Author's Notes: A special thanks to my son Chris, who helped flesh out the rough idea and helped with research by talking to his Wiccan friends. The idea for this story came from—I'm sure no one will be surprised to find out—my training as a Detroit Zoo volunteer. Everything in here regarding zoo volunteer policy is true, as is my description of the zoo, although all characters are fictional.

The title is the Tagalog (one of the Philippine dialects) word for "protection"—or at least as closely as I could get it translated online.

Spoilers: Everything up until Season 7, does not follow canon for anything after "Je Souhaite." Second in my 'Season 8 never happened' series which began with "Hidden".

Much thanks to my incomparable betas, Cory and Alia, for their hard work—I can't imagine my stories without your polishing.

Andukhâ
By Suzanne L. Feld
Rated R for adult situations and language

Day 1

"Why Detroit, Mulder?"

"It's the Detroit Zoo but it's not within the city limits, Scully. It's actually in the city of Royal Oak, which is a suburb of Detroit."

"That's not the point. The point is that it's August, it's hot and humid, and this is not one of the states that we want to be in at this time of the year. I've spent time in Michigan in the summer, so I know what it's like."

"Less hot and humid than D.C."

"Not as pleasant as, say, Alaska this time of year."

"You find me a case in Alaska and we're there."

She sighed as she turned to look out the tiny airplane window, holding her temper by dint of will. Mulder was at his finest today, needling her in high spirits while she was getting more and more annoyed with him. She wasn't sure if he was oblivious to it or he didn't care; either was dangerous.

Her temper was somewhat alleviated after they deplaned into the new terminal, which reminded her of Dulles. She'd been expecting something more like LaGuardia: old, dirty, cramped, crowded. Instead, they walked through a clean, bright, spacious new terminal that had bustling stores lining every wall and, while the place was very busy, it was wide open enough to not feel crowded once they were away from the gate. "Wow—this is the last thing I expected to see in Detroit of all places," Scully admitted as they stepped onto the moving walkway towards the baggage claim area. "I thought Metro would be small and dirty."

"This is a Northwest hub and was just recently rebuilt," Mulder told her, shifting his heavy laptop case to the other shoulder. Skinner's insistence that both of them begin carrying laptops really got on his nerves, but after they'd mistakenly left Scully's laptop in a rental car a few weeks ago and it was stolen, he guessed he could understand why, albeit grudgingly. It wasn't like anyone could get to the data on it as the Gunmen had encrypted it, and Scully of course had a full backup saved, but nonetheless… and if Skinner had known why they'd forgotten it, he'd probably string them up in the secret FBI dungeon, Mulder mused with a private smile. Skinner'd take them another level down below their basement office, to the torture chamber reserved for partners who fooled around on duty. But it had been worth anything Skinner could deal out, Mulder thought with a mental leer. Just remembering their unexpected and wildly passionate tryst in the back of that rental Crown Vic while waiting for the towtruck was enough to make sweat break out on his forehead despite the airport's air conditioning.

Though he had been afraid that once they made love they'd get bored with each other, exactly the opposite seemed to have happened. And nothing could have made him happier, he thought.

"The look on your face worries me," Scully said dryly from beside him, her laptop case and carryon bag resting at her feet as the walkway carried them across the huge terminal. "I'm almost, but not quite, afraid to ask."

"Just thinking about why I have to carry a laptop now," he said, nudging her upper arm with his elbow. "Why we forgot yours when the towtruck showed up earlier than we thought it would. I'd like to try that position in a be—"

"Jesus, Mulder, keep your voice down," she shushed him, shades of rose appearing on her cheeks. He found it becoming and wished he dared kiss her, but between the moving walkway and the possibility of onlookers who might recognize them, he didn't dare; in public and on a case they were nothing more than partners. Then she glanced up at him and, despite herself, he suspected, gave him a crooked, close-mouthed smile. "But it is a memory worth keeping."

He was relieved that her temper seemed to be calming; he had no clue why she'd been so damn crabby on the plane. She hadn't said a word about where they were going when she'd read the file, only been as intrigued as he with the case, although, of course, for a different reason. Without even being told, he knew that she assumed that it was a person who'd saved little Brianna Madrais from her kidnapper, while his theory was that it was a guardian angel or other spirit. She hadn't even gotten annoyed when he'd quoted a story by Mercedes Lackey about a possessed teddy bear, which saved a little girl from a pedophile. Although she had, quite understandably, been highly amused that he was reading books by an author best known for writing stories about talking magical horses.

For some odd reason she hadn't gotten pissed at him until they were descending into Detroit and the pilot had announced the local time and weather… weather, he realized. It was 92 with a 79% humidity index, he recalled. Oh. Scully didn't do well with extreme temperatures since her little sojourn in Antarctica a few years back, be it hot or cold. Well, he'd try to keep her comfortable temperature-wise and see if that helped her annoyance levels at all.

They followed the signs to the baggage carousels without talking, both lost in thought. By the time they'd climbed into their rental Cobalt—he didn't say a word when Scully blasted the AC—and headed for I-94, she seemed to be back to her normal even-temperedness and had begun reviewing the file. Mulder mulled it over in his head as he had won the coin toss and was driving.

