DISCLAIMER JAZZ: "The X-Files" and its characters are the 
creations and property of the fabled Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen 
Productions and Fox Broadcasting. I am, of course, using them 
without permission. No copyright infringement is intended. All 
other concepts or ideas herein are mine.
RATING: NC-17
SPOILERS: Through US season 7
ARCHIVE: ONLY ON THE AUTHOR'S OWN WEBSITE 
(http://rowan_d.tripod.com/elizabethr.html) UNTIL STORY IS 
COMPLETED. This way I can mess with the early parts as later 
parts develop...
TIMELINE: Though this takes place sometime after "all things", in 
this universe "Requiem" did NOT happen...


"Water's Edge"
by 
Elizabeth Rowandale <bstrbabs@earthlink.net>
Copyright (c) 2003


Chapter 14b


"I dream of rain
I dream of gardens in the desert sand
I wake in pain
I dream of love as time runs through my hand"
        --Sting, "Desert Rose"



She cut her finger fixing dinner.  Slipped on the cutting board 
and slashed her flesh along with the tomato.  The wound wasn't 
serious, wasn't emergency room deep, but the blood was 
unexpectedly plentiful, and Daniel was touchingly attentive, 
doctorly and loving in equal measure.  Scully's first reaction 
was to duck his attentions--"I'm fine, Daniel, it's just a cut"--
and turn her back on him as she washed off the wound at the sink.  
But he pressed her, gently, firmly, and she let her defenses slip 
a bit.  He caught her off guard and she was forced to look at how 
distant she had become over the years, and how easily Mulder had 
let her get away with it.  She was cut.  He was a doctor who 
loved her.  Was it so hard to let him bandage her finger?

Yes.

But she tried.

Dinner was good, comforting.  Missing meals was so easy when life 
was all about work.  Kissing Daniel for ten minutes backed 
against the kitchen counter was good, as well, though it still 
felt surreal.  But the human contact, skin on skin and breath to 
breath and blood in her veins was a welcome affirmation against 
the lifeless flesh in the pictures on the coffee table.  But it 
made it harder to stay numb.  She went back to work after dinner 
while Daniel settled at his massive roll-top desk to grade 
papers.  She talked to Michaels on the phone twice, brain-
storming, comparing notes and sharing theories.  His daughter was 
screaming in the background, protesting bath time and the 
approach of bed.  She wondered how he balanced that with the 
violence that surrounded their lives.

Scully would have traded with that little girl in a second.  By 
ten o'clock her eyes were closing against her will, and she was 
resting her forehead on her hands atop a toxicology report.

She gave in for the night and changed for bed.  She kissed Daniel 
goodnight, lingering in the instant heat between them.  He said 
he would follow her soon, but she knew he would stay behind until 
she was sleeping, make certain she got her rest.  She saw the 
medical journal slipped in on top of the stack of papers he had 
to finish grading that night, saw the topic of the research, and 
knew he would be awake for some time to come.  In his own way, he 
could be as compulsive as she.

Her eyes closed almost before her head touched the satin pillow 
slip.  Her last thoughts were of the feel of the knife pressing 
into her skin, the almost shocking sting at the tip against the 
smooth coolness of the length.  This triggered a sensory memory 
of another knife, another night, long ago.  She lay down 
remembering, fell asleep wrapped in the memory, and the memory 
became a dream.  And the dream brought the memory to life.


**Stupid mistake by a rookie, life or death for everyone else in 
the room.

An evidence bag left too close to a prisoner's hands.  One quick 
flash and she's on her back across an interrogation table with 
his heavy bulk on top of her and his heavy stench in her 
nostrils, and the fucking knife is pressing into her throat.

Tick-tock.  Nobody shoot, or the pretty red-headed agent might 
get her throat sliced.  Tick-tock--let's watch while the 
psychopath runs his hands wherever he wants to, grabs the pretty 
lady's crotch and fondles her breasts through her thin silk 
blouse.

Half an hour later and the incident's long over, and the fucker 
is back in his self-made prison.  It's business as usual in the 
Jersey station house.

Except that Scully's standing in the dinginess of the 3am public 
ladies room, with a washed up neck and no good reason not to be 
back in the bull pen; except she's shaking, and she can't get the 
smell of his hands off her skin.

She'll be fine in a minute.

Mulder comes to look for her.  Because he always does, sooner or 
later, and more often later.  And with his usual nerve, he steps 
right into the women's bathroom.

