Part 1 of 2

The Navy Captain looked at the two young JAG officers
standing before him. Lt. Commander Harm Rabb and Major Sarah MacKenzie. Rabb had a reputation of being a bit of a hothead, but Mac was all Marine.

"You've been apprised of the situation, officers?"

"Yes, sir," answered Rabb. "But I'm afraid this sort
of thing is a bit out of our jurisdiction. The
unexplained nature of the deaths leave us at a bit of
a loss as to how to proceed."

"I realize that," the Captain replied. "That's why I
contacted an old buddy of mine. We worked together in
'Nam, when he was a Marine and I was a Seal. He's now
an Assistant Director at the F.B.I. It seems they have a small division that specializes in these sort of cases. Two agents from the division will be joining you on the investigation."

"Their names, sir?" Mac asked.

"A Special Agent Fox Mulder and a Special Agent. .
.Dana Scully. That's odd."

"What, sir?"

"We have a Lieutenant Charles Scully on board. And
Walter mentioned that one of the agents is from a
Naval family. I wonder if they're related." The
Captain flipped an intercom and asked for Lieutenant
Charles Scully to report to his quarters.


A few minutes later a handsome young Naval officer
appeared. He was in his early 30s and just slightly
below average height. "Sir?" he asked after saluting
smartly.

"Lieutenant, these are JAG officers who are
investigating some of the unusual circumstances aboard ship. Lt. Commander Rabb and Major MacKenzie."

"Sir. Ma'am," the officer responded, but seemed
slightly puzzled.

"The officers will be assisted by two F.B.I. agents
who have some experience in these sort of matters,"
the Captain said, then watched understanding dawn on
the younger officer's face. "One of the agents has the same last name as you do. Are you related to a Special Agent Dana Scully?"

The Lieutenant gave a brief smile and replied. "My
sister, sir."

"Are you familiar with her partner, Special Agent Fox
Mulder?"

"My brother-in-law, sir."

"The agents are married to each other?" Rabb asked. "I didn't think the F.B.I. permitted agents in the same division to marry each other, any more than the
military allowed marriages between officers in the
same chain of command."

"Permission to speak freely, sir?" the Lieutenant
asked.

"Lieutenant, we'd be quite pleased if you'd explain
the situation. I was under the same impression as Lt.
Commander Rabb," the Captain replied.

Charles cleared his throat and began. "My sister and
Agent Mulder have worked together as partners for
several years. They only got married a few months ago. Like you, sirs, I had assumed that one or both of them would have to be reassigned because of the marriage. However, while the F.B.I. does have policies similar to the military when it comes to marriages among its personnel, apparently individual supervisors have a bit more leeway when it comes to granting exemptions to those policies. Dana and Mulder investigate cases that, from what I gather, nobody else in the bureau particularly wants to take on or is as well-qualified to deal with. So their boss granted them a temporary exemption to the policy prohibiting married couples from working as partners. As I understand it, one of the conditions of their continued partnership was that they maintain a certain amount of discretion as to the exact nature of their personal relationship. My sister hasn't changed her name, they don't wear their wedding
rings while at work and they refrain from public
displays of affection. Their immediate supervisor
knows of their marriage, of course, as do a couple of
other bureau employees, but it's not widely-known.
Dana said it's similar to the military's "don't ask,
don't tell" policy. She and her husband never lie
about their personal relationship, but they don't make a point of advertising it, either."

"Apart from their personal relationship, what can you
tell us about their professional background?" Mac
asked.

"Dana's a medical doctor; a forensic pathologist,"
Charles said. "She does a lot of lab work, autopsies,
things like that. Before she joined the X-Files, she
taught out at Quantico. Mulder's a psychologist;
specifically, a profiler."

"According to his supervisor, he's one of the best -
quite possibly THE best - profiler the bureau has,"
the Captain added.

"So between them," Rabb said slowly, "they ought to be able to figure out not only what's causing these
deaths, but who or at least why?"

"That's what we're hoping," the Captain agreed.

