From: Richard Tamesis <rtamesis@webquest.com>
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 15:29:24 +0800
Subject: Post-The End story

Title: The Epilogue
Author: Richard Tamesis
E-mail: rtamesis@eudoramail.com
Rating: PG-13 (language)
Category: M/S R, UST, mythology
Spoilers: All five seasons up to FTF
Summary: Events between The End and the movie Disclaimer: Fox Mulder,
Dana Scully and all other familiar X Files characters belong to Chris
Carter, 1013 Productions and FOX. No copyright infringement intended.
Author's note: Feedback is always welcome!

-----------------------
Epilogue
-----------------------

Intensive Care Unit
Georgetown University Medical Center
Washington, D.C.
7:30 PM

The respiratory therapist finished making her adjustments to the
ventilator settings and recording them on the patient chart when her
pager went off. She regretted getting talked into doing two shifts in
a row that evening by her supervisor, and her feet ached terribly from
running around the hospital. She hoped it wasn't anything serious so
that she could go back to her call room and rest for at least thirty
minutes. She took a quick look at the number displayed on the pager's
LCD screen before gathering up her things and leaving the room in the
intensive care unit to go answer the call. Probably another arterial
blood gas request from those pesky interns, she thought.

FBI Special Agent Diana Fowley lay deathly still on her bed except
for the ventilator-controlled respiratory movements of her chest. She
was comatose for the past four days after sustaining a gunshot wound
to her chest. Her doctors were able to repair the torn pulmonary
vessels, but they feared that the hypovolemic shock from her injuries
and the delay in getting her into a trauma center may have deprived
her brain of essential oxygen for too long. They put in a request for
a neurological consult in the morning to assess her chances of
recovery. An endotracheal tube, which was connected to the
ventilator, was secured around her mouth with surgical tape. ECG
leads connected her to the cardiac monitor above her bed, and a blood
pressure cuff on her arm automatically inflated to measure her blood
pressure at regular intervals. A thoracotomy tube ran from the side
of her chest to a bottle filled with fluid bubbling beside her bed.
Intravenous lines snaked from her arms up to clear silicone bags
filled with lactated ringers solution and vasopressors to maintain
her circulation. The cardiac monitor displayed a steady rhythm of 62
beats per minute and a blood pressure of 90/50.

The complete darkness and silence inside her mind was interrupted by
occasional bursts of light at first, followed by brilliant images
running in slow motion. Fowley felt as if she was being pulled
forward into these images, which now filled her entire view. She saw
herself riding in the back seat of a car, possibly a limousine,
watching dreamily as an elderly man dressed in a suit on the front
seat pointed out some horses grazing in the fields outside. She
turned her head and saw that they were on some highway surrounded in
the distance by mountains covered with pine trees. The driver
appeared to be a young man with dark brown hair who kept his eyes on
the road and didn't say much. She noticed that his left arm appeared
to be stiff and that he favored holding the wheel with his right
hand. Fowley moved forward to get a better look up front, and her eye
caught the rearview mirror. She saw Gibson Praise, the child chess
prodigy she had been protecting before she got shot, staring right
back at her in the mirror.

The alarms went off as Fowley began to twitch and jerk on her
hospital bed. Her heart rate climbed up to 120 beats per minute, and
her blood pressure had risen to 147/90. The respiratory therapist,
who had just returned to pick up her stethoscope, immediately called
out for help to the nurses in their station while she stopped Fowley
from attempting to pull out the tube in her throat. As the nurses
came running in her room, Fowley opened her eyes wide, staring at the
images in front of her now rushing into her brain at ever increasing
speed. She suddenly found herself standing in a white room
brilliantly lit from all sides. Gibson stood in front of her, dressed
in a hospital gown and looking at her with a gaunt expression on his
face, his head shaven and his lips moving.

"Help me," he said.

Georgetown
Washington, D.C.
9:11 PM

FBI Special Agents Dana Scully and Fox Mulder had just finished
eating dinner in her apartment. She had promised him a homecooked
meal for months after recovering from her cancer and for all he had
done for her, and this seemed like a good enough time to do it. After
the order from the Attorney General to close down the X-files and
their office now in ashes from a mysterious fire, they had no idea
what to do with all their free time while they waited for their new
assignments and the results of the arson investigation. A gnawing
feeling of anxiety over their fates clouded every waking moment,
which Scully tried her best to ignore. She did, however, cry on her
mother's shoulder after Scully visited her the following day, not so
much for herself but for what she knew Mulder must be going through.

Scully was especially worried about her partner. If she hadn't
dragged Mulder out to go shopping with her that morning for groceries
and then accompany her to the new aerospace exhibit at the Smithsonian
in the afternoon, he would have been content to spend the entire day
sleeping in his apartment. He was clearly showing clinical signs of
depression, and Scully was determined to keep his spirits up and not
to let the previous events consume him. Mulder at least continued to
crack dumb jokes, which was always a good sign. When he arrived at
her apartment wearing a grey sweatshirt and black jeans earlier that
evening and saw all the work she had put in to making dinner, he
cracked that he didn't think she was going to get that much of a
bargain out of him. She almost laughed out loud at his expression
when she retorted that, on the contrary, she had come fully prepared
with a bottle of Viagra courtesy of her med school classmate who was
a urologist; and that yes, she was going to get her money's worth.

The dinner had gone smoothly. The catastrophic events of the previous
days were banished for a few hours as they joked and ate together at
her table. Mulder complemented her on her French cooking. Scully
talked about her senior year in high school year living in San Diego,
and Mulder reminisced about growing up in Martha's Vineyard. Scully
regretted not being able to do this more often in the past with
Mulder even after Eddie Van Blundht had forced her to confront her
feelings about Mulder, and she promised to herself to make more of an
effort in the future. Mulder put his fork down after finishing off the
last of the desert on his plate.

