Of all the ways I have ever risked my life as a federal agent, there was one I never could have imagined in a million years, and it was the one that, in the end, nearly killed me.

Perhaps the saddest thing about it is that it all began so harmlessly, in a moment of the purest happiness I have ever known.

I wonder if I will ever feel that happy again ... because I have changed, forever. I am not the same person I was; I never will be again. Others may be fooled, but I am through fooling myself.

Of course, I never fooled Mulder for a moment ...

Let me tell you what happened.

~~~~~~~~~~

Mulder and I were going to investigate a string of homicides in Miami that seemed to have a certain paranormal element to them: The victims were all eviscerated, their heads turned almost completely backward and pentagrams carved in their chests.

Mulder, for once, was skeptical of any paranormal content, and I certainly agreed. Serial killers and their pathology, their modus operandi, are his specialty, not mine, but there was nothing about any of the bodies I examined that suggested anything beyond the capability of a strong man, or men, to carry out.

Even the head thing, we soon learned, was simply decapitation of a kind; the heads weren't quite removed, just far enough to allow them to be rotated nearly 180 degrees. Their clothing hid the incisions until autopsy.

Mulder quickly reached the conclusion that the unknown subject, what profilers call the UNSUB, wasn't engaging in some diabolical variant of Wicca so much as he was trying to make the killings look like what he imagined pagans would do.

The UNSUB wasn't doing a very good job of it, though; he was mixing up his Satanic rituals with his Wicca with his anti- vampire lore and winding up with something amateurish in the extreme.

So as an X File, it was a complete bust. As a violent serial crime requiring FBI assistance, however, it was top of the line.

A field office as large as Miami would normally handle this kind of thing without help from Washington, but this was Fox Mulder, after all. There was no way the Miami police weren't going to take advantage of the opportunity to have one of the Bureau's best criminal profilers in on the case.

They got what they wanted. Mulder was ordered to stay in Miami and render whatever assistance he could to the Miami-Dade police. My services as a forensic pathologist specializing in violent crime were also volunteered.

I didn't mind. It was cold and snowy back in D.C., and Miami, for all its high crime rate and other troubles, remains a tropical paradise. The weather was so nice, in fact, that I almost hoped the case would take a while so I could go on soaking up sun and warm breezes and blue water.

I love the ocean. There's scarcely a Scully alive who doesn't -- generations of my family have gone to sea, either with the U.S. Navy or as merchant seamen (my father said some of the old Scully clan were pirates, which I found glamorous in a school-girl sort of way).

Mulder wasn't anxious to hang around too long, though, and I couldn't blame him for that. Profiling, however Hollywood portrays it, is in reality a tedious job, although it is also an exercise in extreme stress and psychological terror.

But that wasn't his only reason -- he simply hated being away from his lover, Daniel.

I sympathized with him -- I mean, I missed Daniel, too. He's my second dearest friend in the entire world, and anyway, Mulder -- who is my partner, my dearest friend and my soulmate -- was so miserable without him.

That's my guys; so smart, so dedicated and so much in love. I feel so grateful to know that they consider me almost a part of their relationship.

I'm not, of course; I'm Mulder's partner, and Daniel's friend, and I'm very much in love with Mulder and much more than a little in love with Daniel, but the real couple here is Mulder and Daniel. They've been lovers for some time now, and they are deeply in love and very, very good for each other.

I try my best not to be a fifth wheel. They always tell me I'm not in their way, ever, but then they're both so polite and so well brought up that I sometimes have a hard time believing them.

On our third evening in Miami, I felt so sorry for all of us that I suggested to Mulder that he call Daniel and see if he couldn't get the Navy to grant him a couple of days' leave to join us in the sun.

Mulder's response was less enthusiastic than I'd expected.

"I don't know if I really want him around while I'm doing this, Scully," he said as he stretched out on the spare bed in my hotel room. "I mean, you know what I get like while I'm profiling. He's never seen it; and I'm not sure I want him to."

I knew all too well. Mulder could get extremely scary while submerging himself in the mind of a psychopathic killer. As he got further inside, he would begin to take on many of the UNSUB's characteristics -- the paranoia, the rage, the bloodlust -- and it was a truly frightening thing to watch.

But what he'd proven, over and over, was that no matter how bad it got, no matter how much terror he put himself through, he couldn't hurt me. Not even when someone drugged his water supply, or some mind-bending psycho got inside his head and forced him to point a gun at me, or even when he was all the way down into the mind of a serial killer.

Mulder simply didn't have it in him to hurt me, not ever. I was safe with him, no matter how terrifying things became.

Right at that moment, though, he was anything but terrifying. He'd shed his shirt, tie and shoes and was lying there in his undershirt, socks and slacks, and he looks absolutely delectable that way. I swear, if he were straight, I'd jump his bones in a minute, partner or not.

Did I mention that I'm very much in love with him?

"I know what you're saying, Mulder," I said, "but Daniel's never shown any inclination to throw up his hands in horror at anything we've done, so I don't think he'll do it now. Besides, unless I miss my guess, this killer isn't psychopathic, he's just plain evil, and you're not likely to go all wiggy profiling him."

He shrugged. "You never know until you get into the killer's head just exactly where he's going to take you," he pointed out, and I had to admit that he was right.

Who, for example, would ever have thought that profiling a serial killer would lead Mulder deep into the mind of the man who taught him to profile in the first place?

But I persisted, and finally Mulder agreed that some time with Daniel might help clear his head a bit, help him move on to the next phase of this investigation, which was trying to figure out where this sicko might strike next.

He went back to his room to make the call; about 45 minutes later, he poked his head through the connecting doors, grinning sheepishly.

"He's flying down tomorrow," Mulder said. "He put me on hold and called his commanding officer and got permission to take a few days off."

"See, I knew it would work out," I said, smiling. "All you had to do was ask."

"Yeah," Mulder said. He started to turn around and go back into his own room, but he stopped.

"Hey, Scully?" he said.

"Yes?"

He paused just for a moment. "Thanks," he said, with that look that always makes me melt.

I just half-smiled, and jerked my head in the direction of his room. "Hit the sack, Mulder," I said. "I'll see you in the morning."

"'Night, Scully," he said, and went to his room, closing the door behind him.

For just a moment after he left, I thought about going out -- Miami was full of singles bars where I might find a companion for the evening -- but in the end I decided against it.

Not that I wasn't feeling the urge -- I was. It had been a while since we'd been in the field, and I almost never cruise in the District. I was definitely feeling the urge to take a man to bed, and I knew that I would before too long.

It was just that, for that evening, sitting in the quiet and listening to Mulder's soft, slumberous breathing held much more appeal for me. I stayed up for a while, reading over the autopsy reports and making a few notes based on my own observations.

A little after midnight, I went to bed.

