Someone to Watch Over Me
by Laura Picken
The Archiving continues...

Summary: Crossover with The X-Files. Mulder and Scully travel to Cascade to investigate a murder with connections to a popular New Age band, and Mulder learns more about himself in the process than he ever bargained for.

Hi all! I've seen so many Highlander/X-Files crossovers that I'm beginning to wish Clyde Bruckner had never said Scully wouldn't die. However, after I started watching "The Sentinel", I began to wonder why no one had ever made the parallels between these two great shows. And so…

Timeline notes: I never thought I would write stories that would have to be forced into any one particular slot, but this one didn't seem to work without it. In The X-Files timeline, this story is set one week after the final events of Paper Clip—in this story's alternate timeline, this would be their first case back after Melissa's death. In The Sentinel time line, this story falls after Dead Drop, and it would help if you've read Tate's excellent Dead Drop: Alternate Ending and/or Fatal Flaw, from which I liberally knock off some of her more mystical concepts. If you want to think of it from a fan fiction standpoint, this story would come some time after Fatal Flaw. If the timelines don't click between the shows, then you try writing a crossover, buddy!

Notes: I will freely distribute permission to use this story - you've just got to e-mail me first! Plus, I _live_ for comments, so just e-mail me anytime!

Disclaimer: Mulder, Scully and all characters related to The X-Files belong to Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen Productions, and Fox. Blair Sandburg, Jim Ellison, Simon Banks, the town of Cascade and all characters and settings related to The Sentinel belong to Pet Fly Productions and Paramount. All characters are used for fun, definitely not profit, and if you think I'm making a dime off this, you're crazy, so please don't sue – I owe every dime I make to my Student Loans anyway.

And now, on with the show…

Prologue

Radisson Hotel, Suite 1013
Cascade, WA
Sunday, February 23, 12:30 am

She couldn't believe her luck. Out of all the women he could have (and supposedly has had) he found her in the crowd and chose her. When Pete tapped her on the shoulder and said that he wanted to meet her, she though she was going to die from excitement. And now, she thought, she had definitely gone to heaven.

450 Prospect Cascade, WA
Sunday, February 23, midnight

"Hey chief, toss me a beer will you?" Blair grabbed two beers from the refrigerator and handed one to his friend before sitting on the couch himself. "So who's winning?" "Orcas are up by a goal – ouch! Not any more." "I told you that Yzerman was one of the best in the league." "Yeah, well the game's just gone into overtime, so one more goal either way and we'll see who pays for dinner tomorrow night. And since when have you been a Red Wings fan, Sandburg?" "Since Naomi dated Bob Probert for two months about ten years ago." Jim smiled. The adventures his partner has been on were only slightly more surprising to him than the adventures his mother has been on. "So what happened?" "She jinxed the Wings so they lost their best shot at the Cup they ever had, he got deported on drug charges, and the rest, as they say, is history."

When he brought her up here, she thought all he wanted was sex – not like she minded. So it amazed her when he bought her champagne and was so interested in hearing everything about her. And now, he wanted to dance with her? This is incredible, she thought.

"There's a saying old, says that love is blind; still we're often told, seek and you will find…."

"Man, I can't believe he missed that goal – it was an empty net, for cryin' out loud!" "Well chief, maybe the Wings still suffer from Naomi's curse?" "Sure, sure," shrugged Blair as he cleaned up the dishes and beer bottles from the table in front of the TV.

Why do I feel so dizzy? she thought, It must be the champagne.

Blair thought his partner would be gloating madly by now. So he was surprised when he heard no proclamations of victory coming from the couch.

As she slumped in his arms, blood trickling from her ears, she thought, Man, if he doesn't kiss me soon, I think I'm going to explode.

"…Someone to watch over me…"

Blair was even more surprised to return to the couch and see Jim Ellison in front of a blank TV screen, completely zoned out.

Monday, February 24, 8:30 am

As the blue Ford Taurus stood completely still in Cascade's version of rush hour traffic, Dana Scully turned to her partner and asked, "So tell me again why you wanted this case?"

Her partner, Fox Mulder, replied, "At least ten of these deaths have occurred within the past two months. All young coeds, all listed as dying from severe brain trauma, but with no external signs of injury. No prints found on or near the bodies, which were always dumped back on campus."

"And you think these deaths are connected?"

Mulder nodded. "Turns out all of the women attended a Marcus Christopher concert the night they died."

"And?"

"And Cascade is the last stop on Marcus Christopher's world tour. If there is a connection, and there is someone out there preying on these women, there's a chance that when the tour ends, our killer we'll go into hiding."

"If there is a killer," warned Scully.

Mulder rolled his eyes. "Right."

Mulder pulled up to the headquarters of the Cascade police department, got out of the car, and opened the door for his partner. They had barely walked into the building when Scully griped, "Mulder, I barely had a chance to look at the coroner's reports on the victims, let alone the fact that the latest victim, a –"

"Jennifer Martin," interrupted Mulder.

"Jennifer Martin only died last night," finished Scully, a bit exasperated. His eidetic memory could be so annoying at times. "I haven't even had a chance to perform an autopsy on her yet. How can you be so sure we have a serial killer here that you drag us out to Washington the first week we're back to work?"

Mulder simply smiled, and ushered his red-headed partner into the squad room of the Major Crimes division. "Call it a hunch," replied Mulder.

This time it was Scully's turn to roll her eyes. "Right."

Major Crimes Squad Room
Cascade Police Department
Monday, February 24, 8:45 am

Jim couldn't concentrate. He was going over the paperwork for their latest case, a coed who was found dead the previous night on the Rainier University campus, but his mind kept wandering back to the zone out at the loft. How could it have happened? he thought, I wasn't even focused on anything. A zone out like that hasn't happened since Blair and I started working together. What the hell is going on with me?

Sensing the Sentinel's confusion, Blair asked him, "you're still bothered by last night, aren't you?"

Jim nodded. "I don't understand how it happened. I wasn't focused on anything in particular except gloating over who won the game, then, all of a sudden, BAM! I was off in la la land. Any ideas as to how it might have happened?"

Shrugging, Blair shook his head. "Maybe if we go over to the University, get you checked out –"

Wincing at the thought of more of Blair's tests, Jim was grateful he had the perfect way to get out of it. "Not today, Chief – we have a meeting with Simon about the Martin case. Seems a couple of Feds want in on this, and we're supposed to brief them on what we've got so far."

Just then, Blair noticed the pair in dark trench coats who just walked into the squad room. "Hey Jim," he exclaimed, nodding to the new arrivals, "I think that's them now."

Jim looked over, saw Mulder and Scully heading over to Bank's office, and sized up the two agents. A woman Fed, thought Jim, not there's something you don't see every day. She was a bit short 'for his taste', but definitely attractive, and she carried herself with an intelligent, authoritative presence. Her partner, too, carried himself well, but differently. It was almost like he was an active participant and an observer of his surroundings at the same time. Something about him seems familiar, thought Jim, although, for the life of him, he was convinced he had never met the man before.

Mulder and Scully came up to the office of Capt. Simon Banks, Cascade PD, and discreetly knocked on the door. As they were greeted with a gruff "come in," Mulder escorted his partner into the office.

Captain Banks looked up at his two visitors as Mulder asked, "Captain Banks?"

As Simon responded, "yes," Mulder offered his hand in introduction, "I'm Special Agent Mulder and this is my partner, Dana Scully. I believe we spoke on the phone?"

Simon nodded in recognition, and shook hands with the two agents. "Yes, we did. If you'll have a seat, I'll get Detective Ellison."

