TITLE:  A Terrible Beauty is Born
AUTHOR:  Kate Rickman
E-MAIL:  kate.rickman@mindspring.com
CLASSIFICATION:  S, M/S Friendship. MSR
RATING:  R
SPOILERS:  FTF, but nothing major
SUMMARY:  With some vague foreknowledge of the event, Mulder and
Scully prepare for colonization.  Unfortunately they are caught in
transit, between Washington DC and a command center called Safe
Haven, located over a thousand miles away.
DISCLAIMER:  I am no MD.  I am no RN.  I am no nuclear physicist.
I am just a poor biochemist who likes to write about the lives of
Mulder and Scully.  All remuneration is non-monetary.  Chris Carter
can have it all, including the story.  He already owns most of the
characters, bless his pointed little head.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:  This is Romance Lite, the vast majority
of scenes that could be construed as romantic could also be taken
as warm friendship.  I think NoRomos  can stomach it.  OK for
Shippers, but no real meaty stuff.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:  Thanks to my beat-readers, Ellie and Pam, thanks
to Peter for the pharmacology and all the med-speak that is
correct.  Everything else and all the errors in technology are mine.

***

All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

--W.B. Yeats
*Easter, 1916*

***

Prologue

FBI Headquarters
May 21, 2000


"She's gone."

"It's for the best, Scully."

"I know, Mulder," Scully sighed then sank heavily into the chair,
her legs suddenly weak.

He reached out and touched her arm briefly.  "You did the right
thing."

"I can't help but wonder...."

"You did the right thing."  He insisted.  Gentle.

Scully gestured weakly with one hand.  "This is so unlike me...to
panic."

"You're not panicking, Scully, you're being sensible."

"Am I?"

"Yes."

Scully checked her watch.  5:31 PM.  "I can't help but worry."

5:31 PM.  Mulder confirmed the time.  "It's OK to worry.  It keeps
the heart beating and the juices flowing."

Scully managed a thin smile and checked her watch again.  5:32 PM.
"We'll know soon enough."

Mulder counted to himself.  "10:30.  We should hear something by
10:30 or so."

"10:30," she murmured.

"We'd better get going."  He moved around the office, turning off
lights, locking file cabinets, collecting a few things from his
desk and putting them in his briefcase.  "Ready?"

"Not really."  Scully hugged her arms, feeling cold suddenly.  "Can
this really be happening, Mulder?"

"It looks like it."  He tucked a handful of maps into the outside
pocket of his bag.

"I just can't believe it."

"Believe it."  He paused by the door, looking back to where Scully
sat in the chair by his desk.

"I don't want to believe it."  She reluctantly rose to her feet and
followed him from the office, waiting while he turned and locked
the door.  She tried the handle.  Locked.  Shut.  Closed off.
Over.

During the short walk to the parking garage, neither Mulder nor
Scully broke the silence.  Without speaking, they found Mulder's
car and climbed inside.  With only the purr of the engine between
them, they rode side by side through rush hour traffic, onto the
west bound highway.  Miles slipped beneath them as they drove.  The
sun glowed orange and then set behind them.  Pairs of lights flared
in their faces then passed them by.

Finally, the dashboard clock glowed 10:30 PM.

Scully reached in her bag and pulled out the phone, entering the
numbers from memory.  She waited impatiently for the call to be
answered at the other end, fidgeting in her seat.

Mulder watched her from the corner of his eye as he drove.

She stiffened.  An answer.  "Is Mom there?"  She asked breathlessly
as her brother picked up the phone.  Relief washed over her as Bill
confirmed her mother's safe arrival.  Scully grinned at Mulder.

Mulder squeezed her shoulder in response.

"I know, I know..."  She dialed down the volume as Bill shouted in
her ear.  "Let me talk to Mom.  Bill!"

"Mom."  Her mother's voice filled her ear.  What a wonderful sound.
"Me, too.  Let's hope that Mulder...*we're* wrong.  Let's hope this
is just a nice vacation for you."

"We're on our way to...."  A flash of light filled the car for a
second, then faded away.  Prickles swept over her skin.  A clicking
buzz swelled in her ears, making her dizzy.

"Mom?"  Shaking her head, Scully looked at the phone in her hand.
Dead.

The car rolled silently to a stop, lights out, engine dead.

She glanced at her watch, the digital face blank, dead.

She turned to Mulder, eyes wide in the darkness, heart pounding in
her ears.

"It has begun,"  was all he said.

***

The Former Nebraska
Year 01 Day 89
(August 17, 2000)

Heat waves shimmered off the pavement.  The air lay heavily upon
the ground.  Motionless trees sprouted from dry earth that
stretched empty in every direction.  On the horizon, two lone
figures walked slowly into the setting sun.

On the horizon, Dana Scully plodded along behind Fox Mulder, feet
aching, head throbbing from heat and dehydration.  She squinted
against the sun in her face and wished for the umpteenth time that
she hadn't lost her sunglasses during the scuffle in...what was
that place...Decatur?  Springfield?  Whatever.  They were gone.
She tucked a loose strand of hair into her ponytail and licked her
dry lips.  Stepping to her right, she shifted her pack higher on
her back and slipped as far as possible into Mulder's long shadow.

Mulder shuffled through the dust, pulling a two-wheeled shopping
cart behind him.  He wore his third pair of scavenged shoes, bright
orange Converse hi-tops.  On his back he carried a full pack, items
he'd collected along the way filled the shopping cart.  Five
gallons of drinking water sloshed back and forth in a salvaged
bottle.

Scully licked her dry lips again and followed the water in the cart
down the road.

For 89 days they had continued to work their way west, toward Safe
Haven, hoping as they walked that it would be there when and if
they ever arrived.

Eighty-nine days ago, in a single flash, their world had collapsed.

In a flash, the rules of the game had changed irrevocably.

In the same flash, Special Agent Doctor Scully had become Dana
Scully, Able Survivor.  Able to walk nearly 20 miles every day with
a heavy pack on her back.  Able to forage for food in forgotten
orchards and abandoned supermarkets.  Able to hold her own in a
street fight.  Able to sleep in a thin bag laid on the hard, hard
ground.  An Able Survivor who actually learned to thrive under
these harsh conditions.

Over the past three months, she and Mulder had traveled nearly
1,000 miles on foot.  For the past several days, their trek had
followed the course of the Platte River, in reverse, moving
northwest toward its source.  Here, the Platte flowed slowly
through dry farmland, fields of dead wheat and dry oats, withered
alfalfa, wizened stalks of corn tilted at crazy angles.

Tonight, they chose a gentle slope on the western bank for their
camp.  Scully dropped heavily onto a large flat rock by the river's
edge.   She shrugged her pack from her shoulders and kicked her
shoes from her feet.  "Ahhh," she said, picking up one shoe to
examine its sole critically.  Holes.  A new pair must be found
soon.  She tossed it aside and wiggled her toes.  Good.  They still
worked.  Wobbly with fatigue, she slipped off the rock and into the
river.  The cool water crept up her legs, across her waist and over
her shoulders as she waded deeper into the river.  Soon, she
treaded water in the lazy current.

Mulder slumped on the riverbank.  He leaned back against his pack,
arms still through the straps, eyes closed, face slack with
exhaustion.

Scully found her footing on the silty river bottom and peeled her
shorts down her legs, followed by her panties.  She scrubbed the
garments in the river water, cleaning them as well as she could
without detergent.  She tossed them at Mulder, who did not react as
they hit the rock next to him with a wet splat.

Lucky Mulder, that he could sleep in the warm sun.  Lucky Mulder,
for once without his plague of nightmares.

Scully pulled her T-shirt over her head and removed her bra,
rinsing them thoroughly before wading from the river to lie naked
on a rock in the evening sun.  The warmth of the rock against her
front and the sun against her back felt revitalizing after the cool
refreshment of her swim.  Consciousness dimmed rapidly and went
out.

Prickles swept across her skin.

"It has begun."  Mulder's words, muted,  came from a great
distance.

Oh.  My.  God.  "An EMP," she breathed aloud.

"A what?"

"Electromagnetic Pulse."  She cradled her cell phone in both hands.
Hot.  She imagined the fried circuits inside.  DamnDamnDamn.  She
dropped it on the floor and kicked it with her foot.

Mulder tried the ignition.  Nothing.  He checked his own
wristwatch.  Dead.  He leaned his forehead against the steering
wheel for a moment.  "I guess we go from here on foot," he
concluded.

"We're not too far from Columbus."  Scully remembered seeing a road
sign not too far back.

"We could be there by morning," Mulder continued as he unlocked the
trunk and pulled out their packs.  Two suitcases remained inside.

Scully cocked her head.  "What's that?"  A strange whining sound
overhead.

They looked into the night sky.  Only starlight and the sliver of a
new moon showed above them.  The whining grew louder, penetrating,
painful. The ground shook with increasing violence under their
feet.

"You know, that sounds like..."  Scully covered her ears as the
stars above them winked out in a rolling pattern.

"... an airplane."  Mulder finished her sentence as a shock wave
nearly knocked him to the ground.

Less than a quarter mile away, a fireball erupted into the night
sky.

Scully gripped his arm in horror, watching the flames roll into the
sky on a column of vaporized aviation fuel, able to do nothing as
heat from the inferno washed over her.  "Oh my God," she whispered,
realizing that electrical systems of an aircraft would be ruined by
an EMP.  "Oh my God." She prayed for all souls caught in flight
tonight.  Bile rushed into the back of her throat and her skin
crawled as she bent over, retching painfully.

"Scully?"

"OhmyGod."  She mumbled into the sun-warmed rock, tears flowing
freely.

"Scully."  Mulder shook her shoulder, turning her to him.

Scully's eyes opened in the Nebraska sunlight.  Trembling, she
blinked the tears from her eyes.   Mulder knelt before her, concern
etched on his face.

"Hey, Scully."  Soft.  Gentle.

Her skin crawled as she remember the first night.  Over and over it
came back to her.  A circle of hell somewhere between the one
populated by traitors writhing in frozen agony throughout eternity
and the realm of Satan himself.

"The dreams again?"  Understanding.

She nodded, turning to sit up in his arms.  "The airplane."  She
rested her forehead against his shoulder and felt his arms slip
around her shoulders.  "It was the burned-out airplane we saw
today.  It reminded me..."  Her voice trailed off with the memory.
She leaned on him for several minutes, finding comfort in his
embrace, her pulse settling.

"Hey.  It's getting chilly.  I got some dry clothes for you."  He
held out a few items from the meager stock she had been able to
bring along in her pack.

"Thanks," she whispered as she took the offered things.  "I never
want to sleep again."

"Then you'll end up like me," Mulder joked.

"Not that.  Never that."  She managed a weak smile, getting to her
feet and pulling on her clothes.  Her stomach growled loudly as she
tucked her T-shirt into the jeans.

"And over here, Milady, is our evening meal."  Mulder swept his arm
grandly in the direction of their sleeping bag.  It lay open.  In
the center stood two cans of Spaghetti-Os and two spoons.

"Mulder.  You shouldn't have."  Their last two cans of Spaghetti-Os.
  She sat next to one can, tucking her legs beneath her, and
picked up one spoon.

Mulder attacked the other can without delay.

Tonight the cold Spaghetti-Os tasted better to Scully than the
finest Trattoria Sambuca had ever served her.  She scraped the
bottom of the can repeatedly with her spoon.  Sighed.  Looked
around and noticed the sun had gone and the twilight deepened to
purple.  Yawned.  "I'm exhausted."  Her eyes drooped.

"Me, too."  Mulder swept the sleeping bag with this hand, then
plumped his jacket into a pillow for Scully's head.

She smiled and lay down.  "Are we there yet,"  she joked sleepily.

"We should get to Scottsbluff tomorrow," he lay down beside her,
leaning on one hand.

"Good."  She rubbed her nose with an awkward swipe of her hand.  "I
need a new pair of shoes."

"Shoes, Spaghetti-Os...whatever you want, Scully."  He lay back,
tucking his hands beneath his head.

"Wake me up when I dream, Mulder."  She rolled over, using his
chest for a pillow.

"You bet."  He found one hand and stroked her hair, urging her to
sleep.

"You take good care of me, Mulder," she murmured into his chest,
drifting down the gentle slope to sleep.

"You take good care of *me*, Scully,"  he responded, burying his
face in her hair, closing his eyes.

"Mmmmm" was all she could say before blackness closed over her.

***

Velvet blackness had covered the city of Columbus, Ohio when they
arrived that first night.  Still at a distance they could see
flickering lights flitting here and there like giant fireflies
darting around the city.  By the time they entered the city from
the south, nothing stirred.  The night air was cool and eerily
still.  No lights showed, only a faint grayness creeping westward
from the eastern horizon.

Car stood abandoned in the roads.  An occasional bus sat immobile,
doors open, no passengers.  No light, even candlelight, showed in
the homes they passed on their walk to the heart of the city.
Incongruously, birds sang their usual songs in the growing light.

A gas station, dark and empty.

A grocery story, closed.

A diner, shades drawn, no smells of early morning cooking.

A book store, locked.

It would not necessarily be unusual or alarming to find these
businesses closed at this early hour, Scully reminded herself,
resolutely moving down the street.

A hospital rose out of the morning gloom.

Ahah!  Open 24/7.  Better yet, my turf.  Feeling hopeful, Scully
hitched her pack higher on her back and started up the steps to the
front door.  "We should get some answers here."

