From: ANNAOTTO1@aol.com
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1999 17:45:10 EST
Subject: NEW "Fire Eaters" (1/15) by A.Ensro & A.Otto
Source: xff


The Fire Eaters
By Anna Otto and Ashlea Ensro
Email: annaotto1@aol.com and morleyphile@yahoo.com

http://www.geocities.com/annaotto.geo
http://www.geocities.com/morleyphile

Rating: R 
Classification: XA - there is even an R if you want to call it 
that.
Spoilers/Timeline: This happens in its own little universe 
some time after 2F/1S, and definitely before Biogenesis.
Disclaimer: We don't own them. Darn.
Archive: By our permission - we don't bite.
Feedback always welcome.
Author's Notes at the end. 

Warning: Sometimes, the level of violence in this story is hard 
to live with. We urge you to heed this warning, because we 
will only give it once. Enter at your own risk.

Summary: ...and there will come a ghost whose broken heart 
will infect the hearts of others, whose madness will consume 
the lives of all around him, and no one will be safe from him... 
then, the inseparable partners will be cut apart, the traitor will 
betray once more, the long-lost woman with the mind of a 
child will be a prize in the tug of war, and the old man who 
thought his soul was gone will be proven wrong... but the 
rivers of blood will never be deep enough for the fire eaters.


++++++

"Hey! Dancer, juggler, fire-eater, clown!
The crippled mirror stops you where you stand
The mirror has just stolen your left hand
And the whole glass house comes tumbling down." 
-- Gwendolyn MacEwen, _The Carnival_

"MORMON MOTHER: I smell a salt wind
HARPER: From the ocean.
MORMON MOTHER: Means he's coming back. Then you'll 
know. Then you'll eat fire." 
-- Tony Kushner, _Angels in America: Perestroika_

Part 1/15

0. PROLOGUE

Central Park
New York City

The fountain is silent, turned off for the winter, and a light 
dusting of snow outlines the head and wings of the stone angel 
against the foggy darkness of the sky. At her feet, in fleshy 
mimicry of the solid, cold form, a woman shivers, bent over, 
clutching her knees to preserve what remains of her body heat. 
She has been there long enough for the snow to have gathered 
in her hair, for the wind to trace patterns of red into her pale 
cheeks.

Uncurling, she stands, taller than she first appeared, and turns 
to face the statue. She raises her hands like wings and turns 
her face to the sky. The back of her neck throbs, a painful 
sting.

They will not want her back. Not now, not ever.

If she had a name, she does not remember it. They should 
have given her one, as a parting gift.

Instead they left her here, alone, in the cold. A whimper, a 
mewl escapes her lips, and she frowns, unwilling to show 
weakness, even now.

She is grateful for winter. Were there water, her own 
reflection would be too much to bear. She can imagine, for the 
moment, that her face is as calm and unaffected as that of the 
angel's, and she will go on believing this, until someone finds 
her.

Madness is not a disease; it is salvation.

Her wings are crucified arms. She brings them to her head, 
runs thin fingers through her long, wavy hair, draws them over 
the sharp angles of her face and covers her eyes.

Home.

She lets her hands fall, slack at her sides. Not home. Never 
home.

But, perhaps, as close as she will ever come.

She turns again, and she starts to walk. She will find a new 
home. Someone will find her; someone will take pity. 
Someone must.

The world has grown cold over twenty-five years.

As has she; a voice whispers to her, warns her to keep moving, 
to keep going. Not even an angel will protect a woman, alone 
and lost in New York City.

She casts a glance backwards at the Angel Bethesda, who once 
made a fountain flow with a single touch. Who descended to 
earth to heal it of its misery.

The woman touches her face again. There is no fountain as she 
descends, only a single tear.

She wipes it away, and she keeps walking.


I. CHALK

"One TWO, skip a FEW, ninety-nine a HUNDRED!"

She belts out the words with the precision of a military officer, 
the beat echoed by the sharp slap of her skipping rope against 
the wet pavement. Two other girls play hopscotch on the 
sidewalk, running shoes padding in a counter-rhythm over the 
fading chalk lines. The rain has washed some of the numbers 
away, but the game goes on.

The girl with the plastic skipping rope has long dark braids, 
and for a fleeting instant Mulder imagines that it is Samantha, 
playing in front of a suburban house, eight years old and 
happy and alive.

For an instant. The sky hangs, dark and overcast, and the rain 
is coming again.

"You wanted to talk to me."

Hands thrust into the pockets of his trenchcoat, still damp 
from the last rain, he can't meet her eyes. Her hair is the 
brightest gleam of color in the post-storm street; if he looked 
in her direction, it would burn his eyes.

"Mulder, I know what you're going to say."

He doesn't think she means it. She says it out of habit, with 
only the slightest hint of condescension. She doesn't mean to 
be condescending. She wants to be sympathetic. Her voice is 
hoarse, as if she is the one who has been crying.

Who knows - maybe she has been crying. He wouldn't be 
surprised. Six years, and her quest is his quest - perhaps it 
always has been. Maybe she has that same raw, stripped-bare 
feeling inside, as if in one night someone has peeled away 
with great care the outermost layer of her skin, leaving her 
exposed and bleeding in the rain.

That's how it feels.

Their footsteps are a dreary echo of the fading sound of the 
skipping girl's chants. "Skinner tried to reach you all of 
yesterday. Your phone was turned off."

"I was chasing a suspect."

Does his voice sound too abrupt?  He was in Baltimore, doing 
a favor for some old sort-of friends in VCS, and it wasn't until 
the killer was behind bars for nearly an hour that Scully had 
finally been able to reach him.

Not her fault, he tells himself. And it's not Skinner's either. 
That doesn't alleviate any of the resentment. He should have 
been the first to know, and he's the third, and it doesn't change 
anything...

But still.

"Have you-" His voice isn't working properly. It comes out 
mangled the first time, a breathless whisper as he finishes, "-
seen her?"

"No." She swallows, looks down, looks up. Goes for his eyes 
but he's still refusing. "Mulder-"

She tries for his hand next, but he pulls away. She can't touch 
him - he can't let her. His hands are too cold. "Where is she?"

"I don't think it's the best thing if you-"

"No. Scully." At last he meets her eyes, and yes, they brim 
with tears. How can she cry when his own eyes are still 
horribly dry?

He is so tired.

"Where is she?"

"Mulder, it's not going to be like how you expected. What you 
wanted." She winces - it's all coming out wrong for her as 
well.

This wasn't how it was supposed to be.

"But she's alive."

He keeps telling himself this. He has been doing so, ever since 
the phone call. If she's alive, there's still hope.

She is still alive.

And this will not be a fairy tale. This will not have a happy 
ending.

But his quest - their quest, will at least have an ending.

The chalk lines on the pavement reluctantly yield to rain.

Samantha Mulder has come home.


II. TRAP

The trap is supposed to kill the mouse instantly, but the rodent 
is evidently a tragic victim of false advertising, because half 
an hour has passed and its shrill death throes still rise over the 
sound of Squadron B going over the top on the television 
screen.

He must have seen this movie a dozen times, and it wasn't 
particularly good when he first saw it. But it takes his mind off 
the other three tasks that await him, so he tries to put the 
mouse's squeals out of his mind.

He turns up the volume. Reaches for a cigarette.

He is good at what he does. That is why he is still alive. For 
fifty years, he has carried out orders, sometimes with an 
ulterior motive, less frequently with the most honest of 
intentions. Somewhere along the line he has started giving the 
orders, but that hasn't changed very much.

He has three things to do within the next hour. The first 
involves a petty dictator in a Third World country, and a sharp 
command to cease and desist or risk American involvement. It 
does not particularly concern him, and six months ago there 
would have been someone else to carry out the orders, but 
circumstances being what they were, complications have 
arisen.

The second is to call Teena Mulder, a number he has dialed 
once in the past twenty-five years, and tell her that her 
daughter has been found wandering naked in Central Park, and 
is at the moment in restraints at the New York State 
Psychiatric Institute. He has to do it soon, because otherwise 
Mulder himself will make the call. And then there will be 
further complications.

The third, and the most immediate, is to walk to the other side 
of the room and end the agony of the mouse that is, at the 
moment, scratching desperately at the cheap wood of the trap. 
Recent developments have made him once again the most 
powerful man in America, but the tiny creature's noises 
remind him that, titles aside, that doesn't mean much in the 
greater scheme of things.

He finishes the cigarette. The ashtray is overflowing, but it can 
wait. His steps are heavy as he crosses the floor.

One hand pinches the mouse's tail as the other springs the trap. 
There is another squeak. Its small leg is crushed, blood 
staining the gray fur, but it still struggles pitifully, tries to bite 
him. His own scars ache in sympathy.

He wonders if it will live if he releases it. Probably not. He 
imagines, for a moment, approaching one of the Visitors with 
the bizarre request to heal it.

The realization that this is actually an option makes him smile. 
He glances at the telephone.

The mice have been active for days, driven to madness inside 
his apartment by the first snow. On some nights, they have 
kept him awake.

With careful precision, he snaps its neck. Tosses the limp 
body into the garbage.

He resets the trap.

And then he picks up the phone.


III. SPY

It is too late to visit Samantha by the time they reach New 
York, so he walks instead, leaving Scully behind at the motel. 
She hadn't wanted him to leave. She had wanted to talk to him, 
or at the very least, sit there while he cried.

But he is past tears.

Central Park by moonlight - it sounds like the title of a 
romance film, and not a good one at that. Besides, there isn't 
any moon tonight - just diffused halos around lamps, glimmers 
of stars through fog. The angel looms silent, and he wonders if 
he could trace Samantha's bare footsteps through the frosted 
grass, the frozen earth. He stands at the edge of the fountain 
and looks up into the stone eyes.

Someone laughs behind him, but he doesn't turn, not even 
when a familiar voice says his name.

He doesn't respond, pretending he doesn't hear it. If they're 
going to shoot him, they can shoot him in the back.

"What are you doing here, Krycek?" he asks finally, wearily.

"If I'd been sent to kill you, you'd be buried by now. I've been 
standing behind you for ten minutes."

Mulder turns, slowly. "I know."

Krycek's face, half-hidden in the shadows, is a mask of angles 
and harsh planes of light. "You are a good soldier, Mulder," 
he says, "A good soldier, and a lousy spy."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I think you know."

Mulder does know; he knows all too well. The steps to this 
dance are familiar. He will ask, and Krycek will avoid, and the 
game will go on, as it must.

Krycek turns his attention to the statue of the angel. 

"It's a war memorial, isn't it?" Mulder says.

Krycek shrugs - he doesn't care. Mulder does not particularly 
care either. He's never been one for statues.

"Bethesda..." Krycek says, sounding thoughtful. "You know 
the story, Mulder?"

"What story?"

"The angel Bethesda...came down from Heaven in the middle 
of Jerusalem in the Temple Square. Where her foot touched 
the ground, a fountain sprang up. They said that anyone who 
walked through the waters of the fountain would be healed of 
suffering."

Mulder laughs, a nervous laugh. "Interesting story, Krycek."

Krycek's voice is a whisper in the gathering darkness. "I heard 
they found your sister. I heard that she's insane."

Civility shudders and dies. "Go to hell," Mulder snarls.

"It must be hard." Krycek is calm, calm and mocking. He can 
afford to be. "Twenty-five years of searching, and all for 
nothing."

"Tell me why you're here, or leave. Or I'll make you leave."

A dark chuckle. "Will you?" Mulder sees a flash in the dark, 
part of a gun, perhaps. "It's all right. It's getting late, and I 
have...other obligations." He leans over, and for an instant 
Mulder expects to feel the hot breath and scrape of stubble, a 
repeat of their last meeting that left him sitting on the floor of 
his apartment with the world spinning wildly out of kilter.

But Krycek only pats his shoulder in what might have been a 
gesture of camaraderie, had it not come from the man who had 
killed his father. 

"I just came to see how you were doing." A pause, and then, 
in an oddly gentle voice, he says, "Goodnight."

Mulder glances at the statue, and when he looks back, Krycek 
is gone.


IV. MEAT

Mulder's eyes miss Samantha's as he enters the hospital room, 
instead focusing on an older woman whose hair had gone 
white too early, too swiftly. 

"Mom." 

The word is a sigh of resignation, and Scully can almost hear 
the cracks in the walls that Mulder constructed around 
himself. Teena Mulder's lips become thinner as she looks at 
her son, and Scully tries to blend into the walls, wishing for no 
spectator's role in this production.

"You didn't call me, Fox."

The first accusation sets the wheels in motion, and Scully tries 
to tune their words out but they're too sharp and too bitter, and 
she doesn't succeed.

"I wanted..." Mulder's voice grates like sandpaper. "I wanted 
to see how bad..." he doesn't finish the thought. "I would have 
called you later."

His mother bows her head. "My life had always felt like 
before and after, Fox. Before my child disappeared. And after, 
when every day lasted a year. I couldn't be forced to live 
another year or two without her. Not when I've survived 
centuries."

Scully forces her gaze away from her partner's sheet-white 
face. There would be time for comfort later, if he accepted it. 