Mulder nodded, and he and Scully took seats near the captain's desk as Simon moved to his door and motioned for Jim and Blair to come in.

As Jim and Blair came into the office, Simon motioned for them to pull up chairs next to the agents, which they did. Before they were able to sit down, however, the two agents stood up in order to properly introduce themselves. "I'm Special Agent Mulder, and this is my partner, Dana Scully," led Mulder.

Jim followed by replying, "Jim Ellison, and this is my partner, Blair Sandburg." The four shook hands as Blair chimed in, "I'm a consultant to the department."

Before the agents could ask the inevitable 'So what do you do for the department, Mr. Sandburg?' Simon invited the agents, Jim and Blair to sit down so that they could all review the facts of the case. "So, gentlemen, what do we have so far?"

Jim handed a small manila file to Simon, and duplicate files to agents Mulder and Scully. He and Blair then opened their own files, and Jim reviewed the facts of the case that they had so far.

"The victim was Jennifer Martin, 22 years old, a sophomore at Rainier. Good student, didn't run with the wrong crowd, no drugs, no drinking – kid's squeaky clean as they come."

Blair chimed in, "I didn't know her, but she did take classes that a friend of mine taught, so I know of her. She was a good kid – 4.0 student."

Scully asked, "Did she have any history of health problems – epilepsy or anything like that?" Both Jim and Blair shook their heads.

Mulder declared, "Captain, I have reason to believe that this case is connected to a string of deaths that have happened cross-country in the past few months. I believe there may be a serial killer involved here who picks his victims from the audience of Marcus Christopher's concerts."

Jim asked, "bodies like this have turned up in other cities?" So that's why the Feds want in on this one.

Scully stood up and announced to the group, "if you don't mind, I'd like to take a look at the body – "

Simon nodded, "we received your paperwork, Agent Scully, and we put the body on ice to wait until you were ready to perform the autopsy. Mr. Sandburg will show you down to the morgue." Blair stood up and held the door open for the lady agent.

Mulder watched his partner leave, then turned and asked Simon, "Captain, time is of the essence on this case. Cascade is the last stop on Marcus Christopher's world tour. I believe that if there are any more deaths, they will happen within the next two weeks, as Christopher wraps up his tour. After that, our killer could very well go into hiding where we would never find him. So if you don't mind, I'd like to get some help from your department—"

Simon waved him off. "Detective Ellison is the best man I've got, and he's already been assigned to this case, so he and Mr. Sandburg will work with you. If you need anything else, all of our resources are at your disposal."

Mulder stood up and shook the captain's hand. "Thank you, captain. I would like to go down to the morgue now and follow up with my partner."

Simon replied, "Detective Ellison will take you downstairs. Good day, gentlemen." He then ushered the two men out of his office and closed the door.

10:00 am

"So what exactly is your field of expertise, Mr. Sandburg?" asked Scully.

"I'm working on my Ph.D. in cultural anthropology, Agent Scully."

For some reason, Scully sensed that Blair was unusually reluctant to talk about his studies, so she tried to ask more general questions, drawing him out. "Oh. And you're studying police work? What specifically?" Mulder would have a field day with this, thought Scully.

Before Blair needed to from a creative response to her question, the elevator opened to the basement, and he escorted Agent Scully to the door of the morgue. Surprised, Scully asked, "aren't you going in?"

Blair shrugged and grimaced. "No, I tend to be a bit squeamish about these things. I'll wait out here for your partner and Detective Ellison."

Scully chuckled lightly and went in.

She returned to the waiting area two hours later to find not only Mr. Sandburg, but Mulder and Jim waiting for her as well. "Mulder, I need you to see something. If you will follow me, gentlemen." As Mulder, Jim and Blair followed her into the morgue, the smell that assaulted them seemed to stop Mulder dead in his tracks. Noticing Mulder's sudden stop, Scully turned around and touched him lightly on the shoulder, asking, "You okay, Mulder?"

Wha-? Mulder shrugged off the last of the fog from his brain, looked down at his partner, and smiled, reassuringly, "Yeah, I'm okay," as he tried to mentally reassure himself of the same thing. Blair couldn't help but notice Mulder's reaction to the morgue, and Scully's reaction to her partner. He made a mental note of it, then smelled the unusual stench in the air and exclaimed, "Ugh, what _is_ that?"

Realizing that he has instinctively turned down his sense of smell to avoid the odors of the morgue, Jim turned the sense back up slightly and focused, taking a quick breath. It didn't take much for him to also be assaulted by the same smell, which was vaguely reminiscent of something his roommate had prepared for dinner the other night. "Smells like your cooking, Sandburg."

As Blair gave a glaring look to his partner, Scully chimed in, "oddly enough, he's not far off. Come take a look at this." The three men leaned over the open skull of Jennifer Martin as Scully described what they were seeing. "It's the strangest thing, Mulder. When you open the skull and look at the brain tissue, it should be at least somewhat pink, and not real firm, with quite a bit of blood protecting the area."

"Sort of like picking a rump roast," chimed in Blair.

As Mulder and Jim decided to become vegetarians for the remainder of this case, Scully continued, "something like that. But here, this is quite different. The brain itself is white, almost twice as firm as it should be, and almost no blood surrounding it. The only other time I've seen this is in convicted murders after they've been electrocuted. It's like her brain had been microwaved from the inside out."

Mulder asked his partner, pacing, "Is there any way that under natural circumstances, this could have happened to her?" Scully shook her head. Mulder continued, "All right, we need to find out every detail of where this girl was the night she died. Scully, can you come up with any possible explanations as to how this happened?"

Again, Scully shook here head. "Mulder, I have no idea. Usually in electrocution, there is some sort of damage to other muscles in the body, where the current went through. There was a large amount of alcohol in her blood- stream, but that's not unusual considering she had been at a concert that night. But I found no signs of trauma anywhere else, except for two broken eardrums, and at first guess I would think that they imploded from the shock of the brain trauma."

Broken eardrums? thought Blair. He was beginning to get an idea in his head, but he had no idea where it was leading yet. He motioned over to his partner and whispered in a voice so low only a Sentinel could hear, "Jim, what time did Forensics say was the approximate time of death?"

Without thinking, Mulder replied, "some time between one and two a.m. Why?"

Wait a second, he couldn't have heard me, could he? thought Blair. Speaking, he replied, "Oh, just wondering." He decided to save his next thought for when he & Jim could talk later: I think that Jim might have zoned out on whatever it was that killed this girl.

Mulder thought for a couple of seconds, then formulated a plan of action. "All right, Scully and I came straight from the airport, so we need to get settled in and have a chance to review the case files you gave us."

Blair chimed in, "That sounds good - in the meantime, Jim and I can brainstorm possibilities as to how she could have been killed and why."

Jim could almost hear the gears going in Blair's head, and could definitely hear the excited pace of his heart. He turned to his partner, who gave him a look that screamed, 'we'll talk about this later.' Jim concluded the discussion by stating, "all right then, why don't we meet back in the squad room in say, three hours?" Everyone agreed, and Jim and Blair escorted Mulder and Scully to their car. As soon as they pulled out, Jim turned to Blair and demanded, "Okay, spill it."

Blair smiled, and asked innocently, "spill what?" Then his joking tone turned serious, yet excited at the same time, and he confessed to his partner, "I think there's a connection in this case that I couldn't talk to you about with the Feds in the room." At his partner's spit-it-out-or-I'm-going-to-kill-you look, he declared, "I think that whatever you zoned out on the other night is the same thing that killed Jennifer Martin."

At that remark, Jim looked around, then ushered his Guide to their truck. "Where are we going?" asked Blair.

