"Antidote" (7/18)
by Rachel Howard
& Karen Rasch

Snowrider5@aol.com
Krasch@earthlink.net

And as the temperature drops, things sloooooooowly heat up.  ;-)

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

October 26
The Middle of Nowhere

This didn't look good.

No way.  No how.

It wasn't even nine o'clock when Mulder was forced to suggest to 
Scully that they call it quits for the night.

It was either that or chance driving off a cliff.

They couldn't see more than a foot in front of them.  Not with the snow
whipping against the windshield as if Mother Nature herself was firing
the stuff.  The storm had begun rather unremarkably, a light shower
at twilight.  Pretty, in a child's snow globe kind of way.  But before long, 
the wind that had dogged them since early afternoon had reasserted
itself.  Soon, what had at first reminded Mulder of Currier and Ives 
had seemed more like Stephen King.  And all at once, Scully and he 
were trapped smack dab in the middle of the sort of tempest he had 
prayed for as a kid, the variety guaranteed to close roads and the 
schools they led to.

God, what he wouldn't give for an open road right about now.

But, traffic-free interstates not being an option, Mulder had instead 
concentrated on guiding the Hum-Vee as best he could, his shoulders 
hunched over the wheel, until it became clear that continuing would 
be suicidal.

"I think we need to find a place to spend the night," he said at last, the
words as much apology as opinion.

His partner agreed.

Scully's softly murmured assent was one of the few things she had
shared with him since they had discussed Gateway's possible selection 
as a kind of test site.  She hadn't admitted as much, but he suspected 
her leg was still acting up.  Throughout their journey, she had been 
restlessly shifting her weight upon the seat, her movement subtle, yet 
telling.  He wished that she would just come right out and say, "You 
know, Mulder--my leg hurts like hell."  But, no.  Despite some of the 
inroads they had made earlier in the day, she had remained mute on the 
subject, stubbornly pretending that all was well.

Mulder knew better.

Particularly, when it came to their immediate predicament.

"Well, I don't know what kind of wind break this rise is going to give
us," he said as he brought the Hum-Vee to a stop on what appeared to 
be the beginnings of an incline, and put it into park.  "But, I have a 
feeling it's not going to be enough for us to mistake Colorado in October 
for Barbados in July."

Scully shook her head as she stared out at the storm, her expression
grim.  "How cold do you think it is out there?"

He shrugged and, leaving the motor running, slipped from behind the
wheel to turn to the cargo area behind.  "I don't know for sure.  But
with those gusts, I'd guess we're looking at a minus wind chill.  Maybe
even minus double digits."

Scully looked longingly at the temperature controls on the dashboard;
turned up to maximum capacity, the heating unit was only just 
managing to keep the fierce winds at bay.  Grimacing with sympathy, 
Mulder shook his head.  "We can't leave the engine running, Scully.  
Even if we didn't have our gas supply to worry about, we'd still run 
the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning."

She nodded, the motion weary and resigned.  "I know.  It's just . . . .
we've got our coats and one blanket each.  I'm not sure that's going to
be enough, Mulder.  Not on a night like this."

"I'm afraid I have to agree with you," he mumbled ruefully as, flipping
on the vehicle's interior lights, he began hunting through the supplies
stowed in the back of the Hum-Vee; checking inside packs and
boxes, searching behind and beneath their meager stash of food .  The
dome light illuminating the rear hold got only a C for effort.  Its glow 
was weak, casting shadows far more impressive than the light it 
imparted.

"What are you looking for?" Scully queried curiously as she peered
over the seats at him.

"Anything that we can use for insulation."

Immediately picking up on his train of thought, she remembered, "The
jackets.  The ones I found with the daypacks.  They aren't the heaviest
things in the world, but they're something."

"Great," he replied with enthusiasm as he found the items in question
and draped them over the back seat so as not to lose track of them.  "Do
you recall seeing anything else back here we could use?  It wouldn't
have to be cloth.  Plastic or even rubber might do the trick."

Brow furrowed in thought, she shook her head.  "Not really.  Aside
from the food and water and the traveling medicine chest, there wasn't
all that much back there.  Some rope maybe . . . "

"Paydirt!"

"What?" Scully asked with interest, as she carefully knelt and
began to crawl over the console splitting the driver's seat from that of 
the passenger.  But, as she slowly navigated the narrow path leading
to his side, her injured leg suddenly buckled.  Her hand outstretched,
her face taut with pain, she grabbed wildly for support.

"Shit!"

Mulder caught her just before her hip hit the ground.

"What happened?" he asked, his voice gruff with concern, his body
wrapped around hers, holding her up.  "What's wrong?"

She shook her head and sighed, her hands braced on his forearms.
"It's this damned leg.  It's stiffened up on me after all those hours 
sitting."

"Does it hurt?" he queried, his face bent to hers.

"No--"

He slipped his hand beneath her chin and tipped her head so that her
eyes met his.  "The =truth=, Scully."

She looked up at him, her gaze faintly rebellious.  They just eyed each
other for a moment, fixed in a silent contest of wills.  At last, she wet
her lips with her tongue and softly admitted, "A little.  It keeps 
cramping."

He nodded slowly, trying to judge if she was minimizing the situation
for his benefit or being straight with him.  They were locked in an
awkward sort of kneeling embrace, his one arm twined around her waist, 
her face balanced on his fingertips, their legs tangled like tree roots.  
Thrust as closely together as they were, he was even more aware than 
usual of her size, her delicacy.  Hell.  Her head didn't even clear his 
shoulder.  He wasn't a terribly big guy, yet he was looming over her.

Maybe that's why he so strongly felt the urge to protect her, Mulder 
realized with a spark of insight.  To scoop her up, and hide her away, 
and make certain that nothing would ever threaten or harm her again.  
Not goons named Carl, not dangerous treks out to the middle of nowhere,
not killer snowstorms, and certainly not something as mundane as a
pulled hamstring.

Mulder vs. The Hamstring.

Yeah.  That ought to be one battle he stood a chance of winning.

Bemused by his own silliness, he quietly chuckled, his hand sliding
around the curve of Scully's face to brush lightly against her cheek, 
the caress seeming to him at that moment like the most natural thing 
in the world.  His odd fit of whimsy seemed to erase the last of his 
partner's lingering vexation.  Lifting a brow, she drawled, "Are you 
laughing at me, Mulder?"

"No, ma'am," he said meekly.

"Then what's so funny?"

His lips lifted still, he combed behind her ear a few strands of cool
auburn hair.  "Scully, you and I are about to bed down for the night
in weather a popsicle would find chilly.  Our bed is a vehicle we
stole from thugs bent on killing us.  We're somehow going to have to
manage to grab some shut-eye without the comfort of heat.  We're 
miles from anywhere, without a road or maps to guide us, and yet 
we're doing our damnedest to get back to a town with nary a live 
citizen to greet us upon our return."

He shrugged.

"If I don't laugh, I may cry."

That coaxed a smile out of her.  "I see your point."

"I'm nothing if not persuasive," he sardonically assured her.  "Remember, 
I'm the one who talked you into coming out here in the first place."

"But you were in a slightly better mood a minute ago," she murmured 
as she ever so cautiously stretched and flexed her leg.  A small shadow 
of pain darkened her eyes, yet she didn't cry out.  Rather, she continued, 
"What did you find that got you so excited?"

"Oh!" Mulder mumbled, feeling a bit foolish for forgetting to have
shared with her the good news.  Guess that's what happens when a 
beautiful woman literally falls into a guy's lap, he reasoned.  "Here.  
Sit down a minute and I'll show you."

Guiding her to one of the back seats, he gently lowered her down, 
then turned and retrieved his discovery from behind him.

"Voila!"

Scully squinted in the half-light.  "What is that?"

"A tarp," he explained, shaking it out.  "I think.  I found it folded and
shoved under that big carton of bottled water.  I don't know what the
hell Carl and his buddy had planned on doing with it, but I have a 
feeling we can probably find a use for it."

 She nodded thoughtfully.  "Are you thinking we should try layering
all this stuff?"

He shrugged.  "You tell me, Scully.  You're the doctor."

"I think that's our best bet," she said with another small bob of her
head.  "If we're to have any hope of conserving our body heat, we're
going to have to pool our resources."

Pool our resources.  In other words, he was going to finally get to live 
out his fantasy of Scully, him, and a lone sleeping bag.

Or at least, some sadly less sensual version of it.

Beggars can't be choosers, Mulder, he dryly reminded himself.  Better
make that fantasy a reality.

After convincing Scully to sit back and let him ready their sleeping
quarters, Mulder quickly constructed a sort of makeshift nest.  The
tarp proved nearly double the size of their blankets.  So he used that 
as the foundation of their bed, figuring that half the fabric could go
beneath them and half on top.  Next, he took their coats and unzipped
them so they lay flat upon the bottom portion of the canvas, then did 
the same with the two plaid jackets.

"You know, we're assuming that the Gunmen didn't hear from Franklin 
again because someone physically stopped him from communicating 
with anybody,"  Scully said as she watched him work.  "But what if it 
was something simpler?  Like a downed phone line?"

"Scully, you saw the bloodstains on the floor," Mulder argued as he 
arranged the coats upon the tarp.

"I know.  I'm just saying . . . wouldn't they have cut the phone lines 
to Gateway first?  If this really is what we think it is, a man-made 
catastrophe?"

"Which would mean we're heading back to an area that we can't dial 
out of," Mulder said, finishing her thought.  "I don't know though . . .
did you see the setup Franklin had?  I'm pretty sure he was pirating his 
electricity, and the phone line, too."

"Mulder, that's not possible.  He wouldn't have a phone number, for 
starters."

"Exactly.  That guy wasn't looking to be reachable to the outside 
world.  He just wanted modem access so he could get onto the net,"  
Mulder said with a grin.  "A man after my own heart.  Pretty effective 
way to keep the telemarketers from interrupting your dinner.  Anyway, 
I doubt anyone cutting phone lines would have nuked Franklin's little 
arrangement.  His cabin is too far out for them to have bothered with.  
At least at first."  

She slowly nodded her agreement.  "Well, if the cabin does still have 
internet access that would make it a good place to hide out while we 
try to figure out what happened in Gateway."

Mulder considered for a moment.  "That's true.  After all, when I got
the okay from Skinner to look into this, I never mentioned how we got 
our lead.  No one knows that we first learned about Gateway from 
Franklin."

"Except the Gunmen," Scully reminded him.

"I feel pretty sure they'll keep it to themselves,"  he assured her with 
a wry smile.  

She smiled back at him.

Her grin threw more light than that stupid overhead bulb.

For just a second or two, Mulder froze, his behind on his heels, his
gaze trained on his partner's sunny expression.  "Um . . . it occurred 
to me that we should actually sleep on top of the coats to help cushion 
us from the floor," he muttered at last, gesturing weakly at the 
handiwork in question.  "I don't know about you, but even with the
heat on, I can feel the wind seeping in from underneath."

"Good thinking."

"I like yours better."

"How do you mean?" she queried.

"The cabin," he replied, turning to regard her more fully.  "After all, 
a man may have died there. . . ."

She wrinkled her nose with distaste.

"But it does have heat," he reminded her.  "And food."

"And a real bed."

Oh God.  It was like his fantasy on steroids--Scully, him, and one lone
bed.

Easy, tiger.

"Hey!  Don't knock this one till you've tried it," Mulder finally said, 
mock indignation masking certain other musings.  Scully appeared
not to notice anything amiss.  She merely lifted a brow in reply.  

"Why don't you go ahead and get situated," he said, taking hold of 
her arm and settling her atop the would-be mattress.  "No sense
in two of us crawling in after the fact and messing everything up."

Moving carefully, Scully did as he suggested, stretching out on her back 
and looking up at him with wide, dark eyes.  For just a millisecond, 
Mulder paused at the picture she presented gazing up at him, her bright 
hair fanning out from her pale cheeks in tousled waves.  Then, shaking 
himself free from his persistent reverie, he draped their two blankets 
over her and folded the tarp on top of that.

"Do what you can to warm that up for me, will ya, Scully?" he
entreated with a grin.  "I'm gonna go back up front for a second and
shut everything down."

"Just think of me as your very own personal hot water bottle, Mulder," 
she murmured dryly.

"Ooh.  Can I share that nickname with the guys back at the Bureau?" 
he queried over his shoulder.

"Do, and I'll deny everything," she retorted from beneath the tarp.

Chuckling, he slipped behind the wheel.  Outside the Hum-Vee the
world was a white whirlwind.  He could make out nothing but snow
and more snow, the vision leaving him vaguely claustrophobic.  
Taking a deep breath, he first snapped off the lights, then finally the 
engine.

Darkness, black as pitch.

Almost at once, he could feel the frigid north wind pushing through 
the vehicle's seams.

Please God, let their preparations be enough.

"Talk to me, Scully," he mumbled.  "I don't want to step on you."

"I'm over here," she called softly.

Crawling cautiously in the direction of her voice, he found the edge of
the tarp with his hand.  Bending down, he lifted up the covers and
eased beneath them.  Pulling the combination of canvas and wool to
just beneath his chin, he twisted slightly in an attempt to adjust himself
more comfortably atop the coats.

"Ow!"

He couldn't be certain, but he thought that it might have been her head
with which his elbow had made contact.

"Sorry," he apologized contritely.  "I'm sorry.  This is tricky.  I can't
see a damn thing.  And I'm afraid I'm going to kick your leg or 
something."

"It's okay," she murmured from right beside his shoulder.  "Don't worry
about it.  I'm fine."

Once he was comfortably arranged, it was Scully's turn to adjust.  She 
scooted up, then to her side; trying, as he had earlier, to find the best 
possible position.  The problem was, their cocoon was economy-sized 
at best.  There just wasn't a lot of room to maneuver.  Not if a person 
wanted to stay beneath the tarp.

Which meant that her soft little body couldn't help but wiggle alongside
his longer, harder frame.  Rub against it.  Warm and firm.  Curved and
sweet.

Christ.

No doubt about it.  Parts of his anatomy were getting harder by the
minute.

"Come here," he nearly growled a heartbeat or two later.  Wrapping his
arm around her shoulder, he tugged her to him so that her head rested
on his shoulder and her tummy pressed against his hip.  In her surprise
at this sudden turn of events, her hand fluttered for just an instant to his
exposed throat.

At her touch, Mulder almost jumped straight through the covers.  "Geez,
Scully!!"

"What?" she queried, her tone disgruntled.

"Your hands are like ice," he said, trying his best not to sound like
a parent.  "Where are your gloves?"

"Nice and warm back in D.C."

"Do you want mine?"

"No.  You need them as much as I do," she told him firmly.  "Besides,
yours wouldn't fit me.  They'd just fall off overnight."

"We could share."

"=No=, Mulder."

Sighing in frustration, he pondered the problem for a moment, silently
cursing her stubbornness.   Honest to God, there were times when he 
swore that his partner's independence was a curse.  She wouldn't take 
his gloves, eh?  Well, she probably wouldn't approve of his back-up 
plan either.  But this time, Dana Scully simply wasn't going to get her 
way.

Pointedly refraining from asking for permission, he lifted her dainty 
hand in his and raising it to his lips.  Cupping it in his gloved palm, 
he opened his mouth and slowly exhaled.  Gently, he bathed her fingers 
in moist heat, then took another deep breath and repeated the action.  
His lips grazed her knuckles, the edges of her nails scratched with 
phantom force against the coarse stubble on his chin.  It took every 
ounce of willpower he possessed to keep from pulling one of those slim 
digits into his mouth and tasting her skin with his tongue, from suckling 
lightly on a forefinger or a pinkie.  But somehow, reason prevailed.  
After a few moments, he instead took her hand and placed it against his 
cheek to assess his work.

"That's better," he murmured with satisfaction, tucking both their hands
beneath the covers once more so that hers was sandwiched between his
and his chest.

Scully said nothing.  But he thought he detected a slight softening of
her body, a relaxation of sorts as she rested against him from shoulder
to knee.

They lay there for a time, not speaking.  Mulder could feel the gradual
drop in temperature on his face.  But, so far, his homemade sleeping
bag was holding up admirably.  His bed partner was throwing heat like
a miniature furnace.

"Are you comfortable?" he asked softly, his hand gliding lightly along
her shoulder and arm.

"Hmm" she hummed from just below his ear, her voice husky and low,
and astonishingly intimate in the darkness.  "Yes.  I am."

He nodded, thinking that even though she couldn't see him, she could 
probably feel the motion of his cheek against her hair.

"Thank you."

He had nearly dozed off when he heard the words, whispered in a hush.
God, what he wouldn't give to be able to see her.  To look in her eyes
and try to gauge just what had brought this about.  He couldn't tell.  And 
he had damn few clues to go by.  As far as he could judge, she hadn't
moved.  She still laid curled against him, her head tucked beneath his
chin. And her voice gave away no secrets; he detected no tremor, no
temper.

What in the world was she thanking him for?  For dragging her in to
this mess when in reality they had no official case to investigate?

