::  Trick or Treat  ::

Scully was pissed. Not really surprised but very pissed. She hated Halloween. Well that was really not quite true. What she hated was Halloween since Mulder entered her life. It was just too much. It was bad enough that the cases they worked on day in and day out had Freaky written all over them but you'd have thought that she, like that Buffy person on TV, would get a break from the demons on one day of the year.

But no, on a day she should be answering the door to the neighborhood children at her mother's house, like she had promised, Mulder had pulled her into "another fine mess". The pumpkin patch was not haunted, she had told him in no uncertain terms. She didn't want to slug through mud and muck to prove it to him, she had shouted at him. She didn't think that the shadow that rose from the frosty mud was anything but an optical allusion, she had shrieked at him; just before the ground had trembled and she was knocked backwards, striking her head on a tree root, knocking her senseless.

She woke from her dazed state only to find that she wasn't in the hospital has she should have been, not home in bed as she would have preferred to have been, but in that same pumpkin field in the middle of nowhere Virginia. Only now instead of sprawled across rotting pumpkin vines she found herself tied securely to a small tree, surrounded by hooded figures holding torches. She glanced around quickly looking for Mulder and couldn't find him immediately. Scared, she stared at the looming figure in front of her. "What are you doing; what do you want?" The figure gestured to the others and they moved off. As they left, Scully noticed the huge bonfire being constructed. She sighed and thought, "well at least I found him". Mulder was trussed like one of the ancient Saints Sister Mary Margaret had loved to tell them about in class. He was unconscious and his hair fell forward over his eye. Scully shouted at the figure in front of her "What are you doing, we are FBI agents. Release us at once". The low chuckling sound chilled her more that the cold damp ground she was sitting on. "I can't", he whispered "we have need of you and he".

The hooded stranger left Scully and she struggled with all her might but the ropes were tight, and her coat bunched around her made maneuvering difficult. As she struggled, she felt her gun against her backbone, but she knew she could never reach it; the ropes that held her felt like the kind that they used on fishing boats and she knew she would never be able to work them loose or fray them. As she twisted and turned frantically, she felt her cell phone press against her thigh. She had not wanted to take her purse when they had left the car so she had put her phone in her coat pocket. <<<Great she thought, they didn't search me, but so what! I can't do anything with either.>>>>

She stopped struggling for a bit to check out her surroundings better. The group of hooded people numbered no more than twelve but the racket they were making would have alerted the local authorities on any other night. But with all the pranks in town and the normal soapings and T.P.ing of houses, the local cops had their hands full. <<<Christ>>>, she thought, <<<I'm gonna die in a pumpkin patch, on Halloween, 5 miles from my mom's house.>>> Tear welled up in her eyes. <<<It's just not fair>>> she thought, <<<Everything is finally starting to come together, the cancer is in remission, I feel more comfortable around Skinner…. Skinner!!! Wait a minute>>>>

She thought back to 4:30 that afternoon as she was leaving the Hoover. As she was unlocking her car she saw that Skinner was doing the same ritual 5 cars away. "Good Heavens, Sir! Leaving so early, I thought that your hours were 6:00 to 9:00 every day." Skinner looked up and flashed her a smile that melted her insides.

"No, Scully, tonight I have to get home. My brother and his wife are in town for their anniversary and I promised to watch the kids for them, while they went out."

"Your brother got married on Halloween," Scully asked incredulously.

"Yeah, it was the only night they could get the room they wanted back then", he replied with that grin again. "I thought I would take them to a movie or something, but I was told by Tommy & Becca that they planned on trick or treating just like every year. I don't know what I am going to do. There are about 3 people with kids in my entire building and everything around me is just more apartment buildings."

Scully didn't know what made her say what she said. She had tried to take the words back as soon as they left her mouth, but she heard herself say, "Why don't you bring them to my mother's neighborhood, there are plenty of houses around there, and my Mom has made me promise to help her tonight. Bill and Tara dropped their kids off while they went to the coast for the weekend and she is going to walk them around too. If you want, you can stop by and we can walk them together." <<<<Oh God, did I really say that out loud>>>> She looked at her boss and was surprised to see him looking at her in what could only be described as terror mixed with something she couldn't quite put her finger on. <<<<Oh Lord, what have I done>>>> She saw him gulp and then straighten his back and said.

"Thank you Scully, that might very well work out just fine. I will talk to the kids and will bring them if they want. Should I call beforehand?"

 "Oh that's not necessary, Sir I plan on leaving around 7:00, the kids are a little older now and they don't want to be out with the little kids, so if I don't see you by then, I'll just figure Tommy & Becca decided on a movie instead." <<<<Trembling, I'm trembling, oh my, oh my>>>>.

"Fine Scully, we will leave it at that." Skinner was amazed. He couldn't believe he had just agreed to go Trick or Treating with Scully!!! <<<<Well it should be safe enough. Oh, I hope I don't embarrass myself. Oh, I hope Tommy & Becca still want to go Trick or Treating.>>>> Walter Skinner, toughassed AD and former Marine sighed and said out loud to no one "Tommy & Becca, you are going trick or treating".

