AN: This is a little like my take on the episode "Aubrey" and, in fact, could be read as a companion piece or "sequel" to that story. It can also be read alone. It's just a sort of "what if" rewrite of the episode "Irresistible" from Season 2 (which is how far I've made it, so far, in my first watch of this incredible show). I wanted to play with the characters, and this is what resulted. Like my story, "Aubrey," this is likely to have a few parts to it to explore different aspects of the episode. I will warn you that I'm playing fast and loose with canon.

I own nothing from The X-Files.

If you decide to read, I hope you enjoy. Let me know what you think!

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"It's a moot point, Mulder," Dana Scully said.

Fox Mulder pocketed the keys to the motel room in Minneapolis. It wasn't the nicest motel room they'd ever been in, but it wasn't the worst, either. This time, at least, they had gotten one room, with one bed, and they'd done so without feeling like they had to hide that at all.

"You know, the original meaning of moot point would mean that it's open to discussion or debate," Mulder offered. "It's only the more current use of the word—which is almost a vulgarism, really—that gives the word the meaning that things are irrelevant and, therefore, not really up for debate."

Scully tipped her head at him. He caught the faintest glimpse of an eye roll. She was doing her best to pretend, for just this precise moment, that she hated him, but he saw through it.

Scully didn't hate him. She loved him. She'd admitted as much previously, and she still did, at least once a day. He'd confessed his love to her when he'd almost lost her, recently. He'd gotten her back—after a disappearance that had been almost unbearably long, and after everyone else had given up on her—and he'd decided that there was no need in pretending that his feelings for her weren't what they clearly were. He hadn't wanted to postpone telling her how he felt. Losing her had really reminded him how quickly things could happen, and how quickly someone you expected to always be there could simply be gone forever.

They'd only just informed the bureau of their romantic relationship which, chronologically speaking, was still in the earliest stages of being official. There was no rule against interoffice relationships, but there had absolutely been a few frowns around the table. It didn't matter, Mulder and Scully were both accustomed to seeing more than their fair share of disapproving glances at work.

Now they were on another case, together, as partners—of both the romantic and the office variety.

There was more to be told about their story; more to be shared with everyone, but Scully wasn't ready to share everything yet.

"You're only concerned with semantics, Mulder, when you're not getting your way with something." Scully let herself into the rental car that had brought them from the airport to the motel to drop off their belongings. Mulder walked around the car and let himself into the driver's side.

"I just don't think you can call our child a moot point, Scully," Mulder said with a laugh. "At least—not in the way that you're attempting to use the word."

"At this moment, Mulder, our child is a hormonal fluctuation in my blood work, a newly-registering heartbeat on a sonogram machine, and a…a smudge on a piece of film that you said looked like an alien," Scully said.

"Your mother didn't mean that," Mulder offered, amused, and leaning somewhat in Scully's direction for her benefit and, hopefully, to bring a smile to her face. "And neither did I."

"Mulder, the hearing hasn't developed yet," Scully said.

"I thought you were happy about this. Just—tell me, Scully, if you're not happy."

"You know I'm happy. I'm very happy. We've been through this. It's just that eighty percent of miscarriages happen in the first trimester. Even though there's confirmed viability, and a heartbeat, there's still a ten percent chance of miscarriage at this point."

"That doesn't make it a moot point," Mulder contributed. He glanced at the piece of paper where he'd scribbled directions from the motel to the cemetery. He hadn't yet committed the directions to memory—something he was usually good at doing on the spur of the moment—but it was a straight enough shot.

"It's a moot point about how we're going to tell our families, and when we're going to make an announcement at the bureau, when I'm only at seven weeks of gestation," Scully responded. She reached for the piece of paper, pulled it out of Mulder's hand, and scanned the directions. She leaned up to look through the windshield. "This is Sycamore," she said. "Turn right at the stop sign."

"You win, Scully," Mulder ceded. "For now, we keep the news of our little alien between us, or we share it on a need to know basis. But I do think we need to start thinking about how we're going to tell everyone when the time comes."

"That's fine," Scully ceded. Whether or not she'd be ready to actually discuss it any time soon, Mulder had no way of knowing, but at least she was acknowledging her intention to meet him somewhere near the middle. "You never told me what this case is about."

"The desecration of corpses," Mulder said. "I left the file in the motel room for now."

"Why is that an X-File?" Scully asked.