"The loft," Jim replied, "then I want you to explain this theory of yours to me in great detail. It's not much, but it's the best lead we've got at this point."

Blair agreed, and they drove quickly to the loft, with Blair being unusually quiet as he tried to fully collate the million ideas going around his head. Once they got inside the loft, they removed their coats, and Blair sat down at the table, motioning for Jim to follow him. Then, he started with the theory he was finally able to put into words. "I came up with this possibility when agent Scully said that Jennifer's eardrums were broken. From what she said, I think she thought they probably imploded from the trauma of what was going on in her brain at that point."

"But you don't think that's the case," led Jim.

Blair shook his head, then continued. "No. We know that you can hear at volume levels and distances that are much greater than most people, however, we haven't done much testing to see if you can hear at different frequencies of sound than normal ears. From what I can tell, she was exposed to some sort of sound wave that, at close range, would cause her eardrums to burst and probably cause whatever it was that happened to her brain. At a further distance, for most people, it probably wouldn't be noticeable. However, for you, it might have affected your hearing in some way that it caused you to zone out."

"You mean in the same way that human's can't hear a dog whistle, but it drives dogs crazy?"

Blair nodded. "Precisely."

Jim thought for a moment, then agreed with his partner. "It makes sense," in a Blair sort of way, "but who would be able to access equipment that could do that? And why would they want to kill coeds all across the country? And how would they be able to get them to hear the sound without being killed themselves?"

Blair had to slow down his partner, who was asking more questions than they could answer on their own. "Whoa, slow down man! First, we need to figure out why this sound caused you to involuntarily zone out. Then we need to figure out how you can defend against it."

"How do you propose to do that, chief?"

"We take you back to the memories of last night, distance you from the sound so that you don't zone out again, then we try to determine what the sound is and how you can filter it out."

Jim added, "We might even be able to get a general fix on where the sound came from, get a possible murder site. Good idea, chief."

Blair shrugged it off, eager to get this started, "yeah, yeah, let's see if it works first." Quickly switching to Guide mode, he took a few deep breaths, trying to calm his own voice and heartbeat so as not to distract Jim. "Okay Jim, now relax, take a few deep breaths." Jim, as always, obeyed him quickly. "Go back to your memories of last night. Focus on what you're hearing - remember, you are an observer now, what you hear can't affect you. All right, what do you hear?"

"I hear you," replied Jim, "you're annoyed that the Orcas made the last goal of the game. I hear the television, they're running the post-game show, and I shut it off." All of a sudden, Jim raised his hands to his ears, as if to block something out. "There's a high pitched shriek. It's coming from far off, but it still hurts."

Blair laid a hand on Jim's shoulder to distract his focus from the sound. "Remember, Jim, you're an observer. Adjust the frequency of the sound so that the sound can not affect you." To his amazement, Jim seemed to do it easily. "Filter out all the other sounds." Again, Jim complied. "Where's the shriek coming from?"

Immediately, Jim put his hands down and went over toward the window. He scanned the area, using the memory of the previous night, then found his direction. "Over there," he declared. He raised his hand, and pointed, not in the direction of the University, but in the direction of downtown Cascade, in the hotel district. Blair put a hand on Jim's shoulder to snap him out of the light memory trance. As Jim focused his sight on where his memory was pointing him, he saw the Radisson hotel downtown.

Blair asked his friend a question he already knew the answer to. "Are you sure that's where the sound came from last night."

Jim brought his focus back, and sat down again. "Absolutely. It came from the Radisson."

"Isn't that where Marcus Christopher is staying?" asked Blair.

Jim nodded, replying, "So the question now is why did Jennifer Martin need go to the Radission the night she died?"

Blair thought of one more question. "And how do we explain to the Feds how we figured this out?"

Jim smiled, and placed a hand on the shoulder of the Guide. "That's your department, chief."

Blair could only groan.

Cascade PD Lot
11:30 am

Dana Scully was deep in thought as she and Mulder pulled out of the Cascade PD parking lot. Usually, when she found a case as fascinating as she obviously found this one to be, she couldn't stop talking when she was in the car, audibly reviewing her notes and trying to deduce out loud what might be going on. This time, though, she had nothing to say. To Mulder, that was not a good sign. She didn't know this, but Mulder had begun to rely on his partner's stream-of- consciousness thinking to springboard him to his famous 'Spooky leaps' of intuition that had made him famous. Often, she was saying out loud exactly what he was thinking (whether he wanted to admit it or not) and hearing her say it helped him to throw all of the mismatched pieces together. Her silence, though, meant that either she was mad at him (which was entirely possible), or she had entirely no idea what was going on. Considering the few pieces he had to work with at this point, he hoped it was the first one.

"I don't get it, Mulder," sighed Scully. Uh oh, he thought, it's the second one.

She continued, "I am absolutely certain that what happened to Jennifer Martin could not have happened through natural causes. But if she was murdered, then how was she killed? And who would be able to access equipment that could do that? And why would they want to kill coeds all across the country? And how would they be able to affect the women in the way they did without being killed themselves?"

"I'm not sure, Scully."

She smiled knowingly at her partner. "But you have a theory."

He smiled. "Maybe I have just a little theory –"

"Okay, Mulder, what is it?"

"Well, you said she had two shattered eardrums, right?" Scully nodded. "Well, what if some sort of sound wave or shock wave shattered her eardrums?"

"It's possible," mused Scully, "but then why was no one else affected by it? And how would the killer administer the sound without her struggling, and without getting killed by it himself?"

"I never said I had a complete theory, Scully. I just said I had a theory. The rest we need to figure out before our killer has a chance to strike again."

"When's Marcus Christopher's next concert?"

"Tonight."

Mulder pulled the Taurus into the parking lot of the rather expensive looking Radisson hotel in the middle of downtown Cascade. Figuring they were going to interview someone at the hotel, Scully got out and waited for Mulder. Mulder, however, to her complete astonishment, opened the trunk and started unloading their suitcases. Mulder, booking us in anything other than a Motel 6? There has got to be a catch. Out loud she asked, "Mulder, is this where we're staying?"

Grinning like the Cheshire Cat, Mulder nodded. "I figured after everything we've been through lately we could use the opportunity to relax a little. Besides, this is the same hotel where Marcus Christopher is staying—"

Scully completed the thought, "and since the concerts are our only link between each of the killings, we might as well be as close as possible. I _knew_ there had to be a catch."

Still smiling broadly, Mulder escorted her into the hotel. "Come on Scully, it will be fun. Maybe this place will even have decent room service, or better yet, a hot tub for two."

That comment earned Mulder a quick jab in the ribs.

Radisson Hotel
noon

Check-in was refreshingly quick and easy for the two agents, and they were seated on top their beds, in their respective, adjacent rooms, eating their room service lunches and reviewing their files on the case and making their respective notes on how to proceed. Suddenly, Mulder heard a crash outside his room, and, gun drawn, he peeked outside his door in order to investigate it. He checked to the right and left, but there was no one in the hall. Strange, thought Mulder, it sounded like it was right down the hall. Then, he heard it again, and, as he turned in the direction he heard the sound coming from, his sight instinctively piggybacked on his hearing and he saw the reason for the repeated crashes: a clumsy cleaning lady.

In the hotel across the street.

I must be imagining things, thought Mulder, but why? Shaking his head to try and clear whatever might be going on, he returned to his room to clean up and get ready for his next close encounter with local law enforcement, which was slated to happen in an hour.

