Chapter 4

Mulder crept over to the home, and pulled out his gun. He walked around the house, on the side yard, until he reached the back yard. There was a strange hole in the middle of the backyard, where it looked as though the ground in that certain area just caved in. Mulder headed toward it cautiously when he heard people headed his way. He ran back to the side of the house, and watched as the head of Arcadia Hill's and three other men filled the hole back up.

Scully was on the other side of the house, in the side yard. She hadn't pulled her gun out yet, and was disappointed to find she couldn't get through the fence or even look through it, to see what was happening or where Mulder was. She was turning back to go find him, when she was startled. A group of five or six women stood behind her, Scully tried to come up with an excuse, but it wasn't needed. One of the women stood close to Scully, and whispered to her, as the other women stood guard, "You're the new neighbor, we've been keeping an eye on you… come to my house tomorrow for lunch, don't tell your husband about this. Got it?" Scully nodded.

"I live two blocks over, house number 1223, don't be late." The woman told her before all of them went back toward the house. Scully called to them quickly though, "wait! What's going on here? Why were there screams?" The woman who talked to her before walked back to Scully swiftly, "go home. We'll explain tomorrow," she walked off again.

Scully went to go find Mulder, and found him easily as he was leaving his side yard to go over to hers. "Find anything?" Mulder asked. Scully nodded, "come on."

After the two got back to their house, and after they'd collected the blanket from the front yard, Scully sat down on the living room couch. She slid off her shoes, and took the blanket that was on the back of the couch, wrapping it around herself. Mulder sat on the opposite chair, watching her as she got comfortable. Finally after calming down and getting situated Scully began, "a group of women approached me. They told me to go home and ignore the screams. They also invited me for lunch tomorrow, and told me not to tell you. They claim their going to 'explain some things'."

"Do you trust them?" Mulder asked. Scully shrugged, "I don't see why I couldn't… all of them seemed pretty frightened, but the woman I talked to seemed to know what was going on… that is what we want to find out about this place… what truly is going on."

"I still don't see the true x-file here, so be careful, but I doubt its something paranormal," Mulder gave his two-bits on the matter.

After a long while of silence, both of them thinking, Scully started getting uncomfortable. At the same time she wanted to be mad at Mulder for doing what it seemed he was going to do on the lawn earlier that night, she also was flattered and almost… relieved. This many confusing feelings made her upset, "Mulder I'm going to get some rest…" She stood up, then remembering the figure or whatever it was that had scared her before, "are you coming?" Mulder was surprised to hear her say that, but could see something else was on her mind, and she needed him around. He nodded and followed her upstairs.

"Goodnight, Mulder," Scully smiled as she turned on her side to face him. Mulder smiled back, "Night, Scully.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Mulder was up early again, but this time he stayed in bed. He read a book he found in the drawer next to the bed, and decided he'd read until Scully woke up. After a half hour he heard Scully start fidgeting and soon enough she starting stretching. She opened her eyes and let out a big yawn as Mulder watched her, smiling, "Your lazier then I thought you were." Scully smiled, "At least I read more interesting books." Mulder looked at the cover of the book and realized it was a 'how to' book on marriage.

As he looked up he found Scully was walking to the bathroom, so she didn't appreciate Mulder had been waiting for her, that didn't bother him. He simply got up and made his way to the bathroom too. The door was unlocked and he entered cautiously. Scully had hopped into the shower and with the hot water, the room started to steam. She began to hum some song or other, it seemed familiar to Mulder, but he didn't dwell. He headed to the sink and shaved his cheeks and chin. Scully still hummed, and even after Mulder had finished shaving she was still in the shower.

Mulder smirked as he headed for the toilet, "hey Scullyyyy…"

Scully jumped, "Mulder! What are you doing in here?" Mulder just continued what he was saying before, "hope you don't mind I used the bathroom," he flipped the knob and the toilet flushed. Mulder ran out of the room and grabbed his clothes, he headed downstairs quickly.

Scully jumped out of the shower, freezing cold. She threw on her clothes and with her hair dripping all over the place, she headed downstairs.

"Mulder? That was not funny… I was enjoying my shower and you had to play one of your silly jokes… I didn't find it funny at all…. Mulder!" Scully walked around the house. She reached the front door and saw Mulder outside talking with two men. She watched from inside, not able to hear much. Finally after a few minutes, Mulder came back toward the house. Scully dashed to the kitchen, grabbing a pot with her.

Mulder walked into the kitchen oblivious and sat down with his cup of coffee and his toast. The 'how to' book on marriage was actually pretty fascinating and Mulder picked it up to continue where he left off. Scully crept up behind him, and slowly she poured water from the pot over Mulder's head. After she was done she smiled, "enjoy your breakfast," and walked back upstairs.

Scully came back down after awhile, her hair no longer wet or matted. She sat down next to Mulder, who had changed and dried his hair.

"You look nice," Mulder smiled. Scully looked up at him from the paper, "you'll have to say more then that to make up for what you did…" Mulder looked back into the marriage book, "You know Scully, it says here that for a healthy marriage both the husband and wife should have sex at least twice a week…"

Scully looked at him with one of her eye brows cocked, "hopefully not with each other…" Mulder smiled, and went back to reading. After a few more minutes of silence, Scully set down the paper, "what we're you talking about with those two men, earlier?"

"Oh, they invited me to a meeting, its one of those ones to make sure that everyone is following the rules and all, nothing interesting. When are you going to lunch with the ladies?" Mulder asked.

"About twelve. I think I'm going to take a walk around Arcadia Hill's right now though." Mulder nodded, "I'll go with you." After a minute Scully responded, "I think I'll take this walk alone."