"About my mentioning their personal relationship,"
Charles said. "If it's all the same to you, I think
perhaps they'd prefer it if you didn't bring that up,
sir."

"I'm not sure they would want me to behave as if I
have no knowledge of their marriage, Lieutenant,
especially if they're newlyweds. After all, they may
be on board the ship for as long as a week. You know
your sister and her husband better than I do, of
course, but don't you think they'd prefer to be
assigned married couple quarters?"

"Yes, sir," Charles answered, biting back a small
smile. Unlike his older brother Bill, Charles approved of the changes in attitude Mulder had brought about in his sister. Dana had always been so prim and proper, unlike the easy-going Melissa. With her husband, she tended to relax more.

"One more question, Lieutenant," Mac said.

"Ma'am?"

"I noticed that when you were talking about them, you
referred to your sister by her first name but your
brother-in-law by his last name. Why is that?"

"He prefers it, ma'am. I think the only people he
allows to call him "Fox" are Dana and our mother and
his own mother. Even Dana calls him Mulder sometimes.
I mean, they use last names exclusively when they're
working, but she calls him by his last name sometimes
even in their off hours."

"Sounds a little like someone I know," Harm drawled
with a twinkling glance at Mac. She didn't bother to
point out that *he* was the only one who insisted on
calling her "Mac" rather than "Sarah".

In a rented car pulling out of the parking lot of a
Florida airport, Scully's cell phone rang. "Scully,"
she said as she answered.

After a minute or so of her saying, "Yes, sir," and
"Yes, I did know that was my brother's ship" and "I
see, sir," she hung up.'

"What was that all about?" Mulder asked as he pulled
onto an interstate.

"Skinner. It appears we're busted, so to speak."

"What do you mean?"

"Remember, I told you it was Charles' ship."

"Yeah. So?"

"Well, apparently the Captain picked up on the fact
that we had the same last name and called Charles in
to give him and the JAG officers some background on
us. Charles gave them ALL the information he had;
regarding both our professional backgrounds and our
personal relationship."

"You mean he let it slip that we're married?"

"Yep."

"Is that going to be a problem?"

"Skinner didn't seem to think so. I got the impression that he was more amused by the situation than anything else," Scully replied. "Besides, the fact that most everybody involved knows that we're married will have some advantages."

"Such as?"

"Mulder, it's a ship! They don't have rooms with
connecting doors, like most of the motels we stay in.
And who knows how long we'll be on it? We'll most
likely be assigned officers' quarters, which means two to a room. If they didn't know we're married, you'd most like be sharing quarters with a Naval officer and I'd probably be bunking with the female half of the JAG team. Since they know we're married."

"We'll get to share?"

"Hopefully," Scully said with a smile. She reached up
and unfastened the longer of the two necklaces she
wore. It held their wedding rings, which she usually
wore suspended between her breasts during their
working hours. Now she slipped hers on and then
reached over and slid the other one onto her husband's outstretched hand.

Mulder and  Scully flashed their I.D. and were waved
into the Naval base and given directions toward the
chopper pad.

"Gee, being welcomed  onto a military base is kind of
a different feeling," Mulder said.

"We didn't have to sneak onto the base when we spent
Christmas with Bill and Tara," Scully pointed out.

"Yeah," agreed her husband, "but can you actually say
Bill made me feel welcome?"

Scully giggled a little at that. Bill had reluctantly
come to terms with his younger sister's marriage, but
she doubted he would ever really like  Mulder. "Well,
this is Charles' ship we're going to."

"He's my favorite brother-in-law."

"That would make Bill your second favorite. You only
have two."

"Not necessarily. You know I believe Samantha's still
alive, somewhere. If she's married, then I'd probably
prefer her husband's company over Bill's."

Scully sighed and rolled her eyes.

