life must not be that different than mine. I've been sent out of town many times to help track down a violent offender.

"I hope they don't go on too much longer. I need to get home sometime tonight, and I forgot my cell phone," I say, wondering how many times Diana has probably tried to call me already and how I could forget that big chunk of plastic that is usually at my hip.

"Someone missing you at home?" Rabb asks curiously.

I just grumble something as the other team leaves the field.

Rabb and I don't get a chance to talk to each other again until the seventh inning stretch. So far he's pitched a no hitter, despite being 'rusty.' We might actually be able to win a few games this season.

"How's right field treating you, Mulder?" he asks, sitting down next to me and drinking down a bottle of Gatorade.

"Considering your pitching abilities, Rabb, I haven't had a whole hell of a lot to do out there but stand around and scratch my balls," I say. I never really thought about how boring a no hitter is.

"I figured you could use a break. You look like you've been working pretty hard," he says.

A plane zooms over the dugout, rattling all the loose items around us. I look up, but it is gone before I can catch a glimpse of it. Rabb doesn't move his eyes from the ball field.

"F-14 Tomcat," Rabb says. "I don't have to look. I can tell by the sound."

"Is there anything you can't do, Rabb?" I ask. I know people have asked this of me before, and now I know how annoying it is to appear to be good at everything.

"Yeah. Actually, there is," he says, without hinting at what that might be. "Have you ever been up in anything besides a commercial plane, Mulder?"

"I've been in some small commuter planes before. You know, the kind you swear they have to run out front and scream 'contact!' before it can get anywhere. But besides that, no," I say.

"I'll have to take you up sometime. You pick a time, I'll pick the plane," Harmon Rabb offers.

"I'm free most evenings," I say to him.

"Anytime but the evenings," he says, his voice suddenly sinking lower and softer.

"Sure. I'll give you my number. And my cell phone number. I always have it," I say, digging a scrap of paper out of my bag and scribbling some numbers down on it.

"Except when the lady of the house is looking for you?" Rabb asks with a smile.

"Except then," I say, as I suddenly realize I just made a date with Maverick.

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

1999

A young blond woman leads me to Rabb's office, and closes the door behind us. Scully fought to get permission to view the body of Seaman Andrew Hilton and jumped at the chance when it presented itself. I don't know where Major MacKenzie could be, but it isn't in this office with the two of us.

"Have a seat, Agent Mulder," Rabb says, pointing at the chair across from him. Rabb is dressed as formally as he was yesterday, in a Navy blazer with ribbons on his chest, probably appearing in court again. I've come to determine that certain men join the Navy just because they know they look good in the uniform. The ones who join the Navy know they can carry that white number off without looking, as Jack Nicholson once put it, faggity.

"Thank you, Lieuten . . ." I start to say before he stops me.

"Mulder, call me Harm. Call me Rabb, or call me Harmon Rabb, Jr., but enough with the Lieutenant Commander or even Commander Rabb stuff. We will be in here an extra two hours if you keep it up all afternoon," he says, his eyes darting to mine at his last words.

"Yeah. Um, about this case. Agent Scully has found no evidence of chemicals in the tissues of those two men besides an extreme excess of salt. That doesn't normally act as fast as this apparently did. Basically, those two men were preserved," I say, as I hand him Scully's latest report.

"What I don't get, Mulder, is why you would be called in on this case in the first place?" Rabb asks as he shuts the manila folder and places it on the desk in front of him.

"It is my area of expertise," I say, holding his stare. "My partner and I investigate unexplained phenomena."

"Unexplained how?" he asks, his eyebrow going up so similar to Scully's.

"Unexplained meaning that normal fields of science and reasoning can't quite explain them. Like this case, for example. Someone claims to have seen those two men just a half an hour before they were found dried out like beef jerky in a barrel that was supposed to be empty," I say.

"Surely there must be some rational explanation for it within the realm of science," Rabb counters, and I wonder if I should hook him up with Scully. He's her type, and God knows he's good in bed.

"That is what Scully and I are trying to determine," I say. "We don't want to step on any toes of jurisdiction, we just want to make sure something isn't being covered up here. You do know that the government occasionally covers things up, don't you?"

"I can assure you that the government isn't trying to cover anything up in this particular case, Agent Mulder. We are trying to run an expedient investigation into the deaths of those young men, and I don't necessarily need someone else's opinion. No matter how brilliant of a profiler they might be," Rabb says, his eyes locked on mine.

"I'll tell you what, Rabb. You head up the investigation. You call the shots, we will follow your lead. With Scully, you get a damn good pathologist and with me you get an extra investigator who has been around the block a few times. I can solve it for you and then you can prosecute whoever the hell it is who did it," I say.

"I have to discuss it with Admiral Chegwidden before I can make that decision. And I have a call in to Admiral Harrington," he says, as he finally opens up the report Scully made.

"And I have to discuss it with Assistant Director Skinner, but I'm sure he'll be more than willing to let us work that way. He's the one who took the call from Admiral Harrington in the first place," I say.

"Okay. I'll give you a call tomorrow. And, Mulder, I thought you always carried your cell phone?"

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

1991

I easily find Rabb at the airfield, standing next to a plane reminiscent of old time barnstormers. Or Snoopy. It is bright yellow and red and seats two. I begin to wonder what I've gotten myself into.

"When you said you were a pilot, I thought you meant planes with at least a canopy on them," I say, as Harmon Rabb goes through his checklist.

He turns and flashes a cocky, aviator smile at me, and I can tell that here is where he feels true peace. I still don't know how his first career as an aviator ended, but obviously it wasn't by choice.

Harm is dressed in a green flight jumpsuit, even though this is not a military mission. I watch him move with ease around his plane, and I feel a strange twinge run through me. It is a stirring of feelings I've long forgotten for this man I now consider a friend. For a brief second I want to just run from this place, scared by what my mind is considering, but I am frozen in place watching him, and for some reason, wanting him.

"Come on, Mulder. Let me show you what to do," Rabb says, calling me over to him.

"Aye, aye, Captain," I joke as I walk towards him.

"Lieutenant, actually. In any case, we will be able to talk to each other through these headsets. I won't do anything you don't want me to do. Don't be worried. The United States government used to trust me with 55 million dollar planes. If you don't want to do any aerial acrobatics, let me know. I don't want you vomiting up there and making a big mess. Do you tend to get queasy?" he asks me, as he begins to hand me gear.

"I have a slight problem with seasickness," I say, not really wanting to admit to flyboy that I spent many holidays sitting on the dock watching my friends out boating.

"I'll try some easy stuff, and see if you can take it. And I'll make sure you are in tight. We wouldn't want FBI agents falling from any cockpits, would we?" Harm says, flashing his smile at me.

This is going to be one long afternoon from hell if he keeps touching me like this. I'm not gay. I never even experimented back in college. Even after my blond hair, blue-eyed roommate announced he was gay and was going to pop my cherry. I just laughed and called Phoebe to come get me.

Rabb pulls the harness tight around me, and gets the headset on correctly, before asking me how I'm doing. I tell him that I'm fine and I really would be if he would just get those hands off of me. I notice his fingers rest on my arm a little longer than most men would ever touch. Where in the hell is this going, Mulder? I ask myself. And why don't I have an urge to call Diana?

I can hear everything Rabb says to the man in charge of this small airfield, and he instructs him on what runway to use and in a matter of moments we are up in the air over Virginia.

"How are you doing, Mulder?" he asks over the headset.

"I'm doing fine," I say back, meaning it fully. I'm beginning to see why he looked so relaxed getting ready for this flight. It is hard to focus on all the problems down there when you are up here. For the time being, I try not to think about what I'm getting into at work, or how much my life is getting entwined with Diana's. I can almost forget Samantha for just a few minutes.

"Let me know if you need anything. I think the drink cart will be coming by shortly," Rabb says, laughing at his own joke.

I have an urge to get to know this person better, to find out what is behind those eyes, what that sadness is that crosses his face every once in awhile. And then there is this unfamiliar urge that keeps rising to the top of my consciousness, no matter how hard I try to suppress it. I need to have this person. I haven't felt that in so long, and I've never felt it for Diana. Sure, we share the same bed and many of the same ideas, but beyond that, there is so much more missing. Like someone to trust.

"Hey Rabb?" I ask him over the headsets. "Ever run into any unidentified flying objects during all the flying you've done?"

I'm answered back with only his silence, then no is followed by, "The only thing I ever ran into was the deck of a carrier."

So that's why he's no longer an aviator. An accident and it was all gone.

"Tell me about it sometime," I say.

"Mm hmm," he mumbles.

"But not while we are in the air, okay?" I plead, and am glad to hear him laugh.

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

1999

"So, what are we looking for out here, Mulder? This place has been scoured by the forensics team," Harmon Rabb asks in a tone that almost sounds like Scully, only lighter and happier. Time with me always makes people sound unhappy.

"Clues, Scooby Doo," I say, as I walk past him over to the area of the warehouse where the men were found.

"Evidence," he says. "Clues don't mean much in court."

"Yeah. That, too," I say, as I climb up onto the loading dock containing more barrels like Hilton and Marado were found in.

"They've all been checked. No trace substances. No evidence in any of them. It is as if they were never used," Rabb says of the barrels.

I pound on the lids of a few of them, squeezing in between them. One doesn't sound as hollow as the rest and I locate a crowbar nearby.

"You need help with that?" Rabb asks.

The lid pops open before I can answer, and I look into the big metal drum. Oh, shit.

"Is this a clue or is this evidence?" I ask, and he jumps up onto the platform and looks at the dead man inside.

The place is crawling with military personnel when Scully arrives within the hour, followed shortly by Major MacKenzie.

"Well, you were only half right, Mulder," Scully says, as she pulls off her latex gloves.

"How is that?" I say.

"That isn't a man in there. It is a woman," she says, and I turn to look at the barrel. They haven't removed her from the big yellow container, and Scully did a precursory examination of the body like that.

I look over to see Harmon Rabb talking to a woman he refers to as Mac. I can see Scully and me in them, a few years back. Before her cancer. Before Antarctica. Before a lot of crap. I can tell they work well together, but aren't necessarily held by the same ties that now bind me to Scully. And to think I was once more intimate with that man than I ever have a chance of being with her.

"Agent Mulder?" a man says behind me. I turn around to see an older man in a uniform, and can tell by Scully sudden slight 'at attention' stance that he must be someone important. I wonder how much of the military is really instilled in her.

"Yes, sir," I say, extending my hand.

"I'm Admiral Harrington. We spoke on the phone," he says to me.

"Admiral Harrington, this is my partner, Agent Scully. She just examined the body we found today," I say, and he asks a few questions of her.

"Who were you with when you found the most recent . . . victim?" Admiral Harrington asks.

