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ARIZONA HIGHWAYS
by Fialka 

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Summary: Visions of Melissa lead Our Heroes on a case confirming the 
existence of a series of Emilys. But does Melissa really have a 
message, or is it all in Scully's head?

Spoilers: Rewind to a time when no mud monsters have appeared and 
nobody is pregnant. Anything up to Season 6, Two Fathers/One Son. 
We begin just after...

Category: X, A, M/S

Rating: NC-17 to be on the safe side, but if it were a film it would 
go R.


Disclaimer: Don't own them, just borrowing, promise to put them 
back...somewhere.

WARNING: It's a ride. Buckle your seatbelt and hang on tight. That's 
all I'm going to say. 

First posting: September 2000

More candy? Missing parts?: http://welcome.to/TheCandybox
The Real Meal - The Annotated X-Files: http://smart.issexy.com
Put a little gas in the car: fialka62@yahoo.com


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Forenotes:

This story is dedicated to my family, who care not one whit about XF, 
but allowed me to be the madwoman in the attic for a solid month to get it 
finished, because they knew that it was important to me: 

To I and W and W -- three of the most beautiful people on this planet.

No good fic is without its good betas, but anything this long takes 
special endurance. My gratitude to the following people -- all but 
one of whom I had the wonderful fortune to meet during the year I was 
working on this casefile -- is boundless. 

-MANDY, Obi-Wan of the All-Beta, who stuck with the journey even when it 
 meant typing her beta into a Cyrillic keyboard;
-REVELY, keeper of the cooler and supplier of episodic sanity;
-PUNK MANEUVERABILITY, she of the Comma Extractor(tm) and Adverb 
 Slicer(tm); 
-COFAX, who kept climbing through plotholes to show me how they 
 could be navigated;
-M SEBASKY, who gave my head a place to lie and my heart a place to rest;
-JET, who continued to keep me honest, even when her cries of SCHMOOP! 
 scared the cat;
-SARAH ELLEN PARSONS, for sharp insight, warm hugs and the fabulous 
 soundtrack;
-LYSANDRA, for braving colds and codeine to rescue me at the last minute;

and 
 
-THE MIGHTY MARASMUS, who got in the car a few miles from the start and 
 held the map for the entire journey. 

This story belongs to them, as much as to me. Enjoy the ride.

Yes Virginia I am,
Fi


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ARIZONA HIGHWAYS                           
BOOK ONE: MONSTER SLAYER
by Fialka <fialka62@yahoo.com>             

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PROLOGUE

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FBI HEADQUARTERS
MARCH 2, 7:58 AM


They moved down the corridor, a unit unto themselves -- a tall man 
with an oddly handsome face and a small solemn woman, matching him 
stride for stride. The man's hand rose as if to guide the woman's 
steps, fell without touching her. She didn't seem to notice.

"Looks like Spooky and the Missus are in trouble again," someone 
whispered as they passed.

A low, derisive male laugh. "You think he's in her pants?"

Dana Scully's face registered nothing. Fox Mulder, on the other hand, 
turned to favor the speaker with a hard, blank stare.

"Jesus, he really is spooky," the laugher said, when the two agents 
had disappeared around the corner.

"I'd like to be in her pants," the first speaker mourned.

"She'd freeze your dick off, Atkins."

Mulder let his partner precede him into the Assistant Director's 
office, firmly shutting the door on the corridor. He wished Scully 
hadn't heard that last comment, but there was nothing he could do 
about it. 

Skinner's secretary was mumbling on the phone. She gestured towards 
the open inner door with her chin.

Mulder grimaced. An open door could only mean Skinner was pissed off 
and waiting for them.

Scully shot him a quick look as they took their seats. Checking him 
out, making sure he was okay. Mulder might have laughed with the 
irony, if laughter hadn't become so inappropriate between them. 
Instead, he tried to give her an encouraging little grin. 

Scully gave him her official smile back -- a polite, mirthless flick 
of the corners of her mouth. It was the smile she reserved for 
interviews with her superiors, for condescending local law, for the 
taking of unavoidable photographs. Mulder looked away. He wasn't quite 
sure what he'd done to deserve that.


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"Well, I'd like to say welcome back, but I doubt my heart would be in 
it." Skinner picked up a familiar red-edged folder and glared at his 
two agents. Alvin Kersh had wished him a happy headache when their 
assignment had reverted back to Skinner, and damn if the muscles at 
the base of his skull weren't already clenching in protest. 

"You are aware that this report makes no sense?"

"We've explained the matter to the best of our capability, sir," 
Mulder replied. "The report makes no sense because the event makes no 
sense unless you're willing to embrace certain ideas."

"We are not alone," Skinner intoned, letting the report fall back to 
his desk. Some things changed so much they just went right back to the 
way they'd always been. 

He turned back to Mulder's scrawled 302, making a show of studying it. 
Then studying Scully's face, which always told him more than Mulder's 
did. Today it was closed, her mouth set. That was her I-know-it-
sounds-crazy-sir-and-I-have-no-solid-evidence-yet-but-I-think-we-
should-go-with-him face. That face meant that he could argue, cajole, 
chastise and threaten, but there'd be no moving them. Mulder would do 
what he wanted, hang the expense report, Scully would cover his ass, 
and Skinner would let her. They both knew Mulder got himself into 
worse trouble when she wasn't there.

"You want me to override the Section Chief and assign you two to the 
team investigating El Rico," Skinner stated.

Mulder leaned forward eagerly. "Not exactly, sir, you see--" 

"Shut up, Agent Mulder." Skinner caught Scully's gaze, held it. "Agent 
Scully. Am I to believe that you wish to be part of an investigation 
which has so far yielded no actual information?"

"No, sir."

"No, I am not to believe it, or no, you don't wish to investigate 
this?"

"Sir, in regard to actual forensic evidence from the hanger, no, I 
don't believe the team will come up with anything useful. I do, 
however, believe these events warrant further investigation."

"So precisely what is this suspiciously vague 302 referring to?"

"There are certain unanswered questions..." Scully paused a moment, 
giving her partner a quick glance. Mulder's face remained impassive. 
"Questions regarding the events at El Rico," she continued, a faint 
wash of reluctance tinting her voice, "and their connection to...other 
cases we were investigating at the time of our removal from the X-
Files. We would like to pursue some of those connections."

"Which are?"

Scully's eyebrows rose in earnest unison. She shot Mulder a look that 
was the visual equivalent of a kick in the ankle, but Mulder only 
looked blankly back at her. 

"Well, sir," she finally answered, embarrassment or anger beginning to 
color her cheeks. "That would be what we're investigating." 

Bad sign, when Mulder just sat there letting Scully give evasive 
answers. Normally, it meant they had something up their sleeves, 
something she didn't want to lie to her boss about, but also didn't 
want tell him. This time it seemed Mulder hadn't bothered to explain 
his intentions to Scully either. It would hardly be the first time 
he'd left her dangling over a procedural abyss.

Skinner watched as Scully gave her partner another cutting look, 
clearly waiting for him to elaborate. 

"I have a case for you," he interrupted, before Mulder started 
bleeding all over the carpet. Skinner had received that look of 
pointed betrayal from Scully once or twice himself, and he knew how 
deep it went. Let them argue it out downstairs, out of his sight, as 
he presumed they usually did. It unnerved him to see these two visibly 
at odds with each other. Even when they privately disgreed, they 
usually managed to present an indivisible front to everybody else. 

Skinner opened his top drawer and tossed a thin file across the desk. 
"I've been told to put my best on this." 

The agents exchanged looks. A rather long silent debate, which Scully 
seemed to win. She reached for the file as Mulder settled back, his 
eagerness vanished, arms folded against his chest.

"All right. Tell us," he said.

Skinner chose to ignore Mulder's show of temperament. Six months of 
scrub work under Kersh hadn't tamed him one bit. He bit back a little 
smile of satisfaction -- Mulder must have given the old drill sergeant 
in Kersh a four-Excedrin headache daily. 

His attention went back to the file in front of him and he put the 
thought aside to be savored later, getting back to business. 

"John and Jennifer Wallace. Their four-year-old daughter disappeared 
from her daycare center in Flagstaff, Arizona yesterday afternoon. No 
explanation, no ransom note."

"And you want *us* to investigate?" Mulder asked. "Wouldn't the local 
field office already be on it? Or get the Child Abduction Unit out 
there."

"Are you questioning the assignment, Agent?"

"Sir?" Mulder's look of disbelief was almost amusing. 

"That's all, agents. I'll look forward to a preliminary report after 
you've interviewed the parents." Skinner flipped the El Rico file 
closed and dropped it onto the stack on his left, already reaching for 
the next file in the stack on his right. 

"But sir..."

"Agent Mulder, I believe your desks in the bullpen are still vacant. 
I'm sure Assistant Director Kersh would be thrilled to see you again."

Scully rose almost immediately, glaring impatiently at Mulder. He held 
up his hands in mock surrender and followed obediently as she strode 
out the door.

That's a good boy, Skinner thought. Listen to Scully. And keep your 
mouth shut.

He forced himself not to glance at the tiny hole in the cabinet where 
the video camera now lived. Thinking about the camera made his skin 
crawl, brought back the unwanted memory of a deadly buzzing in his 
blood.

Whatever the real reason he'd been told to put them on it was, they'd 
have to figure it out for themselves.


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PART 1

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INTERSTATE 17, NORTHERN ARIZONA
MARCH 2ND, 4:45 PM


Scully fell asleep half an hour out of Phoenix. She'd been doing that 
a lot lately; at some point in the middle of one of his rambling 
monologues he'd look over at her and she'd be gone. Mulder was always 
surprised by her ability to sleep like that -- sitting straight up, 
hands folded neatly in her lap. Only her head, fallen back against the 
seat, gave her away.

Mulder stole a glance at his partner from time to time as the road 
wound north, hoping she would wake. He'd been through here once 
before, on his way to some UFO sighting nearly ten years ago, and 
again he was amazed by the way the golden sand of the lower desert 
slowly changed to sandstone and red clay, then to dense old-growth 
forest. He wanted Scully to see the giant red mesas rising from the 
pines outside Sedona. He'd thought they might even stop for a rest in 
the old town center, the one part of Sedona that hadn't turned into 
faceless surburbia since the area became over-run with aging New 
Agers. 

Scully slept through it all, and he didn't have the heart to wake her. 
It was not even two months since she'd been shot -- he himself had 
taken that long to heal from the thigh wound he'd suffered years ago, 
and his condition had been nowhere near as critical as hers. Scully 
had been cleared for active duty just in time for the whole El Rico 
disaster two weeks ago, a hell of a thing to come back to, he 
supposed. Since then she'd been unusually irritable, easily fatigued. 
She admitted to nothing, of course, but Mulder was beginning to 
suspect that she had come back to work too soon.

A kidnapping case, he thought, with a return flash of irritation 
towards Skinner, was not going to improve anyone's spirit. Hadn't they 
been put back on the X-Files to investigate the truth behind the 
burning at that airbase? Something big was going on; even Skinner had 
admitted as much when they were debriefed. Unless the Wallaces were 
going to say their daughter was abducted by aliens, this wasn't an X-
File. Of course that possibility, awful as it was, might make him a 
bit more enthusiastic about this case. 

Mulder sighed, annoyed at himself. Sometimes, he really could be a 
one-track-minded jerk.

He coaxed a sunflower seed from the bag between his legs, biting it 
between his front teeth so it broke open with a satisfying crack. He 
shot a guilty glance at Scully, but he didn't even get a mumbled "not 
out the window, Mulder," though that noise would normally be enough to 
wake her. Right now, Scully was so deeply asleep that her head was 
beginning to loll from side to side as he took the turns, as if she 
were arguing with someone in her dreams. 

After Sedona, the forest grew sparse as they approached Flagstaff. 
Random blank areas began to appear. Controlled clearcutting, they 
called the acres of surprised stumps. Mulder called it just ugly. He'd 
once had a bright idea to take Scully on a case in the forest and he 
could still clearly recall the giant tracts of devasted land. Clearer 
still was the memory of sitting beside Scully on a camp cot for half 
the night, watching a light bulb burn and wondering if they would live 
to see the sun. She had seemed so much smaller in those days, and not 
just because her heels were lower then. He'd wanted to put his arm 
around her, say something about being glad she was sent to spy on him, 
but they hadn't known each other very well and so he hadn't dared. 

Not that he dared much more now, he acknowledged, as Scully suddenly 
opened her eyes, glanced vaguely around, then closed them with a 
shuddery little sigh, immediately falling fast asleep again. 

They were almost into Flagstaff when the sign for Sunset Crater 
appeared on his left. Mulder checked his watch, then the sky, which 
was just beginning to darken. Good. They'd be there right on time. 

He turned off the I-40, bypassing the city and heading north, towards 
the Navajo reservation. A few minutes later he reached over and 
touched Scully's hand.

She woke instantly. That was normal, that was good. Scully had always 
been the lightest of sleepers -- he was the one who normally sank into 
a coma when he slept.

"Where are we?" she asked, peering up through the windshield at the 
ancient, towering trees.

"Near Sunset Crater. A little side trip." Mulder waggled his eyebrows, 
but Scully's face remained serious.

"Mulder, we just got the X-Files back. We don't need to get into 
trouble again." She turned away from his gaze, staring out the side 
window.
 
"It won't take long," he promised, returning his attention to the 
twisting road. "It's not an unauthorized investigation. It's just 
something I want you to see."

Scully didn't move, didn't answer.

"Go with me on this," he said softly, glancing at her stiff form out 
of the corner of his eye. "Please."


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She went with him, as she always did. Old habits never died, Scully 
thought, they just took on a different aspect. 

She allowed Mulder to take her hand, trying not to wince as he pulled 
her up a steep place in the rock. She hated needing his help, but 
there was no other way she was going to make it. There were natural 
steps, but her legs were too short to reach them, and her stomach 
muscles were still too stiff to be much help.

Once at the top, though, the view was well worth the indignity of the 
climb. A black lava field stretched out below them, shimmering with 
the day's collected heat. Beyond it, the sunset had turned the spare, 
calcified desert into an unbelievable palette of orange, pink and 
purple, from which the red mesas jutted randomly like ruined Martian 
castles. It was the most astonishing landscape she had ever seen. 

"Looks like another planet, huh?" he grinned, obviously pleased at her 
reaction.

She turned to give him the best smile she could muster. "It's 
beautiful, Mulder. Thank you."

Mulder settled himself comfortably against the warm black rock, but 
Scully preferred to remain where she was, closer to the edge of their 
perch, where the light breeze from below lifted her hair. The distance 
here seemed to make for a quieting of the spirit, a lengthening of 
vision. She imagined she could taste the wind, could hear the sound of 
running horses. She wanted to leap from the cliff, arms outstretched, 
and soar on the updraft. 

She was aware that Mulder was watching her and tried to ignore him. 
These days he was like a black hole, a place into which her energy 
went, never to return. She could draw on his strength when he just 
stood there and let her, but he didn't really know how to give, no 
matter how much his heart might be in it. Whenever he tried, he only 
seemed to wind up taking whatever energy she had left.

That wasn't a lot at the moment. Maybe it had just been too much to 
encompass in too short a time -- first the shooting in New York, then 
the whole mess out at El Rico and then the day they finally got the 
office back. 

She had gone downstairs with her little carton of possessions, excited 
to get back to their real work. Skinner had said that the basement 
would be cleaned and ready by five, and sure enough, it was. There was 
even a new brass plate on the door. Below it, the faint outline of a 
neat rectangle marked the place Fowley had had her name. Or the place 
Spender had had his. She couldn't remember and it didn't matter. What 
mattered was that for a little while there had been two names on that 
door, and now, again, there was only his.

Mulder was already inside -- she could hear him moving about, doing an 
awful rendition of Our House. Scully almost turned around and went 
back upstairs, annoyed that something as silly as a nameplate should 
bother her so much. She finally decided it wouldn't, and pushed open 
the door.

Mulder was happier than she'd seen him in months; tie askew, shirt 
sleeves rolled up, a big grin on his face as he unpacked a strange 
assortment of objects. She knew his toys had burned with the office; 
he must have run right out and bought new ones as soon as the keys 
were back in his hand. 

"Hey, partner," he smirked, as if they had gotten away with something 
really good. "Take off your coat. Stay awhile."  

Scully set the box down and looked at her watch. 7:18 pm. Normal 
people were at home by now, discussing the news, sitting down to eat 
meals together. Tomorrow she'd worry about arranging a new work space 
for herself. Today was finished. 

"Actually," she said, keeping her voice far lighter than she felt, "I 
was thinking about buying us a celebratory dinner."

His mouth opened in genuine surprise. "You're not going to stay? Get 
settled in?" He gestured to a table in the far back corner, the one 
she'd always used. She felt herself sinking as she looked at it and 
suddenly the idea of inviting Mulder to dinner seemed utterly 
ridiculous. She'd had enough dinners with him over the years. Thank 
God he'd ignored it. 

"You're fine by yourself," she answered. "You don't need me for this."

"No, I guess not." Once he might have teased her about a hot date, but 
that kind of innuendo had stopped being funny years ago. She supposed 
she ought to be grateful he was aware of that and spared her from it. 

He stared at her a moment, rubbing the end of his nose, obviously 
trying -- and failing -- to understand what was going on inside her 
head. Finally, he turned back to his box of goodies. 

"Okay, Scully. Go have a long soak and an old movie. Enjoy yourself." 

Was that his idea of *her* idea of a good time? A bath and an old 
movie? A sharp rejoinder stood poised on the tip of her tongue but 
Mulder was already thumbing through a stack of photocopied newspaper 
articles, searching for things to hang on the bare walls, and talking 
to him seemed pointless. She wished him a good night and left.

At home, the answering machine was blinking three messages. She tried 
to be pleased that her brothers had bothered to call, though she was 
sure her mother had reminded them to do it. 

"Well, I guess you're out somewhere having a lovely thirty-fifth," 
came her mother's cheery voice. "Happy birthday, sweetie, and call me 
when you get back." 

She stabbed erase without even listening to the ones from Bill and 
Charlie. 

She was still in her coat, keys still in her hands. She could get back 
in the car, go out to her mother's. God knows she'd be welcomed -- she 
hadn't been there since the day she got back from New York. 

She wanted to call Melissa, wanted to go out and get once-a-year 
roaring drunk, like they had on birthdays past. Three years and there 
were still moments like this, moments when she missed her sister so 
fiercely it was like a ball of thorns lodged fast in the middle of her 
chest.

Scully let her coat slip from her shoulders, dropped her keys and her 
weapon on top of it and sat down on the couch. Then lay down. Then 
pulled the quilt from the back of the couch and wrapped it around 
herself. She kept meaning to get up and do something with the evening, 
but somehow that never happened. Instead she'd fallen asleep right 
there, waking to a dream of the too-bright light, of something 
scraping her insides until she was hollow. 

She hadn't slept a night through since. Probably the dreams were to 
blame for way she felt these days, over-reacting to things she'd 
normally take in stride. 

Scully gave herself a slight shake, returning to the present. Move or 
sink, she reminded herself, her father's advice when he'd taught her 
how to swim.

She sighed, wishing she could give her thoughts to the rising wind,  
let it carry them away. Mulder was back on form, that at least was 
something to be glad about. She, meanwhile, would take her father's 
advice, keep putting one foot in front of the other as if nothing but 
the work really mattered. Maybe if she could keep doing that long 
enough, she would find that nothing else did. 

"So, how did you know about this place?" she asked, keeping her back 
turned. 

"I was here before." The scrabble of rocks told her he'd gotten up to 
join her at the edge. She almost wished he wouldn't. Mulder had a way 
these days of boxing her into corners and gazing into her eyes as if 
trying to redecorate the inside of her head with the same pictures 
he'd used to redecorate the office. She preferred her own mental decor 
-- drab and grey though it might be at the moment, it was at least 
hers.

"Remember Albert Hosteen?" he asked. "After I got well we drove up 
here. Sat against these rocks, right here, eating blue corn tortillas. 
Not bad once you get used to the taste. He said the corn mush was 
supposed to be cleansing."

She gave him her attention then, intrigued by the confidence. Mulder 
had never really talked about what happened to him during the time he 
was supposedly dead out here.

"He told me a story. Actually, several stories, but there was one in 
particular." He grinned, lolling against the sandstone wall with the 
kind of studiously careless attitude she always thought of as his GQ 
pose. The beautiful tortured boy. He didn't have the right hair for it 
now, didn't even have the right face any more. 

Scully turned back to the horizon and tried not to sigh again. They 
were both getting old. 

"I always meant to tell you," he was saying, unaware that her mind had 
wandered. She heard the note of excitement in his voice that always 
signaled a truly good piece of evidence and tried to let it nudge her 
out of her mood. 

"What?" she asked, turning around, placing her customary answer in the 
customary pause.

"About the alien monsters." 

Mulder waggled his eyebrows again, looking so pleased with himself 
that she managed to smile. It was comforting to know that no matter 
what happened, the core of Mulder never really changed. Even through 
the last six months of boredom and frustration his delight in the 
strange and inexplicable had remained miraculously untarnished. Sure, 
he lost sight of it from time to time, as she had lost sight of her 
curiosity, her sense of adventure. The thing about Mulder was that he 
always found his again fairly soon. She was beginning to think that 
hers was gone for good. 

"Are you going to tell me the story before it gets dark, or shall I 
gather wood for a campfire?" A feeble joke, but enough to be rewarded 
with a widening of his grin. 

"It's not going to sound anywhere as good when I tell it. Okay, 
basically, First Man and First Woman came to this land to hide from 
the alien monsters." 

He caught her look and nodded seriously. "The alien monsters, Scully. 
That's exactly how Albert said it. They heard a baby crying on top of 
a mountain, but when First Man went up there, he only found a 
turquoise statue, about the size of a baby, but made like a grown 
woman. So, he brought it down and gave it to First Woman to take care 
of--"

"Of course," Scully couldn't help interjecting. Mulder laughed, 
obviously not against the idea of audience participation.

"--and that was Changing Woman. Now the holy people who created First 
Man and First Woman saw that they had Changing Woman and since nobody 
should be alone, the holy people gave them White Shell Woman, who was 
just like Changing Woman, but made of white shell. Then a ceremony was 
performed, and Changing Woman and White Shell Woman were given life."

He paused, as if in one of his slide show monologues, waiting for 
questions. She shook her head for him to go on. 

"Okay, well, this is the fun part. First Man and First Woman went back 
down the mountain but the others stayed up there and I guess they got 
lonely, because one day, Changing Woman opened her legs to the Sun and 
got with child. And then White Shell Woman got jealous, so she opened 
her legs to the running water and she also conceived a child. And the 
child of Changing Woman was called Monster Slayer and the child of 
White Shell Woman was called Child of Water. And it was their job to 
slay the alien monsters."

He stopped and regarded her with an air of triumph.

"Is there a moral to this story?" Scully asked.

Mulder tilted his head. "You don't find it interesting?"

"Yes, it's a lovely story, Mulder, and an interesting choice of words. 
Was there another reason you finally decided to let me hear it?"

"He said something else. Let me see if I can get it right." Mulder 
closed his eyes, as if reading the text off the back of his eyelids. 
"This thing you seek, this truth, it's like the air. It's everywhere 
around you, but you cannot hold it. You can only know it's there."

He opened his eyes, his expression taking on that searching look which 
she was coming to hate. 

"Wise words," she acknowledged. 

"He said you would see that in time. That you had a different spirit. 
But the seeing would bring you great danger. I thought-- When Melissa 
was shot, I thought that was what he meant."

She turned her head towards the desert again, desperately trying to 
banish her last image of her sister. 

"I just wonder what you see these days, Scully. You've gotten so 
quiet."

He put a questioning hand on her back, right below her shoulder 
blades. It was the wrong moment. His touch stirred the grief, 
paralyzed her with the force of its waking. 

She tried to step away from him but her legs collapsed.


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PART 2

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She was lying on her back. She knew this place, knew its smell. Smell 
was all she had to identify it; her eyes would not open and no one 
spoke within her hearing. 

Scully drew in air through her nose, trying to remember where she was, 
listening fiercely for anything, any indication that she wasn't alone.

"Dana."

Her head snapped up. Yes, it made sense now; she was hallucinating. 
Possibly from the altitude, the lack of water. She'd eaten nothing for 
hours, not since breakfast, not really even breakfast. Just coffee and 
a slice of toast. Her blood sugar must be way down, she was overtired, 
and the strange landscape could easily promote--

"Dana."

Melissa's hands covered hers, fingers sliding into her clenched fists. 
Scully fought for air against the thickness in her lungs, clutched 
Melissa's fingers as if she could drag her sister back into the world 
-- or go with her into whatever place was waiting.

"No, Dana. Listen. Are you listening?"

She nodded. Suddenly she *was* listening, with her ears, her fingers, 
her entire being.

"It's time to know what you know, Dana. It's time to stop pretending. 
Do you understand?"

She opened her mouth to answer, but no sound came out.

"They need you, Dana. Trust your heart, trust what you know, but be 
careful. This is more dangerous than you think."


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She woke to Mulder's face, blank with terror, his mouth forming her 
name. She was lying on the ground, legs twisted painfully beneath her, 
and Mulder was touching her face, her arms, little helpless pats as if 
he wanted to grab her but was afraid she might break.

The bands across her chest snapped open and she dragged in a huge 
lungful of air, the dirt gritting between her teeth.

"Scully! Talk to me!"

She swallowed carefully, tasting clay and something else, something 
burnt and ancient. 

"Scully?" Mulder's questing hands came to rest on her cheeks. He bent 
closer, looking into her eyes, relief flooding his face when he saw 
her behind them once again. She tried to tell him she was okay, but 
her mouth was filled with dust, her tongue too thick, too heavy. She 
tried to move, but couldn't. No part of her seemed to be working.

Mulder straightened her legs and tucked his jacket around her, making 
her as comfortable as he could against the hard ground.

"Scully, I'm going to go down to the car. I'm going to bring up your 
coat and some water and call for a MedEvac. Okay?"

No. No, it was not okay. The last time something weird like this had 
happened and Mulder called an ambulance, she'd woken up wet and frozen 
with him pulling some kind of umbilical cord out of her throat. 

No ambulance. No way. 

Mulder saw the refusal in her eyes. "Look, I can't carry you down," he 
pleaded. "It's too steep."

She managed to swallow again, though it seemed to take all the 
strength she had. "Fine," she mumbled. "Mm fine."

Mulder's face turned bright red. "Scully, you just passed out. You are 
not fine."

"I am." She waved her fingers to show him her strength was returning. 
"I am, just give me a minute."

Mulder pounded a fist against the ground and flung himself away. She 
heard pebbles grinding underfoot as he stomped back and forth, working 
off his anger. 

Okay, she told herself. Let him calm himself down, you have your own 
problems right now. She was beginning to regain the use of her arms 
and legs, the muscles responding reasonably well as she flexed each 
limb. It was over, whatever it was. A few more minutes and she could 
make it back down to the car. Some food, a hot bath and a good night's 
sleep and she'd be all right. No need to panic. No need at all. 

Scully sat up slowly. The world stayed level and her head stayed 
clear. Mulder came back immediately, crouching by her side, his face 
creased with lines of worry. She knew that look; she'd seen enough of 
it when she was ill. Right now, his recent indifference would be 
easier to handle.

"Can we go?" she asked, holding his jacket out to him. "I feel 
better." She let him help her to feet and tried not to see the anguish 
in his eyes.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


BIG MESA MOTEL, FLAGSTAFF
MARCH 2ND, 10:22 PM


His knock on the bathroom door woke her.

"Mulder, I'm fine," Scully answered, more sharply than she'd intended. 
It would be just like him to kick the door open if there wasn't some 
immediate response.

"Don't drown in there, okay?" he called back. "I just got us two 
pizzas and I'm not *that* hungry."

Scully slid back down into the water. It was still warm enough to be 
comforting. She tucked her thumbs inside her fists and felt Melissa's 
hands again.

Her throat grew sore and tight, but she would not give in. Not right 
now. The faces of redheads hold no secret tears; Mulder would 
certainly notice if she walked out of the bathroom with a Rudolph nose 
and swollen eyelids. The last thing she needed tonight was him 
hovering over her, smothering her with a concern that would be 
withdrawn as soon as something else caught his attention. As soon as 
she had begun to rely on it. 

That was not going to happen again. 

Scully opened her eyes and sighed. The thought of him, just outside 
and waiting, did at least give her the impetus she needed to get out 
of the tub and get on with it.  

He was lying on her bed flipping channels on the TV when she joined 
him. For a moment she flashed anger that he always made her room his 
own, then the smell of the pizza hit her. She went and opened the 
boxes. One pepperoni, one with ham and extra mushrooms. She couldn't 
be angry when the grateful rumbling of her stomach took precedence. 

He knew her too well sometimes, damn him.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


Mulder rolled over and watched his partner sniffing delicately at the 
pizza. She had come out of the bathroom fully dressed, as if she were 
on her way back to the office. 

"Jesus, Scully. Where do you think you're going at this hour?" 

"I thought you said you were hungry," she answered.

"I am."

"Well, then stop messing up my bed and get over here."

Mulder smiled as he turned off the TV. That sounded like the Scully he 
knew.

She brought the casefile to the table, eating her pizza carefully off 
to one side while she read the scant information for the tenth time. 
She had dressed, but she hadn't bothered to blow-dry her hair and it 
fell around her face in damp waves which she kept tucking behind her 
ears with the same finger she was keeping clean to turn pages. She 
looked younger, softer than she usually did and Mulder had a hard time 
not staring. He treasured these bits of Scully, these moments when he 
got to see some tiny part of her the rest of the world didn't.

He popped a loose bit of pepperoni into his mouth. "You feeling better 
now?" he asked, the tone of his voice as offhand as he could make it.

She lifted her head and looked at him at last.

"I'm fine, Mulder. Really."

Scully's eyes always looked huge without makeup and Mulder lost his 
battle with the grin that wanted to escape his control. She just 
looked adorable, sitting there with that earnest expression on her 
face and pizza sauce in the corner of her mouth. 

"Why are you looking at me like that?" The sudden color that rose in 
her cheeks made her appear even younger and Mulder began to laugh. 
God, it felt good to laugh, felt like he hadn't done it in ages. He 
reached across the table and squeezed her hand.

"I'm just glad you're all right."

She automatically slid her hand out of his, and that was the end of 
Mulder's laughter. An uncomfortable silence fell over them, heavy as a 
winter blanket. Mulder ate the rest of his slice without enjoyment, 
keeping his eyes on his dinner, growing cold and greasy now, soaking 
through the cardboard box. 

He looked up and saw that Scully had gone completely still, her slice 
of pizza forgotten in her hand.

"Scully, where are you?" he finally asked.

She looked at her pizza as if she wasn't sure how it got in her hand, 
before laying it back in the box. 

"I'm here, Mulder," she said quietly, picking up a napkin to wipe her 
hands. "What more do you want?"

"You say that like you don't want to be here."

"It's not a matter of what I want. This is my job, this is the case 
we've been assigned. I'll do the best I can, like always."

He searched her face, knowing there was something he was missing, some 
message he should understand being conveyed beneath her words. There 
were days when Scully's face was an open book, one he'd read a hundred 
times. Then there were days, like today, when her thoughts might as 
well be written in Cyrillic for all the sense they made.

She bristled under his gaze and began packing the pizza boxes 
together. 

"I don't know what you're looking for, Mulder, but if it's an 
argument, it'll have to wait till the morning."

"I'm not looking to argue."

The softness of his voice caught her, made her look at him, and he was 
shocked by the depth of sadness in her eyes. 

"Take my pizza if you're still hungry," she offered. 

She spared him a small smile before she turned her back and started 
unbuttoning her shirt, a clear sign that it was time for him to leave. 


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


He woke hours later, listening, certain he had heard someone cry out. 
The Home Shopping Channel, his nightlight of choice, exhorted him 
silently to buy a ten piece set of kitchen knives.

Never need sharpening! the mute screen shouted. Mulder grabbed for the 
remote and turned it to something else. He threw the box down on the 
empty side of the bed and fell back against the pillows, staring at 
the ceiling. 

He didn't need a ten piece set of knives. He had Scully to slice and 
dice him. 

He heard the noise again, quite clearly this time, something that 
sounded uncomfortably like the approach of orgasm, a sound he could 
not reconcile as coming from Scully's room. For an embarrassing moment 
Mulder thought he might actually be eavesdropping on a very private 
act.

No. He wouldn't say the act itself was out of the question, but he 
definitely had his doubts about the soundtrack. 

Another strangled cry made up Mulder's mind. He wouldn't normally go 
into her room while she slept, but he didn't want to hear Scully's 
unconscious torturing her through the paper thin walls all night.

She'd left her side unlocked, as they usually did when their rooms had 
connecting doors. Mulder took that as an invitation, cracking the door 
open and quietly tiptoeing over to the bed. 

Scully was curled tight on her side, wearing the same dark, intent 
expression she wore when he was telling her something she didn't want 
to hear. Beneath their closed lids her eyes darted wildly back and 
forth. She was mumbling under her breath, words tumbling one over the 
other in a rising panic. 

He put a hand on her shoulder, shaking her lightly.

"Hey, Scully, you're dreaming. Wake up."

She gasped and sat up, her eyes opening. In the dark of the room they 
were black and bottomless.

Mulder stepped back from the bed. "You were having a nightmare," he 
said quickly, excusing his presence.

She nodded and lay down again, rolling away from him and pulling the 
covers up to her chin. 

Feeling vaguely like an intruder, Mulder left.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


WALLACE RESIDENCE
MARCH 3RD, 8:32 AM


The house was more modern than he expected, a comfortably large wood 
and adobe single story, sitting on three acres just outside of 
Flagstaff. 

Mulder got out of the car and looked around. The land here was black 
volcanic sand, dotted with twisted juniper trees. In the distance, 
jagged mountains with snow-capped peaks gleamed in the sun. Across the 
unpaved road, there was a pond with a cackling family of ducks; behind 
a stand of juniper, an older, more weather-beaten house.

Fragments of the rich blue sky looked up at him from Scully's eyes.

"Not bad, huh?" He smiled down at her.

"No," she agreed solemnly. "Not bad at all."

The door was opened by Jennifer Wallace. According to the file Skinner 
had given them she was thirty-two, but today she looked like a student 
- long black hair pulled into a ponytail, wearing jeans, a sweatshirt 
and sneakers. John Wallace wore the same style clothing, even had a 
similar ponytail, though his skin was lighter than Jennifer's warm 
brown.

He and Scully held up their badges and introduced themselves. Mulder 
smiled his own official smile, shaking Wallace's extended hand. He 
noticed the man wore a heavy silver bowguard on his wrist, inlaid with 
ovals of polished turquoise. 

"Nice bracelet. Got that on the reservation?" he asked.

"It was made for me," Wallace answered, "by a member of my family. My 
wife and I are Dineh."

"Oh, Navajo, right." Mulder smiled again. "I knew a man, a few years 
ago. Maybe you know him? His name is Albert Hosteen."

"There's 180,000 of us. We don't all know each other."

Wallace turned away, his demeanor noticeably cooler. Mulder glanced 
back at Scully, silently asking her opinion. She shrugged, walking 
around him to follow Wallace inside. 


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


Wallace led the two agents into a large, open room. A round stone 
fireplace took up the center. On the far side, a drafting table was 
set up, along with a worn couch facing a small television. On the near 
side, a newer couch and two matching armchairs were set for gazing at 
the fire. 

Wallace took a seat on the couch, close to Jennifer, gesturing for 
Mulder and Scully to use the chairs.

Mulder sat, while Scully, suddenly restless, did a tour of the room. 
There was something wrong here, something she couldn't quite place, a 
feeling that came from the walls and the floor and made the back of 
her neck tingle as if touched by a whispered breath.

"Mrs. Wallace," Mulder began, in his most gentle voice. "I'd like to 
start from the end and work our way back, all right?"

The woman nodded, glancing warily at her husband.

"Can you tell me what happened the day you went to pick up Amy at the 
daycare center?"

Jennifer shrugged. "Nothing happened. She just wasn't there. Everyone 
said she was, but no one could remember the last time they'd seen her. 
We searched everywhere."

"And what time would that have been?"

"I left her there just after noon and went to get her at about three, 
three-thirty."

Scully wandered over to the fireplace. The heavy stone mantelpiece was 
covered with family mementos and photographs in handmade frames. She 
touched a baby-sized pair of beaded moccasins and felt a knife go 
through her abdomen. 

You can do this, she told herself, glad she had her back to her 
partner. Count to four. Breathe. Relax. 

She opened her eyes.

"Mulder."

Mulder stopped himself in mid-question, alerted by the tone in her 
voice. He got up quickly and came to her, following her pointed 
finger.

The shocked look on his face reassured her that she hadn't gone mad.

"Is this your daughter, Mrs. Wallace?" He held the photograph out to 
the young woman. She nodded, head dropping into her hands.

Scully turned and walked out of the room, ignoring Mulder, whose eyes 
seemed to be drilling questions into her back. 


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


She was sitting in the car when he came out of the house, her body 
rigid, staring straight ahead.

Mulder opened the passenger door and stuck his head inside. 

"Do you want me to drive?"

"No." She turned the key and waited for him to get in.

They drove back to the motel in silence. Scully parked haphazardly 
across two spaces and got out of the car, leaving the keys in the 
ignition. She went into her room, letting the door slam behind her. 

Mulder waited a respectable few minutes before locking up the car and 
knocking on her door. 

No answer. He knocked again. Still no answer.

He let himself into his own room and tried the connecting door. She 
hadn't locked it. He tried not to consider that a good sign; she'd 
probably forgotten it was even there. 

He opened the door slowly. Scully was sitting on the edge of the bed, 
hands clasped tight together, staring at the floor. Mulder went and 
sat down beside her, careful not to sit too close.

"Do you want to know what I found out?"

A moment, then she nodded her assent.

"Amy is the adopted daughter of Jennifer and her first husband, Paul 
Mason. He died when she was eleven months old. Jennifer and John were 
married about two years ago.

"That was a picture of Emily. You saw it, Mulder."

"No. That was Amy Wallace. I agree that the resemblance is remarkable, 
that it may not be coincidence, but this is a different child, Scully. 
Emily is gone."

"There was no body."

"She's dead, Scully. You know that. You were there."

She stood up abruptly, putting the length of the room between them. 
"There's more," Mulder said gently. "Do you want to hear it?"

"Go on."

"Paul Mason apparently worked for a pharmaceutical firm. He was a 
researcher on a project testing experimental drugs."

"Roush."

"Yes. The same place Wallace worked until about a year ago."

"Is that all?"

"No." Mulder stood up. As if by reflex, Scully moved away, until she 
had literally backed herself into a corner.

"Scully, we never found out if Emily was born with that condition, or 
if it was something she developed later."

Scully's voice turned suddenly bitter. "You mean something she was 
given."

"Maybe." He moved closer, shoving his hands into his pockets to curb 
his impulse to reach for her. "The thing is, Amy doesn't have it. 
According to Jennifer Wallace, Amy has always been a perfectly 
healthy, perfectly normal little girl."

That, at last, made her look at him. "What does that mean?"

"It means," Mulder said carefully, "that she may be the control in an 
experiment. It means--"

Scully finished the sentence for him.

"There may be others."


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


RED EARTH DAY CARE CENTER
MARCH 3RD, 10:17 AM


Mulder stopped the car in front of a cheery frame house with kids' 
paintings taped in the front windows. He opened his mouth, but before 
he could even say her name, Scully cut him off with a wave of her 
hand.

"Just stop hovering, Mulder," she snapped. 

Damn her for never letting him care. Mulder threw his door open and 
stalked ahead.

None of the adults had seen anyone hanging around. They asked to speak 
to the children and were led outside, to the playground behind the 
house. Mulder wandered around, observing Scully as she went from child 
to child. That was not hovering, it was normal procedure. Mulder was 
good with kids but the very small ones simply didn't respond as well 
to being questioned by a man. Back when teasing was a conversational 
option between them, Mulder had liked to say that Scully was closer to 
their size and therefore less threatening.

He leaned against the wall of the house, watching his partner talking 
to a particularly nervous little boy. Scully was soft, patient, 
thorough, hunkered down to four-year-old height with her arms wrapped 
around her knees for balance. Her warmth washed over the child, calmed 
him, drew him nearer. It was a gentleness she rarely exhibited 
elsewhere.

She would have made a wonderful mother, Mulder thought, then quickly 
caught himself. That was unprofessional and so was he, watching Scully 
for clues when he should be watching the kids.