Cascade Police Department Conference Room 3
2 pm

As the two agents met with Jim and Blair in one of the department conference rooms, Mulder tried to shake the incident in the hotel from his mind and take charge of the investigation. "So what do we have here?"

Jim and Blair offered their theory about the 'sound' waves being the murder weapon, using Blair's idea of 'logical deduction' to try and cover up how they really came up with the idea. Mulder didn't quite seem to buy how they got the idea, but since it confirmed his own guess, he shrugged it off.

Having come up with a possible, albeit shaky cause of death, Scully then asked the question that was on everyone's minds: if this is how these women were killed, then who killed them? And how did they get the women to hear this sound without being affected themselves? At that point, Mulder reminded everyone that the main connection they had to this point was the fact that each woman went to a Marcus Christopher concert on the night they died. Jim concluded, "it seems like we would need to make a trip to visit this Marcus Christopher."

Noting the time, Blair commented that Marcus Christopher probably would be at the Mystic Center running the sound check for tonight's concert, so they promptly left for the center.

Mystic Center
2:15 pm

The Mystic Center was abuzz with activity in preparation for the second show of Marcus Christopher's 15-show run at the center. Marcus Christopher, leader of the band that bears his name, was a consummate perfectionist, and so, was never satisfied with the first night in any new venue, but would always insist on a full sound check and rehearsal just before the second show to work out any 'bugs' he perceived in the system or the team. It was in the middle of this sound check that the two agents, Jim and Blair found him when they walked into the center. The Sentinel and guide immediately located Marcus, and started to ask him basic questions about his music, the band, and the murdered girls. As the same time, Scully went to talk to the other musicians in the band, and Mulder walked around the stage, trying to get a 'feel' for the group and the theater where Jennifer Martin spent most of the last evening of her life.

It was during this walk that Mulder heard an unusual popping sound, like several connected threads, slowly breaking. He followed the sound until he was a few steps behind his partner, who was being handed something by the guitarist Jacob Martinson. As the popping sound stopped, he looked up and was able to pull his partner out of the way just as a 50-lb sandbag crashed into the exact spot on the floor where she had been standing.

Having been further away from Scully, still talking to Marcus Christopher, Jim reached Scully right after the bag went through the weaker floorboards in that part of the stage. Shaken, Scully looked at the bag, then at her quick-thinking partner in bewildered amazement. "How did you-"

Since he was asking himself the same question, Mulder cut her off by replying out loud with exactly what was going through his head, "I don't understand it, but I think I heard the rope on the bag as it was breaking." He helped her to stand up, then looked at Ellison and Sandburg, who had just caught up to them, and came to two realizations in a split second: First, the question Blair asked in the morgue about the time of death wasn't directed at him or Scully, it was whispered to his partner, Jim.

Second, there was no way Ellison, from where he was standing, could have possibly seen the bag come down and gotten there in time, unless - he then turned to Jim, and asked with a tone that was half scared accusation, half curious wonder, "you heard that sound too, didn't you?"

Jim nodded his response. He recognized the look in Mulder's eyes-it was the same look he had when his senses first started to emerge, that "Please, tell me anything, just tell me I'm not losing my mind" kind of look. Best tell him the truth, Jim thought, he's going to figure it out soon enough anyway.

Blair started to put together the more obvious pieces that had been set out before him. The man was obviously a Sentinel, that much was sure, but how many enhanced senses does he have? He was sure of hearing and, after remembering Mulder's zone out at the morgue, smell, but how many others? Sight was a likely candidate, based off of what they just witnessed here, but what about taste and touch? He would have to test them to be sure, since they were usually so hard to pinpoint, even with Jim. A million questions were running through the young scientist's head, but he took one look at Special Agent Fox Mulder's face and realized that what the man needed right now was to understand what was happening to him. He suggested to Scully and the two Sentinels that they all head back to the loft, where they could get everything 'out on the table', so to speak, in private. They agreed, and Jim gave Scully directions that would get them to the loft, in case they happened to lose the truck on the way there. They then left the center, (much to the objection of the Center's management who were about to insist that Scully go to the hospital and get checked out), and headed to Jim and Blair's loft.

Scully took one look at Mulder and insisted that she drive. Even though she was still shaken by the experience with the sandbag, she surmised, she seemed far more in control than her partner, who seemed like part of his world was spinning off into the great beyond. She gently guided Mulder into the passenger seat, then got over to the driver's seat and pulled them out of the Center's parking lot. It was only after they had gotten out into city traffic that she was able to ask her partner how he was doing. When he gave no response, she glanced over at him. He didn't have the spaced out look on his face that he had earlier at the morgue, but he seemed more attentive, alert somehow. She asked him, "Mulder, what are you doing?"

Noticing the lively conversation going on in the truck in front of them, Mulder replied with an abrupt, "Shhhhh! I'm trying to hear what they're talking about, but I can't seem to get past the background noise."

Scully still wasn't quite sure what was going on with her partner, but before she could try to comprehend what she was saying, she told him, "Try to picture the frequency levels on your stereo at home. See if you can boost the 'channel' that their conversation is on and drop the background noise 'channels' down as far as you can." What in the world am I babbling on about? she thought.

Mulder visualized Scully's picture in her head, and smiled a couple of seconds later. "It worked Scully! Thanks." He then focused his total attention on the conversation in the truck.

"I can't believe it! I mean, I consider myself lucky to have found one full-fledged Sentinel, but now two! This is incredible! I wonder if he would be willing to take a couple of days and come into the lab with me for some tests - "

"Whoa, chief, slow down! First, we need to figure out how many enhanced senses this guy has. So far, I can think of only two, maybe three that we've seen any sort of proof of. Plus, if you talk to this guy like he's your ultimate guinea pig, he's probably gonna bolt so fast that he'll knock us both over in the process. Remember, this guy is probably scared out of his wits right now, just like I was at the beginning, and he's really going to need your help. Not to mention the fact that we're also trying to solve a murder case where the murder weapon has caused me to zone out once already."

Blair sighed. He knew, as always, that Jim was right. "So what did you think of Christopher?" "He seems like a smart guy in some ways - definitely not the New-Age Yanni type that I was expecting. He definitely didn't recognize the names of any of the girls that Mulder told us about, and I could tell that he wasn't holding anything back from us. So that leaves us with the members of his band..."

"Mulder?"

Scully touched him on the shoulder, which caused him to involuntarily jump. The last thing he remembered was being on the expressway, listening to Jim and Blair talk about the case. So how in the world did I blank out on the rest of the world until we got here? He still hadn't answered his partner, who was concerned about him, so he turned to try to reassure her. "I'm okay, Scully. I just blanked for a minute while trying to hear what they were saying. Let's go inside and hear what they have to say."

"I'm worried, Mulder. This is the second time that has happened since we arrived in Cascade. You're sure you're not sick or anything?"

"Actually, Scully, I really don't know. Ever since I got back from Arizona, I've been having these, for lack of a better word, episodes, where it's like someone turned up the volume on my senses. And if I try to focus on anything in particular, most of the time I end up spacing out, just like I did right now. From what I could hear in the other car, these two that we're working with have at least some idea about things like this. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but either way it may have a bearing on this case."

Scully sighed. She had seen so many weird things from her partner since Arizona that she wasn't sure if he was finally going crazy or if she was. And that dream she had when she thought he was 'dead' hadn't helped matters any. "Well, let's get on with it then and at least hear them out. I'd hate to have to be the one to finally confirm that you were really nuts after all."

Mulder smiled-maybe they could get through this after all. "What, Scully, and miss the opportunity to win the latest 'Spooky' pool? I heard someone bet $500 that you would have me committed after we worked together six months."

