From: Mrsblome@aol.com
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 22:52:00 EDT
Subject: A Less Certain World by Sarah Segretti
Source: direct

Title: A Less Certain World
Author: Sarah Segretti
Email: mrsblome@aol.com. 
Summary: A fragile and frightened 
Mulder, traumatized by the events of 
"Biogenesis," turns to an unexpected 
source for help.
Rating: R
Category: S, A, MSR
Spoilers: Biogenesis, mostly. Reduxes. 
Random S6.
Disclaimer: Not mine, just playing. 
Real life places, scientific journals, 
movies, sports teams and civic events 
used in a fictional way.
Archive: Submitting to Gossamer, 
anywhere else okay, just let me know.
Website: 
http://members.aol.com/mrsblome
Author's note: Someone said that I 
ought to use my artistic license before 
it's revoked. So I have altered some 
minor facts of neurology and the dates 
of real-life events to suit my 
purposes. My purposes also require that 
"Biogenesis" take place in May. This 
story takes place in late June.
Skilled, sensitive and spot-on beta by 
haphazard method and EPurSeMouve.

A Less Certain World
By Sarah Segretti
September 1999

Evening

Screw the Knicks, anyway.

The first time in five years they make 
a serious run for the title and they 
have to do it the summer I'm locked in 
a rubber room.

Scully taped every one of the games for 
me, though, bless her uninterested 
little heart. We've got Game 3 in the 
VCR now, and even though my boys 
avoided the broom this time, I know 
that Cinderella has a big crack in her 
glass slipper.

Better yet, bless Scully on general 
principles. She saved my life. She's 
helping me piece back my sanity. Funny 
how busting me out has proven to be the 
simpler of the two tasks. I still can't 
stand to be around too many people at 
once, even though it's been nearly a 
month, even though the voices are mute 
- 

"Mulder?"

She's looking at me from the end of my 
couch, where she's sitting sideways, 
her toes tucked under my thigh, 
casefile propped up against bent legs, 
reading by the failing light of a long 
summer day. I realize I'm rubbing my 
temples, and bring my hands down. One 
still holds the remote for the VCR.

"Nothing, Scully," I tell her. "Habit."

From the look she gives me, I can tell 
she doesn't believe it. She swings her 
feet to the floor, sets the file aside, 
and pats her lap. Gratefully, I rest my 
head on her thighs, sigh as I feel her 
gentle hands stroke my bristly crew 
cut.

/. as I wake to the familiar sound of 
an electric razor, feel its 
unmistakable burr on my head, feel more 
needles slide into my arm, my scalp 
before I'm awake enough to resist or to 
hear oh God no no not that not like 
Gibson Gibson was awake for *that*? And 
I try to scream to fight but I can't 
they've paralyzed me somehow oh God no 
no please anything not that shoving me 
into a chair clamps on my head the feel 
of my bare scalp parting like a zipper 
the smell of smoke you're letting that 
fucker *smoke* in here? God no stop 
please the sound of a saw an electric 
saw ./

The sobs well up without warning. I 
turn so that my face is half-buried in 
her lap, and the terror washes over me 
once more. Distantly, I hear the low 
murmuring of the post-game show click 
off. The remembered sound of the saw -- 
the saw they would have used to cut my 
skull open had not Scully arrived at 
that moment -- still buzzes in my 
brain. Scully hunches over me, gathers 
me into her arms as best she can.

I would be dead without her.

* * *

When I finally open my eyes again, the 
apartment is dark. Soft lips press just 
above my left ear. "You're doing 
better, Mulder," Scully whispers, her 
mouth forming a small smile against my 
cropped hair. "That one only lasted 
about half an hour."

A few cracks about length and stamina 
and endurance cross my raw and bleeding 
mind, but I'm too exhausted to organize 
them into a sentence. "Stop keeping 
score, Scully. I've already done the 
lab rat thing."

"Sorry." She kisses me again and sits 
up. I know her. She'll still keep 
track, but she'll keep the results to 
herself. There's a lot she's still 
keeping to herself - to protect me, I 
think, the way I used to protect her 
from things I thought she didn't need 
to know.

I would smile at the irony of that, 
except that I think I do need that 
protection.

She's tracing her fingertips up and 
down my spine, soothing me. I close my 
eyes, marveling at her touch. Some days 
it's all that holds me together. 

Last week she thought I was ready for 
"The Phantom Menace" - she knew I'd 
wanted to go on Opening Day. I missed 
that, too. But even though she took 
every precaution to minimize contact 
with people - an early afternoon show, 
on a weekday, even bypassing the 
comfortable new theater near my 
apartment at Potomac Yards for an 
older, less popular one in Arlington - 
I didn't even make it to the pod race. 
The theater was only half full, but 
that was still too many people. I 
couldn't hear them, but I could feel 
the weight of their thoughts pressing 
against my mind and the weight of all 
the people in the nearby office towers 
and government buildings and even the 
jail across the street and I couldn't 
hear them but I felt like I was about 
to - I barely made it to her car before 
I broke down. Scully found me huddled 
on the pavement near the open door to 
her passenger seat, the awful sounds I 
was making echoing through the parking 
garage. 

"It's all right, Mulder. Nobody likes 
this movie the first time they see it. 
And Jar Jar does grow on you."

In spite of myself, I laughed through 
my terror, and then I cried into her 
shoulder for a good hour anyhow.

"Mulder. Mulder, look at me."

I shift so that the back of my head 
rests on her thighs. Paradise is only a 
few centimeters to my left, but that's 
out of the question as well. We've 
tried. I can't. We'd only had a few 
nights together before this happened, 
starting with one glorious evening of 
batting practice; we rounded second on 
the field and completed the play at 
home. Making love was a new and 
wondrous experience for us then, would 
be that way still except that now I 
carry memories of trauma so close to 
the surface that any strong emotion, 
good or bad, brings the fear bubbling 
up every time. I can't suppress it, no 
matter how I try.

In a way, they've taken Scully from me 
again.

She turns on the reading lamp next to 
the couch, and I blink against the 
light as it hits my eyes. "Mulder," she 
says. "It's not going to happen again. 
I've made sure of that. You're safe 
now."

How can you be so sure? I wonder, but 
there's a thread of steel in her voice 
that makes me believe. She's done 
something. She knows something. She 
radiates something new.

Power.

Somehow Scully won this battle, and 
with it, brought us a step closer to 
winning the war. I don't know how. I'll 
find out eventually.

My Scully, large and in charge.

She smiles at me, and I realize I've 
been glowing up at her. We stay like 
that for a while, taking nourishment 
from each other's gaze. She slips one 
hand into mine, entwining her fingers 
with mine. "Want to watch the next 
game?"

I shake my head, my hair whispering 
against her khaki pants. "I know who 
wins."

For a moment, I almost hear her 
thinking: How did you know that? I 
didn't tell you. The terror threatens 
again, but I manage to calm myself 
before she notices. This is Scully. 
I've always known how she thinks. It's 
okay.

"One of the orderlies was a Spurs fan. 
He'd just won a couple hundred bucks in 
the hospital pool," I tell her, and 
feel her relax. "He was so pleased with 
himself that he was gloating to 
everyone. Even me."

Her lips twitch, but she doesn't really 
smile. Her gaze drifts far away. I 
twist and glance at the clock on my 
desk - getting near 10. She's probably 
thinking about her next steps, about 
whatever it is she's been reading in 
that unlabeled case file. Late at night 
is when she does her work. I fall 
asleep every night listening to her 
quiet murmurs on the newly secure phone 
the Gunmen rigged for her, to the 
gentle clack of computer keys as she 
searches and chats. So much better than 
my first few days free, when she was 
rarely around, when I felt like I was 
going to die from the twin onslaughts 
of drug withdrawal and the still-
present ability to read others' 
thoughts. I almost hated her then, for 
abandoning me. Now I am grateful that 
she's here, that she's still focused on 
saving me.