"Mom, I've missed her too," he answers, sad but defiant. 
"Nine thousand, one hundred, and sixty-seven days of my 
life."

An image of Mulder as a prisoner in a dark cell, slicing the 
walls with a piece of chalk, is too vivid to be erased, and 
Scully shudders. Her hands wrap around her torso, and she 
fights the impulse to wrap them around him and make 
everything better, for she knows she can't.

Being powerless is equivalent to incapacitation in her mind.

Her shifting eyes focus on the thin shadow of the rightful 
occupant of this room. She sits cross-legged on the bed with a 
lunch plate in her lap, and the fork makes periodic, infrequent 
trips to her mouth. Chicken salad, Scully notes automatically.

"I know you mean well, Fox," Mrs. Mulder's hand reaches out 
to her son, and he steps back, too wound up to acknowledge 
the gesture. "But you can't protect me from everything. 
Especially not from my own daughter."

Scully watches as Samantha pushes the little pieces of meat 
onto the border of her plate, carefully and methodically. They 
remain untouched, while the rest of food disappears, slowly 
but surely.

"I never wanted it to be like this," Mulder's whisper is 
monotone, as if he doesn't have any emotion left to spare for 
it. "This is a nightmare."

Wide eyes, the color of which escapes Scully, meet her own 
blue orbs and hold. And then the gaunt woman on the bed 
smiles tentatively, and the pale face changes, lighting up for a 
perfect instant. Thin fingers keep pushing the meat away 
automatically.

And Scully thinks that the other two people in the room treat 
this woman just like a piece of meat, pushing her out of their 
minds. 

"Mulder," she speaks quickly, before compassion for him can 
take over again. "You forgot to meet your sister." With that, 
she leaves the room, no longer able to watch the drama.

His face is a picture of remorse as he finally turns to the 
subject of the dispute. Samantha's fork falls on the floor with a 
perfectly cut cube of chicken meat caught in its teeth.

End Part 1/15

Part 2/15

V. ICE

The glass reflects scattered shards of light, bouncing off the 
translucent liquid and misshapen ice cubes.
Mulder stirs the drink more than he sips it, stares into it as 
though it could solve his problems.

Or, failing that, as if it could show the reflection of a man who 
did not just flee the hospital room where his long-lost sister, 
his only little sister, is sitting with eyes glazed over, gaunt and 
wasted away and all alone. Does this make him a coward, he 
wonders? How could he have run? He could barely stand.

And he came here, to drink it all away, just like dear old 
Daddy.

Smoke wafts through a smoky room, gray washing over a 
background of gray. "Is this seat taken?"

Mulder's lips move in permutations of expletives, but all that 
comes out is the predictable growl of, "What are you doing 
here?"

The older man ignores him. "Scotch, on the rocks," he says to 
the bartender in a sharp mockery of cordiality. In almost the 
same breath, he announces, "You didn't used to drink, did you, 
Mr. Mulder?"

"Circumstances change." His voice falls flat. This is a public 
place. None of his threats will carry weight, and without 
threats he has no idea how to proceed in a conversation with 
this man.

The second drink arrives. Mulder is still staring dully into his 
own. "You're looking more and more like your father every 
day, Fox."

Rage is enough to melt the ice. How dare he invoke the name 
of the man he killed?

Still, the voice goes on, as if they were two ordinary men, 
conversing, in a bar. "It's a pity he didn't live long enough to 
see his daughter return. Then again, perhaps it's for the best."

Can't react. Can't give in to anger. Can't jump up from his seat 
and pound the son-of-a-bitch's face in.

Mulder can't do anything but sit there, watch and try to match 
the man's calmness as he takes another drag of his cigarette, 
then stubs it into the overflowing ashtray. He notices that the 
smoker has yet to touch his drink.

"How is Samantha?"

Mulder shakes his head slowly. "Why do you want to know?"

The smoking man reaches into his jacket for a new cigarette. 
"I'm sure you can guess the answer to that by now."

Mulder is suddenly cold. There's something wrong. The devil 
is sitting less than a foot away from him, haloed by a cloud of 
smoke, and in a universe that made sense, the room would 
have been in flames. But instead, he is shivering, and the 
devil's face is the same transparent non-color as the ice cubes 
in his drink.

He looks away. He doesn't have the strength to stare the 
smoker down. And something tells him that the older man 
doesn't have the strength, either.

Not today.

Mulder looks at his watch. He has been gone for almost two 
hours. He knows he should return to the hospital.

Samantha is important. More important than this, than his 
vendetta, than all the injustice in the world.

"Excuse me," he says.

"Certainly." The smoking man sounds almost friendly.

Mulder drains the rest of his drink in one swig. It burns on the 
way down, a cold burn, but one that reminds him that he still 
lives, that there is a world outside of the hazy, smoky 
dreamworld of the bar. He slams the glass down on the 
counter.

The smoker's eyes tilt lazily towards him, regarding him with 
a predator's cool disinterest. He extinguishes his cigarette, 
barely touched, into the younger man's abandoned glass. 
Mulder's last impression of the bar is not the saddened slump 
of a man too weary to fight anymore, but of the small circle of 
ash spreading deeper into a frozen surface, gnawing a dark 
tunnel through the shards of ice.


VI. ACRE

Samantha climbs out of bed and sits by the window that leads 
to a bustling street. The hectic rhythm of life outside fascinates 
her, but she doesn't long to become its active participant. The 
human world has become a place as unfamiliar as it is 
frightening. She thinks that perhaps she was never meant to 
belong here, and panic laces through her, leaving doubts in its 
wake.

She looks around the room, small and colorless, almost stark 
in its simplicity. She measures it by paces - only four in width 
and six in length. And suddenly, she remembers the smooth 
walls of her other room with no windows. She could never 
find its invisible door, as many hours as she spent crawling on 
her knees and probing the flexible but tight material the name 
of which she'd never learned. 

It could have been a cage, but she preferred to think of it as 
home.

Claustrophobia is an old friend, and before it has a chance to 
take hold and make her scream in terror, Samantha pulls a 
tight shield of control over her emotions and lets her 
surroundings blur. It's an old trick that she learned many years 
ago. Before too long, the walls of the room disintegrate, the 
metal chair beside her bed sprouts roots and turns into a tree, 
and the glass of water on the end table pours blue freshness 
into a gentle stream.

This is her secret room, her true asylum, where she knows she 
will always find refuge and peace, no matter what happens in 
the real world. In fact, she is certain at times that the garden, 
stretching out for an acre inside her imagination, is the only 
corporal reality she knows.

Here, Samantha feels protected, warm, and always safe. Here, 
summer never comes to an end, and flowers never shed their 
petals. No one can ever infringe on this territory, and no one 
can change it but herself. 

Only once did she walk the full length of the green acre, 
wondering what she would find at its end. She now knows that 
there stands a long gray wall, a silent giant zealously guarding 
this safe haven. Samantha remembers stopping short, confused 
and certain that she'd never envisioned a wall as part of her 
secret garden.

One day, she promises herself. One day she will go back to 
find the wall and try to look over to the other side. 

But for now, she is content with the way things are.


VII. MISER
 
In the beginning it was easier not to think about it.
 
Teena Mulder searches through her purse, fingers brushing old 
candy wrappers, the smooth surface of a leather wallet, the 
keys to several houses, the oldest of which is beginning to 
rust. Her hand closes around a plastic cylinder - she pulls it 
out, stares at it as if it is a stranger rather than the old friend it 
is. She can see her own faint reflection above the prescription 
that bears her name.
 
Before the abduction - before the screaming, before the 
Valium - she had been beautiful. She still is, in a way, her face 
youthful, eerily unlined beneath its frame of pearl-white hair. 
Her aloof, coolly defiant brand of beauty stares back at her 
from the orange plastic, twists at her heart as it echoes her 
daughter's features.
 
Samantha, she thinks, Samantha - why now?
 
And she cannot put it out of her mind. She cannot allow 
herself to escape, as she has done so many times, hoarding 
pills like a miser, hoarding memories and stashing them away 
in a place where not even she could reach them. No longer, 
she decides - she will face this particular demon awake, 
without the soft haze of oblivion keeping her safe.
 
She is no longer safe. None of them are.
 
In the beginning, it was easier not to think about it. Now she 
can't stop. Even as she walks alone, pulling her dark coat 
around her like a shield, the image is seared into her skull, a 
cruel tattoo across her line of vision. Every tall, wavy-haired 
stranger watches her with the same blank stare, following her 
across the reflections of windows, over the pavement in the 
slender, lengthening shadows.
 
She turns the corner and steps into a blast of heat. Her cheeks 
instantly flush with a glow that would have been dazzling in 
the face of a younger woman, but that makes her look only 
feverish. Inside, she can smell coffee and freshly baked bread, 
melting snow, a wholesome, homey sort of scent mixed with 
the odor of cigarettes that drifts from the table of a young 
couple. She associates it instinctively with menace, and it 
seems out of place here.
 
Neutral ground. That was what he said, over the phone. A 
small cafe just south of the hospital, a location in which 
neither of them would feel entirely comfortable.
 
He is late, and Teena waits half an hour before deciding to 
leave. Just as she stands, the door opens with a harsh cry of 
chimes, and he is brushing snow out of his thinning hair.
 
"I was delayed," he says, his tone terse but polite, and he 
explains no further. He sits down, nods to the waiter to bring a 
coffee. Two coffees, he amends, glancing at her. The same 
offhand dismissal he uses to run the fate of nations applies to 
her as well.
 
But she does not return the sentiment. She has a harsher spirit 
than the men who rule the world. And though he can decide 
the future with a single word, she can make him tremble 
without even opening her mouth.
 
"What did you do to her?"
 
His lips move in mockery of words, and he lights a cigarette 
instead. "What makes you think I did anything to her?" he 
asks finally.
 
She says nothing. He takes a drag of his cigarette. He does not 
break her stare.
 
So, he does not know either.
 
There are other questions to ask. Whether or not Samantha 
will live. What they plan to do to her next. These are questions 
to which he will know the answers.
 
But it is better not to ask. Better not to know, not to dwell on 
it. This is a dark parody of her dreams: Samantha is back, but 
she is not Samantha. *He* is back, but only to assess the 
situation, to take appropriate action. She almost laughs, a 
bitter knife turned inward against her own time-hardened 
heart.
 
She can breathe again, but it will never be the same.
 
Abruptly, she stands, leaving him to pay for the coffee. She 
has to leave. The room is closing in on her.
 
"Teena," he says, and his voice sounds like a shout to her, 
though not one stranger's head turns to stare.
 
Against all logic, she stops, though she does not turn back.
 
"Give Samantha my regards," he says, and then the door 
crashes shut behind her.


VIII. FLOWER

His job is routine. Every day, he assumes the same spot on the 
park bench and unfurls the daily issue of New York Times. 
He's not a reader - never has been, and he quietly longs for 
some other fun, mindless way to pass the time.

With disinterest, he watches the windows of the hospital, 
waiting for something new to transpire, knowing resignedly 
that nothing will. The people he's watching are stuck in the 
same holding pattern day after day, their lives seemingly more 
routine than his own.

In the morning, an old woman comes into the room and sits 
beside the younger one. She rarely speaks and never smiles. 
She leaves always at the same time, avoiding the moment 
when the door opens again and a tall man comes inside, his 
demeanor always troubled, his shoulders hunched. He often 
frowns and stares at the wall. Sometimes, he reaches for a 
hand of the young woman and kisses her fingers with 
tenderness and care. He never leaves calmly - rather runs away 
and slams the door behind him in haste.

A small redheaded woman comes to visit on random days, at 
odd times, and she always brings a book to read aloud. He 
can't tell if her audience is responsive, but she reads with 
enthusiasm and obvious emotion, always smiling at the patient 
when she finishes a chapter for the day. 

Today, the old dignified woman has already come and gone. 
He waits for the tall man to come but he never appears - and 
he is somewhat intrigued as to the reason why. His workday 
will soon draw to its close, and he doesn't intend to stay here 
longer than he's been paid for.

He sighs and puts away the newspaper. It only serves to attract 
attention. He is very good at what he does: blending into the 
surroundings, becoming one with the street. He once followed 
a man for a week, remaining in plain view all the time, and 
was never noticed. Proudly, he tells his employers that he just 
has 'one of those faces.'

These people are too absorbed in their own pain to pay 
attention to the outside world, and that always helps him.

He watches as the redheaded woman enters the room. She 
doesn't have a book under her arm this time. She carries a 
bouquet of flowers - some small bluish things the name of 
which he doesn't know - and places them in the hands of a thin 
woman sitting by the window. She accepts the gift - and he 
sees a rare smile blossoming on her face. 

After the patient is left alone, she opens the window slightly 
and observes the street outside. Suddenly, her eyes focus on 
him, and he is certain that she knows him - knows what he is 
doing here and why - and forgives him. Paralyzed, he watches 
as one of the flowers peels away from the bouquet and 
levitates in the cold air, slowly falling onto the ground close to 
his feet.

