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

Thank you to Tish Sears for all the editing help!

Comments welcome, critique encouraged, flames humbly accepted.

"Those Who Love" is posted in seven parts, all parts posted on
September 5, 1995.

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

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

THOSE WHO LOVE - Part 3

J. (Jamal) Gallagher did not like waiting in parking lots, he did
not like sitting there in his car. It was too suspicious looking, it
smacked too much of the actual business he was there to perform.
Hendricksen had insisted, however, that he would not speak to him
inside the bustling restaurant. He was to wait outside.
Gallagher was already in enough trouble over the delays in
this shipment, and he did not wish to antagonize his "superiors" with
any further trouble, so he agreed to Hendricksen's condition. But he
did not like it. The longer this whole transaction went on, in fact, the
less happy he was. First there was the delay in delivery. He had
examined a sample of Hendricksen's product, settled on a price very
much to his liking, and had been promised delivery within two
weeks. Those original two weeks, however, had stretched to three,
and then four. Then Hendricksen could not make up his mind where
the transfer should take place. That took another several days. If it
was not for the fact that Gallagher had negotiated such an
outstanding price on the "shipment", he would have called the whole
thing off a long time ago, simply reported back that the deal was
suddenly too risky. His "superiors" would have trusted his
evaluation, and agreed, he was sure. But he had negotiated a very
sweet deal, here, and he stood to make a lot of money. And he had
bills to pay.
He glanced at the back seat, at the locked briefcase lying
innocently there. The transfer would be simple. He and Hendricksen
would park, car door to car door, the doors opened in such a way
that no one would be able to see between them. He would hand
Hendricksen the brief case, Hendricksen would hand him the leather
backpack containing the packets of uncut cocaine. Neither man
would count, or examine, the merchandise or the payment at that
time. Gallagher had already approved the samples, and Hendricksen,
the price. And this was no amateur street operation. While there
might not be honor among thieves, or drug dealers, there was fear,
and a healthy respect. The likelihood of a double cross was slim; the
last man to try to cheat his "superiors" was still floating up in the Wethersfield cove, a piece at a time. And, for such an illegal
operation, his superiors had a surprising reputation for honesty. It
was good business, and they were not petty criminals, moving dope
out on the streets. These were businessmen with whom he dealt, first
and foremost.
Gallagher looked at his watch. When he turned his eyes back
up to the road, a silver sedan was just pulling into the parking lot. He nodded to himself, and brought the briefcase up to the front seat. He
waited until the sedan had pulled up next to him, facing the other
way, so that their driver's sides were together. Gallagher rolled down
his window, then waited for Hendricksen to do the same.
"Are we all set then?" he asked, with strained patience.
"Follow me," Hendricksen replied.
Gallagher frowned in astonishment.
"What do you mean, follow you!" he demanded in a harsh
whisper. "I'm not gonna follow you! You have the stuff. I have the
money. We make the transaction. Here. That was the deal."
But Hendricksen shook his head.
"Not here, there are too many people," he replied. "I know a
place not far from here that is completely deserted. We'll go there."
Gallagher struggled to contain his wrath. He had no intention
of following this man anywhere; he was *tired* of this run around.
Besides, one of the reasons he was confident that he would never
need to use his gun was the fact that he *always* performed his
transactions out in the open, in full view, cleverly, carefully, but
always in settings least likely to encourage a "business partner" to
take a chance and do something stupid. Something fatal.
"No way, man," he resisted, anger causing a hint of the old
neighborhood patois to creep back into his voice. "No way I'm
following you anywhere. The transaction happens here, or it doesn't
happen. Now, let's get on with it." He took a deep breath, and
struggled to calm himself.
Hendricksen just looked stubborn.
"I don't have the stuff with me," he explained. "I've got it,"
he
continued, seeing the look on Gallagher's face, "but not here. I've got
it hidden on this place. It's not far. Honest. I just can't do it
here,
man, somebody will see us for sure, here. Just come with me. It
ain't far. Just a couple of miles, on an old deserted farm."
Gallagher was so angry he was shaking. He took a deep
breath and tried to think. There was *no way* he wanted to follow
this slime ball anywhere. This whole arrangement was starting to
smell like nothing but trouble to him. He did not know what to do.
Had he backed out of the arrangement before now, even a short a
time ago as a week, his superiors would have understood, and
perhaps even complimented him on his acumen. But to call it off
now... They knew he was meeting Hendricksen tonight, to call it off
now would look too suspicious. At best it would look like he no
longer had the edge, or the nerve, to control these transactions, at
worst like he had made some sort of a deal on his own behalf. He
could not risk their ire. He would have to take his chances with the
slime. He nodded.
"Where?" he asked shortly. Hendricksen nodded and gave
him directions. Gallagher waited until Hendricksen's car was out of
sight. Then he threw his corvette into gear and peeled furiously out
of the parking lot, nearly taking out a blue Ford Escort rental car in
the process. He headed down the street.



