AN: X-COPS, while an amazing episode, is really hard to write for. It sort of loses something when you switch from that first person, documentary style to the third person, story style. So I forwent writing in the episode and am writing around it. I love that episode a lot, and it cracks me up every time.


Jake's coffee really was the best brew in DC. There was no denying it. Scully sipped it contentedly as Mulder toiled away at his desk, fingers jamming hard at the keys of his computer. She smiled, watching him from her desk, secretly pleasuring in the sight of him, hunched over his keyboard, reading glasses perched on his long nose, full lip stuck out as he concentrated on whatever he was writing on the monitor.

She had always found him dead sexy in those glasses. She wished he would wear them more often. Still, she could enjoy the view for now. And the coffee…and the chocolate covered almonds from the gift basket that Steve and Edy had sent them, currently sitting on her desk. It was a thank you to the pair of them. "For all your kindness", Edy had written in the note. Scully wasn't sure whether it was because Mulder had been nice to the hysterical Edy or they had been embarrassed to have a lover's spat in their underwear in front of two FBI agents, a camera crew, and however many million people would watch the show, Scully didn't know. But damn the almonds were good.

"Are you eating all the goodies in the gift basket?" Mulder turned to suspiciously glare at the small pile of chocolate covered nuts in front of her.

Scully coolly lifted an eyebrow, shrugging as she popped another one in her mouth. "Trader Joe's, Mulder, we can't even get this stuff out here."

"So that gives you the right to hog it all?"

"Hey, it's on my desk." She grabbed the bag, studying its contents carefully. "Got peanut-butter filled pretzels here with your name on them?"

Mulder didn't need a second invitation to come and snag them. He rose, wearily rubbing at his eyes as he grabbed the cellophane bag hungrily. "All of this for sitting with them and making sure they were okay?"

"Well, and stopping Edy from slashing Steve with a kitchen knife."

"The things I learned that night I never wanted to," Mulder whistled as he tossed back a couple of pretzels, crunching thoughtfully as he poked through the basket. "Hey, what's the white things?"

"Yogurt covered blueberries. Pretty tasty."

Mulder wrinkled his nose, obviously lost at the mention of yogurt. "Keep those. Who wants healthy junk food?'

"I know, the scandal, right?" She teased him as she sipped at her coffee. "How's the report going?"

Mulder's only response was to groan. She laughed at him, shaking her head. "There's a reason I'm making you write it."

"Outside of the fact that you blame me for being embarrassed on national television?"

"When that episode airs, Mulder, my brothers will call me so fast, laughing at me after years of trying to legitimate my work to the pair of them. For that you get to write the report."

His dramatic sigh earned no sympathy out of her. "Scully, all Skinner will have to do is watch the film."

"That's what I'm afraid of," she muttered. "We have an entire neighborhood and how many LA County Sheriffs on tape, loosing their mind over nothing. And that doesn't include the coroner."

She frowned grimly at that memory. "That woman literally scared herself to death! And I have no medical explanation for it. Her blood work showed no signs of the hanta virus, and yet there she was, hemorrhaging on the floor."

"Fear does strange things to the mind," Mulder replied thoughtfully, crunching on pretzels dolefully. "Edy nearly attacks Steve because he's afraid of him leaving, Wetzel believed he was being attacked by a wasp creature his brother told him about as a kid, they all were reacting out of some primal sense of fear. Fear is one of the most primitive, basic human instincts. It is part of our survival mechanism. Every human feels it. We are hard wired to react to certain stimuli that way. If our brain is confused, if it reacts to the fear stimulus in a strong enough manner, then we are bound to act in ways that are strange, even deadly."

"But I was standing in the room with that woman, Mulder, there was nothing there to scare her, nothing to frighten her. I just mention your word, 'contagion', and there she goes, terrified of something infecting her."

"The power of suggestion," Mulder shrugged, saddened but unsure what else to say about it. "We are all scared of something, Scully. And whatever was out there was obviously playing on the deepest fears of those it was attacking."

"What was out there?" That was the part that Scully couldn't figure out and Mulder hadn't explained to her satisfaction. "At the end of the day, what are we going to put into the report? That there was a full moon out and it made everyone loco? That there was some sort of swamp gas in the air causing people to see things that weren't there? Something in the water?"