Reflexively, he reaches for it, but doesn't have a chance to 
pick it up before someone's elegant black boot smashes it into 
the melting snow.

He shakes his head, as if in a dream, seeing nothing but torn 
blue petals. The woman in the window above clutches the 
remaining flowers close to her chest, obviously afraid to let 
another one go.

He stands up and walks slowly away, ten minutes before his 
eight-hour day is completed. As he meets with his employer 
and accepts the daily offering of folded green bills, he 
nervously resigns, saying that he got another lucrative job and 
wouldn't be able to help here anymore.

The green-eyed young man doesn't have a chance to make a 
better offer before the watcher disappears.


IX. BRIDE

Mulder looks like the Bride of Frankenstein.

The analogy almost makes Krycek laugh, but instinct keeps 
him silent as he creeps around the corner. His footsteps make 
no sound on the floor, but Mulder is awake, half-rising on the 
couch with his overgrown hair sticking up all around his pasty 
face. His eyes are sunken, shot with blood, sockets blackened 
from lack of sleep. All that's missing, Krycek thinks, is an 
application of black lipstick and a tattered lace gown.

Now he does laugh, a muted hiss that alerts Mulder to his 
presence. Before the older man can scramble for his gun on 
the coffee table, Krycek says, "I've got it."

"What do you want, Krycek?"

Krycek absentmindedly twirls the weapon in question. "I think 
I want to talk to you without having your gun shoved in my 
face."

"Talk."

Krycek feels his lips stretch into the imitation of a smile he 
uses so often when he is around the Consortium. "I might have 
information. Or I might not. It would depend on the price you 
are willing to pay."

I want you to try kill me, Krycek thinks, I want you to get off 
the goddamn couch and wrestle the gun out of my hand. Just 
like old times, Mulder, what do you say? A few bruises but it'd 
be worth it, if only to know that it was you sitting there and 
not some failed cloning experiment.

"I don't have much of my soul left to sell," Mulder says.

"Maybe it's not your soul I'm interested in."

They stare at each other for a moment. Krycek blinks first, for 
a change.

"Get out of town, Mulder," he says abruptly, "Your life is in 
danger."

"No doubt by the same man who is pointing my own gun at 
me?"

A dark chuckle. "I didn't come here to kill you."

"Then why did you come here?"

Krycek's smile fades. He would like to know the answer to 
that himself.

"There's a man," Krycek begins, his voice oddly halting. "He 
used to work for me. He wasn't a good man, Mulder...none of 
them are. He's seen things...not as much as I've seen...done 
things..." His tone flattens as Mulder shoots him another glare. 
"Yesterday, he saw something that frightened him so much 
that he resigned immediately." A pause, then, "People don't 
resign from our business. You should know that by now."

Krycek waits for the inevitable question, but it never comes. It 
doesn't matter. He knows that Mulder does not expect the truth 
from him.

"I didn't kill him," Krycek says, "He disappeared."

Mulder rubs at his darkened eyes. "And... what was this 
*something* that he saw?"

"I don't know." Krycek's response is too unplanned to be a lie. 
"But I do know where he was when he saw it."

And though he already must know the answer, Mulder asks, 
"Where was that?"

The bargain is sealed. But Krycek will collect later.

"Below the window of your sister's hospital room," Krycek 
says.

With that, he places the gun on the coffee table, within 
Mulder's reach, confident that the other man will not shoot as 
he turns his back.

As he closes the door, he hears Mulder lift the gun. He is 
relieved. Even if he must stand on the wrong side, he is glad 
that at least the battle is not over.

End Part 2/15

Part 3/15

X. CAR

A woman's hand touches the branches of a tree tenderly, 
admiring the bright new leaves, only now making their 
appearance. Spring is late this year, and the city struggles in 
the clutches of winter unsuccessfully, unable to proceed with 
the normal rhythm of its life.

A small smile appears on Scully's lips, and dies just as quickly -
like a lantern left without oil. The frost of winter may be 
unseen, but she finds its damaging evidence everywhere she 
goes - in the distant face of Samantha, in the wrinkles 
appearing around her partner's eyes, in the silences that reign 
between them.

She knows that he hadn't visited the hospital in several days. 
She knows his reasons, and she wishes that he didn't feel the 
need to lie to her. Every day he still puts on his coat and goes 
out the door, ostensibly to see his sister. She wonders where 
he spends his time instead. Does he wander the city streets? 
Does he sit in a small diner down the block, drinking one 
coffee cup after another?

"Hello, stranger."

Scully starts at the familiar voice, at once dangerous and 
welcome at the moment. "Mulder. Were you following me?"

"Not really," he shrugs guiltily, then admits: "Only for the last 
few minutes."

She takes pity on him. "Want to walk home with me?"

Wordlessly, he falls into step beside her, taming his long 
strides to accommodate her small feet. Twilight covers the city 
with a smoky blanket of flickering streetlights and pale stars.

"Were you visiting Sam?"

Scully nods, surprised at his straightforwardness. 

"How is she?"

He can't face her while asking the question, as if afraid of 
betraying what his voice so carefully conceals.

Samantha looks healthier - the angles of her shoulder blades 
are no longer so protuberant, and her eyes are no longer the 
most prominent feature of her pale face. She listens attentively 
to the books that Scully brings. She still spends most of her 
time looking out the window, but Scully isn't entirely certain 
that the outside world is what she sees. Whatever distance had 
been conquered by Samantha's return to the everyday world, 
and then by her transfer from State Psychiatric Institute of 
New York to Fairfax hospital in D.C., it couldn't bring her 
closer to her own family.

"I think she misses you."

His throat moves convulsively, and she regrets the somewhat 
accusatory tone of her answer. "I'm sorry, Mulder, I didn't..."

The sound of the screeching tires and the protesting moan of 
the asphalt are unnaturally loud in the quiet suburban street. 
The red sports car is careening dangerously out of control, 
finally ending its spin in the opposite lane of traffic, where 
another car plunges into it headfirst. White bulbs of airbags 
pop out of all windows, and Scully watches for a moment in 
stupefied fascination, surveying the magnitude of the damage. 

Then, she runs toward the ruined vehicles, forgetting the 
conversation that seemed of utmost importance just seconds 
ago. A passenger stumbles out of the undamaged doors, 
trembling visibly, and she leaves him to his own devices, more 
concerned with the lack of movement on the driver side of the 
red car. As the door clicks open easily, Scully finds herself 
supporting the bloodied head of a young woman, her pupils 
dilated in shock and pain. Right temple is shattered, and the 
trained eye of a forensic pathologist recognizes the entrance of 
the bullet released by a .45 - the real culprit of the accident. 

She glances back, expecting to find Mulder right behind her, 
or tending to the second driver - or dialing nine one one on his 
cell.

Instead, all that she sees are the faces of spectators, some 
greedy, some concerned. The city is empty without him. 

Twilight hides the rapidly receding shadows across the street.


XI. JEWEL

It is in the box where she left it, glittering faintly amid the 
shadows of the basement. Teena lifts the thin, golden chain 
with utmost delicacy, turning the jewel that dangles from it 
over in her hand. Samantha's birthstone glitters from the 
unicorn's eye, from the tip of its horn.

The necklace would have been Samantha's ninth birthday 
present - a child's thing - but what is Samantha now besides a 
child trapped in a woman's body? Samantha's thirty-fourth 
birthday is not until November, but what better time to give it 
to her? Teena closes the tiny velvet box and slowly stands.

Samantha will be asleep when she arrives, alone in that cold, 
sterile room. It will be past visiting hours, but no one will stop 
Teena on her way inside. She is a woman on a mission, and no 
one will stand in her way.

She will lift up her daughter's head with the same tenderness 
as she had shown when she lifted the necklace out of its box, 
squeeze the clasp shut, and take Samantha's hands in her own. 
The jewel on the unicorn's horn will lie against the hollow of 
her child's throat, casting patterns of light against the bland, 
lifeless walls of the room.

And then Samantha's eyes will open, focus, remember. She 
will sit up, and at last, Teena can welcome her home.

She is at the hospital before she realizes that she has left, 
walking the familiar corridor to her daughter's room. And 
though the staff of the institution stare, they do not prevent her 
from slipping inside the door, the necklace draped around her 
hand like a talisman.

Within an instant, Teena realizes why.

The bed is empty, the sheets immaculate. Samantha has not 
slept on them since the night before. The bed is empty, and so 
is the room.

Teena sways on her feet, leaning against the wall for support. 
Her daughter is gone. Again.

She wonders if the pain will be greater this time, once the 
shock has worn off. The time before she had been prepared. 
She had believed in the possibility of Samantha's return. This 
time, she has no such assurances.

She acts quickly, without consideration. There is no time to 
weigh the consequences, to question her options. She knows 
what she must do.

The gray voice answers, muted by the static of an old 
payphone. He does not sound surprised to hear from her.

"She's gone," Teena says, the panic in her voice moderated by 
the chill that has rapidly overtaken her.
"I need you to find her."

"I see."

She does not plead any further. There is a silence. There is an 
understanding.

After she hangs up, Teena drops to her knees. The talisman 
falls from her hand, and when it hits the floor, it makes almost 
no sound at all.


XII. SURF

The grocery bags land on the kitchen table with an ungraceful 
thud, and Mulder flinches. The house in which he spent his 
childhood seems to resent its human residents. For years, only 
dust and moths occupied it, and Mulder thinks that he has no 
right to be here - no right to disturb the fragile peace that it 
acquired. He should have sold this place a long time ago. 

He knows that it's not the best hiding spot. His family history 
holds more secrets for him than for the outsiders; sooner or 
later, it will be found. Time is all he can hope for, all he can 
buy in this unfriendly retreat.

Today or tomorrow, his sister will remember that this is home, 
the place in which they staged childhood pranks, where they 
argued and unwrapped their birthday presents, where he 
missed her so after she went away.

"Are you back, Sam?" Mulder asks aloud, though she is not 
there to hear him. "How was your life? Who have you 
become?"

He chokes on his words as the house recedes into silence 
again. It would be easier if Scully was there - she would bring 
life even to this stale house by the sea. For a moment, he 
contemplates the turned-off cellular phone. He has become too 
dependent on her. Resolutely, he turns to the bags of groceries 
and starts to load the refrigerator and cupboards. 

The items he selected so carefully at the store seem poor 
choices to Mulder right now. He doesn't know Samantha's 
taste, and he can't even recall what she liked to eat when she 
was little. A more important question begs to be asked but he 
ignores it stubbornly. 

She can be happy here with him. They can find each other 
again.

He shoves the empty bags away and walks down the hall, to 
invite his sister to lunch. The door is open, revealing an empty 
room, and he is newly terrified of losing her again, for the 
second and last time. He leans against the wall, trying to slow 
down his pulse, waiting until his vision clears again. 

Mulder circles around the house once, twice, until he finds the 
fresh footsteps. He retraces the delicate path she's left behind, 
all the way down to the ocean. The sound of surf is stronger 
now, and he runs towards the haunted figure sitting on the 
beach, relief engulfing him like a safety net, sure that she will 
reach her hands out towards him, will smile at him with 
recognition.

Samantha turns around, the warmth of her expression 
astounding him, until he realizes that she meant it for someone 
else. The corners of her mouth fall slowly, and she resumes 
her contemplation of the ocean. The waves are docile as they 
lap her toes, the wind that they bring caresses her long hair 
gently. 

Mulder drapes his jacket over her shoulders, knowing only too 
well that the gesture will remain unnoticed. He is an outsider - 
an intruder upon this idyllic scene. Abruptly, he starts to walk 
away. The miracles are hard to come by, but he still hopes that 
she will call out his name, will run to catch up with him. 

It doesn't happen, and he glances over his shoulder one last 
time. 

Her hands glide over the water that the tide brings, and he 
thinks that the ocean gives her something she could never 
receive from him.

The sensation of coming home.


XIII. NOON

"Is this a secure line?"

"Of course."

"Do you have assurances?"

"Yes."

"Good."

"The news, then?"

"Mulder is gone."
 
"Is he?"

"Mulder, and his sister. She was reported missing from the 
hospital last night."

"Have our mutual friends been informed?"

"I was waiting for your word to make the report."

"Don't. Location?"

"We don't know, sir."

"Is that so?"

"There was no sign that either was...taken."
 
"They left willingly?"

"It's a possibility."

"Scully?"

"Under surveillance, as you requested."

"Keep it subtle. He may try to contact her."

"If he's alive."

"He's alive."

"Rumor has it that there was an attempt on his life. A young 
woman was murdered."

"He's alive."
 
"We need to talk."

"Are you hiding something?"

"We need to talk."

"What do you know?"

"How does it feel to be left in the dark?"

"Familiar."

"Tomorrow. Lincoln Memorial. I'll decide whether I can trust 
you on this."
 
"Trust is not a luxury you can afford. You need me."

"Perhaps."

"Tomorrow. What time?"

"Noon."

Click.

Click.

"Noon."


