Title:  Consequences
Author:  Suzanna Post
Feedback: lordmadhammer@hotmail.com
Distribution statement: Please ask first.
Rating: R
Classification: X, R, A
Keywords: MSR, colonization
Spoilers: everything in season six, *not* including Biogenesis
Content warning: graphic violence
Summary: Do you ever wonder what happened to the MJ files and the
network of Navajo Indians that memorized their secrets?  Mulder
and Scully make some decisions, and are forced to deal with the
consequences.  This is basically my take on how the series could
end.
Note:  The story contains a literary comparison to the Biblical
story of Ruth.  I hope I've done the idea justice.

******************
Chapter 1: Decisions

The balding man stares at me, agitation twisting his soft
features into a grimace.  "I thought you didn't follow standard
policy."

I return his gaze coolly, sitting still and perfectly upright
behind my desk like some sort of marble statue.  But I'm not a
statue.  I'm just a tired woman who is tired of this argument and
tired of this man.  Deciding to end things, I focus my mind,
attempting to catch what he is thinking.  It's more difficult
when they are far away, but usually I have no problem reading
this one.  I see an image of a smoking man in a dark room full of
men.  Ah, so he had been meeting with my esteemed smoking
colleague.  "Given the illustrious history of Mulder's past
informants, I would think it would be in your best interest to
not meet with the agents."

He pulls at his lower lip with his thumb and index finger, trying
to hide his frustration.  "But we're not getting anywhere.  It's
time to give Scully information they can do something about," he
insists.

I pull out a cigarette and light it slowly, deliberately blowing
out a long stream of smoke out between puckered lips.  This
little man is beginning to outlive his usefulness.  It's likely
that he'll get himself killed if he carries out the plan he is
thinking about.  Still, it might serve to shake Scully out of her
stupor.  "Fine."  I tap a stub of ash into the ashtray.  "Set a
meeting.  But be discrete."

"And the transcripts?" he asks, looking almost hopeful.

"Only those from this year," I say.  I note his thinly disguised
look of disappointment, accompanied by flashes of more images.
Files and folders and papers.  Some sort of records.  I
concentrate a little harder, trying to make out the writing on
the folders.  Suddenly I understand what I've been seeing.  "You
are dismissed."

After he leaves, I sit still for a long time, smoking my
cigarette and thinking about the things I had seen in my mind.

******************

Scully tugged the comb through her wet hair, gazing tiredly at
her blurry reflection through the fog on her bathroom mirror.
Her shoulder joint ached with each stroke, right where the
humerus meets the clavicle.  It was a subtle sign of age, she
supposed, like the lines at the corners of her eyes and just
between her brows.  The wrinkles weren't visible at all in the
misted mirror, but neither was anything else.  Maybe that was why
she had decided not to turn on the fan after the hot shower.

She replaced the comb into its appointed place, hung her towel
neatly over the rack, and pulled on panties and a robe.  Wiping a
bit of the steam off the mirror with the corner of a hand towel,
she watched herself slather moisturizer onto her face, taking
special care at the corners of her eyes and that space just under
her nose.  It was a futile battle, she thought as she replaced
the moisturizer in the medicine cabinet, not quite knowing why
she bothered anymore.

She wandered into the kitchen for her nightly routine of decaf
earl gray tea with honey.  The warmth of the tea was soothing,
especially after a tiresome day in the office.  And a four mile
run in the park.  And a frenzied bout of cleaning the apartment,
which was already tidy, but had needed to be vacuumed and dusted.

The microwave dinged, telling her the water was hot.  She put the
tea bag into her mug and settled down on the couch.  One glance
at the television told her that she didn't want it on.  No music,
either.  Just nice, comfortable silence.

Two sips into her tea, a soft knock sounded through her door.  It
was so quiet that she wondered at first if it wasn't the
neighbors.  She waited, and didn't hear the door open on the
apartments on either side.  It wasn't Mulder's knock, either.
Cautiously, she put down her tea and picked up her gun, wondering
when exactly she had begun carrying her weapon with her to answer
the door.

Only the white wall and one brown door met her eye as she peeked
through the peep-hole.  Maybe the knocking had been for the
person next door.  She opened the door slowly.  There was an
unmarked brown envelope sitting at her feet, but no one was
visible down the length of the hallway in either direction.  She
stared at the envelope for a long moment, thinking of all the
different kinds of deadly bacterial infections you could contract
just by just touching a piece of paper.  It didn't look big
enough for a bomb, either, but bacteria could be placed on
anything.  Bending down to snatch up the packet, she told herself
that if someone really wanted to kill her they probably wouldn't
do it with a plain brown envelope.

A moment later, she chastised herself for picking up the packet
with bare hands.  Setting it carefully on her couch, she pulled a
pair of non-powdered size small latex gloves out of her
briefcase.  She took a deep breath and broke the seal.

*************************

Mulder was not really surprised to see Scully show up at his
apartment at 10pm on a Friday night.  It seemed that they were
always ending up at each other's apartments at strange hours.
What surprised him was her appearance.  Dressed in sweat pants
and a t-shirt, her freckled face was completely free of make-up.
Unbrushed and slightly damp hair curled around her forehead.  It
was decidedly unScully-like and that was always worrisome.

"Scully?"

She walked into his apartment silently, the soft sounds of the
sci-fi channel the only response to his query.  Light from the
black and white TV movie flickered over her face and he saw only
hard concentration in her features.  He furrowed his brow
unconsciously, and bit the inside of his lip.  "What's wrong?"

She walked to his couch and sat down, setting a medium sized
object on the coffee table.  He stepped toward her, puzzled.  It
was a large envelope, stuck into a ziploc bag.  No, not a ziploc
bag, an evidence bag.

"Put gloves on before you open it," she ordered tonelessly.

Obediently, he retrieved a pair of latex gloves from his
briefcase and pulled them on.

"When did you get this?" he asked, opening the bag.

"About an hour and a half ago."  She was watching him now, but he
could tell her thoughts were still far away.

He pulled out a stack of crisp white sheets of paper, the pages
full of neat type.  It looked like memos of some sort.  He began
reading, his lips puckered together in concentration, when he
suddenly realized that he needed his glasses in the dim light.
Fumbling around on the coffee table, he managed to put them on
without taking his eyes off the papers.

<Break>

To: 87240
From: 35486
Subject: Re:Subject #641

The item you requested will be delivered by courier at noon
tomorrow.  Per our previous discussion on Subject #641, you
already know my answer.  Only because of your new position in our
organization will I repeat myself.  Interference must be minimal.
Deviation from this policy will result in severe consequences.
As for her recent line of inquiry, follow the usual procedures.
Most importantly, make sure that a new case becomes available
immediately.

<Break>

To: 87240
From:35486
Subject: Re: Subject #641

Type 3a interference authorized.

<break>

To: 35486
From: 87240
Subject: Re: Subject #641

Sent subject #640 information on cases being passed by #957.
Virginia Operative in place.

<break>

To: 35486
From: 87240
Subject: Re: Subject #641

Jim Gilmore contacted.  Inquiry halted.  No additional
interference necessary.

<break>

It went on for pages and pages.  After reading the last sentence,
he closed his eyes, the words burning behind his lids like a hot
brand. Essentially what it said in all the code words and cryptic
numbers was that every initial case contact in the past year had
been orchestrated by whoever wrote this set of messages.  He
tried to guess who was behind it; maybe CJB Spender, or someone
else in that shadowy organization that called itself the
Consortium.  In any case, the messages demonstrated in precise
detail that operatives were in place in almost every case they
had worked.  He found it likely that the operatives didn't even
know they were being manipulated.  Otherwise, it would raise too
much suspicion, there would be too much chance of a leak. The
ramifications of this, if it were true, were sickening.  Had they
really been manipulated on every case in order to keep them from
the truth?

He opened his eyes again.  Scully was looking at him, her face
showing curiosity and, oddly enough, compassion.  "What is this
'line of inquiry?'" he asked, surprised by the croak that was his
voice.  He neatly stacked the papers and put them back in the
evidence bag.

Scully's throat moved as she swallowed.  "Certain leads
pertaining to the Sim case."  Her eyes flicked to his and then
back to the general direction of his TV.

Mulder slumped back into the couch.  "Emily."

"Indirectly."  She still wouldn't look at him.

"Indirectly?  As in you were looking into Transgen
Pharmaceuticals?"

Scully nodded.

"And you stopped because of the case-load?"

"Yes."  She sounded deflated.

Mulder closed his eyes again and leaned his head so far back that
it touched the wall.  "Do you believe we have been manipulated
all along?"

"The timing is right," she said softly.  "It isn't outside the
realm of possibility."  There was a pause, and determination
edged back into her voice.  "How did you come upon these cases,
Mulder?"

Mulder rubbed his forehead and ran his fingers through his hair,
leaving it sticking up in all directions.  She knew his sources
as well as he did.  "Sometimes people write me.  Sometimes an
outside source.  Sometimes Skinner."

"All of those sources could easily be manipulated," she said
matter-of-factly.

He nodded, his stomach rolling unhappily.  They sat in silence
for a long time.  "The apartment could be bugged, you know."

"I find that likely," she agreed.

More silence.  "So what do we do now?" she asked, her voice quiet
and low.

He stood up abruptly, anger and indignation racing through him in
one tremendous pulse that was gone in a heartbeat.  His hands
fell limply to his sides and suddenly he felt nothing at all
except that he wanted to brush his teeth and climb into bed.  "I
don't know," he said, shaking his head.  "I just don't know."

********************

Monday

Scully set down the stack of papers in her hand and rubbed her
temples.  They were both just going through the motions of work.
Any desire to start the new case that Mulder had been so
enthusiastic about the previous Thursday was now gone.  She
checked the clock. It was almost noon.

"Mulder."  His shoulders twitched in surprise while his head
jerked up from whatever he was pretending to read.  "Why don't we
go get some lunch?"

"OK.  Where do you want to go?"

She shrugged.  "Anywhere.  As long as it's out."

He picked up his suit jacket and put it on.  "I agree."

As he headed for the parking garage, she grabbed his elbow.  "No.
No cars. I want to talk."

He looked at her in surprise, as if he couldn't believe that she
would actually go along with the idea that they were listened to
everywhere they went.  "OK, we'll walk."

So they walked to a deli not far away and got sandwiches and
Cokes.  "Where do you want to go?" Mulder asked, opening his
sandwich wrapper just enough so that he could take a bite of the
pickle on the side.

"The Reflecting Pool."

"That's a fifteen minute walk."  It came out sounding like a
whine and Scully cringed inwardly.

She shrugged and started walking.  It really wasn't that far.
She was surprised to see that their bench was not taken.  It was
such a nice day that she had been sure that there would be a lot
of
people out.  The area was relatively empty, except for some
tourists taking pictures.

They sat down and Mulder began working away at his sandwich in
earnest.  Scully sat staring at hers.  She began hesitantly.
"Mulder, I've been thinking all weekend."

His eyes focused on her with a peculiar intensity, as if he
guessed what she wanted to say.  He didn't stop chewing, and a
piece of bean sprout stuck out of one corner of his mouth.  Who
would have guessed Mulder liked bean sprouts.

"I've been thinking about my commitment to the X-Files."

That made him put down his sandwich.  She had his full attention.

"I've been thinking about those reports." Scully twisted her
hands around in her lap, at the same time scolding herself for
the nervous habit.  "Why should we go on if most of our cases are
being given to us in order to keep us from the real truth?"

He swallowed heavily, his gaze turning away from her and towards
the Reflecting Pool.  "You want to quit."

"I don't want to quit searching for the truth, Mulder." She took
a deep breath, trying to center her thoughts.  "It's just that I
no longer think the FBI is a viable tool with which to find that
truth.  We're too vulnerable.  Too easily manipulated.  Working
independently of the FBI would give us more freedom to pursue
other
avenues."

He looked incredulous.  "But you'd lose all your access."

"I have sources outside the FBI," she informed him.  "Once free
of Bureau duties we would be more able to go after the men
responsible..."

"The men responsible for what?"

She wondered if he was really that dense or if he just wanted her
to say it out loud.  Either way, she was irritated.  "The men
responsible for Emily.  For Kurt Crawford.  For Penny Northern
and the women in Allentown, Pennsylvania. For putting this chip
in my neck."  Her hand came up unconsciously to feel the back of
her neck, then dropped back to the bench.  She gripped the edge
of the bench until it pressed into her palms, feeling the peeling
paint dig into her skin.

"I don't want to quit the FBI," he said flatly, speaking to the
sandwich on his lap.

Scully stood up, taking a few paces forward then turned to face
him, hands on her hips.  "Why not?"

"Through the FBI we have access to labs and information that we
would otherwise be unable to obtain."

"Since when have we been able to use the labs and information
without it getting stolen or destroyed? It's through the FBI that
they control us!" She was almost shouting.

He stood up and started forward, angry and towering over her.
"You can't just quit with no source of income.  Any job you take
could be manipulated to keep you away from the truth."

She ground her teeth.  "Mulder, I have money.  I've been saving
for a time like this.  Give me one year and we could have
answers.  Real answers."

"What is this about we?"

She looked at him incredulously.  His face was closed, hard.
"Mulder, I'm resigning."  She turned on her heel and headed away
from him as fast as she could walk.  In a few seconds, he was
right behind her.  He grabbed her wrist and yanked her to a stop.
Hot anger seared through her as her wrist began to throb with the
pressure he exerted.  She twisted out of his grip in wordless
fury.

"You can't resign."

"Yes, I can," she hissed through clenched teeth.

"At what cost will you do this?"

"Oh that's a fine question, coming from you Mulder," she spat.
"At what cost?  What right have you to ask me that!  You know
very well what it's cost me.  It's cost me nearly everything
already, so what more do I have to lose?"

"You're life," he said softly.

She snorted, disgusted.  "It's my life."

He made a noise of frustration deep in his throat.

"You can either join me or stay.  It's your choice," she told
him.

'Stay' his eyes pleaded, but he said nothing.

"You'll have a copy of my resignation letter in one hour," she
said flatly, turning and walking away.  This time he didn't
follow.  She walked all the way to the Hoover Building without
looking behind, knowing that she was alone.

When she got back to the office, there were two surprises waiting
for her on her desk.   One was the lab results on the packet of
information.  One of the techs owed her a favor and did the
analysis over the weekend and Monday morning.  As she expected,
nothing showed up, except her own fingerprints.  The other
surprise was a note.  In plain, precise writing, it said:

"Red Sage.  I'm sure you know the place. 7pm.  We'll call it a
first date."

It had to be her informant.  She took a deep breath, telling
herself that she could do this without Mulder.

She pulled up the word processer program on her computer and
typed
out her resignation letter.  After it printed out, she held it in
her hand for a long time.  It was just a piece of paper, but it
would change the course of her life.  She wondered what would be
the consequences of dropping off this sheet of paper in Skinner's
office.  Sighing, she packed her briefcase, picked up the paper,
and left the basement office.

********************

6:55pm, Red Sage

Mulder walked into the restaurant with an air of resignation.  He
didn't know what exactly he hoped to accomplish by meeting this
informant.  The only thing he knew was that when he had shown up
at his apartment early that afternoon, a note was waiting for him
underneath his door with instructions to meet here at 7pm.

He approached the hostess, a short woman with bleached blonde
hair and too much make-up.  Remnants of prettiness still clung to
her face, but there was too much hardness for it to be called
real beauty.  "My name is Mulder.  I believe my party may be
already waiting for me."

She glanced down at her reservation list.  "Yes, sir.  Right this
way."

He followed her through the crowded restaurant to the very back,
in a booth near the emergency exit.  The place had a pleasant,
upper scale atmosphere.  Nicely dressed people dined quietly on
nicely presented food and had nice conversation.  But he almost
turned around and left when he saw who was sitting at the table.

"Scully?"

She looked just as startled.  "Mulder?  What are you doing here?"

The hostess slipped away, promising that their waiter would be
right with them.  Mulder sat down across from her, his back to
the door.

"I got a note at my apartment this afternoon telling me to be
here at 7pm."

Her eyes were cool blue, like the sky in the early morning.  He
couldn't help staring, wondering how he ever thought that he
could live without her.

"Same here, except my note was left at the office."

They sat in silence for several moments, neither one of them
wanting to bring up the topic of their conversation this
afternoon.

Finally, Mulder spoke.  "I turned in my resignation letter to
Skinner this afternoon after you left."

The look of astonishment on her face was satisfying in a way, and
disturbing in another.  Had she really thought that he wouldn't
follow?  Her mouth hung open a little bit, then close resolutely.
"What did he say?"  Her eyes scanned the room methodically and he
fought not to do the same, trying to look casual.

"Nothing.  I didn't talk to him."

"Oh."  Her face took on a look of intense concentration.  "I
think our informant is here."

A little man with a balding head and wispy gray hair came to
stand at their table.  "Fox and Dana, so good to meet you at
last."  He slid into Mulder's side of the booth with a sly smile.
His lips were sallow and a little bit fretful, but his eyes were
dark and hard.

"What do you want?" Scully asked bluntly, unclasping the snap on
her holster.

"Dinner with friends," the man stated simply, his odd smile a
direct contrast with the look of calculation in his eyes.

"Cut the crap," Mulder told him.  "Just tell us what you want so
we can get out of here."

"You were always the direct one, Fox," he told Mulder, but he was
looking at Scully.  "I'm here to cut you a deal."  He was met
with silence.

"I know you both resigned today.  Skinner doesn't want to accept
it, but there isn't anything he can do about it.  You're losing
all your access.  But maybe not everything.  You can have me."

"At what price?" Scully asked.

"A small fee for my troubles.  Very small compared to the
information I'm willing to give."

Mulder shook his head.  "No deal.  We have other ways of getting
information."

The man shook his head.  "Tsk tsk.  You haven't even asked me
what kind of information I have to offer."

"Transgen Pharmaceuticals?" Scully queried.

"That and more," the man nodded appreciatively.

Mulder was so focused on the man beside him that he didn't notice
Scully's look of alarm until she had her gun out and curving in a
smooth arc towards the door.  There was the deafening sound of a
single gunshot and suddenly blood and brain matter splattered him
and Scully and the table.  Their informant slumped forward, the
exit wound on his forehead pumping crimson torrents with every
heartbeat, staining the tableware and white table cloth.

A door slammed and then he was struggling with the body of the
informant, trying to twist around to see the exit as Scully
rocketed out of the booth and ran towards the emergency exit.
The door slammed again and Mulder was left alone, pushing at the
dead weight to his right.  His ears buzzed and the sound of
shouting and panicked people was strange, as if it were happening
far away at the end of a tunnel.  Waiters were running towards
him now, and he distinctly saw the bleached blonde hostess
looking at him with an expression of utter revulsion.  A huge
bearded man with a cook's apron appeared from somewhere and began
pulling the hapless informant out of the booth.  Mulder shoved
and the cook pulled and they got the body onto the ground, but by
that time Mulder's front side was covered in blood and tissue.
"I'm FBI.  Make sure someone calls the police and an ambulance."

"Already done," the man said with a gulp, wiping crimson stained
hands on his white apron, leaving a finger-paint-like smear
behind.  "This one is dead already."