"Thanks again for the meal, Scully," he said, patting his stomach,
"That was delicious."

"My pleasure, Mulder," she said, smiling at him as she got up to
clear the table. He stood up to help her with the dishes. She shook
her head.

"I'll get it. You just drag yourself to the living room and make
yourself comfortable."

Mulder nevertheless took a couple of plates and utensils from the
table and brought them to the kitchen sink, while Scully put on a
pair of thick rubber gloves.

"Thanks," she said.

Mulder smiled at her and walked over to her couch in her living room.
Scully busied herself in the kitchen quickly rinsing the dishes and
putting them inside the dishwasher. Once she was done, she turned on
the dishwasher then padded over to her living room in her slippers
with a glass in each hand.

"Mulder?"

Scully saw that Mulder had fallen asleep on her sofa. She put the
glasses down on the coffeetable and sat on the edge of the sofa
beside him. She watched him sleep for a while and listened to his
breathing. She brushed aside some hair on his face, and he stirred
before opening his eyes and seeing her stare at him.

"Sorry, Scully, I must of dozed off." He sat up and rubbed his eyes.
She settled down beside him.

"That sofa of mine is getting to be pretty uncomfortable to sleep
on," he said.

"You're in luck, Mulder," she replied, with a twinkle in her eye.
"I've got a sleeping bag if you need one." Mulder chuckled at the
memory of their last trip to Florida.

"Here," she handed him a glass, "Iced tea."

He smiled at her appreciatively and took a sip before sitting back,
holding the glass between his thighs.

"What are you thinking?" she asked, taking a sip from her own glass.

"Oh, the usual. The choices we make; how you think you can plan
everything out but you really can't. The people we meet along the
way, and the inscrutable twists and turns that finally brought us
here to this point in our lives." Mulder shook his head.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm not sure," he said. "Scully, do you ever think about your long
term plans?"

"I don't know, Mulder," she leaned forward with her glass in her
hand. "I haven't thought that much about it. Why do you ask?"

"I've been thinking," he said, carefully choosing his words, "that
maybe it might be in your best interests if you put in a request for
reassignment far away from me."

Oh God, she thought. Here we go. Scully remained silent for a moment,
trying to decipher the meaning behind Mulder's words. She placed her
glass on the coffeetable and turned her full attention to him.

"Why do you say that?" she said slowly.

"In case you missed it, we've lost the X-files. It's over, Scully."

"Mulder, I know they've succeeded in shutting us down, but it's not
the end of the world. They haven't split us up, and there's always
hope that..."

"Forget it. This time, they won. Game's over."

Scully shook her head. "I refuse to believe that. We've faced far
worse situations before, and we're still here standing."

"Scully, I'd hate to see your career go nowhere because of your
continued association with me."

"Mulder, are you just in a good mood or are you just tired of having
me around as your partner?"

"No, of course not. That's not it. I just don't want to see you get
hurt by them ever again because of me, that's all."

"I really appreciate your concern, Mulder, but I can take care of
myself," she replied. Scully took his hand in hers. Mulder took quiet
pleasure in the feeling of her skin against his.

"Look, I'll admit the past five years have been among the most trying
and difficult for me," she continued, "having to reconcile my views on
science with what I've seen and experienced; my abduction; Melissa's
death; the cancer; and losing Emily. There were times when I thought,
just as you do now, that I'd lost my way. But you know what? There
isn't a day that I regret ever making the choices that I have. About
giving up a career in medicine to join the FBI, about working on the
X-Files; and about becoming your partner." She looked away for a
moment, thinking.

"Besides," she teased, "what on earth would you ever do without me?"

"I don't know, Scully," he said slowly. "I really don't."

Scully was at a momentary loss at how to respond to Mulder's
confession. The two looked at each other's faces silently, acutely
aware of the moment between them, their fingers feeling very warm in
each other's hand. The silence was broken by the sound of her phone
ringing. Scully looked at it for a second then back at Mulder as if
trying to decide what to do next before she stood up to answer it.
Mulder reluctantly released her hand and took a deep breath and
exhaled as she walked to the phone.

"Scully," she answered.

"Agent Scully," she heard Assistant Director Walter Skinner's voice
say, "You and Agent Mulder may want to come down here to the
hospital. Agent Fowley just came out of her coma."

Surprised, Scully looked at Mulder, who returned her look with a
puzzed expression on his face.

Georgetown University Medical Center
Washington, D.C.
10:04 PM

Mulder and Scully arrived just in time to see Agent Jeffrey Spender
leave the building and go to his car in the parking lot. He didn't
see them. They went to the information desk for directions to the
intensive care unit before entering the elevator. Outside of the
entrance to the ICU, they saw A.D. Skinner speaking with the surgery
resident-on-call dressed in green surgical scrubs. There were other
FBI agents milling around the hallway. Skinner saw Mulder and Scully
approach and motioned to them to come over.

"Good evening, sir," said Scully as they joined Skinner.

"Glad the two of you could make it," he replied to her. He quickly
introduced the two agents to the surgery resident, whose name was Dr.
Frank Manners. The two FBI agents shook hands with him. Skinner turned
to Mulder.

"Agent Spender just finished interviewing Agent Fowley. You just
missed him."

"Was she able to identify the shooter?" asked Mulder.

"I'm afraid not. She did say that Gibson Praise told her that the
shooter was aiming at her rather than at him seconds before she got
shot."

"How could he have known that?" asked Scully, quickly realizing that
she knew the answer to her own question. She must have been feeling
more tired than she thought after the day's events with Mulder.

"Same way he knew when to move out of the way during that attempt on
his life," answered her tall partner. Turning to the surgery
resident, Mulder asked, "How is she, doctor?"