XIV. CELL

His eyes adjust to the darkness slowly, and Jason Hart waits 
patiently until the moment when he can distinguish the 
huddled figure on the bed. A mirthless smile that momentarily 
crosses his face is the only sign of the relief he feels at seeing 
her. He hates this room, its hastily painted gray walls and 
absent windows. It would serve well as a cell in a dungeon, 
and the comparison gnaws at him. The woman who lives here 
is not a prisoner, not anymore, and he is careful in giving her 
as much freedom as she requires.

"Is she dead?" 

Her voice is damaged, mutated just as everything else in his 
world. Hart doesn't want to give her the bad news but the 
reddish eyes ask for the truth, and the answer is a punishment 
he must endure for his negligence. 

"Another woman died instead." He walks over to her and 
takes her hand, trying to share his body warmth with the icy 
fingers in his palm. "The man who was shooting... I won't let 
him make mistakes anymore." He bites his tongue before her 
name can roll off it. She doesn't want to remember who she 
was before. Marita Covarrubias is gone. 

Marita had blonde hair, gray eyes, and smooth skin. She lived 
in a luxurious urban apartment and she could have had any 
man that she wanted. She had power and money, and any 
fairy-tale princess would have envied her.

The woman who never leaves this dark room has shaking 
hands, and he helps her dye her limp locks black. Her skin is 
gray, and it matches the color of her unkempt clothes. The 
faintest ray of light pains her red eyes. She is going blind. And 
the only man she has is Jason Hart, an aging doctor without a 
license to practice, who is suffering from a weak heart and 
pangs of conscience. 

His love is a flimsy substitute for the body that betrayed her, 
for the way of life that she lost. He is among those responsible 
for her transformation, but she doesn't know that, and he will 
never tell her. They're the victims and survivors of the same 
storm, and they must cling to each other.

"I remember her...from before," she hugs her bony shoulders, 
rocks back and forth. "I've been remembering more lately. 
There are things... things that I know..."

Hart drapes her in a blanket, nodding encouragingly. Her 
memory is failing, and she struggles to keep the remaining 
fragments desperately, but he knows that this battle is fatal. 
"She was close to Samantha Mulder," he confirms. "That's all 
we need to know. You needn't try to remember so hard."

"Scully," her lips curl grotesquely. "You will make sure that 
she dies, won't you? We must get rid of everyone connected. 
Everyone responsible."

Hart shivers. Still, there are depths to fall, crimes to be 
committed, men who are paid to murder. There are others who 
share this deadly secret, but it is he who feels the brunt of the 
burden most strongly. No human who knows about the 
colonization, no human who bears any connection to the 
visitors, must remain alive. It is the only way to avoid the 
plague. 

Until then, he will not allow his heart to stop beating. Until 
then, he will hope that she never escapes this cell. 

The careful kiss he places on her cold cheek is a fervent 
promise.


XV. PAINT

Skinner's office smells like fresh paint, reminding Scully that 
it is springtime, renovation season. She barely remembers the 
transition between seasons, having spent it almost entirely 
driving between work and Samantha's room at the Fairfax 
hospital. The overpowering aroma reminds her of the 
specificity of time and space, reminds her that she has a career 
that does not revolve entirely around Mulder and his long-lost 
sister.

While the world is busy turning upside down, the basement 
office is filling with paperwork and case files. Meetings are 
called, deadlines pass, but the monotonous train of daily life at 
the FBI has chugged along its course without her.

Until now.

Two weeks have passed since Mulder disappeared. She has 
every reason to believe that he left willingly, but not that he is 
still alive. She has even fewer assurances when it comes to 
Samantha.

It surprises her to think of how much she misses the presence 
of the young woman in her life. It has been such a short time, 
compared to Mulder's twenty-five year quest, but already this 
second loss stings at her, a gnawing irritation within the larger 
void left by her partner's absence.

The scent of paint and Skinner's voice brings her back to the 
present.

"The Bloomfield case, Agent Scully?"

She realizes that she has been drifting off. "I've assembled 
enough evidence to determine that she was simply in the 
wrong place at the wrong time. She had no criminal record, no 
history of incident at all. It may have been a random 
shooting...regardless, our jurisdiction over the case is tenuous 
at best. And it hardly qualifies as an X-File."

For a moment, he seems to accept this explanation without 
question, glancing briefly at the wall to her left. He knits his 
fingers together, clears his throat, adjusts his glasses. 
Anything, Scully thinks, to avoid giving voice to his 
suspicions.

"Are those the findings you intend to submit?" he asks.

"With one addendum." All day, she has been debating whether 
or not to offer this one last theory. Skinner's unease confirms 
her decision. She is alone on this case, and it is already too 
personal. "There is a possibility the murder may be connected 
with the disappearances of Mulder and his sister."

As soon as she says the words, she knows that they are exactly 
what Skinner expects to hear. He can play neutral, innocent, if 
he likes. But they share a silent understanding. No amount of 
professional demeanor can hide this.

"Because of our proximity to the crime scene..." she begins.

"You think whoever killed this woman is responsible for 
Agent Mulder's disappearance?"

"I think that Agent Mulder was the intended target," Scully 
says, "I believe that he realized his life was in danger, and that 
was why he left."

"I see." Another glance at the wall - Scully wonders what it is 
that Skinner finds so interesting there. Maybe he likes 
watching paint dry.

"Sir?"

"I suggest that you do not put that in your report, Agent 
Scully."

She nods, and slips out of the door without another word.

End Part 3/15

Part 4/15

XVI. DRUM

He peels away the yellow tape that the police left behind. The 
door opens easily, and the smoker accepts its silent invitation, 
stopping where the midnight sun casts shadows in the form of 
the two chalky outlines.

The man who died was a generation younger. His wife, a 
fragile brunette beauty, was a pianist. He vaguely recalls that 
the couple was afraid to have children, terrified of the 
inevitable future that would paint their fate in dark colors. 
How ironic that the young man continued to work for the new 
world order, ensuring the future he so feared.

There are scarlet spots on the creamy white keyboard. A sheet 
of music is still spread open, its sounds cut forever. A 
metronome still beats a steady drum. Its monotony is ominous, 
its motor more permanent than that of the living body.  

Ash falls on the floor as he takes another drag on the cigarette. 
Nicotine is healthier than the smell of death. 

Methodically, he opens drawers and looks over the 
bookshelves, searching for any sensitive documents. When he 
finds a safe, nit-picked and swept clean, the wrinkled fingers 
unconsciously start to beat the same drum as the metronome, 
one, and two, one, and two, as his apprehension grows. 

The rules of the game have changed, but he was not informed. 

"So what did he do?" 

Krycek's voice is nonchalant. Today, the older man envies 
such carelessness. This blood was shed too close to home. "I 
valued this man."

Krycek circles him slowly. He wears the same expression as 
the man the smoker met on the steps of Lincoln Memorial - 
mistrust born from loss of control, anger born from inability to 
prevent the unseen hand from taking more lives. 

"People have been dropping like flies lately," Krycek muses 
cynically. "Just tell me, am I next?"

He points to the ransacked safe in lieu of an answer. "How 
much does the information cost these days?"

Krycek's snarl obliterates his human features, transforming 
him into a creature of the jungle, fear and defiance in his every 
move. The smoker waits for the claws to come out, but the 
young man regains control before new blood is drawn.

"I know you have warned Mulder to leave the city."

"I only hope he took my advice to heart." 

"The question is," the smoker asks ominously, "how did you 
know to give it to him?"

There is a pause, and in the ensuing silence, the drum of the 
metronome has a resonance of the upcoming disaster. 

"Is he alive?" Krycek asks coldly.

"He is alive."

The young man backs out of the room, carefully sidestepping 
the bloody footprints. Abruptly, the smoker reaches out a hand 
to turn off the metronome and silence the dried-out heart of 
this home.

For the sake of their mother, he hopes that Mulder and 
Samantha are not the next targets. Rarely does he feel so 
helpless or paranoid. 

The echo of the drum follows him to the street.


XVII. WATER

He doesn't expect her to be on time. In his experience, 
information costs time as well as money, sleepless nights 
spent waiting in the shadows for men who as often as not, 
considered themselves above promptness. Two hours ago, he 
put on a warm jacket in preparation, but she arrives before he 
does, pacing among the stone blocks by the waterfall.

He offers her a small smile. Perhaps he has been working for 
the wrong side all along.

"Agent Scully," he says.

"Who are you?"
 
He considers answering, but before he can speak, she is right 
in front of him, staring up into his face but still so strangely 
fierce, a whirlwind of red hair and angry eyes. "You said you 
had information. Who are you?"

"That's not important." He has to raise his voice to be heard 
above the rushing water. He wants to sit at the edge of the 
plaza, stare down into the pool instead of at the woman beside 
him, but he is on edge tonight. This is a last, desperate gamble. 
"I can help you, Agent Scully. But you have to help me."

This is his choice of location, the fourth room of the Roosevelt 
Memorial. A lifetime ago, he came here for the solace of the 
water garden. His eyes travel over the inscription in granite at 
the entrance: "More than an end to war, we want an end to the 
beginnings of all war."

There was peace here, once, but not tonight.

Slowly, he unfurls the fingers of one hand, revealing a 
crushed, wilted blue flower. He watches her face for the split 
second change from confusion to realization.

"What sort of help do you require?" she asks. Her voice is 
calm, even, cold, a sharp contrast to the tide of panic that 
threatens to engulf him at any moment.

"I think you know," he says. "I need protection. And in 
exchange..." He takes her hand, presses the dead petals into 
her palm. "Please."

"Protection from whom?" It is the wrong question to ask, and 
they both know it. She wants only one answer. He is only a 
stepping stone for the assortment of players in this game.

"I...don't know." His voice falters for the first time. "They're 
after me...maybe both of them. Maybe they're all after me."

"Both of them?"

"One wants to stop it. One wants to aid it along. I've worked 
for them both. Agent Scully, I don't know who I've 
betrayed..."

"Slow down. I don't understand you."
 
He grips the edge of a stone block for support. "I saw it in her 
eyes. She knows. Somehow she knows what's coming. And 
they're all being killed one by one. I need to know if I'm next. 
I'm sure I'm next."

Scully is frustrated, he can tell. He is not explaining this 
clearly. It is all a tangle of fragments, half-remembered 
conversations, names and faces and unclear allegiances. He 
knows parts of the whole - or he thought he did - now he is not 
sure if there is a whole at all.

"Something is happening," he whispers. "Something that will 
change everything. That's why...why she came back."
 
"Samantha?"

He nods eagerly, glad to have made at least one connection. "I 
don't know whose side I'm on. I don't know who the good 
guys are anymore. I just want out."

"Do you know where she is?" And the unspoken question, 
does he know where Mulder is?

He shakes his head. "Please...help me...and we'll find her...find 
him..."

"I can arrange to have you put in the Witness Protection 
Program--"
 
"Don't you think we don't have infiltrators there?" He lunges 
out at her, clutches fistfuls of her coat as he sinks to his knees. 
"I need you to protect me from them...all of them..."

Scully tries to pull him to his feet, and he staggers, suddenly 
broken, suddenly dependent upon her support. His nondescript 
face twists in an expression beyond his control, hot and 
flushed and feverish and mad. He is aware of how he must 
seem to her, beyond use, a  hindrance, a liability.

He plays his last card. "I *can* help you find them, Agent 
Scully," he says, "We can stop this."

She stares at him for a moment, then lets out the deep breath 
he didn't know she was holding in. "What do I need to do?"

He feels his lips stretch into a parody of a smile. "I'm not sure 
yet. Go on up ahead. I'll follow. I don't want them to see us 
together."

She hesitates. She turns, slowly, and he watches her leave the 
monument.

Before he can take the first step to follow her, he feels the 
hand on his shoulder.
 
"No." He closes his eyes. "Not this...not now..." It is a 
moment before he realizes he has spoken out loud.

"On your knees."

Idly, he wonders how far Scully has walked. If he were to 
scream now, would she hear him? Would she have time to run 
back and save him before the first crack of the gunshot?

And if she tried, would Alex Krycek kill her as well?
 
He kneels, facing the waterfall. He could scream, out of 
principle, but he won't. It is the first noble thing he has done in 
his life, the last, but perhaps it will be enough.

There is no gunshot. Instead, he feels his head slammed 
forward into the pool, a rush of water seeping into his eyes, his 
nose, his mouth. Coughing, gagging, he tries to struggle but 
the force is too great, the water too powerful. What once 
brought him life is turned against him, transformed into an 
instrument of death and he can't breathe, can't fight anymore. 
Cold wings wrap around his face and he draws them in, a 
subtle poison flooding into his lungs.
 
Krycek lets go. He wipes his hands, and turns away as the 
limp body slides into the dark shimmer of the pool. Sightless 
eyes watch him from beneath the surface, but he does not look 
back.

In a few moments, the memorial is once again deserted. 
Moonlight trickles over the water, unmoved by another death 
in the night.


XVIII. ALARM

Mulder twists on his old bed, too small now for his long 
frame, and tries to sink deeper into nothingness. The sleep, 
when it comes, is akin to a thin blanket over his 
consciousness; the door back to reality is nearly transparent. 
The tension that charges him during the day doesn't depart 
during the night, and he jerks awake at odd intervals.

