From: jesse bee Date: 1 Jul 1999 19:49:45 -0700 Subject: xfc REPOST End of Innocence 1 of 4 And now, by special request... This one has been bouncing between my good friend Michele and I since the ep aired, and we think it's about ready for prime time. Bring on the feedback, 'cause we took a different view and we figure we're bound to piss *somebody* off with this one... jesse ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ TITLE: "End Of Innocence" (4) DATE: 032399 AUTHORS: Michele Lellouche (mdanl73@gmail.com) and Jesse (jesse.bee@mailcity.com) RATING: R (language) CATEGORY: A, M/S friendship, maybe some MRS, M/S/Sk friendship SPOILERS: Two Fathers, One Son, FTF; could also be anything up to there. SUMMARY: What precisely the hell was actually happening during "Two Fathers" and "One Son." Stand back, people--it's *our* turn. DISCLAIMER: 20th Century Fox, Chris Carter, 1013 Productions own the rights to THE X-FILES, which is a real damn pity. DD and GA own Mulder and Scully and would probably do all sorts of interesting stuff with them if allowed... ARCHIVE: Of course, of course. Post this sucker to XFF, Gossamer, ATXC, and any other damn place you'd like. FEEDBACK is cherished lovingly and responded to promptly. Cookies & milk or pizza & beer are available, whichever you prefer... PITHY AUTHORS' NOTE: This story was written in response to many stories that followed "One Son" and led to the following vow on both our parts. We REFUSE to read another story that contains these terms: "Post One Son" "Mulder apologizes" --SO THERE-- Nuff said ;-) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ END OF INNOCENCE (1/4) mljesse032399 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Potomac Train Yards A.D. Skinner waited until the car door slammed behind Scully. "You two are going to be the death of me yet." He ignored their winces and scowled. Gravel peeled out from under the tires as he headed for the Yards exit. The silence remained thick and unbroken until they hit the westbound exit and were pointed firmly for West Virginia. "Now. Start talking. Tell me why you sacrificed your car to that train and why in hell you thought some piece of tinfoil from Detroit would even slow it down." Scully glanced back at Mulder, who looked as chastised as she did. "It seemed like a good idea at the time." "Likely that will be your epitaphs." Skinner decided to let them have it. He was tired of cryptic pronouncements, he was decidedly out of practice. "It's going to be all our epitaphs unless we get to West Virginia," Mulder said wearily. Skinner eyed him in the rear view and scowled again. "Since we've got, what, a few hours in the car, I'm going to suggest something here. And as your former superior, I still have enough authority to order you two around." "So--" Scully prompted "So. First, I want answers, right here, right now, I want the whole story." "And second?" Mulder asked, sounding even more tired, if that were possible. "And second, you two are going to settle whatever it is that you're arguing over, mad at each other over, whatever it is, it's hashed out right here, right now. You two together are annoying enough. Apart, you're driving me crazy." "We're not--" they both began in a baritone-alto harmony. It almost made Skinner laugh. If it wasn't all so goddamn serious, he would take them somewhere, lock them in a room with coffee and food and not let them out until they settled everything. This would have to do. "Would you people cut the crap?" he snapped, making sure his 'DI bite' was firmly in place. "You just drove a *car* in front of a *train.* You two, possibly the smartest people I have ever met in my life, did that? That alone means you're off your game." "And a helluva time for it to happen," Mulder muttered. "Bottom line, the world could be ending and we can't do a damn thing about it. No Cassandra--we'll get there too late." "And then what happens?" "They win," Mulder spat. "They become hybrids, they survive, no more vaccine, and, oh, by the way, the survivors on our side? Me and Scully. Maybe. The rest of the world goes to death or hell or worse." "Mulder--" Scully turned in her seat, alarmed at the wild rise in his voice. His eyes did nothing to reassure her. "You--don't--be--lieve it, Scully, remember?" His voice ground like broken glass. "You were too woozy when I pulled you out of--" Scully caught her breath at the shudder that ran through Mulder's frame. "--out of that overgrown test tube full of green ice, scared to death that the vaccine wouldn't work, looking into your eyes--and you were just one--there was a whole ship full of people, hundreds, thousands..." Skinner nearly lost control of the car as Scully climbed over the seat. Silence reigned again and he glanced in the rear view mirror, then stared. Scully was gentling Mulder, there was no other word for it. Using her voice, touch, her closeness to bring him back. Scully balanced on the back seat with one leg tucked under her