She wants to shout at him, and she wants to ask him to hold her.  
And what transpires is somewhere in between.

And in the end, he draws the backs of his artist's fingers 
feather-light down the side of her face.

And she doesn't move, but something inside her melts and warms.

And the moment hangs in the air for her, and she has never felt 
so intimately comforted in all her days.  She's standing in a 
trashy blue-lit bathroom, and his fingers are caressing her soul.

Mulder...MULDER!!

She's being dragged across her apartment floor, and she can't 
reach the phone, it's just beyond her fingers.  Mulder's just 
beyond her fingers and she's never needed anyone so much...

MUULLLLDDDEERRRR!!!!

She's on her back again with her weapon raised, and everything 
she's ever believed is blurring like watercolors as she loses 
trust of her senses and freezes in the sights of the demon above 
her.  And the next thing she knows it's all over, and she's in 
Mulder's arms.  Crying in Mulder's arms.  Mulder's arms.  She's 
never been there before, not like this, and she hates her own 
weakness, but she's so warm and he smells so peaceful, and 
nothing has ever felt like this before and she doesn't want to 
let go...

MULDER!!

"Scully?"**


"Mulder!"

She gasped for breath.  Her lungs pulled at the air like the 
lifeline it was.  She was disoriented, lost so far back in time 
that she couldn't equate with the option of Daniel's apartment, 
that this was where she had fallen asleep.

Mulder was on her skin; she could smell him in her tousled hair.  
Her Mulder.  Everywhere.  Everywhere and nowhere.  And it was 
like remembering herself and her life and everything in her world 
she had tried to forget and desperately needed to remember.  A 
thousand paranoid days and motel room nights, a thousand touches 
and lingering looks, a thousand words and commitments and 
arguments and comforts.  Sunflower seed shells on the car seat 
and a blackened rose petal on the edge of his desk.  Chases 
through shadowed streets and standing in one another's breath and 
long fingers on the small of her back and broken air conditioning 
in rental cars and everything, everything in the world falling 
into place.

The hand hit her back and she didn't know whose it was; only that 
it wasn't Mulder.

"Don't touch me!" Scully pushed away and sat up in the dark.  
Reality blurring into focus around her, cutting into the images 
of her dream like mixed television signals.  Daniel's room.  
Daniel's four poster bed.  Daniel's apartment.  Daniel's voice.

"Dana, what is it?  Were you dreaming?  Darling, talk to me."

She was gasping for breath, skin flushed hot, tears tightening 
her throat.  She couldn't turn around.

*Don't touch me, don't touch me, don't touch.*

*"You were my constant...my touchstone."*

*Mulder, did I hear your voice...?*

"Dana, what is it?  What's wrong, Sweetheart?"  She felt the 
shift of weight on the mattress behind her.  She pulled up her 
legs, rested her arms on her knees.  She couldn't get the ground 
to steady beneath her.

The more air she could pull in, the more she was moving back to 
the present.

Daniel's fingers moved like a soft breeze down her spine.  She 
stiffened, but didn't pull away.  Mulder's fingers burned on her 
cheek, the dream-memory a thousand times more vivid than anything 
she could know in her waking hours, and she wanted to close her 
eyes and never let it go.

Daniels fingers traced their gentle pattern down the length of 
her spine.  Silent, soothing.  *Come back to me*, he was asking.  
She couldn't move.  An insistent wind swirled against the bedroom 
window.

"Dana?"

She cleared her throat, testing her voice. She was so short of 
breath, as though the wind were rushing through her skin.  "It 
was...something that happened on a case...a long time ago."

His fingers continued their delicate caress, rippling gooseflesh 
across her back.  "Someone hurt you?"

She nodded.  "A knife at my throat.  Touched me."

Daniel pushed forward, close to her, and his sleep-warmed hands 
rose to cup her face, smooth her hair.  She turned with his 
touch, breath close to his in the dark.  She couldn't lift her 
eyes.  Every muscle trembled.

"I'm so sorry, Sweetheart.  But you're okay, now.  You're here.  
You're safe."

Scully nodded, adrenaline rushing through her unwillingly dormant 
limbs.

Daniel stroked her cheek, kissed her forehead.  He remained near, 
face to face, pulling her into the present.  A gentle coaxing 
hand urged her focus to meet his.  She swallowed hard.