"Actually, it was a year, and it was only $150, so it really wasn't worth my time. Now come on, they're waiting for us."

450 Prospect
4 p.m.

Mulder smirked as he got out of the car and went around to hold the door open for his partner. She stepped out, and they followed the Sentinel and his guide up to the loft. Once inside, the agents sat down, and Jim set about making coffee for the group while Blair sat opposite the agents and tried to collect his thoughts. As Jim set down four steaming mugs of coffee, however, Mulder got the jump on them all, asking the young anthropologist, "So what exactly is a Sentinel?"

Blair looked at him, briefly confused. Mulder subtly pointed to one of his ears, and Jim whistled. "Impressive. You obviously were listening to our conversation in the car. How much did you get from it?"

Mulder reviewed what he had heard before he zoned out. "As far as either of you can tell, I have two, maybe three enhanced senses: I guess we've all gotten pretty clear evidence of both hearing and smell, but I can definitely vouch for sight as well." As he nodded in Jim's direction, Mulder continued, "and you were talking about having 'zoned out' from the murder weapon. What do you mean by that?"

Blair and Jim looked at each other, and Blair replied, "before we get into that, let me give you the basics first. A Sentinel is someone who has a genetic predisposition toward having at least one sense that is sensitive way beyond the normal range. A unusual period of isolation usually allows the senses to emerge. In pre-civilized cultures, a Sentinel's duty was to protect the tribe."

"As you noticed, Jim is a Sentinel; the only one that I've found with five enhanced senses. My job with the police department is as Jim's guide: I help him control and use his senses in exchange for the opportunity to study them for my work on my PhD." At this, Scully raised an eyebrow. So that is what he was trying to hide from me, she thought.

Blair continued, "You're right in what you heard of our conversation. From what I have observed, you definitely have at least a heightened sense of hearing, and I'm pretty certain a heightened sense of smell as well. I take it you suspect that your vision has changed recently?"

Mulder nodded. "I was pursuing a lead on a case in Arizona when I was almost killed by an explosion. Most people, in fact, thought I was dead, including my partner. I began to notice some changes shortly after my official 'return from the dead', but nothing pronounced until the last few days."

Blair rubbed his hands, and it was everything he could do to not get up and pace around the room in his excitement. Jim could hear his partner's heartbeat and his attempts to control it and gained yet another level of respect for the young anthropologist. Yes, his work is important to him, but not as important as helping someone else. And he can tell that this guy needs his help right now. I'm proud of you, chief.

Mulder then asked Jim, "what did you mean when you were talking about a 'zone out'?"

Jim replied, "When I focus my senses too closely on something, very often I will lose focus on everything else in the outside world. We " motioning to Blair and himself, "came up with the term 'zone out' when that happens-I'm so focused in one particular zone that I start to black out on everything else." Mulder seemed to gently nod in agreement, and Jim asked him, "I take it this has happened to you before?"

Scully, who had been silent to this point, replied, "Twice - once at the morgue, and once on the way here." When she noticed Blair's curious stare and Mulder's surprised glance, she turned to him and shrugged, "At least from what I could tell."

Mulder then asked, "but what did you mean when you said you 'zoned out' on the murder weapon? From what I can tell on the reports, you couldn't have known that someone was being killed at that point, could you?" He didn't know much at this point, but if this guy was psychic too, he figured they should get it out in the open - in case it was going to happen to him soon.

Blair shook his head. "I'm still trying to figure that out myself. From what Jim and I could figure out, he can hear sounds at a higher frequency than most people. Subconsciously, I think he heard the sound that killed that woman, and, since it was so unusual, he focused on it immediately to the point of zoning out."

By this point, Scully was very confused. She was starting to see how certain 'unusual' feelings she had about this case could piece together with this 'Sentinel' theory they were all discussing, and at a certain level, she felt like she understood the things that they were talking about. She could even reasonably swallow the concept that her partner was turning into his own X-File. Her scientific mind, however, was desperately trying to convince her that this whole thing was crazy, the people she was talking to were sharing some sort of strange delusion of a superhero complex, and that what she and Mulder really needed were six-month vacations away from each other and anything that even smelled of the paranormal. She forced herself to pay close attention to the conversation, listening for any signs that would indicate that this whole phenomenon was either totally legitimate or completely crazy.

She realized that she had tuned out of the conversation for a split second, so she came back into it just as Jim tried to slightly their focus off their new revelations and back to the case. He asked the group, "That brings us back to one of our basic questions: how could our killer not be affected by the noise that killed this girl?"

"I think I have an answer to that," replied Scully. She then got up and went to the pocket of her trenchcoat. She dug out what looked like a pair of large hearing aids from her front pocket, and returned, placing them on the table. "Marcus Christopher had a brother who went deaf from listening to too much loud rock music, so he had these earplugs specially designed for the band. They're designed to filter out noise above a certain number of decibels so that the musicians can listen to what they're playing without actually going deaf because of it. Each member of the band has two sets: a master set and a spare, in case the first one breaks just before a show-Jacob Martinson let me take his spare set for analysis." Jim and Mulder both picked up one of the earplugs, Mulder looking at his with a strange grin on his face. Curious, Scully asked, "what is it?"

Mulder replied, "It's weird - it's like I can feel the microchips this thing uses to filter out the sound."

While Blair made a mental note that Mulder probably had a Sentinel's touch as well, Jim simply reassured him, saying, "you get used to it." He then asked Scully, "So what you're saying is, if these earplugs can limit their wearer to hearing only to a certain decibel level, they can limit their wearer to hearing only to a certain frequency as well?"

Scully nodded. "My guess is that either they're designed that way, it blocks the frequency as a byproduct of the technology, or they can be modified to work that way. Do you know of a lab in the area where we can get these analyzed to discover their limits?"

Blair nodded, replying, "Yeah, a friend of mine at school has access to some equipment that can help us - he's helped me get some of the supplies for the experiments I do with Jim." He looked at his watch, then continued, "I can go over there tomorrow morning. He went away for vacation with his girlfriend and doesn't get back until late tonight."

The others then looked at their watches, and realized that it was after 5:00 p.m. Jim then suggested, "Look, we've worked the entire day on this case, and I'm starved. How about the four of us go out for dinner?" Everyone seemed to be in agreement, and Blair added, "Great, then, Agent Mulder,-"

Mulder interrupted him, correcting him, "if we're going to be working so closely together for the next couple of days, then please, just Mulder - even Scully calls me that."

Blair continued, "All right, Mulder, if you don't mind, I'd like you to help me out with a couple of experiments this evening, get some idea of what your abilities are..."

Jim groaned instinctively at the mention of Blair's tests, but both agents seemed intrigued by the idea, and Blair had a ready defense for his never-too-willing partner. He tried to whisper to his partner, "Jim, take it easy. Yes, I am kind of interested to see what kind of tests I could do with two Sentinels in the room-"

At that point, Mulder cleared his throat just loud enough to get Blair's attention. Still not used to the concept of having two people able to hear me when I whisper, I guess, thought Blair, as he apologized. "Sorry about that, Mulder. As I was saying to Jim, although I am interested in the concept of testing two Sentinels in tandem with each other, the tests I want to do with you are more for your benefit. Jim and I have been able to make great progress in helping him to control his senses, and you're going to need the same type of training if you're going to be able to live with this and maintain any semblance of sanity. Since you're based out of Washington D.C. and my work with Jim is here in Cascade, I won't be able to help you as a guide for more than the duration of this case..."