Wearily, Mulder trailed behind her as they passed through the front
doors and into the building.

The corridors were dark and empty, without emergency light.  No
nurses bustling, no doctors.  Where was everybody?  Scully opened
each door as she passed and looked inside.  Nothing.  No one.

Mulder walked close beside her, wary.

Doors guarded an Intensive Care Unit on their right.  Scully
hesitantly pushed them open.

Darkness.

Silence.

White shrouded forms lay unmoving on gurneys, connected by wires to
blank monitors.

Silence, except for the pounding of her heart in her ears.

Mulder reached out and flipped a light switch.  Nothing.

Scully shrugged her pack from her shoulders and drifted around the
room, touching first this person and then that one.  She completed
the circuit and returned to Mulder, defeat on her face.  "All
dead."

"They killed everyone, Scully."  Mulder squeezed her shoulder in
sympathy.

"Let's keep looking."  Scully pulled on her pack.  "I've got to
keep looking...just in case."

Mulder followed her from the ICU.  He trailed behind her as she
continued down the hallway, looking in rooms as she passed them.

Empty...empty...empty...OhmyGod.

Scully froze in the doorway of an eight bed ward.

Movement.

She dropped her pack again and ran into the room.

An elderly man lay in a bed next to the window.

"Sir?"  She asked with shaking voice, touching his withered
shoulder.

His eyes moved rapidly beneath papery lids.  REM sleep.

She shook his shoulder, speaking more loudly.  "Sir?"

The old man's eyes popped open.  He looked wildly around the room,
then focused on Scully where she stood beside his bed.  "They're
gone.  All gone."

"Who's gone?"  Scully took his hand between both of hers.

"Nurses.  Doctors.  The other patients."

Sure enough, the other beds in the ward were empty, linens rumpled.
Save one.  Linens lay neatly over an immobile form.

The old man followed her gaze.  "He's dead.  He died a couple of
hours ago."

Scully shivered in the cool morning air.  "What happened?"

"There were lights.  Bright lights.  Blinding lights."  The old man
closed his eyes to remember better.  "I couldn't see, it was so
bright..."

"Then what?"  Mulder dropped his pack and stepped up to the bed on
the other side.

"It was quiet.  No beeping monitors.  No hissing respirators.
Quiet.  When I opened my eyes it was dark and everyone was gone.
Except him."  He gestured at the dead man.  "And me."

"Who else was in this ward?"  Scully encouraged his recollection.

The old man thought for a moment.  "Well, there was the guy with
carpal tunnel next to me.  Then Boyd across the way had a torn
rotator cuff.  The dead guy had a fractured pelvis.  There was a
question of pneumonia."  An eight bed ward was a small town--each
knew the other's business.  "Then there was a bone spur, and a..."
He named three other straightforward orthopedic procedures.

"All minor surgeries except for the pelvis."  Mulder nodded.

Scully agreed.  The missing persons suffered only minor impairment
while those who remained behind were dying or seriously disabled.
With that thought, she turned back to their new friend.  "And you?"

"Diabetes."  He gestured at his feet.  The sheets lay flat where
his left foot should have tented the linen.

Mulder looked at Scully.  "I see a pattern here."

Scully dropped into the chair by the bed, suddenly exhausted.  Even
the roots of her hair hurt.

"Let me look around some more while you talk to..."

"Vernon."  The old man filled in the blank.

"...Vernon.  I'll be back in a flash."

Flash.  "Don't use that word, Mulder."

He smiled thinly.  "Right."

He was back in a flash, skidding into the room.  "Scully!  Come
quick!"

She nearly fell, standing on rubbery legs.  She staggered after him
to another ward a short way down the hall.

Here, most of the beds held patients.  Live patients.  Moaning
patients.

Scully ran to the first bed.  In it, a man lay gasping for air, his
ventilator dead from lack of electricity.  She rooted around in the
medical supplies conveniently stored nearby, and produced an ambu-
bag.  She expertly fitted it to his face, working the bag, pumping
air into his lungs.

The man calmed immediately.

"What's wrong with you, sir?"  Scully asked politely.

"Liver.  Cancer."  He gasped into the device that covered his face,
drawn and skeletal from the ravages of that disease.

Scully quickly glanced at Mulder and shook her head as she pumped
the air that helped him survive.

Scully nearly jumped out of her skin as a loud shriek rose from the
bed behind her.  "Take this.  Squeeze gently."  She ordered Mulder.

Mulder took the bag between his hands and worked it like he'd seen
Scully do.

Scully turned to the patient behind her, moaning softly now, moving
restlessly in his bed.  She felt his forehead with one hand.  Hot.
Very hot.

The man's eyes flickered but did not open at her touch.  A quiet
moan rolled up from the back of his throat.

Scully grabbed the chart from the foot of his bed and flipped
through the pages.  Burst appendix.  Sepsis.  Bad.  She traced a
finger down the chart.  Nafcillin, Gentamycin, Flagyl.  She had to
find these antibiotics.  She ran from the room to the nurse's
station.  In the storeroom she found what she needed.  She grabbed
several vials, a syringe and a fresh bag of Ringer's Lactate, then
ran back down the hall, heart pounding.

Quickly, she hung the new bag.  Her hands trembled as she withdrew
the appropriate dose of each antibiotic and injected it into the
buret.  She spoke soothingly to the delirious man as she adjusted
the drip rate.

"Doctor, doctor."  A weak call from the other side of the room.

She whirled and ran, slipping, nearly falling on the slick
linoleum.

The crying man reached for her, grabbing her arm with great
strength.  Blood soaked the sheets that lay across his abdomen.

"Sir, let go of me for a moment so I can help you."  She tugged her
arm away from him, hard, her heart pounding with fear.  Finally he
let go, his arm falling weakly to the bed.  She threw the bloody
linen to one side and carefully peeled the blood-soaked dressing
from his abdomen.  A colostomy.  Oh my God.  The stitches had
pulled loose at one side and blood oozed from the defect.  Sutures.
He needed sutures.  Could she remember how to suture such a wound?
Her head throbbed and her breath tore at her throat.

A man, wracked with dry heaves, shuddered in the next bed, calling
for God.

"Mulder!"  Scully grabbed her head with both hands and screamed.

Mulder dropped the bag and ran toward her.

"No, no...you've got to keep working."  She tried to push him back.

Mulder grabbed her by the shoulders.

She tried to push him again, ineffectively, her arms weak and
uncoordinated.

The man heaved again, gagging.

"It's only two of us, Scully."  Mulder shook her gently.  "We can't
save all of them."

The colostomy cried out in pain, reaching for her.

"We've got to try."  She shook her head in denial.  "Try, Mulder."

The liver cancer gasped loudly, struggling for air.

Mulder pulled Scully against his chest and rubbed her back gently
as she broke down and sobbed in his arms.

"Scully."  He spoke gently into her hair, chafing her back with his
free hand.

"My fault" was all she could say through her tears.

"No.  Not your fault."  Mulder shook her gently.  "Come on, Scully.
Wake up."

She shuddered and opened her eyes.  Morning light flooded their
campsite.  Birds sang in the trees and the gentle sound of flowing
water came from the river to her right.

"God help me." she prayed aloud.  "Help us."

"If only he could, Scully."  Mulder rocked her to full wakefulness
in the shelter of his arms.

***

Year 01 Day 90

They did not make it to Scottsbluff that day or the next one.

Late in the morning, they came upon a farm house perched on a knoll
above the opposite river bank.  A dog barked.  Smoke drifted from
the chimney.  Chickens scratched in the yard.  It looked so normal,
so comforting, that tears welled in Scully's eyes and she found
herself wiping her nose surreptitiously.

While cities and towns had been devastated, with only the sick and
old left behind, small islands of humanity such as that found
on the scattered family farms of the midwest remained untouched.
Nearly normal.

Scully's stomach growled as she imagined the smell of roasting
meat.

"Should we stop?"  Mulder walked behind her today.

"No."  Scully remembered other farms they had passed.  Some had
been friendly and others hostile.  "There's no way across and we
can still get to Scottsbluff by nightfall if we keep moving."

As she spoke, the front door of the farmhouse flew open.  Like
early settlers turning out to welcome a passing Conestoga, a man, a
woman and two small boys spilled through the doorway, running
toward the river, waving their hands.

"Helloooooo" came the call from the other bank.  Friendly.

Scully stopped and waved.

Mulder came to a halt behind her, dropping his pack, flexing his
stiff shoulders.  "Hi there!"  He called back across the river.

The man raced for a small boat tied to a tiny dock.  "Please!  Come
over!  We need to talk with you."  The low growl of a small
outboard motor filled the air.

Scully looked at Mulder who looked back at her.  "Sure," he said.

They moved together down to the edge of the water, directly ahead
of the oncoming boat.

Minutes later, they were seated at a rectangular table, dizzy from
the aroma of roasted beef that filled the room.  Jill Wilson threw
another piece of wood into the stove, then turned to them.  "We
kept this wood stove as a novelty when we remodeled the house..."

"...little did we know that we'd have to use it some day,"  David
Wilson finished her thought.  He put the sizzling roast on the
table.

Jill placed a large bowl of mixed vegetables in front of them.
"From our garden."  She offered Scully the serving spoon.

"...and we didn't know a thing until we got up in the morning and
nothing worked."  David Wilson explained.  "Electricity,
telephones, generator...nothing.  We were really surprised about
the generator.  I just tested it the week before."

Jill passed around glasses of water ladled from a bucket in the
sink.

Scully drained hers in a gulp.  Cool and fresh.

"We saddled up the horses and went into Scottsbluff to see what was
going on."  David continued, carving the meat.  "It was eerie.
Only a few people were left in town and they had no idea where
everyone else had gone."

"And the really weird thing?"  Jill sat down at the table.  "Only
the old folks were left."

"And Mrs. Morrison.  She's paralyzed from the waist down."  David
added.  After leading a quick grace, he passed the food around the
table.

Mulder and Scully ate heartily for the first time in weeks while
they tried to explain what they believed had happened.

"Extraterrestrial?"  David balked at the idea.

"Honey.  We saw *Independence Day.*"  Jill placed one hand on her
husband's arm.  She looked to Mulder and Scully for confirmation.

Mulder nodded enthusiastically.

Scully grimaced.

"Aliens."  David tried out another word.  From the look on his face,
this word was even more distasteful.

"That would explain how the whole town disappeared overnight."
Jill reasoned.

"So where *is* everybody?"  David wanted to know.

"We don't know."  Mulder helped himself to another slab of beef,
carving it enthusiastically, savoring a large chunk in his mouth.

"We've walked half-way across the country and we haven't seen a
single displaced soul."  Scully took a second helping of beef.
"The towns have been empty except for the elderly and disabled.
And, for the most part, people living in rural areas, on farms,
have been left alone."

"Well, thank God for that," Jill said, then looked guilty.

"It's OK, honey," David gave her a hug.  "We'll pray for them."

For the remainder of the day, Mulder and Scully helped the Wilsons
with their daily chores, learning more about this family and their
life on the farm.  "This land was homesteaded by my great-granddad;
his son, my grandfather built this house in 1920."  David explained
to Mulder.  It wasn't converted to electricity until just before
World War II.

"Losing power is the worst thing," Jill explained to Scully as she
threw seed to the chickens.

Scully followed her example, tossing seed awkwardly.

"We've got chickens for meat and eggs, we've got two cows for milk
and, later, I suppose, for beef."  David turned a bucket of water
into the trough for the chickens.

"We can grow what vegetables we need in our garden, although it's
really a pain to irrigate by hand."  Jill laughed and rubbed her
shoulders at the thought of carrying all that water to their crops.
"Next year, if things haven't gotten back to normal around here,
we'll plant the garden right down by the river."

"We've got apple trees and cherry trees and walnut trees planted
around the house, so we get some fruit and nuts too."  David
pointed around the yard.

"Last week we got a side of beef from my Aunt Alice, who lives
about 10 miles up the road,"  Jill explained.  "We traded her some
chicken and eggs."

"I'm so sick of chicken and eggs,"  David laughed, slipping his arm
around his wife's shoulders.

"You're going to be a whole lot sicker of chicken and eggs unless
you learn how to fish better."  Jill laughed with him.

"It's pretty much life as your ancestors knew it."  Scully
summarized what she'd seen and heard.

"Hopefully this won't go on forever, but if it does, we're here for
the long haul."  David led the way back to the house in the
twilight.

After a quick evening meal and baths complete with soap, Jill led
Mulder and Scully upstairs.  "You can have Jimmy's room.  I've put
him in with Kevin."  She opened the door at the head of the stairs
and stepped aside to let them go in.

The room was small, tucked into the eaves, containing only a double
bed, a dresser, a bookcase and scattered toys.

Mulder turned to Scully as the door closed behind them.  "Oops.
We've been sleeping together for so many weeks.  I forgot to say
something."

"You mean *passing out together* don't you, Mulder?"  Scully made
light of the awkward situation.

"Sure."  He pulled off his shirt and peeled down to his
undershorts.  "Whatever helps you sleep."

Sleep?  Scully groaned.  "To sleep.  Perchance *not* to dream."

Mulder scanned a pair of low shelves, pulling out a small book.
"Maybe a nice bedtime story will do you good."  He held the book
out for Scully to see.

*Wind in the Willows.*  She rolled her eyes and groaned.

"Hey!"  Mulder feigned insult.  "It was one of my favorite books,
growing up."  He climbed into the small bed, patting the sheets
next to him.