When she's working, the apartment takes 
on the thrum and energy of a fully-
staffed command center. A war room.

When she's done, she slips into my bed 
and lets me feed off that energy, a 
recharger for my leaking mental 
battery. We wake with me wrapped so 
tightly around her that it couldn't 
possibly be comfortable. Beyond 
spooning. More of a weld, I think.

We are quiet for a while. I can hear 
traffic from the street below, the last 
flights approaching National for the 
night, the faint murmur of my 
neighbor's television, the ding of the 
elevator arriving down the hall.

Scully's breathing.

Nothing else. Thank God. Although the 
fear that the silenced voices will 
return fills my every waking moment and 
a few of my sleeping ones, I am slowly 
making up my mind that I want to know 
how Scully did it, how she switched 
those terrible voices off.

Silence. I'd missed that. I luxuriate 
in it, watching Scully's face. She's 
far away, thinking. I want her back.

It takes every ounce of energy I've got 
left, but I sit up, and maneuver her so 
that her back is against my chest. Her 
shoulders are halfway to her ears, and 
they feel like stone. I'm so tired, but 
I can at least rub her neck for her. 

"Hey, Scully?"

"Yeah, Mulder?"

"Why is it that when I go to the ends 
of the earth for you, I wind up at the 
South Pole, and when you go to the ends 
of the earth for me, you get to go to 
the beach?"

"Well, it wasn't any fun," she informs 
me primly, striking precisely the right 
note. "I got sunburned."

"I got frostbite." I slip my thumbs 
under the chain of her crucifix, knead 
the base of her neck, avoiding her 
scar. Her head lolls to one side.

"You weren't alone." Her voice changes, 
blurs, as my hands move outside her 
shirt and down her back.

"You were unconscious." My fingers 
accidentally brush the extreme outer 
edges of her breasts through her shirt, 
and she gasps with unexpected, 
unmistakable pleasure. Dangerous 
territory. I pull back, focus again on 
those taut shoulders.

Her eyes close as I work out the knots, 
and she lets her head fall back onto my 
chest. Conscious thought is clearly 
fleeing her mind, but she valiantly 
tries to keep playing the game. "At 
least this time I got to see the -"

She cuts herself off, her eyes snapping 
open, as if she's said too much.

I freeze.

"The what, Scully?"

She licks her bottom lip, won't look at 
me.

"The *what*, Scully?" Suddenly I'm 
kneeling on the couch next to her, 
spinning her around to face me. My 
hands close tight around her upper 
arms. She still won't meet my eyes. 
"The *spaceship*?"

She swallows hard. "You're not ready to 
hear all this, Mulder."

"The *spaceship*??" It's the voice I 
use to hector doctors, to interrogate 
suspects, to harangue review boards. 
She knows it, and it makes her angry.

"A craft of undetermined origin."

My need for information, no matter how 
damaging, overrides every rational 
thought I'd had earlier about needing 
her protection. "How could you keep 
something that important from me? You 
should have told me!"

"When?" Her eyes flash and flare at me. 
"When you were going through 
barbiturate withdrawal at the Gunmen's 
or during the five minutes you have 
between crying jags?"

I suck in my breath, her words slicing 
through me. And I'm casting about for a 
response when the first explosion hits. 
Instinctively I grab Scully, throw her 
face down on the couch, fling myself 
over her as she gasps in surprise.  A 
second explosion, and I clutch at her, 
moaning in fear. She's wriggling 
underneath me, calling my name and 
something more. I'm too far gone to 
hear her, too busy praying I can 
protect her to listen.

A sharp elbow in the ribs clears some 
of the confusion from my head. 
"Mulder!" Scully shouts. "Fireworks! 
The waterfront festival! Remember?"

Oh, God. Oh, my God. She's right. Less 
than two miles away, tens of thousands 
of heat-stroked, half-drunk revelers 
are taking part in a summertime 
tradition that's been going on as long 
as I've lived here. And as soon as I 
think about all those people, I begin 
to feel the pressure again. Scully 
maneuvers under me so that we're face 
to face. I'm way beyond smart comments 
- I just collapse on top of her and 
break down again. Her arms snake around 
my neck and hold me tight.

"Oh, Mulder," she sighs in my ear. 
"We've got to find a way to stop this."

All I can do is nod helplessly, 
shuddering against her with the force 
of my out-of-control emotions.

* * * 

Eventually Scully puts me to bed, 
helping me out of my sweatpants, 
finding a new T-shirt to replace the 
one I'd used as a handkerchief. She 
kneels at my side, brushing her fingers 
over my hair in a way that had always 
given me pleasant shivers before.

Before. Before.

I'd always been so resilient before. 
Hypothermia, gunshot wounds, beatings, 
alien retroviruses, you name it, I've 
recovered from it.

Why can't I recover from this?

"Mulder," Scully whispers, pauses. "I'm 
sorry - what I said -"

Control. Come on, Mulder, you can do 
this. I stop the rest of her sentence 
with fingertips that tremble only 
slightly. "Don't. I'm fine." She 
recognizes this for the lie that it is, 
but accepts it at face value, the way I 
always did with her. "Now get to work. 
I can't sleep unless I hear you 
working."

Under my fingers I feel her almost 
smile. She takes my hand and kisses my 
palm. I let my eyes drift shut, and I 
try not to think about crafts of 
undetermined origin. Her mouth moves 
against my palm again, but it's not a 
kiss. She's whispering something. Odd.

"What is it, Scully?" I ask.

I get a soft, almost bashful look. 
"'Protect him, God, and keep him 
safe,'" she says. "I ask that for you 
every night."

Under normal circumstances, I would 
have snorted, would have teased her 
about turning to faux talismen, would 
have scoffed at the one thing she'll 
believe in without proof. Tonight, I am 
stunned that she even admitted it to 
me, and touched beyond words.

Man, I am messed up.

"Get some rest, Mulder," she murmurs. 
"I love you."

With that final benediction, I sleep.

* * *

The change in her voice is what wakes 
me later. It's Dana I hear, not Agent 
Scully, not even Scully.

"I thought so, but now I'm not so sure. 
No, just twice. But - Exactly. I don't 
know if it's coming back, or if he's 
just afraid it will."

I don't know either, Scully. Are you 
telling this to someone who can help 
me?

She listens for a while, and when she 
speaks, her voice is low, anguished, 
shocking. I've never heard her like 
this.

"He's starting to scare me, Byers."

My mind goes white with fear. 

"Yeah, I've thought about that, too. 
No, you guys did everything you could. 
You did great." Silence. I am 
paralyzed, listening. "Yeah, I think 
so. I'll call him in the morning. All 
right then, if you want to get 
technical, when the sun comes up. 
Goodnight, Byers."

She hangs up. I wait for her to dial 
again, to type some more, but instead I 
hear the unmistakable electronic whine 
of a Windows shutdown. The faint light 
from the living room dims further as 
she turns off the monitor. And then 
there is another, muffled sound that 
only adds to my fear.

I've seen Scully sob in relief, I've 
seen her silently spill over with 
emotion, but I've never heard this 
quiet, desperate weeping before. I have 
the awful feeling that this isn't new 
for her, that it's just the first time 
I've overheard her.

/Yeah, I've thought about that, too./

The echo of her words sends a chill 
through me. I can't imagine - I don't 
want to know. This is just a 
particularly bad case of post-traumatic 
stress syndrome.

