Erik - Chapter 2

Empathy: Do I dream again?
By Luan D. Lascy
Rating: PG, for language

It seemed pointless to put up the tree, nobody would see it anyway except
for her mother, who was visiting Bill Jr. and Company. And her brothers,
if they could bother themselves enough to come up to see her. But it
seemed an intrinsic part of the Christmas ceremony, like going to Mass,
and watching "It's A Wonderful Life" for the tenth time.

Without even needing to ask, she knew Mulder was doing the same thing,
and not necessarily because of their psychic connection. Ever since his
mom had preferred spending her holidays with a bottle of bourbon and a
photo album rather than Mulder, he'd stay at home for Christmas, dark
depression wrapped around him like a blanket.

Christmas was not necessarily Scully's favorite time, either. Too many
bad memories connected with it. Christmas was when she'd broken the
news to her father about going to Quantico, and the night she'd found
out Emily was her daughter, and of course the night Ahab had died, and
she'd been treated to a view of his ghost. . .

She jerked herself back to the present by biting down hard on a peanut
M&M from the bag in her hand and pulling the chenille afghan tighter
around herself. Nobody, even her mother, had guessed how badly she
still missed him. Mulder had come close a couple of times, but not
quite, thank God. The pain was more acute at Christmas, which made her
nearly as depressed as Mulder. She should prescribe Prozac for both of
them, she thought with a grin.

It was only ten-thirty, but her eyelids were already leaden. She fell
asleep with the final strains of "Auld Lang Syne".
@ @ @ @ @
dark

a dressing room.

a mirror.

a man rising out of it, like a shadow peeling itself from the wall.

dana.

who are you? Mulder?

who?

why was he communicating telepathically, if he wasn't mulder? panic
crept up her spine.

relax, i'm an angel.

an angel.

right. like gabriel and michael. behold, i bring tidings of great joy,
yada-yada-yada. your father told me you'd always wanted to sing. he
couldn't come himself, so i'm delivering his christmas present for him.

from ahab? wow. strange relief, then a letdown. but that was a long time
ago. i'm with the fbi now.

so? sing anyway.

the offer was tempting, she had tried to be a singer when she was
younger, but found herself utterly tone-deaf. i can't carry a tune to
save my life.

does that mean you can't, or you don't want to? pity, your father
thought you would enjoy this. i guess not.

guilt. all right, i'll bite. what do i do?

are you familiar with the phantom of the opera?

vaguely. i remember a song here or there.

all right. the song when they're going into the basement of the opera
house.

she opened her mouth and began singing -- a cracking wavering tune, but
a good start. euphoria flooded her, and not even the angel's good-
natured groan could keep it down.
@ @ @ @ @
Her eyes opened stiffly a few hours later. Her throat hurt from singing -
that or it was a sore throat coming on. She stretched and remembered
the last seconds of the dream:
<What do I call you?>
<Call me Ishmael.>

She experimentally sang a few bars of "Phantom":

"You alone can make my song take flight.
Help me make the music of the night."

Her voice was surprisingly clear, not scratchy as it tended to be when
she woke up. Was it her imagination, or did she really sound better?

Imagination. Had to be.

Watch it, Dana, you're turning into Mulder.

She laughed at the thought of herself asking green agents if they
believed in the existence of extraterrestrials, and stiffly got up to catch
up on the rest of the night's sleep in her bed instead of the couch.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
THREE MONTHS LATER. . .

Mulder looked into the file folder Skinner had given him, and groaned
with distaste. How was it the Assistant Director *always* managed to
call him up and gave him a mundane murder investigation that belonged in
a Hercule Poirot mystery right when he was thinking about starting
another X-file? The man must be psychic, Mulder decided. Great, now
they could open an X-file on Skinner.

He wasn't far from the door when he heard somebody singing in the
office:

"In sleep he sang to me, in dreams he came
That voice which calls to me and speaks my name
And do I dream again? For now I find
The Phantom of the Opera is there, inside my mind.

Sing once again with me our strange duet
My power over you grows stronger yet
And though you turn from me to glance behind
The Phantom of the Opera is there inside your mind

Mulder quietly opened the door to see Scully stuffing file folders into
cabinets, singing as she worked. Singing? Scully *singing*? Now there
was an X-file.

She had a nice voice, though. . .

"Those who have seen your face draw back in fear
I am the mask you wear. It's me they hear."

Mulder joined her in the next line.

"Your spirit and my voice in one combined. . . "

Scully whirled around to see Mulder standing in the doorway. "Geez,
Mulder, you almost gave me a heart attack!"

"Where'd you learn to sing like that?" he asked.

"Trade secrets," Scully smiled. "What did Skinner want to see you
for?"

"'He's sending us to *Ohio*," Mulder announced with a measure of
distaste. "To investigate the death of an actor who was hanged."

"Let me guess - by the understudy, who wanted to play the role
instead?" Scully asked, rolling her eyes. A mix of amusement and strange
euphoria flickered across her mind.

"Nope. The deceased *is* the understudy. And here's the freaky part -
he was understudying the Count de Chagny in 'Phantom of the Opera'.
That's supposedly a cursed part because the Phantom had a grudge against
the Coun-- hey, you all right? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Scully had blanched at the name of the musical. No. That was too much
of a coincidence. "Doesn't the play have a guy who was hung?"

Mulder thought a moment. "Yeah, I think. Piangi-something or other.
Why, you being visited by an Angel of Music or something?"

Scully appeared to be in serious confusion, registering in her mind as a
psychedelic tie-dye of dark green and blue. <Open mouth, insert foot,>
Mulder thought, mentally kicking himself. "What happened? Tell me."

"It's just so strange. . .I've been getting singing lessons from -
you're going to laugh," she accused.

"Moi?" Mulder gave her an innocent look. "Try me."

"An angel's been giving me singing lessons," Scully finished quickly.

Mulder nodded slowly, not laughing in the least. An odd mix of
skepticism and amusement rippled through him. "And this angel - has
he got a name?"

"He said to call him Ishmael."

He nodded slowly. "The Biblical outcast. Or if you're into American
Lit, Ishmael in _Moby Dick_."

"Don't start with the shrink act," Scully chastised.

"Your father died on Christmas, didn't he?" Mulder pressed, ignoring
her request.

A sharp spike of black pierced the green and blue. Evidently he'd
touched a raw spot. <I still miss him. A lot,> she admitted silently.
"But not enough to hallucinate an angel. I'm not imagining him because
of my father."

"I never said you were," Mulder said, flashing her the innocent look
again. "In fact, I think it's great. If you want to believe this
Ishmael is an angel, more power to you."

<Your confidence astounds me,> she thought dryly.

<Don't mention it.>
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
"They say it's a carbon copy of the Paris Opera House," Mulder told her
from the bottomless depths of his photographic memory. "Complete with
the basement and trapdoors. That's why the Gilman Acting Company's so
worried -- there's about two miles of tunnel for a killer to hide in,
and about ten million places he can pop up."

"Lovely," Scully grimaced. "I pity the actors."

"Amen to that."

The gilded, molded-plaster interior of the Columbus Opera House was
even more impressive than the outside. She'd been in the theater once
before, when visiting an old friend from Quantico who'd left to get
married in Ohio. They'd gone to see *Faust*, and Scully had been more
impressed with the show than with the theater.

However, this time around, the sixth sense she'd learned to use from her
telepathic connection with Mulder flared briefly. As they went into the
auditorium, she felt a strange energy in the air, like a lightning storm
brewing. There was an amazing amount of power in this place, she knew,
without quite knowing how. Mulder, being the stronger of the two in all
matters psychic, was physically shaken by the rush of energy.

<You all right?> Scully asked.

<Fine. . .I get the feeling that whatever's controlling the energy, it
hates my guts.>

<Really? Freaky.>

Aside from the initial shock of energy, they found nothing unusual. The
actors weren't rehearsing yet, so Mulder and Scully began inspecting the
stage. Scully was busy with the trapdoors when she heard a few chords
struck on the piano. Whirling around, she saw Mulder in the orchestra
pit, playing a song on the piano. "In all your fantasies you always
knew, that man and mystery were both in you. . . Come on, Scully, help
me out."

"Huh-uh. No free encores. Did you find anything?"

"Not a thing." Mulder was now plucking out "Chopsticks".

"Mulder, stop playing on the piano and help me out."

"You're no fun." Nonetheless "Chopsticks" ended abruptly.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Scully had wrapped up the body to send to a lab, and she would autopsy
it tomorrow. For now she just wanted to sit down in the auditorium and
listen to the actors practicing. Ever since Ishmael had begun his
singing lessons with her, she'd had a strange fascination with
'Phantom'. She'd requested that they work on the songs, in fact.

The woman playing Christine Daae was currently in the middle of the
"Angel of Music" duet with Meg Giry.

"Christine, you must have been dreaming
Stories like this can't come true. . ."

<Say, excellent chance to practice your part, isn't it?>

<Ishmael?!>

<Speaking. This is the next best thing for practicing to Paris Opera
House I could arrange. What do you think?>

<It's beautiful. But what's this about practicing?>

<Well, you've got to have practice if you're going to be the future
Christine, don't you? No time like the present, as they say.>

<Whoa, whoa, whoa. Who said anything about being Christine?>

Onstage, Christine was going into a solo.