and the other braced against the floor, and her arms were full of Mulder. His forehead rested against hers and she could see the set of his jaw in the occasional passing car headlights. His arms wound only loosely around her waist, but his hands were fisted hard against the small of her back as he fought to pull himself under control. He'd resisted her embrace at first but she'd decided, with that same sharp-edged glorious determination that had been firing her since the CDC had broken into Mulder's apartment, that she didn't give a damn what Skinner saw. Nor did she give a damn about Fowley; they'd hash that out later. Right now Mulder needed her as he wrestled with the past, the hazy visions she couldn't believe because she couldn't really remember, the ones she knew had wrenched him half-awake in a shuddering cold sweat on more than a few nights. The ones she knew about because she had woken him from the nightmares on all those miserable road trips they had endured under Kersh's orders. She bit down a sudden insane urge to laugh. Skinner watched them in the rear view despite himself, fascinated and touched and if he was honest, more than a little envious. And more determined than before to do what he could to help remove the bone of contention between them. One day, he decided, he might understand these two, and their bond, but today was not that day. And right now none of them had the time. "Scully...Mulder..." he tried softness. When it failed, he barked in command: "Agents!" Mulder's head came up from Scully's. After a moment he leaned back and met Skinner's gaze in the rear view, and his eyes had the blasted look of a soldier who understood, finally, precisely why he was going to go mow down that village of innocent civilians. "Where would you like me to start?" "You've obviously gotten new information since we spoke at your apartment, or you wouldn't have been out here in the middle of the night committing vehicular homicide by locomotive." That won two eyebrows from Scully and a startled snort of laughter from Mulder. "So work the new stuff in and give me the whole story once more, from the top." "With feeling." Scully muttered. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ END OF INNOCENCE (2/4) mljesse032399 mdanl73@gmail.com jesse.bee@mailcity.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ El Rico Air Base West Virginia They rolled up to the base gates only to find them deserted. Skinner stopped the car and Scully slipped out, badge in hand. When no one came out, she walked to the booth and saw what Skinner couldn't from the driver's seat. She ran back to the car. "They've been here--the guard's body's been burned beyond recognition." "We need to call in backup, an evidence team," Skinner reached for his phone, was distracted when Mulder fell back in his seat. "Think they got Cassandra?" Scully peered at him through the open car door. "We won't think that until we see it. Where was it all to go down, do you think?" Mulder got out at that, joined his partner. He shoved the careening, mind-numbing mass of hope and horror back down his throat, out of the way. They would sort their different realities out later--for now he had to pull himself together. A minute later, Skinner exited the car as well. While they overlooked the base, trailing off down into the valley below, Skinner gingerly stepped over the charred body and found the log. El Rico might be targeted for final shutdown, but one could count on the military--the rules were still the rules. The names meant nothing until the last one. "Fowley signed in, to go to the main hangar." The two agents crowded back to the door. "C'mon." They had just stopped outside the open double doors when Scully, sniffing the air, caught the unmistakable stench. Without waiting for the evidence team, they entered the hangar and a vision of Hell both Skinner and Mulder had had branded on their minds at Ruskin Bridge. There were no words for what they saw as they cleared the military ambulance. Even Scully, who had waded through the most horrific crime scenes with an unperturbed air, slowed, then stopped. The two men had stopped long before. Mulder was desperately trying to piece it together. For an insane moment he wanted to laugh, to howl in triumph. The bastards who had made their lives Hell on Earth, perhaps all of them, gone. Although he wouldn't wish this death on almost anyone else, it was only too good for these people. He looked up and saw the flickers of the same thought in Scully's eyes, amazingly in Skinner's. And as quickly extinguished. "The gurney is empty," Scully announced, picking her way gingerly over to the heat-twisted metal remains. "The rebel aliens must've taken her." She said it as if she were unable to believe the words escaping her mouth. She was very obviously, deliberately not looking at him, and again he wanted to laugh crazily as a corner of his brain catalogued and referenced what he'd been waiting years to hear her