Perhaps he should simply ask her.

"For what?" he queried softly, giving her hand the gentlest of squeezes.

She didn't answer him immediately.  Instead, she shook her head which,
given their positions, meant she was for all intents and purposes nuzzling 
his shoulder.

Which, when he stopped to think about it, was probably what it had 
seemed as if he had been doing to her earlier.

"Just thank you," she said again, and sighing, melted against him.

And while the warmth her words imparted would have been sufficient to
get him through a week of nights as cold as the one they were presently
being forced to endure, the sensation of a trusting Dana Scully nestled 
in his arms was enough to keep Fox Mulder up for many hours to come.

		*	*	*	*	*	

Yet, he still fell asleep before his partner.  Long after Mulder's breathing 
had turned slow and deep, hours past the point where his arms had grown
slack and heavy around her, Scully laid awake in the cold, starless night.  
Thinking.  

The evening's chill was biting, nipping at her ears and nose until she 
was forced to seek refuge even deeper beneath the covers.  Sliding lower, 
so that only the top of her head peeked out from under the tarp, she 
burrowed against the man sharing her bed, drinking in his warmth,
his comfort, his familiar scent.  The wind howled outside their shelter, 
shaking the Hum-Vee.  The low, mournful racket should have been 
worrisome; or at the very least, lonely.

But, it seemed neither.  Not to her.  Why should she be concerned?  
She rested snug and content beside a man she knew would face down 
the devil himself to keep her safe.  So what, in the end, was a little 
wind?  Sure, they were edging ever closer to a confrontation with 
forces who clearly wanted them dead.  It looked like one of their own 
had given away their mission.  They had no one to trust, save each 
other.  Such betrayal should have been devastating to her psyche.

Instead, she lay there, smiling in the frigid blackness, wry humor 
striking at what many would have deemed a rather inappropriate time.  
Tickling her unexpectedly, just as it had Mulder earlier.  She was no 
reckless thrill-seeker.  She knew the seriousness of their predicament, 
the ruthlessness of those they sought to bring down.  She didn't take 
the work that lay before them lightly.  Didn't underestimate the danger 
facing them.  

It was only that she had reached a kind of epiphany that day.  One that
had begun when she had awoke in her partner's arms and grown to
maturity in that same locale hours later.  It hadn't come upon her like a
bolt of lightning.  Hadn't swept over her in a wave.  Rather it had crept
up on her, stolen around her like most wily of thieves.  Making off with
bits of her pride, pieces of her restraint.

And the entirety of her heart.

Yet, that trophy wasn't really as grandiose as it might first appear, 
she mused, her cheek to his chest, her hand rubbing gently against 
his sweater.  After all, Fox Mulder had owned a significant portion of 
that particular organ for years.  She had just never taken the time to 
fully understand what such a thing meant.  She had never questioned 
whether she loved him.  Of course, she did.  She had accepted that 
fact early in their relationship.

But exactly what kind of love did she feel for the man beside whom she 
worked?

That thorny issue was one she had always preferred to avoid.  Love was 
love.  What difference did it make?  It certainly didn't affect the way 
things were between them.  Their obvious affection for each other didn't 
make them any less effective as investigators.  If anything, it had molded
them into a better team.  Had more sharply attuned them to each other's 
moods, had made each sensitive to the manner in which the other was 
prone to evaluate a situation.  Hell, half the time she could guess what 
Mulder was going to say before he said it.  She would bet that he could 
boast the same about her.

And if at the times, despite the deep, spiritual bond they had forged, the
friendship she and Mulder shared fell short, if instead she confessed to
struggling with simpler, earthier, physical needs . . . .

Well, that was just too damned bad.  There were rules.  They might not
be written down in some official FBI handbook, but every agent knew 
them just the same.

Thou shalt not sleep with thy partner.

The first of several such commandments.  Understood, but not recorded.

It didn't matter that she found Mulder attractive.  That, try though she 
might, she couldn't help but measure every potential romantic interest 
against the one man she couldn't have.

Not smart enough.

Not intense enough.

Not sexy enough.

The would-be Romeo invariably wouldn't touch her right, or listen 
to her with the proper degree of concentration.   He wouldn't gaze 
down at her with knowing, hazel eyes, a sly sort of humor twinkling 
in their depths, and deliver an innuendo-laden comment that probably 
should have earned him a slap, but instead only made her want to zing 
him one better.  

No matter who he was, he wasn't Mulder.

Get over it, Dana, she would wearily tell herself.  And get on with your 
life.

So she had.  She had resolutely ignored certain impulses and contented
herself with what was possible.  She had followed the rules.

But gradually, as the years had passed and one by one the ideals she
had held dear--her beliefs regarding elected officials, those sworn to
protect innocent civilians, even the workings of the universe itself--had
been undermined, she had begun questioning what was supposedly 
proper and just.  She had started to wonder if perhaps other truisms
she had taken for granted might not be unworthy of her esteem.

Why couldn't Mulder and she have something more than what they 
already enjoyed?  Why did this--the most all-consuming, satisfying 
relationship she had ever known--=have= to remain platonic?

Who said so?

Maybe it was time to add a footnote to the old rule book.

Of course, all this was moot if Mulder was indifferent to her, she 
would silently grumble, if he viewed her as nothing more than a good 
buddy.  Even as--and the idea had occurred to her years ago--a kind 
of stand-in for Samantha.  But, she didn't think that was the case.  
Even with the recent sorry state of her love life, she still remembered 
the way a man looked at a woman he desired.  And from time to time, 
her partner would direct such a gaze her way.  And then there was the 
verbal foreplay, the jokes and quips, and occasional "I just got very turned 
on."  She sensed the strangely charged energy that flowed between them, 
knew he often touched her not because he had to, but because he wanted 
to.  She was guilty of such indulgences herself.

So, the man she loved was seemingly as attracted to her as she was to 
him.  Why didn't she act upon the knowledge?

Her work.  Plain and simple.  If they ever entered into a sexual 
relationship, if he started looking at her as more woman and lover than 
partner, who knew what that might translate into?  How it would alter 
their on-the-job dynamic.

And then there were her own hang-ups with which to contend.  Her 
need to remain steadfast and strong no matter what .  She didn't know 
where those impulses came from, didn't really understand why it was 
so desperately important to her to show that she could take it, that she 
was equal to any and all challenges.  Maybe it was a lifetime of trying 
to compete with her brothers for her father's approval.  Perhaps it had 
developed instead as she had struggled to excel in her chosen career.  
Regardless, she recognized her tendency to hold the world at arm's 
length, to go it alone. 

Yet, that day's events had shown her, not for the first time, just how 
unfeasible such leanings had become.  For reasons she felt certain even 
he himself did not fully understand, Mulder had begun making demands 
on her.  Not for her time or her loyalty; but for her honesty, her openness.  
He had told her he wanted to know when she was hurting or in need; had 
expressed this desire with a passion he usually reserved for extra-
terrestrials and their earthly collaborators.  At first, she had fought him, 
had fallen into her usual pattern of behavior.  

I'm fine, Mulder.  

Really.  

But as time had passed and she had begun rationalizing to herself and 
lying to her partner, Scully had slowly started to realize just how twisted 
her logic had become.  Since when was it more noble to purposefully 
mislead the man who most depended upon her being forthright with 
him?

And when push finally did come to shove, and she had been forced to
admit her infirmity, had the world stopped spinning?  Had Mulder 
suddenly started treating her as a helpless female, someone to be 
coddled and cosseted?

Uh-uh.

All had been business as usual.  Just as she would have handled it had 
it been he who had been injured.

Then there had been their sleeping arrangements; the pleasure to be 
had by being held so sweetly in his arms, and the way Mulder had 
reacted to her closeness.  Did he really believe she wouldn't notice the 
effect it had on him?  For crying out loud, she was a doctor.  And a 
woman.  She couldn't help but recognize the subtle tension drawing 
his body tight, shortening his breath, and deepening his voice.  Did he 
even realize how his hand had begun stealing softly through her hair 
as they had laid entwined, almost as if his fingers had a mind of their 
own?  She thought not.  But she had certainly been aware of the tender 
caress.  It was all she could do to keep from returning it.

But not here.

Not now.

Soon.  With a killer disease waiting for them in Gateway, they had no
guarantees from one day to the next, no assurance that their "someday" 
would ever actually roll around.  No.  Carpe diem, and all that nonsense.  
Dana Scully was sick and tired of doing what she thought she should do, 
what was expected of her.  The time had come for her to do what she had 
yearned to do, seemingly forever.

Watch out, Fox Mulder, she silently warned, smiling against his soundly
slumbering form.  Ready or not, here I come.

*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Continued in Chapter VIII

"Antidote" (8/18)
by Rachel Howard
& Karen Rasch

Snowrider5@aol.com
Krasch@earthlink.net

This chapter probably qualifies as "R".  NC-17 directly follows in
Chapter 9.  Blame Rachel.  Her smut chapter was =long=!  :-)

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

October 27
Just Outside Gateway, Colorado

The snow around the cabin was untracked, pristine.  Mulder drove 
the Hum-Vee nearly to the structure's front door, then hopped out and
floundered around the vehicle, leaving Scully to struggle out of her side
on her own.  She did so carefully, her leg stiff after a night spent on the
four-wheeler's floor and a day spent propped in one position.  The 
winds had piled the snow into drifts which grew deeper near the cabin.
Mulder's jeans were already wet to the knee from wading through the
frozen waves.

Well, don't just sit there -- get out, Scully silently coached herself. 
Taking a steadying breath, she shifted slowly on her seat, and opening 
the car door, slid from her perch to the chilling whiteness below.

Mulder opened the cabin door just as she landed, the noisy creak of 
its hinges obscuring her grunt of pain.  Half her weight had settled 
awkwardly on her bad leg, sending a whip crack of pain up the back 
of the limb.  Although he hadn't heard her yelp her distress, Mulder 
did turn towards her in time to see the grimace that crossed her face.
His own expression tight with chagrin, he took two long strides and 
wrapped his arm around her waist.  Leaning her weight against him, 
they hobbled into the darkened cabin.

"It's just stiff from being in the car," she began as they stomped across
the threshold, snow trailing in after them like feathers molting from a
bird.

"I know.  It's okay, Scully."  The quiet resignation in his tone stopped
her.  How in the hell was she supposed to respond to something like 
that?  Mulder didn't really seem to care one way or another.  He released 
her almost immediately, leaving her to point and flex the toes on her 
bad leg to chase away the ache while he got out some of his aggression
by kicking shut the door.  Slightly bemused by his macho display, 
she glanced at him and saw that he was studying her, watching her 
gingerly shift her weight back and forth as she tested the depth of the 
injury.

Right.  Trust.

She took a deep breath.  "Okay.  I think, I =really= think, that this is
a pinched nerve and maybe a strained ligament.  If I were examining
a patient with these symptoms -- without any diagnostic instruments,
that is -- I would suggest resting the affected areas, careful stretching,
ibuprofen, heat, maybe massage therapy.  Then I would reevaluate
the injury in a day or two."  She looked up at him again, and saw that 
he was listening to her closely.  "Mulder?"

He brushed some snow off her sleeve.  "Pretty good, Doc.  Did the
patient happen to mention if it hurt?"

He was testing her, she realized, vastly uncomfortable at being put 
on the spot.  Then, she reminded herself again that this was Mulder, 
and it was all right to need him a little. "Yeah, it hurts."

Nodding slowly, Mulder refrained from commenting at first.  Instead,
he reached over her shoulder and flicked on the light switch.  The 
small cabin looked just as it had the first time they had seen it; Scully
guessed that no one had been inside it since their brief visit, days ago.
With one more appraising look at her, he bent swiftly and began
unlacing her boots.

"Mulder?"

He tugged on one ankle, and she obligingly lifted her foot so he could
remove the boot.  As he repeated the process with her other foot, he
said, "Thanks for the diagnostic help, but now it's my turn to play
doctor."  He leered at her comically while he yanked his own boots off.

When he straightened up in front of her he had two pairs of wet
boots hanging from his hands.  "Thank you for telling me the truth."

She found that she was having trouble meeting his gaze.  "Why?"
she muttered, breathing in the smell of wet wool as she examined the
pattern on his jacket with much greater interest than it should have
commanded.

He tossed the boots in the general direction of the door, where they
landed with a thud, then tilted her face up towards his before he
answered her.  "Because it matters to me.  You're always cleaning up
after my mistakes, Scully.  Always.  You're the one who bails us out
when Skinner gets pissed at us -- after I get us into some kind of stupid
trouble that the FBI could do without.  Like being here, for example.
You get stuck with all the messes I get us into, and you never say a
damn word."

Without thinking about it, she glanced over to where the dripping
boots had started to form a puddle by the door.  He looked over at them
as well, grinned, and said, "See what I mean?  It must be worse than
having a dog."  He then slid his hand from beneath her chin and moved 
to properly store their boots, centering them on the mat in front of the 
door.  Finding a pot-holder on the stove, he used it to start mopping up 
the puddle.  As he focused on his task rather than on her eyes, he lightly 
said, "I know I'm not easy to live with."

"Mulder," she interrupted quietly, but he didn't let her get any farther.

"Wait, Scully.  Let me say this.  You've been bailing me out for years.
I can't even count the times you've patched me up after something
went wrong --you've saved my life at least half a dozen times.  And
don't," he looked up with an expression she couldn't place, half-
stern, half-tender, "tell me anything about it being part of the job
description, because that's not all of it."  He ran his hand through his
hair in frustration.  "I'm not doing a very good job of this, am I?  I
guess," he paused, and she saw a thousand things flit across his face,
faster than she could possibly identify the emotions, even with her
years of experience reading Mulder's thoughts.  "I guess I just want to
say that . . . that it makes me feel good to be able to take care of you
for once."

Gazing down at him as he knelt on the wet floor, holding a soggy
pot-holder up to her like a shy suitor offering a bouquet, she wanted
nothing more than to tell him that she loved him and be done with it.
Tell him and find out if she had been reading him correctly, if all those
smoldering looks and bits of innuendo had meant what she hoped they
had.

But in the half-heartbeat it took for her to think of the words, she
lost her nerve and instead simply reached out and took the pot-holder
from him, tossing it towards the sink.  Finally, she said, in a low
voice, "That's what I wanted to thank you for.  Last night."

Standing once more, he looked at her, their bodies close, their eyes
locked.

"You're welcome," he murmured at last.

Keeping his gaze trained on hers for a moment longer, he then
dragged a chair over to her and helped ease her down on to it.  A
trifle confused by his mute yet thoughtful courtesy, she allowed
herself to be seated.  And hunched for warmth, she watched as he 
got the stove going.

"When are we going to Gateway?" she inquired as she watched him
work.  "I mean . . . since that was the purpose of this little expedition."
Her query sounded forced to her ears, as if she had asked solely to
make conversation.  And in many respects, she had.  Silence usually
wasn't a problem between them, neither being the sort to speak without
reason.  Yet, this time she had felt compelled to shatter the cabin's quiet.
Subtle yet disturbing currents were eddying around them, dangerous
and deep.  It seemed as if at any instant she might be sucked under.

But Mulder appeared unaware of such things.  In contrast to her
jumbled emotions, he looked to be the very picture of calm.  Moving
with an ease she envied, he pulled kindling from a box at the base of
the stove and shoved it inside its pot-bellied girth.  A neat stack of
split logs lay conveniently nearby.  He soon availed himself of these
as well.  "Early tomorrow morning, when we see how your leg is doing, 
we'll figure out a plan.  If I need to go alone, I will."

That's what you think, buddy, she silently grumbled, her lips thinning.

Skillfully arranging wood atop the pile he had fashioned of newspaper 
and twigs, Mulder anticipated her protest, cutting her off before she 
could voice it.  "Don't, Scully.  Just forget about it for tonight.  We both 
need a break before we do anything else.  Those people will all still be 
dead tomorrow."

Well, that was true enough, she supposed.  Still, she didn't like it.  She
couldn't stomach the thought of Mulder going after those thugs alone,
of either of them doing so.

But, she said nothing.  Instead, she watched as her partner patiently
coaxed the stove's contents to blaze.  After a minute or two, the wood
caught, burning nicely.  Sharp snaps and pops punctuated the cabin's
stillness.  Throwing a toothy grin her way, Mulder stood, wiped his 
hands against his legs, and crossed to the makeshift desk on the
room's far side.

"Well, let's see if this gamble paid off," he said as he reached for the
power button.

Two minutes later, they both heard the humming and burst of static
that signaled a modem connecting.  Success.  They had a means of 
communicating with the outside world.  Shutting down the computer, 
Mulder cheerily remarked, "That should come in handy tomorrow."

"Score one for the good guys,"  Scully mumbled softly, her arms folded
on the back of her chair, her cheek resting on top of them.  It had been
one hell of a long day.  It must have been two by the time she had fallen
asleep the night before.  She had awakened a little after eight, and they 
had been on the road soon after.  Now, at twilight, seated snugly beside a 
toasty warm stove, drowsiness was stealing over her like fog.  Even the 
ache in her leg was fast becoming meaningless.  Maybe if she just closed 
her eyes for a minute . .