He waited until she was finished, then left her in the car, scribbling 
her notes against the steering wheel while he went to look around the 
building. Twenty minutes later he'd still found nothing. 

Rounding the building from the side, he caught a glimpse of Scully 
through the windshield -- eyes closed, head resting wearily against 
the back of her seat.

It stopped him cold, as if he'd just caught her on her knees, rosary 
in hand.

She's tired, he told himself. And scared. To tell the truth, he was a 
little scared himself. He relied on Scully's strength, on her ability 
to hold things together, far more than he liked to admit. No matter 
how much her recent stubbornness had annoyed him, he knew he needed 
her to be exactly the steadfast, logical creature that she was. To be 
the still center around which he moved, always knowing where to 
return. It frightened him to see her so obviously shaken. 

He made sure to shuffle his feet in the gravel of the parking lot as 
he approached the car, giving her fair warning. 

"Let's go," she said, as soon as he'd opened the door. He stole a 
glance at her as he buckled up. She was sitting very straight, hand on 
the keys, her face composed. No tear tracks, no expression. Surrounded 
by glass.

All right. If she wanted to pretend she was fine, he would let her. He 
knew better than to try to push Scully when she was in this kind of 
mood.

"Did you get anything useful?" he asked as she started the car.

"Not really. She was there and then she wasn't. No one remembers any 
strange adults hanging around." 

Scully looked carefully both ways before turning, then put her foot to 
the pedal in a way that made his breakfast briefly threaten 
reappearance. She was a demon for speed; it was one of her less 
charming quirks.

"Are we catching a plane?" he asked.

"I want to get online. I've got a theory."

"You wanna share it?"

"Later, when I have a better idea." She rounded another corner, then 
stopped the car abruptly in front of the library. "Pick me up at 
seven, okay?"

She got out, leaving the engine running. Mulder got out as well, 
watching as she strode away, heels clacking like horse's hooves on the 
pavement.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 

PART 3

<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 


CLINE LIBRARY, NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY
MARCH 3RD, 11:42 PM


Scully bought a floppy disk from the young girl at the supplies desk 
and wondered when college students had started to look like kids to 
her. She had never thought of herself as a different generation -- 
from within, her own age seemed static.

Static like my life, she thought, finding a free terminal and shoving 
the disk into the drive. She wiped her hands across her face to banish 
such stray ideas, fished in her pocket for her glasses and set to 
work.

Mulder liked to run through the streets, chasing down truth with a gun 
in his hand, but Scully had a quieter spirit. She chased her truth on 
the Internet, through a microscope, in the bodies of the dead. Never 
one to miss a chance to learn something new, in the time they'd been 
stuck doing background checks, Scully had amassed a head full of 
useful URLs. 

The obvious resemblance implied the obvious connection. That, coupled 
with the neatness of Amy's disappearance could only mean the 
involvement of the nameless, shadowy Them. But who was that, now that 
most of Them were dead? 

As far as they knew, Spender Senior had not been burnt in the hangar, 
but then so many of the bodies had been incinerated beyond easy 
identification. Of all the open cases lying on his desk, what made 
Skinner put them onto this one? It could not be coincidence. When it 
came to your average kidnapping, there were other teams as good as she 
and Mulder were, probably better.

Someone must have directed him, and history would point to the smoker. 
Skinner could not have known what happened the year before in San 
Diego. She had never told him herself, and she couldn't believe that 
Mulder would have made an X-File out of Emily after she had asked him 
to keep the matter private. There would be no point. It was not 
official business and they had wound up with almost no evidence. Apart 
from a photo and some memories held by a woman she never knew as her 
mother, Emily might as well have never existed at all.

Scully took a deep breath, refocusing on the matter at hand. 
Anonymous, she decided, was safer than the FBI's server for the 
moment. She logged onto the university's system as 'guest', just as 
she felt the tingle of a familiar presence slipping up from behind.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 


"Mulder, what are you doing here?" she snapped. Her face, when she 
turned to him, looked as if she'd been in the middle of something 
secret; embarrassed and annoyed at the interruption. 

He pulled up a chair just behind hers, hung his jacket neatly over it 
and loosened his tie before he finally answered, "Two heads are better 
than one." 

Her right eyebrow lifted slightly, enough to signal wary acceptance. 

"You have no leads of your own to run down?"

"Actually, no," he admitted, stretching his neck to work the top 
button of his collar open. "Trail's as cold as a witch's--"

"Don't."

"--nose," he finished, waiting for her usual eyeroll of derision. It 
didn't come. She regarded him without expression, her eyes a cool, 
impenetrable grey. 

Mulder started on his cuffs, hitching his chair a little closer and 
pointing at the terminal with his chin.

"California Births?" he guessed. 

She nodded, her gaze shifting away. "I should have thought of it last 
year."

"I think the one was enough to deal with at the time." 

"I'm an investigator. It's my job to think further," she answered, 
pounding the URL into the keyboard. 

"Don't be so hard on yourself, Scully."

She didn't answer, her attention focused on the monitor. "Ah, the joys 
of a T-1 connection," Mulder murmured as the site popped up, drawing 
closer so he could watch over her shoulder as she went through the 
advanced search screens.

Live Births. San Diego County. November 2, 1994. Female.

The search yielded eleven names. She tried clicking on the first, but 
nothing happened.

"Never heard of hypertext, I guess," Mulder tried to joke. Scully just 
sat with her hand clenched around the mouse. 

Mulder reached over her hunched shoulder and picked up her notebook. 
He scribbled the names quickly, glancing at her tense face when he was 
done.

"You want me to do this?" he asked.

"No." She drew in air and let it out in a slow sigh. "Give them to me 
one at a time." 

Mulder read the names back to her as she searched the records one by 
one. 

Five were sealed by adoption.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 


THE WHOLLY GRAIN
MARCH 3RD, 1:05 PM


"A, B, C, D and E," Mulder was saying, having finally dragged Scully 
away from her fruitless search for further records on the pretext of 
his own starvation. The choice of venue had been hers and Mulder was 
surprised to find that he'd actually enjoyed his vegetarian lasagna. 
Maybe he'd been hanging around Scully and her health food fetish long 
enough that he was beginning to acquire the taste. 

"Amy Wallace, Bethany MacEntyre, Caitlin Jenkins, Denise Hampton and 
Emily Sim." He ticked the names off on his fingers, watching her for 
some kind of reaction.

Scully nodded, sipping coffee. The lack of useful leads seemed to have 
sapped her energy. She looked like she wanted to curl up in a corner 
and go to sleep.

Mulder had spent the last half-hour on the phone, and her notebook was 
now filled with his scrawl. It seemed odd to him, to see his own 
handwriting in that familiar black binding, interspersed with hers.

"Frohike got inside the database and found the mother's names -- they 
were all over sixty, just like the patients I saw in the nursing home 
I found last year. Probably from the same place, but that was shut 
down, so I don't think we're going to find anything useful by pursuing 
it. Until we can come up with the full names of the adoptive parents 
we're stalled on that end."

He waited. Nothing.

"And none of this is going to help us find Amy Wallace," he added.

Scully toyed with her salad, scraping the excess dressing off a leaf 
of lettuce with careful concentration.

"I think we need to run full background checks on John and Jennifer 
Wallace and Paul Mason," she finally answered. "Something isn't right 
in that house."

"You mean besides the obvious?"

"I just had this feeling, Mulder. When I was there, before I even saw 
the picture. Maybe it was..." Her voice trailed off and she shook her 
head as if to clear the last of that thought out of it.

"What?"

"I don't know. It's a nice house, but it felt...dead somehow. Did you 
feel that too?" 

His mouth quirked in an involuntary smile. "Is the skeptical Dr. 
Scully trying to say the house had bad vibes?"

Her wounded look made him want to stand up and kick himself in the 
ass. She shrugged and busied herself not eating her salad. 

Mulder watched her for a moment, assessing her mood, then leaned over 
the table, so close he could almost whisper in her ear. "Scully," he 
said, "I just want you to know, I won't think less of you for one 
second if you tell me that you need to back away from this."

She slapped her fork down on the table. "How could you possibly think 
I could back away from this?"

"Scully, last night-"

"I had a bad dream," she said sharply. "You don't ever have them?"

"I have plenty, but we're talking about you right now." 

They glared at each other a moment, then -- as if by tacit agreement -
- both leaned back in their seats, letting some fresh air come between 
them. 

"What was it about?" Mulder finally asked, when he was certain they'd 
both calmed down. "The dream?"

"I don't remember."

"Okay, fine. This dream you don't remember--"

"Mulder," she cut him off. "This is perfectly normal in our line of 
work. It doesn't mean a thing."

He watched her lips pinch together and the individual pieces of her 
recent behavior suddenly sorted themselves into a recognizable 
pattern.

"Scully...how long has this been going on?"

"It's no big deal, Mulder. I had something like this happen before, a 
couple of years ago. It'll stop on its own."

She slipped out of the booth and began to gather her things together. 
"Are you coming?"

"Where?"

"To Window Rock. That's where they keep the tribal enrollment records. 
What do you want to bet John Wallace isn't Navajo?"


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 


OFFICES OF THE NAVAJO NATION
MARCH 3RD, 4:53 PM


It took three hours to drive to Window Rock and barely three minutes 
to answer the question. The Navajo Nation had no one registered under 
the name of John Wallace. Jennifer, on the other hand, was the real 
thing, her family traceable all the way back to the start of the 
tribal rolls.

Scully was still standing in front of the Council Building when Mulder 
rejoined her, staring at the circular hole in a large red rock 
formation looming above the parking lot. 

He leaned over to whisper in her ear. "Reckon that's why they call it 
Window Rock."

"Do you remember Albert Hosteen?" she asked suddenly, as if he hadn't 
asked her exactly the same question the night before.

"Yeah." Mulder came around to look into her face. She looked dazed, 
her sky-blue eyes focused on some distant point through the hole in 
the rock. "Farmington isn't too far from here. We can go there 
tomorrow, if you want to talk to him."

"No." She closed her eyes and when she opened them again she was back 
with him, a painful thought drawing down her brows. "No, we brought 
him nothing but trouble the last time. I'm certain They're watching 
us, Mulder." 

She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering violently, though the 
sun was still pleasantly warm.

"Are you all right?"

"I think I got too much sun this morning." 

"Didn't you bring any sunscreen?"

She shivered again. "I put some on." 

"Well, by the toasted look of you, not enough. Even your part is 
sunburnt." He put his hand on Scully's arm, turning her towards their 
car. "Okay, so now we know that John Wallace isn't a member of the 
Navajo Nation. I can't see what more we can do here tonight. Let's 
head back to Flag--"

Scully suddenly stopped walking.

"What's the matter?" he asked. "What did I say?"

She turned around. Mulder saw it in her eyes, growing huge and 
frightened as it overtook her. This time, he managed to grab her 
before she hit the ground. 


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 


Emily was clinging to Melissa's hand, peering at Scully without 
recognition.

No. Not Emily. This girl was taller, thinner, her strawberry blonde 
hair cut close to her head.

"Her name is Denise," Melissa said, stroking the girl's head against 
her hip. 

-No. No. Not again, please. 

"Dana, you're not listening. What you need to know, it's already 
inside you."

-There's nothing inside me. 

"That's not true. You need to go back. Back to the beginning. It 
starts in the first place you remember."

From behind her sister came another, smaller girl, her shoulder-length 
hair falling over her cheeks. Melissa swung the child into her arms, 
smiling at the girl as if she knew her well. 

Emily turned to Scully with the same solemn eyes she remembered, 
laying her head on Melissa's shoulder. Scully tried to reach for the 
child but Melissa stepped away. Bright green blood began to run down 
the back of Emily's neck. 

-No, Scully whispered.

Melissa held the child closer, rocking her gently. "Sometimes," she 
said, laying her cheek against the small blonde head, "sometimes I 
miss the sea."


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 


Mulder went down hard on one knee, clutching an unconscious Scully to 
his chest, trying to keep her from slipping through his arms. Holding 
her was like holding a human-shaped sack of rice -- limbs trailing in 
the dirt, heavy and disjointed, her head hanging loosely over his arm.

"That's a nice case of sunstroke," said a voice just to his left.

Mulder looked up and saw a Navajo woman about their age, neatly 
dressed in the kind of mismatched suit Scully had worn in her younger 
days. 

"Bring her inside, out of the sun." 

The woman strode towards one of the mobile homes that made up the 
Nation's offices. She unlocked the door and held it open, waiting 
patiently while he struggled with Scully's limp weight. 

"Put her on the couch."

The dim interior flooded with harsh fluorescent light. Mulder saw a 
large, comfortable sofa against the far wall and laid Scully on it, 
carefully adjusting her arms and legs.

"There's water over there," the woman said, pointing to a large cooler 
behind her desk. She bent to open Scully's jacket and pressed a hand 
across her ribs.

"Good. The heart is strong. She'll be fine."

Mulder came back with a glass of water and knelt beside the couch. The 
woman took the glass and dribbled half the cold water carefully over 
Scully's face. She opened her eyes with a little gasp.

The woman smiled down at her. "Well, hello. Nice to have you back."

Scully tried to answer, but all she achieved was a trembling kind of 
grimace. Her eyes roved the room wildly, finally calming when Mulder 
leaned over Leonora's shoulder so she could see him. 

"It's okay," he reassured her, and she nodded, as if to say the same 
to him.

The woman patted her cheeks with more water and Scully's mouth opened 
and closed like a bird seeking to be fed.

The woman laughed. "Yes, I'm sure you're thirsty." She handed the 
empty glass back to Mulder and ordered him to fill it. He leapt to his 
feet, only too glad to be of some use.

When he returned, the woman had helped Scully sit up and was removing 
her jacket. "Rule number one. Black attracts heat and is not a good 
color for the desert. If you have to wear this kind of clothing, at 
least leave the jacket open so your body can breathe." 

She took the water from Mulder and carefully poured it over Scully's 
head, patting it into her hair, smoothing it down her face and the 
back of her neck.

"You're going to ruin your couch," Mulder said apologetically.

"Hah. Be dry in five minutes. More." She handed the glass to Mulder 
again and turned back to her patient.

"Rule number two. Drink water. All day. If you get a headache, 
immediately assume you're dehydrated. If you're thirsty, it's too 
late."

She reached for Scully's wrist with one hand, the other making an 
expert doctor's flip to expose her watch. Thirty seconds ticked away, 
then she released Scully's hand and smiled, patting her shoulder 
gently. 

"Your pulse is almost back to normal already, so you haven't done 
yourself too much damage. And I've got to go. I'm late for a meeting." 

She stood, pointing at the glass Mulder held. "You. She needs to drink 
that in very small sips or she'll get sick. Don't let her gulp it. And 
then she needs something salty with something sweet. Two pinches of 
salt in a glass of orange juice is the best. And then more water. Lots 
of water. You too. You should both be peeing buckets before you go to 
sleep." 

Mulder nodded, silenced by the woman's authoritative manner. 

"And you," she continued, turning back to Scully, "have been very 
silly. And I think you know that because you're looking pretty ashamed 
of yourself. You are in a high altitude desert. Do not be fooled by 
the nice cool weather, that sun is no friend to anyone with your skin. 
Buy a hat. And wear cotton. Everything. No nylons, and no silk. They 
don't breathe."

"Thank you," Scully managed to say. The woman touched her shoulder 
again.

"There's nothing to thank. The door will lock behind you. Feel free to 
stay as long as you need." She bustled out the door, grabbing a 
handful of files and a briefcase on her way.

Mulder picked up a carved wooden nameplate from the ugly green 
government-issue desk.

"Well, your nurse appears to be a member of the Navajo Nation Council. 
Leonora Hattaway, Health and Education. Nice going, Scully. Only pass 
out in front of the best."

Scully managed a small smile, one which lifted his heart out of all 
proportion. He brought her another glass of water, helped her hold it 
to drink.

"Slow. You heard what Councilor Hattaway just said."

"Mulder..."

"Whatever you've got to tell me, Scully, it can wait." He caught the 
glass as it began to slip from her hands. "The university has a good 
hospital back in Flagstaff. And I'm taking you there. Now."

"Mulder...please." 

She was looking at him in that soft, wide-eyed way she had that 
guaranteed he'd do anything she asked. It was Scully's version of his 
lost-boy look, but she never used it the way he did, with deliberate 
intent. Maybe that was why it invariably hit him behind the knees.

"I'm not sick. I'll drink some water, and eat, and sleep, and I'll be 
fine in the morning. Okay? There's no reason to worry."

Her arm fell over his, and he took her hand, squeezing it gently. For 
a moment he was back in the hospital in New York, watching her chest 
rise and fall, rise and fall, terrified that the stillness between 
each frail breath would go on and on and on. 

Fear rose in him, the wild panic that came whenever he thought of 
losing her. It had been his constant companion the long months that 
she'd been ill, driving him forward even while it drove her away from 
him.

That had always been his problem. He'd bash his way through any 
obstacle to reach her, even if that obstacle was Scully herself.

"Scully..." he began, surprised to find himself suddenly on the verge 
of tears. He rubbed her cold hand between both of his. "Talk to me, 
please. What is going on?"

She shook her head slowly. "It's private, Mulder. I'll work it out."

"Scully, I'm your friend. I realize I hurt you, but there are things 
about me and Diana that you don't understand. Reasons why I owe her 
the benefit of the doubt. It doesn't mean that I don't trust you, or 
that you can't tell me if something's wrong." 

A tear rose in her eye and remained, balancing delicately on her 
lashes. "But I haven't earned the benefit of the doubt." 

Mulder touched the tear with the edge of his thumb, watched it roll 
down his finger and melt into his skin. He felt like a demon baptized 
with Scully's tears, welcoming the pain, hating himself for having 
caused them. 

"I came back for you," he said. "I stayed with you. Please don't 
forget that."

She turned her head so he could no longer see her eyes.

"I never left." 

The weakness of her voice, the dull quiet, was almost as frightening 
as watching her fight for breath.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 

PART 4

<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 


FLAGSTAFF, ARIZONA
MARCH 3RD, 11:47 PM


They ate a late dinner at the 24-hour diner around the corner from the 
motel, huddled against the noise of a pack of NAU students stuffing 
their rather inebriated faces. Mulder had his leather-bound journal 
held open with the sugar bowl and his side of fries, Scully's laptop 
hummed as she paged through three days' worth of email.

Where do we start? he wondered, staring at his few notations. Come on, 
brain. Do something spooky. Leap.

No leap.

At last Scully took off her glasses and pressed her thumbs just under 
her eyebrows, rubbing at the pressure points hidden against the bone.

"I'm fine," she mumbled, as if she could feel him watching her without 
even looking at him. "I'm still dehydrated, that's all." 

She reached for her water and drained the glass in one long gulp. 

"Doctor Councilor Hattaway said to drink slow." 

He got a small, pained grimace for his effort. The sunburn gave 
Scully's face the illusion of health, but up close Mulder could see 
the fragile skin around her eyes beginning to darken with fatigue.

He looked past Scully, toward the pack of students. One skinny guy 
with glasses had his arm slung around a pretty girl whose long brown 
braid was trailing on the table. He was whispering in her ear, making 
her giggle softly as she squirmed against him. 

Mulder looked back at his partner with her tired face and her sad 
little mouth, wondering what it would be like to have her giggle in 
his ear.

"Hey, Scully," he said. "When I hand you something, some cockamamie 
theory you don't believe in, what do you do?"

She looked up at him with her shadowed eyes, and he was glad she 
couldn't see the kids. The girl was answering the boy now, pressing 
soft little kisses against his temple while he grinned like a happy 
idiot. 

"You mean before or after I tell you that you're nuts?"

Mulder smiled with relief at the faint flicker of humor in her eyes. 

"After."

"I guess...I guess I attempt to prove your theory as if I believe it's 
true, hoping that in the attempt, I'll uncover some solid piece of 
evidence we can use."

"So. You want to hear my cockamamie theory now, or should I save it 
until we're back at the motel?"

"When we're back at the motel, Mulder, I'll be thinking of bed."

He paused a moment, wondering if she had meant to give him that 
opening, if she was trying to keep it light, or if they were simply 
out of practice at this kind of conversation. 

He decided to play it serious. Serious was always safer where Scully 
was concerned. 

"We're assuming the Consortium went up in flames, right? What if we're 
wrong about that? What if all that's gone is the top layer? There'd be 
a lot of scrabbling for control about now."

She nodded slowly. "So you're saying that a part of the Project would 
still exist."

"Five girls. One control, four experimental subjects." He watched her 
face closely, but she gave no sign that this line of reasoning was 
disturbing her. "Why would they steal the control, Scully? What does 
that do to the experiment?"

"It depends on the nature of the research. If the plan is to 
manipulate the girls' DNA in-vitro, then allow them to be born and see 
what happens as they grow up, they need her. If it's to make an alien-
human hybrid through a process that resembles gene therapy, then I'd 
say the control is not only unnecessary, but invalid. Which may mean 
they've taken Amy because it's her turn to undergo the therapy. Or 
because two have died already and they need another subject."

"Who's the second?"

Scully blinked at him in surprise. She seemed utterly unaware of what 
she'd just said.

"What makes you think they've lost two?" he asked. 

"No, I--" She flushed suddenly, as if she'd only just now heard her 
own words. "I don't know that," she said quickly, "I don't know where 
that came from."

Her lips came together in a line, an expression he knew far too well. 
We Will Not Talk About This Now.

A loud whoop from the table of students caught their attention before 
he could protest. Skinny Boy was kissing his girl, one hand held high. 
His fingers ticked off their friends' countdown -- five, four, three, 
two. On the one they broke apart as their friends began to sing 'Happy 
Birthday.' 

Scully turned back to face him as dear Becky received birthday smacks 
from all directions, squealing happily under the onslaught. He caught 
Scully's quiet smile before it faded from her lips. 

"Fond memories?" he teased.

The smile abruptly faded. Mulder looked away, wondering if there was 
anything he could manage to say these days that wouldn't make her 
withdraw from him. 

When he dared to look again, she was buried in her laptop, squinting 
slightly as she tried to read without her glasses. 

"Did Frohike come up with anything else?" he asked.

"Only his usual wild speculation. On the official side, the team at El 
Rico still haven't identified seven of the bodies."

She looked up at him so quickly that he didn't have time to hide his 
expression. "It's okay, Mulder. They're all male adults. They just 
can't come up with names."

He nodded. What a strange pair they were, forever passing little balls 
of comfort between them. It reminded Mulder of the way he used to play 
tennis with Samantha, the two of them in the backyard hitting the ball 
over a rope stretched between two trees. The object of their game had 
not been to hit a serve the other couldn't return, but to keep the 
volley going as long as they could. Their high, reached in the summer 
before Samantha disappeared, had been sixty-seven.

Somewhere along the line he had begun playing to win. He'd let Diana 
blindside him -- again -- let her make him forget who had left whom 
for the betterment of whose career. Scully's sharp eyes had seen that, 
and he'd hated her for it. He'd started acing serves into her side of 
the court, as hard and fast as he could. Then he'd been angry when she 
finally threw down the racquet.

And yet, she hadn't given up on him. She'd hung around, just as 
Samantha always had, waiting for him to come to his senses and play 
nice again. 

She lifted a hand as she read through the next message, catching a 
thick lock of hair between her fingers and tucking it behind her ear. 
Half of it fell forward again as she began to type a reply. 

The urge to touch her arose within him, as if to make certain she 
really was still there.

"What?" she asked, without lifting her head.

Mulder hesitated, turning back to his notebook. He picked up his pen, 
drawing idle circles around the edges of his notes. After a moment he 
felt her looking at him.

"I was just thinking about Samantha." His voice was calm, quiet, his 
concentration focused on the little arrows he was adding to his 
drawing.

She put her hand on his for a moment. He saw Samantha's small hand 
placed over his larger one, his hairless boy's hand, the nails bitten 
to the quick. He didn't want to look up to see the expression on 
Scully's face. Once it had been mere sympathy, but after she too had 
lost her sister it had become one of communion, a shared grief. 

No wonder her brother hated him. He hated himself for teaching her 
such things.

"When you were little, did you look up to Bill?"

She started at the question, drawing back her hand. Mulder dared a 
glance and found curiosity written on her face, not pain or anger. 

He began to add whorls to the ends of his arrows. "My sister 
worshipped me. We used to argue all the time, but if she needed 
something done for her, or some kind of comfort, she'd come to me, not 
our father. He was gone a lot, like yours was. And I just wondered if 
you had the same relationship with Bill."

"You mean do all little sisters hero-worship their big brothers?"

"I guess."

"Mulder," she said, her eyes kind but serious, "I'm not your little 
sister."

"I know that." He dropped his own eyes, embarrassed. It was true that 
sometimes he thought fate had given him Scully to make up for having 
taken Samantha. Most of the time, he just wondered what he'd done to 
deserve such loyalty from both of them. 

"I guess I looked up to him when I was very little," she answered, 
breaking into his thoughts. "My mother says I used to follow him 
everywhere, but I don't really remember. I do remember wanting the 
privileges he always got, for being a boy, for being older. But I 
didn't want to be like him." Her mouth twisted in a swift ghost of a 
smile. "I wanted to be like Melissa."

"Why?" Once again, she'd succeeding in surprising him. He couldn't 
imagine two people from the same gene pool being more different than 
Scully and her sister.

Scully sighed and turned back to stare into her screen. "Because 
living seemed to come so easily to her. She never questioned what she 
did, never worried about whether our parents would approve. She was 
this beautiful butterfly flitting over our heads, while I...I was a 
caterpillar. Firmly grounded. Slogging my slow way through the path my 
parents had laid out." She shrugged, without emotion. "I guess I 
thought the FBI would be my big chance to distinguish myself as 
myself. To choose my own path."

"Which took you straight to the basement."

"I'm not sorry about that."

Their eyes caught and held. 

"Caterpillars do turn into butterflies," he said, daring to touch her 
cheek.

She tilted her head away. "Not this one." 

Her voice held no self-pity; she spoke as if stating a mere scientific 
truth. And as he watched, the glass that always surrounded her 
shimmered, became a one-way window reflecting him back upon himself.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


She was lying on her back, looking down at the swell of her abdomen. A 
soft breeze fluttered the curtains, bringing the smell of spring into 
her apartment. It was Saturday and she had nowhere to go, nothing to 
do but lie here all morning, warm and lazy as a cat.

Slowly, Scully moved her hands over her bare skin, loving the feel of 
her new belly, the hardness beneath the covering of soft flesh. She 
raised her arms over her head to stretch and for the first time felt 
the child move within. 

Eyes closed, bathed in joy, she lay caressing her body as her child 
turned and kicked. And kicked. 

And kicked.

Scully's eyes snapped open.

Light -- white light -- blinding.

Joy became pain, terrible tearing pain as her belly grew and went on 
growing. Her legs were wrenched apart, her feet bound into stirrups, 
her wrists tied to the sides of the bed. She was splayed before Them, 
helpless as her body convulsed in waves of agony, as something huge 
forced its way deep inside her, as they removed the babies, one by 
one.

She woke, shaking and sweating, clutching Mulder's arms.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


"Okay." He made it a statement, not a question, letting the level tone 
of his voice provide a stable place for her to ground herself. 

"Okay," she nodded, still trying to catch her breath. He let her go 
and she lay back on the pillows, wiping her face with trembling hands.

Mulder reached over and snapped on the light, tipping her chin up to 
look into her eyes. Scully shivered violently at his touch and drew 
the blanket up to her shoulders. Beneath it, he knew, the sheets and 
her clothes would be soaked through with sweat.

"You have another pair of pajamas?" She looked at him blankly for a 
moment before nodding her head. "It helps if you change into something 
dry." 

He patted her arm to get her moving, and went back into his room to 
add a t-shirt to his own sweatpants. 

When he returned, five minutes later, she was just coming out of the 
bathroom, red flannel having replaced the white silk she'd been 
wearing. She looked better now, more herself, apart from her hair, 
tangled from being rubbed dry with a towel. 

"You know," he said, settling himself in the vinyl armchair, "I've 
been thinking about something."

"What?" He noted she got into the opposite side of the bed, the one 
that happened, by chance, to be closer to him. It also happened to be 
the dry side, but Mulder wasn't fussy about that kind of detail. He 
settled himself onto the base of his spine and regarded her through 
lowered lashes. 

"The hybrid clones. I saw them, Scully, clones of my sister and a 
little boy, clones of Samantha as an adult."

She nodded faintly, curling up on her side and tucking the blankets 
beneath her chin. "So you told me."

"You saw the Samantha one. And there were other adults. The Gregors 
and Jeremiah Smith. So, what I've been wondering is, why would they 
still be trying to make a human-alien hybrid, like Cassandra Spender? 
Haven't they already succeeded in splicing our DNA with theirs?"

"Maybe not." Her eyes had started to close and she blinked twice 
before continuing her thought. "For one, the clones you saw were grown 
in tanks, correct? Apparently, they need to grow to the level of 
maturity of the human whose cells were taken before they can function 
independently. Not very human."

"So what's the purpose of these experiments? A better mousetrap? A 
more human hybrid?"

"People want to have children, Mulder, they want leave something to 
the next generation. The way we breed is part of what makes us human. 
Clones are sterile. The Project isn't designed to build a better 
mousetrap, it wants to build a better mouse."

She reached for the remote control, flicking the TV on. 

"Nick at Nite?" He'd guessed correctly, by the sheepish quality of her 
nod. She put the remote on the night stand and curled up on her other 
side, her back to him now.

"You know where we need to go, don't you?" he murmured, watching her 
shoulders fall and rise with her breath. 

"San Diego." She sighed deeply, curling further into herself. "I know. 
But first we need to talk to Jennifer Wallace again."

"I'd agree with that."

He sat with her through the last half of 'Happy Days' and most of 'The 
Wonder Years', until she fell asleep again.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 


WALLACE RESIDENCE
MARCH 4TH, 8:07 AM


Jennifer Wallace answered the door, half-hiding behind it with a 
forbidding frown. 

"Yes?"

Mulder gave her his friendliest smile. "We were wondering if we could 
just ask you a few more questions, Mrs. Wallace? We won't take much of 
your time."

"Questions about what?" she demanded, her wary eyes moving to Scully 
and back again to Mulder. 

Strange behavior for a woman who was expecting them to find her 
missing child, Mulder thought. A glance at his partner told him that 
Scully's radar had also just gone on alert. 

"Mrs. Wallace, is your husband at home?" Scully asked politely.

"No, he's not. He's at work."

"Ah." Scully looked at Mulder. He nodded, letting her take the 
interview in the direction they'd discussed over breakfast. Plan A if 
Wallace was there, Plan B if they could get Jennifer alone.

"Would you mind if we take a walk?" Scully asked, gesturing toward the 
road. 

Jennifer followed her out into the yard, arms crossed against the 
early cold. 

"What is this about?"

"Just some questions we had. It may not be important. Your husband 
said yesterday that you were both Dineh. We were wondering if there 
was a reason he isn't on the tribal rolls?"

Jennifer pulled her head back in surprise. "Of course he is. And why 
on earth would you be looking at the tribal rolls?"

Scully looked up at Mulder. Lie number one caught, said her eyes, and 
he nodded at her to continue. "Does he have family on the reservation 
then? He said his bracelet was made by a relative."

"My uncle gave it to him when we got married. John grew up in Phoenix. 
Some of us do live in cities, you know."

"But you met him up here?"

"No. We knew him in San Diego. Paul and I. He worked for the same 
place Paul did."

Mulder studied the woman's face, her body posture. The folded arms 
were defensive, but that could also be explained by the chill. Her 
glance, shifting between himself and his partner, seemed more confused 
now than wary, but there was definitely something she was hoping they 
wouldn't ask. 

"Amy is adopted, yes?" he asked, trying another tack.

"Yes."

"I don't mean to pry, Mrs. Wallace, but was a there a reason you and 
Paul didn't have children of your own?"

"Yeah." Jennifer shoved her hands deep into her pockets, angry now. "I 
went to the Indian Health for menstrual cramps when I was fifteen. 
They told me I needed a D&C and while they were messing around in 
there they just happened to sterilize me." 

She lifted her head high and gave him a razor-edged glare that could 
easily rival Scully in one of her most righteously furious moods. 

"The government did a lot of shit like that to Indian women back 
then," Jennifer snapped. "Probably still do. You ought to investigate 
your own people sometimes."

Mulder kept his mouth shut and his focus on the ground, not wanting to 
see what might be in Scully's eyes. 

"I didn't find out until I married Paul," Jennifer continued, talking 
only to Scully now. "We tried for a year before some doctor asked me 
why I was surprised I couldn't conceive when I'd already had my tubes 
cut. He probably thought I was some kind of idiot."

"That must have been a bad time," Scully said, the sympathy in her 
voice pricking Mulder with its honesty.

Jennifer started to walk down the road, scuffing up black dirt as she 
went. "Paul was the one who wanted to adopt, he was the one who 
arranged it all. I think Amy's mother was related to someone he worked 
with. Anyway, it went very fast. We decided, and a week later she was 
ours." 

She stared at the low gravel mountains rising directly ahead of them. 
"He was a good man, a good father. He really adored her. I'm sorry 
she'll never know him."

"How did he die?" Mulder asked.

"Some kind of virus got out at the lab where he worked." Jennifer 
scuffed up some more dirt, frowning at her shoes, now black and dusty. 
"Ebola or something like it. I didn't even get to bury him. They had 
to incinerate the bodies right there." 

"Ebola?" Mulder said, puzzled. "What was he doing working with that?"

"I don't know. He wasn't allowed to talk about his work."

"And what happened then?" Scully asked. 

"Then I went and did what all Indians do when we're freaked and can't 
handle the world. I took Amy and went back to the reservation. I 
followed the sheep around and tried to make some sense out of what had 
happened. That's when I found out who Paul had been working for."

"And who was that?" Mulder prompted.

"Some very bad men." Jennifer started walking again. "They found me up 
there, told me I had no legal right to Amy and they would take her 
away if I didn't come down off the land and do what they said."

"And what did they want you to do?"

"Go back to San Diego. They wanted to run some tests to make sure Paul 
hadn't somehow infected us with that virus. It was bad enough for me, 
but for Amy..." 

Jennifer stopped to wipe at her eyes with the back of her hand. "She 
was so little, you know? Just a year old. They had to take a sample of 
her bone marrow. You know how painful that is?"

Scully's pinched expression said that she did, at least through her 
medical training. "Did they tell you why they needed that?"

"They didn't tell me anything. They were horrible people in that 
place. Just poked and prodded and then said we were clean but not to 
leave San Diego."

"Do you remember the doctor's name, or the clinic, by any chance?"

"Someplace private. The doctor was Caldron or something like that. I 
always thought witch's kettle. Dineh are scared to death of witches, 
that's how I remember. He seemed nice on the surface, but he gave me 
the creeps. Like he was too nice. Like he wasn't real."

Mulder caught Scully's glance, her signal to take over. She'd gone 
pale beneath the sunburn, gritting her teeth as if there was something 
she didn't want to say. 

Hang in there, he thought, hoping the message could be read in his 
eyes. She nodded as if she'd received it, and he turned his attention 
back to Jennifer. 

"So you stayed in San Diego?"

"Yeah, I did. I mean, that's how scared I was." Jennifer looked at 
Mulder as if she now expected the sympathetic ear to be his. "They 
weren't just threatening to take Amy away, they were threatening to 
get the BIA on us, take away my grandmother's sheep, kick her off the 
land. You have to understand, that happens to people up there. My 
grandmother is a very traditional woman. She doesn't know anything 
else, she doesn't even speak English very well. You take away the 
sheep, you take away her life. I couldn't let them do that. And 
anyway, John's job was down there, so once we got married, it didn't 
really matter."

"But you came back up here eventually?"

"Yeah, about a year ago."

"And no one gave you any trouble about that?"

At last her fear rose to the surface. Whatever it was, he'd hit it at 
last. 

"John said I shouldn't tell you. He said I shouldn't have called you 
in the first place. He was so mad."

"Tell us what?"

"Last week, I came home with Amy from the daycare and there were some 
men in suits out at the house. John said they were business associates 
from back east. He said I should go up to the land for the weekend, 
that he'd be busy, so I did. I go up there whenever I can."

"And when you came back?"

"Nothing. Everything was fine. I didn't think anything about it until 
Amy disappeared."

"These men that came to the house," Mulder asked. "Was one of them an 
older man, about 60, smoking cigarettes?"

"No, they were about our age, both of them." Jennifer stopped to wipe 
her tears again. "Do you think those might be the people who took Amy? 
I mean, why would they do that?" 

It was Scully who pulled herself together enough to answer. 

"I don't know, Mrs. Wallace, but we're going to find out."

"John thinks so. He said he had to go down to Phoenix for business, 
but I think he went to San Diego. I think he thinks he can find Amy 
himself."


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 

PART 5             

<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 


DELTA AIRLINES, FLIGHT 410 TO SAN DIEGO
MARCH 4TH, 11:55 AM


Scully was silent as they drove to the airport, silent while they 
waited for the plane, silent as they left the ground. 

In the tiny bathroom Mulder splashed cold water over his face, but he 
couldn't quite wash away the images playing out behind his eyes. 
Scully on another silent journey, mere hours after Emily's funeral, a 
statue staring at three thousand miles of sky. Scully in the doorway 
of her apartment taking her suitcase out of his hand, thanking him for 
bringing her home, wishing him a Happy New Year. Then the sound of her 
door closing softly, the locks clicking into place as he stood there, 
empty-handed, bereft. 

That was the problem with a mind like his. His whole life was stored 
in his memory like neatly catalogued video tapes. So many were labeled 
'Scully'. So few were anything he could stand to watch twice.

She had her eyes closed when he came back and he tried to settle 
himself with the least motion possible, doing his usual geometric 
formula and finding that once again there wasn't going to be enough 
room for his knees. 

"Sometimes it's good to be short," Scully murmured, without opening 
her eyes. She shifted her legs over towards the window, offering him 
the extra space. 

"Now you know why I like to drive everywhere," he said, stretching 
himself gratefully towards her. 

"I thought you just liked to be in control."

He smiled at her effort to tease him, but she still had her eyes 
closed.  

"You faxed Skinner the report?" she asked. 

"Such as it was. Lots of words about nothing. I sent it through the 
field office. That should delay it a couple of days with plausible 
excuse." 

"Good." Her voice trailed off, as if she was about to fall asleep. 
Mulder pulled at his tie, glancing around, already bored. 

"Hey, Scully," he said softly.

"Yeah?" 

"Why would they want Amy's bone marrow?"

She finally deigned to open her eyes. "Are you asking for my 
scientific opinion?" 

There was an undertone to her voice that he didn't like, a reproach he 
didn't want to answer. All right, he thought, you tried to hand me the 
science on Gibson Praise and I wouldn't listen. That was months ago. 
Can we get over this now?

"Of course," he answered in a deliberate monotone. 

She turned back to the window and sighed. "Bone marrow transplants are 
often used in therapy for acute leukemia." Her voice began to take on 
the slow, hypnotic quality he associated with Scully thinking out 
loud, thumbing through her mental textbooks as she spoke. Despite the 
content, there was something comforting about it, like the sound of 
his mother's voice reading bedtime stories when he was a child. 

"A transplant has the effect of stimulating the marrow to function 
properly. Hemolytic anemia resembles leukemia in the way the body 
fails to produce an adequate number of healthy red blood cells, so 
yes, it's very possible that they were using Amy's healthy marrow to 
treat the other girls. If they have the same DNA, there'd be little 
chance of rejection."

"How long would the effects of a treatment like that last?"

"It's hard to say. With leukemia it might induce remission for a few 
years, but there are a significant number of patients it cures. There 
are also a number it fails."

"And it's painful?"

"Very. That's probably why Roberta Sim wanted Emily's treatments 
stopped."

She turned her head, catching the worry before he could wipe it from 
his face.

"I'm not made of glass, Mulder. I can keep my personal feelings under 
control."

Boy, do I know that, he thought, but he only gave her an encouraging 
nod. 

"Autoimmune diseases are usually caused by a virus invading the 
lymphocytes in the blood stream," she continued, looking back out the 
window. Safety in the only distance at hand, he supposed, crammed in 
as they were. 

"The virus causes the immune system to create antibodies that destroy 
the body's own tissue."

"That sounds evil."