"It may not be, but we've been assigned to it anyway. Agent Moe Bocks is meeting us at the cemetery. He's going to fill us in on his thoughts on the whole thing. He mentioned that he believes that there are some extraterrestrial possibilities, but he wasn't too specific." Scully eyed him. He swallowed back his amusement. Most of the time, he could read her expressions like a book at this point. "Do I turn soon?"

"We haven't reached the road yet," Scully said. "We're looking for Washington. I have to admit, it sounds like you're already dismissing the involvement of extraterrestrials, and that's not like you, Mulder."

Mulder laughed to himself. He pointed at the road sign ahead.

"Washington," he announced. "You're slipping, Scully. I'm not dismissing the possibility of extraterrestrials, but I'm also not banking on this being more than a case of simple grave robbing and corpse desecration."

"Trying not to get your hopes up?" Scully teased.

"Something like that. There's the cemetery. And I'm assuming that—will be Agent Bocks." Mulder parked the car, and was halfway around the front of it when Scully closed her car door. Agent Moe Bocks met them, hand outstretched toward Mulder, before they could ascend the hill toward the grave where the agent had been keeping a sort of vigil while he wanted for them.

"Agent Bocks," he said as Mulder took his hand.

"I'm Agent Mulder, and this is Agent Scully," Mulder offered. He waited until polite exchanges had taken place, and then he gestured toward the grave. Without the need of anything more, Agent Bocks led them up the hill.

"This kind of thing is terrible," Agent Bocks lamented, clearly distraught over what had happened. "This kind of desecration when one should be resting in peace…it's horrible."

As they approached, Bocks mumbled a few more things about knowing the victim and her family. He lamented that things like this could happen to good people. For the most part, though, Mulder blocked out the words that his brain instinctively knew had nothing to do with actually solving the case. Mulder looked at the body. The hair on the corpse's head was clearly cut off in a style not chosen by the deceased. The fingernails had been removed. Those were the most obvious signs of damage done to the corpse.

"Hair and fingernails," Mulder mused.

"It's an abomination," Bocks mumbled.

"Why would someone do that?" Scully asked. Mulder knew, immediately, that it was something of a rhetorical question. Scully's background would offer her quite a few plausible explanations for the motives behind this kind of desecration. The very fact that she'd asked the question, coupled with the fact that she'd blanched at least a shade or two paler than usual, told Mulder immediately that she'd been disturbed by what she'd seen.

Anyone, of course, would be disturbed by the sight, but they were more accustomed to such things than the average citizen, who didn't deal with X-Files on a daily basis, would be. Of course, their seven-week-old little secret had already proven itself to be a critic of their line of work along with certain varieties of food.

"Are you OK, Scully?" Mulder asked.

"I'm fine," Scully mumbled. "It's just…"

"It's shocking to anyone," Bocks supplied, saving Scully from having to offer any kind of explanation of her feelings. Scully backed away, putting a little distance between herself and the corpse, and Mulder thought that might be for the best.

"It's shocking, I'll give you that," Mulder said to Bocks, "but I don't know why you would believe there's extraterrestrial involvement."

"The removal of certain parts of the body," Bocks said. "They say it's for testing. We've seen it in a few local cases with cattle, and there's some strong belief that it's tied to extraterrestrial activity. Alien body snatchers."

Mulder stifled his amusement. He didn't want to insult Bocks.

"I don't know about the cattle situation," Mulder offered, "and that might be something to look into at a later date, but I don't think this is extraterrestrial activity. The removal of certain parts of the body—and in particular of the hair and fingernails—is almost classically the mark of a fetishist. I suggest we search the area for footprints and start working on a profile for this person. Chances are, they'll do the same thing again. Fetishists are often collectors, and they're seldom satisfied with the size of their collection for long. Start looking into local mortuaries and morgues. See if they've reported any unusual activity or people hanging around. And let us know if anything else comes up."

"You'll be staying in the area?" Bocks asked, following Scully and Mulder down the hill and back toward their car.

"We're staying at the East End motel," Mulder supplied. "You've got my number, too, if you think of anything. I'll contact you as soon as I've got a bit more of a profile to work from."

As soon as they were both in the car, and both buckled in, Mulder felt it was safe to speak candidly with Scully.

"Are you OK, Scully?"

"I feel like I should be asking you that. You dismissed the possibility of extraterrestrials without even considering it."

"It's a classic case of fetishism," Mulder said. "There's nothing there to even insinuate alien involvement. Please stop ignoring my question. Are you OK?"