"I was with Ra . . . Commander Rabb," I say. Rabb and Mac approach, and all parties in uniform salute. I have a sudden image of me saluting Skinner every time we pass, but it is fleeting. I don't think it would be the life for me.

"What's going on here? We have this area under constant surveillance, yet another body turns up. I need some answers, and I need them soon. We can't keep losing personnel like this," Admiral Harrington say, expressing the obvious.

Two more people enter the warehouse, and the one I recognize by his gait right away, even in the fading light.

More saluting goes on as both of the men reach us and we are introduced to Admiral Chegwidden.

"Assistant Director, I thought you said your agents specialized in solving the unsolvable?" Harrington says.

"They do, but they ran into a little trouble with your JAG Corps," Skinner says in our defense.

"It's our jurisdiction," Chegwidden says, backing his lawyers.

"I don't care about jurisdiction right now. What I care about is figuring out who committed this atrocity. The base 'officially' closes next week, and if this is being done by one of those people fighting the closure, I want to know," Harrington says.

"Sir, the issue of jurisdiction needs . . . " Mac starts to interrupt.

"Work together on this one. I want answers. ASAP," Harrington says.

"Aye aye, sir," several voices say at once.

He walks out of the building, leaving six of us standing, grouped by whether we are in a military uniform or a Fed uniform.

"I gave Commander Rabb the lead in this case. Our services are at his disposal, yet Agent Scully is having an impossible time getting access to any of the reports about the autopsies. So far, everything she obtained has been through contacts she has. I would like her to perform *this* autopsy," I say, and Skinner agrees.

"I'll see what I can arrange," Chegwidden says, before conferring with Rabb and Mac.

"Any ideas?" Skinner says, pointing towards the men carrying off the barrel.

"Lots, sir," I say.

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

1991

"Tell me what happened," I say to Rabb. We are sitting on the couch at my apartment, watching the Orioles on TV. Diana had to go to New Hampshire to visit family this weekend, and I begged out of it. Rabb and I have met for a beer a few times since we went up on that flight, and now I don't know where this 'friendship' is headed. Something about him just makes me want to be with him more and more.

"What? You going to put that psychology degree to good use?" he says to me, smiling.

"I'm not a licensed therapist. I can tell you how you are fucked up, but can't help you get unfucked," I say to him and he laughs for a moment. Then I see that sadness that takes over him. Something big happened, something life changing. I know the feeling. I have yet to find the right person to share it all with. Maybe it is the man next to me.

"It was a dark and stormy night. . ." Rabb starts.

"I'm serious, Rabb. Tell me what happened," I say.

"I'm night blind, Mulder. I crashed a very expensive F-14 Tomcat into the deck of a carrier in turbulent seas," he says.

I know there is more to the story. I want to know the more. I want to know what makes this man tick.

"And . . ." I ask.

"My RIO . . . my Radar Intercept Officer was killed," he says, sadness punctuating his words.

"I'm sorry," is all I can say. He looks at me out of the corner of his eye, as if he's expecting me to now try to counsel him. I'm sure the Navy has already done that job for me.

"Ever kill someone, Mulder? I don't mean killing a criminal or the enemy in the line of duty. Have you ever been responsible for another man's death? An innocent man?" Rabb asks, bringing memories flooding back to me.

"Yes. Actually, I am responsible for the death of an innocent man," I say, thinking back to how if I would have just shot John Barnett when I had the chance, Agent Steve Wallenberg would still be alive. "But we all know the risks, Rabb. I'm sure your RIO knew them, too."

"He was a friend," Rabb says quietly.

Or maybe more? I wonder to myself.

"I've lost friends, too. I never want to lose another one," I say.

We turn to each other, and I'm embarrassed by what I'm thinking. If I make a move and am wrong, I will lose another friend forever. I have so few friends right now. But if I don't, how will I ever know? I am so fucked up.

Slowly, with a hesitant pause, Rabb's hand reaches up to my face, and he traces a line across my lower lip with his thumb. Oh my God. This can't happen, can it?

His fingers are rougher than I'm used to, even though his hands are well manicured. Maybe it isn't the texture so much as it is the force behind that touch. I find my hand going to his face as well, resting on his cheek, feeling the late afternoon stubble there. It is all so unfamiliar, yet at the same time, nothing seems to be wrong about it. Not for now, anyway.

"Mulder, what's happening here?" Rabb asks me, his thumb not moving from my lip.

"Whatever you want to happen here," I say, something inside me deciding in that split second to go with it.

"I want a lot," he says back to me. I can't say anything, for I have drawn that thumb from my lip into my mouth. Phoebe once said this is how someone once taught her to give a blowjob, and I just laughed. She was good at them. Diana won't go down on anyone, though she's always spreading her legs and expecting me to engorge myself on her.

His eyes close from the sensation, no matter how slight this contact might be. I want a lot, too, Rabb. I want to feel your cock in my mouth next, I think. I want to laugh. The synapses of my brain never had that message traveling across them before, and my crotch seems to be responding faster than I can process what is going on.

Rabb withdraws his thumb from my mouth, and he moves closer to me. Our first kiss is all teeth and noses clunking together as we try to figure out who is leading and who is following. I almost think this will be the end of it. This will bring us to our senses, because we obviously don't fit.

Instead, he tilts his head just right, and our tongues meet somewhere in the middle. He tastes of the beer he just drank, and smells so masculine. I'm kissing another man. And I want more.

He pulls away from me, and looks me earnestly in the eye.

"Mulder, I've got to tell you something," he says. Rabb's breathing is now uneven, mirroring my own. There's also an erection in his sweatpants mirroring mine. Well, perhaps one of those mirrors that makes everything bigger. Jesus, I want to touch it so bad.

"What," I say, as I sit back from him for a moment and consider how much semen I can scoop off this couch without Diana noticing.

"Contrary to popular belief, men out to sea on carriers or submarines *don't* always engage in this activity. Yes, some do, but many more, like me, don't. Or didn't. I just don't want for you to think . . ." he says, and his hand goes back to my face and tilts my eyes so I'm looking at him and not my upholstery.

"You don't want me to think you are gay? That you were out looking for this?" I ask, laughing. Like I'm the one who's going to say anything. I have an erection the size of the state of Florida jutting out from my lap just from kissing this man, and he's worried I'm going to call him gay?

"I've never done this before. I could lose everything that I haven't lost already," he says seriously.

"Why me?" I ask, my tone just as serious. I'm not worth losing everything for.

"I don't know. I just . . . want to, with you," he says, as he pulls me in for another kiss.

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

1999

"You want to what?" Scully asks through her mask and safety goggles.

"I want to call in a friend of mine. He's an Egyptologist. I want him to see this," I tell her as I look closely at the body of Lieutenant Nancy McDunn. She is a nurse. Was. Now she is another piece of jerky like the two before her.

"Are you suggesting that someone is mummifying these people in an attempt to copy ancient mummification procedures? As an experiment?" she asks me, as she runs a gloved finger over the tough hide of a wife and a mother.

"I don't know, Scully. But it's an idea. Look at how much money a good body costs. It is very prohibitive to the average man," I say, and I can tell she smiled under that mask.

"But no one can mummify any one this fast, Mulder. Even in ancient Egypt, it took time and effort. This happened to these people inside half an hour. I just don't think that is the right direction," Scully says, as she steps back from Nancy McDunn and snaps off her gloves. She usually mistrusts my contacts, and she has the right to. Most don't follow the path of science that she does.

"No rush to get her back into refrigeration?" I ask, and get no response. "So, what is the right direction, Scully?"

"What does Commander Rabb have to say about any of this?" she asks, as she throws her disposable gown away, and stands before me in surgical scrubs.

"Why does that matter," I say, looking down.

"Well, he's ultimately the one who's going to decide how this whole thing goes. I would like for him and his partner to be here when you bring in your Egyptologist friend," Scully says, her arms crossed in front of her.

"Why? So you can all gang up against 'Spooky' Mulder and his 'out there' beliefs? I'm just trying to get this investigation moving, Scully. Before we end up with more of someone's impressive tanning work lying there on your table," I say, as I turn around and leave her behind in the autopsy bay.

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

1991

Somehow we ended up somewhere between my living room and the bedroom. Harmon Rabb is backed up against the wall, his sweatpants and cotton briefs pulled down around his ankles. And his hot cock is in my mouth, potent, virile and more aroused than any man has the right to be. After all the years of being on the receiving end of this particular act, I'm kind of at a loss as to what to do. So I do what I would like, what I *know* feels good. And it must, because he's moaning with each flick of my tongue.

I've tasted my own semen on the mouths of others, all women, yet never thought about tasting someone else's. I never wanted someone to come in my mouth so hard it would rattle my teeth like I want Harmon Rabb to. All discussion of safe sex and tests for various infections went by us fast, both of us declaring ourselves free of anything. Free of anything but the need to do this.

He has me on my knees, and right now, he is the only man I would ever do this for. I take his cock into my mouth deeper and deeper, and let my tongue explore all the contours of another man's penis. I know mine all too well, and this one isn't much different. Just your average All-American cock. Circumcised as was recommended back in the '60s, covered in tight flesh with purple veins. The only thing that separates this one from any other All-American cock is this one is doing a salute in my mouth at the present time.

I feel his hands rake through my hair, as he tries to pull me in closer, deeper. Rabb thrusts and hits the back of my throat. I gag slightly.

"Don't choke up on the bat, Mulder," Rabb says, and I delve back in for more. He smells like a mixture of sweat and jock itch powder, so male. My own erection juts out looking for something. Little does it know, it isn't going to its usual hang out this time. Oh no. This is going to be quite a change.

Rabb starts to pull me to him again, and I stop him. "Hold up there, flyboy. I do have a bed."

"I, um, don't know . . ." Rabb says nervously. Perhaps this is all okay with him as long as it doesn't go too far. He seemed fine with it until right now, with the mention of a bed. Maybe that is where he draws the line.

"Nothing more than you want," I say, as I stand up. I never really noticed how much taller he is than I am until now, when we are both standing naked and quite vulnerable. He's inches taller, even though we share the same athletic build.

I don't know which way to go now. Do I lead him by the hand to the bed, or let him standing here thinking about it while I head off that way? I choose the latter, and he follows me in a matter of seconds. I flop onto the mattress, and pat the space next to me. We shouldn't be doing this in here. These are Diana's bed linens. Oh, fuck Diana. I don't care right now.

He sits tentatively beside me, and both of us seem scared of making the next move. My heart is pounding a mile a minute right now and my brain is struggling with how far I want to take this.

"Did you ever think this would happen?" Rabb asks me, his voice making it clear that he is already questioning what we are doing.

"No. Never," I say, expecting him to bolt out of this place at any moment. I realize that I'm not in much better shape mentally than he is right now. I don't want anybody to lose their career over one fucking tumble in the hay, but I want him right now. We can clean up all the messes later.