Tiredly, Mulder walked to the emergency exit and opened the door.
A dumpster sat on the right and the alley exited to the left.
There was no sign of anyone nearby.  There was no way he could
chase after Scully now and still find her.  He rotated his stiff
neck and turned back to their table, his eyes coming to rest on
the back of the booth.  At the top, there was a hole where the
slug had lodged.  It looked like a high caliber gun had fired the
round.  "Call the police again and tell them a female FBI agent
is in pursuit of the suspect, Agent Dana Scully."  The cook
conferred with a waiter, who ran somewhere to make the call.

People were moving away from his table, trying to get away from
the body yet gawking at the same time.  He looked down at his
nice gray suit.  It was ruined, like so many of his suits had
been in the past.  "Don't let these people leave," he told the
cook.  "We need to see if someone can give a description of the
shooter.

The police arrived quickly, and a minute later Scully came back,
panting hard and flashing her badge so she could enter the
restaurant.  "Nothing," she told Mulder.

"Did you get a good look at the perp?"

"Yes, but he was wearing a mask.  He was picked up in a black
sedan but I got the license plate number.  I'm betting it's a
fake, though."

Mulder exhaled loudly.  "Well, isn't that cliche."

Scully rolled her eyes and then a policeman approached and asked
for their statements.  Paramedics were rolling the body onto a
gurney and a camera bulb flashed periodically.  Scully had just
started to give her statement when Mulder spotted Assistant
Director Skinner showing his badge to the policeman on the
perimeter.  His eyes roamed around the room, looking for his
agents.  Former agents.  His eyes met Mulder's with a dark click.

Mulder stood up.  "Assistant Director Skinner," he stated, when
the man was close.

"Agent Mulder, Agent Scully." His chin jerked down briefly as he
said each of their names.  "Why am I not surprised that you two
are in the middle of another mess?"

Mulder didn't know what to say to that.  What he really wanted to
know was how Skinner had arrived at the scene so quickly.

"You may continue with Agent Scully's statement," he told the
nameless police officer.  "I need to speak with Agent Mulder."

They stepped away, and Mulder could feel Scully's eyes watching
them.

"Sir?" Mulder said, feeling helpless to explain the situation.

"Save it, Agent," Skinner said dismissively.  "I want to know why
you both handed in your resignation letters today."

"Personal reasons," Mulder stated, his tone guarded.

"And this?" Skinner's hand waved, indicating the body and the
restaurant.

"We were meeting an informant.  He got shot."

Skinner eyed him coolly.  "And the shooter?"

"He got away."

The Assistant Director stared at him several moments.  "And there
is nothing I can do to convince either you or Agent Scully to
stay at the Bureau."  It was more of a statement than a question.

"No, sir."

"I expect you to fill out the appropriate paperwork and have your
service weapon and badge on my desk within two days."

Another police officer, this one very young and nervous,
approached the two men hesitantly.  "Assistant Director," he
said, licking his lips nervously, "I need to get Agent Mulder's
statement."

Skinner jerked his head in dismissal, and that was the end of the
conversation.

*************************

Sometime around midnight, they had both ended up at Scully's
apartment.  Scully said she didn't want Mulder driving and he
didn't argue so they left his car at Red Sage and ended up at her
place.  Wordlessly, he brought up his overnight bag and took a
shower.  She had wanted to go in a talk to him, to just sit on
the toilet with the lid down and speak through the shower
curtain, but decided against it.  He probably wouldn't have
minded but she wanted to give him some space.

After about 20 minutes, he came into the kitchen where Scully sat
eating a bowl of warmed up canned soup.  His hair was wet, and he
wore gray sweat pants and a white t-shirt.  He looked a lot
younger with his hair damp and unruly, all fresh and smelling of
Dove soap.  But his eyes gave him away; the hazel depths showed
only a tired green.

"Your turn," he said, opening the refrigerator and rummaging
through the shelves.  He bent down and opened the fruit drawer.
"I see you have apples," he said, his voice hollow from inside
the refrigerator.  Scully resisted the urge to get up swat him
affectionately on the bottom.

"You can have the rest of my soup," she said, gesturing towards
the pot on the stove as she pushed back her chair and stood up.
"There should be sandwich meat and cheese in there somewhere, and
bread is on top of the fridge."

She stood looking him for a moment, him with an apple in hand and
her with an empty soup bowl.  It was strange, how they could act
as if the conversation this afternoon had never happened.  She
put her bowl in the sink and headed for the shower.  She could
feel Mulder's eyes on her, never leaving her body until she
disappeared into the bathroom.

The hot shower was just what she needed.  She scrubbed away the
speckling of blood and filth and shampooed her hair twice. When
she emerged she felt as if she had scrubbed away more than dirt,
though her tiredness was only intensified.

Mulder was lying on her couch, idly flipping through muted late-
night TV programming.  He scooted over and she sat down, pulling
his head onto her lap.  One of his arms snaked around her and his
breath was warm on her thigh.

"I'm sorry about the things I said today, Scully," he said
without prelude, his breath tickling her skin where her cotton
sleeper shorts ended.

"It's OK," she replied, absently running her fingers through his
hair.

He wondered if he should even ask the question on his mind, but
decided to anyway.  "Why didn't you tell me you were looking into
Transgen?" he asked her.

He could feel the movement of her body as one shoulder shrugged.
"I didn't want to bother you if it was a dead end."

"Was it a dead end?"

"I didn't have much chance to pursue it."  She didn't sound angry
with him anymore, just tired.

"Tonight, after I met with the informant, I was planning to come
over and talk to you.  To give you my resignation letter," he
said, shifting a little so that he could look at her face.

"Without my job, I feel so lost," she said softly.  "I was afraid
I was going to lose you, too."

He sat up and her hands fell back to her sides.  "I don't want to
lose you either."

Quietness closed in around them like a liquid blanket.  There was
only the sound of Mulder's quiet breathing and the creak her
upstairs neighbor's floorboards.  She scooted towards him again,
leaning her forehead on his shoulder.  "I'm here," she said.  He
put both arms around her and pulled her into a gentle embrace.

********************

She hadn't really said much of anything the past two days.  Not
unless you counted "Mulder, where did you put the packing tape?"
or "What did you want to label this box?"  Two days wasn't much
time to pack up the junk of so many years.  Scully told him he
needed to throw at least some of it away, but the pack rat in him
could hardly stand the thought.  So he rented a temporary storage
space and figured he'd throw it away later.

At the end of the second day, when they had finally packed the
last box and made the last trip to the storage facility, he stood
and stared at the almost empty basement office.  He'd expected to
feel sad, but instead he felt nothing much other than a tremulous
emptiness in his belly that felt a little bit like hunger.  It
was 8pm and Scully was impatient to leave.  He didn't know why
she just didn't leave without him, but decided not to argue.

They turned in their badges and weapons and that was that.  It
didn't seem like good-bye, somehow.  They walked to the parking
garage and he stood next to Scully as she unlocked her car door,
not bothering to hide the fact that he was staring at her.

"You want to go to dinner or something?" she asked.

"No."  It just came out, as much a surprise to him as to her.  He
didn't want to be with anyone tonight.  Not even himself.  She
ducked her head and hair fell across her face, so he couldn't see
her expression.

"Goodnight, Mulder," she said softly, waiting for several moments
as if she expected him to say something.

"Goodbye, Scully," he replied.  She started, as if she hadn't
expected him to say that at all.  He'd never said it before.

"Mulder, this isn't goodbye."  She reached for his hand, and
clasped it warmly.

"Goodnight, then," he said dully, releasing her hand without
feeling.

That night he sat in his apartment with all the lights off.  He
didn't watch videos and he didn't get out his bottle of whiskey.
He just sat on his couch, wondering what he had gotten himself
into.  Had he really just quit his job and thrown himself into
the great unknown?  Despite the fact that Scully considered him a
risk-taker, he really wasn't.  He liked stability, normalcy.  It
was just that normal to him wasn't normal to anyone else.

He sighed, getting up from the couch to wander his apartment
restlessly.  Money wasn't a problem.  His father had left him
three summer houses and a bundle of money.  Blood money, most
likely.  But it might prove useful.  He could live off the
interest alone, if he sold the houses.

His difficulty centered around Scully.  Without the framework of
their respective jobs, he had little excuse to see her.
Actually, he had a lot of reason to see her, just as any man
wants to see the woman he loves every day.  But he wasn't sure
what she wanted.  He was never quite sure when it came to Scully.

Feeling his way carefully in the dark, he went to the desk and
turned on the lamp.  Even before his eyes adjusted to the
brightness, he had the top drawer open and was fumbling for the
small box he knew was inside.  His hand closed around it's worn
exterior, and he brought it into the light.  Carefully, almost
reverently, he opened it up and looked at the ring inside.  It
was his grandmother's wedding ring.  He caressed the smooth gold,
feeling the prickle of the settings that surrounded the sapphire
and pearls.  He'd taken it out of his safe deposit box two years
ago and kept it in his desk drawer in his apartment.  Often he'd
take it out and wonder if he should ask Scully to marry him, but
he never did.  Their professional relationship and a host of
other issues always stopped him.  But there was nothing stopping
him now except his own cowardice.

He realized now that his decision had been made the moment he had
turned in his resignation letter.  She had all but asked him to
go with her, wherever that may be.  "Give me a year and we could
have answers," she had said.  But there was still one question he
had to ask before they could go on.

~end chapter 1~

*********************

Feedback is cherished at:
neustrom@omni.cc.purdue.edu or lordmadhammer@hotmail.com

htpp://omni.cc.purdue.edu/~neustrom

     "Look," said Naomi, "your sister-in-law is going back to her
people and her gods.  Go back with her."
     But Ruth replied, "Don't urge me to leave you or turn back
from you.  Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will
stay...Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried.
May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything
but death separates you and me."
     --Ruth 1:15-17


Chapter 2: Mara

Scully was surprised to hear the knocking on her door at 8am.
She was still dressed in sweat shorts and an old t-shirt and had
just gotten out of the shower.  Remembering the events of the
previous three days, she peeped cautiously out the peephole, but
it was only Mulder.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, a little shortly.  She
wasn't unhappy to see him, she just needed her coffee first.

"Uhh," he stammered, which immediately peaked her interest.
Mulder almost never stammered.  Mumbled, yes. Stammered, no.
"Uh, I just wanted to...I just wanted to see how you were doing."
He looked past her and into the apartment.  "Can I come in?"

She swung the door wide.  "I was just making coffee."

He sat down at her kitchen table, looking distinctly
uncomfortable.  She knew he was up to something, but couldn't
guess what.

"So Mulder, why are you really here?" she prodded, handing him a
cup of vanilla flavored gourmet coffee.  Her mom had given her a
bag of the stuff a few weeks ago for no reason at all.  It had
been a nice surprise.

He grimaced, and she was suddenly suspicious.  He was having
second thoughts about quitting, she thought.  He didn't really
want to do this at all.

"I wanted to ask you something."  The way he said that made
Scully go very still, right into the center of her being.  She
suddenly felt as if this moment had already happened; that
Mulder, the coffee, and the pale lemonade sunlight were images
burned into her memory from a hundred years ago.

"I wanted to ask you to marry me."

Her heart jumped and then stopped and she almost dropped her mug.
Instead she set it down on a coaster on the table and stared at
Mulder.  He pulled a box out of his pocket and held it out to
her.  When he opened the box, she immediately knew the ring was
an antique; polished gold set with a sapphire and two creamy
pearls.  She found herself nodding, and he slid the ring on her
finger.  "Wherever you go, I will go.  Wherever you stay, I will
stay.  And death will be the only thing that parts us."

That was the one thing she had wanted to hear.  It wasn't a cry
from a needy heart, or a declaration of love out of desperation.
Rather, it was Mulder, the other half of her soul, acknowledging
the depth of their relationship.  She found herself unable to say
anything because the tears that she wouldn't allow herself to cry
stuck in her throat like a fist.

"I think we'll have to get it resized," said Mulder, his voice
sounded odd, as if he had a cold.  He sniffled and rubbed his
nose in a very unromantic fashion.  The ring was a little bit
big, but the style went perfectly with the shape of her hands.
"I love you Scully," he said, speaking down to her palm as he
kissed it.

"I love you, too," she managed to choke out.  Her hands were
shaking in his strong, steady grip.  "I was...I was hoping you'd
ask me...someday."

"You were?" His look of astonishment made her laugh out loud, but
it came out more like a sob than the sound of gaiety.

She nodded again, and bent down swiftly to kiss him, her hands
pressed on either side of his face.  The kiss was gentle and
lazy, the smoothness of his lips a pleasing contrast to the beard
stubble that prickled her palms.

"Did you want to get married right now?" he asked, his mouth
curving into a slow, sensuous smile.  "The Arlington courthouse
opened a few minutes ago.  There's no waiting period or blood
test required in Virginia.  The license costs $33."

She gaped at him, drawing back a full pace.  "Mulder, I'm wearing
sweat shorts and a t-shirt."

"You look great."

She couldn't help smiling, taking in the sight of his worn jeans
and gray t-shirt, wondering where GQ Mulder was when you needed
him.  "Just let me change into slacks at least.  I need to call
my mom.  She'd never forgive me if I didn't call her."

An hour and a half later, they met Scully's mother at the
courthouse.  Margaret was obviously partial to Mulder and she
sounded genuinely happy that they had decided to get married.
Scully suspected she was more than relieved that they had thought
to include her.  She endured the short notice with good grace,
giving Mulder a kiss on the cheek and presenting her daughter
with a bouquet of baby's breath and pink miniature roses.

The whole affair was a short one.  They applied for the marriage
license and said a few standard words in front of the judge and
that was it.  Then her mother was congratulating her and telling
her to stop by for Sunday brunch if they weren't going to leave
for the honeymoon (they were going on a honeymoon, right?) and to
be sure and call her if she couldn't make it.

When they got back to Mulder's car, Scully could hardly open the
door.  Mulder did it for her.  "We just got married," she said.

"Yes, we did," he replied, and kissed her hard on the mouth.

*********************

Mulder rolled over carefully so as not to jostle the bed and
adjusted the sheets around him.  Hesitantly, he reached out to
touch Scully's hands, making contact with her fingertips.  She
mumbled something, but Mulder knew she was still asleep.  She
slept with a certain recklessness that was rarely present in her
waking state, one hand flung out towards him, her hair splayed
over the pillow like an amber waterfall.

Wife.  It was a good word.  When he'd been married before, he
thought he knew the meaning of the word.  But now, it meant
something different.  Something better and more independent and
more Scully-like.

He thought about their love-making, and couldn't help but smile.
He had been awkward at first, all elbows and fumbling fingers.
But Scully had put him at ease, undressing him piece by piece
until he couldn't stand it anymore and threw her onto the bed.
They had given each other as much satisfaction as could be
expected between two consenting adults intent on giving each
other pleasure.  He knew it would only get better as they got to
know each other's bodies.  The thought made his smile even wider,
and he almost shook Scully awake so they could try again.
Instead, he contented himself with touching her fingertips, and
wondered what she was dreaming.

*********************

I watch Scully take her pre-lunch jog over the usual three-mile
route, then wait as she stretches her legs by leaning on a park
bench a few blocks from her apartment.  When she begins walking
back to the apartment, I step around the corner and confront her
directly.  This is only the second time I've been in close
physical proximity to the woman.  "Agent Scully?"

Scully looks up at me, clearly startled, her hand going
automatically to the empty space at her side where her weapon
normally rested.  Very sloppy, I think to myself.  A person of
her importance should be more attentive to her surroundings.
"Who are you?" she asks warily.

I hope that my being a woman makes her more apt to trust me.
"You may call me Mara.  I believe you may know of some
information I've given you in the past." Scully's expression is
guarded.  "About Transgen."

"Our informant was killed," she tells me flatly, continuing to
walk in the direction of her apartment.

"He was only involved in the periphery."

"He worked for you then?"

"In a manner of speaking," I say.

Scully stops and turns towards me, both hands on her hips and a
scowl on her face.  "I don't have time for this bull," she
informs me.  "Either deal or leave us alone."

Us?  I sense a distinct memory, impossibly erotic, of her and
Mulder, limbs intertwined.  The emotion is so strong that I have
to fight the urge to step back.  I shake my head to clear it.

"You've taken two important steps already," I tell her.

She is silent, waiting impatiently for me to go on.  I detect
none of the weariness that I felt in her a month ago.  Now there
is defiance.  Anger.  These are very useful emotions.

"You quit the FBI.  You married Mulder.  Two very smart
decisions.  He'll have no choice now but to follow you wherever
you go."

"That's not why I married Mulder," she says.  That is not exactly
the thing I had expected her to say.

"Isn't it?"  I pull out a packet of cigarettes and light one.
Scully's nose wrinkles in distaste, but she catches a glimpse of
the label on the pack.

"You work for him."  It's not a question.

"We work towards the same goals," I tell her.

Her face twists in sudden disgust.  Images bombard my mind in
quick succession.  A little blond girl, a woman's face melting
into green slime on a stretcher, blood on a car window and a
needle in hand.  Scully turns away and walks quickly to the
stairs leading to her apartment complex.  I know now that I've
said the wrong thing.

"I'm sorry about your daughter," I call after her.  She stops,
one foot on the lowest stair, one on the sidewalk.  Emily lies in
a hospital bed, and death is minutes away.

"What do you know about that?" she asks, slowly turning around to
face me.  Her eyes glitter coldly, but deadly heat shimmers under
the surface.  I'm glad I have awakened her anger.  Anything is
better than her apathy.

"Some of us are trying to protect you," I say, taking a puff of
my cigarette.

"Give me what I want," she says, carefully enunciating each word.

"Check the morning newspaper," I tell her, turning to walk in the
opposite direction.

She says nothing in reply, but as she walks away, her agile mind
is already replaying our meeting.

*********************

Scully had almost forgotten that she was married until she walked
into the apartment to find Mulder sprawled on her couch, papers
spread around him on the floor and on the coffee table.  He had
gone
back to his apartment to get some clothes, and several bags sat
next to the door, waiting for her to designate closet space for
his things.  She ignored them and walked silently into the
bedroom, stripping off her sweaty clothes as she went.

Mulder followed her, flopping down on the bed to watch her
undress.  "Hey, G-woman," he said, his eyes tracking every
movement. Scully felt strange with him watching, but managed to
casually walk to the hamper and drop her shorts and shirt inside.
She passed Mulder on the way back to her dresser, but he caught
her leg.

"Where are you going in such a hurry?" he asked, planting a kiss
on her bare tummy, his hand spread out over her hip.

"Mulder," she said, squirming a little but not moving away.  "I
need to take a shower."

"Sweat is sexy," he said, brushing his lips over her belly.  He
stopped for a moment, resting his prickly cheek on her stomach,
and looked up at her with his bedroom eyes.

She shivered, but managed to say quite firmly, "Shower first."

He let her go, but still followed her into the bathroom.  She
turned on the faucet, plunging her hand under the stream until
the water turned hot.  Just as she was about to climb into the
shower she changed her mind and turned around.  "Come here," she
said softly.

She pressed her skin against the soft fabric of his shirt,
hugging him tight, feeling the tautness of his back underneath
her hands.  Bending her index finger, she motioned for him to
come closer.  He leaned down, and she whispered in his ear,
hoping that the running water and soft speech would override any
bugs placed in the apartment.  "A woman contacted me just now."
She felt his breath catch and then quicken.  "Tell the boys I
want the apartment swept for bugs.  They might not catch
everything, but I'd feel much safer talking about her after
they've gone over the place."