"As I was telling Mr. Skinner here, she woke up at about 7:45 this
evening and was fully alert with good vital signs," he replied. "We
were able to wean her off the ventilator, and shortly thereafter, we
called you guys in. We've upgraded her status from critical to
serious." He shook his head and said, "I've never seen anyone make a
more dramatic recovery from those kinds of injuries like that. She's
pretty amazing."

"Can we see her?" Mulder asked.

"Sure, she was asking for you anyway," Dr. Manners said.

"Did she say why?"

"Only that she needed to speak with you."

Scully stole a quick glance at Mulder, who looked back at her
maintaining his deadpan expression. Mulder then walked to the door to
the ICU and pushed it open for Scully.

"If you'd like, Mulder, I can wait out here."

Mulder looked at her and shook his head.

"C'mon, Scully," he replied, putting out his hand to her. She
hesitated for a moment then entered the ICU followed by Mulder, who
placed his hand helpfully behind the small of her back. Skinner and
the resident stayed outside, watching them enter. They quietly walked
down the hallway past several patient rooms and found Fowley near the
end of the complex. Inside, Fowley lay with the back of her bed
elevated to forty five degrees. She wore a nasal cannula to her nose,
and they could see a thoracotomy tube sticking out of her gown from
the side of her chest to a large bottle on the floor by her bed. She
saw them approaching and weakly smiled at them.

"Hello, Fox," she said. "Hi, Dana."

"Hey, slugger," Mulder smiled, patting her arm. Scully stood beside
Mulder.

"Hello, Diana," Scully said.

"Thanks for coming," Fowley said. "Skinner told me what had happened
when he dropped by. I'm so sorry."

"About what?" asked Mulder.

"What they've done to you. Shutting you down. The fire in the
basement."

"Well, maybe someone thought I could use another teamwork seminar
building towers with office furniture," he joked.

Scully smiled at the memory of their detour through the Florida
swamps. Shortly after she reported back to work following the
remission of her nasopharyngeal cancer, Skinner had sent them down to
that team building seminar with the idea of giving his two agents more
time to recover from the emotional stress of her near death and to
shield them from the uproar within the Bureau over the recent suicide
of FBI Section Chief Scott Blevins. Naturally, Mulder used that
opportunity to go hunting for some strange creatures in the swamps
instead. She ended up, of course, saving both their asses when those
things nearly killed them.

"So, how are you feeling?" Scully asked.

"Other than the intense itching around this hose on my side, which is
driving me up the wall, I think I'll live. I just don't think I'll be
dancing for a while, though."

"Hey, you never know," said Mulder.

"Dana," Fowley said, "did you know that Fox here is such a great
dancer?"

"Really?" said Scully, cocking an eyebrow at him. Mulder looked
embarassed at the attention he was receiving from the two women.

"That was a long time ago, Diana. Anyway, what did you want to speak
to me about?"

Fowley looked at him, wondering where to begin. She quickly decided
it was better to just plunge ahead and let things straighten out by
themselves.

"When I was unconscious," she began, "I thought I was seeing scenes
through Gibson's eyes. It felt so real. I know this sounds bizarre,
but I think he was trying to tell me where he was."

"Forgive me for asking," Scully said, "but how can you be so sure?"

"I just know. I could see bits and pieces of what he was experiencing
when he was kidnapped." Fowley closed her eyes. "I remember being
transferred to a limosine. The driver had something wrong with his
arm, and the old man riding with me had some sort of an accent. We
rode for hours, and I remember seeing an interstate sign which said
'Wheeling 25 miles'."

"Do you know where exactly he was taken?" Mulder asked, now very
interested.

She shook her head. "All I remember next in my dream is passing
through a town, climbing up a mountain full of trees and seeing a
mansion on top of a hill before they covered my face with something
and everything became dark."

Fowley looked at the two agents. Scully appeared very skeptical of
what she had just heard, while Mulder looked like he was having
trouble containing his excitement at what he thought was a big break
in the case.

"You have to find him," she said, touching Mulder's hand. "I strongly
sensed that the people who kidnapped him were debating among
themselves about whether to harm him."

"Agent Spender is now in charge of the case," Scully said. "Mulder
and I have been barred from the investigation."

"You know," Fowley said, her voice cracking, "it's my fault that this
happened. I must have dozed off in that hotel room from residual jet
lag from that flight from Germany. When I woke up, Gibson was
standing next to the window, and..."

"Diana," Mulder interrupted, "I don't think you could have stopped
these men. They killed a marshall, and they almost killed you too to
get to the him. You get some rest now, okay?" He squeezed her hand as
he prepared to leave. "We'll drop by again when you're feeling better."

"Bye, Diana," said Scully.

"Bye." Fowley watched them leave, and then she closed her eyes.

In the hallway of the ICU, the two FBI agents remained silent for a
moment as they slowly walked down the corridor back to the exit.

"So, what do you think?" Mulder asked.

"What do I think?"

"Yeah."

"I think that chasing after Gibson based on clues from her dreams
while she was in a coma is not going to endear you to many people."

"You think so."

Scully stopped and looked at Mulder, trying to see if he was serious
about this. She wondered whether Mulder's past relationship with
Fowley, which he never really explained to her, had something to do
with him entertaining this crazy idea.

"Mulder, Diana just barely survived getting shot through her lung.
She lost a lot of blood, was pumped full of drugs and in a coma, all
of which could have easily induced those dreams of hers. She's very
lucky to be alive."

"You wanna know what my theory is?" he asked.

"Gibson told Diana where he's being held captive using telepathy and
then made her come out of her coma using some form of telekinetic
healing?"

"Scully, shouldn't we be planning out by now where we're going to go
for our honeymoon?"

"I don't think Agent Spender will appreciate hearing this new theory
of yours after what you told him about ancient alien astronauts."