Isn't it?

I start to shake, and I curl up under 
the covers like a waterbug that's been 
poked. But I can't cry this time. I 
won't. Not when Scully's upset. Be 
strong for her, be calm for her. Let 
her have her moment. I would say that I 
couldn't imagine what this is like for 
her, except that I can - I lived 
through her cancer. I remember putting 
on the brave face, smiling and saying 
reassuring things when all I wanted to 
do was dissolve in grief. I remember 
the desperation and the need to do 
something to help. And I remember one 
terrible night at her bedside, when I 
thought I'd run out of answers, sobbing 
silently for the woman I loved.

Dammit, I'm going to do it again.

* * *

I don't know if she ever came to bed; 
she's not there when I wake up. 
Fighting a surge of panic - she *does* 
occasionally get up before I do -- I 
sit up to regain my bearings. Someone's 
here ... 

... but it's not Scully.

The footsteps I hear in the kitchen are 
heavier, there's soft music coming from 
the stereo in my living room instead of 
NPR, there's no smell of coffee filling 
my apartment. She always makes coffee 
in the morning. Quietly I slide open 
the drawer of my nightstand, pull out 
the gun Scully forbade me to use after 
a couple of episodes where she says she 
found me just staring into space, a 
blank slate. I don't remember doing 
that, and I talked her into reluctantly 
giving me access to my weapon for 
emergencies. Looks like I was right. 
The gun feels heavy and cool in my 
hand. I missed it.

Barefoot, wearing only the T-shirt and 
boxers I slept in, I pad to the door of 
my room, gun held ready at my ear. I'm 
on automatic, full federal agent mode, 
and as I sneak to my kitchen, I feel 
good.

I feel normal.

"Freeze!" I shout and point my gun at 
the man in my kitchen.
There's a crash, and an oath, and Byers 
spins to glare at me. 

"Jesus, Mulder!"

"Byers!" I'm almost disappointed. 
Shooting one of those bastards would 
have really hit the spot. I lower the 
gun. "Where's Scully?"

"She had some - business to attend to." 
He's down on the floor picking up the 
shattered pieces of the mug he dropped. 
I catch his hesitation, and get the 
feeling he's glad he has somewhere else 
to look besides at me. /Byers, it's 
Byers, you know him too. You're not 
reading his mind./ I rub the heel of my 
hand from the bridge of my nose to my 
hairline, find a chair and sit heavily 
down, sliding the gun away from me on 
my table.

Byers dumps the shards of mug into the 
trash. I pre-empt his question. He 
doesn't have the best poker face. "I'm 
fine." He looks worried. I ignore it. 
"So you pulled baby-sitting duty?"

"Babysitters get paid better than 
this." The teakettle whistles, and he 
plucks it off the stove to prepare the 
tea. "Want some?"

"Tea's a girly drink, Byers." It's his 
turn to ignore me. Langly gives him 
shit on this particular subject 
constantly. "I see you got the memo on 
casual Friday."

Confused, he glances down at himself 
while I get up to get myself some 
orange juice. His coat and vest are 
hanging over the back of one of my 
kitchen chairs - he has rolled back his 
sleeves and loosened his tie. After a 
second, he gets it.

"It's Saturday, Mulder. You know, I 
don't have to stay."

"Oh, yes, you do, or Scully will kick 
your ass again."

Byers actually pales. Goddamn, this 
feels good, ribbing the poor guy the 
way I used to. Did Scully slip me 
something before she left? This can't 
possibly last. Yet I still feel like 
doing a little victory dance and 
upending my jug of Sunny D onto Byers' 
head. Put that down in your little 
notes, man, and take it back to the 
Ubercommander. I'm fucking *fine*.

And then I see it on the counter next 
to Byers' cooling mug of tea.

The unmarked file.

/A craft of undetermined origin./

It looks thicker than the night before. 
I glance up to meet Byers' eyes to find 
a cautious, worried gaze that I've seen 
only in times of great stress . or 
danger.

Without taking his eyes off me, Byers 
puts his fingertips on the file and 
slides it towards me. My legs feel like 
jelly, and I have to lean against the 
counter. "I'm guessing that's not the 
breakfast menu," I tell him.

Byers' expression doesn't change. 
Scully would at least have given me the 
courtesy of a raised eyebrow. "Agent 
Scully and I talked about it this 
morning, and we agreed it's time you 
got the overview."

/He's starting to scare me, too./

Neither of us says anything for a 
minute. The music-you-can-listen-to-at-
work that Byers inexplicably likes 
filters in from the living room. The 
refrigerator hums behind me, like the 
unheard thoughts of my neighbors. It's 
hard to breathe. Everything I ever 
wanted, or nothing I really need to 
know. The truth, versus my sanity. This 
is not as easy a call as I thought it 
would be.

"Can't you just read me the good 
parts?"

"No, you should read it for yourself."

By myself is more like it. I don't 
think so. "Byers, tell me where Scully 
is." I am ashamed at how shaky my voice 
suddenly sounds.

"I can't, Mulder." He tries to smile. 
"I still haven't paid off my Vegas 
debt."

This is absurd. "Who died and made 
Scully queen, huh?" I shout, temper 
flaring out of nowhere, out of fear. 
"Who are you loyal to, anyway, her or - 
"

Me, I was going to say, but the 
flashback smacks me right back into 
captivity, and I'm shouting those exact 
words at . Diana? Skinner? Someone I 
know . and my hands are at my temples 
again and I'm sitting in a ball on my 
kitchen floor trying to squeeze out the 
memories, concentrating. Concentrating. 
Not in front of Byers. Not in front of 
Byers. Not again.

"Mulder?" he says uncertainly.

I manage to hold myself mostly 
together. "Give me a minute 
here," I choke out, my face buried in 
my knees. And he does. I hear him 
slowly backing away. "I think I'd 
rather shower and get some breakfast 
before I start reading that file, 
okay?"

"Okay." He slips away before I crack.

Scully, I think, rocking back and forth 
on the floor, my arms wrapped around my 
shins. Scully, come home.

Once, just once, I want to hear a voice 
in my head.

Why couldn't the damn God module have 
come with a transmit function?

* * *

This is the fourth time I've read the 
file through.

It's hard to believe Scully wrote this.

How many times have I heard her 
arguments against just this 
possibility?

/Logically, I would have to say no./

/The very idea of intelligent alien 
life is not only astronomically 
improbable but at its most basic level 
downright anti-Darwinian./

/That is science fiction. It doesn't 
hold a drop of water./

Guess this one bit her in the ass.

That's not fair. I rub my hands over 
what hair I have left. Christ, it's 
cold in here. Byers must have cranked 
up the a/c when I was reading this . 
this . *This*. He's in my living room, 
on the phone with Langly about story 
placement and headline size and jumps. 
Must be deadline time at Lone Gunman 
Publications. Life goes on.

It's cold in here, but I'm sweating.

Scully wrote this. I recognize her 
voice. Crisp and clear, even with the 
medico-legal jargon she's forced to use 
in the reports we write for the Bureau. 
She lays out her findings as if she 
were writing for the New England 
Journal of Medicine. Abstract, methods, 
results, discussion, references. 
Evidence so good that neither a panel 
of scientists peer-reviewing it before 
publication nor Johnnie fucking Cochran 
could poke holes in it. She couldn't 
even poke holes in it, and it reads as 
though she tried awfully hard.

"Based on the evidence, we conclude 
that the structure is made of materials 
unrecognizable to experts in 
metallurgy, chemistry, polymer and 
plastics technology and avionics, and 
that we must begin to consider the 
possibility that the structure 
originated from an extraterrestrial 
location."