She didn't think she had dozed, or at least not for more than a moment 
or two.  However, the sudden, loud clanging jolted her awake.  She 
opened her eyes and saw that Mulder was on his knees a few feet from 
her.  She watched with curiosity as he rummaged under the stove, 
among the pots and pans stored there, and came out with a huge stew-
pot, and several smaller vessels.  It wasn't until he crossed to the small 
alcove opposite her, yanked back the curtain, and eyed the tub with a 
thoughtful gaze, that she realized what he was planning to do.

"Mulder, are you drawing a bath for me?"

Mulder turned from his study of Vaughn Franklin's pseudo-bathroom
to regard his partner.  She sat sideways on the ladder back chair he had
deposited her on, her chin propped on her forearms, staring back at him
with sleepy blue eyes.  Her hair was tousled and wind-ratted, and she
had a smudge of dirt just to the side of her full, soft mouth.

Even bedraggled she took his breath away.

"Uh-huh,"  he mumbled, unsure suddenly whether his plan would be
welcomed by the woman he sought to please.  He couldn't tell by her
expression. "This is going to take awhile, though.  How about some 
dinner while the water's heating up?"

When she didn't answer right away, he had to resist the urge to shuffle
his feet like a bashful schoolboy.  Scully could be so contrary sometimes.
Would she be angry at his attempt to do something nice for her?

She was surveying him steadily, head tipped slightly to one side, her
bad leg stretched out in front of her.  Uh-oh.  He recognized the
expression on her face; it was the one she usually wore right before
he switched off the lights in the office and turned on the slide projector.
"Scully?"

She grinned suddenly.  "Why didn't I think of this before?"

"Think of what?" He felt like he had missed a step somewhere.

"Maybe I should get hurt more often."

"Oh."  Well, what do you know?  It appeared Special Agent Doctor
Dana Scully was in the mood to be pampered.

He felt a foolish smile break across his face, and said smugly,
"See?  That's why I always let the bad guys beat on me for awhile."

"That's going to cost you, Mulder," she warned, heaving herself out
of the chair.  He quickly returned to her side and hovered while she 
peeled off her jacket and tossed it over the seat.  Chuckling at her
imperious gesture, he moved in to help her when she extended an arm.
"You make dinner," she directed, "I'm going to follow the doctor's 
advice and lie down while you do all the work."

And with his arm locked around her waist, he guided her to the room's
double bed.

"I won't fall asleep," she predicted as she curled up atop the covers,
ruining her pronouncement with a yawn.

"I know," he murmured, his tone indulgent as he unfolded an afghan
he found at the foot of the bed and settled it over her small form.

"If you need any help, Mulder, you get me up," she mumbled into the
pillow, her eyes sliding shut.  "I was only kidding about you doing all
the work."

"Okay," he assured her, having no intention of doing any such thing.

He gazed down at her, affection naked in his regard, and watched her
body slowly relaxing its way into sleep.  It didn't take long.  The past
couple of days had really worn her out.  "Sweet dreams, Scully," he
wished her softly, his fingers lightly smoothing a few flyaway strands
of hair from her cheek.  She didn't feel his touch.  She had already
nodded off.

And for a long minute he just stood there, looking at her.  Thank you, 
he told her silently.  Thank you for letting me do something for you,
for letting me repay even a fraction of the enormous debt I owe.

A quick scan of Franklin's larder revealed a surprising number of
options for their evening meal.  None of the choices were particularly
glamorous.  Like Mulder, Franklin appeared to have been a cook by
necessity, not choice.   Still, anything was bound to look good after
their diet of jerky and snack food.  Mulder settled on warming up a
package of frozen beef stew with rice as a side dish.  As an afterthought,
he also set out on the table a nearly full bottle of no-name bourbon he 
had found stashed behind a cereal box and an open bag of flour.

Scully slept until just before he pulled their dinner off the stove
to make room for the pots that would heat her bathwater.  She seemed
embarrassed by her nap, and insisted on helping set the table.  Mulder
assured her it wasn't necessary, but in the end, let her hobble around
the kitchen, finding plates and utensils and generally getting in his 
way.

The meal would never be featured on the cover of "Bon Appetit", but 
it tasted delicious just the same.  Sitting back in his chair after filling 
his belly, Mulder studied his partner as lit by a stubby candle he had 
found rolling around in a cupboard.  Scully had praised his cooking
until he blushed, and the heady combination of her approval and the 
two shots of bourbon he had downed while cooking had left him feeling 
mildly euphoric.  He had talked her into joining him for a shot when 
they first sat down.  Just one, for "medicinal purposes."  But he'd 
caught her eyeing the bottle a couple of times while they ate.  Now, 
as he scraped up the last of the stew on his plate, she reached over 
and poured them each another shot.

"Medicine must be working, huh, Doc?"

"Mmmm.  Sort of."

He watched her knock it back professionally, with a practiced flick of
her wrist.  She grimaced and coughed a little as it went down, and he
laughed.  Scully shot him a pissed-off look, but the corners of her
mouth were twitching.  He saluted the woman seated across from him
with his flowered plastic cup, and imitated her.  It was a huge shot and
he felt it blaze a fiery trail down his esophagus.  Struggling, he almost
managed not to cough, but not quite.  Once he got started, he began
choking in earnest, and he had to grope for the glass of water Scully
pushed towards him.  Subsiding, he wiped his eyes and saw Scully was
giggling.  Would wonders never cease.

"Mulder, you forget, I'm Irish."

"Yeah, well, thanks for nothing." He wiped his eyes again and, standing,
peeked into the pots on the stove.  They were all boiling away.  When
he mixed their contents with cold water in the tub, Scully would have a
pretty good soak.  "You ready for bath-time?"

Scully nodded and began to get up.  "I feel a little better already.  I
think it was mostly not being able to move my leg for so long that did
me in."  She watched him begin carefully carrying the pots of hot water
over to the tub.  He had already brought in buckets of cold water from
the pump outside.  A little mixing and measuring, and she should be
in bath heaven.  The only thing missing was some bubble bath.  Curious
as to what passed for indoor plumbing in this remote spot, she ducked 
her head and peered under the tub; it looked as though the single pipe 
beneath ran straight down.  Did it empty out under the cabin?  She 
wrinkled her nose, amused at Franklin's priorities.  No running water, 
but a nice speedy connection for his modem. He'd get along just fine 
with the Lone Gunmen.

Oh man, she was really looking forward to this.  She had more than two
days of road grime to wash off.  She was already warm from the food 
and the bourbon, and lifting her arms above her head languorously,
she couldn't help but think of her upcoming bath as the perfect end to 
what had turned out to be a surprisingly nice evening.

Wrapped in her musings, Scully felt Mulder's eyes on her, watching 
her body lengthen and twist as she stretched out the kinks.  Swiveling 
her head to meet his gaze, a clear picture popped into her head, one 
formed without any conscious exertion on her part--the tub, full of 
bubbles and hot water, and Mulder in it with her, his long limbs
twining with hers as he soaped her shoulders.  Instead of shoving the
vision away with the professional brusqueness she had hidden behind 
for the last few years, she let the image linger for a moment, dulled into
sensual indulgence by liquor, candlelight and the heat of the stove beside
her.

Almost as if he sensed her thoughts, Mulder cleared his throat self-
consciously and the scene popped out of her mind like a bursting soap-
bubble.  "Need any help?"  He wasn't looking at her anymore, but his
face was a little flushed, and she wondered if he had had a vision of his
own.

"No, thanks."  Scully shook herself slightly and limped into the alcove
as Mulder added more cold water and tested the bath again.  She dipped
a hand into it and sighed with approval.  "This is perfect, Mulder."

Smiling at her words, he crossed away from her, retrieving the small 
candle from the table, and carrying it back to the shadowy alcove.  
Carefully setting it on the rickety table at the far end of the tub, he
pulled the curtain across the opening as he left, taking a last look at
her as Scully neatly toed off first one sock, then the other.

Tugging her sweater over her head, she heard him moving about the
cabin, cleaning up the table and refilling the pots.  She shivered as the
cold air hit her bare skin and reached hurriedly for the zipper on her
jeans.

As she got undressed, she thought about Mulder's demand for honesty.
Funny.  It hadn't been as difficult for her to comply as she had feared.  
The sense of vulnerability she had felt when she had first realized that 
her pulled muscle was going to be hindrance was gone, replaced by a 
quiet glow of serenity that she couldn't completely explain.

For years, she had expected so little from Mulder.  And now, he was
so much better -- better at caring for her, better at supporting her
without making her feel helpless -- than she had ever hoped.

Shaking her head with a sort of amazement, she wondered how Mulder
viewed their new and seemingly improved relationship.  Did he fully
appreciate what a leap it was for her to open up as she had?  Did he
understand how strange it felt for her to be dependent on someone
else?  To allow him to be responsible for her well-being?

She could hear him washing the dishes in the dry sink.  Had he saved
a little of that hot water for himself? she mused.  Or was he instead
reflecting that the whole escape-from-it-all backwoods experience
would be greatly enhanced by the addition of plumbing?  And maybe
cable TV.  More importantly, was he as sensitive as she was to the 
reality of her stripping naked mere feet away, a worn cotton curtain 
the only thing separating them?

Smiling ruefully at the notion, she wriggled out of her panties, her
last remaining article of clothing, and kicked them toward the heap
at the edge of the curtain.  Hands braced on its lip, she began to swing
her leg over the side of the tub.

Instantly, her leg and lower back seized up.  It was by far the worst
pain the limb had given her all day, and Scully couldn't suppress a
small cry of alarm.

"Scully?  Are you okay?"

She buried her face in her hands and fought the urge to howl with
frustration.  "Yes.  =No=.  I . . . I can't get into the tub.  The sides are
pretty high, and my leg . . ."

She knew he must have heard the catch in her voice because he was
already trying to soothe her.  "It's okay, it'll be a lot better after you
soak it for awhile."

True, she thought.  The only problem was, to do that, she first had to
climb into the blasted tub.

"Scully . . . ," he called after a beat.  Then, he hesitated, and she could
hear a catch in his voice, too.  "Would you like me to help you get into
the tub?"

She looked down at herself and tried to keep her voice steady.  "Mulder,
I'm not..."

Of course, you're not, thought the man on the other side of the curtain,
a dish towel clenched in his hands.  You're naked.  Nude.  In the buff.
And I just offered to not only sneak a peak, but cop a feel.

God, he was so noble sometimes, he made himself sick.

"I know," he interrupted hastily, babbling now just a bit.  "I'm sorry,
Scully.  I really am, I just don't know how else..."

"Okay," she said.  Her voice sounded calm again and he felt an absurd
sense of relief.  Good.  She hadn't taken offense, and he hadn't managed
to single-handedly sabotage all they had achieved relationship-wise over
the last couple of days.  Thank God.  He should have known that his
practical Dr. Scully wouldn't get a case of the vapors.  They could work
around this.  There had to be a better way of getting her. . . maybe she
could put on a big t-shirt or something before he helped her into the tub.
At least that would be some slight concession to modesty.  Franklin
probably had something like that on one of these shelves. . . .

Then suddenly his terribly reasonable musings melted away like ice
before a flame.  He couldn't think at all.  Not when he saw Scully's 
hand reach around the edge of the curtain and draw it back.

She was standing by the edge of the tub, completely nude.  Steam curled
up from the water and the light from the candle in the corner lapped at
her body, creating pools of light and darkness that delineated the exquisite
curves of her shoulders, the swells of her pink-tipped breasts, the triangle
of copper-colored curls at the apex of her thighs.

With acute clarity, Mulder heard his photographic memory go =click=
and thought, there is absolutely no way I am ever going to be able to
forget this.

Dragging his eyes from what had been, to that point, undiscovered
country, he finally met her gaze.  And found himself entirely incapable
of reading what he saw there.

"Do you think you could pick me up and set me in the tub?" she asked,
very politely, as if they were discussing whether or not it was going to
rain on Friday.

Her voice broke the paralysis that had frozen his brain and rendered
him incapable of speech.  "Uh . . . yeah.  Uh, . . . do we need to keep
your leg straight while I do it?"

She frowned slightly, and in the same polite tone she had earlier
employed, said, "No, I don't think so.  Just lower me in."

He ran a hand over his face and found he was sweating lightly.  He
was peripherally aware that he was already half-hard and that putting
his arms around her was going to eliminate any chance of solving that
problem before it got any bigger.

Both him and the problem.

He tossed the towel onto the counter, and took a tentative step towards
the naked woman opposite him.  He was actually bending down, circling 
his left arm around her, when she said, "Ah, Mulder?"

He jerked back a half-step and looked at her guiltily.

"Mulder, you're going to get your sweater and that shirt you have on
under it totally soaked if you don't roll up the sleeves.  In fact," she said
thoughtfully, looking him over, "I think you might just have to take it
off for this little operation."

Inwardly, he groaned. That was all he needed; he was hard as a fucking
rock now. Of course, she was technically right, easing her into the water
would invariably get him soaked too. . . . shit.  There wasn't any way 
to get out of it gracefully.  Trying to keep from looking at her face, he 
quickly stripped off his sweater and T-shirt together, slinging them 
behind him.

Turning to her again, something in him rebelled.

This was unfair.

Completely fucking unfair and uncalled-for.

There was no way he was going to get through this without enjoying
it.

No fucking way.

The realization emboldened him and he managed to, at last, look at her
face.  What he saw, floored him.

She was smiling.  Not a big, sunny smile, it was her small, enigmatic-
Dr. Scully-smile, the one that came with a slightly cocked eyebrow.

All the blood remaining in his brain rushed south.

Okay, then.

His hesitation finished, Mulder stepped forward and slid his arms
around his partner, winding one around her waist, and the other behind
her knees.  He stood up slowly and deliberately, taking his time, letting
his cheek brush her bare shoulder.  He savored her small gasp when his
three-day stubble scraped her skin.  Straightening, he shifted her weight
so that she nestled more securely against his body.  Scully clung to him,
one arm curved around his shoulders, the other twined loosely around
his waist.

The smooth press of her warm skin against him felt glorious.  Daringly,
he allowed himself a long, sweeping look, starting at her dainty, curled
toes, traveling up over her knees, dawdling on the dense nest of curls.
He shifted her weight lower, mainly for the pleasure of feeling her
rounded hip press into the tip of his solid erection, and his cock twitched
when she gasped again.  He let his gaze travel up the downy fuzz on her
belly, then up further, to the small, furled, rose-pink nipples and perfect,
creamy-pale breasts.  He lingered on her shoulders.  He had always 
enjoyed his infrequent peeks at them -- they were nicely rounded, with 
firm muscles that reminded him of her strength and contrasted with
her delicate, reed-thin collarbones.

Then, finally, he again looked at her face.  She was flushed.  Her eyes 
were slightly dilated, her lips parted, and Mulder knew with absolute, 
joyous certainty that she was as aroused as he was.  He held her gaze 
for a moment before inclining his head towards hers.  He brushed his 
lips along her hairline, pressed a brief, chaste kiss to her forehead, and
murmured, "Dana?"

She tipped her head back and met his eyes.  Hers were wide, shocked.
At him, or at herself?  Or both?  He wished he knew.

He flexed his thumb, stroking it along her leg.  "Want me to put you
in now?"

He could hardly hear her reply.  "Uh, . . . yeah."

Mulder took the two steps to the tub and bent at the waist, lowering
her in gently, carefully, as if she were made of glass, until she was
safely settled, submerged up to the tops of her breasts.  He withdrew
his dripping arms from the tub, and said, "Call me when you want to
get out, okay?"

"Okay," she murmured, her eyes never leaving his.

Mulder left the alcove, pulling the curtain shut after him.  Scully sat
completely still for a minute or more, listening to her heart pound.
Mechanically, she reached for the soap.

What the hell had she just done?

*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Continued in Chapter IX

"Antidote" (9/18) NC-17
by Rachel Howard
& Karen Rasch

Snowrider5@aol.com
Krasch@earthlink.net

Smut!  Get your smut here!!  That's right, boys and girls.  Here is where
it finally begins.  Please hide the young'uns.  Thank you.  :-)

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

October 27
Vaughn W. Franklin's Cabin

What the hell had she just done?

What about =him=?  He had more than met her halfway.  She could still
feel his lips on her forehead, could still smell his skin, feel him stroke 
her leg.  She closed her eyes, remembering the wave of heat that had 
raced through her when he looked her over, a kind of possessiveness in 
his gaze.

She began washing her hair, keeping her eyes shut as she tried to 
explain her own actions to herself.  A couple of drinks, a little too 
much closeness . . .  No.  Not enough to excuse what she had done.

Was she sorry?

She stopped rubbing the shampoo into her hair, her lids lifting,
and remembered the look on his face when he had kissed her.

Not really.

She started scrubbing again.  No matter how it had happened, she
had wanted him to touch her for years.  And now he had.