~~~~~

When I picked Daniel up at the airport the next afternoon, he was as excited and happy as a little kid. He had never before been around us while we were working, and he was almost overwhelmed to think that we would allow him into what he persisted in thinking of as our private world.

I've tried to explain to him, with no success whatsoever, that it's not that we want to exclude him; it's just that so much of what we do goes to such extremes, from Paperwork Hell to Sheer Life-Threatening Terror, that it would either bore him silly or get him killed, because he's not trained for this. He's a surgeon, not a cop.

Maintaining our usual pretense -- that Daniel was my lover, not my partner's -- I drove him to the hotel and put his bags in my room. I ordered him sternly to be careful if he wandered outside, because Miami has a serious problem with violent crime.

I just can't help it -- I never really think civilians are prepared to deal with that.

Yes, I know Daniel's not a civilian, not in the military sense, but to law-enforcement officers, anyone who's not a cop is a civilian.

Daniel was putting away his clothes, reaching into the back of the closet (and for some reason, that struck me funny. Dr. Freud, I thought, please call your office: There's a gay man in my room, and he's half in and half out of an open closet.)

He stopped his shirt-arranging and just looked at me with wide-eyed and totally false innocence.

"Dana, you wound me," he said, dramatically. "I have no intention of going anywhere any more dangerous than the hotel's kiddie wading pool. I mean, what else would I do this close to the beach?"

"Oh, you are impossible," I said, rolling my eyes as I grabbed my notes and prepared to leave. "Do whatever you like, Daniel, but if you get killed, don't come running to me."

"That's my line," he said, mildly. "I always tell people with multiple leg fractures that they can't come running to me."

"Orthopedists," I said, shaking my head. "You should stop by the forensics lab sometime and I'll fill you in on all the latest autopsy humor."

"I can't wait," he said, smiling, and then he put his arms around me and kissed me, because he loves me and he knows how much I like it when he does that, and Mulder certainly doesn't mind; he kisses me, too.

