a/n still don't own anything X-Files related, lol. And thank you for all the wonderful reviews! They keep me writing!

Chapter 2

The putridity of the gasoline stung his nostrils at the same time orange strips of light reflected off window panes. Fire. The apartment was on fire. Fire. His brain could hardly register it.

Scully on the other hand had noticed the smell first, and by the time Mulder had even opened his mouth she was banging on the door yelling for help. She noticed her cries were being interrupted by coughs, gaggings. Smoke. Racing for a window, she tripped over the couch but stumbled back up and made it to the window only to find it welded shut.

"It's-arrrug-wired…Sealed shut," Mulder yelled as he strained every muscle in his body trying to open another window, "There all going to be like this."

"The door," Scully breathed, leaning against the wall for support, "Must have been sealed shut as well."

"We'll be fine, Scully."

"Never said we weren't. In fact…If it was welded shut, we may have a chance," She ran a finger along a strip of a brassy hardened substance that looked like it once had the consistency of glue, "The window was sealed shut by melting brass against another metal, when brass melts it can

produce a glue-provided someone adds," she paused a moment as she coughed, but began again, even though her voice was much breathier, "… Provided someone adds flux. Once the brass cools it returns to a gluey state, and the door could be easily pried open."

Mulder stared at her. All his behavior profiling experience never came in handy when it came to Scully.

"Mulder?"

"Yeah…Yeah…So we set our own fire? Are you sure, Scully?"

"Get the matches from the kitchen."

Taking that as a yes, he got down on his knees and crawled toward the kitchen, slightly closer to the fire that was ripping through the bedrooms. To his surprise, Scully followed, crawling behind him.

"Enjoying the view, Scully?"

She chose to ignore the comment and crawled on till they reached the kitchen where she began soaking kitchen rags. Oh, and yes, she had enjoyed the view.

Mulder, still wearing his leering smile, pulled out matches from a drawer.

"Let's start a fire, Scully."

"Shut up, Mulder," she said, this time smiling, shoving a damp cloth over his lips, "And this time I'm serious. We don't need to be victims of smoke inhalation."

She placed another cloth over her own mouth, and this time she crawled back first, leaving Mulder to trail behind her. He was still smiling behind his washcloth.

Amazingly the plan had worked. Both agents had made it out of the building unscarred. As suspected, the brass had melted away into a waxy composite and the door had been successfully crashed down. But, if the plan had worked, gone off without a single hitch, then why was Scully still staring up at the windows of apartment 324? She was leaning against an ambulance, too tired to stand, ignoring the doctor who was cuffing her arm for blood pressure tests. Something was amiss.

Her idea to melt free the door was a long stretch. She hadn't expected it to work; she just wanted to be doing something before flames engulfed her. Going out fighting. Or at least fighting till Mulder had thought of something else.

"Mulder," she mused, though he was no where in site, "Something's wrong."

And with those few softly spoken words he was magically at her side with a warm hand resting on her shoulder.

"You feeling okay? You look pale."

"It's not adding up. If I was right, right that it was welded shut, then how did it get welded? Clearly it had to me an amateur job, otherwise there wouldn't have been much flux left and we wouldn't have been able to remove the door…"

"Scully, we're alive. Can you stop over-analyzing this? We got lucky."

"But we walked in through the door! We got into the apartment."

"…So the murderer must have been there all along. Luring us in. Crap."

For a moment they let it sink in that they were truly dealing with a psychopath. One who was smart enough to almost trap FBI special agents. More particularly, two agents that were considered to be geniuses.

Scully nodded as the medic gave her a clean bill of health. The young doctor's mouth began pouring out random sequences of consonants and vowels, but all fell deaf on Scully's ears. As the Medic began blushing, looking at the ground, and then fiddling with his thumbs, Mulder realized that he had been trying to ask his partner out on a dinner date.

"She has plans."

And Mulder ungraciously let his hand take up residence on the small of her back and led her away.

"Earth to Scully."

"What?"

"Doctor Waterston seems to have quite a crush on you."

"Huh?"

"Waterson. Madly in love. With you."

"Oh. Right. Excuse me," she muttered as she turned away and started walking aimlessly down the sidewalk.

She missed the utter befuddlement displayed on her partner's face, but that was because her attention was directed somewhere else completely. Directed at something more worrisome than about the fire.

A lump of dread was hanging over her as she placed a finger under her nose. Nothing.

Sighing in relief, she immediately began to chastise herself for being paranoid. But was she? Scully felt eerily familiar symptoms…fatigue, dull aches…particularly one near her sinus cavity. …Nose felt as if it had been pumped up with mucus.

But that could all be from nearly dying in a fire…

Yet…

Had any patient come to her with such symptoms she'd immediately run a full diagnostic screening.

But it couldn't be? Could it?

Timidly, she placed another finger above her top lip. Before pulling it down before her eyes, she drew in a deep, shaky breath.