But exactly how far would they go?

She pondered that question until the bathwater turned tepid.  Her
fingers wrinkled like a newborn's, she managed to pull the stopper
out with her toes.  Then she sat there, watching the water swirl lazily
down the drain, and pondered some more.  Still, the answer to her
question eluded her.

Sighing, she stood up and toweled off slowly, wondering what to do
next.  Mulder had said to call when she wanted to get out.  But was
that really necessary?  Scully stretched the leg out to the side and lifted
it cautiously.  The hot water and whiskey had helped a lot.  She raised
it nearly to the edge of the tub before she felt a twinge.  Probably not
the sciatic nerve, then.  But she was still going to require assistance.
Steeling herself for that eventuality, she dried her hair and wrapped
the towel neatly around herself, tucking the end in carefully.

"Mulder?"

He appeared almost instantly, pulling the curtain back.  She saw that
he had shaved, and that he hadn't put his shirt back on.  "Need a lift?"

Nodding, she held her arms out to him, and he lifted her as easily as he
had the first time.  Instead of putting her immediately down, however, 
he carried her out of the alcove entirely.  Surprised at first, she felt her 
heart start to beat double-time when she saw he was heading for the 
bed on the far wall.  He had turned back the covers.  The sheets looked 
thin, but clean.  He carefully settled her atop them.  She felt a faint stab 
of disappointment when he straightened up rather than joining her.

"Did you say something about massage therapy before, Doc?"  He looked
perfectly innocent, but her pulse was speeding even faster.

"I think it would be beneficial, yes."

He grinned at her crisp, businesslike reply, but he was eyeing her bare
shoulders again with something other than amusement.  "I stink.  First
let me wash some of this topsoil off, then I'll see what I can do."  He
pulled the covers up over her, then headed for the alcove to take his bath.

Turning over onto her stomach, she listened sleepily to the sounds of
Mulder getting undressed.  She heard the echo of cloth sliding over 
skin, of water lapping against metal, of fire greedily consuming wood.  
Willing herself to stay awake, she closed her eyes, and tried to remember 
what Mulder looked like naked.

When had she last seen him like that?

After she had shot him in the shoulder, when she had realized that her
original plan -- to send him to New Mexico to talk to Albert Hosteen
while she tried to clear her own name at the Bureau -- wasn't going to
work anymore.  Had she been in love with him even then?  If she hadn't,
would she have risked everything for his sake?

She had driven him, feverish and wounded, across the country.  Taking 
his temperature at every stop, she found it had climbed to nearly one 
hundred and one degrees by the time they reached western Nebraska.  
She had struggled him, unresisting, into a motel bathroom, undressed 
him, and bathed him with cool water.  He was only semiconscious, and 
she was scared that she would lose her job, that he would die, or get 
better only to disappear so that he could chase his demons alone, leaving 
her for good.

"Dana?"  She drifted back part way and saw that he was sitting beside
her on the edge of the bed.  His hair was slicked back, and his damp
skin glistened in the dim light.  A memory, she thought in thanksgiving.
A dream.  This was Colorado, and he was well again, and she could
feel the heat coming off of him in waves.  She came all the way awake
and saw that he had turned out the overhead light and set the candle on
the table next to the bed.  The room glowed golden with only that stub
of wax and the busily burning stove to light it.

"Dana?" he murmured again.  His voice was uncertain.

She slid over a little farther, making more room for him.  His face
smoothed out as she welcomed him, worry lines disappearing.  He had
a towel wrapped around his waist, and a bottle of cheap lotion in his
hand.  "Still want that leg massage?"

She studied at him more carefully and saw that he wasn't sure, was
maybe just as confused as she was.  And all at once, she had the answer
to the question that had plagued her earlier.  Propping herself up on
one elbow, she stretched out her arm and grabbed hold of Mulder's free
hand.  Laying back once more, she guided him by the wrist to the slope
of her breast, her eyes locked on his.  Pressing firmly against the back
of his hand, she curled his fingers around the fold of toweling tucked
just beneath her arm.  She held him there until Mulder himself gripped 
the fold of nubby fabric.  Then, lifting both arms away from her body 
so that they framed her head upon the pillow, she murmured simply, 
"Yes."

Setting the lotion to the side, he tugged on the tail of toweling, easing 
it free.  Slowly, he unwrapped her, his knuckles grazing her tender skin, 
his fingertips trailing fire.  Drawing the moment out, savoring it.

And when she finally lay before him naked, when he had pulled the
towel from under her and tossed it carelessly to the floor, Scully had to
at last close her eyes.  Much as she wanted to, she could no longer lie
there watching him watching her.  Not with Mulder looking down at
her with four years worth of longing in his gaze.

Her lashes lowered, she heard him uncap the lotion and, sucking in her
breath, she shivered as the cold droplets hit her skin. "Oooh.  Mulder,
you're supposed to warm it up in your hands first."

"So you're bossy in bed, too?  What a surprise."  She snapped open
her eyes, all set to show him who was bossy, and saw that he was
smiling sleepily at her, teasingly, tenderly.  "Roll onto your stomach."

He began with the back of her thigh, then gradually worked up to her
hip, pressing firmly, working in a circular pattern.  His fingers stroked
along her skin, setting a gentle rhythm that pulsed through her.  She
knew he was trying to work the stiffness out of her leg, but his touch
was so undeniably erotic that she found herself easing her legs apart a
little, seeking to answer the ache between them.  Immediately, his 
fingers dipped lower, to her inner thigh, no longer rubbing, but stroking 
lightly, as if he were testing the texture of the silky skin there. Then he 
sighed, and slid his hand up to cup her ass briefly with both palms.  The 
bedsprings creaked and she felt him shift his legs, then lie down next to 
her.

Moving with slow, sensual languor, Scully opened her eyes and rolled 
onto her side, gazing at him.  Mulder smelled the sweetness of the 
shampoo and soap she had used in the bath.  "I just want to be sure that 
you're not getting more than you bargained for," he said, seriously.  His 
fingers still tingled from the feel of her skin and he had to fight the urge 
to nestle one of her breasts in his hand. "Are you sure you want to do what 
I think we're about to do?" He tried to keep his question neutral -- he knew 
he needed to give her a chance to back out before they went any further -- 
but his heart was racing.

She looked up into his worried yet hopeful face.  "I didn't plan any of
this.  But," and one small hand settled on his chest, "yes, I'm sure.  Are
you?"

He lifted his head and looked down at her small body before he met her
eyes again.  They were luminous, reflecting the candlelight, and he
wished he had the words to tell her how beautiful she was.  "Sure?  Are
you kidding me?  Do you know how long I've wanted to make love to
you?"

She stroked his chest, tracing the lines of muscle.  "Tell me."

He opened his mouth, then shut it again.  "You remember our first case,
in Oregon?  When the thunderstorm knocked the power out, and you . . ."

"Came down to your room in a total panic and practically got naked in
front of you?"

"Yes. . . . No.  It was when you hugged me.  But it's different, now."

He thought of long plane rides she had spent sleeping on his shoulder,
of the time she'd helped him face down Modell, of all the instances 
when he had left her behind because he was afraid for her, or of her, 
or both.  He felt her fingertip circling his nipple, then rubbing it softly.  
And suddenly it was torture to try to think at all.  "I'm not good at 
saying this stuff, Scully.  Can I show you instead?"

She smiled up at him.  "Yes.  Would you kiss me now, please?"

He smiled back and whispered, "See?  Bossy."  Then he did as he was
told, settling his mouth over hers.

The kiss was nearly as chaste as the one he had deposited on her
forehead earlier; innocent, as if she were not lying naked next to him.
Then he flicked his tongue once across her upper lip, teasingly, and
she sighed softly into his mouth.  Her lips parted under the pressure of
his.  And the kiss deepened into something raw and hungry, flavored
by years of wanting.  When he lifted his head, they were both gasping.

He reached for her, but she gently batted his hand away.  She grabbed
hold of the edge of the towel he still wore around his waist and tugged
it loose.  With an indulgent smile, he watched her slowly look him over,
his face shifting into a smug grin as he saw her eyes widen slightly
when they reached his erection.

"Hey, Doc?  You done checking me out yet?"

"Quit calling me that, Mulder," she muttered, examining his abdominal
muscles intently.

She took her time studying him, and he waited, restraining his desire
to touch her until she had looked her fill.  Finally, she rested her palm
against his cheek and brushed her lips over his chin, then lightly bit
the mole on the side of his face.  He felt her lips open against his skin
and turning his head to hum his approval, kissed her again, feeling her
smile.

Her weight shifted and her hand closed firmly around his penis.  He
squeezed his eyes shut and fireworks exploded behind his lids.  Her
mouth was warm and she tasted faintly of bourbon and of something
much more intimate, a Dana-taste that he loved immediately because
he knew he was tasting the essence of her.  She stroked him slowly,
from root to tip, and he thrust once, twice.  Hard.  Up into her fist.

He pulled her hand away and eased her onto her back, sliding a hand
under her lower back so that he could adjust her position.  He settled
between her spread legs and bent his lips to one nipple.  It was gumdrop-
hard and he drew it into his mouth, sucking hard and grazing it
repeatedly with his teeth until he heard her make a low, animal noise.
Her hands tangled in his hair, her hips shifting restlessly beneath him.
He shifted to the other breast and nuzzled it as he eased a hand between
her legs.

Scully heard herself cry out as Mulder sank two fingers into her at once.
She was almost embarrassingly wet, and he brushed his thumb against 
the source of that moisture before he began circling it around her clitoris.  
He lifted his head to kiss her again, and she met him hungrily, open-
mouthed and panting, reaching for his face, for the smooth, hot skin on 
his back, for any part of him that she could reach.  She felt his engorged 
penis prodding her hip.  She was moaning steadily now, and she could 
sense the tension building in her center.  When he took his hand away, 
she made a new sound, one which he interpreted correctly as 
disappointment.  Grinning evilly at her for a second or two, he pushed 
her legs farther apart and scooted down between them, to rest on his 
stomach.

She sighed with relief when she felt his mouth close gently around the
small bundle of nerves hidden in her folds.  His tongue flicked out to
worry at her clitoris, suckling and licking at it, as if trying to commit
her taste to memory.  He slid his fingers inside her again, three this
time.  Stretching her, teasing her, readying her for the invasion of his
rigid penis.  Slowly, he increased the friction with his tongue until 
she arched helplessly against him, crying out sharply as she came.
He rode it out with her, making it last as long as he could, then slowed
down, easing off gradually until he felt her relax completely once more.

Crawling from between her legs, Mulder laid back down beside her and
put his arms around her, holding her patiently as her heartbeat eased.
Breathless, she reached up for his head and kissed him deeply, tasting
herself there, her eyes squeezed shut.

"Are you still sure?"

His voice was rough with his need, but she knew he was asking for
permission.  "Oh, Mulder.  Please, yes."  She slung a leg over him and
opened her eyes.  His were clear hazel, warm and wonderful, and she
knew with perfect clarity that she loved him more than she had ever
loved anyone in her life.

He grasped her hip and rolled her smoothly onto her back.  She felt the
head of his penis nudging against her opening as he kissed her, and
then he was inside of her in one smooth thrust.

He was huge and hot, stretching her fully, and she sighed her pleasure.
He held perfectly still for a few seconds, breathing deeply, letting her
get used to the feel of him buried within her, and brushed another light 
kiss across her lips.  She edged her hips up towards him, wordlessly
urging him on.  Reverently, he murmured her name, soft and gentle,
and began to move.

They found their rhythm immediately, like long-time lovers.  Dropping
his head to her shoulder, he bit down, the impact measured.  In 
retaliation, she dug her fingers into the long muscles of his back.  
Mulder could only moan his satisfaction.  Breathing fast and hot, he 
bowed his head to touch his forehead tenderly to hers.  Feeling his 
gaze, she opened her eyes again to watch his face. Between surges, he 
stole another kiss, and she smiled up at him.

"God, Scully."

The weight of his body blanketing hers was exquisite; the taste of the
sweat sheening his skin drove her to lap at his shoulder for more.  Love
you . . . God, I love you, Mulder.  But she never spoke the words, letting
her body tell him as it joined with his.

He was moving faster now, and she rose to meet him, tucking her pelvis
to pull him deeper within her body.  Her leg throbbed quietly, rhythmically,
but she ignored it.  "Dana.  Dana.  I want to watch you come."

His sweet entreaty, whispered in her ear, husky and soft, made her stiffen.
"I, oh, I don't think . . ."

He drove smoothly into her again, hooked an arm underneath her and
rolled them over with a grunt, never leaving her body.  "Mmm. Yes,
you can.  Let me try."

The quick spin momentarily jarred her leg.  Sucking in a harsh gasp
of air, she froze just for an instant.  But, the pain didn't last long.  Then, 
palms braced against his chest, she looked down at Mulder.  His hair 
was feathered and mussed from her fingers tangling in it.  His cheeks 
were flushed; his lips glistened from her kisses.  He was beautiful.  
Pulsing with energy and heat, he laid beneath her, like the most docile 
of mounts, waiting for her to ride him.

Docile?  Somehow, she knew better.

Slowly, carefully, she started to move above him, rocking along his
length with small, shallow dips of her hips.  Tipping back his head,
and letting loose with a low, rough groan, Mulder deliberately licked
both thumbs and reached down between her legs, just above where
their bodies joined.  Moving in tiny, devastating circles, he began to
stroke her again.

The point of contact was electric and his caresses sparked a new fire
in her.  She rose higher over him before sinking back heavily upon his
length.  The feeble sounds coming from deep in her throat were steadily
building.  She could feel the wave rising in Mulder as well, sense him
struggling for control.  She wouldn't allow it.  Not for him.  No control.
Her eyes half-shut, her lips parted, Scully reached behind her to cup his
testicles in one hand, stroking gently.  He thrashed against her, his 
eyes squeezed tight in ecstasy.

Lying beneath her, slicked with sweat, his long, slim fingers teasing
her as he thrust up into her, focused on her pleasure, he was easily the
most erotic thing she had ever seen.  She tried to think of what else
she could do to please him but he had already taken her beyond 
coherent thought, beyond anything but pure sensation.  Pure joy.

Mulder moaned again, his stomach muscles tensing, the bucking of
his hips fierce and wild.  Scully knew he was trying desperately, but
wouldn't be able to hang on much longer.  Thankfully, she was close
as well.  The tension built in her belly, rising, spiraling, soaring.

And all at once, she took flight.  Resting her hand on his leg, she
ground down against him sharply, her leg forgotten, the pitch of her 
cries crescendoing as she found her release. Mulder tried to keep his 
eyes open to watch her orgasm.  But finally the wave of white-hot 
pleasure found him, and he shut his eyes once more, shouting low 
and hoarse as he followed her over the edge.

Shivering in the aftermath, Scully collapsed bonelessly onto him,
burying her face in the side of his neck.  Trembling himself, Mulder
wrapped his arms around her, murmuring sweet words of love, praise,
passion.

And, muffled, spoken from where she had tucked her face into the
hollow of his throat, she whispered her response.  "...love you, too."

Then, saying nothing more, they drifted off to sleep.

*      	 *	  *	*	*	*	*	*	*

Continued in Chapter X (Seems fitting, don'cha think? <g>)

"Antidote" (10/18)
by Rachel Howard
& Karen Rasch

Snowrider5@aol.com
Krasch@earthlink.net

All disclaimers can be found prior to chapter one.  This is 
just story.  No more smut for awhile.  We're back to a simple 
PG-13 rating for this chapter.

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

October 28
A Cabin Outside Gateway, Colorado

Mulder awoke to the smell of coffee, its familiar aroma rousing 
him from slumber with a gentle nudge.  Sighing quietly into 
the bedding, he sleepily blinked his eyes and tried to recall 
when exactly he had phoned down for room service.

Then, as he lay on his stomach, his arms wrapped tightly around 
his pillow, cool sheets encasing his sated body in starchy softness, 
another faint fragrance made itself known.  One that had nothing 
whatsoever to do with food or drink, but one which stirred his 
appetite nonetheless.

Scully.

That's right. . . .

The cabin.

The bath.

The bed.

Last night.  When all the elements had woven together so 
beautifully.  The planets had aligned.  The earth had moved. . . .

Oh yeah.

It was all coming back to him now.

Smiling with a kind of drowsy satisfaction, he inhaled once 
more, this time more deeply, reveling in the fact that he 
could smell her on the bed linens, under the covers, on his 
own skin.  It might have been masked by an unfamiliar soap 
and shampoo, but nothing could hide the unmistakable scent 
that belonged to her alone.  It was everywhere, surrounding 
him, saturating his senses.

Well, what do you know? he mused with a touch of whimsy.  
Scully had marked him, like an animal claiming something 
as their own.

Animals.

Claiming.

Yeah, there had been a little of that going on the previous 
night as well.

He had the scratches to prove it.

Then, as sleep slipped further and further away, a more 
detailed awareness began filtering back to his consciousness.  
Impressions of a long and almost sinfully enjoyable night.