"Angel of Music, guide and guardian
Grant to me your glory.
Angel of Music, hide no long--"

A croak emerged from her throat rather than "longer"

"What the hell was that?" the director shouted from the front row of
seats.

"The techies got it wrong," "Meg" said to nobody in particular. "That's
Carlotta's sound effect, not Christine's."

Christine was white as a sheet. "It wasn't the techies."

"Then *what*?"

"I don't know!"

The director sighed and threw his hands in the air. "All right. Take
it from 'Angel of Music'. And no frogs, please," he added pointedly.

"Angel of Mus-" CROAK! "Guide and guard-" CROAK!

Poor "Christine" seemed about to cry. "I'm sorry, Jack, really I am, I
don't know what happened. . ."

"All right, all right. Where's the understudy?"

<Left the building,> Ishmael threw in.

<*You're* doing all this?>

<What's the point of making her sound like a frog?>

<You'll see.>

The director sighed. "All right, Julia, take over for
Christine's part."

Julia/Meg sighed and rolled her eyes, but positioned herself in front of
the mirror.

"Angel of Music, guide and guardian
Grant to me your glory.
Angel of Music, hide no longer
Come to me, strange angel!"

The Phantom, minus hideous makeup, mask, and cape appeared in the
empty space where the mirror would later be placed, and began his solo:

"I am your Angel
Come to me Angel of Music"

Julia/Meg extended her arms, trance-like, and walked through the space
where the mirrors would be.

"LIGHTS!"

The room stage went dark for a while. "Come on, hurry up. In the real
thing you have three seconds max to get to the catwalks," the director's
voice called out.

A popping sound, and suddenly Scully was being dragged up a short flight
of stairs in the wings.

" 'Kay, we're ready," the man playing the Phantom called down.

Lights went up, revealing a twisting catwalk that was used in the next
scene. Scully stared down at the intimidating stage. <Ishmael?! What
the hell was that for?>

<What the hell,> she decided, and began singing.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Mulder had been going over the autopsy reports in the seat in front of
Scully, listening to her hum the music along with the singers. She
really was getting better. This Ishmael must be pretty good.

The singers had begun the title song, "Phantom of the Opera", the song
in which Mulder had discovered Scully's talent. The singer sounded an
awful lot like Scully, in fact. Small world.

He turned around to comment on this to her, and discovered with a shock
that she was on stage, singing and making her way down the catwalk with
the "Phantom", where the Julie girl should have been. His mouth dropped
open with astonishment. Dr. Dana Scully the Enigmatic, the Ice Queen,
singing "Phantom"? No way.

And how the hell did she get up on the stage so fast? He hadn't heard
her pass by him on the way to the stage. Must be an X-file.

He stopped thinking about how or why and listened to the song. She had
improved significantly since he'd heard the song last.

When the song was done, the director looked at Scully carefully and
asked, "You feeling all right, Julia?"

<Julia?>

<Hey, don't ask me. . .>

Scully quickly recovered and said, "No, I feel fine, why?"

"You sounded. . .different, that's all. Like your voice was lower. You
haven't gotten a sore throat or anything?"

"No," Scully repeated, raising her eyebrows.

The director shrugged. " 'Kay, people, let's call it a night."

Scully slowly got off the stage, looking shell-shocked. She slowly made
her way to where Mulder was sitting.

"Remind me to get in touch with you when I need to get somewhere fast,"
he said softly. "How did you get onstage so fast?"

"Ishmael." They both knew what she meant.

"Your singing instructor from a dream teleported you onstage?" He
couldn't keep the incredulity from his voice.

"Well, how else could I have gotten onstage so fast? How else could I
know when, where, and how to step? How else could I have been called
Julia by everybody but you? I was surprised you knew it was me onstage.
I thought you might assume I was Julia."

She had him there and he knew it. "So you not only have an Angel of
Music, you have a *psychic* Angel."

"Angels by definition tend to be psychic," Scully informed him. "And
I'd like to get out of here before Ishmael decides to display some more
angelic talents."

He agreed immediately, seeing the strange look in her eyes, and the
clock - it was 9:30. They gathered the abandoned autopsy report and
briefcases and walked out to the car.

Outside it was still chilly, being March, but it wasn't freezing -- in
fact, it was relatively warm, even for Ohio. Nonetheless Scully got the
shivers the minute they exited the building and never lost them the
whole way to the hotel, even though Mulder had the heater on. He
wondered briefly if she was catching the flu - the bug had been
circulating in the VC unit, anyway. But something told him it was
deeper than a virus.

He tucked her into bed as though she was a six-year-old child and sat by
her until she fell asleep and the shivers subsided. As he closed the door
connecting their rooms, he thought he heard her humming "Phantom".
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
"I am your Angel of Music.
Come to me, Angel of Music."

The low, hypnotic voice startled Mulder from his light doze. It sounded
eerily familiar from the rehearsal he and Scully had sat in on. And it
was coming from Scully's room, no less. . .

Things were adding up in a way he didn't like. He threw off the covers
and opened the connecting door in time to see Scully's arms, extended in
zombie fashion in front of her, passing *through* the full-length
mirror.

For a sickening second, it was not Scully and a mirror, but a black-
haired eight-year-old child and a window illuminated from the outside by
eerie colored lights. Would Scully, too, disappear too, never to be
seen again except in hellish nightmares?

He lunged after Scully, and was suddenly thrown off balance. He saw not
one Scully, but two, three, five, a dozen, all mocking his impotence.

Then they were all gone.

Mulder was left with nothing but an empty mirror, reflecting his own
anguish back at him.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
His eyes snapped open, and he stared around the room wildly for a second
before remembering. He had not awakened to the mesmerizing tones of
Scully's Ishmael, his own nightmare had woken him. He looked at the
clock - 1:36 AM. She was probably still asleep, out like a light. . .

He agonized for exactly eight minutes and 36 seconds before getting up
to make sure. He slowly opened the connecting door to Scully's room,
trying not to disturb the silence with a creak from the hinges.

Scully's bed was empty.

No. He was still dreaming.

He closed his eyes a moment, and opened them again.

Still empty.

Reaching out with his mind, he searched for Scully. Not a thing.

Oh God. Was it true, then? Had this Ishmael, her Angel of Music,
stolen her like the Phantom in the play?

The cell phone rang shrilly, startling him. Hope surged through him,
and he groped in his jacket pocket for the phone. It took four rings
with his shaking hands. <God, please don't let her think I'm asleep and
hang up. . .> "Mulder."

"It's me."

"Oh my God, Scully, where are you? You know how much you scared me?" he
asked sharply, relief giving his voice an edge.

"I'm in the Theater basement. Under the stage."

"What - how did you get there?"

"I don't know, Mulder." There was fear in her voice that he'd only heard
a few times, and it chilled him thoroughly. "I honestly don't know."
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Mulder took the stairs up to the entrance of the Theater by twos and
knocked heavily on the door. After a second, a harried-looking Scully
opened the door. Mulder rushed in and grabbed Scully by the shoulders,
as though to reassure himself that she was really there. "Mulder, calm
down, I'm not going to disappear anytime soon," she said, freeing her
shoulders from his iron grip.

He sighed and released her. "Sorry. I had an awful nightmare about
Ishmael taking you in Phantom-style, and then I woke up and you weren't
in your room. I nearly had a heart attack."

Scully's eyes clouded momentarily. "I'm still not sure how I got out of
there. All I know is that I dreamed that I was getting another singing
lesson, and suddenly I'm under the trapdoor for the stage. I found a
quarter on the floor and called you from a pay phone."

"You have any ideas?"

"I thought about it while I was waiting for you to come. You must have
driven like a Indy-500 driver; you barely gave me any time."

"Something like that." He was sure he'd broken every traffic regulation
in the book, and then some.

They were silent all the way to the hotel, when Scully suddenly turned to
Mulder and asked with curious intensity, "Mulder, you really think it
was Ishmael?"

Mulder had been mulling over the same thing. "The thought had crossed
my mind. I mean, if he could teleport you onto stage and put the -
whammy, for lack of a better word - on everybody except me, why not?"

"But *why*? I can't remember even dreaming about him, much less going
anywhere with him."

"Maybe he's in *love* with you. Dana and Ishmael, sittin' in a tree. . ."

Mulder ducked as the contents of the glove compartment went flying
towards his head.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Mulder had just gotten into bed when Scully opened the connecting door
again. "When I went to the bathroom, I found this in my pocket. She
gave him a piece of folded creamy white stationary, red ink bleeding
through the paper.

He warily opened it, and read it out loud. The note was written in red
script, in an old-fashioned hand.

"So, it is to be war between us? If these demands are not met, then a
disaster beyond your imagination will occur!"

"From 'Prima Donna'," Scully identified. "It's a line from the song."

"So are we dealing with a psycho, or are we dealing with a psycho?"
Mulder joked nervously.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
"What the HELL is this? Is this some kind of sick joke?"