"We've seen something like this before, Scully," Mulder gently
reminded her. They resumed walking towards the exit.

"Anyway," he continued, "there was always something about Gibson that
bothered me."

"Why, because he said you had a dirty mind?" she teased him.

Scully once visited his apartment when he was not around, and she
stumbled across his collection of Ginger Lynn, Alicia Rio, and Amber
Lynn videotapes, which he hid underneath his sofa. She was always
amused at how the film titles sometimes twisted those of certain
mainstream movies. She specially couldn't forget watching one
videotape whose title parodied the Heimlich maneuver. In another
incident, Mulder had his calls forwarded to her cellphone when he was
called in to a closed door meeting with Skinner; and she answered some
woman called Chantilly Lace offering to talk dirty to someone named
Marty for 40 cents a minute and $2.99 for the first minute, long
distance charges applying, of course.

"Hey, you can learn a lot about basic life support from watching
Baywatch," Mulder protested weakly .

"Uh huh."

"Scully..."

"What?" she asked sweetly.

"You've already proven to yourself that the boy has the ability to
read thoughts around him." Mulder said as he tried to regain control
of the conversation, not that he didn't enjoy this occasional
suggestive ribbing from her, which unfortunately didn't come up too
often. "Well, what if that wasn't the full extent of his powers? What
if he could not only read minds but reach out and touch someone toll
free without ever picking up a phone?"

"I'll grant you that anything's possible, Mulder, given his
extraordinary abilities," she replied, turning serious again. "I
can't even begin to explain how he does it. However, we really have
no proof other than Diana's word that what she experienced were
messages sent to her from Gibson's mind."

"I've been thinking about that," he said, "and I have another theory.
There's a mathematician over at the University of Rochester, whose
research suggests that honeybees can perceive quarks as quantum
fields, interact with them, and turn these quantum-mechanical
perceptions using six dimensional flag manifolds into organized dance
rituals to communicate to other bees."

"Mulder, honeybees are a long way from human beings," she reminded
him.

They reached the exit door and stopped. Scully turned to face him.

"That doesn't sound like it came from your usual reading material.
Where did you pick that up?"

"Discover Magazine, while sitting in the bathroom," he grinned.
"Scully, there's still a lot of unanswered questions about how some
animals communicate to each other and can sense things that humans
can't. Perhaps the answer to all psychic phenomena lies in how
biology interacts with quantum mechanics. You did your senior thesis
on Einstein, so you of all people know how mysterious the world of
quantum physics can get. All I'm suggesting is that Nature is
conservative and that perhaps the genes that allow bees to touch the
quantum world of quarks are also present in humans and somehow get
switched on in people with psychic abilities, such as Gibson."

He paused for a moment and winked at her. "Unless, of course, those
are genes from alien astronauts to begin with, which somehow got
incorporated into our ancestors' genes."

Scully raised an eyebrow. Sometimes, Mulder's theories could get so
far out when he took unproven hypotheses by other scientists to
bolster his case for the paranormal. It was occasionally a struggle
for her to keep up with his runaway imagination and find ways to keep
him grounded while maintaining an open mind to extreme possibilities.
She had to admit, however, that it made working with him always so
interesting and enjoyable, and she strongly suspected that Mulder
felt the same way about her whenever they played this game between
them. They reached the exit door, and he held the door open for her.

"That's still pure speculation, Mulder, but I've seen far crazier
things working with you," she said, smiling mischievously at him as
she exited the door.

East 46th Street
New York City
8:36 AM

Dr. Benjamin Bronschweig, chief of the exobiology unit of the
Department of Defense's Advanced Research Center, stood in front of a
group of elderly men known as the Syndicate as he tried to present his
data without overwhelming his audience. A molecular biologist from
Boston University who found his avenues to the top blocked by the
entrenched academic hierarchy before he was recruited by the
Syndicate, he quickly learned that the phrase "publish or perish"
took on a whole new meaning while working for these men, not that he
would ever be able to publish most of his findings.

"We've taken the extra precaution of placing the child in a comatose
state using intravenous barbiturates as soon as we got him to the
safehouse and surrounding him in an intense electromagnetic field
similar to what you would find in a magnetic resonance imaging
scanner to prevent him from picking up stray thoughts," he continued.
"We've also been able to identify an area in his right temporal lobe,
nicknamed the God Module by some neurophysiologists, as being
extremely active metabolically, even during his comatose state. As
you all know, this is an area associated with psychic abilities,
which was first discovered by the Russians when they conducted their
cold war experiments back in the late seventies and early eighties."

"How did he get this talent?" asked a short, wiry old man known as
the Second Elder.

"Good question," Dr. Bronschweig continued as he flashed a
diagramatic slide of a chromosome. "We were able to compare his DNA
sequence to the Human Genome database." He used a laser pointer to
call their attention to some details on the screen.

"Our preliminary analysis suggests the presence of a point mutation
of a repressor gene we labeled "crtr-1" located here, as you can see,
at the short arm of chromosome 10 approximately 13 kilobases from the
centromere. We believe that this single mutation may be responsible
for his telepathic skills and that the mechanism for its activation
is analogous to how the oncogenes in retinoblastoma patients get
activated. What's more interesting is that the DNA sequence targeted
by the repressor gene bears many similarities to a DNA segment found
in the black oil. This suggests that alien DNA became incorporated
into primate DNA during the evolution of humans, probably through
hybridization with a terrestrial retrovirus, and that this segment is
normally switched off in most humans."

The Well Manicured Man shifted restlessly in his seat. He hated it
when scientists shifted to technical jargon when speaking to laymen
instead of using plain English, which is why he was such an avid
collector of the works of the late astronomer Carl Sagan, whose clear
writing he greatly admired.

"Do any other members of his family exhibit the same point mutation?"
asked a tall man called the Third Elder.