The sound of Scully sobbing for breath, gasping high and 
helpless, as he moved over her, in her.

The sensation of her small hands clutching at his buttocks, 
his shoulders; digging into the muscle there, urging him to 
plunge deeper, harder, faster.

The sight of her beneath him, her lips swollen and parted, 
her lashes hanging heavy and low.  Her watching him, her 
gaze cloudy with arousal, soft with yearning.

And all at once, he missed her, desperately.  Wanted her beside 
him in that dead man's bed with a longing that was nearly 
powerful enough to assume form and mass.  He opened his 
eyes to look for her.

And smiled when he spied the object of his search.

The woman who had scant hours earlier used his back as an 
emery board, who had sapped his strength and will as surely 
as Delilah had Samson's, looked markedly different in the 
soft, early-morning light.  Gone was the seductress, and in 
her place was the sweetly rumpled girl next door.

Oblivious to his scrutiny, Scully padded about the cabin's 
kitchen in borrowed clothes.  Her limp remained, although 
it appeared less pronounced than it had the day before.  
Oversized rag socks covered her feet, bunching sloppily at 
her slender ankles.  Draping her torso was a vastly over-sized 
blue plaid flannel shirt, its hemline hitting midway down her 
thigh.  She had neatly folded back the garment's sleeves to just 
below her elbows, yet this small attempt at tailoring in no way 
disguised that she was in danger of being swallowed whole by 
her second-hand garb.  Her face was scrubbed clean, her hair 
pulled back in a high, lopsided ponytail.  It looked like she 
was doing a bit of laundry.  A small pair of lavender panties 
and matching bra were strung up over the sink, water dripping 
from them in fat, measured drops.

How odd, he realized with a start.  He had seen the woman 
fully dressed and he had seen her in the buff.  But, aside from 
that first time, ages ago, he had never seen Scully modeling 
the latest from Victoria's Secret.

Suddenly, he wondered just how long it might take for those 
delicate slips of purple to dry.

She must have sensed his eyes on her, because all at once she 
turned to unerringly meet his gaze.  Mulder pushed up on to 
his elbows, fiercely conscious of the fact that he was naked 
beneath the bedcovers while she, at least in some fashion, was 
clothed.

"Hey," she murmured from across the room, her voice throaty 
and a tad shy.

"Morning," he mumbled in reply, the corner of his mouth 
lifting in greeting.

"I'm . . . uh . . I'm washing out a few things," she explained, 
gesturing over her shoulder, a dish towel in her hand.  "After 
all, it's been a more than a couple days now, and it's not like 
I'm going to see a change of clothes anytime soon."

"True enough," he said evenly, wishing she would stop 
talking about nothing and simply come to him.  He wanted 
to touch her, to draw her into his arms and kiss her good 
morning.  To ease the ache that had seemingly begun  
throbbing the moment he had laid eyes on her.

But Scully didn't appear ready to do this, didn't seem to know 
precisely how to behave in this strange, uncharted stage in 
their relationship.  Mulder sympathized with her confusion.  
The night before, they had had candlelight and cheap bourbon 
to get them over the rough spots.  Yet, in the cold light of day, 
that buffer had vanished.  Now, it was just the two of them.  
Naked.  And nearly so.

"How's your leg?" he ventured, thinking this was safe, neutral 
territory.

Judging by her even-tempered response to his query, Scully 
agreed.  "Good.  Well . . . better.  It's not nearly as stiff."

"Are you going to be able to walk on it for any distance?"

"Yeah, I think so.  Shouldn't be a problem."

He nodded, watching her closely as, with a small smile, she 
turned to finish tidying up the sink.  Mulder had to hand it 
to her.  To the casual observer, Scully looked as if she were 
perfectly at ease.  Like they did this sort of cozy, domestic 
thing all the time.

Waking up side by side.

Her puttering about the kitchen.

Him lounging in bed.

Unless a person looked really, really hard they would no 
doubt miss the signs which pointed to a slightly different
reality.  Like the way her hands kept finding just one more task 
to complete.  First she had been wiping down the counter.  
Then, she had carefully returned the cleaning supplies to their
proper places.  Now, she was folding the fraying dish rag in 
her grasp with the kind of precision he usually associated with 
origami.  Tidiness was one thing, but her current fastidiousness 
bordered on the compulsive.

Yet what most set off Mulder's alarms were Scully's eyes.  He 
couldn't see them.  She stubbornly refused to meet his gaze for 
any length of time, choosing instead to focus on the floor, her 
hands, anywhere, but on his own increasingly troubled face.

"Hey, Scully," he said at last, his voice soft, his chin propped 
on his fist.

She instinctively looked up from her perusal of the towel.  
Then, true to form, her gaze skittered away.  "What?"

"Come here a minute.  Would'ja?  I promise I won't bite."

She arched a brow.

"I'd come to you," he murmured soothingly, "but I have a 
feeling it's kinda chilly out there." 

That earned him a soft chuckle.  "Are you telling me you 
aren't dressed for autumn in the Rockies, Mulder?"

"I'm telling you I'm not dressed, period," he retorted dryly.

She smiled again, and for just a moment their eyes connected 
and held.  "I know.  I remember."

"So do I," he told her, his voice rumbling low.

It was not his own nakedness he recalled, of course.  But hers.

She swallowed hard.  "Mulder . . ."

He didn't try and squash her protest with words.  Instead, 
braced on his forearm, he held out to her his hand; extended 
the woman he loved an invitation.

And waited to see if she would accept it.

It took a beat or two, but at last she left the toweling on the 
counter and crossed to the bed, her stride uneven.  Taking 
his hand with one of hers, she used the other to smooth the 
flannel plaid beneath her derriere, and perched beside him, 
settling herself even with his hips.  Balancing on his side, 
Mulder looked up at her, his fingers tangled with hers.  
"Scully . . . you're not regretting what we did last night, are 
you?"

Her eyes widened with what was to him a satisfying measure 
of shock and dismay.  "No.  No, of course not."

He nodded slowly, his gaze trained on their linked hands.  
"Good.  Because if you had said otherwise, I would have 
tried to do the right thing."

He stole a look at her.  She sat, her brows lifted, her head 
cocked in question.

"I would have told you not to worry about it," he murmured, 
his eyes averted, his thumb rubbing lightly over the back of 
her hand.  "That it was okay.  Just a one-time thing.  That it 
didn't have to mean anything.  Didn't have to change who we 
are or how we are together."

She didn't speak, didn't move; seemingly content to let him 
ramble. 

He slicked his parched lips and continued.  "And then, after I 
had tried my best to convince you, I would have done my 
damnedest to behave as if all of that was true."

"Mulder . . ." she whispered, her grip tightening on his.

"But it would have been a lie," he finished softly, lifting his 
shoulders in a small, helpless shrug.  "Every word of it."

He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss just below 
her wrist.  "I wouldn't change a single thing about last night, 
Scully," he said, looking at her once more.  Her big, blue 
eyes stared back at him gravely.  Shadows darkened her 
gaze.  But he couldn't discern their cause.  "I wouldn't trade 
a second of it.  But that doesn't mean that what happened here 
hasn't changed things for us."

"I know," she said quietly.  "I've been thinking about that . . . 
about us, ever since I got up this morning."

"Come up with anything you feel like sharing?" he queried 
wryly.

The corner of her mouth quirked.  She paused for a moment, 
gathering her thoughts.

"Mulder, you know as well as I do that I instigated the 
majority of what happened here last night," she began, her 
vision concentrated on her lap.  There, her free hand repeatedly 
bunched and released the hem of her shirt, kneading it, like a 
kitten seeking comfort.

"Scully . . . ," he mumbled in protest.

"I stood before you naked, Mulder, and asked you to take me 
in your arms," she said flatly, a vaguely sheepish cast to her 
lowered gaze.

He smiled. "Yeah.  I remember."

She peered at him through her lashes, her lips similarly curved.  
"Not one of my more subtle moments."

"Hey, you of all people know that subtle only rarely works 
with me," he said lightly.  

They looked at each other, their smiles lingering, their hands 
yet joined.

"I wanted you, Mulder" she told him simply, her tone hushed 
and husky.  "Badly.  To tell you the truth, I want you still."

He dipped his head in understanding, his cheeks suddenly 
flushed with heat.

"But we can't do this," she said, shaking her head.  "We can't 
let our feelings for each other get in the way of what we're 
here to do."

"What do you mean?  Are you saying you're worried we might 
get careless or lazy?" he queried with surprise.   "Because that's 
not going to happen, Scully.  We're not kids mooning over some 
crush.  I know better than that.  And I sure as hell know you do."

She thinned her lips and lifted her shoulders.  "I don't know.  I 
don't know what I'm saying.  All I know is that right now part 
of me wants nothing more than to crawl back under those covers 
with you."

Mulder took a deep breath and nodded, thinking just how good 
that sounded.

"But we're not going to figure out what happened in Gateway if 
we spend all day in bed," Scully said with a regretful shake of 
her head.

"No," he agreed ruefully.  "I don't suppose we would."

They sat there for a moment, each recalling the horrors they 
had seen before being discovered in the woods, steeling 
themselves for what was still to come.

Then, Scully smiled suddenly, almost as if consciously trying 
to dispel the gloom, the light in her eyes nearly impish.  "Sorry 
for needing to make this an all or nothing kind of proposition, 
Mulder.  But, I have to be careful.  You're just too damned 
distracting."

He chuckled warmly, squeezing her fingers with his.  "Hey, 
don't talk to me about distracting.  I'm not the one hanging up
my unmentionables all over the place."

She lifted a brow as if accepting blame.

"So what do you want to do?" he asked, aware as he did so that 
while his question sounded casual enough, a great deal was 
riding on it.  Possibly everything.

She pondered for a moment, changing her grasp on his hand 
so that it now lay nestled in both of hers.  "I want to get through 
this case alive.  For us both to.  But to do that, we have to be 
focused.  We can't go into a situation where some infectious 
disease might be waiting for us to slip up unless we're 
concentrating one hundred percent on the investigation.  Do 
you agree?"

He solemnly nodded.

She inclined her head in turn.  "With that in mind, I'm afraid 
we can't risk a repeat of last night.  Not while we're on assignment."

"And after that?" he asked, hoping he didn't sound as concerned 
as he feared he did.

"And after that, we figure out a way to make this work," she said, 
her gaze locked on his.  "That is . . . if you want it to."

"I want it to," he said firmly.

She smiled, her face transformed by its glow.  "Good.  So do I."

He looked up at her, the hunger he had suffered earlier intensified 
by her nearness.  And by the knowledge that, for the foreseeable 
future, he was going to be on the strictest of diets.

"Hey, Scully," he murmured, rolling onto his back and tugging 
her nearer.  She scooted forward, her hip rubbing along his.

"What?"

"Have we decided that from now until we get back to D.C. you 
and I will be back to our old platonic selves?"

The corner of her generous mouth lifted infinitesimally. "'Fraid 
so."

"Then do you think you could maybe do something for me?"

"What's that, Mulder?" she said, her voice laced with amusement.

"Do you think you could give me a kiss for the road?"

"For the road?" she echoed, her brow shooting skyward.

"For the road, for old time's sake--hell, for new time's sake," he 
said, drawing her gently but surely down onto his chest.  At last 
she rested above him, her forearms braced on his breast, her face 
floating inches from his, the slight weight of her upper body 
teasing his senses, reminding him of pleasures past.  "Think of 
it as an early birthday present if you have to.  I would just really 
like to kiss you now."

She pursed her lips and considered.

"Just one more time," he cajoled, his fingertips stroking lightly 
along her cheek.  "To tide me over.  Then I'll be good.  I swear."

She smiled tenderly.  "You swear?"

"Scout's honor."

"Okay," she murmured, nuzzling his nose with hers.  "Only you 
better make it a good one, Mulder."

"You got complaints about the way I kiss, Scully?" he growled 
in mock indignation.

She slowly shook her head.  "No. That's just it."

"What is?"

"I like the way you kiss," she whispered.  "A lot, actually."

"Yeah?" he said, his voice coming out dangerously close to a 
squeak.

"Yeah," she confirmed lowly, tracing his brow with her index 
finger.  "And now that I've had a chance to know what that's 
like--what you feel like, taste like--I know I'm going to miss 
not having you.  Like that."

Mulder swallowed thickly, wondering if Scully was purposefully 
adopting that marvelously sultry tone just to make him squirm a 
bit.

If so, it was working.

"You're planning on missing me even though I'm gonna be right 
here, Scully?" he mumbled, cupping the back of her head in his 
palms and guiding it towards him.

"I plan on missing your kiss," she told him, her breath softly 
bathing his lips.  "And . . . other things."

He captured her lower lip between his teeth and nibbled ever 
so lightly before echoing, "Other things?"

"Oh yeah," she whispered and lapped softly at his mouth with 
her tongue.  "Things you do very, very well.  So make me miss 
you, Mulder."

She brushed her lips against his then, teasingly.

"Make me miss you terribly."

And crushing her wonderfully soft mouth to his, Mulder 
realized that he had never before wanted to solve a case so 
badly in his life.

*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Continued in Chapter XI

"Antidote" (11/18)
by Rachel Howard
& Karen Rasch

Snowrider5@aol.com
Krasch@earthlink.net

Well, Rachel and I have discussed it amongst ourselves, and
it is with a heavy heart (well, two actually) that we have
decided to return to plot.  Enough of this romantic interlude
stuff!  On to ghost towns and mass murders!  It's the X-Files
way!!  <g>

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

October 28
Outside of Gateway, Colorado

Just shy of noon, the two agents left the shelter of Franklin's
cabin and set out for Gateway.  They had spent the morning
charting strategy and gathering supplies.  Luckily, their
absent host's particular interests matched their current needs.
They were able to appropriate binoculars, firearms, a battered 
U.S.G.S. topographical map, a compass, a battered backpack 
to carry their equipment, snow boots for Mulder, and two pairs 
of snowshoes.  

The largest chunk of time had been spent battling with bailing 
twine.  Mulder had let loose with more than a few muttered 
curses, but in the end they were both satisfied that the smaller 
pair of snowshoes would stay attached to Scully's boots.  This 
was a good thing.  With the snow as deep as it was and her 
Timberlands coming up only as high as her anklebones, there 
was no way she would have been able to keep up otherwise.  
As they made ready to head off, loaded down with Franklin's 
belongings, Scully couldn't help but feel badly about the way 
she and Mulder kept helping themselves to the man's possessions.  
Even though she knew deep down inside that their modern day 
mountain man was in no position to miss them.

And given his fate, would no doubt applaud their usage.

"You know, Mulder . . . something has been bothering about
that night in Gateway."

The sun was now almost directly overhead.  Warmed by its
rays, the pair tromped through the snow-covered countryside, 
the unfamiliar contraptions lashed to their boots hindering their 
progress, forcing them to move slowly and carefully so as to 
refrain from stepping on their own feet.  Or the feet of the person 
walking beside them.  Yet, despite the inconvenience, neither 
was complaining.  Were it not for the snowshoes, the fluffy white 
stuff would have been hitting Mulder just below the knees and 
Scully just above them.  Headway of any kind would have been 
next to impossible under those circumstances.

"Something has been bothering you?" Mulder echoed, his hand
reaching out to steady her as they crossed over a particularly
slippery bit of terrain.  The weather had turned moderate once
more, with temperatures hovering at what had to be close to
forty degrees.  But a great deal of snow had fallen.  It would
take a day or more of this kind of warmth before they saw any
substantial thaw.  "You mean =besides= the rows of body bags?"

She grimaced, recalling.  "Yeah.  Believe it or not."

"What exactly?"

"That rat."

"What rat?" he queried, frowning.

"The one I nearly stepped on," she said as they crested a rise
and began a cautious descent down the other side.  The pain 
in her leg had dulled to a throbbing, low-level ache.  But one 
unexpected slip or twist, and she would be back where she
had started from.

Which wouldn't have been all that bad were it not for the
agreement Mulder and she had reached earlier that day.  The
one that for all intents and purposes prohibited the sorts of
activities they had indulged in the night before.

In other words--no more long, hot soaks.

Or massage therapy.

Or anything else.

Mores the pity.

"Oh, that's right," he murmured as they sidestepped their
way down the slope, searching beneath the unspoiled whiteness
for footholds, for any rock or twig against which to brace
themselves.  "It was like a pet rat, right?"

"Or a lab rat," she mumbled, her eyes trained on her feet, her
fingers clenched on Mulder's sleeve for balance.  "I didn't really
get a good look at it.  All I know is it was white and very dead."

"So why is that important?" he asked as they once more reached
level ground.

"It may not be," she said with a small shrug and a shake of her
head.  "It may have simply been someone's pet.  One thing is for
sure though--it wasn't a natural occurrence of albinism.  Rats
like that don't survive to adulthood in the wild." 

Mischievously, he leaned in to her as they ducked beneath a
tree branch, a lop-sided smile tugging at his lips.  "Maybe he
was just big for his age."