"How do you want to go about doing *this?*" Rabb asks, as he motions down towards our lagging erections.

"I think if I could figure it out standing up, I can figure it out lying down," I say, as I maneuver myself to take his cock in my mouth, feeling it harden under my tongue. I am just a little more than surprised when I feel a tongue move up my own penis, lapping slowly around the tip. When I moved into this position, I really wasn't thinking of this, but I'm pretty much open to anything right now, considering I have a man in bed with me.

With agility, he manages to have me on my back and under him, his cock fucking my mouth, his mouth wrapped around mine as I match his rhythm. Rabb moves with athletic ease, managing to compensate nicely for the difference in our height.

I'm near the edge and on the verge of falling off when I feel him reach orgasm and release his load down my throat. I swallow every drop of it, sucking it as fast as he can give it. It has the thickness of white glue, and the taste of a man. Musky. Salty. Hot. He pulls out of my mouth, all sticky and wet, with a trail of semen going from my chin to his cock, and focuses only on me. I force myself to stop thinking for a moment, and to just let it go. Let it all go, Mulder.

His mouth pounds down around me, driving me closer and closer with each flick of his tongue. I want to come, to release everything for this man. I want abandon everything that I thought I was, and be what ever I have to be to stay here with Harmon Rabb.

At last, my body uncoils the tight spring inside, and Rabb pulls his mouth away at the last second, choosing to watch me come all over my stomach instead of feasting on it like I did. Semen shoots all over, including his face. I moan something that could be his name and look at him closely as my body sputters to a standstill, drained by this man.

He has a distant look in his eyes, the one I am probably reflecting back in my own eyes, as he wipes my semen off of his chin.

"What in the hell did we do here, Fox?" he asks, using my given name for the first time.

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

1999

"I don't know how they did it," Dr. Arlin Jonston says, as he examines the latest corpse.

"Do you have any ideas as to how a body could be preserved in this way so quickly?" Scully asks. The two of them are examining the body in detail, while Rabb and I stay out of their way. Major MacKenzie should be here at any time, but got held up at a deposition.

"I've worked for many years on researching the mummification process. I just got back from Cairo a few days before I got a call from Agent Mulder. They are doing wonderful research on the process, but nothing like this," Dr. Jonston says, as he walks around the body of Nancy McDunn. Scully seems to be more accepting of the fellow scientist than I thought she would be. Not all my friends are nuts. Just a good majority of them.

"I don't understand how they could have left the internal organs intact and achieved these results," Scully says, giving the doctor a better view of the preserved insides.

"What chemicals if any were found on the body?" he asks Scully. She flips through some reports, looking for the lab analysis.

"Salt, mainly. A mixture of sodium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate, with sodium chloride and sodium sulfate," Scully recites off the list.

"That would be natron. It naturally occurs in Egypt in a few places. Water containing natron in solution comes to the surface and is evaporated, leaving it as a surface deposit. The only thing wrong with this picture is the time frame you are stating for this process. There is no way it could happen in half an hour, and completely mummify the body in and out," Dr. Jonston says, looking at the report in Scully's hand.

"Reliable witnesses are setting the time frame. These people weren't missing for months or even days. They weren't even missed yet. Someone obviously has discovered a way to speed up the process," Scully says, as the two of them confer back and forth about the autopsy report.

Rabb leans over closer to me. "We need to talk."

"About?" I ask, wondering what he knows about this case. Everything else has gone without mention so far, and I figured we were just going to keep it that way. The past is the past and our lives have moved on.

"We just need to talk," he replies.

"So, talk. Those two seem to be entertained for the time being," I say, looking him in the eyes.

Major MacKenzie enters the autopsy bay, looks briefly in the direction of the body before making her way over to our corner of the room.

"Sorry I'm late. Has the Egyptologist provided any answers to the condition of the bodies?" she asks, directing her question towards Rabb.

"No, not yet. Just that the chemicals used were commonly used in the mummification process in ancient Egypt. He seems to be at a loss as to how they did it so quickly," he answers his partner.

"Agent Mulder, do you have any speculation yet as to how this was accomplished?" she asks me. I'm sure she was briefed on my reputation for delving into the bizarre.

"Perhaps there is an alien race who finds sun-dried humans a delicacy and they were planning on shipping them in those barrels," I say to her and she doesn't know whether to take me seriously or not.

"Do you mind if I go ask the doctors some questions?" she asks, looking in the direction of Scully and Jonston.

"That is why we are all here," I answer her, and Rabb nods.

As soon as she is out of range, Rabb leans over to me again.

"I don't think this would be the appropriate place to talk. Can we meet somewhere tomorrow, outside of work?" he asks, and I get a knot in my stomach. I do not think I feel guilty about what happened between us, but I don't necessarily want to revisit that period of my life. And I don't want to be put in a position where it could happen again. Could it happen again?

"Tomorrow morning I'm playing basketball at eight o'clock. I'll be at a court at Ribaldi Park. Do you know where that is?" I ask him and he nods 'yes.' "Stop by, we can shoot some hoops and then talk somewhere."

"Fine," he answers as he leans away from me.

"Agent Mulder, I don't know what you expected me to be able to tell you," Dr. Jonston says to me from across the room.

"I was just hoping you would be able to say you've seen this kind of thing before," I say as he approaches us.

"Kind of like you were once hoping I would say aliens built the pyramids?" Jonston says, laughing. I catch a quick glimpse of Rabb looking at me out of the corner of his eye.

"I'm still working on that one, Arlin," I say.

"Well, keep me informed about this case, Agent Mulder. I'd love to know how they did it," he says. He shakes both Scully and Mac's hands and nods his head in my direction as he leaves the room.

"Anything, Scully?" I ask.

"Besides a little history lesson, no. He had no thoughts as to how they could speed this process up to the degree that we are seeing here," she says, as she pulls off her latex gloves.

"Well, somebody had to do it," Major MacKenzie says, looking as frustrated as the rest of us.

"We've been over the security camera footage and reviewed everybody who was on the base that day, including all civilian personnel. The warehouse is sealed off and has two armed guards posted at every entrance. As far as I'm concerned, who ever did this isn't coming back," Rabb says, leaning back against a counter top.

"But that still doesn't answer the question of whodunit," I say, looking at Scully. She just shrugs her shoulders and looks away.

All of the fingerprints found at the sight have been matched to various personnel on the base. Nothing indicates that anyone went into the building unauthorized. Actually, the last victim didn't even show up on the security camera and as a nurse, she had no reason to be there.

"None of us are going to figure it out standing here on a Friday afternoon. Besides, I have an appointment in an hour. Are you ready?" Harmon Rabb says, looking at Mac.

"Let's go," she says.

"Agent Scully," Rabb says, looking from his partner to mine, before finally looking at me, "Agent Mulder, I will call your office on Monday morning to discuss where we are going from here."

"Have a nice weekend," I say as they both leave the autopsy bay.

"I don't know about this, Mulder. I can't explain why someone would want to do this, and why they would pick these particular victims," Scully says, as she peels the paper covering she is wearing to protect her suit.

"We're missing something, Scully. I just don't know what that is yet," I say, looking over to the exposed body of Nancy McDunn. "What I do know is this person isn't going to be satisfied with the work they've already done. They are going to want to do more."

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

1991

"Don't answer it, Fox," Diana says as the phone rings next to our bed for the third time.

"It might be Danny. He said he'd call when the reports came in about that boy . . ." I start to say, and she silences me with a kiss.

She is on top of me, moving in her slow, precise way. Rising and falling, even though I'm not really into this. I had a long day and just wanted to come back to my place and sleep. Alone. I like Diana. Perhaps even love her. But after spending a day with her at work, sometimes it is just enough.

I don't kiss back. She rolls off of me and looks at me like an angry child who didn't get their way.

"Fine. Go ahead and answer it," she says, as she pulls the sheets up around her.

"Mulder," I say, grabbing the phone before it goes to the answering machine.

"Mulder, it's Harm. Harmon Rabb," a male voice says over the line.

"Yes?" I say. I haven't heard from him in over a month. Not since our little 'indiscretion' that one afternoon. I lost a friend, and our baseball team lost the best damn pitcher we ever had. When I was asked if I knew what happened to him, I just answered 'no' like the rest of the guys.

"We need to talk," he says. We never did much talking before, like most men. What happened is something I thought we would just put behind us. I was working on putting it behind me. Yes, I want to see him again, and I would even let it all happen again.

"Go ahead and tell me," I say, trying not to sound too suspicious while Diana is right next to me.

"Are you alone?" Rabb asks, and right as he finishes, Diana's hand goes back to my now fading erection, and she takes the condom off. Then she pulls at my cock, trying to bring it back to life. For a brief second, I think of Harm's mouth around me, in this very bed, and I grow hard despite myself and her.

"No, not exactly," I say, as I try to swat her hand away.

"I want to see you. I'll pick a place and let you know. This isn't safe for me, Mulder. But . . ." he says.

"I understand completely. Let me know as soon as possible," I say.

"I will. Good-bye," he says, hanging up the phone before I can say anything else. I put the receiver back and look at Diana as she continues to play with me.

"Who was that?" she asks, forcing me to lie.

"Someone from work with a few questions. Not about the case, though," I say.

"Hmmm," she says, as she tries to maneuver herself over me. I know what she wants. It's what she always wants. A little oral satisfaction. Well, so do I.

"Why don't you give me a blowjob, Diana?" I ask bluntly, "We can both do this oral thing you are so into at the same time."

"I just won't," she says, "You have to go elsewhere for that."

"Be careful for what you ask for . . ." I start to say as she silences me by lowering herself on my face.

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

1999

"I'm sorry about that, Rabb," I say as we both enter my apartment. He looks around cautiously, as he holds a towel over his eye. I hit him with the ball and split his brow.

The two of us haven't been back in my apartment since that afternoon so many years ago. I don't even have time to think about it anymore. Not until I saw Rabb in that warehouse a few days ago.

"Don't do much redecorating, do you?" he says, as I go to the freezer to get him some ice.

"I had a new waterbed for awhile," I start to say, stopping when I realize that might be a little too suggestive.

"And what happened to it?" Rabb asks, as he leans up against the door frame to my small kitchen area.

"Sprung a leak. Made a big mess and cost me a whole lot of money. Since then I've been back to sleeping on the couch," I say, forgetting that he wouldn't know I slept on the couch anyway. Our lives came together so many years ago.

"What ever happened to Diana?" he asks me, looking around for any touches of femininity.

"She left a long time ago. I saw her recently," I say, not really knowing where Diana is right now, and not wanting to talk about her. "Why don't you go into the bathroom and get cleaned up while I change my clothes?"

He picks up his bag and I point him in the direction of the bathroom. I go into my room, and am stripped down to my gym shorts when I hear a knock on the door. Shit. It could only be Scully.

