"Antidote" (14/18)
by Rachel Howard
& Karen Rasch

Snowrider5@aol.com
Krasch@earthlink.net

Disclaimers, etc. are found back at the beginning.  This is
simply story.  Thanks so much for sticking with us this long.

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

October 29
Gateway, Colorado

Dana Scully was in shock.

Or at least she thought she might be.  She sat unmoving on 
the snow-covered earth, blinking slowly, breathing fast and 
hard.  She was aware in some distant, fragmented way that 
odds were good the frosty, tainted air had already breached her 
bio-containment suit, trickling in through the gaping furrows 
marking her back like lash strokes.

Yet all she could think about was the dog responsible.

It was stocky and black, with a single blaze of tan running 
down the center of its wide, blunt snout.  A mutt.  With long 
legs and big paws.  And thick, jagged nails.  Judging by its 
body type and the shape of its ears, she thought it was probably 
a mix of Labrador and Shepherd.  Or had been.

It was dead now.  

Like she soon could be.

"You shot him," she mumbled numbly to her partner.  He 
stood before her, his gun still clutched in his hand; their 
samples and her weapon scattered on the ground nearby.
Their eyes met through their visors, but the sun's reflection 
kept his expression largely hidden from her.  She wondered 
if she appeared as great a mystery to him.

At that moment, she very much hoped so.

"Yeah.  Do me a favor and keep it from the NSPCA, all right?"
Fox Mulder quipped, regarding the downed animal regretfully.  
"I didn't =want= to shoot Rover here, but he really didn't 
leave me any choice."

"No," she quietly agreed, her eyes drifting from his to stare
vacantly at the array of specimen containers peppering the 
whiteness surrounding them both.  "He didn't."

"Give you a hand?" he offered, his gloved palm extended
towards her once more.

"Uh . . . I think I'd like to just sit here for a minute," she
dodged, her gaze flickering again to his, then away.  "I . . . 
um . . I feel a little shaky.  You know?"  As long as she 
remained seated they could pretend all was well, she reasoned 
with a kind of skewed logic.  It was only when she stood she 
would have to explain to Mulder what had happened.

Only when he caught sight of the gouges in her protective wear 
she would have to tell him farewell.

"Take your time," Mulder said.

"Thanks," she murmured softly, grateful beyond all measure he 
had unwittingly granted her a reprieve. 

Mulder nodded and, pivoting, crossed away from her to stand
instead over the canine, seemingly contemplating his hand in 
its demise.  "Do you suppose this is the one Vaughn saw?"

"Vaughn?" she echoed dumbly, her brain still alarmingly 
sluggish and dull.

"Yeah.  Remember, he said in his letter a dog ran out in 
front of his truck?  I wonder if this is the same one."

She turned her head to look up at the man she worked with.
He was staring down at the carcass near his feet, his attention 
diverted from her.  Good.  Even stepping around her as he 
had, he still hadn't noticed the damage to her suit.  "I don't 
know," she said, struggling to her feet, careful to keep her 
back hidden from view.  Her knees seemed to lack their usual
strength and she had difficulty gaining her balance, especially 
with her weakened leg.  "I suppose it could be the same.  
Maybe he got scared away when the town was overrun by 
strangers, and, with the snow and everything, didn't wander 
back until things . . . quieted down."

"Where he found us," Mulder muttered ruefully, glancing 
up in her direction.  "Or, more accurately, =you=."

Lips thinned, she nodded.

He cocked his head as he considered her, his eyes narrowed.
"Scully, are you sure you're okay?"

Tell him, Dana.  Tell him now.

She shook her head, her gaze skittering away yet again.

Facing her once more, he took a step towards her.  She 
retreated an equal distance from him, her bad leg nearly 
buckling in her haste, her fear.

"What's wrong?  Is it your leg?" he queried, his hand 
reaching out as if to steady her.  "Let me help you.  The 
ground is still pretty slippery."

Get the samples and get out get the samples and get out . . .

Before he could touch her, she stayed him, her arm straight 
out in front of her; her palm, a flesh and blood stop sign.  
"Mulder, I need you to do something for me."

Even through his helmet, she could see he was confused; 
his brow was wrinkled in consternation.  Still, he responded 
to her request readily enough.  "Sure.  Anything."

She took a deep, shuddering breath.  "Take the specimens, 
and go to the de-con tent.  I'll spray you down there."

He shrugged, then nodded, his befuddlement yet evident.  
"Fine.  I figured as much.  I know the drill."

"Then I want you to get out of here and deliver those
tissue samples back to D.C."

Something in her voice must have tipped him off.  Ever so
subtly, he paled, a kind of sickly horror dawning on his face.  
"And just where do you plan on being?"

She swallowed hard.  "Here.  Or at least . . . close by."

"Scully, what the hell . . . ?  What are you talking about?" he 
muttered, the sound harsh and cutting. 

Almost as sharp as the claws that had ripped open her suit.

He tromped towards her, slipping a bit on the snow, his stride 
aggressive yet awkward.  She stumbled back a few more steps, 
desperate to keep some space between them, not certain she 
could do what had to be done if he was touching her.  But 
Mulder was too quick and, sliding to an abrupt halt before 
her, grabbed hold of her arms, preventing any further attempt 
at escape.

"What's going on, Scully?" he asked, almost bellowing his 
query into her upturned face, the twin Plexiglas shields 
separating them doing little to muffle the volume.  "Just 
what the fuck is going on?"

He was terrified.  Scully could see the fear shining plainly 
in his hazel eyes.  She knew exactly how he felt.  But rather
than strike out, rail against fate as Mulder did, she ruthlessly 
squelched the urge to panic.  Now was neither the time nor the
place.  She would never convince him if she surrendered to
her despair.

 "The dog . . . when it jumped on me, its nails tore the 
fabric of my suit," she said, her words quick yet composed,
as if she were relating to him the most mundane information
imaginable.

I think this sun may continue all afternoon.

I'm very likely only days away from vomiting up the lining 
of my stomach.

"=What=?" he gasped, spinning her around for confirmation.  
His manhandling made her dizzy and losing her equilibrium, 
she pitched forward towards the snow.  But with surprising 
speed, Mulder's fingers curled around her biceps, their pressure 
almost painful, and yanked her upright.

"Sorry.  I'm sorry," he mumbled in apology.

"It's okay."

His hands tightened around her slender shoulders once more,
this time in reassurance.

Her back to her partner, Scully stood very still and let him 
examine the damage.  She was curious, after all, not being 
able to actually see the tears herself.  In contrast to his earlier,
almost violent maneuvering, his touch was gentle.  She felt 
his fingertips trail lightly across her upper back, then down, 
quivering ever so slightly as they stroked over her body.

And crazy though she knew the impulse was, she couldn't 
help but remember the similar way his hands had trembled. 
Only two nights before.  When he had caressed her rather 
differently 

"Oh, my God. . . . my God, Scully.  My God."

The hushed, broken-sounding words pricked at her heart like 
a pin.  Drawing blood.  And tears.

"How bad?" she asked.

"There are three long tears running along your left shoulder 
blade, and two shorter ones below those on the right.  They
end just above your waist.  He must have come at you at an 
angle."

It was worse than she had thought.  Struggling for composure, 
she asked, "Do they go all the way through?"

"Yeah," he answered hoarsely, his hands finally dropping 
away from her.  "All the way through."

Well, that settles that.

"Mulder, with the integrity of my suit compromised, there is 
a very good chance I have been infected with whatever killed 
these people," she said thickly, turning back to face him.

"You don't know that," Mulder gritted out.

"No, I don't," she replied evenly.  "But I can't pretend it isn't 
possible.  Neither one of us can."

"Forget it, Scully.  I--"

"I can't go back with you, Mulder," she said flatly.  "Not until 
I know for sure it's safe.  The disease is too virulent and the 
risk is too great."

"But the sprayer . . . we could--" 

"According to Criddon's notes, the agent appears to be 
airborne," she said wearily, turning to stumble away from 
him, her legs still fighting her efforts.  She had to put a 
little room between she and Mulder, had to escape from the
pleading in his eyes.  She knew if they gazed at each other 
long enough, he would spy a similar desperation in hers.  
He'd see her terror, her weakness.  Her need.

And then he'd never leave her.

"I'm breathing it into me . . . =have been= breathing it in ever 
since that dog jumped me," she said, her booted toe digging
angrily in the dirtied, trampled snow.  "Bleach isn't going to 
kill a virus that's floating around in the air."

He said nothing to that.  Scully almost chuckled at his silence.  
Poor Mulder.  She had him at a disadvantage.  He didn't possess
enough understanding of the disease to effectively combat her
science.

Unfortunately, this was one argument she wouldn't have minded 
losing.

"Do what we came here to do," she instructed in a hushed yet
heated voice, her head bowed.  "Take the samples to someone 
who can figure out a way to prevent this from ever happening 
again."

"While you do what?" he asked from just behind her, 
something unidentifiable in his tone, the words sounded 
strangled to her, almost garbled beyond recognition.

She shrugged.  "I don't know.  One thing's for sure--I don't 
want to stay here.  But I can't take a chance of infecting 
anyone else.  I guess I should probably hike to one of the 
other Hum-Vees, drive it out a ways where no one is likely 
to stumble across me, and wait.  With the speed at which 
this thing develops, I would know in a day or two if I've got 
it."

"Alone?"  

For some reason, the mere mention of that word made her 
throat tighten painfully.  How cruel really, how ironic.  To 
be forced to say goodbye so soon after they had truly found
each other.  "I don't really see much of a choice, Mulder, do 
you?"

He said nothing for a time.  Curious, she turned to peer over 
her shoulder at him.  Mulder stood in profile to her, staring 
at the ground, his hands on his hips.  She couldn't see his 
face.  

"Mulder?"

Hearing his name, he lifted his head and looked at her, 
his countenance carefully devoid of expression.  Then, 
saying nothing, he pivoted and stalked away from her 
down Gateway's wide, main thoroughfare.

Chewing on her lip, she tried not to be hurt by his 
abandonment.  After all, she knew he wasn't marching 
back to the cabin; he was only blowing off a little steam.  
And besides, she was the one who had insisted on their 
separation in the first place.  It would be decidedly perverse 
to find fault with him simply for following her advisement.  
Still, she ached to see him go.  

God.  If she thought this was tough, how in the world did she
think she was going to be able to handle driving off into the
wilderness to die?

One step at a time, she silently coached herself.  One step at
a time.  Sighing over the twisted workings of her mind, she 
bent to retrieve her gun and their samples, her focus on what
was to come.

Not on what was right before her.

Or rather, behind.

"So you want me to just let you go it alone, huh?"

Mulder had returned.  She started at the sound of his voice, 
and, standing, turned to face him, her hands full of specimen 
cases. 

"I think that would be best," she murmured, the sun blinding
her when she gazed upwards, hoping to meet his eyes.

"Well, Scully, you know what Mick and the boys say . . . "

She heard rather than felt the narrow metal bracelet encircle 
her wrist.  It locked around her with a soft, sibilant, snick. 

"You can't always get what you want."

Stunned and confused, she looked down at her arm.  A shiny
handcuff hung like jewelry from her wrist.  Mulder raised his
arm, displaying the manacle's mate.  It shone just as brightly
from its place on his wrist.

Her partner had chained the two of them together.

"Mulder, what the =hell= do you think you're doing?" she 
cried, tugging against the restraint, livid and afraid.

"Watch it, Scully!" he warned.  "You'll rip our suits."

Instantly, she stopped her struggles.

"Explain to me what this is all about," she demanded, her 
voice low and fierce.  "Where did you even get these?"

"Borrowed 'em off a dead guy," he said, gesturing back the 
way he had come.  "One of the uniformed men.  Figured he 
wouldn't be needing them."

"While you would?" she countered with a growl.

"Yeah.  I would."  Through the visor, she could see him 
lift his brows, almost blithely.  As if this were all a game.  
"I've done some thinking.  And I've decided you're not going 
anywhere without me."

"Obviously," she retorted, shaking their joined wrists.  "Give
me the key, Mulder."

"When we're out of these suits and back at the cabin."

It was all she could do not to weep with fury.  "That's crazy.  
You're crazy!  By then, it will be too late!"

"Sorry, Scully.  This is non-negotiable."

She took a deep breath, and tried to get her nerves under
control.  Reason.  She had to reason with him.  "Mulder, think!  
Would you?  Just =think= for a minute.  There is no reason 
for you to do this.  Why take the chance of infecting yourself?  
Even if I do have whatever this thing is, you can't help me."  

"Scully, I don't know what kind of man you think I am," he 
said harshly, "but I can't just turn around, go home, and leave 
you here to face this on your own."

"That is =exactly= what you have to do!" she countered heatedly.

They looked at each other for a beat, their gazes molten, neither
backing down.

Finally, her composure cracked.  "Mulder . . . please."

He could only shake his head.  "I'm sorry, Scully.  I can't."

She wanted to scream, to rage, to throw herself on the ground
and indulge in the mother of all temper tantrums.  But instead,
she told him quietly, "If I am sick, you've just committed suicide."

His expression grim, his eyes infinitely sad, he said softly, "I 
can live with that."

She looked at him hard, never more furious with him than she
was at that moment.  "Did you ever stop to wonder if I could?"

		*	*	*	*	*

She spoke not another word to him as they prepared to leave
Gateway for the last time.  Moving carefully, clumsily, they 
doused each other and their samples with bleach.  Rivulets of
the irritant trickled inside Scully's ruined suit, stinging her skin.
She said nothing.  The pain was almost welcome; it took her 
mind off of Mulder, his unwanted heroism, and the awful end
to which it all might lead.

Apparently sensing he had pushed his luck to the breaking
point, he refrained from goading her.  Instead, he behaved with
the utmost restraint and courtesy.  Moments that might have
turned weirdly comical, such as their clambering aboard their
Hum-Vee whilst wearing both containment suits and handcuffs,
were handled without comments or quips.  It wasn't easy, but 
they managed it. 

Please let the rest of it be this simple, Scully prayed, her eyes
trained unseeing out the Hum-Vee's window.  Please let this 
be nothing more than a scare.

Please don't let Mulder's feelings for me be what kills him.

		*	*	*	*	*

And as the Hum-Vee rumbled to a stop just past the barricade
barring entrance to Gateway, a man secreted on a hillside less 
than half a mile away peered through his binoculars.  He lay
on his belly, camouflaged in the snow.  Waiting until the 
vehicle's occupants disembarked, the watcher reported to his 
superior.

"You were right, sir," he murmured into his radio.  "The pair 
are leaving as they did yesterday, changing vehicles.  Should I 
give the order to apprehend?"

"No," crackled a static-filled voice.  "We know now where 
they're holed up.  Maintain watch there.  Make no move to 
intervene unless they attempt to leave the cabin itself."

"And should that occur?" the watcher queried as he regarded
the couple in question making their way around the four-
wheeler.  He couldn't tell for certain, but it looked as if they 
were holding hands.

"Do what you need to do to keep it from happening."

The watcher nodded, not surprised by his orders, and although 
he knew such questions were not encouraged, inquired, "Sir, 
why aren't we just taking them out of the game?"

But rather than earning him a rebuke, his remark garnered only
an indulgent chuckle.  "When you play chess, you don't sacrifice 
your pawns without reason."

"But our orders were originally--"

"Your orders were originally given you by fools," the voice 
hissed.  "Had I known of them, they would never have been 
issued."