Mulder and Scully jumped at the director's irate tone echoing through the
theater. They had decided that there would be less chance of foul play
if they stayed in the theater during rehearsals, and were seated in the
auditorium a few rows away from the stage, looking out of place in their
business suits among the casual jeans and T-shirts the actors wore for
rehearsals. The only thing remotely resembling a costume were the pointe
shoes worn by the "dancers" in the play, and occasionally the Phantom's
mask in significant scenes, like the ones where Christine would try to
tear it off.

"Raoul" had jumped down from the stage and was looking at the piece of
paper the director held in one hand. Though it was obvious he himself
wasn't psychic, both agents flinched from the force of his sudden panic.
Since his understudy had been killed, he was understandably more
paranoid than his fellow actors.

"Who the hell would write this?!" he asked indignantly to mask his fear,
as Mulder went to take a look at it.

The paper held the same formal red script Mulder had seen on last
night's note. The director read it out loud:

"First of all, the FBI agents are to remain for the duration of the
show. Second, Dana must play Christine at least five times. Third, I
must have $500 dollars in cash - convincing you skeptics is an
expensive task.

"I advise you to comply, my instructions should be clear
Remember, there are worse things than a shattered chandelier!
Yours truly, the Opera Ghost"

Unconsciously everybody reading the note looked up at the ornate crystal
chandelier with some trepidation. They breathed a collective sigh of
relief as the fixture appeared stable.

"Whose sick idea of humor is this?" the director repeated, with less
bluster than before. "Who's this Dana? And Opera Ghost?"

<Scully,> Mulder realized. Things were falling into place with
sickening regularity. Scully's Ishmael had somehow transported her
onstage last night, and had gotten everybody to think Scully was this
Julia character. He'd probably gotten Scully to the Theater in the dead
of the night, too. Now the notes quoting the play, and the strange
demands. It sounded almost exactly like the play itself, in fact.

"Maybe there's a real Phantom of the Opera," "Carlotta" said with a
smile. "This *is* 'Phantom' anyway."

"Not funny," the man playing Raoul said nervously.

"Oh stop being superstitious. It was just a joke."

"Sure, fine, whatever. You're not the one being stalked."

"Oh, save the melodrama for opening night. . ."

Scully's trademark line made him stop and look for her, half-expecting
to see her on the rafters, transported there by Ishmael. She was safely
ensconced in her seat, eyes glazed over, staring straight ahead. Visible
only to another psychic, a dark blob hung over her like a semi-
transparent shroud. For some reason, he was worried.

"You all right?" he asked, walking over to her.

"Fine," she answered. "Just talking to Ishmael."

"Talking to him?"

"He's a telepathic angel."

"Ah." He didn't question her. "The note was written by the Opera
Ghost," he told her, changing the subject. "He wants us to have tickets
for every 'Phantom' show while Gilman Company's acting in Columbus, and
he wants $500 in cash. Oh, and you have to play Christine in at least
five of the shows."

Scully's eyes opened wide. "That would be Ishmael again. I just talked
to him and he made noises about getting me in the play."

"Getting you in the play? I think it'd be a tough order even for an
angel."

Scully shrugged. "He'll probably find a way."

Mulder shuddered inwardly. <And that's what scares me.>
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
It was the final scene of Act I, where the Prima Donna Carlotta
continued to sing the part Phantom wanted for Christine, despite various threats
made by the Phantom. The techs were supposedly still getting the lighting
effects right - a man's silhouette in a spotlight was needed above the
chandelier, and they were improvising with a plain spotlight. However,
a few times a real silhouette was seen above the real chandelier. A few
of the dancers had given it a nervous glance, and "Raoul" had become
paper-white, but the general assumption was that somebody with the lights
had gotten creative and tried to help out, so rehearsal proceeded
without a hitch. "Carlotta" had sung the solo, complete with croaks in
the right places, no more or less than needed.

The Phantom was supposed to call, "She is singing to bring down the
chandelier!" However, when the cue came for the "Phantom", an
expectant silence hung over the theater.

"Hey! Phantom!" somebody hissed.

"Damn!" the director swore. "First Christine starts croaking, now this?!"

Julia, who played Meg, stomped into the wings. A few seconds later a
scream echoed through the theater.

Mulder and Scully climbed onto stage and went with the director to see
what had startled Julia. Mulder's eyes opened wide, and Scully said, "Oh
my God."

The "Phantom", complete with mask and cape, lay unconscious and
suspended five feet above the floor. Mulder was reminded a moment of
Samantha, lying motionless in midair in the Chilmark house, and wondered
fleetingly if aliens had plans for the "Phantom".

The director, who had caught up to them by then, came up to the "Phantom".
When the director touched him, the actor fell to the floor with a
sickening thump and awoke, groaning from the fall.

"Jesus, Mike! What happened?" the director asked, kneeling by the man.
Scully hurried over to check him for broken bones.

Mike waved Scully away, gasping for breath. "I'm okay, just winded," he
wheezed after a second.

"Can you tell us what happened?" Mulder asked.

The actor shook his head. "One second I'm waiting for Carrie's solo to
finish," he jerked his chin towards Carlotta, "and the next I'm down on
the ground, hurting like hell."

"No memory of levitating?"

"Not a one."

"Ishmael," Scully whispered.

Mulder raised his eyebrows.

"You mortals," a sepulchral voice scoffed, echoing through the theater.
"You're so damn hard to convince. You wouldn't know a divine hint if
one bit you on the ass. Especially *you*, Fox. Dana tells me you want
to believe, but you evidently don't want to believe that *she is singing
to bring down the chandelier*!"

A *clink* of metal. Mulder looked over to the auditorium to see the
chandelier wobbling ominously. The dancers screamed shrilly

and the chandelier came crashing down on the empty seats, where Mulder
and Scully had been sitting less than a minute ago.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Scully had been within an ace of bursting into tears all day after the
chandelier incident. The theater had been closed for repairs and would
be for at least a week. Mulder and Scully had been ordered to come back
to DC and declare the case unsolved. Scully felt partially responsible
for the whole fiasco.

And the other thing was that she'd actually been hoping Ishmael could
persuade the director to let her play Christine. Ishmael seemed to have
no lack of confidence in this matter he'd even begun teaching her the
spoken lines along with the songs. So far she had the lines up to the
"Music of the Night" scene down cold.

She hadn't told Mulder any of this; she saw no reason to, and if he
noticed Ishmael was speaking to her more often, he didn't let on. She
made no objection to going back to DC, though Ishmael had fumed about
it for an hour. Luckily she was able to block him out on the way home
and make small talk with Mulder.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
and in this labyrinth where night is blind

dana, i thought we'd finished with the cracking on the high notes.

sorry. my mind's been wandering.

look, i know you think the chandelier business is your fault. it's not.
don't worry, i had everything under control.

what do you mean?

did you really think i would inflict damage like that on a beautiful
theater like the columbus opera house without some sort of backup?
please, i have some sort of aesthetic appreciation, too. the chandelier
will be cleaned up by tomorrow morning, and the seats, etc. will be
repaired by the next day.

by tomorrow mulder and i are back in dc.

i'll find a way to take care of that, too. you don't get angelic powers
for nothing. now, what say we try that last verse again?

and in this labyrinth where night is blind,
the phantom of the opera is there, inside my mind. . .

excellent! sing, my angel of music!

he's there, the phantom of the operaaaaaaaaa. . .
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
"Hey, Scully!"

Pounding on the connecting door. She groaned loudly and croaked, "What
is it?"

Mulder opened the door and stopped short when he saw the covers pulled
up to Scully's chin. "Skinner called."

"How the hell does he know you're up at this ungodly hour of" she
squinted at the clock "five-thirty?"

"Great minds think alike."

She shielded her eyes from the harsh sun and raised herself on an elbow.
"So what, my mind is plain-Jane average because I get more than four
hours of sleep a night?"

"Something along those lines."

He dodged the pillow-turned-ballistic missile. "Well, don't you want to
hear what Skinner called for before you kill me?"

Her ears perked up at this. "What'd he say?"

"Orders from higher powers. We're supposed to stay in Columbus to find
the killer. Somebody at Gilman protested. Actor's guild something-or-
other."

Scully closed her eyes briefly. <Ishmael, you have achieved demi-god
status now.>

"Ishmael again," Mulder said, guessing the reason for Scully's silence.
He felt an insane jealousy, and managed to hide it from Scully.

"Right."

"And why do I get the feeling that's a bad thing?"
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Sure enough, construction workers found absolutely no trace of a
shattered chandelier in the Opera House the next morning. They let the
actors back into the theater, albeit after admonishing them not to step
inside the roped-off areas, as they had no idea how strong the floor
would be after a few hundred kilograms of gold and crystal had been
dropped from a height of a few hundred feet.

Neither Christine nor her understudy had come in that morning they
both complained they didn't feel safe now that this Opera Ghost had
threatened them. The director had cursed briefly at the nonexistent
actors.

<Ishmael, no.>

<Ah, why not? Who else is going to do it?>

She gave up trying to convince the angel and sat back to see how Ishmael
would handle this one.