"Sorry to bother you so early," Scully says, as I open the door. She looks me up and down, slowly realizing she didn't wake me up.

"It's okay. I've been up for awhile. What's wrong?" I ask.

"Nothing, really. I just wanted to talk to you about this case," she says, as she walks past me into my living room.

"Hey, Fox . . . do you have any more towels?" Harmon Rabb asks before realizing that Scully is here. Why in the hell does he use my first name only when she is around? And couldn't he at least come out wearing a damn shirt.

Scully looks curiously at him and then back at me.

"Agent Scully, I didn't know you were here. I'm sorry. We were playing basketball and I got cut," Rabb says naturally.

"Would you like for me to look at it?" she says, as her doctor instinct takes over.

"Yes. I'm hoping I won't need stitches. I just had eye surgery recently, and don't really feel like sitting through too many more doctor visits," he says. Scully motions for him to sit down in the chair next to the lamp and she pulls out a pair of latex gloves out of her pocket. Never can be too careful.

She dabs at his eye a bit with the towel and leans into him to look better.

"What did you have eye surgery for?" she asks him, as she places pressure on the wound.

"To correct a vision problem. I was misdiagnosed as suffering from night blindness years ago. Actually, I had scars on my retinas," he answers her. I wonder if he could leave JAG and go back to flying now? I also wonder if he is still plagued by the death of his RIO as he was back then? I have seen so much death since then, I sometimes think the only one that would have any effect on me would be if I lost Scully. That has been a possibility more times than I like to imagine.

"I don't think you will need stitches. Just put ice and pressure on it," she says, as she snaps off her gloves.

"I'm going to finish getting cleaned up. Thank you, Doctor Scully," Rabb says, as charming as ever. I never have had to question why I fell for him, and fell so hard.

"You are welcome, Commander Rabb," Scully says with a smile.

He goes back into the bathroom, still holding the towel to his eyebrow. I've watched this whole thing from the couch, and Scully turns to face me.

"Basketball?" she asks. "You ran into each other playing basketball?"

"No. I invited him to play and then broke his face," I say, remembering how we first met years ago because of basketball.

"Well, I leave you two guys alone. What do you have planned for the afternoon, Mulder? Some tackle football? Finally find someone with your competitive edge in sports?" Scully asks.

"Very funny. What did you want, Scully?" I ask, wondering why she thinks we want to be left alone.

"Nothing really. Nothing that can't wait until Monday," she says, all of a sudden growing distant. Scully moves towards the door, and I catch up to her.

"I'll talk to you later, Scully," I say, holding her by the arm, looking into her eyes.

"Fine," she says as she opens the door and leaves. I shut the door to find Rabb dressed and standing behind me, still holding a small wash rag on his cut.

"Something wrong?" he asks, his voice hesitant.

"No. I don't think so. What did you want to talk about?" I ask, as I lean up against the door.

"Actually, I had some questions about your partner," he says, watching me as closely as Scully was just watching me.

"You want me to set you up with her?" I ask, not knowing what else he would like to know about Scully.

"No, not that. I'm seeing someone . . . I have a girlfriend right now. Besides, I figured . . ." he says, and I know what he figured. It is what every one guesses wrongly.

"Scully? No," I say, as I walk back into living room.

"You two just seem so . . . close," he says, turning around but not following me.

"We are close. Closer than I am to any other person on earth. But now is not the time," I say, telling the truth. Of course, Harmon Rabb doesn't know the threat facing the human race, and that only Scully and I seem to be working to stop it. I'm sure he would laugh if I did tell him.

"I was just worried. That is what I wanted to talk to you about," he says.

"About whether or not I'm screwing my partner?" I ask. "Why would you care?"

"No, I don't care. I was more curious about whether or not you ever told your partner," Rabb says.

I see what he is getting at. He's assumed that the close nature of my relationship with Scully might have meant I divulged this little bit of my past to her. That would put him at risk. Even if I did ever tell Scully, she would never do that. She's not like that.

"No one knows. Just me and you," I tell him, picking up the remote control and turning on ESPN.

"I thought Diana knew?" he asks.

I just shrug my shoulders and look at him. Diana doesn't matter now. She got what she wanted.

"Well, that's all I really wanted to know," he says.

"Why don't you sit down. I think we can both be trusted around each other. I'm not as young as I used to be," I say, motioning to the chair across from me.

He sits down and just watches me. There is a lot less sadness in his face since the last time he was here. I think the sadness has been transferred to mine.

"So, did you ever find your sister?" he asks.

"No. But I have some answers," I say, even though the answers aren't enough. "Did you ever find your father?"

"I've been told he's dead," he answers, not giving me any more details for a moment. "He died. In Russia."

"Sorry. My father died a few years ago. I wasn't even able to make it to his funeral," I say. He doesn't know about so much of my life, about how different I am now. I was only looking at the tip of the iceberg of what the government was doing back then. I knew nothing.

"How did you get into this, Mulder? This paranormal thing you are so well known for," Rabb asks. I didn't know I was so famous that JAG attorneys would have heard of me.

"Someone needs to find the truth," I say.

"What truth is that?" Rabb asks.

"What the government is doing, how much they hide from the American people," I answer. I don't want to go into conspiracies and cover-ups with him. I have so few people who believe me. Scully isn't even sure she believes it all yet, but still she doesn't leave me.

"You and I both work for the government, Mulder. I am not so naive as to say the government doesn't have any secrets, but how much do you think they could hide?" he asks.

"You would be surprised," I say, with visions of cornfields and bee colonies coming to mind.

"Is that what you are driving at? That the government is doing this to these people. Why?" he asks.

"I don't know who is doing it. And not everything I investigate involves the government. I just specialize in cases that can't be solved due to their unusual nature," I answer. "Don't tell me you've never seen something unexplained?"

His eyes tell me he has. "A few times."

"Did you tell anyone else this?" I ask. He doesn't seem like the type who would.

"Only a few people know about my delusional impulses," he answers. I just nod.

"Are you going to start flying again . . . for the Navy?" I ask, changing the subject. He only took me up once and I remember it well.

"I don't think so. I'd like to, but I don't know," is all he says as he stands up and gathers his stuff. He sets the washcloth he had been holding on his eye down on my table. "I'd better get going."

"Rabb?" I call out to him before he leaves. "Do you ever think about it?"

"I try not to," is all he says before he walks out my door.

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

1991

"Is this what gay men do?" I ask, as I look around the room decorated in floral and gingham.

We are at some quiet bed and breakfast in Upstate New York, through Rabb's instructions. He doesn't want anybody to find out about us and he thought seeing each other again in DC was too risky. He also didn't want to risk checking into some large hotel. From the way he talks, he sounds like people know him everywhere. Or maybe he is more paranoid than I am.

"Well, we're here," he says, and I laugh. Yes, we are here. Together. And I'm not really sure what either of us wants. I know one thing we both want, but we seem to be dancing around it, putting it off just a little longer.

"And I forgot my Streisand albums," I say, as he sits in a large chair by the unlit fireplace. "I thought you just wanted to talk. We could have done that at any Denny's in town. We would have fit right in."

"Got any more gay jokes, Mulder?" Rabb says.

"Yes. No. Well, I have some transvestite jokes. Do they count?" I ask.

"Only if you come out of that bathroom wearing a dress and heels," he says, as he stares out the window over looking a wooded area.

"Scared?" I ask him. "So am I."

"Then why are we here?" Rabb asks.

"I thought you wanted to talk. That is all you said," I answer, sitting in the arm chair beside him. The place is large and expensive, but well out of the way.

"That is all I thought I wanted. Until I saw you. I just can't believe this is me. This is what I've become," he says.

"Let's just talk," I say, not believing what I've become, either. I want this man. I've never wanted the things I want right now so badly. Not just to fuck him, but to spend the weekend together. To talk to him. To figure him out.

"About what?" he asks, finally looking at me.

"Tell me about your father," I say, trying to find any topic other than what we are really doing in this motel room.

"He's missing. I told you that. I went looking for him in Laos several years ago, to no avail. I haven't given up. Tell me about your sister," he says, changing the subject on me. I would think he could go on for hours about his missing father.

"I think she was abducted by aliens," I say, and he grins at me as if I'm joking.

"No, really. What happened to her?" he asks.

"I just told you. I'm just beginning to figure it all out, put all the pieces together, with Diana's help," I say, realizing I've never mentioned her by name before in all the time we have spent together. Rabb looks away from me again.

"Tell me about Diana," he says, sounding guilty, as if he is the one cheating on his girlfriend with another man. I'm the one who should feel guilty. If she ever found out about this, all hell would break lose and I will be paying forever.

"Diana is Diana. We are both interested in the paranormal. It just moved from there to living together. I don't know how long it will last," I say, telling the truth. I don't know if I love her enough to make it forever.

"Do you feel guilty?" he asks me, looking at me for a second before looking away again.

"Apparently not as guilty as you feel," I say, as I pop a sunflower seed into my mouth. I'm desperately trying to quit smoking and these aren't that much help. Neither is this situation. "Why did you ask me here?"

"I want to be with you again. And it isn't just about sex, Fox. I want you to know that. And I don't think you're here for the sex either. You live with someone, a woman. I think this is something else, just something we can't define," he answers. "I never even considered these things until I met you."

"Trust me. Neither did I. So where do we go from here?" I ask. There is no future in this relationship. There can't be. I've tried to work it out in my head a million different ways, but it always ends up in heartbreak in one way or another.

"Well, as I see it, we can either just take the little bit of time we have and use it wisely. Or just call it quits here and now and go home," he says, looking over to me. His hand is partially covering his face as he rests his elbow on the armrest. I can't read what he is thinking by his expression.

"A fling at a B and B in the Catskills or a damn long drive home alone. Hard choice," I say.

"Is it just a fling?" he asks.

"I don't know," I say as I get out of my chair and stand before him. I put my hand out to him, wanting him to follow me. I'm curious and I want much more than what we did back in my apartment. I want to feel him in me. I want to fuck Harmon Rabb. Just because he is Harmon Rabb.

He lets me pull him out of the chair he's in and the two of us look more than a little apprehensive about what is going to happen next.

"Nothing you don't want," he says to me quietly as he follows me for a few feet towards the bedroom. He grabs me unexpectedly, and spins me around. His mouth is down around mine, his tongue delving immediately in, searching for more. I don't understand this man. He seems so scared, yet keeps making the first move. And I follow right along.

"You taste like sunflower seeds," he says to me.

"And you taste good," I say back.

"Why me, Fox?" he asks between kisses.

"I love a man in uniform . . ." I say.

"You've never seen me in my uniform," he says, pushing me back further and further.

"Okay. Then it is the dogtags. There is something inherently sexy about dogtags," I joke with him.

"Damn. And I forgot them," he says. He has removed all evidence that he has anything to do with the military. The only dead give-a-way is the hair cut.