"Look at me," he whispered.

She gave fleeting eye contact, unable to keep still, offering the 
connection.

"You're okay.  I'm here.  I'm not going to let anyone hurt you."

She nodded stiffly, started to let him in, started to let his 
deep baritone resonate through her and soothe her tremulous 
nerves.  And inevitably, with that, her vision blurred into 
tears.  But her tears alleviated none of the confusion, the fear; 
did nothing to dispel the desperate memory or the voices ringing 
in her head.

She followed the warmth of Daniel's body back to the shelter of 
the bed, nestled close against him, the silk sheets cool against 
the thin sheen of dampness on her skin.

"Hush, Baby.  You're safe."

Daniel.  Her friend.  Her lover.  The man she had invited into 
her bed.

*Mulder...why did you leave me?*


*****


Daniel held his love close, her back tight against his chest.  
Every inch of her delicate body quivered against his as she 
denied her tears.  Fragments, words, phrases--he had gotten 
nothing from her to offer a clear picture of what hurt.  But he 
could guess the framework.  And he could ask the rest in the 
morning.  For tonight, he gave her the safety of his arms.  And 
for as long as she wanted that, it was hers.  He'd never seen her 
so afraid, not even in her younger, more naive days.  It hit him 
in the gut like a sucker-punch.  He didn't realize how much he 
relied on her strength, her solidity, to keep his own faith in 
the stability of the universe.  Even when he had only felt her 
presence from a distance.

Gradually, Dana quieted, relaxed into his touch.  Her breathing 
slowed and steadied.  In time his gentle comforting touches 
drifted unconsciously into caresses.  His hand moved from the 
rigid muscles of her stomach to the soft roundness of her 
breasts.  She sighed and shifted beneath his touch, her body 
opening to him.  As it always had.  In the end they made love.  
No words, just gentle touches and lingering gazes.  And by the 
time they were near to sleep once again, the wall Dana had lifted 
between them had shattered and fallen, and Daniel felt whole once 
again, connected to his other half as he had always needed to be.

*Sleep, my Pretty Lady.  Sleep and be safe.*


*****


Scully hit the office like a hurricane, visibly startling 
Michaels.  He stood at the X-Files cabinets, suit jacket off and 
shirts sleeves rolled to his elbows.

She snapped the papers in her hand.  "They've got it."

"Got what?" Michaels asked, instantly alert, shoving the cabinet 
drawer closed as he turned.

"The fingerprint lab.  It was tiny and extremely obscure, but 
they pulled a print matching Miranda Lockheart's off the insole 
of Talia Carson's shoe."

"You're kidding me."

Scully shook her head.  "I wish I were.  Get on the phone now, 
and get security at the hospital to watch her until we can get 
there."

Michael's was quick to task.  He was on the phone almost before 
Scully could catch her breath.  This was it, this was the break 
they needed.  The answers had been lying beneath their fingers 
for days and they hadn't been able to see them.  It had been too 
easy to believe that Miranda Lockheart was nothing more than a 
victim of a hard life, that she had had the best of intentions 
and never wanted anyone to die.  But Scully should have learned 
by now never to suspect the best of people, at least where her 
work was involved.

"Yeah, I'll hold."  Michaels grabbed her gaze and spoke over the 
top of the receiver.  "She can't be our killer.  Miranda 
Lockheart was still under 24 hour guard at the hospital when 
Donna Flaners died."

"I know.  But now we know she was there with Talia Carson.  And 
she first contacted us not 48 hours after Talia's time of death.  
That tells me she may very well have witnessed the murder if not 
taken part in it.  And that she didn't want it to happen again."

"You think she was present at the previous killings?  All along?"

Scully shook her head briskly.  "No way to know, unless the 
fingerprint lab finds anything else.”

The hospital picked up again on the other end of the phone line, 
and Michaels flipped the mouthpiece into place.  "Yes.  What?  
Say that again.  Jesus, you're kidding me."  He looked up and 
caught Scully's seeking expression.  She lifted her eyebrows, but 
he was still speaking only to the voice on the other end of the 
line.  "How the hell does that--what time?...All right, yes we 
will.  Thank you."

Michaels slammed down the phone, and combed his fingers through 
his hair, turning away.  "Fuck," he breathed.

"What?  Let's get over there." Her voice was a little sharp, even 
to her own ears, but she knew there was something off, and her 
adrenaline was running, primed for the approaching showdown.