"It's more common than you think. Multiple sclerosis, lupus 
erythematosis, infectious mononucleosis -- those are all autoimmune 
diseases. In autoimmune hemolytic anemia the antibodies attack red 
blood cells. Since red blood cells also carry oxygen, in its acute 
stage the surrounding tissue is deprived of oxygen, which leaves it 
open to infection by anaerobic bacteria -- bacteria which live in low-
oxygen environments. The infection spreads, causing necrosis. In other 
words, the tissue turns gangrenous and dies. Since the disease is also 
an immune system failure, the infection can become fatal within 24 
hours."

Mulder shivered involuntarily. Scully didn't seem to notice his 
reaction, for which he was grateful. 

"The use of bone marrow transplants makes medical sense up to a point, 
but then I'm not sure how they'd be able to extract enough marrow from 
a year-old baby to treat four others. Marshall Sim said Emily needed 
daily injections. They may have been able to synthesize something from 
the marrow donation that kept those antibodies from forming. Or maybe 
Emily was one case where the transplant failed and they were trying 
other methods." 

"So, if the girls are getting sick again," Mulder summed up, "that 
would explain why they need Amy badly enough to take her." 

Scully nodded. "Maybe the remission is over."

"But if they're using human bone marrow to counteract the effects of 
an alien virus--"

"Mulder, I'm a pathologist," she interrupted sharply. "I can assure 
you that however it was induced, this is a very human illness. 
Incurable and inevitably fatal. That's what I know." 

She turned away from him, folding her arms and settling herself as if 
she was going to sleep with her head against the window. Mulder stared 
hard at his tray table, still neatly fastened in its upright position. 

"Any preference where to start when we land?" he finally asked.

It took her so long to answer he was beginning to think she was 
ignoring him. 

"I think I have an idea." 

Her voice was soft with conciliation, but he was too tired of being 
snapped at to simply accept it and move on. 

"Fine. It's your call. Wake me when we're there." He closed his own 
eyes, and they spent the rest of the flight in silence.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


SAN DIEGO POLICE DEPARTMENT, SOUTHEASTERN DIVISION 
MARCH 4TH, 3:18 PM


"Scully FBI. I don't believe it." He came out of his glass-walled 
office, shaking his head. 

"Detective Kresge," she replied, reaching out to shake his offered 
hand. "This is my partner, Fox Mulder. I don't think you two ever 
properly met."

"Fox?" The corners of Kresge's eyes wrinkled up.

"Mulder," he said quickly, taking his turn at shaking the detective's 
hand.

"Mulder," Kresge affirmed. His smile grew wider as he turned back to 
Scully. "So. To what do I owe the pleasure this year? Email messages 
from heaven.com?"

Scully felt the smile that had so briefly warmed her cheeks fading.

Kresge saw it and immediately raised his hands. "Foot. Mouth. Sorry. 
You're here on business, I take it. What can I do to help?"

She glanced up at Mulder, who still had the closed expression he'd 
worn on the plane. 

"Could we speak somewhere else?" she asked the detective.

Kresge nodded. "Sure. I know a good greasy spoon. Let's go get some 
caffeine and talk."


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


HOT POT COFFEE SHOP, SAN DIEGO
MARCH 4TH, 3:30PM


The two men watched Scully make her way through the empty diner, 
towards the rest rooms in the back. 

"Bad year?" the detective asked.

"Why do you say that?"

Kresge tilted his chin in the direction Scully had taken. "She looks 
worn. You both do."

Mulder shifted uncomfortably. "It's a bad case," he finally said.

The waitress came by and Mulder ordered coffee for Scully and an iced 
tea with lemon for himself. Kresge began again as soon as the waitress 
was gone. 

"I'm assuming this relates to the Sim case, or you two wouldn't be 
here."

Mulder narrowed his eyes. "We met last year. Do you remember?"

"I thought you looked familiar."

"You shot a man in an old age home. He was...carrying something that 
made you sick."

Kresge's grimace said he hadn't forgotten the incident, so much as 
shoved it to the back of his mind and buried it under a ton of unfiled 
paperwork. He'd probably had some interesting explaining to do, trying 
to explain to his superiors how he'd managed to be exposed to some 
unidentifiable pathogen that had caused instant and near-fatal 
clotting of his entire vascular system. Fun, too, as Mulder remembered 
from his own exposure, was waking up in the hospital with every cell 
on fire and no clear memory of what had happened to him.

"So what does your case have to do with the Sims?" 

"There was a child, a little girl about three."

"I remember." Kresge was all attention now, his right forefinger 
tracing an unconscious pattern on the table as if taking notes.

Mulder studied the man carefully. Scully had said he could be trusted, 
that he was open-minded enough to pursue a line of investigation even 
when it veered off into the impossible. The resources of the San Diego 
field office were open to them, but they had both agreed that to make 
their presence known there might be dangerous, and not only to 
themselves. Without some official liaison they would be cut off. No 
backup, no access. They needed this guy, whether Mulder liked it or 
not.

The waitress brought their coffee and Mulder wished Scully would 
hurry. She didn't normally linger.

"And?" Kresge prompted.

"We've uncovered evidence that Emily Sim may have had...siblings. One 
of whom has since disappeared." He poured a packet of sugar into his 
tea, stirring it intently. 

Kresge shook his head. "I'm missing something."

Mulder sat back, feeling he had somehow failed a very important 
examination.

"I'm homicide," the detective continued. "I'm not child abduction. And 
as far as I know, you guys have got your own office right downtown. So 
why are you here?"

"We believe the girl may have been brought to San Diego."

"That still doesn't tell me why you're talking to me about it. I doubt 
I made such an impression on Agent Scully that she was looking for an 
excuse to see me again."

Far back in the shadows of the diner, Mulder saw his partner exit the 
bathroom, looking noticeably fresher. Thank whatever for small favors. 
The case was personal to her, better she should answer Kresge's 
questions. Mulder didn't feel like getting his head handed to him 
again. 

"You've already seen some of the more, um, unusual elements of this 
case. Agent Scully feels you can be trusted. She doesn't trust a lot 
of people, so that's quite a compliment."

"Consider me flattered. But my question isn't answered."

"Favor to a friend?"

Mulder stood to let Scully slide into the booth, cutting off any 
questions Kresge might have wanted to ask about what favor or whose 
friend.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


The briefing was not long, but it was still a relief when Mulder 
roused himself and finally took over. Despite the coffee, Scully was 
becoming foggy with drowsiness, not capable of discerning which facts 
to share, which to withhold. It was good to see Mulder playing the 
circumspect partner, the one citing scientific evidence, careful not 
to introduce theories built out of nothing more than a hunch. At a 
better time, it might have made her smile to know that he had learned 
this from her. 

Some days she really missed the bright-eyed young agent who told 
everything he knew, no matter how ridiculous it made him sound. That 
Mulder had been far closer to insanity than the man who now sat beside 
her, but his passion had been exhilarating, as inescapable as a fast-
running river. Once having ventured into it she had found herself 
pulled along, bashed sometimes upon the hidden rocks, but more often 
riding high on the current, thrilled and frightened, more alive than 
she had ever been.

Who could have foreseen the hidden waterfall, the tumble to oblivion, 
a memory so unbearable she didn't dare allow it to surface? And though 
she floated now upon a calmer river, she was cold and exhausted, 
unable to pull herself to shore even on the days when she could see 
it.

Mulder nudged her and she realized she'd blanked out in the middle of 
the conversation. "I'm sorry," she muttered, reaching for her coffee. 
"What were you saying?"

"I want to take a ride to Chula Vista, where Prangen was," he 
repeated. "See what's going on there now."

Scully nodded, fighting a wave of weariness. "I'd like to go down to 
City Hall before it closes, see what I can dig up on Wallace and 
Mason."

"You won't get much done now. Why don't you get us a motel and you can 
sleep for a couple of hours?" Mulder suggested. "I'll meet you later." 

"There's a place not far from the station we use when we need to put 
people up," Kresge added, smiling at her like a parent trying to trick 
a child into doing something unwanted. 

"Fine," she answered sharply. "I'll trust you to arrange that while 
I'm downtown."

The two men exchanged glances, increasing her sense of outrage. She 
might be tired, but she had no need to be babied. 

Scully gathered the anger close, letting it energize her, grateful to 
anything that might keep her going right now. 


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


PRANGEN PHARMACEUTICALS, CHULA VISTA
MARCH 4TH, 4:52 PM

The building itself was no different from the year before, still a 
nice-looking office complex in a leafy industrial park. Chula Vista, 
according to Kresge, who seemed to know his local history well, was 
attempting to become the Silicon Valley of biotech. In the same park 
as Prangen, there was a small company handling computer programming 
for high-throughput screening, and another lab involved in the genetic 
engineering of garbage-eating bacteria, among other fun pursuits. 

Mulder entered the building, noting the lack of lobby security with 
interest. Just a desk with a couple of guards who nodded and let him 
pass. He had a brief moment of worry that someone might recognize him 
as the lunatic who had threatened that poor Dr. Calderon with a gun 
the year before, but no one did. 

A brass and ebony plaque by the elevator listed office locations for 
Prangen's star personnel. Aaron Hatch, the Director of Research, had 
his offices at the back of the 5th floor. Much like Skinner, Mulder 
mused, arriving off the elevator, though Hatch's secretary looked more 
decorative than useful. 

Mulder smiled his best ladykiller smile and asked if Mr. Hatch was 
free that afternoon.

His ladykiller smile had obviously grown rusty with lack of use. 
Either that or he'd forgotten that while smart was sexy, there was 
equal opportunity for sexy to be smart. 

Hatch's secretary gave him a singularly unimpressed glare and took her 
sweet time fishing a black leather appointment book out of her top 
drawer and turning to the correct page. 

"Sorry. Mr. Hatch is booked solid today. You'll need to make an 
appointment."

She held the pen expectantly. Mulder tried the smile at less wattage. 

"It will only take five minutes of his time. I'll just wait."

"We don't tolerate salesman," the woman informed him, already picking 
up the phone. 

"I'm not selling anything. Honest." His look of hangdog worry seemed 
to work best of all and Mulder filed that information away in case he 
needed to deal with the woman again. "It's a private matter. I don't 
mind waiting, but I do need to speak to Mr. Hatch today."

"Mr. Hatch sees no one without an appointment, but if you want to 
waste your time, go ahead and wait." The woman gestured to a seat with 
a wave of disdain.

Mulder thanked her and settled himself in one of the expensive leather 
chairs. What he was waiting for, he was not quite sure. This was one 
of those by-the-seat-of-his-pants situations. Until Scully came up 
with some solid leads to investigate, the seat of his pants would just 
have to do. 

He thumbed through a brochure listing Prangen's marketable products, a 
couple of Pharmaceutical Worlds and a ratty People magazine from 1997 
before he was finally joined by a small group of older Japanese 
businessmen. The men bowed as if apologizing for interrupting his 
vigil, seating themselves with polite formality. Ten minutes later a 
fifth Japanese man arrived, the same age but American-born by his more 
casual demeanor, and obviously no stranger to the premises. He passed 
a few words of easy greeting with the secretary, welcomed the other 
men in a more traditional manner, and within a minute and a half the 
group had been neatly ushered through the inner door.

The whole thing had the precision of a theatrical event. 

A moment later the secretary's intercom buzzed, and she bustled out of 
the office, giving Mulder a glare that threatened dire consequences if 
he touched anything he should not. Mulder took his chance, sidling up 
to the desk and flipping the appointment book open again. 

'Hirotake,' said the square for March 4th at 5pm. Beneath it, in a 
slightly looser hand, were the words 'A.K. to tr.'

Mulder glanced at the corridor, held his breath and quickly flipped 
through the secretary's Rolodex. Bingo. Before the secretary returned, 
Mulder had memorized the address and phone number of one Akira Kogawa, 
certified scientific translator, and pocketed the Prangen catalogue. 

Of course, he thought, slipping out of the office and down the fire 
stairs, he had no way of knowing if any of this was useful 
information.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


SDPD SOUTHEASTERN DIVISION
MARCH 4TH, 10:03 PM


"Hey. Scully FBI."

Scully looked up from her work, her bleary eyes taking a long moment 
to change their focus. She hadn't seen Kresge since he'd installed her 
at this desk, a good three hours ago. She'd actually assumed he'd gone 
home. 

"You doing okay with this setup?" He gestured to the temporary work 
station he'd allocated the agents -- two desks side by side behind a 
shoulder-high screen and an old 486 Dell that was at least hooked up 
to the department's network. 

"It's perfect," she acknowledged. "Thanks."

"No problem. Let me know if there's anything else you need." He picked 
up the photograph she had propped against the computer monitor. 
"That's the Sim kid, isn't it?"

"No. That's Amy Wallace, the little girl we're looking for."

"Twins?" 

Scully hesitated a moment before answering. "Possibly quintuplets." 

The information plowed furrows across Kresge's forehead as he tried to 
process it. He returned the photo to its place against the monitor, 
tapping it with a thoughtful finger.

"Why do I get the feeling there's a lot more to this than you let on 
before?"

She sighed. "Probably because there is. But even we aren't certain 
what it is at the moment."

Kresge pulled the chair from Mulder's empty desk and sat beside her, 
turning it around to lean his folded arms on the backrest. His gaze 
had a force to it that made her nervous, yet the feeling wasn't 
unpleasant. 

Scully tried not to look at the picture of Amy Wallace, tried not to 
notice Kresge's scrutiny, tried to process some piece of information 
from the papers before her, but she couldn't. She was suddenly aware 
of him the way she was sometimes aware of Mulder, a stirring of 
interest brought on by an instinctive animal reaction to his maleness, 
his proximity.  

"Hey, Scully," he growled, almost in her ear. "Don't you ever call it 
quits?"

She made a conscious effort not to draw back or bristle. "What do you 
mean?"

He leaned back, gesturing to the half-empty police station, and her 
awareness of him faded to an ordinary, more comfortable level. "It's 
ten o'clock. You planning to work all night, or just until Mulder gets 
back?"

"Oh." She looked around, suddenly aware of the tension in her neck and 
shoulders, the dry ache behind her eyes. "I didn't realize..." Her 
voice trailed off as he drew near again, close enough that she could 
smell the last traces of whatever aftershave he'd slapped on his face 
that morning.

"Come on, Scully," He gave her a one-sided smile that reminded her of 
Mulder's trust-me grin. "Let me take you to dinner."

"That's okay. I'm fine."

"I didn't ask if you were fine. I asked if I could take you to 
dinner." 

She blinked at him through her glasses, too surprised to answer. 
Dinner as what, she wondered. Colleagues on a case? Or...something 
else? 

He stood up, breaking the mood, changing it into something lighter. 

"Come on, you must be hungry. I know a nice place around the corner. I 
don't get much chance to charge a good meal to the SDPD so don't 
deprive me of the pleasure."

"Mulder--"

"Call him, tell him where to meet us."

She removed her glasses slowly, glancing at the papers spread all over 
the desk. Colleagues, then. She felt a slight twinge of 
disappointment, which she immediately dismissed as inappropriate. And 
she was actually hungry, now that he'd mentioned food. 

He picked up her cell phone. "Let me guess. Speed dial one?" 

He hit the button, a brief spark lighting his features as the name 
MULDER appeared in the window. She held out her hand for the phone, 
but instead, he locked his eyes on hers and put it to his own ear.

I dare you, his expression said.

She felt her cheeks growing warm and realized to her annoyance that 
she was blushing like a girl.

Kresge's smile deepened. Damn it, was there anything he didn't notice?

"Mulder? Kresge here. I'm gonna take Scully to get some food. You 
wanna join us?" 

See? she told herself. No big deal, nothing to blush about.

"Sure," he grinned. "She's right here." 

Scully was grateful to see that her hand remained steady as she held 
it out for the phone. 

"Yeah, Mulder?" 

"Did you find anything?" His voice sounded tinny and faraway, like an 
echo from one of her dreams. 

"Nothing urgent."

"Okay," he answered. "I may be on to something. I'll check in with you 
later."

"Where are you?" Dimly, she heard noise in the background, a low level 
of chatter which suggested that it was a public place.

"Better not to say."

"Mulder." She lowered her voice to barely audible. "Mulder, you're not 
about to do something dangerous, are you?"

He made a noise that sounded vaguely annoyed. "Nothing like that, 
Scully. Just some good old fashioned surveillance."

He clicked off and she was left standing with the dead phone in her 
hand, and Kresge's too-sharp eyes searching her face.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 

PART 6

<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 


LA GRANDE JATTE
MARCH 4TH, 10:49 PM


Kresge had been trying all night to get Scully to relax -- refilling 
her wine glass every time it went below the halfway mark, cracking 
what he'd thought were charmingly awful cop and lawyer jokes. By the 
second bottle her face had lost ten years and his joke barrel was 
almost empty, but he still could not get her to laugh. She had smiled 
a few times, that was all, smiles that should have lit up the room, 
but didn't.

His squab en brochette was starting to grow cold, and he shifted his 
concentration there, filling his stomach instead of the silence.

"You know," she said, at last. "I think I've forgotten how to do 
this."

He lifted his head, fork halfway to his mouth. "What? Eat?"

"In fancy restaurants with strangers."

"Hey, I'm not that strange. And my fingerprints are on file." 

She dropped her head to hide another tiny, close-mouthed grin.

"It's okay. I don't get out much either," he said, picking up his 
wineglass and raising it to her. "So, thanks for making me feel human 
for an hour."

She looked back at him with an odd expression. 

"Something about the work, don't you find?" He gestured at the hushed, 
elegant room, the people in expensive clothing murmuring at tables set 
with crystal and china, their faces lit by long white candles. "Sets 
you apart from this kind of thing."

Her eyes followed his gesture. "It's pretty much greasy spoons or 
takeout at the motel with crime scene photographs spread all over the 
table," she admitted. 

"Well, if it would make you feel more at home, I'd be happy to run 
back to the station and find something suitably gruesome for you to 
look at."

Her smile grew a little bit wider. 

"I think I could get through a meal without that, thanks."

She lowered her head again, the smile fading as her eyes drifted to 
the cell phone lying on the table between them.

"Worried about Mulder?"

Scully gave up chasing her scampi and sipped at her wine. "Mulder has 
a knack of getting himself in trouble," she answered, putting the 
glass down with careful precision. "Sometimes no news is good news, 
sometimes it's not."

"You and he, do you work well together?"

"Are you trying to interrogate me, Detective Kresge?" Her tone was not 
exactly angry, but not quite joking either. 

"I'm just curious. Tell me about yourself. Who is Scully FBI when 
she's at home?"

She shrugged. "Someone who curls up on the couch with a book, I guess. 
I don't really have that much time off."

"Not involved with anyone?"

She looked at him a long, cool moment before she finally answered, 
"No."

He changed direction, sensing he had just stumbled into sensitive 
territory. "How long have you and Mulder been partners?'

"About six years."

"Ah. That explains a lot."

She cocked an eyebrow at him, an expression that made him feel as if 
he were standing on a frozen pond and had suddenly felt the ice crack 
beneath his feet. 

"This job requires that we close off our normal human response to 
certain stimuli," he explained, carefully watching her face. "That we 
become hardened to other people's blood and misery, that we spend our 
days swimming in things that most people only see on a movie screen. I 
don't need to tell you how different a crime scene looks when you take 
away the background music and add smell-o-vision."

"No, you don't."

"It does something to us. Separates us from the rest of the world, 
makes it hard to relate to anyone else. That's probably even more true 
for the women."

She leaned away from him, looking as if she had picked up a scent she 
didn't like. 

"I'm not one of those cops that think women don't belong on the 
force," he quickly amended. "The opposite, actually. I think women 
bring a kind of compassion to the job that's sadly lacking in a lot of 
the men, especially after they've been around for fifteen, twenty 
years. And male/female teams are much better in terms of dealing with 
the public. I just think psychologically, it's difficult to balance 
the kind of intensity that's normal for a police partnership with the 
fact that we're socialized to pair off as couples. It tends to get 
very proprietary, especially on the part of the male partner."

"I'm going to assume that you're speaking from your own experience." 

"Yeah," he managed to answer, after a moment. "Yeah, I suppose I am."

Her expression changed, told him he was once again standing on solid 
ground. "I didn't know you had a female partner. I don't think we ever 
met."

Kresge backed carefully away from the subject he had so stupidly 
broached. "My previous partner. I have a male partner now. Barney."

She smiled a little at that. "Well, for his sake, I hope his last name 
isn't Miller."

He breathed a small sigh of relief, feeling the conversation move 
safely past the dangerous topic of Elizabeth. "No, but he is kind of a 
big, sloppy guy and he hates his name, so we bought him a Barney 
dinosaur for his birthday. I guess that could have been mean, but he 
really likes the damn thing. Keeps it taped to the top of his computer 
and bangs it in the nose when he gets pissed off. He says it keeps him 
from tangling with the chief."

She laughed out loud. "Maybe I should buy Mulder a stuffed fox."

"Jesus, Scully," he blurted, the total change in her throwing him off 
guard. "You gotta laugh a little more. That's gorgeous."

The light immediately faded from her face. 

"I'm sorry," he said quickly. "I didn't mean to make you 
uncomfortable."

"No. No, you didn't." She reached for her wine and he saw the liquid 
trembling in the glass.

Just like Elizabeth. He had never been able to say that sort of thing 
to her either -- she would either tell him he was full of shit, or get 
so flustered she'd drop whatever was in her hands. The first time he 
told her she was beautiful, she'd spilled an entire bottle of 
champagne in his bed. 

He picked at the tiny bird on his plate, giving Scully time to 
recover. Giving himself a moment to get the image of Elizabeth out of 
his mind. That time, those extraordinary last eight months of their 
partnership, was something to think about alone in the dark, if at 
all. Never when anyone else could see his face and ask him what was 
wrong. 

When he finally looked up, Scully's forehead was once again drawn down 
in the tired, somber lines he'd seen earlier that day. They were a 
pair, really, a couple of aging workaholics so out of the loop of 
ordinary social interaction that they couldn't even remember how to 
make a little pleasant small talk. Three, if he included Mulder, and 
by the disconnected, solitary air the guy projected, he probably 
should. And his own partner while he was at it. Barney, who cried 
drunk on his shoulder one night because he was forty-five years old 
and no woman had ever loved him. At least Kresge would never have to 
cry over that. He might cry for Elizabeth till the day he died, but at 
least he could say that once in his life he had been truly loved.

"I should go," Scully was saying, reaching for her phone. "It's almost 
midnight."

"Do we turn into pumpkins?" She looked up at him, her gaze steady now, 
inscrutable. He tried to keep his tone light. "Stay awhile. At least 
finish your food." 

"I'm here on a case," she said quietly. "I still have work to do."

"I know." He picked up the wine and filled their glasses again, 
setting the now-empty bottle to the side. "But sometimes forgetting 
that for a couple of hours is the best thing to clear your mind. Helps 
you see something you might be missing."

Unless, he thought, catching a flash of regret before she wiped it off 
her face, what you might be missing is the last thing you want to see.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


MOTOR INN MOTEL
MARCH 5TH, 12:32 AM


Scully put on her pajamas, brushed her teeth, washed her face. 

Everything in order. Everything as always.

She leaned over the sink and stared at her face in the mirror, almost 
expecting to see her sister appear behind her, as Melissa always had 
until she dropped out of college and moved away from home. 

Tell me about your date, she'd say, perching on the side of the tub, 
and invariably the answer would be, it wasn't a date. We just went to 
a movie, out for coffee, worked late in the lab. 

How could she explain the lack of interest to her sister, when she 
could hardly explain it to herself? She was a tomboy, a science geek, 
she'd always been surrounded by boys. She was one of them. Of course 
they wouldn't date. 

Sure, she could do what her sister did, hang around in the bars off-
base or flirt with the midshipmen from the Academy. As Missy liked to 
say, the pickings in Annapolis were pretty damn good. 

She could, but she never enjoyed it when she did. Flirting was too 
close to lying for her tastes, and she wasn't interested in a quick 
fuck in the back seat of someone's car. She wanted something real. 

She'd been in her last year of college when she realized that nothing 
had changed since high school. That the men she found attractive would 
be like the boys, looking over her head for someone sexier, livelier, 
more daring. Someone like Melissa. The ones that did look at her were 
somehow never right. 

That was the year she stopped going on dates, put her head in her 
books and set her sights on getting into medical school. The years 
went by, her sister went through one disastrous relationship after 
another, and most of time Scully was grateful to be made the way she 
was. Whatever need drove Melissa in and out of people's beds, Scully 
didn't seem to have it. Didn't want it. She didn't have time to waste 
on brief, mad, passionate affairs that would leave her in tears for 
weeks. She wanted someone to love, something that would last, and 
she'd always been a patient creature. The man would appear, and until 
he did, she had other things to accomplish.  

She was twenty-six years old, in the last year of her residency at 
Johns Hopkins, when he finally showed up.

If that was love, it was terrifying. Nothing she ever wanted to have 
happen again. She had never imagined that she could want anyone so 
much that she would consider destroying two other lives to have him. 
She had never given so much of herself to any man, never let anyone 
else get that close. All but for the final act, the one she would not 
allow, knowing that the moment she let him inside her she would lose 
her last vestige of control.

She had never told Melissa. Melissa would have encouraged her to go 
for it, married or not. Love is all you need. Love conquers all. 
Scully imagined how she would have felt at twelve if her father left 
for another woman and knew that love was no excuse. If she did that to 
Daniel's daughter she would never forgive herself.

The FBI's recruitment offer came as both her residency and her 
strength to resist were running out. As if God himself had stepped in 
to show her there was another path she could choose, one in which she 
was no one's other woman, one where the work would be perfectly suited 
to her interests and skills. She grabbed the offer with both hands, 
and fled Baltimore with Daniel's fury burning in her ears. It was a 
decision she would never regret, but it was almost ten years ago now. 
If she was truly the kind of person who would have only one great love 
-- as she had always believed she was -- did that mean she had already 
had it? 

There had been one more try, one relationship, right after Daniel. If 
she thought about it now, she could see that Jack had been her attempt 
to recreate Daniel without the wife and child. Without the 
overwhelming passion. She had never tried to fool herself into 
thinking it was love, but she had enjoyed his company, and she was no 
longer the naive girl waiting for her great romance. After eight 
months of dinners and movies and chaste doorway kisses, she'd finally 
gotten tired of his chivalry and thrown herself at him. 

It was when she nuzzled her lips against his ear and whispered, "take 
me to bed," that he finally told her he considered her a friend. That 
sleeping with her would not be honest. 

Scully closed her eyes as the old shame washed over her, fresh as 
blood from a new wound. 

Of course they had stayed friends. It had been her way of saving face. 
But there were no more nights with Jack sipping wine on her couch, 
talking about everything from classic Hitchcock to new genome mapping 
procedures. She spent her evenings studying forensics journals, 
preparing lessons. Learning how to teach the skills she herself had 
only recently acquired. She had not been happy, but she had not been 
miserable either. She'd still been young enough to believe that in 
time someone else would reach through whatever it was that kept 
everyone so distant and capture her attention. Until then she had her 
work, her family, her friends. It was enough. She'd made sure it was 
enough.

Then she was assigned to the X-Files and her world had grown 
increasingly narrow. Narrowed down to one single thing: Fox Mulder and 
his impossible, all-consuming quest.

Scully turned on the tap and splashed cold water on her face, as if 
she could wash away that thought. She would not allow herself to think 
of Mulder when she was feeling like this. She cared for him too much 
to jump on him in a frenzy of loneliness. 

The woman she saw when she lifted her head was a distorted image of 
the one she normally managed to present. Distraught and haggard, water 
dripping from her chin. Scully dragged her pajama top over her head 
and twisted around, looking at her back in the mirror. 

The tattoo was still there. She hardly ever looked at it, as if not 
looking could make it disappear.

She'd done that in a mood much like this. Perhaps she'd hoped the 
tattoo would bring out something in her that was unpredictable and 
wild, would remind her that there was still a desirable woman hidden 
beneath the pale gaze and the conservative suits. 

Instead, she got what she deserved, just as the Russian tattooist had 
promised. A snake swallowing its own tail. A closed, empty circle. 

I didn't want this, she thought. I didn't expect this. It just 
happened.

She caught a glimspe of the other side of her back, the scar of the 
bullet's exit, and the familiar fist pressed up into her throat. This 
time she didn't try to swallow it away. She wanted to cry, now, while 
he wasn't around to hear. Then she would sleep and in the morning 
Mulder would be back and she'd be clear again, ready to work. In the 
morning there would be a lead and she would find it.

Scully put her top back on and lay down, waiting for the first tears 
to emerge. Nothing happened. She simply lay there, listening for the 
sound of a key in Mulder's door, for his familiar footsteps telling 
her that he was okay.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


Beneath the blinding light she watched the needle enter her arm, the 
anonymous gloved hand slowly pushing the plunger down. Liquid fire ran 
into her veins. 

She was lifted from the gurney, her head falling back and back and 
back and she tried to cry out but she could not make a sound. She was 
Ophelia drowned, the Lady of Shalott in her barge, words passing 
overhead like arched willows as she floated beneath them, the language 
a pattern of soft sounds she could not make out. 

Images began to come and go, fragments of her childhood, the sea 
running through her fingers, the smell of her mother's neck. She felt 
the life moving inside her swollen belly, anxious now, restless.

The barge stopped and her legs were spread wide, shoved back, locked 
into the stirrups. 

--no ohgod ohgod ohgod--

don't scream just don't scream just don't water in her nose in her 
mouth and her father you can float 

-Mulder

float dana float 

--stop, please no-- 

       though i walk through the valley of 

there something's there something's inside something MONSTROUS

-NO!

--I can't float I can't float daddy please I can't-- 

girl there's my girl there's my good floating waves and it's up and 
it's down and it's PAIN and it's PAIN and it's

-Mulder, where are you?

       the shadow of death i will fear no

scream don't scream no she opens her lungs and the water comes burning 
her nose and her throat and she's going to die and she doesn't want to 
die and she wants to go home she wants

       evilforthouartwithme

--stop it stop it stop it PLEASE--

"It's a dream. Scully, you're dreaming. Listen to me."

-MULDER!

"Scully, wake up. You're having a dream and you need to wake up."

"Mulder!"

"I'm here, I'm here. Scully, please, wake up." 

She opened her eyes and he was there and she buried her face in his 
neck and breathed in long desperate gulps of him.

"Mulder," she choked. "Mulder."

"Shh, it's okay." He rocked her slowly, back and forth, back and 
forth. "It was only a dream."

"Oh god, I thought you'd never come."

"I'm here," he repeated and she realized that he really was there, 
that she had spoken out loud.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, shivering as she made herself let go of 
his warmth.

"Shh." He pulled the covers down and slid in beside her, nudging her 
onto her side, her back to him. He slipped one arm under her neck and 
wrapped the other around her waist, shifting and wiggling until he had 
settled her firmly in the curve of his body.

"Mulder..."

"Don't worry, Scully. I can be a good boy."

She closed her eyes and caught her answer between her teeth. What if I 
don't want to be a good girl? 

"Okay?" he mumbled, into her hair.

She nodded. It was strange to have him in her bed. Strange, and yet as 
familiar as having him standing behind her, touching her waist, 
guarding her back. 

"Try to sleep again." He stroked her stomach lightly, once, twice, 
then let his hand rest.  She wasn't sure, but it felt like he'd just 
placed the softest of kisses on the back of her head. 

What would he would do if she moved his hand, placed it somewhere 
else?

She would never dare. It was enough to be held. Tonight she didn't 
have the strength to pretend she didn't need that. Tonight she was 
beyond exhaustion, beyond professional ethics, beyond anything but 
sinking into the warmth that was Mulder and feeling absurdly grateful 
for his insistence on being there. 


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 

PART 7

<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 


MOTOR INN MOTEL
MARCH 5TH, 5:42 AM


He woke to Scully's head resting heavy in the hollow of his shoulder. 
In sleep she had fitted herself to him like a lover; one arm flung 
across his chest, one knee drawn up over his abdomen, her body pressed 
along his side. 

Mulder could not feel pleasure at having her so close. This was not 
Scully giving herself to him at last. This was a drowning woman, 
clutching at the only life preserver she had left. 

She woke and the limbs draped comfortably over his body grew lighter, 
stiffened. He felt her breath cease beneath his arm, felt her heart 
speed up against his ribs. 

He stayed absolutely still, and finally she began to breathe again. 
Relief coursed through him. He'd expected her to pull away, but she 
seemed content to stay where she was, warm and close, her body slowly 
softening as she fell asleep again.

He held her until the tenderness he always tried to hold at bay 
threatened to break free. He didn't dare let it. Touch her with that 
in his hands and Scully would put a wall between them so thick that he 
would never be able to breach it again. 

She woke as he slipped out of bed, blinking up at him with heavy, 
trusting eyes. The desire to kiss her was almost more than he could 
stand. 

"Sleep," he said, moving to a safer distance. "I'm going for a run. 
I'll wake you when I get back."

She mumbled a reply and curled up on her side, hands tucked beneath 
her chin, her lips softly parting as her face smoothed out. 

Outside, the air was damp and cold, his favorite weather for a good 
run. Mulder loved the muffled quality of a misty dawn, the acute, 
familiar loneliness of running through quiet streets, watching the 
world prepare for its day. 

He stretched quickly, bounced a couple of times on his toes and began 
a leisurely jog. One foot after the other, he pounded through the 
first hideous half mile until his muscles lost the stiffness of sleep 
and began to flex and contract with ease. His breathing fell into a 
comfortable, steady rhythm and he set his autopilot to watch for cars, 
letting his mind drift free. 

Of course, it immediately drifted back to Scully. He wasn't going to 
fool himself about what had happened that morning. It was an intimacy 
born of familiarity and need. 

And trust. Scully trusted him not to misunderstand, not to 
misinterpret her actions according to his own wishful dreams.

She should not be on this case, she should not be in the field, he 
should have seen this coming, he should have seen she was not well. 
Mulder pounded down the pavement, picking up speed as if chased by the 
litany of guilt. Screaming his name like that, she had sounded exactly 
as she had on his answering machine the night Duane Barry broke into 
her apartment. That was a sound he'd never wanted to hear again. 

Nervous breakdown, memories rising to the surface, post-traumatic 
stress from any number of long-suppressed events. The psychological 
explanations were only slightly more bearable than the physical ones, 
all of which ended in one word: cancer. 

If the tumor was back, if it was pressing on her brain, it could be 
inducing not just the nightmares, but the blackouts back in Arizona. 
It might also explain her odd behavior the last few weeks, the 
edginess and abrupt mood swings. It wasn't like Scully to be so easily 
distracted, fading in and out of conversations as if listening to 
something else. 

Mulder stopped dead in his tracks. It suddenly occurred to him that 
whatever was going on inside Scully's head might be neither emotional 
nor organic.

It might be the goddamn chip waking up again.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


Scully was still asleep when he got back to the motel, looking so 
peaceful he decided not to disturb her. He showered and changed in his 
own room, scribbled a note and left for the station.

He and Kresge were bent over the Prangen catalog, comparing the drugs 
they manufactured with a list of current clinical trials, when Scully 
finally appeared. Mulder smiled, reviewing the last picture his mind 
had taken of his partner -- snoring softly into the pillows, her hair 
a tangle of red around her sunburnt, freckled cheeks. It pleased him 
to think that no one but he knew what she looked like so unguarded, no 
one but he was allowed to see her secret face.

She was her public self now, suit carefully pressed, hair smoothed and 
sprayed into place. Even the sunburn, by an act of will and clever 
makeup, seemed to have faded. Her gaze roamed the area, but her 
expression remained detached until she saw him. 

Her eyes sparked. Mulder doubted that anyone else would notice the 
subtle change in her -- the slight heightening of color, the 
infinitesimal bounce to her step as she made her way through the 
obstacle course of haphazardly arranged desks. 

"Scully FBI. How nice of you to join us," Kresge teased as she came to 
stand before them. She lowered her head, a shy smile gracing her lips.

With a sickening lurch of his stomach, Mulder realized that she had 
never been looking at him.

"Coffee?" the detective offered. 

"Yes," she said. "Thank you." 

"You won't thank me when you've tasted it." Kresge loped off, leaving 
the two agents standing in an awkward silence.

"You look like you got some sleep," Mulder finally managed to say.

She looked up at him in that way that made him feel a hundred gawky 
feet tall, her head slightly down with only her eyes raised to level 
their height difference. 

"Mulder, I--" She shook her head a little, as if clearing away 
something she didn't want to say.

Here it comes, he thought. Denial. Anger. Leave it alone, Scully. I 
still respect you. I know you didn't really need me.

He waited her out, surprised when she touched his arm instead. 

"Just...thanks." 

She took her place at her desk, still littered with the information 
she'd gathered the day before, leaving him nonplussed by that 
uncharacteristic display of tenderness. Finally, he took his place at 
his own desk, picked up Kresge's original casefile on the Sims and 
tried to absorb himself in it. 

There was nothing there he hadn't already seen. Most of the file 
recorded the history of Scully's tenacity, scribbled notes referring 
to her as 'FBI.' FBI insists autopsy, results attached. FBI observed 
possible suspects leaving prison. Went to see FBI at brother's home.

FBI currently had her head down over her notes, looking like a student 
with her glasses hanging on the end of her nose and her hair tucked 
neatly behind her ears. He thought of the birthday celebration at the 
diner back in Flagstaff, the skinny intellectual nerd so like his own 
twenty-year-old self. He wondered what it would have been like to know 
Scully when they were that young, if it would have made any 
difference.

Stupid thoughts, he chastised himself. He could rewind the tape, but 
he couldn't record his life again.

Kresge came back and put a cup of the station's dreadful coffee down 
in front of each of them. He leaned over to Scully, whispered 
something in her ear, and she laughed. It was a laugh Mulder had not 
heard from her in years, a sweet, husky giggle. Kresge lifted his head 
and smiled at both of them. 

"I've got some paperwork to clear out, then I'm yours for a couple of 
days. Barring any really nasty murders, of course. I'll be in my 
office, so just holler if you need anything else."

Mulder nodded, wishing the guy wouldn't be so damn congenial. It was 
hard to dislike someone who seemed to have a sincere desire to be 
helpful. Especially when he knew he should be grateful for the help.

Scully's eyes followed Kresge as he walked away, then drifted down 
towards the coffee, studying it the way she would a doubtful piece of 
evidence.

"You think it's a plot to kill us?" she asked.

"Don't worry. They say you never taste the arsenic."

She gave him one of her patented little noises, a single explosion of 
air. It was about the only kind of laugh he ever got out of her.

"I'll meet you back here at five." He picked up the Sim file and the 
stuff from Prangen and walked away before she could see his face, 
before she could ask him why he was looking like he'd just lost his 
only friend. 


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


Scully spent the afternoon downtown, finishing the background checks 
on Wallace and Mason, digging up whatever else she could manage to 
find. It wasn't much. The real adoption records weren't anywhere 
Frohike could hack, and without the names of the parents they were 
grasping at air.

Kresge was bent over her desk when she came back, quite openly going 
through the papers she'd left. "Have you got a search warrant for 
that?" she asked, lightly elbowing him aside to get to her seat.

He flashed that charming grin of his and perched himself on the edge 
of the desk. "Is this how you work? You and Mulder? He runs off and 
leaves you with the paperwork?"

"Actually, it's a matter of choice. I like digging up facts, he likes 
to stick his hands in goo and get beaten up on occasion."

Kresge looked towards the doorway. "So where is he?"

She opened her laptop case and took out her notebook, tossing it on 
top of the stack. "We said five. He should be here any minute." 

Kresge pulled Mulder's chair over and spun it around, assuming his 
usual posture, leaning his arms on the back. "So what have we got?"

Scully's mood dipped as she looked at the papers before her. 

"Well, I can't say I came up with much. In fact, the lack of records 
is the most conclusive piece of evidence I managed to turn up."

"You think the names are false?"

"One of these identities may be manufactured, yes, but I don't know 
how we can verify that. If it's the Witness Protection Program, those 
records require a security clearance to access, one I don't have. I 
might be able to get someone else to do it, but then I would have to 
explain why I need the information, and at the moment, that's too 
risky for a long shot. It might draw a kind of attention we're hoping 
to avoid."

"From your own people?"

She nodded, lifting her laptop out of its case, using her elbow to 
clear a space for it on the desk. Kresge stopped her from turning it 
on with a hand over hers.

"Scully..." 

She slipped her hand out from beneath his, pretending she merely 
wanted to put the laptop case on the floor. Casual though it was, she 
found his touch unnerved her. 

"Just what the hell are we into?" Kresge continued, appearing not to 
have noticed her discomfort.

"The usual stuff. Big, bad and dangerous. And very real, though to you 
it will probably sound ridiculous."

"More ridiculous than getting tip-offs from the twilight zone?"