***********************

Forty five minutes later, the Gunmen showed up at the apartment,
ready to sweep the place for listening devices.  Frohike spotted
Scully's ring as soon as he walked in the door.

"When the hell were you going to tell us?" he asked Mulder,
snatching up Scully's left hand so that he could get a better
look at the ring.  Mulder just smiled and glanced at his wife.

"I thought we would tell you today," he said.

"Congratulations, Mulder," Byers said, shaking his hand formally
and smiling widely.

"Yeah Mulder, congratulations," Langly said, smacking him on the
back.  "We were taking bets on how soon it would be."  Mulder
noticed Scully beginning to blush around her nose and ears. "I
win.  The boys owe me $10 a piece for guessing you'd be married
in less than a week."

"This calls for a party," Frohike said loudly, pulling out
mysterious equipment from a black plastic case.  The other gunmen
spread out, going to work on various rooms of the apartment.

"Yeah, big party," Langly said in the same loud voice.  "Give us
some music!"

"Where's the beer?" Byers joked from his place in the kitchen.

The music was some band Mulder had never heard of, but Langly
whispered in his ear that it would cover the sounds of their
search better than any classical CD's that Scully owned.  Scully
looked exasperated at the music but Mulder gave her a look that
apparently convinced her.

So they went over the apartment millimeter by millimeter, making
inane conversation and pretending to have a party.  After two
hours, they found four bugs in all.  One in the kitchen, one in
the study, one in the living room, and one behind the bed.
Frohike found the last bug in the bedroom, and presented it to
Mulder with a wink and a leer.  Mulder just cringed.  Whoever was
at the listening end of the device had gotten an earful last
night.

Three of the bugs were destroyed and the last was a reward to the
Gunmen for all their hard work.  They filed out of the apartment
around 5pm.  Byers looked serious as he put the listening device
in a little plastic box.  Frohike grinned smugly and Langly was
inscrutable as ever.  Apparently, they were unfazed by the idea
that Scully's apartment was bugged but excited to have a new toy
to play with.

"Well," Mulder said, flopping down on the couch when they were
gone.

"Somebody will figure out soon enough that those bugs are gone,"
Scully said, looking thoughtful as she sat down beside him.

"I wonder what they were thinking last night," Mulder said,
leaning over to kiss her neck.

She climbed onto his lap, straddling him.  "I don't even want to
know," she said with a grin, unbuttoning his shirt with deft
fingers.  She ran her fingers through the tawny hair on his
chest, licking her lips in anticipation.  He was a beautiful,
delectable man.  The shirt dropped to the floor.  And that was
the end of their conversation.

***********************

Two hours later, Scully padded to her living room, picking up the
trail of clothes that led from the couch to the bedroom.  Mulder
was still in bed, apparently tired out from their little
diversion.  She got redressed, folded Mulder's clothes neatly,
and put them on top of her dresser.  Then, she got out the
morning newspaper and sat down on the bed with an unnaturally
energetic bounce.  "I'm not tired," she told him.

"Maybe now we can talk about that informant of yours," Mulder
said, yawning into his fist.

"Don't sound so enthusiastic," she said, arching an eyebrow at
him.

"Woman, you tired me out."

She laughed, and that brought a smile to his face.  She loved to
see him smile.  A second later she sobered, thinking of her
afternoon encounter.

"It was a woman.  Fairly tall, about 5'8", brunette, late
forties, no distinguishing characteristics besides a tendency to
smoke Morleys."

"You think she works with our smoking friend?"

"Maybe," she replied.  "She claimed that they worked towards the
same goals.  Anyway, she said the man who got killed was only
periphery, and that she could give us information.  She said, and
these were the exact words 'some of us are trying to protect
you.'"

Mulder laced his fingers behind his head, closing his eyes for a
moment.  "Did she give you any information?"

"She said to check today's newspaper."

Mulder sat up, and Scully couldn't help but admire the lines of
his chest and biceps.  He looked permanently suntanned.  She
wished she had some of his pigmentation in her pasty white skin.
It would cover up her scars better.  His scars hardly showed,
even the one where she had shot him. Dragging her eyes away from
him, she opened up the newspaper and tried to concentrate on the
headlines.

"She said to call her Mara."

Mulder looked up from the paper, his expression suddenly
thoughtful.  "Mara," he mused.  "That means 'bitter' in Hebrew."

"An appropriate name," Scully said distractedly, resuming her
scan of the newspaper.  She wasn't in the mood for mind games.

Mulder was a fast reader, and soon he impatiently separated out
several sheets so that he could read them himself.  Scully tapped
down her annoyance and continued her perusal of the "today's
news" section.  Forty-five minutes later, Mulder took off his
glasses and rubbed his eyes while Scully pinched the bridge of
her nose between her forefinger and thumb.  They exhaled
simultaneously.

Scully spoke first.  "Did you see anything that looks like a
clue?"

"No." He looked as discouraged as she felt.

She paged through the now crinkled paper one more time, desperate
to find something.   In the last of local news stories, she
spotted an article about a tanker truck that had crashed on the
beltway, causing a five car pile-up.  Nothing uncommon.  But the
name of the company was "Nature's Best," and the truck had been
carrying corn oil.

"Look at this," she said, tapping to the article.  A black smudge
of ink stuck to her index finger.  Irritated, she rubbed her
thumb and finger together, trying to get the ink off.  She picked
up her cell phone and dialed number three on her speed dial.

"Lone Gunmen," a voice answered.

"Frohike, it's me.  Turn off the recorders."

"Done," he said.  "What can I do for you today?"

"I'm reading today's DC paper and there is an article about a
tanker truck accident.  The name of the company is 'Nature's
Best.'  I'm going to try and find out what I can about the
official side of this company, but I need you to do some checking
on the unofficial side.  Find out who owns it, if there are any
sister companies, that sort of thing.  You know what to look
for."

"Will do," he said, and the line disconnected.

An hour later, Frohike called back.  "Interesting news," he told
her.  "Nature's Best is a corn oil company owned by the same
transnational corporation that owns Industrial Mining Company.
The name sounded familiar, so I checked into its history.
Industrial Mining Company was formally called Strughold Mining
Company.  Owned by the one and only Conrad Strughold."

"Thanks, Frohike," she said, feeling particularly fond of the
little man as she scribbled the information down on a notepad.

"There's more," he replied.  "I remembered you had been looking
into Transgen.  Some kinds of funding are a matter of public
record, so I did some digging and found that Nature's Best has a
sister company called Allway, Inc.  Allway is involved in
developing hybrid strains of corn.  They corporately sponsor
Transgen to an unusual extent.  $1.2 million dollars, to be
exact.  I'll have copies of the records waiting for you here."

Scully nodded to herself, knowing that Frohike didn't trust email
for sending her something of that nature.  "Thanks, friend," she
told him.  "I owe you."

"The pleasure is all mine," Frohike replied, and disconnected.

Mulder was staring at her pad of paper with intense interest.
"Well?"

"Wheels within wheels," she said, and proceeded to explain
everything Frohike had told her.

*****************

Mulder opened the refrigerator and peered inside.  Unfortunately
there wasn't much besides a little milk, two eggs, condiments,
and one slice of american cheese.  In two days he had managed to
eat most of the decent food in Scully's apartment, including the
last three tablespoons of slightly freezer-burnt Ben and Jerry's
ice cream.  His stomach rumbled loudly, asking for breakfast.  He
grabbed what was left of the milk and made a bowl of cereal.  It
was healthy oat bran stuff that tasted like horse food.  But it
wasn't so bad after he added a big spoonful of sugar.

A few minutes later, Scully padded into the kitchen, wearing
nothing but a terry cloth robe.  She hadn't tied the robe very
tightly, and he got a lovely view of her pale, freckled skin.  He
would never get used to seeing Scully like this.  "I didn't mean
to wake you."  He glanced at the clock.  6am.  His insomnia had a
tendency to strike at odd times, especially during the early
morning hours.

"I couldn't sleep, anyway," she replied.  Then she spotted the
empty milk jug.  "You drank the last."

"Sorry."  He dragged his eyes up to her face.  Her hair was
tangled and she had sleep in one eye.  But she had never looked
so beautiful to him as she did at that moment.

"I'll just have something else."  She pulled a loaf of bread out
of her bread box and proceeded to make toast.  "We need to go to
the grocery store this morning."

The way she said it was very domestic.  As if they'd been married
for ten years and went to the grocery store every Thursday
morning.  As if they hadn't spent the last seven years chasing
aliens and mutants and serial killers.

"How long will we be here?"  He was referring to the previous
night's conversation.  They had talked about flying out of town
to do some digging around, but Scully hadn't been sure where to
start.

She waved her hand.  "Coffee first," she told him, scooping out
the grounds into the filter.

Mulder sniffed experimentally, detecting vanilla beans.  He
didn't like flavored coffee.  Plain was all he could handle at
this hour, no cream one sugar thank you very much.  But he
decided not to say anything about it, in the interest of marital
harmony.

The trip to the grocery store wasn't as bad as Mulder thought it
might be.  He was relieved that Scully didn't seem too interested
in buying rice-tofutti dream sickles or cereal that tasted like
hay.  He hoped those particular items were just a fad, sort of
like the bee pollen and yogurt that she had stopped eating a
month ago.

At first, the drive back to her apartment was perfectly normal.
Rude drivers, heavy traffic, jaywalking pedestrians, just the
usual sort of thing you see in a DC.  He first noticed something
was wrong when Scully started checking the rear view mirror every
ten seconds.  Then she changed lanes and came very close to
running a red light.  "We're being followed," she told him in a
strange, flat voice.

He looked out the side-view mirror.  "The gray car, Delaware
license plates?"

"No.  The tan rusty compact, Virginia plates," she said, changing
lanes and cutting off a red minivan.

Glancing again in the mirror, he saw the car had indeed changed
lanes with them.  "If we can spot them, they must not be very
good at keeping a low profile."

Scully huffed.  "Or they're just trying to let us know they're
watching."

"Because we found the bugs."  It was a logical thought.

She nodded, biting her lower lip in concentration.  They were the
first in line at the intersection, waiting for the lights to
change.  The left turn arrow above their heads switched to green,
and she floored it, pulling into the incoming traffic.

Mulder swore and clutched the door, clamping his teeth together
in anxiety as two cars swerved into the far lane to avoid hitting
them, horns blaring as they slammed on brakes.  It didn't take a
lip reader to translate what the other drivers were saying.
Mulder ignored the obscene gestures and twisted around to
look behind them.

"Did we lose them?"  Scully asked.

"I think so," he replied, feeling doubtful.  "It just seemed too
easy."

They made two circles around Scully's block but nothing seemed
out of place.  Scully parked in her usual spot, and Mulder
grabbed the two paper sacks full of groceries.  "Maybe it was
just a warning," he said.

"Maybe," she said.  Wordlessly, she held up the plastic sack.
Yellow slime with bits of broken shell dribbled out of the
styrofoam egg container and onto the fabric in the trunk.  He
stared at the dripping bag, his mood taking a sudden dark turn.
The brokeness was an ironically appropriate image of their lives.

******************
"Don't call me Naomi," she told them.  "Call me Mara, because the
Almighty has made my life very bitter.  I went away full, but the
Lord has brought me back empty."
--Ruth 1:20-21
[Naomi means "pleasant" but Mara means "bitter."]

**************************
Chapter 3:  Gleaning

"You've got to be the one.  You can't give up hope."
--Penny Northern to Scully in Memento Mori
*******************

Nobody knows his name, not even me.  I call him Jonathan.  I
think it amuses him, because he smiles in a peculiar way when I
call him that.  Most people don't call him anything other than
"Sir."  I don't like being near him; most of his thoughts are
less than pleasant, more like monochromatic nightmares than
living memories.

We stand smoking cigarettes in the cramped quarters of a room
filled with video equipment.  The camera has good resolution and
gives a wide view of the kitchen and living room area of Scully's
apartment.  I see Scully slam a plastic bag into the trash can,
looking irritated as she washes her hands in the kitchen sink.
They start arguing before they are even finished putting away the
groceries.

The argument is amusing in its own way.  She thinks the tailing
vehicle was more than a warning.  He thinks it wasn't.  She
thinks the apartment is still bugged.  He thinks it's not.  They
argue for about ten minutes, after which he retreats out of
camera range to sulk while she loads the dishwasher with a great
deal of banging of plates and spoons.

I watch her carefully, hoping she will get the hint I gave her
this morning.  Her discovery about Transgen was a start, but she
has yet to decipher the true meaning of that newspaper article.

The revelation comes as she's hanging up the dish towel.  She
stops in the middle of the kitchen, hands hanging at her sides.
I know we are much to far away for me to sense anything.
Instead, I try to read her body language.  She disappears from
camera range.  "I think she has it," the man beside me says.

I hear her pick up the phone.  "What number did she dial?"

"The lone gunmen."

"Audio?"

He nods, pressing a button on the panel next to the video screen.
The conversation comes over a small speaker to my left.

"Lone gunmen."

"Langly, turn off the recorders."

Click.

"I need you to find out where that truck came from."

"Will do."  Typing sounds in the background for a minute.
"Lehigh Furnace, Pennsylvania."

Pause.   "Are you sure?"

"Very sure."

"Damn.  We need to find out who was driving that truck."

"We'll get right on it."

"Thanks.  We will, too."  Click.

I turn to the smoking man, and smash my cigarette into the full
ashtray.  "It's time."

He nods, but I can feel his uncertainty.

I will rectify the mistakes of the past.  And Scully will help me
do it.  I'm certain of it now.  She's the one.

******************

The land slid by the car window at sixty miles an hour, all green
hills and filtered sunlight and an endless stretch of interstate.
It would probably rain before they reached Pennsylvania.  Mulder
wished they were already there.

It turned out that the man driving the Nature's Best truck was
named Gerald Blanton.  He looked like an identical twin to Kurt
Crawford.  He lived in Lehigh Furnace, Pennsylvania, about ten
miles northwest of Allentown.  Lehigh Furnace was the location of
the federally operated fertility clinic that led to his discovery
of the Lombard research facility, and later, the Kurt Crawford
clones. When Mulder had pursued the lead in a desperate attempt
to find a cure for Scully's cancer, it had turned out to be a
dead
end.  At least, it  had been a dead end in his mind, because it
hadn't produced a cure.  He hadn't told Scully about the
Lombard research facility until the discovery of Emily.  Hiding
evidence from her had been a foolish mistake on his part.  In a
way, quitting the FBI was his way of doing penance for his sins
of omission.

But now they had a chance to reestablish contact.  Mulder's
confrontation with the clones at Lombard replayed clearly in his
mind.  <Your arrival was only coincident with the execution of
our objective> one of the clones had told him.

<What objective?> he wondered.

<To subvert the Project> the clone replied.

Mulder tapped the steering wheel impatiently, the phrase running
through his head over and over again.  To subvert the
Project...to subvert the Project...

******************

It was very late when they arrived in Allentown.  They stayed at
a cheap motel and ate at a little diner nearby.  For the
twentieth time that day, Scully was grateful that Mulder had the
money to do this.  He had put two of his three inherited houses
up for sale, but they had plenty of money in the meantime.  One
year, she thought, or even less, and they could have answers.

It was too late to go to the address where the possible Crawford
clone lived.  Scully felt too keyed up to sleep but her body was
too tired to not go to bed.  After she showered and crawled under
the sheets, she snuggled next to him, feeling his warm body
stretched along her back like a comfortable blanket.  Inside she
felt afraid and weak, but having him at her back was steadying.
They lay like that for a long time, listening to the squeak of
the motel fan and the sounds of a early summer thunderstorm.

She could feel him almost asleep, his breath puffing softly over
her neck, when suddenly her body was wide awake and longing for
him.  Turning over, she pressed herself flush against him, hands
running over his back, teasing him into wakefulness.  For some
reason she could not name, she felt that this could be the last
time.  She knew that he felt the same way; she could sense it in
the way his hands possessed her body, the way his lips trembled
on her neck.  Each kiss, each caress seemed almost desperate.
The tenderness with which he filled her made her ache with joy
tinged in red, bittersweet triumph.

Afterwards, as her body still quivered, she placed her palm under
his jaw and kissed his warm mouth.  She was surprised when her
fingertips came away from his cheek damp with tears.  Without
thinking, she licked away a tiny bit of the saltiness with the
tip of her tongue.  She lay on her back and rolled the taste
around in her mouth, wondering if the tears were of happiness or
sorrow.  Maybe they were a little of both.  Gently, she put her
hand over his and held it until long after he fell asleep.  Lying
quietly, she thought of many things, but especially the one thing
they had to do in the morning.

When the alarm went off at 7am, Scully was sleeping so hard that
she tried to turn it off without coming fully awake.  She whacked
Mulder in the chin with her elbow, then almost poked her eye out
with the corner of the blanket when she tried to turn it off.
Everything felt off balance; she was grumpy and he was tired and
they both got on each other's nerves.

They managed to get back into their usual rhythm by mid-morning.
The rain finally stopped, and though it left behind stifling
humidity, the temperatures were much cooler.   It wasn't
difficult to find Crawford's residence because they were somewhat
familiar with the Allentown area.  Even better, he was at the
apartment when they arrived.  Scully considered it a definite
improvement from the morning.

"Kurt Crawford?" Scully asked as the man answered the door by
cracking open a few inches.  From what little she could see, his
hair was a bit longer, but the distinctive brown eyes that
stared back at them emotionlessly belonged to no one but the
Crawford clones.  The door suddenly opened wide.

"Come inside quickly, before anyone sees you," he said softly.

Scully glanced down the hallway in either direction before she
followed Mulder into the apartment.  The man looked at them as
expectantly as a clone can.

"You were expecting us?" Mulder said, disbelief coloring his
voice.

"Of course," the hybrid said.

"I don't understand," Scully said honestly, trying not to stare
at her surroundings.  The apartment looked so normal: off-white
walls, tan carpet, impressionist pictures on the wall.
Apparently the clones were good at blending in.

"The truck collision was an unfortunate accident.  We were hoping
you would make the connection to Transgen, then back to us.

Mulder shook his head.  "We?"

"My brothers and I.  Our work didn't stop when yours did, Agent
Mulder."

"We no longer work for the FBI," Mulder informed him.

"Who you work for is irrelevant," the hybrid said.  "We couldn't
come to you without great risk to ourselves, but we could help
you rediscover us."

Scully just listened in baffled silence.  This was not turning
out the way she had expected.

"You're here about the Project," he reminded them.

"Yes," Mulder replied.  "How did you come to know so much about
us?"

"We've been watching you ever since you came to us in Allentown,
and waiting for you to come back."  His eyes flicked coolly over
Scully, then back to Mulder.

"What do you want from us?" Mulder asked.

"The only thing I have ever wanted," he replied.  "To subvert the
Project."

He proceeded to explain how a network of Crawford clones had
scattered across the nation, each taking on different aliases
while trying to maintain a low profile.  There were humans in the
network as well.  But a single person only knew the location of a
few others, so that if he was killed or discovered, the entire
network would not be jeopardized.  When the time was right, they
could activate the network and go public.  They had accumulated
masses of evidence, but they couldn't go public without
protection.