"Wish I had that good of an answer." Mulder sighed, setting down the half-eaten bag of peanut butter filled pretzels. "Cultures for centuries thought that the full moon lead to strange behavior, werewolves, ghosts, lunacy."

"All the above. Take your pick, we have it in this report." She frowned at Mulder's distant monitor. "I don't know, Mulder, I know what we saw. And God knows what the producers at FOX are going to slap together and put on TV. But telling Skinner it was a full moon doesn't sound like a very good way to end a case."

"Wait till he sees the episode, I doubt he's going to have much good to say about this case at all."

She chuckled in agreement, shaking her head. "If he doesn't kill us for this, I'll be shocked."

"Hell, I think he owes us one for that stupid movie his buddy is making,' Mulder sniffed, poking through the gift basket again. "Oooh, chili-lime cashews!"

"Perhaps Wayne just proves our point, Mulder. LA is full of crazies." Clearly Willow Park was full of them. Even the wonderfully colorful Steve and Edy had a level of eccentricity about them…well, at least Edy did, poor Steve seemed to simply be long suffering.

"You know, thinking about Steve and Edy, there fear was so simple compared to everyone else's. Chantal feared the spirit of her ex-pimp. The coroner feared infectious disease. Even Deputy Wetzel was afraid of a childhood boogy man. But Edy, he was simply afraid of one thing, that Steve would stop loving him."

"Fear doesn't have to be complicated." Mulder was already into the bag of cashews, clearly pleased with what he found.

"I know that, but it did make me think about the things we fear. What sort of fears do the average people have? Would it be enough to terrify me to death?"

"Would they?" Mulder asked around a mouthful of nuts.

Scully considered. She knew her biggest fear, bigger than any childhood monster, or half-remembered nightmare from her kidnapping, even than Donnie Pfaster returning from the dead. The one thing that left her cold inside more than anything else was the idea of something deadly happening to the man standing beside her desk. Mulder had his fair share of brushes with death, but they had all been situations that she could save him from. Her real fear, the one thing that kept her up at night, was the idea that one day Mulder would get himself involved with something she couldn't save him from. Then he would be lost to her forever.

The very idea left her sick inside.

"No," she choked, reaching quickly for her coffee to try and swallow hard against the bile rising in her throat. "No, I don't think my fear would kill me, no."

One dark eyebrow rose in inquiry. "Care to share yours with the class."

Panicked eyes widened as she choked down coffee hard. "No," she croaked, shaking her head vehemently. "No, just…it isn't anything." Nothing she would ever share with him. The idea itself terrified her too much to even speak about it.

He seemed to sense that, shrugging off her discomfort. "I would say that my fear of fire would be enough to kill me, but you know, it could quite possibly be the idea of seeing Frohike naked that might do me in."

That was so not an image she needed to think of, and she found herself bursting into peals of horrified laughter. "What the…Mulder!"

His impish grin did not look the least bit sorry. "Well, got you to stop thinking of what you are afraid of, didn't it?"

"Guh! Now I'm going to have to be afraid of that image!"

"As well you should be, Scully, as well you should be."

Scully swatted at him, unable to reach him as he danced back over to his desk, flopping in his chair, cashews still in hand. "I'll leave you with that lovely image as I return to this report."

Scully groaned, grumbling as she shoved an almond in her mouth and glared at him. He had succeeded in shifting her train of thought, even if it was in a bad way. But he hadn't succeeded in easing the fear in the back of her mind. One day, if Mulder wasn't careful, she would not be able to save him, she might lose him. For years he had danced along that edge of darkness, and she was the only one holding him back from going over. One day, she might just loose her grip.

His search for Samantha was done. He had discovered the truth behind her disappearance, behind his family's darkest secret, behind why Scully herself was taken. They had discovered so many truths. Perhaps, she wondered, they could slow down now? Think about how much further they wanted to take this? Maybe she could convince him not to chase after every werewolf sighting, every space ship, and every haunted house. Maybe she could convince him to finally bring all of this to an end.

Maybe…

She glanced over at him, hunched once again over his computer, typing furiously, the bag of cashews by his keyboard. It was a fight they would have to have soon. But it wasn't a fight she felt in the mood for today. Today, she would drink her coffee, eat her chocolate-covered almonds, and try not to think of Frohike sans clothing.