"I'm fine, Mulder," Scully said. "I guess—I was disturbed. Like Bocks said. I'm honestly surprised that you weren't more bothered by the condition of the body."

"I've had time to prepare myself," Mulder offered. "Bocks told me it was the desecration of a corpse before we left Washington. I'd like us to start putting together some preliminary thoughts on locating this fetishist. Do you feel up to looking for some lunch? We'll pick something up and take it back to the motel to work?"

Scully gave him a nod of her head.

"I'm fine, really," she said. "And—even though I'm not sure this constitutes as an X-File, I'd like to know that we're able to stop this person before this kind of activity gets out of hand."

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It had just rained. Whether it was the rain on the corpses or some odor rising up from the nearby surroundings, the smell around the bodies was particularly pungent and not at all pleasant. Mulder frowned at the bodies, but he didn't find their appearance at all surprising.

Scully had walked rather confidently toward the uncovered bodies, but she'd stopped dead in her tracks as soon as they were both visible. Mulder looked at her, out of instinct, the moment she stopped her forward steps. She blanched, and backed away, putting a little space between herself and the corpses.

"Excuse me," Mulder said to Bocks. He walked to Scully and, catching her gently by the shoulder, he turned her so that she'd follow him a few steps away from Bocks and the other law enforcement officers that had gathered at the scene. He kept his voice low and his face close to Scully. "Are you OK?" He asked, feeling like he'd asked her that an inordinate amount of times that day. "Is it the…uh…is it the thing?"

She looked almost relieved. A hint of a smile replaced the expression of slight suffering that she had been wearing.

"The thing?" She asked. Mulder was pretty sure he saw a twinkle in her eye, for a half a second, over the idea of giving him a hard time. He'd let her have it if it made her feel better. He offered her a smile.

"The thing," he said. "Our thing. The little alien."

Scully shook her head and shrugged.

"I don't know," she said. "I mean—I guess it probably is." She seemed to think about it a second, and then she responded a bit more confidently. "That's all it is."

"It's OK, you know?" Mulder offered. "A lot of people find this too hard to stomach. Especially when they're not used to it."

"I've dealt with corpses before, Mulder. It's not like I'm not used to seeing bodies," Scully said with a touch of annoyance. "I'm fine, really. It's probably just…like you said. I'll be fine."

"You don't have to examine the bodies," Mulder offered. "I can handle that."

"We'll need to discuss it," Scully said. "They're going to be counting on us to offer a solid profile for this person. And whoever it is? They need to be stopped. Besides—I need to see the bodies for my own report."

"There's no shame in admitting if you need a break," Mulder said, but he didn't push Scully any further. She returned, at his side, to look at the corpses. He cast a few glances in her direction. At a look, he could see that her breathing was a little heavy, her eyes were a little wider than normal, and her skin was a little paler than usual—these were all to be expected, though, if she was having a hard time coming to terms with what she was seeing. She didn't say anything else, and she didn't back away from the scene, but she also didn't contribute much to the field discussion of the corpses.

It was Mulder who ticked off the things that they could immediately see and assume to be true—both victims had had their hair cut and their fingernails removed. The desecration of these corpses was in keeping with the desecration of the previous corpse. All of the corpses had belonged to young women, so it was probable that they were looking for a male who wanted his trophies to come from specific types of bodies. It was likely that the suspect had done this before, so they should begin calling neighboring towns and areas—extending their search—to see if anything like this had been reported elsewhere.

Mulder offered his other concern, too, to Bocks, just before he left with Scully to go back to the motel and work on their reports and the profile for their probable suspect.

It was entirely possible that this person, whoever they may be, would soon find that there was a shortage of fresh bodies, fitting their specific requirements, to exhume from their graves and desecrate. Upon finding themselves without a ready source of trophies, it was probable that they would begin to murder to feed their fetish. And, once the person had experienced the thrill of killing a chosen person to gather their trophies, it was likely that they wouldn't hesitate to kill again.

They needed to figure out who they were looking for, and they needed to find this person as quickly as possible. Otherwise, it was highly likely that no attractive woman in the vicinity was safe for very long before the fetishist found the need for a new body to harvest.

For Mulder, who happened to have a woman he considered quite beautiful as a partner, and as the mother of his unborn child—insignificant as their little one may seem at this point—there was a certain sense of urgency behind making sure that this person was found, and dealt with, before they could begin to claim lives.