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All right, not so much mail but reviews, which is like mail, but without actual letters or stamps or urls or even Nigerian bank executives.

Let me say this: Thank you all for the very kind reviews. Among the many questions we get asked down here at the X-Files/Supernatural Crossover Zone include: What other writing have you done before? and: Are you really serious about continuing this story, jackass? Well, I never! But, fair point. What can I say? It has been pretty long. The problem is the professional writing – scientific – that I have to do, and this is extensive. I got five kids to feed! Well, maybe only three. Anyway, I'd be on this a lot more if it were a paid gig; I'd love nothing better than to carry on this and writing generally full time, but the scientific writing and the novel writing take a lot of time.

(The novel writing is a series of books. I wish I could post them here, but I can't take the chance on freebie stuff and copyright and so forth since I intend to get them published: it's a medieval-period novel with no Mulder or Scully or Supernatural guys, but with supernatural stuff and knights and damsels and goblinses and ancient mysteries, oh my. They're much better than this stuff, IMHO, but I do my best for you all, I promises. Gollum. Maybe I'll post an excerpt. Sure, why not? Excerpts for everyone!)

I hope I've excused myself a little with the above moaning about the demands on my time, but I can only apologize, and I do apologize. I swear to you that I will press on with this thing, and we will all get to the end alive.

Well, let's hope it's all of us. *shudder* You go first, for no particular reason.

And regarding those reviews, in all seriousness: thankyou, thankyou again. It's really meaningful to be recognized for this and I'm really glad the characters have some traction here, which is why I write them the way I do. I'm hoping this won't become too convoluted: instead I want it to be just convoluted enough to be a properly annoying detective/supernatural tale. I've got elements ranging across several chapters now and the direction for the tale is (mostly) clear so I will forge ahead as best I can. Please feel free to mention it widely and ecstatically as possible. And if you have specific suggestions on structure please do so. This is training time. Ratify the nine ingredients of proper character development? Sir yes sir!

Regarding the story: I know we're into Chapter 4. I'm trying to build up for the big reveal – some of you will guess it as we go along – and I think it would be shocking enough to be worth the wait. Needless to say, I'd never get permission to make this thing real. Eh. I'm trying to frame this thing as a detective story and so far it's still panning that way.

As a bonus for your patronage so far – and because this chapter is so short – please allow me to post a special excerpt from one of those later chapters:

"You're full of crap, Mulder,' said Scully.

Breathtaking stuff.

Now on with the story proper. In this episode? Why, dinner, yet another new perspective, and objectless griping about the intricacies of federal etiquette!

Showstopper!

(Sidenote: I own none of these guys, as if you really needed to be told.)

Chapter Four: Bear Necessities

The sun was a little lower as they pulled out of the Dryer location and onto the shady cross-streets. 'I was thinking maybe a quick dinner at that diner back on the '25, and then back for the search,' Mulder mused.

'By diner, I presume you mean the one with the dancing pig?'

'Only the best for you, Scully.'

'Which one are we taking? Dryer or Hearns? There's a spatial separation of, what, three miles?' But she could guess.

'On the whole, I think Hearns. It looks like she vanished first and there's obviously a lot less evidence that she's been killed. I'd sooner see us on that than Huey and Louie.' Mulder scratched his chin and seemed to consider. 'Actually, I have another idea: you drop me on the Hearns search, and you pick up Dryer.'

'Why?'

He smiled. 'Inside information, Scully. Whoever gets those two subtly probes them for information. We'll compare notes tonight.'

Scully smirked despite herself. 'Mulder, I have an idea on the case.'

Mulder was amusing himself with the adjustable seat, slowly sinking several inches towards the car's floor. He looked up at her. 'Do spill, Scully.'

'Not until dinner,' she sighed. 'I want you well-fed and reasonable.'

'I only hunger for the truth, Scully,' he said, still deadpan.