say. Scully stepped carefully around the edges of the stinking, smoldering holocaust, hand unconsciously at her throat as though she could somehow physically force back the nausea trying overwhelm her. Force down the simultaneously sickening and satisfying thought that if God had dispensed full justice, one of the bodies would be that of a certain female FBI agent. But Mulder put it together and noted the other obvious missing party. "Diana's car isn't here. Wasn't out front either." "Not surprising she managed to get away," Scully shot back, hating her tone, holding on with fingernails. "Scully--" he began. "Not now." Scully lost it. "Don't you dare," she hissed, choking. "You were going to go with her..!" "You two--not now." Skinner barked. He had missed the beginning of this as he had been on the phone. "The team from DC is on its way. We need to fan out and determine who, if anyone, is alive. Move, agents." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ By the time they had completed a circuit of the immediate area, the rapid response team had arrived by helicopter from DC. Then there was nothing to do but go home, as there was little way they could help given Mulder's and Scully's currently shaky Bureau status. Mulder retreated to the car and Skinner joined him after a few minutes, silently, waiting for Scully. The team had been more than willing to take her advice, unofficially of course, suspension not having dimmed her rep as a damn good pathologist. Skinner was wondering if he should rethink his position on getting their argument out in the open. He found he wasn't looking forward to the long return trip with his two agents staring daggers at each other. But when Scully rejoined them, sliding into the back as the front seat was full of things Skinner had been asked to take back, Mulder studiously avoided her gaze. The first two-thirds of the trip was dead silent, to the point that Skinner started surfing around on AM radio to pick up a feed of CNN Headline News. When it was located, there was no mention of any disasters. Finally he gave up listening to the lies and snapped off the noise. At that point the little something which had been niggling at the back of his mind, something unsaid in Mulder's story, abruptly came clear. "Mulder." "Sir?" "Something's bothering me. I was there with Agent Spender when he made the call to the CDC, told them his mother was gone, that she was carrying some high level contagion and that she had to be located immediately. But he never mentioned you. How did they know to show up at your apartment?" "Because Agent Fowley led them there." It was Scully who answered, her voice brittle. "Agent Fowley is perfectly well aware of where Mulder lives." Skinner glanced in the mirror in time to see Mulder's jaw settle in a dangerous-looking line. "What do you mean, Scully?" the A.D. prompted, even as his stomach dropped. "What I mean, sir, is that I believe Agent Fowley has been in a position to know the whereabouts of Cassandra Spender all along. That she has been in on this whole situation for years, perhaps since Mulder first starting working on the X-Files." "Scully." There was an warning edge to Mulder's voice. Scully ignored it, running on the anger that she had been suppressing for months, not all of it at Diana. "That she deliberately put Mulder in that situation in Arizona and then slanted her report so that he would come out with censure, worsening our chances of regaining the Files." "*Scully...*" "That all along she has been blocking our access to critical information, including the true nature of the medical condition of Cassandra Spender--" "*Stop it, Scully!*" Scully turned on him, finally and gloriously out of control. "No, Mulder, I will NOT stop! Skinner's got every right to hear this; he needs to know this information and he needs to know that you won't do anything about it!" His voice grew harder. "You've got no solid proof, Scully." "Proof! Since when have you needed proof? There's as much and more proof here as you've ever given me on God knows how many cases! Just because you and she once were--Jesus, how much more evidence do you need? I have done everything I know to do to light a fire under you, Mulder, to get you to see what's right in front of your face!" Eyes squeezed shut, Mulder made one more attempt at reasonable. "What do you want from me, Scully?" That was the last straw. "What do I want?! DAMMIT, Mulder!!" Scully's voice was pitched somewhere that Skinner'd never heard before. "*Nothing more than the same thing I've given you!