She wrinkled her nose and shot him a sideways glance.  "It
just . . . it feels odd to me, Mulder.  That's all.  I mean . . . 
you have to admit--if it was from a lab, it's one hell of a 
coincidence.  Dead lab rat, dead town."

Saying nothing, he grimly nodded.

"If I can find the corpse, I'd like to bag it, maybe send it off 
to the labs in D.C. and see what they come up with."

"You saying you've got a hunch, Scully?" he teased as they
began picking their way carefully through the snow-covered
underbrush.

"What can I tell you," she said dryly.  "You're a bad influence."

"That goes without saying."

They hiked for awhile in silence, consulting both the map 
and compass from time to time.  They aimed their path in a 
wide circular swath, their plan being to ultimately approach
Gateway from the west, the opposite direction from that which
they had taken before.  This meant their journey was longer, but
ideally safer.  They weren't heading for a confrontation with
those responsible for Gateway's tragedy.  They only hoped to
observe.

Listening to the birdsong and the wind fluting through crannies
made of pine needles and twigs, Scully allowed herself a
moment's pleasure as they walked.  A short, indulgent minute
or two to simply enjoy the brisk autumn afternoon, to raise her
face to the sun like a child silently asking for a kiss.  Before
they had begun their trek, they had debated the wisdom in
making a daytime trip to town.  Scully had pointed out the
obvious danger of discovery in the cold, harsh light of day,
while Mulder had countered with the reasoning that while the
bad guys could more easily see them, they also stood a better
chance of spotting the bad guys first.

A sweep of brown caught her eye, the unexpected movement
startling her.  She lifted her head once more and caught sight
of a hawk circling lazily above the tree line, his wings wide
and still as he rode the air currents like a kite.  Taking a deep
breath to steady her nerves, she prayed his was the only patrol
they would run across that afternoon.

Mulder had followed the direction of her gaze.  Bringing to 
his eyes the high-powered field glasses hanging around his 
neck, he focused on the bird of prey above them, watching 
him swoop and dive, a smile lifting the corners of his mouth.

It had been those binoculars which had finally tipped the scales
in favor of them making their jaunt in the afternoon rather than
the evening

"We should be able to see for miles with these things," Mulder
had said excitedly, holding the glasses to his eyes and giving
them a test run out the cabin window.  "If we can make our
way to that elevation just west of Gateway, Baron's Peak, we
should stand a pretty good chance of seeing whether the town 
is still being watched."

She had crossed to join him at the window, curious to see what
sort of magnification the binoculars offered.  Taking the glasses
from him, she had leaned close and peered through their lens.
"I have to confess, Mulder.  I'm miserable at map-reading.
Which hill did you have in mind?"

"There," Mulder had said softly, his face near hers, his hand
pointing off just to their right.  "The center one there of the
three.  See that cluster of wavy lines?"  

"Okay.  I see it."

"So, what do you think?  Might not be a bad lookout point.  If 
it's as steep as the map indicates, there shouldn't be a lot of 
trees obstructing the view."

"Which also means not a lot of trees offering cover," she had 
murmured dryly.

"Shouldn't be a problem.  They won't know we're coming."

"All right," Scully had said with a nod, her brow furrowed 
behind the eye-piece.  "But I'm still not sure what we're 
supposed to do once we get up there.  Take a look around,
then run?"

Mulder had shrugged a bit sheepishly and folded his arms
across his chest.  "I don't know, Scully.  I think our best bet
is to play it by ear." 

At that, she had lowered the binoculars and looked at her
partner, her eyebrow cocked, not pleased at all with the
apparent improvisational nature of their plan.

Sensitive to her reservations, he had immediately laid his 
hand on her arm, his expression earnest, his voice low and 
soothing.  "Scully, I have the same doubts as you.  The same
fears.  And I would like nothing more than to get on that 
computer, e-mail Skinner to call in the troops, then catch 
the next flight out of Grand Junction.  But we know for a fact
that someone is on to us.  Was probably watching us from the 
moment we took off from D.C.  And that someone has got to 
have come from inside the Bureau.  No one else knew where 
we would be.  We made a mistake when we went through 
official channels.  We should have investigated this one on 
our own."

"And you're sure the information regarding our whereabouts
couldn't have come from the Gunmen?" she had asked, already
knowing how he would respond, but needing to ask the
question just to clear it out of her mind.

"No, Scully," he had replied at once.  "The boys would never
betray us.  After you, I trust them more than anyone."

Sighing, she had nodded wearily in agreement.  "I know.  I do
too.  It's just . . . it's so much easier believing the leak might be
on their end rather than on our own."

"I know," he had murmured sadly.  "That's why we have to
wait and go to the Bureau with something concrete.  If we
try and contact Skinner now, we run the risk not only of
disclosing our whereabouts, but of forcing Carl and his
buddies to destroy what little evidence may remain."

Evidence, Scully now silently grumbled as they neared the
final leg of their journey.  How could she have imagined when 
she had first joined the Bureau that such a basic thing would
prove so great a luxury.  Well, at least if all went according to 
plan, they would have in their possession a photograph or two
illustrating Gateway's desolation.  Maybe if they were really 
lucky they might even capture one of the moonsuited men on 
film.  While neither would necessarily prove what had happened
to the town's citizens, such pictures could perhaps persuade 
their superiors that something untoward had taken place.

They began their ascent up Baron's Peak with Mulder in the
lead and her on his heels.  They had been walking for upwards
of two hours, and although her leg had improved, it still wasn't 
one hundred percent.  Gradually, she began to tire, her condition
exacerbated by their mode of travel.  Over the course of the 
afternoon, Scully had learned a valuable, if painful, lesson. 
Snowshoeing required a weird gait, one that put stress on the 
muscles in her thighs and calves, straining them in ways in 
which they were not accustomed.  Again, that old, deep ache 
began inching its way down the back of her leg as they inched 
their way up the side of the hill.  The higher they climbed, the 
further she fell behind.  Mulder kept looking back at her 
worriedly, almost as if he were hoping she would call a halt to 
their march.  Or at least, ask for a rest.  But head bowed, she 
plowed on, determined to reach the top.  It was already mid-
afternoon.  They couldn't afford to waste the light.

At last, they hit the summit.  Surveying the valley below, Scully
braced her hands on her knees and bent forward at the waist,
trying to simultaneously catch her breath and ignore the fiery
twinge radiating through the lower half of her body.  

"You all right?" Mulder asked, his hand on her shoulder,
his brow drawn tight with concern.

"I'll live," she panted, her breath expelling in little puffs of 
steam.

He didn't look convinced.

"It's okay," she insisted, standing upright once more.  "Come
on.  Let's do what we came here to do."

With that, she crossed away to the edge of the incline.

To the side that overlooked Gateway.

Trailing after her, Mulder settled himself awkwardly atop the 
snow, stretched out on his belly so as to minimize his chances
of being seen.   After a minute or two she joined him, wincing 
as she lowered herself to his side.  Giving her one last look, 
her partner made no comment, choosing instead to simply 
bring the binoculars to his eyes, blocking her from view.

"See anything?" she asked quietly after a time, almost as if they 
were in danger of being overheard.

"No," he murmured flatly, his elbows braced before him.
"Not a damn thing."

"No sign of the trucks?"

"No trucks.  No people.  Not even a dog.  The place looks
completely deserted."

He handed her the glasses and she took a look for herself.
It wasn't long before she had to concede that Mulder was
right.  Not a soul wandered Gateway's streets.  No traffic.
Nothing.

The town was seemingly empty.

Haunted.

Its ghosts newly dead, and not at all at rest.

"It's kind of spooky, isn't it?" she whispered, a slight shiver
shuddering down her spine.

"What is?" he asked just as softly, his lips near her ear.

"It's like they were never there.  Like no one was.  Like nothing
ever happened there at all."

"We know better, Scully," he said, pressing his shoulder to hers
in comfort.  "We're their witnesses."

She nodded, and was just about to return the binoculars to Mulder
when she saw something on Gateway's outskirts, half hidden by 
brush.  

"Mulder, what is that?" she asked, peering intently through the 
glasses, realizing even as she fired her question that he couldn't 
possibly see clearly from this distance.  Not with the naked eye.

"What?  What are you looking at?"

"There," she said, handing him the binoculars and pointing to
the road running between Route 141 and Gateway, the narrow
two-lane strip of asphalt that connected the tiny enclave with
the world.  She couldn't be sure, but just the other side of the 
roadblock, hidden from anyone who might have been driving 
down the highway by a bend in the road, she thought she spied 
something.  She just couldn't tell what.  The sun reflecting off 
the snow was making it difficult for her to see.  "Do you see it?  
It appears as if there may be something in the gully there at the 
side of the road.  Something big by the looks of it."

He pointed the glasses in the direction she had indicated and 
stared long and hard, his brow wrinkled with concentration, 
saying nothing.

"What do you suppose that is?" she queried at last, her eyes
narrowed against the glare, craning her neck as if trying to 
get a better view.

At last, Mulder lowered the binoculars and turned to regard 
her, their faces close, his eyes glowing with excitement.  "I'm 
not sure.  But, I think that may be a truck, Scully.  Not a Hum-
Vee, like ours.  Something bigger.  More like a supply truck.  
And, call me crazy, but something tells me it didn't find its 
way into that ditch all on its own."

"What are you saying?" she asked a bit cautiously.

"I'm saying that it looks as if the coast is clear.  So we owe it
to ourselves and to the citizens of Gateway to get our butts 
back down this hill and check out that truck."

*      	 *	 *	*	*	*	*	*	*

Continued in Chapter XII

"Antidote" (12/18) **NC-17**
by Rachel Howard
& Karen Rasch

Snowrider5@aol.com
Krasch@earthlink.net

I think a content warning is in order for this chapter. It gets a 
little icky in this next installment.  Not mushy-icky, or sexy-icky 
(we figure the Noromos mostly bailed out sometime before ch. 9), 
but gross-icky.  Dead bodies and stuff.  Unfortunately, if you skip 
this chapter, you're missing important plot development.  So you 
decide.  

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

October 28 
On the Outskirts of Gateway, Colorado

Moving cautiously, they picked their way down the slope.  It 
was trickier than going up had been; Mulder tripped himself 
twice on the edges of his snowshoes.  Scully just kept her head 
down and tried her best to ignore the throbbing in her thigh.  
Finally, however, they made it to the edge of the forest.

They stepped out onto the shoulder of the unplowed road, and 
stopped.

It was perfectly quiet.

Far off in the distance, a plane hummed its way across the sky.  
But from the town, from the road, came no sounds of life at all.

They walked a bit further down the highway to where the 
barricade was set up, barring the curious from visiting tiny
Gateway.  Navigating through the sawhorses and sandbags, 
they made a very pleasant if unexpected discovery.

Mulder stopped dead in his tracks.  "What the hell . . ."

There, tucked away behind tightly packed grove of evergreens
lay a small fleet of Hum-Vees, six in all.

"What are these doing here?" Scully murmured in confusion.
"Why park these so close to the road and then walk to town.
That makes no sense."

"Unless you weren't planning to go to town in the first place."

"What are you saying?"

"What if whoever was assigned to these trucks were doing
border patrol?" he said softly, his brow furrowed in thought.

She nodded slowly.  "To keep people out."

He looked pointedly at the truck lying nearby in the ditch.  
"Or to keep people in."

Scully sighed, her lips flattened.  "So where did everyone go?"

Her partner shook his head.  "I don't know."

The truck they had spied from above lay on its side, boxes 
spilling out of its back.  It didn't look as if the vehicle had hit 
anything, and any skid marks that might have told the story 
of the accident had long since been covered by the snow.  

The two agents plodded carefully over to the back of it.  
Scully frowned when she read the lettering on the side of 
the box at her feet.

RACAL.

She reached down and pulled at the tape sealing the box.  
Mulder reached down to help her, and together they 
struggled with the box until one of the flaps gave way.

It held an orange plastic suit with bubble helmet.  

"Mulder, this is a field bio-containment suit."

"Like what they were wearing when we got here?"

"Yes.  But this truck is headed =away= from town."  She 
looked up at her partner.  The wind had ruffled his hair and 
dried the sweat on his face.  He looked worried.

"Mulder," she said slowly, "put it on."

"What, the suit?"

"Yeah, the suit."  She began tearing at another box.  "I have a 
very bad feeling about this."

Taking off the snowshoes and putting on the bulky plastic suit 
was no easy task.  Scully was still wrestling with the Velcro 
wrist and ankle closures on hers when Mulder called out from 
the front of the truck, his voice muffled by the helmet, "Well, 
I don't need a medical degree to tell you what killed this guy."

She picked her way through the snow to where Mulder stood, 
peering into the cab of the truck.

The driver had been shot point blank in the side of the head.  
From the way the left side of his face was missing, brains 
splattering the passenger seat, Scully guessed that someone had 
put a gun to his temple and summarily executed the man.  What 
had caused him to drive off the road into the ditch, however, 
remained a mystery.

Mulder put a hand on her shoulder.  "Shot trying to escape?"

"Maybe.  But escape what exactly?"

He could only shake his head.

"We've got to get into town, Mulder."

"Quaint as these snowshoes are, it's at least a mile into Gateway.  
I vote for firing up one of these HumVees.  What do you think?"

Scully nodded.  The snowshoes could puncture their suits, anyhow, 
and that simply wasn't an option.  "When was the last time you 
hot-wired a Jeep?"

He grinned mischievously at her through the clear plastic mask.  
"I'm pleading the fifth.  But I think I can manage."

As they waded through the snow -- a much more wearing task 
minus the snowshoes, which Mulder was carrying in one hand -- 
Scully drilled him on the do's and don'ts of wearing a bio-
containment suit.

Do examine yourself for tears or rips in the fabric.  Do tape up 
any hole, no matter how small.

Don't handle sharp objects that could pierce the suit.  Don't get
claustrophobic, panic and tear off the face mask.

"How am I supposed to keep from panicking?"

"I'm just telling you, Mulder, these things don't work if you 
breach them in any way.  You have to stay completely insulated 
from the infectious agent.  Viruses and bacteria are microscopic; 
they can get through even the tiniest hole in your suit. "  She 
stopped and made him stand still while she examined every 
inch of his suit for tears, then had him do the same for her.

Thankfully, they were both intact.

As it turned out, the first HumVee they reached had the keys 
in the ignition.  They clambered into the vehicle with some 
difficulty, trying to keep their bulky suits from getting caught 
on anything.

The engine roared into life, and they headed for town.

The HumVee churned through the snow as if it weren't there.  
Mulder was chortling and saying, "I have GOT to get me one 
of these" when they rounded the bend in the road.

Then, all at once, he stopped talking and hit the brakes.  When 
they ground to a halt, the agents sat and looked through the 
windshield in silence.

The steep hillside and the few buildings that had once been 
Gateway's business district had partially protected the road 
from the snowdrifts that had accumulated elsewhere.  But the 
blanket of snow that covered the small town didn't conceal 
the stacked body bags.

They were piled haphazardly on the front porch of the "Gas-
n-Go", and lined up along the narrow shoulder of the road.  
Despite the cold air, an odor hung over the town.  

"Why are these still here?" Mulder murmured.  "We saw them
. . . days ago . . . we saw them loading these on those trucks."

"We saw some of them loaded on trucks," Scully corrected
softly.  "We also saw plenty of them left behind.  Maybe the
first batch were taken somewhere to be studied."

"Then what are these?" he asked.

"To properly contain a severe biohazard such as this, all 
infected biological material--in other words, these corpses--
would have to be destroyed," she said, scanning the carnage 
before them with a narrowed gaze.  "Generally that would 
mean incineration."

He grimaced.  "So why not simply strike a match and get it
over with?"

"Destroying them all at once would require one hell of a bonfire,"
she said softly, her expression bleak.  "The resulting smoke 
would be sure to alert the authorities."

Mulder turned to regard her, a sickly sort of amazement shining
in his eyes.  "Are you saying . . .?"

"I'm saying that if I was in charge I'd burn only a few of them 
at a time and I'd burn them at night to camouflage what I was 
doing."

He nodded solemnly.  "That way it would be simpler to explain
away any smoke detected." 

"Exactly," she murmured.  "Slowly but surely the evidence
and the danger it imposed would conveniently vanish."

Yet, for some reason, it hadn't.  Not even all of the dead had 
been sealed neatly into plastic.  Uniformed figures were scattered, 
unbagged, in the mix.  The corpses of three young men rested
on the front stoop of the convenience store, leaning up against 
the wall.  If they had been alive, they might have been talking 
about their trucks and their girlfriends.  But none of them would 
ever speak again, Mulder thought.  One body was lurched 
drunkenly to the side, listing badly, and the agent was somehow 
bothered by this.  He longed to go sit the boy upright, to 
somehow make him more comfortable.  But other things were 
demanding his attention.