"Yes, sir," murmured the watcher, chastened, wishing he had 
never raised the subject in the first place.

But after a moment's silence, his superior's former good mood
was seemingly restored.  "You and your men keep an eye on 
Agents Mulder and Scully.  You may surprised how useful 
they can be."

Smiling to himself, the leader of Project Agent M took a long, 
slow drag on his Morley.

"I know I often am."

*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Continued in Chapter XV

"Antidote" (15/18)
by Rachel Howard
& Karen Rasch

Snowrider5@aol.com
Krasch@earthlink.net


See chapter one for disclaimers.

Sorry for the delay in posting.  Sometimes that real life stuff
is tough to avoid.  Enjoy!

Special thanks, as always, to our very own specialist, Cindy, 
who makes sure we get the science right.

I was a theatre major and Rachel is in p.r.--what the hell 
do we know?  <g>

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

October 29
Outside Gateway, Colorado

"Scully, will you just =talk= to me, goddammit?"

His partner had fumed silently all the way back to the cabin.  
Stealing infrequent glances at her while he drove hadn't 
bolstered his confidence much; she looked as if she just might 
punch him if he opened his mouth.

And with their wrists still cuffed together, =that= would 
turn ugly fast.  She was already shooting him dirty looks 
every time he had to shift gears - he had to admit, it was a little 
awkward with her left hand flopping alongside his right as he 
shifted.

So he let her stew during the drive, his own anger building 
steadily all the while.  As if he could have considered leaving her 
even for a second.  Right.  Leave her, possibly dying from the 
virus, while he - what?  Headed back to DC without her?

Sure.  That was likely.  His mouth pressed into an even tighter 
line.

By the time they shut the cabin door behind them, his anger and 
fear were making his movements jerky.  He was fumbling for the 
key to the cuffs when Scully snapped, "This has gone on long 
enough.  Give me the key, Mulder."

"No." He reached for his right pocket with his left hand.  She 
guessed what he was doing and reached to intercept him.  
Within seconds, they were grappling wildly, like children 
whose game had turned suddenly, inexplicably ugly.  Somehow, 
Scully managed to elbow him in the eye and he yelped in pain.

"Ow!  Jesus, Scully, just let me do it!"

Scowling, she subsided.  He rubbed his eye and stared at her 
accusingly while he fished the key out of his pocket.

"I'm not unlocking the cuffs until you give me your word that 
you'll stay here with me," he said firmly, rubbing at the sore 
eye.

"Mulder, I want you to listen very carefully," she said, her voice 
tight.  "I've said this before, and now I'm going to say it again.  
There is every likelihood that I've been exposed to an extremely 
deadly virus.  From what we've seen, the fatality rate is one 
hundred percent.  Do you understand?  If I have it, I'm going to 
die.  The only question is if you're going to die too, or if you're 
going to take whatever chance you have left and get as far away
from me as possible before you get infected."  Her gaze was 
flinty.  "Now, I want you to unlock these fucking handcuffs and 
let me go.  I'll find a place to wait out the incubation period.  I 
should know in a couple of days.  At this point, you probably 
ought to stay here and notify the CDC to send out the cavalry.  
You might -"

"No."  He sounded calm but certain.  "We both stay right here.  
I'd rather die with you than live knowing I abandoned you. 
There's still the possibility that neither of us is infected.  And 
if we are -" his voice faltered slightly, "if we are, you have as 
good a chance of figuring out a way to treat the disease as 
any of the guys who got sent in here.  You have Criddon's 
research -"

"Which didn't do him any damn good, did it?"

"You have a few days head start on him, Scully.  You don't 
have to re-do all the work he did."

"Mulder, I'm a pathologist, not an epidemiologist.  And there's 
no known cure for ANY of these filoviruses."  She shook her 
head impatiently.  "You're deluding yourself, as usual, and I'm 
not--"

"What do you mean, 'as usual'?"

"I =mean=," she exploded, "that your tendency to believe in the 
unbelievable just might get you killed this time, Mulder, and I 
don't want your blood on my hands!" 

"And leaving you for dead means your blood would be on =my= 
hands.  So we're even, Scully.  Stalemate."

"It's =not= the same!"

"It is to me.  So let's try this again.  Are you going to give me 
your word that you won't leave me or are we going to be literally 
inseparable for the next few days?"  

He was dangling the key above their heads with his free hand, 
just out of her reach, and if he'd cracked even the slightest smile, 
he knew with certainty she would knock his front teeth out.  
But he remained deadly serious, and finally, she whispered, 
"Okay."

Satisfied for the time being, he didn't glance at her face as he 
unlocked the cuffs.  She slipped hers off and watched him do 
the same.  Finished, he raised his eyes to hers and said evenly, 
"Let me take a look at those scratches on your back."  

Saying nothing, she nodded and, shrugging off the flannel
shirt she had borrowed from Franklin, turned away.  The area 
between her shoulder blades did sting a bit, although with the 
layers she was wearing she didn't imagine the injury was serious.

Keeping silent as well, Mulder slowly pulled up the T-shirt she
still wore.  Gently, the pads of his fingers stroked over her 
satiny skin, raising goosebumps.

"You do have some abrasions here," he murmured, his mouth
near her ear.  "But he didn't break the skin."

"I didn't think so," she muttered, wishing she weren't so damned
effected by his nearness.  It made it so much harder to remain 
angry at him.

"Still . . . do you want me to put something on them?" he asked,
yet caressing her, trying to soothe her.  She was sure of it.

She laughed humorlessly.  "I think the bleach probably took 
care of any surface germs."

If only it could have killed the airborne ones.

"Oh.  Yeah," he mumbled, lowering her blouse once more.

Shoving her arms back into her shirt, she turned again to face 
him.

He just looked at her for a moment, seemingly at a loss, before 
suggesting, "Why don't you take a look at what's on the laptop 
while I make us something to eat?"

She knew he was trying to make peace, but rather than immediately
taking him up on the offer, she took a deep breath.  "Mulder," she 
began in her most reasonable tone, trying one last time to reach 
him.

"No," he said instantly, his face closed.  "And I don't want to 
talk about it anymore."

She stopped.  They stared at each other for a long minute.

Finally, she looked away.  Saying nothing, she reached down 
and flipped the laptop open, busying herself by booting up the 
computer and checking the battery supply.

He watched her for a minute or two more, then started rattling 
around in the kitchen.

If he'd seen the expression on her face, he might have guessed that 
the subject wasn't closed, not by a long shot.  

While she typed in the filename, she was wondering how long 
it would be before he needed some rest.

Before he slept.

And about what she might need to take with her.

		*	*	*	*	*
The inventory records didn't provide her with much insight 
into the plague that Teams One and Two had succumbed to.  
Worse, they were incredibly boring, even more so than the 
field reports from the team members sent to examine victims 
and make observations about the environment in which they 
had sickened and ultimately died.  

Scully's eyes were smarting after hours of poring over lists 
of supplies and catalogued orders and dull descriptions of the 
citizens of Gateway and their belongings.  She had taken time 
out to eat a nearly silent meal with Mulder, who had put together 
a passable pasta dish with the limited contents of Franklin's 
kitchen.  Every time she lifted her head, he was watching her 
grimly, with a mixture of determination and tenderness that 
made her want nothing more than to lean over the small table 
and kiss him soundly until the lines of tension around his mouth 
disappeared.

But if she was already incubating the virus . . .

Scully kept her head down for the rest of the meal, and headed 
back to the laptop as soon as the last bite was in her mouth.  
Mulder took the dishes away from the table in silence, and soon 
she could hear him washing up.  

Gazing down at the flickering screen, she tried to recall where
she had left off.  Ah, yes.  The list of Gateway's former inhabitants.
Cataloged according to address, all pertinent information 
enumerated--dates of birth, height, weight, occupation, children, 
pets, effects of the virus, dates of death.  How little space really,
how few keystrokes it took to outline a life.

Pets.

She had tried, with little success, to push the memory of the 
poor dog's attack out of her mind.  Ironically, the animal's name 
seemed to have been Lucky - he had belonged to Marge and Stan 
Chisholm, and was easily identified as the only pet Labrador in 
town, although she personally doubted the purity of his parentage.  
Poor Lucky.

Pets.

Most of the people in Gateway had owned them; big dogs were 
popular, as were cats; in a rural community, cats were one way 
to keep the ever-present rodent population under control.

Rodents.

There was something there, but it was eluding her.

She sighed and changed windows so that she was looking at 
the field reports again instead of the inventory records.

Her tired eyes landed on a section of a report, dated October 20, 
that described the contents of a garage belonging to a Norm and 
Mary Orban.  The list was longer than some of the inventory lists, 
but the field agent had noted at the bottom that two dead white 
rats were found in the garage.

White rats.

That was ringing a bell too, and Scully rubbed her stinging eyes, 
frustrated.  If she were less tired...

. . . less worried about dying out here with Mulder and no one 
ever knowing . . .

"Any word from D.C.?" she asked suddenly, her voice slicing 
through the heavy silence like a well honed blade.  Mulder 
looked up from where he sat round-shouldered in front of 
Franklin's PC.  He had been studying his screen as intently 
as she was hers.  Perhaps either Skinner or the Gunmen had 
replied to their earlier memo, she thought.  For some odd
reason, she found that possibility immensely soothing.  It 
was starting to feel mighty lonely out there in the snow-covered 
woods.  Especially while she was at odds with Mulder.

And with what she had planned, that sense of isolation was
only going to worsen.

"Yeah," he replied shortly, running his hands through his
already unruly hair.  "Got letters from both the guys and 
Skinner.  The Gunmen want an exclusive for their next issue
complete with photos.  Skinner wants us back in D.C. on the
double."

"What did you tell him?"

"That it was dangerous for us to return to Washington until
we knew what exactly it was we were dealing with.  And for 
him and every other government agency to keep the hell out 
of Gateway until he hears from us."

She frowned.  "Do you think Skinner will listen?"

He shrugged, then shook his head.  "I don't know.  I hope so.
I stressed the delicacy of the situation.  How we have to be
careful not to let any of this get into the wrong hands.  Not
until we've gathered up all the information we could."

Sighing, Mulder looked away, all at once fascinated by the
chipped corner of the table.  "Anyway, we've got the sample.  
If that isn't proof, I don't know what is.  I'm sending out another 
report detailing the information we've discussed; what you've 
been able to learn from Criddon's files."

She nodded.  Even though his eyes were averted, he seemed
to sense her silent reply.

"I'm not telling Skinner what happened today."

Part of her agreed.  Another part wished that the A.D. would 
send in a battalion of haz-mat suited saviors.  A team whose
only goal would be saving the lives of her and her partner.

If indeed such rescue was necessary.

"If I told him you and I might be infected, he'd call in the 
troops, Scully," he continued softly, persuasively, his gaze 
fastened on hers once more.  "We both know it.  And if that 
were to happen, the bad guys would get rid of the evidence 
so fast it would be like Gateway had never existed at all."

She swallowed hard, her eyes never leaving his.  "I know."

"As it is, we're lucky we were able to get away with what we
did."

Lucky.  They were lucky.

Lucky the dog.

And all those pets.

Shutting out all thoughts of Skinner, and Mulder, and lying 
cold and forgotten in an unmarked grave, she rubbed her 
eyes again and returned her attention to the laptop before her.  
Tucking a bit of hair behind her ear, she scrolled down the 
document, wondering what it was that niggled at the edges of 
her consciousness urging her to recognize its importance.

Then she stopped again.

There it was, in a report from October 21, the next day - a white 
rat, deceased, found in the convenience store, which no longer 
had any customers, since all of Gateway's shoppers were busy 
dying at that point.  

Strange that rats kept turning up.  But =why= was it important?

Because they're white, a little voice in her head said quietly.  

Maybe the Orbans had kept pet rats, but what was one doing 
in the convenience store?  

Suddenly feeling far less tired, Scully rapidly scrolled down, 
scanning the records.

According to the reports, rodents had popped up seemingly 
everywhere.

There was another one, found in the Cutler's backyard.  
Another, in the living room at the house of an unidentified 
single adult male, appearing to be in his late 50's.  And 
another, found at the base of one of the gasoline pumps at the 
store.  

White rats.  She had stepped on a dead one herself.

They couldn't be wild ones because of their coloring, she 
reasoned.  And how probable was it that in a tiny rural town 
where rodents were no doubt considered a nuisance at best, 
the citizens would harbor this many pet rats?

Lab rats.  They had to be lab rats.

Someone had set a bunch of lab rats loose in Gateway.  And 
immediately after the rats had made their way through town, 
a killer virus had made its unwelcome appearance.

Eyes wide, she opened a new file and began sketching out a 
hypothesis.

		*	*	*	*	*

"Yes, of course I've heard of the Black Death. Thirteenth-
century outbreak of the bubonic plague, killed about a quarter 
of the population of Europe, yadda-yadda-yadda.  That Black 
Death?" Mulder inquired, gazing with a kind of amusement 
at his overly excited partner.  Scully's eyes were red and she 
looked tired as hell, but she was so wound up it was making 
him antsy just to watch.  She was currently pacing around the 
small kitchen.  And she was talking to him.  

The talking part was what had gotten =him= excited.  

"Well, the poor Europeans didn't know what hit them.  It was 
centuries before anyone figured out the role that fleas played 
in the disease.  In an era where hardly anyone bathed with any 
regularity - I mean, once or twice a year at =best= - fleas were 
a constant problem.  Many people lived side by side with farm 
animals and dogs, sleeping in filthy quarters.  Fleas were 
probably the exception rather than the rule."

She stopped pacing and turned to face him.  "Fleas, and rats.  
And rats carried the plague.  Now, fleas didn't exactly get the 
plague, but they =did= bite rats that carried it.  Then, when they 
bit humans, they spread the disease to the human population.  
Dirty people, proximity to rats, fleas - makes you want to take a 
bath, doesn't it?" she asked, brightly.

"Sounds good," he murmured, with a meaningful look at the 
alcove that held the tub.  She got it, and flushed slightly before 
he relented, adding, "But I don't see where you're going with 
this yet."

"Remember when I stepped on that dead white rat on our first 
trip to Gateway?  Well, that rat apparently had some friends.  
Lots of them.  The field reports mention at least four, and those 
were only the ones that were =seen,= if you follow me."

"Okay, there were lots of rats in town."

"=White= rats."

"So you think it's some form of the bubonic plague?"

"No.  I think it's exactly what Criddon thought it was, a 
filovirus.  There's an image of the virus on the laptop - it looks 
=exactly= like Marburg, and there's no other known virus with 
that ring shape.  But I think the virus got into the human 
population through these rats.   Somehow, the rats were used 
as carriers."

"=Used=?"  He stared at her with dawning comprehension.  
"Someone deliberately infected the rats and set them loose in 
Gateway?"

She nodded.  "They can't be wild rats - they're all white.  They'd
never survive.  They're lab rats, Mulder.  I don't know exactly 
how the virus made the jump from the rats to the humans, but 
fleas are a possibility.  Either that or one of the rats bit someone."

He stared straight ahead. "Jesus."

"But I'm pretty sure it was insects, that fleas on the rats acted 
as reservoir hosts for the virus.  Or that it was some kind of 
chimeric virus."

"One hypothesis at a time, Doc.  What's a reservoir host?"