* For every time I've gone and investigated something for you on nothing more than just your gut instinct, the least you could do now is give me the--the professional courtesy of weighing the actual evidence!!" One. Two. Three. Four. Five heartbeats of dead silence. "Do you the 'professional courtesy,' Scully? Of weighing the evidence?" Skinner's head snapped to the rearview mirror. He knew that inflection, that deceptively gentle tone, and from Scully's quickly controlled expression she did too. He'd heard Mulder use it a hundred times before, in a hundred different interrogation rooms. Right before he pounced. "What evidence?" Scully's breath caught. "You mean that pathetic string of event and circumstance you laid out for me over at the Lone Gunmen? Your-- 'interpretations'--of her actions concerning Cassandra Spender?" Mulder's voice was still low. "Mulder..." "Is that the evidence you want me to look at? To consider with that 'professional courtesy' you've always given me?" Scully stiffened her spine and looked him square in the eyes. "Yes." "But I have, Scully; I did." "Mulder..." "I DID!!" Skinner jumped and nearly lost his grip on the wheel for the second time that night as the abrupt crack of Mulder's fist slamming into the door ripped through the car like a gunshot. He'd wanted them to get it out in the open. It looked like he was going to get his wish. "That is *precisely* what I did!" Mulder's voice echoed painfully around the car. "An extreme possibility, Scully, *that's* what you proposed! That this person I've known a hell of a lot longer than you, who was there when I found the X-Files, *who I trusted!*, was dirtier than hell! You presented me with this 'out-there' theory and guess what? I treated it the same way, with the same 'professional courtesy' you've given damn near every single one of mine for *six years!*" He slipped into a parrot of her usual 'Mulder, be serious' tone. "'The facts don't support that, Mulder; there's no solid evidence for that, Mulder; you've got no real proof of that, Mulder; you're making this personal, Mulder'--any of that sound familiar, Scully? There has never been any time, any one single time, that you've *ever* regarded an extreme theory of mine as more than a convenient path to your scientific truth until the evidence pile for it gets big enough to crush you! And even *then* most of the time you *still* will not believe me!" "But I should simply abandon everything I've seen, everything I know, on just that ridiculously slender trickle of breadcrumbs you and the Gunmen poured out?" Mulder stopped and looked away for a moment, drew in a harsh sharp breath, visibly yanking himself back under control. Scully sat motionless, stunned by the depths of an anger she'd rarely seen in him. And never directed at her. Then he turned back and pinned her again. "What's the one question you haven't asked me yet, Scully, in all of this?" Mulder's voice was back to that low, dangerous tone. "I'll tell you. You know where I ran into C.G.B. Spender; you know I was at Diana's apartment. What you don't know is why. I was looking for evidence, Scully. I broke into the apartment of an old friend on nothing more than your faint suspicions, looking for evidence to support your wild theory that I didn't believe in. Doing *exactly* the same as you've done for me a thousand times." Mulder released her eyes then, finally, and looked away out the side window. And when he spoke again his voice was dead and cold. "I gave your theory the same thing you give mine, treated it in just the same fashion. Don't talk to me about 'professional courtesy,' Scully. You got it." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ end part two of four END OF INNOCENCE (3/4) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The silence fell and remained, thick and sticky and smothering, for the rest of the trip. But as Skinner turned into the parking for the Watergate, Scully felt Mulder's fingers touch over the back of her hand and then envelope her in a firm grip. This time she was the one to resist the contact but his hold tightened, then released as Skinner pulled up next to his car. The click of the door unlatching was unnaturally loud, and-- "Scully." It was all she could do to look at him, but when she did it was all she could do not to gape. Bleak. Blasted. The eyes of the child at the end of innocence, when good and bad no longer make sense. When we have met the enemy, and he is us. "You were right." And Mulder got out and closed the door, and walked away. Skinner recovered first, picked his jaw up out of his lap and put the car back in gear. He'd take Scully over to the Bureau, get her a fleet car to use until she could get a new one of her own... But at the first forward motion she suddenly came back to life. "*Stop!