"No. Our embassy contacts in Manila were able to obtain blood and
tissue samples from his parents and other first degree relatives
through their physicians. As far as we can tell, the boy is the only
one with this specific change. I suspect it was a somatic mutation,
which occurred during fetal development, rather than a mutation
during gametogenesis in one or both of the parents."

"What then do you propose to do to prevent him from further
jeopardizing the security of the Project?" rasped an obese man with
bad teeth known only as The First Elder, referring to their fifty
year old policy of cooperating with the alien Colonists. Bronschweig
shifted uneasily on the podium.

"Well, we could either use the gamma knife to irradiate and kill off
the cortical tissue in the area, although it could potentially cause
a fatal brain hemorrhage in his case, or we could just do a
transcranial lobotomy and excise the offending tissue surgically."

"Putting a bullet through his head would be a lot more efficient and
far more economical than what you've just told us," the Cigarette
Smoking Man said, standing near the curtains with his ever present
Morley cigarette in his hand. The Well Manicured Man turned his head
towards him.

"Does every solution you have to a problem begin with the barrel of a
gun?" he asked irritably.

"You disapprove of my methods?"

The Cigarette Smoking Man was always amused whenever he felt his
colleagues didn't have the balls necessary to bring a problem to its
solution. When they tried to do so without him, they always ended up
screwing things badly and needing his help in cleaning up the mess.
Why, he thought, they couldn't even shoot straight and kill him when
they had that open shot through his apartment window; and then there
was the unfortunate death of the Russian chess grandmaster instead of
the boy, in the hands of that Special Forces moron. Bypassing the
security of that Federal detention center and killing that boy's
would-be assassin took quite a bit of finesse and considerable
resources on his part.

"Only when they involve the unnecessary loss of life," retorted his
British colleague, getting angry. "This is a 12 year old child we are
talking about."

"I'd say he's old enough to die."

"Dear God," the Well Manicured Man muttered, shaking his head in
disgust and turning away. The Cigarette Smoking Man smiled and slowly
exhaled smoke from his cigarette. English prick.

Dr. Bronschweig stood silent in the midst of this argument among his
superiors, wondering how to proceed with the rest of his talk. This
was going to be a long day, he thought.

Georgetown University Medical Center
Washington, D.C.

Diana Fowley lay on her hospital bed and reflected on the recent
events that brought her here. Skinner had informed her earlier that
he didn't think he was going be able to reassign Mulder and Scully
back into the X-files even if, by some miracle, it was ever reopened.
However, there was still the possibility that he might be able to get
Fowley in instead once she had recovered from her injuries.

Fowley thought that she had come to a full circle. Back in 1991, she
was ordered by Skinner to use her relationship with Mulder to get him
interested in pursuing the X-files. The idea was to distract the
Syndicate and keep them preoccupied with neutralizing him while she
went off to Berlin to help track the members of that shadowy
organization and their nefarious activities across the globe. It
turned out to be very successful. Mulder was a loose cannon who drew
time and valuable resources away from the Syndicate as they worked
overtime to frustrate him and his investigation. She and others were
then able to infiltrate the Syndicate at nearly every level and
gather information. Some operatives, such as Deep Throat and the man
she only knew as "X," paid the ultimate price, and she nearly did as
well over the Gibson Praise affair when the people opposed to the
Syndicate brought her back to the United States. Even Skinner was
nearly exposed and destroyed by the Syndicate during the FBI inquiry
into the false reports of Mulder's death while he tracked down and
exposed FBI Section Chief Scott Blevins as a Syndicate mole paid by a
biotechnology company named Rousch.

Her biggest regret was having to sever her relationship with Mulder
for the sake of the mission when she was assigned to Berlin. Fowley
and Mulder had met and fallen for each other during their Academy
days at Quantico, and Mulder even started wearing a ring as proof of
his fidelity to her after a silly quarrel during those early days.
She continued to receive updates of Mulder's activities from Skinner
while she spent most of her time abroad tracking the whereabouts of
the mysterious head of the Syndicate, a man she only knew as
Strughold. Fowley was proud of what Mulder was able to accomplish
with the X-files without her, and she secretly hoped to rekindle
their relationship when she was reassigned to the states.

Fowley had not counted, however, on Mulder falling hard for his new
partner Dana Scully during her absence, which she saw immediately
from the way he looked at her. Agent Scully started out as an
unwitting pawn of the Syndicate, assigned by Section Chief Blevins to
debunk Mulder's work, to spy on him and render him ineffective.
Instead, Scully had turned into Mulder's full and equal partner in
their pursuit of the X-files and, ironically, the stabilizing force
missing in Mulder's chaotic personal life. Together, the two proved
to be a highly formidable enemy of the Syndicate. At the same time,
however, Scully was also Mulder's greatest weakness. There was great
concern among the people whom Fowley and Skinner worked for that the
Syndicate would be able to exploit that weakness to bring Mulder
under their control, but the two agents proved to be more far more
resilient and unstoppable in their quest for the truth. Until now.

In the end, though, Mulder, Scully and she were, to use Skinner's
term, just expendable foot soldiers in this fight for the future of
the planet. No one would be happier than Fowley if Mulder's passion
for her was reignited, but she fully realized that love was
irrelevant in view of the high stakes involved. Fowley knew that she
would sacrifice even Mulder for the mission if it meant stopping the
Syndicate and their alien masters.

FBI Headquarters
J. Edgar Hoover Building
Washington, D.C.
9:00 AM

Assistant Director Walter Skinner watched the three agents sitting in
his office. This meeting was definitely not going well by any
standards, he thoughts.

"I can't believe you're taking any of this seriously," Agent Jeffrey
Spender argued.