It's cold, and I'm sweating. I stand 
up. I pace around the kitchen. I sit 
down. I get up. I'm shaking, but I walk 
in circles. I can't stop moving.

The file, for all its size, is not 
complete. There's nothing in it about 
me. There are no photos of the 
artifact. There's no indication of what 
Scully's working on now.

Scully. She -

I can't say it. The thought is too 
enormous.

For me, too simple. Another theory I'd 
willingly absorb as easily as last 
night's box scores. I accept, and 
Scully disproves, or at least makes me 
prove. I've bought into stranger ideas 
before breakfast. But she doesn't. She 
never - that's how I knew I was 
hallucinating in North Carolina a few 
weeks ago. Scully believed.

Scully believes.

She *believes.*

The tectonic plates of my worldview 
shift beneath my feet. I am Pangaea, 
shattering into pieces.

Who's going to tell me I'm crazy now? I 
need someone who'll tell me I'm crazy.

I sink into a chair, my fingers 
pressing into my temples again. 

This is. It's. Too much. Proof. Belief. 
Support. I'm not used to having that. 

Voices. Murmuring, whispering.

Oh, God, no, not now, don't let it 
start again.

My feet make the decision my mind 
cannot, and I flee.
The heat outside my apartment hits me 
like a hot, sodden blanket. The air is 
too thick and dirty to breathe. But I 
run anyway. I have no idea if Byers 
noticed, I don't know if there are 
enemies lying in wait for me, I don't 
care.

I just run.

Past the half-million dollar 
townhouses, past half a dozen Robert E. 
Lee memorials, through the tourists 
clogging the sidewalk outside Ben & 
Jerry's. I nearly knock over an 
overweight cyclist who can't get his 
foot into his toeclip, and I don't 
care. I've got to run. Away? Towards 
something? I don't know. Voices. Again. 
People everywhere, brought to you by 
the alien culture that my skeptical 
partner unexpectedly believes in.

I'm soaked with sweat and maybe with 
tears and my chest hurts and I stop, 
bending over to catch my breath, my 
hands on my knees. Praying I just look 
like a guy who's stupid enough to go 
out for an innocent run in the midst of 
a Code Red ozone alert, I crouch there 
for a minute and let the tears flow.

And as I do, as people bump into me and 
apologize, my surroundings begin to 
come into focus. People, sounds, 
voices, everywhere - because I've 
plunged myself into the middle of the 
waterfront festival.

Oh, Christ, what have I done? I feel 
dizzy, and it's not entirely from the 
heat. How the hell did I - I'm at least 
two miles from home, and I'm too 
exhausted and hot to walk back. No 
wallet, no cell phone. Lord only knows 
where the nearest pay phone is. All 
these people - my hands go 
automatically to my temples. Not now. 
Please leave me alone, please stay away 
.

My chest grows even tighter, and I 
whirl about, searching for a space 
where I can't be surrounded. I know 
this park, I've run through it a 
million times and today somehow I can't 
get my bearings on where I am. There 
are too many people. The weight of 
their unheard thoughts is crushing. Not 
knowing what else to do, I edge away 
from what I think is the core of the 
crowd. Alone, God, I'm so alone - and 
then I simultaneously slip on something 
and catch a noseful of dead fish and 
sewage. The river. The sluggish, 
brackish, evaporating Potomac. Yes. Sit 
by the river and they can't surround 
me. Yes.

Stumbling a little - maybe it is the 
heat, or maybe the roots sticking out 
of the desiccated earth - I find a 
riverside tree that miraculously no one 
has claimed and stake out territory 
underneath it.

The bass thud of the oldies band on the 
stage a few hundred feet away 
reverberates in my aching chest. 
Somebody's got a churros booth nearby, 
and the smell of the frying dough makes 
me nauseous. That's just what I need, 
to get sick. People are going to notice 
*that.*

Oh, Scully, where are you? Come and get 
me, please, now, I need you. I won't be 
able to do this alone for long -

/Protect him, God, and keep him safe./

The words resonate so strongly in my 
head that I shudder with both relief 
and fear, and I actually look up to see 
if she's nearby. No. No mindreading. 
Just a memory, a selective spark of a 
synapse. My brain speaks fluent Scully. 
That little mantra is something she'd 
probably be thinking now, I hope, 
something that would help her stay calm 
as she searches for me.

Someone tosses a beer cup onto the 
precarious stack of garbage spilling 
out of the trash can a few feet away, 
and I start at the sound. Too close. 
People coming too close.

I put my head down on my knees and hug 
my shins tightly, and I plead with 
Scully's God to help me through this, 
to keep these people's thoughts away 
from me, to keep me together until she 
finds me.

She'll find me.

* * *

Time passes, although I couldn't tell 
you how much. The bands change, once, 
twice, I lose track. The noise of the 
crowd ebbs and flows. The psychologist 
part of my brain whispers to me, "Fugue 
state," but the voice is soft and hard 
to hear. The internal alarm that 
sometimes takes on my partner's voice 
warns, "Heat stroke," but there's 
nothing I can do about that, not 
without getting up and asking people 
for help. The shade protects me not at 
all - I can feel my scalp burning 
through the short, useless hair.

I am about to offer up another plea to 
Scully's God, the one I don't believe 
in, when I feel a change in the shade, 
sense behind my tightly closed eyes a 
decrease in the light.

I turn my head just enough to crack 
open one eye.

The cavalry has arrived.

All I can see from this angle is a pair 
of bare knees I'd recognize anywhere; 
the left one still bears a healing scar 
on the outside of the kneecap from 
where she'd nicked herself shaving the 
other day. It must be awfully fucking 
hot if *she's* wearing shorts, I think 
dully.

I hear the unmistakable rustle of a 
plastic grocery bag, and something 
moderately heavy hits the ground next 
to me. Scully just stands there. 
"Mulder. What the hell were you 
thinking?"

She's angry and frightened and relieved 
all at once. I can hear it in her voice 
without looking at her. I twist my head 
again, so I can see more of her. Even 
in my haze I can see the strong 
emotions dancing just below the surface 
of her face. Something clicks in my 
head, a relay connects, and I'm able to 
speak.

"Awwww, Mom, you said I could play 
outside when I was done with Mr. Byers' 
homework."

"Mulllllder." But I can hear that I've 
taken the edge off the situation. Guess 
I haven't completely lost my touch. In 
mock annoyance, she nudges my hip with 
the toe of a chunky black sandal - her 
Scientific Spice shoes, I called them 
once, and nearly caught one in the 
forehead for my trouble - and then 
crouches down beside me. I'd pick up my 
head to see her better, but I'm too 
woozy. Her fingertips burn on the back 
of my neck. She sighs. "I'm going to 
pour some water down your neck. It 
should help."

It's not even cold - she must have just 
grabbed it from the soda aisle at the 
Giant - but it races down my back like 
an icy river, and I nearly jump to my 
feet from the shock. She cracks open a 
second bottle, and does it again. 
"Drink this," she orders, and hands me 
another. I obey her.

"God, Mulder, what were you thinking?" 
she says again, although even in my 
stupor I can tell she doesn't expect an 
answer. "All those drugs - we have no 
idea what they did to your body, your 
heart - " Her voice catches. My hand 
drifts to my chest. I'd thought that 
was just from the smog. "Monday we're 
going to get you checked out."

I shudder. The first time she suggested 
seeing a doctor, I'd panicked myself 
nearly into a seizure. But she's right. 
I've stalled this moment long enough. 

"Keep drinking," she says, and pours 
more water right over my head.