* Stop the car!" Startled, Skinner jammed on the brake, and before the small screech of rubber had faded Scully was out and bolting the short distance to Mulder's car. the short thought flashed crazily through her brain as she yanked open the passenger door. Mulder was slumped over the steering wheel, his face buried in his arms, and he didn't move at all as she slid in. But he stiffened as she tentatively touched his shoulder. "Go away, Scully." "Mulder..." "Don't...! Just--leave it alone..." Before she could second-guess herself, Scully scooted right in close and put both arms around him. He was taut as steel cable. "Go away." But there was no force behind it, and his tone was all at odds with his words...and suddenly she knew exactly what to do. So simple, really. "No. I'm not leaving, Mulder." She nestled her head in close to his and whispered, almost ruefully. "I can't. I won't. Not without you." The cable snapped. Mulder's shoulders hitched once, twice, and began to shake; and Scully just held him. A movement outside caught her eye, and she looked up to see Skinner a few feet away, the question written large on his face. She shook her head and then laid it back down on Mulder's shoulder, and a few moments later she heard Skinner's car pull away. It seemed a short eternity later that she heard Mulder again. "I didn't want to believe it, Scully." His voice was raspy, muffled by his arms. "I had suspicions, maybe I'd actually--known--for a while, but I didn't want to believe it." He looked sideways at that, peeking out one sad eye. "Almost as much as I wouldn't want to believe that about you. You don't know, Scully, she was...the one person besides Reggie Purdue who gave a damn about me in that time before you." Scully caught her breath again, scarcely believing that she heard right. "Mulder--" "And now I have to consider that she's dirty, that she might have always been? That it could've been a setup from the beginning--finding the Files, her steering my pursuits, getting me to Dr. Weber." "I *owed* her, Scully. I thought I owed her every possible chance I could manage. She's probably the only reason 'Spooky' Mulder was alive and still with the FBI to meet you in the basement in '92. Between the new profiling nightmares and the old ones of my sister surfacing I was halfway down the rabbit hole. VCS even had a hell of a big pool going on, betting on just how soon my permanent address was going to change to a rubber room. Diana and Reggie were the only things left, my only bits of sanity. At the worst of it, that one night, Diana only just managed to talk me out of eating my gun. Exactly one week later I discovered the X-Files." He stopped, pulled a unsteady breath, and Scully tilted her head back and blinked rapidly. Mulder finally moved, slouching back into the seat with head tipped up and eyes closed. Scully leaned her forehead against his shoulder, and his hand found hers and rested them both on his thigh. It was another minute or so before the rapid-fire pounding of her heart caused by his revelation eased, and she thought maybe she could speak again. "When did you start to suspect?" she whispered. "Shortly after she came back." Scully's head came back up and she stared, stunned. Mulder didn't open his eyes, but his mouth quirked like he could see her anyway. "Really. It was--too easy, too convenient. Too coincidental for her to show up just at the moment when Gibson Praise did." He chuckled, but it sounded strained. "And if coincidence is just..." "...coincidence, why does it feel so contrived?" Scully murmured, finishing. "Exactly. But," he hesitated, squinched his eyes as though in sudden pain, "then she was shot and Gibson disappeared, the office burned, they shut us down..." He drew another deep breath, squeezed her hand. "All at once I was losing all these pieces of my world, Scully, and I don't have that many to begin with. And it didn't make sense that they'd shoot to kill if she was working with them--she could've just handed the kid over and they could've hit her somewhere less critical to make it look good. And I started second-guessing myself." Abruptly, Scully let go of the anger at Mulder for trusting Fowley and quite easily intensified her rage at the woman herself. Burning was too good for a woman who took this man and destroyed him like this. "How can you be sure of what C.G.B. told you?" "It all makes sense, Scully. It explains my father, how and why Samantha was taken, all the evidence we've uncovered." She corrected herself. Mulder was far from fragile; he was anything but to have kept going this long with the pain he carried. "You don't think they're burned in that fire, do you." Mulder sighed and opened his eyes, studied the roof of his car for a moment. Then he rolled his head against the seat to look at her. "I know Diana and stupid, she's not. She must've arrived when it was happening or just as it was beginning, and she ran like hell. If he was there, I'm sure he went along for the ride." Mulder considered the ugly possibility that the Smoking Man and Diana were involved beyond plotting and decided he'd put himself through enough hell for one day. "Where's the young Spender?" "He was headed back to the FBI once he left Ft. Marlene. Why? Do you think he knows where C.G.B. would've gone?" "Jeffrey?" Mulder's eyes went distant. "No, he's not a player. Not yet. I can't see dear old Dad trusting him with any truly important information. Interesting that C.G.B didn't want his son to survive." "Mulder..." Mulder refocused on her face as Scully hesitated, looking