Scully tucked her chin into her chest, lest Mulder should see the
smile creeping around her mouth.  She lifted the covers and slid
into bed beside him.

Mulder cleared his throat dramatically and turned to the first
page.  "The mole had been working very hard all morning, spring-
cleaning his little home.  First with brooms, then with dusters;
then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of
whitewash; till he had dust in his throat...."

"You're making me tired, Mulder."  Scully mumbled from where she
lay on her back.

Mulder stopped reading for a moment.  "That's the idea, Scully.  Go
to sleep with visions of Mr. Mole merrily cleaning his house."

"What's it called again?"  She yawned.

"What?"

"The house."  She could barely form the words on sleepy lips.

"Mole End."  Mulder offered promptly, watching her face go blank
with sleep, wishing he could ease all her troubles that quickly.
He picked up the book and continued to read.  "...dust in his
throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur,
and an aching back and weary...."

The book fell from Mulder's weary hands and he slept.

***

Two days later, they were on the road again, laden with fresh fruit
and vegetables, roasted beef sandwiches wrapped tightly in foil,
and two special presents:  a newly stitched quilt and the copy of
*Wind in the Willows* that had successfully lulled Scully to
dreamless sleep for the past two nights.  By afternoon, they
arrived in town.

Scottsbluff was a small town, an orderly town, grown along the
banks of the Platte River.  Today it was a deserted town, leaves
blowing in the wind, brown lawns, dead flowers.  A feral-looking
dog eyed them sharply as they walked through the streets, then
passed on.  David and Jill had given them directions to the local
supermarket, where they could stock up on non-perishable items for
the next leg of their journey.

The door stood open and they went inside, closing it behind them.

"Oh, good.  Look, Scully:  tuna!"  Mulder grabbed several cans from
the shelf, dropping them into the shopping cart.

"I wonder if there are any Spaghetti-Os left," she craned her neck,
looking for the appropriate aisle.

"Don't move!"  A shout came from behind them.

Mulder and Scully whirled at the sound of the threat.

A skinny old man glared at them through the sights of a 12-gauge
shotgun.

Trouble.

Mulder raised his hands innocently.  "We're just getting some food,
that's all."

"Well, that's my food."

"Is this your store?"  Scully thought of her weapon, tucked into a
side pocket of her pack.  She shrugged the pack from her shoulders
and let it slide gently to the floor.

The twin barrels pointed directly at Scully's chest.  "Yeah.  It's
all mine and I want you to get the hell outta here!"

"Why didn't you lock the door, then?"  Mulder removed his own pack.

"I don't have the key."

He doesn't have the key.  This isn't his store, he's only a
squatter.  "Look, Mister.  We just want to get a few things so we
can move on."  Scully reasoned with him, dropping into a squat next
to her pack.  She casually laid her hand on the side pocket,
feeling the outline of her weapon through the nylon fabric.  Her
fingers slid beneath the flap.

The man stepped closer.  "Don't you try...."

A loud creak sounded behind them.

The old man glanced reflexively in the direction of the front door.

Mulder dove for the shotgun, grabbing it from the side, deflecting
the barrel toward the shelves of canned meats.  He pulled it easily
from the old man's grasp.

"Hey!"  Frightened now.

Mulder broke open the breech, pulling out two shells.  He snapped
it shut, handing the harmless gun back to the old man, putting the
shells in his own pocket for safekeeping.  "We mean you no harm.
We just want a few things and then we'll leave."

Scully turned to the front door.  A young woman and small boy stood
hesitantly inside, hunger showing on their thin faces.  Scully
brushed past the old man, timid now that he had been disarmed.  She
went to the woman and her child, put her arms around them both and
led them down the aisles in search of food.  An hour later, after
taking just what they needed and no more, Mulder and Scully were on
the road again.  They headed out of town, up the river to Wyoming,
traveling toward their destination.

At twilight they stopped and made camp.  They devoured the roast
beef sandwiches provided by the Wilsons, licking their fingers for
dessert.

Mulder laid out the sleeping bag with the new quilt on top.  He
slipped beneath the quit, turning back the edge, and motioned for
Scully to join him in their bed.

"Time for nighty-night."  He pulled *Wind in the Willows* from his
pack and made a great show of opening it to the next page.

Scully lay down beside him and closed her eyes, relaxing to the
sound of his voice.

"The Willow-Wren was twittering his thin little song, hidden
himself in the dark selvedge of the river bank.  Though it was past
ten o'clock at night, the sky still clung to and retained some
lingering skirts of light from the departed day...."

Mulder's voice continued into the night as Scully slept peacefully.

***

The Former Wyoming
Year 01 Day 111
(September 8, 2000)

For the past few days, sheep had been their constant companions on
the trek.  Herds of sheep, with a few head of cattle mixed in,
roamed the rolling plains on either side of the river, grazing on
the dry grasses, drinking the cool river water.  On more than one
morning a curious face had hovered over their bed, watching them
sleep with great fascination.

This morning was no exception:  Scully shooed off three curious
beasts before breakfast.  Now she sat with Mulder, eating a granola
bar and nibbling at a mealy apple they'd plucked from a tree in the
last town, her head resting against the strength of his shoulder as
she ate.

"You'd think if aliens were taking over the earth, we'd have seen
some of them by now."  She bit into the apple.  They had seen no
evidence of alien activity since the first night of the invasion.

"It's strange, isn't it?"

"I thought the deal was that they would use us to make alien/human
hybrids that would, in turn, overrun the planet, turning humans
into a slave race."  Scully nibbled the apple down to the core,
tossing the remnant into the bushes behind them.

The bushes rustled and baa-aa-aahed happily.  Recycling.

"Or," Mulder cleared his throat, "something like that."

"So where are they and why haven't we been subjugated yet?  We're
hardly in hiding."

Mulder shrugged and shook his head.

Scully's head slipped from his shoulder with the unexpected shrug
and she struggled to regain her balance.  "No.  I really want to
know."

"I don't know, Scully."  Mulder snapped at her.  "What do you want
me to say?"

"You always have all the answers, Mulder.  What's the answer to
this one?"  She sat up, looking him full in the face.

"Regretfully, I have no idea.  Maybe when we get to Safe Haven...."

"Safe Haven, Safe Haven, when we get to Safe Haven.  What if Safe
Haven isn't there anymore, Mulder?"  She sounded snotty to her own
ears, but she didn't care.

"I have to believe that it will be."

"Or else?"

"I don't think I could go on,"  Mulder admitted softly after a long
pause.

Her heart dropped to the pit in her stomach, landing there with a
dull thud.  "Mulder.  I'm sorry."  Contrite.  "I've been a Bitch.
I don't know what's the matter with me today."

"You're just scared and tired and sleep deprived like I am."

"I've only had a few nightmares since you've been reading me to
sleep each night...Dad."  She teased him, relieved.

"You're lucky I found *Winnie the Pooh* in Casper."

"And the *Just So Stories*!  I always loved the one about how the
leopard got his spots."  Her voice turned wistful, she pulled her
knees to her chest, looping her arms around them protectively.  "My
mom read them to me when I was little."

"Hey."  Mulder slipped one arm around her shoulders.

"I wonder how Mom is doing...and Bill, Tara and little Matthew."
Scully leaned her chin on her knees.

"They're probably fine."  Mulder did his best to reassure her that
she did the right thing, sending her mother to Bill for protection.
"Bill will take good care of them."

"But they were in town and all the towns we've seen so far...."
Her voice trailed off as she recalled how every town had been left
with only the old and infirm.  Her mother and the rest of her
family were neither old nor infirm residents.

"Scully, if Bill couldn't protect her, then you couldn't, either."

"Why the cities and not the farms, too?"

"Maybe they got all the humans they needed, conveniently pre-herded
into cities."

"But don't they consider the rest of us a threat?"

"How?  With what?  They've neutralized all our weapons systems and
our technology.  We're back to living like our ancestors in the
19th century.  Actually, we're in worse shape than our ancestors
because we've over specialized in the last century and, for the
most part, have forgotten how to farm and make candles and weave
cloth."

"David and Jill will do OK."

"David and Jill are an exception." Mulder strapped the sleeping
back to the top of his pack.  "How would you weave cloth, Scully?"

She tried to visualize a loom while tucking her things back into
the pack.

"For starters, were will you get the thread?"  Mulder interrupted
her thoughts.

"From the Thread Store."  Exasperated.

"Hey.  Scully."  Soft.

"What?"  Sharp.

"Let's not fight again, OK?"  Charming.

Scully turned without speaking and put the last items back in the
shopping cart.

"I'm sorry.  I'm an irritable Toad, impossible to travel with,
annoying, arrogant, dismissive...."

"Good list, Mulder."  She found her cap and planted it firmly on
her head.  John Deere.  She slipped into her pack, hefting it onto
her back.  "Keep going."

"Please?"  He followed her lead and put on his pack.

Scully grabbed the shopping cart and pulled it onto the road,
heading west without looking to see if Mulder had followed.

"Are we OK?"  Mulder scrambled after her.

"We're OK.  I'm sorry too."  Scully spoke over her shoulder.  "I
shouldn't have snapped like that.  It's just that...."

"Just what?"  Mulder raced to catch up and walk by her side now
that it was safe to do so.

"It's just hard for me to wrap my mind around this, Mulder.  You
say the aliens have landed...and I believe you because there's no
better explanation for what we've seen and heard...but we haven't
seen any aliens.  Then we end up walking across the United States,
heading for some mysterious place called Safe Haven that you won't
tell me much about..."

"I don't know much about it, just that the Gunmen will be there and
that it's a kind of control center."

"Fine.  If we walk across the entire United States to this control
center, then everything will be fine."

"I don't know whether anything will be fine, but we'll be with
people who have a plan, and resources to do something."  Mulder
raised his hand quickly.  "And, before you ask:  I don't know the
plan or anything about the resources.  I just know they've been
preparing for this possible turn of events for some time and have
tried to take the necessary precautions."

"Well, that's something."  Scully admitted as she continued
westward at Mulder's side.

***

Shortly after lunch, the road began to climb, twisting through the
rolling hills.  They plodded upward, feeling the weight on their
backs, going slowly.

Suddenly, Mulder fell flat on his back.

"Mulder!"  Scully raced forward to where he lay on the ground,
twisted over the bulk of his pack.  His eyes were open but
unfocused.  "Mulder."  She dropped her pack and sank to the ground
next to him, worried.

He shook his head and sat up, still dazed.

"What happened?"  Scully watched his expression carefully.

"I don't know.  Suddenly I was on the ground."

"Let's take a rest day."  Scully suggested.  "We've been on the
move for nearly three weeks without a break."

"No."  Mulder was anxious to get to Safe Haven now that they were
so close.  "I can go on, Scully.  I feel better already."

Scully stood and helped Mulder to his feet, watching him carefully.
He seemed OK.  She shouldered her own pack, turning to lead the
way...and ended up flat on her back.

"What the hell," she tried to say although what came out of her
mouth sounded like gibberish to her ears.

Mulder helped her to her feet and supported her until she stopped
swaying in his arms.  He held up one finger in caution as he swept
the other slowly in front of him.  Suddenly he snatched back his
hand as if it had been bitten.  Cautiously, he extended his hand,
palm out, to the same spot...and snatched it back again, shaking it
from the wrist.  "Well, what do you know" was all he said.

"What?"  Scully extended her palm slowly, carefully, until she
barely felt something tingle against her skin.  She pulled her hand
to safety.  "What is it?"

Mulder considered his answer carefully.  "A force field."

Force field.  Alien technology.  Shit.  "A force field protecting
what?"

"I don't know."  Let's see if we can find out."  He moved back and
forth across the road, confirming with open hands that the field
completely blocked their way in that direction.  He then stepped
off the pavement to his right, feeling the way by sense of touch,
his palms held in air ahead of him.

Scully followed him up the incline to their right, staying safely
behind him, struggling to drag the shopping cart up the uneven
slope.

What they saw at the top made them both catch their breath.  A
shining city stretched to the horizon in every direction.
Beautiful.  Terrible.  Row after row of rectangular buildings,
multistory barracks-like structures, spread out before them.  The
silvery city shimmered in the afternoon sunlight, throwing small
points of light around the rolling hills.  Squinting, they could
see tiny figures moving back and forth, from one building to the
next.  Alien?  Human?  They couldn't tell at this distance, nearly
a mile from the closest building.  Small craft hovered overhead,
moving slowly around the compound in a graceful pattern.

Cautiously, they crept back into the low trees.  Mulder dug in his
pack for his binoculars, then crept on his belly back to the ridge,
stopping under a bush.

Scully crawled close behind him.  "Be careful of reflection from
the lenses,"  she warned as she lay next to him.

"We're in the shade.  We'll be OK."  Mulder raised the binoculars
to his eyes and twisted the thumb wheel.  He flinched as it came
into focus.

"What do you see," Scully urged.

"Humans.  Lots of them."  He trolled around the compound with his
lenses.  Stopped abruptly.  Gasped.

"What, Mulder?"

"Grays."  He hissed the word.

"Grays.  The little gray guys with the big eyes?"  In her mind's
eye, Scully always visualized those aliens as if they were painted
on black velvet.  For some reason.

He nodded and continued to watch.

"So who are we fighting here, Mulder?  The gray ones?  Or is it the
lizard aliens, the oily stuff or those faceless guys who look like
us but who can change into other forms?"  Scully wanted to know.