He is convinced that time is running out - that they've already 
overstayed their welcome. Spending days passively in this 
hideout goes against everything he believes in, enrages him on 
some primal level, but he pushes these impulses down. He 
can't act recklessly right now, not when Samantha sleeps in 
the same house, not when her safety is the most important 
factor in this equation.

Heavy eyelids slide shut over his feverishly bright eyes, just as 
a soft sound carries into his open bedroom. Mulder listens for 
a few seconds, until it becomes a keening wail, pitiful and 
desperate. He runs towards it, to the bolted and locked front 
door, where his sister kneels on the cold floor. Her crying is an 
alarm that claws at the remnants of his sleep, leaving shredded 
scars in its wake.

"I can't cross over," Samantha whispers, and he doesn't know 
whether to rejoice or weep. Did he expect her first words to be 
addressed to him? Did he hope that they would be 
accompanied by her smile? Did he, finally, believe that they 
would make sense? 

The bitterness rises inside Mulder, and he turns his head away, 
for just a moment, just until he can face her again without 
shame. If patience is a virtue, then he is a sinner. 

"Sam," he speaks, proud of the control in his voice. "Come 
back upstairs with me, please. We both need sleep."

Her hazel eyes pass over him as if he doesn't exist, increasing 
his anxiety, and his pulse sends a series of shocks through his 
system, each one a buzzing alarm of fear. It is only another 
indication that his sister lives in a different world, and he 
wonders if he will ever find a door that will lead him inside.

Mulder sits down on the floor next to her and squeezes her 
hand gently. There is nothing more he can do. 

"I prefer sleeping in beds, myself," a mocking voice startles 
him, but when his eyes settle on the intruder, initial alarm 
turns to indifference.

"How the fuck did you sneak in, Krycek?" Mulder addresses 
him, too tired to care, accepting too easily that he is about to 
pay consequences for his miscalculations.

"I picked the kitchen door lock," the visitor explains 
nonchalantly. "Too easy."

Mulder shakes his head, glancing at the woman beside him. 
"This is not a good time, Alex." Krycek flinches and appears 
to assess the scene in front of him for the first time. Mulder 
turns away from the probing gaze, equally wary of contempt 
and compassion. "Why are you here?"

"I have too many questions, and very few answers," Krycek 
says thoughtfully.

"Then you know how I feel."

"Why did she come back?" Krycek asks. "Why are the 
Consortium members buying large life insurance policies? 
Why did you leave Scully behind?" Feral green eyes blister 
Mulder's face, then retreat just as abruptly. "Finally, ponder 
this: how long will it take for them to find you?"

"I'm leaving tomorrow," Mulder replies hollowly. "And I 
would appreciate it if you exited the same way you came."

"Mulder." Krycek sounds profoundly tired, and strangely 
afraid. "I'd hate to see my previous warning going to waste."

Mulder unlocks the front door, opening it with flair. 
"Goodbye," he speaks without affect. "You're not welcome 
back."

The dismissal is unequivocal, but instead of leaving, the 
intruder recedes deeper into the house. The night is suddenly 
bright as day as what seems like dozens of powerful 
flashlights illuminate the front yard, and Mulder shields his 
eyes from the glare. 

"Fox, Samantha," the somber voice is filled with satisfaction. 
"Please come with us."

Mulder's throat is suddenly tight with anger, and for a long 
moment, he cannot find the words to express his animosity. 
He should have listened to his instincts, they could have left 
yesterday, instead of providing such an easy mark. "We 
decline your offer," he replies with exaggerated calmness.

The smoker gestures expressively at the small cavalry behind 
him. "Don't make it more difficult than it needs to be."

He grasps his sister's hand and calculates his options. If they 
run quickly enough, if they're lucky, the kitchen door is still 
open, and he knows these woods better than any one of these 
goons...

When he turns around, the barrel of a gun is directed squarely 
at Samantha's head. Krycek's face is devoid of emotion as he 
cocks the hammer. "Do as you're told. Now."

The newest betrayal should be easier to accept, but something 
bitter spills inside Mulder, poisoning him as it enters his 
bloodstream. He lets the image burn into his retina, 
memorizing and cataloguing it, to be recalled on demand. 
Then, he sets his shoulders and raises the right hand in a 
gesture of surrender, the other hand still tightly holding his 
sister. She follows him to the waiting black limo, speechless 
and distant as a shadow. 

And somewhere, he still hears the thin alarm of panic, 
growing louder in the stuffy silence of the car.


XIX. GRINDER

It is an unlikely place to meet her informant: a casual, funky 
coffee shop downtown, populated mainly by college kids and 
unemployed artists. A teenaged girl, her hair dyed black, 
lisping from a newly pierced tongue, takes the stage, her 
voice, surprisingly soft, carried by the microphone over the 
noise of the coffee grinder.

Scully turns the note over in her hand, another request for a 
clandestine meeting, another bit of useless information 
dangled in front of her. This is Mulder's job, a nagging voice 
in her head reminds her, but her job has ceased to exist. There 
are no bodies, no traces of pathogens, no theories to debunk 
through science. The case - if it can be called a case, it is far 
too personal to be sanctified by the FBI - is defined only 
through what it lacks, composed of absences, of 
impossibilities.
 
Waiting, she decides that this is a better meeting place than the 
seclusion of the Memorial. Out in the open, no one is 
listening. This time, her mysterious friend has no means of 
slipping away.

She orders another cup of coffee, listening to the thin strains 
of the girl's guitar. Scully closes her eyes for a moment, 
imagining a deeper, richer sound, filling in an orchestra behind 
the quiet, slightly off-key voice. As she does so, the informant 
slips into the chair across from her, the rustle of a trench coat 
only a negligible distraction.

Scully opens her eyes.
 
"Good evening, Agent Scully."

It is a while before Scully finds her voice. "I wasn't expecting 
to see you here."

Teena Mulder waves away the waitress who has come to ask if 
she would like anything. Coffee is irrelevant - there are more 
important matters to be discussed.

"The man you met the other night is dead. His body was found 
the morning after he contacted you."

Somehow Scully cannot find it in her to be shocked, or 
moved. Not anymore. All she can manage is, "I hope you're 
not going to tell me that you're his replacement."
 
Teena ignores the sarcasm. "He couldn't have told you 
anything of importance. He only understood part of the 
picture."

"And you?"

The older woman leans forward, and her voice drops to a low 
whisper. "Once, when everything pointed to the opposite 
conclusion, when I feared the worst, you told me that Fox was 
still alive. Now I've come to you, to offer you the same hope."

"What do you know?" She should have asked where he was. 
Or, perhaps, more importantly, how she knew.
 
"Only that...they're alive, both of them, and safe for the time 
being. Someone...told me that."

"Someone you trust?"

Teena laughs. It is a bitter, hollow sound, echoing in the 
sudden silence as the noise of the coffee grinder stops.

"Someone who knows he can't lie to me."

Scully says nothing for a moment, watching the painful twist 
of her companion's features. She senses an odd kinship with 
Teena Mulder, a woman well versed in the art of deception, an 
expert in the careful construction of emotional walls. It is a 
different sort of intrigue that the two of them practice.
 
"Someone," Scully says, "killed the man who came to me with 
information. And someone killed a young woman with a bullet 
intended for Mulder."

Whatever concern Teena feels for her son, for her daughter, is 
buried deep beneath a sheet of ice. "It wasn't them. It wasn't 
him."

And Scully mentally completes the implication. If the 
Consortium did not make the attempt on Mulder's life, then 
someone else did.

"Things are falling apart," Teena says.
 
"The bullet wasn't meant for Mulder, was it?" The realization 
occurs to her almost instantaneously, and she wonders why 
she didn't see it before.

"Miss Scully, I am just an old woman who has seen too many 
tragedies. I didn't come here to give you answers." She stands, 
frail hands grasping the table for support.

"Mrs. Mulder..." Scully begins, and she does not know how to 
finish.

"But I can tell you this much," Teena says, "the missing ones, 
the ones who were taken...they are coming back. They are all 
coming back."

The sound of chimes as she slips out the door of the cafe is 
barely audible as the music starts up again.

End Part 4/15

Part 5/15

XX. COOK

Jason Hart's heavy-lidded eyes close as if of their own 
volition. It has been a bad night, one of the many he spent 
lately, with Marita's thin body trembling in his hands. The 
fever always subsides by morning, and she can finally rest. He 
has no such luxury. 

A sound slap sends him back to the dizzying reality, and he 
reaches out a hand to steady himself. He'd never fallen asleep 
during an interrogation before, but such business no longer has 
the flavor of terror.

Wordlessly, his colleague hits the other cheek of the man tied 
to a heavy chair. 

"I..." the man shakes his head, futilely. "I haven't..."

"You haven't betrayed us, Roy, after we took you in - in good 
faith?" 

A punch to the stomach doubles Roy over, and his strained 
shoulders quiver in agony. "I'm not a traitor," he begs once he 
recovers his breath. "You must - you must believe me."

Roy is still young enough to assume that his words will 
somehow make the smallest bit of difference, and his plea for 
unconditional trust makes Jason smile. The only one he trusts 
these days is Marita - the captive is as inconsequential as a 
stepping stone. "Perhaps you were spying on us from the 
beginning," he speaks to Roy for the first time. "You worked 
for them for three years, after all."

"I didn't give them any information." Roy pulls on the bonds 
fruitlessly. "I couldn't."

"The only reason why you're still alive is that they believe 
you're dead. No," the interrogator leans closer to the battered 
face. "Not 'them,' Roy. The FBI. The ones who dutifully guard 
the returning abductees day and night. The ones who were 
directed to do so by the woman you watched for several days."

The bound man quivers, finally understanding. "I never talked 
to her, I swear," he speaks in a rush. "I followed her, you gave 
me this assignment, it's not my fault that she figured it out, 
why won't you believe me!"

Calmly, the interrogator opens the first few buttons on Roy's 
shirt and uses the revealed chest as an ashtray. Hart is deaf to 
the screams that follow, but the smell of cooked flesh that fills 
the room is inescapable, an insignificant suffering added to the 
memories of El Rico disaster, a small flame in the firestorm. 
He recalls the devastation brought on by the faceless soldiers, 
the fire that consumed the men who betrayed him. The women 
and children who hadn't been spared the same fate.

The interrogator's voice doesn't alter when he poses the 
question again. "How much have you told Agent Scully? 
What does she know?"

Jason's heart constricts painfully in his chest, shooting streaks 
of agony down his left arm. Has it come to this, then? Have 
they become as desensitized to suffering as the aliens, the very 
force that they're seeking to defeat? When have they started to 
treat the human flesh with as little emotion as the cooks who 
flay the meat of the animals do?

The interrogator lights another cigarette, and Roy's eyes glaze 
over in fear. He is devoid of words or of tears - the only one 
crying is Jason Hart, but both the victim and the executioner 
are too involved in their tasks to notice him. He crosses the 
room and slices the bonds that hold Roy in place. "It doesn't 
matter," he says to both of them. "We won't kill the returned 
ones."

"It's the only way," his colleague hisses unkindly. "And Agent 
Scully had been a problem from the start. Why is she still 
alive?"

"She could have led us to Samantha Mulder," Hart explains. 
"Besides, sometimes, violence is not the immediate answer."

"You've grown soft, Hart. Too much female influence, 
perhaps? Does Marita need to be put down like a rabid dog as 
well?"

The gunfire that erupts is as much a surprise to the man with 
the bullet in his head as to Hart, whose hand pulled the trigger. 
Hart's illusions shatter just as quickly as the interrogator's 
face: he is the one who has become the executioner - the 
butcher.

"Get out," he tells Roy tiredly.

"I haven't," the young man repeats stubbornly. "I told her 
nothing, I swear."

"I believe you, but you will never serve us well after what 
transpired here," Hart responds. "If I see you again, I will not 
spare you."

He waits until the door closes to reach into his pocket for the 
medicine. The drug kicks in slowly, and he knows that the 
dosage will have to be increased, and soon. They have so little 
time. 

Agent Scully hasn't been useful to them alive. After he 
corrects this one mistake that already cost them days, they can 
deal with the problem of abductees. Slowly, he shuffles to the 
window and slides it wide open.

But even then, the smell of cooked meat refuses to depart.


XXI. HORSE

White turns to green, and she is safe again, her hands buried in 
grass and her face tilted to face the sky, flower petals stirring 
above her like butterflies in the wind. Even here, in this safe 
place, she can feel it - the whine of a voice, a shrill song, not 
words, just...a calling.

"I can't," she whispers, for what seems the hundredth time, 
"Not now...not yet..."

Samantha is dimly aware of her brother beside her, watching 
her. He does not sleep. He stays on guard, though no one has 
threatened them since they were deposited here. He is 
frightened. For her, this is simply the replacement of one cell 
by another, and in her garden, nothing has changed.
 
In this place, Fox is not the haunted, broken man she sees in 
the daylight, but as she once remembered him, young and full 
of life. He wears a boy's face here, untouched by the horror of 
the night she was taken, and instead of the weary guard he 
takes in their prison, he smiles at her in encouragement as she 
climbs to her feet and starts towards the wall.

