Author's Note: I've been going through my computer and coming across pieces of writing I did years ago. I'm working on a large Colonization fic at the moment, but I thought I'd publish some of these "lost files" because it's fun. I'm not editing them from their original form, and some pieces are unfinished. This is one of them. It has eight chapters and comes to an end, although I had originally intended to carry it on longer. I hope you enjoy what's there. Here's the first chapter.

Chapter I

She arrives in late June, the plane landing at LAX before dawn. They have been racing it ever since coming over the midwestern states, so that now passengers step onto the tarmac in the dark.

By the time she is out of the terminal the sun has risen. In college she'd read the words, 'the dawn comes up like thunder', and she had always wanted to know the term physically. Though this dawn is not abrupt like thunder. It is a precious kind of quiet, the sleepy shuffle of worn travelers, jackets brushing. Outside, Scully sees the bleeding sun climb, trails of fiery colors left on the morning clouds.

As soon as her passport with the gold government bar is processed, what looks like a rookie agent approaches and moves alongside her to a waiting car. Scully struggles with her suitcases but he offers no help. When they pull away from the airport the sky is still loud with color, heat already rising off the pavement in waves, and Agent Cline hands her a thin file.

"The dossier," he says.

"How long has it been? You've lived here, right?"

"Twenty years. You read my file?"

Agent Cline shrugs, looks over at her. "Agent Mulder told us you were coming."

"I see."

"Your father was in the navy?"

"Yes." The man looks as if he's about to prod her again, and Scully smiles. "Look, do you mind if I don't talk in the car on the way to the motel -I didn't sleep on the plane. I'd like to look over this file, maybe get an hour of sleep at the motel. I assume Agent Mulder's still there, it's not too late."

Agent Cline flicks the turn signal on at a stoplight and Scully notices the tall tropical trees, the brightening world. It is strange to be here again after so long. "No, he sent me. They've been up nights on this case."

"Oh. Take me there, then. Forget the motel."

"Sure?"

Scully nods. Her spine digs into the seat now as it did on the plane. She wonders how long it has been since Mulder has slept in the three days he has been down here on this case.

Agent Powell puts a hand on Mulder's shoulder and nudges him awake. The younger agent lifts his head from the cradle of his folded arms and runs a hand over his face as if to wipe off the grime of the case that could have gathered there overnight. "Is that her?" Powell asks, and Mulder straightens, looks at his partner as she walks through the bullpen. She looks light on her feet, and purposeful as ever.

Agent Cline opens the door to the room they've closed off to house all the evidence and profiling information on the killer, and Mulder stands, a small nod to Cline, who leaves and shuts the door behind him. Mulder watches Scully take it all in. Her eyes travel quickly around the room. The map of California tacked up on a white board, red Sharpie noting the locations where the bodies were found. Empty styrofoam coffee cups overflowing a small white trashcan. Mulder's long winded handwriting in marker on another board.

"You already went to the motel?" Mulder asks.

"No, Agent Cline said you'd been here all night."

Mulder shrugs. "I got some sleep. You should go get some rest, Scully, you never sleep on planes."

"I'm fine. Do you have any new leads?" She moves to the papers spread out in front of him, braces one arm on the table while the other hand leafs through. The same crime scene photos that she'd seen in the dossier. A yellow legal pad with Mulder's scrawl crossing the lines at a diagonal. (All victims blonde, 3 abdominal stab wounds on Jane 6)

"Nothing." He picks up his jacket, hanging on the back of a chair, and puts it on. "Come on, I'll take you to breakfast. Oh, this is Special Agent Powell. He's helping with the case."

"Pleased to meet you." Agent Powell is an older man, with a fatherly smile and light handshake.

"You, too," Scully says. "Will you join us?" She tries to cover up Mulder's faux pas.

Agent Powell smiles, shakes his head no. "I'm gonna go home to get a few winks." He nods to both of them, moves past Mulder to the door, leaves it ajar.

Mulder is rolling his sleeves down, cuffing them once. He tips his eyes to Scully. "What did your doctor say?"

"I'm fine. No change."

"Hopefully we can catch this guy. Wrap up this case quickly before next week."

"Yes." Scully gestures for him to straighten his tie. "But I can easily reschedule my appointment for next week, Mulder."

"I know." He holds the door open for her and follows her through the bullpen, feeling the eyes of every man in the room pass over them. Whatever you're thinking, you're miles off, he thinks with a hint of bitterness. She won't even tell me how bad the cancer is.

She's truly hungry, and feels Mulder's approval wash over her as she orders a side of toast. "Can I have your pineapple?"

"Sure, Scully," he says, amused, tired. He turns the rim of his plate so she can take cubes of the fruit off it and onto hers. Mulder watches her eat it, one piece of yellow fruit between two straight rows of teeth. Her tongue sweeps across her lips.

"Mulder, did you hear me?" Scully says. "Was Jane Doe 6 found just like the other victims?"

He nods. "Yeah. Nude, face down in a ditch along Interstate 5. Eyes gouged out. He's getting better at it. The work is less messy, now. More confident."

"Thank you," Scully says to the waitress, who has caught the tail end of Mulder's words while delivering the side order of toast. She butters a slice of bread and takes a bite. "Has there been an autopsy?"

"Yes" The coffee is starting to take effect, but instead of feeling energized he feels jumpy as a cat. "The report is supposed to arrive this morning, but I'm not anticipating any anomalies. We've started a profile."

"You're profiling him?"

"I'm working with this guy, you haven't met him yet. Pete Gordon. We worked together when I was still with the BSU. A long time ago."

Scully raises an eyebrow. She doesn't know this Mulder. Mulder the profiler. Either he's delirious from lack of sleep, or the rumors had been true and this is how he'd earned his nickname. There is something unguarded in his eyes this morning, a wildness. "Mulder, are you all right?"

"Just tired. Hey," he taps her fork with his as she reaches toward his plate. "I said you could have the pineapple, the cantaloupe I'll eat."

"White male, twenty-five to fifty. Guessing he lives alone, but was married before. Possibly has a medical background, from the way he extracts the eyes and slits the throat. You're probably better at making that conclusion, actually." Special Agent Gordon inhales deeply. He looks more exhausted than Mulder. "Strikes within same ethnic group, women eighteen to thirty." He pauses, looks to Mulder. "Spooky seems to think that hair color has something to do with it."

A shiver runs down Scully's spine.

"Yeah," Mulder says. "All the victims have blonde hair. We missed that at first. Probably points to the mother."

"Doesn't it always."

"You work fast," Scully says, looking to them both.

Agent Gordon shakes his head. "We were at dead ends until Mulder showed up. Put that together in under an hour. That's where he got the name, right?" He grins at her.

Spooky? People really called him that?

A/N: Please let me know what you think! It's especially nice to get feedback on something I wrote awhile ago (4 years!), now that I feel I've grown as a writer.