Michaels spun back to face her.  "Miranda Lockheart's not at the 
hospital anymore."

"Excuse me?"

"She disappeared sometime between 3am bed check and 7am 
breakfast.  Security has no idea how."

Scully just stared at him for a moment, thoughts whirling, 
information mingling and tangling.  Then, "Of course she is...." 
she breathed.

Michaels eyes narrowed, his brows drew close.  "You lost me."

Scully's lids slipped to half-mast and she drew a slow breath, 
her voice deepening with her spirits.  "Because he's done 
stalking his next victim.  He's ready to move in, so...he needs 
his accomplice back."

"You know, Lady, I was a lot happier before you showed up here 
just now."


*****


They had been in the car over six hours, and Michaels was barely 
keeping his eyelids raised above the steering wheel.

Scully was gazing out over the brief expanse of street they had 
memorized two hours ago.  "He's not coming back here," she said 
softly, not really directing her words toward her partner.

Michaels answered anyway, because there was nothing else to do.  
"I know that.  You know that.  But until we come up with 
something better, this is the standard tack, right?  Stakeout all 
the previous crime scenes?  So, here we sit."

"They're not even crime scenes.  We don't know any of the crime 
scenes, only the sites where the bodies were found.  None of them 
were found where they were killed."

"Again.  I know that.  You know that...."

Scully gave an exasperated sigh, and pushed up in her seat, 
cutting short his words.  "We're wasting our time, waiting for a 
woman to die."

Michaels set down his empty coffee cup and turned to face his 
partner.  "You've worked with A.D. Skinner quite a while, right?"

Scully nodded, distracted.

"So...this is his call.  24 hour watch on all the crime sce--or, 
locations the bodies were found.  You don't agree with him?"

"He's doing the best he can, going on all we've got, and falling 
back on textbook procedure.  But, the point is, we haven't got 
enough."

"We've got what the killer's given us.  Which is very little.  
I'd say we're doing pretty darn good, considering."

"We had his accomplice, and we let her go."  Scully turned to 
face him directly now, anger pulsing off of her like heat.  But 
he was only standing in the crossfire, knew he wasn't the target.  
"How is that good?"

Michaels shook his head.  "Shit happens, Dana.  We did our job, 
fate played against the system this time.  We're still in the 
game.  We've got everybody in the tri-state area looking for the 
Lockheart woman.  We're compiling the evidence, lining everything 
up by the book to make certain we've got an air tight case when 
this guy goes on trial.  We do our best from here forward, that's 
all we can ask."

Scully studied him for several beats.  He tried not to flinch 
beneath her scrutiny, but she was a tough opponent in a staring 
contest.  He'd seen the Assistant Director break eye contact 
first on more than one occasion.  At last, Scully dropped her 
gaze to her lap, watching her left thumb play over the back of 
her right hand.  "I admire your beliefs," she said slowly.  "You 
seem to have a solid hold on the world.  Good for you."

"You serious?"

"Yes, I'm serious.  Why, did you think I was mocking you?"  She 
looked up at him, utterly sincere.

Michaels couldn't suppress an incredulous laugh.  "Dana, do you 
not realize that pretty much no one in the Bureau knows what 
you're thinking at any given time?  Do I need to go over the 
'poker face' thing again and invite you once more to join the 
weekly game, or--"

"You're not 'the Bureau', Gannon, you're my partner."

That stopped him.  "Well, that's true.  And when it comes to 
work, yes, I do think I have a much better hold on where you 
might be going with things than the other agents.  But, when we 
started this, we were talking philosophy, personal 
responsibility...  That's a whole different area."

Scully was quiet for a long time.  As usual, he had very little 
sense of what was running through her mind.  She hooked her hair 
behind her ear, pushed back further into the corner of the door 
and the seat back.

Normally, he would have returned to work at this point, letting 
her speak again or not as she might choose.  But they were stuck 
in this car for at least another hour, and he had finished the 
crossword, the word jumble, and the chess challenger half an hour 
ago.  "So, how is this doctor friend of yours?" he asked.  "You 
two are still...?"

Scully looked up, seeming to have moved on entirely from their 
previous exchange.  She kept her gaze forward through the 
windshield, but there was an edge of mild, guarded amusement in 
her expression.  "We are still together, yes."