"Just don't forget them next time," I say.

"Next time?" he asks and I just smile at him.

It's my turn to be pressed up against the wall, while Rabb reaches to unbutton my jeans. Slowly he undoes each button down the fly, almost teasing me. His tongue is on my neck, tracing a line across my jaw. My body cries out for more as my hard-on escapes the confines of my jeans. I kick off my shoes and socks and he pushes my jeans down my hips, leaving my boxers where they are. I want to push his head down, to feel his mouth around me again, but I don't.

Instead, he pushes his body against mine, and I can feel his cock hit mine even through all the fabric that separates us. We grind our cocks into each other, moaning. He isn't making a move to take off his clothes, as he pulls my T-shirt up over my head. He came all dressed in black, as if he's hiding from something. In a way, he is.

I'm left standing pressed against a wall nearly naked while Rabb's tongue traces a slow, sweet line down my neck, to my nipples. I can feel every gingham check on the wallpaper behind my back, so sensitive this man has made me. I want to feel everything when he is around, I want to try everything. He has to move his body from mine, but he takes one nipple his mouth, and his tongue rushes over it before he bites a little. I want to believe this man has never done this before, but I'm growing suspicious.

Rabb focuses on my nipples, moving from one to the other with painful slowness, and my mind reels with wanting more, more, more. I can feel his mouth move down, as his tongue plays down my abdomen. I want his mouth around me, and I don't know how much more of this I can stand. My cock is struggling to escape through the waistband of my boxers, struggling to get to him.

He rests his cheek against my stomach, as his hand reaches around my ass and up my boxers. I want to take them off, but find that I can't move from where he has me, as if I'm under his spell. My cock is pushing against him. Surely he feels it, feels that I need him. His hand moves between my ass cheeks and I stand splay-legged to give him better access. Slowly, one finger, then two fingers and finally three go into my unlubricated rectum, moving around and delving further. How in the hell does he know what he is doing?

Although the pain is almost searing, I don't move away. He starts to fuck me with that hand of his up my pants and then he hits the magic spot. Ah, the prostate. I find myself humping his damn hand while I stand here, my back rubbing up and down the papered wall until it hurts. I bang my head back against the wall, trying to make this last, and the nearby mirror rattles with each movement. It isn't long before the stimulation is enough to make me come in my boxers, soaking the front of them. Rabb doesn't stop until I'm practically screaming in agony, the last drop of semen squeezed out of me. My head flies back one more time as I cry out his name, and the mirror falls beside us, sending hundreds of silvery shards flying everywhere. My hands are on his shoulders, holding myself up. If it weren't for him, I'd slide down, hit the floor and shatter like the mirror. He would have to pick up the pieces of Fox Mulder.

Rabb breaks all contact, and rocks back on his heels. He just watches me as a wet spot grows across my silk boxers. How will I ever explain this to Diana?

"Well, that's embarrassing," I say, realizing that he never even touched my cock.

"No, it's not," he says, pleased, with that charming smile of his beaming.

I pull him to his feet and decide I want my turn with him. I lead Rabb to the bedroom, and slowly unbutton his shirt, watching his eyes the whole time. I don't know what in the hell I'm doing next. Very few of my porno flicks contain two men fucking. At least not without a bunch of bimbos getting in the action.

His shirt slides down his shoulders and drops to the floor. My hand moves to his belt buckle, undoing it, and then I slide his pants and briefs down his legs. His shoes are off in a matter of seconds and now he is standing naked before me. I feel his thumbs hook into my damp boxer shorts, and he pulls them down. I have lost any chance of having another erection in the next few hours, so I guess there is only one way this can go.

"Did you by any chance think to bring any kind of lubrication with you?" I ask him, looking at his hard-on and realizing it is much larger than those fingers that had just been up my ass.

"Yes," he answers bluntly. So I guess he really did want more than to talk. I just didn't know this was how much more. He had been here for several hours before I could get here, and he walks to the night stand and pulls out a tube of lubrication and a package of condoms. A little late for that, but whatever.

"Lie down," I order him, and he climbs into the middle of the king-sized four poster bed. His erection flops up against his belly, waiting for me. I rip open a condom, and unscrew the tube of lubricant. After squeezing some into the inside of the condom, I unroll it down the shaft of his penis, feeling the weight of it under my hand as I put a condom on another man for the first time. I warm up more lubricant in my hand and cover him with it.

"How about you?" he asks, as he takes the tube from me and carefully applies it to my anus. It is cold and wet, but I have a feeling it is going to get a whole lot warmer in a minute. He lies back down, as I move over top of him. I want to be in control of the depth of penetration, so I center my ass over his cock, and can feel the tip of it slowly enter my rectum.

I rock back on to his shaft, taking in a small bit at a time as I reach around my back and hold the wide base of his cock. His one hand goes to my arm, supporting me, while the other brushes lightly against my flaccid cock. Does this hurt? Does it even matter? Do I even care?

He makes a noise that is almost a growl and my muscles are screaming even more than they were with his hand, and I want to stop, but something forces me to bear with it. I begin to grow accustomed to his girth, and I even start to enjoy it, the feel of someone inside me for the first time ever. His hands move to my hips, and he helps me form a rhythm that I can tolerate.

Our eyes never break contact, as we gauge the other's reaction solely that way. I know I'm biting my lower lip and I will probably be sore before the night is through, but I want this. I grind up and down on top of him, taking him further and further in with each movement. I can feel his heartbeat in my rectum, so close are we now. I want this and I can't explain why. I watch him, and want him, and not just for sex. But that seems to be the goal here. I wish it could be more.

"So tight. So fucking good," he moans, his voice hoarse, as he begins to thrust up in me, both of us working together.

Finally, his eyes snap shut as he rolls his head from side to side. Rabb wants me to move faster and harder. Beads of sweat begin to form on both of our bodies and the room is filled with the scent of men and sex, intoxicating and powerful. His eyes flutter open, and he pulls me down on top of him one last time before I feel his body shudder from his orgasm, giving into me in strong waves. I let him enter me as far as I can bear while I squeeze all my muscles around him tighter, wanting him to remember this, wanting him to remember me. His hands move from my hips down to my cock which seems to have taken on a life of its own.

"Don't. Wait for later," I say. I want this to last more than an hour, this little bit of stolen time we have together. God, I sound like a damn woman. I lean forwards and kiss him, our tongues tasting each other again.

He holds onto the condom as I roll off of him, afraid to discover we made some kind of bloody mess, kind of like the first time I had sex with Marcy Culpepper. I'm surprised to discover that it isn't as bad as I thought. None of it was as bad as I thought it was going to be. It could get so much better with time, but I don't think we have that luxury.

"So, do we snuggle up to each other and fall asleep like men now?" Rabb asks as we both lie here looking up at the ceiling.

"I think we should clean up and take a look around the town. I'm sure the owners of this establishment already know what is going on, even more so if we stayed locked up in here all weekend," I say, as I prop myself up on my elbow and watch him carefully. I like him. Shit. Maybe even more. It isn't the sex. It's the person. With Diana, it is neither. Just a relationship built on the fact that we work well together, and share common goals. With Harmon Rabb, I don't even know how to define what it is. Maybe we are so much alike that we are really in love with ourselves. That is almost worse than what is going on here.

He turns his head towards me, his eyes looking plaintively at me. "Where is this going?"

"I wish I could tell you it could go somewhere, Harm. But I don't think it can," I say, as I put my index finger up to his lips. "Don't feel guilty. We didn't do anything wrong."

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

1999

"I thought I might find you here," I say to Scully as I walk into my office on a Saturday afternoon. I already tried to find her at every other place she might be. "Why aren't you out enjoying this weather?"

I sit across from her and watch her flip through several files on the desk.

"Oh, I was just thinking about some things," Scully says, not looking at me.

"Like?" I ask. Scully finally looks up at me, her eyes not giving me any clue as to what is going on in her head.

"Like how those bodies got into those containers. Why we were called in on this. Why those particular JAG lawyers where called in on it," she says.

"I told you. Admiral Harrington called Skinner, and he sent it to us," I answer, as I shift a sunflower seed around in my mouth, cracking it loudly.

"But how did Harrington know who to call? From what I can see, Rabb, who is apparently a friend of yours, didn't even know what you do," she says.

"I don't know, Scully. Maybe our reputation on military bases around the country precedes us," I say. The two of us sit in an unsettling silence for several minutes. Occasionally, the crack of my sunflower seeds snaps through the air. Neither of us look at each other. She shuffles around and our eyes meet again.

"How well do you know Commander Rabb?" she asks, and my eyes shift away from hers. "Better than you know me?"

She's choosing her words carefully, knowing that anybody could be listening to us right now. This is something they could use to fuck up a lot of people's lives.

"In some ways, yes," I answer her just as carefully and our eyes meet again. I can see her swallow hard as she leans back in my chair and crosses her arms in front of her.

"Nothing that will effect this case?" she asks, her voice cracking slightly.

"I knew him before I knew you. Sometimes it is the person, Scully. Nothing else," I say, lowering my voice to a barely audible whisper. "Sometimes you fall in love with the person, *despite* everything else. Despite the fact that it has no future. There is no controlling the human heart."

"Are you still . . ." she begins, but falls silent. Perhaps she really doesn't want to know the answer.

"No. There is someone else now. I'm just waiting until I am sure there is a future to have," I say, and she lowers her eyes. Of course, now that someone else might not want any future with me. This wasn't supposed to happen like this. I thought I had already paid for my sins? Don't make me keep paying.

"I'm sorry. I know it isn't any of my business. It is your life, but it is . . . " she starts to say something before stopping herself. That is Scully. Always controlled. Always measuring her words carefully and leveling them off before they pour from her mouth.

"I know," is all I can say.

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

1991

The door to my apartment shuts behind me, closing me off from that other world I have created out there. It is dark in here and hopefully Diana is still at that seminar in Utah. I don't want to see her right now.

The feel of Harmon Rabb's mouth on mine is still fresh, as are the memories of our bodies entwined. Of him giving himself to me. On my skin, I can still smell the soap and the iron-scented water from the shower in the cabin we stayed in. I can still picture him in that shower with me, bending forwards in front of me, all wet and beautiful. Of his hands shooting up to the timber walls, of him slamming his body back onto mine, out of control. God help me. I have fallen for him.

"I heard a nasty rumor about you today," Diana says, her voice coming from a dark corner. It punctuates the air with its sharpness and causes me to jump.

"Jeez, Diana. You could turn on a light. What nasty rumor did you hear now? Did they come up with a new nickname for me?" I say, playing it as cool as possible. I look down while we are still enveloped in darkness, hoping there is nothing about me that declares what I've been doing for the weekend.

I turn on the lamp near her. She is piled in my chair, clutching a pillow to her chest. Shit. This isn't good.