This one was a nice kiss; one of Daniel's best, and I've had some pretty damn good kisses from Daniel.

"Tell Fox I miss him and I can't wait to see him tonight," he whispered, and the look in his eyes was a joy and a hurt to me all at the same time, as it always is at times like these: Joy to see how deeply he and Mulder care for each other, painful to know that they have no choice but to hide that from the rest of the world.

And deep, deep gratitude that they don't feel they have to hide it from me.

I would love to be loved, someday, the way they love each other.

"I'll tell him, Daniel," I said, almost whispering myself. "I promise." I gave him one more hug and a little peck on the lips, and I left.

~~~~~~~~

When I got to the police department, I took Mulder aside and delivered the message. After that, as you might expect, Mulder could barely keep his mind on his work.

For the rest of the day, he'd look at his watch roughly every five minutes, and then he'd sigh and try to get back to work, only to repeat the process five minutes later.

When we finally reached a good stopping place around 5 p.m., Mulder took off for the hotel without even a mention of getting a bite to eat or of putting in some late hours -- which, normally, we would have done when we were in the field.

But I didn't mind. I was expecting it. He hadn't seen Daniel for almost a week, and I knew he was in a hurry to get back to him.

I left the police department about two hours later. I caught a cab, went to a movie, had some dinner -- alone -- and then went to another movie. I wanted to be completely certain that the guys had all the privacy they needed.

When I got back to the hotel, their room was dark, and it was quiet. I brushed my teeth, put on my pajamas, said my prayers and told myself that I could go cruising the bars tomorrow.

Then I went to bed, and I slept.

~~~~~~

The next day, Daniel prevailed upon me to take him to the forensics lab, and he seemed to enjoy the trip thoroughly.

I know, that sounds strange, but remember, an orthopedic surgeon is hard to shock: Once you've seen bodies all smashed up, bones poking through the flesh in six different places, the fragments covered in blood, dirt, garbage, even vomit, nothing really shakes you.

Anyway, Daniel's usual patients were alive, and usually in terrible, sometimes intractable pain. My "patients," however horribly they'd been violated, were at least dead and past their pain; and, I truly believe, were now safe in the loving hands of a merciful God.

No, the pitiful remains of the latest victim didn't especially shock Daniel; they just made him sad. The woman had been beautiful in life, to judge by the picture we got from her family.

What was left of her, however, was anything but beautiful.

Daniel graciously assisted me in the autopsy, and that was really fun -- if you know what I mean, not fun in the conventional sense, just fun to get to be a doctor with my Daniel. He and I have a lot in common, but few abiding passions other than medicine and Fox Mulder, and medicine is the only one that is ours alone.

I was proud to be able to show off my pathology skills to Daniel, because I knew he would appreciate what it took for me to develop those skills, and he did.

For my part, I was delighted to have an assistant who not only knew a tibia from a fibula, who was strong enough to help me lift and turn 140 pounds of -- literally -- dead weight, but who, as it turned out, could look at the body and tell me in an instant just exactly how the UNSUB might have crushed the cervical vertebrae of an otherwise healthy 21-year-old woman.

Daniel's surgical skills were also absolutely outstanding; thanks to him, the autopsy was done in no time flat, and I genuinely enjoyed watching him work. In fact, I extracted a promise that he would let me scrub in with him sometime at Bethesda, and that seemed to please him a great deal.

All in all, a very successful morning for us, I think.

Mulder came by around midmorning, just as we were stitching the victim up and wrapping her for transport. He was delighted to hear that Daniel's expertise had provided another clue to the UNSUB's identity.

His undisguised pleasure made Daniel happy, too; happier than I could remember having seen him. He was positively basking in Mulder's admiration.

In fact, they were both happy enough to risk a brief handclasp, something they almost never did in public.

Mulder insisted that Daniel come with us back to Miami-Dade to write up the report. I think he was feeling a little left out, to tell the truth, and he wanted a chance to show off for Daniel himself, to show what _he_ could do.

It was such a switch from his usual, "oh, shit," attitude toward profiling that I almost had to laugh.

After the report was done, and we'd all had some lunch, Daniel headed back to the hotel and Mulder and I got down to some serious computer checking with VICAP in an attempt to track down similar cases, if there were any. It was tedious work, but absolutely necessary if we were to catch this killer.