Luckily, the chopper ride didn't last long. The ship
was only about a dozen miles out to sea. It had
originally been slated to dock today, but the Captain
had decided not to pull into port until a cause for
the deaths on board could be determined; it was
possible some or all of the crew would need to
quarantined. Even the brief ride left Mulder green
around the gills. It had taken Scully a long time to
realize that the reason Mulder almost always insisted
on driving was not due to some latent male chauvinism
lurking in his psyche, but was because he often got
car sick when someone else was behind the wheel. He
had the same reaction to helicopters and small boats.
He handled jets all right, though, so she was willing
to bet the relatively smooth sailing of a large
aircraft carrier wouldn't disturb him, either.

The F.B.I. agents were shown into the Captain's
quarters and introduced to the JAG officers.

"Agent Mulder, Agent Scully, this is Lt. Commander
Harm Rabb and Major Sarah MacKenzie; officers, this is Special Agent Fox Mulder and Special Agent Dana
Scully. I trust the four of you will work well
together," the Captain said. "I'll leave you now, so
you can compare notes."

Mulder reached out to shake hands first with the other man, then with the woman. Scully completed the process in reverse, murmuring, "Pleased to meet you."

Mac allowed herself the tiniest of smiles after
shaking hands with the agents. It was the look in
Mulder's eyes, rather than the ring on his finger,
that shouted "married!" Mac wasn't vain, but as a
woman in what was still predominantly a man's world,
she was used to catching at least a flicker of
interest in the majority of men with whom she came in
contact. This man, however, seemed more interested in
making sure Harm wasn't taking an undue interest in
Scully.

Harm caught the look Mulder was giving him and kept
his handshake with Scully so brief it was barely
cordial. Must be nice to be able to be so openly
possessive of your partner and know you weren't going
to get your ass chewed out for it, he thought.

"What are we dealing with here?" Mulder asked. "The
only thing our boss told us was mysterious deaths."

"I don't know that we can tell you much more," Harm
replied. "There have been four deaths aboard this
vessel in the past ten days. All young, apparently
healthy Sailors. So far, the Navy docs have been
unable to determine a cause of death; they've been
ruled suspicious, which is where we come in. But it's
possible there is some yet-to-be determined organic
cause for them."

"I notice that all the fatalities are men," Scully
said. "Aren't there women on the ship as well?"

"Yes," answered Mac, "but they comprise barely 20
percent of the crew. I don't think we can necessarily
assume that all the victims will continue to be men.
It's quite possible that, statistically, it just so
happened that the first four were men."

"What are the other similarities among the dead men?"
Mulder asked.

"Only the sort of similarities that you'd find among
nearly all the Sailors on the ship," Harm answered.
"Three were white; one was black. They were all
roughly in the same age group: mid-20s to early 30s.
All were unmarried; three were single, one divorced."

"Were the four of them close friends? Had they
recently gone on shore leave together or anything?"
Scully inquired.

"It doesn't say," Mac replied, scanning her notes.
"Why?"

"Well, it's just an emerging theory at this point,"
Scully said, "but my first assumption would be that
they ingested some sort of slow-acting toxin. It
couldn't be something they ate or drank here on ship,
or you'd be dealing with a plethora of deaths, not
just a few. But if they all went to the same
restaurant or bar while they were on shore leave, that could account for it."

"The deaths have occurred over a period of more than a week," Harm pointed out. "Wouldn't that rule out
something all of them ate at the same time?"

"Not necessarily," Scully said. "It could depend on
how much they ate, their weights, their metabolism; a
lot of different factors that would vary by
individual."

"Let me see those autopsy reports again," Mulder said, reaching across the table. He scanned the documents quickly, then nodded. "I think you're onto something, Scully. The first victim had the lowest weight of all of them, and the latest victim was the heaviest."

A knock on the door interrupted them. It was Charles
and, after he had greeted Dana and Mulder, he said, "I know you're working; I just dropped by to say hello. I'll leave now."

"Unless you have pressing duty, Lieutenant, we'd
appreciate it if you'd stay," Harm said. "We're going
to have to begin interviewing the Sailors aboard ship
sometime soon, and as long as you're here we might as
well start with you."

"Harm, certainly you're not planning on interviewing
all 4,000 of the ship's personnel!" Mac exclaimed.