torn, and knew there was one more question to go. The worst one-- the one he'd been dreading most. The accusation she'd thrown at him in the hanger, that he *had* to answer if they were to have any hope of getting past this. One more layer of hell to go through after all. "Why were you going with her?" Mulder squeezed his eyes shut and rolled his head back again, unable to look at the jagged pain in her blue ones. "I was..." He pulled in air, tried again. "I was lost, Scully." "Everything C.G.B. told me--it made perfect sense and no sense at all. It was as if, for the first time, my world was a complete picture with a frame holding everything together, but all the colors were reversed. Bad was good and good was bad, and for twenty-six years everything I'd done had only served to further endanger the very things I was trying to save." "It was like sleepwalking, almost. I felt--nothing. Completely numb. Stunned, like being in shock; I couldn't even think. It had all been so complex and now suddenly it was so simple. Go, and see Samantha again and live--or stay and die. It was as easy as that." His fingers were squeezing hers again, rhythmically; his thumb stroking over her knuckles as if he was pulling strength from her skin to say what had to be said. "Talking to Diana was as if there was a mike in my ear, and I was saying the words someone else was giving me. And when I told her, she wasn't surprised, Scully. She was only surprised that *I* knew. And I realized that she'd known all along, that she knew this was the thing to do and had just been wondering if I'd catch up with the program before it was too late. She kissed me, then, and I held her, I think because she was the only thing in the world at that moment that I recognized." "I don't know how long we sat there, but when we got up to leave I knew I had to reach you and take you with me, because there'd be no point to surviving if you weren't there. But when I heard your voice, what you were saying, it was like the cocoon shredded and fell away. I knew that the road I've been on all these years had been the correct one after all because *you* were there, too. And you wouldn't have been if it wasn't the right thing to do." <...no point to surviving if you weren't there...> The words burbled like a sweet fountain through Scully's mind, washing away the last of the sticky muck that Diana Fowley had left there. It made sense. Finally, for the first time since the woman had startled her partner so badly in that meeting, it all made sense. Ugly, messy sense--but then life was rarely neat and clean, particularly with Mulder. And again she knew exactly what to do. "Water under the bridge, Mulder." Scully lifted her free hand to touch Mulder's chin and turn his face toward her, then curved her fingers around the back of his neck and pulled his head down. The warm press of Scully's lips against his forehead was apology and absolution. Somewhere in his chest the tight knot with Diana's name on it came apart, undone by her surgeon's fingers. Unbidden, a motto he had seen at Arlington Court in England rang clear in his mind: "It is only the great-hearted who can be true friends." Great-hearted, indeed. As he'd done what seemed like centuries ago, at his mother's hospital bedside, Mulder dropped his head to Scully's shoulder and she drew him down. Holding him--holding herself against the raw outpour of everything that had happened between them since Dallas. Against the last twenty-four hours, which had imploded the certainties which had been his guide through and hold on his crazy world for over twenty-four years. *She* made sense. When nothing else did, Scully made sense. He would believe in her. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ end part three of four END OF INNOCENCE (4/4) mljesse032399 mdanl73@gmail.com jesse.bee@mailcity.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ F.B.I. Headquarters Office of A. D. Kersh "The way these people died, the loss of life here... It is beyond words." A brief pause, and Kersh continued. "I can't imagine how it must be for you, loosing your mother." Mulder was wryly amused, even as his face remained schooled in the expressionless look he kept for just such ass-kick meetings as this was undoubtedly going to be. "Yes, sir." Spender's voice was quiet. "But that's not why I asked for this meeting." Kersh's eyes flicked to Skinner, standing behind Spender's chair, and Mulder wondered briefly what he saw. "Then why did you ask for it?" "Because I'm responsible for the deaths of those people at the airbase in no small way. I certainly didn't prevent them." "I can assume then you can explain *how* they died? Because I have yet to hear any explanation." Kersh's voice took on the ugly tone Mulder was most used to hearing, and he could feel Scully's resigned weariness next to him. "Agent Mulder can explain it." <*My.* This is interesting.