"Where the virus was present in the insects but not actively 
replicating itself until it was transferred to human hosts.  The 
insects could carry the disease and pass it along to humans.  
There's no clear evidence that insects definitely carry Marburg, 
although some epidemiologists =think= they do.  So I wondered 
if it might not be a filovirus/rhabdovirus chimera that they infected 
the rats with.  The organization of the genomes in filoviruses is 
similar to rhabdoviruses -"

"To WHAT?  Scully, bear with me here, you're going about ten 
times faster than I can follow you."  He gaped at her comically 
until she had to bite down on her lower lip to hide a smile.  This
was the good part, she thought.  The fun part.  The part that 
made all the rest of the pain and disappointment worthwhile.

The part where they actually worked together.  The melding of 
energy, of spirit, of will.  The joint effort put forth to battle a 
common foe.

Was it any wonder why going it alone held so little appeal?

"Sorry.  I was getting a little ahead of myself there," she 
murmured, trying to rein in her excitement.  "Remember the 
supposed alien corpse that you went up to Canada for?"

Mulder nodded grimly, remembering how =that= wild goose 
chase had ended.  "Well, we know that the people behind this 
are adept at manipulating different genomes - that they can 
create chimeras."

"With you so far, Doc."

"Stop calling me that, Mulder," she chided almost automatically.
"I think they made a chimera so they'd be sure that insects 
could carry this virus and get it into the human population.  
Rhabdoviruses are another family of viruses, a small one - 
there are only a few viruses in the family.  You've heard of 
rabies?"  He nodded.  "Rabies is the most famous member of 
the rhabdovirus family.  Well, one of the lovely features of a 
rhabdovirus is that it can infect humans and insects. What if 
they created a rhabdovirus/filovirus chimera that allowed the 
filovirus to infect insect cells?"

He thought about it for a minute.  "Do you think that's what 
this thing is?  A souped-up version of Marburg designed to be 
carried from insects to humans?"

She rubbed her eyes.  "It's only a hypothesis."

He was staring blankly ahead.  "What do you think they've 
got planned?  This isn't a precision instrument, after all.  If 
it gets loose, it's instant apocalypse."

Scully was fingering the keys of Criddon's computer.  "I don't 
know, Mulder.  I guess the only ray of hope is that with 
something so deadly, they'd probably have a cure or at least a 
treatment, just in case one of them accidentally came into contact 
with the virus."

"What kind of treatment?"

She shrugged helplessly.  "I can't even begin to guess.  Criddon 
and his team were completely overwhelmed.  He makes mention
near the end of hearing voices telling him help was on the way,
but the poor man was probably so far gone at that point, he didn't
know what was real and what was imagination.  None of those 
we found dead in Gateway had the faintest idea how to treat this 
thing.  I think the men who created this virus miscalculated in 
some way.  It's almost impossible to predict exactly how a virus 
will behave outside of a lab.  If I had to guess, I would say that 
maybe they didn't know it would go airborne, and by the time 
Criddon and his men figured it out, it was too late."  She rubbed 
her eyes again and wondered, not for the first time, just when 
Mulder would grow tired enough to sleep.

Almost as if reading her mind, he rose.  "Why don't we try to 
get some rest?"  He didn't voice his next thought aloud, but she 
heard it just the same:  if they had been exposed to the virus, 
their bodies would be less vulnerable if they weren't exhausted.

As if such a small thing could save them.

Scully feigned interest in the little laptop.  "You go ahead.  I 
want to jot a few more things down here before I turn in."

He hesitated for an instant, then nodded and headed for the 
sink.

Scully didn't know how long it usually took Mulder to get ready 
for bed, but on this particular evening his end-of-day routine 
seemed excruciatingly slow.  He washed up, puttered around, 
mumbled something about his choices for bedtime attire, and 
sent at least two or three hopeful looks in her direction.  She 
knew what he was thinking, and had to keep her eyes fixed 
on the screen lest her expression betray her thoughts.

Last night had been so different.

And there was a good chance that they'd never repeat it.

Scared, exhausted, and longing for comfort, she ached for 
nothing more than to simply shut down the computer, take off 
her clothes and join him in the cabin's lone bed.  The urgency 
of her desire, not only to make love to Mulder, but simply to
=be= with him, to curl her limbs between his and sleep in his 
arms, brought tears to her eyes.

But for his sake, it was a risk she simply couldn't afford to take.  
It was a slim chance, but if he =hadn't= already been exposed 
to the virus . . . she simply had to proceed with her plan.

So she kept typing.  And she waited.  At last, Mulder's breathing 
turned even and steady.  She stopped what she was doing and 
stared across the room at him for several minutes.  He was 
sprawled on his back, his arms folded neatly across his middle,
his legs hidden beneath the bedclothes.  The side of his head 
was pressed against the pillow, so she was only able to see his 
face in profile.  Kissed by the scant light emanating from the 
tableside lamp, his cheeks looked as downy as a child's.  But,
then, she had long ago noted how in sleep Mulder tended to 
look far less burdened by care and age.  The lines in his face 
eased, his lips relaxed into a soft, tempting curve, his lashes 
hung heavy and thick, hiding his eyes from view.

He was so beautiful.

At that moment, he meant everything to her.

You can't die, she silently told the still figure on the bed.  I 
won't let you die.

Not if I can do anything to prevent it.

For several more endless minutes, he didn't move.  Finally 
she got up, cautiously, striving not to disturb him.

She had decided to snowshoe back to the line of HumVees 
and take her chances that the rest of them were stocked with 
provisions, the way the one they'd first taken had been.  She 
would wait out the incubation period a safe distance from 
Mulder, and from Gateway.  

Quietly, she slipped her boots back on and eased the heavy 
parka she had worn that morning over her head.  She had 
left her snowshoes just outside the cabin door.  Thankfully, a 
flashlight sat in plain sight on the kitchen shelves, and she 
only had to take two careful steps to scoop it up.  She took a 
long, last look at her sleeping partner. . .

. . .=lover=. . .

. . . and reached for the latch on the door.

She had gotten it nearly halfway open before his hand closed 
around her wrist.

"Going somewhere?"

His eyes glittered with scarcely suppressed rage, and she had 
barely gotten her mouth open to stammer an excuse when he 
added curtly, "Save it for someone who'd believe it, Scully."

*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Continued in Chapter XVI

"Antidote" (16/18) NC-17
by Rachel Howard
& Karen Rasch

Snowrider5@aol.com
Krasch@earthlink.net

This chapter is rated NC-17 for both language and sexual 
content.  This chapter is for all those who cared about when 
it would be finished.  Most especially the Screamers.

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

October 29
A Cabin Outside Gateway, Colorado

"I - "

"NO! " he roared, and now she was quite sure she'd never before 
seen him so angry.  "You gave me your =word,= Scully!"  He 
slammed shut the cabin door so hard the floor boards beneath
her feet vibrated as if quaking in fear.  

"Only because you gave me no choice!" she replied heatedly, 
refusing to be cowed.

"Oh, so now you're telling me what I want to hear?" he 
sneered, his hands closing around her upper arms, his 
countenance shoved belligerently near hers.  "But then I 
guess that's easier than admitting to my face I can't trust you."

"=Fuck= you, Mulder!" she spat, body rigid in his grasp.  "I'm 
trying to save your life, do you understand?  I don't know why 
you think it's noble to die with me, but I don't want any part of 
it!"

"Always logical, Dr. Scully.  But as far as I'm concerned, after
that stunt you just pulled, what you want or don't want has 
become irrelevant."  He clamped his hand around her wrist, 
his fingers biting painfully into her flesh.  "Let's go.  It's way
past your bedtime."  He dragged her, struggling, toward the 
berth they had shared the night before.  "Allow me," he 
continued sarcastically.  He got a firm grip on the waistband 
of her pants and began pulling the parka up over her head, 
one-handed.

Seething, she batted his hand away.  "I'm not getting in that 
bed with you, Mulder!"

"Fine," he said, bitterly.  "You can have it all to yourself."  He 
took two quick strides towards the table, and picked up the 
handcuffs he had laid there earlier.  "Get undressed and get in.  
You either do it yourself or I'm cuffing you to the bed frame in 
that parka and you can sleep in your boots.  Your choice."

She stared at him, eyes wide, enraged.  "You wouldn't dare."

He stared right back, the same sort of violence mirrored in his 
gaze.  "Try me."

Clearly, he meant every word.

Almost shaking with fury, she stripped down to her T-shirt and 
panties, taking perverse pleasure in the dull flush that warmed 
his cheeks; wayward enjoyment in the way he determinedly 
trained his gaze at her feet while she slid deftly out of her bra,
removing the lacy bit of lingerie, but not the shirt covering it.  
Stubbornly waiting until he lifted his eyes, she climbed onto 
the bed and deliberately stretched one wrist out over the edge 
of the mattress, making sure she arched her back provocatively, 
knowing that her nipples stood out clearly under the thin, cotton 
shirt.

Jaw set, he crossed to stand beside her and brusquely snapped 
one cuff closed around her wrist and the other around the bed 
frame.  She noticed his face was still faintly reddened.

"You have a video about something like this, don't you, Mulder?"

The second the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. 
She had never teased him about his porn habit, and it was only 
her overwhelming anger that had tempted her into taunting him 
with it now.

"Yes," he answered, shamefaced but steady.  "I was planning on 
throwing it out when we got home."

Her guilt doubled instantly. "Mulder..."

But he was already walking away.  "Forget it, Scully."

She wanted to go after him, to wrap her arms around him in 
silent apology.  But one move, and the clank of the handcuffs 
brought her back to reality.  Suddenly, the words 'I'm sorry' 
lodged like an oversized aspirin in her throat, choking her.

Mulder loaded up the stove with firewood and turned off the 
lights.  Scully tried to get comfortable on her side; actually, it 
wasn't too bad lying that way.  She closed her eyes and heard 
him sit down on one of the kitchen chairs.

"Mulder?"

"Go to sleep, Scully."

He sounded as lost and hurt as she felt.

It was a long time before she slept.

		* 	* 	*	*	*

October 30

When Scully awoke, it was already late morning, and her 
arm and upper back were cramped from sleeping in the same 
position all night.  Wincing, she slowly raised her head and 
saw Mulder was slumped over the kitchen table, sleeping 
with his cheek pillowed on his folded arms and his parka 
draped across his shoulders.  He'll be just as stiff and sore as 
I am, she thought with grim satisfaction.  Maybe more.

Good.  Serves him right.

"Mulder," she called in a rough morning voice, "you might want 
to wake up."

He lifted his head immediately, and blinked sleepily at her, the
hair on his brow standing up at attention, not unlike a cockscomb.  
From the circles under his eyes, she guessed his night had been 
less restful than hers.

"Morning, *partner*," he rasped, with a slight, sarcastic 
emphasis on the second word.

Well.  Someone had gotten up on the wrong side of the table.

"Why did you stay over there?" she asked evenly, hoping that
if one of them kept their head they might be able to get past
all this petty nonsense.

"You didn't want me in bed with you," he bit out, gingerly 
trying to stretch out the kinks without allowing his coat
to slip to a heap on the floor.  "Sleep well?"

"No," she said, her attempted good humor proving difficult
to maintain when faced with Mulder's hostility, "and I need to 
use the outhouse.  So unless you want to embarrass us both, 
you're going to have to get me out of these damned handcuffs."

He didn't answer, but rose, picked up the key, and shuffled over 
to the bed to unlock the cuffs.

Her leg felt fine this morning, but the stiffness in her upper body 
more than made up for the lack of pain in her lower extremities.  
She eased to the edge of the mattress, rolling her shoulders and 
neck in an effort to release some of the ache.  Standing, she 
stepped into her jeans and briskly zipped them; her boots were
donned and laced soon after.  All the while, Mulder waited 
nearby, watching her.  When she crossed to retrieve her parka
from the foot of the bed, his hand on hers stopped her.

"No."

"What?" she asked in amazement.  "Mulder, I realize the sun 
is shining again today, but it's still freezing out there."

"Right," he muttered, his expression sullen.  "You'll come back 
if you're only wearing the T-shirt.  If I let you wear the parka, 
there's no telling where you'll end up, is there?"

"Mulder," she snarled warningly, her eyebrow arching like 
a bow.  "You'd better be joking."

"Sorry, Scully, but the honor system went out the window 
when you tried to sneak out of here last night," he said, his
hand still resting heavily upon her wrist.  "Looks pretty chilly 
out there.  I suggest you make it snappy."

She fumed all the way to the outhouse.  The temperature had
dipped again.  It was obscenely cold, and she tripped once on 
the way back, walking right out of her left snowshoe.  Cursing, 
she bent to re-fasten it, her anger at her partner growing steadily, 
her guilt over her cruel taunt the night before long forgotten.

By the time Scully stomped back into the cabin, she was 
shivering, her lips felt as if they had quite literally turned blue 
and she was ready to skewer Mulder. 

Seemingly unaware he was in jeopardy, he watched her as she 
entered, his features schooled into a bland, emotionless mask,
his hair now looking as if it might have been finger-combed in 
her absence.  He was standing at the kitchen counter, pouring 
cereal into a bowl.

One bowl.  A single glass of orange juice beside it.

Oh, so that's the way it's going to be.  Eh, Mulder?

"Refreshing?" he queried.

"Brisk," she replied curtly.  "You should try it."

"No need.  I took a leak just outside the cabin door," he 
said, and ambled away from her to the table.  "Guess it 
sucks being a girl." 

Staring at him for a moment in mute disbelief, she at last 
strode past him to the stove.  Deliberately turning her back to 
him, she stretched out her hands towards the inviting blaze, 
the chilled skin on her face and arms pricking with sensation 
as it thawed.

"So what do you plan on doing today?" he asked after several
long minutes of weighty silence.

You mean aside from waiting to see if one of us falls ill?, she
longed to bitterly retort.

"I need to finish incorporating the information Criddon left into
the hypothesis I was working on last night," she said instead.
"Then, I want to get on the net, and see what I can find on 
filoviruses.  We need to get as much information as possible 
to Skinner and the CDC before . . . "

Before the disease takes hold.

And we grow feverish, weak.  Unable to think or speak.  Not
with any clarity.

Before disembodied voices are our only source of comfort.

Like they were for Criddon and his team.

"In case," she amended with a shrug.

She pivoted to face him, warming her backside now with the
stove's mellow heat.  Mulder sat at the table, staring at her, 
his breakfast forgotten, his expression stony.  "Would have 
been tough to get that stuff to D.C. from wherever the hell
it was you were planning on going."

She stiffened at his harsh tone.  "You could have e-mailed 
them the files."

"Maybe.  But I couldn't have answered their questions," he
said, no forgiveness in his eyes.  She had always believed 
she understood how dearly Mulder held the trust they shared.  
Yet, judging by his reaction to the previous night's subterfuge, 
she had vastly underestimated its value in his eyes.  "You 
know I don't understand half of what's on that laptop.  I don't 
have the background for it, the expertise."

"I wasn't thinking about their questions," she said with 
complete honesty, her gaze unwavering.  "That wasn't my
concern."

He was the one who, at last, was forced to look away.

"Well, I hope you're thinking now," he said, pushing away
from the table to wearily stand before her.  "I hope to God 
we both are.  Because at this moment, you and I are quite 
possibly the only things standing between mankind and the
second Black Death."

		*	*	*	*	*

Scully hadn't been searching for a way to get back at Mulder.

Yet, she had succeeded in finding one just the same.