"All of them."

"Well, that makes it easy.  If it ain't human, kill it."  Sarcasm
dripped from her words.

Mulder handed her the binoculars and lay quietly by as she looked
for herself.

"Oh."  She handed them back, rolling onto her back, closing her
eyes, thinking about what she'd just seen.

"I've got to get a closer look."  Mulder finally broke the silence.

"How?  Everything is at least a mile inside the perimeter and we
can't go through the force field."

"I'll work my way around the outside.  Maybe I can find a weak
spot.  Maybe I can see something more from a different angle."

"They'll see you, Mulder.  Not only do they have those...craft...
hovering over the compound, but they've probably got all sorts of
sensor arrays that monitor the place."

"Sensor arrays."  Mulder smiled at her description.  "That's so
very  Star Trek of you, Scully."

"Shut up, Mulder."

"I'll go after dark."

She ignored the first person singular in his plan.  "I suppose you
have night vision goggles in that bag?"

"As a matter of fact, I do."  Mulder smugly dug to the bottom of
his pack and produced the object in question.

Damn.  I had to ask.  Worry started nibbling at her stomach.  "OK.
We leave our stuff here and go as far as that next big hill after
dark.  We check it out, then come back and move on to Safe Haven."

"No.  You stay here with our stuff and I go to that hill over
there."

"No.  No way.  We don't split up."  Not after all this time, all
these miles.

"It's safe this way, Scully.  If something happens to me you can
still make it to Safe Haven and tell the others about this place."

"I don't have a clue where Safe Haven is located, Mulder, you know
that."  She argued her best case.  "You told me that I shouldn't
know in case *they* caught me and subjected me to some kind of
alien mind probe."

He reached into the pack and pulled out a stack of maps.  Choosing
one, he spread it on the ground and stabbed a point in central
Idaho with his finger.  "There.  Go there.  If you can't find the
guys, they will find you.  It's a small place."

She pushed the map away.  "Uh-uh.  No way.  If you go, I go,
Mulder."

He sat back, exasperated.

She took his hand between both of hers, desperate.  "I can't lose
you."

"Scully..."  Mulder began.

Scully cut him off.  "Remember...remember when you said that I made
you a whole person?"

Mulder couldn't forget that day.  He nodded.

Scully cleared her throat and continued.  "You make me a whole
person, too, Mulder.  Before all this, I needed you more than I
ever admitted, especially to myself.  But now, after all we've been
through, I've got to tell you...I know that...I, I lo...love...."
She cleared her throat again.

"Love you?"  Mulder helped her with the words.

"More than life itself."  She admitted.  "Please don't try to slip
away without me, Mulder."

He pulled her into his arms.  "Aw shit, Scully.  You sure know how
to pick your times."

"Don't go without me," she repeated into his shirt front.

He sighed deeply, holding her.

"Mulder...."  Scully begged with the tone of her voice.

Mulder kissed the top of her head and lay his cheek against her
hair.  "It would be safer if only one of us went out there."

"You're not my father.  You're not The Law anymore.  You can't make
me stay behind."

He couldn't argue with that.  "Fine.  You win.  We both go."

"Good."  His shirt front muffled her reply.

***

Four hours later, a lawn of stars twinkled across the night sky and
the half moon floated above the horizon, glowing brightly.
Unfortunately, so did the camp:  diffuse light radiated from
nowhere, shining everywhere, lighting the rolling hillside far
beyond the perimeter of the compound.  Familiar triangular craft
drifted slowly around the night sky, tracing a wide pattern in the
air over the camp.

Mulder looked at Scully.  "So much for the night vision goggles."

Scully scanned the terrain between them and their destination.
Bright.  Too bright to cross without fear of detection.  Damn.

"Let's just loop out there instead of going straight across,"
Mulder pointed the way, moving under the ridge line, cautious not
to show his profile above the low scrub that protected them.

An hour later, they crept up the far side of their destination,
sliding the last few feet on their bellies.  As they peered over
the top of the ridge, they saw the compound glowing below them.
From this angle they could determine the basic organization of the
camp:  the barracks radiated in a spoke-like pattern from a local
hub, a large warehouse-like structure.  From their vantage point
they could see two of these hubs.  Even at night, the camp bustled
with activity.

Scully raised the binoculars to her eyes and surveyed the camp.
"It looks like one-way traffic, Mulder."  She handed him the
binoculars.  "I only see people going *into* those big buildings.
Do you see anyone coming out?"

He took the binoculars and scanned the compound carefully.  "You're
right.  I wonder what goes on in there?"  He lowered the binoculars
and scanned the slope below him by eye.  "I wonder..."  He bolted
suddenly for a small clump of bushes part-way down the slope.

Scully slid into the shelter behind him.  "Warn me before you do
that the next time."

He nodded absently, scanning the compound again.

Scully lay at his side, head down, not moving.  From her position,
she could see a faint glimmer in the air, all the way down the
hill, dissolving in the middle distance.  The distortion picked up
the light from the camp, reflecting it into the darkness.  Near the
ground, she could hear a low harmonic emission, an almost beautiful
series of atonal chords in an undulating minor key.  "Hey
Mulder."  She touched his arm to get his attention.  "I can see the
force field.  I can *hear* it."

It got his attention.  He dropped the binoculars, bringing his face
down to ground level.  "I see it."  Mulder picked up a small rock,
eyeing the distortion in the air.  It shimmered.

"Mulder."  She stayed his hand.  "I don't think that's a good
idea."

"Why not?"  He hefted the rock in his hand, eager to throw it.

Always a boy, Scully thought.  "No seriously, Mulder.  Remember how
Captain Picard always knew exactly where the shields had been
breached?"

"Beam me up, Scully."  Wrong *Enterprise*.  He didn't care.

"Shut UP, Mulder.  You're having too much fun.  I'm being serious
here."

Grinning, he tossed the small rock at the force field, watching it
ripple like molten metal, turning dark--translucent--at the point
of impact, sending waves of pearly fluorescence in graded shades of
blue radiating outward before it disappeared again.  At impact, the
harmonic emission rose in a crescendo, harsh and dissonant, fading
back to its gentle drifting tones after the rock passed through.
"Wow."  That was neat.

One of the triangular ships broke from its pattern, heading in
their direction.  Its body glowed with waves of fiery red that
washed over it from bow to stern.

"You've done it now, Mulder."

"Uh-oh."  Mulder hunkered down in the low scrub.

Scully tugged at his sleeve.  "We're outta here."  She crabbed her
way through the bushes to the edge of the open space that lay
between them and the next clump of bushes.  She looked around.
Where was Mulder?  "Mulder," she hissed into the night.

"I'm going back" came the reply from somewhere to her left.

"Are you out of your mind?"  Her blood pressure hit the ceiling,
pulse pounding in her ears.  "They.  Have.  Seen.  Us."

"I dropped my binoculars" was his excuse.

"Mulder," she bit out his name in her best Margaret Scully
imitation, "you get over here right now."

Surprisingly, it worked.  The bushes rustled on the left, parted,
and Mulder appeared, crawling on hands and knees.  A low humming
sound swelled then faded as the patrol craft passed over them in
the darkness.

"What's wrong with you, Mulder,"  Scully demanded.

He rose to a squatting position beside her.  "This is our one
chance to get important information for the resistance, Scully."

"All the information in the world does nobody good if we're dead
and can't deliver it to anyone.  What did you tell me this
afternoon?"  All the reason in the world usually had little effect
on Mulder when he set his mind to solve a problem.

Surprisingly, tonight he agreed.  "We've got enough, I guess."

Mulder reasonable twice in one night?  I need a drink, Scully mused
to herself as she sized up the distance between them and their next
shelter.  Two hundred yards, she estimated.  Without further
hesitation she coiled, then sprang, running flat-out across the
exposed terrain.  With his long legs, Mulder passed her a few
seconds after she broke cover.

A low humming sound swelled in the air behind them, a sudden sharp
crack split the night, a sizzling bolt of energy passed over their
heads.  The bushes in front of them exploded.  Chunks of dirt and
debris flew into their faces, raining down on them as Mulder zigged
to his left and Scully zagged to her right.  They met in a copse of
small trees.

With a hum, the craft flew overhead and disappeared beyond the
ridge line of the small hill.

Scully gripped a tree for support.  She listened carefully but
heard only the sound of her breathing and Mulder's harsh panting in
her ears.  "Are they gone?"  Scully scanned the bare rocks that ran
along the low ridge in front of them.  "Just like that?"

"Who cares?  Maybe they just wanted to scare us off."  Mulder broke
cover and headed up the hillside, Scully close behind, taking no
care to hide his progress.

"*I'm* scared,"  Scully admitted to no one in particular as she
trailed Mulder up the hill.

With a final thrust, they scaled the rocky ledge just below the
crest...and nearly ran into the alien craft, glowing deep red,
hovering just past the ridge, a mere five feet above the ground.

"Shiiiiiit!"  Mulder stumbled backward across the rocks, ploughing
into Scully, knocking her from her feet, landing on top of her.

"Wha..." Scully awkwardly pushed Mulder to one side and sat up.

The craft flashed brilliant orange, shooting straight into the air
above them, disappearing into the night sky.

Mulder scrambled to his feet, turned and offered Scully a hand up.
"They're messing with our heads, Scully."

"And who said space aliens lacked a sense of humor?"  Scully leapt
to her feet and headed over the hill without further delay.  Her
heart pounded in her chest, her breath tore at her throat.  She
labored up the last hillside, Mulder close behind her.  Another
sizzling zap sounded from behind them, impacted on their right,
sent dirt and rocks and wood fragments into their faces as they
ran.

Running flat out, they passed the clump of trees that hid their
belongings but did not stop for them, instead continuing over the
crest and down the hill on the other side.  The hum of the craft
grew louder, from directly behind them.  A bright glow preceded it,
lighting the terrain in front of them, revealing the good places to
hide.  Scully dove head first into a dense thicket of small trees,
Mulder followed on her heels.  They landed in a tangle of arms,
legs and branches.  The hum swelled then receded as the craft flew
by them.

Heavy breathing, hers and Mulder's.  No humming.  No zapping.
Nothing else.

After a moment's wait, they extricated themselves from their haven
and continued down the hill on onto the road.  They quickly crossed
the exposed pavement and leapt over the embankment on the far side,
skidding downhill in loose gravel to the bank of a small river.

Across the water, a fractured tail fin rose in silhouette against
the stars.  Another wreckage.

"Quick.  We can hide in there."  Mulder gasped the words as he
splashed through the shallow water and up the opposite bank, toward
a gaping hole in the near side of the burnt fuselage.

"How convenient,"  Scully remarked to herself, chest heaving, legs
wobbling as she followed him across the river, slipping into the
wreckage a few seconds later.

The air inside was heavy with the odor of burnt fuel and plastic
and something else.  A small amount of moonlight filtered through
the scorched and broken windows above them, lighting their way in
relief as they struggled through a bizarre maze of burnt seats,
twisted metal struts, and hanging wires, all tilted at a crazy
angle.

Scully slipped and regained her balance.  I am not stepping on
bodies, I am not stepping on bodies, she chanted to herself each
time she slipped on something unidentifiable underfoot.

They passed through a narrow hole in what used to be the floor of
the passenger cabin, feeling their way in the darkness now.  Square
objects.  Many square objects and rectangular ones.  Cargo Hold.

No bodies in the cargo hold, Scully thought, relieved.  And the air
smelled better here.  A thin wedge of moonlight showed through a
gap between the broken cargo door and the twisted fuselage.  Scully
made her way toward the light and fresh air on wobbly legs.  She
hooked one foot on a lumpy bag, falling awkwardly.  She bit her lip
on a whimper as pain bloomed in her ankle.  She felt around her.
Bags.  Canvas bags.

She raised her head to get a better look:  US Mail, stenciled on
canvas.  She lay back, elevating her ankle on another bag.  The
pain was bearable now.

Mulder sank down beside her, taking her hand.  "Hurt your ankle?"

"Just a little twist.  I'll be fine."  Scully squeezed his fingers,
pulling him toward her. "I think we're OK."

He lay beside her, resting his head on the other hand.  "Strangely,
I think we're more than OK."

"We are," she reached for him in the dim moonlight.  "But that's
not what I meant."

He nestled his face against her neck for a moment.  "I think if
they had wanted to catch us, they would have caught us."

Scully nodded in agreement.  "If they had wanted to kill us, they
would have nailed us with that beam."

"We are no threat to them.  They just wanted to scare us off."

"On the other hand," Scully offered reasonably, "they could have
beamed up our annoying little asses and dropped us in the camp."

"I think they were just screwing with our minds, Scully."

"We'll go back tomorrow and get our things."

"If they're still there."

"I don't see why not.  They are well hidden.  The aliens have no
use for them."  She winced as she experimentally flexed her ankle.
Still sore.

Mulder nestled down in the mail sacks, pulling her into his arms.
"Tomorrow," he promised.

Scully rolled over, tangling her legs with his, resting her head
comfortably on his shoulder, throwing her arm across his abdomen.

"Hey Scully."

"Ummm?"

"I love you, too."

***

Year 01 Day 112

The next morning, they bent their heads over a map spread across
the cool pavement, the rising sun warm against their backs.  At
daybreak, they had crept from the wreckage, back across the highway
and up the hill to find their stashed belongings.  All there.
Untouched.

Relief.