Scully played the scene over in her head. <<<What must he be thinking, it must be after 9:30 by now. Mom won't be there cause she had to take the boys when Mulder had shown up and dragged me away on this wild goose chase; only it's not a wild goose chase is it Dana? No what you got here is your basic nut cake, druid chanting, sacrificial ritual and guess what!!! You and your nut cake, conspiracy spouting, "fools rush-in" partner are to be the guests of honor at aforementioned ritual.>>>> Scully began her struggle again just as the chanting got louder and the fire brighter and hotter. She saw the crowd approach Mulder, who had just started to wake up. As they grasped him and started to drag him to a make shift alter, Dana started shouting for all she was worth, "Stop, You can't do this, we are FBI agents".

The grim leader turned to her. "You are strangers here, you shouldn't be here, but since you have come we will use you as the sacrifices to the great one, instead of one of our own."

"Please, my mother lives here, you can't do this" Scully wept in frustration. "They will hunt you down, you can't get away with this."

"THEY, will never find your bodies", rumbled the leader. As he finished, Scully saw coming around the bonfire, a naked figure with a goat head on his shoulders. He was grotesque and he strolled towards the now prostrate Mulder. In his hand he held a long ceremonial knife. He motioned for the others to strip Mulder and place him spread eagle on the altar. When this was done, 'goathead' started to chant and slowly move around Mulder, the others surrounded the altar and chanted. But even with loud chanting she heard Mulder's first scream of pain. She couldn't see anything and was growing more and more frantic, when suddenly from behind her a hand came round and cupped her mouth.

"Quite, Scully not a word." Relief and panic filled Scully at the same time. Skinner!! How?? <<Oh God are we in time?>>> She felt the ropes slip from her wrists as Skinner cut the bonds that held her. She brought her wrists forward to rub them, began rising and listened as Skinner asked her if she could hold a weapon. She nodded and brought hers around to show him. He looked at her in surprise and put his backup piece back in his pocket. He motioned for her to step away as he aimed his .357 Sig in the air and let out a round. As loud as the chanting had been, the silence was almost deafening. The hooded figures turned around and Skinner pointed his gun right at the knife-welder. "I'll say this once, drop you weapon, or I will kill you." In her entire career, Scully had never heard Skinner use that voice. Not when Mulder and she had truly pissed him off. Not when he had talked of CSM. The voice was totally devoid of any emotion and it scared her more than she could ever image. She never wanted that voice directed at her.

The Goat man looked at Skinner and must have heard the same thing, because he slowly lowered his knife and put his hands up. "OK, everyone move away from the altar," still the same dead serious voice.

 As the crowd moved away, Scully, in the approved bureau stance kept everyone in her sight and kept out of Skinner's fire line. She got to altar and surveyed what lay before her. "Oh God, Skinner, call an ambulance".

The local police had shown up within ten minutes of Skinner's phone call; the State Police soon after.

Skinner was furious. Almost blind with rage, he had kept his eye on the crowd and only had to tell one man that if he thought he was going to slip away, he WOULD die. The rest stayed and milled around, staying as far away from Scully as they could. Skinner didn't dare get any closer than he was. He had to trust Scully to do what had to be done to save her partner. <<<So I can Kick His Ass But Good, yet again>>>. As the police pulled up and saw what was going on they immediately started herding people toward the cars. "STOP". Even Scully, as busy as she was stanching the numerous knife wounds of her partner, shot her head up in terror at Skinner's bellow.

"Sir?" one of the officers quailed.

"Off. I want each hood off." I want to see each and every bastard.

The officers gulped. Some of them knew exactly what would be revealed. One or two even started shaking, afraid that one of the men in hoods would betray them. <<<<Thank God, I called the State Police too, thought Skinner>>>> One by one the men revealed themselves. "Sergeant," Skinner spoke to the Head State Trooper, "nobody gets into a squad unless I have their wallets or IDs, is that understood."

Sgt. Benson knew a former Marine when he heard one and replied in all earnestness, "Sir! Yes, Sir!"

As the State Troopers began the process of getting the dozen or so men identified and into the waiting squad cars, Skinner finally felt able to get to Scully and Mulder. What he saw sickened him. It had been torture pure and simple. More than a dozen knife cuts scarred his torso and legs. The leg cuts were deep and bleeding profusely, but the one cut right on Mulder's chest was the worst. It looked like the goat man had just begun to cut into the chest cavity to remove Mulder's heart. Scully, was holding her partners wadded up shirt that had been discarded when they had stripped him, trying hard to stop the flow of blood. Skinner said in a voice so soft she almost missed it. "God Scully, is there anything I can do". She looked at him with tears brightening her eyes and shook her head. The ambulance had shown up 5 minutes after the police; the attendant had taken one look at Mulder and groaned "Oh hell, he is never going to make it". That's when Skinner called the Medivac copter from DC General.