At that point, Scully had a feeling that she had a part in this she couldn't quite get a handle on, and interrupted Blair's rambling, "Speaking of which, you haven't talked much about your role in this since we started this conversation; you've focused mostly on these two." She pointed to Mulder and Jim and continued, "What exactly does a guide do? It sounds to me like you're doing more here than just studying Detective Ellison's-"

Jim then corrected her, "Jim, please."

She corrected herself, "all right, Jim's abilities here."

Blair took a deep breath, and shifted uncomfortably in his chair. For all the work he'd done on studying Sentinels and the practice he'd had explaining Sentinels to people, he hadn't had to spend much time explaining a guide's responsibilities beyond the basics. More people were interested in the unusual abilities of the Sentinel, not in the what seemed like (relatively) normal responsibilities of a guide. He then answered Scully, "I've been so focused since the beginning of the study on Jim and his abilities that I haven't done much work with that, but I'll tell you what I've experienced so far. The main thing that I do is help Jim to control and focus his senses into tools that he can effectively use on the job. Most of the time, I try to talk him through the experience, isolate and focus on determining what he needs out of the input his senses are giving him."

Okay, so that explains my babbling in the car on the way here, but he still seems uncomfortable about this. What am I saying, I can't believe I'm actually buying into this. Scully then declared, "It seems like there's something else you're not telling me."

Blair looked at Jim, who seemed to give him his reluctant approval to tell her everything. This was the one part he hadn't had to explain to people, mostly because they hadn't been able to come up with a reasonable explanation themselves yet. He then explained, "There is, but it's mostly because we haven't been able to explain it ourselves yet. It seems that, over time, the Sentinel and guide develop some sort of psychic connection, which opens itself up to communication in periods of extreme life-or-death danger for either the Sentinel or guide."

Somehow, although she had a feeling that that was what he was going to say, that didn't make it any easier for her to accept it. It explained the scene in the car, her instinctive response to his zone-outs, even the dream she had when he was presumed dead.

And it scared the hell out of her.

When she was driving him to Arizona with the digital tape, she knew that there was no turning back. In investigating her disappearance, and now her sister's murder, his search for truth had become their search for truth, and she would follow him to her death if necessary. It brought to mind everything Mulder had told her about fate: how it brought them together, kept them together, and kept the X-Files open despite all their opposition they faced every day. And now, to realize that they had been brought together not just because of the X-Files but because of some sort of strange genetic challenge...

In Blair's mind, it didn't take a Sentinel to read the bizarre expression on Scully's face. He thought that Dr. Dana Scully was going to tell him that what he said was nuts, that there was no physical scientific evidence to back it up, and that he should be locked in a mental hospital until he was feeling much, much better. Jim, however, recognized the look immediately: it was the same look her partner had when the pieces started to fall into place for him at the Center. So Blair was the only one surprised when Scully declared:

"I think I'm supposed to be Mulder's guide."

Mulder was not so much surprised by Scully's declaration as confused, so she turned to her partner and explained, "I don't quite understand it Mulder, but do you remember when you talked to me in the hospital about fate?" He nodded, and she continued, "I think that this might be just another aspect of our fate. Mulder, when I thought you were dead, I had the strangest dream. It was like you came to me, and told me that you had died, and you were coming back, but that the search for the truth, our search..."

Mulder finished her thought in amazement, "...binds us together in dangerous purpose?"

"After that, I knew that you were alive, and you were warning me to watch my back because my life was in danger."

"That's what you meant when I asked you about how you knew I was alive and you said you just knew," said Mulder, amazed.

Scully nodded, "I think it was the beginnings of this link that Blair just described."

Blair watched the exchange between the partners in amazed curiosity. He always thought of his running into Jim only in terms of his research, and that if he hadn't found Jim, he would have found another Sentinel to study eventually. But, as he heard Agent Scully pulling together the pieces out loud, he began to wonder about that assumption. He was never a big believer in the concept of one God who pulled the strings of the universe, but maybe there was some sort of odd genetic link between a Sentinel and guide where, if a Sentinel ever found a guide, that was how that whole weird 'psychic connection' started? That it wasn't just Jim, but the link between himself and Jim, that made Jim so unique as a Sentinel?

Working with these two was going to put a whole new insight into his study, as well as his friendship with Jim. He was beginning to wish he had tape recorded this conversation, or at least taken notes, but he then realized that he could just use the part of his friend's brain that he affectionately (and only in his own mind) referred to as the 'human camcorder' and get Jim to fill in any blanks in his memory later. In the meantime, if his stomach growled any louder, at least one of the Sentinels was going to start complaining, so he concluded their discussion by declaring, "I have a feeling this is going to be a _very_ interesting week. Now, let's eat."

Rainier University Washington Lawn
9:00 pm

Jim was reluctant to admit it, but he was really enjoying himself. Dinner was great - they went to a steakhouse that Jim had heard about from an old Army friend that was not too far from the loft. There, he found out that he and Mulder had one other thing in common besides their Sentinel abilities: a love of good old-fashioned inch-thick T-bone steaks, which Mulder gleefully charged to his Bureau credit card. It was also good to have someone to talk to who knew _exactly_ what he was going through, not because the person knew him as well as Blair did, but because he was going through the same thing-it made him feel a little less alone in the world.

Even better, Blair was the most excited Jim had ever seen him. Scully was asking the young guide a million questions, not because she refused to believe in his research, as Blair had feared earlier, but because she needed to understand everything about it. He tuned in briefly to the conversation, just as Blair was excitedly describing how cold medication had affected Jim's senses during a case. Then Mulder noticed the look on his face and nudged him on the arm, asking, "you're listening in on their conversation, aren't you?"

Jim nodded. "Curious?"

Mulder shook his head. "Nah. I know Scully. She knows there are many, many things in the world that science doesn't quite explain yet, but she has to be firmly convinced that science can't possibly explain it away before she can believe it. This one's harder on her, though, because she has to admit that her own instincts and experiences this time can't be backed up with scientific explanations."

Jim asked him, "how long have you two been working together?"

That had started Mulder on his own set of stories about some of their less outlandish cases. Jim was certain that if Mulder and his partner compared notes after this case was finished, between the two of them, they've probably seen almost everything that could possibly have been seen both in and out of this world.

After dinner, Blair brought everyone out to Washington Lawn, near the university. Blair wanted to spend as much time as he could tonight testing the full range of Mulder's abilities in an outdoor setting, including night vision. He also wanted to help Scully understand how he helps Jim as a guide, so that meant Jim would need to help out on these tests as well. The advantage this time, as Jim saw it, was that he wasn't going through it alone.

The first lesson for Mulder was also one of the first ones that Jim had to learn: the ability to focus most of his attention on one particular sense without zoning out. Having two Sentinels as part of the test, however, allowed them to run the test in an entirely different way. Blair led them over to the basketball courts, and brought out his favorite ball, which was the one he used the only time he had ever been able to beat Jim in one-on-one.

Scully looked at the ball, then up at the sky, then asked, "What are we doing here? It's pitch dark out here. I can barely see my hand in front of my face."

Blair grinned excitedly and replied, "It won't make a bit of difference to them." Then he yelled out to the two Sentinels, "Ready for a little one-on-one, gentlemen?" He then threw the ball to Jim, who caught it perfectly.

Mulder looked at Jim, then quickly took off his suit jacket, tie, and shirt. He then looked at Blair, because he couldn't see his hand in front of his face either.

Taking a deep breath to relax, Blair switched into guide mode. He then instructed the two men, "Take two deep breaths, and relax." They complied. "Okay, now picture a dimmer switch-you have it?" They nodded. "This switch represents the amount of light you can see right now. Mulder, what level is the switch set to?" Mulder replied, "one." "All right, picture the dial turning now to seven-you have it?" Mulder replied, squinting, "Yeah, but it's a little too much light-I'm turning the dial now to five."