> Mulder turned, and Spender met his eyes and continued. "I think Agent Scully, to an extent. They might have even prevented what you see in those photos." Mulder returned to watching the point he'd chosen somewhere to the left of Kersh, chewed his lip a moment despite himself as his conflicted feelings in the hanger flashed through his mind. Kersh spoke again, sneeringly. "Agents Scully and Mulder have been suspended by the F.B.I." "Also my doing," said Spender. "And my mistake." "I would ask--" Kersh began, but Spender interrupted him. "*I'd ask,* sir, before you tell me that it's not my business, that you do everything you can to get them back on the X-Files." Hanging determinedly onto his blank expression Mulder turned to flat-out stare at Spender, blinking several times in surprise. Of all the possible twists for this meeting, this one hadn't even been on the list. "Far worse can happen," said Spender with a minute sigh, "and it will." Silence. Mulder noted absently that Skinner was eyeing Spender with something suspiciously like approval and that Kersh looked quite taken aback. But the rest of his awareness was riveted on the man now getting to his feet. Almost from outside himself, Mulder felt the pressure of Spender's hand laid briefly to his shoulder as the agent headed for the door. He swallowed hard, feeling breathless, suspended, trying to process the wild hope and vindication, by God, he'd just gotten from what had to be damn near the most unlikely place on earth... "Where are you going?" Kersh's voice jerked out harshly. With conviction. "To pack up my office." "Agent Spender--!" But Spender was gone. If Fox Mulder believed in angels, he might almost be willing to say he was hearing them. Mulder got a deep breath finally, rocking back in the uncomfortable chair and closing his eyes. He could literally feel Scully's astonishment rising like heat and he wanted desperately to touch her, to make sure this was not in fact a fever dream. He twisted around, looked at the now closed door... "*You have answers now?*" At Kersh's hiss Mulder turned back to see the A.D. leaning over his desk, brandishing the sheaf of photos at him. "Why didn't I hear about those answers before?" Mulder tried to regroup his thoughts. "I've had answers for years." "Then why we didn't we hear about them?" He wanted so badly to laugh. "Nobody ever listened." "Who burned those people?" "They burned themselves--with a choice made long ago by a conspiracy of men who thought..." "...who thought they could sleep with the enemy." Mulder looked over for the first time at Scully, realizing fully what it was that he had just said. He could not possibly have more neatly encapsulated the entire fiasco with Diana Fowley if he'd tried. Scully answered him with a tiny quirk of her mouth, a slight rise of her brows. Amusement at the mouthful he'd just said; acknowledgement of his chagrin and the whole sorry situation. Telling him as clearly as she had in the car that it was now water under their personal bridge... That little piece of his soul settled back into place. He looked back at Kersh. "Only to awaken another enemy." Kersh stared at him for a moment and then at Skinner, who was giving nothing away. The accusing eyes returned. "What the hell does that mean?" Mulder was ready this time. "It means the future is here--and all bets are off." Still staring as if he'd like nothing better than to beat a different answer from him, Kersh ground out "Agent Scully, make some sense." "Sir, I wouldn't bet against him," Scully replied in that calm voice he loved, and Mulder felt suddenly, absurdly, like dancing. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The explanation, laying out the information from start to finish as much as they knew, took over two hours. At the end, Kersh still looked unconvinced. "Could the two of you bury your differences to work with Agent Spender?" "Are you going to have us reassigned?" Mulder asked, exchanging a glance with Scully. "In light of these events--and the apparent disappearance of Agent Fowley--it's possible." "I can work on the X-Files with anyone," Mulder said blandly, catching out of the corner of his eye Scully trying not to smile. "A.D. Kersh." They were Skinner's first words in over an hour and Kersh started, like he'd forgotten the ex-Marine was in the room. Mulder sat firmly on his own threatening smirk. "There won't be a question of Agents Mulder and Scully learning to work with Agent Spender unless Agent Mulder requests for him to stay." Kersh's face was blank. Skinner reached without haste into his inner jacket pocket and retrieved a folded paper which he handed to Kersh, eyeing him with a non-expression Mulder thought he knew. Wild, painful hope fountained up again. "As of 9am this morning, Agent Spender tendered his official resignation as head of the X-Files division." Over the pounding of his heart Mulder felt rather than heard Scully's sudden intake of air. "He states that he, quote, "has come to understand that I am not experienced enough in certain