Skinner watched as they got Mulder into the copter. He grinned slightly when the medivac attendant changed his mind about not allowing Scully to go with <<<Fat chance fellow, he thought>>>>. Then he sighed and headed back to his car. He knew what was ahead of him and he didn't know what scared him more, the political fall out of this night's adventure, or facing Maggie Scully once again.

It was every bit as bad as he had expected it to be. Norman Wilson, brother of Senator Richard Harry Wilson, was the biggest fish in the pot, but not the most dangerous. It had turned out that his instinct to call the State Police in was as sound a judgment call Skinner had ever made. He was quite sure that had he not, not one of the men would have ever made it to the police station and that no one would have coroberated his story, or Scully's. As it was, had he been there earlier to save Mulder from any torture at all, the powers that be would have swept the whole thing under the carpet and next year; some other poor saps would be sacrificed again at that ancient altar. As it was, lawyers from some of the most prestigious law firms in DC were trickling in and Skinner knew that there would be hell to pay for this night as he set in motion the forensics teams to search the area for any trace of previous murders.

As he walked from the police station, he remembered he had to get back to Maggie, and he thanked whatever deity was listening for the incredible luck that had befallen him just 4 short hours ago.

He had been a ½ hour late getting to the Scully house. He had been surprised when there was no one at home, he had figured that Dana would had taken the kids, but that Margaret Scully would had stayed to protect her house from marauding pranksters looking for candy. He had sighed, more disappointed than he thought possible, and turned to take the kids to a few houses, when from across the street he heard, "Mr. Skinner, Walter, is that you." He had looked to see Margaret Scully coming towards him, with two children dressed in the obligatory hobo costumes of the barely-teen set, almost identical to Tommy & Becca. "Dana, tried to get you on your cell but couldn't get through," she sighed breathlessly. "Fox came by with a case that they just had to check out".

Skinner, furious, had almost left then, but something she said made him stop, "Dana really didn't want to go, Walter, she was very disappointed to miss you and the children. They went to the pumpkin patch north of here to check out mysterious sightings that people have been talking about around here for a couple of years."

"Sightings?? What kind of sightings??," Skinner ground out. <<<<<Great it's rubbing off, now she starting to ditch me, damn you Mulder>>>> Not quite sure where that thought had come from, in a more subdued tone than he felt, Skinner asked Margaret for more details. What he heard made him suspicious enough to get Margaret to agree to take all four children (not that she looked like she minded, he thought) and headed out to the patch. As soon as he pulled his car up to the other six vehicles and saw Mulder's BuCar, and the flames licking the sky, his hackles rose. He quietly had gotten his gun and cell phone out and proceeded to call for back up.

<<<<<<How many times have we done this>>>>>>>> Dana's thoughts were focused on her sleeping partner. He had been in surgery for over 8 hours while two separate teams of doctors worked on his legs and his chest wounds. Now he lay in the ICU recovering, unconscious <<Thank God>>>. She stood there wondering how long she could go on with this strange compulsion. This co-dependency to this very strange and wonderful man she called her friend. She didn't think she could go on and felt herself begin to sag. Then, in an odd, yet fitting replay from the night before, she sensed him behind her. This time the arm snaked around, not to cup her mouth, but to embrace her gently around the waist; giving to her enough of his strength to bear even this. <<<<He must be as exhausted as I am>>>>. <<<<She looks like she could sleep for years>>>>. Twin thoughts as they gazed upon the brilliant problem child in their care. Walter gently turned her away. "Enough, Dana."

"But, Si.., but Walter, I can't".

"Enough. I spoke with the doctor, he will be under for at least 8 hours, and they want him to have time to heal. Please, come away. Get some sleep." <<<God, she looks so lost>>>>. Walter did the only thing he felt he could do; he firmly took her just above the elbow and lead her from the ICU floor, down the elevator, to his car, illegally parked outside the main entrance to DC General. Gently he put her in the car and reached over to fasten her seat belt. He dared not look at her, but as he pulled back, Dana touched his cheek, turning his head toward hers. She didn't know why she had to do this now, but she did it anyway, slowly she brought her lips towards his and touched them so softly, yet the touch burned him. Marked him for always as "Hers". "Thank you, Walter." He gazed at her for seemed an eternity, then finished his exit. He walked as steadily as he could to the driver's door got in and started the car. "I'll take you home now."

"No". It was a whisper and a promise. But a promise he knew would not be fulfilled tonight. He drove through the city, savoring their time alone. Guided her to his apartment and his door, knowing that no matter what happened in the future; no conspiracy, no CSM, no little gray men, could keep them apart.

Slowly he took off her soiled outer clothing. He went to start the shower, but she just shook her head and said, "I'm so tired Walter, please." He gave her one of his T-shirts to wear and tucked her into right side of the bed, he then stripped down to his briefs and settled in beside her, pulling her to him, spooning her small bottom into his belly and engulfed her in his embrace. There would be time for passion tomorrow, but for tonight that they were together was enough.

<<<I've never felt so safe>>>>>

All Saints Day

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