Brianna Madrais, age seven, had visited the Detroit Zoo with her parents and older brother on a beautiful Saturday afternoon in August. Their trip had been uneventful until they reached the Arctic Ring of Life exhibit that featured polar bears, seals, arctic foxes, and snow owls in as realistic habitats as could be managed in a zoo. The main attraction was a wide acrylic tube that ran beneath the huge swimming tanks and allowed visitors to watch the bears and seals, separated by a clear plastic wall, in an aquatic habitat. It was easily the most crowded exhibit in the zoo and it wasn't unusual that children were lost from sight in it. It was here that the Madraises "lost" Brianna, but after just a few minutes of searching, her father had immediately notified the nearest zoo staff members that his daughter was missing.

The zoo staff, used to dealing with children wandering away from their parents, had immediately sprung into action. Mulder had discovered in his research for this case that normally child and parent were reunited within fifteen minutes. But when nearly thirty minutes had gone by with no sign of Brianna, a red alert had been called and the zoo locked down, all exiting people and cars stopped and searched.

Though it was rare, children were still sometimes openly snatched from public places and it was assumed that this might have happened. Mulder knew from previous cases that pedophiles listed zoos on their websites as a prime place to watch children, although he couldn't believe they'd be stupid enough to try and grab one from there with all the security cameras and so on now in public places. Still, they were occasionally desperate enough to try it—and, horribly enough, sometimes got lucky when they did snatch a child.

But less than forty minutes after her disappearance, Brianna had been found behind the giraffe house by a zoo volunteer, her face streaked with tears, hair and clothes disheveled, her backpack missing but otherwise unharmed; not so much as a bruise or scratch on her. It was her story of what had happened, stuck to with a child's innocent stubbornness, that had called out the X-Files team.

Scully watched the huge water tower advertising the Detroit Zoo approach and then recede as Mulder drove past it. "Where are we staying?" she asked, knowing it was too late to visit the zoo. "I just hope that it's at least marginally better than that hellhole in Alabama."

"The Woodward Arms Motel, two blocks north of Eleven Mile Road on the east side of the street," Mulder said, recalling from memory the directions that were written down in the casefile sitting on the seat between them. "It's only a mile or so past the zoo; should be just a couple of lights up."

As soon as they entered the office, they knew they'd not hit paydirt this trip, either. "Hour or night?" the bored clerk behind a scratched and cloudy Plexiglas pane asked, barely glancing at them.

"Two singles, with a connecting door if you've got it," Mulder said, rapping on the glass with his knuckles to get his attention. "Next to each other if you don't."

The clerk heaved a sigh and turned to face them, his eyes going wide as he saw Scully's badge pressed against the dingy barrier. "Oh, uh, sure," he said, now looking wary rather than bored. "You, uh, ain't with the IRS or anything, are you?"

"No, we're investigating the kidnapping at the zoo yesterday," Mulder said, thinking as he tossed his Bureau credit card into the metal tray set in the bottom of the Plexiglas that he'd never understand how the letters FBI and IRS seemed to be interchangeable at times to John Q. Public. "Not sure how long we'll be staying."

"I'll keep your rooms free until you tell me you're leavin'," the clerk said, sliding a pen and piece of paper back through the tray. "Just fill that out for me. Heard about that little girl; glad they found her okay, but was it really her guardian angel like they're sayin'?"

Scully glared up at her partner as he grinned down at her. "That's what we're here to find out."

***

They left the Royal Oak police station even more baffled than when they'd entered it barely an hour before. "That makes no sense, Mulder," Scully said for the umpteenth time. "How could the kidnapper just be dead with no cause, no injuries, no anything? Human beings don't just drop over for no reason! I have to examine that body."

"It's waiting for you in the morgue at Royal Oak Beaumont Hospital, which is just a mile or so north of our motel. Why don't you drop me off and head over there? I want to do some research."

"Hmph," Scully huffed, catching the keys he tossed to her, "research involving the adult movie channel at the motel, I bet."

"I've given up that vice since we've been together, Scully." He winked then threw her a meaningful look as she slid the seat forward. "No, seriously, I want to get on the Internet and see if I can find anything like this ever happening at the zoo before."

"Is there even Internet access at that sleazy motel?" she wondered out loud, waiting for two marked police cruisers to pull out before she left the parking space in the cops' lot.

"I called and made sure of it before we left D.C., though I didn't realize just how bad the place was," he said, loosening his tie and unbuttoning the top two buttons on his shirt. "Ah, that's better. Yeah, I bet the old Woodward Arms will be hopping tonight."

She didn't ask; she didn't want to know.

***

It was well after dark when she got back to the motel and found out what he meant. Though it certainly wasn't as obvious as some of the sleazier motels they'd stayed at, there were enough scantily-clad women in the small attached café as well as walking around aimlessly nearby to make it clear that if you were interested in female companionship, they were available. One young lady in skimpy heels, skintight black Spandex bike shorts and tube top, and faux leopard-fur jacket was lounging innocently at the bus stop by the street. She looked like an advertisement for Rebooks had crashed into a billboard advertising the movie "Pretty Woman."