For the first time she can feel its frailty as she runs her hands 
over the stone. She expected it to be cold, but it hums with a 
secret life, intrinsically aware of the vines that creep across its 
length, of the moss that compromises its strong foundation.
 
Samantha kneels, and she rests her head against the wall. She 
does not feel pity. All confines crumble. That is their nature. 
She knows this by now.

But it does not have to be tonight.

"I can't cross," she tells the wall, but it is also the nature of 
stone to be impassive, uncaring. She can feel it tremble 
beneath her fingertips.

She cannot cross. But she will.
 
Samantha hears a distant roar, and at first she mistakes it for 
thunder, but it is not one unified sound, but rather a composite 
of a thousand hooves, echoing in the space beyond the wall. 
Almost before she makes the connection they are upon her, a 
herd of white horses, a tide of ice and manes and flaring red 
nostrils, rising forward at an impossible speed, tearing down 
the wall as they fly over it.

If Samantha screams, the sound is lost amid the storm, the 
crashing of bricks and the approaching, then receding hoof-
beats, and when the animals have passed, there is nothing she 
can say that would be more expressive than silence.
 
The wall is gone, trampled, replaced by muddy prints and 
shattered stone. She traces its length with her own footsteps, 
afraid to pass over it, even now. And were it not for the voice, 
the first voice that calls her name in this empty place, she 
would not even look beyond it.

The voice calls her. Samantha looks up.

It is the woman, the one from the Other Place, with the red 
hair and the soft smile. She is paler than she was in the days 
when she would come to Samantha's cage and read to her. 
Something is wrong.
 
The woman reaches around her, desperate, but beyond the 
wall there is nothing but desolation. The dead tree branches 
snap in her hands, the fragments of stone crumbling to dust. 
She is nearly transparent. Behind her, Samantha can see only 
darkness.

And she runs, forgetting her fear. The mud slides beneath her 
as she crosses the wall and she stumbles, arms outstretched to 
catch the woman before she can fall, both mouths open to 
scream, but it is too late. Her fingers grapple for something 
solid, find instead the cool linoleum of the cell floor.

Samantha opens her eyes.

Only then does she realize that, until now, they were closed.


XXII. BOOTH

Scully's eyes are open, but she doesn't wish to forfeit the 
numbing comfort of sleep, not just yet. For a few short 
moments, she can lie to herself and pretend that she is 
enveloped in her favorite comforter, that when her alarm rings 
she will go through her early-morning routine and drive to 
work, that this is a day like any other. 

She shifts, anxious to get more warmth out of the thin cotton 
blanket, seemingly a standard issue article in any hospital. Her 
shoulder is sore, and she is surprised that she'd been able to 
doze off here, in the hard plastic chair, sitting beside the bed 
of yet another returned abductee. The blond woman, whose 
name they still don't know, sleeps the contaminated sleep of 
the drugged and unaware. Briefly, Scully is unnerved at how 
still the patient is and, frantically, she checks the monitors. 

She no longer knows what she fears the most: the possibility 
of never finding Samantha or of never working again with her 
partner; the possibility of passing away or the frightening 
implications of any or all of the abductees succumbing to 
death.

The door opens, and she reaches for her gun, training it on the 
face of the FBI agent who sat outside, guarding them through 
the night. She is more alarmed by her gesture than he appears 
to be - it is only another proof that she is sliding closer 
towards the edge.

And this time, she isn't entirely certain that she will be able to 
stop the fall.

Embarrassed, she puts away the weapon, and he smiles, 
pretending to ignore her mistake. "Brought you coffee." He 
extends her a cup in a pacifying gesture.

"Good morning, Agent Blair," Scully's hands close over the 
cup, and she inhales the aroma of Starbucks, briefly surprised 
at such luxury. "Where did you get this treasure?"

"Aaron, please," he corrects. "My shift was over, so I made 
the trip downstairs."

"You're a savior." She is suddenly aware of his nervousness, 
his blushing youth, the way he watches her out of the corner of 
his eye. At another time, she would feel flattered, but now she 
only feels annoyed. The bitter taste of coffee on her tongue 
reminds her that she hasn't had any food in over twenty-four 
hours. She cannot recall if it had been longer. Some yogurt 
and orange juice will do her a world of good. "I'm going to get 
some breakfast," she tells him, then adds, as a small 
concession, "Would you like to accompany me?"

Aaron shuffles his feet, and his face reddens. "No, thanks," he 
declines reluctantly. "I probably should head home... my shift 
resumes in a few hours, I have to get some sleep."

Scully nods, and passes another glance at the bed before 
leaving the room. "I'll be back soon," she promises the 
unconscious woman. Today, this gesture doesn't seem 
inappropriate.

A man sitting outside mumbles his greeting and resumes his 
contemplation of the newspaper. Scully makes a few wrong 
turns, and when she finally sees the blue sign pointing to the 
cafeteria, she is a little perplexed. 

She feels out of place in the line of energized hospital 
workers, trays in their hands, brisk morning greetings on their 
tongues. Someone's elbow nudges her painfully, and she 
sways, unaccountably dizzy. Hands braced against the glass, 
she watches the hot food behind it dully, until a stranger's 
hand touches her gently, and she looks up in the concerned 
eyes of a middle-aged nurse.

"Are you all right, dear?" the woman asks, hovering over her 
protectively.

"Fine," Scully smiles thinly. "I think I need to sit down."

The nurse starts to guide her to the nearest chair, but Scully's 
eyes focus on the corner booth of the busy dining room, and 
she recognizes the man who occupies it. Assistant Director 
Skinner's large hands grip the edge of the table, a gesture of 
restraint. Yet another man slips out of the same booth, generic 
trenchcoat concealing his identity. 

"Thank you," she dismisses the woman by her side, suddenly 
clear-headed. She walks across the room quickly, slipping into 
the booth across from Skinner. 

"Agent Scully." His surprise is evident. Somehow, she knows 
that it is not a pleasant one. 

"Who were you talking to?" she demands.

"No one of importance," Skinner replies, shredding the 
packets with Sweet'N'Low. "You're here early," he notices, 
then surveys her more closely. "You never left," he corrects 
his observation.

Scully smoothes her hair, suddenly aware of the teeth that she 
hasn't brushed, of the face that probably still bears the mark of 
sleep, of the suit that she's worn for the past two days. "I was 
waiting," she tries to explain. "I have to talk to her."

"Agent, she won't tell you what you want to know," Skinner's 
gaze is pitying, and she shies away from it. "I'm recalling the 
protection."

Scully is startled. "On this woman?"

"On everyone," he explains slowly, deliberately. "There have 
been no attacks, nothing has happened to justify the resources 
we're pouring into this case. I can no longer explain this to the 
Director, not when what I see is only a tired agent projecting 
her guilt..."

Skinner's face washes out of focus, and then, his arms are 
gripping her shoulders. "Scully!" his voice seems far away. 
"Scully, when was the last time you ate?"

"I was going to have breakfast," she explains fuzzily, 
absolving herself of the blame. "I'm sorry, it's..."

"Wait here," he orders gruffly. "I will get us something, then 
we can talk."

Scully nods obediently, and watches idly as he picks up the 
tray and starts going through the hot food bar, slightly terrified 
of the heaping portions he loads on the plates. It's not a 
pleasant admission, but she knows that he is probably right. 
Lately, she's been seeing faces of foes in everyone, she's been 
on guard twenty-four hours a day, and soon, there will be no 
need for her enemies to dispose of her - she will do their job 
for them, effortlessly.

Skinner comes back, surrounded by the smells of hospital 
coffee and fried bacon and eggs, and she swallows to keep 
down the overwhelming nausea. Tentatively, she takes hold of 
the coffee cup and scoots to the back of the booth, seeking 
protection in its shadows.

"The disappearance of Mulder has been classified as a missing 
persons' case," he informs her. "I fought against it, but I was 
overruled. It means that there will be fewer agents working on 
it, as well."

Scully's fingers travel to her forehead. Something... something 
is wrong, and she doesn't remember how to open her mouth 
and speak the words out loud. 

"On the other hand, Samantha's disappearance is clearly a case 
of kidnapping, so..."

Scully stares at the coffee as it slowly spills from her shaking 
hand. She wants to deny what has just transpired, but the 
world as she knows it no longer exists, and the people she 
used to know are no longer as she remembers them. The 
innocuous shelter of a cafeteria booth cannot protect her 
against betrayal.

Skinner's face, the face of a foe, looms large over her as she 
succumbs to the poison.


XXIII. UMPIRE

No one had been prepared for this.

Krycek lets himself into the hospital room, closing the door 
behind him. His steps are quiet, as if to maintain the stillness 
here, to avoid disturbing the silent woman on the bed.

There is no chance of that. She will not wake.

He pulls up a chair by her bedside, slipping his hand around 
hers. If the guard outside should wake, if anyone else should 
accidentally enter, they will mistake him at first for a friend or 
family member, or perhaps a worried colleague...and give him 
enough time to reach for his gun.
 
Enough time, he thinks, to determine the identity of Scully's 
would-be killer.

He has little hope that she will recover sufficiently to tell him 
herself. He must proceed as she would, from the evidence, 
from the fragments of undeniable truth. It is a strange role to 
take upon himself, but there is no one else he can trust, not on 
such short notice.

Her chart is at the foot of the bed, but there is little question of 
what put her here. Poisoning is not generally the Consortium's 
style, and regardless, they have no need to kill her now.
 
He should feel something for her - sympathy, concern - but the 
closest he can manage is fear. Not for Scully's life - it's all the 
same to him, he's watched enough innocent women die - but 
for his own. He is afraid of that vast, lurking *something* 
which threatens to destroy fifty years of plans, to obliterate the 
men who have put them into place.

Poor Scully, Krycek thinks, you were never more than a pawn. 
Did you understand, at the very last, your place in this? What 
secrets you could tell, if only you could speak.

He releases his grip on her hand, silently marveling at its 
paleness, its lifelessness. She is still alive, despite everything. 
Were he a religious man, he might think it miraculous. But 
then, his own survival seems equally astounding, under the 
circumstances.
 
Krycek alternates his attention between the beep of the life 
support monitor and the closed door behind him. The killer - 
*killers,* a voice in his head assures him - should have known 
better than to poison someone in a hospital. He wouldn't have 
been so careless.

This could, he muses, work out for the best. He can still use 
her. No one - besides Skinner, and Krycek alone knows where 
Skinner's loyalties lie - no one knows yet of Scully's latest 
misfortune. Not Mulder, not the smoker, perhaps not even the 
colonists. She may be a pawn, but she is Krycek's pawn now, 
and she is lucky that he at least understands the rules of the 
game.

He has a sudden, bizarre image of himself as a sort of referee 
between two warring sides. As the players escalate out of 
control, the umpire blows the whistle, and it stops. Right here. 
Krycek grins despite himself. It stops, and he at last 
recognizes the hand of the man who put Scully in this bed, a 
former colleague more than knowledgeable in the use of 
medical narcotics.

How could he not have seen it before?
 
Now the players may fall as they will, but Krycek is prepared. 
This landscape, once radically altered beyond recognition, is 
once again clear to him. He leans over the unconscious 
woman, her lips cold and motionless beneath his, the 
receptacle of a brief, almost astonished kiss.

"We're going to be very good friends, Agent Scully," he 
whispers.

End Part 5/15

Part 6/15

XXIV. CHORUS

He expects the church to be nearly empty on a weekday 
morning, and he is surprised to hear the singing that fills the 
vast space of the Catholic cathedral. Young boys, dressed 
casually, are following the gliding hands of their teacher, their 
unsullied voices gathering into a strong chorus. He permits 
himself a brief pause, allows the sound to obliterate the 
rationalism. The last time he visited church was at Teena and 
Bill's wedding. Lifetimes have passed, but the memories of 
that day can still wound.

It is not the best mindset with which to start the day. Friends 
and foes alike don't forgive being distracted. Straightening, the 
smoker sweeps the rows with his eyes, searching for the man 
who requested this meeting. It hasn't even begun yet, and he is 
already anxious to end it.

Without the shield of eyeglasses, swathed in gray shadows, 
Walter Skinner's face appears tired and vulnerable. His jaw 
sets as the smoker slides in the pew next to him. "You're late," 
he bristles.

"All the more reason for you to state your business quickly." 
The smoker pulls out his cigarettes, then shoves them back in 
his pocket almost savagely. Smoking inside the church is a 
blasphemy even in his admittedly skewed system of values.

"Why attempt to kill Scully?" There is no anger in Skinner's 
voice, only quiet desperation of a man who no longer 
understands the ways of the world. It is a voice of a man who 
no longer acts, but only reacts. 

The new melody that floats to the high ceilings is vaguely 
familiar. "Dies irae, dies illa..." The recognition of Sequentia, 
Requiem, prompts a regretful sigh. His answer surprises him, 
then. "Is she still alive?"