She had stumbled upon it unwittingly.  Setting up to 
begin the day's work, she had tucked Criddon's much 
abused laptop under her arm and taken half a dozen steps 
towards Franklin's PC when she realized Mulder was 
headed in the same direction.  Stopping just short of a 
collision, she lifted her brow, wordlessly inquiring as to
his intentions.

"I thought I'd check e-mail," he mumbled, his hands shoved
deeply into his jeans pockets.

"I can do that," she said mildly.  "I want to send out some of
Criddon's files anyway.  And as you said, if Skinner has any
specific questions he needs answered, I'm probably the one
best suited to reply."

He nodded a bit hesitantly, his forehead wrinkled, his lips
pursed.  "So, I should . . . ?"

In retrospect, she would later admit--to herself, if not to him--
her retort was childish, unnecessarily combative, and in no 
way would aid in repairing the current rift in their relationship.

But at the time, given Mulder's own petulant behavior, it felt 
so damned good to get it off her chest.

"Why don't you just keep playing jailer?" she suggested 
with a sardonic little tilt of her head.  "After all, you seem 
to have a certain knack for it."

For a split second, she thought she spied hurt in his tired 
hazel eyes.  Then, his gaze shuttered, leaving her to ponder
whether her impression had been accurate or merely a figment 
of her decidedly guilty conscience.

"I'll leave you to it, then," he muttered as he turned away and 
strolled a bit stiffly to Franklin's limited library.  Selecting a 
book almost at random, he returned to his place at the kitchen
table.  Saying nothing more, he cracked it open and began to
read, pointedly ignoring her.  She watched him for a time, 
musing over what title he had chosen, and questioning whether 
Mulder was even seeing the words he so intently studied.  But
when it became apparent he would not soon raise his head, she
gave up her scrutiny, sat down before the desktop computer and 
began doing what she could to stop the people responsible for 
Gateway's devastation.

Skinner had written.  No surprises in the contents of his 
missive.  Where are you?  What are you doing?  Return to 
Washington at once.

So, Mulder hadn't been particularly forthcoming regarding 
their current whereabouts.  Would the Bureau be able to trace 
Franklin's appropriated internet connection?  Probably.  It 
might take awhile, but she knew, with the proper resources, 
the FBI's technicians would no doubt track down their 
hideaway.

Okay.  Maybe she had better convince the A.D. to refrain
from following that particular course of action.  Not until 
they knew for certain what they were up against.  Gnawing 
on her lower lip, Scully focused all her persuasive skills into 
composing an e-mail arguing just that point.

Sir--

Mulder and I have gathered information, certain files of 
which are attached to this message.  

We are safe at present and are monitoring the situation
earlier reported.

Please do not move on this knowledge until you hear from us.  
If alerted, we fear the people responsible for what happened 
to Gateway will take measures to ensure details are kept from 
the authorities.  In addition, there is serious danger - the 
contagion itself.  At this time, we have no way of knowing 
how far or how fast it might spread.  We hope and pray we 
are outside the danger zone.  But until we have a way to 
combat the disease, it is foolish to risk the lives of other 
agents.  We would advise, at most, a plainclothes perimeter 
patrol.  Otherwise, please wait until Agent Mulder and I 
have collected all possible evidence before sending in back-
up.

It is imperative that you instead focus the energies of the 
Bureau on making sense of the data we are forwarding to 
you.  Our only chance of stopping this virus is to make use 
of Criddon's research.  I will send you further information 
as it becomes available.

Well, it certainly wasn't going to win the Pulitzer, but hopefully
it would do the trick.  Lips thinned, she sent off the letter.

And spent the next several hours shuttling back and forth 
between computers; studying Criddon's notes on the laptop,
then surfing the net for any miniscule tidbit of knowledge 
that might shed light on his findings.  Unfortunately, pickings
were slim.  She learned little she didn't already know.

By dusk, her back ached, her eyes burned, and she wished 
with everything she had they could phone out for pizza.
She hadn't eaten since breakfast, but was too tired to actually
cook anything.  Sighing, she pushed her fingers through her
hair and wondered how much longer she could reasonably
continue, how many hours she had left before her mind shut 
down completely.

Almost as if mimicking her, Mulder also let loose with a long, 
mournful exhale.

"Enjoying yourself?" she queried dryly, grateful for the 
distraction.  Her partner hadn't spoken to her since she had 
usurped his place at the PC.  Instead, he had stubbornly 
remained seated at the battered dining table, leaving his
station only for trips to the privy, the stove, and the fridge,
poring over the still anonymous book he had earlier begun.  

"This kind of fun should be illegal," he muttered, his eyes
at last lifting from the page.

Terrific.  It appeared his mood hadn't improved anymore than 
had hers.  "What are you reading?"

"A 'how-to' for curing venison.  I figure 'When in Rome', you 
know?" he drawled, raising his hands over his head to lazily
stretch.  "After all, a guy should know how to take care of 
himself in the wild.  There's no telling when he might end up 
all on his own."

Mulder's pity party was fraying her last nerve.  "Mulder, if I 
had made it out of here last night, you would not be lacking
for company today.  You would be back in Washington with
more people breathing down your neck than you knew what 
to do with."

"And that would be preferable to this?"

"Anything would be preferable to this."

Scully hadn't meant for those words to slip, harsh and 
unthinking, from her lips.  But she was so exhausted, so 
frightened, and still so very angry with her partner.  And 
besides, she didn't seem to be the only one spoiling for a fight.  
Mulder certainly wasn't making any overtures at reconciliation.  
Ever since they had gotten up that morning, she had been giving 
him openings, extending from time to time an ever so tentative 
olive branch.  And what had he done?  Repeatedly thrown her 
attempt at saving his life up in her face as if it were something 
for which she ought to be ashamed.

Screw that. Screw him, too.

Oblivious to her increasingly turbulent musings, Mulder
dropped his arms once more so they landed with a thud upon 
the tabletop.  "Sorry, Scully.  Didn't realize my company was 
such a drag."

"I don't get you, Mulder," she said, closing down the laptop and
setting it carefully beside the PC, her words quick and finely
edged.  "You apologize for giving me the silent treatment, but 
you don't say a word about chaining me up like an animal."

"I'm not sorry for what I did," he retorted flatly.  "You would 
have left me if I hadn't.  Ditched me without so much as a 
goodbye."

"Ditched you?" she echoed incredulously as she twisted in her 
seat.  "You're mad at me for =ditching= you? 

"My communication skills must be slipping," he said, sitting 
back in his chair and folding his arms tightly across his chest.  
"I thought I'd made that fairly obvious."

"What is 'fairly obvious' to me and any other sane individual is 
that if anyone has a beef about being ditched, it's =me=!" she 
said, pushing away from the desktop and rising to face him fully.

"You?" Mulder questioned with disdain, leaning forward now,
his elbows braced against the table.  "=You= were the one 
heading out the door!"

"I'm not talking about last night, Mulder," she said swiftly, 
crossing to stand before him, her fingertips pressing lightly 
on the tabletop as if for balance.  "I'm talking about the past 
five years.  I'm talking about the countless times you've taken 
it into your head to go off on your own with absolutely no 
regard for me or our partnership!"

Brows lifted, he got to his feet, his lips twisted in a mocking 
imitation of a smile.  "Oh for Christ's sake, Scully.  Don't go 
dredging up ancient history."

Ancient history?

You son of a bitch.

"Mulder--"

"I wonder if Franklin has anything for dinner we wouldn't
have to thaw."

Blind to her rage, Mulder calmly turned away from her and 
started towards the kitchen in search of food.

Dismissing Scully and her argument.

As he had done so many times before.

And something inside her snapped.

"=Don't you walk away from me!="

Startled, Mulder peered over his shoulder.  "What--?"

Only to see what must have appeared to him to be a small, 
red-headed locomotive roaring straight for him.  Turning back, 
he met his very own private Midnight Special head-on.

"You heard me, Mulder" she muttered, low and fierce, as she 
skidded to a halt only inches from the object of her tirade.  
"Don't you dare brush me off!  Not about this!"

"I am not brushing you off--," he growled, his hands planted
on his waist, his weight shifting restlessly from hip to hip.

"Of course, you are," she said, silencing him with a slash of
her hand.  "Just like you do every time I become inconvenient."

"Inconvenient?"  He pulled away and shook his head.  "You 
don't know what the hell you're talking about."

"Yes, I do!" she cried, grabbing hold of his arm to stop his
retreat, her chin thrust skyward, her eyes glittering with a 
combination of outrage and unshed tears.  "I know exactly what 
I'm talking about.  Only, most of the time, you're too wrapped 
up in yourself to hear what I have to say."

"I'm wrapped up in myself?" he parroted, glaring down into
her upturned face. 

"Damn right you are," she said remorselessly.  "Whenever 
you decide it's safer or maybe just simpler for you on your 
own, you go without hesitation--"

"That's different!"

"It's not!" she insisted.  "You may be the senior agent here.
But I am sick and tired of you always being the one who calls
the shots."

"I go with my gut, Scully," he said, towering over her, the 
force of his breath nearly parting her hair.  "My instincts.  
I do what I believe is right.  I make my choice and then I 
act on it.  Period."

"And who the hell are you, Mulder?" she demanded, a fine 
current of tension crackling through her from head to toe, their 
row stirring the resentment simmering inside her, heating it to 
the boiling point.  "Don't you get it?  When you snapped those 
cuffs on me you treated me like I was a thing.  An object that 
belongs to you.  You made =my= choice.  Not just yours.  What 
in God's name gives you the right to think you can decide that 
for me?"

"I love you!"  he shouted into her face.

And without thought, her hand whipped from nowhere to 
connect with his cheek.  Slapping it.  Hard.  Snapping Mulder's 
head viciously to the side with the force of the blow.

The sound of skin meeting skin reminded her of a single shot 
discharging from a gun.  The kind of a bullet usually sent on
its way by a sharpshooter.  Or an assassin.  The sharp crack 
nearly deafened her.

Aghast, Scully looked up at him, breathing hard, transfixed 
by the sight of a small palm print painting Mulder's pale 
countenance.  The tremors that had rocked her earlier, the 
ripples of temper and pure energy, had somehow 
transformed with her assault.  She now shook visibly, her 
knees weakened, her equilibrium nearly gone.

Mulder gaped back at her, apparently as dismayed as she.  
His eyes were wide with hurt, his lips moved as if he thought 
to speak but had somehow forgotten the skill. 

Scully was having similar difficulties.  Shaking her head from
side to side, she managed to mumble out, "Mulder . . . "  Yet,
seemingly, that was the only word she knew.

It was enough.

He reached for her.

But, embarrassed and ashamed, she ducked her head and, 
stumbling in her haste, shuffled a step away in an effort to 
evade his grasp, her hands raised as if in defense.  "No . . . "

Instantly, his hands fell away.

Lifting her chin, she peeked at him through the curtain of her
hair.  What she saw shriveled her heart.

He stared at her, his expression bleak, devastation now
swimming in his gaze.  "Do you think I would hurt you?"

Hurt her?  She had been the one to hit him.

"No," she whispered bewilderedly, shaking her head once 
more for emphasis.

"I could never . . . ," he mumbled haltingly, his voice
matching hers in volume and in tone, his hands twitching at
his sides, and yet he made no renewed attempt to touch her.  
"My God . . . you can't believe . . . even with . . . Scully, I 
swear . . . "

"No.  I know," she assured him quietly, crossing to place her 
hand on the center of his chest, needing that connection as 
desperately as Mulder apparently needed her forgiveness.  
"I'm not afraid.  Not of you."

He regarded her warily, appearing not entirely convinced.

Stretching up on tiptoe, she pressed her lips to his reddened
cheek.  "I'm sorry."

Releasing a long, ragged breath, Mulder finally moved.  His 
hands came up to cradle her face in his palms.  "I'm the one 
who should be sorry."

Bending his head, he kissed her.  Softly, lip to lip.  Scully
sighed with relief.

"For dragging you out here to begin with."

Again their mouths caressed, slid against each other, over
each other, their very oxygen shared.

"For being unable to protect you from that poor, stupid mutt."

His fingertips tangled roughly in her hair, clenching in the 
silky strands, anchoring her in place so he could better feast
on her lips.  Groaning against him, she opened her mouth 
and let him inside.

"For bullying you," he muttered between kisses, nipping
and licking; his need, urgent and raw.  "For treating you as 
if you didn't have a mind of your own."

She clung to him, her fingers curled around his biceps, her
mouth angling beneath his, lips parted, slanting this way
and that.  "It's okay.  It's all right.  I forgive you."

Without warning, Mulder pulled her into his arms, nuzzling
his way down the slope of her throat, his hands roaming across 
her back and shoulders.  "I love you," he murmured from just
below her ear, his embrace almost smothering.  "I love you so 
much, Scully."

Scully felt hot.  Feverish.  Shaky.  All the anger and frustration 
that had been mounting since the previous day had altered into
something else.  She was positively quivering with adrenaline, 
Mulder's almost palpable arousal fueling her own.

But she couldn't simply succumb to his reckless seduction,
couldn't just close her eyes and pretend that the thrill she
got when Mulder pressed his body flush to hers, confessing 
his desire, made everything better.  That just because her legs
nearly gave out when he cupped her buttocks in his palms 
and squeezed, she could trust he had learned from this.

She had to tell him.  Outright.

"You can't love me like that, Mulder," she murmured, her own 
hands ranging over his chest, down to his belt, his fly.  Fingers
freeing buttons and buckles; lowering zippers in search of flesh.
"I don't want that.  I won't let you love me that way."

He was gnawing at her neck, his hair tickling her chin, her ear.
"What do you want, Scully?" he asked, his voice muted against
her skin, his hands as busy with her garments as hers were with 
his.  "Tell me.  Teach me.  Teach me how to love you."

He shoved to the floor the flannel shirt she had earlier drawn on
over her T-shirt.  She yanked his borrowed Henley over his head.
They stumbled blindly as they rid each other of their clothes.
Backing up, she felt the back of her thigh hit the dining table,
halting their drunken weaving.  Clumsily stripping her of her 
jeans and panties, Mulder lifted her atop it.  Clinging to him, 
Scully helped where she could, toeing off her boots and leaning
forward to wrestle his pants down past his hips.

At last, clad only in her wrinkled T-shirt and socks, she 
looked up at him from where she lay balanced on her elbows, 
her legs caging his erect penis between her thighs.  Mulder 
held her gaze, the palm print now erased by the flush on his 
cheeks.  His hair was wild, tousled across his brow, and his 
eyes shone dark and cloudy with passion.  He paused for just 
an instant, his hands braced on the table, bracketing her hips.

"Do you love me, Scully?" he softly asked, his face near hers.

She frowned with surprise.  "Of course I do."

His tongue slipped out to moisten his swollen lips.  "You've 
never told me so."

Never? she thought.  How could that be? 

"I haven't?" she whispered with regret.

He sadly shook his head.

Stretching out her hand, she drew her fingertips tenderly along
his jaw line.

"Come here."

Obligingly, he stepped closer until the front of his legs met the
edge of the table.  She sat up.  Then, keeping him secure before
her, her heels locked around the backs of his knees, she reached 
down and gently but firmly closed her hand around his erection.

"Scully," he moaned, his eyes slipping shut, his fingers 
tightening atop the table, his knuckles white with strain.  
Smiling at his reaction to her touch, she scooted forward and 
guided him inside her, her breath hitching as he slowly slid 
deep within.  His eyes remaining shut, Mulder again slicked 
his lips, and bowed his head so that it rested upon her shoulder.  
But, beyond that, he didn't caress her or make any attempt to 
move.  He let her lead.