The director seemed to be thinking about something. "Agent Scully, this
Opera Ghost seems to favor you. You know how to sing?"

"Ah, yes," Scully answered.

"You know the words to the songs for this?"

"Um, almost all of them."

" 'Kay, would you want to take over for Christine for today? Just until
we get the understudy?"

"Would I!" Scully replied, ecstatic.

"All right, let's run through the whole thing, no frills yet. Add the
lighting later."

<Ishmael, remind me to build you a shrine or two back in DC.>

<Just get out there and sing.>
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Mulder came back from the men's room to find Scully in the middle of
Christine's first solo, "Think Of Me". He was astonished by the sight,
but remembered Ishmael. <With that angel hanging around, the X-files
seem boring by comparison.>

Scully had improved dramatically from the time Ishmael had gotten her
onstage disguised as Julia. She hardly sounded like herself, in fact.
Grinning, he took a seat in one of the undamaged velvet seats and
watched the show, ignoring for once the apparent malevolent wishes of
the energy floating around the theater.
@@@@@@@@@@@@
<Right, left, step back, right again. . .>

<Geez, what is this, the foxtrot?> The basement scene had some
complicated footwork that nearly resembled a tango, and Ishmael was
trying to help Scully through it, though the director had said she could
just walk through it. Ishmael had insisted that she go through the
steps full-out, as practice. She thanked her stars for the five years
of ballet that had been forced upon her by a father trying to instill
some grace in his tomboyish daughter.

"Those who have seen your face draw back in fear
I am the mask you wear. . ."

Mike chimed in.

"It's me they hear.

My spirit and your voice, in one combined
The Phaaaantom of the Opera is there, inside your mind."

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Mulder grin at the verse they'd
sung together in the X-files office a week ago. Had it been so short a
time since they'd sung it in the basement of FBI Headquarters? It
seemed a lifetime.

She made it through the complicated, ultra-high solos without breaking
any windows, and she felt Ishmael's glow of approval in her mind. The
lines she'd stumbled over earlier in her dreams were sung perfectly.
Ishmael had taught her the remainder of Act I, for which she felt
immensely grateful now. She thought she knew "Masquerade", but Ishmael
promised to go over it with her in the next break.

"Masquerade" went all right, though she had a temporary memory lapse
during "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again". The rest of the songs
went all right, though she stumbled during the final number, which was
long and had several themes going at the same time. At one point,
Raoul, Christine, and Phantom were all singing different songs at the
same time, at different tempos. That section was a flop, and the
director finally said to skip it and move on.

Overall, not bad for her first rehearsal.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
"So Ishmael managed to get you to sing after all," Mulder grinned as he
drove in lieu of an exhausted Scully.

"I don't know if it was worth it," she replied hoarsely. She was sure to
wake up with no voice tomorrow. Then she'd really sound like Carlotta's
croaking frog.

Then again, "Christine" might be back tomorrow. Except for guiding
Scully along the more difficult bits of songs and dialogue, Ishmael had
kept to the sidelines. Maybe that would convince the actresses to come
back to work.

<Please. I don't need anybody's death on my conscience.>

<Riiiiight.>

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Mulder was poking around the theater, looking for these legendary secret
tunnels that he'd heard about. There was supposed to be a tunnel in
Christine's dressing room - it was in the book, anyway so he was
looking in all the dressing rooms. It was better than sticking around
the auditorium, anyway; the source of the energy, which had seemed on
the verge of eking out a tentative truce with Mulder, had gone back to
hating him full-time, and spending too much time in the theater made him
nauseous.

Dimly he heard the singers rehearsing a scene:

"Say you'll share with me your life, your lifetime.
Lead me, save me from my solitude.
Say you'll want me with you, here, beside you
Anywhere you go, let me go, too.
Christine, that's all I ask of . . . "

A scream he recognized as Julia's, which never failed to remind him of
the fateful message left on his answering machine when Duane Barry took
her. However, he knew she was in no danger here - it was part of the
scene.

"Christine" and her understudy had called in to say they weren't coming
back to the play. This left the role open for Scully, who gladly took
it. Her lack of experience didn't matter; with Ishmael around, they
would have taken her even if she couldn't sing to save her life. She'd
called the Bureau and taken a leave of absence for "personal reasons",
which nobody questioned. Either Skinner had more prescience than they
gave him credit for, or it was Ishmael again.

Mulder was still ambiguous about Ishmael. Part of him was happy for
Scully, and even slightly jealous of the talent that had appeared almost
overnight due to the angel's lessons. He didn't sit in on all the
rehearsals, he complained that it ruined the magic of the real thing,
but he didn't even attempt to solve the case that had brought them out
here to begin with, the murder of the Count de Chagny understudy. When
Scully had called in to take the leave of absence, the Bureau had
tacitly given Mulder the same privilege.

"Down once more to the dungeon of my black despair,
Down we plunge to the prison of my mind.
Down that path into darkness deep as hell . . . "

Mulder walked out of the dressing room and into another, slightly
closer to the stage. He could hear Scully's voice, somewhat softer:

"Have you gorged yourself at last in your lust for blood?"
Am I now to be prey for your lust for flesh?"

Nothing in this dressing room. It was monotonous as hell. Lace dresses
for Christine's costume, tutus for the "corps de ballet", about thirty
masks for the Phantom, but that was all. No secret passages, no hidden
tunnels, no trap-doors, no nothing. He went into the last room of the
row, the Phantom's dressing room.

"The face, which earned a mother's fear and loathing
My mask, my first unfeeling scrap of glory
Pity comes too late, turn around and face your fate
An eternity of this before your eyes."

The dressing room had a tuxedo and mask draped across a chair. In a
closet, he found a nearly-hidden door in the back of the closet. It
gave way with a touch, gliding smoothly as though across oil. It was
pitch-black, as though somebody had hung a black velvet curtain across
the doorway.

Feeling like Theseus in the Greek labyrinth, Mulder turned on a
flashlight and began walking the length of the passage. He must have
been somewhere behind the stage, because Scully's voice came through
the stone walls much more clearly now:

"This haunted face holds no horror for me now.
It's in your soul that the true distortion lies."

He'd turned a corner when the flashlight blinked and dimmed to black.
"Damn batteries." His voice echoed in the claustrophobic stone tunnel.
He turned around to go back, and found himself face-to-face with a head
of fire. It resembled a skull that had been dipped in kerosene and lit
on fire. Amazingly, it was not attached to a body. The flaming skull
sat suspended in midair as Mike the man playing "Phantom" had been
before the chandelier fell.

Mulder froze where he stood. He thought he'd gotten over the damn
phobia after Cecil L'Ively. Obviously not. Fire still brought back too
many memories of burning houses, nights spent in the smoking ruins, of
pyrokinetics, of buried cabooses in New Mexico. . .

He stopped his train of thought before he panicked entirely and lost his
head. He stood staring into the death's head, the empty eyes. Was this
Ishmael? he wondered, then dismissed the thought. Hadn't Scully said
something about dress clothes and a cape? Almost like the Phantom,
in fact. . .

The photographic memory, alternately a curse and a blessing, dredged up
a detail in "Phantom Of The Opera". The fireman had seen a floating
head of fire in the Opera House. Yup, this time it was definitely a curse.

"Ishmael?" he asked the head, feeling a little foolish.

<GET OUT.> The head never moved, but the voice boomed like a rock
concert in his mind. It moved out of the way, almost as if bowing, and
Mulder was too glad to oblige.

"Have to tell Scully to pass on the message - *I hate fire*," he
murmured to himself as he edged along the darkened passage to the bright
dressing room.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
"Monsieur, I bid you welcome
Did you think that I would harm her?
Why should I make her pay
For the sins that are your?. . ."

Over a week ago, the sore throat had passed miraculously overnight, and
Scully was singing with her usual gusto. The day after the first
rehearsal, she'd gotten the script and music, and Ishmael had helped
drill the lyrics into her head.

The only downside to Ishmael's campaign of intimidation and mind control
was the guilt. Certainly she never would have made it this far without
Ishmael's pushing the right people, but it felt dishonest, like cheating
on an exam.

And then there were the odd looks she got in rehearsal. It was painfully
obvious that Ishmael favored her and wouldn't think twice about hurting
someone for Scully, so that made her the equivalent of a teacher's pet,
resented by all but untouchable for fear of the teacher. "Carlotta",
nee Carrie, was the worst. She never even bothered to hide her
resentment, but remained silent. Scully almost wished there would be a
verbal confrontation of some kind, to clear the air.

<Forget about them,> Ishmael urged, breaking into her melancholy
thoughts. <You're better than all of them put together. Forget about
them and sing.>

Smiling slightly, which earned a strange look from Michael, she obeyed.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
After rehearsal, Scully saw an irate Mulder waiting by the theater door.
"When did you tell Ishmael I hate fire?" he asked sharply.

She looked at him, confused. "What are you talking about? I never told
him anything about fire."

"Well, I found a secret passage in one of the dressing rooms, and when
my flashlight went out, up pops this flaming skull. Took about ten
years off my life. Sound familiar?"