Mulder then turned around, slowly to look at his surroundings. "This is incredible. I know it's still dark out, but it's like my eyes are so adjusted to the light that I can see everything clearly."

Scully couldn't quite believe what she was hearing, so she wanted to do a little experiment of her own. She asked Blair, "may I try something, just to convince myself?" Blair shrugged and said, "go ahead," then Scully went across to the other court (around 30 feet away) and got her partner's attention by yelling, "Mulder! How many fingers am I holding up?" as she held up three fingers.

He yelled back, "Three!"

She changed to two fingers. "How about now?" "Two!"

She held up both hands, fingers open. "How about now?" "Ten! Convinced yet, Scully?"

She looked at her hands, then grabbed the flashlight she had and shined it on her partner, so she could know he really was that far away. Amazed, she then mumbled to herself, "This is impossible." She jogged back over to the court where the others were as Jim threw the ball to Mulder, declaring, "Okay, fed boy, you take it out."

Teasing, Mulder replied, "Fed boy, huh? Well, let's see if your playing is better than your jokes," as he dribbled past Jim for the first point.

Blair called out to the two Sentinels, "Okay guys, just play to five points, okay? We have a lot of work to do tonight."

As Scully sat beside Blair and watched what little she could see of the game, Blair pulled out the lantern he used during outdoor night tests and took notes on things like Mulder's reactions to the initial exercise, his response time in the game, even how many times he stole the ball from Jim. Both men were working very hard at defense, and the ball changed hands several times before each point. Scully called out to the players, "What's the score so far, guys?"

As Jim drove past Mulder for a lay-up, he called out to Scully, "game's tied, one-one."

As they continued to play, Scully sat and contemplated the events of the last few weeks, and particularly the last few hours. It was hard sometimes to get over how her life had changed since Mulder's discovery of the digital tape. First the run to Arizona, then his death, his return from the dead, Melissa's death, and all of the revelations that still seemed to lead them nowhere. And now, what to make of this? Even when she didn't want to admit it, she understood that there was a connection between herself and Mulder, a spiritual bond that united them together in the same purpose: to find the truth. Granted, they had two different approaches to it, but that is what made them such a strong team-they were able to hammer away at a problem with those different approaches until, together, the truth was revealed.

This new 'truth' (if she could even call it that), however, was difficult for her to swallow. Every ounce of her rational mind was convinced that there was no possible way that this was true, that Mulder was suddenly blessed with some sort of 'super powers' and that her job was to help him deal with them.

Yet a small part of her, the part of her that in many ways, like Mulder, desperately wanted to believe, was trying to remind her that there were many things in life that science has no quantitative explanation for, and that, particularly in medicine, the only way to diagnose something sometimes was for the patient to 'tell her where it hurts'. After all, there were things about the 'instinctive' side of her relationship with Mulder that she had never even attempted to understand. And, if this whole thing were true, it would only be a greater weapon in their search for truth - one that those vile old men in black would, pardon the expression, never be able to see coming. As she decided to let the jury remain undecided about this until she saw more evidence, the two Sentinels came over to where she was sitting. As Mulder drew her out of her musings by snapping his fingers in front of her face, she noticed that the two men were both drenched in sweat, which did nothing good for the suit that Mulder was wearing. She asked them, "Okay guys, so who won?"

Jim replied, "Your partner here. It was close, 3-2." He then turned to his guide, mentioning, "Mulder's got excellent night vision. Definitely handled himself well out there."

Blair then took down the score of the game, as well as Jim's observations of Mulder, and got up to signal the next experiment. "Okay, now we're going to test your hearing, Mulder. Here's the way I see the experiment going: Jim and I will stand on this side of the field, while, Agent Scully, you and Mulder will stand on the other side of the field. Try to get him to focus, and open up his hearing so that he can hear Jim, in the same way that he was able to hear the conversation in the truck." He drew two small notebooks out of his backpack, along with two pens, and handed one of each to Scully. "I will have Jim say several things to Mulder in a normal tone of voice. Mulder then should be able to repeat those things to you word for word, at which point you will write them down. Sound reasonable?" The three other heads nodded in response. Blair replied, "Good, we'll give you some time to get over there. Mulder, just speak up and let us know whenever you're ready."

The two agents then got in their car and drove over to the other side of the field, a good quarter mile away from where Jim and Blair were standing. Scully wanted to exclaim how she couldn't possibly see how Mulder will be able to hear them from over here, but she bit her tongue, and looked at her partner, who seemed nervous. She gave him a questioning look, and he smiled his reply. "I'm okay, Scully. I guess it's just a little overwhelming to get used to try to get used to this all in one night. I'm glad you're here to help me through it, though." She tried to smile as reassuringly as possible, both for herself and Mulder.

Enough of this musing, she thought, let's see if this experiment works. Now, what can we use for a signal? She tried to help Mulder in the same way Blair had helped him before, and directed him in her most soothing voice, "All right, Mulder, take three slow, deep breaths and relax." Mulder complied. "Now, open up your ears to all the sounds around you."

As Mulder complied, his eyes widened in wonder. She looked at him questioningly, and he replied, "I hear them, Scully! It's hard to focus, though. I'm hearing so many other things too." Scully wanted to ask him what he was hearing, but she decided to focus on the experiment and directed him, "okay, try to isolate every sound other than the sounds of my voice, Jim's voice, and Blair's voice. Put them on frequency dials, just like you did before in the car." Mulder nodded, to show he had complied, then stated, "Okay, guys, I'm ready."

On the other side of the field, Jim, who had his hearing turned up and focused somewhat on Mulder, heard the signal and nudged his partner so he would know they were ready. Blair had Jim read a list of twenty words that he had come up with during the basketball game, most of which could be described as random nonsense. In order to ensure total accuracy in the experiment, Jim also spelled out the words. Mulder then repeated the words to Scully, spelling them out when necessary, as Scully wrote them down in the notebook. When Jim had finished the list, he let Mulder know, and the two agents got in their car and drove back to the side of the field where Jim and Blair had been standing.

When the agents returned, Blair announced to the group, "The list of words I had Jim read was a list I came up with while both Jim and Mulder were playing basketball. That way, neither man would know any of the words on the list until Jim read them aloud. Agent Scully, did you know any of the words on the list until Mulder dictated them to you?" Scully shook her head, and Blair continued, "All right then, let's look at the lists." Scully flipped the notebook open to the list she had taken down from Mulder, and handed it to Blair, who compared it to his master list. As Blair read down the list of words, his smile grew larger. "All right! 20 for 20! Good job, Mulder!"

Blair then took Mulder through several more tests for his vision, smell and sense of touch. By the end of the evening, Mulder had a headache, Blair was jumping out of his skin, Scully was overwhelmed, and Jim just wanted to get home and get some rest to prepare for the busy day the four of them were going to have the next day. As both guides were helping the tired Sentinels to their cars, both men stopped dead in their tracks. Scully quickly looked at her watch and realized what was going on-it was 1:30 a.m., and another young girl was dying. She called for Blair to snap Jim out of his zone out while she went to work on Mulder. It didn't take long, but soon both men had focused on the direction where they heard the sound coming from. "It's coming from the Radisson again!" declared Jim, "Follow me!"

Mulder and Scully looked at each other, thinking exactly the same thing: "Again?" They then ran to their car, and pulled out to follow the truck that was already speeding toward the hotel.