They found the Piggly-Wiggly on the highway. It was another 1970s low-slung canteen converted into a full restaurant with the clearly later addition of a wooden front room. Its front was festooned with old flyers and aged flypaper rolls. They got out of the car – climbed out, in Mulder's case. 'Mmm,' said Scully. 'I don't know if I'm dressed for a fancy dinner, Mulder.'

In fact, however, the Piggly-Wiggly Inn and Bar, as it was properly known, had a long and prestigious order of service dating back as far as 1974. Despite the earthy texture, it boasted a full menu, an impressive selection on an actual Seeburg juke box and was surprisingly busy for a Sunday. Scully selected Borderline and Jessie's Girl to Mulder's suppressed sneers and they ordered ribs. 'Coleslaw's extra, honey, but it's homemade and worth every penny,' their waitress told them. Mulder beamed like a child and asked for root beer.

Scully had to admit that the food was excellent and compared it favorably to rib joints she'd gone to with her father, who'd had an epicurean panache for the stuff. Finally, Mulder came around to pursuing Scully's line. 'You had some ideas for the case?' he mumbled through some particularly fine ribs.

Scully considered. Approach was everything with someone as… artistically minded as Mulder… not, she forced herself to admit, that it would really matter. If he liked it, he'd like it, and if not, she'd just have to hang on and see. She frowned as she fought down a sudden, unexpected impulse to reach out and ruffle his hair again. 'You asked for it, Mulder.'

Mulder stopped chewing and looked up like some kind of uncertain carnivore.

'A bear.' There, she'd said it.

Unsurprisingly, his face immediately started to pull up into his smug look. He had more than one: one for movies he didn't like, one for what he might consider the intellectually deficient. This was his professionally smug look. 'A bear,' he said, allowing a little touch of surprise. 'And how did you come to this conclusion, Scully?'

'I didn't say it was a conclusion,' she corrected – maybe a little forcefully – 'But it's a serious consideration and a much better explanation than little levitating green men.'

'Boo-Boo killed Jacob Dryer because he wouldn't hand over his picnic basket?'

It was that same professional smugness that sometimes made her want to swat him. He was a big guy – 6' at least – but bookish and she had years of pent-up anger on her side. 'Bears kill people all the time in Colorado, or often enough. He hears the bear snuffling around on the patio, comes out to investigate, fires a few shots, bear gets in and takes his gun with a swipe, then kills him. A bear is strong enough to remove a man of Jacob Dryer's size and heavy enough to bend that aluminum framing.' She raised an eyebrow in considered, practical triumph.

Mulder nodded, thinking carefully. Clearly the idea had set him back a little. Perhaps he was considering whether a more mundane explanation would undercut the presumable efforts from above to undercut him, while leaving him smelling and looking better. Chalking it up to a big mountain predator might embarrass the orthodox opposition. 'How did the bear leap from the porch to the fountain?'

'Bears are incredibly strong, Mulder. My cousin saw one chew a box of aluminum sheet like a dog chews a newspaper.'

'I don't know if that translates into an Olympian leap. Bears are heavy.'

'Heavy and strong.'

'The bear attacks Dryer instead of running off at the sound of the gunshots? That's one determined ursine, Scully.'

'Big carnivores aren't always dissuaded by gunfire,' she said stubbornly. It seemed that he was going to slay this explanation by nitpicking.

'And the same bear killed Miranda Hearns?' Mulder sipped his drink.

She watched the muscles of his throat moving as he swallowed. 'Sometimes, sick or old animals can't obtain their normal food sources, and serially attack humans instead,' she said. 'Humans are easier prey. In Man Eaters of Kumaon Jim Corbett describes numerous cases in which sick predators took to hunting people instead of conventional prey. Some of them became very… accomplished. The Champawat Man-Eater was responsible for over 400 human fatalities.'