Mulder pulled into the restaurant parking lot just as the black
corvette came flying out, nearly hitting him as it squealed around the
corner.
"Jesus Christ!" he cursed, swinging wide. He looked back
over his shoulder. "Guy must have just caught his wife with another
man..." He glanced at Scully, who had been thrown hard against her
seatbelt.
"You okay?"
"Yeah," she sighed, shaking her head. They parked, and went
inside.
The place to which Bowman had directed them for dinner
was called "Cousins", and was more of a bar and grill than a real
restaurant. Several tables were set in the middle of the floor, and
there were a few booths, but the long mahogany bar that took up
most of the far wall left no doubt as to the establishment's real
function. Still, wonderful smells had met them in the parking lot, as
they pulled in, and that promise was met when their entrees were
finally placed before them. Scully cut a slice from her roasted
chicken breast, and watched Mulder tuck into his rib-eye steak and
fries.
She looked at him quietly for a moment.
"So, are you still convinced these deaths are actually murders
by haunting?" she finally asked. Mulder looked up at her.
"The evidence seems to point in that direction, yeah," he
agreed, eyeing her curiously. "I take it by the look on your face that
you don't agree?"
"I guess I just don't see anything I could call evidence of
anything other than exactly what this seems to be - a very strange coincidence. Nothing more."
"But what about Bowman's story?"
"About the two ghostly lovers? I thought it was very
charming. Delightful, really, and he tells it very well. I got the
distinct feeling that he's been telling that story to anyone who would
listen, for years." She smiled at Mulder fondly. "My father used to
call that 'local color'."
Mulder frowned at her.
"His aunt seems to have had some personal experience with
them," he countered.
Scully nodded.
"I've got an aunt like that, too, only mine sees angels.
Mulder, all's you've got there is an eccentric old woman who forgot
where she put things, and blamed ghosts for it. It doesn't prove
anything."
"What about Bowman's own experience. That was
something less than charming, don't you think?"
Scully sighed.
"Oh, come on, Mulder, look at it logically. You have a little
boy, subject to a terrifying and heinous experience. A little boy who
was brought up on stories about those ghosts, who romanticized
them, whose own family member treated them like household
companions. It's only natural to expect that the boy would 'see' one
of these ghosts under the circumstances. Like an imaginary friend."
"Imaginary friends rarely throw heavy lamps across rooms to
save you from being raped," Mulder countered. Scully nodded
gently.
"And maybe this imaginary friend didn't, either" she
suggested. "Did you stop to think that maybe Bowman did *not*
escape that assault? That this 'ghost' is actually his mind's way of
dealing with what was done to him?"
Mulder made a face, but did not argue further. She had a
very good point, one that had occurred to him as well. He looked at
her out of the corner of his eye, then sighed and nodded.
Scully ate her chicken, and let Mulder think for a moment.
When he did not offer a counter argument, she ventured further.
"Anyway," she began, "I have done *some* reading during
my, uh, sojourn on the X-Files..." Mulder quirked a lopsided grin at
her, and she smiled back, "and I seem to recall reading that
hauntings, for the most part, are generally pretty benign occurrences.
Ghosts are suppose to be little more than left over energy from a consciousness that has not found peace in death, for one reason or
another, often due to some unfinished business, or violence