The biggest surprise came next as he presented Scully with a
large cardboard box.  She took off the lid, feeling a bit like
Pandora opening a forbidden treasure.  Inside where stacks of
notes, lab tests, and results.  The papers smelled faintly of the
lab, of latex and chemicals, familiar and somehow comforting.
"There's more where that came from," he told her.  "But we won't
go public unless you can find a way to protect us."

She turned to Mulder and held his gaze for a long moment.  They
had contacts within the FBI who would be willing to take them
into a federal witness protection program.  But it was going to
take more than that.

"What about the humans in your network?" Scully asked.  "Who are
they?"

"Navajo Indians," the clone replied. "There are eighteen left
that know about the files."

Scully tried to keep her mouth from hanging open in surprise.
She knew about the deal that Skinner had made for the return of
the MJ files.  But she hadn't known it was so extensive, nor that
it was connected with the Crawford clones.  It made perfect
sense.  The clones had data, the Indians had documentation.
Together, the two groups would make the Consortium very famous.
Or what was left of it.

"We need to hide this clone," Mulder told her.  "And we need to
contact Skinner.  He's the one that can start all this.  I have
an idea of how we can do that without detection."

He took out his cell phone and dialed.  Scully listened to the
conversation with growing anxiety, hoping that Mulder's cell
phone wouldn't be tracked.

"Turn off the recorders...we want tickets to the game.  Save room
for peanuts and ice cream...yeah my treat...whatever."  He
listened and nodded his head a few times.  "My friend Allen will
meet us there.  You'll like him...yeah big guy..."  then a series
of words Scully didn't catch because they sounded like a string
of nonsensical phrases, "okay, later."

"What was that?" asked Scully.

"Just a little something I planned for a long time ago.  Let's
get out of here."  He turned back to the Crawford clone.  "Do you
need to pack?"

The clone pulled out an overnight bag from the hallway closet.
"I'm ready when you are," he said.

******************

Mulder shook his head, unable to stop his pacing through the tiny
motel room.  They were two hour drive north of Allentown.
Crawford lay sleeping on the bed, apparently able to sleep
through anything.  After three hours of sleep Mulder had gotten
up, knowing that he would need to leave to meet Skinner soon.

This could be it for them.  Separation now could have serious
consequences, especially if someone decided to betray them.
Mulder thought he could trust Skinner, although something seemed
to be going on with his former boss, something he couldn't
pinpoint.  It frightened him immensely, just as leaving Scully
for this meeting frightened him.

"Think about the possible consequences of your actions," Scully
hissed, her voice low.  "I know this is what we've been fighting
for all along.  But it won't do anyone any good if it causes mass
riots and anarchy."

He had thought the same thing not many weeks before.  "I know
what I said two months ago," he said.  "But this is the right
thing to do."

"It wasn't the right thing to do two months ago?" Scully asked.
Her words were frozen icepicks, and he shivered under their
impact.

"I already apologized.  I don't know what else to say."  As soon
as the words left his mouth he wanted to take them back.

He knew Scully was beyond furious when she refused to look at
him.  Her hands were gesturing wide arcs through the air, as if
trying to expel the pent up fury without reverting to violence.
"This is not about us," she argued.  "This is not about Diana.
This is about survival.  What if the colonists find out?  What if
they start colonization and we have nothing more than a weak
vaccine?  What then?"

He still didn't know how to answer.  But she didn't expect one,
and continued her monologue.  "Maybe we should wait.  Maybe we
should let them know that we know.  It might give us a chance to
work on the vaccine, or at least to stop the hybrid work."  Her
voice squeaked a little at the end.  She looked up at him,
finally meeting his eyes.  They were weary and angry and
something else all at once.

"Look, I'm going to talk to Skinner."  The anger was still coming
off her in blue sparks.  She crossed her hands over her chest.
Mulder decided to try another tactic.  "I promise I won't tell
Skinner to start things before I talk to you," he said, holding
his hands out with palms upwards, as if in supplication.

It seemed to pacify her, for the time being.  "Alright.  But you
have to promise you won't start anything until we both agree it's
the right thing to do."

She had caught him.  Not only did he have to talk to her, but she
had to agree.  "I promise."  He would never break that promise.
Not even if she said no to the deal.

They stood looking at each other for a long moment.  "It's time
for me to go," Mulder said, feeling a sudden ache in his chest.
Scully uncrossed her arms until her hands came to rest at her
sides.

"Ok, then," she said, her expression closed and guarded.

This was not good.  Mulder didn't want her to be angry with him
in what could be the last time he'd ever see her.  "I love you
more than anything, more than any truth," he told her.

"I know."  Her voice was barely above a whisper.  And then she
closed the distance between them in one step, wrapping her arms
around his neck in a rough embrace.  "I love you, too," she told
him.

Then her lips were on his in a rough kiss, his tongue pressing
into her mouth in a burst of passion.  He couldn't fight the
arousal, nor did he want to.  He wanted to make love to her one
last time, even though Kurt Crawford was sleeping in the same
room.  He wanted to so much...he wanted...

She pushed him up against the wall, hands on his chest,
underneath his jacket, teeth nipping his neck.  He groaned,
shuddering underneath the tumult of emotion.  "Scuuuleee."  He
could hardly get the words out, could hardly think at all.  "I
have to go."

She loosened her hold on him, and stepped back.  They stood
close, just barely touching, while his heart hammered in his
chest.  "I know," she said.  "I know."  He could feel her body
shaking.

There was no time to take back all the things he wished he hadn't
said over the years.  He hoped that she understood what he wanted
to say even though he couldn't.  He memorized the image of her
face at that very moment, flushed and pale in the twilight, eyes
brimming over with her soul.  Mulder breathed deep with his eyes
closed, trying to take her essence deep inside himself.

He released her and turned away to grab his bag, lingering at the
door.

"Please just go," she said, looking at the door behind him
instead of meeting his gaze.

His eyes began to water.  "Scully, I..."

She held up her hand to shush him.  "Don't say goodbye.  And I
know that you love me.  Just go."

He turned around and walked out the door without looking back.
He was shaking so hard inside that he felt like he was going to
be sick in the bushes that lined the parking lot.  Walking away
from her was like leaving his soul behind.

******************

Mulder leaves the motel around 6 pm.  He doesn't know that I've
been watching, and that someone else has been watching him, too.
It's time for me to take care of the someone who has been
watching him.

I had planted myself near his car for the past hour or so, near
the alley where he has been sitting and watching the hotel all
afternoon.  After so many years of training, I find it easy to
move quietly, and this one isn't particularly good at noticing
his surroundings.  There really isn't much to notice, anyway.
We're out in the middle of nowhere.  Only one other couple has
checked into the hotel all afternoon.  It's relatively easy to
sneak up on the open driver's window.

The man's eyes go wide when he feels my knife at his throat.
He's even more surprised when he sees a woman's face behind the
blade.

"Don't move or you're dead," I tell him very softly.  "Who do you
work for?"

He doesn't speak, but he thinks of a tall brunette woman.  I
guessed right.

"You work for her, don't you," I say, pressing the tip of the
knife into his throat until a little blood trickles down his
neck.

"Don't lie," I tell him.  "You work for Fowley.  You were just
thinking of her.  She's paying you $30,000 to watch Mulder."

The man continues to hold his silence.  He thinks of the bonus he
was promised for accepting a possible subject termination
assignment without asking any questions.  He thinks of an old
woman with styled graying hair in a frumpy dress.  He thinks of
fumbling in the back of a musty car, a girl moaning underneath
him, of a smoking man, and a tall woman with cruel eyes.  I know
that he is expecting to die.

I'm very strong, and can move very fast.  He barely realizes that
I'm not using the knife as I grab his head and twist sideways.
My weapon drops to the car seat as bones in his neck snap with a
series of pops.  His body jerks all at once, and  I slam him back
in the seat so that he can't push the horn.  We are locked in a
freakish embrace while I wait for him to stop twitching, all the
while trying to block out his experience with death, but it claws
at my mind with sharp talons.  At last, he stops moving and I let
go.  He head lolls sideways at an awkward angle, but there is no
blood, except for a tiny bit that trickles out of the corner of
his mouth.  No blood makes for less clean-up.

I pick up my knife and prepare to hide the body in the trunk of
the car.  I haven't killed anyone in a long time.  I don't like
it because I can feel when they die, the black moment when the
soul leaves the body.  But sometimes it is necessary.

I hide the body in the trunk of the man's vehicle.  A woman
driving a tan compact pulls into the parking lot just as I'm
slamming the trunk shut.  I try to look inconspicuous as I stride
purposefully to Scully's room and knock on the door.  Thankfully,
the woman in the lot doesn't seem to take any notice of me.  I'm
just a blur in her peripheral vision.

The door opens and I'm confronted by Scully. She grips her weapon
tightly while her eyes stare out from a stark, white face.  Her
hair is pulled into a ponytail; loose strands drift around her
face like a wild halo.  The edgy emotions whirling through her
mind throw me off balance, but I steel myself, hoping silently
that Mulder makes it to his meeting.  I can't always be
protecting him.

******************

"And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, 'Let me go to the fields
and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find
favor.'  So she went out and began to glean in the fields behind
the harvesters...As she got up to glean, Boaz gave orders to his
men, 'Even if she gathers among the sheaves, don't embarrass her.
Rather pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave
them for her to pick up...'"
--Ruth 2

******************

Chapter 4: Threshing Floor

Mulder pushed his way through the crowded mall a few minutes
outside St. Joseph, near the New York-Pennsylvania border.  He
wondered why so many people were at the mall on a week night.
Even on a good day, he didn't like the mall.  But tonight, the
smells of perfume and sweaty bodies, the noise, and the obnoxious
commercials all combined to grate on his already jangled nerves.

He ordered a hotdog, fries and a frozen strawberry drink from a
relatively clean looking place in the food court.  His stomach
fluttered at the thought that Scully would have approved his
choice.  It was hard not to think of her every second, to not
just walk away from the whole mess and to take her away somewhere
safe.  But he knew there was no such place, unless they happened
onto some Star Trek-like alternate reality.

He chose a table near the corner of the seating area and began
working through his meal.  Halfway through the hotdog, he
realized he was more hungry than he first thought, not having
eaten in at least twelve hours.  Hunger made the plain food taste
like a feast.

His eyes scanned the crowd over and over, but there was no sign
of Skinner.  Eventually he fell back into his old habit of people
watching, a throw-back from his days at Oxford.  He sipped the
strawberry drink and tried to guess what the people were
thinking, just to pass the time.  There was a mom with two small
children sitting two tables down.  Her face was tired and makeup-
free, quite pretty if you could see past the tangled hair and
smear of ketchup on her chin.  The two children were quiet as
they ate McDonalds fries and played with Happy Meal toys.  She
was probably thinking how she wished that her husband had taken
the children tonight instead of working late so that she could go
to the mall by herself.  His eyes flicked over the man across
from him, his back hunched, sipping lemonade and munching a
pretzel.  He didn't look like he was thinking anything at all,
just zoning out, staring at the white walls of the mall.  There
was a gaggle of tall young boys who looked like the local high
school basketball team, watching a group of giggling girls two
tables down.  It wasn't hard to guess what was on their minds, he
thought, remembering his own adolescence.

And then, he saw Skinner.  It was the first time he had ever seen
the man casually dressed (not counting hospital scrubs).  He wore
a sweater and khaki pants, looking the part of a middle-aged
father at the mall.  Skinner approached Mulder without looking
directly at him, ordered from the burger place nearby,
and brought his meal to the table without a word.

Mulder wasn't sure how to start.  But Skinner spoke first.

"Is it time to start the wildfire?" he asked quietly, crunching
down on a burger loaded with lettuce and ketchup.

"Scully has some reservations," Mulder replied.

"What sort of reservations?"

Mulder hoped the sounds of the food court and crowds of people
covered their conversation from prying ears.  "Hysteria, mass
panic, disappearance of evidence, to name a few.  She won't agree
to starting things unless we can guarantee the protection of
those involved, and guarantee that the evidence won't
mysteriously
disappear."  He studied the older man carefully.

"I created the network three years ago with those very concerns
in mind.  What I want to know is, why now?"

It seemed like an honest question, but Mulder didn't quite know
how to answer.  "Scully's informant seemed to think the timing
was appropriate."

Skinner grimaced.  "In other words, you may be serving someone
else's agenda."

"That could be," Mulder said thoughtfully.  "But this time I
think this particular informant is intent on bringing down
the...organization.  I don't know why, but I do know that if we
have a serious chance to get real answers, to expose this to the
public, that we should do so."

"But we shouldn't do it blindly," Skinner said.

"I agree," Mulder replied.

"I can speak with Scully," he said, indicating his coat pocket,
which Mulder guessed held his cell phone.

Something wasn't sitting right with him.  It was something
subtle, like looking into a mirror and noticing that the
reflection didn't shift in perfect synchrony with one's own
movements.  He had a plan, but it wouldn't work in the middle of
a crowd of people.  "Not here," Mulder said.  "Why don't we go to
my car?"

Skinner looked at him strangely, but complied without comment.
"To your car then," he said, picking up his tray and heading for
the trash can.

************************

Scully eyes me warily as I stand on the threshold of her hotel
room.  The Crawford clone stands close behind her, hovering
protectively.  "I see you have number 74," I tell her, indicating
the clone with a wave of my hand.

She motions me inside but the gun stays in her hand.

"What do you want?" she asks shortly.

"You're being watched. You need to leave this location
immediately."

She flicks open the blinds and peers outside.  "I don't see
anything."

"I took care of it.  I can show you the body if you like."

Her mouth frames a silent oath.  She holsters the gun and moves
to the bed to repack her bags.  The most prominent thought in her
mind is that she's had very little sleep in the past two days and
that she can't get far before it becomes too dangerous for her to
drive.

"Just get as far away from here that you can."  She thinks about
calling Mulder.  "And don't call Mulder.  It's too dangerous."

She hesitates mid-packing, holding a hairbrush in one hand and
toothpaste in the other.  "You can read minds," she says.  There
is a sort of easy acceptance of this fact that I would have never
expected after reading her file.  Usually she's so skeptical.

"Not really.  It's more impressions than mind reading.  You're
just easier to read than most."

She positively glares.  "Why do you keep helping us?"

"Sometimes what you want and what you think you want are two very
different things," I tell her.  Suddenly I'm aching for a
cigarette.

"I know what I want," she says firmly.

"I know that you want nothing more than to forget all this
happened, to settle down and live a so-called normal life.  But
something inside you, your sense of justice or loyalty or
whatever you choose to call it stops you from quitting."  Scully
glares at me again.  "I've already expended a great deal of
effort to ensure that you don't fail.  I don't intend to let my
investments go to waste."

Scully wonders what I mean by that, and wishes she could read my
mind.  I almost laugh at that thought, so atypical for her.

"I'm going to take care of the little problem that was waiting
for you in the alley.  Meanwhile, try not to raise too much
suspicion when you check out of the hotel."  It would never do to
have the clerk remembering the red-head who checked out of the
motel just five hours after her husband checked in.

I light a cigarette and walk to the car.  There's still some
business I need to attend to.

*************************

Mulder drove twenty miles down highway 267 in complete silence.
Skinner didn't seemed surprised when he pulled off at a seldom
used junction and stopped the car about a mile from the highway.
"Start talking," Mulder said, pulling out his weapon and placing
it on his lap.  "I want to know who you're working for and what
they want."

"I'm not working for anyone," Skinner said dully.

"No more lies," Mulder told him, raising the gun and pointing it
at his former boss's bald head.  "Hands on your lap where I can
see them."

Skinner's hands came to rest on his lap.  "I'm telling the truth.
I don't work for anyone."

"Then who is manipulating you?  This car isn't bugged, so start
talking."

"Krycek."  Skinner was looking out the window into the darkness.

"The nanoprobes."  Skinner's behavior after his illness, his
refusal to accept their investigations, all the oddness the last
several months, it all made sense in light of that revelation.

The older man nodded in agreement.

"What if you light the wildfire?" Mulder said.  "What happens to
you, then?"

"Then I die."

Mulder was shaken by the calm way in which Skinner said those
three words.  He felt like he should have made the connection to
Krycek long ago.

"Do I have permission to call Scully and explain my plan to her?"
Skinner asked, breaking the silence.

"No," Mulder said after a moment's thought.  "I'll call her from
a pay phone."

It was a half hour before they found a rest stop.  It was
completely deserted except for one car with a terrier in the back
seat.  Mulder could see the dog yapping at them through the
window as they pulled up close to the pay phone.

He dialed Scully's cell phone number.  "Hello," a voice answered
after six rings, sounding exasperated and frightened.

"It's me."

"This line isn't safe," she told him.

He paused, trying to think how to frame his question without
giving too much away.  "Our friend convinced me."  He willed her
to understand the question.  There was a long pause.

"Folie a deux," she told him.  "Don't use this line again."
There was a click as she hung up.

Mulder nodded to Skinner.  "She agrees."

Skinner inclined his head silently and picked up the phone.
Mulder peeked over his shoulder watched him dial a number using a
credit card, most likely under an assumed name.  The man spoke
ten words into the phone and hung up.  He handed the card to
Mulder.  "For you, just in case," he whispered, even though they
were alone.  "Remember the number and the words.  If you say the
words in reverse order onto the voicemail, someone will call you
back immediately."

As they left the phone, Mulder noticed a flicker of light as the
door of the men's bathroom opened and closed.  It was probably
just the motorist who owned the car with the annoying dog.  His
former boss saw it, too.

Mulder darted to the car and swung the door open.  The engine was
running when he noticed that Skinner was still standing at the
door.  His face bore a look of incredible agony.  With a shock,
Mulder realized that the veins in his neck and face were standing
out purple and rigid.

"Get in," Mulder yelled through the partially open window,
frantically trying to open the passenger door.  Skinner seemed
unable to move, and Mulder's attempts to open the door only made
him stagger backwards.

Mulder jumped out of the car and ran towards his boss.  The man
fell to the ground, clutching his head in agony as he squatted in
a fetal position.  Horrified, Mulder realized that this was how
Skinner had looked when he was dying of the nanoprobes.

He put his hand on Skinner's shoulder.  "We have to leave here,"
he said, vainly pulling at the man's bulky figure, trying to get
him up off the ground.

"No," Skinner gasped.  "Leave me. Dead. Anyway."  Each word was
punctuated by a desperate fight for breath.

"Who did this to you?" Mulder couldn't help from asking.  And how
did the nanoprobes multiply so quickly?  Last time it had taken
many hours for him to get to this condition.

Skinner could hardly get the words out.

"Kry...Krycek...Just...run."  He slumped forward and fell splayed
out on the ground, one arm trapped under him at an awkward angle.
Mulder felt for a pulse under the ravaged skin of the man's neck.
There was none.

He leaped up, starting towards the bathroom, intending to kill
Krycek (who was undoubtedly hiding somewhere in the rest stop)
when there was a loud popping sound.  A bullet whizzed past his
ear and hit the car.  He dropped to the ground and scrambled to
the car, trying to assess where the bullets were coming from. His
gun was out but he wasn't sure where to fire.