Like the large white tent pitched unexpectedly in the middle of 
the road.  While its function was still unknown, it had obviously 
been raised post-crisis.  A smaller tent snuggled up against it, its
purpose also a mystery.  The larger structure was big enough to 
hold a wedding party, and stood rakishly, almost gaily amidst the 
destruction.  The roof had held up admirably against the storm; 
snowdrifts along the sides of the makeshift shelter indicated that 
the snow had slid harmlessly off the top of the tent, and on to the
ground below.

The whole thing was unspeakably eerie.  The tent, the snow, the 
rotting dead.  

The silence.  Again.

The town was as still as a morgue.

Which was what it had become, Mulder noted grimly.

He turned to Scully.  "What could kill all these people this 
fast?"

She shook her head, the movement loose and strange inside 
the suit.  "Not much.  Whatever you do -- be careful."

He nodded.  "I'm going to look inside that tent.  Why don't 
you take a look at one of these poor people and see what you 
can figure out."

Going inside the tent was harder than he had expected.  The 
smell was more pronounced when he lifted the flap, and he 
had to steel himself against the stench.

It looked like a command center.  Lab equipment and 
computers were lined up neatly on long counters.  Cots draped 
in clear plastic lined the wall of the tent and a quick glance told 
Mulder all he needed to know; more dead.  He was thinking that 
he should summon Scully so that she could examine the victims
out of the cold wind when he heard a sound from the far side of 
the tent.

He picked his way carefully around the tables, remembering 
Scully's warnings about keeping the suit free of pinpricks.

It was a man.

The helmet of his bubble suit had been torn off and it lay 
limply beside him. Whatever had attacked him had rendered 
his technology and its defenses completely useless.  Looking 
down into his face, Mulder was shocked to see that it looked 
like the man had been beaten.  Livid bruises covered his face,
and his eyes were bright red, the skin around them puffy and 
swollen.

Whatever damage the beating might have done, it couldn't 
explain the bright red flecks that speckled his face, or its odd 
lack of expression, as if the man were wearing a mask.  

The still face didn't change, but suddenly the muscles around 
the mouth moved and the man said, quite clearly, "Hot."

"You're hot?"

But the man didn't answer.

Reaching down with one gloved hand, Mulder turned over 
the ID badge on the man's chest.  Dr. Lucas Criddon.  

Stepping back, Mulder said, "Dr. Criddon, if you can hear me, 
try to hang on.  There's a doctor here."  The man didn't move.  
Mulder ducked under the flap of the tent and dashed outside.  
He thought about pulling off his mask so he could call for Scully, 
but remembered the bodies lining the street and thought again.

He found her a few hundred yards away, kneeling over an open 
body bag.  She was completely still, staring down, and didn't 
move when he touched her shoulder.  He looked past her, down 
into the black zippered bag, and nearly vomited into the plastic 
face mask of his suit.

It was the remains of a man's body, and in all the years that 
spent following Scully into autopsy bays, Mulder had never 
seen anything worse.  

Small brown flecks of dried blood dotted the man's skin like 
an obscene parody of freckles.  His face looked eerily familiar 
until Mulder realized that what had struck him was the lack 
of expression and bruising he had witnessed only moments
before.  Thinking of Dr. Criddon's face, he guessed that the 
bruises he had attributed to a beating had instead been caused 
by whatever sickness had killed this man.  

Blood had dried in streaks down the side of the corpse's face 
and had run down his neck.  But the streaks of blood didn't 
stop there.  It almost looked as if the man had been =sweating=  
blood.  And the body looked bloated, like it had been decomposing 
in the bag for weeks.  But it couldn't have been; it was cold, the 
town had been alive and well a week and a half ago; and surely 
even these men wouldn't have left corpses to rot in the street?

Worst of all was the =smell=, the rancid odor that rose from 
the body.  It was rank and thick, an earthy, rotten stench more 
stomach-turning than the inside of an exhumed grave. 

Scully reached down and touched one fingertip to the corpse's 
arm.  She pressed down gently, and the skin immediately split 
under her touch, separating like the skin on a badly rotted peach.  
Blood spilled from the breach, staining the fingers of her glove.

Mulder staggered backward a step, then two.  I will not throw 
up, I will not throw up, he chanted silently.  Scully stood, her 
glove still dripping, and he saw she was white under the mask.  
Somehow emboldened by his partner's disquiet -- he had seen 
her cheerfully sit down to a rare lamb chop ten minutes after 
finishing an autopsy -- he managed to catch his breath and tell
her, "There's a live one in there, a doctor.  Barely alive, though."

"Is he conscious?"

"Semiconscious.  He said something when I found him - 'hot.'"

"Hot?"  She was so pale, paler than he had ever seen her before.  
"I need to talk to him." She brushed past him towards the tent. 
He wordlessly followed her back inside.  

Dr. Criddon was lying where Mulder had left him, and his 
eyes opened slightly when Scully read his lapel tag and called 
his name. 

"Dr. Criddon, I'm Special Agent Dana Scully, FBI.  I'm a 
doctor.  Can you talk?"

The man's lips moved, but no sound came out.  The agents 
bent down and this time the word was audible.

"Hot.  Got to."

They waited, and finally he whispered, "Hot agent." 

Mulder was as confused as he had been a half an hour ago, 
but looking at Scully's horrified face, he could see that the 
words had some meaning for her.  Must be doctor-speak, like 
the scrawl they use on their prescription pads, he thought.  
Criddon's red eyes were fluttering, but he was trying to speak
again.

"Filovirus."

This time Scully's gasp was audible.  "Jesus.  Are you sure?  
Which one?"

It was nearly thirty seconds before the doctor responded, and 
his jaw flapped weakly as he tried to summon the breath to 
speak.  With a detached kind of horror, Mulder saw that the 
man's tongue looked like raw meat.  

"Rings.  But.  Not.  Like.  Marburg."  A rattling sound was 
coming from the man's chest.  He gasped twice, and said.  
"Journal.  Laptop.  File Gateway...password Antidote."

There was a sound like fabric ripping, and Mulder realized 
it was coming from inside the man's body.  Suddenly, the 
agent smelled the same putrid stench that had earlier emanated 
from the body bag.  It was all Mulder could do not to gag
on the hideously foul odor.  Then Criddon began to convulse, 
limbs flailing.  

And Mulder feared that the hideous twitching dance the
man performed in his death throes would be all his own 
stomach would need to send it over the edge.

Scully grabbed the arm of his orange suit and was pulling 
him back, away from Gateway's last survivor, when they were
both drenched by the spray of black fluid that geysered up 
from the man's gaping mouth.  He was vomiting, Mulder 
realized, vomiting blood and a much darker substance that 
spattered their suits and his face shield.

Scully was yanking on his arm, shouting at him, but he barely 
registered her words, staring instead with horror at the dying 
man.  

"Mulder!"  She was clutching a laptop computer, her gloves 
still stained with blood and worse.

"We have to get out of here, Mulder!  Right fucking now!"  

Distantly, he saw that she was terrified and thought, shock.  Or 
something pretty close to it. That's what I'm feeling. 

"We have to get out of here and decontaminate!  Whatever you 
do, don't open your mask or take off your gloves!"

She didn't let go of his arm as she led him across the tent.  He 
hadn't seen this exit before -- it was that of the smaller tent, the
one pitched flush against the larger structure in which they stood.  
They ducked into what was almost an antechamber, and Scully 
picked up something that looked like a super-soaker.

Which it effectively was, he realized, as his partner ordered, 
"Turn around and stretch your arms out."  He did, and she began 
spraying him with a clear fluid.  Bleach, his nostrils told him, 
before his eyes began to sting from the fumes.

She sprayed him for a long time, front and back, then handed 
him the pump sprayer and said, "Now me."

He did as he was told, watching the bleach wash the blood and 
black stuff off her suit.  She was still pale under the mask, but 
calm.  She was studying the computer.  When he stopped 
dousing her, she said,  "We're going to have to decontaminate 
the laptop, too.  I don't know what it'll do to it, but we can't
take the chance of bringing it outside otherwise."

He nodded, and turned the sprayer on the computer.

When she finally signaled him that it was okay to stop, his 
arm ached dully from the effort of working the pump.  
Wordlessly, she then pushed open the tent flap, letting the 
sunshine and clean air spill in, and slipped outside.  He 
picked up the laptop and followed her.

"Keep the suit on for now," she ordered.

He meekly complied.

They made the trek back to their HumVee and the drive to 
the perimeter in silence.  Mulder tried to concentrate on the 
swishing sounds their suits made when they moved, on the 
smell of bleach -- anything but the corpses they had left behind.

Scully picked a different HumVee from the still row of 
vehicles, slipping behind the wheel without a word.  She made 
no effort to remove her Racal suit, and he followed her lead, 
fitting himself into the passenger seat with some difficulty.  

They were a good two miles past the roadblock when she pulled 
over. 

"We can get out of these now."

He climbed out and stripped off the layer of plastic.  He could 
smell his own sweat, rank and familiar, a relief after the bleach 
and the bodies of the dead.  As soon as the suit was off, he took 
two steps to the side of the road and threw up.  

He continued heaving long after the last remnants of their long-
ago breakfast were gone.  Scully rested one cool hand on the 
back of his neck, but didn't say anything until he had stopped.  
He sniffled painfully, cleared his throat and spat, trying to 
clear the awful taste from his mouth.

She was still wan, but composed.  "Are you all right?"

"Yeah," he rasped, his throat still burning from bile.  Spitting 
again, he said,  "That was..."

"I know."  Her face was sweaty but calm.  They each stood
for a moment willing away the images blazing just behind their
eyes.  Then, leaning heavily against the side of their vehicle, she 
spoke once more.  "Do you know what a hot agent is?""

He shook his head.  "You?"

She sighed.  "It's a highly infectious biological entity.  What 
we saw back there was what happens when a hot agent 
moves through a population."  She rubbed her hand wearily 
across her forehead.  "I've read about devastation like that 
before, but I never thought I'd see it for myself.  A filovirus.
Jesus Christ."

"What's a filovirus?" he asked, slouching beside her.

"It's a family of viruses that includes Marburg and the various 
strains of Ebola."

That rang a faint bell in Mulder's brain.  "Ebola?"

"Yes.  The deadliest virus known to mankind.  It's a Level 
Four biological hazard."  He made an inquiring noise, and she 
explained, "Diseases are categorized by their deadliness and 
infectiousness.  For example, HIV is Level Two.  It's very 
deadly but relatively hard to catch -- you have to come into
intimate contact with body fluids from an infected person.  
Ebola and Marburg are both Level Fours -- extremely deadly 
and very easy to catch.  Theoretically, both can be transmitted 
through the air."

"How would they crop up here?"

"Good question.  No human outbreak of either disease has ever 
been recorded in America.  Most epidemiologists think they 
originated in sub-Saharan Africa.  But something's bothering me, 
Mulder.  Even the hottest strain of Ebola --it's called Mayinga -- 
it only has a ninety percent kill rate."

"'Only'?  That means it kills nine out of ten people that get it, 
right?"

"Right.  But =everyone= back there was dead, Mulder.  Everyone.  
And do you remember what that poor man said?  Dr. Criddon?  
He said it was ring-shaped.  Well, there's only one known ring-
shaped filovirus -- Marburg.  And Marburg isn't nearly as deadly 
as Ebola."

"So that means that..."

"That it isn't Marburg."

"What is it then, Scully?"

"Something worse."

*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Continued in Chapter XIII

"Antidote" (13/18) 
by Rachel Howard
& Karen Rasch

Snowrider5@aol.com
Krasch@earthlink.net

Our endless thanks to Cindy, our priceless expert in the field, 
our very own personal virologist who gave us invaluable help 
on this chapter, along with much-appreciated encouragement.  
May she never EVER get nasty infections from her lab work!

As usual, if you want the standard disclaimers and information, 
you'll have to go back to chapter 1.

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

October 28
Vaughn W. Franklin's Cabin

Scully sat in the stove-side chair, hunched over the laptop 
they had salvaged from what had once been Gateway, 
Colorado.  Mulder was stationed at Vaughn Franklin's desktop, 
writing a detailed memo to the Lone Gunmen, recording the 
devastation they had seen and Scully's interpretation of what 
Criddon had told them.  

Darkness had descended hours before.  Still stunned by that 
afternoon's events, neither agent had particularly noted the 
passage of time.  They had returned to the cabin in near 
silence, each engrossed in their thoughts.  Exchanging 
nothing but the most innocuous of small talk, they had taken
care of basic needs: changed clothes, washed up, kindled a fire, 
and eaten dinner.  Scully had cooked.  Soup and sandwiches.  
Mulder couldn't recall tasting either.  

He straightened up, back cracking after nearly an hour of 
typing, and looked at his partner.  She was still reading Dr. 
Criddon's field journal.  He studied her for a second or two, 
inexplicably fascinated by the vulnerable nape of her neck.  
It gleamed in the lamplight like ivory, exposed by the 
forward sweep of her hair as she bent over her work.

Unaware of his scrutiny, Scully kept her eyes glued to the 
small computer screen, her concentration palpable, even from 
half a room away.

Mulder wondered what information she was gleaning from 
Criddon's tortured accounting.  They had gotten into the file 
labeled "Antidote" without any trouble, hoping that its title 
was indicative of its contents.  However, it seemed the good 
doctor had possessed a twisted sense of humor, because the 
very first entry had dashed their hopes.

*****
October 23

RACAL suits not in shipment.  Ordered team out until they do 
arrive, but Dacus and Cook already out collecting samples in the 
half-hour before I arrived.  Issued reprimand; this is the problem 
with researchers who haven't done a tour of duty on the other 
side of the line.  Regular Army USAMRID, even CDC-trained 
scientists don't make mistakes like that.  Had them de-conned 
and then quarantined for forty-eight hours, mainly to teach them 
a lesson.  Nothing like a good scare.

Numerous dead civilians.  Team One began preparations for 
disposal, postponed for the present; need to determine if remains 
pose health threat.

Personal note:  Clearly, our orders were deliberately vague.  No 
sign at all that the reports from Team One were hysterical or 
stress-induced; even from this necessary distance I can see 
physical symptoms that should warrant concern from any 
medical specialist, particularly in a bio-containment operation.  
Whatever Agent M is, our team needs more information to treat 
these cases effectively.

Summary of first order sent:  bio-containment suits; equipment 
necessary to intravenously feed patients.  Reportedly, Agent M 
has no known antidote; requested clarification on origins of 
agent.

Sent samples back to lab for analysis under electron microscope - 
backup to field analysis.  
*****

*****
October 24

RACAL suits in. Suited up and performed initial exam of effected 
members of Team One. Results inconclusive, but symptoms are 
startling.  Seven members of Team One in advanced stages of 
disease; massive subdural bleeding, most unresponsive, one or 
two belligerent, not lucid.  Symptoms seem almost certain to be 
of infection from Agent M, but method of transmission unclear. 
***** 

Disheartened, Mulder had stopped reading at that point and 
made his way to Franklin's computer.  Now, reading over his 
missive to the Gunmen, he made a swift decision and cc'd 
Skinner.  Whether or not the A.D. could be trusted with the 
information, in their present predicament, it seemed better to 
tell as many people as possible what they had seen in Gateway.

Sending off the email, he turned to regard again at the small, 
auburn-haired woman opposite him.  Scully was nibbling 
on her lower lip as she read, and the sight filled him with 
unexpected tenderness.  Without her, he would have walked 
into the town unprepared, and would probably have died 
within the week from the unknown disease.  He wanted to 
go over to her and bury his face in her hair with a kind of 
thanksgiving, but resisted the temptation, smiling inwardly 
at the censure he imagined it would earn him.

His brief happiness faded when she raised her head and looked 
at him.  She was pale.  "Mulder, I can hardly stand to read this.  
I can't imagine what it was like for Criddon to live through it.  
He was probably clinically insane when he wrote the last couple 
of entries.  Filoviruses affect the brain. . . " Her voice trailed 
off as she glanced back down at the laptop's screen, swallowing 
hard.

He got up, crossing to stand just behind her, and gently laid his 
hands on her shoulders.  Bending his head, he pressed a soft kiss
to the back of her neck, nuzzling with his lips the curve of skin 
that had only moments earlier commanded his attention.  She 
shivered beneath his mouth.

"Mulder . . . ," she murmured in breathy rebuke.

Oh, that's right.  That sort of thing wasn't allowed.

Regardless of how badly they both needed the comfort.

Straightening, he sighed and came around to squat in front of 
her, resting his hands heavily on her knees.  "Why don't you 
come sit down at the table and try to summarize it for me?  
Most of the stuff in the entries I read didn't make a lot of sense 
to me."

If he couldn't touch her, he could at least speak to her.  Try to
get her to approach this thing as a team, rather than wrestling 
with their fears and their mutual disgust for the horrors they 
had seen on their own.