"No. This rumor concerned you and some Air Force pilot. Jesus, Fox. Just because I wouldn't give you a blowjob?" she asks, her voice pitching higher with each word.

"I don't know what you are talking about," I say, standing before her with my hands on my hips. Air Force? Where in the hell did someone come up with that?

"Where were you all weekend?" she asks, looking at the bags I left at the door.

"Just out of town for a few days. I've been really stressed. You know that. I thought getting away would help," I say to her as I sit down across from her on my couch.

"What in the hell is his name, Fox?" she demands.

"I don't know what you are talking about. This is just another damn rumor to destroy what I'm trying to do. It isn't going to work, Diana," I say.

"Harmon Rabb," she says bluntly, watching my expression closely. My face turns to stone while my stomach begins to toss and churn. I can feel my heart pounding up into my throat.

"I don't . . ." I start to say, shaking my head.

"Don't you fucking start lying to me more, Fox! Good God! I should ream you a new asshole . . . or would Harmon Rabb enjoy that too much?" she screams at me, throwing the pillow my way but missing.

"Diana . . ." I say, not knowing what to say next.

"I will ruin him, Fox. I will ruin him for ruining us," she says. Although her voice is filled with wild emotion, she does not shed a tear. Diana Fowley wants something and this is going to be her bargaining chip.

"Don't. Don't do it, Diana. It's just a rumor," I say, waiting for the deal to come.

"There is only one thing that will squelch this rumor, Fox," she says, her eyes focusing narrowly on me.

"What would that be?" I ask.

"You tell him good-bye. Then you and I are getting married," she says, as if it is all decided.

"Diana . . ." I say. I want to reason with her. I don't want this to be happening. I knew we had no future together, but I didn't want the end to be decided by her. I didn't want to fall into another relationship with no future.

"I will ruin him. And I would ruin you, except you seem to be doing a fine job of that yourself," Diana says to me, reminding me ever so clearly of my options.

"Fine," I say, having no choice. I can't let Diana destroy his career. And I know she would.

"I'm saving you, Fox. I'm saving your lover. *Don't* you ever forget that. Do I make myself clear?" she asks.

"Yes," I say. As clear as thin sheet of frozen water. And as cold, too.

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

1999

"What do you need, Mulder?" a sleepy Harmon Rabb asks me. The spring night is unseasonably chilly and he stuffs his hands into his jacket pockets. His leather bomber jacket. Does he even know how he looks? Am I conscious of how I look anymore or have other things grown too important?

"What do you know about Admiral Harrington?" I ask as he sits next to me on a bench. We are at the tidal basin by the Jefferson Memorial. It is three o'clock in the morning and we are quite alone.

"He has had a distinguished career. Received several honors in Vietnam. He knew my father, I believe," he says.

I take out a handful of sunflower seeds, and put one between my teeth, breaking its shell and spitting out the husk.

"Old habits die hard," he says, not looking at me.

"Well, you know me. I've got to have something to do with my mouth. I get in less trouble with seeds," I say, and he chuckles.

"Was there ever anyone . . ." he starts to ask, his voice fading before the question can be asked.

"No. Not that way," I say honestly. "There has been no time for anything but work. Scully and I have no lives, although she keeps hinting that she's ready to give it up in search of a normal life."

"With you?" he asks, incredulously.

"Life with me will never be normal. I'm to blame for that. I'm to blame for a lot of things. So how about you?" I ask back.

"No. I never met anyone else like . . ." Rabb says and I shush his statement before he can finish it. The night has more ears than he can imagine. "I never did thank you for what you did."

We were so much younger then. It hasn't even been a decade, yet I feel twenty years older. What if I were to meet him today? Would I follow the same path?

"There is no thanking of anyone necessary. Now, what about Harrington? Did he know what happened to your father?" I ask, trying to connect all the dots.

"I don't think he did. I never read his name in any of the records," Rabb says, as he yawns and leans back on the bench. "I have to be in court at nine o'clock in the morning."

"And I have to meet with the assistant director at seven. I need to know something. I need you to answer honestly," I say, and he turns his head in my direction.

"What now?" he asks.

"Was what happened to your father covered up in any way? Could someone be trying to cover up more?" I ask him. He lets out a sigh. "Do you even believe that he is dead, or is that what you were told?"

"Yes, I was told he was dead. Mulder, this is my problem, not yours. You seem to have enough of your own crusades going without taking up my banner, too," Rabb says.

"Why put us together? Why now? Did you ever wonder that?" I ask.

"Yes, I wondered that when you jumped out of the rafters in that warehouse. Look how many years we've lived in this town without running into each other," he says, looking away.

"I'm usually not in this town. Now if you would have been looking in the sewers of Pennsylvania or under the Antarctic ice, you might have found me," I say, laughing. It is a joke he wouldn't understand.

"I still don't get what you are driving at, Mulder. Why do you think they put us together?" he asks.

I've been thinking about this since I talked to Scully yesterday. Why? To kill two birds with one stone? Did someone think we were so weak that we would tumble back into bed together after all this time? The only name that comes to mind is the missing Diana Fowley formerly Mulder. Rabb would lose his job if found out, and his power to find anything else about his father and the cover up he says doesn't exist. And I . . . I would lose the last tiny shred of credibility I have. And I would lose Scully. I'd be finished.

"Oh, how the mighty tumble. It would have given them pleasure to watch us fall," I say to him. "Rabb, I think we are being set up. I don't know how or why, but it is worth a hell of a lot to someone. Enough to kill three people," I say.

"No one would go to that much trouble. I find it hard to believe that someone would kill three innocent people just to stop us from searching for something," he says, not trusting me. He once trusted me completely.

"You just don't understand what I do yet, do you? I'm in the middle of something bigger than you and me and the whole Navy and FBI put together. I can effect what happens to the human race," I say, wanting him to understand. Wanting him to trust me.

"You really believe that, don't you? Why you, Mulder? Why you?" he asks me again.

"I don't know, Rabb. Why me?" I ask back, echoing a question I asked years ago.

"Prove it. I need more proof than just your words. Who's trying to bring us down, and how are you going to prove it?" he asks me, as he looks at his watch. "It's incredibly late and I need to get home. There's someone waiting for me there . . ."

"Come away with me," I say as he goes to stand up. He freezes for a second and sits back down.

"Fox, no," he says.

"We have to make them believe that their plans worked. Trust me, nothing is going to happen. You aren't as cute as you used to be," I say, smiling at him.

"Neither are you," he jokes back.

"I'll make the plans. I'll let you know when and where, okay? Don't tell anybody, not even the major, not even . . ."

"Jordan," he says. This time around he's the one with the girlfriend.

"Scully will be backup," I say.

"Scully knows?" he asks, surprise resonating through his voice. "You told her? Is she going to make you marry her, too?"

"I didn't tell her. Let's just say Scully is very perceptive. We've been together a long time, she knows me. And, no, I don't think Scully desires my hand or anything else in marriage right now," I say, my voice tinged with more sadness than I desired it to be. I haven't spoken to her since yesterday afternoon, and she doesn't answer her phone.

Harmon Rabb puts a hand on my shoulder and leaves it there for a few moments. We were so close once. So long ago.

"Let me know what I have to do. And, Mulder? This had better work," he says, as he moves his hand and stands up from the bench. I watch him walk away from me, and for the first time in years, I feel the sorrowful twinge of pain from the loss of somebody.

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

1991

Diana told me to say good-bye. She planned my life out for me. She has me by the balls. Except for tonight. She never said how I had to say good-bye. Or where. So I picked the place.

"What are you going to do now?" Harm asks me. We are sitting on a dock, our feet dangling over the edge. He dips a foot in and splashes some water upon the still lake, and a rust-colored leaf moves away from us. The water is always cold here, especially now in the middle of autumn. This is one of my father's many houses, and we exchanged exactly four sentences when I asked if I could use it.

"I'm getting married," I say. I arranged this weekend, knowing he would show up. I didn't want to tell him all of this in the confines of DC. Diana thinks I'm in Chicago on official FBI business.

"Why?" he asks. It is a valid question. Why would I marry this woman when all this time I've been making love to him?

"It is the right thing to do. Nobody will get harmed this way"" I say, laughing at my inadvertent use of his name. He doesn't know about the deal I made with Diana. I didn't want him to know someone was suspicious of us.

He takes a slow sip out of his bottle of beer, and plays with the label. There is a circle of water on his blue jeans where he had the bottle resting on his thigh .

"And you invited me here for what? A good-bye fuck?" he asks, still not looking at me.

"I invited you here so I could tell you in person. I invited you here because I wanted to see you again," I tell him. I put my hand on his arm, stilling his continuous fiddling with the label.

"I suppose you think I should thank you for this, for in some way saving Harmon Rabb's career?" he asks me.

"No. I'm doing this because I'm not worth you losing everything for," I say.

"A job is hardly everything," he says, with a snort. His voice is low and filled with concern, unlike mine, which if filled with anger. Not at Rabb, but at Diana.

"So, say we go ahead with this and ruin your career . . . what then? You are going to give up the Navy and become some gay lawyer in DC? Then are we going to move in together, and eventually grow old together, visiting the glory holes in all the rest stop bathrooms as we journey through life?" I ask, my voice growing louder, and echoing across this quiet lake.

"No," he says. A fish jumps about twenty feet from us, sending ripples out across the lake surface, towards us. The buoys at the water level bang against the wood piling. I suppose the summer residents my father rents this place to have a row boat. They must have stowed it in the boat house before they left.

I turn to look at him, Harmon Rabb sitting there in his sunglasses with his bottle of beer pressed between his fingers. My hand moves up his arm and he jerks away. He looks at me, and all I can see is my reflection.

"I'm not going to say anything maudlin or overly sentimental, Harm. I think you know how I feel about you. And how I feel about this. But my hands are tied right now," I say to him.

"I have to go," he says, standing up and sliding his feet back into his deck shoes. I watch him walk away from me, crunching through the dry leaves and around the front of the house. Then he is out of view. I hear his car start and head away down the unpaved road.

He left the bottle of beer he only took two sips of. I pick it up on my way into the house, and take a drink. Tasting him. Wishing this all went differently.

Moving through the unfamiliar house, I hope I can find some firewood lying around. The temperature is supposed to drop sharply tonight, and if memory serves me right, this place is as cold as an ice box when it isn't summer. I really didn't plan to spend the night cold and alone. What did I expect? For him to stay around after my announcement?

"Shit!" I exclaim as I check everything without finding so much as a twig. The wood outside is too green. I already looked when I first got here. I guess a cold night will do me good. It will bring me to my senses.

I stand, looking out the bay window towards the lake. The sun is fading quickly, and I can feel the window grow colder. I lean towards it, pressing my forehead against the glass like a small boy waiting for his mommy to come home. All I can see is the dock. That is the last place I will ever see him. I promised Diana. I promised myself. It isn't worth losing everything for.