For about two hours, we ran checks on all the various details we'd uncovered, or Mulder had surmised, and got absolutely nowhere. It was making me a little crazy; I hate this kind of thing, anyway, but not nearly as much as Mulder does, and he was beginning to chew on his pencils just a bit more fiercely than usual.

He was getting so annoyed, in fact, that I was mentally preparing myself for the ever-popular Scully Ditch, when all at once he got very quiet, and his eyes went as wide as a full moon.

"Scully," he said, slowly. "What Daniel said about the technique required to crush the vertebrae and let the head turn around that way ... who would know that kind of thing?"

"I don't know," I said, thinking. "Doctors ... nurses, probably. Not all doctors or all nurses, or even most, but some would, certainly."

"What about physical therapists?" he asked, more intently.

"Yes, of course," I said. "Physical therapists know a lot about joints and the pressures they can bear, or can't bear. Why?"

"Because two of the victims here had received physical therapy in the past," he said, and I could hear the excitement building in his voice. "And now I've got a VICAP file which notes the similar murders of two other people who were also undergoing physical therapy."

"Mulder, forgive me, but what kind of connection is that?" I said, a little annoyed. "Lots of people undergo physical therapy."

"Let's just find out, shall we?" he said, grabbing his coat. "Let's go check out the rehab center where our victims were being treated."

Well, friends and neighbors, to my surprise -- but not to Mulder's -- we found out that the victims had the same physical therapist. The therapist had also lived and worked in the same cities where Mulder's VICAP cases had taken place.

We found our suspect -- a burly, beefy man named Adam Longecker -- at a Miami hospital that afternoon, and took him to Miami-Dade for questioning.

I read Longecker his Miranda rights, and he declined to have an attorney present, which I will never in my life understand. I can't tell you how many times I've seen that happen, and it almost always comes back to haunt these people when they're finally put on trial. They always think they're smart enough to talk their way out of this, and they almost never are.

And if defense attorneys knew my partner as well as I do, they'd insist on adding another paragraph to the standard Miranda warning: If you're about to be questioned by Special Agent Fox Mulder, then for God's sake shut up and get an attorney, because if you don't, you are going _down_, pal.

I've seen it happen, over and over. And it happened again this time.

Longecker signed the Miranda waiver, I got him a glass of water and then I sat down and Mulder took over.

At first, it was just the standard stuff; where were you on such-and-such a date, do you know this person, have you ever seen this shirt before, etc., etc.

But then Mulder seemed to veer off on a complete tangent. He started asking Longecker about college, about his clinical training, and then about his emotional reactions when his patients complained about how difficult and painful PT was.

Well, it wasn't a tangent, after all. As he was recalling all those details for Mulder, Longecker lost his temper and began shouting about "whiny babies" and "useless hulks of flesh."

In short order, Mulder had him confessing that he'd committed not only the murders we were investigating, but several others where the bodies hadn't even been found.

It was a real confession, too, not a copycat; Longecker knew too many details that hadn't been made public.

Turned out, Longecker had been absolutely fascinated with dead bodies, and in the most gruesome sense, which I shall not here describe. He developed that appetite after killing one of his "whinier" patients.

And Mulder zeroed right in on Longecker's motive. He took in all the facts, applied his incredibly deep understanding of serial murder and figured out exactly what questions he needed to ask to get under Longecker's evil hide and make him confess.

In other words, no matter how many years he's spent chasing aliens, exorcising ghosts and battling global conspiracies, Fox William Mulder is still the best criminal personality profiler alive and I am a fool not to remember that.

After we got done with Longecker and turned him over to the local authorities, we went back to the hotel, where Daniel was sunning himself by the pool. I made him come inside the room, because I knew what was going to happen when Mulder told him that it was his observation that had led us to the UNSUB.

I was right. Daniel, usually so shy and reticent, was so excited that he threw his arms around Mulder and kissed him really hard, right there in front of me.

Mulder was just beaming, he was so proud of Daniel, and Daniel, for his part, seemed absolutely overwhelmed by how quickly Mulder had taken that one clue and broken the case wide open.

When I told Daniel how perfectly Mulder had handled the interrogation, I thought he might just burst with pride, and Mulder was smiling in a way I'd seldom seen him smile before, almost bashfully.

They were both so happy, and so pleased with each other.

I started to leave, discreetly, but they wouldn't hear of it.

"We're going out," Daniel announced. "We've got some celebrating to do. And I know just the place."