"That would be about a thousand for each of us,"
Mulder drawled. "If we managed thirty interviews a
day, we'd be finished sometime about the middle of
next month."

Harm snorted. "Of course I'm not planning on talking
to everyone. But we might as well ask the Lieutenant
if he knew any of the victims."

Dana handed her brother the list. He scanned it
quickly and pointed to one of the names. "This one,
for sure. He was one of the mechanics on the crew that serviced my plane. I don't recognize any of the other names and none of them were officers, so I wouldn't have fraternized with them. That's not to say I didn't pass them on the corridors or on deck; I probably did and I might recognize their faces if I saw them."

"Charles, is there anything  you can tell us about the victim you knew?" Dana asked. "Where he was from, what kind of food he liked, what kind of music he liked, whether he was hot-tempered or easy-going, talkative or quiet!"

"Any insight you could give us into his personality
would help," Mulder agreed. "It would also help if you happen to be aware of the last time and place he had shore leave."

"I really didn't know him well; he was a competent
mechanic with a good attitude," Charles replied. "But
I can find the crew chief and bring him here; he was
the Sailor's direct supervisor and would be able to
tell you a lot more about his personal life."

"Please do so, Lieutenant," Mac said. "Scully," she
said and Charles and Dana both said, "Yes?"

"Why don't you just call me Dana," Dana suggested.
"Otherwise, we're going to confuse ourselves, dealing
with two people named Scully."

"Good idea," Mac replied. "You and Mulder can call me
Sarah or Mac; either one is fine."

"So long as nobody suggests calling me Fox," Mulder
put in.

"We already heard from your brother-in-law about your
aversion to your first name," Harm replied. 

Soon after Charles left, the Captain returned.
"There's been another death. Agent Scully, could we
prevail upon you to perform the autopsy?"

"I'll be happy to," Dana agreed. "Mulder, why don't
you and the JAG officers meet me down there in a
couple of hours? Maybe I'll have some answers for you, or at least be able to give you some idea of what sort of questions we should be asking."

"Sounds good," Mulder agreed.

Several hours later, Mulder and Charles met up with
Dana in the ship's sick bay. "Where are Mac and her
partner?" Dana asked.

"I left them interviewing some of the Sailors who knew the victims," Mulder replied. "We're going to meet up and compare notes over dinner."

"Dinner's in less than an hour," Charles added. "I'll
show the two of you to your quarters. Dana, do you
think you'll be able to eat?"

"Sure, I'm starved. Why?"

"I just wondered," her brother mumbled. "Since you
just did the autopsy and all."

Dana laughed softly and replied. "I'm sorry if I sound insensitive, Chuck, but if I didn't have a stomach strong enough to hold down food after performing an autopsy, I'd have starved to death long before now."

"It never bothers you?"

"Occasionally it does," Dana answered with a sigh. "If the death has been especially brutal or if the victim is a child. But this one was more puzzling than gory."

"Okay, well, here you are," Charles said, gesturing to a door. "I had a Seaman bring in your bags. It's not the Hilton, but it'll have to do."

"Compared to some of the places we've stayed over the
years, I'm sure it will be fine," Mulder said.

When they had entered the room, however, he gave a
gulp of disbelief. "Scully, it has separate twin beds! I feel like I just walked into a rerun of 'The Dick Van Dyke Show'!"

She giggled at that. "Oh, shall we go back to calling
each other Rob and Laura Petrie?" she asked, giving
the surname the pronunciation they'd used when they'd
gone undercover as a married couple before they were
actually married.

"Oh, you're funny! How are we going to sleep?"

"You figure that out! I'm going to take a quick shower before we meet the JAG officers for dinner."

A few minutes later, she emerged from the tiny
bathroom wrapped in a skimpy towel. Chuck was right,
she mused, the Hilton it wasn't. Of course, Mulder was right, too. Compared to some of the places she and her husband had stayed over the years, an aircraft carrier wasn't bad. At least everything was clean.

"Want a backrub?" Mulder asked moving to stand behind
her.  He ran his hands gently down her arms and bent
his head to kiss her neck.