Her head came up sharply, and he slid back in his chair.

"I'm sorry," he said quickly. "No more jokes."

She sighed and removed her glasses from their case, settling them 
carefully on her sunburnt nose. "I told you the girls might be 
quintuplets. That's not all. We believe these children are the result 
of unlicensed medical experimentation. The one that's missing may have 
been taken in order to further the aims of the experiment."

"That's what you think may have happened to Emily Sim?"

Scully could feel herself immediately drawing together, as if 
preparing for a blow.  

"That may have been somewhat different." 

"Scully? I need to know, if I'm going to be any use on this."

"Emily Sim died of an illness whose cause no one could fathom," she 
answered harshly. "It would appear that my intervention last year may 
have inadvertently caused her to be abandoned by a treatment program 
that was, in fact, keeping her alive."

"I'm sure that whatever you did, you acted correctly based on the 
information you had."

Scully lifted her head and made herself look him in the eyes. "I had 
all the necessary information. I just didn't want to believe that I 
had it."


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


Mulder entered the area, his steps slowing as he saw Kresge and Scully 
huddled together. The detective looked up, saw Mulder and patted 
Scully's shoulder. 

The face she turned to him had become entirely too familiar since the 
last time they were here. Eyes wide and glassy, lips held tightly 
together. A face that would tell him nothing, yet demand 
understanding. He never knew what to do for her when she looked like 
that.

He waited until Kresge had gone into his office and Scully was alone, 
cleaning her glasses while her laptop booted up. 

"Starbucks' Special Blend," he said, putting a large coffee cup down 
in front of her. She murmured her thanks, apparently preoccupied with 
the information on her desk. 

"So what have we got?" Mulder shoved his chair right into her space, 
practically leaning up against her, something he hadn't done in years. 
To his relief, she didn't seem to mind.

"Not a hell of a lot." 

Up close like this he could see how much makeup she'd put on that 
morning. It gave her skin a papery cast, the tiny lines around her 
eyes catching powder and something else, something that looked like 
rubbed-off mascara. He wanted to take her home and wash her face, wash 
it back to freckles and sunburn, the Scully that only he was allowed 
to know.

"So, are we ready?" came a cheery voice to his left. Kresge drew a 
chair up to Scully's other side and smiled at Mulder over her bent 
head. 

Mulder made himself smile back. If Scully liked the guy, then he would 
like the guy. If the guy hurt her, Mulder would break him in half. 
Simple as that. 

"So," Scully began, apparently unaware that anything was going on in 
either man's head. "John Wallace is a very interesting man for someone 
who was never born or naturalized in the United States. At least, he 
wasn't born on the day he gave as his birthday on the police report 
that was filed when Amy disappeared."

She leaned back in her chair, her voice assuming a slight sing-song 
quality as she recited from her notes. "Jennifer checked out, born in 
Tuba City Indian Health Hospital. No father listed. The mother was 
Christine Boy, she died of complications due to diabetes mellitus in 
1973. I assume that the grandmother raised Jennifer from then. No 
birth certificate for the grandmother or the mother, but apparently 
that wasn't unusual for home births on the reservation at the time and 
they were on the rolls in Window Rock. Jennifer went to Flagstaff 
High, then Northern Arizona University, did well, graduated in 1991. 
BA in graphic design."

Mulder picked up the photocopy of Jennifer's birth certificate. 
"Survey says?" he asked.

"She's legit." Scully handed him Amy's folder. 

"John Wallace is not," she continued, "but who he is remains a 
mystery. I couldn't find a trace of him until 1986, when he appears to 
have been awarded a Masters of Science in biochemistry from UC San 
Diego. I say 'appears' because the degree is registered, but the 
university has no transcripts, no admissions records, and -- most 
important -- no thesis filed in their library."

"Survey says nope," Mulder agreed, filing a page of notes written in 
her precise hand. 

"I could try to run a check on men born on the day he gave on the 
police report and see if that matches the death of any biochemists 
around 1986."

"Too much pain, too little gain. What else?"

"My theory would be that he knows where Amy is. The question then, is 
how do we find out what connections he has, when he doesn't appear to 
exist? I'd like to get Fr--" 

Mulder pressed her knee under the desk, getting her to come to a halt. 
"Um, your friend," she amended, "to see if he can connect Wallace to 
Sim in any way."

Mulder nodded, throwing Kresge a glance. The detective had caught 
Scully's retrack, but obviously wasn't sure what to make of it. "What 
about the other girls?"

Scully shook her head. "Couldn't get access. There probably is 
something on paper, but we're going to need a court order to get the 
adoption records open, and I don't think we're going to be able to 
prove pressing need. The courts are very meticulous when a young child 
is involved."

"If the records are there, he'll find them," Mulder said confidently. 

"Well, that's just it, Mulder. There are no records. I've tried 
searching along every parameter I can think of. I can't come up with a 
real birth certificate filed under the adoptive last name, and there 
should be one. I can't even come up with Emily's death certificate. I 
know one was filed, but it doesn't appear."

Mulder sat back and sighed. If he could erase some of his mental 
videotapes as easily as these men erased entire lives, he would be a 
happy, uncomplicated man. 

"So," he asked her, "what do you suggest?"

"Obviously we need to identify the families of the other three girls. 
Even one might help us form the connections we need to pinpoint where 
Amy has been taken. The chances are good she's been brought to some 
kind of research facility, but there are dozens in the city."

"Which, short of us bursting in..." Kresge offered.

"I'd like to try to pursue this without ringing any bells," Scully 
answered. "Literally. I believe Amy is worth more to them alive than 
dead, so I don't think time is as important as caution. If they know 
we're close they might move her. Or hurt her, which might not have 
been their original intent." 

She pulled several sheets of printout from the pile and laid them 
before the two men. "Without any actual names, it's rough going, but 
we can try the low-tech version. I used San Diego County phone books, 
looked up everyone with the last name MacEntyre, Hampton or Jenkins, 
cross-checked them with the state birth and marriage records, and came 
up with these. There are nineteen males between the ages of 35 and 45, 
married, with one of those last names. It's a shot in the dark, but we 
might get lucky. We might get one."

"We could drive by now," Kresge suggested. "Look for evidence of a 
young child living on the premises. No confrontation, just see if we 
can narrow down the possibilities."

"Exactly."

"I'll take the south side," Mulder said, reaching for the list. "I've 
got something else I want to check out down there."

"Relating to what?" Scully asked.

"The head of Prangen. I tailed him last night, but all I came up with 
was a meeting with some Japanese businessmen and dinner alone. Oh 
yeah, and the guy likes to read Agatha Christie in bed."

Kresge looked from one agent to the other. "So?" 

"Yesterday I stumbled across an interesting name. Akira Kogawa. He's a 
translator used by chemical firms for contract negotiations with 
corporations in Japan. Lives in Chula Vista, not far from his main 
client, which just happens to be Prangen. I had a look at his house 
last night and I tell you, I'm going to quit the FBI and learn 
Japanese. The place is a palace. I got a couple of other addresses off 
our friend this afternoon, all in the same area. I'd like to drive by 
and see where these people hang out."

"Okay, good," Scully nodded, finishing off the last of the Starbucks 
with an appreciative sigh. "If you're going south then I should do 
north. We've got a cluster of addresses out that way. If we split up 
it will cut down the time."

It took Mulder a moment to realise that if Scully was headed north, 
Kresge would be supplying the transport.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 

PART 8             

<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 


Scully and Kresge rode through the darkened streets, cocooned in 
silence. The warm drowsy feeling she associated with sitting in the 
passenger seat while Mulder drove wasn't there, but the quiet between 
them felt comfortable enough. 

"Don't feel bad," Kresge said finally, glancing at her as they stopped 
for a light. "It was worth a try. And there are still a few left to 
check out."

She nodded to show she'd heard. She didn't feel bad, so much as spent. 
"I hate to end a day no closer than when I started." 

"Maybe Mulder got lucky. And there was that one back on Mercado, 
looked like the people might have been away."

They fell into silence again until he turned into the motel parking 
lot and pulled in a few spaces down from her room. 

"It was nice riding with you, Scully," he said as she was about to 
slip out of the car. "Barney's a good guy, but I kind of miss the 
woman's touch."

Something in his voice sent a tiny shiver up her spine, a quality of 
sadness she recognized. She let go of the door handle, wanting to say 
something comforting, not knowing what. 

She leaned toward him. He met her halfway. 

His lips were soft and warm, undemanding. As kisses went, it was as 
sweet and chaste as a Catholic schoolgirl's first date. 

Beneath the surface, there was nothing chaste about it. 

They moved back at the same time, staring at each other. She wanted to 
lean forward again, saw in his eyes that he wanted to as well, just as 
she knew that they wouldn't. She pulled the door open and got out, 
shutting it quietly behind her, heart pounding as she walked away.

Mulder was already back, the familiar sound of flipping channels 
greeting her through the inner doors as she let herself into her room. 
His side was wide open, his standard invitation.

She kicked off her shoes and stuck her head through. Mulder was 
sprawled on top of the covers dressed in a t-shirt and a pair of 
sloppy, stretched-out sweatpants, remote in hand. 

"Any luck?" she asked.

He rolled over and regarded her through sleepy eyes. "Two non-
existent, one an office building, four tenants who didn't recognize 
the appropriate name, all but one having lived at that address for 
over five years. You?"

"I thought we weren't going to ring any bells?"

"Yeah, well, I was selling cable TV subscriptions, okay?"

His hard, flat tone took her back a step. The way they'd been parked, 
she was sure he couldn't have seen what had just happened with Kresge, 
and anything else was beyond her capacity to decipher right now. 

"Okay," she answered. "I'm going to bed. I'll see you in the morning."

"Hey, Scully." He swung his legs over the side of the bed and flipped 
on the lamp. "Why are we doing this by Kresge's book?"

She deliberately raised an eyebrow to warning height. "Because it's 
his turf and we're hiding behind his badge?"

"Do you really trust him?"

His voice was suddenly dangerously soft, the tone he used to pry 
information from the reluctant. She tried to read his eyes, but 
couldn't.

"Yes," she answered. "I do."

"How much have you told him?"

"Nothing he doesn't need to know."

His eyes narrowed, searching her face. She let him look. 

"Is that it?" she asked, after a moment.

"Cyrano de Bergerac is on AMC in five minutes. Jose Ferrer."

Well, that was a 180 degree turn-around. She had two secret film 
addictions, '70s horror and Golden Age Hollywood, both of which he had 
no qualms about exploiting when they were on the road. 

He took one of the pillows from behind his back and placed it on the 
empty side of the bed with exaggerated care. 

"Come on, Scully, you know you love that film. I'll even let you hold 
the remote." 

Apologies, then, and his most persuasive look, just in case the 
apology wasn't enough. Scully felt a reluctant smile tugging at her 
cheeks. What was she supposed to do with this man?


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


MOTOR INN MOTEL
MARCH 5TH, 11:58 PM


She returned in pajamas and a fluffy white robe, her face scrubbed 
bare. Climbing on the bed, she sat with her knees drawn up, tucking 
only her bare feet under the blankets as if to signal she had stopped 
by for no more than a minute.

Mulder watched her as the opening credits began. Scully's body posture 
made her look about sixteen, but the weary set of her face had nothing 
of the girl left in it. 

"I was thinking," he said as Roxane made her first appearance, oozing 
purity and sweetness.

"You shouldn't do that after midnight, Mulder. It's dangerous." Her 
tone was easy, but her body told a different story. Scully was folded 
up tight now, arms wrapped around her legs, the blue light from the 
television turning her hair a strange shade of green.

Mulder took a deep breath. "Maybe it would be a good idea if you stuck 
around for a while when we're finished. Go see your brother or 
something. You've certainly got enough vacation time coming."

She didn't look at him. "Maybe I'll do that."

Thunder rolled above them, a warning as ominous as the toneless 
quality of her voice. He turned his head as the rain began, turned 
back to see her face also raised, as if listening for something.

He poked her lightly. "Isn't this the part where I get to check you 
for mosquito bites?"

She gave him a fragment of a laugh. "God. I was so innocent."

"You were adorable."

He waited for her to take his head off for that, but she didn't. She 
just looked at him for a moment, her face unreadable in the darkness, 
then turned back to the television. 

Cyrano's pretty young cousin was now begging him to introduce her to 
the handsome soldier, Christian. 

"What did you think?" Scully asked softly. "The first time we met?"

The question surprised him. "I thought...I think I thought god, she's 
short."

Again he waited for fire and didn't get it. 

"What did you think?" he finally asked.

She smiled without looking at him. "I thought...what a jerk."

Mulder chuckled briefly. The light in the room reminded him of Scully 
standing in front of the slide projector that day, head high, holding 
her ground while he towered over her, poking, prodding, baiting. Yeah, 
he'd been a dick, but she'd been a snotty little know-it-all, her 
arrogance a match for his in every way.

"So why did you stick with me?" 

She dropped her chin onto her knees and he knew she wouldn't answer. 

"I don't know why I like this story so much," she said at last. 
"Cyrano's a fool. He knew Roxane wanted a man with a sharp mind. He 
should have trusted her to love the rest."

"She was in love with someone else." 

"No, she wasn't. The soul she loved was his. And he knew that."

He looked over at her, but she was focused on the television, her 
features suddenly unfamiliar in the changing light. He couldn't tell 
if she was trying to say something to him, or if he was being a fool 
himself, reading a meaning into her words that she didn't intend.  

"He thought of himself as her friend," he said carefully.

"Yes," she murmured, stretching her legs out in front of her and lying 
back on the pillow. "Yes, he was her friend." 

He kept his eyes on the TV, the tension stretching out until the 
entire room seemed to vibrate with it.

"Maybe," he said at last. "Maybe the problem was that they were so 
close she never saw him."

No answer. He looked over to find Scully asleep.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


She woke with her head against someone's shoulder, her body tingling 
with remembered pain. Warning whispers kept her silent, while in the 
darkness a hand found her mouth, replaced itself with a cup of water. 
She drank, desperately thirsty. 

Not too fast, a soft voice murmured, close to her ear.

-More. 

Her lips formed the word against the other's hand and must have been 
understood. Another cup pressed itself against her lips, the cool 
water spilling down her chin. 

-Where...?

Shh. It's over for now. 

She thought she knew the woman's voice, remembered hearing it 
whispering encouragement as the pain took her over and paralyzed her 
other senses. 

We'll be here a while. Until they're ready.

-Why can't I see you? Where am I?

Again, the first voice. You're in the Place. You've been asleep for 
several days.
 
She felt a feather touch around her eyes, careful fingers peeling 
something away. She shot bolt upright, gasping for air, as the light 
burned straight into her brain. 

"Scully?"

Mulder. She was in a motel in San Diego, and it was dark and the voice 
was Mulder.

Scully lay back, wiping the sweat from her face. Fine. Everything was 
fine. She was safe.

She heard Mulder fumbling for the light and reached out a hand to stop 
him. 

"Leave it off. I'm okay."

His hand came to cover hers. He lay back down, facing her, holding her 
hand clasped against his chest. 

The heavy curtains blocked out most of the light, leaving only the 
faint shadow of furniture. "Is this your room or mine?" she asked, the 
darkness saving her from feeling too foolish.

"Mine. You fell asleep."

"I should go back to my room," she mumbled, but Mulder made no effort 
to release her hand. 

"Scully, what do you dream?" he asked softly, his thumb tracing the 
hard bone of her knuckles. 

She couldn't tell him. It was the kind of thing Mulder would take upon 
himself. Swallow the blame then stare at her with eyes burning with 
guilt, the way he did whenever the subject of her abduction came up. 
He didn't need any more of that. Her nightmares were not something he 
could share.

"I don't remember," she lied. She started to get up, but he caught her 
around the waist and pulled her towards him. 

"You don't have to go," he whispered against the side of her head. His 
warm, familiar presence seem to seep through her pores, drawing forth 
an unmistakable sense of arousal. 

Pheromones, she told herself. A perfectly normal physiological 
reaction. Mulder nudged her onto her side, curling up against her back 
the way he had the night before. Of course this was all he meant, to 
be her shield against the dreams. 

"Sleep well," he murmured, hugging her close, and the strangest thing 
of all was that she knew she would.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


MOTOR INN MOTEL
MARCH 6TH, 7:10 AM


Mulder woke to the muffled screech of his phone and had to beat his 
sleepy way through the pile of yesterday's clothes to find it.

"It's Kresge. I've got something."

"What?"

"Just stay there, I'm on my way."

Mulder clicked off as the inner doors opened. Scully stood before him, 
already showered and dressed, her mouth full of toothbrush and scary 
blue toothpaste.

"Kresge," he said, saving her the trouble of asking. "He's on his way 
over."

She made a face that said *here?*

"He said he's got something."

She regarded him for a moment, then shrugged and headed back to her 
room.

Kresge arrived just as Mulder finished getting dressed. 

"Get this," the detective said as soon as he opened the door. He 
sounded as excited as a rookie. "Scully, you were right when you said 
the girls might be getting sick. I had someone phone all the hospitals 
in the county last night. A little girl fitting the description died 
at Children's Hospital three days ago. Denise Hampton. I got an 
address from her admission records. It's one of the ones we didn't get 
to check out last night."

"Did they tell you what she died of?" Scully asked. Mulder shot her a 
look, but she seemed perfectly calm, almost uninterested.

Kresge gave them both a tight smile. "Complications from a rare form 
of anemia. Just like Emily Sim."


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


HAMPTON RESIDENCE, EMERALD HEIGHTS 
MARCH 6TH, 8:58 AM

The woman who answered their knock was small, with long red hair piled 
on top of her head in a messy bun. She wore a black top over an ankle-
length skirt printed in dark colors and a faded wine-colored cardigan, 
stretched at the pockets and elbows.

Kresge held up his badge. "Jane Hampton?" he asked.

The woman nodded, blue eyes wide in her pale face. Mulder could not 
help staring. He looked over at his partner and found her with the 
same surprised expression. It reminded him of a 'Voyager' episode 
where a glitch in the transporter beamed two crew members together 
into one person. Whoever had beamed Jane Hampton onto this planet had 
amalgamated Scully and her sister.

"Can I help you?" the woman asked, looking from face to face. "Did you 
want to see my husband?"

Kresge smiled reassuringly. "We just want to ask you a few questions, 
Mrs. Hampton. It's nothing to be nervous about." 

To Mulder, it seemed that Jane Hampton was looking more upset than 
nervous. Her eyes were as shadowed as Scully's had been that morning, 
before she painted on a layer of confidence. This woman didn't wear 
makeup, nor did she have Scully's control. She looked about to burst 
into tears at any minute.

"Questions about what?" she demanded.

"About your daughter." 

Mulder had to admire the firm gentleness of Kresge's manner. He might 
be rough, but he was far from heartless.

"My daughter is dead," the woman snapped, rubbing an angry hand across 
her eyes. "Whatever you want to know can't help her."

She stepped back, about to slam the door. Kresge's arm shot out and 
held it open.

"Mrs. Hampton, I can come back with a warrant," he said, in the same 
gentle voice. "Or you can give us five minutes of your time 
voluntarily, and I doubt we'll need to bother you again."

The woman bit her bottom lip, then turned away, leaving the door open.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


Jane Hampton led them into a spotless kitchen. For the first few 
minutes, Kresge's patient questions received only closed-off glances 
and shrugs. Finally, Scully suggested he and Mulder go talk to the 
husband. 

"Go and try. He's in his study down the hall." Jane pointed through 
the arched entrance to the kitchen, back the way they had come. "If 
you can get him to move his ass from the computer to open the door." 

Scully waited until the men had gone before trying again. 

"We really are very sorry to disturb you at this time, Mrs. Hampton," 
she began. "But the information you give us may save another little 
girl's life."

She tried not to shudder as the other woman's eyes came to lock with 
her own. This was a mother's grief, wild and wailing, not the ice cold 
dagger through the heart she had felt when Emily died. This was a 
mother who had scolded and fed and rocked her child to sleep. Her own 
grief was as minuscule next to this as her experience of motherhood 
had been.

She didn't want this, didn't want to know what Jane Hampton felt. 
Scully swallowed hard, looking away as her vision blurred. As if 
Jane's eyes had been the conduit through which her own tears arrived, 
she immediately felt calmer. She was not part of some community of the 
bereaved, but a federal agent with a job to do.

"I'll try to be as brief as possible," Scully made herself continue, 
"And then you can go back to whatever you were doing."

"Arranging the funeral. Fun job, believe me. You ever buried a child?"

"I have." 

Scully clamped her mouth shut. She hadn't meant to say that. 
Professional, she reminded herself. Keep your distance.

At least her outburst seemed to have silenced the woman's hostility. 
Scully reached into her overcoat pocket and pulled out her notebook. 
Tucked neatly between the pages were two photographs. She drew out the 
first.

"Do you recognize this girl?"

"It looks like my daughter." Jane leaned closer, inspecting the 
child's clothing. "Wait-- Where did you get this? Denise hated 
dresses, she would never wear one for a picture. And her hair was 
never that long."

Scully took the photograph back from the woman's reluctant fingers.

"Mrs. Hampton, this isn't your daughter. This is a little girl named 
Amy Wallace, who disappeared about a week ago. And this," she added, 
handing the woman the other photo, "is Emily Sim. She died last year 
of the same illness that your daughter had."

Jane reached for the first photograph again and held the two together 
for a moment. Suddenly she jumped up, left, and came back with a large 
framed photo of her own child. She propped all three up on the counter 
and stood back contemplating them.

"I don't understand." Her voice had changed -- gone past wavery, 
through defensive, and come out uninflected. "It looks like the same 
girl."

"Mrs. Hampton, how much information were you given about your daughter 
when you adopted her?"

Jane turned to look at Scully as if she were crazy. "She wasn't 
adopted. I gave birth to her on November 2, 1994 at 4:52 in the 
morning after twenty-two hours of hell. The episiotomy wasn't done 
right and she tore me. I can show you the scar if you have a liking 
for that sort of thing."

"No, I--" Scully retreated a moment, flustered. "I'm sorry, but the 
information we have states that you are Denise's adoptive parents."

"Well, we're not. You think I would have married that ASSHOLE if I 
wasn't pregnant?" Jane turned and shouted the word out towards the 
study, her too-familiar face twisted in a very unfamiliar fury. "I'm 
the one that's adopted and that son-of-a-bitch blames me for Denise 
being sick. He says it's my 'mystery genes' that killed my baby."


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


Wedged into a back booth at the local Denny's, Scully was not paying 
attention to the conversation. Kresge and Mulder were like two kids 
with a football, tossing theories back and forth between them, 
impressing each other with their dexterity, their velcro hands. 

Scully stared at her notebook while the men talked over her head. Jane 
Lee Hampton, maiden name Adams, born in San Diego on May 16, 1962. 

"I think Scully can get that," Mulder was saying. "Can't you? Scully?"

She became aware of a hand on her upper arm, shaking her lightly. 
"Scully, are you with us?" Mulder asked.  

"This woman, Mulder." She shoved her notebook towards him, clumsy with 
pain. "This woman was born on the same day as Melissa."

Mulder's hand tightened on her arm. His eyes found hers and 
immediately the whirl of her thoughts slowed. He could do that 
sometimes, reach right in and catch her when she thought she might 
fall, his eyes as warm and steadying as if he had her face cupped 
between his hands.

"I want an autopsy done on Denise Hampton and I want to run PCRs on 
the entire family." Scully felt herself calming under Mulder's gaze, 
gathering strength. "Jane Hampton swears she gave birth to that child. 
I want to contact her OB/GYN, get a medical history. Something here is 
very, very strange." 

Mulder nodded, releasing her arm with an encouraging squeeze. 

She turned to Kresge, who was looking out of the loop and not very 
happy about it. "What does it take to get Social Services to make 
their records available to law enforcement in California? I want Jane 
Hampton's adoption records, and I want to know why they have Denise 
listed as adopted if she isn't."

"Okay." Kresge's eyes tracked from her face to Mulder's. He folded his 
arms, leaning back in his seat. "But first I'd like to know what you 
two aren't telling me."

She looked at Mulder at the exact moment he looked at her. Once again, 
he gave her that gentle steadying glance, then dropped his eyes, 
signaling that it was her question to answer.

Scully took a deep breath, held it and let it out. "There may be a 
connection to another case we've been investigating. The anomalies in 
this one are significant enough to warrant pursuing certain parallel 
lines of inquiry."

Kresge wasn't buying the evasive explanation. "You want to enlighten 
me on that other case?"

She looked again at Mulder, who shook his head so slightly she doubted 
anyone else could perceive it. "If it becomes necessary. Until then 
I'd prefer not to discuss it."

"I prefer not to work in the dark."

Mulder cleared his throat and sat up straighter, giving his attention 
to Kresge. "In this particular case, it may be safer."

"Gee," Kresge answered sarcastically. "Why do I not believe that?"

This time it was Kresge who caught and held Scully's eyes. Her stomach 
clenched, reading his anger.

"It's a personal matter," she said, keeping her voice low. 

Kresge opened his mouth to protest, then seemed to change his mind.

"All right." He gave Scully another long look as he leaned back 
against the faded vinyl of the booth. She had the feeling that his 
anger had mutated into something else, but she was not sure what. 
"I'll see what I can do about getting an autopsy arranged."

"I'd like to go back to City Hall." Scully tried to keep the relief 
out of her voice. "My first search had eleven girls, but we dropped 
the ones that weren't adopted. I want to have a look at those other 
birth records and see if anything fits. I also want to get the 
official information on the Hamptons now that we have names and birth 
dates for the parents. See if the information Jane gave me was 
correct. Mulder?"

Mulder tapped the table, staring out the window at the cars parked in 
the lot. "I think...I think I'd like to stick around, keep an eye on 
the house. See if we spooked Hampton into doing anything interesting." 

"Fine," Kresge stood. "I'll drop Scully off downtown." 


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


HAMPTON RESIDENCE
MARCH 6TH, 4:42 PM


Between Scully and himself, Mulder thought, Frohike must be hopping 
like a frog today.

"Those cells are not secure," he grumbled, the second time Mulder 
checked in for information.

"I know they're not. What do you want me to do about it?"

"Try calling from a land line."

"Frohike, if they're on to us, they're on to us. We're staying as low 
as we can. I don't think we've rung any bells."

"Well, you're going to, as soon as you start digging into this one."

Mulder slipped down further in his car, balancing the phone on his 
shoulder and his notebook against the steering wheel.

"Give it to me good."

"You wish. Mirant Chemical, incorporated 1996. Hampton's been on the 
payroll from the start. He's ranked manager level."

"I know. What about his employment history?"

"We got access, but everything's encrypted. Langly's working on it."

"What, that's it? That's the big, scary factoid that's gonna bring the 
men in black down on us?"

"Factoids, Mulder. Just shut up and listen. In 1996, Mirant opened 
with a slew of high-level contracts. One is from UC San Diego. The 
Human Genome Project."

"There's about 10,000 universities and private research firms working 
on that. Come on, Frohike. I want nice, juicy plums. You're giving me 
prunes."

"You're gonna wish you had prunes, Mulder. The money comes from a 
federal HGDP grant. The funds are allocated to a Dr. Potts. 
Biochemistry professor, about 50, been at UCSD his whole career. 
Couldn't get much else on him, but Byers did a little cross-checking 
and the man's on the payroll as a consultant to a couple of private 
pharmaceutical firms."

"And one of them was Prangen?"

"No. Better. One of them *is* Roush."

Mulder stopped writing. His mouth went suddenly dry, while his heart 
began pounding hard and steady. 

"Mirant is basically a research outfit," Frohike continued, a clear 
note of triumph in his voice. "One project is the UCSD thing. It's 
listed as genetic mapping. Circulatory disorders, the heart attack 
gene, that kind of thing. All very respectable. Mirant, however, has a 
little side-project listed. Fetal therapy. That involves early 
detection of circulatory anomalies through genetic testing, and 
treating those anomalies through gene therapy in-utero."

"Cutting edge and controversial, but still on the up and up."

"Along with this project, Mirant had a contract for the supply of 
fetal tissue. Do the words 'funky poaching' still mean anything to 
you?"

"It was coming from there?'

"Until about two years ago."

Mulder caught his breath, let it out slowly. It had been two years 
since they'd broken into Lombard. Two years since Scully's cancer was 
first diagnosed. 

"Be careful, Frohike."

A snort from the other man. "Now he's telling me. I got one more 
megafactoid for you, Mulder. The new third party on this project is a 
privately-funded clinic running trials on chemotherapy for infertile 
couples. You want the name?"

Mulder was practically panting now. "I want the name."

"So about that date with Scully...."

"In your dreams, Frohike."

"You don't wanna know about my dreams."

"You're right, I don't." Mulder sat up, his danger instinct suddenly 
baying like a pack of hounds. 

Get off the phone, get the hell out of here. Now.

He slid further down in the car, keeping his eyes on the Hampton's 
house. "Just give it to me, Frohike. I suddenly don't have time to 
mess around."

Frohike sounded hurt. "Mulcahy Clinic. 1412 3rd Street, San Ysidro."

Mulder scribbled the address without looking at the paper. "Did you 
give Scully what she needs?"

"Yeah." Definitely hurt, if Frohike let an opportunity like that slide 
by.

"Look, Frohike, it's not that I don't appreciate your work. But I 
think I was wrong."

Shit. Beyond wrong. Smug, stupid, son-of-a-bitch. Mulder cursed 
himself silently, sliding almost onto the floor of the car as a trim 
black sedan cruised slowly, slowly past, drove into an empty space 
just past Hampton's house, and parked.

"Frohike?" he whispered into the phone. "I gotta go."

He clicked off, speed dialing with one hand, adjusting the side mirror 
with the other. Behind him, the passenger side doors of the sedan 
slowly opened. Two men dressed in neat black suits and sunglasses got 
out, leaving the driver behind the wheel. They stopped, surveying the 
quiet street. One adjusted his cuffs neatly, as if preparing to walk 
onstage.

At last, a click on the other end.

"Scully," he hissed, before she even had a chance to say her name.

"Mulder?"

"Check your watch."

He hung up as the two men began to walk towards him.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 

PART 9             

<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 


SAN DIEGO COUNTY HALL OF RECORDS
MARCH 6TH, 4:53 PM


To live in the world, one needed a certain level of trust and Scully 
needed to preserve what little of that she had left. She had to 
believe that what she saw was what it seemed, that people were who 
they said they were, that she was small and insignificant and 
generally not worth the effort to kill. Lose that trust and a friendly 
stranger would be a spy fishing for information, the guy driving home 
to Georgetown would be a tail, the new neighbor an assassin. 

Lose that trust and she would live surrounded by fear, until her life 
was no longer worth protecting, until she began to grow careless, 
half-wishing they would finally come and get her. To end it, so that 
in death she could feel safe again.

When Mulder first mentioned the idea of code words, she had laughed. 
It was the kind of game the Gunmen played, an exercise in the sort of 
paranoia she refused to give in to. Then he had gone missing, presumed 
dead in the desert, and the moment he reappeared, they'd been forced 
to run for their lives. There had not been much to laugh about after 
that.

Mulder had worked out the codes as soon as they were home, an 
intricate set of provisions to be used in case they had to run again. 
At that point, it had not been out of the question -- the DAT tape 
that had caused all the trouble was still out there, and despite 
Skinner's assurance that he had taken care of the smoking man's 
threats, it had been months before Scully felt safe enough to enter 
her apartment without her gun in hand. 

Somewhere, she knew, there were still papers and bank accounts, 
wherever the Gunmen hid such things. Scully preferred not to think 
about that. She hadn't heard Mulder say those words since the awful 
night Melissa died, and had hoped she would never have to hear them 
again.

Check your watch. That meant, I'm about to be nabbed.

Scully clicked her phone off, feeling the blood rush away from her 
head. She raised her eyes and slowly surveyed the people around her. 

A clerk, busy behind the high desk. A young guy in sandals and a tie-
dyed t-shirt at one of the computer terminals, an older woman in a 
grey suit, squinting into a microfiche viewer.

Scully gathered up her papers, stuffed them blindly into her laptop 
bag. Calm, calm, she needed to be calm. Think of it as a fire drill. 
She breathed slowly, carefully, willing her trust in the world not to 
break, willing the people that surrounded her to be nothing more than 
strangers, going about their innocent lives.

She made herself walk out of the building at a sedate pace, searching 
for a man in a dark suit with his hand to his ear. Nothing. Scully 
disappeared into the downtown lunch crowd, letting herself be carried 
along towards the intersection. She pulled her phone out of her pocket 
again, dialing as she went.

"Kresge."

"It's Scully. Mulder needs backup, ASAP. He's at the Hamptons."

"I'm on it. Where are you?"

"I'm getting a cab to the motel. Can you send a car ahead? Tell them 
just to keep an eye on our rooms, make sure no one goes in or out."

"Sure, but what's going on?"

"I think we rang a bell somewhere. I'm going to grab our stuff, then 
I'll ride back to the station with your men."

"Okay, I'll wait for you here. Hey, Scully?"

"Yeah?" She turned abruptly out into the street, eyes scanning the 
parked cars for a tell-tale black sedan.

"Be careful, okay?" 

The softness in his voice made her catch her breath. "Okay," she 
promised. 

A click and she was alone again as a taxi cruised to a stop beneath 
her outstretched hand. 


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


Scully kept her gun unholstered and by her side, but the driver was a 
driver, and no one seemed to have followed the cab to the motel.

The two young cops Kresge sent seemed vaguely amused as she unlocked 
the door to her room and threw it open, taking a position just to the 
side before entering, her weapon extended, held firmly in both hands. 
They seemed to be treating the whole thing as an academy exercise. All 
she could do was say a brief prayer that they wouldn't be wrong, 
before moving further in. 

She kept the gun ready in her right hand, quickly opening the closet, 
the bathroom door with her left. No one. She made one of the young 
officers check under the bed while she went into Mulder's room through 
the connecting doors, leaving the other officer outside in case 
someone made a break for it. Still no one. 

Scully holstered her gun, but she couldn't shake the feeling that 
something wasn't right. It was like a whisper at the back of her neck, 
almost like the feeling of being called, but this time it told her 
there was something here to find. It was the same odd sensation she'd 
had at the Wallaces'.

She went back into her own room, methodically opening the drawers. Her 
clothes were still there, neatly folded as she'd left them. Mulder 
generally lived out of his suitcase, but a childhood of constant 
change had left her with a need to nest and she always unpacked hers 
and put everything away.

The two young cops were standing by the inner doors, exchanging amused 
glances. Rookies both, bright and shiny in their new uniforms. It was 
hard to believe she had once been as innocent as that.

"You about ready, ma'am?" one inquired politely. She stared him down. 
It did not please her to be called ma'am. 

"No, I'm not," she answered, voice sharp with authority. "I'd like one 
of you to go across the way and ask the manager if anyone's entered 
these rooms since this morning."

"Well, the maid's been in this room," the taller, dark one offered. 
"See? The bed's been made." He glanced back into the other room. 
"Maybe she didn't get next door yet."

The maid. What if the maid was one of Them, looking through the papers 
they left? What if she was paid to tell Them when they came and went, 
to tell Them that two federal agents of different sexes were not only 
consorting in the same room, but sleeping in the same bed?

Now you are getting paranoid, she warned herself. The maid is the 
maid. No one cares where you sleep.

She turned back to the dark cop. "Would you please do as I asked?" 

God, her voice was rattling like ice in a glass. She had to pull 
herself together. 

A few calming breaths helped, but her skin was still tingling with a 
feeling of invasion. Someone had been in here, and it wasn't the maid. 
Someone good enough to leave nothing out of place. Luckily she'd had 
all the files with her today. 

She turned slowly, almost sniffing the air, expert eyes noting every 
detail of the room. What did They want, what did They think she had? 
Or had They merely left something behind, some spying piece of 
themselves?

Her phone rang in her pocket, making her jump.

"Scully." 

She turned her back on the blond officer lounging in the doorway, face 
twisted in a smirk as he tried not to laugh.

"Kresge. We may have trouble. I'm at the Hamptons. There's no sign of 
Mulder. No car. Nothing."

"Shit."

"Yeah, it gets better. Jane Hampton just tried to kill herself. 
Fortunately, because we were looking for Mulder, we got here before 
she bled out. She's on her way to County Gen. Looks like she'll make 
it."

"And the husband?"

"Dead. She appears to have walked up and shot him in the back of the 
head while he was trying to win the European Downhill Skiing 
Championships."

"What?"

"He was playing a computer game. Good score, too. Probably never even 
heard her come in."

"No, I mean--" She caught herself before she spoke, wondering if they 
were being listened to, right now. "Are you sure that's how it 
happened?"

"That's how it's looking at the moment. I mean, they weren't exactly 
Romeo and Juliet."

"Don't get too complacent. Remember the Sims."

He sighed and she could imagine him running his hand back and forth 
through his hair. "Point taken."

She hung up just as the dark policeman walked back into the room. 

"Manager says no one's been here." 

"Fine," she answered, throwing her suitcase onto the bed. Maybe she 
was getting paranoid, but there was no way she could stay in this room 
again. 


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


Kresge looked up, relieved to see Scully entering his office, lugging 
two suitcases and a laptop and ignoring the stares of the other 
officers as if she was used to running a gauntlet of her peers.

"I'm sure he's fine," she said immediately, sounding like she meant to 
convince herself more than him. "If the car was there, I'd worry. The 
fact that it's not and his phone is off is actually a good sign. He's 
probably chasing something."

"Is this normal behavior for him? Running off every ten seconds?"

Scully's mouth twisted slightly. "It's not abnormal."

"Well." He looked down at the two black suitcases, one soft-sided, the 
other molded plastic Samsonite. The impenetrable Samsonite was the 
smaller. He'd bet anything it was hers. "What do you want me do? I've 
got people searching the immediate vicinity. I can put out an APB."

"No. If he's onto something we'll only blow his surveillance. If 
They've got him, an APB won't help." 

Scully lowered herself into one of the chairs on the other side of his 
desk. "You have a team on Jane Hampton?" she asked, and he nodded. 
"Let's go over there. I'd like to ask her some questions."  

"She's out cold, Scully. Not likely to be coherent any time today."

"Put me on guard. She might wake up."

"You can't sit there all night."

She waved his objection away. "I need something to do."

Kresge sighed. That he understood. 


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


SAN DIEGO GENERAL HOSPITAL
MARCH 7TH, 1:17 AM


Scully took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes, hard enough to make 
fireworks. It reminded her of being a child -- knuckling her eyes, 
staring at the sparks in the darkness. She'd been full of wonder then, 
confident every question could be answered. Now, every answer only 
brought a new set of increasingly unanswerable questions.

She put her glasses back on and stared at the chart in front of her. 
Jane Hampton lacked a mole on her upper lip or the dark map of Texas 
that Melissa had on her left forearm, but her bloodtype was the same. 
B positive. William Scully's gift to both his daughters, along with 
the tendency to early male baldness, double-jointed thumbs, and the 
particular shade of their hair.

Scully could still remember the fee-fie-fo-fum of her father's 
footsteps entering his kingdom of noisy children, his huge hand coming 
to rest on the top of her head. She was four or five and she had hit a 
boy for calling her carrot-top. She was expecting Big Trouble, but 
instead her father had swung her up in his arms and told her never to 
be ashamed of her hair, that it was a fine gift brought by their 
ancestors from Ireland, that it marked her as a true Scully. 

And now here was this woman who bore such a similarity to her sister, 
who had the same color hair. But if Jane Hampton was a Scully, was she 
also an O'Donnell? And if this woman was not a child of her mother's 
body, what did that make of good Captain Ahab? 

Scully's hands ached with the desire to pick up the phone, to wake her 
mother on the other side of the country and demand some answers. How 
like Mulder she was getting. 

She took her glasses off again and closed her eyes, just for a moment. 

The next thing she knew, someone else was there.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


Mulder entered the room quietly, hushed by the sight of his partner 
slumped over the table. Kresge, if he'd known her better, would have 
been wise enough not to put Scully on graveyard shift by herself. 
After a certain point in the night, the woman could and would sleep 
just about anywhere. 

He knelt beside her and touched her arm. Suddenly he was flat on his 
back on the floor with Scully's SIG three inches from his nose, and 
his hands in the air.
 
"Whoa! Scully, it's me!" 

He waited for what seemed like an eternity before her eyes cleared and 
she recognized him. She had looked frighteningly dangerous for a 
moment, not quite awake, the gun finding its way into his face by pure 
instinct. 

"Jesus, don't shoot the messenger before he even delivers the news."