Taking a deep breath, he opened the car door and scuttled inside,
keeping his head well down.  A bullet shattered his windshield
and lodged in the passenger seat as he peeled out of the parking
space.  Tires squealed and two more bullets went through the back
window before he reached the end of the parking lot.

The cobweb of broken glass around the bullet hole made it hard to
see, but he managed to get back onto the highway.  He floored the
accelerator.  No one followed him.

************************

Scully tossed the cell phone in the back seat without taking her
eyes off the road.  She and Mulder were up to their eyeballs now,
and there was no turning back.

She drove a safe three miles an hour over the speed limit,
desperately wanting to speed up but not willing to get pulled
over.  She was virtually an accessory to murder.  And she was
carrying a concealed weapon.  It wasn't something she wanted
local law enforcement to stumble upon if she got pulled over for
a minor traffic violation.

They were heading north.  She wasn't sure exactly where they
would end up, though.  She was sick of driving before they even
started.  Her lower back was sore and her stomach growled
angrily, demanding to be fed.  The Crawford clone didn't seem the
least bit tired.  She didn't want him to drive; somehow she had
the irrational fear that he would morph into an alien bounty
hunter and kill her if she fell asleep.  Instead, she made him
watch for vehicles that might be tailing them.  His dark eyes
scanned the passing interstate with unflinching intensity.

At 3 am they stopped in some nondescript town that Scully unable
to name.  She checked into her room as if she were floating
through a dream painted in shades of gray and black.  Kurt
Crawford's steps were close behind her as she put the key in the
lock of room 46. The cool night air swirled around her body as
the door swung open.  She stepped inside.  Something was wrong.

Her gun was out even as she turned on the light.  In the far
corner of the room, the smoking man was sitting in a cheap motel
room chair, blinking slightly as his eyes adjusted to the lights.
He wasn't smoking, but the room smelled faintly of his habits.
Her first thought was to wonder how anyone had known they would
be in this room.  Was the car bugged?

Crawford stepped in front of her and spoke first.  "What do you
want?"

"Merely to speak with Ms. Scully," the man replied, standing up.
The way his voice slid lazily over the word "Ms." made it sound
more like an insult than a polite formality.

"Don't move," Scully said, trying to hold the gun steady.  Her
body was exhausted, but adrenaline was surging through her veins,
making her feel light headed and unnaturally awake. "Hands where
I can see them."

"Ms. Scully, I could have killed you long ago if I had wanted
to," he told her.  But he held his hands still at his sides.

She pushed past Crawford, noting with some surprise that he
looked almost angry.  She repeated the clone's question.  "What
do you want?"

"I'm willing to make a deal," he said, reaching into his pocket.

"Uh-uh," Scully said, motioning with the gun.  "No smoking." The
man's hands fell back to his sides.

"If you won't go public with this information, we're willing to
give you something in return.  Something that you want very
much."

Scully was silent, so the man continued.  "We promise to leave
you and Mulder alone.  We'll take out the chip in your neck and
give you a way to prevent the cancer from coming back.  During
your abduction, you were not completely stripped of your ova, as
Mulder so foolishly believes.  The chip merely...controls your
limbic system.  Without it, and with a little help,
your...fertility can be restored."

Scully felt as if her heart were pounding directly against her
ribs.  It was hard to hear above the sound of a strong wind
rushing past her ears.  She shook her head, but that didn't make
the sound go away.  "No way, no deal," she told him, not lowering
her gun.

"I will personally bring you Samantha," the man continued.

She suppressed a sharp intake of breath.  Did she really have the
right to deprive Mulder of finding his sister?  Her thoughts felt
jumbled and confused, as if someone had stirred up her brain with
a wire whisk.  Only one thing came clearly to her mind.  The
chip.  They had known where she was going to be through the chip.
What if they forced her to do something against her will by
activating it?

"No," she managed to say.  The word came out in the middle of a
pant, and even in all the emotion of the moment, she hated
herself for showing weakness.

"This is your last chance, Ms. Scully.  I suggest you don't make
a hasty decision."

"I'd rather die."

The man looked startled for a split second, and then a slightly
amused smile spread over his wrinkled features.

"I thought that might be your answer.  Very well, then."  He
moved past her and to the door.  She dropped the gun to her side
and let him pass.

He paused, his hand on the door.  "I do have something for you,
if you will permit me to reach into my pocket."

She nodded wordlessly.  He reached into his pocket and pulled out
a little cloth pouch, not much larger than the size of her own
palm.  As if she was observing herself from a great distance, she
saw her hand reaching out to take it.

"Good evening, Ms. Scully, Mr. Crawford."  He inclined his head
to them almost regally, and walked out the door.  She stood
rooted to the ground, staring at the peeling paint around the
door post long after the man had left.

"What is it?" Crawford asked.  She jumped, having forgotten he
was there.

She carefully opened the pouch.  Inside was a piece of paper with
an address written on it.  Underneath the paper was a vial of
amber liquid.  The reality crashed over her like a tidal wave.
"The vaccine."

She had only one guess as to why she had been given the vaccine.
CJB Spender knew there was nothing he could do to stop the MJ
files and vaccine work from going public.  Knowledge of the
existence of the Project's vaccine development would likely
hasten colonization.  But with a viable vaccine in hand, earth
might have a fighting chance.  Why he had chosen to change sides
now was unclear to her.  Maybe there were factions within the
consortium that disagreed on policy.  Maybe the idea of becoming
a hybrid was less appealing than it had been twenty years ago.
It didn't matter anymore.  All that mattered was that she get to
the address on the piece of paper.  There was one thing getting
in her way.  The chip.  She figured she could either die sooner
with a disagreeable faction of the consortium tracking her
through the chip, or die much later from the cancer.  She would
rather choose to postpone the inevitable.

Scully managed to walk to her suitcase, still clutching the vial.
She fumbled with the zipper and opened the bag left-handed,
pulling out her black doctor's bag.  Pouch in one hand, black bag
in the other, she staggered for the bathroom.

"What are you doing?" Crawford asked.  The vague shape in her
peripheral vision appeared worried, but she didn't answer.

She slammed the bathroom door and set the bag on the back of the
toilet.  The vial she set carefully on the pale vanity of the
sink.  Her hands shook so badly that she could hardly open the
bag.  Taking a deep breath, she tried to calm her thoughts, to
steady her erratic breathing, but it didn't help.  Finally, she
forced the doctor's bag open and plunged her hand inside.  Her
fingers closed around the cool length of a scalpel handle.  Good,
she hadn't taken it out.  Beside it was a packet containing a
sterile blade.  She opened the packet around the blade and
slipped it onto the handle with the precision of an expert.  The
sharp edge gleamed at her in the fluorescent lights, asking her
wickedly if she really wanted to do this.

She raised her left hand to her neck, feeling for the slight bump
underneath her fingertips.  There, she could feel it, a slight
raised spot near the base of her neck.  The scalpel came up and
she closed her eyes so she wouldn't have to see herself in the
mirror.

It hurt more than she thought it would.  Blood cascaded over her
hand and she cursed as her body shuddered at the pain of the
first cut.  Steeling her muscles into stillness, she sliced off
the piece of skin and put it in her palm.  It was a big piece of
tissue; she cut off more than she intended.  Probing it carefully
in her shaking hands, she felt something hard meet her fingertip.
She pulled the microchip out between her thumb and forefinger and
placed it on the vanity next to the vial.  It looked so tiny,
sitting in a smudge of red.

Blood trickled down her back, almost tickling the soft skin
between her shoulder blades. She reached for a wash cloth,
turning on the faucet to wet it, leaving red splotches everywhere
her hands touched.  The washcloth on her neck felt like liquid
fire.  She tried to wring it out, but her hands wouldn't stop
shaking, and watery blood splashed over the sink and floor.  The
floor began to heave up and down like a boat in stormy weather,
and the lights hurt her eyes.  She just wanted to rest, to close
her eyes and sleep for a little while, if only the floor would
stop moving so much.

She barely heard the knock on the door, or Kurt asking if she was
all right.  By the time he came in, she was sitting slumped
against the wall.  Just a little rest, she thought.  Then the
blackness claimed her.

************************
"Is not Boaz, with whose servant girls you have been, a kinsman
of ours?  Tonight he will be winnowing barley on the threshing
floor...go down to the threshing floor, but don't let him know
you are there until he has finished eating and drinking.  When he
lies down, note the place where he is lying.  Then go and uncover
his feet and lie down.  He will tell you what to do..."
--Ruth 3:2-4
*********************

Chapter 5:  Redeemer

Somewhere in northern Illinois

Scully woke up to a low humming noise and a rhythmic thumping
underneath her ear.  When she tried to move her head, her back
cramped and hot pain pricked the back of her neck.  She sat up
with a groan.  Kurt Crawford was driving the car down a somewhat
busy highway.  She had been lying in the back seat with her head
resting on a rolled up jacket, and the thumping was the sound of
the wheels going over cracks in the highway.

"Good morning," he said, glancing at her in the rearview mirror.
"How are you feeling?"

"Terrible," she replied, rubbing her eyes.  Now that she was
sitting up, her whole body felt like one big cramp.  "Where are
we?"  She had no memory of checking out of the hotel or getting
into the car.

"Somewhere in northern Illinois," he replied.

"On our way to South Dakota, I take it?"  The address the smoking
man had given them was in South Dakota.

"Yes.  Do you need to stop?"  He tilted his head to indicate a
sign that read "Rest Area in one mile.  Next rest area 67 miles."

"Yes."  She grabbed the bag sitting behind the front passenger
seat and managed to walk to the bathrooms under Crawford's
watchful eyes.  Seventy-two, she remembered.  His designation is
seventy-two.

She barely recognized the woman in the mirror, even after she
changed her bloody clothes and washed her face.  Her eyes were
bloodshot and puffy, her hair sticking up in twenty directions.
She put her hand to the back of her neck.  The rough texture of a
gauze bandage met her fingertips, but it hurt too much to twist
around and see it.

When she emerged from the bathroom, Crawford was waiting for her
with a package in hand.  "You need to eat," he told her, shoving
a pastry from the vending machine into her palm.  She was
ravenous, and finished half of the pastry before they arrived
back at the car.  He climbed into the driver's seat before she
could object.

"Drink this, too."  He popped the seal on an aluminum can of
orange juice.

She dutifully gulped it down as they headed out for the highway,
then licked the remnants of the pastry off her fingertips.  "Tell
me what happened last night," she said.  "I can't remember
anything after sitting down in the bathroom.  I don't even know
where we were."

He glanced at her briefly, and continued driving.  "We were at a
town on the Indiana-Ohio border called Hicksville.  I found you
in the bathroom.  You had fainted and there was blood everywhere.
I cleaned you up and put you to bed.  Then I cleaned the bathroom
and checked us out at 6 am.  We've been driving for about three
hours."

Indiana was west.  She thought they had been going north. She
must have been more tired than she realized.  "How long until we
get to our destination?"

"If we make good time, and the maps are accurate, we should get
there by 5 or 6 pm."

"Where is my cell phone?"  It wasn't in her bag and she couldn't
find it in the back seat.

The clone was silent for several moments.  "I destroyed it.  I
was afraid it could be traced too easily."

This clone was very proactive.  The last Crawford she had met
would only follow orders.  "And the chip?"

"I destroyed that as well."

"Good," she said emphatically.  She only wished that it could
have been her fingers to crush it.

"Get some more rest, if you can.  I can drive the rest of the
way."

She nodded and leaned her cheek against the cool glass of the
window.  Outside, the tilled fields and flat grasslands rushed by
in a green and brown blur.  The rhythmic sounds of the highway
were soothing, and she closed her eyes.  More than anything else,
she wanted to see Mulder again.  But she didn't know where he
was, and he didn't know where she was.  She tried not to think
about how much she missed him, or that she might never see him
again.  Instead, she let the motion of the car lull her to sleep.
She didn't wake up again until they reached Wisconsin.

*******************************
Somewhere in northwestern Ohio

It was easier to get rid of the damaged car than Mulder had
thought it would be.  He simply left it in a ditch under the
cover of night and walked three miles into town.  Cars sped by
him every couple of minutes, but no one offered him a ride.  When
he arrived at the nearest gas station off the highway, he called
a cab and had it take him to a rental car agency.  At 6 am, the
agency opened and he rented a car under a second assumed name.

The first thing he wanted to do was to find Scully.  But he
didn't know where she was and it probably wasn't safe to contact
her.  Once the news of colonization hit the press, the Consortium
might decide to try to kill her.  And himself.

He drove westward until two in the afternoon, when he checked
into a seedy hotel, hoping that no one was tailing him.  There
were mirrors on the ceiling and the floor was filthy.  Fearing
what he would find under the sheets, he slept on top of the
covers.

*******************************
New York 7pm EST (6pm CST)

I used to have daughter and a husband who adored me.  I would
wake up at night and find him watching me.  He said he loved to
listen to me breathe.

He was a diplomat, and I was a stay at home mom, with a Ph.D. in
political science.  I was young and brilliant and hiding my gift,
happy to have a chance at a relatively normal life.  But
everything changed one day when my daughter was four.

While taking my daughter home from preschool, my husband's car
was hit by another car racing to beat a red light.  Both cars
ended up wrapped around the stop lights; no one survived.  The
police said they were just at the wrong place at the wrong time,
but I was never convinced of that.  I always thought it was
suspicious, though nothing could ever be proven.  After that,
life didn't seem to matter so much any more.  When my husband's
associates approached me with a deal, there wasn't much reason
for me to refuse it.

I should have known better than to go back to New York after
disposing of the body.  Everything was working perfectly.  The
new consortium was in place and set up to fall.  Mulder and
Scully set everything in motion, and the public found out about
the existence of extraterrestrial biological entities exactly
twelve hours after initiation of the plan.  But I underestimated
two things: human stupidity, and my capacity for bad luck.  I
thought that our network of military and pharmaceutical companies
would together be able to handle any kind of panic on the part of
the general populace, but I was wrong.  I headed back to New York
to start damage control.  The arrests of the consortium members
hit the press a few hours after I'd arrived there, and someone
told them to be looking for me.  I was pulled over for speeding
by some green cop that had barely worn his badge for two months.
He recognized me and brought me in for questioning.

Talk about bad luck.  Now I'm stuck here staring at the peeling
paint on a jail cell wall.

I never planned to get caught with the people who ran the
Project, but I did.  If I don't end up dying in prison, I'll be
killed by the colonists or the rebels, and none of those options
are very appealing.

I've always kept a special pill with me, hidden in the frames of
my reading glasses.  Thankfully they gave me back my glasses
after I was processed.  I break the frames and carefully extract
the pill.  It looks so tiny and white in my palm, like it
couldn't kill a parakeet, let alone a human.

But I know better.

Overall, I think I did more good than bad with the life that They
left me.  I hand picked Dr. Altenberg to run the vaccine program
in the States.  He was a good man.  He did away with the human
vaccine trails, and used the research of the previous 20 years to
find a working vaccine within a few years of taking his
supervisory position at Transgen.  I convinced the man I named
Jonathan to let Mulder have the truth, albeit bit by bit.  I made
him see that Scully was a more valuable asset to the Project than
Mulder could ever hope to be.  Little by little, I used my
terrible gift to squeeze some good out of a situation which
promised to yield only evil.

I wish I had time to send Scully one last message.  I'd tell her
that she was the only woman I'd ever loved besides my daughter,
and that I had hoped to see her children someday.  It's too late
for that now.  She'll never see me as anything more than an
informant who led her to a bad choice.

The pill tasted bitter, a little like almonds.  A little like the
kiss of my husband, when I kissed him before they put him in the
ground.  I never knew how much it would hurt to die, and the
light was so bright that I closed my eyes against it.  But
through the glare I heard the voice of my daughter, calling to
me, telling me to hurry...

*******************************

Pierre, South Dakota, 6 pm CST

Scully knocked tentatively on the door of 1252 Maple Street. A
man who looked about thirty years old answered the door.  He
seemed out of breath.  "Dr. Steven Altenberg?" she queried.

"Yes, who are you?"  He was staring at her with wide, startled
eyes, as if he recognized her.  The doctor was good-looking and
confident, with kind blue eyes and laugh lines around his mouth.
She had been expecting a fiend, and had been met by a man who
looked completely normal.

She took a chance, deciding to use her real name.  "I'm Dana
Scully, and I'm here--"

"That's what I thought," the doctor said, cutting her off mid-
sentence and motioning them inside.  Scully followed him, and the
clone trailed obediently behind.  "I was told that things were
going to start when you arrived.  But after seeing the news
tonight, I was going to start regardless of my orders.  The press
has gotten wind of it and all hell is about to break loose."

"Got wind of what?" Scully asked, unsure of what he was talking
about.

The man walked through a lovely, oak floored hallway and into a
wide kitchen, talking as he went.  "The virus.  And the vaccine.
Certain arrests have been made.  Which is probably why I haven't
been contacted earlier."  A very pregnant woman who looked
vaguely Asian was standing by the kitchen table, loading canned
goods into grocery bags.  "This is my wife, Melody."

Scully suddenly remembered how very hungry she was.
"You work with the vaccine, then?" she asked.

"Oh yes.  We've only got the stable form of the vaccine working
in the last two weeks. The prototype version you received was
more an antidote than a vaccine.  Distribution needs to start
immediately."

Scully wondered exactly how much this man knew about her.  It was
frightening to have a stranger telling her about incidents she
never discussed with anyone outside the FBI.  "Who is in charge
of the work?"

"The same people who just got arrested," he said, tilting his
head to indicate a small TV at the far end of the counter.  The
news was on, and an announcer was standing in front of some
federal prison, where a trail of people were being led in
handcuffs through the front doors.  Most of them had jackets over
their heads, or were ducking away from the cameras.  One of them,
a tall woman in a lean business suit, looked familiar.  Scully
could hardly hear the announcer's words, so she stepped closer to
the TV.  "Recapping today's top story, word of a deadly virus of
extraterrestrial origin..."  Scully realized with a shock that
she had been staring at footage of Diana Fowley being led away in
handcuffs.  The announcer droned on, but she only heard
disjointed bits of the narrative, "...conclusive evidence of the
existence of extraterrestrial life, and the government's attempts
to cover up that information...arrest of key members of the
international terrorist organization responsible for running
tests on the civilian population..."

"We need to leave now."  The doctor's voice snapped her back to
reality.  "You two are going to help us, I take it?"

Scully nodded mutely, trying to find her voice.  "We'll help in
any way we can."

"Then start by carrying these."  He handed her two bags full of
groceries.  "We're not coming back here anytime soon."

She and Crawford followed the doctor's Bronco to the
pharmaceutical plant.  The sign in front proclaimed the plant
name to be "Trimer," and in smaller print, "a subsidiary of
Transgen Pharmaceuticals."

Scully realized that Dr. Altenberg must have considerable sway
within the company when after a few words with the security
guard, they were waved through the gate without question.  The
doctor explained to her in terse words exactly what needed to be
done, and how long they had to do it.  They had approximately one
hour to prepare a clinic for the general public use.  They had
approximately twelve hours to get distribution on its way to
every western state in the US.  There was not much hope to
getting the vaccine south of the border, but the military had
agreed long ago to fly the vaccine out of the country if supplies
allowed.  Scully could hardly believe she was working with the
people she had sworn to expose, but there was no other ethical
choice left.  Vaccine distribution was their last hope.