Michaels smiled.  "Now you said this was an old boyfriend going 
around again, right?"

Scully nodded slowly.  "That would be correct."

"How far back are we talkin' here?"

She drew a deliberate breath before responding.  "Med-school, 
actually."

"Oooh, quite a ways back, then.  Serious that time?"

"Yeah, I'd call it that."

"But...you split up for like, what, over a decade?  That must 
have been some blow-out?"

Scully hesitated a long beat, he could see the tension in her 
throat as she swallowed.  He was edging toward her boundary line.  
"The circumstances the first time were...less than ideal," she 
said at last.

"Ah.  Okay.  I'll take that, and know when to keep my nose in my 
own business."

Scully glanced toward him, and her expression was placating, 
meant to keep things warm between them, but not inviting further 
inquiry.

"What about you, you met Amanda in college, right?" she asked.

"I did.  But she thought I was a useless cowboy with an 
overactive John Wayne complex until several years after 
graduation."

To his surprise, Dana Scully laughed.

"Hey!"

But she kept smiling, genuinely amused.  As her mood softened, 
she said, sincerely, "She's a lovely woman.  I like her."
 
"That she is," Michaels agreed.  "I like her, too."

They fell into a comfortable silence.  And that in itself, was 
something worth noting.  The final hour of their shift didn't 
seem nearly so long.


*****


Daniel stepped into Scully's apartment hallway just as she was 
fishing through her pocket for her front door keys.  The bag of 
Chinese take-out was balanced on her arm, her briefcase handle 
hooked over her fingers, her laptop over her shoulder, and her 
mail in her free hand.

"Catch the Chinese," she said, by way of greeting, and Daniel 
grinned and grabbed the slightly greasy white bag.

"Lovely to see you, too," he said, helping her with the keys, and 
Scully smiled in return.

They made their way across the threshold and dropped their 
respective loads onto the dining room table.

"So, what is this I hear about two hours?" Daniel asked.

Scully looked up at him, cringing in apology.  "I'm sorry.  But 
we're kind of on a countdown right now, and, I'm here to eat and 
get cleaned up, and then I'm right back to the office."

Daniel lifted a strong hand to cup the side of her throat, placed 
a warm kiss on her cheek, her lips.  "When do you sleep?"

"I'll let you know when the opportunity arises."  She held his 
clear hazel eyes for a moment, drinking in the scent of his 
aftershave, feeling the familiar rush of comfort and butterflies 
that accompanied his nearness.  It was still foreign, this kind 
of intimacy, the right to such physical entanglement.  "God, 
Daniel, I'm sorry.  It's not always like this.  Sometimes we go 
for weeks with nothing but paperwork and the occasional bogus 
ghost story.  And right now, when I should have most of my 
attention focused on you..."

He rested a hand on her hip.  The gesture felt deeply good, 
supportive.  "It's okay, Dana.  You can't help the timing."

"No, I can't.  Well...I am the one who chose to call you, right 
in the middle of this case, but--"

"You called me when you wanted me.  There's no time more right 
than that."

"--but it's not okay.  I hate that so much of our time together 
lately has, by necessity, been about me.  It should be about you 
just as much right now."

"Dana, it's okay.  It has been about me.  I haven't felt 
neglected.  My life is fairly level at the moment, aside from 
throwing you into the mix.  I'm not very high needs right now.  
You've been here for me, I know that.  And there'll be plenty of 
time for the details when our lives settle down."

Scully studied him for a long minute, closed her hand over his on 
her hip bone, then nodded.  "Yeah.  Okay."  She squeezed his hand 
hard, then turned back to the dining table.

She snatched up the take-out bag and carried it to the kitchen.  
"Chopsticks or fork?"

"Fork, unless you want me to still be working on dinner at 
breakfast."

Scully shrugged and tossed him a playful glance.  "You'd be here 
when I get home, that way."

"You can bribe me with better fodder than Chinese food."

"Not on this amount of sleep."

Daniel chuckled softly and slipped out of his suit jacket, 
hanging it over the back of a dining room chair.  "Looks like 
you've got phone messages, want me to check it?"

Scully was stretching up to grab bowls from the upper cabinet 
shelf.  "Sure," she said, dropping her heels back to the kitchen 
floor.  She pulled the first cartons from the bag.

"I just hit 'Play All'?" he called from around the corner.