"She's in a coma," Skinner replies. "They resuscitated her in 
the ER, but were too late to fully counteract the poison. 
Doesn't that just make your day?"

"No, it doesn't." Mentally, the smoker adds Dana Scully to the 
list of victims, one that is already too long. "When did this 
happen?"

"Like you don't know. Haven't I already done what you'd 
asked?" His words beg for a reason. "What justification did 
you have?" 

"Mr. Skinner, if you insist on blaming me for your misfortune, 
may I blame you for the numerous deaths of my colleagues in 
the preceding several weeks?" At another time, he would 
smile at his own morbid humor, but today he is only seeking 
the answers. "Could you tell me why I'm seeing my friends 
die, in ways significantly less pleasant than poisoning? Be 
grateful that Agent Scully is, at least, still alive."

"Why here?" Skinner asks after a pause.

"Quantus tremor est futurus, quando judex est venturus, 
cuncta stricte discussurus..." 

Fragments of long-forgotten Bible lessons, of prayers best 
discarded, reassert themselves in his conscience. "What dread 
there will," he translates slowly, "When the Judge shall come, 
to judge all things strictly." He chuckles at Skinner's raised 
eyebrows. "Sometimes, I have to wonder if perhaps I made a 
mistake in professing my atheism. Certainly, in these days of 
the final judgment, I wish I had a deity to pray to, someone 
who would spare me from the angry sword."

His opponent has no ready reply, and the smoker turns his face 
away, disturbed by his own frankness. "It is safe here," he 
explains apathetically. "Even evil has respect for the church."

Skinner stands up as he realizes that, for once, his nemesis is 
as powerless as he himself is. "Please, accept my 
condolences." His words have no feeling behind them. "I must 
return to work now."

"Mr. Skinner." The voice brokers no arguments, and Skinner 
halts. "If I may offer you advice, retrace Agent Scully's steps. 
Miss no detail. Question everyone. Doubt everything. And 
when you find the one who is responsible for her present 
condition, let me know."

The two men face each other, across the gulf of their 
convictions, over the numerous barriers erected between them, 
and for once, they recognize the common, if transient, 
purpose. Skinner nods acknowledgment and walks away 
briskly. 

The smoker contemplates the conversation. He has lied - even 
here, in this sanctuary, he doesn't feel safe. But when the 
mournful words of Lacrimosa filter through the dark church, 
he stays behind, joining the chorus in the prayer for the 
departed, and for those who linger between the two worlds. 

He throws loose change onto the collection plate and picks up 
a candle. He lights it with the same benediction he usually 
affords his cigarettes, infinitely careful in placing the burning 
stick among others. 

The door opens, and the gust of wind dances inside, 
extinguishing the candle's fragile flame.


XXV. ADULT

She is not; she never has been.

The garden lies in ruin at her feet. The flowers should bleed, 
she thinks, they should weep for the devastation, they should 
beg her for revenge, but everything is silent now. Everything 
is white, and still.

Samantha paces the walls of her prison, her hands feeling for 
new boundaries, for understanding. There is no garden. There 
is only this.
 
With this sudden realization, she turns to Fox. An adult now, 
his hair shows the slightest traces of gray at the temples, fine 
lines of worry beginning to crease around his eyes. Were she 
to look in the mirror, would she look similarly aged? As if 
waking from a long sleep, Samantha blinks her eyes rapidly, 
silently introducing herself to the stranger.

"Fox?"

The single word seems to startle him, and then his face lights 
up, and for a moment she thinks that her vision was false, that 
it is really her brother, that nothing has ever changed. "Sam?"
 
"Remember...the swing, out in the backyard?"

"Sure, Sam."

"I used to touch the sky. Fox, is there still a sky?"

"Of course there is still a sky," he frowns. "Why..."

"How old am I?"

She shouldn't have spoken. Every word seems to cause him 
more pain. Instead of answering, he stands up, half-leaning 
against the wall, watching her.

"Fox?" When he doesn't answer, she says, "There was a 
garden, too, wasn't there? That time I flew too high, and 
fell...and all I could see was green. Green and blue, 
everywhere, that's all the world was. We have to get out of 
here."

The last sentence catches his attention. "We can't," he says, 
but it is a challenge.
 
"Who is she?"

He starts to tell her that she doesn't understand, but she is 
faster. "That girl...the one with the red hair. She came to see 
me...before."

"You mean Scully?"

Samantha shrugs. "She's in trouble."

She should have said it before. Those words, while twisting 
his face into a grimace, also bring a flash of life into his dead 
eyes, and for the first time he fully acknowledges her. "What 
did you say?"

"She was in the garden. I think...she tried to call out to me...I 
couldn't reach her...I tried..."

"Sam?"

"Please, Fox..." The walls are closing in on her. He reaches for 
her hands as she sways on her feet.

It was all she ever needed to say.

They make the attempt that night, and even though it is only 
an attempt, both realize intuitively the necessity of the gesture. 
It happens when the guard comes to deliver their supper. Fox 
is the one who takes him down, one moment passively sitting 
against the wall, the next moment with the man in a headlock, 
a sudden maelstrom of energy, and Samantha runs, not for her 
life but for the life of the woman in the garden, and Fox is 
behind her, adrenaline overtakes reason, and for the first time 
in so long they are alive.

Lost in the garden, in its ruined, twisting pathways, she opens 
her hand to loose a trail of breadcrumbs over the ground. An 
unearthly light surrounds them, will-o'-the-wisps glittering 
past to lead them astray, and still she runs towards the clearing 
that must await them somewhere. She can hear Fox urging her 
forward, but he doesn't understand, they must be patient or 
they will never find their way.

She hears a roar - not the thunderclap of the horses, but 
something new, something altogether terrifying. She flinches 
as if struck and he pulls her, but she can't move.

Doesn't he see it? Doesn't he know that there are dragons in 
her garden?

He must sense something, because at last he stops, and he 
pulls her closer, so tight she can't breathe. The fire is all 
around them. As the beast approaches, the tops of trees catch 
on fire, the flowers shrink and wilt before the red embers, the 
gusts of smoke.
 
She shuts her eyes.

But this is not a fairy tale. She can close her eyes and make a 
hundred wishes, but they are both adults, too old to believe in 
wishes and gardens.

And the dragon is still there.

"We'll go back." Even in surrender, Fox's voice is defiant. She 
hopes the dragon realizes this. "Just don't hurt her."

Without another word, he turns her around to face back 
towards the pathway, to the trail of breadcrumbs that will lead 
them home.

The dragon does not follow.


XXVI. SUIT

Mulder's absence feels wrong, sour to the taste, as treacherous 
as the poison that claimed the conscience of his partner. 
Valiantly, Skinner hopes that he will see him beside her bed, 
or in this office, demanding the answers or asking for justice. 
Ever since Dana Scully's life fled from beneath his fingers, an 
event he has now lived through twice, he somehow recognizes 
that there is little chance of that happening. 

Still, he waits. 

"Assistant Director Skinner..."

He jerks, only now realizing that a visitor occupies the space 
in front of his desk. "Agent Blair, how can I help you?"

The young agent's eyes watch him earnestly from under the 
long lashes. "I wanted to ask, sir, if there had been any change 
in Agent Scully's condition."

"No change," Skinner replies. His voice is monotone, and his 
face is expressionless, but the weight of the words settles 
between his shoulder blades, heavier than the world itself. "No 
change yet."

Aaron's cheeks go from blushing red to shady white, as if the 
answer was everything that he was unprepared to handle. It is 
not an ordinary concern for a colleague, and Skinner feels 
sorry for him, on more than one count.

"I hope she gets well soon," Aaron offers humbly.

Skinner nods, anxious to end the conversation. "Will that be 
all, Agent?"

"Yes, sir," he stumbles, flustered. "Thank you, sir."

"Friends and family are welcome to visit her," Skinner adds as 
a consolation prize. The young man stiffens imperceptibly, 
and the suggestion spoken in kindness now hangs between 
them like a noose. 

"I'll do that," Aaron replies. "I'm sorry to have disturbed you."

Too young, Skinner thinks. Too young, too inexperienced, but 
eager to please and quick to react. Something about Aaron 
Blair today has set off warning bells in his mind, and he digs 
through his impressions, uncomfortable, searching for a 
nugget that will give him an explanation. The young agent's 
slightly insecure posture grows more assured with every day, 
and the regulation haircut that at first appeared to have been 
done at home in front of the mirror, now looks sharp and 
expensive. Somewhere along the way, Blair has picked up 
good taste and learned to dress: the newest suit looks more 
than elegant, made to fit him, as only ridiculously overpriced 
labels can appear. 

It's the kind of suit that Mulder probably spends half of his 
salary on, the kind that seriously sets off Skinner's own budget 
once in a while, the kind that Blair would never be able to 
afford, not on the money that the Bureau pays him.

On the day when Scully collapsed, Skinner had almost 
forgotten to dismiss the guards. By the time he walked 
upstairs, the shift changed again and Aaron Blair had been on 
duty. Skinner's grief refused to be shared, and even to this day, 
he had told few people about what had happened. Then, he 
couldn't even master a reply to Blair's question, "Is Agent 
Scully all right? She looked a little pale when she left here." 
He had walked away without giving any indication that he had 
heard.

Later, when Skinner followed the smoker's advice and 
reconstructed that morning down to the smallest detail, Aaron 
had given a sincere, puzzled account. "She looked the same to 
me. Said she'd go to the cafeteria and get some breakfast."

Skinner's heart locks in a metal fist and beads of sweat roll 
down his back in the air-conditioned office. And he knows 
that Aaron is the would-be assassin - but he also knows that 
he can never prove it, that the traces are swept away, that the 
admission of guilt will never be gained. And when he picks up 
the phone and dials the familiar number, he is ecstatic to hear 
the smoky voice, for the first time in years. 

During the rest of the day, he waits for the pain to diminish. 
The matter is put to rest, justice is served, and the questions 
are finally answered, yet his anxiety doesn't subside. As he 
measures his room in quick, tormented strides, he finally 
recognizes the darkness that seeps through the walls of the 
office, settling like fog inside him. 

It is not the killer's face that wears the mask of evil today, but 
his own.

Skinner walks downstairs to Aaron Blair's cubicle, only to be 
told that the agent had just left. Unspeakable dread - what if 
he is mistaken? - makes him run, tear through the crowd of 
other agents leaving the building. Outside, he sees a discreet 
van parked across the street. The doors swing open and several 
ubiquitous men in suits leave it simultaneously. 

Surely they would never attempt this pick-up in broad 
daylight, in front of the FBI building. The smoker would never 
dare, not unless he was extremely anxious to chat with the 
duplicitous agent. Not unless an Assistant Director of the FBI 
himself sanctified such actions. Forgetting protocol and 
common etiquette, Skinner shouts Aaron Blair's name. This is 
a matter of life and death.

This is a matter of taking one small, but crucial step in the 
right direction, away from the shadows that hold him fast in 
their grip.

The young man swings around, and his eyes find the Assistant 
Director immediately. The pure malice and fear that Skinner 
sees inside their blue depths staggers him. 

In that moment, they know each other. Skinner's throat is dry 
as he searches for a breath. Blair's face pales and he takes a 
step backward, the first step on the long staircase that winds 
down from the front doors to the Pennsylvania Avenue, from 
life as he knows it to what will have been an interrogation 
room in one of the Consortium hideouts and eventual death. 
Instead, and perhaps it's a better deal, his bones count every 
one of these stairs, as his spine breaks halfway down, as his 
ribs splinter one after another, as his skull cracks on the third 
step from the bottom. 

Skinner doesn't hurry to join the bystanders and fellow agents 
who gather on the street. He knows what he will see.

A broken, ugly body dressed in a beautiful but bloodied suit 
that was bought for thirty pieces of silver.

End Part 6/15

Part 7/15

XXVII. HARP

Fort Marlene is eerily deserted, abandoned by the men who 
once claimed it as a second home. Krycek stalks its halls with 
a dark sense of purpose. There is a piece absent, some clue to 
Jason Hart's whereabouts.

Something led him to this place. Perhaps it was a dream, but 
Krycek does not remember his dreams - a small act of mercy 
by his waking mind. The pinprick of pain in the stump of his 
shoulder is enough to let him know what he is missing.

Something is still leading him, and it is a moment before he 
realizes that this something exists outside of his mind, that this 
something is present at the base itself. It takes him another 
moment to identify this something as music, a high-pitched, 
keening wail that cries out to him as if in desperation.

He lets the music guide him.

It bleeds through a closed door, a discarded operating room. 
He tries the handle. The door opens without resistance.
 
The walls are draped in velvet, in shadows cast by a flickering 
candle near a canopy bed. A woman sits on the high-backed 
chair, her face turned away from him as her long, thin fingers 
pluck at the strings of a harp. The instrument and her hair are 
the same cornsilk color. If the music had a color it too would 
shine this brightly.

No.

The walls are bare except for unidentifiable medical 
equipment, unflatteringly illuminated by a single bare bulb. 
The music comes from an old tape recorder, the sole personal 
belonging of the room's occupant. As the woman turns to face 
him, he sees that her hair is dyed black, and her failing eyes 
are shot through with red.
 