We do this for a couple more minutes, 
until her six-pack is empty, and it 
dawns on me that what may have saved me 
from a full-scale freak-out this time 
was incipient heat stroke. It also 
dawns on me, once the wooziness clears 
enough for me to actually lift my head 
for more than a second, that Scully, as 
far as I can tell, is alone.

"Where's Byers?"

"Still at the apartment. He said he was 
on the phone when he heard the door 
slam, and you were gone."

Byers. Dammit. There weren't any 
voices, it was Byers on the phone. I 
hate this. I'm sick of this. My eyes 
sting as if I'm going to cry again, but 
I'm too beat to even sob properly. A 
few meager tears leak out, and Scully 
touches one, tracing its path down my 
face.

"How'd you find me?" I ask her weakly.

She gives me an enigmatic smile. "I was 
psychic long before you were." While I 
gape at her, she stands, balances the 
empty water bottles on top of the trash 
can, and extends a hand. "We need to 
get to the car."

I let her pull me to my feet and lead 
me through the throngs. My brain has 
pretty much shut down, whether from the 
heat or the stress, it's hard to tell, 
and I'm actually able to ignore the 
thousands of minds around me. Instead, 
I just watch Scully, who's a step or 
two ahead of me although she's holding 
my hand. I can see the outline of a 
dark sleeveless T-shirt underneath her 
loose, open white blouse - I can also 
see the lump at the small of her back 
that is most likely her weapon. Her 
phone is at her hip, along with another 
gadget I don't recognize. 

We thread through the barricades into 
the restricted parking lot. Scully's 
car is nestled between a brown 
sheriff's car and a white city police 
car.

A sweaty Alexandria cop tips his hat to 
us. "Looks like you got your man, Agent 
Scully."

"Thank you so much for your help, 
Officer Moran." I swear she twinkles at 
him. "And thank you so much for keeping 
it quiet."

The cop gives me a look filled with 
bathos and pity, an expression so 
appalling that it cuts through my 
mental murk. In the car, I immediately 
turn to Scully, baffled. "What the hell 
did you tell him?"

Scully is intent on backing out and 
avoiding sunstroked drunks. She doesn't 
look at me. "I told him that my 
mentally challenged cousin wandered off 
from the family picnic and that 
uniforms scared him."

"Thanks a *lot.*"

"I thought you'd appreciate having your 
name kept off the police scanner."

That much is true. Scully maneuvers 
down Lee, back towards my apartment. 
She has fallen silent, and I recognize 
her mood: she's dying to dress me down 
for my stupidity, but her compassionate 
nature won't let her ream me out when 
I'm not 100 percent. St. Scully and 
Boss Scully are at war again. Maybe it 
wouldn't be so bad to be able to read 
her mind, I muse. At least then I'd get 
a heads up on which Scully to expect.

While she decides who gets to speak, I 
pick up the mysterious gadget, which 
she's stashed in the brakewell between 
our seats. It looks for all the world 
like a GPS. My stomach sinks. "How 
*did* you find me, Scully?" I ask 
softly.

She sighs. There's an uncomfortably 
long pause. "There's a transmitter in 
your left shoe, under the swoosh."

"You *bugged* me? What the hell for?"

She comes to a full stop at the sign 
instead of her usual rolling 
rationalization, and gives me the 
dirtiest Look I've ever seen. Oops, 
Boss Scully won. My brain chides my 
mouth for saying moronic things without 
consulting it first. 

"Gee, Mulder, why do you think -" she 
begins, but her phone rings, and I'm 
spared the rest of the lecture. 
"Scully. Hi, Frohike. No, I've got him. 
Except for a touch of heat stroke, I 
think he's fine. No," she says, a touch 
of marvel in her voice. "I don't think 
he did."

I'm not sure I like the way she's 
looking at me, as if her rat got to the 
end of the maze first. The car behind 
us beeps, and Scully accelerates. My 
stomach feels like it's been left in 
the back seat. There's a reason I do 
most of the driving.

"Yes, the festival," she's saying. 
"Exactly. Looks like you did some good 
work today, Hickey." She chuckles, a 
low, throaty sound that is incredibly 
disturbing combined with her use of his 
new nickname. Another weird Vegas 
leftover. "No, *our* kung fu is the 
best. Tell Byers he's off the hook. 
Right."

And she hangs up. All this talk of 
transmitters and kung fu - and I know 
what Frohike means by that; it's a 
hacker term - is making me very, very 
uneasy. So is Scully's silence. Even 
the voices would be welcome at this 
point.

"Scully?"

"Hmm?"

I hesitate. "You are going to tell me 
the whole story, aren't you?"

"When we get home," she answers 
absently, her attention appropriately 
focused on the tourists and cyclists 
drifting carelessly in and out of the 
street in front of us. I swallow hard, 
my shoulders tensing. No going back 
now. But then she sighs again. There's 
something about her face. Her words 
from last night come back to me.

"I scared you, didn't I?"

No one else would notice the twitch of 
fear that passes across her impassive 
face. "Yes," she admits.

My eyes fill, but I will them not to 
spill over. "I scare you, don't I?" I 
whisper.

Another stop sign. My building is in 
sight. "Yes," she says.

I reach for her hand, grasp it and 
hold, but I can't look at her. I need 
to prepare to hear the truth.

* * *

We are alone again, Byers and Frohike 
reassured that I'm all right then sent 
packing. The Ubercommander ordered me 
to take a shower while she dealt with 
her lieutenants, and when I'm done I 
find her waiting for me, sitting on my 
bed with her back against the 
headboard, knees drawn to her chest, 
bare unpolished toes pointed in my 
direction. I dig up a clean T-shirt and 
shorts, and dressed again, flop down 
across the foot of the bed on my back, 
one forearm covering my eyes as a 
shield.

"Lay it on me," I tell her.

She stretches out one foot and gently 
spreads her toes across my hip, a 
little caress. "Some of this might not 
be easy for you to hear."

I squeeze her toes, then let go. "I 
know."

"Okay." She draws back her foot. "Where 
do you want me to begin?"

"Start with the kung fu."

"Okay." She takes a breath. "You 
remember Chuck's assessment of the 
artifact - that it could be an example 
of a magic square, something that 
conferred power to the person whose 
name correlated to the numerical 
sequences within the square." 

"Right." I also remember the pain in my 
head from exposure to a mere photograph 
of a rubbing of the thing, and I 
squeeze my arm tighter over my eyes.

"Dr. Sandoz discovered that the writing 
on it, in addition to the Genesis 
verses, contained genomic information. 
He was convinced that whoever created 
the artifact had unlocked the key to 
human life, had decoded the blueprint 
that makes us what we are."

"Holy shit," I exclaim. My arm comes 
off my face, and I sit up. "Aliens know 
our genome? But they would, wouldn't 
they, after all these years, after all 
those experiments - "

Scully gives me a sad little smile, and 
I realize that I've reacted the way I 
would have . before. And just as she 
would have before, she waves her hands 
in an effort to stop me. "Mulder, 
Mulder. As much as I enjoy having that 
particular argument with you, you're 
off track." She holds up a hand before 
I can say anything else. "Sandoz 
thought the artifact contained *the* 
human genome, but he was wrong. The 
parts we found contained pieces of an 
individual genome. Yours."

"What?" That wasn't what I expected. 
"How?"

She shrugs. "Easy. You've had countless 
blood draws in countless hospitals 
across the country, you've had missing 
time, you've had your memory wiped, God 
only knows what they did to you in 
Russia. They could have gotten genetic 
material from you in any number of 
ways. For all I know, your father gave 
them a lock of your hair when you were 
born."

That knocks me back. I can't say 
anything. I don't know what to say. My 
closed eyes sting. Not now. Not until 
she's finished.