"Why not?" said Mulder, his voice calm. "Agent Fowley helped capture
the brains behind the World Trade Center bombing based on nothing
more than her instincts. I have no reason to doubt her now. What have
you got to lose?"

"Did you just get that from your Ouija board? Are you going to tell
us next that she is psychic or that Gibson Praise was snatched by
your little green men riding in a UFO?"

Mulder glared at him, fighting to keep his temper under control in
front of this arrogant S.O.B. Scully, who was sitting quietly with
her hands folded across her chest, tried to catch his attention with
her eyes to tell him to back off before he did something that would
get himself deeper into trouble. Mulder ignored her, keeping his eyes
fixed on this jerk who, his sources said, danced a little jig with
Agent Tom Colton in the cafeteria when they heard the news that the
X-files section was shut down.

"Right now, I don't see you making any headway finding out the
following: one, who shot that assassin while he was under your
protective custody, two, who kidnapped the boy, and three, who killed
that U.S. Marshall and nearly killed Agent Fowley as well. That's
three strikes, Jeffrey. If I were you, I'd ask your benefactors to do
a lot of explaining to the Justice Department why their golden boy is
such a screw up."

"That's enough, Agent Mulder," Skinner intervened. "May I remind you
that you are officially on leave pending reassignment. Agent Spender
will conduct his investigation as he sees fit and that includes
assessing the validity of all the evidence at hand. Agent Spender, if
you have nothing further to add to this discussion, you may leave."

Spender gave Mulder a look full of hate as he got up to leave. After
the door closed behind him, Skinner returned to the two agents in
front of him.

"That could have gone better," Skinner said.

"What's with that bug up his ass?" retorted Mulder.

Skinner ignored his remark, turning instead to the personal files of
the two agents on his desk. He opened Mulder's file in front of him.

"Agent Mulder, despite your considerable reputation, it seems that
your services are still very much in demand."

"That's not surprising, sir. I was voted Mister Congeniality in my
playschool."

Scully bit her lip to keep from smiling at the thought.

"Violent Crimes, Behavioral Sciences and others have put in requests
for you as soon as they heard about the X-files being closed down."
Skinner continued. "You're still considered the best profiler in the
history of the Bureau. Do you have any preferences regarding your
next assignment?"

"Just as long as it doesn't involve tracking fertilizer shipments to
farmers in the Midwest."

"Agent Scully," Skinner asked, "if you've had enough of field work,
the folks over at Quantico will be happy to have another forensic
pathologist on their staff. However, if you're in the mood for
something totally different, there's an opening at the Paris bureau
if you're interested."

Scully saw from the corner of her eye that Mulder looked down at his
hands, clearly expecting the worst.

"If it's alright with you, sir, I'd like to continue working with
Agent Mulder as his partner in whatever new assignment he draws."

Mulder looked up at her, surprised at her decision. Scully returned
his stare before turning back to Skinner. Skinner took note of the
silent exchange between his two favorite agents then tapped his
pencil on his desk, thinking hard. He was under some pressure to
break up the two agents and give them separate assignments. He looked
back at Mulder.

"Agent Spender's been raising a lot of hell about how you interfered
with his investigation."

"The man couldn't find his way out of a wet diaper."

"Nevertheless, I'll have get the two of you as far away from
Washington, D.C. as I can until this blows over. I've been taking a
lot of heat from the Justice and the State departments over the
missing boy, and the both of you have become convenient scapegoats
for some people both within and outside the Bureau. Therefore, the
both of you will report to Special Agent-in-Charge Darius Michaud at
the field office in Dallas next week for your new assignment. It
seems there's been an recent resurgence in militia activity in the
southwest, and they can use any help that they can get. You can have
the rest of this week off until you get there. Any questions?

"Anything new come out of the investigation into the fire, sir?"

"I'm afraid not, Agent Scully. The arson team's blaming faulty wiring
as the cause. That investigation's been called off. Any other
questions?

The two agents remained silent, digesting the news. Both were
tremendously relieved that their partnership remained intact,
although they wondered what kind of life awaited for them down there
in Texas. Skinner looked at Scully first, then at Mulder.

"No questions? Alright, you're dismissed."

Mulder and Scully slowly got up from their chairs and walked to the
door. Scully opened the door and exited first.

"Agent Mulder," Skinner said. Mulder turned to face him.

"Try not to step on too many toes down there in Dallas."

Mulder gave him a small nod before exiting the door. Skinner stared
at the door for a moment after Mulder closed it behind him then
turned his attention back to the work at hand on his desk.

Upper West Side
New York City
4:20 PM

"Who is it?" said the female voice behind the door.

"Fox Mulder."

Mulder heard the door unlocked then opened to the limit of the chain.
Marita Covarrubias, a Special Assistant to the Secretary General of
the United Nations, looked at him warily. He could see that she was
wearing a white bathrobe.

"What are you doing here?"

"I need your help. Your secretary at the U.N. said that you've been
on leave for the past few months."

"I was ill," she said, "for quite a while."

"Are you alright now?"

Covarrubias nodded, still looking at him suspiciously.

"May I come in?"

Covarrubias stood still for several seconds and then closed the door
to release the chain. She opened the door, and Mulder entered her
darkened apartment.

"What do you want, Agent Mulder?" she asked as she closed the door
behind him. Mulder turned to her as she walked over to her couch.

"You've heard of Gibson Praise, the chess whiz kid who was recently
kidnapped?

"Yes, and I'm sorry. I can't help you there."

"You can't or you won't?"

"Agent Mulder," Covarrubias said, sitting down on the arm of her
sofa. "They know that I've been helping you in your investigations.
They know that I tried to tell you about the connection between the
deaths in Skyland Mountain and in Kazakhstan earlier this year before
I got sick."

"Marita," Mulder knelt down in front of her, his eyes pleading with
her. "Do you have any idea where they may have taken the boy?"