"If we backtrack for a few miles, we can pick up this state highway
here."  Mulder traced a faint line with his finger.  "We'll have to
divert south for a while, but we can get around this...thing if we
go that way."  He referred to the concentration camp they'd
reconnoitered the night before.

"It's easier than trying to go through the force field."  Scully
surreptitiously tested her ankle against the hard surface of the
road.  A twinge.  Not bad.

"Force field."  Mulder savored her words.  "Are you trying to turn
me on, Scully?"

Scully smiled thinly at one of Mulder's old jokes.  The normalcy of
his humor stood in sharp contrast to their current situation,
anything but normal, anything but humorous.

"It's best to give this whole camp area a wide berth,"  Mulder
returned to the original conversational thread, putting away the
map and standing up.  He hoisted his pack onto his back.  "Ready?"

"As I ever am."  Scully put on her best smiley face and grabbed the
cart.

They turned and headed east, downhill into the morning sun.

"How's the ankle," Mulder asked after a few minutes of watching
Scully try not to limp.

"It's fine...."

He slanted a hard look in her direction at the words.

"No, Mulder...really," Scully insisted.  "It's just a slight
strain.  I'll probably walk it out by lunch time."

He took the cart from her hand, pulling it behind him instead.

The road wound through the hills, toward the plains.  Clumps of
pines gave way to aspen groves; the small river on their right
swelled and grew as other streams joined its course; the sun
climbed higher, shining between fluffy clouds that cobbled the blue
sky.  They passed between two hills, the river rumbling below them
as it forced its way through the narrow cleft.

A Gray materialized in the road ahead, the silvery tube in his hand
pointed directly at them.  The weapon was strange but its message
was clear.

"No way," Mulder moaned in frustration.  He dropped his pack and
moved slowly to his left, away from Scully, widening the gap
between them.

Scully caught his slight nod and moved to her right, away from
Mulder, widening the space further.

The Gray shifted his weapon from hand one to the other.  Wary.
Watching them from his wide-set eyes as they moved apart.

What does he want, Scully wondered as the uneven surface of the
road's shoulder crunched beneath her right foot.  Beyond the guard
rail, the ground dropped sharply into the gorge.  Glancing from the
corner of her eye, she saw Mulder starting to move up on the little
creature from the left.  Suddenly, she gasped, staggered.  Pain.
Right in the middle of her head.  Searing pain.

Mulder staggered too, grasping his head with both hands.

Images flashed through Scully's head.  Images of the camp, the
inside of an unidentifiable craft, and of them, clutching their
heads in pain.  Suddenly a new image filled her head, pushing out
the others:  Mulder's face, twisted in pain and anger; Mulder's
hands outstretched, clawed, reaching.  Scully dropped her pack on
the road and gathered her strength, struggling to find focus within
the agony.  She lurched toward the scuffle and...

Thawp!

...a bright light lanced through the air, hitting the ground in
front of her.  Small stones peppered her lower legs.  That little
gray bastard, she thought, angry now.  She bent low and charged the
tangle of gray legs and human arms that tussled in the road,
butting them with her head, knocking them flat on the pavement,
landing on them with a soft oooof.

Zzzzz...thawp!  Another bolt sizzled through the air, cleanly over
her head this time.

Somehow, Scully's anger pushed the alien's presence from her
thoughts, cleansing her mind.  She rolled to her feet and grabbed
the Gray's arm, pulling him off Mulder.  "Get off him, you little
shit," she hissed as she effortlessly threw the little alien aside,
bending to help Mulder to his feet.

A heavy weight knocked her into Mulder, sending them both tumbling
across the road into the hard metal of the guard rail.

Zap!

Agony tore through Scully's right calf as she tried to turn on the
Gray.  Her injured leg collapsed beneath her, throwing her off
balance.  She tripped into Mulder, pushing him backward.

The guard rail caught Mulder across the back of one knee.  He
folded at the joint, momentum sending the upper half of his body
over the railing.

Scully grabbed at him desperately, catching the waistband of his
jeans as he slipped backward over the rail.  She braced her feet
against his fall, pulling against him with all her strength, but
his weight and momentum dragged her through the dirt.

She hit the guardrail with both knees and fell over, tumbling with
Mulder into the gorge.

They landed in a bushy tree that grew a few feet below the surface
of the road.  With an iron grip on Mulder's belt, Scully snatched
furiously at its branches as she fell through them.  Sticks and
leaves slipped through her grasp, lashed her face, scratching her
arms.  With a bone-jarring thump, she crashed against the trunk,
straddling it, arresting her fall.  "Shit!"  She screamed as stars
exploded behind her eyes.

Mulder's weight slowly pulled her to the right.  "Mulder, grab
something!"  She shouted as she wound her other arm around a
convenient branch.

"I can't reach anything."  He thrashed wildly, looking for a hold.

Scully slipped further to her right, her shoulder aching from the
strain of holding both Mulder's weight and her own.  Then she felt
Mulder's hand against her fingers where they wrapped around his
waistband.  "What the hell are you doing!"

"Let me go, Scully."  He gritted through clenched teeth as he
peeled her fingers from the waistband of his jeans.

"Mulder...no!"  Suddenly unbalanced, Scully fell from the tree,
hitting the gravely slope right after Mulder, rolling painfully
downhill.

Here and there, low scrub caught at their clothing, slowing them as
they fell.  Mulder skidded on his back for a few feet before
disappearing over a low cliff.  Scully heard a splash and a curse
as she dropped into air.

She windmilled desperately, trying to gain some small degree of
attitude control on her descent.  Completely disoriented, she hit
the water head first.  Icy water closed over her head, knocking the
air out of her lungs, leaving her momentarily blind and deaf.

Lungs bursting, she flailed in the water, desperately trying to
find *up.*  The current tugged her, dragged her haphazardly against
a rock.  She cracked her knuckles painfully against its surface as
she struggled to get her head above water.  Finally, air.  She
gulped lungfuls of the stuff, sputtering and coughing.

The alien materialized on a rock in midstream, separating Mulder
from Scully.  The Gray trained his weapon directly on Scully where
she labored to climb out of the river, oblivious to the threat
behind her.

"Noooooooo!"  Mulder surged out of the water, a large stone in his
hands.  Before the bewildered Gray could turn, Mulder lunged,
bringing the stone down on his head with a sickening crunch.

The alien collapsed in a boneless heap, floating face down in the
water.  His body snagged against a rock then twisted, slowly
spiraled.  He floated downstream and out of sight.

"Jesus, Mulder."  Scully collapsed against the soft bank of the
river, breathing heavily, rubbing her aching calf.

Mulder waded from the water, dropping to the ground, wild eyed, his
breath rasping in his throat.

They sat together for a moment, silently watching the river.  The
sun passed behind a cloud and came out again.

"God, I hurt all over."  Scully blotted at the bloody scrapes on
her arms with wet hands.  She closed her eyes as Mulder gently
brushed away the leaves and dirt from her cheeks, stroking her wet
hair away from her face.  Her head rolled loose on her shoulders as
Mulder pressed a tender kiss to her temple and another one to her
forehead.  She slipped her arm around his shoulder and relaxed
against him as he lowered her into the soft nest of ferns that
covered the ground where they sat.

Scully yelped as pain shot up her leg.  She sat up abruptly,
grabbing her calf.  She yelped again at the pressure of her touch,
then gingerly set about self-examination.  Through the hole in her
jeans, she could see blood, raw flesh and some charring.  Ouch.  A
third degree burn, at least.

"Dammit!"  She screamed into the sky.  "I'm sick of this."

Mulder lay his hand on her shoulder, placating.

Scully would have none of it.  Shrugging off his hand, she
continued her rant.  "I am sick and tired of walking all day.  I'm
sick and tired of smelling bad...and eating Spaghetti-Os and tuna
and canned fruit.  I'm tired of sleeping on the ground...it's
damned hard.  And I'm really sick of those nasty little aliens who
landed and screwed up my nice, neat life."  She tossed fistfuls of
shredded fern into the river as she shouted.

The rumble of the river washed her words away.

"Are you OK?"  Mulder asked from a safe distance.

"I feel much better now, Mulder."  She did.  Scully examined her
burnt leg again.

He looked over her shoulder.  "We'd better put something on that."

"I have some burn cream in our cart...up there."  Scully looked up
for the first time, measuring the depth of the canyon with her
eyes.  Deep.  As she considered the climb she flexed her leg
cautiously.  "Owwww."  That really hurt.  Dammit.  Dammit.  Dammit.

Mulder rubbed her arm, somewhere it didn't hurt, sympathetically.

"I don't think I can make it up there, Mulder."  Scully's eyes
filled with tears and she turned her head so that Mulder couldn't
see them.  "Not today."

With a finger under her chin, he turned her face toward his.  "If
you can't make it today, you'll make it tomorrow.  *We'll* make
it...when we're ready."

Scully smiled weakly through her tears.  "I'm sorry, Mulder."
Sorry for crying, sorry for getting hurt, sorry for slowing us
down, she said with her eyes.

"Don't be.  Ever."  He tenderly dried her cheeks with the back of
his fingers.  "And don't ever feel you've got to hide your pain
from me.  Please trust me that much."

His eyes were honest, open pools; she could see clear to the
bottom.

"When you're hurt, I carry the load; When I'm hurt, you carry the
load."  He offered his hand.  "Deal?"

"Deal."  She shook it firmly, feeling better.

"OK."  Businesslike.  He stood, measuring the climb with his gaze.
"I'll get the first aid kit."  He tottered on a rock at the edge of
the river, choosing his first step.  He jumped.  Missed.  Climbed
out and jumped again.  Made it.

Scully tracked him with her eyes.  Shouted.  "Don't forget some dry
clothes!"

He waved in response as he tackled the rocky hillside, choosing his
holds carefully, working his way to the top of the gorge.  He
slipped over the edge and she was alone.

The wind sighed along the river, its gentle breath chilling her
through her wet clothing.  She shivered.  Her calf throbbed.  She
scanned the skyline constantly, looking for Mulder on his return.
The river rumbled over the rocks at her feet, flowing down the
valley, out of sight.  She shivered again, turning her attention to
her injured leg.  She lowered her leg into the river, the shock of
the cold water numbing the pain a little.

The plink-plink-plink of a falling rock caught her attention.  She
looked up to see Mulder drop over the edge of the gorge, her pack
on his back.  The extra things tied to the outside caught on rocks
and branches, making his descent awkward.  He worked his way
carefully back to her, taking a longer but safer route to the
bottom this time.

As he tenderly dressed her wound, covering it with a few rounds of
gauze dressing, the sun went behind a cloud and stayed there.  The
wind picked up, blowing dust through the canyon.  Fat raindrops
splattered around them as Scully pulled on a dry pair of slacks,
loose around the leg.

Scully looked up at the sky, dark and ominous, then at Mulder.
"Could it get any worse than this?"

"We could be dead.  We could have lost our things."  Mulder
described how he'd rearranged their things, hiding the rest of
their belongings in the trees alongside the road.

"You could have brought some dry clothing for yourself."

Mulder smiled sheepishly and shivered a little.  Her needs had
filled his mind to the exclusion of all else.

She stood unsteadily, her weight on one leg, and looked around her.
Part way up the near side of the canyon was a cave.  A small cave,
she discovered after Mulder helped her up the slope and inside.

Curling as far to the back as possible, they huddled together,
sharing their warmth beneath the quilt.  Rain poured in thick
sheets outside their haven.  Mulder sneezed, then coughed.

Scully pulled him closer, rubbing his back through his wet clothes.

***

Year 01 Day 126

On the road between Green River and Kemerer, a cold quickly
overwhelmed Mulder's weakened defenses, turning to pneumonia on the
seventh day.  Around them, trees shimmered yellow in the October
sun. The cloak of Indian Summer lay gently over the land, keeping
them warm.  But as he struggled along the flat highway, Mulder
gasped for air, his breath catching and rasping in his chest.

"You really need to rest, Mulder."  Scully insisted, trying to herd
him to the side of the road.  "That cold is going to turn into
pneumonia."

"I never..." cough "...get pneumonia."  He stepped around her and
continued doggedly.  "Quit bugging me, Samantha."

"Scully."  Concern in her voice.

"What?"

"You called me Samantha."

"I did not."  Mulder shivered, his teeth rattling, pained
expression on his face.

Scully grabbed him by the arm, stopping him.  "Mulder, you're sick.
We're stopping right now."

"We've got to keep going."  Weakly.  "We're almost there."

Scully led him from the road, into a small grove of trees.  This time
he followed her without protest.

"We've got to call the Gunmen.  "Mulder mumbled as Scully lifted
his pack from his back.  "It's time.  We've got to call."

Scully threw the sleeping bag onto the ground, rolling it out,
dropping the quilt on top.  She urged Mulder backward, gently down
onto the soft padding.

He fell in a heap, legs twisted beneath him, laying back on the
bedding.  He plucked awkwardly at his clothing.   "I need my phone,
Scully.  I can't find my phone."

"Oh, Mulder."  Scully felt his forehead with one hand.  Burning
hot, wet beneath her palm.  Oh shit.

She pulled a small canteen from her pack and uncapped it.

"Come on, Mulder.  Drink this."  Scully lifted his head with one
hand and offered the drink with the other.

His eyes, unfocused, attempted to track the moving target and
failed.

Scully guided the canteen to his lips and tipped gently, pouring
the water into his mouth.