'Interesting,' said Mulder. 'But if I recall, the man eaters Corbett shot were big cats and wolves: obligate carnivores. Bears mostly eat roots, buds, berries, nuts and insects. I think those would be a little easier to catch than people. Still, humans are loaded with precious, delicious fats,' he said, tearing off another strip of rib.

Scully stared at him in surprise. 'You read Man Eaters of Kumaon?'

He grinned, abashed. 'I had a copy on my bookshelf. I used to imagine that I'd wander off to Africa or India on a safari, but I could never get myself to take in the idea of shooting animals. I wanted to ride on the elephant. Up in the – what's the word – the howdah. I wanted to wear the pith helmet and ride the elephant, with some big bore rifles in big leather holsters, Scully. Probably something vaguely Freudian in that.'

'My dad loved that book. He used to read it to me when I was sick. I'm sure I still have it, somewhere. I could never really figure out why I liked it. The romanticism of the wild steppes, maybe.'

'Your dad had good taste,' Mulder said, nodding seriously.

She felt a little tremor in her lips, a familiar burning in the corners of her eyes. It was still there, that thin wall between her and her grief, even after all these years. She didn't usually let it fall. The last time had been – when? Three months ago, in front of the mirror in her bathroom. She'd come out of a scorching hot shower and the steam had reminded her, just for a second, of the mists on the water on a fishing trip she'd taken with her father, Bill Jr. and Charlie, out on Lake Miramar, when she was ten. The temperature had been just so and the mist had lifted off the water to envelop everything in a dense, thick fog, so that Bill had said that they were more likely to get run down than catch anything. Her father had told him to stay calm and to try to be still and happy for a moment. Bill had sulked.

In the end, they actually had seen another boat: a long rowboat that drifted out of the concealing mists like a ghost and passed them almost without even the sound of an oar, the rower a darkish shape under a faded green rainhat and coat, It had vanished into the mists again without pause. The boatman had looked her in the eyes as he passed, and there was something haunted and empty about that look, like a man that knows too much, or has seen of things that one should not. He'd fixed her with that look as he disappeared, and after he'd gone it was like his eyes were still watching hers, as if glowing through the pale shadows at her.

It was the exact same look she'd had in the mirror.

She'd cracked and cried then, in her bathroom either for herself or for her father or for God knew what, sinking down naked on her bathroom floor to shudder with sobs while the shower behind her carried on its irregular drip, drip, drip-drip, drip, drip-drip, crying until her eyes were dry with the bath to her back, holding herself and hiccupping with dying sobs. She'd collected herself and hurried to the office afterward, racing to the basement she shared with Mulder. She'd thrown herself into his arms and he'd held her, confused but reassuring and so warm and solid, until she was steady again, patting her on the back in that strange way that Protestants did. 'Thankyou,' she'd said simply afterward, and he'd smiled and led her to her seat, and sat her down, got out the next file and just carried on as if nothing untoward or embarrassing had ever happened. That was Mulder. That was his strength.

'One of the really interesting things was the part about walking them down, day after day,' Mulder was saying, drawing her back to the present. 'Your will conquering their instincts. It's a fascinating thing, peering into the mind of a hunter.' He stared thoughtfully into the dark unseen ceiling.

She gave him an intense but unreadable look over her straw. 'Aaand – ?' she prompted when he said nothing else.

'Well… I don't know about bears, Scully. No prints from a large animal and no animal hairs from a bear, or say a cougar found. At least so far.'

Her heart sank. 'You checked?'

He shrugged. 'I called in about the trace material while I was in the bathroom. Nothing like that reported – yet. It doesn't mean that it wasn't a bear. We'll know once the manhunt is mounted; the dogs will go wild.' He put down his last rib, tucked in his bib, produced his cell phone with two clean fingers and placed it on the table.

'Who are you calling, Mulder?'