Within an hour, the national guard had arrived to protect the
plant.  Half an hour later, people starting arriving.  Scully
worked in the clinic, heading up a crew of technicians whose
supervisor had been Dr. Altenberg's wife (who was also a medical
doctor with the same last name, although everyone called her Dr.
Mel).  At first it was a trickle, nothing that the security guard
couldn't have handled by himself.  But soon it was a mob, crying,
yelling, demanding access to the vaccine.  They broke down the
security gate and tried to storm the building.  The national
guard had their hands full just trying to route people in an
orderly manner through the clinic.  Only two hours had passed
since the news broke on national TV.

********************************
Peoria, Illinois, 6pm central standard time

Mulder knew something was wrong the moment he opened his eyes.
He lay still, listening for any sign of trouble.  People were
talking loudly in the hallway, almost shouting.  Doors slamming
and footsteps pounded past his door.  Probably a drug bust or a
pimp fight, knowing the kind of place he was staying.  He decided
to wait it out.

He never got the chance.  A fire alarm began ringing shrilly, and
he ran to the door.  Opening it cautiously, he detected a faint
hint of smoke, but there wasn't any sign of fire in the hall.  He
had fallen asleep in his clothes so he grabbed his bag, tied his
shoes, and darted out the door.  Two women dressed in
outrageously high heels and short, metallic colored skirts burst
out the door directly in front of him and beat him to the
stairwell.  Mulder was amazed at the speed of their progress
while wearing stiletto heels.

The leading woman slammed open the door at the bottom floor and
rushed into the twilight with the second one close behind.
Mulder was almost to the door when he heard a terrified shriek
that was abruptly cut off.  The door slammed shut in his face and
wall shuddered as something outside slammed against it.  Mulder
jumped backwards, towards the stairs.

His heart hammered as he listened to the sound of screaming and
pounding, followed by an occasional bestial grunt.  And then,
silence.  The smell of smoke was getting stronger.  Finally, he
couldn't stand it anymore.  He tried to cautiously open the door
with his gun in one hand, but it wouldn't budge.  He pushed at it
harder.  Then, shoving with all his might, he managed to crack it
open.  Something was jamming it from the ground.

That something was a very mangled and bloody body, from what
little he could see.  A black blur raced past his narrow field of
view, and a inhuman scream ripped through the air.  Suddenly, he
knew what was outside that door.  It was an alien, just like the
ones he had seen in Antarctica.  If the aliens were here, the
rebels probably weren't far behind, Mulder reasoned.  They were
probably the reason for the fire.

And though he didn't want to face what was outside that door, he
didn't want to die of smoke inhalation or get torched by a Rebel.
With his old fear of fire empowering his muscles, he managed to
prop the door open wide enough to roll away the body and squeeze
through the opening.  He stepped into the twilight, expecting
death to come rushing at him, but was met only with silence.

The two women were dead.  A dark shape lay on the ground, oily
blood oozing out of it's torso and arms.  He jumped out of the
way and almost ran into an old man with gray hair.  The man
staggered towards the parking lot.  "Sir, are you hurt?" Mulder
asked the retreating figure.

The old man turned to him, and Mulder recognized him with a rush
that felt like an electric shock.  It was the smoking man.  The
front of the man's white shirt was shredded and bloody, and he
cradled one mangled arm against his stomach.  "I'm sorry," the
man said, coughing painfully, dropping something on the ground.
It was a stiletto.  Mulder understood what had happened.  The
smoking man had killed the alien.

"What are you doing here?" Mulder asked in astonishment.

"Trying to protect you.  And to give you this."  The old man
reached painfully into his pants pocket and withdrew a cloth
packet.  "I hope it's...not broken."  The man sunk to the ground
and Mulder reached out to catch him, feeling the wetness of blood
seep through torn clothes.  "Give yourself 0.2 cc's of the
vaccine," he slurred, motioning with his good hand.

The man shuddered and Mulder gripped his shoulders with a sudden
sense of deja vu.  The scene was eerily reminiscent of his
earlier encounter with a dying Skinner.  Oddly, he felt very
little but compassion for the broken figure in front of him.  But
there was something he needed to know before the man died.
"Where is Scully?" he asked.

"Pierre, So...South...Dakota," the old man wheezed.  His eyes
were glassy and wild.  "I'm sorry." Blood trickled out of the
corner of his mouth.  His words were the shadow of a whisper.
"Bill, I'm so sor..."  Abruptly, the body in his arms stiffened
and then relaxed.  Mulder knew he was dead.

Mulder picked up the stiletto ran for the parking lot, noticing
that he had somehow kept the bag over one shoulder the entire
time.
He yanked open the  car door and threw everything inside except
for the cloth bundle in his hand.  Opening it, he saw a tiny,
intact bottle
and next to it, a sterile 1 cc needle.  Ripping off the cap, he
shoved the
needle inside the vial and sucked up the amber liquid.  He barely
felt it when he jammed the needle into his bicep.  It was ironic,
he thought as he depressed the plunger.  Five years ago he would
have never guessed that the smoking man would eventually be his
redeemer.

Numbly, he sped onto the main road and headed for the highway.
Traffic was heavy and chaotic.  He barely avoided being
sideswiped as he pulled onto the interstate, where a police car
was pulling up to a fresh accident at the exit ramp.  He had been
prepared for the crazy drivers, but not for the standstill
traffic that met him two miles down the highway.  No one was
moving, and cars stretched into the darkness as far as he could
see.

Frantically, he turned on the radio and tuned it to the nearest
station.

"Authorities are placing a nation wide no travel restriction
starting in twelve hours.  Mandatory 6pm curfews will begin in 24
hours.  Anyone not following these guidelines will be jailed for
a minimum of seven days and fined the maximum penalty..."

He turned down the volume and drummed his fingertips over the
steering wheel impatiently.  What Scully had feared as coming
true.  The nation was in a panic, and colonization was beginning.
He wondered what Skinner had planned to keep this from happening,
or if he had planned anything at all.  In any case, it didn't
look like he was going to reach her soon.  Looking at the
traffic, hearing the honking horns and yelling people through his
cracked window, he wondered if he would ever see her again.

*******************************

The clinic was quiet except for the shuffling of papers and the
sounds of people stepping on and off the scales.  But it was the
kind of quiet that barely contained the panic running underneath
the surface.  The presence of an armed national guard was the
only thing keeping any semblance of order.  Scully went through
the motions of weighing each patient and then administering the
proper amount of vaccine.  She tried not to think about her
family, her mother, and especially not Mulder.  There were three
technicians on either side of her, and lines stretched from the
door of the vaccination room out through the main entrance of the
building and beyond.  She jabbed the needle into the arm of a
four year old girl while her mother looked on in barely concealed
terror.  The little girl wailed and her mother snatched her up,
almost running for the exit.  "Walk, please," the exit guard
reminded the woman.

The fear was everywhere.  She heard it in the voices of the
guards, and felt it in the trembling of the patients.  Primal,
barely controlled terror was about to let loose, and they were
going to have a full-fledged riot if things got any more tense.
Not knowing what else to do, she began praying.  Ancient words,
now carrying a new meaning that she hadn't contemplated deeply
since her brush with cancer.  Her mouth moved silently, forming
the words as she processed each patient.  <Our father, who art in
heaven, hallowed be Thy name.  Thy kingdom come Thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven...>

Twelve hours later, Scully came off shift.  There were five women
in the unit, three of which Scully had met in the women's locker
room after a quick shower.  They weren't able to tell her much
about the situation except that the crowds were steadily getting
harder to control and that there were increasing reports of
burning buildings.  For some reason the women stared at her, a
fact which Scully found curious.  But she was really too tired to
think about anything requiring more than a two second attention
span, so she forgot about it by the time she reached the
cafeteria.

The morning shift was eating breakfast.  Crawford sat beside
her, shoveling down food almost as fast as the uniformed men that
surrounded them.  She tried to pace herself but was so hungry
that she ended up eating the toast, eggs, canned fruit too fast.
Her stomach complained about the sudden intake.  She was staring
at her fork when on some sort of silent cue, all the soldiers got
up at once and the room was left silent.  The only sound was the
clink of dishes being washed in the kitchen.

Scully felt as if she had been superglued to the bench.  The only
movement she was likely to accomplish was the forward motion of
her head hitting her plate.  Out of the corner of her eye she saw
Crawford staring at her with what was probably grave concern.

"Your neck needs to be rebandaged.  May I look at it?"

Her mouth wouldn't form the words, but she managed to wave him
away and get her body off the bench.  She needed sleep.  Dr. Mel
had said she would show her the gymnasium that had been converted
into temporary sleeping quarters.

Turning around, she almost ran into Dr. Mel's enormous belly.
"Oh sorry, Mel" Scully mumbled.  Crawford took the dishes from
her and Dr. Mel grabbed her wrist.

"Come on, you need to get some sleep," she said, leading Scully
by the hand into the gymnasium that was situated next to the
cafeteria.

Scully nearly fell face-first into the cot that Mel pointed her
towards.  To her surprise the woman sat down on the floor beside
her bedroll.  Curt lay down in the cot next to her.  Other
soldiers were filing in the south entrance as they came off night
shift.

"You're lucky to have a clone so devoted to you," Dr. Mel said
softly.

That woke her up a bit.  "Yes.  Why do you mention it?"  The
words felt like a foreign language on her tongue.

She felt soft hands at the base of her neck, whispering over her
skin as the fingers brushed her hair off her neck.  "Oh Dana,"
the woman said.  "You had an implant, didn't you."

Before she could object, the woman was smoothing ointment over
her wound.  Then there was the sound of ripping paper and she
felt a bandage being taped over her skin.  Scully closed her eyes
and allowed the ministrations, listened to the shuffling of shoes
and cloth over the surface of the wooden floor.  She heard bits
of soft conversation, but she couldn't make out the words.

"There's a way to stop the cancer from coming back, you know,"
she heard a voice say close to her ear.  Opening her eyes, she
noticed tiredly that Mel had finished.  She wondered if the woman
would be able to get off the floor, considering the size of her
stomach.

"How?"  Scully realized she was drooling on the pillow, and
quickly swallowed.

"It's highly experimental, but so far we've had good results with
the two women that consented to the treatment.  Your body's
system is dependent on the microchip.  The chip operates at a
cellular level, but the consequences are systemic.  With the
proper dose of hormones, we can jump start your body into
independence.  I can let you look at the test results after
you've had some sleep."

Scully nodded, feeling little needles of pain at the movement.
"After I sleep..."  The darkness was already dragging her eyelids
down.  She didn't see Dr. Mel get up, or feel her hands smooth
the hair away from her forehead.  The only thing she heard were
the voices in her dream, saying, "You see how they follow her
already...she must be protected..."

****************************
"He has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the
dead...that man is our close relative; his is one of our kinsman-
redeemers..."
--Ruth 3:20
****************************

Chapter 6: Promise

2am, the second day

Mulder stared at the fuel gauge, trying to use the power of his
mind to will it away from the "empty" mark.  It didn't work.
Sighing, he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and gazed
out the windshield at the traffic jam surrounding him.  He
estimated that he was four miles from the nearest exit, which
wasn't close enough to get him to the next gas station before he
ran out of fuel.  He only had 18 hours of travel time left before
the no-travel restrictions began.

He was never going to reach Scully.

After listening to the news on the radio for the last two hours
straight, he had a good idea of why she was in Pierre.  The main
vaccine distribution center was located there, and he had little
doubt that she was doing whatever she could to help.  From what
little the media said, the big cities were being hit hard by the
virus and by a wave of mysterious fires that followed the
outbreaks.  Rebel clean-up, Mulder guessed.  Pierre wasn't a
particularly large city, but it was an obvious target for the
colonists.

He wondered what was going to happen to his mother, living all
alone in her big house.  He was more concerned for Scully's
mother in D.C., and her navy brothers.  He hoped that Scully
hadn't called her mother, hadn't given the colonists or the
consortium a way to find her.  That last thought gave him a jolt.
The microchip, he realized, would not be a good thing to carry in
one's neck in the middle of colonization.  Cold fear squeezed his
stomach, and he wondered why he had never thought of it before.
He was afraid that she might foolishly decide to cut out the
chip, or that the chip would be activated and she would get
killed.

His train of thought was broken when the car began shuddering
slightly.  The empty light had been on for the past hour, and he
was still two miles from the exit.  Not knowing what else to do,
he pulled the car onto the shoulder of the road before it died
completely.  Maybe he could get there faster if he walked.

He locked the car and retrieved his overnight bag from the trunk,
along with two bottles of water he kept stashed in a first aid
kit for emergencies.  The midnight air was cool but heavy with
the smell of exhaust and pollution, reminding Mulder more of DC
than the open Midwest.  There was no sign of bees or people
infected with the virus, but Mulder knew that it was only a
matter of time.

It was a forty-five minute walk to the nearest gas station.  All
eight pumps were full and there was a long line of cars waiting
for the first available spots.  He didn't have a can to carry the
gasoline and there was no way he could get a ride back to his
rented car, so he decided that the driving option was pretty much
a dead end.  Inside the station, a harried looking man was doing
fast business with a steady stream of jittery customers. Mulder
bought one of the last sandwiches out of the cold case and
another two bottles of water.  Then he walked to the bathroom and
tried to wash up as best as he could in the absence of a shower.
There was not much he could do about the beard stubble, but he
was able to wash his face and brush his teeth.

Back outside the station, he still had no idea on how he was
going to get to Scully.  Hitching a ride with someone seemed
unlikely, as quarantines were beginning in the worst hit areas.
Anyone with half a brain would be heading away from the cities.
What kind of person would be going towards Pierre?

He stared tiredly at the highway.  What he really wanted was a
nice piece of lasagna, steaming hot and covered with bubbling
mozzarella cheese.  With a side of green beans and fluffy dinner
rolls smothered in butter.  Not gonna happen, he told himself
firmly.

Then, his eyes fell on a large truck painted in matte green, a
military truck which looked like it was carrying supplies.  The
military would be the only organization going into the infected
areas.  He started towards the truck.  A tall man in olive
fatigues was just climbing inside.

"Excuse me," Mulder called out when he was about five paces away
from the vehicle.  The man turned to face him with his hand
resting on his side arm.  He had the look of a hardened combat
veteran.

The man looked at him warily.  "Can I help you?"

There was no time for mincing words.  "Are you going to Pierre,
North Dakota?" Mulder asked.

"I can't take you with me, if that's what you're asking," the man
replied.  He turned back to the truck and climbed into the cab.

"Please, my wife is in Pierre, working with the vaccine
distribution. I have to reach her."  Mulder was standing next to
the window, craning his neck to look up at the soldier.

"This is a military operation, sir.  You are a civilian.  Please
step out of the way."

Mulder heard the engine sputter to life, revving intermittently
as the man pumped the accelerator.  "I'm begging you.  I may
never get to see my wife again."

Something softened in the man's eyes.  "What's your name?" he
asked.

"Fox Mulder.  I worked thirteen years as a field agent for the
FBI, and I just got married this week."  Mulder knew he sounded
desperate.

"Well, Mulder, FBI, I don't know why I'm doing this, but get in
the cab before I change my mind."

Mulder scrambled around and climbed inside.  The cab smelled of
sweat and dust and old plastic seats.

"You don't work for the Bureau anymore, do you?" the soldier
asked as they pulled away from the lot.

"No, I quit two days before I got married."

The man nodded silently. "I've heard of you before.  You worked
in VCS.  I remember the Monty Props case."

Mulder's trust-no-one alarm was going off loudly inside his head.
"How did you know about that case?"

"It was a high profile case, right up there with the Unibomber
and Jeffrey Dahmer.  I read a lot of crime fiction," he said, a
slight smile crinkling on side of his mouth, "but the real cases
always catch my attention."

They were traveling on the shoulder of the road, passing people
at a fair clip.  The truck bounced considerably on the uneven
roadside, and Mulder hoped that his tendency towards motion
sickness wouldn't reassert itself.  "I'm impressed," Mulder said.
"I've rarely been recognized."  The profiler that would always
live inside his head was telling him that this man wasn't lying.
The way his mouth moved when he smiled was genuine, and his
manner was relaxed, though every movement was that of a trained
soldier.  "What's your name?"

"Sergeant Major Gerald Hayward, truck driver for the day because
most of my unit got nasty diarrhea from a bad batch of chicken
gravy.  No one else could get off the toilet long enough to even
think about driving supplies into Pierre."  The half smile was
back, and Mulder allowed himself to relax somewhat.  The man
motioned towards the CB radio hanging from the ceiling, directly
above the gear shift.  "Traffic is bad here, but it should even
out in about ten miles."

**********************************
2pm, the second day

"Dr. Scully, I'm sorry to wake you..."  A female soldier was
tugging at her arm.

Scully got a close up view of the M16 slung over the woman's
shoulder.  The world was a whirl of bright light and grating
sounds, and she tried to focus as she sat up.  "What time is it?"

"Fourteen hundred hours.  Dr. Mel asked me to wake you.  There's
been a change in plans."

Less than five minutes later, Scully was dressed in fatigues,
boots and an olive military jacket.  Sergeant Williams, the woman
who awakened her, also provided her with a M9 Beretta Model 92F
with an extra magazine carrying 15 rounds of ammunition.  Scully
clipped the magazine into her belt.  "Not standard operating
procedure," the woman informed her, "but necessary, considering
our current situation."

"Which is?" Scully asked, feeling better after her eight hours of
sleep than she had in a week.

"Dr. Mel can tell you better than I," Sergeant Williams answered.
Kurt Crawford slipped in the door and stood behind her; he was
also wearing fatigues and a black kevlar vest.  A helmet dangled
from its strap in his left hand, and his right carried a military
issue clothing bag.  Scully didn't want to even think about the
dangers of bringing a clone into a combat situation.

The soldier let them through a maze of hallways bustling with
military personnel and into a room that looked like a command
center in a war zone.  A variety of weaponry and boxes were
stacked against the walls, and electronic equipment was piled on
every available desk space.  She saw 40 mm grenade launchers and
F16 A2 rifles lined up next to boxes of rubber rounds and
canisters of tear gas.  Further on there were boxes of pepper
spray, dye packs, and remote control reconnaissance drones.  Non-
lethal crowd control measures, Scully realized.

"Dr. Scully, there you are," exclaimed Dr. Mel.  She was standing
in front of a screen issuing orders to the soldier in front of
her.  An M16 A2 Colt rifle hung from a strap over her back, and
one hand rested on her protruding belly.  A full 30 round
magazine lay on the bench next to the monitor on which she was
concentrating.

"What's happening?" Scully asked, joining the other woman at the
video screen.  The lights in the room flickered, and for a moment
the electronic equipment dimmed.  Crawford's presence behind her
was somehow comforting.

"The crowds are completely out of control."  The doctor gestured
at the screen which showed hundreds of people and a wall of
national guard hunkering down behind shields and holding batons.
Scully squinted and leaned closer to the screen, wishing silently
for her reading glasses.

The crowd was throwing anything they could get their hands on:
pavement, malatov cocktails, even pieces of scrap metal.  The
guardsmen were on the verge of breaking, and the crowd surged
forward dangerously.  "The virus is beginning to spread very
rapidly though we're not sure about the form of transmission.
The city is burning in its wake."  The woman shifted her focus
from screen to Scully.  Their gazes met with electric intensity.
"It's time to get you out of here."