Covarrubias looked at him wearily. "They could have left me to die,
Agent Mulder, but they didn't. I can't help you with this."

"I have to find him, Marita. They've killed three people and
critically wounded an FBI agent when they took him."

Covarrubias remained silent. Mulder continued looking at her, hoping
to persuade her to change her mind. Then, finally admitting defeat,
he stood up and walked to her door.

"Marita," he said, his back turned towards her. "I know that you
think you owe these people your life, but you once told me that you
believed in me, that you believed in my search for the truth. A
little boy's life is now at stake, a boy who may have the answers
we've all been searching for. I have to try to save him."

He turned the door knob when he heard her cry out.

"Wait!"

Mulder watched her as she got up and walked to her dining table,
scribbling something furiously on a piece of paper. She handed it to
him, and he saw the words "Ogglebay Park, WV" written on it. He
looked at her one more time and said, "Thank you."

She didn't answer, her eyes willing him to leave now. When he closed
the door behind him, her shoulders relaxed as she sighed in
resignation. She sat down on a chair by her dining room table and
covered her face with her hands. She heard a noise and looked up,
startled by the figure standing at the door to her apartment.

"Well done, my dear," said the Cigarette Smoking Man, as he stood
there. "Keep up the good work, and someday, you may regain our
complete trust and confidence in you."

She turned her face away from him and looked at the window, wondering
miserably what she had just set in motion.

Alexandra, Virginia
5:30 PM

Scully stood in front of Mulder's apartment knocking on his door. She
had been trying to get hold of him the entire day following the
meeting with Skinner to plan out their move to Dallas. Mulder
wouldn't answer her calls to his cellphone. She began to worry that
he was up to something dangerous again without telling her and that
he might be in serious trouble.

"Mulder, are you in there?" she repeated.

There was no answer, so she took out the spare key Mulder had given
her to his apartment. She unlocked the door and entered the dark
room, closing the door behind her.

"Mulder?"

The apartment remained silent. Scully went to his desk, sat down and
started rummaging through the pile of papers on top beside his
personal computer. She found a computer printout with airline
schedules listed on it. Scully saw that he had underlined USAir
flight 601 from La Guardia to Pittsburgh and that it was supposed to
arrive there at 6:30 PM that evening. She got up to leave when her
cellphone began to ring. She took it out and and placed it to her ear.

"Scully," she answered.

"Agent Scully," an unfamiliar female voice said from her phone. "This
is Marita Covarrubias. I'm a Special Representative to the Secretary
General of the United Nations."

"How did you get this number?"

"Agent Scully, please listen to me. You don't have much time. Agent
Mulder is on his way now to West Virginia. You have to stop him from
reaching his destination. They know he is coming, and they will kill
him if he gets in their way."

Cold fear washed through Scully's body when she heard those words.
Her heart sank to the pit of her stomach as she wondered what Mulder
had just gotten himself into.

"Who?" she asked. "Who are these people?"

"I think you're well acquainted with some of them, Agent Scully.
There's a flight leaving for Pittsburgh from Washington, D.C. within
two hours that you could still catch. I have the address,"
Covarrubias continued, while the Well Manicured Man sat in front of
her listening to the conversation.

Ogglebay Park
Wheeling, West Virginia
10:13 PM

Mulder watched from the edge of the treeline using his night vision
goggles as the four men finished loading one of two Broncos with what
appeared to be medical equipment from the two story house at the top
of the hill. He had seen an ambulance leave the scene just as he
arrived at the scene about fifteen minutes ago. Three of the men then
got inside the Bronco and then drove off, leaving a man with a beard
dressed in black behind. The man entered the house. Mulder got up and
crept towards the back of the mansion with his gun ready. He found the
entrance unlocked and quietly entered the house. Mulder could hear
through the ceiling someone moving upstairs.

The bearded man descended the stairs carrying a large bag with the
end of the barrel of a rifle sticking out through the zipper. He bent
down to place the bag on the floor near the entrance to the living
room and to push the exposed end of the rifle back inside when he
heard an ominous click behind him.

"Move a muscle and you're a dead man," Mulder said, pointing his gun
to the back of the man's head.

"You have no idea who you're dealing with," the bearded man said
quietly.

"Well, maybe you should have posted that information by the coffee
machine, " Mulder replied. "Okay, put your hands in the air, turn
slowly and face the wall."

The bearded man complied with Mulder's order. Mulder quickly searched
him for weapons with his other hand. He found nothing.

"Where's the boy?" Mulder asked. The man remained silent. "WHERE IS
HE?" he yelled.

"You're too late, Agent Mulder. You'll never find him."

"So, you've been expecting me?"

"You're going to die soon."

"Not until you tell me where you've taken him and who you..."

The man suddenly spun around, slapping Mulder's arm away with one
hand and catching the FBI agent totally by surprise. His gun fired,
shattering a window. This maneuver was followed by a swift series of
lightning strikes to Mulder's face, neck, solar plexus, and groin,
which completely knocked the wind out of him. Mulder doubled up from
the severe pain and felt like vomiting. The man then grabbed him by
his coat and threw him across the room. Mulder struck his head
against a post, and he collapsed on the floor in a heap, his gun
clattering on the floor beside him. He remained motionless on the
floor as his assailant stood over him to catch his breath.

Scully had been driving for the past hour from Pittsburgh and felt
tired. She had just reached the entrance at the bottom of the hill to
the mansion in her Ford Taurus rental car and was preparing to turn
into the driveway when a white Ford Bronco came roaring out, nearly
taking out her front fender. She stopped the car for a second as she
tried to make out the license plates before the vehicle disappeared,
but it was too dark. When she looked up the driveway, she saw
something glowing up on the top of the hill.

"Oh my God," she said to herself.