"So," she continues, her soft voice 
acknowledging that her words had been 
rough, "Chuck and I figured that 
someone designed the artifact 
specifically to affect you."

Part of me wants to make a joke - who 
are you, and what have you done with my 
partner? - but a much larger part of me 
is just plain gasping for air. This is 
crazy, this is nuts, I can't believe 
I'm hearing this -

"I know," she says. "Feels odd on the 
other side of the fence, doesn't it?"

"Hey, I'm the mindreader here," I 
grouse absently, still processing her 
information.

"But it was the only conclusion we 
could draw based on the evidence. 
Circumstantial evidence, to be sure, 
but good enough to take it to a grand 
jury, if this were a normal crime."

A million questions crowd my aching 
mind. The first one that pops out of my 
mouth is "Why?"

"That we haven't quite figured out," 
she admits. "But their motive was far 
less important to me than finding a 
cure for you."

Something catches in my throat, and 
emotion threatens again. Our roles have 
been well and truly reversed. I find 
myself hoping selfishly that she felt 
one-half this loved when I showed up in 
her hospital room with that chip from 
the Pentagon's basement.

"So you smashed the damn thing to 
pieces and all is right with my mind."

"Well, no." Her words make my heart 
lurch with fear. "I wanted to, Mulder, 
oh, God, how I wanted to. And I wanted 
to use CGB's head to do it, too. But 
what good would that have done? Who 
knows how many copies they have, how 
many rubbings, how many photos?"

I feel sick.

"So we, ah, overwrote the code."

This takes a moment to settle in, and 
when it does, I feel even sicker. 

"You hacked my *brain*?"

Scully winces. "I wouldn't put it 
*that* way. We found a way to 
neutralize the effects of the artifact 
that seems to have worked, and we went 
with it."

"'We?'"

"Frohike, Chuck and I. We did most of 
the work at Chuck's. We couldn't have 
copies of the artifact at the Gunmen's 
while you were there."

That explains why she hadn't always 
been around at the beginning. This is 
an explanation I can accept. Hell, it's 
more explanation than she ever got from 
me.

"We reworked the code a little bit 
today to make it more airtight," she's 
saying. "It might have helped at the 
festival. Or you might just be getting 
over the fear."

Or your God might just have heard me, I 
think, but I don't tell her that.

Her eyes unexpectedly shift away from 
me. My throat tightens. "Scully -" I 
reach over and guide her chin so that 
she's looking at me again. "You're 
leaving something out. Don't leave 
anything out."

Her eyelids flutter, and to my horror, 
her eyes well up.

"Oh, my God, Scully, what?" My voice 
cracks. Something occurs to me, and my 
hand flies to the back of my neck. 
"They left something behind?"

Shock crosses her face, as though this 
woman on a second chip of her own 
actually hadn't considered the 
possibility. Then she blinks and shakes 
her head. "No, Mulder. I looked. I know 
your scars. I saw nothing new. And your 
blood work in the hospital showed 
nothing I considered unusual."

So I escaped Skinner's fate, then. 
"What, then?" My voice wobbles. Her 
eyes are still full.

"I'm afraid -" And so am I, because 
that's the second time today she's 
admitted to an emotion she never admits 
she has - "I'm afraid the enhanced 
brain activity and the medications and 
the tests may have caused -" She stops, 
licks her lips, takes a breath. Her 
voice is very small. "Brain damage."

Everything goes white and silent for a 
moment. Was this what it was like for 
her to hear the word "cancer"? She's 
still talking - about having me tested, 
about finally taking me to a 
neurologist or two, how she should have 
done this before but I was in no mental 
shape - and her words slide past me 
like drops of rain down a windshield. 
Nothing sticks except those two words.

I know enough about the functioning of 
the human brain to understand that this 
is a very real possibility, and I 
crumple into her lap. She folds over 
me, and I fall apart. "Oh, Mulder, no, 
we'll fix it, I promise, I swear," she 
says, but her voice is clogged with 
tears and I can feel her ragged, 
frightened heartbeat against my back. I 
clutch at her arms; she presses her 
face into my shoulder blade. The sound 
of our combined terror and grief fills 
the room for some time.

When I open my eyes again, the light 
has changed - the sun has moved around 
the building, no longer comes right 
into my bedroom. Scully's breath is 
still coming in little hitches, and her 
arms are still tight around me. Hard to 
tell if she's trying to comfort me, or 
to find solace herself. Either way, 
that contact is necessary - for both of 
us, I realize. I find the strength to 
turn and kiss the inside of her elbow. 
She presses a soft kiss into the back 
of my head. Without a word, we untangle 
ourselves and sit up. She quickly wipes 
her nose with the back of her hand, and 
raises her reddened eyes to meet mine. 
Her blue eyes darken slightly as we 
look at each other. Slowly I lower my 
mouth to hers, tasting the salt of her 
tears. For a long moment, we 
communicate only with lips and tongues 
and hands, the most basic form of 
communication there is. She's hesitant, 
though. I can tell from the way she 
holds herself in my arms, waiting for 
me to back down again as I've done 
before. But oh, I need this. Need her.

My fingers find her necklace, trace the 
line the chain makes over her 
collarbone, gently grasp the dangling 
cross. Is this what's going to save me, 
Scully? I think, burying my face in the 
side of her neck. Or will you?

"Scully," I beg hoarsely against her 
skin. "I need to feel normal again. 
Make me feel normal again."

Her hands, tugging at the hem of my T-
shirt, are all the answer I need.

* * * 

Ivory Coast
Two weeks later

This is not the ocean I know.

My ocean is steel gray and icy and 
treacherous, sucking down desperate 
fishermen in storms, luring 
unsuspecting pilots to their deaths in 
the summer evening haze. It was a 
barrier to cross, something that set us 
apart from the mainland. Some thought 
of it as protection, but I never did, 
not after Samantha was taken.

But this is not my ocean. This is 
Scully's ocean.

I say this not because she sits here 
next to me on this outcropping of rock 
overlooking the smooth stretch of sand 
that leads to a sight I still have 
trouble comprehending - dozens of 
workers and armed men bustling around 
her craft of undetermined origin, 
carrying out her orders both scientific 
and strategic.

No, it's because I've seen the 
California Pacific, and most days it's 
everything Brian Wilson said it was - 
warm and open and thrilling, the pot of 
gold at the end of the rainbow, a place 
where hopes and dreams could be 
fulfilled.

A place of possibility.

This is just the same.

The queen of this new kingdom surveys 
her domain. We look like a couple of 
wealthy tourists, I think - me in 
shorts, sandals, a polo shirt and dark 
glasses, she in a long-sleeved, ankle-
length sundress in deference to the 
Muslim men she's hired and a wide-
brimmed hat in deference to the sun. I 
can smell the tang of her sunscreen. 
Yeah, just a couple of tourists, 
although one's commanding a small army 
to protect the most important 
archeological find in history and the 
other's buzzing along on a host of 
mood-altering, seizure-preventing, 
calm-inducing medications.

The team of friendly doctors she'd 
assembled with the aid of her 
oncologist, who'd seen enough strange 
stuff already with her to go with the 
flow when she asked him to help me, 
think everything might clear up in 
time. Then they turned around and put 
me on disability. I think I'd be 
angrier about what's happened to me if 
I wasn't so high. The emotion does 
still rise within me without warning - 
the God module, it turns out, is close 
to the portion of the brain that 
controls emotion - but the drugs tamp 
it down to a less terrifying level.

Sometimes the wild emotion is even 
appropriate. I wept here, on these 
rocks, the first time I saw Scully's 
discovery, just as I'd wept in 
Antarctica.

