Chris Carter owns all rights to The X-Files and its constituents.

This story takes place around the end of Season 3.

Chapter One:

Norfolk, Virginia

0200 ZULU

Mulder walked in front of Scully, holding his flashlight, as she held out her gun, as they made their way down the abandoned railroad tunnel. It was dark, damp, and cold, and Mulder wondered when Scully would start commenting on the predicament they were in.

"If I had known we were going to be trudging through mud at 2 o'clock in the morning, I probably wouldn't have worn high heels and a skirt…" Scully commented.

There it was.

"Well, Scully, next time we plan on chasing a shapeshifting serial killer underground, I'll make sure to let you know in advance."

Mulder and Scully were investigating an X-File that involved a man who could allegedly shapeshift into any other male before he brutally killed his victims. So far, he murdered ten men and nine women and had shapeshifted into the women's husbands, boyfriends, and lovers, gaining their trust, and affection, before exposing his true self and stabbing them in the hearts. The media was all over this new development, nicknaming the killer, The Heartstopper, after his preferred methods. The 10th woman had escaped after the Heartstopper murdered her boyfriend, who also happened to be her boss, and before he had a chance to kill her. The local police, at a loss of what to do, contacted the FBI about two days after the woman was released from the hospital.

With Mulder's work on the X-Files as well as the VCU, Assistant Director Skinner had okayed the investigation as an X-File, under the condition that Mulder and Scully check in every day at 5:00pm. They had been on this case for almost three days, with little help from the last witness, when a 911 call came in around 11pm, with reports of a white male, mid-40s, loitering around the old mine shaft and rail station. An apparent witness who had been passing by the area claimed to have seen the man "switch shapes" and become an entirely different person. Having been eating dinner at an all-night diner, Mulder and Scully didn't have time to change and went right to the railway. When they got there, they heard screaming coming from deep inside the tunnel and went to investigate. Unfortunately, cell phone reception was poor at best, and they had disappeared inside the tunnel almost two hours prior.

Mulder stopped short, causing Scully to bump into him and almost fall.

"Mulder, what is it?" Scully whispered.

Mulder put his finger to his lips and dimmed his flashlight as he put a hand on Scully's back and started kneeling down, very slowly. Scully, at a loss at what to do, crouched with Mulder, unaware at what had spooked her partner. As Scully got closer to the ground, she felt something besides Mulder's hand brush her shoulder, and nearly toppled to the left in surprise. Mulder caught her, putting his hand on her mouth to stop her from crying out in surprise.

"Scully, do you hear that?" Mulder whispered, removing his hand from his partner's mouth.

Scully steadied her breathing, and listened carefully, as she heard a soft flapping echoing off the walls of the tunnel. It started getting closer and closer, until suddenly she heard screeching along with the flapping, coming to the same realization as her partner.

"Oh shit!" Mulder muttered, as he flattened himself over his partner's body.

Mulder heard a loud grunt from his partner, probably from being flattened into mud and tiny pebbles by a 200-pound body. Mulder made sure to cover his partner as 500 bats screeched through the air and flew around him and Scully. Scully was squirming underneath Mulder, struggling somewhat to breathe. Mulder continued to cover his partner as bats skimmed over them, occasionally crashing into them and scraping by them. When the bats had appeared to be gone, Mulder rolled off his partner.

"You okay, Scully?" Mulder asked, panting.

"Yeah, I think so. You?" She panted back.

"Yeah," Mulder said, getting to his feet and offering her a hand.

Scully got to her feet, rearranging her hair and suit, pulling pebbles out of her blazer.

"Mulder, I don't think our suspect is down here. If someone was down here, they're long gone."

"What about the screaming?" Mulder asked.

"We've searched the whole tunnel at least twice. There's no one down here. We'll get a team down here in the morning."

Mulder nodded his head, pulling his flashlight from his pocket. As he brightened the light, Scully noticed a long cut seeping blood on the left side of his eye.

"Mulder, oh my God, were you bitten?" Scully asked, reaching up to examine his injury.

Mulder flinched back, grabbing Scully's wrist lightly.

"No, scratched I think."

"We need to get you to a hospital; these bats are most likely carrying rabies."

"I've had my rabies shot, Scully. I'm fine. Besides, I wasn't bit." Mulder protested.

"Mulder-" Scully started.

"You can examine the wound when we get back to the motel." Mulder offered, in which Scully seemed satisfied.

Jason Gains, aka the Heartstopper, watched excitedly from a corner in the tunnel as his next targets made their way from the tunnel. He had been sourcing these two ever since they had arrived in Virginia to work on the case. Up until the last woman, Sandy Hobbs, Gains had performed every kill meticulously and without error. Furious that Sandy had gotten away, Gains was working on a new method of attack, which would still render him the name, Heartstopper. Hopefully, when Special Operations eased up a bit and Sandy got sick of being in protective custody, he could finish his last failed task in his previous manner. He hated leaving loose ends. More significantly, he hated altering his methods.

XXXXX

Mulder and Scully made their way back to their car and to Seedy Acres Lodge, a motel in a small town right outside Norfolk. Both covered in mud, they went into their own rooms to get cleaned up and changed, before Scully knocked on Mulder's room about 20 minutes later.

"Mulder, it's me, let me in."

Gains watched Scully bang on her partner's door at 3 o'clock in the morning from 50 feet away in the shrubbery. He hadn't decided when he was going to pursue his next targets, just that he had chosen them. When the man let his partner in, Gains crawled up to the window, which was only partially obstructed by the curtain inside. The redheaded woman's hair was wet and she was wearing a bathrobe, hardly the attire one wears when interacting with a work partner. The man wasn't much better. He was wearing a jersey and basketball shorts, sitting on the bed while his partner cleaned his headwound.

Gains couldn't hear what the two were talking about, but when the woman finished examining her partner, he smiled at her and offered her something from a snack bag…was it peanuts? Nuts, maybe? When he walked her to the door, Gains snuck around the corner, still eager to learn about them and hear any part of their conversation.

"Mulder, promise me if that cut bothers you, you'll tell me." The woman said.

"Scully I'm fine, honest. Get some sleep; we're meeting with Detective Gains and his taskforce at 8am."

Scully smiled at her partner, then yawned as she went back to her room. Gains, Detective Jason Gains, ran off towards the highway, where he had stashed his car in a concealed ditch.

To be continued.