In this, at least.

Adjusting once more so that she was as open and near to him
as possible, Scully curled herself around Mulder, one arm 
encircling his shoulder; the other, his waist.  Her cheek 
found its way to his chest, where it rubbed soothingly, directly 
over his heart.

"I love you, Mulder" she told him.  "In spite of everything we 
put each other through, I love you more than I could ever tell 
you in words."

He murmured her name, the sound aching and low, and folded
her closer to him.  She responded by tilting her pelvis, by 
nudging her body against his.  He shivered helplessly in her 
embrace.

"You want me to teach you, Mulder?" she murmured, pressing
a kiss to the base of his throat, lapping teasingly at the small
indentation there.  "You want me to tell you how I want to be 
loved?"

"Yes," he mumbled, his hips now pulsing slowly, rhythmically, 
at the juncture of her thighs.

"Come with me," she entreated in a husky voice as she reclined
atop the rough, wooden tabletop, her back arching, her nipples
tenting her T-shirt.

Mulder followed her, captured her hands and drew them over
her head, their fingers laced, so that he loomed over, his weight 
supported by his forearms.  "Like this?"

"Yes," she said, languidly lifting her head to brush her lips 
against his.  "Exactly like that.  Now move with me, Mulder.  
Move with me nice and slow."

Again, he complied.  Withdrawing until only the tip of him
remained secreted inside her folds, he then slid delicately 
forward.  Filling her carefully, inch by thick, heated inch.

Scully groaned her pleasure, undulating beneath him, her 
arms pinned, her legs still wrapped around his narrow hips,
trapping him to her.

"I want you," she admitted, gazing up at him through her
lashes with soft, slumberous eyes.  "Badly. . . . so badly."

"What about our agreement?" Mulder gritted out, picking
up the pace every so slightly, sweat beading on his brow.

"What agreement?" she queried breathlessly, matching his
pace, the bottom half of her body moving in effortless 
counterpoint to his.  Rising and falling.  The table swaying
beneath her, shifting and creaking with their coupling.

"Our rule," he muttered, his gaze dark and delicious, his
fingers tightening almost painfully around hers.  "The 
platonic thing."

She chuckled, her lids fluttering shut as the pleasure began
to churn inside her, curling up from her groin.  "We've never 
been good at rules, you and I."

"No.  That's true," he roughly agreed, dipping his head to
rub the bridge of his nose against her swollen nipple.  She
mewled, high and long, twisting her torso as if that alone
would satisfy her need.  "Rules have always made me feel
like . . . misbehaving."

She smiled, her eyes opening once more to gaze warmly
up at his.  "You being bad, Mulder?"

"I'm trying, Scully," he muttered, pumping into her, stroking
steadily, his thighs banging dully against the wood.  "God 
knows I'm trying."

And succeeding, she blithely mused.  Succeeding beautifully.
Her arousal flowed freely now; melting her muscles, her will.

"You're doing fine," she murmured, her lips moving no
more than absolutely necessary.  "Just fine. . . ."

"With you as a teacher, how could I go wrong?" he queried
hoarsely, plunging into her, his tempo quickening still.

With that, he nipped at her nipples through the thin cotton, 
nibbled and licked and pulled at each tender bud with his mouth, 
drawing on her, suckling her through the fabric.

Crying out, she thrashed under him.  "Yeah.  Faster.  Oh God . . .
please . . . faster."

Releasing her hands, Mulder obliged.  Slipping his arms
beneath her back and shoulder, he lifted her slightly, angling 
his body so that he glanced more directly against her clitoris 
as he drove in and out of her.  Scully's reaction was electric.  
She bucked against him, clutching at his neck and hair.
Her blood was buzzing in her veins, her head tingling and
hot as if she were being roasted in the sun.  Sweat trickled
down the back of her neck, her throat was parched.  On and
on he slammed into her, his mouth caressing whatever part
of her he came in contact with; her ear, her brow, her breast.

At last, he stiffened and crushed her to him, calling out her
name.  Almost as if answering his cry, her orgasm blossomed
inside her, spreading from her vagina throughout her body, 
petals opening one after another, rippling like leaves in the
wind, tickling her insides until she wanted to laugh with the
sheer joy of it.  

By contrast, Mulder's climax had to it a darker, more desperate 
edge.  Burying his face in her hair, he rutted between her legs 
like a madman, pistoning wildly, his body spilling hot and wet
inside hers.  Finally, he gasped her name once more, the sound
very like a sob, and collapsed in her arms, weary and utterly 
spent.

For a time, they rested there in each other's embrace, bodies
heavy and limp.  Softly, Scully combed her fingers through
her lover's hair, lazily dropping soothing little kisses along
his hairline.

"You okay?" Mulder whispered hoarsely, nuzzling the curve 
of her ear.

"Yeah," she whispered back contentedly.  "I'm fine.  I'm good."

And at that moment, she believed it.  They both did.

Their sense of wellbeing stayed with them that night, when 
they later climbed clumsily off the table and hand in hand 
found their way to Franklin's bed.  It clung to them when they 
made love again, tenderly, reverently, before together falling 
deep into a well-deserved sleep.

That night, nestled in each other's arms, they were once again 
secure in their love, their purpose, their partnership.

Until the morning came.

And Scully began to cough.

*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Continued in Chapter XVII 

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

Snowrider5@aol.com
Krasch@earthlink.net

Everyone's seen the episodes from Season One, right?  Good, 
because there are spoilers for Darkness Falls coming up.  Come 
on, you HAVE to have seen that one.  Onward!

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

October 31
Vaughn W. Franklin's Cabin

"I shouldn't have sent you outside yesterday in your T-shirt.  God 
damn it, what was I thinking?"  Mulder was banging around the 
small kitchen, trying to boil water for tea, but his self-castigation 
seemed to extend to his actions; he bumped into stationary objects, 
banged his head on the cabinet door, tripped clumsily over the 
edge of the stove.

"Mulder," Scully entreated patiently from her place on Franklin's
bed.  She sat propped against the headboard, buried beneath 
layers of bedding--quilts, blankets, extra sheets--Mulder had 
piled them atop her, insisting his ministrations were for her 
own good, until she feared she was in greater danger of death 
by suffocation than she was from any sort of illness.  Yet, it
seemed his efforts had in no way soothed his soul.  His tirade 
had been repeated at least seven or eight times already that 
morning, with only slight variations.  And her normally graceful 
partner had suddenly developed the ability to hurt himself while 
navigating a one-room cabin.  Mulder had refined guilt into 
an art form, she reflected wryly.

"Mulder, please stop.  Just come sit down here with me.  I don't 
need any more tea."

He didn't answer.

She understood his silence.

The cough she had woken up to had been nothing like the 
phlegmy, rumbling cough that accompanied a cold - not that 
she'd even get a cold just from being outside in a T-shirt, she 
reminded herself.  

This one was dry and deep and eerie.  It seemed to come from 
somewhere beneath her lungs.

And her eyes were itching terribly.  She hadn't dared look at 
her reflection, fearing that she would see that the whites of her 
eyes were no longer white, but mottled with shocking red.

This was no cold.

She had avoided stating the obvious out loud, as if that would 
make the horrible fact of her illness go away, but watching 
Mulder nearly cripple himself getting her a fourth cup of tea, 
she couldn't remain silent any longer.

"Mulder, =please= come here."

"Hold on a minute, Scully.  Water's almost hot enough.  What 
the fuck was I thinking, not letting you put a parka on before 
you . . ."

"=Mulder.="

She put an ounce of the steel she reserved for interviewing 
recalcitrant witnesses into her voice, and it worked.  He looked 
up at her.

"Mulder, the water will keep.  Come sit with me for a minute."

He did as she asked, reluctantly settling on the edge of the bed.  

"It's not a cold."

He stared stubbornly at his feet.  "You don't know that.  I made 
you go out there--"

"Mulder, enough," she said quietly yet firmly.  "I can't let you 
beat yourself up over this cough anymore.  I'm not sick because 
I went outside without my parka.  You and I both know that.  
I have the early symptoms of the virus."

"No."  His voice wavered, and he couldn't look at her.

Silently, she tugged on his hands.  "No," he repeated desperately, 
resisting.  He pulled his hands out of hers and, leaning forward,
his elbows balanced on his knees, his head cradled in his hands,
he hid his expression from her.

But not his grief.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, her hand settling butterfly soft on
his hair.

"Oh, Scully," he murmured brokenly.  Then, turning back to 
her, he pulled her into his embrace, wrapping his arms around 
her so tightly she could hardly breathe. 

"I'm sorry.  I'm so sorry," he mumbled thickly into her hair, 

"Shh," she whispered soothingly, clinging to him just as fiercely,
her arms aching with the strain.  "It's all right."

But it wasn't.  It never would be again.

They held each other until long after the water began to boil 
on the stove; until a thin metallic crackling announced that the 
bottom of the pot was starting to blister.  Then Mulder got up 
and turned off the stove, moving like a man far older than his
years.  Watching him, Scully struggled mightily against the 
sudden urge to cough.  But, in the end, she lost the battle and 
had to grab hold of the bed frame to brace herself.  Damn, it 
hurt.  Her body shook, her eyes watered.  For one very scary 
instant, she feared she might choke on her own saliva.

Yet finally, she got herself under control, and sat shaking but
silent on the bed.

From across the room, Mulder stared, terror stark in his eyes.
"You okay?"

Slicking her lips with her tongue, she nodded, afraid that if
she spoke, she would begin hacking once more.  

"Can you drink anything?" he asked, starting towards the 
kitchen.

Choosing to remain mute, Scully shook her head.

Mulder looked at her a trifle helplessly.  "Why don't you lie
down, then.  Get some rest."

Rest.  Yes.  That, she could do.

Sniffling just a bit, she pressed the back of her hand to her
mouth as if to hold back future coughs, and scooted a bit lower 
beneath the covers.

Mulder returned to her side to tuck her in.  "It's okay, Scully,"
he said quietly, his fingertips threading through the hair fringing
her face.  "Just close your eyes.  I'll be here."

His tender touch felt good against her fevered brow, cool and 
gentle.  But rather than simply enjoy his caress, Scully felt her 
eyes burn with unwanted tears.

Oh, Mulder, she silently mourned.  Who is going to be there for
you?

		*	*	*	*	*

She slept for a while; she wasn't certain how long.  Then suddenly,
in the late afternoon, she woke up feeling as though her stomach 
was collapsing in on itself.  Clawing her way from beneath the
bedclothes, she barely had time to make it out the front door of 
the cabin before her meager breakfast came up, spilling onto the 
pristine snow.  Doubled over with cramps, she kept throwing up 
until long after her stomach should have been empty, her fear
worsening her nausea.  Close on her heels, Mulder followed her 
outside, offering her a rag and a plastic cup of water between 
bouts of vomiting.  

She had believed the worst of it was over, had in fact stood and 
turned as if to reenter the cabin, when all at once, one final 
round of nausea swept over her.  Stumbling away from her 
partner, she felt a great, tearing pain in her midsection.  Blinded
by tears, she fell to her knees, bitter bile pouring from her mouth 
once more.  Dizzy in the aftermath, she panted for breath, and
looking down before her saw that the mess in the snow was tarry 
black, flecked with bright bloody spots.  

Black vomit - a classic symptom of this type of viral infection, 
she thought distantly, tears now rolling sluggishly down her pale
cheeks.  "I'm riddled with it," she said aloud, forgetting that 
Mulder was nearby until he moaned, low and rough, like a 
wounded animal.  

"Oh, Jesus, I'm sorry," she said, staggering to her feet.  She 
turned to look at him.  He stood just outside the cabin door, 
clad in jeans and one of Franklin's borrowed flannel shirts, 
crying, just like her.  Wiping her mouth shakily, she said
again, "I'm so sorry."

Ignoring her apology, he helped her back into the cabin and 
settled her back into the bad.  When she was comfortable, he 
moistened a rag and carefully used it to wipe out her mouth.
Exhausted, she smiled her thanks at him.  He smoothed the 
hair off her forehead and said,  "I want to take you to a hospital."

There were so many reasons why he shouldn't, couldn't do that, 
and he knew every one by heart.  As did she.  Trusting that he 
would understand, she shook her head.

"Yes, Scully.  They might be able to help.  I read some of the 
accounts of the known Marburg outbreaks - the patients that 
survived were kept hydrated and they have a much better shot 
at doing that in a hospital than I could . . ."

"Too tired to argue," she whispered, and he stopped, biting his 
lip.  He brushed her hair back again, arranging it with finicky 
precision around her face, twisting each strand into place.  She 
knew he was simply looking for an excuse to keep touching her, 
and her eyes filled with tears in spite of herself.  At last, she 
again drifted off to sleep.

The next time she woke, it was dark outside.  The nausea was 
gone, although she felt weak and lightheaded.  Mulder was 
hunched over the computer; she heard the faint hum of the 
modem and wondered what he was doing.

He saw that she was awake and hurried to her bedside.  "Hey," 
he said, tenderly cupping her cheek in his palm.  "How are you 
doing?"

"Okay," she said softly, the word parched sounding, wrinkled
and dry as old newsprint.

"Skinner sent a reply to your message.  USAMRID and the CDC 
both want to send in specialists.  I don't know what's going to 
happen at this point.  I was just sending another message to 
Skinner, telling him about your condition."

Judging by his bleak expression, she guessed that relating her 
symptoms had probably hurt Mulder nearly as much as they 
were currently hurting her.  Still, she couldn't give in.  Wouldn't
bow to the pain.  Instead, she drew in a deep, ragged breath.  
"What did--"

Mulder interrupted her by breaking into a dry, wrenching cough.  

Her eyes widened as she watched him bend over, wincing.  
When he looked at her again, there was no fear in his eyes, only 
a kind of resigned sadness.  

"Mulder," she whispered, heartbroken, her eyes welling once 
more.

"Don't cry," he entreated, dragging his fingertip slowly, 
reverently along the curve of her cheek.  "Please.  It's okay.  
We knew this would happen."

Biting her lips, she nodded, the motion slight.  Yes, she had 
known that if she were sick, Mulder too would soon fall ill.
But, she hadn't considered the reality of it.  What his death 
would look like, sound like.  Unbidden, tears continued to
trickle free from beneath her lashes.  

"Scully . . . "

Slipping off his shoes, Mulder crawled beneath the covers and 
laid down next to her and embracing her again, gently this time.  

"Let me hold you for a minute," he murmured into her hair.
"Just for a minute. Okay?"

"Okay," she agreed, her head tucked beneath his chin.

But a minute soon turned into quite a bit longer.  Silence 
covered them like yet another blanket.  Night's shadows 
lengthened.  Wind rattled the cabin's small windows,
driving them to shudder in their frames.  It's Halloween, she
all at once realized.  All Hallow's Eve.  The night when the
wall between the spirit world and the actual world is at its
most fragile.

Not much separating you and the kingdom of the dead tonight,
whispered a dark and cruel voice inside her head.  Is there,
Dana?

Starting involuntarily, she shivered.

Pressing a kiss to her hair, Mulder tightened his embrace.

"There's so much we never got to do together, Scully."

She had thought he had fallen asleep.  Never had she been so
thankful to be proven wrong.  "Like what?" she asked after
clearing her throat.

