AN: Chimera takes place during the Easter season, so that's why I moved it to this spot in the line up. Don't worry, the rest of the episodes are not forgotten!


For years, Scully had turned a blind, yet slightly bemused, eye on Mulder's particular addiction. She had said nothing about the collection of magazines in the lower drawer of his desk, or the stack of videos behind the piles of paper on his cabinet. She had ignored the occasional voice mail from some smoky-throated, sultry caller offering Mulder a low, per-minute deal if he decided to call back their service. Outside of the teasing ribbing she gave him, she usually simply shrugged off the worst of it. She had grown up with boys, the male fascination with objectifying women's bodies was something that was no surprise to her, and while she didn't approve, she left Mulder to his own devices, figuring every man has a right to his naked, lady pictures. Scully had drawn very few lines with regarding the subject.

But she did draw the line at staking out a strip club.

"I will not sit out of a sleazy, strip club, Mulder, I won't do it!"

"I'm not asking you to go into the strip club! I'm merely asking you to watch it."

Scully scowled, clearly not impressed with the semantics of Mulder's argument. "In all of our years together, Mulder, I've not heard of a bigger stretch of a case than this one. You seriously are asking me to believe there is a serial killer with the ability to disappear, and you are using this as an excuse to sit out in of strip club in the southeast part of town, holed up in some crack den?"

"It's not a crack den, it's a hotel, I've booked it for several nights," he protested mildly.

"How much does it cost an hour," she snapped, crossing her arms as she leaned against his desk. The file in front of him was filled with snapshots of women, all wearing more make up than Scully would wear in a year and considerably less clothing.

"I'm not just pulling this out of my ass, Scully," Mulder defended himself, annoyed as he looked up at her, clearly not appreciating her assumption. "This case came to me from DC Vice, they've been following it off and on for a year. Six women have turned up missing, and all last seen with this one."

He held up a photograph of a skinny, bleached blonde woman dressed in clothing that should be illegal in forty-nine states. "No one knows who she is, no one knows where she came from, but they do know that she goes into these clubs, meets up with other women, leaves with them, and they are never seen in the neighborhood again."

"And they think that she's a serial killer? On what evidence?"

"The ID and clothing of one of the women was found a mile away, in a dumpster. The bag of another one of them was recovered from a rain culvert six blocks away. Now, I've been around you long enough, Scully, to know a woman wouldn't be caught dead without her ID, bag, or clothes, no matter her profession."

It was a generalization Scully wasn't about to deny.

"Still, we have no bodies for any of these suspected victims whatsoever. And it seems to me Metro PD is jumping at shadows here." She glanced at the photographs of the missing women. Sadly, Scully realized, they weren't women that normally would be noticed twice by the Metro police on a normal day. "Why in the world are they jumping to the idea it is serial murder? It could be as simple as a case of one prostitute going out and recruiting others for her pimp. Perhaps our real crime here is a sex one, not a murder."

Mulder nodded thoughtfully at her suggestion, at least considering it. "I won't deny that the idea hadn't crossed my mind as well. A female serial killer is a very rare thing, most are men, and I'm not saying that perhaps she isn't a front for someone else who is up to something nefarious. But I will say this, twice the Metro police have tried to go in after her, and twice she's disappeared into thin air."

Scully arched an eyebrow high up at Mulder's curious delight. "You think that we are dealing with someone who has some sort of, what? Power of invisibility?"

"It would explain how she's giving the cops the slip."

"Yeah, in a comic book. What, does she have a special ring or is she the product of a lab experiment gone horribly wrong? Which have you and the Metro PD decided?"

Mulder was far from amused. "Look, do you want to quibble about how legitimate a case is when there are women out there who could be losing their lives?"

His disapproval stung, and Scully sobered, realizing he was right, now matter how much she disliked the idea. "No, I don't." She frowned, properly chastened. "But, Mulder, invisibility? Why do I feel like this is just an excuse for you to ogle scantily clad women for a week on the FBI's dime?"

Mulder snorted derisively. "Scully, if I wanted to watch scantily clad women on the FBI's dime, I could do it I the comfort of my own office without pulling all nighters in a roach motel."

"I don't even want to know," she sighed, pushing off his desk. "Fine, you're right. If women's lives are in danger we need to do everything we can to figure out what's going on. Even if it means having to stay at a room of questionable nature with paid sex likely going on in the next room over from us."

"Is it worse because it's paid?" Mulder mused as she rounded her desk.

"It's worse because it's the seedy side of town, and I will have to make sure I have my badge and gun on me at all times," she groused, frowning despondently at her computer. "How long will this take again?"

"Don't know, but Metro thinks she does the rounds of the local clubs. Dirty Dames is the one they think she will hit up next."

"Dirty Dames?" The images that name even conjured up made her want to take a shower. "Really, Mulder? I went on national television chasing after werewolves with you! Now you're making me stake out a strip club?"

"Remember, Scully, we are saving lives here!"

"That's what they told me in medical school right before I had to pull a two-day shift." Somehow, she doubted that this would be any more pleasant of an experience.