The house grows dark around me, but I don't move from that window. I don't want to be doing this, but I have to. She owns me for life now.

"It's freezing in here, Fox," Rabb says from behind me. I still don't move, just let out a sigh of relief. I didn't want this to end in angry words by the side of the lake.

I feel his hand fall on my shoulder, and it is the only warm spot on my body. Well, almost the only warm spot.

"I can't find any wood," I say to our reflection in the window.

Neither of us speaks for several minutes, as we watch the leaves begin to swirl in the wind. The cold front is moving through.

"What is the real reason that you are doing this?" he asks. "This isn't you, just ending it like this for no reason, telling me you are marrying some woman you don't even love."

"She knows," I say. "She said she would ruin both of us if I didn't marry her."

"And you agreed?"

"Yes. We both know we need these jobs to get what we want, to have access to what we need to find. This marriage will end any rumors there are about me and some 'Air Force' pilot before anyone figures out it is a Navy lawyer I'm sleeping with. We needs these jobs, Harm. We just do," I say.

"True. But what if we never find what we are looking for?" he asks. I can feel him moving closer, and resting his chin on my shoulder. I can see in the reflection his face by mine.

"Then we will get to the end of our lives and wonder what could have been . . ." I say.

"You are right. We both knew it, that this couldn't go anywhere," Rabb says.

"Then why did you come back?" I ask.

"A good-bye fuck?" he says, and I laugh. "Either that, or we are going to freeze in here. Actually, I came back because there is nothing left to lose. If they know, they know it by now. I needed to say good-bye."

I turn around and kiss him, feeling his body harden against mine. Even knowing that it had to end doesn't make it any easier to say good-bye, to leave this behind.

"We have to end this," I say against his mouth.

"Where?" he asks me.

I'm going to miss this person. Going to miss those eyes. That laugh. That quiet voice. Please say I will feel this way about someone again. But please make sure they aren't a male officer in the United States Navy.

"Upstairs," I say, for the first time at a loss for words. I already made one of the beds in the loft. The loft with the fireplace. Too bad there's not a single damn piece of wood out here in this forest.

This place isn't fancy, and is decorated in 'early fisherman,' I think. But Dad rents it out to two different families. One in the summer, one in the winter. Thank God no one wants it in autumn.

I flip on the light switch and am thankful the power is still on. No heat but a wood burning stove in the winter. No air conditioner but the opened windows in the summer. Sounds like a vacation to me.

I turn to Rabb again, my fingers racing to undo the buttons on his shirt, our hands fumbling over each other's. Why do I want this to go so fast?

Finally, I get his shirt off, and he tugs his white T-shirt up and over his head, revealing just his chest and dogtags.

"Ah, dogtags. You know what I like," I say, laughing, as I take them between my fingers, clinking the thin pieces of metal together, and tracing his stamped in name with my index finger. I lay them back against his chest, and my hands move lower to the buttons of his jeans. Slowly undoing each one, I release him from the denim material and slip his jeans and briefs down until he steps out of them. He is naked before me, except for those tags at his neck, telling the world who and what he is. Telling me that this can't go on.

His hands undress me with equal ease, and we end up on the bed together, just kissing and touching each other, both of us rock hard.

"What do you want, Fox? How do you want it?" he whispers to me, his eyes soft and pleading.

"I want to fuck you, but first I want to taste you. All of you," I tell him back. Both of our voices are raspy with desire.

I motion for him to roll over on his knees and stick his ass in the air. He obliges quickly, and the only sound in the room is the creaking off the old bed springs and the quicksilver jingling of his tags.

My tongue touches his balls, licking a straight, wet line up them, exploring the loose flesh, the sparse, wiry hair. I need to remember the taste of him, the feel of him in my mouth. His body jerks forward from the sensation of my mouth moving up further and further, my tongue playing on that little field of skin between his balls and his anus. I want him to be wet, to be ready to take me inside. My mouth gently touches that pucker of flesh, that place I want to be in, and I hear him moan as he takes his cock in hand, pulling hard at himself. Our combined efforts force this old bed to beat out a squeaky moan of its own.

Covering him with saliva, my tongue circles and circles, and he starts humping back against my face, wanting to be satisfied. I kiss each of his ass cheeks, committing to memory everything going on between us, and kneel back behind him. I take two of my fingers into my mouth, wetting them with spit before using them to brush the drips of preejaculate off of my cock. I insert one and the other, feeling him stretch around me. Somewhere along the line, we became reckless, giving up condoms and relying on our own bodies for lubrication.

I begin to fuck him with my fingers, allowing time for the muscles to loosen, to grow accustomed to me again.

"Harm, I want to see your face. I want to touch your cock," I say to him, as I pull him by his hips. He turns around and kneels like me, both of us facing each other. His head moves down to my crotch, and he covers me in spit just like I did to him. Rabb's hand goes back to his own cock, pulling at it harder and harder.

He scoots back on the bed again, his knees spread, his hard-on reaching up his belly. I move in between his legs, and he puts his cold feet up on my chest, giving me access to enter him.

Slowly, carefully, I push my cock against his anus, teasing him until he smiles and tells me to get on with it already. I am dripping with sweat even though the loft is cold and he pushes his butt against me, urging me on.

I enter him with patience, feeling the hot tightness of his muscles as they stretch to accommodate me, feeling myself get pulled in deeper and deeper. His hands go up to the old headboard, and he grabs it, giving himself leverage to push against me. My hands go around his thighs and I grab his cock, wrapping my fist around it as I jerk him off in time to my thrusts. His feet slip from my sweaty chest, and I catch him by his ankles. I push his knees further apart and closer to his chest, allowing me sink in to the hilt.

I thrust. The springs creak. The headboard bangs against the plaster wall. Thrust. Creak. Bang. Over and over, and Rabb strokes his cock in time to the thrust, creak, bang. It is as rhythmic as a train speeding down the tracks, as perfect as his heartbeat I can feel through me.

"Are you sure you have to marry her?" Rabb says, breathlessly.

"Um hum," I answer back, not able to form a coherent sentence right now.

It can't last long. Just like everything in our relationship. This must end sooner than I want it to. I can tell by his face that he is close, that the sensation of my cock and his hand is moving this along fast. The way he looks beneath me is enough to push me to the edge, and I stand there looking into a chasm I can never fall into again.

One more thrust, one more creak, one more bang, and he sucks in a series of quick breaths, gasping as he releases semen all over his abdomen. I pull out of him and I come all over his stomach, too, our semen joining there, mixing into something that means nothing in the world of nature and biology. 'The only unnatural sex act is that which you cannot perform,' Alfred Kinsey once said, and now I agree with him completely.

I let his legs go, and fall down upon him, our still pulsating groins touching, the sticky substance from our bodies spreading between us. His pulse rate slows down, and his breathing becomes shallow as Harmon Rabb falls asleep. The springs of the bed grow silent, as if they have been satisfied and there is no bang of the headboard. Just a picture of a bass on the peeling plaster wall, hanging crooked on its nail. It was straight when we started.

A hush falls over the room and world outside. It is the sound of good-bye.

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

1999

"So how does that 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' thing really work, Rabb? From a legal standpoint, of course," I ask from across the room. We checked into a small seaside inn on the Atlantic Ocean two days after Scully checked into the cottage across from us.

I am sitting on the bed, finishing up some reports while I'm on 'vacation' and Rabb is flipping through some law journal at the tiny table. On the other side of the room.

He doesn't answer me, just gives me a piercing look with those eyes. Scully is doing surveillance. Not much can be said. She didn't want to do this, and when she met with the two of us, she stood with her arms crossed nervously at her chest, her sentences short and curt. Kind of like anytime Diana was around. Diana, who has to be behind this.

The day grows long, as I sit and watch an Orioles game on the FOX sports channel. How fucking apropos.

"Mulder, this isn't going to work because this isn't a set up. We can sit in here for the next couple of months pretending that we are lovers, and it isn't going to make a difference," Rabb says, finally breaking his self-imposed silence.

I shush him with a look, and flip through the channels, settling on an soft porn movie on a pay channel, remembering that Scully has the option to listen to everything going on. Sometimes I like to make her squirm. Of course, this whole thing is making her squirm quite a bit and I'm positive she's not listening anyway. Well, almost positive.

"So, what ever did happen to Diana?" Rabb asks me. He looks at the beautiful couple gyrating on the TV for a second, then returns his focus back on the legal briefs before him.

"It lasted exactly three months, four days and fifteen hours. Then she transferred to Europe, leaving me behind," I say, glad he didn't used the word marriage in any of that. I think I explained enough of my personal life to Scully in the last few days without having her hear about that one.

"And then you got wrapped up in this job of yours?" he asks, his voice not sounding exactly as if he cares. I know he isn't crazy about this idea, but I've got to give it a shot.

"You could say that," I say, as I pick a sunflower seed off of the night stand and pop it in my mouth.

"You started working with Agent Scully when?" he asks, as he puts his papers down and looks at me.

"Am I on trial, counselor?" I ask, as I reach for another seed.

"Nah, I was just curious as to how long the two of you have been working together," he says, as he sits cross-legged on the other double bed.

"Six years," I answer.

"The longest relationship of your life?" he asks and I laugh.

"Yeah. And the best," I say. He doesn't have anything to say to that comment.

He reaches for the remote control from the night stand, and changes the channel to the news.

"How can you watch that crap?" he says, referring to the young nymphet that had been gracing the screen.

Well, what do you want me to say? I haven't been laid in years? I have too many things to do to find myself a girlfriend? A boyfriend? I'm in the middle of a government conspiracy that would make anything they might have said about your father look like child's play?

Instead, I answer, "A lot of time in motels. A lot of time alone not sleeping. You get used to watching them."

"So why don't you sleep?" Rabb asks, as he puffs up a pillow and lays back against it.

I look over at his long frame, as he puts his arms behind his head and crosses his legs at the ankles. What in the hell was I thinking back then? How did we pull each other into that situation, for we both are to blame? We both were entranced by each other, and now whatever it was that once pulled us together exists no more. Or does it?

"I don't sleep because I've seen things you could only imagine," I say to him.

"So you say," he says, as he turns on his side to look at me. He is only two years younger than I am, but he looks a lot younger right now. This year has been hell. Then again, I don't even know how it has been for him, these past several years. I never asked.

"So, how have you been?" I ask, moving the conversation past lovers, girlfriends, sisters, partners and fathers.

"I have been doing well," he answers, his eyes holding mine for a long time. "Jordan is great. She is a psychiatrist in the Navy and she is incredible."

"Great and incredible. Wow. Does she know?" I ask, as I stop looking at him and look back down to some paperwork next to me.

"No, she doesn't. Work has gone well. I've hit some snags here and there, almost lost it all a time or two, but I've survived," Rabb says.