"Mmm. Maybe. But *after* I put my clothes on. You tend to get distracted easily."

"Scully, my powers of concentration are legendary. I
do *not* get distracted easily!"

Dana didn't argue, she simply smiled at him and
dropped the towel, then walked slowly over to her
suitcase, where she bent down to remove a clean
outfit. "You were saying?" she murmured, looking up at her husband.

"That I get distracted easily," he replied.

As soon as Scully was dressed, however, there was a
knock at the door. She and Mulder  exchanged quick
"maybe later" smiles as she went to open it. Mac was
standing outside waiting for them.

"Come on," Mac said to the agents. "Harm and I
discovered something in the interviews that we want to see if you think jibes with what you found during the autopsy."

Over dinner, Mac and Harm explained what they had
discovered. All five of the victims had shared one key characteristic. While the majority of the Sailors on board tended to prefer American food and looked for a McDonald's or the nearest equivalent wherever they had shore leave, these five were budding gourmets who tended to seek out the most exotic native cuisine they could find.

"We've established that the first and third victims
were buddies; it's almost certain that they probably
went to the same restaurant together," Harm said. "We
haven't actually linked the other three yet, but it
seems likely that they might have frequented the same
establishment."

"But wouldn't the food have passed through their
digestive systems long before now?" Mulder asked.

"Not necessarily," Scully replied. "Traces elements
cans sometime linger for weeks. Perhaps something they ate later, on board, acted as a catalyst. It's
possible for two substances that are each harmless
alone to react in such a way that they become toxic
when mixed together."

"Here's another idea," Mac said. "What if they brought something edible back to the ship with them? A box of candy or something like that they've been nibbling on ever since."

"It's a thought," Mulder agreed. "Do you think that
after dinner we could get permission from the Captain
to search the Sailors' belongings? If Mac's right, we
might actually find some of the food still in their
quarters."

"And now that I have a clue as to what I might be
looking for, I can go back and run some tests," Scully said.

It was late when Scully finally returned to the
temporary quarters she and Mulder had been assigned,
but her husband wasn't in yet. She knew he was
somewhere on the ship, probably with the JAG officers. She'd spent the last few hours hunched over a microscope. Now that she was almost certain she was
looking for some sort of toxin, she had been able to
fine tune her search. And she'd found a strange
substance in the bloodwork of all five victims. Scully rolled her shoulders, remembering Mulder's previous offer of a backrub. Where was that man and his magic fingers when she really needed him?

Scully had changed into her nightshirt and was
brushing her teeth when she heard the outer door open. "Mulder? Is that you?"

"You were expecting, maybe, some Flyboy Sailor,
Scully?"

"What did you and the JAG officers discover?"

"Something that may be significant. We found a
matchbook from the same restaurant in two of the
Sailors' rooms. So far it's the best lead we have. The restaurant is located in the port where the ship last docked."

"Good. What's our next move?"

"We're meeting Mac and Harm in," Mulder stretched his
arm and looked at his watch, "slightly less than six
hours to discuss that. We decided that all of us
needed some sleep so we could think straight before
formulating strategy."

Mulder moved toward the bed where his suitcase was
located and began undressing. Scully sat down to
watch. She'd never thought of herself as being
particularly easy to arouse visually - most women
weren't - but seeing her husband take off his clothes
was something she never grew tired of. Mulder caught
her watching and grinned. She smiled back, refusing to be embarrassed by the fact that she enjoyed the sight of her husband's body.

When he was down to his heather gray boxer-briefs,
Mulder crossed the room and kissed her.  Long, slow
and deep. Scully had assumed that after a few months
of marriage, including sleeping together every night,
that simply being kissed by Mulder would lose its
effect on her. But that hadn't happened yet.

"You need a backrub," Mulder informed her when they
finally came up for air.

"I'm fine, Mulder."

"Trust me, Scully. You *need* a backrub."