"Mulder, Ishmael's just real protective, that's all."

"Of a theater?" he objected. "No, Scully, there's something going on
with Ishmael that he's not telling us."

"Why would he do that?"

"You tell me. Who is he? *What* is he?" Mulder fired the questions at
her.

"I told you, he's an angel."

"Right. An angel that goes around dropping chandeliers and scaring
actresses out of their wits so you can play Christine? An angel that
knows I hate fire and takes advantage of it?" He shook his head.
"Scully, there's more to this than he's telling you. Don't put so much
trust in Ishmael."

"If you're going to suggest that I tell Ishmael to go away, you're
crazy." Scully raised her voice slightly. "I've got a role in *Phantom*
that I can't play without him."

"Is that role so important?"

"Mulder, you don't seem to understand something. I *like* singing.
Enough to keep on doing *Phantom*, as long as it's playing in Columbus."

"At the cost of your sanity?"

They were on the steps to the Opera House now, Scully walking a little
in front of Mulder so he couldn't see her smoldering expression. Now
she whirled around to face him. "You know what? I think you're jealous."

"Jealous?" Mulder laughed harshly. "What's there to be jealous of?"

"I think you're jealous of Ishmael. Of the fact that maybe there's
something I like other than the X-files. Maybe *more* than the X-files.
Maybe enough to. . ."

She stopped and looked away, embarrassed, but Mulder read everything
clearly in her mind.

"You're thinking of quitting the Bureau?!"

She sighed. "Mulder, I have always wanted to sing, even before I wanted
to be a doctor. With Ishmael, I can get a job in any musical or opera I
want. I've finally got a chance to go after my dream, and right now I'm
not sure whether it's more important to me than the Bureau."

"More important?" Mulder raised his voice to match Scully's volume. "You
want to give up our search for the Truth that easily? On the whim of
some 'Angel'? Your sister *died* for the Truth, Scully. Has she died for
nothing?"

Her head snapped up, eyes blazing with chilled blue fire, and he
instantly knew that was a mistake. "Don't you *ever* talk about Melissa
like that again!" she raged. "This is not about the Truth, Mulder, it's
about you! You're too selfish to realize that your god-damn quest for
the truth has gotten me nearly killed God-knows-how-many times. I'm
interested in a lot more than your quests and macho trips, and the
sooner you realize that the better. And don't *ever* dare to drag my
family into this! My God, Melissa must be turning in her grave right
now."

"All right, all right!" he said finally, to shut her up. He was getting
a monster headache from this argument. "Let me drive."

"I'm driving. Why do you always have to drive? Because you're the guy?
Because you're the macho man?" she spat snappishly.

That was the final straw. "No, I was never sure your little feet would
reach the pedals." He all but threw the car keys at her. "You want to
drive? Be my guest." He stalked off to find a cab.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Scully jammed the keys into the ignition and turned on the car with a
jerk. Sometimes Mulder could be such a possessive bastard! Why would
Ishmael stoop to playing petty pranks like scaring Mulder with the
flaming skull? There was no reason to. And if Ishmael was indeed behind
it, then it was just a harmless joke. Mulder was blowing it way out of
proportion.

As always when she had a problem, she began talking to the empty car.
"He probably is jealous. Of what, I have no clue. I like him as a
partner, but it's not like we're supposed to be joined at the hip.
Along comes Ishmael, who makes me Christine in the play, and Mulder
immediately goes into Alpha Male mode. Geez, it's like he's afraid
Ishmael will abduct me in the dead of the night. He'd never do that."

Her voice trailed off. The phrase seemed a blatant lie somehow.
Something about it didn't ring true.

She went back to her thoughts of the dressing room Mulder had been
exploring. Mike's from the way he'd described it, with the costume laid
out on the chair, the floor-to-ceiling mirrors, which gleamed in the
candle-light. Very charming in the middle of the night. . .

What? Mulder never said anything about candles or mirrors. For that
matter, he never said he was in Mike's dressing-room at all, just that
he was in one of the dressing rooms.

So how had she known?

On impulse she swung the car in a U-turn, checking furtively for patrol
cars, and went back to the theater. She went to the dressing rooms and
stood outside them for a moment. The sterile fluorescent lights made
Ishmael and Phantoms seem insubstantial, almost comical. Now the
auditorium, that was a horse of a different color. In there she was
almost ready to believe that Elvis haunted the place, or whatever X-file
Mulder threw her way.

She ducked into the first dressing room she saw. Mike's, from the
costume on the chair. Everything was exactly as she'd imagined it.

"I've been in here before." Her voice was a harsh whisper, echoed by
the mirrors.

She poked her finger at a white mass on the dressing table. It had the
consistency of a crayon. Candle wax.

Unbidden, another image swam to the surface of her mind. The room was
darkened, lit by myriad candles. A man in a tuxedo, cape, mask, in
Phantom garb, she realized. A red-haired pupil parroting the man in
Phantom dress, eager to master her vocal cords . . .

A flash of the mirror in her mind's eye made her gasp. The student was
herself. The teacher. . .

*Who was he?*

She stared into the mirror a moment longer, hardly seeing her own
shocked, frightened eyes, before grabbing her purse and running out of
the theater.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Scully pounded on Mulder's door. "Please, God, don't let him still be
pissed at me, *please*. . ."

He opened the door, started to say something, and closed his mouth in a
hurry when he saw Scully's expression. "Come in, come in."

He shut the door behind her and remained standing by it awkwardly.
Scully sat down on the bed and looked at the hardcover book lying open
on the bed. *Phantom of the Opera*, by Gaston Leroux. Oh God. . .

No. Don't even start, Dana. Not now.

"Mulder, how did you find out about Samantha? Not the abduction part, I
know you were hypnotized for that one, but what convinced you to go for
help?"

He took a breath and let it out slowly. "Well, I'd always had a feeling
that there was more to it than the, shall we say, accepted story that
she just disappeared. And I'd been remembering images that I knew were
somehow connected to Samantha, but I couldn't tell how or why."

She nodded slowly. "And the images? Did they occur for any reason in
particular?"

"A lot of them would come right after I'd argue with anybody who'd
listen that Samantha wasn't gone and I'd find her some day." He sat down
in the chair across from Scully. "Why?"

"Okay, promise not to say a word until I'm done?"

He nodded.

"After you walked off to find another way back to the hotel, I was
driving home and . . . I got some of those images you mentioned.
Mulder, I knew exactly which dressing-room you went into, and you never
said a word about which one it was."

He raised his eyebrows. Scully knew he was itching to say something,
but decided to torture him a moment longer. "I saw it clearly in my
mind before I was even in the room. In my head, it was midnight and
there were candles all around the room. And somebody was giving me a
singing lesson. Before you ask, I don't know who it was, and I don't
know if it was Ishmael."

"And you think these are repressed memories?" he asked.

"Yes. Why I would repress them, I have no idea."

He nodded again. He had a vague idea of what her purpose was in coming
to him after their argument (pride would not have allowed Dana Scully to
come near him for a few days under normal circumstances) and waited for
her to suggest it first.

"Also," she added, in the slow, dry tone she'd cultivated for telling
Mulder something she knew he wouldn't want to hear, "driving home I
realized I have no idea what I did during at least five weekends. If you
dare to suggest alien abduction, I will personally see to it that
Ishmael kicks your ass back to DC," she added quickly.

He didn't have long to wait. "Mulder, you mentioned once that you took
a course in hypnosis. Do you still remember it?"
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
"Where are you?" Mulder inquired of Scully, after regressing her to one
of the nights she'd disappeared for the weekend. He sat on the bed,
across from Scully in the chair.

"I'm in the Opera House. Ishmael brought me."

<Through the mirror, I'll bet,> he thought wryly.

"Actually yes," Scully said out of the blue. Evidently she'd picked up
the thought, though Mulder had tried to keep it private.

"Why through the mirror?"

"I'm not sure, he's not telling me."

"Does Ishmael live there?"

<Yes.>

"Let's try to keep telepathy out of this for now," he requested, and
Scully nodded. "Where are you in the Opera House? Dressing room,
basement, auditorium?" he prompted

"I - I'm not sure where exactly it is. It's a large room with stone on
all sides. Ishmael is there, dressed like the phantom. He likes doing
that for some reason." She listened for a minute. "What do mean, I
must love you? I barely even know you!

"He's saying I know him much better than I think." After a pause she
continued. "It seems he's brought me quite a few times, but he's had to
- make me forget about it each time."

"How's he do that?"

"I don't know, one of those angelic powers, I guess."

There was this angel business again. "Scully, is Ishmael really an
angel?" he asked seriously.

Scully sighed. "No," she admitted. "He wants me to believe it. And I
want to believe it. He has - powers that he knows I wouldn't accept
unless he says he's an angel, or something else I *do* accept, because
of religion."

"Powers?" Mulder's interest rose sharply.

"Your standard psychic abilities - telekinesis, telepathy, a little mind
control. Oh, and teleporting. That's how he got me on stage a few days
ago."

"Is his name really Ishmael?"