areas critical to the work of this division, and would recommend that it be returned to the direction of its previous head, Special Agent Fox Mulder," end quote." "As Supervisor of this division, I am requesting the immediate reinstatement and transfer of Agents Mulder and Scully. Agent Spender was less than--diligent--in his duties, and there is currently an annoyingly large backlog of work which I do *not* wish to have to deal with any further." There was nothing whatsoever in Skinner's voice except irritated resignation, and Mulder bit his lip hard against the urge to applaud. Kersh looked at them all, shook his head at last. "Despite the fact that you've become decent at background checks, I am well aware that you two do not belong here. I will strongly support A.D. Skinner's recommendation. In light of these events, I hardly see a problem with your return to the X-Files." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ F.B.I. Headquarters Basement They started down their old familiar corridor, scenting the smells of home--dust, paper slowly acidifying, grease on dozens of broken down office chairs. But Scully's nose, heightened to the smells of death, caught blood. Before Mulder could even react, she was down the hall and through the door. "Mulder!" He skidded into their once and future office to see Jeffrey Spender sprawled on the floor. He was reaching for his cellphone when Scully shook her head. "No way to save him?" he asked softly. Mulder sank down on his heels across from her, saw something like sadness in her eyes. "Poor bastard. He was coming around to the right side." His own eyes shadowed with regret for the loss of what had never been. He and Spender had shared a rather unique history. Who knew--perhaps in time, they might have... He watched as Scully rose and paced away, as far as she could, back against Spender's desk. "Scully?" "Little convenient. Fowley's disappeared off the face of the Earth, now poor Spender's dead." "You think we're cursed?" She realized Mulder wasn't kidding. "If we are, it has a name." "You'd think he'd kill his own son--well, what am I saying, considering my own father's track record." Scully nodded and pulled out her phone. Once again, the X-Files office was taped off as a crime scene. Skinner met them in the hallway, his good news of reinstatement ruined by Spender's body being rolled out by the FBI's own pathologists, squabbling with the DC coroner's office. 'His' agents (Skinner realized he really liked the sound of that) were slumped against the wall. They hardly needed one more blow. "You two seem to attract trouble." "You just worked that out?" Mulder asked wearily. "Go home, agents. It's going to take a day to collect the evidence and you two don't need to be in the middle of this." This time they ended up at Scully's apartment, contemplating the end of the world over Chinese takeout. Scully sprawled out on the couch--it was *her* apartment, after all. Mulder sat on the floor, his head about even with her hip, as they passed the ubiquitous white containers back and forth between them. She'd decided that plates were just entirely too much trouble tonight. After the first few minutes they'd tabled the ramifications of the last few days, agreeing that tomorrow would be quite soon enough to take another look into the snakepit. Mulder had flicked on the TV instead and was offering an ascerbic and damn funny running commentary on the evening news, including his personal theory that Dan Rather had been abducted at some point. They hadn't bothered with many lights, and watching the play of the television glow over his features Scully suddenly found herself hit with an strong sense of deja vu. She let Mulder's voice recede to a warm, comforting drone as she tried to pin down what it was that seemed so...ah. "Scully?" She blinked as a chopstick moved in front of her nose, refocused on Mulder's amused hazel-green eyes behind it. "Quarter for your thoughts." "Quarter, huh?" "Inflation. Besides, I figured you'd be worth more than the going rate anyway. Where'd you go? You were a million miles away." "Would you believe--Oregon?" Mulder took in her position reclined on her side, his own leaning back with his head resting on the cushion, and smiled. They were much closer this time, though; he could feel the warmth of her thigh. "Have we come all the way around, then?" "Full circle to find the truth, Mulder. I think we're starting a new chapter." He closed his eyes and let himself tip his head the last inch necessary to touch her. "I think you're right. We're opening a whole new chapter on a lot of things, including the X-Files." She gave in to the urge to ruffle his hair, and he looked back up at her with something very warm in his eyes. A whole new chapter indeed. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ finis end part four of four ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Michele Lellouche (mdanl73@gmail.com) Jesse (jesse.bee@mailcity.com)