He choked and sputtered.  "It's time...time," he muttered,
coughing.

She blotted his face with her fingertips, wiping the water away,
soothing him with her touch.

His eyes fell closed as his breath rasped viciously in his chest.

"Oh God, oh God, oh God," Scully dumped the contents of the
shopping cart, coming up with the bag of medicines she had carried
since the hospital in Columbus.  She pulled out bottle after
bottle, lining them up in front of her.  Fumbling beneath the pile
of clothes and food and scavenged goods, she pulled out a PDR she'd
brought from the same hospital.  Physician's Desk Reference.  A
catalog of drugs.

On that first horrible night, when she tried in vain to save patient
after dying patient, she collected a large array of medicines.  She
gathered these medicines so that she could treat fellow travelers
on their journey or help themselves if they were to fall ill on the
road.  Some drugs she knew from her long-ago days in medical
school; others were completely new to her.  She gladly carried the
weighty PDR with its extensive knowledge on her back until she
found the shopping cart in an abandoned bus station.

She picked up the first bottle and read the label.  Acetaminophen
with Codeine.  She tossed it aside and picked up the next one, read
the label then dropped it back in the bag.  Dilaudid.  Flipping the
pages, she read indications for use of the drug.  Not useful.  She
tossed it aside and picked up the next bottle.  Grisactin.  An
antifungal, good for ringworm.  Not helpful.  She tossed it on top
of the other bottle and continued searching through her stock.
Imodium and Phrenilin.  Not in this case.  She searched through the
pages for Bactrim.  Maybe in a pinch.  She set it aside and kept
looking.  Another bottle:  Clarithromycin.  That sounded promising.
She read the description.  Good for treatment of mild to moderate
infections with...she ran her finger down the column...S. pneumoniae,
M. pneumoniae.  Exactly.

She shook 1 capsule of Clarithromycin and two tablets of aspirin
into her hand and reached for the canteen.  "Mulder.  I need you to
swallow this."

Mulder eyes flickered.  "Mom?"

"No, it's Scully."  She pulled him upright, supporting his limp
weight with a shoulder beneath his arm.  She pressed the capsule to
his lips, followed by the water.

"Samantha?"  Mulder swallowed and coughed. "You're back."  He
grinned drunkenly.

"No, Mulder.  It's Scully.  Just one person:  Scully."  She lay him
down and pulled the quilt over his shivering body.  "I'm right
here."  She removed his shoes, setting them aside, tucking his feet
beneath the quilt.

"Scully."  Mulder closed his eyes and struggled to breathe, the air
dragging through the secretions in his chest.  He reached blindly
for Scully or Samantha or his mother.

Scully went to him, sliding next to him, holding him against her
body, whispering to him, praying to God for his help.

"...not again.  No."  Mulder's muttering woke Scully in the night.
"You bastard!"  He tossed his head, limbs thrashing beneath the
quilt.  Sweat poured from his face, matting his hair.  He radiated
heat into the cool night air.

Scully's heart sank.  She threw the covers aside and felt along his
shirt and jeans in the dim moonlight.  Soaked.

"...you're lying!  I've seen it...my own eyes..."  He labored to
breathe.

With trembling fingers, she unbuttoned his shirt, peeling it down
his body and tossing it aside.

"Dammit, I..." He nearly hit her in the face with a flying arm.

Dodging him, she made quick work of his jeans and underwear,
leaving the length of his body exposed to the night air.

"...the Grays, it's the Grays."  His muttering faded and he seemed
to fall into a deeper sleep as the air cooled him.  His breath
growled in his chest.

Scully lifted his head into her lap.  She whispered his name.  Then
louder, "Mulder!"

Mulder's eyes fluttered but didn't open.

She shook him gently.  "Mulder, you've got to take some medicine."

"Scully?"  Weakly.

"Yes, Mulder."  She stroked his burning forehead.  "Please take
these pills."

He opened his mouth, first to the pills, then to the canteen,
swallowing.

"I...feel...like...shit, Scully."  He gasped between each word,
eyes closed.

"I know."  She slipped his pack behind his back, propping him in a
half-sitting position. She wet a cloth with water from their
canteen and wiped his face.

"Good.  Tha's good."

She applied the cooling liquid to his chest and arms, wiping down
his legs and feet, then sat back on her heels, watching him.  Could
he have come so far, survived so much, to be stopped by a common
terrestrial microorganism?

He fought for air, each breath bubbling through the secretions
filling his chest.

Scully flicked tears from her eyes with one hand before tipping
more cool water onto the cloth and washing him down again.  And
again.  And again, through the night and the next day.

On the morning of the second day, his fever broke.  His eyes
flickered open.  "Hi."  His words were barely more than an
exhalation.

"Hi."  Scully laid her hand across his forehead.  Cool.  Thank God.
She closed her eyes, tears streaming from beneath her lashes.

"Don't cry, Scully."  A goupy cough rattled in his chest and rolled
up his throat.  He sputtered and swallowed.

Scully put her arm around him, taking the boneless weight of his
body on her shoulder.  "I'm just glad you're awake."  She allowed
herself a small sniffle, rubbing his back.

"I'm so tired."  He whispered in her ear.

"You need to sleep."  She urged him back on the sleeping bag,
gently smoothing the quilt over him.

"Scully?"

"Yes, Mulder."  She offered him antibiotics and water to wash them
down.

He swallowed and lay back again.  "Don't leave me."

Don't leave him?  Who nearly left whom here?  Scully smoothed his
hair away from his face, tucking the longer strands behind his ear.
"Never, Mulder."

On the edge of sleep, he smiled, his face barely moving.  "Til
death do us part."

"Til death do us part,"  Scully agreed, watching him fade into
slumber.  The way things are going, that may be sooner, rather than
later.

This time, Mulder slept a full 24 hours.

Late in the morning, Scully sat by a small fire she had tended
cautiously for the past three days.  She held her hands over the
flames, turning them back to front, basting them in the warmth.
Birds caroled overhead, celebrating the day as she fought the
fatigue from her three-day vigil.  It threatened to overwhelm her.

A croupy cough ripped from Mulder's chest, followed by another one.

Scully rushed to his side, leaning over him as he opened his eyes.

"Hey."  Another cough.  He choked, struggling to sit up.

Scully pulled him to a sitting position.

He swayed and would have collapsed onto the bedding if she hadn't
caught his arm.  He raised a trembling hand and lay it over hers
without speaking.

Scully patted his hand.  "I know, Mulder."  She pushed his pack
behind his back, settling him gently against it.  The quilt puddled
around his waist.

He smiled weakly, gratefully.

"Are you hungry," she asked hopefully.  "I've got a fire going, and
some soup..."

He shook his head, coughing.  "Not hungry," he gasped between
spasms.

Scully poured some soup into their pan and warmed it over the fire.
"Try something, Mulder.  You'll feel better with something in your
stomach."

He coughed and swallowed, closing his eyes with fatigue.  "I
already having something in my stomach."

Ewwww.  Scully hid a small smile.  This was the Mulder she knew and
loved.  He had climbed from the abyss and rejoined her in
this...abyss.  Oh well, she thought as she sampled the soup and
found it to be sufficiently warm.  Everything's relative.

Mulder opened his eyes as she sank down on the bedding next to him,
the pot in one hand, a spoon in the other.

Scully lifted some soup to his lips.

Mulder intercepted the spoon, taking it with a shaking hand.  He
promptly tipped the contents onto his chest.

Retrieving the spoon, Scully patiently cleaned the spill.  She
brushed her fingers through the soft mat of fur covering his chest,
slowly, thoughtfully.

Mulder's eyes flashed with passion, pinning her.  He reached for
her hand.  Then his eyes shifted to a point behind her head.

Scully sat and turned, looking along his line of sight.  Three
scruffy men stood at the edge of the clearing, lean and wary.
Feral dogs.

Trouble.

The tall one with shaggy red hair stepped forward.  "Howdy, Ma'am."
The words were friendly; the voice was not.

"Hello,"  Scully replied cautiously, turning to face him, rolling
onto the balls of her feet.

"We were wondering if you had any food we could share."  Scruffy
Red moved closer.  "We're kinda all out."

"Yeah."  A boy with a nasty facial wound stepped up behind him.

An older man, burly arms sticking out of a sleeveless sweatshirt,
joined them silently.

The three loomed over Scully where she crouched next to Mulder.
She glanced sideways at her pack where it lay several feet away.
Too far.  They'd get to her before she got to it.

"Something wrong with your man, there," Facial Wound asked, stone
faced.

"Uh..."  Scully eyed Mulder's pack surreptitiously under the guise
of looking at him.  "He's had the....flu."

"Too bad."  The burly guy spoke at last, no sympathy in this voice.

She could see the outline of Mulder's weapon where the nylon pulled
taut across the side pocket.  She slid her right hand beneath him
as if she were cowering against him in fear.

Burly Guy lunged at Mulder, rolling him effortlessly aside.

Mulder grunted in pain but lay still, too weak to fight back.

Facial Wound jumped on their cart, digging wildly through the
contents, tossing food items to Scruffy Red who collected them in
his arms.

Burly Guy advanced on Scully, menace in his eye.

Scully curled her fingers around cold metal and started to pull.
Slowly.

Burly Guy grabbed her left arm, fingers digging painfully into her
flesh.  With a quick movement, he pulled her to her feet and
against his body.

Scully's stomach rolled as the stench of uncleaned teeth blew over
her.  She averted her eyes and waited.  Tense.

Burly Guy rubbed himself against her, his intention clear.  He
needed sustenance of another kind.

"Get your hands off..."  Mulder tried to lever himself to a sitting
position, but failed.  He gasped for air and choked on a series of
goupy coughs.

A mean smile flirted around Burly Guy's lips, then faded away.  "I
think you and I..."

Scully raised Mulder's gun from her side and shot Burly Guy in the
closest available non-vital region:  his shoulder.  The report
echoed in the morning air.

Facial Wound and Scruffy Red froze, then dropped the items they'd
taken.  Cans of soup rolled across the clearing in every direction.

Blood ran through Burly Guy's fingers as he staggered backward,
clutching his shoulder.

"Drop our things and get the *fuck* out of here."  Scully screamed,
pointing the weapon directly at Scruffy Red's heart, her aim
steady, unwavering.

Facial Wound tripped over a can of soup and fell heavily, knocking
himself breathless.

"Now!"  She trained the sights on the torn edges of his wound.  His
eyes flared with fear.

Scruffy Red hauled his friend up by one arm, pulling him out of the
clearing close on the heels of Burly Guy, who had already gone.

"Fucking cowards," she said to herself, lowering the gun to her
side.

Mulder struggled to a sitting position against his pack, breathing
heavily.

"Bullies,"  she added as she dropped onto the bedding beside him,
her knees suddenly weak from the overdose of adrenaline.

"My hero," Mulder replied.

"Shut up" was all she said before turning into his arms and burying
her face in his neck.

***

The Former Idaho
Year 01 Day 165

Trees had turned from green to gold to bare brown, the warm heat of
the sun had thinned to a cool yellow glow as Mulder and Scully
worked their way through the Wyoming mountains to central Idaho.
Wearing tattered parkas, sweaters, and makeshift scarves wound
around their necks, they labored up a twisting dirt road.  It had
snowed lightly all morning, as it had for the previous three days.
A thin veil of white lay over the mountains and across the meadows,
a fine glaze of ice floated across the lakes and formed along the
edge of tumbling streams.  They crunched their way through the
trackless snow, leaving footprints and a wavering pair of wheel
ruts behind them in the road.

Their trek had both hardened them and worn them down.  The 165 days
between their old lives and their new one left an irrevocable mark
on them, both mental and physical.  It had been a long trip, a
difficult trip, both frightening and demoralizing.  And yet,
according to Mulder, they were close to their destination.  Scully
searched herself for a small shred of optimism that she could use
to fuel this last leg of her journey.  Nothing.  Empty.  Today she
moved head down, shoulders aching, numbly shuffling one tired foot
before the other.  She watched Mulder carefully as they toiled up
the road, watched the cloud of his breath as it steamed around him,
watched for signs that the pneumonia had returned.

Suddenly Mulder stiffened.  Whistled.  Shouted.  "Hey Langley!"

Scully whirled to see a familiar blonde head pop over of a pile of
rocks.

"Dude!"  Langley shouted as he scrambled over the rocks and raced
across the road to where they stood in the snow.  Stopped.
Awkwardly reached out for Mulder with both arms.  Stopped.  He wore
the strange expression of someone seeing The Dead rise before him.

Mulder helped him, stepped forward, clasped Langley in a manly
embrace.

They thumped each other heartily through heavy parkas.

"We thought you were dead."

"We have important news for you...about a HUGE concentration camp
in Wyoming."  Mulder coughed raggedly, a deep barking hack in his
chest.

"We've heard rumors."  Langley motioned for them to follow him down
the road.  "You've actually seen it?  You know where it is?"

Mulder nodded, patting the side pocket of his pack.  "Marked on our
map."

"Byers will split a gut when he hears this.  This is great."

"Which is great?  News about the camp or Byers splitting his gut?"
Scully broke in.

"Both.  Man, am I glad to see you guys."  He led them under a tree
and into a cleft in the hillside, vanishing into blackness before
their eyes.

Scully extended one hand in the gloom and jammed her fingers into a
wall of rock.  Shit, that hurt.  She snatched her fingers back,
rubbing them against the palm of the other hand.