He thought about it for a second, his fingertips stroking lightly
across her shoulders.  "We've never gone to the beach together."

"There was that case in Miami," she whispered.

He snorted.  "Crime scenes don't count.  I mean we never got 
to sit on a beach and kiss on a blanket."

"Sand in your shoes, sunburn.  Beaches are overrated," she said, 
the words still not coming easily.  

"I never got to whip your ass at Nintendo."

She smiled into his neck, knowing he was hoping for just such 
an outcome.

He felt the smile and continued, "I never got to cook dinner for 
you."

She murmured, "Just as well."  He chuckled wryly, and she felt 
a little better until his laughter turned into another cough.

Dry.  Deep.  Just like hers.

And with that, they both stopped talking.  

The list was too long, she reflected wearily.  Too long by half.  
Troubled, she fell into an uneasy half-sleep punctuated by dreams 
that were partly memory, partly whispers of a future that would 
never be; Mulder talking on the phone in their office, chewing 
the end of a pencil while he talked; the two of them sprawled 
across some nameless motel's bed, eating takeout food in rumpled 
suits; Mulder bathing a baby that played interestedly with its toes 
while he swiped a washcloth over the child's back.

The dream was better than the reality that greeted her when she 
wakened next.  They had survived the night.  Dawn's weak, 
rosy glow tinted the cabin floor.  But Mulder was coughing 
again, sitting hunched before the computer terminal as if offering
prayers before an altar.  When he turned to look at her, she saw
his eyes had turned a horrifying red, as though all the blood 
vessels in them had burst at once.

"Scully."  He said her name.  A wealth of meaning contained
in its two whispered syllables.

She smiled, but did not speak.

He brought her a cup of water and hoarsely urged her to try to 
drink it.  She sipped carefully, surprised at how easily it went 
down.  She managed to drink half the cup before she handed it 
back to Mulder.  He smiled at her, but he looked tired and sad.  

"Could you eat something?"

She shook her head wordlessly, and he said, "I threw up earlier.  
While you were asleep."

There was nothing to say to that.  No comfort she could offer 
in words.  So, rather, she held out her arms to him.  And he 
came back to bed.

He got up once more, hours later, and staggered to the cabin 
door to vomit again.  When he was finished, he was too weak 
to walk back to bed; instead, he ate a little snow and then 
crawled back inside to rejoin her in bed.  The cabin door blew shut 
behind him, but the wood-burning stove had gone out mid-
morning, leaving the small dwelling dark and cold.

		*	*	*	*	*

That was how the two men found them; a pair of unconscious 
figures, wrapped around each other in the narrow bed.  

The younger man stiffened at the sight of them and immediately 
snapped, "See what you can do to get this place warmed up."  
Without another word, he set the box of supplies that he had 
been carrying on the wooden table and pulled a pair of latex 
gloves out of a plastic bag.  

The other, older man watched him put them on.  He looked 
wary and slightly miffed, as if he wasn't used to taking orders.  
But after a pause, he bent to the wood piled next to the cold stove 
and carefully picked up a large log.

While he re-started the fire, the young man went over to the still 
figures in the bed.  He rolled them apart unceremoniously, then 
lifted each of their eyelids in turn, watching the pupils dilate.
Mulder stirred and moaned, but the man ignored him.  Scully 
moved not at all.  The younger man went back to the box of 
supplies and got out alcohol pads.

There was now a bright blaze kindled in the stove, and the 
older man watched the small flames lick up from the newspaper 
he had used, then on to the twigs and finally the smallest of the 
logs.  He used a slim silver lighter on the cigarette dangling 
between his lips, and exhaled a long plume of smoke.  "How
are they?"

The other man was injecting something into Scully's upper 
arm.  "Another couple of hours and we would have lost them."

"Will they make a full recovery?"

"With proper treatment, yes," he said, turning his attention to
Mulder.  "They're going to require hospitalization, of course."

"Of course," the smoking man murmured, and the young man 
shot him a wary look.

Having nothing now to do, the smoking man thoughtfully 
regarded the laptop sitting on the wooden table.  He drew a 
small tool from his pocket and began removing the computer's 
plastic housing.  

The doctor ignored him, busy with his patients.  Both agents 
received multiple injections.  Their rescuer ran fluids under 
their skin and checked their pulses.  When he was done, he 
carefully re-covered both of them with the blankets.

Finished for the time being, the physician strode toward the 
stove, stripped off his gloves and threw them into the flames.  
They gave off a foul-smelling smoke, but they burned.  The 
smoking man watched him, holding several computer 
components in one hand.  The tabletop was now scattered 
with bits of plastic; if the doctor had looked toward the large 
desktop in the corner, he would have seen that it, too, had 
been disassembled.

"I'm done here," the younger man announced, missing the 
expression of dislike that briefly flickered across the smoking 
man's face.  "You called for a medical evac team before we 
left Grand Junction, correct?"

"Help is on the way," the smoking man replied evenly, placing 
the bits of metal he held into his pocket.  "I thought I heard an 
engine a moment ago."

"Let's see."  The doctor stepped outside the cabin door, peering 
through the trees toward the road.

A single shot rang out and he fell face first into the snow, 
making a bloody angel.  

The smoking man replaced the gun in his pocket.  He did not 
look at the fallen man, but he went to the edge of the bed and 
stared down at the two sick agents for a long time.

Finally, he turned and scooped up the box of supplies.  Letting 
his cigarette butt fall to the floor, he ground it carelessly under 
one heel.  Stepping delicately over the body in the snow, he 
settled the box into the passenger seat of the HumVee that had 
brought him to the cabin.  

The body received less careful treatment; grunting, the smoker 
struggled with the dead weight until he managed to heave it into 
the vehicle.  His task complete, he stepped back into the cabin 
and gave the sleeping figures of Mulder and Scully a last look.
Then he added one more log to the fire and left.

The drive down the snowy, unplowed dirt road was rough, and 
the box and the body in the back shifted and rolled with every 
rut in the road.  When he turned back onto the main highway, 
the smoking man found several other uniformed men waiting for 
him.

He got out and stared into the distance, toward the silent remains 
of Gateway, Colorado.  The air was still and cold, but the sun 
shone brightly and the mountains looked postcard-perfect, capped 
with snow.

"Burn it," he said, handing over the keys to the HumVee he 
had driven down from the cabin.

A few minutes later, a covered truck rumbled toward Gateway, 
trailed by the HumVee.  The men inside did not speak to one 
another; they looked straight ahead, down the road.  

Exactly an hour later, an explosion shook the silence and a 
massive fireball rolled up into the clear western sky above the 
dead town.  Despite the snow, it burned, all of it; houses, garages, 
furniture, the hastily erected medical tents, the bodies.  

Everything burned.

And burned, and burned.

		*	*	*	*	*

Two hours later, a Racal suited figure stumbled through 
the doorway of Vaughn Franklin's cabin.  The man in the suit 
had obviously not expected the door to open as easily as it did; 
he stumbled, barely catching himself on the back of a chair.

The stove still burned merrily, and the cabin was warm.  Several 
other men in field bio-containment suits came through the door, 
warily scanning the cabin's interior.

"There.  In the bed."

One of the men made his way over to the bed and knelt down 
beside it, carefully avoiding the pointed edge of the nightstand.  
He reached over and, grasping Scully's slender wrist, felt for a 
pulse.

"She's still alive."  Heartened, he did the same to Mulder.  "So 
is he.  Let's get them out of here, people.  Now."

They wheeled in gurneys and began the process of transporting
the unconscious figures in the bed to safety.  

"Sir?  They're not going to be able to land the chopper here.  
We're going to have to get them down to the highway, at least."

"Then do it."  Skinner didn't even look over his shoulder.  
Thoughtfully, he stared down at the lone bed.  "Hang on, you two," 
he muttered.  Turning to another man, he ordered, "Search this 
place.  Agent Scully had a field journal - I want her notes, 
wherever they are.  See if there are-"  He broke off, staring at 
the bits of plastic on the table.

"Sir?"

"Someone's already been here," Skinner said.  "Before us."  
He went over to the table and picked up one of the pieces of 
plastic.  

It had been part of the plastic housing of a laptop computer - 
he could see where the modem would fit.  But it was gone.  
And so were the relevant parts of the computer.

Then he saw something else.

Squatting, Skinner picked up a cigarette butt and turned it 
over.

Morleys.

"Shit," he muttered.  "That son of a bitch beat us here."

		*	*	*	*	*

November 3

When Mulder woke up, he saw the telltale white walls and 
fluorescent lights and realized that he was in a hospital room.  
Then he looked around again.

Scratch that, he thought hazily; it's a medical bio-containment 
facility.  Kind of like the one they stuck us in after that case in 
Oregon with the glowing bugs.

His head was pounding and he felt like shit, but he was alive.

Scully.

In less than a second, he was clawing at the wires on his chest, 
shouting for someone, anyone, to help him get up.  Dimly, he 
registered the fact that the monitor next to him was beeping 
wildly.

He sat up, drunkenly fighting the IV and assorted tubing 
attached to his person, when into his tilting field of vision -

"Scully," he said, out loud.  She was in the next bed, tubed 
and wired just like he was.  He managed to focus his eyes 
long enough to ascertain that, although unconscious, she was 
breathing, the rise and fall of her chest echoed by a steady 
beeping from her monitor.  

A white-suited figure finally appeared, but by then he was 
calm, and lowering himself back to the bed.

"Mr. Mulder!"  The figure in the bio-containment suit was 
scurrying toward his bed.

"We don't need no stinkin' badges," Mulder mumbled, and he 
was out like a light.

		*	*	*	*	*

November 6

Bio-containment meant no separate hospital rooms; he'd learned 
that after their unfortunate encounter with the glowing bugs.  No 
luxuries like separate rooms here; just army-style cots and lots of 
equipment to measure their heart rates, their breathing, their blood 
and their piss.  It was also mind-bogglingly boring.

He was fully coherent a mere five days after their impromptu rescue 
from the cabin.  Skinner had indeed called in the cavalry; the 
CDC had managed to win the jurisdictional brouhaha the 
discovery of the two sick agents had caused.  Which meant that they
were presently cooling their heels in Atlanta, in the finest 
accommodations that a Level 4 infectious agent could buy.

Scully's worst fear--that any rescuers would fall ill themselves-- 
had not yet come to fruition.  To date, the entire rescue team 
was healthy.  She'd be relieved to hear that when she came out 
of it, Mulder thought, glancing at his too still partner.

Scully had been the sicker of the two of them, but the slew of 
officious specialists fighting for the credit for their recovery 
assured him that she would be fine in the long run.  She had 
woken up once or twice as delirious as he had apparently been 
the first few times he had regained consciousness.

But she was going to be okay, and that was the only thing that 
really mattered.

In the meantime, they were stuck here for another three weeks 
of quarantine.

The airlock dinged, and Mulder looked up eagerly.  Even an 
officious doctor was better than having no one to talk to at all.

But the figure blundering toward him, clumsy in the bio-
containment suit, was more familiar.

"Sir?"

Skinner peered out at him through the bubble on the front 
of his helmet, and grunted.

"Nice to see you, sir."

"I wish I could say the same, Agent Mulder.  If you had any 
idea how uncomfortable this damn suit is, you'd understand."

"I do, sir."  He was perfectly sincere, remembering their trip 
to Gateway inside the claustrophobic suits, but the A.D. seemed 
more irritated by his response.

"I came to tell you what we found in the cabin."

"Did you recover the laptop?"

"No."

"What?"  Mulder stared at his boss.  

"The laptop, as well as Vaughn's computer, had been 
sabotaged.  None of Criddon's field notes, nor Agent Scully's, 
were found."

"That's not possible.  That would mean that someone--"

"Had been there before we arrived, yes.  That's not in question.  
Did Scully inject either one of you with anything in the days 
before we found you."

"No.  We didn't bring any medical equipment with us when we 
left Gateway.  Only the computer.  Why?"

"Because I had you both examined for trace evidence.  We found 
puncture marks on both of you that had to have been made by 
needles.  Whoever was there gave you both some kind of injection--
several injections, judging by the number of marks."

Mulder shook his head in wonder.  "I don't-"

"There's more."

Mulder looked at him expectantly.

"I think I know who was there."

"How?"

"I found a Morley on the floor."

With that revelation, Mulder felt as if he had been struck dumb.
Skinner seemed to be faring no better.  The two men stared at 
each other, seemingly not knowing what to say.  Then, Scully 
sighed in her sleep and their mute communion was broken.
Their eyes found their way to her.

"What was he doing?" Mulder asked after a time, his gaze
lingering on his partner.

Skinner shook his head.  "I wish I knew."

Mulder tried to clear his head.  "Have you sent a team to Gateway 
yet?  Scully was more worried about that than anything else--we 
think she got infected when her suit was breached, but the 
epidemiologists who were there before us--"

Skinner's lips drew into a thin line.  "Shortly before we got to 
the cabin, there was a massive explosion in Gateway.  It seems 
that a truck carrying flammable materials ran off the road and 
overturned.  The entire town burned to the ground.  The exact 
nature of the chemicals spilled has still not been determined, 
so the site is still off-limits."

"Shit," Mulder said, bitterly.  "They burned the evidence."

Skinner didn't reply.

"What about the driver of the truck, sir?  Did he die in the 
explosion?"

"A body has been recovered that is presumed to be that of the 
driver.  However, a search of dental records came up empty.
He's a John Doe."

This time it was Mulder who was left without anything to say.

At length, Skinner turned to leave.  "I suggest you focus on 
getting well, Agent Mulder.  There are more than a few 
epidemiologists out there who are quite literally out for your
blood."

"Sir?"

Skinner turned toward him again.

"If he was smoking--Cancerman--when he was in the 
cabin, he must not have been wearing one of these suits. 
Or even a gas mask."

"I thought of that, too," his boss said, tersely. 

"Which means he wasn't afraid of getting sick."

Through the long silence that followed, Mulder trailed that 
thought to its logical conclusions.

One possibility was that they were no longer contagious when 
Cancerman arrived.  And that somehow he'd known that fact 
ahead of time.

Not too likely, considering how ill they'd both been, Mulder 
decided.

The other possibility was that the smoking man knew that he 
couldn't catch the virus from them.

Which meant that he'd either had it himself and recovered, 
providing him with the necessary antibodies, or . . .

. . . He'd received some kind of vaccine.

"Shit," Mulder whispered. "The bastard was in on it all along."

Skinner nodded inside the helmet.  "That's not the part that 
surprised me, Mulder.  What I want to know is why did he go 
to the damn cabin in the first place?  And what did he inject 
you with?"

Mulder answered, tonelessly, "An antidote.  That's the only 
thing it could have been.  Otherwise, we'd be dead."

"That's not what these brilliant doctors of yours had to say 
about it, but I'm inclined to think you're right."  Skinner sighed.  
"Which raises a few other questions."

"Mulder?"  

Scully was blinking her eyes and batting ineffectually at the 
wires monitoring her condition.  "Mulder?"

"Hey, Scully."  He murmured warmly and reached across the 
space between the two beds, just managing to graze her arm 
with his index finger, nearly toppling out of bed himself in the 
process.  "I'm right here."

She shut her eyes again and calmed down.  "That's good," 
she mumbled.  "That's nice, Mulder."

He grinned at his partner, then turned to Skinner's steely 
stare.   Suddenly, Mulder wondered what his boss had thought, 
finding them together in the cabin's one bed.