Mulder pointed to her cheek; it was stained with a little fleck of barbeque sauce, which she wiped away. 'Well, I've been thinking about our little interloper problem, Scully,' he said with the gravity of a Bond villain, 'And I've decided that two can play the conspiracy game.' He produced the card he'd stolen from McCarthy, dialed and set the speaker to 'on'.

Long rings trailed out and then there was a click. 'Special Agent Cooper,' said a gruff voice.

Mulder grinned at Scully. 'This is Agent Fox Mulder. Special Agent Alex Cooper?'

'Just said that,' the voice grunted busily. There was the swish of papers in the background. 'What can I do for you, Agent Mulder?'

Mulder stared into the phone as if he could see through the long phone line to the other receiver. Older man, heavyset, he thought. A man working the same office for too long, comfortable in his role, a little jaded. He could almost see the man, bulky and with a jaw dark with five-o-clock shadow. 'My partner and I are working a case in Sedaia, Colorado.'

'Ah-huh,' said the voice disinterestedly. More papers being shuffled.

'A pair of disappearances, Miranda Hearns and Jacob Dryer. Does that sound familiar?'

'Hearns and… wait.' The paper shuffling ceased. 'Agent Mulder? What – where the hell are Thayer and Stanley? What are you doing there?'

'My partner and I are working the cases,' Mulder reiterated with a superior grin to Scully. 'They're related, no doubt.'

'Who assigned you?' the voice shot back.

'We were assigned through NCAVC and STB, seconded to BAU.'

'Why wasn't I notified about this?!' the voice barked. 'Who put you on these cases? Who exactly?'

Mulder grin began to evaporate. This wasn't going according to his script. He gave it the second barrel: 'The Assistant Director's office. AD Walter Skinner.'

Skinner's name did not back Cooper down. 'Skinner? Why is FBI-AD assigning agents to our cases? Thayer and Stanley were station-loaned by Denver SAC via Glenwood Springs. I know, because I was the one who loaned them!'

'Sir, BAU overrides field office,' Mulder retorted, sensing that he was losing control.

The voice became coldly indignant. 'Are you telling me that your BAU overrides my SAC?'

'Er – well I think so, sir.' In fact, the pre-emption of BAU over local offices was a little vague at times. 'If BAU doesn't go before SAC, then NCAVC certainly does,' Mulder ventured.

'Now look here sonny,' the voice snarled back in rising anger, 'Thayer and Stanley are on loan from Denver SO, who assigned them provisionally through CID and CIRG! SAC goes over BAU to everyone that matters, and your NCAVC might pre-empt SAC but not CIRG and never CID, not in all my days at the Bureau!'

Is that true? Mulder mouthed frantically to Scully but she shrugged helplessly.

'And how the AD can assign you through NCAVC… well, I'll never know!' Cooper stormed on. 'You hear this, Agent Mulder: I don't mind you prowling around my cases but do not, repeat not interfere with my boys or I'll be all over ID until they kick it right up to OPR!'

'But – ' said Mulder.

'Are we straight on this conversation, son?' Cooper barked.

'But – ' said Mulder.

The line was dead.

'Go well?' Scully inquired dryly.

Mulder considered long and well as he quietly put away his phone, rubbing his jaw. 'Well, this was a lucky break,' he said after a moment.

Scully almost snorted. 'How so?' she said, coughing.

Mulder's dry smile returned and he plucked up his moist lemon-scented towelette like a laurel wreath. 'They're not taking our angle. It's just field office sniping. Just the same old Bureau politics.' Mulder leaned back with a happy sigh. 'Back in the saddle, Scully. Back in the saddle.'

A little outside Sioux Falls, Bobby Singer slammed down the phone labeled FBI, scratching himself over his white undershirt and Bermuda shorts. 'Damn nerve of that punk, calling NCAVC on my CID!' he grumbled. 'Don't know what they're teaching these kids these days!'

He went to the stove, took his fried eggs out of the pan and sat down to read the rest of the newspaper.

END Chapter 4