"No, it's Erik. That's part of why he's so obsessed with *Phantom*-in a
way, he *is* the Phantom."

"So he made you forget. Does he tell you how many times he's brought
you?" Mulder continued.

"Almost every time he visits me, which is at night so nobody notices."
Scully thought a moment, then added, "Sometimes on the weekends, too,
that's why I'd sometimes come back on Monday with a sore throat."

"Has he ever done the mind-control bit on you?"

"Only enough to bury the memories when I come to the Opera House to
visit him. He tries not to use his powers on me. He says he loves me,
but he's got a weird way of showing it."

"Do you love him?"

She thought a moment. "No, but I try to pretend, for him."

"Why do you have to pretend for him?"

She smiled. "It sounds terribly patronizing, doesn't it? I guess it is,
but how can I not? He's like a puppy: if I scold him, he'll spend hours
insulting himself. He all buts fawns at my feet. Call it pity, if you
want, but I can't tell him to leave me alone."

Terror suddenly raced through her, overflowing onto Mulder's psyche as
well. She suddenly stiffened and shrieked. "Oh my God! Stop! Ishmael
please! Stop!" Her hands clutched the sides of the seat so hard her
knuckles were white.

Pictures flashed quickly through Mulder's mind. The stone room. A mask.
Broken pieces of the white plaster-of-Paris. A face like a mass of
worms with eyes and a deformed nose and mouth stuck in the middle of it.
Over the whole slide show, panic and terror. The face glared with
hatred at Scully, and he instantly knew it was Ishmael who released so
much anger in the theater.

In a very different voice, lower and more masculine, she spat out, "Damn
you! You prying Pandora! You little demon - is this what you wanted to
see?"

Horror was beginning to choke both of them. Mulder tried to free himself
from the hellish plot unfolding in Scully's mind, but in her semi-
conscious state, with all the careful controls she'd placed stripped
clean, she'd gained an amazing psychic strength, and she held them both
in a deadlock. He had no choice but to keep watching and try to rouse
Scully from the trance either out loud or with his own mind.

She was shouting in her normal voice. "No! Stop! Please, Ishmael, let
me go - ow! Stop!" She turned her head from an invisible horror, raised
her hands over her eyes to block it. "Damn it, you're not taking this
one away from me like the others! Stop!"

Mulder gasped from the effort of trying to wake up Scully and removing
himself from the scene in her mind. He tried to shout, "Wake up!" It
came out as a whisper, inaudible even to himself.

The _Phantom_ book fell off the night-stand and flipped open. It was a
nice surprise, in a perverse way, because it proved she had maybe a hint
of telekinesis. Mulder would have applauded her if he'd been able to
free them both from the nightmare.

Scully reverted back to the masculine voice and spat more lines from the
play, sounding like Melissa Reedell switching from Sydney to Sarah
Kavanaugh and back again. "Curse you! You little Delilah! You little
viper! Damn you. . . curse you. . ."

He finally found his voice. "Scully! Scully, wake up, it's okay, you're
all right. . ." Mulder assured her, touching her on the arm. She jerked
away from his touch and opened her eyes with a gasp, returning to the
present. Immediately her psychic hold on his loosened, and he freed
himself from the memories. The terror receded, to be replaced by a
splitting headache.

"Oh my God-" she swallowed hard, running a shaky hand over her face,
"I'm never doing that again."

"The mask?" Mulder asked, still shaking mentally and physically.

"You knew?"

"You broad-casted it like the ten-o'clock news," he informed her.

"I did?" she asked, too shell-shocked to be embarrassed. "Christ, I'm
sorry. Wouldn't wish that on anybody."

"You mentioned him telling you to love him?" Mulder prompted, ignoring
the throbbing in his temples.

"He said 'You must love me'."

"Oh great," her groaned. He'd been joking when he'd teased Scully about
Ishmael being in love with her, but somebody Upstairs with a sick sense
of humor had made it true.

"Exactly. I think he's been hiding down there for a while. He knows
all the secret passages and trapdoors - I guess that *was* him with the
fiery skull in Mike's dressing room. With his face and living in the
theater, he's obsessed with 'Phantom of the Opera'."

"And with the show in town he couldn't resist," Mulder finished,
reaching for the Advil in his duffel bag.

"And I'm Christine. I have been since Christmas," she added, face
turning dead white. "If he thinks of you as Raoul-" She didn't have to
finish the thought; they both knew that if that was the way Ishmael
thought of Mulder, her partner wouldn't live very long.

"Scully, you can't sing in the show. You have to call the director and
quit."

Scully nodded mutely and fumbled in her coat for her cell phone. "Damn.
The battery's out."

Mulder pulled out his and found it useless as well. "Weird coincidence."

Scully picked up the phone on the night stand. At that same moment, a
pop echoed through the room. The lights blinked, dimmed, and went out.

"That's not a coincidence, that's Ishmael." Scully's voice sounded small
and frightened in the sudden dark.

"If I knew where the director lived, I'd suggest you drive over and tell
him in person," Mulder said.

"Except Ishmael would probably make the car break down," she objected.

"True."

"Mulder," she said suddenly, "would you let me sleep in here tonight?
I'm afraid of what Ishmael might do to me if I was alone."

He was stunned for a brief second, then readily agreed.

"And hand me an Advil, would you?"

(AUTHOR'S NOTE: SORRY, ALL YOU 'SHIPPERS, YOU'RE READING THE WORK OF A
HARD-CORE NOROMO, AND YOU'RE NOT GOING TO GET ANY STEAMY DETAILS OF THIS
NIGHT OUT OF ME. WILL YOU SETTLE FOR A FEW NIGHTMARES?

THAT'S MY CHALLENGE, ACTUALLY: TAKE THIS NIGHT IN THE HOTEL,COMPLETE WITH
THE THREAT OF ISHMAEL, AND FIND A WAY TO WRITE A *FRIEND-SHIPPER* VIGNETTE -
NO SLASH!!! REPEAT, *FRIENDSHIPPER*, NO MSR. --LDL)
@@@@@@@@@@@@
Coming back from the bathroom, a chillingly familiar voice echoed in her
head.

She stopped dead, half-way to the bed. Oh *shit*. <No, Ishmael. I'm
done with you. Leave me in peace.>

He continued quoting relentlessly, sorrow and betrayal dripping from
every syllable. <And now, how do you repay me? Deny me and betray me!>

"Leave me alone!" she said out loud in a slightly louder tone. Mulder
stirred but didn't wake up.

"I don't want you anymore! Can't you understand that? Leave me alone,
damn it!"

As she said the words, she felt his sorrow cool and crystallize into
murderous rage. <Leave you alone? Leave you *alone*?! Oh no, my dear
Dana, I won't leave you. I want to see my revenge first hand. My dear,
"you will curse the day you did not do-- >

"No!"

"NO!!"

Demonic laughter, laughter Michael would have a hard time copying,
echoed loudly in her head. She heard it even through her hands, pressed
tightly over her ears. The laughter grew louder, filling her with
terror. She wasn't even aware she was screaming until she felt Mulder's
arms around her. Then the laughter died away, like howls of coyotes
retreating from a fire and yowling in anger.

She remained in Mulder's arms for a while, until her shivers subsided
and she felt relatively calmer - though until she knew that Ishmael was
dead, she'd never feel completely safe - and the echoes of his laughter
stopped re-playing in her head.

Sleep was a long time in coming for Dana Scully.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@
She sat cross-legged next to the shore, staring out across the ocean.
The Walkman's headphones were around her neck, and Scully faintly heard
Bobby Darin: "Somewhere, beyond the sea, somewhere waitin' for me. . ."

<Ahab didn't just wait for me,> Scully thought morosely, <he's sent me a
can of worms called Ishmael.>

"No!" she said out loud suddenly. "His name is Erik, not Ishmael, and
Dad didn't send him to me. Ish - Erik came on his own. And I foolishly
believed he was really the Angel of Music. Dear God, the answer was
staring me in the face, with his damn references to *Phantom*, why
didn't I pick up on it sooner?"

The question answered itself. "I missed you. It was the anniversary of
your death, Ahab, almost to the hour, and I wanted to believe that you
had really sent 'Ishmael'. It was the closest I could get to being with
you."

She shook her head and laughed. "And I talk about Mulder not being able
to let go of Samantha and/or his father. God, I'm pitiful."

Scully stared up at the overcast sky, as if waiting for a revelation.
" 'Why can't the past just die?'" she sang deliberately off-key, then
continued her monologue in a normal tone. "Because I didn't let the past
die, I was stuck with Erik/Ishmael. I knew who he was, and I denied it
to myself."

She hefted the Walkman in her hand, feeling its weight like an albatross
around her neck. "I have to let it go."

Tearing off the headphones, she raised her arm and flung the Walkman as
far as she could into the water. She watched it land with a small splash
in the water, still singing stubbornly about meeting "beyond the shore",
and sink slowly. A weight seemed to be lifted off her shoulders, and
she murmured a prayer of thanks to Whoever was listening to the prayers
of haunted telepathic FBI agents.

When she opened her eyes, the Walkman was *floating*.