"I'm sorry." She holstered her weapon with an embarrassed shrug. "I'm 
a little on edge."

Hanging over the edge would be more his assessment, Mulder thought, as 
he accepted the hand she offered to help him up. Scully looked wrung 
out, lines carved into her face and her hair flipping every which way. 
Her makeup had long ago been rubbed off and the dark shadows 
surrounding her eyes gave her the look of another century, of half-
starved immigrants standing worn and patient at Ellis Island. 

She moved toward him. Small square hands fussed with a patch of dust 
on his coat, a loosened button. 

"Where the hell have you been, Mulder?" 

Her words were sharp, but her tone was hoarse and worried. He put his 
hands over hers and made her look at him. 

"I found something, Scully. I need you to see it, too."

"What?"

"Just come with me."

"I can't, Mulder. I'm on watch here until two." 

Her eyes closed and for a moment she seemed about to collapse against 
him. He reached to hold her, but she stumbled away, catching the foot 
of the bed beneath her questing hands. 

"I'm all right," she immediately insisted. 

"Sit down, Scully--"

"I'm not going to pass out." She let go of the bed, deliberately 
ignoring his light touch on her arm. "That was probably some kind of 
hypoxic reaction to the altitude. It's not that uncommon. Changes in 
blood pressure, dehydration. All and any of the above."

Mulder clenched his hands into fists and shoved them into the pockets 
of his overcoat, watching while she righted her chair and sank into it 
again. 

"Let's not forget stress, insomnia and the fact that two months ago 
you almost bled to death," he added, watching for her reaction.

She shrugged, dragging her hand through her hair, leaving it parted on 
its opposite side. There was something hopeless about the gesture, 
something he was not used to seeing from her. "Considering it hasn't 
happened here, the evidence points to altitude."

"Well, I sincerely hope that's all it was." 
 
She sighed and looked away. Mulder followed her line of vision, 
turning to look at the woman in the bed. "Were you able to get 
anything out of her?"

"No, not yet." Scully reached for the little rolling table and its 
burden of papers. "I've asked for some tests to be run, but it will be 
a couple of days before we get the results back." 

"You really think she may be some kind of relative?"

"Yes." 

No dissembling, no beating round the bush, no elaborate scientific 
theory. Just one word with a weight of hope and fear behind it. He 
started to put a hand out to her, then thought better of it, letting 
it fall in his lap. 

"Don't go too fast, Scully."

"Mulder, I know that. I'm not on the phone accusing my mother of 
selling a child to the conspiracy, am I? I'm waiting to gather as much 
information as I can."

He said nothing. Scully was rubbing at her eyes again, unaware of the 
sharp edge to her words. 

"Do we have anywhere to sleep tonight?" he asked.

"No," she admitted. "I panicked and packed up our stuff. It's all down 
at the station."

"Yeah, I talked to Kresge. He told me what happened. You did the right 
thing, Scully. I think we're being watched."

He wondered if she was aware that her spine suddenly straightened, or 
if the reaction was pure instinct, like the hand that went to check 
the placement of her holster. Her eyes were alert now, her fatigue 
momentarily banished. 

He looked around for another chair, and not finding one, settled on 
the floor at her feet, filling her in on the information he'd gotten 
from Frohike. He could see her processing each bit, filing and cross-
filing, that ever-logical brain of hers rearranging the facts she had, 
to accommodate these new ones. Mulder might be the hare bounding first 
to the finish but it was Scully's methodical tortoise mind that 
catalogued each pebble along the way, each blade of grass. It was 
Scully who would, in the end, be able to explain how they'd gotten 
there. 

She sat back, contemplating the sleeping Jane. When she spoke, long 
minutes later, she too spoke in whispers. "I had something of an 
epiphany myself. Something I'm surprised I didn't notice before."

"What was that?"

"The information that I found in the Birth Registry when I was looking 
for Emily's records -- it's all backward."

"I don't understand."

"Adoption is a legal fiction. The adoptive parents' names and 
information are placed on all the child's records, wiping out the 
birth parents and in most cases the child's original name along with 
them. In other words, a birth certificate for Emily Sim should list 
Roberta and Marshall Sim as her parents. It should look like any other 
birth certificate."

"And it doesn't."

"There apparently isn't one. According to the database, her records 
are sealed by adoption. The only way I should be seeing that notice is 
if I were looking up the original name. Emily Sim would have to be the 
name of the baby that Anna Fugazzi put up for adoption. Now how could 
that be, unless somebody knew she was going to the Sims? The sealed 
record should be filed under Fugazzi."

Mulder leaned back against Jane's bed, running his fingertips across 
his stubbled cheeks, considering that information.

"Why are the names of the adoptive parents being hidden, when legally 
these children are supposed to belong to them? Jane showed me Denise's 
birth certificate, but that cert number isn't on file at the Hall of 
Records. Someone forged it and gave it to her and I think she believes 
it's real. Now why would They do that, Mulder?"

"I'm not sure."

She fell quiet for a moment before continuing. "I think when I get 
Jane's medical file I'm going to find that she did give birth to a 
little girl on November 2nd, 1994 just like she said." 

"But, Scully...Denise and Amy and Emily are identical, as far as we've 
been able to tell. And you know that Emily was your biological child. 
Are you suggesting that Jane was somehow impregnated with your ova?"

"I didn't say that Denise was necessarily the child Jane gave birth 
to. Maybe Jane's baby died. Maybe that child has been properly 
adopted. If she were, the database wouldn't tell us."

Scully picked up the files from the table and got down on the floor 
with Mulder, spreading papers before him as she spoke. 

"I think when I match Denise's DNA to Emily's I'll see they're 
identical. And Jennifer mentioned a connection between her first 
husband's job and their ability to adopt Amy so quickly. What if the 
husbands are in on it? I asked Frohike to background check the 
fathers, see what he could come up with, but we already know there's 
some kind of connection between Mason and Wallace. Now we have 
Hampton, whose daughter was going through those horrible treatments 
and then suddenly got sick again and what if he knew how they'd cured 
it the first time? What if he was involved in taking Amy to treat 
Denise? Jane said they had to take Denise for checkups once a month, 
and when they went this month the place was shut down. Maybe Tom was 
making threats or maybe, once Denise was dead, someone wanted to wipe 
out all the evidence of the experiment and that's why they tried to 
kill the Hamptons."

Scully's words were beginning to tumble one on top of the other, her 
voice rising in pitch, though her volume stayed low. "We know the Sims 
were getting money from Prangen for putting Emily into Calderon's 
program -- what if Wallace married Jennifer for a piece of the action? 
What if They took Amy because he'd raised his price or he was getting 
out of hand? Maybe he's even hiding her himself, holding her for a 
kind of ransom. And the other girls, Mulder -- if they were part of 
the same program, if they have the same pathology, they'll be getting 
sick too. We have to--"

"Scully, stop, okay? Just stop a minute." 

He held her gently by the shoulders, forcing her to shut up, to look 
at him. Her eyes were bright now, too bright, rimmed in the red of 
total exhaustion. Mulder felt the world spinning, as if they had 
switched places and he was looking at himself through her eyes, seeing 
the manic light of inspiration illuminating her face as so many times 
she must have seen it in his. 

Had she been this afraid of him? For him? And was she right, as he had 
sometimes been?

"Scully," he said, "I need to ask you something, and you need to give 
me an honest answer. If we found Amy in time, and you could use her to 
treat those other girls, would you do it? Would you keep on doing it 
over and over every few years, knowing that you couldn't win, that you 
couldn't make them well?"

She swayed beneath his hands, but he held on, hating himself as he 
watched the brightness fade from her eyes.

"That's not a fair question," she finally answered, pulling away and 
getting to her feet again. 

"I just want you to be prepared," he said. "Because I think we may 
have been sent out here to make this stop. If that's the side we're 
on, Scully, we may be siding with some of the people we're normally 
against."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because I followed the men who came to the Hamptons'. And they led me 
somewhere. To something they wanted me to see. And I think--"

His throat tightened and he had to stop to lick his lips. 

"I think I'm supposed to bring you there."


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


MULCAHY CLINIC, SAN YSIDRO
MARCH 7TH, 3:23 AM


Mulder's hand on her shoulder woke Scully from a cloudy, lethargic 
dream.

"We're here," he said. "You sure you're up for this?"

"I'm sure." She unbuckled her seat belt, reaching under her jacket to 
move her holster back where it belonged. 

Mulder slipped from the car, shutting the door softly, slinging a coil 
of rope around his neck. He pointed across the street to a large 
fenced-in lot. Behind the trees that grew near the perimeter, she 
could see a three story building, late '60s modular style. She started 
to head toward the electronic gate across the driveway, but Mulder 
caught her arm and beckoned her in the opposite direction. 

"How good were you at climbing trees when you were a kid?" he 
whispered. 

"Never fell," she whispered back.  

"Good. Let's hope we're not too old for this."

Scully followed him to a twisted apple tree with a strong branch 
extending over the top of the fence. She allowed Mulder to boost her 
into the tree, her stomach muscles straining painfully as she searched 
for footing in her totally inappropriate shoes. She paused on a stout 
branch to pull them off and stick them in the pockets of her jacket, 
feeling an odd echo of her former self, the nine-year-old tomboy with 
her calloused feet.

Mulder climbed up, and passed her, shimmying across the extending 
branch and landing on the other side of the fence with a ground-
shaking thump. He dusted himself off, looking rather proud, and held 
his arms out as she made her own way over the fence, waiting to help 
her down. 

Scully ignored him, reaching under the branch with one arm to clasp 
her hands together on top of it. Her grip solid, she slid over the 
side, wincing at the pull in her abdomen as she let go and dropped 
noiselessly to the ground. 

She took her time putting her shoes back on, giving the burn deep 
inside a minute to cease. She was not ready for this kind of exercise, 
not by a long shot, but she was damned if she was going to let him see 
that. 

She stood, nodding at Mulder to say she was ready, and they began to 
make their way across the empty field. Another painful boost, this 
time up to a fire escape ladder. Great, Scully thought, taking the 
shoes off again. One slip of a heel through the metal grid of the fire 
escape and Mulder would be carrying her back across that field. 

At the top of the fire escape they found a set of handgrips to pull 
themselves up and over onto the roof. She padded unsteadily over the 
coarse gravel on the roof, wincing as the loose stones bruised her 
stockinged feet. 

Mulder was already at the target, a three by three foot skylight. "You 
are not lowering me down into that," she whispered, crouching beside 
him.

"No, I'll go first."

Mulder tied the rope securely to a jutting pipe and climbed down, 
holding the rope steady at the bottom. He had made periodic knots, 
close enough to allow for her size, and she found she was actually 
able to get down without too much pain. 

The cold tile floor felt wonderful on her sore feet. Mulder held a 
finger to his lips and she nodded. All right, I got this far. Lead the 
way. 

He turned her around, and she realized there was no way to lead; they 
were already where Mulder wanted them to be. In the darkness she was 
just able to make out a double row of tables, surfaces that reflected 
dimly as Mulder turned on his flashlight and slowly moved the beam 
around the room. 

He clapped his hand over her mouth before she could scream.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 

PART 10             

<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 


Scully closed her eyes, tasting rust from the fire escape railing 
where Mulder's hand pressed against her lips. She shook his hand away 
and fumbled for the flashlight in the other. He let her take it from 
him, stepping back as she moved the light slowly across the room.

Tanks. Tables of tanks, and in them, what might have been humans.

Scully forced herself to move forward, walking between the rows. She 
was a scientist, but this was not science. This was beyond scientific 
curiosity. This was madness. Arrogant little boys fumbling with the 
building blocks of life, punished for their hubris by the begetting of 
monsters. This was playing God, and badly.

Scully stopped at a tank, letting the light play over the creature 
inside it. A child, a girl by the genitalia, perhaps a year old. One 
of their better creations, but not good enough to sustain life. The 
child's body was almost right, but her arms were too long, the hands 
too thin, possessing only a thumb and three fingers. 

It was the face that brought a swell of nausea, the perfect tiny nose 
and mouth set in the oversized triangular head. It was the creature's 
eyes, a cool greyish blue, huge tilted almonds the size of a large 
spoon.

She turned away, the light turning with her, illuminating a fetus, its 
distorted face grinning hideously. The next tank held an infant almost 
without features; beside it another, horribly, heartbreakingly human. 

Scully moved away from the tables, the light playing over the walls. 
They looked like they were made of glass, like the doors of giant 
cabinets. 

She moved closer. Not cabinets, she realized. Freezers.

She went to the nearest and opened the door. The glass was heavy, 
double-layered, holding the arctic air within. Inside, she saw a wall 
of tiny drawers, like an old-fashioned system for filing index cards. 
She opened the first one she touched, her hand surprisingly steady, as 
if she already knew what she would find. 

A rack of tubes, neatly labeled.

Scully whirled, the beam of her flashlight searching for Mulder. He 
was still standing below the skylight, the knotted rope held tightly 
in one hand. 

She turned back to the wall, searching the names on the drawers, 
almost running along the sides of the room.

P...R...Salinger...Sayers...Schultz...Scully

Scully, Dana Katherine  2/23/64
10/29/94  121336540-009  JFEY80

A hand on hers stopped her from opening the drawer. She pushed him 
away. His hand came back, his breath heavy in her ear, whispering her 
name. 

She turned to him, hissing, furious. "Why did you bring me here, if 
you didn't want me to see this?" 

"There's something I need to tell you first." 

"Too late." She pushed his hand away again, and opened the drawer.

A rack of tubes, neatly labeled. Six of the slots were empty.

Scully lifted out one of the remaining tubes and held it up to the 
flashlight. Inside it, the future, frozen in saline. 

She pulled her shoe out of her pocket and replaced it with the tube. 
Another. All of them. 

The alarm sounded just as she turned to Mulder. He grabbed her arm, 
pulling her toward the rope, but she wasn't finished; there were other 
names to look for. One in particular. 

She broke away, running back along the wall. 

"Scully!" he hissed.

R...P...Paley...O'Sullivan...O'Malley...O'Grady...O'D--

The flashlight fell from her hand as Mulder grabbed her by the back of 
her clothes, dragging her away.  


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


SEA COURT MOTEL
MARCH 7, 6:22 AM


She came back to awareness sitting on the edge of a double bed in a 
new motel room. Mulder was undressing, readying himself to sleep, 
though day poured bright below the curtains. She herself was still 
fully dressed, cold, though he had wrapped a blanket around her 
shoulders. She felt something wet and icy against her side and reached 
into her pocket, pulling out one of the vials.

Her future, her stolen children. 

Scully tilted the glass tube, watching the sludge inside slowly 
drifting towards the lower end. She opened the vial and let the half-
frozen mixture pour into her palm. 

Primordial sludge, the great soup from which they all came. She closed 
her eyes and imagined she saw faces, hundreds of tiny faces, all the 
possible children she might have had. Each one imprinting itself into 
her mind for one split second, like a photoflash, as the ova died 
warming in her hand.

"Scully! Jesus, what are you doing?" Mulder leapt in front of her, 
arms flailing as he realized it was too late. 

She looked up at him.

"What did you think, Mulder?" she asked. "Did you think I could just 
put them back inside me?"

She reached into her pocket and pulled out another tube, began to 
uncap it.

"No. Scully, don't. Please."

It was the tenderness in his voice that reached her, stilled her 
murdering hands. Was it murder, what she was doing, spreading her 
progeny across her palms like butter? Could she kill what was already 
dead? 

She lost track again, staring at her hands, so that she jumped 
slightly when Mulder slipped the vial from her numb fingers and 
recapped it. He gave her a towel he'd brought from the bathroom, 
watching as she slowly wiped the residue away. 

"Are you absolutely sure there's nothing you can do?" he asked, and 
her hands stilled. She reached into her pocket and retrieved the other 
four vials. They were still ice cold. It was possible that they still 
contained life. 

Scully closed her eyes and imagined the soft weight of an infant 
sleeping in her arms. 

Oh God, yes, she wanted that. Then Emily's face swam before her, 
frightened, uncomprehending, green poisoned blood dribbling down her 
back. 

Scully's eyes flew open again.

No. She would not bring a child into her world. Better that it would 
never be an option, could never happen by accident or be engineered 
again.

But what was she to do with these pieces of herself? Flush them down 
the toilet? Wash them down the sink? Dead though the cells might be, 
the symbolism of such an act was more than she could stand. 

Dazed, she let Mulder take the vials out of her hands. He placed them 
in the freezer of the little refrigerator in the kitchenette and stood 
there, leaning his head against the wall.

"Mulder?" 

"Yeah." He stayed where he was. 

She wanted to tell him about the other drawer, the one he'd prevented 
her from looking for, but the words stuck in her throat. For the first 
time since they'd arrived in California she felt the pull of that 
darkness, the undertow that would drag her out to the place where 
Melissa was. 

Scully closed her eyes, ready to give herself up to it, but it was 
only a wave of exhaustion. In a moment it had passed, leaving her numb 
and cold. 

"Why?" she asked. "Why did you want me to see that place?"

Mulder shook himself, walked over to his pile of discarded clothing 
and pulled out his undershirt, handing it to her.

"Here. You can wear that if you don't want to sleep in your clothes." 

He crossed to the other side of the bed without looking at her, and 
got under the covers. "You'd better lie down. We've got about three 
hours, then we need to meet Kresge. They're going to raid the clinic 
for conducting unlicensed human experiments. He's out getting the 
search warrant now."

"Mulder. I need to know."

He kept his back to her, his voice muffled by the pillow. "I just...I 
thought it might be your one chance to take back what's yours. I 
thought it might help." 

She stared at the back of his neck for a long time before she finally 
stood to slip off her clothes.

Pain shot through her left foot and she stifled a cry. 

Mulder rolled over. "What is it?"

She turned her foot up. Shredded stockings and dirt, through which she 
could see several suspiciously shiny fragments.

"I've got glass in my feet."

"Wouldn't surprise me." Mulder crawled over behind her for a look. "I 
wonder what they'll think if they ever find your shoe." 

He rolled off the bed and headed for the bathroom, talking over his 
shoulder. "Get undressed. Let's see what we can do."

A few minutes later Scully had worked off her slacks and peeled the 
remnants of her stockings from her legs. She hobbled into the 
bathroom, where Mulder was swirling two small complimentary soap bars 
in a shallow, hot bath. He glanced once at her bare legs, then 
politely looked away. 

Scully perched herself on the edge of the bath and lowered her feet 
into the water, reaching for the washcloth. Mulder took it from her 
and knelt beside the tub. She closed her eyes as he began to bathe her 
feet, gently scrubbing away the rust and dirt. By the time he was done 
she was barely able to remain upright, all her muscles relaxed into an 
overwhelming, sensuous fatigue. 

Mulder hooked an arm behind her knees to lift her from the edge of the 
bath. "Gotta keep the feet clean," he whispered, over her drowsy 
protest. 

She gave in and wrapped her arms around his neck, secretly relieved to 
be carried those few steps, to give up pretending to a strength she 
didn't have. Mulder sat her on the bed, holding her against his chest 
to work her jacket off. 

"Go on," he said, and she crawled under the blankets, sighing as he 
tucked them tight around her chilled flesh. A motherly kiss, soft 
against her forehead, was the last thing she felt.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


She woke to the sound of a key in the door and panicked, fumbling for 
her gun. 

"It's me, it's me," Mulder called, moving slowly into the room. He had 
an armful of paper bags, one of which smelled deliciously like coffee.

Scully lay back, willing her heart to slow down. 

"What time is it?"

"Ten fifteen," he answered, setting the bags down on the table and 
beginning to unpack. "I called Kresge. He's got the warrant, got the 
team. We need to be there at eleven."

Scully kicked the blanket away, looking down with surprise at the 
bandaids on her feet. 

"Mulder, did you get any sleep?"

"Some. You slept hard enough for both of us. You slept right through 
my surgery." 

He was grinning, obviously proud of himself, though he looked deathly 
tired. She lifted the edge of one bandaid and peered beneath it. Nice 
clean wounds, nothing that deep. 

"Nice work."

"Yeah, this friend of mine's a doctor. She taught me. Here, I got you 
something else." He opened the last bag and fished out a pair of black 
dime store sneakers.

"Mulder, you shouldn't have," she said dryly, turning the shoes over 
and over in her hands. 

"Sorry. I know they're not your style, but I didn't have time to shop 
for heels. At least they go with the suit."

Scully blushed slightly, ashamed of her ingratitude. She undid the 
laces and slipped one on, surprised to find that they fit perfectly.

"How did you know what size to get?"

"Well, I have become intimately acquainted with that part of your 
anatomy." He held up one of his broad, long fingered hands, measuring 
so big. "Did you know that your feet are not a lot bigger than my 
hands? I had to get those in the kids' section. I would have got you 
something more colorful, but I didn't know if you preferred Pokemon or 
Teletubbies." 

Their eyes found each other, locked, a subtle frequency beginning to 
vibrate. "Thank you for taking care of me," she said softly. 

He shrugged, his cheeks suddenly flushed. "Put it in the ledger, 
Scully, you'll see I'm still way in the red." 


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


She caught Mulder watching her as the team assembled and managed to 
give him some kind of smile. Grim but excited, ready to do what she 
was trained to do. They were both ready for some action, ready to get 
their hands on that lab and the monsters who ran it. 

Kresge gave the nod and everyone got into their various vehicles for 
the ride. Neither she nor Mulder spoke as they followed the patrol. 

Getting in was easy, with only the weekend guards at the entrance to 
detain and move past. Part of the team stayed behind on each floor, 
gathering materials. Mulder, Scully and Kresge kept going with a small 
backup. 

Up the stairs, first floor, second. A wait for the electronic door to 
the top to be grudgingly opened. By tacit agreement, the men let 
Scully go first.

Her cry of despair brought them all up short. 

The room was a different place now, the tanks gone, the tables filled 
with ordinary lab equipment, dusty from disuse. 

Scully all but ran to the glass wall. The drawers were still there, 
but the refrigeration had been turned off and all the labels had been 
changed. She yanked one drawer open. It contained index cards. Another 
and another and another, and still nothing but index cards. 

It was gone. Everything. Again. Gone.

She felt hands on her shoulders, a man's hands, strong and certain. 
Without thinking, she turned into them, pressing her face against his 
chest. The hands became arms, holding her tightly. She clutched him 
back, for once not caring who saw, not caring what they thought. 

It was like pressing down the plunger of a hypodermic, slow and 
steady, sending all her emotions as deep as they could go. It wasn't 
until the plunger hit bottom that she realized the feel of him was 
completely wrong, that the man she was clinging to was not Mulder. 


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


Mulder wanted to turn away, but could not make himself do it. It was 
the way he felt sometimes when watching Scully perform an autopsy. A 
kind of sickening fascination, not with the body, but with his 
partner's calm detachment as she eviscerated, examined and weighed 
every slimy, blood-soaked element. 

In the sneakers he'd bought, Scully was so small that Kresge's 
shoulders completely blocked Mulder's view of her. He could only see 
her arms crossed over his back, white-knuckled fists clenching the 
fabric of his police jacket. 

Mulder had other things to do and he knew he should be doing them. He 
could not. He needed to see her face, needed to know if she was 
crying. He might accept the idea of Scully giving her body to another 
man, maybe even her heart, but her tears were his. Only he had earned 
the right to see them.  

He walked around the tables until he could see them from the other 
side. Scully's eyes were closed, but her cheeks were dry and he felt a 
faint note of triumph. 

The triumph disappeared as Kresge's hand came up to cup her head. That 
gave him the impetus he needed, finally, to turn away. There were some 
things he just didn't want to see.

Busying himself by fiddling with the dusty glassware, he heard Scully 
murmuring an embarrassed apology.

"We'll get them," Kresge promised.

She said, "No. We never do. This is always what happens."

Mulder moved to the next table. This one contained a distilling 
apparatus. He ran a finger over the top of the central beaker and 
stared at the dark smudge left on his skin as if analyzing the dust 
particles he found there. A moment later he felt Scully's hand on his 
arm.

He turned to her. She seemed so far away, looking up at him from a 
much greater distance than usual, her eyes dark with some emotion he 
couldn't name. Mulder drew himself taller, increasing the distance 
between them. He knew she would interpret his behavior as frustration 
over the failure of the raid, would see only what she wanted to see. 
Fine. He had no desire to let her see how he felt. Everything was far 
too dangerous.

She slid her hand down his arm to clasp three of his fingers, trying 
to bridge the gap between them. The gesture melted his heart as it 
always did, threatened to dissolve his resistance. He slipped his hand 
out of her grasp, again relying on the fact that she would not assume 
his actions had a personal element. Had she taken it personally when 
the office burned and he stood there like a store window mannequin 
while she grasped his arms and held on for dear life? No, of course 
not. He was in shock, she'd realised that. 

"Mulder," she said. "I have an idea. Something I'd like to check out." 

He drew in a deep breath, dragging his eyes away from her to scan the 
room. There were a couple of uniforms logging items, going through the 
motions, shaking their heads. Kresge was off in a corner now, making 
his hair stand on end by tugging on it while he paced with a cellphone 
in his hand. The bust was worthless, they all knew that.

"Mulder?"

He brought his attention back to Scully. Her bottom lip was bright 
red. She must have been biting it the whole time she stood in Kresge's 
arms.
 
He took a step closer, so she had to tilt her head back to see him. 
Her mouth was slightly open, as if there was something else she wanted 
to say, as if she were waiting to be kissed.

He wanted to kiss her, wanted to tell her she was his. That as much of 
a shit as he was sometimes, his life was worthless without her in it. 

Mulder rubbed a hand over his face, wiping that thought from his 
features. Scully was only professionally his, and only for as long as 
she chose to put up with him. Which would not be long if he chose to 
be jealous.

"Mulder, are you all right?" 

She loves you as a friend. That's all it's ever been. 

He made it a mantra, chanted it inside his head until he could breathe 
again, until he could dare to look at her and not be afraid of what 
his face might give away. 

"There's something you want to check out," he said. 

She stepped back, a look of relief washing over her face.

"Yes. Can I take the car?" She held her hand out for the keys. 

"Careful, Scully. You talk like that someone might think we're 
married." 

Wrong. Wrong time to joke, wrong thing to joke about. Scully frowned 
at him and Mulder took another deep breath, made his face relax, 
erasing whatever he'd unconsciously written there. 

He managed to dredge up an empty half-smile along with the keys to the 
rental. "So. Where are we going?"

"It's personal, Mulder. I'm sorry, but you can't come with me." 

She reached up to take the keys and his fist closed instinctively 
around them. 

"No, Scully, you haven't had enough sleep to be driving around."

"Mulder, you haven't slept at all, so how is that better?"

"I haven't been having blackouts. If I give you the car and you pass 
out behind the wheel--" He faltered as her lips slowly pinched 
together. "--I would feel responsible for anything that happened."

She nodded sagely, as if accepting his advice. A minute later he saw 
her on the other side of the room, accepting a set of keys from 
Kresge.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


SCULLY RESIDENCE, SAN DIEGO NAVAL STATION
MARCH 7TH, 7:28 PM


"Dana!"

Her sister-in-law grabbed Scully around the waist, almost waltzing her 
inside the house. 

"I couldn't believe it when Bill said you were coming," Tara chortled. 
"You've got perfect timing, you know. He's shipping out in the morning 
for three months." 

"I know, that's why I came down tonight."
 
Scully returned her sister-in-law's hug with real affection. Sometimes 
Tara's easy radiance was a burning coal sticking in Scully's throat, 
but sometimes, like now, it was a winter hearth. Soothing, comforting, 
a good place to warm herself for a while.

"I won't stay long," she said, still in Tara's arms. "I know it's 
late." 

"Stay as long as you like," Tara said. "At least stay for dinner." 

She drew back a little, searching Scully's face, making her suddenly 
uncomfortable. Tara was getting mother eyes now that she was one. It 
was like arriving at her own mother's, having to withstand the 
scrutiny of someone who'd known her longer and better than she knew 
herself, someone who always saw everything she needed to hide. Thank 
god Tara had not known her so long, nor anywhere near so well.

"I'll tell him you're here," she said at last, concluding her 
inspection with a brief kiss on Scully's somber cheek. "Matthew's 
still up. Go have a look. He's gotten huge since you last saw him."

Scully nodded her thanks, moving into the living room for a dutiful 
look at her nephew. She loomed over the playpen while Matthew regarded 
her solemnly, two fingers shoved in his mouth and slobber dribbling 
down his chin. He had the round blue O'Donnell eyes and Tara's fine, 
wispy blond hair. Not the most beautiful kid in the world perhaps, but 
not too bad.

"I'm Dana," she told him. "I bet you don't remember me, but I'm your 
aunt." 

Matthew took his fingers out of his mouth and rattled on the bars of 
his prison. "Out," he said, or something that sounded very much like 
it. 

Scully lifted the boy out of the playpen, balancing him on her hip. 
She wiped his mouth with his shirt and he laughed, grabbing for her 
hair with his chubby, uncoordinated little hands. 

"Sorry, Matthew, I think that's attached." She moved her hair out of 
the way and hugged him close, pressing her nose against the top of his 
head. He smelled of bananas and baby-safe detergent, with a faint 
undercurrent of urine that probably only his mother or a forensic 
pathologist could easily detect. 

"You look good with a baby in your arms," Bill said, from somewhere 
behind her. 

She closed her eyes. Had he always been like that, or had he grown 
more tactless in the last few years?

"Anyone looks good holding a baby," she answered. "Even you, Bill." 

She smiled to soften her words, handed the son to his father and 
accepted a kiss on her cheek in return. 

"It's good to see you," he smiled, shifting Matthew to his shoulder. 
"A nice surprise." 

Scully moved out of reach, disturbed in a way she had not expected. 
Bill not only sounded like their father, but since his hair had 
started to recede, he was even beginning to look like him.

"It's funny," he continued, rubbing Matthew's back. "But I was talking 
to Mom just this afternoon. She said that last night she dreamt of us 
all on a picnic, the kind we used to have when Dad was home. We were 
still kids, laughing and having a good time, chasing each other 
around. Then you turned into a bird and flew away, and we were all 
running after you, calling to you to come back. And now here you are, 
flitting by for ten minutes when I haven't seen you in over a year." 

Scully's mouth opened in shock. Her hatches had not yet been battened 
down; she hadn't expected the storm to come up quite so fast. 

"I did make the effort to come, Bill. I didn't have to."

"Because of a case, Dana. Because you have some questions to ask. Not 
because you want to spend some time with your family." 

"Bill, please. I didn't come here to argue."

"I know. You wanted some information." He laid the baby down on a pad 
on the floor, and began to unsnap his romper. He ticked his son's 
belly, watching in satisfaction as the baby squirmed and squealed. 

"Go ahead," he said calmly, digging a clean Huggies from a box half-
hidden behind the couch. "What do you want to ask?" 

He looked up, catching the surprise on her face. 

"Don't look like that. I used to diaper you. And that was in the days 
of cloth and pins."

"You never."

"Ask Mom. She'll swear to it."

She walked over to the window, staring out of it while Bill changed 
Matthew's diaper, suddenly at a loss. 

"I'm not sure how to ask this," she said finally. She turned around 
and perched on the windowledge, hands on her knees for balance. "I'm 
not saying he did but...do you believe that Dad might have ever...do 
you believe he would ever have been capable of having an affair?"

Bill sat back on his heels, a curious look on his face. She'd been 
prepared for outrage at the mere suggestion, but he seemed to be 
seriously considering it. 

"I don't think so," he said, after a moment. "I really don't. You know 
what he was like about family, and honoring commitments. I'm not going 
to say he never felt the urge, but I don't think he would have acted 
on it. No."

"Not even when he and Mom were young? Before we were all born?"

"Come here." He got up and guided her over to the family gallery on 
the wall by the living room door, a giant collage of framed 
photographs. Their mother had made one too, in the same place, in 
almost every house they lived in. 

"Look at them," Bill said, pointing to a copy of one of her favorite 
pictures. Her parents young, her father in his dress whites with his 
arms around her mother, still chubby from the pregnancy that had 
resulted in Melissa. Her mother was laughing at the camera and her 
father was looking at her like he never wanted to take his eyes off 
her again. 

"I don't think a man that loves his wife as much as Dad loved Mom 
would ever cheat on her. I just don't."

Scully reached out to touch the photograph next to the one of her 
parents, a studio portrait of the four of them as kids. She could 
barely recognize herself as the sweet-faced two-year-old sitting in 
Bill's lap. Melissa was standing next to them, holding the newborn 
Charles, a proud smile stretching her mouth from ear to ear. 

"Do you ever remember Mom being away?" she asked. "Not for a day or 
two, I mean a week, maybe longer?"

"Dana, what is this about? What does this have to do with the case 
you're on?"

Scully realized she was stroking the picture, as if trying to feel 
Melissa through the glass. A Melissa she could not even remember. 

She turned away. "Doesn't it scare you sometimes, Bill? How much your 
life is like ours was?"

"No, it doesn't." He lifted his son into his arms, hugging him close. 
"I'm happy, Day. It's exactly what I want." 

Bill put Matthew back in the pen and folded the used diaper neatly, 
ready to be thrown away. "Was that what you needed to know?"

"There was something else. Do you remember when we were kids and we 
lived here, how we all had to go take these tests once a year? IQ, 
psychological, basic checkup?"

He blinked in surprise, so hard she could almost hear it. "Yeah. I do, 
now that you mention it. What on earth brought that up?"

"It was a study of some kind, I remember that. I was sure it was done 
at the university, but I just spent half the day there and I can't 
seem to find any record of it. I was about nine when we left San 
Diego. You were thirteen, maybe fourteen. I was hoping you'd remember 
something I don't -- a name, a doctor, a place that we went?"

"Jesus, Dana. You're going back how many years now? I haven't thought 
about that in ages. Why don't you just call Mom and ask her? She'd be 
the one to remember."

"No. It's okay. I don't want to bother her with this."

She walked over and gave his shoulder a quick squeeze in lieu of her 
normal farewell hug. "I've got to go. Say goodbye to Tara for me, 
okay?"

"Oh, come on, Day. You just got here and god knows when I'll see you 
again. Tara said you were staying for dinner."

She might have stayed on another night. On a day that hadn't begun in 
disaster. Tonight she was not prepared to watch Bill playing Superdad. 
Turning into their father -- the family man who adored his wife and 
children and the sea in pretty much equal measure. It made her feel 
off balance, like the flat shoes, like driving through the base and 
finding it all just as it had been twenty-five years ago. 

"I'd like to," she said, speaking around a sudden thickness in her 
throat. "But I'm afraid I can't."

"Dana, wait." He was suddenly towering over her, blocking her exit. 
"Look, do me one favor. Call Mom. Talk to her. She misses you."

"I talk to her all the time, Bill."

"You call and say you're going out of town on a case, you call and say 
you're back. That's not talking. That's just being the dutiful 
daughter. That's barely better than what Melissa did all those years." 

"Don't. Don't you dare..." Her voice caught, cracked. There were 
suddenly tears in her eyes and she was horrified to think that she 
might not be able to stop them. 

"Don't what?" he asked, coming closer, his voice growing soft. "Don't 
bring up Melissa?"

She shook her head, but her hair was not as long as it had been when 
she was a girl, she couldn't hide behind it. 

"Jesus, Dana. Do you think I blame you for Missy getting killed?" He 
put a hand under her chin, lifting her face to make her look at him. 
"I don't. Mom doesn't. No one does, no one would. Don't do that to 
yourself."

Scully swallowed, found her voice hiding somewhere beneath her rapidly 
unraveling surface. "You don't understand, Bill."

He looked at her with eyes that seemed to be able to read every 
thought that had been in her head since she walked in.

"I'm not Dad, Dana. Don't make me him."

She choked on that, fighting hard now to keep her control. This time 
she let her brother hold her, her anger gone. This is what she'd come 
for then, the Billy who could hug her strong again, the one who 
secretly cheered her on whenever she stood up to him. The one who 
always told her she didn't act like a girl, when acting like a girl 
had been his greatest sneer. She suddenly remembered a night years 
before, a New Year's Eve party that had ended in disaster, and how 
Bill had hugged her just like this. How he had needed to lean down to 
whisper in her ear, as he still did.

"I know you miss them, Day. I do too. It's okay, you know, to cry 
about things like that."

She hadn't cried that night. She had walked away, fifteen years old, 
already too proud for tears. 

Scully pulled herself gently out of her brother's grasp. It was years 
too late to give in.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 

PART 11             

<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 


CITY HEIGHTS, SAN DIEGO
MARCH 7TH, 10:50 PM


Kresge's house wasn't much to shout about. A small frame bungalow in a 
rough section of town -- peeling beige paint, the lawn untended, the 
front porch bare apart from a black plastic mat that had only the W 
and final E left from 'Welcome'. The lights were out and Scully stood 
before the door, car keys in her hand, wondering what she was doing 
here this time of night. He'd told her to bring the car back to the 
station in the morning.

She didn't know how long she stood there undecided before she finally 
tugged at the screen, the hinges protesting being disturbed at such an 
hour. She knocked on the wooden inner door, hesitantly at first, then 
louder. At last she heard someone shuffling across the floor.

"Yeah?" Even with his voice muffled by the door, Kresge sounded only 
half-awake, and she wished she had gone back to the motel. She would 
just give him the keys and ask him to call her a cab. 

"It's me," she called back. "Scully."

Sure enough, when he opened the door he had that sleepy look she found 
so disarming on Mulder. Bed hair falling into squinted eyes and an 
expression of sweet confusion on his face. 

"Hey. Scully. What's up?"

"I just wanted to return the car. And say thank you." She held up the 
keys. He didn't take them.

"It's okay, I already arranged a ride for the morning. You'll need it 
to get back to your motel."

She shrugged. "I'd prefer to take a cab."

He ran a hand through his hair, as if trying to make it fall into some 
kind of reasonable arrangement. "Okay. You better come in then. 
Cabbies aren't exactly hanging around this part of town this time of 
night. It might take a while."

She followed him into the living room, immediately conscious of the 
smell. Socks and old newspapers, though she saw none of either lying 
about. Mulder's apartment had the same musk to it, though his was 
tinged with a trace of old leather. It was the scent of a place that 
got tidied but never cleaned, where meals were eaten but never 
prepared. 

It was, she realized, the smell of loneliness.

Kresge turned on a lamp, illuminating a plain room with an old couch 
and two overstuffed armchairs facing a battered television. Two cheap 
bookcases crammed with legal textbooks and paperback thrillers were 
the only personal furnishings. The walls were bare. 

Kresge followed her eyes. She hoped her face didn't look as sad as she 
felt. He shrugged, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his 
sweatpants. 

"It's a shithole," he agreed. "Why spend a fortune on rent when I'm 
never here?"

She shrugged as if he'd directed the comment at her. She knew she 
spent far too much of her salary on her own apartment, but with her 
life, what else was there to spend it on? She rarely went out and she 
didn't need any more clothes. She needed a refuge, an oasis. A home. 

She had thought it was a home. For the first time, she wondered how 
her apartment might smell to a stranger.

"Phone's over there." Kresge broke into her thoughts, pointing to his 
desk, shoved into the corner behind them. She hadn't noticed it at 
first glance, a beautiful antique rolltop piled with files and empty 
coffee cups, papers spilled onto the floor around it. It was the only 
part of the room that looked like someone lived there. 

"You want some coffee?" he asked. "I've got the real thing."

"Please."

He went into the kitchen. She listened to him filling a kettle, 
striking a match to light a gas stove. He came back to lounge in the 
doorway while the water boiled, arms folded against his chest. 

She still hadn't made that call.

"So. Did you find out what you needed to know?"

She didn't know how to answer that. She settled for a shrug, so tired 
she could feel it vibrating in her bones. Much too tired for 
complicated questions and labyrinthine explanations. Too tired for 
Mulder. It occurred to her that she was afraid of going back to the 
motel, afraid of seeing him. In the morning, perhaps, when she had 
rested and felt stronger. Not now. 

Kresge moved closer. She found herself looking at his bare chest. Nice 
muscles, more hair than Mulder had. She wanted to feel him against her 
skin. 

He took a step closer. She caught her breath as he touched her cheek, 
stroking softly with his fingertips.

"You know, you're welcome to stay."

Warmth flooded her belly, rose up into her face, her cheek tingling 
where he had touched her. 

"Come on," he said, indicating the kitchen. "It's more comfortable in 
here." 


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


Comfortable, Kresge supposed, surveying the kitchen table, may have 
been an overstatement.

"I don't bring a lot of people home," he apologised, pushing a pile of 
unopened mail to one side, clearing a place for them to sit. 
"Actually, I don't bring anyone home, so please excuse my lack of 
hosting skills."