"What do you mean?  It's my place to help here."

For the first time, Scully noticed that though Dr. Mel's features
were Asian, her eyes were pale green.  They flashed with
something that looked like anger, but Scully instinctively knew
it to be determination.  "Half an hour ago we were forced to
close the vaccination clinic because of the riot control
situation.  The people had to literally be beaten back.  The
Rebels aren't far from here, and when they come, there will be no
stopping them."

Scully swallowed heavily.  "Then what is the next move?"

Dr. Mel turned towards group of about ten soldiers standing a few
paces away.  "This is your body guard," she informed Scully, her
hand sweeping gracefully through the air to indicate the
soldiers.  They were all looking at Scully with grim expectancy.
"They are sworn to protect you and are yours to command as you
see fit, once you are out of the city.  They know that you know
more about the alien virus than almost anyone alive besides the
handful of people that worked here with the vaccine.
Unfortunately, several of those people were killed in this
morning's riots.  That makes your survival all the more
important."

Scully's mouth went dry.  Her thoughts were twisted into hard
knots, tangling together in a hopeless, convoluted mass.  Only
one thought was clear, slicing through the others with the
sharpness of a scalpel blade.  Mulder.  How would she ever find
him if she left this location?  She remembered the words he said
on the day they got married.  <Death will be the only thing that
parts us.>

The lights flickered again and then everything went completely
black.  Around the room flashlights clicked on, beams of white
light slicing through the darkness in a weird dance.

"Where are we going?" she heard someone ask Dr. Mel, then
realized it was her own voice she heard.

"I don't need to know, but the captain knows."

She turned to a tall, dark man who gave her a smart salute.
"Captain Jonathan Harris.  It's an honor to meet you, Dr.
Scully."

Scully wondered what they had told the soldiers that would make
him address her in such a manner.  But then, as if it were the
most natural thing in the world, she felt her body come to
attention, back straight and heels together as she returned his
salute.  Briefly, she saw an image in her mind of her father,
saluting her mother at the airport and then pulling her into a
fierce hug, their months long separation finally at an end.

"One last thing, though," Dr. Mel said.  She pulled out a small
box from underneath the monitor and emptied its contents onto the
top of the a box sitting on the adjacent counter.  "There's no
time for you to read the evidence, but I can give you the hormone
injection now.  This is your last chance, if you think you can
trust me."

Scully felt the blood pounding through her wrists and temples as
she tried to think clearly.  It was too much, too soon.  Why
couldn't she have had more time?

"I trust you," she said at last, baring her arm for the
injection.  The doctor did her job quickly and efficiently;
Scully barely felt the needle go in.

"You must go now," Dr. Mel said as she withdrew the needle and
applied a small Band-Aid.  The woman's hands gripped her wrists
briefly.  "Never forget who you are."

Then the doctor turned her back, her attention already focused on
another solider who trained a flashlight beam onto a map for her
to read.  There was no time for good-byes.  Crawford shoved
military issue back pack into her hands, and roughly pushed a
helmet over her head.  She fumbled with the helmet strap she
followed the captain out of the command center.

The docking area was empty, surrounded by a six foot tall
concrete wall, but the air was rank with the smell of smoke.  On
the other side of the wall she heard popping noises and the sound
of the mob shouting indecipherable words in synchrony.  Soldiers
pressed close around her, hustling her into a black M939 five ton
transport vehicle.  "We can still get out the back way," the
captain told her, listening to a hand held radio in one ear.

****************************
2:10 pm, the second day

The sergeant major swore, shaking Mulder out of his dazed
thoughts.  "What's wrong?" he asked.

"It's going to be a rough drive to Trimer, with all the rioting,"
the man replied.  "Apparently most of the facility is being
cleared out, with only a few personnel left to oversee
production."

"We're close now, aren't we?"  Mulder tried to keep his tone
neutral.

"Very close."  The captain maneuvered through yet another
barricade set up by the national guard.  "But the riots are very
bad on Trimer grounds.  Vaccine distribution was halted about
fourty minutes ago."

Mulder fought against the sick flutter in his stomach.  They were
so close, but they might as well have been a million miles away.
"Is there any way we can contact someone inside the plant?"

"Radio communications just went down," the man replied grimly.
"It won't be long before the entire city is blacked out."  As if
on cue, Mulder saw the lights in the building they were driving
past flicker off.  Within a few seconds, the rest of the block
also lost power.

Mulder gripped his seat as they maneuvered through the streets,
past running people and burning buildings and occasionally bodies
sprawled out on the sidewalks.  Though one could hardly call
blackened skeletal remains bodies.  As far as Mulder could tell,
they hadn't been killed by the virus, or by the rioting.  They
had been burned.

It took only a quarter of an hour to reach Trimer grounds, but it
was the longest fifteen minutes of Mulder's life.

******************************
2:30 pm, the second day

Through the open back of the transport vehicle, Scully could just
see the edge of the rioting masses in the distance as they
ascended a hill that lead to the back exit of Trimer grounds.
Kurt was tugging her towards the center of the vehicle, trying to
get her to sit near the front of the truck, when she heard the
sound of a vehicle approaching.  She wondered who would be
driving towards the facility when everyone else was evacuating.

Throwing off Kurt's hands, she maneuvered through the mass of
elbows and knees in the crowded transport and managed to get a
good view of the passing vehicle.  It was a truck driven by a
soldier, but she saw a brief glimpse of a civilian in the
passenger seat.  Her heart leaped in tandem with her body, and
she found herself pressed up against the tail gate before she
even knew she had moved.  "Stop that truck, stop that truck!" she
shouted.  The world tilted and spun as she fumbled for the latch
that would let down the gate.

Strong arms came around her wait and shoulders, dragging her back
before she could get the latch open.  The truck lurched to a stop
and she was thrown forward, saved from serious injury by the
force of the arms surrounding her.  Then the tail gate was open
and she jumped out of the truck, stumbling as she landed.  She
started to run even as she regained her balance, scraping her
palms over the pavement in her terrible haste.  Voices were
shouting behind her but she barely heard them.

It seemed like years, but it was really only a few seconds before
the truck in front of her halted and the passenger door opened.
A man climbed out, running towards her as soon as his feet hit
the ground.  "Mulder!" she screamed.

Then she was in his arms, her legs and arms wrapped around his
body as he picked her up, staggering backwards from the force of
her forward momentum.  "Scully, Scully," he panted into her neck.
He couldn't stop saying her name, as if the intonation of it was
what made her real.  She ran her hands over him, feeling the
roughness of his beard and the taunt muscles of his arms,
smelling sweat and gun oil and soot.

"I thought I'd never see you again," she cried into the crook of
his neck.  The helmet was getting in her way, bumping and
jostling her head as she pushed into Mulder.  Her body shook and
she felt the uncomfortable urge to throw up.  She had never
admitted to herself how afraid she was of losing him.

All too soon, he gently disentangled their limbs and set her back
on the ground.  She leaned heavily against him, feeling suddenly
like an old woman at the end of a long day.  He kept hold of her
right hand.

"Sergeant Major Hayward," Mulder said, inclining his head to a
man that Scully hadn't noticed before, "this is my wife, Dana
Scully."

"Ma'am, you and your husband need to get out of here as quickly
as possible."

Scully virtually yanked Mulder towards the transport vehicle,
trying to adjust her slipping helmet with one hand as she ran
forward.  "Thank you for your help," Mulder called out over his
shoulder.

They scrambled into the truck and two soldiers hauled the gate
shut behind them.  Bumping their way over the mass of limbs and
gear, they crawled into a relatively open space near the driver,
oblivious to the wide-eyed looks the soldiers were shooting in
their direction.

"Have you been vaccinated?" Scully panted, settling down almost
into Mulder's lap.  She rested her head partially against the
vibrating walls of the truck, partially on her husband's
shoulder.

Mulder nodded.

"What happened?" Scully prodded verbally.  The motion of the
truck was truly sickening.  Either that or the hormone shot was
affecting her system.

"Skinner's dead," he said.  "So is the smoking man."

That was unexpected news.  Scully turned her head to look out the
end of the transport vehicle where the canvas was pulled back
slightly to reveal a slice of the outside world.  The sound of
screams and gunfire rose above the roar of the engine and the
rattling of the walls.  "You were right, Scully," Mulder told
her.  "We should have waited."

They were silent for a long time.  "Look at the consequences of
our actions," Scully said at last, indicating the spectacle
outside the truck.  She was becoming increasingly sure of one
thing.  "We made the wrong decision."

Mulder didn't answer.  Instead, he turned his eyes from her face
and watched the city burn.

**************************
"And now, my daughter, don't be afraid.  I will do for you all
that you ask..."
--Ruth 3:11
**************************

Chapter 7: Quicksilver Interlude

The people in the transport vehicle were silent; the only noises
were the sound of creaking walls and the wind rushing by at 55
miles per hour.  Half the people on the truck were asleep.

Mulder had noticed something odd about the group of soldiers ever
since he had entered the vehicle, but he hadn't been able to
pinpoint its exact cause.  For one thing, they were almost all
officers.  No enlisted men.  And there was only one woman, though
that wasn't particularly unusual.  He took a deep breath, and
inadvertently realized what had been bothering him.

There was no smells on the transport vehicle.  He sniffed again.
No, there were plenty of smells: sweat, gasoline, dusty metal,
and highway.  But there were no fragrances.  No smell of after
shave or hair spray or cologne.  There wasn't even the smell of
detergent on his clean uniform.

The uniform was loose around the waist, but the shoes and shirt
fit fine.  The captain had made him change into it as soon as
they got out of Pierre.  He said it would make him blend in
better at the check points.

He glanced outside the vehicle, seeing the sky beginning to turn
faintly orange with a hint of sunset.  They were an hour outside
the city, and travel restrictions would begin very soon, though
that would pose little hindrance to authorized military
personnel.

Scully stirred beside him, making a tiny moaning sound as she sat
up straight.  She had been sleeping for the past half hour.  "You
okay?" he whispered, worried by her pasty appearance.  She shook
her head without saying anything, which alarmed him even more.
Usually Scully would say she was fine, and push him away.

Before he could say anything else, she stood up with her hand
over her mouth, and pushed her way to the tailgate of the
vehicle.  Wondering what was wrong, he stood up and started after
her.  The sounds of her retching stopped his progress abruptly.

"Scully?"

Everyone in the truck was awake now and staring.  She didn't
answer, just continued to cough and gag with her head hanging out
the vehicle, one hand on the tail gate and one pulling back her
hair.

And then he saw what he hadn't seen before.  A large, tan bandage
on her neck, right where the implant had been.  What had she done
to herself?

He stood immobile as Crawford pushed past him and towards the
back of the truck.  The soldiers made way for him.  After a
minute, Scully turned around and slumped to the floor of the
vehicle.  Crawford was saying something in low tones to her, but
Mulder couldn't catch the words.  He sat back down, eyes staring
blindly at his wife, wondering how she had taken out the implant,
and why.

Much later, after Scully had been sick two more times and then
finally fallen asleep in the seat closest to the tailgate,
Crawford came to sit next to Mulder.  Scully rested quietly to
his right, and Crawford settled in the empty space on his left.

"What's happening to her?" Mulder asked quietly.

"She cut out the implant," he replied, his shoulders coming up in
a half shrug.

"And?"

"And she agreed to a form of treatment that would help her body
gain independence from the implant."

That certainly didn't sound like something Scully would do.  But
neither had putting the implant back under  her skin after a long
bout with cancer.  "What kind of treatment?"

Crawford looked at him tiredly, his brown eyes dark like the
newly awakened night.  "A single dose of injected hormones," he
replied.

Mulder thought for a moment.  "Why did she cut out the implant?"

"They were tracking her," he replied, his face an
impassive mask, though Mulder could almost detect anger in his
voice.  This clone was very protective.

The captain interrupted their muted conversation.  "First check-
point," he informed them.

***********************

Scully wasn't asleep.  She was simply resting, trying to ignore
the waves of nausea and the bumpy ride of the vehicle.  She had
heard the entire conversation between Mulder and the Crawford
clone.  The motion of the vehicle slowed down as they approached
the first check point, and she opened her eyes.

Swiveling her head, she looked past Mulder through the dusty
front windshield of the vehicle.  One armed guard stood on either
side of a cross hatched wooden road block.  They were the only
ones on the road, so she guessed that it was sometime after 6pm,
the time when the no-travel restrictions began.

She saw a third soldier approach the roadblock and step up to the
driver's door as the truck ground to a halt.  There was something
familiar about the soldier, but she couldn't see his face.

"May I see your orders, sir?" the soldier asked the driver
politely.

Scully's heart leapt into her throat.  It was the voice of the
bounty hunter.  She saw Crawford freeze, and Mulder was suddenly
very still beside her.  The driver handed the bounty hunter a
clip board; papers rustled as the alien leafed through them.

"I'm just going to have a look in the back," the bounty hunter
told the driver, handing the papers back to the driver.  His
steps crunched over the gravel as he walked to the back of the
truck.  Mulder shifted beside her.

The captain, who was sitting directly across from them, moved his
weapon onto his lap.  Mulder waved his hand to stop him.
"Whatever you do," Mulder whispered to the captain, hoping the
others would hear and obey, "don't shoot."  Scully caught a brief
glimpse of the stiletto weapon in his hand.  He hid it in the
flap of his jacket between her body and the seat.

The captain shot him a questioning look.  "Their blood is toxic,"
Mulder whispered louder, desperate to make him understand with
those four words.

Great, Scully thought grimly, pulling on her helmet so that her
red hair would be mostly covered.  We meet a bounty hunter in a
truck full of soldiers who are armed to the teeth and completely
ignorant of alien physiology.  She saw Crawford pull on his
helmet as well.  "Don't shoot," Scully repeated quietly to the
soldiers next to her.

The canvas flap was pulled back, then the tail gate slammed down
with a loud thump.  The beam of a flashlight cut through the dark
interior, running over the length of the truck and back,
illuminating the grim faces of the soldiers in brief, white
light.  It stopped last on the Crawford clone, and hovered there
for a second.

"You," the bounty hunter ordered.  "Step out of the vehicle."

Scully kept her eyes on the bounty hunter, but she imagined
Crawford's face all pale with fear, eyes gleaming in reflection
of the beam of light.  She felt herself slide into an intensely
aware stillness, where every sense seemed heightened and alert,
ready for instant action.  The only noise was the thrum of the
idling engine as it vibrated from the seat and into her body.

Slowly, Crawford stood up.  The soldiers were so still that the
truck seemed full of dark statues in military uniforms rather
than living people.  Scully prayed that Mulder wouldn't do
anything stupid.

The clone stepped forward, and still no one moved.  Scully
just couldn't let this clone walk to his death, as he was surely
doing now.  She could only think of one thing to do.  "Floor it,
Smith!" she yelled at the driver, startling everyone in the
truck, including herself.

The gears ground and in half a second, the driver floored the
accelerator.  Crawford was thrown forward, and someone reached up
to grab his waist.  At the same moment, the bounty hunter leapt
onto the dragging tailgate, gripping the side of the vehicle with
an agility that amazed Scully, even as it frightened her.  No one
that big should have been able to move so fast.

Scully found herself practically in the bounty hunter's face, and
had nothing with which to fight him.  She gripped the seat hard
and prepared to kick out with her feet.  All around she heard the
sounds of firing weapons, and jagged popping as the bullets
penetrated the side of the vehicle.  The soldiers across from her
were aiming their guns out the tailgate.  The uniform of the
bounty hunter blocked most of her vision, but behind and before
her were soldiers with weapons drawn.  Then everything seemed to
happen all at once.  She kicked out just as Mulder threw himself
towards the bounty hunter.  At the same moment more soldiers
threw themselves at the bounty hunter, grappling wildly as the
alien knocked Mulder to the floor.  At least two guns went off
inside the vehicle, but it was hard to see what was happening
through all the confused motion in the darkness.

The next thing Scully clearly saw was when the bounty hunter
threw off the men and stood up.  Scully was crushed against the
wall underneath a soldier, and couldn't stop the cry of pain.  An
elbow whacked her face, and she saw bright points of light
dancing before her eyes.  She flailed helplessly as the soldier
rolled away, his considerable bulk crushing her in his efforts to
get back to his feet and away from the open tailgate, which
dragged noisily over the ground.

She scuttled sideways as two more soldiers leaped onto the alien,
trying to draw his hands back, while the other men surged
forward.

"Scully!" Mulder screamed at her.  She couldn't figure out what
he wanted her to do.  Then she saw that he had dropped the
stiletto.  Darting downwards, she tried to pick it up, but got a
boot in the cheek for her trouble.  Her mouth filled with blood,
and she staggered back, unable to even curse through the pain.

"Stop the truck!" the captain shouted.  The driver slammed on the
breaks and everyone lurched towards the open tailgate.  It was
her opportunity to grab the weapon, which she did as quickly as
possible.  The others had the bounty hunter partially wrestled
down.

"Now, Scully!"  Mulder gasped, struggling backwards as one of the
alien's hands worked free.

Scully never knew how she managed to get the stiletto into the
alien's neck.  It almost felt as if some hand had taken her own
and guided it perfectly towards the death blow, straight between
the arms of the soldiers and directly into the base of the
alien's neck.

Then she was staggering backwards, watching the stiletto protrude
out of the bounty hunter's neck.  Everyone was drawing back, away
from the green ooze that bubbled out the wound.  The alien's eyes
were wide and expressionless, his arms held out from his body as
if he were a marionette whose strings had just been cut.

Calmly, Mulder stepped forward and withdrew the weapon, pushing
the bounty hunter out the tailgate.  The alien fell heavily and
tumbled out the back.  "Get the gate back up," he told the
incredulous soldiers.  They struggled with the mangled tailgate,
and managed to prop it mostly shut.

The captain voiced the thoughts of all the others.  "What the
hell was that?"

"A different kind of alien," Mulder replied, wiping the stiletto
off with a dirty kleenex from his pocket.  He threw the tissue
out the back as the truck accelerated forward.  "This is the only
way you can kill him," he said, handing the weapon to the
captain.

Scully watched the entire proceeding with dazed eyes.  She was
feeling queasy again, and her mouth was on fire with pain.
Something had happened to her side as she twisted to get out from
underneath the soldier, and it hurt to breathe.  Mulder turned to
her, squatting down with a wince as he bent his knees.  "Where
does it hurt the most?" he asked gently.

She spit out more blood and saw his eyes go wide.  "Soldier, we
need light here," he said to the nearest uniform.  Suddenly a
light was shining into her face, and she closed her eyes against
the brightness.  Mulder was prying them open.  No, not Mulder.
Another soldier whom her foggy brain classified as a medic, or at
least a person with medical training.  "Just look at me," he was
saying.  "Try to focus on my finger.  Can you do that for me?"

Isn't that my job, she thought with a silent laugh.  She couldn't
focus on his finger, and the sound of wind was loud in her ears.
When he grabbed her arm to keep her from slipping down, she
couldn't stifle the groan; wherever he touched her felt like hot
pincers.  "My ribs," she managed to say, in answer to his first
question.

The soldiers and truck and Mulder faded into shades of gray, and
Scully wished she could faint.  But fainting doesn't come with
the asking; it just hurt too much to let go.