Skinner looked at him long enough for Mulder's palms to 
begin to sweat; finally he turned around and began making his 
way toward the airlock.  "Get some rest, Agent Mulder."

"Yes, sir,"  Mulder said, and settled back on his pillows to do 
just that.

*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Continued in Chapter XVIII


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

Snowrider5@aol.com
Krasch@earthlink.net

Hi!  <Waves to reader.>  This is Karen.  Seeing as this is our
final installment in our little saga, I thought I would take a
minute to thank all of you who oh-so-many months ago decided
to come along for this particular ride.  I can't speak for Rachel, 
but I honestly had no idea our story would grow quite as
gargantuan as it did (And we did an outline too--you'd think
that might have given us *some* indication!).  This is the
longest piece I've every written, and I'm not certain how I
would have muddled through it without the help of my very
talented partner in crime and the encouragement (some would
say *stalking* <bg>) of those following along at home.  It's
been a lot of fun.  Word of advice--if you want to try the whole
co-authoring thing, find someone as gifted and patient as Ms.
Howard.  She's a peach.  Thanks, Rachel.  It's been a blast.

Rachel's turn:
For the record, we started this last October.  So that's nine
months of joint labor on this not-so-short story.  For my part,
I couldn't have done it without Karen's exquisite patience in
matters creative and technical and without our devoted readers.
Thank you, everyone, for staying with us - and thank you, 
Karen, for putting up with me.

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

November 20
Atlanta, GA

"What's an eleven letter word for 'in plain sight'?"

"Twenty-three across?  'Conspicuous'."

"Ooh.  Score one for the redhead."

"It wasn't all that tough, Mulder.  We had 'o-n-s' and twenty-
three down is obviously 'cranberries'."

"I thought they were a rock band."

"They are.  But they're also a 'red, acidic fruit of the heath
family'."

Mulder turned from where he lay prostrate upon one of 
the room's two high, narrow beds, a neatly folded rectangle 
of newsprint even with his chest.  Garbed in navy blue sweats
and a wrinkled gray T-shirt, he looked over his shoulder at
his partner, who sat beside him cross-legged against the 
pillows.  Dressed in powder blue scrubs, her glasses perched 
atop her lightly freckled nose, a pencil tapping thoughtfully 
against her cheek, Scully ignored his scrutiny, choosing 
instead to study the black and white brainteaser.  He had to 
smile.  With her lop-sided ponytail, and make-up free face, 
she looked more like a high-schooler attempting to plow her 
way through calculus than a government agent trying to 
conquer the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle.

Had he told her recently that he loved her?

Not since they had ended up here.

"You know how you turn me on when you talk botany," he
murmured instead.

"Mulder, you're easier to turn on than a lamp with a wall
switch," she retorted without looking up.

Ouch.

Then she softened the blow by peering over her glasses,
mischief glinting in her eyes, and lifting the corners of
her mouth.  It wasn't her best smile.  Yet it was still enough
to turn his insides to pudding.

Maybe he was easy after all.

"Which is probably a good thing," she continued unawares as
she tucked a wayward fall of hair behind her ear, her tiny smile
lingering still.  "Because given our current situation, it would
be highly unlikely you would consider me much of a femme
fatale."

Our current situation.  Mulder chuckled to himself and looked
around their antiseptic prison.  In truth, it wasn't really all that 
bad.  Kind of spare, of course.  Not much in the way of luxury.  
White painted walls, tiled floor.  One door, topped with a 
window, leading to the outside; another, sans window, opening
onto a small bathroom.  A lone metal bar which served as their
closet.

It wasn't as if they needed something more.  Since their
convalescence had begun, they had routinely dressed
themselves in sweats and T's and scrubs.  Not the most
glamorous wardrobe imaginable, but it was comfortable.
A few of their personal belongings had been retrieved from
their Colorado motel rooms and forwarded to Atlanta.  
Scully's glasses and hairdryer.  His glasses and shaving kit.  
The furnishings were functional.  Once they had been officially
declared out of the woods, much of the bulky, high-tech medical
equipment had been removed.  Now, in its stead was a small
table and chairs.  A television.  Two beds, divided by a curtain
that was only ever pulled when one of them changed clothes.
And even that was merely to keep up appearances.

Mulder sighed. Wouldn't do to let their jailers know that all 
the details of his partner's naked form had been memorized 
by him weeks before, the images burned into his brain like 
cinders charring tissue paper.

"Are you saying you're trying to seduce me?" he asked,
wondering if he sounded as pathetically hopeful as he felt.

"I don't know," she said with a little lift of her brows and 
purse of her lips.  "Do you suppose it would work?"

He shrugged a bit offhandedly.  "That depends."

"On what?"

"On whether you manage to work words like 'pistil' and 
'stamen' into the conversation."

Chuckling soundlessly at his quip, she stretched forward to
record their latest word, drawing her face right alongside his.
He watched her neatly fill in the squares, her gaze averted from
his.  Cocking his head, he considered her.  Something wasn't
right.  Hadn't been all morning.  While she was saying all the
proper things, Scully seemed gripped by a gentle yet inescapable
melancholy. He didn't know what had brought it on, but he
wasn't planning on letting it go by uncommented upon.

After all they had gone through, this was no time to fall back
on bad habits.

"Something on your mind, Scully?"

She focused even more intently on the puzzle.  "Why do you
say that?"

He shrugged again.  "I don't know.  You seem . . . distracted."

She stole a sideways glance at him.  "Maybe I'm simply
concentrating."

"Maybe you're avoiding the question," he countered pointedly.

She sighed.  "Maybe."

Aha!  Gotcha.

He rolled over to face her more fully, his arms folding behind
his neck to pillow his head.  "Don't do that.  Okay?  Don't
pretend with me."

She looked at him, seemingly weighing whether to give in to
his directive.

"Please," he entreated softly.

Her lips twisted.  Then, she slipped off her glasses and rubbed
the back of her hand over her lowered lids.  "It's stupid, Mulder.
Nothing to get yourself upset about."

"Why don't you let me be the judge of that?"

Tossing her wire rims onto the bedside table, she met his gaze.
"Fine.  Suit yourself."

He waited.

"I want to go home."

He frowned, not certain he had heard her correctly.  "You
what?"

"Home.  I want to go home."

Her words struck him unexpectedly hard, their impact bruising,
almost as if they had been spoken specifically to wound him.

"Are you saying you've had enough of me?" he queried
hesitantly.

"You?" she echoed in surprise.  "No.  This room, this case--
that's another story."

Mulder pushed himself into a sitting position, his long legs
sprawled out before him.  "We're only talking about another
week or two."

"Thanksgiving is less than a week away."

Oh yeah.  Thanksgiving.  The official start of the holiday
season.  The meal where cranberries were oftentimes on
the menu.

The fruit, not the band.

Real life.

The sort of thing normal people look forward to.

"And I'm going to miss it," Scully said quietly, her eyes
latching on to the pencil in her hands rather than on him.
"Miss being with my family."

He didn't know what to say to that.  While their time together
in quarantine had been tedious at times, he hadn't really felt
the need to complain.  After all, despite all the pain and fear
they had suffered, for nearly a month now he'd had Scully
all to himself.  A captive audience, as it were.  He used to 
daydream about such an eventuality before . . . before Gateway.

Christ.  He wondered sometimes if he was capable of being 
any more selfish.  At moments like this, such a possibility 
seemed decidedly doubtful.

"I know I should be grateful," Scully continued.  "That I
should be happy we're around to see the holidays at all.  But
considering that for the past month the only communication 
I've had with my mother has been a handful of letters, I can't 
say I wouldn't like something more."

He reached out and took her hand, squeezing it carefully in 
his grasp.  "Sorry, Scully."

She shrugged, but still didn't look at him.  "It's okay.  It's not 
your fault."

Oh, but it was.  Every last bit of it.

She looked at him then, her expression sad and resigned.  
"And what's worst is that ultimately all of this was for nothing."

Her observation came to Mulder as something of a surprise.  
Except for a few rudimentary facts--the reason they were alive, 
the fate of poor Gateway--they hadn't really talked about all 
they had been through during the course of their assignment.
At first, simply because Scully hadn't been up for lengthy 
discourse.  As she had begun incubating the virus earlier than
had he, the disease had been able to progress further into her
system.  Consequently, it had taken longer for her to recover, 
the damage done to her immune system in the wake of her
abduction, not helping matters.  Then afterwards, once
weeks had passed and they had both clawed their way back to
health, the events in Colorado had seemed so removed from
their safe, sterile environment that the urge to talk about what
they had suffered had just never arisen.

Until now.

Besides, what was there to say?  Scully was right.  The bad
guys had won.

And yet, even as he acknowledged the validity of her words,
Mulder shook his head, hating to even consider that all this
woman had been through had been meaningless.  "It wasn't
for nothing," he argued.  "Whomever was responsible didn't
get away without us realizing what they'd done.  We may not
have caught them this time, but next time we'll be ready for
them.  The information the doctors here were able to extract
from their tests on us, from the antibodies in our blood, should 
go a long way towards them developing a vaccine of their own."

"That may be true, but it doesn't change the fact that this time
they =did= get away," she said softly, her eyes a troubled,
turbulent blue.  "Every last one of them."

Gnawing on the corner of his mouth, Mulder slowly nodded
in agreement.

"And for the life of me, Mulder.  I still can't figure out why
anyone would want to do such a thing."

He hesitated, choosing his words carefully, wanting to comfort
his partner yet knowing this was more about Scully blowing
off steam than it was about her mourning for the dead.  "Well,
 . . . we had talked about the likelihood of Gateway being a 
testing ground of sorts--"

"Yes, you and I had agreed that those people were undoubtedly
killed by someone trying to develop a biological weapon," she
said, her words clipped, her tone brusque.  "But that's not what
I mean."

He lifted his brows in confusion.  "Sorry, Scully.  I'm having
trouble following you here."

"Mulder, haven't you wondered why you're alive?"

He attempted to inject a little humor into the situation.  "I don't
suppose I could fend you off by quoting Descartes?"

Lips thinned, she set the pencil beside her glasses, pushed
herself from the bed and crossed away, her back to him.

Mulder was after her in an instant, and came to stand behind
her, his hands on her shoulders.  "Scully . . ."

She bowed her head, her arms at her side, and sighed.  "It's
just that . . . you and I are standing here, healthy, while dozens 
of innocent people were murdered."

He ran his palms lightly along her arms, rested his chin
against the silky crown of her head.

"The Cigarette Smoking Man had us right where he wanted us," 
she continued quietly, her arms now wrapped tightly across her
middle.  "By all rights, we should be dead.  But instead, he
chose to save us."

Scully turned then and looked up at him, questions swirling
like storm clouds in her eyes.   "And for some reason, his
sparing our lives almost bothers me more than the fact that
he tried to take them in the first place."

Saying nothing at first, Mulder pulled her to him, enfolding
her in his arms.  His hands smoothing over the gentle slopes
of her back, he pressed a kiss to her hair, surreptitiously 
enjoying the way it felt, cool and soft, beneath his lips.

"I don't know if this helps any, Scully, but I'm not convinced
our Morley-puffing friend was acting altruistically."

"Why do you say that?" she queried, her voice muffled by
his shirt.

His mouth hovered inches from her ear, so he didn't feel the
need to project.  Rather, he spoke in a hushed, intimate tone;
comical given the conversation's subject matter.

Only he would murmur sweet nothings to his lady love
revolving around conspiracy, murder, and mayhem.

"They were watching us, Scully.  I'm positive of it," he said,
his fingertips trailing soothingly through the hair at her
temples.  "They were there all along.  We just didn't see them."

"So?  What has got to do with why we were spared while
Gateway was not?"

"They knew where we were.  They could have stopped us, or
killed us, like those goons tried to when we first got there.
But they didn't choose to do anything until after we both fell
ill."

At that, Scully drew away from his chest to look him in the eye.
Mulder could literally see her forming the same conclusion he
had come to not so very long ago, slotting the pieces one by
one until the whole took shape.

"We were their guinea pigs," she stated flatly.

He nodded.  "Their new test subjects."

Scully shook her head.  "But that would suggest they had had
the antidote all along.  You can't just whip up a batch of that
stuff overnight.  Why didn't they try and cure the people in
Gateway?  They didn't even attempt to save their own scientists."

"You were the one who said the virus had probably mutated," 
Mulder reminded her.  "Was behaving in ways that surprised
Criddon and his men.  Maybe ol' Black Lung did try the vaccine
on Gateway.  But maybe the dosage was wrong or the formula
was too weak.  Whatever the hell that thing was, it got out of
hand.  They didn't know how to stop it once it got started."

Scully strode away from him, her brow furrowed in thought.
"That would explain why they pulled out the way they did,
leaving Gateway more or less unguarded."

Mulder nodded again.  "No point in staying.  Not just then.
They needed to regroup.  Head back to the lab to figure out
what went wrong."

She turned back to face him.  "But once they had made the
adjustments to the antidote, they couldn't very well stage
another experiment with the size and scope of Gateway.  It
would require too much planning and draw too much attention
to them.  They could vaccinate themselves, take steps to insure
that healthy people wouldn't come down with the disease.  But
they had no one who had already contracted it to test the drug's
effectiveness on.  All of those who were sick had died."

He eyed her grimly.  "Except us."

She stared at him. "God."

He dipped his head in acknowledgement.  "It makes a kind 
of sick sense.  The way I figure it, the Smoker oversaw the 
development of this virus.  After having success in the lab, 
they needed to test it in the field, figure out the best way to 
introduce it to a population."

He began to pace, slowly, with measured steps, engrossed in
his tale.

"Rather than chance an international incident, they chose
to target a domestic testing ground.  Someplace small and
remote."

Scully slicked her lips with her tongue.  "Gateway."

"Gateway," he confirmed.  "The idea was to see how well the
rats performed as a vehicle to spread the disease.  They let
the little guys go and stood back with their antidote, ready to
step in and cure the very community they had infected."

"While at the same time, they measured how quickly the
disease made its way through the sample grouping and
which of its members succumbed first," she mumbled, her
mind clicking along in tandem with his.

"Valuable information," Mulder agreed, pausing just a
moment as he strode across the black and white checkerboard
floor to shoot her a glance.  "Not the sort of thing you can
easily acquire in a lab."

She lifted her brows in wordless accord.

"The only thing was, when they went into administer the
vaccine, it didn't work."

"How can you be sure, though?" she asked, taking a step 
towards him, her features wrinkled with confusion and 
doubt.  "Criddon never mentioned anything like that in his 
notes."

"I can't be certain," he admitted almost sheepishly.  "I'd bet
any documentation that once existed has either been destroyed
or stored someplace you and I will never find it."

Scully nodded wearily, as tired as he was of evidence literally
disappearing from under their noses.

"But, I have to agree with you, Scully," he continued, stepping
even closer to his partner.  "The bad guys couldn't have come
up with the antidote to that thing overnight.  They must have
begun their research before the outbreak in Gateway."

She just looked at him, a fine, narrow crease dividing her
brows.

"Besides, it would be smarter for them to cure their test
subjects.  Do it that way, and a tiny, isolated community
suffers a really nasty outbreak of the flu."

"Do it any other, and you have a devastating chemical fire
and lots of unwanted attention," Scully murmured, finishing
his train of thought.

"Exactly."

She reluctantly nodded.