But I still haven't gone down to see it 
up close. Zoloft can only keep a guy so 
calm.

The sun is warm on my head. I rub my 
hair, nearly back to normal length, and 
wish I'd brought a hat, too.

"You okay, Mulder?"

I nod. "A little muzzy-headed. It's 
just the drugs. I'm getting used to 
it."

Dr. Scully appears. She leans over, 
pulls off my sunglasses and looks into 
my eyes, then plops her hat on my head. 
For a small woman, she's got a big head 
- the fit is only a little tight.

"I don't think I look good in early 
Martha Stewart, Scully."

"I don't think you look good in a 
hospital, Mulder."

I hear the lilt in her voice that 
indicates a joke, but my reaction time 
is a bit slower than it used to be, and 
the moment passes before I can come up 
with a punch line. So instead, I slip 
my hand into hers, to let her know I 
understood. We sit quietly for a 
moment, watching the crew she's paying 
with the killing my stockbroker made on 
a couple of well-chosen IPO's. 
Apparently I'm the last person in 
America to make money off the Internet 
stock boom.

Scully was a very, very busy squirrel 
while I was locked away.

Her work has created a small miracle: 
for once, our evidence hasn't vanished. 
She's outspending what's left of the 
Consortium, treating her workers like 
kings instead of serfs. Their loyalty 
to her is breathtaking, especially on 
this corrupt continent. And she's found 
a way to protect our information until 
she's ready to present it in a 
scientific manner, a way that wasn't 
available to us when we began work on 
the X-Files:

We have a web site.

"Rob & Laura's UFO News!" has about 
25,000 hits so far, and is mirrored at 
any number of wack job sites. It looks 
like a wack job site itself -- 
Webmaster Langly did a nice job 
peppering the heavily capitalized text 
with dancing aliens and exclamation 
points. But once you get past the loopy 
graphics and the blinding colors, 
everything Scully discovered is there.

I thought she was nuts when she told me 
what she'd done - why not just put up a 
sign saying "Free evidence! Come and 
get it!" -- but ever the scientist, she 
came back at me with a peer-reviewed 
study from a respected journal that 
found that only 9 percent of all web 
pages are linked to a search engine. 
They'll never find it, she said. And 
then she launched into a fabulously 
geeky speech about bots and logs and 
protected sites and the inefficiency of 
automated searches that lost me 
immediately but sparked two thoughts:

/She's been spending way too much time 
with the Gunmen/ 

and 

/I wonder how she'd look in black 
raccoon eye makeup and leather pants./

The upshot is, once I forced her to 
speak English again, is that we're 
hiding in plain sight.

The truth is out there.

Scully rests her folded arms on her 
bent knees, her chin on her forearms. 
Her gaze is very far away. I scratch 
her back lightly, just for the contact. 
"Plotting our next move?"

"Writing my paper." She looks very much 
like she wants to purr. "I'm going to 
shoot for Nature, I think. Science got 
burned with the Mars rock, and I doubt 
they'll be receptive again, even if my 
evidence is far more conclusive than 
NASA's."

Science got burned? For a second, her 
words make no sense, but then I realize 
she means the journal, not the 
discipline. The surf crashes and roars 
over the sand and rocks below, 
temporarily filling my ears with white 
noise. Some twitchy part of my damaged 
brain wants to have a flashback; the 
drugs tell it to behave.

"This is what it sounded like, Scully," 
I tell her quietly. She tilts her head, 
considering. "I know you find the sea 
comforting," I continue. I need to make 
her understand. "But imagine the surf 
as voices, rising and falling, shutting 
out your own inner voice. Imagine not 
being able to get up and walk away from 
the sound." She's looking at me 
carefully, and I realize she's waiting 
for me to crack again. This is the sort 
of speech that would have triggered a 
crying jag a couple of weeks ago. I 
take one of her hands and kiss the 
back. "You've got me on some good shit, 
Scully. I'll be okay."

Her sad smile mirrors mine. I trace 
fingertips over her cheek, and she 
leans into my hand. "Mulder?" Her voice 
is surprisingly small, hesitant.

"Yeah?"

"Did you ever - could you -" She waves 
her hands suddenly, hoping to erase her 
words. "Forget it."

But I know what she's getting at. "No. 
Not directly." She looks relieved and 
disappointed all at the same time. She 
thinks she doesn't want to know. "I 
knew that you were concerned about my 
health, that you were very confused, 
that you were furious -"

/Diana's face, the surprised O of her 
mouth matching the round red mark on 
her forehead as she fell backwards, her 
brains splattering against the front of 
CGB's smoke-stained jacket, against the 
side of my face as I sit locked in that 
chair, unable to move or to scream. 
Scully's bullet, I'm sure of it now/

"Mulder??"

"I'm okay. Just - a memory." I blink it 
away. I'll dream about it later. 

"So you never really -"

"Read your mind?" I finish for her. 
There's a reason there's not much about 
me in her file. She can't prove what 
went on in my head. "I didn't learn 
anything I couldn't have figured out 
otherwise. Except that it felt great to 
hear you say you loved me."

She blushes. Scully still doesn't take 
direct declarations well.

"And that you couldn't think of a thing 
to wear in Africa."

"You -" She smacks me in the arm, anger 
and amusement warring on her face. "Son 
of a bitch. You *did* read my mind."

Ah. My timing isn't completely off. I 
grin wickedly at her, she settles down 
with a humph, and we go back to 
watching Dana's Militia.

Her faith in them is admirable, but I'm 
nervous about her reluctance to go 
officially public right now. I know how 
long it takes journals to peer review - 
I'm afraid we may not have that much 
time. CNN's London phone number is in 
my wallet. They'd cover this. They put 
any old kind of shit on the air. Scully 
keeps telling me that we don't need to 
make that call, that there's no need to 
panic, and I believe her, but it's so 
hard.

I sigh. "Why aren't they coming to get 
us, Scully?"

"I don't know," she admits. "They know 
it's here, they'd have to, to plant the 
fake artifacts. My evidence is good, it 
hasn't been tampered with, but - maybe 
this isn't as important as we think it 
is."

That's - no. This is important. It has 
to be. Or the last seven years have 
been for nothing.

"Maybe they're trying to lull us into a 
false sense of security," I suggest.

"Oh, Mulder," she says wearily. "Take 
your victories where you can find them. 
We've preserved this evidence for 
nearly two months, we're in a place 
where we're safe ."

"Safe?" I interrupt her. "How can you 
believe that?"

"Because I do, Mulder. We're meant to 
be safe here. This is not our time."

Goddamn, I hate when she does the 
believer thing. It scares the shit out 
of me. But at the same time, the 
serenity in her voice touches a button 
deep inside me, one that releases a 
little bit of calm. All the dope in the 
world can't take away the fear, 
although I will admit it dulls the edge 
quite nicely. She glances quickly at 
me, and opens her arms. I tumble into 
them, knocking off the silly hat in the 
process. She strokes my hair, the back 
of my neck.

"I know you're still afraid," she 
murmurs. "I don't blame you. It's hard 
to let go of something that big."

The words bubble out of me before I can 
stop them. "What if they come back to 
get me?"

Her silence is unnerving. I can feel 
her marshaling her thoughts, trying to 
figure out how best to put what she 
wants to say. "I think, if they had 
wanted you back, they would have taken 
you by now. I think they . allowed me 
to keep you."