I remember standing with Diana not that long ago, my hand in hers, telling her 'I've done all right without you.' And that is what I'm being told now. What does he think I'm after here? I'm almost positive I'm the one who ended this thing in the first place.

Sometimes I can remember it all so well, the days and nights I spent with this person I now have chosen to be confined with for a weekend. And sometimes, it as if it were a shadowy dream of something I couldn't have possibly been involved with. It wasn't wrong. Oh no, on the contrary, it was very right. At the time. But times changed and I can't return to what I turned into then. I was so much more open then, trusting, needing of someone. Now I have discovered boundless, endless trust. I have found love that I didn't think could exist, and this time, it really has nothing to do with sex. Nothing.

I have run out of questions to ask. I don't think 'did you ever miss me?' is exactly right for this situation. The room around us is filled with the slow ticking of time only experienced by former lovers who have nothing more to say.

"What if you are wrong, Mulder? What are we going to do then? We still have three murders and quite a few people would like it if we at least have a suspect in mind," Rabb says, his voice breaking the silence.

"I have a few suspects in mind," I say.

"Who are they?" he asks, sitting up again.

"No one you would ever be able to prosecute. They live outside of the law, operating within parts of our government most people could scarcely imagine," I say.

"Is everything a conspiracy, Mulder? And if it is, why is it you seem to be at the center of it all?" Rabb asks, growing tense. Perhaps it is the hour, or the fact we've spent the day sitting in some cottage, waiting for something I can't even explain, but his unhappiness is clearly evident.

"I was put in the center of it all by my father. My life was designed to figure it all out, to uncover it," I say, knowing he doesn't believe a damn thing I say.

"Then why am I in it now? Why now? Dammit, it has been years and now they come up with this? To what end does this serve?" he asks me. I wish I had all the answers for him. Just like I wish I had the answers for Scully about why they've done the things they have done to her.

"We mean nothing to them. They have traded our futures over and over for decades now, and that future is grim," I say.

"So they set up some bizarre case on a Naval base knowing the two of us would be called in on it? Why not just arrange for us to meet like we did the first time?" Rabb asks.

I wish I could stick him in the world Scully and I inhabit for just one day. I want him to see exactly what these people would do for control, that they have no limits.

"The case would take time, and they must have thought we would need time . . . well, you know," I say, as I grab the remote control and turn off the news.

"Why me?" he asks.

"That part is still bothering me, too. Why you? What would be gained from ruining your career now that couldn't have been gained eight years ago?" I ask.

"How would anyone know about eight years ago?" he asks.

"I think a good portion of my life has been well documented," I say, as I reach for a sunflower seed.

"You are paranoid, Mulder," Rabb says, "The government couldn't possibly track each and every one of us, keeping tabs on our lives."

"Um hmm," I mumble, as I turn back to some papers.

"What happened to you over the last few years?" he asks.

"Too much," I simply reply.

We both jump as someone knocks on the door, and I stand up to get it. Scully is standing on the other side of the door, on the front stoop of the cottage.

"Scully, what are you doing here?" I say sharply as I swing the door open. She steps in past me, looks briefly at Rabb on the bed before turning to me.

"He's right, Mulder. This isn't going to work. This isn't all about you," Scully says, putting her hand on my arm. Our first contact in days. I wonder how much she decided to listen in on.

"Then what is it about, Scully?" I ask. She turns away from me and faces Rabb.

"Go home, Commander. I'm sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you," Scully says stiffly, her eyes cast away from his.

"Scully, what are you doing?" I ask. Rabb gets off the bed and starts to gather his paperwork together.

"Mulder, I know you think this is more than just a series of gruesome murders, but it isn't. You are going to have to accept that. I'm going home now. I think you should, too," Scully says quietly.

"Fine," I say to the two of them. I know I'm close to something. Always so close.

"Goodnight, ma'am. Goodnight, Agent Mulder," Rabb says, as he walks to the door with his bag. "I'll be in contact with your office if we hear any more."

"Goodnight," Scully says. The two of us face each other, in a quiet stare down. We've been here before. We will be here again before this is all said and done.

"We aren't ever going to solve this one, Scully. It wasn't meant to be solved," I say, not wanting this one to go into that big file cabinet of the unexplained that really can't be explained.

"Mulder, go home. We will start over again Monday," Scully says. Her hand moves from my arm down to my hand, holding it in hers. They can't ruin us, not even with this. I won't let them.

"Okay. You go on home. I'll clean up the equipment and check out. I'll see you Monday," I say. She squeezes my hand in hers before letting go of me and walking out the door.

I clean up everything, pack it in the trunk of my car and stand there. A light rain has begun to fall, making everything heavy with wetness, and the air smells clean and salty. I'm only a few yards from the ocean, and I have this urge to go to it, but I don't. The ocean doesn't hold the answers people believe it does.

Instead, I just get into my car. Turn the key in the ignition. Change the radio station. Feel a gun at the base of my skull.

"Don't move," a voice says from the darkness.

"What in the hell do you want now, Krycek?" I ask. I knew someone was behind this crap. I was just hoping it was someone better than this piece of shit.

"Leave it alone, Mulder. This is part of something that doesn't concern you," he says, his voice low and raspy.

"Who does it concern? Harmon Rabb?" I ask as I look into the rearview mirror. He looks like he did the last time I saw him. A creature hiding in the dark.

"Lover boy? It doesn't necessarily concern him either," Krycek says.

"What? You jealous?" I ask and feel the metal of his gun press further into my flesh.

"I could have you. I could have you right now and forever," he says. "Who says I want you? I don't deal in sloppy seconds."

"So, what does this have to do with, Krycek?" I ask again.

"Just leave it alone. Do that, and nothing will happen to Rabb. No one will ask him anything, and I'm sure he isn't telling," Krycek says.

"The bodies. What in the hell are they?" I ask.

"Something gone wrong. That's all I'm telling you. Something gone seriously wrong. Let's just say it something you will never get to the bottom of," Krycek says, and the gun moves back from my neck just slightly.

"Then why was I called in on this?" I ask, already knowing the answer. They would control me with Rabb.

"You figure it out yourself. I've got to go. Forget about it, Mulder," Krycek says as he slides out the door and back into the darkness where he belongs.

I lean forwards on the steering wheel and watch the night sky through my rain covered windshield.

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

1992

"What in the hell do you mean you are leaving?" I ask, as Diana continues to pack her suitcase.

"I told you. I got a counter-terrorism assignment in Europe. Fox, we aren't working out. We both can see that," Diana says, as she continues to fold her clothing and place them in her bag. I wonder how long she has known about this transfer. It couldn't have just happened today.

I grab her left hand, holding it up, the thin gold band clearly evident.

"What about this? This is what you wanted so damn bad," I shout at her.

"It isn't working. You don't want it," she says.

"No kidding? Considering you blackmailed me into it, I can't imagine why not," I say, releasing her hand. She slips the little band off of her fingers, and places it in my hand.

"My lawyers have drawn up the divorce papers. They will deliver them to you for your signature on Monday. Fox, I've got to do this. This is an opportunity . . ." she says, and I slip my wedding band off, too, and fling them both at the bedroom wall as hard as I can. The ricochet back at me, at are lost under the bed somewhere.

"That is what you said when we started working together. It was a great opportunity to use your knowledge in parapsychology. Now what? You going to go see if terrorists are mind readers?" I ask her.

"No. But I've got to go. I just can't forget that you . . ." she says, her eyes piercing into me.

"Then go. I'll be just fine without you," I say, as I sit on the edge of the bed.

"Fox, if you ever have another female partner, don't get involved with them. You will just break her heart," she says, placing her hand on my shoulder. She leaves it there for a moment before she goes back to working on her suitcase.

I don't know whether I'm angry at her for leaving, or angry at her for leaving me after what she did. I'm alone again. Shit. Really alone. No partner. No girlfriend. No wife. No . . . don't even go there. Even without Diana it had to end.

"When does your plane leave?" I ask, wondering how we managed to live together for so long and yet she could get all her worldly goods into two large suitcases. She never intended to stay.

"I called a cab. They should be here soon. My flight is at 9 p.m.," she says, as she looks at her watch.

"Call me when you get there," I tell her.

"I will," she says, but I know she won't. "Don't forget, Fox. I know. Just remember that."

With that, she heaves her two suitcases off of the bed and walks towards the door. So that is our good-bye.

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

1999

"What can I do for you, Rabb?" I ask. This time he called me out to the bench by the tidal basin in the middle of the night. It has been one week since he spoke to Scully concerning the case that seems to be going nowhere.

"Yesterday, I was called into Admiral Harrington's office and presented with a deal. It seems that if I don't work too hard on prosecuting anyone in the future on this mummification case, these will never go beyond his office," Harmon Rabb says, as he hands me an envelope. My heart sinks, my mind already able to picture what they are.

I slide them from the safety of their packaging, and look at the black and white glossies. Most are eight years old, faded a little, and very grainy. Someone has been holding on to these for a damn long time, just waiting.

Rabb turns his head away as I flip through the stack. He and I on the dock at my father's old place. The two of us standing in the window, his arms around me. And somehow, us in bed in the loft. The loft that got its name because it faces the large window at the back of the house. We were so damn young. We knew so little. The next ones are more recent, within the last few days. There is one of both of us going into that little cottage by the sea. And one of us sitting on this very bench, his hand on my arm.

"I'm sorry," I say, as I pile them back up and put them back in the envelope. I am his lesson hard learned in the realities of it all. I hate to be proved right in this way.

"What in the hell is this, Mulder? What are you involved in?" he asks me.

"I wish it was something that I could explain easily, but I can't. Take Admiral Harrington's deal. Walk away from this, Rabb. They got what they wanted. Now it is my problem to find out what that is," I say. I don't want Alex Krycek showing up at his front door one day because we didn't just let this go. He leans forwards on the bench, put his face in his hands, sighing loudly.

For some reason, I have an urge to touch him, reach out to him, and I put my hand on his back. He doesn't move away. The feelings are no longer there, that spark that once ignited us to be something we really couldn't possibly be. I feel the same concern for him that I do with anyone I once loved dearly. The same concern for those that I love now.

"They are killing people, Mulder. And expecting me to cover it up right along with them," he says softly.

"You don't even want to know what they've done to Scully," I say. Once again wishing I could turn back the hands of time and change it all.

"Is it everybody in your life? Is anybody left untouched," he says, and I pull my hand away from him.

"I told you. This effects every man, woman and child. None of us will go untouched when all is said and done," I say, and he sits back again. They have used us for years. He just didn't know he was being set up. The person that knew about us, and followed us then, is probably the one who slipped the information to Diana. And I always followed Diana blindly because she knew.

"So, how do we stop them?" he says, realizing that nothing in his life can be hidden now.

"Let me do my job. Help me if I need you. I will find the truth," I say. This time I'm the one who walks away first.


The End