"You don't have to do anything," she said softly, her eyes following 
her finger, tracing the pattern of an ancient stain on the wood. 

He tipped her chin up and smiled at her. "Neither do you." 

She nodded. He would never tell her, but looking at him in this way 
she reminded him of Elizabeth. Both of them skilled and strong enough 
to take a man down with their bare hands, both so shy when it came to 
saying what they felt. 

His hand was still beneath her chin and he let himself caress her 
cheek. She closed her eyes and leaned ever so slightly towards him. 

"Hey, Scully," he whispered, drawing his thumb lightly across her 
lips. 

Her eyes flew open at that and she drew back, her color much higher 
than it had been a moment ago. He felt his own heart racing and 
grinned -- at her, at himself, two burnt-out cops acting as awkward 
and nervous as teenagers. 

The kettle was beginning to steam up the room and he moved away to 
turn the gas off. "Still coffee?" he asked, digging a cafetiere out of 
the half empty lower cupboard. "Or something stronger?"

"I'm not much of a drinker," she said.

"This won't get you drunk." He fished a bottle of Amaretto out from 
behind a selection of opened boxes of cereal and plunked it on the 
table. Up at the top, where the nice dishes sat covered with dust, he 
found two small cut crystal glasses and ran them under the tap, then 
polished them carefully with a clean dishcloth, holding them up to the 
dim light to inspect his work. He dumped two tablespoons of fine roast 
into the cafetiere, filled it with water and fit the plunger inside, 
then set it on the table with a small flourish. 

She was staring at him. "Yeah," he said. "I used to have a life." 

He sat at the corner near her and popped the top of the Amaretto, 
carefully filling the tiny narrow glasses to a polite half inch below 
the rim. "I used to have a place over by Sunset Cliffs, overlooking 
the ocean. Nothing too fancy, just nice. Light. Airy. A Kharmann Ghia. 
That was Elizabeth's indulgence. She loved that thing." 

He reached for the coffee pot and busied himself with the slow press 
of the plunger. He could feel Scully's gaze on his skin like the sun 
burning through an early morning mist, suddenly not certain whether he 
wanted the warmth. These were not things he wanted to talk about, yet 
in her presence they kept slipping out. 

He poured their coffee and sat sideways in his chair, leaning against 
the wall and stretching out his legs, sipping at his Amaretto while 
the coffee cooled. 

"Did these come from her?" Scully asked, running a finger up the side 
of her glass.

"No. Family." He lifted his glass with a moment of bitterness. 
"Halloran Rutherford Kresge, Junior. Ever hear of Kresge Drugs?"

"I thought your name was John."

"Confirmation." He touched his chest, mirroring the cross that rested 
below the hollow of her throat. "You still go to Mass?"

"Sometimes." She shrugged. "It's familiar, like going home."

She ran her fingers up and down the glass, evidently having no idea 
how sexy the gesture was. "Elizabeth was your lover?"

He took a breath. "She was my partner."

He saw her put the two together. "How long were you involved?"

"Depends what you mean by involved. We worked together for two or 
three years, I guess, before we finally admitted we were attracted to 
each other. Another year before we did anything about it. We had this 
bond, you know, this thing between us that worked. Didn't want to mess 
it up."

She nodded, one finger tracing the base of her glass. 

"We had eight months," he finished, hearing the trace of bitterness in 
his voice. Still, after all these years.

"It broke up the partnership?"

"No." He tossed his head back and drained his Amaretto, pouring 
another before he found the voice to speak again. "She was killed. 
Some fucked up rich kid with a head full of crack and his daddy's 
pearl-handled pistol."

He tried the coffee this time, burning his tongue.

"God," she said softly. "If I lost Mulder like that--" She stopped, 
rubbing at her forehead as if it hurt too much to finish. 

"I was mad for a long time." He kept his focus on his coffee mug, 
avoiding her eyes. "I mean, certifiably mad. No one knew why. No one 
knew we'd been involved. I was overreacting to losing my partner, 
that's what the official record said. Made me do eighteen months of 
desk duty before they proclaimed me fit for the streets again." 

He stroked his thumb over the hot porcelain as if it were Elizabeth's 
cheek. "She's been dead, I don't know, five or six years now. I don't 
count. I don't even know why I just told you all that."

He took another burning sip, finally putting the cup down and daring 
to meet her eyes. "I guess I just wanted you to know," he shrugged. "I 
come with baggage."

She reached for his hand, taking it in both of hers, fingers exploring 
the shape of bone and muscle, as if she were trying to diagnose where 
the hurt was. 

"Tell me I don't remind you of her."

"Only in the sense that you're both strong. And smart." He trailed his 
free hand up her arm, and around the back of her head. Her hair was 
cool against his palm, soft and thick between his fingers. "And she 
was small, like you, but big and loud and tough as old boots. I'm not 
even sure you would have liked each other."

She closed her eyes as he drew her towards him, lips barely meeting 
before he let her move away. Her eyes looked darker when she opened 
them, heavy with arousal.

"I guess I come with baggage, too," she murmured.

"Mulder?"

"Not quite like that, no. But in some ways, yes."

"I know." He filled his hands with her hair, brushing it back from her 
face. "Is there something else?"

She looked at him another moment, then shook her head. This time she 
met his kiss halfway, her lips soft and cool, parting against his. 

She tasted of coffee and almonds, of too little sleep and too much 
sorrow, of hope and hopelessness. She tasted alive and he drank her 
in.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


She lay naked beside him, running her hands up his arms, over his 
shoulders, down his chest. Such fine skin he had, surprising her with 
its softness. She hadn't imagined a grown man could have such skin. 

She slipped one arm around Kresge's waist and hugged him. Nice. He 
felt nice. Warm. She moved closer, getting used to the feel of him.

"You're shaking," she whispered. 

"Dana, I'll tell you a secret," he said. It had been so long since 
she'd heard anyone but a family member speak her name that it sounded 
strange in her ears. 

"What's that?"

He turned on his side, so they were facing each other, moving one hand 
slowly up and down the length of her back. "I'm beyond out of 
practice. I haven't been with anyone in years."

Relief washed over her in huge, cleansing waves. "Me too," she sighed, 
snuggling close. 

"Women get hungry. Men get adolescent."

She laughed as he rolled them over, pulling her to lie on top of him. 

"God, I forgot," he murmured, his face buried under her hair. "I 
forgot how good this feels."

Scully lifted her head. "This isn't the first time since...?" 

Her voice failed her, suddenly uncertain at the softness in his face, 
the tenderness of his touch. She couldn't remember being touched like 
this. Groped, of course, stroked and caressed, but not like the act 
itself was all that mattered. As if she were something precious, 
something to be savored. 

"No." He spread his fingers wide, claiming her hips, making her body 
melt as his thigh parted hers. "I've had lovers since. Nothing real. 
That was by mutual consent."

He moved her hips as he spoke, pressing against her so that little 
waves of pleasure began to radiate from her pelvis. She nodded, 
swallowing hard as he coaxed her legs further apart. 

"I haven't wanted anyone in a long time," he whispered. His hands rose 
between her thighs, acquainting themselves with the peach-soft skin 
there. "I don't know why. You?"

"Years."

His hands rose further, over her bottom, smoothing her body over his, 
tucking her head into the hollow of his shoulder. She felt his fingers 
move to trace a circle at her waist and shivered, knowing what he had 
seen. 

"Surprise, surprise," he whispered. His fingers moved again, the 
sensation appearing and disappearing as he ran them over the nerveless 
scar on the other side of her back. 

Don't ask, she prayed. He didn't.

She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder, leaning on one elbow so she 
could touch him. She liked the way he felt, muscles firm under her 
palm. She found herself outlining their contours, naming them in her 
head. 

His fingers rose up the curve of her spine, pressing on the knotted 
muscles to either side. "Mm. Know a nice cure for that," he said, 
drawing her down to lie on top of him again. She groaned softly as he 
began to massage her back, carefully working the tension down her 
spine to a place just below her shoulder blades. 

"Nice?" he asked.

"Oh, god," she breathed. "Glorious."

"Good. I'll continue." 

A great lassitude washed over her, not familiar, but not unpleasant. 
It was wonderful just to lie here like this, to feel Kresge's skin 
against hers. A good man, one that didn't carry danger stamped all 
over him, the way Mulder did. Mulder was a Pandora's box, beautiful 
and mysterious, but never to be opened. Not if she wanted to go on 
working with him.

The massage became a long, continuous caress, his hands moving up and 
down her body. Gentle. Soft. Desire melted into the fog of 
tranquillity, her mind growing quiet for the first time in weeks. 

"John?"

"Mmm?"

Every muscle was so lax now she could barely move her lips.

"Would you be very disappointed...?"

His arms slid over her back to embrace her. "Dana," he said softly, "I 
went to bed alone at the end of a lousy day. And now I'm with you, and 
it's tomorrow. How could that be disappointing?"

She sighed contentedly into his shoulder. His hands began to move 
again, stroking her, cat-like, until her body grew loose and heavy, 
until she slid gently into sleep, still lying on top of him.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


KRESGE RESIDENCE
MARCH 8TH, 6:06 AM

There was a bell, an alarm. Voices shouting. Around her, chaos. 

Within her, nothing. Absolutely nothing. 

"Oh shit, all right, all right, hang on a minute." Her landscape 
shifted as someone struggled beside her, the excess motion rocking 
her, paralyzed, in a sea of waves. A male voice echoed within the dark 
of her sinking down, down... 

"Yeah. Oh." She rose again, hearing the tone change between words, 
from annoyed to careful. "No, that's okay, what's up?"

Scully rolled over, rubbing at her gritty eyes. Mulder. Not beside 
her, on the phone. 

Her heart began a guilty pounding. She was seventeen again, parked in 
front of her house with Marcus Peterson's hand up her shirt, opening 
her eyes to see her father peering through the windshield. 

"Oh. She's here," Kresge was saying. "She's fine. She brought my car 
back late and I told her to stay."

A pause, then, "Mulder, it's okay. Just hang on a second."

She closed her eyes as she saw Kresge padding naked back into the 
room, half erect and bobbing away. He threw himself across the bed, 
the springs screeching in protest. 

"Scully?" He rubbed her cheek with the back of one finger, kissed the 
tip of her nose. "Hey. Dana. Wakey, wakey. Your partner's on the 
phone."

"I know." She rolled back onto her stomach, pressing her face into the 
pillow. Her head felt like it was full of water, sloshing as she 
moved. She didn't want to talk to Mulder. All she wanted to do right 
now was pull the covers over her head and go back to sleep. For about 
a week. Maybe forever.

"You want to go talk to him? I think he's worried. Or does he normally 
call people at six o'clock in the morning?"

Scully groaned and stumbled out of bed, dragging the blanket with her. 

In daylight, the living room looked less barren than it had the night 
before. Scully wrapped the blanket around herself and fell into the 
chair by the desk, fumbling the receiver to her ear. 

"Mulder, I'm fine."

There was a moment of silence before he responded. 

"Listen, I'm sorry to disturb your little tryst, but there was a case 
I thought we might look into while we're here."

She caught her breath, stifling a host of responses, not the least of 
which was slamming down the phone. 

"I'm going to give you an opportunity to restate that," she told him 
when she could speak again, making an effort to keep her voice low.

"You disappeared, you had your phone turned off." There was suddenly 
something in his voice she hadn't expected, something lost and 
childlike. 

"Mulder, you do that all the time."

"Yes, but you don't. Not when you're on a case. And the last time..."

The last time she woke in a hospital in New York with a hole in her 
gut and Mulder glued to her side, two days unshaven, eyes wild with 
exhaustion and panic. 

Scully put her head down on her arm. "I'm sorry," she conceded. 
"You're right. I should have called."

He sighed loudly and she knew the sigh contained all the other 
questions he wished she would answer without his having to ask.

"Listen," she offered. "Remember that coffee shop we went to the first 
day? I'll meet you there in an hour. There's something that happened 
yesterday I want to tell you about."

"Yeah? Good. I'll be there." There was relief in his voice and her 
stomach unclenched, went back to where it belonged. 

Stick to work. Safe territory. It would be okay. It had to be okay.

She heard Kresge come up behind her as she put the phone back in its 
cradle. "Everything all right at home?" he asked, leaning over the 
back of the chair to wrap his arms around her shoulders. 

She nodded, laying her cheek against his bare arm. God, it was so easy 
with him. No expectations. No history. Just for a moment, could she 
not have that?

Kresge nibbled softly on the side of her neck. "It's early yet," he 
murmured. "Come back to bed."

She slipped from the chair. "I can't."

He stared down at the place she'd so recently occupied, his hands 
clutching the back of the chair. "Is that a specific can't, or a 
general can't?"

She blinked back a sudden wetness in her eyes. "I think," she said 
hoarsely, "I think it's a general one."

He nodded, rocking back and forth on his heels. She wanted to go to 
him, wanted to smooth her hand through his hair and wipe the pained 
lines off his forehead.

She stayed where she was. "John," she said, "it's not my intention to 
hurt you."

He looked up finally. "I wouldn't say I'm hurt. Confused maybe. I 
mean, you don't strike me as a one-night woman. I guess I thought if 
you were in my bed, it meant something."

"It did." She swallowed hard, carefully putting each word in place to 
keep the whole thing from sliding away. "I'm not sorry. But I have a 
case to solve. That's what I have to do right now."

Kresge nodded again, straightening up, running a hand through his 
hair. 

"Okay," he said quietly. "I can't object to that." 

She looked at his wan face, his averted eyes, and wanted to cry for 
both of them. Instead, she pulled the blanket closer around her 
shoulders, shivering in an imagined draft. 

"I'm sorry," she murmured.

He reached out and stroked her cheek with one finger, smiling a little 
when she didn't flinch. 

"Scully FBI," he said sadly. "See you out there."


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 

PART 12             

<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 


HOT POT COFFEE SHOP
MARCH 8TH, 6:45 AM
 

Mulder got there fifteen minutes early, grabbing a booth overlooking 
the parking lot. Glutton for punishment, he told himself, but he 
wanted to see her with Kresge, before she had the chance to put her 
usual mask on. 

He needn't have bothered. Scully's face was already set when she drove 
up, alone, in Kresge's car. 

"You're early," she said, sliding into the booth, not quite meeting 
his eyes.

"So are you." 

They ordered coffee and waited. The silence felt sharp as a bed of 
nails and about as inviting. Scully was staring out the window. He 
wondered if she was waiting for Kresge to arrive. 

The coffee came and Mulder busied himself measuring a teaspoon of 
sugar, stirring, laying the teaspoon down precisely on the saucer. 

"Mulder," she said at last. "Mulder, look at me."

He did. Hungry himself, he searched her face for signs of feasting. He 
could find none. She looked tired and strained, the same -- more or 
less -- as she'd looked for weeks. 

"I'm sorry that I made you worry," she said. "But you do that to me 
all the time. Now you know how I feel when I don't know where you 
are." 

"At least when I disappear, I'm looking for answers." 

He saw her eyebrows dip down, the first warning of anger. 

"Mulder, you have no--"

"You're right," he agreed quickly. "I don't." 

He picked up his coffee and drank, set it back down carefully. 

"You said you found something yesterday."

Relief washed the tension from her face. He breathed deeply, feeling 
the tightness in his chest and shoulders begin to ease. Yes, he could 
be adult about this. He could convince himself that as long as she was 
still his partner, he could ignore anything else. They rarely 
socialized after hours, not when they were home, and Scully had always 
kept the rest of her life private. He could deal. Nothing between them 
needed to change. 

"I don't know if found is the right word," she began. "I went to see 
Bill. There was something I remembered about a program at UCSD we were 
part of, all four of us. I wanted to see if he remembered it too." 

Mulder nodded, careful to keep his opinion of her brother out of his 
face. "And did he?"

"Yes." She sighed deeply. "You have no idea how much I needed to hear 
that. I spent all afternoon on campus trying to track down the records 
and no one seemed to know what I was talking about. There's no record 
of UCSD or anyone affiliated with it conducting any such study through 
any department at any time in the '60s or early '70s. I was beginning 
to think I'd imagined the whole thing."

"So what was it?"

"Some kind of long-range study charting military kids. How growing up 
in that environment affected us. We went once a year for a whole 
battery of tests, physical, psychological, developmental. I was very 
young, so I don't remember much, but I think I actually enjoyed it, 
running on the treadmill and doing puzzles. I was nine when we left 
San Diego, and I think that was the end, but I'm not entirely sure."

The atmosphere between them was lighter now, and Mulder felt himself 
relaxing gratefully into their normal pattern of give-and-take, 
inform-and-clarify. "What aren't you sure about?" 

"Well, we moved around so much, it seemed like I was always taking 
some kind of test to see where I was supposed to be placed in school. 
When I was twelve I went through some kind of three-day evaluation, 
which seems a bit strange now for your average Catholic school, and 
when I was fifteen I went through something similar to get into a high 
school for students gifted in science. I never thought about it 
before, but I don't remember my siblings having to take any more 
tests. Only me."

"What about your mother? Did you try asking her?"

She dropped her eyes, staring into her coffee cup. "I don't really 
want to involve her right now."

She grew quiet, a particular stillness of the body he recognized as 
preparation for something she didn't really want to say. He leaned 
forward until he was as close to her as he could get without actually 
lying on the table. 

"Tell me what you're thinking," he said softly. "No matter how weird 
it sounds."

For a moment it was like old times; Scully's eyes locked with his, her 
attention absolute, like there was no one else in the world.

"Mulder, you said once that you didn't believe in coincidence. That 
you and I seemed destined to ask certain questions."

He nodded, waiting for her to go on. 

"Well, what if none of this has ever been coincidence? What if we've 
both been watched and tracked our whole lives?"

He laughed. Not a derisive laugh -- in fact, it was closer to crying. 

"Jesus, Scully, maybe we have been spending too much time together. 
You're beginning to sound like me."

Scully wasn't finding that funny. She pushed her hair behind her ears 
with an impatient gesture. "Listen to me, Mulder. You and I didn't 
decide to join the FBI, we were both recruited. They sought us out. 
And then they put us together. We've always assumed it was for me to 
debunk your work. To spy on you. But what if it wasn't?"

"Then why?"

"I think...this study I was part of, Mulder...maybe that's how They 
choose the people They take. Maybe the reason They took me has nothing 
to do with stopping our work. Maybe I was meant to be taken all along 
and They put us together because they knew that, They knew what it 
would do to you. Only it didn't have the result They wanted. Instead 
of being able to direct you by dangling information about where I 
might be, you went out of control. So They gave me back. In a coma I 
was never supposed to come out of, true, but somebody wanted you to 
see me like that, Mulder, or they would have just killed me and 
disposed of the evidence. They could have, and you would never have 
known what happened. I would have been your second Samantha and you 
would have eventually gone insane looking for both of us, and that 
would be the end of whatever threat you posed. Discrediting you would 
be far safer than killing you. No one to pick up the torch. Only 
someone didn't want that. The smoker, I suppose, since he seems to 
have been behind this from the start, and I'm obviously useful to his 
purpose, since he did save my life."

"Scully, I can't believe I'm hearing this from you. That bastard gave 
you cancer."

"We don't know that, Mulder. What we do know is that he told you where 
to find that chip. He saved my life, yes, but in a way that put me 
under the ultimate control." 

"Scully, I don't--" He stopped, staring at her. She was starting to 
get the same look of manic genius she'd had in Jane Hampton's hospital 
room the other night, her eyes so intensely blue it made him want to 
reach over and close them.

He shifted his gaze to the table, worry gnawing at his stomach. To 
hear her sounding like himself, like one of the Gunmen, was no longer 
remotely amusing. It was actually beginning to scare him.

"Scully," he said, trying to keep his voice neutral, reasonable, "This 
is not sounding like you. I don't understand why you're suddenly 
thinking like this."

"It's not sudden, Mulder. The pieces have been there for years. We 
just never put them together the right way." 

He looked up again. She seemed calmer now, her expression more like 
the Scully he recognised from their countless debates.

"I was driving around, coming back from my brother's," she said. 
"Thinking about everything that's happened in the last few years. 
About--"

She abruptly shifted her gaze away from his. 

"About what?" he prompted.

"Control."

It obviously was not what she had been about to say but he let it 
pass, nodded at her to continue. 

"It's all about control. We're the mouthpiece, the censored media. 
Whoever controls us controls what gets out and what doesn't. But there 
are others, people with their own agenda. People who have used us. 
Whatever we've found, we've found it because someone led us there. 
Like Strughold's mine. Like that lab the other night. They give us a 
part of the truth for their own purpose because it doesn't really 
matter if we see it. We can never prove what we know."

"That doesn't change the fact that it is the truth."

"Truth is perception, Mulder." She picked up her coffee mug, turning 
it so the handle faced him. "If you see the cup from this side, you'll 
insist there's a handle. If I turn it, you'll say that there's none. 
That's the kind of truth we've found. The handle may mean the 
difference between this being a mug or a vase, but we have no way to 
know if we've seen it all."

"I'm not following you."

"Why does Skinner suddenly send us on a kidnapping case, when the 
kidnapped child is--"

She stopped short, leaning back to wipe a rough hand over her eyes. 
They looked feverish when she opened them again, puffy and bloodshot, 
but somehow still dry. 

"Someone made Skinner put us on this. It all goes back to something 
we've been asking for years, without ever finding any real answers."

He shook his head, still unable to pick up her fractured logic. To 
hear the ever-methodical Scully leaping from A to E to C was 
completely unnerving. 

"What is the Project, Mulder? Vaccines, hybrids, bees, what? All of 
the above, none of the above? And who's running it now? I'm sure the 
smoker is still around, but most of the men involved with him burned 
at El Rico. He'd be trying to consolidate his power right now, and 
controlling the Project, whatever it is, would be the way to do that. 
Amy is part of that Project -- for all we know, she's the desired end 
result -- so that means whoever has her, has the Project. The smoker 
is not the one who sent us. We see what he wants us to see -- if he 
wanted me to know those children existed, he'd have led us to them 
years ago."

"Then who?"

"Someone who's not on our side, exactly, but who might be for now. 
Someone who knows how these girls were made, knows whose genes they 
carry. Someone who knows us, and is making us serve his purpose. 
That's why we've been shown the handle of the mug."

"Krycek."

She nodded. "They're vying for control in a territorial war, and we're 
part of the territory they're squabbling over."

"Okay, but if we're serving Krycek's purpose, what is he using us 
for?"

"To stop the Project. Stop the Project and he stops the smoker. Stop 
the smoker and Krycek winds up in control." 

"Well, isn't stopping the Project what we've been trying to do all 
along?" 

"The thing is, Mulder...the thing I don't know anymore...is whether 
that's the right thing to want. If the aim of the Project is to create 
a vaccine to allow us, as humans, to survive some kind of viral plague 
-- wherever it's supposed to be coming from -- is it the right thing 
for us to try to stop that? Shouldn't we simply be worrying about 
getting our hands on it to ensure equal distribution to everyone?"

"Scully, these men are monsters. How can you even begin to say we 
shouldn't stop them, after everything you've seen, after everything 
they've done to you?"

She rubbed at her eyes again, making them look even more raw. "I don't 
know. I don't know. I thought I knew what we were doing, but the 
longer I think about it the more it just seems like we've been used 
all along, and I'm so tired, Mulder. I don't even know why I'm doing 
this anymore."

She stopped, putting her hands over her face, her breath hitching her 
shoulders. He watched, appalled, as tears began to slide through her 
fingers.

Mulder stood slowly, coming around to her side of the table. He knew 
he was not supposed to touch her, not supposed to even take notice. He 
was supposed to wait until she recovered by herself, dignity intact, 
then pretend he hadn't seen her lose control. That was what he always 
did, that was their tacit agreement. He didn't dare break it now. 

He sat beside her, his hands clenched on the table. Slowly, she 
calmed, her breath smoothing out. The moment of danger passed.

"Scully," he murmured, "There's only one thing in all of this that I'm 
certain of. There's a little girl out there who needs our help. 
Whoever sent us, we still need to find her."

She looked up at him with something he hadn't seen in her eyes in a 
very long time. Something he might have once dared to call love. 

"You're right," she said, laying a hand against his cheek. 

He nodded and slid out of the booth, before his own tears got the 
better of him. 


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


SDPD SOUTHEASTERN DIVISION
MARCH 8TH, 8:41 AM


Kresge looked up as Scully and Mulder passed by the open door to his 
office. Mulder, looking in Kresge's direction, seemed to have 
manufactured a deliberately blank expression, his hand resting 
possessively in the curve of Scully's waist.

Kresge gave the other man a nod. He had no intention of doing the 
caveman thing with Mulder. Their partnership was sacrosanct, the rest 
was up to her. 

A brief, hushed conference ensued between the two agents, then Scully 
came into his office. She held up his keys and laid them carefully in 
his outstretched hand.

"I need to change," she said, slipping past him to get at the suitcase 
she'd stored behind his desk. 

He swiveled his chair around to face her. "You doing okay?" he asked, 
in a voice meant only for her ears.

She nodded, her eyes on some neutral point. Her profile caught his 
attention, as if he'd never really seen it before. He imagined tracing 
the proud line of her nose, his finger falling off the end to land in 
the softness of her mouth. 

Kresge stopped himself with a small shake of his head. He was 
definitely not a poet. Just astute enough to recognize the indulgent 
wonder that marked a man in danger of falling in love.

He gave Scully directions to the women's locker room and tried not to 
watch her go.

"Any news?" 

Kresge looked up. Mulder was leaning against the doorjamb, arms 
folded. "Jane Hampton was transferred out of ICU this morning," Kresge 
told him, holding up a scribbled post-it. "Technically, she's an 
attempted suicide. That means they'll hold her for psychiatric 
observation for another 48 hours. We need to have some idea whether 
she's a suspect or a victim before that time is up."

"Do you really think she killed her husband?"

Kresge ran a hand through his hair. "I might, if it weren't for the 
Sims last year. They weren't exactly happy campers. As it is, I'm 
prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt, but there are 
definitely some questions I want answered."

Mulder nodded. "I'll go talk to her. Let's see if we can get her to 
cooperate without scaring her off."

"You taking Scully?"

Mulder hesitated a moment, fixing Kresge with that inscrutable look 
again. Kresge kept his face neutral.

"No. She has some leads of her own to follow up."

He watched Mulder go, suddenly feeling more sympathetic toward the 
man. Kresge had been there, done that, and worn the t-shirt for years 
before Elizabeth had finally ripped it off his back. 

Poor bastard had it bad. 


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


SAN FRANCISCO GENERAL HOSPITAL
MARCH 8TH, 9:30 AM


Jane Hampton's face creased in distrust as Mulder handed her the 
flowers he'd purchased in the hospital gift shop. 

"A gentleman always brings flowers, huh?" she said, poking half-
heartedly at the bundle of chrysanthemums. "What are these for?"

"I'm here as a friend, Jane. The inquisitors will come later. But if 
it's any consolation, I don't think you killed your husband."

"Then what do you want?"

"I need to know what happened. What you remember."

She put the flowers on the little rolling table and folded her arms 
protectively over herself. "If I told you the truth, you would never 
believe it."

"You'd be surprised what I'll believe." Mulder picked up a chair and 
set it down by Jane's bed, trying not to stare. With her face drawn 
into a wary frown she looked more like Scully than ever. Scully in a 
dozen hospital beds, grey-skinned, her eyes too big, mouth pursed 
against fear.

"I saw two men go into your house," he began. "Two men in black suits. 
Another was waiting outside, in a car with the motor running. They 
were in there for about ten minutes, then they came out. I followed 
them. I'm sorry about that. If I hadn't, if I had knocked on your 
door, I might have been more help."

She was looking at him now with an expression he'd seen on Scully's 
face a million times. Disbelief, tinted with the faintest shade of 
hope.

"They came to talk to Tom. There were always men like that talking to 
Tom. I heard something break, and I went into his study. I think they 
stuck me with something. At least--" She stopped and looked away, her 
face coloring slightly. "Okay, it felt like they stuck a needle in my 
ass. And that's the last thing I remember. I didn't see anything. I 
didn't even see Tom--" 

Her voice choked and she stopped again. Mulder waited, patient, until 
she was ready to continue. 

"The cop that was with you before," she said, quickly flicking at her 
tears. "The first time. He was here this morning when I woke up. He 
told me Tom was dead."

"Yes."

"I didn't kill him."

"I believe you. We both believe you."

She lifted her head and looked at him, eyes glittering bright blue. 
Again, her fierce expression was far too familiar. 

"Then what do you want? I already gave the cops a statement."

"I wanted to ask you some other questions, Jane. About your family."

Her face changed then, grew hard and bitter. He no longer saw either 
Scully or her sister; this was just another small woman who happened 
to have blue eyes and red hair. For the first time he began to wonder 
if both he and Scully were falling prey to paranoia, seeing 
connections that weren't actually there.

"You told my partner you were adopted. Did you ever make any attempt 
to locate your birth parents?"

"The State of California seems to think it has a God-given right not 
to give out that information. Anyway, they didn't want me, why should 
I look for them?" Jane folded her arms again, glaring at him. It 
wasn't Scully's glare, Jane's had something different in it, almost 
malicious. 

He made his voice very gentle. "What about your adoptive parents? Are 
they still alive?"

She was silent for a long time. At last she shook her head.

"How did they die, Jane? When?"

"Why are you asking me all this? What can it matter?"

"I'll explain it all to you," he promised, "but first I need to ask 
these questions."

"I was sixteen. It was a car accident. They went out for dinner and a 
movie, I wanted to fuck my boyfriend so I didn't go. They never came 
back."

She stuck her chin out, defiant, reminding him more of Melissa now 
than of Scully. Melissa had had that same sharp, pointed temper, that 
same way of spitting words in anger.

He veered off in another direction, afraid of poking too hard at old 
wounds. He would learn nothing if he pissed her off. "How old were you 
when you were adopted?"

"About twelve. I was in a kind of orphanage before that. I don't 
really remember."

He sat back and thought about that for awhile. "In the orphanage, did 
you ever see a little girl with very long brown hair? She would have 
been about three years younger than you."

Jane rolled over, curling on her side and frowning at him. "I guess 
there could have been. I told you, I don't really remember."

Mulder forced himself to take a breath. "Do you remember the names of 
any of the other children?"

"No."

"Does the name Samantha ring any bells?"

Jane considered that for a moment before shaking her head. "No. I'm 
sorry, but I really don't remember."

Mulder nodded, swallowing a flash of disappointment. 

"Jane," he said, leaning close, "if someone told you, if someone were 
able to prove to you that you were taken as an infant from your real 
family...that they may not even know of your existence...and that if 
they did, they would be very anxious to have you back...would you want 
to know them?" 

Jane turned her head towards him. "Why would you think that? Why would 
someone take a baby from their family?" 

"I don't know. But I know it happens. I think maybe it happened to 
you."

Jane drew the blankets up higher, as if guarding herself from the 
possibility of hope.

"When I was a kid," she said, "we used to tell each other stories 
about our lives before. Most of us couldn't remember having parents, 
we were just making shit up. But we all did it. We all pretended there 
was someone out there looking for us, that one day they would come and 
take us home." 

She read the compassion in Mulder's face and shrugged. "Typical 
orphanage shit. You wouldn't know."

"Tell me about the place. What it looked like."

Jane sighed. "There were four buildings built around a playground. One 
was where we lived, one was the infirmary, and the other was the 
school. The fourth building, I guess it was offices. I don't know. It 
was always locked."

"Do you remember where this was?"

"Somewhere on the outskirts of town. It was quiet. Nothing much 
around. I only saw it from the outside once."

Mulder sat up, all senses on alert. "You mean in all the years you 
lived there, you were never allowed out?"

"We never saw anyone go in or out. There'd just be a new kid at 
breakfast. Or one wouldn't be there. I guess I was one of those."

"Tell me about that."

"There's nothing to tell. I went to sleep one night and when I woke 
up, I was alone in the back seat of a big car, just driving out. You 
know we told each other stories about that too, about what happened to 
the kids who disappeared, so I was pretty damn scared. The staff told 
us that they went to families, but we never really believed them. Then 
it turned out to be true." She stuck her chin out at him again, the 
same sharp defiance in her voice. "They were good people, my parents. 
They loved me. I was happy."

Mulder stood on legs that felt slightly unsteady. "I need to make a 
call," he said. "I want to get my partner down here. I think she needs 
to hear this."

"Why is that important?"

He managed a steady, comforting smile. "Trust me. It is."


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


Mulder hit the speed dial as soon as he got outside the hospital 
doors, talking before Scully could even say her name.

"Scully, you've got to come down to the hospital," he told her, almost 
dancing in excitement as he paced before the entrance. "You're not 
going to believe the story Jane Hampton is telling."

Her silence stopped his feet.

"Scully? Did you hear me?"

"I did, but I can't," she answered. "At least not right this second. 
Can't you just tell me?"

"Not over the phone. Where are you? What do you mean you can't come?"

Another silence. He strained his ears, listening for background 
noises. He thought he heard the familiar rattle and hum of a car. 

He amended his question. "Where are you going?"

"We got Denise Hampton's body released from the mortuary."

"We? As in you and Kresge?"

"Mulder..."

"Look, the hospital's not far from the county morgue. I'm going to 
come meet you."

"That's not necessary. I'm sure you can handle whatever it is." 

Suspicion suddenly formed a lead weight into his stomach. "Scully? 
You're not doing this autopsy, are you?"

"It's okay, Mulder."

"That's not an answer."

"Just talk to Jane and call me when you're done."

It took Mulder a minute to process the fact that the silence on the 
other end meant Scully had hung up. He turned, as if expecting to find 
her standing behind him, saying 'had ya.' 

Of course she was not there. 

Mulder turned again, sprinting for the car.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


SAN DIEGO COUNTY MORGUE
MARCH 8TH, 10:20 AM


Scully walked around the autopsy bay, familiarizing herself with the 
layout. It wasn't much different from any other autopsy bay anywhere 
else. All that was different was the small body on the table. 

At last she could put it off no longer. She drew back the sheet. 
Kresge leaned over the other side of the table, inspecting the child's 
face. 

"Shit. You were right. She could be Emily Sim."

Scully turned away, fiddling with her instruments, examining each 
carefully and laying them back in precise parallels. "Have you ever 
seen an autopsy?" she asked.

"Um, no, not up close."

"Then you'd better go."

"Mulder doesn't stay with you?"

"Only when he needs immediate information. And he's used to it." She 
looked up, trying to soften her voice. "Please, John. I don't need 
company when I'm working and I don't want to wind up holding your head 
over a basin. I'll call you if I find something."

She reached up to flip the overhead recorder on. 

"I'm beginning at 10:23am, March eighth, 1999. Subject is Denise Ellen 
Hampton, aged four years, four months, one day. Subject died on the 
third of March and was delivered to the Sunrest Mortuary approximately 
twenty-four hours later. Subsequent embalming may distort our 
findings."

She looked up to see Kresge still there, nervously waiting for her to 
begin. Another autopsy sprang to mind, six years ago almost to the 
day. She had been the nervous one then, angry at the thing before her, 
a shape only vaguely human. Angry at Mulder, dancing around the table 
taking pictures and babbling his insane theories, twisting his long 
body into elaborate shapes to talk directly into her face. 

Our first date, she thought wryly. And we argued all the way through 
it. She'd told him he was nuts half a dozen times on that first case 
alone, but the arguments...the arguments had been more arousing than 
foreplay. If true sex was in the mind they'd been making wild, 
passionate love for years.

Oh god, where had that thought come from? 

Scully rubbed a sleeve across her tired eyes. She had lied when she 
told Kresge she wanted to be alone. What she really wanted was Mulder 
leaning over her shoulder, getting in her way, destroying her 
concentration. She wanted them back the way they were, when every day 
was full of revelation and her only personal involvement in the X-
Files had been through caring about him.

"Scully? Are you okay?"

She stiffened, suddenly remembering that Kresge was still there. 

"I've asked you to leave," she said shortly, embarrassed to have been 
caught daydreaming. "If you're going to insist on staying, please 
don't disturb me."

She began walking around the table again, reciting her initial 
observations in a clear, mechanical voice. If she could hold onto this 
facade, keep this purely in the professional realm, she might just get 
through it. The memory of having done it could be dealt with later. 

She looked up from the body to choose an instrument and noticed that 
Kresge had finally taken her request seriously and left the room. She 
regretted her sharpness, but it was too late to do anything about it 
right now.

She shifted her focus to the job at hand. "I'll begin with the Y-
incision," she informed the recorder. She readied the scalpel over the 
child's small rib cage. 

And couldn't move it. 

Scully stepped back from the table. She took several deep breaths and 
stepped back up, determined, but when she positioned the scalpel again 
she saw her hand shaking with nerves, as if she were a student cutting 
open her first cadaver. 

Sweat ran into her eyes and she used her left arm to wipe it away, 
keeping her right hand firm where it was. She began to breathe to a 
steady count of four, forcing her heart to slow, lulling herself into 
a state of calm readiness. It was a trick she'd learned in medical 
school, in the days when she still thought of going into surgery. 
Scully breathed, staring at the scalpel, willing it to remain still, 
willing herself to move her fingers and press it into the delicate 
flesh.

She was concentrating so hard on that thin piece of steel that she 
heard nothing before it went flying out of her hand.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 

PART 13             

<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 


"What are you doing?!" Mulder hissed, his hands twisted so tightly in 
her scrubs that he was almost lifting her off her feet. 

She heard running footsteps and knew it was Kresge. Her toes sought 
purchase on the floor, found it in time to see Kresge come up behind 
Mulder, about to wrap a forearm around the taller man's throat. 

"John, no!" she cried, throwing her arms around Mulder's shoulders to 
protect him.

The strangeness of her embrace was not lost on Kresge, any more than 
the use of Kresge's first name seemed lost on Mulder. He shuddered 
beneath her arms, his grip relaxing until she had her feet firmly on 
the floor again, but his hands stayed fisted in her scrubs as if he 
could not bear to let her go. 

She caught Kresge's incredulous expression and shook her head. How to 
explain? There was no explanation. He obviously thought they had both 
gone insane. 

"It's okay," she said, to both of them. She reached for Mulder's 
hands, gently disentangling his fingers from her clothes. 

"Don't do this, Scully," he whispered, his warm breath ticking her 
lips. 

She made herself look at him, her fingers still entwined in his, a 
strangely tender feeling. 

"Mulder, it's my job."  

"Let someone else do it."

"No." Somewhere inside herself she found the strength she'd been 
looking for earlier, the resolve she needed. "No, I have to be certain 
it's done right."

"You can tell the medical examiner what to look for."

Mulder's eyes were dark with pain and fear and she wanted to reach up 
and wrap her arms around his neck again, wanted to hold him long 
enough to reassure him that she understood, that she was grateful for 
his concern, even while she was refusing it. 

"It's okay, Mulder." She settled for squeezing his fingers for a 
moment before she dropped his hands. She was ready now, moving into 
that clear, empty place she often went when working on cases that 
disturbed her. 

She looked around for the scalpel she had dropped, found it, and 
disengaged the blade. She turned back to her instruments, seeking a 
replacement, and when she looked up again something else had risen in 
Mulder's eyes, a kind of anguish she had become familiar with seeing 
during the long months of her illness. 

"I'm sorry," she told him, calmly. "I have to do this my way."

He looked at her another moment, then at Kresge, who seemed frozen in 
dismay at the scene he just witnessed. It was Kresge's presence that 
seemed to be the deciding factor. Mulder turned, throwing her an 
indecipherable look over his shoulder, and stalked away. 

 
<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


SEA COURT MOTEL
MARCH 8, 8:18 PM


Mulder was in the new motel room when she arrived hours later with her 
suitcase, feeling like a wayward wife. He opened the door to let her 
in, then immediately went back to a sheaf of maps that he had spread 
across the table.

"Do I have a room?" she asked quietly, from the doorway.

"I didn't think you'd be needing one." He too spoke in a hushed tone, 
though he kept his back to her, his voice carefully neutral. The 
deliberate absence of emotion told her he was hurt, rather than angry, 
but she had no energy left for either. She needed to wash the feel of 
the morgue off her skin and collapse. That was all she could manage 
tonight. 

"I'll go ask," she sighed, turning to leave again.

His voice stopped her. "I already did. The only room available is on 
the other side of the parking lot. I'd rather you weren't so far 
away."

She turned back to see him staring at her with the same unbearably 
intense expression he'd had in the morgue. 

"I thought you said you didn't think I'd be needing a room." She set 
the suitcase, now growing uncomfortably heavy, down by the door. 