Though they eyed her, no one approached Scully as she climbed the stairway to the second floor where their rooms were. She had discovered earlier, to her relief, that the accommodations were meticulously clean if decorated in Early American By The Hour. "You'd better keep this door locked if you don't want a visit from one of the many ladies of the evening wandering around out front," she remarked as she walked in through the unlocked door.

Mulder looked up from where he was sitting on the bed with his laptop, surrounded by the case file and photos. "You noticed, huh?" His disarming grin went straight to her heart and sunk in there. He was comfortably attired in grey jogging shorts and a matching t-shirt, the air conditioning holding the room at a comfortable temperature that she appreciated after the humidity outside. "They were just coming out of the woodwork when I went down to get a soda and I barely escaped with my life, let me tell you."

She huffed, taking off her jacket. "Compared to their regular customers? I bet."

His grin widened. "Does that mean you'll keep me?"

Scully refused to justify that with an answer and kicked off her shoes with a sigh of relief. "So what did you find out on your cyberspace journeying today?"

"Well, I discovered that Miss October enjoys waterskiing, fresh-cut flowers, and—what?" he looked over at her innocently. It was always a toss-up on whether she'd shoot him or kiss him at this point.

"Mulder," she said warningly, flopping into one of the two chairs that flanked a tiny 1960s-era table at the foot of the bed. "I just got done with a very long, very puzzling autopsy with a very annoying assistant who wanted to talk about nothing more than our 'Cops' appearance which, as you well know, is not exactly a favorite subject of mine. On top of that, my hand is used to the feel of a scalpel in it right now. Don't make me want to continue cutting with you as my subject."

He looked properly abashed although she could see the sparkle in his eyes from where she sat across the room. "Sorry. In all seriousness, I was surprised to find that there have only been three abductions from the Detroit Zoo in the last fifteen years and two were by non-custodial parents. So that leaves only one actual successful child kidnapping and that was in 1984. That may be why this one tried it; though zoo security watches out for it, it's been a long time since it actually happened. On top of that, I did some research on protective spells, ghosts, guardian angels, and poltergeists. There are spells to protect children that might be what we're looking for, and I did find the legend of a late docent who really loved children who might have—what?"

She was glaring over at him, not looking quite as angry as she had at his Miss October remark but not exactly pleased. "Can you get to the point, please?"

He decided that this was probably a good time to switch focus before he got threatened with a scalpel again. She did look tired, at that. "Er, that's about it. So what did you find out?"

"Our kidnapper died of a collapsed vein in the brain of a type I've never seen before in a closed-head injury. It's almost like someone pinched the vein between his or her fingers until the heart stopped, though that would take some time and this was instantaneous. In addition to that, she had an odd, fresh burn on the palm of her left hand that we couldn't figure out. Other than that, this woman was the picture of hea—"

"Woman?" Mulder said, surprised, sitting up and putting the laptop aside. "I thought the report said that it was a man?"

"Ah, therein lies the rub," Scully said with satisfaction, leaning back and lifting her nylon-encased feet to rest on the end of the bed. "We haven't positively ID'd her yet but she was disguised as a man, fake beard and all, and had women's clothing in her bag. We suspect that she entered the zoo dressed as a man and was going to change into women's clothing after grabbing little Brianna and getting her behind the giraffe house. She also had a bottle of Benadryl and a complete set of boy's clothes in Brianna's size with her. Our guess is that she was going to cut the girl's hair and dress her like a boy and probably carry her out sleeping on her shoulder; in different clothes and with a baseball cap to hide most of her face, it's likely no one would have recognized the girl if she'd moved fast enough."

"Fucking slick," Mulder said with clear disgust. "Enter the zoo as a lone man, exit as a woman carrying a sleeping child."

"Yeah, but something happened to her and I'm still not sure what. Veins don't just pinch closed like that, Mulder. There was no evidence of any other trauma to the body other than the burn and some bruises and scrapes where she fell; it's like the vein collapsed and down she went, which would match Brianna's statement. She said that she felt a tingle and then the 'bad lady' fell down and went to sleep."

"We'll see if we can get more from her tomorrow. It's after seven, so did you want to get some dinner?"

"Once, just once, I wish we'd stay in a place where we could get room service," Scully moaned, dragging herself to her feet. "Let me go change—"

He got up and went over to her, placing his big hands on her shoulders and squeezing them slightly. "How about I go out and get us something while you soak in a hot bath, then later we can take turns giving each other backrubs?"

Stepping forward, she wrapped her arms around his waist as he enfolded her in a warm embrace. "I knew there was a reason I've stayed your partner all these years."

He rested his chin on top of her head, his favorite position when she didn't have shoes on. "For more than backrubs in the last couple years, I'm guessing."

"You're guessing right," she agreed, then, to keep him on his toes, reached down and gave him a caress that she knew would make her thoughts clear. "So, how about we put dinner and my bath off for just a little while?"

To her delight—he rarely missed a hint and didn't disappoint this time—he swung her up in his arms and grinned down at her as he headed for the connecting door, likely because his bed was covered in photos and the laptop. "Just a little while?"