"Hello, Marita," Krycek says.

She does not look surprised to see him, not as she had been the 
last time. And he is moderately pleased to discover that the 
thrill of fear that once greeted him every time he saw her has 
dissipated. Perhaps now they can talk.

"Alex?"

She has converted this sterile room into an even more sterile 
home. Her bed - two stretchers hastily placed side-by-side, is 
draped in gray blankets, unmade, shoved in the corner. The 
absence of windows is probably a blessing, when the light 
bulb is off.
 
He shifts from one foot to the other - Marita seems just as 
uncomfortable as he feels. "I...didn't expect to find you here," 
he says finally.

"Then...why come at all?"

"I was looking for a man, actually. Perhaps you know him. Dr. 
Jason Hart..."

At the shudder that courses through her thin body like a shock 
of electricity, he knows that he has come to the right place.
 
"But since you're here..."

"Go away," Marita whispers. "Please...just...go away."

He doesn't. There is something grotesquely fascinating about 
the woman who stands before him. He wonders how the 
coarse black hair would feel between his fingers, the cracked 
lips against his own. He is still a man, after all.

Like fucking a corpse, a part of his mind decides, the 
comparison crass but obvious. The rest of his mind has more 
important things to consider.

"Where is he, Marita?" His voice is soft, taunting, but he can't 
control himself.

Her hands move in wild gestures, pushing the air in front of 
her away as if it was him, fingers still coiling around the 
invisible strings of her harp. So very broken, he thinks. He 
could almost pity her.

"I'm sorry," the weaker human impulse inside of him offers, 
then, "If it makes it any better, I forgive you."
 
"For what?"

"For betraying me."

She laughs then, harsh, the cry of a vulture. He wonders why 
her red-rimmed eyes are focused away from him, what visions 
they take in - or do they see at all? He pictures the signals they 
could be sending out, twin red sniper beads that target him, 
waiting for the right moment.

"But the past is the past, isn't it? And I'm here to talk about the 
future."

"The future?" Marita backs away, seeking the surface of the 
wall for its spare, cold comfort. "You didn't come here to 
talk."

"I came here to find Hart."

"To kill him?"

"To...talk."

"You were never a good liar, Alex." She smiles grimly. "You 
know...don't you? What's coming...what it all means..."

"I was hoping he could tell me."
 
She shakes her head. He reaches towards the black tangles, 
catches her face in his hand to bring it close to his. He can 
barely stand to look at her but his body remembers the 
motions, and acts without the consent of his eyes.

"Alex...please..." If more words follow, they are lost in his 
own breath.

His hand reaches to press her to the wall, all the time his 
mouth moving to whisper, "Where is he, Marita, where is he," 
until he realizes he has spoken the thought aloud.

And then the music stops abruptly as the tape ends, as if to 
announce the opening of the door. As he pulls away, she sinks 
to the floor, her head in her hands, and he does not see the 
expression of relief on her face as he turns to face this new 
intruder.
 
"I'm right here, Alex," Hart says. "What do you want from 
me?"


XXVIII. DANCER

Hart understands hatred in a way that would be foreign to all 
who never studied anatomy or physiology. He can pinpoint the 
exact moment in time when the adrenaline is released into his 
blood, the moment when the heartbeat picks up speed, sending 
out fireballs of rage and pain. For him, hatred is as detrimental 
to health as smoking or intense sex. 

But hatred is healthier than fear, an emotion he loathes and 
one that invades him now in equal measure. This is his home. 
This is his lover. And he is afraid of the man who intruded on 
them both. The old habits die hard, and in the days before the 
abandonment of Fort Marlene, Krycek had been a superior. 
One of the 'in' crowd. One of the men who betrayed him. 

A long time ago, Krycek's survival would have seemed an 
injustice. In the world that Hart knows today, it's natural. The 
dark glass still bleeds around the edges of new reality, but he's 
learned to accept this abnormality.

"What happened to you... Jason?" Krycek answers a question 
with a question. He doesn't bother feigning concern. Hart 
knows that, to him, it's only a matter of curiosity. He is a man 
who came to watch the show of circus freaks, and he didn't 
even pay his way in. 

The horrific image makes him want to weep in shame, but it 
also melts the fear. "I woke up, Alex. Have you ever heard of 
the Sleeping Beauty?"

Krycek smirks. "Have you looked in the mirror lately?"

Not since the first time Marita had seen her reflection. The day 
when he gave into the demands of her vanity, he expected 
tears, screams, perhaps a healthy amount of kicking and 
breaking. She did neither. She fainted, and once recovered, 
she'd asked for a hair dye. "Black is a lovely color," Marita 
said. He bought the dye and watched as she followed the 
instructions on the package. Then he carried the mirror outside 
and drove a car over it.

"Mirrors lie," Jason replies, taking a step toward the woman 
still cowering on the floor, her eyes tracking the two men in 
front of her. He longs to reassure her, and he needs her to take 
away some of the hatred that threatens to choke him. "Each 
morning, you see a face above your sink, still young and 
handsome enough to be unmarred by corruption and evil. But 
it is a cheap piece of glass, Alex. Your picture is distorted."

"Enough!" the intruder snaps loudly. "I didn't come here to 
talk about your appearance."

"Have you come to ask about the murders, perhaps?" Hart's 
casual manner unnerves Krycek, and for the first time the 
older man sees bewilderment in his cruel green eyes. "I give 
you credit for piecing the puzzle together. You found the 
guilty man." Hands raised, as if in acceptance of an honor, 
Hart gives an admission easily, proudly. 

"Do you really believe that you can stop them?" Krycek asks. 
"Or is this revenge?"

"Neither, Alex. Simply an honest try to stop the colonization." 
Hart replies sincerely.

"Noble, Jason. How very noble of you. You're not 
participating in a little drama called 'One Hundred Ways to 
Mutilate and Poison,' and you're not fucking the woman you 
once operated on, but..."

Krycek's body jerks, and his spine curves in a movement that 
would have been called beautiful, had he been a dancer. The 
expression of pained surprise and the crimson stain spreading 
on his right shoulder ruin the impression. He grapples for his 
gun in a series of grotesque twitches, wounded live hand of 
less use now than the plastic one. 

As Hart watches the man perform this hideous ballet, he 
knows that he couldn't have chosen a better place to put in a 
bullet. He would have felt remorse, before, but now he is 
above it. After all, this victim is far from an innocent fly 
caught in a spider's web. First shot released in due time, Hart 
takes aim at the convulsing body, but thin fingers of his lover, 
surprisingly strong, lunge for his gun.

"Stop!" Marita's eyes are wide open, and the enlarged vessels 
of their whites may bleed the same color as the wound in 
Krycek's shoulder. It is this realization, and not her words, that 
makes him drop the weapon.

Hart follows suit, settling down heavily on the cold ground of 
their cell. Is this the room where he experimented on Marita? 
Is this reminder the reason why his fingers are numb or has the 
hatred finally taken his life? Silently, he begs her to take the 
anger away, to soothe the rumble of his emotions.

She shuffles into the bathroom, and he prays that it's for the 
medicine that he keeps in the case beneath the sink. Instead, 
she brings back the bandages and a basin with clear water. 

The younger man is the first one she attends to.


XXIX. FOOT

The morning after the outburst, the smoker unlocks the door to 
the cell where Mulder and Samantha are held. Mulder barely 
acknowledges him - the older man admires his restraint - but 
the slow-burning rage in Samantha's eyes cuts him to the 
heart. He smiles at her in an attempt to pacify her, but she only 
cowers against the wall, hugging her knees to her chest.

"Fox," he says, his tone as even as he can make it.

"What do you want?"

He lights a cigarette, blowing smoke into the otherwise sterile 
air. "I thought we might talk."

"I have nothing to say to you."

He shrugs. "I'm sure you have a great deal to say to me, but 
that's beside the point." Extinguishing the cigarette against the 
wall, he draws his gun in an exaggerated gesture. "Don't make 
me ask twice."

Mulder stands. "Come on, Sam."
 
"She stays." Without another word, the smoker holds the door 
open for Mulder. The younger man steps out, and the door 
slams shut behind him. He walks down a long corridor with 
the gun trained on his head.

"Where are we going?"

"To discuss the conditions of your release." If Mulder is at all 
surprised, he doesn't show it. "Keep walking. Straight ahead, 
then turn left at the end of the hall."
 
Mulder obeys. They come at last to a darkened room. One 
chair faces another over an antique desk. An old slide 
projector is set up facing a screen. The smoker motions for 
Mulder to sit down, then closes the door behind them. 
Lighting a new cigarette, he turns the projector on to reveal a 
slide of a body on an autopsy table. One foot, facing the 
camera, is slightly blurred by its proximity to the lens, 
showing a toe-tag and bright red painted nails. It is the corpse 
of a woman perhaps only in her early twenties.

"I've seen her before..." Mulder says, his eyes drawn to the 
picture unwillingly. The smoker moves on to the next slide, a 
young man, half of his skull blown away, then another 
woman, who might have been beautiful, had she still had a 
face. And the slides go on, more images of death and horror, 
until Mulder asks, "Why are you showing me this?"

"The first death was possibly a case of mistaken identity, or of 
an incompetent gunman. The others were...employees of mine. 
All killed by an unknown assailant. These were professional 
hits, Agent 
Mulder -"

"On professional hitmen?" Mulder asks wryly.

"Those are just the deaths. There's more. You might be 
interested to know that your sister was the first of several 
abductees to be returned..." Flash of a slide: a woman lying in 
a hospital bed, her face bruised, eyes fixed blindly forward. 
"All were in various states of dementia. One particularly 
observant doctor noticed that within a few days, many of the 
abductees developed small cuts on the backs of their necks."

"Implants?"
 
The smoking man says grimly, "Their implants were 
removed."

Mulder makes the inevitable association immediately, but he 
hides it well. He pales a little, and his hands grip the arms of 
the chair tighter. His lips form a name, but no sound emerges.

"I know what you're thinking," the smoking man says. "It's a 
mystery to us, as well. It's a pity my contact in the FBI met an 
untimely end - certainly, this is a case worth pursuing...don't 
you think?"
 
Mulder's laugh doesn't reach his eyes. It is the maniacal laugh 
of a man who has been held in a cage one day too long, still 
unbroken, but slowly collapsing, slowly crumbling. The other 
man, his own lack of composure concealed by the darkness 
and the steady exhaling of smoke, trembles a little at the 
sound.

"I'm sure you have your own resources," Mulder says.
 
 "Perhaps." The smoker thinks of Skinner, with his uncertain 
allegiances, of the dead bodies that flash one after another on 
the screen. He thinks of Alex Krycek, gone now too, most 
likely the next body to be discovered. "But I need you."

"And you think I'll help?" Mulder shakes his head in disbelief.

"I know you will." The smoker relishes the moment that 
comes as he regains the upper hand, as he takes control with 
the push of a button.

And the final photograph focuses in perfect, crystal detail on 
Scully, frozen in her hospital bed.

Mulder does not scream, as he should, nor does he weep, as 
the smoker had expected. Instead he stands, fists clenched, to 
face his nemesis. 

"Before you accuse me, I'd like you to consider this calmly. 
Would I give you this information if it led back to my 
organization? Would I even allow you to live in that case?" He 
steps forward, reaching out his hand in a conciliatory gesture. 
"Agent Mulder...Fox..." Mulder flinches. "I'm not responsible 
for your partner's condition."
 
"Why do I find that difficult to believe?" Mulder hisses the 
words between his teeth.

"Believe what you like. I want to know who did this to her as 
much as you do. It is not in my interests to watch her die." 
When Mulder doesn't respond, the smoker says, "I trust we 
have a deal?"

"What about Samantha?"

"She stays - as insurance."
 
"No."

"For her own protection, then," the smoker attempts to 
appease him. "You did notice the chip in her neck, didn't 
you?"

"You son-of-a--"

"No harm will come to her here. I can offer no such 
assurances if she is released. Do we have a deal, Mr. Mulder?"
 
Mulder hesitates, staring helplessly at the image of his partner. 
The light from the projector hits him before it reaches the 
screen - her face is superimposed over his, and the smoker is 
unable to tell which one of those faces is suffering more.

"We have a deal," Mulder says.

The smoker hands him a file, then steps out into the hallway, 
leaving Mulder to puzzle over the clues. After a moment of 
silence, he can hear the younger man sobbing softly, no doubt 
cursing Scully's fate and his own betrayal, collapsing the 
moment he thinks the smoker cannot see his fallen face.
 
Or perhaps he knows, but no longer cares - what separates him 
from his enemies is the remnants of humanity, the ability to 
weep for his lost blamelessness, for the woman who awaits, 
helpless and beyond his power to help. What does it matter if 
the Devil himself hears? The battle is already lost.

The smoker leans against the wall and bows his head in 
silence. And what Mulder does not see is the single tear that 
trickles past the creases of the old man's cheek to fall, 
unbidden, to the floor, and wet the ashes of a broken cigarette.


End Part 7/15