"I don't think Criddon and his team were probably even in on
what was going on," Mulder said with a shrug.  "Why let out
that information unnecessarily?  They were probably told that
some sort of biological emergency existed, but were kept in
the dark as to the details."

"If that's true, then those men and the troops we found dead
were sacrificial lambs," Scully said hoarsely.  "They were sent
in unprepared and, in the end, unsupported.  They had no way
of knowing how serious it all was until it was too late."  

Contemplating this, she turned away from him, her head bowed 
in thought, and headed towards the bed.  Seemingly without 
conscious thought, she pivoted slightly and perched on the bunk, 
her hands in her lap, her shoulders bowed.

"You know what I think makes me maddest of all?" she asked
softly, her eyes trained on the linoleum.

"What?" he inquired from a half a dozen steps away.

"Against our wills, you and I helped them achieve their goal.
Our recovery proved to them that their antidote worked.  Their 
experiment was successful."

"'Against our wills' is the operative phrase here, Scully," he
reminded her dryly.

"It doesn't matter," she retorted, her gaze now lifted.  "It 
doesn't matter that they took this from us.  That they stole it 
just like they stole all those people's lives.  Even though it 
was technically without our knowledge, their actions still 
make us their accomplices."

They were both silent a moment, looking at each other, neither
touching.  "You may be right," Mulder confessed with after a
time, his hands on his hips.  "I suppose unwittingly you and
I helped the cause.  But I gotta tell you, Scully--I sure as hell
prefer that to the alternative."

Sighing, she tugged her hair free from its restraint and ruffled
the short auburn strands with her fingertips.  "I know.  I'm no
martyr; I don't mean to imply that I wished they had simply
let us die."

Playing with the ponytail tie, she hid her gaze from his, her 
voice hushed.  "I'm just so tired of being treated like a thing.  
Of my body betraying me.  Of being used for God only knows 
what and then discarded when I'm no longer necessary."

He crossed to her and sank down beside her on the bed.
Stilling the fidgety motion of her hands, he leaned in close
and pressed a gentle kiss to her cheek.  "I'm sorry, Scully."

Her eyes slid sideways, stealing a peek at him through her
hair.  "There's nothing to be sorry for, Mulder.  You aren't
the one responsible for this."

"Correct me if I'm wrong," he murmured wryly, his fingers
wrapped tightly around hers, "but it seems to me that our trip 
to Gateway was entirely my idea."

"It was a legitimate case," she argued with surprising fervor.
"I might have had my doubts in the beginning.  But everything
we discovered proves you were right.  There was definitely
a crime committed, a reason for us to have been there."

"When my being right means I have to watch you vomit up
your insides for hours on end, I'd just as soon be wrong," he
retorted gruffly, no small degree of horror woven through
his words.

Scully just looked at him for a second or two, an unexpected
twinkle of amusement in her eyes before she pulled her hand
out from under his and laid her palm against his cheek.  "That
may be one of the sweetest things you've ever said to me."

Mulder chuckled a bit shakily.  "It's that romantic streak in 
me.  It pops up at the oddest times."

She smiled.

"We should probably talk . . . about romance," she then
suggested softly, her hand still resting warmly on his face.

His nerve endings beginning to hum with anxiety, Mulder
slowly nodded.  "All right.  What would you like me to say?"

Scully's hand dropped away from him, her gaze lowering as
well.  "I don't think it's up to me to give you the words, Mulder. 
You have to decide what you want to say, how you want to
answer certain questions."

He licked his lips; they had all of a sudden gone dry, as had 
the inside of his mouth.  Unfortunately, all that missing moisture 
had apparently relocated to his palms.  He removed them from 
her lap.  "Why don't you ask me then?"

She bobbed her head.  "Okay.  I'll start."

She shifted on the bed to better face him.  "Where do you see
this going after we get out of here?"

"'This' meaning you and I?"

"Yes."

Grimacing, he rubbed his hand along his chin, enjoying the
feel of his whiskers scrubbing  his fingertips.  This was hard
for him.  Talking about how he felt was always so much more
difficult than simply acting upon those feelings.  "I want it to
continue."

"Continue *how* exactly?"

Christ, Scully.  Cut me some slack, will ya?

"I like what happened at the cabin," he said, the statement
unadorned and true, his focus entirely on her.

She nodded once more, but didn't say anything.

Her reticence made him apprehensive.  "The bath thing," he
amended with a quirk of his lips.  "And the table thing.  The 
bed thing, too, of course.  Not the rest of it."

Her lips turned up as well, though her eyes gave away
nothing.  "I figured as much."

Silence again.  Jesus.  The room was so quiet Mulder could
actually distinguish between the hum of the overhead
fluorescents and the whoosh of air being pumped in through
the vents.

Say something, he longed to shout.

"It will be different when we get back," Scully said, answering
his plea at last.  "It won't just be you and me alone in the woods.  
In many ways we'll be back to 'the norm'.  Back to a world where 
the two of us are used to behaving in ways other than how we've 
been for the past month or so."

She was approaching the damned thing so clinically that he
could feel the faint beginnings of anger churning in his gut.
"Do you think I can't tell the difference, Scully?  Do you
honestly believe we've been so conditioned by the Bureau that
the minute you and I step inside the Hoover Building, I'm going
to forget all about that's happened between us?"

"No," she said swiftly.  "I'm not saying that.  All I'm saying is
that in a very strange way our lives were simpler at Franklin's
cabin."

He practically snorted with derision.  "Yeah.  We played a
game of Keep-Away with the bad guys using our lives as the
ball."

"Exactly," she retorted. "It was you and me against the world.  
No one to answer to, no appearances to maintain."

"Oh, come on, Scully," he said, getting to his feet to pace
once more before her.  "You've got to know that I am the last
person to be worried about appearances."

"Oh really?" she queried, clearly not impressed by his restless
show of energy.  "Then how do you explain what's happened
since we've been cooped up in here?"

"What do you mean 'what's happened'?" he asked, whirling
on her with a scowl of confusion.  "You and I woke up cured
of the virus.  We've spent time getting our strength back.  End
of story."

She smiled sadly.  "Mulder, you haven't touched me since I
regained consciousness."

"Touched you?" he echoed, totally befuddled.

She shook her head.  "Don't get me wrong--you've been
attentive, kind . . . you've teased me, bantered a bit."

He shrugged, hands outspread, as if to say, 'And?'.

"In other words, without us even discussing it, you've reverted
back to the way things were."

"The way things were?" he questioned, wondering just when
he had somehow transformed into parrot.

"Yes," she succinctly said, her expression a cipher for all the
information it was imparting.  "The way things were before
we slept together."

He took a step towards her.  "You're saying that you think
my behavior indicates I'm no longer interested in you?"

She shrugged.  "I'm not convinced it's a conscious decision
on your part.  I don't think you mean to distance yourself or
treat me any differently.  I'm sure you intended it as a kind
of respect.  You probably didn't want to take it upon yourself
to disclose to the people here what had happened between us."

Okay.  That, at least, was in the ballpark.  He nodded his
agreement.

"And that's great, Mulder," she said in a tone which suggested
she didn't actually find his behavior particularly laudable.  "It's 
nice and thoughtful. . . . and utterly unlike you."

"I can be nice!" he shouted in frustration, the very harshness of
his tone undercutting his avowal, his arms flailing.

"Mulder, I'm not saying you can't be," she quickly said, her
hand stretched towards him beseechingly.  "I'm just saying
you're the one who tells me he couldn't care less what people
think."

He nodded.

"So your ability to so easily return to the status quo worries
me."

"Why?" he demanded, looming over her.

She gazed up at him, her cheeks flushed, her blue eyes
enormous.  When she spoke, her voice came out smoky and
rough-edged, ragged as if she found it difficult to actually say
the words.  "Because I love you.  And I want what we started
at that cabin to grow."

Swallowing hard against a swell of emotion, Mulder nodded
and, standing over her, cradled the side of her face in his palm.

"But I won't take a backseat to the X-Files.  Not even for you."

He pulled back just a touch.  "What?  What are you talking
about?"

She smiled thinly, her expression slightly chagrined.  "Mulder,
in all the time I've known you, you've made it perfectly clear
where your priorities lie."

He just looked at her.

"With the X-Files," she said, filling in the blank.  "You told
me that right from the start.  When we were on our first case 
together in Bellefleur."

"Scully--"  His hand slid from her cheek to her shoulder,
landing there heavily.

"I respect that," she said, cutting him off.  "And as your
partner, I've set out to prove to you I could match your 
commitment, that I was as dedicated to our work as you 
yourself."

She looked away at last.  "It's a double-edged sword, you know?
Our work is what brought us together.  But it's also what stands
between us."

"That's not true," he whispered, a nettlesome vine of fear taking
root in the pit of his stomach, crawling up from there to twine
and scratch at his insides.

"I think it might be," she said with regret.  "I can't see you 
letting go of the files, Mulder.  Even if we do somehow manage 
to convince Skinner to keep us together as a team, your work 
will always be the focus of your life."

"*A* focus, yes," he said tightly.  "But not the *only* focus."

"It's difficult for a person to drastically change their behavior," 
she said softly, seemingly not at all convinced.  "Ask any smoker 
or dieter.  You've lived your life the way you have for a long time, 
both with me in it and not.  You're used to taking off when you 
want to, to acting alone, to telling me only what you think I need 
to know."

He kept shaking his head, waiting for an opening so he could
refute her charges.

But Scully kept talking.

"And although it's never made me happy, I can cope with that
sort of behavior from a work partner," she said, with a pensive
smile.  "But not from a man I'm involved with romantically."

She turned atop the bed and deposited her ponytail elastic
with the rest of her personal paraphernalia, the action hiding
her expression from him.  "I need to be as important to you as
you are to me.  I can't live with you turning on and off the way 
you do sometimes."

"I turn on and off?"  Mulder queried, chewing on the inside
of his cheek, his hands once more on his hips.

Looking up at him, she nodded almost apologetically.

"Like a lamp with a wall switch?"

She winced.  "Sorry about that."

Shaking his head, he sighed and ran his hand through his
hair.  "That's okay.  The truth hurts."

"It can," she glumly agreed.

Neither moved for a time.  Scully remained seated on the
bed; Mulder stood arm's length away.  Each was mute.

Finally, scuffing his toe on the linoleum, Mulder spoke.  "But
it's also supposed to set you free."

Scully looked at him curiously.  "The truth?"

He nodded.  "Yeah.  It ranks right up there platitude-wise
with 'Knowledge is Power' and 'It's Always Darkest Just
Before the Dawn'."

She smiled wanly.

"What do you say we aim for freedom rather than for pain?"
he asked softly, taking a step towards her.

She looked up at him, her gaze searching.  "What do you
mean?"

"I mean you may be right, Scully," he said, his words rumbling
low.  "I may stink at this relationship thing.  I may screw up
my priorities and fall back into all my bad habits."

She nodded, her tongue creeping out to moisten her lips.

"But you have to let me try," he whispered, his voice cracking
just a touch.  "You have to trust that I will do everything in my
power to make it . . . us . . right."

She blinked, but said nothing.

"Because I =will= try.  I promise you that.  Don't believe we're 
going to fail just because logic says we should," he entreated, 
his fingers stealing forth to skim along her hair.

"I don't want to believe," she murmured roughly, her eyes
shimmering, her mouth curved with the smallest suggestion of 
a smile.

Surprised by her turn of phrase, Mulder chuckled fondly and,
standing before her, cradled her face in his palms.  "Oh, Scully
 . . . you always know just what to say."

Now smiling outright, she tilted her face up to his.  Bending
over her seated form, Mulder met her more than halfway,
and settled his lips over hers for a long, leisurely kiss.

"So you think we can do this, huh?" she queried after their
mouths had parted.

"Sure," he said blithely, pressing a string of kisses to her
hairline.  "After flukes and voodoo and killer viruses, real
life should be a breeze."

"Maybe.  But I have a feeling it'll take some getting used to,"
she warned, her hands running lightly along his sides and up
and down his back.

Enjoying her caress, Mulder stood silently for a moment.  Then,
all at once, he pulled his partner up to stand beside him.  "You
know--I think you're right, Scully."

"What are you talking about?" she asked, clearly befuddled.

But Mulder only smiled, and backing away from the bed,
tugged her along after him.

"Our new life," he said, walking slowly but steadily towards
one of the room's two doors.  "Refusing to fall back into
established patterns of behavior.  Being willing to make time
for each other.  To be together even though conditions are
less than ideal."

He paused outside their bathroom door.  "This room isn't much
for privacy, not with doctors traipsing in and out all the time
unannounced."

"Mulder . . .  " Scully drawled, a reluctant smile pulling on her
lips.

"Put up or shut up, Scully," he said pleasantly, his eyes dancing
with merriment.  "You were the one complaining I hadn't 
touched you."

She looked at him, amused in spite of herself.

He leaned in close, his breath fluttering her hair.  "But I'd like to.
I'd like very much to touch you . . . if you'd let me."

She drew back slightly to gaze up at him.  "In here?"

"Think of it as a kind of 'Mile High' club thing," he suggested
with a playful lift of his shoulders.  "Only a lot closer to the 
ground.  C'mon, how many couples can say they've done it in 
Level 4 quarantine?"

Chuckling, she said with a shake of her head, "You're crazy."

"You love me," he countered, sure now, despite their long and
troubling discussion.

"I do," she confirmed with a gentle smile.

He grinned back at her, happier than he'd been in a long time.
"Then why don't you let me prove to you the feeling is mutual?"

She considered for half a heartbeat before slipping past him
into the other room.  "All right.  There's just one thing, Mulder."

"What?" he asked a trifle warily.

"Be careful," she warned, her fingertips tracing the sink's rim.
"You know how . . . . *slippery* things can get.  There are lot
of hard surfaces in here."

"And more than a few soft ones," he murmured, stepping behind
her to meet her gaze in the mirror, his hand sliding possessively
along her curves.

She leaned into him, pressing her bottom to the meeting of his
thighs.  Mulder could only groan.  She chuckled at the sound.
"Does that door have a lock?"

Hardening more by the moment, he closed his fingers round 
her arms, and slowly ran his mouth down the nape of her neck, 
nuzzling gently beneath her hair.  "I think so."

"Use it," she directed, her eyes fluttering shut, her hands
clenching on the porcelain.

"Yes, ma'am."

Smiling, Mulder did as he was bid.

Once secure, he turned and resumed his place behind her.  
The woman reflected back at him in the vanity mirror was 
flushed and already breathing shallow and quick.  He took 
advantage of her still-closed eyes to simply drink her in, to 
bask in her beauty.

God.  How had he managed to keep his hands off of her--not 
only for the last few weeks of their quarantine, but for the 
years that their partnership had kept her at his side?

Scully made a small, impatient sound, and in response, he 
slipped both hands beneath her top and arched forward, coming 
to rest with his groin pressed firmly into her backside, his hands 
cupping her breasts.  Lifting.  Squeezing.  Her next little noise 
was lower, more satisfied.  He smiled, and closing his eyes, 
wished with all his might that he could hear that sound every 
day for the rest of his life.

While wondering at the same time just how long he could truly 
hold the rest of the world at bay.

*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

THE END!  :-)

Author's note: Anyone else endowed with a strange fetish about 
epidemic disease?  If so, I suggest you visit www.outbreak.org.  This 
is an excellent site with information in fairly plain English about various 
diseases and epidemics - the account of what may have been a case of 
Marburg virus in a Swedish hospital should ring some bells, if nothing 
else does.