I squeeze my eyes shut against tears. 
Her implication is that they'd damaged 
me and I am now useless to them. It is 
surprising how that hurts. Not 
surprising is the pain from her words, 
which echo something once told to me. 
Was it worse for you than it was for 
me, Scully, because you could see what 
they were doing to me, because you knew 
what was happening to me? I know how 
much worse the anguish and the anger I 
felt when you were taken would have 
been had I known the whole time what 
they were doing to you.

"How can you be so calm, Scully? You 
stealing my stash?"

She chuckles. "Faith, Mulder. You just 
have to have faith. Trust me on this."

I do trust her, implicitly, but faith? 
Faith in some higher power to watch 
over us? I've always thought those 
people who said that God would provide 
were nuts - God's not an ATM or a 
grocery store - and I can't join those 
ranks. But . I did. I did, lost at the 
festival, frightened and alone, and I 
turned to Scully's God for help. And I 
was able to hang on until she found me. 
It could have been a coincidence, it 
could have been whatever she and 
Frohike were doing with the artifact, 
but.

I catch one of her hands and hug it to 
my chest. The most extreme possibility 
of all is demanding that I consider it. 
And I am taking the idea seriously.

"Hey, Scully?" I hesitate. Questioning 
her religion is never the smartest 
thing to do under the best of 
circumstances, and I hope she 
understands that I'm not trying to pick 
a fight. I don't have the mental energy 
for that. "What if what I said a long 
time ago was right - that this ship is 
the answer to everything, that we all 
came from aliens, that the 
extraterrestrials were responsible for 
us being here?"

"I would say first, that you're either 
trying to bait me, or you're still 
keeping score on how many times you've 
been right, and either would piss me 
off." Her voice is the one she uses for 
arguments over a case, and I feel oddly 
relieved. She pats the hand that's 
holding hers. "But if I decided that 
you meant the question seriously, you 
know what I'd say?"

I shake my head, because now I really 
don't know.

"That Somebody had to create the 
aliens. That Somebody had to come up 
with the question to which the aliens 
are the answer."

I turn so that I am once again laying 
on her lap, staring up at her in 
amazement. Usually this sort of brush 
with ET unnerves her so badly that she 
heads straight down the river called 
Denial, rather than risk giving any of 
it a thought. And that statement sounds 
like the product of an awful lot of 
thought. "Scully - " is all I can say, 
but there's a world of question behind 
it.

"I've come to the conclusion that it's 
all too elegant to happen by chance," 
she says softly, a sense of wonder 
creeping into her voice. "Look at the 
human body. So many complex functions, 
so many interdependent systems, all 
from one cell, nearly perfect nearly 
every time. How could that be random? 
Look at our genes. So many of them are 
identical to those found in the 
flatworm, or the fruit fly, or the 
chimpanzee. That can't be random. I 
used to think we got here by accident, 
by evolution, by chance, that the odds 
of it happening again somewhere else 
were beyond astronomical. But the more 
I think about it, the more I believe -"

My breath catches just to hear her say 
the word. She notices.

"The more I believe that Someone's got 
to be behind it all."

"Someone who doesn't smoke, I hope."

"Mulder, you're going to burn in hell," 
she says mildly.

This conversation is making my head 
spin. I've never liked discussing 
religion with her. She's not rational 
about the fact that she takes so much 
of it on faith, and I can't help 
boiling down her Catholicism into a 
series of myths, symbols and terrific 
adventure stories. But there's 
something at the core of what she's 
saying, something I want to grab onto, 
something that's the cause of all this 
serenity I feel radiating from her.

Something I think I want to feel, too.

I sit up, and tug at Scully's arm until 
she figures out I want her to sit 
between my legs, her back to my chest. 
I am off-balance enough that I don't 
want to continue this conversation from 
a submissive position. My arms encircle 
her waist; her arms go over mine.

She leans forward a little to brush 
some sand off her dress, and her hair 
parts across her neck to reveal the 
tiny scar that marks the location of 
her chip. She doesn't like me to touch 
it, yet I can't stop looking at it. I 
remember that nasty scene in her 
hospital room as she and her doctor and 
the Scullys and I argued over which 
treatment route to take. I want to 
touch the scar, but I settle for 
tracing the skin around it instead. Her 
body is suddenly still.

"Do you ever wonder -" I hesitate 
again. This may be the first time I've 
ever asked her directly about her 
cancer. "Do you ever wonder what saved 
you?"

She takes a long, deep breath, her 
chest expanding and contracting under 
my arms. My heart is thudding against 
her back. She must feel that.

"I don't know what did it," she finally 
says, then squeezes my hand. "Probably 
the chip. But who's to say? I was 
willing to try anything then, because I 
was so desperate, and there was so much 
faith around me. My doctor's faith in 
science, my mother's faith in God, your 
faith in me . "

My faith in her. I swallow hard.

"Scully, at the festival, you know how 
I made it through before you found me?"

She shakes her head, then tilts it, 
curious.

"I asked your God for help," I say in 
her ear.

Scully twists to look at me, her mouth 
open. "You're kidding," she says after 
a second. And then she's on her knees 
between my legs, staring at me. The 
information makes its way into her 
brain, and as it soaks in, the shock on 
her face slowly evolves into wonder. 

"Wow," she says. I've rendered her 
nearly speechless. I think I'm proud. 
"Wow. I'm seriously considering the 
possibility of extraterrestrial life 
and you believed in God for a second."

Her bald statement makes me squirm. 
She's leaping farther than I think I've 
gone - but she's not entirely off 
track. "I don't know about that, 
Scully. If there is a God, wouldn't the 
Knicks have won the championship?"

"Sorry. He only pays attention to Notre 
Dame."

My eyebrow lift isn't half as evocative 
as hers, but she gets the picture. I 
take both her hands in mine, and stare 
at her until I see that mischievous 
twinkle turn serious. My heart is 
pounding. This is such . alien ground 
for us.

"Does it help, Scully?" My voice 
catches.

She frees one of her hands and cups my 
cheek. Her eyes are the full rich blue 
of the sky above, warm and caring. "It 
can. Did it help you?"

I hadn't been calm, not by a long shot, 
but I remember suddenly not worrying 
about the voices any more. Not to the 
point of hysteria, anyway. "Yes."

"Then it helps."

The rhythmic sound of the surf fills my 
head, a susurration of sound that calms 
and gentles. I find myself breathing in 
time with the waves as they strike the 
sand, an elemental rhythm as basic as 
life itself. The usual barbed questions 
I throw at her during discussions like 
this still want to be asked; the 
impossible questions - if there is a 
God, why does He let these things 
happen to us - still beg to be 
answered. They'll have to wait.

"It takes time, doesn't it?" I ask her.

"Healing always takes time, Mulder," 
she says, an unexpected bit of 
ruefulness in her voice, as if she's 
reminding herself of something. She 
stands up, still holding my hand, and 
attempts to tug me to my feet. I resist 
her, tugging back playfully.

"Where are we going, Scully?"

She smiles. "I think it's time you got 
a closer look at the truth."

My brain spasms and lurches and tries 
to scream, no, don't go there, there 
might be more artifacts, I can't go 
down there. Terror tries desperately to 
override the drugs. At the same time, I 
find myself reaching out for that place 
where Scully is, that calm center, that 
place I went at the festival.

Protect me, God, and keep me safe.

"Okay," I tell her as I get to my feet. 
"Let's go to the beach."

-30-


Author's note #2:

"Ours is an unpredictable world . it is 
a place of many possibilities that are 
influenced by forces beyond our control 
and, in some cases at least, beyond our 
immediate comprehension.
"Ours is a less certain world than we 
thought it was, but it is also more 
interesting for that."
--Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin, "The 
Sixth Extinction."

A small nod to my amused and tolerant 
husband, who delivered the original 
fabulously geeky speech.

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