Scully wrinkled her nose, but complied, trailing him back to the
scarred wooden trestle table.  They sat, he at its head, she just to
his right, their elbows braced against the stained pine, their heads
close together.  "I know you got the general gist, but it gets worse 
after that," she began.  "Much worse.  Criddon's team was sent in 
to evaluate what was going on with Team One.  Apparently, that 
team had an epidemiologist on it but he didn't know what they 
were dealing with and the team wasn't adequately prepared for 
the disease we saw back there.  So they sent Criddon's team, 
Team Two."  She sighed, her eyes flickering away from his.

"It looks like the first two men on the scene - Dacus and Cook - 
probably got infected when they went to get samples, and maybe 
they infected the rest of the group.  Or maybe not; Criddon 
couldn't figure it out, and I can't either, not from reading his 
notes.  All Criddon knew going in was what you read; that there 
was an infectious agent out there, but he was told it was treatable.  
From what we saw back there - it isn't."

Mulder grimaced, his expression pained.  "I got that general idea.  
So what is it?"

She shrugged.  "Criddon thought it was an engineered version 
of Marburg.  Someone tried to take the Marburg virus and make 
some strategic changes to it."  Her voice had grown strident, 
bitter.  Mulder stared at her, confused by her sudden vehemence.  
"Don't you get it, Mulder?  Mengele looks like a schoolyard bully 
next to these men.  They deliberately attempted to take a dreadful 
disease and make it even more terrible.  This virus was intended 
to be a weapon of mass destruction."

"I'm sure you're right, Scully," he said gently, reaching for her 
hand.  His touch seemed to calm her and she took a deep breath 
as he asked, "But how did they do it?  How did they try to change 
the virus?  What were they trying to make it do?"

"Kill more people, faster," she said tiredly.  "That's what 
efficient weapons of mass destruction do.  I don't have all the 
answers we want, Mulder.  The only thing that seems clear at 
this point is that somewhere along the line, they screwed up.  
The virus did something they didn't expect it to do.  I don't 
think they intended for it to go airborne, but it did."

He nodded, slowly beginning to be able to put all the pieces 
together into a cohesive whole.  "So Team One got it by 
breathing it in from the infected people or from the bodies?"

"Criddon thought so.  He thought it was a spontaneous 
mutation."

"And Marburg isn't normally transmitted through the air?"

"No one's sure that it =isn't=.  There's just so much that isn't 
known about Marburg.  But this one =is= airborne.  That's one 
difference," she said, ticking it off on her fingers.  "Two, it's 
much deadlier."

That seemed evident enough.  "Any other differences?"

"I'm not sure yet.  Criddon was at a loss to explain how the 
disease got into the population in the first place.  The initial 
victims have very little in common, but close examination 
revealed that all had small bumps or lightly abraded areas 
on their extremities, usually the hands, that are consistent
with insect bites.  But no one's even postulated that Marburg 
is carried by insects.  So that's another point of departure." 

She rose, shaking her head, and returned to the laptop.  
Scrolling down the screen, she searched for a moment, her 
brow furrowed.  Then, finding what she had sought, she looked
up and caught his eye, her expression drawn with concern.  
"Listen to this.  This entry was made two days ago."

"Lost O'Malley and Sowrey this morning.  Sowrey had seemed 
to be responding to the AZT combination, but went into a coma 
at 5:45 AM; sloughed his gut before pronounced dead at 10:53 
AM."  She glanced up again and added, " 'Sloughed his gut' 
means that he shed the lining of his intestines through his anus.'"

Twisted in his chair to face her, Mulder winced.  "Christ.  Is 
it all like that?"

"No, some of it's worse," she said, without looking at him.   
"Want me to stop?"

"No."  Horrible as it was, she needed to share some of this, he 
thought.  He would never want her to have to bear the burden
of this alone.

She nodded, slicking her lips with her tongue.  Then, taking a 
deep breath as if to brace herself, she continued, "'We are all 
dying, all of us.  This has been a terrible drama, a farce played 
out with my team and Team One the unwitting actors on a stage 
not of our choosing.  I am afraid, Susie, that you will never know 
what overtook us here and cut us down.  I am afraid that we are 
going silent into the night, that no one will hear our rage as the 
light dies all around us.  I love you, Susie, more than I could 
ever tell you, even if words were not failing me in this dark and 
terrible place."

She stopped, her eyes still trained on the screen.  Deeply troubled,
Mulder bowed his head as well, his gaze focused on his hands.  
He waited without saying anything for a long minute, then asked, 
softly, "Was that the last entry?"

"No," Scully said, her voice thick.  "There's a little more, but 
it doesn't make much sense.  I think the virus had invaded his 
brain by then.  And there are other entries in here that I want 
to look at; inventories of equipment used, observations of the 
scene.  Things like that.  I might be able to tell you more from 
those."

This time he did not try to discipline himself.  He simply went 
to her, fell to his knees, and wrapped his arms tightly around 
her.  She relaxed against his chest, balancing the laptop carefully 
on her lap, and said, muffled by his shirt, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be."  

She took a slow, shuddering breath.  "No, I'm sorry because I 
messed up."

He tilted her chin with his fingertips so he could see her eyes. 
"How?"

"In my fear . . . my panic . . . I forgot the most important thing.  
A sample.  We need a sample, Mulder, or all of this has been 
worthless.  Without a sample of the virus, we have no proof.  
And no hope of ever succeeding where Criddon failed.  Of 
finding a cure for whatever this thing is.  We're going to have 
to go back to Gateway to get one."

He shook his head in disgust.  "You're right, Scully.  I should 
have thought of it before."

She gave him a wan smile.  "I think our minds were elsewhere."

He chuckled grimly.  "Yeah.  Like on self-preservation."

They were silent for a time, content to simply rest against 
each other.

"We should go first thing tomorrow," Scully said at last, her
voice quiet, but resolute.  "We don't know when the men
responsible for this might decide to come back and clean
up their mess.  And I don't know about you, but I don't 
want to be wandering around Gateway when they return."

Lips thinned, Mulder shook his head.  "No.  That's one party
I wouldn't mind missing."

Dropping a kiss on her cool, silky hair, he stood and
strode away from her, his hands shoved in his jeans pockets,
his head tipped towards the ceiling in thought.  "That's what 
I don't get, Scully."

"What?" she queried, shutting down Criddon's computer.

"Why leave Gateway unguarded like that?  You and I both 
know not everyone involved with whatever happened there is 
dead.  The real masterminds behind this fiasco are undoubtedly
safely tucked away, directing the action from a distance.  So, 
why did they pull everyone out?  Why not keep a detachment
on watch?  Hell, with the way things stand now, =anyone= 
could have wandered in, not just two curious FBI agents."

She shrugged.  "We don't know how long it's been like that.
Until today, there was still life in that place, still someone
to report to the powers that be."

"Not with any coherency, judging from those entries you
were reading," he countered.

She sadly nodded in agreement.

They pondered for a time; Mulder pacing, Scully stowing 
the laptop away for safekeeping.

"I don't know why Gateway was deserted save for the dead," 
she at last said thoughtfully as she carefully opened the stove 
and added more wood to the fire.  "My gut reaction is to
believe that whoever did this was initially as shocked as we
were."

She stood and, brushing the wood chips from her palms, 
crossed to stand before him.  "I may not be able to tell you 
what exactly killed those people, Mulder.  But I can tell you 
one thing."

"What?" he quietly asked, his fingers stretching out to toy
with a lock of her hair.

"What happened in Gateway was not planned.  Not by the
men we found, and not by the people who sent them there."

He nodded.

"The ones responsible are probably doing exactly what we are;
they're reviewing what they know of the situation and trying
to figure out what the hell to do next."

"What do you think we should do next?" he asked.

"After we get that sample?" she queried.  Mulder nodded
once more.

"Get us and it back to Washington as soon as possible, and 
hope to God someone there can come up with a way to stop
this thing."

		*	*	*	*	*

October 29

The following morning dawned almost perversely beautiful.  The
sun shone blindingly upon the snow, reflecting off its crystals 
so they glittered like diamonds.  A brisk yet mild breeze stirred 
the brush and trees.  Squirrels chattered noisily as they dashed 
from trunk to trunk, chasing each other in a game to which only 
they knew the rules.

Yet Dana Scully was aware of none of this.  Her focus had 
narrowed to one thing and one thing only.

Get the samples and get out.

Upon awakening, she had begun repeating this inside her 
head over and over again.  Like a litany.

Or a prayer.

She and Mulder had arisen soon after sun-up.  They had spent
the night in each other's arms, lying close and quiet, drawing
strength from the embrace, but taking matters no further.  
They each knew now was neither the time nor the place for 
other things.  To Scully, it seemed almost sacrilegious 
to contemplate physical pleasures when a town of rotting 
corpses awaited redemption just a few miles away.

So they had refrained, lying instead chastely beneath the covers, 
sketching their plans in hushed voices until sleep had swept 
over them, drowning them in oblivion.

They had decided to approach matters much as they had the 
day before.  Lashing on their snowshoes, they hiked through 
the woods surrounding Gateway, avoiding the road until the 
last possible instant.  Her leg was still slightly sore, but thankfully 
not as much a hindrance as it had been previously.  She was able 
to keep up with Mulder without greatly overexerting herself.

By mid-morning, they had reached the Hum-Vee they had
abandoned the day before.  It lay half-hidden behind a stand
of tall, narrow pines.

And inside it, lying neatly in the cargo hold like shed snakeskin,
were the Haz-Mat suits they had worn less than twenty-four 
hours before.

"I am =really= not looking forward to this," Mulder muttered
beneath his breath as he stood in the vehicle's rear doorway
and moodily contemplated what was to come.

"Me neither," she assured him, laying a comforting hand on
his rigid forearm.  "So, let's make this quick."

After first carefully checking the gear for any tears or worn 
patches, they suited up, their eyes watering from the bleach
fumes still clinging to the material.

"I'll drive," Mulder volunteered as he eased himself behind the 
wheel.  "You have your weapon ready.  If we see anyone at that
roadblock, Scully, anyone at all, I'm punching the gas and not
letting up until I hit ocean." 

"I doubt even this Hum-Vee has that big a gas tank," she 
murmured dryly, her voice echoing inside her helmet.

He smiled at her from behind his visor, the effort lop-sided
yet warm.  She rested her gloved hand on his arm once more.

"Let's get the show on the road," Mulder said.  And turning
the key in the ignition, he threw the car into drive.

Taking her job as co-pilot seriously, Scully craned her neck,
searching for sentries as they approached Gateway.  Yet, 
nothing caught her eye.  The road was clear.  They didn't 
even pass any vehicles headed in the opposite direction.

The whole thing gave her the creeps.

"Remind me never to complain about Beltway traffic again,"
she mumbled.  

"You lonely, Scully?" Mulder queried lightly, sparing her an
almost playful sideways glance.

"No," she told him seriously, turning her attention away from 
the road to pin it instead on him.

He nodded slowly.  Their eyes held.

"We're almost there," he assured her.

They made it past the roadblock without incident.  After 
conferring with his partner, Mulder drove the Hum-Vee to
just outside the central tent before killing the engine.

"Criddon had nearly a fully-staffed lab here," Scully said
as she disembarked, one of Franklin's dated but well-oiled 
Smith and Wessons held tightly in her grip.  "We should be 
able to find the specimen containers, scalpels, and everything 
else we need to take samples.  We can disinfect the containers 
themselves just like we did the laptop.  It's not foolproof, but 
it's the best we're going to be able to do."

"What kinds of samples are you planning on taking?" 
Mulder asked as he came around the vehicle to walk beside
her, his weapon now drawn as well.

"I'm thinking I should probably take one of some still relatively
healthy tissue and some of tissue that has already begun to
decay."

He grimaced, his mouth pulled tight.  "Do you think there's 
still any 'relatively healthy tissue' left to be had?"

She lifted her brows and shrugged.  "Well, I suppose there's 
Criddon . . . ," she began, her voice trailing off.

He nodded.  "He was the last to die."

They had reached the front flap of the tent.  Mulder held it
open for her; she ducked beneath his arm.  Everything was
just as they had left it.  Tables lined with equipment, cots 
sagging with corpses.

Criddon, twisted like a discarded doll, gazing unseeing at 
the canvas covered sky.

Scully looked down at the dead man, covered in his own vomit, 
the evidence of his final agony spattering the floor around him.
Her stomach began to churn and clench, and her eyes moistened 
yet again.  This time, bleach was not to blame.

"You know, I realize this is one hell of a time to get squeamish,
but I don't think I can cut Dr. Criddon," she confessed softly, 
her head bowed.  "Not after reading his notes . . . his journal
entries.  Mulder . . . it feels as if it would almost be a desecration.  
An invasion of his privacy."

Shaking her head in self-directed disgust, she turned away.  
"Listen to me . . . I sound ridiculous."

Mulder crossed to stand behind her, and laid his hand on her
shoulder, the caress awkward with their suits separating them.  
"You don't sound ridiculous, Scully."

She pivoted to regard him, still not wholly convinced.  "I don't
sound like a scientist either."

"No.  You sound like a human being.  Someone who recognizes
that their fellow human beings are something more than lab
rats," he said, the words muffled behind his helmet.

She nodded ever so slightly.

"And that's a hell of a lot more than can be said for the men
responsible for this disaster," he finished, his expression bleak.

She smiled for him, the effort strained but genuine.  "Thank 
you."

His eyes warmed.  "You're welcome."

Taking a deep breath, she squared her shoulders.  "Let's get 
this over with."

With Mulder trailing behind her as a kind of assistant-in-
training, Scully quickly gathered the tools she would need for 
her task.  She had been right in her assessment of Criddon's 
lab.  Specimen containers were plentiful.  Setting her gun to 
the side, she grabbed several of these, a scalpel and some 
toweling, and got to work.

"Do you remember what we talked about yesterday?" she
queried.  "These instruments clearly weren't ordered with 
this kind of operation in mind."

"Why?"

"They're too sharp.  If the epidemiologist had known he'd 
be working in a field biocontainment suit, he would have had 
blunt instruments.  Be damn careful - these scalpels are wicked.  
It's too easy to breach the suits with stuff like this," she said, 
frowning over her work, her delicate hands moving precisely 
even hampered by the bulky gloves.

"Some of these men look to be in better shape than those on 
the street," Mulder said, gesturing to the bodies laying in state 
in what had been a sort of makeshift infirmity.

She crossed the floor of the tent, thinking to offer her own 
opinion on the subject.  One raised eyebrow ultimately sufficed.

"All things being relative," her partner said with a wry tilt 
of his head.

Yet, in the end, she agreed with him, and was able to obtain 
from one of Criddon's last remaining patients a sample of
tissue that was still days away from the sort of decomposition 
they had witnessed on the older corpses.

"Let's head outside for the rest of it," she suggested, a long
dormant claustrophobia stirring more strongly to life with
every minute spent cloistered behind those white cloth 
walls.

"Good idea," he replied.

Together, they tromped back out into the bright October
sunshine.  Handing her gun and the specimens they had 
already collected to Mulder, she crossed to the nearest body 
bag, knelt beside it and, steeling herself, took similar samples 
from the remains encased within.

Mulder hung back a discreet distance.

She couldn't say she blamed him.

Satisfied that they had finally secured what they had come for, 
she stood once more.

"Okay.  Let's head over to that sprayer--," she began, her newly
obtained samples cradled carefully in her palms.

When something large and dark bounded out of nowhere, 
and launched itself at her back, knocking her and her samples 
to the ground.

"SCULLY!"

Later, she would have to ask Mulder just where the dog had 
come from, why they had not noticed it earlier.  When 
questioned, he would tell her that the large Labrador mix had 
shot like a skinny black bullet from between two of Main Street's 
businesses, seemingly hungry, terrified, and desperate to defend 
what had been until quite recently its home.

She never got a good look at it.  Not until after it was dead.
She was too busy rolling from beneath the beast, samples 
crushed to her breast, intent both on saving the specimens 
and giving Mulder a clean shot.

"Get clear!  Get clear!!" he urged from somewhere above her.

She struggled to comply, turning furiously on the snow covered
ground, the dog's strangled growls roaring in her ears.

When, at last, she was rewarded.  A single shot rang like a bell
tone in the hushed mountain sky.  A horrible, pinched yelp of 
pain chimed in almost simultaneously from right beside her, 
the sound awful and piercing.

Breathing heavily, she lay on her back, stunned, staring up at 
the cloudless blue above her, the tissue samples still clutched 
tightly in her hands.  

"Scully . . . Oh my God, are you all right?" Mulder asked
frantically as he loomed over her, blocking the sun from her 
view.

"Yeah," she whispered.  "Yeah, I think I am."

"He didn't bite you, did he?" her partner asked, extending a 
hand to help her up.

Laying the specimens on the ground beside her, she ignored 
his hand and shakily pushed herself up to a seated position.  
"No.  No, he didn't bite me."

"Oh, thank God," Mulder muttered fervently, his arms 
gesturing weakly, almost flailing, the gun forgotten in his 
grip.  "Thank God.  Then everything is all right."

Scully just sat there, numb, unable to meet his eyes.

And felt the snow that had seeped in through her now 
lacerated suit trickle cold and deadly down her spine.

*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Continued in Chapter XIV