He shrugged and turned his back again, making a careful circle at the 
top of one of the maps. She dared to move close enough to look over 
his shoulder. 

"What is that?"

"Jane Hampton spent the first twelve years of her life in an orphanage 
somewhere in San Diego. A kind of school and dormitory complex. I'm 
looking for possible sites."

She came around the table now to take the other chair. "You think 
that's where they're holding Amy Wallace?"

He looked up at her, his expression almost pleading. "It's worth 
investigating."

She nodded and he bent back to his work. Scully waited for him to say 
something else, but he seemed to have disappeared into the streets and 
tiny etched buildings.

"I'm going to get in the bath," she said finally, rising with some 
effort. It had been an unbearably long day and every muscle in her 
body ached.

He reached out and caught her arm as she moved past him, a touch so 
light she barely felt it. His expression had changed again, his 
unshaven face suddenly full of apologies and questions.

Scully found a tiny smile somewhere and gave it to him. "Kresge thinks 
you're a jealous lunatic."

"Well, you always knew that I was nuts." He managed a brief flicker of 
a smile back. 

"Are you jealous?"

The question made him tighten his hand. 

"Should I be?"

"No." She slipped her arm from his grip and turned towards her 
suitcase.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


Mulder sat pondering her answer, wondering precisely what she meant. 
No, he had no right, or no, he had no need? 

He decided he didn't want to ask and turned the subject back to work. 
Dangerous in its own way, but at least familiar territory. 

"So what did you find? Anything?"

"The same pathology I expected. Cause of death appears to be an 
extensive anerobic infection. In other words, gangrene, finally 
resulting in renal failure. In this case, there was also severe damage 
to the cerebral cortex, enough that the chances are good she'd lost 
sensory awareness long before the final stage."

Mulder listened to the robotic quality of her words and felt his 
stomach clench. Scully was rooting calmly through her suitcase, 
rattling off the information as if speaking of her plans for the next 
day. 

"I've sent a complete spectrum of tissue samples off for analysis, but 
she'd already been embalmed so I wasn't able to get any fluids. Which 
means I won't be able to get a CBC to look for any trace toxins in the 
blood. The embalming process will probably corrupt the tissue as well, 
but we'll at least be able to get a DNA sequence to make comparisons 
and see if her genetic structure was altered in any way. I'm assuming 
it wasn't. I think the fact that we were allowed to get our hands on 
the body means we shouldn't expect to find anything out of the 
ordinary." 

She stood for a moment staring at her robe, as if she suddenly wasn't 
certain what it was. 

"Scully?" 

She looked up at him, frowning. 

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"As a pathologist, I believe that if I can read the story written on 
the body, I can do right. Do good. Bring the truth to light, or help 
the next person who might fall ill with the same disease. But as a 
person, Mulder, I'm wondering -- what makes me so different from Them? 
They believe they're doing right based on the end result -- a vaccine 
or a genetically manipulated immunity. When I mutilate someone's body, 
looking for an answer, am I not doing the same thing?"

"You don't make the people sick before you autopsy them, Scully. You 
don't kill them."

"So I'm a vulture instead of a wolf. An opportunist, but still a 
predator."

"Scully, don't--"

She stepped back, her head coming up, proud and unreachable as ever. 

"It's just a thought I have from time to time. Don't worry about it."

He watched, helpless, as she walked away.

Mulder stayed at the table, staring blankly at the map, absently 
rubbing the cramping muscles at the back of his neck. Before Scully 
had arrived, he'd managed to keep his mind properly focused on the 
work, looking for areas to explore, places marked on the map as an 
unusual stretch of green, an unexplained cluster of buildings in the 
right shape. It was a needle in a haystack, but he'd succeeded on 
other cases, turning up something concrete with less. 

He tried refolding the map, moving to a new area, but it was pointless 
now. His concentration was gone. He didn't know which was bothering 
him more -- Scully's increasingly unfathomable behavior, or his own 
loss of control at the morgue. 

Mulder put the highlighter down and let his head fall into his hands. 
Maybe it would be better for both of them if Scully did get involved 
with someone else, if the attraction that sometimes crackled and 
sparked between them was finally dismissed as pointless. Then they 
could just get on with the work. Presuming, of course, that she wanted 
to get on with it.

Maybe it would be better, at least from her side, if she didn't.

Mulder rubbed at his eyes and listened to the comforting, familiar 
sound of Scully going about her bath. He imagined the tiny room 
filling with steam, imagined her clearing a place in the mirror to pin 
up her hair. The water went off and he heard the splash as she got 
into the tub, the audible sigh as she slid beneath the water, letting 
it close around her shoulders. Scully's pleasures in this life were so 
small, so simple.

Mulder felt tears behind his eyes and sat up abruptly, surprised at 
himself. His stomach took that moment to alert him to its emptiness 
and he rose, glad of the distraction. 

"Hey Scully, you hungry?" he called, tapping at the bathroom door.

"I could manage some of whatever you're having." 

Her voice sounded small and languid. Normal. He thought of her 
drifting in the hot water, eyes closed, her face softening as the 
tension left her body. It was hard to imagine. Even in sleep, Scully 
never seemed to completely relax.

Mulder found a stack of takeout menus by the phone and called in an 
order. The pizza arrived with miraculous speed and he started on his 
as he continued to work, finally losing himself in the contemplation 
of spaces and structures. He was reaching for his fourth slice of 
pizza when it hit him that there was something wrong.

Jesus, how long had Scully been in that bath?

Mulder went to the door and listened. Nothing.

"Scully?" He knocked, then -- getting no answer -- tried the handle. 
Unlocked. Thank god. 

"Scully, I'm coming in," he called, opening the door. 

She had turned out the main light, leaving only the dim nightlight to 
illuminate the room, and it took his eyes a moment to adjust. 

His heart stopped pounding, stopped beating at all. 

Scully's eyes were closed, her head lying awkwardly against one 
shoulder, one arm dangling lifeless over the side of the tub. The 
water in the bath was dark, dark had dripped from her hand, into a 
pool of darkness on the floor. 

"Scully?" he choked, her name a square, pointed object that would not 
pass his throat. 

She didn't move. 

He reached her in a step, hauling her up in one back-wrenching jerk. 
For a moment her head fell back, limp, then her eyes flew open and she 
woke, pushing at him with angry hands.

"For christ's sake, Mulder, what are you doing?" He let go and she 
fell back with a splash, immediately covering herself by drawing her 
knees up to her chin. 

Mulder couldn't answer. His mind had plunged someplace rank and 
sticky, down the long dark well of no-Scully, and it was taking his 
eyes a moment to convince the rest of him that there was no need to be 
there. 

"Mulder!"

"I'm...you looked..." He rubbed a wet hand over his face, into his 
hair. "I'm sorry, I was calling you and you didn't answer."

"I'm okay, Mulder." Her voice softened. "I must have fallen asleep. 
Just go on, I'll be out in a minute."

He nodded, mute with relief, and left.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


She ate her pizza in her pajamas and robe, too tired to get dressed. 
It was one of her unwritten rules -- one of many for dealing with the 
proximity of Mulder on the road -- never to work or sit through even 
the latest of late dinners in her nightclothes, but propriety seemed 
pointless while they were sharing a room. 

The thought of that should have made her tingle with something, she 
supposed. Lust or fear or anticipation. All she felt was a strong 
sense of the surreal. 

Mulder met her eyes, then his attention drifted across the room, to 
the one double bed. 

"I can sleep on the floor, if you'd be more comfortable," he offered. 

"That's very chivalrous of you."

"Practical, actually. That bed is too soft. It would be good for my 
back."

She tried not to smile at that. Always just when she'd had enough, 
just when she thought he'd worn her patience to shreds, he would do 
something charming like this -- hold her coat, or open a door, or put 
his hand on her in a way that made her feel acknowledged, though she 
knew she would find it annoyingly possessive in anyone else. 

"Shall we put up a rope with a blanket?" she teased, knowing that 'It 
Happened One Night' was one of his favorite films. He smiled back, 
catching the reference, but his eyes still held that worried darkness.

Intimate strangers, she thought. They knew each other so well, yet not 
at all. Who did you have a crush on in high school, she wanted to ask. 
How old were you the first time you got kissed, got drunk, got laid? 
What was the best day of your life, Mulder -- I already know the 
worst. Tell me about Diana -- who was she to you that you can't bring 
yourself to doubt her, even when the evidence is staring you in the 
face?

"Scully, are you sure you're all right?" he asked, leaning forward to 
put a hand on her arm.

She nodded. Sure. Sure I am, Mulder. Am I not always fine?

The hand holding her pizza began to tremble and she put the slice back 
in the box. What was this now? 

He caught her chin and turned her face towards him. "Scully," he said 
carefully. "I think...maybe you're more worn out than you realize. 
Maybe you need to stop for a while, to rest."

"Mulder, please don't make a big deal out of falling asleep in the 
bath."

"It's not just that, Scully. It's everything all together. The dreams, 
the stress of this case. Blacking out, altitude or not. You're a 
doctor, you know you shouldn't ignore something like that." 

"I'm not. I'm not ignoring it, Mulder. It just isn't what you think."

"What is it then?"

She looked up at him, searching his face. Her own hesitation told her 
something she didn't want to know -- she trusted him with her life, 
yes, but not with things like this. Not anymore. Maybe there were some 
things he didn't trust her with as well. Maybe that's why everything 
between them seemed to have gone so wildly out of balance.

"Scully?"

"Visions," she answered, taking the chance, watching all expression 
evaporate from his features. 

"What kind of visions?" he asked at last. "Of Emily again?"

"Of Melissa, with Emily. And the other girl."

Worry folded his forehead, digging lines around his mouth so deep she 
could see what he was going to look like in another ten years. "That's 
not surprising, Scully, considering the nature of this case. And I do 
think it's an indication of exactly how much stress--"

"I saw Melissa with Denise Hampton before I saw a picture of her. 
Before I even knew that she was dead."

She watched the knowledge sink in. "Go on now, Mulder. Yell at me like 
you always do when I tell you something like that."

"I've never yelled at you for something like that."

"Emily, last Easter. Luther Boggs. Owen Jarvis. The woman with her 
throat cut. Shall I continue? No, you don't yell at me, Mulder, you 
just make me feel insane. Twice as insane for having told you."

He stared at her. "Scully, are you looking for an argument?"

The flame of irritation between her shoulder blades suddenly went out. 

"No," she answered, weariness pressing her down, into the ground.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


"Is this part of your theory?" Mulder made himself continue, not sure 
which was making him more nervous, Scully's revelation or watching her 
sag into herself. "That you're being directed to find these girls?"

"If so, it would be by Melissa. It was a phone call from her that 
first led me to the Sims."

"Assuming your theory is true, it could still have been from Them. Her 
voice, synthesized." 

She shook her head. "That wouldn't explain why I'm seeing her now."

He folded his arms over the table, resting his chin on his fist and 
looking up at her so he could see her face beneath her hair.

"There is one explanation that might fit that theory. These 
blackouts--"

"Visions."

Mulder hesitated before continuing. "These visions of your sister... 
You're the skeptic, Scully. The scientist. You're not going to believe 
some Deep Throat muttering conspiracy theories. If someone wanted to 
direct you, you'd need to be able to receive that information in a way 
that wouldn't be connected to the FBI and wouldn't have you stopping 
to investigate the source. So They chose your dead sister. Someone who 
you'd have to trust."

"What do you mean, 'They chose'?"

He gave her an apologetic look as he leaned across the table to slip 
his hand under her hair, one finger coming to rest on a certain point 
at the back of her neck.

"No."

"Scully--"

"It's not the chip." 

The quiet, matter-of-fact way she said it knocked him back in his 
chair. 

"When?" he stuttered, "When did you take it out?" 

"A month or so after Ruskin Dam. I couldn't live with the possibility 
that it might happen again."

"You never said you were even considering--"

"You would have tried to stop me." She sat up straight, her face 
resolute. He knew that expression, he'd seen it the day she told him 
she was dying of cancer. She'd been calm then too.

All at once his world was spinning, flying out of control. Up, he had 
to get up, had to get out of here, away from her. 

"Mulder?"

He batted her hand aside, fought his way out of his chair, stumbling 
toward the door. Hand on the handle -- push no pull -- and he was out 
in the parking lot, his shaking hands fumbling in his pockets for the 
keys to the car. 

"Mulder."

Keys, yes, now where was the car? Where was the goddamn car? 

"Mulder!" 

Scully grabbed him by the arm and spun him towards her, her grip as 
solid and inescapable as a pair of handcuffs. 

"Mulder, I'm fine. I see my doctor every couple of months. I'm still 
in remission. I'm fine."

"For how long?"

"Mulder, nobody knows how long they're going to live. I could be shot 
again, I could be hit by a car tomorrow. So could you. And it could be 
that the chip never cured the cancer to begin with, that the remission 
was entirely natural. We don't know. We'll never know."

He looked down at her, so far away, helpless against an enemy that was 
inside her. Was part of her. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't 
protect her from that.

"The only thing I know for certain," she said quietly, "is that the 
chip led me to that dam."

"I love you, Scully. I can't watch you die again." 

The words leapt out of his mouth and fell, like ash, to land between 
them.  

He waited for her to say something, for her to say that she also loved 
him. She laid her head against his chest instead, let go of his arms 
and put her own around his waist. They stood there, locked together in 
silence, until the honk of a car wanting to pass by woke them and 
ended their embrace.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


SEA COURT MOTEL
MARCH 9TH, 5:53 AM


She reached for him in the middle of a dream, crying out with relief 
to find him already there. 

Half-awake, Scully buried her face against his skin, drinking in his 
scent. There had been no smell in the Place, nothing at all, but this 
was the smell of all-night Mulder, this was his second-day stubble 
under her fingertips, this was his too-short hair. 

Everything was all right now, because if Mulder was here then she 
could not be there.

She opened her eyes. It was early, just past sunrise, and Mulder was 
dead asleep on his stomach, his face jammed into the pillow and one 
arm draped heavily across her waist. 

Scully lay quiet, wondering what would it be like to wake every day 
like this, in the arms of a lover. To roll over and kiss his stubbly 
cheeks, not worrying about morning breath or rumpled hair, to know 
that she was loved, that it didn't matter. To go home at night, 
anticipation lifting her steps, knowing someone was waiting for her, 
or to wait herself, fingers clicking on the keyboard of her computer 
as he stole softly across the carpet, announcing his presence with a 
kiss on the back of her neck. 

She took a deep breath and let the awareness of Mulder come, let it 
wash over her in harsh, pounding waves. 

He was beautiful like this, his mouth slightly open, the rounded end 
of his nose bent a little sideways by the pillow. She so rarely saw 
him this relaxed. More often he slept as if waiting to be woken, as if 
his untiring brain were still working on some long-unsolved case. 

She traced the curve of his eyebrow with the tip of one finger. He 
didn't stir. Her fingers moved above his ear, to tickle herself with 
the ends of his hair. A swell of desire rose within her, taking her 
with it, far higher than she had ever allowed. High enough to make her 
heart drum in the rhythm of panic.  

She turned beneath Mulder's arm, burying her face in the other pillow. 
The linen felt good against her hot cheeks, smooth and cool, like the 
exterior she always tried so hard to maintain. The one that kept her 
from giving in when this kind of spark flared between them. 

She gave the man in her imagination John Kresge's face, let him walk 
across the carpet and take her in his arms. She could feel her body 
react to the thought but she couldn't hold the image. The man who held 
her turned into what he always was, someone dark and featureless, 
radiating a familiar warmth that she had always been able to deny was 
Mulder.

The real Mulder mumbled into his pillow and wriggled towards her, 
fitting himself neatly around the curve of her back. 

They had ended last night in an odd sort of stasis, not angry, but not 
speaking either, curled up at opposite edges of the bed. Sleep told 
the truth, she supposed, the need to reach for each other making 
itself known when conscious thought could not intrude. 

She remembered what he had said the night before and the swell of 
desire became a riptide, dragging her out to sea, holding her beneath 
the waves. In so many ways she was closer to Mulder than she had ever 
been to anyone. She knew his anger and his hope, his warmth and his 
carelessness. Now she knew his heart against her back, his breath 
against her hair. 

This time, when she rolled over, he rolled back as well, one arm still 
beneath her neck, the other flinging itself out across the bed. As if 
offering himself to her, as if he hadn't been offering himself for 
years, every time he made a pass he knew she'd throw right back. 

"You're so predictable, Mulder." He mumbled some word with no vowels, 
and nodded, his captive arm curving around her back. 

"And unpredictable," she whispered, laying her head on his shoulder, 
moving her hand lightly across his chest to nestle in the warm curve 
of his neck. 

And I can't imagine anyone else, she thought, as she pressed her body 
close to his. I want to, but I can't. 


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


He was dreaming of Scully's hand moving across his bare chest. His 
skin felt like the dry red earth of Arizona and her hands were water, 
bringing life to his parched lonely body, one inch of skin at a time. 

She arrived at his shoulder and continued down his arm. Sides and hip 
and stomach now, and he wanted her to keep going, but her hand rose 
again to his face, his eyes, light fingers stroking his closed lids. 

He didn't want to open his eyes, didn't want to wake up, but the touch 
was too insistent. He woke to find not the familiarity of his living 
room, or even the empty expanse of a motel bed, but Scully herself, 
lying on her side looking at him, her face soft with something like 
wonder, her fingers trailing the length of his nose. 

"Cyrano," she said, and did not disappear, did not return to the land 
of his subconscious.

"It's not that big," he managed to answer. 

She gave him her tiny smile, fingers moving back to his mouth. 

"Do you really love me, Mulder?" she asked, taking his breath so all 
he could do was nod. 

"Show me, then," she whispered, replacing her fingers with her mouth.

He could not refuse her, even though he knew it was not a dream. A 
dream wouldn't taste of sleep, wouldn't make soft noises as he kissed 
her, wouldn't give the years of strangled tenderness a chance to 
breathe. 

He showed her with his hands and with his mouth, until finally she 
began to answer, showing him what he had never been allowed to think 
of as his. Herself, warm and willing, kissing him not with wild lust 
or uncontrollable desire, but with sweet, steady love. This was the 
Scully he'd always wanted to know, the woman whose lips he had watched 
in fascination as she argued and slept and ate and pored over 
impossible pieces of evidence, but tried never to imagine kissing like 
this. 

She moved over him now, heat against hard flesh, her breasts offered 
to his open hands. 

"Oh god," she breathed, as he accepted her offering, the buttons of 
her top slipping open almost by themselves. 

His gentleness dissolved as hunger took over, as drew her down and 
pressed his mouth her breasts. Her soft sighs turned to moans, her 
hands tugging at his sweats as her own hunger awoke. He could hardly 
stand to let go of her long enough to pull off his clothes. 

She sat up to slip her bottoms off, her hair tumbling into her flushed 
face as she bent over him and found his mouth again. There were 
sensible thoughts in his head somewhere, but they drowned as she 
stretched out against the length of him. He could only think that he 
had loved her so long and so without hope that to question this 
miracle would be an insult. Any other thoughts he had disappeared the 
moment she rolled them over, pulling him down to lie between her legs. 

"Scully," he groaned, the last word he had left. 

She drew his head from her shoulder, where he was calming himself by 
nibbling at the velvet edge of her neck. 

"Yes," she whispered, stroking his face, in that instant so exquisite, 
so unbearably precious to him, that his throat grew tight and he had 
to close his eyes, fumbling his way to find and point himself in the 
right direction. She rose to meet him and he pressed down in tiny, 
careful thrusts, sliding into her little by little, both of them 
crying out as she finally relaxed and opened and let him in.

And then clenched hard around him. 

His eyes flew open to see her arching back, not in passion, but in 
agony, her face gone white. Pain exploded as one of her suddenly 
flying fists connected with the side of his face and he grabbed her 
wrists, the instinct to protect himself too fast to stop. He was no 
longer inside her now, but she was still somewhere else, thrashing 
violently against him, her screams strangled behind clenched teeth. 

He tried using his weight as a blanket to hold her, calm her, calling 
her name, trying to tell her it was him. 

She didn't see him, didn't hear his voice. She began to choke, her 
head whipping from side to side, as if she was trapped in one of her 
more terrifying nightmares. Holding her down, he suddenly realized, 
was only frightening her more. He let go and her elbow came up hard 
into his chest as her body twisted out from under him. She rolled off 
the bed and onto her knees, stumbling to her feet with one hand 
reaching out, searching for balance. The other stayed at her throat as 
she put her back against the wall, eyes wildly searching for an exit. 

"Scully?" he tried again. She nodded as if she finally remembered who 
she was, bending over as she fought for breath. 

"I'm sorry," he tried. "I'm so--" 

She looked at him, but before he could say any more, he saw the facade 
bend inward, then shatter. 

She groped for the door behind her, falling into the bathroom, and he 
leapt from the bed before she could shut him out.

Too late. Mulder stood on the outside of the door, his hands flat on 
the thin plywood as if he could touch her through it, as if touching 
her could somehow undo whatever terrible thing he'd just done.

"Scully?" he called softly. "Scully, please. Just...just tell me if 
you're all right."

In the silence, the click of the lock was as loud as a gunshot. 

"Scully?"

The shower was her final answer, coming on full blast to drown him 
out. 

Mulder turned back into the room. He found his clothes from the night 
before and dressed, his numb fingers fumbling with the laces of his 
running shoes. 

Behind him, muffled by the steady roar of water, he heard the first 
deep, choking sob. 

He ran before he could hear any more.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 

PART 14             

<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 


SEA COURT MOTEL
MARCH 9TH, 6:43 AM


She stood under the shower, hands braced against the wall as the water 
pounded against her forehead. 

Another sob ripped from her throat, as if the ball of thorns she 
carried inside her was finally trying to fight its way out. She wiped 
her nose and would not have been surprised to see blood on her hand.

At this moment, she wouldn't care what that meant. Fire roared across 
her nerve endings, burning away the memory of Mulder's skin beneath 
her hands, searing her joy to ash. She made the water colder still, 
fighting the terrible urge to smash her head against the unforgiving 
porcelain, to replace one pain with another until the darkness opened 
up and claimed her, never to return again. Never to have to face him, 
to look into his eyes and see what she had done to him. 

Scully sank slowly to her knees, the water cascading over the back of 
her neck, over her face and into her mouth. She imagined it was the 
truth, icy and colorless, sinking through her pores and into her 
blood. This was what she had been most afraid of, that the moment she 
admitted what Mulder meant to her, it would all go wrong. Wrong beyond 
their capacity to pretend it had not happened, to fix with silence and 
getting on with it, wrong enough to destroy them both. 

It was one of the first things she learned in forensics. The body 
always remembers.

Her body knew what had happened to her. Knew it was unable to make 
life, unable to make love. She had woken from one death-like sleep 
into another and never realized, but her body had known. 


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


Mulder ran.

He ran without direction, turning corners when the traffic would not 
allow him to pass. He ran without feeling his feet hit the ground, 
aware of nothing but the pain in his chest. He ran until white spots 
appeared before his eyes, until he could get no more air and was 
forced to his knees, gasping, until somebody finally stopped and asked 
if he needed help.

The kind stranger led him to a bus bench, twittering over foolish 
people who ran themselves into early heart attacks. She sat beside 
him, a woman older than his mother, fishing in her enormous purse for 
a small plastic packet of tissues. This she gave to him as if wiping 
the sweat away could somehow help.

"Blow," the woman nudged him. Only then did he understand that his 
face was covered in snot and tears, that he had been crying as he ran. 
Mulder blew his way through half the packet of tissues before he could 
speak again.

"I hurt someone," he told his new friend. "Someone I've loved 
forever."

She had the grace not to answer. Mulder put his head in his hands. His 
breathing was slowly returning to normal, but the raw ache in his 
chest was undiminished. 

He left the rest of the tissues on the bench and slowly began the long 
walk back.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


SEA COURT MOTEL
MARCH 9TH, 7:30 AM


Master of repairs, Scully put the pieces back together. Hair neatly 
blow-dried. Suit quickly pressed. Makeup applied with precision, 
covering the remaining cracks. She closed her suitcase, collected 
their files and her laptop and left the room, leaving the door 
unlocked and Mulder's key sitting on the table.

The room on the other side of the parking lot was still free and she 
took it, heels clacking as she crossed the long expanse of asphalt. 
This one didn't have a kitchenette, it was just a small dingy box with 
a single bed. Somehow, it seemed appropriate. Scully opened her 
suitcase and set about unpacking. Fifteen minutes later she was 
finished.

What now?

Work. Do something. Concentrate on something else. 

As if someone had heard her thoughts, her cell phone began to ring. 
Dry-mouthed, she picked it up and answered.

"Good morning," Kresge said. "Got some results for you. And do you 
know where Mulder is? He's not answering his phone."

"He went for a run. He doesn't usually take it." Her voice came out 
neutral, level. She almost sighed in relief.

"Well, he left a message last night. Something about search teams?"

"I don't know. You'll have to talk to him about it."

Kresge let out air between his teeth. "Hey, Scully," he said. "You 
know those days that start out shitty and then get worse?"

She looked around the dismal little room, hating it, hating herself 
for the damage she had wrought. 

"Yes."

His voice changed, grew warm, close. "Listen, have you had breakfast 
yet?"

"No."

"Me neither. I'll come pick you up and we can hit the IHOP. This day 
needs maple syrup."

"Thanks, but I'm not hungry. I'll get a cab in."

"Scully..." She could hear his smile, the teasing one, and it made her 
wonder how she'd learned him so quickly. "You do not want to drink 
station house coffee on an empty stomach. IHOP's got that unending 
pot. I'm sure that will get your toes twinkling in a much nicer way."

She opened her mouth to refuse again, but could not find the words. 
She could not hide in this room, she had to face them both eventually. 
She had to work. 

"Fine," she forced herself to answer. "I'm at the Sea Court on 
Imperial Avenue, room 62. Bring the autopsy results so I can look at 
them while you're eating."

"Gee, Scully," he teased. "You want some crime scene photos while 
we're at it?"

She clicked the phone off sharply, grateful he couldn't see her face.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


INTERNATIONAL HOUSE OF PANCAKES
MARCH 9TH, 8:32 AM


Kresge's cop instinct was annoying him as he sat drowning his 
blueberry waffles in syrup. Despite the menu full of enticing 
photographs of mouthwatering breakfast fantasies, Scully had ordered 
dry toast. Even the waitress had seemed disappointed. 

The toast sat cooling, forgotten, though she'd already downed two cups 
of coffee. She looked different this morning, gaunt and ashen. Perhaps 
it was the severe, unflattering way she'd brushed her hair back from 
her face. 

"Hey, there. You want a bite?" Kresge waved a fork full of waffle in 
front of her nose, at least succeeding in getting her to glance up. 

The hollow look was in her eyes as well, a veiled and distant grey. 
"No. But thank you." She immediately went back to the report.

Kresge put his fork down on his plate. "Scully, what's the matter?"

"Nothing. I just need to concentrate."

"Did something else happen yesterday? After I left the morgue?"

She shook her head and he thought he saw something about to break 
through, some sadness welling up. 

"Hey." He reached across to touch her hand. "Did you have some kind of 
argument with Mulder?"

"Is this an interrogation?" she snapped, pulling her hand back, 
staring at him as if he'd just slapped her for no reason.

"No," he answered, surprised at her reaction. 

She closed her eyes for a moment, as if gathering her temper back in. 
"I'm sorry. It's not a good day."

"I can see that." He leaned closer and lowered his voice. "Are we not 
going to be able to work together?"

"Yes, of course we can." He waited but she didn't offer any further 
comment. Instead, she was staring at the file as if trying to 
disappear into it. 

"Anything in there useful?" he finally asked.

She shook her head, evidently relieved to have the focus of his 
questions move to the professional. "Not really. The genetic 
comparison isn't definitive and the tissue results don't tell me 
anything I didn't already know."

"Whose genes are you comparing?"

"Denise and Jane Hampton. Denise may not be Jane's biological 
daughter."

"And what you have can't tell you that? I thought DNA testing was 
pretty conclusive." Kresge picked up his fork and put the bite of 
waffle in his mouth. 

"This is only a PCR, it's too general. We'll have to wait for the RFLP 
to test the mitochondrial DNA to determine an absolute maternal 
relationship."

"What does it say now? The results you have?"

"About a 60% chance. Not high enough to be certain." She closed the 
folder and put it aside, taking off her glasses and rubbing the red 
spots at the sides of her nose.

"You sure you're okay?" he tried again. 

"I'm fine," she answered, clearly not.

Kresge looked away, at a table with a family full of noisy kids, at 
another with a young couple giggling as they ate from each other's 
plates. The shitty day was getting shittier by the minute. 

"I need to rent another car," Scully said finally. "Is there a place 
you could drop me?"

"There's one on the way in."

"Good. Thank you." She dropped her eyes back to the folder and he knew 
she would not speak again. 

Kresge cut into his waffle, watching the syrup drip slowly down, no 
longer in the mood for sweetness.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


Mulder wasn't surprised to find Scully's suitcase gone when he finally 
got back to the motel. He dragged himself off to the shower, dressed 
and shaved without meeting his own eyes in the mirror. 

In the motel office, his badge got him the number of Scully's new 
room. 

She was still here. He nodded his thanks at the manager, and walked 
slowly across the parking lot, the green door to her room half hidden 
behind someone's rental. 

Of course she would still be here. Scully was not going to walk out in 
the middle of a case. Her professional pride was something he could 
count on without fail. Match it with his own and they just might get 
through this. 

She opened the door to his knock, turning away to let him enter. 
Mulder remained in the doorway, shoving his hands in the pockets of 
his jacket. He found a sunflower seed in one and put it in his mouth, 
rolling it around without cracking it. The silence curled around them 
like thick grey mist, clinging damp and cold to their skin. 

"If you want to go back to DC," he said finally, "if you want to 
transfer--"

He stopped, listening to her breath, caught then slowly exhaled. Both 
of them were still looking at anything but each other. 

"Do you want me to transfer?" The strain in her voice was barely 
masked.

"I want you to do whatever you need to do," he recited tonelessly.

"I don't want to transfer." She came around the bed to stuff some 
files into her laptop case and Mulder dared a glance. She looked the 
way she had for weeks after Emily died, wide-eyed and colorless, a 
plaster sculpture locked behind glass. 

"Scully." 

He swallowed hard, the name he had always used for her tasting flat 
and bitter now that he had spoken it with passion. He took the 
sunflower seed out of his mouth, wishing he could remove the rest of 
the bitterness so easily. 

"Scully, I can never tell you how sorry I am."

"Please, Mulder, don't do this to yourself." Her voice had turned 
hard, the face she briefly raised devoid of life. "You did nothing 
wrong. Nothing was your fault. You have to believe that."

She zipped her bag closed and slung it over her shoulder, 
straightening her back with effort. 

"I got the PCR results," she said, sounding only vaguely more like 
herself. "There's a possible genetic relationship between Jane and 
Denise but I'll need the RFLPs on both to be sure and to compare to 
mine. That'll take a couple of days. In the meantime, I'm due at the 
morgue. I requested the autopsy on Tom Hampton."

Mulder nodded. "Okay, if you're ready, I'll drive you over there."

"That's all right. I've rented another car."

"Scully--"

"I'm late, Mulder. Please, excuse me." She gave him a tense nod and 
walked stiffly out the door. 

He understood then, with a sinking in his gut, that they had probably 
just said everything they were ever going to say about what had 
happened between them.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


SAN DIEGO COUNTY MORGUE
MARCH 9, 3:48 PM


She was almost finished with Hampton's autopsy when her cellphone 
rang, pulling her from the well of concentration into which she had 
descended. The work had been good, necessary, refocusing her to the 
matter at hand. She was not pleased to be disturbed. 

She stripped off her gloves with an impatient snap and grabbed the 
phone from the pocket of her jacket. Then snapped to attention at the 
voice on the other end of it. 

"Sir."

"May I remind you that you are on a case, Agent Scully?"

"Sir?"

"A progress report, Agent Scully. Faxed or emailed but on my desk by 
the time I come in tomorrow morning and you know I come in early."

Scully leaned heavily against the wall. She knew exactly who was going 
to have to write that report. A perfect end to a perfectly disastrous 
day. At least it would give her evening a focus.

"And Agent Scully?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Would you like to tell me why the Phoenix field office has no idea 
that you're even out there?"

"Ah. We're no longer in Arizona, sir."

She could practically hear his jaw working back and forth over the 
line. "And would you like to tell me precisely where you are, Agent 
Scully?" 

Level voice, dead calm. On Skinner's seismograph, at least a seven. 

Scully walked slowly around the body lying open on the table, forcing 
her voice to remain level. "We're in San Diego, sir. We've been 
working with a colleague in the local PD. The, uh, the help he's been 
providing has been more than adequate."

"Kidnapping is a federal matter when it's across state lines. You are 
to contact the San Diego Bureau immediately. And what makes you think 
the girl was taken to California?"

Something hard and heavy squeezed the air out of her chest.

She was on the cell. She was on the cell and she had just alerted any 
listener to where they were and what they were doing. 

Idiot. Idiot! 

"Scully? I'm waiting for an answer."

Panic. No -- something else. 

Oh, god. Not now. 

"Sir, I have to..." Her voice wobbled and faded. She managed to hit 
'end' before the darkness towered over her head and slammed her into 
the ground. 


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


Grey. Grey all around, and through the wavering mist, Melissa.

Scully ran across the great expanse of nothing and threw herself into 
her sister's arms. Melissa, warm and strong as she had always been. 
Older, taller, fearless.

-Oh Missy. I've done something so awful.

"Dana...Dana...you're looking in all the wrong places."

She lifted her head, utterly confused. Melissa smiled sadly, put her 
hands on Scully's waist, and turned her around. 

A small girl was walking through the mist towards them. 

-Oh, god. Which one now?

"Bethany."

Melissa moved from behind her, placing herself between Scully and the 
child. She rested her forehead against Scully's for a moment, the way 
their mother always had. 

"Everything is right in front of you. You look and look and look, but 
you never want to see."

-See what?

"The truth, Day. You already know what it is."

Then Melissa was gone and she was left holding only herself.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


She woke to a strange face bending close, to the incessant shrill of a 
phone. 

Scully let her head fall to the side, seeing an expanse of tile floor, 
the rolling legs of an autopsy table. 

Morgue, her mind supplied. 

"Dr. Scully? Do you hear me?" Hands turned her head for her and she 
recognized the man as one of the assistant pathologists. She swallowed 
with difficulty, her mouth filled with dust.

"Are you in any pain?" the man was asking. "Do you know where you 
are?"

"No pain. Morgue." She closed her eyes in relief as her phone, 
mercifully, stopped. 

Scully stayed where she was, waiting for her strength to return. The 
assistant was rattling off a barrage of questions -- was she 
epileptic, diabetic, on medication? She murmured negative responses, 
wishing he would go. At last, she tried to roll onto her side to 
stand, but he immediately pushed her shoulders back again.

"Dr. Scully, please. Lie still. We've called an ambulance."

"No." She summoned all her will to make her voice stronger. "No, I'm 
all right."

"Doctor--"

"Please, call the hospital and tell them the ambulance is not 
necessary." 

The strength of her voice, its accustomed authority, made him finally 
back away. 

Scully rolled onto her knees, then carefully got to her feet. She 
tugged her scrubs into place, smoothed still-awkward hands through her 
hair. She was standing, but only barely.  

Her phone began to ring again and fear rose. She wanted this stranger 
gone, did not want to try to walk while he was still there. One step 
and her knees would surely give out.

"A glass of water would be nice," she tried. He nodded, picking her 
phone up from the floor and handing it to her. He regarded her for a 
moment longer, then left.

Scully staggered to the nearest wall, let herself slide down it until 
she was sitting. She stabbed gracelessly at the buttons, at last 
hitting the one that brought Skinner once again squawking into her 
ear.

"Agent Scully, what the hell is going on?"

"I'm sorry sir. I...someone startled me and I dropped the phone. I 
couldn't get it working again."

"You dropped your phone?"

"Yes." 

She listened to his silent disbelief, flexing her fingers, willing her 
dexterity to return. "Will that be all, sir?"

"Scully, don't make me regret getting you and Mulder back." He put the 
phone down with a furious slam. 

She had made it back to her feet by the time the assistant returned, 
water in hand. 

"I can sew him up if you're finished," he offered, indicating the body 
of Tom Hampton, still lying open on the table. 

Scully sipped her water, contemplating the former Mr. Hampton. She had 
prepared the usual samples for tissue analysis, but she was already 
certain she would learn nothing more than she had during her 
preliminary examination.

"Yes, thank you," she answered, dropping the cup in the proper 
receptacle. Something in Melissa's words had caught her attention.

Everything is right in front of you. 

She moved quickly down the hall, toward the sign that said Records. 


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


SDPD SOUTHEASTERN DIVISION
MARCH 9TH, 8:18 PM


The files were in the Records room at the morgue, waiting to be logged 
onto the system. She had been so thorough on her initial search 
through the databases that she had considered it a dead end. Precious 
days wasted, perhaps even precious lives, because she had not thought 
to go to the source for what might have come in since then.

Scully gave the information to Kresge, letting him requisition the 
casefiles from the other precincts. Better handled as an inter-
departmental matter, rather than the FBI nosing in -- her badge had 
nothing but piss-off value when questioning the competence of local 
law. 

"I want to start running these down as soon as they come in," she told 
him. "Bethany MacEntyre's parents died on the same day as Tom Hampton, 
but I wasn't able to find any record on her. And Caitlin Jenkins 
apparently died in a car accident along with her parents on March 4th, 
but I'm sure--" 

She hesitated, her tongue darting into the corner of her mouth before 
she continued. "I have a hunch she's still alive. I need to see the 
accident report immediately, and I need your bright colleague to make 
another check of the county hospitals. If they're using the same MO 
it's possible one or both girls were admitted within the last few 
days."

"I'll have the files picked up as soon as they're ready," Kresge 
assured her. He caught her by the arm as she turned to leave, his 
rough face full of concern. "Let me give you a lift. You look about to 
fall over, and I'll be on my way home as soon as this is finished." 

"It's okay. I've got a car."

"Scully."

She held up a warning hand. "I'm fine. I am. Really."

She backed away from his kindness, before it could soften the hard 
shell that she needed.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


SEA COURT MOTEL
MARCH 9TH, 10:21 PM


Mulder was sitting in his car in the motel parking lot, staring at the 
rectangle of light framing the drapes in Scully's window. 

The entire rhythm of their partnership felt disrupted, as if an extra 
beat had thrown them into 3/5 time, instead of 3/4. Some unsustainable 
syncopation that their feet were not agile enough to maintain. 

Deep down, he knew he was stalling, hoping the light would go off and 
he could go to bed without having to tell Scully what he'd found. 

Coward, he chastised himself. Get in there and face her.

She opened the door to his knock, her face still the wooden mask it 
had been earlier. Her mascara was gone and though she was looking 
somewhere in the vicinity of his left shoulder, he could see the color 
of her eyes through her lashes. They were a dull washed-out grey, 
never a good sign.

"Where have you been?" she asked, hoarse with exhaustion. "I left you 
three messages."

"I know. I just got them on the way over." He followed her into the 
room. "You wanted to tell me something?"

"The MacEntyres and the Jenkinses all died within this last week. I'm 
not sure about the girls. I'll know more when I get the casefiles 
tomorrow."

He absorbed that news in silence. 

She sat down at the table, wearily adjusting the angle of her laptop 
screen. "Where were you?"  

"At the Hampton crime scene, mostly." He looked around for a place to 
sit, but the room had only been provided with one chair and the bed 
was out of the question. "I knew you were at the morgue, so I didn't 
think you'd be trying to reach me. I just wanted to concentrate, see 
what I could pick up that the boys in blue might miss."

She looked up briefly and he saw with relief that for once he'd said 
the right thing. 

"So what did you find?" 

He pulled his notebook out of the inner pocket of his jacket and found 
the right page, leaning over her shoulder so she could see his notes. 

The action had been so instinctive, he hadn't thought anything of it 
until he felt her withdraw from him. Not in any overt physical way, 
nothing so dramatic as a flinch or leaning forward. Just a change in 
her energy, the magnetic charge that had always pulled him towards her 
suddenly reversing to push him away. 

"I went through Hampton's desk," he said. He tried to remain where he 
was but the feeling was impossible to ignore. 

He moved away from her, choosing the bed after all, perching on the 
edge with his elbows on his knees as if he meant to get up any minute. 
Scully kept her back to him, but he couldn't help noticing the way her 
shoulders dropped a good inch the moment she felt him gone. 