associated with the death, itself. But usually, this energy just sort of hangs out. It may, possibly, repeat whatever activity is associated
with the reasons behind the 'haunting', but nothing premeditated.
With the exception of certain kinds of poltergeist activity - which
may not even be spectral - ghosts don't really affect their
environments much. And even poltergeists usually only move things
around, or make noise. Ghosts can be a nuisance, but they are very
rarely intentionally injurious to human life. Most of that is a
Hollywood interpretation.
"What you are suggesting, though, is that these 'ghosts'
*intentionally* caused those men to die. Even given the possibility
that you might be right about the *existence* of such entities, doesn't
that theory pretty much fly in the face of the accepted thinking?"
By the time she finished, Mulder was grinning widely.
"You *have* been reading," he replied with a small laugh.
"And yes, you're right. Most spectral activity is benign in nature.
However, I think we have a particular situation here."
He put down his fork and looked at her intently.
"Let's take Bowman's story at face value for a moment, and
assume that he is correct in his belief that Jeremiah Colter and
Catherine Hewlett still haunt the Colter farm because of the depth of
their love for each other. A love that was denied in life, and therefore cannot be denied in death. It could be postulated that the actual
physical matter binding them to this Earth and to each other, is that
house, itself. The house they lived and loved and died in. To lose
the house would be to lose each other, which is something they
cannot allow. They aren't really murdering. They are only defending themselves and their love.
"As long as efforts go forward to tear down the Colter farm,
I'm convinced that people will continue to die on that property."
Scully smiled warmly, and glanced down at her dinner for a
moment. Then she looked back up at her partner.
"That was very touching, Mulder. Very romantic, actually. I
didn't know you had it in you."
Mulder smiled, a little sheepishly. But Scully sighed.
"Look, I agree that coincidence isn't a very satisfying
explanation, here," she admitted, "and, short of exhuming a body
and looking for other evidence," she pointed a finger at him
warningly, "which we have *no* grounds to do, so don't even think
about it, your theory that those men were frightened to death makes
as much sense as anything does. But I still fail to see what we can do
about it."
Mulder looked at her earnestly.
"We either have to convince Bowman not to sell that
property, or get him to bring in a parapsychologist who can contact
the ghosts through a psychic, and convince them to leave the house,"
he said. "It's the only way to prevent further deaths."
Scully pursed her lips.
"And, you might even be able to convince Bowman of that,
although his *brother* doesn't seem much like the 'parapsychologist'
type to me," she agreed. "But what the *hell*, Mulder, are you
gonna tell Skinner? This is *not* our job. Under no circumstances
can we even justify *this* little junket, we can only hope that
nobody has been looking for us, so we can get back to Washington
tomorrow without having to explain our absence."
Mulder did not look happy.
"So what, we just let the deaths continue?"
Scully sighed, beginning to get exasperated again.
"Mulder, I don't know what you want me to say," she replied.
Her partner eyed her, then finally nodded in defeat.
"I'd still like to go through the house tomorrow morning,
before we leave," he said, his disappointment clear in his voice. "Just
to satisfy my curiosity."
"All right, if we do it early," Scully agreed, knowing she had
won, and not wanting to rub it in. "I'm kind of curious, myself."