After cleaning up and finishing her breakfast Scully headed outdoors. She took in a deep breath as she stood on the porch then made her way down the cute street. The houses all looked the same, and each one had a white fence that surrounded the front yard.

Arcadia Hill's was Scully's dream, like many of the people that resided there. She wanted the cute little home, the good husband, the nice kids, even the sweet dog. But lately she had wanted different things, things she never thought she'd want. Instead of wanting to read a book and sit on her front porch, she'd rather be out discovering some top secret file that Mulder had found out about. Instead of wanting to walk her sweet dog, she wanted to be holding a gun up in a government facility, trying to take back what her own people took from her.

At first hearing about being undercover, as Mulder's wife, and staying at Arcadia Hill's for at least a couple months, didn't sound too good. She didn't want to be on these small cases, cases that didn't mean anything in the long run. But, as time went on, and as she found out more about Mulder, it didn't seem so bad. There was definitely something fishy going on in Arcadia Hill's, something that even though she didn't want to admit scared her, did. She had to keep the straight face, and she had to be strong, but when she felt herself starting to weaken, she knew Mulder would be at her side. That's what made Arcadia Hill's bearable.

Scully had walked almost all around Arcadia Hill's, it was bigger then she thought, and luckily she realized the time before she got too far away from the home she needed to get to. When she did get to home 1223 she was a half hour early, but there were already five women there. The woman who had talked to her before led her into the house nicely, and she sat down in the living room with the others.

Scully was a bit confused about the situation though. The woman had told her she was going to explain things, but so far all they were doing was talking and drinking tea, of all things. A few more women entered the house as she sat down, and soon the main woman came back in.

"Well isn't this lovely! I'm sure we're all going to have a good time this afternoon... I want to introduce you all to our new neighbor, Laura Petrie…"

"Petrie," Scully corrected her.

"Excuse me, Petrie… Let me introduce you to everyone, Laura. This is Carol, Margret, Jenny, Velma, Sue, Heather, Lady, June, Mary and I'm Chris… don't worry, take your time learning our names." Scully nodded at each of the women, gesturing a hello.

Carol started the questioning, "So, Laura, your married to a handsome man, what's his name?"

"Rob."

Carol continued, "How lovely. How long have you two been married?"

"We're newlyweds, it's only been a few months." Carol nodded, as Velma broke in, "You two make a very attractive couple. You must love and take care of him a lot?"

Scully was trying to figure out what these questions were for, and what answer they wanted. These women seemed like they had something else down their sleeves, so Scully answered in a way she thought they'd appreciate.

"Well, sometimes Rob and I fight, we don't have a perfect marriage. But we do what we can, and I'm here to protect him as much as I am to love and support him."

Scully watched as some of the women looked over at Chris, she nodded slightly, and the women started talking about other things. Scully listened for awhile, trying to keep up, but soon her mind drifted. She couldn't ask about what they wanted to tell her, so she waited and doing so she thought of what she said about her and Mulder. But it wasn't Mulder, it was Rob. She had to make sure to remember the difference. She wasn't married to Mulder, she wasn't even herself. She was Laura, and Laura loved Rob, and they were newlyweds. Period.

Finally after an hour, Chris's husband appeared at the stairs, "Well I'm going to the meeting now hunny, all you ladies behave yourselves!" he smiled as he kissed Chris on the cheek and left. As soon as the door closed all the women scurried around the room. They covered the windows with blinds, they closed all the doors to the room, made sure to unplug the phones, it was organized chaos and it startled Scully at first. Once all the women sat back down in their seats, Chris began explaining things.

"Laura, you seem like we can tell you this, and we want you to know now before you get caught up in this place… This place, it has a secret, it has a monster… This monster isn't a big six-foot green goblin, it's a man, one man in particular…"

"Gogolak," Scully stated.

"Right, the head of Arcadia Hill's… He's been what you could call, brainwashing for years… We don't know what his motives are, but for some reason he can suck in the men, and after that the husbands suck in their wives… its dark, its dirty and we don't know the purpose… if we knew why he's brainwashing the homeowners, we could try and stop him… but our husbands wont move away, and we can't let them stay here with a maniac like Gogolak by themselves… Over the years we've talked to many women, some have gotten their husbands out… and we figure since we can't get out ourselves, we have to help the new homeowners survive… Your husband was invited to the meeting. This is the beginning of the brainwashing. He'll come home with ideas that you never thought he'd have… you think your husband can fight this and that he's different then the other men, but we've all thought that…."

Scully frowned, she never thought it would be like what Chris was telling her, "How do I stop Mul—Rob from being brainwashed?"

"If you can't leave, and you must remain, you have to keep that connection with him… Once he's at a certain stage of the brainwashing, your connection to each other will dissipate… you'll lose sight of things and the only ones that can keep you from being brainwashed is us… There are different things that we've experimented with to keep our husbands who they are and not Gogolak's little mutants… most of it is keeping the attraction to each other… you can keep him in your palms if you enlighten him, you keep him wanting you, and not Gogolak… it's a long process for Gogolak to brainwash him, but it's more work keeping your husband himself. It's the decision you have to make. You can save yourself, and get away easily, but are you willing to let your husband stay and let his life be taken from right under his nose… if your not prepared to leave him, then are you ready for the struggle it will take to keep him who he is, and are you ready to face the fact that you may fail him?... you have to make the decision soon, if not tonight, by the next couple days. The longer you wait, the harder it will be to save him."

Scully took in a deep breath. There were several minutes of silence, "Rob is my husband, I married him because I love him… I'll go to the ends of the earth for him, let alone fight Gogolak."

TBC