"Mulder!"  Langley's voice rose from solid rock.

"What the hell..."  Mulder reached around Scully, tracing his hands
across the rough surface.

Scully added her hands to his, feeling her way left...into air.
She brailled her way along the wall, pulling Mulder behind
her...directly into another wall.  "Langley!"  Irritated.

"Keep close to the wall and feel your way" came the disembodied
instructions.

Scully pressed against the wall, turning left again, starting
downhill, her hands sliding before her.  "This is not funny,
Langley."

"It's not a joke," he insisted from somewhere in front of her.
"You're almost here."

Her hand encountered warm flesh.  Langley.

"Welcome to Safe Haven, Agent Scully."

"At last," Mulder breathed into her ear from the other side.

The sound of metal scraping metal, a rush of musty air and then
light poured over them.

Electric light.

Safe Haven.

"Neat entrance, huh?"  Langley nearly bounced down the passageway
after closing the door securely behind them.

The passage twisted, turned, narrowed, widened and sprouted
unexpected protuberances from floor and ceiling.  Mulder fought to
keep the cart upright behind them.  Shortly they came to a large
chamber, diffusely lit, filled with computer equipment.

Functional computer equipment.

Lights.

Wow.

All around the room, heads bent studiously over fingers tapping
busily on keyboards.  Scully ran her hand over an unused keyboard,
testing the keys, hearing them click at her touch.  Like another
world.

"Langley, there's no way in hell you could have checked all the..."
Byer's jaw dropped open as he recognized the pair who stood behind
Langley, bundled, tattered, dirty, still wearing their packs.

"Mulder.  Scully."  Blinking, Byers groped behind him for a chair.
"We thought you were dead."

"Reports of our death have been greatly exaggerated, as the saying
goes."  Mulder countered.

Byers continued to stare.  Other faces joined Byers as the identity
of the newcomers passed quickly around the room.

Scully shrugged the pack from her shoulders, dropping it onto the
ground with a sigh of relief.  Mulder followed suit, caught by a
spasm of coughing, the croupy sound of his clearing pneumonia loud
against the stone walls.

Scully rushed to his side, slipping her arm around his waist,
supporting him, peering into his face, laying her palm against his
forehead.  Cool.  Her breath came out in a rush.

"I'm OK," he gasped, swallowing hard, trying to suppress the next
cough.  A glass of water pressed against his hand. He took it
gratefully and downed it in a single draught.

Scully smoothed back the long hair that tumbled over this face,
unwound the muffler at his neck and unzipped his parka to make him
more comfortable.  She steadied him for a moment longer then let
go, stepping back, giving him room.

"How did you manage...this?"  Mulder swept his arm around the room.
Coughed once more.  "We haven't seen a single piece of functional
equipment since before Day 01.  Not one thing..  Not even a
flashlight."

"We were off-line, disconnected from outside power and phone
lines...and hardened.  Very heavily shielded."  Byers explained.
"We suffered little damage here."

A crackle of static hissed from a speaker, followed by a low murmur
of words.

"There's others?"  Mulder asked hopefully.

Frohike hobbled into the room, leaning on a cane.  "Mulder!  I
thought...."

"We were dead."  Mulder finished it for him.

"Guess not."

Scully looked down at his wrapped foot.  "What happened to you?"

"Ice."  Terse.

Mulder swayed a little on his feet.

Byers stood immediately.

Scully moved closer as a precaution.

"I'm...tired."  Mulder forced the admission between his lips.
"Really tired.  I would give my left testicle for a shower, some
food and a place to sleep for 24 hours straight."

Byers nodded to Frohike who motioned to Langley.

"Save the testicle for later." Langley pulled on Mulder's pack then
picked up Scully's, toting them across the room as if they were
pillows.  "You might need it."

Scully squeezed Byer's hand in gratitude, then slipped beneath
Mulder's arm and guided him in Langley's wake.

Frohike grabbed the shopping cart with his free hand and hobbled
after them.

After a few dimly-lit twists and turns, they once again entered a
well-lighted corridor, lined with doors.  The Dormitory Wing.
Frohike went through the first doorway.  Inside lay a modern
bathroom facility complete with a shower and sink and toilet stall.

"We have plenty of hot water for showers and for the clothes
washing."  He directed their attention to the washing machine that
stood next to the shower stall.

"Hot water...how?"  Scully blinked.  She couldn't believe her eyes.

"We have a reactor."  Matter of fact.

"A *nuclear* reactor,"  Scully asked incredulously.

"Yup."  Frohike turned on the water; steam billowed from the tap.

Scully looked at Mulder, shaking her head.  "I don't believe these
guys."

Mulder burst into laughter.  "Where the hell did you get the
uranium?"  He suffered through a string of wracking coughs.

"We have our sources."  Mysterious, as always.

Scully flapped her parka, wrinkling her nose in distaste at the
smell.  "You don't happen to have anything clean we can put on, do
you?  Everything we have on us or with us is ripe, riper and
ripest."

Frohike sniffed experimentally.  "So that's what I smelled.  Hmmm,
I thought it was that old cheese I ate for lunch."

Scully peeled off her jacket, sweater, and scarf; she toed off her
shoes and peeled the dirty brown socks from her feet.  Gathering
her dirty things together, she tossed them in the direction of the
clothes washer.  Clad in only a T-shirt and jeans, she helped
Mulder off with everything but his turtleneck and khakis.  Ex-
khakis, Scully corrected herself.  They were dirty gray now.

She picked up her boots and Mulder's, then turned to Frohike with
an expectant look on her face.

"I'll show you to your room.  You can clean up, chow down, get some
rest.  Tomorrow we'll get together in the War Room and talk about
that camp you saw in Wyoming."  Frohike led the way down the hall,
opening the second door on the left.

A small room with a bed and a night stand.  Some neatly folded
clothing.  And their things.  Langley had made a delivery.

"Uh...we don't have much in the way of accommodations down here."
Frohike apologized.  "Byers saved this one for you.  He never
really gave up hope."

Mulder squeezed his shoulder.  "Thanks.  To all of you.  This will
be fine."

"You can sleep in my room if you like, Agent Scully"  Frohike
waggled his eyebrows at her.

"Some other time, Frohike."  Scully laced her fingers through
Mulder's.

"Lucky Bastard."  Frohike poked Mulder in the ribs with his cane.

"Old Bastard," Mulder countered before shoving him from the room
with one foot, closing the door behind him.  He pressed his
forehead against the wooden panel for a moment, regrouping,
savoring the coolness, then he shuffled across to the bed, dropping
heavily onto the mattress.

"Oh, Mulder."  Scully sank to her knees in front of him, peering
into his face.  She pulled his turtleneck easily from the waistband
of too-loose trousers, peeling it over his head and tossing it to
one side.  With one hand, she traced the taut line of his skin
where it stretched over the hills and valleys of prominent ribs.
So thin.

He captured her hand with his own and brought it to his lips.  "You
take good care of me, Scully."  His words rasped harshly in his
throat.

She pulled him gently to his feet.  "Come on, Mulder.  Let's get
you cleaned up."  She gathered the donated clothing, leading him
from the room, down the passage to the shower facility.

***
Safe Haven
Year 01 Day 166

Hot shower.

Square meal.

Clean sheets.

Sheer relief.

Mulder had his 24-hour sleep, regaining consciousness in the
afternoon of the next day.  His eyes fluttered open to see Scully
sorting laundry on the other side of their room.  He lay quietly,
observing her work, watching her neat and precise movements,
measuring the growing pile of folded laundry at her side.  Through
it all, a faint tuneless humming filled the air.

When Mulder opened his mouth to greet her his chest had another
idea, drowning the words in a bout of croupy morning coughing.

Scully dropped a pair of his well-worn jeans and sat at his side,
pouring a glass of water from the pitcher on the night stand.

"Thanks."  He took the glass, swallowed and moved to get out of
bed.

She stayed him with one hand.  "We're here.  We're safe.  Can't you
just rest for a few days?"

"I'm getting better, Scully."  He took her hand, squeezing it,
before throwing the covers aside and sliding his feet onto the
floor.

"I know you are, but not quickly enough."  She counted the days
he'd been sick.  Forty days, over a month.  Too long.

"I *am* resting.  After what we've been through, this is like a
week at the Golden Door."  He named a posh spa in California.

Footsteps thundered past their door.  The plain unpainted wood--no
trace of gold--rattled in its frame.

Mulder's head snapped up at the noise, his eyes wide.

"The aliens have already landed, Mulder.  Eat your lunch, first."
She swapped the empty glass for a plate with a sandwich on it.
"Eat."

He devoured the bread and salami in four bites, chewing as he leapt
from the bed.

"Uh...it's just a suggestion, but you might want to put on some
clothes," she spoke to his naked butt as it floated by her face on
its way to the door.

"Yeah, right."  Absently.  He pulled the tattered jeans from the
top of the laundry pile, followed by a loose sweater.  Worn tennis
shoes slipped over his bare feet.

"That's one of mine."  Scully watched him stare at the length of
wrist below the knit cuff.

"Uh-huh."  He peeled it off and replaced it with one of his own.

Outside in the passage, several flying human projectiles rocketed
past them.  Scully tripped over a group of mountain bikes piled in
haphazard array against the wall.  Mulder dodged another runner
bolting through the arch into the communications center.  The War
Room, as Frohike called it, teemed with activity.

Something was afoot.

At least one head bent over each computer console watching graphs
and diagrams flit across the screen.  On the far wall, an
illuminated map of the United States spilled yellow light into the
room and over the heads of several people engaged in animated
conversation.  Several of them pointed and jabbed at the map for
emphasis.  To one side, a tall blonde women dressed in dark
camouflage spoke earnestly, sketching ideas with her hands for
Byers to see.

Byers, wearing a well pressed oxford shirt and tie to match his
neatly clipped beard, looked and listened earnestly, jotting notes
on a palm-top computer.

Scully stood quietly, out of the way, watching the activity.   She
felt Mulder shifting from one foot to the other, obviously anxious
to join the melee but also knowing he didn't have a part in the
machine...yet.

"Mulder!"  Langley spotted them.  A flying saucer in lurid green
zoomed across his chest, leaving sparkling silver in its wake.
"You look like you might actually live."

"What's up?"  Although Mulder's eyes were sunken in his gaunt face,
they flashed brightly with interest.

"We've found another camp..."  Langley started to explain.

"...In eastern Washington..." Byers joined him.

"...near Pullman."  Byers' and Langley's words tumbled together.

"The biggest one yet!"  An auburn-haired woman joined the group.

A tall brunette skidded to a stop, waving a sheaf of papers in her
hand.  "We've got a great map, Byers!  All the coordinates."

Byers introduced them.  "Thompson and Staal are our communications
specialists."

The tall blonde woman in sleek camouflage offered her hand.  "I'm
Kittler,  a runner."  A courier, scout.  Large amounts of dried mud
adorned her clothing, twigs and stray leaves stuck out of her hair,
and she looked like she hadn't slept in several days.

"Hulspas.  A runner."  A man, similarly dressed but clean and
refreshed-looking,  stepped up and introduced himself.

Kittler pulled Hulspas to one side and spoke quietly for a moment,
handing him a palm-top then sending him down the passage to the
outside door.  She excused herself and headed for the dormitory
wing.

"Our runners were on a routine trip to the next center..."  Byers
trailed off as he looked around carefully  He continued in
confidential tones  "...in the Cascades, just below the Canadian
border, when they found the camp."

"They split up."  Staal described what had been reported to her.
"Kittler ducked inside while her partner came directly back here
with the coordinates of the place."

Mulder elbowed Scully.

Scully ignored him.  "How did she get through the force field?"

"There was one place at the perimeter where the field didn't quite
hug a depression in the earth.  She got in that way."  Staal showed
them a hand-drawn map of an irregularly shaped compound, spreading
over several miles of rolling hills.  She pointed at an large X on
the map.

"Unfortunately, she got chased out by a hover craft and didn't get
to see much," Thompson added.

Scully remembered peering at the force field, her face against the
ground.   "How could she see the field?  We barely could detect a
faint distortion in the air."

"Night vision goggles.  The energy field shows up as a fine green
mist."  Langley produced a pair of the goggles and dangled them
from one finger.

Mulder poked Scully in the ribs again.

She ignored him again.  "So how many camps are there?"

Byers directed their attention to the large illuminated map.  State
outlines gone, the country had been partitioned into at least a
dozen zones:  New England, Atlantic States, Southern Region...Texas
had a zone all its own.  Each zone contained at least one marker, a
circle or a square or a triangle.  "As far as we know, there are
seven camps in the United States:  Alaska, northern Nevada, west
Texas, South Dakota, Upstate New York, Wyoming..."  he nodded
acknowledgment to Mulder and Scully "...and, now, eastern
Washington."  Byers pointed at triangles around the map.  "They are
scattered around the country and all well-isolated from former
population centers."

"They have a highly sophisticated security system that makes it
nearly impossible for us to break through their force fields."
Langley straddled a chair, leaning on the back.

Scully found a chair next to Langley and sat down, flexing her
toes.  She wouldn't mind sitting in a chair for the rest of her
life.  "Has anyone been able to take a good look around inside?"

"A couple of scouts got through, blended in with the captured human
mob."  Byers leaned against a console, crossing his arms.  "They
never came out."

"But we got some fascinating intel before they...quit
transmitting."  Thompson spoke quietly, remembering.

Sharp glances ricocheted around the group.