Scully was peeking beneath the folded carton corners, identifying 
and sorting contents.  "Yeah."  Then his words rang clear, and 
the truth hit her in the gut.  "No, wait--"  But she was cut off 
as Mulder's voice echoed through the apartment.

"Hey, Scully.  I got your message.  I'll try your cell.  You're 
probably still at the morgue, but I was hoping you hadn't gotten 
stuck there this late.  If I don't catch you, I just want to say 
thanks again for tagging along with me on this one.  I know you 
don't think this is really going to amount to anything worth our 
time, but you backed me up anyway, and I appreciate it.  
Especially, with Skinner on our backs, right now.  Okay, well, 
I'll try your cell."

The follow-up stillness was deafening.  Scully barely heard the 
brief message from her brother.  Something about Matthew's Easter 
gifts?  She was still standing at the counter, hands propped on 
the edge, gaze lowered.  She could feel Daniel watching her.

"He called you 'Scully'?" he said softly.

Scully swallowed hard, bounced her leg.  "Yeah," she said, hoping 
her tone didn't sound as cold as it felt.  But there were rules 
about that message.  Times it was allowed to be played.  It had, 
after all, been the last...

Her chest was quivering.

Daniel started to move toward her, and Scully straightened up, 
reaching again for the row of red and white cartons.  "You had 
the steamed rice, did you want chicken or beef?"

"Dana..."

She turned to face him.  "Chicken or beef?"

"Dana, I'm sorry..."

"It's fine.  Really.  Let's just eat."

"Dana, don't do that."

"Don't do what?"

"Shut me out."

Scully released a heavy breath through her nostrils, knowing he 
was nailing her at her game.  She set down the food carton and 
lifted her hands to her hips.  "I'm okay.  That was Mulder's last 
message.  I saved it.  I don't play it often."

Daniel nodded earnestly.  "I understand."  He reached out and 
touched her cheek.  "I'm sorry."  And this time his words brushed 
past the immediate scenario, speaking to her deeper loss.

She closed her eyes at Daniel's touch and hated how quickly her 
throat tightened at the mention of Mulder.  "I'm all right.  
Really," she said solidly.  She lifted her eyes and held Daniel's 
steady gaze.  She brushed her hand across his, glanced toward the 
food.  "How about you lay this out for us, I'm going to go get 
freshened up a bit."

Daniel nodded.  "You got it."

She offered him a small, genuine smile and stepped past him 
toward the hallway.

Scully slipped out of her suit jacket and tossed it onto her bed 
as she passed.  She began working the buttons of her blouse cuffs 
as she checked her appearance in the vanity mirror.  The bed was 
sweetly inviting, but that was a temptation she couldn't 
surrender to tonight.  Food and water were her only luxuries.  
And speaking of water.  She had meant only to splash off her face 
and change her clothes, but now the thought of a shower was 
pulling at her.  She called to the kitchen.  "Daniel?  How hungry 
are you?  Do you mind if I grab a quick shower before we eat?"

He didn't respond.  "Dan?"

Scully strolled back out of the bedroom, still worrying her last 
stubborn cuff button as she walked.  "Did you hear me?  Daniel?  
Do you mind if I get a shower before dinner?"

No reply.

She started to wonder if Daniel had gone back to the car for 
something.  She was one step from the dining room, when the 
closet door swung open and hit her like a tire iron.

A second later the black-clad arm was around her throat and the 
cold blade hard against her neck.  "You're the enemy now.  They 
did that to you.  And now you have to die."

Scully couldn't breathe.


*****


End Chapter 14b.  (Continued in Chapter 15a...)

AUTHOR'S NOTE: For some time I've had this half-finished short 
story on my hard drive about a night Mulder and Scully spent on a 
case in a Jersey station house.  I've yet to find the time to 
finish the piece for posting, but the story has, nonetheless, 
become a part of my frame of reference, and when a scene arose in 
Water's Edge that required a certain type of flashback, this 
incident from said story came quickly to mind.  The snag, of 
course, being, that I'm the only one who knows about it.:)  My 
intention was to finish this story and release it simultaneously 
with this chapter as a "companion piece".  However, I have not 
managed to finish the story yet, and I was going to just hold off 
posting this chapter of WE until--yeah, that's what I thought 
you'd say.:)  So...look for the companion story at some future 
date.<g>


Authors do Happy Dances when presented with feedback -- 
bstrbabs@earthlink.net