Fear and dread rippled through her as she watched the box of plastic,
headphones dangling ridiculously behind it, move against the current
towards a figure kneeling by the water little more than twenty yards
away. It was fuzzy, like a picture out of focus, but the tuxedo gave him
away: Erik.

The calm ocean suddenly took on an ominous tone, a serene lullaby
switching to a darker, minor key. Was it her imagination, or did the
wind suddenly whistle the *Phantom* theme?

< "Wandering child, so lost, so helpless, yearning for my guidance. .">

Erik's mental touch awakened more memories of his teaching career, more
pleasant ones than what she had described to Mulder. It reminded her
that if it weren't for his face, she wouldn't have needed to forget
anything of those lessons. She felt her once rock-solid resolve waver,
and she cursed her weakness.

"Angel, telepath, psycho - who are you really, Erik?" she asked warily.

"But. . .but I remembered. . .your face. . .the mask. . ." she stammered
helplessly confused. Logic had suddenly been thrown to the winds, reason
abandoned for Ishmael's (or Erik's? She wasn't sure anymore) seductive
pushing. If Scully had been in a clearer state of mind, the first person
who would have come to mind would be Modell.

"Your face. . ." she tried again helplessly, and trailed off. Memories
that were once vivid now seemed no more than nightmares.

<Oh, that? I can change faces as easily as I can change an outfit. Would
you like to see your darling partner Mulder?> He whipped off his mask
with a flourish, and Scully saw that his face resembled Mulder's.

He raised an arm over his face like a magician, and quickly lowered it
again. His face had changed to Michael's.

<I've got a million more: your brother, AD Skinner (easy pushover, by
the way) and even your sister.>

In a flash, Melissa's face was sitting on Ishmael's body, grotesquely
out of place.

<Let's not forget your father, shall we?> A second later, his face had
become that of Captain James Scully.

That was the final blow for Scully's weakened convictions. The memories
were only nightmares, which Ishmael would banish if she would only come
back to him, back to the music. . . She turned her back on the ocean and
began walking towards Ishmael, who'd replaced his mask. They would go
back to his home under the Opera House and chase away the demon named
Fox Mulder. . .

--DEMON?!?! I'm a demon now?--

A hand clamped down on her shoulder. Scully whirled around to see Mulder
standing behind her, not five feet away, in a black sweater and jeans,
his usual outfit these days.

"Mulder?" she said fuzzily.

--Scully, you can't let him get to you like this. --

"Get to me? Ishmael wouldn't hurt me," she told him in a "no-DUH" tone.

--He is *not Ishmael*, Scully, his name is Erik. He is not an angel, you
said so yourself.--

"Mulder, please," Scully pleaded, not sure what she was asking for.
Peace? Quiet? A chance to think this over without either Mulder or
Ishmael harassing her?

<You're going to let an atheist decide for you whether I exist? You
know what's true, Dana, don't let him tell you.>

"I don't know what's true anymore!"

--Scully, please, for God's sake, listen to me! He is not your Angel of
Music, he's as bad as Modell! Remember, Scully. Remember the weekends of
missing time? Why should he take you against your will like that?--

He grabbed her by the shoulders and pressed an image into her mind,
almost roughly. The image was Ishmael's face, which they'd both seen
when Scully's powers had gone berserk while Mulder had hypnotized her.
Seeing the face she hated finally woke Scully from her trance. What the
hell was she doing, barely three feet away from Ishmael? She sensed that
a few more inches and she would have been under Ishmael's control for
good.

--Thank you, Scully!-- Mulder exulted, pulling them both back as far
away from Ishmael as they could.

"Damn, that was close," she whispered.

Around them, the wind had picked up, blowing around them like a cyclone.
Ishmael's cape billowed out until he resembled Batman in a twisted sort
of way. <You see, Dana? This is what happens when you ignore your
Angel!>

--That's another thing: I'm so damn sick of hearing this angel crap!--
Mulder shouted angrily over the wind.

<Oooh, bravo, monsieur, such spirited words!> Ishmael taunted them both.
He took off his mask, and both of them saw the face underneath,
Ishmael's real face, with no illusions to make it look like Cancerman or
whoever else the man could think of.

< "Let's see, monsieur, how far you can go!"> he continued, twisting the
words of the musical evilly.

--All right then, if that's what you want!--

Scully fought to keep the rising panic from choking her. "Mulder, come
on, you're not seriously going to try to kill Erik!"

He turned back to her, eyes feverish. --Why? Are you afraid I'm going to
hurt him? He can't be hurt, Scully, he's an "angel"!-- he mocked,
advancing towards the caped figure.

<Sure, you're laughing *now*!>

A fireball exploded in front of Mulder. No heat came from the blaze,
but it was enough to drive him back a few steps. When he kept coming,
even after a few more fireballs exploded in front of him, Scully guessed
Ishmael had her partner under his control.

"Mulder, let it go, please!" she tried again. "Don't get us both killed
over some macho trip!"

--Macho-shmacho!--

She tried the trick he'd used to wake *her* up, sending a strong image
of Ishmael's distorted face, but that only seemed to strengthen his
resolve.

"Mulder, come on, you're playing right into his hand, just like you did
with Modell-"

Inspiration hit her, and she thanked her lucky stars for helping her
remember. She turned to Ishmael and 'pathed a weak <Sorry, Ahab!>
before blasting him with all the psychic energy she could summon up,
and took the liberty of stealing some from Mulder to help.

Thank God it worked. The blast disoriented Ishmael and his mind control
failed. --Thank God for your practice on Modell--, Mulder said as they
both ran in the opposite direction from Ishmael.

<Don't go! Danaaaaaaaa!> he shrieked over the wind. When it was obvious
neither agent was coming back, he changed his tune. <So be it! "Now let
it be war upon you both!!!>

Suddenly Scully woke up, and she found herself standing by the bed,
Mulder a few paces behind her. "What happened?" she asked in a shaky
voice.

"I woke up and found you sleep-walking towards the mirror," Mulder
answered, his own voice a little unsteady. "You're not going to believe
this, but I saw Ishmael's reflection in the mirror."

"I guessed. And you manifested in my dream and pulled me back." She
thought of something else, and she gasped. "You think I would have gone
through the mirror like I remembered in the apartment?"

"I think so."

"And then *you* almost went through. . ." A tear slid slowly down her
cheek. "Mulder, he's so jealous, I'm afraid of him!" She remembered a
line from a song: " 'What I once used to dream I now dread/ If he ever
finds me, it won't ever end/ And he'll always be there singing songs in
my head. . .'"

"One more line, Scully, and I'm going to go insane," Mulder stopped her
impromptu aria with a glare.

"Same here."
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
By five-thirty, both agents gave up all pretense of sleep. Mulder stared
at the print of the _Phantom of the Opera_, not really reading it, and
Scully stared into space in the general direction of the script. She had
no clue why, there was no way she could perform

Scully drove to the theater and went into the auditorium to tell the
director she wouldn't be able to sing in "Phantom". However, even at
ten - a half-hour after rehearsal was supposed to start - she found the
theater empty. No guards, no techies, no actors, nobody.

A chill crawled up her spine and she turned to exit the theater, but a
figure in Phantom costume blocked her way.
She barely stifled a scream,
thinking it was Ishmael.

"Dana! What's the matter?" she heard Mike's voice from under the mask.

Filled with relief, she began laughing. "Sorry. I - had a nightmare
of the Phantom last night and I guess I didn't quite shake it off," she
confessed.

Mike laughed. "There seems to be an epidemic of that in here. You should
have heard the ballet girls. They were swapping stories back there like
Girl Scouts around a campfire."

"Back there?" Scully echoed blankly.

"Yeah, didn't you hear? We're getting measured for costumes." He turned
and led Scully back through the theater, to one of the dressing rooms.

Scully followed him, thinking about the scare she'd gotten when nobody
was in the auditorium. So that's where everybody was, getting measured
for costumes.

<Hey, wait a minute,> she thought. <Didn't we get the costumes last
week? So where is everyone, and why is Michael in costume. . .>

It was the last thing she heard before she sank into black oblivion.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Mulder paced the room impatiently. What was taking her so long? She
should have been able to drive over, tell the director, listen to him
rant for a few minutes, then get back to the motel an hour ago.

For what seemed like the hundredth time in twenty minutes, he checked
his watch. 11:21. Damn, how did time move so slowly all of a sudden? It
was like being stuck on that Norwegian ship again.

He gave up trying to control his impatience and grabbed his coat to
begin walking to Columbus Opera House. On the way he tried to call
Scully, but her phone still wasn't working.

An empty cab stopped at the red light. He got in and told the driver to
go to the Opera House. He stayed tensed the whole ride, hoping Scully
was all right.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
"Down once more to the dungeon of my glad despair
Down we plunge to the prison of my mind
Down that path into darkness, deep as hell. . ."

Scully was quite far from all right. She had a splitting headache, her
eyes seemed stuck shut - it took her a second to realize that she was
blindfolded. She tried to raise a hand to her aching head, and found
her hands were tied up as well. Her legs were also lashed to the chair
she was sitting on. God, she'd kill for some telekinesis. . .