J. (Jamal) Gallagher pulled off the road behind Hendricksen's
sedan, and looked around. There wasn't much moon, but enough to
see that he was parked beside an open, and overgrown field. He got
out of his car and walked cautiously up to Hendricksen's. He peered
in the windows and saw the keys still in the ignition, but the vehicle
was otherwise empty. He peered up into the field.
"Up here!" Hendricksen called him distantly. In that vague
light, Gallagher could just make him out on the boarder of the
woods. "Bring the briefcase and come here!"
The hell he was going to do that. Gallagher tossed the
briefcase full of cash into his trunk and slammed it shut. Then, hand
over the butt of his gun, he trudged up the long incline to where
Hendricksen was waiting. He could not see well in the half light, so
he had several deep scratches and a wrenched ankle by the time he
reached Hendricksen. He mood, never very good, was no longer the
least cooperative.
"Hendricksen, what the *fuck* is this all about, man?" he
demanded, frustration destroying the last vestiges of his carefully
cultivated speech. "What the *fuck* is going on here?"
"Nothing, man," Hendricksen demurred placatingly. "I just,
you know, didn't like to do the transfer in that parking lot. Too many
people around." He looked at Gallagher. "Where's the money, man.
I tol' you to bring it?"
"An' I don't take orders from no slime like you," Gallagher
hissed. "It's locked in the trunk of my car, and that's where it's gonna
stay until you tell me what the hell you're up to. Where's the stuff?"
Hendricksen kicked a backpack at his feet. "Right here,
man."
Gallagher looked down, and nodded.
"Let's get the fuck out of this field, then. Bring it down to
the
cars." He turned and started down the slope.
"I don't think so," Hendricksen replied, his voice firm and
hard, all traces of whining vacillation now gone. "Turn around."
Gallagher turned around and found himself staring down the
barrel of a .38 caliber revolver. He gaped in shock.
"Now give me your car keys."
"What are you *doin'*, man."
"The keys, Gallagher. Slowly. Now."
Gallagher drew breath slowly.
"Are you crazy? They'll kill you, man. I don't show up with
the goods tomorrow, they gonna *know* you double crossed them.
They'll find you, man."
But Hendricksen shook his head.
"You don't show up with the goods tomorrow, they'll figure it
was *you* who pulled the double cross. By the time they pull your
car out of the Cumberland marsh, I'll be long gone. With the cash,
and the stuff."
"Man, you're nuts!"
"Give me the keys."
Gallagher dropped his hands to his waist, and thought
furiously. He could not believe this was happening. It had to be a
dream. His hand brushed the top of his gun butt.
Maybe it was a deer, or maybe it was just some rotten tree
limb finally giving up and cracking to the ground, but the sudden
sharp noise within the woods made Hendricksen jerk his attention to
the left, just slightly. It was only a fraction of a second, but it was enough. Gallagher drew his weapon, clutched the butt in both hands,
and fired.
It took him a moment to realize what he had done.
Hendricksen's body collapsed into a heap in the shadows. Gallagher
could not see the extent of the damage his bullet had done, but
Hendricksen had to be dead. Shit, the man had taken that bullet right
in the face, no one could survive that! He kicked the body, and felt
no movement, heard no response. Then it hit him. He had killed the
man, *killed* him. For all of his flirtation with the underworld, for
all that he had grown up on the streets, Gallagher had never killed
anyone, before, had never even known anyone, intimately, who had
done so. Panic took him. He had to get out of there.
Hendricksen's body had fallen over the backpack. Gallagher
jerked it out from under him, then opened it quickly. He tipped the
mouth of the bag to catch the moonlight, and shuffled his hand
around inside. It collided with something soft, and he drew out a
clear plastic bag filled with soft white powder that glittered in the
faint light. Gallagher dropped the bag back into the backpack, and
zipped it closed again. He had to *do* something. He had to get out
of there. He could take the coke, he could be take the coke and the
money back to his superiors, explain what had happened. But his
superiors were tidy men, and serious businessmen. They would not
like this little complication, not at all. There was not telling what
they
might do to "discipline" him for this slip-up. Gallagher shuddered at
the thought.
He could always just blow. Take the money, take the coke
and run. He could be a thousand miles away before the sun came
up. But they would find him. He knew they would find him. He
had to think. He looked around wildly. Hide the coke, hide it
somewhere and go someplace where he could think. He had to get
away from the body, get the hell out of that field. He peered into the
woods, but it was too dark to see, and he was not going in there
anyway. He turned around slowly, looking around him as he did.
His eyes strained across the field.
He had not noticed the old house, at first, because it was
partly hidden in the shadows of the surrounding trees, but his eyes
had adjusted to the near darkness, by now, and he could see the
outline clearly. It returned to him that Hendricksen had said this was
an old deserted farm. He jogged toward the building, desperate to
put as much distance as he could between himself and Hendricksen's
body, sure he could find someplace in that ramshackle building to
safely hide his burden. He ran, unmindful of the rough ground, and
the brush clutching as his pant legs. He did not stop until he had
reached the house.
The old well presented itself like a vision of salvation.
Gallagher careened to a stop and bent over, gasping for breath beside
the stone circle. He set the backpack onto the ground, and shifted
the stone well cover to one side. Without stopping to think, he
dropped his gun inside. Then he felt around the inside of the rim.
Yes! Exhilaration filled him as his fingers found the iron bucket
hook wedged in the wall of the well. He lowered the backpack over
the side, and hung the straps over the hook. Then he pulled the cover
back over the well. By morning, the trampled grass would be back to
normal, rising with the dew. There would be no evidence that
anyone had tampered with the well.
Gallagher brushed the dirt from his hands, and thought about
Hendricksen's body. Leave it, his brain said. The farm was deserted,
chances were no one would even find the body until the wild animals
had decimated it. And even if they did, there was nothing to lead
them back to him. He could drive Hendricksen's car into the marsh;
it would be days before it was found. Even Hendricksen had been
sure of that. He felt unreasonably better as relief flooded him. The
money was in his trunk, the coke would be safe in that well forever,
and he had all the time in the world, now, to figure out the best thing
to do. He looked around, slightly disoriented, then saw the road. He
strode purposefully back down the hill.




Robert,
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http://ricksbbs.synchro.net:8080
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