Somehow Mulder and Scully reached the Radisson ahead of Blair and Jim. It was only a split second later, however, that their truck pulled up behind the agents' rented Taurus. As Jim ran up to where the two agents were just getting out of their cars, he asked them, "We thought we had lost you. How did you get here before us."

Mulder quickly replied, "This is our hotel. I don't hear that sound anymore, do you?"

Jim shook his head and clenched his teeth in frustration. He had been tracking that sound since they left the school, and all four of them knew exactly what that meant: the girl was definitely dead, and the only thing they could do for her now was to catch her killer. Scully exclaimed to the group, "Okay, so any suggestions as to what we do now?"

Jim instinctively took charge. "The sound only stopped a few minutes ago, so our guy has got to still be in the building somewhere. Mulder, why don't you and your partner go to the loading docks around back and see if you can pick up on anything 'suspicious'? Blair and I will watch from out here."

Mulder nodded, and he and Scully broke out into a run to try and beat any potential threat to the loading docks area. Jim prayed that Mulder would remember to turn his hearing up and listen for his voice, so that they could communicate with each other, and turned his attention to the hotel lobby, all senses on full alert. Just to check, he said in a normal tone of voice, "Mulder, can you hear me?"

Mulder, who did have his hearing on full alert, recognized Jim's voice immediately, and replied, "I hear you Jim-anything?"

"No-you?"

"No-wait a second." He motioned to Scully, "You see that laundry guy over there?" He pointed to a guy with long brown hair, tied back into a ponytail, who was loading large white bags of laundry into a white van. He zoomed in and found out exactly what made the guy seem suspicious to him. He then pointed out, both to Jim and Scully, "How many guys do you know who load a laundry truck wearing rubber gloves?"

Jim caught on immediately. He motioned to Blair, who followed him around to the loading dock area. Their suspect was about half done with throwing the bags into the truck when Scully asked the group, "Okay, this guy definitely looks suspicious, but how do we know he's just not paranoid about germs?"

Blair replied, "Smell."

Jim and Mulder looked at each other like they were wondering why they hadn't thought of it before now. Jim focused on the laundry bags and took a deep breath. There it was-in the van was the smell of cooked flesh that had nauseated the group earlier in the morgue. Jim motioned to the group, "Yep, she's there all right. Let's move in."

The two Sentinels and their guides moved quickly, but tried to stay as hidden as possible so as not to arouse their subject's suspicions. As the group reached the area, Mulder stood behind the suspect and raised a gun to his head, declaring, "FBI! Freeze! Put your hands behind your head." As their suspect complied, dropping his last laundry bag in the process, Mulder happened to notice a hearing aid protruding from behind both ears of their suspect. All he had to do was take one of them off of the suspect's ears to realize that they were the same 'earplugs' Scully had gotten from the drummer in Marcus Christopher's band.

Meanwhile, Jim was hunting around the van, trying to locate the source of the smell. Jim then located the offending bag, which was substantially heavier than the other ones he had been tossing around. He noticed minuscule blood drops on the sides of the bag, and cautiously opened it. It didn't take much adjustment to reveal the body of a young college student with dark hair and blue eyes, still wearing her Rainier University sweatshirt. Mulder started to read the man his rights as Jim called Simon to inform him of what was going on.

Once Simon and the forensics crew came in, finding the evidence they needed was relatively easy. Simon addressed the group now sitting in his office, going over the details of what they had found at the hotel. "Guy's name is Anthony Maurius. He's a keyboardist in Marcus Christopher's band. We confiscated a tape from his room. Forensics ran the tape through a sound analysis, and as you had suspected, there was a frequency on the tape that would shatter the eardrums if listened to for about 3 minutes. We also checked the 'hearing aids' against the tape-they worked by emitting a counter- frequency to certain levels of sound, kind of like a white noise generator. The 'killer frequency' was canceled out by the hearing aid's frequency, rendering whoever wore them immune. Once we confronted him with that little bit of evidence, he spilled his guts. We're alerting the other police departments now so they can send us copies of their files to arraign this creep. Looks like we found our man."

At that news, everyone concerned looked relieved. At least they weren't going to have to go through a trial and be forced to explain how a Cascade PD detective, a police observer and two FBI agents just happened to be together in the loading dock of a hotel at 2 am. That is, until Simon asked the group, "so how _did_ you pull off this little coup so quickly?"

As the two Sentinels and their guides looked at each other, quickly trying to come up with a story that the others would pick up on and make believable, Simon caught them before Mulder could start obfuscating. "And I want the truth, folks, not what's going to appear on the official report."

At Mulder's questioning look, Jim simply answered, "Simon knows about my 'unique abilities'." Simon held his head in his left hand, and sat behind his desk, knowing the story he was about to hear was going to be just about half way between reality and a comic book. At least I've gotten used to that by now, he thought.

Washington, D.C.
Sunday, March 2, 2:00 am

It had been five days since Maurius' arrest. He had been arraigned the next morning, and quickly pleaded guilty. Being experts at stretching the truth on official reports, Mulder and Scully were easily able to help Blair and Jim come up with a story that the four of them could agree on and that would allow their work to be admissible in court without revealing Jim and Mulder's secret. The two agents had asked for the rest of the week off, and, seeing that no one had expected them to wrap up the case that quickly, Skinner agreed.

The agents stayed in Cascade, working with Blair and Jim (when he could get away from the station) to get a little more training in how to control Mulder's abilities and focus them. Blair was fascinated by the strong connection between the two agents, and by how instinctively Scully seemed to take to guiding Mulder. The anthropologist had made copies of all his Sentinel research and had given it to Scully. By the end of the week, it was clear to Blair that she must have read quite a bit of it, because she seemed to be more at ease with the concept of her partner being a Sentinel, and her new role as a guide.

For her part, once Scully accepted that the concept of Sentinels really was a legitimate phenomena, she took to the subject with a scientist's curiosity, and she quickly accepted Blair as a colleague, even allowing him to call her Dana toward the end of the week. When they said their goodbyes at the airport, they exchanged e-mail addresses, with a full promise from Scully to be an active partner in Blair's research.

Mulder, for his part, adapted quickly to being able to focus and direct his senses, even to the point of turning them off completely when necessary. He was awestruck at the whole new world of things that opened up to him when he turned up his senses, and grateful that, at least for the week, he had Jim and Blair to help him get used to it, and Scully, now more than ever, by his side to keep him focused on what really mattered.

And now, on his first night back in D.C., Mulder couldn't sleep. The apartment he had been so comfortable in before now seemed too quiet. He opened up his hearing, and the few sounds available in the apartments around him didn't do much to comfort him either. Then, he realized what he wasn't hearing, and picked up the phone.

He tried to keep from smiling as he heard the yawn at the other end of the line. "Scully."

"Hi Scully."

Scully looked at the clock by her bed. "Mulder, do you realize it's 2 in the morning and we have to go to work tomorrow?"

"I realize that, Scully. I just couldn't sleep." He focused his hearing through the phone lines, and that's when he heard the sound that had lulled him to such peaceful sleep back in Cascade. "Could you do me a favor?"

Scully yawned again. "Sure, what is it?"

"Could you leave the phone off the hook when you go to sleep? You can put it back in the morning."

Scully thought about the unusual request. Mulder had talked to her quite a bit about the things he was going through, but she knew he was holding back on some things. Still, she trusted Mulder enough to realized that, strange though he may be, he had a reason for everything he did. "Sure Mulder. Goodnight." She let the phone drop from her fingers and went right back to sleep.

Mulder smiled, and let the soothing sound of his guide and partner's heartbeat lull him to a peaceful sleep.

-end-