Something ice-cold touched her forehead, tugging at the blindfold. It
soon came off and Scully saw a caped figure staring at her. It donned
a mask and top hat. The mask gleamed in the myriad candles that were
set up all around the room, which seemed to have walls of stone.

"Ishmael?" Scully sighed. "That *is* Ishmael, isn't it? Or Erik? No
more mind games, please."

"Of course, Dana. And yes, this *is* Erik. Care to have me prove it?"

"No, that's all right," Scully said quickly. "I believe you."

Erik drew a knife out of his cape. Scully flinched back, thinking he was
going to kill her.

"Relax, it's for the rope," he assured her. With a flick of the blade,
her hands were freed.

"So why did you bring me down here - again?" Scully asked.

"Again? Oh yes, you remembered last night, didn't you? Pity. I went to
all that trouble to bury the memory each time, and it's all undone by an
amateur hypnotist."

"Why?"

"Think about it, Dana. Would you have let me continue teaching you for
so long, knowing what I really looked like, and who I really was?"

"No," she admitted.

"And therefore you wouldn't have gotten so far in your theater career.
It would have been over before it even began. Some day when you're a
famous singer, you'll thank me."

"I'm quitting the *Phantom*," she informed him icily.

"I know you were trying to, but I wouldn't bother if I were you. Just
because I never used my mind control on you-"

"What about last night?" she reminded him.

"Picky, picky," Erik sighed. "All right, so I *barely* ever used mind
control on you. But I can always use it to keep you in the play."

"And Mulder will stop you again. Like he did last night," she insisted.

"There you go again, insisting like some two-bit actress in a cheap film
that your dashing partner will save you from the evil man living under
the Opera House. What is it between you and him, anyway? You aren't
involved in any way, are you?"

"Of course not! We're partners, and that's all."

"Don't give me that. I saw the way you looked at him last night. You
think I'm blind, on top of being deformed?" He pushed up his mask and
Scully tried not to flinch away. "There's some chemistry there, trust
me."

"Sure, fine, whatever," she sighed. She groaned inwardly and tried to
look for a way out of the room without seeming too conspicuous - it
might rub him the wrong way, and if Mulder was correct about this guy
being psychotic, that was the last thing Scully wanted to do.

"Why do you stay with this Fox anyway? He's estranged you from
everybody, he's made you as paranoid as himself, and for what? A file
cabinet of yellowed files of little green men and flukeworm hybrids.
He's killed off your sister. . ."

"That's not true! Melissa was mistaken for me!" Scully objected
vehemently.

"Which never would have happened if you hadn't been working for him,"
Erik returned without missing a beat. "And in return, he's ditched
you a few dozen times. Arecibo? Tunguska? Why do you stay?

"Dana, you were meant for more than what he can ever give you," he
continued with un-characteristic tenderness. "If you stay with me, I
can promise you work in any musical you want, and my undying love.
That's more than your Agent Mulder can promise you. . .isn't that right,
Fox?" he added over his shoulder.

Scully looked behind Erik to see Mulder standing behind her, aiming his
gun at point-blank range. "Scully, don't move," he ordered, staring at
Erik as if he intended to burn a hole through the masked man.

Erik laughed. "You really think that BB gun is going to make a
difference?"

"Let her go," Mulder said as if he hadn't heard Erik. "We've got a few
dozen police officers outside this passageway."

Scully raised her eyebrows in surprise, wondering if Mulder was
bluffing. With his reputation as Spooky Mulder, it would be a wonder if
he convinced anybody to keep an eye on the Opera House. . .

<Would you SHUT UP?!> Mulder hissed in her head, too late. Ishmael heard
the thought.

"Hmm. Good point, Dana. How do I know you're telling the truth, Agent
Mulder?" he continued, strolling casually towards Mulder with utter
disregard for the gun that remained trained on his skull. "If you've got
these federal officers outside, will they care if I do this?"

He stared intensely into Mulder's eyes. For a second nothing happened,
then Mulder yelped and dropped the gun, clutching his hand as if he'd
been burned.

"Mulder!" Scully shouted. "What did you do to him?" she demanded of Erik
angrily.

"Nothing," he said, all innocence. "I just burned a layer of skin off.
What's so bad about that?"

Scully mentally cursed him out.

<Temper, temper, Dana. Language like that isn't very ladylike, now is
it?>

<To hell with ladylike.> She tried her luck against the rope holding her
legs. The knots were too tight, and she broke a nail or two before
giving up.

Erik walked up to Mulder and touched a cold finger to Mulder's
temple. The air between them crackled with psychic energy. Mulder
knocked away the "Phantom's" hand, then fell to the floor in an apparent
faint.

Darkness claimed her for the second time in an hour.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
<Say you'll share with me one life, one lifetime.
Lead me, save me from my solitude.
Say you'll stay with me, each night, each morning
Anywhere you go let me go, too.
Dana, that's all I ask of you!>

She woke blearily to hear Erik singing the song silently, substituting
her name for "Christine".

Anger waking her fully, she fired back a response in like manner:

"Why, Dana, that's not very nice," Erik answered absently, as if
distracted by something. "Especially since I'm about to make you an
offer. You stay with me, and I'll let your partner live. If not. . ."

He flicked on a light switch and she saw that she was again tied up in a
chair, close to a window. Through the window she saw Mulder lying on the
floor of another room, gagged and tied up.

"I've rigged the whole room with kerosene. Your partner will either burn
to death or, if I choose to let him live, he will spend the rest of his
life in a mental hospital raving about fire. So, Dana, which will it
be? 'Do you end your days with me, or do you send him to his grave?'"
he quoted.

Scully stared out at Mulder's grim face in horror. "You wouldn't!"

"I most certainly would. He's the only thing standing between you and
me, Dana, and I don't like that. I will gladly kill him. Don't look so
shocked. Who was it that said 'All you need is love'? Oh yes, John
Lennon."

"I told you already, I don't love you!"

"You'll learn to. We have all the time in the world. 'Fear can turn to
love - you'll learn to see, to find the man behind the monster.'"

"You're all monster," Scully spat.

Erik's eyes narrowed. "So you've made your choice? Him over me? All
right, join him in the hereafter."

His gloved hand wandered over to a lever in the wall. "I push this, the
walls go up in flame. Then the floor. I've left a small space around
your partner - if he stays still, he might live longer. But I doubt
it'll be long enough to make a difference."

"Scully!" she heard him shout through the wall. "Get out of here! Forget
about me! Save yourself!"

" 'Bravo, monsieur! Such spirited words!" Erik called through the glass.
"Thought I made that wall soundproof," Erik added, as if to himself. "Oh
well. You can hear his screams better this way." His hand pushed the
lever slowly, but not enough to set the walls on fire - yet.

"Wait," Scully said suddenly.

"Pity comes too late, turn around and face your fate, an eternity of
*this* before your eyes," Erik sang tunelessly, pushing up his mask to
show the deformed face underneath.

Scully forced herself not to close her eyes at the sight. It was a long
shot, but it might have worked.

"Pitiful creature of darkness,
What kind of life have you known?
God give me courage to tell you,
You are not alone!"

She pushed the mask off his face and kissed him on the lips. The mask
clattered to the floor as Erik, stunned for a moment, began to kiss
back.

When they finally broke off the kiss to gasp for breath, Erik turned to
look at Mulder. The gag untied on its own, and the knots loosened
enough for Mulder to struggle out of them.

Erik gasped for breath and leaned against the wall, completely spent.
<I'm sorry, Dana. . .>

That was when they heard the shouts.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
"Federal agents! Freeze!" came shouts down a stone passage, sounding
surprisingly close.

Erik's head snapped up and he looked around, panicked. "Oh God, they've
found us," he wheezed.

Scully turned to Mulder in surprise, who shrugged exaggeratedly in the
stone room. So he hadn't been lying about the backup!

"Mulder, you never cease to amaze me," she called loudly through the
glass.

"Amaze her somewhere else," Erik said tensely, pressing another
button to open a door in the wall. Mulder gratefully ran out of it.

"Take her and go. Forget about me," Erik called after them as he
opened another passage in the opposite direction of the voices. "This
leads to the stage. I love you Dana!" he yelled. "I love you!"

As they ran onto the barren stage, Scully sobbed brokenly as they both
heard Erik's last telepathic transmission:

<"You alone can make my song take flight.
It's over now, the music of the night. . .">
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
". . . And all they found was his mask?" Scully said dubiously in the
motel room.

"That's all. Never heard from him again. They're going through the Opera
House with a fine-toothed comb now, and as you know they've moved the
rehearsals to another theater."

"And how," Scully groaned. "Ugh, the theater's a pigsty, and you can
barely hear anybody in the place. And the lights are awful."

"Picky, picky. At least they'll be done with the theater by the time
*Phantom* starts," Mulder pointed out. "You sure you still want to sing
in that?"

"Positive," Scully assured him. "I still love the musical, I wouldn't
miss this one for the world. Besides," she added teasingly, "seeing you
in a tuxedo is an X-file in and of itself, and I wouldn't miss *that*
either!"
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

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