Was this how it was going to be between them now? Had attraction 
become repulsion? Was he never going to be able to touch her again, 
even in the most innocent manner?

The thought was unbearable and he shoved it into a dark corner of his 
mind to be dealt with later. Maybe never. 

"You know how the connection is sometimes the most innocuous thing 
imaginable?" he said. "A stain in a certain shape, a passage marked in 
a book. Or card someone forgot to throw away."

She turned to look at him. 

"I spent almost eight hours going through all of Hampton's private 
papers and found nothing. This was sitting on the windowsill by his 
desk. Guess Hampton was a sentimental guy -- Christmas was three 
months ago."

He opened the notebook and drew out a card with a Japanese ideograph 
on the front cover.  

"I guess Japanese corporations have gotten in the habit of sending 
Christmas cards to their Western clientele," Mulder said, leaning over 
to pass it to her. "That is from the head of Acquisitions for Hirotake 
Corporation. The very same people who were meeting with Aaron Hatch, 
CEO of Prangen, on March 4th. Tom Hampton was the I.T. manager for 
Mirant, that means he had access to all their computer files. Mirant 
does the research, Prangen runs the clinical trials -- are you getting 
the picture here, Scully?"

"Hirotake is attempting a hostile takeover of Prangen aided by 
information stolen by Hampton?"

"Not exactly. I think they were trying to buy or contract something 
controlled by Prangen. Maybe something Tom Hampton wanted, and 
couldn't get access to himself, so he was using the computer files to 
leverage some kind of deal. A deal which became moot on March 3rd, 
when his daughter Denise died."

He hadn't thought Scully could get any paler. "Amy Wallace?"

"Or the research she represents. Scully--" He faltered, knowing that 
the best of times were not good enough to ask the question he needed 
to ask. "I know you don't want to think about this but...I had a 
videotape once. It was supposed to be an alien autopsy. You watched 
it. You said you recognized one of the doctors."

"Takeo Ishimaru," she whispered, her eyes glazing over. "The Japanese 
Mengele."

He nodded, watching her carefully. "This translator for the meeting at 
Prangen, Akira Kogawa? He's Nisei. Second generation Japanese-
American. Born in a concentration camp the United States set up during 
World War II to intern Japanese immigrants and their descendants."

"Manzanar."

"Scully, are you sure that you saw Ishimaru during your abduction?"

He waited for some kind of reflexive dismissal, but she only nodded. 

"Our government was responsible for bringing Ishimaru to the US after 
the war," he said, "and for allowing him to continue his experiments 
to further the Project. Maybe Kogawa is trying to make sure that 
Ishimaru's research finally finds its way back home, to pay the US 
back for the internment by giving Japan a chance to develop the 
vaccine first."

She bent her head, considering the possibility. "So. Not Krycek."

"It would appear not," Mulder answered. "We may be dealing with a 
completely new set of players."

Scully's shoulders rose as if she were expecting a blow. "I don't know 
which prospect frightens me more."


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 

PART 15             

<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 


SEA CREST MOTEL, ROOM 62
MARCH 10TH, 5:07 AM


Her cellphone woke her, screaming directly into her ear. Scully shot 
awake, heart pounding, her neck cramping in protest. Had she fallen 
asleep before she finished? 

No, the laptop was still on. Her dialup was on the screen, used then 
disconnected. She picked up the phone, groaned her name into it. 

"This is not your best work."

She was silent. There wasn't any point offering Skinner the excuse 
that she had been awake around the clock, that she had done the best 
she could with her hands faltering on the keyboard and the text 
mutating into tiny beetles crawling across the screen. 

She checked her watch. Five o'clock in the morning, eight in DC. He 
hadn't even waited until a decent hour to call. 

"I see no major progress here, Agent Scully."

"Sir, if I may ask, why were we assigned to this case?" 

"Are you questioning the assignment, Agent?"

No, she thought bitterly. I'd just like that information, and since 
our listeners probably have it already I wouldn't mind if you shared 
it with me over an unsecured line.

"No, sir," she said aloud. Always the good girl and charged a pound of 
flesh when she wasn't. Scully swallowed away the taste of self-
loathing and drew a clean breath. "Sir, believe me, we're doing our 
best."

There was a moment's hesitation on the other side. A spark of 
humanity, perhaps. She'd always had her ups and downs with Skinner, 
never quite certain how far he could be trusted, but he was not 
usually this hard on her. He saved his real vitriol for Mulder. She, 
he treated with courtesy at the least, generally with respect.

"All right, Scully," he replied, his voice just one shade kinder. 
"Keep me informed. Now go back to sleep."

Sleep, yes. The adrenaline left her body almost as soon as she put the 
phone down, replaced with a wave of loose-limbed weariness. She walked 
over and flung herself onto the bed, still fully dressed right down to 
her heels. 


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


Light, white light.

Herself on the table, arms and legs spread wide. Pain was an ocean, 
huge waves of it crashing over her head. She was the body at her own 
autopsy, unable to cry out even as they cut into her.

-I'm not dead. Please. I'm not 

      now and in the hour of our 

-dead. God, I don't want to die, not right 

      hail mary full of grace

-now I'm not finished 

drowning, air like water, choking on white hot molten agony spreading 
out from between her legs

      blessed is the fruit of thy womb jesus holy mary mother of 

-god, let him find me 

      now and in the hour of our 

death leaning close staring with black eyes and he won't come he won't 
come not this time

      now and in the hour of our 

-oh god, Mulder, I'm so sorry 

      nowandinthehourofourdeathprayforusnowandinthehourofourdeath

reaching inside hand clenching her heart tearing it out from between 
her bloody beating something shrieking white in her brain, and she was 
lifted up, then flung downward, into darkness.

She woke on the floor, alone, her cellphone screaming on the table. 

"Scully, it's me." 

Right words, wrong voice. She pressed her hand over the mouthpiece, 
trying to keep the sound of her ragged breathing out of the phone. 

"I've got those files you wanted," Kresge continued, tense and rushed, 
"whenever you want to come in and pick them up."

"I'll be right there," she managed to answer, and hung up.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


SEA COURT MOTEL, ROOM 46
MARCH 10TH, 8:01 AM


Morning came too quickly, but with it also came an idea. 

Mulder lay half off the bed, having rolled over to slam his hand down 
on the alarm clock, trying to remember what it was. He'd been dreaming 
of a road, not an unusual occurrence for him, considering how much 
time he spent behind the wheel. It wasn't the road itself that was 
important, it was the feel of the road, as if he were headed out of a 
part of the city that abruptly turned to countryside, as opposed to 
dwindling down into suburban quarter-acre lots and hastily thrown-up 
strip malls. 

Mulder got up and sifted through the papers on the table -- Scully's 
file on the Hamptons and his own scribbled notes. The map was spread 
out below them like an architect's idea of an amusing tablecloth. He 
pulled it free and laid it flat on the floor, rubbing a hand across 
his sleep-sticky eyes to clear them. 

He couldn't explain why he'd become so obsessed with the idea of 
Jane's orphanage. It didn't have to do with Samantha, he told himself 
-- if Samantha had ever been there it was years ago. There was no 
guarantee the place even still existed, but his instinct was saying it 
did, and that it mattered, and until he'd seen it with his own eyes or 
exhausted every possibility of finding it, he was not going to be able 
to get it out of his head. 

Mulder looked up at the table where the Hampton file lay. Nothing new 
there, he was certain -- Scully would have told him immediately if 
anything conclusive had turned up at her autopsy. He reached blindly 
upward, grabbed the file, and opened it anyway. 

Scully's clear, oddly feminine writing covered the first page. Notes 
from her background check. Even when thinking to herself, she was so 
precise, so contained. 

He pulled out the two clear plastic sheets and held them up to the 
white ceiling. PCR results. Watching Scully read this kind of stuff 
reminded him of his mother reading music, humming what she saw on the 
page before putting her fingers to the piano keys. There was a kind of 
magic to it, though he knew it was merely another language to learn.

He doubted that Scully would take as much pleasure from deciphering 
the contents of these sheets as his mother had taken from hers.

Mulder jumped to his feet, suddenly needing to distance himself from 
that kind of thinking. This room was full of Scully, from the notes in 
her careful script, to the stray hairs he might find if he ran his 
hands over the carpet, to the faint lingering scent of lemon soap. 

He quickly dressed, then grabbed the map and his black backpack, still 
stuffed with the rope. This time, as he left the room, he made sure 
his phone was on. 


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


Mulder was not in his room when she knocked on the door. Cheap motels, 
cheap locks, she thought, slipping his with one of her credit cards. 
He never seemed to worry much about that kind of thing. Time had 
proven that They could get in if they wanted to, no matter how many 
guards outside, how many locks on the door.

Scully retrieved the Hampton file, noting that in her absence the room 
had exploded into Mulder's usual creative mess. She wanted to run her 
hands over his things, wanted to curl up in his unmade bed and see if 
it still smelled of him, if that could fool her brain into feeling 
safe enough to let her sleep without dreams.

All it would make her feel, she was sure, was broken. Better to feel 
nothing. 

She was about to leave when the odd sense that she was forgetting 
something hit, making her turn around, re-assessing the room as she 
would a crime scene when first entering it. 

Bed, slept in on one side, alarm clock on the floor. Suitcase open on 
the little rack in the doorless closet, a pair of pants dangling out 
of it. Table with notes minus the file she'd come to get. The maps 
were gone, but Mulder probably had them. Kitchen, unused, empty pizza 
boxes sitting on the counter. 

Ah. Yes. 

In the bathroom, she grabbed a washcloth, came back and opened the 
tiny fridge. She wrapped the five vials in the towel, tucked them into 
the front pocket of her laptop case, and left.

Kresge wasn't in when she arrived at the station, for which she was 
grateful. He'd left the files sitting neatly on her desk, their 
secrets waiting to be revealed. Scully got herself a cup of evil 
coffee, shrugged out of her jacket and began. 

Elaine and Robert MacEntyre were a pattern already too familiar. 
Husband shot in the back of the head, wife dead in the tub. Scully 
guessed that They had refined some elements after the inconvenience of 
having to slip into prison to kill Marshall Sim. 

She turned to the crime scene photos, immediately picking up what any 
half-assed coroner should have seen at first glance. The woman's 
wrists had been cut in a single horizontal stroke, a good centimeter 
deep. Both wrists. The murderers had made a mistake, a big one. Either 
the coroner was blind, or it had been deliberately passed over. 

There was little else in that file, no before-the-fact photos or 
background information. Just the bare necessities in terms of 
documents. Nothing relating to Bethany -- dead, ill, or alive and 
well. 

The second file belonged to the Jenkinses. This one did have a 
photograph, obviously taken from the family home. Decent-looking 
people, bland and blond. The child on the mother's lap was a thinner 
version of Emily, her long hair done in two neat braids tied with 
ribbons. 

The other photos were from the crash. Twisted metal and twisted 
bodies. The official opinion was that Alan Jenkins, the driver, had 
fallen asleep at the wheel. 

This file was also too thin, even for a routine investigation into a 
single vehicle accident with no witnesses. As with the MacEntyres, 
there was no next of kin for either adult. The bodies had been 
identified from documents found at the scene, verified with dental 
records. The whole process had probably taken a few hours. 

Again, there was no record of what had happened to the child.

Scully went through the papers more carefully, dug her glasses out of 
her pocket and re-examined the crash photographs. There was no mention 
of Caitlin being there that night, nothing she could see in the 
wreckage that looked like a child's car seat.

Of course it was possible that the Jenkinses didn't use one, but 
staring at those homespun, conservative faces, Scully found it hard to 
believe. These were quiet, law-abiding people. Susan Jenkins' hand, 
spread possessively over her daughter's stomach, spoke of a woman who 
was all too aware of the dangers of modern life. Car seats were a 
safety measure, and these struck her as people who liked to feel safe. 

Scully propped the picture of the Jenkins family up against the 
computer monitor, staring at Caitlin. 

Where are you? she silently asked.

Caitlin stared back, her smile as bland as her parents', her eyes as 
familiar as Scully's own.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


SDPD SOUTHEASTERN DIVISION
MARCH 10TH, 11:15 AM


Scully was bent over the files, scribbling in her notebook, when 
Kresge returned. She was both the last and the only thing he wanted to 
see at the moment. Attraction was a faucet he could turn on and off, 
but affection was harder. She'd gotten to him -- or rather, he'd let 
her get to him -- for the same reason Elizabeth first had. Because she 
was smart and courageous and she cared about her work in the same 
obsessive way he did.  Now he was stuck with the feeling. 

He watched Scully grab another folder, obviously in the grip of 
inspiration, thumbing deftly through the pages. It was warm in the 
station and she had the collar of her shirt pulled away from the back 
of her neck, the vibrant edges of her hair a rich contrast to the 
ivory skin that never saw the sun. He imagined stealing up behind her 
and nibbling at that spot. He wondered if she would melt beneath his 
lips, or bat his head away, as Elizabeth might have done. 

Too late to find out, he told himself, and hardly in keeping with the 
grim news he had to deliver. 

She jumped when he called her name, so deep into her work she hadn't 
heard him approach her desk. The face that she raised was different 
than the one she'd worn last time he saw her. Just as washed-out, but 
a little less frozen. A little -- dare he say it -- excited?

"This is unbelievable," she said. "Did you have a look at these?'

"No, I didn't get a chance. I got called away so I just dropped them 
on your desk."

"Here." She stood up and twirled one of the files around to face him. 
"Look at that. What do you see?"

Kresge's fifteen years on the force had never really acclimated him to 
the mute invasion of crime scene photographs. Bad enough that ugly 
things happened to innocent people, but there was something he found 
disrespectful about immortalizing it on film, no matter how much he 
relied on the process. 

"Who am I looking at?" he asked, and a flicker of appreciation crossed 
Scully's face. He guessed she was more used to people asking 'what'. 

"Elaine MacEntyre, mother of Bethany. The coroner ruled it a suicide. 
What do you see?"

He remembered something from the last time she showed him this kind of 
photo, and picked it up to examine the woman's wrists, turned upward 
and held in place by an anonymous pair of gloved hands. 

"No hesitation cuts." 

"Good. What else?"

Kresge looked again, but failed to find anything obvious. Pulling 
clues out of forensic evidence really wasn't his specialty. He was 
more suited to pulling clues from live interviews, of amassing all the 
facts that others had gathered and putting them together. 

Scully took the photo out of his hand and picked up her pen. "Hold 
that like a knife, like you're going to use it to cut your wrist," she 
instructed. "I'm built about the same as Elaine MacEntyre. Even 
imagining that I'm not fighting back, that my hand is relaxed, to cut 
my wrist from side to side to a depth of 1.2 centimeters using only 
one stroke requires not just a certain amount of pressure, but a 
certain amount of speed and dexterity. Correct?"

Kresge turned the pen this way and that. "You'd need to have control 
of the blade. A pretty good grip." 

She held out one arm, her hand palm up. "Do it."

He took her hand in his and drew the pen across her slim wrist, 
throwing her a quizzical look when he finished. 

Scully took his other hand in hers and guided his fingertips to the 
tendons in his own wrist. "Do it again and feel how those move."

Kresge felt the tightening of the tendons as he repeated the motion, 
trying to ignore the brief tingle of arousal awakened by her touch. "I 
think I'm beginning to see your point."

Scully turned his hand palm up, tracing the line of the middle tendon 
up his bare forearm, pressing in on a muscle just below his elbow. 
"Palmoris longus," she informed him. "It starts here and goes down to 
the hand, becoming the common flexor for all four fingers. Without it, 
you can't make a fist."

She picked up the photo again and pointed at Elaine MacEntyre's right 
wrist. "If the palmoris longus had been severed in this hand, do you 
think she'd have enough grip to hold a bloody knife and apply the 
pressure necessary to cut the other wrist? The initial findings state 
that both tendons were completely severed." 

"Shit." Not very articulate, but an accurate summary, he felt.

"Shit is right. This woman was murdered. The medical examiner fudged 
the report, and the precinct buried it. Why?"

Kresge sat down in her chair, letting his head fall into his hands. 

"I'm sorry," she said. "I know, every time I come out here I make your 
life a misery, finding complications in things that seemed open and 
shut."

"It's not that," Kresge answered, his voice muffled by his hands.

"Then what?"

He raised his head. "My boss got a call from your boss this morning. 
Some Assistant Director Skinner. A very unhappy man who informed my 
chief that we have no jurisdiction in the Wallace case, or any other 
matter arising from it. I've just been ordered to turn all my files 
over to a representative from the San Diego field office. He'll be 
here in an hour to pick them up."

He saw her eyes widen in fear, but her voice remained admirably calm. 

"You know you can't do that."

Kresge spread his hands wide. "Scully, what am I supposed to do? My 
ass is in the fire. I'm not even supposed to be talking to you."

She grabbed the MacEntyre file and shoved it under his nose. "These 
people were murdered. Like Roberta and Marshall Sim were murdered and 
probably for the same reason. You may not be Child Abduction, but you 
*are* Homicide and this is a clear case of murder covered up by 
departmental interference! How is this out of your jurisdiction?"

"Because my god damn chief says it is!"

In the sudden silence he became aware that they were shouting in a 
crowded room, and their voices had carried to just about every ear. 
Scully looked around and nodded, her cheeks coloring slightly with 
embarrassment. She bent over the desk to gather the files, her hair 
falling over her eyes, obscuring her expression. 

"Dana, I'm sorry," he said, pitching his voice for her ears alone. 

She straightened her back, her bag over one shoulder and the files 
clutched to her chest. "You've been a great help," she said stiffly, 
extending her right hand to shake his without looking directly at him. 
"Thank you for your efforts."

"Dana." He tried to hold on to her hand, but she slipped it from his 
grasp.

"I'll inform Mulder that your resources are no longer available to 
us."

"Scully, goddamn it, you know I need those files. Don't make this 
worse than it is."

She stopped, and looked at him. You're a coward, said that cold grey 
gaze, and Kresge felt shame wash over him. 

"Tell them the files are already in federal custody. That should save 
your ass." 

She turned sharply on her heel and walked out.


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


NORTHBOUND ON IMPERIAL AVENUE
MARCH 10TH, 11:57 AM


Scully swiped angrily at her eyes as the tears began. She had sworn 
she was not going to do this. She was not going to snivel while there 
was a little girl out there who needed her help, especially not while 
she was behind the wheel of a car and already going much too fast.

Promises were not very useful in this instance, she thought, wiping a 
second wave of tears with an impatient hand. 

She saw a strip-mall shopping center and hit the brakes, spinning the 
wheel hard to the right. The driver she cut off went by on her left, 
horn blaring, screaming about her craziness in Spanish. 

Loco, yes, she thought, pulling the car into an empty space and 
putting it in park. Her hands were shaking on the wheel, though 
whether it was from generalised nerves or the near-miss she'd just 
had, it was hard to tell. When this was over, she promised, she would 
take some of those vacation days that had been piling up for years, go 
away someplace quiet and deal with herself. Until then, she needed to 
forget about everything except the next lead to trace. 

Scully wiped her eyes clear, dug her phone out of her pocket and 
dialed the Gunmen.

"Buffy's Mortuary, you slay 'em, we flay 'em," Langly answered. 

"Thank you, Langly. Now that I know your favorite TV show, can we talk 
sense?"

"Oh, ah, sorry, Agent Scully." His crackly tenor sounded even more 
teenaged at the moment and Scully suddenly felt like the school 
principal chastising an unruly student. "I was expecting a call from 
someone else."

"I hope so," she said, glad even of the distraction of Langly's 
silliness. "I have some more names for you to run down."

"Sure, let me pass you to the man."

She slumped in her seat, staring out the windshield at the passing 
traffic as she waited for Frohike to pick up the extension. 

"Agent Scully, how may I help you today?" Frohike asked, over-
compensating for his friend, but somehow comfortingly familiar.
 
"I have some names and birth dates I'd like you to run through the 
Social Security database, see if you can come up with an employment 
history."

"Sure, go ahead."

She gave him the information she had on the MacEntyres and the 
Jenkinses, listening to Frohike mumble it back as he wrote it all 
down. She wondered if he was one of those people who moved their lips 
when reading. It seemed sad somehow that she had never noticed.

"Okay, I'll get back when I've got something," he finished. "Did you 
get the package we sent?"

Scully sat up, putting the phone to her left ear and turning the 
ignition back on. Damn, she was slipping. She'd completely forgotten 
about it. 

"No, I didn't. Where did it go again?"

Frohike sighed, giving her the address, slowly, as if she were a 
foreign speaker. Or an absent-minded idiot. "Under your name to Held 
Mail at the main PO -- 2535 Midway Drive. Should have been there this 
morning."

She shrugged off a flicker of irritation, not sure if it was aimed at 
him or at herself. 

"Thanks, Frohike. I'll go pick it up now."


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


SAN DIEGO GENERAL HOSPITAL
MARCH 10TH, 1:03 PM


Jane Hampton was curled on her side, listlessly watching 'One Life to 
Live' when Scully arrived in her room. 

Jane sat up and turned the TV off, regarding Scully with shadowed 
eyes. Scully felt for her badge, comforted as always by the shape of 
it beneath her fingertips. With that little wallet in hand, she knew 
who she was, what she had to do in almost any circumstance. If only 
the rest of her life could be that certain.

"Mrs. Hampton, I'm not sure if you remem--"

"I remember you," Jane said, waving the badge away. "Are you here to 
take me home?"

Scully stopped, surprised. "No. Was someone supposed to come pick you 
up?"

"I was meant to get out of here today, but the nurses said I have to 
be released into the custody of a police officer." 

"I'm sorry, I'm afraid that's not why I'm here." She folded the wallet 
back into her pocket and sighed. The truth was that nothing -- no 
badge, no gun, no medical degree -- was going to help her do this. 

"I'm afraid I have some bad news," she began, in her most gentle tone. 

Jane's expression suddenly turned to one of desperate pleading. Don't 
say it. Whatever it is, I don't want to know. She turned her head away 
as Scully dug in her laptop case and extracted two clear plastic 
sheets. 

"These are the results of a genetic test we did on Denise," she said 
slowly, trying to give Jane some time to adjust. 

"And what did it say?"

Scully shook her head. "I'm so sorry to have to--"

"I don't believe you," Jane snapped, but the sudden reddening of her 
eyes told a different story.

Scully moved up to the head of the bed, holding Denise's PCR over the 
white blanket so that Jane could easily see it. 

"This is a picture of Denise's DNA. When we matched it to yours, we 
got a 60% chance that she could be your daughter. But here--" 

She added Emily's PCR, placing it directly over Denise's. "--this is 
the DNA from another child, one of the girls whose picture I showed 
you earlier." 

Scully slid the plastic sheets together and laid them on the blanket, 
hiding her now-trembling hands behind her back. "It's a 100% match," 
she said thickly. "Which means Denise and this girl have the same DNA. 
They have the same biological parents. And we are 100% certain who 
this little girl's biological mother was."

Jane had become so immobile that Scully had the urge to put her finger 
to the woman's throat to make sure there was still a pulse. 

Suddenly Jane lashed out, slapping the PCRs off the bed. She drew her 
knees up to her chin and buried her face in the blanket.

"I'm so sorry," Scully said, bending to pick up the sheets again. 

Jane lifted her face and Scully saw Melissa before her, about to cry 
her eyes out. Scully sat heavily on the bed, pulling the woman close 
before she had the chance to think about it, to remember that this 
wasn't her sister. By the time she had, Jane's arms were wrapped 
around her waist and she was holding on so tightly that Scully could 
barely breathe.

"Oh, god, it's true," Jane moaned. "He said it once, he said she 
wasn't ours and I hit him, I was so angry."

Scully hugged the woman tighter. Too late to let go now, anyway. "Who 
said that? Tom?"

Jane pulled away, as if she had suddenly remembered that Scully was a 
stranger. She sniffed heavily, wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her 
hospital gown. 

Scully looked around for tissues, saw a box sitting over by the sink, 
and used it as an excuse to get up, to regain some kind of 
professional distance. 

"What did he say exactly?" she asked, handing the tissues to Jane. 

Jane took them and lay back on the pillows. She seemed frighteningly 
calm now, resigned to the truth, though tears ran down her paper-
skinned face.

"We were having a fight. Denise was about a year old. We had a lot of 
fights by then and we would say things...awful things. He said our 
baby was born dead." 

Jane wiped at another wave of tears, her voice sliding out of control. 
"But she looked like me. How could she look so much like me, if she 
wasn't mine?"

She sat up suddenly, staring at Scully in horror.

"Oh god, that's why my marrow wasn't any good. She needed a bone 
marrow transfusion and I wanted them to take mine but they said it 
wouldn't work, that the match wasn't right. They swore they had a 
donor, but something delayed that and she died." 

Scully shook her head. "Jane, that is not your fault. Even natural 
parents can't always donate organs to their children."

Jane's stare did not falter, did not ease one bit in intensity. "But 
still, the truth is, I wasn't her mother."

"Yes, you were." Scully heard the fierceness in her own voice, but 
couldn't stop it. "You loved her, you raised her. The other 
is...biology. Nothing more."

She turned away to stare out the window with hot eyes, arms folded 
across her chest. 

"Would you do me a favor?" Jane asked, after a moment, her voice very 
small. 

Scully took a deep breath and turned to face her. "Yes, if I can."

"Would you take me out of here? Please? I don't want to stay here 
anymore."

"I don't think I have the authority to do that. It would need to be 
someone from the San Diego police. And I'm not sure it's such a good 
idea for you to go home. The men who killed your husband--"

Scully stopped. Adding fear into the mixture was not going to help 
this woman at all. 

Jane was nodding at her as if she understood, as if she'd expected to 
hear exactly that. "I don't care if it's my house or somewhere else. 
But people keep coming past my room and looking in and hanging around 
and it's freaking me out. If I stay cooped up here with this in my 
head, I *will* need the psychiatric ward." 

Scully drew air in through her open mouth, coming back to Jane's side. 
"Has anyone tried to talk to you? Bothered you?"

Jane shook her head, eyes sliding away. "No, but I'm scared."

"Okay." Scully touched the woman's shoulder lightly, confirming her 
promise. "Okay, I'm going to get you out of here."

Jane looked up, gratefully. "I don't have any clothes though."

Scully nodded, her throat aching for no reason she could name. "I can 
take of that as well. I'll be back soon."


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SOMEWHERE EAST OF CHULA VISTA
MARCH 10TH, 1:23 AM
 

Mulder wouldn't have thought being alone in a car could give him such 
an itchy feeling, but it did. He spat a sunflower seed out the window 
because he knew Scully would make a face if she could see him, and 
filled his mouth from the bag on the passenger seat. 

His tongue and the inside of his cheeks were raw and burned from the 
salt and the scraping of the shells, but Mulder couldn't stop himself. 
He'd bought the bag on his way out of town and it was already almost 
empty. There was a wild, reckless energy burning in him, one he hadn't 
felt in a long time. It was the same energy that had fueled most of 
his wilder escapades, sending him off to stare like a loon at lights 
in the sky or track some implausible lead to Samantha. 

The difference was that normally when he hared off alone, he knew 
Scully would back him up if he could reach her. No expense spared and 
no questions asked -- at least not until he was safe and sound, or at 
least safely in the hospital, and then it would be his pleasure to lie 
there, watching her cheeks bloom and her eyes go neon blue as she 
paced before him and gave him hell. 

He missed her, goddamn it, like an an amputee misses a limb. Even when 
he was sitting in the same room with her last night, he felt like he 
had lost a piece of himself. 

Mulder pulled into the next gas station he passed, his mouth parched 
from the road and the seeds and the taste of fear. 

He should have known, he thought, paying far too much for a bottle of 
Evian and draining half of it in a gulp before he even left the store. 
The minute she kissed him, he should have known that something inside 
her had finally snapped. Scully had never been more than passingly 
attracted to him, in the way that men and women who became close 
friends often experienced moments of attraction. It was only natural. 
Certainly she, of all people, would never mistake that for something 
compelling enough to seduce him in the middle of a case. In the middle 
of this case in particular.

She wasn't herself. That was the only explanation. He should have seen 
the signs but she had been so remote for so long and then Diana had 
re-appeared and stood right in front of his face and he'd lost sight 
of Scully, had made himself deaf to anything she wanted to say.

Had she reached for him since, tried to tell him she was slipping, and 
had he ignored that as well?

He unlocked the door of the car and the empty passenger seat seemed to 
glare at him in accusation. Mulder threw the plastic bottle at it, got 
in and drove on. 


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


Scully returned half an hour later, shoving her badge under the nose 
of the uniform sitting outside Jane's room. 

"We need to talk softly," she said, shutting the door to Jane's room 
and shoving a chair under the handle. 

Scully came closer, holding on to the facade of calm with both hands. 
"I tried to get you released into my custody, but I'm getting 
stonewalled and there's no reason for it. According to the SDPD you 
are no longer a murder suspect. So. Are you brave enough to try 
something else?"

"Like what?" Jane asked, sitting up and swinging her legs over the 
side of the bed. 

"A little switch. You're going to walk out of here by yourself."

"Dressed like this?" Jane gestured to the ugly hospital gown she wore.

"Not quite." Scully patted her laptop bag, a grim smile stretching her 
lips. She opened it and drew out a handful of black silk. 

Less than fifteen minutes later, she was almost looking at herself.

"Why do you wear these things?" Jane complained, trying to stuff her 
feet into a pair of Scully's heels. "How am I going to walk out of 
here in these?"

Scully shushed her. "Just walk slow, keep your head up and look like 
you know where you're going," she advised, keeping her own voice low. 
"When you get to the elevator, press the button and just wait. Don't 
look around. One of the orderlies will come unlock the door when it 
arrives."

She handed Jane the keys to the rental. "When you get outside, you'll 
find a white Honda Civic in the second row to your left, about five 
cars along. Go out of the parking lot and make a right. Drive three 
lights and make another right and pull over. I'll find you there. 
Okay?" 

She helped Jane tuck her hair smoothly inside the jacket. Puffed 
slightly over the collar it looked like a pageboy bob, longer than her 
own but she doubted anyone would notice. 

Scully went to the uniform guarding the door, smiled nicely and handed 
him a couple of dollars to go down to the cafeteria and buy a cup of 
coffee for Mrs. Hampton. For once, the FBI badge had brought her some 
respect with a local. Or maybe the young man was just bored, but he 
nodded amiably and took off at a respectable clip. Scully watched 
until he had gone down the hall and gotten on the elevator.

"Ready?"

Jane looked at her a moment and then nodded. She straightened her 
shoulders, mimicking Scully's tense posture, lifted her head, and 
walked out the door, the laptop bag slung over her shoulder.

Ten minutes later the uniform returned, to find Scully sitting in a 
chair, calmly thumbing through one of the magazines Jane had borrowed 
from the hospital library cart. 

"Where is she?"

"Mrs. Hampton?" Scully indicated the bathroom, where water could 
clearly be heard running. "She wanted to take a shower, wash her hair. 
She should be done in about half an hour." 

She stood, tossing the magazine on the bed. "I need to get going. I 
was just waiting until you came back."

"What do I do with the coffee?"

Scully smiled sweetly as she moved out the door. "I guess she won't 
mind it cold." 


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


Jane was in the passenger seat when she got to the car, slumped down, 
her bare feet tucked beneath her and the shoes discarded on the floor. 

Scully took a moment to check the other cars around them, wishing 
desperately that she had Mulder's ability to take mental photographs. 
There was one late model sedan, dark with tinted windows, parked 
several spaces down the street. The kind of car They drove. 

Scully pulled out slowly, one eye on the rearview mirror, waiting for 
the car to start up and appear behind them. Nothing happened. Nothing 
continued to happen as she turned down one street after another, 
winding her way around until even she was lost. After a couple of 
miles or so of that non-excitement, she began to relax, enough to 
throw Jane an encouraging smile. 

Another few days like this, Scully thought, and I'll be as paranoid as 
the Gunmen. 

Jane's arms were folded tightly and she didn't smile back. She was 
upset and scared and Scully couldn't blame her. She rounded another 
corner, then pulled the car into an empty space by the curb and turned 
the engine off. She waited a moment, again watching the rearview 
mirror. No cars passed. Nothing. 

Scully rubbed her hands across her face, pressing into the ridge of 
bone above her eyes. There was the beginning of a headache thrumming 
upward from the base of her skull, the kind she usually associated 
with bending over days-old cadavers, breathing in the stink of 
decomposition overlaid with menthol. 

She leaned back against the headrest, staring down the leafy street. A 
nice, quiet street, full of nice, middle-class homes. People with 
families. Normal people. Until this week, Jane Hampton had been one of 
those. 

"Where are we going?" Jane asked quietly.

Scully glanced down at Jane's hands, twisting in her lap, and saw her 
own square palms, her own back-bending thumbs. The only difference in 
their hands were Jane's nails, bitten ragged to the tips of her 
fingers.

"First," she answered, "I think we'd better get you some other 
clothes."

She started the car again and they drove in silence as Scully tried to 
work her way back to a main thoroughfare. Find a store, get Jane 
settled, get hold of Mulder. 

She nodded to herself. That was as far as she could think at the 
moment. 

"What do I call you?" Jane said finally. "It's going to sound a bit 
stupid if I call you Agent Scully in front of other people."

Scully turned left, headed for what looked like a major intersection. 

"My name is Dana," she said. She caught Jane's arched eyebrow from the 
corner of her eye and arched her own in return. 

"What?"

"I don't know. You don't look like a Dana."

"No? What do I look like?"

Jane turned away, her face growing impassive. "I don't know," she 
answered, and fell silent again. 


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


Scully drove towards the suburbs, tensing slightly each time they 
passed a cruiser. Any one of them could be Kresge's people out looking 
for Jane. 

Then again, Kresge was off the case. It was entirely possible that no 
one would be looking for her. Only Them, whoever that was now.

At last Scully saw the kind of store they needed. 

"Target?" Jane asked, incredulous, looking at the massive storefront 
ahead of them. "I'd never have picked you for a Target shopper."

"It's got everything you need," Scully answered, finding a space and 
parking the car. "It's not a good idea to be out running around."

Jane wandered dazed through the front of the store, obviously in no 
condition to shop. Scully commandeered a cart and moved Jane through 
the aisles, picking out what she would need for the next few days. 
Socks, underwear, bra. Moving quickly through the cosmetics section, 
she chose a toothbrush for herself as well, paused by the feminine 
hygiene products. She could just imagine the commercial. What the 
smart girl packs when she's on the run. 

"Do you need anything here?" she asked Jane.

Jane stared at the shelves of tampons blankly as if she'd forgotten 
what they were for, before finally shaking her head no. 

Jane meandered off towards the clothing section leaving Scully to 
follow, tossing toothpaste and shampoo into the cart as she went.

She found Jane standing in front of a rack, holding a long woven 
cotton dress. Azure, a shade of blue Scully loved but would never dare 
to wear. Too bright, too obvious. 

"Stick with simple stuff," she said, holding out her hand to take the 
dress away. Looking at Jane holding that thing hurt. It was exactly 
the kind of flowing, princessy dress Melissa would have loved. 

Jane ignored her hand, running her fingers over the soft cotton. There 
was something in her face, some kind of odd, sad distraction, as if 
the feel of the material reminded her of something. 

"Okay, fine, take it," Scully snapped, pulling the dress out of Jane's 
hands and tossing it into the cart. She didn't have the heart or the 
patience to argue with that face.

She added a package of t-shirts and a pair of jeans, which Jane 
accepted mutely. The shoe department was their last stop, racks and 
racks of canvas and vinyl. Scully was reminded painfully of Mulder. 
Had he stood in a place like this, holding those cheap black sneakers, 
measuring so big against his palm? 

It was easier for Jane. She knew how big. Scully watched her choose a 
pair of plain white sneakers in almost the same style as the ones 
Mulder had bought for her. Her movements had slowed in the last half-
hour, become apathetic. The news, Scully thought bitterly, had finally 
hit home. 

She paid for their purchases and guided Jane out of the store and back 
to the car. 

"Where to now?" Jane asked, though her tone suggested she didn't care. 

"Somewhere that no one but Mulder can find us."

Scully put her hands on the wheel at ten and two, just like she'd been 
taught. She had always done as she'd been taught, followed orders, 
whether her father's or Skinner's or the ones she'd internalized over 
the years. The ones that said there were certain things she was never 
going to have and she was not to complain about it. Orders were orders 
and could not be questioned. 

Orders, however, could be interpreted. Like the time she'd talked 
about leaving medical school to join the police and her father ordered 
her to finish what she'd started. Well, she had finished.  Of course 
she'd transferred her specialty from surgery to forensics and if the 
FBI hadn't recruited her she would have wound up in the Coroner's 
Office doing something very similar, minus the weirdness. 

Or married to Daniel, she thought with a shiver.

"Am I in that much trouble?" Jane asked.

Scully rubbed her eyes with both hands, then put them back on the 
wheel, gripping it hard. 

"The men that came to your house, Jane. Not just that last day, but 
the times before...we have reason to believe they're part of a select 
organization operating within our government."

She glanced at Jane, who seemed to be taking this rather far-fetched 
piece of information with unusual calm.

"Okay," she said, after a moment. "But what does that have to do with 
Denise? Or Tom?"

Scully hesitated. "Tom may have been part of that," she said, as 
gently as she could. "And it may have had something to do with the 
illness that killed your daughter."

"You think Tom did that to her?"

"No," Scully said quickly. The other woman's eyes were bright with 
sudden fury, and Scully realized that no matter how careful she was, 
in this instance she could not be careful enough. It had taken her 
years to absorb some of the truths they had learned, and some of it 
she still didn't want to believe. Jane Hampton's world had already 
been all but leveled. No need to continue hurling bombs.

"No," Scully repeated, the firm quiet of her voice calling Jane's 
attention back to her. "Tom had nothing to do with Denise being ill. 
But it was her illness that brought her to the attention of those men, 
because they know what caused it."

"Could they have made her well?"

She made herself meet Jane's eyes. "No. Not as far as I know."

Scully started the car, ending the conversation. She turned right at 
the first intersection, glancing at the passing buildings as she drove 
north, the neighborhood slowly becoming familiar. She made a left, 
then a right, almost by instinct, finally recognising where she was. 
This was the neighborhood Emily had lived in, before she was taken to 
the Children's Center.

You need to go back, Melissa had said. Back to the beginning.

Scully felt her heart lurch to a stop, then start again, twice as 
fast. 


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>


SOMEWHERE NEAR SWEETWATER RESERVOIR
MARCH 10TH, 3:35 PM


Past the outskirts of Chula Vista, the land quickly became scrub 
desert and orange groves. Mulder drove along with the windows open and 
the radio on full blast. It was another small rebellion, a station 
that seemed to play endless rave and techno, one of the few forms of 
music that Scully loathed. 

He kept the map open on the passenger seat, as if she were still there 
to navigate in her usual efficient manner, one finger tracing their 
place as he drove. She would have liked this trip, he thought. It was 
hot and sunny and the wind felt like it was finally blowing some of 
the darkness of the last few days away, bringing his investigative 
instincts back to the fore.

His phone rang and he put it to his ear without turning the music 
down.

"Mulder, it's me."

"Hey, Scully. Did you know you could Rave For Days with DJ Bob?"

"Mulder, turn the radio down. This is important."

He turned it off, feeling like a fool. Their joking days were over, at 
least for a long, long while. 

"Where are you?" she continued, as soon as the excess sound was gone. 
"It sounds like you're on the freeway."

"Close. I'm in--"

"No, don't say where. I need you to call me on a land line." 

The orange grove he'd been driving past for miles gave way to a white 
stucco wall. A wall, just like the one Jane had described, the one 
he'd been looking for.

"Scully, listen, I'm kind of in the middle of something right now," he 
said hurriedly, pulling the car off the road. "You're either going to 
have to take a chance, or wait till I can call you back."

"Mulder, I have things to tell you, and I don't want to do it on the 
cell."

Mulder stopped scrabbling around for his backpack, listening closely 
now to the subtle vibration of panic beneath her voice. 

"Scully, what's up?" He tried to keep his voice as neutral as 
possible, trying to calm her without letting her know that he'd 
noticed her fear. "I can't call you back. Just tell me."

Nothing on the other end. 

"Scully?"

"The bells are ringing, Mulder. Watch your back."

"What do you mea--"

She hung up, leaving him alone, staring at the wall. 


<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>>=<<+|+>> 

END OF BOOK ONE

Thanks for traveling with me so far. The journey 
will resume again soon in Book Two.

Put a little gas in the car: fialka62@yahoo.com

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