"Um, okay," she said. Scully stretched out on her
stomach on one of the narrow beds, while Mulder
flicked out the lights. She felt him settle down on
her, straddling her hips but distributing his weight
evenly between his knees and her bottom so as not to
press too heavily upon her. Then she felt his hands on the tight muscles knotted between her shoulder blades.

As Mulder's fingers worked out her aches, Scully gave
a soft moan of pleasure. While the massage was making
her practically grow limp, it was having exactly the
opposite effect on her husband - or at least on one
part of his anatomy!

"You know, Mulder," she murmured, "this feels really
good. But I think it would feel even better if your
fingers were directly on my skin."

"Think so, huh?" he said, leaning down to whisper into her ear. "That could probably be arranged."

Scully shifted her hips so that Mulder could pull the
satiny material of her sleep shirt free and run his
fingers up the bare skin of her back. Mulder smiled as he settled down more comfortably into his former
position. The sleep shirt Scully wore when they
traveled on bureau business was demure enough, but
she never wore anything under it!

Once he could tell that her muscles were relaxed,
Mulder changed his touch from a massage to a caress.
He brushed his fingertips lightly down the sides of
her breasts, eliciting a sigh of pleasure from his
wife.

Mulder leaned down to kiss her, rubbing his arousal
against her at the same time.

"Wanna roll over?" he murmured.

"No," she whispered back.

"No?" he asked, confused and disappointed. If Dana
really wasn't in the mood he wouldn't push her, of
course, and they had had a long day. But, except for
the few nights of the month when nature demanded they
take a break, this was the first time she'd ever told
him no.

Sensing his confusion, Scully slid her hand to the
back of his neck and pulled him down for another kiss. "What I meant," she clarified, "is that this position is fine."

"You're sure?" he asked, slightly surprised. Normally
she preferred a position where they were face-to-face. They'd made love like this a few times before, but usually only as a a sort of "second helping" on long, lazy afternoons when they'd already climaxed another way and had worked up the stamina to try again. She certainly never been the one to *suggest* this way before .

"Mmmhmm," she murmured.

Mulder slid off her body just long enough to remove
his shorts, then resumed his former position. He
placed one hand alongside her head to steady himself
and used the other hand to lift her hips just a little so he could ease into her body. He gave a low groan of pleasure as he slipped in. She was so hot and so wet. And so incredibly tight, especially from this angle. He moved his fingers purposefully just about the spot where they were joined and heard her answering whimper of desire. Their climaxes came quickly, for both of them.

After a few minutes of afterglow cuddling and kissing, Dana felt her husband slide off the bed and heard him slip his shorts back on, then cross the room. She stifled a sigh. She supposed there really wasn't room for both of them in this bed, but having him leave - even if it was only to the other side of the room - so soon after their lovemaking was mildly disappointing. A moment later she was swooped up into his arms.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"To the other bed," he said with a smile she could
sense even in the darkness. "No wet spot."

"Are you sure they'll be room for both of us to sleep
comfortably?"

"I'm sure of one thing," he said, settling down on his back with his wife half to the side and half on top of him, "I won't be able to sleep at all if you're way over there."

"I love you," she whispered against his skin.

"Love you, too. G'night."

Mac and Harm stood on the bridge of the ship, at the
point where they'd agreed to meet the F.B.I. agents.
"They're late," Mac said, stating the obvious.

"Maybe they got lost," Harm suggested. "After all,
it's a big ship, and they're not Navy officers or even Marines. It's not like they could have gone far."

"I doubt they got lost, Harm," Mac said, rolling her
eyes. Personally, she was wondering if Agent Scully
had found a new development so startling that she'd
dragged Mulder down to the lab and forgotten all about their appointment with the JAG officers.

"Maybe they decided to go for a morner," Harm offered.

"What's a 'morner'?" Mac asked.

"Like a nooner, only sooner," Harm replied.

It took Mac a moment to get the joke, then she swatted Harm lightly on the arm. "You're one sick puppy, Sailor!"

"Why? All I suggested was that, as a married couple,
the agents might be indulging in. . .marital
relations. That makes me sick?"

"Shh! Here they come," Mac answered.