"So you don't have any idea what's going on in there."  Scully
remembered the shining city and the one-way flow of human traffic
within it.

Thompson shrugged.  "Nope.  We've lost more runners, trying to find
out."

"They could be using humans as incubators for their kind, as
spiders lay their eggs in captured prey."  Mulder remembered
clearly what he saw in the Antarctic.

Thompson shivered, Staal rubbed the idea of spiders off her arms
with both hands, Scully worked the top button of his shirt securely
through the buttonhole.

Staal offered an alternative interpretation.  "They could be using
humans as forced labor."

"Forced labor, doing what?"  Mulder paced back and forth as he
thought.

"Raising food for the aliens to eat?" Langley suggested.

Scully thought of the one-way traffic.  "Or they *are* food for the
aliens to eat."

No one said a word.

Scully described how the alien craft had herded them away from the
concentration camp.

"So they didn't try to attack you or capture you." Byers leaned
forward.

Scully shook her head in the negative.

"Just scared the bejeesus out of us," Mulder confirmed.

The others nodded among themselves.

"This pretty much confirms our observations."  Staal sat on a table
next to the wall.

"We tried restocking Des Moines."  Langley explained, sitting next
to her, swinging his legs in the air.

Scully raised an eyebrow.

"We brought in volunteers from surrounding farms, up- and down-
river."  Thompson tipped her head, listening to a runner's report.

"They set up in town."  Langley described the drill briefly.

"The little guys didn't take the bait."  Frohike joined the group.
"Ignored them completely."  Today he wore full camouflage, head to
foot--camo pants with multi-pocket vest, camo netting festooned
with fake camo leaves covered his shoes, camo gloves with the
fingertips neatly removed.  Tin foil peeked from beneath his helmet
in several places.

"So they have all the humans they need for their purposes."  Mulder
nodded thoughtfully.

"Apparently the aliens got all the humans they wanted by vacuuming
the cities on the night of the invasion."  Byers agreed with
Mulder's assessment.  "We've received no more than sporadic reports
of alien-human interaction since that time."

"We saw a little Gray that materialized on the road out of
nowhere..." Mulder started to say when all heads turned in the
direction of the entrance tunnel.

Footsteps pounded toward them.  A stocky man, clad in full
camouflage, draped with communications equipment, slid into the
room.

"Newburger!"  Byers nearly fell, racing to the newcomer's side.
"What's wrong?"

"Hovercraft."  He pulled off his helmet.  "Two hovercraft from the
east.  Came.  Circled."

"What color were they, man?"  Langley cried, grabbing his arm,
nearly shaking the exhausted man off his feet.

"Blue.  Pale blue."  Newburger gasped for air, leaning forward,
supporting himself with his hands on his thighs.

"Crash!  Crash!"  Byers called the alarm.

All around the room, analysts hit the off button on their computer,
pulling the cord from the wall.  Thompson and Staal dove for the
communications equipment, bringing it off line by cutting the power
at the source.  Frantic workers produced metallic blankets from
cases in the walls, dropping them over computers and consoles.
Byers yanked the large rectangular top of a table, revealing its
pedestal, a large metal chest.  As he threw back the top, members
of the staff dug through their pockets, producing palm-top
computers, walkie-talkies, and other electronic devices.  The lid,
thick with shielding, slammed shut on the sensitive instruments.
Byers threw a bolt, securing it.

The lights failed, leaving the room completely black.

The scratch of a match.  A flare.  Frohike's face flickered in the
firelight as he lit candle after candle from a stash in his vest
pocket.

The chamber glowed eerily as candles made their way around the
room.  People shuffled into small groups, sitting quietly on the
floor, whispering among themselves as they waited for the all-clear
or the all-is-lost signal from their guards outside the mountain.

"Spooky timing,"  Scully whispered to Mulder as she handed him a
candle.

"Wow.  This is fun, just like a camp-out."  In the candlelight,
Mulder's eyes glittered.  Sarcasm barely covered his excitement.

Breathing echoed around the room, small now in the dimness.

Scully huddled on the floor next to Byers.  "What does it mean when
the craft is blue?"

"Blue is for reconnaissance.  They turn red when their weapons
systems are fired up.  They're orange in what we call hi-
performance mode."

"Then maybe it was just a routine fly-over."  Scully suggested,
knees up, hugging them with her arms.

"Does this happen a lot?"  Mulder leaned into Byer's ear.

"It doesn't happen at all,"  Byers whispered back.

They sat quietly as the candles burned down to stubs.

***

Forty-five breathless minutes later, the lights came on again.

"Well."  Byers stood, dusting the seat of his pants, looking at the
tired faces around him.

Tense murmurs filled the room as people extinguished their candle
stubs, dropping them into a dish provided by Frohike for that
purpose.  They folded the metallic blankets and put them away, then
retrieved their electronics from the shielded safe that now stood
open in the middle of the floor.

The communications equipment crackled to life.  Excited messages
passed back and forth between Safe Haven and the next stations in
line.  Theirs had been the only sighting so far.  The speakers fell
silent as the other bases signed off and prepared to go cold.

"Do you think they know we're here, doing this?"  Scully swept her
arm around the room.

"We have no way of knowing, unfortunately."  Byers heard his name
and turned, scanning the room.

A tall man in tattered khaki motioned Byers to a computer station,
where most of the staff already crowded around a monitor.  On the
screen, two light blue craft floated over a tree-lined horizon,
coming closer, disappearing over the head of the cameraman.  The
picture winked and a mountain came into focus.  Two craft, darker
blue with orange flickering around their edges, streaked into view,
flashing across the sky.  Two seconds later, they were gone.  The
screen went black.

Frohike whistled between his teeth.

Langley nervously shifted from foot to foot.

Byers stroked his beard thoughtfully.

Scully looked at Mulder, whispered.  "Do you think they followed us
here?"  The craft had come from the east.

Byers overheard, shook his head.  "We've had sporadic reports of
craft buzzing our recon patrols over the last month, stepping up in
the past week or two."

"They could be preparing to gather up the rest of us,"  Thompson
suggested her worst-case scenario, dread on her face.

"It doesn't seem logical."  Byers disagreed.  "We're too spread out
to be efficiently captured."

"They could be aiming to take over the resistance, the control
centers."  Scully studied the wall-sized map, relit, glowing in
multi-colors.  "That would be logical."

"So far, we're the only one they've buzzed."  Byers spoke tersely,
an undercurrent of concern in his voice.

"How many centers are there?"  Mulder paced restlessly, back and
forth, thinking.

Byers tapped a circle over their position in central Idaho.  "There
are 14 centers like this one in the US, and something like 38 more
world-wide.  All prepared before the invasion, almost 90% of them
survived to be fully functional today."

"So you're all in touch, coordinating..."

"Unfortunately, our communications equipment is limited.  We
communicate mostly in relay, passing information up and down a
chain of stations."

"But..."  Mulder paused, pointing at the computers that busily
processed data.

"Running simulations, analyzing data brought in by hand."  Langley
shook his head sadly, mourning the passing of a friend.  "The
internet's history, man."

"Fried."  Thompson spread her hands.

"We're down to early 20th Century technology.  Radio.  Runners.
Pencil and paper."  Staal waved the hand-drawn maps to emphasize
her point.

"So, who's actually in charge?"  Scully wanted to know.

"Home Base.  No one knows exactly where it is."  Thompson looked at
Byers.

"For everyone's safety."  Byers added.  "However, based on who
customarily passes on messages from Home Base to whom, we think
it's somewhere in the lower midwest."

"You've never talked to them?"  Mulder resumed pacing, in circles
this time.

Langley looked at Byers.  "Not directly..."

Byers took over from Langley.  "...but it's rumored that Home Base
has much more powerful equipment than the rest of us.  Supposedly,
they alone can reach every outpost in the United States when the
time comes."

The last words, carved in invisible gothic script, hung in the air
above them:  When The Time Comes.  Everyone paused for a moment of
respect, then continued.

"So how'd you get this zone?  Wasn't there something closer to
home?" Mulder survived a near collision with a running analyst.

"We were given the choice of two locations and we chose this one,
because it's Frohike's home turf."  Byers explained.

"Frohike's from Idaho?"  Mulder, incredulous.

"Hey, he kinda looks like a spud."  Langley responded, somewhat
going to Frohike's defense.

Mulder laughed, then succumbed to volley of coughs.   "Is there the
master plan, a way to strike back?"

"For the past six months, runners have gone out and contacted as
many as possible in their zone.  Found out who's with us and who's
busy just trying to survive."  Thompson pointed at the boundaries
of their zone--the Washington state line on the west, a line in
southern Nevada that extended east to the Mississippi River, then
north to the Canadian border--describing their systematic attempt
to contact all human survivors in the region.

"Our army is out there, waiting for the word."  Frohike stabbed at
the air with his cane, wrapped top to bottom in camouflage tape.

"When?"  Mulder, still coughing sporadically, thanked a passing
runner for the pack of throat lozenges she pressed into his hand.

"Soon.  That's all we know:  soon."  Byers spoke intensely.

"How's it going down?"  Mulder unwrapped a lozenge and popped it
into his mouth.  Cherry.

"There's no global plan.  Each zone will take its own approach,
surprise the little gray bastards, engage them in unique ways."
Frohike explained.

"Keep them off-balance, not knowing what to expect."  Langley
added.

"Home Base will drop the flag..."  Byers described the beginning.

"...and then we cut communications, close down the systems. Go off-
line."  Thompson mentioned her part in the plan.

"They could pulse us again."  Frohike glanced around at the
computer equipment, all glowing and all busily computing.

"Breaking into separate groups means they won't be able to use a
single strategy to wipe us out."  Byers described the linchpin of
their strategy.

"If some groups go down, others might survive."  Langley nailed the
bottom line.

"So what's my part?"  Mulder sank into a vacant chair, exhausted
from his illness and the pacing, yet still tapping his feet
nervously against the hard stone floor as he looked at the faces
around him for the answer.

Byers glanced at Langley who looked at Frohike who returned to
Byers for guidance.  Byers looked simply uncomfortable.

"We need you here."  Thompson broke the news.  She had no history
with Mulder to work around.

"Bullshit!"  Mulder stood angrily, striding around the room.  "I've
been out there.  I know how to get around, blend in...survive."

"Mulder, you're...*we're* in no shape to go out when we've just
gotten in.  We're tired.  We need to build our strength."  Scully
took his arm gently, steered him back to the chair.

He went willingly, docile at her touch, sat quietly.  For the
moment.

"You're right, Mulder.  You know how to get around out there."
Thompson agreed with him, placating.  "But so do our runners.
You're a great ace-in-the-hole for us.  Much of our information
about the aliens is piecemeal, second-hand."

"Yeah, Joe's cousin Ann heard from her brother-in-law Ted who used
to live in Boise next-door to that guy Jack who told him about the
time he saw such-and-such."  Langley described the usual quality of
information they received from their contacts living in the field.

"According to our sources, the colonizing force is gray aliens,
green aliens, gigantic lizard aliens, disembodied force fields and
humanoids that look remarkably like Ray Walston."  Byers continued.

"Right down to the little silver antennae."  Frohike added.

Thompson weighed in again, punctuating the air with one finger.
"You've been out there, seen things...*them*...first hand.  We need
to debrief you."

"Then we need to pick your brain."  Staal finished the argument.
"In the meantime, we'll send runners to the site in Wyoming to
check it out, measure the place, get a good look, so we're ready."

"So when's it all going down?"  Mulder demanded, irritation in his
voice.

"We have no idea.  Today.  A week from today.  Next month.  Stuff
has been boiling for weeks."  Langley shrugged.

"Come on, Mulder."  Byers pulled up a chair and adjusted his tie.
He leaned forward with interest.  "Tell us about Wyoming."

They put their heads together and talked for two days.

***
Year 01 Day 168

On the morning of the 168th day, excitement pulsed through the
command center.  Byers and Thompson huddled close over a flickering
monitor, reading the text that scrolled rapidly up the screen.

The radio crackled to life.  "Home Base calling Safe Haven."

A vaguely familiar voice.

Byers grabbed the microphone and thumbed the switch.  "Safe Haven
here."

Scully slipped her hand into Mulder's.  Together they leaned
forward, listening to the thin static coming through the speaker.

"Home Base to Alpha Command."

"Alpha Command here." crackled from the speaker.

"Home Base to Wolf Den."

"Wolf Den here" echoed faintly in the ether.

"Home Base to..."  The calls and responses continued for several
minutes then...nothing.

Frohike clenched his fists, pounding them nervously against his
thighs.

Silence.

Langley chewed on a strand of his hair.

Silence.

Thompson savaged a pencil between her teeth.

Hulspas jingled the change in his pocket until the whole group
turned on him with a glare.  "Sorry."  He tucked the offending hand
into his waistband where it twitched nervously.

Silence.

Silence.

A hiss of static.

Mulder lay one arm across Scully's shoulders.

Scully slipped her arm around his waist, looking at the faces
around the room.  Tense.  Tired.  Whose mothers and daughters, sons
and fathers were they?  How had they come to stand together in this
beleaguered band of survivors?  If they lived through the upcoming
battle and earned the privilege of resuming their former lives
again, would they?  Could they?  Could she?

Silence answered her.

Then, more silence.

Byers held the microphone in a death grip.

Everyone leaned closer to the speaker.



"Home Base to all units:  We have begun."

***

END



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kate.rickman@mindspring.com
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