***********************

Mulder sat on the floor between the driver and shotgun seats.
Scully was stretched out with her legs propped up, her head on a
jacket.  He didn't think she was sleeping, but her eyes were
closed.  The medic told him to try and wake her every half hour
to check on the concussion.  Her ribs didn't appear to be broken,
though they were severely bruised.  She probably pulled one of
the muscles in her back, as well.

There was one other injury, not counting Mulder's very sore knee
and bumps and bruises from everyone who had the bad luck of
wresting with the bounty hunter.  It wasn't a severe injury, but
definitely troublesome.  One of the men had ripped a nasty gash
in his lower arm on the damaged tail gate.  The medic had sewn
him up on the spot; ten stitches with minimal anesthetic while
riding on a very bumpy transport vehicle.  Mulder's opinion of
the medic went up several notches as he watched the man sew up
the injured arm in the back of the bouncing truck.

What really amazed Mulder was that the soldiers didn't know very
much about the aliens; especially the fact that that they had no
idea how to kill them.  He had always assumed that the conspiracy
was well entrenched in the military.  Apparently he was going to
have to rethink some of his assumptions.

Another strange thing was that there was no sign of pursuit.
Maybe they were lucky.  Or maybe they had been protected.

To break the monotony of the travel, he watched the men and the
one lone woman.  He could tell that in spite of their uniforms,
they weren't national guardsmen.  Maybe not as high level as a
black operation, but definitely not enlisted types.  His best
guess was special forces.  The woman carried a frighteningly
large knife in her belt, and a smaller spare on an ankle strap.
They all kept their weapons in hand like they were permanently
attached to their bodies.  He imaged they carried the rifles to
bed, as well.

He wished he was in bed.  Nice flannel sheets with a well-worn
quilt.  Or even his couch back at home.  Anything would be better
than the transport vehicle.  Even the ground.

Scully didn't wake up when they crossed the first state line,
though she did wake up once before they reached the Canadian
border.  On that particular stop Mulder had to practically carry
her out of the vehicle so that she could use the facilities.  The
other stops weren't quite so bad.  She mostly slept through the
check points, probably because they experienced no trouble
whatsoever, not even at the Canadian border.  Mulder began to
wonder if there was a God, so good was their fortune.  The
military should have been all over them by now, unless the
checkpoint where they killed the bounty hunter hadn't been a real
checkpoint at all.

Strange, how he didn't feel very worried about their current
situation.  What he felt most of all was tiredness, and an odd
little eddy of peace stirring in his heart.  Maybe it was because
he was with Scully again.  He sighed, leaning his head back until
it came in contact with the vibrating walls of the truck,
listening to the wind and the rattle of the broken tail gate.  He
imagined the quicksilver stars shimmering in the clear night sky
as he stared up at the metal ceiling.  This was only a brief
interlude of peace.  They still had a long way to go before they
reached northern British Columbia.

**********************


Chapter 8: Fire

North Western British Columbia

Scully sat up, feeling hot pincers stab her in the side.  "Where
are we?" Kurt Crawford was sitting next to her cot, looking
startled, as if he had been dozing.  The room she was in was bare
and unfamiliar.  The only light came from an uncovered bulb next
the cot.

"British Columbia, northwest of Fort Nelson," he replied.  "You
don't remember?"

It sounded vaguely familiar, but her memory was fuzzy.  "Not
really," she admitted.

"You're in what used to be a survivalist bunker, which has since
been converted to a military bunker due to the fact that the
survivalists were caught with about 100 kilos of cocaine.  We've
been here a little over one day.  You were knocked pretty hard on
the head, so I'd expect that you might not remember much, not
after the painkillers, anyway."  He bent down to peer at her
eyes, and turned her head very gently.  "Everything looks okay.
I sent Mulder to get some sleep about four hours ago."  His look
was frankly appraising, and not very clone-like.  "You look much
better.  Feel up to eating?"

She nodded, knowing somehow that she hadn't eaten anything in a
long time.

"Good," he said approvingly.  "The common room is not far from
here.  I'll send it Sergeant Simmons to help you get dressed."

Before she could protest that she didn't need any help, he was
outside the door, calling someone.  A slim, blonde woman appeared
at the door.  "Dr. Scully," she said by way of greeting.  "It's
good to see you up."  She smiled shyly, but held a pair of
fatigues in her hands with a determination that would not be
dissuaded.

Scully decided not to protest.  In the end she was rather
grateful for the help.  Her left side was covered with a purple
and yellow bruise that stretched from her hips to her shoulder,
and her sense of balance was off.  She managed to shower and
clean herself up without assistance, but it was good to have
someone help her with the clasps and buttons that seemed so
unfamiliar to her fumbling fingers.  By the time she laced her
boots, she was nearly salivating with hunger.  She wondered if
all they would get were field rations.

It turned out that they got better than field rations.  The
bunker was well stocked and capable of holding five times more
people than it currently housed.  Mulder was up and sitting at
the table.  He jumped up and greeted her with gentle hug.  She
squeezed him too tightly and her ribs regretted it, but it felt
good to be near him again.

Scully was glad that she had awakened at the proper time for
dinner.  The entire crew (minus two scouts on duty) was seated
around a long table with benches lining either side.  She sat
next to Mulder and ate thin soup and crackers while the rest of
the soldiers ate a hearty meal of meat, potatoes, and canned
vegetables.  Her stomach longed for more, but she knew there was
no way she could handle that kind of heavy food right now.

She caught Mulder staring at her throughout the meal, but ignored
it.  The others stared as well, but not as blatantly.  She
decided it was probably her appearance that brought on the
gawking; her left cheek was bruised and she moved with the
slowness of an old, hobbling woman.

Afterwards, her head felt better but her stomach felt unnaturally
full, and if she had eaten a big thanksgiving dinner rather than
soup and crackers.  It was probably just an after effect of the
medication and the fact that she had hardly eaten during the last
four days, she reasoned.

She was surprised when Mulder took her by the hand and led her
quietly through a series of dim hallways.  He explained to her
the layout of the compound as they proceeded, and told her the
security codes for both exits.  Overall, it was rustic, but
functional and secure.  They could live here for quite some time.

They ended up in a room full of communications equipment.  She
had seen Hamm radios before and guessed that Smith, who was
currently at the controls, was the communications specialist in
the group.

"Hello Dr. Scully," Smith said.  It was strange how everyone
called her Dr. Scully.  She wasn't used to it.  "I believe we've
found someone with whom you'd like to talk."

"Who?"  She hoped wildly that they had found someone in her
family.  The captain stepped into the room and sat on a chair in
the corner.

"Your mother."

Scully's heart stopped and then restarted in double time.  "She's
alive?"

The man nodded.  "Yes, she's safe.  Mulder talked to her
yesterday.  Just don't use any names and don't discuss your
respective locations.  You may call her 'mom' and she will call
you 'sweetie.' These things are completely unsecure, but we have
no reason to think that anyone important would be listening to
this."

Scully wondered if there was something the man knew that he
wasn't telling her, but shrugged off the feeling.   Smith
directed Scully to sit at the chair, and showed her how to speak
into the mike.  He sat at the controls for about a minute,
speaking with someone over the line in a kind of jargon with
which she was completely unfamiliar.  Then she heard a familiar
voice answering timidly.

"Hello?" It was her mother.

"Mom?" She couldn't stop the emotions from pooling uncomfortably
in her sinuses.

"Sweetie, it's so good to hear your voice."  It sounded like her
mom might be crying.  Mulder was next to her, and she reached for
his hand.  She held it in her lap, anchoring herself with the
feel of his palm in her own.

"It's good to hear you, too."  She had to ask the question, but
the words would barely come out.  "Mom, what about the others in
our family?  What happened to them?  And how did you get out?"

There was silence for a good ten seconds.  Scully knew now that
her mother was crying for sure.  "A friend came for me the day
that...someone you worked for died."

Mulder whispered Skinner's name in her ear.

"What about the others?"  Charlie, Bill, Tara, Matthew.

"We're pretty sure they didn't make it."

Grief squeezed at her chest.  They had to have made it.  They
couldn't be dead.  "Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure," came another voice, this one deep and masculine.
She'd know that voice anywhere.  It was Byers.

She wiped away tears she didn't know she had been crying.
"You're alive," she whispered.

"Yes," he replied.  "Your mother and I are safe and unhurt.
Right now we're not sure where the other two are, but I hold out
strong hope that they are alive but unable to contact us."

He was referring to Frohike and Langly.  Please let them be
alive, she prayed.

"I'm so sorry about your family," he said with genuine sorrow.
"There was no time to get anyone else out, and your brother
wouldn't listen to me.  Did you hear what they did to the
cities?"

"No," she answered, fear coiling around her like a giant,
invisible snake.

"Fuel air explosives," he replied, pausing to let the words sink
in.  Scully knew very well what fuel air explosives were.
Dropped from a plane over a city, jelly-like globules ignited in
the air to burn at incredibly hot temperatures.  Even metal would
be reduced to ruin.  "The vaccination couldn't be distributed
fast enough, even with the no-travel restrictions.  With
infection rates out of control, the military burned all the big
cities in the States, and most of the smaller ones as well.  D.C.
is gone.  So was the base where your other family members were
located."

She thought of all those people, burned alive or suffocated or
dead of the viral infection.  If she and Mulder had waited even a
week, would this have happened?

"How many are dead?" She choked on the last word, but Byers knew
what she was asking.

"There's no way to tell right now.  It only began this morning.
Fortunately the virus doesn't seem to have spread north very
extensively.  Not yet, anyway.  We'll know more tomorrow."  There
was a slight pause.  "From what I understand, New York is gone."

"Oh."  Scully couldn't think of anything else to say.  She
wondered if the consortium members who were being kept in the New
York jails were dead as well.  That seemed likely at this point.
Soon her mom's voice came over the line again.

"Sweetie, I love you.  We need to go now."

She sniffed and rubbed her nose with her index finger.  "I love
you too, mom.  I'm so sorry things happened this way."

"We can't blame anyone but the men who hid the truth," her mother
replied.  Scully caught the hidden meaning.  Her mother was
telling her not to blame herself.

"Bye mom."  She felt as if she had killed Charlie, Bill, and
everyone else who had died in the past five days.

"Bye sweetie."

Static came over the mic, and Smith turned down the volume.

Scully turned to look at Mulder.  The image of him shimmered
through her tears.  A few spilled down her cheeks before she
managed to suck the rest up.  It was embarrassing to cry in front
of everyone in the room.

"Did we kill everyone?" she demanded.

Mulder seemed surprised at her sudden outburst.  "Scully, there's
no way to tell if things would be any different if we had
waited."

"One more week.  We could have waited one more week.  Vaccine
distribution could have been more firmly in place.  Then we would
have been ready for the colonists."

She could tell that he was just saying the words, that he really
had wondered if things would have been different.  It made her
angrier.  But before she could say anything, the captain spoke.
His voice was soft, but edged with determination and confidence.
"I have reason to believe that the colonists would have found out
about the vaccine before your week was up.  There was a leak
somewhere, which is why the colonists found out so quickly about
the new plans for vaccine distribution in the first place."

"But you don't *know* that," Scully insisted.

"I'm pretty damn sure about it, since the word came from central
command," he said.  "And whatever you think now, it doesn't
diminish your importance to us."

"Us?" Scully squeaked.  Mulder gripped her hand more tightly, but
she pulled away from him and stood up.

"Us, as in the Resistance.  You and your husband are very
important now.  You know about the aliens, you know how to kill
them.  You each have natural ability to lead, and what we need
now are capable leaders.  We will do our best to protect you,
even if it means that we have to die."

She was stunned, and she could tell without looking that Mulder
was surprised as well.  "What have we done to deserve this kind
of loyalty?" she asked, her voice so quiet that the captain could
barely hear it.

"So many things," he replied.  She didn't move away when he came
to stand in front of her, or even when he cupped his palm over
her cheek.  At his touch, her feet felt as if they had grown
roots into the floor.  Memories rushed through her head so fast
she could hardly distinguish between them. A hundred memories, or
maybe a hundred thousand, held her captive.

<Nobody down here but the FBI's most unwanted>
Mulder bleeding under a white cross
Trembling <I'm afraid; I'm afraid to believe>
Angry <That bullet was meant for me>
Screaming <Did you kill my sister?>
<Records of what?>
<Of abductions, of abductees>
<You have to be the one, you can't give up hope>
<They gave me this disease to make you believe>
<You haven't lost your faith>
Praying, praying, waiting for Mulder to come back
<Hail Mary full of grace>
<Something is coming, you have to do something about it>
<Breathe, Scully, breathe>
Coughing, gagging, running from a terrible presence.  Gibson,
Krycek, the smoking man, Mara, X, Deep Throat...

Struggling inside herself, she flung his hands away with all her
might.  "Who are you?" she gasped.  Her ribs radiated pain
signals from the sudden exertion.

"Not related to Mara, if that's what you're asking," the captain
replied, never taking his eyes off her, not even when Mulder
jumped up from his seat and stood behind her.  "But she found me,
so to speak.  We've been watching you for a very long time, you
know."

She heard Mulder's voice from behind her.  "Why are you doing
this?" he asked.  His hands gripped her upper arms.

The captain looked Mulder straight in the eye.  "Your mind is the
key, and she holds the secret.  In what else can we hope, if we
can't hope in you?"

Scully shook off Mulder's hands and started walking blindly.
"Don't," someone said, followed by string of protest from Mulder.
She kept walking, heading to the back entrance as fast as she
could make it.  She punched in the security code and threw open
the door.

The air was cold, but the moon shone brightly through the wispy
clouds.  She shrugged to herself and held her arms close, trying
to retain as much body heat as possible.  Somewhere nearby a
sentry stood duty, but she couldn't see him.

She felt confused and very much alone.  Without looking, she sat
down on the short grass and buried her face in her hands.  Deep
inside, she knew that her crisis of faith was long past.  She had
begun to believe many years ago, but it was the giant mushroom
experience that sealed her as a believer.  What she was feeling
now was not a crisis of belief; it was a crisis of identity.  Why
did they expect her to be something she was not?

A breeze rustled through her hair, stirring the bracken on the
forest floor.  She lifted her head and leaned back, peering up
through the mighty trees into the dark sky. It was beautiful and
still, like the cathedral of God. She imagined the forest
burning, the sky full of fire instead of cold, twinkling stars.
"Forgive me Father, for I have sinned," she whispered.

Suddenly she had the strangest sensation, as if the future were
trembling around her, waiting for her to make a decision.  <How
long will you be afraid?> the silence asked.  <When will you
become what you were meant to be?>

Who am I, she wondered?

She sat thinking for a long time.  Then, from somewhere outside
of herself, a resolution formed and pushed its way up to the
surface of her troubled mind.  She knew that there was no more
time for fear or regrets.  Now she had a chance to make a
difference in the future, to fight whatever was coming.

In that determination, she stood up and looked out through the
forest one last time.  She didn't know what the day would bring,
but she was resolved not to fear it any longer.  The fear served
no purpose except to hold her in bondage.  Why hadn't she seen
that before?  It seemed to her now that she had wasted too much
time being afraid of the future, when all she really needed to be
concerned with was Now.

Scully walked back to the bunker and was about to open the door
when Mulder appeared.  He was standing on the threshold, looking
startled to see her so close by.  "Are you okay?" he asked
gently.

"Yes," she replied, knowing that it was the truth.  She was full
of grief and regret, but no longer afraid.  She was really going
to be all right.  She took his hand and kissed him on the cheek.
"Let's go back inside."

**************************
"His work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will
bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire
will test the quality of each man's work."
1 Corinthians 3:13
**************************

Epilogue

Journal entry #1, 2002

I haven't kept a journal since I was in junior high, so this
feels a little strange.  Mulder gave it to me after he found out
about the nosebleeds.  I think he wants me to write down
everything because he is afraid.  I'm not afraid, though.

It's been over two years since the attempt at colonization.  I
suppose you could say we prevailed, but at what price?  So many
are dead, at least 90% of the world's population, by our best
estimates.  Much has happened between then and now.  I don't even
know where to begin.

We are not the same anymore, Mulder and I.  I remember the night
when things really changed for me.  It was the night I found out
that the US military bombed their big cities.  Other countries
soon followed suite, but it wasn't enough.  The big outbreaks
were contained, but we fought the colonists for 15 months after
that.  My guess is that even now they are not completely gone.
We may be dealing with this for decades.  They may come back.  No
one knows for sure.  At least now the vaccine is as fully
distributed as it's ever going to be.

That night was the same night I found out Bill and Charlie were
dead.  We didn't know for sure that they had been killed until a
year later, but that night, I knew in my heart that they were
gone.  Byers eventually found Frohike, but we never did find out
what happened to Langly.  I can only assume the worst.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  In the beginning, it was only
Mulder and I and our so-called "body guard."  They are still with
us, and very faithful.  I was glad for their presence many times.
At the formation of the Alliance and the New Order, they saved my
life twice, and Mulder's once.  I suppose we were instrumental in
the building of the Alliance, though I wouldn't go so far as to
say it would have never come about apart from us.  It may have
taken a very different form, though.

Not everything has been so dire.  A month after the cities were
obliterated, we started getting an influx of survivors into our
area.  God only knows what they thought they could find out here
in the wilderness.  But they did find us.  We expanded the
compound, but they still kept coming.  They wanted to fight, and
we needed fighters.  Their presence was a good thing for us.  Mom
and Byers eventually joined us, but only after we were sure that
the old consortium members were well and truly dead.

I was disappointed when I didn't become pregnant those first few
months.  I guess I thought that the hormone injection would work.
But there was no long term study of its effect.  We know now that
it did little for me but delay the inevitable. At the time I just
thought that my body had been too badly damaged for me to ever
have children, especially after the first miscarriage.  We
eventually adopted two of them.  A two-year-old boy and an
infant, left abandoned in a car not far from our bunker.   The
boy didn't know the name of the girl; apparently they were not
related.  His name was Issac.  I named the girl Eliana, because I
had been praying for a child the day they found her.  In Hebrew,
it means (roughly) "God has answered me."  Issac means
"laughter," and so he had been to us.  He is such a joy.  He even
looks like Mulder, with hazel eyes and straight brown hair.

My real regret is that I may not be able to see him or my
daughter grow up.  Mulder still holds out hope.  He even managed
to find an oncologist to come look at me yesterday.  The doctor
seems to think he may be able to do something for my illness.
But the last time I had cancer, they said the same thing.  I've
had three nosebleeds this week, and the headaches are constant.
I'm not going to despair, but I refuse to hold onto false hopes.
I can't help but wonder what would have happened if I hadn't cut
out the chip.  Would They have killed me?  Would I have been
tracked by the colonists?  I'll never know, so I try not to
wonder too much.

I must go now.  I have so much more to write, but my children
call me.

~The End~

*************************

I love feedback.
lordmadhammer@hotmail.com

Finally, it's done!  I'm taking a permanent break from fanfic.
It's been a fun run all around.  Unfortunately, I need to take
care of a bunch of real life stuff.

I'd like to thank my little consortium (especially Josh, Ken and
KK) my editors Claudia and Susan, and everyone how has sent me
feedback or archived my stories.  You all rock my world.