She immediately floored the gas pedal and raced up the hill. She
could see flames coming out of the windows of the second story of the
house. Scully parked about thirty meters from the burning structure
and quickly got out of the car.

"Mulder?" she cried out. "Mulder!"

Scully ran to the house and entered through the front door with her
flashlight, covering her nose and mouth with a handkerchief. Inside,
the room was filling up with thick smoke. Visibility was
deteriorating rapidly, and her eyes stung from the fumes. She briefly
considered abandoning the rescue attempt when she saw a figure lying
on the floor near the kitchen.

"Mulder!" she shouted.

Scully rushed to his side and found him unconscious with a bruise on
his forehead. She looked around her and saw that the fire was
starting to eat through the ceiling and the walls around her. She
didn't have much time. Holding him underneath his arms, she began to
pull and drag Mulder across the room, coughing from the thick, acrid
smoke and wincing as sparks flew around her face. It was getting very
difficult to breath. Big drops of sweat formed over her forehead and
trickled down her face and neck. When she was nearly at the front
door, the beams started to collapse around the spot where she had
found him. The place was turning into an inferno.

Finally, she got him out on the porch and then dragged him onto the
wet grass until about ten meters from the house. Scully collapsed
beside him from exhaustion and, after catching her breath, quickly
moved to check his neck. She felt a weak carotid artery pulse. She
quickly examined him to make sure that he was still breathing. She
heard a loud cracking noise and turned her head. The roof of the
house had caved in. The entire structure was now disintegrating, the
fire burning ferociously and the smoke pouring into the night sky.

Ohio Valley Medical Center
Wheeling, West Virginia
6:15 AM

Mulder slowly opened his eyes, aware of a dull ache on the right side
of his head and a scratchy feeling in his throat. As he slowly
surveyed his hospital room, he became aware of someone sitting on a
chair beside his bed. He slowly turned his head to look at the person
more closely and saw a familiar redhead sleeping with her head resting
on her folded arms on the side of his bed. His throat itched, and he
coughed a few times. Scully drowsily lifted her face, opened her eyes
and looked at him.

"Hi there," Scully mumbled.

"Hi, Scully. You're a gorgeous sight for sore eyes," he said hoarsely.

Scully smiled at the compliment as she rubbed her eyes. Mulder looked
around the room.

"How did I get here?" he asked.

"I brought you here. I found you lying unconscious inside a burning
house."

"Burning...ahh," Mulder winced at the pain in his head as he tried to
move.

"You also had a mild concussion and some smoke inhalation."

"How long was I out?" he asked, still smarting from the pain.

"About six or seven hours."

Mulder coughed again, trying to clear his throat. His head hurting
with each jerk.

"Gibson was in that house, Scully. They transferred him out before I
could reach him in time. I almost had him, and now they've erased all
the evidence. We're right back where we started."

Mulder turned his head to stare at the ceiling, feeling that his
defeat at the hands of these individuals who lived in shadows was
complete. Scully stared at his profile for several seconds and then
leaned forward as her voice dropped in volume.

"Mulder, why did you leave without telling me?"

Mulder turned to look at those intensely blue eyes.

"I'm sorry, Scully, but I didn't want you risking your career any
further by dragging you around with me on this and disobeying
Skinner's orders."

"Dammit, Mulder," Scully's anger seeping into her voice. "You can't
just keep ditching me whenever you feel the need to protect me! I
can't always be around to save you in time whenever you get into
trouble. You risked your life pulling this stunt by yourself. And for
what? Is this really worth dying for? What am I supposed to do if..."

Scully paused, struggling to hold back her tears. She didn't want him
to see her like this, admitting to him and to herself that she was
terrified at the thought of losing him forever. How many times did
she have to watch him hover between life and death? She closed her
eyes and covered them with one hand. Mulder remained silent as he
watched Scully try to regain her composure. He reached out and held
her other hand.

"Scully..."

"Mulder," she said quietly, "I know how much reopening the X-files
means to you. I know how much finding out the truth of what happened
to your sister is intimately tied into it. You told me once, when my
sister died, that we would find the truth in the X-files. I said then
that what I wanted were the answers. All I'm asking for now, Mulder,
is that you not shut me out like this." Scully paused, her eyes full
of pain. "Please don't do this to me again."

Mulder looked at her for what seemed to be an eternity feeling
ashamed, realizing how much he had wounded her with his latest brush
with death. He released her hand and touched her face, brushing aside
her auburn hair.

"I'm so sorry I hurt you, Scully. I really am."

She lowered her eyes for a moment and then looked back at him. Scully
got up and leaned over the bed to embrace him, her head resting on his
shoulder. She closed her eyes as he stroked the back of her head, and
they lay that way for what felt like a long time, wondering what the
future may bring.

Children's Memorial Hospital
Omaha, Nebraska
11:21 PM

The neurosurgeon looked at the First Elder, who was watching with
several of his colleagues in the operating room's amphitheatre. He
silently nodded back to him. The surgeon then turned his attention
back to the patient and began to incise the skin with the scalpel
blade along the marks made previously with the surgical pen on the
scalp of the patient. Blood gushed from along the wound edges. His
assistant mopped up the blood helpfully as the surgeon began to
slowly peel the scalp away from the skull. The smell of burned flesh
hung in the air as the cautery was applied to seal off bleeding
vessels on the surface. As the surgery progressed, the men in the
amphitheatre began to leave until only the Cigarette Smoking Man
remained. He lit up another cigarette and inhaled deeply as he
watched the neurosurgeon remove the bone to expose the temporal lobe
of the brain. Gibson Praise lay quietly on the table, his eyes taped
shut and an endotracheal tube from his mouth attached to the
anesthesia machine. Only the sounds of his breathing and the cardiac
monitor could be heard inside the operating room as his doctors
worked meticulously through the night.

The End